Chapter 65

Exhausted from a day in which she had fucked with three different people (not including her private little video episode with Brandi), Laura slept soundly. And yet, when she awoke in the morning, it was from a dream of Cecilia. She had been holding the beautiful, coal-black girl in her arms, and Cecilia had been coming extravagantly, her stunning face torn with ecstacy.

Laura could hardly believe it. I'm just way oversexed, that's all, she thought. How could I dream of her like that, after what I went through yesterday? Her asshole was still wide open, and it burned from the reaming Rob had inflicted on it.

But when she saw Cecilia at work, she found herself quickly making up a story to get around the lie she had told the girl yesterday.

"I think it was a false alarm," she whispered to Cecilia, when they were both in the ladies room. "I didn't get my period after all. I want you."

Cecilia's eyes widened with excitement. She smiled happily. "I want you too. Meet me at my car after work."

Laura took her home again and this time they fucked heatedly, with little regard for the clock, bringing each other to long strings of orgasms, until Cecilia finally left, exhausted, at six- thirty, a half an hour late. Even though they had not reached twenty orgasms, they had come close in only a little over an hour, and Laura wondered how long they could sustain this hunger for each other.

But the following day, even that speculation suddenly disappeared as she was told she was going to Dallas for a trade show, and would have to leave immediately. Dallas!

Her heart nearly stopped. Jonelle!

And up until the time she actually boarded the plane, her feelings were a turmoil of butterflies mixed with deep, agonized longing for Jonelle. She would be in the same city with her, and yet not know where she was. She wouldn't even see her, when they were that close. As if Jonelle would consent to a meeting anyway.

But Laura remembered the letter. 'I still love you' the letter had said. 'I don't hate you.'

On the plane she had two drinks, just to keep herself from thinking about it. But nothing could stop her from thinking about it. In her hotel room, at about three in the afternoon, she found herself looking through the phone book. And she came across Roberts J, with a number and no listed address. Oh god! she thought. It's her! It has to be her!

But it wasn't. She phoned it, her heart in her throat, and got an old woman, who snapped at her. The woman's name was Judy Roberts. Laura was ashen and dejected as she hung up the phone.

Her eyes blurred with angry tears. But then she noticed, right below J Roberts, another possibility: J S Roberts.

I can't, she told herself. I can't try it again.

She took a shower. She looked at her naked body in the mirror while towelling off. She had put it through a lot since Jonelle. Only today was her ass feeling normal again, after Rob's ferocious rape. But it still looked pretty good. If she saw it, Laura thought, she'd be tempted. Wouldn't she? Wouldn't she want to... touch me?

She stood by the phone again, in her bathrobe, staring at it. Should I? How can I not?

She picked it up and dialed the second number. A little boy answered. Laura's heart was beating frantically, and her breath was short.

"Hello?"

"Hello. Is this... Eric Roberts?" A stab in the dark.

"How'd you know?"

Laura just about dissolved into tears of relief this time. But she caught herself. "Oh... I'm an old friend of your Mom's. I just took a wild guess. Is... she home? Your Mom?"

"She's at work. Don't get home till about six."

"Oh. Well. Maybe I'll call her then."

Now Eric remembered his manners. "Can I tell her who you are?" he asked.

"Oh... no, I guess not. I'll surprise her. Don't tell her. Thank you, Eric."

"You're welcome."

"Bye now."

"Bye."

She kept herself busy with work until six, but then got a real case of nerves as she sat by the phone, trying to work up the courage to call again. What if she hangs up? What if she doesn't even want to see me? And what if I do see her but can't have her?

She was a wreck. Finally, gritting her teeth, she picked up the phone and dialed, holding her breath.

"Hello?"

It was Jonelle's voice. Laura was paralyzed. She couldn't even speak.

"Hello?" Jonelle said again. "Who is this?"

"Jonelle it's Laura," Laura said in one quick breath, running the words together. "Don't hang up please. Please."

There was a long pause, but Jonelle didn't hang up. When she spoke again, her voice was very soft, faraway. "I... wouldn't hang up. Where are you?"

"I... I'm here. Dallas. I'm attending a trade show." Laura began to cry without knowing why. "I couldn't keep myself from... calling you," she sobbed softly.

"Don't cry, Laura," Jonelle said patiently. "Did you get my letter?"

"Yes."

"Don't cry. No reason to cry." Laura's crying seemed to bite deeply into Jonelle.

"I want to see you. But I'll understand, if you don't want to. We could meet in public. Nothing would happen, I swear it."

Another long pause. Jonelle was thinking. Laura was holding her breath, biting her lower lip. The urge to cry was gone.

"I don't think so," Jonelle finally said, in nearly a whisper.

"Please!"

I'll do anything! Laura wanted to say. She wanted to beg, plead, implore.

"Oh god, Jonelle, I love you, I love you," she suddenly let her voice pour into the telephone, losing all control. "Just let me see you for a moment. Only a moment. I won't even..."

"Won't even what?" Jonelle said, but not sharply. Instead, her voice was punctuated by soft giggles, as if Laura were being preposterous.

"You're laughing at me," Laura said, softly.

"No, I'm not," Jonelle said evenly. "You want to come over here for dinner?"

Laura gulped. "Oh god, yes!"

"Eric will be here, so remember it's just dinner, all right?"

"Of course. I told you. Nothing else."

"Come right away. I'm fixing it right now. Take a cab."

She gave Laura directions. Laura had the cab driver stop so she could pick up a bottle of wine. She was so nervous she almost feared she would wet her pants. And it wasn't sexual wet, this time. It was fear. Fear of rejection. And yet over the phone Jonelle had seemed relaxed and friendly.

She greeted Laura at the door of her apartment with a broad grin and a careful hug.

"Laura, so good to see you."

Laura was speechless. Jonelle had changed her hair, wearing it out from her head, with fetching bangs, and she looked more gorgeous that even Laura remembered. Laura's words were all tangled up inside her throat.

"I..." she gulped, thrusting the wine in its grocery bag out into Jonelle's arms.

"This is Eric."

"Hi," Eric said.

"Hi. We spoke on the phone this afternoon," Laura stammered. But she had finally got her voice back. "Jonelle... you look beautiful."

Jonelle closed the door. "You too," she smiled. She shook her head. "Some times I can't believe how beautiful you are."

"Well, enough flattering each other," Laura said as she removed her coat.

She and Jonelle were uncomfortable, but Eric soon made everything okay by warming to Laura, and showing her his model planes. They had a simple dinner, and Jonelle talked about her job, and her new life in Dallas. Each had a glass of wine, but only one, which loosened them up. After dinner Eric did his homework while Laura and Jonelle remained at the kitchen table.

Only now, when they were more alone than before, did Laura start feeling the stirrings of sexual desire. After all, the girl was shockingly beautiful. If I'd never met her, I'd still want her, she realized. But she controlled her feelings ruthlessly.

Just sitting across from Jonelle, being able to look at her, made her throb with happiness. And Jonelle seemed happy too. But after Eric went to bed, things grew more uncomfortable. They both knew what was in the air.

Laura even reached across the table and put her hand on Jonelle's, gazing deeply into her eyes. But Jonelle slowly pulled her hand back. She shook her head slowly, slowly.

"I know," Laura said, bleakly. "I wasn't trying anything. Really."

Suddenly two big tears rolled down Jonelle's cheeks. "I haven't let anyone touch me since you did," she whispered, so softly that Laura could barely hear her.

Laura felt a pang of guilt. She herself had had enough fucking for two or three lifetimes since she had seen Jonelle.

"But you're so beautiful," she said. "Men must be fighting each other to take you out."

Jonelle smiled grimly. "They want to. I don't want to."

Laura looked at her fingers. "I shouldn't have come."

"No. I'm glad you came. I... miss you, Laura. I never knew anyone like you."

The tears kept rolling. They spilled off Jonelle's silken cheeks onto the table.

"It kills me to see you cry," Laura said. "I'd better leave."

She hoped against hope to hear Jonelle say, No, don't leave. Stay. Stay with me tonight. But Jonelle nodded, slowly, resignedly.

In the livingroom, Jonelle was still silently crying, the big tears turning her cheeks slick and wet. Laura couldn't resist reaching for her as she tried to get Laura's coat. Jonelle almost fell into her arms, and their lips met in a searching, long, emotional kiss. Both of them were trembling with longing and sexual need by the time their mouths came apart.

"My son is asleep in this apartment," Jonelle whispered against Laura's cheek.

Her tears were all over Laura's face now too. Laura kissed her again, more briefly this time. "I know," she breathed. "I would never do anything to hurt you, or him. Never. I love you, Jonelle."

She opened the door. Jonelle looked desolate. She grapped Laura's sleeve, then closed the door again, pushing Laura against it, kissing Laura desperately.

"I love you too, Laura," she whispered against Laura's teeth. "I wish--"

"Don't say it," Laura interrupted her. She pressed two fingers against Jonelle's ravishing, sensual mouth. "Don't say it. Let me imagine it."

Laura slipped out and ran downstairs. She caught a cab a block away, almost doubled over with the pain of leaving Jonelle like that. It was the bitterest experience of her life, and on the way back to the hotel in the cab she herself cried in an agony of loss.

Back in her room, she spent most of the night staring into the darkness, aching. Around 3 a.m. she fell asleep in the chair, awakening at 7, stiff and dry and feeling the hurt worse than ever. She took a bath, fell asleep in it again, and awoke when the water got cold. It was a little after 8. She had to be at the trade show by 9, but she couldn't get herself interested in it.

Finally, she dressed, and was about to leave her room for the meeting rooms below in the hotel, when her phone rang. Who could that be? She picked it up.

"Laura?" It was Jonelle, her voice tentative and faint.

"Yes," Laura said, trying to survive the shock of hearing Jonelle's voice after thinking about her all night. "Yes, Jonelle. It's so good to hear your voice."

"I'm downstairs. Here. In your hotel. Can I come up?"

"Oh god, yes, please, come up. Come up now." She tried not to let the plangent longing in her voice become too overpowering.

"You'll have to tell me the room number. They won't tell me, you know."

"Of course. Room 833."

"I'll be there in a minute."

Laura put down the phone and looked at herself in the mirror. Her face seemed gaunt and hollow and stricken, but a new light was now glowing in her eyes, and she realized that she was still alive. A few minutes later, there was a knock at her door.

She let Jonelle in. "I thought you were supposed to be at work," she said.

"I thought you were supposed to be at that show downstairs."

"I don't have to be there until nine," Laura said, looking at her watch. It was almost eight thirty.

Laura closed the door. Jonelle watched her.

"Don't you want to put that inside lock on?" Jonelle asked, seeming nervous for some reason. "What if some crazy person has a key? You know, I read about some robberies going on in these downtown hotels."

"Okay, if you think so," Laura said, fastening the lock. "Here, let me take your coat."

She draped Jonelle's coat over the back of the straight chair, then turned to find Jonelle standing right behind her. Their faces were inches apart. Laura could feel Jonelle's warm breath on her face, and it was enough to nearly send her reeling.

"Oh baby baby," she murmured softly as Jonelle moved into her arms.

At first their kiss was slow and searching, like last night's, but soon it became hot and demanding. While they were still kissing Jonelle began whimpering, and Laura moaned softly. Both had been so excited from seeing each other last night that Laura had not noticed that Jonelle had gained weight. No longer rail-thin, as she had been, she had put on about ten pounds, and Laura's fingers could feel the new firm flesh as she squeezed and caressed Jonelle while their tongues probed and intermingled.

One of the two kingsized beds in the room was right behind them, and they half-fell, half-sat on it, devouring each other's mouths more than kissing now. Laura's lips ran up and down Jonelle's wonderful smooth black neck. Jonelle shut her eyes, but then opened them again, kissing Laura back, kissing Laura's throat, her ear, her cheek.

"Couldn't stay away from you," she murmured. "I need you too bad."

"I can't stop kissing you," Laura said.

But she was reluctant to make any other move, even though it was clear why Jonelle had come. I can't let her think I only want her for sex, she thought.

But Jonelle seemed to know what Laura was feeling. Without asking, she began to unbutton the back of Laura's blouse as they kissed. Soon she had it half-removed, and her mouth fell to Laura's shoulder, then moved to her clavicle, then dipped to the upper slopes of Laura's breasts.

Laura took this as permission. Jonelle was wearing a thin yellow jersey, and Laura began tugging it up, over her bra, until both of them finally had to pull it over her head. Laura shrugged off her loose blouse, and they kissed slowly, solemnly again. Now Laura dropped her lips to Jonelle's delicious dark shoulder and devoured it, pulling off the bra strap in the process.

It was only a few more inches to the clasp between Jonelle's shallow bra cups, and Laura's fingers had it undone in a second. She pulled the cups away and saw that Jonelle's weight gain had given her small but very real breasts, where there had been only swellings and large soft black nipples before. Laura cupped them and squeezed them with her hands, licking one of Jonelle's bulbous, protruding nipples.

But before she could go on, Jonelle pulled her head up. Her eyes were deep, as Laura had remembered them, deep and dark, swirling with love and need and solemn joy.

"Let's do this right," she whispered. "Let's get under the covers together and do it all day."

Laura knew this was Jonelle's way of saying they should both be naked.

"I don't know," she purred. "I kind of like raping you, with half your clothes on and half off."

"Oh. You always were so evil," Jonelle beamed, reaching behind Laura to unclasp her bra.

Quickly they helped each other undress. Then Laura pulled back the spread and blankets, and they got under the sheet.

"Satisfied?" she asked, pulling Jonelle's lean, naked, beautiful body against hers.

"Mmmmm, not yet," Jonelle smiled. "But almost."

They began making love slowly, patiently, reawakening their love and lust for each other, but both were too hungry to take it slowly for long. Laura couldn't just kiss Jonelle's new, exquisite breasts, but had to nearly swallow them. And Jonelle nearly did the same to Laura's. In minutes they were whimpering and squirming.

Laura slipped down between the moaning Jonelle's thighs, kissing her freely flowing cunt, tonguing it lovingly. And even though she was not a quick or easy comer, Jonelle's pent up need came gushing forth. Every muscle in her lean body seemed to clench. She arched her back, her face contorted in brief agony that quickly ran to fierce pleasure, and she came furiously.

"Aaanngghhuummmggnn!" she cried out, her body shuddering as Laura continued to tongue-caress her spasming pussy. "Oh! Oh Laura god Laura! Ungghmmnnghiieeee!"

Without stopping, Laura managed to get the corner of the sheet up to Jonelle's mouth, to muffle her helpless screams of rapture. But after a moment she let her hand relax, for Jonelle had sunk into her trance of ecstacy, a deep swoon of silent, trembling bliss that consumed her for minutes. When she finally surfaced from it, Laura was holding her, kissing her, and Jonelle was stunned and reeling from shock.