The Mammoth Book of Lesbian Erotica

by Barbara Cardy

  Ted approached me head-on, hands in her slick vinyl jacket. Her short, assertive brown hair, almost a crewcut, looked unaffected by the rain that was running down my neck and chilling my nipples to hard points. “Hey, where you going?” she asked with rough sympathy. “I looked for you in Java’s but you weren’t there.” The situation was getting unbearable. “Josephine, don’t jam out on us. I promised KC I’d meet her for coffee because she said you’d be there.” Hold on tight, I told my temper. Some dykes are always cool, and I could be one of them.

  The self-talk didn’t work. “KC doesn’t fuckin’ make my dates!” I yelled hysterically into Ted’s faintly-twitching face, having to look up to do this. I took a deep breath, realizing that I had just made a fool of myself and probably couldn’t undo the damage. “Look, Ted, I’m sorry and I’d like to see you some other time, but not now. I never agreed to this. I have things to do.” KC stood discreetly to the side, looking as uncomfortable as a wet cat.

  The sarcastic lift of Ted’s thin, beautifully arched eyebrows hurt me like the sting of an insect, right in my heart. Somehow her pale olive skin colour enhanced the expressiveness of her features. “So you have things to do in the rain? Did you know the weather office has put out a hail warning? In about an hour, hailstones like golfballs are going to be bouncing off your head. Were you planning to go for a long walk in that?”

  I hesitated for a moment too long. Ted’s strong fingers, each a knuckle-length longer than mine, gripped my upper right arm while her other hand pressed firmly into the small of my back. She began pushing me toward the cross-walk which led across the street to Java’s. She was doing it in such a way that she didn’t appear to be using force, but I couldn’t resist her without making a scene. Even the weather was on her side. “Come on, Josie,” she cooed in my ear. “Come inside to get warm and have a coffee, then I’ll drive you home.” She was letting me save face by letting me appear to co-operate. I felt like the bride in an arranged marriage, like one of my ancestors whose submission had eventually led me to be here at this moment.

  “Okay,” I sulked. We were halfway there anyway. Ted smiled at me in a way that sent more shivers down my spine. This time I was sure this wasn’t only a reaction to the rain.

  The welcoming light and warmth of Java’s made me feel better in spite of myself. A scattering of other customers showed various degrees of wetness, depending on how long they had been there, and they all looked reluctant to leave until the downpour let up. The three of us found a table in a corner.

  KC’s impatience was noticeable because it set her apart from everyone else in the place. “I can’t stay long,” she explained, looking away from me and Ted. “I sort of said I’d meet someone.” Her whole plan was now blatantly exposed: she had invited me to go for a romantic walk in the rain so that she could break up with me as quickly as possible before assuaging her conscience by handing me over to Ted, who had agreed to babysit me so that KC could rush off to meet Coral somewhere.

  “May you both be struck by lightning,” I said quietly, with as much dignity as possible. “If you survive, may your car skid on wet asphalt and crash into a power line. May the roof cave in at your place and hers. May the hail kill all your tomatoes. Have a nice day, KC.”

  A waitress appeared at my elbow to hear the last few words. “Small cappucino,” I told her without changing my tone. Ted quietly ordered a French dark roast while KC chewed her lips.

  My betrayer couldn’t look at me. “Well, yeah, I’m sorry you feel that way, Jo. I’ll phone you later. See you, Ted.” She ducked her head, and faced the door as though she looked forward to the sting of rain after being pelted with my words. “Sorry about all this,” she muttered vaguely. She left with speed, and I could see her breaking into a run as she headed back across the street toward her parked car.

  Ted was watching me through narrowed eyes. “Famous last words,” she remarked. Do you really want your good wishes to stick, Jo?”

  This question had an adult-to-child tone, and I hated it. “Right now,” I said, looking her in the eyes between damp strands of my hair, “like glue.” Her mouth widened until she was giving me a smile that was like the hug of a conspirator, as though we shared a secret that tickled her immensely. When the waitress brought our coffees, she couldn’t interrupt the silent bond that was building between us. Something about Ted’s expression made me wonder what diabolical revenge she had carried out against any of her ex-girlfriends. Instead of feeling alarmed, I wanted to hear all the details.

  I wasn’t prepared when she casually reached across the table to stroke my face. “You’re already wet,” she remarked. She made it sound like a comment on the weather, which in a sense it was. “I think you need a drink, baby. How would you like to come to my place for a hot rum? It might prevent you from catching pneumonia, unless that’s what you’re pushing for. In that case, I could drop you off – but never mind. I could make sure you don’t dry out.” Her intentions (not to mention the way she was looking at my nipples, which must have been visible under my T-shirt) were now crystal-clear.

  “Do you always try to pick up women who have just been dumped?” I demanded. “Your friends’ leavings?” I knew I was only stalling for time.

  She blew the air out between her lips in a “pffft” of contempt. “I pick up women who interest me,” she told me as though I were a slow learner. “Sometimes I do it when they’re vulnerable, or when I have a good chance. I don’t always play fair, if that’s what you’re asking.”

  “If I say yes,” I asked slowly, “can I expect you to lose interest by tomorrow? Or shoot the shit to everyone we know?” Even as I spoke, I was vaguely aware that an untrustworthy date wouldn’t answer such questions honestly while an honest one wouldn’t need to be asked.

  “Josephine,” she explained, clearly wanting me to notice that she was more tolerant than I deserved, “we’ve seen each other a lot over the years, and we’ve shot the shit. How much do you know about my private life? Could you name the singer I was with in our home town when we were both teenagers, the one who went on to top the charts? Do you know who I’ve been with here? Do you even know what my first language was, or where my family came from?”

  The full silences she could maintain in a conversation were exactly the point for me, I realized. Ted, I wanted to ask her, who the hell are you, and what would it take to find out? I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Okay,” I answered, smiling my consent. “Let’s go to your place.”

  As soon as we stood up, she wrapped a long arm around my shoulders. As we left the shelter of Java’s, she squeezed me against the rain, which now pounded the pavement in sheets. Looking down, I saw that the ground was salted with little hailstones. I thought they looked like crystallized tears, visible signs of nature’s own rage and grief.

  In the passenger’s seat of her little car, I was glad I wasn’t driving. Like a fool, I trusted her competence or my own luck.

  She pulled smoothly into the parking lot of an old brick building. Too soon, we had to leave the mobile shelter of her car and run through hail again. I hoped she would hold me as she had before, and she did.

  Pulling me down a hall toward her apartment, Ted asked me something that sounded completely irrelevant: “Do you eat fish?”

  “I’m one-quarter Japanese,” I answered. I thought I should seize the chance to tell her this, since I look more-or-less white, and some people treat me differently once they find out, even if they’re not WASP themselves and didn’t seem racist before. You just never know. “I grew up on fish. I could eat it seven days a week.”

  “Then we have the same taste,” she responded approvingly. The sexual implications of our taste in food must have seemed so obvious to her that she saw no need to make wisecracks. She unlocked her apartment door and announced, “Welcome to my lair, babe.”

  I got a brief glimpse of the leather sofa and glass coffee table in her living room before she wrapped herself around me, pushing me against the wall. S
he pressed her lips against mine, taking my breath away. When I opened my mouth slightly, her warm tongue pushed its way in. I felt as if I could melt into a soggy mass against her wiry, determined body. She radiated heat, and I craved it.

  One arm at a time, she eased herself out of her jacket, which dropped onto the carpet. Without letting my mouth go, she began tugging the dripping denim off me, and I was relieved to be rid of it. Once my jacket had joined hers, she calmly unzipped my pants and pulled my T-shirt up so she could slide her hands underneath it to find my breasts. “Ummpf,” I grunted in surprise.

  “Come on, honey,” she breathed into one of my ears. “You want it. Let me take them off, right here.”

  Being covered in cold, wet clothes didn’t strengthen my ability to resist her assault. As meekly as she could have wanted, I pulled my arms out of my T-shirt sleeves and even unhooked my own bra for her. Then I stepped out of my drenched cotton pants and stood, dressed only in black silk panties (my little indulgence), for her inspection. “Ahh,” she sighed, briefly looking me up and down. She looked amused. She kissed her way from my chin down to my collar-bone while she held me upright as though she were afraid I would fall down. I thought that was likely, since her attention was making me weak in the knees.

  The nipples on my little breasts were pointed and puckered by the time her mouth approached them. I gasped when she sucked one hard, flicking it with her tongue. Both her hands slid up to support them, pushing them out. I wished I could produce milk for her.

  She raised her head to look me in the face. “Sweet tits, Josephine,” she told me. Somehow her use of my whole name made me feel more naked. “I want to bite them.” No one before her had told me this so bluntly, but I wasn’t surprised.

  She pulled my left nipple into her mouth, pulling most of my breast in with it. Her strong sucking sent chills over my damp skin and sent a tingle to my awakening clit. She took her mouth off me for long enough to ask, “Let me?” At that moment, I wanted to grant her every wish.

  “Mmm,” I replied, spreading my legs slightly for the invasion I expected. Ted clamped her mouth on my right nipple. Pain flashed through my flesh like the hard sting of rain. I yelped, realizing that she had bitten me.

  Somehow she managed to say “Aww” while sucking my nipple as though she wanted to draw the pain out of me along with sweat, blood, any intimate fluid she could get. I wrapped my arms around Ted’s head, running my hands over her thicket of hair. It felt to me like the fur of some exotic, powerful animal that I had never been close to before.

  I shifted, subtly pushing my other breast toward her, to please her or to get it over with. She accepted my offer, pulling the point hard into her mouth, stretching it for the attention of her teeth. This time the pain reminded me of an electric shock from a needle-sized streak of lightning, as though the energy of an ancient storm goddess had come indoors with us.

  Ted brought her mouth back to mine, kissing me possessively. She gave me the lightly salty taste of my own skin on her tongue, which had somehow picked up my two spurts of fear. Her hands held my breasts as if to protect them from predators like herself.

  “I broke the skin, baby,” she purred, nuzzling my neck. She sounded like a talking tiger. “Still feel it, don’t you?”

  “Yes,” I sighed, shivering from the touch of her warm hands. One of them slid slowly under my panties and purposefully down my sensitive belly, which moved in response. She reached the hair that covered my lower lips. Two of her fingers slyly parted them, searching for my quivering clit. My legs were quivering too, but I knew she wanted me to stay on my feet as long as I could.

  “Josephine,” she breathed between kisses on my neck and cheeks, “do you want me?”

  I wanted to cry. Not long before, lurid images of murder and ritual suicide had briefly filled the screen of my mind, setting off a mood that was fatalistic, desperate and calm at the same time. Ted’s seduction of me had felt like the inevitable sequel to KC’s casual dismissal. I felt like a leaf pounded by the hailstorm outdoors, and my own physical needs felt like part of the impersonal force that controlled me.

  “Ted,” I moaned, biting my lips. “I know you don’t love me.” I closed my eyes to keep the tears from escaping. “I’ve been around. I know what’s happening. I made a choice.” My clit was throbbing and my heart was breaking. “I want you. I just don’t know how—”

  “Ssh,” she stopped me, kissing my eyes. “Don’t think now, girl. I know the white assholes who’ve played with you, and I’m not them. I want to feel you, take you, leave my mark on you. You don’t know me yet, but you will. You gotta have faith, honey. We’re just getting started.”

  I quickly pulled my panties down my legs and lifted one foot out of them. I spread my legs apart for her, my arms around her neck. She slid down and entered me with three fingers. My cunt welcomed her as she searched, tickled, explored and demanded a response. She stroked my swollen button, gently insisting on surrender. I couldn’t hold back, even though I felt as if I might faint when wave after wave of a wild orgasm rolled through my centre. Somehow I stayed on my feet. I felt the strength of my own blind hope, or maybe it was just my body’s singing awareness that life is good, no matter what.

  She held me for an endless moment as my shivering subsided. “You need a bath, puppy,” she told me, brushing damp hair off my face. My hair stays wet for a long time.

  Ted brought me to her bathroom, where she lit candles and set them on the counter. Light flickered on the blue walls, creating an underwater effect. When she turned on the taps and threw in a few bath beads, the sound of rushing water drowned out the sound of hail spattering the windows like gunfire.

  This time she shrugged gracefully out of her own clothes and stood proudly naked, letting me see her as she was seeing me. When the water in the tub was as high as she wanted it and frothy with bubbles, she held my hips and pushed me forward. “Get in,” she ordered.

  She sat behind me in the tub, pulling me back against her breasts (heavier than I expected) and assertive shoulders. She began kneading mine, easing the remaining tension out of them. After a few minutes, she stood up and pulled me up by the waist.

  “On all fours, babe,” she told me. “You need it somewhere else, and I can clean you up right here.” My hands and knees gripped the rubber mat on the floor of the tub as she playfully splashed water over my back and my ass. “Slippery when wet,” she laughed, loudly slapping each of my butt cheeks.

  I couldn’t see what she was doing behind me, but I heard her blow out one of the candles.

  “A little oil to help things along,” she muttered, as though telling me a riddle. Then I felt her fingers at my anus, opening my smallest hole. The slippery wax of an oiled candle pushed against the resisting sphincter and then it was in, sliding further and further into my ass. My cunt reacted immediately, as though the possession of its neighbour had a direct effect on it. “That’s it,” she cooed, pumping gently, going deeper with each push, “don’t fight it, baby.” My excited ass clutched the hard thing that filled it, sending jolts to my clit. To my amazement, I seemed to come in the humble opening that had formerly only known how to push things out. I groaned loudly enough to be heard in the next apartment. “Oh, you like that. You were hungry for it,” Ted snickered.

  As my spasms subsided, she slowly pulled the candle out of me. Without thinking, I pushed my ass back toward her, loving the smooth wax as it withdrew like a receding wave. “You’ll get it again sometime, honey,” she promised. “If you’re good.”

  After filling a puff with liquid soap, she washed me from face to bottom and from fingers to toes, making me sit and then stand so that she could reach every inch of my skin. As the water in the tub began to cool, she opened the hot tap, sending a steaming stream into the tepid lake. “Want to wash my back?” she asked me casually. I reached for the chance and the puff, eager to explore the surface of her body. I sensed that I would have to earn the right to explore her depths.

  Feelin
g baptized, I finally stepped out of the tub at her command, pulled a thick towel off the rack and began rubbing her dry. She responded by holding my hands together with one of hers as she took the towel from me. She then dried me thoroughly, including my shampooed hair, touching me with an owner’s pride. I realized that my clothes were still in a crumpled heap in the front room. “Warm enough now?” my keeper asked with concern.

  “Yes,” I sighed, knowing why she asked.

  “Don’t put your clothes back on,” she told me. “I like to see you like this.”

  Ted pulled a royal blue cotton robe from the hook on the back of the bathroom door and put it on. I noticed that it flattered her willowy frame and her glowing pink skin, although she had always claimed to be bored by such trivial feminine concerns. Feeling her eyes on my bare curves, I was glad that she didn’t find them trivial.

  When we re-entered the front room, I could see the dark sky of evening through the windows, and it looked like the face of an exhausted child who has just recovered from a temper tantrum. The sound of pounding hail had been replaced by the moan of wind.

  “Will you dine with me, Josephine?” asked my hostess. “I just have to put this fish in the oven. While we wait, you can have the hot rum I promised.” I was impressed to see that the dining table was already set with china and linen napkins that matched the tablecloth. I felt honoured, although I wouldn’t have been surprised to learn that Ted sometimes made such an effort for herself alone.

  The meal was delicious, and the best pieces of tender salmon were the ones that Ted fed me with her fingers. I was constantly aware of being exposed to her gaze. My skin stayed awake, as though a low level of electricity were flowing through me.

  After the rum, the wine, the fish, the rice, the salad, the fruit, the crackers, the cheese and the coffee, Ted invited me into her bedroom. When I stood up, she pressed herself behind me, cupping my breasts. Rubbing the nipples, she asked, “Still sore?”