by Ana McKenzie
Except that would be crass, to disappear while Bianca slept. Especially as she’d been explicitly invited to stay the night. Merren poured her coffee and sighed. There was also the fact that she had absolutely no desire to leave. In fact, she was already looking forward to slipping back between the covers and seeking out Bianca’s bed-warmed body, curling up to her and breathing her scent in, going to sleep with her heavy warmth in her arms.
There was the other job, of course, and Merren could still get that done. She rubbed her hands together in glee, then laughed at herself and reached for her laptop bag, pulling out the phone and watch she’d stopped at home specifically to get. They were still in their boxes, and she broke the seals and unpackaged them, setting them on the table in front of her and looking at them with delight.
‘Let’s see how we get on with these, then,’ she whispered, and turned both of them on.
It took only ten minutes for her to figure out the accessibility features and pair the Apple watch and phone together to turn them on. She played around with them for a while, smiling to herself. Now Bianca wouldn’t have to worry about where she’d put her phone – that could stay in the same place and the watch would simply go everywhere on her wrist and from that she could make phone calls, send texts, even turn her music on. Merren twisted in her chair and snagged the Bluetooth speakers she’d brought from home. They could go in the studio tomorrow, and there would be music for them to listen to. Pleased excitement flooded through her at the thought, and she grinned as she put the speakers aside and dug back in her bag for the earphones to go with the watch. They were brand new as well, and she fiddled with the packaging before setting them free, switching them on, holding them next to the watch to pair them, then draping them around her neck and holding them up against her ears to check they worked.
Of course they worked, and she was humming again, putting them back on the table and picking up the phone, thinking about music. What sort of music did Bianca like? Apart from The Rolling Stones? Her fingers flew over the screen, setting up the phone service, then moving on to make an Apple account for Bianca. She’d glanced at Bianca’s computer on her desk when she’d called the hospital, and that had been a Windows machine, and the phone she’d found under the bed just before, well that hadn’t been an iPhone.
Her wallet was upstairs, probably still in the pocket of her pants…which were somewhere on the floor, wherever she’d kicked them off. Merren stood up, stretched, grinned, and tiptoed up the stairs into the bedroom.
Bianca had turned over onto her back, one hand palm upwards on the pillow, the fingers curled over. Merren wanted to link her fingers through Bianca’s and kiss each shell-like nail. And she was glad she’d decided not to steal off back home, because now she was here in the room, the idea of climbing back into bed and wrapping herself around the sleeping Bianca was almost too strong to resist.
Resist she did, however. Wide awake, Merren was wired from the coffee, which she probably shouldn’t have drunk, considering she couldn’t get any work done and it would be a waste of time being awake. With a shrug, she decided it was too late on that score to worry about, and hunted about for her pants instead, creeping around the bed and sifting through the discarded piles of clothes until she found what she was looking for.
Wallet in hand, she blew the sleeping Bianca a kiss, and padded back downstairs feeling foolish with happiness.
Half an hour later, she was satisfied. Everything was set up well enough to get the ball rolling and Bianca back up and running. She’d be able to know the time just for the asking, she could make calls and send texts, simply by using her voice, and just in case, she could send an emergency call if she suffered an accident.
All by wearing a watch. Merren shook her head in delighted wonder. There were definite pluses to technology, even while it was set to disrupt almost everything people took for granted.
But that was what was coming, and this was right now. Standing up, Merren tidied away the coffee things, and repackaged the phone and watch, setting them neatly on the table for the morning.
Bianca stirred as Merren folded her close again, and reached out, touching her fingers sleepily to Merren’s face.
‘Merren?’
‘Mm hmm,’ Merren said and stroked Bianca’s hair, letting herself relax, breathing in the woody scent of Bianca’s shampoo. It wasn’t going to matter too much that she hadn’t got any work done. She could make it up. It was only one night. ‘Just me,’ she said, and kissed the questing fingertips.
‘Just you,’ Bianca repeated. ‘No just about you.’ The voice was soft, sleepy, amused. The fingers stroked Merren’s face, drifted down the sensitive skin of her neck and then traced their way further down, skimming over a breast, then belly, then lower, to somewhere even more sensitive.
Merren gasped, shifted slightly, feeling everything contract, then open, swell.
‘You like that?’
It took a moment to find her voice as the fingers slipped between her folds, just a teasing, feather-touch, making it almost impossible to think clearly as arousal overtook her.
She swallowed. ‘I do,’ she said, and groaned.
‘Mmm, so do I,’ Bianca replied, and her feather-touch landed. ‘You’re wet,’ she said.
That was no surprise. The swell of pleasure from Bianca’s touch was intense and Merren let herself drop into it, swim around.
‘I’m glad I’m staying the night,’ she croaked.
Bianca wriggled down in the bed and then her mouth was on Merren’s breast, biting the nipple with sharp little teeth. Her fingers pressed harder, moved faster, and Merren’s head spun. She lifted her hips without knowing what she was doing, spread her legs wider.
Her orgasm was explosive, unexpected, overtaking her with a sudden intensity so that she didn’t stand a chance of waylaying it, slowing it down, delaying it. She gasped, groaning into the pillow, her whole body convulsing, the wake of pleasure rippling through her, going on and on. Bianca’s fingers slipped from her clitoris to deep inside her, and Merren found herself crying out, climaxing again, great dizzying waves of sensation ripping through her, leaving her gasping, beached on some far shore of pleasure, eyes and mouth wide open, her own cries in her ears, skin slick with sweat.
Oh yes, she thought as she came slowly back to ground, Bianca shimmying up the length of her to lie with her head tucked against Merren’s shoulder.
Work could definitely wait until tomorrow. There wasn’t anything better than this.
Chapter Twenty-Two
‘Merren – Merren, wake up, sleepyhead.’
Merren groaned, rolled over and forced her eyes open to squint against the light coming in the window. They’d never closed the curtains the night before. Immediately, Merren wondered if anyone had seen them through the window, the things they’d done. There were other big houses in the street. It was a possibility.
‘What time is it?’ she asked.
‘No idea,’ Bianca said, landing on the bed in front of Merren. ‘Daylight.’
Merren’s eyes were gummy with sleep. She peered at the window, assessing the hour. ‘Barely,’ she said.
But Bianca laughed. ‘I have coffee on.’
‘God, I hope so,’ Merren said, then focused on Bianca. ‘You’re looking awfully perky this morning.’
‘Mm hmm. I’m feeling good. Stronger. Rita was right.’
‘Rita?’ Merren was still bleary with sleep. It didn’t look light enough to be awake.
Bianca pinched her on the bare arm, lightly. ‘Rita – she said it would be good for me to sleep with you.’
Now Merren remembered, and she couldn’t stop herself from grinning. ‘So, she was right?’
‘Yes,’ Bianca heaved a sigh and stretched. ‘Guess the girl deserves more credit than I give her.’ She relaxed and patted the blankets in the vicinity of Merren’s knee. ‘Get up, she said. ‘I want coffee, I’m starving, and I want to get to work.’
‘Okay,’ Merren said. ‘Coffee wou
ld be great.’ She pushed back the blankets and dragged herself from the bed. ‘Did we sleep at all last night?’
‘Some,’ Bianca answered. ‘Enough.’
‘For you maybe. Last time I saw this thing I believe is called dawn, it was because I was up all night.’ Merren rubbed her face and looked for her overnight bag. ‘I am not a morning person.’ Her gaze landed on Bianca and her breath was stolen away. The woman was radiant, dawn or not. Even with her curls tousled and disorganised. Merren stood there for a long moment, not moving, just looking, as a flood of warmth washed through her, making her feel sweet and heavy.
Bianca felt her way towards the door, then stuck her head back into the room, grinning. ‘Come on, grumpy, one early morning won’t hurt. I’ll pour the coffee.’
She disappeared down the stairs, and Merren smiled and shook her head. She wasn’t the slightest bit grumpy. Nope. There wasn’t a single kernel of grumpiness anywhere in her. Just this warm-washed feeling.
The glory of passionate love, her grandmother had said. The words bounced around in Merren’s head and she tried to shove them aside, to feel casual and lackadaisical about everything, but it wasn’t possible. She felt smitten. Hopelessly. Already.
She stretched, yawned, and her body glowed with a pleasant fatigue that only came from one particular thing – great sex.
‘Excellent sex,’ she said out loud. ‘Really, really excellent sex.’
In fact, she decided, as she picked out clothes from her bag and tugged them on, maybe early mornings weren’t to be sneezed at, if they came after brilliant nights like the one she’d just had.
In the bathroom mirror, her face stared back at her, eyes puffy, hair standing up on end, but the curving line of her mouth said she was happy anyway. She just needed a shower.
But she needed coffee more, and breakfast in Bianca’s kitchen, sitting at the table with her. Perfect time to show her the watch and phone. Merren gave her reflection a grin and went downstairs.
Bianca was humming, standing at the counter and rummaging round in a loaf of bread. She spoke as Merren came in.
‘I miss music. I’ll have to have you set up my record player in the new studio.’ She paused. ‘Of course, it will be a complete mystery what album goes on the player, but I guess that might be fun.’
Merren came up behind her and clasped her around the waist and kissed her cheek. ‘A record player? They give a pretty cool sound, I admit, but I have a better solution than that,’ she said.
Eyebrows raised, Bianca twisted her head and returned the kiss, then squirmed around in Merren’s arms and threaded her fingers into Merren’s hair.
‘I like my records,’ she said. ‘I have a wonderful collection.’ She cocked her head. ‘You’ve brushed your teeth. You’re all minty and nice.’
‘I am indeed,’ Merren said and aimed for another kiss. ‘Good morning and may I just say that you have the best lips ever?’
The lips in question spread out in a smile and offered another kiss, which Merren was very glad to accept. Her insides melted again at their touch. ‘Really,’ she said when they parted. ‘Really the best lips ever.’
‘They do seem to appreciate yours,’ Bianca said with a sigh that sounded very happy. ‘In fact, everything about me seems to appreciate everything about you.’ She leaned back in Merren’s arms and put on a considering expression. ‘At least, everything experienced so far.’
It was Merren’s turn to sigh now, and it was definitely a happy one. ‘There’s more?’ she asked.
Bianca’s hands slid down to cup Merren’s face, and she dropped another kiss on her lips. ‘Oh, I hope so. People are always saying new experiences are good for us.’ She laughed and turned back around, her hands seeking out the bread again.
Merren looked for the coffee. She could smell it. ‘I would say exactly the same, actually.’ The French Press was on the table, two mugs arranged neatly beside it. She pushed down the plunger and poured. ‘That’s pretty much why I decided to try the modelling.’
Bianca had planted two slices of bread in the toaster. ‘I really want bacon and eggs for breakfast, but this will have to do,’ she said, then turned around and rested against the counter, twisting her head in a way that Merren knew meant she was looking at her. ‘I thought you might just want a bit of extra cash or something,’ she said. ‘I know they pay fairly well.’
Merren laughed. ‘No,’ she said and placed Bianca’s cup of coffee gently in her hands, closing her fingers around the handle of the mug. ‘Nope, I did it to see what it felt like – to be that exposed.’
Hugging her coffee to her chest, Bianca tipped her head to the side, and Merren found herself smiling – she just loved the way Bianca did that.
‘You’re very brave. Of course, you get to put your clothes back on at the end of it. But what did it feel like?’
Merren sat down and stretched her legs out, taking a sip of the fragrant coffee, thinking about her answer. ‘Well, it felt really exposing – obviously – all those eyes on you, on your nude body. For the first twenty minutes or so, I felt more than just nude, I felt naked.’
The look on Bianca’s face was one of intense concentration. ‘Go on,’ she said.
Merren resisted the urge to shrug and make some throwaway remark. Instead, she took a breath and answered honestly. ‘Then, I noticed that everything I felt, and thought was razor-sharp, and that I wasn’t, like usual, thinking of half a billion things at once. Instead, I was simply and completely who I was, where I was, doing what I was doing.’ She took another sip. ‘And it was curiously liberating.’
Bianca leaned forward. ‘Liberating?’ she asked.
A nod, and then Merren remembered Bianca couldn’t see it. She cleared her throat. ‘Yeah,’ she said. ‘Liberating in that it felt so damned real.’ She fell silent for a moment, looking for the words to explain herself. Putting her cup down, she drew her feet up and bent forward over her knees. ‘It was like I was both inside and outside myself. Or rather like I was bigger than I usually feel. I was so aware of where I was, and of my body, and just of myself in that place and time that everything expanded – my awareness expanded, until the moment I was so grounded in was huge, elastic, with so much room in it for me, the biggest, best, most real me – and everyone else too. I could feel everyone else around me too, all those lives in one room, being them, being themselves, being part of this one, big, everlasting moment.’
She fell silent, abashed. Picked up her coffee mug again, took a sip.
‘Anyway, she said. ‘It was an extraordinary experience. To be so grounded, so present.’
Bianca nodded slowly. ‘I think I understand,’ she said. ‘I feel something like that when I paint – I’m so focused, so there in the moment, that everything opens up, and I know without a doubt that what I’m doing has meaning.’
Merren nodded. ‘That’s it, exactly,’ she said, and ran a hand through her hair, thinking about it. ‘I guess I hoped it would end up being an experience that would broaden my bandwidth, so to speak, but it surpassed my expectations.’ She looked at Bianca. ‘What’s up?’ she asked.
Bianca was shaking her head, looking lost in thought. ‘I really need to get painting again,’ she said. ‘I need to feel like myself again, as much as I can, anyway.’ Her voice petered out and she chewed on her bottom lip for a moment. ‘If I can paint, then I won’t feel like I’ve lost everything.’ She grimaced a half-smile. ‘I want to have breakfast, and then I want to paint. I’m sure I can do it.’ Her chest rose with a deep breath and behind her the toast popped. She ignored it. ‘It won’t be the same. Nothing is ever quite going to be the same again, but I still have things I want to say, and I still want to say them with paint.’ She gave a shaky laugh and spread her hands wide. ‘Other artists have continued painting after losing their sight.’ She paused for a moment. ‘I should find out somehow what they did.’
Merren got up and fetched the toast, brought it back to the table where Bianca had also put the honey and o
ther spreads. She nabbed Bianca’s hand on the way past and drew her to a chair, sliding knife, plate, and toast in front of her.
‘I can sort that out for you as well,’ she said, sitting down and trying to pick between the Manuka honey and strawberry jam. She didn’t eat meat, but a nice omelette would have gone down well. Or some of her mother’s homemade cereal, with caramelised banana on the top. She huffed out a breath. All that exercise the night before had worked up an appetite.
‘How can you do that?’ Bianca was asking.
Merren reached for the honey. ‘Your computer. I’ll set it up so that you can navigate it, so that it will read everything on the page for you.’ She spread the honey on her toast, took another sip of coffee. ‘It’s just a matter of changing the settings.’
‘I guess everyone your age knows a lot about computers.’
Merren shrugged. ‘You want the honey? As for knowing about computers, I can just remember not having one – but I was five years old when Mum got her first computer that hooked up to the World Wide Web.’ She passed the spread over and laughed. ‘I remember it pretty well, actually, because the computer and my sister arrived at much the same time – and I definitely thought the computer was much more fun.’
Bianca was gazing at her, head tipped to the side, knife loose in one hand, honey jar in the other. ‘I can’t even imagine that,’ she said. ‘It’s so different to my experience.’ She blinked. ‘You’re growing up in a world so much more connected than I did. I actually had to go out in it to meet people, to find my communities.’
‘It is different, sure,’ Merren said, putting her toast down. ‘But it doesn’t mean that me and my friends growing up in this world don’t value our actual, real-world interactions.’ She picked up her toast again and the honey dripped over her fingers. ‘It might just be the opposite, actually, since we realise all the different places we each come from, because of our online awareness.’ She shrugged, looked at her toast in dismay.