Best Lesbian Romance 2010 Read online

  “What?” I was shocked and then not. Leave it to George to zero right in on the sex—or lack thereof. “How can you possibly…? Never mind.”

  “Your eyes are not as shiny, your hair is a little lank, and you look a tad pinched. Don’t get me wrong, Stevie, you look incredible, but get laid and you will be a showstopper.”

  Only George could evoke instant honesty, so as he fixed my arm in the crook of his, I whispered, “I’m voluntarily celibate, thank you very much.”

  “Oh, heavens me!” he said in a big garish voice. Everything about George was big and loud and bright. He was a walking work of art in his paint-splashed, tent-sized shirt and hot pink bowling shoes. “Say it ain’t so.” Then he winked quickly. “Speaking of hot monkey sex, this is my boy toy of the day, Todd.”

  The thin love-struck man stepped forward and shook my hand. His voice was so soft I had to strain to hear him. “Nice to meet you, Stevie. I’ve heard stories.”

  “Of the day, eh?” I wasn’t buying it.

  Todd blushed and laughed. “For the last six years.”

  “That’s a long day,” I joked, elbowing George.

  “It’s just a fling!” he said, waving me off. I noticed that they wore matching silver bands on the ring fingers of their left hands. I didn’t push it, though. George had always been phobic about commitment. I was just glad to see him happy. “It’ll be over before you know it.”

  Todd smiled at me and I smiled back. “Mmm-hmm.”

  At the bar, we ordered drinks. I caught sight of Maryann, kissing cheeks, shaking hands, serving shrimp puffs. She looked across the room at me and grinned. My heart seized up a bit. I wanted her to kiss my cheek. Wanted her to sit and talk to me into the wee hours while we got drunk and gossiped. All that good stuff—I wanted it. But I wanted more. So much more. She was the only girl I wanted, and for a long time, too. So I’d stopped with other women. Just until I could get my head on straight, or meet someone who could make me forget the person I wanted the most. Who was also the one girl I could not have. Ever.

  I swallowed around the newly bloomed lump in my throat and realized that George was following my gaze and I was now under his eagle-eyed scrutiny. “So, celibacy, you say. Is that possibly due to some unrequited love? Some longing? Some Romeo and Juliet dealio? Or let’s say Rita and Juliet, shall we.”

  I laughed but the lump in my throat seemed to grow instead of shrink. I accepted my Italian Surfer from the bartender and dropped a dollar in the tip cup. “No way. She’s just a friend.”

  “Because she has to be. And I am just a shy and quiet queen,” he bellowed and tossed his imaginary boa over his shoulder. Todd hid a smile with his hands but his shoulders shook with laughter.

  “Yes, George. You are a wallflower if I’ve ever seen one. “

  “Yes, yes. I know. I really need to loosen up a bit. Now what are you drinking?”

  “An Italian Surfer,” I said. They really were addictive. Not like my normal red wine or beer. Sweet without being cloying, they were sliding down easily. Maybe a bit too easily.

  “Ah.” George took my arm and led me out to the patio. “I had an Italian surfer once. Such a flexible young man. His name was Paolo.”

  Todd cleared his throat and sipped his Corona.

  “Sorry, love, sorry. How rude of me.” George leaned in and said, “He’s so possessive even though this is just a fling.”

  I laughed out loud and sipped more of my drink. “You’re a heartbreaker, George.”

  “What can I say?” he shrugged and to my horror, when Maryann shot past, he snagged her slender arm and gripped her in a bear hug that shook his colorful shirt and made Todd shake his head. “Sweet young Maryann! Thank you so much for putting this shindig together. You are a gem! A gem. And this is Todd. Todd is my boy toy. And you know Stevie. Of course you do. How many nights did you two get drunk and talk? And you shared a dorm room. And classes. And probably panties!”

  He was booming and I was trying to back away from him. His voice was megaphone worthy and heads were turning left and right. Most knew Georgie and they just shook their heads and returned to the party. Some spouses and partners looked confused but amused. Maryann looked both and she also looked to me and mouthed the words, Help me.

  “Maybe you need to cut back on the drinks,” Todd said gently.

  All of us knew Georgie was fine. Well, all of us but Maryann and now I saw exactly what my friend was doing. He was like the diversion during a con. The flash and bang that drew attention while pockets were picked and purses were lifted. Now Maryann was giving me a desperate look of appeal, for me to save her. From George. Which was just too fucking funny but I was not one to look a gift George in the mouth and I wanted to know what all the blushing and head-ducking from earlier had been about.

  “Let’s go make some coffee.” I gently tugged Maryann from his corpulent grip and pulled her to me just enough to feel the flare of her hip against my waist. My nipples peaked and my body went somehow tight and soft all at once. God, I wanted to kiss her. Instead, I said, “You’d like some coffee, wouldn’t you George?”

  “I’d love some coffee. And when you come back, let’s discuss those panties.”

  Maryann cringed just a bit, but as we turned, Georgie dropped me a wink and I stifled a laugh—clever, lovely bastard. I was mortified and excited all at once. I guided Maryann by her slender shoulders to her kitchen. We pushed through the swinging doors and the sudden silence was deafening.

  “Oh, my god! Thank you. I see Boy George is shy as ever.” She laughed, making a pot of coffee with barely a glance. She backed up and bumped me, for just an instant. Just long enough for me to feel the soft swell of her ass against my pelvis, her shoulder blades banging my breasts. Just long enough to get a face full of her long shiny hair and for the lemongrass scent of it to fill my head. “Oops,” she said, and I steadied her with my hands on her waist.

  I closed my eyes to balance my mind. The cotton crotch of my panties had gone wet, my mind fuzzy. I took a step back and tried to busy myself. I found a photo of Maryann with another dark-haired girl. I assumed they were at Disney World, what with the Mickey Mouse ears and Goofy standing in the middle. “Who’s this?” I asked, trying to distract myself. There was a mild resemblance. Probably a cousin or something.

  “My ex.” She frowned, took the photo from me and shoved it in a drawer. “I thought I had taken it down.” She caught my look and frowned again. “What?” Before I could answer she was rummaging for mugs and a tray. I watched her lean back in her white sleeveless blouse, stared at her perfect ass in her black capris, her perfect feet tucked into white flats that were painted with irises. The shoes resembled porcelain, something a princess would wear. I realized my ears were buzzing and I felt light-headed. I must have looked it, because when Maryann turned she came to me. “Stevie? Are you okay? Sit down.”

  I let her push me onto a stool in the corner and push a wet paper towel to my forehead. “I’m fine.” I was lying.

  Maryann leaned in. “You don’t look okay. You look sick. And a bit pissed. What is—”

  I cut her off when I kissed her. I dropped the paper towel and pushed my hands into her hair and yanked her forward so she lost her balance. She fell against me, struggling for a moment and then her hands settled on my shoulders and she leaned into the kiss. Kissing me back. Kissing me soft and then hard and it was all so easy, just as I had imagined.

  “You said you knew I was gay,” I said.

  She nodded, tracing my bottom lip with the tip of her finger. “Yeah.”

  “Because you were gay?” I kissed her again, biting her bottom lip till she squealed. I wanted to inflict a little pain, so very, very pissed and relieved was I.

  “I was pretty sure.” She pushed her hands into my short black hair and yanked so that I cringed. She pulled me forward by my hair and kissed me again. Then she turned and slid a bolt on the kitchen door, effectively locking us in and keeping the door from swinging.

  �
�And you neglected to tell me that particular part.” I bit her lip again and she squirmed, pushing between the V of my legs so that she stood rooted between my thighs. Her fingers tickled over the zipper of my jeans and a steady pulse started in my pussy. My hips shot up to meet her hand and she tsked.

  “You should behave.” She popped the button and worked the zipper.

  “I am so fucking pissed. And horny. Why? Why didn’t you tell me?” I pushed my hand down the front of her capris, past a silky pair of panties, and shoved my fingers into her cunt. She was wet. Very wet. Wet for me. Fucking finally, wet for me after all these years. I hooked my fingers as her eyes rolled back a bit, and I tugged her forward with my fingers. She leaned in and kissed me some more.

  “I’m sorry. By the time I knew, you were with someone. Then I was. I never wanted to step on toes. I never wanted to hurt anyone.” She pushed at my waistband and dropped to her knees, her hot breath on the front of my white cotton panties. I was suddenly boneless and brainless and I stared, waiting for, willing her lips on me. On my clit, on my body. Sucking me, making me come. Making me say her name over and over again. I stared. Then she said, “I hear you’re celibate.”

  My hips tipped up again, a completely involuntary response, trying so hard to meet those plump gorgeous lips. How many times had I fantasized about that mouth on me? “Not for you,” I said.

  “Why celibate?” she asked, trailing a fingertip over the seam of my pussy. I could feel the plain simple white cotton soaking up my juices. A flutter worked deep inside of me and I wondered if I would come before anything happened at all.

  “I was having way too much meaningless sex and couldn’t seem to find the right girl.”

  She frowned again. “That’s sad. Is there a right girl for you?”

  “You are the right girl for me,” I blurted. “I’ve known that since college.”

  “So you gave up girls? Because I was taken? Surely there was another girl.” She put her mouth over my pussy, her breath snaking through the cotton, soaking me in warmth. Her lips on me but not. Her mouth on me but not. Her tongue a heartbeat from my clit.

  I wanted to bang my head against the wall, or shove aside my panties and pull her to me. Instead I said, “You’re the only girl I want. So I gave them up. Until I could…figure it out.”

  Her big dark eyes looked up from between my thighs and she tugged my panties down. I lifted my foot from the stool bar and she tossed them in the corner before spreading my thighs. Her lips were even softer than I imagined. Her tongue a demon, making me ready to swear anything, everything she wanted. Her long slim fingers worked into me as I bucked up on the stool seat to meet her mouth, to drive her fingers deeper. The first orgasm gripped me and I threw my head back. I bit my lip and tasted blood as my whole body shook with it. Better and faster and more perfect than I had ever thought an orgasm could be. Her hair was soft under my fingers. “God, Mar, that was—”

  Her tongue was back, her mouth sucking at me. Her lips playing over my supersensitive pussy until I danced on the seat a bit, too sensitive but too good to push her away. She ate me slower this time, pushing four long fingers into me, and I parted easily. She fucked me in slower thrusts of her digits, fluttered her fingers, stroked my G-spot. Played me perfectly, as if we’d been together a thousand times before. I was crying just a little at finally being where we were. After all the time and the fantasies, I wanted to pinch myself to make sure it was real. But then Maryann bit the inside of my thigh and I let out a bark of pleasure and pain and came around her hand, harder than the first time, longer than the first time. My body went soft and warm.

  “You taste exactly like I thought,” she said. Her lips moved over my skin and she left wet trails of my moisture as she went. Her mouth found mine and I kissed her hard, pulling her to me a bit too hard because part of me feared she’d walk away.

  “What? What do I taste like?”

  Maryann kissed over my face, down my throat. She pinched my nipples and someone knocked on the door. “You taste right. You taste like raspberries and honey and cinnamon. Clean cotton and wood smoke and ocean air. All of my favorite things.”

  I touched her hair and slid my hand back along her pussy, pushing a finger inside of her to test her. When the strength returned to my legs I was going to fuck her senseless. Then more banging on the door.

  Maryann grinned. “We’d better open that door before someone breaks it down.”

  “But I want to…this wasn’t…” I sighed. “God. That wasn’t pity sex was it?”

  She stopped and I thought she was pissed. Then her shoulders were shaking with laughter and she grabbed my face, her lips everywhere at once. “You are so dense. I had this reunion party to get you here. I plotted and planned like a shameless hussy.”

  Relief flooded through me. When more pounding came, I yelled, “Hold on for god’s sake!”

  “Let’s go. We’ll give Georgie his coffee and I’ll give you a tour.”

  I took the coffee tray from her. She slid the bolt back but didn’t release the door. I didn’t really want a tour. God, I finally had her, had a chance at her, with her, and she wanted to give me a tour?

  She read my mind like she had in college when I was stressing and obsessing. “We’ll start the tour in my bedroom, ’kay?”

  I let out a grateful sigh and followed her out to Georgie. “Coffee,” I said, setting the tray down.

  “Ah, there you go.” He laughed, eyeing me and no doubt noting the sex glow on my face, the grin I couldn’t hide. He turned to Todd. “See, I told you. Get her laid and she’d be a showstopper.”

  I would have been a bit embarrassed but Maryann had me by the arm and I had other things to think about.

  FIVE

  Cheyenne Blue

  When Mary leaves Tess after five years together, a hole forms in Tess’s heart and expands until her whole chest is one gaping ache of emptiness. Each press of Mary’s lips to the nape of Tess’s neck has drawn out a small piece of her soul, wisp by wisp, as insubstantial as smoke, sucked away by Mary’s lips. And so when Mary leaves the Denver apartment for the final time with a careless wave of her hand, a kiss that fails to connect, and an airy, “See ya around, babe,” Tess is left not just alone, but empty.

  Insubstantial, as if the best pieces of her life have drifted out of the door with Mary. Tess’s favorite CDs certainly have, along with the TV, so she’s left in an echoing apartment with only a wailing Joni Mitchell for company. Tess rocks on the couch, staring at the darker square on the wall where her Salvador Dali print used to hang and presses her fist against her breastbone, as if she could reach in and take hold of that frightening emptiness and throw it out the window into the frigid Denver winter. But the window is sealed shut and the stone in her chest won’t go so easily.

  The day that Mary leaves, Tess closes the door on the apartment they had shared and walks down to Washington Park. The lake is partially frozen and small ice floes creak on the frigid brown water. Tess walks down the tiny stretch of sand by the boathouse and only stops when the slush covers the toes of her boots. She stares down at the oily water seeping into the fine leather. That will stain, she thinks objectively. These boots will be ruined.

  Deliberately, she walks a pace farther into the lake, crunching through the ice so that the water curls over her ankles. Ruined boots, ruined life. She tests the concept on her tongue, waits to embrace the pain, waits to feel the knot of misery that weights her chest expand farther, but this time it’s swamped by irritation that she’s wrecked her boots. The cold numbs her feet, and she turns and stomps back to dry land.

  Tess becomes a walking cliché for love lost. Her face takes on a haunted look, hollow cheeked from the churning in her stomach that refuses to let her eat more than a few bites. Her hair hangs lank, dull and stringy, and her eyes are welded straight ahead. For why look around at the world when your world has gone?

  The pads of flesh melt off her hips and belly, leaving her with the willowy boyish figure sh
e’s always yearned for, but she takes no pleasure in it. Without Mary to run fingers over her newly concave stomach, to drum patterns on her jutting hip bone, what’s the point?

  The winter rolls on, and Tess changes jobs. Her new office is on South Broadway and now, instead of taking the bus, she leaves the apartment each morning and drifts down the streets, engulfed in a river of people who all seem more purposeful than she. Five blocks to Colfax, then five blocks to Broadway and then five blocks south to the corner of Tenth Avenue. Five weeks since Mary left. Five days in the working week, leaving two days for mourning and crying.

  Each day, she wakes in the morning and listens to the first thought that comes to her: Mary is gone, I am alone. The bed is empty and there’s little chance of filling it as long as she keeps avoiding the small Denver scene, too afraid of bumping into Mary flaunting a new love on her arm. Her nights are filled with rental DVDs, Star Trek reruns and long rambling monologues when she berates the bottle of Wild Turkey for letting Mary leave her.

  She buys a pair of flannel pajamas and wears them in bed, letting the soft material comfort and embrace her. On weekends, she seldom leaves the house, except on Sunday mornings when she buys the papers and walks through Cheesman Park to the bagel place where the gay boys hang out. It’s a safe bet that she won’t see Mary there, and the company of queer folk is reassuring.

  There’s a girl behind the counter, a wiry, skinny sort of kid with a pixie face. In an earlier lifetime, Tess would have found her interesting, attractive even. She has clear gray eyes and a cap of shiny nutmeg hair. Her movements are fast and contained, with no excess of gesture. She always smiles at Tess on those Sunday mornings, as Tess orders her cranberry bagel and latte, and Tess smiles back in an abstracted way, her mind already turning to the headlines and grocery coupons of the Sunday paper.

  After a few Sundays, Tess finds she’s looking out for her, and instead of waiting for her coffee with her eyes fixed on the menu board above the counter, her eyes follow Pixie-Face as she stretches for the coffee flavorings, bends for the milk, reaches into the glass cabinet for a muffin.