“They’re only breasts, Maggie. I’m sure we’ve all seen them before.”
“But they’re my breasts.”
“And they’re lovely. But for practical purposes, they’re not showing, so relax.”
“You say relax just like the gynecologist.”
“I promise I won’t put spoons up your crotch,” Celia said as she generously spread oil on Maggie’s back and legs. She began by rubbing the arches of Maggie’s feet, slowly, smoothly. Her even strokes relieved the tenseness Maggie had built up. Beneath Celia’s insistent skill she forgot her discomfort. Her body began to respond to her friend’s touch.
Celia gently stroked Maggie’s inner thigh, kneading the muscle, running her hand back and forth. Maggie opened her eyes and looked up at Celia who had her eyes closed, going by feel, her face flushed. Maggie felt her own body growing warm. Celia placed her hands at the small of Maggie’s back at the site of the pain. Maggie cried out, and Celia continued to ease the tight knots in Maggie’s back and thighs.
Maggie’s mind began to wander as relaxation and a sense of calm flooded her senses. She breathed the lavender that enveloped her body. She watched the shadow of the oleander bush as it swayed and danced upon the blind. She found herself floating into a sea of unspent emotion, of wanting and needing things.
Celia worked the muscles of Maggie’s forearms and hands, slowly rubbing each finger and palm, in strong, even strokes.
“You have strong arms,” Celia said. It was nice to touch Maggie’s body, but remaining impartial was becoming increasingly difficult. It became impossible when Maggie sat up. Her nakedness made Celia flush as her eyes caressed Maggie’s face, trying to read what was written there.
“Strong enough to hold you?” Maggie asked, wrapping her arms around Celia’s neck and pulling her close to kiss her. Lips melting into one, tongues embracing, quivering, dancing, daring to say what eyes only hinted at. When it was over Celia looked deep into Maggie’s eyes.
“You’d better watch it. You’ll get more than you bargained for with that, little lady,” Celia said nervously.
“Maybe I want more,” Maggie said and kissed her again.
Celia’s resistance and caution suddenly became things of the past. She succumbed to all she was feeling. If it meant punishment and remorse tomorrow then so be it, but right now she wanted that woman. Celia buried her face in Maggie’s breasts. Tears formed, and she tasted the salt mingled with Maggie’s soft brown nipples. Touch, taste, smell enveloped Celia until she was totally lost in Maggie’s body.
Her happy revelry was interrupted by the slam of the screen door. Celia turned. Celia and Maggie met Libby’s departing gaze. Not a word was spoken; everything had been said. Celia started to pull away. Maggie panicked.
“You can’t leave me now.”
Celia knew where she had to be. She held Maggie. Both women cried, laughing, kissing, caressing. Maggie removed Celia’s shirt, feeling each pearl button as she unfastened it, slipping her hand past the rough denim to the silky smoothness of the breast beneath. Maggie thought she would collapse in ecstasy. Celia kissed Maggie’s thighs, nestling in their warm firmness. She looked up.
Maggie stroked Celia’s hair, then her cheek, and said, “Take me to bed.” Her voice was throaty and deep, and Celia had no doubt she meant it.
And Celia did, letting Maggie undress and touch each part of her quivering body. Maggie marveled at each electric touch. Celia pulled her close, and Maggie felt the heat of Celia’s tongue between her legs, the smoothness of her tongue gliding between the pink folds, the ease of Celia’s fingers as they slipped inside.
Maggie felt herself rocking, thrusting, crying out for more, her hips spread far apart. Then the quiver, the arrow to her core, an explosion of nerves, tendons and sinews stretched to the breaking point. She lay back in a spasm of uncontrollable glee.
Celia and Maggie didn’t speak. They each took the other over and over again until satiated. At last, they fell into a deep sleep, not caring what the morrow would bring.
Celia found Maggie standing and staring at the crumpled sheet in the middle of the bed. It looked deserted in the midst of love.
Maggie turned to her. “It looks so forlorn.”
Celia picked up the sheet and wrapped it around Maggie’s shoulders. “There, does the percale feel loved again?”
“Yes,” Maggie said, happily pulling Celia to her and kissing her.
“Come shower with me,” Celia said, feeling her loins turning to butter again. The two women couldn’t seem to get enough of each other. Their minds, bodies, tongues, hearts crying out to hold, touch, love.
They were noticeably late for breakfast. The apprentices, knowing something had happened, watched them descend the tile staircase. Olivia suppressed an overwhelming desire to clap, to stand in enthusiastic congratulation to two people who had come to such pleasant terms with their desire.
Later in the studio, Olivia was still thinking about it. “It’s like a happy ending. Everyone gets what she wants.”
Anna looked at her friend. and then out the window. “Not everyone.”
Olivia moved to the window. “Oh, yeah, the nazi queen gets the shaft. She wasn’t good for Celia, and we don’t live in a perfect world. It’s still a happy ending in my book.”
“Celia and Maggie have a lot of trials and troubles ahead of them.”
“You’re such a pessimist sometimes,” Olivia said grimly. They watched Celia talking to Libby, who was throwing various personal possessions in the back of her truck. Celia stood with her hands in her pockets, helpless.
“I wouldn’t want to be in Celia’s shoes right now,” Anna said.
“Me either,” Olivia replied.
“You could have at least told me so I didn’t have to find out like that. How can you be so cruel? Did you have to fuck each other in the kitchen? Couldn’t you have a little more discretion? Why didn’t you tell me you were in love with her?” Libby was screaming now. The apprentices looked at one another and pretended not to hear.
Maggie walked off in the direction of the arroyo. The situation was uncomfortable, and she didn’t want to bear witness. Part of her felt bad for Libby, but a deeper part knew her life would not be complete without Celia. She had waited much too long to be chivalrous to Libby’s passing obsession. Libby would find someone else; there was no one else for Maggie. She threw a stick into the arroyo, listened to it hit the rock walls, lay on her back, ran her fingers through the hot sand, and looked up at the perfect blue sky. I’m in love and it’s wonderful. Absolutely wonderful.
Meanwhile, outside the studio, things had gotten ugly. Libby, unable to elicit any more response from Celia than “I’m sorry,” had taken things from the back of the truck and begun throwing them in Celia’s direction. The apprentices were forced to intervene. Olivia and Anna put Libby in the cab while the other two reloaded the truck.
“Come on, Libby, let her go. She doesn’t love you, and it’s best to just leave,” Olivia advised.
Libby finally shrugged her shoulders and sped off, leaving a cloud of dust in her wake.
Celia watched from the safety of the porch. The sky was turning pink, and the cloud banks were building. An electric smell announced the oncoming storm. Rainstorm season. The calm before the storm, Celia thought.
Celia saw the silhouette of the woman she loved coming toward her across the horizon. Her heart beat faster, and desire swelled in her veins. Maggie approached slowly. She felt guilty for being happy at the cost of Libby’s misery. But she felt worse for Celia for having to take the brunt of it.
Celia walked toward her, took her hand, held her. “It’s over. Finally over. I’m sorry you had to be part of it.”
Maggie smiled and kissed her.
So this is desire, Maggie thought, as she lay naked on her stomach in bed, reading while Celia caressed her rear end.
“My, you have a nice tush for an old broad,” Celia said.
“You really think so?” Maggie repl
ied, tossing the book off the bed and taking Celia in her arms.
* * *
It was almost embarrassing at times, the way Maggie felt, anywhere and everywhere, when she thought of Celia. She would be creating a pot on the wheel, her concentration focused entirely on the brown clay in front of her, and the next moment she would be thinking about Celia’s soft breasts, about making a round brown nipple hard when she took it in her mouth, about Celia’s soft noises as Maggie caressed her body.
Sometimes she found herself blushing from these thoughts and was embarrassed when she saw Celia. But Celia, it seemed, had similar thoughts. Celia and Maggie didn’t last long in the same room before they came together, first kissing, then holding, then…
The afternoon in the arroyo was the worst. They had gone for a walk to sketch the petroglyphs. They had the best of intentions. Yes, they had brought a blanket, but it was only to sit on. One thing led to another until they forgot all about sketching and thought only about each other. When they were through, lying sweating and hot in each other’s arms, their uneven breathing in perfect unison, they heard clapping. Looking up they saw Olivia and Anna. Celia told them to scat. Maggie was mortified.
“I doubt they were there long, and we are making love in a public place. Besides, my flirtatious beauty, maybe they learned a thing or two.”
“I doubt it. I’m far from experienced.”
Celia rolled on her back and looked up at the sky. “But oh, my dear, you know ‘nothing’ ever so well.”
Olivia and Anna must have made a pact never to say anything to Maggie about what they had seen. Still, they looked at her differently. For the first time in her life, Maggie was a verifiable sexual creature. Everything felt so new, so soft, so sensual and so intensified, like time spent under the influence of LSD. She felt high. Then like any addict she began to fear the fall, the day reality would leak in to spoil the party. She feared the day Celia would tire of her, find out she wasn’t so special, and grow bored with the whole thing. Sometimes she would cry when Celia made love to her.
“Why do you cry?” Celia asked, trying to kiss the tears away as fast as they were falling. The only reasonable answer Maggie could give was that she was happy and dreaded the day she was made unhappy.
“I solemnly swear to do my damnedest to never make you unhappy—occasionally peeved, but never miserable. All right?”
“All right,” Maggie conceded, putting her worry behind her for that day.
Celia sat at the kitchen table, tracing the grain of the wood with her fingertip and listening carefully to Maggie’s half of the conversation. Celia knew they must resolve the other part of Maggie’s life. They had put off the future, happy simply to enjoy their holiday together. Amanda’s calling reminded them that Maggie had loose ends that needed tending.
“I know, Amanda. I am coming home. I’m just not sure when.”
Pause. “I know.”
Pause. “I know.”
Pause. “I am well aware of the fact that I’m a grown woman, have been for years. But I’m not running away from anything. I’m simply enjoying my summer vacation.”
Pause. “I know.”
Pause. “Look, Amanda, your life is no longer dependent on mine. You don’t need me. I’m not rooted to that house. I appreciate your looking after it. Hell, move into it if you want. It’s a house, not a living thing, whereas I am, and I need some things I’m finding here. Right now I’m not ready to give that up.” Maggie refrained from saying, So piss off, but it was an effort.
“I’m hanging up now, Amanda,” Maggie said, waiting a few seconds before placing the phone in its cradle. They both heard Amanda’s screeching on the other end. Maggie stood, with her hand still on the phone, staring out at the garden and the desert beyond it. Going home was an unpleasant thought.
“I hate that stupid green hedge, deciduous trees, and lawns.”
“What are you talking about?”
“My backyard. Amanda wants me back.”
“So I gathered. Are you going?” Celia asked, feeling a lump forming in her throat.
Maggie turned to look at her. “Do you want me to?”
“No. But I can’t expect you to stay forever if you think you need to go back.”
“That’s an easy way to let me down. Make it my doing.”
“What do you mean?” Celia asked, genuinely puzzled.
“Like you don’t know. Like Libby and the others when you grew tired of them. Summer vacation is over. Time to move on.”
“You can’t possibly believe that,” Celia said, hurt beginning to well up inside.
“I’m not sure about anything anymore,” Maggie said, tears springing to her eyes. She didn’t want to go, but she couldn’t stay without an invitation.
Celia was stricken. Didn’t Maggie know how much, how deeply, she loved her? How she had begun to plan her life around her?
“Maggie, I want us to be together, to live together, get old together. I don’t want you to leave. Ever. Dammit, I love you.”
Maggie turned back around. “I love you too.”
“Stay. Please say you’ll stay.”
“Who said anything about going anywhere?” Maggie said, smiling through watery eyes and sniffing.
“Amanda.”
“We’ll figure something out. Okay?”
“Promise.”
“Girl Scout’s honor.”
“If I remember correctly, you were thrown out of the troop for threatening anarchy.”
“I was young and dangerous.”
“And what are you now?”
“Old and crafty.”
Chapter Six
“What are you going to do?” Celia asked.
“You can’t possibly expect me to answer that when I’m like this. Celia, you’re not being fair,” Maggie replied as she straddled Celia’s stomach, her hips rocking gently, Celia’s fingers inside. She was on the verge of orgasm.
“There is no better time than this. It’s hard to lie when you can barely think.”
“I wouldn’t lie to you.”
“Tell me what you want to do.” Celia withdrew her fingers.
“Celia, don’t stop, please,” Maggie begged.
“Answer the question.”
“I’ll sell the house and live with you forever. How’s that?” Maggie felt Celia’s fingers back inside.
“Good answer. Now come here,” Celia said, pulling Maggie up and kissing the lovely pink folds of her sex.
Celia was relieved. She desperately had hoped that Maggie would give up her Midwestern life and take up residence. Celia had been afraid that family, friends, and property might prevent her.
Maggie knew that the fulfillment of a wish-list promise should never willingly be given up; rather it should be clutched tight. Amanda and the others would simply have to accept the changes in her life. Maggie had been congenial too long. She had come into her own, and she wasn’t going back.
It was the middle of another hot August afternoon. Maggie, Olivia, and Anna were refining and remixing a giant mound of brownish-red, slippery mud that would soon become usable clay. They kept adding powdered clay from twenty-pound bags, mixing it into the gooey brown mess, and treading it into large circles with their feet.
“I feel like a Greek making wine, treading all the grapes into a pulpy mess,” Maggie said, laughing and wiping beads of sweat from her forehead with the sleeve of her dirty T-shirt and leaving a long smudge of brown dirt behind.
“Only this is thicker, wetter, and heavier,” Olivia said. “I can’t believe I actually volunteered for this.”
“It’s part of the process. We can’t be so wasteful. It’s recycling,” Anna said.
“She’s a great recycler,” Olivia said, “A dedicated type. God forbid if you throw something away that should be put in the recycling bin.”
“I’m not that bad.”
“You are, but it is an admirable trait,” Olivia said, pulling her foot out of the sludge and wiping her brow.
/> “Besides, the worst part is that it’s hot,” Anna said, taking off her shirt to reveal her braless front.
“Nice neckline. Doesn’t she have bodacious tota’s?” Olivia said to Maggie.
“What are those?” Maggie asked, sensing the reply.
“Her tits, silly.”
“Oh,” Maggie replied.
“Come on.”
“All right, they are nice breasts. But you can put them away now.”
Olivia got that look in her eyes and whipped off her own shirt, undid her bra, and set it flying across the room. It hooked itself on the handle of the extruder.
“Now it looks like the women’s locker room. How fitting,” Olivia said.
Maggie looked alarmed. “Remember group rules. No peer pressure.”
“Oh, no. No pressure. Simply a choice. Either you take it off or we do. This is now the goddess clay dance, and appropriate attire is mandatory,” Olivia replied.
Maggie looked at her two half-naked cohorts. “All right.” She pulled off her shirt and removed her sports bra, flinging it out into the center of the room.
“It feels better, I admit. But if we’re truly doing the dance, then we better do it right,” Maggie said, picking up a handful of brown goo, smearing it across and around her chest. Then she took two fingers and made the sign of a widening gyre in the middle of her forehead.
“C’mon. I did your thing, and you can certainly do mine.”
Olivia laughed. “My, you have blossomed.”
She picked up a large scoop of clay and dumped it down her front, smearing her rather voluptuous breasts. Anna did the same and then stepped out to the small refrigerator and got three cold beers.
“Happy trails,” she said.
They smiled and toasted one another. They began tromping methodically.
“I have to admit, the job has improved greatly. Not nearly so grueling,” Olivia said.
Maggie took a drink. “Yes. Much improved.”
The screen door opened, and Celia walked in, followed closely by another. Olivia and Anna looked up and smiled their welcome. Maggie turned crimson.
Saxon Bennett - The Wish List Page 9
