An interpretation that made me less than.

I went back to the bed, put my back against the headboard. Mark came to me and I kissed him.

I whispered, "I prefer you to Karl."

Mark's kisses flowed from my mouth, to my neck, to my earlobes, to my breasts, kissed me and took his tongue to my yoni, his licks slow, his intent at wooing me, disturbing me, owning me unhidden, his tongue moving in circles, flicking inside me, doing to me what Kiki Sunshine had done not long ago.

TWENTY-FOUR.

We showered. Flossed and brushed our teeth. Washed away our crime of passion.

Body slightly damp, I crawled into the bed with Mark, cuddled with him until sleep found him. My emotions tried to overflow, tears almost came, my emotions almost revealed themselves.

I wasn't in love but I was on its porch, hand raised, prepared to knock, biting my lips as I hesitated, hoping my knock was answered, at the same time hoping no one was home.

I'd been to that house before. My last visit had been so unkind.

Anxiety kept me awake. Thoughts tattered, I slipped away from Mark.

I stood in the window, looked out on Big Tree Way, searching through raindrops, occasional flashes of lightning disrupting the darkness with momentary brilliance.

My body remained filled with conflicting desires.

Inside me lived two women.

I thought about my Hampton days. Back then I had fallen in love with the idea of falling in love, knowing romantic love was brief and fleeting, its damage total, its damage unseen to the untrained eye.

Beauty was the currency of betrayal. The same went for a man's handsomeness.

I saw her rims sparkling in the moonlight. Saw her coming in this direction, her pace casual. Kiki Sunshine's black Yukon pulled up out front. I shook my head, disappointed, betrayed. I felt less than, coldness creating chill bumps over my skin as I murmured many obscenities.

Kiki Sunshine remained parked in front of the hotel. Karl was with her. She had my lover. They were kissing. Touching. Delaying their parting farewells. Taunting me. Torturing me.

Memories of Hampton, of standing on the steps at Virginia Cleveland Hall and watching the man I loved, the man who had fucked me the night before, memories of watching him touch and kiss another woman in public, that haunted me, pulled me back to a time and heartache I wanted to not remember.

That freshman. That cheerleader. I was her tutor. I had introduced them.

Ogden Circle. Confronting a bitch over a man who didn't want me anymore.

A confrontation that took place in front of the world as I knew it then.

The first of many confrontations. The beginning of foolishness.

She had attempted to make me irrelevant. She had mistaken my kindness for weakness.

Men disappointed me and women could not be trusted.

The truth. What bothered me. What intimidated me at this moment.

Karl was indomitable. He was the dark side of me. Me if I was a man. Me if I was free to exercise my sensuality and sexuality without being looked upon as being a whore.

I wasn't envious because Karl had gone in pursuit of a new pleasure.

He had done with me what I had done with Logan.

It hurt like hell, but there was another issue.

I envied Karl's freedom to do so without being harshly judged. He wouldn't be judged by others. He wouldn't judge himself. Those were fears and realities that plagued a woman, not a man.

I looked to the skies, frowned into the darkness, wiping tears from my eyes.

Maybe I was wrong. Maybe God was a man.

Only a man would allow happiness to continue bobbing just beyond a woman's grasp.

Only a man could allow the life of a woman to be this cruel.

Those were my thoughts as I pulled on jeans and a T-shirt, as I pulled on running shoes and took to the hallway, skipping the elevator and taking the stairs, rushing to run and confront Kiki Sunshine.

TWENTY-FIVE.

Four naked people were inside the hotel room.

Beautiful birthday suits everywhere.

Two naked people were blindfolded and tied together.

The two queen beds had been pushed together, creating one huge playground.

Two naked people were sitting on the bed watching the other naked people.

Kiki Sunshine was naked. Blindfolded. Tied to Karl with neckties and scarves. A beautiful woman and a beautiful man were bound together by neckties, scarves, and the sweetness of curiosity. They had become the exhibitionists.

Mark asked me, "How does this little game of yours work?"

I smiled and whispered in his ear, told him that I had read about this in a magazine, one I was browsing on my many trips to This N That in Smyrna. The couple was supposed to be tied together, face to face, naked, breasts against chest, where they couldn't use their hands. They had to be lying on a bed. As they struggled to get out from the ties, the woman and the man get stimulated from the friction.

They struggled to get free.

I frowned, should've tied them tighter.

The binds holding Kiki Sunshine's ankles loosened, fell away, and she opened her long legs. Their blindfolds slipped away, those silk scarves slipping off their heads.

Karl managed to get his head to Kiki Sunshine, began sucking her breasts. She moaned. Karl wiggled between her legs, moved against her until his erection was positioned at her yoni. He tried to get inside her, but she shifted, wouldn't let him break her skin. They wrestled and fought, hands still tied, Karl's erection growing like Kiki Sunshine's moans.

I had tied them together. Silk scarves. A necktie that Mark had in his bag. Told Kiki Sunshine that if she wanted to stop the game, just say Shakespeare. That was the safe word. In this game if she said stop, stop didn't mean stop. And if she wanted to get free, her hands weren't tied that tightly.

Kiki Sunshine wanted this.

I whispered in Mark's ear. Told him what to do. Wanted to move this to the next level.

Mark went over, pulled his brother away, put his face between Kiki Sunshine's legs.

Seeing him touch her disturbed and excited me, more of the latter than the former. He was gentle with her, as he had been with me at the W. Gentle and intense. I moaned as if he was doing that to me. Moaned as if he was fighting for the right to fuck me.

Karl wrestled with his silky binds.

Kiki Sunshine was begging Karl to come save her, to stop Mark from licking her, from squeezing her breasts, begging Karl to break free and make his brother take his tongue out of her yoni.

Kiki Sunshine had no control. She squirmed like she was angry, cursed Mark and she begged Karl to get free and come save her from his brother's wretched tongue, but she didn't close her legs, didn't try to get away from receiving oral sex from a stranger. In fact, her body language was completely submissive. Completely vulnerable. She told Mark to stop, told him to stop a thousand times. But she never said Shakespeare.

I was aroused.

Kiki Sunshine released kittenish sounds, moans and purrs, soft murmurs that said she was stimulated by the thought of Mark taking control of her even though she was in the power position. Orgasmic expressions and the sounds that came from her made me tingle.

I was wet.

I watched as Kama Sutra and its energy crackled in the warm air.

As Mark ate her out, his erection was growing, dangling between his legs.

I went to them. My body took me to them without permission from my mind.

I looked back at Karl, smiled at his suffering as I touched Kiki Sunshine.

I touched my clandestine lover.

I played in her hair, looked in her face, smiled at her, kissed her eyelids, kissed her ears. Let my tongue roll along the edges of her ear, blew warm air on her damp skin. She twitched and moaned. She was so turned on. I took my tongue and teeth to her nipples, then sucked her nipples while she wiggled. She was being savored by a masculine tongue while a feminine tongue licked her erect nipples.

Fruit. There wasn't any fruit in the room. I craved slices of exotic fruits. But all we had was Riesling. I rubbed the Riesling on Kiki Sunshine's skin, dampened her swollen breasts, her lips, dampened her erogenous zones, made sure her belly button and breasts were flavored, did it like I was preparing to do body shots, then licked the sweetness away. My tongue made its way to her belly button. There was a lot of licking, kissing flesh, sucking fingers, feeling each other up. I kissed down to her thighs. Then I moved away. I teased her like I was going to feast on her yoni, then moved away.

Kiki Sunshine shifted around, her hands still tied, following the rules, living in plea sure, and as Karl watched, as Karl suffered, she kneeled in front of Mark, began pleasing him with her mouth. She suckled him, treated that part of him with love and kindness. Suckling him like a baby in need of nourishment. Suckling him until his strength became his weakness.

She owned him.

Karl stopped struggling for his freedom and watched, his mouth wide open, his expression unadulterated anger. His breathing thickening as Kiki Sunshine took his brother deep inside her face. I watched her. Watched her technique, saw how she licked the tip, sucked the tip, teased Mark to no end.

Karl managed to get free, moaned and reached for Kiki Sunshine's head, tried to pull her away from sucking Mark so good that my married love cringed and moaned with her every move. Karl tried to pull Kiki Sunshine by her hair. She wouldn't let Mark go, sucked him as if this was payback. Karl began spanking her ass, spanking her ass hard. Kiki Sunshine kept giving Mark a blow job. In between moans, Mark took her head into his hands and started to move her to his rhythm. He moved her mouth up and down, made her adjust to his speed, his depth, and his motions.

Karl looked my way, witnessed the heat in my face. Saw lust unhidden.

Karl came toward me.

I backed away from him, ended up in the corner of the bed, my back to the headboard. He attacked me. I struggled with him, telling him to stop, told him to quit, never saying the word Shakespeare. Our naked fight was playful, intense, and so damn erotic.

Karl held me down on the bed, entered my yoni with powerful strokes. My legs wrapped around his waist and my nails dug into his flesh. He moved inside me and made the hotel rumble. Mark was being sucked, looking at me while Karl fucked me like I was his woman. Karl fucked me like the devil and I sang like an angel. I fought with him, my face flushed, pores raining, each stroke killing the last of my jealousy, each stroke softening my heart, his pace sending me into a state of bliss and exhaustion. This felt like love. I didn't want love. I called out to Mark. Reached for him. Begged him to come save me. Told him to stop his brother from treating me like this. Mark was calling for me to come save him at the same time.

Kiki Sunshine had pushed him down on his back, mounted him, was riding him reverse cowgirl, her back to his face. She rode him then stopped, backed up on him, took her yoni to his tongue, sat her Brazilian-born blessings down on his face. His cries were muffled by the ass that smothered his words.

A hand pulled my hair. Yanked my attention away from watching them.

Karl stroked me away from voyeurism, had me biting on my lip, sucking my teeth, moaning out my pre-orgasmic mantra. Ecstasy consumed me. My orgasm tried to flow like water, but I wouldn't come. I refused to come. I lost that battle. Just wanted to hold on to the torturous moments that came before the orgasm. He left me there, moaning, wiggling, coming, shuddering, trembling, ripples of leftover orgasm running through my body over and over, aftershocks after the big earthquake.

I closed my eyes.

Moans covered me like a warm blanket.

I opened my eyes.

While Kiki Sunshine rode Mark reverse cowgirl style, Karl stood over her, made her take him in her mouth. She suckled him. She sucked my yoni juice off his flesh. Their movements were slow. Deliberate. No longer fucking. Now making love. Lyrical moans. Calm movements that made me feel like I was standing in the middle of someone else's wet dream.

She owned them. I refused to let her take them from me.

I crawled to them, sat on Mark's face, fed him my yoni, my back to Kiki Sunshine's.

Mark's tongue felt so damn good. It was the best tongue in the whole wide world.

Stolen fruit was always the best.

They controlled us. Mark and Karl. They took control. I was so exhausted, so high on the moment, so orgasmically aroused and orgasmically spent all at once, all I could do was enjoy.

Thunder boomed. Rain fell.

Everything remained slow and easy. The sound of heavy rain blended with moans and laughter.

Mark was inside Kiki Sunshine. Kiki Sunshine had taken Karl in her mouth. Mark was eating me.

This was unbelievable.

Bodies shifted, moved, positions changed and the experience continued.

Soon I was sucking Mark. Karl was inside Kiki Sunshine. Kiki Sunshine was eating me.