"Dean Raymond had boyfriends, too, you know." Her tone was as casual as if she were telling me the results of yesterday's home game.
Now I laughed outright. "What? Is everyone in Hollywood bi?"
"Of course not. You just must have a way with these things."
"Man, I wish they'da let you film a movie where you got to kiss girls."
"Do you wish that for your own sake or for mine?" Rose was giving me that amused face again, and I grinned like a dork. "Time to do another clear coat, over the pink. That seals it in."
"You're the expert!" As she worked, I added, "I'm making up the movie in my head now. You're a ship captain's daughter, and your father and her father -- who's a pirate -- are bitter enemies, and--"
"Hey, that's pretty good! Ever thought about writing it down?"
"I'd be cheating on my dissertation."
"She sounds mean." With a dazzling smile, she screwed the cap back into the clear polish. "There. What do you think?"
"This looks great! I can barely believe they're my own hands!"
"Attached to you and everything," she tossed off with a sultry smirk.
"Every time I take my gloves off in the lab this week I'm gonna be surprised. Like, researcher by day, supermodel by night!" Then I smiled self-consciously, my cheeks growing hot. Was that too much of a self-compliment?
But Rose looked like she approved. She was studying me from beneath long lashes, her chin resting on her thumb and forefinger. "You know, my nails aren't wet."
"Oh, did you want me to do yours next? Like for practice?"
Her lips parted in a throaty giggle. "Why is it you science types are always thick as a block of wood when it comes to anything below the waist?"
My mouth dropped open, my eyes wide. "Hey, whatever you're suggesting, I'm into it. I mean, you're the reason I figured out I liked girls. The movie where you were the Roman princess--"
She nodded knowingly. "Those revealing window-curtains they dressed me in, right?"
"I was seven. You were so beautiful it was almost physically painful to look at you." I shook my head at myself. "Man, that sounds... I'm sorry."
"Don't be -- I can tell it was intended as a compliment." Her face was radiant with amusement. "So how 'bout it? How 'bout I make up for some of that pain?"
I couldn't stop grinning. "But what about my wet nails?"
"We can work around that," she offered. "It'll be fun! Make it a little more of a game."
If this is a game, I'd already won. I won the lightning round, and the daily double, and every other catchphrase, too. I won the teddy bear in that claw game outside the movie theater that nobody ever wins. I won the lottery. Out loud, all I could manage was, "Sounds fun!"
I carefully flicked the bedroom light on and the bathroom light off with the side of my hand and then followed Rose to the bed. She was already sitting down on my blue comforter, and she gestured at the space beside her with a smile and a head-toss. I settled down on the bed, feeling like a rock star because it was already made and pretty and perfect. Of course, it was because I'd been working here earlier, making edits to my dissertation's lit review, not because I'm any good at housekeeping. But none of that mattered.
Rose ran one hand lightly over my shoulder and down my arm. Her touch burned through my pajama fabric, and made me want to seize her with both hands -- but I wasn't supposed to. "Lay back. You'll see; I know what to do. I hope you like it."
I nestled into the pillow and let her spread my arms, and lay my hands flat against the covers. "There," she said, patting my hand. "Just keep them like that."
"You got it." I drank in the sight of her, possibly the most beautiful woman who ever lived, crouching over me in an ephemeral robe of a color that had no name.
She began to touch me with all the care and concentration of a Great Master beginning a painting. Her fingertips laid out a foundation on my collarbone, then trailed in luscious lines over my chest until I was straining for her. Her path neglected my nipples, deliberately avoiding them but drawing closer and closer until I would have traded my last breath to have them touched.
And she was only working through my pajamas! Somehow, the cloth only heightened the sensations against my skin.
I wasn't supposed to move my hands, but I dug the heels of my palms into the mattress. "Ohhh," I gasped as she finally grazed the peaks of my breasts. She left them too soon, but only to unbutton my pajama top.
"Beautiful," she commented before dipping her head, not to my chest, but to my neck. I moaned without shame from the unexpected bliss. She nibbled the base of my neck, my collarbone, then down to my breasts, where she repeated her tactic from before.
This time, when her tongue flickered across my nipples instead of just her fingers through cloth, I threw open my legs and bucked against the bed. I knew what it felt like to be this close. I had a feeling that all she had to do was say hello to my clit and I'd climax so hard I'd leave scorch marks on the ceiling.
But I didn't want it to be all over so quickly. Was that greedy? And there was no way my nails were dry enough to reciprocate yet.
"Can I do that to you?" I asked, my voice husky from arousal and catching on the words.
"Any time!" And simple as that, she let her robe fall open and slip down her body, revealing a perfect collection of curves that made me start praying in Hebrew in my head. Her nipples were pale but perfect, reaching for me in their excitement. With an arm on either side of me, she leaned over and presented her breasts to my mouth.
I licked a trail of devotion up the underside of her right breast, feeling its sweet weight against my face, then tried to mimic her prowess with my tongue against her nipple. Switching to her left side for no real reason, it flashed into my mind that I could get lost here for eons, surrounded by the magic of her softness. I wanted a second mouth so that I could love both her breasts at once.
Or maybe I just wanted my hands back! I tested one finger -- still tacky.
"Hands still," she ordered, but her voice was a groan, and I nearly wriggled with joy that she was enjoying herself as much as I was. "It's my turn again. You keep that up, I won't be able to wait for your hands to dry." She removed her beautiful breasts from my reach, teasing me momentarily by draping them across mine.
"Mmmm... ohhhh..." was all I could say as she left a trail of shining kisses down my body.
When she reached the waistband of my pajamas, she paused and asked, "You ready?"
"Enough to break the bed," I squeaked.
Rose pulled my pants and panties off me as one unit and left them on the corner of the bed. She sank onto her belly; her legs bent at the knee and her ankles crossed in the air behind her. Her fingers were feathers on my inner thighs, and her tongue was a dancing fairy. But once again, she strayed from the center of the target, taunting me, leaving my clit and the rest of my vulva unacknowledged.
Closer, closer...
The warm kindness of her mouth descended on me in a wave of pleasure. With the flat of her tongue she lapped my slit from bottom to top, arriving at last at my clitoris. When she got there, she nourished it with her twitching tongue for a few moments before enveloping me in her mouth.
I looked down to watch her, still wiped away by the fact that I was watching Rose Hamilton, poised empress of bygone cinematic glory, diligently working away between my legs.
She was too good at this. I was almost there. I was there.
Thrusting myself against her tongue, I came -- hard. I felt it in every limb of my body, in taut calves, in tensed toes, in arms that felt like they had stretched to ten feet long.
"Inside," I gasped, riding her face with every quake. Was that greedy? Did it matter?
"How many?"
"What? Oh, just one."
She withdrew her face and easily slipped one finger inside me. I ground against her hand, enjoying the feel of my inner walls tugging at that finger. "Ohhh, yeah." I was panting now.
I hadn't come down from my orgasm high yet and now I
was flying through the sky on Technicolor clouds. I wanted more of her. All of her. I didn't want to relinquish that finger, but I wanted her vulva against my mouth, too.
"Can I feel you against me?" I asked, the words coming out ragged from my weird breathing.
My pussy lost its little friend, but she soon replaced it with her bare thigh as she straddled me. We lay skin to skin, me continuing to move in passion against her thigh until I had come back down to earth. I kissed whatever part of her face was closest -- her chin, and she moved to make it her lips. They were sated kisses, open-mouthed and disconnected.
"How are your nails?"
I tested them. "Um..."
She reached over. "Still tacky. That's the cheap stuff, I guess!"
"So now what--" I started to ask.
"Never you mind. You just lie right there." Then she rose up, grand as a queen, one knee on either side of me. Walking on her knees, she moved forward until her vulva was directly over my face. Her fragrant intricacy was just out of reach, and my tongue strained to catch her.
She inched closer, pressing herself against my mouth.
I shifted to make sure I could breathe, and then began to worship her. I tugged her labia with my lips, licking the sensitive places more delicately than the outside, then finally suckled at her clit.
The sound of her heavy breathing got me going again, and I wished my hands were in a fit state to touch myself.
I could tell she was getting close when she started actively grinding against my face. I got even more into it, then, playing back with my whole nose and mouth. When she came, it was gripping the headboard behind my head and with a moan that would have woken the dead in the next county over.
Thank goodness for a three-day weekend in a college town!
"Whoo, there, Dr. Dina." Rose Hamilton collapsed beside me, her head on the other pillow and her muscles loose. "You're not half bad at this yourself!"
"I'm not, like, a virgin or anything, just a nerd."
"No girlfriends until after school, is that it?"
"Pretty much. Who's gonna understand how much time I need to spend in the lab or working on my dissertation? I mean," I added, "I guess it would be fun to date another scientist, because she'd get it, and we could ignore each other on romantic dates in the lab -- but all the other agro girls are straight."
Rose seemed like she was thinking hard about something, but when she spoke again, all she said was, "I could use a smoke. I guess that's not how they do things any more, is it."
Don't mention her dying of cancer from smoking don't mention don't mention -- Instead, I blurted, "Tobacco's related to potatoes."
"You science types," she kidded me playfully, poking me in the boob. "You going back to the lab tonight?"
I glanced at the clock. "I hadn't planned on it, but I guess I probably should. I can't leave my experiments alone for a whole three-day weekend."
"You should go in. Your nails are dry now, by the way."
"Oh, cool. Thanks again for the manicure lesson. And the totally awesome sex." I grinned awkwardly.
"Thanks for keeping my memory alive. And hey, it was a fun romp, wasn't it?"
"Come back any time," I added awkwardly. "If you can choose where to appear."
"Of course I can choose! I go where I please. Good thing, too -- I never appear to men who smell."
"What about women who smell?" I found myself asking. Ever the scientist. I could have smacked myself if I was less languid, naked, and satiated.
She smiled at me slyly. "That's a good smell. Come on." She prodded me again. "Get dressed and go see to your potatoes."
"Okay, okay." I stood up, my legs still wobbly from my incredible orgasm.
My last view of her in person was there on the bed, naked and tangled up in her silky robe that was neither gray nor green, but somehow both. Then I turned around to find my bra, and when I looked back, my bed was empty.
I looked around the room, trying to figure out if any of that was real. But the leftover dampness between my legs was definitely real, and so was the impeccable manicure on my usually ugly fingers.
Oh, well. I had needed that. Badly.
Thirty minutes later, I let myself into the darkened building on campus and headed toward the walk-in coolers where my current potato experiment lay waiting for me. There were more lights on in the back room than I was expecting, and as I rounded a corner, a woman I'd never seen before came out of the gas chromatography room. She was Asian, with sort of darkish skin and short hair, and she was really cute.
"Oh!" she shouted. "Hello?"
"Hey!" I waved. "I'm Adina. Dr. Subramanian's lab. Those are my potatoes in there."
"Steph! I just joined Dr. Dawson's lab. I wasn't supposed to be here this late, but my results from this afternoon got fucked up, so I'm redoing my gas readings."
"Aww, man, that stinks." I noticed her T-shirt, which said QWoC in STEM National Consortium 2014 and had a rainbow double helix down one sleeve. "That's an awesome shirt."
"Huh? Oh! Yeah, it was a cool event, too. I think they're doing it in Boston this year, but I just started my program, so..."
I picked up hints of what I took for Chicago in her voice, in her Oh, yah. "You're from the Midwest?"
"That obvious?" She grinned. "I guess my Minnesota is showing again. You're not the first person to mention it. My first day here someone referred to me as 'the Chinese girl who talks like Sarah Palin.' I'm not even Chinese; I'm Vietnamese, but whatever."
"I bet I know who that was."
"White guy, glasses, works on citrus?"
"Yup! Don't worry about him. The rest of us know how to put him in his place."
She chuckled. "Here I was, figuring I'd be stuck here lonely all night. I'm glad you showed up."
And so was I.
END
ABOUT SHIRA GLASSMAN
Shira Glassman is a bi Jewish violinist from Florida. The cat thinks her spouse is the Mama Cat and that Shira is one of the other kittens, and she may be right.
Blog: http://shiraglassman.wordpress.com
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/ShiraGlassman
Tumblr: http://shiraglassman.tumblr.com
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/shiraglassman
If you liked this book, you might like:
Shira Glassman is best known for writing short fantasy novels chock full of f/f and celebrating "family of choice". The Second Mango, Climbing the Date Palm, and A Harvest of Ripe Figs are available from Prizm Books, with the fourth, The Olive Conspiracy, due out in 2016. If you want to see women from Rose's era getting to be with the woman they love, try Shiralyn Lee's A Wartime Love. If you want to see another actress fall in love with a girl, try Dahlia Adler's Under the Lights. For both -- a lesbian love story involving a closeted would-be actress in 1950's Hollywood--check out Robbi McCoy's award-winning The Farmer's Daughter.
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