Chapter 1

Desiree Smith was pushing her shopping cart through the aisles of the local Saving Center grocery store, picking up the various ingredients she would need to construct one of her famous chicken lasagnas. She was almost done with the shopping, her mind not thinking about much of anything, when she rounded the canned vegetable aisle, turned toward the pasta aisle, and almost slammed into a very tall figure pushing a cart in the opposite direction.

She managed to pull back on her cart in time to avoid a collision and was about to utter the standard, polite "excuse me" when she actually got a good look at the person in her path. It was a woman. An extremely tall woman, perhaps the tallest woman Desiree had ever seen in her life. She was well over six and a half feet in height, perhaps six-eight or six-nine. Desiree herself was certainly not short. She measured a solid five feet, ten inches, well above the statistical average for women in the United States, but this woman towered almost a foot higher than her. This was a sight that Desiree was simply unused to seeing. Before she could stop herself, before she even realized she was going to speak aloud, the word "wow" blurted out of her lips.

The woman gave her a tired smile, one that was tinged with just the slightest bit of annoyance. "I get that a lot," she told her.

Desiree immediately began to blush, embarrassed. "Oh my god," she said. "I didn't mean to say that out loud. I just... you know... I mean." She shook her head, unused to being flustered like this. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean anything by it."

The woman's smile turned a little more genuine. "No offense taken," she said. "And before you ask, yes, I used to play basketball."

Desiree had been about to ask this. Her embarrassment grew as she realized she was almost goggling at the woman like she was a freak. She mumbled once again that she was sorry and then moved off, turning down the next aisle and heading quickly toward the pasta noodles she needed. When she found them she turned back the way she had come, just for an instant, and saw the tall woman was still standing there, seeming to examine a display of Diet Coke that had been set up. She made eye contact with Desiree, gave her one last smile, and then disappeared.

"Wow," Desiree whispered to herself again, still pondering the image of the Amazonian woman. Her head was almost at the level of the top of the grocery shelves. Her legs, which had been clad in faded blue jeans, seemed to stretch on forever. And for all that, the woman was not the least bit out-of-proportion. She wasn't fat, wasn't muscular, wasn't thin as a rail. Her face was pretty and her plain brown hair was nicely styled. She had on a simple white blouse that showed off a pair of medium to large breasts. She was nothing more than a shapely, moderately attractive woman of correct proportions who just happened to be a foot or so taller than average. And for some reason that Desiree could not put her finger on, this intrigued her in a way that was partly exciting and partly disturbing.

What in the hell is wrong with me? She wondered nervously. Surely I'm not thinking about... about that, am I?

She shoved thoughts of that to the back of her mind. They went obediently into their dungeon, but with a little more reluctance than usual. I am not attracted to women, she told herself firmly. I'm a happily married, sexually satisfied, heterosexual woman with two kids. I do not want to sleep with another woman.

By the time she was done choosing her pasta and the sauces she would need to go with it, she had once again convinced herself that this was true. It wasn't that hard to do. She had a lot of experience at it.

The Saving Center only had three check stands open when it was time for her to pay for her groceries. One was the express line, which required ten items or less. Desiree quickly counted up the contents of her cart and found she had thirteen items. Though she had seen people slip through in front of her with as many as twenty items many times in the past, her ingrained sense of morality would not allow her to break the rules. The number three aisle had three people with full carts waiting their turn. The number six aisle, however, seemed like the best prospect. There was a middle-aged housewife just finishing up with a large haul and, behind her, an elderly lady with only half a cartful.

"Score," Desiree muttered to herself and quickly spun her cart in behind the elderly woman.

She was there less than ten seconds when another cart came squeaking in behind her. She turned to glance at her fellow line-waiter and found herself looking directly at a pair of medium to large boobs beneath a white blouse. She slowly turned her head up and looked into the eyes of the tall woman she'd met in the pasta aisle. She felt a little shudder of trepidation course through her.

"We meet again," the woman said, offering her friendly smile.

"Yes," Desiree said, putting a smile on her face in return. "They really need to open a few more check stands here, don't they?"

"It would be nice," the woman said with a shrug. "I don't mind the wait, though. Sometimes you meet the most interesting people while waiting in line."

"I suppose that's a good way to look at it," Desiree said. She glanced down at the woman's cart and saw it contained only a few items. There was a twelve-pack of Diet Coke, a pound of Sundollars Coffee, a package of chicken breasts, some boxed stuffing, and a few vegetables. "You know," Desiree told her, "you could slip pretty quickly through the express line. You're under the limit."

"It's starting to back up over there," she said. "A bunch of people buying Chinese food and pre-cooked chickens. I think it'll be faster over here."

"Yes, sometimes that's the way it works," Desiree agreed.

The middle-aged woman finished up her transaction and one of the "courtesy clerks", as they were called, grabbed her cart and asked her which way to go. The elderly woman then pushed her cart forward. Before the checker could start scanning the items in the cart, the elderly woman reached in her purse and pulled out a large stack of coupons.

Both Desiree and the tall woman gave a look of consternation to each other with their eyes.

"And then sometimes," the tall woman whispered, "it doesn't quite work out that way."

Desiree let a little giggle escape from her lips and nodded. They settled in for what experience had taught them would be a long haul.

They were not mistaken. The scanning of the elderly woman's items went relatively smoothly. It was when the clerk started scanning the fistful of coupons that the trouble began. She only made it through three of them before her computer beeped out a warning tone, apparently indicating that nothing previously scanned matched this particular coupon. All forward progress came to a halt as the clerk and the old lady began examining the take in the bagging area to figure out the discrepancy.

"Here's the problem," the clerk explained patiently. "This coupon for the Fleet enemas is only for the eight pack of them. You are purchasing the two pack."

"Does it say it's for the eight pack?" the woman asked.

"Yes, ma'am, it does." She pointed out that particular section of the coupon that read: Good for eight pack only.

The elderly woman huffed. "Well what am I supposed to do with eight of them?" she asked. "They have an expiration date, you know."

The two of them began discussing the issue. Desiree sighed and turned her head to look at the tall woman behind her. She could not resist giving a roll of the eyes. "Jesus Christ," she whispered. "This happens to me every time I come to this grocery store."

The tall woman gave a sympathetic giggle. "Me too," she whispered back. "It's part of the joy of living in Springwood, isn't it?" Springwood was the suburban community outside of Heritage, California they were currently in the heart of. It was a suburb populated primarily by people over the age of sixty-five.

"You know it," Desiree said. She looked at the other check stands, contemplating a change of venue. Unfortunately, by this point the other open stands had filled up with other shoppers. Even the express lane now had no less than ten people waiting (well over half of these were other elderly folk who no doubt had coupons as well).

The tall woman followed her gaze to the other lines, probably with the same idea in mind, probably coming to the same conclusion. "Looks like we're here for the duration," she said, good-naturedly.

"Yep," Desiree said. This was confirmed a moment later when the dispute over the Fleet enemas was resolved (the elderly woman decided to simply pay full price for the two pack) and the next coupon was scanned, causing yet another warning beep from the computer.

"This coupon is for the Starling regular chicken noodle soup," the clerk explained. "You have six cans of the ready-to-serve."

"Does it say it's only for the regular?" the elderly woman asked.

"Yes, ma'am, it does," the clerk said patiently.

Desiree suppressed a sigh.

"Looks like you're making lasagna?" the tall woman asked Desiree as she looked at the contents of her cart.

"Yes," Desiree said. "Chicken lasagna. They're having a potluck at my husband's office tomorrow. I made the mistake of making it for them at the last potluck and they liked it so much they demanded more."

"It must be very good," she said.

"It is, if I do say so myself. A girlfriend of mine gave me the recipe a few years ago and I've improved on it little by little. I love to cook."

"I do too," the tall woman said. "I've never been ambitious enough to try homemade lasagna though. I've heard it's a lot of work."

"It's not too bad," Desiree said. "It takes maybe an hour to put it together, a little less if you're used to doing it."

"An hour, huh?" the woman said thoughtfully. "That sounds doable. I don't suppose you have a copy of the recipe on you."

"Unfortunately, no," Desiree said. "If you're really interested in it, though, I can email it to you."

The woman brightened. "That would be very nice," she said. "Are you sure you don't mind?"

"I'm sure," Desiree said. She dug around in her purse and pulled out her planner. A ballpoint pen was clipped inside of it. "What's your email?"

The woman blushed a little bit. "You're not easily offended, are you?" she asked.

"Uh... I don't think so," Desiree said.

"Okay," the woman said. "It's uh... tall, dark, and naughty at fastmail dot com."

Desiree raised her eyebrows a little bit. "Tall, dark, and naughty, huh? I take it this is not your business email account?"

The woman giggled. "No, I'm not in that kind of business," she said. "I work in a medical office and they really disapprove of us using our office email to exchange recipes."

"I understand completely," Desiree said, suspecting, of course, that this woman actually had a regular home email account as well but was reluctant to share it with a woman she had just met. She was unoffended by this thought. It was just common sense in this age of identity theft and rampant spam to have a throwaway email address. Desiree herself had two such addresses in addition to her normal email account. "How does that write out on paper?"

The woman told her. It was talldark&naughty@fastmail.com. She then told Desiree her name. It was Peggy.

"Nice to meet you, Peggy," Desiree said, holding out her hand. "I'm Desiree."

"Nice to meet you as well," Peggy said, shaking with her. Her hand was large, nearly swallowing Desiree's, but soft and feminine in texture.

Meanwhile, at the check stand, the drama continued. The point in dispute was now over a box of bran cereal that did not exactly match the brand on the coupon. The two women continued to chat with each other, sharing basic biographies. Peggy told Desiree she was divorced and living in a nearby house with her seven year old daughter. Desiree volunteered the fact that she had two children, a boy and a girl, six and eight respectively, and was basically a stay-at-home mom, although she did work part-time as a substitute teacher for the Heritage Unified School District.

Finally, at long last, the last of the elderly lady's coupons cleared the system and the last of the price checks on other items were done. They only had to wait until she slowly wrote out a check and had it accepted by the store's computer system. Once this was done, the same courtesy clerk that had been run ragged doing price checks and taking back her unwanted items, courteously helped her out to her car.

Desiree's checkout went smooth as silk. Her thirteen items were scanned in less than a minute and she paid with her ATM card. As she picked up her bags she turned to Peggy one last time. "It was nice meeting you," she told her. "I'll send that recipe off as soon as I get on the computer."

"Thanks," Peggy responded, giving her one last smile. "And it was nice to meet you as well."

Desiree got in her car and headed for her suburban tract house. As she drove, her thoughts remained on the tall woman she'd just met. She seemed very nice, the kind of person she might like having as a friend. She had been somewhat lacking in the friendship department these last eight months because Cindy, her best friend since childhood, had moved to Phoenix when her husband was transferred there.

I wonder if she really is naughty? her mind asked, seemingly from nowhere. And just how naughty?

"Stop it," she scolded herself, unaware she was even speaking aloud. "You don't even want to know."

She sent a copy of the chicken lasagna recipe to talldark&naughty as soon as she finished putting away her groceries. In the text portion of the email she wrote a brief note inviting Peggy to respond back to her when she made the recipe to let her know how it went. She did not use one of her throwaway accounts. She used her main, personal email address.

That night, Richard, her husband, was treated to an enthusiastic and lengthy session of marital sex that began within minutes of the children being put to bed. They started on the living room couch, moved to the staircase for a bit, and then finally ended up in their bedroom.

"Wow," Richard said after pouring himself out into her body for the second time. He was panting a little, his body covered in sweat, his short hair damp and mussed up from her fingers clawing at it. "What brought that on?"

"I don't know," she said innocently, staring up at the ceiling fan, her body still trembling from the final string of orgasmic delight she'd just enjoyed. "I was just horny today for some reason."

She heard nothing from Peggy over the next nine days, long enough that talldark&naughty almost faded from her consciousness. She went about her life, taking care of her children, keeping her house running smoothly (or at least semi-efficiently), and occasionally taking a substitute teaching assignment at one of the local elementary schools on days when her schedule allowed it.

It was during the second such teaching assignment that a lesbian propositioned her — again. This was something that had happened to her many times in her life, starting in her late teens and occurring regularly throughout her adulthood. The phenomenon had picked up considerably in both frequency and aggressiveness since she had allowed Richard Smith to put that two-carrot diamond on her left ring finger. Desiree had no idea why lesbian women were so attracted to her, but they were. She was not the least bit masculine looking. On the contrary, she was very girly and feminine, both in appearance and mannerisms. But nonetheless, it seemed that whenever she crossed paths with a lesbian — and such things happened quite a bit in Heritage, California, a liberal city with a large gay population — they were drawn to her in a manner that seemed almost like hypnosis at times. She knew from talking to other women that her experience in this matter was unique. Most of her heterosexual friends had never been hit on by a lesbian, even those who counted lesbians among their inner circle of friends. Yet with Desiree it was almost a bi-monthly happening.

The latest woman who yearned to get into her pants — her happily married pants — was named Darla Simpson. She worked as a traffic officer for the California Highway Patrol, one of the few women in the state assigned to the motorcycle corps of that particular agency. She and her "life partner" had been together for more than ten years and were registered with the state as an official civil union. Two years before, the two of them had adopted a seven-year-old Guatemalan boy who had been orphaned. Manny, as the boy was known, was now a second grader and Darla herself was the classroom mom assigned to Wednesdays in his classroom. Desiree knew all of this about her because Darla spent most of that day sitting next to her as she taught the class, reciting her life story to her.

Desiree remained friendly to Darla as the day went on even though she knew by the end of the first hour that Darla was going to make a move at some point. That point came just after the kids left for lunch, leaving Desiree and Darla alone in the classroom for the first time.

"So," Darla said, sitting uncomfortably close to Desiree, her left knee actually touching Desiree's right knee, "I was thinking that maybe we could get together after school for... you know... some coffee or something."

"I'm sorry," Desiree told her in a monotone voice. "I need to get home and help my husband (she made sure to emphasize that word) get dinner ready."

Darla simply nodded. "I understand," she said. "Domestic tranquility is the cornerstone of the American way of life, isn't it?"

"I suppose," Desiree replied.

"How about coming over for dinner at my place some night, though?" She gave a look that was dripping with innuendo. "Suzanne is out of town on business next week. I'd love to have some company while she's gone."

"I don't think that's a good idea," Desiree told her, feeling herself flush with embarrassment. She always did in such circumstances. "You see, I'm really not into that sort of thing."

"Is it because I have a partner?" Darla asked. "If you're worried about that, you don't have to. Suzanne and I have kind of an open relationship, if you know what I mean."

"My husband and I don't, though," Desiree told her.

"I wouldn't tell him," Darla said with a particularly lecherous wink.

"Darla, hon," Desiree said. "I'm not a lesbian. I'm a happily married heterosexual woman."

Darla looked at her for a moment, considering. Finally, she said, "Is it because I'm butch? I can put on a dress and femme myself up a little if you want. Sometimes I like to do that."

"No," Desiree said firmly. "Thank you."

Darla simply shrugged and put a piece of paper in Desiree's shirt pocket (catching more than a passing feel of her left boob in the process). "Here's my number," she said. "When you change your mind, give me a call."

Not if you change your mind, when. Desiree simply shook her head and spent the rest of the day trying to stay as far away from Darla as possible.

When she got home that afternoon she opened a bottle of Merlot from her collection and poured nearly a third of the bottle into a water glass. Fending off horny lesbians always put her in a strange mood that was best tempered with alcohol.

She checked the roast she'd placed in the crockpot that morning and then yelled at her daughters to pick up the damn living room and start working on their homework. Once this was accomplished, she went into the small office that had been set up in the home's fourth bedroom and turned on the computer to check her email. Since meeting Peggy, this was something she did three or four times a day now. While it went through the boot-up process she managed to move half of the wine from her glass to her stomach.