Reality Bytes

by Jane Frances

  Cathy was dark—dark brown hair, dark brown eyes, skin quick to color when touched by the sun. Lisa was fair. A natural blonde, she inherited skin requiring extra care in the harsh Australian climate. A set of impossibly blue eyes shone from an open, friendly face. Even when her brow was furrowed, as it was right now, Cathy thought her a knockout.

  Lisa was obviously still absorbed by thoughts of Emma and Justine. Cathy decided to play devil’s advocate. “Maybe Justine wasn’t even aware she was leading Emma on.”

  “Oh, come on.” Lisa snorted. “She knew exactly what she was doing.” The furrow turned into an outright scowl. “God, I hate those kind of women.”

  “And what kind of women is that?”

  “You know.” Lisa flashed Cathy a look that said she shouldn’t need to explain this. “The kind who flirt around the edges. Bored heteros titillated by the attentions of another woman. And then, when the heat gets too hot, they flee the kitchen and have the gall to say, ‘Me? I never did anything wrong. It wasn’t my fault she got the wrong idea.’”

  “Maybe Justine really did have some sort of feelings for Emma. Maybe she was just as confused by the whole thing.” Cathy had never met Justine so was willing to give her the benefit of the doubt. “A lot of women try on the lesbian thing for size. And for some it fits. Just like some women who identify as lesbian try being with men.” Cathy screwed up her nose. “God knows why.”

  “Because they’re probably bi.”

  They were heading way off topic. Time to take the plunge. Cathy grasped Lisa’s shoulders, pointing her in the direction of the water. “Unlike card-carrying, flag-waving, dyed-in-the-wool, dykes like us.”

  “That’s right.” Lisa turned to Cathy and grinned. “Bags I get the side with the good view.”

  “And which side is that?” A well-worn line of Lisa’s, Cathy already knew the answer.

  “Why, the side where I get to look at you, of course!”

  Lisa stepped in after Cathy, her behind not even touching bottom before the button to the jets was pushed and bubbles appeared as if from nowhere.

  The appearance of an increasing mountain of bubbles invariably evoked a childlike response in the both of them. After a brief period luxuriating in the massaging effects of the jets, they began to splash around like two kids at bath time. Lisa hooked her thumbs together, slapping her palms hard and flat on the water surface. The result was an instant tidal wave that soaked any part of Cathy that was still remotely dry. Cathy responded by paddle-kicking her feet madly in Lisa’s direction. It had the same effect as the tidal wave.

  Bubble construction was next. Cathy piled handfuls of foam onto Lisa’s head and began what she thought was a pretty good interpretation of the Arch of Constantine. She even managed to excavate two of the three arches without her construct totally collapsing. Lisa’s effort was less successful. Originally planned to be the tall, chimney-like Trajan’s Column, the physics of bubbles failed her and it began to slide to one side. Not to be outdone, Lisa announced it was always intended to be the Leaning Tower of Pisa.

  “Magnifico!” Given the Italian theme of their bubble buildings, Lisa slipped back into her Italian interjections. She sat back to admire her handiwork as it slowly slid off Cathy’s head.

  The jets had been going full-pelt throughout their play and the expanding mass of bubbles was creeping over the rim of the spa. Some had already fallen onto the top step. If they didn’t want to be wading through a wet mess on the floor, it was time to turn off the jets.

  With no motor whirring, the only sounds were the gentle lapping of water against porcelain and the crackle of thousands of tiny bubbles popping. Cathy became transfixed with the bubbles, each displaying a rainbow in miniature. She caught a handful in her palm, lifting it to the light. The foamy mass shimmered and shone, the bursting of one bubble revealing another, perfectly formed rainbow sphere underneath.

  Lisa’s toes wriggled against the soles of Cathy’s feet. “Come over here, honey.”

  Cathy blew the foam from her hand. A splotch landed right on Lisa’s nose. Cathy smiled. She couldn’t have done any better if she’d taken careful aim. She eased her way across the spa. “Why?”

  “So you can tell me about the rest of your day.” Lisa gathered Cathy into her arms, arranging her so she sat with her back resting against Lisa’s chest. She wrapped her arms around Cathy’s waist and lay her chin on Cathy’s shoulder. “How was tennis? Did you win?”

  “It was good. A lot of people went. Because it was such good weather, I suppose.” Cathy relaxed her muscles completely, letting buoyancy lift her limbs while her torso was kept anchored by Lisa’s arms. It felt wonderful. “I got partnered with Belinda for a couple of rounds.”

  Lisa tilted her head so her mouth was right at Cathy’s ear. “She’s the one who plays competition?”

  The warm breath tickled to the point it made Cathy shudder. “Uh-huh. Club pennants and State grade.”

  The tip of Lisa’s tongue lazily traced the outer edge of Cathy’s ear. “So you two wiped your opponents off the court?”

  “Sort of. She wiped while I watched.” Warm breath, a warm tongue and, now, the soft nibble of teeth on Cathy’s earlobe were sending her into sensory overload. Talk was fast becoming difficult. Lisa was well aware of the effect she was having. Her hands joined in on the tease, moving slowly across Cathy’s stomach and down, ever so slowly down. Lisa laughed softly when Cathy’s legs opened in response. “She plays a hard game though. Too hard for me.”

  “I thought you liked a good game.” Lisa worked her lips up and down Cathy’s neck, slid her hands up and down the length of Cathy’s thighs.

  “I do.” Keep going. Cathy tried to send mental messages to Lisa’s hands. They were on the inside of her thighs now, inching upwards before retreating in the direction of her knees. “But her only aim is to win.”

  “Isn’t that what the game’s about?”

  “In competition, yes. But in round-robin social tennis, no.”

  Warm breath was back in Cathy’s ear. “Tell me how you like to play.”

  Cathy’s mind tried weakly to construct sentences. It wasn’t easy; all she could concentrate on was Lisa’s hands and mouth. “Sometimes fast…sometimes slow. Make the most of each point. Rally a bit.”

  “And throw in an occasional ace for good measure?”

  “Yes.” Cathy moaned as fingertips found her slick and swollen. She longed for them inside her. “The occasional ace is good.”

  Cathy’s mind was thick with desire and Lisa’s voice swam through it, low and sultry. “So beautiful…my bello…”

  “Please, Lisa.” Cathy could take the tease no longer. She strained against Lisa’s fingers, but they never made more than a whisper of contact.

  Light laughter washed over Cathy again. Lisa loved every moment of this. But she complied, releasing her hold so they could both stand.

  Numerous attempts at spa sex had taught them that, while the premise was awfully romantic the reality was a different matter. Water could wash away even the most amorous of flows, and lying half-in, half-out of the spa was uncomfortable, especially with a tap sticking in your back and cold tiles making your bottom go numb.

  Bed was much better.

  With fluffy bath sheets draped around their shoulders, they practically ran toward the bed. Lisa veered to the door and snapped the privacy lock on, saying, “Just in case Emma decides to sleepwalk.”

  The bath sheet slipped from her shoulders as she climbed onto the mattress. Cathy had but a moment to again admire Lisa’s physique before long, lean limbs were entangled in hers. Lisa lay right on top of Cathy, holding her upper body erect by virtue of the hands she anchored on either side of Cathy’s ribcage. Those blue, blue eyes pierced with their intensity.

  “My love.” Lisa bent to Cathy’s lips. “My beautiful beloved.”

  Welcome home, Lisa. Cathy was sure, even though she did not voice her thoughts out loud, Lisa understood.

  Confusion cro
ssed Lisa’s eyes just moments later. She cocked her head to one side. “Did you hear that?”

  “What?”

  “Listen.”

  Cathy strained her ears. Nothing. She was just about to say so, when Lisa placed a finger over Cathy’s lips.

  “Shh.”

  Yes. Cathy heard it. A muffled retching came from beyond their bedroom door. Oh, great. “I think Em’s bourbon has come back.”

  “Poor Em.”

  Yes. Poor Emma. But there was little they could do about it. She would just have to suffer the consequences of her overindulgence. “I bet she’ll be off the grog for a while,” Cathy said.

  “Hmm.” Lisa traced a line around Cathy’s lips with her index finger. “Now, where were we?” She smiled and winked. “Oh yes, that’s right. I was just about to do something a little like this…” Cathy’s mouth was captured, but only momentarily. Lisa’s whole body went limp in a gesture of defeat. The effect was heightened by the repeated banging of her forehead against Cathy’s shoulder. “No, no, no!”

  Cathy knew exactly what was wrong. She couldn’t block out the sound of retching either. Just as water washed away an amorous flow, so too did the echo of vomiting erase an atmosphere of romance. “Shall we make sure she’s all right?”

  Just moments later, donned in track pants and T-shirts, they headed from the bedroom.

  “I guess this just wasn’t our night,” Cathy said morosely.

  “Seems not.” Lisa’s voice was dark. “I tell you, if I get my hands on that bloody Justine—”

  Cathy was frustrated beyond reckoning. “You hold her. I’ll hit her.”

  Both knew neither would do anything of the sort, but it served to lighten the mood. Lisa turned in mock shock to Cathy. “Why, Cathy! I never knew you had such a violent streak.”

  “You better believe it, baby.” As they entered the guest room Cathy noticed the clock radio on the bedside table tick over to midnight. “Happy birthday, Lisa.”

  “Hmph.” The birthday girl pushed open the door to the en suite bathroom and squatted next to Emma, who knelt in front of the toilet bowl. She rubbed Emma’s back and pushed hair back from her forehead. “You’ll be okay, Em. Just let it all out.”

  Cathy busied herself finding and filling a glass with water. She sat on the bathroom floor, back against the vanity unit, glass at the ready whenever Emma needed to take a sip. Sympathy for Emma collided with more selfish sentiments. Cathy wished they’d stayed in the spa, preferably with the jets whirring at full pelt. A cold, numb bottom and a tap in the back didn’t seem such a hardship now.

  Lisa must have heard Cathy sigh because she turned and winked. “Uno settimana.”

  “Sí.” One more week and they’d be together, alone. Cathy couldn’t wait.

  Chapter Four

  Toni watched her business card holder fall to the floor. Not all the cards went with the holder; at least a couple remained at desk height, clutched by a chubby hand. But those cards too met their end, the fat little hand taking them to a small mouth so their corners could be chewed.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t worry about it.” Toni waved away attempts by the woman sitting on the other side of the desk to bend down and pick up the fallen cards. The woman’s hands were already full with the toddler she held in her arms—or rather, tried to hold in her arms. In the fifteen minutes of their appointment to date, Chloe, a two-year-old redhead, had twice escaped her mother’s lap, both times being retrieved to sit squirming, red-cheeked and fractious. “I’ll get them later.”

  At least business-card chewing momentarily stilled Chloe. Toni, making the most of the temporary reprieve, glanced quickly to the page of notes she had prepared and launched straight back into her interrupted explanation of dividend imputation. “So you see, when a company has already paid Australian company tax, shareholders are able to claim a tax rebate on the dividends.” Toni turned the sheet around so it faced mother and daughter, using her pen to point as she explained, “It means tax isn’t paid twice on the same profits…”

  Toni trailed away as the pen was sharply knocked, leaving a slash of black ink across her neatly written figures. Card-chewing had obviously lost its appeal, the pen targeted as the next interesting plaything.

  “I’m so sorry,” the mother repeated, hoisting the toddler farther onto her lap and running a gentle hand through the red hair. She quietly appealed to her daughter to sit still for just a little while longer. Chloe responded by sneezing violently. A wide-eyed hiccup quickly followed.

  The mother apologized yet again, removed a tissue from her sleeve and wiped the strand of mucus that dangled from Chloe’s nose. A fresh tissue was then used to wipe the front of Toni’s desk. During this intermission Toni stole a glance to her watch. Twenty past nine. What a start to a Monday.

  At nine forty-five the sound of Cathy’s voice came from Toni’s half-open office door. “Are you okay?”

  Toni glanced up from her self-administered temple rub. Her appointment with Chloe and her mum had ended fifteen minutes early, Chloe becoming more and more unmanageable. Finally, when Chloe had again wriggled from her mum’s arms, found a stack of blank CDs on a low bookshelf and thrown them across the room, her mother declared the appointment over.

  “What happened in here?” Cathy crossed the room, avoiding the disks that lay scattered across the floor and settling into the chair previously occupied by mother and daughter. Her head momentarily disappeared as she bent to retrieve the business card holder. It was placed back on the front edge of Toni’s desk, along with a couple of bent business cards.

  “A two-year-old happened.” Toni released the last of her tension with a roll of her shoulders. She tossed the bent business cards into her wastebasket, screwing up her nose as a couple of soggy chewed ones followed them into the trash. “Honestly, Cathy, I don’t know how mums do it. I certainly don’t have the patience.”

  “Oh, I don’t know about that. I seem to recall a certain person dominating all the cuddle time at Christmas.”

  “That’s different.” Cathy’s brother and his family had been visiting from the Eastern States over Christmas and New Year. Apart from a festive season get-together, the visit had been to show off the latest addition to their little family, their second boy. “Holding a sleeping two-month-old is a lot easier than wrestling with a two-year-old wriggle worm. Besides”—Toni smiled—”I seem to recall a certain aunt continually interrupting my cuddle time so she could have a go.”

  Cathy gave the expected reaction, huffing and folding her arms. “Well, I had to, since Aaron decided Aunty Lisa was much more fun to play with than Aunty Cathy.”

  Toni continued to watch her employer from across the desk. A wistful expression crossed Cathy’s features, as it now did whenever the subject of children was brought up. Toni was slowly getting used to this relatively new aspect of Cathy. She had always known of Cathy’s love for her first nephew, soon to be six. She’d played the long-distance but devoted aunt since Aaron’s birth. Christmas proved a turning point. The causal observer would still see a doting aunt, but if one looked a bit more closely, they would see Cathy’s affections were laced with a quiet yearning, a need for something more. There was no other way for Toni to describe it. Cathy was clucky.

  Toni wondered if Lisa had also noticed Cathy’s shift in thinking and if the two of them had talked about it. It seemed whatever had or hadn’t been discussed, Cathy obviously didn’t want to enter into it now. The topic was quickly changed from motherhood to more mundane matters. “So, did you get your gardening done?”

  “Some.” Toni smiled sheepishly.

  Come midafternoon on Sunday, Toni had left Lisa’s birthday brunch, full of food but also full of plans to make the most of a sunny autumn afternoon by tackling some chores in the garden. By the time she had driven home, her tummy had expanded, so instead she collapsed with a groan onto the couch, loudly cursing gay men and their catering abilities. Joel and his partner, Scott, had laid on a veri
table feast. Toni indulged accordingly, avoiding the liver-friendly fruit and vegetable platters, instead piling her plate with mini blue-cheese and asparagus tarts, Danish pastries and a myriad of other delectable brunch-type treats. She undid the top button of her jeans, swung her legs onto the couch and lay flat. The couch was located under a window so she had a good upside-down view of the outside world. Thin wisps of cloud hung in a blue sky. It really was a beautiful day. Toni fell asleep with grand plans of weeding the garden beds and deadheading the roses still drifting through her mind.

  By the time she awoke, her upside-down view of the world revealed light to be fading. Toni hauled herself upright and headed to her garden shed in search of some secateurs. She’d deadheaded two rosebushes before it got too dim to see clearly. She could have turned on the front security light and continued under artificial rays, but she didn’t, choosing instead to retreat indoors and check out what was happening on the World Wide Web. The chat rooms were jumping and Toni clocked up a late night in front of her computer screen. But she didn’t want to admit that to Cathy.

  “I got some of my roses done but that’s about it.” Toni switched the focus away from herself. “How about you? Did Lisa drag you straight to the nearest duty-free store to get her digital camera?”

  Birthday presents within Lisa’s group of friends had traditionally been a group affair, everyone banding together to purchase one larger item rather than small individual gifts. This year had been no different, except this year, given the impending trip, it was decided the collective monies should be given as a contribution toward the digital camera Lisa was hankering over.