Sort of a Snog, and definitely Steamy... from Vows

My snog today is from my travel-themed short story Vows, originally published in Foreign Affairs, edited by Mitzi Szereto, and now available as a free read on my website. Hope you like it!

Be sure to visit Snog Central over at Victoria's site and follow the links to many more sexy snogs!

I saw him first.

Our boat had just rounded the tip of the peninsula that divides the Nam Khan from the Mekong. The driver cut the noisy motor and let us drift with the current through the golden haze of late afternoon. Peace. Birdsong and the mother river lapping against our hull were the only sounds. The highland breeze danced cool and sweet in my nostrils. I took a deep breath and let my tension ripple out and away like the river before us.

Lush jungle vegetation climbed up the right bank, into the hills. The left bank, on the city side (but who would have imagined that we were in a city, the ancient capital of a potent empire?) was carpeted with the same tangled greenery, but less steep. All at once the slanting sun struck a gleam of gold ahead. As we drew closer, I saw a temple pier jutting into the water, a carved and gilded pavilion with traditional eaves sweeping toward the ground.

A Buddha image nestled in an alcove near the peak of the roof. The man stood on the platform below, as motionless as a statue himself, and yet there was a kind of movement in his stillness. He was one with the river and the forest, breathing in slow unison with them as he gazed at us.

Orange robes draped his lithe, slender body. The honey-colored skin of his naked shoulder glowed in the waning sun. His shaven head highlighted a broad forehead, fine cheekbones, and full lips. He looked young, no more than eighteen. Then our eyes locked and I saw wisdom in his, grace, perhaps humor, but definitely not innocence.

His beauty made me ache. Tears congealed into a knot in my throat. Then Danielle noticed him.

"I'd like to fuck him," she commented softly. I whipped around, embarrassed and concerned that the driver had heard, but he had his palms together, offering the ritual nop gesture of respect as we passed the pavilion.

"Dani! Really! You should be ashamed of yourself! I'm sure you know that it's strictly forbidden for a Buddhist monk to touch a woman."

"So? Vows were made to be broken. Besides," she said slyly, sneaking a hand into my lap, "you can't pretend that you don't want him as well."

I hadn't realized that I was half hard. I had thought that my appreciation of him was wholly aesthetic. Under Dani's skillful fingers, I swelled to a full erection in seconds. Grinning, she grasped the tab of my zipper and started to pull.

"Stop it!" I whispered urgently, grabbing for her invading hand. "Have a little respect!"

"Oh, but baby, I do respect you," she cooed. "I just want to make sure that you get what you want. Sometimes you're too shy to go after it yourself."

She'll never let me live it down. The fact that I'm attracted to men as well as women, but even more, the uncomfortable truth that I might never have realized it if she hadn't bullied me into my first homosexual encounter. Not that I regret it. I'll never forget that incandescent night with the audacious young punk she bought for me in Amsterdam.

There have been others since. Only when we're traveling, though. Travel brings out a strange recklessness in my wife, a hunger for extremes that I don't see when we are in New York. At home, Danielle is energetic and competent, affectionate and attentive, seemingly content with our life. It feels as though we are connected, in bed and out of it. When we're on the road, though (and our mutual love of travel was part of what brought us together), she becomes somehow sharper, prickly and less accessible. She seeks out risks. She sometimes reveals a cat-like streak of cheerful cruelty.

In Vientiane, for instance, she had insisted on tracking down rumors of still-flourishing opium dens somewhere in the city. Reluctantly, I had accompanied her, concerned for her safety. I had romantic images of dim chambers fragrant with incense, brocade-upholstered couches of carved ebony, an ancient crone with bound feet preparing and offering the pipes with a toothless grin. Instead, we found ourselves in a thatched hut on the river bank a few kilometers west of the city center, in the care of a strapping Lao youth with lurid tattoos on his chest and a Led Zeppelin tee shirt.

Watching Danielle's immobile form lying on the woven mat, her eyes wide and empty, I wondered for the hundredth time what drives her to such places. The sickly sweet odor of the drug tickled my nostrils. The proprietor tried once again to interest me in a pipe. I shook my head, but I couldn't help wondering whether the narcotic would have dulled my loneliness.

Dani was still stroking my penis surreptitiously as the boat pulled up to the public dock. "Why don't we go back to the hotel? We can - talk - about our new friend." She paid the boatman, and handed me my straw hat, which I used to hide my raging erection as we strolled the few blocks back to our guest house. I barely had time to close the door and slip out of my sandals before Dani was down on her knees in front of me, undoing my fly.

Here in the privacy of our room, I didn't object. I was painfully hard; it seemed as though the taut skin sheathing my organ would burst at the slightest touch. Danielle squeezed; I could scarcely bear it. She gazed up at me, mischief in her hazel eyes. "Pretend that it's him, sucking you," she murmured, and then she swallowed me whole.

Her mouth was a steaming tropical jungle, her muscular tongue a snake twining around me. I closed my eyes and allowed myself to sink into pure sensation.

After five years with me, she knew how I liked it: langourous strokes from base to tip alternating with energetic sucking that must have left her jaw sore, but which brought me to the edge again and again. I filled my mind with images of her: the ginger thatch of her pubis matching the fringe on her head; the slick folds hidden among those curls; her palm-sized breasts with their extravagant nipples; her lively, intelligent, sometimes mocking face. I imagined that she was stroking herself as she worked on me. That might well be true. I remembered her wild, almost inhuman expression when she came.

But as she brought me inexorably closer to orgasm, these images slipped away, though I tried to hold them. Instead, I saw a pair of ripe lips curved in a half-smile, brown eyes sparkling with gentle challenge, smooth curves of golden flesh that cried out to be kissed. I imagined bare feet, muscular buttocks, a slim cock rearing like a rod of ivory, hairless and pure. She was broadcasting these images to me, I knew it, but that didn't help me to resist. I moaned, guiltily and overwhelmingly aroused. I saw a cloud of saffron-hued fabric drifting down, covering twined limbs, white and honey-colored, and I spilled myself into Danielle's greedy mouth.

****

Curious? Read the rest of this unusual ménage story here!