Strip chess

I worked with her brother first. I met him on the job, at that coffee shop that connected me to everything, the place I found myself among an odd group of hard-drinking poets and intellectuals. He tried my name, discarded it with a frown, and renamed me "Freak" almost immediately.

She started a month or two later. She looks like her brother: tall, lanky. I learn that she is polyamorous and bisexual. She has a child. She is quick, whip-smart, funny.

We have fun at work. We talk about books and chess in the slow afternoon hours. Sometimes her boyfriend comes in and leans on the bar. (I cycle between wonderfully engaging and cripplingly shy; there is no middle ground.) She likes to point out women she finds attractive and I assess them with her. I don't consider myself bisexual but beauty is beauty and I'm not blind.

One night she invites me to come over, north of the city, where she lives in the woods. She suggests we get some beer, play some chess, hang out.

I don't like beer. I haven't learned yet about microbrews and flavor, and I'm still struggling with the knack of drinking to the point of pleasant warmth without proceeding to the point of eradication. But I agree.

Her house is tucked down a dirt road, back in the woods, and I wonder for a moment if I've just entered a slasher movie. These possibilities tend to cross my mind with some frequency - more evidence of a youth misspent. We sit at her kitchen table drinking beer and talking, laughing. Like friends.

She casually mentions that her boyfriend thinks I'm pretty. She says she's attracted to me too.

I'm taken aback. I don't see myself as pretty or desirable. I'm nothing like the girls she points out to me at the coffee shop. Nothing at all. Being me, I press for clarification, which she finds amusing. "How did you not notice I was flirting with you?"

I never notice.

Her boyfriend gets home from work and drinks with us. "Let's play chess," she says, and of course I agree. I always agree. Instead of playing at the table we sit cross-legged on her bed. She has this way of folding herself in half, elbow on a knee, cradling her chin in her hand as she ponders the board, brow wrinkled. It's cute.

One game, two games. Who wins? I can't remember. A third match and she looks at me mischievously. "Strip chess?" she suggests. I am just tipsy enough for this to seem like a good idea. Her boyfriend is sitting in the corner reading, and he looks up at this and laughs.

The rules are simple; lose a piece and forfeit an article of clothing. Eternally looking for loopholes, I suggest that earrings count, but that idea is shot down. I'm still confident. I'm a pretty good chess player. And I tend to dress in layers.

But she doesn't play to win. Or maybe she does, and I misunderstood what game she was playing. She gobbles up my pieces one by one: no strategy that applies to the board or the game, not at all, taking my pawns by jeopardizing stronger pieces again and again. I catch on and try to adjust my strategy, retain my clothing, but it's too late for that.

We're both down to panties now, and the boyfriend put his book down a long time ago. I look at her, my eyes devouring the differences between us. She is softly curved, womanly, while my body is thin and wiry. Her skin is pale, tinted a delicate rose, where I am gold-skinned with dark hair and eyes. Her blonde curls tumble over one shoulder. Her breasts are full, rounded, with small pink nipples, where mine are small, pert, with large dark nipples

I am suddenly shy and I look down. I feel a flush creep up my chest and face - visible, I know, despite the golden tone of my skin. She pushes the board out of the way, reaches forward and cups my breasts, flicking her thumbs over my nipples until I gasp, and then she pinches them hard. She knows I like that. I told her a lot, back before I knew why she was asking.

She moves closer. Her hands slide up my shoulders to my neck, and she leans in and kisses me. She tastes like beer and femininity. That's an odd thing to say, I know, but I can't think of how else to describe it. Her lips are soft and even though she bites my bottom lip hard there is a softness to her mouth that is different from a man's, and I find this intriguing. Her tongue darts between my lips and I lose myself in the sensations of her mouth on mine.

Her hands are roaming over my body. I shyly place my hands on her. I confirm the differences my eyes already observed. I smooth my palms around her waist, up her rib cage until I am cupping her round breasts, and then I mimic her and flick my thumbs over her nipples. She gasps into my mouth.

I feel her shoulders and her collarbone, impressing her angularity into my sensory memory. I draw her shape with my hands, following every line of her body until I can feel who she is. My fingers wander up the knobs of her spine, reading her story like Braille, as if the understanding my fingers gain will bring her into existence.

That's when her fingernails dig in and rake down my back. I cry out, the sound swallowed up by her soft lips. I am shattered by that sweet pain and she topples me over, hands hungrily roaming everywhere as she covers me with the sweet curves of her body.

I am a wanderer in this virgin territory. All of time and history have been encapsulated, condensed into the now. Her fingers enter me and civilizations rise. The chess board is reset with orderly rows. Her tongue is on me and civilizations fall, the chess pieces all tipped. I am incoherent with that incandescent pale creature between my legs. Her mouth is hot and demanding, driving me forward. She is a conquistador and I am ripe for plundering. She draws out my secrets, giving voice to a lust I didn't know I possessed, until I arch and cry out, vanquished.

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