And it wasn’t like this was some sort of unrequited love scenario in which I was smitten for a girl who didn’t reciprocate my adoration. No, Emma quite obviously enjoyed being with me. And she quite obviously enjoyed being with a girl who could, by her own admission, pleasure her in a way that her husband really couldn’t. It was just simply a rough spot to be in. Do I follow my heart, which means being complicit in Emma’s cheating on her new husband? Or do I deal with the pain and end things with my best friend and lover?
Love and lust are certainly tricky things.
Once the newlyweds returned from their trip, they began the process of moving Emma out of her condo and into Seth’s much bigger condo on the other side of town. Emma called me to help her out and I gladly obliged, eager to spend all the time with her that I could so that I might get my feelings in order. But helping her pack boxes and load up for her new life as a married woman didn’t really change the way I felt. In fact, it only stoked the fire that was burning inside of me for her.
“Wow,” mused Emma, looking around her condo. The living room was stacked orderly with boxes, a couple of large duffel bags were tossed off to the side near a wall. She had been staying at Seth’s since they got married and the only things not yet packed in her condo were her couch and an unrolled yoga mat in direct line with a sunny spot coming through the window. “So much stuff,” she said. Emma grinned at me, looking cute in her yoga pants and sneakers, tank top, and stretchy headband helping to hold her shiny dark brown hair back in a ponytail.
“What are you going to do with your condo?” I said. “Sell it?”
“No way,” she said, “I own it outright. I’ll just rent it out and make some money off of it.”
“It’s a really nice space,” I said, looking around with my hands on my hips. “Great light.”
“Oh my God!” said Emma suddenly. “I’ve got an idea!”
“What’s that?”
“You rent it from me,” she said, approaching me with a smile. “I’ll give you a good deal.”
“What?” I said, slightly confused. “I’m in a lease right now, Emma.”
“Oh, you can break a lease easily,” she said. “Look, you’ll pay less than you’re paying now and it’ll give me an easy excuse to come see you,” said Emma, purring softly, sashaying up next to me and softly rubbing against me. “I’ll be, like, your landlord and I’ll come over to check things out.”
“Only if you bend over under the sink to show me your panties,” I said jokingly. Emma laughed and lightly slapped her palm on my upper arm.
“I’ll make sure to wear a thong on those days,” she said, bumping her hip against mine.
“I don’t know, Emma,” I said. “I’ve been looking to buy my own place.”
“Right,” she said. “But how long is that going to be? A year? Two years? Come stay here at my condo, save more money, and then buy your own place when the time is right.”
Wrapping an arm around my waist, Emma snuggled up against me and lightly began to kiss my neck. I leaned my head to the side to accept her kisses, a smile growing on my face as I considered Emma’s offer. It would be nice to save a bit in rent and put it into my downpayment. But a move like this would tie me even closer to Emma and I still wasn’t sure if I wanted to get involved in this intrigue, as Emma so accurately put it.
As Emma’s kissing grew more passionate, her hands beginning to roam, we both heard a click at the front door of the condo, a noise of the knob being unlocked, and a turn. Emma leapt back from me with wide eyes and a scared look on her face. My heart was suddenly racing. We both looked to the front door and as it slowly opened, Seth slid into the condo with a smile on his face.
“Ladies,” he said, bowing his head slightly.
“Darling!” beamed Emma, trotting over to Seth, tossing her arms around his neck, and offering him a deep kiss.
I could see then that navigating this all was going to be precarious.
After their kiss in the doorway, Seth and Emma ambled into the condo and back toward me, Emma smiling and holding Seth’s hand.
“Hey Molly,” said Seth with a Hollywood smile. “Good to see you.”
“Nice to see you, too,” I said. “Emma told me you guys had a blast in the Caribbean.”
“Totally,” he said. “The water is so blue down there, it’s unreal. Have you been?”
“I’ve been to Cancun,” I said. “Similarly beautiful, I imagine.”
“Right,” he said. “Well, it was all beach lounging and cocktails,” said Seth with a grin. Reaching over, he snaked his arm around Emma’s back and pulled her closer to him. “And this one in a bikini the whole time.” Emma giggled. I honestly couldn’t tell if she was faking this affection or if it was real. Perhaps she was just that good.
“Sounds like heaven,” I said, smirking at Emma.
“Maybe we’ll go back for our one year anniversary,” said Emma, leaning against Seth like a dotting young wife.
“We could make that happen,” he said.
“Babe,” said Emma, bouncing out of Seth’s arms and getting down to business. “All of these bags over here are ready to go,” she said, pointing to the pile of duffel bags. “And I think that’s the last of the stuff we need to take in the car.”
“All the boxes can go in the moving truck?” Seth confirmed.
“Mm hmm,” said Emma.
“All right,” said Seth, stepping forward and scratching his chin. “What about that couch?”
“I don’t really need it,” she said. “Your couch is fine.”
“Your couch is quite nice,” he said, still looking at Emma’s couch. “So what… we just toss it?”
“Well,” said Emma thoughtfully. “Molly and I were just talking about the possibility of her renting the condo from me,” she said, turning toward me and grinning. “Maybe you want it, Molly?”
“I hadn’t thought about it,” I said absentmindedly, feeling a bit overwhelmed and bombarded from all of these new developments. “It is a nice couch.”
“We don’t have to decide right away,” said Seth. “We can just leave it in the space for now and if you don’t want it when you move in, we’ll get rid of it.”
“Cool,” I said with a nod.
“Okay,” said Seth, breaking away from us. “I’ll take these bags back to my place. You almost done here?”
“Yep!” said Emma. “Just a little more straightening up. I’ll probably be home in a couple of hours.”
“Terrific,” said Seth, threading his arm through a backpack and then hoisting up two heavy duffels with a grunt. “I’ll see you girls later.”
“Bye babe,” said Emma.
“Bye Seth,” I said along with her.
Seth waved to us and then made his way out the front door, closing it behind him. I breathed a sigh of relief, having felt like I was pressed up against a wall the entire time he was in the room with us.
Emma grinned at me and then slinked over, her shoes sliding with a squeak along the hardwood floors below her feet. As she got close to me, she returned to hugging me.
“So you’ll take over my condo?” she asked again. “I’ll help you move in.”
“It’s a big decision, Emma,” I said. “Can I think about it?”
“Of course!” she cooed. “No pressure! I just think it’ll be perfect.”
Emma looked at me and our eyes locked, prompting both of us to slowly lean in and press our lips together. It was a sweet kiss, a loving kiss, and I melted into her. We stood there kissing, silent but for our soft moans, holding one another, happily loving one another.
*
A couple of days later I phoned Emma up to tell her that I had decided to rent her condo from her. The rent offer was just too good and would definitely quicken my ability to save for my own place. She was elated that I had taken the condo, partly because she wasn’t too interested in the stress of putting a stranger in it and also because it meant that she had an easy excuse to Seth and her family to com
e see me whenever she wanted. Landlord duties, you know?
To celebrate, Emma came over to my apartment with a bottle of champagne the following Friday. We had made plans for her to sleepover under the guise that she may have too many drinks to drive. To me it felt like an obvious lie, as Emma rarely drank alcohol and never had I seen her drink so much that it would impair her ability to drive. I think at her wedding she had two glasses of champagne. But Seth didn’t mind that she was staying over with me, just girlfriends being girlfriends.
Emma slipped inside my door wearing jean shorts and a frilly white blouse with a plunging neck that gave a nice view of her small chest, flip-flops on her feet and her backpack slung over her shoulder. She grinned at me as she waltzed in, ardently giving me a kiss on the cheek as she came through the doorway, sliding across the floor as I shut the door behind her.
My apartment was nowhere near as nice as her condo was. It was a small one bedroom I had rented when I first moved to the city a number of years back, before I started to really make money as a lawyer. While it was a bit cramped and quaint, I had never really wanted to move because it felt like home. After a couple years of rent raises, however, feeling like home wasn’t enough to convince me to stay when I had such a tempting offer on the table.
“You’re going to love it at my condo,” said Emma, looking around my space, tossing her backpack onto a cushy chair. “Tall ceilings, more light.”
“I know,” I said. “This will be a good move for me.”
Emma wandered over to me and we embraced tenderly, giving each other a few soft pecks on the lips. It was almost as though we were in a relationship, no matter how unspoken it was, and I wanted desperately to believe it. I tried to keep my eyes off of her wedding ring.
“Oh!” she exclaimed suddenly after we’d parted from our kiss. Emma unzipped her backpack and pulled out a bottle of champagne. “For you!” she said, presenting me with the bottle. “From landlord to tenant.” Emma grinned.
“Thanks,” I said, taking the bottle from her. “You’ll have to have a glass with me tonight because there’s no way I’m going to be able to drink this all myself.”
“Of course,” she said. “We’re celebrating.”
“What does Seth think?” I asked cautiously, walking the bottle over to my coffee table and setting it down.
“He’s pumped for you to be our tenant,” said Emma. “He’s happy to help you out and happy that we don’t have to deal with listing it or getting a management company. It’s win-win.”
“Emma,” I said, feeling a little nervous, worried for us as we got deeper into our secret tryst. “Do you think he has any idea about us?” I asked. “I mean, any inkling or funny feeling or whatever?”
“Hmm,” she mused, stepping forward and then sitting on the plush arm on the chair her backpack was on. Emma crossed one of her bare legs over the other, her pale skin lightly pinked from her recent trip. “I just don’t think he’s that observant,” she said finally. “We both have our friends that we like to hang out with. It’s like you’re just my best friend who I see all the time. Which you are,” said Emma with an amorous smile.
“I’m nervous about all this,” I said. “It’s just on my mind all the time.”
“Relax,” said Emma with tender happy look. “As long as I don’t tell and you don’t tell, we’ll be fine.”
“I hope it’s that easy,” I said solemnly.
“Let’s not be down about this,” she said. “We’ve got a lot to celebrate!”
“True,” I said, Emma’s smile infecting me and causing me to grow one of my own.
“Despite all these complexities,” said Emma, putting it lightly. “We still get to be friends and do, you know, more stuff as we see fit. We can have our cake and eat it too!”
“Emma,” I said calmly. “You have your cake and can eat it too. I’m in a different situation.”
“Well, sure,” she said, agreeing as she saw it from my perspective.
“I have just one more question,” I said. “What’s the end game here? I mean, if we let this continue on as it is, hiding it from everyone else, what’s the conclusion?”
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“I don’t want to be in a secret relationship forever,” I said. “You know, I’d like to have my wedding day one day too.”
“I don’t have an answer to that right now,” said Emma. “But I understand where you’re coming from.”
“All right,” I acquiesced. Sometimes love can be an illogical thing. I knew that Emma was being a bit cagey, definitely selfish in a self-preservation kind of way, but I felt for her. Were her situation different, had she been from a less conservative world, it may have been easier for her to come out and be with me publicly. None of our friends would care, I’m sure they would be excited. That’s the thing. Modern young people can accept others for who they are, it’s just the older conservative people that have a difficult time with this sort of thing. Especially those who are entrenched in a highly defined life of religion and politics.
“Will you still love me,” Emma began. “When I’m big and pregnant with Seth’s baby?”
I smiled, I thought about it, I laughed.
“Of course,” I said, wrapping an arm around her waist and closing in on her.
“Good,” she said, leaning against me and purring.
“You know,” I said. “Thinking about that, about you getting pregnant, it just… my brain can’t really compute it.”
“When a mommy and daddy love each other very much…” said Emma in a teasing, singsongy voice.
“Stop!” I said with a chortle. “Oh my God, I don’t want to hear it!”
“Hey Mol’,” said Emma, grinning as we held onto one another. “I know this is a weird question, but I’m just coming to terms with some stuff. Am I, like, what they call a lipstick lesbian?” I laughed harder, resting my head against Emma’s, smiling, happy, joyful at just being next to her. “What?” she said innocently.
“I suppose so,” I said. “If that’s how you want to define it.”
“What’s your niche?” she said. “Not to try to define you or anything.”
“I guess…” I said, trailing off in thought for a moment. “I guess I’m a chapstick lesbian.” Emma laughed sweetly at me and the two of us pressed our lips together in a gentle, tender kiss.
“But you’re girly, too!” she protested.
“I don’t know,” I said. “I feel like I’m all over the map.”
“That’s okay,” said Emma in a little chirp. “I’ll take you anyway you come.”
We smiled together in comfortable silence.
*
With my head plunked back into the pillows, writhing there into my sheets, I ran my hands along my chest and torso, feeling twinkly and bright, heated and lusty, splayed out on the bed completely naked as Emma, also in the buff, hovered off to one side of me on her knees. In her hand was a firm pink silicone toy, a ribbed totem of broad girth, which she was using to slowly and methodically penetrate me between my thighs. I was sopping and eager, aroused from earlier foreplay, and greedily accepting Emma’s deliberate thrusts. Her other hand, palm on my very short pubic hair, since growing back from our spa day weeks earlier, she slowly massaged back and forth while her wet thumb caressed my clit in small, tender circles.
I opened my eyes and watched Emma’s face. She was focused on pleasing me and didn’t notice that I was looking at her. I could see the happiness in her eyes, the love in her fixation, her beautiful small mouth hanging open just the tiniest bit. Emma was gorgeous to me, so lovely and so fair, her long, straight brown hair hanging off to one side as she kept her attentions on my pleasure. Her wrist pumped back and forth, pushing the toy into me with light suction sounds of wet flesh, and then easing it back out once more. I could smell the subtle mixture of musky sex punctuated by the sweet fragrance of Emma’s light perfume.
“Is this okay?” she cooed softly, giving my clit a firm rub, using the
creaminess seeping from me to oil up her motions.
“Mm hmm,” I mouthed, feeling so feverish that it was difficult to speak full words. My ass grinded down into the mattress, the sheets all bunched up under me, dampness both between my legs and underneath my rear on the bed.
“You have a really pretty pussy,” mused Emma, watching herself attend to my desirous needs. “It’s like the most beautiful flower. The wonderful folds, the way it glimmers.”
I could feel sweat sprinkled across my hairline, a single bead slipping down over my temple and into the hair above my ear. My chest heaved up and down in time with Emma’s movements between my legs, my pussy clenched onto the toy with each exhale, reveling in the fulfilling feeling lovingly accentuated by Emma’s finger flicking against my clit. I melted down into the pillows, existing for that moment in some other world, some far off plane of existence. Those little sparks of weird electricity shuttered through me at random intervals, unpredictable and uncontrollable.
The pumping toy kept hitting me at just the right spot, the subtle curve of the silicone baton rubbing up against me inside at that perfect angle causing my head to spin. I felt a familiar stickiness between my legs, coating the toy, oozing out of me whenever Emma’s hand slid the device out from inside. It was magical. It was inspiring. It was so amazingly satisfying.
“Slow down a little,” I cooed, tossing my head to one side and slithering my arms up into the pillows. I felt the warmth of Emma’s face approach my chest and then a few soft, sweet, wet kisses on one of my nipples. A tender lick, a quick suck. All while that wand in her hand continued to thump me.
“Okay,” Emma murmured, slowing her wrist action. As she lowered her speed, I suddenly felt a multiplier of arousal. The tip of the toy rubbed steadily against me, each time it penetrated me it collided with an erogenous detonation of nerves. I squirmed once, hard, causing me to reflexively laugh as I dissolved into the thrill. Emma softly laughed along with me.
“Mmm, right there,” I intoned, my face clenched, eyes squinted, concentrating on the power building up inside me. I could feel every minute movement of Emma’s fingertip rubbing my clit, each pressured push of the toy, the way it parted my wet velvety lips and opened me up. It was almost becoming too much to bear.
My Friend The Bride: A Lesbian Romance Page 6
