by R. Gay
Table of Contents
Title Page
Dedication
Introduction
GREAT LENGTHS
MIRADOR
CRAVING MADELINE
CALL ME CLEOPATRA
SKINNY-DIPPING
THE THINGS I CAN DO FOR HER
I TOLD A STRANGER ALL ABOUT YOU YESTERDAY
CUT AND DRY
CECILY
THE LEOPARD-PRINT MENACE
THE BACHELORETTE
THE GIRL IN THE GORILLA SUIT
THE OUT-OF-TOWNER
REBEL GIRL
THE BEST KIND OF REVENGE
ONE EIGHTY
RUNNING AWAY AND RUNNING HOME AGAIN
AN INTRODUCTION
SEDUCTION BY PROXY
DISCOVERING DONNIE
GOOD NEIGHBORS
GIRL CRAZY
PSYCHOLOGY 101
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
ABOUT THE EDITOR
Copyright Page
For all my girl crushes, and for xtx
| INTRODUCTION
There is something irresistible about a crush, about wanting someone you can’t have, seeing someone you can’t touch; about unrequited desire and how it quickly grows into a steady burn under your skin. There is something very satisfying about a crush, about possibility, because really, that’s what a crush is—the tender hope that the object of your affection will notice you, look your way or brush your hand; that the object of your affection will show up at your door, pull you into a passionate embrace and confess that your feelings are entirely mutual.
Girl crushes are all the rage these days as women, gay, straight or somewhere in between indulge their fantasies about female celebrities or the coworker in the next cubicle or the best friend who has always been just within yet beyond reach. A girl crush isn’t any one thing—it’s the admiration of a bright woman’s intellect or the whimsical fantasy of kissing a beautiful movie star or the intense appreciation for a famous tennis player’s perfect serve and her finely sculpted arm.
I have all kinds of girl crushes. Some are as predictable as my crush on Angelina Jolie, a goddess among mortals with her sharp facial structure, irreverent attitude and generosity, while other crushes are far more personal and pressing, like the ridiculous crush I harbor for a writer friend of mine who is by far the sexiest, most interesting and mysterious woman I know. She’s that girl I want but can’t have, who I look at but can’t touch, who leaves me with a steady burn under my skin.
I received hundreds of submissions for this anthology and in each story, the writer detailed a different kind of girl crush. All of these writers dared to answer the question any woman who indulges in a girl crush asks—what if I could look and touch? What if I could want and have?
The twenty-three writers who contributed to this anthology boldly take up these questions with intriguing stories that are sexy and sweet and savage and more. In “The Things I Can Do for Her,” David Erlewine tells the story of a young law firm associate at the sexually sadistic mercy of a demanding yet alluring partner who is insatiable in every possible way. “The Best Kind of Revenge,” by Geneva King, shows us how Jana, who handles maintenance for her apartment complex, cannot resist the urge to invade the privacy of beautiful women for whom she handles repairs, until one day she gets far more than she bargained for.
G. G. Royale offers us “An Introduction,” in which a young woman previously destined for an arranged marriage surrenders her inhibitions, her body and her passion to a domme in a bondage club—and in surrendering finds the strength to finally choose what she wants for herself. In a darker turn, Teresa Lamai’s hard-edged and bittersweet “Mirador” is all about a fast and dirty revenge fuck in a bar bathroom between a woman and her ex-boyfriend’s new lover. Expert eroticist Rachel Kramer Bussel writes of the bittersweet end to a girl crush as she realizes that sometimes unrequited passion holds more promise than satisfied desire. “I didn’t want her the way I once had. I didn’t want to bottom to her, and though my pussy could still feel what she’d done to me, and I remembered how good it had felt to give myself to her, my crush was over.”
Two best friends, soon to be torn apart by a husband’s transfer, indulge long-harbored desires in Kris Adams’s “Cecily.” In the midst of her passion, Mary tries to cope with the imminent separation from the woman she loves most, “She’d drink Cecily down, every last drop of her, flesh and blood, until she’d possessed her entirely, and Cliff couldn’t take her away.” Not all the stories in Girl Crush are so intense. In Jennifer Geneva’s “Good Neighbors,” a woman’s hot, late-night encounter with the sexy couple across the street is exactly what she needs to help her through a recent breakup, and in Cheyenne Blue’s tender “Discovering Donnie,” though things might not always be what they seem, where love is concerned, the heart is always true.
No matter how the women in these twenty-three stories navigate the passion and promise of their girl crushes, their stories fully engage all of our senses. This collection shows us what it might be like to surrender to our girl crushes and cool the burn beneath our skin.
R. Gay
GREAT LENGTHS
Rachel Kramer Bussel
She had red hair—and by red, I mean flame orange, bold and in your face, with traces of yellow at the tips, piles and piles of long red hair, gleaming down her back, around her shoulders, matching her freckles, the perfect complement to the hoop sticking out of her eyebrow. It was the first thing anyone noticed about her, and what made my eyes linger. I don’t even know what her natural hair color was, but this striking, in-your-face red suited her personality. While I somehow ended up with mousy brown hair even when I got it professionally dyed, Laura was all fiery, flaming hotness.
Laura seemed to me then to be everything I wasn’t. She was bold and brash; she’d been around. We met through a mutual friend, but instantly, we were the ones who were BFFs, bonding in the way that I never seemed to with boyfriends. I worshipped her, from afar and up close. I felt like the same gawky, awkward girl I’d been in high school next to her, but she also made me feel special, like I wasn’t really nerdy at all, like I was magically cool just by being graced with her presence.
Ours became the kind of friendship where you don’t need a reason to see each other; in fact, you’d need a reason not to hang out. She posed me in her studio, making me feel gorgeous as her camera zoomed in on my face, red glasses and shy, beaming smile. She twirled around in long, flowing skirts and drank stiff drinks that were far beyond my limited cosmopolitan world. We stayed out all night, even on weeknights, cuddling up at dive bars in Brooklyn, eating vegetables from her garden. She made me edamame and showed me the art projects she was doing. I sat there and soaked in everything about her. She was so cool, it took me a little while to realize I was falling for her, hard, but once I knew, I knew. She wasn’t just my new BFF, and I didn’t just want to soak up her glamour; I wanted to kiss her, touch her, feel her hair on my breasts, feel her eyebrow ring against my thigh. I wanted to part her legs and taste her, have her draped across my lap and spank her.
We lived four blocks apart, yet we quickly became inseparable. I’d drop everything to hang out with her. Adventure seemed to find us, whether backstage at a show talking to Slim Moon or eating some bizarre homemade concoction at six a.m. while watching the Spice channel at a stranger’s house. I didn’t mind making do on two hours’ sleep because Laura’s energy fed my own. She was the epitome of, “I’ll sleep when I’m dead,” staying up late into the night to get her Final Cut Pro just right. I was just starting to figure out how to be a writer, and that writing is a kind of art, too, whereas she seemed to have the whole working artist thing down cold, never a worry, never a doubt. I felt so square, so timid next to her, which only made me want her more.
She was the kind of girl I’d have put photos of in my notebook in high school, before I knew I could worship girls from near as well as from afar, before I knew I didn’t have to try to be like the girls I admired, but could simply like them, or, in this case, lust after them. Looking back, I could see I’d had girl crushes before, back before you could look someone up online, when you had to make do with moments and memories. Her being straight didn’t stop me from thinking we’d be a good match; I’d bedded enough straight girls to know that. Yet as much as we said almost everything to each other, I couldn’t say the most simple thing of all: I like you. I want you.
So instead, I said it to other people: her landlord, her roommate. I befriended them because they came with her seal of approval, because I thought maybe if they liked me, so would she. I did more than that, cozying up to them and even sleeping with them, but the details have become blurred, paling next to memories of what I didn’t get to do with her. I’d never have gone that far with them if it hadn’t been for Laura, and ultimately, I never told her about these dalliances, fearing I’d overstepped my bounds and that if she knew, it would nix any chances of me getting that close to her.
I did everything I could to take our friendship to the next level. We’d play what I call the Naked Girl Game, that video game where you reenact an adult version of a youthful memory, with scantily clad hot chicks whose bikinis you have to keep track of. The truth is, you can find hotter girls surrounding you in most any bar—the girls’ look in the game is sort of ’80s hair metal video—but it’s still fun, and having her wedge in next to me to play it, both of us ogling girls on a screen while I thrilled to the warmth of her skin against mine, was exciting. If I’d turned just a little, I’d have been surrounded by all that glorious hair, the hair I wanted to drape all over me, bury myself in. Instead I snuggled up to her, hoping that someone would catch a glimpse of us and think we were together. I didn’t care if guys hit on us, because we were a team, and I’d have gladly let any of them have her if it meant I could too. Things didn’t work out like that.
Once, on her bed, I saw a book about BDSM. I wanted to ask about it, but I didn’t get up the courage. Of course, it was one I also owned, one I’d practically memorized, but she didn’t seem so much the type to read about sex as the type to simply do it. And then after a while she got busy with work, pulling all-nighters, and I started dating someone else, and we drifted apart the way people in fast friendships sometimes do. It became normal to go a week without hearing from her, and when she told me she was moving to L.A., I wasn’t surprised. Her love affair with New York, and the imaginary one with me, was over.
It wasn’t until after she moved, and I happened to be in L.A., that we finally hooked up. It’s a bit fuzzy, so part of me thinks I imagined it (this is before blogging became du jour, so I can’t go back and check), but I’m pretty sure it happened. By then I was a little more over her, a by-product of not seeing or talking to her every day. I’d been weaned off her earlier, but this separation felt more real, more permanent. She had moved on in some way and was less Brooklyn trailblazer than Hollywood wannabe. I couldn’t relate as much as before, but I still loved hearing her talk as we cozied up over chocolate martinis and sushi at some trendy L.A. restaurant overlooking the city. The drinks would’ve gotten me warm no matter what, but so did she; she still had that glow that made me want to curl up next to her and have her whisper in my ear. I wasn’t sure if I wanted her to drape all that hair over my body or if I wanted to grip it in my hand and pull hard, see her cool calm exterior disappear into one far more frantic and needy.
I was heading back to my friend’s place, but when we went outside to say good-bye, I couldn’t just give up, not this time. I turned my head and kissed her, a deep, intense kiss full of all those nights of wanting to and holding back, of kissing substitutes instead of the real thing. “I’ve been wanting to do that for a long time,” I told her, letting down the guard I’d had up since I first started to fantasize about her. Even more than with guys, I’ve learned that you can’t just up and confess to having a crush on a girl unless you want things to unravel before they’ve even started. Playing it cool was the name of the game, especially because she was straight, or at least closer to straight than I was, and I didn’t want to seem predatory.
“Me too,” she said, before pulling me back in for another kiss. We grappled there outside the restaurant, each of us melting into the other before gripping each other’s shoulder harder, shoving our tongues in deeper, taking control. I remembered her telling me about bending over for a spanking at Burning Man, the stinging slap of leather against her ass, and how she’d liked it, but not so hard, not so fast. “Maybe I’m the one who’s supposed to be holding the whip,” she’d said, inspiring endless fantasies. Right now, I didn’t know who would be holding what, only that I had to have her. I hadn’t come all that way or waited so long to have her slink away yet again.
“Let’s go back to your place,” I said, trailing my hand gently over her breast, pleased to find her nipple hard and ready for me.
“No,” she said, laughing when I looked at her with just a hint of the annoyance I felt on my face. “I have something better than my place,” she said, grazing my cheek with a kiss when I relaxed. I didn’t care where we went as long as I got to see and taste and touch all of her. I grabbed her hair, threading my fingers through it as I’d longed to do, not wanting to let go.
I don’t know exactly where she took me. I wasn’t blindfolded, I just didn’t care. I was with her, and that was what counted. We were in the woods somewhere, not far from the road, near a hiking trail. There was a bench, and it was dark and quiet. That’s where she wanted to fuck me. She pushed me down to my knees in front of her. My pussy almost hurt, that’s how turned on I was. All my fantasies seemed to have culminated in that moment, and she didn’t disappoint me. We were doing something exotic, far better than our brief flirtatious moments or sex with other girls. This was headier, momentous, I could tell. She pressed her short nails into the back of my neck and covered my face with her hair. “What do you want, Rachel?” she asked.
Then she lightly slapped my face. I wasn’t expecting that; she doesn’t really look like a domme, or what I think a domme would look like. I whimpered, because I wasn’t expecting to like it so much. Now I’m a totally kinky, slutty brat, but I wasn’t then, not yet. I didn’t know that the tears that sprang to my eyes were only the beginning.
She leaned down and bit my lip, then ordered me to strip. I started to pull my clothes off, but she stopped me. “No. Strip for me. Tease me. Do a dance.” She knew I wasn’t exactly a coordinated dancer from our limited forays into clubs, and maybe that’s why she requested it. I was wearing heels, at least, and I tried to pretend we were in a club, or at least a room with music, grateful I’d worn my new green silky underwear that draped across my ass in a way that made me feel like I had the hottest ass in the world. I shut my eyes, enjoying the air as it brushed against me when I took off my top, followed by my bra. “That’s it,” she murmured, encouraging me until I was dancing for her wearing only my glasses, nipple piercing, and heels. “Something new,” she murmured as she tugged at the ring, then pulled me closer.
I sank into her lap as gracefully as I could, a little disappointed that I wasn’t getting to bury my face in her pussy the way I’d dreamed of doing. I’d really never imagined she’d be topping me, taking control, touching me. I’d pegged her as straight; kinky, perhaps, but clueless about girl-on-girl lust. But when her hand found my pussy, I realized Laura wasn’t clueless at all. That hand had done more than simply jerk her off to orgasm; I could tell. Her fingers sought out my wetness, then plunged inside and curved, knuckles twisting against the spot that made my face contort, her thumb zeroing in on my clit and toying with it. Maybe I looked shocked, or just overwhelmed, because she started talking again. “I bet you didn’t think I knew how to do this. Oh, how little you know about me. I’ve been with girls, plenty of the
m. I just wasn’t sure about us. I didn’t want it to happen and then change our relationship. Plus I wanted to see how far you’d go, whether you’d let me fuck you in public where anyone could watch.” I breathed heavily, dropping my head, letting her words wash over and around and through me. How could she have known how badly I wanted her and ignored my desire?
I could’ve been angry, but what she was doing felt too good. So what if she’d led me on? So what if I wasn’t going to have some big deflowering moment? She was her own kind of top, her own kind of dyke, and as always I was just following in her wake. She pressed another finger inside me and I bit my lip, part of me wanting to tell her to stop. Was she going to fist me right here, like this? She wrapped her lips around my other nipple and tugged at it with her teeth while slowly working that fourth finger in. Laura was nothing if not full of surprises. “I bet you wanted to see my pussy, taste me, hear me coo and moan and tell you how I never thought it could be like this.” She laughed then, and when I started to as well, she rearranged her hand so her thumb was right there at the doorway of my cunt. “I don’t have any lube on me,” she said, her voice husky now, “so you’re gonna have to help me.”
Real tears sprang to my eyes as I straddled her fist, a position I’d never been in before. I couldn’t even remember the last time a girl had done that to me, and then it hit me: I was so used to pursuing straight girls, or ones who were “curious,” that I was always in charge, even if it was all very vanilla and sweet and gooey. I was the one doing them, not getting done. But Laura had flipped the script, had gotten under my skin, had twisted me all around with a wink of her kohl-rimmed eye, a toss of her fiery locks. I looked up at her, the moonlight glowing against her still-flaming hair as it surrounded her. I came with her green eyes on me, a smile on her face part triumphant, part tender.