Just One Night, Part 3: Binding Agreement by Kyra Davis Read Free Book Online Page B

and he touched me. She was the teacher and I was the lesson. She told him how to add his fingers to the experience. And in between sentences she would lean down and nibble on my ear, find the sensitive spot there with her tongue; her fingers traced the area around my nipples, making them hard without her ever touching them directly.”
    I look away as if the scene were right before me rather than in Simone’s head. As if I was seeing me on that bed. I could never do that, could I? I could never relinquish so much control, could never challenge so many conventions. I’m not even attracted to women. But this story caresses me in ways I hadn’t anticipated. I cross my arms over my chest so Simone can’t see that Nidal has worked her magic on me as well.
    “She told me where to touch her. . . . I’ve never touched another woman’s breast before. But I liked the way it felt, firm but so soft. I liked the way Nidal responded to me. Joseph liked it, too.”
    “Did you actually have sex with them?” I ask. My cheeks are bright red and my question comes out in a whisper.
    “Nidal directed that, too. She told him to enter me slowly, she told him how to rotate his hips just right. She asked me to kiss her while he rode me.” Simone falls silent, momentarily lost in the memory. “Nidal asked me to face my fears,” she finally adds, “and she rewarded me for it.”
    “With sex?”
    Simone hesitates only a moment before replying. “She rewarded me with adventure. And with the most amazing orgasm I’ve ever had. It ripped through me, Kasie. It almost made me weep. Joseph said he could actually feel the spasms that shot through me. It was . . . it was spectacular. And it’s a memory I will hold on to until I die. When I’m eighty I’ll be able to look back at that night and remember that I was once daring and bold.”
    “Yes,” I say slowly. For a few moments we let the picture she’s painted hang between us, demanding both reverence and wonder. But as it fades I begin to remember what’s real and what isn’t. I reach for something to pull us both back fully into the present.
    “You’ll always have the memory,” I say slowly, “but . . . you might not remember if you slept with Jason or Joseph.”
    That makes her giggle and with her laughter the mood shifts to something a little less intense. “Well,” she finally says, “that’s why we have to stay friends. So you can remind me of these things.”
    I smile down into my milk shake, relishing the idea of having a lifelong friend. She hesitates only a moment before taking my hand. “It sounds like you have fears you need to face, too,” she says kindly. “What’s going on, Kasie?”
    I take a deep breath and begin to talk. I tell her of the push-pull lover’s game I’m playing with Robert. I tell her I’m being promoted by a man who wants to fire me. I tell her about Asha and Tom and how conflicted I am. “I’m being granted power and influence without respect,” I finally say. “I didn’t even know that was possible!”
    This time Simone’s laugh is richer and more boisterous. “Perhaps you haven’t noticed but that’s the situation of all the dictators in the world and quite a few of our elected officials. We respect the office, we certainly respect the power, but it’s fairly rare that we respect the individual who wields that power over us.”
    I shake my head. “I disagree. When we read our history books, it’s the leaders who we honor and idealize.”
    “Oh please. The whole point of history books is to bring our attention to the exceptions. There’s not enough room on the page to write about those who represent the status quo, the norm. My God, how boring would that be?”
    I giggle my half-hearted agreement.
    “No,” she sighs, “ normally when someone has power over us, we go out of our way to look for that person’s flaws. We exaggerate them in our minds and in our gossip. We ridicule our leaders when their backs are