Monogamy

by Susan X Meagher

  "Well," the older woman said, wiping at her eyes, "I support you both completely. The question remains about Jim though, doesn’t it?"

  "Surprisingly not," Ryan said, the bright tone of her voice telegraphing her news. "I spoke to him earlier today, and he’s agreed not only to come, but to participate. He was very gracious, Catherine," she insisted, still surprised, but very pleased.

  "Well, I give you credit for having the nerve to ask, and I give him credit for the progress he’s made. This is very good news, Ryan."

  "I certainly think so," she said. "Now all I have to do is buy Jamie a ring as special as she is, and I’m good to go."

  "You should know there’s no such thing, Ryan," she teased. "But I might be able to lead you to a place that can help you to come close. What’s a good time for you?"

  "How about Thursday morning? I’ve got a few hours then."

  "That would be great. Call me on Thursday morning and we’ll arrange to meet."

  "Charlie? It’s Ryan," she said as she reached the last key player.

  "Well, hello, Ryan. To what do I owe the honor?"

  "How would you feel about blessing Jamie and my commitment to each other?"

  "I’d feel great about it, Ryan! Just great!" Are these two sharing a brain? I haven’t been off the phone for ten minutes from Jamie asking me the same question! And she used practically the same words!

  Jamie had to rush, but she managed to arrive at Levine-Fricke Field in time to watch the last half hour of her partner’s first softball practice. She was a little surprised to see Jennie standing over on the grassy shoulder of the field, playfully tossing a ball with Ashley. Both of them waved at Jamie, and Jennie came running over, giving her an enthusiastic hug. "Ashley’s gonna go over my homework with me while we watch practice," she gushed.

  "That’s great, Jen," Jamie said. She walked the girl back to Ashley and shared a hug with the freshman. "How does Heather feel about starting a new sport?"

  "Good, I think," Ashley said. "She’s a little nervous, since she doesn’t know many people." She grinned at Jamie and said, "I think having Ryan here made all the difference."

  Jamie patted her on the back and said, "I think having Heather play pushed Ryan over the edge, too."

  Ashley blinked at her and her mouth gaped open. "Really? I … uhm … really?"

  "Yeah," Jamie said, smiling brightly, reminding herself that the freshmen from the volleyball team considered Ryan to be slightly god-like. "She wanted to have a friend on the team. She likes Heather … and you, of course."

  Ashley beamed a luminous grin at her. "Ryan’s the best, Jamie. She and Jordan made this the best year I’ve ever had playing volleyball. I know she’s gonna have the same kind of impact here."

  "I sure hope so," Jamie said, her worry evident. "She sure didn’t make much of an impact on the basketball team."

  "I still don’t know what that coach’s problem was," Ashley said, shaking her head. "Ryan could have lifted that team into the top three in the PAC-10."

  Jamie nodded and said, "It was a complicated team. I’m really glad she’s off of it."

  Ashley shot a look at her young friend and said, "We’d better start looking at your schoolwork, Jen. It’s starting to get dark."

  Jamie looked at her watch and said, "Those are some nasty looking storm clouds. It’s only 4:30. It shouldn’t be nearly this dark yet."

  Smiling, Ashley said, "Good thing the bleachers are wood, huh?" She and Jennie went up into the stands to have some quiet time, but Jamie stayed close to the field, wanting to closely observe her partner. She noted that most of the players were wearing sweats, and a few had on jackets over their sweats. Yet, there was Ryan, wearing only a pair of navy blue Lycra shorts, with a little Cal bear near the hem of one leg, and a bright gold T-shirt with "Cal Softball" imprinted on the chest.

  Looking around, Jamie spent a moment checking out the other players. She recognized Heather, of course, and she remembered Michelle, the woman that Ryan had worked out with, but no one else looked familiar. Her perusal led her to decide that these women looked more like average women than either the volleyball or the basketball players. They were mostly of average height and weight, and even though they looked fit, their bodies didn’t scream "jock." Ryan was, of course, the exception, and she stood out on many fronts.

  Ryan was the tallest woman on the field, topping Heather by a few inches, and most of the other woman by a lot. Jamie noted that one woman looked to be less than five feet tall, and when Ryan stood next to her, the top of her head didn’t quite reach Ryan’s breasts. I like her view, Jamie said, but I wouldn’t like having to stand on a step stool to kiss my sweetie.

  As the minutes passed, the wind picked up until it was blowing fiercely. Jamie thought she had dressed warmly enough, but a few minutes of sitting still and she was chilled to the bone. Ryan’s in shorts and a T-shirt? I wonder if I’d embarrass her if I took off my jacket and made her put it on? She entertained the idea for only a second, recognizing that Ryan would rather freeze than be embarrassed in front of her teammates. Besides, she’s probably not even cold, she reasoned. She hasn’t stood still once since I’ve been here.

  A light drizzle began to fall, and Jamie climbed the stands to join her friends. "I’m taking off. How about you two?"

  "I have my bike," Jennie said. "I don’t mind riding in the rain." Jamie gave her an assessing look and immediately removed her Gore-Tex jacket and handed it to the girl with the admonition, "Put this on, Jen. You’ll freeze to death once your sweatshirt gets wet."

  "I’m really oka …" she started to say, but Jamie tapped her on the head and said, "Humor me."

  "I’m gonna wait for Heather," Ashley said. "They’ll stop soon."

  "Okay, guys. Tell Ryan I’ll see her at home, okay? Tell her not to rush."

  "Later, Jamie," Jennie waved. "See you tomorrow?"

  "Maybe," Jamie said, unwilling to commit until she got a look at the weather. "I’ll see you at some point in the next few days. We’ve gotta keep our girls motivated, huh?"

  "Right," Ashley said. "They don’t have much of a rooting section."

  Jamie looked around at the completely empty stands and said, "Maybe it’ll fill up a little when the games start, huh?"

  "Couldn’t help it," Ashley said as Jamie waved goodbye and carefully climbed down the now-slick stands, feeling colder by the minute as she got wetter and wetter. She ran as fast as she could, darting into buildings whenever possible, finally arriving at the student store, where she purchased a rain jacket in a woman’s extra-large, knowing that Ryan could always use a spare.

  When Ryan came home an hour and a half later, Jamie came into the living room as soon as she heard the door close. She stood with her arms crossed; a scowl on her face, watching the rain drip from Ryan’s thoroughly drenched body. The tall woman had on a pair of jeans and a hooded sweatshirt, both of which were utterly sodden.

  "Did it look like rain when you left the house, love?" she asked, narrowing her eyes dangerously, while slapping the wooden spoon she held in one hand against the palm of the other.

  "Mmm … not really," Ryan said, knowing that she was stretching the truth to dangerous limits.

  "It looked like rain when I left this morning, Ryan," she said, the spoon cracking sharply as she continued to whap it against her hand. "Did it clear up on just this side of Berkeley?"

  "Uhm … no?" the dark, dripping woman said, her blue lips twitching into a guilty smile.

  "Good answer. I’ll go a little easier on you for not lying." She came up behind her partner and said, "Take off your pants and your sweatshirt. I don’t want you dripping all over the wood floor."

  Ryan kicked off her shoes, which squished audibly as she did so. Next came the jeans, which she had more than a little trouble peeling off, due to their water content. The sweatshirt was easy, and she breathed a sigh of relief as the wet, heavy garment hit the floor. "Cold," she said needlessly, her hands chafing her bright pink arms as
she hopped back and forth from one foot to the other.

  "I want you to go upstairs and get into the shower. Stay there until you’re warm," Jamie ordered. "Dinner’s ready, but it can wait until you’ve warmed up."

  "You’re so sweet to me," Ryan cooed as she bent over to press her ice-cold lips to her partner’s. "Trying your best to keep me nice and warm."

  "Oh, I’m not done," Jamie said. "I’m gonna heat up another part of you, right now." She cracked her partner across the buttocks with the spoon, laughing evilly as Ryan’s hands shot to her butt to protect it.

  Even her large hands couldn’t protect everything, and Jamie got in a few more sharp slaps. Realizing she was allowing herself to be vulnerable by remaining in place, Ryan took off, running for the stairs with Jamie right on her heels slapping at her wet bikinis as she gave chase. They made such a ruckus that Mia popped her head out of her room as they came thundering down the hall. The curly-haired woman stood in her doorway, arms crossed over her chest, smirking widely. "I always knew there was a dominatrix in there waiting to get out," she said.

  "Help me, Mia!" Ryan cried, running behind her smaller roommate and trying to use her as a shield.

  "Jamie," her old friend soothed, "violence isn’t the answer. Come on … give me the spoon."

  The blonde gave her partner a narrowed glance, but complied. Ryan gave Mia a hug for being such a good protector, but her chilled skin made the smaller woman squawk. "Jesus! Have you been in the freezer?"

  "She’s trying to catch pneumonia," Jamie complained. "She practiced in a T-shirt and shorts, then came home in the driving rain in a sweatshirt and jeans." A further narrowing of her gaze accompanied the rest of her comment. "It’s not like you don’t have proper raingear. We bought it for you after the last such incident."

  "I have to take it somewhere to get the bullet hole sewed up," Ryan said.

  Turning to the miscreant, Mia shook her head and said, "I think you can afford a new jacket, Ryan. That’s a ridiculous excuse." She gave her another swat, snapping the spoon much harder than Jamie had. "Get in the shower and warm up, or there’s more where that came from," the feisty brunette ordered.

  "What is it with you Hillsborough girls?" Ryan cried as she covered her stinging butt with her hands and ran into the bath. "Bunch of sadists," she grumbled as the door closed on the laughing friends.

  "What ever are you going to do with her?" Mia asked, smiling sympathetically at her friend.

  "Everyone on that field had on sweats today … but not my Buffy. She thinks it’s a sign of weakness to stay warm and dry."

  Mia shook her head. "My Jordy has the jock gene, but she doesn’t have the ‘I’m tougher than you’ gene. You have my sympathies."

  "Please don’t say that it’s a gene," Jamie begged. "Then she might pass it down to our kids."

  "Tough break, babe," Mia said. "I think you’ll have a bunch of kids just like her. You’d better stock up on wooden spoons, 'cause you’re gonna break a few on those cute little O’Flaherty asses."

  Jamie went into the bathroom while Ryan was still in the shower. The room was steamy, and she could tell by the way her partner moved that she was nice and warm now. When the dark woman heard her come in, she turned around and placed her butt up against the glass door, showing Jamie the bright pink stripes that crisscrossed her cheeks. "You do good work," she said, a wry tone to her voice. "You can take my Granny’s place as the enforcer in the family when she can’t carry the load any longer."

  Jamie winced when she considered that Ryan might not see the humor in being spanked, even though she'd meant it as a joke. As Ryan turned off the water, Jamie handed her a towel, and then took another and rubbed her back briskly. Kissing her warm, damp skin, she said, "I apologize for hitting you. I was only teasing, but it probably didn’t seem like that to you. I hate to act like your mom, and I know you don’t like it in the least. It was particularly insensitive of me to make a joke of spanking you. I don’t want to bring back bad memories."

  "It’s okay," Ryan said, giving her a big smile. "I don’t mind when you do it. As a matter of fact, it’s kinda … kinda hot."

  Letting her hand drift lower, Jamie smiled back and said, "Oh, you’re hot, all right. You’re positively sizzling back here." Her hand caressed the warm skin, gingerly touching the fading pink stripes. "Does it hurt?"

  "No. It marked up more because of my wet underwear. Wet skin makes it smart a lot more, though," she said knowledgably, having been spanked under a variety of conditions. "It just tingles a little now. If you haven’t spanked anyone before, you don’t realize how hard to do it."

  "I’ve never spanked anyone before, and I won’t do it again," Jamie said. She gave her partner a sexy grin and added, "Unless you ask me to, of course."

  "We’ll see," Ryan said, not yet willing to commit to incorporating that practice into their sex life … even though her tingling butt did give her the urge to get horizontal. "I’m as hungry as a wolf," she said. "Can we eat?"

  "Go put on your warm clothes," Jamie insisted. "I want some form of fleece on every square inch."

  "Yes, Mom," Ryan said as she gave Jamie a playful tap on the butt. She smiled as she added a kiss. "You might like a little swat once in a while, too. Tingling in that area can be a good thing."

  "Un-unh," Jamie said firmly, shaking her head. "I don’t have a butt fetish like you do."

  Ryan started to object, but realized that she did have more than a casual interest in both her own, and other’s butts, so she shrugged her shoulders and went to follow orders.

  After thoroughly encasing herself in fleece, Ryan joined her partner and Mia at the dinner table. "How’s your ass?" Mia asked, giving her a leer.

  "Excellent," Ryan purred, dropping her voice an octave and intentionally trying to be provocative. "How’s yours?"

  "You’d better watch it, buddy," Mia said. "If she spanks you like that for getting wet, imagine what she’d do to you if you checked out my butt."

  "The mind reels," Ryan said, her eyes round with imagined fear.

  "Knock it off you two. I wanna hear all about Ryan’s first day." Jamie turned to smile at her partner and asked, "Were the other girls nice to you?"

  "Yes," Ryan said, a playful grin on her face. "I’m glad I hung around for a while. I found out that they’ve already got a nickname for me."

  "Ooo … let me guess," Mia said.

  "You won’t get this one," Ryan said. "They’ve been calling me Notorious R.O.F. because I was in the paper so much. It seems that Coach Roberts informed them that I might join the team, and their interest in my celebrity was piqued."

  "I loved Notorious B.I.G.," Mia sighed. "Biggie came correct."

  Ryan smiled at her, always amused when Mia spoke of her deep love of rap and hip-hop music. The art form had always eluded Ryan, but she assumed that was because she hadn’t gotten in on the ground floor. She had developed her musical tastes from her much older cousin and her mother’s old records, which were still stored in boxes in her closet, and had never had an interest in exploring the developing genre when she was young. Mia was a true fan, though, and she knew most of the performers and could imitate some of her favorites to near-perfection.

  "I want a rap nickname," Jamie said, grinning.

  "You’ve already got a porn name all picked out if you ever shed your good girl image," Ryan reminded her. "Isn’t that enough?"

  "Tell! Tell!" Mia begged as Jamie jumped up and tried to muzzle Ryan with her hand.

  After being spanked, Ryan was in no mood to go easy on her partner, and she grasped both of Jamie’s hands while she choked out, "Cinna Bunz! Her name’s Cinna Bunz, ‘cause they’re so sweet and tasty!"

  Mia laughed long and hard at that one, as much at the outraged look on Jamie’s face as the nickname. "That’s awesome, Ryan. Just awesome."

  "Well deserved," the dark woman insisted as she grabbed a handful of the sweet cheeks and gave them a squeeze.

  "Ryan’s is Randy Libido," Jamie re
vealed, joining in the laughter.

  "I want one," Mia pouted.

  "You’ve gotta have Jordan pick it out for you," Jamie insisted. "It doesn’t work if you self-name. It’s an honorific."

  "I’ll get on it tonight," Mia said. "It’s my turn to call her, so I can keep her on the phone as long as I like."

  "Your portion of the phone bill was obscene last month," Jamie reminded her. "Your dad’s gonna wonder what’s going on with you."

  "Nah … he never seems to care what the bills are. He just hates it when I spend a lot on clothes and stuff."

  "Okay," Jamie warned, "but you’d better have a good excuse if he asks why you have a $300 bill – all to Colorado Springs."

  "One more indication of why you’re not a good liar," Mia insisted. "All of the naturals lie best when it’s extemporaneous." Mia looked at Ryan and sighed as she said, "She’ll never be good at it."

  "My loss," Ryan said, patting Mia on the hand sympathetically.

  "So, sweet cheeks," Jamie said when Mia got up to clear the table, "tell me how you feel about your new team."

  Ryan sighed and stretched a bit, getting some of the kinks out of her shoulders. "I like softball, Jamie. It has such a different energy from the other sports I play. It’s kinda slow, and the action is sporadic, but you have to be mentally ready, and your reflexes have to be really sharp."

  "I know yours are," the blonde said, smiling sweetly.

  "Yes, well," Ryan sniffed, tossing her dark hair over her shoulder. "I think softball is the perfect sport for me right now. I’m still toast emotionally, as you might have noticed, and it feels good to join a team that’s already established. I’m not the only senior … they went to the College World Series last year, so they’ve got a strong nucleus … they’re not looking for me to make a big contribution. I can relax and enjoy myself."

  "I didn’t know that they were that good. I must have been otherwise occupied last spring. I don’t remember a thing that happened around campus," Jamie said, her brow furrowed slightly as she tried to remember what had kept her so entertained.