Delicious Literary Erotica
"A Fairy-Tale Flavor," a Vanilla sex story by Trish DeVene
Coming Up or Going Down, by Mick Payton (prints available at ObsessionArt.com)
During a Sunday tradition with grandma, mom, and kids licking ice cream at the local cafe, I’d never anticipated a slender brown arm, in orchestrated sweeps, wiping down the brushed-chrome hood over the counter where we sat. Never anticipated tiger eyes to raise under a canopy of black silk hair. Never anticipated those eyes to stare as if I were the origin of desire.
"Libby." I reached past my son Josh to press my daughter back to her stool. Unfazed by her exuberance, the young man behind the counter smiled and grabbed a dish from overhead. The glass ice cream dishes hung upside down along the counter, sparkling in the streaks of sunlight. His smile held all the promise of those waiting dishes. His tongue would be a flavor once delegated to the gods.
This ice cream server wasn’t here last month. As his sun-specked, brown eyes shifted to me to take my order, I was no longer sure I could swallow something even as slippery-sweet as sherbet. My cheeks flushed and, seeking distraction, I quickly tapped my mother’s shoulder to thank her again.
When I was growing up, a trip to the ice cream parlor was a rare treat, dedicated to vacations, if that. But after my dad died and the new ice cream café opened in town, my mom began a family tradition—the four of us feasting on a multitude of flavors two Sundays a month.
"You’re welcome, Claire," my mom said, patting my knee. "Now, what are you having?"
My hands were clasped in my lap like a prim schoolgirl, and I had to secure them between my thighs as his eyes looked into mine in anticipation. He couldn't be out of college yet. His skin, Latino-brown, was spiced like cinnamon, polished rich as cognac.
"A scoop of chocolate mint," I managed. Mint was easy on a restless stomach, calming for a quaking heart.
"Whip cream? Cherry?" His full satin lips offered further delights, and I could only shake my head. This wasn't the time for cherries and cream. This was lunch; this was kids, and moms, with no place for smoldering eyes that knew too much.
To my relief, he slipped his pad of paper into his pocket and turned to scoop the flavors, a turn that allowed full view of his sleek body.
"Can we have extra cherries?" Libby whispered, bending over Josh, nearly knocking him from the stool. I just shook my head. There'd be no asking for any favors. We'd eat and move on.
"’Course you can," grandma said. "Would that be all right?" she called to the man. He was slightly bent at the waist, leaning to scoop from the lower bins of rainbow temptations. Bent in such a way, he peered under his arm; his profile slid through me, a strange sense of history in him, wisdom despite the lacquered shine of his youthful skin.
"Sure," he said smiling to the kids.
"Are you managing this month? Did the child support check come?" my mom asked me. In her hands, the white napkin had folded into a makeshift swan.
I nodded, trying to focus on the swan's head as it dipped and rose under her playful fingers. But the fountain man's lean back dipped too, his waist narrowing like the sugar cones, belting what slipped below.
I envisioned drinking the melted ice cream from the cone's opening tip. "The check came," I said, licking lips that hadn't even yet succumbed to the mild mint cream. "I'll be fine this month."
Her sigh brought me momentarily back to reality. These ice cream days were her treats for us, a little time out from the hectic life of a woman raising two kids alone. These ice cream days were my dream time, where I could lick fairy tales.
The man spun back to the kids. Strawberry and vanilla ice cream bulged over the dishes, his slim brown fingers like hot, moist earth delivering the ripest fruits. In orchestrated loops, he sprayed the whipped cream, and then those fine long fingers reached into the cherry juice, plucking cherries by the stem.
"Claire?" My mom leaned on her elbow to see my face fully. Flushed as the red between his fingers, my panties already harboring juice. "Are you ..." Then she looked at the fountain man, and a smile strained on her lips, tightening as she discreetly settled back. When she touched my leg, I nearly jumped, and his eyes flickered to us, glinting, as his bed of lips tilted toward a mischievous smile.
***
Lunch and ice cream with grandma just wasn’t going to be the same again. I dropped her home and forgot all errands, letting my car take the path it knew from habit. Josh folded his keepsake placemat in smaller and smaller triangles, and Libby stared out the window counting streetlights.
I tried to breathe through the shaft that had lodged in my throat, down my esophagus. The vision of him tingled down through my stomach, igniting vulva, swelling clitoris, while cherubic faces in my rearview mirror straightened my shoulders, told me forget forget forget.
Libby’s fingers began a dance, as if conducting. “I liked the ice cream man,” she said. “That’s what I’m going to be.” Her hands began a swooping motion, and I recognized, in the grace of her dips, his finesse.
“Why, Libby?”
“Then we can get married and work together.”
Her eyes were caught in the movement of fingers and wrists, exploring the air, imagining a future.
It was the immediate I wanted to imagine. Right now, a room at the back of the ice cream shop, no marriage except my hands to his shoulders pinning him to the tiled wall. A hand to his chest, so I could step back and he would stay, let my eyes make first exploration, because that face, that body, needed the attention of every sense, and I wanted an hour for each.
A triangle of paper thudded against the dashboard. “Josh, what are you…?”
My children giggled.
“Give me, I want to try,” Libby demanded.
“I can’t drive and be chasing paper footballs,” I said.
“But mom, we’re home.” Already, Josh was unbuckling his car seat. Yes, the car had found our dead-end street, our grey and white townhouse as blank as all the others.
“I’m going to ask for five cherries next time,” Libby said pushing over Josh to retrieve the wadded paper.
Josh won this time. And one was opening the front door and one the back, both rushing to the house before I realized I didn’t want to leave my seat. I wanted to go back. I wanted to lick cherries from his fingers, to place them between his teeth.
***
The following Sunday, my mom had pirate hats for the kids, and a ribboned box for me. In her driveway, she had me unwrap the gift, a metallic green tank top that flashed in the sun.
“You want to try it before we leave?” she asked, her look expectant. “You could wear it.”
I glanced down at the cotton shirt I had worn at least twice this week already and smiled back at her. “Sure.” The new top shone like his hair in sun, flashing…like his eyes, glinting with amusement, deepening with knowing.
At the cafe, the fountain counter was full and we agreed to the booth nearby, the kids slamming against the wall on each side, their hats knocking off. Before I sat, I glanced over towards the fountain to see him. His head was bent over what he was dishing out, his eyes rising to meet mine, direct and intent. I dropped to the seat. Josh and Libby were fighting for the green crayon, my mom offering suggestions for different shades of grass. “In the fall, it might be golden,” she said, handing Libby the yellow.
How would his body look laid out in feathered grasses?
The chrome hood circled the fountain area, along with the line of ice cream dishes. I couldn’t see his face, but his torso moved left to right, busily filling needs, those smooth brown arms flinging up to snatch a sparkling dish, swooping down to slide it on the counter. Precise as a hawk, narrowing in on his prey. Whatever he dove for, he’d get.
What did his eyes see now? What thoughts circled in his mind?
The server spoke about specials and drinks to start us off, raspberry tea, lemonade, and behind the fountain the ice cream server coursed, shadowing his co-workers with his dark frame, with the perfect equation of instinct. He reached and the object of his desire was there. He scooped and flavors curled under his command.
“The tea,” I answered, finally looking at the waiter. He had close-shaved hair, fair skin, kind eyes. A nice-looking guy himself, but another already had me in his sights, marking X as his prey, Y as the pattern of flight, and Z how he would get my crossed legs to open. The ice cream server’s eyes dipped once beneath the paling chrome, tiger-bright, then equaled in on me.
It was on our fifth Sunday when his eyes moved from knowing to a dare. He held my stare; he glanced up from under the dark shade of hair, the definition of black brows, caught my eye, and kept it. And I ate less and less, letting my mom entertain the kids, while I sat trapped, flushed, and useless.
I heard Libby whisper over her concentrated coloring. “I don’t want Josh to be prince at my party.” She colored a page of Sleeping Beauty, the scene where the prince slashed at the wall of thorny roses. Her wide blue eyes flashed up to the ice cream counter. “I want him.”
She clenched the black crayon in her fist.
***
The next Sunday we ran errands before getting ice cream. Mom was tired, and the kids distracted by the new grocery store coloring books we’d bought. The table was quiet with concentration, and I was coloring his movements in my mind, frame by frame.
When the customers cleared, his hand skimmed down the counter, wiping puddles of cream. His agile body moved quick, as if unhindered by gravity. I stared until his eyes caught my gaze with that direct penetration. He stared until I dropped my eyes, then he leaned back against the counter. In my periphery his legs crossed, his arms folded over his chest. And he watched.
He couldn’t be more than twenty, I told myself, twenty-two, but he seemed much older. Experienced. How was he so accustomed to attention – so uninhibited by it?
In Libby’s coloring book, a prince held a hawk, perched on his arm, his other hand pointed skyward. I wanted to see the hawk’s release.
“Turn the page, Libby,” I said, but on the next page, a princess sat alone by a well, making wishes.
Across the table, Josh rubbed steely blue over a knight in full armor. The knight’s lance was thrust forward as he leaned after it, his horse in full gallop. If I asked Josh to turn the page, would the princess be speared to the well, to depthless dreaming?
“What sort of horse do you suppose that is?” I asked Josh, knowing about his love for the Arabian. Without even a glance, he grabbed a yellow crayon and sketched in his own addition to the picture—a horn on the horse’s head, a unicorn.
“Ah … magic,” my mom said. “Just like your mother, you love the possibility, don’t you?”
Josh just boldly colored away, and I looked for the ice cream server. He had moved out of view. Would he be the prince teaching the hawk its flight, or the knight skimming the earth on horseback? Yes, intent on his prey, natural, just like the way the planet spins and tales get told as relinquishment to dreams.
He was here for mine. But where was he?
I nearly stood to look for him, and my mom eyed me questioningly. “Restrooms?”
“Um, yes. Yeah. I’ll be right back.”
Keeping an eye on the counter, I made my way to the restrooms, grateful now that I didn’t see him. All these thoughts of fairy tales—this man was not seeing a princess at a well. He was seeing a woman in the clutch of desire.
I rounded the corner, suddenly feeling the weight of shadow following—him, agile-bodied tracking my flight. I could push open the apple-red door, rush inside, cower in a stall. My palm rested on the door’s cool shellac.
He had followed. His breath was sundown on my back. And the blood-red door slid away.
“You just going to keep looking?” he said, his words invading my throat.
My legs shook as I turned. Turned to him, standing straight and slim. He’d cut his hair and it fringed over his forehead, a soft shine in the dim light. His skin held an ember’s slow burn, charred with unshaven night. His eyes were gold steel, honest, cutting into mine.
He raised his hand between us, a cherry pinched between thumb and finger. I wasn’t ready for this, but his full lips parted, closing in, and my eyes fell from his. The sundown breath of him, lips to lips. Brief touch, and his tongue slicked in.
I locked my knees, bracing my legs to hold me, and my fallen lids rose.
Then he stepped back with a grin, put cherry between his teeth, plucked it, and turned.
I spent five minutes in the restroom recovering. He was dipping scoops of something blue for two teen girls who swung their legs to meet the energy of their secret smiles.
At our table, Josh and Libby had finished coloring, and I was in no mood for the clown nose Josh kept trying to squish on mine, or Libby sitting chin in hand, gooey-eyed watching the evasive ice cream man scoop and swirl and dip, flashing that smile with every dish. What had happened to that fantasy of shoving him against the wall? He’d undone me.
“Your mom’s tired, Libby,” my own mom said, and I realized Libby was asking me about her birthday party, if she could have it here, in the private party room with ice cream man. And my head was shaking no.
***
But it was all arranged. The party date, the early arrival to set up streamers and balloons. I was to bring the princess party favors, bingo games, and decorations while my mom brought the kids, an hour later. They told me to pull to the side entrance, where I could unload boxes straight to the party room.
A drizzle had begun as I arrived, the cardboard boxes damp and soft as I balanced them on my knee to manage the heavy door.
And then the door lightened and a hand came into view, warm brown, a satin arm, lean and smoothly toned. “Do you have more?” he asked, glancing past me to the car. Stretched like that, arm holding the door, his shirt collar parted, revealing a strong neck, the hint of clavicle, the dip where my lips …
“No, no that’s everything,” I managed, my arm brushing his abdomen as I skirted through. He smelled earthy, like sun-baked brick, a hint of smoke. My legs quivered as I headed to the table; his hand came up under the box and scooped it from my shaking arms.
“Thanks.” Did it have to sound so breathy? I grabbed the cardboard flap and yanked, eager to move on, move away, but he reached in first, snatching a long white feather from the craft I’d planned. He held it up over our heads, twirled it, his neck stretching, his jaw aligned with my mouth that wanted to bite its strength, follow the smooth silk plain of his skin, over his nose, tipping his cheekbone, letting those black lashes feather me better than this human-made fluff he teased over us.
Black brows, black lashes, a black fringe of hair—he looked down at me, with eyes like the tiger’s eye gem, streaked brown and gold and polished bright.
“Please,” I whispered.
He grinned. “Please?”
I shook my head, tried swallowing the moisture building in my mouth, my body wanting to melt like ice cream left too long. “I don’t know …”
The feather descended, tickling my neck, his knuckles brushed my breast. He crooked another grin. “Please?” and the knuckles traced the underside of my breast, across my rib cage, dipping with my stomach caving at his touch.
I didn’t mean to touch him, but my hand found his hip. I wanted to grip the tight slimness of him. I couldn’t look up at him, kept my eyes on his feet, waiting for them to move. If he stepped closer… he did and my hand slid to his backside, it was small and tight, raising a low pain in me. I moaned and pulled his pelvis against mine.
And then I did look up. His lips were parted, an inch over mine. My chest caved with another whisper. “Please.” His tongue swept it up. I grabbed his neck, pulling him down to me, into me. A strand of that black silk hair played on my fingertips, his smooth neck warm on my palm. I wanted skin and slid the other hand beneath his belt.
We tumbled, and he pushed me into the room, closing the door. His mouth fed hungrily, his pelvis no longer needing my pull as he crushed me against the wall. I breathed his name, and heard in it the plea I kept repeating.
His hands rode hard over my ribs, up under my bra, and I tugged at his belt, unlatching him. I couldn’t understand this savage need. How had I moved from appreciation of his harmonious beauty and life to biting his lip, tearing at his zipper, begging?
His hard shaft sprung into my hand, and a gasp shuddered down my body. I stripped through his buttoned shirt, kissing his sun-polished chest. His hand moved down the back of my pants, pulling me up to him, opening my legs. Could he spear through this denim wall? His tongue lanced my lips, and those nimble fingers slid down my zipper.
As he slid my pants down, I shook them off. His hands ran warm up my thighs, then his body slammed against mine, my spine sharp against the wall, head banging as he bit my neck, kissed.
For a moment we stopped, and his eyes seared, questioning mine. He studied me, closing in on my mouth, closer, his full, soft satin and then another dart of tongue. I slid down, legs quivering, and parted around him.
Desire is a curious thing. He shoved aside the cardboard box of all my careful children’s crafts, unicorns, and princesses, and set me on the table, legs dangling, open for him. He took his time with the condom wrap, long-fingered, graceful how he ripped, discarded, let the paper flutter to the floor. Eyes on mine, reading their desire.
Then for a moment he stepped back and looked me over. The hawk ready for the kill? The skilled knight ready to pierce for the succulent treat?
But as his gold-brown eyes met mine again, he smiled. That full-lipped, welcoming smile. I tasted sweet cream in a glittering glass dish. Then the tip of him rubbed my swollen vulva. His smile faded; his eyes asked: What, what did I want?
Him. With my legs I tried pulling him in. He teased along my clit, along the lips. He tickled light fingers across my breasts. I closed my eyes, I breathed, “You. Please.”
And he entered. Straight and hard, his penetration opened me. I gasped and let the tingle of abandonment come, the letting-go rush from chest to toes. This was the body, what bodies do for each other. He thrust with pulsing heat, the story of creation, volcanic, the body’s awakening.
Him: life’s sensual beat, dusk on the prowl, a fire low-burning and darting across the earth. Him: beautiful over me. He pumped and my body took him.
In a half hour the kids would pour in, scrambling for seats, donning crowns, laughing, and cheering the ice cream man as he dished strawberry and marshmallow and chocolate mint. And I would watch his fluency, his easy smile, his warm brown eyes that glinted with unselfconscious knowing.
Reaching up, I pulled his face to me, taking him down for a last taste of sweet lip and fiery tongue. What did this mean, this moment? I found no answer in my desperate clinging to him, saying “Now, please,” as rocking on the table, we surged to climax.
All I knew was that face flushed, heat pulsing up through me, my body felt alive and well-used, purposeful and healthy and spent. And maybe that’s all it was, the mind’s appreciation whirling into the body’s desire. His eyes closed as he released, those dark lashes resting a moment, his face softening. I touched his cheek, traced the fine cheekbone to the jaw-line dip.
He was my imagined beauty manifest.
He opened his eyes and his lips crooked a grin. “We’d better hurry,” he said. I laughed.
A unicorn head peeked out of the box, and as we dressed I looked from that fairy tale creature to his sleek body –satin-skinned, taut, and sensual. Now and then in life, magic happens. He ran slender fingers through night-silk hair. My chest swelled with sweet pain. Ice cream and unicorns and fairy tales; the ice cream man could make me believe.
He pulled a tiara from the box. “Princesses?” he said with a smirk.
I bit my lip, and had no defense.
He put the crown on my head and kissed me, then with that glint of mischief again in his eyes, he sauntered out. I watched once again, that lithe and lively gait, and he turned, and he bowed, and he caught me.
Originally published June 2011