Emma

by Bradley Stoke

  After one show, as Maisie left the studio, wiping the rich smelling cream of semen from her chin and lips, she was surprised to see Tanya waiting for her just outside her dressing room. Normally, Tanya kept a discreet distance, perhaps waving at her or smiling encouragingly, but not normally to be found in the areas reserved for the stars. She ran up to Tanya, crumbs of semen baked on the back of her hands, and kissed her lover full on the lips. “What did you think of my performance? Jimmy Ratchet was great, wasn’t he? I just didn’t know I could get so much dick in my mouth!”

  Tanya trailed a hand over Maisie’s bare shoulder and an arm around her waist. She smiled at Maisie. “Just looking at you made me feel hot!” she said uncharacteristically. “That’s why I thought I’d wait for you here.”

  “Really!?” exclaimed Maisie. She knew that Tanya was a good lover, but she’d never thought that she actually loved her. She always thought that it was only because of Emma that she and Tanya ever enjoyed making love together. She studied Tanya’s trim figure: the waist as always uncovered from marginally below the hips up to just above the heave of her apple-shaped breasts. Those classic curves! That clear golden skin! And the smile: teeth so white, eyes so libidinous (if faintly calculating), and the cheeks puffed out by the broadness of her smile. Tanya gently squeezed one of Maisie’s sweet round buttocks, and her face and mouth descended onto Maisie’s.

  “Shall we?” she asked.

  “Here? In the corridor?”

  “No, silly! What have you stars got private dressing rooms for?”

  Maisie knew that in her case it wasn’t really for dressing. She wore very few clothes on set, and those that she did covered very little of her, and rarely any of those assets which most people kept hidden. However, it was here that her hair was combed and brushed, make-up discreetly applied on her face, nipples and the rest of her. After a show, Maisie normally just cleaned off whatever stickiness and sweat was still clinging to her body, before picking up the shoulder bag where she kept her music player and headphones, and what few clothes might be necessary should she venture into the streets outside the television studios. This time she knew that the dressing room would be serving quite a different purpose, as still hugging each other, Tanya pushed open the door and the two of them rolled into its confines.

  Maisie looked at their reflection in the wall-length mirror as they cuddled by the door. Tanya so much taller than her: taller indeed than most fully grown women. The serpentine curves of her body against Maisie’s youthful slender frame. And then as Tanya eased down her shorts and unclasped her top, the full uninterrupted view of Tanya’s beauty. Still the most beautiful woman Maisie had made love to. More beautiful even than Emma, whom she so dearly loved.

  The girls clung together and fell onto the floor and rolled around on the carpeted floor together. Tanya’s tongue probing into the smooth crevices of Maisie’s vagina, her hands grasping her buttocks, her fingers insinuating themselves into her arse. Maisie groaned and moaned, unable to compete in the artistry of lovemaking, surrendering herself to Tanya’s tongue, teeth, fingers and flesh. Sweat poured down her chest, her nipples shone in the harsh neon of the dressing room lights, her tongue ached from its exertions in Tanya’s own crotch: the taste of Tanya’s vagina rich in her nose. And then back against the mirror, with Tanya pushing crotch against crotch, the two of them standing. Maisie moaned and shook her head, vaguely conscious through the spasms of ecstasy shaking through her frame of her lover examining her own reflection in the mirror with a curiously dispassionate vanity.

  Tanya pursed her lips and tenderly kissed Maisie on the cheek and ear. “We must do this again,” she said.

  “We must! We must!” gasped Maisie, as Tanya gently eased herself down her body, her tongue trailing down her face, throat, breasts, stomach, and finally to where it was somehow most at home, slobbering and prodding about in Maisie’s crotch.

  Their sessions of lovemaking together without Emma’s knowledge or prior consent became more frequent. Maisie looked forward to those occasions when she and Tanya met at work, and even at home there would be times when Emma was in another room or working late that the two of them would exchange kisses and caresses. And sometimes, when it seemed that Emma would never find out, more passionate sessions.

  There inevitably came the occasion when Tanya invited Maisie to stay the night with her at her flat with the excuse that Rochester, Maisie’s own-time co-presenter, was also visiting. This was an opportunity that Maisie couldn’t refuse. Much as she loved the attentions of her female lovers she also enjoyed the rather different passion and the very different sex that a male lover provided. But she and Tanya colluded, on Tanya’s suggestion, to hide the exact nature of their separate nights away from Emma.

  Maisie enjoyed her night with Tanya. Her flat was different to Emma’s house. So much closer to the centre of town and all its attractions, and the decor was so different from Emma’s. None of that ethnic furniture that Maisie thought so tacky, none of those rugs and cushions which made Emma’s home so miscellaneous and inconsistent, and paintings and pictures more figurative and somehow more urban. And sex with Rochester as great. Even though he was only a bit older than Maisie herself, he had the sex skills of a practised porn star, as he now was since he’d got a part as the difficult nephew in the new soap opera, Connecticut Square.

  It was clear that his prick felt more at home inside Tanya than inside her, and he kept trying to grab more of Tanya’s attention than hers, but Tanya would have none of this. She only allowed him inside her once Maisie was fully satisfied. She loved the taste of cock, she loved its thrust in her groin and she loved the feel of Rochester’s body against her. She joined Tanya as the two of them took his erect penis in their hands and their two mouths worked at its stiff length, their two moist and dripping tongues touching against the other, and their lips parting to allow both tongue and prick to enter. However, Rochester was less than pleased as, the lovemaking progressing, Tanya’s tongue and mouth found its way to Maisie’s crotch more often than it did to his own, however tumescent and however much he clearly needed it.

  Emma was not sure when her idyllic menage à trois became less idyllic. It was certainly after the board meeting where Emma proposed that Tanya should take a senior position within the Harlot TV hierarchy in a role at least as senior as her own. She was surprised by how readily her proposal was accepted by the other members of the board. She’d somehow imagined that there would be more opposition, particularly as Tanya’s rise had been so meteoric, unlike her own and unlike that of most of her colleagues. She was also taken aback by how strong the support was amongst the male majority, not suspecting that Tanya was quite capable of petitioning on her own behalf both in the bed and out. It was scarcely unanimous. One or two members protested that Tanya’s administrative skills hadn’t yet had the opportunity to mature, and others that as a presenter she was good, but not really that good. However, they all concurred when the oldest member of the board, who was at least in his sixties opined that whatever else Tanya was she was a good fuck, and anyone as good a fuck as her deserved to get on in the organisation.

  Emma began to notice that her lovemaking sessions with Tanya only ever happened with Maisie: she and Tanya never made love alone. And, reluctantly, she was aware that the passion that Tanya showed for Maisie was exceeding that she’d ever shown for Emma, and indeed that the passion she expressed towards Emma was less than it had been: even in the deepest throes, even when dildos were deep inside either of them, even when Emma was orgasming in the delirious, unfocussed, helpless way that came on her when she was most taken away by the exertions of sex.

  And there were the increasing numbers of evening when she was alone. When both Tanya and Maisie were elsewhere. She might have suspected they were together, but Maisie had, anyway, often stayed away from home at night long before Tanya became a significant player, and she readily accepted Tanya’s explanations that her increased workload was taking up her evenings. But even when
only Maisie was there, and the two were embracing in her bed, there was less of the old passion.

  Maisie herself was becoming aware, at first vaguely and then more acutely, that her relative passion was becoming greater for Tanya than for Emma. Tanya was so much fun to be with. Always showering her with gifts like the CDs which although sometimes a bit off the mark generally approximated to her taste in music. Something which Emma had never done. Such an accomplished and uninhibited lovemaker. Never afraid of taking Maisie out to night clubs and restaurants. For her, the nightlife of the city was so alluring and so much fun. Whilst Emma, however much they’d love each other, had never been so fun. She was always so serious, so protective of her lover and young ward. And with all those weird eccentricities, like naturism and vegetarianism. She could never imagine having such a wild time in a night club with Emma, as she and Tanya gyrated and boogied to the pumping dance sounds that thundered around her, and her uninhibited lovemaking under the flashing lights, not caring at all about the lascivious stares of the less bombed-out fellow dancers. She loved the feel of Tanya’s tongue on her naked body as the chords rose and fell on their emotional highs and lows, and she appreciated Tanya’s empathy on the come down as the effects of the pills and alcohol gradually gave way to the inevitable lows and hangovers.

  Emma may not have known how much time her lovers were spending together without her, but she was noticing the change in her life more and more acutely. Her work began to suffer as her emotions conflicted with her business. She forgot to attend meetings, she missed deadlines, she made more and more mistakes. All the while conscious of Tanya’s increased presence in Harlot TV’s intercinine politics and her ever-increasing profile within the station.

  And then, Tanya stopped visiting her altogether. And at work she was polite, but no longer intimate. Emma became more aware of the attentions she was attracting and encouraging from the more senior people in the Harlot TV hierarchy. She became accustomed to seeing Tanya kissing and cuddling other people. And even fucking them, as she discovered on a visit to Amelia’s office. It wasn’t just that she was having sex with her one-time lover that appalled her, but her unashamedness and the all too obvious intensity of their passion.

  “Why don’t you visit anymore?” Emma challenged Tanya with an effort when the two met by chance at a coffee machine.

  Tanya smiled. But distantly, with none of that affection in her face that Emma still remembered and cherished so well. “Oh, Emma! I would do. But work! You know how it is …”

  Emma now knew for sure that she would never sleep with Tanya again. But at least she had Maisie to love. Even if she was out so many evenings these days. She was a little worried about her young lover. When they did meet, she seemed so tired and exhausted. And she never seemed to have the energy, or even the inclination, to share Emma’s ever-welcome bed. This was bad enough, but the next shock demonstrated to Emma how much she had lost what she had once had: something which had for a while seemed so perfect, and had swollen her with pride, lust and contentment. Maisie shyly but firmly announced that she was leaving her to live with Tanya.

  “With Tanya!” gasped Emma. “I didn’t know that you and she were still … Or had ever without me … Tell me this isn’t true. You and she! What about me? I thought I was your lover. All those times you … What’s happened?”

  Maisie was very sad. She had hoped this would never happen, but when Tanya had suggested she move in to her city flat, so close to everything that was happening, she knew that there was really no choice. Emma was no longer what she had been in her eyes anymore. And although she knew there was no lessening in Emma’s love for her: she was a young girl. She had a life ahead of her. She was too young to settle down.

  “I’m sorry,” Maisie sniffed, weeping despite herself. Although it wasn’t love like it used to be, she still loved Emma. “It’s better if I leave. I love Tanya. I love her so much. I want to stay with her. It’s not because I want to leave you. It’s because I want to be with Tanya.”

  Emma cried out loud in despair despite herself. How had this happened? How had Tanya, who she’d trusted and loved … How could she? Emma grasped Maisie to her chest, hoping that naked body against naked body, that somehow everything would be reversed, and Maisie would say that she was sorry, that she hadn’t meant it, that really she still loved Emma more than Tanya.

  But it wasn’t to be. Maisie disengaged herself from Emma’s caress politely, but firmly. And after a few embarrassed moments of sniffled remorse and apologies, she left Emma’s home and spent the night at Tanya’s flat. The following evening, when Emma came home from a miserable, unproductive day at work, she found that all Maisie’s possessions were gone. On the table was Maisie’s house key and a scrawled note from the young girl saying: “I love you Emma. But I love Tanya more. I’m sure you’ll find someone else. rr”

  Emma burst into tears and didn’t stop crying. She had never wanted someone else. She had only ever wanted Maisie. Her first evening alone was spent sat naked on the sofa with the company of a bottle of gin and the backdrop of a succession of plaintive ballads mournfully selected from her CD collection.

  Chapter XLVI

  Pregnancy was not a pleasant ordeal. In fact, as it came closer to giving birth, Charlotte came to more and more wish that it was over and done with. The weight of her unborn child had become more and more of a burden, and at times she almost resented its presence within her womb: a feeling that gave her feelings of remorse and worry whether she was really ever meant to do be a mother. After all, she was a lesbian, and children was something lesbians were not supposed to have or to worry about. Even if she viewed Josephine as the true spiritual father of her child. And the pain of pregnancy wasn’t just in her stomach, but in her swollen breasts and weighed down her spine and made her feel sick and nauseous every morning. Would it ever end?

  Her last day of work before taking maternal leave was a sad one. She did very little work on this day: less than even the little work that she was being allocated by her sympathetic bosses. She kissed her naked colleagues goodbye, and let herself be escorted home by Enid, letting the young girl embrace and kiss her even though in truth she no longer had much appetite or inclination for even Enid’s very tender lovemaking.

  Josephine also took time off work, turning down all offers of work so that she could be by her spouse’s side as she came closer to the day of her hospital appointment. Josephine was uncertain how to behave, clearly unsettled by Charlotte’s loss of sexual appetite: cancelling all the advances of the men who had been such a reliable source of pleasure and distraction up till then. The two girls would nestle together under the sheets of their bed indulging an appetite for chocolate and cookies rather than sexual ecstasy. In fact, Josephine was sure she felt Charlotte’s pregnancy almost as much as if it were her own: worried indeed whether she might herself gain weight from all the high-calorie food she was sharing with her spouse.

  Even the times Josephine spent away from Charlotte, shopping or making arrangements for the birth felt almost like betrayal to her. She felt her true role was to be her wife’s constant companion. She worried as she was filling her basket in the supermarket whether even these moments of separation would be moments she would forever regret as moments she should have been by Charlotte’s side when the spasms which were happening so infrequently now would break into the pattern her ante-natal classes had warned her about.

  But when it happened, there was an air of inevitability about it. Charlotte’s spasms came with the rhythmic regularity that were expected, the taxi-ride through the city was tense but not unforeseen: she had even had the presence of mind to dress Charlotte for a world where her nudity would be frowned on, and even to pack the night-gown that she had the foresight to buy for the hospital ward. There was no such thing as a hospital or even a ward for the committed naturist.

  Josephine stayed with Charlotte as she endured the many hours of labour and finally witnessed the emergence of the new baby, as its head emerged
damp and squashed from between Charlotte’s legs. It was a boy: healthy and vigorous as demonstrated by his first cries as it came into the world. So it was a Thomas Edward, as the two girls had agreed, not an Emma Susan. And as soon as he was lifted to the air by the midwife, placenta dripping from his shiny skin, umbilical cord dangling from his navel, Josephine could see that it would be less difficult than she’d imagined to hazard who the actual biological father could be. His skin was a light chocolate brown, which meant that the father would have been one of the two or was it three black men that Charlotte had had sex with in that fateful few weeks nine months before when he had been conceived.

  Charlotte was exhausted by her hours of exertion, but nonetheless desperate to see who she had borne. She yelped with a delight as the baby settled down in her arms while the midwifes and doctors busied themselves. She was now a mother, and, she thought, smiling at her anxious lover, Josephine was now a father.

  She stayed in hospital for less than a week, in which time all her friends visited. Enid and Hyacinth, Susan and Rosemary, colleagues from work and Josephine’s parents. Maisie visited, but by herself, with neither Tanya nor Emma for company: she was as fascinated as anyone by the sight of the little boy: his small walnut crumpled face, his puffy eyes, the small perfectly formed hands that opened and closed without grasping on anything, and the bush of black curls over his light chocolate brown face. Charlotte smiled indulgently at young Thomas, while Maisie sat on the edge of the bed, uncertain as what to say or do.

  “Where’s Emma?” Charlotte asked, disappointed that her closest friend hadn’t come to see her. “Is she busy?”

  Maisie shook her head sadly. “I don’t know. I’ve left her. I’m staying at Tanya’s now.”

  “Tanya?” wondered Charlotte. She glanced at Josephine, who was sitting on the chair at the side of the bed just by the assortment of cards and fruit that people had brought in. Over the past few weeks her concerns had been primarily focused on her own pains and trials, but she and Josephine had noticed that Emma was distinctly less happy than she had been. In fact, they had noticed Emma’s mood in recent months climb to a level of cheerfulness that was quite unusual in such an intense woman, and then, quite suddenly, descend to a kind of despondency. And now, at this important moment of Charlotte’s life, where was she? Charlotte had always dimly relied on Emma’s support and sympathy in making these difficult decisions of marriage and motherhood, and she was surprised by how acutely she was wounded by its apparent absence.