Undone by Kristina Lloyd

stars going supernova behind my lids, my core squeezing and spilling. The grips rolled over and over, holding me in their euphoric madness before they collapsed into a sudden fall. As the tremors faded, I gazed down at Misha, stupefied by shock. He kept his head between my thighs and raised his eyes, mouth and chin glinting with my fluids.
    Next to me, Sol grunted, his noise rising to thin desperation. I turned to him, saw his hand blurred with speed. Then, despite all the vocalised aggression from earlier, Sol went rigid on a shudder and climaxed with barely a sound. His come jetted out in arcs, splashing on my belly and striping Misha’s face.
    Misha’s tongue darted out to taste the liquid on his lips; then he leaned forwards to lap the pearlised streaks on my stomach. Sol tossed his phone onto the bed and grasped the back of my chair, panting.
    ‘Whoa,’ he said. I thought I detected a note of regret in his voice, a hint of ‘what the fuck did I do that for?’
    We were silent, the three of us catching our breath. I was weak and mellow in the wake of my orgasm but keenly aware we were all separate from each other, not united as is more usual when you’ve climaxed with someone. Only two of us had climaxed so perhaps this was an imbalance typical of threesomes between strangers. In a scenario like ours, the sex was always going to be recreational rather than emotionally charged.
    Voices and laughter from elsewhere in the house heightened our strange, sudden silence. A nagging disquiet kept butting into my thoughts. Had the earlier hostility been part of sexual play? Or was it an indication of more sinister emotions? Misha’s voice echoed in my mind:
She’s no lady.
I wasn’t sure I liked this man who’d just brought me to a head-spinning climax.
    Some moments later, Sol said, ‘So, you don’t like coke?’
    I laughed. ‘Nah. I’ll have a Kir Royale, thanks.’
    We all laughed, half exhausted but, it seemed, becoming more relaxed.
    ‘We cool, man?’ Sol asked Misha, his palm raised.
    ‘Of course,’ replied Misha, as if surprised by the question. He mirrored Sol’s hand, meeting him with a sluggish high five.
    Afterwards, the mood between us continued to lighten. Sol released me from the chair and we spent another couple of hours on the bed, fucking, sucking and exploring each others’ bodies. We played with some of my kit but the point was sensation rather than powerplay. We didn’t revisit the dynamic of earlier. Instead we were pleasant, considerate and relatively tender.
    Cautious. Mistrustful.
    Despite drinking a lot of the Belvedere and a handful of beers I’d brought along, we stayed in that zone of cold faux-sobriety, as you sometimes do when you’ve been drinking steadily for hours. We stopped when Sol declared himself whacked. ‘Holy fuck, it’s been a long week,’ he said. ‘You mind if we all bed down here tonight? Seems a shame to break up the party.’
    ‘Sure,’ I said. ‘You’re both welcome to stay. Misha?’
    ‘Yes, thank you,’ he replied. ‘I’d prefer to stay a while longer.’
    For the third time that night, Sol sat by the tiny leaded window, pushed the hinge wide, and gingerly placed a cigarette to his bust lip. From the bed, there was little to see of the outside world except an ink-black sky pricked with stars. I watched him through a haze of vodka and tiredness as he lit the cigarette, his hand cupped to the flame.
    A warm golden flare tinted his skin and he inhaled deeply, head tipped back as he held his lungs at capacity. He sank at a low angle in the stiff-backed chair, one leg out-thrust, his damp cock curling on his pubes. I smelled nicotine and fresh air as he released a stream of blue-grey smoke into the night. A film of sweat gleamed on his torso, silvered by starlight. His dark body hair glinted with pale, bright threads.
    In the distance, an owl hooted, reminding me how far I was from the mean streets of Saltbourne.
    Gazing out into the dark, Sol appeared