I could watch those hands for hours.
Yeah, I know I’ve got it bad. And I don’t quite know what to do with it.
Everyone back home told me I was going to hate moving to a small town even if it was the only place I could get a job. In a small town everybody knows everybody’s business and I’d have to watch my Ps and Qs, they said. Growing up in the city and having the natural luck to get away with a whole lot of stuff, I hadn’t had to work very hard at being discreet. Who was going to know and who was going to care?
So I’ve been laying low, working at the library as the junior librarian in training, trying to make it look like I’m far more interested in learning how to organize the periodicals and start a community reading circle than I am in running back and forth to Petey’s all day to buy coffee. I can’t sleep most nights now. I don’t know if it’s all that caffeine or the fact that when I do sleep I keep dreaming about those hands on my skin and then I have to get up and drink a lot of cold water just to keep from melting in my own heat.
But bless the gossips in town for helping me learn all about Petey. I guess since some of them saw me spending so much time in the bakery, they wanted to warn me so I could be on guard and not fall prey to her seductions. You’d never know from looking at me that I’ve dealt with plenty of seductions by women like Petey and enjoyed every single one of them. From the very first day I walked into her shop, if she’d ever even looked at me with half a hint that she might be interested, I’d have fallen on my back so fast I might have ended up with whiplash. It’s funny being femme. Sometimes you hate the fact that no one knows, and you have to go out of your way to make sure some butch realizes you’re available, ’cause you look too straight. But the good ones know. The smart ones. They can look past the heels you wear to work and the lipstick and the girly clothes, and love all that about you, know what you are beneath your clothes, not just any woman, but special. One who would fall on your back for them, let them touch you all over, let them reach inside your body, fuck you hard and tender and whatever it takes to make you both feel so good about what it is that you are.
But since I’m not so obvious to normal people, I got the whole deal on Petey.
Petey Ginoa is a legend in town. Everybody knows she’s a lesbian even though nobody’s ever seen her with any woman at any time. She’s too smart for that—to get caught. It’s a small town and she’s got a damn good business and she’d be crazy to take a chance on losing it all. Petey’s not her real name; it’s Pia, which is the name on the sign above the door. Her father named the shop that back when she was a baby. But everybody calls the place Petey’s. They eat Petey’s bread and take Petey’s cake home for birthdays and baby christenings and stop by Petey’s for coffee. Sometimes I think if not for her, the whole damn town would go hungry. Petey suits her more. That’s just how it is with some lesbian children; they outgrow the names their mommas gave them, grow into something different, someone different from what anyone could have expected of them. Taking a new name is like being born all over again into who they should have been all along.
Not that Petey’s the kind of woman who’d think about it that way. She probably just realized she was becoming someone for whom a delicate name like Pia didn’t fit. It made her feel uneasy. So she gave herself a more comfortable handle. I get the feeling she’s the kind of woman who would do whatever she needed to do to feel okay about herself and not give a damn about what anyone might think.
I wonder if any of her lovers—who no one’s ever seen—call her Pia.
Wouldn’t seem right somehow.
I want to be one of those women no one’s ever caught her with.
I want those hands needing me.
On a belt under her apron Petey wears a measuring cup that looks like it was made by Black and Decker. She wears clean, crisp, white pants that cup her fine ass just right and a white button-down shirt with the sleeves rolled up to her elbows. She wears a full-length, white apron slung over her neck and tied real loose, and clean white sneakers that don’t make a sound. Her dark hair is cut short and loose around her face, which seems a little tanned. Even in winter that hair curls up at the back of her collar when she’s moving around the kitchen in the heat. That collar, those curls. I have to keep my hands in my coat pocket or flat, fanned on the counter, when I order my coffee. I look the other way when she slides the little waxed paper bag of cannoli my way; stop myself from reaching across the counter; stop myself from reaching out to touch her neck, smooth those curls. Touch her face real slow. I think her forehead would smell like butter, that her skin would be lightly glazed all over with a fine dusting of sugar, that if you put your mouth to her skin, you would come away tasting sweet.
I’m thinking Valentine’s Day will be the time to make my move, ’cause that’s when everybody’s all crazed over romance and hearts and flowers and wanting to be loved. Petey can’t be all that different from anyone else. Can she?
Today is Friday the thirteenth, and not a soul on the street fails to comment on it. I don’t feel unlucky, just a little racy knowing I’ve got just today to figure out how I’m going to pull off the seduction of the town dyke. I wonder if she has a girlfriend now, but only for a minute, because something tells me I’d sense it if she did. At this point I don’t think it would matter if she was dating my own best friend—if I’d been in town long enough to have one.
When I hit the doorway of the bakery, I almost swoon. It’s the clouds of moist heat that gather inside, rain on the window, plus the scent of something sweet and deep, along with something fresh, like fruit juice, underneath it. And there’s Petey. She’s behind the counter, smiling at me. It must have been my reaction to the aroma that wrapped around me as I came inside. I wrinkle my nose like I’m sniffing for more and look at her grinning, as if to ask what’s making such a delicious smell. Her eyes are actually lit, wide and open, more so than I remember ever seeing them. She motions me over. I’ve never been that close to her aside from her pouring my coffee or taking my money when I paid for bread or muffins or those slices of all-natural Queen Anne’s cake with caramel-covered nut crust swirled with spidery feathers of toasted coconut. Or crème brûlée custard on a toasted almond crust. Or shiny pecan buns, moist and slippery as the flesh of my thigh right now. I’m weak. I don’t think she’s ever really talked to me. Specifically to me. And she still isn’t—talking. I step up to the counter and she’s still smiling and motioning me even closer. I move in like I’m in a trance, move in for a kiss, to touch my lips to her cheek, her lips. Desire bubbles up within my belly, there are tiny flutters inside my cunt. Like wings. I wonder if she can see down my blouse, see my breasts nestled in the pink, lacy, silk demi-cup I bought mail order from Victoria’s Secret just in case something like this ever happened. I catch myself when my eyes start to close. She raises a fork to my lips like a present, speared with a tiny piece of something pink and fluffy, like cotton candy covered in chocolate. Oh baby. She directs the fork toward my lips as I open them on command, take the gift inside. Something sweet and deep breaks on my tongue; my mouth wells up with wetness. I think about the pink of it, pink like the tender underside of a breast set free, pink skin of a vulva, all shower fresh and warm; my tongue roaming my mouth to seek out and find every touch of sweetness, the citrusy aftertaste a surprise. I worry about drooling. I swirl it around my mouth, take it in, inhale it. Most of your taste buds come from scent. I taste an orange cream chocolate like from the Whitman’s Sampler but warm. I want to tell her it’s like sex on a fork, but that’s too bold, too early in the dance. She’s close still, watching me, silent. I open my eyes wide now, finally able to open my mouth.
Then she speaks real low, her voice deep but clear against the clang of coffee cups and beaters in the kitchen.
“So, you like? It’s blood orange cheesecake iced with a bittersweet chocolate glaze. Did them special for Valentine’s Day this year. It’s the blood orange that makes it pink. They’re in season right now.”
She beams.
Oh the pride in her voice. Hands in her pockets, shoulders dropped back, slight smile drawing tiny lines around her lips like a frame. She makes me want to leap over the counter, pull her head down into the pink silk of my too-far-open shirt, whisper, “You are magical,” wrap my legs around the clean white apron over her clean white pants, beg her to take me right there, right on the kneading board covered with flour and dabs of bittersweet chocolate glaze.
It takes three more trips to the bakery for me to get up the nerve to do what I have to do. All that coffee and anxiety is making me feel dry-mouthed, and it’s now or never. So while she’s ringing up the roasted red pepper and cilantro quiche with butter crust that’s going to end up being my supper, I finally manage to find my femme courage and make my intentions known. At least to one of us.
“So, what are you doing for Valentine’s Day?” I ask her.
She looks down at the floor like I’ve caught her in a lie.
“Nothing,” she says. She kicks imaginary sand with the toe of her clean white shoe.
I’m tempted to look down too, but I keep my eyes right on her, make sure she can feel them.
“How come?”
It hurts almost to keep my voice this even.
More kicking at nothing. I’ve turned her into a twelve-year-old boy.
“I don’t know. I don’t go in for that sort of stuff. Romance and stuff. Phony.”
Yeah, I think so too. If you do it their way. But I can’t say that. Instead, I say, “Me neither. Maybe we ought to hang out and do nothing together.”
She stops kicking. Goes still. I wait. There’s a buzz rising in my ears. Bubbles flip upside my stomach, more tickle inside. I feel a coffee burp rising, wish it away.
She lifts her head, swings it up slow as if she’s trying to get unstuck from something.
I don’t think she knows. She doesn’t see it. Too long stuck here in town. If she never saw my kind before, how would she know what I looked like?
Sweet thing, I think. You ain’t seen nothing like me yet.
She finally speaks. “Sure. Why don’t you come tomorrow night? I’ll be here after we close.”
She moves her eyes around the room as if to remind me, or maybe her, where she means.
I say I will. Like it’s nothing at all. Like I’m not already thinking about what to wear, what looks best when it’s taken off. Like I’m not planning what I’ll scent myself with to draw her close, how I want her to remember me when she first sees me naked and vulnerable and writhing beneath her. I smile and turn and take my steps just so, knees bent just so to roll my hips slow, knowing she’s watching me walk out the door….
“I’ll try to save us one of the cheesecakes—” I hear her call to me.
But I’m already out the door.
I manage to stay away from the bakery all day Saturday until the streets and the lights outside the bakery are dark and the moon is large, ringed with silver bracelets of cold. I can feel the air dry inside my lungs; it almost hurts to breathe. Inside it will be moist as always.
Petey’s alone in the bakery when I walk in. She’s got an apartment in the back, but it’s tiny and it’s obvious she prefers being in the shop. The radio is playing low and I keep wondering if she knows why I’m really there. She’s a little different now that no one’s around. A little more animated. A little more herself, I think. The self she can’t be when she’s on display. We sit and I talk about nothing at all until there’s a Johnny Rivers song on the radio and I start swaying to it without thinking about it. Petey grins at me.
“I bet you like to dance.”
“I do.” I smile. “Want to dance with me?”
There. I’ve said it. Turning point. No turning back. Either I’m in her arms or I’m out the door in the next couple of minutes.
“With me?” She acts surprised, but I’ve been around the block enough to know it’s an act. “I’m not much of a dancer.”
Wonder how many times it’s started out this way.
“Come learn,” I say. Stand up. Motion for her to come my way.
While Johnny is crooning on about the poor side of town, I take her hand, which feels as smooth and warm and clean as I knew it would, and put it at my waist. I put my arm around her shoulder, resisting the urge to slide my fingers through the curls that have gathered there. She’s sweating. Just a little. I grin and slide my other hand into the one that’s dangling by her side.
“You want to dance slow, like this?” she asks. Goes limp. I feel a little like I’m being baited. I nod and try to get us synced up with the music.
All the time she’s staring at me like I’ve grown a second head. And then she starts to laugh.
“You really want to dance that bad?”
I stop moving. That about does it. I’m sick to death of drowning myself in caffeine and eating twice my own weight in pastry to get this sad-ass closet case to realize she’s got a willing victim here. And now this. I feel my dignity slipping away like pearls on a broken thread and figure, what the hell. So I reach up and kiss Petey Ginoa square on the lips. I slide my fingers into those dark curls that have been as tempting as chocolate shavings for weeks; they feel like wet silk between my fingers. And I press my breasts into hers and slip my leg around hers, press close so she can’t miss the kind of heat I’m giving off. I may not get what I want, but I’m definitely going to give her a taste of what she’s missing. And after what feels like about three years, I let go of her and push her back onto her feet and stare at her as if to ask what she plans on doing next.
Petey looks at me sideways, almost glaring, and if I hadn’t seen that look in the eyes of plenty of women who remind me of Petey, I’d think she was mad at me. But that look’s not about mad. It’s about fear.
“You aren’t exactly the shy type, are you?” she snarls low.
“You like shy?”
I’m looking at her straight in the eyes.
“No. Not necessarily. Just most people. Most women that I’ve been with. They aren’t full-time like you. Mostly just sad women who want to forget for a little while that they’re married to someone they can’t stand being touched by. Others that just want a little vacation from their lives, a little adventure, and when it starts to get over their heads or there’s a chance of getting caught, they run back to where they started. You’re not like that. You’re a different kind altogether, aren’t you?”
Something about that makes me feel really proud, like I’ve just won a contest. So I’m her first real lesbian, her first real pure femme.
“And you like it?” I smile all coy. I know she does.
“I could get used to it,” she says, noncommittal. But then, before I have time to think about what that means, she is beside me, her arms around me, kissing me, her lips beating a tattoo down my neck, her pelvis pressed into mine, making me strain backward.
“I don’t think you should look a gift horse in the mouth,” I say.
And she smiles. It’s a new one, a little too knowing, but it’s a beautiful smile. I’m so heady and fluttering from being so close to the one I adore that I hardly even notice when she pushes me upward onto the breadboard and hoists herself up beside me. I don’t know if I am gift or being gifted, treat or being treated, but it doesn’t matter. The flour on my back feels dry and the air in the bakery is still warm enough from so many Valentine’s cakes that I don’t feel a chill at all as she slides off my sweater and pants, runs her fingers over the pearl heart trim of my red lace bra, and kneads the knuckle of her thumb in the crotch of my red lace panties before she slides them over my hips and down to the floor, grinning all proud at the heat and wet inside my cunt, grinning at the way I press against her hand. She whispers, “How long have you wanted this…?” and my head falls back as if it’s very heavy all of a sudden and I whisper back, “Forever, since I first saw you, maybe even before that.”
And she shudders, that butch shudder of realization at being wanted by a woman. She unbuttons her jeans a
nd slides them off, kicks off her shoes, wraps her arms around me as if I’m something that might slip away, and pushes me gently down on my back.
Petey Ginoa makes love even better than she makes bread and cookies and pies and cakes. She touches me all over slow, achingly slow, and kisses my face and breasts and belly with creamy wet kisses that make me ache and open my legs wide, press hard against any touch of hers I catch just to get some relief. And when she finally slides her fingers between my legs, when my cunt overflows with want of her and opens easy and hot to draw her inside, she cries out my name high and surprised. And Petey Ginoa fucks as sweet as her eight-minute frosting. Her want is hot enough to make me feel the steam rising from her body, her fingers kneading me inside, her mouth hungry on me, her tongue tracing sweet glazed circles, her head rising at times so I see her mouth wet and shiny with me, while I cry out, “Petey!” and tug at those mythical curls at her collar and wrap my legs around as much of her clean, sweet, white-cotton self as I can, try to take all of her inside. I can tell by her eyes and her moans and the way she keeps her lips on me; the way her fingers gather inside me, thrust higher and deeper without asking, simply taking, knowing it’s freely mine to give; that Petey Ginoa has never had a woman want her wholly like this, has never had a real love to call her own. I arch my back, strain up against those strong knuckles slipping, twisting, filling me; those dear arm muscles straining to take me as I come screaming, shivering, crying out, grinding my ass hard against the smooth wood.
It’s warm here lying beside the oven. Petey lies silently beside me while I come back inside myself, her fingers resting on my hip bone, her cheek against my hair. I snuggle closer; the board is wider than you’d think to see it in the daylight, but I’m not afraid of falling. I’m facing her now, her shirt is open, her T-shirt and plain white underpants still on. I cuddle against her, kiss her neck, then place my hands at the bottom edge of her shirt, slide up slowly, graze her breasts. She catches her breath. Stops my hand. Holds it tight against her heart.
Best Lesbian Erotica 2007 Page 2
