© 2001 Jordan Shelbourne
Yeah, I cheated on you with your best friend. No, my dick never touched her, but it was cheating all the same.
Well, why do you think? I mean, you're in residency, you're at the hospital like 27 hours a day, I haven't seen you for two months, haven't made love with you for six, and when you bring your friends over here you look at me as though I'm some sort of embarrassment. But the job in the glass plant paid for med school and keeps food on the table still. Yeah, I'd rather be an English teacher, but yourdegree was more important, and the shop floor still beats asking, "You want fries with that?"
Yeah, with Kelly. Remember her? Remember the times you and she got drunk in freshman year? The way she held your hair for you when you puked? The guys you both screwed and then compared? The one who threw you the raunchy bridal shower? That Kelly.
You sure you want to know the details? I know I wouldn't want to hear them if you--
No, I'm not saying you did. I'm just saying--
Okay, then.
She came over and we were talking. About you. About how we both missed you. About the things we missed. And she asked me about sex. Did I miss it?
Does a bear shit in the woods? Does a resident go without sleep? Of course I miss it, but you're always too tired, s I jerk off and count my blessings.
No, I didn't jerk off this time. I'm getting to that.
So she asked me, what did I miss more, fucking you or sucking you?
Apparently, you told her once. You told her I loved to go down on you. You said that when I ate you, and I quote, it was as though you were borne aloft on a palanquin of sucks and nibbles.
(Nice image, by the way. It's nice to know that I rubbed off on you a little bit, that my undergraduate degree wasn't entirely wasted.)
Yeah, I remember when I used to talk like that. But that doesn't go over well on the shop floor.
And I suspected where he was headed. Of course I did. But I thought of this: She was your best friend. If I couldn't have you, she was the best substitute I could have, the closest there was to you.
I told her I missed going down on you most.
--Because if I did cheat, I wanted to keep my dick out of it. Maybe it sounds stupid, but it seemed important. Like there was something I was reserving for you, and you alone.
Okay, so you don't care.
And I said it because it was true. I haven't even been able to please you for months.
So she looked at me and said, "Eat me as if I were Susan. Love me as if I were her."
I took her to the living room--
--Because the bedroom is ours, that's why.
I put on that Holly Cole album you love and I kissed her, I kissed her softly and hungrily and I noticed how her lips were different from yours. I put my hands on her hips and I felt that her jeans fit differently on her than yours do, different in the rise. She smelled of cinnamon and beer instead of antiseptic soap and stale burnt coffee.
I slipped my hands under her blouse and she wasn't wearing a bra but you always do, and her breasts were small and so sensitive she gasped when my thumb brushed one nipple. And I thought how different that was from you.
And when I kissed that spot at the juncture of her neck and shoulder, easing aside the collar of her blouse, she liked it, but she didn't love it the way you do. Even though I wanted to be with you, the way I am with you, she wasn't you, so I searched for things she would like.
No, I won' lie. That turned me on. The newness.
She liked when I scratched her back with my fingernails as I kissed my way down the center of her chest. She liked the way I kissed below her ears as I unbuttoned her blouse. She pressed her hips against mine as I nibbled along the line of her jaw.
She was like you in some ways. She put her fingers on my head and pushed me down. She was ticklish when I kissed the insides of her wrists, the insides of her elbows, the soft flesh under her arms. She moaned when I nibbled along her ribs, when my tongue sliped inside her belly button.
But she looked totally different. Her fingers were longer and thinner than yours, her nails painted a color that doesn't look good on you. Her nipples were darker, smaller. She gasped for each scrape along the tight aroused flesh, and she was hastier easing her jeans over her ass.
She still had her panties on and her pubic hair was thick and matted through the fabric, some damp curls escaped along the sides, and she smelled strongly ripe, and sweet, and I licked the gusset just once before I cupped her ass in my hands and began to nibble the insides of her thighs, slowly working my way up to where I hoped she would be most like you.
She was the one who took off her panties, and she said, "Now. Do me like you do Susan."
I did eveything you ever taught me you liked, and she liked what you like. She liked long slow licks along her outer lips, soft nibbly descents, sucking on her lips and teasing them. She liked the tease of my tongue-tip against the fringes of her entrance, her vaginal opening.
(There isn't a better name? I thought you'd correct me.)
I was slow and tentative as I learned about her. I learned how she tasted, how the tastes changed as I moved. I learned how she liked me to suck harder as she got closer to coming, my finger rimming her asshole. I learned how to flick my tongue into her, caressing her and making her jump just a little. I learned that, just like you, she liked me to pull her clit into my mouth and tease it with my tongue, squeezing it against my teeth, setting it fee to tease again. I learned how her ass tightened as she got closer, how her hips lifted, how her fingernails clutched at my hair. I learned the sounds she made.
I learned that I loved making her come. I learned again that I love making you come.
And when she came, I pressed my forehead against her pubic mound and I whispered your name, missing you terribly.
No, there's one more thing you need to know.
When she came, she called out your name.
Because.
Because--
I was the nearest substitute for you she could find.