Their lips and tongues and fingers lacked for no heat, but five minutes in she knew what the problem was: She had been left behind. Sarah was soaring, on a high all her own, and both the blessing and the curse was that Sarah was too far aloft to notice. They had to be careful not to grind upon her stomach, but still Sarah was electrified and wild, so sensitive a feathery touch could turn her convulsive with rapture. Her head would thrash side to side, its cascade of thin braids became whips. And with Adrienne's mouth buried between her thighs, never had Sarah's legs felt more powerful as when they clenched together, as if to crush the head that had brought her so shudderingly far. She had become more than mortal; it was like making love with a force of nature. To deny her anything she wanted would be to risk death.
Somewhere in the shadow of it Adrienne lay exhausted. There might not even be enough air in the room for them both. How sore she would be tomorrow. This would be how the servants of savage deities would feeclass="underline" beloved meat, knowledgeable and privileged, but meat nonetheless.
In the interim, one tiny misgiving had grown, and burst from her mouth before she even knew it would.
"If you didn't want to go through that piercing alone," she said, "then why didn't you take me along? I didn't even know you were planning on doing it."
"I don't know. Nina was there, and…" She turned onto her side, facing inward. Calmer now, what a relief. "I didn't want to bother you. You had a session with Clay earlier."
"You couldn't have waited until I didn't?"
"You had your work, and … and I had mine."
Work. She'd really said that.
Adrienne's hand stole over to Sarah's belly, touched the hot red skin around her navel. The ring. A bit of clear fluid was oozing from the piercing. For weeks, Sarah would daily have to doctor this with antiseptic until it healed.
"This was work to you."
Sarah nodded. "I wanted to know what it was like, getting a body piercing. Ears don't count, everybody does their ears, that's nothing."
"Your thesis."
"Yeah." Sarah grinned, salacious and heavy-lidded. "There's no rule saying I can't enjoy it, too. What, don't tell me you don't like it. You like it, don't you?"
Her gaze tracked to Sarah's navel again. It drew the eye naturally, and part of her wanted to lower her mouth to it, trace her tongue around the little folds, like tiny pudenda, taste the metal. Too soon, though, let it heal. Yet the ring felt intimidating. Neither of them wore a thing at the moment, yet it seemed as if Sarah were more naked, somehow, her bared body all the more emphasized. Naked and strong.
"I like it," she whispered. "I just wish I'd been there."
"Don't be mad" — stroking Adrienne's hair — "I had to do this for myself. For them, too, it's so much more prevalent a part of their culture. Graham has nipple piercings — I bet you didn't know that about him, did you? Nina told me that Twitch went in twice to get his cock pierced and chickened out both times." She laughed. "Erin was there too. This afternoon. I had her tape it."
Videotape, too. Why hadn't she just sent out invitations?
"I understand why they do it now," Sarah said, the carnal beast sated for the time being, the inquisitive Sarah emerging. "It's an experience you just can't compare with having your ears done. These people — Nina and Twitch and Erin and Graham and Clay, and the others I've met at the clubs and all around — they're so low in the social strata, they're forced to assert some control in their lives in other ways, and this is one of them. You never feel more alive and in control of yourself as when you trust someone else to run a piece of sharp metal through you. I never would've believed how strong that feeling comes through when you're lying there if I hadn't done it myself."
Adrienne tracked a finger through the sweat between Sarah's breasts. "It sounds like a rite of passage."
"That's exactly what it is. You know what they are out there? I mean, think about them all, at the clubs, and on the streets. It's tribal. They don't formalize it, but it’s still a tribal society." Sarah rolled onto her back, staring upward. "I miss the ceiling fan from home. That always feels so good now." A shrug. "That's all most everyone is these days, just a collection of isolated tribes, finding more and more reasons to be suspicious of each other. In primitive cultures there's only room for one view, really, just to survive, but ours … hundreds, thousands maybe. And we're not any different back home in Tempe. All our friends, just about, are just like us. You, me, them, we're this little tribe of muff-divers."
Adrienne frowned. "Don't confine me like that, all right?"
"No, I guess I can't, can I?" Sarah propped herself up on her elbow. "Because you can't make the commitment. You've still got one foot on the other side of the fence."
Her voice sounded hurt all of a sudden, and angry, and where was this coming from?
"And you tell me I have trouble making up my mind?"
"I —" Adrienne tried. Anything she could say would be wrong, but silence would be worse. "I never pretended to be something I wasn't. It's the way I am. My inclinations just didn't fall exclusively one way or another."
"Oh, that's so analytical," Sarah groaned. With her hair still in those braids, she looked feral and wounded. "You know, there are times you seem one step removed from your life."
And it didn’t bear arguing about, for there was no right or wrong here. Each of them was what she was, and true to that; made differently, and perhaps only half-compatible, and it was that other half that could potentially bring so much pain. Pain over what one might long for, that the other could never be.
As quickly as she had launched into it, Sarah drew back out. With downcast eyes and creased forehead, she squirmed in closer to Adrienne's side, radiant with body heat and sheer presence, one arm thrown across Adrienne's shoulders, one leg draped across Adrienne's knees. She might have no words left; her body would say all. That was the thing about arguing naked: There was nothing behind which to hide, only raw truth.
So Adrienne lay in her possessive embrace, even returned it, but felt alive with questions. What will happen to us? — this was the big one. How will we see each other in a year, or two, or five? It could work between us, always, but will our hormones let it?
They left the bed later. When neither felt like cooking, Sarah volunteered to go for Chinese take-out. A peace offering, it felt like, her suggestion made almost sheepishly, I know how much you love Chinese.
The condo suffered for her absence, some vitality missing, and Adrienne tried to fill the void with music, turning the stereo louder than it needed to be.
She sat on the sofa with one leg folded beneath her, holding the rainstick that was supposed to remind her of San Francisco, and had when at first, but no longer did. New meanings had supplanted old. She turned it end to end to end, listening to the delicate showers. Whether or not Sarah had covertly intended it, the sound now conjured up her more than anything, from her wide knowing eyes to her peasant feet, and everything between. The gift had become the giver.
And what might the giver become? Adrienne had been worried at first by this evolving Sarah, with the whiplike hair and the navel ring and the penchant for new friends more pessimistic than those she had at home. But these were only affectations. She was the same Sarah, just doing what she had been schooled to do: live amongst the savages, and take them to her heart.