The Festival Bet

*This one's all about the playful energy of festivals and how a simple invitation can turn into something really hot between partners who trust each other. Hope you enjoy the slow build and the lube-positive vibes. Thanks for reading!*

We were sprawled in our camp chairs outside the tent when the glitter guy walked past. Some dude, probably thirty, chest bare and dusted head to toe in gold sparkle. Gemma watched him the whole way down the path.

"See, that's what I'm talking about," she said, waving her warm beer at him. "That guy has more confidence in his little finger than you have in your whole body."

"That's a shirtless guy with glitter on. That's not confidence, that's a Tuesday at this festival."

"Perry. Baby. You won't even let me touch your butt."

I sat up. "That is not true."

"Oh, it's completely true." She kicked her sandals off and crossed her ankles. "Three years, and I get maybe one cheek pat a month. The second my finger goes anywhere near the crack, you clamp up like a bank vault."

"I don't clamp up."

"You absolutely clamp up. It's cute, but it's also kinda boring."

I love this woman, I really do, but she has never once let me win an argument. I'm twenty-nine, I'm a graphic designer, I thought I'd learned to pick my battles. She's twenty-eight, she cleans teeth for a living, and she interrogates people for a living too, basically. She wins.

"So what's your pitch?" I asked. "You've got that look."

"What look?"

"The look you got before you convinced me to go skinny dipping in your cousin's pond."

She grinned and scooted her chair closer. "Okay. Proposal. Tonight I get to pay attention to your ass. Like, really pay attention, if you want me to."

"Define paying attention."

"Fingers. Whatever else I packed. You lie there and take it, and you tell me the second you want to stop."

"Or?"

"Or nothing. There's no or. You say no, we go watch the second stage and I buy you a funnel cake. I just wanted to ask out loud for once."

I looked at her. She looked at me, all sunny and evil. Somewhere behind us somebody's bass thumped and a group of people cheered about something.

"No stakes?" I said.

"No stakes. Separately, I packed you a tie-dye crop top and you're wearing it for one photo tomorrow, because I'm a menace and that has nothing to do with tonight."

"Gemma."

"Perry." She held out her hand. "Yes, no, or ask me something first?"

I should mention here that my ex, back when I was twenty-four, introduced me to some light stuff. Scarves, mostly. Nothing like this. And I should also mention, since we're being honest in my own head, that the idea did something to my stomach. Not a bad something. A nervous something.

"Yes," I said, and shook her hand like an idiot, like we were closing a business deal over warm PBR.

"Tonight, then," she said. "After dark. Tent rules."

"Tent rules?"

"Nobody in the tent gets to be embarrassed. That's the rule."

* * *

It got dark around nine. By then I'd watched her all evening, the way you watch a storm roll in. She was totally normal at the food trucks, totally normal at the second stage, dancing a little, holding my hand. Then we crawled into the tent and she unzipped her little canvas duffel and pulled out a bottle of lube and a small purple silicone thing that I pretended I had not just seen.

"Gemma, what is that."

"It's a plug." She said it so casually, like it was a phone charger. "Small one. I bought it two weeks ago. I've been sitting on this plan, no pun intended, since then."

"You planned this."

"I planned this. Now get your pants off and lie down on your stomach."

"Okay. Okay. Slowly, though."

"Slowly, always. Say stop and I stop." She pulled her tank top off over her head and got comfortable beside me. "You're gonna tense up. I can feel it. Don't. Just breathe, okay? In through your nose."

I breathed through my nose. Her hand stayed flat on my ass, warm and still, and honestly that part was nice. Then her fingers moved, slow, tracing down my crack, and my entire frame locked up on instinct.

"There it is," she said softly. "That's the vault, baby. Come on. Breathe."

"I'm breathing."

"You're holding your breath." She leaned down and kissed my shoulder. "Hey. Look at me. You're okay. This is me. I've known every inch of you for three years and I've wanted this inch the whole time."

"That's a weird compliment."

"Take it."

I laughed, which helped, and the laugh loosened something, and that was when her oiled finger circled my rim for the first time. Just circled. Light as anything. My hips jerked and she made this low, happy sound like I'd given her a present.

"Oh, you felt that," she said. "Good."

"It's a lot."

"I know. We've got all night." Another slow circle, lube slick and warm. "I packed two bottles. Two, Perry."

"How long are we doing this?"

"As long as you want. Sunrise at the latest, I packed enough lube for that. Now breathe out."

I breathed out, and she kept circling, patient as anything, and somewhere in the next minute I stopped flinching. Her free hand came up and stroked my hair and she kissed the back of my neck and murmured, "There you go. There he is." Her fingertip pressed, just barely, not going in, just resting there, and I shivered all the way down my spine.

"Good?" she whispered.

"Yeah," I said, and was surprised that it was true. "Yeah, okay. Good."

"Okay," she said, and I felt her finger press in past the first knuckle, slow, so slow. "Breathe out for me, baby."

I breathed out and her finger slid in all the way and my brain short-circuited.

"Oh," I said. Not a word, really. More of a vowel.

"There it is," Gemma whispered. "Feel that? That's just one. That's nothing."

"It's not nothing."

"It's a little bit of nothing. Just hold still." She kept it buried there, not moving, letting me get used to it, her other hand rubbing slow circles on my lower back. Outside, the bass thumped on, somebody's camp was singing something about whiskey, and the whole festival hummed like it was a world away. "You're clenching. Let go. I've got you."

"I'm trying."

"Try less." She wiggled her finger, barely, and I made another sound I can't describe. "There. There you go. Oh, Perry, you're gonna be so good at this."

"Is that a compliment?"

"It's a forecast." She drew out a little, slid back in, and this time it didn't burn, it just felt like pressure, fullness, this weird deep stretch that made my toes curl. "Good?"

"Good," I managed. "Weird. Good."

"That's the talk. Now I'm gonna add the second finger, okay? Tell me when."

She waited. I actually appreciated that. "Okay. Now."

The second finger pressed at my rim and slipped in beside the first and I gasped into the sleeping bag, loud enough that somebody outside probably heard.

"Shh," she laughed. "Tent rule."

"I'm not embarrassed."

"Good, 'cause you moan like a pipe organ." She curled her fingers and my hips bucked. "Found your spot, didn't I?"

"Gemma, oh my god."

"That's what I thought." She worked them slow, in and out, scissoring gentle, and every time she grazed that spot my whole body lit up like the second stage. "Listen to you. Three years and you never told me you could sound like this."

"You never asked."

"I'm asking now." She kissed between my shoulder blades. "How's the fullness? One to ten?"

"Seven. In a good way. Is that a good way?"

"That's a great way." She pulled her fingers out slow and I felt weirdly empty, bereft, like she'd taken something that belonged in there. "Okay. Plug time. It's small, smaller than my two fingers, I promise. Ready?"

"Do I have a choice?"

"You always have a choice. That's the whole deal." She nudged me. "Say it."

"Keep going," I said. "Please."

"That's my boy."

The plug was cold from the air, then slick, then pressing, and it was wider than it looked, I'll say that. She went slow, a little in, back out, a little more, talking me through every millimeter.

"Breathe out. Push back a little, like you're... you know."

"I don't know."

"Like you're sitting down. There. There." And it slid home, that narrow neck settling, the flange resting snug against me, and I was just full. Constantly, weirdly, completely full. I felt it every time I moved. "How's that?"

"I can feel my heartbeat in it."

"Told you. Now roll over, face down, and let me look at you."