Page 33 of Five Years
“Just press your arms harder into the mat, and you should feel it in your shoulders here,” Ariana said, reaching over Leah’s back with enough pressure to make Leah’s insides swirl, but not enough to strain her position.
“Like this?” Leah asked.
“Yeah, perfect,” Ariana replied, her voice zen and slightly husky. Leah felt the warmth of her body recede.
“Sorry, this looks really inappropriate,” Ariana took a step back.
Leah stood upright, flustered but composed enough to make light of the situation. “Maybe you should be the yoga instructor. You seem to know more than I do.”
Leah wasn’t an expert but hadn’t expected Ariana to focus on every element of the pose.
“What do you suggest next?” Leah asked.
“How about the Happy Baby pose? It’s fairly easy.”
“Ouch.”
“I didn’t mean it like that,” Ariana shook her head.
“I’m only teasing you,” Leah smiled. “Right, how do you want me?” She cringed.
Ariana demonstrated the pose: lying on her back, knees bent, reaching up to grasp the outside of her feet, knees slightly wider than her torso. Essentially, it looked like an unelevated birthing position. Leah mirrored her.
“Is this okay, yoga expert?” Leah teased.
“I’ve seen better.”
“Charming!”
Leah felt a gentle stretch on her inner thighs and hips.
“I did this a lot last year. It’s supposed to help lengthen the spine and ease discomfort in the lower back,” Ariana explained, wincing as she stretched further.
As Leah settled into the pose, a sense of relaxation and release washed over her. It felt childlike, playful even, but it helped ease the tension in her body.
“Just open your legs a little more; they should be outside your hips,” Ariana instructed.
Leah tried, but her groin muscles were about as flexible as a baseball bat.
“You’re not reaching your feet comfortably because your knees aren’t close enough to your chest,” Ariana explained.
“Show me then,” Leah sighed.
Ariana hesitated, then rolled out of her pose and manoeuvred herself across the floor to the bottom of Leah’s mat on her knees.
“This might feel uncomfortable at first, but you’ll feel the benefit,” Ariana said. She pressed on the back of Leah’s thighs, adjusting her alignment and forcing her into a tighter, more compact pose.
Leah immediately felt the strain. She tried to focus on her breathing, but the closer Ariana got, the harder it was. The position was beneficial for sexual intercourse; she’d seen it in numerous porn videos—not that she was a frequent visitor to those sites, but she dabbled from time to time.
The pose was overly familiar: the first time she used a strap-on with Ariana, it was in a very naked, sweaty version of this position. She remembered it vividly—the one and only time she’d ever orgasmed from a sex toy aside from her trusty pink vibrator, the toothbrush-sized pleasure regularly helping her out when she needed it. But a strap-on, dildo, whatever the shape, size, or texture, didn’t seem to give her the same pleasure as a female tongue.
Now she was aroused.
Fuck.
Leah felt the pulse in her pants—the all-too-familiar feeling of sexual arousal she found impossible to deter whenever Ariana was this close. Ariana used to be irresistible to Leah—a cocktail of pheromones she couldn’t stop drinking. Leah thought she’d found a way to separate the two, to see Ariana as a friend, not a friend with benefits, not a friend who used to pleasure her until her vagina was throbbing, just a friend—the kind that go for coffee, walks, dinner, and do yoga in a bedroom at 8 a.m. with nothing but the rising sun as witness.
Leah gulped.
