All The Wrong Places Part 10

With a glance at the kids, Rajid said simply, "Family is as family does. No more, no less."

There was only a half-hour left, but working with smaller groups of kids was always more effective. Rajid handled cartwheels and I took over dive-and-rolls. At five we marched the kids back to KidZone where I got lovely hugs from Rhea and the other staffers. I usually had dinner now, with Tess, so I went that direction at my usual pace.

I wanted to run, though, do anything to find her seconds sooner so she could hold me and I could cry. Dignity made me put my hands in my pockets and stroll. I had no cares, no worries. I was calm.

Until I saw her, that is. Until I looked up and saw her hurrying toward me, her eyes sad and her arms open.

Any other week we might not have stood there for several minutes, just holding each other close, but it wasn't as if these guests would find it odd. It was a surprising feeling, standing in the open air, in plain sight of the world, and holding Tess as close as physically possible.

"I'm sorry, sweetie," Tess murmured in my ear, over and over. "So sorry."

Her body was warm, and the smell of her-soap, deodorant, shampoo, spray, whatever made it up-was welcome. I breathed her in, holding her very tight. I didn't want to let go.

"Have you eaten anything?"

"Not really."

"Let's get some sandwiches and eat at your place. You can pack and we can talk."

I nodded and realized I had to consciously make my arms let go of her.

"There you are, Brandy!" Rosa was bearing down on us. "The car is here, but you need to sign the contract."

"I'll get the food and let myself into your place," Tess said quickly. "I'm glad that the LOVE people are performing tonight."

I followed Rosa back to reception. My father would likely have been thrilled to know the timing of his death robbed me of several days in lesbian company. I was going to miss Celine Griffin's performance on Friday night unless I busted my b.u.t.t to get back. In fact, most of the LOVE women would be gone by the time I returned. Depressed in addition to being angry, I signed the paperwork and then headed for my quarters and Tess.

"I was going to swipe some wine." She'd set out the sandwiches and chilled bottles of water. "But if you're heading out tonight you shouldn't drink."

"It has to be tonight if I want more than a few hours of sleep along the way."

"You should take a nap before you leave. Eat a decent dinner and then have a nap." She set the wrapped sandwiches down on the tiny kitchen table. "If you want I'll wake you later."

She was probably right about the nap. I ate some of the ham and cheese hoagie because she pointed at it and said I should. Food did help. I didn't feel quite so blue.

"I was realizing that I'm going to miss the rest of the week of the women."

"That sucks, really. Another reason to hate your dad?"

"Yeah, he'd be pleased if he knew. I'm so angry, Tess. So angry that I can hardly feel it."

She chewed thoughtfully, then suggested, "Because he never cared a thing about you? Smacked you around sometimes?"

"No, that's old." I swallowed with difficulty. "I'm still mad about that, but right now it's all such a jumble. It's not fair that I never got a chance to make him see what a s.h.i.+t he was. He slammed the door in my face and I never had the ovaries to say, 'f.u.c.k you too, you hypocrite.' "

I had another thought, a very unwelcome one. I managed a swallow of water while Tess patted my hand.

"I'll never get to prove him wrong about me. I'll never be able to show him I was a success at something when he said I'd do nothing but fail. I didn't realize..." My eyes filled with hot tears.

"Didn't realize you still wanted to prove him wrong? That his opinion still mattered?"

I nodded mutely.

Very softly, she said, "Your life wasn't the way it's supposed to be. Neither was mine. I think about what my life might have been like if my folks hadn't died. You know, like on Star Trek} I can see the parallel universe, and that makes me really sad. Well, it used to. Nothing I could have done would have fixed it and .. I guess what I mean is, if your father had lived to be a hundred you couldn't have fixed it. Only he could fix him. You can only fix you. The hard part is not letting the anger and frustration turn you into him or your mom."

"You mean he's done me a favor? I can stop wasting energy on him now? How ironic, the last thing he ever did was something good for me." I scrubbed my face with a napkin.

Tess pushed the rest of her sandwich to one side. "Hard as it is to accept, nothing your father ever did was about you. A teacher I once had said there is nothing so profoundly insulting as to be seen as irrelevant."

"I was stupid to waste my time on him to begin with. He never cared what I did unless it was wrong. Then he made sure I knew about it."

She reached for my fingers, her thumb smoothing over the nearly invisible scar on the back of my hand. Tess knew about the brick he'd let fall on it to teach me a lesson about not being alert. It had taught me never to take my eyes off him. Even when I wasn't looking at him I was.

"I'm really sorry, Brandy. But yeah, maybe you can get some peace. Don't go for him or your mom. Go for you and then wipe your feet on the way out."

I cupped her hand in mine. Tess was the first person I'd told about my parents who hadn't suggested that I should try to reconcile with them. "I'm glad you're here."

Our gazes met. Her blue-gray eyes were s.h.i.+mmering with sympathetic tears. With a hard swallow, she released my hand and went back to her sandwich. "What are you going to wear?"

I pointed at the bed. "The only black dresses I have are too short, so it'll be black slacks and that black blouse and my leather jacket. I can't get around that. I'm not going to try terribly hard either."

She moved to the sofa while I finished packing. I was probably taking too much, but I didn't want to have to waste money on silly things I already had, like aspirin and shampoo. Once the suitcase was zipped I joined her on the sofa.

She took my hand as I settled down. Her fingers traced a delicate pattern along my forearm. "So, I guess all your relatives will be there."

"Yeah. I'm to go to the house first to make sure I'm properly attired. I need a hat for church."

"What, a Club Sandzibel ballcap won't cut it?"

"Nah, it has to be this little lacy thing that perches right on top. Small, but conspicuous in its piety. Only women with blue hair wear them."

"You'll be fine."

"They'll all stare." I shrugged. I felt so much better holding her hand and having her close. Suddenly exhausted, I closed my eyes. "They'll all stare and..."

"Bran?"

I started awake. "Sorry-"

"No, it's okay, just move a little bit... there." My head came to a rest against her shoulder. "I'll wake you."

"Okay." At least I think I said it aloud.

My next conscious thought was that it was dark and my cheek pressed against something soft. I stirred slightly and found my head was in Tess's lap. She was asleep, her head resting on the back of the sofa.

I looked, long and hard, and my head was crowded with a jumble of feelings. I needed to leave for home, but this was home. Home was where she was, but I had to leave her. I didn't want to go. I wanted to stay right where I was, surrounded by the reality of her.

I carefully sat up, not wanting to wake her-but hoping she would wake up on her own. The room was dark, but the open curtains let in light from the courtyard. Looking at her I felt die same wonderful, terrifying mix of emotions that I'd felt the day Susan Porkland had asked if she could touch my b.r.e.a.s.t.s. It felt just like that moment in time, when I'd realized that I wasn't the only girl who liked to touch other girls. Pure magic. Nothing since had seemed so innocent, but I felt that way right now, looking at Tess's face in the soft, low light.

I made a small noise, back in my throat. I didn't know what to call this feeling, no word seemed quite right.

Her eyes fluttered open and she slowly lifted her head. Completely dressed, I felt naked. I breathed out her name so softly I wasn't sure she heard me.

It was only a few seconds that we stared at each other, but the s.p.a.ces in between the beats of my heart were overflowing with feeling.

She leaned forward and I realized what she was going to do. Something she had never done before.

She kissed me. Full on the lips. Sweet, soft, tender and something more. I was stunned. She kissed me like a lover would. We'd done a lot of things together, but never this, and this kiss seemed the most intimate touch of all.

When we had to stop to breathe she just looked at me and then I kissed her and our mouths opened and it was delicious and welcome and heated. When her hand came to the back of my neck I melted into her body and we kissed, over and over. I felt like I was making up for lost time, thinking this was how I should have kissed her that first night, and how I had wanted to kiss her the last time we were together, but kisses hadn't been something we shared. They were about love and we were about s.e.x and hormones and friendly physical sharing. Weren't we?

This wasn't about hormones, or backrubs, or being buddies. She wanted me. I could feel it in her s.h.i.+vering skin and hear it in the rising level of the soft noise she made every time our mouths parted and then found each other again.

There was a low, gray murmur inside me, about things I needed to do, and cars and maps and anger. It was far away, someplace else. The rest of me was in Tess's arms, and when she brought her hands to my waist to pull me even closer all I could hear was the pounding of my heart and those little sounds she was making as she kissed me.

We kissed as I slowly sank onto my back, pulling her down with me.

"Are you sure?" We whispered the question to each other at the same moment, then stopped to smile our answers. Clothes slipped out of the way and we sighed together as our nipples brushed. Then I felt her pubic hair tangling with mine and we began to move together, rolling our hips in a slow, comfortable rhythm.

She was on top of me as my legs slowly parted. I wanted her, but not like all the times before with her. Not like she had my prescription and was kindly filling it. I wanted her like a lover. I wanted her to moan as loudly as I did when her fingers discovered how wet I was.

And when they did, when I felt her part my lips and slip into the heat there, she did moan. She moaned into my mouth as we kissed and I felt her skin heat up and I knew she wanted me. I thought, ridiculously, that I was being made love to for the first time in my life.

We had always talked before, said low, sweaty things about how good skin and sweat and friction and wet felt, but tonight we were without words in the dark. I didn't need any words. It was clear she knew what every small movement of my body meant.

She slid inside me so easily that the part of me that usually gasped or moaned didn't respond. Instead, I felt lit from within by different fires, and they were burning hotter and higher with every stroke of her fingers inside me. I was giving something up to her though I could not name what it was.

She moaned quietly as the inside of me began to flutter and then she was pus.h.i.+ng deeper. Deeper, filling me, and I wanted her to touch places inside me, secret and private. Places that weren't physical, though her fingers were how she would reach them. Not just reach, but stroke, caress. She was making love to the inside of me.

"Is this okay?"

I started as if from sleep. I had only felt her hand, as if it were the only way we connected. But there were her eyes, anxious but loving, and her mouth, a pa.s.sionate curve of desire.

"Yes, it's more than... please..."

She pushed deeper again and my eyes widened in response. The look on her face was one of awe and astonishment. "You've never felt like this-"

"You've never touched me like this, with your hand so deep-"

"I've wanted to-"

"Love me... Love me, Tess, the way you want to."

She leaned over my vibrating body, her hair cloaking us so that every word seemed to be captured in our private world. "I am making love to you, and now, now I'm going to f.u.c.k you."

"Please!"

"Do you feel that?"

She pulled her fingers out of me, then sank in again, and I felt stretched and full and enveloping her even as she covered me with her body. Then she kissed me, frantically, hungrily, kissed me while she f.u.c.ked me, and told me yes.

Whatever the questions were, the answer was yes between us at that moment, and those secret, private places inside me opened to the light of her.

I was hot inside, hot from her touch, her light, hot but not burning. Burning would hurt and nothing she had ever done had hurt me. Hot, like muscles thrilling to a climb, like my heart driving me to run faster, lift more, just because I could. Hot, inside my c.u.n.t, inside my b.r.e.a.s.t.s, inside my head. When the explosions began, coming for her was the most natural thing I had ever done.

Tess was still inside me, and I felt her tears on my stomach. Everything changed. She was the soothing cool to bring me down, the limitless wet of a woman.

I kissed her panting mouth and pushed her hair out of her eyes. Our faces and lips were damp. My tongue was thirsty for her tears, for the inside of her mouth. I knew what I wanted.

I let my tongue suggest it. I trailed it along her neck, then flicked lightly over her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. I coiled my tongue around her erect nipple, and she gasped. We were slowly s.h.i.+fting positions so she was on her back and I was stretched out between her legs. I could smell her and I wanted to fill my mouth with the most beautiful part of her.

"I don't want to ask this," I whispered. "I don't want you to think I'm just being b.i.t.c.hy and jealous. But did... you... she...?"

Tess blinked, her expression puzzled.

"How safe do I need to be? I want to go down..." I paused, feeling shy. I could tell Tess I was going to hold her down and f.u.c.k her greedy c.u.n.t, but it was suddenly very difficult to say simply that I wanted to taste her c.u.n.t with my tongue, and do that for, oh, several hours.

"We didn't do that. Just her fingers," Tess whispered back. "She... Oh, h.e.l.l, Brandy. What the heck is stone?"

I laughed and it broke the immediate mood. She smiled weakly and there she was, the Tess I loved, my best friend, the woman I could say just about anything to. "She didn't want you to touch her back?"

Tess shook her head. "I thought there was something wrong with me the first time, and the second, well, I thought she was really turned on, but..."

"It wasn't you. Some women choose that. They like to touch, but not be touched back."

"Oh." She blinked. "There was a guy I dated for a while in college who liked to do me until I came, but he didn't except every... like fifth time. He said once he'd gone two years."

"I think that's Tantric s.e.x. For him at least."

"Oh."

"Tess?" She looked at me and I moved against her pelvis. "The important thing right now is that I'm not stone, and neither are you. And I want to bury my face between your legs and stay there."

She drew a sharp breath. "You've never-"

"I've wanted to, so much. But I thought you were with guys and-oh, yes, yes, I will."

"No more talking," she said in that voice of hers that made me want to devote every breath to her pleasure. Her hand was twined in my hair and she was pus.h.i.+ng me down. I let her guide my face to her and pull me in. I loved the feel of her hand on the back of my head. I was submerged in the fathomless ocean of her and she held me there without moving.

She tasted so good, and she was copiously wet. d.y.k.e ego a.s.serted itself. I coiled my tongue around her c.l.i.t and her hand dropped away from my head. Her legs went limp. She got impossibly more wet and let out a long coo that I'd never heard from her before.

Running my tongue just along the sides, I felt her c.l.i.t elongate and stiffen in response. Tess was groaning and I settled comfortably on my stomach, arms around her legs, as I gloried in her intricate ripples.

I tasted all of her, inside and out, side to side, coating my lips, nose, cheeks. I loved kissing her l.a.b.i.a and whipping my tongue through every furled fold of her. Whenever she lifted her knees I felt as if she was offering herself, for me to go inside. My tongue was no match for the size of the toys she preferred, but her legs jerked in response as I teased her opening, then slipped past it to tease. When her knees relaxed again I would swoop up to her c.l.i.t, catching it between my lips to pinch it, just a little. Her knees would lift and it would all begin again until her hoa.r.s.e gasps took on that familiar edge of nearly there. Nearly... almost...

I was thinking that when she was hormonal she liked to be held down, but she'd said the rest of the time she was a "slow, easy screw." I wanted her to come but didn't know her body this way. She could get hyperstimulated or anxious-and now I was anxious. I wanted her to come, to feel the wonderful splendid cascade of feeling that being loved this way could bring. At least it always had for me.

Her voice changed and I knew that small nuance. She was nearly there, almost, and starting to worry she wouldn't get the rest of the way.