by Anne Eton
Gina stared, uncomprehending.
“You never used this with your ex-girlfriend?” the blonde asked.
“No, like I said. It’s never been used at all.”
“I know Annabelle was in this bed. With you.” Dominika glanced at the mattress.
“Aw. Look, I’m sorry…”
“No! That’s not what I mean. I want to do something with you, share something she never had with you.”
Gina’s eyebrows lifted. “Are you saying you want me to buckle up the strapon?”
Dominika hesitated. “If I do not do this tonight, I may never again have the courage. And you said you were interested in it, it was something you wanted to do. Yes? Wait, let me finish. I know we are not married. But…” She paused, and glanced again. “It would feel maybe like a wedding night. And I am scared of the strapon, it frightens me, I don’t know why. But for that reason, I want to face it.”
“I’m not sure I’m following this. But just so we’re clear: you want me to put it on?”
Dominika, pale, nodded.
“Okay. You’re sure?”
“Yes.”
Gina rose from the bed. Setting the covering towel aside, she lifted the phallus and its belt from the desk, displaying it to Dominika. “Here it iiii—iiissss,” she said, grinning.
The blonde girl, looking stressed, did not smile.
Gina stepped into velcro straps and pulled them tight around her waist. Even in the dark, the dildo wobbling from her crotch looked shiny and new.
Dominika slowly sat up. She waddled on her knees to the side of the bed, staring.
Gina paused, unsure what to do next.
Finally, Dominika reached her hand toward the phallus. Gina approached. The blonde ran her fingers lightly up and down the dildo, unblinking.
Then she held it gently by its base. Closing her eyes, she opened her mouth. Her pink tongue darted out and touched the tip.
Gina sucked air into her lungs. She watched Dominika run her tongue ever so lightly over the head of the dildo, exploring, before finally moving her lips over it.
“Wow,” Gina breathed. “Girl. You are full of surprises.”
Dominika gave no sign she had heard. She sucked the head slowly, gently, growing used to the artificial phallus’s feel and taste.
“That is the hottest thing I have ever seen,” Gina whispered. “I just want to…”
In response, Dominika stopped. She laid back on the sheet, lifting and spreading her knees.
“Sure?”
Dominika nodded.
The brunette crawled onto the bed, the dildo wobbling dangerously. She squatted between Dominika’s legs. Massaging the slippery blonde bush up and down with the tip, she finally began to slide the phallus inside.
Dominika’s mouth fell open.
“Okay?”
The Polish girl nodded.
Gina slid it in deeper.
“Oh,” Dominika gasped. She opened her arms to Gina. The brunette lowered her shoulders and kissed her lover. Dominika wrapped her arms around Gina’s torso. The bigger girl began to rock her hips back and forth, gently at first, then with stronger thrusts.
The young women stared into each other’s eyes as their bodies moved.
“I love you,” Gina whispered.
“I love you,” Dominika said. “So much.” She gasped again with one of Gina’s thrusts.
Gina kissed Dominika’s shoulder, moving her hips in a rhythm of strong strokes. The bed made a protesting noise, creak-creak-creak. Dominika stared up at the ceiling. She felt an orgasm’s approach, different than before, deeper. When it finally arrived, she let out a high moan. Her body spasmed and convulsed.
Gina stopped. “Are you okay?” she asked, worried.
She is so tender, Dominika thought. The blonde held Gina’s face with both hands, kissing her lips again and again. “Yes.”
After Gina had put away the strapon and arranged the bedcovers over the two of them, she glanced at the window. “It’s morning already.”
Dominika smiled. “Then tomorrow is today.”
“Can I spoon you? Can you sleep like that?”
“I don’t know. But we can try.”
Dominika turned onto her side, facing away. Gina wrapped her arms around the smaller girl. In moments, they were asleep. Gina held her lover, the Polish girl who had come to America to discover life and push her boundaries, and who had succeeded beyond even her own expectations.
The End
Night Swimming
“Hello. The temp agency sent me.”
The expressionless girl standing at the door spoke in a French accent. She was mid-twenties, of average height, with long strawberry-blonde hair; a button nose complimented the surrounding freckles, giving the girl a wholesome quality. Her business jacket and skirt were stylish and tailored to her athletic build. The overall impression was of a healthy, upper-middle-class young woman who happened to be beautiful. She would have been the perfect model for a Lands’ End or Brooks Brothers photo shoot—if only she would smile.
The woman who had opened the door did smile. She was perhaps twenty years older than the girl, but clearly ate and exercised carefully. She had retained her youth’s beauty. A stylish knit dress hugged her curvy figure. Her bust seemed slightly too big for her body, but otherwise she looked like she could model, too. The woman brushed her long brown hair over one ear and stepped aside.
The temp girl crossed the threshold, entering the spacious house. Her host closed the door. The girl looked around. Instead of a box layout, the walls curved around like a shell’s. The furniture all matched. Clearly an interior designer had had his or her way with the place—the sofa, chairs, and cabinets were elegant and perfectly proportioned in relation to each other, with a unified modern feel.
A heavy Asian woman in a T-shirt and sweatpants approached.
“YuLing, this is Laurence,” the lady of the house said to her before turning back to the girl. “It is Laurence, isn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“Am I pronouncing your name correctly? LOW-ron-s?”
“Yes, that is right.”
“YuLing is my housekeeper.” She turned to YuLing: “This is the girl who will be helping me.”
YuLing nodded, beaming. “You like something to drink?” she asked with a Chinese accent.
“No, thank you.”
“Then I will go,” the housekeeper said to her employer. She nodded to the girl, smiled again, and walked away.
The temp gazed around once more. The home was so spotless and of such impeccable taste, it seemed ready for an episode on HGTV. However, there were no personal touches—no photographs, paperbacks, or anything to indicate that a human being actually lived in it. The girl stared out the front window. A strong surf crashed and roared between the house and white sand.
“Nice, isn’t it?”
Laurence looked at the woman. “It is very nice,” she said in her soft French accent.
“I really mean the ocean. The house is nice I guess, but it’s a rental. I don’t like it very much, actually. I chose it only because it’s oceanfront. If you’re in Malibu, oceanfront is the place to be. Don’t you think?”
The French girl stared with steady eyes. “If one has the money.”
Her hostess cocked her head. After a moment, she smiled. “Why don’t we go upstairs and I’ll show you everything.”
They ascended spotless stone steps that hugged the curved wall. “What part of France are you from?”
“Toulouse.”
“I’ve never been there. Is it nice?”
“Yes.”
“How familiar are you with Canadian French?”
“The agency asked me this also. If I’m speaking to a French Canadian, they may sometimes have an accent that is difficult for me to understand, especially if they are provincial. But if I am reading, or writing, it is no problem. There are slang terms, but there are slang terms in Canadian English also.”
“You may be
speaking to a few people, but they will all be in cities. Montreal and Québec. But mostly you’ll be reading documents in French.”
“Then it is absolutely no problem.”
They reached the second floor and walked down a hall. The older woman ushered Laurence into an office filled with received DHL boxes. A large desk covered with papers faced a floor-to-ceiling window with a spectacular view of the Pacific Ocean. A smaller shiny desk sat off to the side. It did not match any of the other furniture in the house.
“I bought your desk yesterday,” the woman said. “The computer people are coming tomorrow, so you should be totally set up next time you come. Did your agency tell you the hours?”
“Monday, Wednesday, Friday, nine to noon.”
“Right. So! Let’s get situated.”
The woman gestured to Laurence to have a seat at the smaller desk. Then she eased herself into her own chair at the big desk that overflowed with photocopied documents.
“Before we get into it, do you have any questions right off the bat?”
“How should I address you?”
“My name. Of course. I’m so sorry. Call me Peggy.” She stood and offered her hand, leaning across her desk. Laurence stood also, tilted toward her, and they shook before sitting again. Peggy continued: “I should mention, since you’ll see plenty of paperwork with my name on it, that Peggy is not my birth name. I was born Rebecca Roth. I changed my name to Peggy Hamilton when I moved to L.A. about, oh, fifteen years ago? I was married once after that, my married name was Peggy Goldstein. So you have to worry about remembering my married name too, ha. My name’s back to Peggy Hamilton now.”
“I see.”
“Any other questions?”
The French girl shook her head.
“Then I’ll get right to it. My father died recently.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Thanks.” Peggy’s lip trembled. “He was a wonderful man. I’ll tell you more about him some time, if ever you’re interested. But anyway, he was Canadian. He had extensive business holdings all over Canada and his will says everything gets split six ways. Every business, every stock, every bond, gets divided by six. He had six children, with my mom and three other wives. It gets pretty complicated.” She paused.
“I was raised mostly in New York,” Peggy continued. “My mother divorced him when I was little, and I was the only child. So I never really learned French. Well, I learned a little in school but I’ve forgotten it all now.”
“A shame.”
Peggy realized Laurence was making a joke. “Do you ever smile?”
The girl shrugged.
“So. I went to the funeral last week, in Ottawa, and all us kids met with the executors. His estate’s a mess. I have income statements, asset valuations, contracts, letters, all kinds of crap, and boxes of it are in French and I have no idea what it all means. And that is just the stuff from French Canada, from Québec province. There’s tons of other business documents from all over the country. I don’t even want to talk about Alberta. You ever hear of oil sands?”
Laurence shook her head.
“Me neither, till last week. Anyway, there’s boxes and boxes. The executors made six sets of photocopies of documents from my totally disorganized dad’s office and mailed copies to all of us. And more boxes keep coming every day.” She gestured at the cardboard containers everywhere. “Honestly, it’s killing me.”
A shadow crossed Peggy’s face. Laurence could see a brave front disappearing for a moment, revealing an overwhelmed, frightened woman.
The girl’s eyebrows knitted. “Can you hire an attorney? Or an accountant, perhaps?”
“I will. Once I’ve figured out what everything is, at least vaguely. But I don’t want to just hand everything off to the suits. My father would have killed me. He always told me: don’t ever just leave your business to anybody, Becca. When it comes to money, trust people, but always watch them like a hawk.”
“This seems… a big project.”
“Yeah. And I have to figure it all out fast. Me and my brothers and sisters are meeting again in Ottawa in six weeks. I don’t even know some of them. I don’t know what they’ll say. At the funeral there was talk of horse trading—I’ll give you this, you give me that.” She shook her head. “I can just see my dad somewhere now, grinning. He loved stuff like this.”
“How?”
“Negotiations, business, pressure. He would have wanted me to be on top of my game, and walk away with the biggest piece of the pie.”
“At the expense of your brothers and sisters?”
“Oh yeah. He actually hated some of his kids.”
“Then… why divide everything equally?”
“Because he was a fair man. And maybe just a little devilish. He would have eaten this up—all his kids arguing over a table, wheeling and dealing, trying to get the better of each other.”
“Oh.”
“I know I make him sound like a terrible person. But he wasn’t. He was the sweetest, kindest…”
Peggy stopped. She blinked, looking away at the ocean, about to cry.
“Let’s begin,” Laurence said quickly. “What can I do?”
At noon, Peggy rose. “You are great. I mean it. You’re awesome.”
Laurence stood also. “Thank you.”
“You can wear whatever you want next time. Come barefoot, if you like.”
The girl nodded. She followed Peggy back downstairs. At the door, the older woman turned to her employee. “The temp agency said you were going back to France in a couple of months.”
“Yes. But not before your big meeting.”
“I guess if I need you after the meeting, there’s always Skype, huh?” Peggy joked.
As usual, Laurence did not smile. “I am getting married.”
“Congratulations. That’s wonderful.”
“So if I work on Skype perhaps you must hire my husband, also.”
Peggy studied her carefully. “You know… I think you’re funny. But I’m not sure.” A thought occurred to her. “How’s the setup in the office? Anything else you need, besides the computer?”
“File folders would help. And hanging files. And some filing cabinets.”
Peggy departed and returned with a credit card. She handed it to the girl.
“What is this?”
“AmEx. Get on the net and go to Staples or Amazon or whatever and order it. Get it all delivered here, soon as possible. Do it under my name.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yep. I’ll add another hour to your timesheet.”
“Today is Wednesday. So I will see you Friday. Do you want me to arrive before nine?”
“No, nine’s fine. Thanks Laurence. See you Friday.”
On Friday, Laurence arrived exactly on time. She wore sandals, shorts and a tight Hooters T-shirt. She looked like a waitress.
“You’re kidding,” Peggy said. “Do you know what Hooters is?”
“They sell owls?” The letters and logo on the shirt made the two Os into an owl’s eyes.
“No, it’s a restaurant where…”
“Yes, I know,” the girl deadpanned. “It was a joke.”
“You’re something else. C’mon, a ton of boxes from Staples arrived. Thanks, by the way.”
Soon, Laurence had set up the cabinets and invented a filing system.
“If on the labels we put the business name first,” she said, bending over Peggy’s desk to point at a paper, “and the province, and the approximate value of the company, we can use that for the hanging files. This document, for example, would be in United Timber-Manitoba-x. We can write in pencil and fill in the x later. And then we use manila sub-files inside the hanging file. Correspondence, stock reports, et cetera.”
“You are amazing. Let’s do it.”
“We should organize all the paper first, then read it after. It will save time.”
“Brilliant.”
“I thought about this all of yesterday.”
&nb
sp; “I can tell. Thank you!” Peggy checked her watch. 11:55 AM. “Crap. Noon already.”
“I can stay, if you want,” Laurence said.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, no problem.”
“Okay. We’ll knock off at five. My father always used to say that: ‘knock off.’”
“It means… quit?”
“Yeah.”
“Or maybe, kill?”
“Not what I meant, but, yeah, I guess that too.”
A few minutes after five, the women stood by the front door.
“Thanks again.”
“You’re welcome. Thank you for signing my timesheet.”
“Now I know you’re kidding.”
“If you wish, I can work nine to five, five days a week, and weekends if necessary. You have more work to do than I anticipated.”
Suddenly, Peggy leaned in and kissed Laurence on both cheeks.
The French girl studied her as impassively as always. “Yes?”
“That’s what French people do, don’t they?”
“When saying hello or goodbye, sometimes.”
“Sorry. I’m just so glad you’re here. Is there somewhere you have to be right now?”
“No… do you want to work some more?”
“Hell no. Every day around this time, I have a Manhattan out by the pool. Want to join me?”
The girl looked uncertain.
Peggy pressed: “Come on! I want to learn about you. You’re fascinating. And I make an incredible Manhattan, you won’t believe it.”
“You make margarita?”
Peggy blinked. “Yes, I do. Tell you what. Head out to the pool.” Peggy pointed to the rear of the house. “I’ll go take care of the drinks and I’ll meet you there in a minute.”
“I can’t stay long…”
“Sure.”
* * *
Laurence blinked as she stepped into the pink hues of a West Coast sunset. An Olympic-sized pool had a small adjacent hot tub next to it. The entire outdoor patio area was only slightly higher than the beach that butted up. Across the sand, ocean waves crashed.
The French girl smiled, listening to the roar. Warm wind fluttered her long strawberry-blonde hair.
“Finally, a smile.” Peggy approached from the rear of the house, carrying two drinks. She wore a beautiful embroidered kimono. She seemed relaxed. Clearly, this was her favorite place and her favorite time of day.