Chapter 291

Thirty-six hours with Arthell left Laura limp, tingling with afterglow, and very tired. She dropped the girl at her home in San Lorenzo late Saturday afternoon and spent the rest of the weekend sleeping and dreaming about Makeeda's return. She was awakened by a phone call from Makeeda around 6 p.m. Sunday.

"Laura, I'm back." Makeeda sounded a little tired, crisp, and abrupt, not the way Laura had expected her to sound.

"God, I'm go glad," she said drowsily into the receiver, still a little groggy from sleep, but letting her true concern and longing for Makeeda into her soft voice.

"Yes," Makeeda said, as if distracted. "Look, Laura, we have to talk."

"I got your message. Your song."

There was a painful silence. Makeeda did not respond. There was something wrong. Laura began to feel alarm verging on panic in her chest.

"Yes," Makeeda said, almost inaudibly. "We have to talk, Laura."

Laura hated this. 'We have to talk' was something people said when there was bad news. Otherwise, she would be saying 'when can we get together'.

"I can come to your place," Laura suggested.

"No... no," Makeeda said abruptly. "I have to work tonight. I've been away three days. They can only put up with so much."

"Maybe when you get off work," Laura offered.

"Midnight? Won't you be asleep? Work tomorrow, right?"

"I've been sleeping all afternoon. I can make it."

"Fine." Makeeda did not seem at all like the warm person Laura knew her to be. She was short and brusque. "Meet me at the restaurant. Actually, you can come a little early. Things are usually winding up by eleven."

"I-"

"Don't say it, Laura. I... I'm sorry, I don't mean to be short," Makeeda apologized. "But... don't say it, okay?"

"Okay."

Laura was very alarmed by this conversation. Makeeda was so different. Her brusque manner had cut Laura right to the quick. What could have happened? she wondered. But her worries became moot suddenly when Rhonda called about an hour later to tell her she had to fly to Dallas to troubleshoot an emergency there. Her company had often sent Laura there to troubleshoot problems, and she was needed again. Her plane ticket had already been reserved and the flight would leave at 11 p.m. She would be there up to a week.

By this time it was only possible to reach Makeeda at work, and she was so busy there that Laura had to leave a message. Can't make it. Flying to Dallas. I love you. Those last three were the words Makeeda did not want her to say. And of course, she did not say them, having left her message with a busboy or parking valet or bartender, she didn't know which. She could not say that part but only feel it, now however with a sorrowful and painful foreboding.

Five minutes later she did leave a more personal message on Makeeda's answering machine. "I don't know what's wrong," she said softly. "Something must be wrong. You seem so distant. I... won't say it. The words you don't want to hear. But I feel it. I feel about you the way I felt the other night... when we were together. I am dying to see you again. Not for the other... you know, the bed stuff... just to see you. To look into those fantastic eyes. To hear your voice. I... I..." She began to break down a little and had to cover the phone and take a couple of deep breaths to go on. "Okay, not to be maudlin," she sniffed. "I am being sent to Dallas to solve a problem. I will be gone probably a week. I will try to call you when I think you'll be awake. I suppose we should talk about this in person, though. Well, guess I better stop rambling on. Bye."

She cried a little after hanging up but hated herself for it. It hurt not to tell Makeeda she loved her. It hurt not to let it pour out, gush out. It was like having a bad head cold you could not clear in any way. You have to be strong, kiddo, she told herself. Strong. She's strong. You can hear it in her voice. You have to be strong, too.

It was hard to be strong, but going to Dallas at least gave her an opportunity to throw herself full throttle into her work and try to forget about her anxieties. In the back of her mind she also knew that she could call Ada and would see Shaniqua Branch, the gorgeous young girl she had tried unsuccessfully to get a job for in San Francisco. It had been months since she had seen either of them, and at least she could look forward to soothing herself in their arms. Or could she?

She found out the first day that Shaniqua had gone for the week to North Carolina, where she was going to be maid of honor in a wedding. And Ada did not return her calls. Ada's assistant was curt and uninformative, but then Laura knew that of course she would not know who Laura was or why Ada might want to speak with her. Things were not working out well. Meanwhile, her pain over Makeeda's attitude had a way of seeping into her whole being hour after hour until by the end of each day she was almost desolate with dread.

Finally, Ada called her about seven p.m., while Laura was still working, trying to drive Makeeda's voice out of her brain. She instantly realized, when she heard Ada's voice, that Ada had not expected her to be there and had planned to leave a message.

"Oh. Laura. You're there." A small, nervous titter. "I thought I'd just leave a message on my way out."

"You begged me to call you the next time I got back to Dallas," Laura said, softly but pointedly.

"Um. That's right, I did."

"You don't sound very happy about it, though."

"Don't be silly. Look, things are a little more complicated now. That's all. I'm just leaving. Want to grab a bite with me?"

Or a bite of you? Laura thought, smiling. I sure would. "Yes. Same place we met last time? That steak house?"

"Oh, let's try something else. Dallas has more than steak, you know."

They met at an intimate Italian restaurant Ada knew and were soon going through the usual discomfort, where Ada was concerned, of renewing their previously very intimate friendship. Ada was shy, inhibited, embarrassed by sex and especially by her own strong sexual feelings for Laura. She had grown up in a strictly religious environment, and apart from Laura had been to bed with only two others, both men who had mistreated or neglected her. She was not easily unlocked.

Even so, she seemed even more guarded than usual. She was quite lovely as always in a sharply tailored black business suit that concealed but could not entirely obscure her statuesque body. Her hair, no longer swirled up behind her head in the style that made Laura yearn to pull the pins and let it fall, was shorter, and tighter around her ears. She wore deep red lipstick that made her wide, sensual mouth a picture of promise for Laura, an incredibly desirable cynosure of all her attention, so that she could barely let herself look at it without feeling prickly excitement in her pussy.

At least this is getting me to think less about Makeeda, she thought. On the other hand, for all Laura's slavish attention and rapt fascination with Ada's stories of work and travel, she did not sense that they were any closer to a physical reunion. Ada seemed to be very adept at keeping the subject at arm's length. Laura, resting her chin on her interlaced fingers, gazed enraptured into Ada's shiny black eyes, nodding occasionally.

"Tell me about the woman who wanted to fuck you," she finally said softly. "Remember? The one you told me about? Whatever happened between you?"

Ada, who did not drink wine and was taking a sip of ice water as Laura spoke, nearly choked. Water spluttered out of her mouth and she placed the glass back on the table, half-laughing and half-coughing, holding her fingers fanned out against her mouth, her eyes watering too. Laura smiled, not very surprised by Ada's reaction, only sorry she hadn't noticed first Ada lifting the glass to her mouth. She picked up a napkin and began mopping up the water Ada had spilled as well as expectorated.

"Sorry," she said, meekly.

Ada finally regained her composure, wiping her chin with her own napkin. "Do you realize the last time I heard that word it was also coming out of your mouth?" she grinned. "Laura the truck driver. You are so nasty. I could go my whole life without hearing that word again, if it weren't for you."

"Quit changing the subject," Laura smiled. "Anyway, you know you love it when I talk dirty. It makes you let go. It makes you shed all those fears of yours. It makes you hot."

Ada grew serious and raised a stern eyebrow at Laura. "You presume too much, Laura. I may not be the woman you think I am. Any more."

Now Laura raised her own eyebrow, but a little skeptically. "Really."

Ada, though she was a strong, determined woman who had risen in her profession and had been Laura's boss when she had still worked for Laura's company, who had immense dignity and self-possession, nevertheless flinched under Laura's direct gaze and looked away. Laura reached across the table and put her hand on one of Ada's.

"I'm not that much of a bitch," she whispered. "You can tell me when you get around to it."

Ada turned her face back smiling, but her voice began keening upward as she spoke, resonating with hints of its truly grotesque timbre when she became excited or aroused. She had a grating, nasal twang that Laura, perhaps irrationally, associated with Texas, and it could make the fur stand up on the back of your neck.

"I don't think you're a bitch, Laura. I'll tell you now. We hit it off." Ada suddenly softened. Her eyes became much less hard and glittery, and her voice stopped keening upward. "We hit it off great. So great, in fact, that she moved in with me about a month ago." Ada paused for effect. Laura smiled, bemused. "I'm sorry you can't meet her, though, because she's in Albuquerque at a high school reunion." She leaned across the table, speaking conspiratorially to Laura, even speaking behind her hand. "Can you believe it? Would you ever go to one of those things?"

Laura shook her head. "Not me," she whispered back. "Too painful. What's her name?"

Ada straightened up and grew serious again. "I don't think you need to know that."

Laura shrugged. "You're right. Is she good in bed?"

"Laura!"

Laura smirked. "Only asking. You don't have to get angry."

Ada fought back a smile. "As usual, your manners are in the gutter with the rest of your mind."

Laura toyed with the remainder of her meal. "If she isn't in town, maybe we could play around a little. She doesn't have to know."

Ada was too dark to blush, but she did anyway. She looked away again, then back at Laura. "You want me to cheat on her, right?"

"Are you two married?"

Ada shook her head as if she were talking to a small child who understood nothing. "Laura, you were the one who persuaded me to... you know, make myself a little more available to her. Remember? A long time ago, when I told you she seemed like she was interested in me? Now you want me to betray her when she's out of town?"

Laura might gently scoff at Ada's scruples, but she knew exactly how Ada felt. She had always tried her best not to think of Sara when enjoying other women, and was somehow comforted in a way, one side of the coin, to think of Sara and her nurse when she was snuffling and groaning with passion in the arms of another. The other side of the coin was her constant wish that the nurse would be accidentally crushed by a city bus. But this, she knew, was not really Laura, only a brief lapse. Life was so complicated. She wanted to love Sara, or even Makeeda now, or both of them, and still enjoy the rest.

Probably Ada did too. She could see the wavering in Ada's dark, beautiful eyes, in the loss of resolution visible in her large, sensual mouth. Laura had literally raped that mouth. She could not help contemplating doing it again, which she was doing right now, and Ada knew it.

"You can stop looking at me that way," she said to Laura quietly, her eyes however flickering with amusement.

"What way?"

"You know what way. You are so much trouble. I knew it the moment you called. You are a pistol, Laura. So dangerous. So... so-"

"Hot?" Laura interrupted her, with a smile. "I was hoping you were going to say hot."

Ada grinned and blushed again. "You are kind of hot," she said, shyly, looking down. "You sure were the first one to get me hot."

"Remember when we used to play tennis?"

Ada blushed seriously this time. "Don't remind me," she grinned, hiding her face like a virgin.

"Remember when we-"

"Laura... stop!" Ada put up her hand. She was laughing but clearly wanted Laura to stop. They both took deep breaths, smirking a little at each other. "Why don't you tell me about your love life, instead? I'm sure it's much more exciting than mine."

"What's that crack supposed to mean?" Laura grinned at her, shaking her mane of hair, trying to seem overwhelmingly attractive to Ada now that she had awakened memories of their scorching sexual moments in the past.

Ada shook her head, unable to answer. "Nothing," she confessed. "I'm just trying to get you off the subject."

"Do you really want to get off it? Really?"

Ada gulped and looked down. Sexual desire, sheer naked lust and physical craving, had always been a hard thing for her to confess, because of her upbringing.

"How long has she been gone?"

"Oh... she just left this morning. For three days."

Laura perked up. Three days. Even the Formidable Fortress Ada could fall in three days. "Okay," she said to Ada, glumly. "I guess I can take a little rejection. I'll just go back to my hotel room and... mope."

Ada burst into a grin. "You are the most manipulative person I have ever known. Don't think I haven't thought about all those little things you did to wiggle your way into my life."

"You mean into your... you know," Laura grinned back, pointing with her finger downward toward Ada's crotch, though it was concealed under the table they were sitting at.

"Yes, that's exactly what I mean."

"I'm trying again."

"I know you are."

"Question is..." Laura lowered her eyelashes suggestively, "am I succeeding."

Ada squirmed in her seat. "Somehow I think you might be," she said, vaguely.

Laura was suddenly hit by a sharp rush of fierce lust herself. She had been percolating during dinner, but well in control. She knew Ada. She knew Ada had strong scruples, and also strong affection for Laura. She knew Ada was involved with someone else, and Laura had no idea how dinner would turn out. But she had hoped. Now that she saw Ada squirming like this, the lust gusher simply opened up and flooded her body.

She reached across the table and covered one of Ada's beautiful smooth dark hands with her own. "You want to come to my hotel room? Maybe you'll be more comfortable not being where you are with her."

Ada's dark eyes suddenly had the lost, stricken expression in them that sometimes had appeared in the old days, when Laura would catch her unexpectedly looking out the window of her office, as if life had no meaning. Maybe this expression was a stand-in, Laura reflected, for all those time she actually did feel at a loss, not knowing what to do next.

"No," Ada said quietly. "We can go to my place. More private there."

Laura nodded. They barely spoke from that time forward until Ada let them into her highrise apartment. Laura had been there before, when she and Ada had again fucked riotously in the shower, which had been their preferred first time, ever since their very first time. Somehow the shower always brought out their wildest frenzies of lust, especially since Ada swore to this day that their first time had surprised her. She had only been intending a little friendly after-tennis back scrubbing, she said. Laura, though gratified and pleasantly surprised herself, tended to believe her.

Ada still had the keys and her open purse in her hand, having just fastened the dead bolt lock, when Laura grabbed her and kissed her, hungrily ravishing that large, sensual mouth, which she had been wild to do all evening. Ada seemed surprised, but in almost seconds the keys and the handbag clattered to the floor at their feet. She clutched Laura hard and kissed back feverishly, sliding her thick tongue into Laura's mouth.

"Oh god, Laura, it's so good to feel you against me!" she gasped into Laura's cheek. "I didn't know I would feel this way. It's been a while for us."

"I know," Laura panted softly back. "You feel so smooth... and smell so good. Let me kiss you here... and here..."

She kissed Ada's smooth black neck, then her ear, nipping her earlobe. Ada shivered. "Ooooohhhh, you know how to make the chills come," she quivered, pulling back slightly to look in Laura's eyes. "No matter how much I love Louise, nobody could make me throb and gush like you can."

"Louise?" Laura smiled. "That's her name? She's a very lucky woman."

"She wouldn't think so if she could see me now," Ada said, embarrassed.

Laura tried to hurry her over this patch. "Want to take a shower?" she said, insinuatingly. "We always have a lot of fun in the shower?"

"Don't I know it," Ada admitted.

"Come on. Let me wash you off and... you know what else."

Ada broke into a broad grin. "Every time we do that I nearly drown," she protested. "I nearly fall and break my leg... or strain my back. Why don't we just start off like normal in the bed this time, and then later take a shower together. I... suddenly have this great craving to feel you against me. All over me."

"Mmmmm," Laura smiled, kissing her cheek, "I have the same craving."

Ada got a couple bottles of water out of the refrigerator and took them, with Laura following, to the bedroom. On the way they passed a second bedroom, which, Laura reasoned, must be Louise's now, since it had a sweet, alluring odor coming out of it that had not been present the last time she had visited. She wanted to picture them both in bed together, just for the titillation of it, but had no idea what Louise looked like, if she were white or black, a large women like Ada herself or small and petite, or perhaps even shaped like Laura.

"I'm so curious about Louise," she murmured to Ada, knowing it was risky. Ada was very private and locked down. "How did you meet her?"

"She works for a client of ours," Ada said as she placed one water bottle on each bedstand. "We were both the main liaisons for our companies. We got to know each other, like each other. Things just happened." She turned to Laura and winked across the bed at her. "Especially after you told me I ought to loosen up a little bit and let her light shine upon me, so to speak."

"And her light shone upon you, and you went up in flames," Laura teased her gently.

"Something like that," Ada blushed.

"Is she white or black?"

"You're awfully personal with your questions, you know," Ada said, glowering playfully at her.

"Sorry. I'm a fool for knowledge. I love knowing. I love thinking of you two together."

"She's actually Mexican, I think. Her real name is Luisa. She changed it to Louise, I guess to seem more mainstream. There's a lot of Mexicans down here, and still some prejudice, as I guess you know. Against both of us, really."

Laura nodded. Now she could see Luisa, in her mind, a flashing dark-eyed Mexican beauty with a flaming red mouth and voluptuous brown body, all coiled and intertwined with Ada's also voluptuous and magnificently statuesque black body, both of them gasping and sucking and panting and groaning. It was the kind of mental picture that quickly sent her over the edge.

She walked around the bed to the other side, where Ada was standing. "Can you forget her for just one night?" she asked, putting her arms on Ada's shoulders and bringing her mouth within inches of hers.

Ada let herself be kissed. She let Laura begin undressing her, and even threw her head back a little when Laura's lips slid down to her throat. "I guess... I can," she panted softly.

It was a wonderful thing to see this magnificent body come into view as the conservative worsted black pinstripe of Ada's suit jacket came off first, then her ivory blouse, then her belt, then the skirt of her suit. She wore a white slip and under it a violet bra, holding in those ripe melons that Laura so desired to consume. Ada was dark, not as dark as Dee Dee or Dawn, but much darker than Sara or Makeeda, and Laura had always felt a special thrill rubbing her cheek against Ada's smooth dark skin. As she helped Ada take off her slip, she found herself remembering the woman's huge, succulent black puffy nipples, the bulging, protruding black plums she had not been able to keep her eyes off when Ada had dashed around the tennis court in her Venus Williams tennis costume. Nobody else, male or female, had been able to stop watching either. You had to hand it to Ada. She might be a little repressed from her strict fundamentalist Protestant upbringing, but she secretly knew her physical allure and could show it off when she chose, though with subtlety.

She saw Laura's eyes on her cleavage. "You aren't going to touch me until you take your stuff off too," she said, stubbornly.

"Well..." Laura flirted, playing the coquette. "Aren't you going to help me? I helped you."

Ada blushed again. She blushes more than I do, Laura marveled. Only you can't see the red, just the shame. She's so cute. I think Louise has been very good for her.

Ada smirked at her, as if Laura were always coercing her into doing things that were contrary to her nature. "Okay, turn around."

Laura turned her back to Ada and lifted her hair with one hand so that Ada could get to the buttons up the back of her shirt. Ada began unbuttoning them slowly, letting her fingertips caress Laura's skin as it came more and more into view.

"You have such beautiful skin," she murmured absently. "Louise does too. I can't get over it. I love to touch it."

Laura smiled and held her hair up even higher, almost purring as she felt Ada's sensual lips on the nape of her neck. "If you don't hurry," she finally panted softly, "I'm going to have such wet panties that I'll have to borrow a pair of yours to get home in."

"Don't worry," Ada breathed into her ear. "Yours'll have time to dry out. You aren't going anywhere."

"Oh Ada... you are so different..." Laura sighed softly. "I think Louise has been so good for you."

"Maybe," Ada admitted, continuing to unbutton Laura's shirt, tugging it out of Laura's shirt, taking it completely off, kissing Laura's near-naked back lovingly along the way. "But you are the one who started it all. I learned to do this from you... not her. Oh Laura... you are more beautiful than ever. I love your skin... your back. What a beautiful bra. Where do you find these things?"

Laura's bra was a lacy, peach-colored masterpiece of sexual temptation, cut low, especially in the middle, making it look like she had a deeper valley than she actually did. Ada quickly had it unfastened. Then she reached behind her own back and unfastened her own bra, letting both bras slip away so that she could press her large naked breasts into Laura's naked back. Her soft, bulbous, protruding nipples were so large that Laura could easily feel them pushing into her flesh, feel the nubby centers rubbing her sensitive skin. She could also feel fresh warm juice flowing into her cunt from the sexual excitement, which seemed to jump up a notch for both of them at this touch.

Ada kissed Laura's neck, and her arms encircled Laura from behind, her hands now gripping Laura small, firm breasts, her fingers twisting Laura's excited nipples. "I think we're going to have to get completely naked," she panted softly to Laura. "I forgot how excited you get me. I really am gushing down there."

"Me too," Laura admitted. "You bring out the best in me," she grinned over her shoulder.

They hurriedly help one another out of the rest of their clothes. Ada had probably the most full-figured, voluptuous body of any woman Laura had ever had since Karen, though the two of them could otherwise have not been more different. It was truly a feast for love, and Laura was all over Ada's flesh immediately with her hands and her mouth, pulling Ada down onto the bed and embracing her and sucking her shoulder, squeezing her full round bottom.

Often overwhelmed by Laura's passion in the past, Ada had learned to enjoy being the object of this sensual attack. She laughed softly as Laura swarmed over her naked body.

"Laura... you act like a starving girl... like you haven't had any love for weeks," she gasped.

"Nothing like this," Laura panted. "I'm so envious of Louise... getting to make love to this beautiful body all the time."

Ada smiled gratefully, pulling Laura up to kiss her. "I'm so glad you like it," she said in a solemn tone. "You always make it feel so good. Even with Louise... I somehow never come the way I do with you, Laura."

"Mmmm, music to my ears," Laura grinned. "I love to make you come." Her hands swept up Ada's body to her full, large breasts, squeezing them and twisting Ada's thick, protruding nipples. "Remember when you came just from my sucking one of these?"

"How could I ever forget?" Ada brushed away a loose strand of hair from Laura's forehead.

"Want to try for it again?"

Ada smiled, a slow, bemused, sexy smile. "Right now I think I would come no matter where you touched me."

"May I kiss you first? Again? I love kissing you. Your lips are so... expressive."

"You may kiss me as long as you like," Ada breathed, embracing Laura so that their naked breasts mashed together. "Sometimes I dream about kissing you. I wake up and realize I have been kissing Laura. The woman who introduced me to all this. The woman who changed my life."

"Oh, don't making me start feeling responsible now," Laura grinned, kissing her wide, sensual mouth, at first tenderly, then more aggressively, pushing her naked breasts into Ada's.

She sucked Ada's smooth neck again, and brushed her lips across Ada's silky cheek. "Do you want me to talk dirty to you?" She twisted one of Ada's bulging nipples gently with her fingers. "Do you want me to tell you how I'm going to fuck you and make you scream?"

Ada giggled. "One thing is for sure. There's no one as nasty as you in the universe."

"May I suck your nipples?"

"I think I would die if you didn't."

"May I suck them hard enough to make you come?"

Ada was one of the few women Laura had known who actually could climax from having her nipples sucked. To the surprise of both of them, she had done it a couple of times, with Laura's help. But Laura knew that even having this gift, she wouldn't necessarily be able to do it every time. It was worth checking to see if she felt she was presently vulnerable to that particular sweet possibility.

Ada's black eyes were swirling and pulsing. Her expression told Laura that such sexual arousal, even with Louise, was rare. She was malleable and supple in Laura's hands, her flesh ready to do Laura's bidding, her body already swelling and throbbing to Laura's touch.

"I think I might... " she whispered, as Laura kissed her way down Ada's beautiful glowing black skin toward her magnificent breasts.

She held both of Ada's large breasts in her hands and ran her lips all over them, purposely avoiding the large, gleaming black bulbs of Ada's puffy nipples, wanting her to anticipate, watching Ada look down at her lips and tongue exploring the firm, round dark globes. Extending her wet tongue, she looked up into Ada's eyes and let the tip of it come very close to one bulging, swollen black bulb, all shiny like black satin, the wide areola speckled with tiny bumps, the stubby center pushing up proudly.

"Is this the one?" she teased, inching her tongue closer. "Is this the beautiful nipple that holds the fuse? Should we find out?"

Ada was panting and grimacing a little from the sexual excitement, her brow furrowed, her wide mouth torn open, her breath labored. "Oh god, Laura... you are evil," she smiled through her grimace.

Laura giggled softly. "Do you know how gorgeous your breasts are? God, those girls in the magazines have nothing on you. Your body is a masterpiece."

Ada smiled sensually, lazily. "That's what Louise says too."

"It's a masterpiece," Laura murmured softly, resuming her kisses, encircling Ada's bulging nipple with her lips, moving closer to it. "And I am going to worship it."

And I'm going to hear that Voice, she said to herself. Ada had a voice that could make whales, dolphins, and dogs go mad, a high, keening, twangy peal that sounded like the airhorn of an eighteen wheeler when she got anxious or excited, or when she was approaching or having an orgasm. It was so surprising that you could hardly get over it. Ada was such a sweet, gentle, repressed and polite woman, and yet without warning her voice could pour out of her lungs with the painful power of a moaning demon, enough force to melt steel and shatter plate glass.

As her lips finally closed over the swollen, satiny bulb of Ada's protruding black nipple and sucked it inside her mouth, she heard the rising swell of this force of nature for the first time in many months. It seemed to well up slowly from deep inside Ada's body, like a faraway horn moving closer, pealing upward, gathering force, surging out from her lungs up through her throat until it issued from her mouth in a moan that would flay the skin from the oranges in the kitchen basket.