The Sensualist's Insomnia: A Dream
by Cassandra

Beautiful and shadowed, both; she with long, darkly curling tresses and tanned, gracefully tapering limbs, an image of a dark feminine perfection. In her eyes, soft and black, little else but eros and invitation. The same in his, and the same lithe perfection. Neither he nor she quite what I might favor most in form or coloring, but perfect, just the same

His hair is a deep brown as well, and long, straight and falling down to his collar and forward over his eyes—poet's carelessness rather than rock star's excess. I'm watching raptly as he delicately traces in henna with his slender, long fingered hands intricate, curling designs on her softest parts—wrist, breast, abdomen, inner thigh, and that most tender inner part of the junction of ass and thighs…as she, bare, kneels before him and I on the twin bed. Is he clothed? I'm not sure...his arm as he draws upon her flesh is as tanned and bare as all of her body. It doesn't seem that he is, but I am not consciously aware of his nakedness. It must be very late at night; all about is darkness and shadows except for the pale, bright moonlight from the room's single window illuminating the bed, making stark contrast of her smooth, sun-darkened limbs and the crisp, white linen of the sheets.

Time has passed. The plain, paneled walls are now vaguely discernable in the first dim light of early morning, the grey quality of the light promising an overcast and dreary day. I lay on my stomach on the bed, my head on my arms, and they sit on each side of me with legs outstretched, leaning back against the white-painted, flaking iron of the bed rails, she with the sheet about her waist. In this position I realize that he actually is clothed, somewhat, because the coarse, thick material of his only garment, blue jeans, rasps against my bare arm. And I think to myself, however disconnectedly, that of course he would be in jeans and nothing else if he were clothed at all.

There is something about the juxtaposition of the smooth, vulnerable, bare skin (with or without the accompanying hair, it doesn't really matter) of chest, stomach, back, and feet of a man and the rough texture of denim (a good fit, of course; not so tight as to restrict, but close enough to adequately show the lines of his body) that always seemed to me the very height of visual and textile sensuality. Without really looking I am aware that a few feet across from the foot of the bed stands an old, worn dresser and mirror against the wall, and the door to the rest of the house is in the wall perpendicular to that, so that the dresser is the first thing one might see, coming into the room.

To the left of us, the rest of the room is empty but for a closed closet door in the far corner, on the same wall against which the dresser stands, and the window is in the wall parallel to the bed. None of us are very sleepy, as one might expect to be after having presumably been awake all night, only just slightly tired. Instead, we sit (or lay, in my case) there in the bed, sometimes speaking softly to each other, and sometimes comfortable in quietude.

At the sound of her voice (velvet), I turn to look at her. Wanting the coolness of the room's air on her skin, she pushes the sheet away with her feet, and I am struck once again by her sensuality and beauty. With a somewhat indulgent half smile, she touches my cheek, her fingertips graze my lips; the invitation has returned to her eyes. Then a word of encouragement from her, the invitation spoken aloud, and he murmurs his approval; her mouth is suddenly on mine, and I am almost surprised, but in a pleasant, wondering kind of way. In the next moment my mouth is on her stomach, her hip, my fingers slowly and lightly stroking those afore-mentioned tender places and the perinium between them, below and in between the roundness of her thighs.

Slowly I become aware that his hand is on me, warm on the chilled bare skin of my back, bringing about the realization that I am as naked as she is, and have been all night. Now my lips have moved to her thigh, and I turn on my side as his hand travels to my hip; he leans over to press his lips against my neck, his hair brushing my cheek, and to whisper in my ear the suggestion to take my mouth a little lower. I sit up just enough to kiss him for a moment, lips and teeth and tongues entangle, one hand on his neck, fingers in his hair, while the other hand remains against her.

Then I return and focus my attention on her...she doesn't seem quite so serene as before...in the brief moment before I turn back on my stomach and bend my head to the sensitive place where my fingertips have been, I consider what I am about to do, and wonder if I would ever really do this in real life…

Replacing my hand with my mouth, I kiss and suck gently there (surely one of the sweetest spots in the world to receive a kiss, I think to myself) and move my fingers a little lower; her hips, by this time, are starting to move of their own accord, as his hand is all the while wandering lightly over my backside, my thighs, everything in between… He is now sitting farther down on the bed beside me, so as to have a better view of me obeying his suggestion, my mouth on her. I stroke lightly upward with my tongue, outside her lips, just enough to test her response, just enough to tease. She moans, and suddenly I'm gasping along with her; his fingers have found me and slipped inside as he simultaneously touches me, watches my mouth on her, and strokes his own erection with his free hand.

Somehow, his jeans are gone without my ever having noticed him undressing. I pause for a moment in pleasure, but her hips rise, impatient, toward me, and her sparse, small patch of soft curls (silk) thrusts, insistent, against my lips. Graciously, and quickly enough to startle, I delve my tongue into her for just a second, and now it's her turn to gasp. Then I rise a little and cover her clit with my mouth, and now I'm alternately suckling there and caressing with my tongue as she writhes against me, her fingers in my hair as it falls over her leg, autumn color on summer sun skin. His middle and forefinger slide in and out of me, his thumb pressing deeply into the same spot as mine is on her (also, incidentally, on the list of good spots to be kissed). As I continue, I think in that disconnected way we do in dreams of who I might prefer these two exotic, beautiful strangers to be. Copper-haired and hazel-eyed Dez from my teen years? Perfect curves, freckled ivory skin as pale as my own, intriguing and intelligent when she wasn't drugged out of her mind. She was the first bisexual female I ever knew (or knew I knew, anyway), and the first female to which I ever (however confusedly so) found myself attracted (and intensely so). And, of course, Allen, with his curling black hair, beautiful brown eyes (why do the guys always get the longest lashes?), broad, powerful shoulders and strong arms and hands, full, very kissable mouth, knowing mouth, oh, his mouth....and now I have forgotten whatever it was my lips and teeth and tongue were doing to her, because although my hand stays on her, I turn, intending to take him into my mouth, closing my eyes to dream within my dream that he is who I wish him to be. In the briefest moment of rationality, I bless that anything-is-possible quality of dreaming that allows me to turn so from her to him without dislodging his hand from its place on me.

As I take from his side the smooth-skinned, purpled head of this familiar, considerable erection between my lips, Allen's hand continues in it's place (maddening), his other hand now guiding my head downward, down and down until the tip reaches its limit deep within the closeness of my throat. I let him stay there for as long as my lungs will allow, sliding him in and out of my throat, then finally come up for air...I lick teasingly for a moment, tasting salt and sweetness, but just as I am about to take him into my mouth again, he becomes impatient. Pushing gently, he urges me back to her and rises behind me, and I unintentionally bite down on her thigh as he thrusts into me, hardness into softness. My mouth encircles her clit once more, lips and tongue and occasionally teeth, but I barely even realize what I'm doing, so intent am I on the feeling of him moving in and out of me, one of his hands gripping my hip and the thumb of the other stroking roughly, now pressing against, now pressing into the very same place it had previously, and I think in a fevered rush that soon it will take me over and I won't be able to hold back and I'll be crying out....And then I am crying out, in objection, because he removes his hand and pulls away all at once. I rock backwards against him, whimpering, my hand reaching back, searching out his leg, pleading; he had only been adjusting to a more comfortable position, and now the tip of his hardness presses in place of his thumb. As he shifts again, just beginning to push into me, the water in the bed sloshes audibly.........

Water? Waterbed? And I am awake again, it's the middle of the night again, and I'm awake, cursing my insomnia, damn it, in the middle of the night again! Allen lies fast asleep beside me, the sloshing of our waterbed having been a product of his turning over in his sleep; I'd wake him up, but he has to work in the morning. And now I'm wide awake and hot and slick and frustrated and doomed for the rest of the night to toss and turn in a futile search for peaceful sleep...

Sighing, I resign myself to having to wait until tomorrow. It's nothing new to me; I've known the feeling and been familiar with this plight for years: such are the frustrations of a sensualist's insomnia.