Chapter 224

Sitting glumly in the Dallas airport a week later, waiting for her flight back home, Laura couldn't help remembering an identical situation over a year a go when she had been sitting here abstracted, sad and sexually fulfilled after an earlier exhausting fuck-marathon with Jonelle, when the fantastic Kim had boldly picked her up. Even the memory caused a little twinge of excitement deep inside her cunt. God, I have to call that fantastic girl, she thought. What a time we had. What a wild woman!

But thoughts of Kim only partially dissipated her blue funk. She had not seen Jonelle after their weekend together. She had been too busy working-the reason she had been sent to Dallas, after all-and Jonelle, not wanting to endanger her marriage, had warned her away, a warning Laura would never think of ignoring. And so Laura was stuck in the airport, longing for Jonelle, recalling Kim's lean, golden body, remembering her shocking boldness. 'Don't you want to fuck me?' Kim had asked her, right there, in the airport lounge.

Laura smiled and chuckled softly to herself. God, I've got to call her!

But back home, she faced the same old entanglements. The absence of Deshona in her life began to haunt her. They had been so close, so deliriously in love, sharing sexual experiences at least equal in power to any Laura had ever had. And then Deshona had taken up again, apparently, with her ex-husband, and worse, caught Laura licking Randi's pussy on the floor of Laura's office.

It was clearly over. Laura could hardly bear even to think about it. In her chest she felt a hollowness, an insistent yearning, a fierce, hot desire to see Deshona, to kiss her and cry in her arms, to confess, to accuse, to do everything possible to have her again. It was a burning, constant pain.

Her obsession with this loss, and her own role in bringing it about, so dominated her mind that she completely forgot that she and Deshona still had to wind up the project they had been jointly working on. There was a presentation to be done, and they had to work on it together. There was no escape, no alternative. It was brought to Laura's attention by Deshona's secretary, who called to remind her that they had to schedule another working session. She asked Laura to call Deshona at home.

Laura absolutely dreaded making the call, a deep, horrible dread that wouldn't fade. She postponed calling for two days. Finally, alone in her office one afternoon, feeling suddenly a reckless fatalism about it, she picked up the phone. She seriously hoped Deshona would not be at home and she could merely leave a message.

Worse luck. Deshona answered after two rings, and without even knowing it was Laura her voice had the old icy distance that Laura recognized from the past. "Yes?"

"Deshona..." Laura croaked softly, very nervous, trying to keep the quaver out of her voice and not succeeding very well. "It's... Laura."

There was a long, painful pause that made Laura's heart sink. "Oh. Laura. What is it?"

The old remote aloofness was there in full measure. At least Deshona was consistent: ice or fire, nothing in between. Laura knew this was one thing that had fascinated and aroused her.

"I... we have to work on the presentation. It's due next Tuesday."

"I'm pretty tied up."

"We still have to do it. I know you... don't want to see me. But we have to do it."

"You'll have to come here. I broke my ankle. I can't get around."

"Your ankle? How did that happen?"

"Skiing." Deshona paused again, a painfully long time. "With my ex-husband," she added, a gratuitous dig to cause Laura extra pain.

It had the desired effect. Laura bit her lower lip, trying to control her breathing, which betrayed her anxiety. This was a very painful duty that they had to get through. Deshona hated Laura for having inadvertently forced her to glimpse Laura having sex with Randi. Laura hated Deshona for abandoning her to return to her ex-husband, who Laura, fighting back hot tears of phenomenal jealousy, knew had been fucking Deshona senseless for the past few weeks... Both would do anything not to have to complete this project.

"I'm sorry," Laura said, almost a whisper. "I hope it wasn't too painful."

Again, another pause. There were so many pauses on Deshona's end of the line that Laura felt her dread and anxiety growing wildly by the second.

"Whatever," Deshona said, wearily, not bothering to conceal her annoyance. "As I said, you'll have to come down here."

"Would tomorrow be okay?"

Laura could hear her own voice, faint, remote, frightened, timid. Why am I acting this way? she wondered. I have just as good cause to be angry with her as she has to be mad at me.

"Tomorrow's okay. Not until two in the afternoon, though. I've got another meeting here before lunch."

"I'll be there at two," Laura said and hung up.

She didn't trust herself to stay on the line another second. Deshona was cruelly cold and nasty in a controlled, spiteful way that hurt Laura to the quick, just as it was supposed to do. She got up from her chair and took a few deep breaths, just to recover her senses, hoping it would make the pain go away. It did make her feel better, but the shock from the way Deshona had treated her on the phone continued.

The next day she had to steel her nerves and remind herself repeatedly that she wasn't the only guilty one. She dressed in the most conservative, severe business suit she owned, her job-interview suit, a charcoal, pinstriped thing that made her look smart and in control. I need to be in control, too, she thought. That bitch. Treating me like this. That lovely bitch. I love her.

She had a brief, tormenting vision of Deshona's husband's large, stiff black cock sliding in and out of Deshona's beautiful, wavy-lipped pussy, cramming it, stuffing it, and she could feel the blood beat hard in her throat, making it difficult to breathe. After all, Deshona had told Laura he had a big one. The one she saw in her brief vision was the size of Marshall's, a huge, cunt-splitting rocket of hard wet flesh, pounding Deshona's succulent little slit.

Laura shook her head to make the vision go away. She drove to Burlingame, rehearsing her calm attitude and unruffled demeanor. Nothing is going to make me lose my cool, she thought.

But when she got there, she was a nervous wreck. Her hand shook when she got out of her car. She took two deep breaths and grabbed her briefcase vigorously, marching up the stairs to the door with military authority, as if daring herself to falter.

Deshona answered the door with a contemptuous smirk already on her face, as if she had been practicing it for this moment. "Laura," she said, opening the door further to let Laura in.

Laura looked down at her foot, encased in a huge white plaster cast. Then her eyes traveled upward. Deshona was wearing shorts, very short shorts that exposed nearly all of her spectacular legs. They were short, but they were, as Laura knew, beautifully shaped. She was suddenly aware that Deshona had dressed this way just to taunt her. Remember? her eyes said. Remember when you used to fuck me? Don't you wish you could do it again? Never!

Quickly, Laura looked up, not wanting to give her the satisfaction. Deshona shifted onto her crutches, after shutting the door.

"Can I help?" Laura asked.

She felt very over-dressed in her business suit, but Deshona had said she had another meeting first, so Laura had not wanted to look too casual. She also wanted to be as well-dressed as Deshona was capable of being, just to even the ground between them.

"No. Come in here. We can spread the papers out on the dining room table. More room that way."

They worked for about an hour, talking very little, only when necessary. Both were business-like. Laura didn't let her emotions show. If Deshona was feeling any, they didn't surface through her icy and curt exterior.

"Let's take a tea break," she finally said, looking without expression at Laura.

"Fine."

Oh god, Laura thought, we'll have to talk. Another chance for her to be cold and scornful and mean. But of course Deshona was inconvenienced by her cast and had to enlist Laura's help in making the tea. They moved to the kitchen, Deshona on her crutches. It was a very wide, open, spacious kitchen, giving out onto a huge family room with a big screen TV at the far end, and beautiful, expensive rugs over the parquet floor.

Deshona leaned on her crutches, watching as Laura made the tea. Laura had done this before. They had fucked riotously together in this house, many times, and had stopped to make tea like this. It was a resonant, intimate moment, very reminiscent of their past intimacies, some sweet and tender, some scorching.

Out of the blue, Deshona said, "I remember watching you do that naked."

Laura blushed, shocked by shame and excitement both. She turned her face and smiled, a warm, almost an infatuated smile, unable to trust herself to reply. I hate you, but I still love you, her eyes said.

"Guess that won't happen again," she said, cupping the wet tea bags in her hand and moving to the sink.

Deshona did not reply. She said nothing. Another painful silence. Laura poured tea and sat down with her at the kitchen table.

"So... how's Miss Thang these days?" Deshona said, in a cutting tone of voice, referring obviously to Randi.

Laura looked down into her tea cup. "How's your ex?" she shot back.

Deshona squirmed in her chair. "Sometimes it's hard to put the past behind you," she said quietly. "He and I... well, we shared a lot of good and bad times, and it's hard to turn your back on things like that."

Laura nodded. "I'm sorry you had to walk in on us," she said. "You should have knocked."

Deshona smirked. "You really like those African girls, don't you Laura. You really like to rub your face in that skanky old black pussy."

Laura was flabbergasted. She had never heard Deshona talk like this. I rubbed my face in your 'skanky' old black pussy too, my dear, she thought. I thought it was gorgeous though, and smelled like the most exquisite perfume. You probably wouldn't believe that, though.

"You don't have to be insulting," she said, extending herself to be calm. "I thought I'd never see you again."

"What... because of my husband?"

"Oh, now he's your 'husband'. He used to be your ex-husband."

"Laura, why are you jealous? He's a man. He's not a woman. He's got a cock. Being with him isn't the same as being with you. It's completely different." Deshona's lovely face looked anguished, troubled. "Anyway, I'm sure Miss Thang has her share of stiff cocks poking her little black hole that you love so much, what with her swishy braids and sassy attitude. Every man I've ever known would hock his mother to get a crack at a sexy little freak like her."

At least the frosty exterior had broken down, Laura thought, relieved. Deshona was at least showing some emotion.

"I thought I'd never see you again," she repeated.

Deshona frowned. "You were probably right. Except for this," she waved her hand back in the direction of the papers they were working on together.

"See?"

"I hate sharing." Suddenly, without warning, tears came into Deshona's eyes, not enough to spill, but enough to glisten.

Laura reached across the table to touch her hand, but she pulled it back, quickly, like a snake had touched it. She blinked away her tears.

"Aren't you at least going to let me sign your cast?" Laura asked brightly, making an abrupt change of subject since this territory was far too dangerous.

Deshona laughed self-consciously through her tears. "I think I know someone who might wonder who this 'Laura' is who signed my cast."

"He doesn't know about me, does he?"

"He knows there was someone. He thinks it was another guy."

Laura smiled. "There you go. He'll never know." She got up from the table. "Let me find a pen."

"Let me sit in there on the sofa, where I can put my foot up on the coffee table for you," Deshona said, struggling out of her chair and onto her crutches.

The dog, the Rotweiler Molly, appeared and wagged her tail, following Deshona into the family room to the sofa, while Laura returned to the dining room table where they had been working to get a pen. Laura scratched Molly's ears, then help lift the cast onto a pillow Deshona had placed on the coffee table. She wondered if this might not be a mistake, since Deshona's legs were bare, and she was wearing very short shorts.

Laura couldn't take her eyes off Deshona's legs.

"You're staring," Deshona said, as if warning her, but enjoying it too, enjoying Laura's discomfort.

"They're so beautiful."

"They're short."

Laura took the pen and wrote on Deshona's cast: Break a leg! Love, Laura.

"What does it say?" Deshona bent forward to get a look.

Her face was close to Laura's, and Laura gazed deep into her black eyes, her own expression murky with sudden lust and throbbing desire for her. It says 'I'm dying to fuck you, ' she wanted to say, and said it with her eyes. She knew Deshona got the message. Her lovely face turned quickly troubled, ambiguous, as if she were torn between wanting to distance herself from Laura and also wanting to give in.

Deshona looked down again at the writing. "You shouldn't have written that... second part," she said softly.

Instead of replying, Laura simply leaned closer with her head until her lips brushed Deshona's. Deshona didn't pull back immediately, but then she did.

"Don't do that."

Laura pouted. "I can't be in the same house with you without wanting to."

"Then maybe you'd better leave."

Boldly, Laura began to caress Deshona's leg above the cast, the firm, shapely part of her calf muscle, her knee, the lower part of her thigh, running her fingertips tenderly along the smooth, taut, dark skin. With a sideways glance at Deshona, whose face seemed momentarily paralyzed, she bent her lips to the leg and began to kiss it. She kissed Deshona's leg slowly, skillfully, lovingly, at first not going above the kneecap, but then, when she heard a little soft panting coming from Deshona's mouth, running her lips up farther, onto the warm flesh of Deshona's lower thigh.

"Laura... don't do that," Deshona panted softly.

Laura ignored her. She moved her lips to Deshona's other thigh, kissing it too. Her hand remained on the leg with the cast, moving up, further up Deshona's thigh toward the cuff of her shorts. She slid her fingers down to the warm, smooth inner flesh of Deshona's firm thigh.

In spite of her resistance, Deshona parted her thighs slightly to let Laura's hand slide between them easier. Laura took this as a signal. She let her lips crawl higher on the smooth, dark brown masterpiece of Deshona's thigh, and moved her fingers up until they were slipping under the cuff of Deshona's shorts.

"Laura... don't!" Deshona gasped.

"Yes."

"No. I don't want you to."

"You do too."

Deshona reached down with one hand and grabbed Laura by the hair, yanking her face up, pulling her hair and glowering hard at Laura. "I said no! What part of no don't you understand?"

"Let go of my hair. You're hurting me."

Slowly, Deshona loosened her grip. Her eyes were still locked with Laura's, murky, pulsing. Laura knew how aroused she was. Just as much as I am, she thought.

Laura had not moved her hand when Deshona yanked her head up by the air. Her hand was still between Deshona's warm thighs. She deliberately slid it up all the way into Deshona's crotch, pressing her fingers into the fabric of her shorts, pushing them directly against Deshona's pussy through the fabric. Deshona's eyes never left Laura's, but they grew wider as she felt Laura's fingers pressing into her crotch.

Laura rarely forced herself on anyone, but at this moment she knew she had to force herself on Deshona. Still rubbing Deshona's pussy through her shorts, she quickly moved the rest of her body upward and kissed Deshona's mouth ravenously, pushing her body back into the sofa cushions, thrusting her tongue between Deshona's teeth. It took several seconds for Deshona to kiss her back, but Laura was so hungry for her and devoured her mouth so eagerly that she didn't notice.

"Oh god, Laura, please don't," Deshona whimpered against Laura's teeth, meeting Laura's snaking tongue with her own, even running her fingers along Laura's forearm above Laura's hand that pressed into her groin.

"It's been so long," Laura panted, wanting her desperately.

"I know," Deshona said. "Don't do this."

But already Laura's fingers had found the zipper of Deshona's shorts. She inched it down. "I can't help it. I want to rape you."

"No."

But Deshona did not struggle. She knew Laura was unzipping her shorts. Her eyes swam and swirled in a trance of passion.

"At least let me put the dog out."

"You'll break the mood," Laura shook her head. "Here, scoot your pretty butt up a minute while I get these off."

Deshona shook her head. "I swore I wouldn't do it again with you."

With her shorts unzipped, there was enough bare, smooth, dark skin above the elastic band of her panties for Laura to kiss, and she immediately pressed her lips to it. At the same time, she inched both the shorts and the panties down Deshona's hips, until a shiny black patch of pubic hair came into view.

"Now, scoot up your butt," Laura said again.

Obediently, Deshona raised her ass slightly off the sofa so that Laura could pull her shorts and panties down. Laura skimmed them both slowly down Deshona's beautiful legs to her knees. Then she had to stop. The foot in the cast was still propped on the pillow on the coffee table, and Deshona's other foot was on the floor, her leg bent normally at the knee. This stopped Laura's progress.

"Put your other leg up so I can get them off," Laura said, her eyes locking again with Deshona's.

Deshona shook her head. "No."

Laura slid up to her again, face to face. She held Deshona's face between both of her hands, looking deep into her eyes. "Now listen, I am going to stick my tongue into your beautiful pussy and make you come so hard. Put your other foot up."

A tiny grin tugged at the corner of Deshona's mouth. She shook her head.

Laura kissed her, slithering her tongue deep into Deshona's mouth, dropping her hands to Deshona's large round breasts, squeezing them through her bra and blouse. God, she has such big, beautiful, firm breasts for such a small girl, Laura thought, as if she had forgotten it.

"I love you, you bitch," she whispered. "Help me get your shorts off."

"We can't do this," Deshona said evenly. "He comes by in the afternoons sometimes. To see if I'm okay. He could walk in on us."

"Did you give him the key?"

Deshona nodded. "It used to be his house too, remember."

"Oh god."

Laura just about wilted on the spot. All the determination went out of her, and the passion too, replaced by sad resignation. She almost wondered if Deshona hadn't planned it this way, leading her on only to crush her like this. She gave her a grim smile, then shrugged.

"I guess he wins," she said, defeated.

She stood up and turned away, feeling sudden tears that she didn't want Deshona to see. She heard the gnash of the zipper as Deshona pulled it back up. She heard Deshona struggling to her feet, getting onto her crutches.

"Why don't I just take my part home and do it," Laura sniffed. "We're almost there. I can email you what I complete, and you can test it against your presentation."

"Fine," Deshona said with a finality and lack of warmth that sealed it all for Laura.

She had thought they had been so close. She had thought they were going to be fucking heatedly, wantonly, by now. Deshona seemed to feel like it had been an annoying interruption.

Laura scratched Molly behind the ears and gathered her things from the dining room, where they had spread out the papers. At the door, Deshona was cold again, her eyes blank and icy, her face expressionless.

"So nice to see you," she said softly. "Give Miss Thang my regards."

Now tears did come again to Laura's eyes. She couldn't understand how Deshona could be so nasty. She blinked them back and wiped them away, shaking her head.

"You're so... mean."

Deshona shook her head. "No. I really wish-"

But now Laura shook her head. "Don't say anything. Anything at all."

She turned and went down the flagstone steps to her car. She drove away without looking back, trying to keep the choking sobs that she knew were fighting to get out of her throat at bay. She didn't want Deshona to get the satisfaction of seeing her cry, even from a distance.

At first her eyes blurred with tears, but she soon got control, turned the radio up loud, opened the window, and let the wind ruffle her hair. She had reached South San Francisco before her cellular phone rang, inside her purse, which was next to her on the car seat. She groped for it, almost hoping it was Randi, who frequently called her on it, or even April, who had once, memorably, called Laura back to her apartment using this number.

"Laura. It's Deshona."

Laura was curt. "Yes," she said in a clipped, half-annoyed voice.

"You have to come back. You forgot something."

"I didn't forget anything." But quickly her mind was racing over her departure. Was it possible she had left something behind?" "What was it?"

Deshona's voice sounded amused, but also urgent and even emotional, different from the attitude she had displayed as Laura was leaving. "I can't tell you. You have to come back. Will you come back?"

Oh shit! Laura thought. More of this? So you can toy with me some more, then send me off? So you can vent all your sick jealousies about 'Miss Thang'? So you can wave your pretty little black ass in front of me and hint how you're giving it to your ex-husband instead of me?

"Why don't you just mail it to me?" she said wearily into the phone, trying to drive responsibly even though her emotions were all confused.

"Too big." Deshona paused, and when she resumed, her voice was more plangent, insistent, serious. "Laura... please come back. Just for a minute."

"Oh... okay."

She maneuvered her way off the freeway and around to the other side. In another ten minutes, she was back in Deshona's driveway, where she had started. Determined not to put up with any more jealous games, she got out of the car slowly and walked up the steps to the door. Deshona opened it before she could ring the bell. There was a curious smirk on her face.

She let Laura in and closed the door. "He called," she said. "He can't make it by this afternoon."

Shocked and excited, Laura smiled and said nothing. Does this mean-? she wondered.

"What did I leave?" she asked.

Deshona looked down, embarrassed, at the cast on her foot. "Me," she said, almost inaudibly. "Let's go back in and sit down."

Laura shook her head now. "I don't think so. You just want to taunt me because I made a mistake."

"You said it was over between you and her," Deshona said, revealing the pain she felt to Laura for the first time.

"I seem to remember you saying a few things about your marriage being over too. And you were the one who said over isn't always over. Apparently so."

On her crutches, Deshona hobbled into the room where they had been sitting when Laura had signed her cast. Laura followed her, noticing that the dog was nowhere in sight.

"Where's Molly?" she asked.

"I put her out in back," Deshona said, sitting down in the same place, propping the crutches on the small coffee table... "Sit with me."

Laura sat down next to her. Without speaking, they began to kiss, a slow, simmering, romantic kiss, caressing each other's face. Laura kissed her smooth black neck and her marvelous black ear. She breathed into it, her warm, moist breath making Deshona quiver.