Best Lesbian Romance 2014

by Radclyffe

  I grin. Oh no, my life isn’t boring.

  SOFT HANDS AND HARD HATS

  JL Merrow

  “Bloody hell, it’s big!” I turned around slowly, the cavern getting bigger—or seeming like it, at any rate—the more my eyes adjusted to the darkness.

  “Big enough to fit York Minster in,” a soft voice said from behind me.

  I turned and saw a girl my height, wearing a hard hat. Well, we were all wearing hard hats. Health and Safety, and all that bollocks. But hers wasn’t a battered old one, borrowed from the Craven Pothole Club, its original color obliterated by a layer of dried-on mud. Her hat was bright yellow, only slightly muddy, and it fitted her well. Her hard hat suited her.

  “Be a bit of a bugger getting it down the shaft, though,” I said.

  She smiled, her teeth catching a glimmer of light that filtered down from the entrance, hundreds of feet above us. “Maybe they could take it down in pieces and build it again from in here like a big Lego set. I’m Kim, by the way. I’m a Craven Caver.”

  “Han,” I said. “Short for Hannah. I’m an aging raver.”

  She burst out laughing, a rich sound that filled that huge cave easily. “I don’t believe that for a minute! You don’t look a day over twenty-five.”

  I’m thirty. Oops—clean slipped my mind to tell her, though. Funny, that. “In this light, I could be a hundred and twenty-five and you’d be none the wiser.”

  “Maybe, but you’d be amazed how many centenarians we don’t get coming down here.”

  “You’re not marketing it right. Tell ’em it’s half-price on Tuesdays, and you’ll be snowed under with grannies. Course, they’ll all be wanting cups of tea and bourbon biscuits.”

  “We could set up a café in the main chamber, perhaps,” she mused, cocking her head to one side. “The Gaping Gill Gourmet.”

  “Or the Pothole Parlor. You’re not from round here, are you?” I nearly bit my tongue off after I’d said it, in case she’d think I was making a dig about the color of her skin. In the shadows, it was ebony, but when the light hit her face I could see warmer tones shine through.

  Me all over, that. Opening my mouth and bunging my size sevens straight in. Not even pausing to wipe them first.

  Her smile didn’t waver for a second, though, and I breathed again. “No, I’m a soft Southern Jessie from Hampshire,” she said.

  “You don’t look that soft to me,” I said, lying through my teeth. She was all curves, hips swelling below a trim little waist cinched in with a utility belt, and her breasts firm and neat above. She looked soft as velvet. No iron beneath, neither. Least, I didn’t think so. And her voice was satin cushions on a four-poster bed. “I went down to Hampshire once. We had a holiday in the New Forest. Camping, we were. Couldn’t move for bloody ponies.”

  She laughed again. “Most people like ponies, you know.”

  “That’s because most people don’t have them sticking their noses in the tent at four o’clock in the morning. Or leaving bloody big piles of you-know-what right where they’re about to put their bare feet.”

  “Okay, I can understand why they might not be your favorite animals after that.” She chewed on her bottom lip for a moment. “Are you here on your own?”

  I opened my mouth to answer, but then Nicole came barging in and answered for me. “It’s grand here, isn’t it? Are we going off exploring?” She clapped an arm around my shoulder.

  Flummoxed, I gazed around at the huge open space. Folk were milling around, and another bod was coming down on the chair. “Can see it all from here, can’t we? Niccie, this is—”

  “Oh, there’s more than this. I was talking to this bloke over there, and he said there’s all kinds of passages off to the sides. Said it’s the best bit. You don’t want to miss that, do you?”

  “What do you think, Kim?” I asked desperately. I could see she was about to wander off and find some other bugger to talk to.

  “I could show you and your friend around, if you like,” she said, her gaze flickering between us.

  Nicole finally noticed I’d been talking to someone. “Oh, right—are you one of the cavers, then?”

  “This is Kim, and yeah, she’s a Craven Caver.” I couldn’t say it without smiling. “Kim, this is my mate Niccie.” I hoped she noticed the stress I’d put on the word mate. Niccie had, from the look she sent me, so I guessed she’d be ripping the shit out of me later about it all.

  “Okay, then,” Kim said, her smile brighter than the lamp on her helmet. “Let’s go caving!”

  Right then, I reckon if she’d said, “Know what? There’s this bloody big cliff here, do you want to jump off?” I’d have acted just the same. I nodded enthusiastically, and my hard hat fell down over my eyes. “Bugger. Yeah, all right.”

  “Great!” I was right about her being soft. Gentle fingers came up to my throat and tightened the strap of my hat.

  I just hoped she wouldn’t think it strange I didn’t take a breath the whole time she was touching me.

  Least, not until Niccie prodded me and I gasped in air with a noise like a punctured whale.

  “All set now?” Kim asked. “It’s this way. The passages get a bit narrow, but you’ll be fine getting through.”

  I nodded, and nothing happened this time, so I followed Kim and Niccie into this sort of crack in the wall of the cave. I couldn’t work out whether to go forward and let my hips scrape on the sides, or sideways, which meant my boobs got in the way. I ended up twisting awkwardly, all of me at different angles.

  “We’re caving, not doing the sand dance,” Niccie said, laughing at me.

  “Hey, we’re not all stick insects like you,” I muttered back.

  We could walk upright at first, but then the tunnel got lower and we had to bend down. It killed your back after a while. A bit farther on we were crawling—knackered my knees, but it was right muddy and all, so that padded it a bit. After a bit of that, it got even tighter, and then we had to inch along on our bellies like a load of bloody earthworms, and guess what?

  It was right then I found out I was claustrophobic.

  I could feel the weight of all those rocks pressing down on me, like they were squeezing the air right out of my lungs. I tried to remember—was it better to take deep breaths or quick shallow ones? Because one of those made you hyperventilate and I wasn’t sure which, and what were the chances of anyone having a paper bag for me to breathe into down here? There was no room to turn round and I couldn’t face trying to wriggle backward—what if I got wedged in and couldn’t go backward or forward? Niccie and Kim wouldn’t be able to get out, for that matter, and they’d either have to wait till I got thinner like Winnie-the-Pooh or else chop bits off me with penknives like that poor bloke in Utah they made the film about.

  So I had to keep on going and try to breathe, somehow.

  Just as I was thinking I couldn’t take it any longer, we came out into this big cave—well, not that big, about the size of my mum’s front room, I suppose, but bloody hell, it was better than that tunnel. I tried to slow my breathing down to normal without anyone noticing, but my heart was beating so loud I wondered why it didn’t echo off the cave walls.

  We shone our torches around, seeing uneven walls, a floor with boulders big enough to sit on, and stalactites hanging down from the ceiling. Their stalagmites reached up, desperate to touch them. There were some lads already in there, and they were just about to go on farther through the passages.

  Kim said hi to them and told them to stick together and make sure they didn’t get lost. And then she turned back to us and said, “Right—ready to go farther?”

  “Too right!” Niccie said. “It’s like Lord of the Rings down here.” Then she made her eyes all big. “Where’sssss the preciousssss?”

  “Is it in its pocketsessssss?” one of the lads asked, with an admiring look over my mate’s figure.

  “Wanna come here and check?” she teased back. She’s an equal-opportunity flirt, Niccie is. Always has been.
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  “Oi, get a room, you two,” I muttered. “Or a cave, or something.”

  She gave me a look and a fake cough that sounded a lot like “pot.” Fair dues, I was standing a bit close to Kim at the time. There was a boulder on the other side crowding me. Honest.

  “Okay,” Kim said. “Let’s go, then.”

  Bugger. Moment of truth. “I don’t think I can,” I blurted out. “Sorry. Turns out I’m a bit claustrophobic.” I thought it sounded better, putting it that way, than “wild horses with their tails on fire couldn’t drag me another inch through these caves.”

  Kim looked at me, concerned, which made my breathing go funny all over again. “Do you want to head back to the main chamber?”

  My mouth went dry at the thought of going through that narrow, crushing passageway again so soon. “Um, in a bit,” I squeaked.

  “Okay, how about I stay here with you while the others go on? And when they come back, we can all go back together?”

  “You can’t do that,” I said. “You’re a potholer, not a babysitter. You go on, I’ll be fine.” Lying through my teeth again. But I didn’t fancy admitting to Kim that I was too much of a big girl’s blouse to stay here by myself.

  “Oh, I’ve been all over these caves. I don’t need to do it again. Be glad to put my feet up for a bit, actually.” She smiled and sat down on a boulder. “Come on, pull up a rock.”

  “You going to be all right?” Niccie’s lad asked. I think he wanted to look caring and sensitive.

  “She’ll be fine,” Niccie said impatiently. She’s never been that big on caring and sensitive. Then again, she probably had a fair idea I wouldn’t mind being left alone with Kim for a while.

  “Go on, stop cluttering the place up,” I told them. “There’s hardly room to swing a cat with you lot in here.”

  “Well, if you’re sure you don’t want to come….” She grinned, the shadows painting her face with wicked insinuation.

  Or maybe it was there already.

  “Bugger off, the lot of you,” I said, and finally, they did.

  I sat down next to Kim, feeling awkward now we were alone. Our hips pressed together; bit narrow, that rock was. Honest.

  “Don’t feel bad about it,” she said, and for a moment I thought she was talking about me sitting so close to her.

  “Oh—the claustrophobia,” I realized, and felt like a muppet. “It’s never hit me like that before—I mean, I’ve never liked being closed in, but I’ve never felt like I couldn’t breathe before.” I sighed. “You must think I’m a right wuss.”

  “It’s heights, for me,” she said, her voice soothing my ears. “I get all dizzy and have to close my eyes.”

  I stared at her. “But—what about the chairlift?”

  “I’ve been up and down on it dozens of times, and I still hate it. But it’s worth it, to get down here. I just love it, underground. Have you ever seen true dark? Not like this,” she said, waving her hand at the shadows that danced on the walls of the cave with the motion of her head. “I mean, no light at all. Not the sort of dark you get in cities, where there’s always streetlights and house lights—or even in the countryside, because on clear nights you get the stars, and on cloudy nights you get the reflection of lights from miles away. I’m talking real blackness, the sort you can touch, you can taste. You only get that underground.”

  “No,” I whispered. “I’ve never seen that.”

  “Would you like to?”

  My heart was back in my mouth, but all I said was, “All right.”

  I flicked off my torch, and she dimmed her headlamp—then turned it off altogether.

  The darkness was like a thick blanket wrapped around my head. It was terrifying. It brought it home to me, how far down we were and how small we were. How easily we could be crushed by all those tons of rock over our heads. But at the same time, we could have been anywhere. All alone, just us two. I could hear Kim breathing beside me, feel the warmth of her cross the space between us.

  “It’s amazing, isn’t it?” she whispered.

  “Scary,” I whispered back. Funny how it’s easier to be honest in the dark. I felt a cool, dry hand slip into mine, and the tingling spread from my fingers right up my arm to my heart. “Don’t put the lights back on yet, though,” I said quickly. I wasn’t scared; not when I was touching her.

  I swear I heard her smile, just a catch in her breathing. “I won’t. So what do you do, Han, when you’re not getting claustrophobic down potholes?”

  “Me?” I tried to think of something that sounded exciting. Came up blank. “I’m an ecologist. Work for Yorkshire Wildlife Trust, near Doncaster.”

  “Sounds great—you must really make a difference, doing what you do. I’m just a bank clerk in Barnsley,” she said, like it was something to be ashamed of.

  Bugger that. “You’re not just anything,” I said, squeezing her hand. She squeezed back, so I surged on before I could let my nerves get the better of me. “Are you seeing anyone?”

  “What, in this dark?” Kim laughed. “No,” she said, her voice flowing over me like honey. “I’m not seeing anyone. I had a girlfriend back in Portsmouth, but, well… Long-distance relationships aren’t easy, are they?”

  I hugged the darkness to me, breathing in its sudden warmth. “Barnsley’s pretty close to Doncaster. Only about twenty miles, I’d say.”

  “Less, I think,” Kim whispered. “Maybe we should measure it some time. Together.” She raised my hand to her unseen lips. Her kiss wasn’t cold, but it still sent shivers right through me. I slid my arm around her waist, and we shared our warmth under our thick black blanket. I turned my face to kiss her, and we giggled as our hard hats knocked together.

  “Shall we try that again?” I whispered. “You go left, I’ll go right. No, hang about, that’s not right. How about we both go left—our left? That ought to do it.”

  This time, our lips met. Hers were full and warm, and they welcomed me in. She tasted of tea and cool places and Kendal Mint Cake, and there was nothing in the world I wouldn’t have braved for her kiss. I closed my eyes as I kissed her and behind my eyelids it wasn’t dark anymore. I could see her, clear as day, her beautiful brown eyes dancing with fun.

  “Do this a lot down potholes, do you?” I asked, breathless and dizzy, when we broke apart.

  She laughed. “Not a lot, no. Never met anyone down a pothole I wanted to kiss before.”

  We held each other in the dark, and kissed some more and talked about stuff, like you do. Well, whispered, really. It didn’t feel right, being loud in that pitch-black quietness, broken only by odd sounds coming down the tunnels and the drip-drip-drip of water.

  It was the voices that told us when the others came back. One of the lads spoke and Niccie cackled with laughter. Then light from their torches trickled unevenly into the cave, washing away our safe blanket of darkness. Kim and I let go of each other. What we had was private, not for Niccie and the lads to snigger over.

  “Han? You in there?” Niccie called, her voice echoey in the passages, and Kim squeezed my hand, then let it go. It felt cold without her.

  “Yeah, we’re here,” I called, as Kim switched her headlamp back on.

  I blinked at its brightness as Niccie and the lads burst back into our cavern. It was smaller than I’d pictured it as we sat there in the dark. Funny how your mind plays tricks on you. It’d felt larger than the main cavern, with just the two of us in it, and all of it had been ours. Now it was back to being barely the size of my mum’s front room.

  “Been having fun, have you?” Niccie asked with a knowing grin.

  “Nah,” I said straight-faced. “Bit boring, really, waiting for you lot to finish gallivanting around the underworld.” But I couldn’t help glancing over at Kim and smiling.

  “Yeah, you know what?” Niccie said, with sarcasm that could bite clean through a stalagmite. “As soon as I saw you, I thought, there’s a girl who looks really bored.”

  “Are you ready to go back now?�
� Kim asked me, and I nodded, hoping I looked more certain than I felt. “Just remember—it’ll get wider all the time, this way. So you’ll always know the worst is behind you.”

  “You go in front,” I told her. “Then I’ll have to keep going, right?”

  We let Niccie and the lads lead the way, then Kim followed. As she bent to creep into the passageway, she turned. “You’re sure about this? Sure you don’t want to go first?”

  “No,” I said. “I’ll follow you.” Anywhere, I could have added, but Niccie might just have heard and she’d never have let me live it down.

  I almost seized up when I had to get into that tiny crack between the rocks, down on my belly like a snake, but not half as agile. My breathing started to go, but I flicked on my torch and shone it on Kim’s boot soles, moving ahead of me at a slug’s pace, and I thought about how grand it’d be to take those off her and play with the toes within. Before I knew it I’d slithered in behind her. I just kept my mind on those feet. I wondered if she painted her toenails, and if she wore rings on her toes like in the nursery rhyme. Did she like to wear heels when she went out for the night? And all the time, somehow, I managed to keep breathing, keep moving.

  “Okay there, Han?” she asked from time to time, and I answered with a “Yeah” or a “Fine” and I knew she wouldn’t take offense. There’d be time for proper talking when we were out of here.

  Some lovely bugger had been at that passageway while we were in the cave, and they’d shortened it, I reckoned. Wasn’t that long before we were off our knees and crouching. Kim reached a hand back to me and I squeezed it tight, then let it go again. Hard enough walking through here without trying to hang on to someone as well. My thigh muscles ached and my back didn’t like it much either, but then the passage opened out again and I could see light past the bodies in front.

  We sidled out into the main chamber, which seemed even bigger than I’d remembered. Looking up to the roof, a hundred and fifty feet above us, I took a deep breath of chill air. It tasted sweet, but no sweeter than my Kim’s lips.