Visions

by Larkin Rose

  The person wearing white sneakers and faded blue jeans had been her mystery woman. Fuck! Why hadn’t she looked up? Why hadn’t she acknowledged that someone was trying to get her attention?

  She could know what the woman behind the mask looked like.

  Dammit!

  Paige went back to strumming her fingers on the edge of the laptop, searching for the words that seemed to always come naturally. They weren’t there. They were trapped behind the memories of New Orleans, of the woman who had opened a portal in Paige. To the new mystery woman from the club tonight. Until now, she assumed her search for that elusive sex was an impossible mission. Would this new stranger fill the void left in the wake of the Big Easy?

  She could only pray. She’d longed for just one more night of sex that made every muscle in her body clench and contract the way her masked stranger had accomplished.

  The monitor stared back at her in complete mockery. Where were the words? Where were the comical sentences she normally had for her followers? Right now, she had nothing. Felt nothing.

  Or did she? A little sentimental? A little emotional?

  Both, actually. That mystery kiss tonight had stirred those sleeping emotions. She wanted to share those feelings with her followers. She wanted them to know exactly how she felt right now. Excited. Elated. What would her bloggers think if she posted some sniffle-worthy shit? They would surely think her a flake.

  She’d never shared her secrets about New Orleans. Never wanted to. Like the old saying, what happens in Vegas, or in her case, New Orleans, stays there. She had left them there for six plus years. She’d sheltered and coveted every minute of her time inside that hotel room.

  She wasn’t ready to part with them. Not just yet.

  But maybe it was time to share a little of Paige, a little of how X was created, with her bloggettes? Just a tiny sample?

  Hell, she had to tell someone or she was going to combust. She was ready to burst from the electrifying heat. Samantha could be a good ear, but she had too many motherly instincts to give a true opinion. Paige didn’t need a mother. She’d needed one once. But not now. She didn’t need compassion either. She just needed an ear. Needed someone to hear the words.

  She’d kept those secrets from everyone for a good reason. As long as Paige held those exotic moments within herself, she could protect them. Inside her own consciousness, that night remained alive. Outside it, it was unprotected and available for anyone to poke, to destroy, until Paige would question if that night had ever truly existed.

  Besides, no one would ever believe that Paige, the hard-ass businesswoman, hard-core exotic dancer, had been shaken to the core by a night of sexual bliss with a complete fucking stranger.

  With her fingers hovering over the keys, she gathered her words and her emotions.

  What could she say without telling her followers everything? What could she share without sharing everything?

  Damien prowled into her doorway. His ears flattened and his beady eyes narrowed.

  “You don’t scare me.” But he did. Paige didn’t like that she would soon be asleep and he would be awake, prowling.

  He hissed, then continued his slow pace out of view.

  “Weirdo!” Paige yelled.

  She suddenly knew what she wanted to say.

  She started typing.

  Evil orange cat seeks pit bull playmate. Must have six-pack jawbone structure with a wicked appetite for orange pussy. No preference to hair or eye color. Contact X, my adorable, loving, incredibly sexy, and understanding owner for more information.

  Yours truly, Damien.

  Paige clicked the send button, then watched the ROFLMAOs, LOLs, Send him to mes roll up the screen.

  Was her mystery woman reading? Was she on the other end of cyberspace eagerly waiting for Paige’s words?

  Paige could only guess she was. She would only guess she was. She wanted her to be there. Wanted her to wait. Wanted her to want.

  What could Paige say to her? Come back and scald me with those lips again? Please, I’m begging you, come fuck me?

  She wasn’t beneath begging. Not if there was a slim chance she could experience New Orleans all over again with yet another stranger.

  Her insides clamped as the feel of the mystery woman’s hands groped at her, filled her.

  With a huff, Paige shoved the laptop away. She wasn’t going to find a single word in this brain with so much slick heat between her thighs.

  She needed relief.

  After choosing a blue vibrator from her nightstand, Paige turned it on, lay back, and closed her eyes.

  As always, a suave woman behind a mask, cruising the hotel lobby, sprang to mind. Short hair, trim build, black satin mask shielding all features of her face.

  Paige slid the vibrator inside and arched.

  Her virtual stranger extended her hand, and Paige’s insides clamped around the device.

  The woman had been so bold, so in control. Paige had needed someone to be bold. To be brave. She sure as hell hadn’t been.

  As her orgasm climbed, the images jumped to the feel of the woman’s hands against her skin, touching her, filling her.

  Paige parted her lips as the woman in her mind snaked her tongue inside her mouth. She’d never been kissed like that before. She’d never been kissed like that since.

  Until tonight.

  Her orgasm scrambled to the edge. Her insides squeezed the vibrator.

  The mystery woman forced Paige’s hands around the bed frame, her whisper hot against Paige’s ear, and then pushed inside her.

  Paige’s orgasm ripped through her. She arched and pumped and flicked her clit until she finally sagged against the bed.

  She lay there for several minutes, thinking about New Orleans, about the woman behind the mask at the club.

  Could this new stranger bring her to the same peak the other had taken her? Could she open the same portal? Could she take her to the same dimensions?

  Paige carried the vibrator to the bathroom sink, then went back to the laptop.

  She knew what she wanted to say.

  I recommend silicone vibrators over hard plastic. The hard plastic is cold and uncaring. The silicone has a smooth entry…all the way to climax.

  I was kissed by a masked stranger tonight. More details tomorrow.

  Night all.

  X

  Paige closed the lid with a smile. She simply couldn’t give her readers any of her sheltered memories. Nor could she give her mystery woman a fat head.

  Not this soon, anyway.

  *

  Mayson closed the business email and saved it as new before surfing through the rest of her inbox. She needed to get some work out of the way after being away for so long.

  Oh, who was she kidding? She was waiting for another blog from X. Surely her cat wasn’t all she wanted to talk about tonight. For heaven’s sake, she’d practically melted into Mayson’s kiss.

  She’d wanted to read the quiver in her words, not the comical way she hated her damn cat. She’d rattled the notorious X. She liked it more than she should. Now she deserved to read the confirmation. Her followers deserved to know. They were a loyal bunch, sympathizing with a woman they couldn’t pick out of a crowd of two. But Mayson could. Now.

  She was still stunned and confused by the outcome of her night. The outcome that the woman behind the computer screen, who hid her identity from thousands of followers with a simple X, was the same woman teasing her audience with bits of flesh. She was gorgeous in every aspect of the word. She was surely the most breathtaking creature Mayson had ever had the pleasure of meeting, of kissing. Yet Fedora was looking for something that was readily available to her daily. So what was she looking for that wasn’t at her fingertips?

  Mayson could still hear the sound of her rushed sigh. Music. Sweet, pure melody.

  How she wanted to hear it again. How she wanted to go further, to know what she sounded like when her body poured with release.

  Mayson needed, yea
rned, to feel her soft flesh. She wanted to hear a gasp rush past those lips. She wanted to feel her insides clench around her fingers.

  The inbox pinged.

  She smiled with relief.

  X was going to tell the world she’d been kissed. That it was the best kiss in the universe. That it made her wet enough to masturbate.

  Her gut churned while she opened the link and began reading.

  “That’s it?” Mayson growled at the screen. “What the hell?”

  She closed the lid and leaned back in her chair. The flyer the bartender from the club gave her caught her attention. She snagged up the paper.

  Please join the Visions crew, in conjunction with Past Time Charity, and neighboring businesses for a day of community cleanup.

  Where: Humphries Park

  When: Saturday

  Time: 10 a.m. until

  Would X be there? Could Mayson pass up the chance to see her face again? A chance to know the real X, without her stage name and dim lights? Without Mayson’s mask? The thought stirred wet heat between her thighs.

  “I’ll give you something to blog about, Fedora.”

  She snagged up her cell phone and dialed Eric. He answered on the second ring.

  “You free tomorrow?”

  “Depends. Does it involve work?” Eric yawned.

  “I’ll pick you up at eight.”

  “Do I get a say-so?”

  “Nope. Good night.”

  Mayson disconnected the call and stared at the flyer.

  “What are you really looking for, Fedora?”

  Chapter Five

  The following day, Mayson and Eric parked in the lot for the local park. The sky was clear and the weather warm. She spotted several people already working at the edge of the park and headed in their direction.

  She anxiously searched the group for long auburn hair and lean legs, without success. X was nowhere to be seen.

  Mayson couldn’t wait to see her. To admire her out from under the strobe lights. Though she was hotter than the barrel on a squeeze machine gun beneath those arching lights.

  “You owe me ice cream for this. Triple scoops. Do you know how much I pay for manicures?” Eric said.

  Mayson cocked a brow at him. “You’re a serious closet case.”

  Eric snapped his fingers in a Z formation and put a sway in his walk. “You know you want this, girl. Trust me, I’m all lesbian. I could teach even you a thing or two.”

  Mayson chuckled. “You’re scaring me.”

  A woman Mayson assumed to be the owner of Visions headed toward them with an outstretched hand, sweet smile, and a clipboard tucked against her chest. “Thank you so much for coming out today. It’s great to meet you.”

  Mayson shook her hand. “Glad we could be of help. Where do you want us to work?”

  The woman looked startled for a few seconds, then pointed them toward an overgrown section near the center of the park.

  Two shovels later, Mayson and Eric started digging out the dead bushes and shrubbery. The nursery owner she’d called at seven that morning promised her order of trees, bushes, and flowers would arrive before ten.

  What a shame the park had gotten so overgrown. Mayson was ashamed to admit she wouldn’t normally be involved personally with a community event like this. Her full life left little time to devote to less-than-pressing matters, but the prospect of seeing X again climbed the rung of importance.

  Several kids squealed in the distance as they played dodge ball. She watched them with admiration and recalled coming here as a child to play in the wading pools on hot days, running through the thick, soft grass with her bare feet.

  Though one bad memory sprang to mind. The day she’d shoved the cute brunette into the water fountain on a dare from her friends. It had been a cruel thing to do, and the quiet girl hadn’t deserved to be treated like that. Peer pressure had been the reason, a need to fit in, to not be different from them.

  Fact was, she was exactly like them. Well, in one respect she was. They liked the girls. So did Mayson. They wanted to kiss the girls. So did Mayson. It would have been suicide to admit something so personal to them. Kids of their stature, with Baptist beliefs whispering in their ears, and parents who could whip up a storm of disapproval with dire consequences, would have made her life a living hell with that kind of secret.

  If only peer pressure hadn’t made her act so stupid, so uncaring. It was a pathetic excuse, she knew. She’d never been one to succumb to what everyone else wanted her to be. If only she’d been mature enough, brave enough, to not give a shit what they thought of her. Much like the girl who never joined in their games, who seemed to be content curled up in the corner of the park to write in her worn journal, who hadn’t cared that she was different from them. They were rich. According to the outfits she seemed to wear several times a week, she was far from wealthy.

  Not that Mayson had cared about who had money or who didn’t. But her friends had. They’d picked on the girl, attempting to pry the diary from her grasp.

  Mayson had only stood back and watched in shocked confusion. If she interfered, they would know that she liked a girl. Liked this girl. Like, really, liked her. Her gut had screamed to stand up for her, to protect her. And just when she could take no more of their teasing torture, she stepped forward and was forced to make a decision she wasn’t prepared to make.

  To fight for the girl? Or keep her secret tucked away?

  She’d never been faced with a more challenging decision since.

  Now she ran a billion-dollar company that forced her to fly to countries all over the world. She ran a rescue mission to far-flung places that forced her to do the same. The unpredictability of natural disasters, like earthquakes and tsunamis and hurricanes, often meant her workload doubled within seconds. She had a whole team set up, ready and waiting to respond to any emergency, but she liked to oversee the process in person just as she did with her construction projects.

  Yet no hurdle had ever compared to that very second in her life.

  “Come on, guys. We have better things to do than mess around with this flake.” Mayson had attempted to turn the attention from the girl. Instead, she could hear the hateful word ringing back on her ears. She’d never been a mean person. It wasn’t who she was.

  Fredrick turned a glare on her. “Take the journal from her.”

  Mayson felt like someone had kicked her in the gut. The spotlight was now on her. The moment of truth was upon her. She turned to the girl with pleading eyes. Today she wore blue jean knickers and a T-shirt two sizes too big. Her hair was short and pushed behind her ear. Her skin was so pale, unlike the rest of the kids from the park who were always tan from hours in the sun. But not this girl. She looked fragile. She looked lonely. But she didn’t look afraid.

  “Just give it to him,” Mayson pleaded.

  “Are you a chicken shit, Mayson?” Fredrick hissed from behind her. “Take it. Take the fucker from her!”

  Mayson had never hurt anyone before, definitely not without reason. This girl hadn’t done anything to them. She didn’t deserve their bullying simply because they came from money, simply because their parents hadn’t taught them a damn thing about respect. But her parents had. They would be furious if they could see the predicament she’d gotten herself in today.

  When Mayson turned back to the girl, she was no longer in the corner of the concrete bench with her legs tucked beneath her. She was standing rigid straight, her chin lifted, her eyes narrowed and daring. Her hair had been stick-straight and oily brown.

  To everyone else, she was ugly. For some reason, to Mayson, she was beautiful.

  “Please. Just give it to them and they’ll go away,” Mayson said under her breath.

  “No, they won’t. You rich bullies are all the same. Expecting the world to give you whatever you want.” The girl leaned toward Mayson and her jaw clenched. “If you want it so bad, take it. I dare you!”

  The challenge suddenly shifted. The girl was no longer
the focal point in this unfolding drama. Mayson was.

  The guys joshed her and egged on the situation with their laughter and callous mockery.

  Mayson stared at her, pleading with her eyes alone for the girl to comply with the situation so this would all end peacefully.

  The longer Mayson willed her to understand, the louder Fredrick chanted. “Get her. Get her. Get her!”

  Mayson reached out for the diary. The girl cupped it to her stomach.

  “Come on. Give me the damn book.”

  “Take it, bitch!”

  This wasn’t going to end well. Not for Mayson. Not for the girl.

  She took a breath, gathered her bravery, and shoved the girl into the water fountain, diary and all.

  The guys hooted and their laughter echoed around them while Mayson stared in shocked silence, already hating her actions.

  How could she do that? That girl hadn’t done a damn thing to any of them.

  An adult shouted from the far end of the park. Fredrick and his crew jumped on their bikes and raced away while Mayson stood stock-still.

  The man yelled again, and Mayson jerked from her trance. She grabbed her bike, took one look back just as the girl clambered from the water, her clothes plastered to her body, her hair like a cloak around her face, then she pedaled like the hounds of hell were after her.

  None of them stopped until they were back safely in their gated community, in the sanctuary of the surrounding mansions. Her friends had laughed and playfully punched at her. “Mayson! That was the shit, man. That was the shit. Did you see the look on that freak’s face?”

  Yes, she had. And it tormented her. That look was what made her shove Fredrick Wilkins off his bike, what made her start punching his pathetic face until the rest of the guys pulled her off him.

  “You’re a sorry sick fuck, Fredrick. You made me do that!” Mayson had raced back to the park, willing to confront the girl, to say how sorry she was, to even allow the girl to shove Mayson into the fountain if she felt the need.