RECORDING
Chapter Thirty
Winter Nights
Nobody seemed to miss Ritsu when she departed for Mio's. Her mother's temperament had gone from cold avoidance to shy uncertainty; either way the woman wasn't speaking to her daughter, but now she at least made eye contact, smiling whilst the drummer cracked jokes with Mr. Tainaka over a dinner of salmon ikura don (which is delicious). During the meal Satoshi's wide hazel eyes remained downward, as if a rogue force of gravity was anchoring them exclusively. He ate as an anorexic would — spreading the food around his bowl but never putting it in his mouth — and didn't dare utter one word.
With him and Kanako silenced by the Berkenstock-garbed elephant in the room, that left only Ritsu and Shoutaro to do the talking. The former wondered how long it would take for her love of her childhood friend to silence the latter as well. She felt like an agent of destruction.
Why don't you say something? she wanted to scream at her mother. Kanako's benevolent eyes and strained smile cranked up Ritsu's nerves in all the worst ways. Plainly the woman had something to say, but she was holding the drummer responsible for saying the first word, a burden Ritsu thoroughly resented. And she knew both of them would stubbornly refuse to bring this up, like that childhood game to see who can be quiet longest. It was the Tainaka way. If her family had a crypt the words I Don't Want To Talk About It would be carved on the cement seal.
Why don't you calm down? she wanted to ask Satoshi. Surely the sight of her kissing Mio was a shock to his heart among other things — Ritsu could appreciate that — but at this point the shock had to have worn off. No dice: his face had that same ashen expression of disbelief and shame that he had worn upon first glimpsing their embrace.
So they found out their daughter and sister was a lesbian, Kanako and Satoshi did. What was so scary about that? Ritsu was the one who had laid awake at night, wondering and fearing what this attraction to Mio might mean, wondering what Mio was doing, thinking, feeling. Ritsu was the one who rolled the dice and told Mio how she felt.
So what were they scared of?
And why the hell couldn't one of them just say something?
The answer to the first question was fairly straight-forward: they were afraid of her. I'm not a leper! she wanted to scream at them with their pity smiles and terrified eyes. Talking to me, at least asking me to pass the water pitcher, is not going to hurt you!
But she could not say all those things. She was a Tainaka.
"I've got an idea," she told her stone-faced family on the way out. "The next time we have something to talk about, let's talk about it!"
Fresh new snow slid under Ritsu's feet as she trekked the half-block over to Mio's. It was still coming down, and rather heavily at that, the flakes the size of yen coins. About half a mile away the gold lights of a snow plow stalling at a red light flickered, casting the flakes as shadows, like a million shaded spirits spiraling down to earth from the moon-glowing clouds. The whole town seemed to lie still under a blanket of snow and silence, making Ritsu's footfalls boom almost obtrusively.
Granted, this diamond beauty was lost on the drummer, who was more focused on warming herself up and never was one to stop and smell the roses anyway.
Even though Satoshi had accidentally brought her and Mio's encounter to an abrupt, untimely end, what the two of them had going on in Music Room 3 up until that point was still pretty great. Ritsu could not argue that. The upset over having him find out about them did not erase, or even mar, the memory of Mio's great breasts, so warm and soft, crushed against hers; her silken tongue, wet with their mixed saliva, hotly sliding against Ritsu's; and her hand, not roughly seizing her breast as shje had before, but gently pulling at her private flesh, using just enough seductive pressure to communicate her intentions...
And here on the snowy sidewalk with the Akiyama residence just one door away Ritsu's consciousness snapped, a phenomenon she liked to call the braingasm: when you entertain a sexual fantasy without masturbation and you experience an orgasm that's more mental than physical (she also tended to get these whilst harboring revenge fantasies). She paused for only a moment, eyes wide and a bit wary of her mind's lust, before she continued to walk, slowly. In those remaining steps to her girlfriend's house Ritsu had a realization that made her giggle for numerous reasons, the two most prevelent of which were nervousness and disbelief.
Mio's turned on by me.
It would be a lie to say that during the first month of their relationship Ritsu hadn't thought about her girlfriend's hand plucking something other than her bass, but come on. Anyone would fantasize about Mio because she's gorgeous, the drummer thought, burrowing her blushing face deeper into her scarf, but what does she see in me? Ritsu had no figure, no narrowing waist, no hips and only little knobs of flesh for breasts. Her torso was barrelesque. And yet Mio wanted her as badly as she wanted Mio. And laughably enough, shy Mio was the one making the grabs and gropes during their makeout sessions.
That she was walking closer and closer to her first time was another realization Ritsu had when she found the Akiyama driveway empty and the lights on. Mio's parents had gone out for the night. Realization hardened into certainty, and it was only that and a thick coating of ice that kept Ritsu from continuing on up the driveway to the front stoop.
The ice, the brunette thought with a laugh. She remembered going to the ice rink with Mio when they were younger, where the raven-haired girl would cling to the edge, wide-eyed and pale with terror, and "practice my triple salchow in my head," as she would say. Ritsu then wished Mio's house was closer to Sakuragaoka, instead of the other way around, so that on her way to school each morning the drummer could catch a glance of her girlfriend with her arms flung out and pinwheeling, precariously attempting to utilize that trick she learned back in '92 on the slick driveway.
At the front stoop Ritsu knew here she had come upon her last chance to change her mind about tonight. Her doubts were louder to the point of deafening in the brumal silence. Mio couldn't really want to have sex with Ritsu tonight, could she? And even if she could, was the drummer ready?
Showing her naked body to Mio was one thing. They had seen each other without clothes in hot springs and such, and that was fine. It was the act itself that bothered Ritsu nearly to the point of turning around and going back home: letting her girlfriend get an up-close-and-personal gander at her pussy, and — good grief — letting Mio see her have an orgasm. The brunette wasn't exactly sure what she looked like when she popped her cork, but she was sure that she didn't look pretty. I'll bet Mio does...And she tranced out a little, picturing what she imagined the bassist's orgasm face looked like, before shaking her head furiously, spraying some snow that had landed upon it.
This was ridiculous. She was eighteen, damn it, a woman, and women didn't whinge and cringe over sex. She was reminding herself of Satoshi, flipping her wig over trivial things. That she might get laid tonight was not cause for the red alert. People did this all the time. People had to do this to keep life going. But Ritsu knew this sort of jaded attitude toward sex would make tonight — if tonight was really going to happen — less special.
Things are never going to be the same after tonight, the drummer thought. The two of them were either going to elevate to a new level of love where they had a lot more freedom and things to say to each other, or they would have nothing left to say because they had experienced too much too soon. They could never go back either way.
It was a crap shoot with several encroaching doubts, much like Halloween, the night Ritsu declared her love for Mio...and the brunette remembered that epiphany that blew away the doubts like mist from her hazel eyes: Sometimes you just have to thrust yourself in the middle, no matter how ugly it might seem, or you were stuck creeping against the wall your whole life. That wall may have been the epitome of the Tainaka way, but it was not Ritsu's way, and so she—
The front door swung open with a wooden grunt, revealing Mio in a striped longsleeve shirt and jeans.
"How long do you plan to stand out there? You must be freezing."
"I'm f-fine," Ritsu replied, stuttering more from shock than the cold. She came inside, into the near-stifling warmth that was common in the Akiyama household, thinking that even without her girlfriend physically being there she still had her heat to keep her going. And so the Light Music Club's Energizer bunny with the drum ran on love.
As Mio shut the door Ritsu said matter-of-factly, "Your parents are gone."
The bassist nodded, turning toward her girlfriend. "They're going to the opera in Tokyo to see Madame Butterfly."
"Hm. Balcony seats?"
"No. They got row seats about midway back."
"Wow, then they must've had to get those tickets pretty far in advance."
Mio, then realizing what Ritsu was implying, blushed right up to her ears. Her fist clenched, and a reply about the laptop being the real reason that the brunette was here tonight leapt upon her tongue, but something — the bees in the basement whispering their enticing whispers — kept her from doing anything other than step past Ritsu and grunt, "Would you like something to drink?"
Parched though the drummer was, she still refused the offer. Having a drink would only delay her finding out if tonight was going to be tonight. After removing her shoes and throwing her coat and scarf down on the bench Ritsu padded into the kitchen to find Mio drinking a glass of water. With her jet locks streaming from her head thrown back, her right hand placed almost jauntily on her hip, and her tremendous bust which couldn't help but stretch out against the front of her shirt, Mio made an almost unbearably sexy sight. Ritsu felt bubbley warmth, a tingling electricity stir in her chest and legs, and she suddenly recalled that Pepsi commercial from the '90s. No wonder that ad turned men into fiends.
The temptation was to shove Mio and make her spill her water all over her shirt, but Ritsu remained glued to the wall, the very same way the bassist resisted the temptation to cuff the drummer. It was the Tainaka way, by gorry — stay quiet and wait for the other person to start. Neither of them seemed to want to make any moves, lest they should destroy any chances of tonight happening, so they waited for it to come to them.
Mio's head and arm plunged downward with a gruff sigh as she set the empty glass down. Her lips glistened with wet. When she looked up her slate eyes met Ritsu's, and her eyebrows arched peculiarly. "What're you smiling at? Is me drinking water really so interesting?"
"It is." Interesting in the most impure ways. The brunette hadn't even been aware of her own simpering, but it seemed the plain undeniable cheer she felt at simply being with Mio had pulled her listless mouth up again. What could she say? Mio was hers. Mio, the beauty who could have anyone she wanted, the girl over whom Ritsu pined and agonized in October, was hers as surely as Mio was Ritsu's (though a guilty, masochistic part of the drummer felt that she belonged more to Mio than the other way around).
"You're cold, Mio-chuan," Ritsu sang in her Girly Gertrude voice, using anata instead of her usual boyish kimi, "walking past me without a hello kiss!"
The raven-haired girl appeared to be unsuccessfully containing laughter at her girlfriend's wacky bravado, the way the back of her hand met her forehead as she swooned. Shaking her head good-naturedly, Mio stepped up to the drummer, her gentle hands sliding her hoodie along her waist. "Well, if you insist..."
Ritsu's arms twined upward around Mio's neck as the bassist pressed her mouth against the drummer's. The first kiss was like a tame appetizer before the main course was served. Ritsu leaned against the wall, surrendering herself easily as deep kiss after full kiss was lavished upon her mouth. Her skin rippled with excited gooseflesh that felt both hot and cold to her attentive nerves. Over her shuddering flesh slipped the cotton of her hoodie, pushed along by Mio's hands, which explored the brunette's torso as easily as her sultry, satiny tongue explored her mouth. Ritsu couldn't wait until dessert was up.
And then, a little too soon in her opinion, Mio withdrew her tongue and sealed her lips, breaking off the final kiss with a choked gasp.
"I need to breathe," the raven-haired girl muttered apologetically, leaning her head against Ritsu's. The drummer couldn't help but notice/watch her girlfriend's supple breasts rise and drop with every big breath, the front of her shirt straining and billowing, the stripes ballooning and caving.
She really is turned on by me, Ritsu thought, and another bout of shivers prickled her scalp, accompanying the throbbing heat in her chest on its downward course to her hips.
"That was some hello," she hummed, losing her hands in the sleek ebony silk that was her girlfriend's hair. She extended a leg to clinch it softly around Mio's, and as her legs crossed she felt that torrid, silky slip between them. Without a doubt, Ritsu was as wet as any girl could be. A potency, a virility the likes of which the drummer never knew arose within her, and she knew better than ever before that Mio was right when she said, 'You're the one, Ritsu.' I can never feel like this with anyone else, she thought, interlacing her fingers on the back of the bass player's head and nuzzling her softly. With anyone else I could never be all that I am now, and I guess that's what makes Mio the one for me.
"Do you want to continue this conversation upstairs?"
At this Mio raised her head, and her face was that of a girl whose basic longing is overshadowed by uncertainty. Both the gleam of veneration and the pall of disconcertion were there in her pearlescent eyes.
"Are you sure you want to do this, Ricchan?" The grey stripes across her breasts were still heaving.
Ritsu, her jaw set, nodded resolutely, and there was a firmness in her topaz eyes that Mio just could not question. She was sure of more than just that: she was sure that Mio meant more to her than anything. She was sure that tonight wasn't just for the fun of it, that she wanted to make Mio feel as good as she felt when she was around her. Okay, it may have been her first time, that was an unsureness her unaffected love for the reticent bass player had to contend with, but she was sure that the esoteric and elephantine weight of her first time was well-placed in Mio's steady hands. Mio would hold her and take care of her tonight, would overlook her inexperience and give her a pleasantly memorable first time.
Mio inhaled deeply, feeling her lungs expand cavernously, and, sighing, dropped her head back against Ritsu's. "As dishonorable as it is, I want it, too..." Her hands cupped her girlfriend's flushed cheeks as she planted a tender kiss upon her delicate lips. It was such a vulnerable kiss, full of desire, and the brunette knew that tonight was just as special and momentous for Mio as it was for her. "I've wanted it for a while..."
I'll just bet you did, Ritsu thought with a trace of amusement. But she knew better than to joke around right now.
Mio's hand dropped down to find Ritsu's, and, pulling her away from the wall, she uttered the command the drummer had come all the way over here to hear.
"Let's go."
Ritsu was reminded of her parents as Mio guided her upstairs. Whenever she saw Kanako pulling Shoutaro upstairs by his hand, she knew they were either going to argue of have sex. That the brunette didn't want to be around for either occassion made this her cue to skeddadle. It was times like those when she would show up at Mio's, unannounced.
Mio kicked the door shut, finding Ritsu with her hands and mouth. The lamp was on, but they were both sealed in the darkness of their desires, where feeling overruled thinking and smelling overruled seeing.
Ritsu's headband was the first article of clothing to come off. Mio, whose backside was shuddering from feeling the drummer's hip pressed into the hollow of her own, was too excited to stop kissing her long enough to remove the thing. So, their lips embracing and their tongues wrestling, she held the brunette with one trembling hand and snapped the headband off with the other. It came off so cleanly — with almost no sound at all — that Ritsu wasn't aware of its absence at first. Then came that tickling, alien feeling of her bangs shagging in her eyes.
The drummer extended a hand, trying to feel her way around the room. Her fingers brushed a wall, and, holding her hand against it, stepped back a little, searching for the bed. It would remind her later of those HBO scenes where the guy opens his apartment door with his girlfriend fondling and kissing him at the same time. Ritsu used to wonder if such dexterity was possible, and now she knew it wasn't (for her, at least).
Mio was gasping between kisses, pressing all her important parts firmly against Ritsu's as she could only do now, helplessly, a slave to the brunette who didn't want to break free. She couldn't stop, couldn't pull away, not with every square inch of her skin burning and tingling with erotic flush, aching for Ritsu's touch.
A few steps backward brought them to the bed. The drummer's thigh caught its edge, and she tumbled, airborne for a second, upon it. The springs bounced her up just as Mio came tumbling in after her. Their lips reunited in another lot of exquisite kisses. Mio shifted her weight a bit so that she was not sprawled haphazardly across her girlfriend but suspended slightly by her hands.
Reality slapped Ritsu in the chest, shocking her lungs into breathlessness, as Mio shifted again so she was sitting upon the drummer's waist. Her hazel eyes cracked open to behold the raven-haired girl through an amorous crimson haze, straddling her, a leg on either side of her. A muscle in the ridge of Ritsu's hip fluttered, and she shivered.
She really is beautiful. The brunette was reminded of last month, how ugly she felt when compared to Mio. That hadn't changed, had it? Sure, you could put a white horse next to a pig, but that didn't mean the pig was no longer a pig.
Sex and nudity and such seemed comfortable enough to Ritsu when she was walking over to Mio's. When faced with their very real possibility, however, that confidence dried up faster than morning dew. The drummer no longer felt worthy of her girlfriend's ravishing beauty.
Mio snapped out of her own reverie, her grey eyes unclouding, to notice Ritsu's expression of distress. The tense corners of her mouth, one of her shadowed eyes peeping out between her bangs. "Something wrong?"
With a startled grunt, the brunette looked up, realizing that Mio was watching her. She's going to be watching me do all sorts of things I've only ever done on my own. "Nothing wrong," she lied. To prevent Mio from pursuing this any further she asked, "How 'bout you? How are you doing?"
"Nervous." Her eyes were bright with silver fire. "Nervous and eager." She laughed quietly, a corner of her perfect and exquisitely thin lips pulling up in a sly smile. Her raven hair rippled sideways as she cocked her head. "I keep waiting for your parents to come in and bust us."
"They won't." The drummer's whispered reply burst out a little forcefully, as though she was urgently pushing this prospect away. The two of them shifted backward (forward, in Mio's case) so that Ritsu could rest her head on the pillows. "It's just you and me tonight."
Above her the bass player's eyes slowly crawled over her, relishing the sight of the brunette splayed underneath her — her hoodie rumpled over her chest and stomach, her hair a honey-colored halo around her head on the pillow, her amber eyes glowing. Mio's own eyes then came down to her left hand grasping the end of her grey-striped shirt. Fingering the cotton thoughtfully, she whispered a bit guiltily, "Good. That's what I want."
Her other hand creeped along to clutch her shirt. She didn't see because of her downturned gaze, but Ritsu's heated stare was focused heavily on her hands; the drummer's eyes widened in anticipation of what those hands were about to do.
The anticipation wasn't in vain. Their childhood — and all the purities, sorrows, and sweet secrets that went with it — which had been dwindling since this afternoon was banished to the edges as Mio hastily lifted her shirt over her head and tossed it on the floor.
Ritsu's dry throat clicked as she gulped. What she beheld was something she could only describe as skin — pale, smooth skin on Mio's neck which continued on through the rest of her lovely shape, seemingly endless were it not for her navy-blue bra clasped around her supple breasts. The drummer's hands prickled with the worst kind of longing, and she found herself needing — almost aching — to feel Mio's skin on her own. She slowly raised them, imagining her girlfriend's breasts, so firm yet so maddeningly soft, in them. Her nerve quickly deserted her with the faintest promise of returning later, so instead she rested her hands upon the denim clinching Mio's thighs. Watching, only watching for the time being. Watching and stewing in her juices whilst her girlfriend took the reins.
The raven-haired girl had her arms clamped around her torso, not hiding anything private but still appearing contained. A feeling of rightness had overwhelmed her, a sense of the circles of past and present clicking together with almost triumphant seamlessness. They had been children together, Mio and Ritsu, and now they were about to be grownups together. They had shared their childhood worlds, which was every single bit as intimate as tonight was, just in a different way. Mio's fears, Ritsu's petpeeves, Mio's ambitions, Ritsu's joys. All little spheres of their selves, which they had shared as kids, and tonight a few enormous spheres were going to be shared. If they were going to grow up together they were going to grow up all the way.
Her bare arms pressed her breasts closer together, making her cleavage longer and deeper. The lamp cast soft but heavy shadows in that crease which ranged from black to glowing peach. The sight caused muscles Ritsu didn't even know she had to jump and flutter deep inside her vagina. She arched involuntarily, and these muscles clenched, sending desire throbbing through the most sensitive part of her. Her arms and chest were sticky with sweat; she wished she could at least lose her hoodie.
She can't help it, Ritsu thought. Her sense of smell was so acute she could smell the air blasting in and out of her nose. She can't help having such big breasts. She can't help it if the slightest movement of her arms makes them...The muscles acted up again, and the drummer arched again. Mio hadn't even touched her yet, and she was already on the fast track to an orgasm. Or a braingasm. One of the two. She can't help driving me crazy.
Ritsu caught Mio's smirk and gasped, "What're you laughing about? I'm dying here!"
The bassist laughed, a soft affectionate giggle, leaning her cheek in her palm. "You just answered your own question, Ricchan." Her private flesh rippled and shimmered with each laugh. Ritsu felt like a light-headed drunk on a bedspin.
Mio leaned in, and the brunette reflexively moaned as her breasts came in closer, dipping slightly, though still supported by her bra. Her left hand pulled tenderly through her loose bangs, her palm rubbing against her forehead. The feeling was very good, soothing, like an Eskimo kiss in that regard, and Ritsu closed her eyes. Seeing and feeling got her too worked up. She needed to only feel things for a moment.
A whisper of her girlfriend's breath traced her jawline, sending an exhalted shiver up and down her spine. In her left ear she heard Mio's husky alto voice: "I was just thinking, 'Look at her. She loves me and she can't take her eyes off me.'"
"Both true," Ritsu responded. "Both very true." She opened her eyes a little and smiled at Mio, her cheeks glowing. The raven-haired girl's eyes smoldered like embers. "I don't think it's..." She paused as the words snagged in her parched throat and turned her head so she could press a hot cheek against Mio's. "I don't think it's possible for me to love anyone more than I do you, Mio."
That smile from earlier, that oh, Ritsu smile, was back on the bass player's blushing face as sure as a spark of sentiment was in her eyes. Her hand ran lightly from Ritsu's brow to tenderly cup her jaw. Their lips brushed together, locking gently around each other, a breath of love and desire. Then Mio shifted a little so she was directly above Ritsu. The brunette couldn't look anywhere but up, though she did take a peek at Mio's cleavage before their mouths reunited in kisses that were secret and sweet. Somewhere in the middle of this liplock Ritsu pulled back to add, "And God knows you turn me on like no one else."
The drummer's nerve fulfilled its promise and returned, setting her hands in motion. They first lingered on Mio's rear end before spiraling up her back, getting a feel of her fiery flesh. At her girlfriend's bra-strap they halted, uncertain. Her right hand pinched the hooks, but didn't undo them until Mio broke the kiss to whisper into Ritsu's panting mouth: "Do it."
And Ritsu did.
Mio sat up, shrugging off her bra as the straps slipped down her arms in a whisper of nylon. The cups dropped easily to her stomach, allowing her round, pale breasts to tumble free. Her small nipples seemed to make eye contact with the awestruck Ritsu from their circular patches of darkened, sensitive skin. The whole time the owner of these breasts watched her girlfriend stare. Mio had thought she might not be able to handle this moment, but now she oddly found herself not minding the drummer's ogling. It pleased her, actually, made her feel a kind of pride.
The bassist's gaze settled on Ritsu's breasts heaving through the folds of her hoodie, then returned to her eyes, wide with almost delirious joy. Just look at her. Getting all excited for me when she's the one who's exciting.
Finally something erupted in Ritsu's mind, something perhaps set off by the nigh-hypnotic sight of Mio's constantly moving breasts, and with a frustrated squawk, she forced herself up in a half-sitting up position. One of her girlfriend's breasts buffetted her face with the brief sting of a nipple, but this hindered the drummer only slightly. Her arms shot upward, her hands behind her head clasping her hoodie. She yanked the thing off with a series of grunts and a final victorious growl. Her hair stood up crazily from static electricity, and her baggy teal shirt slumped, exposing a shoulder and a yellow strap.
Fetching, Mio thought.
"I can't take it anymore!" Ritsu gasped. She paused only to gape at her girlfriend's naked breasts, which were closer to her face than ever before. "I need you, okay? I feel like I'm gonna explode!"
She certainly took a lot before reaching this point. Mio let a hand sweep over the bare shoulder, pausing ponderously at the strap, thinking of what it held up. She tilted her head to kiss Ritsu's neck softly. "How's that?"
"That's..." The drummer gulped. "...good."
"Good." Mio led a trail of tender kisses, loving caresses from her lips, along Ritsu's shoulder. And the rumpled T shirt did nothing to stop her. She kissed the brunette's collarbone, her lips hard and insistent through the cotton.
Ritsu was staring up at the ceiling, thinking of Mio's mouth in places other than her own, when she looked down oddly, seeing if sensation and sight were matching up. Yes. Mio was planting curious, searching kisses upon her breast through her shirt.
When she became aware of Ritsu's gaze the bass player paused to ask, "Is this good?"
"It's..." Ritsu was painfully self-conscious about her breasts. They were the second-worst thing about her body (first was her tummy, and yes, she had ranked her insecurities), and she would never expose them easily. But then she saw Mio's eyes locked on them, burning with such intensity, and Ritsu then knew how badly she wanted them in her mouth. Even if your breasts were terrible, was it really such a bad thing for them to be wanted? And honestly, Mio's firm lips on them was good, the best feeling she had had all night. "Yeah," she whispered sweetly. "That's really good."
Smiling, the raven-haired girl gently guided Ritsu back into her reclining position. Her captivating breasts swung and pendulated as she did so.
Mio didn't have nerve so much as hard, loving certainty to guide her through tonight. It was that which prompted her to quickly hike up Ritsu's shirt over the gentle domes that were her breasts. Her other hand reached for her back to unhook her bra, which was a gray push-up type with yellow trim and piping, and she eagerly pushed it away. She never hesitated, though the drummer could feel her hands trembling with excitement.
Ritsu's breasts neither tumbled nor swung free of their holds. Rather they seemed to quietly appear as her bra was swept away. They were tiny, no larger than tea cups, yet her nipples were large and distended. Ritsu didn't even have time to think about how much she hated them, for Mio's head immediately dipped and she took the drummer's left breast in her mouth.
A panicked purr shuddered in Ritsu's throat as sauna-like heat surrounded her breast and Mio's tongue found her nipple. The brunette's nipples normally laid flat on their areolas, though the one in her girlfriend's mouth quickly hardened as her hot, silky tongue swept over it repeatedly and mercilessly. Each stroke sent a jolt through Ritsu's ribs and a tingle along the curve of her breast. She didn't suppress her moans and groans as Mio did — the bassist limited her pleasure sounds to gasps, chokes, and sighs. Ritsu let every whimper and cry slip involuntarily out of her mouth, and she arched, letting the jolts and tingles spread to the rest of her body.
Minutes later — too soon, it seemed to Ritsu — Mio pulled back, her eyes shining reverently at her girlfriend's nipple glistening in the lamplight. She sighed, and the cold air on Ritsu's warm nipple earned the raven-haired girl another groan.
"You have sensitive breasts," Mio quietly observed amid gasping breaths. She accentuated this observation by running a finger along the now-puckered areola. In her peripheral vision she saw Ritsu tense up in response, her eyes turning back up to the ceiling. She was blushingso badly that the redness spread to her collarbones.
Mio pressed one more longing kiss upon Ritsu's breast before continuing her trail south. And the drummer knew where this trail would end. She desperately clutched the sheets, shivering with anticipation as the kisses fluttered lower and lower. When Mio's lips grazed her bellybutton Ritsu felt the bassist's breasts pressing warmly and provocatively into her hips. She thought she might faint. She knew that if she were a boy this would be where she'd prematurely shoot in her pants, and for once she was insanely happy to be a girl.
Mio's kissing trail halted at the denim lip of Ritsu's loose-fitting bluejeans. She raised herself up to unbutton them. The drummer kept her eyes to the blank ceiling, which seemed to swirl in her excitement, but she could feel the front of her jeans loosening by the work of hands that weren't her own, could hear the stacatto fwip! as Mio unzipped her fly. Then her girlfriend's whispered instructions: "Raise your hips," and Ritsu instinctively did as she was bidden.
The bassist dragged the denim down her childhood friend's legs, watching as the bluejeans receded and the smooth flesh extended. When the jeans were bagging around Ritsu's ankles Mio returned to her hips to brush her white panties off.
Ritsu squinted at the ceiling, knowing what was going to happen and knowing that she was as naked as the day she was born.
Her dark eyes locked on the powderpuff of light brown hair between Ritsu's legs, Mio stood on her knees to remove her own pants. There were slants of color rising along her cheekbones, and her face was no longer composed. It was now desperate and haggard with overexcitement. Poor Mio needed Ritsu badly, as badly as the drummer needed her. Her breasts rising and falling, the raven-haired girl peeled off her own jeans at a frantic pace, revealing familiar blue-and-white striped panties.
Those must be like special commemorative panties, Ritsu thought, her head lifted to watch Mio strip. And here I thought she would want to burn those after that festival.
Underneath her drying left breast the drummer's heart was blasting. Heart Goes Boom! Ritsu was certain it could be heard all the way in Ireland.
Mio threw a nervous glance at the closed door, paying no mind to her open laptop and the new message on its word processor. "Tell you what, though," she panted. "It wouldn't be cool if my parents were to come home now." She closed her eyes in despair. "They'd bust my chops so bad..."
"Don't, Mio," Ritsu pleaded. It was all she could say. Here she was, spread-eagled on her girlfriend's bed and ready for her. Mio couldn't pull away now.
"You're right." It was only 19:45. Her parents wouldn't be home till midnight. Her pearlescent eyes settled back on her girlfriend's pussy as she pulled off her panties, exposing a thatch of black short-and-curlies. "Sorry."
"'Sokay. Everybody goofs it sometimes."
Ritsu's head dropped back to the pillow, and she awaited the inevitable. The tension and anticipation were bordering on unbearable, her mind racing the same thought insanely over and over: She's gonna go down on me, she's gonna go down on me, gonna go down, go down on me go down on me go down on me.
She felt Mio's shaking fingers pry apart her lips, laying open and vulnerable the most sensitive part of her. Her breath whooshed over this part, her engorged clitoris, sending a pang of need all the way to her private opening. "Oh, Ricchan," came Mio's voice from down below, muffled. "You're soaked."
"Can't help it." Ritsu's reply came in hollow bursts. She couldn't take it. She couldn't take it. She needed Mio down there. She needed to feel Mio in her helplessly throbbing clit. She needed to frocking explode...all over her. Her thoughts broke up, subjecting her brain to feeling rather than logic, as her right hand slipped downward to grasp the bassist's head. She knew it was rude to force her girlfriend down on her, but...she just couldn't take it.
Mio's tongue, firm and smooth, touched the tip of Ritsu's clitoris — the place where the touching is best — and a cold shock laced with erotic fire erupted in the drummer's sex. Her spine leaped, and her head snapped back like a woman being hung, and she cried out — she had to.
The fire down there settled into tingling embers, though her back still burned, begging to be shocked again. Mio's tongue didn't come a second time immediately, and Ritsu supposed her reaction had startled her. Maybe the bass player thought she was hurting her childhood friend, and that lick had hurt, no doubt about it. The pleasure had been so raw and so tremendous that it overflowed into agony. But that was okay, that was alright. It hurt so good.
"Don't stop," she whimpered. "Please, please don't stop." I don't mind if you hurt me, just please make me come.
Mio's tongue came back, and again and again, searching for the perfect rhythm. Ritsu's poor back arched and arched until it never lowered, just simply remained tense, bracing itself for every burst of sensation that rolled through it. She took every lash of her girlfriend's tongue the way a slave takes every lash of his master's whip, knowing the reward that awaited her.
It felt a little surreal to Ritsu, to be a girl of eighteen and losing her virginity to her childhood friend. She turned her head toward the nightstand to find that framed photograph of them when they were ten. It was taken in the summer, and the two of them were sitting in the grass under a tree. The sunlight was dappling haphazardly in their hair. They were laughing. They were kids, goddamn it, kids with many years of innocence ahead of them, kids who had yet to know the bittersweet bites of love and sex. And here those same two kids were, eight years into the future, throwing away that innocence they had thrived in for pleasure so great it was painful.
With her free hand, Ritsu turned the frame face-down on the nightstand. Let them throw the innocence away, she decided. Was she, Tainaka Ritsu, to be a child forever, creeping fearfully against the wall? Or was she going to be a grownup and thrust herself in the middle of things? She could do the latter. She could. Even if she was far away from the safety of the wall with no way to turn back she would still have the girl who lingered against the wall with her.
Maybe sex really didn't make things complicated. She was still Ritsu, drummer of Afterschool Tea Time and president of Sakuragaoka's Light Music Club. Sex couldn't change that.
From down below Mio's muted gasps could be heard: Mwuhh, mwuh, mwuhhh...Ritsu was discerning that her bass-playing childhood friend was not the moany-groany type in bed. And that made her all the more loveable to the drummer.
Ritsu choked, "Be my friend...I love you, Mio."
"I love you, too," the raven-haired girl replied, smiling into her friend's sex. The brunette's private pores had opened, releasing a spicy odor that tantalized Mio.
Ritsu felt her climax coming, raising up in her gut slowly, higher and higher. She moved toward it, working for it, never doubting it would come. Her body suddenly stuttered and seemed to leap upward, not orgasming but reaching a plateau far above any she had reached by herself. The come was going to be huge, titanic, and Ritsu became a little afraid...but her body picked up the rhythm again, rolling her hips in tandem with Mio's tongue. The tension in her tummy seemed to the break, and her climax plummetted like a nuke to explode between her legs.
...and the explosion sent her whole body up in its convulsions.
"Mio!" she sobbed, letting her body throw itself against the tsunami-esque waves of a mind-blowing orgasm. Everything was overflowing and pouring out of her: sweat, tension, love.
"Oh, my God," Mio gasped, caught up and swept along by her girlfriend's tumultuous waves. Her tongue withdrew; then she hesitantly touched it to Ritsu's streaming clitoris one more time. Right away the brunette had a second orgasm, something neither of them knew was possible for her.
Eventually the waves ebbed away, leaving Ritsu on her back, exhilarated and satisfied, exhausted and happy, her back still lifting a little from post-orgasmic aftershocks. Her nipples were soft again, settled into their swollen beds of cherry blossom-colored skin, asleep. After a moment or two Mio's head popped up from between the brunette's legs, and Ritsu smiled at her facial expression: as if she had just come back from a war. She reared up on her hands and knees, her big breasts dangling, her nipples pointed at where her mouth had been minutes ago, and she crawled toward the drummer. Murmuring her name affectionately, Ritsu held her arms out, welcoming Mio into them. Before she could settle into her best friend's embrace the bassist snatched a tissue from the box on her nightstand. Going down on Ritsu had left her with a little lip gloss, which she wiped off before meeting her in a much-needed kiss. It was a you're-my-hero sort of kiss.
For the next half hour they engaged in a regular, healthy post-sex makeout session — long, sweet kisses with a couple nips and nibbles in between; nurturing massages along their backs, heads, and arms that both relaxed and stimulated them; a few whispers about what turned them on the most tonight.
Another half hour later Mio was spooning the slumbering Ritsu, drifting into her own sleep. She stirred the smooth skin on her girlfriend's arm as she sleeped her warm sleep and dreamed her own dreams; and she thought that it was good to be a child, but it was also good to be a grownup and be able to consider childhood...its beliefs and desires. I could write a song about it, she thought, but it was only a night thought, a drifting-off thought. But it was nice to think so in tonight's ressurecting wake, to think that childhood has its own sweet secrets and confirms mortality, and that mortality defines all courage and love. To think that what has looked forward must also look back, and that each life must make his or her own imitation of immortality: a wheel.
Or so Akiyama Mio thought that winter night as she remembered her childhood and the beautiful young woman in her arms with whom she shared it.
A/N
A reviewer once asked which song Mio thought of at the end of this chapter. Mio is not thinking of any song. I came up with that last paragraph on my own.
I did, however, borrow lines from Ne-Yo's "Closer" at some point in the sex scene.