“You’ll need to nuzzle in deeper than that to lick me, honey.” Ms. E’s voice was a gentle contralto – just as calm and pleasant as it was when she greeted me in the hall.

I stopped. “Are you going to crack my head like a walnut again?” She’d pulled up her skirt so our eyes could meet, and she could see that I was smiling.

“I’d never.” But we both knew that she would – or at least her plump thighs would try to when she was on the verge of orgasm. The truth was that I really didn’t mind, but I liked to tease her.

I gave her thighs one last kiss. I always started by kissing her thighs – her skin was so soft there, so supple that it begged to be nibbled and licked. When she wore nylons (and she often did) I couldn’t ignore the curve where her pale skin blossomed fleshily out of the top of the lacy band. I was an addict.

She shifted position, and her round bottom lifted from the comforter as I slid further into the narrow angle between her thighs. She cinched her skirt up further to watch me, flinching and giggling when my lips pressed against her panties. This week her panties were sleek black cotton printed with tiny purple flowers; they were always pretty and feminine. And as always, they were new – the creases had been ironed out, but they still smelled faintly of plastic beneath her subtle perfume and her own, stronger odor. I sucked them into my mouth until they were slick with my saliva, until I’d leeched out both the light dew of her anticipation and the slightly bitter stain of what must have been some excitement earlier in the day; she’d soaked through the stirrup at least once since she put them on this morning. I often found her new panties previously (or still) moist, and I liked to imagine that she’d spent the whole morning at church flushed with embarrassment, trying and failing not to daydream about the afternoon to come. I pictured her sitting on a hard wooden pew (that was my generic mental image of a church, along with stained glass windows), pretending to focus on a hymnal, crossing her legs to contain the warmth flowing from her loins, but squeezing her thighs tight and squirming just enough to undermine her self-control and cultivate the pleasure of her clandestine fantasy.

For a minute or two I nuzzled into fleshy part of her mons while I tongued and nibbled at the bulges of her labia through the screen of her panties. But that was just a wicked tease for both of us, and she’d soon slipped the panties down her legs to drape around one of her ankles. It was important to her that she be the one to remove her panties, so while they were in place I didn’t probe with my tongue or finger or push the crotch stirrup away for better access. I ignored the hurried moments that she pulled away from me to roll down her panties, but when she settled back into place, presenting my face with an unobstructed view of her pussy (lit by the curtain-filtered afternoon sun, half shadowed by her crumpled skirts and angled thigh like she’d hired a cinematographer to frame the shot) – that’s when I really began.

She enjoyed it more than I did – or at least I hope she did – but that’s saying a lot; I loved it. I loved going down on Ms. E. Her bush wasn’t shaved, but she kept it neatly trimmed; the short, glossy brown curls framed her labia without really getting in the way. Then again, a good nibble in the brush excited us both, and it’s worth the occasional hair in the mouth for a noseful of the scent that lingered there. I loved her smell and her taste, not because it was remarkably different from the other women I’d been with, but because it suited her so well. She was musky, earthy, but clean and with a delicate hint of some floral perfume.

She and I were both patient, so I took my time tracing her inner and outer labia with the tip of my tongue, slowly swiping from bottom to top with wide, wet strokes that left her glistening, or sucking lightly at the bulge of her clitoris still hiding beneath the hood – whatever I felt like and whatever made her sigh and say, “Yes… like that, honey.” We paced ourselves and built slowly through the steadily increasing waves of her pleasure, so while she’d crest, running her fingers through my hair and pulling my face into her mound while her hips bucked, after a few moments she’d take a deep breath and release me to start over and rebuild her momentum. Each crest crashed like a wave in a rising tide. Each time the passion overwhelmed her sense of restraint and she grabbed my head to take the pleasure my tongue wasn’t giving fast enough, her sensation came a little stronger and lasted a little longer, until at last, in the midst of a session of deep, throbbing grinding that had buried my nose and lips and chin and left me breathless, the tidal wave came. Her calves crossed over my back, her thighs clamped tightly around my cheeks and ears, and her hips arched off the bed as she spasmed and gasped. I knew to hold my breath, because she’d keep me there, clenched in place until she’d spasm again and maybe again, then push me away so quickly it was as if my face was on fire.

We both lay in the bed afterward while we caught our breath, and we chatted a bit. I mentioned that I liked her panties this week, and she told me how I’d done particularly well by her today, but soon I was in the guest bathroom washing my face while she changed out of her now-wrinkled church clothes and started to fix our lunch.

* * * * * * *

So, yes, we had a routine, but I never called it a rut. We both enjoyed it. I don’t remember exactly how or when it started, but it must have been pretty soon after I moved in, because it seems like it’s been forever. I have the J unit on the 3rd floor; she has condo C on the 4th – the one with the balcony big enough for more than a couple potted plants on the rail. We probably spoke a dozen times in the lift up or the stairs down, or down by the mailboxes. She was older than me – I guessed in her late 40′s or early 50′s – so at least fifteen to twenty years my senior – but she still had more brown than gray in her roots each month before she had her hair styled. She dressed fashionably and drove a nice car where the rest of us on the lower floors shopped at JC Penney and rode the subway, so I suppose she had a good job, but we never spoke about it. She was the kind of woman who would have always been described as having ‘a pretty face’. She did, too: a pert nose that looked a little more black than Puerto Rican – full, expressive lips – golden-brown irises that seemed to jump out of the whites the way she painted her lids and lashes – brows that arched playfully without being penciled. She was also the kind of woman who would have been been called ‘full-figured’ or ‘plump’, but no one would have called her ‘pudgy’ unless they were just trying to be mean. She had a few dimples and the beginnings of creases above her hips, her large breasts sagged (or so I guessed, since I’d never seen her out of a bra, or even really out of a blouse), but a tasteful application of make-up filled in most of her wrinkles and made her lips glisten, and her skin-tone was as firm as mine, probably due to the Manhattan skyline of bottles next to the sink in her bathroom. More than anywhere her age showed in her gracious attitude, her confidence, and her carriage. She made me want to stand up straighter and enunciate more carefully when I was around her. I’m not going to say she reminded me of my mother, because that’s just creepy. She was like those teachers I had a crush on when I was just a kid, but in a totally innocent way.

Now I was the kind of guy who’d never been described as having pretty anything – not until I met her, anyway. She liked my eyes and told me often, whether we were passing in the entryway or whether they were all she could see of my face, peering at her across her beltline from between her thighs. I was more average than attractive or ugly, and I was more intelligent than outgoing. I was the kind of guy who balanced my free time in high-school between cross country and the chess club, if you know what I mean. These days I had a degree and a good job, but most importantly I had an apartment on the floor beneath Ms. E’s.

I vaguely remember a night a few years back when I’d been out drinking with friends. (I wasn’t drunk, no matter what you think.) When I’m a little tipsy I’m prone to say things I wouldn’t otherwise, and that’s probably how it started: some Friday night riding up the unbearably slow lift with Ms. E, who was either a little tipsy herself or just amused with the alcohol-inspired conversation offered by the new tenant. We would have commiserated about our lack of a sex life (which wasn’t entirely true – I had the occasional short-term girlfriend), and I would have told her that in her case I found it hard to believe. You know how it is – we flirted. Through the slightest of slurs and the overconfidence of Jack Daniels’ finest whiskey, I would told her in conspiratorial terms about the origin of the word “hysterical”. As recently as eighty years ago doctors recognized that women needed regular orgasms (or hysterical paroxysms, if you’d prefer to be both clinical and out of date) in order to avoid the malady of “hysterics”, which could manifest in just about whatever symptoms suited her fancy. Manual pelvic massage was the preferred therapy then, but I’d heard that more recently oral pelvic massage had come into vogue. Okay, I probably had been drunk, because I never would have said that otherwise, but she probably tittered and covered her mouth to hide a naughty grin. I reminded her that this was a serious medical treatment to be prescribed for the relief of any needful female, be she maiden, married, or widow.

Now that I’m thinking about it, I do remember a Saturday evening: I was in the laundry room waiting on a load of whites and reading some book or another when she came down to take out a load of delicates. She made no point of hiding the lacy, satiny underwear and bras; in fact I think she was flaunting them as she pulled out each piece in turn and folded it neatly. “Big night ahead?” I asked.

“No…” She smiled slyly at me. “I’m all alone tonight. Like usual. But I like to feel pretty.”

“You are pretty.” Once I’d let the flirting cat out of the bag and not been slapped down, I didn’t need alcohol to swing at slowballs like that.

“Thank you, honey. I feel it around you. But I also feel a little bit …hysterical.” She whispered the last word.

“I’m no doctor, Ms. E.” (She told me to call her that.) “But that’s a serious condition. You wouldn’t want to neglect it, you know. I could help you with it, you know.”

“Would you really?”

I nodded and folded the book on my finger. The conversation was getting interesting.

“Come up tomorrow afternoon then. After church… 1 o’clock or so? 4C. I’ll make you a nice lunch afterward – you look like you should be eating more.” I didn’t bother to tell her that I didn’t have any Sunday morning commitments if she didn’t, but I did go upstairs that Sunday at 1pm. After a few nervous false starts on both of our parts while we figured out just what it was that neither of us were saying, we skipped past anything approximating foreplay and, still wearing our clothes, negotiated our positions. With her sitting at the edge of a kitchen chair and me kneeling on the wooden floor between her spread legs, I gave her her first ‘treatment’. She had her hysterical paroxysm, guaranteed good for one week free of hysterics. And after I had washed my face and hands, I sat down to a plate filled with roast beef, red potatoes, and green bean salad, and it didn’t even come from a microwave.

We were both pretty happy with the deal, so it became a routine. Every Sunday when she got home from church, she’d call down to my unit and invite me up for lunch. I’d shave and shower and dress up a bit – khaki’s and a dress shirt, and she’d greet me in her Sunday best. At first she showered and changed, too – until I told her how much more I preferred her natural scent to the sterility of soap. I didn’t tell her that her scent aroused me – after all, this was a cure for hysterics, not sex, wasn’t it – but I think she knew. Apparently my preference aroused her as well – even though she wore a new pair of panties every Sunday (and not simply new, but different cuts and patterns and styles I’d never see a second time) they were always filled with her odor and were usually already damp before my hand slid up beneath her skirt.

There’s something you need to know about Ms. E in order for any of this to make sense. She was very serious about her religion. That may be difficult to believe after what I’ve already said, but apparently we were exploiting some kind of loophole. “It’s not a loophole,” she would probably say. “The Victorians were on to something. It’s not sex, any more than kissing is sex.” (We didn’t kiss, though, beyond a chaste, European cheek peck.) Apparently it wasn’t sex because there wasn’t any penetration and neither of us undressed – she kept her panties around her ankle, remember, and I didn’t so much as unbuckle my belt or slip off my shoes. More importantly, there was never so much as a hint of ‘onanism’, as she called it. Look it up – I did, but the dictionary definition only hints at what she meant. Essentially it meant I couldn’t ejaculate – I couldn’t cum, not in her or on her or around her – or what we were doing would suddenly become sex, and we would be sinning. This probably sound either like a bitter rant or self-delusion or both, but believe me when I say it’s not. She and I never sat down and laid out the rules – our routine formed organically. I only thought about it as oral sex for the first few months; after that it was just something we did together. We weren’t lovers; we were friends with very specific benefits. We were neighbors. I helped her change her lightbulbs and set up her new computer. She reminded me to water my spider plant and made me lunch every Sunday – the best meal I’d eat all week, and often the only one with a separate serving of vegetables. I provided her with oral-genital stimulation. She brought me chicken soup the week that I was sick. I’m not even sure it would have crossed her mind that we would have to stop if I ever found a girlfriend. I’d probably have to explain that the new girlfriend was the jealous type who saw green because I spent every Sunday with a neighbor and not her. Fortunately, that particular conundrum never came up.

(Don’t feel bad for me – it’s not like I was a eunuch or had blue-balls every Sunday afternoon. I looked after my own needs. That just wasn’t part of our relationship.)

* * * * * * *

The first Sunday of autumn she wore boots and a tight black skirt that hugged her ass, and sheer maroon bikini panties with a floral border. We weren’t in any kind of a rush – like usual she hiked up her skirt and sat at the edge of the bed while I rolled up my sleeves, but… maybe it was the boots, or the skirt. Once her panties were around her ankle I buried my face in her vulva and couldn’t be stopped until she finally pushed me away; she squealed and giggled and actually screamed loud enough that I worried about our building’s thin walls. She had to take a few minutes to catch her breath before she shooed me off to the bathroom so I could wash up and she could change, and she watched me as the door shut between us. For lunch we had a lasagna she’d prepared the night before and cooked that morning, and a tossed salad with cherry tomatoes the same color as the lipstick she’d touched up while I was washing my face in her bathroom. (This was how I marked the passing of each week: by her panties and the lunch – the two things I could count on each Sunday, and the two things I could count on changing each week.)

After the meal we chatted while the food settled, and I helped her with the dishes. She had a Bose in the living room tuned to some kind of soft jazz or R&B – I never listened to either outside of her condo so I didn’t know the difference, but she always played someone whose name I recognized.

So there it was – a Sunday afternoon like a hundred others we’d spent together, despite my enthusiasm in her room. That week, though… I don’t know what happened. There was something different in the air. It wasn’t as though she’d never worn that shade of lipstick before, or like her eyes were any brighter, her lashes any longer. She smelled the same. Her skin was the same creamy brown. But I couldn’t stop stealing glances at her, and when she caught me I was embarrassed about it, like a grade-school kid. But she was looking at me, too, and her eyes kept dropping to my lips. That means something, right? We stood side-by-side as we did the dishes – I was washing and she was drying. My hands slipped against hers when I handed her a plate, and she gave me a little ass-bump and smiled at me. Our eyes locked… And suddenly we were kissing – suddenly enough, anyway, that soap bubbles still clung to my hands and the dishtowel was wadded between us. My lips had touched hers before – grazed, really – but not like this. This wasn’t just a friendly ‘hello’; it was a passionate ‘I want you’. This was chemistry and electricity.

Her neck arched back and my lips slipped down her throat. Somehow the buttons on her blouse had opened and her hands were intertwined with mine and cupping them beneath the fleshy mountains of her breasts and squeezing. Somewhere in the back of my mind a little dispassionate voice noted that I’d never seen one of her bras before. This one matched her panties – the cups were sheer enough that I could see the freckles through them. The blouse flared open further, and for a brief moment I saw one of her brown nipples wrinkling with excitement. Our lips found met one more time before I fell on the bulge of her breasts and the crevice between them with such gusto that I’m sure I left hickeys (to my later embarrassment).

I had already covered both breasts with kisses and was beginning to bring her nipples to an aching hardness with my thumbs when I felt a change. Her fingers – which were sliding through my hair and pulling my head against her – loosened. Her chest slumped back. My mouth fell away and I glanced up, and her expression of distant rapture was becoming blank, then almost frightened. We stepped away from each other, saying nothing while she buttoned herself back into her shirt and I retrieved the dishtowel from the floor.

The frightened look on her face had disappeared into red-cheeked embarrassment. “I’m so sorry,” she said. “I… I didn’t mean…” I’d never seen her so without her composure, but it quickly returned. “I forgot that I need to run an errand this afternoon, and I lost track of the time.”

“No, no – not at all.” I smiled uncertainly and dried my hands in the towel before stepping back from the counter. “I should really get back down to my apartment. I have some notes I need to review before tomorrow morning. For the boss. You know.”

And then I ushered myself out the door and we all were smiles and thank you’s – for the lasagna, for changing the time on her clocks – and see you later’s, just like nothing had happened, but we both knew something had. We’d crossed a line. I could feel it, and Ms. E’s smiles were uncharacteristically hollow. That same dispassionate voice in my head suggested that I might need to start thinking of new things to do on Sunday afternoons.

* * * * * * *

Later in the week, when I was down by the mailboxes sorting out my junkmail for the shredder, I heard keys in door from the garage and knew it was Ms. E. Instead of the tingle of excitement I’d usually feel, there was a moment of uncertainty. The possibility of slipping away before the door opened – or at least starting toward the lift so she could ignore my back if she wanted to – flashed through my mind, but I dismissed it as cowardly. I needn’t have worried, anyway – she smiled brightly when she caught sight of me and wiggled her fingers hello, same as always. She wore a long black coat over a bright fuchsia blouse, black leather driving gloves, and sunglasses that covered half her face.

“Is that a new jacket?” I asked her.

She spread her arms. “Do you like it? I just picked it up.” Her keys jingled as they turned in her mailbox, and she sorted through a handful of envelopes. She glanced up at me. “Your taste in ties has improved considerably. This one brings out the color in your eyes.” She caught the end of the tie between two fingers and lifted it up for inspection. “Silk!”

“I’m trying.”

“And it shows, honey.” She pulled the tie toward her until the slack was gone and I nearly had to take a step forward. “Are we on for Sunday? I have new recipe for Bolognese sauce I want you to try. Maybe I’ll cook up some ziti?”

“Oh. Shoot.” I’d forgotten to tell her – and now, after what had happened last weekend, I couldn’t believe I’d forgotten to tell her. Now she’d think that I was making excuses, trying to avoiding her. “I’m going to be in Indianapolis all weekend. Cutover for work.”

Her smile fell, as did my tie. She patted it back into place on my shirt and pouted a bit. “Well… next week then. I’ll miss your company. Maybe I’ll save you some leftovers … or maybe I won’t.” Locking her box again, she strutted past me and closed the lift door without waiting for me to follow.

* * * * * * *

The job in Indianapolis ran long when we couldn’t get the phone company to make repairs on a weekend, so I didn’t get back home until Wednesday. Since I’d worked most of the weekend straight, catching a few hours of sleep once or twice in the data center, I blew off the rest of the week at work and just watched TV and avoided email or going out or doing anything more strenuous than ordering pizza. My hermit life only lasted until Friday evening, though, when the cabin fever finally got to me. I showered, shaved, put on my last clean shirt that didn’t have luggage wrinkles, and stepped out the door.

Or I was about to, but Ms. E was there, just about to knock. She was startled, and so was I – I was still thinking about where I’d eat – but she smiled and took a step back. “Oh…” Her smile was disappointed. “I caught you at a bad time.”

“No, no – not at all. I was just going out to eat. Do you want to join me? You look dressed to go out, too.” She was wearing that same coat I’d complimented last week – the last time I’d seen her, but this evening it was buttoned up to her neck. Her hair was swept back into a neat bun as it always was, her makeup fresh and dark for the evening, her lips that same shade of wet tomato red. She wore black nylons and tall heels too, but that wasn’t so unusual. I think I mentioned that she was a classy dresser.

“Actually, I made plans for us this evening. I meant to ask you earlier, but I never saw you, and… I’d love the pleasure of your company upstairs in my home. I’d be more than happy to feed you dinner. But if you already made plans…?” Her brows arched hopefully, but her hands twisted the coat belt nervously.

“No. No plans. And sure, I’d love to. I just needed to shake off my apartment, you know? I didn’t even know where I was going.” I pulled the door shut behind me while she smoothed out the belt on her coat; but the tugging pulled the top button too tight over her chest and it popped open, exposing a deep plunge of neckline. Whatever blouse she was wearing tonight beneath the coat would have to be more daring than anything I’d seen her wear before. I thought she might be looking to make up for last Sunday, and as antsy as I was, that sounded perfect. I’m pretty sure I masked it well, though – I kept my smile casual. “But don’t feel like you always have to cook for me. If you trust me in your kitchen, maybe I can cook for you tonight.”

She took my hand in hers – a peculiarly intimate gesture – and led me back toward the open doors of the lift. “Thanks, honey, but no – I have other plans for you.” She pressed the button for the fourth floor.

Even before the doors had finished sliding shut her lips pressed to hungrily mine, and her wrists hooked around the back of my neck. She leaned back against the far wall of the lift and I followed her, ignoring for the moment the way the lift floor lurched. Her lips were insistent and refused to let me break away to her neck and the V of creamy brown skin beneath her coat; when I tried she caught my by the chin and held me to her kiss. But while she held me back, I thought she was restraining herself as well. Her hands open and closed on the empty air beside us, like they were imagining wandering my chest. Her tongue churned in her mouth, but didn’t come out past her teeth. Instead, she finally broke free from our kiss to gasp and wipe the corner of her mouth, then placed a hand on my chest to keep me from leaning in again.

“Are you okay with this?” I asked. “Last Sunday…” The door behind us had opened to the fourth floor hallway, so I put a step between us – for propriety’s sake.

She nodded, still catching her breath. “Two Sundays ago, honey. That’s enough time to make up my mind. The real question is, wil you be …okay? I don’t want to spoil the surprise, but there is more than just a kiss waiting for you behind my door.” She took my hand and slid it between the buttons of her coat, and I felt something satiny clinging to her belly.

To say I was surprised would be an understatement, but I nodded. (To say that I was hard would be accurate.) I could see excitement and confidence growing in her expression, and I began to tingle in anticipation.

She removed my hand as deliberately as she’d slipped it in and led me out into the hall, speaking in a hurried near-whisper as we walked to her door. Her heels clacked noisily against the tile floor. “I’ve been thinking about you a lot, honey – even before two Sundays ago. I know you don’t necessarily have the same convictions as me, but I just couldn’t knowingly lead you into temptation, into sin, just to satisfy my own lust. Especially if you aren’t making a habit of asking for forgiveness – I’d be the devil herself. Can you understand? It’s been such a frustration! I couldn’t talk to you about it because you’re such a sweetheart that I know you’d just say yes if I asked, but I couldn’t contain myself, either.” She nibbled on her lip. “I… I told my friend about our problem, and she had the perfect solution.” We stood in the hallway just outside her door – her hand lingered on the handle. “There’s something else, honey.”

She opened the door and directed me inside, but I only made it a few feet. I’d only ever seen her condo when it was filled with light. Even the occasional Sunday afternoons that we watched a movie together, the glass doors to her patio filled the living room with a yellowy glow. This evening my eyes had to adjust to the dusky twilight, which wavered with the candlelight reflecting from the thousand crystal facets of her chandelier. The room smelled of rose-petals and potpourri, which wasn’t surprising given the petal-strewn floor and the arrangements scattered around the room. One of her jazzy albums played lightly in the background – I’d learned enough to identify the sexy crooning as Sade. In other words, her condo looked like a seduction scene out of a Lifetime movie.

All I could say in response was, “Wow”.

My eyes had adjusted enough that I could make out the silhouette of a wine or champagne bottle chilling in an ice bucket on the coffee table, and behind that… the shape of a woman sitting on the couch. Her legs were crossed, and the upper leg swung slightly. “Same to you,” she said, and stood.

“This is my friend, Mary,” Ms. E said from behind me as she locked her door. “She’s the ‘something else’. Part of it.”

Mary spread her arms and posed to prove that she really was ‘something else’. I guessed she was about the same age as Ms. E – late forties or early fifties – but more slender and just beginning to wrinkle around her eyes. Curly bottle-red hair framed her face and bounced when she shook her head. A short, silky black robe hung open from her shoulders and reached only to the tops of her thighs; beneath it she wore a teddy in satiny red and lacy black, a matching garter belt, and thigh-high stockings. A nearly empty wineglass perched between her fingers as she carefully navigated Ms. E’s thick rug in her tall heels. “You’re not so bad yourself, Carmen.” Mary stopped a few feet away from me to look me over, but I’d turned back to Ms. E.

She had hung her coat on the rack by the door, and the first thing I saw – my eyes were drawn like a compass to north – were the round, creamy brown globes of her ass. They were dimpled and pocked and jiggly, but I loved them. Like her friend, Ms. E wore a lingerie set: the straps of a purpley-black thong met in a delicate silver chain which disappeared between the upper hemispheres of her ass, and her thick waist had been cinched into a ribbed corset. She turned back to face me and reached out a hand for my shoulder. A halter strap held the corset up over her chest and created impossibly deep cleavage. “Mary… Eric.”

I tore my gaze from Ms. E’s breasts to greet Mary properly. She held out a dainty hand, so I took it and gave it a gentle shake. “Pleasure to meet you.”

“Yes,” she said, as she squeezed my hand. She winked.

Then Ms. E led me across the room toward her couch, where she sat me down in the center cushion. She settled in next to me, crossing her legs toward me so that her stockinged feet and a dangling heel could brush against my shin and tease up the bottom hem of my khakis. Mary half-watched us as she gathered two more wineglasses from the kitchen counter and bent over the coffee table to pour. Under other circumstances I’d wonder if she was intentionally providing me an eyeful down her neckline, but her teasing smile left no doubt.

Ms. E put a finger under my chin and turned my head to meet her eyes. “I know this all must seem unusual, and maybe even a bit… ‘keenky’.” (She said the word as though trying it out, uncertain how it would sound – for a second I heard a weak trace of her old accent.) “But we both thought it would be best this way, for me to have the …encouragement. It would be worse if I got too nervous again, too scared to continue. Don’t think that I’m a …that this is my first time. I used to be… I was a very different girl before. But that was a long time ago.”

“Oh, Carmen – Hush already. He doesn’t mind one bit or he’d already be out the door. Just kiss him!” She slipped down onto the cushion next to me, setting the full wineglasses carefully on the table.

Ms. E did kiss me, picking up where she left off in the elevator: hungrily, leaning into me, catching me behind the neck to pull me toward to her. I didn’t hesitate to return her enthusiasm, to slide my hand up over her collarbone, along her neck and behind her ear; as her lips parted and her tongue slithered out, I teased it with mine. She began to lay back, arching her neck so I could kiss beneath her chin, pressing her chest up against me… but she broke away and pushed me back into the couch. “No. That’s so nice, honey. But not this time.”

Mary placed her hand on my other shoulder. “Just sit back, Eric. Let us do the work – we’ll tell you if we need anything. Just put your hands down – no, not in your lap – put them behind your back, out of the way. Now open your mouth just a little and let your tongue touch your bottom lip. Good! Go ahead, Carmen.”

This time Ms. E pulled her legs up beneath her and shifting to a kneeling position. That gave her the height advantage over me, so she could prop herself with one hand on the back of the couch and tilt back my head to meet her. She closed her eyes and kissed my tongue, my lips; her tongue spilled out over mine and filled my mouth. That was how she kissed – how she really kissed – with her tongue reaching for my tonsils, scraping over my teeth, pinning my tongue into submission in the bottom of my mouth. She slid a leg over mine so she could straddle my thigh, and moved her hands to the back of the couch behind my shoulders. As her body pressed against mine she began to rub, slowly dry-humping my thigh and smashing the corset up against my chest hard enough that her breasts threatened to pop out between the halter straps. Her breath came in sharp, noisy draws through her nose, and I did my best to keep up; still I gasped when her lips and tongue pulled away and began attacking my chin and jawline. She made her way up to my ear while I caught my breath. Her breath filled my ear, and was interspersed with the occasional whimpering sigh as she continued to rub against me. I was intimately familiar with those noises coming from her, but it was the first time I’d heard them so close, so present. Cool streaks of saliva followed her hot tongue around the outline of my ear and into the outer channel.

I began to realize then that it wasn’t two older women dolled up in lingerie that was kinky, but Ms. E herself: she licked my face – my cheek, the ridge surrounding my eyesocket, and down my neck – like I’d been dipped in chocolate syrup. I know I was gasping and moaning – biting my lips when I couldn’t help it – and it only spurred her on. I couldn’t help it. I caught a glimpse of Mary watching Carmen. Her eyes flicked to mine for my reaction, and she broke into a wild grin.

Ms. E had settled into the nook where my neck met my collarbone and was suckling like a vampire, planting the seed for what would be a tremendous hickey tomorrow.

“Okay, Carmen – pace yourself…”

“I’ve wanted this …for …too …long!” She nibbled and kissed me between her words, and concentrated on her lips and my skin with such intensity that I thought she really was looking for a vein beneath my skin. When I moaned, she thrust a pair of fingers into my mouth to pacify me.

Then she was moving lower, kissing down my collarbone while the fingers of her free hand fumbled excitedly to push the uncooperative buttons on my shirt out through their holes. Mary had begun to stroke my hair while she watched Ms. E’s frantic attack on my chest, and as her fingers slipped between my hair, I noticed her nails. They were long, and I mean looong – they curved out nearly an inch from the tips of her fingers and ended in flat spades. They could have been fake, they were so perfect – perfectly matched length, perfectly manicured, perfectly lacquered in the french style (though I suppose it’s as french as french kissing) – but she moved her hands confidently, like she’d had the nails her whole life. Where her fingers cut furrows through my hair, her nail tips just teased my scalp.

“Hello.” Mary tapped my shoulder to catch my attention, and with a quirky smile she leaned forward to kiss me. Her eyes fluttered shut, and her lips pressed gently to mine. It was a strange contrast to Ms. E, who was stretching down the collar of my a-shirt to extend her line of hickeys down my sternum. When Ms. E pushed the undershirt up to my neck, Mary broke the kiss to help her pull it over my head. The undershirt came over my neck well enough, but it tangled in the long sleeves of my dress shirt, and by the time Mary had pulled it down to my elbows I wasn’t just sitting on my hands – they had been effectively bound behind my back. Mary pulled me back to her lips while her nails stroked along my cheeks and behind my ears.

As lovely as her soft kisses were, they couldn’t distract me from Ms. E – Mary had to pinch my chin to keep my face turned to her and my lips accessible. Ms E. was insatiable. She was an animal of passion – she was every bit of the self-gratifying voluptuary that I’d seen hints of in the moments before she orgasmed, those moments when my face became nothing more than her tool. She’d beaten a path to my nipples and was attempting to nurse. Either she’d never heard that you have to treat a nipple nicely, or she didn’t think it applied to men (or to her): she didn’t just “play the radio”, her teeth pinched my erect teat and rolled it back and forth; her lips pursed and formed a suction so strong I thought she might actually milk something out of me. I groaned.

Mary grabbed my chin again, ripping my agog stare from Ms. E; this time her nails dug into the bottom of my cheek like claws. Her green eyes flashed when they met mine. “Don’t be rude, Eric.” But her own eyes flicked down to her friend, whose tongue swirled around my nipple like it was an ice cream cone. “Carmen!” Ms. E just waved her away without even looking up. Meeting my eyes again, Mary sighed, “Just give me your full attention for one kiss, so I don’t feel like such the third wheel here.”

I did my best – as best as I could with my hands caught behind my back, with Ms. E’s teeth testing the pliability of my skin and her lips and tongue determined to bathe me in saliva – but with barely a wiggle or whimper I focused on Mary’s lips, then her teeth and tongue as she pressed harder against me. I felt like I was successful, but I guessed I wasn’t, because when she broke away she patted my cheek and said, “Oh, hell.” Then she slipped her tongue into my ear.

And oh, how I squirmed, and not just because Ms. E’s hand had slid down to the bulge in my pants. Mary’s tongue flicked and licked and probed and tickled, and she didn’t give up after just a few seconds. Her tongue became acquainted with every detail of my ear, each crevice and prominence. I didn’t realize until more than a minute after she wrapped her arms around my shoulders to hold me still that she was using the old trick on me, the one I occasionally used between Ms. E’s thighs when she was particularly patient with her orgasm. Her tongue was spelling, forming letters in my ear. It was a ‘c’ when she traced along the outside; an ‘e’ was the same but she nibbled on my earlobe; the ‘i’ was the short stripe up and a plunge into my ear with the tip of her tongue; the ‘w’ was a succession of long, wet up and down stripes. “Did you get that, Eric?” She blew her whisper softly into my ear, tickling where it was still wet with her saliva. “Pay attention this time.” She began again, this time going slower. I – W – A – N – T – T (she bit the top of my ear after each ‘t’, and the second one smarted a bit) – O – S – I -

I didn’t get a chance to feel the rest again. Ms. E had abandoned the marks she was leaving on my belly to unnzip my pants; she had abandoned her spot on the couch to push apart my knees and kneel between them. I glanced down to see her pull back the elastic band of my boxers and watch her eyes widen like a kid at Christmas. With one hand she still held my boxers out of the way; the other reached in to eagerly grab my erection and pull it free, until it stood free and unhindered, bobbing at an angle over the slight bulge of my belly. She massaged the shaft and pinched the soft head, stroked her fingers through the curly hair bristling from the tight skin of my scrotum. She was excited but wary, like a schoolgirl about to light up in the bathroom when knows the nun could burst in any moment. Slowly, after a moment of hesitation, she pulled my shaft toward her and closed her lips around its head, squeezing out a drop of pre-cum.

“Careful…” Mary reached down to make a ring of her forefinger and thumb around the root of my erection. “Careful or he’ll shoot it all before we’ve even begun. We haven’t even got him into the bedroom. You remember what we said.” I glanced over at Mary but she didn’t explain.

“Keep him … looking at me. I want … to see … his … eyes. …I want to see them … when …he ….orgasms.” Ms. E’s tongue flicked greedily at the tip of my penis between her words, and she kissed the tip whenever her tongue lured out another glassy drop. She had both hands around the shaft now – squeezing and massaging.

“Carmen – that’s not-”

“I know it’s not what we planned, Mary, but this is what I want now.” There was more than a hint of desperate frustration in her voice. “I’ll make it up to you. Somehow.”

By way of response, Mary’s tongue traced up my neck behind my jaw and pulled my earlobe between her lips. Her teeth pinched and she murmured through a clenched jaw, “Watch her, Eric. Close your eyes and I bite it off.”

I knew she wasn’t serious, of course. Well, I suspected she wasn’t serious, but I didn’t want to test her.

Ms. E had begun to bob down over the head of my penis. She’d been busy licking the shaft just a moment earlier, so her hands corkscrewed and slid up my slickly lubricated skin while she sucked at the tip and squeezed the soft dome of flesh between her tongue and the roof of her mouth. I’d worried at first, after how she’d attacked my chest how poorly my tender penis would fair. My nipples still smarted when Mary stroked them with her nails. But Ms. E was all hot, silky wetness – wet tongue, wet lips, a mouthful of saliva that dribbled when her lips parted. But she was still hungry: her lips suckled, her tongue thrummed against my tip and stole away any drop right as it appeared, her hands pumped as though she was trying to make me cum as quickly as possible. Whenever her eyes lifted and caught mine fixed to hers, they wrinkled in a deliciously pleased smile.

And I… I squirmed and wriggled and shied away from Mary’s tongue in my ear and on my neck when it tickled, but not so far that she couldn’t continue. I winced when her nails pinched my nipples – I think she knew it hurt, and I think she liked that. But her teasing was just the choppy surface on a deep sea of pleasure focused on my erection. I fought my orgasm – I was trying not to cum in the first minute like a high-schooler, but my resolve was like a brimming dam trying hold back the hot, scintillating flood in my loins; my ass and thighs clenched, and my toes curled painfully in attempt to bolster those weakening muscles at the base of my erection. Ms. E’s tongue and lips were like a storm whipping up the waves, threatening to demolish my resolve at the first sign of a crack.

Then she found my scrotum for the first time. Her hand bumped it, accidentally it seemed, then fell absently from my shaft to cup both balls and gently squeeze. It was more than I could withstand, and I exploded. I bucked and wrenched against the twisted shirt behind me, held my hips as tight as I could to keep from thrusting my cock into her mouth. The heat rushed out of my body in great, pumping gushes, and only the nip of Mary’s teeth on my ear kept me from rolling my eyes back completely into my head.

Ms. E was clearly surprised; her eyes widened and her jaw went slack at the first gush in her mouth, but she swallowed (to my surprise), then slurped and swallowed again. Her lips tightened and she sucked. If I thought the pleasure had been overwhelming, this was unbearable: it was like an orgasm turned inside out. My whole body went rigid. My scrotum shrunk so tight trying to squeeze every last drop from my balls that I thought it would implode. I was just about to beg her to stop when my legs collapsed and I shuddered again in a sort of mini-second cumming that left me as drained as if I’d just ran a 20k.

That was all I had in me, and she knew it, and so did Mary. I was panting. Ms. E leaned back onto her heels and wiped the sides of her mouth while Mary squeezed my increasingly flaccid penis, using each fingertip to catch the drops that emerged out as the erection shriveled in her hands. Her fingers came to her mouth and she tasted them curiously, sucking on them like a saucier sampling her mix. I slumped back into the couch cushions and sighed. I was exhausted. As uncomfortable as I was sitting on my hands, I knew I could fall asleep just like that if I wasn’t careful.

But Ms. E was kneeling up and leaning into me to kiss me lightly on the lips. “Thank you, honey. Thank you so much. You’ve made me so happy. And I’m sorry – I’m sorry to put you in that situation. You were wonderful.”

“Sorry for what?” A lazy grin split my face. “That was amazing!”

“For seducing you into sin, Eric.” Mary wiped the saliva from her nails onto her nylons above her knee. “Though perhaps not as much sin as I’d hoped.” Her eyes rolled a bit to play it off, but she bit her lip and I could tell she was giving Ms. E a hint of her frustration.

“Though Sunday is only a little more than a day away. That’s not too long to have to live in sin.” Ms. E smiled optimistically, and the animal in her was gone. Her old self – that pleasant, refined lady from upstairs who appreciated her weekly release from hysterics – had returned. I couldn’t help but think that self a tease – a tea cozy on a kettle brewing passion. It struck me as peculiar to see that version of her kneeling on the floor in lingerie with smeared lipstick and darkly hooded eyes. She ran a finger beneath the halter strap and politely repositioned her breast where it had begun to escape. “And there wasn’t real penetration after all, was there? So it’s just a little sin. Our sin. Mary and I decided – as long we kept you pinned down so it wasn’t your choice, the blame would be ours, wouldn’t it.” She smiled. I know she wouldn’t have called it a loophole, but she’d found a way around endangering my immortal soul, anyway. “Still, it’s a shame we never got you all the way into the bedroom – we put a lot of time into preparing that for you.”

“Well…” I tried to keep my voice from sounding too hopeful. I wouldn’t want her to think I was diving gleefully into sin. ‘Helpful’ was the tone I was aiming for. “There is one more day before Sunday, like you said. I imagine we should really try to do all the sinning before then. And I don’t know about you both, but I don’t have any plans for tomorrow that I can’t reschedule.”

Ms. E’s smile brightened and she leaned forward to kiss me again – just a light peck on the lips. “Oh, I was hoping you’d say that, honey.” She grinned at her friend and patted her knee. “Go get the fuzzy handcuffs, Mary. It looks like you’ll get a chance to sit on his face after all.”