Published in:
Best Women's Erotica, 2000
Batteries Not Included, 2000
The women certainly are pretty, in Berkeley, in the springtime. Campus chicks in blue jeans and t-shirts and bandanas; skin in shades you've never seen off a tv set. Lots of skin -- they don't seem to feel the cold that's shuddering your skin. You are determined not to pull the sweatshirt out of your backpack, not to shiver in this dark green tank top with the scoop neck that shows your ample cleavage for the benefit of any cute chick who might happen to like tall redheads who probably still look like farm girls.
You've been cruising Berkeley for weeks now. Days working over on Shattuck, over at the games store that seemed really surprised to have a woman actually want the job. Boys and their toys. Evenings on the street, up and down, occasionally smiling at a woman with short dark hair and long legs, the kind of legs that could reach back and wrap all the way around your neck as you bump and grind, oh yes. Smiling at her and she smiles back and your heart does the thump-thing and then she keeps going down the street, or asks you if you have the time and then keeps going and you're back to walking the street again wondering where the hell women go to get laid in this town.
Up past the hippie chicks, up past the man who tries to sell you beads for your hair at three times what it would cost in Franklin, all the way up to the campus, turn and start walking down again. Maybe it's time to get up the nerve to go into the city, into the Mission, find one of those girl-gyms, those dyke-diners you keep hearing about, uh huh. You walk down past Cody's, past Moe's, hover in the window of the poster shop, scope out the new new-age books at Shambhala.
It sure would be a lot easier to walk into one of those diners with a beautiful woman on your arm, a pretty little thing like that dark-skinned girl behind the counter, the one with the long black hair braided down her back, with the tight white shirt that outlines breasts the size of softballs, the one walking out to take something out of a window, the one smiling at you through the glass. Right. And now she's going to turn away or come to the door and ask if you wanted to actually buy anything or were just planning to hang out there and scare away the customers. You brace yourself, and then she stares at you real serious, and then she winks. Long and slow, and you can't believe what you're seeing, and you check to make sure you've got your pink triangle earring in where she can see it and oh yes, it's there, and then she's coming to the door and it's "I get off in fifteen minutes. Want to buy me coffee?" and you are stumbling over yourself to say yes.
Fifteen minutes and the coffee shop and her name all slide by in a blur -- you've forgotten her name but you can't admit it, so you just keep smiling and hope and pray that she doesn't think you're a total twit, a ditz, a baby dyke without a clue. After coffee you're walking down the street and you tell her all about your last relationship and how bad it went, doing your damnedest to convince her of your dyke credentials until she grins and says "Hush -- now is not the time" and then she pulls you into a doorway and starts kissing you. She is at least a foot shorter than you but she's up on her toes and pulling you down with no hesitation and the kissing is easy, so easy and hot you're melting into it and then the door you're leaning on starts to open and you realize that that her hand is on the doorknob and her key is in the door and this is, of course, her door to her apartment and she's taking you upstairs, woohoo!
She kisses you all the way up three flights of stairs and her hands are all over you, over the tank, under the tank, under your bra to cup your breasts, squeeze your nipples, pull you up the last steps with her fingers tight on your nipples and her mouth latched to yours and you are tumbling into her apartment and closing the door with your bodies 'cause your hands are too damn busy to spare. She breaks long enough to turn on the light and light some candles and incense and turn off the light again and then you are falling to the futon in the living room, lit by candles, the room is full of candles and statues and flowers and incense. You're a little dizzy but when she pulls off your shirt and bra and starts licking a nipple you have to know, you say "Hang on," and "I hate to ask this" and "What's your name again?" and wait for her to throw you out.
She laughs instead, and says "Kali, my name is Kali" and then she gets this wide grin and lies back on the futon and says "Kali is a goddess, you know? Worship me..." You've never touched a goddess before, but your mama didn't raise no fools and so you skin you and her out of clothes as fast as you can, before she has a chance to take a proper breath or change her mind and then you're kissing her. Sucking on her toes and calves and knees and thighs, up around her clit, up her curving stomach and softball breasts, down to fingers and up again, kissing and sucking and licking until your mouth is dry and her skin is wet and shaking in the wavering light of what seems a hundred candles.
You worship her with mouth and hands, you slide a finger in her cunt and then another until they are slick and salty and you bring them up to your mouth and taste them, lick them with Kali's eyes on you, glittering, and she breathes "More" and you go down, you breathe on, lick and suck her clit, slide two fingers in again, thrust back and forth and she is writhing beneath you, she is silent but her body speaks. It whispers and moans and whimpers and screams and she is almost almost there and you can't quite do it, you can't get her there, you can feel the crest waiting there, the last lap, the last mile and you're not going to make it, you're not good enough and you are ready to lay your head down on her stomach and cry if she will permit it.
You stop, removing the once-thrusting, now-sore fingers. She whimpers, and your stomach churns and you take a deep gasping breath. Kali opens her eyes then and sees you and she is not angry. She is twisted in on herself, she is bathed in sweat, dripping in the candlelight and she says, "It's okay" and takes a deep breath and you can see that she is going to try to come down, to relax, to let it go and dammit, that is not good enough, you know you can do better than this and then inspiration hits. You slide back down, your mouth is on her again, on that sweet-salty mound, on that wet nubbin, and while you lick and she convulses silent again, starting the climb again, your hand reaches out and grabs a candle.
Your eyes are closed against her skin but you can feel the slim, cool shape of it, bubbled with old dripped wax, long and hard and untiring. You wave it in the air to put it out, you wait for it to cool as your tongue tickles and touches, twisting to penetrate every crevice, every inch it can reach and when it is exhausted, when it feels that it is about to break in two, to shatter into a thousand pieces, that is when you reverse the shape in your hand and slide it into her, into her dripping cavity, sliding it smooth and hard into her and Kali gasps beneath you and her hands come down to your shoulders, her fingers dig into your skin and you know that you guessed right. You push and pull, thrusting hard and fast until finally, finally her back arches, her hips convulse and she freezes still and silent for an endless aching time and even if your fingers and tongue fall off you are not going to move one inch in the wrong direction. And then she relaxes.
She pulls you up, after a time, and you make love in all the clever ways that two young dykes in the prime of their strength and stamina can, and she discovers how easily you come, how even nipple-sucking can do it, and she says that she might forgive you for that someday. Hours pass, and the candles are long burned out, and you are settling down to sleep but can't quite get comfortable, there's a lump, a bump in the sheets under your hip and you realize that you've left the candle there and are surprised it's still in one piece and you reach down and pull it out and in the thin moonlight you realize that it wasn't a candle after all.
A statue of a goddess, a naked goddess, and the bumps you took for dripping candle wax are breasts and curved hands, many hands, and you catch your breath, wondering if you have committed some form of sacrilege, if Kali will recoil in shock, horror, dismay and she must see it in your eyes because she laughs and laughs and eventually, gently, explains that she is not religious, definitely not Hindu, that her family was in fact Catholic.
She herself had turned atheist long ago, and got the statues from the new-age bookstore for free. She tells you that she only kept them around 'cause they were pretty and they seemed to turn on the chicks and you blush and are grateful for the thinness of the light. She also said that even if she did believe in the goddess, she didn't think She would have minded being deep inside a woman's wet cunt. Then she confessed a secret, that Kali was only her work name after all, that it impressed the bookstore clients. Her true name was something she took seriously, and she never told it to lovers unless they stayed around long enough for breakfast. And when you'd gotten over being embarrassed and amused and slightly shocked, you told her that you thought you could probably arrange that.
*****
M.A. Mohanraj