by D. L. King
“Mmm.” Raf tried it, even more dramatic in her licking and sucking. “Not bad, but not the very best sauce I’ve ever tasted.”
A sound at my shoulder like stifled laughter erupted into a snort. Audrey, bringing the scallops ceviche in their little avocado boat. I pretended not to have heard. As soon as she left Raf raised a questioning eyebrow and jerked her head in the direction of Audrey’s sashaying butt.
I shook my head. “Audrey’s a good kid in her way, but a one-trick pony, and that trick is getting her posterior paddled by any means necessary. Once in a while I’ll indulge her, but I make her earn it. Last time you were here that’s how I bribed her to let me wait on your table. There’s nothing more between us.”
We finished off the last two oysters sedately, though we were close to laughter, before turning to the contrast of tender scallops tangy with lime and jalapeño and the buttery luxury of perfectly ripened avocado. I could almost forget the memory of young Juliana sampling the same dish with a high degree of suspicion.
Raf must have thought of Juliana, too, or maybe she read my mind. “Funny how much better food tastes when you’re with someone who really knows how to enjoy it.”
I still wouldn’t ask about the girl. “Maybe we should have ordered lobster, too, for the full Tom Jones effect.”
“That’s exactly it! When I said something along those lines to Juliana, she had no idea what I was talking about. Never heard of Tom Jones the movie, much less the book, or even the singer who lifted the name.”
“Ah, youth,” I said. “Just the same, she’s certainly a tasty bit of arm candy for a stroll around Provincetown.”
“She was, wasn’t she?”
Past tense. So my first unasked question was answered.
And then the second. “We outgrew each other. At least I outgrew her, and she transferred to a West Coast college.” She shrugged. “It was about time.”
The intensity in her hazel eyes as she watched for my reaction was my cue to ask what it was time for now. A second frantic, earthshaking fuck with me, and then on to the next sweet young morsel who wanted to act out fantasies of submission with the biggest, baddest gray-fox butch around? The fuck I would make sure of. The rest I’d just as soon skip.
The entrees arrived just in time to save me from having to respond. “It’s not too late to add some lobster,” I said.
Raf grinned but shook her head. “Better not bite off more than we can chew.” She plucked a mussel from the cioppino tureen, yanked open its shell with her fingers and ran her tongue around the interior. I joined in the game with a quick twist to tear duck leg from duck thigh, brandishing the drumstick at her before sinking my teeth into the meatiest part. Purple plum sauce ran down my chin and hand.
“How about a baby calamari?” She held one out on her fork and made the tentacles seem to dance in the air. I almost wished Juliana had been there after all so I could watch her reaction.
“Aw, how cute.” I held out the duck leg with the bite I’d taken out of it uppermost. “Slip it right into there.” The tiny cephalopod made it from fork to drumstick to my mouth. It went as well with my plum sauce and pecan pilaf side dish as it would have with the cioppino broth.
Even in the alcove we weren’t all that secluded. Several nearby observers were taking an interest in our antics, so we toned it down a bit and concentrated more seriously on our food.
All this time I’d stayed aware of what went on in the dining room and in the bar beyond. Customers waiting for tables were bunching up in the bar, so I licked sauce off my fingers, left purple streaks across the white linen napkin, and went to straighten things out. An annex usually reserved for small private parties was opened up, tables were set, and the standby waitress helping out at the bar was assigned to cover them. I went back to Raf.
“Doesn’t look like you’ll be getting off early tonight,” she observed, and took a sip of wine.
“Not unless I want to settle for a quickie in the ladies’ room, which I don’t. The pink and powder-blue décor does nothing for me.”
Raf nearly choked on the wine. I thought for a few seconds that I might need to demonstrate my Heimlich maneuver skills.
The prospect of squeezing my arms around her from behind had a certain carnal attraction, but she recovered soon enough and mopped her face with her napkin, only slightly spotted with tomato sauce from the cioppino.
“Well then,” she said after drawing a few deep breaths, “when do you expect to get out of work? In time for a jaunt into P-town? Or a walk on some beach?”
I opened my eyes wide in mock astonishment. “You mean, like, a real date?”
Raf didn’t miss a beat. “Nothing wrong with a change of pace now and then.”
“You have a point there. I moved to Wellfleet to leave behind the distractions of P-town-and-Gomorrah and focus on my art, but it might be fun to stroll along Commercial Street with the brand of arm candy that gives all the baby-femmes wet dreams.”
“I’m sure you inspire plenty of wet dreams yourself.” The look in her eyes would have made her meaning clear even if she hadn’t laid her big hand over mine on the table.
“There’s a market among the young set for weathered androgyny like mine, too,” I conceded, staying deliberately casual but not withdrawing my hand. “Especially if I make an effort to look extra mean and tough. But it was getting to be more trouble than it was worth.”
“I know just what you mean.” She drew her hand back and finished off her wine. “So how about we try the old-fashioned way and get to know each other. You close here when? Ten o’clock?”
“Nine. Wellfleet doesn’t keep Provincetown hours. Where should I pick you up? If we meet at my studio we might not get any farther after all.”
She told me where she was staying, we finished off what food we felt like bothering with and I got back to managing the increasingly busy restaurant. Just before nine I slipped into the kitchen and wheedled the cook into letting me take two special desserts in their white pottery ramekins and a container of ice to keep them chilled. The bartender, who owed me several favors, agreed to handle closing up.
On the long stretch from Wellfleet through Truro to Provinc-etown Raf and I chatted like blind dates feeling each other out, while repressing the urge to feel each other up.
“What made you decide to be a sculptor? Especially with stone?”
“Oh, I started out with clay pots, mugs, that sort of thing. Pretty commercial in tourist season. But stone…maybe it’s the challenge. To feel the shape a piece could have, then cut and chisel and grind and polish until by my own strength and sweat and profanity I get the right balance between what I want and what the stone can take. When it really works out, there’s a rush like nothing else.”
Raf started to speak, paused, then came out with it. “Sounds like the mother of all power trips.”
“Oh, yeah.” I wasn’t offended. “And the best thing about stone is that it’s solid. Cut or bore or chisel into it, and it’s stone all the way down. You need to recognize the grain, and sometimes striations, but there’s no soft core with chaotic feelings or longings or resentments.” Maybe I was revealing too much. Maybe I wanted to.
“Looks like you almost always choose to sculpt naked women. Or just parts of them.” Raf wasn’t pulling any punches either.
“Is there any sculptor who doesn’t? And they sell.”
“Yours are something special. And you don’t always sell them. Do you…well, do you use many models?”
“Can’t usually afford models. But I have an excellent memory.” Enough of that. “So how about you? What do you do besides instruct young beauties in the finer points of sex and submission?”
Raf hesitated. “You know what? Let’s skip the P-town scene and go walk and talk on a beach.”
So we didn’t make it to the bars and crowds after all. From Pilgrim Heights where Route 6 starts downhill, the bright lights along the hook-shaped shore of Provincetown made a pattern so lovely it was bette
r not to spoil it by getting too close. Instead, we veered off toward Race Point where we walked barefoot on the sand by moonlight, watching waves roll slowly in under starry skies. As clichéd as it gets and too windy for much conversation, but exhilarating. It was good to be sharing something exhilarating besides sex.
Eventually we found a sheltered spot in the dunes. We could still hear the waves, and the stars looked even brighter as the moon sank lower.
Raf settled her butt into the sand and began to talk. “I work as a supervisor for the Post Office, currently in central Vermont. Nice country, but kind of isolated in many ways.” She paused.
“I know the quarries up around there,” I said, to fill the silence. “Some of the best marble in the world. I can’t afford the perfect stuff, but I go there to look for broken slabs or pieces with faults. I like the challenge of making the imperfect stones into something special.”
“Hey, that’s great! Call me next time you’re heading that way. Stay with me… I mean.I don’t want to lose you this time.”
It was too dark to be sure, but I had the impression that she was blushing. Then she went on. “There are quite a few married dykes in Vermont trying to make it in farming or arts and crafts, but… At least Boston is within reach. My ex and I broke up when we both felt like we’d become different people.”
I put a not-quite-comradely arm around her solid back. “Yeah, I know how those things go.”
Raf followed my comradely arm routine. We wriggled even closer to each other. “There’s a club in Boston, women-only BDSM.”
“Yeah, I’ve heard of it.” I mentioned the name. “I know a couple of the founders, but they drifted away when the members got too involved in wrangling about bylaws and business meetings and so forth. “
“Well, that’s where I found out that old-school butches of a certain age were back in style. Or maybe they never went out of style in the city. Whatever, the youngsters were lining up for some good old-fashioned domination, and giving them what they wanted came naturally to me. It was…great, for quite a while. Intoxicating.”
“Was?” No guarantee needed. I just wondered.
“Maybe. I don’t know. It gets to be so much work, fulfilling their fantasies, being who they want me to be, not getting.not getting what you and I had last year. I couldn’t get you out of my mind.”
“My mind isn’t the only place that remembers you.” I slid my hand along her thigh. Cocksure or, as now, on the verge of vulnerable, Raf still had that aura, that presence, whatever it was that grabbed me hard and made my depths clench. She turned, enveloped me in those strong arms…and an arc of headlights swept across the top of the dune and skimmed her gray hair. New arrivals, and from the sounds they weren’t here just to stay in their car and make out.
I sighed, then sighed again more deeply, enjoying the way the motion rubbed my breasts against her chest.
“Maybe we’re too mature to roll around in the sand here, anyway,” she said.
“I guess. Just like we’re mature enough to get the most out of playing with our food.” I tried to get disentangled. “Come on back to the car. I brought dessert.”
Raf’s hand cupped my ass to help me up. “But I thought you were going to be my dessert!”
“That’ll be second dessert. And again for first breakfast. This is different.”
The newcomers were busy building a driftwood fire on the beach. I moved my car to the far end of the parking lot. In the glow of the overhead light I leaned over into the back to get my treasures out of their chilly container. Raf took the opportunity to knead my upturned butt and tease between my thighs, but with a steel-willed effort I got the ramekins safely onto a towel folded on the front seat.
“Crème brûlée!” I said triumphantly. “Have you ever had it?”
“Just seen it on restaurant menus a time or two. What’s it mean? Bruised cream?”
“Intriguingly kinky, but no. More like broiled cream. The top is covered with raw sugar, melted under a broiler or a propane torch, and then it hardens like glass.” I dug some plastic spoons out of the side pocket on the door where I shove them when I get drive-through coffee.
“Dig in.” I knew what would happen. Raf’s spoon splintered on the golden surface.
“You’re the stonecutter in this crew. You do it.”
I took out my pocketknife, covered it in plastic wrap that had protected the desserts, and brought it down hard on one sugar-glazed portion. Cracks rayed out, revealing glimpses of the inner custard. “That’s yours. Now you break my shell.”
She did it with one hand, while the other pulled my head close for a long, sensuous kiss. Finally she leaned back. “So, did I break through?”
“Oh yeah.” I couldn’t remember whether we’d done anything as slow and sweet as kissing last year. I was breathless. “No shell left at all.”
“Looks like some crunchy bits left.” She scooped up some of the rich creamy custard along with fragments of sugar glaze. “Mmm. Now I know what you see in this. Such rich, smooth cream inside that stony exterior.” She took another bite, then offered me one. We alternated with the spoon, feeding each other, until the last bites were accidentally-on-purpose smeared across our lips. The licking and kissing that followed got us too revved up to drive all the way back to Wellfleet without relief, so I pulled off at the Pilgrim Springs Trail parking lot, mercifully unoccupied.
I won the race to get each other’s clothes off. My wiry build let me twist and wriggle, so I had her chest binding loosened and my hands full of breasts rejoicing in their freedom before she got under my sports bra. She chewed her way down my neck and shoulder and made me arch backward when her mouth got to my nipples, even as I was working my hand under her loosened belt and into the warm, pungent mysteries below.
The car was too cramped for all we needed, but the National Seashore provides sturdy picnic tables. I feasted first, kneeling on pine needles while Raf leaned back against the table. I got her slacks down far enough to access the coppery bush I remembered, although there was no telling in the dark whether it was still untouched by gray. All that mattered was her creamy tang, the tension of her straining clit when my tongue lashed at it, the clenching of her muscles around my fingers deep inside her and the full-throated cry that came when her spasms of release shook the wooden boards so hard they creaked.
Then it was my turn to press my naked ass against the hard-edged table while Raf’s strong hands pinched and kneaded and made all my tenderest parts quiver with pleasure close to pain. At last I moaned, “Inside! Deep!” and when she obliged, my hips tilted to meet the pressure, demanded more, and I rode her hand until stars exploded out of my center to hang in the night sky above me, brighter than all the galaxies in the distant Milky Way.
For all that, we were more than ready to start over when we made it back to Wellfleet. “I don’t actually live at my studio,” I told Raf. “I have a perfectly good bedroom in a little saltbox house down the road.” But she voted for the studio again, out of nostalgia, so we rolled out my old futon and went at it as though our two bodies would consume each other, driven by a common weight of years, of life, of howling pleasure into the teeth of mortality.
This time she didn’t have to leave at sunrise. “This is what, fourth dessert? Or first breakfast?”
I stretched a bit stiffly and rubbed against her. She seemed to have acquired a scratch mark or two on her flanks where I sleepily recalled gripping her hard in extremity. “I’m not sure, but it won’t be long before ‘bruised cream’ is the right term after all. And that’s just fine with me.” Things had never been finer, in fact. I felt another sculpture coming on, in creamy marble this time. And maybe a few small faults along its sides for added interest.
BUSH GARDEN
J. Belle Lamb
With thanks to Ginuwine’s “Pony”
Susie’s not tending bar tonight. It’s got you on edge as you order drinks from the cocktail server, whose smile is pleasant enough. Still, she’s not Susie,
and the sense of something different, the nagging edge of something out of place, a pulled thread or an eyeliner smudge, is distracting. You’ve been coming to Bush Garden for years precisely because it doesn’t change. The pistachio-green sinks in the restrooms: still the same as when they were installed in the ’70s. The drinks: still awful if you don’t order call liquor. The curved vinyl banquettes and brass-edged rolling chairs: still too dirty if you look closely, and still as full of laughing patrons as every other time you’ve been here. The songs: still karaoke classics crooned by regulars who have been coming here for thirty years, and still a handful of adventurers from the city’s hipper districts dropping a little Lady Gaga and the occasional Usher track into the mix.
Susie is usually part of the Bush Garden magic: crow’s feet at the edges of heavily mascaraed eyes that crinkle as she smiles while she shakes drinks in both hands at once. She remembers the name on every tab, and she’s good enough to start mixing another round of drinks after catching your eye across the crowded bar. You sip your drink, a perfectly adequate vodka martini, and don’t let yourself sigh.
After all, it’s a good night. You’re out with your girls: Tracy’s sitting next to you, arm almost possessive as it lazes across the back of the banquette. She’s been laughing and playing along as you’ve flirted with Jean-Marie. You stretch in your seat, feeling eyes slip over you from around the room. It’s a pretty threesome you make, all piled together in the curved booth, wiggling against each other and trading seats as you tease back and forth, your icy-blonde curls and gray eyes a contrast to Jean-Marie’s smooth, dark skin and Tracy’s buttoned plaid and not-quite-buzz cut. You don’t mind the eyes on you as you flick your own around the room, watching drinks slosh as other tables flip through the karaoke song list binders.
“Yo, Tray. You think this crowd would appreciate some T.I.?” Jean-Marie leans across you to talk to Tracy, breasts in scoop-neck T-shirt grazing yours as she stretches so that she can hear Tracy’s response. You let your hand drift to rest on her thigh, tight denim warm under your hand. She and Tracy have been debating song choices for the past half hour, covering the table with a snowdrift of filled-out song slips. You filled yours out and handed it to the K-jay not long after you arrived. It’s your usual song, a Dusty Springfield classic. The cold vodka briefly numbs your lips. You intend to keep drinking until you have to sing, and then keep the bright booze going until you can mostly forget that you sang. Susie understands. If she were here, she’d have a fresh martini waiting for you after the song.