Love by the Numbers

by Karin Kallmaker

  It wasn’t a great closing but the audience applause was more than polite and a queue quickly formed for Nicole to sign books. Lily joined her at the table and expedited signatures by chatting as she opened books to the right page before handing them to Nicole.

  Thirty minutes later the room began to clear and fifteen after that they were thanking the bookseller and her staff for inviting Nicole to appear. As they left the staff was resetting the room for a lecture that evening by a popular memoirist.

  Standing on the bustling street Lily asked Nicole, “How does it feel?”

  “I can’t tell at this moment if I’m numb because I’m tired or trying to process a new experience. When is our dinner reservation?”

  “I made it early—six. It’s seven or eight blocks from here. We could get a cab.”

  “I would prefer to walk.” Nicole glanced at Lily’s shoes.

  “I can make it in these and I brought along this clever GPS box.” She produced the slim unit from her purse. “It’ll have us turning the right corners to get there. I would welcome a walk. Tomorrow morning I’ve promised myself time in the fitness room.”

  “Tonight’s dinner will be welcome,” Nicole said as they fell into step. “But I would prefer in the future to eat lightly.”

  Given Nicole’s general fitness and slender frame, Lily wasn’t sure she had a lot to worry about, but she did understand the concern. “I hear you. I don’t want to get home with a waist that doesn’t fit in my clothes.”

  The sun was partially obscured by a high layer of fog and brown air. Lily slipped off her sweater and liked the warmth on her shoulders. It felt wonderful to be outside and she didn’t even flinch from her reflection in shop windows they passed. She’d let the awful color grow out. People would forget about her. It could happen.

  Dinner was relaxed and delicious, though being persistently cheerful was tiring. Nicole seemed as charmed by the mash up of cuisines on the menu as Lily was, but would lapse into long silences. Lily let herself remember the mostly happy meal of her last visit, when two cousins had agreed to take a chance away from the usual five-star eateries with fawning waitstaff. They’d all had a good time. Jenna and Kirsten hadn’t spoken to her since the scandal, the thought of which she put out of her mind. She was moving on.

  * * *

  It’s nerves and exhaustion, Nicole told herself. She stood in her hotel room dressed in black denims, a white A-shirt and her leather jacket. But for some laugh lines and a simpler, shorter hairstyle, she looked exactly as she had going out to the women’s bar near MIT. However, unlike those days, her hands were shaking and she was weak in the knees.

  Dinner had been delicious. Lily had chattered a bit, but also seemed at times happy to lapse into a more or less comfortable silence. She’d asked some questions about the book, but not in any depth, and then they’d talked about their own visits to India, some recent movies and if they wanted to see a play the following night. Nicole didn’t consider herself much of a drinker, but the bottle of simple red wine they’d agreed to share by way of celebration had left a good glow.

  Looking at herself in the mirror and thinking about the silk and warmth of a woman’s thigh, feeling that against her fingertips, about hearing the quiet and profound intake of breath in her ear as she touched…Shivers ran down her arms.

  She quelled the weak knees by telling herself it was time to text her mother. A quick note saying they’d arrived safely and the first event had gone well was quickly composed and sent. But her mother, her life, everything about Dr. Nicole Hathaway Ph.D. was very far away. The freedom that Cole wanted was right in front of her—she had to grab it with both hands. She sat on the edge of the bed and envisioned pulling a woman down to her and finding their way to mutual nakedness. Her heart was racing again, her palms were damp. Her mouth was watering.

  She closed her eyes and lay back on the bed, her mind washed over with possibilities and fantasies. She needed a moment to just breathe.

  * * *

  The Cat’s Paw leaked bright flashes of crimson light into the night and pulsated with a low grinding beat. The line of eager partygoers along the wide sidewalk stretched across several more storefronts, all of which were dark and shuttered. Lily sighed as she took it in. She was ready—in every way—to join the party, but the thought of a long wait in a line was sapping her energy.

  At least she was dressed appropriately for the crowd. A little black dress could literally go anywhere. Seamed black stockings and her Manolo stilettos testified to her willingness to dance. Cash and her hotel key card were slipped inside her bra which left her unencumbered by a purse. But it would all be for naught if she couldn’t get in the door.

  She remembered the first time she’d gone clubbing with Jenna and Kirsten. The exclusive night club in New York had had a line around the block and a bouncer who could have snapped any of them in two with one hand. As they’d approached she’d wondered how much of a tip it would take to get past the bouncer’s enormous scowl, but the other two girls had breezed past, certain they would not be impeded. Time and opportunity being scarce, Lily gave herself a shake and thought, “Work the Manolos.”

  Deep breath, head up, shoulders back, eye contact steady. With a sexy step just short of a runway walk, she approached the tall, multi-earringed woman to raise an eyebrow at the rope barrier, and then blew her a kiss for removing it from her path. A brief hand clasp transferred a tip, which was quickly pocketed. She heard some grousing from those waiting to get in, and she knew it wasn’t fair that wearing some people’s monthly salary on her feet and a dress fitted to her in a designer salon was allowing her to cut the line.

  She supposed another night she might be in a fair mood. But tonight, still a little tipsy from the wine with Nicole, being fair in the politics of clubbing wasn’t on her agenda. She was inside the door. There were women everywhere. That was all that mattered.

  She melted onto the dance floor, oozing between other dancers until she was close to the center. She was happy to dance alone if need be. But it was only a matter of minutes before a cute black woman in a white halter top, miniskirt and Nancy Sinatra go-go boots joined her. They danced in step for a while, tried a few touch moves and then moved apart when other women cut in. The floor was increasingly crowded and a lot of accidental contact was being made with everyone around her.

  After almost an hour of feeling so liberated and free that her feet didn’t seem to touch the parquet, Lily realized the hand on her hip and the body pressed against her from behind, keeping time with her steps, wasn’t accidental. She twisted and turned and found herself in the arms of a woman in plain jeans, a white T-shirt and leather biker boots. Her bleached white peach fuzz hair looked soft and touchable, but she knew enough from her short time on the college scene that one only touched a butch’s hair when invited to do so.

  They didn’t speak and their mutual contact, closer and closer, was agreed to with half-smiles and slow looks. In the flashing club lights the woman’s blue eyes looked like a night sky full of twinkling stars.

  A slower paced song moved them even closer together and Lily didn’t mind in the least that they settled with the other woman’s firm thigh between hers, moving suggestively like many of the other couples around them. It felt freely wanton. It was exhilarating.

  She was considering inviting the woman back to her room, and equally considering the fallout if Nicole should hear anything—vigorous, when the woman pulled her close and said in her ear, just over the music, “Would you be interested in having a drink? We can take them into the alley if the bar is too crowded.”

  Head swimming and feeling like liquid from the waist down, Lily pulled Blue Eyes’s head down so she could answer. “We can skip the drinks.”

  At the bar’s rear exit, her companion paused. Looking searchingly into Lily’s eyes she only said, “Yeah?”

  “Yes,” Lily said clearly. “I’m not in town for long—”

  “I’m about right now.”

  P
art of her couldn’t believe she was going to go through with it. For all of Libido’s urgings, she’d never done this before. Right now, she just wanted to wipe away the past. She had no one to answer to but herself. “Me too.”

  “The ground out here can get a bit mucked.” Blue Eyes bumped the door open with her shoulder and said, “We don’t want those pretty shoes of yours to get dirty.”

  Lily put her arms around the woman’s neck and her heart raced as two firm hands under her ass allowed her to wrap her legs around the slender hips.

  With a half-purr, half-growl Blue Eyes said, “That’s going to be perfect.”

  She shuddered at the cool wall at her back and moaned as one finger traced the line of her panties along the inside of her thigh. She was swollen and so needy that for a moment she felt a tremor of fear.

  “Say yes again, sweetheart. Let me.”

  With a hissed intake of breath, Lily managed to say, “Yes. Please.”

  Two fingers slipped past the elastic of her panties and teased, making Lily realize how wet she was. Her legs shook.

  “Right here, sweetheart?”

  “Yes please.” It seemed the right thing to say. Lily pressed her cheek against the other woman’s, sure that her own gasps of pleasure and want were welcome. She was dizzied by the other woman’s deep groan as she slipped inside.

  “Sweet and easy, unless you want it different.”

  Lily wasn’t sure what she may have moaned, but fingers continued to trace her nerves, tease inside and out, play with her, then push in hard enough to make her breath catch. She ground back in increasing abandon, told herself to stop holding her breath, to let it happen but it never seemed like it could be easy—until it was. She clutched desperately at the other woman and finally cried out.

  “That’s it, so sweet,” her companion was murmuring. “I have you. You’re not going to fall.”

  After several heartbeats she realized they were moving in slow rhythm to the club’s throbbing drum beat. She couldn’t help but laugh softly. The other woman seemed to have no difficulty continuing to hold her up. “Well, clearly I needed that.”

  “You seemed to.” She could hear a smile in Blue Eyes’s tone. “I’m glad I was there for you.”

  “This isn’t my usual scene, but I’ve lacked other options,” Lily said. “But, um…what about you?”

  There was a gentle nuzzle at her ear. “My girl and I have an understanding. She knows I’m here. She’s okay with it—really. You’re actually…foreplay.”

  Lily blinked. It seemed like she ought to be at least disquieted by being “foreplay” but all she really felt was an urgent desire to sleep. There were plenty of things she’d never agree to in a relationship, like having sex with other people, but it wasn’t her place to judge anyone else who might think those things were okay. Besides, with her legs literally wrapped around a stranger she was not exactly standing on high moral ground. The only right thing to say seemed to be, “Thank you.”

  “My pleasure.” The strong arms tightened around her. “And thank you. I’ll be thinking about the hot American femme at the Cat’s Paw for quite a while. How long are you visiting?”

  “Just until the day after tomorrow.” Lily felt herself blush. Was she a hot American femme? The wonder and simplicity of being admired washed over her. After being emotionally pummeled and physically fearful for so long it seemed miraculous to be seen as desirable.

  She was gently carried across the alley and the other woman set her down as they reached the bar door.

  “Do you mind if I have a name to call you, sweetheart?”

  “Lily.”

  She got a wide smile. “Perfect.”

  “And you?”

  “Wendy.”

  Lily grinned back. “That’s shorter than ‘hot English butch’ so thank you.”

  “I’m Welsh, actually. Safe journey, love,” Wendy said. She kissed her lightly at the corner of her mouth and faded back into the club.

  The street back to the hotel was just at the end of the alley, so Lily turned in that direction. She could go back in the club and dance some more, but why? To make it look as if she’d been there for more than what had just happened? Her legs were wobbly, she knew she was smiling—what else mattered?

  It wasn’t until she tiptoed past Nicole’s door that she wondered exactly what the staid professor would have to say about anonymous sex behind a nightclub. Maybe it was something a nice girl oughtn’t do. On the other hand, there were a whole lot of people who didn’t think she was the least bit nice.

  She and Blue Eyes were both free to consent, so what was the problem? Libido was really quite pleased. But Libido’s boring twin, Circumspect, was wringing her hands as she moaned, “An alley? Did it have to be in an alley?”

  The bed was soft, warm, so welcoming. She would wrestle with her conscience tomorrow.

  Chapter Six

  “Good morning, Cole. Did you sleep well?” Lily was stirring milk into something that looked like it might be oatmeal.

  Nicole nodded and reached for the teapot already in the center of the smallest table in the tiny breakfast room. She’d already had a cup in her room, but more was needed. She’d slept well, all right. She’d slept just fine, deeply, for nine hours. She’d woken up with the zipper of her leather jacket imprinted on her breastbone and her left leg asleep.

  Her first night of freedom and she’d slept through it. Her own frustration made Lily’s cheer all the more annoying.

  “Fine, thank you. When do we have to be at the next bookstore?”

  “Ten—we need to leave in about an hour. I have a mad proposal, if you’re interested. How about after the signing we dash for a train to Brighton, look at the seashore and walk around a festival?”

  Nicole raised an eyebrow. “Wouldn’t that take all day?”

  Lily’s eyes were gleaming with enthusiasm. “Yes, it would mean no theater tonight. I couldn’t find a play that had tickets that didn’t cost the same as an ounce of gold. But our rail passes are good for any destination and the festival is women’s music. Plus there’s a valley that has a regular sightseeing tour that sounds interesting. The weather report is terrific for the beach. Brisk, cool and very sunny.”

  “How long is the train ride?”

  “Just about an hour, give or take, and they run until almost midnight in both directions.”

  Nicole wondered if “women’s” music meant the same thing here as it usually meant at home. Did Lily know that they’d be in a largely lesbian crowd if it did? For the first time she wondered about Lily’s politics. “It might seem unusual that a woman my age has never been to a beach,” she admitted. “Except at a lake.”

  “It’s not the same thing. Well, physically it’s the same concept. Flat bit of land next to a body of water. You’ve never been to the ocean?” Lily’s tone hid her surprise, but her wide eyes showed it.

  “Not the ocean. New Hampshire is landlocked, and I never joined the groups that would go to the Cape for the holidays or to celebrate the end of the school year. I had obligations at home.”

  Nicole had heard all about Provincetown and the women’s beaches, but her fear was such at the time that she had been irrationally convinced a photo would somehow, through the vagaries of Karma, find its way to her uncles or her mother or her thesis advisor and her doctoral committee. She’d exhausted her rebellious energy against familial destiny by studying a science that had no certain career prospects. Her mother had flatly forbade continuing her education through a doctorate but Nicole had done it anyway. For several years the waters between herself and her mother had been very rocky.

  Now she was far too educated for the pool of suitors either uncle offered, and both had expressly blamed Nicole when they’d been faced with daughters demanding the same opportunities as their American cousin. Thousands of miles away she was a bad influence, and none of them even knew about Cole’s pursuits. Kate’s initial choice of a career as a dancer had also been blamed on Nicole’s bad
example. Nicole had been a teacher for nearly five years before her mother stopped referring to her job as a stopgap until something better—like getting married—came along. The book’s success had further eased the pressure to “secure her future.”

  Your elemental truth hasn’t changed, she told herself. Emotionally you are happiest when left alone. Your sex drive is manageable and need not run your life. Your intellect is challenged every day. Inertia is a basic law of physics, and no worse an influence than any other. Why was she revisiting any of this?

  She said to Lily, “I was going to go to a conference in Miami, but it was canceled by a hurricane. I’ve never felt compelled to make a beach a specific destination.”

  “It’s okay if you don’t want to,” Lily said. “There are so many things to see here in London as well. Of course. We could do the London Eye and see the views. Walk across the Thames, go to the Tower. And the British Museum is phenomenal—it takes days to see it properly. I suppose it is a little strange to get to London and promptly leave it for Brighton.”

  It sounded to Nicole as if these were all things Lily had done before. “Tomorrow there’s the morning radio call-in show, yes?” At Lily’s nod, she added, “I have tea with relatives at two. We could squeeze in something between those two appointments, couldn’t we?”

  “Where’s the tea?”

  “My cousins suggested a shop near Trafalgar Square.”

  Lily bounced in her chair. “The National Portrait Gallery—I’ve heard it’s a treat for historians and it’s just a block or two from Trafalgar. Not that far from the hotel.”

  “Then let’s do that tomorrow, something very London. The gallery and Nelson’s Column will do nicely. After tea we have the train to Edinburgh?”

  “Yes. Why did they book a train versus a plane?” Lily smiled at the server as she delivered their breakfasts.