by Radclyffe
It takes about three weeks before Fin needs another red velvet cake hit. I’m not wild about the idea but I think I’m out of trouble. Flo-Mo might have moved on by now anyway—in my experience girls who work in coffee bars generally have ants in their pants and it’s the ultimate in transferable job skill. So I’m not expecting to see her.
But she’s there all right, looking just the same, and my heart skips a little beat just to let me know that I haven’t gotten over her. I haven’t forgotten her and I know perfectly well her name’s Flo, not Mo or Jo. Fin goes up to the counter to order while I find us a table as far away from my girl as possible. I pick the chair facing out the window so I don’t have to pretend I’m not staring at her. I resolutely watch the traffic going by on the street while I wait for Fin to return with my coffee fix and his cake. But when he comes back he’s just got two cups of coffee.
“Don’t tell me they’re out of red velvet cake?” I say. “We could have had the coffee to go.”
He shakes his head. “No, no, it’s coming.”
I take a sip of my coffee, all nonchalance, just enjoying a break with a friend. No one needs to know my stomach’s churning and the coffee tastes like dead cigarette ash in my mouth.
The plate with the red velvet cake makes a cracking sound on the glass tabletop, and I start.
“You’ve got a nerve, coming back here,” hisses a voice in my ear.
I look round to see Flo’s back receding toward the counter.
“Jesus, Carrie, did you and Flo have a thing?” says Fin, his eyebrows disappearing under his heavy side-swept bangs.
“You know her?”
“Yeah.” Of course he did. “That’s why I brought you here in the first place—I thought she might be your type.”
“Um, Fin, I seem to remember we came here so you could pig out on red velvet cake.”
“Well, yeah, it’s good here. But…”
“She’s so not my type, Fin. She’s got a guy.”
Fin laughs and shakes his head. “Nuh-uh. I totally know she’s queer.”
“Anyway, nothing happened and I don’t know why she said that.” I’m getting hot and bothered, and gulping down my scalding coffee doesn’t help.
“She’s just gone out for a smoke, so why don’t you go ask her?”
“No way.”
“Then you’ll never know.”
I blink.
“Anyone can see there’s something going down here. But you’re happy with not knowing?”
“Yup.”
I sit and drink my coffee, quite content with not knowing.
Yeah, right. I’m out through the back door like greased lightning. There’s a small paved yard at the back of the coffee shop, crowded with bins, beyond which an open gate leads out into the rear parking lot. Flo isn’t cozying up to the garbage so I go through the gateway to look for her.
I don’t have to go far. She’s leaning on the bonnet of a yellow Honda, taking short, sharp puffs on a cigarette. She glowers when she sees me.
“What do you want?” she says, exhaling a cloud of smoke.
I step closer and breathe it in, wishing I was still a smoker. “What did you mean in there? I’ve got a nerve?”
“Like I said, you’ve got a nerve, coming back here.”
I shake my head. “I don’t get it.”
She nods hers. “Really? You really don’t get why I might not want to see you back here?”
This is like ping-pong.
“No.” I step up closer still and square my shoulders, ready for a fight.
She flicks ash, aiming at my shoe. She’s a good shot. She takes a long, deep drag and then crushes the butt with her foot. When she exhales in my face, I want to kiss her.
“You come in, day after day. Your eyes follow me round the room like a sick puppy. You give off vibes. And then, when you’ve reeled me in and got me jonesing for you, you fucking disappear. Poof!” She snaps her fingers up near my face. “Gone.”
I chew on the inside of my cheek, trying to think of something to say.
“What was that all about?” She sounds angry and hurt.
I swallow. “That boy,” I say. “There was a boy. I thought…”
“You thought. That was my brother.”
She’s already heading back toward the gate when I slam her up against the wall.
“So I got it wrong. I’m sorry.”
She’s panting and my heart’s pounding hard and fast. She stares up at me, wide-eyed—and for me this becomes the decision point, the do-or-die moment. I could step back with another apology and leave, or I can step forward and take her mouth. I’m scared. Paralyzed.
“Flo…”
Disappointment floods her features. As she tries to push past me to leave, I put my hands on her shoulders and my lips on her mouth. I kiss her the way I should have kissed her the first day I saw her in the coffee shop. Sure, I’m tentative at first, but when I glance up her eyes tell me yes and the push of her body against mine tells me to get on with it. I kiss her harder and push my tongue into her mouth. She tastes of the cigarette she’s just smoked and that’s fine by me. It’s a kiss I don’t want to surface from and my body pushes back against hers, setting off a succession of little starbursts that run from my cunt up to my sternum.
Her hand goes to my breast and then, not content with feeling it through the fabric, she yanks up my T-shirt to touch the bare flesh. Her fingers are cool and smooth, and my nipple responds by standing to attention. She pulls her mouth away from mine and here I am, standing in a public parking lot, having my breast suckled by the girl of my dreams. My breath catches in my throat and my legs liquefy. I run my fingers through her short hair and moan.
“Come with me,” she says. Her voice carries a tremor that I want to bottle so I can listen to it later. Over and over again. “Come with me. Come with me.”
I follow her back through the gate, heavy limbed, wondering where she’s taking me. Not back to Fin and his red velvet cake and my coffee, please god. I reach out to touch her ass and she slows down halfway across the yard to take my caress. She’s wearing denim shorts, and by dropping my hand a bit lower I’m able to make contact with the smooth skin at the top of her thigh.
“Come on,” she says. She sounds breathy.
We go inside, but instead of turning left to the front of the shop, Flo leads me down a passage to the right. She pulls a bunch of keys from her pocket and unlocks a door, disappearing inside. The storeroom. I blink in the half dark and see shelves stacked with catering size bags of coffee beans, boxes of tea, bags of sugar and cartons of candy. Flo shuts the door behind us and wastes no time in pulling off her tank.
I stand staring. She has magnificent breasts. Not big but beautifully spherical with dark, bullet-shaped nipples that I immediately want to stretch and pull with my teeth. I do that, pushing her down onto a laundry bag as I catch one of them in my mouth. She gives a soft yelp, struggles out of her shorts underneath me and turns her attention to my jeans. I kick off my sneakers and leave her to it while I concentrate on mauling her breasts. The skin’s silken and salty, puckering tighter as my tongue traces a circle around one of the hard nubs.
Her fingers dive into my panties and tug them down around my thighs and then both hands go on an exploration of what she’s uncovered. She strokes my ass and cups my front. Fingers run along each side of my lips and then up between them. Of course, I’m wet and she finds her way inside as smoothly and sleekly as an otter slipping into a stream. Two fingers push upward, making me bite down on her nipple as sensation floods me. She gasps and then giggles, pushing me down so I’m lying next to her. She pulls her breast from my mouth and straddles me, both of us buck naked now, crotch to crotch.
I moan and she puts a finger to my lips. I lick it and it tastes of me. But I want a taste of her, so I reach between her legs. The folds of flesh part for me as she splays her legs wider and I stroke the thin strip of dark curls that beckon me down. Her hips grind against mine as my finger
s breach her outer walls and a warm flood runs down my hand as I push up inside. So soft, so yielding, so damn hot I can hardly breathe.
I pull my fingers out for a quick taste but her pained whimper tells me she needs them back and I immediately reenter, pushing higher and harder, fucking her with my hand until she moves against me in the same rhythm. But my need to taste her overwhelms me, so I snatch my fingers away and put both hands on her hips. I pull her forward, bringing her cunt up to my face, breathing in the musky smell of her as my tongue steals out to find what it needs.
She tastes so good, so sweet, that I could drink her all day long. Nectar flows from the hot, dark crevasse between her legs, a river of desire that I want to immerse myself in as fully as I can. I suck her clit into my mouth and then go back to finger-fucking her and it only takes a minute to make her come. The rings of muscle inside her cunt spasm against my fingers as her back arches above me—the muffled moan from her throat should really be a scream. She grabs at my hair, pushing my face hard against her groin, and I work her clit with my tongue until she has to pull me away.
Both panting, we lie back on the laundry bag. She dips a hand between my legs and I open up to her touch. Deft fingers know what they’re doing, playing my clit and sliding in and out of me with a quickening pulse. She kisses my mouth and I surrender completely to the fires she’s conjuring inside me, sliding into my orgasm and falling deep. When the flames die down and I open my eyes, I’m cradled in her arms and she’s looking down at me with wide, dark eyes.
“I knew I wanted you the first time you came in,” she whispers in my ear, “but I thought you were with that guy.”
“He came for the red velvet cake and I came for you.”
She laughs.
“Yes, you did,” she says. “You came for me.”
UNEXPECTED BLISS
Gun Brooke
It was easy to become hypnotized while sitting in a meeting led by Magdalena Cole. Personal assistant Pam Garner was often bored by the subject, but was always mesmerized by her boss.
Magdalena, always striking with her short, black hair, kept in a no-frills hairdo reaching her earlobes, commanded the meetings, whether they were small staff conferences or large stockholder gatherings. Using her light blue eyes together with her soft-spoken voice and venomous choice of words, she kept her audience riveted. She could purr like a kitten and still come across like a cobra ready to strike at some unsuspecting minion without warning. Pam knew all about Magdalena’s methods. Neutral looks were best. Smiles usually a warning if they were too toothy, hinting at barracuda. Then her fiery eyes, which could drill into yours. Oh boy, that was when employees, her peers and even burly stockholders became suicidal within seconds.
It still boggled Pam’s mind that nobody seemed to have picked up on the rest of Magdalena’s mood indicators. Her voice had different qualities, and yes, they were subtle, but so easily distinguishable. The purr could be soft, like a fleece blanket wrapping around you on a winter evening, that Pam could listen to, no matter what was actually said, for the longest time. Then the purr could have a sharp hiss to it, as if the fangs were coming out, the venom gathering and, sure enough, Magdalena would say something cutting and sarcastic.
When she talked to her sons, she sounded protective and gentle. Before her husband filed for divorce, she had a special tone for him as well, apologetic, tired, slightly exasperated. Pam thought it was the closest to people-pleasing that Magdalena would most likely ever get. That tone always used to make Pam cringe. Thankfully, after the divorce proceedings commenced, Pam never heard it again.
When Magdalena talked to Manon Belmont or any other members of the board, her voice was definitely neutral. None of the lethal hissing, no purring, just straight on matter-of-fact, and with Ms. Belmont, friendly. When it came to people Magdalena loathed, Pam thought it might be possible to measure the temperature change when Magdalena’s voice dropped to an icy register. It was a miracle the recipient’s nose and earlobes didn’t sustain permanent frostbite.
As always, Pam took copious notes automatically while Magdalena and the others around the table brainstormed the next benefit gala. And as always, Pam was distracted by her boss’s hands. Pale, soft looking and elegant, they moved to emphasize her words. Magdalena normally kept her nails blunt and just slightly longer than her fingertips, with a perfectly executed French manicure. Like her signature hoop earrings, she wore large, statement rings on her fingers. Especially since she stopped wearing her engagement and wedding rings, she had favored bold custom jewelry.
Pam frowned. Something was not right. Or at least, something about Magdalena’s hands was not the same as usual. Magdalena wore a chunky silver ring on her left ring finger and she kept pushing at it, which in itself was no big deal, but the thing was, she was trying to conceal doing it. And then there was the slight grimace that flickered over her face every now and then. If Pam hadn’t known any better, she would’ve thought it was a sign of Magdalena being in pain.
After the meeting, Magdalena hurried into her private rest-room, only to emerge ten minutes later, looking furious. Pam had flipped her blond ponytail over her shoulder to her back and started typing out the notes from the meeting, but she couldn’t take her eyes from the stark beauty of a wrath-filled Magdalena.
Knowing full well she was literally poking the lioness, she said, “Something wrong, Magdalena? Can I help?”
“Unless you forgot to write field surgeon on your résumé, I doubt it.” Magdalena sat down at her desk, cradling her left hand.
Worried now, as she usually saw Magdalena as invincible—well, except for the time in Paris when she’d found her wiping tears in her hotel room after Stephen announced he wanted a divorce—Pam braved the threshold to Magdalena’s office. “You look like you’re in pain. Please, isn’t there anything I can do?”
Magdalena scowled at Pam, but there was no genuine fire in her gaze. “Do we have a toolbox somewhere on this floor?”
Toolbox? Pam knew she was expected to handle the unexpected, but she would never have guessed that entailed playing carpenter or plumber. Risking even more by asking questions, which, though not forbidden, wasn’t recommended, she said, “I think maintenance has a storage room somewhere at the other end of the corridor. Why?”
“If you’re going to help me, you’ll need some strong cutters.” Magdalena held up her hand. “I can’t get it off.” The last sentence was uttered with total disgust and slight panic. The former was a familiar tone; the second, not so much.
Pam bent over Magdalena’s desk and looked in horror at a very swollen, pink-purple ring finger. Clearly the huge ring would not slide off.
“God, Magdalena. I’ll go find the toolbox. I’ll hurry.”
“You do that.” Magdalena leaned back and closed her eyes.
As it turned out, Pam didn’t have to look. An electrician was working outside the office and his toolbox was sitting right there. After assuring him he’d get the wire cutter back ASAP, she ran back to Magdalena’s office, where she found Magdalena standing by the window, cradling her hand while chewing on her lower lip.
“I have the cutter. Do you want to do it here…or?” Pam motioned for Magdalena’s restroom.
“The restroom.” Magdalena strode off, and Pam scrambled after her.
The restroom smelled of Magdalena’s perfume, an amazingly enticing scent of fresh flowers, fruit, sandalwood…and something else, something sweet. Magdalena stood by the sink, looking down at the offending ring with her lips pursed.
“Why don’t you sit down?” Pam could tell she would have to take temporary command here. She pointed at the small makeup table. “There, on the stool? I’ll just clean this a little bit, even if it is in pretty good shape.”
Running the faucet, Pam felt rather silly using the expensive hand soap to clean a crude tool, but there was no way she’d let it near Magdalena’s skin without at least a quick washing first. Turning to Magdalena, she realized she would have to kneel next to h
er boss in order not to get in her own light. Not about to hurt her knees on the tile floor, she tossed two folded towels next to the stool and knelt.
A muted gasp from Magdalena made Pam look up. Magdalena’s formerly pale cheeks were suddenly pink and her pupils dilated.
“Don’t worry. I’ve done this before.” Trying for a reassuring smile, Pam patted Magdalena’s knee before she realized what she was doing. Oh, boy, keep this up and I’ll be out of a job.
“Then proceed.” Magdalena held out her hand.
Pam took her hand and all her synapses fired at once. Just holding Magdalena’s hand ignited so many sensations, it was ridiculous. If she had ever wondered what the true nature of her feelings for Magdalena was, it was no longer a mystery. As surely as she knew the sun set in the west, she realized she’d fallen in love with Magdalena Cole without meaning to. This was not good news. It was a one-way street to heartache.
Forcing herself to focus on the offending ring, Pam examined it closely. She wondered how long Magdalena had struggled to get it off, as it had nearly chafed the skin off in two places. “I think I’ll try to cut it as close to the—”
“Just do it.”
“All right. It will hurt, but I’ll try to—”
“Pamela.”
Right. Shut up and do it. Pam took a deep breath as she pushed one of the blades of the cutter between Magdalena’s sore finger and the ring. Magdalena’s soft moan proved how much it hurt. Squeezing the tool’s handle slowly, Pam could still not prevent it from jumping as the blades snapped through the ring.
“Ah!” Magdalena gripped Pam’s shoulder tightly and closed her eyes hard. Tears clung to her lashes.
“Halfway there.” Pam pulled another tool from the pocket in her pants. “This tool will expand—oh, wow, don’t set my hair on fire, Magdalena. I’m hurrying.”
She pushed the other tool between the cut edges and pried the ring open, enlarging it gradually until she could slide it off. “You better wash your hands and perhaps have Belmont’s nurse—”
“No. I’ll wash and you may put some Band-Aids on it.” Magdalena spoke huskily as she pivoted and washed her hands while still sitting on the stool. “You surprise me, Pamela. I never knew you’d handle a personal crisis of mine this well. And expediently.” She wiped her hands on a clean towel and pointed at a shelf. “First aid kit.”