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After all the wine has been consumed (the bottle with the cork, and the several bottles without), after the First Lady offers, twice – twice! – to buy you a cat, after you dance with Josh and wave goodbye to Sam and gather your clutch and yourself and your fuzzy, fuzzy thoughts – you head home.
“CJ!” comes a voice from behind you, and suddenly Amy Gardner appears at your side, linking her arm through yours and weaving with you as you make your way unsteadily down the street. After a moment she rests her head on your shoulder and hums along as you continue to sing Oh, Canada under your breath. “That was fun.”
“That was fun,” you agree, and the words come out emphatic but a little slurred. You nuzzle the top of her head and it occurs to you, dimly, that it’s possible you’ve officially moved into your third phase of inebriation. (Phase one: tipsy giggling. Two: hyper-verbal, mostly pensive observations. Three: an unremitting desire for physical contact.)
“Where are your shoes?” she asks, and you look down at your feet and discover that they are, indeed, bare, that you’ve been padding down the street – and maybe all over the White House – in nothing but stockings.
“Shit.” You stop walking and look around, like your heels might be lying somewhere nearby, like maybe you accidentally kicked them off a few yards back without noticing. Amy laughs – she often seems to be in the tipsy giggling phase of inebriation, you’ve noticed, even when she’s not inebriated – and shakes her head at you like you’re hopeless, and under normal circumstances you’d maybe feel like she was being condescending, but under normal circumstances you’d also be wearing shoes, so.
“Well, dammit,” you huff, staring down accusingly at your feet. Then you pass her your clutch and put one hand on her shoulder for balance, and with the other you reach up your sparkling silver skirt.
“What are you doing?”
“Taking off my hose. I’ll ruin them.”
“Pretty sure they’re already ruined, honey,” Amy replies with a wry smile, but you’re single-minded: the hose are coming off. She glances around, licks her lips. “Okay, you do realize we’re standing in the middle of the sidewalk, right?” She takes your arm and guides you away from the yellow of the street lamps and into an alleyway of sorts, a shadowy corridor between two houses.
You mutter your thanks and reach back up your skirt. “That’d be quite the headline.”
“Senior Staff’s Sexy Street Striptease,” Amy quips, and your retort is right there, something about a press secretary pole-dance, but then you realize that her hands are up your skirt, too, fingers slipping under the band around your hips, and you kind of lose the thread of the thing. And then she’s tugging and you’re working hard to stay upright and in one swift motion you step out of your hose and really, considering how drunk you both are, it all goes fairly smoothly. And when you look down Amy is crouched by your feet, winding the nylon around and around her hands, and she looks up at you with that open-mouthed crooked smile and says, “Been a while, Claudia Jean.”
And it has.
The first time you slept with Amy Gardner, neither of you was drunk. You didn’t need to be. You met her in the middle of that crushingly hot summer when you were consulting for Emily’s List, and the two of you had bantered and parried and flirted so shamelessly that it seemed almost inevitable when Amy called you into her office and asked you to close the door behind you. She’d walked around her desk, head tilted, sizing you up like she wasn’t sure where to start. Not that knowing where to start had ever been much of a problem for Amy – she compensated by being everywhere at once. You weren’t drunk that evening, but you might as well have been; the feel of her tongue in your mouth, her fingers sliding into you, her low-throated moans – you were giddy, lightheaded, for days. Every time a bead of sweat slipped down your skin, that summer, you thought of Amy.
And now here she is, kneeling in front of you, giving you that same appraising look. So you’re not entirely surprised when she runs a hand up your leg and carefully lifts your skirt to the side. You’re not surprised when she leans in and – slowly, so slowly – kisses the inside of your thigh. Your breath hitches in your chest as she keeps moving, and then suddenly you feel her tongue pressing into you through the thin fabric of your underwear, once, twice, like she’s lapping at an ice cream cone. You tilt your head back and clench your eyes shut and do your best not to moan so loudly that you wake the neighborhood. It’s all you can do.
And then your skirt drops and she’s on her feet and pressing herself against you, against the rough brick behind you, and her breath is hot in your ear as she murmurs, “Ask me, CJ. Ask me to fuck you.”
She tilts her head back so she can watch as you struggle to come back to yourself, to form words. “Ask me,” she demands again.
But when you finally do, your voice low, wanting, she steps away from you. She turns. She starts to walk toward the light.
“Not here,” she calls over her shoulder.
And so you follow her.
***
She’s redecorated since the last time you were in her apartment. The couch is new and she moved it so it’s under the window, and it looks like she changed the paint to a sort of zen blue instead of the old yellowish-beige, which, frankly, you never liked anyway.
And that’s all you have time to register before the door clicks shut behind you and she’s pressing you up against it, pushing your arms over your head with one hand while the other reaches up your skirt again. This time there is nothing slow about her movements – she is swift, sure, her fingers dipping into your wetness and then circling your clit hard and fast in that way she knows you like, the way she knows you touch yourself, the way that makes you come in seconds, not minutes, and she’s in your ear again murmuring little obscene stories, playing out everything she plans to do to you tonight and you’re moaning, whimpering, a senseless string of oh god oh fuck and her hipbones are pressing into you and your wrists ache where they’re held against the door and just the sound of her voice is nearly enough to push you over the edge and you’re there, nearly, you’re nearly there and then suddenly she pulls away, she steps back. You stand there for a moment, stunned, panting, and then you clench your fists and bang your head into the door behind you.
“Goddammit, Amy.”
She’s standing just out of reach, watching you. She looks calm, but you can see she’s breathing heavily; you know that if you stepped forward and looked into her eyes they’d be almost entirely black, her pupils dilated, flashing. “Thick enough to drown in,” you said to her once, about those eyes. “Like oil.” It was meant to be a compliment.
But you don’t step forward, don’t search the roiling black of her pupils for any sort of invitation. You stay where you are, waiting, because sex with Amy has always been on her terms, and you both know that’s exactly how you want it. You, who have ten thousand things a day that require your calculation, your attention, your supervision… Amy quickly realized that nothing got you off faster than when she took control, and although these nights have been only occasional over the years, they keep happening. They seem to scratch some itch in both of you. To give you something you can’t get from anyone else.
Amy shakes her head. “You remember how this works,” she says, chastising you. You’re practically shaking from wanting her, you’re throbbing, gritting your teeth and forcibly holding yourself in place, and it’s all you can do to swallow and try to remember how to breathe. But you suspect she’s waiting for some sign of understanding and you’re right, because it’s only once you give her a small nod that she takes a step toward you, and another, and then her hands are in your hair and her lips are pressing hard into yours, and her fingers find the zipper of your dress, pulling until the fabric slithers down the length of your spine to pool at your bare feet. You shiver as her hands move over your warm skin, sliding over your hips, across the length of your back, up to your throat, and she turns your head to the side as she kisses your collarbone and lower, until she finds one of your nipples and circles it with her tongue, takes it gently between her teeth, then sucks so hard and so suddenly that you gasp. You feel her smile against you at the sound of your surprise, but when you try to turn your head – you want to watch, want to see her lips close around you, want to trace the concave of her cheeks – she holds you in place, and so you close your eyes and just feel.
And then you sink to the ground, both of you, just inside the door, and she is on top of you, she is kissing down your stomach, she is grinning at you and pulling off your underwear and parting your knees and you hardly have time to take a breath before she’s between your legs, her tongue flickering over your clit fast and unrelenting and god, it’s been so long since you felt her there, so long since she pressed into you this way and your hips rock and you’re groaning because it just feels so goddamn good and suddenly she stops, just long enough to glance up at you, to raise one perfectly-arched eyebrow in your direction. “Don’t you dare fucking come, CJ,” she says, but this time she doesn’t wait for a response before she keeps going, and you gasp, the words ringing in your ears.
And you try so hard to obey, you really do. But her tongue is slick and hot and your hands are in her hair and you’ve lost the ability to speak except to moan her name again and again and when she slides her fingers inside you you can’t even say that. She holds you in that place, tongue unyielding, fingers driving in and out of you, and your back arches, your skin is on fire, and she can’t expect you not to come, she can’t, she has to know how impossible this is, she has to know you’re right on the edge, and you throw your arms over your face and grit your teeth and finally you manage to choke out a “Stop, fuck, I can’t – ” and she pulls back a little, enough that you can finally take a breath, but she doesn’t stop. She keeps flickering, lightly, even though you can’t take it for another second and then she pushes her fingers in deep – oh god – and you’re crying out and trembling and the voice in your throat doesn’t even sound like your own, please, Amy, I can’t, please, FUCK, until finally you go silent, unable to speak, unable to breathe, and it’s only once you’re in that taut and soundless place that she slides her hands up your thighs and lifts herself away, drawing one last low moan from somewhere deep inside you with breath you didn’t know you had. And then suddenly she’s there, hovering over you, smiling wide and kissing you deeply and you swear to god you’re seeing stars, actual fucking stars floating in your field of vision.
“You’re gonna make me pass out,” you gasp, and she just laughs.
“That’s what you always say.” She brushes a stray lock of hair out of your eyes, kisses you again.
Then she pulls away and stares at you for a moment, tilting her head, and you catch a glimpse of that same look in her eyes, that calculating look, that look that could swallow you whole. And she shifts, then, moving down, until she’s straddling your thigh, her hands on your stomach, and you press your lips together as she starts to rock back and forth. Maybe she thinks this will be some sort of break for you, a brief respite, but the only thing that registers is her nakedness against your skin, though you don’t remember her taking anything off, and you realize that she must have been this way all evening, exposed, ready, and the idea of her walking around, dancing and drinking and flirting, shaking hands and making polite conversation with politicians and dignitaries, nothing between what she’s pressing into you and the warm air of the party – you’re flooded with a new wave of wetness, and it takes everything in your power not to reach out and pull her toward you, not to bring her to your mouth and fuck her until she comes. Instead you reach for the shoulders of her dress – god, why does she still have clothes on? – and tug, and she doesn’t stop moving but she reaches behind and unzips herself so that you can pull the dress off her arms and down to her waist. She frees herself from her bra and drops it on the floor, then closes her eyes, concentrating on the rhythm of her hips as she slides against you.
“God,” you whisper, eyes roaming over her tousled hair, her bruised lips, the curve of her breasts. But when you reach out to touch her she pushes your hand away. She smiles at your moan of protest; it kills you just to watch, and nothing turns her on more than knowing you’re desperate and wanting and that she controls your access.
“Please,” you say, as she starts to rock against you harder. She opens her eyes at the sound of your voice, and after a moment she lifts herself up and hovers over you, arms on either side of your head, and for a fleeting second you think she’s relenting, that she’ll let you in; it’s happened before. But then she smirks, and reaches down with her own hand, and although you bite your lip it doesn’t stop the tortured groan in your throat from escaping. And then she’s moving above you, writhing against the friction of her own fingers, and you whimper in time to her breathing as it grows shallow and ragged, as she closes her eyes and furrows her brow and starts to moan – fuck, she says, over and over, her voice cracking, fuck, and it nearly drives you mad, the pillowy f sound, the hard k– and you’re clenching your fists and watching her open mouth as she pants, watching her tongue curl against her teeth, and you can feel her hand moving faster and you don’t know how much longer you can be expected to just lie here and take this, the feeling of her body against yours, soft and lithe and untouchable. And then suddenly something shifts; she begins to tremble, her voice drops – mmm, god, CJ – and at the sound of your name in her mouth you get even wetter, and when she can’t hold herself up anymore she falls into you and you run your hands down her back and hold her as she shudders and curls around you, moaning and crying out and it is so good, so good to have her this close, so good to have her skin on your skin, that it almost feels like you’re coming, too.
When she’s done she rests there, her head on your chest, breathing heavily, and you’re both quiet for a moment. You can feel her heart pounding and your whole body is electric with her pulse, like the two of you are thrumming together, creating some sort of charged cadence that sets the air around you shimmering. And then she swings her head up, licking her lips, and instead of looking sated she looks hungrier than ever, her eyes like coals, and your heart begins to beat faster.
“Up,” she says, drawing you to your feet, and she wriggles out of the dress that’s still around her waist and kicks it away before pulling you in the direction of her bedroom. But you make it only as far as the kitchen before she turns on you again, feral, and presses herself into you like she can’t wait another second, kissing you so hard and long that you nearly forget to breathe, backing you into something hard – the kitchen table, which she pushes you onto, clambering on top of you, and you hear a glass somewhere behind your head fall and shatter on the tile below. Normally, you think, Amy would laugh at this – she takes a special kind of joy in raucous sex, giggly sex, noisy boisterous sex that results in broken lamps and torn curtains and strange morning-after bruises – but she doesn’t laugh this time, and you’re not sure you’ve ever seen her like this, like she’s consumed with something wild, something fierce. Like you have something she needs.
She straddles you and kisses you again, grasping one of your nipples between her fingers and pinching until you hiss, then skating a hand down your stomach, your waist, until she finds your clit. She glances over it a few times with her fingers and you lift your hips, trying to follow her hand. Then suddenly she dips into you, hard, wrist pumping, and you cry out but her mouth is already on yours again, muffling the sound. You’re panting as she pulls her face back, fingers still slicksliding over you, circling, flickering.
“Don’t,” she says, and you begin to protest, to try to make her understand that you won’t be able to stop yourself, not after everything –
But she shakes her head slowly, tongue peeking out from behind her teeth, and her hand keeps moving, steady, fast. “Not yet.” Her voice is low, brooking no argument, and so you squeeze your eyes closed and try to breathe, try to concentrate, try to ignore the feel of her on top of you, to ignore her fingertips sliding over you, sliding into you –
“Fuck. No, no, no, fuck, I can’t – Amy – please – ”
“Yes you can,” she breathes into your ear. “Do this for me.” Your hips buck as you try to pull back, to move away, because you so badly want to hold off, you don’t want to come, not yet, not until she tells you to, but she follows you wherever you move, rubbing you hard and sliding in and out of you, curling her fingers inside you, pressing in deep and you can’t, you can’t take it, you can’t breathe and the stars are coming back –
And then she slides off the table and between your legs again, and her tongue is slick and unforgiving and she’s gripping your hips, holding you steady, flickering fast and suddenly you realize that she has no intention of stopping, no intention of giving you permission, that she’s going to force you to come, force you to give up control, and as the realization detonates in your mind – a chain reaction of fuck, I can’t, if she doesn’t stop, oh god – something inside you seizes and shudders and you cry out, you surrender to it, and Amy doesn’t relent, she doesn’t stop, she rides you until your voice is hoarse and you’re gulping for air and even then her tongue softens and keeps circling until you are spent, until you are exhausted, until you are quiet.
The two of you make it out of the kitchen, eventually. But it’s quite a while before you reach the bed.
***
Later, alone in your own shower, in your own house, still dazed and half-drunk, you turn the water to scalding hot and try to track each individual drop as it slides down your skin, to match them to the places where Amy’s hands have been, her tongue, her lips. Your stomach clenches at the memory of her need, that fierce and wild look like seething oil, thick enough to drown in, and you close your eyes and turn your face into the spray.
Remember this, you think.
It’s the same thought you always have, after Amy: Don’t forget.
You want to carry the feeling with you. To make it last.
You think, This is what it feels like to breathe underwater.