I maneuver in between her legs and guide the cock to her glistening pussy lips. It has always astounded me how wet Jodie can get for me. My clit thumps against the panel of the harness. I need to fuck her as much for myself as for her.
“I’m going to fuck you so hard,” I say, and Jodie drives her teeth further into her lips. She’ll draw blood if she keeps this up.
By instinct, I guess, she brings her hands behind her head and holds on to the railing, but this is no time for restraints. This is us fucking in our old bed. I need her hands on me for that.
I push the tip in, eager to thrust, but, although I know full well how much Jodie can take, I give her some time to adjust first. I don’t know how long it has been since someone fucked her with a strap-on. I do know it’s been years since I felt the straps of a harness slice into my flesh, and that all that I have missed is bubbling to the surface in rapid, hot bursts.
I look at her pussy as I splay it open with my cock, then cast my eyes to her face. Jodie’s mouth is open, her eyes narrowed. With one swift thrust, I’m deep inside of her and she gasps for air.
I lower my torso over her and plant my palms either side of her head. This is what I dreamed of. Me fucking Jodie while looking into her eyes. It’s everything I hoped it would be. Plus, with every stroke inside of her, with every forward movement of my pelvis, my clit grazes against the inner panel of the harness. At first, I’m not entirely sure I want to lose control like that—and I wouldn’t allow myself to with anyone else but her. But this is Jodie and I can tell she’s getting aroused by the groans coming from my mouth. She releases the bed post and brings her hands to my shoulders, her nails digging in.
“Oh yes,” she says. “Oh yes, Leigh.” I fuck her harder, and by now my wetness must be overflowing from the harness, must be mingling with hers when I thrust, and the thought of our bodies meeting like that, and the realization that this is actually happening—that I’m fucking Jodie in her bed in her apartment in New York—spurs me on. I give her long, deep strokes and when she lets her head fall back I demand she look at me, and she does, and when her eyelids flutter open, and the green of her eyes shines through a film of tears, I let go. I come while inside her, and I can barely keep my own eyes open for it. I force them open, however, because I want to see.
“Come for me,” I ask, although, admittedly, it sounds more like begging in that moment. An aftershock runs through me, throws me off-rhythm, but this is Jodie beneath me, and I know she hasn’t changed that much that she can’t come for me anymore when I ask. I see the orgasm ripple through her, her muscles shuddering, her mouth widening, her nails leaving marks.
“Oh fuck,” she moans. And I look into her eyes, green slits in her face.
I stay inside of her a few more seconds before slowly retreating.
The harness and dildo are a nuisance now and I want to get them off me, but not as much as I want to kiss Jodie. So the silicone is sandwiched between us as I press my body to hers and kiss her for the first time today.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
It’s a useless ride really—except for romantic purposes—but Rosie said she didn’t mind the trip to the airport, so we see Leigh off together on Sunday evening. Rosie ended up staying at Muriel and Francine’s for two nights in a row.
“Does that make me a bad mother?” I asked Leigh, who really was not the right person to ask.
“Nothing will ever make you a bad mother.” She said the right thing but spanked me harder afterward nonetheless.
The three of us sit squeezed in the back of a taxi, Rosie half on my lap, Leigh’s shoulder pressed into mine. I can’t explain what she does to me, but maybe I needed a break from that intense longing in order to have another child. In hindsight, there were many justifications for our break-up. As many as there are now reasons to try again. Because, en route to JFK, it hits me again that the failure of my affairs with Amy and Suzy was all down to me. It wasn’t so much that they couldn’t give me what I craved in the bedroom, but what Leigh did give me. What she’s given me now. And after a weekend of almost nothing but fucking, she still leaves me wanting more.
“When can I go on a plane again, Mommy?” Rosie asks.
Leigh nudges her in the arm and takes on a conspiratorial tone. “I’ll work something out with your Mom, Rosie. I think both of you should come and see me soon.”
I have to stop myself from suggesting next weekend. I would even let her pay for it. But we are not hormonal teenagers. We are women in our forties with responsibilities and full lives—and my parents are coming to New York next weekend.
“Do you want to take this slow?” Leigh asked me in bed this morning.
“You’re the one who suggested moving back to New York as soon as you set foot in my apartment on Friday.” I smiled at her, indicating it was a joke, but it felt like a lesbian cliché nevertheless.
“Touché,” she said while searching for my nipple with her fingers. “Forgive a smitten girl for being nervous.”
“‘Smitten’ I can live with.” I caught her fingers with mine and brought them to my mouth. “‘Girl’ is stretching it a bit far.” I sucked her fingers deep into my mouth and conversation was stopped again.
Now I’m about to say goodbye to Leigh, to watch her plane fly off, with nothing but a Skype date to head home with, and no clear idea of when we’ll see each other again. Although until last weekend, I hadn’t seen her for eleven years, this separation now seems cruel and harder to deal with. Once more, in a moment of despair, I find myself holding on to my daughter. The awkwardness of kissing Leigh goodbye in front of Rosie doesn’t stack up against the pure need coursing through me to feel her body press against mine one last time before she goes.
“I love you,” Leigh unexpectedly whispers in my ear, after we break from the kiss, but still have our arms wrapped around each other. “Always have.”
Her words connect with something deep inside of me, maybe my soul, maybe the nostalgia of all the memories that have come flooding back, or maybe the part of me that’s been missing since we broke up. “I love you too,” I hear myself say, becoming more of a cliché as the seconds tick by. But it comes from the bottom of my heart.
Leigh folds her long body and crouches by Rosie’s side. I had intended for them to spend more time together. I really wanted her to get to know Rosie—to, perhaps, show Leigh that the pain we suffered through was for the best reason imaginable.
“It was very nice to meet you, Rosie,” she says, and seeing them together like that is almost too much. Tears well in my throat, but when you become a mother you learn to swallow your own tears in favor of your child’s, and I try to apply that technique, but it doesn’t seem to work when Leigh is standing next to me. “I will see you again very soon.”
Rosie folds her little arms around Leigh’s neck as far as they will go, and Leigh’s face peeks through Rosie’s curls, and I see her eyes are moist, too.
“She’s a very affectionate child,” Leigh says after she’s stood back up.
“She’s a hugger, all right. She’d hug the taxi driver if I let her.” I smile down at my little girl. What would have happened if she hadn’t had the flu last week? Would everything have been different? Would we all be standing here saying goodbye?
“I’d better go.” Leigh blows Rosie and me one last kiss. I watch her make her way to security, and this seems to take too long for Rosie because she’s already tugging at my sleeve.
“Don’t be sad, Mommy,” she says. “Leigh said she’d see us both soon.” To her, all words are still the truth. But, when it comes down to these words, I do know that they are.
* * *
“So you’re getting back together with her?” Muriel asks. I’m not feeling like work this Monday morning, and we’ve ditched it for half an hour to get a coffee at the Starbucks around the corner from our office.
Yes, I want to scream, but I don’t want to offend Muriel’s natural—and logical—skepticism too much.
“Just li
ke that?”
“Not ‘just like that’…”
“How then?” Muriel enjoys playing devil’s advocate.
“For starters, it will have to be long distance for a while…”
She doesn’t let up. “For a while? Have you booked the U-Haul already?”
I shake my head at her obvious comment. “Why are you giving me such a hard time about this? It’s hard enough as it is already.”
“Just making sure your head’s still screwed on the right way, girl.”
I gaze into my coffee dreamily. “I know this sounds foolish, but it’s as if I know for a fact that she will never hurt me again…” I can’t help but chuckle. “Well, not emotionally, anyway.”
It’s Muriel’s turn to shake her head. She throws in an eye-roll as well. “You’re my best friend, Jodie Whitehouse, and I consider myself an open-minded woman, but that part I never really understood.”
“There’s no need for you to understand.” I go all warm inside at the memory of Leigh entering my bedroom fully strapped on. Not of the first time, but on Saturday night, when she fucked my ass with it.
Muriel gives me a judgmental ‘uh-huh’, but I know she’s not judging, just playing. Apart from Leigh, she probably knows me the best.
“Well, I have some news as well.” She taps her fingers on the table. “This weekend I plan to ask Francine to finally make an honest woman out of me. Got her a fancy-ass ring and everything.”
“Oh.” I’ve always admired Muriel and Francine’s relationship, but in any other circumstances I wouldn’t go all mushy about this. I do today. “That’s just…” I choke up.
“I was going to ask you to be my maid of honor but if you’re going to cry about it, I may need to revise my choice.” Muriel shoots me a big smirk.
“I’m just really happy for you.” And for myself, I think. The sniveling doesn’t seem to stop. I barely shed a tear after I broke up with Amy and Suzy, but the rivers I cried after Leigh must still be fresh on Muriel’s mind as well.
“You have a strange way of showing it.” Muriel shuffles her chair a little closer. “The way you’re bawling now, it makes me wonder if you’ve been secretly infatuated with Francine for years.”
I chuckle through my tears. “Not with Francine,” I say.
“I know.” Muriel throws an arm around me. “Now stop ruining my blissful moment of announcement with your emotional fragility.” She squeezes my shoulder.
“I mean it,” I say. “I’m so happy for you.” And for me, I think, even though it feels like such easily breakable, flimsy happiness.
“Don’t be happy for me yet. She still has to say yes.” Muriel is patting my biceps now.
“True.” I manage to pull myself together a bit. “Do keep me posted on that.” I can finally smile at my friend. It’s not my habit to fall apart like this.
“Can you spank someone via Skype?” Muriel asks. “‘Cause if you can, just have her do that. I’m sure it will make you feel better.”
I spend the rest of the day as an overly emotional but ridiculously happy wreck.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
“You seem so much more relaxed these days.” I’ve taken an entire week off to spend with Jodie in New York. Steve could hardly argue because since I moved West in 2003 I must have accumulated a few months’ worth of vacation days.
“I’m much older now,” Jodie says. We’re sitting on the exact same bench we used to sit on when we took Troy to the park. “And everything is different.”
“That pile of dishes in the sink is probably what threw me the most.”
“I’m sorry. I really wanted the place to be spotless for you.” For a second, Jodie looks genuinely concerned. “But my night scrubbing days are over.”
“Who would have thought?” I nudge her with my knee.
“Who would have thought you and I would be sitting on this bench again one day?” Jodie looks happy. Because of the physical distance between us, and because Skype sex is not my idea of a good time, she and I have had to talk much more than we would have done if we’d been in the same city. During our last call, I touched on the subject of moving back to New York—a subject I’m keen to pick back up today.
“I tried to call you one night from San Francisco,” I blurt out in response. “Karen had just broken up with me because I was being a shitty girlfriend and I thought, fuck it, I’m calling Jodie. It went straight to voicemail, though, but I sometimes wonder what would have happened if you’d picked up. If we’d been ready.”
“We’ll never know.” Jodie has her eyes trained on Rosie, who’s playing with some other kids on the swings. “But I’m fairly certain you and I could never have just been friends. We were never meant to be friends. Amy and Suzy are exes I could be friends with, but you… never.”
“Gee, thanks,” I joke.
“Not that I’ll ever be friends with Amy. I don’t blame her for holding a grudge. I was a pretty shitty girlfriend myself.”
“Speaking of being girlfriends…” Even though I know the answer to my question because it can’t be more obvious, nerves rattle me. “Are we… girlfriends again?”
Jodie chuckles. “We are women in our forties, Leigh. I hardly think the term ‘girlfriends’ applies.” She averts her gaze from the playground and looks at me. “How many times have we fucked since Berkeley?” She pretends to count in her head, then nods. “Yes, I think we can call that going steady.” She breaks out into a crooked, purple-lipped Jodie-smile.
“Can we just pick things up again, though, Jodes?”
“Just pick things up?” She shakes her head. “Eleven years have passed. So, no, of course, we can’t. But… I think that… I can only be truly happy with you.”
“It’s funny, but Troy actually said something of the sorts to me about you a while back.”
“I guess he knows his mother well.” The smile fades from Jodie’s lips. “And he was always extremely fond of you.”
“I’ve made many mistakes in my life, Jodie.”
“You’ve changed a lot,” Jodie says. “Are you the same person who always claimed that motherhood was not in her blood?”
“I am and I’m not,“ I say. “But, yes, I guess people do change.”
“But so fundamentally?” Jodie urges. “To change your mind on such a big issue?”
“I didn’t change my mind, Jodes.” I shift position, straightening my spine. “Life did.” I gaze into Jodie’s green eyes. “Life without you.” I pause. These words are of the utmost importance. “And how hard it hit me when Troy emailed me.” I look away briefly. “I suffered after our break-up but I buried myself in work and found other means to forget. But it wasn’t until I met up with Troy that first time that I realized how much pain I had caused everyone—myself included. I’d always so firmly believed I was saving us and, regardless of us needing to spend time apart, and everything happening for a reason, when I saw him again, something clicked. Something I hadn’t allowed to compute in my brain for a long time.” I steady my gaze on Jodie again. “I nearly broke down in front of him. After he showed me a picture of Rosie and I realized that what I had been so afraid of, what I had been so convinced of not wanting, was a smiling little girl.” I shake my head. “Perhaps things would have been different if I’d met someone else, but only now can I see that I was never even open to the option. Your memory was always lurking in the background. It has always been you, Jodie.” Tears have been brimming since I began this impromptu speech and they are now close to breaking.
Jodie shuffles a little closer.
“There are many rational reasons for the years we spent apart. I guess the most convincing one is that I wasn’t ready. That I couldn’t see past my own goals to meet yours until after I’d gone eleven years without you. And it’s true that I’ve always believed that I wasn’t a mother, that I just didn’t have it in me. Not the desire, nor the necessary skills—or time for that matter. But then I look back at what Troy and I had, and my persistence in not wanting
to be called Mom or even feeling like his mother, but, actually, I was doing everything a mother did. I did have his best interests at heart. I attended his soccer games. I attempted to make him an edible dinner once in a while.” I try a shy smile. “I sat up with him when he was ill. I worried about him after dark. I wondered about his future.”
“Okay,” Jodie says and gives me one of those smiles that drive me wild. “It was very obvious you weren’t ready for the things I wanted. Even though ‘ready’ is probably not even the right word.”
Rosie comes running toward us. Her eyes twinkle and her curls bounce around her head. She has the same eyes as Jodie and Troy.
“Thirsty?” Jodie asks.
Rosie nods and Jodie produces a juice carton from her bag. Rosie tips her head back and drinks it with both hands clasped around the carton. Once it’s empty, Rosie wants to give it back to Jodie, who refuses to take it.
“You know what to do with that.”
Rosie gives her a quick pout, struts to the garbage can on the edge of the playground, and then rejoins her friends.
“She’s so adorable.” It’s more thinking out loud than engaging in conversation.
“You used to say that about Troy when we came here with him.” Jodie’s tone isn’t resentful.
“I know. He was.”
“Do you want to come live with Rosie and me?” Jodie turns toward me.
“I’m certainly moving back to New York. I’ve worked my butt off for that firm the past decade. I don’t think anyone can refuse me the request.” I stretch my arm along the back of the bench, finding Jodie’s neck with my fingers. “Do you really want me to move in straight away?”
“Why not?” Jodie’s eyebrows twitch. “I know, Leigh. I know here.” She taps her chest dramatically. “I know that we belong together. Why waste any more time?” She shuffles backward, leaning into the grasp of my fingers. “It’s so obvious to me now. When Amy asked me to move in with her, all I had were doubts. With Suzy…” She pauses. Suzy, whom I’m bound to meet once I move back, whom Rosie calls ‘Auntie Suzy’. “Even with Suzy it wasn’t the same. Not by a long shot. I’ve never known the way I do when I’m with you.”
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