Frosting on the Cake Read online

  Rayann knew the signs were all over her. Her breasts were straining against her bra. Her thighs clenched and unclenched. Her color was high and her hands moved nervously over her hips and stomach. Michelle knew what all those signals meant. “It’s not you. I’m sorry,” she said again, not wanting to seem mean.

  Michelle looked resigned and unhappy, but there was nothing Rayann could do about it. Grateful for the cold chill of the frozen cappuccino, Rayann thought perhaps a dignified retreat was her best strategy. “I really need to get going. I’m having dinner with my mother, and then we’re going to the movies.”

  Michelle arched her eyebrows. “You’re on speaking terms?”

  “I’m seeing a lot of things in a different way.” She stood up and only wobbled a little. She really wanted Louisa to drag her into bed. “She’s not the witch I thought.” Neither are you, she could have added.

  “You’ve changed.” Michelle said it as she was trying to convince herself Rayann was not as desirable as she had once been.

  “There’s plenty more dykes in the sea,” Rayann said philosophically. “I’m glad we had a chance to talk.”

  “Me too. I think.” Michelle’s face flickered with an array of emotions ranging from chagrin to confusion.

  Beyond feeling good about Michelle’s apology, Rayann didn’t give her another thought as she hurried to meet her mother.

  Muni was slow and BART had trains sitting idle on the tracks because of a delay at Oakland-12th Street. It was nearly midnight and Rayann knew by the time she reached home Louisa would surely be asleep. She’d been up herself since just after six, but she wasn’t in the least bit drowsy.

  She had finished her book fifteen minutes ago, and having nothing else to do, she recalled what Michelle had said. She had to admit it felt pretty good. When she told her mother about meeting up with Michelle, they agreed it had been an ego-satisfying turn of events. There were a lot of women who would love to have an ex admitting his or her wrongs and wanting them back, just for the pleasure of stomping on their ex’s heart, good and hard. But whatever it was that Michelle wanted held no interest for Rayann. She didn’t even care enough to stomp.

  She really hadn’t given Michelle more than a passing thought since falling in love with Louisa. At first Louisa had seemed simple and direct, but as Rayann continued to work with her she discovered complexities and contradictions that unsettled and ultimately attracted her.

  Her own stereotypes had initially kept her from realizing that Louisa was a lesbian. She hadn’t thought grandmothers with old-fashioned wooden combs in their hair could be lesbians. With the certainty of youth, she had then believed that Louisa was obliged to come out to her son, Teddy, even after all those years. Being a grandmother was exactly why Louisa had not—she had not wanted to risk losing contact with either her grandson or her son. Louisa had already sacrificed an open love with her first partner, Chris, to foster and keep the love of her son. At the beginning of their relationship, Rayann hadn’t been able to understand why Louisa had felt compelled to choose between two loves.

  Of course,Rayann hadn’t grown up in a world where lacking three articles of women’s clothing could get a woman arrested for cross-dressing. Or in a world where being a mother could be grounds for dismissal if your boss felt you were neglecting your maternal duties. Louisa had lived through those times. They had made her who she was: strong, adaptable, principled and practical. When Rayann had finally sensed the depth of Louisa’s personality she had been hopelessly in love.

  The train finally lurched into motion. The startled butterflies in Rayann’s stomach made her think of being in Louisa’s arms, feeling butterflies of wonder when grandmother transformed to lover. Her stereotypes had misled her again; Louisa was not the lover she had initially expected. Her fevered imaginings had hardly gotten past what a kiss might feel like. On Christmas Eve she had finally felt that kiss and it was everything she had anticipated: gentle, considerate, soft.

  Kisses were only the beginning. Louisa had made love to her thoroughly, intensely, powerfully. Her decisive touch left Rayann wanting only more. Louisa didn’t need to be told anything; she read Rayann’s body with perceptive intent, and then she satisfied all the unspoken wanting, again and again.

  Weeks had passed before Rayann found the courage to ask Louisa why she evaded Rayann’s attempts to return the lovemaking. By then, at least, she had a clearer understanding of what it must be like to be fifty-six. Louisa had not been ready to believe Rayann really wanted her. But there was a sexual dynamic at play in addition to the age difference, one Rayann had never been exposed to and still didn’t quite know how to handle. It was the Nineties now, and the lesbian nation was supposed to be past butch and femme labels, at least Michelle and her circle of friends had seemed to think so.

  A grandmother with wooden combs in her hair was not anyone’s image of a butch woman. Certainly never hers. As she walked briskly from the BART station to their home above the bookstore she realized how much she had grown from the narrow world she had experienced before Louisa. She now accepted that for some women the self-adopted labels had meaning, comfort and power. She had no desire for a label and was unwilling to analyze just where she might fall on the continuum, but she was in love with Louisa. Louisa was decidedly butch. Granted, she’d adopted outward trappings over the years to hide her sexuality from her son and most of the world. Some of the trappings had been peer pressure from other lesbians in her past, who had not allowed that a butch woman might also be a mother.

  She turned the last corner to home and asked herself why she was mulling all of this over. Was it Michelle? Had Michelle unsettled her? She stopped walking for a moment. Michelle had been a good lover. Sex had been a mutual give-and-take. Was she missing the simplicity?

  She set off again and didn’t pause until she was in front of the bookstore. No. It had nothing to do with Michelle. The road not taken held no allure. She was where she wanted to be. But sex with Louisa was complicated by Rayann’s uncertainties. Bumping into Michelle had just heightened her awareness that she was still coping with her lack of control over what happened in bed. True, Louisa did anything Rayann asked, if ever Rayann needed to ask. Plus, Louisa was as ready and able as Rayann when it came to how often. So what was she complaining about?

  She looked up the steps at the darkened bookstore, remembering the day she had first gone inside. The Common Reader had seduced her from the start, smelling of old pages and poetry. She blew it a kiss, then went around the side of the house to the back stairs. She had no complaints about her life, just trepidation at this moment. Rayann might send a smoldering glance, reveal in a dozen ways that she wanted to have sex, but it was always Louisa who made the first move. Bottom line, she told herself, you have no idea how to ask her for sex because you’ve never had to. You look at her mouth, at her hands, and you want her. She looks at you, you go to pieces, and she takes you to bed.

  She tip-toed around the house, not wanting to selfishly wake Louisa just because she wanted to have sex. There was always tomorrow. It was almost guaranteed that when they woke up in the morning Louisa would recognize Rayann’s desire and immediately, ecstatically do something about it. Six or seven hours, Rayann thought. You can wait. She needs her sleep. She noiselessly removed her clothes, trying not to shudder as the crisp sheets of their bed seemed to caress her knees and shoulders.

  She sent her usual mental greeting to the pattern of moons and stars in the tapestry over the bed, but the familiarity of the weaving did not relax her at all. Her wet thighs would not unclench and she locked her ankles around each other, wondering how long it would take to fall asleep when every nerve in her body was telling her she was wonderfully alive.

  Louisa stirred. “Did you have a nice time with your mom?” “Yeah—did I wake you?” “Not really. I was just dozing.” Louisa rolled over, a blur of black and silver hair and alluring mouth. “You must be tired.”

  “BART had a holdup and I just missed the streetcar a
nd it took forever for another to come.” Rayann stopped babbling. None of that mattered.

  “Okay,” was all Louisa said.

  Rayann tried to let Louisa fall asleep. Louisa wasn’t going to get her seven hours as it was and Rayann had not failed to notice that Louisa needed seven hours to feel energetic the following day. Although Louisa often seemed stronger, she’d had a birthday a month ago. Fifty-seven was fifty-seven. Hell, Rayann thought. Thirty is thirty, too. You’re a grump if you don’t get at least six hours these days.

  She tried to go to sleep. She reached the point of dozing and a waking dream intruded, remembering their second night together, when they’d finally admitted that the first night hadn’t just been “one of those things.” That night she had felt the way she did now. Hardly able to move or breathe, achingly wet and wanting to open herself to Louisa’s fingers and take and take and take.

  She moved slightly closer to Louisa, inhaling the scent of her hair. Louisa’s breathing seemed steady and deep. She kissed the black and silver waves that spilled toward her, holding them against her mouth and face.

  Let her sleep. You don’t know how to ask. She takes pleasure in seducing you, so wait for her

  Gently, holding her breath, she kissed Louisa’s shoulder. One taste—she hoped it would suffice. Instead her panting grew louder and Louisa was stirring.

  “Ray, are you all right?”

  She said nothing because the answer was both yes and no. Yes, she was fine, she was where she wanted to be, next to Louisa. No, she wasn’t okay, and wouldn’t be until Louisa took her, and until Louisa’s mouth enjoyed all of her. Louisa rolled over. “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing.” It would only be another moment until Louisa touched her. One touch and Louisa would know, like she always seemed to know. It’s important, she thought. Before Louisa could touch her, she blurted out, “I want to have sex.”

  Louisa murmured, “Why didn’t you say so sooner?” Her hand smoothed Rayann’s hip.

  “I didn’t want to wake you.” She moaned, trying not to be loud, when Louisa traced her hip with one lazy finger.

  “Wake me next time,” Louisa whispered. “Your skin is on fire.”

  “I didn’t want to…didn’t want to…” It was hard to think with Louisa kissing the side of her mouth.

  “Didn’t want to what?”

  “I wasn’t sure you…”

  “You weren’t sure I would want to?” Louisa’s fingertips slipped through Rayann’s wetness, and Louisa gasped. “How could you think I wouldn’t want this?”

  Rayann shook her head. That wasn’t it. She couldn’t think anymore. Words required thinking. Only instinct was left. “Please. Don’t tease me.”

  Louisa was already inside her. She knows, Rayann thought, she understands that tonight I just want to hold on. She held on, ignited by the friction of Louisa’s fingers moving so quickly and surely. She let Louisa take her to a place beyond words, where her body sang need and satisfaction. She traveled between the extremes as satisfaction led to want led to fulfillment led to craving more. Every step she was guided by Louisa’s hands and mouth, taking her surely from desire to completion and back again.

  * * * “How could you think I wouldn’t want that?” Louisa kissed Rayann’s mouth and chin as she cradled Rayann’s damp, limp body in her arms.

  “It wasn’t that.” Rayann shivered with exhaustion. “I knew that you wouldn’t hesitate. It doesn’t matter.”

  “Tell me. It does matter.” Louisa kissed her eyelids. “I don’t ever want you to hesitate again.”

  “I thought…I thought it might offend the butch in you. For me to start things.”

  Louisa pressed her lips to Rayann’s temple and ear. Finally, she said, “Don’t you know that you always start things?”

  “No, I—you—”

  “You’re the flame, Ray. I don’t know why you want me. All I know is that you do and I can’t wait to get my hands on you. I’m just following your lead, like tonight.”

  “You make me want you. I don’t know how you do it.” Rayann smiled sleepily into Louisa’s eyes, knowing she would have plenty to think about later. “I think we’re having a chicken-and-egg argument.”

  “Do we love because we are loved? Do we want because we’re wanted? I don’t know the answer.”

  “Maybe the answer doesn’t matter.” Rayann sighed with deep contentment. “The only answer that matters to me is that you love me. That sounds selfish, doesn’t it? After the last—” She peeked at the illuminated alarm clock. “Good God, the last hour, I’m still thinking about you loving me.”

  “Good.” Rayann could tell Louisa was smiling.

  “I’m not going to sleep yet,” Rayann whispered. “Not until you’re selfish for a while.” She coiled one hand in Louisa’s hair. “Please be selfish.”

  “I think I can manage it, if that’s what you want.” Louisa was definitely smiling.

  Rayann didn’t give in to her exasperation. She pushed her thigh hard between Louisa’s legs and was rewarded by an earthy gasp. “It’s what I want,” she admitted. “How perfect that it’s what you want, too.”

  “Perfect,” Louisa answered as she drew Rayann’s hand to her body. “Right now and tomorrow, and after that. Perfect.”

  Come Here

  (Any given night) This night is like any other. If I screen out the steady drone of traffic and the monotonous tick of the mantel clock, I hear the quiet drip of the fog that has blanketed our district of San Francisco for the last few days. I also hear the whisper of a page turning behind me. I don’t turn to look. I know exactly how Dedric has sprawled in the armchair, her long legs hanging over one side. I know without looking that one slipper has fallen off; the other dangles from her toes. I shake this image of her from my mind and go back to my patient files.

  My psychotherapy practice is thriving and the files are always in need of updating. I am breaking the rules by working on the night we choose every week as “date night.” Dedric is immersed in the last pages of a spy thriller and so far hasn’t said she minded my working. I set one file aside, my notes complete, and stretch lazily before taking another. I feel guilty for taking our special time and though the work needs to be done, I half wish she would remember it was date night and make me stop. There are many other ways I would like to spend the night: dancing in her arms, wrapped in a blanket with her in front of the fire, entwined in the softness of our bed.

  The clock chimes after I finish two more files. The fog gathers closer and I no longer hear traffic on the street. I stretch again, running my hands over the small of my back, arching my shoulders. As I open another file I hear the soft thud of a book falling to the floor and the rustle of fabric as Dedric shifts position.

  “Come here.” Dedric’s silken voice whispers. The files become a blur. I have been under Dedric’s unrelenting spell for nine years and those two words, in that voice of hers, never fail to find response in my body.

  “Judy.” Her voice is a low contralto. I have heard it raised in a forceful, commanding yell of “Stop. Police.” But tonight her voice is soft, edged with the need that is her one weakness— her need for me.

  I put down my pen, aware that her gaze is on me. I put off meeting her stare for I know when I do I will lose myself in oceans of emerald green. My hands will lose themselves in her long, thick, auburn hair. My lips will be lost to her demanding passion. So I don’t look at her, not yet. I close the file on top and tidy the stacks, aware that I won’t return to them until tomorrow. As a psychologist I understand why it is so important to me that I close the door on my professional life before opening the door to Dedric’s love. My patients would not recognize their quiet, pillar-of-rock therapist as the woman who is trembling as she rises from the table, gaze unfocused, lips parted, breath quickened.

  Dedric’s features are cast in a soft Irish mold of creamy skin that sprouts freckles in the sun. When she’s in uniform she pulls her masses of hair into a no-nonsense ponytail. The seve
rity would make most women appear more angular, but it only emphasizes how her brows arch and the smooth rise of her throat. I know that she could have chosen anyone to be her mate, but she chose me. I am the only one who makes her more beautiful still. I am the only one who sees her goddesslike beauty amplified by passion and desire. I am the one she loves, the one she needs.

  I stand in front of her as she looks up at me from the depths of the armchair. Just as my patients would not recognize my passion and surrender, her fellow officers would not recognize the flush on her cheeks, the hair down around her shoulders, the eyes that are pleading. Her colleagues often accuse her of coldness. Among our friends she’s regarded as an outrageously bawdy flirt. No one else knows these expressions on her face, this open posture of her body, the lips that have grown fuller and redder over the past minute as my gaze devoured their sweetness.

  I slide onto her knee. I know my power over her. She has been decorated for her courage and strength, but at this moment I know she is in my complete control. Arms that can bench press one-eighty sweep around me, hold me helpless against the lushness of her body. And yet I feel her trembling. I kiss her softly, quickly.

  “Come to bed with me,” she says, simultaneously asking and ordering. She needs to be specific. She wants me to know that we aren’t tickling or teasing, snuggling or cuddling— maybe later, but not now and not for a while. I’ve known that since she said, “Come here.”

  “Yes.” I kiss her again. She draws her breath in sharply and rocks me back in her arms. Her lips find my throat and the sound of her mouth leaving warm and moist kisses is no louder than the tick of the clock, but it is a symphony to me. The sound of her lips on my body moves me more than the sight of it. She presses her mouth to my breasts, which are hard and arching in their confinement, and I raise my hand to unbutton and expose myself but she stops me with a slight shake of the head.

  “Not yet.” Her mouth returns to them, torturing me with muffled nips and slow warmth. She tells me how soft I am to her mouth, how lovely I am to her, and then, raggedly, she says, “I want you so much.”