Story Discussion: April 20, 2007 - "Hurt" by Varian

[Varian P]

Hi, everyone.

The segment I'm posting for critique is chapter nine of Hurt, which I've been posting here under a different pen name. I certainly don't expect anyone to read the preceding chapters, but should the impulse strike, let me know and I can email you chapter eight, which isn't up on the site as yet.

To give you the context for the passage under consideration, here's my attempt at a brief synopsis (spoiler warning, just in case anyone does plan to read the whole story):

The novel has three main characters: Vanka, Galen, and Khalid. At the opening of the novel, Vanka has just learned she has breast cancer, and a few weeks into an affair with Galen and, later, his lover Khalid, Vanka has a double mastectomy and undergoes chemotherapy.

The three of them now live together. Since the surgery and starting chemo, Vanka has been sitting adamantly on the sidelines, sexually. Meanwhile, Khalid and Galen have a very complex, strained sexual relationship, as well.

Now, Vanka is off chemo with a clean bill of health, is recovering her strength, and her hormones are kicking back in. So, this chapter I'm putting up for feedback is pretty much about Vanka figuring out how to get back to being a sexual person after a disfiguring surgery and, perhaps more central to her identity as a strong, competent, athletic person, being sick and weak.

I realize the synopsis is a major downer, but the bulk of this chapter is not, and it's chock full of sexual stuff.

Oh, a final note: Khalid was born and raised in Algeria, lived in France from the age of fourteen to 24, and immigrated to the U.S. three years ago, hence his manner of speaking.

I'll put the chapter and my specific concerns in the next couple posts.

Thanks in advance to everyone who takes the time,

Varian

 

[Varian P]

Hurt, chapter 9

Behind her a light flashed on, and a rapping at the glass slider stopped her heart, then pumped it brutally hard and fast. She whipped around.

Khalid.

Instinctively, she sank down in the jacuzzi as he stepped out onto the deck, obviously taking his time.

“I am sorry to crash your party,” he said, not coming close. “My friend, she received a page almost the moment we sat down. She is a doctor, and she is on call tonight, so she had to go.“

“Sure it wasn't just a ruse to get me naked in the hot tub? I suppose Galen's not in New York, either? He's behind that palm, waiting to ambush me when I rise, naked and wet, doing my poor impression of the Birth of Venus.”

Khalid smiled. “I'll let you have your privacy. I only wanted you to know I was home.”

Vanka looked down, assessing how well the turbulent water hid her body.

“Want to come in?”

“Yes. Do you want me to come in?”

“Yes.”

“Should I get my trunks?”

“That wouldn't be very fair.”

“Alright.”

Khalid unselfconsciously stripped out of his clothes and lowered himself into the tub, gracefully, like he did everything.

“You're really an exhibitionist, aren't you?” she teased him for how his cock had swelled and started to rise as he'd undressed.

He smiled. “It is my usual reaction, undressing in front of a lover.”

For some reason that made her blush. It reassured her, looking hard and proving that below the surface Khalid was only a vague, shifting brown.

“Is that how you think of me?” she asked when she was sure of her voice.

“Yes.” He sounded amused.

“Still?”

“Vanka, I would not have done that the other night, otherwise. For me, fucking Galen in front of you, I was also fucking you. Just as Galen was fucking both of us, in a way, that first night.”

Her face went hot again. She nodded.

“Khalid?” She hesitated, then went ahead. “I'm not ready to...” Fuck, what did she want to say?

“What is it you do want, Vanka?”

“It would feel so nice to be held. Like this.”

He moved next to her, put his arms around her. It was good, the feel of his arms circling around her, his gentle strength hugging her shoulder, her back, her waist. But she wanted more. Wanted connection. Locking eyes with him she slipped astride his lap, searching his face. He pulled her close.

The press of his naked body against hers comforted. She rested her cheek on his smooth, sculpted shoulder, listened with her body to the feel of his arms holding her to him, how his heart beat and his chest swelled against hers with each breath. Even the press of his cock, hard and tall against her belly made her happy. There was none of the guilt, none of the fear she felt with Galen.

“Khalid?”

“Yes?”

“With you and Galen.”

“Yes?”

“Is it always like the other night? I mean,” she leaned back and looked at Khalid, “does he ever kiss you? Caress you?”

“The other night he did. After. But usually, no. Really, that was the only time.”

“But,” she pursued, hopeful, “the other day. When Sasha saw you. You said it was a kiss.”

“Yes.”

“Khalid...”

“Some things I do not like to say to you, Vanka, because I worry you will think I am speaking against Galen. But I would prefer to be honest.”

“Yes.”

“He allowed me to kiss him, because I did not give him a choice. He could not resist me, that day, because there would have been noise. And your brother was here.”

It hurt her to think of Khalid, who was so loving, never feeling loved. She sat up and tried hard to read those luminous eyes, but they were placid. No trace of pain in his warm gaze.

Until she touched his cheek. And as she brought her other hand to his face, as she traced along the edge of the thick, silky waves of his black hair. Then those golden eyes shone with a deep hurt, and suddenly Khalid, who was always so quiet, so stoic, seemed fragile. Wounded.

The way she wanted to touch and kiss him was an ache, deep and irresistible, maybe like the need that compels a mother to hold and nurse her baby. She pressed her lips to his in a long, tender kiss, kissed his cheek, his ear, caressed his face, kissed his eyebrow, the bridge of his nose, the corner of his mouth.

Between kisses she gazed at him as she stroked his full, soft hair. His placid smile was gone and he looked up at her, vulnerable. Almost frightened, she thought.

That aching tenderness welled up in her again. Not like that euphoria she felt with Galen—that helium feeling that always felt like it would swell and rise and swell and rise until it tore her apart from the inside. This feeling, this love, was warm. Tranquil.

Love. 'Can someone love more than one person?' Galen had asked her that day she'd first come back, afraid he'd be angry to see her. In the weeks after she'd only thought about Galen and his love for Khalid, and whether Galen could love her, too.

She kissed Khalid, whispered her love for him, held him, caressed him, kissed him, told him again. She loved him. Galen loved him. She loved him.

When she laid her cheek on his shoulder again, and they were still, holding each other close, she could feel his body trembling against hers.

“My dear, dear Vanka,” he whispered, “I love you, too.”

Later, when they curled up together in bed he stroked her cheek and cradled her in his golden gaze, tranquil again.

OOOOO

“Your book,” Vanka said. Khalid glanced up from his laptop. “A lot of the elements are autobiographical.”

“Yes.”

“The scene where Tahar gives himself to Rachid. Is that a scene from your life?”

Khalid's serene gaze settled on Vanka for a long moment before he answered her.

“No. That was only a kind of fantasy.”

“It's a very moving scene.”

“Moving?”

“And profoundly erotic.”

“You didn't find it...perverse?”

“No.”

“No? How no?”

“I read it as an act of deep love. On both sides.”

Khalid smiled.

“That's how it is to me, also. People usually read that scene as a kind of submission on the part of Tahar, a kind of self-debasement. But for me, that scene is about two people having a lot of pain, a lot of need, and in that moment, each sees what it is the other needs, and offers to provide it. The physical act is only a very small part of it.”

“I thought,” Vanka tried, tentatively, worried her French wasn't good enough, that she'd misunderstood the meaning of the passage, “that Tahar wanted to offer himself, because he was the only person not bound by law to do so. He was the only person from whom that offering could be simply, purely, one of love.”

Khalid just smiled.

“Sorry,” Vanka laughed. “I mangled it, didn't I?”

“No,” Khalid's voice was soft.

“And Rachid, when he accepts Tahar, it's kind of a surrender?”

“Yes.”

Three nights later, when Khalid had gone back to the study to find a book he wanted to loan her, Vanka rose from the armchair, took a small bottle from her bag, and went to the dining table. She took the cap from the bottle, and set both on the table to her right. She unfastened her belt and the fly of her slacks, and let them slip down, low on her hips. Even through her shirt the dark stained wood was cold against her chest and belly as she laid her torso flat on the tabletop and gripped the edges. The surface was smooth and hard against her cheek. The gleaming wood gave off a faint, pungent scent of oil.

Waiting, she felt her heart hammering against the table, and then the first footfall sounding in the hallway reverberated through her gut. He wouldn't want this. Her. He'd be disappointed, insulted, that his beautiful dream, distilled to perfection with his pen, had materialized in the form of a mutilated girl. She kept her face toward the wall as his footsteps traversed the length of the hall, the living room, then drew so close, now she could hear the rustle of his clothes. To keep from jumping up, taking it back, she gripped the edges of the table harder, anchoring herself. Two soft steps. Then, from behind her, Khalid's voice.

“Stand up.”

No. Of course, no. A blush flared up her mutilated chest, up her throat, over her cheeks. Vanka straightened to standing, “sorry” already parting her lips, but she couldn't turn around. Khalid's thighs pinned hers against the edge of the table.

In his sure, soft voice Khalid said, “take off your shirt.”

That wasn't in the story.

Lifting up the fabric, raising it to bare her belly, her back, feeling the cool air against her chest, it felt like giving up. On safety. Preserving her self. Giving up to him, she dropped her shirt on the table and stood, shaking, her torso naked. Waiting.

Khalid's warm palm touched the center of her back, guiding her down, until her hot, bare chest pressed the cool smooth surface of the table. Behind her, Khalid shifted back, and she was no longer pinned. Warm, light, his fingertips brushed against her skin, and her pants slipped from her hips, down her thighs. Warm, soft, his hands curved against her ass and spread her, kept her spread and a fresh hot flush swept up her chest and throat and face and a faint surge of physical want pulsed through her, like an echo. Then his warm hands left her ass to the cool air.

A tenor note of glass on wood sounded, and a shiver shot up her spine as the first cold drop of viscous liquid hit her skin at the sensitive, shallow start of her cleft. Fingertips skimmed over the small of her back, one sliding through the slick puddle, down between her cheeks. More cold drops hit her hot skin, the liquid slinking down, tickling her, sinking to where he was rubbing her, the pad of his finger teasing, softening, penetrating.

No word. No other touch. Khalid's finger slid little by little into her, then slid out, then in again. While he drove his finger in and out of her she heard the metallic ring of his buckle, the scrape of his zipper. Then the sticky wet sound of his lubed hand slicking his cock, and a moment later, his finger left her and the thickness of his cock drove into her.

On the table, gripping the edges of the table, the smooth surface of the table cooling and clinging to her skin, Vanka yielded herself to Khalid, his slow pumping rocking her forward, back, forward, back. While he moved behind her, in and out of her, never touching her, never speaking, she kept her cheek pressed to the polished tabletop, her eyes closed. If she opened them, she gazed at the wall, letting it shift in the frame of her sight as Khalid's thrusts, slow in the beginning, then more and more urgent, jostled her, the cold smooth of the table caressing her cheek, her gripping palms, the insides her of her bent arms, the points of her shoulders, her scarred chest, her tender belly, her hip bones.

When his breath caught between every inhale and exhale, when every exhale sounded with a low moan, when his urgent thrusts ceased and he leaned hard into her, pinning her again against the edge of the table and Khalid let a long, deep groan sound, spilled his wet heat into her, Vanka's broken body felt whole. Her heart beating, her lungs swelling, the sweaty heat of her skin were signs of life. Real life.

Folding himself over her, Khalid's hot chest pressed against her back, his arms doubling hers, his fingers weaving between hers where they were still curved over the edge of the table, his cheek touched her cheek. When he'd softened and slipped out of her he stood, pulling her up with him, and she turned in the circle of his arms to face him. He gazed down on her, his eyes like molten gold tranquil, like always. But there were two wet streaks down his face, where one or two tears had already fallen.

“I'm sorry,” she said, “I shouldn't have.”

He pulled her to him, his bare chest against hers.

“Don't misunderstand me, Vanka,” he said, his voice soft and even. “It's only that you give too much.”

“No, Khalid. That's not true.”

OOOOO

After that giving and taking over the dining room table, Khalid took her two, sometimes three times each day, just as her gesture had promised he could—with no prelude, no kiss or caress, at his whim, just as if her body were a part of him, his own, to be used, at will. Except, always, the gorgeous enormity of the gift was between them, wrapped around them.

Vanka would be washing the dishes, and Khalid would step in close behind her, and merely lay his hand on her shoulder. Setting the cup or knife in her hand down, she would sink silently to her hands and knees, and Khalid would sink down behind her, pull down her pants, if she was wearing any, or just her underwear. He'd lube her, open her, enter her. Fill her.

She'd offered it out of pure, deep love, out of awed reverence. But each time he took her gift, feeling how she was nourishing this man who'd starved so stoically for so many years, she got back a little of her faith in her strength.

OOOOO

A low, sanguine sun glowed on the sheen of Khalid's naked body. Maybe he was asleep. Or maybe he was allowing her to stand there, gazing down on him, eyes closed, lips slightly parted, his lightly muscled chest rising and falling in slow rhythm, his cock delicate-looking, soft, nestled in its tuft of black hair.

“Hello, Vanka,” he said without opening his eyes. Then he opened them, and gave her his gentle smile.

“Hello, Khalid.”

As she reworded what she wanted to say for the third time since she'd been standing there, she caught herself nervously shifting her weight. And her face went hot as she felt the slick, swollen feeling of her sex. That never happened, when Khalid took her. It hadn't happened since she'd started chemo.

“Khalid.”

“Mmmm?”

She lost the words again, so she held up her hand, let the leather cuffs dangle. He grinned. Sat up. Took the cuffs from her.

“You want me to tie you, Vanka?”

“No,” she breathed.

He handed the restraints back to her, and smiled.

“Whatever you wish, Vanka.”

Straddling Khalid's thighs, she knelt on the deck lounge and bound his wrists to the arm rests, down by his hips, noticing Khalid's cock already stirring from it's slumber, the nervous grip on her gut softening.

Khalid. Passive. Bound to receive.

She slid forward, until the damp crotch of her boyshorts nestled against the underside of his swelling, half-hard cock, the tops of her pale thighs framing his dark, sleek torso. Leaning into him, the deep, sharp scent of his body stirred her, and she almost sighed. She hadn't come to him for herself, not like that, and she didn't know what to do with the warm, sweet want rising up in her for the first time in so long.

She kissed his soft, full lower lip. Sank into a slow, deep kiss, his scent, his taste, the soft sound of his breathing filling her up, the press of his hardening cock against her swollen cunt turning her want to a fretful ache.

Rising up to gaze down on him, she laughed at how he was looking up at her with a mixture of arousal and amusement.

“Am I so bad at this?” she teased.

“On the contrary, it is I who is so bad at this. I do not know how to play the part you have given me. But I will learn.”

His grin, his golden irises flickering; looking at him now, between their kiss and all she wanted to do, swelled her heart up in her chest.

“God, you're beautiful, Khalid.”

His grin altered. He was laughing at her.

“You know, when I say that, I mean there's this quality about you. Like the sun. You radiate. Your gravity, you pull me to you.”

Now, instead of laughing at her, he looked vulnerable. She kissed him again, seeking him at the depths of their kiss, offering herself.

She took her time with him. For long minutes she kissed and caressed and nuzzled his face, combed her fingers into his hair, raking his scalp then nipping an ear lobe, feeling how his body flexed and arched under her. Working to ignore the flood of pleasure provoked when his cock rubbed against her.

His nipples. Dark as dates, and eager to peak and harden under her tongue, his areolae swelling and crinkling, raising his nipples to her lips. His musk smell worked on her like a slow aphrodisiac, seeping little by little into her blood stream.

When she parted his legs to kneel between, she brushed her lips along the length of his hard cock, resisting her urge to lick and taste him. He was so warm, his silken length so delicate under her lips, the sight and feel and scent of him making the aching swell of her cunt unbearable. She loved it, how his cock twitched and lurched now and then as she teased him, leaving him untouched a few seconds, then sliding the head of his cock along her bottom lip.

Finally she brushed her wet tongue over the dark, swollen head of his cock, tasting his sharp tang, watching how his flat belly flexed, then seeing the gleam of her spit where she'd licked. When she pulled him between her lips, into the wet heat of her mouth, he sighed and shuddered under her. Sliding her lips up and down his rigid, flexing length, she watched him watching her. Before, he would have seen her pale breasts with their light pink nipples framing his cock each time it emerged from her mouth. Now there was only the blank canvass of her black t-shirt.

But he was panting, sighing, flexing his hips needfully. She drew her lips up, rubbing the underside of his cock with her tongue as she went. Then let him go. Went back to him. Took him in another deep kiss, caressing his taut balls as her tongue played over his, as she caught his bottom lip between her teeth. Grinning, then, she slinked back down, teasing his nipples with her tongue along the way, and went back to work on his cock, licking, sucking, then taking his balls into her mouth, first one, then the other, sucking, prodding the firm roundness inside with her tongue, running her tongue between them, up the underside of his hard, swollen prick, taking him in again, watching him all along, loving every twitch of his eyebrows, every time he closed his eyes tight then opened them again, fixing his gaze on her as he panted.

Now, she watched his face as she took her mouth from his cock long enough to wet her middle finger, then sink it up between his firm round cheeks. His lips parted further and a little furrow appeared between his eyebrows.

“I've never...”

“Just go slowly,” Khalid panted, his belly flexing in time with his rapid little breaths.

Slowly, carefully, she pushed against the tight little opening, feeling the ring of muscle reluctantly yield to her finger, slowly dilating. Little by little her finger slid into the hot grip of Khalid's body. It felt almost as if a pair of strong lips were sucking at her finger. Then, god, past that tight little clench she felt the most delicate, silken, moist warmth.

She sighed, startled, “So delicate. I'm not hurting you?”

“No,” he laughed softly.

Again she took him in her mouth, watching his face as she tentatively began to move her finger inside him, first trying just fucking him, slowly drawing her finger out, then pushing it up inside him again as she nursed at the head of his cock, then slid her lips down to the base, until his jet curls tickled her lips and the head of his cock prodded the back of her throat. Then she tried rotating her wrist, twisting her finger inside him as she pulsed it in and out. She pulled out completely, teasing his hole for a while, rubbing with the pad of her finger, nudging him with the firmer, broader bend if her knuckle, then sinking the length of her finger into him again.

“Should I try two?” she asked.

“Yes. Yes,” he sighed, all the mirth gone from his voice.

She spit onto her index and middle fingers, and carefully worked them into him.

“Soon, soon,” he panted as she lapped at the underside of his cock, rubbing at the joint behind the head with her tongue.

Now she sucked him eagerly into her mouth, varying the speed and rhythm of her ass fucking, sliding her tongue over his hard length and she slid her lips up and down. She brought her free hand between his thighs and caressed his balls, tight and high now. Then, pushing her fingers into him to the hilt, she felt for the the round firmness she'd read about, stroked it with the pads of her two fingers when she found it, sucking eagerly at Khalid's rigid cock as she felt him so close, his thighs quivering against hers, his hips flexing, his belly fluttering with rapid little breaths.

“Vanka!” Khalid whimpered. “Vanka!”

A warm, thick tang spurted against her tongue and she sank down on his cock, taking him as far back into her throat as she could, feeling his cock pulse, over and over, against her cradling, caressing tongue as he came, grunting, panting, grunting again.

She held him in the warm wet of her mouth until his rigid body softened, until his caught breath went to panting, then slowed. Slowly, she drew her lips up, gently nursing a final few seconds at the plump head before releasing him, and swallowing.

She watched him gasp and shudder as she slid her fingers from his ass, then she lay her body over his, taking him into her arms, cradling his head, kissing his face, holding him through those fragile moments after his climax before finally undoing the restraints at his wrists. He pulled her down beside him, put his arms around her, held her to him.

“I must tell you, Vanka,” he said a long while later, “probably that is the best head I have ever been given.”

“Thank you,” she answered lamely, skeptical. Embarrassed. “I've made a sort of study of the practice, over the years.”

“Yes, I see.” He stroked the bit of down that had grown in so far, since she'd stopped chemo. “And tying me. That was the first time, for you?”

“Tying someone else? Yeah.”

“And fucking me with your fingers. Also that was the first time for you, doing that?”

“Yeah.”

“And even so, you found my...”

“Your prostate.”

“Yes. Tu sais, il y a la petite mort? But that, when you do that with your mouth and with your fingers, c'est la grande mort, ca,” he laughed. “Tying me did no harm, either. But I think that's not why you did it.”

She only smiled, not knowing what to say.

“Cher, cher Vanka. Mon ange blanche.” He kissed the crown of her head, and for a little while they slept there in the early morning sun.

OOOOO

Vanka pulled her t-shirt on and tugged her panties up, then opened the bathroom door to let the steam out. She flossed and brushed and bent over the sink to rinse and spit. Grabbing a towel, she dabbed her face.

A firm, warm pressure against her ass pushed her against the counter. In the mirror her reflection peered back from behind a veil of steam, and behind her, Khalid.

Leaning forward onto her hands, she dipped her back, offering herself. His stiff cock nestled into the cleft of her ass, his flexing hips sliding his erection up, then down. Khalid bent over her, wrapped an arm around her, pulling her up against him.

“You tremble tonight, Vanka.” No helping it. She tried to calm her breathing. “It is the first time. Do you want me to leave you alone?”

“No.”

“Then come with me.”

He took her into the bedroom, stood her at the foot of the bed, her back to him.

“I want you naked,” he said in his softest voice.

Shaking, she slid her panties off her hips, bent forward, and slipped them down her legs, and off. She straightened and stood, frozen, her fingers clutching the hem of her t-shirt. Khalid was still and silent behind her. Closing her eyes, holding her breath, she willed herself. Flexed her arms and pulled the t-shirt off.

“Tonight, Vanka, I want to take you like a lover,” he whispered. “May I?”

“Yes,” she breathed, feeling light-headed.

Against the back of her neck there was a faint, warm touch. His lips. Brushing, parting, his breath tickling her nape, shivers raining down the length of her naked body. His fingertips tickled down her back, over her bottom, sending a thousand butterflies fluttering in her belly.

“Lie down on the bed, Vanka.”

She crawled forward from the foot of the bed and laid down. Khalid climbed up behind her, but there was no touch. She waited.

Finally his touch feathered over the bottom of her foot, teasing over every toe, the ball, arch, heel, breezing up her calf, across the ticklish crease at the back of her knee, waking a throng of eager nerves even before he touched up the back of her thigh, her ass cheek, teasing across the startled nerves at the top of her cleft, and down the other side.

Under her, the mattress pitched as Khalid shifted his weight to straddle her calves. The warm weight of his balls settled between her legs, their fur tickling her. The smooth heat of his chest pressed against the backs of her thighs. His breath breezed over her bottom.

Warm, wet, his mouth was on her, lips brushing over the curve of her bottom, a gentle bite making her suck in her breath, the touch of his tongue cinching a thread in her belly. His mouth teased one cheek, then the other, played over the backs of her thighs, teasing toward the center.

His weight came off her, his heat left her hot skin vulnerable to the cool air, and his hands closed over her ankles and slowly pushed her legs apart. Just a little. Then wider. Wider.

He sank down between her legs, slid his hands under and wrapped his arms around her thighs, forcing her legs even further apart and palming her ass. His teeth raked over the tender flesh of her inner thigh. He bit and sucked, making her thrill and writhe.

“Vanka, lover, you smell like you want to be fucked.”

The surprising ache in her cunt flared up. But why was she so fucking scared all of a sudden?

“Do you want me to fuck you, Vanka?”

She opened her mouth, but stayed quiet. Khalid dug his fingers into the firm flesh of her ass and spread her. She gasped out loud and dug her nails into the pillow and Khalid's warm, wet tongue slid up the crack of her ass, and she panted, wiggling helplessly as he diligently tongued her asshole.

“Do you want me to fuck you, Vanka?” he asked again, sliding a single finger into her ass.

“Yes,” she sighed, her fear mysteriously ebbing away.

“Yes?” he breathed by her ear as he molded his lithe, warm weight to her her body.

“Yes,” she sighed back.

“Tell me.”

“I want you to fuck me,” she whimpered, earnest, desperate. “Please, Khalid. Please. Fuck me.”

There was the chafe of wood on wood—that same sound she'd heard that afternoon weeks earlier, when Galen had her bound, when she'd thought, for a few moments, that she was being raped. And now, for a flashing second, it struck her as strange that she could only be calm, only confess to Khalid how urgently she needed him to fuck her, now that she was sure he'd take her ass, and not her cunt.

That seeking pressure opening her, then his body—his heat, his strength—curved against hers, his lips, his teeth, his tongue teasing, torturing her ear, her neck, his fingers weaving between her fingers, his voice saying, “Vanka. Je t'aime, Vanka,” as he worked his cock into her.

“Please,” she breathed, “I need you, Khalid. Love. Khalid,” she groaned under his fucking.

His arms wound around her, holding her hard to him as he flexed into her, his legs spreading and holding her, his fingers clinging, his mouth biting into her flesh.

“Oui, Vanka. Amour. Nous avons besoin. Nous aimons.”

After, they curled up, close, naked. Khalid gazed at her, his tranquil smile bending his lips, but some little flicker disturbed his placid eyes. She waited.

“You see there is something I wish to say to you,” Khalid said. “But there is no reason to look so worried.”

He found her hand under the covers, brought it up, kissed the back of a finger.

“My dear Vanka,” he breathed, “you have given me so much. I do understand. You wanted to...you have...given to me precisely everything Galen could not. Hmmm? So maybe it will seem ungrateful. But I would like to ask something more of you.”

“What?” she asked, her throat so tight it was hard to speak.

“Today, when you bound me. And tonight, I smelled your want. It was the first time in a long time, no?”

“Yes.”

“I will give you a little time. I will wait for you to come to me. But the next time we are together, Vanka, I will ask you to let me give you pleasure.”

OOOOO

Tentatively, she slid her middle finger between the flushed, full lips of her cunt, into her slick heat. Lately her sex was always swollen and wet, perpetual arousal making up for all the weeks of numb indifference.

Going still, her finger buried deep inside her, she felt the water on her skin, strumming staccato on her scalp, on her shoulders, on her neck and back, delicate rivulets trickling down her face, her arms, her chest, her belly, her thighs.

She pulsed her finger once, her cunt feeling that filling pressure, her finger feeling the slippery strength of her enfolding muscles. When she slid her finger from her cunt she lifted it to her face. The fluid coating her finger looked so clear, so innocuous, but the pungent smell of her sex worked on her, making her want to touch.

When the tip of her finger brushed along her slit, her nerves fired off a volley. Untouched for weeks, almost two months, her cunt was more sensitive, more responsive than she remembered it ever being. The tiniest touch made her gasp, made her grunt, made her twitch her hips, her body shuddering away from that unbearable pleasure, then going after more.

But the whole time her sex was swelling, coating her finger with her honey, aching, throbbing for more, her mind was slipping helplessly down into some dark, cold hole. Each spark of pleasure between her thighs was echoed by a tender pain, like a bruise, that swallowed her whole core. Threatening shadows moved at the back of her mind. Fear, hurt, cut loose from any source she could name, pulled at her. Vanka curled up into the end of the tub, sobbing, letting the cold porcelain dig into her ribs, letting the hot water pelt her.

As she wiped at the steam with a hand towel to clear a swath of mirror, she thought that the sight of the scars slashed into her chest would make her start crying again. But that wasn't what bothered her.

That was not her body. Her breasts were gone. Fine. She'd signed on for that. But who was that soft, smooth girl in the mirror? Where was her strength? Where were her muscles? Her sculpted biceps? The delicate definition of her belly? The strength she'd carved into her back with years of climbing and yoga?

And there. That blue-gray swelling over her right eyebrow.

She'd tripped. On nothing. Hit her head on the edge of the kitchen counter.

She was supposed to be getting better. Stronger. But she couldn't even walk on the smooth plane of the hardwood floor without falling down. She was clumsy. Weak.

Some thread that was holding her together quivered its stress, then snapped.

OOOOO

Her sex kept nagging. And she kept giving in. Dipping her finger into the slick seeping from between her tender, swollen lips, rubbing that sensitive little knot of pink flesh. But the feeling of that delicate heat inside of her, it felt so soft. So vulnerable. It almost make her sick, touching it.

One day she dug up the toy she and Galen had bought together. Maybe fucking herself with a silicone cock would feel a little less like vivisection. Being flayed and laid open. Again. But driving that pale phallus up into her sex felt like an invasion. An assault.

She came, finally, rubbing herself through the wet crotch of her black cotton boyshorts, the way she'd done it when she was a teenager, and ever since. Until she'd met Galen.

It was one of those blinding, strength-sapping orgasms. But, except for the soulless nerves of her cunt that only wanted to be rubbed and rubbed until the spasms hit, she'd felt more sad and frustrated, working for it, than aroused. And after, she felt like a ghost. Weightless. Dead.

OOOOO

“Today you are in a strange mood,” Khalid told her as she pondered the gleaming, salmon-colored pulp of her grapefruit, sliced into a smooth plane radiating thin beige spokes.

She looked up at him, at the golden eyes that seemed to be warming her with his gaze, rather than the morning sun, then busied herself sawing the wedges of her grapefruit apart, separating them from their delicate membrane and the thick whitish rind. This morning she was almost nervous with him. Around the house he rarely wore more than a pair of snug, dark boxer briefs. Always, lately, she was painfully aware of his body, his smooth, umber skin, of how his body moved, lithe, almost fluid, his strength like water, too, invisible, subtle as a rip tide. When they were close, when she could feel his heat, smell his piquant scent, her body would warm and pulse. Her want haunted her.

Her blood thrummed through her, hot, heavy, when Khalid rose from his chair and she felt the warmth of his naked abdomen press faintly to the back of her head. Caressing fingers combed through her baby's growth of new hair, brushed up her arms, over her shoulder, over her neck, tingling her whole torso.

“Finished?”

Vanka opened her eyes. Focused. The gutted grapefruit half lay on her plate, just a misshapen and dessicated rind, now, its fruit devoured, its tart juice drained.

“Yeah.”

Khalid took her plate and his and disappeared into the house. A sob rose up in her throat. No, a scream. Something. Fuck, her want wound through her, prickling and prodding her. Not just that low, throbbing need between her thighs. Khalid. She wanted him. Wanted to have him, to give herself to him. But she didn't even know how to touch herself anymore. How could she go to him, like this?

She went in. Got a glass of juice. Khalid rinsed the suds from a plate and slotted it into the rack to dry. Wiped his hands on the dish towel. Took her hands and gazed down at her.

Fuck, please, just do it.

“Will you tell me what is bothering you?” he asked.

Frustration swelled her throat. Stung her eyes.

“I think maybe you are angry with me,” he said softly.

“No, Khalid,” she swore, stung and sorry. She kissed his palm and smiled up at him. “No. I am angry. But not at you. Just angry.”

He hugged her, pulling her against his warm, smooth chest. The feel, the smell of him made her want and her hurt swell up, spilling into each other. For a long while he held her. Then he opened his arms and kissed the crown of her head.

“I would like to see the sea today. Feel the sand under my feet. Would you like to come with me to the beach?”

They waited for the L.A. sun to wane, and at four were crossing the Venice boardwalk, navigating through a stream of rollerbladers, skateboarders and joggers—many attached by a length of leather to tiny or enormous dogs—and clumps of ambling tourists; middle aged men and women with sunburns herding their sunburned toddlers and teens among stalls offering henna tattoos, hand-made jewelry, and folksy renderings of celebrity likenesses.

Beyond that seething strand of humanity, the sand and shore were sparsely populated. They pried off their shoes and carried them over the expanse of glittering sand, gritty and warm and shifting under their bare feet. The low sun sparked off the chop and roll of the water, making Vanka squint behind her sunglasses. The briny, life and death smell of the sea seeped into her. In the wet sand, three naked children methodically filled and upended their buckets, putting up their pre-fab castle, tower by tower, while the incoming tide chewed away its foundation as they built.

“It is still strange to me, how much this is like the beaches at home,”Khalid mused. “Only when I look back and see the hotels and apartment buildings am I sure I'm not in Algeria, in Tipaza. I look at those little children, and I remember my father teaching me to swim. Feeling the power of the sea pulling at my body, and my father's strong hand holding my arm so I would not slip away from him. And after, my mother wrapping me up in a blanket and holding me, so my wet body would not be chilled by the evening breeze.”

Khalid smiled, serene as he told her about his brothers, the games they would play together, the childish things they would argue over. How could he find happiness in memories of his family, of their love, when it had all been torn away from him so cruelly?

For a long while they sat, not speaking. She listened to the cry of the gulls and the shrieks of the children and the roar of the waves. Felt the sinking sun warming her skin, the wind tickling the fine hair on her forearms.

“Khalid? Your novel, 'Tomorrow,' do you know it would make a beautiful film?”

“You think so?”

“Have you ever thought about it?”

“A film made from one of my novels? No.”

“That one, in particular. It's so imagistic. The whole time I'm reading, I'm storyboarding every shot. I can't help it.”

“You want to make this film?”

“I've never done a feature. I've never even done anything narrative. But, yes. I want to make this film with you. I've been thinking about it for weeks.”

“It is a strange idea, for me, this thought of seeing actors saying and doing the things I have written. But I will think about it.” He stood up and stripped down to his trunks. “But for now, I want to swim. Will you swim too?”

“No.” She stroked the soft flesh of her arms.

Khalid's lithe, umber-hued body seemed to belong there, a part of the seascape as he slipped into the gray and white foaming swells. Sleek as a seal he dove under the first big breaker, and swam for the sun.

Vanka had always been a strong swimmer, fearless in big waves, at ease in uncertain depths, not minding the brush of seaweed and fish against her calves. She'd been scared, though, to go out with him. She didn't trust the strength of her muscles, the capacity of her lungs. Now, watching Khalid, she felt sure, if he needed her, she could swim out, and get him back.

She never took her eyes off that black head, that brown shoulder, his powerful arm cutting through the surface, pulling him forward, parallel with the shore, striking south, then north, then turning in, chasing the swell and break of the waves until one rose up behind him and drove him toward shore.

His lithe frame only a little rounded with exhaustion after fighting the waves and the current for thirty minutes, he rose up from the shallows and came toward her. Khalid let her wrap his wet body in the heavy terry beach towel, sank down to the sand and let her hold him in her arms, giving him her heat.

OOOOO

It was beautiful. An abstract sculpture in clear acrylic. All smooth roundnesses—its surface, its structure. Its body long and thick and solid, its neck delicate, slender and curved, its head a modest, elegant oval.

In her palm, the weight of it was comforting. Inspiring.

Cool and smooth under her fingers. Against her cheek, her lips, her belly.

On her back, she spread her legs. Contemplated her mound with its sparse coat of fair fuzz. Watching, she pressed the oval to her arousal-slick opening, first just feeling the cool roundness touching her, then the pleasant pressure as the oval opened her, little by little as her cunt enveloped it, holding it, cool and smooth and round, deep inside her. The delicate neck curved and emerged from between her pink, downy lips. And, just below her clit, the full, graceful swell of the base of the phallus, which rose, thick and long and translucent, hovering over her belly.

Her cock.

When she flexed her PC muscle, the tip of her cock lurched upward, and when she relaxed it fell back to hover an inch or two above her belly. When she did a quick burst of flexes it bounced up and down obediently, the weight of her cock rocking the acrylic egg inside of her.

Getting on all fours and looking down the length of her torso, her cock aimed itself right at her, then performed its tricks all over again. Only the brush of the egg inside of her teased with a slightly different pressure. Vanka sat back on her heels and, admiring how eagerly it pointed at the ceiling, wrapped her fingers around her cock. And she smiled. Almost laughed.

Her grip skidded up the length of her thick, clear shaft. On the downstroke, the egg tried to escape the grip of her enveloping muscles. Vanka stretched for the nightstand drawer, snatched up a bottle of lube, shot three squirt into her palm, and coated her cock. Now her grip slipped up and down, and the egg gave up its efforts at escape—it just bumped pleasantly against her knot of nerves when she pulled up, and relented when she pulled down.

Loosening her grip, she caressed the subtle curves of the base, the center, the tip, enjoying the cool, smooth glide of it against her palm, under her fingertips. If she fisted her cock, fast and firm, the egg tapped against her with a delicious, staccato rhythm. Could she come, just like that?

It surprised her how soon her arm got tired. She caught herself smiling. On impulse, she'd wrapped her other hand around her gorgeous, glass-hard shaft, and was pumping her hips into her grip in a slow rhythm.

The first time the fat swell of the base glanced off her clit a shock of pleasure rippled through her sex and after, she heard her own startled little sob. Now she started swiveling her hips as she pumped them, working for that thrilling contact, thrusting her cock into the slick tunnel of her grip, rubbing and bumping her clit against the hard swell of acrylic.

Now her thighs were burning with the effort of levering her weight up and down, forward and back. She collapsed forward, onto her knees and one forearm, fisting and fucking, jerking her cock with her hand, thrusting her hard shaft into the grip of her fingers. Over and over the egg inside of her bumped against that knot of nerves, while she desperately humped that gorgeous hardness by her clit.

Yes, please, yes, she was going to. The maddening little thrill of her clit rubbing and sliding, dragging up and down that crystal hill, each thrust hitting her g-spot, prodding that deep, strange pleasure. Please, there, yes, the want, the ache swelled and swelled and burst and spilled as she bucked, again, again, and collapsed, panting, her thighs and arm muscles burning, her cunt throbbing around the egg-shaped root of her cock.

OOOOO

Her hands and feet were cold, and there was a queasy knot in her belly, but her sex was pulsing insistently around the bulbous root of her cock. The water had only been running for a couple of minutes, and as Galen had told her once, before she really knew him, Khalid took long showers.

He wouldn't laugh. But he might...what? Get that amused look on his face. Stand there feeling sorry for her, try to get out of it without hurting her feelings. It was sort of funny; she was so worried about how he'd react to the dildo, she was hardly thinking about her chest.

As she walked across the room her cock bounced a little with each step, and the hard acrylic egg rocked inside of her. She perched on the armchair at the far side of the bed. The chair where Khalid had waited for her that first night, before they'd even met. Deep breaths. For the thousandth time she chastised herself for not just talking to him first, as she arranged the folds of her white kimono robe.

The hum of the water cut out. Her heart paused, then pounded, thump thump thumping fast and hard. At the last second she changed her mind about sitting. She rose, smoothed the gathers of her robe, and straightened beside the chair. Willing herself to stay still, she watched the bathroom door open.

When he stepped into the room, naked, the setting sun bathed him in its tangerine light. His golden eyes fixed on her, and he smiled. The pounding of her heart, the pulsing of her sex, everything dialed up as Khalid approached.

“Do I understand, Vanka? You've come to me?”

“Yes.” Her face went hot because her voice had broken on the word.

“But look at you.” There it was, his amused look. But his gaze was tender. “You are so nervous.” Gently he stroked her fine growth of hair. “You have not come to me too soon? Before you are ready?”

Vanka turned her head, “no.”

He went on, gazing at her, as he caressed her, fingertips faintly touching her neck, her shoulder, her throat—just where her robe left her skin bare. His soft lips brushed her temple. Her cheek. Her ear. Little shivers shimmered down her body and pooled, thrumming, in the swelling heat of her sex. Then he kissed, his warm lips touching hers. Soft. Waiting. Again.

His kiss. She wanted to sink into the sweet heat of his mouth, but every pulse of her wet cunt against the hard stem of her cock worried her.

“Just...” she halted.

His golden gaze was so warm, so kind. “Tell me, Vanka.”

“I...” she tried again. “You might not...” She was being so ridiculous. Her fear broke over a helpless laugh. “I have a surprise. And it's alright, if you don't like it.”

“Yes?” he purred, smiling.

She took his hand, noticing he was already half hard. Her heart seized as she pressed his palm to the silk of her robe where it veiled her acrylic erection.

He sighed. Nearly groaned. She watched as he curved his fingers around her shaft and gently, slowly slid the white silk up. Then down.

“Vanka.” It was a low growl.

Their foreheads tipped together, the both looked down as he parted the skirt of her robe, revealing her translucent prick.

“C'est jolie, Vanka,” he breathed. “Like a ghost. An impression of a cock.” He opened the skirt wider, exposing her naked hips. “No...le mot? No straps?” He paused. “So, it is inside you?” he sighed, finally.

Khalid's cock had risen up beside hers. Almost touching.

“And when I touch, like this...” he curved two fingers behind the swell of acrylic at the end of her cock, and gave two gentle little tugs, rocking the orb up inside of her, “you feel this touch?”

“Yes,” she breathed, the sight of him doing that magnifying the rousing sensation.

He half sighed, half laughed, leaning into her, his warm breath moist on her cheek. “And this,” he ran the pads of those two fingers along the length of her shaft, “it excites you?”

“Yes.”

“And,” he he breathed, his golden eyes sparking in a way she'd never seen before, “you want to fuck me with this cock of yours?”

“Yes.”

Khalid came on, sinking into her kiss with a fervent heat that was new, to her. A surge of need swept away her anxiety. She forgot everything except Khalid's hungry kiss, the heat and the faint quivering of his naked body against her, the delicious slickness of her cunt as it pulsed around the hardness inside her.

They surfaced from that deep, urgent kiss. Gentle, now, Khalid took her lips in soft little kisses, delicately danced his tongue against hers. Then he slipped away. Looked at her a moment. Came back with another soft, sweet kiss.

His hands converged on the loose knot at her waist, his long, delicate fingers untying the cord. She tried to meet his gaze with a smile. The knot undone, he held her gaze as he slid the silk from her shoulders and her robe slipped to the floor.

"Now tell me my scar is pretty."

"Pretty is not exactly the word for it."

She laughed, her lashes wet.

"It's magnificent."

With delicate fingertips he traced over the pink weals sloping across her chest, tracing each wound—the long, thick scars where her breasts had been, the smaller dashes left by biopsies and her port. His touch glided down, traversing her scars, faintly tickling her belly, touching along her jutting cock, almost invisible in the fading light. His eyes followed his hand over her body, then turned up to meet her gaze.

“You're magnificent, Vanka.” His gaze was tender. His voice was frayed with emotion. And it didn't hurt his credibility that his cock was still flushed and hard. “Tu sais bien, Vanka, que je t'aime, mais tu dois savoir, aussi, que tu es belle. Absolument magnifique.” Nothing in her doubted him.

On the bed they kissed and touched. Khalid was like a whole world she'd slipped into. His skin, warm, smooth, taut over his lean muscles, his long frame, was like velvet under her lips, the scent of him filling her lungs and urging her on, his salt tang on her tongue as she tasted him, the smooth plane of his belly under her lips, her tongue, his nipples, full and dark, going hard as she grazed them with her teeth, worried them with the tip of her tongue. The rich musk of his cock, hard and straining for her kiss. His breaths, his sighs. His warm gaze.

That tugging ache low in her belly had her almost whining. But her want was bigger than that. Khalid. She needed more of him.

“What?” he grinned. He'd caught her smiling.

“The last week or so,” she said, still teasing his cock with her fingertips, “I've been like a cat in heat. As you noticed.”

“Yes.”

“But it was just hormones. My body. My cunt.” She laughed. “I feel like the rest of me just caught up. I want you with everything in me. I want you so badly, there's not room for anything else. It feels so good.”

Khalid smiled and kissed her eyes and when he kissed her lips she tasted her tears.

“But I didn't think I'd be so nervous. Ever done it with a virgin before?”

“No.” He kissed the corner of her smile. Kissed her wet lashes. “You will be my first.”

Vanka slipped down, kissed and nibbled the lean flesh of Khalid's inner thigh, taunted his cock with her tongue as she slipped one lubed-up fingertip between his cheeks and teased his asshole. Petting his balls, stroking his cock, she slid her finger inside him as he gazed down on her from under his dark fringe of lashes, his belly rising and falling with rapid little breaths. Her cunt pulsing insistently around the base of her cock, she loaded up two fingers with more lube and worked them into the hot grip of his body, pumping into him, opening him.

“Vanka,”he said, his voice gentle but threaded with urgency, “please.”

She pulled her fingers from the clinging grip of his body, and watched Khalid slick her cock with lube, the sensuous movements of his graceful fingers along the length of her cock reverberating through her sex. Kneeling between his thighs, she touched the tip of her cock to his dark clench, pressing gently until the grip of him held her firmly in place. She leaned over him. Sank into a slow, wet kiss. Their mouths parted, their eyes locked, and she went into him with a slow push of her hips.

Something disturbed the tranquility of those golden eyes.

“Am I hurting you?”

He smiled. “No. No, Vanka.”

He curved a hand at the back of her neck and pulled her in for a deep kiss, stirring up her tender affection, together with a fierce need. God, she was shaking. She planted her hands and tried working her hips between Khalid's thighs, keeping her movements shallow, conservative, because she was afraid of slipping out of him, afraid of wrenching out the egg rooting the cock inside of her.

It was easier when she went up on her knees. She could watch the thick shaft of her cock emerge as she swiveled her hips back, and watch it sink into him again when she pulsed forward. Little by little it got easier. She stopped fretting about doing it right as sensation and instinct took over.

When she ran her nails up the inside of Khalid's thighs his abs flexed as he caught his breath. Joy rose up in her, big and buoying. She watched as Khalid's expression reflected her smile.

More and more the acrylic cock felt like her own. Part of her body. Each little pulse of her hips charged her sex with a surge of pleasure, the hard swell of the egg rubbing and bumping inside of her, her wet, swollen folds grinding and sliding over the stem curving between that ovoid root and the hard shaft she was pumping into Khalid's ass.

Khalid's golden eyes flickered over her, watching her face, the pulse of her hips, the flex and sway of her scarred body. She wanted him to look. Felt wanted and strong under his gaze. He smiled again, then gasped and furrowed his brow as she traced the silhouette of his cock against his lean belly with the pad of her index finger. When she curved her fingers around the hard girth of his shaft he groaned a little, his eyes flashing between her face and her hand as she caressed him.

The warm weight of him in her hand, the delicate velvet of his skin shifting over his rigid length as she stroked him, fed her want. Fascinated, she watched the bead of nectar swelling at the tip of his cock, then painted it over the plump dome. All along, she worked her hips between his thighs, watching how his lips parted, how his belly quivered, how the light flared behind his eyes.

She squeezed a fat dollop of lube into her palm, eager to watch the pleasure rippling through Khalid's expression, through his body. But he caught her wrist.

“Already I am too close,” he warned, his voice uneven. “Please, don't let me finish before you're ready.”

“Alright,” she promised, somehow touched by how vulnerable Khalid sounded, just then.

She brought the little puddle of lube in her palm between his cock and belly, and lifted her hand until the tip of his cock dipped into the gelatinous pool. Khalid gasped and his hips bucked under her, jolting her with a deep, prodding pressure that brought ripples of pleasure behind it. Slowly, she slid her hand down the length of his erection, then up, just as slowly, then down the underside this time, glossing his cock.

Every slow stroke of her grip up the length of his hard-on, every pulsing squeeze and swirl of her hand over the full, flushed head provoked a startled gasp, a quiver in that taut, umber belly, a flicker in those golden irids. Vanka listened to every sigh, watched every twitch of every muscle in Khalid's face, enjoying keeping him at the edge, careful of letting him slip over.

And all the time she was fucking him, pumping her cock in and out of his ass, every little movement stirring her nerves, swelling her pleasure bigger, heavier. But there was no struggle. Her pleasure was like a rolling sea, and she was swimming for the joy of it, without a destination.

But a moment later she was slipping under, her pleasure swallowing her. Whimpering, rocking her hips in little desperate movements, she let go, her cunt spasming around the prodding hardness buried deep inside her, wave after wave of pleasure rippling through her.

She focused her gaze on Khalid as she came back to herself, and the look on his face made her face got hot.

“My god,” he sighed, “you are so gorgeous to watch. Fucking and coming and blushing.”

Vanka sank onto here hands to kiss him, to feel the heat and strength of his body against hers, to feel his arms holding her to him. After a long, deep kiss, after catching her breath and feeling her strength coming back she gave him an eager smile.

“What do you want, Khalid? My mouth? Or do you want to fuck me?”

Still holding her, almost clinging to her, he answered in a frayed voice, “Please, if you still have strength, fuck me and caress me, as you were. I want to finish like this, with you inside me.”

His words, the way he looked at her as he said them roused her sated sex all over again. Fuck yes.

She kissed him again, deep and wanting, like all of him could never be enough, and pulsed her hips a little, her breath hitching at how bare, how raw all her nerves felt after her orgasm. Staying with him, right there in his heat, where their lips could touch, she worked her hand between them, sheathed his cock in her grip.

Now, as she pumped her cock into him in a gentle rhythm, every pulse of her hips drove her hand up and down his cock. She kissed his lips, breathed his sighs. Gazed into Khalid's eyes, warming and pulling her to him like two fiery suns. Her own need was creeping up on her again as she fucked him, keeping her grip tight for a few slow, deep thrusts, then softening the touch of her hand as it slid over the length of him, feeling him twitch and shudder under her as she swirled her hand around the swollen head.

Khalid's fingers curved to the back of her head, keeping her close, and he took her kiss, sucking at her tongue, biting her lip, then releasing her mouth and holding her gaze with his. Every breath was a groan, now, staccato little pants, then a long gasp for air, then around again.

He was right there, and her own nerves were ratcheting up for another climax. She humped needfully, tiny little urgent thrusts, begging for it, going after it, pulsing her grip up and down the length of Khalid's cock, incredibly hard now. Yes, there, fuck, yes, she twitched into him, groaning her climax through clenched teeth, riding it out, her cunt spasming as Khalid's mouth opened in a low growl and his hips flexed up to meet hers and a wet heat seeped between them, thick and slick against her belly, her chest, on her hand.

She focused to find him already gazing at her, realized he was stroking her hair as they panted, their breathing, the thumping of their chests slowing, slowing. Sweet Khalid. He looked so, so happy. Or sad.

“Khalid?”

He gave her his placid smile, and touched her lips with a small kiss.

“Later I will tell you,” he said, his voice uneven.

They showered together. Vanka put Khalid's hand on her cock and guided him, and the ovoid bulb slipped from her body. He held the sculpture in his hands, studying it.

“Still it's pretty. Like art,” he said. “So smooth, so clear, like glass. And now I see, the architecture, how it stayed inside of you.” He smiled, touched her cheek. “And twice you came. I worried you would not, like this.”

Then he soaped and washed her crystalline cock, end to end. They took their time, bathing each other, dried off, and curled up in bed. Wove their legs together, wound their arms around one another.

“Khalid?” It was dark now, and she couldn't see his face, but she knew he was right there, an inch or two from their last kiss. “What was that look? Earlier, after we'd finished?”

There was a long silence in the dark before Khalid finally spoke.

“It is only that it has been a long time since I have made love.” There was another long quiet. She waited for him. “Of course, I love Galen. But you know already, we are only tender when we are not fucking. And you and I, we were tender, before, but we did not feel then as we feel now.”

“No.”

“I had forgotten how big that feeling is.”

Vanka pulled Khalid to her, cradling his naked body against hers.

 

[Varian P]

Author's questions

My goal for this segment of this story was pretty well the opposite of drksideofthemoon's goal with Cheechako--while he wanted to write something completely non-erotic, here, in this chapter, I'm attempting to tell a story almost entirely through sex.

So, I'd like to know how well I'm succeeding; from the beginning of the chapter, to the end of it, do you see a progression in Vanka's character? In her relationship with Khalid?

The chapter is almost non-stop sex, which is a pretty big contrast with the material bookending it. Did the sex get tiresome, without more non-sexual interaction to break it up?

A lot of the sex is a bit kinky or fetishy; do I manage to portray it in a way that doesn't detract from the gravitas of what they're going through? Does the way Vanka chooses to have sex make sense, as integral to the story?

Those are my main concerns, but I will be grateful for any other feedback and suggestions.

-Varian

 

[Verdad]

Always a special treat to see something of yours, Varian!

I'm just dropping in to say I'll comment when I find time to read more—as a quick answer based on this chapter only, I think you are succeeding in everything you asked about. The story comes through the sex loud and clear, dealing unobtrusively with layers upon layers of meaning.

Carry on & best of luck,

Verdad

 

[drksideofthemoon]

I've read your story through twice now. I liked Khalid and Vanka. Just from what I read about Galen, I don't know if I would like him or not.

I think you attained your goal. I felk Vanka grow stronger as the story progressed, and I felt Khalid's relationship with Vanka grow as well.

I didn't find the sex tiresome as I felt there was a reason and a purpose for it. The only thing that made me wonder was why did Vanka submit to Khalid each time he approached her early in the chapter. There seemed to be no emotion, no passion for either of them. Just sex for the sake of sex. Sort of like, hmmm nothing in the fridge to snack on, oh, there's Vanka, let me fuck her for a few minutes.

This isn't a criticism of the story, just my take on it. I found it interesting.

Her cock. That is the shortest paragraph I can ever recall seeing. I loved it. To me, it signalled a change in Vanka.

"Now tell me my scar is pretty." I was moved by this line. You have written a character who has lost much of what society sees as beauty in a woman, her breasts to cancer, and her hair due to the chemo. But, there is beauty in her, and I think near the end of the chapter it's apparent.

I found I had a hard time seeing the story in Los Angeles. I saw a more exotic location in my mind as I read it, and I was almost dissapointed to find them in California. I enjoyed the way Khalid spoke, and the smattering of French that you included in your dialog.

 

[Varian P]

Always a special treat to see something of yours, Varian!

I'm just dropping in to say I'll comment when I find time to read more—as a quick answer based on this chapter only, I think you are succeeding in everything you asked about. The story comes through the sex loud and clear, dealing unobtrusively with layers upon layers of meaning.

Carry on & best of luck,

Verdad

And it's always lovely hearing from you, Verdad.
Thanks for having a look, and for the encouragement on those areas of concern.
Carrying on, now.
-Varian

 

[Varian P]

I've read your story through twice now. I liked Khalid and Vanka. Just from what I read about Galen, I don't know if I would like him or not.

I think you attained your goal. I felk Vanka grow stronger as the story progressed, and I felt Khalid's relationship with Vanka grow as well.

I didn't find the sex tiresome as I felt there was a reason and a purpose for it.

Thanks for taking the time to read so closely, and for addressing my concerns. Glad to hear that, in your reading, for the most part the scenes are doing the work they're meant to be doing.

The only thing that made me wonder was why did Vanka submit to Khalid each time he approached her early in the chapter. There seemed to be no emotion, no passion for either of them. Just sex for the sake of sex. Sort of like, hmmm nothing in the fridge to snack on, oh, there's Vanka, let me fuck her for a few minutes.

This isn't a criticism of the story, just my take on it. I found it interesting.

Yeah, that's a tricky one to put across. I attempted to do a little expository cheat, in the scene preceding the one where Vanka offers herself that way for the first time, but I'm aware the significance of what's going on is subtle, perhaps to the point of it only being in my mind, and not making it onto the page at all.

What's supposed to be going on there is that Khalid is deeply in love with Galen (the third in their domestic/love triangle), and that Galen never gives himself -- Khalid and Galen only have sex when Khalid takes Galen by force (a complex psychological game they established at the beginning of their relationship). So Vanka wants to make herself utterly available to Khalid. Khalid, meanwhile, understands that in accepting this from Vanka, he is showing her that she is needed, that she has something to offer. So, even though, in his case, there's sexual release, these interactions are really about each of them affirming the value of the other.

So, I'm glad that it didn't come across as erotic, for you, because it's not supposed to be, but I think I need to work on making it more emotionally/psychologically significant, rather than that they're just doing it out of boredom.

Her cock. That is the shortest paragraph I can ever recall seeing. I loved it. To me, it signalled a change in Vanka.

Sigh of joy.

"Now tell me my scar is pretty." I was moved by this line. You have written a character who has lost much of what society sees as beauty in a woman, her breasts to cancer, and her hair due to the chemo. But, there is beauty in her, and I think near the end of the chapter it's apparent.

It's reassuring to hear you're responding to Vanka that way; I chose breast cancer, and the way her particular illness manifested, specifically to deal with ideas about "beauty" and to play with images of what a sexually desireable woman is supposed to look like.

I found I had a hard time seeing the story in Los Angeles. I saw a more exotic location in my mind as I read it, and I was almost dissapointed to find them in California. I enjoyed the way Khalid spoke, and the smattering of French that you included in your dialog.

Heh, interesting, you're reaction to the locale. I just happen to have grown up there, so it's a setting I'm comfortable writing (I'm going to have to start moving every year or two, or all my stories will be set in L.A. and Seattle...).

Thanks for the thoughtful feedback--very helpful!

-Varian

 

[drksideofthemoon]

Thanks for taking the time to read so closely, and for addressing my concerns. Glad to hear that, in your reading, for the most part the scenes are doing the work they're meant to be doing.

I didn't say this in my original comment but, I enjoy reading this chapter a lot. It's made me want to go back and read the preceeding chapters.

Yeah, that's a tricky one to put across. I attempted to do a little expository cheat, in the scene preceding the one where Vanka offers herself that way for the first time, but I'm aware the significance of what's going on is subtle, perhaps to the point of it only being in my mind, and not making it onto the page at all.

What's supposed to be going on there is that Khalid is deeply in love with Galen (the third in their domestic/love triangle), and that Galen never gives himself -- Khalid and Galen only have sex when Khalid takes Galen by force (a complex psychological game they established at the beginning of their relationship). So Vanka wants to make herself utterly available to Khalid. Khalid, meanwhile, understands that in accepting this from Vanka, he is showing her that she is needed, that she has something to offer. So, even though, in his case, there's sexual release, these interactions are really about each of them affirming the value of the other.

That makes a lot sense to me. I have no idea how much time has passed since Vanka had her masectomy and finished her chemo. I can imagine her view of herself as a woman, and being desirable in a sexual way would be challenged.

So, I'm glad that it didn't come across as erotic, for you, because it's not supposed to be, but I think I need to work on making it more emotionally/psychologically significant, rather than that they're just doing it out of boredom.

I don't know if you need to change much at all, my example was probably poorly worded. I never felt that it was out of boredom that they had sex. I just didn't quite understand their motivation at first.

Vanka would be washing the dishes, and Khalid would step in close behind her, and merely lay his hand on her shoulder. Setting the cup or knife in her hand down, she would sink silently to her hands and knees, and Khalid would sink down behind her, pull down her pants, if she was wearing any, or just her underwear. He'd lube her, open her, enter her. Fill her.

I found this passage to be very powerful. It was total submission on her part, but I didn't feel the domination on his. And then the paragraph that followed was perfect.

She'd offered it out of pure, deep love, out of awed reverence. But each time he took her gift, feeling how she was nourishing this man who'd starved so stoically for so many years, she got back a little of her faith in her strength.

It's reassuring to hear you're responding to Vanka that way; I chose breast cancer, and the way her particular illness manifested, specifically to deal with ideas about "beauty" and to play with images of what a sexually desireable woman is supposed to look like.

I felt at this point that Vanka felt whole again, as a woman. You've given the reader, and especially me as a male, a lot to think about. What is a woman? What makes a woman desirable and attractive. And too many times we are caught with shallow physical looks and ignore the true inner beauty of a woman.

Heh, interesting, you're reaction to the locale. I just happen to have grown up there, so it's a setting I'm comfortable writing (I'm going to have to start moving every year or two, or all my stories will be set in L.A. and Seattle...).

Yeah, start packing! I want more locales. I think it was due to the way Khalid spoke and the names of the characters. I saw a Moorish looking building in the south of Spain, Morocco...something like that when I read the story.

Thanks for the thoughtful feedback--very helpful!

-Varian

And thank you for a most interesing read. I'm sure more will pop into my head as I continue to re-read the story.

 

[Varian P]

I didn't say this in my original comment but, I enjoy reading this chapter a lot. It's made me want to go back and read the preceeding chapters.

I'm glad you enjoyed what you've read so far.

I don't know if you need to change much at all, my example was probably poorly worded. I never felt that it was out of boredom that they had sex. I just didn't quite understand their motivation at first.

Thanks for the clarification. It's hard to know, reading over my own stuff, how well certain nuances are coming through, so that's very helpful.

Yeah, start packing! I want more locales. I think it was due to the way Khalid spoke and the names of the characters. I saw a Moorish looking building in the south of Spain, Morocco...something like that when I read the story.

Soon, perhaps...

I know, I have a thing for the odd names. Galen's name is sort of from out of nowhere, but Khalid is from Algeria, and Vanka is third generation Russian-American. I am toying with the idea of taking them to Algeria for the end of the novel.

 

[Penelope Street]

Hi Varian,

Thanks for sharing your work with us. I love your overall idea, though I had something of a mixed reaction to this chapter and I'm still not sure why. Through the first couple scenes it really held my interest, but when Vanka started to bind Khalid's wrists, my interest waned. At that point I felt her confidence had returned- she saw herself as a sexual being again, and I didn't feel any remaining tension. Part of this could be because I haven't read the first eight chapters and don't know about the other issues the characters face- such as problems when Galen returns, so maybe there's something else happening here and I'm missing it. My intention was to read the rest the next day- except now it's been several next days and I still haven't, go figure, so I think I better at least answer what I can about the piece I did read.

... from the beginning of the chapter, to the end of it, do you see a progression in Vanka's character? In her relationship with Khalid?

Yes. In the first scene she's passive, in the next, she's more daring, and at the beginning of the third she's willing to take control. Works for me.

Did the sex get tiresome, without more non-sexual interaction to break it up?

Maybe? I'm not sure that the sex got tiresome so much as you achieved your goal earlier than you had imagined.

A lot of the sex is a bit kinky or fetishy; do I manage to portray it in a way that doesn't detract from the gravitas of what they're going through?

I like it. If they stuck to missionary sex, we wouldn't learn much. I suspect the sex got even kinkier in the parts I've yet to read?

Does the way Vanka chooses to have sex make sense, as integral to the story?

The parts that I read worked for me.

Khalid was born and raised in Algeria, lived in France from the age of fourteen to 24, and immigrated to the U.S. three years ago, hence his manner of speaking.

Thanks! I would have thought his manner of speaking too stiff without this. The rest of your introduction was most helpful too- I'd have been totally lost without it.



Here are a few lines that struck me as worth mentioning:

Behind her a light flashed on, and a rapping at the glass slider stopped her heart, then pumped it brutally hard and fast. She whipped around.

I wouldn't make a point of this sentence except that it's the start of the chapter and I think it could be better. First, starting with a proper name instead of a pronoun seems the way to go. More important, I had a hard time imagining my heart stopping, then pumping hard and fast, in the time it takes me to spin around. I mean pumping hard and fast requires at least several pumps, right?

The way she wanted to touch and kiss him was an ache, deep and irresistible, maybe like the need that compels a mother to hold and nurse her baby.

This analogy is so powerful it jarred me right out of the story. You're so right in that nursing is an extremely intimate act- in many ways more so than sex- and in that sense I had a hard time accepting that her ache was quite so deep. I'm not sure if a subtler analogy might have worked better. On a minor note, no matter the analogy, I think you should get rid of the 'maybe'.

Even the press of his cock, hard and tall against her belly made her happy. There was none of the guilt, none of the fear she felt with Galen.

Each instance like this is minor, but these litte explanations in between the actions may have kept me farther from Vanka. If I'd seen her smile instead of just being told she's happy, I think it would have coaxed me into her head a bit.

But there were two wet streaks down his face, where one or two tears had already fallen.

Nit. Why is it 'one or two' tears? How can one tear leave two streaks?

Love. 'Can someone love more than one person?' Galen had asked her that day she'd first come back, afraid he'd be angry to see her. In the weeks after she'd only thought about Galen and his love for Khalid, and whether Galen could love her, too.

I'm not sure about the purpose of these pieces that relate to the past. Why didn't the story include this information when it occured? Did I miss how long Galen will be gone?

“Yes.”

Three nights later...

This transition seems a little abrupt. Is there a set of "OOOOO"s missing here? Also- did you consider telling the scene that starts with "Three nights later" from Khalid's perpective, starting when he opens the door? It's a thought more than a suggestion: I'm not sure it would work better.

He'd be disappointed, insulted, that his beautiful dream, distilled to perfection with his pen, had materialized in the form of a mutilated girl.

This is such a beautiful line. I was so with her right then!




Well, that's all I have for now. I'm not sure if 'mixed reaction' is really the right term for my experience- I really liked what I did read, but I didn't feel compelled to read on once I decided Vanka understood she could be still be sexy sans breasts. My intution is that had I read the first eight chapters, this would not have been the case.


I hope I managed to answer a few of your questions.

Take Care,
Penny

 

[Varian P]

Hi, Penny.

Thanks for the read and the comments!

I love your overall idea, though I had something of a mixed reaction to this chapter and I'm still not sure why. Through the first couple scenes it really held my interest, but when Vanka started to bind Khalid's wrists, my interest waned. At that point I felt her confidence had returned- she saw herself as a sexual being again, and I didn't feel any remaining tension. Part of this could be because I haven't read the first eight chapters and don't know about the other issues the characters face- such as problems when Galen returns, so maybe there's something else happening here and I'm missing it...

...I'm not sure that the sex got tiresome so much as you achieved your goal earlier than you had imagined.

This is really helpful feedback. I'm afraid I'm keeping things a tad too subtle, here. Yes, Vanka's having sex with Khalid, but she's still holding a lot back.

In the early scenes in this chapter, she has sex with Khalid, but it's understood between them that their contact is limited, almost strictly to the penetration.

Later, she wants to give him more, but she bind his wrists because she's not ready to be touched, and she doesn't undress.

The rest of the scenes entail further progressions, but by the end of the chapter, she's still not ready for vaginal sex. And she's not ready to be sexual with Galen. So there are hurdles the character still needs to overcome, but I suspect I do need to make that more apparent.

I like it. If they stuck to missionary sex, we wouldn't learn much. I suspect the sex got even kinkier in the parts I've yet to read?

What, anal sex and bondage not enough for you? Yep, it gets kinkier. Promise.

This analogy is so powerful it jarred me right out of the story. You're so right in that nursing is an extremely intimate act- in many ways more so than sex- and in that sense I had a hard time accepting that her ache was quite so deep. I'm not sure if a subtler analogy might have worked better.

Hmmm, I'll think on that. I want to convey that Vanka's love for Khalid is...not exactly maternal, but that she does feel impelled to care for him. Hopefully it makes more sense, in-context as part of the larger story.

I'm not sure about the purpose of these pieces that relate to the past. Why didn't the story include this information when it occured? Did I miss how long Galen will be gone?.

The question in quotes happens "on screen" in an earlier chapter; I revisited it here because Vanka is just now asking herself if she can be in love with Khalid as well as Galen (she's already accepted that Galen is in love with both her and Khalid).

This transition seems a little abrupt. Is there a set of "OOOOO"s missing here?

Ergh, transitions are hell for me. That one may get a "OOOOO" yet.

Also- did you consider telling the scene that starts with "Three nights later" from Khalid's perpective, starting when he opens the door? It's a thought more than a suggestion: I'm not sure it would work better.

Khalid's turned into a much bigger character than I originally planned, and I've considered doing a few scenes from his POV, but I kind of want to keep him a bit of a mystery.

Thanks so much for your comments--your feedback is all very helpful.

-Varian

 

[Penelope Street]

I'm afraid I'm keeping things a tad too subtle, here.

Well, maybe for me, but I'm a very literal reader. From Verdad's post, I get the impression there may be some symbolism involved that I missed. On the other hand, the narration tells the reader what Vanka is feeling often enough, so maybe finding a way to convey her greater apprehensions and desires would work too.

The question in quotes happens "on screen" in an earlier chapter; I revisited it here because Vanka is just now asking herself if she can be in love with Khalid as well as Galen (she's already accepted that Galen is in love with both her and Khalid).

In that case, it may work like it is, but I think you might be able to improve it a little by keeping it more from Vanka's perspective- along the lines of 'Vanka remembered Galen's words...' instead of 'Galen had said...'

... transitions are hell for me.

Oh! I loved one of your other transitions:

Later, when they curled up together in bed he stroked her cheek and cradled her in his golden gaze, tranquil again.

OOOOO

“Your book,” Vanka said. Khalid glanced up from his laptop. “A lot of the elements are autobiographical.”

Later, she wants to give him more, but she bind his wrists because she's not ready to be touched, and she doesn't undress.

When Vanka takes her shirt off, that's the big step for her- maybe *the* big step. Sure, Khalid doesn't see her chest in that scene, but she did expose herself and he could have. I'd have seen this as a huge step even if the narration had not belabored the point. At that moment, I believed she was willing to allow her lover to see her, even if she might not have been totally comfortable with the idea.

The rest of the scenes entail further progressions, but by the end of the chapter, she's still not ready for vaginal sex.

I totally missed this. When I saw Vanka giving herself to Khalid whenever and wherever he wanted, I thought it was however he wanted too.

 

[Verdad]

From Verdad's post, I get the impression there may be some symbolism involved that I missed.

I'll try to summarize what I meant, though I'm finding it kind of hard to do with such a rich story. I'm not sure whether that means you missed something or that I'm prone to complicating (likely the latter), but I very much like how Varian manages to maintain the realism as regards the seriousness of the disease, never forsaking the story or downgrading it to a mere symbolical tool, yet managing to convey a deeper meditation too.

The question of identity is something I came to think of as maybe central to the chapter. It's addressed directly in that little section where Vanka observes the loss of her carefully cultivated muscle tone, but I believe it's the underlying theme throughout, too.

This question is elaborated through relationship between body and mind, a theme on which Varian plays a number of variations, with sexuality being an ideal arena for exploration—the place where the two can be both at their most united and at their most divided.

For Vanka, a gap opens between "I" and "my body", the changes it's gone through shattering the state of balance. The process of her healing is thus a process of growing back into her body, fitting both into a new, different whole.

I almost want to call it "initiation" or something to that effect, in the sense of ascending to a new level of functioning following annihilation.

This process takes place in a complex web of relationships, the complete intricacy of which I'm missing based solely on this chapter, but the chapter, nevertheless, tells its piece of the story clearly. On its surface it's a peaceful interlude, a time away from Galen and whatever conflicts pull at that relationship, but it's also a time in which the change already takes place, as subtly and fluidly as the most profound changes tend to do.

Initially, Vanka is only capable of sex in which she's objectified, a mere receptacle, taking no pleasure in the act but also bearing no responsibility for it. That allows her to keep the distance from her estranged body (and perhaps punish it for the betrayal too), while at the same time maintaining a level of intimacy with another and perhaps some sense of usefulness too, coming from her body's dumb ability to provide pleasure independently of herself.

Khalid, I intuit, made this first step possible by placidly accepting this ritualistic, non-mutual arrangement in a way that Galen wouldn't. He offered Vanka an unthreatening means of connection, and at the same time, his own hurt, albeit of a different kind, provided her with a chance for a role-reversal which probably wouldn't have been possible with Galen.

Instead of having her own needs taken care of by others—a terrifying consequence of being ill—she got to fulfill Khalid's. The ability to do so is an empowering contrast to her disease-induced helplessness, as well as a chance to treat her own pain by treating someone else's, sort of like in a mirror.

Khalid's physical perfection accentuates the contrast, and that lovely sentence about nursing a child gives the first spark of hope—breasts stand, among else, for nourishing and comfort, and Vanka's capability to provide those hasn't perished with them.

That she only chooses, at first, to participate in sex anally, speaks additionally of her temporary incapability for mutuality, but touches also the question of sexual identity. Loss of breasts is loss of femininity, something she enacts through being taken 'like a boy'. By the end of the chapter, she hasn't yet regained the full acceptance of herself as a woman, not as I think the question will be resolved in this story, but she's gone through a number of steps, from complete detachment to taking responsibility for Khalid's pleasure to finally claiming her own, with the way she goes about the final step lending the issue a brilliant complexity.

"Her cock" is artificial (a prosthetic, one might say), yet that doesn't diminish one bit the realness of the interaction between her and Khalid. Just like breasts are something she no longer has, cock is something she's never had, but neither, ultimately, define Vanka or her ability to connect with another.

I loved too how the gradation went—with Vanka's pleasure as the climax—because for a woman, even without Vanka's circumstances, I think it takes more courage and confidence to seek her own sexual satisfaction than to provide the same to others. Her topping Khalid has doubtless been a step forward (one that probably means more in the full context of the novel, too), but it's her allowing herself the fulfillment that assured me she was going to make it.

There's obviously territory left for working through; she does have to be in control as she fucks Khalid, and that artificial cock is at the same time a bridge and a safety-barrier. She yet needs to become strong enough to allow herself to be weak, i.e. relinquish the control, and all the relationships issues need yet to be resolved, but her embracing of her needs made me feel she's already over the roughest part.

In places, I'm possibly reaching too far in my reading, as well as missing the nuances that depend on the context of the novel, but all in all, this is how I perceived the chapter, and I do think it's successful in delivery.

Penny's criticism is still valid, as I might be the kind of reader who's all too ready to fill in the gaps in this kind of piece, but I do believe the additional clarifications shouldn't take more than a couple sentences, establishing clearly that Khalid only takes Vanka anally and possibly why.

Finally, as not to embarrass Varian by praises alone, I will add that the name Galen really jarred me. (A tad blatant for a story about hurt and healing. )

Best,

Verdad

 

[Penelope Street]

I'm not sure whether that means you missed something or that I'm prone to complicating.

LOL. Probably both!

It never occurred to me that one of the main themes of the chapter was Vanka having sex only like a boy. Had I read on, I'm still not sure I ever would have put two and two together. The biggest stumbling block I had was assuming that anal sex is what Khalid wants instead what Vanka doesn't want. Does Khalid ever make any move to enter Vanka vaginally? If he does and she eases him away with her fingertips toward where she wants him and then she looks into his eyes and nods- I think that could work.

Now that you've explained it, I think it's brilliant. And it should be subtle too- does Vanka even realize it? I don't think so! And what about Khalid, does he understand? Whether he does or not, I'd like to see how Vanka reacts if he gives her flowers or maybe a pendant. Does that happen later?

 

[Varian P]

Well, maybe for me, but I'm a very literal reader. From Verdad's post, I get the impression there may be some symbolism involved that I missed. On the other hand, the narration tells the reader what Vanka is feeling often enough, so maybe finding a way to convey her greater apprehensions and desires would work too.

Or maybe there's some way I could get Verdad to annotate everything I've ever written and ever will write.

In that case, it may work like it is, but I think you might be able to improve it a little by keeping it more from Vanka's perspective- along the lines of 'Vanka remembered Galen's words...' instead of 'Galen had said...'

A great suggestion.

I totally missed this. When I saw Vanka giving herself to Khalid whenever and wherever he wanted, I thought it was however he wanted too.

I definitely need to clear that up, hopefully without being to heavy-handed about it. There's a nuanced understanding between Vanka and Khalid, based on the way she first offered herself, which is a reference to a scene from a novel Khalid has authored. I utterly failed to make all this explicit, so it's my fault, not yours.

 

[Varian P]

Verdad, I honestly don't know what to say. You've elucidated all the subtext I was afraid had evaporated from the literal depications of the narrative, and you've done so far more eloquently than I could ever hope to have done, myself.

I won't reply point-by-point, because it would just be me saying "yes!" and jumping for joy at the end of every sentence. You did not add a single element that I didn't try to weave into this text, though I do have to give you a medal, or something, for getting it all, as I think I've made it pretty hard work.

It's so incredibly gratifying to have this chapter reflected back to me this way, knowing that my original intentions are coming through, however faintly.

And you get an extra credit medal for basically outlining the upcoming chapters, as well.

Now, who wants to rename Galen for me?

 

[Varian P]

The biggest stumbling block I had was assuming that anal sex is what Khalid wants instead what Vanka doesn't want. Does Khalid ever make any move to enter Vanka vaginally? If he does and she eases him away with her fingertips toward where she wants him and then she looks into his eyes and nods- I think that could work.

I think one of the reasons I'm having trouble making this more clear is that there's a tension I don't quite know how to resolve, between Vanka wanting to give herself unconditionally to Khalid, and her not being ready to be intimate, except on her own, limited terms. They're sort of mutually exclusive.

It's a delicate balancing act, and I even feel a bit like I'm cheating, but I want what Vanka is ready to offer to map naturally onto what Khalid wants and needs. So I don't want there to be an attempt on Khalid's part, and a deflection on Vanka's. In fact, I don't even want them to have to discuss it, because their intimacy during this period is supposed to be effortless, a contrast against the struggle and strain of each of these characters' respective relationships with Galen.

Now that you've explained it, I think it's brilliant. And it should be subtle too- does Vanka even realize it? I don't think so! And what about Khalid, does he understand?

Vanka is consciously working toward being sexual again, but I don't mean for Vanka to have thought it all through and decided, "I'm not ready for vaginal sex, but anal is okay." It's an intuitive thing, as she figures out little by little what she wants to do. So, when she reads the passage from Khalid's novel, and is presented with this particular physical/emotional exchange, it resonates for her, emotionally, as fitting her relationship with Khalid, and she's comfortable with the idea of the act, without asking herself what she'd do if Khalid initiated something that deviates from the text (which is why she's caught off-guard when he asks her to remove her shirt).

Later, when Khalid tells her he will want to give her pleasure in their next encounter, she tries masturbating, and has a painful emotional resonse to that feeling of penetration (which, actually, she might not have had, if he had been touching her, but the feeling of her own vagina to her fingers, combined with the sensation of penetration, makes her feel like her body has been opened up again). But her desire to connect with Khalid drives her to think about possible ways of being with him, and the idea of the double dildo resonates, and she tries it.

As for Khalid, he understands Vanka's needs both intuitively and rationally. He's an extremely sensitive, observant person, and so is good at taking just as much as she offers, without putting her in a position of having to refuse him, or give him more than she's ready to.

Whether he does or not, I'd like to see how Vanka reacts if he gives her flowers or maybe a pendant. Does that happen later?

Do you mean, as a sign that he's not just using her for his pleasure, or something?

Funny, I never depict characters giving each other gifts (except things like poems, or similar personal mementos), which is pretty much a reflection of my own odd attitude toward those kinds of gestures. That's probably a bad thing, since I don't really want my characters to be little bots that go around disseminating my ideas about the world. I could maybe see Galen doing something like that, but Khalid...hmmm, I don't know.

 

[Verdad]

Or maybe there's some way I could get Verdad to annotate everything I've ever written and ever will write.

*L* I'm sure you're better off without that service… Truly, your writing speaks all by itself. Sings and paints, too.

As for alternatives for Galen, I have no idea. But maybe you should only change it when you complete the novel? Changing the name midway might change your feel for the character.

 

[Penelope Street]

It's a delicate balancing act, and I even feel a bit like I'm cheating, but I want what Vanka is ready to offer to map naturally onto what Khalid wants and needs. So I don't want there to be an attempt on Khalid's part, and a deflection on Vanka's. In fact, I don't even want them to have to discuss it, because their intimacy during this period is supposed to be effortless, a contrast against the struggle and strain of each of these characters' respective relationships with Galen.

The important part for me would be Vanka being defensive about the possibility- Khalid wouldn't really need to make an attempt. Especially since Khalid already deviated from the story by telling Vanka to remove her shirt, I could imagine she would be worried he might deviate in other ways and thus she could just position herself so that he couldn't reach her in ways she doesn't want(although I'm having a hard time picturing such a position- and describing it will be even harder! ) Regardless, it was just an example of what might have worked for me. No doubt you can think of something better.

Do you mean, as a sign that he's not just using her for his pleasure, or something?

Funny, I never depict characters giving each other gifts (except things like poems, or similar personal mementos), which is pretty much a reflection of my own odd attitude toward those kinds of gestures. That's probably a bad thing, since I don't really want my characters to be little bots that go around disseminating my ideas about the world. I could maybe see Galen doing something like that, but Khalid...hmmm, I don't know.

My primary interest is in seeing Vanka's response to a gesture that says Khalid thinks of her as a woman. I admit I didn't consider why he might make such a gesture. Personally, 'Forgive me' gifts just piss me off more and I'd rather go out and have fun on an occasion like Valentines or my birthday, but those out of nowhere gifts just because he saw it and thought I'd like it- I adore those!

Now, who wants to rename Galen for me?

I have no idea what the issue is with his name. Is my lack of knowledge a blessing? I'm not at all sure I want to know if it's something mean!

 

[Varian P]

The important part for me would be Vanka being defensive about the possibility- Khalid wouldn't really need to make an attempt. Especially since Khalid already deviated from the story by telling Vanka to remove her shirt, I could imagine she would be worried he might deviate in other ways and thus she could just position herself so that he couldn't reach her in ways she doesn't want(although I'm having a hard time picturing such a position- and describing it will be even harder! )

Maybe she could have a specially configured chastity belt custom made?

Regardless, it was just an example of what might have worked for me. No doubt you can think of something better.

Actually, you've just given me an idea that I think will fit perfectly with the dynamics of the chapter, and make what's going on with Vanka a bit more clear--thanks!

My primary interest is in seeing Vanka's response to a gesture that says Khalid thinks of her as a woman.

There's no way you could know this, based only on this chapter, and this is something else I don't really want to make explicit, but one of the several reasons Vanka is able to make her first forray toward being sexual again with Khalid, and why she does so with him, rather than Galen even though he has been her primary partner up until now, is that Khalid is more into men than women, so she feels less ill at ease about her possible lack of femininity with him.

It will be when she finally goes to Galen again that she'll be testing whether she'll be accepted as a woman, a feminine lover.

I have no idea what the issue is with his name. Is my lack of knowledge a blessing? I'm not at all sure I want to know if it's something mean!

Nah, nothing like that. Galen was the name of a famous Greek healer from days of old. A tad much, naming the character after that fellow, I admit. Pity, as I've gotten fond of the ring of that name.

 

[Penelope Street]

Actually, you've just given me an idea that I think will fit perfectly with the dynamics of the chapter, and make what's going on with Vanka a bit more clear--thanks!

Cool beans! I knew you'd think of something better.

 

[Varian P]

I just wanted to say thank you, Verdad, drksideofthemoon, and Penny, for all your helpful thoughts and suggestions. It was generous of you all to read such a lengthy excerpt and respond so thoughtfully.
Cheers!
-Varian

 

[drksideofthemoon]

I just wanted to say thank you, Verdad, drksideofthemoon, and Penny, for all your helpful thoughts and suggestions. It was generous of you all to read such a lengthy excerpt and respond so thoughtfully.
Cheers!
-Varian

Thank you for providing such an interesting read.