Chapter 247

Laura drifted awake in the morning to the sweet, faintly erotic odors of Shontay's naked flesh pressed against her cheek. It happened to be one of the girl's exquisite, teacup breasts, so round and firm, the nipple so soft and delectable that she could not keep from taking it into her mouth. Shontay stirred and moaned, coming awake. She watched Laura languorously sucking her nipple.

"I never slept with anybody before," she said quietly, stroking the hair away from Laura's forehead. "Like this, I mean." Laura looked at her quizzically, holding Shontay's wet, caramel-colored nipple in her lips. "I always made them go home. Oh, that feels good."

"Mmmm, are you going to make me go home?"

Shontay's eyes sparkled with happiness. "You only did it to me about four or five times last night. Don't you ever get tired?"

"Not of 'doing it' to you. Do you get tired?"

Shontay shook her head, and they were quickly into another round, making love as if the world outside them no longer existed. At work, Laura was relieved that their duties and responsibilities were entirely separate, and that there was no opportunity for them to meet and betray their sudden intimacy. For the next week, while Shontay's parents were still away, they met each evening for dinner in one or the other apartment, and spent the rest of the night in delicious fucking.

But all this time Laura was still mooning around about Dawn, and fending off fantastically hot invitations from both Randi and Shavon, who could not understand why she wanted to be alone for the whole week, though Randi, ever suspicious, began to suspect something. Laura put her off with a variety of excuses.

Then she and Shontay had a tender parting on the night before Shontay's parents were due to return. It happened that Laura was scheduled for a conference in Tucson the next day, and they would be apart for the first time in a week.

"Tucson?" Shontay whined.

"Are you going to miss me?"

A big tear was already forming at the bottom of one of Shontay's pale brown eyes. But she sniffled, then wiped it away, all the cold reserve returning to her face.

"Of course not," she said, glaring at Laura. "Why should I miss you?"

"Because nobody can make you come the way I can?" Laura teased.

"Maybe I'll find somebody," Shontay said, with a toss of the head. "Some guys like tall skinny girls."

"Some women like them too," Laura said. "Me, for one."

Now Shontay became pliant, fawn-like. "Will you miss me?"

"I'll call you every night."

Why am I saying these things? Laura wondered. She adored Shontay, but she knew she didn't feel the kind of desperate, burning, scorching, searing lust for her that she felt for Dawn. Still, together they had brought Shontay along to a new place, a sexual oasis where she could enjoy a sweet and blissfully intense pleasure that was only possible with Laura. It was hard not to be touched by it, even moved, and Laura gave in without a fight.

"Here's my number," Shontay said, scribbling on the back of her business card. "Don't call me at work. Too dangerous. In fact, we should probably just keep pretending we don't know each other."

What a good idea! Laura thought. Why couldn't I have done that with Randi? Yvette? All the others?

She had actually grown quite fond of Shontay during this week, somehow warmed by Shontay's carefully-masked vulnerability, and her fresh sense of wonder at the sex they shared. No longer was she the cold, calculating, remote bitch Laura had initially thought her to be, the careerist, the haughty tall girl who looked down both physically and socially on everyone. She was instead a delightful young girl who was having several orgasms each day because Laura was wildly infatuated with her as a bed partner.

On the flight to Tucson, Laura even felt pangs of separation from her and was very troubled. Her life was complicated enough, she thought, and screwing her neighbors' daughter could only make it worse. For example, could she and Shontay make love in her, Laura's, apartment when Shontay's parents might be home upstairs? It had been bad enough trying to muffle every stray groan and gasp before with her visitors; what would it be like if Shontay were about to scream in ecstasy? (And Laura had learned how to make her scream, and also whinny uncontrollably.)

To force herself not to think about Shontay, she thought about Dawn instead, but that was almost as troublesome and painful, for she couldn't keep herself from imagining Dawn naked in bed with Robert. He was not a bad looking guy, and Dawn was of course gorgeous, in Laura's book, so the two of them naked and fucking would be a fascinating spectacle for anyone to witness, she thought. And horribly painful for me, she realized, trying to shake the daydream out of her brain. I love her, and he's fucking her. Not me. Oh god.

As an antidote, she tried to recall the details of her and Dawn fucking-us, together, no Robert. She began to remember how she had fucked Dawn with her fist and pulled her hair when she came, and how Dawn had suffered an almost lethal orgasm, one of the most intense Laura had ever witnessed, and surely deeper than she herself had ever experienced. She suddenly realized that these were not reveries to indulge in while flying. Her body became so aroused that she had to carefully make her way to the lavatory and clean up a little.

The conference was being held at a resort in Tucson, and there was a kickoff, keynote speech and dinner that very evening. Thrown in among strangers at a banquet where one was supposed to be eagerly networking, Laura was shy and quiet, waiting for a chance to leave graciously. She was chatting about boring professional issues with some well-meaning colleagues when she heard, about fifty feet away from her, The Voice.

A grating, nasal, Texas twang that she would recognize anywhere.

Laura's head whipped around. Ada's face was obscured by the heads of the several people she was entertaining with this characteristically dissonant foghorn voice of hers, but Laura craned her neck and spotted her.

"Excuse me," she said softly, politely excusing herself from her own group and moving toward Ada's.

Not wanting to startle her, Laura moved in a wide circle so that she could come up behind Ada, and when Ada's group dissolved, she tapped her on the shoulder. Curious, Ada looked around. Suddenly, her face looked stricken, then quickly faded into a smile.

"Oh god, I thought I was seeing a ghost!" she said, falling back dramatically, as if to take all of Laura in with one glance. "Look at you. What are you doing here?"

"Same thing you are, I guess," Laura grinned. "Conferencing... networking... being charming to a bunch of strangers. I think you're better at it than I am."

Ada leaned close and whispered. "Not really. I am a complete faker, but I've had lots of practice."

Laura was extremely sensitive to moments like this, and her senses sucked in Ada's presence, her faint perfume, the smooth sheen of her black cheek, the curve of her full lips, the scent of her breath, the beckoning contour of her wonderful throat, the shine of her eyes, the smell of her hair, the white gleam of her teeth, the pink, glistening tip of her tongue as she spoke. It was like falling into a trance, she realized, and she had to shake herself out of it.

"You look... terrific," she breathed, pulling back a little, trying to regain her sanity.

"You do too," Ada said, looking her up and down. "Stephanie Seymour ain't got nothin' on you, girl. Except she probably has a little more money."

They were both trying to ignore the real issue between them, which was why Ada had left San Francisco so precipitously. They both knew why, Laura thought, but neither one wanted to acknowledge it.

"Can we sit at the same dinner table?" Laura asked, letting her eyes roam furtively-so Ada would not see it-over Ada's body, which was disappointingly clothed in a tailored mint green suit that looked stunning against her black skin but completely boxed in all the delicious curves Laura knew where really there.

Ada's smooth brow furrowed. "Do you think we should? I mean, conferences are to meet new people... get new ideas, you know?"

"You mean not dwell on the past?" Laura cracked, with a mordant smile.

"Anway, I think they already have place cards," Ada said, jumping right over Laura's allusion. "You know, just to make sure we don't sit together."

"They don't know we're... friends," Laura said, with a meaningful look. "You work for a different company now."

Ada looked down momentarily at her feet, embarrassed. "Laura-"

"I love your hair."

Ada had it swept up again in a swirl behind her head, revealing her smooth dark brown neck that Laura wanted to kiss and suck hungrily. Laura could not help recalling their last time together when, in throes of some pretty athletic fucking, more vigorous and perverted than she had ever before allowed herself to become with Ada, they had shaken free the pins that held Ada's hair back in this swirl and it had fallen in a tousled cloud around her face, making her look wanton and half-ravished, inciting Laura to ravish her totally. She could see from the glint in Ada's black eyes that Ada remembered it too.

"Thank you," she said calmly, refusing to give Laura the satisfaction of acknowledging it.

The undercurrent of electricity that always flowed between them, ever since their first time in the shower after their first tennis game together, now became almost palpable. In fact, their hot, throbbing eyes were locked so tightly that something in the back of Laura's mind told her to look away, just to break the current, since they could be drawing attention.

"You're welcome," she breathed, half-audibly. "Aren't we polite?"

Ada looked nervous and apologetic. In a hushed voice, she said, "Laura, I think I owe you an apology."

Laura shook her head. "All that's behind us," she said, evenly, not letting Ada's gaze escape hers. "You owe me a drink, after this banquet is over. That's all.

"I... well, I, I don't really drink much," Ada stammered.

"Iced tea will be okay. Or lemonade. How about a coke? Are you trying to avoid me?"

Ada suddenly looked paralyzed, her eyes deeply sad and lost, her face betraying her pain. She shook her head without speaking. Laura reached out and took one of her hands, which was cold. She put her other hand on it too, holding Ada's hand between them, caressing it furtively, rubbing it, warming it up.

"You're cold."

Again, Ada shook her head. "Coke," she croaked softly. "Afterward?"

She removed her hand slowly from Laura's clinging grasp, her eyes never leaving Laura's.

"Yes," Laura nodded, her own eyes full of love and unconcealed desire. Yes, Ada. You don't have to let me into your bed, Ada. Just a coke... and a little talk. Please.

"Meet you by the door." Laura winked. "I've got my eye on you, and you're easy to find in this sea of white faces. Don't try to skip out on me."

Ada laughed in spite of herself and covered her mouth. "I won't... this time."

There were twenty or more round banquet tables, and Laura was seated at the opposite side of the room from Ada, but, true to her word, she kept an eye out, and after an interminable evening of tedious speeches and routine dinner courses, they met by the door as everyone was leaving. They all look as relieved as I feel, Laura thought, as she watched the other conference attendees file by her.

"I suppose you know where we can get a coke," Ada said as she sidled up next to Laura.

"All resorts have a bar, at least one bar," Laura said, smiling. "I think I could use something a little stronger than a coke, for sure."

As they wandered in search of the bar, Ada couldn't suppress a delighted little giggle. "One of the men at my table tried to make a date with me," she said.

"A date?"

"You know... for tonight. Some hanky-panky, I think he had in mind. He was wearing a wedding ring, can you believe it?"

Laura smirked. "His wife back in Kansas City will never know. Was he cute?"

Ada frowned. "He was... kind of. I've never dated a white man."

Laura smiled at her, bristling, and raised one eyebrow. You let me eat your pussy, Ada, her eyes said. And more. I'm white. I fucked you silly. You know that. What could he do to duplicate what we've done together?

But Laura could feel a trace of bitterness, and competitive anxiety, creeping into her thoughts, and she was uneasy lest it creep also into her tone of voice. Luckily, they found the bar just then.

"You're my date tonight," Laura said, steering her toward a small table in the semi-darkness. "I'm buying. You can even have champagne, if you want it."

"I'm just going to have a quick coke and go to bed," Ada said, matter-of-factly, very coolly skirting any innuendoes. "I'm tired. That speech really put me to sleep."

Laura took this as a gentle warning that there would be no 'hanky-panky' between the two of them either. But she had earlier, when she had tapped Ada on the shoulder, seen in Ada's eyes a wild flicker of sexual excitement that Ada had quickly masked. What we did together isn't easy to forget, Laura realized.

Further, she had come to think that the real reason Ada had quit her job and moved back to Texas had more to do with Ada's chagrin over the role she herself had played in their last sexual encounter than anything Laura had done. It wasn't the wild, orgiastic g-spot orgasms Laura had caused in her, or the way she had come while Laura was sucking her nipple that frightened her so much as the way she had enthusiastically fucked Laura at the end with the double dildo.

Laura had been on her back, with Ada on top, and Ada had fucked her fiercely, aggressively, and lustfully until both of them had exploded in killing orgasms. It was exactly what Laura had wanted, and she still tingled when remembering it, but to Ada somehow it encapsulated all her earlier fears and anxieties and guilt about having this hot lesbian affair with Laura into one perverted, wicked, and thrilling act, with her on top, actually doing the raping, actually enjoying it, instead of being a passive recipient of Laura's passion.

That, for a sexually inexperienced and straitlaced minister's daughter, was about the last straw, and rather than face it, or Laura, she simply folded her hand and went home. It was speculation, but Laura could not help feeling it was true.

A cocktail waitress finally showed up. Several other people from the dinner had drifted into the bar, and it was becoming crowded. Laura ordered champagne for both of them. Ada put a hand on hers.

"Just coke for me."

Laura glowered at her.

"Oh well... maybe I will have a glass of champagne. We can celebrate seeing each other again."

The cocktail waitress left, and Laura leaned close, whispering.

"It doesn't mean anything." Her eyes burned into Ada's. "We're just old friends."

Ada appeared to be hurt by this. "Is that all?" she whispered back.

Laura realized that she herself was very close to risking everything. Involuntary tears came to her eyes. She shook her head.

"It's not all."

Now neither one of them could speak for several minutes. Not only did they not know what to say, but also their feelings were so confused and intense that neither trusted herself to open her mouth. Unspoken between them lay the hot, glowing kernel of their common desire and sexual attraction, the intimate connection they had shared before. We made each other pant, Laura thought, in a phrase that came to her often as a way of capturing this feeling.

Laura had sucked back her tears before they spilled. Ada looked extremely uncomfortable. The champagne finally arrived. Laura raised her glass.

"To you, Ada. I hope you are very happy in your new job... and life."

Ada clinked glasses with her. "I think of you every day," she said in a hushed voice, raising the glass to her full, sensual lips.

This was hard on Laura, who found she would have preferred to hear that Ada was now engaged to be married to a rich executive, or busily fucking a new army of male admirers-even though that was preposterous in a repressed preacher's daughter like her-in order to forget Laura forever. Instead, it meant Ada had not forgotten, and so how could either one of them get through this evening?

"I think of you too," Laura lied.

Of course, lately she had been thinking of Ada a lot, so that made her feel less guilty for saying so. But she was also desperately in love with Dawn, still thickly involved with Randi, and now, having spent a week happily fucking with Shontay, encumbered by yet another emotional and physical entanglement. It was hard to pretend that she had been lovesick over Ada for months.

Conversation dragged like a dull dinner party, even worse than the dinner they had just attended, desultory and reeking of avoidance. Finally, the champagne glasses were empty. Somehow, Laura thought, neither one of them seemed to feel any better. She knew she would not be able to persuade Ada to have another, so they paid and got to their feet. Then a slight wooziness overcame them both.

"Ooohhh... I haven't felt this dizzy since Mama put brandy in the brownies," Ada said, weaving, her voice beginning to rise into hints of the horrible twang.

"Just hold onto my arm, if you want to," Laura said, weaving a little herself. "We can help each other."

Ada's eyes caught hers. The bar was semi-dark, but neither one mistook the heat, mixed with deep longing, that passed between them. Ada grabbed Laura's elbow.

"Good idea," she said, dropping her voice again. "At least until we take a few steps and get our bearings. Now you can see why I don't drink. Goes right to my head."

Out in the corridor, Laura whispered, "I'm just trying to get you drunk so I can take advantage of you. Just like that guy who tried to get you on a 'date'."

It was a bold thing to say, but the champagne had made her feel a little reckless. She also knew that Ada was probably not going to risk any more than she already had, so it would be up to Laura to push things. Ada said nothing. Laura knew she had heard her, but she was not responding.

The rooms in this resort were scattered throughout the grounds in small duplexes and fourplexes, and in the dark it was not so easy to remember the location of yours, Laura realized.

"I'm one thirty-seven," Ada said, rummaging in her coat pocket for her key as they walked. "I think it's over there by the pool. I remember seeing the pool around the corner."

"I'll walk there with you," Laura said, calmly.

"You don't have to. I'm a big girl. The wooziness is gone now."

"What if I want to?"

Ada looked out in the distance, beyond Laura's gaze, unwilling to meet it. "If you want to, of course..." Her voice trailed off noncommittally.

When they got to Ada's room, she turned to Laura in front of the door. It was a very uncomfortable moment, and neither spoke. We don't know what to say, Laura thought. It was very dark there, with only the glimmer of a light obscured by a thick crawling vine. The light on Ada's dark, gleaming face, in fact, was enchanting, soft, highlighting her strong African features, her considerable beauty. Laura smiled, extending her arm, brushing the glowing skin of Ada's black cheek with the tips of three fingers, unable to stop this caress.

"You are so gorgeous," she murmured. "Let me kiss you once."

Ada almost jumped, then frowned quizzically. "Right here? Have you lost your senses, girl?"

Laura looked around. "It's dark. No one will see."

Ada pursed her lips. "It's over, Laura. Let's not make it worse."

"It isn't over."

"Yes it is."

"Let me come in and kiss you. Then I'll leave."

For a moment Ada didn't speak. Her eyes glistened, black and large and expressive. "If you come in, I won't want you to leave."

Just what I wanted to hear, Laura thought, feeling her heart flutter now. She knew things were sliding slowly in her direction. Rather than trust herself to push any harder, she remained silent, letting Ada take the next step. Ada seemed reluctant to move too. She shifted on her feet, fretting.

"Okay... I'll leave." Laura turned slowly to walk away. "Bye. Nice seeing you. Love your green suit." She looked back over her shoulder. "And your hair."

For a moment, Ada seemed content to watch her leave. Then, with an audible sigh, she spoke.

"'I'd love to kiss yuh, but I just washed my hay-ahh, '" Ada said softly, quoting Bette Davis, a quote Laura had made to her their very last time together. She giggled softly, almost girlishly.

Laura, grinning, turned around. She was now about five steps away from Ada, whose eyes were throbbing with significance. Ada now whispered so softly that Laura could barely hear her.

"If you want to come inside, I could dry it off," she whispered.

Laura came closer. "It doesn't look very wet to me," she murmured. "Maybe you need to take a shower and really get it wet."

Ada closed her eyes and held them shut a few seconds before opening them again. Laura wondered if she were praying. God, let it happen. Or, God, don't let it happen. Which one was it? Or was she cursing herself for having yielded to this... what, sin? Or ecstasy?

Ada took a deep breath, and her eyes opened. Without a word, she turned and unlocked the door to her room with her key card. They both slipped inside, and she fastened the safety lock. Laura felt her pulse leap. She had not felt it outside, but now that they were in Ada's quiet, dark room, with the door locked, alone together, she could feel a very great turbulence inside her own body. She wondered if Ada was now feeling it too.

They could barely see one another though they were close enough almost to smell the champagne on each other's breath. A weak light from outside came in through the window. Ada went over to it and pulled the drapes completely shut before switching on a bedside lamp. She turned to Laura.

Laura smiled warmly. Ada was charmingly demure for a big, beautiful, voluptuous woman whom many people would die to sleep with. She was shy, even bashful at times, and having gone this far, she had not a clue how to go the rest of the way. Laura went over to her and took her hand. She slowly, never taking her eyes from Ada's, raised it to her lips.

"You have the most beautiful hands," she murmured, kissing the back of Ada's hand sensually, then turning it and kissing the palm too. "Earlier, when I was holding your cold hand, I wanted to do this. Do you know that?" She turned Ada's hand back over and kissed the smooth black top of it more passionately now. "It's not cold any more."

Ada shook her head. Her eyes showed both mild fear and growing sexual excitement.

"May I kiss you?" Laura asked softly.

Ada nodded. "I've... been wishing you would. All night." She smiled, shyly.

It's like a first date, Laura realized as they brought their faces closer together. Like we never kissed before. That's why we're both so nervous.

Her lips pressed against Ada's sensual mouth, curving slowly into Ada's full lips, and she could feel Ada actually quivering as they slowly embraced. They kissed chastely at first, no tongues. Laura did not want to rush things. Anyway, she richly enjoyed this calm reacquaintance, this slow, expressive kiss, unencumbered by fierce sexual heat, informed instead by an emotional exchange that she knew would prepare the way for a coming physical reunion.

They pulled gently apart before the kiss could dissolve into an urgent, more passionate moment. "I think we should take a shower together," Laura suggested, whispering it into Ada's lovely, gleaming black ear, following the words with her tongue.

"Ahhnnnn!" Ada shivered sharply, pulling back slightly out of Laura's arms, suddenly looking sweet, vulnerable, and ravishingly sexy to Laura, even in her boxy green suit.

Laura kissed her cheek, then her broad, high forehead, then her eyelids. "What do you think?"

Ada looked to the side, as if too embarrassed to say it. "I can hardly take a shower any more without remembering it," she confessed.

"Me either," Laura breathed.

She quickly began to unbutton her own jacket and unzip her skirt, moving toward the small bathroom at the same time. She flung the jacket on the bed. Ada stood in the same place, as if paralyzed, watching Laura in fascination.

Reaching the corner she would have to turn to get into the bathroom, Laura paused. Giving Ada a sexy smirk, she removed her blouse and flung it back onto the bed too. She let her skirt fall at her feet and kicked it away. I feel like a stripper, she thought, enjoying Ada's eyes on her body. I like it. Come in here and fuck me in the shower, Ada, darling, her eyes dared.

Before disappearing around the corner, she turned her back, looking sexily over her shoulder at Ada, and slowly unfastened her bra clasp. Cleverly, she held the limp bra against her body, winking at Ada, who still stared, seeming rooted to the spot, her wide, sensual mouth half-open in awe.

"I'm waiting," Laura winked, now slipping around the corner and into the bathroom, where she quickly turned on the shower, slipping out of her panties and placing them and her bra on the sink top.

She is such a marvelous little prude, she thought, waiting for Ada. How long will it take her? Is she still standing there, trying to make up her mind?

When the water got hot, and steam began to swirl around the small bathroom, she pulled the shower curtain open at the end and stepped into the tub. This was different than before since it was a tub, not a shower stall, but Laura knew they could manage. Where is she? Ada... get your beautiful self and your beautiful body in here!

Just when she began to suspect that Ada had chickened out, she sensed her presence on the other side of the shower curtain. The shower noise made it nearly impossible to hear anything else, and the steam was billowing and surging everywhere, but somehow Laura knew Ada was there. Then she saw her silhouette moving. She turned just in time to see Ada pulling the shower curtain open in the rear, as she herself had done.

Ada's long, bare, black arm came around the corner, followed by her wonderful black naked body. She smiled shyly at Laura, pulling the shower curtain closed.

"Here I am." Her black, throbbing eyes held Laura's. "Did you miss me?"

Oh god, Laura thought. More than you know,
More than you know,
Girl of my heart,
I love you so...

Lately I find,
You're on my mind,
More than you know...

This song had come to her once before, just after Ada had gone back to Texas, after she had sent Laura a voice mail apology. Laura scarcely knew where she had heard it, but it had drifted into her mind at the time, a song of longing and tenderness, and it drifted back into her mind now, reflecting a deep yearning for Ada.

"Oh god, yes," she said honestly to Ada.

Ada made a sarcastic face. "Then let me have some of that hot water, girl, before I freeze to death back here."

Laura held out her arms. "Come and share."

Ada came forward. Laura turned to give her half of the water, and they embraced again, naked and wet this time, and quickly succumbed to a really intense sexual kiss, which quickly became a ravenous mouth-rape on both sides. The feel of Ada's naked body against her own, after all this time, made Laura nearly melt both with happiness and lust, and she ran her hands all over Ada's wet back, then dropped them to Ada's large but very shapely ass, digging her fingertips into the firm, spongy round flesh.

Ada kissed her neck and her ear, wiggling her upper body back and forth to enjoy the way their wet breasts slid together and their excited nipples touched. There was no sound but the steady crash of the shower water against their bodies and the tub and shower curtain. But soon Laura began to hear the sounds of their breathing too, since they were growing very aroused.

"I want you," she panted to Ada, sucking the water off her glistening black shoulder, sucking her neck, raising her hands to Ada's large, full breasts and squeezing them.

"Oh god... Laura... I've dreamed of this every night!" Ada gasped, again pressing her mouth to Laura's and giving her a scorching kiss.

"Me too," Laura panted. "I've dreamed of sucking your big beautiful nipples. May I? May I suck your big nipples?"

Ada, her black eyes streaked with a hot red fire of sexual need, nodded. "You can do anything you want."

Ada was a full-figured woman, and her breasts were large and shapely, fantastically firm, capped by huge, coal-black, puffy, protruding nipples, so desirable to Laura that she actually had to restrain herself from sucking them too hard, so hungry for them was she. And right now Ada's breasts were beaded with silvery water droplets, magnificent, jutting gourds of delectable flesh, the nipples swollen and bulbous, glimmering, beckoning Laura's mouth.