by Heidi Lowe
“Not long,” one timid woman said.
“This stuff seems to take longer every time I do it,” she grumbled.
“That's not surprising. You don't look nearly as young as you act.” I knew instinctively that I'd gone too far with that final line. It was as though I felt the whole room tremble in fear, fear for me.
Autumn shot up from her seat, the makeup and hair people scattering. “All right, that's it, everyone out!”
I gulped. One snide remark too damn far. I should have quit while I was ahead. This would not end well.
“I said get out!” Her face was bright red. The room scurried to leave, her manager one of the first to the door. I followed after him. “Not you. You stay right where you are.” Even with my back to her I knew she was addressing me. That voice was familiar. It shouldn't have been as sexy as it was; formidable, certainly. The shiver that ran along my spine was one of terror and anticipation.
The final person slammed the door shut behind them, trapping me in the room with this predatory beast who was out for blood. Beautified but still completely terrifying.
She narrowed her eyes at me and didn't speak for some time. My throat felt dry like sand. She stepped toward me, slowly, reached for the lock on the door and twisted it shut, her arm brushing my breast ever so slightly. I'd done exactly as she'd commanded and stayed put, even now that she was so close.
“I'm getting a little sick of these backhanded comments you keep mumbling under your breath, loud enough for everyone to hear.” Looking at her, her words didn't match her expression and that hint of a smirk at the corners of her mouth. Nor were her eyes filled with the animosity I was expecting after insulting her. They shone with intrigue.
“I don't know what you're talking about.”
“Sure you do. You've had this bad attitude for weeks. I should have sent your little butt packing, fired you the first time you were insubordinate. But then I thought, there are probably better things I could do to you that we'd both enjoy a lot more...”
As I backed away from her, she drifted toward me with that ravenous look in her eyes, and I knew that I was done for. She was going to have me again, no matter my thoughts on the matter. I wanted to put up resistance, to at least pretend this wasn't what my body had been crying out for ever since her first fondle in the garage. I didn't want her to know that I found her irresistible, just like all the rest of her lovers. But with the door locked, and it just being the two of us, my crippling desire had the final say, silencing my need to hold onto my dignity. My dignity could go to hell! The memory of her fingers strumming, pounding, of her tongue roving across the rivers and valleys of my sex, spoke louder than decency.
“So why don't you tell me what your problem is? Huh?” She had now backed me against one of the dressing tables, and there was nowhere left for me to run, and certainly nowhere to hide from the starved tigress on the prowl for fresh meat.
“I...I don't have a problem.”
“I think I know what it is. Is someone mad at me for taking something precious from them, something they'd reserved for a special person?” She ran one invasive, long finger up my thigh, over the fabric of my skirt, and I thought I would expire from that alone. God, she was good! I hated that she was this good.
“You knew I wanted it to be special, that I didn't just want to lose it to anyone. I could have done that years ago if that were the case.”
“You had a good time, didn't you?”
“That's not the point.”
She put her arms on either side of the table, locking me between them, her lips hovering only an inch from mine. “So what is the point, Elle? Huh?”
“Y–you c–can't just take things like that from p–people and pretend that nothing happened. Not after the things we did.”
“I do it all the time, sweetie, and you see me do it. You knew the deal.”
“But you said I felt perfect. You said it more than once.” My voice was whiny, childish. I felt ashamed, but more than anything aroused. I hadn't been able to erase the memory from my mind; the way she'd said it, repeated it, with such vehemence it was as though we'd been lovers for years. I'd obviously – stupidly – mistook her passion for my body and vagina for something deeper.
Her lips pressed lightly to mine, then across my face. My breaths came out staggered. “You did feel perfect. You felt wonderful. Makes me wet just thinking about it.” Her hand, which I'd all but forgotten about, now traveled up my skirt and sought out my panties. “I haven't enjoyed a woman like that in a long time.”
“What are you doing?” Why the heck was I asking? I knew, and I was desperate for it to commence. The pretense was simply my way of taking a stand.
“You want me inside you again, is that it?” She took no care in yanking my panties down and off, and chuckled when I gasped at the force. “I've awakened something in you now, and you can't get enough.”
“That's not it at all. I don't like being used, or lied to.”
“What did I lie about? Look at me.” She grabbed my jaw and twisted my head to look at her. “What did I lie about?”
“That thing you did to me, I don't know what it's called, you said you don't do that with other women.”
Her silence worried me.
“You think I go around doing that with all the women I sleep with?” I seemed to have annoyed her, but instead of drawing away from me, she spun me around so that my back was facing her. “Do you really think I get that intimate with other women?”
“Then why me?”
“Because...” I could hear the frustration in her voice. She didn't finish her sentence, didn't tell me why. She simply hoisted my skirt up, pressed my back to her chest, one arm gripping me around my waist. “I prefer you better when you don't talk.” With that, her free hand and skillful fingers sought out my bean, and she began to work me over strenuously, fervor in every stroke.
The moans that burst from my lips sounded so primal, as though they couldn't have come from a human being. Everyone in the TV studio could hear me, I just knew it, but I couldn't contain them.
She kissed the side of my face, my cheek, my earlobe, then whispered, “So much for sex taking place in the home. The rules are different when I'm fucking you, aren't they? You're the biggest hypocrite of them all, and I want everyone out there to know it.”
I didn't want to cum, but holding it back would have crippled me. When I did expire, all over her hand, she didn't let go of me, didn't remove her fingers from my crotch. Her mouth laid several little kisses on my neck and the side of my face. It was beautiful, but I doubted she wanted it to feel that way to me, not after what she'd just said.
I remained in her arms, panting, trying to catch my breath again, unsteady on my feet but supported by her. And then she let me go. I thought I would collapse to the ground. Beneath her gaze, I hastily climbed into my panties, my cheeks burning with embarrassment, my vagina still throbbing, soaking and heated up with the memory of her.
“Now do you think you'll be able to do your job without the attitude? Because, as much as I love reducing you to a crying, moaning mess, I've already broken my one-screw rule...”
Yes, she had. No woman since Nancy had ever slept with Autumn more than once. So she had broken two rules, and both with me. It would drive me insane trying to figure out what all of that meant.
She looked in the mirror and groaned. “Look what you made me do. Now my hair's a mess.”
I scowled at her behind her back, and didn't care if she saw. Her lousy hair was a mess, but my heart was in pieces.
THIRTEEN
Autumn was right about one thing: the rules were different when it came to us, together. She'd broken them and so had I. Before her, only seven months ago, I wouldn't have dreamed of having sex in my parents' house or the dressing room in a TV studio. Thinking the act disgraceful would have been more my thing.
But that was the old me, the me who had never been truly touched, never felt a woman's tongue snaking its way around my net
her regions, or experienced the delight of a woman on top of me as our sexes met for the first time. She'd opened my eyes when she opened my legs; now I could see the light.
So what was her story and excuse? It wasn't that I was a great lay, not being as inexperienced as I was. Yet we'd had, for want of a better word, “relations” more than once. If I counted the garage incident that was three times. And why had she waited eight years only to do that amazing, but oh so intense sex act with me?
This was what I was thinking when I arrived home from work one evening and found Jessica already in her nightwear. The thought had been occupying my mind for weeks, since Autumn had ravished me at the TV studio.
“Ten o'clock,” she called out without looking away from the TV screen. “That's half an hour later than yesterday.” This had become her new hobby, of shouting out the time of my arrival whenever it went over the cut off time of eight PM. “And five minutes earlier than the day before yesterday.”
“You need to get a life. And you should be ashamed that that's coming from me.”
“You might as well move in with her. I mean, you spend more time there than you do here.”
I scoffed at the idea, though it was one I'd had many times myself. “Yeah, right. Autumn would love that. I'd never get any sleep.” Unbeknown to Jessica, this statement was loaded. Would I get no sleep because she would constantly need my services, or because we would be at it like rabbits all night, every night? Maybe it would be a bit of both.
“Well it's obvious she doesn't hate you as much as she did in the beginning, if she spends this much time with you.”
“I'd like to think that way, seeing as she slept with me twice.” The casual tone was adopted purposefully; I didn't want her making a fuss about it. I should have known better, however. It was far too big a revelation to be taken lightly.
She switched off the TV, spun around to face me, the most dramatic look of astonishment on her small face. It was comical. “You did what?”
I sighed. “It's not a big deal.”
“Oh my God, this is the biggest deal ever!” She launched herself from the couch. “When did this happen? Where? Details, woman, details.” She snapped her fingers in my face. “Your first time was with Autumn Anders? I think I'm going to pass out.”
“Please don't.” I told her everything that had happened up to that point, thinking it finally time to come clean. During my five-minute tale I watched her eyes and mouth expand with every new piece of the ludicrous story. For the first time in my life I had something interesting to share with someone.
“You little hoe!” she joked, slapping me playfully on the arm. “I'm impressed. You lose your virginity to one of the most famous rock stars in the world, and my first time was with Pimply Pete behind the bike shed in high school! Well played.”
“I wasn't saving myself for her, you know. I didn't plan any of this. If I'd had any say in the matter, it would have been with someone less...well, less familiar to half of the female population. Oh, and someone who hasn't caused me nothing but anguish since we met.”
“So why did you let it happen with her? I mean, I'm assuming you had a say in it...”
I shrugged, looking sheepish. “It just, I don't know, felt right.” She studied me long and hard, eyes squinted. “What?”
“Where did it feel right? Here?” She pointed to my crotch. “Or...here?” This time she pointed to my chest, my heart.
There was no point lying about it now. I'd let Autumn in when I'd denied others before her, others who had at least bought me a drink before they tried to get into my panties. Jess knew that for me to give myself to someone they would have to be pretty darn special.
“Shit on a stick! You've fallen for Autumn Anders,” she said when I didn't respond.
“It's not that crazy... Okay, it is kind of crazy. Part of me still hopes this is a nightmare I'll wake from if someone pinches me.”
Naturally Jess, taking any opportunity to inflict pain, pinched me on the arm. I didn't wake up, but I did swear at her for hurting me.
“So what's the next move? Does she know how you feel about her?”
“No! And I'm never going to tell her. God, she'd laugh at me.”
Jess frowned. “Why would she? From what you've said, it sounds like there might be feelings there from her end.”
This had been my ultimate hope, but it seemed more like a pipe dream. Every woman who had ever exchanged a kiss with her probably wanted that to be the case, for her to be more invested. But I'd seen them, time and again, being politely asked to leave when she was done with them. Discarded like trash in the morning once they'd served their purpose. She didn't even mention them again after that.
I shook my head. “She had feelings once. Not anymore. I don't think they work.”
“You mean for her dead girlfriend? She's gone, Elle. Been gone a long time. People need to move on. You're one of the nicest, most grounded people I know. If she doesn't see how amazing you are, beyond sex, then... she's a jackass!”
I couldn't help but laugh at her passion. Every now and then she went in to defensive mode, like a mother bear, as though it was her duty to protect me from the bad in the world. I think it was the two-year age gap.
“It's lovely of you to say, but you're biased.”
“So you're just going to move on, hide your true feelings for her and continue working for her while she brings different women to the house, rubbing your nose in it? That sounds a lot like torture to me.”
“Actually, I haven't seen a woman in the house in weeks. It's weird. Usually I expect to see one doing the walk of shame down the driveway when I arrive for work, or creeping out of the shower. But nothing in, like, three weeks.”
Jess gripped me by the arms and shook me. “Um, hello, doesn't that tell you something?”
“What?”
“You are the slowest person I know. And I mean that in the nicest way possible. Didn't it ever occur to you that she doesn't want you to see her with other women anymore? That she cares what you think of her now?”
It hadn't, but now it made a certain amount of sense. Still, it was too big a leap. “For all I know Autumn could just be having a break from sex. There has to come a point when it gets boring.”
“Trust me, if it's good, it never gets boring. That's like saying donuts get boring. Or chocolate.”
“Which they do, if you have too much of them...”
“You're being obtuse. Listen to me, I know better. I think you mean a lot more to her than you think you do.”
The idea almost made me delirious. I'd been resigned to my fate of only ever experiencing unrequited love, suspecting from an early age that the kind of love I had to give would overwhelm anyone I ever fell for, and would thus push them away. The same love Autumn had also experienced, had once been capable of. But did a person exhaust their supply of it? I was certain that she would never love that way again. So whatever feelings, if any, she had for me, they would never be enough.
“Even if that were true, you only ever get one true love, don't you?”
“Who the heck told you that? This isn't a fairytale, Elle. It's real life, and people are far more complex than that. Love is far more complex than that.”
I wanted to believe her. Oh, how I wanted to.
There was a marked difference in the way she looked at me these days. I'd noticed it even before Jess's words of wisdom. I couldn't quite put my finger on what it was, but there was definitely a change. Even when she barked orders at me it wasn't the same as before. Something had changed between us, there was no doubt about that. It made me question whether there was some truth to what Jess had said.
I didn't arrive at the mansion until midday, having had to drive out of town to pick up a costume for Autumn. When I let myself in I didn't announce my arrival, just went up the stairs to find her, to hand over the stupid costume she'd sent me on a wild goose chase to find, that she would only ever wear once.
As soon as I reached the top of th
e steps, I heard voices coming from her room. As I crept closer, they became more distinct. There were two: one I recognized as Autumn's, and the other... the other sounded familiar. It took a moment to realize that it belonged to Nancy. She had a fine, high-pitched, girly laugh that was distinct – quite unusual for someone who had played bass guitar for a living. Autumn was obviously watching an old video recording of the two of them.
“What do you think, babe? People keep asking when you're going to make an honest woman of me.”
“Nothing I do could ever make an honest woman of you, Nancy!”
Nancy laughed. “Burn. You take that back, missy, or you'll be sleeping on the couch tonight.”
I heard kissing and lots more giggling as I listened by the door. And then I heard something else, something that sounded much clearer, much more real than the two cheerful women. Sniffling. Sniffling that moments later turned into crying.
“I'm gonna drop the camera! I'm gonna drop it, stop it!” Nancy's laughter filled the room, coupled with the sobbing. Such conflicting sounds.
“If I sleep on the couch, you're sleeping with me.”
More kissing, more sobbing.
“You know I'll go everywhere with you, babe.”
“And you know my life will only be complete once you become my wife.”
The kissing that followed cut out suddenly, and all that was left was the deafening sobs of a broken woman.
Then I heard, through Autumn's tears, “I'm sorry, honey. I'm sorry I let this happen. I should have been stronger.”
What did she mean by that? Stronger? For what?
My hand itched to twist the doorknob, to run to her, to throw my arms around her and tell her that I was there, that she wasn't alone anymore. But I didn't. I couldn't. In the back of my mind I knew she would hate me for it. I could hug her, but Nancy couldn't. She would hate me simply for being alive. And that crushed me. That was the driving force behind my departure from the house that day. And the silent tears I cried in her car, which I let fall over the steering wheel and the seats, were tears for my feelings of inadequacy. I could never compete with a dead woman, no matter how perfect Autumn said I felt.