Chapter 219

Laura had a bad day.

It took three days before she could get her bed repaired and cost one hundred bucks for two guys to come over and readjust the frame. Laura lurked in the kitchen while they were fixing it to avoid having to answer questions, or meet their glances.

That night she was leafing through a recent catalogue that had arrived in the mail from Victoria's Secret and was alarmed to find only one picture of Stephanie Seymour, tucked in near the end, clearly out of place and lifted from some earlier period. Instead, all the girls looked much younger, twenty-one and twenty-two. Even the sole picture of Stephanie had her looking a little long in the tooth by comparison.

Oh god, Laura thought, we're getting old! Stephanie and me both. Over the hill. She looked at the girls in the pictures, all of them attractive in their sexy undies, but not to her. The only 'black' one was Tyra Banks, who had a voluptuous figure and startling green eyes but didn't really appeal much to Laura. Why, she didn't know. Not dark enough? Too chubby, too zaftig? I like Naomi Campbell better, she thought. That damn lucky little Alison actually slept with her.

It was unsettling to think that both she and Stephanie Seymour, who had not yet hit thirty, were now history. Nobody would come up to her anymore and say she looked like the famous model. The model was no longer famous.

How depressing. At work the next morning, bright and early, Tamara Taylor came into Laura's office and shut the door behind her.

"Can we talk?" she asked, voice hushed, her manner surreptitious.

On the other hand, she looked, as usual, stunning. It had been barely more than a week since they had spent the night together in Tamara's bed at the Sonoma Mission Inn. Yet Laura was struck anew by the girl's fresh, startling beauty, her perfectly-shaped body, emphasized today by a peach-hued business suit, the skirt short enough to show off her shapely legs, the throat dipping low enough to show off her the flawless milk-and-coffee skin of her upper chest. Tamara also had a fresh, glowing, beautiful face, and a kind of wholesome, healthy look that everyone responded to, male and female.

Laura, who often felt a surprising, unexpected awe when looking freshly at one of her past bed partners, felt it again. I really slept with this gorgeous creature! she thought. I made her pant. I can't believe it. I had my tongue in her sweet young pussy.

"Of course," Laura smiled.

"Look," Tamara said nervously, twisting her fingers, looking down at them instead of at Laura. "About what happened... up there at that meeting. When we... you know. Could we just forget that ever happened?"

She looked up at Laura, her large brown eyes wide and faux innocent, full of quivering vulnerability meant to tug Laura's heart. Laura tried to remain calm. She had been wondering when, and how, they might initiate a repeat performance. Tamara was stunning. Laura also was used to girls feeling ashamed after having slept with her; they all now feared they were 'lesbians, ' that horrible curse.

"I don't think I could ever forget it, Tamara," Laura said softly, looking deeply into her eyes.

Tamara grimaced, clearly vexed by this. She had apparently expected Laura to agree. "I don't mean that," she said softly, looking over her shoulder, as if someone were right behind her listening. "I can't really forget it either. I just mean... it was a sort of accident, you know? Good but... maybe we should just pretend it didn't happen."

Laura smiled and didn't answer. I'd like to do it to you again, just to prove what an accident it was, she thought, a little threateningly. I made you come. Over and over. How can you say it was an 'accident'?

"How's Stewart. The linebacker," Laura said, coldly changing the subject, but not really. She knew Tamara was deathly afraid her linebacker boyfriend would find out she had fucked with Laura, which was clearly impossible.

Tamara smiled curtly. "He's fine. He's in Pittsburgh. It's football season."

Laura knew little about football and had forgotten what season it was. "My lips are sealed," she said serenely, but with a longing in her eyes that she hoped Tamara would recognize.

He never has to know, darling, her eyes said to Tamara. We can do it again and again. He never has to know. Nobody else will know either. Call me if you change your mind. She smiled with pinched politeness at Tamara, then rose from behind her desk and went to the door, opening it, clearly nudging her to leave.

"It didn't happen?" Tamara asked anxiously at the door.

She smelled wonderfully, some very faint but expensive perfume that Laura found wildly erotic. And being this close to her aroused Laura's desire again, as well as her memory of holding the girl's naked body in her arms, feeling her shudder in the grip of a sharp orgasm. How can I say it didn't happen? she wondered.

"I didn't say that," she whispered. "I said my lips are sealed."

Tamara's face relaxed, overcome by gratitude. "Thank you, Laura." She wanted to add something but didn't trust herself. "I-"

"You better not say it," Laura patted her hand. "I know what you mean."

Tamara smiled, relieved. Laura watched her walk away, feeling sad and still hungry for her, all these emotions and drives mingled together in a confusing welter.

As if this were not enough to start her day onto a downward slide, just before lunch Randi also appeared in Laura's office. She was breathtakingly lovely in a red knit dress that showed off her spectacular figure. Randi loved red. Her underwear, Laura knew, was often red. She was a gorgeous show-off, and she tossed her head provocatively, knowing how much Laura desired her, swishing her long, bewitching braids around her beautiful neck and shoulders.

"Laura, you've been ignoring me again," Randi smiled, her eyes showing a sinister glint that Laura had seen only rarely before, especially during their catfight. "You too busy with that stuck-up Neegro from Decision Resources you been bopping from here to Tuesday. What do you see in her, anyway? She's short and ugly."

"Randi, please keep your voice down."

Laura found herself looking around nervously, the same way she had seen Tamara doing this morning. Randi, of course, enjoyed her discomfort. Last time they had been alone together in Laura's office, they had almost got out of control. They had immediately run to Randi's place, where Randi had fist-fucked Laura into a horrific orgasm, and Laura had found her g-spot, making her erupt in fiery strings of shattering climaxes.

And after that you want to come in here and taunt me? Laura wondered. But she knew how hostile Randi was to Laura's relationship with Deshona. Deshona felt the same way about Randi. Somehow, they each were almost able to smell one another's presence, or what they both meant to Laura, and neither hesitated to use it against her.

"Excuse me." Randi made a face. "Maybe it's your little teenager instead. Cradle-robber."

To stop her, and also because she was wildly fetching and Laura loved her desperately, Laura tried to shut her up.

"Why don't we have dinner tonight?" she said, very open and friendly, looking deep into Randi's eyes to signify that the invitation was for far more than dinner.

She instantly saw in Randi's eyes that she had walked right into a trap. Randi grew playful, flirtatious, drawing an invisible circle with one long, black finger on Laura's desk top.

"Actually..." she paused for effect. "I'm having dinner with old Rhonda tonight. Remember old Rhonda?"

Laura felt like an icicle had been jammed right down the center of her body, from head to toe, freezing her on the spot. Rhonda had been dying to screw Randi since she had first seen her. Laura didn't believe, however, that Rhonda knew she, Laura, and Randi had had a torrid affair going for a year.

"I know Rhonda," Laura said evenly, taking measured breaths to control her pain and hostility.

"She's so sweet," Randi poured it on, sickeningly. She lowered her voice to an exaggerated whisper. "Even though she's just a nasty old dyke like you. She been wanting a taste of this hot little pussy for months."

"I'll bet," Laura said dryly.

"Well... I've got to be running along," Randi said brightly, rubbing it in, enjoying Laura's obvious discomfort. "Just wanted you to know I'm not sitting around waiting for you to call. I'll tell old Rhonda you said hello, okay?"

In spite of her deep distress and jealousy, Laura smiled wanly. She always got a kick out of the way Randi referred to 'old Rhonda.' The fucking witch! she thought. The fucking witch Rhonda is going to take my darling Randi to bed. Oh god.

Almost insanely jealous, she tried desperately to think of some way to get Randi to change her mind before she left her office. But she realized that the damage had probably already been done. The business with Rob had driven a wedge between them, and Laura's affairs with Deshona and Mavis, though she had done her best to keep them a secret, had been obvious enough to Randi.

A deep pain of loss began to seep through Laura as she watched Randi walk away from her, this beautiful girl she loved. But I love the other ones too! she realized. How could I love only her?

Now her day was all but destroyed. She closed her office door and sat, stunned and hurt, behind her desk, staring out into space. Little memories of Randi and Tamara flitted through her brain, visions of their naked bodies, of their faces, seized up and stricken by fierce, beautiful orgasms she, Laura, had caused. In the middle of these painful reveries, her phone rang.

She picked it up. "Laura Robbins."

"Laura, it's Deshona."

As soon as she heard her voice, Laura felt a terrible chagrin. She had been so eager to steal Randi back from Rhonda, before Rhonda could get her hooks into the girl, that she had forgotten she had a dinner date set already with Deshona. Sitting alone at her desk, she blushed hotly and had to take a deep breath just to regain her composure.

"Hi," she finally said, breathily, trying to sound sexy, somehow feeling this would divert any possible suspicion that she had forgotten.

"You sound... funny. Are you all right? Is there somebody there? Can you talk?"

"I'm fine. I was just thinking of you. Where are we going to meet. Rubicon? Remember when we had dinner there a couple of weeks ago? I could call for reservations."

"I... have something to tell you."

Now it was not Laura who sounded odd. Deshona was distant, remote, tentative. Nobody sounded like that unless it was bad news.

"What?"

"I'm going to have to cancel. I hope... you can understand."

"Understand what? Are you sick? You'll never believe this," Laura whispered, lowering her voice to a whisper, trying hard to divert Deshona from whatever this bad news was going to be. "I was just dreaming of your-"

"Laura... don't," Deshona cut her off. "I'm sorry. I'd rather not tell you, but I have to be honest."

Oh god, Laura thought.

"I'm having dinner with... my ex-husband."

Briefly, Laura actually felt faint as blood drained from her face and her brain. She felt paralyzed by shock.

"What happened to the blonde?" she heard herself saying.

"They... split up. I don't know why."

"Why are you telling me this? I love you. Why are you telling me this? Why didn't you just say you're sick or something?"

"Look, Laura, let's not play around with each other. I love you, too. You know that."

"I don't know that."

"A few weeks ago, you couldn't see me. You wouldn't tell me why. The flu or something. I think there was another reason. I didn't ask. We... don't have to tell each other everything."

"Then why did you tell me this?"

"I felt like I had to be honest with you."

Laura didn't realize she was crying until she saw tears drip onto the phone receiver. She hoped Deshona didn't know it. "Thanks," she croaked into it, her voice weak, devastated.

She hung up. The phone rang again. She didn't answer it. Her cell phone in her purse rang next. She ignored it too. Her pager vibrated. She took it off and turned it off.

It was only lunch time. Still half the day to get through. She couldn't eat. There was a hollow, grinding emptiness in the pit of her stomach, but she knew she would vomit if she put anything into it. Outside it was raining, so she didn't feel like taking a walk.

Instead, she worked through lunch, trying to evade her feelings by focusing on projects. There continued to be a gnawing pain in her gut, a physical pain to reflect all the blows she had taken this day, and by five o'clock she felt like a zombie, stunned, saddened, and aching as she walked, almost dazed and stricken, out of the building to go home.

She didn't even notice April until she actually brushed against her as they were both going through the swinging doors onto the sidewalk.

"Hey, watch who you brushing against, lady," April said to her, feigning irritation, her dark eyes sparkling, revealing the deep, sad memories of their past relationship.

Laura smiled, shocked back to awareness of where she was. "April!"

She had not seen April for months, except for one fleeting, awkward moment at Rhonda's party for Yvette, just as Laura had been leaving. Rhonda had ripped her away from Laura immediately after the Stevie-Archer-videotape episode, accusing Laura of sleeping with April too, vowing revenge, and, Laura knew, secretly coveting April herself. April now worked on another floor, and Laura almost never saw her.

Seeing her now was a delight. Very pretty in a bright yellow sweater that contrasted beautifully with her smooth black skin, she looked fresh and innocent and sweet, the way she had first looked to Laura, a simple, unpretentious girl, not a flirt, but quiet and sensible. At the same time, she was blunt and intolerant of nonsense, and she had given Laura the brush-off more than once.

It was still raining a little, and Laura offered a place under her umbrella to April, since April didn't appear to have one. "Long time no see," she said, remembering uncomfortably that she had said that at Rhonda's party too, before trying to coax April over to her apartment.

Oh god, she just thinks I want to fuck her, Laura thought.

April smiled, faintly exasperated, remembering it too. "Right."

"Where are you headed?"

"BART station."

Laura pondered it. This was the best she had felt all day, seeing April, but she had misgivings about being the kind of person who would try to seduce April again just to get over the dejection she felt. It wasn't fair to April, and Laura had a suspicion that she had not been very fair to April all along.

"I could give you a ride home," she said. "I don't have anything to do. We could talk."

April grinned with only one side of her mouth. "Talk about what?"

"Whatever you want. I need company."

"What's the matter? Life been shitting on poor Laura?"

Laura shot her a hard glance. April held a grudge, apparently. Laura made a wry, slightly hurt face, playing on April's sympathy.

"What if I promise not to... you know, make advances?" she said.

They had almost reached the end of the block, where Laura would have to veer off to go to her car, and April would continue ahead. They stopped. April looked at Laura, her eyes wary but engaged, reflecting the emotional (and physical) bond they had once shared.

"Okay," she said simply.

But by the time they were halfway across the Bay Bridge, they still hadn't spoken of anything but trivial, work-related matters.

"How do you like working for Rhonda?" Laura asked, trying to stick to the straight and narrow but also wanting to know if April were sleeping with the witch.

"Ms. Reardon? She's okay. I don't work for her, really. She got me a job working for Dale Kearney, who reports to her. I work for Dale."

"Did she ever ask you... about us?" Laura asked, very tentative.

April shook her head, all innocence, as if to ask, by her gesture: Us? What could you possibly mean by that?

"How you getting along with that good-looking woman you was always locked up in your office with?" April asked, referring to Deshona Reed.

At the time that Rhonda had forcibly removed April from Laura's sphere of influence, Laura and Deshona had not yet become lovers, but April had always been keenly interested nevertheless. She had told Laura once that Deshona was looking at her with interest, and Laura had been unable to disguise her own excitement at the information.

Now, however, Laura was unable to hide the pain that suddenly flooded her eyes. "She... we-"

"Ain't making it, eh?" April said, knowingly, helping her out.

Laura shook her head. When they got to April's apartment, to which Laura knew the way easily, she was too depressed, reluctant to give April any more reason to resent her, to push further. She idled the car in front of the apartment house.

"Well, here we are," she said, with false brightness. "It was sure great to see you."

"Don't you want to come in?" April asked. "I got left over spaghetti I made last night. Not great, but free." She smiled for the first time.

Laura smiled gratefully back. "What about your boyfriend?"

April frowned, then shrugged. Now Laura could see the hidden pain in her eyes.

"Oh, he don't come around any more. He saw Ms. Reardon kissing me one night. Right here, we were sitting right here, like us, in her car. He said that was it. Haven't seen him again."

April looked very glum over this. Laura was half in shock. Ms. Reardon? Kissing you? In public?

Oh god, Rhonda did get her! she realized, trying hard not to let April see her distress. Rhonda fucked this lovely girl just to get back at me for Stevie. She knew I'd find out eventually!

She swallowed dryly, looking straight ahead through the windshield, not daring to look at April. "Excuse me... I didn't know you and... Ms. Reardon... were having an affair."

April, how can you fuck with somebody and still call her Ms. Reardon? she wanted to ask. That witch! I'd like to kill her! Then Laura realized that Rhonda was taking Randi to dinner this very night, and would end up...

Oh god, I can't think about it, she thought. It's too painful. She looked deeply into April's eyes. Tell me you hated it, she wanted to beg. Tell me you only gave in to get back at me.

Instead, April giggled, softly, nervously. "It ain't exactly that," she murmured. "Not an affair. Only once in a while. Look... it makes me nervous talking about it out here like this. Are you coming inside or not?"

Laura nodded. "You want me to?"