A Taste Of Sin

by Fiona Zedde

  “Oh, but it was.” She kissed Dez quickly on the mouth.

  “Now I have to get back.”

  Dez waited until Victoria had already washed up and left before she tumbled out of the stall. She washed her face and hands, rinsed her mouth before heading back to the table.

  “We were about to send a search party in there for you,” Phillida said.

  “But then I told her that unless she wanted to see you bare-assed and fucking some anonymous girl, then it’s best to wait it out.” Sage grinned.

  “That true, Dez?” Phil’s look was incredulous. “Did you get lucky in the john?”

  “Of course not. Just, you know, a shaky stomach. I mixed up a bad batch of piña coladas this morning.” She sipped her lemon-spiked water, then winced at her sore lip. “So, what did I miss?”

  Chapter 23

  Finding pleasure was something that Dez had always done very well. When she was fourteen and her life at home was falling apart, she’d forced her raging insides to a sort of calm when she dragged herself and her friends to the amusement park and lost herself in the adrenaline rush of the fastest roller coasters, the most gravity-defying rides, and every calorie-rich, grease-laden foods that the park had to offer. Around the same time, her good looks started to blossom, becoming noticeable despite the perpetual scowl on her face, or perhaps because of it. Older women started to make offers that she eagerly accepted. Then she was introduced to other pleasures, instructed on how to eat pussy, to finger fuck, and the proper way to wear and use a dildo. She was a good student. In a few short years she’d discovered many ways to please her senses—food, drugs, sex, exercise, adrenaline.

  Fucking Victoria was a new pleasure in itself. The taste between her legs was addictive. She found herself wanting to feel the wet, undulating pussy under and around her tongue all the time. She wanted to hear the music of her moans, the high, choked cries of her reaching orgasm, to feel the tense line of her damp calf draped down her back. Her senses sharpened when Victoria was near. She smelled her, could hear and anticipate her breath. Her own pussy opened and swelled, her mouth went dry at the thought of tasting her. Being with her was like free-falling—breathless wonder, a tilted world, awareness sharp, the feeling that she was ready for anything, yet when it came she found out that she wasn’t ready at all.

  Of course, she couldn’t tell Victoria any of these things. This was only a fuck thing, after all.

  Chapter 24

  “You look like you’re getting yours from somewhere on the regular.”

  Sage jerked her chin at Dez over their breakfast. Phil glanced at them from behind her dark glasses and sipped from her usual cup of Jamaican Blue Mountain dark roast.

  “You sure do,” she said in her gravelly morning voice.

  “Anybody I know?”

  “Better yet, anyone you want to introduce us to?” Rémi’s look was merciless. “The last time a woman had that much stamina you weren’t shy about sharing her with us. Want to do it again?”

  She knew damn well there was no way Dez was going to share Victoria with anyone. Rémi also didn’t see the point of Dez keeping her new fuck buddy a secret from everybody, but that was a whole other, private, discussion.

  “Are you sure it’s only one girl?” Nuria murmured. “If it’s a girl.”

  Sage pointed a strip of turkey bacon at Dez and wagged it at her friend. “How long has this been going on?” Her teasing tone said she was only mildly interested. After all, what else was there to talk about at eleven on a Sunday morning when half the women at the table were barely awake.

  “It’s been at least three weeks,” Phil answered for Dez.

  “Remember the first time she came in here all smiley-smiley. I thought it was just a great lay the night before, now I see it’s been three weeks of great lays.”

  “Look at her face,” Sage grinned. “I think we just found our girl out.”

  “Did she make it into your bedroom yet?” Nuria glanced around the table with a raised eyebrow and a smile. “You know if she’s still fucking her in the guest room that it’s not really serious.”

  Dez shook her head, but said nothing. The waitress came back just then with Rémi’s extra order of honey-almond pancakes and whipped cream. She bobbed between Dez and Rémi, smiling nervously even as she deftly slipped the plates in front of the muscular, bare-armed woman. Rémi had that effect on most women.

  Dez’s eyes automatically dropped to the waitress’s modest sized bosom beneath the yellow “Novlette’s Café” lettering stitched on her red blouse. Nice, but no contest where Victoria’s succulent C-cups were concerned.

  “You didn’t find out anything.” Dez said after the waitress left. “Can’t a woman have a good time without getting the third degree from her friends?”

  “Only when the friend isn’t hiding anything.”

  “I’m just seeing someone new.” Dez made a throw-away motion. “Nothing too serious, but it’s fun. We’re going to keep it that way and under wraps for a little while.”

  “Why? You think one of us will take her away from you?” Sage smirked, looking at Rémi.

  The women had played so many games in the past, it was sometimes hard to keep track of who was and wasn’t for sport. In college, they often played seduction games with one another’s girlfriends, betting who could steal a girl the fastest. Usually they had to put it out there early on if the woman they were seeing was not part of the game. Did they really have to do that now? They were grown women now, for chrissakes, not kids with toys. But . . .

  “This one’s all mine, ladies. Hands off.”

  Dez didn’t want to share Victoria. No one else was going to feel the slack weight of Victoria’s body, damp and heavily scented after orgasm, the slow aroused smile that sometimes greeted her at the door, the pillows of her ass resting against Dez’s cheeks as she took her from behind and heard the moans that left Victoria’s body as her control began to give way.

  “If we don’t know who she is, how can we tell her no when she comes sniffing around?”

  Dez aimed a glance at Phil. “Trust me. You’ll know.” “All this secrecy is making me very curious,” Nuria said.

  “It’s not secrecy, it’s caution. Just give me a little time, will you? If this thing doesn’t work out, then she won’t want it to get out that we even knew each other.”

  “Really?” Rémi perked up. “Is she slumming?”

  The corner of Dez’s mouth quirked up. “Yeah.”

  “Well, that wouldn’t be a first. Remember that girl from Morningside who had a fiancé?”

  Sage grinned. “Oh, yes. She definitely didn’t mind being shared.”

  The women laughed. They remembered the girl well, especially since she gave them all crabs. It was only funny in retrospect.

  After they left the restaurant, Dez called Lady G’s and asked them to deliver a box of dark chocolate-covered strawberries to Victoria. For reasons she didn’t feel like exploring at the moment, she needed to know that the other woman was thinking about her. Dez stepped into the bright afternoon and sighed deeply at the warmth of the sun on her face. She briefly thought of smoking a cigarette then, remembering Victoria’s distaste, decided against it. Intent on nudging Victoria out of her thoughts, she allowed her friends to talk her into extending their Sunday outing. They drove to the beach in Phil’s Mustang convertible and spent the rest of the day spread out on blankets, drinking, smoking, and reeling in any woman who happened to glance their way.

  At sunset, Dez was the only one of the five friends who didn’t have someone to occupy her hands or her attention. Sage and Rémi took their oversize blanket some distance down the beach to entertain a greedy college girl who insisted on having them both. Phil and her new friend, one with a penchant for fast cars and girls in high heels, held hands and snuggled close as they walked on the sand. Nuria had offered to keep Dez company, but when Dez kindly refused the offer, her friend went skinny-dipping with the Queen Latifah-looking “straight girl”
who’d followed them from the restaurant. Nuria made sure that Dez saw the way that her white thong and wispy bra clung to her body before she ran into the water with her new butch. Subtlety was never quite her thing. Dez ignored her, snuggling deeper into her mound of blankets, and tried not to think of Victoria.

  Chapter 25

  “Can I spend the night?” Dez asked Claudia over the phone, her voice still groggy from the previous night’s sleep.

  She wanted her mommy. Simple really, and not the most mature of feelings, but that was what she needed and she needed it now. The girl was confusing her. She was confusing herself over the girl. Nothing was clear to her. The simplicity of her mother’s company, the certainty that she loved her and wanted nothing in return was what Dez needed right now.

  Of course her mother said yes, and she went about the business of her day floating on the warm pillow of anticipation and relief that she would see Claudia again. The day lasted longer than she had expected, ending too late at a party in Palm Beach that she’d been too sober to enjoy. At three in the morning, she showed up at her mother’s house, stinking of other people’s excess. Dez felt so tired that she trembled with the effort to stay upright. After giving her daughter a worried once-over, Claudia dragged her inside and put her promptly to bed.

  In the morning, Dez felt human and alive again. She yawned, popping the gaping hinge of her jaw as her bare feet hit the bottom stair, then stopped short. Her mother was humming. The tune sounded vaguely like the one coming from the local jazz station—Winton Marsalis—and blended strangely enough with the scent of the garden just beyond the screened window, jasmine and peonies, blooming beneath the harsher smells of nail polish and nail-polish remover.

  “Good morning, love.” Claudia screwed the cap back on the bottle of nail polish and set it in a neat row with her other pedicure paraphernalia on the coffee table. “Restful night?”

  “Very. Thanks for tucking me in.” She brushed her lips across her mother’s forehead and sat down on the couch. “You look like a regular lady of leisure.”

  “I am on sabbatical, you know. At some point I’ll get back to writing that book, but for now I’ll just enjoy not feeling sick and not doing a thing I don’t want to.” She reached for a box of cotton swabs, sliding Dez an impish look.

  Claudia glowed, as if the news that she was better had freed her to be beautiful again. Even her hair was regaining its old thickness, though the salted black curls were straighter than they used to be. Soon it would be time for another hair-cut.

  “It’s cool.” Dez held her hands up. “Don’t get excited. If anyone can appreciate the fine art of doing nothing, it’s me. I’m sure the university can go another semester without you if they had to. The kids will be starved for that sexy version of French lit that you teach, but they can wait.”

  “They will, and the school will wait, too,” Claudia said.

  “By the way, there’s French toast and scrambled eggs in the kitchen if you want some. Strawberries and yogurt, too.”

  “Thanks.” Dez watched her carefully clean off the excess polish with a cotton swab, tracing around one toenail then another. It triggered an old memory. “Remember when Aunt Paul used to get her nails done?”

  Claudia looked up, tilting her head to one side. “Oh, yes.” She laughed. “I used to wonder what those girls did besides sit around in little shorts and paint her toes.”

  “She was a femme who loved femmes.”

  “I think she was a bit of a slut. Not unlike you, my love.”

  Dez looked at her mother, at the old teasing smile then the glint of silver from the ring on her toe. “Oh, please. If you looked this good you’d spread it around, too. Aunt Paul knew what she was doing. And so do I.”

  “I’ll take your word on that one.”

  Claudia finished the ritual with her toenails then held out the bottle of nail polish and an upraised hand, wordlessly asking Dez to paint her fingernails the same sparkling shade of green as her toes. Dez draped her offered fingers over her upraised knee and unscrewed the bottle.

  “What was it like being in love with Warrick?” she asked.

  The question came out of nowhere, catching them both by surprise. But Dez didn’t take it back.

  Her mother looked at her quietly, as if gauging the sincerity of her question.

  “Painful,” she said finally. “But in the beginning when he loved me too it was perfect. As clichéd as it may seem, we fit together like pieces of the same puzzle. Are you—?”

  “No. She and I are just hanging out.” Dez looked at her mother and raised an eyebrow for emphasis. “Casually.”

  Claudia gazed down at her nails, watching the color bleed from the tiny brush her daughter wielded. “I was actually going to ask you about Ruben. But that answered my question, too.”

  Dez felt herself flush under her mother’s laughing gaze. She snapped the cap back on the bottle and gave the polish an unnecessary shake.

  “Who is she? Someone you shouldn’t be messing with?”

  “Mom, please.”

  Claudia laughed again. “Fine. Just don’t smudge my nails. You’ll only have to redo them later.”

  “Don’t worry. That won’t happen.” Dez finished up the second coat of polish and put the bottle away.

  The soft, translucent ovals of her nails looked harder beneath their coat of war paint, their frailty brushed away by the green-tipped brush.

  “Ruben did to me what Warrick did to you.” She took an experimental breath. “It was hard at first, but he doesn’t exist to me anymore.” The coldness of her voice surprised her. It seemed too final. But mentally probing the edges of her wound, she realized that it was final. It was over. Her Ruben pain had healed, leaving behind only a faint tenderness. She pushed it aside.

  “You look all shiny and new with your polish.” Dez admired her handiwork in the light. “Come for a ride on the bike with me. You can’t keep all this loveliness to yourself.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. I’m not getting on that thing.” But her voice lacked the same conviction it had two years, or even two months ago. She giggled, actually covering her mouth with her hands, as Dez waggled her eyebrows and grinned.

  “Come on. Whatever happened to seize the carp and all that? Or was it just talk?”

  “Of course it was.”

  But she allowed Dez to drag her off the couch and upstairs to zip into something a little less comfortable. They left the house, breakfast uneaten and, after much laughter and “wait, I’m not ready” and “quit messing around” and other assorted teasing, they hopped on the black cherry Ducati and roared off into the city. Claudia’s surprised laughter fanned out behind them in the breeze.

  Later that night, she sat with her foursome at Gillespie’s, letting the night’s goodwill put her nicely out of her head. Though Nuria’s smart-ass comments were starting to nudge her into the opposite of a good mood.

  “So exactly who is this girl you’re fucking?” Nuria asked.

  “She can’t be any better than me,” she added, ignoring the fact that she and Dez had never had sex.

  Dez took a bite of her calamari and glanced around the bar, ignoring Rémi’s amused look. Nuria’s red mouth plumped into a pout when she murmured, “How can you be so sure?” in response to her comment.

  “Dez, isn’t that your mother?” Phil asked.

  Their whole table turned to see Claudia and Eden with a group of people that none of the girls had ever met. The three men in the group were Claudia’s age, well-groomed and successful-looking, while the other three women looked like real classy pieces, gorgeous and refined, if you liked that type.

  Rémi looked across the room where her friend had discreetly nodded. “Yeah, that’s Claudia. I didn’t know that she was dating anyone.”

  “Me neither,” Dez said.

  Across the room, Claudia laughed and put her hand on the shoulder of the man closest to her. He looked familiar. Something Dez did must have drawn her mother’s attention,
because in the next moment the older woman excused herself and made her way over to their table.

  “Hello, darling.” She bent down to brush her cheek against Dez’s. “I didn’t know you liked jazz.”

  The other women at the table quickly made room for Claudia, urging her to sit down. Sage held a chair for her.

  “I didn’t know you liked that sort.” Dez nodded her head at the group her mother just left.

  “Very funny. They’re more exciting than they look.” Then mother and daughter laughed, leaning in toward each other like young girls. “I know they seem boring, love. But they wanted to come here and see what all the buzz was about. You remember my friend Kincaid, don’t you?” Dez nodded, suddenly recalling their brief meeting at Novlette’s a few weeks ago. “Well, he said this place has been the It spot for the last year or so. I think he brought us here to show us that not all bankers were boring.”

  Dez chuckled again. “Of course they aren’t.”

  “So now that you’re here, what do you think of the place, Mrs. N?”

  “It’s nice. Not bad. The crowd is fun and eclectic, not what I expected at all. And the music is wonderful.” The last notes of a moody guitar solo tapered off to the heartfelt applause of the audience. “Do you girls come here a lot?”

  “We do, but we don’t really want to. Rémi forces us to come here at least twice a week and spend all our hard-earned money.”

  “I’m sure you noticed how they’re all hurting for cash and a good time.” Rémi turned her crooked smile on Claudia.

  Dez watched their byplay with amusement. If her mother wasn’t straight and didn’t know better, she’d worry about her falling for Rémi’s charm.

  “Your little club is not all that,” Sage said. “I’m sure Miami dykes and their friends could find somewhere else in this town with hot women, strong-ass drinks, and a fuckable local celebrity for an owner.” She looked around the table. “And make sure you gals tell me when you find that place.” Her friends laughed.