Marionette

Authors note: This is the first of a series exploring a slow, teasing relationship between couples. It's written in a narrative style with the intention of a gradual, tense build - while I may write straight-to-the-action stories later, this is not that! Please feel free to comment and criticise below.

Marionette.

1 - Flashes

She glanced away and lifted one leg to rest her foot on her knee. Her hair flicked to the side as she turned her face, but my gut felt her watching out of her peripheral. She spoke to a friend on the other table. Surely, I was fabricating. She wasn't paying me her attention. My gaze drifted to her bare leg, exposed from under the long skirt she wore. Her hand grazed softly under her thigh. It seemed to be sweeping the hem of the split skirt back with it, perhaps absently. It was warm in here. I couldn't imagine another reason.

Then, surely, she bunched her skirt further still and brought her foot in an inch closer. Her motion seemed casual, but she must have known that, sitting across the low table between us, had I looked, I could have seen... Her hand adjusted the skirt again, this time holding it back as far as the top of her thigh. Slightly, barely, she drifted her legs apart another inch. Betraying me, my eyes flicked down between her open legs.

Under her raised leg, I see the dark hem of her pants, detail of lace, a shape almost forming in the shadow between her thighs -- an outline, no. Controlling them again, I flick my eyes away. A few seconds at most, surely I'd gone unnoticed. My eyes raise back to her face, hoping to confirm her focus elsewhere, but my glance meets hers. I must have looked guilty, but a secret smile danced in her eyes as the corners of her mouth twitched into the slightest knowing smile. A seductive, deliberate, hungering smirk.

I feel myself flush red. I look away, then down. Adjust in my chair. I'm boiling with embarrassment, or excitement, or fear. My chest thumps loudly rushing blood out my body and into my ears, my head is a furnace. I'm sweating. I know her expression, there was no misreading it. I've seen it before in my own partners, on first dates, when footsie under the table is an addictive language, teasing the rising rush to have each other at the first moment you can be alone. But, of course, we weren't alone. We were in a crowded bar among friends. Our friends, and, stood at the bar buying the round, her partner.

* * *

A town in Scotland, 2011. The college year finishes and we break for summer with a newfound vitality for drinking, smoking and late, long nights. It's a time of discovering everything worth trying, and it's in this time I introduce two friends. After a wonderfully teenage courtship, playing symphony to their equally hesitant advances they finally unite as a couple. Most people had someone or other at that time, even in the cases of the unspoken hook-up partners that would cross paths at every house party, deftly avoiding each other until they had enough alcohol to blame their intentions on.

My friends, who I'll call Pete and Sara, though of course aren't called Pete or Sara, hosted one such party at Pete's house while his parents were away. We must have been too cool to join a family holiday to the hills at that age, instead making thorough use of a free house for quite clearly outlawed parties. The group of friends had expanded to much of our college course at this point and regularly exceeded thirty people at any one gathering.

Inevitably, by the time any spirits came out, one lustful teenage romance on the precipice of contact would encourage a game of spin the bottle. The game sat perfectly between satisfying the excitement of drinking and making guilt-free passes at anyone and everyone that attended. Different friends, partners, genders, all could be explored under the risk-free game logic of fulfilling your mandate. Of course, Pete and Sara were both playing. They were the hosts, they couldn't have talked themselves out of it. The girl I was seeing was equally eager, and we all knew each other well. We had even had a few double dates together, thinking ourselves to be ten years more mature than we had been.

This time, the whole party had joined to play the game. A circle of thirty, thirsty, sat around the large living room as a mostly-full bottle of cheap vodka was spun into the centre. With so many playing, the 'truth' element was mostly dispensed with in favour of 'you must kiss...' whomever seemed the most outrageous choice. Naturally Pete had kissed a few, even the girl I'd been seeing, and I noted little resistance from Sara on this. I hadn't expected any from Pete, or my girlfriend in fact, as I'd suspected the thought cross each of their minds on a few quiet double-date moments.

They enjoyed a moment, and giggling awkwardly, with a hint of mischief, returned to their seats around the bottle. A few spins later I was chosen, by my girlfriend, to kiss Pete. Both quite amused with the anticipation coming from our other halves, we put on theatrical passion and filled the room with our audience's high-pitched squeals of excitement. I looked at Sara as I broke away from her freshly united boyfriend and she glanced a smile, with something unknown behind her eyes. A question with herself that seemed to say, 'did I enjoy that?'

The next bottle spin landed again on me. Embarrassed, now that I'd put on that show, I hoped for some small dare that could quickly be moved past. Instead, Pete suggested I kiss Sara. My girlfriend jumped to support, agreeing that it would only be fair and, grudgingly Sara and I rose to the centre of the circle. Almost labouring it, I wondered whether we showed to obvious a protest, but it seemed to go unnoticed. A cry of 'get on with it!' spurred our glances aside to meet and a quick confidence rose in Sara.

"Come here," she said in her most deliberately friendly tone, and put a hand on either side of my face, pulling me to her.

She closed her eyes when she kissed me, and they stayed closed for a heartbeat after we broke. When she flicked them open again, I read the same question in her eyes. A sparkle of mischief, and a moment of fantasy. Remembering ourselves, we quickly laughed it off and, quite unconvincingly, feigned awkwardness. Still, the now drunker audience had already lost interest. I caught Pete's gaze, though his face I couldn't read.

Now, a decade later, I still can't read Pete.

* * *

Pete returns with the drinks. Sara sits up and ruffles her skirt back to modesty. He passes Sara her drink and sits at a table across from Sara and I, returning to a deep conversation. My mind's still reeling from the look she gave me. She had been inviting, mischievous, riding the wave of context surrounding her tease. It had been deliberate, but what response was she expecting? To see if I'd react, testing me? She clearly enjoyed the consequence so far. It had been so unexpected, she had complete power over me.

I went to the bathroom and cooled my face with water. I had to respond. If she had really meant to tease me, I could only offer the same. I returned to my chair in the bar opposite her and started a conversation with a friend next to me. Sara's leg was raised again, but her thighs closer together this time. Subtler, but still I felt the glare of her peripherals as she spoke to another friend beside her. Now, I sat back into my chair, stretching and casually playing with my hair. My t-shirt must have been tight enough to show the toning under it, as she glanced over. This time, I caught her in my peripherals, but let her watch, as I stretched out my back and let my legs hang loose, open.

It had been a hot day, and in the light material of my trousers, the soft firm outline of my crotch was clearly visible. After the excitement I'd flushed through minutes ago, the weight in my loose trousers was a touch more generous than usual. I took out my tobacco and rolled a cigarette. Then, when I could be sure she had turned her focus to my confident display, I shot my eyes up to meet hers. Now it was Sara's turn to be caught. Her face flushed too, a curious expression turning to realisation, and the guilt of her gaze's implications.

Two can play, I thought. And, a mischievous smile of my own brewing, I stood, bringing my crotch to her head height, before stepping outside for a cigarette.

To be continued...