Date: Thu, 9 Jun 2005 14:14:21 +0100 From: Susie Down <susiedown@gmail.com> Subject: Intimate Intimate by Susie Down http://www.susiedown.com/ We were sitting in the living room, her hand on my thigh, and she asked me why I have a little hole above my lip. I explained that it was from a piercing a doctor had told me to take out before a procedure, and I hadn't been able to put it back. She smiled, then leant forward and covered my mouth with hers. She touched my hand, slid one finger over my carpels, saw the little wound in the skin there. How did you get that? she asked. I explained that it was made by a canula a nurse had put in for a drip. She smiled and slid her finger up my radius, then grasped the top of my ulna and pulled me closer. Then she was still for a moment and said that she could hear my heart beating very strangely. She bent her head forward, ear against my sternum, hair tickling my neck. This made it beat still more fitfully. I explained that I have arrhythmia, which makes my heart beat oddly when I'm out of breath. She laid a hand just below my jaw and I felt her fingers pulse erratically up and down with my heartbeat. She took her hand away and stroked her tongue over my artery, then kissed me on the cheek, and at last on my mouth. Her lips went down over my neck, clavicle and inside the low V-neck of my shirt. I felt her hands around my coxas, then her fingers on my vertebral column, slipping my shirt up. I was blind for a moment, then she was kissing me as my shirt fell to the floor. She asked, as I knew she would, how I'd got the scar that ran from my second to my sixth rib. I said, It's from an operation I had to replace the mitral valve in my heart. And this? she asked, her finger running beneath my breast to the side of my ribcage. That's from when they replaced the valve the second time, I explained, pulling her back towards me. Our fingers touched and curled together. She kissed my jaw, my carotid artery, the top of my humerus, then put a hand behind my scapula, gently lowering me to rest on the cushions of the sofa. I reached up to her hip, slid my fingers a little way underneath her t-shirt, but she shook her head and took my hand away. She put her mouth to my abdomen, her tongue slicking up over umbilicus, the line of white scar tissue, uneven ribcage and to my breast. I mumbled into her ear as she reached up under my red silk skirt, deftly sliding my briefs down over my femurs and tibias. She pushed just the very tips of her fingers into me and I stiffened, moved closer to her. She took her hand away though, and I sank back into the sofa. I felt her touch the hem of my skirt, then she steadily pulled it down over my patellas and dropped it onto the floor. Her breath stroked against my clavicle as she brushed my hair away from my eyes. Her hips rested against my coxas, thigh between my femurs and against my cunt. I knew she knew I was nervous. I knew she knew I was wet for her. We kissed and kissed, her mouth gentle, teasing my desire from me. Finally, I reached down to her waist and unbuckled her belt, undid the buttons of her jeans. She shifted a little, readied herself, then pushed the instrument inside me. My face was against her neck as we began to move, our rhythm matching the open-shut tick of my metal mitral valve. I held my fingers light against her cheek, my breaths halting, half-gasped. She bent her head down, lips soft against the scar beneath my breast, hand curled around my ribs. Her back arched over and over, her hand on my sacrum coaxing me closer, and at last I squeezed my eyes shut so tight that all I could see were needles of light, dancing on my corneas. A little later, she lay beside me as we talked, her prosthetic lying on the floor, forgotten. I told her I had to go to the doctor the next day, asked if she'd like to come with me. Yes, she said. Her hand rested low on my abdomen. Her fingers began to move, tracing the horizontal line between my coxas. She looked down, saw the scar there. What's this from? she asked. It's from when I had my appendix removed, I lied.