by Sacchi Green
“Hey,” she said, in that slightly coarse, sex-roughened voice that Sarah so loved. It sounded like Mel after a night on the town, belting out rock ’n’ rollers into the karaoke machine; it sounded like them. As a child, Sarah had always imagined growing up to marry some guy she met in college, maybe; they’d have two kids and buy a house, get a dog. Everything was all planned out. It hadn’t been until Mel that she’d realized it had all been planned out for her, and that things didn’t actually have to be that way. That deviating from the plan someone else wrote out for you was frightening, but that scarier still was the thought that she might never have known she was being controlled at all, however benevolently. Mel made fear of the unknown into something Sarah wanted to dive headfirst into, because Mel would be there, and she made Life Before Understanding look like the ugliest cage in the world.
“Come here,” Mel said, tugging Sarah’s head down onto her shoulder, and Sarah went without resistance, seeing no reason not to. They were a team, she and Mel, a good team. And they’d only get better.
THE TRUTH ABOUT TARA
Annabeth Leong
What if all of it is true? You don’t seem to have considered that. What if Tara lied about who she is, but what if I also saw right into her soul from the very first moment?
You want her to be so simple, a cackling villain, gun tucked into her purse, mask covering her face, blood caught underneath red nails. For some reason, you want to believe that a person like that could have fooled me, that I could have loved her if she had been so obvious and so cruel.
And you want me to be a fool, don’t you? That’s what this charade of yours is all about, isn’t it? You think I don’t know my rights? I am an American citizen. This is a domestic flight. I have a lawyer. You can’t hold me. Are you charging me with a crime? You people might be working to change this stuff, but last I checked, habeas corpus still applies to those of us with blue passports.
I was on my knees licking Tara’s pussy before I knew her name. Don’t get wide-eyed. That’s not an exaggeration.
I was working this noodle shop deep in the guts of the Venetian—yes, I originally went to Vegas to be a stripper, but the pole’s not easy on the back, and that’s only one of the ways I’m not as young as I used to be.
Anyway, she came through with a purpose. Nothing caught her eye, not the lights or the machines or the women. She looked like a dancer on an Alvin Ailey poster, long neck, long arms, dark skin, chin just so. I thought at first that she was hungry and searching for a meal that cost less than ten dollars. The people who go to the trouble to find that noodle shop are usually either Asians nostalgic for a taste of home or unlucky gamblers desperate to escape the fifty-dollar buffets. Some of those people come up to me with the same single-minded focus Tara had, and then ask for the chili oil cucumber and the Singapore noodles.
Tara walked up and didn’t say anything. She just stood too close and looked at me like she knew every secret I ever told my best friend in middle school. She was older than I’d thought at first. Signs of age had gathered at the corners of her eyes and mouth. I liked that. I saw sadness in her, but also humor.
I remember she smelled cleaner than anything ever does in Vegas. No trace of cigarette smoke. No scents of any kind lingering from the night before. I wondered how it was possible—I haven’t smoked since ’96, but just walking through the casino floor to get to the noodle shop makes me smell like an ashtray and deposits a layer of soot on the inside of my lungs.
There weren’t any other customers, so we stood that way much longer than normal, taking each other in. When I cleared my throat to ask if I could help her, it felt like I hadn’t spoken in fifty years.
She smiled, brushed aside the order pad I’d lifted, and let her fingers rest on my arm. “I think you can,” she said, and kissed me.
It was the sort of thing that happens in movies about Vegas, but I’d had years of living there to teach me not to expect something like that to happen to me. So when I opened my mouth, it was mostly out of surprise, but when she took that as an invitation for her tongue, I gave in to the moment all the way.
I’m not going to say she was a perfect kisser. She was in a bit too much of a hurry, and the sloppiness in her movements told me she wasn’t as confident as she pretended to be. It’s hard to explain, though, how flattering it is for someone as hot as Tara to seem so eager for your body, especially in Vegas, where it’s clear every time you walk outside that your body isn’t all that exciting in context.
I don’t make myself up pretty like I used to when I was dancing. I’ve flirted with going butch, but I haven’t mastered the swagger or the dapper look or the muscle. I feel just normal all the time—flat faced, flat assed, flat chested, too thick for androgynous glam looks, too small to really take up space—and in Vegas, feeling normal means feeling drab.
So when she kissed me with her need way out ahead of her finesse, I melted for her. I put the order pad down on the counter, then used that newly freed hand to grab Tara’s ass. I checked to make sure the register was locked, then steered us toward the switches in the back. I turned off all the lights, but most especially the open sign. I tried to do all this without letting up on kissing her, as if she’d disappear if our mouths separated. I probably thought she would, but the way I was moving made her giggle, and I finally had to pull back.
I held her upper arms in my hands, squeezed as hard as I dared, and looked into complicated brown and hazel eyes. “Stay here for one sec,” I said, meaning for it to come out as a command but making it sound like a question. She giggled again, and I rushed over to the cooktop so I could make sure a grease fire wouldn’t interrupt whatever we were about to do together.
The whole time, my head kept twisting around to look at her, and that meant I noticed on some level—nothing conscious until I thought about it later—that there was a commotion of some sort out on the casino floor. Maybe I even guessed, in some buried part of my mind, that there had to be a reason for this woman’s appearance and her sudden interest in me, and that the glimpses I caught of uniformed personnel—hotel security, but also police and also FBI—might go some way toward explaining my unusual good fortune.
You have to understand, though, that none of these thoughts broke the surface while my lips were tingling from her minty lip gloss and my ears were ringing with suggestions I was trying to get up the courage to make to her. Wondering who she was and where she’d come from—that stuff came later, alone in my bed, shivering in skin that still wanted to be heated by her touch.
Right then, that day, I rushed back to her as quickly as I could and asked if she wanted to join me in the private employee closet. And she did. She very much did.
You want to know what happened in the closet? If she was trying to hide out in there, she wasn’t quiet about it. As soon as I closed the door behind us, she slammed me up against it and took off my clothes like she was angry at them for keeping me from her for so long. I needed her naked, too, but I was clumsier about it, so mostly I made her look messy—one breast bare, the other covered, skirt half-off, panty hose down just enough for me to get my hand inside her panties.
I wanted to fuck her harder than my muscles could handle, and any other time I would have backed off, but this time I discovered that if you grunt and pant you can squeeze out a little more effort.
So we weren’t at all quiet, no, and it didn’t seem to me like we were trying to be. My wrist and forearm burned, but I wasn’t about to let anything stop me from shoving my fingers into her. She kissed me like she wanted to swallow me. When she reached between my legs, I spread wide so she could get to me whatever way she wanted, and I knocked over a stack of boxes in the process, and I did not give a flying fuck.
Shit was crashing everywhere, and our bodies were dusty from the closet and sweaty from what we were doing and fragrant from how wet we were, and I felt awkward but sexy, and she was just everything to me right then. When you’re living out a fantasy you never quite admitted you
had, you don’t stop or slow down. You grab as much of it as you can. You’re greedy as hell for it. You’ll do anything to keep it from escaping.
So I felt her come around my hand, and she looked so fucking gorgeous, head flung back, shoulders shuddering, one hand flung out to the side like she needed it for balance and the other pushing into me. She seemed impossible, and I got nervous she’d be done after the orgasm faded, that she wouldn’t want to do me in return, so before she could recover I got free of her grip, sank to my knees in front of her, and buried my face in her cunt.
I enjoyed one glorious taste of her. She was dripping like a candy bar left out in the sun, all over my tongue, all over my face. If nothing had interrupted us, I might have stayed right there until I got fired, but yeah, that was the moment someone banged on the door to the employee closet.
She went stiff, but so did I. I didn’t think anything of that. Seemed like a natural response to getting caught fucking a stranger. I jerked my head away from her clit and called out, “Yeah?” I was so hopped up and aroused, it didn’t even occur to me to pray the person on the other side wouldn’t turn out to be my boss.
“FBI. Would you mind if we open this door and look inside?”
I freaked out. Not because I had anything criminal to hide, but because it was embarrassing. How could this happen to me the one time I did something wild and sexy? “Um, I actually do mind,” I called back. Both of us inside the closet were getting ourselves put back together, but no matter how put together I could get, I had no desire for a walk of shame in front of federal agents.
There was shuffling outside the door, but no one tried the handle. After a little while, the agent on the other side said, “Mind if I ask who’s in there with you?”
I glanced at the woman in the closet with me and realized I’d never asked her name. I felt the blush heating my chest and sort of wanted to hide in there for the rest of my life. “My girlfriend,” I said.
“Have you known her long?”
“Yes?”
I didn’t regret what I’d been doing, but I also felt weird admitting the full extent of it to some guy through a door.
There was more commotion and some conversation I couldn’t hear, but then a second voice spoke, loudly. “Jesus, Neil, don’t be a perv. You can learn about lesbian sex when you’re off duty. Leave the poor woman alone.”
“Thanks for your time,” the first voice said. The man’s palm tapped the door as if patting me on the shoulder by proxy. “Um, carry on.”
Carry on? God, we cracked up. I laughed until I couldn’t breathe and my stomach cramped. Then I looked at her and said, “I really ought to have found out your name, like, before.”
She said her name was Tara McCready and that she was in town for a conference for medical device manufacturers, and in no way did I think to question her because she kissed me after that. We shoved enough things aside to just lie down on the closet floor. She put her thigh between mine and grinned, and I had a roaring sensation in my chest, like I was a fire and she was my fuel, because that was the moment I knew she wasn’t leaving anytime soon.
I’ve never had anyone touch me like Tara did. What she could do with teeth and tongue and fingers . . . Pleasure was a stunning force when it came from her. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t think. There was grime from who knows how many years grinding into my back, but I didn’t care.
I came until I didn’t think I wanted to anymore, but she kept finding ways to start me up again. We had to have been in that closet for hours. I’d never been that sweaty, that dirty, that sexy—and I’ve never cared that little about how I looked.
We stumbled out eventually. If we’d come out sooner, I might not have asked, but after all that time, I’d gotten a little bit used to getting what I wanted. “Tara,” I said. “My apartment’s not far. I don’t know how long you’re in town, but . . . ”
She kissed me, slow and sensual, but I could also feel a new distance between us. “Actually,” she said, “I’ve got to be on a plane out really soon.”
“Oh,” I said. Tears sprang to my eyes, and they made me feel greedy.
Her face softened at the sight of them. She touched my cheek. “This was fun,” she said, “but it wasn’t just fun. I needed that, more than you know.” She had me write my number down on a length of receipt paper for her—she said she’d forgotten her phone in her hotel room. “I’ll be in touch,” she said, “if I’m back in town. If it’s okay with you . . . I think I will be.”
Yes, later I saw things on the news. I made some guesses based on them. And, yes, when I Googled her later, I found out that Tara McCready didn’t work for any medical device manufacturer that I could find, so I knew she’d told me some lies. But I didn’t think her body had lied to me, and I didn’t think she’d lied when she said she’d find her way back. Maybe she needed more than a good lay, but don’t we all?
I saw her a lot for a while. You’ve probably got security camera footage of us together in every casino in Vegas. We weren’t high rollers. She’d take me out for nice dinners, and then maybe we’d play a few hands of blackjack or low-stakes poker or sometimes catch a show before going back to my place. She never did anything that forced me to ask questions. She spent the sort of money on me that a corporate drone traveling on an expense account can spend.
Honestly, what we had was about the sex. Anything we did beforehand was a sort of foreplay in itself, a way of teasing each other until it was time to go to bed.
One time, she took me to a rodeo, and it took me a while to figure out why she kept saying the word in a funny way, emphasizing the Oat the end, drawing it out into this orgasmic ohhhh. It didn’t make sense until later in the evening, when she pulled down her waistband and I saw the top of her RodeoH harness.
Am I making you uncomfortable? I thought you wanted all the details. What do I know? Maybe her favorite brand of strap-on harness would help you identify her in a search. Maybe you could find it in her luggage.
It wasn’t all about the sex. No. I meant that thing I said at first about seeing into Tara’s soul from the first moment.
What I saw isn’t something I can describe to you. I recognized her. I liked her. I wanted her. I knew she would be good for me. And she was. Best thing that ever happened. It wasn’t just that hot time I told you about. It’s like I walk differently for days after I’ve been with her. Don’t get that look about it. I’m not talking about thighs worn out from too much sex. I mean I hold my head up. I look people in the eye. She loves me in this way that makes me feel like I’m someone worth loving, and I’ve never had that before.
She’s a complicated person, like anyone else. She has weird habits—she likes to eat plain pasta noodles with her hands. She tosses and turns in her sleep. She pulls up YouTube videos of stingrays before bed because she says it relaxes her.
And there’s things maybe you would say about her. Organized crime? I’m not saying that. You are. Stolen money? You again. Hardened criminal? I don’t believe that. There’s nothing hard about her. I don’t know what makes you think I’d rat her out. As far as I’m concerned, she didn’t abandon me. She just hasn’t called me yet. And no, that’s not an invitation for you to watch me until she does.
Okay, yeah, that’s footage of us having a fight. It’s the last time you caught us on camera in Vegas, and that makes sense, because it was the last time I saw her.
FROM A VOICE ON A TAPE: “We’re partners or we’re not, Tara. You tell me who you are. You tell me what you’re up to. You keep me by your side from now on, or you can forget about all of this. This whole thing has gone too far for me to sit here and wait by the phone for you. My apartment’s not a vacation spot. I love you, damn it!”
I’ve got no comment on that.
What’s in Iowa? Camping. Trails. Wineries. A writing program. Cornfields. The Clinton LumberKings. People. What do you want me to say?
What am I doing there? It’s an insult to the state to suggest there’s no reason to go to Iowa
on vacation. You searched my bags. You saw the climbing shoes, the tent, and all the rest of my gear.
Will that be all? My lawyer just texted. She says you definitely can’t hold me here any longer unless you’re charging me with a crime. Are you?
You look so disappointed. I haven’t told you a single lie. Yes, I’m going camping and climbing. Yes, I still love Tara, and I know she loves me. You can believe whatever you want to, but I don’t think you’ll catch her. Not even if she was meeting me in Iowa. Not even then.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a plane to catch.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
M. BIRDS is a writer and musician from Vancouver, British Columbia. Her short fiction has previously been published by Freaky Fountain Press, Cleis Press, and Hot Ink Press.
LOUISE BLAYDON is a writer and academic who loves cats too much. She has published a number of novels and many short stories with both f/f and m/m pairings. She lives in England with an ever-increasing number of pets.
EMILY L. BYRNE’s (writeremilylbyrne.blogspot.com) stories have appeared in Bossier, Spy Games, Forbidden Fruit, First, Summer Love, Best Lesbian Erotica 20th Anniversary Edition, Witches, Princesses and Women at Arms, and The Nobilis Erotica Podcast. Her collection, Knife’s Edge: Kinky Lesbian Erotica is available from Queen of Swords Press.
ANDREA DALE’s (AndreaDaleAuthor.com) work— which has been hailed as “poignantly erotic,” “heart-breaking,” and “exceptional”—has appeared in twenty years’ best volumes and about a hundred other anthologies from Soul’s Road Press, Harlequin Spice, and Cleis Press. Her latest novella is Kiss on Her List.
HEATHER DAY (Twitter @heatherxday) has been writing erotic fiction since 2009, reading it for longer still, and has always been partial to a sexy superhero. Her stories can be found nestled in other Cleis anthologies such as Girl Fever and in The Xcite Book of Lesbian Romance.