Mind you, she wasn’t called Magenta back then. Just Maggie. It took two semesters of arts-driven blossoming at a small New England college before she emerged as Magenta.
Some of our high-school acquaintances snickered. But I, glimpsing the unmistakable flicker of adventurous joie de vivre in her eyes whenever she came home for a visit, applauded her new choice of name. And it seemed to mean a lot to her that I did so.
In my lazy way, I’d acquired my own version of joie de vivre. I attended local college, worked summers, went to indie-rock concerts, dated when something fell into place, and generally enjoyed myself. Truth was, I was still in love with Mag, but I’d accepted the reality that my feelings were unrequited.
And that was long before the spring break visit when she told me she was “ninety percent lesbian.” She said it the way you might say you were “three-quarters Italian and one-quarter Irish.”
She was sitting at my kitchen table, the afternoon sun streaming through the window onto her face, as she made this earnest revelation. I’d been puttering around while we chatted, but now I joined her.
“Hey, I’m so glad you’re finding yourself,” I said. “First step to happiness, right?”
“First step to happiness at the moment is you baking me some of your famous peanut butter cookies,” she coaxed. “I’ve been thinking about them all semester.”
Later, when she was munching cookies at the table, I said, “So, I’m curious. What’s the other ten percent?”
She broke an edge off her cookie, and her hands toyed with it as she answered.
“The other ten percent is that when I’m in figure-drawing class and we have a male model, I spend a lot more time looking at his dick than is, shall we say, artistically necessary.”
She had such a way with words. Not to mention a way with the chunk of cookie that she kept rolling between her sensitive fingers.
She continued. “I think the difference between how I feel about sexy women and how I feel about sexy men is sort of like the difference between how I feel about painting versus sculpture. Paintings are my whole world. I eat, drink, and breathe them, I’m thinking about them all the time, and I practically live in the landscape gallery of the museum at school. If I could, I’d crawl into a painting at night instead of a bed. Whereas sculpture—hey, I like fine sculpture. Nice stuff, keep up the good work. But I wouldn’t put one in my house or anything.”
I made a wry, wistful sound—half sigh, half chuckle.
“What?” Her eyebrows knitted the way they did when something puzzled her.
“Nothing,” I said. “Only I never thought of myself as ‘just a sculpture’ before.”
“You are not ‘just a sculpture,’ Nicholas. You, my friend, are the David.”
I smiled. “You’re re-writing Cole Porter, you scamp, and I love you for it.”
I was resigned to the fact that Mag and I were always going to be just friends. But there was still nobody I’d rather spend time with. All of the weekends she came home were blocked off in impregnable rectangles on my calendar. And it made me happy to observe that the bond was strong in both directions. Aside from some obligatory family time, it seemed like she was glad to let me monopolize her for the duration of each visit.
And so we found ourselves snuggling on my couch one evening, during our junior year in college, watching Marx Brothers movies. I remember thinking, as I followed the antics of those manic siblings on the screen, that Magenta felt like the sister I never had.
That night, things felt so comfy and cozy, that when she asked the question that launched the game, it startled me, jolting me back to the sexual undercurrent I’d kept at a low, inaudible simmer.
She had telegraphed the change in tone by shifting her position just slightly—straightening up against the back of the couch, without losing contact with my body. I could tell she was about to broach a new subject. Beyond that, I had no idea what was coming.
What she said was, “What do you think we’d be doing right now if we were, you know, more than just friends?”
Time froze as I took her in from tip to toes. I drank in her thick, floppy mane of red hair, her pale but glowing face, the small, delectable breasts that shaped her aqua top into a dream, and the petite bare feet that sprouted the ten cutest toes I’d ever seen.
Despite being taken by surprise, my talent for repartee did not fail me. “I’m not sure,” I said cautiously, “But I’m thinking that the Marx Brothers might not factor so heavily into it.”
She laughed, and her eyes twinkled. Maggie had always laughed—and twinkled—at my one-liners, even when she’d been in the grip of a bleak teen winter. And my cheerful, grown-up Magenta was inclined to laugh even more heartily.
So I was surprised when her brow suddenly furrowed. “I’m sorry, Nick,” she said. “I’m afraid that was an insensitive thing to ask. I mean, because of how you feel.”
I took her hand. “No Mag, please, no worries. Yeah, it was sort of a strange question to ask. But when has that ever stopped us? And as a game, a theoretical discussion let’s say, it appeals to me. It lets me indulge my fantasies.”
I instinctively pulled myself away from her a little bit as I said it. Even though she had started this whole thing, I wanted to be careful not to make her uncomfortable. But Mag immediately closed up the distance again, as she relaxed back into the sofa cushions.
“To be honest, I don’t even know why I asked it,” she said. “But I think maybe . . .”
She swallowed. “Okay, I think it’s about how I feel so close to you, so intimate in some way. And though I know it’s only a friendship thing, well, there’s no harm in buddies playing a little game of ‘What if we were more than friends,’ is there? Especially when you’re sitting there looking so sexy.” She blew me a kiss—an old habit of hers, and something not everyone could pull off like she could.
I looked at the exquisite face of my beautiful “buddy” Mag, at her expectant smile. “If we were more than just friends . . .” I began.
Then I stopped. “No offense, but that’s sort of a cumbersome name for a game, don’t you
think?”
“Cumbersome always makes me think of cucumbers,” she replied matter-of-factly.
“I think we need a snappier title. Something that grabs you.” On the word grabs, I gave a swift squeeze to the ticklish, enticing hint of bare flesh that peeked out above the left-hip belt loop on her jeans. Just as a friend, you understand.
She shrieked, then gave another Mag laugh and smoothed her top down over the tickled bit.
“Ahem,” she said. “All right then, what title would you suggest?”
“Oh, something succinct. How about, ‘If we were lovers.’”
Magenta looked doubtful. “No offense to you either, kiddo . . . but that’s fairly Hallmark.” This wasn’t a compliment in our circle.
“You’re right,” I said sheepishly. “There has to be something better.”
With a piercing frankness, she met my eyes. “How about ‘If we were fucking.’ ”
My palms were suddenly sweaty. I swallowed hard.
“Yeah,” I rasped. “Hats off. That’s definitely better.”
I composed myself and took just a minute to think. My eyes were riveted on her graceful nose, which seemed to quiver with curiosity.
“If we were fucking,” I began.
She took my hand. Her palms, unlike mine, were only the slightest bit moist; and her thin fingers, chilly against my own, exerted an eager, insistent pressure that sent my heart racing.
“If we were fucking,” I continued, and then I hesitated. I swallowed and began again. “If we were fucking, I’d be sliding those jeans off you right about now. Slowly. I’d let your underwear—uh, what’s your underwear like?”
“Pink bikini,” she said, with only the slightest acceleration of pitch to reflect the excitement of embarking on this strange journey with me.
“I’d watch your pink bikini emerge like an achingly gorgeous sunrise, inch by inch, above the blue-jean horizon.”
“Ha! That’s a new twist,” said Magenta, her flushed face belying her flippant tone. “Isn’t it usually compared to a moon, rather than a sun?”
“Shh! Let me finish.” She stifled her nervous giggles, and I proceeded. “Anyway, I’d eventually have those jeans all the way off you, and I’d scoop you up by the adorable, pink-bikini sunrise ass, and sit you here on my lap.”
“Wow.”
I chortled self-consciously and shifted my position to accommodate the tension behind my zipper.
“Your turn,” I prompted.
“Okay. Right. If we were . . .” She lingered over the word, seeming to relish it. “Fucking.”
“Yes?”
“I’m thinking. Give a girl a chance.”
“All right, but it had better be good.” I said this with a smirk, because we both knew it could hardly be anything but.
“If we were fucking, and I were on your lap, I’d sit facing you, and I’d unzip you. I’d leave your pants on, because they fit you so nicely, my ‘David’—”
“The David doesn’t wear pants,” I interrupted. “I thought you said you were an art major.”
“Nick! Shut up.” She gave me a friendly slap on the shoulder. “As I was saying, before I was so rudely interrupted, I’d leave your pants on, but I’d coax your dick all the way out, so you were sitting there as just an adorable, fully-dressed Nick with—well, with his dick sticking out. Way, way out. Straight no chaser. I’d clutch it in my hands, and I’d rock for a while, just rock there on your lap. Maybe I’d hum.”
“Hum?” I’d been ascending the slope of arousal at quite a clip, but this feature temporarily threw me off course. Now I was torn between a desire to kiss her and a desire to burst out laughing—neither of which, I knew, were options.
Magenta blushed. “It’s a thing I do. I hum to my lovergirls, when I’m getting revved up. Most of them like it.”
The image of her straddling another beautiful woman—humming or no humming—got me immediately, and powerfully, back on course.
“Far be it from me to knock it, when I haven’t tried it,” I said in my most conciliatory fashion. I licked my lips, then closed my eyes for a moment, enjoying a wave of even more intense arousal. “Yes, so you’re rocking and humming, and now it’s my turn to—oh, crap.”
“What’s the matter?” she asked.
“It’s just that I’m going to have to really unzip my pants pretty soon. I—uh—don’t know how much longer I can contain things. Maybe I’d better excuse myself for a minute and embrace the
inevitable.”
I stood up, intending to head to the bathroom for a quick manual release.
But Magenta shot out her hand and grabbed my leg. “No, Nick. It’s okay. I don’t mind.”
I felt feverish. “You . . . don’t mind?”
She smiled a smile of beautiful sensitivity. “You can come for me, Nick my pal. If you want to.”
My pulse raced as I took this in. I thought a moment—a New York moment. “I want to.”
“And, believe me, I know what you mean about the inevitable,” she said. “In fact, to be perfectly frank, I—now, don’t misunderstand, I don’t . . . I mean I can’t . . . oh, shit, can I borrow this cushion?”
“Of course. Even though you won’t let me borrow yours,” I quipped, my banter on autopilot as my libido went into high gear.
She helped herself to a throw cushion and swiftly nestled it between her legs. “Umm,” she said. And then, a few seconds later, “I hope it’s settled that you’re going to stay right here.”
I sat back down—gingerly—on the couch.
Satisfied with the spatial arrangements, she closed her eyes. “It’s your turn.”
I used the seconds her eyes were closed to access my cock, as discreetly as I could. When she looked up at me again, I was stroking my shaft with my right hand while stroking my chin with my left, mulling over the next leg of the fantasy. Magenta glanced at my crotch, and her eyes seemed to flicker approval. She pressed her cushion tighter.
“If we were fucking,” I said, my breath coming hard, “I would hold that cushion for you. I would ask you to teach me exactly where and how to press it for you.”
As my nerves tingled from my cock to my brain and back again, my excitement at the fantasy we were spinning mingled and merged with my excitement at the fantasy-come-true that was playing out here on my couch. Magenta must have felt it too. I scarcely had time to say “Your turn” before she was off and running.
“If we were fucking,” she galloped, “I would currently be ass-naked from the waist down. This cushion would be my only underwear. I’d clutch it as if my thighs were a vise, and I’d want you to keep pressing on it for me until about 3:30 in the morning.”
Well, she wasn’t ass-naked, but she had the vise thing down.
At this point, it was no longer necessary to say “Your turn” at all. Like a seasoned track and field runner, I accepted the baton gracefully, without missing a beat—and despite already having a tangible baton of sorts in my right hand.
“If we were fucking—and you were ass-naked—I’d clutch your ass-naked ass and give your delicious toes gentle kisses, without ever letting up the customized pressure on your favorite cushion. I’d try to see if I could elicit ticklish giggles that alternated perfectly with your erotic moans. Giggle, moan. Giggle, moan. Faster and faster.”
I heard a deep intake of breath from Mag, so I continued. “Then I’d kiss progressively higher, till I was tickling your thighs with kisses while I watched you clutch that damn cushion as hard as you could.”
“If we—” Magenta began, looking straight at my dick, then broke off. “Oh man . . . oh wow.” She was squeezing the stuffing out of my throw cushion, grating it against her fully-clothed crotch, and letting her legs spasm over the edge of my couch.
In one instant I was trying to absorb the fact that Maggie was coming on my couch, right next to me. And, in the next instant, timing, rhythm, and control all escaped me, and I spurted wildly, a blissed-out passenger in a pleasure vehicle that my dear friend Mag, the ninety-percent lesbian, was effortlessly steering with her own climax. Talk about a “designated driver.”
After we’d both emerged from our separate but mutually-nourished cocoons of ecstasy, Magenta looked at me softly. “It may be hard for you to understand this, Nick, but I really wanted that,” she said.
“Really?” I asked. “I know I wanted it, though I never would have dared dream of it. But you?”
“Yeah,” she said. “It felt so personal, just like I thought it would. Like getting myself off in the privacy of my bedroom, except with top-notch companionship.”
“That’s not exactly an ego-boosting compliment, Cole Porter,” I sulked.
After what had just happened, I considered myself pretty stupid for having hurt feelings. But I couldn’t help it, and Mag and I had always been honest with each other.
“Oh, but it is a compliment, Harpo,” Mag said. “You obviously have no idea how much I love masturbating alone in my bedroom – sometimes, even more than I love fucking.” She reflected a moment. “Shit, even more than I love painting. But don’t you dare repeat that when I’m a famous artist.” She paused again, then added, “Unless I’m very famous.”
I knew she was telling the truth, and everything felt all right. In fact, I’d never been happier, in my lazy way.
Magenta now spoke quietly, almost shyly. “And next time I’m home, maybe I can show you in more detail what I like to do.” She lowered her eyes. “I don’t have to, um, necessarily wear my jeans, right? That is, if you’re up for another round of this game.”
I told her I was sure I would be up for it, indeed.
“Meanwhile,” she said brightly, “It might interest you to know that I’ll probably be replaying some of the gorgeous things you said tonight in my mind, when I’m doing it sometimes. When I’m not thinking about luscious naked girls, I mean.”
“In other words, approximately ten percent of the time?”
“Yeah.” She grinned.
“And when I’m doing it,” I countered, “I’ll be thinking about you thinking about the things I said. Approximately one hundred percent of the time.”
She kissed me on the forehead. When she pulled back from the platonic kiss we laughed, harder than we’d laughed at the Marx Brothers. Mag passed me the box of tissues, and with my cock still hanging out, I made another fraternal grab for the ticklish spot above her belt loop.
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