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  Carolyn turned into the drive-thru lane of the Kentucky Fried Chicken. She turned to Alison. “What would you like, darling?”

  Alison blinked at her. “Just like that? I say I love you and you start calling me darling? It was that easy?” Alison shook her head. “That’s all I ever had to do? Don’t you realize what it means?”

  “It means I’m permanently entitled to half your Sara Lee cheesecake forever.”

  “You sure do make a woman wait,” Alison said slowly. “I’ve been wanting to kiss you for ages. Maybe from the first moment I saw you.”

  “Sweet talker,” Carolyn said. There was no moonlight or roses, no candlelight or violins. Just the smell of fast food and the drone of traffic. Ah, bliss.

  “Are you ready to order?”The speaker finally came to life.

  Carolyn opened her mouth to give their usual order when she felt Alison’s hands on her shirt. She squawked.

  “What was that,”an impatient voice demanded from the speaker.

  “A shake,” Carolyn said. Alison’s hands were followed by her mouth. “Stop that… Ally, not with the top down.”

  “We don’t make shakes.”

  “Sorry. Uh, I want a nine-piece bucket.”

  “What kind of pieces?”

  Alison’s lips captured one nipple through the fabric of Carolyn’s clothing. “Breasts.”

  “All breasts?”

  “Yes, oh yes,” Carolyn groaned. Alison’s hand was at the seam where Carolyn’s slacks met between her legs. “Okay, some thighs and legs, too.”

  “Mashed potatoes and gravy?”

  Alison’s head dropped to where her hand was pressing into Carolyn. Her teeth nibbled at the seam.

  “Both,” Carolyn gasped.

  “Cole slaw?”

  Carolyn held Alison’s head against her body. Her legs were opening involuntarily and her foot was threatening to slip off the brake. “Oh yes.” She took the car out of drive. “You have to stop. I’m going to lose total control. Someone is going to see us.”

  “What? Did you want something else?”

  “I want to go down on you so badly,” Alison said with a groaning gasp.

  “Come again?”

  “Oh God,” Carolyn moaned. “Uh, that’s all.”

  “Drive forward,”the voice snapped.

  “Alison, I have to drive the car,” Carolyn said. She could hardly make her legs obey her.

  Alison retreated to the other side of the car. Her smile was part self-confident seductress and part child who had just blown out all the candles on her birthday cake. “I have so many fantasies.” She looked Carolyn up and down. “In another one you’re not wearing pants.”

  Carolyn shivered and misaligned the car with the drive-thru window, something she had never done before. She backed up, missed again because her foot slipped on the brake, and then inched forward until she could see the woman behind the window. She took the red-and-white striped containers and passed them to Alison, handed over the money and drove away as quickly as she could. She had the sneaking suspicion the drive-thru clerk had seen Alison’s antics. Oh well—it was hardly illegal. Her stomach growled again as the aroma of food hit her. She glanced at Alison…she was simultaneously hungry for two very different things. “Why does stuff so bad for me smell so good? I’m starved.”

  “Here,” Alison said. She broke off a hunk of biscuit and pushed it into Carolyn’s mouth. “Eat asmuch of this as you can.”

  “What are you…doing,” Carolyn said between swallows.

  “I don’t intend to give you any time to eat food when we get home so this will have to do. I need to build up your strength.” She took a bite out of a chicken leg then held it in front of Carolyn’s mouth. “Bite.”

  By the time they pulled into her garage, she was partially sated. The food part. Alison pushed the button on the garage door remote and the door closed.

  “Why did you do that? Now I can’t see a thing,” Carolyn said.

  “Who cares?” Cardboard crunched and bags crumpled as Alison lunged across the bucket seats toward Carolyn.

  Their bodies collided, their lips collided. Their breasts—and with a complete disregard for comfort—hips and crotches collided. Carolyn didn’t know which way was up. She didn’t care. Alison straddled her, managed to find the seat release and suddenly the seat plummeted backward. She fell back and Alison fell on top of her. Now they were getting somewhere.

  “I’ve been wanting to make out with you in this car since college. Since college, do you hear me?” Alison, busy with Carolyn’s shirt buttons, paused.

  “I hear you. Don’t stop. Talk and unbutton at the same time.”

  Alison giggled. At the first touch of her fingers on Carolyn’s bare skin she gasped. Her voice was soft and uncertain. “I’ve wanted to touch you like this for such a long, long time.”

  Carolyn’s laughter, fueled by the ringing joy she felt, died in her throat. She pulled Alison down to her and their bodies collided more gently this time, leaving Carolyn weak with heat and want. She couldn’t help but compare the softness of Alison’s lips to Nick’s. Alison moaned and Carolyn had a sudden sense of vertigo. She clung to Alison as Alison spread her body over Carolyn. She did not think of Nick again.

  Soft sweetness searched her mouth. Hands stroked her cheeks, her hair. Lips moved to her chin, her throat, her shoulders, then captured her bare breast; it ached in the sudden warmth and tenderness of Alison’s mouth.

  She ached to touch Alison, too, to give Alison every pleasure imaginable, to show Alison that she loved her. But her fingers fumbled with the tiny pearl buttons that went down the back of Alison’s shirt. They’d be here all night.

  “Bad choice on my part,” Alison said. She sat upright and reached over her head. There was the sound of rending fabric and buttons bouncing onto the dashboard and against the steering wheel. “We’ll be finding buttons for years.”

  “Umm-hmm,” was all Carolyn could manage. She pulled Alison down to her again, shuddering as her arms filled with the weight of Alison’s body. She could feel Alison’s leg between hers. She explored Alison’s back with her hands. “Don’t you think we should go inside?”

  “Probably.” Alison’s lips nibbled at Carolyn’s chin. Then her throat.

  “Kiss me,” Carolyn whispered. “Please.”

  As their lips met the horn went off.

  “Sorry,” Alison said. “Maybe we should move inside.”

  “We could just move into the back seat. It’ll be just like we were in college and hadn’t wasted all these years.”

  “Oh my,” Alison said. “Are you going to make all my fantasies come true? And will we still be friends?”

  “Besty friends,” Carolyn said. “So move on back here, besty friend.”

  They scrambled to the back, losing the rest of their clothing as they went. When Alison stretched out again over her, Carolyn shuddered at the shocking delight of Alison’s naked body. “Is this happening?”

  “Yes,” Alison whispered in her ear. “And now I’m going to make love to you until you faint.”

  “No more joking,” Carolyn said. She was aching in new places, in new ways.

  “I’m not joking,” Alison said. Her intensity caused a wave of goose pimples to break out all over Carolyn’s body. Alison’s mouth, warm and electric, found Carolyn’s chin, then her throat, then her shoulders.

  Carolyn went rigid at the warmth of Alison’s breath whispering across her aching breasts—then moist softness, a soft touch of tongue, divine and sweet. She shut her eyes as the rest of her opened—she had no choice. She couldn’t stop herself from showing how much she wanted and how little she could hold back.

  Suddenly Alison stretched away from her. The car door opened and the dash board light illuminated them. Alison was so beautiful, so incredibly sensuous.

  “I want to see you,” Alison said. Her mouth returned to Carolyn’s breasts, teasing the ache, making it worse, then soothing, pleasing, teasing again.
/>   Carolyn ground her hips against Alison. “I knew, I knew you would touch me like this. I knew you would know.” Carolyn opened her eyes only to lose herself in the depths of Alison’s obsidian gaze. Alison never blinked as her hand moved slowly between Carolyn’s inviting legs. The depth of her emotion was betrayed by an indrawn gasp, by her teeth catching her lower lip as Carolyn stiffened, driving herself toward Alison’s possessing fingers. Alison’s eyes shone with fierce pleasure.

  Carolyn gave way to the magic that carried her away yet held her fast against Alison’s heaving body.

  ***

  They finally went inside, but made it no farther than the hallway. Carolyn stumbled, Alison grabbed her and they fell in delightful unison, Alison on the bottom. Alison’s mouth had never seemed so full. It begged to be kissed, softly and then more intensely. Finally, Alison broke away from Carolyn’s demanding mouth and placed her hands on her shoulders. “Please,” she said in a soft, needing voice Carolyn had never thought she would hear. Alison the competent, the strong, the incredibly powerful—Alison needed her. A flash of something almost spiritual left Carolyn exalted, and she kissed the softness of Alison’s thighs.

  Nectar and honey on her chin. Such succulence, to enjoy it so, to feel so joined, intimate, with passion and ecstasy filling her mouth. Alison was holding her head, her voice calling, urging. Carolyn drank her deeply, making quiet noises at the back of her throat, not whimpers, not moans, but quiet sounds that said yes and oh and wonderful and I’m coming, so quietly that only another making those sounds can hear. Sounds only for Alison, touches only for Alison, music only for Alison.

  Once was not enough for anything. Twice was not enough either.

  ***

  Alison cradled the exhausted Carolyn in her arms. She smiled. “Let’s move to the bed,” she said.

  Carolyn groaned. “Alison, the chicken’s getting cold.”

  Alison let a laugh of sheer joy bubble out of her. “It was stone cold an hour ago. I kicked over the gravy anyway.” She swallowed, not believing her every dream had come true.

  Alison let Carolyn sleep when they finally reached the bed. She watched Carolyn’s face fall into innocent, peaceful lines and resisted the urge to kiss the corner of Carolyn’s adorable mouth. Eventually she slept too, knowing she had to go to sleep in order to wake up next to Carolyn. Then she would be able to cross one more fantasy off the list. Considering how long she had fantasized about being with Carolyn it was probably going to take fifty years before all of them were realized. Alison was looking forward to every moment.

  Epilogue

  The interviewer looked seriously into the camera, her trademark lisp giving a brief background of her next guest.

  “Are you sure the tape’s going?” Alison said.

  Carolyn hushed her insistently. “Yes. I’m trying to listen.”

  “…announcement set the classical world on its collective ear. Tonight you’ll meet the conductor everyone is talking about and hear in her own words why she chose the intermission of a performance with the New York Philharmonic to make her transformation from Nicolas to Nicola.” The interviewer turned from the camera, which panned back to bring the other occupant of the set into view.

  “It’s her!” Carolyn’s squeal hit high C. “God, she looks good.”

  “No lusting after old flames,” Alison warned in a humoring tone.

  “I chose the time and place quite precisely,” Nick was saying. Carolyn thought she sounded more like Oscar than ever. “I’d just collected my third American Grammy in as many years; several recording opportunities and a tour were scheduled. The concert was being taped for public television and New York has always been kind to me. The opportunity presented itself.”

  “Let’s roll that tape. Where are we in terms of the symphony?”

  “At the final chorus,” Nick said. “The words here are, ‘Joyous as a knight victorious, love toward countless millions swelling.’ As a friend of mine once quite succinctly summed it up, it makes the top of your head come off.”

  Carolyn turned up the volume as the music swelled through the TV speakers. “Oh my God,” she whispered. “She conducted without her score.” Alison was quiet, but her hand slipped over Carolyn’s. Nick was strained to the tips of her toes, her expressive arms gathering up the music, channeling it and letting it fly away. The tip of her baton was a blur. The voices were crescendoing; Carolyn gripped Alison’s hand to the last note. When Nick’s arms finally dropped to her sides she swayed. The musicians seemed exhausted. The applause gained momentum, as if the audience was not sure what they were seeing. It swelled when Nick turned and took her first bow.

  “Okay,” Alison said. “I’ll go to any of her concerts with you.”

  Carolyn smiled at Alison. “You might even enjoy it.”

  The interviewer’s face reappeared on the screen, her expression one of concern and sympathy. “There’s been backlash, hasn’t there?”

  “As amatter of fact, the Royal Academy tried to withdraw its invitation for me to become a Fellow. I was asked, in a roundabout way, to be a good chap and not make any embarrassing scenes about it. It has nothing to do with my being a woman, you see, it’s just that I’m…notorious I think the word was.”

  “You’ve obviously decided not to be a good chap.”

  “Quite. Men of conscience all over the classical music world have called the Academy’s attempt an outrage. In several cases, they’ve successfully applied pressure to the recording companies who tried to break their contracts with me. I’ve resigned myself to being the equivalent of the pink dye dentists use to show where you’ve missed the plaque.” Nick’s laugh was easy and relaxed.

  “Has it been all bad?”

  “Oh no, some truly wonderful things have happened. My contemporary male colleagues standing by me, for example. I’ve also heard of two directorships at major symphonies going to women for the first time in the respective symphonies’ histories. I’d like to think I’ve contributed to these steps forward for women in music. Music itself is enriched every time women of talent are allowed to display it. On a lighter note, I’ve apparently started quite a rage in female concert wear. In some of the less stodgy orchestras some women have abandoned their traditional black gowns for tuxedos similar to what the men wear. That’s very flattering.”

  The interview progressed as Nick explained the whys and wherefores of her first decision to pose as a man. Toward the end of the interview she described what went through her mind as she strode to the podium at a concert the week before, her hair ruffled slightly, her sleeves rolled back and hands ungloved.

  “I could tell the musicians were dumbfounded. Several kept rubbing their eyes. After all, the change was very subtle. A murmur from the audience started. When we paused between movements of the symphony—Beethoven’s Ninth is another reason I chose that night—I could hear the buzz. I don’t suppose the audience was sure until I took my curtain call. But no one could deny the power of the Ode to Joy, so nobody stormed out or refused to applaud.” Nick’s smile could have set off fireworks.

  “And what about the private life of Nicola Frost? How will that change?”

  “That depends on other people, doesn’t it? There’s been considerable debate about my personal life and commentary about how I portrayed myself as a Don Juan, if you will, as a part of my cover as a man. I felt it was necessary, but I don’t think anyone got hurt.”

  “None of the women you dated suspected you were a woman?”

  “I never let anyone close to me, physically or emotionally. I’m hoping my isolation might be ending now that I’m not hiding my gender anymore.”

  “The situation seems to beg an obvious question about your sexuality. In the last week, for example, your constant escort has been another woman—the British writer Patricia Morgan.”

  Nick’s smile grew more serious as her eyes narrowed. “I would think the answer is obvious.”

  “Are you saying you’re a lesbian?”

 
“Yes I am.”

  “Would you like to say anything further on the topic?”

  “Well, I suppose now that I’ve cleared that up, we’ll really find out who puts music first.”

  Carolyn thought she could hear a psychic cheer that stretched from San Francisco to New York, from Key West to Seattle and all points in between…a cheer that then went around the world.

  ***

  Later, after stopping several times in her writing to watch Alison asshe slept, Carolyn finished her letter to Nick.

  And so, all in all, you were splendid. I taped every second, even the commercials and the announcements beforehand.

  She paused as Alison emitted a unique-to-Alison snore. After three years and then some, Carolyn had thought she would have stopped thinking every little thing about Alison was marvelous, but she hadn’t.

  Of course if you keep up this fame and fortune stuff you may get knighted. Would they call you Sir or Dame? I somehow can’t picture anyone calling you Dame. Insist on Sir Nicola Frost. You could be the first female Sir in centuries—there were a few way back when. Maybe you were one of them in a previous life, who knows?

  Well, this is long enough and I’ve no more to say. Look for my next book in the fall. Alison predicts it’ll top the lesbian bestseller list like the last one. I hope you soon find someone to make delicious moans on the midnight hour with. I recommend it. Meanwhile, keep safe and happy. All my love as always and a little bit of Alison’s as usual,

  Carolyn

  She dropped her tablet and pen by the bedside and turned out the light. Alison murmured in her sleep as Carolyn settled down beside her.

  “What time is it?” Alison’s voice was childlike in its drowsiness.

  “Too late for you to worry about it,” Carolyn said. “Go back to sleep.”

  Under the covers Alison’s hand slowly meandered from Carolyn’s stomach to one breast, then a finger lightly traced Carolyn’s lips. “What if I don’t want to?”