The worst part was that she hadn’t even gotten to sleep with Katie, and somehow she’d still managed to hurt her.
Why were you being so god-awful mean to me? Why were you acting like that?
Because she could. Because nothing got to her. Because this was what Cassidy did; she wrecked people.
ELEVEN
In her windowless office with glass walls, Katie tried to appear normal. Across the hall, she could see Marion, the perpetually bleary-eyed, prematurely graying senior associate with whom she was working on a new deal, pecking away at her computer while Katie pretended to be engaged with hers.
Beneath Katie’s computer monitor, just to the right of her keyboard, sat her cell phone. She’d strategically barricaded it between two stacks of file folders, where it was safe from Marion’s line of vision, or anyone else’s who stepped inside.
The phone had not lit up all day except for the numerous times Katie had nudged its button to make sure she hadn’t missed a text or call.
She couldn’t really blame Cassidy for not checking in, but it would have been nice if she had. Yes, Katie had ruined last night by freaking out, by chickening out—she took full responsibility for that. But Cassidy could have been a bit more sensitive and understanding, couldn’t she?
Just then an email came in from Marion: Still waiting on those documents to come in for signatures.
No problem, Katie emailed back.
They made eye contact through their respective panes of glass.
Marion quickly shot off another message. Your hair is really getting long. Is that on purpose?
Direct comments on Katie’s appearance were a Marion specialty that would have bothered Katie far less if they were better friends. But in spite of Katie’s early efforts to ply Marion with offers of Starbucks and invitations to afternoon frozen yogurt, they weren’t that close. After two years of working together their conversations rarely went deeper than complaints about a broken scanner or low toner in the copy machine—and then out of nowhere, bam! Marion would blindside Katie with some shameless cheap shot about her shoes or eye shadow.
In this case, though, Marion’s barb was justified. Just this morning Katie had thought to herself that she was due for a hair appointment with Vivienne. But she’d decided her split ends could go on a little longer, till she felt more ready to face Vivienne with the news of her broken engagement, not to mention everything else that had happened since.
Not on purpose, Katie wrote back to Marion, punctuated with a smiley face. Then she checked her cell phone. Still no word from Cassidy.
Katie added a few more file folders to her phone’s barricade and decided to surrender. She would be the one to break. She texted Cassidy: Any chance you’re around tonight? To talk?
Then she waited.
Nothing.
Great. This was like being thirteen all over again, when everything was so new and inexplicable and all of it felt like a secret. But it was way more enjoyable back then. Adults should not behave this way.
Of course, by refusing to go up to Cassidy’s apartment, Katie had only confirmed what Cassidy already probably thought of her, which was that she was clueless and confused.
She was clueless and confused.
Katie understood that just because you make out with a woman one time, it doesn’t mean you’re gay, but what if you find yourself angling to meet up with the object of your affection the very next night in hopes that you might have a few drinks and it’ll happen again?
She tapped at her phone to open Google. The cursor blinked anxiously in the search box.
After a quick glance to make sure Marion was contained behind her desk in her office across the hall, Katie typed the question into her phone: What do lesbians do? Before hitting the search button, she added, to each other.
Finger at the ready, poised to X out of whatever porno nightmare might pop up, Katie was relieved to be greeted with a barrage of lists and tips from what appeared to be semireputable sources. A few words jumped out at her as she scrolled: oral, penetrative, anal.
Anal? she thought. Really?
She scrolled some more. G-spot, fisting, sex toys. Then her phone vibrated, and she nearly fell off her chair.
It was a text back from Cassidy: I’d really like that, but I’m going to be stuck here late tonight.
Katie read the text three times over. Was it possible Cassidy was lying, that she was avoiding her?
She tried to evaluate the composition of this text from Cassidy’s position. Straight girl flirts with you, straight girl kisses you, straight girl freaks out and goes home—and then texts you even though you’ve made no effort to remedy the situation.
Yeah, this was a blow-off text if she’d ever seen one. Which was fine. It was probably for the best, in fact.
Katie had tapped back to Google, to exit the page, and also clear the search from her history, when she noticed a link for a store called Babeland. She clicked on it and a banner appeared across the top of her screen that read: Shop. Sex Info. Community. Thirty percent off all vibrators!
She must have passed by this place a thousand times—there was a location just a few blocks from her apartment—though it wasn’t surprising that it had escaped her attention. Katie often caught herself walking around her neighborhood on autopilot, anesthetized to the city’s glory in a way that would have scandalized her younger self.
The homepage alone for this store terrified her, so Katie zeroed in on the “info” portion of the banner.
More info would be good. She clicked around to learn more. How could more info not be good?
The store didn’t only sell toys, she noticed. It also sold books, and somehow an informational sex book seemed more wholesome and trustworthy than the dark and anonymous Internet.
If Katie was going to seek out lesbian sex facts, she might as well be sure they were of the factual variety.
It didn’t mean she had to go off and actually have lesbian sex.
But she had kissed a girl. And she had liked it. And Katy Perry didn’t have much more to say on the matter other than that one song, so perhaps a research trip to the sex shop was in order.
“Knock knock,” Marion said as she swung open Katie’s office door. “Documents are ready for signatures.”
* * *
Babeland was open till ten p.m., so Katie figured, why not swing by? She was a grown woman fully capable of entering a sex store without the excuse of shopping for a bachelorette party gag gift.
She stepped through the door like it was no big deal, like the first sight of the dildo table didn’t make her want to cover her eyes.
“Hi there.” A salesperson who looked like an Alison Bechdel drawing, with spiky hair and glasses, approached from behind the register. “Can I help you with anything?”
“Just looking.” Katie sidled over to a nonthreatening shelf of books. She reached for a pink-and-red tome with a cover that appeared to be a minimalist depiction of two breasts and a snatch, and paged through it.
“Are you looking for anything in particular?” The salesperson had followed her to the shelf. According to her name tag, her name was Elizabeth, which struck Katie as an overtly feminine and queenly name for such a gender-neutral woman. Why not Liz or Lizzy? Maybe she had been tortured throughout middle school with taunts of lez or lezzy?
Katie held up the book. “Is this for gay women?”
Elizabeth smiled in a friendly way, perhaps because she was a gay woman, or at least a very gay-looking woman. “It’s for anyone who wants to have better sex,” she said.
Katie laughed much too loud. Christ, this place made her nervous. “I would like that,” she said.
“Do you have a partner?” Elizabeth asked.
Katie shook her head. “I don’t think so.”
“Would you say you’re looking to explore self-pleasure?” Elizabeth g
estured toward a table of vibrators.
Katie hugged the sex book to her chest and nodded.
She followed Elizabeth to the table, not wanting to get too close to the alien-looking contraptions before her. Some were bendy and rubber with bulbous heads. Others had animal ears or wires coming out of them. She couldn’t imagine where in hell on a person’s body they were supposed to be applied.
“Do you already have a vibrator at home?” Elizabeth asked.
“No.” Katie looked to her left and then to her right, before reaching out to pick up the biggest and most embarrassing contraption of the bunch. “This one looks like the hand blender I use to make smoothies.”
“That’s the Magic Wand,” Elizabeth said. “It’s a classic, but not for everyone and definitely not a starter vibe.” She clicked it on, and its rumbly vibration made Katie jump. “You can also add on an attachment.”
Elizabeth led Katie to a center table that featured a spread of dildos standing at attention like perverted wooden soldiers. Many had balls, which Katie found baffling.
Elizabeth picked up a brightly colored silicone attachment that looked like a cross between Gonzo from the Muppets and a disabled elephant. She squeezed it over the head of the wand vibrator and explained how this was an “accessory” that transformed the wand from a solely external tool to both an external and an internal one. That was the exact word she used, accessory. Like this was a simple pair of earrings that you could choose to wear on the outside or inside of your ears. “It’s perfect for G-spot massage,” she said.
“I squirted across the room once using that thing,” a voice from somewhere said.
Katie turned in the direction of the voice, to a woman wearing a black leather corset and holding a whip like the one Indiana Jones used.
“I highly recommend it,” she said.
“Okay. Thank you.” Katie handed the wand back to Elizabeth. “This gives me a lot to think about.”
Too much to think about. What had this woman squirted exactly? Were there fluids that Katie didn’t know about?
“I can take it from here. You can go help that nice corseted woman over there.” Katie averted her attention to the nearest distraction, which was unfortunately the army of dildos.
She picked up one that was made of textured glass. It had icicle swirls running up its shaft. What do they call this one, she wondered, the Anna or Elsa model? And why do they give the damn things names? And if lesbians don’t like dicks, why shove these freakish decoys into themselves and one another? And the balls! Why?
Katie set the icicle dildo back down in its place. Maybe this was too much too fast.
She went to the register with the sex book and set it on the counter.
“Are you all set?” Elizabeth asked from where she was assisting the Squirter with a device that looked to Katie like a cattle prod.
“Yes. Just this.” Katie took out her credit card as Elizabeth came around the counter to ring her up. “And this.” Katie bolted back to the vibrator table, grabbed a hot-pink gadget that was only slightly embarrassing and not at all like something she could whip a smoothie in.
“The Boss Lady,” Elizabeth said. “That’s a great choice. It’s firm yet pliant, with a tilted head for G-spot stimulation. And it even has a booster button—”
“I’m sold,” Katie said, louder than she’d intended. “I mean, you don’t have to sell me. I’ll take it.”
“Okay.” Elizabeth stepped around the counter. “But that’s the floor model. I have to get it for you from the back.”
She disappeared, and Katie stared at her phone to avoid seeing anything or anyone else.
“You look like a Boss Lady in that fancy business suit of yours,” the corseted Squirter said. She snapped a whip against the floor. “Don’t forget the batteries.”
* * *
Katie removed her purchases from their bright blue shopping bag, then tore the bag to bright blue shreds and shoved them into the recycling. She uncorked a bottle of red wine, brought a glass to the living room, and sat across from her new book and vibrator.
Where to begin?
She slid the Boss Lady out of its black box, inserted its batteries, and switched it on. She watched it do its thing, shaking in the palm of her hand, then thrusting in the palm of her hand, then shaking and thrusting in the palm of her hand.
Katie switched off the Boss Lady and set it upon the coffee table beside her wineglass, so the two of them were standing at odds like a deviant still life. She reached for the book.
There was more nudity in its pages than she’d realized at the store, which she guessed was to be expected in a sex how-to, but these bodies looked a little too real. Had this been published before Photoshop was invented?
She flipped some more until she stumbled upon the words lesbian fantasy.
She took a sip of wine.
“Eighty percent of straight women have had lesbian fantasies.”
She took another sip of wine and read on, hoping to get some more numbers.
Specifically, of that 80 percent, how many acted on the fantasy, and from that group, how many had given gay sex hardly any mind at all before encountering this one single lesbian?
Katie had never been a fantasizer of any kind. She was more of a planner, a doer. She was a pleaser of others—not one for exploring self-pleasure or whatever the heck Elizabeth from Babeland called it.
But Cassidy was hot. And the only other women Katie ever thought of as hot were the ones she wanted to be. Not do. Be.
It only confused her further that Cassidy was hot like a guy was hot. She’d felt almost male to Katie when she was kissing her.
Katie’s doorbell rang, and she instinctively grabbed the vibrator from the table and shoved it under the couch. Someone had probably pressed the wrong bell. It happened all the time, but she still slid the book beneath the couch’s cushion.
Then her phone dinged.
A text from Cassidy: Hey, are you home? I’m at your door.
What the hell?
Katie ran to check herself in the mirror. She was in pajama bottoms and a T-shirt. No bra. Her hair was in a ponytail.
The doorbell rang again.
Oh fuck it.
She buzzed Cassidy in and made sure the Boss Lady’s hot-pink exterior wasn’t visible from any angle. She opened the door and waited.
The sight of Cassidy climbing up her stairs wearing an overcoat and carrying a briefcase made her stomach do a flip.
“I know this is weird, me showing up like this.” Cassidy entered and closed the door behind her. “I was in a cab and about to text you, but then I just told the driver to take me here instead. I don’t know why. I just really wanted to see you.”
“So you really were stuck at work,” Katie said.
“Of course. What did you think?” Cassidy set down her briefcase and shook off her coat. She seemed uncharacteristically frazzled. “You said earlier that you wanted to talk?”
“I did want to talk,” Katie said. “I do.”
“Can we sit?” Cassidy gestured toward the couch.
Katie remained in place, standing awkwardly in front of the door. She didn’t want Cassidy to sit down, not only because she feared her foot would accidently brush up against the vibrator Katie had stashed there.
“I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you,” Katie said.
The roiling energy Cassidy had brought into the apartment went still. “Is that a good thing or a bad thing?”
Katie wasn’t sure if it was good or bad, but it was undeniable.
Cassidy took a step closer.
Katie leaned her back against the door. She waited for Cassidy to kiss her, but Cassidy didn’t—she wouldn’t. She would have left them suspended in midair with an inch between their lips forever if Katie hadn’t reached for Cassidy and pulled her in.
/> That was the only green light Cassidy seemed to need to take over from there. All that nervous energy she’d arrived with came pouring out of her then. It wasn’t nerves, Katie realized. It was wanting. It was need.
Cassidy steered them into Katie’s bedroom, onto the bed.
“I don’t know what I’m doing,” Katie said.
“I am totally okay with that.” Cassidy slid Katie’s T-shirt up and off. Her mouth made its way down Katie’s neck, across her chest.
Katie closed her eyes and let herself get lost.
TWELVE
As a rule Cassidy never cuddled after sex. It gave girls the wrong idea to hold them longer than necessary. It made them get attached.
She reminded herself of this while holding Katie, grazing her fingers up and down her arm, punch-drunk on the smell of her hair.
They were lying in the dark, but with streetlamp light coming in from the window on one side, and living room light coming in from the open door on the other, Cassidy could make out the entire space. Katie’s bedroom was small, seemingly unloved, with a hodgepodge of IKEA furniture, but it was comfortable. These rough, big-box-store sheets enveloped the two of them in a warm cocoon, and the pedestrian chatter and noisy car horns from outside only added to the feeling that they were hidden away someplace softer and more secure than the outer world. If Cassidy wasn’t careful she might doze off.
It was time to go, well past midnight, and Katie had been asleep now for almost half an hour.
Cassidy eyed the rumpled mound of her suit on the floor beside the bed. Her shoes she’d kicked off by the dresser. God only knew where her socks were. Carefully, she slid her arm out from under Katie, filling the empty space with a pillow, but she assumed Katie would still wake up while she was getting dressed.
“Katie,” she whispered as she buttoned her shirt.
Cassidy had to go. They both had work early in the morning. Spending the night was not an option.
When Katie Met Cassidy Page 9
