by Harper Bliss
“Apart from a bunch of money?” Sheryl looked up.
“Money is just money. We have plenty of it in the bank. Enough for me not to have to work for another five years at least. What if I did something else with it?”
“I did see a twinkle in your eye.”
“It was more than a twinkle, babe. It was an epiphany.”
“Looks like you’ll have to pitch me the idea then. Once you have it all worked out on paper.”
“You know I will. You know you won’t be able to resist my finely honed pitching skills and wizardry with numbers. You’re basically a lost cause already.”
“Don’t just pitch me the business behind it. I’m more interested in the lifestyle that comes with it. I don’t think either one of us wants you to go back to working the insane hours you did for almost twenty years.”
“That’s the beauty of being your own boss: hiring employees.”
Sheryl’s face didn’t look immediately dismissive.
“Just dream with me here for a second. A place of our own, decorated exactly how we want it, making a couple of dollars margin on every cup of coffee we sell.”
“Hiring young and nimble baristas,” Sheryl joked.
Kristin gave Sheryl a look, then remembered what had brought up this line of conversation in the first place. The toys they had bought, now forgotten in the kitchen—the last place they should be.
She looked at Sheryl again, with different eyes this time. The fresh air, the walk, and the coffee must have done her a world of good, because she looked like herself again, as opposed to the pale, stiff-limbed woman Kristin had roused from bed that morning. She looked like the woman Kristin had wanted to drag to that sex shop. A glint in her eyes. The shadows under them all but evaporated, and what was left of them lending her a slightly dangerous edge. One Kristin hadn’t taken advantage of in a long time.
“How about we take our new purchases upstairs?” Kristin regretted not having taken more time to explore in the shop, but her mind had been so preoccupied all of a sudden, as though the thoughts she was having couldn’t possibly wait, not for the fifteen minutes more they could have spent in the shop, nor for the closer-to-five that they actually did. “I’m sorry for being so distracted earlier.” It was important to apologize because Kristin knew that this was what she did: she lost herself in projects. Working twelve-hour days was never an issue for her as long as she completely believed in what she was doing.
The thought of opening a coffee shop—and a thought was really all it was at this point, perhaps a silly one, but perhaps also a viable one—injected a different kind of energy into Kristin’s veins. One she wanted to share with her partner.
“I know what you’re like when you’ve got your eye on something.” Sheryl said, a half-cocked smile on her face. A smile Kristin recognized so easily.
“I was focused on the wrong thing at the wrong time. My bad.” Kristin slanted her head, hoping that the look in her eyes conveyed exactly what she really wanted to say.
Sheryl’s eyes narrowed as they fixed on her. “Go upstairs,” was all Sheryl said.
Kristin obeyed.
Sheryl took her sweet time unwrapping her new toy, cleaning it, and getting ready to join Kristin in the bedroom. This was her favorite time of the day. Her hangover had worn off and she felt at ease enough with everything, herself, her relationship, her life, her memories, to not feel that itch for a glass of wine yet. But, as she stepped into the panties that came with the dildo, and mused about their ease of use and the difference with the more old-fashioned straps she used to fasten around her hips and always got caught somewhere they shouldn’t, she also felt her age.
When she and Kristin had first bought strap-on dildos, the whole endeavor had been a wild adventure. From scouting where to buy it, to ending up in the most sleazy, women-unfriendly shop, and bringing the purchases home all giggly and excited, unable to keep their eyes and hands off each other for a single second.
Everything was different now. They had both changed. Their bodies and their personalities had, over the years, done a subtle shift from always ready to a more sedate state. And, as she stood there in the bathroom, avoiding the sight of herself in the mirror, then berating herself for doing so, Sheryl wondered if she had aged well. Kristin was right when she’d said their toys hadn’t been used in years, and Sheryl asked herself if her body would still be up for this. She hadn’t taken care of herself the way Kristin had, though she knew it was futile to compare.
Sheryl shook her head, stepped in front of the full-length mirror and tried to admire herself. The sight of this used to excite her so much. This game they were about to play used to have her jumping out of her skin with anticipation. Whereas then, she felt more like she was getting ready for a performance.
It wasn’t so much that desire had slipped away with her youth, because Sheryl felt plenty of desire at many different times, but her relationship with her own body and with Kristin had changed. Sheryl could derive the utmost pleasure from watching Kristin rise in the morning, sitting on the edge of the bed, stretching her still-taut body before tiptoeing into the bathroom. She took great comfort in pressing her breasts against Kristin’s warm back before falling asleep at night, an arm slung protectively over her body, pulling her in as much as she could. But that was companionship. A different kind of intimacy requiring a different kind of mindset than the one needed for what they were about to do next.
When Sheryl walked into the bedroom, she found Kristin kneeling in front of the bed, her torso resting on the sheets, her head turned away from the door. She didn’t stir, didn’t give any indication she had heard Sheryl walk in, though she must have. She was playing her part.
The atmosphere in the room was serious and quiet, like the calm before a storm. Sheryl slapped the other toy, the one she’d had to dig deep into a drawer for to find, against the palm of her hand. Just the action, paired with the sensation of the leather slapping against her hand, made her perk up. Made her step into that much-needed mindset.
Sheryl caressed Kristin’s ass cheeks with the back of her hand, ever so gently, just to state her presence, and to contrast with what she was about to do next.
Without any further ceremony, she thwacked the paddle hard against Kristin’s right butt cheek, then her left.
Kristin’s body shifted with the impact, but she didn’t make a sound. Sheryl saw her nails dig into the sheets, though, a sight that didn’t fail to arouse her.
Sheryl let the paddle come down again, a little lighter this time, but only to fool Kristin, by no means to give her any respite. The next round of strikes was so hard and merciless Sheryl felt the blowback reverberate in her muscles. She brought her free hand between Kristin’s legs and found her as aroused as her cheeks were colored pink. Her lips were swollen and wet. Sheryl dragged a finger along her opening and smeared the wetness onto the dildo.
“You’re so wet,” she growled. “So horny and wet.” She could feel her own wetness moisten the panties she was wearing.
At this, Kristin did groan, and Sheryl couldn’t wait to see her tear-stained face. Kristin could sometimes be so stoic, so composed and in need of control of every single process in her body, and it took all of Sheryl’s willpower to continue until the tears came.
Sheryl blasted another round of blows on her ass, then slowed her pace. She let long, silent seconds go by before landing another hit, and listened carefully in between for signs of Kristin’s distress. Nothing.
She delved her fingers deeper in between Kristin’s folds, sensing her increasing wetness, and again, transported the moisture to her toy—not that she would need that much of it later. Kristin was already soaking wet.
It had been a long time since they’d done this, and while Sheryl was surprised how easily she’d found her groove again, that dominant streak that flourished in situations like this, she had to do her best to remember the boundaries they’d once set.
Kristin could take the pain. She relished it. T
hat part hadn’t changed. But Sheryl was more worried about what she could say. She used to spout the nastiest language, calling Kristin much fouler things than the requisite bad girl. It seemed a good place to start for now.
“You’ve been a bad girl,” she hummed, but the words felt wrong as they tumbled from her lips. Kristin was pushing fifty, she was hardly a girl. Despite it being part of the fantasy they had once created, that part of it didn’t seem to work for Sheryl anymore. She believed she was still in tune enough with her partner to know that merely calling her a bad girl wouldn’t influence her level of arousal at all, perhaps even take away from it.
Sheryl folded her body over Kristin, making sure she could feel the heft of the dildo against her inner thigh, and half-whispered, “You’ve been a filthy slut again, haven’t you?” She waited a beat for Kristin’s reaction, which came in a low-pitched moan, confirming that Sheryl was on the right track. “I’ll fuck the sluttiness right out of you.”
A rush of lust sped up her spine as she pulled back. She let the tip of the dildo slide into Kristin’s pussy a tiny bit, and retreated, before starting on another round of controlled but ruthless spanking. How easy, she thought, as the paddle rained blows on Kristin’s ever-reddening butt cheeks, for us to pick this up again where we left it years ago. And in that thought, she concluded, lay the essence of their happiness. Their success as a couple. Because they might not do this every week or every month—or even once a year—anymore, but they would always have it to return to. This intimacy that was uniquely theirs, the products of their personalities and proclivities and, as a result, something that could never be recreated with anyone else. This was them—at their best and most sleazy.
Sheryl threw the paddle on the bed, and it was the first time Kristin raised her head. Sheryl realized she should have just let it fall to the floor to maximize the effect of the dildo brusquely breaching the rim of her pussy, and burrowing deep inside from the get-go.
Sheryl thrust deep, and even though it was the dildo sinking inside of Kristin, not any direct part of her own anatomy, it felt like coming home after a long, exhausting journey. She put her hands on Kristin’s blemished behind—the paddle would leave its mark for a few days—and lost herself in the motion, in the intoxicating sensation of claiming Kristin in this way. She couldn’t see her face, yet she felt more connected to her than she had in a long time.
Sheryl put everything else out of her mind, everything that had built up since the last time they’d done this—with the old set of sex toys. As though the purchases they had made held much more than just hygienic value; they held a symbolic one as well. New toys, new ideas, renewed intimacy.
The thought Sheryl had had when standing in front of the mirror earlier came full circle. Yes, she—they—had changed. The rapport between them had changed, had grown deeper in some areas and more flimsy in others. But no matter what—no matter her flaws, or Kristin’s—they had this between them. They had love. A past and a future. And an exquisite present.
“Oh,” Kristin moaned.
Sheryl allowed Kristin to push herself up a little by lowering the intensity of her thrusts. As if she’d only seen Kristin do it yesterday instead of too long ago, she predicted her partner’s next move. She caught Sheryl’s deep strokes on one arm and brought the other one between her legs to touch her clit.
She was close. Sheryl knew what to do. She changed her pace to a controlled, steady thrust and, with her right hand, slapped Kristin’s ass on the exact spot where a deep red blush had formed.
Kristin groaned harder. Her hips bucked wildly. Sheryl let her hand come down again. Hard enough to tip Kristin over the edge, but not too hard to leave any more marks. Sheryl had left enough of those already.
Kristin let out a prolonged, syncopated half yell, then collapsed onto the bed. The dildo slipped out of her, and as Sheryl stepped out of the panties as swiftly as she could, she noticed her legs were trembling. This had taken more out of her than she remembered it doing, but it didn’t matter. What mattered was the sight of Kristin, crawling onto the bed to have her full weight supported—her knees must be sore and marked as well—her ass cheeks striped red, her body language projecting utter satisfaction.
Sheryl composed herself and flanked Kristin on the bed. “Do you like our new toys?” she asked, her voice hoarse.
It was the first time she got a good look at Kristin’s face and she found it wet with tears. Kristin nodded. “Though my brain is muddled by an unbelievable climax, I can see everything so clearly.” She huddled up a little closer to Sheryl. “I’m going to open a coffee shop,” she whispered. Her words barely audible. “We’re going to do it together.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
They had moved fast. After that first walk in Darlinghurst, Kristin had gone back several times in the following weeks and contacted all the real estate agents in the area. Perhaps she’d been as lucky as Pat, the agent, had told her she’d been, though Kristin suspected that much of her proclaimed luck was really sales talk. They’d found a perfect space only a few weeks after Kristin had laid out all her plans to Sheryl, including the suggestion to sell the house and move to a different neighborhood.
Sheryl had been living near the university her entire adult life, from when she was a first-year student at the tender age of eighteen. Kristin knew it would be a hard sell, but her enthusiasm and the utter suitability of the property for their purposes had quickly won her over.
Sheryl would have to commute to work from then on, and she wouldn’t be able to pop home in between classes when she needed a break from colleagues and students at the university. But Kristin hadn’t even needed that much power of persuasion.
“You battled traffic for almost twenty years,” Sheryl had said. “Now it’s my turn. And I’ll get a damn good cup of coffee to help me through.”
Kristin had been surprised by how easy it had been to convince Sheryl of all the changes she proposed. Starting a business from scratch, moving to a new neighborhood, living in an apartment above the coffee shop instead of their house.
“I stood in the way of your dream once before,” Sheryl had said. “I have no intention of keeping this one from coming true for you.”
When they’d had that conversation, Kristin had seen all the reasons she’d fallen in love with Sheryl shine through so clearly. Her convictions, her confidence, her trust in Kristin.
“For all we know, if you hadn’t stopped my burning ambitions then, we wouldn’t be here now,” Kristin said. At the time, giving up on moving to Hong Kong had been a bitter pill to swallow, but in hindsight, it had been the best decision. Perhaps not for her career, but most certainly for her relationship and her life in general.
Now they stood in their very own coffee shop: The Pink Bean. Kristin had thought long and hard about the opening party. Daytime or evening? Alcohol or coffee only? For the longest time, she had leaned toward coffee only, out of consideration for Sheryl, until she realized it wouldn’t be consideration at all, just a means of controlling her alcohol intake.
Almost every other time they sat down for a glass of wine, Sheryl still proclaimed she ought to stop drinking, but she never did. Right then, she stood with an empty glass of champagne in her hand, talking to one of their new neighbors, who had all received an invite for the opening.
The woman Sheryl was talking to had long curly auburn hair and the clearest green eyes. From where Kristin was standing, it could have looked like Sheryl was flirting with her, though Kristin was sure she was only imagining that and was more worried about where that sudden bout of insecurity had come from.
She shook hands with a few people, exchanged pleasantries, and accepted congratulations as she headed over to Sheryl and the woman she was talking to.
Sheryl and the neighbor both stopped talking as Kristin approached.
“The woman of the hour,” Sheryl said after a beat. “Amber, this is my partner Kristin, who made all of this happen. Honey, Amber teaches yoga just around the corner
and is so persuasive I almost signed up for a trial.”
“Nice to meet you, Amber.” Kristin shook her hand, while, subconsciously, putting her other hand on Sheryl’s shoulder.
“This place is halfway between my apartment and the studio where I teach, so I guess you’ll be seeing more of me. Provided you also sell tea.”
“We most certainly do.” Kristin held Amber’s gaze. “And I look forward to serving it to you on a daily basis.”
“Don’t let her bully you into too much patronage,” Sheryl said. “She’s a crafty marketeer.”
“I look forward to it too,” Amber said. “Sheryl told me you’re new to the neighborhood, so welcome. I like that you’re so open about everything as well, by the way. Some people might argue that we don’t need more of that, but I think we do.”
Kristin was probably the only one who noticed the subtle shift in Sheryl’s stance. She rooted herself a bit more firmly to the ground and her shoulders squared a bit more solidly, as though guessing correctly at someone’s sexual preference gave her cause to grow a little taller.
Kristin herself had only pegged Amber as a lesbian because of the way her head had inclined when Sheryl was talking to her. Sheryl still had that instant effect on women. Sadly, Kristin felt she had grown mostly unaware of it after so many years together.
“It’s extremely important,” Sheryl stated.
With glee running up her spine, Kristin concluded that Amber would soon learn all about the ways Sheryl thought it was important to be out and proud. Kristin knew her arguments by heart, though they had changed and become more nuanced over the years.
“There’s still so much to fight for,” Kristin heard Sheryl say, pecked her on the cheek, feeling a little thrill at the reawakening of the activist in Sheryl, and went to greet a couple that had just arrived.
If the turnout at the opening was anything to go by, The Pink Bean would be a great success.
