Insatiable Appetites

by Fiona Zedde

  “Sage!” Her love cried out when Sage’s mouth latched onto her hard and slippery clit. The musky scent and taste, the salt of her lust. “I love you!” Gasping, Phil pressed her dripping pussy unto Sage’s mouth, her voice a desperate plea. “Baby, don’t…don’t leave us behind.”

  The wind tore at their clothes. Water splashed up over their legs, drenching the blanket.

  Familiar juices dripped down Sage’s chin. For the last time.

  She sobbed and slipped two fingers in to stroke that spot that made Phil scream, pinching her nipples in rhythm to the motion of her tongue on Phil’s clit, Phil cried out, cried, begged. It nearly broke Sage, but she couldn’t stop the course of what Phil had started at that movie premiere. She couldn’t. Groaning, she trapped her hand over Phil’s mouth, muffling her words. She didn’t stop her fingers or her tongue.

  This felt raw and desperate in a way it hadn’t been between them in months.

  Phil moved under her, surging and frantic in her search for orgasm. For freedom to shout what she wanted. Even with her mouth locked to Phil’s pussy and her eyes closed to shut out the pain on her lover’s face, she felt the frantic motion of Phil’s head, her head whipping back and forth across the blanket trying to shake Sage’s hand from over her mouth.

  “Oh, God…”

  And Sage tasted salt and wet, realizing it was her tears, not just Phil’s desire and desperation. Her hand over Phil’s mouth slipped and the sounds came loud again. Fingers plunged into her wet and panting mouth. Hot breath puffing against her fingers, the cries that were part pain, part pleasure, all desperation.

  Phil bit her fingers, and they both howled.

  Seconds passed. Minutes.

  Sage blinked the sweat from her eyes and stared up at the stars. Her pants sagged halfway down her thighs along with her underwear. The waning pulse beats of her orgasm throbbed faintly between her legs.

  Beside her, Phil lay on her side, facing away from her, her thighs still spread wide, her dress shoved up to her waist. Her platinum belly chain glimmered in the moonlight. The sound of her panting was loud, even over the rush of the wind. Water slid over Sage’s bare feet, soaking into the hem of her slacks but that fact seemed too far away to matter.

  “I want to go home.” Phil didn’t turn over.

  Her voice was blank, emotionless, but it couldn’t have been more filled with pain if she’d screamed. Yet, the biggest sadness of it all was that they both knew the home she wanted, the home they’d shared for so long and so well, didn’t exist anymore.

  Sage clenched her teeth hard but the whimper of pain leaked from her just the same. Starlight and moonlight burned down from the sky. Bright so far away from the city. They’d shared this view a thousand times over the years, a view she never grew tired of. But Sage wanted no part of it now. Breathing through another arrow of pain, she licked her lips, still wet from Phil’s pleasure.

  She buried her face in her arms, the sadness rushing over her like the tide. “We can go now?”

  “Okay.”

  But neither of them got up.

  It could have been an hour or ten minutes or a lifetime later before Phil moved. Keeping her face tucked down, she got to her feet and dragged her dress down, teased her hair into some semblance of order with her fingers. Her back was straight as she stared out to the ocean, all the while avoiding looking at Sage.

  Sage wanted to touch her, to stroke that long back and give them both some kind of comfort. But they were past that now. She stumbled to her feet and re-settled her own clothes before grabbing the blanket and stuffing it back into the waterproof chest.

  They wouldn’t need it anymore.

  They wouldn’t need their grotto anymore.

  Another wave of sadness nearly knocked her over where she stood.

  Phil swallowed thickly. “I’m ready.”

  With Sage driving, they left the grotto together, but as soon as they hit civilization, a stretch of road with small shops and mid-rise buildings along its edges, Phil asked to be let out.

  Her demand dragged Sage from her circular thoughts. “Why? What are you doing?”

  “That’s not something you have to worry about anymore, is it?” She gently closed the door, her shoes on her feet, purse under her arm.

  Sage rolled the window down to glare at Phil. Why was she making this harder than it needed to be? “It’s dark out here. It’s not safe.”

  “Safety is relative.” She was already tapping on her phone. “I’m calling for an Uber. You can go on to the house with a clear conscience.” Then she flashed the phone’s screen that showed a car only a few minutes away.

  But Sage had never been one to abandon anyone, no matter what the circumstances. The irony of that thought wasn’t lost on her even as she tried to convince herself she wasn’t doing anything wrong. She clenched her hand on the gear shift, watching Phil step back from the car and move further up on the sidewalk, her heels clicking firmly against the cement.

  The Uber came quickly. Only after the tail lights of the dark green Nissan had disappeared down the street and around the corner did Sage pull her truck back into traffic and head for the house that no longer felt like a home.

  It was the longest drive of her life.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Sage was exhausted. She pushed open the door to the house and flinched at the familiar smells of the place—the vanilla scented oil Phil burned in every room, faint traces of her peony-scented perfume, hints of the lemon tea Phil drank every morning.

  Her keys rattled against ceramic when she dropped them in the bowl by the door. Heavy footsteps drew her deeper into the house, through the wide hallway and the living room. She stopped.

  Her mother and Miss Opal sat close together on the couch while the TV played some sort of game show, but there weren’t paying attention to the gap-toothed host on the screen. Instead, they sat close together, nearly pressed knee to knee, talking.

  They fell quiet when Sage walked into the room.

  “Are you sure you’re okay?” her father’s voice came from the kitchen.

  Sage’s stomach dipped as Phil answered softly. “No, but I will be eventually.”

  Sage couldn’t see them, but she noticed that her mother and Miss Opal glance briefly in that direction.

  “Baby love.” Miss Opal appraised Sage with a knowing eye. “What happened?”

  Shit. Was her mouth still bleeding? She tongued the sore spot where Phil had bitten her, then blushed when two pairs of eyes followed the movement. The look of disapproval that had never quite disappeared from her mother’s face became more intense. With the weight of Miss Opal and her mother’s stares, she felt every bit of sand clinging to her skin from her time in the grotto with Phil. The hem of her pants dragged from the seawater and she was sure flecks of pale sand stood out against the black of her wrinkled and untucked shirt. Basically, she looked exactly like what she’d been doing—fucking on the beach.

  “Nothing much happened, Miss Opal,” she said in automatic denial.

  “I can tell you’re lying.” Her father appeared from the kitchen with a cup of tea in his hand. He walked past Sage and squeezed her shoulder, his eyes full of pity.

  Why?

  High heels on tile interrupted the beginnings of another lie. Phil came from the kitchen with a big mug she usually drank her bed time chamomile from. She looked just as rough as Sage felt. Her dark dress with bits of sand clinging to it. Her hair wilder than when they’d left Sage’s parents earlier in the day. Grains of powdery sand glowing against her skin.

  It didn’t take Sherlock Holmes to figure out that they’d been together. And that whatever happened between them had not been good. Her eyes cut through Sage and she wove through the living room, making an obvious path to avoid her.

  “You can lie to them some more if you want to, but I’m going to bed.” Phil threw the words over her shoulder and disappeared down the hallway toward the bedroom. The door slammed.

  “What’s going
on?”

  Sage shook her head, a quick and sharp motion that made her dizzy. She didn’t know what to tell them since the truth was obviously out of the question. “I’m tired,” she said rubbing a hand over her face. “I’m heading to bed, too.”

  “Sage—”

  “Let her go, Viv. I think our girl has some things to work out.”

  Her father’s words followed her down the hallway to the only empty guest bedroom. There, she stripped and climbed into the unfamiliar bed, dirty teeth and all. Sage lay spread out under the AC, her thoughts spinning in every direction.

  Years ago, it was simple enough. No bisexuals allowed. At least not in her bed.

  That policy never bothered any of her friends as far as she knew and she never had to check her attitude about bisexuals. But then, Dez hooked up with her little college boyfriend. Rémi fell in love with, and managed to seduce, hetero Claudia. And Nuria kept fucking anyone she wanted to fuck—men, women, and everyone in between.

  Through it all, Phil had been a constant. And now she was gone.

  Sighing, Sage rolled over and winced. Phil’s bite marks. They burned on the skin over her ribs. Tender and throbbing.

  The recent memory flooded over her. She and Phil on the sand, panting and desperate. Their blanket dragged halfway from underneath them and barely any protection from the rough sand and the bits of shells digging into their flesh. The hot scent of their sex rising like smoke around them. The desperate and sobbing cries they both made.

  Was that how things would end between them? In a memory of pain and sex. Teeth marks and a shattered sense of home.

  This is your choice.

  A voice that sounded suspiciously like Rémi mocked her.

  No, this was Phillida’s choice. She broke their agreement. She changed the terms of their relationship.

  Another pained breath hissed through Sage’s teeth when she rolled over to the opposite side of the bed. Sleep felt even further away than ever. The phone’s battery was nearly dead, but it had juice enough to tell her it was just past five in the morning.

  Fuck it.

  She got up, dragged on a robe, and quietly crept toward the kitchen. A cup of mint tea later, she sat at the breakfast bar staring out the wide windows. Darkness covered just about everything. But she could just make out the outlines of the tall shrubbery protecting their yard from the neighbors’ prying eyes.

  Years ago, they’d moved from what they’d lovingly called their “fuck house” to this quieter part of Miami. Although she and Phil hadn’t talked explicitly about it, they were getting ready for another phase of their lives. Rémi had Claudia. Dez and Victoria were quietly married and considering a kid of their own. And through the conversations they’d found themselves having, she and Phil realized they wanted a piece of that quiet domesticity for themselves too.

  But not too quiet, and not so soon.

  So, they’d bought the house, slowed down the pace of their partying, given up the drugs that had seemed so necessary before and now just seemed like too much. Now, Sage was about to be stuck alone in a house with no future in it.

  “That’s a lot of heavy breathing you got going on.”

  She nearly jumped out of her skin. “Shit!”

  With an amused chuckle, Miss Opal shuffled toward her in the dark, her slippers shush-shushing against the floor. A click of the light switch illuminated the chrome and marble kitchen and Sage winced from the sudden brightness.

  “Just the regular amount of heavy breathing,” Sage said once she got her breathing back under control.

  “Uh huh.”

  Miss Opal made her slow way around the long end of the breakfast bar and to the stove where she sparked a blue flame back under the teapot. She wore a thick robe pulled high up to her neck, the too-long cuffs folded over her wrists. A/C always made her cold.

  The pantry door clicked open with a flick of her wrist and she rummaged inside, soon emerging with a fistful of green bananas and the container of flour. She settled in at the sink with the bananas and a grater.

  “So, you going to tell me what’s wrong?” she asked. When Sage opened her mouth Miss Opal quickly cut her off. “Don’t tell me it’s nothing. “A blind man can see that you and Phillida had some sort of big argument.” She turned on the spigot over the bowl of bananas and started to peel the bananas with a knife. “What did you do?”

  Sage shifted uncomfortably on the high stool. “Why do you think I did something?”

  “Because you look guilty.”

  But Sage didn’t feel guilty. None of this was her fault.

  “It’s no big deal.” Sage forced the words past her dry throat. “It’s not like…like…”

  “It’s not like you love her? Is that the lie you were going to tell me?”

  Sage coughed tea all over the marble speckled breakfast bar. “No!” She coughed again, her throat burning.

  Miss Opal had her back to Sage, but it felt like the woman pinned her with her all-seeing gaze, just like when she was a kid.

  “I—I… Oh fuck.” Sage stumbled over every possible lie to deny what Miss Opal was saying. But suddenly she was so tired. Her elbows thumped into the hard surface of the bar. She dropped her face in her hands as the world as she knew it shifted under her feet.

  “It’s okay, darlin’ dear. I love you. Your mummy and daddy and I only want the best for you, for you to be happy.”

  Sage’s stomach shot up into her throat like she was at the top of a roller coaster about to fall. Her head swam and pressed her fingers hard into her face.

  Finally, she lifted her head. “When did you guys know?”

  Only the sounds of Miss Opal rattling around the kitchen broke the silence. A knife clattering into the sink. A metal bowl against the counter top.

  “Years. Since the beginning, maybe. We were waiting for you to tell us, but you never did.”

  Sage’s cheeks prickled with shame. She wanted to bury her face in her hands again, but she’d already done enough hiding in the sand. She kept her eyes on Miss Opal’s back, the movement of her slight frame as she grated the bananas by hand instead of using the food processor Sage had shown her how to use a few days before. The steady scrubbing sound of a piece of green banana sliding against the metal grater filled the kitchen.

  They knew about her.

  They knew.

  “But instead of telling us, you just pulled away,” Miss Opal went on. “It… we didn’t expect that. Before we knew it, you were grown up and so far away. You were lost to us.”

  If Miss Opal was telling the truth, Sage had gotten herself lost. She’d assumed her parents were like the Jamaicans she heard about on the news, in patty shops and Fort Lauderdale barber chairs. Instead of waiting for them to disown her, she’d treated them like strangers.

  Idiot. Because she’d been the stupidest one in the yard, she’d lost something that could have been hers and now belonged to Errol.

  “But you never said anything,” she protested, despite knowing very much how hard it was for them to talk about things that mattered. Like feelings, and coming out, and anything else that had the possibility of someone breaking down into an ugly cry.

  “I know,” Miss Opal said. “And I regret it. I was telling your mother that maybe now we could fix things. But…” She turned around, sadness soaked into the wrinkles surrounding her deep oak eyes. “…you look so miserable now. And I don’t think it’s because of us.”

  Sticky, dirty feelings rolled around in Sage’s chest. Lips pressed together, heart clenched tight, she wished she could just disappear for a few minutes. Hours. Days. The whisper of approaching footsteps brought her head up.

  Her father stood in the doorway, his robe hanging open over his pajamas. “I want to get in on this conversation, too.”

  He shambled into the kitchen and pulled a mug from the cupboard and made himself a cup of fever grass tea. Once he was done, he took the stool next to Sage at the breakfast bar and sat with the mug of tea between his palms. H
e gave Sage his “waiting” look.

  Discomfort and fear nudged the little bit of tea Sage already had in her stomach, threatening to bring it back up. She swallowed and forced herself to take another sip. It was cold and tasteless. Her tongue, dry and unwieldy in her mouth, was still grateful for the moisture. “I…” And that was as far as she got. What could she say that would make sense to them?

  “Just tell us what happened.” For the first time in a long while, her father seemed to read her easily enough. Was she just that transparent lately?

  More silence. Her father and Miss Opal waiting patiently before she finally just opened her mouth and let whatever was waiting there spill out.

  “Phil… she…” Maybe there wasn’t much waiting there after all. “When she and I got together, we were both into the same things. Only women.” She swallowed. It sounded so trivial once she was actually saying it. “And now, she’s…expanded her interests. She changed. She’s not the person I fell—” she stumbled into the words. “—fell in love with.”

  She darted a gaze at her father to see how he was taking the revelation. Yeah, Miss Opal said he knew, but it was a big thing for her to just blurt out like that. Her stomach clenched. But he didn’t react other than to keep watching, seeming to wait for the rest of whatever she had to say. “Things are just too different now,” she finished.

  Her father moved the mug from one hand to the next but didn’t drink. “You broke up with Phillida?”

  Miss Opal turned to stare at her. And Sage could only look from Miss Opal to her father, tongue-tied again. Not only did they except, no expect, her to be a big dyke, but they knew she and Phil were—or had been—together?”

  “I… we’re not together anymore.”

  “Because she likes men and women and you didn’t expect that?” This came from Miss Opal.

  “It’s not that simple,” Sage said, hating that she sounded so defensive.