The Tao of Sex

Chapter 4

TRACY’S CELL PHONE went off as she was driving. She cursed at the ring tone, swerved around a drunken student who’d decided to cross in the middle of the street, and nearly plowed her truck into a tree. “Yeah?” she snapped.

“Good evening to you, too, sis,” drawled her brother’s gravelly voice.

Tracy smiled for the first time that evening. “Hey, Joey! Done studying? Need me to pick you up?”

“Yes and no. Tommy’s dad is finishing their basement and needs help with the shelving. His mom said I could stay the night if me and Tommy do the heavy lifting. She’s even doing my laundry, so I got clothes. Copacetic?”

“Tommy and I,” she corrected while disappointment weighted down her spirit. Still she kept her voice light. Joey didn’t need his older sister tying him down even if she really hated how they’d left things this morning. “And yeah, copacetic. Though I’d really like to talk more about—”

“Cool. Bye!”

She sighed. So much for communicating with her brother. She shut her cell and directed her attention back to the road. The raw, unsettled feeling she’d had all day was stronger now, quivering inside her like a living thing. She tried to ascribe it to the strange happenings with 4C—she didn’t even want to say his name—but she knew that she was fooling herself. Yeah, he had certainly exacerbated her problem. With his quiet intensity and silly stick-figure posters, he was…He was…

Hell, she didn’t know what he was except that he bothered her. From the very beginning, he’d made her belly quiver and her breath skip. Why else would she start fantasizing about a tenant? But now it was so much worse. She couldn’t even think about him without her toes curling in…lust? Frustration? She couldn’t decide, and that bothered her even more. Perhaps she’d been fantasizing about him too much. She’d created a perfect man in her head and then wham, reality didn’t meet fantasy and she ended up confused and angry.

Except, of course, reality was so much more interesting than fantasy. She’d lusted after a perfect man who catered to her every sexual whim. And wow, had she had sexual whims! Eight years worth! Then he’d walked into her apartment building, all exotic with rippling muscles and sleek black hair, and she’d had a living, breathing fantasy.

Tracy blinked, startled by her train of thought and the sudden liquid heat down low. She was getting much too worked up about his physical body. What did she think of him? She knew that what she had experienced with him this morning and this evening had been beyond amazing. This morning, her skin had tingled and her breath had felt free, as if she had been breathing through a straw all her life and suddenly got to take a deep breath.

But then she had gotten frightened and backed away. All that extra oxygen had gone to her head and freaked her out. Within moments, she had been back to her usual self but with one key difference: she remembered. She knew what it was like to take that full, deep breath and she wanted to do it again. She’d tried to block it from her mind, but couldn’t. So she had gone to his class. She had to know if she had imagined everything.

It hadn’t been her imagination. Tonight’s experience had been beyond anything she thought possible. Not only had she breathed deeply again, but she had felt that air going to every part of her body. Every cell had popped awake. The tingling had been in her face, her arms, her core. Her womb had tingled, and if that wasn’t cause for freaking out, she didn’t know what was.

She’d lost all sense of time and place. All she’d known was Mr. Nathan Gao and the sweet wonder of a body electrified inside and out. She might have orgasmed—she wasn’t even sure. It had been such a tiny piece of the overwhelming pleasure that she didn’t even know.

So yes, it was real. And it all had come from Mr. Nathan Gao. So what had she done? Oh, her usual cut and run. She’d been so terrified of the experience, so overwhelmed by the sexual nature of it, that she had just bolted. Everything she’d felt was so far beyond reality that she’d had to choose: run screaming into the night or change everything she’d once believed was true. Obviously, she’d chosen option one: run screaming. But option two lingered in her thoughts. It had been real, right? She could experience it again, right?

She was halfway down Michigan Street when it happened. She’d just passed the droopy maple where Joey had fallen and broken his arm when he was eleven. The normal-ness of the memory was futilely fighting with her other memory, of Mr. Gao, when both were obliterated by a bolt of lightning.

Tszzzzz! It fried through her thoughts and her brain, making her hands spasm on the wheel. Her foot jerked, slamming on the pedal. Fortunately, she’d been slowing down, so the lightning made her jam her foot on the brake. The truck stopped with an ugly lurch, but her face didn’t. She slammed forward, her arms too numb from the lightning bolt to resist. Her face and jaw hit the steering wheel with bruising impact. She gasped, blinking as her vision flowed from stark white to black to semi-normal again.

At least the air bag hadn’t deployed. In truth she hadn’t done anything but slam on the brakes for no reason at all, but she felt as if she’d just been in a ten-car pileup. Tracy sat there in the middle of the road, breathing deeply, feeling her jaw throb, and…

Wow. She tingled all over. Serious tingling with a side of throbbing, and not just in her face. 4C zipped into her thoughts, and just like that, her breasts tightened, her belly quivered, and lower down…Wow. She seriously needed to get a grip. A zillion fireflies were zipping through her system, firing up the most inappropriate places.

She took a deep breath, trying to settle her nerves. Unfortunately, that only rubbed her breasts against her shirt, setting off another firestorm of sensations. Jeez, what was that? It was like a lightning strike of the hornies.

Mr. Gao was still in her thoughts, only now her imagination made him naked. She could see his rippling muscles as clear as day, lean and perfectly sculpted. Then the two of them were in his bedroom, and he was promising to do amazing, erotic things to her. It was just how she’d fantasized a zillion times. Except this time, she wasn’t in the privacy of her bedroom, she was in her truck in the middle of the street! Without her wanting it, her breath shortened, her pelvis shifted on the seat, and the throbbing lower down deepened into a bass drum.

No, no, no! Not here! Clenching her jaw, she mentally obliterated all thoughts of Mr. 4C. Whatever weird energy thing he’d done to her, she was in control of her body. She would not succumb to this…this echo of whatever. It was not real. And even if it felt real, it was just temporary. Lightning-bolt intense, but very, very temporary.

Gripping the steering wheel, Tracy pressed down on the accelerator. Her truck leaped forward with an ominous grind. Fortunately, she wasn’t far from home. Minutes later, she pulled into her garage without any more throbbing. No less throbbing, but no new lightning strike of the hornies. She counted that as a win.

Her legs were weirdly steady—energized even—as she bounded out of the truck and into the house. She reached to flip on the lights, but then remembered that Joey wasn’t sleeping here tonight. No need to give the place that welcome feel.

She made it up the stairs quickly, slipped past her brother’s room, ignored as always the shut door of her parents’ old room, and careened into her own. Her nerves were zinging so much her hair felt as if it was standing on end. She banged on the overhead light only to curse and cut it off again.

She didn’t want the harsh glare. She wanted muted half light and sexy saxophone music as she slid her clothing off. She bounced across the room and flipped on her bedside lamp. It was a silly pink thing surrounded by clowns. She’d had it from when she was a baby and rarely looked at it. But right then it gave her room the perfect soft glow.

Then she focused on her pink eyelet curtains—another childhood leftover—and imagined herself in a lush boudoir stripping for a lover. 4C was just behind her, watching from her bed, his dark Chinese eyes drinking in her every move. He was naked except for those black cotton pants that rested ever so tantalizingly low over his hips, and he was waiting for her.

The first thing she did was strip off her ball cap and shake out her ponytail. Whatever possessed her to wear that stupid thing anyway? It was too restrictive and held everything too tight. How luxurious it felt to dig her fingers deep into her scalp and then shake out her hair.

The brown waves would have felt good on her back, but the tight band of sports bra beneath her T-shirt prevented any sensation. Normally she would have ripped the shirt right off, tossing it into the laundry bin with a perfect two-point shot. Not tonight. Not with her fantasy lover watching from the bed and her hips gyrating from some music she felt but couldn’t hear.

She wrapped her arms around her stomach and slowly lifted her shirt. It wasn’t the smoothest motion in the world, but she didn’t care as the fabric tugged against her back. Yup. Tingles. Still there. Still waiting to be awakened by a brush of fingertips, a stroke of lips, or the much less glorious pull of cotton.

It didn’t matter. Tracy tugged it off, already impatient to be free. The sports bra was harder. It clung so stubbornly to her body that she had to peel it away. The feel on her breasts was like thick plastic being lifted off to reveal a younger, perkier her. But that was nothing compared to the sensation of her nipples pebbling in the cool night air. When they tightened, her belly did, too, which set off those tingles, which swirled though her entire system enough to make her brain sweat.

Oh, my! She fell forward, landing hard on the mattress. She had to get naked now! Flopping over, she yanked off her jeans while those tingles began zipping everywhere at random. Her toes curled; her thigh spasmed; and her nose itched.

“9-1-1,” she gasped to no one at all. “I’ve been struck by horny lightning and I can’t get off!” She started to giggle but that only created more explosions of hunger. It wasn’t just her skin firing random patches of heat, but inside, as well. She swore even her spleen was quivering with desire.

The ring of her cell phone rumbled through the room. It would have been jarring if the deep notes didn’t resonate with her on a very intimate level. But the rhythm was too fast or not fast enough, so she scrambled—gasping—across her bed to her discarded jeans and the cell phone inside. It was thick and hard in her fingers as she gripped it, but way too narrow. She cursed as she flipped it open, wanting something very different in her hands.

“What?” she gasped, startled to realize that the word had come out breathy and seductive. What if it was her brother calling?

“Miss Williams? Is that you?”

Not Joey. Sexy Mr. Gao. Didn’t his name just roll through her system in absolute perfection? “Gaaaaooow,” she purred. “Mr. Gaaaaooooww, did you need something?”

He said a word in Chinese. It was low, guttural and completely at odds with her mood.

“What?” she said as she flipped onto her back and lifted her breasts to the ceiling. She had no understanding of why she did that. It just felt right.

“I’m so sorry, Miss Williams.”

“Tracy,” she whispered. “Call me Tracy.” She closed her eyes, lifting her hand to trail the very edges of her nails across her collarbone, curving across her left breast, to flick—ah!—hard against her nipple. “Hmmmm.”

“How are you feeling, Tracy? How does your body feel, right now?”

Naked. I feel naked. “I’m fine, Mr. Gaaaaoooow.” She flicked her nipple again, enjoying the spark of tingles that burst across her flesh.

“Listen to me, Tracy, I think I woke your tigress. Your inner tigress—it’s awake.”

“Me-yowrrrr, Mr. Gaaaooowww.” Had she just said that aloud?

Dead silence. It lasted long enough for her to lift the phone away to see if she’d lost the connection. She hadn’t, so she brought the receiver back to her ear.

“Hellooooooo?” she cooed.

“Listen very closely, Tracy. You need to…You’ve got energy firing all through your body.”

Too right, she purred silently to herself.

“You’re going to have to learn how to control it, to dampen it until you can get some training. I’m serious Tracy. You’re risking your life.”

She frowned. Her thoughts had finally filtered past his sexy voice to actually hear his words. What he said wasn’t pleasant at all. She pulled her hand away from fondling her nipple and made a valiant effort to focus. “What?”

“You need training, Tracy. Or you’re not going to be able to control your actions.” He sighed, the low rumble of air somehow making her toes curl in delight. “Nymphomania is the usual result. You don’t want to become a nymphomaniac, do you?”

Tracy rolled over onto her stomach in an attempt to focus, but automatically extended the motion, lifting her tush high in the air, feeling the cool air hit her wet thighs. Oh, to have him behind her right now.

“I am not a nymphomaniac,” she said, irritated not by the suggestion but because he wasn’t behind her, thrusting hot and hard inside her. She’d dreamed of such a thing for so long.

“Think, Tracy. Is this your usual behavior? Is this how you usually feel?”

Her mind reeled a moment. What was she doing? She plopped down flat on the cover and glared at her bedside table. “No,” she said slowly. “Not really.” But it wasn’t completely unusual, either. After all, she had been doing this with him in her dreams for weeks now.

The war between logic and lust collided in her brain, short-circuiting any rational thought. She understood nothing of what was going on, couldn’t focus to save her life, and was talking to a studly man who was not, not, not seducing her!

“You listen here,” she said, her tone sharpening. “I’m alone in my own home, and I can do whatever I want!” She sat up and glared at her tousled, flushed face in the mirror. She knew she had completely lost it here, and yet she couldn’t stop herself. With a grunt of frustration, she slammed the phone shut and threw it across the room.

Almost before it landed, the ring tone rumbled through the room. Mr. Gaaaooow, again, she was sure. The low notes strummed her insides. She tried to ignore it, but she couldn’t. With another curse, she flounced across the room and flipped it open.

“—Tracy!”

“What?” She’d dropped to all fours on the floor to grab the phone, and her breasts swung with abandon. If she crouched a bit more, she could rub her nipples across the carpet. It was rough, not even remotely what she wanted, but it still felt good. Not great, but good.

“Tracy! You need to release some of your energy.”

She’d dreamed of his hands on her breasts. Big hands, hard hands. Pulling. Sucking. Twisting her nipples. Her fantasy took on a life of its own and she forgot that she was still holding the phone. She didn’t remember until one of her moans sparked a response from him.

“That’s good, Tracy. You need to fantasize something. Pretend I’m there. Pretend I’m biting you. Little nibbles along your neck and down to your breasts. I’m biting your nipples, Tracy. And I’m sucking them into my mouth. They’re stretching, Tracy. Pull on your nipples, feel the stretch, and then pinch. That’s my teeth biting you.”

For all that his words were just what she wanted to hear, his tone was more like a radio announcer giving the weather. She pulled the phone away from her ear intending to toss it aside, but she couldn’t quite make herself do it. She wanted to hear more. She wasn’t going to do what he said, but she wanted to hear.

She groaned, low and in the back of her throat. Then she looked down at herself and was startled to realize she was doing exactly what he said. She was fondling herself. Whenever she’d done this before it had been a sneaky movement, under her covers and with a great deal of guilt. But not this time. This time she felt free to touch herself openly.

She took a deep breath and widened her legs. Wow, did this feel good.

“Are you there, Tracy? Tracy?”

“It’s never felt right before,” she gasped as she touched her breast again. “It’s felt embarrassing. But now I’ve got this tingling and I can breathe and it feels great!”

“That’s your tigress. She’s awake now.” Then his voice dropped to a lower register. Not quite the sexy murmur she’d dreamed of, but very nice. Verrrrrrrrry nice indeed. “Touch yourself lower, Tracy.”

Her hand was already there, pushing into herself. Her legs were trembling, her hand was pinching and pushing, but it wasn’t what she wanted. “It feels so empty,” she gasped. Then her body started convulsing. Orgasmic contractions rippled through her. They went on and on, and it felt good—but also blank. She had no other word for it. Blank contractions like a muscle spasm or a repetitive sneeze. A release but unsatisfying at the same time.

Without understanding why, she curled on her side and began to cry. Tiny sobs intertwined with orgasmic gasps. “I’ve gone insane,” she whimpered. “I’m completely insane.”

“No, you’re not,” Mr. Gao said through the phone. His voice was soothing, stroking a part of her deep inside. “You’re not insane. That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you. You’ve just been awakened and that’s a scary, confusing thing.”

“It’s wonderful,” she sobbed, not even knowing why she cried. “I can breathe.”

“I’m almost there, Tracy. Open the door for me, okay? I’m almost to your house. I got your address from Mrs. Ludlow in 1B. We’ll talk. I’ll explain.”

The lust was cooling, allowing room for rational thought. She was curled naked on the floor after having brought herself to orgasm while on the phone. On the phone! What had she done?

“Tracy? Can you unlock the door for me?”

She closed her eyes, humiliation washing through her. “No,” she whispered. “No, I can’t.” Then she turned off her cell.