Spring Collection

by Judith Krantz

  “Oh, Maude, I love you! You’re the only person around here with a working brain.” April flung herself at Maude and wrapped her arms around her, kissing her on the cheek in an exuberance of relief and renewed hope.

  “April, you have no idea how good that feels.”

  “Good?” April looked at Maude inquisitively. “Does it feel good to be told you’re a genius?”

  “It feels good to have you kiss me. Even on the cheek. It’s the first time I’ve felt your lips.”

  “Oh.”

  “Don’t draw away like that, April. You’ve had to know that this was bound to be said sooner or later, haven’t you?”

  “I haven’t thought about it,” April quavered, still sitting on the bed and clutching the quilt around her shoulders.

  “Not once, not even one little time? It never happened to even cross your mind?” Maude asked softly.

  “Well … I guess maybe I did wonder … a little, I’m not stupid … okay, after I’d told you how I felt about men I started thinking about how you led your own life, and I realized that you … well I wasn’t sure, but … you know what I mean. I guess it’s because of the way you dress, otherwise I wouldn’t have dreamed.…”

  “Yet you’ve still spent every day with me exploring Paris. Do you understand what that means?”

  “It means that I’m not afraid of you and I don’t think any the less of you for anything you do. Whatever it is,” April added with a nervous giggle.

  “I know that and I’m glad, but there’s something more, April, something you haven’t even allowed yourself to understand. April, listen to me, don’t turn your head away like a little girl, you’re not a little girl, not at all. You’re very much a woman and you wonder what it would be like with another woman … you wonder about it all the time, don’t you, darling? Oh, April, it’s the most natural thing in the world for you to think about. You told me that you don’t like men, you tried with them but you couldn’t go through with it because it disgusted you. You may be a virgin April, but that doesn’t mean that you’re not a normal human being with a normal body, so there’s only one alternative.”

  “You make it sound so logical,” April murmured protestingly.

  “It is logical, April. What isn’t logical is that a normal woman like you has no sex life at all. That’s cruel, that’s true punishment. I know you feel like an outcast and that doesn’t make the slightest sense. It must be a torment to you. How long do you imagine it can go on?”

  “I can’t even bear to think about the whole thing, it’s such a mess, I’m completely confused.…” April took refuge in muteness, bending her head to hide her blushing face, looking down at her shaking hands. Still she didn’t move away from her perch on the side of Maude’s bed.

  “April, April,” Maude said, her voice trembling, reaching out and caressing April’s downcast head, “of course you’re confused, you always will be until you at least bring yourself to make love with a woman, just once, and find out if that’s what you like. Ideally, it should be someone experienced, someone who knows you’re a virgin and doesn’t expect fireworks—who doesn’t expect anything—now how many people could that description apply to?”

  April laughed and Maude felt her relax a little. She continued to touch April’s hair lightly as she spoke quietly, evenly.

  “I could be accused, rightfully, of being opportunistic, but you know you owe it to yourself to find out, or you wouldn’t still be here with me, would you? You’ve almost made your decision, darling. It’s going to happen sooner or later, that you know for sure. Don’t let it be on a crazy impulse with a stranger, just to get it over with, the way you tried it with those boys. The first time should be with someone you can trust, someone you know as well as you know me, someone you’ve confided in, someone who understands you. Oh, April, sweet, confused April, I promise to be so tender, so gentle, I won’t rush you into anything and if you want to stop, I’ll stop, no questions or recriminations, the way there are with men. I promise you, a solemn promise, that I’ll respect your wishes. It won’t make any difference in the way I feel about you. You can’t possibly go the entire rest of your life not knowing, so let me love you, my darling. All it takes is the courage to say yes.”

  April turned her head and looked shyly, indirectly, at Maude. Then she leaned forward from the edge of the bed and brushed Maude’s cheek with a quick kiss, too embarrassed to say a word, not even the “yes” that she was bursting to say. How many nights had she lain awake thinking about Maude Callender? How long had she spent wondering about the sophisticated, dashing, fascinating woman whom she felt closer and closer to every day. She hadn’t dared to imagine this happening … no, to be honest, she had imagined it, but not beyond the vague, frightening, quickly thrust away idea that something like this might be possible. At least … not impossible. Yet she didn’t feel frightened now, she felt taken care of, she felt adored, she felt a curiosity so wild and powerful that her mouth was dry and her limbs trembled and her nipples tingled.

  “Come to bed, April,” Maude whispered, sliding the quilt away, putting her arms around April’s shoulders and kissing her hair lightly. “Lean back on this pillow and close your eyes, just think how you feel, that’s the only important thing. You’re so tense … don’t be, I’m just going to kiss your face.”

  Maude kissed April softly, taking the girl’s head in her hands and placing her lips gently on April’s forehead, just at her hairline. Back and forth her lips traced a path that widened almost imperceptibly, until Maude was kissing April’s small, lovely earlobes and her sublime jawline as well as her hairline, outlining the exquisite shape of her face. She felt April’s body go limp with relaxation and she heard her sigh with relief that the die was cast, yet still Maude continued to press her lips to the outer edges of April’s face. Her iron self-control gave her far more pleasure than she would have gained if she had kissed April with the full violence of her excitement.

  As Maude kissed April she drew back often to gaze at the girl’s willfully expressionless features with amazed joy, almost unable to believe that the face she worshiped was abandoned to her touch. When April’s closed lips finally parted slightly of their own accord, Maude brushed them with one finger, floating that finger repeatedly over April’s warm lips with the most delicate of contacts, until she saw that April’s mouth was pouting, as if it had a life of its own and was reaching out for something April herself had no knowledge of. Only then did Maude kiss April on her lips, giving her dry, feathery, closed-mouth kisses on the sides and tops and bottoms of the proffered, expectant lips, never fully covering April’s mouth with her own.

  She felt April timidly pushing her lips forward, but she wouldn’t allow her mouth to be captured, not yet, not until she’d driven April to demand it. Soon, sooner than she’d expected, Maude felt April’s hands reach out and meet behind her head so that she could pull Maude forward toward her, until their lips met fully, the girl giving her kiss for kiss, whimpering with wordless pleasure as she tasted the woman’s full mouth. Maude was determined that April would be the first to use her tongue and, as she kissed April lingeringly, but almost chastely, she felt a tiny flicker of the girl’s tongue, almost imperceptible at first, but quickly growing more bold. She let April dart her tongue forward until she grew more and more demanding, until she was openly trying to get Maude to respond. Only then did Maude, unable to stop herself, finally suck April’s tongue softly and steadily. Soon she quickly wet the fingers of one hand with her tongue and slid them under the girl’s dressing gown and nightgown until she found the small, stiff, pointed nipple of one breast.

  For a long dreamy time Maude continued to suck April’s tongue and tantalize the tip, only the tip, of her nipple, knowing that the combination of sensations, isolated from any other touch, was intensely powerful. She was entirely focused on April’s breathing, listening voluptuously as she heard it quicken, as the girl drew her head back and murmured “Don’t stop” and tried, without success, t
o push more of her swelling, sensitized nipple into Maude’s fingers. No, Maude thought, no, she wouldn’t be rushed, she wouldn’t let April do anything to get it over with, as she had with men, she’d rather go mad with her own piercing desire before she’d allow that.

  Finally Maude felt the touch she’d been waiting for, the downward pressure on the top of her head that indicated, wordlessly, that April wanted her to suck her nipples, but she pretended not to understand, playing with the tip of April’s nipple even more lightly than before. “Oh, please, please …” April sighed.

  “What do you want, my darling?” Maude murmured. “Tell me exactly what you want, say the words.”

  “Suck me, suck my breasts!” April begged, and Maude, glancing at her face, saw that she was far beyond blushing. But before Maude could lower her head, April changed her mind as she felt herself invaded by sensations she’d never known before. The girl sat up in the bed where she had been lying so passively, and threw both of her strong arms over Maude, one on each side, immobilizing her.

  “Unbutton your pajamas,” April ordered. “I want your breasts, I want them now.” And as soon as Maude’s big, beautiful shaped breasts were revealed, April threw herself on them ravenously, handling them with firm, ardent, awkward fingers, sucking each nipple with her whole mouth, clumsy yet masterful in her suddenly understood greed, licking and biting in an attack so unleashed that she was astonished by herself. “I want you hanging over me,” April commanded harshly, and slid down on the bed so that Maude could reverse her position.

  When she saw Maude’s breasts dangling over her face April felt herself grow wild and strong with a desire she’d never known, she pressed the breasts together so that she could suckle one nipple after another with lightning rapidity, abandoning herself utterly to the realization of a fantasy that had always, she now admitted to herself, lurked at the back of her mind. The abundance of Maude’s breasts intoxicated her, she looked with wonder at their hanging ripeness, the full rosy firmness of their skin, the darkness and largeness of their mature nipples. She fed on them, shuddering with luxurious invention, pulling on the nipples, teasingly, imperatively, with a swollen mouth and careful teeth and a plundering tongue, imagining hazily that she was a baby, imagining that she was a man, until suddenly, she realized that she was a woman and she wanted to be fucked.

  “Maude, Maude, what do we do now?” April cried.

  “Do you want more? Say the words, just say the words.”

  “Please, Maude, I don’t know the words.”

  “Yes you do.”

  “I beg you. I can’t stand it anymore.”

  “What do you want me to do?” Maude was implacable. It was the only way to make April know herself.

  “Between my legs … your hand, your mouth, everything! Quickly!”

  “No, not quickly, never quickly, not the first time,” Maude murmured. “Take off your nightgown, get under the covers.” While April hastened to do her bidding, Maude slid out of the bottoms of her pajamas. “You’ve had my breasts, but I haven’t had yours,” she told April with mock sternness. “That’s not right, not when I’ve been dying for them for so long, dreaming of them, watching you flaunt them without a bra under those tight sweaters, driving me mad … lie still, let me look … oh, your nipples are as hard as mine, and I’ve barely played with one of them … you were born for this, darling, born for it.”

  By the time Maude attacked April’s lovely small breasts with her kisses, she had positioned herself in the bed so that April’s nipples were on a level with her mouth and her hands were free to descend the length of the girl’s body. Between kisses, with a reverent, hesitant caress she laid one hand on the girl’s flat belly, waiting for the slightest hint of rejection. Instead, April arched her pelvis and threw the covers off the bed, so that the entire length of her naked, magnificent body was revealed. Her mound was covered with straight, silky hair, the same golden as the hair on her head.

  “Yes, yes, there, lower, now, I can’t wait!” April moaned. She heaved herself upwards in the bed, pushing Maude downward, away from her breasts, crying out, “your mouth, Maude, I have to have your mouth!” April opened her legs wide and spread her wet, congested lower lips apart with her hands. “There, put your mouth on me there,” she demanded in a tone of domination that Maude had rarely heard, a tone for which she abandoned her own, unselfish plans to obey.

  She swiveled on the mattress and crouched above April, enveloping the pink, enlarged bulb of the girl’s clitoris with the pulsating, firm suction of her hot mouth. At the same time, she inserted two fingers gently into the entrance to April’s vagina, remembering that she was a virgin. April cried out in ecstasy and pushed down on Maude’s fingers as hard as she could. Then she pulled back until the fingers almost lost contact with her and immediately pushed down again, contracting her vagina and panting, “Push, push harder! Give me another finger! Don’t stop sucking!”

  Maude gave herself to her task with an intensity that blocked out anything but an awareness of April’s sensations. It was as if she were being fucked for the first time herself, as she gave the girl what she’d wanted so desperately, for so long, without knowing it. April’s vulva was open and distended, madly greedy, demanding, more engorged every second. Whenever she tried to slow the rhythm of her fingers and her mouth, to make the first time last longer, April spurred her on, as if she were riding a horse, and soon, from the tenseness in her thighs and the way she raised her pelvis, Maude knew that April’s orgasm was approaching. She heightened the sucking rhythm she had established, making her lips and tongue as hard and tight as possible, letting April go faster and faster as she rode her three hard fingers until she felt the girl pause for a long, silent second and then come, shrieking and bucking, into her waiting mouth. Her fingers, deep inside April, were clutched and unclutched by the powerful spasms that lasted a long time until they eventually came farther apart and finally stopped entirely.

  When the girl lay quiet at last, Maude lifted her head and looked at her face, not knowing what to expect; shame, a return of shyness, bewilderment, anything was possible. April’s eyes were shining through her half-parted lids and she licked her dry, smiling lips.

  “Just give me a minute to bask, Maude, my beloved, just give me a minute and then … then I’m going to fuck you, fuck you good. I’ll be grateful to you every day for the rest of my life. I’ll never be able to thank you enough.”

  “Listen, darling, you don’t have to, honestly … I have ways.”

  “You don’t understand. I want to, I’m dying to taste you, I can’t wait for it … I’m just getting my strength back, is all. I’m going to fuck you and then you’re going to fuck me again or we’ll do it to each other at the same time. I’m just getting started, Maude. Think of how much I have to make up for. Oh, come on up here right away and kiss me, I’m going crazy just thinking about how good it’s going to be.”

  Not only can she keep up with me, Maude thought, she’s going to go far beyond what I can give her, and not that far from now. She’s unstoppable. I’d better take what I can get before the word gets out, before she gets curious about other women. Or is she already? She’s going to be the most wanted girl in town when we get back to New York. She doesn’t need me, but she doesn’t know that yet.

  Maude moved up on the bed so that she could meet April’s lips, her body so aroused that a touch would bring her to orgasm, her heart breaking.

  19

  Jacques Necker woke up each morning to the conviction that he would feel more rested if he could somehow make himself stay up all night and go without sleep entirely. He was plagued by brutally punishing nightmares that vanished before he opened his eyes, leaving him with a sensation of having been physically pounded into the ground. He was depressed to his very core, but without a memory to pin to the nightmares. Nevertheless, in the last week, they seemed to have become a part of the historic reality of his own life, as real as any of his achievements and as solid as any of his pos
sessions.

  The hideous miasma of the night was only slightly dispelled as he forced himself through his brisk morning routine and his rapid walk to his office. As spring collection week rapidly approached, he found some relief in thrusting himself into overdrive, not only making the usual important decisions that determined the overall course of his business empire, but also overseeing feverishly the small details that he normally left to the people who were well paid to do these jobs. He deviled the party arrangers about the work in progress for the showing at the Ritz, demanding to know if they had enough tens of dozens of flowering trees, wanting an explanation about the progress of their painted decors, insisting on changing the menu, even tasting the wines, as if the success of the Lombardi collection were the only thing on his mind. He worked later and later, driving his associates mad with his second-guessing of already-made plans, postponing the moment when he would have to leave the place where his word was law, and return home.

  If his wife, poor Nicole, were still alive, he would have had an obligatory distraction every evening, Necker thought, with a grimace, since Nicole had expended most of her energies on entertaining with enormous style at least once a week and on being entertained in return. He remembered the shadow of distress that would cross her face if they dined alone together more than once in any given week. Unless her appointment diary was filled six weeks in advance, she quickly felt friendless, abandoned and, worst of all, unimportant. Knowing this, in spite of the pressure of his work, Necker had never protested at having to leave home, showered and freshly dressed, in time to be driven to yet another dinner party or gala. It was the least he could do for her, he had long ago decided, since he no longer loved her with anything but a reflex of mild affection, and hadn’t given her children to occupy her life.

  Even if Nicole were still alive he wouldn’t have mentioned his nightmares to her, Necker realized. They had fallen out of the habit of personal revelations a very long time ago, less than two years after their marriage, when it became clear that her world consisted of fittings and lunches and consultations with florists and caterers, and his world consisted of business.