Dark Ocean

Part 6

She lets a silky lock of Juliana's hair slide through her fingers before she whispers, "Live a little, Juls.."

She lingers only a second longer before she steps back, her eyes never leaving Juliana's and the teasing smile never leaving her lips. Juliana blinks rapidly, and swallows before a near-blinding smile spreads over her features.

"Okay.."

For a moment, all Valentina can do is stare, stare at those compelling dark eyes that seem to see past all the careful armor she had spent months constructing. Those beautiful, brown eyes that seem to just see her, really see her, for the person she truly is. It's scary and thrilling, and she wants to lose herself in their depths.

She can't look away, she doesn't want to look away. She wants Juliana to look at her in that way that makes her feel like she'll never have to explain or excuse herself again. Valentina doesn't know why she feels like she can be so vulnerable with Juliana, like she doesn't have to hide the rawness swimming around inside her, like she can't hide it. She thinks maybe that should mean something or maybe it already does.

And there's that urge again, the one that makes her want to kiss Juliana so that she can breathe, but she bites it back because she doesn't know what to do with it. Her mind is this whole new foreign territory she has yet to explore, and she has no idea where to start. She feels overwhelmed because there are so many possibilities and so many new impressions and feelings.

She never looked at another girl in a sexual way before; she never even once considered the possibility. It's all so new and unknown and confusing, and yet she can't dismiss the little voice in her head telling her that maybe, just maybe, it's the exact reason why she never really enjoyed both the sex and the intimacy with Lucho, nor with any of her previous boyfriends.

She never cared much for sex; she didn't understand what all the fuss was about. It was nothing like the movies or books. No fireworks. No belly flutters. No arousal in her core. Nothing.

There had been so many times that she wondered if there was something wrong with her, because she was supposed to like it, right? But to be honest, her enjoyment wasn't free and liberated, but rather passive. She felt bored and impatient to get it over with. She felt that sex was something she did more for Lucho's sake than for hers. She never felt excited by him, not the way he seemed excited by her, with a fever of anticipation.

It always felt more as if she were doing it out of obligation than true emotion. It made her feel numb and empty instead of alive and ecstatic. She even got to the point where she made up excuses to avoid having sex, and the few times they did have intercourse, she turned to alcohol to numb herself.

On more than one occasion, she had wondered if there was something wrong with her body, because it never seemed affected by anything. She had tried everything with her ex-boyfriend Charles and with Lucho, and although they had touched her in all the right places, nothing seemed to affect her, one way or the other.

Then, one night, she finally discovered that her body wasn't to blame; it simply never received the necessary stimulation. She can still remember it vividly, the way her entire body responded with a whoosh of adrenaline and an accelerated heartbeat.

She'd been lying naked in her bed, her fingers stroking the wet warmth of her sex with lazy strokes. She'd never touched herself like that before, never felt such an overwhelming, aching need for more. It called to a craving inside her she hadn't even known she had, and as she toppled over the edge into sheer bliss, she'd cried with physical exhaustion and mental relief.