Who is This Stranger in my Bed?

By Annabeth Leong (Guest Blogger)

I am always in bed with a stranger. I'm not saying I live on a constant diet of one-night stands. I mean that sex, along with death, is an undiscovered country.

Plenty of well-traveled highways crisscross the land--in and out and up and down. But beyond the feeble reach of the headlights of any given car, a great and terrible darkness waits, the secret desires of one or more participants, mingled and heady and volatile.

Even with a familiar lover, I feel it there. Suddenly, he keeps moving so I can't get my legs straight the way I want. A whispered word I can't quite hear. A nipple twisted with dangerous intent. Maybe the person becomes a strange snoring shape, or a pair of unreadable eyes blinking at the light of morning.

It makes me want to get closer, skin to skin and even closer. It makes me want to run away noiselessly, under cover of night. I've never been able to sleep the first time I'm with someone. I'm too aware of the person's new smell and the puzzling configuration of our limbs.

Sex reveals the most intimate details of a person, and yet it also highlights the ways this person will always remain alien and other. Sometimes I look deep into my lover's eyes. Sometimes I close my eyes and plunge into private fantasies.

When I started writing erotica, I got fascinated by how I could characterize people by how they have sex. Well-meaning people often say you should "be friends first" before jumping into bed with someone, but you don't have to talk to learn about someone. Sex uncovers plenty.

Does she refuse to receive pleasure, clinging to the power of a long blow job with no oral reciprocation? Does he make noise when he comes? Does she like to stroke his ass between hits with the flogger? Does he kiss or bite or both?

These are the sorts of clues that bring me closer to a lover, the little secrets that make me feel intimate with someone. They're also mysteries. Who the hell is this person anyway, and why does he or she do that?

For a long time, I've liked stories about characters who don't have much of a connection before they wind up in bed. I like the vulnerability of stranger sex, hidden just under the tough skin of I-Know-Exactly-What-I'm-Doing.

In "Less Than a Day," a short e-book I wrote for Forbidden Fiction, the main character, Tod, knows when a person has less than 24 hours to live, and uses the information for seduction. It's a vicious story that grew an odd sense of romance. My female character would rather fuck a stranger than be alone, but the way she fucks Tod becomes so gloriously specific and particular that he's tempted to pretend they have something more.

I never give her a name, and yet she looms large in my imagination, more vivid than characters I've spent months building, more alive than characters for whom I've invented birthdays and favorite foods. To me, she is the fascinating stranger, who likes her nipples bitten for reasons that aren't clear from the mishmash of books on the shelves in her neatly arranged house.

She is frank about her desires in a way that still makes me uncomfortable. I wrote the story against my better judgment, letting her escalate their encounter to the point that I wondered who would ever publish this thing. I've read and written enough erotica by now to know that "Less Than a Day" probably isn't all that shocking amid the field of all that's out there.

But to write this thing, I had to strip off another layer of my inner nice girl. I had to become a stranger to myself, turned on by things I don't want to admit and don't understand. Many times in my work, I wrap romance around stark sex scenes--it makes them more palatable, maybe to readers, but mostly to me. This story lays out the sex in all its ugliness and selfishness, but by my writing you can tell I think it's beautiful.

Sometimes, sex forces me to take a long, hard look--not just at the strange other body lying there with me, but also at the stranger in my head.

I kept "Less Than a Day" under wraps for a while after I wrote it, but I'm so pleased to have found the editors at Forbidden Fiction, who have really believed in it. Here's an excerpt.

***

He watched her ride him. He was turned on and ready for her, but the way she moved relaxed him. She was content to fuck herself with his cock. He didn’t need to do anything in particular for quite some time.

He toyed with her, pinching her thighs or her nipples or her sides. She fucked him, rubbing her clit, squeezing her nipples, slipping her fingers into her mouth and then down to her clit once they were spit-covered and then back to her mouth once they were cunt-covered.

Sometimes, she slowed. For a while, she lowered herself so she rested on his chest and ground her clit against his pelvis while she squeezed his cock hard with her cunt. She sat up after that and leaned back so her breasts thrust out, bracing herself with one hand on his thigh behind her. Keeping her body still, she brought her free hand to her clit and masturbated ostentatiously. He didn’t think it was for his benefit. Instead, she masturbated with his body. The idea turned him on. He felt his cock getting harder inside her.

He couldn’t believe her wrist wasn’t tired. She circled her fingers over her clit with ferocious intensity, sweating, gasping in frustration every time she didn’t quite climax. Eventually, she came so hard he could clearly feel her spasming even through the condom.

While she was still coming, she resumed fucking him, really slamming down on him now. For the first time he groaned, his eyelids falling closed. He reached out for her. He wanted to fuck her back. He wanted to arch up into her and come. He wanted to push deep into her, and pull back only so he could push into her again.

“Don’t you dare come yet, you motherfucker,” she said then, her voice coming tight through clenched teeth. “Don’t you fucking dare come.”

He opened his eyes and stared at her. She was biting her lower lip, gripping his shoulders while she fucked him hard. Her hair hung around her face in sweaty threads, and sweat dripped down her back and off the points of her tits. Her eyes were hooded and dazed, staring vacantly into his face and seeing something far beyond.

He couldn’t help himself. He grabbed her and pulled her down into a hard thrust. Once. Twice. Three times, and that was it. He groaned and came while she still tried to ride him. He heard her above him, saying, “Damn it, damn it, damn it.”

Feeling her tight pussy still moving while he came drained him all the way.

She came to a crashing stop on top of him. “You couldn’t wait?”

He shook his head, his cock still throbbing with the pleasure of it.

“I was so close to coming again.”

“I can take care of that.” He wouldn’t have said it normally, but he wanted to make it up to her.

She cocked her head, relenting a little.

He eased her gently off his cock and got rid of the condom. Then he pushed her onto her back and lowered his lips to her pussy. It tasted a little unpleasant there, what with the latex and the sweat and the smell of his own body. But she grabbed his head right away and pulled him in.

“Don’t think you’re doing me a favor just by licking it,” she hissed.

***

You can pick up the short e-book here: http://forbiddenfiction.com/library/story/AL1-1.000030

***

Annabeth Leong found relief in erotica. Reading others’ stories opened up a world of freedom and exploration. Writing it increased the thrill. Since her first published story in 2009, she has written for anthologies by Cleis Press, Ravenous Romance, Coming Together, Forbidden Fiction, and Circlet. Her most recent works are "A Cure for Excess" in D.L. King's Spankalicious, and "Getting Something Out of It," which will be published in Rachel Kramer Bussel's Going Down: Oral Sex Stories. Her novella, The Six Swans, is forthcoming from Coming Together: Neat. Her work has appeared online at Every Night Erotica and Oysters and Chocolate. Besides freedom of speech, Annabeth loves shoes, stockings, cooking, and attending concerts--probably in that order. She lives in Providence, Rhode Island. She can be found on Twitter @AnnabethLeong, and blogging at annabethleong.blogspot.com.