Chase Banter [02] Marching to a Different Accordion

by Bennett, Saxon

  “It’s the All-Inclusive Wonder Night Kit,” Chase said, beaming.

  “Wonder night?”

  “I personally think it should be called the Wonderful Night Kit. Come here, sit on the sheets. Did you shave your legs? It’s best that way.”

  Gitana sat down and ran her hands along the sheets. Chase studied the scented oil and suddenly ruminated on the effect of oil on satin sheets. Maybe she should just put a little under Gitana’s nose and call it good. The incense was nice, though.

  “These are smooth, but what is this all about?”

  Chase went to fiddle with the iPod so she wouldn’t have to look at Gitana. She heard the soft swishing of the sheets and then Gitana was behind her, putting her arms around Chase’s hips.

  “Have you been missing something lately?” she said as she nestled her face into Chase’s neck.

  Chase flushed and her lesbian nether regions amped up as Gitana pulled her hips into her and then ran her hands up the inside of Chase’s thighs.

  “Maybe a little. It seems I’ve been neglecting my Sapphic duties.” She turned around and said, “I’ve been missing you in my arms while we do amorous things.”

  “Well, let’s see what we can do about that,” Gitana said, taking her hand and leading her to the bed. She slipped off Chase’s T-shirt and boxer shorts, lingering in the down under until Chase quivered. “I think your Sapphic tendencies are returning.”

  As they slipped between the sheets and into each others’ arms, Chase thought that Lou did know a lot about the erotic side of things. She wondered if the shop had a library of sorts—certainly this kind of stuff could be even further enhanced.

  “You didn’t have to go to all this trouble, but it is awfully nice,” Gitana said, as she ran her index finger around Chase’s nipple and then down her stomach.

  “There’s scented oil, but I can’t figure out how you can use it and not fuck up the sheets,” Chase said. She was about to elucidate on the virtues of the rest of the kit when Gitana slipped her tongue between Chase’s legs and she quite forgot about the kit altogether. When Gitana eased her fingers inside and came up to kiss Chase and guide her fingers inside her, Chase forgot the rest of the world. They moved in sync until, as if planned, their bodies convulsed. Chase moaned rather loudly and then she remembered Bud. “Bud will hear.”

  “Bud’s on a sleepover,” Gitana said as she gently pushed Chase’s head between her legs.

  Chase ran the tip of her tongue up the inside of Gitana’s thigh. “I think I could learn to like sleepovers.” She plunged her tongue between Gitana’s legs and tasted the sweetness.

  Gitana gasped as she said, “Why do you think they were invented?”

  They didn’t talk anymore after that. It was all body talk and there was a lot of it. Their bodies must have seen this as two long lost friends being reunited. As a point of reference for Marsha, Chase thought, they did fall asleep after making love that night but did not in the morning. They decided the scented oil made the dogs smell nice.

  In the morning they ate a huge breakfast of waffles, scrambled eggs, hash browns and yogurt with blueberries.

  “I’m famished,” Gitana said, putting another waffle on her plate.

  “I think it was all the p.m. aerobics,” Chase said, helping herself to more hash browns.

  “You can tell Lou her All-Inclusive Wonder Night Kit makes the perfect prelude to an evening of amazing sex,” Gitana said, running her hand up the inside of Chase’s thigh.

  “Maybe we could take a quick shower together before we pick up Bud?” Chase suggested.

  “Or we could get Donna to pick up Bud. She’s bringing up my fancy dress and the agenda for the next three days of our lives, which are not going to be fun,” Gitana said.

  “At least you get to miss the Santa Fe sightseeing tour with Lacey and the Literary Furies.”

  Gitana put her hand on her heart. “I am so disappointed.”

  “In lieu of that I think we both deserve a bit of fun and frolic,” Chase said. She moaned a little as Gitana pressed her hand against her lesbian equipment, which responded quickly. “I’ll call Donna.”

  Gitana kissed Chase’s neck while she talked to Donna.

  “Chase, you really need to be on your best behavior. Promise me no off-the-cuff odd remarks, no neurotic moments, no disappearing, no being impatient, no arguing with Lacey or anyone else, for that matter, about the state of the Lesbian Nation,” Donna said.

  “So you’re pretty much asking me to completely revamp my entire personality in the next…” she glanced at the clock, “eleven hours.”

  “Would you? Just for me. Myra will kill me if this falls through and then I’ll have to go back to New York and be retrained and you know I don’t like New York, it’s too fast for me. I’m just a small-town girl from a backward state and I can’t handle all that noise and rushing about. Besides, I got a really bad attack of gastritis while I was there—all that strange food and no red or green chili.”

  “Donna, stop! You’re beginning to sound like the old me. I will be on my best behavior and Gitana is helping me realize my potential as a new and improved person. So we’ll see you in a couple hours.”

  “Don’t forget to finish the blurb on your lesbian novel and a sample chapter, preferably one with a hot sex scene in it.”

  “I won’t.” Chase clicked off and put Gitana’s hand inside the waistband of her boxer shorts. “I’ve never done it in a chair.”

  “Yes, you have. I tied you up once—it was your office chair in the writing studio.”

  “The good old days,” Chase said as she moved against Gitana’s hand.

  “Are back again,” Gitana added.

  “Yes, they are.”

  Later in the writing studio Chase was arguing with her muses. The Muse of the Divine Vulva was threatening to throttle the Muse of Commercial Endeavor. The Divine Vulva was usually pretty laid-back and spent a good portion of her time in a beach chair, eating shrimp cocktails, drinking piña coladas and singing that stupid song about piña coladas. Chase still couldn’t figure this out because she didn’t eat shrimp, having seen them in their natural habitat at the estuary in Rocky Point, and she positively despised fruity drinks, so why her muse was such an avid fan of both of them didn’t make any sense.

  Divine Vulva was out of her beach chair and fuming. “This is none of your business. I’m helping her decide on the sample chapter and it’s going to be hot, hot, hot.”

  “I know this is for the Lesbian Nation. However, that does not exclude me from the discussion. I think she should sample a chapter that displays the depth of her writing skills—like the library scene where the protagonist is talking about Mary Daly and the politics of language,” Commercial Endeavor retorted, picking up the stapler, her weapon of choice.

  “Put that down. This is a civil discussion,” Chase said, making a grab for the stapler. She missed.

  “I will only use it for purposes of self-defense,” Commercial Endeavor said sanctimoniously.

  Divine Vulva glowered but took a step backward. “That chapter is stupid. It’s nothing but talk and more talk.”

  “Hey,” Chase said.

  “That chapter is necessary. The mission statement of the commune is about self-enlightenment and that scene demonstrates that very theme,” Commercial Endeavor stated.

  “Oh, get over it. The commune is about lesbians being funny and having sex,” Divine Vulva said.

  Chase was offended. “No, it’s not. It’s about growth, redemption…”

  “And sex,” Divine Vulva cut in.

  This would have gone on forever had Donna not arrived and put a stop to it. Divine Vulva flounced down in her beach chair and snatched up her piña colada. She gave Commercial Endeavor the finger but she had resumed reading Publisher’s Weekly. Chase sat with her head in her hands.

  “What’s wrong? Are you feeling all right? Do you have a fever? Oh, no, you can’t be sick. It’ll ruin everything.” Donna pulled Chase’s h
ead back and felt her forehead. “You don’t have a fever. It’s not mental, is it? Have you taken your medication?”

  “Donna, relax. I’m fine. I just can’t figure out what to use for the sample chapter. One side of me thinks I should read something hot, hot, hot”—she glanced in the direction of Divine Vulva, who stuck her tongue out at Commercial Endeavor, who disdained to look. “But the other side thinks I should choose something with more substance.” At this Commercial Endeavor nodded approvingly and Divine Vulva slurped her drink loudly.

  Donna sat on the couch and looked thoughtful. “Why don’t you do both?”

  “I don’t think there is a scene that has both.”

  Donna, who’d read everything Chase had ever written, including rough drafts which normally Chase never trusted to anyone, snapped her fingers. “I know. How about that scene in the garden where Elsa reads Anne Cameron’s Earth Witch? Now, that scene is hot and educational. Anyone that reads erotic, feminist poetry and makes love to you at the same time could live in my bed forever. I love that scene and if I ever wanted to be a character it would be Terry at that moment.”

  “You are fucking brilliant. What would I do without you? Now where is that scene?” Chase rifled through the manuscript.

  “It starts on page two hundred and thirty.”

  Chase raised an eye. “How in the hell do you know that?” she said as she found the page.

  “The Muslims often memorize the Koran. I make it a point to memorize your fiction.”

  “Wow.”

  “Okay, let me make you a copy off the hard drive and I’ll enlarge the font size so that it’ll be easier to read.”

  Chase suddenly felt uncertain. “I don’t know if I can do this.”

  Donna came over and rubbed her shoulders. “I’m packing the audience with your friends. Every time you feel the least bit nervous just find the face of someone who knows and loves you. Remember your first book reading at the Lesbian Lights Bookstore? Did I not hook you up?”

  “Yes.” Chase still felt forlorn. “You know I don’t do well under pressure and sitting on a panel is not going to be a low-key event and it’s going to be web-streamed. This is like my worst fucking nightmare,” Chase croaked. She was working herself up into a complete panic attack.

  Donna pulled a Dos Equis from the dorm fridge, opened it quickly, shoved in a lime and pulled a pack of Mentos and a vial of lavender oil from her briefcase. She handed it all to Chase. She rubbed Chase’s temples with the lavender oil while Chase sucked on a Mento and chugged the beer.

  “Better?”

  “I think so. Thank you.”

  “Don’t worry. You didn’t give me a chance to show you my new secret weapon.” Donna pulled out a tiny electronic device and handed it to Chase.

  “What is it?”

  “The world’s smallest Bluetooth. Put it in your ear and let your hair out of the ponytail. I want to make sure it doesn’t show. Although, I don’t really think anyone would really notice or care. Everyone is so hooked up these days.”

  Chase did as instructed.

  Donna surveyed her. “Fabulous.”

  “But what’s it for?”

  “I’ll be backstage listening and if you get stuck I’ll be on my phone and I can help you. All you have to do to cover the delay is look meditative for a moment and, voila!, we are good.”

  “We can do that? Isn’t it kind of dishonest?”

  “What’s dishonest about it? I’m your right-hand woman. I look after you. Politicians have aids and speechwriters and all sorts of assistants. Their staff would never let their person get into a jam. It’s downright irresponsible if they do,” Donna said vehemently.

  Chase nodded.

  “Okay, let’s try it out. I’ll go in the bathroom and you listen. I’ll ask you a question and you wait for me to tell you the response—that way we can gauge the time delay.”

  “Ask me a hard one.”

  From the recesses of the bathroom, Donna yelled, “Ms. Banter, can you explain to me the polemics in Rita Mae Brown’s novel Six of One?”

  “Are you fucking high? How the hell would I know that? Besides I was a baby dyke when I read it and all I really remember was the scene where the rich lesbian Celeste rips off the shirt of her lover, Ramelle, in a passionate moment and buys her a whole bunch of new ones the next day that she spreads out on the bed.” Chase popped another Mento.

  “See, that’s a good example. The shirt-ripping scene could be viewed as an instance of violence and indicative of a rape although it was consensual sex. There’s also the highly controversial part where Ramelle sleeps with Celeste’s brother, Curtis, and bears his child. That’s not exactly proper lesbian behavior and then there’s always the southern manners thing.”

  “Oh, my god,” Chase said.

  “You’re doing fine. I can hear you and if you don’t say things like ‘are you fucking high?’ we’ll be all right. Besides my knowledge of lesbian fiction is way above average and I can vie with the best of them. And there’s always the passing the buck trick. If you can’t or I can’t answer a question, we’ll pass it along with the usual statement that ‘I think this is a better question for my esteemed panelist so and so.’”

  “How will I know which one to pass it to?”

  “I’ll tell you.”

  Chase had been so busy she hadn’t noticed Gitana standing in the doorway wearing a low-backed black velvet dress with a somewhat plunging neckline. “Chase, who are you talking to?”

  Chase swiveled around in her office chair. “I’m talking to Donna. You aren’t wearing that tonight?”

  “Why not?”

  “It’s practically indecent.”

  “I picked out that dress. It’s not indecent. It’s sexy and stylish,” Donna said, through the Bluetooth.

  “You’re responsible for that?”

  “Where exactly is Donna?”

  “In the bathroom.” Chase was now walking around Gitana, surveying the dress up close.

  “What bathroom? Are you two channeling each other now?”

  “No, she’s going to save my ass with technology,” Chase said, running her hand up Gitana’s naked back, suddenly feeling very lesbian and remembering the passionate shirt-ripping scene. She didn’t want to rip the dress off Gitana, but she did want to remove it very slowly. Gitana blushed.

  Donna came out of the bathroom holding her phone. She pulled back Chase’s hair and demonstrated how everything worked while Chase admired Gitana’s plunging neckline.

  “That’s brilliant and it might actually produce a positive psychological reaction that might enable you to answer all the questions on your own just because you know you have Donna as a backup,” Gitana said brightly.

  Chase and Donna looked dubious.

  “Oh, ye of little faith,” Gitana said.

  “Now about that dress….” Chase said, shoving her lust aside.

  “She looks fabulous and how often do we get to have a fancy dress party?” Donna asked, studying Gitana and nodding approvingly.

  “I think it’s politically incorrect,” Chase said.

  They both look at her quizzically. “Why?” Donna inquired.

  “Because we are exploiting her feminine attributes, which can be construed as sexist, and if I am dressed in a tuxedo,” Chase still couldn’t believe Lacey had talked her into that as well, “and she is in a ball gown, we are portraying a lesbian stereotype of butch and femme.”

  When Gitana glanced at Donna for help Chase knew that her logic was sound. Donna bit her lower lip—a thinking posture. “Or the dress and the suit serve as an homage to the glorious past when lesbians had to be courageous, and dress-up was part of the scene—that sense of having an identity.”

  Chase furrowed her brow. Donna did have a point. People’s points were getting on her nerves.

  Gitana stepped in. “Chase, please. I like this dress and the party is all women, except for Bo, who doesn’t like boobs.”

  “Only if I get to take
the dress off slowly later on in the privacy of our bedroom,” Chase said.

  “It’s a deal,” Gitana said.

  Chapter Eighteen—Revenge

  Souls made of fire, and children of the sun,

  With whom revenge is virtue.—Young

  Chase was busy pulling more Chilean white wine out of Stella’s wine fridge when she turned around to find P.H. Kinjera standing behind her and making no bones about the fact that she’d been staring at her ass. Chase had spent as much time as was politely necessary with the new guests and was now assisting in food and drink procurement. She’d stood by as Lacey did all the introductions and Stella doled out New Mexican appetizers—taquitos, bean and cheese rolls ups, Jacinda’s homemade salsa with authentic chips and stuffed green chilies with cream cheese. The rest of the dinner, which was more native cuisine, was going to blow their bowels to seventh heaven. Chase had mentioned this fact and was pooh-hawed. “These are newbies to the cultural diversity of New Mexico and it would be a social crime not to immerse them in the culture,” Stella had informed her.

  “So here you are. I wondered where our lovely romantic writer had gone,” P.H. said as Chase straightened up and tried to politely inch away. She pretended to look for a corkscrew.

  “Romantic comedy actually—there is a difference,” Chase said as she opened another drawer.

  “And what would that be?” P.H. inched closer, leaning against the counter and exuding trouble.

  This wasn’t the first time Chase had been cornered in a kitchen. Stella’s kitchen had an advantage—it was large. It was those tiny studio apartment kitchens you had to beware of and getting cornered was yet another reason that Chase avoided parties. She was like those people who weren’t fond of cats yet attracted cats by the virtue of that fact. Chase had read somewhere that cats were drawn to these kinds of people because they saw them as no threat and could be counted on to mostly let them be with only a perfunctory pat just to look polite. Chase didn’t want to get too friendly with anyone, yet she seemed to attract people who insisted on getting friendly, usually too friendly.

  Chase continued rummaging, knowing full well that the corkscrew was sitting on the counter next to P.H. She was using the ruse to get as far from P.H. as was possible. “Well, my work is more about exploring the foibles of lesbian life and less about melodrama—not that there is anything wrong with melodrama.”