Evergreen Kiss

My tongue moved upward, searching for her clit, and when I found it, she let out a very loud "aaahhhhh". Her hand found mine, pulling it up to her breast. I could just reach her nipple with my fingertips, and I put them to work as I quickened the pace of my tongue. Her whole body was shaking a little, and all the little moans had blended together into one continuous "mmmmmmmmmmm". I brought my free hand from her hip to her opening, right beneath my tongue, and slowly put my index finger inside her. I gently stroked her from the inside, and that was enough. Her back arched, her hips bucked and she pulled away from my tongue as the orgasm started to crash over her. I kept my finger inside her and she clenched down on it as she came, not letting go until the tremors subsided.

I looked up with some pride at my handiwork. Meaghan's breathing was shallow as she recovered, and her body glistened a little with sweat. And I realized how much I enjoyed it. It was not just because I made my love feel good, which I obviously did. It was actually fun manipulating her wonderful body and feeling it respond as I willed it. I had never had that connection before during sex, and I finally understood what I was missing. And it was undeniably a turn on; my own body was more than ready for whatever came next.

I crawled up the bed to lie next to her, and Meaghan finally recovered enough to speak. "Oh, god, Sarah. That was amazing. You told me you needed to be sure you that you could give me pleasure, and I call tell you without reservation that you did. I love you so much." I lay next to her for a while, stroking her and kissing her and telling her "I love you too." I actually started to get a little impatient. She may have just had a thundering orgasm, but I hadn't, and my body was more than ready for her attention. I couldn't blame her though; it really was all my fault.

Meaghan regained her strength, and she made love to me as I had to her, with no less enthusiasm and with considerably more skill. It was wonderful, and it seemed to last forever. My body responded to her in ways I didn't even know were possible.

She teased my body lightly for a while with kisses and fingertips, but sensing how much I needed her, right now, she moved her focus between my legs. She was gentle at first, spreading my lips apart with her wonderful mouth, sucking on them, teasing them. But the gentleness didn't last -- I felt her tongue exploring, searching, and when she found my clit, she did things to it with her tongue that I still don't understand. All I know is that it felt amazing.

Somehow she always knew exactly what to do with her tongue and her lips and her fingers. Every time she stroked or licked or sucked, I thought she had found the most amazing thing I could ever feel, and every time I was wrong, because the next thing was even better. After what was probably only a few minutes, but felt like hours, my body started to tense up, and I knew I was getting close. I felt a finger inside me, stroking me, and her tongue was making little circles around my clit. One more circle, then two, and then her tongue was right on it, moving up and down. That was it -- a wave of pleasure crashed over me like nothing I had ever felt before. I think I probably screamed, but I don't really know. All I can remember was Meaghan's mouth and the explosion it was causing inside me.

I expected her to stop, to let me breathe, but she didn't. She slowed down and eased back her tongue just enough to be bearable, but she kept going. And when the first orgasm subsided, she went right back to it, licking and sucking and stroking until I was ready to explode again. I came two more times before she finally relented, each wave just as large as the first.

When I opened my eyes, the room was spinning, and Meaghan was nuzzled beside me, kissing my ear. I wanted to tell her how wonderful she was, how much I loved her, but my mouth couldn't form words, so I kissed her instead. Both of us spent, we curled up together in bed and dozed off.

***

I woke up first, and headed to the bathroom to clean up. When I came out, Meaghan was awake too, and needed the bathroom herself. She came out with my hairbrush and said "That hair needs some more attention. I could braid it for you..."

I hadn't worn my hair in a braid since Nana did it for me in high school. I really like the way it looks, but I can't do it myself. I've tried, but it always comes out lopsided and I give up. So I immediately agreed and sat down on the ottoman by the chair in the corner, still naked. Meaghan sat behind me, also still naked, and started brushing. I sat patiently and quietly while she worked, but that thing I have about having my hair brushed is even stronger when it's braided. By the time Meaghan tied off the end of the braid with some elastic, I was wild.

I turned to her, found her mouth and kissed it forcefully, almost violently. I'm sure my eyes looked like some wild animal. I grabbed her hand and shoved it between my legs, and Meaghan knew what to do. She rubbed me for a little bit, and I came in a short, sharp spasm, without ever breaking the kiss.

When I let go, Meaghan kissed me on the forehead and said "Wow! I never knew anyone could get so turned on just by having her hair brushed and braided. I have a feeling we'll be doing that again."

I smiled, kissed her neck and got up. We'd both expended a lot of energy, and I was hungry. "Lunch?"

***

I got a container of roasted vegetables out of the fridge -- zucchini, eggplant, red bell pepper and Walla Walla onion -- and put them in the microwave to warm up a bit. I cut off two chunks of focaccia, spilt them in two and spread one side with some garlicky pesto. I filled each sandwich with the roasted vegetables, fresh tomato and fresh mozzarella, and put them in my sandwich press for a bit. Meaghan sat on a stool behind my kitchen counter, watching, and we chatted about random things. I put the sandwiches on plates, with a pickle each and some salty roasted red potatoes, and I poured two glasses of ginger beer.

We sat out on the balcony and ate lunch, with a little livelier playlist coming out of the speaker than the one I chose for last night. Meaghan took a bite of her sandwich and said "This is yummy, sweetie. I could get used to eating like this."

"I'm glad you like it. You know how much I like cooking, and it's more fun to do for two than for just me."

It was another beautiful day, and as much as we wanted to go back to bed, we also wanted to get outside and enjoy the sun a bit. We don't get much sunshine here in Seattle, so we try to make the most of it when we can. Meaghan didn't have her hiking clothes with her, but she did have her sports bra and some comfortable shoes. I found her a wide-brimmed hat and my largest tee shirt and walking shorts. They were a little tight, but she was comfortable enough, and I enjoyed the view. I rubbed some sunscreen lotion into her skin, being much more thorough than was strictly necessary, and she did the same for me.

We went downstairs and headed out for a walk on the Seattle waterfront. We walked a long way north, past the pier where we had dinner last night. The city waterfront ends at the Olympic Sculpture Park, and north of that, there's a beautiful path along the shore of Elliot Bay that goes on for miles. We walked until we got tired, and turned around to go home. We talked a bit about random things, but we spent most of the walk in silence, just enjoying the view and being together.

It was late afternoon when we got back to my place, and I didn't want the day to end. I took Meaghan's hand and said "Stay tonight."

She looked at me with regret and said "I'd love to, sweetie, but I can't. The design review meeting that was supposed to be this afternoon got pushed back to tomorrow morning, at eight, and like three levels of my management are going to be there. It's really important that I do well, and I'm not quite ready yet. I need about an hour tonight to finish editing my presentation and review my notes, and I don't want to risk commuting to work from your place instead of walking from mine."

She thought for a minute and said "If you promise to leave me alone for an hour, and not keep me up too late, I'd really like you to spend the night at my place. It's not the beautiful castle in the sky that you have, but it is home."

I was thrilled. "I'd love to. I'll go pack my stuff for tomorrow." I packed a few days' worth of clothes, just in case, and we got in my car and drove to the east side. We had our second dinner as a couple in a little Sichuan dive in Redmond -- quite a bit different from the first. Meaghan's was the only non-Asian face in the place by the time we left.

***

Meaghan's apartment was small and clean, with a bunch of her illustrations hanging on the walls of the living room. She leased it before she even moved here from Michigan, based on three criteria -- it wasn't a total dump, it was fairly inexpensive, and she could walk to work. She'd been looking for a new place for herself off and on for a year or so, but hadn't found anything she liked enough to give up the low rent and walking to work.

As we carried our bags into her bedroom, I realized that every time I had been here, the bedroom door had been shut. When she opened the closet and started to put her clothes away, I saw the reason -- there were over a dozen canvasses, stacked neatly against the wall, sorted by size into three piles. These were her real paintings, and I don't think she'd ever showed them to anyone, except maybe Jenna.

After she finished putting everything away, she showed me her paintings, one by one, and told me a little about each. They were mostly landscapes, and looked like the Pacific Northwest, full of dark blue and green and gray, with a few bright, warm elements peeking through. They were lovely, a little less abstract than some of the later impressionists that Meaghan admired, but still more about light and color than anything else. The backgrounds of her illustrations had some of the same beauty that she poured into her paintings, but seeing the real thing was quite moving.

"They're beautiful. Thank you for showing to me."

After taking some more time to admire them, I said, as gently as I could "I do hope someday you can show these to the world, and not keep them hidden away in your bedroom."

Meaghan replied in a thoughtful, measured voice. "It's hard. I can never really tell if I'm any good at this. I know in my head what I can do well, technically, and I when I evaluate my work objectively, the way I would another painter's, I realize some of it is actually pretty good. But I can never quite get over feeling like I'm just a kid showing off her drawings on the refrigerator, with no real talent."

Her voice turned a little tart when she said "Besides, the art market these days is a lot more interested in hip and edgy and modern than in some wannabe impressionist." I couldn't argue with that.

"I can sell some of my illustrations, and I've started to try, but these will be staying here for now."

There was one canvas, smaller than the rest, painted side against the wall, that she had not shown me. I looked over at it, and for a moment, I think she wanted to hide it and not let me see it. But she picked it up and held it to her chest so I couldn't see it, and started to explain.

"One of the classes I took in school was in Renaissance technique. I hated it -- most types of art come naturally to me, but that was a long, difficult slog. The one halfway decent painting I did took about three times longer than anything I had ever worked on before. But by the time it was over, I was proud of myself -- with a lot of work, I could produce an almost passable painting in the style of the old masters. I never painted a single thing in that style after I finished, though, until I moved out here and found a subject worth the effort. This one took me a whole sketchbook of studies, and this is the third canvas, but I do like the result."

She turned it around and showed me, slowly and almost reluctantly, and all I could do was stare. It was a portrait of a young woman sitting in a room that was all dark wood and shadow. The room looked like an old world library or study -- there was a shelf of leather-bound books on one edge of the canvas. The young woman wore a dark blue blouse, with a strand of pearls at her neck, and had long, straight black hair. Her dark eyes seemed to be hiding a secret, and her mouth had just a hint of a smile. Her skin was almost luminous, and her angelic face looked a little bit Japanese. Was it me? It couldn't be anybody else, but I never thought of myself like this. Was this really how she saw me?

I opened my mouth, but it took me a while to say anything. "She looks more like an angel than a person. How can I ever live up to this painting?"

"This is what I see every time I look at you, or at least the best I can put down on canvas. You have nothing to live up to."

I knew right then, with absolute certainty, that she loved me just as much as I loved her, and that we were going to spend the rest of our lives together.

***

Meaghan kicked me out of the bedroom at eight -- she needed to get her work done, and honestly so did I. That wasn't going to happen if we were in the same room together. The building may have been closed all day, and all the machines powered off, but email still came in, and I needed to deal with it. By the time Meaghan came out, I was done working and I was catching up on tech news. I closed my laptop as she sat down next to me on the couch. We put an episode of Firefly on the TV -- I love my geek girl -- and snuggled while we watched.

Meaghan set her alarm for seven, and I set mine for nine. I had offered to walk her to work before her big meeting, but she told me she didn't want the distraction, and that I should sleep in. We both used the bathroom and brushed our teeth, and got ready for bed. I had packed my favorite sleep shirt, but Meaghan convinced me, without much protest, that I wouldn't need it.

I was really looking forward to our lovemaking that night. I knew we couldn't take forever since Meaghan had to get up early, but we went to bed early enough to be able to take our time. I was a lot more relaxed -- I had proved to myself that morning that I really could make love to a woman, if (and only if) that woman was Meaghan.

I expected we would take turns like the morning, bug Meaghan had other ideas. She laid me on my back and kissed me all over while my hands wandered over her body, paying special attention to my nipples, but when her mouth finally settled between my legs, the rest of her body was on top of me, with her knees up by my shoulders. I figured out what she had in mind, and put my own attention into her pussy, suspended right in front of me. It was a little awkward at first -- we had to adjust our positions a few times, and I needed an extra pillow under my head -- but we made it work.

Meaghan went slowly at first, while I was more aggressive. This was still so new to me that I hadn't learned patience, so my tongue was all over her before she gently separated my lips with her tongue. The combination of Meaghan's mouth between my legs and the sight and scent and taste of her right in front of me wound me up as tight as could be, but Meaghan kept the pace of her tongue slow enough to hold back my release. I was beginning to understand her body better, how it responded to all the different ways I could lick and kiss and tease. I also felt then tension building up in her body, as it already had in mine, and I felt her tongue moving faster and harder against my clit as I caught hers with the tip of my tongue.

Whatever the trigger, we came together, in a longer and softer wave than the ones we had in the morning. I would have been quite happy to try again, and again after that, but Meaghan had to get up early, so we snuggled together and I held Meaghan until she was asleep.

***

Meaghan was gone when I woke up, but I could still smell her scent on the pillow next to me, and that was enough to make me smile as I got ready for work. That day at work was ... different. Meaghan may have been busy, but I was in a bit of a lull. My product had just shipped, and we had a couple of weeks of planning before starting anything new. I had things to do, of course -- prototyping new stuff, clearing out my bug backlog, writing some more unit tests, working on my tree visualizer tool -- but my job didn't really require my full attention, and that was probably a good thing. I spent a lot of time daydreaming about Meaghan and thinking about our future together. I was very happy that I would actually have time to spend with her before work got intense again and I started working insane hours.

I didn't see Meaghan at work all day -- the design review went until almost five o'clock, and she spent a couple hours after that in her office with the door shut. She did send me an email telling me it went well, but she had work to do before the end of the day. I decided I wanted to cook her dinner that night. I shot her a quick email to make sure it was okay to invade her kitchen, and took off a little early (for me, anyway) to go shopping. Meaghan's kitchen equipment was fairly minimal -- it's a pretty small apartment -- but she had all the basics, and that's all you really need to cook well. I made a vegetable curry with cauliflower and potatoes, and put some raisins and coconut in for sweetness, and served it over rice. I also put together a salad with real tomatoes and avocado and a citrus vinaigrette. Dinner was just about ready when Meaghan got home, and she almost drooled when she opened the door and caught the aroma.

"That smells soooo good, and I'm famished. The stupid design review went through lunch, so I only had time to grab an apple during one of the breaks."

I must have looked a little concerned. She said "Don't worry -- it really did go well for me, even if I have a lot more work to do now. But we can talk about that later. Now I need to eat."

I put everything on the table, got us two hefeweizen from the fridge and we sat down to eat. After chowing down her first few bites, Meaghan started telling me about the review while she ate.

"Thank you for dinner, sweetie -- this is really good.

They really liked my stuff and the rest of my team's stuff, but then there was another feature that I didn't even know about, presented by another designer who shall remain nameless. It was totally inconsistent with everything else we did -- it looked like it was in a completely separate product, from a different company and maybe even a different planet. There was a lot of yelling, most of it directed initially at my boss, but after a while, they figured out that the feature was done completely off the radar, with nobody on my team even knowing about it.

The managers liked the feature a lot, and they want to keep it, but they hated the interface design, and so now somebody has to redesign and recode it in the next two weeks if we want to ship. And that somebody is apparently me, along with the dev who initially built it.

So I'm going to be doing some extra work this week to hand off to the dev by Monday. My boss pushed all my other work onto other people so I could focus on this, but I'll still be at work later than I wanted. I'm really sorry our first week as a couple is going to be so crazy." I smiled at the word "couple".

I reached out to hold her hand and told her "As somebody told me recently, 'no sorry, never sorry'. Besides, I'll probably be working crazy hours myself in a month or two -- that's the life we get working here, and I think it's worth it, most of the time anyway. Let me cook dinners for you and take care of you this week. We can figure the rest out later."