Juniper + Maia

Just a couple of erotica writers, collaborating on a story. It’s definitely not a date...

Juniper Darkwrites nature erotica. She brings elements of the natural world to life through her descriptive imagery and the explicit energy of arousal found in all things if we only take the time to notice.

-Prologue: Maia-

For what felt like the hundredth time I looked at Juniper Dark’s email signature. Or should I say REDACTED’s email signature, because she had emailed me from her personal account and, there, nestled just below her name - her real name - were ten digits, the first three screaming at me as though in all-caps, bold, four hundred point font. Her area code. 

My area code.

She’d sent a quick follow-up email saying it had been an accident:

*Gasp* I’m outted with this personal email address with my real name and photo and everything! Okay well, hopefully you can keep a secret 🤫

but I couldn’t help but wonder - had it been?

Perhaps. Or perhaps she was trying to tell me something. Or perhaps you’re reading into things, you perv, my subconscious muttered at me, rolling her eyes. Also a viable option, and one to which I was prone.

Even if it wasn’t an accident, those three numbers were a fork in the road. A question. Do I abandon my anonymity and meet this delightfully deviant writer face-to-face, or do we collaborate remotely, as originally planned? She had no way of knowing that we shared an area code, and perhaps more than that. Did we live in the same zipcode? The same neighborhood? Maybe we had passed each other on hikes, our energies intertwining briefly, twisting and curling together before being tugged apart as we separated. Had I walked past her, notebook open in her lap, fingers stroking the feathery moss shimmering beneath her? My spine tingled at the thought.

I looked at her number again, knee bouncing.

Fuck it, let’s do it, I thought.

"Shit!" I groan out loud as I realize my water bottle lid wasn’t fully closed before lifting it into my hand.
Water coats the countertop and rushes over the edge before dripping delicately to the floor.

I’m rushing, as usual, to get out the door. I’m going to meet Maia Woodhouse at the bar down the street to discuss writing collaboration ideas. I was shocked to find out we lived in the same town after reading her erotica from my bathtub night upon night. I grab a towel from the stove and start mopping up my mess.

Deep breaths, I remind myself before getting hard on myself for always being late. It’s not you, it’s your brain.

Ah good, I sigh… remembering this new discovery about likely having ADD. 
Gives me an excuse for my lifelong time-struggles and lateness.

Maia seems like someone who will be on time. I think to myself.

I don’t want to be tipsy before Juniper arrives, but my hands keep finding the cold glass and raising it to my lips before my brain has a chance to correct them. It doesn't help that the sour beer I am sipping is genuinely delicious - tangy strawberry bubbles over my tongue like cream soda. I check the time again and take another sip, knee bouncing. She's late.

I try not to read into it.

We are really, truly, meeting each other. In real life. My stomach flutters and twists in nervous anticipation. She will be only the fourth person to know me as REDACTED and not just Maia Woodhouse, but in a very real sense we are also meeting as our personas, with all that entails. Lines from her poems bounce around my head -

…grinding my fingers gently into its opening…

- and I can't help but wonder where this evening will go. Is she feeling this heightened sensuality too, wherever she is? Or has this arrangement become alarmingly real and she is at that very moment devising an excuse to bail?

I pull out my notebook and twirl my pen, scanning the story ideas we’d discussed so far.

• Sexy rollercoaster ride

• A hike that gets naughty

• Steamy surfing lesson

I stare blankly at the list, unable to conjure any other ideas. What if all my ideas are shit? I think. She would regret having agreed to collaborate with me, and feel awkward about it, and all subsequent interactions would be strange and forced. We’d gradually stop interacting online and would quietly unsubscribe from each other’s Substacks. Both of us would independently decide never to return to Twisted Pine Brewing. Which would be a shame because this sour was quite good.

The bar is coming to life around me, singles and couples filtering in, with the occasional gaggle. A man two tables down catches my eye and smiles. I smile back and gave a quick nod before returning to my notebook. I pick at the hem of my sundress, feeling self-conscious for not having chosen a more ambiguous outfit. Sundress screams “date”, and as far as I can say for certain, we are two professionals meeting up to write a story. Sure, that story might have some erotic elements, but that could be executed in a dispassionate way without things getting messy. Right?

Not a date, I tell myself, but I can't help feeling like it is a lie.

I check my teeth in the mirror before grabbing my sun hat, purse and keys. Then I dash out the door, down the stairwell and out into the sun light.

The sun hits me with a blazing fervor. 
I pause to take it in. 
It’s been surprisingly rainy lately, so this heat hits my skin with a sudden intensity. 
The rays meet my bare arm, suddenly vulnerable and exposed in its power. 
Leaves twinkle in the distance, dancing to a slight breeze that gently whisks through them without warning.

Focus Juniper! I suddenly remind myself, snapping out of my nature trance. 

She's waiting. 

I half-jog to my car, throw my notebook in the passenger seat and fumble my keys into the ignition glancing at the clock.

Okay, it’s ten minutes away and I have five to get there.

"Not too shabby!" My inner cheerleader congratulates me out loud. 
I smile at my well-trained positive reinforcement system, glide into reverse, and make my way out onto the open road. 

And then it hits me. 

I had been rushing so much, I hadn’t fully processed what is about to happen. I’m about to meet Maia Woodhouse in the flesh. And we’re going to write together? At a bar? I knew it was a strange suggestion for me to pick a bar over a cafe, but the bar felt a little sexier for the erotica theme. 

And for…
No, don’t think it.
I shove my thought back down before it can even breathe a fresh lick of air. 

It’s not a date. 

It’s a professional collaboration. Sure you both write steamy erotica, sure you’re both seemingly queer, but no, she’s not into you like that. You don’t even know her real name!

That’s true, I realize. I don’t know anything about this woman. 

In our email thread, I was the one to expose myself with my true email. The email that had my area code blaring in my signature. The one that gave me away and eventually gave her away too.

But she invited me to meet.
I smiled remembering the excitement that her bold text had brought me when she asked if I wanted to collaborate in person. I had totally forgotten my number was in my email signature, but I guess it worked in my favor!

I had been holding myself back from asking for her number after our first email exchange, so we could send voice notes back and forth about our ideas rather than keeping it so professional through email. That's more my style. But there had been something thrilling about the restriction of just sending emails back and forth, almost like modern day pen pals. Holding restraint, waiting months at the mailbox for that special envelope to arrive. And here we were receiving daily deliveries brimming with creative excitement. But was that all? 

All I know about her is that her writing intrigues me. I remind myself.

I mean shit, so much so that I’m paying her monthly to have access to everything. 
Oh my gosh, I’m a fan girl. Jeez this is embarrassing. I squirm at the realization. 

The light changes from yellow to red as I roll up to the final light before the bar. My brakes squeak slightly as my speed slows and comes to a halt. Two birds fly together overhead and a quote from Maia's writing drifts down into my mind. 

Nonetheless, paradoxes emerge. 

It sticks to me like wet fabric. I can't help but think about what paradoxes may be present tonight. In the flesh. At the bar. Again I shake the thoughts from my mind. 

Professional collaboration...

The light turns green and I close the distance between the light and the bar. With it, closing the distance between mystery and reality. The distance between fantasy and mundane. 

There's one spot open right in front of the entrance. I pull in, gather my things and take a deep breath before moving into the Twisted Pine. 

“Hey,” says a voice to my left. I jump and feel my heart do the same. It isn't Juniper, but the man who had smiled at me.

“Oh,” I reply, disappointed. “Hey."

“This seat taken?” he asks, hand draping over the back of the chair opposite me.

“Yes, actually, I’m meeting someone,” I reply, a touch sharply. He is blocking my view of the door and Juniper would be looking for a woman on her own. He is in the way in more than one sense.

“Oh, too bad. Lucky guy,” he answers, unfazed, leaning slightly toward me as though I may yet change my mind and offer him the seat.

“Yeah, she is,” I say, craning around his bulky form for a glimpse of the doorway. My words are unexpectedly exhilarating, like glancing down at the world from the limb of a tree. I feel a touch of shame as well, like I should have asked for Juniper’s permission before making such a statement. In any case, it seems to have made an impression on the man standing in front of me.

“Oh, I gotcha, cool, cool,” he says, backing up a step and nodding. “No disrespect. That’s great.”

I nod in agreement, butterflies filling my stomach - embarrassment and intoxication at having taken such a liberty.

“Yeah, it is."

I smile to myself as I watch him retreat to his table.

The bar is crowded and alive, but I spot a girl in a sundress sitting alone at a table with a notebook, beer half-full. 

She looks up in recognition, 
me with my notebook covered in nature-stickers, 
my own sundress hanging at my thighs. 

Our eyes meet and linger more than a few seconds before breaking gaze. 
Smiles simultaneously plaster across our faces with some sense of understanding, but of what? My belly does a summersault as I notice my heartbeat immediately quickening. She stands and motions me over.

"Hi, I'm Maia," she exclaims in a chipper tone. 

"Hi," I croak almost unable to get my words out at the ferocity of energy I'm suddenly feeling between us. "I'm Juniper... Juniper Dark." 

"Shall we begin?" she innocently asks as I find my seat. She opens her notebook to the brainstorming page of ideas we had emailed about. 

"Yes," I reply trying to steady myself back into our intentions, opening my own journal covered in dirt stains. Two pressed leaves fall out onto the table. 

"Oops," I mutter. 

"Oh let me see those," she exclaims reaching over me to the pressed red autumn leaves. 

As she does, her skin gently brushes my arm and sends an electric tingle down my spine; all my arm hairs rise simultaneously. I pull my arm away quickly before she can see the reaction my body is having to her. 

Professional collaboration...rattles inside of me again, steadying me. 

I glance up to see her fondling the red leaves endearingly. 

Nonetheless, paradoxes emerge...

There she is. Never having seen her before, I shouldn’t know that it’s her, but I do. With a worn notebook that appears to have gone on many a hike, wearing a pale blue sundress revealing strong, lean legs, the woman pushing open the door to the Twisted Pine could be no one else.

She is as beautiful as her writing.

I stand clumsily, bumping the table, and wave eagerly. Stop being such a dork! I tell myself, but am unable to keep the spontaneous smile from bursting over my face.

“Hi, I’m Maia!” I say, excited energy zinging across the room so fiercely I wonder that none of the people between us can feel it.

“I’m Juniper Dark,” she replies, smiling softly and tugging at her sundress before taking a seat.

Of course you are, I think, a sentiment immediately reinforced by the two crisp leaves that flutter out of her notebook and onto the table in front of her. Instinctively drawn to them, I reach across her and pick them up.

Holy shit, I think. My blood feels very close to the surface of my skin, and I try to ignore her nearness as I examine the leaves. They are beautiful - sunset red with delicately spidering veins. I am surprised at myself for reaching for them so boldly, but not embarrassed. The beer is beginning to work its magic. Or, could it be something else? I’m a lightweight, but I only had half. As soon as Juniper walked in the room and we started grinning at each other like a couple of goobers, I have felt giddy and floaty, and now something is infusing my being with silliness on a molecular level. I grasp the leaves by their stems and face them toward each other.

“Wow, I’ve never been in a bar before!” I exclaim in a high pitched voice, moving one of the leaves as though it is looking around the room. I glance at Juniper to find her watching this episode with a combination of disbelief and amusement. I tilt the other leaf up and down, as though in a nod, and voice it in a similar manner.

“Me neither! No one back home would beLEAVE this!”

At this terrible pun, Juniper laughs - actually laughs - and it is perhaps the most endearing sound I have heard someone produce. Not some feathery acknowledgement, but unpracticed and fully present amusement, and I can’t help but join her. I hand the leaves back to her, both of us blushing, giggling with ferocious glee.

“Welp, thanks for joining me for this theatre experience. Tickets are refundable, so please don’t hesitate to get your money back, and men-in-black agents are available in the lobby to wipe this event from your memory.”

This is rewarded with another giggle and I am just feeling so fucking silly and her laugh is so damn contagious there’s no stemming the tide of Maia’s Goofiness. I wipe my eyes and shake my head at myself.

“God, I’m sorry,” I tell her, laughter subsiding. “Please feel free to leave at any time.”

“Are you kidding? This is off to the best start!” she exclaims.

There is a way about her, an openness that makes me wonder if she’s ever lied in her life. My skin feels warm and tingly.

“Well, then,” I say. “You want a beer?”

She's fondling the leaves in the same way I fondle nature, I think to myself. Who is this woman after all? I feel arousal building inside of me as I watch her caress the leaves. My gaze fixates, intrigued. 

Then without warning, she starts making one of the leaves talk and the other one reply. A laugh escapes from my belly as if it was unearthed from deep inside. It catches me off guard. The joke was a terrible dad joke at best, but I hadn't realized how much I was clenching. My nervous system relaxes along with the rest of my body. Now not only is there a tingly erotic energy, but also a relaxed connection. I thank her silently for pulling me out of my own intensity and wonder how she knew I loved puns.

"Well, then, you want a beer?" she finally asks after a few rounds of laughter. 

"Hell yeah," I reply, excited for where this night will take us. 

A petite brunette waitress waltzes up to our table as if we had summoned her in that exact moment. Her straight dark hair falls just past her shoulders, parting enough to show her colorful ink splaying over her shoulders and down both arms. She glances at Maia and then at me with what I perceive to be a slight curiosity before asking me what I'd like to drink. 

The leaf bit was too much, I know that. She’s being a good sport about it, but I can tell I took the edge off our energy, and I’m not sure if it was in a good way. Really, I don’t know why every time I’m around a pretty girl I feel like I need to stifle any sexual chemistry by being an utter goober. As if my brain is trying to broadcast, “noooo, don’t worry, I’m definitely not into you at all. I’m straight. Yup. Straight, straight, straight. That’s me. You thought there was something between us? Ha! Nope, I’m gonna make the world’s dumbest jokes so you can be sure this is not a date, I am not thinking about your body under that dress, the nearness of you does not excite me, and if I noticed that little waitress eying you when you walked in, it was in passing curiosity, not because I’m having any untoward thoughts about you myself. Definitely not.”

But, she is taking it all in stride. I like that.

I’d like even more to just let the energy flow, but I’m scared of where it would carry us. Still, it has no problem capturing my mind as I watch her chat with the waitress. What would she do if I picked up one of her leaves again and made it tell a different story?

If I let my eyes hold hers and dragged the tip of it along her skin, up her wrist, feeling tiny atmospheric disturbances ripple out toward me with each raised hair on her arm.

And I can’t help but think, the way I always do when I am met with the subtle elegance of a girl’s wrist, of that poem by James Wright. I drag that imaginary leaf up her delicate skin, lingering at the crease of her elbow, up her arm, to her shoulder.

Her eyes drift closed and she leans toward me, ever so slightly asking for more, waitress forgotten. And I oblige, tickling her collarbone with its papery edge, trailing it to the hollow of her throat, up to her jaw, the tip of the leaf sketching her profile in the air until it reaches her lips. There its progress is arrested, and her eyes are on mine again and it’s not just the leaf touching her lips, but my fingers as well, and she’s kissing them, then sucking them lightly -

I shake my head to rid myself of the thought.

"I'll have what she's having," I reply, glancing up at Maia and then back to the waitress. 

It comes off sounding flirtier than I intended, but I knew if I actually took time to look at the menu, I'd be examining it thoroughly for way longer than necessary and asking questions about all the beers I didn't actually want. And we had things to do here. 

"Sure thing" she replies with another gaze of curiosity at the both of us before walking off to the bar. 

Maia glances at me again, seeming pleased with my selection and starts telling me about her sour beer and sour beers in general, how that's all she can drink. 

As she tells me, I can't help but notice the way her lips press together between words, how she sometimes bites her lower lip in the pause. I find myself running my tongue slightly along the inside of my lower lip and letting my breath rise and fall just slightly more fully. 

I catch myself and come back into focus just in time for her to ask me if I've had any further ideas for our collaboration.

My immediate thought is Yeah, us.

But I tone it down, and compose myself. 

"Actually, I was thinking more about the hike that gets naughty," I say coolly. 

For a millisecond I wonder if there's a flash of disappointment in her eyes. Was she thinking what I was thinking? But it's gone as quick as it came and she replies excitedly,

"Tell me more!"

"Well," I reply, recovering, "As you know, I'm kind of aroused by nature."

A shy smile spreads through her lips.

"Yes..."

"So I thought about maybe doing a story about two friends going out hiking and then surprisingly getting naughty while they're out there," I pause "but that's kind of where my mind always goes," I catch myself before going too far down that track, hoping to not sound suggestive.

"Here you go," interrupts the brunette waitress, as she plops my frothy sour onto the table in front of me. Her timing is impeccable. 

“Thanks," I call out as she's already on her way to the next table. Did I sense a pang of jealousy from her? 

I shake my thoughts back down and return to Maia. 

She's looking at me intently. 

"I like the sound of this so far. Where would the friends go?"

The touch of intrigue in her voice makes my stomach summersault again. I swallow.

"Hm, maybe somewhere high up in the mountains? Actually, I have a spot that's a little off trail that I go sometimes that overlooks the whole world!"

"The whole world?!" she pokes fun at me. 

I giggle.

"Well, at least to Denver!" 

She returns with a laugh.

"Well, maybe we should go there to check it out!" she blurts out seeming slightly surprised at herself.

"I think that's a great idea," I reply, again trying to remain composed but secretly giddy inside. 

"How about tomorrow?" I suggest as I raise the glass of beer to lips finally taking my first sip. 

"Tomorrow it is," she replies raising her glass to me for a clink. 

I raise mine to hers, smiling. Our eyes meet again for that extended gaze of knowing. I break it only because I'm distracted by the stirring of three words bubbling up once again.

Nonetheless paradoxes emerge...

But this time, I let it fill me. 

Yes, indeed, I think, bring it on. 

---

If you liked this, please let us know! We had such a blast writing together and there will definitely be more coming your way! 😁

<3 Junes + Maia