Darkness Ignites the Dare

The power had been out for two hours, which was how the whole thing started.

Babar had come over with a bag of kebabs and a bottle of wine, expecting dinner and a movie. Instead, Uzma met him at the door with two candles burning on the coffee table and a deck of cards in her hand.

"No TV, no AC, no fan," she said, stepping aside to let him in. She was barefoot, in thin cotton pajama pants and a fitted tank top with no bra, and she made no effort to hide that she knew he'd noticed. "So we're going old school. Cards. Wine. And a game."

"What kind of game?" Babar set the kebabs down, already wary. He'd known Uzma long enough to recognize the particular glint in her eye. It was the same glint she'd had on the balcony last month when she'd spent forty minutes telling him about her ex-husband Moazzam and watching Babar's face change with every detail.

"Truth or dare," she said. "But my version."

"Your version."

"Mine. The one Lubna and I played with you that night, remember?" She poured wine into two glasses without asking if he wanted any. "Except this time there's no third person to be shy in front of. So the training wheels come off."

Babar took the glass. He was a thickset man, five-nine, with a belly that pushed against his shirt and a faded surgical scar running down the middle of his stomach that Uzma had once traced with her fingernail for a full ten minutes while he pretended not to react. There was a history between them — the office bathroom incident, the morning she'd woken him in lingerie, the sexting that had gone on for weeks before either of them had the nerve to act on it. They'd crossed lines before. But tonight felt different. The candles, the heat, the game she'd clearly been planning.

"Rules," Uzma said, settling onto the floor across the low table from him, cross-legged, tall even sitting down, all long brown limbs. "Truths have to be answered completely. Dares have to be done completely. You can swap a truth for a dare, but not the other way around. And no leaving the candlelight."

"That last rule seems unnecessary."

"You'd be surprised how brave men get about running to the bathroom."

They ate the kebabs first, drank the first glasses of wine, and Uzma shuffled the cards with unnecessary drama. High card picks truth or dare for the other person. She'd written the questions and dares herself — he could see the folded slips of paper in a bowl beside the candles.

"You prepped for this," he said.

"I've had two hours and no electricity. I prepped extensively."

She drew the first card. King. He drew a seven. She smiled and picked a slip from the bowl.

"Truth," she read. "How big is your cock, exactly? Not the number you tell your friends. The real number."

Babar laughed into his wine. "You've seen it. You've had it in your hand. You've had it in your mouth, Uzma."

"I've experienced it. I haven't measured it. There's a difference. Answer the question."

"Six inches. Two inches around."

She wrote it down. She actually wrote it down, on a small notepad he hadn't noticed.

"Why are you writing it down?"

"For my records." She looked up. "Six inches. That's very respectable, Babar. Very middle of the road. Moazzam was nine."

There it was. The name dropped into the room like a stone into still water, and Babar felt the familiar pull in his chest — the embarrassment and the arousal all tangled together, the thing he'd stopped pretending wasn't there months ago, on that balcony, when she'd first told him about her ex-husband's size and he'd asked her, quietly, to tell him again.

"I know," he said. "You've mentioned it."

"I've mentioned it several times. And yet you never stop me. Interesting." She sipped her wine, watching him over the rim. "Your turn."

He drew a queen. She drew a jack. He reached for the bowl and picked a slip at random. Truth.

"Biggest cock you've ever had," he read. "You wrote this for yourself?"

"You drew it. The universe wants to know."

"Universe wants to know," Babar repeated. "Fine. Moazzam. Nine inches. You've told me. Four times."

"Five," she said. "But who's counting. And who was thickest?"

"Also Moazzam?"

"No." She smiled slowly. "A man before him. Shorter but fat. Like a Coke can. I could barely — well. That's a story for another dare." She refilled his glass without asking. "Notice anything about the questions, Babar?"

"They're all about you and your exes' dicks."

"They're all about my history with cock. Because I find yours very interesting, and I find comparing it even more interesting. And so do you. Draw."

He drew a ten. She drew a two.

"Dare," she read from the slip, and her voice dropped half an octave. "Take off your shirt. Slowly."

Babar set down his glass. He could feel his pulse in his throat. He gripped the hem of his shirt and pulled it up over his head, and the candlelight caught the hair on his chest, the slope of his belly, the long pale scar down the center of his stomach.

"Scar and all," Uzma murmured. "I do like that scar. It makes you look like you survived something."

"I survived a pancreas."

"Very sexy. Very rugged." She was leaning forward now, elbows on the table, and he could see down her tank top, the small swell of her breasts, the dark brown of her nipples just visible at the edge of the fabric. She caught him looking and didn't adjust anything. "You're staring."

"You're displaying."

"I'm comfortable. There's a difference. Draw."

He drew. She drew higher. She picked a slip.

"Truth. Of all the men I've been with — and I'll tell you the number is eight — where does six inches rank?"

"Bottom," he said, hoarse.

"Bottom," she agreed, softly. "You're the smallest I've ever had, Babar." She let it sit there. His face was hot and his heart was hammering and something else was happening under the table that they both knew about. "And yet," she went on, "you're the one I keep inviting over. Funny how that works. Size gets you in the door. Stamina gets you invited back. And you've never once left me wanting. Draw."

The game went on like that for three more rounds, and the room got smaller and hotter. A dare made him take off his socks and jeans, so that he sat across from her in nothing but his boxers while she remained fully dressed — the asymmetry deliberate, delicious, exactly the thing they'd discovered together months ago that made him crazy. A truth made him describe, out loud, in detail, what it felt like when she went down on him. Another dare made him stand up and turn in a slow circle while she appraised him like a horse at a market, making notes on her pad.

"Nice shoulders. Decent ass for a man who sits at a desk all day. Bush trimmed but the hair on top kept — very porn star of you. Who told you to do that?"

"You did. Two months ago. In a text."

"And you listened. I like a man who takes instruction." She set down the notepad. "Last card of the round, Babar. And I think you know what's on it."

He drew. She drew higher. She didn't even look at the bowl. She'd saved it, folded separately, at the bottom of her glass.

"Dare," she said. "Lose the boxers. Stand up. And let me have a good, long look at everything you've been hiding from me."

He stood. His hands hesitated at his waistband — a last flicker of performance, and she let him have it, because she knew the hesitation was part of it.

Then he pushed the boxers down and stepped out of them.

The candlelight did what candlelight does. He stood there fully naked, cock half-hard and rising, the trimmed hair at its base catching shadows, the scar on his stomach, the hair on his thighs, everything exposed while Uzma stayed in her pajamas with her legs crossed and a glass of wine in her hand. His cock bobbed as it filled, and he couldn't stop it, and she didn't want him to.

"Six inches," she said quietly. "Look at you. You're shaking."

"I'm not."

"Your cock is. Look at it. It's so eager it can't hold still." She stood up too — and she was taller than him, five-eleven to his five-nine, and standing this close, naked while she was dressed, he felt the difference in his whole body. She reached out and with one fingertip, lifted his cock, weighed it, let it drop. "It's a cute little thing, honestly. Moazzam's used to slap against his thigh when he walked. Yours points up like it's asking permission."

"Fuck, Uzma."

"That's the spirit." She wrapped her hand around him — finally, fully — and he exhaled like he'd been holding his breath for an hour. Her fingers didn't quite close, and she stroked him twice, slow, base to tip, her thumb sweeping over the head, and his knees actually buckled. "Easy. Sit down. The game's not over."

He sat. She knelt between his knees on the floor, still fully clothed, and the image of it — her dressed, him naked, her hand on his dick — was so precisely the shape of his favorite fantasy that he had to close his eyes.

"New rule," she said, stroking him with a lazy, expert rhythm, her grip just loose enough to make him work for it. "Every truth I ask, you have to answer while I do this. If you can still form sentences, I'm not doing it right."

"What's the question?"

"Moazzam's favorite position. And don't look away from me."

"Doggy," he managed. "You said he — you said he liked doggy because he could — oh, God — because he could go deeper and watch —"

"Watch what?"

"Your — your ass. He liked your ass."

"Mm. He did. And you? What do you want, right now, with your little six inches?"

"Your mouth. Please."

"Please," she repeated, delighted. "See, Moazzam never said please." She leaned down and took him in.

Babar's head dropped back against the couch. Her mouth was hot and unhurried, and she took him deep on the first stroke — all six inches, easy, which she made a point of demonstrating, humming around him, pulling off with a wet pop.

"All of it," she noted. "No gagging. There are advantages to your size, Babar. I could never do that with Moazzam. It was like trying to swallow a forearm." And then she went back down, and the talk stopped being comparative and started being pure technique — her tongue working the underside, her hand twisting at the base in counterpoint, her lips tight on every upstroke. He lasted longer than he expected to, and she felt him getting close and squeezed the base of his cock hard enough to stall it.

"Not yet," she said. "I didn't prep slips for an hour for you to finish at round one."

She stood, and finally — finally — pulled the tank top over her head. Small breasts, high and brown-nippled, and she shook her hair out and stepped out of her pajama pants. She was taller than him standing up and taller than him lying down, and she pushed him flat on the couch and climbed over his face.

"Truth or dare," she said from above him.

"Dare," he said, and put his mouth on her.

She was already soaked, and he went at her like a starving man — flat tongue, broad strokes, then pointed, circling her clit while she gripped the back of the couch and rocked against his mouth. She talked the whole time, because she always talked, it was her signature, and he'd learned to love her voice as much as her body.

"Right there — yes — God, you're better at this than a man with nine inches has any right to be — oh, fuck, don't stop —"

She came on his tongue with a shudder that ran down her long thighs and a sound that made him groan against her. She slid down his body, breathless, and without ceremony lined him up and sank onto him.

Riding was her position and she owned it — knees planted, back arched, taking him to the root and grinding in slow circles while he watched her tall body work above him in the candlelight. Then she turned around, reverse, so he could watch her ass and see himself sliding in and out of her, and the sight alone nearly ended him.

"Switch," she gasped. "Doggy. Like Moazzam used to. Show me six inches can compete."

He got behind her and drove in hard, and her whole body joltted. This was where he beat the ghost — stamina, pace, the way he reached around and found her clit with his fingers while he fucked her, and she stopped comparing anything and just got loud, filthier with every stroke, swearing in two languages.

"Fuck — Babar — don't you dare stop —"

He flipped her over, missionary, her long legs locked around him, and she pulled his mouth to hers so she could taste herself on his tongue, and that was it — he came hard, buried deep, groaning into her neck while she clenched around him and followed him over, her nails dug into his scar.

They lay tangled on the couch, sweat cooling, candles burning low, the power still out and neither of them caring.

"So," Uzma said eventually, to the ceiling. "Final truth. Was that better than the game Lubna played with us?"

"Dare me to answer honestly and I will."

She laughed — the real laugh, the unguarded one. "You're learning. All right, one more dare, then. Next blackout, you write the questions."

Babar propped himself on one elbow and looked at her, flushed and tall and smug in the candlelight. "Deal. But fair warning — my truths are all going to be about your exes' husbands."

"You mean your competition."

"I mean my fans."

She smacked his chest, right on the scar, and he pulled her in for another kiss as the lights flickered back on — and neither of them moved to turn anything off.