The Feeding Instinct

Sacchi Green


I don’t recall ever truly suffering from hunger. In fact I may have suffered more from never going hungry for long. My thoughts about hunger now, at least on a personal level, are more from the perspective of the person responsible for feeding a family, even though I’m not solely responsible for that these days now that my kids are grown. Still, much as I want to reject traditional gender roles, I can’t reject the connection with all the generations of women who came before me, doing whatever it took to satisfy the hunger of their families.

It startles me, sometimes, how much just the smell of flour, or my untidy drawer of spices and herbs, makes me feel a link to my mother and grandmothers and all the long chain of grandmothers reaching back to the ones who dug tubers out of the ground with forked sticks and figured out which plants were edible and which had medicinal uses.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m infinitely grateful that providing meals doesn’t have to be the main focus of my life. I wish it didn’t have to be the main focus of anyone’s life. But we still have bone-deep connections to those ancestors. whatever our gender--and I do fantasize about cave-women who could also hunt and defend their families when saber-toothed lions threatened--who managed to find (and later cultivate) the food that allowed them to survive and pass along their genes to us.

Actually, maybe I fantasize and/or worry too much about such survival skills, which I don’t have in any great measure. I don’t get the whole zombie apocalypse deal, but I do speculate fairly wildly about how to manage if a major glitch in our system should occur, say a long-term collapse of the electric grid. Even gasoline for transport can’t be pumped these days without electricity. Where I live there are flocks of wild turkeys, and deer and the occasional moose—but how many people could they feed, even supposing we could hunt them? I do know something about raising vegetables, and preserving, but what I raise wouldn’t feed a family for long or very well.

Enough about my peculiar obsessions. I probably get them from my mother, who hoarded canned goods, and spent her first waking moments every day worrying about what to plan for dinner, even near the end of her life when she was too weak to do more than try to tell my father how to cook whatever it was. This was a woman who had been a teacher, and then a head librarian still remembered in town for all she accomplished, but the instinct for feeding her family was what lasted the longest.

Instead of the angst of satisfying hunger, let’s move along to the fun part of eating. I’ll close with a bit of food play from “Crème Brûlée”, a story I think will appear in a food-themed anthology called All You Can Eat.


Raf plucked an oyster on its half-shell from the bed of ice chips and raised it toward me like a salute before tilting the sweet juice into her mouth. I did the same. We managed a simultaneous sliding of the oysters themselves across our tongues and down our throats, swallowing in perfect synchronization, then licking our lips. And grinning.
“The sauce is worth trying, too.” I spooned a bit of chipotle mignonette onto another oyster, then licked it slowly off before sucking the slippery morsel into my mouth.
“Mm.” Raf tried it, even more dramatic in her licking and sucking. “Not bad, but not the very best sauce I’ve ever tasted.”
A sound at my shoulder like stifled laughter erupted into a snort. Audrey, bringing the scallops ceviche in their little avocado boat. I pretended not to have heard. As soon as she was gone Raf raised a questioning eyebrow and jerked her head in the direction of Audrey’s sashaying butt.
I raised my hands in exasperation and shook my head. “Audrey’s a good kid in her way, but a one trick pony, and that trick is getting her posterior paddled by any means necessary. Once in a while I’ll indulge her, but I make her earn it. Last time you were here that’s how I bribed her to let me wait on your table. There’s nothing more between us.”
We finished off the last two oysters sedately, though we were close to laughter, before turning to the contrast of tender scallops tangy with lime and jalapeńo and the buttery luxury of perfectly ripened avocado. I could almost forget the memory of young Juliana sampling the same dish with a high degree of suspicion.
Raf must have been thinking of Juliana, too, or maybe she read my mind. “Funny how much better food tastes when you’re with someone who really knows how to enjoy it.”
I still wouldn’t ask what had become of the girl. “Maybe we should have ordered lobster, too, for the full Tom Jones effect.”
‘That’s exactly it! When I said something along those lines to Juliana, she had no idea what I was talking about. Never heard of Tom Jones the movie, much less the book, or even the singer who lifted the name.”
“Ah, youth,” I said. “Just the same, she was certainly a tasty bit of arm candy for a stroll around Provincetown.”
“She was, wasn’t she.”
Past tense. So my unasked question was answered. The entrees arrived just in time to save me from having to respond. “It’s not too late to add some lobster,” I said.
Raf grinned but shook her head. “Better not bite off more than we can chew.” She plucked a mussel from the cioppino tureen, yanked open its shell with her fingers, and ran her tongue around the interior. I joined in the game with a quick twist to tear duck leg from duck thigh, brandishing the drumstick at her before sinking my teeth into the meatiest part. Purple plum sauce ran down my chin and hand.
“How about a baby calamari?” She held one out on her fork and made the tentacles seem to dance in the air.
“Aw, how cute.” I held out the duck leg with the bite I’d taken out of it uppermost. “Slip it right into there.” The tiny cephalopod made it from fork to drumstick to my mouth. It went as well with my plum sauce and pecan pilaf side dish as it would have with the cioppino broth.


Now I come to think of it, a scene like that is obscene rather than erotic when our topic is honest hunger, but it’s what I’ve got, and it’s now after midnight, so I’ll post it, allow myself a couple of spoonfuls of fat-free yogurt, and call it a night. I’ve already planned what to cook for dinner tomorrow.




 

Eating Fiction

Oral Gratification

Post by Lily Harlem

Oh, you dirty lot, I can hear you snickering from here! What on earth do you think this blog post is about? Sex? Blow Jobs? Long, slow licks? No, I’m talking about food in the erotic romance books that we all love to read and write.

I recently read a novel which, for several reasons didn’t hit my spot. It didn’t do the job of engaging me in the story or making me care about the characters and I think one of the problems was that they never ate. Not a morsel, not a single scrap of food in several months on a timeline. They just didn’t need to, so it seemed, which was quite unbelievable.

Off course there are amazing books out there where the author hasn’t bothered with scenes of the protagonist/s eating and it doesn’t matter in the least. Thrillers have to keep the pace up, and eating isn’t thrilling (well, to most people). A short story might be over and done with before any hunger pangs set in.

But food can be a really useful tool to enhance storytelling. Another layer to add atmosphere and an indicator of things going on beneath the surface.

Need any more convincing of how fabulous food can be for fictional characters? Watch this delicious scene from 9 ½ week, a classic film that still holds me mesmerized.

Mmm, so now I’ve got your attention!

But back to the written word. How can food be used, well, some food has deep symbolic roots the author can work with. It can reflect regional tastes, enhance the visual of the world that’s been created and almost, if it’s done right, have the reader imagining the tastes the characters are enjoying. I’m thinking of the first story in my Hot Ice series, Hired , when the hero and heroine are having lunch. See if you can picture where they are…

“Don’t fight it, I’m not.” He paused as the waitress set down plates of barbequed fish and bowls of vibrant salad glazed with a honey and mustard dressing.

 “Anything else?” she asked, rubbing her hands on her floral apron and squinting in the sunshine.

“No, this is perfect,” Logan said, his gaze not leaving mine. “Absolutely perfect.”

Brooke and Logan are on a beautiful tropical island and enjoying an al fresco meal at a quaint harbor village. Did you get it? If not the harbour, it’s certainly a fresh, summery dish that’s light and full of flavour and one that could be associated with holidays in the sun and Caribbean Islands.

Food can also indicate the time of year in which the story takes place. In my novel Cold Nights, Hot Bodies, the couple have just enjoyed dinner in an English country pub with friends…

The meal was fantastic and well worth the walk. The landlord made the cottage pie himself and served it still wearing his blue-and-white striped apron. It seemed none of his staff had turned up for work but it didn’t worry him since the pub was so quiet and he was a jack-of-all-trades.

The conversation between the four of us flowed easy and light. Rachel and Jeremy certainly seemed well matched and very comfortable with each other. Jeremy even went as far as spooning chunks of his chocolate torte into Rachel’s mouth.

It was cozy by the fire and after a few glasses of wine and sitting within the curve of Shane’s arm I began to feel my mood soften to one of utter contentment. I could stay here forever.

Oh, transport me there right now! I love to snuggle up with Mr H in our local pub before a log fire and with a nice meal warming my belly and a glass of Merlot to hand – sigh!

This little snippet, also from Cold Nights, Hot Bodies, tells a tale of it’s own about the morning after the night before…

Breakfast arrived, a fabulous spread of smoked salmon, eggs and fresh fruit, another pot of coffee and a basket of croissants and Danish pastries. I tucked in eagerly as Shane reached for a white envelope balanced against two glasses of freshly squeezed orange juice.

“What’s that?” I asked.

He read it with a serious expression then looked up at me and grinned. “It seems the hotel is advising guests to avoid travel. The lane to the nearest main road is impassable because of the snow.”

I cocked my head and nibbled on a slice of melon.

“They’re offering a fifty percent discount to stay tonight,” he said, “No one coming in, no one going out, they’re as stuck with us as we are with them.”

My heart flipped with hope. Was my one-night stand about to turn into a two-night stand?

Mmm, that makes me hungry and the thought of a beautiful breakfast like that delivered after a night of intense exercise between the sheets is just perfect.

The mention of food can also show emotion and the relationships between characters. Missed meals indicate stress and urgency but so can eating peanut butter out of the jar with the biggest spoon in the drawer or wiping out all six portions of chocolate mousse chilling in the fridge. In Breathe You In  Kate is racked with grief in the beginning of the book but as life takes a turn for the better, that’ll be meeting Ruben Strong, she puts on weight and is pleased with that her curves are returning. Food in this case shows an upward curve in the character’s emotional wellbeing and several times she digs in hungrily to cream cakes and picnics when she’s feeling positive.

A wonderful meal can also offer amazing sensory data for the reader and in Dessert, sushi eaten from a naked woman is what gets my hero John in a very aroused state. Here’s a snippet…

I glanced at the woman again. As her chest rose and fell with her slow breaths her breasts shifted slightly. She had a freckle beneath her left nipple, on the downward slope toward the heavier underside. My dick responded to my perusal of such a perfect set of tits, my shaft filling and pressing up against the zipper of my suit pants.

Damn.

“She has bathed in fragrance-free soap and her body will warm the sushi and sashimi to perfection,” Rai said. “As you can see she has absolutely no body hair for us to worry about.” He looked pointedly at the aperture of her thighs and I couldn’t help but follow his gaze. The satiny skin of her outer labia was a fraction darker than the rest of her, a little rosier than the just-baked-biscuit look she sported everywhere else.

I shifted on my seat, irritated by my arousal when Rai was so calm and matter of fact. I guessed years of dojo discipline could come in handy in more ways than one.

“The girls have many hours of training, learning to lie still and quiet. For they are not allowed to move or speak throughout the meal, though if they feel they are touched inappropriately they ring.” Rai pointed to the brass bell just within reach of our living plate. It had a red tasseled pull string and a fire-breathing dragon etched onto the dome. “If the minders hear the bell, all diners in that booth are physically removed and will never be allowed back to The Geisha Plate.”

“Oh, okay.”

“You understand that there must be such rules to protect the girls who work here.” “Yes, of course.”

 “And you must also understand that The Geisha Plate does not advertise its unique style of serving Japanese cuisine. As you are my guest, it is my duty to ask you not to discuss the evening’s unconventional serving methods with anyone.”

“Well, no, of course not. If that’s what you want.”

“Some Western and Eastern cultures see nyotaimori as degrading. But for many Japanese, we see sushi as an art form and it should be a delight to every sense. What better way to serve it than on a truly beautiful woman?”

“Well, I love sushi and I have to say I love women too, so I couldn’t agree more.” I held out my glass and had a sudden rush of appreciation for my supplier who had thought to treat me to such a unique experience.

Rai filled my glass and his. We drank once more.

Do you agree with me? Do you think food/eating can enhance a story? Or do you think it detracts from the important action? As a reader, do you enjoy culinary touches in a book? As an author, do you use food as an element of your writing? Leave me a comment, I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Lily

Give the Girl a Sandwich

by Giselle Renarde

I just ate an entire pizza. I'm pretty full, but I don't feel guilty about it. Food is my friend, and everybody who's told you otherwise is a dirty rotten liar... and, frankly, a bit of a jerk.

See, I'm a tiny person. I'm a toothpick person.  If I wanted to donate blood (and I do), I'd have to gain 20 pounds (and I'm trying), but this is my body. I came this way right out of the box (ewww--that's not what I meant).  I've never dieted in my life. In fact, I reverse-dieted in an attempt to put on some pounds when I was younger, but my heart gets sludgy now if I eat too much fatty food. Gettin' old, yo!

Anyone who doesn't share my body type probably thinks I'm bragging. Look at me! I'm so skinny! There's a reason I've never written this blog post, though I've wanted to many times: Oh, Giselle, you poor little rich girl.  Stop your complaining.  You don't know how good you've got it.

Actually, I shouldn't say I'm skinny, because I see my body as well-proportioned. I like it. I have zero complaints, aside from the joint pain. Joint pain sucks. Aside from that, I don't have a problem with my body.

Other people have a problem with my body. I know because they tell me--to my face, behind my back, in veiled criticisms or back-handed compliments. "Don't you eat?" "Eww... I can see your bones."  "Why are your cheeks so sunken? You look like a crack whore."

My favourite has got to be, "Are you anorexic? Haha." Umm no. And I'm not sure why you're laughing. "What's wrong? It's a compliment. Haha."

Wow. No. It's really, really not.

Lisabet started the week writing about anorexia. It's serious stuff.  It's not funny and it's not a compliment. And I really hope people know that. But I'm not sure they do.

We all have the bodies we have. This is me.  My physical form is not public property. It's not open to commentary. I don't want to hear what random people think of it. I don't want to be told it's abnormal or ill or doesn't meet someone else's standard of normalcy.

And the funny (not funny) thing is that bodies at both ends of the spectrum seem to face the same kind of public critique. I'm small, but I've overheard a lot of twitter conversations between big women about the hardcore anti-fatness they face from strangers, family members, doctors... the list goes on.

It's not fun when people make assumptions about your mental health or physical well-being based on the size and shape of your body.

That's why I'm especially hurt when pro-fat people choose to turn their contempt on... well, ME. Being pro-fat doesn't have to mean anti-thin. I watched a documentary called Chubby Chaser (it was really unsettling for reasons outside the scope of this post) and at one point the filmmaker attends a BBW convention. The thing that really grabbed my attention was the derogatory attitude many participants held toward thin women.

"Give the girl a sandwich!"

"Eat something!"

It's unfortunate, because declaring one body type superior to another does nothing to further your cause. Insulting others only exposes an internal discomfort. I realize this happens because popular culture pushes thin so hard, and by all means DO push back, but push at the mentality. Don't push the people.

We've all got better things to do than make value judgements about others based solely on their body size.

(c) http://gali-miau.deviantart.com/

"Procul His" A Hungry Story

This was his idea of hell.  Of having his neediness hung out in front of him for an obligatory four hours like a man in the stocks but with bathroom breaks as people went carefully around him smiling and avoiding eye contact as though he were ill or contagious, his sharpie pen ever at the ready and a stack of trade paperbacks ready to sign. "Carnival of Flesh".  His latest erotic urban masterpiece which no one would quite read, at least none he knew of.  Still small checks dribbled in every month from somewhere.  He had found a couple of his older minor masterpieces in the book stores rock bottom remainders bin, marked down even from half price.  Rather gauche of them not to hide them to spare his feelings until he'd passed through.  Soon they might give them away for compost with the spent coffee grounds from the Starbucks.

From where he sat on his little desert isle of a book signing table he could see a sign advertising Oliver North here next Saturday.  He would be signing his latest spy thriller, and because it was Oliver North and this a red state with an army base in town the line would probably be sure to form around the block.  But not today. 

He could not sigh.  Did not dare for one instant look sad or scared.  He didn't actually hope any longer for his long line stretching around the block, only for a friendly face to stop by and chat.  Maybe a writing student from the local college shyly asking for some advice from the big deal author.

Anybody.

Please God.

See me.

Pay attention to me.  Talk to me.

Praise me.  Please somebody tell me how much you love my stuff.  Please please pretty please.

Hell is lonely.  And I have an hour to go.  Somebody tell me how much you love me.

On the nearest bookshelf were some eye catching coffee table books.  He wanted desperately just to get up and look at them, be a customer again, a reader of books, not some lonely pimp on a street corner with his sharpie pen hoping to button hole some poor sailor of a book reader to come over and see his wares.

"Stone Tools of the Neolithic and Paleolithic Eras"

Now that looked like a mighty interesting read - he rose slightly at the knees to reach it - but no.  Could not.  Would not.  Reading someone else's book?  At a signing table?  Are you insane?  Wasn't that the most abject admission of defeat? 

The hand axes on the cover were finely polished black stone, probably obsidian.  He knew these tools.  Had studied them when he had thought he would be a paleontologist.  The men who had crafted them 50000 years ago had chipped edges in the material a micron thick, actually sharper than a razor blade.  Far sharper than they needed to be for chopping up meat and bone.  And why did cave men do these things?

To impress women. 

Beautiful hand axes.  Books.  Why would any man work so hard except to get laid?

But writers, he thought, even erotica writers, we don't get babes.  Its the dudes with the phallic guitars and surf boards under their arms, the bad boys with the new stone axes that get laid.

Fuck it.

Carpe librum - bitch.

He rose, reached across and seized the goddamn book.

I admit no one reads my shitty books.  I'm defeated.  So I'll read someone else's.  So fuck it.  Sleep till noon and screw 'em all I say.

He flipped open the cover and felt a heave of sadness.  Even one person, please tell me how great I am.  Someone must like these books because they send me a little money for them on Paypal.  Let there be people who think I'm good. I wish I had readers.  I wish I had fans.  I wish I had attention.  I conjure them - appear to me.

He flipped the pages admiring the spear heads and perfect arrow heads with their rippling edges.  Those cave ladies must have been some great piece of ass for men to do work like this, he thought. 

A shadow fell across the page. 

A young woman was there with a plastic bag of books in her arms.  Tall, twenty something, thick blonde hair tied back.  Her face was oddly exotic and full of temperament.  A T shirt with a burst of stars expanded outward from her ample breasts and over the stars the words "Procul His".

"Hello," he said. "Looking for the food court?"

"You are totally Edgar Black," she declared. 

"I am."

"I'm your biggest fan ever.  Your stories drive me wild."

He looked behind her, around her to see who was watching, giggling.  No one had put her up to it.

"Can I see?"  He held out his hand and she set down her stack of books.  People were looking at them now.  Her adoration crackled through the book store.

"Some of these I forgot I wrote.  You want me to sign them all?  I will."

"No, why would I want that?" 

His face burned.  "Look.  I don't understand." He waited.  She said nothing.  He pointed at her T Shirt.  "So whose Procul?  You're his girlfriend?  He's the guy who really likes my stuff?"

"No, it's just - " Christ, the girl was turning red.

"Are you okay?"

"Oh my god I'm talking to Edgar fucking Black!  I don't want your autograph."

"I get that."

She leaned in close.  He could feel her breath on his face, smelling of Juicy Fruit, her lips an inch from his.  "It's just - I want . . . I want you to do something really, really special for me.  And it has to be you.  Something personal.  Tonight. My place. Say yes."

He glanced down at the glossy color photographs of obsidian hand axes.  "Yes," he said.

He pressed the door bell again and waited looking down at the hallway carpet.  He clenched his fists around the sweating bottle of Pinot Noir and the yellow legal pad filled with penciled script.  The patter of bare feet running.  Feet stopping.  Deep nervous inhale behind the door, then the knob turned and she was there all in a see through red negligee.  She smiled and the bulky profile of her bare breasts beneath swayed with possibilities.

I have a groupie, he thought.  I may be the first writer since Bukowski to have a groupie.

She held open the door, he swallowed from a dry mouth and came in, his eyes slightly down seeing her bare feet, her girlish toes.  "I did it," he said, holding up the yellow legal pad.  "It's yours."  He held it out to her.

She closed the door.  She looked down at the legal pad suddenly disappointed.  "You don't understand?"  she said.  "I thought I was clear."

"Maybe not," he said, feeling his spirit sag.

"This is for us together.  I want you to read it to me.  In there."  She pointed at the bedroom door.

"Wow," he said and felt instantly stupid.  He walked to confess to her he had never had much experience with women.  Especially women who seemed to know what they wanted and weren't afraid to ask.  Everything he knew came from books; sex manuals and other people's romance novels mostly.  "I don't know."

She held out her hand assertively and he took it. She walked him to the bedroom by the hand, then stopped and snatched the legal pad from him.  At the bedroom door, she ran her eyes over it, her lips moving gently as she flipped the first page and read the next.  "This is some sorry shit," she said.

"You don't like it?  It's your story, you're in it like you asked."

"Noooooooo . . . . " She tossed the legal pad over her shoulder and gave him an exasperated curtsy.  "Edgar Black.  The Edgar Black.  Standing at my bedroom door.  You'll have to do better than that if you want to impress me."  She put her arms around him and squeezed him to her body.  She pressed her breasts against him and held him tightly whispering into his ear, the puffs of breath tickling him like drumbeats.  "I told you I wanted you to write an erotic story just for me with my name in it. But I want something good. Whisper it in my ear.  Whisper it so you make me come with your words."  She gently touched her cheek to his cheek, her lips brushing his ear as she whispered almost into his head.  "Can you do that for me?  Move the earth under me. Talk dirty to me.  I want to gobble up your words."

She pushed the door open.  The room was full of blazing scented candles.  The double bed was simple, with a thick comforter and several pillows and a clean white bath towel folded clinically at the foot of the bed.  Above the bed was a painting of shooting stars and the words "Procul His:  Beyond These Things".

She let go of his hand and stretched out on the bed, wiggling her toes, sitting up comfortably against the bed stand.  She hiked the hem of the red negligee up to the tops of her thighs and patted the place beside her.

It not occurred to him until this moment that he was wearing pants.  Rumpled and unironed from hotel to hotel and airport to airport, but suddenly in the way.  Should he take them off? 

He took off his shoes instead, hesitated at taking off his socks.  He had ugly middle aged feet.  At what moment would another false move spoil the mood?

He went over to the bed climbed up and sat next to her, stretching out his legs.  Quietly trembling.

She cuddled close to him, almost climbing onto his lap.  "So," she said.  "Tell me a story."

Fear left him as he felt himself rise to the challenge.  "Okay." he said.  "Do you masturbate?"

"Yes."

"Tell me a sexual fantasy of yours, something you use when you masturbate."

"Okay," she said.  She pressed in tight to him, their thighs touching.  "It's a dark and stormy night. I'm horny as a toad and I'm about to play with myself and lightning hits the house and knocks the lights out and I'm really scared to be alone in the dark.  Then the door bell rings and a man from the power company is there, the most gorgeous man ever. 'Can I come in ma'am and fix you?' And I let him in and I've forgotten I'm naked but he turns on his flashlight and sees me and his clothes are soaking wet.  I say to him you'd better take off all those wet clothes so you don't get zapped when you're working.  'You're right ma'am,' he says and he drops it all and he's got big balls that hang down and this thick stiffy sticking straight up and he sees me looking at it.  He shoves me down onto the bed and licks and kisses me and he lays on top of me so I can't move and twaddles me expertly with his fingers down there and he says -  ?"

Oh," he said.  "Okay.  Here."  He put his arm around her shoulders, held her tight and put his lips to her ear.

I owe you my life ma'am.  I'd have been electrocuted if not for you.  I'm going to stay here with you all night.   Use me.  Use me like your love bitch.  Play with my body.  Don't be afraid of me.  I won't hurt you.  Use me. That's it.  Kiss me with your mouth open.  Do it." 

As he whispered these words into her ear, his hand wandered over her shoulder, moving down her neck caressing, lightly hovering over the warm skin and fuzz of her arm in the candle light as he turned her face to him and pressed his lips into the warm wet of her mouth and felt her fearful tongue reach out and shyly touch his.

"Bob," she said.  "The power guy, his name is Bob."

"Bob says to her I'll do anything for you.  Use me, sweetness.   Any dark thing.  Any silly thing.  Anything you've ever wanted to do with a man's body and were scared to ask, ask me and its yours.  You can do it with me.  Whip me.  Tie me.  Beat my meat.  Suck me off.  Explore me.  Explore your desires through me.  And if you don't, then I'm going to explore you.  Every inch of your beautiful body.  Every crack in your body.

"What if I want to eat you up?" she whispered dreamily.

"Eat me up?"

"But what if I want to really eat you up?"

"Not if I eat you up first."

He knew it was his cue.  Here in the candle light of her room, his dreams were coming true.  He lifted the hem of her T shirt and pressed his lips to her belly and held them there, lingering, savoring.  No more thinking.  Bringing himself to her, breathing the scent of her skin as he held his lips there.  No more words, as he slipped her panties past her knees and pressed his face deep into her warm wet hair.

She stopped and shivered as his lips touched the spot, he felt her go vulnerable and open.  Her legs moved, he parted them and pressed the flat of his tongue against her wet nether lips and kept it there, breathing hotly on her skin, enjoying the scent and taste of her until her breathing became ragged and she began to move her hips into him.  He pursed his lips around her clitoris and sucked at it, in and out, sucking in and out, letting his breath fall on her skin as she tipped her head slightly seeking his touch.  

"I want to eat you up," she sighed.

He wanted to speak but he pushed the words away from his thoughts.  This was not a time for words.  For once words would get in the way.  He sucked her clit.  In and out.  In and out.  Gently thwonking the tiny shaft.  Sucking in and out and then gently rubbing at it with the tip of his tongue, setting up a rythem.  Suck.  Rub.  Suck.  Rub.  Feeling it.  Getting his tongue in deep.  Then suck.  Rub.  Suck in.  Rub out.  He ran his hands up over her belly as he sucked and tapped at her clit, in and out, in and out.  He twined his fingers in her wet wiry hair and caressed it lovingly, then her belly, ran his fingernails lightly, maddeningly along the delicate skin inside her thighs and waited with infinite patience as her body awakened to him.

Reaching up, stroking her breasts, smoothing outward like the beating of angel wings, his hands stroking her breasts in perfect time with his lips mesmerizing her.  He had imagined this.  He had rehearsed this a million times with a million fantasy women.  Sometimes at the keyboard.  Sometimes with himself.  But this . . .  This was life.  Woman.  Primal and dangerous.

He felt her nipples expanding under his fingers.  He resisted the urge to climb up and suck them.  Not now when she was so bravely opening herself to him, abandoning herself to him.  She didn't thrash or twist as she would in a story.  She didn't make a big deal out of it.  He would have to remember all this the next time he wrote a love scene.  It wasn't like that.  Sometimes.  She stopped moving.  Stopped breathing.  Became deathly still as though waiting for something inside that was rising to the surface.

"Fuck!"  She banged herself hard against his nose.  Ramming his face hard with her pussy so that he saw squirming starbursts behind his eyes.

"Ahhhhhh!" She wailed and he heard her sob.  "You fuck," she whispered as if it were a curse.  "You fuck."  Her body stiffened and twisted "Ahhhhh - " that weird lost wail as he felt the ripples coursing to his lips through her loins.  She reached down and twisted her fingers in his hair, rubbed her cunt against his face for one last spasm and fell back.

"Fuck you," she whimpered.  "Oh, fuck you to hell.  You stupid fuck.  Fuck."

He wasn't sure what it meant.  Had he done it wrong?

"Come here," she was smiling dreamily, a red faced angel in the candle light and waving her hand to him.  "Come up here you beautiful man."

He moved up her body and pressed his glazed wet face reverently on her neck as she lay panting.

"I still want to eat you up," she said, her eyes idiot dazed with the echoes of her pleasure, "You sweet, sweet man."  She licked his face and kissed him on the lips.

"What's it like?" he said, mildly.  "How does it feel when you come hard like that?"

"Like a little drop in space," she said,"exploding into stars."

She whispered in his ear  "Procul His" and gently nipped his ear so that he smiled and jumped. He was about to climb on top of her when she opened her mouth and he saw her lolling tongue as she leaned back and stared into his eyes.

And then her eyes turned black.

When he was a little child in Noble Oklahoma there had been a twister dropped down from the boiling green clouds of a spring evening.  It tore away the roof as his mother held him down under the bed.  But it was noise of the wind, the rushing, tormented wind like a freight train two inches from his ear that had haunted his nightmares.  It was the rushing headlong locomotive wind that filled his head in this moment with the woman with the soulless black eyes that made his ears seem to pop with a hollow deafness as his brain began to ache.  Impossible.  The rushing was something being sucked out of his head.

He was alone on the bed.  The woman had . . . What was the word?

What was the word when someone was . . . When they had . . .

There were names for things.  But the names were gone.  There were words for what people did.  But the names of those things they did were gone.

There were . . .

He was seeing the world the way he knew animals would see it.  The timeless endless fugue of the single headlong and indescribable  moment squeezed, stripped bare of past and future.  The wordless, endless instant.

How to say . . . what . . .?

He could not remember to form words. He could not remember the idea of words. The endless monkey chatter of his thoughts had been stripped to abject silence.

He rushed out the something, stumbled in the something, clattered down the something else.  A red something on the wall with painted little warning scribbles - they meant something.

He ran into the street and gibbered at the people who walked past.   A woman stopped with a worried face, touched his shoulder as his tongue stretched and strained, opening and closing his mouth like a dying fish.  Her lips moved at him; clucking sounds at him that made no sense.  He toiled, sweated, searching, for the lost sounds he needed to express what had happened. 

"Rah . . . .rah . . . Rah . . ."

People with worried faces gathered around him making senseless monkey sounds he should understand and could not.

"Rah . . . Rah . ."  He bit down on his tongue until it bled.  Slapped himself hard on the cheek.

"Robbed!" he screamed and fell down.

The sharpie pen twirled in her fingers, moved over the title page with studied indifference and the moving sharpie having writ moved on.

The next in line, a man, stepped up and picked up a fresh skinny little hard back off the stack and pushed it to her.  "Can you sign it to - "

"No."

"Okay."  He waited while she scribbled something across the title page, snapped it shut and passed it back.  "Can we get a picture?" he said hopefully.

"Sure," she said.

He passed his cell phone to the next in line, scooted behind the table and they smiled together as the smart phone made a shutter sound.  "Thanks!"

She glanced down at her watch and felt her stomach growl.  No breakfast.  No lunch.  Not even a coffee stand in this hick library building.  Ridiculously planned, this book tour.  She absolutely felt a poem coming on.

A shadow fell across the table and a whiff of patchouli oil.  A young woman was standing there blushing furiously with excitement. She wore a t shirt of expanding stars.

"Nice," said the woman at the table.  "Who's 'Procul His'?"

"You are - " said the young woman, hopping up and down urgently as though she needed badly to pee, " - the greatest poet ever!  Ever!  Your introspective lesbian poetry freed me to love and be my true self!  You saved my life!"

"Thank you."

The young woman leaned in, breathing softly.  "I would do anything for you, you deep sensitive woman.  Anything.  If you'll do something special for me."