by Kay Bigelow
“I think I need to read the book.” Alex glanced at her watch and rose from the bench. “I need to get going. I’m really glad I ran into you today. Can we get together again soon?”
“I’d love that.”
“Tomorrow?”
“Yes.”
“I’ll text you as soon as I think of somewhere to go.” Alex smiled and headed for the parking lot.
I know exactly where I want to take you. Straight to my bed.
Alex stopped and half turned toward Lauren. “Maybe that, too.”
Lauren felt herself blushing at having been caught watching Alex’s ass. She was so baffled all she could do was nod. Did she just read my mind? Did she really know I wanted to take her to bed? Talk about dangerous.
Lauren continued to sit on the bench staring off across the meadow thinking about Alex. She couldn’t reconcile the Alex she knew with the woman outside Hudson’s saying she was a player. Maybe Alex had rejected her advances. Maybe Alex was playing me by being the almost-shy sensitive woman I’d spent time with. How did she know what I’d been thinking? She didn’t, silly. She had a fifty-fifty chance of knowing you were thinking about sex. If you’d been thinking about stopping somewhere to get an ice cream cone, she still would have said the right thing. You haven’t exactly been an enigma while you’ve been with her.
When Serena got bored, she wandered off to check out the wildlife—the grasshopper living dangerously by leaping across the grass in front of the big dog, or the lone dandelion swaying softly in the breeze. Serena went to Lauren and laid her head on Lauren’s knee and looked at her with big brown eyes, willing her mom to get off her ass and start moving again. Since Lauren’s thinking was going nowhere but in circles, she stood up. Serena all but said out loud, “Finally!” They returned to the walking path and stayed on it until it looped back to the parking lot.
By the time they got home at three, she had a couple of hours before she had to leave for the softball game Charlie had invited her to. Lauren was tired of trying to figure out what Alex was up to. All she wanted to do, really, was stop thinking about Alex’s ulterior motives, if she had any, and enjoy being with her. Whoa! She just refused to answer the question of her marital status. Until that’s clarified, she’s off-limits. She went to her bedroom, lay down on the bed, took her book, and opened it. That was Max’s cue to demand pets. Max was more independent than most cats Lauren had known. He didn’t need much from his human beyond two meals a day and clean litter. So when he asked for pets, she stopped what she was doing and gave him what he demanded as his due.
When she awoke from an unexpected nap, Max was gone and Serena was stretched out on the bed beside her. Dammit! I forgot to get a clock while I was out. She groped around on the bedside table looking for her phone. She found it when she knocked it off the table. She was tempted to leave it where it was and go back to sleep, but decided she was being a sloth so she got up, retrieved the phone, and saw that it was already five o’clock.
After her second shower of the day, Lauren felt much more alert and better able to resist the siren call of her bed. She dressed in jeans, a light blue shirt, and navy-blue sweater. She was really looking forward to watching Charlie and her friends play softball. It had been many years since the last time she’d been to a softball game. She decided she wasn’t hungry enough to fix dinner. She’d pick something up from Patsy’s on her way home from the game or eat the leftover Chinese food from the night before.
Lauren wondered if Alex would be at the game. She wasn’t sure how she’d act if Alex was at the game, but knew she’d be disappointed if Alex wasn’t there.
Chapter Six
Alex was glad she’d run into Lauren in the park. Seeing Lauren’s eyes light up and the welcoming smile had made her heart pound. Lauren seemed as happy to see her as she’d been to see Lauren. Surely that was a good sign.
After they’d chatted and made plans to get together again on Saturday, Alex turned to walk away. When she turned back to look at Lauren, she knew Lauren had been checking out her ass. She smiled and said, “Maybe that, too.” The look on Lauren’s face told her she was undoubtedly right that Lauren was thinking about having sex with her. When she turned back to leave the park, she was grinning broadly.
The smile faded when she thought about their conversation. She knew she’d failed to answer Lauren’s question about her marital status. She knew Lauren was smart enough to have caught the omission, but no matter how she’d answered that question it would have sounded evasive at best and, at worst, like she was hiding something, which, of course, she was. How was she supposed to tell someone she was single—kind of. How could she follow that up with being the mistress of a very rich and powerful woman? If I were on the receiving end of that information, I’d back off so fast I’d leave a breeze behind me. She knew she’d have to tell Lauren about Lucia sooner rather than later, but how was she supposed to do that? “Oh, Lauren, remember when you asked if I were single? Well, I am, but not really.” Oh yeah, that would impress Lauren, I’m sure.
She knew she should tell her now because the longer she waited to tell her, the harder it would be to do it, and then Lauren would think she’d not told her in order to deceive her. What a fucking conundrum! Damned if I do, damned if I don’t. I can solve this problem right now and stay away from Lauren. That way I won’t have to answer the damned question with outright lies or half-truths.
The one thing she was certain of was that she didn’t want to walk away from Lauren. She knew she could fall in love with the woman. The more she saw of her, the more she wanted to be with her. The more she wanted to be with Lauren, the more she’d fall in love. Yet another fucking conundrum.
When she returned to her loft, she looked over her works in progress. Two only needed small finishing strokes to complete them. The other two were more complete than not. Instead of working on those canvases, she went to her bedroom and retrieved the canvas with the sketch of Lauren and herself. She returned it to the empty easel. She took a few steps back and stood objectively studying it. It’s good, she thought. Really good. She’d been able to capture the sensuousness of the two women, the heat between them, and the passion about to explode. It, too, needed finishing, she decided, smiling. Now all she had to do was add paint, having changed her mind about doing The Shower in watercolors. Until that moment, she hadn’t realized she had titled it.
Later that afternoon, she couldn’t keep her mind from thinking about Lauren, so she decided to take a walk in town. Maybe being outdoors would help her clear her mind and focus on her art. As she passed Hudson’s Books, she saw a flyer in the window about the local softball team. She wondered if Lauren was into any sports. She was sure she had been because Lauren’s body was toned like she spent time in a gym. For someone who said she had had to work all the time, she seemed to have found time to work out. Alex promised herself to ask Lauren if she was a gym junkie.
Alex stopped to read the flyer announcing their very own softball team was in the running for the league championship and would play the final two games of the season in town. One game was that evening and, if they won that one, they’d play for the championship on Sunday at noon. The flyer listed the team member’s names. She knew quite a few of the women, and thought it might be interesting to watch them play. The game that evening was due to start at six thirty. She glanced at the clock inside Hudson’s and saw it already nearly five. She could make the game if she wanted, but did she want to?
Alex wasn’t much of a socializer. She had finally gotten tired of all the games played at social events, tired of being hit on all the time, tired of women who couldn’t believe she didn’t want to go to bed with them, tired of women who thought that because she’d said no to their advances, she was stuck up or worse. Did none of them consider there might be other reasons she might not want to bed them other than she only dated models, as one woman had told her? She’d thought she’d found a haven away from all that when she moved into her grandmother’s house. T
hen she’d met a few women from the softball team and knew she’d only traded one group of women for another, all with the same goals of sleeping with as many women as possible. That was just not who Alex was.
She was a one-woman-at-a-time sort, and she knew the complexity that was now her life while being with Lucia but not really being with her, wanting to be with Lauren and not, might put her one-woman-at-a-time lifestyle to a test. But she enjoyed being in a committed relationship. She liked feeling like she belonged with someone. For Alex, it seemed an easier, less stressful way of being. As an artist, and trying to be a successful artist at that, the less stress she had in her life the better her painting was. She didn’t feel committed or connected to Lucia in the same way she had with Natalia.
After Natalia died in the car accident, she found being alone was better than going bar-hopping every night as most of her friends did. Her painting got better and better. One of her friends had asked if it was hard being alone all the time, and wasn’t she lonely? At the time, she hadn’t had an answer for her friend. The more she thought about being alone and being lonely, the more she came to know herself and admitted that while she was alone and enjoying it, she did, sometimes, get lonely.
She admitted missing the touch of a woman, the softness of a woman’s skin, the murmurings of a woman in the throes of passion. Did she miss those things enough to go out and find someone willing to go to bed with her? No, she didn’t. She’d wait until the right woman came along. Someone who could be alone, who understood the fine line between being alone and being lonely.
She realized that someone was Lauren, not Lucia.
****
Lauren arrived at the baseball park at six to find the parking lot nearly full, but was lucky enough to find a space fairly close to the entrance because a runner was departing the scene. There were several tailgate parties in full swing. These women really know how to enjoy a softball game.
As she was getting out of her SUV, she heard her name called. She looked around and saw Charlie headed her way.
“You came,” she said.
“I wouldn’t miss this for the world.”
“Thanks for coming. Can I walk with you to the bleachers?”
“Of course.”
Charlie was being very formal, and Lauren wondered why.
“I’ve been thinking about you,” Charlie said as she stopped in the middle of the sidewalk.
“Oh?” It was all Lauren could think of to say.
“Come on, Char, stop dawdling,” a woman said as she hurried by them. She was dressed in the same black baseball pants and very bright red T-shirt as Charlie had on.
“Listen, I’ve got to go play a game even though I’d rather stand here and talk with you.”
Lauren laughed.
“Come on, I’ll walk you to the bleachers and make sure you’re as far away from my bleacher friends as possible.”
They started walking toward the field once more.
“Why would you want me far away from your friends?”
“If any of them saw me talking to you, some of them would want to grill you. The others would want to hit on you. So I’ll make sure you’re safely seated among the women with kids and husbands in tow.”
“Please don’t do that to me,” Lauren said, laughing.
She laughed, too. “Okay.”
Charlie escorted her to the bleachers and left to run out onto the field. Lauren found an empty space next to a nice-looking woman who smiled at her as she sat down.
“My name is Lucy, and I’m Char’s best friend.”
“I’m Lauren.”
“You like softball?” Lucy asked.
“I do. I used to play before my work took over my life,” Lauren said, smiling. “What’s the name of the team?”
“They don’t have one. On the rosters, they’re listed as NNT, for No Name Team.”
“They didn’t want a name?”
“Oh, they wanted one. They just couldn’t agree on a name. They’ve got twelve players and they had ten names as possibilities. They finally gave up because they were concerned it would ruin the easygoing comradery they had if they continued arguing over the name of the team.”
“That was very wise of them. I’m sure it could have gotten very acrimonious,” Lauren said with a smile.
“Oh, it did. The team barely survived the name game,” Lucy said.
Charlie played shortstop and was very, very good. She was also one of the team’s best hitters. During the course of the game, she hit two singles driving in three runs, and a double for two more runs. At the end of the game, the NNT won six to four.
As Lauren was leaving the bleachers with Lucy, Charlie came trotting up to them.
“Another good game, girlfriend,” Lucy said.
“I see you’ve met Lucy. Listen, some of us are going out for pizza. Would you like to join us?”
Lauren hesitated. She knew how closely knit a team could be and any outsider would be, well, an outsider at any gathering they had.
“What time does the game start tomorrow?” Lauren asked instead.
“Noon. I hope you’ll come watch us. You seemed to have brought us luck.”
“I will, although from the way you guys played, I doubt you need luck.”
“I’m glad you’re coming to the game. Have a good evening, Lauren,” Charlie said as she turned away to join her teammates.
Lauren returned home to a darkened house. She needed to remember to leave a light on in the house if she went out in the evening. Serena was happy to see her, and even Max came downstairs to say hello.
As she stood on the back porch looking at the stars, her thoughts turned to Alex. She wondered what Alex was doing right then. Maybe I should call or text. And maybe you should leave things as they are.
****
Alex was looking at the same stars as Lauren, although Alex was lying on her back on her couch watching them through one of the large skylights. She’d decided she didn’t really want to go to the softball game.
She wondered what Lauren did with herself aside from walking Serena and reading. She probably had a vast network of friends she communicated with on a regular basis. She wondered if any of those friends were ex-lovers. Surely, she had dated after her wife’s death. It hadn’t appeared that anyone but Lauren lived in the house she’d visited the night before.
Oh Lordy, I need to know what she thinks of monogamy. I need to tell her about Lucia. I need to stop thinking about her all the time. Alex glanced at the painting of the two women in the shower. I want to make that scene come true and not be only a fantasy. I want to take Lauren to bed. I want to stroke her skin. I want to watch her become aroused. I want to touch every inch of her with every inch of me. I want to taste her. I want to hear Lauren come. I want her.
Alex got to her feet and took the shower painting back into the bedroom. She fixed herself a salad and ate it at the kitchen island. Sated and at last ready to work, she took one of the paintings that was close to being completed and set it on the easel. When she finally thought it was completed, she stood back from it and studied it. She stepped back to it and added a stroke or two. She stepped away from it, studying it. She turned away from it and went to the kitchen and brought back a bottle of water, and once again studied the painting. It was done. She took it off the easel and set it aside to dry. She took the other painting that was nearly finished and did the same thing with it. Then she picked up the painting needing the most work. By the time she finished it, it was two o’clock in the morning. Bed time.
The last thing she saw before turning off the light was the shower piece. She fell asleep thinking of what she would do with Lauren given the chance.
She awoke with a start three hours later, breathing hard. She moved her hand to her clit and found it rock-hard. It didn’t take any time at all to make herself come. As she lay in her bed trying to remember what her dream had been about, she couldn’t recall a single scene. She was disappointed. She was a vivid dreamer, often
dreaming of ordinary things with brilliant colors, like a jet of cobalt blue with fuchsia stars on its body. She seldom had a problem remembering her dreams, but this one was elusive. She hoped it was about Lauren.
Once again, she drifted off to sleep, and this time she fantasized about being in bed with Lauren. When she woke later that morning, she was sure she’d spent the night with Lauren in her dreams.
Chapter Seven
The next morning, Lauren awoke feeling refreshed and ready to face the day. She showered, dressed, and went downstairs to let Serena out. As she stood waiting for her coffee to brew, her mind automatically turned to Alex. For the first time and apropos of absolutely nothing, she wondered if Alex had been right about the town gossiping about her.
“I warned you about that when you decided to move to the boonies,” Lindsey told her when she called her later in the morning.
“I hardly thought I’d be dating a woman within a few days of moving into the house.”
“That’s the good news about small towns. If you’re new meat, everyone’s interested in you.”
“That was delicately put.”
“It’s the truth, though, isn’t it?”
“It seems so.”
“So tell me about her,” Lindsey said.
She told her what she knew of Alex.
“Let me guess, you’re drawn to Alex because she’s elusive and secretive.”
“How’s your love life, know-it-all?”
“The same as it was when you were here.”
“When are you coming to see me?”
“Well, now that you’ve got something interesting going on with your life, I’ll come up in a couple of weeks. Talk to you soon,” she said and hung up.
Lauren was in shock. She’d believed her when Lindsey had said she’d never leave Manhattan even for a day. Despite Lindsey’s promise to make the trek to see her, she’d believe it when she saw Lindsey standing at her door. She wondered what was going on with Lindsey that would have her even thinking about leaving the City.
