by Fiona Zedde
Frustration and resentment burned in her throat each time she swallowed. Like Mayson said, she needed to leave Banes Unlimited. But she couldn’t find the courage to do it. Renee sighed heavily. And so it goes.
Everyone else not invited into Alonzo’s circle had already filed out of the conference room, most looking tired and ready to find the comfort of their home or a lover. Renee just wanted to leave the damn building. With one last look at Alonzo’s grinning face, she crammed her folders and slides into her briefcase and walked out.
There was no way she could go straight home tonight. She thought of calling Mayson to have a drink with her but remembered her friend had an all-day yoga conference in the Bay Area and wouldn’t be home until almost midnight. At her desk, she grabbed her sketchbook and some files she wanted to look over at home. As she stuck the book and papers into her briefcase, her elbow nudged the mouse and gray light washed over her desk as the computer screen came to life. Renee paused.
Then she sat down at her desk and logged into her mailbox. There were so many men. But with the way she was feeling, she didn’t have the luxury of studying her collection all night. Guiltily, she glanced up, but the narrow hallway in front of her cubicle remained empty. Making a quick decision, she sent an e-mail invitation. Within minutes she had an answer.
Renee got to the hotel first. With the room safely shrouded in darkness, she shrugged off her suit and pulled out the packet of condoms just as the door opened. A slim silhouette. The door closing. A smell of the outdoors and menthol cigarettes. The man came forward, saying nothing, maleness already pushing hard against Renee through the front of his pants. He didn’t wait for her to crawl backward into the bed. Instead, with his breath coming fast and hard, he ambushed her by the chair, tilting her over it. Quickly rolled on a condom.
He braced his hands on both sides of the chair’s back, his slim body eager against her bottom and shoulders. The chair pushed into her belly. He licked Renee’s neck.
This one was young. She felt the youth in his excitement. In the way his hands trembled lifting up her skirt, parting her damp nether lips, and sliding slender fingers into the heart of her. Ah, but the enthusiasm of youth. She shuddered under those hands. He pressed his mouth against the back of her neck, his hands holding her breasts, stroking her nipples, while his hardness nudged at her bottom.
She arched into the pleasure.
For such a skinny boy, he had a big penis. It knocked, thick and full, at her entrance before he reached down to steady it, hold it. Slide it through her damp hairs. He teased her, nudged her eager center, working her nipples with the other hand. Teeth nibbled her ear.
And he slid in.
Renee gasped. A hot chill spilled through her body.
Yes, this was definitely a big boy. And he worked his tool like a puppy let out with a new toy, stroking her shallowly, then deeply, then the shallows of her again. Renee thrust back against him, helping her boy find his rhythm. At first he hesitated, then his breath quickened at her ear.
“Yes, that’s it.” She groaned her encouragement.
Behind her, he giggled and an answering laugh hiccupped in her belly. Soon, they were giggling and moving together, his manhood rocking luscious pleasure through her. A long moan fluttered in her throat. The slick friction worked its magic, and she laughed again.
“So good …,” he gasped.
Renee reached back for him, to grab his butt and pull him closer, deeper. He felt smooth and round under her seeking fingers. Clenching and unclenching in quick rhythm as he fed her delight stroke by stroke. He grunted into her neck. Renee squeezed him again. Then her hand fumbled over something that didn’t belong. A buckle. Leather straps. Smooth, hairless skin. Her hand dipped be-low the flesh still buried inside her. Nothing.
Renee gasped, shoved the slight figure back, and twisted away until they faced each other. She fumbled for a nearby light.
“What the hell?!”
The softness she had felt resolved itself into a woman. A girl. Smooth face. Short hair. A T-shirt pulled down over what looked like bandages strapping down her breasts. The girl’s breath came quickly. She was still excited. Excited that she’d gotten caught.
“We can finish.” The girl licked her lips and dropped her eyes low to devour Renee in the light. “Let me finish you off. It was real good, wasn’t it?”
Renee backed away from her. Grabbed a pillow from the bed to cover herself. “Get out! This is not what I asked for.”
“You wanted a dick.” She grabbed the big black dildo that was covered with a condom and still ready for action. “I got a dick for you.” The girl—and she had to be no older than twenty—wet her lips again, ate up Renee with her eyes. “I know you want it, too.”
Renee’s body was still flushed hot. Her thighs trembled and her clit was swollen and thick with the anticipation of orgasm. She squeezed her thighs together but shook her head.
“This is not okay. And this is not what you need either.”
The girl drew herself up to her full height, which was still shorter than Renee. “You want these guys for their dicks. How different is that from me?” She grabbed the piece of sil-icone between her legs again. The jeans sagged at her knees, hobbling the steps she took toward Renee.
“No, sweetie. We can’t do this. Go find yourself a girl who’s going to want you for you.”
The girl’s eyes narrowed. “Well, fuck you then!” She yanked up her jeans, roughly arranging the dildo inside. The sound of her zipper was loud in the room.
She flung open the door, and Renee cowered back with the pillow still covering her nakedness. With a final, scornful glance, the girl stomped down the hall.
“Damn.” Renee closed the door and sank into the bed.
Without lingering on the sheer strangeness of what just happened, she quickly gathered her things and left the room. After paying her bill and avoiding the concerned questions of the front desk clerk, she went out to her car. The Saab chirped when she pressed the remote, headlights flickering twice. She reached for the door handle. Then stopped cold.
Etched in the otherwise spotless pale blue paint of her door were four large scratches, an interrupted W. Someone had keyed her car! Renee’s eyes flickered around the parking lot to the rows of cars, the valet running past in his red shirt, a pale-skinned family of five unloading tiredly from their minivan.
Who could have done this? The marks hadn’t been there when she left her office. The gouges in the car were as vicious as they were deliberate. Was it the girl with the plastic dick? No. That didn’t make any sense. She wouldn’t have known Renee’s car.
Did anyone inside the hotel notice anything? She took a few hesitating steps toward the hotel, her heels tapping desolately against the pavement, before turning back to her car. As beautiful as the hotel was, it was also very private, very discreet. As long as no one got beaten up or killed, she doubted that the desk staff paid any attention to what happened in the parking lot.
“Damn it!”
Maybe this was a sign, she thought, sinking heavily into the driver’s seat. Maybe she shouldn’t do this anymore. A flash of the girl’s angry, desperate face flickered in her mind’s eye. The car keys slipped from her hands, thudding dully against the floor mat. Renee swallowed. It was a long time before she could put the key in the ignition and start on the lonely drive home.
Chapter 14
A small black and beige dog, a corgi, barked and took off across the grass, chasing a ball. Its owner, a long-legged twentysomething in cutoff shorts and a tight tank top, kept a firm hand on its leash as the dog dragged her all over the park.
“I wouldn’t mind chasing after that bit of tail.” Mayson’s friend, Iyla, watched the woman with a halfhearted leer from her place on the lawn chair near Mayson.
Camille, another leggy femme but one who was in much closer, available proximity, gave Iyla a dirty look. Her long, curling dreads fell into her face.
Mayson stifled a laugh.
T
heir shaded canopy, a quickly erected insta-tent that Portia, Iyla’s coworker, had wrestled from her truck, afforded them an uninterrupted view of the park and gave anyone who wanted to the opportunity to stare back as well. There were worse things to see, Mayson thought with a smug grin. She took a slow sip of her beer, savoring the Stella Artois’ delicate bite at the back of her tongue.
The evening before, she had made the decision to drive to LA on a whim. An invitation from her college roommate, whom she hadn’t seen in a few months, despite the fact that only a two-hour drive separated them.
“It’s going to be a nice day in the park,” Iyla had said, her voice gravel at seven o’clock in the evening, as if she were just crawling out of bed. “Lots of girls will be out for the Lesbian Film Festival this weekend. I’m bringing a friend from work, another pilot with the airline. Invite anyone you want.”
Since it was set to be a day of girl-watching, Mayson didn’t even think about inviting Renee. Instead she called up her best friend to let her know where she’d be and that she wouldn’t drive back to San Diego until Sunday morning. Then she asked Tara to open the studio in the morning for classes. That taken care of, she jumped in her car with the top down and, with Tricky playing on the iPod, headed north.
Instead of hopping on the 5, she took the slow and scenic Pacific Coast Highway, tapping her fingers on the steering wheel to her music while the wind tugged at her loose hair and the Pacific shimmered like a silken veil at the edges of her sight. By the time she made it to Iyla’s place in West Hollywood, Camille was already there, lounging by the pool with a book.
“It’s hot as fuck out here,” Camille said, abruptly sweeping her tank top over her head.
Iyla and Mayson, used to foulmouthed declarations from the girl with wide eyes and soul-rocking body, only nodded in agreement. Portia, mesmerized by the sudden display of skin, stared like she’d never seen a nice-looking woman before.
“Did they just let you out of prison or something?” Mayson had to ask when Portia sat up in the lawn chair and continued staring at Camille.
“Prison? Shit, you’d have to be dead not to look at that.” Portia smoothed a hand over her short hair, smiling, as Ca-mille ignored her, squirting sunscreen into her palm and turning to Iyla for help rubbing it into her skin.
“I can do that for you, honey,” Portia said, getting eagerly to her feet. But as she made her way over, Camille dipped her head Iyla’s way. “I need those hands on me, honey. No other.”
Mayson chuckled. Camille had been trying to get Iyla for years. They met back in the late ′90s at one of those orgies Iyla liked to attend but not participate in. Ever since she caught sight of the ex–Air Force pilot, Camille was in a daze. It was common knowledge that when a house had become available in Iyla’s ritzy neighborhood, Camille did everything in her power to move in, even though she could barely afford it on her magazine editor’s salary. Ten years and not even one kiss later, Camille was still hooked.
Mayson often teased Iyla about breaking Camille off some but Iyla was adamant about not sleeping with her neighbor. She’d never given a reason but Mayson always suspected that Iyla was afraid. Camille had built up so much anticipation around a possible relationship, Mayson thought Iyla was terrified she wouldn’t be able to live up to the other woman’s fantasies. It was too bad. They would have made one sexy couple.
“Why don’t you go chase that girl with the dog?” she asked Iyla despite Camille’s sour look in her direction. “I’m sure she wouldn’t mind being caught. One of us might as well get laid this weekend.”
Iyla sat up to rummage in the cooler. She pulled out a Stella, popped the top, then poured a cup of sangria. Camille took the fruit-infused wine with a smile of thanks.
Beer in hand, Iyla eased back down on the lawn chair. “I’m feeling too lazy to chase anything today. If she came and sat on my face, now that I can do.”
“That would be something to—” Mayson’s phone sang out in her shorts pocket, the opening notes to Lionel Richie’s “Dancing on the Ceiling.”
“Gimme a sec,” she said to Iyla, then opened the phone to answer Renee’s call. “Miss me already?”
Mayson sat up on the blanket and, with the phone pressed between her ear and shoulder, twisted her ponytail up and off her neck into a messy bun. Under the canopy, the burning Los Angeles sun couldn’t touch her but the humidity had already spread a layer of sweat across her face and throat.
“Not hardly.” Her best friend sounded agitated. “Where did you put my spare keys again? I locked myself out of the condo.”
“Again?”
“Sue me. I’m having a space-cadet week.”
“No shit.” Mayson told her where to find the keys. “And put them back where you got them, otherwise next time you’ll be shit out of luck.”
“I love you, too.” The smile in Renee’s voice was unmistakable.
“Naturally.”
Chuckling, Mayson hung up the phone.
“Let me guess, that was the lovely Renee?” Iyla tilted the beer from her mouth and looked at Mayson.
Before she could answer, Portia jumped in. “Who’s Renee? Your girl?”
Iyla laughed. “No. Renee is a cutie who is the perfect girl for Mayson. The only thing is she’s straight. And they’re best friends.”
“Seriously?” Portia looked at Mayson as if she were some sort of rare and mystifying creature risen from the sea with fish for brains. “That’s gotta be weird, being best friends with a straight girl,” she said.
“I don’t see anything wrong with it.” Camille rested the half-empty cup of sangria against her bare stomach. “Just because you couldn’t handle that situation doesn’t mean May-son or someone else can’t.”
But Portia wasn’t interested in the philosophy of cross-sexuality friendship. “Is she hot?” She turned to Mayson. “Do you fantasize about her?”
Mayson sipped her beer and swallowed, meeting Portia’s eyes with a hard stare. “That’s a little personal, don’t you think?”
Portia chortled. “That means yes.” She looked at Iyla and Camille. “I told you, it’s impossible to be best friends and just friends with a straight girl.”
“How about an ugly straight girl?” Iyla raised an eyebrow.
The three women laughed. Mayson scowled.
Iyla nodded at Mayson. “I agree that sometimes it might be a little difficult, especially with a woman as damn fine as Renee—”
Camille twisted in her chair to look at Iyla. “Damn fine, huh?”
“Absolutely and you know it. That body of hers is heaven and when she looks at you all sweet, like the dirtiest thing she’d ever thought about doing was French kissing, well, it makes you want to just open up those—”
“Hey, hey!” Mayson held up her hands, definitely not ready to hear any more.
“All right!” Iyla grinned. “But like I was saying, if the friendship is worth it and the woman means more than any lover could, you fight to push whatever lustful feelings you have aside.”
“Especially during those dry spells, I’m sure.” Portia looked meaningfully at Mayson. “And I notice you didn’t answer my question about jilling off to Renee fantasies.”
“I’ll ignore your trash talk since you don’t know me and you sure don’t know Renee.” Mayson paused, thinking about the period of her life when Renee had walked through her fantasies on a regular basis, years ago when she was a teenager still learning the sexuality of her body. Even then, it had never occurred to Mayson to try and change the relationship with her best friend into a sexual one. “Renee has been with me since the beginning. She’s one of the few people in my life who’ve given me unconditional and complete love. Our relationship is beyond blood and it’s certainly beyond sex. I know it’s hard to wrap your little brain around that.”
Portia sucked her teeth, apparently intent on mischief. “No relationship is beyond sex, except those with blood ties.”
Iyla made a dismissive motion. “I disagree.
A lot of times in our community we tend to transition lovers easily to friends—”
“Exactly!” Portia burst out. “That’s why so many dykes have a whole stable of exes who are now their best friends in the whole world.”
The sarcasm in her last words made Mayson’s teeth hurt. She nodded. “That may be true, but it’s hard to go the other way—from friends to lovers—then try to make it as friends again once you’ve fucked that up.”
“That’s not true. I’ve seen women who’ve done the shitti-est, shittiest things to a girlfriend during a relationship turn around and become the new BFF after the relationship is over.” Portia snorted. “I personally don’t believe in that shit. I say once you’ve fucked them, let them go.”
“Are you serious?” Camille drained her cup and wordlessly handed it to Iyla to refill.
“Do any of your exes even like you after they leave?” Mayson asked.
“Obviously not,” Iyla said drily. “None of them stick around long enough to deal with her triflin’ ass.” She refilled Camille’s cup and grabbed three more beers from the cooler. She passed the Stellas around.
“Whatever, honey.” Portia snapped her fingers and swiveled her head in a fair gay-boy imitation. “Anyway, women are crazy, especially about each other. I don’t see why you, Mayson, wouldn’t see if things can work out between the two of you as lovers and if they don’t you can go back to being friends again. Simple.” She gave Iyla a pointed stare. “Despite some people’s opinion, I think that’s the perfect solution since this Renee chick is so amazing and you want to keep her in your life.”
“You’re always thinking with your clit, Portia,” Iyla said. “But in this case you’re forgetting the biggest part of the equation.” She leaned toward her friend, laughter in her eyes. “Renee is straight.”
“Like spaghetti, only until she gets wet.” Portia grinned.
“You’re as bad as most straight men,” Camille scoffed between sputters of laughter.