“Oh!” she called, one hand lowered to help brace her leg and keep it in the air while the other snaked into the pillows next to her and held on to the sheets below. I could feel her pussy pulsing as I ate her out, squeezing and releasing, creaming itself in ecstasy.
Then, abruptly, her body began to shiver and shake, the warmth and wetness between her thighs lightly coating my nose and mouth. Her moans grew louder and she squirmed where she lay, her leg suddenly falling from the air and clamping down, pressing her thighs together. I pulled back from my licking and straightened my body, caressing her side with one hand while my other hand cradled and massaged between her legs as she traveled through her orgasm. The viscid wetness of her pussy slopped against my hand, and I could feel the humidity amid her thighs.
After a few more moments of asynchronous shakes, soft and cute trembles, Dinah rolled onto her back. Her petite chest moved up and down with her huffing, and I eagerly crawled up next to her, lying down with my arm slung over her. We kissed one another, adoringly and indulgently, eyes closed, lips sensitive and moist. I nuzzled my nose into the side of her face and whispered to her of how much I truly adored her. Her smile said it all.
*
I was sitting up in bed, sipping my tea, and thumbing through a news site on my phone. Dinah was in the bathroom connected to my bedroom and I could hear the faint sound of her relieving herself echoing out of the open door. I wasn’t quite ready to get out of bed yet and get started on my day, partially because I was feeling lazy and also because I felt that Dinah and I could go for another round of morning sex. I smiled, took a big gulp of tea, and continued reading my phone.
My reading was suddenly interrupted by an incoming call, the chiming of my ring tone, and the vibrating buzz of the phone in my hand.
The caller ID displayed who was on the other end. It was the ballet theatre. Puzzled, I answered.
“This is Mish,” I said into the phone.
“Mish, this is Candace,” said the voice from the other end. Candace was a production assistant for the company, someone I had worked with often. Her voice sounded grim.
“Hey Candace,” I said. “It’s odd to receive a call from you,” I admitted with a nervous laugh.
As my conversation with Candace began, Dinah slinked out from the bathroom and hung in the doorway, her hand bracing herself against the frame, naked from head to toe. She heard me say Candace’s name and waited with a curious and confused look on her face.
“I have some terrible news,” Candace said with a whimper. “Charles had a heart attack.”
“Charles had a heart attack?” I repeated, looking over to Dinah whom now had fear and sadness washed over her face.
“He’s stable right now,” said Candace. “He had emergency surgery late last night. He’s recuperating in the hospital.”
“This is awful news,” I said. “Can he have visitors?”
“That’s why I’m calling,” she said. “He’s asking for you.”
“For me?” I said. “But I haven’t even spoken to him in six months.”
“He said he wanted to see you,” Candace said. “I’m just reaching out to ask if you’ll go see him.”
“Of course,” I said, leaping out of bed and searching around the room for a pair of pants. “I’ll go down there right now.”
“Thank you, Mish,” said Candace. “If I can help in any way, let me know.”
“Thanks for the call, Candace,” I said. Hanging up the phone, I grabbed a pair of jeans from a heap of dirty clothes on the floor and quickly slid into them, pushing my phone into the pocket. In my hurry, I had almost forgotten about Dinah who was still watching me as I frantically moved around the room.
“Oh Dinah,” I said when I finally looked over to her. She was crying softly from the news. I rushed over to her and took her in my arms, pulling her bare body close to me, and she fervently hugged me back.
“Is he okay?” she whimpered.
“Candace said he had surgery last night,” I said. “And that he’s stable.”
“What does that mean?” she asked.
“I really don’t know,” I said. “But he’s asking to speak to me so I’m going to go down there right now.”
“Should I come, too?” Dinah said.
“No,” I said. “You just stay here. Or go down to the theatre,” I said. “I’m sure everybody could use some support right now.”
“All right,” she said. Dinah craned her neck out and we softly kissed.
“I’ll text you if I find out any more,” I said. I could tell she was distraught from the news, her eyes welling with tears of uncertainty. “I love you, Dinah.”
“I love you, too,” she said. We kissed once more and I gently ran my hand over her bare hip. Giving her a pained smile, I then turned and scooted out of the bedroom, grabbed my coat from the rack, and moved toward my front door. I knew I had to get to the hospital as quickly as I could.
*
A nurse was inside Charles’ room when I arrived, so I waited just outside of the door. I hated hospitals, as I assume most people do. They just feel sad. So sterile, serious, and you’re only there when something’s wrong. I tend to avoid them as much as I can.
I could hear the nurse finishing up with Charles and I peeked inside impatiently, worried and scared and confused all wrapped together. As the nurse came toward the door, I smiled gently at her to get her attention.
“Hi,” she said. “Can I help you?”
“My name is Michelle,” I said. “I’m here because I was told that Charles was asking to see me.”
“That’s right,” he said. “You’re from the theatre.”
“Yes,” I said.
“He’s recovering from heart surgery,” she said. “He’s awake, just weak. There’s a chair next to his bed,” she said, pointing into the room.
“Thank you,” I said, moving past her and walking into the room.
As I approached Charles’ bed, I could tell he definitely looked ill. His face was ashen and drained and he lay there in the bed unmoving, adding to the frightening stillness of the entire room.
I took the back of the chair in my hand, adjusted its placement, and sat down next to his bedside, looking over him. The nurse had said he was awake but his eyes were closed, his mouth a solid straight line.
“Charles,” I whispered. “It’s Mish.”
“Hmm?” he murmured, rustling a bit and turning his head in my direction.
“It’s Mish,” I said. “Candace said you wanted to see me.” Slowly his eyes opened up and as he saw me he began to smile.
“Oh, there you are,” he said weakly. “I’m glad you could make it.”
“I’m so sorry to hear about all this,” I said. “It was devastating to get that call this morning.”
“I’m still kicking,” he said. “I just can’t perform any theatrical gestures with my arms right now.”
“You don’t have to,” I said with a laugh. “You can just lie there.”
“That’s hardly my style,” he said. “But it will do for now.”
“Are you feeling okay?” I said.
“Sure,” he said. “They’ve got this contraption hooked up to me pumping me full of morphine. I think I’ll be quite fine.”
“You’re a trooper, sir,” I said.
“That I am,” he said. After we smiled together in a moment of silence, he again spoke up. “Mish, listen. We need you back.”
“Oh,” I said. “I… well, I don’t know what to say, sir. I’m doing well at the opera, the projects are fulfilling, the pay is good.”
“Pay,” he scoffed. “Bah.” I could sense he wanted to wag his hand at me but was too weak to do so.
“I think that I need to stay where I’m at, sir,” I said, pained by my decision, as I didn’t want to cause him more stress than he was already under.
“I read that article about you,” Charles said. “And it made me infinitely jealous. I should have never let you go over some silly sex drama
.”
“Sir,” I said, embarrassed by his candidness, looking around to make sure nobody else heard him.
“This is the arts,” he said. “Everybody’s fucking everybody else. That’s just the way it works in our world.” I couldn’t help but laugh.
“I suppose you’re right,” I said.
“Mish, I’m obviously in disrepair,” he continued. “I’m advancing in age, my heart seems to be in shambles, and it would be some time before I could get back up on that stage and dance again with a bunch of 20 year olds.”
“I don’t know,” I said. “Your feet are probably still all right.”
“Bunions,” he said. “Gnarled and twisted, they barely look like feet anymore after my lifetime of dance.”
“I see,” I said with a chuckle.
“What I’m trying to say, Mish, is that I feel that my duties as Artistic Director are becoming… beyond me,” he said. “It wouldn’t be right for the company, it wouldn’t be right for the board, and it certainly wouldn’t be right for the audience.”
“You’re stepping down?” I asked.
“I am,” he said. “I’ve spoken to the board of directors, specifically to Mrs. Trumbull, our most charitable benefactor, you know, and they have agreed with my recommendation that we offer the position to you, Mish,” he said. “If you’ll have us, of course.” A broad smile curled across his lips, obviously excited to be able to make this offer even if it was from a hospital bed.
“Me?” I said incredulously. It almost didn’t seem real. I couldn’t make sense of it in my mind. “But, I’m so young,” I said. “You didn’t take over until you were well into your 40s. Has there ever been an Artistic Director my age?” I said.
“No,” Charles said. “But there’s a first time for everything.”
“I was never even a principal dancer,” I said, still searching for reasons why this position would be offered to me. “I’ve only been doing this 20 years,” I said. “The bulk of that dancing, not directing.”
“I told you before, Mish,” Charles said. “You’re a better choreographer and director than you are a dancer. Just accept that.”
“I don’t know,” I said, overcome by fear from too many surprises.
“The company needs some new blood,” he said. “I’ll be around to advise you, you shan’t be alone.”
“I just don’t know what to say,” I said, becoming emotional and teary eyed. It was all just too much to bear.
“I suppose I don’t need an answer right now,” he acquiesced. “But we were just about to put together Midsummer Night’s Dream and we would love to have you run that production,” Charles said with a grin. “My choreography, of course.”
“Of course,” I said.
“Please consider my offer, Mish,” he said. “You’re very important to this company and I can think of no one better to whom to pass the reigns.”
After that, everything started to feel a little bit murky to me. It was like one of those semi-lucid dreams, the kind where strange stuff happens, surprising stuff, yet you feel like you can control it somewhat because all the things you want come easily and quickly to you. Like if you’re a writer and you suddenly, without trying, have a bestseller and everybody’s fawning over you. Or that person you’re lusting after, the one that you really shouldn’t be thinking sexually about because she’s your current lover’s best friend, you’re all of sudden in her bed and screwing around. Or you’re handed a job that you of course knew would be amazing, but you felt highly under-qualified and unready for.
Was I dreaming? Maybe I wasn’t even together with Dinah. Maybe it was I who was in the hospital bed, suffering from some illness, hallucinating all this insane stuff that was happening to me.
Charles and I said our goodbyes, I wished him well and told him that I would see him very soon. Turning from his bedside and making my way to the door, I felt in a daze, confounded and lost, almost bumping into a gurney as I exited Charles’ room. Slipping down the long, antiseptic hallway of the hospital, I tried to imagine what life would look like once I stepped out of the hospital and back out onto the cold and busy New York City street outside. But I couldn’t really even see that far ahead. All I could see was right here, right now, the hallway, the medical staff passing me by, the black and white tile floor below me. The present. It felt very portentous and very powerful.
*
I sat in my office, slumped slightly in my chair, wearing a black strapless satin dress, my matching black heels kicked off to the side of my desk. My hair was freshly dyed a lighter shade of blonde, luminous and full, recently curled and pinned up to expose my neck and shoulders. Tapping my stocking covered feet under the desk, I fumbled with a pen and a piece of paper, crossing out words, striking entire sentences, rewriting them, editing down my speech. While I didn’t expect to be on stage very long, I wanted to make sure everybody appropriate was thanked and considered. It was spring, after all, donation season.
Charles had certainly helped me succeed in my succession. When I first stepped in as artistic director, he was there to assist in my choreographing Midsummer Night’s Dream, one of my favorite ballets, yet he humbly took a backseat to my leadership of the company and crew. And here we were, opening night of Midsummer for benefactors, members, press, and VIPs. Not only that, but it was the introduction of me as Artistic Director to the public.
Somehow I still felt like a phony, out of place, like I didn’t deserve to be in this position, but I think ultimately that’s how everybody feels. You wonder how you got to this level, you criticize yourself and think “Am I mad, or are they?” and you question whether or not it’s just all in your imagination. I didn’t mean for this to happen, none of this, all I ever wanted was to be a ballerina. But here, on my 30th birthday coincidentally, I was being introduced as the new Artistic Director of one of the most renowned ballet theatres in the world, presenting my favorite ballet to a privileged world of important people.
As my eyes glazed over staring at my speech, I heard a soft knock at my office door.
“Come in,” I said.
Opening the door and slinking in was Dinah, dressed in her full costume for the show, looking ravishing and fair in a flowing pink dress. Her dark brown hair was tightly done up with flowers and her face was plastered with makeup. She closed the door behind her and grinned wide at me.
“Hermia,” I said with a wry smile. “Shouldn’t you be backstage?” I stood up from my desk and sauntered over to her.
“I just wanted to wish you merde!” Dinah said with a laugh. In the ballet, rather than wishing good luck or saying break a leg, a traumatizing proposition for a dancer, we say merde, literally “shit” – encouraging one not to step in shit.
I embraced Dinah as we closed in on one another, careful not to rumple her costume or upset her hair and makeup. She, in turn, attempted to keep her pained face away from my black dress.
“Thank you, dear,” I said. “I am feeling a bit nervous.”
“You’ll do great,” she said. “It’s all so exciting!”
“It doesn’t feel real,” I said. “I feel like I’m going to wake up at any second, sitting next to Charles with a notepad, daydreaming of being with you, far from this weird elevated life of, you know, having everything I want.” Dinah just laughed.
“Well,” she said. “If you do wake up back then, at least you know how it’s all going to turn out.”
I smiled.
“It’s ten after seven,” I said, looking at my clock. I leaned over my desk and grabbed my speech. “Can I walk you backstage?”
“Yes Mistress,” said Dinah with a beaming smile.
I stepped into my black heels, took a deep breath, and checked myself out in a mirror on the wall. The woman looking back at me seemed so glamorous and put together. I just had to accept it. I just had to let go.
*
The cast was milling around backstage, smiling and filled with excitement for the opening of the show. Merde was being liberally
flung around with quiet goofy laughs, dancers were primping one another, straightening the frills of each other’s ornate fairy costumes, and the occasional cast member would suddenly plié and then gracefully leap up into the air in last minute preparation.
Dinah was off with her Lysander, practicing a few moves together, and apart from a few cast members approaching me and wishing me merde, I was alone with my thoughts, peering out onto the stage, watching Charles give his farewell speech. The theatre was packed, not a seat available, the lights low and tinted blue, a bright white spotlight on Charles, as it would be on me very soon.
I kept reminding myself not to lock my knees, for fear of passing out and cracking my head on the stage. While I had certainly been on that stage before, performing for a full house, I was always in the back, always synchronized with the corps, never the one in the spotlight. But as I thought about it, this was exactly what I always wanted. I wanted to be front and center on one of the world’s largest ballet stages. I wanted to perform for all of these people. And while I wanted to dance for them, I realized I now had the opportunity to bring the ballet to these people in such a grander scope than I ever could have as just one single dancer. I would be bringing dance to them for decades to come.
Life can be funny like that.
Returning my attentions to Charles’ speech, I could tell he was wrapping up. I looked down at myself, straightened out my dress, made sure I had my speech notes in my hand, and took a deep breath. I was trembling, my heart beating fast, scared and excited and joyful all in the same moment. With my head down, I listened to the end of Charles’ words, thanking everybody in the room for coming out and supporting the ballet, thanking them for all the great years he had with the company, and wishing many more years of success for the theatre under my direction.
“And without further adieu,” Charles said. “The new Ballet Mistress and Artistic Director of our prestigious theatre, Miss Michelle Beauchene.”
Lesbians Love Licking: 10 Story Lesbian Erotic Collection W/ BONUS! (Lesbian Erotic Romance) Page 18