francesca

This story contains themes of lesbianism and incest, including graphic descriptions of sexual activity. If such material is in any way off-putting or offensive to you, please do not read any further. All characters are at least 18 years of age. The names have been changed to protect the innocent—and those who become a bit less innocent as events run their course. I really hope you enjoy it.

I was the only one in our family to call her Francesca. Everyone else had her down as Fran or Aunt Fran, but not I. It was just something I’d started as a little kid. I guess I just adored her name, the exotic way it rolled off my tongue; that, and maybe, the unspoken implication that we enjoyed some bond over and above that shared between her and the rest of our family.

Francesca was my Mom’s younger sister; baby sister probably being a more apt description as Mom was nearly eleven years old when she was born. She was still living in Tampa back then, maybe thirty-two or so, a staff writer for the St. Petersburg Times. The thing I remember most about my aunt back then was that she was a lot of fun, a sun-burst of vitality and utter hilarity. When she’d stay at our house over Christmas she’d have everybody cracking up with her stories; to this day I can see my Dad laughing so hard that he had tears rolling down his cheeks, pounding the kitchen table with his palm as if to plead mercy. Francesca had that wonderful glow about her, the indefinable quality that we tag as charisma for want of a finer phrase.

To say that I truly loved her would not be an understatement. She was my hero, an idol that, from my teenage vantage, I fell far short of. She was glamorous, a darkly pretty woman, curvaceous in an athletic way, her thick, curly hair cropped stylishly short. All that, and she was hands-down the smartest woman I’d ever met; smart and brassy.

I realize now that to some degree my childish psyche was magnifying her through a prism of inferiority. I was painfully shy in those days, a lonely girl who found easy sanctuary in reading and daydreams. I still had a mouthful of braces and was just too plain for words. Too plain and way too tall, at least for a girl; tall and skinny like a damned string bean—“Gangly” I’d once overheard my Mom describing me to a friend.

“Why not let Lenore come down for winter break?” Francesca had chimed in over breakfast one morning, right before she went back to Florida. “I’ll take a couple personal days and we can hang out, go up to Clearwater.”

My Mom wasn’t comfortable with it, probably for no other reason than I hadn’t ever been away from her before.

“What do you say, Kid, you up for spending an entire week with me?”

I was too surprised to even nod. I couldn’t believe that she’d just asked me like that. Yes, yes, yes my mind was screaming.

“We could go to Busch Gardens one day, maybe drive up to Orlando and see the rodent.”

I was nodding by then, still unable to string together a reasonably coherent sentence.

“You wanna go, baby?” There was some surprise in my Mom’s tone, as if she hadn’t expected me to in any way acquiesce in being separated from her or my Dad.

“Well her head’s definitely saying yes,” Francesca laughed, flashing an infectious smile.

And that was how I ended up on an American Airlines flight from Pittsburgh to Tampa in March of 1983. I was flying alone for the very first time, a curious melding of nervousness and utter anticipation making my stomach queasy. I can still recall in vivid detail the radiant sunset across the Gulf as the plane banked in for its final descent. I remember thinking that this was going to be the best vacation in my life.

“Get that.”

My first morning in Tampa and I was parked at the kitchenette, groggily gnawing a wedge of grapefruit, the phone on its second ring. Francesca had roused me early, flipping back the sheets as she chattered off an itinerary for our day. I was still half asleep and the grapefruit was very tart. The telephone rang again.

“Lenore, get that!” Francesca called in from the bedroom again.

“Hello,” I said, stretching over to pluck up the receiver.

“Fran there?” A man’s voice; rough and impatient.

“I’ll get her.”

“Tell her it’s Tom from the paper.”

“Hold on,” I answered, yelling in for my aunt as I palmed the mouthpiece. “It’s Tom from work.”

“Tell him I’m on vacation,” Francesca shouted back, coming out of the bedroom in a charge. The sight froze the eyes in my skull. My aunt was clad in a pair of baggy gym shorts with a bath towel loosely turbaned around her damp hair. And that was it; shorts, that towel and nothing else—nothing else. She snatched the receiver from my grasp and mouthed the word “sorry” as she drew her forearm across her bare breasts.

“Tom?” she said, her tone instantly professional, pausing a moment, listening to something on the other end of the line.

I sat there in absolute shock, no exaggeration on that point. Francesca was standing there as close to bare-assed naked as you could get, water from the shower still beaded on her skin. The gym shorts had Ohio State emblazoned across the backside. I averted my eyes for a second and then, unable to help myself, looked back.

“Look in my tickler file—top drawer next to—yeah, right there. Just leaf through it, it should be right under her name.”

She looked over at me, obviously waiting for some response on the other side of the line. I know I had to be gawking; I looked away again, then right back. Francesca twisted her face with embarrassment, casually glancing down the lines of her exposed flesh.

“Okay, you see the number there. Check that with what you have.”

She waited again, looked at me and with a broad grin moved her forearm and gestured to her heavy breasts with the phone. “He loves these,” she mouthed mischievously, bringing it back to her ear.

“Okay, you got it then. Good. —No, she’s my niece. And remember the words ‘Fran is on vacation next time something comes up,” my aunt chuckled. “You too, Tommy, see you then.”

“Sorry ‘bout the burlesque, kiddo” Francesca laughed as she hung up, again draping her bosom almost as an afterthought.

I couldn’t reply, not even so much as a nod.

“We book in half an hour, kid, so hit the shower and get ready,” she went on, pointing to the clock for emphasis, shooing me off towards my bedroom with an abundant smile. “Come on, go, go, go…”

I was actually trembling a bit as I got the shower going, a flux of emotions like I’d never felt before welling up within me. I was still seeing her standing there in front of me, trying to blank away the visceral rush of adrenalin coursing through my veins. I quickly shed my pajamas and caught my reflection in the mirror. I tossed my hair back, glared hard at my own little tits. They were nubs, maybe a bit better than nubs, but not by much. I was so skinny that my ribcage stood out, arms defined but reedy. I swear that the only thing I really liked about my body was my neck, and that was only because I’d once read about a woman’s “graceful, swan like neck” in one of my novels and decided that that was what I had.

I tested the water and climbed in, pushing my face up close to the shower head. My mind went back to Francesca again, as if of its own accord. She was wonderful to see like that, her light olive complexion unblemished, an athlete’s compact musculature, and those unbelievable tits. Christ, those tits.

I clamped my eyes and tried to empty my mind. Think of something else. Think of…

Francesca’s breasts were large and firm, richly sloped, with small, dark nipples—her nipples were peaked, thick around as the last digit on my forefinger. I kept my eyes shut but could still see them as plain as day. Every detail, the delicately rippled areolas; the way their weight brought them in along her torso.

I knew I shouldn’t be thinking like this, what the hell was wrong with me. I silently berated myself as the hot water needled my skin. She was so beautiful, so…

I touched myself, just gliding my fingers along the tender reach of my inner thigh. I knew I wanted to, but tried to catch myself, hesitating. My heart was drumming in my chest by now; I quickly lathered my right palm, tracing it through my coarse thatch of my pubes, right down on my vagina, caressing, parting the soft petals, running my two middle fingers along the silken flesh of my vulva.

My breathing was coming in gasps, a languid transit of soap-slicked fingertips, finding my clit, just a flick, and then another.

“Two minutes or I’m coming in after you,” Francesca shouted teasingly, giving the door a solid rap.

I was completely off the reservation then, an orgasm exploding outward from my clitoris, a blinding surge of pleasure unlike anything I’d experienced before wracking through the lobes of my brain. I bit hard into my bath towel to keep from screaming, a muffled, animal keening as the sensation ebbed and came on in an even more indescribable wave. I was down on my knees literally, annihilated by it, light blistering through my clamped eyelids, teeth gnashing through that poor green towel.

“You okay?” Francesca’s voice again. “…Lenore?”

“I’m coming,” I answered after a long second, hoping the rasp in my voice wasn’t that noticeable, not even thinking of this particular choice of words was pretty damned witty. A witty repartee completely lost on the young girl clutching her knees in the bathtub—me— tears of the best kind springing to her eyes.

“God,” I wheezed, opening my eyes at long last, feeling that first twinge of parochial school guilt, then more as I shakily got back on my feet. How totally mortifying. I jacked my offending hand up into the shower stream, holding it there, trying to collect myself. I picked up the bar of soap and started a fast scrub, trying to tamp down whatever it was that had just flared inside me.

It was hands down the wildest feeling I’d ever experienced, and trust me I’d been touching myself, as the term prissily went, for a long while. “You are not gay,” I heard myself whisper several times as I busily scrubbed away. And then as if in answer to my own subconscious, I said forcefully “You’re not! You’re not. …You are not.”

“Now you’re starting to look real sharp,” Francesca bubbled as we strolled through Hyde Park later that same morning, reaching out to flick my hair aside so as to better scope my new sunglasses. Our first stop was shopping, which if you knew my aunt would not be any kind of surprise. I adjusted them on my nose, grinning, loving how they made me look from the instant I tried them on. I’d gotten firmly shushed when I protested the one hundred and twenty-five dollar price tag.

“Tell her how good she looks,” my aunt had told the clerk as she handed over her Visa.

“Glamorous,” came the answer—and for one of the first times in my life I tended to agree. I was feeling great standing there with her, my new shades on, a stranger saying I looked terrific and meaning it.

“Now we get you a new bathing suit,” Francesca announced as we crossed the cobbled street. Hyde Park was so cool, so lively. I was almost giddy.

“I’ve got one.”

“That’s for the swim team, kiddo,” she teased, playfully butting me with her shoulder as she swung the door to a very upscale clothing store.

“But…”

“That dress would look terrific on you,” she interrupted, stopping to point out a spaghetti strapped sundress, yellow with a soft spray of white polka-dots.

“No, I…”

“Would look good on me too,” she went on, lifting up the tag and then looking back at me in frank appraisal.

“I’m okay.”

“Don’t try and stop me from spoiling you. The effort will prove very futile.”

“But…”

“Bathing suit, that’s what we’re here for,” she said, nodding towards the swimwear department and leading me off like a cavalry scout, panning about at the bikini clad mannequins, pausing and then raising her finger to one across the room. “…That’s the one.”

I’d never worn a bikini before, not even as little kid. I guess you’d say my Mom had a conservative bent when it came to shopping for me, and as I got older, I just continued following her lead. My bathing suit was a one piece in navy. It was, looking back, a definite “swim team” deal.

Francesca was up with the counter already, gesturing between the plastic mannequin and me, her hand fluttering up and down like a knowing maestro, the attractive young clerk nodding along with her, taking my measurements by eye.

“Here, try it on,” she said, at last walking back to where I uncomfortably waited.

I stuck out my hand dumbly. It was a bikini, flimsy, aqua with a bright seashell print. There was nothing to it, or so it seemed to me. Francesca had me by the shoulders and was edging me towards the dressing room, ushering me in and closing the door before I could protest.

“Come on, I’m dying to see it,” she urged through the louvered door, the sound of her footfalls distinct as she hustled back towards the service counter.

The bikini lay in my hand like an unwanted appendage. I stared at it with a deep apprehension, not wanting any part of it. It wasn’t me, as the phrase would go. But I still felt I had to try it on for her, let her see that it wouldn’t look good on me. I quickly undressed, carelessly scattering my clothes on the small stool, averting my eyes from the mirror as I slipped it on, aligning the straps across my shoulders, jiggling the meager cups around my equally meager offerings.

The smile came of its own volition. I looked at someone else standing there before the mirror, my new shades still on, the bikini clinging ever so wonderfully. I think it was the first time I actually didn’t flinch a bit at the sight of my own reflection. It looked so cool. The color was great on me and it—God I looked nice. It was the first time that I realized what a simple article of clothing could do for you. I felt lithe and beautiful, delightfully sexy.

“You ready?” Francesca spoke, giving the door a soft knock.

I actually giggled when she laid eyes on me, the way her face lit up.

“That is so you,” she said, spinning to the young clerk who’d followed her over to the dressing room. “Am I right?”

“That does do it for her,” the girl said admiringly, craning her neck to examine my rear, reaching out to adjust one of the straps—an innocent brush of flesh to flesh that corkscrewed straight down my spine.

“My sexy little niece,” Francesca added, touching my opposite shoulder and spinning me around toward her, feeling her gaze as she surveyed me from behind.

“I like it,” I burbled stupidly.

“Good, now you go try this on.”

The sundress, the yellow one from when we’d come in. She’d gotten it when I’d been changing.

“Thank you,” I whispered, feeling a bit overwhelmed.

“Come on, I want to see it on you,” she answered, clapping her hands till I backed in and shut the door.

“That is so beautiful on her,” the clerk said admiringly. “I love how tall she is.”

“Katherine Hepburn,” Francesca countered.

“Sigourney Weaver,” the pretty clerk purred.

“Veronica Lake. …Are you hearing this, kid?” Francesca laughed. “Our way of saying you look very svelte.”

I was already slipping the dress over my head, doing a mad shimmy to draw it down my body. I was turned on, there was no denying it. It was just the attention of it all, the way I felt standing there in that dress. It looked so cute on me, it really did.

I don’t know why, but in that instant I closed my eyes and deliberately imagined Francesca standing there that morning, so beautiful. I felt that warm churn from deep in my chest, that unfamiliar shortness of breath that had been part of my life for every moment since.

“How does it look?” Francesca urged happily, clearly enjoying the heck out of our adventure.

I stepped out, biting my lower lip in shear anticipation to the reactions, doing a slight pirouette in response to their obvious approval.

“So beautiful,” Francesca mouthed, absently flicking up the hem of my new skirt.

The next two days went by in a happy blur. We went to Busch Gardens, did the car safari. We rode the coasters till we were completely frazzled. The next morning we were up early, speeding down to St. Pete, strolling along the beach, doing lunch at the Don Caesar. She took me to her newsroom that afternoon and introduced me to everyone. At night we’d take long walks together and sit up talking for hours, chattering about everything you could possibly think of.

And every night, no matter how much I tried to force my mind away from it, I would lay there in my bed masturbating to that visage of Francesca standing there bare-breasted in the kitchen, fantasizing about it in the way you do when you’re younger, not really doing anything physical with the object of your lust. Just the simple presence of her in my thoughts was enough to send me into a roiling climax; and then, with the reliability of an incoming tide, the wash of guilt and regret. Looking back it’s hard to believe how nasty and bad I felt about this behavior, the shame enough to make me shroud my face with the sheet.

“You can give the driving another try today,” Francesca said as we strolled along the sparsely peopled beach. It was my third day there and she’d driven us up to Caladesi, an island just north of Clearwater. It was a neat place, accessed exclusively by ferry and part of a federal wildlife preserve. There were no buildings on it other than the ranger station and visitors center; just dunes and acres of pristine white sand.

“This is so nice,” I said, watching as the waves creamed ashore.

“It is, isn’t it,” Francesca said, halting at a spot several yards from the water and setting down our stuff. “Don’t be afraid of trying it again.”

“I can’t drive a stick shift,” I answered. She had a small red Volkswagon Rabbit, a convertible, and she’d let me tool around a parking lot with it yesterday. I’d never worked a standard before and had done more jerks and sputtering stalls than I cared to recall.

“That’s just ‘cause you haven’t dated enough boys,” she answered with a wink, wryly miming what was most definitely not the operation of a stick shift. “…Do another spin with it in the parking lot tomorrow. You just gotta get the feel of the clutch,” —another lewd flick of that wrist— “you know just like getting the feel for one of these.”

I laughed at the sudden bawdiness, the way I’d seen girls at school jesting each other, but not me. For some weird reason it made me feel really good. Also standing there in my new bikini—my first public unveiling as it were—had me feeling light and girlish.

I stared out over the water and thought that I hadn’t really done anything yet, I didn’t have a boyfriend, hadn’t really dated anybody. I had definitely not gotten the “feel for one of these.” A flock of pelicans came in low over the breaking surf, the whoosh of their wings thrilling as they folded and plunged headlong into a school of unlucky fish.

“Come on, let’s go in,” Francesca shouted, bounding past me as she charged headlong into the water, shrieking at the chill before diving right in.

I broke from my thoughts and followed her in; the water was still cold, cold enough that my breath caught short as I plunged into a large wave.

“This is rough for here,” Francesca said as I swam out to her, both of up standing in neck deep water, bobbing as the tide ebbed and rose. She was shaking a bit, getting used to the temp, taking a mouthful of water and spraying it in my direction. “You freezing?”

“I’m good,” I shivered.

“Gotta get used to it,” she went on, looking about quickly and then, to my complete and utter surprise, reaching around behind her and unfastening her bikini top, peeling it off and looping it through the waistband of her briefs in one smooth motion. “…I love swimming topless. It’s my secret vice.”

She kicked back and did a few strokes on her back, her breasts marvelously buoyant, perfectly visible to me in that clear salty water. We bobbed together for a moment; Francesca smiled at me, at my expression no doubt.

“Feels free,” she said finally. “That’s why I like it out here, nobody bothering you, no college kids getting stewed and cranking their radios. …Being idiots.”

She rolled over in the water and swam out a bit deeper, the bikini top trailing in her wake.

Again, I was caught so off guard as to be speechless. I bobbed silently, my toes bouncing off the hard-packed sand.

“Wanna try it?” Francesca asked with a devilish grin, her chin just above the water.

I heard myself giggle nervously; the beach was for the most part empty, with small clutches of bathers ranged every couple hundred yards or so.

Francesca came back in my direction with a breast stroke—how apt—circling behind me, one hand up on my shoulder, the other deftly undoing my top. I clutched it without thinking; a gentle insistence as she floated in front of me and pulled it free of my body.

“Now don’t tell my sister about this or I’ll get murdered,” she chuckled, drifting back from me with the top still trailing in her hand.

“Swim,” she urged finally, as if amused by the way I just drifted there, hands cupping my small tits. I glanced about a final time, reassuring myself that no one could see, and then started to paddle. It felt great, free just like she’d said. Years later I sat in a darkened theatre watching Kate Winslet skinny-dip and experienced my Proust moment, a visceral recall of salt water and Francesca’s touch, that fleeting look she gave as I swam up to her in the Gulf of Mexico, our fluttering legs brushing, our bodies so close…

“Feels great,” I whispered.

“It does,” came her answer, her expression clouding as she reached out to brush my cheek. She seemed to be looking for an answer that wasn’t there. “I love you more than you know, Lenore,” she said with a wan smile, whirling away from me diving completely out of sight. It was a moment that has stood fixed in my mind ever since, suddenly alone out there, the water choppy and cold, people far down the beach with no idea of what I felt.

“Race you,” Francesca’s voice came, bursting to the surface maybe forty feet away, waving me forward, her demeanor changed as if by force of will.

“You had everybody’s eyes with that dress,” Francesca said as we settled into her parlor.

It was later that evening, the beach trip a dreamy memory, dinner at a steakhouse where the wine list was so expansive that they brought it tableside on a pedestal. I’d worn my new dress; Francesca a sleeveless white blouse and a bright pair of Capri’s. We’d shared a porterhouse, which Francesca had insisted on being rare. She arranged a tour of the wine cellar for me, even though I couldn’t drink what I was looking at.

I settled onto the couch, straightening my dress, fussing with the pleats.

“You have a good time today?”

“Yes,” I responded, eager for her to come back from the kitchen.

“You want a taste?” she asked, stepping into the room with the half bottle of Pinot Noir she’d taken home from the restaurant, two bulbous glasses in her opposite hand.

I nodded tentatively, intent as she poured a half glass for each of us, following her lead as she swirled the reddish liquid, seeing the legs as it rolled, ducking my nose beneath the rim for that first, wonderful whiff.

“Salutѐ”

“Salute,” I toasted back, missing the natural phrasing, chinking our glasses together, tasting that first sip.

“Good?”

I nodded, lifting the glass once more to my lips, savoring the feel of the wine in my mouth, the warm afterglow as I swallowed.

“Today was terrific,” Francesca whispered, as if introducing me to some dark conspiracy.

I smiled and enjoyed that sudden light feeling in my head.

“You don’t know how beautiful you are,” she went on, still in that hushed, intimate tone.

We sat in complete silence for a minute or so. I felt a blush rise on my cheeks, no doubt fostered by several sips of that good wine. I knew something was about to happen, something I was unsure of, a parched thirst that I wanted sated.

“You are.”

“No I’m not,” I stammered, shaking my head.

“You are. You just haven’t realized it yet.”

“I’m…”

Francesca put her wine down and took my hand, her touch expressive and wonderfully gentle. She looked into my palm as if a gypsy would see something there, some clue she desperately needed.

“You haven’t been with anybody yet, have you?” she asked, still staring at the deeply etched lines of life and love and death.

I couldn’t answer, I felt close, as if the room didn’t have any air left.

“It’s okay, don’t be scared,” she said, meeting my widened eyes with her own, again reaching out to brush my cheek. Wordlessly, she took the wineglass from my trembling grip and set it aside, hesitating, and then leaning in to kiss my cheek, her lips just brushing my skin, so lightly that I wasn’t sure if it was a real touch.

Then she tilted her head and brought her lips softly to my own. I didn’t move, didn’t kiss her back, but didn’t pull away either. It was the first kiss like that I’d ever really had. My eyes were open, fixed on hers. I was scared, scared of what was happening, of what was about to happen.

Francesca leaned in and kissed me again, deeply this time, her lips pressed to mine, my eyes drifting shut, relaxing with it, opening my mouth just a fraction, feeling the fleeting hint of tongue, her fingers trailing sensuously along my face, down my throat.

“Do you want to undress me,” she asked, pulling away just enough to sound the words, letting her fingers trace down across my bare shoulders, toying with the thin straps of my dress.

She stood up without my answer, taking my hands and drawing me shakily to my feet.

“I want you to,” she whispered softly, lifting my right hand to her lips, kissing it seductively, nibbling the tender flesh of my wrist, her breath warm and scented of the wine.

“I…”

Francesca pressed my hand to the top button of her blouse, letting her arms sink to her sides, offering herself to me in as frank a manner as one could do such a thing.

I don’t know why, but I felt like crying as I undid that first button, then another, then the next. The blood was surging inside my skull, my breathing labored and urgent. I saw goose bumps rise on my forearms as I unbuttoned the blouse to her waistline and started to tug it free.

“Take your time, baby,” she whispered, brushing my hands in a calming fashion.

All I knew was that I wanted her bare, I wanted to touch her. Any restraints of hesitancy had vanished in those few seconds. I guided the blouse free and draped it back across her shoulders, a rustle as it fell to the floor at her feet. Francesca reached behind and slowly unfastened her brassiere, the straps relaxing with the heaviness of her breasts, pausing for me to lift it away.

The bra slid free with barely an effort. Her breasts were a wonder to me. She seemed pleased, as if perfectly proud of them, maybe just savoring my evident enthusiasm to her nakedness.

She pulled into me, kissing me again, my arms wrapping around her, the shocking sensation of bare flesh under my fingers for the first time.

“Make me naked,” she whispered breathlessly.

I was past all shyness now. I didn’t need any real urging. The top button on the Capri’s snapped loose, then the zipper drawing down, me bending before her, pulling them down along her thighs, helping as she stepped out of them. I reached up and drew her panties down, again helping her step free of them, her legs smooth and powerful. I straightened up, surveying what I’d wrought, letting her take my hand and silently led me into her bedroom.

“Undress for me,” she said as we entered the dimly lit room. I thought she’d want to do it for me, like I’d just done for her, but she simply stepped back and waited, radiant in her nudity.

I swallowed hard, feeling so off my balance here. Francesca just smiled, chewing down on her lower lip in anticipation. I stepped free of my pumps, slipping the spaghetti straps off my shoulders one at a time. A feeling of calmness and trust came over me as I carefully peeled the dress down along my body, standing there for a long moment before gliding my plain white briefs down to my ankles.

Then I was in her arms, kissing her, our bodies intertwined and afire. Francesca eased me back onto her bed, mounting me as I hitched backward onto the center of her mattress, our mouths glued together with a maddening passion. I closed my eyes to her touch, that exquisite sensation of hands roaming freely over my heretofore untouched skin, her mouth tracing down to my modest little buds, just the feathering of her lips at first, then the tickling thrill of her taking a nipple into her mouth, sucking it tenderly, moving to the other one, sucking it, looking up to see my reaction as she softly bit and tugged it, eyelids fluttering as she seemingly sucked the entire tit into her mouth.

“Kiss them,” she whispered ardently, lifting up off me, presenting her full breasts to me. I lifted my head and did just that, kissing one then the next, caressing them with my left hand, trying to do it like she’d just done to me, getting bolder as I went, her nipples thick and spongy, wonderful against my tongue as I suckled them.

“Oh, God…” Francesca muttered, lolling her head back, stiffening as I continued to fondle her, her breathing coarsened. “…I got to do you.”

She moved down my long body with a lustful deliberateness, using her lips against my inner thighs as she spread my legs. I was still hiked up on my elbows, watching as she circled in on me, the first brush of her tongue—I was very wet—a deeper probing, saliva slicking me even more, an expert flick, then another that literally drew the air from my lungs, Francesca’s eyes closed to mere slits, her face buried in my mound, the receptors in my braid crackling, her tongue roiling on…

I screamed as the orgasm hit out of nowhere, a blinding firecracker exploding from the base of my spine, arching my back up from the mattress, fistfuls of sheet the only thing seemingly holding me to earth. I was coming in waves, one after the next, Francesca gripping into my hips, keeping at me frantically, the ebbing between not enough to even catch my breath. I reached down to push her away at one point, but she shrugged off the touch, increasing the intensity of her ministrations, another furious climax building within me, a ragged moan as I thrashed about as if possessed, coming, coming, coming…

And then it was done; finished. I was lying there shivering, my vision hazy and unfocused. I listened to the sound of my own breath and a delicious smile slipped my lips.

“I love how you come, baby” Francesca whispered admiringly, her mouth glistening, eyes very bright.

She was up alongside me, stroking my forehead, snuggling to peck my cheek. I rolled onto my side and kissed her, tasting myself on her mouth. I had tears in my eyes and started to wipe them away, only to have her stop me.

“I love you so much,” she went on.

Instinctively I kissed her again and started to roll her over, again to be drawn short.

“I want to be on top,” she announced. “Okay?”

I nodded, in my innocence not really registering what she meant.

Francesca pressed me back onto her bed and kissed me deeply, lifting up on her knees, positioning herself up over my head and taking a firm grip on the antique brass headboard. She silently met my eyes as she lowered herself onto my face.

“Just be easy,” she said, lifting her head up towards the ceiling and waiting.

Her bush was dark and luxuriant, a perfectly symmetrical triangle, beads of moisture clinging like dew. I let my hands roam up along the smooth globes of her ass and drew her down that final inch or so, my tongue tracing the sodden crevice of her sex, wetting it with my saliva, exploring.

Francesca’s labial folds were dark and heavy, an audible whooshing as I licked deeper into the silken depths of her pussy, a briny taste that I instantly loved, feeling the definition of her pubic bone on my face, swirling my tongue, discovering that delicate little nub. No teasing, just going right down on it, seeing her immediately start to respond, sinking more weight onto me, her head swaying from side to side, her breathing quickened.

“I’m gonna come,” she moaned after another minute or so, and then she was grinding against my mouth, digging in with her pelvis, moaning louder and louder, gyrating down on me as the climax hit. I felt the heat coming off her, saw her gripping the headboard, her tits bouncing as she started a frenzied humping, driving down on me like a machine, a slippery wetness sloshing into my mouth, running down along my cheeks.

“Oh my God! Oh, suck it, suck my cunt. Suck my cunt, baby. …God, God, God…aghhhh…

I squeezed her ass hard, sucking on her clit, the cords of her neck taut and quivering, the muscles along her lower abdomen rippling.

She lifted up off me, struggling for a moment against my attempt to hold her in. Her thighs were drenched, her hamstrings aflutter, the storm subsiding.

I watched as she slipped down beside me, obviously trying to steady things a bit.

“…Look at you,” she said with affectionate amusement, stroking at my glistening cheek. “I guess “I’m a gusher. Your lip’s bleeding.”

I tasted the fresh blood, realizing that she’d ground my inner lip against my braces.

“Does it hurt?” she asked, obviously concerned.

I shook my head and smiled.

“That was so… “

“Thank you,” I said without even thinking about it.

“Thank You, Lenore,” she whispered back, our noses touching as we snuggled to one another.

“I love you.”

“And I love you, baby” she sighed. “And I always will.”

How do you talk about someone who changed your life? I ask that question now, because that is exactly what Francesca did for me that night.

I loved Francesca long before that long ago night. I loved her as I dozed safely in her arms after our first lovemaking, the sweet murmur of her voice seeping down into my dreams. And I love her still; love her like no other person alive, save my own kids.

A chasm of time has opened between then and now, and time is a most unforgiving companion. I see the wages it demands etched deeper into my face every year. I see the same, deeper lines in my aunt’s face and grow afraid.

I live in northern California today, married to a good man for going on nineteen years now. I have three children, two girls and a boy. I find every day interesting and look at each virgin sunrise as a great gift. I live my life and don’t let my life live me.

That is what I got from Francesca, even though I couldn’t put into words why that is so. I just know it to be true. I was one person flying to Florida; a far different one coming back eleven days later, aching at our separation as the plane lifted from the runway.

Francesca still lives in Florida, a successful real estate broker now, living what she half-mockingly terms the good life; a dazzling home in Boca Raton, a Jaguar convertible in the drive. She is still a strikingly beautiful woman, her hair still stylish but turned a steel-gray, her luxuriant bush waxed smooth. And of course that wondrous set of tits are not what they once were, the immutable laws of gravity giving them a zenith and an inevitable decline; or in my aunt’s own choice phrasing, “tits are temporary, suck it up and hope you got a couple good pictures of ‘em.”

She is single yet, a bevy of lovers over the years, both male and female; something she has always been quite open with me about. She remains an integral part of this puzzle which is my life. Godmother to both my girls, an enlivening fixture at my home for every holiday.

And yes, she is still my lover. I have no hesitancy in sharing this fact, no compunctions of guilt over the fact that I occasionally share her bed to my husband’s ignorance. I’m careful with it, respectful in my discretion.

We travel together at least once a year these days, a vacation somewhere usually foreign, a “girl’s thing” as Jack would say. That and I usually make time to visit her in the depths of winter, a few days to ourselves, always surprised at how that feverish passion rekindles as we come together.

And that is it really, nothing more to add. I think back often to that time, the first sight of her nude body, my mouth buried in the mossy depths of her pussy, her broodingly beautiful face lost in pleasure. That feeling you have when you first get another person off changes everything for a person, especially when you deeply love them. I’ve had that experience only a few times in my life, Francesca and Jack and maybe one or two others, a consuming need, a passion at last satisfied.

I have a photograph of the two of us from that trip, Francesca and I having lunch at a small café. A bright ceramic frame of seashells and small birds that seems lost amid a table cluttered with family photographs. We smile for the camera and seem to hold a mutual secret, a secret shared only by sexed couples. I look at that often, the secret still ours. Still so much in love with her after all these years.

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