Love Me Hard
~ Bonus Story ~
A First Time Lesbian Romance
I wanted to kiss her back, but we were already in the middle of a kiss, and that meant I couldn't kiss her further. But that didn't mean that my hands didn't suddenly have minds of their own, exploring Emma's body, slipping under her clothes and groping parts of her I would have never dreamed of touching before she kissed me. “I thought you'd never done anything like this before,” Emma said. “For someone so inexperienced you sure aren't afraid.
I moved to New Orleans because I wanted more culture in my life. I'd heard so much about the place and watched a few documentaries about regarding its history. When I moved, I figured I'd be able to make it work, but then things started to get harder and harder without a roommate. So I put up an advertisement explaining that I was looking for a roommate and a friend, and Martha answered. It wasn't long after that when she introduced me to her boyfriend Jake and we became an inseparable trio... But not all was right in our little paradise.
* * *
I'd moved to New Orleans because I liked the Gulf Coast and needed a big city to keep me entertained. New Orleans had everything I was looking for: culture, food, sand, and surf. The people who lived there were fun. Gentrification wasn't everywhere yet, although some places had changed, or so the locals would tell her. It wasn't long until my finances started to run thinner and thinner. There wasn't much I could do about it because the cost of living was so high. I worked as a waitress part time in a small mom and pop place, and even though the pay wasn't good I didn't want to look elsewhere. Competition for jobs in the city was fierce, and I didn't feel like going out and trying to turn over every rock looking for something different while at the same time working the job I already had.
I thought about it for a while one day on a shift when no one was in the diner. There were days like this as often as not, it seemed like. And that meant that as often as not I wasn't making that great of money. That said I needed a roommate, more or less. There wasn't much else to it, and the quickest way to find someone was online. So I put up a quick advertisement on a community forum and by the time I was back at my apartment there it was, the email I'd been waiting for.
It was, of course, buried under a pile of other emails that were from creepers and scammers and other weirdos of the internet. I had to skim through a couple of those, but it wasn't long until I came to Martha's email. She was a young woman just out of her master's program. Her email was intelligent and articulate. It was easy to tell that she was put together enough to be my roommate. Our hobbies were the same, as were the things we disliked. We meshed so well I wondered if lightning had actually struck and I'd found the perfect roommate. Of course, it wasn't that simple. We still had to get her moved into my apartment, which wouldn't necessarily be an easy undertaking.
For starters, it was on the fourth floor of an old building with winding staircases. I had had a hell of a time getting movers to haul my couch and other bulky belongings up the spiral staircase. Martha said not to worry about it, though. She told me how she'd run into a mover who had been moving some rich peoples' couch up some stairs and he'd ended up hitting on her a little bit. She hadn't really been that interested at the time but now seemed like a good a time as ever to find out what kind of guy he was like.
I thought it was endearing how interested Martha was in Jake. It was evident to me that she'd found him at least attractive because she kept talking about him, and was now finding ways to bring him around. She seemed like the kind of girl who really romanticized her potential partners, because when she had described the encounter to me, it seemed mundane, almost annoying that he would stop her on the street and insist that she speak with him. Martha was a strong willed woman, too, and I just couldn't see her not telling him to fuck off unless she really didn't want him to fuck off. And that was okay, that she hadn't wanted that. Anyway, I hadn't met Jake yet, so I didn't know what kind of person he was like, or if he would be the kind of person I would feel attracted to. Some people just put me off, and that was the end of it.
But Martha also kept talking about how I would like him too, how it wouldn't just be her crushing on him. I found it a little odd that she was so eager to include me in the shenanigans, but maybe it made her feel more courageous to think she had numbers on her side. Whatever it was I didn't really understand it, but if this Jake guy ended up being cool, I just hoped that he had some friends as well. Martha said that she thought that he did, so I was on board with the mover before I'd even said yes to the move in!
Martha and I first met at a coffee shop. Everything that I'd seen on social media, and that she had told me about was spot on. There wasn't any trickery afoot at all.
“Well,” I said. “You certainly do seem to be the person you say you were. Which is excellent, because you sounded like the perfect roommate. Do you have any idea how hard it is to find the perfect roommate?”
“Oh, totally,” Martha said. “I looked for a long time for mine, but never found them. I was about to leave New Orleans because of it. You know how it can be here in the big city. People are meaner, they care about each other less. I'm just not like that with people. So I'm glad that we met each other in person finally.”
We both took long sips of our lattes and looked over the table at each other. Martha seemed to be aglow with the idea that we would live together. I really liked that about her, the way she always had a smile on her face while she looked at me. There was something about that which I found sexy in ways I couldn't even begin to articulate to myself.
"Well aren't you cute, looking at me like that while we talk about a boy," Martha said. "You know, there could be a lot of fun in this being roommates thing. I didn't know there would be so much tension between us right off the bat. And I mean tension in a good way, of course. There are a lot of things that can really come between people, like work and sleep schedules, but I know that we'll click just fine."
“I do, too,” I said. “So, when is the move in date?”
We planned on a day, and before we knew it the day was upon us. We hadn't really talked about Jake lately, so he was still up in the air in my mind. I'd gotten busy at work and hadn't had time to figure out exactly what was going on between them. What little conversation I had time for, Martha treated it as a flirty get-together with a purpose, like a kind of work adventure with a dating aspect to it. I thought it was a little coy but figured maybe that was just how she got down.
Summer was coming to an end. The sweltering southern swamps that were on the edge of town were pushing their smell inward. It was hard not to notice the smell, and at night, when I went for a walk along the dirt roads, sometimes I'd run into locals out looking for will-o-wisps in the swamp—something I didn't think I'd ever see anywhere else. But fall was coming, and soon the few leaves swirling around our street would be joined by many more. It would be hard to tell them all apart, and then there would be winter.
But I was looking forward to fall, especially a long, drawn out one. I wanted to feel all of the chill air, and throw the crumpled leaves up above me to watch them swirl through the streets.
Martha's move slipped my mind for a few weeks, but she reminded me the day before.
“Jesus,” I said. “How could I have forgotten something like this? It's a big deal, and I don't want to treat it like it isn't a big deal, either.”
“Listen,” Martha said. “It's fine. I totally get that we aren't on the same schedule all the time. And besides, you are one of those people who gets lost in nature. How could you not get lost in the changing seasons that we're seeing around us? It really is something else! There is so much color on the trees. Like a painter who really went crazy when he was buying his oils.”
We both laughed at this, and I was relieved that Martha wasn't put off by my absent mindedness. Many people referred to me as a space case because I would forget certain things that were important, or what society considered significant. For me, there wasn't anythin
g more important than nature—Martha had that right.
“Well, anyway,” Martha said. “I'll be over in the morning with my things. Jake said that he's down to help load everything into your place and that he isn't even going to charge us! He did say something about wanting to be paid in beers and steak, or something like that. Unfortunately, neither of us eat meat, so there's that.”
I laughed so hard I thought I was going to cry.
“Hey, it's been great talking, but I have to make it to yoga,” Martha said. “I'll let you know when I'm on my way over, all right?”
“Sounds good!”
I couldn't wait to have her as a roommate, I decided as I watched the sunset out my living room window. The extra room wouldn't be empty anymore, and there would be another person to share company with. We were both excited to live together and really get to know each other. That was something that was clear. And Martha was happy that I was down to be her partner in crime, something I understood now. Before I'd thought that it had something to do with cowardice, but now I realized that it was much more to do with just wanting other people to be culpable with her. It was something that every little kid understood, a feeling of being scared to be the only one. That was something that I hadn't felt in a long time, and finding it in someone else made me feel youthful inside.
When Martha called the next morning she was already with Jake. Jake had offered to let Martha ride in the moving truck because she didn't have a car of her own. Many people in New Orleans didn't have vehicles, and a few of the smarter men had learned transportation was an easy way to make time with girls. By the time they got to my place they were chatting like old friends, and it made me smile to see them flirt openly. Moving was fun when there was a dynamic which was fun. Jake made sure to make both of us laugh, and even flirted with me a little bit.
At first, I wasn't sure what to think about him flirting with both of us. It wasn't as if I hadn't expected it, but I was just taken aback at how open he was being. Martha didn't seem to have a problem with it at all. I didn't have a problem with it either.
~*~
After we had moved Martha's belongings into my apartment, Jake cracked open a few beers and handed them to us. I liked Jake, he was the kind of guy that girls saw at bars and wished they were brave enough to take home. He was tall and handsome, and he was mostly quiet. When others talked, he listened more than he chimed in, something that I appreciated in a man so imposing already. And then there were Jake's eyes. They were the kind of blue that colored the sky on the edges of the horizon. There was something mysterious about them, something wonderful and caring. I could look into those eyes and never look away and had to be careful not to do just that when he was talking.
Martha, on the other hand, had no compunction about showing Jake just how smitten she was with him. Jake liked it and showed her that he wanted it. He kept touching the small of her back and rubbing her shoulders. Martha smiled at him and then smiled at me. She was practically beaming with energy, and I could definitely understand why. Jake really was a catch, the kind of guy that girls wanted to hang out with, and even date. I could see that, although he wasn't really the kind of guy I would bring home to my parents. Not that there was anything wrong with Jake, but it was easy to tell that he had a lot of growing up left to do. Not that he was immature in speech or action, but that he was a scoundrel. And any parent would quickly see that it wasn't a long term thing.
Not that it always had to be a long term thing, by any means. Martha wasn't the type of person who always sought out the kind of near marriages that people called relationships. As for me, I liked my men to want to at least be around for the short term. Jake wasn't even that kind of guy, but it made him all the more alluring to both Martha and myself. The way that he would casually sashay across the room to me after flirting with Martha and let the backs of his knuckles drag across the small of my back. There was a certain swagger that was all his own, and that was something I could really admire. People always tried so hard to fake confidence it was now nearly a turn off for me. But Jake wasn't like that at all. He was actually confident and really thought about how he could tackle the world. There was never any doubt in his mind that he was the man in the room who was the most charming, best looking, and he easily jumped into complex conversations about politics.
“You know,” Jake said. “The election is upcoming and all, and Hillary is really killing it. The last debate was something else. I thought Trump was going to put up a better defense, or at least an offense that made sense.”
“I hate him,” Martha said. “Plain and simple. I'm with her.”
I laughed.
“I'm going to write in someone funny,” I said. “Like Mickey Mouse, or Jar Jar Binks. I know, I know, I'm throwing my vote away. So sue me. It's my vote! I'll do whatever I want with it!”
Jake laughed at this and made his way back over to the fridge.
“Would either of you ladies like something to eat?” he asked. “I'm famished, and I'm also a pretty good cook. I could whip something healthy up.”
Before we knew it, we were both eating homemade salsa and an omelet along while enjoying some Irish coffee. Jake was the kind of guy who knew how to liven up a party and also knew how to satisfy the palate.
“This is so good,” Martha said. “Where did you learn to cook like that?”
“Culinary school,” Jake said. “There are so many people who learn how to cook well and then never use it. I'm one of them. But during times like this, when I'm hanging out with people, I do get to use it. So that's nice. But these moments are rare. There really aren't many other people who are down to have an Irish coffee along with an omelet before five o'clock, unfortunately. Because that's the kind of restaurant that I want to work in.”
“I'd love that kind of place,” Martha said. “You should start one!”
He chuckled.
“It's a lot of work,” Jake said. “I was close to running a nice European restaurant, but then the owner started doing blow all the time and things fell apart pretty quickly. There wasn't much I could do but watch. The one thing that I took away from the ordeal was that I didn't want to be in charge of business. Not because I'd fuck it up and fuck everyone over, but because there is just so much that goes along with it. Like making sure that people take breaks, and that no one is stealing, and that people are actually cleaning what they say they're cleaning. Stuff like that.”
“Oh,” Martha said. “I'd never thought of that.”
We sat around the kitchen's cute little table looking into our coffees, thinking of all the stress that would come along with running a thriving eatery.
“You know what I've always wanted to do,” I said. “I've always wanted to invent something you know? Not, like, anything important or life saying. Just something that everyone would buy because it made them happy. Like how those rock pets that grew grass hair were so popular, or how that guy who made the mold for the bill of a baseball cap made millions of dollars. But I guess I'd also like it to be pretty, so maybe some kind of doll line, with its own dollhouses? I'm not really sure.”
“There are a lot of opportunities to have fun with that idea,” Jake said. “You could start a whole new thing, where the dolls actual do stuff in the house. Like a video game, but with dolls. I guess that's pretty vague, but you get the idea.”
I did get the idea, and I also got that Martha had been right about me liking Jake as well.
They were obviously into each other and flopped down on the couch, all sprawled out so they touched, and turned on the television. There was a sitcom on with a hot couple making out.
“What do you ladies think about sex on television?” Jake asked. “Do you think that it's fairly depicted, or do you think that it's horseshit?”
I took a seat across from them, drink in hand.
“I guess I don't have a problem with it,” I said. “I just don't like when people forget that television is one thing, and real life is another. Way too many people actuall
y believe that an orgasm just happens in a few seconds of intercourse. It's so many men! I mean, how can so many people be completely wrong about something as natural as sexual intercourse?”
Both Martha and Jake laughed at this.
“But can't sex just be sex,” Jake said. “I may not want to marry everyone I sleep with.”
“I'm not suggesting that sex can't be sex,” I said. “I'm just saying how sex actually needs to be depicted, or people need to realize that not everything they see on the television is real. It's not really a hard concept to know that there are fake sex scenes, and there are very few real sex scenes.”
“I can't even think of a real sex scene,” Martha said. “I know that there are a few movies that have them, though.”
“Oh, for sure,” Jake said. “There are a couple where the director will say something like, 'They were wearing prosthetics,' but I think everyone realizes that's just a cop-out so that the movie doesn't get a rated X rating or anything like that.”
Martha seemed to think this over as the sun sat outside the living room window. Once again it was totally beautiful, and the leaves swirled around outside on the street as if they had a mind of their own. There was something serene about what was happening, something great. Nature, just outside the window, changing right in front of us. And in the room nature was present as well, a longing felt between us. There was something in the air, the same magic that was swirling around outside, that made me want to keep everyone close, to never let anyone go. For a few long seconds I actually wished there would never be another moment except for this one, with the sun shining through my window and lighting up my living room, but then the moment passed.
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