The Ice Game I Played with My Best Friend

We had made plans for another Saturday, like every Saturday for months. Lara and I made the most of the nights when her husband covered the graveyard shift at the hospital, those long hours when the city seemed to belong only to us. But this time there was an important difference: today we weren’t going to touch each other.

The idea had been hers. She’d told me on Thursday, while we grabbed a hurried coffee between classes at the university. “I want to try something new,” she said, and explained the rules with that mix of shyness and cheek that she was so good at. I nodded without thinking too much about it, convinced it would be an innocent game. Forty-eight hours later, standing in the hallway of her apartment, I was already beginning to suspect I’d gotten myself into much slipperier territory than I’d imagined.

We moved two armchairs from the living room until they faced each other, separated by a prudent distance of not quite three meters. To one side, a low table with two martini glasses she had prepared herself: cold vodka, an olive in each glass, and the rims frosted as if we’d gone to some effort for a real date. We took off our dresses without haste, in silence, and stayed in our underwear. We went over the rules as if reciting them out loud would keep us from betraying them: we could look at each other, listen, smell. Taste and touch were penalized. If either of us gave in, she lost.

—You first —said Lara, sinking into the armchair with that natural ease I could never quite imitate.

—No chance. You start —I replied—. The idea was yours.

She laughed. Not the nervous laugh of someone improvising, but the laugh of someone who had had everything planned since morning. She leaned over the table, took an ice cube from her glass, and settled back in the armchair. She crossed her legs with calculated slowness, and I, despite myself, thought of those noir-film heroines who know they’re being watched and use it as a weapon.

—Let’s see… —she began—. Imagine I’m kneeling in front of you. I hold your ankles carefully and slide my hands up to rest them on your calves. I open your legs wide, slowly, without asking permission, until your pussy is laid open for my mouth. And along the insides of your thighs I start moving this ice upward, drawing little circles. I reach your knees and stop.

The cube was already melting in her fist. She brought it to her cleavage and cooled her collarbone with it, leaving a shining trail that ran over her skin and disappeared beneath the fabric of her bra.

—What are you doing? —I protested—. We said no touching.

—I’m not touching myself —she said without looking up—. It’s the ice. And ice is water, and water doesn’t count.

Lara has always been like that, I thought. I held her gaze so she’d continue. I wasn’t about to give her the satisfaction of protesting twice.

—I separate your knees and position myself between your legs —she went on—. The ice goes up your thighs, over and along the sides, to the very edge of your panties. Your skin prickles. My breath reaches your navel, and a little lower, right above where your pussy is soaking wet and waiting for me. I move the fabric aside with two fingers, without touching you, and I see you shining, swollen, your lips parted, your clit sticking out hard as a button. I could lick you until you screamed. I could put my whole tongue in you and fuck you with it until you pulled my hair. But I don’t kiss you. I pull back. I look at you. I lick what’s left of the ice and let it melt completely in my mouth. It tasted like you. Like your wet pussy.

I drew a breath in the armchair. I realized I’d been holding it for far too long. It was like waking out of a dream where you’re about to fall and you wake up just before the impact. I felt my panties stuck to my skin, soaked through, and an annoying pulse between my legs beating in time with my heartbeat. Lara uncrossed her legs and kept talking, relentless.

—I look at you straight on and start sliding down the bra straps —she said—. Slowly. One and then the other. The clasp is in front, you know that. And two little drops of water have been left on it, drops that ran down my cleavage and had nowhere else to go.

This time I didn’t have to imagine anything. In the armchair opposite, she was doing exactly what she described. She tugged the left strap and looped it around her index finger before letting it go. She did the same with the right. Both droplets were shining on the clasp, just as she’d said.

She leaned over the table to take her glass. It was easy for her: the martini was within reach. Mine was on the other side, far away. I suspected she’d arranged the room’s decoration with precisely that in mind.

—Want some? —she asked, setting hers down on the table—. Shall I bring yours over?

I nodded because speaking seemed risky. She stood up with my glass in her hand and walked until she was standing in front of me. I felt every muscle in my body tense at once, from the nape of my neck to my toes. She leaned down and offered me the glass. I took it with exaggerated care, careful not to brush her hand even by accident.

I drank. Bad idea: the vodka left my mouth even drier than it already was. What I needed at that moment was water. What I had in front of me was alcohol and Lara thirty centimeters from my face, with her tits almost spilling out of her bra and the smell of a hot woman washing over me in waves every time she breathed.

Then she did something that wasn’t in the rules. She put two fingers into my glass, took out the ice cube, and lifted it to her mouth. She ran her tongue over it slowly, staring at me without blinking, and then sucked it like she was sucking the cock I didn’t have, cheeks hollowed and eyes half-lidded.

—Martinis leave the skin sticky —she murmured.

And she came closer. I jerked when the ice touched my neck. She hadn’t touched me with her hand, but the cold against hot skin tore a sound from me I couldn’t identify, somewhere between a moan and a complaint. Two droplets slid along the curve of my collarbone and stopped at the edge of my bra.

She brought the ice to my mouth. I understood immediately: I was supposed to taste it. I licked it because she left me no other choice and because, by then, I was no longer sure I wanted to get out of this unscathed. It was warm, almost liquid. Lara kept dragging it over my torso, never touching me, with impossible balance. She passed it over the fabric of my bra, right over my nipples, and I felt them harden at once, standing out under the lace like two stones. She lowered the cube to my navel, made it go around once, and continued until it stopped a scant centimeter from the waistband of my panties. My mouth was open and my cunt was soaking my thighs.

Her bra, that front-clasp bra of hers that still hadn’t come undone, didn’t move. When she leaned just a little farther, I could see the darker skin through the neckline, the crest of each breast, the shadow of her hard nipples pressing against the fabric. The sight hurt me somewhere deep. My thighs hurt, my hands clenched on the armrests, the lower part of my belly hurt, the swollen clit throbbing between my legs as if it had a life of its own. I thought I was going to need the rest of the ice cubes in the freezer to survive that night, and maybe they still wouldn’t be enough.

The cube ran out. She smiled at me calmly, turned around, and went back to her armchair with a slow walk that looked rehearsed in front of the mirror. Her ass, barely covered by a thin thong, moved with each step, and I couldn’t tear my eyes away from the two half-moons of taut flesh until she sat down. I let out the breath I’d been holding. My fingernails had bitten marks into my palms.

This time she sat differently, more open, with one elbow on the armrest and her chin lifted. Legs apart, thong so wet it stuck to the lips of her pussy, outlining the whole slit. She was soaked with sweat and melted ice water. She looked at me as if to say: “Your turn.”

***

—As you are now —I began, with a steadier voice than I expected—, I get between your legs. The first thing I do is unfasten that cursed bra of yours.

She smiled. She lifted her hands to the clasp and opened it herself. The bra loosened and slid down her arms until it hung from her wrists. Her tits were free, perfect, heavy, with dark nipples hard as fingertips, looking straight at me. It took enormous effort not to get up from the armchair in that instant, not to cross the three meters on all fours and bury myself in them up to the hilt.

—I do what babies do —I went on, swallowing—. I grab them with both hands, one in each palm, and squeeze until a moan slips out of you. I take your right nipple into my mouth and suck it all the way, circling it with my tongue, barely biting, tugging on it. Then the other. I leave them shiny with saliva, so hard they hurt. And meanwhile my other hand slides down the side of your body, goes to your thong, and with one finger I trace the lace right at the edge, where the fabric sinks a little into the skin, soaked with you.

I paused for a moment to see how she reacted. This time Lara didn’t mirror the image with her hand, but she pressed her lips together and her throat moved as she swallowed. Her nipples had gone so hard they looked nailed into the air.

—I give your mouth a rest —I continued—. My tongue goes straight down from the valley between your tits to your navel. There I stop. I know you’re ticklish right there. I know you can’t stand it. And meanwhile, my finger found a gap in the lace and pulls the fabric aside, moving it out of the way. Your pussy is left exposed, swollen, so wet I can see you shining from top to bottom, your lips open, your clit out begging for a mouth. I put my nose there first. I smell you. I smell every inch of you until I’m dizzy. And then I stick out my tongue and give you a long, slow lick, from bottom to top, flattening your clit at the end with the tip.

Lara changed position. I could tell by her neck, by the way she clamped her thighs together, by the tiny tremor in her chin. A broken gasp slipped out of her.

—I do it again —I went on, savoring every word—. And again. I suck your clit whole, take it into my mouth and suck it slowly, as if it were a little cock. Then I go down, I shove my tongue in as deep as I can, and I fuck you with it until you push my head into your cunt yourself. I go back up to your clit. I stay there. I leave you there a long while, barely biting, sucking you until your thighs tremble around my face.

—Fuck… —she murmured, almost voiceless.

—Now I get up —I said—. And I take an ice cube. But this ice isn’t for me, darling. I bring it to where your body is throbbing hardest. Where you’re hottest. I set it on your clit and your whole body shivers when I make contact.

She made a move as if to close her legs, but she didn’t. On the contrary: she ended up opening them a little wider, as if her body had gotten there before her mind.

—Yes, it’s nothing like putting it on your neck —I went on—. You started this, sweetheart. I slide the cube over the lips of your cunt, up and down, until the cold water mixes with what you’re dripping. I press it slowly against the entrance and push it inside. Little by little, until it’s all the way in. You tighten inside to keep from letting it go. I pull it out with two fingers. I lick it the same way you did before, with your taste clinging to it. I do it again. Once more. I push it back in, this time with two fingers shoving it deep, and I leave it there while I suck your clit over the top. Until the cube gets small, and then yes, I put it all in my mouth, with your juices and everything, and swallow it.

—Wait —she cut in, voice broken.

I lifted my eyebrows, not moving.

—There’s only one difference —she said—. I did touch you with the ice. You still haven’t touched me.

I smiled. It was a complaint-shaped invitation. I got up from the armchair with my legs asleep and my heart somewhere in my throat, and walked to the table. There was one cube left floating in my glass. I took it out with my fingers, slick with martini.

When I reached her armchair, she had already taken off her thong. She’d folded it over the arm of the chair, like a sample garment, daring me to do what I had just described. Her cunt was open, shining, and a trail of moisture ran from her ass to the cushion. I wasn’t going to disappoint her. I knelt between her legs, passed the ice over her nipples first, one and then the other, until I left them stiff and red. I slid down over her belly. I brushed her navel. And I reached her cunt.

I kept every word I’d said, one by one, not skipping a single one. I licked her thighs, ate the lower lips slowly, sucked her clit until she started moaning with her mouth closed, clenching her teeth so she wouldn’t scream and wake up the whole neighborhood. I pushed my tongue as deep as I could and fucked her with it until she grabbed my head with both hands and pressed my face against her cunt, pulling my hair. Then I used the ice. I ran it over every fold, slid it in slowly, watched her arch her back when the cold opened her from within. I pulled it out and licked it, salty and sweet at once. I pushed it back in with two fingers pressing it deep. And when the ice got small, I took it into my mouth and kept sucking her clit with it inside, until she came shaking all over, her thighs closing around my face and a long, rough moan tearing out of the bottom of her belly. Until the ice was gone on her skin and in my mouth. Until Lara came undone on top of me the way the cube had melted in her fist.

We stayed like that a long while, silent. Me kneeling in front of her armchair, my mouth still shining with her, her body thrown back against the cushion and her legs open without wanting to close. There were no more ice cubes, no more martinis, no more rules. Only our breathing and the hum of the fridge in the back of the apartment. I sat on the floor, my legs truly numb now, and rested my head on her knee for a full minute, smelling the trace of her orgasm on my own face.

—Shall we take a shower? —she asked.

I smiled against the skin of her thigh. This time, the rule broke before we even got to the bathroom.