smell of soap and bath oil. He reached up to touch her breasts, warm and smooth, and then her open mouth covered his and he could feel her hair around him, still damp from the bath, as if they were back in the rain. She drew a breath, kissing him lightly, and he moved his hands behind her, rubbing the silk, then pulling it up in folds until he could feel bare flesh. She arched back, resting on his hands, and drew the robe off, tossing it on the floor, her breasts swaying heavily as she moved.
“Molly-”
“Sshh.” She put a finger to her lips, then pointed it up at the ceiling corner. She leaned down and whispered, “Big brother, remember?”
To his surprise, he felt himself grow harder, an unexpected erotic kink. He could hear their breathing, the faint ringing of the trams outside, and he imagined someone cupping headphones, straining, aroused. Then she bent down to kiss him and he lost the room again, moving his hands over her skin, wanting to touch her everywhere. Still on her knees, she lowered her pelvis to him and he felt the scratch of her hair along his prick. It brushed over him slowly, back and forth, wiry and delicate, until every part of him was waiting for it, sensitive, so that he thought he might come just from the touch of the hair. Then, a little lower, he felt the wetness start beneath the hairs, the moist skin moving over him, slippery as quicksilver, until his penis was slick with it, ready to explode before he’d even entered her. Too soon.
He rolled over, pinning her under him. Her eyes caught the faint light, shining, and when he looked into them they stopped for a minute, no longer playful, and grew wider, as if her whole body were opening up. “Just us,” she whispered, grave and trembling, then took his head in her hands, drawing him down. He kissed her, then moved his lips down along her throat to her breasts, sucking them gently, making it last, feeling the nipples grow hard in his mouth before continuing down, wanting all of her, his feet sliding off the bed as his head went lower, along her belly. When he heard her gasp in anticipation, the sound itself was exciting. Make noise. Drown out the trams, the static in the headphones, everything.
He was there. He kissed her inner thighs gently, barely touching the skin, moving steadily toward the crease between her legs, then rubbed his face lightly across the hair, breathing her in. She shivered, a kind of physical noise, then moaned out loud when he started licking the edges of her crotch, long upward strokes, wetting the hair. His tongue moved toward the top of her slit, teasing it; then, using his hands to part the outer lips, he touched her clitoris with the tip, a series of light flicks, until he felt her move under him, drawing him closer. He lowered his head and placed his tongue between her lips, parting them with one long stroke, then back again, resting for a second at the top, then back, until they were both moving in a rhythm, her body rising to meet him, moving against him. Her cunt was wet now, as wet as his mouth, and he licked deeper, sucking, rolling her clitoris between his lips, then burying his face in her as she seemed to stretch wider, no longer secret, the wonderful pink skin all open to him.
When he stopped, then began the slow long strokes of a new cycle, she moaned again and grasped his head, trying to stop him and move with him at the same time. “Soft,” she whispered, but when he licked more lightly, a wet kiss, she didn’t want that either and pulled him harder into her until he was buried again and her body squirmed around him. Her breathing had become a kind of ragged pant and he felt she was close now and moved up again, covering the top of her slit and tonguing it from below, a constant stroke. “Come with me,” she said out loud, gasping. “Come with me.” But when he moved up onto the bed and slid into her, his mouth still wet with her, he could feel her walls clutching him, a tremor, and before he could move she was already there, coming around him with a cry, her body heaving.
He lay still for a second, feeling her, the moist inside now just part of his own body, permanently attached, then slowly began to move, drawing himself almost to the edge of her lips before sliding in again. Her vagina, already sensitive, continued to ripple against him, like aftershocks, urging him, and he began to go faster, adjusting his rhythm to her. She gasped out loud, a gift to the microphones, and he could hear the squeak of the bedsprings now, drowned out when his head had been down inside her, and their breathing, even louder, keeping pace, their strokes audible, a slapping of wet skin, the room alive with noise, as if the sounds themselves were racing, about to come. She clutched him and he felt her spasm again but now he couldn’t stop, thrusting on top of her orgasm, trying to keep it alive so that when finally he spurted into her they were both shuddering.
Afterward they lay curled up, quiet, his prick soft against her bottom, his arm flung over her, protecting her from the night air that crept along their bodies, drying the sweat. Neither of them moved, and he lay surprised by the stillness, wondering what had happened. There was none of the odd embarrassment he usually felt after sex, the impulse to cover himself, find his clothes and go. Now there was only an easy familiarity, as if they had finally run out of secrets and could lie here naked forever, everything known, an old couple. She turned and traced a finger along his face, reading it like Braille, wiping the wet from his mouth. “Look at you,” she said softly.
He reached over and brushed the hair back from her face, smoothing it, taking her in. “I like your freckles,” he said lazily.
“I used to have more.”
“You did?”
“Uh-huh. You lose them as you get older. Like hair,” she said, touching his bare temple.
“Careful.”
She smiled, her eyes catching the dim light. “I was right, wasn’t I?” She kissed him lightly, then snuggled closer. She reached down to pull up the covers, but he stopped her.
“No, I want to look at you.”
“Then close the window. I’m getting goosebumps.”
“Where?” he said, running his hand along her hip. But he got up and went over to the window, closing the pane but keeping the curtains open to the street light.
“I love the way it jiggles,” she said from the bed, looking at him. “How does it feel when it bobs around like that?”
“Little,” he said. He stood by the bed for a moment, his eyes moving along her body.
“Oh,” she said, turning away slightly from his gaze. “Don’t. I feel so-exposed.”
No secrets. He bent over and kissed her breasts, feeling her shiver when he opened his mouth on her.
She was already dressed, putting on lipstick at the mirror. He felt the air on his behind, jutting out of the tangled sheets, and covered himself.
“Well, it’s alive,” she said.
“What time is it?” He glanced at the bedside clock. “Christ.”
“Sleep well?” she said. “It must have been the-” She raised her eyes to the ceiling, then put two fingers to her mouth, pretending to draw in smoke. “You know what.”
“Oh, that’s what it was.”
“What else?” She came over to the bed and sat on the edge, touching his chest. “Morning skin. Like a baby’s.”
He took her wrist, drawing her to him, but she shook her head. “You’ll muss. Anyway, I’m off.”
“Where?”
“See the sights. He wanted to meet you alone, didn’t he? Narodni Gallery. Better get cracking.”
He got up, holding the sheet. “You always this cheerful? Where is it, anyway?”
“By the castle. Take a number 22 tram. You can’t miss it. God, look at the bed. What will the maid think?”
He grinned.
She picked up her raincoat, then stopped. “Nick?”
He looked up, waiting, but she shook her head.
“Never mind.” Then, hesitantly, “It’s going to be all right, isn’t it?”
He nodded, still smiling as she closed the door.
In the lobby, he wondered if everyone could tell, read his mood, like a permanent flush on his skin. His face felt loose, ready to break into a loopy grin, but he came down outside, deflated by another dreary Prague sky. The rain had left the city damp and grimy, as if nothing could wash away its essential grayness. For the first time, the thought of seeing his father depressed him.
On the tram, bottle blondes and grim faces; no one talked. Had this conductor been someone else once? They creaked through the old streets, the passengers’ heads nodding with stolid patience, dazed with routine. No one had spent the night in someone else’s body, alive with sex. When they crossed the river, even the Baroque
