“You’re going to keep on until you get in trouble,” I warn her with a laugh.
“I know. I can’t help myself.”
“I can’t help myself either.” I pull her face to mine and suck her lower lip into my mouth, then bite down until she whimpers. “I can’t keep my hands off you.”
“Good. Because I have no intention of keeping mine off you.” My hand explores her softness until I find the spot I’m looking for, and in just a few minutes, we’re giving each other orgasms that would put any porn queen to shame.
Tennyson. Good god.
6
Gloria
“Russell? Are you about ready to go?” He’s just dilly-dallying around while I’m waiting to leave. “We’re going to be late!”
“No we’re not. We’re just not going to be early enough for you to stand around and gossip. And I think that’s best. I get sick of all that chatter.”
“We’re not gossiping! We’re just talking about things that are going on in the world around us, that’s all. That’s not gossiping.”
“And you’re going to tell me you’re not talking about the people around you?” He’s giving me that disapproving look that you’d give a teenage girl. I hate when he does that.
“Well, they are part of the world around us.”
“Yeah, the living, breathing, wouldn’t-appreciate-what-you’re-saying-about-them part of the world around us.”
I’m really offended. How dare he? “You look here, Russell Livingston. I can’t help it if you don’t give a rat’s behind about this neighborhood, but I do. And so do the other people around us. Well, the ones who aren’t up to the nasty stuff anyway.”
“You don’t know what they’re up to, Gloria. You’re just guessing. And you know how that works out. It never does. So quit worrying about what everyone else is doing and just mind your own business, please. If you want to worry about something, why don’t you worry about that bottle of tequila I found in the back of the linen closet?”
“Tequila? That’s not mine! I would never drink tequila!” I sure don’t remember drinking any, but I won’t tell him that.
“Well, it’s not mine, so I suppose people are breaking into our house and stashing bottles of alcohol around. Really, Gloria, you should try a little harder than that, because that’s not believable by anyone’s measure.”
That just makes me so mad. “Yeah, and when I tell you things, you don’t believe them. Like what happened over there at the Hendersons’ that night.”
“Gloria, that just sounded so fantastic that no one could believe it. I mean, who would flash their girl bits out a window?”
“Well, she DID!” Now I’m really angry. “I’m going to sit in the car until you get yourself ready to go. I don’t have to listen to this.” I know I’m stomping, but I don’t care. And now I’ve got to get myself into a frame of mind to listen to a sermon. I don’t know how I’ll do that as mad as I am, but I’ve got to try. It’s just wrong to sit in church and be mad.
The sanctuary is almost full today. I didn’t even have time to speak to Delores and Fern. I think they could tell from a distance that I was mad, though, because they gave me this sad look like they felt sorry for me. They know how Russell is.
Since it’s so close to time to start, there aren’t any seats in the back where I’d rather be, so we have to go all the way up front and wind up sitting next to the pastors’ friends, the Gholsons. They’re so nice. It’s so sweet to watch them together, holding hands while the service is going on.
There’s singing by the congregation and the choir, and then Reverend Cheryl gets up to speak. The bulletin says she’s speaking on inclusivity. I thought our beliefs were supposed to be about exclusivity, about how we’re going to heaven and sinners aren’t. If everyone’s included, what’s the point of being good? What would the advantages be? I’m going to talk to Russell about that at home―when I stop being mad at him.
7
Cheryl
I think the sermon went very well. We all talk about it on the way home.
“Were you watching that Livingston woman’s eyes while you were speaking?” Samuel asks as he drives.
“We couldn’t see her. We were sitting right beside her. But I can tell you that she kept sneaking glances over at us,” Megan snarls.
I nod. “Yeah, I saw her out there. She frowned the whole time. I’m guessing she only wanted to hear how we should shun those who are different. Which just further underscores my take on things: We’ve got to keep everything on the down low.”
“I’m tired of the down low. I want to be in the up high!” Daniel laughs.
“Not yet. Not for awhile. This is not about what we want. It’s about being able to make ourselves a living in our chosen professions and still have a life.”
Samuel’s voice cuts right through everything. “Have any of us thought about changing professions?”
There’s silence in the car. We’ve talked about this before and we got nowhere. No, no one has. Daniel and Megan might be able to get by with it by moving their jobs into the public school systems, but not Samuel and me. We can’t. It wouldn’t matter which denomination―no one’s going to want a gay minister, much less a gay female minister. Every strike you can think of is against us. No one says a word.
We don’t talk much during lunch at the restaurant either. Rolling up in the driveway, I look around and see that Livingston woman walking around outside. I just tell everyone, “Get in the house. Don’t stop for anything or look around. If she starts calling out, just pretend you don’t hear.” We wait until her back is turned and I snarl out, “GO!”
We make a mad dash and, just as I figured, I hear her shouting, “Reverend Cheryl! Reverend Cheryl, yoo-hoo!” When the door closes behind us, I finally take a deep breath.
“Does she do this often?” Megan wheezes.
“Yup. All the time.” I take off my jacket and hang it up. “Okay, nap time.”
“Yay!” Daniel sings out. “Come on, gorgeous! It’s time for our nap.” He grabs Samuel’s hand and drags him down the hallway.
Nap time has become our Sunday afternoon way of saying goodbye. We go to church, go out to eat, and then come home and stay in bed for the afternoon and early evening. It’s our last chance to touch each other, kiss each other, make love, for a week, and that’s not nearly enough, but it’s something and it’s better than nothing. They’re only an hour and fifteen away, but during the week that might as well be five hundred miles for the time we would have if we managed to get together. It makes me so sad, but it has to be this way.
I brush my teeth―onions in my salad for lunch―then brush my hair out and peel off down to my panties. Megan’s already in the bed, and she’s got something in her hands. “What’s that?”
“Fancy new vibrator I bought, or maybe I should say vibrators. We each insert an end, and then when we frot and they rub together, they vibrate.”
“You’re kidding, right?”
“Nope. And I rubbed the butt ends of them together. They really do vibrate when they touch.” She hands me one. “So let’s have some fun, shall we?”
“Oh, yeah!” Now this is going to be a party, I can tell. But what I really, really want to do first is just kiss her.
When our lips meet, it’s like my heart starts to sing. I want her, need her, love her more than anyone or anything else on the planet. If I were independently wealthy, we’d just buy an island and live there together forever, free of the world and its opinions. But I’m not, and I doubt I ever will be. For now, this just has to do.
Fingers wandering, she grips my nipples and pinches hard, and I moan and squirm, then do the same to her. Hers is hard and warm in my lips, and when I nip it, she gasps and pulls my hair just hard enough to make my clit tingle. “Pull it again,” I whisper around her rosy little bud. One tug in my tresses, and I tug on her nipple, then let it snap away from me as I turn loose.
She pushes me down on the bed, pulls off my panties and
then hers, and positions herself over me, her slit over my face, her lips buried in my pussy lips. Sweet, thick juices like honey coat my tongue, and the creamy texture leaves me weak as we drive each other ever closer to the edge. I hear her mumble, “Come, Cheryl, please come for me?” The words no more than hit my ears and every muscle in my body screams as contractions hit it from deep in my core out to my abs, my hips rising to meet her face. Hot and searching, her tongue finds its way into my pussy just as her climax rises and erupts, and with her bucking she thrusts in and out of me, teasing me in my post-orgasmic bliss.
Before I can even ask, I feel something cold slip inside my wetness, and I reach for the other vibrator. So wet and ready, it’s no trouble for me to slip it into her tightness, and in a split second, we’re both ready. They’re long enough that about an inch sticks out, and I know that as we stroke together and the ends hit, not only will they vibrate, but they’ll bang into us as well, and the anticipation of the hardness of the toy hitting the top end of my channel makes me practically giddy. I don’t know where she found these, but they’re beyond clever.
One bump, and the thing buzzes with hard vibrations. And it’s exquisite. Our hips in perfect synchronicity, we grind together, our clits rubbing hard, the vibrators slamming into our cervixes and shaking us every time they do. Oh, god, it’s painful and wonderful and incredible. “I’m gonna come, baby. I just can’t help it,” is all I manage to get out before another orgasm rocks me. She’s right behind me, grinding down onto me so that the vibrators are in steady contact with each other, and their fluttering sends her to the moon, her pussy dripping around the latex toy and out onto the bedding as her body ripples against mine.
My body is completely spent, my heart pounding and chest heaving, and she slides up beside me. Reaching to take the vibrator out, I’m stopped as she grabs my hand. “Leave it in.”
“Uh, okay.” I press my legs together to keep my muscles from squirting it right out, and she curves into my side and lays her head on my chest. Her fingers flick first one of my nipples and then the other, and I want so badly to be able to hold her like this all night, but they’ve got to leave in an hour. “Megan, I love you. I’d give anything to be able to live like regular people. I so want to do that someday.”
There’s silence for a few minutes and then she says, “Me too.” Quiet descends again, and in a few minutes we’re both dozing. In just a few hours, they’ll be gone. And even with Samuel around, I’m lonely.
8
Gloria
I can’t believe what Russell says to me at bedtime.
“Gloria, I think Reverend Cheryl was preaching to you today.”
Oh my goodness! He actually says that to me. “Oh, and how do you mean, Russell Livingston?”
“You want to exclude everyone you think is doing something you wouldn’t like. But that’s what she said is wrong with the world. We should embrace everyone’s differences.”
That just makes me huff. “I hope you weren’t thinking you were going to get any tonight, because after that little lecture, it’s not going to happen.”
He just smirks at me. “No. I never dreamed that would happen anyway. And I’m just telling you the truth. Everyone knows how you are.
That just infuriates me. “How I am? How I AM? What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“You’re a snoop and a busybody, Gloria. And I’m tired of it.” He just rolls over and turns his back to me.
A snoop and a busybody. That’s what my husband thinks of me. I really don’t know how to respond to that. It’s mean and unfair. I just care about what’s going on around me. And that makes me a bad person?
Well, then, I guess I’m bad.
I lie there awake, staring at the ceiling. What can I do to get rid of the bad eggs in the Harper’s Cove carton? How can I expose them to the whole community so everyone finally gets righteously up in arms and puts a stop to their shenanigans? There’s got to be a way. I’m just hoping I can figure out what it is.
9
Cheryl
“I think I’m going out for a walk. You want to come?” Samuel is standing in my office door at the church, and he’s got his athletic shoes on.
“Nah. I’d like to, but I’ve got to finish this class schedule. Bringing back a sandwich?”
“If you want one.”
I nod and smile. “Yeah. I do.” He waves as he leaves and I’m there alone with my thoughts.
Until I hear the downstairs door open. I know Nancy, the church secretary, is gone to lunch too, so I call out, “Hello?”
A timid, “Hello?” rings out from the bottom of the stairwell.
“Up here! Second door.” And when the figure appears in the door, I’m shocked.
It’s Becca Henderson. I’ve only met her once before, so it’s a surprise to see her standing in my doorway. She’s not even a member of the church, doesn’t even attend. “Becca! Good to see you! Have a seat. Want something to drink? I’ve got coffee and soft drinks and―”
“No, thank you. I hope I’m not interrupting anything.” Her voice is so soft and sweet that it makes me think of angels.
“Absolutely not! I’m glad to see you. What brings you down here?”
“I need to talk to you about something. You’re a minister; what I say to you is confidential, right?”
“It most certainly is. I’ll just consider this a counseling session. What can I do for you?”
“Well, um, I don’t want to gossip or anything, but it’s about Mrs. Livingston down the block.”
Oh my god. I can’t wait to hear this. “Yes? I know she can be, um, difficult?”
“No. She’s just downright nosy.” She certainly got that part right. “And she’s been nosing around our house.”
“In what way?”
“Looking through the windows.”
Oh no. That’s bad―that’s really, really bad. “You do know that’s illegal, right?”
“Yes, but what am I going to do? Go to the police? When she tells them what she’s seen, then, well―”
“What do you mean?” My brain tries to imagine anything that this sweet, quiet woman could do to draw attention to herself, and I’m coming up with nothing.
“Well, my husband and I, um, we don’t, uh, we don’t have a, um, a traditional relationship.” She looks relieved to have said that and kind of sags, like a tire that’s been overinflated.
Wow. What would she call mine? “Oh? What exactly do you mean by that?”
“We, um, he’s my husband, but he’s, uh, he’s also my, um, my, my, my Master.”
My mind is a blank canvas. “I’m sorry. What do you mean?”
“We live an M/s lifestyle.” I guess I just give her a blank look, because she throws in, “You know, Master/slave?”
Panic starts to blossom in my chest. “Do you need to get away from him? Because I can help you if you―”
Her giggles remind me of popping popcorn. “No! No, not at all. Oh, no, it’s all consensual. Totally. TPE, total power exchange. He takes care of me, makes sure I behave, and we’re very much in love. Very much. No, it’s fine―we’re fine. No, it’s that nosy busybody.”
“Oh, wait.” My mind is rolling. “So is this like one of those fetish lifestyles?”
“Exactly.”
I nod. “Got it.”
A faint blush across her cheeks, she says, “I hope you won’t judge me because of that.”
“No! Not my job to judge. You’re both adults. If you’re happy with the arrangement, it’s none of my business.”
She gives a tiny nod. “Good. The last time I tried to talk to a counselor about something, actually, about my mother, the counselor called the police! It was horrible.”
“Oh, no, this is between the two of us.” Her body language relaxes immediately. “So what can I do to help you with your, um, problem?”
She proceeds to tell me all about the problem they had with Gloria and the trick they’d played on her. I have to admit, when she
started telling me about the other slave they’d had in the house, I was a little perplexed about her relationship with her husband, but she seemed fine, so that part was really none of my business. When she was done, she said, “What we’re really afraid of is that she’ll figure out our lifestyle and make things hard for us, although I know for a fact that we’re not the only ones living an alternative lifestyle.”
“Oh?” Shit. Have we been that obvious? Now I’m starting to worry until she says, “Yeah, there are at least three other couples whose lifestyles are as different as ours. And she’s been spying on all of them too. Of course, I can’t say who―”
“Oh, no. I wouldn’t want you to betray their trust. That’s not necessary. But how can I help?”
“I’m not sure. I guess I just needed to know that someone else knows and doesn’t look down on me, on us.” Her face is so sad that I just want to hug her. Then I think of something.
“Does your husband know that you’re here?”
“Of course. I wouldn’t have come without his permission. He said if it would make me feel better to talk to someone who would keep our confidence, to by all means do so. So here I am.”
I’m so honored that this beautiful woman would trust me so much as to reveal her deepest, darkest secret to me. What grace and strength. I decide right then that I don’t want to be alone anymore. “Becca, can you keep a secret for me?”
“Of course.”
I hesitate just a second, then say, “Samuel and I are married on paper only. Our friends who visit on the weekends?” She nods. “Megan is my girlfriend. Daniel is Samuel’s boyfriend.”
She looks confused for a few seconds and then blurts out, “Oh! Oh, so you’re―”
“Yes. But because of our jobs, we can’t live together or tell anyone. And Megan and Daniel both work at a parochial school, so they have to be quiet too.”
Cheryl and Samuel at 323 Harper's Cove Page 3
