Best Lesbian Romance 2011 Read online

  She laughed then.

  “What do you think?”

  She flung her arms around me. “I think that was very well done. And yes, I will live with you. But we will buy a house and a king-sized bed. Together. And I love you too. I have from the first moment I laid eyes on you at the library.”

  “You did?” We would buy a house together? My heart was flipping around and I jumped up, without realizing what I was doing, pulled her up with me and swung her around. She barely missed the wineglasses, but I didn’t care. I would have cleaned up anything at this point, just glad it wasn’t the wreckage of my life.

  “That was a very romantic anniversary,” she said later, nuzzling me in the pool of musky warmth we’d made in the bed.

  “Hearts and flowers,” I mumbled into her neck as I fell asleep. “That’s what romance is. That and recognizing it and being smart enough to give them.”

  MOTHER KNOWS BEST

  Rachel Kramer Bussel

  I can’t believe you did that to me!” I screamed into the phone to my mother. I was fuming. If it were possible for smoke to come out of my ears, it would have been. You’d think that being a lesbian for the last fifteen years would have made me off limits to my mother’s meddlesome matchmaking ways, but no, my being a dyke had only made it worse. Now she thought the process was simplified; if she met a single girl who was at all inclined toward women, then I was the match for her. She wasn’t concerned about the details: age, occupation, looks, never mind butch/femme. For my mom, lesbian plus lesbian had to equal true love. It would’ve been sweet, if it wasn’t so infuriating.

  She didn’t care about things like compatibility, or personality. She insisted that she’d met my father and known right away he was the one, but I didn’t believe her. Everyone was a little picky about their partners, weren’t they? Even if it were true, that didn’t mean she knew who was the right one for me.

  It’s not like I had a checklist…well, not really. But there are things I like in a woman, things I look for, like curves. I like a woman who’s got some meat on her, whose ass I can smack, whose breasts I can get lost in sucking. I like a woman who’s a little demure, who likes to have her seat pulled out for her, who likes to be doted on. No offense, but the high-powered business-women aren’t really my type. I’m a painter and sculptor and spend most of my time working with my hands, getting messy. Money is messy, I guess, when you’re touching it all day, and I wouldn’t mind a woman who’s a bartender or something like that, but the chic women in suits and pearls I sometimes run into, who look at me like I could show them a thing or two? Not interested. I’m in my late thirties and up until now have been content with mostly one-night stands. They’re easier, less messy, no risk of getting my heart tied up in knots. You (or my mother) might call it cynical; I call it practical.

  I like to throw her a bone once in a while—you never know who you might meet—but I’d sworn off Mom’s matchmaking after the most recent fiasco. The lucky lady she’d tried to set me up with had been twenty years older than me, a wealthy divorcee who had recently realized she was more Sapphic than she’d suspected. We’d had nothing in common, even though we’d tried. That wasn’t the first time. Before that, it had been a woman who screeched loudly and looked like she was trying way too hard, with ’80s-style hair, too much makeup and skintight jeans. I like femmes, don’t get me wrong, but she took the lipstick lesbian thing to a whole new level.

  “Calm down, Stacy, just calm down,” my mother huffed. “I’m just trying to help. Jessica was very nice when I met her at dinner with her mother, who I met at my French class. I didn’t think it’d be such a big deal for her to take you to a nice dinner.”

  After almost a full minute of silence, I sighed. Jessica, Miss Flashdance, had been nice enough, I just wasn’t attracted to her. At all. “Fine, but don’t do it again,” I said, not wanting to get into the details of just how wrong things had gone on our date when Jessica had puckered up at the end of the evening and then pouted and said I was rude not to at least make out with her.

  “Whoops, too late,” Mom said, not sounding very contrite at all.

  “What do you mean?” I asked, suspicion invading my voice.

  “I mean, young lady,” she said, calling up a level of proper-ness that she only uses when she knows she’s not one-hundred-percent right, “that my friend Sylvia’s niece Tanya is going to call you. I think she has tickets to a concert tonight. And I saw a picture of her and I must say, even though I don’t swing that way, she’s hot. I think you’ll like her. I’m sorry about what happened with the other date.” There was a pause. “And the one before that. I just want you to be happy,” she said hurriedly, as if that would make up for it. Then my mom got quiet and, I could tell from how her voice had trailed off at the end of her last sentence, somewhat contrite.

  I could only imagine what kind of woman my mom would think was “hot.” I shuddered, said good-bye as politely as I could and got off the phone. My mind began to wander…. I’d been reading about the power of positive thinking, and now I decided to try it. What if this Tanya really was hot? What if she was the Rubenesque goddess I’d been looking for? Even a stopped clock is right twice a day, and I wouldn’t want to give up on the possible girl of my dreams before even meeting her. Plus, I could snarl at my mom, but I wouldn’t have the guts to snap the head off a stranger who’d been kind enough to put up with the same horror I was currently suffering through—being set up on a date by a relative like I was a teenager, when I was actually thirty-eight.

  And wouldn’t you know it, but that night, I got a call from Tanya. She had a sort of Southern drawl, not something I hear every day in New York. And, god help her, she sounded sexy, maybe because she wasn’t trying so hard like some of the women my mom had set me up with before. I guess you could call my type femme, just not high femme, while I’m somewhere between androgynous and soft butch. I don’t go for feminine fashion, but no one’s ever mistaken me for a guy. My hair is short, and I don’t wear any makeup, unless SPF moisturizer counts. I wear black cowboy boots most of the time and an array of jeans and sweaters in muted colors like gray and beige, with the occasional dark purple popping up. I’m more interested in how clothes feel than how they look and often work in a paint-spattered white shirt that was once fancy and now can never be seen in public. Women check me out plenty, but once we start talking, that’s usually where I run into a problem. They like what they see but not what they hear, and vice versa. They want someone snappy and witty and sophisticated, someone who’s up on the latest fashion and latest gossip. That’s not me at all, though I can probably tell you about the latest art exhibits.

  I started to picture Tanya as she spoke, her drawl making me think of long batting eyelashes and pale cheeks, the kind that blushed easily. I couldn’t be sure, though; you can’t exactly ask a woman who’s inviting you for beers just where she falls on the masculine/feminine scale. Somehow, though, Tanya sounded like she wouldn’t be another overly made-up glamour puss. Her laugh was hearty and strong, without even a hint of a giggle.

  “I’ll find you, don’t worry,” she said, after we’d arranged to meet at Rodeo Bar to see a rockabilly band. I was glad she hadn’t suggested meeting at a gay bar—though sometimes I like the boy bars, I couldn’t handle an all-dyke one. I didn’t want a repeat of what had happened with Jessica. As soon as she saw I wasn’t that into her, she was off trying to entice another girl into dancing with her, while I nursed a beer and tried to look like I hadn’t just had one of the worst dates of my life. Girl bars were out; any whiff of dyke drama and I get sucked into it so fast I barely even realize it.

  We talked for about twenty minutes, and by then I was giddy in the way that I used to be back when I arranged dates for myself or made out with women after a night of drunken, sweaty dancing, then waited for them to call. Would it pan out? I resisted calling my mom to plug her for more information.

  When I arrived, I tried to keep my cool; after all, Rodeo Bar is one of thos
e scenes where it’s all about keeping your cool. I liked that we were meeting in neutral territory, where we could hopefully get to know each other. I was early, or so I thought, but then I saw her. I wasn’t sure how I knew, but I knew. She was knocking back a beer, her body poured into tight jeans and a skimpy little tank top that I could picture knotted beneath her breasts, her belly bared. She had a belly, and I liked that. A backside too, which I could see when she leaned forward to place her bottle on the edge of the bar and signal for another. Her honey-blonde hair was in pigtails, a cowboy hat perched on her head.

  I walked over, my heart pounding.

  “Hi, Stacy,” she said, then gave me a cute smile.

  “How’d you know it was me?”

  “Umm…” She blushed a little. “Your mom gave my mom a photo of you.”

  “Wow,” I said. “I need a drink after that.”

  “I’m buying,” she said, bumping my hip with hers. She was perfectly at home amidst the sawdust and peanuts, even with the sparkles glinting from around her eyes. She was a femme, but she wasn’t high maintenance. I checked her out while she ordered, then handed me a bottle and clinked hers to mine.

  She looked to be in her midtwenties, but as we talked, I sensed she was an old soul, just one who happened to be able to dance up a storm. “Join me?” she asked at one point.

  “I’d rather watch,” I said. I’m not so steady on my feet and didn’t want to make a fool of myself.

  “Suit yourself,” she shot back, then proceeded to whirl her way through two bands’ sets before collapsing next to me. There was something adorably precious about her, maybe because she could dance so wildly and not care how she looked. But sitting across from me, she wiped her brow, then pulled out a mirror. “My makeup,” she said with a sigh. “I should go fix it.”

  I leaned across the table. “No, don’t. I like it like this.”

  “You like me sweaty?” she asked, lifting her almost-empty bottle to her brow. Seeing her lips wrapped around the head of the bottle, after the three beers I’d already had, made my thoughts swirl away from the bar and into my bedroom. I ran a thumb across her forehead.

  “You think you’re sweaty now, Tanya? That’s nothing.” My finger stayed on the edge of her cheek, and she didn’t move it away. Some band was still playing, but I could barely hear them. She pulled the bottle from her lips, and I traced the wetness that was left on her mouth. She parted her lips for me, and I pressed my thumb against her tongue, then her teeth.

  “Do you want to make me sweat?” she asked softly. I could see, again, the shy little girl lurking behind her eyes, the one who wasn’t quite sure if she filled out those jeans as perfectly as I thought she did, the one who was maybe confident flirting with guys, cause they were easy, but found women a bit more troublesome.

  This time I scooted my chair next to hers. “I want to make you scream,” I said, then nuzzled my face against her neck. I don’t usually move that fast, don’t usually indulge in PDA, but it had been so long since I’d felt that kind of connection. Oh, I’d had girls grace my bed, my sturdy steel made-for-fucking bed that I’d spent my last major commission check on, but they had all been just that—girls. Not literally, of course—they were in their twenties, sometimes their thirties—but none had affected me like she had. I couldn’t even say exactly what it was she’d done to wrap me around her little finger so fast, but Tanya had done it. I was the one breathing heavily as I rested my head against her skin, soaked in her scent of sweat and strawberry and beer.

  She looked back at me then, her face open, bared to me in a way most city girls never dare. I wondered for a second if she’d lose that look down the road, learn to mask it with a big city veneer. Then a smile peeked out, a different one than what she’d offered earlier, more tentative. She wasn’t on the prowl; she didn’t have to be, because she’d already caught me, and I her.

  This time, I did pull her up to dance—well, really I fondled her ass and tried to stay out of the way of the couples whirling around us. We lasted for a few songs before I had to take her home. By then it was a question of need, and it had nothing to do with my mother, nothing to do with the way men and women in the room stared at her and everything to do with the way Tanya stared at me, asking me with her eyes to give her something she desperately needed.

  It was the kind of first date you know will change your life forever, the kind for which “first date” is much too casual to ever properly apply. We took a cab back to my place in Brooklyn, and I was grateful for perhaps the first time that I’d carved out a separate studio space and bedroom. For many years they’d been one and the same, with me sleeping on a cot next to my art, my true love. Maybe I was finally ready to let someone else in, truly in. Before I could make a move to get Tanya’s clothes off, she insisted on a tour. The other girls had only given the most cursory of glances to my work, letting me know what they really wanted was in my pants. Tanya’s eyes told me she wanted everything. My heart, my art, my pussy.

  I reached beneath her shirt, cupping that belly, pinching it, holding it, as I showed her my favorite pieces, even my latest in-progress sculpture, one I wasn’t quite sure what it would become. She didn’t just listen but asked questions, probed more deeply than anyone had before. Whereas when we’d been dancing all I’d wanted was to get her clothes off, to make her scream and sweat and let me know she wanted me, now I wanted more than just to get her off. I wanted to light up her mind as well as her pussy, and she seemed to want both as well.

  I told her I’d explain my art if she stripped for me. We moved to the bedroom, and I told her things I’d never told anyone before, not since my art school days. It sounds strange, perhaps, that instead of her shimmying to a seductive song, it was my soul that got bared. Well, her body did too. She took her clothes off languorously, but I was focused on her eyes. Her blue eyes and her naturally pink lips, her face, traces of glitter still on it, her look so open, so eager. There was still passion simmering between us, but there was something more. She looked at me like she could fall for me, fall in love with me, or maybe like she already had. She looked at me like she wanted to know everything I had to say, to peek inside my brain and tease out the parts I kept deliberately tucked away.

  When she again brought her lips down for a kiss, I couldn’t believe how much I’d told her. My heart was pounding as we kissed, long and slow, kisses that weren’t like the ones before at the bar, weren’t searching for anything beyond their own boundaries. We knew we wanted each other and would have each other. For that night, the knowing was enough.

  Another first. I’d never brought a woman home before and not fucked her, but for some reason, with Tanya I was content to simply soak up her beauty. I played with her nipples, sucking them fiercely, frantically. I wanted to fuck her, but I also wanted to wait. Instead, I cast her, immortalized her.

  She sat for me as I painted her beautiful arms, her proud breasts, the curves of her waist and ass, her belly, with plaster of paris, and she sat for me as it hardened. When I peeled it off and set the cast down, I knew she’d be mine, one way or another, forever.

  Luckily Tanya stuck around, and my mom even had the honor of giving me away, though she snuck in a triumphant “I told you so” before I walked down the aisle. I couldn’t be mad, and Tanya is now my wife, my muse, my love, and soon she will be the mother of our child. She was worth every second I waited for her.

  TWELFTH NIGHT

  Catherine Lundoff

  If music be the food of love, play on!” Tasha threw her arms wide as she gleefully quoted from our upcoming production of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night. She collapsed into one of the scruffy armchairs in the changing room all the members of the Bardic Women’s Theater Company shared. Lucky us—or me, at least, at the moment.

  Tasha was in costume as Orsino, Duke of Illyria, and she had a lovely pair of legs in tights. It didn’t stop there though; the rest of her was quite easy on the eyes and the fantasy life too, right up to her big brown eyes and sligh
tly upturned nose. And the smile that lit up the theater.

  I sat in one of the other chairs watching her covertly and hoping that no one else would notice that I was in crush, and I had it bad. I should get so lucky.

  Sara kicked my leg from the opposite seat. “Yo, BJ, you paying attention? Of course not. Why would we be paying attention to running through our lines when opening night is only three days away?”

  I stuck my tongue out at her. “I can’t help it if your Countess Olivia just isn’t doing it for me. Try throwing in a gesture or two or maybe showing some skin.”

  “And suddenly you’re an expert on acting? You only got Viola’s part because…”

  I stared at her, daring her to finally say what everyone else was thinking. The room got very quiet. But I could see Sara change her mind an instant later, and she finished with something she’d clearly made up on the spot.

  “You’re so believable as a femme in drag!” She was standing now, glaring down at me.

  This was pretty much out of left field, so I just stared up at her for a minute while I thought about it. Granted, I had the longest hair in the company and the longest nails, but that was the celibacy talking, not femme preference. It wasn’t like I even particularly wanted the role, though I thought I’d earned it. But at least Sara hadn’t said it was because our director, Nadine, had been trying to get into my tights ever since her ex dumped her a few months back.

  From time to time, I had nearly said yes, but Nadine was so…not Tasha. Plus it would have been really, really messy on so many levels. Nadine added a whole new dimension to the term “drama queen.” My expression must’ve changed because Sara suddenly went bright red and backed away. Before I could ask what her problem was, I got interrupted.

  “Hello, my dears!” Nadine bounced in with a cheery trill, and we all sat up and got very alert. As a rule, she wasn’t much of a triller. “Gather round, gather round.” She was holding up a piece of paper and grinning at us in a positively evil way.