Chapter 270

Laura ducked into the shadows. Fortunately, there was a shuttered liquor store next to Sara's apartment building, and the tattered awning threw a deep trapezoidal shadow out from the doorway. She was nearly invisible to passersby once she got under the awning.

Her heart was racing, and a fierce blush suffused her cheeks and neck. She had never expected it to happen this way. After weeks of self-inflicted misery, she had decided that she must speak with Sara, no matter what. She had to clear the air. She had to make a stab at it.

She had come to Sara's apartment directly from work, hoping to intercept Sara when she arrived home from work herself. She had never in her wildest fears expected what she saw. Sara did come home, and walking with her-they were laughing, joking, almost clinging to one another as they strolled down the sidewalk toward Laura-was a lovely Hispanic girl with flashing black eyes, sensual red lips, and long black hair.

Laura was momentarily transfixed, as if her feet were somehow embedded in the concrete of the sidewalk, her eyes riveted on them. The girl with Sara was vivacious and attractive, but most of all Laura was electrified, even pierced, by the sight of Sara's face, which she had not seen since before her trip, the disastrous trip, to Dallas. Sara's pillowy, sensual lips, her dark, laughing eyes, her sweet, malleable, face, so easily changing into one droll expression after another. Laura melted. She quivered.

Before either one of them could see her, she slipped into the shadows. But the shock and jealousy and grief and burning envy she felt were almost too much to bear. They were so at ease together, so relaxed, so happy. She could hear them murmuring almost intimately as Sara unlocked the door. She could hear their footsteps and their affectionate giggling as they ascended the stairs inside.

Laura's emotional pain was boundless. She stood in the shadows under the awning, quivering, quaking inside, almost physically ill. After a while her pain turned slowly to numbness, but she still did not dare to move. What if they were looking out the window? They would see her. She felt like a stalker, like a lurker. Why did I do this? Oh god... she and that girl...

She couldn't allow herself to think of it. She knew what they were going to do, what they had been doing. They were very relaxed together. This wasn't their first time. Laura could tell. Ordinarily, she would not be quite this jealous, but at this moment she felt anguish, deep, burning anguish at the thought of the lovely Hispanic girl in bed with Sara.

She didn't know how much time passed before she came to her senses. She knew she may have been standing there twenty minutes, or thirty, or forty. Few people passed by, and most paid her no attention. The sun was almost going down by now, dipping below the western rooftops. Once or twice she thought she could hear their musical laughter floating down to her from the second floor, where Sara's apartment was. Once she even thought she heard a moan-a loud, exultant, sexual moan-but she quickly told herself she was imagining it. However, it was enough to break through her paralysis of will.

In her purse she found a scarf and wound it clumsily around her head before plunging out of the shadows onto the sidewalk. She had parked two blocks away and walked hurriedly in the direction of her car. She was almost there when she saw Dee Dee walking toward her.

Dee Dee saw her too but was obviously puzzled by the scarf, which Laura quickly removed, no longer having a need for it. Nobody could have missed Dee Dee on the sidewalk, especially no one with Laura's proclivities. It was a warm September evening, after an even hotter day, and she was wearing a flowery summer dress, though not the kind Tamara often wore, Laura recalled, the white ones with rosy blossoms all over them. This one was almost slinky, a dark brown background with deep orange and umber flowers merging together in a gorgeous thicket of color. It was also long, coming down nearly to Dee Dee's ankles, with a slit in the side to show her leg. She wore leather sandals on her shapely black feet, the pink undersides glimmering a little at the edges. And on top there was nearly nothing, only two thin spaghetti straps.

All of Dee Dee's incredibly beautiful back was bare, and her shoulders, and most of her chest, down to the tops of her breasts. Her delicious black skin shone and gleamed in the twilight. She looked good enough to eat. She could not be wearing a bra, not with this unbelievable dress, and yet Laura could not detect, though she looked cleverly, the swelling bumps of Dee Dee's nipples through the fabric.

Dee Dee looked at her blankly. It was as if they were strangers and had not shared one another's hot flesh. "I wouldn't go up there, if I were you," she said, nodding forward in the direction of Sara's apartment, from which Laura had come.

"I..." Laura blushed, feeling her stomach knot up. "I... know."

"Her college friend Evangelina Torres is in town, staying with her. I think they're... you know, getting a little jiggy while she's here." She looked at Laura almost sympathetically. "She's trying to get over you, too."

This remark caused such a confused welter of feelings in Laura that she felt momentarily paralyzed again, unable to speak, choked by strong emotion. Just don't start crying, she told herself. "That's a funny way to do it," she mumbled.

"No it isn't." Dee Dee smiled strangely, as if Laura were daft. "It's probably the right way. Fucking her little brains out."

"Excuse me," Laura said brusquely. "I have to go."

All her anger against Dee Dee for telling Sara about them came flooding into her at that moment. She tried to brush past Dee Dee, but Dee Dee would not move. "Maybe you could use a little forgetting yourself."

Laura smiled wanly, trying to control her rage. "What are you doing here? Are you going to join them in their little... orgy?"

Dee Dee shook her head. Very little fazed her. "Came to borrow some money. As usual." She even looked a little guilty.

Trying desperately not to think of Sara and Evangelina, Laura was focusing on the beauty of Dee Dee's body: her perfect collarbones, her dainty, exquisite throat, her gleaming black shoulders, so well-shaped, her flawless skin, so perfect.

"I..." she heard herself saying in a throttled, gravelly voice, "I can... loan you some money, if you like. How much do you need?"

Dee Dee broke out in a smile, one of her rare smiles. "Wow, if you could, that would be so great. I don't want to go up there and knock on the door while they're in the middle of-"

"Please don't say it," Laura interrupted her. "Please. Don't rub it in."

"Sorry. I wasn't thinking."

"I... don't have more than about ten bucks with me. I've got more money at home."

Dee Dee brightened. "Let's go."

"You don't have a car or anything?"

Dee Dee shook her head. "A friend dropped me here. I was going to get Sara to take me home."

They walked together to Laura's car. "Where's 'home'?"

"I rent a room in a house out on Ulloa Street. Sara made me. Trying to get my life back together. She won't let me stay with her. Obviously, I would cramp her style. She's still a little pissed at me because of you, too."

They got in and Laura started up the car, gunning the engine. "Oh god, I don't even want to talk about that!" she exclaimed, gritting her teeth. "Please keep that out of the conversation. Please."

"Okay, okay. I'm sorry. Okay? Can I apologize?"

"No... I'm the one who's sorry," Laura said evenly, scrutinizing the traffic intently, driving extra carefully because she suspected her frazzled nerves and frightening pain would make her careless, or somehow prompt her to burst into tears without warning.

They did not speak for several minutes. From time to time Laura looked over, unable to keep her eyes off Dee Dee's marvelous bare skin and round, delectable shoulders. She has such a beautiful body, Laura remembered. Too bad she's so reckless and mendacious and self-involved. And thoughtlessly cruel.

Once Dee Dee caught her looking. Her eyes merely registered Laura's interest; then she looked away again, out the window.

"You know, I think I'm getting into this girl thing a little," she said to Laura. "I was over in Berkeley, showing a paper I've been doing to a professor over there." She made a face, pursing her lips. "You know, getting my life together again, like I told you? She's this gorgeous Czechoslovakian woman. I'd never met her before, actually. She took me home, up to this nice house in the Oakland hills, and fucked me all night long."

Laura gulped. Her fingers tightened on the wheel. She was totally puzzled by her response, which was an amalgam of hot jealousy, pride, and sexual arousal. She had introduced Dee Dee to this, and she couldn't help feeling a little happy that Dee Dee had plunged straight ahead into it. But to think of another woman, a rival, caressing, and 'fucking, ' this girl's beautiful body made her wildly jealous. It also made her physically hungry to do the same, to forget Sara and Evangelina, and the Czechoslovakian woman too, and her own pain and humiliation, by immersing herself in a night of unbridled and unrestrained sex with Dee Dee.

Dee Dee seemed to understand perfectly what Laura was feeling. She gave Laura a sly glance to gauge the effect of her words. "She wasn't as good as you, though," she murmured finally.

Laura realized, as she tried to redouble her attention to the road, that she was a little wet between her thighs. Her pulse was racing. Even her nipples were tingling.

"Thank... you," she managed to say, hoarsely, almost nervously. "You're very kind." She shot Dee Dee a diffident but purposeful smile.

Dee Dee gave her a pinched little smile in return, as if to satirize their careful formality. Then she looked out the window again, aloof, distant. They did not speak again until they were inside Laura's condo.

After flinging her coat and purse onto the nearest chair, Laura tried to take Dee Dee into her arms immediately. But Dee Dee acted, of all things, offended, and dodged away.

"Ah ah ah... watch it," she cautioned Laura. "I thought you were just going to loan me some money."

Since she was a fairly humorless person, she rarely smiled, and even her playfulness was a little hollow and menacing, so that Laura didn't know if she were teasing or not. She was still close enough, however, for Laura to extend one arm and run her fingertip along the phenomenally soft skin of her shoulder, round and sleek and black and gleaming. Dee Dee turned her face to watch the finger, expressionless and calm. Laura curled her fingertip under the spaghetti strap and flipped it playfully.

"You have the most beautiful body," she said, softly.

"You just want to fuck me," Dee Dee glowered at her. "You're just like everybody else. All they want to do is fuck me. Men. Women. They don't take me seriously. I wish I didn't have this body if... if that's all they want to do."

Caught by surprise at this outburst, Laura felt deep chagrin. "I..."

"You don't have to say anything," Dee Dee turned away, glumly.

Laura swallowed and composed herself. Dee Dee was now presenting her ravishing, half-naked back to Laura, and Laura had to fight not to touch it, to press her cheek to it, to run her lips all over the smooth black shoulderblades. She looked at it longingly and shrugged.

"We don't have to... if you don't want to," she said, resigned, being strong.

Dee Dee turned on her again and lashed out. "You just want to use me to forget Sara." Her eyes burned into Laura, and her mouth was an angry slash. She also looked hurt and lost, feelings Laura had seen before in her eyes and always responded to with anguish and concern. Moreover, what Dee Dee had said was true. "What's so fucking special about her?"

Laura tried to breathe calmly. Obviously, this was not going to go in the direction she had expected. "I... love Sara. That's all I can say. Sometimes... you just love someone. You don't have to know why."

"Why can't you love me instead? I'm good. I'll bet I'm better in bed than she is."

"It doesn't have to do only with sex," Laura said quietly.

She knew they were not going to fuck now, and it was making her sad. She wanted Dee Dee. They both needed it. And yet Dee Dee seemed determined to frame their relationship in such a way that even friendly sex would now be impossible.

"The fuck it doesn't!" Dee Dee snapped. "If it isn't about sex, then why isn't she here with you right now? I'll tell you why. Because she couldn't stand the thought of you screwing me! So she's home screwing Evangelina to get over it. Tell me that isn't about sex!"

It was an unanswerable argument when put that way. They had not even moved out of the entryway, and so Laura broke the mood by walking slowly into the living room.

"At least let me fix you something to eat. You look like you've been missing a few meals."

"I could use a drink," Dee Dee said, following her.

Laura looked back over her shoulder. "I thought you were 'getting your life back together'."

"I am. Can't you tell? I was downtown today, only a few blocks from where you work, doing a temp assignment. They liked me and want me back."

Are you sure they don't just want to fuck you? Laura was tempted to ask her but knew better than to throw such a comment into the volatile mixture of Dee Dee's quirks and resentments.

"Come on, Laura!" Dee Dee whined. "It's Friday night. For Christ's sake, let me have a drink."

"Just one?"

"At least one," Dee Dee said, cynically. "Being a good girl all week is hard."

I just wish I could throw a sweater or a smock or something over that beautiful body of yours so I wouldn't have to look at it and die to touch you, Laura thought. And I thought Charise had beautiful skin. I can hardly bear to look at your back, Dee Dee. And your neck... and your collarbones... and your delicious smooth chest. I want to touch you so badly. I'm sorry I want to fuck you so much, just like all the rest.

Dee Dee apparently did not pick up on these vibrations Laura was feeling at all. She waited behind the little countertop that framed Laura's small kitchen for Laura to finish making them both modest vodka tonics.

"Want lime?" Laura asked brightly. "I've got fresh."

Dee Dee shook her head, reaching for the glass before Laura even offered it to her. Laura did cut a slice of fresh lime for herself and plopped it into her drink among the ice cubes.

"Now now," Laura said, brushing Dee Dee's hand away gently. "Don't go gulping it down. A toast first. Okay?"

Dee Dee smirked, backing off reluctantly. "To what?"

Now Laura handed her the glass. "How about 'To your success in getting your life back together'?"

Dee Dee grinned at her, one of her rare grins. "I guess I can drink to that."

They clinked glasses. Laura sipped her drink, and Dee Dee drank down half of hers in one gulp. She saw Laura looking.

"I haven't had one for three days," she said in explanation.

Laura still was unable to keep her eyes off Dee Dee's bare neck and shoulders, and her delicious half-naked back whenever she turned slightly.

"I meant what I said in the car," Dee Dee said in a soft, distant voice.

"About what?"

Dee Dee's dark, intense eyes caught Laura's and held them. "About her not being as good as you. The woman in Berkeley."

Laura blushed, not a hot, fiery blush, but a warm, blooming one that embarrassed her equally. She looked away, trying to make the blood fade from her face and neck. "I... I thought you didn't want me to touch you," she murmured. "I don't want to be just like all the rest."

Dee Dee drained the rest of her glass, holding the ice cubes back with one finger. She set the empty glass on the counter. She was suddenly very seductive. Of course she could be wildly seductive, Laura reflected. I'd forgotten. She gets her way. She doesn't like it that everyone wants to fuck her, but she sure likes having power over them, making them gawk and beg. Including me.

With one finger, Dee Dee brushed off the spaghetti strap from one shoulder so that it fell and dangled around her elbow. She looked up speculatively at Laura. Then with the finger of her other hand, she did the same thing with the other spaghetti strap. Now there was really nothing holding up her dress. If she moved, it would probably fall away.

She looked up again at Laura. "Want to touch me? I can see the way you've been looking."

Laura slowly shook her head, as if in disbelief at the way things were unfolding. "You are so beautiful... you have such beautiful skin," she murmured. "No wonder everybody wants you."

"You don't want me. You want Sara."

Laura too set down her drink, though it was still two-thirds full, and walked slowly around the counter. She put her hand on the smooth, warm flesh between Dee Dee's shoulder and her neck, feeling the velvet resiliency of the girl's incredible skin.

"Sara doesn't want me," Laura whispered. "I want you."

"You just want to fuck me."

"I can't deny it."

"Good. Give me another drink, and you can fuck me," Dee Dee said, but not nastily, instead in a soft, smoky, sexual voice.

"Dee Dee! That's like prostituting yourself for... merely for liquor."

Laura tried to kiss her. It was an odd feeling, since she and Dee Dee were very wary of each other and had rarely kissed, even though they had nearly burned up Laura's bed with fucking twice. Kissing wasn't something either felt inclined to do, perhaps because affection really was not there, or because they were always distracting one another with different motives and intentions. Laura didn't like Dee Dee the way she often liked her other girlfriends, and usually didn't want to kiss her, if the truth were known (not the way she had longed to kiss Sara's sensual, pillowy lips, before they had even exchanged names).

But right now she wanted to kiss her. Things had changed. Seeing Sara and Evangelina together had upset Laura more than she wanted to admit. And even though you couldn't tell from one minute to the next how Dee Dee would react to anything, Laura was touched by her insecurities and her vulnerability. She wanted to kiss her. She wanted to fuck her too, but more than that. For the first time, she wanted to kiss her.

But Dee Dee was having none of it. She pulled away. One side her dress now fell down, exposing her small, beautifully upswept breast. Laura's eyes fell to it. Dee Dee did not try to pull the dress back up.

"Let me kiss you," Laura whispered, feeling thick in the throat.

Dee Dee shook her head. "You'll just wish you were kissing Sara."

"Are you trying to make me angry?" Laura suddenly exclaimed, growing exasperated.

She reached out with one hand, cupping Dee Dee's marvelous naked breast in it. Dee Dee looked down at Laura's hand. She shook her head, but her eyes were now pulsing.

"Not until you give me another drink," she breathed.

Laura let a small smile curve her lips. "You won't be able to come if you get too drunk. Remember?"

"I can come a million times," Dee Dee breathed again. She leaned a little closer to Laura, so that her naked breast pushed into and filled Laura's palm. "If the right person is doing it."

Laura could feel Dee Dee's warm breath on her cheek. Now that she was so close, Laura could inhale the odor of her body, which was healthy and sexual and sweeter than perfume. If only this girl weren't Sara's sister...

If only she weren't so tortured, so humorless...

If only she weren't so hungry for some one to love her when it can't be me...

"Am I the right person?" Laura whispered.

Dee Dee didn't have time to reply. Their open mouths met in a fiery collision. They had kissed once this way before, the very first time, when they had been standing beside Laura's bed and had fallen in a fuck-frenzy onto it, terminating the kiss quickly in order to get on with ripping off each other's clothes. But this time Laura, at least, meant for it to last.

Even though their teeth were colliding and bumping and clattering together, almost enough to cause pain, as they tried to swallow each other, Laura raised both hands to Dee Dee's face, releasing her exquisite breast momentarily, and held her silky black cheeks between her palms while she purposely slowed the pace, slowing her tongue, sucking Dee Dee's lips sensually, cooing softly to her, finally melding their open mouths in a long, searching, expressive kiss that seemed never to stop. Dee Dee yielded, astonishing Laura almost more than anything. She became pliant and soft, letting Laura kiss her, not trying to break it off, finally wriggling so that the other half of her dress fell too, while still kissing Laura back.

Then, not breaking the kiss, she drew Laura's hands back down to her naked breasts. Laura felt her blood leap inside her body as she squeezed them gently. From this moment their kiss grew more heated, wetter, hungrier. But again Laura backed off, slowing it down, again curving her lips into Dee Dee's, sliding the tip of her tongue along the wet crease between her lower gum and her lip. At the same time, her thumbs and forefingers found Dee Dee's soft nipples, twisting and pinching them gently until the centers thickened and the areolas tightened.

Finally, they could keep the kiss going no longer. They slowly moved apart. Laura did not release Dee Dee's breasts. Dee Dee smiled shyly.

"Nobody ever kissed me like that since I was seventeen," she said softly, wonderingly. "Always too eager to get to my pussy."

Laura smiled back and squeezed the marvelous young breasts in her hands meaningfully. "What makes you think I'm not eager?"

Dee Dee shrugged, still smiling, such an odd thing, since she rarely smiled. "At least you're nice about it," she said. "Although I still want that drink."

"You can have it later."

"Promise?"

Laura nodded.

"After you fuck me?"

"No," Laura shook her head, smiling. "After you fuck me. You said that was what I needed."

Dee Dee shook her head slowly. "I said that's what Sara needed."

Laura leaned forward, kissing Dee Dee's smooth, warm black neck, then biting it playfully, then running her mouth up to Dee Dee's earlobe and biting it too.

"Ouch!"

"If you don't stop mentioning her, I'm going to bite you all over."

"Mmmm," Dee Dee giggled nervously, the first time Laura had ever heard an uncontrolled giggle out of her. "God, that almost sounds exciting."

Laura pulled her down the hall, watching Dee Dee's marvelous breasts jiggle and sway as the two of them half-ran for the bedroom. Dee Dee, of course, was wearing next to nothing, only the skimpy dress and panties, and she had both off in a second. Laura noticed as the dress fell to the floor that it had two white satin patches where it went over your breasts. That's the reason I couldn't see those scrumptious nipples, she realized.

Laura, however, was still dressed for work, and she began unsnapping and unfastening as fast as she could.

"Here, let me help with that," Dee Dee murmured, after kicking off her sandals, now completely naked.

She took over unbuttoning Laura's blouse. It was a surprisingly intimate gesture and caught Laura off guard. She and Dee Dee had in the past never treated one another so tenderly. They had fucked heatedly, yes. Certainly more roughly, more perversely, with more scorching recklessness, than Laura had ever dared with Sara. But they had always sparred with each other, never daring to get too close emotionally.

Now, with Laura grieving over the loss of Sara, and Dee Dee somehow trying to pull her own life together, feeling preyed upon and desired only for her physical beauty, they seemed to have reached a point where their emotional needs were congruent, and their suspicions of one another at least dormant. Dee Dee was so close, unbuttoning each button carefully, that Laura could lean forward and kiss her forehead.

She looked up into Laura's eyes, pausing momentarily, then resumed. When she had Laura's silk blouse half undone, she bent her head and kissed the shallow cleavage between Laura's breasts. Then she raised her face to Laura's again.

"Always wanted to do that," she whispered. "I kind of like it being just you and me. I really liked your friend, and god she really fucked my little black ass like there was no tomorrow with that thing." She twirled a long strand of Laura's shiny chestnut hair around one slender black finger. "But I like it now just being you and me."

"Me too."

Carefully, and very slowly, Dee Dee unbuttoned the rest of the blouse. "You must make a lot of money. This thing is expensive. I've seen them in the stores."

"It's like a very expensive uniform," Laura said, as she helped Dee Dee fold the blouse and place in on a chair. "I like yours better. Your dress. Showing off all that delicious black skin. How do you walk down the street without getting raped?"

Dee Dee shrugged. "They all want to." Now she was unfastening Laura's skirt, kneeling slightly. "You like my skin?"

Oh god, Laura thought, I just spent hours telling Charise how much I loved her black skin. I can't be doing this again. Can I? But I do.

Dee Dee was absolutely as black as Charise, her darling Inky, and there was no way Laura could disguise from herself the feverish physical desire she felt while caressing the girl's phenomenally smooth skin.

"I love it," she purred warmly, stroking Dee Dee's wonderful shoulders as her own skirt fell to the floor and Dee Dee began inching Laura's panties down her thighs. "I want to lick it and suck it."

She felt Dee Dee's warm lips on the smooth skin of her flat belly. "Does it make your little pink clit just throb and tingle?"

"God, yes!"

Now Dee Dee had Laura's panties down around her ankles. Laura was so wet that she wondered if warm cunt juices were trickling down her inner thighs. Surely Dee Dee could at least smell the thick, heady fuck-odors emanating from her oozing pussy.

"Step," Dee Dee prompted.

Laura lifted her feet one at a time and Dee Dee slipped the panties completely off. Then she stood up again, face to face with Laura, who was trembling inside with sexual fever and excitement.

She gave Laura a sly half-smile. "I'll let you lick it and suck it... but you have to do one thing for me."

Laura grinned and shook her head. "Sorry, no drinkee. I told you... afterward. No smokee either." Laura half-despised herself for trying to be so cute. "Let's do it completely clean."

Dee Dee ignored her. Her eyes were smoking now too, and Laura wondered if she were trembling inside with sexual excitement too. Sometimes she seemed so blasé, so annoyed. 'Everyone just wants to fuck me.' Could she too get this excited any more?

"I know you have your little drawer," Dee Dee murmured, looking across the room to it. She had discovered the Double Penetrator there on her first visit, while Laura was in the bathroom. "Do you have a blindfold in there?"

Laura felt the blood rush to her face again, her cheeks radiating hotly. "A blindfold? God, I don't think I've ever thought of that."

But now that Dee Dee had thought of it, Laura found the idea incredibly exciting. Dee Dee smiled mysteriously.

"Find something else. A scarf. A dish towel. I want you to blindfold me and then... you know, lick me all over. I always had a fantasy about being blindfolded and fucked."

Laura felt a little leap of the racing pulse in her neck at these words. "I... have a white scarf in my top drawer that I never wear for fear of getting it dirty," she remembered out loud.

They moved together to the dresser. Laura removed the scarf, a beautiful silk scarf, pure white. Dee Dee took it, and against her tapered, very black fingers, it looked even whiter. As Laura closed the top drawer, Dee Dee pulled open the second one. While Laura watched, she picked through the objects, finding the handcuffs, and also the fur-lined ones that Randi had given Laura. She held them both up, dangling them from one long forefinger.

"These too."

Feeling bold, Laura picked up the ridged strap-on dildo. "How about this?"

Dee Dee smirked at her, the I-know-what-you-want-to-do smirk. Without replying, she walked back to the bed and stretched out on her back with her arms spread. Looking suggestively at Laura, she carefully snapped the ring of the first pair of handcuffs to one of her wrists, then snapped one of the fur-lined cuffs to her other wrist. Her lovely, small, black, naked breasts jiggled while she did this, making Laura's blood pound harder.

"Blindfold me and handcuff me to the bed," she said, her eyes now throbbing with sexual invitations.

Laura went to the bed and took the scarf from Dee Dee's outstretched hand. She folded it carefully, then wrapped it around Dee Dee's eyes, knotting it in the back. Her hands shook a little, but she took several deep breaths and finally got it securely into place.