'Honey? Aren't you going to undress?'
'I'm thinking about it.'
'Well, come on! Get naked and come to bed.'
'Don't rush me. You're not naked yourself yet.'
'Damn near, wouldn't you say? I just thought you'd like to work on my panties with your own hot little hands. Like last time after I started to fuck you-remember?'
'Is that all you care about, just fucking me? Aren't there any other ways to make love? I mean, uh, if we keep doing the same thing over and over… ' My tone was petulant, purposely so, mostly out of spite, not because of any objection to her style of lovemaking. I just wanted to shake her up a little, signifying a certain displeasure without offering any reasonably valid explanation for it.
She matched me with a petulance of her own. 'Hmph! Getting bored already, darling?'
'Silly. On our second date? Of course not. I just don't think we ought to take one another for granted, that's all. Like some old married couple, you know?'
'Oh. Maybe you're right. I-I almost wish we were, though.'
'Hmm? How's that again? You wish we… uh… '
But she had already lapsed into silence, disposing of the issue with a spuriously casual shrug, an awkward gesture that belied itself in a woman of such natural grace. As if she had already said too much and just realized it. I remained silent for pretty much the same reason then, perversely aware of having come too close to the underlying truth of my resentment. Oh shit, let her figure it out for herself! It didn't even seem important any more, not after that bombshell she had just dropped, a bomb that had been only a dud until her obvious cover-up backfired and brought it to life. So my lover wished we could be a married couple, did she? A lesbian-type marriage, imagine, wasn't that practically a declaration of love?
Uh-huh. How nice! Love. Nice to know, too. It was like a big jigsaw puzzle, with the important central pieces just beginning to fall into place. Everything appeared clearer now, even her dubious but unforgettable behavior in the restaurant, the pride and apparent pleasure with which she had dominated our secluded booth and yet managed to cater to my every desire. Or to convey that impression, at least, testing every new dish herself but always with me in mind. Mixing the salad dressing and spicing up the shrimp cocktail sauce, things like that, doing it for both of us and allowing me to sample the finished product only after she smacked her lips and rolled her eyes in approval. As if mine was the only opinion that mattered, even though it had been foisted upon me in a manner that precluded protest. As if I was her pampered angel-child-hmm, angel-wife?-too naive and ingenuous to be trusted to make such earth-shaking decisions by myself.
Nor could I forget her unconcealed contempt for the males within visual range, especially those who kept craning their necks and straining their eyeballs for an unobstructed but hopefully surreptitious glimpse of us. For which I couldn't exactly blame then, not even the ones with wives or mistresses or dinner-and-bed dates of their own. We were by far the most spectacular women on the premises, a duo of gorgeous beauties dining unescorted and unconcerned, haughtily ignoring the quizzically sneaky glances of our bedazzled male audience; what a blow to the masculine ego! Only they weren't really ignored, those squint-eyed satyrs-but that would have been the lesser of the two evils, what with scornful Florinda leaning across the table to croon her gleefully perverse refrain in my ear. If they only knew, she kept saying, if the poor stupid slobs only knew! Or words to that effect. Lecherous old bastards, for instance, a phrase that wavered between a chortle and a curse, depending on her intonation.
Dubious indeed, such behavior in a grown woman. Unforgettable, perhaps even unforgivable. And yet, juvenile as her attitude had seemed at that juncture, I understood it now. She was maneuvering me toward a total commitment to her way of life, of course, but that was only the first step. Down with men! College boys were clods. Indigent bums. Selfish beasts. While my lesbian lover was sweet candy. An indulgent beauty. A sophisticated belle, the soul of benevolence. Wouldn't you rather be taken care of than taken advantage or? Is your honeydew ripe enough, dear? A little more sugar in your coffee, sweetheart? Won't you try the delicious cherry liqueur, darling? I was getting the royal-treatment no doubt, but there was more to it than met the eye. Winning me was too easy, It was possession that represented the challenge. And the real Florinda Brokaw was a very possessive person! Our barely begun romance had already given her a sense of ownership; why risk the embarrassment of an 'I love you' speech, why not just let nature take its course? It was all so simple from her viewpoint sitting there in the driver's seat, in the restaurant, in the car-in bed?-all she had to do was follow her nose to the foregone conclusion: the happy couple joining hands in illegal matrimony, a permanent lesbian marriage. Simple, oh sure-not if I could help it! And now that I had finally figured out the rules of the silly game…
'Sue? Are you going to stand there all night?'
The buttons of my blouse almost undid themselves. I could see her interest mount as new areas of my flesh were exposed. It took only a shrug and shake then, and the unbuttoned garment slipped off my shoulders and fell away. She uttered an unintelligible sound almost like a laugh but kind of raspy-as though something had caught in her throat. My sexy nylon net bra had served its purpose, presenting a striking contrast to the demure blouse that had just come off. My breasts seemed to he struggling to break through and out into the open. Why did they feel so hot? Not sexually so much as physically, hot in temperature, the kind of neat that would have cracked a thermometer. But why?
I saw her eyes then, focused on my bosom and in the midst of that colorless light diffraction, the phenomenon that had struck me as magical all those other times. But my own gaze was free and unrestricted now, not locked into hers, allowing me to remain more of a spectator than a participant. I could examine the change without that earlier emotional reaction. Not that I learned much, just enough to gain a certain familiarity and balance that with an equal loss of fear. There was no magic in the phenomenon, nothing that I cared to exalt to such an esoteric level, just an interesting prismatic effect in the pupils of her eyes.
No, that wasn't quite true. Unless maybe I could blame it all on my imagination. Anyway, whatever the reason, my breasts were still hot and the concentration of heat was most noticeable at the points of impact from that intense gaze. As if those eyes could actually send burning beams across the room to penetrate my bra and strike at the flesh underneath, at the agitated peaks, the stirred up and swollen nipples that were now a throb with the need for freedom.
Slowly but casually, avoiding any exaggerated movement that might appear overly seductive, I put both hands behind my back and turned them up to fiddle around with the bra-strap fasteners. It was an easy job that I made deliberately difficult, drawing it out endlessly. As if my fingers were too nervous for the intricacies of such a troublesome task. It was just to shake my lounging lover out of her lethargy, that was all, letting her stew in the secreted juices of her own anticipation while I held that pose as if it was simply awful to stand there like a screwed-up statue with my shoulders scrunched back and my tits stuck out and straining to split the bulgy nylon net before the liberation ceremony could be properly performed. And it didn't hurt a bit, really-even my throbbing nipples were glad to delay the unveiling and wait for further developments, glad to participate in the shaking-up of this lazy lesbian bitch who was hot paprika in a restaurant but cold pizza in bed.
'You know something, dear? This could become a real war of nerves if we don't end it right now.' She took a final drag and crushed out the cigarette butt. Then, still lying there, the smoke curling from her nostrils, 'So come here, won't you? Darling? I'll help you unhook it, otherwise you'll be all night. Come on, before you tie yourself up in knots.'
'Uh-huh. Oooh, my shoulders ache.' Swinging my arms to get the kinks out, I started toward her, setting one bare foot in front of the other with each step, an artifice that induced a rolling sway of the hips. I halted at the edge of the mattress and looked down at her. 'Care to give a girl a hand?'
She slithered across the bed, a serpentine motion that made her bonelessly fluid form look like two separate segments twisted together and held by a makeshift loop of tape, the narrow black panties stark against her skin. Reaching me, she hoisted herself up into a kneeling position and then hesitated, spreading her knees slightly to build a broader base of support on the springy surface. I should have spun around then, turning my back to make her job easier. And by the same token, she should have groped for the back-strap wherever it happened to be. Wasn't that the purpose of the entire maneuver, to unfasten my bra?
Somehow, as if by tacit agreement, neither one of us followed the script. I just stood there and waited for her to begin groping. And she just knelt there and waited. Then, cautiously, almost timorously, she slid her arms around my waist until her hands touched and clasped in the middle, centered on the ridge of my spine. And now,
