Chapter 295

Makeeda did not phone Laura from Japan, as she had promised to do. As the time wore on, and she didn't call, Laura felt more and more wistful about it, but not really angry. She knew she herself had not called Makeeda from Dallas, after having promised to. They were both a little skittish about talking over the phone, since there was clearly so much emotion packed into their friendship, and the potential for misunderstanding so plain.

Still, she did daydream about her all the time. In spite of her hot night with Jamilah, another night with Amber, and two with Arthell, she could not keep her mind from drifting back to Makeeda. She would lie in bed in the mornings, before arising for work, and remember kissing the woman's hard, perfect body, remember Makeeda shuddering and twitching in her arms as she rolled through one of her pass-out orgasms. Laura would masturbate and scream and sob and then shower and drive to work, unable to stop fresh thoughts of Makeeda from entering her mind and body again as soon as she sat down behind her desk.

She lost track of the days, and when Makeeda finally did phone, it was to Laura's office, in the early afternoon. Having not heard her voice for weeks, Laura was startled and mildly panicked, as if something were coming for which she was not prepared. Makeeda sounded remote and tired.

"Hi, Laura. I'm back. I've got to see you."

As usual, Laura reflected with dismay, when Makeeda said 'I've got to see you, ' it didn't sound like she was dying to but like she felt that they had dreary, unfinished business to settle. This made Laura's panic worse. After weeks of not seeing Makeeda, and dreaming about her and masturbating all the time, Laura felt very vulnerable.

"I'm dying to see you," she said softly into the phone.

"Sorry I didn't call," Makeeda apologized. "Very busy over there."

"I'll bet they loved you."

"They... seemed to," Makeeda said, wearily. "It's hard to tell with them. They grin and smile at everything. But they want me back. My agent's arranging another trip, probably in May."

Laura felt like her heart was going to explode. Just having Makeeda on the other end of the line made her feel this way. Each word sank into her mind and her flesh and resonated. "God, I'm happy for you."

"I'm headed into the city... to work. I wondered if I could drop by there for a few minutes on my way. Do you have meetings or anything? Will you be there for the next couple of hours?"

Laura brightened. "Oh god yes. I'm dying to see you. Just stop in the lobby and have them phone up to me. I'll come down and sign you in."

Of course, it was impossible to work while she waited. She walked the halls, then hurried back to her desk so she would not miss the call from the security people downstairs when Makeeda arrived.

Even though she had been soaked and super-saturated for weeks in her deep yearnings for Makeeda as well as her heated, masturbatory sexual fantasies involving her, Laura was unprepared for how she would feel when she finally saw Makeeda waiting for her at the security desk. It didn't help that Makeeda was headed for work and wore the simple, elegant black sheath Laura had initially seen her in.

She was positively stunning. Makeeda had her back to Laura as Laura approached. She was looking out at the street, at the passersby on the sidewalk, apparently impatient for Laura to appear. But this gave Laura the chance-more, the shock-of seeing Makeeda as she had first seen her, in the restaurant: this impossibly elegant woman with a spectacular body, with her rich smooth dark mahogany skin, whose face was unusual, plain at first, then animated and compelling as soon as she turned those startling hazel eyes on you.

As she was doing now to Laura, turning, half-smiling. I fell in love with her at first sight, Laura thought. I'm a sucker for those eyes. Still, it was not the smile Laura was hoping to see. Instead, it was evasive, almost embarrassed, and quickly gone. Laura leaned forward to embrace her gingerly, wanting to crush Makeeda's body to hers in a fit of ecstatic happiness and yet afraid to do it.

"Hello, Laura," Makeeda breathed against her cheek during their tasteful embrace.

"Hello," Laura breathed back, clinging extra long, then releasing Makeeda, afraid to draw attention in the lobby. "Come with me. We can go up to the roof. There's a roof garden up there where we can talk."

It was as if they were strangers as they walked toward the elevators, not speaking. Why? Laura wondered. Afraid? Are we both afraid? We came in each other's arms. This lovely woman nearly blacked out with my tongue still in her pussy, she came so hard. How can we be afraid to talk to each other?

To lighten the atmosphere, possibly, Laura hummed, as if absently, in the elevator as they rode together toward the roof:

What a day this has been,
What a rare mood I'm in,
Why it's almost like being in love...

It was the song Makeeda had left on her voice mail, after their night together. Which now seemed like another life. Eons ago.

Makeeda glanced over at her with a tight smile, at least acknowledging that she got Laura's allusion, but very careful not to be complicit in it. Oh god, I love you, Makeeda! Laura wanted to burst out. Why are you so cold?

The roof garden was nearly deserted. At lunch time it was usually crowded, but it was almost four-thirty, and only a few people were finishing coffee breaks and idling away time looking at the rooftops of other buildings, or the bay. Laura led Makeeda to a sequestered spot where she often 'brown bag' lunched herself. They sat together on a small concrete bench behind a huge fern, which waved a little in the stiffening afternoon breeze.

"Laura," Makeeda said, composing herself as if to deliver a harsh and painful sentence. "I... missed you while I was in Japan."

Laura started to respond, but Makeeda stopped her, putting her hand up, palm out.

"But I don't think we should see each other any more."

Laura's heart sank. Something squirted into her stomach which, she realized, had to be what battery acid would feel like. This, of course, was what she had always feared Makeeda would say. "You can't mean that," she whispered, cut to the quick.

Makeeda looked briefly dismayed, as if she had rehearsed this and now had forgotten her next line. Then a hard glaze slid down over her glowing hazel eyes. "I do mean it," she said evenly, making every effort not to flinch at Laura's obvious pain.

You're such a liar, Laura thought. Makeeda did not lie well. Something about the shape of her mouth gave her away. Or did it? Laura wondered.

Quickly she calculated that there were about three ways she could respond to this. She could burst into tears; she could be calm and try to reason this through with Makeeda; or she could feign cold indifference, as Makeeda herself was doing, in order not to let on how devastated she actually was. Since none of them seemed possible, she simply sat there stunned, unable to speak. The long pause was painful for them both.

Finally, Makeeda couldn't stand it any more. "I don't want to hurt you," she said, tentatively, as if to fill up the painful silence.

Laura gnawed her lower lip hard. "Oh."

"Really. I don't."

"Why." Laura looked blankly at this stunning woman, dressed for the evening in her tight-fitting black sheath, her dark skin glowing, her body vibrant, her voice full of resonance, so moving to Laura. "Why... I mean... why..."

Now Makeeda became nervous. "I... can't explain it," she said, looking down at her fingers, twisting them nervously together. "It just has to be that way."

But Laura barely heard her reply. Something volcanic inside her was welling up. She was on her feet before she even knew she had arisen from the bench. Silent tears were now pouring down her cheeks. She was shaking. She heard a twisted, clotted, lacerated version of her own voice coming out of her mouth.

"Damn you, Cynthia Brickus... I love you!" She had to stop. She was gasping and gurgling too hard to continue. Then she got her breath. "I loved you from the start and damn you for making me hide it all the time. I love you. I can't live without you. I need you... I die for you every minute. Damn you Cynthia Brickus damn you damn you!"

She could barely see through the hot sheen of tears. She knew she should be saying something else, anything else. She should be calling Makeeda on her lies, making her admit the truth. But all she could say over and over was, "Damn you Cynthia Brickus. Damn you!"

During all these wild tears and imprecations she hardly noticed that Makeeda had stood up too. She was crying too, and laughing through her tears.

"Laura... Laura... stop..." she laughed and cried. "I forgot... I forgot I told you that name." She gurgled too, like Laura, and wiped the tears off her cheeks with one hand. "I never tell anyone that name. Oh, stop it... please!"

"I hate you!" Laura said to her, a little tragically. "For making me love you like this."

"Stop. Oh stop... Laura... stop." Makeeda's voice grew softer, and her laughter subsided. Now she was wiping the tears off Laura's cheeks with the same hand. "I love you too. And I hate you too." Now she stepped closer and embraced Laura. "All the time I was in Japan... everything I've worked for my whole life... all I could think of was you. I hated you for that. All I can think of is Laura. I want to enjoy this... and yet all I can think of is Laura. How much I love her. Suddenly. You are..."

She gulped and was unable to go on. They were clutching each other desperately, both suddenly realized. Then they were kissing hungrily, not caring who might see them. Laura could taste her tears and Makeeda's at the same time. Their teeth banged together hard.

"Ouch!" Makeeda giggled, pulling back.

"Sorry," Laura laughed and gurgled, holding her own front tooth between her thumb and forefinger.

"Look... stop the crying, okay?" Makeeda kissed the tears off Laura's cheeks. "I do love you."

"We can't stop seeing each other," Laura sobbed, almost too dramatically. Then she had to deflate the tragedy with a joke. "I was just beginning to take up swimming."

Makeeda bit her lower lip and laughed explosively. Then she kissed Laura again with desperation that nearly equaled their first kiss. "I can't live without you either, I guess," she murmured against Laura's lips. She rubbed their noses, wet with intermingled tears, together. "But you know I wish I could."

Laura nodded, smiling a little ruefully, and sniffled. "If you had to put us through this, I guess you wish you could live without me."

Makeeda grinned. "But I can't." She hugged Laura very close and whispered in her ear. "I want everything. Like before."

"Tonight? When you get off?" Laura suggested.

Makeeda nodded, wiping her face again self-consciously, as if to make the telltale signs of crying disappear as she was headed for work. "Can you meet me there, at La Rondine, and let me follow you to your place?"

Laura nodded slowly. "Wild horses couldn't stop me."

They finally pulled apart and glanced around the roof garden to see that they actually were alone, that the last of the coffee-break stragglers had departed. Hand in hand, they walked to the door. In the lobby Laura looked longingly into Makeeda's hazel eyes, and Makeeda looked longingly back, before they had to part. "Come at ten-thirty," she murmured to Laura. "I can slip away."

"I'll be there."

Waiting this time, since she had to last until ten-thirty, nearly made her sick with anxiety and anticipation. The only thing that made it tolerable was remembering in detail how they had cried and laughed and embraced, and how Makeeda had yielded and said she loved Laura after all. Laura tried to exult in this knowledge but still couldn't quite give in to it. She might have only been saying that to make me feel better, she thought.

This time, instead of pacing the halls, she threw herself into a project and did not emerge until seven o'clock, weary and stupefied by overwork. At home she could not eat or relax, and by ten, when she drove down to La Rondine to meet Makeeda, she was a nervous wreck. But the smile and wave she received from Makeeda as she got into her car to follow Laura home was enough to fill Laura's whole body and mind with a pure white light.

As she waited on her doorstep while Makeeda parked her old faded red Toyota in a visitor's space, she realized that her knees were actually shaking from excitement, and her belly clenching. Makeeda looked around in wonder as she came to the door of Laura's condo, taking in the fog swirling through the trees and the ghostly glimmering lights.

"You live in Brigadoon, don't you," she teased as she ascended the steps. "Wow, what an enchanted place."

It was a chilly night, and though Makeeda had on a coat over the black sheath dress, she was still shivering. "Let's get inside and get warm," Laura said, unlocking the door quickly.

Laura wanted to jump all over her and kiss her ravenously as soon as the lock was fastened, but she restrained herself. She could see from Makeeda's now-flashing hazel eyes that she might want to do it too, but both of them decided to take things slowly. Laura showed her around, and Makeeda was impressed. They sat on the famous white sofa, where Laura had made love to so many of her darlings, past and present. None more desirable than you, she thought, gazing with longing into Makeeda's lovely eyes.

"You look tired," she said. Makeeda did indeed look even more tired than she had that afternoon.

"Still haven't got over Japan, I guess," Makeeda said wearily, wiping a wisp of black hair away from her smooth forehead with the back of one hand. "It wore me out... more than I thought."

"But they loved you," Laura smiled. "I know they did."

Makeeda smiled and nodded. "I guess they did. They loved me. But all I could think of was you. That damn Laura, she's keeping me from enjoying this. That was all I could think of."

"That's kind of a backhanded compliment." Laura caressed her smooth, dark brown cheek with one fingertip, the first chance she had had to be tender since they had seen each other again. "Did you really think we could stop it by not seeing each other any more? Like you said? Did you really mean that?"

Makeeda slowly smiled, as if caught and embarrassed. "I really thought I would mean it. I went over and over it in my head before I decided to say it to you. I still kind of think it would be better. For both of us. It's just that I can't do it."

Laura said nothing but could feel herself glowing as if she were radioactive, but not with dangerous rays, just with love.

"Look, all night at work I kept thinking of this, so let me do it," Makeeda said, decisively. "I've been fooling around with this song that Nat Cole used to do with his trio, thinking of adding it to my repertoire. I'm still not sure it fits what my audience likes and expects, but it certainly fits you."

"Please," Laura said softly, expectantly.

Makeeda sang to her. She had such exquisite control that she could sing very softly and yet the strength and flexibility of her rich voice was present throughout.

I love you, I've nothing to hide,
It's better than burning inside,
I love you, no use to pretend,
There I've said it again.

I've said it, what more can I say,
Believe me, there's no other way,
I love you, I will to the end,
There I've said it again.

I've tried to drum up
A phrase that would sum up
All that you mean to me.
But what good are phrases
The thought that amazes
Is you love me, and it's heavenly.

Forgive me for wanting you so,
But one thing I want you to know,
I've loved you since heaven knows when,
There I've said it again.

There was so much naked emotion in the room as her voice died away that it was almost too much for either of them to bear. Laura was overcome, and Makeeda was almost embarrassed by having been so honest. She quickly covered it up by talking about professional points.

"I still don't know if I can go for that 'drum up... sum up' part, which is a little clutzy, don't you think? But it's great at this part, if you breathe right." Again she sang:

... the thought that amazes
Is you love me, [ "breathe here!"] and it's heavenly Forgive me, for wanting you so... Her voice soared as she linked the two phrases together in an emotional curve.

Laura nodded and smiled. "I like the next part. The 'one thing I want you to know' part."

Makeeda smiled, again a little embarrassed. You mean: I've loved you since heaven's knows when... ?" she sang, looking directly into Laura's eyes as the words flowed out of her mouth.

Laura nodded. "Is it true?"

Makeeda nodded solemnly. "Yes."

Laura said, very evenly, softly, pointedly, with a broad smile: "Damn you, Cynthia Brickus, I love you too."

Now there was no way they could keep their hands off each other. Except for this afternoon in the roof garden, they had not kissed for over a month, and they tried to make up for lost time. Laura's lips were all over every part of Makeeda's exposed skin, sucking her neck, nipping her earlobes, kissing her throat, her upper chest, her collarbones. Makeeda tried to do the same, though Laura was wearing a turtleneck sweater, which exposed little.

"Don't tear it," Makeeda panted, pulling back as Laura fiddled desperately with the zipper of the sheath dress. Her alluring hazel eyes were pulsing wildly. "I only have two. I have to wear one every night."

"I'll buy you another one," Laura said, lovingly sucking her shoulder. "I want you. I want to eat you alive."

They struggled for a few minutes, trying to get out of their clothes but also caressing one another feverishly, and kissing hungrily at the same time. In the middle of this they paused, looked at each other, and burst out laughing.

"Why are we doing this?" Laura laughed. "We can take our time. We can use the bedroom."

"I know," Makeeda laughed back. "I..." She stood and followed Laura toward the back bedroom. "I have a confession. Not every night, but lots of nights in Tokyo, when I was alone in my hotel room after the gig, I... made myself come while thinking of you."

Laura whirled around and kissed her as they were entering the bedroom. "That's the most romantic thing anyone has ever said to me," she murmured, sucking Makeeda's full lower lip. "I hope you didn't have any of those 'Excuse me, I'm about to die' orgasms while I wasn't there to rescue you."

Makeeda giggled softly, bashfully. "I only have those with you."

"And long ago with Diane?"

"Yes," Makeeda nodded.

Laura was carefully removing Makeeda's black dress as she spoke, and kissing smooth exposed skin as it came into view. "You have the most gorgeous body," she purred, unfastening Makeeda's bra strap. "I can't believe everyone wasn't trying to fuck you over there. What about the musicians?"

"Most of them know my... preferences. The ones who don't soon find out. They're cool. When they know, they just drop it. There's plenty of groupies who want to screw the guys in the band."

"What about the women? I know some clever Japanese lesbian must have wanted to push her face into that beautiful black pussy of yours."

"Laura, you're going to make me blush," Makeeda said, smiling, turning and embracing Laura. "Quit talking that way. It embarrasses me. I told you I'm pretty monogamous. One woman did approach me. She was an American, though. I said to myself: I may hate Laura for taking over my feelings like this but my heart belongs to her." She kissed Laura's nose.

"You did not!" Laura acted flabbergasted. "You turned down the chance for a little hot sex just because of me?"

Makeeda nodded. "I'm a 'deep relationship' type of person. That's why I've been trying so hard to cut you loose. Simple sex is a turn-off for me. I have to love you. And I do love you."

"Oh god, you're making my knees weak," Laura confessed.

Also, by now Makeeda was down to her underwear, all black, and looking devastatingly sexy. Her black bra was hanging limply from her shoulders, barely still covering her breasts. Carefully, she and Laura lay her sheath dress across the back of a chair. This movement made the bra finally slide off, down her forearms and off her wrists onto the floor. She was now naked except for her panties.

Immediately Laura grabbed her and began sucking and kissing her flesh maniacally. Makeeda squirmed away, laughing. "No touchee until you get nakee too... you... rapist."

Laura was out of her turtleneck and her pants in a flash.

"This too," Makeeda whispered, now embracing her and unfastening Laura's bra behind her back with her fingers.

"I have a confession too," Laura said, now panting softly for the first time. "I masturbated too while you were gone. Imagining you were here."

"Did you really?" Makeeda beamed, peeling off Laura's bra.

Laura nodded. "At night. And in the morning, before I went to work. I don't know how many times I came pretending you were... sucking me... down there."

Laura knew these kinds of words would get them both hot, and she was right. She could almost see the flames flare up in Makeeda's eyes. Now they were both naked except for their panties, and they took the time to look down at their naked breasts brushing and pressing together, their nipples not yet hard but on the way, touching, then mashing together as they pushed closer.

Laura was again overcome by the perfection of Makeeda's body, though this time she tried not to make an issue of it, like a lovestruck teenager. Instead, she reverted to their 'confessions.' "When I did it, in my imagination I touched you here..."

"Ahhhh!"

"And... here... and I kissed you here... and I sucked your shoulder like this..."

"Unnhhh! Oh... Laura..."

"And I positively feasted on your exquisite nipples like this..."

She held both of Makeeda's amazingly perfect breasts in her hands and slowly, patiently, and wetly sucked and tongued her swelling coal black nipples. Makeeda could only take about a minute of it.

"Unh! Oh! Unh! Oh honey... oh god Laura... I think we better get on the bed. You're getting me there faster than I ever thought you would."

"Mmmmm," Laura smiled, "are you wet for me? Are you oozing love honey for me to taste."

"Oh god yes! Here... come over here... quick!"

Makeeda pulled her toward the bed. Laura ripped off the coverlet and pulled down the sheet quickly. They bounced eagerly together onto the mattress and bottom sheet. Makeeda's body was dark brown and gloriously shaped against the pristine white of the fabric. Oh god, I'm going to come just from looking at you! Laura thought, absurdly but very passionately.

"Hurry!" Makeeda panted, twisting to remove her panties.

"No... I'm not hurrying," Laura said, calmly skimming her own down her thighs. "I'm taking my time. I waited a long time for this."

"You're not going to make me beg, are you?" Makeeda pouted playfully.

"I might." Laura acted coy. She stroked Makeeda's bare arm. "I might make you suffer."

"You've already done enough of that," Makeeda admonished her. "Making me love you was enough for that."

"Mmmm, come here and hug me. Let me feel all of you... all of this incredible body against me. I dreamed of this. Hold me and fuck me and never let me go."

Laura was indeed in heaven. She and Makeeda embraced head to toe and kissed and rubbed their warm bodies together for a mere eternity, each of them savoring every scintilla of emotion and physical connection. Their deep confluence was so intense at this moment that Laura feared they both might be overwhelmed by it. She could feel Makeeda's wet face against her neck.

"I won't ever let you go if you don't let me go," Makeeda whispered, trying to choke back her surprising tears.

Laura realized that something transformative was happening to them both, and it was a little scary. But Makeeda had the presence of mind to puncture briefly this solemn moment by lifting her tear-streaked face from Laura's neck and saying,

"And by the way, you have sort of a dirty mouth." She smiled through her tears. "I think what we're doing deserves more dignity than to be called mere 'fucking'."

Laura smiled and stroked her naked back. She kissed her warmly, dropping her hands to Makeeda's incredible round and hard and jutting bottom. "I think it's fucking and loving both together," she murmured against Makeeda's smooth brown cheek. "I want you to fuck me and love me at the same time."

Makeeda smiled, her beguiling hazel eyes all glittery with tears. "Do you take requests?" she said, almost shyly.

Laura almost guffawed. She giggled. "Aren't you the singer? Aren't you supposed to be the one who takes requests?"

"I never take requests," Makeeda said, serious for a moment, always the professional. It was so easy to draw her into her professional concerns. "People think they own you then."

Laura pinched her delicious bottom lightly. "What is your request of me?"

"Remember when we... loved-and-fucked before," she teased, in deference to Laura's rewording of their encounter.

"How could I ever forget it."

"When you touched my rectum with your fingertip... just before I came?"

Laura nodded. "I wondered if I was being too bold."

Makeeda shook her head. "It happens to just make me nearly die. I mean, if you push your finger all the way in. I just..."

"God, I'd hate to see you come any deeper than you did that time. I'd have to call the paramedics."

"Don't worry. I'll survive. I couldn't get Diane to do it very often. She thought it was dirty. You know, not hygienic. She had a thing about that."

Laura kissed her even more warmly. "I guess that's why they made soap. Honey, I will do whatever you want me to do and pray you come back to me from paradise."

"I will," Makeeda smiled. "I'll come back for more, if nothing else."

There was nothing like announcing what was coming to absolutely catch your blood on fire, Laura reflected. She leaned across the large bed to the bedstand, pulled open the drawer, and took out the small bottle of baby oil she always kept there. Fortunately, it was nearly full, so that it didn't look to Makeeda as if she were doing this all the time.

Makeeda's eyes flashed with excitement as she saw what Laura was doing. Laura placed the bottle beside them on the bed, in easy reach.

"Come to me, my darling," she whispered, holding out her arms and embracing Makeeda's magnificent naked body as they sank together back to the mattress.

Makeeda couldn't let the teasing go. "Are you going to fuck me or love me?"

"My darling," Laura nuzzled her neck and squeezed her incredibly firm breasts, stroking her very firm body, "I am going to eat you alive. You decide what to call it."

Already Makeeda was panting, as she watched Laura drop her mouth to her swollen black nipples. "Oh Laura... I dreamed of this," she panted in a soft, faraway voice.

"Me too," Laura said, but she could say no more since her mouth was now full of one delicious pulpy, hardening nipple.

"You can suck hard..." Makeeda panted, twisting a little under Laura. "You can suck hard. God, it makes me pop."

"Mmmm, like this?" Laura smiled up at her, suctioning the flaring bulb passionately.

"Unhhhh! Oh yes! Oh shit!"

"Don't come yet," Laura cautioned her, looking up at her, releasing the gorgeous shiny wet nipple from her lips for a second.

"I might not be able to help it," Makeeda panted, her hard flesh actually quivering excitedly under Laura's fingers.

"Yes you can," Laura panted back. "I'm going to do what you asked. You can wait. You can hold it."

"I'll... try," Makeeda whimpered, her fantastic hazel eyes swirling and sizzling with fiery sexual sparks.

"I'm going to kiss your beautiful muscles," Laura purred, letting herself now ascend into the total, slavish worship of this woman's incredible body. "You are so silky and hard."

She left Makeeda's breasts, at least momentarily, since they seemed so sensitive at this particular instant that further attention to them threatened to bring along a premature finish. She had been so enthralled by her rapturous love for Makeeda over the past several weeks that the stunning magnificence and erotic splendor of the woman's nearly perfect body had receded into the background. Sex had been less on Laura's mind than the deep emotion Makeeda seemed to stir in her. But now sex was making a sudden reappearance. There was no way you could brush your lips or your fingertips over this woman's taut, silky, flawless flesh without feeling a raging need for her awaken suddenly in your own body.

As usual, Laura lusted for the whole woman, and she now spent a luxurious eternity kissing Makeeda's incredible hard stomach, letting her lips trace every ripple and nuance of muscle, feeling the soft invisible down that covered Makeeda's richly brown skin, letting her tongue dance around the girl's odd and alluring navel, a nubby jewel of flesh nestled in its own sculptured cavity.