Chapter 246

After the guilty pleasures of fucking secretively with Charise in the back seat of Laura's car, while Charise's younger brothers were inside the house playing Nintendo, Laura found herself wondering how she could be such a disgusting crud and female lecher. Child molester, she told herself. The girl is sixteen. And pregnant. Sure she's enchanting, and wildly sexy. And has a delicious body.

You're an adult, and you're supposed to have self-control.

Since this was unanswerable, but since she still could not stop the warm glow throughout her body and the specific tingling deep inside her pussy when she recalled their stolen moments together, she spent a few days alternating between gloomy depression and happy exhilaration. There was also a little guilt mixed in because of her feelings about Dawn, whom she could not avoid feeling she had betrayed. As if to dwell on it further, to punish herself, she called up Dawn's earlier message on her voice mail, which she had saved just to listen to it whenever she needed to hear Dawn's voice.

Hearing Dawn's voice did the trick, and the fresh guilt came flooding in. To stanch the flow, she quickly skipped to the next stored message, which happened to be Ada's. She didn't even know why she had saved it other than it was a link, the only link now, to their very exciting moments together.

"Hiiiiii, Laura. I know it's not fair for me to call you after I ran out on you like that. I hope you've forgiven me by now... I just got out of the shower. I couldn't help remembering..." Then she began to cry softly. "I... oh never mind... I shouldn't have called. I... wish I could erase this." Then she had hung up.

Laura had not heard from her since. Now, listening to this message again, she was almost overcome by heart pangs of an entirely different sort. She didn't know exactly how to explain them. Her feelings for Ada were not the kind of love she felt for either Dawn or Charise, but they were very intense nonetheless. Ada had not been able to truly enjoy sex until Laura had shown her how, and then she had been so scared and so troubled by her own feelings for Laura-so deep, so exciting, so unexpected, and so contrary to her strict religious upbringing-that she had seen no alternative but to quit her job and flee back to Texas.

The shock of loss had been great for Laura, but she realized that it not been as great as Ada's own realization that she could really do this wicked thing over and over with Laura and fiercely enjoy it. It had embarrassed her deeply to fall so hard and so quickly for Laura, and apparently just because Laura had given her complete, continuing affection and attention, as well as orgasms that had no equal in her life to that point. It had not helped that she was also Laura's boss at the time.

Laura turned it all over in her mind, recalling the haunted, dismayed sense of loss in Ada's voice on the phone message, which reminded her so much of the few times she had seen Ada staring out the windows of her office, looking completely forlorn and lonely. It was part of Ada's appeal to Laura, this guarded vulnerability which, when coupled with the brassy, twangy Texas foghorn voice she also had, most noticeable when she was excited or impassioned about something, made her a marvelous mixture of the sublime and the horrible. Laura exulted when making love to her, only to live in constant fear that the fiendishly awful voice would erupt at any second to destroy her bliss.

She found herself missing Ada very much, and she realized she had not even been thinking of the woman's spectacular, voluptuous body, her love goddess body, as Kendra would no doubt have called it. I'll bet there's a lot of disappointed fellas who tried to bag that preacher's daughter, Laura thought, feeling a warm tingle in her own groin as she recalled the wild orgasms she herself had shared with Ada.

But there was nothing to do but try to keep her mind off it. She spent some time in the next week with Randi, with Shavon (now unmarried and so much more available), still longing for Dawn, and brooding about Charise. One evening as she returned from work and stopped to check her mailbox in the lobby, she was surprised to find, just closing and locking the mailbox a few spaces down from her own... Shontay Something.

They both recognized one another at once. It had been over a week since Shontay had caught Laura inadvertently staring at her, and Laura had taken pains since then to avoid any place where they might meet. And so, at this moment, it was very difficult for her to suppress a wildly embarrassing blush.

"Say, don't you work at Transkaryotic, down at 333 Market?" Shontay asked. She snapped her fingers, trying to remember. "Laura... Laura something, isn't it?"

Laura broke into a grin. "Well, at least we have the same name. Laura. Laura Robbins." She extended her hand. "I always think of you as 'Shontay Something'."

Shontay smiled. She was, for the moment at least, not nearly as icy and aloof as she often appeared at work. "Shontay Gibson."

She shook Laura's hand. Laura looked down at Shontay's graceful, beautifully-shaped hand. Shontay was not dark like Dawn or Charise (or even as dark as Ada, over whom Laura had now been mooning for days) but more a rich caramel color, and her long fingers clasping Laura's hand were tapered and sinuous.

"Are you living here now?" Laura asked, now opening her own mailbox. "I mean, I've lived here for a while and never seen you before."

"Oh no," Shontay laughed and shook her head. "Apartment sitting. My parents live here. Ninth floor."

Laura's eyes widened. She had never felt so stupid. Of course. Gibson. "You're the Gibsons' daughter? They're in the apartment right above mine."

As soon as she said it, she wondered if she should have. Since Kendra and Jane had moved out and the Gibsons in, she had tried to be on her best behavior about making uncontrollable rutting noises with her girlfriends. But she knew she and Jane and probably a few others had let their guard fall a few times, and she had never known, of course, if anyone had been home in the Gibsons' apartment during those outbursts. For all she knew, they had told their daughter that a lesbian lived downstairs who was always screaming away in loud ecstasy with her various lovers.

She peered through the huge lenses of the oversized glasses that Shontay always wore, trying to see if there was some spark of recognition there. Oh, the noisy lesbian! Something like that. But she saw nothing but Shontay's light brown eyes, so pale brown that they looked almost green, very beautiful and in a way electric and alluring, though somewhat obscured by the glossy reflections glancing off the large lenses.

"What a coincidence," Shontay said, Laura thought somewhat uneasily.

Now Laura had collected her mail, and they walked slowly together toward the elevators. Though she had always found Shontay vaguely attractive, in spite of her painful thinness and her apparently very cold nature, Laura was relieved to find that she was not urgently drawn to the girl in any way and could leave well enough alone. Not such a good thing to be making a pass at your neighbor's daughter, she told herself. After all, you already did that once, with Jane. It so happens they lived in the same apartment. We will make sure history doesn't repeat itself this time.

Shontay of course helped matters by being almost wholly asexual. Today she was wearing her loose-hanging (because of her tall, bony frame) light brown business suit, in contrast to the identical black one she wore on alternate days. Once Laura had glimpsed her in an ivory-colored one, exactly the same. She seemed to have found one sexless garment and then cloned it in different drab colors until her closet was full.

Under the suit she wore a conservative white silk blouse, and around her throat a string of pearls. She had a long, exquisite neck. Actually, she looked elegant in a 'corporate' way. Today the pony tail she often wore, which seemed to soften her features and her aloofness a little, was absent, tucked up behind her head in a bun. Laura, incorrigible as ever, managed to sneak a peak at her cute little butt as they entered the elevator together and found it as wonderful as she remembered, high, jutting. She could, however, only imagine what it must really look like under the limp swaths of cloth that hid it.

Elevators made everyone uncomfortable, Laura knew. Shontay broke the silence, almost perfunctorily, gazing abstractedly up at the ceiling as she spoke.

"My mother has this cat. She's afraid it will be lonely. They're down in Mazatlan, at a conference and vacation add-on. So... I'm taking care of Willie, that's the cat. And staying there for a few days."

Laura was so glad, as the elevator reached the eighth floor, that she didn't feel a desperate urge to get into Shontay's pants. She's okay, but gosh is she skinny, she thought. She smiled at Shontay.

"Well, if I can be of any help, just let me know. I'll be right downstairs. You can even stamp on the floor to get my attention."

Shontay gave her a genuinely friendly grin, so friendly that Laura realized she herself must have been exaggerating the incident where she had thought Shontay had caught her staring. Maybe it had not even been noticed.

"I will. Take care."

Laura smiled as the elevator doors slid shut.

In her apartment, she promptly forgot about Shontay, feeling for once very proud of this demonstration of her self-mastery. Instead, she fell to thinking about Ada again, and Dawn. There was certainly enough emotional turmoil in her sex life to keep her occupied, and she didn't need to go falling again for that melt-the-ice-cube challenge she had already gone through with Deshona. She had not seen Deshona either for months now, and that brought her a fresh set of pains.

Reading her mail, drinking a glass of wine, watching a little of the news on TV, she lost track of time. When her phone rang, she reached for it distractedly.

"Is this Laura... Laura Robbins?"

She recognized Shontay's voice. "Yes. Shontay?"

"I didn't know how to spell your name. Whether it had one 'b' or two."

"Yes, it's me. Is something wrong?"

"Oh no. I was just... fixing something to eat. The idea of eating it all alone... or just with Willie... didn't seem too hot. I wondered if you wanted to come up and eat dinner here. You know, it's kind of lonely in this big old apartment."

Laura felt a tiny acceleration of the pulse in her neck. She had done her best not to think about Shontay in a sexual way, which was not hard since Shontay wasn't very attractive. Too skinny and remote. But now she could easily recognize a hot, feathery little excitement in her body that meant her interest was awakening. Could she turn the invitation down?

"I... haven't eaten yet. I guess I could," she heard herself saying.

"Good," Shontay sounded relieved. "I'll see you in a few seconds."

"Are we 'dressing' for dinner?" Laura joked, suddenly wondering if that sounded too risqué.

"Wear what you've got on. Willie won't care, and I won't notice."

"Be right there."

Laura went to the mirror and combed her hair and washed her face, so that she would appear more fresh and vibrant, feeling a little end-of-day fatigue. She blinked and scrutinized her eyes. Do I look like a sexual predator? she wondered. Well, I won't be. This is just a friendly dinner.

She tried on several causal smiles, then, dissatisfied with any of them, resolved to be warm, relaxed, and... what? Neighborly. At the last minute, before going out the door, she decided to bring along a bottle of wine.

Upstairs Shontay met her at the door, holding Willie in her arms. Willie was a white Persian, with startling pale blue eyes. She had changed out of the severe business suit and was now wearing black jeans and a faded red sweatshirt. She had removed the pearl necklace from her exquisite neck, too. Most noticeable to Laura, however, was the fact that Shontay's hair, always so primly combed and pulled back tightly, was now loose around her face, falling nearly to her shoulders.

Laura held out the wine. "My little contribution."

Shontay smiled, closing the door behind them. "Let's go see if we can find a corkscrew. My Mom and Dad don't drink." She raised her eyebrows sarcastically. "Their only vice is overwork."

They could not find one, and Laura had to go back downstairs to get one of hers. When she returned, they shared a glass of wine and sat by the window. The view was identical to Laura's but somehow seemed fresh, since the furniture was different, and she suddenly felt herself being attracted to Shontay in a way that she had not been before. She felt it even more so when Shontay removed her glasses, placing the huge frames and lenses on a nearby lamp table and revealing a face that now seemed smaller, more proportional to the rest of her body, and very lovely, though still in a cold, remote way.

But now Laura could see her eyes better. They were light brown, almost green, and made her stare somehow electric and unusual.

"Why are you looking at me that way?" she asked Laura.

"Your eyes, I guess. I... don't think I noticed them, really, until you took off your glasses. They're stunning."

Shontay looked annoyed. "You think so? Maybe that's why I wear the glasses all the time."

"You don't like having beautiful eyes?"

Shontay gave her a curt smile. "They're odd. That's all. Big deal. How long have you been working at Transkaryotic?"

"About five years now."

"How can you stand it?"

Laura was mildly startled. Shontay was a newcomer to the company, but-as gossips had nastily asserted-she was only about twenty-five and had been hired in as a Director. It had taken Laura over four years to be made Director. Shontay was smart, attractive, aggressive, completely in charge, and could look forward to a very rewarding career.

She saw Laura's puzzlement.

"I mean, there's so much politics... so much devious political maneuvering. Don't you find it suffocating?"

This was always dangerous territory, talking with someone you barely knew about job politics.

"Oh, I guess I just wiggle my way through the sharks with a little smile that says 'Don't eat me, please'," Laura laughed uncomfortably.

"Do you mind if I smoke?" Shontay asked abruptly. "I mean, I'm not supposed to in their place, but if I air it out before they get back, maybe they won't know."

Laura smiled. "I don't mind. It's your neck, not mine. Your parents too."

Shontay crossed the room to her purse and took out a pack of cigarettes. Laura could not help letting her eyes linger on the girl's long legs and pretty ass, so much more apparent now that she was wearing jeans that fit her more tightly than the limp business suit pants had. Again she marveled at how tall Shontay was. She was skinny-shanked, long, and lithe, but her curvaceous little rump stuck out when she walked.

After a brief trip to the kitchen for a saucer to use as an ashtray, Shontay returned and lit a cigarette with a brief, brusque, almost angry flourish. She was very angular and intense, Laura noticed. In fact, Laura had noticed it before, though only from a distance, and it had been one of the things that put her off. Now it only made her uncomfortable and wary.

"They hate it that I smoke," Shontay said, exhaling two long streams of smoke from her nostrils. "Anyway, I've only been there a few months, but I could sure tell you some of the sharks to avoid. Like that imperious bitch Rhonda Reardon for one." She looked at Laura for a reaction. "Maybe I shouldn't say anything," she said, looking away, taking a deep drag. "You and she are probably friends."

Laura was amused. "Did you have a little run-in with dear Rhonda?"

"What a cunt! Excuse me, I did it again."

"She and I are hardly friends," Laura said, delighted to have a way to ingratiate herself at Rhonda's expense. "She is a little hard to take sometimes."

If you only knew, darling Shontay, how she probably goes home at night and just dreams of pushing her face up between your long, skinny thighs.

Shontay scowled. It was clear that just the thought of Rhonda about ruined her evening. That's fine, Laura thought, since I feel the same way. Let's change the subject.

They talked for a while about other things, but Shontay continued to be tense and sharp and her conversation full of treacherous angles that Laura preferred to avoid. After one glass of wine, they went to the kitchen, where Laura helped her make a salad. It was a small kitchen, identical to Laura's downstairs, and Laura was used to maneuvering around in it, but Shontay was not. While Laura was leaning down to replace something in the refrigerator, Shontay passed behind her, and when Laura stood, they collided.

"Oh shit!" Shontay said, dropping the knife she had been holding. "Look out!"

The tip of the knife grazed the knee of Laura's pants but did not cut through the cloth. The knife clattered to the floor. They both watched it, and when they looked up found themselves staring into each other's eyes, their faces very close, Shontay's hand on Laura's shoulder, and Laura's on Shontay's hip. For a moment it was as if they were caught in a freeze-frame, not moving, not breathing.

"Did it get you?" Shontay murmured the question.

"No," Laura murmured back.

Their eyes were locked. This girl is lovely, Laura found herself thinking, enchanted by the unusual soft billowing of hair around Shontay's face. She let her eyes drop to Shontay's mouth, which she purposely had not examined closely until now. Shontay's lips were full and curved and sensual. I want to kiss them, Laura thought.

She looked back up into Shontay's mysterious pale brown eyes, hoping to see a warning there. You'd better not try it, something like that. But Shontay seemed paralyzed too.

Usually Laura had good self-control, but now she was unable to stop herself from leaning her head just a few inches more forward, tilting her face up-since Shontay was a good two inches taller than she-until her own lips brushed Shontay's. She moved her mouth slowly back and forth, letting their lips brush but not actually kissing the girl. Shontay did not move. Then she said,

"What are you doing?"

She did not raise her voice, but her stare did not flinch either. Laura stared back, trying to equal the steely force in Shontay's mesmerizing eyes. But it was very hard to control her anxiety at having made a huge mistake.

"I... don't know," she said, her outward calm concealing a wild turbulence inside. She pulled her head back. "I just... wanted to. Something about you just made me want to."

Shontay had not smiled throughout the encounter. She still did not smile. Her face was cold and suspicious. Finally, she seemed to relax a little, dropping her shoulders, which neither of them had realized were elevated until she lowered them. Laura realized that she too was tense and tried to relax.

Shontay bent down to pick up the knife. "So... you like girls?"

Laura's eyes were on the knife. Shontay saw her looking at it. A large, uncontrollable grin spread over her face.

She lay the knife down on the butcher block table next to them. "Don't worry," she half-laughed, "it's safe to tell me. Nothing worth killing over."

Laura played nervously with her fingers, smiling back now. "I'm sorry. I apologize. Something about the moment... I was looking into those wonderful eyes of yours... and we were so close... I could smell your perfume... I just gave in to the impulse."

A flicker of amusement and pleasure now began to dance in Shontay's eyes. She, like anyone, enjoyed being praised, enjoyed the thought that something about her had been irresistible to Laura. But she felt the need to taunt Laura further.

"You didn't answer my question."

Laura could see the steel flashing again. "Now I see why they made you a director when you were hired."

"Well, it wasn't any affirmative action bullshit, if that's what you're implying," Shontay snapped.

Laura was floored. "I wasn't implying anything. I think you're very... self-possessed."

She turned and walked out of the kitchen. You and Rhonda would be a good match, she thought, trying to get control of her feelings. Two of a kind.

Momentarily, but not immediately, Shontay followed her. She seemed conciliatory. Laura was gazing out the window at the view, the same one she could see from her own apartment. She acted as if she were alone when Shontay joined her there.

They both looked at the view, silently. They could hear one another's breathing.

"You don't have to answer it," Shontay finally said, softly.

Laura turned to her. "I... just wanted to do it," she repeated. "I couldn't help it. I can go now, if you like."

Shontay looked down, embarrassed, and Laura suddenly realized that the girl had been excited by the brushing of their lips, and she didn't want Laura to go but didn't know how to say otherwise.

"I... I can't eat all that salad myself," she half-whispered. "It'll just get rotten. Willie doesn't eat salad." She grinned.

Suddenly, and for the first time, Laura felt an overpowering lust for Shontay, a true, hot, physical craving for her body, painfully skinny though it might be. She wanted to enfold the girl, and break through the ice shield into the quivering vulnerability inside. If I stay, Laura thought, I won't be able to ignore this feeling. Better to let it all out at once, better to risk it now than later.

"I want to do that again. What we did in the kitchen," she said softly, boldly, letting her eyes dive deep into Shontay's pale brown miracles.

Shontay shook her head every so slightly. "I don't think so."

"Why not?"

Now Shontay's embarrassed look became even more acute. She realized it and turned away from Laura, even moving a few steps back from the window.

"I just... don't go for it is all. I just don't do that. With men either. It's just not my thing."

Laura pursued her. She felt that she had no choice, and she moved a few more steps toward Shontay. Finally she was as close to her as they had been by the window. Laura reached out and caressed her smooth light brown cheek.

"Your skin is so smooth," she whispered.

She let her finger move around to Shontay's mouth, turning it so that the knuckle slid tenderly across the girl's sensual lips. Shontay seemed hypnotized by this tenderness, which was exactly Laura's intent. She could almost feel the yearning inside the girl, fighting to get out of the ice cage that entrapped it.

Abruptly, Shontay turned her head away, then turned her whole body and walked away without a word, returning to the kitchen. Laura did not follow her. She needs to be alone with those feelings for a minute, she reasoned. Whatever they are. Laura found Willie and began stroking him, making friends. Willie purred like a love-starved tractor and rubbed the side of his head violently against Laura's hand.

After a few minutes had passed, she went into the kitchen. It was remarkable how not talking, not facing one another for a brief interval could alter the mood again. Shontay was brisk and indifferent, as if Laura had never brushed her lips with her own. Laura fell right into the mood and picked up the salad bowl, moving it to the small dining table on the other side of the counter top.

"Another glass of wine?" she asked.

Shontay smiled. It was a very different smile from any she had given Laura before, somehow more intimate, warmer. We kissed, Laura thought. It was only a little brush of the lips, but she knows we kissed. That's what she's smiling about.

She poured each of them another glass of wine. Shontay had still not moved from the kitchen toward the table. Laura waited. Shontay turned and looked at her.

"You really want to do that again?" she asked, so softly that Laura almost could not hear her.

Laura's heart fluttered. Yes!

She walked calmly around the counter and back into the kitchen. "Yes," she whispered, looking dreamily up into the electrifying pale brown eyes. "But you're so tall... you'll have to stoop down a little."

"I don't mind that," Shontay whispered back. "No touching, though."

"No touching," Laura shook her head.

Their eyes were locked in a pulsing connection as they brought their faces close, then closer. Shontay bent her head down slightly. Their lips brushed again, as before. As promised, Laura kept her hands at her sides, letting her lips express everything she felt. First she lightly brushed Shontay's with them as before.

Their eyes were still open, still looking at each other, though too close to really see anything but skin and facial contours. Laura could almost taste Shontay's sweet, moist breath. Shontay did little but let Laura's lips caress hers. She didn't move or blink.

Laura slowly pressed closer. She pressed her lips into Shontay's marvelously sensual mouth, tilting her head to let them curve naturally into the receptive curvature of Shontay's own lips, finally feeling a slow awakening, a responsive movement in Shontay's mouth against hers. Now they were really kissing, not flirting with it, and Laura saw Shontay's eyelids fall, feeling an almost palpable warmth that had not been there before begin to radiate between their bodies, which were still separated by about six inches.

Moved and aroused by this warmth, and by Shontay's pliant, yielding mouth, Laura barely realized that she had raised her hand and let her fingertips run very gently across Shontay's cheek. But Shontay opened her eyes.

"No touching," she said softly. "You promised."

Laura dropped her hand. "You're right. I did. I forgot."

Now they had broken off the kiss and needed to start it again. Shontay looked at Laura, unwilling to resume it herself. Laura smiled and moved her mouth back into the position it had occupied when Shontay had spoken, now for the first time flicking just the tip of her tongue into the crease formed by Shontay's closed lips. Surprisingly, Shontay parted them a little, not enough to let Laura's tongue slip inside, but enough to encourage her.

Ever patient, her hot blood beginning to surge through her body, Laura teased Shontay's half-parted lips with the tip of her tongue, expressively moving her mouth against them too. She tried to communicate telepathically with the girl, beaming her feelings at Shontay, reassuring her, verbally caressing her too, but silently. I think you are so lovely, Shontay... so much lovelier than I had thought... so soft and luminous now with your hair down around your face... so afraid of a little warmth and so scared of your feelings. I would just love to kiss every bit of you... all of your long, smooth body. Wouldn't you like me to do that? Wouldn't you like me, for example, to kiss you between your thighs? Wouldn't you like me to kiss that pretty little bottom of yours? Would you let me? I could make you feel so good.

This kiss had now gone on quite a while, and Laura marveled that neither of them grew impatient enough to push it further, or in Shontay's case, perhaps, to break it off. She likes it, Laura realized. She pushed a little harder with her tongue, trying to get it inside Shontay's mouth. Almost imperceptibly, Shontay's full lips parted more, then even more, and soon Laura's tongue was sliding in past her teeth.

This was a penetration of sorts, and both of them knew it. Laura could even feel a faint, very faint shudder in Shontay as she felt Laura's tongue enter her mouth. Her own tongue did not meet Laura's. Passive and yielding, she did nothing to stop Laura's probing tongue, though Laura could feel her breathing accelerate.

After about half a minute, Shontay slowly pulled back, breaking off the kiss. She was breathing more heavily, her eyes slightly glassy. She gave Laura a tight, nervous smile.

"I liked that," Laura breathed, smiling back. "Let's sit down and do some more of it."

Without nodding or making any other sign of assent, Shontay walked slowly into the living room, with Laura following. They sat down together on the sofa. Now Shontay's mysterious pale brown eyes were glowing, throbbing, dreamy.

Laura raised a tentative hand, as if to caress her smooth cheek again. "Still no touching?" she asked.

Shontay shook her head. "No touching," she croaked softly, betraying a physical excitement Laura knew she was trying to conceal.

Laura shrugged and smiled. "Okay."

As long as I can kiss you, I'll agree not to touch you. Laura leaned close, but this time before pressing her mouth into Shontay's, she let her lips skim the side of her cheek, then slid them down her jaw to her long, brown, swan's neck, so smooth and flawless. Laura kissed the delectable smooth column slowly, with great tenderness, down to the beautiful curved shallow indentation of Shontay's throat, then back up under her chin, until her lips again arrived at Shontay's mouth.

Now when they kissed again, even Shontay was more excited. She mingled her half-open lips with Laura's more ardently than before, letting Laura's tongue inside more quickly this time, even meeting it with her own. It became very hard for Laura to kiss her but not touch her.