* So when I wrote this story, I’d really hoped that, by the time the story was published, the pandemic would be over. Well, clearly you don’t always get what you want. But, seeing how kink loves to take life’s lemons and make the most decadent lemonade, my story imagines what the first play parties after the pandemic would be like.
NEW NORMAL
You shake your head again. This place—this community—is supposed to be your sanctuary. Your escape from the rest of the world. Where the ugliness and horror of the real world gets set aside for the space of a scene. And instead it just feels like a contaminated reminder of it all.
You need to get a grip. Breathe.
But a part of you is terrified—is devastated and heartbroken—that this side of yourself, the part of you that you’ve loved for so long—kink, play, the sexual escape of exhibitionism and the comforting kinship of community—is just another thing lost to lockdown.
“It just feels different now, doesn’t it?”
You open your eyes at Reena’s hushed voice. You nod. Yeah. “Everything feels different now.” You remind yourself that the virus seems to be under control now. You can stop feeling so scared. So stop. Just stop.
You feel Reena grab your hand. “I think that’s why I needed to come tonight. Because, when I’m with you, when we’re here together, it’s okay to feel out of control. With you, I can take all that fear and frustration that’s been building up inside me from the beginning of all this and I can just give it up.” She brings your entwined hands up to her lips. “I want to give it to you. Because I know, in your hands, it’s okay to feel all those things. In your hands, I can be helpless, I can be powerless, yet still feel safe.”
Look at her, as you feel her soft lips on your knuckles, and feel grounded for the first time in a very long time. You’d forgotten this feeling. The surge of protective strength you feel around her.
She is so beautiful. Every curve and smooth sweep of her makes you want to touch her, taste her, take her.
But more than that, she is sweet and soulful and vulnerable in a way that humbles and awes you. There is a breathtaking honesty in her voice and words and touch that reaches deep inside you and wraps around your heart. And, faced with all that, you feel a part of you that you feared you’d lost flicker back.
Grin and lean in close. Your mask feels hot and damp with your breath against your face. You can feel your every inhalation—deep and needy—and every exhalation—heavy and heady with want—in every brush of cloth against your lips. You never really thought about your own breathing before but, with your mask on, you are so aware of it now. It sounds heavy and loud, like the hungry huff of a hunter or the eager pant of a predator.
God, you need the taste of her.
Grip her shoulder and push her onto her back. Her hot hiss shivers down your spine, flowing through you like an electric sizzle.
Lean in. Loom over her. You bite back a guttural growl as you move low to press your face against her belly. You know her scent. You know it’s hot and heady, strong and so very satisfying. But the mask feels like a muzzle, trapping you with your own desire when all you want is hers.
It should anger you. Should feel like another loved thing lost. But it fuels you instead, heatedly feeds your longing, making you ache for more. And, instead of hating that you can’t satiate that hunger, you let it simmer inside you, filling you like steam as it burns within you. Your mouth waters as you press your cloth-covered lips just above her mound, temptingly close to her wet heat. The memory of her taste teases you. Lord, you want to lick her, bite and devour her whole. But you can’t. And that drives you wild.
But, more than that, you can see it rage within Reena. She writhes under your simplest touch. Each covered kiss teases—taunts—her, giving her so little when she craves everything.
Damn. You smile. Gently, so gingerly, trail your fingers along her thighs. Let your lips flutter cotton kisses along the soft flesh of her belly. An almost mean laugh slips from your throat as her hips lift, silently begging to be stroked where she needs it most. Her muffled whimpers hit your ear. They mix with slight, stifled chuckles from the room, reminding you of the crowd around you, filling you with the harmonious sound.
This is what you needed. This—this moment, this feeling—is why you came tonight, despite all your reservations. After being so scared, so cautious and careful, for so long, you needed to remember how to be bold again. You need to feel in control.
Seizing that feeling, you lean in and breathe into her ear, smelling the sweet scent of her hair as you let the cloth of your mask tickle the sensitive curve of her ear. “Tell me what you want...”
To read the rest of my story “New Normal,” that explores how the pandemic has changed even our most intimate moments, get your copy of this anthology from Cleis Press.
Reaching far beyond the confines of traditional erotica, prepare to explore the intersections of ace and kink, of pan and submissive, of exquisite torment and explicit consent.
In the sixth stunning and representative volume, Sinclair Sexsmith once again offers a dazzling array of voices, perspectives, and persuasions navigating boundaries and identities in truly inventive narratives. These twenty-three steamy stories are meant not just to titillate, but to validate—spanning past the pulsing power of desire to make pleasure and trembling release both a healing and radical act.
Find and then lose yourself as you traverse the complexities of full-spectrum sexuality, one delectable story at a time.
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