Innis Harbor

by Patricia Evans Cox

  “I think we can skip the rainfly,” Amir said, looking out at the cloudless horizon over the sea. “You can see the stars through the top of the tent if you don’t have it up, and if we end up needing it, we can throw it up in under a minute.”

  Loch took off her shoes and climbed inside, lying back and looking up at the blue sky above her. “This is amazing. How have I been missing out on this all my life?”

  “Stay right there,” Amir said over her shoulder as she headed back to the truck. “I’m going to hand you some stuff.”

  She came back with two double camping pads and had Loch stack them on top of each other, then pulled a feather bed out of a canvas bag and shook it out.

  “This goes on top,” she said. “Then we’ll put the sleeping bags over that.”

  After Loch had it all laid out, Amir handed her the first sleeping bag. “I didn’t want you to feel like you didn’t have your own space, so I brought two.”

  Loch looked at her for a minute and unzipped the bag, laying it out like a blanket. “That’s so thoughtful, thank you.” She looked up at Amir. “But I think tonight I’d rather end up in your space.”

  Amir smiled and handed her the last layer, a feather comforter, to lay over the top of everything, creating a lofted, cozy pile of soft layers.

  “I’m positive my bed at home isn’t anywhere near this nice,” Loch said, looking up at Amir and smiling. “And something tells me you’re actually a sleeping bag on the bare ground kind of girl if left to your own devices.”

  “Maybe.” Amir crawled inside the tent and lay Loch softly underneath her on the bed. “But I know you’re not used to camping, and the ground can get pretty cold. I didn’t want you to be uncomfortable.”

  Loch looked thoughtful, then kissed her before she spoke. “I’ve never been with someone who takes care of me like you do. I guess it’s always been the other way around.”

  Amir smiled at the memory of Loch that first morning outside the diner. “I think we’ve already established that you’re hanging out with the wrong women.”

  Loch laughed, and Amir lay beside her, propped up on her elbow.

  “This is none of my business, and you don’t have to tell me, but what kind of girls do you date?”

  “Mostly other models,” Loch said, looking up at the sky. “I didn’t realize it before, but I guess I’ve just been the more masculine person so far in my relationships.”

  “Being masculine doesn’t mean you have to be in any certain role,” Amir said gently. “There doesn’t have to be roles at all. I think every couple is unique, you just have to see what develops between you, what your chemistry is.”

  “I guess I never thought about it that way.” Loch looked up at Amir, thinking for a moment before she went on. “But I’ve definitely never dated anyone like you.”

  Amir smiled, her fingertips warm and light on Loch’s neck. “So, you’ve never dated a butch?”

  “No,” Loch said. “Not even close.”

  Amir slid her hand under Loch’s shirt and followed the lines of her body with her fingertips.

  “What do you think so far?”

  “I think I’ve been hanging out with the wrong women.”

  They spent the rest of the afternoon hiking down to the shore and back up; on the other side of the cliffs, the slope down to the water was much more gradual, and stairs had been cut into the steepest portions of the path. But even with those, Loch still had to stop and rest on the way back up the trail.

  “Sorry,” she said, accepting the water bottle Amir handed her as she sat on a step. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I usually have more stamina than this.”

  “There’s no rush,” Amir said. “If you never stop, you miss half the scenery anyway.”

  She watched Loch carefully as she spoke. She was paler than she had been before they’d started, and her hand shook when she lifted the bottle.

  “What have you had to eat today?”

  Loch looked up and shook her head. “I’m fine, I promise.”

  Amir raised her eyebrow and waited.

  “It’s not the same for me, Amir.” Loch slowly peeled the label from the water bottle in her hand. “Models can’t eat like normal people.”

  Amir shook her head and looked down at Loch’s still trembling hands. “You don’t eat enough, babe.” She paused, holding her gaze. “But I know it’s none of my business, and you can tell me to back off anytime.”

  Loch smiled and tangled her fingers into Amir’s. “I kind of like you in my business.”

  Amir pulled her up and wrapped her arms around her. “Good, because I’m making you veggie chili dogs tonight.”

  Loch looked at her and narrowed her eyes. “Wait, does that even exist?”

  Amir motioned for her to jump onto her back and slid her arms under Loch’s legs as she started back up the trail.

  “I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear that.”

  Amir carried her the rest of the way to the campsite. When they finally got back to camp, the sun was just starting to go down, so Amir got what she needed out of the truck and lit the lanterns.

  Loch lit the fire and got it going like a pro, and soon there were veggie dogs on top of the grate Amir placed over the fire, held at the right height by rocks on either side. The chili warmed in a cast iron pan beside them.

  “When did you make the chili?”

  “Last night,” Amir said, stirring in raw onion and jalapeño. “I didn’t have a clue what you’d like, but it’s pretty hard not to like a chili dog.”

  “Maybe it’s the fresh air, but I’m starving.” Loch leaned over to kiss Amir’s cheek.

  The stars were dense, like drifts of pale ash across the black night sky, and the sea crashing into the cliffs thundered in the background like an invisible storm.

  “Come here.” Amir stood, brushing herself off, and held out her hand to Loch. She led them close to the cliff and leaned toward the edge. “If you stand here and close your eyes, you can feel the last of the spray hit your face.”

  Loch hesitantly closed her eyes and leaned closer to the edge, taking in a sharp breath when the icy mist touched her skin.

  “I thought you were kidding,” she said, looking back at Amir and turning back for more. “I can’t believe you can feel it all the way up here.”

  Amir smiled. “I think the sea only sends it up when she notices someone watching.”

  When Loch finally got enough, she turned back to Amir, the silver mist shimmering across her face. The veggie dogs were ready when they got back to the fire, and Amir handed Loch a paper plate with a veggie dog in a bun, nearly buried in chili and topped with onion and cheddar.

  Loch raised an eyebrow. “You know this is more than I eat in like three days, right?”

  “What?” Amir leaned into her neck, the tip of her tongue moving silently to the edge of her ear. “You think I’m not going to work that off you later?”

  Loch closed her eyes, memorizing the warmth of Amir’s tongue as it moved around the edge of her ear to her mouth, drawing her lower lip slowly between her teeth, letting it go with a soft scrape.

  “Amir,” Loch whispered, her eyes still closed. “I swear I’m going to throw this amazing food off the cliff if you keep reminding me of what else I could be doing, so you might want to stop.”

  Amir smiled and leaned back, picking up her plate. “Eat, Battersby. Then I’ll remind you all night.”

  The wind swept through the trees above the cliffs, the tops moving like paintbrushes across the night sky, leaving shimmering drifts of stars in their wake. A lighthouse foghorn sounded over the water, deep and resonant, the last faint remnants of sound colliding with the cliff face and falling into shards at the shoreline, fading like footsteps.

  “So,” Loch said, looking over and watching the firelight cast flames across the backlit amber of Amir’s eyes. “Tell me something you’ve never told anyone else.”

  “Like what?”

  “Anything.” Loch
licked sauce from the tip of her fingers. “Just something real.”

  Amir put her plate aside and shoved her hands in her pockets. “Okay. How about that I’m thirty, and I’ve never been in love.”

  “Whoa,” Loch said, smiling, putting her plate down beside her. “That’s way better than I thought I was going to get. Go on.”

  Amir looked at her plate with a raised eyebrow. Loch picked it back up and paused before she took another bite.

  “Fine,” she said. “But this had better be good.”

  “I think there’s been a few different reasons,” Amir said, answering the obvious question first. “But the biggest is that it’s a small damn town, and I know too much about everyone.”

  “So, who do you date?”

  Amir laughed, picking up her water bottle and taking a long drink before she answered. “No one appropriate. That might have something to do with it. Other than one serious girlfriend in high school that ended in disaster, I’ve tended to date casually, mostly outside of Innis Harbor. I’ve dated two women in town in the last couple of years, but they were wildly different. One was nineteen and the other was forty-six.”

  “This just keeps getting better and better.”

  Loch kicked a log that had rolled to the side of the fire back onto the coals with her boot and rubbed her hands together in anticipation.

  “I want to know everything.”

  “No, you don’t.” Amir shook her head. “It’s not that exciting.”

  “So, why didn’t they work out?”

  Amir just smiled, then went to the truck and brought back an armful of firewood. She stoked the fire before she sank one of the logs into the flames, watching them char the side of the cedar for a moment before she answered.

  “Well, the nineteen-year-old was great, I still have a lot of respect for her, but she was just too young for it to go anywhere.”

  “And the older woman?”

  “That was a little bit of a disaster.” Amir looked up and ran her hand through her hair, then rubbed the back of her neck. “It was one of Anna’s friends. Beautiful but crazy.”

  “Let me guess,” Loch said, trying not smile. “She hired you to fix something for her.”

  “That’s about right,” Amir said. “She was newly divorced and wanted me to hang a porch swing for her.”

  “Recipe for disaster, obviously,” Loch teased, stealing Amir’s water and taking a sip before she handed it back. “What happened?”

  “I’ll give you the short version,” Amir said. “We slept together twice, then she decided she was in love with me and told Anna, who’s never let me forget it.”

  “Was Anna pissed?”

  “Not at all. She said it was the best entertainment she’d had in ages. She still asks me about it all the time in front of my brother.”

  “Did he ever catch on?”

  “Only because Anna flat out told him.”

  Amir laughed, shaking her head at the memory. “He told me I was an idiot, then wanted to know every detail the second Anna left the room. I think he may have been a little jealous actually, so that part was fun at least.”

  “What about the nineteen-year-old?”

  “We slept together on and off for about a year, but I don’t think either one of us really had romantic feelings for each other. The sex was good, but we didn’t spend any time together outside of that.”

  “How did it end?”

  “No drama, really. I introduced her to one of my friends, and they fell for each other right away. They’re still together.”

  Loch put her plate down and sat closer, and Amir wrapped her hands around Loch’s to warm them.

  “Are you cold?”

  “Always.”

  Amir went to the truck and came back with a wool blanket that she wrapped around Loch’s shoulders before she sat back down beside her and pulled her closer.

  “So, you just happen to have a blanket in your truck the second I get cold?”

  Amir leaned forward and dropped another log on the fire, wrapping her arms around Loch again when she leaned back against her.

  “I figured we might need an extra one. I do know a few things about you by now,” she said, dropping her voice to a warm whisper against Loch’s ear.

  “Tell me,” Loch said, her hand warm against the inside of Amir’s thigh.

  “I know you make little complaining noises in your sleep if I get too far from you in bed.” Amir ran her tongue across the soft skin just below Loch’s ear. “I know it drives you crazy when I kiss your neck,” she continued, pulling Loch’s forehead to hers and looking into her eyes in the firelight. “And I know you’re all I’ve been able to think about since the first night I met you.”

  Amir kissed her, pulling Loch into her body until she felt her fingers undo the first button of her flannel.

  “Not so fast, Battersby,” Amir said. “It’s your turn to tell me something you’ve never told anyone else. Don’t even think I’m going to let you off the hook with that one.”

  Loch unbuttoned Amir’s shirt anyway and slid her hands under the T-shirt she found underneath. “Too bad, I forgot what I was going to say.”

  “If I take you to bed, will it help you remember?”

  Amir pulled Loch onto her lap, facing her, her hands wrapped low around Loch’s hips as she kissed her, pulling her tighter against her body.

  Loch nodded, closing her eyes as Amir’s hands moved under her clothes to the bare skin of her waist. “If you keep doing that, I’ll tell you anything you want to know.”

  “I’ll hold you to that.” Amir picked her up as she stood, then set her softly back on the ground. “I’m going to get the food put away. You go get warmed up in the tent. I’ll be there in a minute.”

  Loch brushed her teeth at the water station that Amir had set up at the picnic table and watched as she took the trash out to the metal cans the campground provided at the edge of the road and put the food and the small cooler into the cab of her truck.

  “Why did you put everything in there?”

  Amir watched as the wind lifted the silver edges of Loch’s hair, moving it gently across her face. She walked over and picked up her toothbrush.

  “We do have a few black bears here,” she said. “Not many of those in Manhattan?”

  Loch laughed, trailing her fingers across Amir’s back as she walked to the tent and disappeared inside.

  After she had everything locked up for the night, Amir took her shoes off at the door of the tent and unzipped it, then reached up into the darkness and clicked on the lantern she’d suspended from the ceiling of the tent.

  “Oh, that’s much better,” Loch said, slipping her lip balm back into the pocket of the folded jeans she hadn’t been able to locate in the dark.

  Amir watched as Loch climbed under the covers, wearing just a sheer white v-neck and boy shorts. Amir stripped down to her underwear, then slipped under the covers with her.

  Loch’s hand slid slowly across Amir’s chest, fingertips brushing her nipples. Then she met Amir’s gaze as she lifted her own shirt and dropped it beside the bed.

  “God,” Amir said, pausing, her gaze sweeping the length of Loch’s body. “You’re so beautiful.”

  She wrapped her arms around her, and Loch melted into Amir’s strong chest, a perfect frame for the delicate contrast of her pale skin, the soft peaks of her breasts suddenly tense against Amir’s fingers.

  “Not getting out of it, by the way,” Amir whispered against Loch’s neck.

  Loch looked up, distracted by Amir’s touch. “Out of what?”

  “Telling me what no one else knows about you.”

  Loch smiled, leaning back into the pillows, hands still soft against Amir’s chest, sliding down to her abs, and across her hips. “Wait, I didn’t actually promise I would tell you anything.” She buried her mouth in Amir’s neck. “That question was just for you.”

  Amir’s breath deepened as Loch kissed her neck; she wrapped her hands around Loch’
s hips, pulling them into hers. “I’m waiting.”

  Loch propped herself up on her side, visibly debating whether or not to accept the challenge. “What do you want to know?”

  “Anything, just something you’ve never said out loud.”

  Loch turned her body into Amir’s and whispered so softly against her shoulder that Amir had to ask to be sure she’d heard it correctly.

  “Did you say you hate wearing a strap-on?”

  When she nodded, Amir laughed, pulling Loch into her. “That was totally not what I was expecting.”

  Loch looked up at her, biting her lower lip. “I probably should have thought before I said that.”

  “No,” Amir said, smiling at her. “That was perfect.”

  “But I’m not saying I wouldn’t, I just…” Loch looked up at Amir, who touched her thumb to Loch’s bottom lip.

  “Loch,” she said, replacing her thumb with the tip of her tongue. “If someone’s strapped on, it’s going to be me.”

  She slid Loch’s underwear slowly down her hips and dropped them beside the bed.

  “I want to touch you more than anything,” she said, holding Loch’s gaze. “Just tell me I can.”

  “God, Amir,” Loch said, closing her eyes. “Please.”

  Then she felt Amir’s fingers soft as silk against her clit, stroking, then suddenly, deliciously, deep inside her.

  Loch let out a deep slow breath, then buried her face in Amir’s neck. “Don’t…” She paused, then her voice dropped to a whisper. “Stop.”

  Amir stroked her slowly until she found the tense spot inside that begged her to stay, then she sank down between Loch’s thighs. Amir’s breath was warm and still against her clit, then her fingers were deep inside as she watched Loch’s face.

  Loch broke her gaze to arch her back, holding her breath. “God, Amir, please.”

  Amir circled her clit with her tongue, stroking her inside at the same time, lifting Loch’s thigh over her shoulder. Loch’s clit hardened against Amir’s tongue as she pulled it slowly into her mouth, memorizing the feel of her, listening to every breath. She worked her until Loch’s breath told her she was close, then slid her fingers gently out of her and reached up to brush her nipples with warm, slick fingertips. Loch’s hips were restless, her clit straining against Amir’s tongue. Amir slicked her tongue across it, slowly at first, then faster, feeling Loch’s body tense suddenly and still underneath her.