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Author's note:
In addition to the generic 'Erotic Couplings' category, this chapter also fits the 'Romance' category.
*****
A confession of love
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Alison wondered whether she had made a mistake. The simple admission to Tom that she would return had the unsettling effect of making that fact integral to her daily life. What had once been loitering in the back of her mind was now a constant distraction. She began having lapses of concentration, drifted out of conversations with friends. The only way she could fend off too much curiosity from girlfriends was by chuckling knowingly at teasing remarks that she was spending too many nights with Greg.
She struggled to find refuge in evenings on her own at her apartment. She sat on her couch, the TV making noises, while she thought through what had happened. There was one moment in particular, when she had mentioned the value in repeating experiences. She continued to play back the moment in her thoughts, how Tom responded, how quickly he became hard. Why did he react that way, as though he had been released from an inner inhibition?
Worse, it had turned her on to see him react that way, and she flushed with the realization that the memory of that moment continued to arouse her.
There was something else. The second time she had forced herself to participate in the post-orgasm cooling down period. It bothered her because it felt correct to do so, because it had helped her feel less empty. But it also felt uneasily more personal. She knew the thoughts were contradictory. Her own motivations were contradictory. Her effect on Tom intrigued her, and aroused her. That she had been, nervously, holding back afterwards might mean that she was, somehow, holding back during the sex with Tom. Maybe he notices, maybe he thinks I'm still fearful, she thought. Maybe he's holding back because he doesn't want me to panic again. She wanted to let go, to release herself fully into the experience.
She lay alone on her bed, staring up at the ceiling, wondering. She smiled to herself, while a lazy hand drifted down between her thighs. God, if it's the way it is now, what would it be like if we both let go completely? Her hand slipped inside her panties. She felt herself wet. She - they - had to get past that barrier.
She thought of a way to do it.
* * * * *
Alison had just finished showering, and was rubbing her long hair between a towel when her phone chimed an in-coming call. She went over to the phone, still drying herself, and checked the call number. It was Tom. Alison hesitated. She thought she didn't want even more of an intrusion into her regular life. This thing with Tom was something that she wanted to deal with separately, on its own.
The call signal sounded again. A different voice reasoned that he wasn't here physically in her own world. The phone link, the voice continued to reason, is to that other world of private experience. He won't be here, you will be there. There, somewhere else in his world, where all this is happening anyway.
Another chime. She picked up the phone.
"Hi."
"Hi .. Thought I'd call .. I was wondering how you were doing."
"I'm fine. How are you?"
"Good. I thought you wouldn't mind my calling. What with you saying we'd get together again .. "
"No, it's OK. It's nice that you called." Alison walked to her bedroom, wiping beads of water from her naked skin.
"I was thinking about you. I wanted to hear your voice, make sure you still exist."
Alison smiled, stretched out on her bed. "Yes, I'm still here." She continued to slowly dry herself, holding the towel in one hand and phone in the other.
"Where are you right now?"
"I'm in my apartment."
"Not doing anything in particular?"
"No, don't worry," she said in a reassuring tone. "I was sitting on the couch, reading."
"I'm not interrupting? It sounded as though someone was with you."
"No. What gave you that idea?"
"Because you're talking so quietly."
Alison paused. "Am I? So are you."
"Oh." Tom paused. "I guess I am. I'm on my bed, and with the phone next to my ear it feels like you're right next to me. If you were lying beside me we'd be talking more softly, wouldn't we?"
Alison smiled again. "Yes, I guess we would." She stopped drying herself, but continued to draw the towel loosely over her body, tickling herself with the coarse fabric.
"What are you wearing?"
Alison replied with a gentle laugh. "You're lying in bed, imagining me beside you, having a whispered conversation. Since when have I ever worn anything in your bed?" She wondered whether she was being mean, teasing him. "Hello? Are you still there?"
"You're giving me some delicious thoughts."
Alison chuckled. "I can imagine. So .. I'm wearing jeans and a t-shirt." Alison lay on her back, head and shoulders propped up against a pillow. She tossed the towel to one side and looked down over her naked body, conscious of the rise and fall of her breasts as she breathed. The movement felt erotic. "What would you do if I was there beside you?" she asked.
"I'd be on my side, looking at you while we talk."
"Just looking at me?"
"Looking at your eyes .. all of you. And I'd be caressing you."
"Yeah? Where?"
"Everywhere. Your hips. Your stomach. I'd slide my hand under your t-shirt to feel your bare skin."
Alison touched herself, her fingertips following the curves and hollows of her hips and waist, the flat of her abdomen.
"Not only look at you, but to touch you, to feel the shape of you, hold your breasts."
"I'm not wearing a bra," Alison whispered. She cupped a breast in her own hand, squeezed, closed her eyes. She heard him release a deep breath.
"I think I'd very quickly want to undress you," he continued, stress in the tone of his voice.
Alison giggled. "Take my t-shirt off and my jeans off?"
"Everything."
"And now you're imagining me there, naked beside you?" She tilted the phone away from her mouth, and took a deep breath.
"Yes," he murmured. She could hear his breathing become quicker. "What would you like me to do?"
Alison gripped her mound and squeezed gently, rubbed herself. "What do I like?"
"Yes."
Alison hesitated. He must already know. They'd done it. Saying it, putting it into shared words, would somehow make it more real.
Silence. "You still there?" Tom prompted.
"Of course. I was thinking," she answered. Should I, she asked herself, doubting. Of course, I'm inside that other world, she reassured herself. She slid a middle finger along her groove, felt herself hot and slippery wet. "There's a lot I like."
"Such as?"
Alison held the phone at arm's length, while she again squeezed her mound, stimulating her clit, and tried to suppress a groan. She brought the phone back to her ear. "Such as how it feels when you first enter me," she whispered.
"The first time I entered you? You mean during the threesome?"
"No, I mean each first time. Every time you enter me. It's like," she paused, shivered, struggled to control her breathing, and continued to slowly finger herself. "It's like .. crossing a boundary, two bodies finally .. together. It gives me a rush. Even more than what comes next."
