Bossy: Five Productive Tales of Lesbian Lust

by Harper Bliss

  “Excellent idea.” As much as I loved the camera—and vice versa—posing for pictures always made me feel awkward. I led Penny through the hall to the patio at the back of the house. Somehow, it felt better to conduct the interview outside of the walls that shielded my private life.

  “Tea? Coffee?” I asked while inviting her to sit, giving the impression that I always fetched refreshments for guests myself. I knew I wasn’t kidding anyone.

  “Ice tea would be lovely.” Penny’s blue eyes caught mine. They were so pale, almost translucent. The way she pronounced the word ‘tea’ made how I said it appear completely inadequate.

  “Coming right up.” I all but shot her a wink before I turned and walked inside the house. I poured two glasses from a jar of ice tea my housekeeper had prepared earlier and carried them outside.

  Penny had placed a small tape recorder on the wooden table top. “Do you mind if I record our conversation?” She said it the way people say things they’re used to exclaiming every day.

  “I didn’t know they still made these.” I sat down and reached for the recorder. It was grey and heavy in my hand, the shine of its glossy exterior having faded years ago.

  “They don’t.” Penny’s blue-eyed glare landed on me again. “But I take excellent care of my belongings.”

  Linda, my PR-person, had sent me a bullet-pointed fact sheet on Penny Fox, along with copies of a few high profile interviews she had done for The Hollywood Herald before, but I felt sorry for not doing my own research. Her eyes gave me nothing either.

  “You have a lovely home, Jill.” Penny let her gaze drift across the grounds behind me while slinging one long leg over the other.

  “Thank you.” I sipped from my drink, torn between finding her eyes again or avoiding them altogether.

  “Do you live here alone?”

  She hadn’t switched on her recorder yet, but if this was the icebreaker she had planned, I was in for one hell of an interview I didn’t want to have. “I do.” I shuffled in my seat, my hand instinctively reaching for the recorder and covering it with my palm. “I take it Linda has informed you about off-limit topics?”

  “Extensively.” Penny’s facial muscles didn’t flinch, but her hand found mine across the table. “There’s nothing to worry about. I respect your privacy.”

  Instinctively, I loosened my grip on the recorder and let my hand slip from underneath hers, letting her reclaim ownership of the device. After I let my hand fall back into my lap, my skin seemed to sizzle and a sudden flush shot up to my cheeks. I quickly took another sip from my tea.

  “Shall we get on with it?” I asked, after swallowing a few greedy gulps to cool me down.

  Penny nodded, her lips still drawn into the same neutral grimace, and pressed a button on the recorder. Without the help of any notes—just that cool stare of her bottomless eyes—she asked me about my last movie, my slow but steady rise to fame over the past six years, my obvious reluctance to comply to Hollywood’s body standards and my smart choice of film roles that had contributed to my current position of Tinseltown’s leading lady.

  I replied calmly and eloquently to Penny’s questions, the way Linda had taught me, hearing myself say the same things I say in every interview. Usually, these situations tend to bore me, but the complete absence of emotion on Penny’s face intrigued me. I didn’t perceive it as lack of interest, which would have been rude, nor as a strategy to lure more out of me than I was willing to say. The more I let my eyes linger on Penny’s lanky figure, back straight, one arm casually resting on the table, the other poised on the armrest of her chair, the more I was convinced this was simply how she was. There was no pretence, only straightforwardness and respectful but, frankly, rather disappointing questions.

  I had read her other pieces and, unless she was extremely good at selling lies as truth—a skill most Hollywood reporters excelled in—this lame line of questioning was not how she got her interviewees to give her quotes that made the front page every time.

  “Thank you,” she said after I had responded with the obligatory ‘I’ve been so lucky’ phrase to her last question. She clicked off the recorder and put it away in her purse. “Do you mind if I ask you some questions off the record before Steve arrives?”

  I arched up my eyebrows.

  “The photographer,” she offered, while checking her wristwatch—a slim, delicate and understated piece of jewellery I could appreciate.

  “Sure.” Linda would not approve, but this whole interview with The Herald’s often lauded Penny Fox had been so anticlimactic, I wanted more. Maybe this was how she did it. Maybe she had me right where she wanted me as per her secret strategy. And was that a twinkle breaking through the ice in her eyes?

  Penny leaned over the table, breaking posture for the first time, and looked me straight in the eyes. “Don’t you ever get bored of this act?”

  I glared at her in silence for a few seconds, as if in the middle of a staring contest. I looked away first, no match for Penny’s blue ice.

  “Let me rephrase,” Penny said, after I had averted my gaze and failed to answer. “Am I correct in assuming you lead a somewhat lonely life?” She spread her arms, her fingers pointing to the luscious grounds behind us. “All of this and no one to share it with.”

  “How off the record are we?” She was goading me—in a very un-British, direct manner, as well.

  “Couldn’t be more off.” She pinned her eyes on me again. “And you and your people will get ample time to approve the article before it goes to press.” She leaned back in her chair and crossed her legs again. Even when seated, they seemed to go on forever. “You can be frank with me.”

  From a distance, we could just be two women sitting in a garden drinking ice tea together. Or, it could even be the most exciting part of a date progressing according to plan. A date. I hadn’t been on one since Ari, my agent, hooked me up with Oliver Fitz for the Golden Globes.

  He made for an excellent beard—attentive, chatty, even throwing in a few jokes that were actually funny—but we both knew very well why we were paired together that night. I didn’t even have the chance to invite him in for a drink because, after the party that Ari made us stick around at for forty-five minutes, we were carted off in separate cars.

  “Yes, it can be lonely,” I said. “But it’s my life.”

  “A gilded cage.” Penny’s voice had dropped a bit. I assumed out of sympathy.

  “Put yourself in my shoes.” I wasn’t giving anything away by speaking in platitudes.

  “I’d love to.” Penny let her gaze slide down towards my feet. “What size are you?”

  For the first time, she made me chuckle. Her skin crinkled around the eyes when she smiled—not a luxury a lot of women in Hollywood afford themselves.

  “If you don’t mind the loss of decorum, I may actually take them off.” I started heeling off my shoes without waiting for a reply. I’d never worn them before and they pinched my toes even when seated.

  “It’s your house.”

  “Yes,” I nodded. “Another gilded cage.”

  I’d been living in this ‘dream mansion’ in the hills for over a year and nothing even remotely exciting had happened in any of its eight bedrooms. Even when reading a sexy story online, I was afraid some journalist-turned-hacker would somehow find out, and caution always won out over pleasure. In fact, Penny Fox turning up on my doorstep, albeit completely orchestrated and with the necessary documents signed, was quite possibly the most thrilling event since I moved in. Just me, another woman and some innuendo. A girl like me had to get her kicks somewhere.

  “Why don’t I call off the photographer and you pour us something stronger?”

  I lost myself in Penny’s stare for an instant before replying. “Indeed, why not?” I was glad to not have to pose and, additionally, this interview was getting more interesting by the second.

  While she reached for her phone in her purse, I sauntered inside and stood in front of my well-stocked drinks cabi
net. Most of the bottles had remained untouched. Did she want wine or champagne or something stronger? It was up to me and my decision would set the tone, perhaps even dictate the outcome. Wine was too non-committal but, perhaps, if I opened a bottle of champagne, she would feel compelled to stay until it was empty. But maybe that would come across as a tad too celebratory. I couldn’t stomach brandy or scotch and, in the end, grabbed a bottle of port from the shelf. Elegant, aged port seemed perfect for this afternoon.

  Penny gave me a nod of approval when I deposited two small glasses on the table along with the bottle I had picked. I poured and we drank in silence for a few minutes. It started to feel like a date then. But, whereas my life was highly publicised—apart from the bits I carefully and professionally hid from the press—I didn’t know anything about Penny Fox.

  “Why Hollywood reporting?” I asked, because, truth be told, she looked more like a fashion journalist, or someone who would take an interest in topics more worthy of her time than people like me—the idolised and overpaid who happened to be good at pretending to be someone we were not.

  “I’ve always been interested in people, in what hides behind the public facade. Their secret tragedies.” She took another sip. “When I profile someone famous and adored, it’s never my intention to bust the myth, although I do tend to subtly hint at that—too subtly for most people in this town to see—but, by then, I’ve had the chance to see it with my own eyes and that’s what makes it worthwhile for me.”

  “So you’re a well-paid voyeur who gets off on being admitted behind otherwise closed doors?”

  “That’s a bit harsh.” She blinked for what seemed the first time. “And I’m not that well-paid either.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “Do you live alone?”

  She bit her bottom lip, possibly trying to hide the grin spreading across her face. “Touché.” She scanned my face for a split second, then refilled our glasses. “Look, I won’t sit here, drink your port and pretend to be your friend to get something out of you that may give me an original angle. I pride myself on treating the people I write about with respect. I don’t know if you’re familiar with my work, and obviously you don’t have to take my word for it, but you can trust me not to spill the beans on you.” She took a few big gulps of the port, which isn’t really a liquor to knock back like that. “And yes, I live alone. Have done for as long as I’ve been in L.A., despite a three-year relationship with someone whose name I can’t mention.”

  I wasn’t expecting that last bit. Instantly, and rather ironically, curiosity took hold of me. It burned like a broadening flame inside of me, despite my own constant need for privacy. Human nature in the twenty-first century. “A man or a woman?”

  She gave me a wry smile. “Bottoms up and quid pro quo?” Her eyes glimmered like blue pearls, her face still pale white. She curled her fingers around the tiny stem of her glass and brought it to her mouth, already tilting her head back. “A woman,” she said, licking her lips. She eyed my full glass.

  The liquor burned my throat as I tried to swallow it all down in one go. I couldn’t speak for a while, not because I was so afraid to say it—it had been so long since I last admitted it to someone, the words were practically clawing their way out—but because my stomach was on fire.

  Penny gave me time to recover. She was clearly a more experienced drinker than I was. Maybe being an A-lister’s secret girlfriend had something to do with that. She wasn’t leaving here before I found out who it was. Maybe Janet Rhyne. I’d always had my suspicions about her. Or Hollie Harper. Then again, it seemed as if my gaydar had stopped performing altogether the instant I scored my first major role and signed with Ari.

  “I’m bisexual,” I said.

  “Sure.” Penny nodded. “Almost obligatory these days. It looks good on the resume. Not to mention Twitter.”

  “What’s wrong with being bisexual?” I could tell she wasn’t having any of it.

  “Absolutely nothing. Just as there’s nothing wrong with being a lesbian either.”

  “Fine.” I scanned my surroundings. I saw my gorgeous empty house in front of me, my manicured backyard reflected in the windows. A few birds chattered. In front of me sat Penny Fox, blue-eyed, on her way to being tipsy, and highly attractive. I had nothing to lose. “You got what you came for. I am a lesbian.”

  “You know,” Penny slanted her body forward again, folding her legs under the chair, “I truly believed that was what I had come for, until now.”

  “Too anti-climactic?” The air around us seemed to change, the oxygen suddenly sucked out of it, leaving us both a little breathless.

  “No.” Penny shook her head, while dragging her chair closer to mine. “But now I want to kiss you as well.”

  As if pondering her confession, I inspected her lips. “What? You’re a lesbian and I’m a lesbian and that automatically means we should kiss?” I slipped to the front of my chair. She was so close, I could feel puffs of her ragged breath roam across my chin.

  “I understand your cynicism, but I choose to reject it.” Up close, her eyes were less mysterious. Or maybe Penny had warmed up to me.

  “If I let you kiss me, you’ll have to give me a name.” Heat tumbled through my veins, pooling between my legs.

  “How about you kiss me then?” She leaned closer, her lips almost touching mine.

  I pressed my mouth to hers, tasting port, and someone else for the first time in months. I kissed her as if we were the last two lesbians on earth, in the garden of my Hollywood Hills house and I couldn’t care less who could see, or who would find out.

  Breathless, we came up for air. “Satisfied now?” I asked.

  “Not by a long shot.” Penny rose from her chair, grabbing my wrists in the process. “How about an intimate tour of your house?”

  “Let’s start with the bedroom.” I laced my fingers in between hers and pulled her inside, straight up the stairway that led to my room. Her heels made hollow noises on the steps, thuds of anticipation behind my barefoot feet.

  From my bedroom window, the view over the city was stunning, but Penny only glanced out of it for a split second, all her attention focused on me. Despite not wearing shoes, I still stood as tall as she did.

  “Gorgeous,” she said, bending the ‘r’ in a way I’d never be able to. “And I’m not talking about the view.”

  I gave a chuckle at her corniness. “Was it Eliza Hews?” I asked, suddenly being able to envision them together clearly—in a situation like this.

  She shook her head. “I signed legal documents.” A new sort of grin appeared on her face as she came for me. It lit up her eyes, leaving them as blue as the sky on the other side of the window. “I really can’t say.”

  I wondered if there was such a thing as a fetish for closeted movie stars.

  By the time she let her linen blazer slip from her arms, her eyes still pinned on mine—like some sort of intense tantric foreplay—I couldn’t care less about her motivations for being in my bedroom, nor who her secret lover had been. My nipples stabbed into the fabric of my bra. Every nerve ending in my body seemed to throb, leaving my skin ultra-sensitive.

  Then, her hands in my hair. Those long, pale fingers pulling me in. The kiss that followed shot right through me, my lips pulsing as much as my clit did between my legs. Her fingers roamed from my hair, along my neck, to the front of my blouse.

  I noticed I was shivering as she undid the buttons, one by one, slowly. Penny’s lips were parted, as if ridding me of my clothes was an extremely strenuous activity. I lunged for the hem of her silk top and started tugging it upwards. When I pulled it over her head, I couldn’t believe how white her skin was. The most unlikely colour for someone living in Los Angeles. I couldn’t keep staring at it, but I knew what that felt like, so I quickly refocused my attention on getting off her bra.

  Her frame was boyish, her breasts small—barely filling my hands when I cupped them. If I’d been in a magical circus with contorting mirrors showing the comp
lete opposite of me, this would have been the image reflecting back at me.

  Once she unhooked my bra, she started pushing me towards the bed. I unzipped my skirt and let it drop to the floor before sitting down on the edge and watching her step out of her suit pants. When she straddled me, I half-expected her skin to be cold against mine, like porcelain. But nothing but heat sizzled between us. Right before she kissed me again, it occurred to me that her clandestine girlfriend could quite possibly have been Joanne Moz. I’d co-starred with her in… Two of Penny’s fingers closed around my nipple, leaving me panting against the skin of her neck.

  “Lie down,” she said, her tone of voice nothing like the one she’d used for the interview. She pushed herself up so I could scoot back on the bed until my entire body was supported. She lay down next to me, a finger already trailing along the delicate skin of my belly. “I can’t share my secrets, but I can fuck you,” she said, a delicious smirk pulling at her lips.

  I could only nod. If I had known interviews could be such excellent foreplay, I would have taken greater pleasure in them in the past. Then again, I’d never come across a reporter like Penny Fox before.

  She briefly kissed my lips, letting her tongue flit inside for an instant, before moving on to my neck.

  I ruffled my hands through her gelled, ginger hair. Despite appearing wiry at first, it fell softly between my fingers. Her own fingers already browsed the waistband of my panties, cruising along the line they created on my lower belly.

  Before her lips touched my nipple, after having left a moist trail along my breast, she looked up, the tip of her finger dipping under the waistband of my panties. She looked at me as if asking for permission, but didn’t wait for a response. It was probably plastered all across my face. How I wanted her. Lips on my nipple, fingers inside.

  Her eyes widened as her hand made its way into my panties.

  “Fuck, you’re wet,” she said, her voice all hoarse and raw. As if needing to see it instead of just feeling, she retracted her hand and yanked my panties down. “Spread wide for me,” she urged, as if she instinctively knew how it excited me when someone made demands like that.