City Of Swords. Alex Archer

Not her. Not in a million. Tonight’s soiree was for friends and acquaintances with whom she could be herself—which is to say, a sex fiend.

      Our bedroom has a good-sized walk-in closet that had become hers, because I was a three-pairs-of-pants, seven-polo-shirts and one-fairly-decent-suit kind of guy. Her closet was crammed full. It had begun with two tiers of bars; I’d been cajoled into adding two more bars. The result was that it was packed tight with daily wear in front, and more obscure, strangely girly and/or historic concoctions in its dark, chaotic rear.

      When asked to dress one’s girlfriend like a slut a man has several options, each of which is a competitive sport. I pleasantly went through all three options, as if I were competing for the gold medal at the boyfriend Olympics.

      First came the obligatory. We had not been together all that long; there had not yet been time for a total rotation of wardrobe. In fact, I had seen it not too long ago, tucked at the back of the closet. Did she keep it for sentimental reasons? Fuck if I know. One thing was certain: she didn’t make it easy for me. She didn’t keep it near the front. But not to plunge into the closet and mine for the thing would have been to settle, I think, for the bronze.

      “What the fuck are you looking for?” she asked peevishly, as I leaned half-in to the mess that was our closet. I ignored her. “Hel-looooo!” she cried sarcastically when I did not respond.

      Then I found it, grasped it, and brought it out, dusting it off. I smoothed my hair back as I stumbled out of the mess of the back closet and held up the dress.

      Her eyes widened; her lips popped open. I watched the wheels of her brain turning. I could hear them click and whirr between her baby-blues. She opened her mouth to make a sarcastic remark. She bit that back and opened her mouth to make a sickly-sweet, gooey remark, and bit that back as well. She couldn’t say a word at first; I thought I saw her eyes go slightly moist.

      “Wow,” she said. “Just…wow.” It was the dress she’d worn on our first date.

      “Wow,” she said. “Is that what you want?”

      I shrugged, turned, put it away. I crawled back into the depths of the closet; I could almost hear her rolling her eyes. I could definitely hear her glaring at the clock—we were gonna be late. But then, we’re on California time, so…

      I stumbled out holding it up: my prize, dusty and wrinkled. She let out a horrified gasp, gave me the look—no, not the take me look, the what the fuck, you lunatic? look.

      Then, I guess, she remembered how she’d said “anything.” She looked the outfit up and down, watching it seethe there on the hanger, begging for sin. She leaned back on her too-perfectly-poised arms, wiggled her too-perfectly-positioned tits, let her spread thighs do that close-tremble-open thing that always does it for me.

      She said, “Is that what you want, Daddy?”

      It was her schoolgirl outfit—plaid, white, blue. That is to say, skirt, blouse, tie, respectively. She’d worn it to fetish party #3, at the Twenty-Third Street space, back before demanding work schedules and the comfort of cohabitation made us conveniently forget to bother being pervy anymore.

      “Tempting,” I said. “But not quite right for a send-off to China.”

      “If you pull out a Chongsam…” she warned.

      “Do you have one?”

      “Who the fuck knows? I forgot I had a schoolgirl outfit.”

      I returned the schoolgirl outfit to the closet and made my way back in. This time, I didn’t go far. The dress I wanted for her was right near the front. It had been beckoning to me since the beginning.

      I pulled it out and laid it on the bed, leaning in close to her. Now I could definitely smell her sex, alongside the scent of freshly-showered girl.

      “Good choice,” she said, regarding my final selection. “Not exactly naughty, but…”

      It was her cutest little black dress, but it wasn’t quite slutwear. She wore it often. It was short and reasonably snug. It was everyday wear, and yet as sexy as hell.

      “Is that your final answer?” she asked as I leaned in.

      “No,” I said. “This is.” I kissed her hard, my tongue against hers and my teeth grazing her permanently bee-stung lower lip. She took it, and liked it, and smiled when I finally pulled away.

      “What else?” she asked.

      “Else?” I said innocently.

      She got a wicked look on her face. “Underneath. I’ll wear anything you want underneath. One of those thongs you like? You want me in garters?”

      “No,” I said.

      “No?” she asked. “No, what?”

      “Just no.”

      “So what should I—” she began, and it hit her; she looked surprised for a moment.

      “Nothing?”

      “Not a stitch,” I said, and a little shudder went through her body.

      That was that; the game was up. I was on her. She made some faint bleating sound about being late for the party, and kept complaining until I kissed my wet way down her belly and planted my tongue hard and insistent between lips that still tasted like shaving cream. Then she stopped doing much except bucking and rocking and moaning and shuddering a little, as I slid my fingers into her and closed my lips against her swelling clit. Before she even knew what was happening I’d found the rhythm I knew like the beat of my heart—the rhythm that would make us on time to the party, or close to it. Then I broke it up and sent my tongue a dozen competing directions, teasing her until we were guaranteed to be very late.

      When it was done—when she’d cried out in orgasm, and with clawing hands and pumping hips she’d taken that virgin bed and made it her whore—the little black dress had been tossed at some point off the bed and onto the floor. I looked up at her from between legs spread wider than ever. I needed a shower myself, or at least a face-wash.

      “There,” I said. “Wear that.”

      “Wear what?” she panted.

      “That glow,” I said.

      So she did, beneath the dress, and nothing else. And she wore it well—with the result that every soul who saw her that night positively knew.

      About the glow, I mean.

      As far as the underwear went, I think only I was the wiser.

      Dress Rehearsal

      By Sommer Marsden

      “Right like that. Right there, baby,” Will whispered, and I shook my head. Why was my positioning so very important? When we’d started messing around on the sofa after lunch, he hadn’t said he wanted to pose me like a little doll. I was getting annoyed.

      “William, could we possibly get on with the fucking? I am not a manneq—” I had to stop because he’d put his mouth right to my pussy, sliding that tongue of his along the seam of my sex, nudging my clit so that I thought my knees would give out and I’d be sitting on my ass.

      “Sorry, baby. There is a point. Behave, Alyce, behave. After all, you’ll be on stage tomorrow in front of all those people. You’ll have to have some patience—and let’s face it—balls to do it, too.”

      I snorted. “You have the balls in this joint. I am just an exhibitionist. I like to be the center of—oh yeah…right there,” I said, cutting my own damn words off as he licked more. Lapping and sucking at me like we were locked in August heat and I was something cold.

      The sun bounced off our neighbor’s window and stabbed me in the eye, a bright golden shard of pure yellow light that made me squint. I grabbed the string to lower the blinds and Will’s muffled, “Leave it” rumbled up my pussy into my lower belly, making me shiver and shake,