“And you have a very cynical way of looking at an antique. Makes you wonder why you’re looking at it in the first place.” Wendy reached out and put her hand on the bench between them, baiting that demon thought. So close, it was so close, it was right there.
She had the audacity not to look affronted when Janet didn’t take it.
“I’m not sure,” Wendy said. “I might be totally off-base. And if I’m wrong—or even if I’m right—you don’t have to say anything. But I think you’d like to talk about her. And whatever it is, I am so fucking okay with hearing it.”
“You really can’t get enough of me tormenting you, huh?”
Wendy smiled. She kept doing that, making it harder for Janet to convince herself she didn’t want her.
Making it impossible.
Janet bowed her head. She could see Roberta without looking at her. “I kept changing. And she kept changing. And finally I wasn’t hers anymore. I guess she isn’t mine either, now. Wendy, I want you to be happy. And you think we will be, and maybe you’re right, but for how long? Ten years? Twenty? No matter how happy we were together—how happy you thought you were—you’re better off without me. It’s no way to live, being satisfied with whatever dregs of love I can offer.”
“You can love a lot more than you think. I’ve seen it.” Wendy held herself there—Janet could see the twitches in her muscles as she wanted, as she needed to be held, the same way Janet did, but she wouldn’t move. She just kept her hand laying there on the bench, an offering. “So in ten years I’ll fight for you. And in twenty years I’ll fight for you. At the end of time, I’ll fight for you. Because you don’t make me happy. You are my happiness. And I think I’m yours. Even if you aren’t, like, physically capable of laughing…”
Janet proved her wrong, in a short burst like a flock of birds taking wing. Her eyes darted to Wendy’s hand on the bench. It was still there.
Wendy bit back a smile, but Janet could see her chewing on it. “I didn’t fall in love with you because you were a hugger,” Wendy said. “I fell in love with you this way. I’m not asking you not to change. I’m saying I would like to see who you’re changing into.”
Janet couldn’t do that. She just couldn’t do it. Agree to a life with Wendy, living together, having everything that was her shared… She couldn’t give Wendy anything she wanted. She tried, she wanted to force the possibility into her brain, but she would think of Roberta and knew, knew it would end with her right back here. Watching Wendy with someone else. She couldn’t commit to that. But she could reach out and take Wendy’s hand. And hope Wendy could wait until tomorrow for more.
“Just this once, I really have to hug you,” Wendy said.
Janet shook her head. “Hurry up then, you goose.”
Wendy stood up and did. Janet buried her smile in Wendy’s throat.
Maybe it was a smile so rare that it demanded attention, because when she stopped looking down Wendy’s back, she looked out into the distance and saw Roberta, seeing her. She held her hand up in whatever greeting she could manage. Roberta waved at her. She waved good-bye.
“You know yoga doesn’t have any proven health benefits?” Wendy said in her ear. “The science just isn’t there.”
EPILOGUE
Wendy ignored the fancy fixtures of Janet’s building. The dry art pierces on the wall, the potted plants at every turn in trendy eco-friendliness, the wallpaper that was overbearing enough to insert itself into the prints they bothered to frame. It was a little tacky, actually. Thankfully, Janet’s own apartment was much more tasteful. She knocked at the door.
“Ready to go?”
“Just one moment,” Janet said through the door, then it opened and Wendy realized oh, yeah, there was a reason people cared about their appearance besides not wanting to be arrested for suspected vagrancy.
Janet wore a simple, sleek blue mini-dress that left her long legs bare to strappy high heels. There were a few modestly placed transparent panels about her waist, and the short sleeves were mesh as well, adding to the lightness of the dress—as if it were caressing her body, and particularly teasingly in a few places. Her hair was down, in a neat little part that tucked behind her ears and stopped in a bob at the nape of her neck, and she wore her contacts instead of the glasses.
It was kind of a shock. Janet looked beautiful, she always looked beautiful, but this was an entirely different kind of beautiful from Power Dyke Secret Kinky Librarian Janet Lace. It was High-Class Escort Janet Lace. Rich Widow Whose Husband Died Under Mysterious Circumstances Janet Lace. Spy Undercover At A Caviar Tasting Party Janet Lace.
Wendy decided to go with that last one if Janet asked how she looked.
“How do I look?” Janet asked.
“Like a spy undercover at a caviar-tasting party.”
Janet smiled, too pleased to admonish except for a little bit. “I don’t know where you get this stuff. But it’s very flattering.”
“You should see the first drafts,” Wendy replied. “Just be glad I’ve never compared you to a sexy Buddy Holly.”
Janet’s hand automatically went to where her glasses weren’t. “Funny. What about you? Are you changing? I don’t see a garment bag.”
“Not sure I own a garment bag. Sounds like something I’d have if I were a Hobbit. C’mon, or we’ll miss the last-week’s-episode preshow and Tina will eat all the dip.”
Janet tapped two fingers on Wendy’s shoulder as she turned to go, stopping her. “I thought we were going to a party. You go to parties dressed like Wolverine, the rugged individualist with a secret code of honor and a heart of gold?”
“Good one.”
“Thanks. I’ve been reading TV Tropes.”
Wendy picked at her T-shirt. “It’s a viewing party, Lace. Just a bunch of friends sitting around on the couch, or lying on the floor, watching Game of Thrones. There’ll be chips. There’ll be dip. No caviar.”
Janet blinked. “There’ll be people lying on the floor?”
“Yes.”
“The refreshments will be tortilla chips and salsa?”
“Maybe guacamole, I don’t know.”
Janet looked down at herself. “I’m overdressed.”
“Babe, it’s fine, it’s my sister’s place, people wear whatever.”
“Yes, and I’m not wearing ‘whatever,’ I’m wearing Alexis!”
“You name your dresses?”
“I’m changing,” Janet announced, swooping around on her heel.
With a sigh, Wendy followed her into the apartment, closing the door behind her. Janet disappeared into her changing room—she had a changing room—and began struggling out of what had no doubt also been a struggle to get into.
“I suppose it would be fun to figure out just how much time Janet takes to throw on a casual look,” Wendy mused to herself, glancing at her watch. Then: “Does she have a casual look?”
“Wendy?” Janet interrupted her thoughts with a slightly plaintive rendition of her name. Wendy looked over to the cracked-open door.
“Yeah, hon?”
“I may be stuck.”
Wendy felt the urge to be noble and also thought, not now, nobility. “Well, are you stuck or aren’t you stuck? Because if you aren’t, I don’t see how you need my help.”
Janet seethed most pleasingly. Wendy could feel it right through the door. “Just get in here.”
Wendy went into the dressing room, and any further dad jokes left her mind as she beheld Janet Lace, the subtle flaxen tan of her skin complemented by cream-colored bra and panties that encircled the most interesting areas of a particularly interesting body in patterns of lace. And there was a dress over her head.
“This is not funny,” Janet said.
Wendy glanced at a nearby table, happy to see that Janet’s version of dressing down included designer label jeans, a gray wool crewneck, and a scarf. Then she resumed glancing at Janet. What was it called when you repeatedly glanced at someone without looking away? Or blinking? And they
were sort of naked?
“Wendy—” Janet said seriously, and given everything she said was serious, this was an accomplishment. “If you are taking a picture—”
“Oh no,” Wendy interrupted, drawing close. “This is all mine.” She could see Janet’s face through the thin fabric of the dress, inverted around her neck, and just about make out her sourpuss expression. Darting forward, Wendy kissed her.
The time they’d kissed in the office had been overwhelming, intoxicating; a roller-coaster climbing up a hill and coming down it all at once. This was much more…controlled. Not all the sight of Janet, not all the taste of her, just her warmth. Her scent. Wendy felt tremors through her where there had been volcanos, and it was pleasantly teasing.
“Wendy…”
She loved that name.
Wendy got down on her knees—easy, when you were wearing jeans—and brushed her fingertips scantly over Janet’s ribs, her hips, her thighs. She didn’t think she could speak, but she still wanted to ask permission, and when Janet spread her thighs a little, canted her hips forward, it was all the answer she needed. She took hold of Janet’s panties and peeled them down her thighs, but not over her knees.
She didn’t want Janet naked, not quite, she wanted her to feel her panties down around her thighs and constantly know that they weren’t on her hips, that she was exposed, that she was seen. And Janet quivered for her—knowing it.
And there was her pussy. The soft fleece of her hair, the gentle parting of the lips—an invitation Wendy couldn’t refuse. She leaned in, already knowing she would love this part. Licking lightly at Janet’s folds, kissing along the contours of her groin, the sensitive space between her legs but outside her sex where a woman was so rarely touched. Wendy loved this almost more than the penetration, the taste—before that, the sweat.
Past teasing, going into foreplay, the little space for just the two of them where she could shower Janet with affection. Not fucking her, not quite, not yet, just pleasing her. Showing her how she was loved. And when her tongue slipped farther and farther from her control, when it started to explore the moist part in Janet’s labia, felt the beginnings of the pressure inside her… God, she tasted so good…
Janet started to shuffle, shifting her weight from foot to foot and trying to take the dress all the way off. She was either not liking how the dress trapped her arms and blinded her eyes, or was ill at ease with how much she did like it. Wendy thought it was the second one. Janet had been wet before she’d even started.
She clamped her hands on Janet’s hips, stilling her. “Don’t. Fucking. Move.”
Wendy could’ve sworn she felt Janet clench from six inches away. She went a little harder, just a little harder—long, slow kisses on her core, crushing her lips to it, letting her tongue push just a little more insistently inside. And Janet welcomed her, hot and tight and wet and ready.
Wendy brought one hand away from Janet’s hip, keeping the other on her waist as a reminder to hold still, and she took her fingers to Janet’s sex and she petted it, gently, softly, letting it learn the feel of her fingertips on every curve, every fold, every glorious inch. She only touched, she didn’t press.
She loved the part before, the luxuriating in Janet Lace, but how could she decide between that part and this? Between wanting her and having her? Both ached sumptuously—wanting her meant she didn’t have her, but having her meant an end to that delectable tension, the clarity of her lust.
No, she loved all of it, from joking with Janet at the door to this. And she loved just the feel of Janet as she pushed her fingers inside; as her tongue settled in a lazy curl on Janet’s clit, so hard, so needy; as her fingers climbed the inside of her, all tense, all taut, and found that secret little place where Janet’s pleasure lived.
“There you are,” Wendy whispered into her cunt, and felt her, and felt her, and felt her.
Whatever resolve Janet had, and it was considerable, it broke in the face of this final, undeniable summit. What had mounted inside her had grown too large to deny and she let out a cry of sheer, shocked, satisfied surprise. Janet went all liquid around Wendy, and Wendy loved it, and caught her even before her knees started to buckle.
She helped Janet out of the dress. She laid her down on the floor, to pant and open her eyes and realize where she was. And once Janet’s eyes were open, once the ecstasy had faded enough for her mind to come back, Wendy kissed her.
She loved it with the dress in the way. But she loved it a little more when it was just Janet—undeniable, indescribable, overpowering Janet.
“That’s how sweet you taste,” she said as she pulled away—and watched Janet lick her lips.
Janet took a deep breath, pleased, girlishly bright, and put her hand on Wendy’s cheek and mouthed three words quickly, quietly. Then kissed them into Wendy’s lips.
And then, in a fit of motion, Janet was back on her feet, pulling her panties up, throwing on the casual clothes she’d laid out. “Now we are going to be late.”
Wendy looked around, not quite wanting to watch Game of Thrones with her fingers smelling like—there was hand sanitizer on Janet’s vanity. Of course there was. “I don’t think so,” she replied. “I mean, not only are we both women, but we were only at third base.”
Janet tied her scarf into something intricately simple. “You’d better drive. If you make me laugh too hard, I could crash.”
Wendy scooped up Janet’s keys and handed Janet her purse. “Okay then. Tally ho.”
And just as she started for the door, she felt Janet’s hand in her hair, jerking her head back just roughly enough, sharp teeth at her ear: “Next time you pull a stunt like that, you’d better have a few hours to spare for you to finish the job. Just so you know.”
“Absolutely, Ms. Lace.”
“Good,” Janet said huskily, and released her, hand dropping down to slap Wendy’s ass. “Now, please hurry,” she concluded, all business once more. All crazy-hot business. “Punctuality is a sign of respect, you know.”
Wendy hurried before her. She didn’t know if she loved Power Dyke Secret Kinky Librarian Janet Lace more than Spy Undercover At A Caviar Tasting Party Janet Lace, or taking a little sip of a kiss from Janet versus the overpowering truth of really kissing her. But she definitely liked being topped by Janet just a little more than doing the topping.
After all, she’d already done that tonight. Wouldn’t want it to get old.
ABOUT GEORGETTE KAPLAN
It was never easy for Georgette Kaplan. She was born a poor child in Mississippi, where she still remembers sitting on the porch with her family, singing and dancing around her. After learning she was adopted, at the age of 21 she hitchhiked to St. Louis, where she worked at a gas station and in a traveling carnival. After a shooting incident at the gas station, she decided to quit and pursue her lifelong dream of a career in writing. She now lives back in Mississippi with her life partner Marie.
CONNECT WITH GEORGETTE:
Tumblr: georgettekaplan.tumblr.com
OTHER BOOKS FROM YLVA PUBLISHING
www.ylva-publishing.com
EX-WIVES OF DRACULA
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ISBN: 978-3-95533-407-9 (mobi), 978-3-95533-408-6 (epub)
Length: 122,000 words (338 pages)
What’s worse than falling in love with a straight girl? Falling in love with a straight girl who drinks blood. And not even in a goth way.
High school senior Mindy Murphy, has been questioning her small town life forever and, more recently, her sexuality. Maybe it has something to do with her new friend, Lucia West. When they were kids they used to be besties, until Lucia grew a head taller and a cup size bigger. Now she’s captain of the cheer team, winner of the Boyfriend Olympics, and voted least likely to remember Mindy at their high school reunion.
In short, possibly the worst person alive for Mindy to crush on. Especially after Lucia’s bitten by a vampire. Now the only way to keep her alive is to get her blood, and the only way to cure h
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Who knows, maybe after they get this vampire business settled, Lucia can explain to Mindy why she kissed her.
UNDER A FALLING STAR
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ISBN: 978-3-95533-239-6 (mobi), 978-3-95533-240-2 (epub)
Length: 91,000 words (369 pages)
Falling stars are supposed to be a lucky sign, but not for Austen. Her new job as a secretary in an international games company isn’t off to a good start. Her first assignment—decorating the Christmas tree in the lobby—results in a trip to the ER after Dee, the company’s second-in-command, gets hit by the star-shaped tree topper.
Dee blames her instant attraction to Austen on her head wound, not the magic of the falling star. She’s determined not to act on it, especially since Austen has no idea that Dee is practically her boss.
HEART’S SURRENDER
Emma Weimann
ISBN: 978-3-95533-184-9 (mobi), 978-3-95533-185-6 (epub)
Length: 63,000 words (305 pages)
Neither Samantha Freedman nor Gillian Jennings are looking for a relationship when they begin a no-strings-attached affair. But soon simple attraction turns into something more.
What happens when the worlds of a handywoman and a pampered housewife collide? Can nights of hot, erotic fun lead to love, or will these two very different women go their separate ways?
THE CLUB
A.L. Brooks
ISBN: 978-3-95533-655-4 (mobi), 978-3-95533-656-1 (epub)
Length: 72,200 words (227 pages)
Welcome to The Club—leave your inhibitions and your everyday cares at the door, and indulge yourself in an evening of anonymous, no-strings, woman-on-woman action. For many visitors to The Club, this is exactly what they are looking for, and what they get. For others, however, the emotions run high, and one night of sex changes their lives in ways they couldn’t have imagined.
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