Excerpt from "Vacancies"

I have a whole book on how to write sex scenes in fiction. Imagine that, an entire book. Because as far as I am concerned, they are just about the hardest thing to do well. I am not talking about erotica, that's something different. I am talking about the weaving of natural sounding sexuality into a story. It's not as easy as it may seem. This excerpt came about organically. I didn't know I was going to write a sex scene until I was in the middle of it. I don't know, "it just happened." ;)

There was a light snowfall that evening and Jack and I sat sipping beer in the family room. A waning moon made its ghostly appearance in the sky before the sun had completely set and Jack got out his guitar and began to finger pick a song that sounded familiar. He spoke the words in a whispery voice instead of singing them and I reached for my camera. Come hear Uncle John’s band, by the riverside, come on along and go along, he’s come to take his children home.

The view from my camera was Jack’s chest and the body of his guitar. I didn’t want his face or his legs, just this framed portion of the heart of him covered by the center of his guitar. I moved closer, slowing down the shutter speed so his fingers would blur in the final image. He stopped playing but I continued clicking photos. He took off his sweater and his shirt then, so that the gray hair on his chest shone a slight blue in the dusk that was permeating the room. He took off his jeans without a word and moved closer to me. I could see he was excited, but he turned away so that I could only photograph his buttocks and thighs.

I loved this part of him, loved that he knew what I wanted even before I knew. Time seemed to slow with the winding down of the shutter speed and the diminishing light in the room. I slowed the shutter so far that only one more stop and I would have to get the tripod. Jack moved slowly for the camera and for me, as though he were dancing. We didn’t speak and he finally removed all of his clothes and then I told him to stand by the window, where I could see the last reflections of the lake behind him. Pale flashes from the water trickled in the window and this time I moved back to capture Jack’s entire body.

The cold metal of my camera became warmed under my touch and I pressed its rectangular form into my cheek as I depressed the shutter again and again. Jack barely moved, except to walk closer to me as I finished the roll of film. I set the camera down on the couch and stood to meet him. He leaned over to kiss my neck and I reached out to touch his chest. Jack began to finger my breasts and I gasped the way I had that first night in the foyer of his apartment building.

I felt drawn to him but I stood still, back six inches from him, so I could watch his thick fingers play with my nipples through my turtleneck sweater. I fumbled with my own pants and bra beneath the sweater. He ran his hands down my sides and lifted the sweater. Now he moved closer to me and we arched toward one another, stumbling, and fell on to the couch. I was hungry now for him, watching him pose for me, watching the light play against his bare skin. All the time in between our lovemaking I could conjure up this feeling if I just memorized what he looked like, what he felt like.

I straddled him, underwear still on, and felt his hardness. He moaned and tried to pull my panties off but I resisted. It was fun to tease him. He pulled my hips toward his face and I shifted close enough so that his tongue could just touch the place I had become wet. He kissed me lightly there and then stopped.

“Mmmm…I liked that. What are you doing?” I swayed my hips slightly in the air, trying to coax him back to the spot.

“Let’s shoot this Zin. Let’s shoot us having sex.” Jack whispered in the singing voice that wasn’t really singing. I started to say Okay, but he slipped a rough finger between my legs and I shuddered, settling on him, my breasts hovering over his head and his other hand reaching for my back to hold me next to him.

The lake became a black scrim behind us as all sunlight extinguished from the air. I could only see our shadows cast on the massive windows by the ebbing fire, the rise and fall of my body on Jack’s, the coupling of our lips and legs. The camera lay next to us on the couch, its eye open, yet unable to document the eventual expiring of our desire into one another.