Here were the problems that I saw:  the first was that I wanted to write more Clit Lit, more sexy short stories.  I was getting rusty and I really lost the reason of writing here in the first place:  to really hone a writing skill.  The second was that Jae and I get boring to read about.  And to be honest, writing only about sex that Jae and I have leaves very little room for working on character (we already know us) and inventing different plot-lines and really getting to be imaginative.  Even writing fiction based on Jae and I, I can’t write different characters now that I’ve established them.  Now what I knew I needed was an ever-revolving door cast of characters that still somehow drove a plot forward through all different kinds of short stories so that they’d never be boring to read or write.  And I came up with this.  I took the latest story–Kissing Bandit.  And I took one of the characters (Jane) and I wrote another story about her.  Maybe there will even be another one.  But then whoever she’s sleeping with, I’ll move to her.  And I’ll write a story about her.  And someone else she sleeps with.  And on and on we go.  It’ll give me a lot more room to explore–different tenses, different voices, just lots of different things.  Think like the chart in the L Word, except for erotica.  Serial sexy time.

The following story is the sequel to Kissing Bandit.  I wanted to write something that explores voyeurism.  Being the exhibitionist that I am, I sometimes wish someone would stumble upon me in my finest hour…

Jane never earnestly tried to erase her trucker-strut.  She loves the wide feel of taking up space and the jaunty swing of her bowlegged stride.  Her mother had tried, though.  From second grade right up until middle school she had been forced into every manner of skirt ever produced in third-world sweatshops.  Pink chiffon, ruffles, tutus, a-line, denim, floor length, you name it and it failed to make her “feminine.” Mostly because, despite the costume, Jane willed her walk to stay put.

At this point in her life, she is glad she had.  With a nondescript blonde ponytail and a love of the plain white tank-top, it is one of the only things that set her apart and the only thing that makes her look gay at all.  Jane clings to her strut as the bastion of her identity and the only thing she’s managed to hang on to.  Women always leave.

Mary.  A good example.  Mary didn’t exactly leave, but in fact had never arrived.  Jane fell for Mary’s insane shock of red hair and her insanity to go along with it.  Mary is the kind of person who rides the bull in a rodeo bar and runs from it in Spain.  Mary is harnessed fire.  Mary dates other people who are strong and solid with a crackle of crazy in their eyes.  And Jane wears sneakers to clubs.  So I suppose, dear reader, that “women always leave” is an incorrect statement, if Mary is a good example.  Jane throws birthday parties and the other little lesbians don’t show up.

It is a summer evening that leaves skin glistening and it is 7:29 pm.  And it is Brooklyn.  Prospect Heights, if we want to get specific.  And we can see Jane inch out her apartment door–a door that dwarfs her.  It looks like a dungeon door.  She stretches carefully, gingerly, quadricep by quadricep.  She has earbuds in and moves as if she just unintentionally dipped her paws in water.  She takes off jogging.

It isn’t long before she passes by an open window with the curtains bowing out, pregnant with a breeze.  On that breeze floats the sound of moaning.  Dipping, chocolate notes that drop onto Jane’s tongue as she pants for water.  Her ears, despite being closed off to the noises of the outside world, perk and point toward the building.  But Jane’s body doesn’t listen to the hint and she runs away.

Jane’s subconscious, though, makes her run in a circle around the heavy-lidded brown building, lined with the lazy purr of a vibrator and the giggles of a pretty girl who left her red heels on.  The cosmos orders that she gets a stone in her sneaker.  And sheer dumb luck has her decide to take her earbuds out and drape them around her neck as she fishes the offending invader from the depths of her Nikes.

Her ears and her mind are now connected, which allows the tinkle of a glass-drop sigh to make it’s way past back ground noise.  Her ears perk up.  So do her nipples.  Jane forgets about the rock.  She stands straight.  Struts a few steps toward the building.  She doesn’t really understand what she is hearing, but she wants to get closer to the sound.

Framed in the window is a brunette.  Short haired.  Legs like cornstalks coupled with Marilyn curves and a kiss of red lipstick.  Even redder are the heels–the sole piece of clothing she is wearing.  She is coffee with a lot of cream in it and she goes down smooth.  Bare.  Legs parted, bent at the knees, toes pointed.  Her vibrator plugged into the wall and she holds it down with both hands, controlling it.  It is big.  It is white.  It stands out as the brightest object in a bright room  It makes a whirring noise, much like the gears churning in Jane’s mind.  They crack to a halt and explode.

The girl on the bed enjoying her own coffee skin throws her head back and gasps.  Setting sunlight pings of the iron bars twisting up the window to dance on her lips.  She bites at them.  Her feet flex.  Jane wants to know why she left her heels on.  But even more so, Jane wants to know the taste of this woman.  Could it be possible that she tastes how she looks?  Like cream in iced coffee on a muggy night that makes runners sparkle?  Jane is at the window now, watching the girl’s chest rise and fall, faster and faster as little gasps bubble up from the deep.

The girl opens her eyes.  And Jane realizes what she is doing.  The girl sits up, her eyes lined with delicate black swishes and strokes.  She does not close her legs.  It is approximately 7:53 pm and Jane gasps, turns, and runs into a bush in Brooklyn.  She falls down.  Hears the door open behind her.  Picks herself up and keeps running.  She gets to the corner, knowing that she can turn it and be rid of her voyeuristic embarrassment.  She pauses, takes inventory of a bleeding knee dripping down into her  sneaker.  She picks her foot up.  But she cannot take a step beyond the corner.  She cannot stop thinking about the coffee girl, about how those gasps had made her core tighten, how every inch of her was wet.  About why she left the red heels on.  And about what her name could be.  Jane does not run toward things, in general.  So it is out of character for her to turn around and run back to the building.  Yet she does.  Not the front door, but once again, around the building.  She means to go around twice.  Three times, maybe.

But the coffee girl is sitting on her front steps.  Dress on, this time.  A blue dress with white polka-dots.  She has bright red lips.

Jane stops at the steps.  “I’m sorry I took away your consent.  It was an accident,” she says.

The girl stands.  Walks toward Jane.  Gets very close.  “I leave that window open for a reason,” she says.