by A. E. Radley
“Sure, as long as you bring enough for Aimee and George who’re staying with me. And possibly for Laura too as she’s taken time off.”
“Really? That’s smashing. Looks like your Christmas worked out nicely then?”
Kit thought of the lonely, uncertain Christmas she had expected and then overlaid the image of Aimee, George, Rajesh, Laura and her, with all the food, gorgeous decorations, and no doubt wonderful presents that were to come.
“Yeah. Not to be corny, but I kinda got my own little Christmas miracle.”
“Glad to hear it, mate. You deserve it.” There was a whisper on the line before Shannon came back. “I have to go. Rachel says that her dad is hitting on my nan. We’ve got to intervene. Have a great Christmas day and I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“See you then,” Kit agreed. “Good luck with the intervening. Give my love to Rachel and Merry Christmas to all of you.”
“Same to you, Kit. Bye.”
Kit hung up and stuck her phone back into the pocket.
Clacking steps on the hallway’s stone floor behind Kit scared her half to death.
“Bloody hell, Laura,” she exclaimed “Warn a person that you’re there.”
Laura invaded her personal space with an apologetic grimace. “Sorry. Warning – I’m here. Second warning – I overheard parts of that conversation and am now thoroughly confused. What is a Binky and how can it be both a sex toy and a dog toy?”
Kit ran her hand over her face, trying to brush the embarrassment off it.
“Pinky, not Binky,” Kit started her explanation of the sad tale of Pinky.
When she had finished, Laura crossed her arms over her chest with a smirk. “A vibrating strap-on, huh? I’ve never had much interest in strap-ons. After all, I dated men before you and they didn’t have much need for them.” Her face fell. “Unless they wanted me to use one on them? Oh. Maybe I should have asked? Do you think Dylan would have been happier in our relationship if I… what’s the word…”
Kit ran her hand over her face again, harder this time. “Pegged him. And no, I don’t. I also don’t want to think about your ex.”
“Oh don’t worry. He and my aunt are still happily playing house in the south of France. He won’t bother us.”
“I know, baby. I’ve read all the postcards with you, remember? Now, would you mind carrying on with what you were saying?”
“Pardon? Oh. Right, I’m babbling again, aren’t I?”
Kit leaned in and kissed her forehead. “Yes. And while it’s as adorable as always, did you have a point to make about strap-ons?”
“I did! I was saying that I never much cared for them. Although now that I know they can vibrate. Well… you know how I feel about things that vibrate.”
Kit grinned as she recalled Laura’s shocked face when she’d shown her the toy box hidden under her bed. She also recalled that after trying them out, it was obvious that Laura’s favourites were the ones that vibrated. All of the ones that vibrated.
Suddenly it felt like years ago they had that quickie upstairs.
Laura made a pitying sound, clearly not reading Kit’s expression as one of lust and need. “This isn’t the time for sex talk, is it?” She asked. “Your beautiful cheeks have gone from their normal pink to bright Christmas red.”
Laura combed her fingers through Kit’s hair, sighed and whispered, “I love your hair. It’s getting long in the back, though. We need to get you a hair appointment. Unless you’re growing it out?”
Kit leaned into the touch. “Nope. Unless you’d like me to?”
Laura kept running her fingers gently through the strands. “Your hair would be perfect anyway you wanted to wear it. Although, I have to say, I like it short. Like it was when you first moved to the island.”
“I’ll go get it cut. After we get to enjoy all that alone-time you promised,” Kit said before stealing a quick kiss.
“Count on it. For the rest of this holiday season, I’m not letting you further than a hair’s breadth from me,” Laura said, playfully tugging on a few tresses.
“Oi! Lovebirds! Are you coming back in here or have you eloped?” Aimee called from the drawing room.
“We better join them,” Kit whispered, nuzzling her nose against Laura’s.
They strolled in, hand in hand. Aimee was nodding her head in time to It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas while inspecting the contents of a chocolate box. Rajesh and George were fussing with Phyllis.
“I have to keep her away from the tree,” Rajesh explained. “She either wants to play with it or pee on it. Or possibly eat it.” He spotted their intertwined hands. “Should we leave you two alone? I know you’ve been struggling to get time together lately.”
“It’s fine,” Laura assured him. “After this holiday there’ll be no more Christmas market and no new mulled wine to promote. Plus, I’ll try to delegate more of the paperwork and the constant emergencies to my employees. Meaning Kit and I can have some quality time together.”
“Nice. Going on holiday?” Aimee mumbled through a mouth full of Godiva chocolates.
Laura turned to Kit with eyebrows raised in question.
Kit shook her head. “Nah, I think we’ll stay here. Or at the cottage if Tom comes back to haunt this place. Let’s not waste time travelling. I simply want two full weeks of kissing.”
“Makes sense,” Aimee said before swallowing her chocolate and adding, “you know, if you don’t want a repeat of this year’s separation next Christmas, why don’t you join the events committee too?”
“Excellent idea,” Rajesh said with a cheeky grin.
Laura almost hid her snigger as she said, “Yes, then you can help with the inevitable Christmas market next year.”
Kit put her hands on her hips and looked at the teasing faces of her makeshift little family. “If you muppets think I’m going to join the events committee which invented ‘kitten races’, you’re all bonkers.”
Rajesh picked up a glass of Gage Farm mulled wine and held it up in a toast. “Here’s to ‘bonkers’. I’ll take it over Christmas spirit or holiday cheer any day.”
They all found their glasses and toasted to that.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed this story and want to read about when Kit moved to Greengage and met Laura (and understand more about this quirky island and its weird history) please pick up a copy of: Greengage Plots.
ABOUT EMMA STERNER-RADLEY
Having spent far too much time hopping from subject to subject at university, back in her native country of Sweden, Emma finally emerged with a degree in Library and Information Science.
She now lives with her wife and two cats in England. There is no point in saying which city, as they move about once a year. She spends her free time writing, reading, daydreaming, working out, and watching whichever television show has the most lesbian subtext at the time.
Her tastes in most things usually lean towards the quirky and she loves genres like urban fantasy, magic realism, and steampunk.
Emma is also a hopeless sap for any small chubby creature with tiny legs, and can often be found making heart-eyes at things like guinea pigs, wombats, marmots, and human toddlers.
Connect with Emma
www.emmasternerradley.com
THE GIFT BY EM STEVENS
CHAPTER 1
The window Dana stood next to rattled with the bass. She was sure that blue flashing lights would turn onto the street at any moment, cops lazily driving in to shut down the last house party before the holiday. Then again, perhaps because it was the final throw-down, they'd be spared the disruption. Dana wasn't sure whether that disappointed her or not. She was ready to go home but afraid of appearing lame.
She sipped the beer from the red plastic cup she'd been carrying all night and grimaced. It was warm and smelled like piss. Looking over her shoulder, she saw that others, the ones who hadn't been nursing their drinks, were swarming on the dance floor. The air was hot and stick
y. Dana watched some strangers grind and writhe together on a makeshift dance floor. The music, loud enough she couldn't discern exactly which electro-hit it was, thumped endlessly, at odds with the cheerful Christmas lights strung up, the holly and ornaments hanging slipshod around the home's downstairs, and the giant poster board cut out of Santa Claus inviting good boys and girls to sit on his lap. Gross.
If she wanted to throw her cup in the trash can, she'd have to wade through the dancers. Dana opted to weave her way along the wall until she found the front door. As soon as she was outside, she could breathe. It was cold, the mountain air cutting through her hoodie and freezing her sweaty bangs, and it felt good. Crisp in a way she needed. Her first semester was over. After the party she'd return to her dorm room, sleep, wake up, pack her car, and begin the five and a half hour drive home. She could've left today, but Anna had insisted they make this party. Anna, her roommate for the year and her friend sometimes.
They were both freshmen, mostly nice and considerate of each other, and dealing with being away from home in radically different ways. Dana did it by trying hard not to sequester herself in her room too often, lost in video games. She wanted to avoid the crushing loneliness and panic that seemed to accompany her in class and her day-to-day campus meanderings. Anna smoked pot with such enthusiasm that Dana was sure their dorm room would permanently reek long after they'd moved out. Anna also went to every single frat party, and Dana accompanied her so she could make sure Anna didn't end her night black out drunk in some guy's room.
She shivered as she dumped the beer into the poorly-maintained bushes beside the frat house. Her university was in the middle of the Appalachian Mountains. Six thousand students and faculty with nothing but smoky mountains and winding roads around for an hour in all directions. When she'd applied, she'd fallen in love with the distance from her parent's home and the idea of all the wilderness adventures she could have. What she'd discovered since moving in was a town where women couldn't have sorority houses and were forced to live on campus and Greek life was the only thing people were interested in.
The deep blue beauty of the mountains, the cutting air that smelled like pine, and all everyone ever did was move from frat house to frat house each night and get bombed. Dana needed a coat or a fresh drink to get warm, but she wasn't inclined to go back inside. Tucking her hands into her armpits, she set out across the lawn. The one bonus to this last-minute party before the holiday was it was so cold outside there weren't many stragglers for her to dodge. Other than small groups of smokers huddled together, the amber flash of their cigarette butts and low murmured voices the only signs they were there, she was solo.
Cars were parked haphazardly and she knew she should find Anna, just to check on her, but she didn't. The sounds of the party, which had seemed so exciting and vibrant when she'd first arrived, just made her more lonely and sad now. Dana missed home, but she didn't know how to say it. Even if she did, she wouldn't have admitted it, not after making such a stink about being on her own.
"Hey," a voice called out. Dana kept walking until a hand gripped her shoulder. She whirled around. A girl was there, taller than Dana. Older, too, judging by the confident set of her shoulders and fashionable pea coat. The girl was pretty, Dana thought. At least what she could see in the low light of the moon. "I need to pee and there's no way I'm going back in there. Mind coming with me?"
Dana frowned. "I'm sorry?"
"I'm going to go piss in the woods, and I'd like someone with me. So I'm not alone. In the woods. Next to a building filled with very intoxicated men."
The girl didn't wait for an answer. She grabbed Dana's elbow and hooked her arm through, like they were strolling at the mall instead of stumbling across gravel in the dark. Any protest Dana might've had died immediately. She still remembered the freshman seminar about sexual assault. She'd been thankful her mom hadn't seen that particular statistic, or five and a half hours away may have seemed too far. If the girl needed company, Dana would go.
The woods closed in quickly at the edge of the property. Huge old elms were crowded out by tall, rough pines. As they stepped through, tangles of roots snagged at their sneakers and the dead detritus of winter leaves announced their path as they went. "The key," the girl was saying, "Is to find a smaller tree on a hill."
"What?"
"To pee without splashing your jeans. Find a thinner tree on a hill. Like, say, this one." The girl released Dana's arm and pointed to a slim trunk gleaming silver in the light. A birch, looking lonely and proud. It leaned ever so slightly, the soil giving under half its roots, erosion tipping the ground sharply. The girl stood on the hill, wobbling as she hauled down her jeans. In the moonlight the skin of her bottom and exposed thighs gleamed as pale and ethereal as the tree. She grabbed onto the trunk and squatted, able to hover at a far angle by leveraging her weight against the tree. Dana looked away, feeling heat in her cheeks. She could hear the hiss and sprinkle on the leaves behind her. She waited until the girl had pulled her pants up, counting on the whisper of fabric on flesh and the loud tread of her steps before turning back around.
"Thanks," the girl said, her face relaxed with relief. "I've had to pee for over an hour and lost my partner in crime."
"You couldn't ask someone else?"
"I waited until I saw someone trustworthy."
Dana felt her brows press together. "For over an hour?"
The girl winked. "Have you seen the people who come to these parties?"
The moon was full and bright. Up on the mountain, it felt like it pressed down on them. Dana liked it, feeling smothered beneath a sky of moon and stars.
She and Lauren were sitting in the back of Lauren's pickup. Lauren, as “pee girl” had introduced herself, kept a quilt in the cab of the Ranger and had laid it out in the bed. They started on top of it, using it to soften the hard nubs of the metal, but now they were tucked under it. The sides of the bed kept the wind at bay, but at four a.m. in December in the mountains, cold was cold and they needed the layers.
"So you're graduating in the spring?" Dana asked. Anna had shoved her out of the party, insisting on sleeping with some guy she'd just met. He’d give her a ride from his apartment the next morning. She knew what she was doing. Or at least, so she’d claimed, forcefully enough that Dana went just to avoid making a scene. It made Dana uncomfortable, but she couldn't pinpoint which part of it. The boy seemed nice enough and for once Anna wasn't blitzed. Her eyes had shone red and glassy with pot, but her speech wasn't slurred and she was able to come up with a safe plan should she need it. They weren't even really friends, just friendly. Dana should have been happy. A dorm room to herself and a roommate somewhat safe and hooking up before flying home to New Jersey. But it prickled at her, and Lauren, after peeing in the woods and making sure Anna was fine, had mentioned Dana's discomfort and offered to hang out.
She could have gone back to the dorm, maybe logged into a video game or read a book. Instead, she'd exchanged Lauren for Anna and found herself under a musty quilt and beneath a clear night sky, parked somewhere along the Blue Ridge Parkway.
Lauren stretched. Her arms brushed up against Dana's as she did and Dana shivered from the warm contact. Lauren arched an eyebrow and dropped her outstretched arm over Dana's shoulder. "Cold?"
"It's like...twenty three degrees outside." Dana looked at her feet but didn't shrug off the arm. It was warm, but it was the heat building in the pit of her stomach that was keeping her from shivering. "Of course I'm cold."
Lauren didn't comment. She didn't have to. Her face said it all, delicate features screwed up in an attempt not to laugh. Dana stuck her tongue out.
"I'm graduating in the spring. Five years here is five too many." Lauren looked away but didn't move her arm. Dana was absorbed in the heat that was building between the two of them. She felt fluttery inside, suddenly nervous despite the long night of good conversation. "In five years all I've done is drink and sometimes study and go to these awful frat parties. I don't even l
ike frat guys."
"They haven't been winning me over, either. It's my first semester and I'm already--" Dana stopped, unsure of what to say. If she admitted how much she hated it there, it felt a bit like failure. She'd campaigned so hard to go that she felt like she had to stay, if only to prove herself.
"Just a freshman? You seem older."
So far that night they'd talked about the mountains, the stars, childhood memories, trucks, and dreams. They'd skipped over the standard stuff; age, major, and most active in Dana's mind...dating. "Thanks, I guess."
"I've just seen you at a few of these parties. You never seem like you're having any fun. Yet you keep coming to them."
"Oh. Well, my roommate drags me out. She says it isn't good for me to hide away playing video games because I only get to be in college once. Judging by how much pot she smokes, I'm not sure that's true--she's going to be in college forever. Probably. Also, I feel obligated to keep an eye out for her. She's very much a leap first, deal with the fall after kind of person."
"And you're not?"
"Definitely not. I'm raid leader in my guild because I'm a planner. I like to look, evaluate, think about things, decide what's best, and then commit."
"I don't have a clue about raids or guilds, but I can sense the planner part of you. But...you never do anything on instinct?"
Dana shifted. She didn't know where the conversation was headed. "No."
"Do you regret the decisions you make? Since you put so much thought into them?"
Now Dana sighed, her breath fogging in front of her. "Yes. I regret choosing this college. I wanted to get away from my family. Prove myself, you know? But it isn't what I expected."
Lauren chuckled. Dana felt the tremors of it and snuggled deeper into the blanket--and Lauren's arm. "What did you expect?"
"I thought..." Dana took a deep breath. "Look, I've never done this before. Stayed out all night with a stranger. So I guess I'm learning to be impulsive. Which is something I'd hoped to find easier in college. Less...I don't know...restrained? But all I see is Anna, who is the most impulsive person I've ever met, doing all the things I thought I'd enjoy doing. Getting high, going out, kissing boys, and instead of being jealous, I'm just grossed out. Does that make me lame? Immature?"