It had been a fairly interesting evening. Although I don’t much go for bars of any description, I do like to play pool, and on Wednesday night we had the pool tournament down at the Other Place (silly name for a gay bar, but I’ve seen worse). For the past several weeks, I had won easily, although there was much amazement at my technique...

I came an hour early, bought a pitcher of beer, listened to music, and drank. Then, just before the tournament, I bought another pitcher, played two practice games, and then I was ready. Every week, the other entrants all looked for me to be an easy mark with that much alcohol inside me. And every week the alcohol loosened up my hyper-analytical personality, letting me relax, keeping me from doing mechanical calculations prior to each shot, and letting me sink any shot I called out to the amused and amazed onlookers.

This week was the same, and I was in the final best-of-three games in the last round, playing against the final challenger to see who would get the prize.

She’d introduced herself as we met over the table, saying her name was Kim. She was an attractive woman, maybe an inch under six feet unshod, just a bit over in the ropers she was wearing. She had golden blonde hair, eyes so green that tawdry words like “emerald” couldn’t do them justice, a beautiful, smart-ass grin, and what seemed to be a very well-made body in those tight Wrangler jeans.

I did all the cataloguing somewhere in the back of my head, as I watched her racking the balls on the velvet; she grinned as she took the rack away, twirling it between her fingers as it cleared the tops of the balls. Now I was tipsy enough still not to be too tight, but even so I could feel the tension as I poised myself to break.

An observer looking at me would have seen a fairly pretty but intent woman, clad in the standard uniform for the Other Place: jeans, boots, and a tight T-shirt. I was bent over the end of the table, the round curves of my ass emphasized by the tight denim jeans, my blue eyes intent on the table before me. I brushed my long, ash-blonde hair away from my face, placed the cue just so, set myself, and uncoiled through the place where the white ball had been a moment earlier.

My break was unorthodox and even a bit silly looking, but I got the balls well scattered, and two dropped. This would be a good game; the magic was all in place. My opponent brushed against my hip as I rounded the table, an accidental contact as she stepped out of my way, letting me take my place for my next shot.

“Nice break!” she told me, flashing a mega-watt grin my way. I hardly noticed, other than to smile back before shooting again. This time I couldn’t make the pocket, and I stood aside to watch the other woman play. What was her name? Oh yes, Kim.

The grin she had worn before was gone as she carefully considered the table from all sides. She was intent and methodical, carefully setting up her shot, checking the angle, and finally sinking the ball in such a fluid, graceful motion that I was momentarily amazed that a human body should move so smoothly.

She shot again, and again, and I began to wonder if I’d get another chance, until at last she missed, and I had another opportunity. It was easier this time, as she’d gotten several of her balls out of the way: eventually I missed a shot again. We went back and forth over that game, which I won by just a hair ... that being the distance she’d been off when she’d shot at the eight and missed. The second and third games were much the same, and when it was all over, I had won numbers one and three, I had a twenty-five-dollar bar tab as my prize, while she had ten. “Care to drink one on me?”

I asked her, indicating the pitcher full of amber liquid. She grinned and agreed, and we took ourselves over to a table at the side of the room. We tried briefly to talk, but as soon as the tournament was through, the owner cranked up the music, substituting disco with a heavy bass line for the country and western that they tended to play for “us girls.”

It was impossible to make ourselves heard over the too-loud music, so we drank and watched others in companionable silence. Finally, I asked if she’d like to head over to Denny’s for some coffee and a chance to talk, and she shouted her agreement over the music. We escaped outside into the cool, quiet darkness.

When our ears quit ringing, she made a counter-suggestion. It was late, she’d be disturbing the people she lived with if she traipsed in at this hour, and how about if she crashed at my house, and took me for coffee in the morning? I thought the idea sounded wonderful, and told her that my sister was out of town, so I had an extra bed, freshly made up, and that I’d be glad to have her stay over.

She followed me the few miles to my home, and we went inside. We talked for an hour or two, sipping rich, dark, imported ales that seemed almost sweet after the American brews at the bar. We talked about inconsequential things, she telling me about her job on campus, and me explaining to her that I was a student, and so on. We were almost exactly the same age, as I’d just recently gone back to school, our families came from the same part of the state, and we were from similar types of families.

Eventually we headed upstairs, where I showed her to the master bedroom. “I hate to mess up your sister’s bed,” she said, “and I see you have a king-size. How about if I just sleep on the other side of your bed? You don’t mind, do you?”

I thought nothing about it, and told her that that would certainly be all right with me. I showed her my drawer, full of T-shirts and assorted nightwear, and told her to help herself while I took a quick shower to relax after the tension generated by the over-loud music.

When I came back to my room, relaxed and dressed in a crisp, clean, oversized men’s Oxford shirt, she was already in bed with the covers pulled up under her chin. I got the lights out, and crawled in with her. “Do you mind if I snuggle up next to you?” she asked. “I’ll do it after I’m asleep anyway.”

This was not quite so standard in the “slumber-party/girls-sleeping-over” model I had in my head, but I readily acquiesced. This lady was beautiful enough to be a professional model, she had a wonderful, innocent air to her, and I was being ridiculous to even suspect that she was coming on to me at all.

I told her of course that would be fine, and so she rolled over against me where I lay on my back, draping her right arm across my waist, her right leg over my leg, and pillowing her head in the hollow of my shoulder. My heart was definitely beating a bit faster than usual, but I tried to relax, shut my eyes, and go to sleep. “Do not,” I sternly warned myself, “even think that this woman is interested in you! You’ll piss her off if you suggest it and possibly ruin what could be a very nice friendship!”

The internal lecture was in full swing, when she began stroking her fingers down my side, back again over my ribs, across my breast, and down again. I groaned silently, hoping that she wouldn’t notice my tension or arousal... “She said she wanted to cuddle, she’s half asleep, you are NOT going to respond to this and scare her off!” I told myself angrily. “She doesn’t even know you! You’re being ridiculous!”

But her hand continued a teasing glide over my body, and every few minutes her fingers would trail across one hardened nipple, driving me mad with the electric jolt of arousal that shot straight into the growing warmth in my loins each time she did it. Finally I caught her hand with my own. She looked up at me with an inquisitive look. Hoarsely I told her, “If you keep that up, you’re going to be in trouble...”

Her answering grin could have lit the football stadium. “Maybe I want to be in trouble!”

I felt like the wind had been knocked out of me. “Oh.” was all I could manage, and now her teasing fingers had started unbuttoning my shirt, and she was sitting up, looking down at me, all the while grinning in obvious pleasure.

It wasn’t that I thought myself unattractive, mind you, utterly beautiful and graceful. I felt like a mortal honored unduly with the presence of a goddess. And right now that goddess was stroking tight little circles around my nipples, causing them to crinkle down into hard peaks, which her fingers rubbed and tweaked and pulled.

I don’t think I have ever been so aroused, before or since. I pulled her down to me, meeting her lips with mine, and kissing her was like drinking honey wine; sweet, intoxicating. In my single previous affair with a woman, I was usually the one who took the lead in sex, and that old girlfriend had always encouraged me in the “butch” role.

But when I tried to take the initiative now, Kim pressed me back against the bed, telling me that I was to lie back and enjoy myself. It felt, well, indescribably sensual. Having her make love to me this way made me feel utterly feminine, in a way that making love to men, or even another woman, never had, and I loved the feeling.

She undressed me, making me lift my hips so that she could slide my panties down over my ass, then leaned down and kissed me, pulling me up with her into a soft embrace as she slid the shirt back off my shoulders. The velvet softness of her breasts against mine was unabashedly sensuous. My arms were around her now, stroking her back and sides while our lips stayed locked together, our tongues battling silently in their own satin caress.

Before I could try and tease her out of her clothes, she pushed my back again against the pillows, and kissed me softly on the lips, the cheek, nibbled at my earlobe a moment, then outlined the ear with her hot, wet tongue. I moaned again, as her hands continued doing wicked and wonderful things to my nipples and her tongue traced intricate patterns along the soft skin of my throat, dwelt a moment in the hollow between my collar bones.

Soon her lips fastened on one hard nipple, though the other was not neglected either, being rolled between her long, strong fingers. Her tongue, which had seemed so soft against my own while we were kissing, now became a hard, demanding instrument, flickering in fast circles around the nipple, tracing the aureola, her lips nibbling the hard peak, sucking gently then firmly.

My world narrowed under this treatment, focusing only on the sensations from my nipples and the answering twinges between my legs. I felt helpless, empowered, exalted, abashed, wanton, shy...

My breath was coming in harsh, ragged gasps, and I could hear myself moaning as I neared orgasm solely from the wonderfully wicked things she was doing to my breasts. She was well aware of my situation, though, and suddenly the air was cold on my wet nipples, and her warm lips were seeking their way down the arch of my ribs, across my sides (ticklish ... she grinned me another wicked grin), then planted a kiss above the triangle of Venus. She wordlessly encouraged me to pull my knees up, as she stationed herself between my legs. Her voice was a bit ragged, too, when she instructed me to reach down and part the wet folds for her tongue.