Under the Moon

Author’s note: This is a short, simple story about two people finding each other. It does not contain any of the science fiction, fantasy, mind control, mind break or BDSM in most of my other stories. It does feature a couple of orgasms, or one sort or another.

*

I wasn’t in a drinking mood and the musical taste of the women who had occupied the lounge only occasionally overlapped with mine. Eventually, I managed to occupy a lounger in the backyard on the lawn. Claire’s dog Bonus included me on his regular circuit looking for pats, and the few people I knew reasonably well — beginning with Claire’s two-month girlfriend Anya, with whom I had hit it off immediately, to my considerable surprise and relief — spent most of their time in a rough circle on blankets or just the grass, chatting.

Claire’s circle of friends was mostly women and overwhelmingly queer. Which was fantastic: I wasn’t surrounded by hetero blokeness, and queer women are absolutely my favourite people to hang out with — particularly when they know that I’m bisexual, genderqueer and, well, not a bloke.

So I was enjoying one of the few moments when I was feeling comfortably included despite being in a group of people I haven’t known for years.

Most of them I had seen before and vaguely remembered. One, I even recognised from a goth club two weeks before. Which meant that I finally got to find out that the tattoo across her girlfriend’s upper back in a gothic script read, “Don’t even try it”.

We were a few hours in and most of the others were happily drunk when a woman I didn’t recognise grimaced and sat up from where she had been lounging on a blanket. She held her neck and did the twisting, rolling movements of someone trying to work out a kink.

I can’t say I hadn’t noticed her. I had very much noticed her. She was a shade taller than average, slimmer than most, with a narrow, waspish face that could have looked cold and robotic but was really cute — helped immensely by winged eyeliner — and she was wearing tight leather pants with a holster bag strapped to one thigh and a halter vest top with collar and lapels that wasn’t just cute itself, but also revealed a well-toned belly and a pleasant amount of braless breasts.

She was undeniably the most attractive woman there by my tastes.

But because I’m a functioning adult — not to mention the fact there was no way I could make any assumptions about whether she would ever be interested in me — I admired her appearance and enjoyed it without staring or making an ass of myself. This meant, since I’m socially awkward and easily distracted, trying not to look in her direction too much.

It was a warm night and I had been feeling like being overtly not straight, so I had worn a pinstripe vest over my bare chest along with eyeliner and mascara, and we had shared a brief grin of mutual acknowledgement. But that had been the extent of our interaction.

“You OK, Zilpha?” one of the women asked.

I tried to remember “Zilpha”. I didn’t hold out much hope, my memory for names is sub-par at best.

“My neck set,” Zilpha grumbled. “I always cramp when I drink cider, I forget to move. Who offered me cider?”

“You’ve barely drunk any!” One of the other women objected. “You hardly ever drink any!”

“Blaming you anyway,” Zilpha said, continuing to rub her neck.

I rolled my neck and managed to get a sizeable crack out of it.

Zilpha glared at me. “Show-off.”

“Surely you know someone who can massage it,” I said, without moving from my relaxed recline.

She raised her eyebrows at me. “You mean you’re not offering?” Her voice held the sharp tone of a woman who had no time for any man’s shit.

“I don’t know you well enough.”

Her eyebrows rose higher. “Really?”

Anya laughed. “He’s being serious. Thorne’s good people, he’s known Claire for ages.”

“Alright, then,” Zilpha said, giving me a challenging look. “Are you offering?”

I raised my eyebrows at her, and she probably got the better of that deal because mine are definitely thicker than hers.

But, when her challenging look just continued, I made a show of shaking myself before pushing up to sit cross-legged on the edge of the lounger. “Alright,” I said, gesturing at the ground in front of me.

Zilpha shifted around the circle to sit cross-legged in front of me as I rubbed my hands together to warm them.

Her top exposed most of her back. There was a tall band of fabric around her waist, well below her shoulder blades, and the halter around the back of her neck. That made me hesitate for a second before I put my fingers lightly on her bare shoulders. Her skin was warm and soft. Not what I was used to feeling while massaging, which was usually through a shirt, or a towel, or with oil.

I firmly thought professional thoughts. I’m not a professional masseuse, but I strove for the same mindset.

“OK, right side of your neck?”

“Yes.”

I probed gently with my right thumb along her shoulder, at the base of her neck and up a little way, leaving my left hand in place. I could feel good musculature, but also the knot. I felt the left side, to compare. “A little stiff,” I said.

“Yeah, I know, I don’t exercise enough.”

I stopped myself saying she looked fit enough. It wouldn’t have been ideal in the circumstances. Thankfully, one of the lesbians said it for me.

“You had your opportunity to touch this, I didn’t hear you offering,” Zilpha shot straight back.

“Well…” the woman said, sitting up.

“Too late!”

I waited until everyone had settled again. “OK, I can’t massage how I normally would without cloth or oil, but how firm do you want me to be?”

There was the predictable response to that, which Zilpha and I both ignored, as I began kneading her back with my thumbs, pressing in firmly, moving in small circles then lifting and repositioning.

“A bit more than that.”

She sat a little straighter as I moved down her spine. Unlike other lighter women I’ve massaged, she didn’t sway with every firm press. I repositioned my hands, turning them down and using my fingers as I worked down, reaching fabric.

“I wonder if…” I said. One of her vertebrae cracked. “Ha!”

“OK, that was nice,” she said, sounding surprised. “Do it again!”

I worked down towards her tail bone, then back up, but didn’t get any more cracks. I shifted to her shoulders, using my fingers and thumbs, moving each joint in its socket as I worked on the muscles.

“Have you been trained in this?” she demanded.

“No, I just pay attention and I have sensitive fingers,” I said. I said it absent-mindedly as I concentrated on her body, so I didn’t think of any sexual connotations to that until there was ribald laughter from the crowd.

We ignored them.

I worked my way back in towards her neck, to where the knot started on the right and the left wasn’t ideal either.

She gasped.

I stopped. “Too hard?”

“No!”

I resumed, pressing just as hard but a little more slowly.

“Ooh! Sore, but a bit harder.”

I obliged.

“Ooh! That’s good!”

I worked over that region on both sides, then in towards her neck. Her left felt pretty good, so after a short while, I shifted both hands to the right, working on the knot. She did sway sideways a little and gasped again, but didn’t flinch or pull away.

She put her hand out to brace herself against the ground.

I put my left hand on her left shoulder, against her neck. “Can I brace you like this?”

“Sure.”

I settled my hand, gripped her tightly, then ground into the knot on her right with my thumb.

“Ooooh, that hurts but it’s good!”

I kept going for a short time, alternating between digging into the knot and kneading it between thumb and forefinger, and did manage to loosen it.

“I think that’s the best I can do,” I said, using both hands to lightly massage her shoulders and the top of her back, to even things up, as I finished off.

“It helped!” She twisted around to look at me as I took my hands off her. “What was your name?”

“Thorne.” Somehow, I managed to avoid looking down her cleavage.

“That should be easy to remember.” She held her hand out. “Pleased to meet you, I’m Zilpha.”

“My pleasure. Don’t go and undo all my hard work.”

She laughed as she shifted back to where she had been, and sat cross-legged again instead of lounging.

“Aww, you two looked like such a sweet couple,” one of the women said, but we both let it float past without reaction.

I stayed sitting up for a couple of minutes, rolling my back and twisting it a little to loosen it after leaning forward all through the massage, then leaned forward again as Bonus came past for a scratch.

When he left, I wandered inside to the bathroom.

When I came out, Zilpha confronted me in the corridor. “I’m bored, come for a walk?”

I blinked. Sure, women had turned up unexpectedly asking me to go for a walk with them when we weren’t in a relationship, but it had been a while since university and the night-time wanders I had once been used to.

“Alright.”

Claire’s place was opposite a park that rambled along above the river and where she often walked Bonus. Zilpha lead me straight across the road and then angled upriver, where a patch of remnant bush hid the houses from view. We kept going until there were no lights visible either through the widening patch of trees or back the way we had come. We reached the very end of the park itself, where an incongruous but useful bench sat facing the water, looking out over a rocky cliff.

There was enough moonlight coming through for my night vision to be pretty good by that time.

We leaned on the fence at the edge of the cliff.

“You’ve got good hands,” she said. “Not a pianist, are you?”

“No, but I do a lot, and I mean a lot, of typing. Plus, I ride motorbikes offroad when I can.”

“Ha! That’d explain your arms, then. You were lying there looking like a gay pinup.”

“Well, I can’t say that wasn’t what I was going for, but I’m not that good. I’m barely more than skeletal,” I protested. I don’t know how to take compliments well.

She gave me a sideways look. “Yeah, bony like Skeletor. How do you know Claire?”

I accepted the change of subject without comment. “She briefly dated a friend of mine before he moved down south, when they were both practicing poly. I’m too socially awkward to maintain a friendship, but she started inviting me to parties.”

Zilpha laughed. “She does tend to collect worthwhile people.”

“Thank you.”

“That was a general statement, I don’t know you but I’m taking her judgement as a recommendation.”

“Still: Thank you.”

Zilpha laughed again. “She also doesn’t have much time for friends who aren’t queer in some way, have you noticed? What’s your story?”

“Bisexual, gender-queer. I wondered once if I was trans, then I wondered if I was agender when I found out about it, but I think I’m just really curious and don’t fit in and hate labels and hate social expectations and like expression.”

She absorbed that for a little while. “I can see that.”

“What’s your story?” I asked.

“Pansexual. Which is fancy for bi, but people don’t understand bi very well these days. Tomboy. Which isn’t a gender identity but I’m calling it one.”

I nodded. “I can see that.”

“So… You do like women,” she said. Even I could tell that sounded leading.

“Uh, yes.”

“Only, I was checking you out and I couldn’t tell if I was sensing any interest in return.”

It’s directness like that I need in anybody interested in me. I certainly aren’t confident enough, I need someone else to do the work.

“I’m socially awkward, I was trying not to be obvious.”

“Oh, so you did see me?” she asked, a little teasingly.

“Oh, I saw you, hell yes.”

“Good. Because my body wants me to kiss you.”

I absorbed that, ran it past my mental ear a few times and parsed it.

“Bodies can be like that,” I managed. “What do you want to do?”

She turned around to lean back against the fence with her elbows on it, putting her in the breast-accentuating backwards lean you see in portrait shots of models and actresses. “Well, I don’t want to impose. But if this top wasn’t so black and didn’t have these lapels, everyone would have seen my nipples while you were massaging me, and I don’t ignore signals like that.”

“And we know they didn’t, or they would absolutely have said something,” I said, finding the easiest thing to respond to.

“Quite,” she said.

I turned to face her, leaning sideways against the fence. She had started out direct, then stalled. “Would you like me to kiss you?”

She straightened up. “Clothes are staying on, nobody’s getting forceful,” she said.

I nodded.

She moved towards me. I straightened. She put one hand on my waist, one on my shoulder, so I imitated her.

“Clothes are staying on, nothing forceful but,” she stressed the word, “I want to feel what I feel.”

I hoped that meant she wouldn’t mind an erection pressing against her, because that was almost certainly going to happen.

She was tall but I was taller, but she was wearing heeled platform ankle boots, so all it took was for me to sink a little at the knees for us to be face to face and body to body.

I enjoy kissing, but for me, the sexiest part is being pressed body to body. I couldn’t choose between feeling breasts pressed into my chest or an erection pressed into my groin. I’ll take either one. The important part is the body pressed against mine.

Zilpha took the lead and I was happy to let her as my hands settled on her back, one on fabric over the back of her narrow waist, one on warm, bare skin higher up.

She wasn’t shy about pressing her lips fully against mine. Wasn’t shy about sliding her tongue around my lips, and then my teeth, and then into my mouth.

Someone definitely had an erection pressing into their groin. She didn’t grind against it, but she did press firmly, making me shiver and feel weak but not stumble backwards.

Her tongue played with mine as one of her hands dropped to my arse and squeezed firmly.

I let my hand slide downwards to return the favour. I definitely got the better of that, not because I don’t have any arse — cycling and then the leg workout of enduro riding means I’m OK in that department, thank you — but because her tight pants were leather and my snug jeans weren’t.

She pushed away from me. “There’s a bench over there.”

I sat down. She straddled my legs. “Clothes still stay on,” she repeated, “but, if you’re up for it, I’m going to get handsy, so you should too.”

She bent forward, putting space between our chests. When she returned to kissing me, her hands roamed over my chest and waist, somehow managing to find my nipples with her thumbs and stroke them very deliberately. I wish my nipples were more sensitive than they are, but that still made me sit up a little.

My hands had gone to her waist and arse and thighs, but I took her touch as an implicit invitation even without her actual words. So, I slid one up her side, feeling the bottom and outside of her breast, going further when she made no comment until my thumb slipped underneath her broad lapel, found her considerably more obvious nipple and rubbed it.

That made her gasp, the first obvious reaction she made to my touch. I felt it through her kiss more than heard it, but it was there.

So, I slid my other hand up her waist, around her breast, onto it, found her nipple.

I positioned my hands on her breasts, fingers spread around to cup tenderly while my thumbs slowly stroked her nipples, around and around.

She shuddered against me.

I moved my fingers, flexing in and out, gently kneading her breasts as my thumbs kept moving.

Her mouth slid sideways off mine. I automatically tilted my head to give her access to my neck. Her lips slid over my neck then along my jawline, then up to my ear, making me shiver. She whispered, “squeeze,” nipped my earlobe between her teeth, then returned to my mouth.

I shifted my hands until her nipples were between my thumbs and the side of each forefinger. Gently squeezed. Felt her whole body shudder and a moan vibrate against my mouth.

Her teeth nipped at my bottom lip before she pressed her lips against mine with renewed hunger.

I used my thumbs to roll her nipples against my forefingers, the motion not twisting so much as rubbing the fabric of her vest over them, but apparently that was good enough.

She gasped, her mouth stilling for a second before her tongue plunged back between my teeth.

I shifted my hands again, squeezing her nipples between thumb and fingertip, pulling outwards slightly in the gentlest milking motion.

Her fingers dug into my chest, kneading me like I wanted to do to her breasts.

I wanted to squeeze hard, to pinch her nipples, pull on them and test her limits, give her intense sensations. Play with the desires I tested on myself but hadn’t found anyone else to share with. My erection was pulsing in my pants and her hands on me were the most erotic touch I had felt in a year, but I was letting those sensations flow around me without driving me. I was utterly focused on her reactions, her breasts under my hands, her nipples under my thumbs, how she reacted and what those reactions told me about what her body wanted.

Her hips rocked on my legs. I managed to find a calm mental space where I responded to her kissing but let her do the work while my hands paced themselves, ignoring the demands of my libido, steadily working away with discipline and sensitivity because what I was doing seemed to be effective, oh yes, it did.

It was a moment I would have been happy to last until our lips were sore. Her admonition that no clothes would be coming off set a limit that helped me focus without getting frustrated. No matter what I felt, what I wanted, I was operating within set limits, and that lead me to a calm mental space where the only things that really mattered where her lips against mine, her breasts under my hands and the twitching, shuddering movements her torso was beginning to make.

Time stopped having any meaning beyond my attempts to keep my teasing to a slow, steady pace.

I varied again, pressing into her breasts and then pulling out, both hands moving in tandem, a firmer squeezing, tugging, milking motion. I was rewarded with another shudder, another grinding motion of her hips rocking on my legs.

She began to gasp sporadically into my mouth, her hands shuddering against my chest, her fingers gripping me almost painfully.

Somehow, I found the discipline and the serenity to maintain my slow, steady, careful teasing.

Suddenly she gasped, froze, then threw her head back and shook with a breathy, chocked-off, “Ah!”

I stopped moving in disbelief.

She shuddered, gasping. In the moonlight, I thought I saw her eyes staring in shock, but her head was still tilted back.

“Did you…” I started saying but was smothered as, with a slightly hysterical-sounding giggle, her head plunged back down to ram her lips against mine.

Her hands moved to my shoulders, to my head, to my shoulders again, groping me as my hands stayed still on her breasts, not sure what to do.

“Oh, fuck me!” she gasped when she finally pulled back, still trying not to giggle. “I didn’t know I could do that!”

“So…” I prompted, still really, really needing confirmation.

“Yes, I just came! Sort of! How the hell did you do that?”

“I… have good hands?” I managed.

She giggled and kissed my face and neck, peppering my skin with kisses as her hands moved my head around to give her access. I was happy to let her, just as I was happy to leave my hands resting tenderly on her breasts.

“I want to repay the favour,” she said, abruptly plunging a hand between us and grabbing my still very present erection.

I gasped with the contact.

“It’s going to involve changing the rules slightly, though. Can I undo your pants?”

I could scarcely believe my luck. I try very hard — when I get the chance — to not be a selfish or entitled lover. When I take charge, it’s not for my benefit, it’s for theirs. Even when I’m explicitly invited to take them and enjoy myself, I’m always paying some attention to them. I fear being inconsiderate, hurting someone or stepping outside the boundaries, too much. So I never expect to have my turn, to go turn about or to be repaid.

The bonus of this is that apart from helping me feel like a better human being, it’s always so much more pleasurable when turn about is paid.

I squeezed her breasts while I craned my neck to kiss her, then spread my arms along the top of the bench. “I’m all yours.”

She chuckled, then braced herself against my chest to push backwards until she was standing. She grabbed my knees and thrust them apart to kneel between them.

She didn’t waste time with being teasing, she just had my belt undone and my pants open in seconds.

“Nice underwear,” she said, before pulling it away from my belly and letting my cock spring up.

“Nice cock,” she said.

I didn’t let that go to my head, but I’d be lying if it didn’t make me feel at least a little good.

She kissed my cock as it lay against my belly, then pulled it forward and licked the head, making me shudder. “Mmm, salty but sweet,” she said.

I knew I had oozed precum. I had felt it in my underwear.

Then, she engulfed me. No teasing, no going slowly, and barely any warming up, just straight into her mouth and only a couple of strokes to lubricate me before she took me down her throat.

My eyes bulged. I had been deep-throated by one woman, who had liked showing off, and by all three of the men I had slept with — because all gay men like showing off, unless that’s the only kind I’ve met — so it’s something I’ve experienced but not something I expect.

She pressed her nose against my belly and wriggled for a few seconds before pulling off, smirking up at me, then swallowing me again.

Anybody who can do that deserves to feel proud of it. I can’t, despite having some practice. I have too strong a gag reflex and just haven’t been able to work past it. So I’m in awe of people who can.

After that, she settled into a smooth rhythm, not rushing anything, not being frantic and not working to get me off as quickly as possible. Not as slow and sensuous as I had tried to be with her, but an easy pace as she varied stroke length constantly, going all the way then dipping me in and out of her throat, then to the front of her mouth while her tongue played with me, then stroking me over her tongue a few times then once more down her throat until the cool tip of her nose touched my reflexively tight abs.

For some reason, although I love watching my partners whether I’m pleasuring them or they’re pleasuring me, whether their expression is euphoria or smirking challenge or delight or teasing or focused intent, I don’t get off on watching someone give me a blowjob. I love seeing it done from other perspectives, but looking down at someone’s head is my one exception.

So I let my head loll back, closed my eyes, and concentrated wholly on what I was feeling.

Her hands were resting on my hips, only her lips and tongue and throat and occasionally teeth touching any part of my cock.

I tried to follow her with my mind, the visualisation of her mouth intensifying the experience, giving me an awareness that added extra eroticism to physical sensations that were erotic enough already.

I’m not sure how much attention she was paying to my reactions, but nothing she was doing didn’t work for me. She could have made me come faster, but I was more than happy for her not to.

Eventually, however, I did began to shudder and have to clench, and to grit my teeth. “I’m going to come soon,” I gasped, wanting to warn her.

I felt more than heard her amused, “Mmmm,” as she stroked just the first inch or two of my cock inside her mouth before deep-throating me once more.

I gasped and shuddered, my cock pulsing in a way it would have been impossible for her to avoid, my hips shuddering as I fought against an unbidden thrust that might have been disastrous for her.

She pulled back until the flared head of my cock was resting on her bottom teeth, but kept her lips pressed around my shaft as she pressed the tip of her tongue firmly against the sensitive spot just underneath my head. I shuddered again and lost my grip upon my orgasm.

I spurted into her mouth as she stayed there, lips sealed around me.

I don’t know if she had to swallow, but I hadn’t masturbated in a few days and that usually means I come enough to be messy.

When I stopped and was panting, still in her mouth, looking down with a new appreciation for the view, she pulled slowly backwards, opened her mouth to cheekily show me my come gleaming white in the moonlight, then shut her mouth.

I reached out to her before she swallowed, to pull her up.

She looked surprised, possibly even startled, then grinned, lips parted and some spilling out onto her chin, as she rose up towards me.

I’ve made men come in my mouth and I know my own taste. I quite like it. We passed my come back and forth a few times, smearing over each other’s lips and tongues, before we both swallowed.

She was laughing as she turned around to sit down on the bench beside me, leaning back against me, with my pants still open and my cock wilting in the open air.

She slapped a hand down on my thigh as I draped my arm over her shoulder so my hand could fall on her opposite breast, which I cradled tenderly.

“Oh, I’ve never done that before, you are a surprise,” she said. She reached up to put her hand over mine to press firmly against her breast.

I responded by squeezing a little more firmly than I had so far, while I snaked my other hand onto her belly. She made no reaction to the pressure of my fingers digging into her breast, a fact I filed away for possible — hopeful — future reference.

I didn’t say anything, I just stroked my chin against her hair and then kissed her ear, which made her gasp and then wriggle against me.

“OK, stop now!” But she didn’t pull away.

I relented.

She was silent for a few seconds, then moved her other hand to cover mine on her bare belly.

We stayed like that, companionably, as I became increasingly aware that my pants were still undone and the waistband on my underwear was uncomfortably squeezing my now sadly flaccid cock.

Suddenly, she stirred, twisted slightly, and rearranged my clothing with a little more tenderness than clinical efficiency.

“Thank you.”

“Don’t mention it.”

She settled back against me, her hands back over mine.

There was more silence, a silence I was happy to not break.

“We should get back,” she said.

“I suppose so.”

She sighed.

“OK, somehow we got to this part of the conversation a little earlier than I was expecting. I’m blaming your fingers,” she said.

“Hey, they were your nipples,” I protested mildly, while wondering what sort of conversation we were about to have. There were at least two ways it could go.

She sniggered and rubbed my hand over her breast.

She cleared her throat. “OK. Pretty sure we’ve just demonstrated we like each other. I don’t, as a rule, get to heavy kissing with anyone I wouldn’t mind waking up next to, and I definitely don’t go down on anyone I’m not interested in knowing more, and I expect the same.”

I nodded slowly, my head against hers so she would feel it.

“But I don’t go all the way the first time. I just… it hasn’t let me down so far. You understand?”

“Absolutely,” I said. I hadn’t even been expecting to get as far as we did. I briefly wondered about saying so, but decided to let it rest.

“What are you doing tomorrow?” she asked.

“Nothing, yet.”

“Want to get lunch? We should have at least one date. Just to know we can look each other in the eye without getting all embarrassed.”

“Seems wise,” I agreed.

She sighed and pulled away from me. I let my hands slide off her without trying to make the moment linger any longer.

She turned to study me in the moonlight, then cleaned a drying damp patch off my chin with her thumb, which she then sucked clean. She had a smear on her chin, too, so I returned the favour.

“Do we pretend nothing happened, or stroll in being smug because we got some and nobody else did?” I asked.

She considered for a moment. “Tempting, but I’m rarely in the mood for ribbing from that lot, and they’ve all drunk too much to not overdo it.”

“Think we could sneak in separately and pretend we were just in other rooms?”

“We could absolutely not get away with that, with this crowd. No, we went for a walk because the drunk people were boring us.”

“Sounds good,” I said.

“Which means we stop touching as soon as we stand up,” she said.

I sighed and nodded.

She nodded back, and pulled out her phone.

We exchanged numbers and arranged a time for the morning.

She studied my face again, then leaned in for another kiss, and didn’t complain when I caressed her bare upper back.

“I hope you can do that to me again,” she whispered, millimetres from my lips. “Then, you can get the rest of me as much as you like. Come on, let’s go and try to act innocent.”