by Fiona Zedde
“My stomach,” Rémi said. She pulled her present from the paper bag. “I got hungry thinking about you.”
A smile curved Claudia’s mouth. She hitched the bag onto her shoulder. “Thank you, tummy.” She lightly patted Rémi’s stomach. “Because I’m hungry too.”
“I figured as much. Here.” She extended the apple. When Claudia reached out to take it, Rémi shook her head, pulled the fruit back.
Claudia tilted her head. Pursed her lips. “Really?”
“Your mouth.”
She chuckled, a low vibration deep in her throat before leaning in to sink her teeth into the glistening green apple. The fruit crunched. A bit of juice squirted on Rémi’s fingers. When Claudia drew back, Rémi sucked the juice from her hand and bit into the apple too.
“If you don’t have any more campus commitments today, I’d like to take you to dinner.”
“Oh. I thought this was dinner.”
“Not hardly.”
“In that case, I’d love to have dinner with you. I can just come in early tomorrow and finish up.”
They left the classroom, walking through the wide hallways with their arms touching, the sound of their heels synchronized against the tiled floor. Rémi’s boots. Claudia’s far-from-sensible shoes.
“I know it’s a school night, so I promise to get you in bed by ten”—when Claudia laughed, Rémi shook her head, smiling—“in your own bed and alone. Promise.”
“What if I don’t want to be in my bed, alone, by ten?”
“Then I’m open to renegotiation.”
Outside, the sky simmered with light. Sunset was at least an hour away. Looking at her watch, Rémi suggested Claudia leave her car in the faculty parking lot and come with her on the back of the Harley. Traffic would be less of an issue that way. After only a moment’s hesitation, Claudia agreed, dropping off her briefcase in the trunk of her little toy car before hopping on the bike.
Rémi kicked the engine to life. She couldn’t resist reaching back to clasp the naked length of Claudia’s thigh, once, with her gloved hand. The hiked-up skirt, and revealed brown skin, made Rémi’s body vibrate nearly as viciously as the bike rumbling under them.
She waited until they had ridden through the campus, coasted past the backpacked students, lazily waving palm trees, and miles of parked cars before opening up the bike. Claudia gripped her belly tighter, pressed her helmeted face against the leather jacket covering Rémi’s back. Laughed as they shot out onto Ponce de Leon Boulevard toward Highway 1.
When they got to their destination, a high-rise apartment building near Biscayne Bay, Claudia looked around. “I didn’t know there was a restaurant around here.”
“Normally there isn’t, but for you, the world appears.”
Rémi drew her close, inhaling the scent of fresh apples from her laughing mouth. After stopping by the concierge’s desk to get the picnic basket and blanket—Claudia eyed them with an intrigued smile—they rode the glass elevator up, and up, away from the dense green below until a view of Biscayne Bay appeared, a dazzling blue canvas with dozens of boats floating on its jeweled surface. Birds, pale and graceful like small clouds, hovered over the water.
“This city is so beautiful,” Claudia breathed, leaning back into Rémi.
“Yes, it is.”
On the roof, Rémi spread the thick plaid blanket, unpacked the food while Claudia looked down at the bay on one side and Coconut Grove on the other. Unlike most rooftops in Miami, this one hadn’t been converted into a city-view deck or set up with cabanas and a pool. Instead, the surface under their feet remained rough and unpainted, and the hip-high ledge separating them from certain death was blocked cement and utilitarian gray. Except for the steady hum of the building’s main air conditioner unit, it was just them and wide open sky.
“I can almost see my house from here,” Claudia said, peering toward the Grove and shielding her eyes against the lowering sun.
Rémi looked up from pulling a bottle of wine from the picnic basket. “Your eyesight must be amazing.” In her high heels, black skirt, and simple white blouse, Claudia stood silhouetted against the brilliant blue sky. “Along with everything else,” Rémi finished.
A mild breeze tugged at Claudia’s sleeves as she turned. Her mouth curved up. A hand at the fluttering collar of her blouse.
“Come,” Rémi said.
Claudia sat down on the blanket, tucking her legs under her. She looked at each dish Rémi had pulled from the picnic basket, pre-made and snugly tucked under plastic wrap. Curried chicken. Brown rice. Cabbage. “This is wonderful, darling. Did you make all this?”
Without waiting for an answer, she leaned in with parted lips, tangling fingers in the hair at Rémi’s nape. Her mouth was dry but warm. Rémi licked it, turning the quick peck into something else. She could never get enough of kissing Claudia.
“You know better than that,” she said once her lips were free. “Rochelle made dinner for us.”
Claudia grinned. “Silly me. But brilliant you for coming up with this. The last thing I wanted to do at home tonight was cook.”
The last thing Rémi wanted to do was go home alone tonight. At least one of them would get their wish. She turned a crooked smile to Claudia. “Eat up.”
She uncovered the plates and, miraculously, everything was still warm. Faint trails of steam hovered over the thin slices of raisin-flavored curried chicken, bringing the spicy-sweet aroma to Rémi’s nose. Her companion sighed with appreciation when she put the plate in her lap and poured her a glass of white wine.
“You are the most delicious human being in creation,” she said, taking a bite of cabbage.
“Interesting choice of words.” Rémi chuckled. “Don’t get my mind started on that path, please. It will all come to no good.” She picked up her own food and turned to fully face Claudia, who eagerly sampled everything on her plate. “Tell me about your day.”
They talked while the sun drifted lower in the sky, ripening everything around them. Falling amber light tangled in the faint lines at the corner of Claudia’s eyes, blinding Rémi to everything but her lover. Her ears shut to everything but the words Claudia spoke. Her libido floated away with everything that was extra, everything but the warmth swelling inside her chest for this woman. She refilled Claudia’s glass, leaving hers for the most part untouched.
Their plates emptied and Claudia relaxed even more, speaking freely about her love of teaching and books in a way that Rémi had never heard before.
“Sometimes,” she said, in the tone of a sinner at confessional, “I find it all unbearably sexy.” Claudia swirled the wine in her glass, glanced up at Rémi through her lashes. “I’ve even masturbated to Toni Morrison.”
Caught off guard, Rémi laughed. “Honestly? Which one? Please don’t say Beloved! That would be too weird, even for me.”
“No.” Claudia laughed and threw her head back to look at the sky. “I can’t believe I just told you that.”
“You haven’t told me anything yet.” Rémi poured more wine into Claudia’s glass. “Tell me how it happened. Unless it happened more than once, and then just tell me about the first time.”
Claudia’s eyes sparkled between curling lashes. She leaned toward Rémi on the blanket, fingers landing like butterflies on Rémi’s knee. “Why?”
“Why do you think?”
She laughed again and withdrew her hand. “We were reading the novel in a class—”
In class? Rémi’s body perked up.
“—and the eroticism of the scene just hit me. The character laying there, pressing her naked body into a seal skin coat. I had to look up to see if any of the students noticed me pressing my legs together.”
But Rémi wasn’t picturing Claudia’s students or even anything to do with the Toni Morrison book. The image of Claudia touching herself came to her as clearly as if she had been watching from the other side of the classroom. The students disappeared and it was her, hiking up the pencil skirt, baring a glistening
pussy. Fingers dancing over her clit. Disappearing into the wet pink hole. Rémi’s fingers twitched against her thigh.
Claudia’s gaze caught the movement like a fly. “Does that excite you, darling?”
“I’m not made of stone.” Rémi adjusted the air in her throat.
The laughter died on Claudia’s lips. She looked at Rémi, tapping a finger very lightly against her mouth. “I never thought you were.”
With the slightest twist of her body, she put her wineglass down, far away from them, nearly off the blanket.
“Could you be like stone for me if I wanted?”
“Why would you want—” Something in Claudia’s eyes stopped the rest of the words. “Yes, I could.”
“And right now, can you be still for me?”
“Yes.”
“Can you not touch?”
“Yes.”
Rémi closed her eyes and leaned back, bracing herself on flattened palms, as Claudia reached over to unbutton her shirt, fingers barely tasting skin as they flicked each button loose from its cotton prison. If she didn’t watch, she thought, she could have as much control as Claudia wanted. The breeze gently batted at her flesh, her breasts, her belly.
“I love that you don’t wear a bra.”
The words brushed against Rémi’s throat and all her senses shuddered.
“All I have to do is peel aside one layer, and there you are. Mine.”
A cool palm against her skin. Claudia’s hand surrounding her breast. Cupping it. Fingers biting gently into her nipples.
I don’t think this is the place, love. That’s what Rémi wanted to say. Anyone can see. But when Claudia’s tongue found her nipples, she was lost. Rémi had never been affected either way when women touched her breasts, but with Claudia her entire body seemed to wake to all sensual possibilities. The lazy lash of tongue flooded moisture between her legs. Their blanket wrinkled under her clenched fingers. Her lashes trembled against her cheeks. A touch on her belly. The sound of her zipper releasing. Her slacks whispering as they gave way.
“No.” She grabbed Claudia’s hand, stopping their progress.
“I thought you said you could be still. Not touch.”
Rémi trembled at the voice. Steel wrapped in silk. She withdrew her hand.
Tiny kisses circled her breast, moved up to her throat, her ear, while a touch, featherlight and inevitable, crept low, tangling in the hairs at her pussy. She hissed. Her clit, swollen to painful thickness by the whip in Claudia’s voice, throbbed under the delicate touch. The touch. Rémi’s head flew back as the touch pressed between her legs. She opened them as wide as the slacks would allow. Electric and perfect. Firm and slow. Claudia’s fingers swirled around her clit, dove between her swollen pussy lips. Filled her. Rémi gasped. Good. So good.
“Do you know how much I love the feel of you around my fingers? The way you get wet for me, so easily. I envy that.”
Shallow movements. Then deeper. Firmer. The shadows behind her tightly closed eyelids flickered. Went red. Wind rushing in and out of her mouth. Rémi’s pussy opened up, rushing wet, clinging walls, as Claudia’s fingers unerringly found that spot.
“Be still for me.”
Claudia whispered it against her breast. Tongue darting. Mouth sucking. But Rémi couldn’t help the movement of her hips. Lifting up. Eagerly swallowing the small fingers. Liquid lust. Her belly tight and tighter. Hands clenched in the blankets to hold on to something, anything, since her body was flying apart. Apart. A brilliant sunset that rippled through her body, ripped her eyes open, tore gasp after gasp, a sprinter’s labored wheeze from her.
Arms trembling, she opened her eyes to Claudia’s smiling face.
“You are so lovely.” And she licked Rémi’s juices from her fingers.
Rémi’s hips bucked against the blanket. She was still as Claudia buttoned her shirt, zipped up her slacks, buckled her belt. Another shudder ran through her. Rémi’s mouth felt dry. Wordless.
“I’m enjoying you so much.” Claudia lifted her fingers to her nose and inhaled deeply, smiling.
Then the smile fell from her face. Her look became serious. Eyes flickered to Rémi’s face then beyond to the fiery sky and dark clouds slipping between cracks in the light. Rémi leaned forward to ask what was wrong, but Claudia’s voice stopped her.
“Have you thought about what a long-term relationship with me means?”
“Of course.” Sometimes that was all she thought about. Dez’s reaction. Her friends’ comments. Would Claudia ever be able to come out to her friends and acknowledge their relationship without being ashamed. She thought about these things. Often.
“I’m going to die,” Claudia said.
Rémi’s stomach dropped. She jerked her hand away from her lover’s. Then clutched at Claudia’s arms. “What? Are you all right? I thought the cancer was gone.” She felt encased in ice.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to say it like that. What I mean is, I’ll die long before you. I’ll lose my sex drive before you.” Whatever she saw in Rémi’s face made her shake her head, smile sadly. “That’s about the same as death for someone like you.”
“There are differences between us, yes. But don’t talk about death.” Rémi’s voice broke and she had to clear her throat. Then dropped into the French of her childhood. “S’il vous plaît. Je vous prie. Don’t ever do that. When it comes, it comes.”
Her body lurched forward, uncontrolled, and gathered Claudia close. And even then I don’t want to be away from you. Rémi didn’t realize she was shaking until Claudia pulled away, pressed cool hands to her cheeks. A curl of her own hair trembled before her face as if caught in its own small earthquake.
“I’m sorry, baby. I didn’t mean to frighten you.”
Rémi didn’t know what to say. The thought of losing her lover had ripped away her speech, made it impossible for her to do anything but hold her close and feel the ice inside her slowly dissolve with each small kiss Claudia pressed to her mouth.
“I’m sorry,” Claudia said again. “Take me home. There will be other sunsets to see.”
Chapter 27
The house stood high on the grass-brushed hill, with glass from its tall, rectangular windows winking in the late morning sun. It had been designed and built by some famous architect that her father had gone to school with in France. Clean modern lines, wheat-colored marble, and acres of reflective glass somehow made the structure fit perfectly with the crystal water and seasonal extremes of the Boothbay Harbor landscape. Because of its unique beauty, Auguste’s house had been the subject of many photo spreads in home and garden magazines. In snow, Rémi remembered, the house was breathtaking, rising up out of the white like a jeweled crown. Now, at the height of spring, the lawn was its most vibrant green, and the roses on either side of the path leading up to the door exploded in vibrant shades of red, yellow, and lavender. A hint of winter’s cool breath still lingered in the air.
Rémi turned from watching the taxi driver disappear around the circular driveway to walk up the marble steps to the thick, wooden front door. She put the key in the lock and turned it.
Behind her, Yvette shivered in her thin T-shirt. “I wonder why Mama didn’t come out to meet us. I called her when you were paying the cabbie and getting the luggage.”
She gently shouldered past Rémi and through the open front door with her backpack over one shoulder and a pillow pressed against her chest. She wasn’t able to sleep on the plane without a pillow so Rémi had given her one from the guest room.
“Maybe she’s busy.” Rémi dropped her duffel bag on the floor and passed the house key back to her sister. She looked at her watch. It was barely two o’clock.
Yvette glanced toward the stairs. “I’m going to put this stuff in my room and find her.” She turned to go.
Claudia sat on the wooden bench near the door, her small rolling suitcase at her feet. She still looked as refreshed as she had this morning when Rémi and Yvette came to get her in the truck. Long legs c
rossed in the salmon-colored trouser shorts and a white blouse tucked in neatly at the waist.
“Maybe we should call again to make sure that she’s here.”
“Hey.” They both turned when a side door banged open and a breathless figure emerged. “Sorry I didn’t come sooner. I got tied up outside in the garden.”
Her mother looked old. Rémi blinked at the woman she’d barely seen ten months ago and felt the surprise burst in her chest. Kelia’s permed hair lay in glossy salt-and-pepper waves around her face, falling inches well above her shoulders. There were lines in her face that weren’t there at the funeral. Her mouth was pinched and narrow, and although the brisk spring breeze from the outdoors should have made her coco brown coloring more refreshed, she looked washed out and toothpick-thin instead. The black cardigan and jeans nearly swallowed her thin body whole. Rémi knew that Kelia and Claudia were around the same age, but with the two of them in the same room, her lover could easily pass for Kelia’s much younger sister. Or daughter.
Kelia pulled off her gardening gloves and dropped them in an antique-looking copper pail by the door.
“Rémi, it’s good to see you.” Rémi stood stiffly as Kelia hugged her and stood up on tiptoe to kiss her cheek. “Don’t stand there as if you hate me.” The brown eyes looked into hers as if searching for something. Rémi gently disengaged herself from her mother’s embrace.
“Mother, this is Claudia Nichols.” Rémi nodded toward her lover while her mother still looked at her, wide-eyed and hurt. “Claudia, my mother, Kelia Walker-Bouchard.”
“A pleasure.” Claudia extended her hand and a cautious smile.
Kelia cleared her throat and lightly shook the offered hand. “I didn’t realize Rémi was bringing someone else along.”
“Of course you did, Mama. I told you.” Yvette bounced in the room, looking more like a child than Rémi had seen these past few months. “I told you Rémi was bringing her girlfriend.”
Rémi could feel Claudia’s cringe at her side, but her lover met Kelia’s surprised look with the same smile. Almost a dare.
“Ah. Okay. I didn’t realize . . .” Her voice tapered off into silence.