Best Lesbian Romance 2014

by Radclyffe

  I nodded, trying to concentrate on my food. All I could focus on was her. I didn’t want this night to end.

  On the way back home, I kept asking myself questions. All of them reverted to the same answer. Yes, I want her! My heart pounded out a hard-assed beat and my pussy seemed made out of liquid longing. Dylan obviously sensed something was up, because as we arrived at my front door, she turned to me and gave me a peck on the cheek.

  “Well, I’ll be going, then.”

  Fuck. She’d sensed wrongly. She pulled herself away and was about to walk off when I grabbed her arm and pulled her close, crushing my lips against hers and taking possession of her mouth. She gave in and kissed me back, pressing her body into mine. I could feel something hard pressing against my leg and deduced that she had come prepared.

  “Take me upstairs. Now.”

  The tension that had been building all night came to a rushing high as I dragged Dylan into the bedroom and threw her onto the bed. All I wanted was to fuck her, to be fucked by her, to completely lose my head in the throes of pleasure.

  Dylan’s lipstick smeared all over my face as she kissed and undressed me at the same time. The blood rushed everywhere, and I could feel my clit pulsing a frantic beat. The summer heat blazed through the room and the smell of sex and sweat made my nostrils tingle.

  The sight of her nearly naked body drove me insane. Clad in a harness with a shiny pink dildo perched on the front, she took control.

  “Lube?”

  “Bedside table.”

  I watched as she rummaged through my drawer and pulled out a half-empty bottle of Liquid Silk. She giggled as I blushed.

  “Been fiddling much lately?”

  “Well, I’ve not been having sex lately, so a fiddle or two is a must, I think.”

  “Clever girl.” Dylan straddled me and grabbed my hips, slowly brushing the tip of her pink menace against my wet slit. “Spread for me, just a little more.”

  I did as told, and the head of the dildo rested temptingly against my entrance. When she entered me, I gasped.

  “Gosh, that’s a big thing,” I managed to utter.

  She giggled. “I thought you might like it.”

  She began to move, resting her hands on my hips. My eyes closed with pleasure as I rubbed my clit against the base of the dildo. She threw her head back and moaned.

  “Bloody hell!”

  Her thrusting sped up, intermixed with kisses and caresses. I clawed my fingers into her back as her breasts pressed against mine. I wrapped my legs around her waist, letting her in deeper, thrusting back and making her moan even harder.

  “Christ, you’re going to give me friction burn,” she said with a throaty chuckle. But then words escaped her as she moaned again, in time with me. I wrapped my arm around her shoulders and rested my head against them. My hand snaked toward her beautiful breasts. I could feel her heartbeat quickening.

  “God, don’t stop,” I cried out.

  Her cock pressed against me, against her. She went faster and faster and sweat dripped over our bodies and moans filled the air.

  “I think I’m coming,” she whispered.

  I grabbed her arse and pushed her into me, feeling my own climax in time with hers. A shiver ran down my spine as she relaxed on top of me.

  “You look beautiful when you come.” Dylan pressed a kiss to my forehead. I could only sigh. She held me and whispered sweet nothings in my ear until we were both too tired to do anything else but sleep.

  In the morning, I woke up before her. I watched the morning sun illuminate her pale skin, a smile playing on her face. And just like that, I felt the first stirrings of love.

  A bit early, but who could blame me? I’d found my Aussie girl.

  PINK LADY FRIENDS

  Allison Wonderland

  “Duck…duck…goose!”

  I make good on my word, directing my pointer finger toward the unsuspecting posterior in front of me.

  “Ow! Leslie!” Ramona yelps. “What is the matter with you, you little stinker?” she demands, hands on hips. The hips are hers, but the hands belong to me.

  “So typical,” I comment, smiling until she does. “I cop a feel and you cop an attitude. Don’t be afraid to take frisks. You know what they say: no frisk, no reward. Isn’t that right, Ramones?”

  Ramona rolls her eyes. She’s not exactly a fan of that band, although you’d think a musical theater junkie would have at least a marginal appreciation for Rock ’n’ Roll High School.

  Anyway, “Don’t you dare downsize your derriere, got it? I like your cushy tushy. Plus, it works for Jan.”

  “My character is pretty fantasstic, isn’t she?” Ramona concurs, ushering a bevy of bobby pins into her palm.

  “The fantasstic-ist. We should have a rump roast during lunch on Monday. We’ll go around the cafeteria and all your closest friends can say stuff about your duff. Good stuff, of course. Heaven forbid you become the next booty school dropout.”

  “You are always like this after a show,” Ramona remarks, sounding at once fazed and amazed. “You’re also only like this after a show. You’re so bizarre, you know that?”

  “Help,” I shriek, clutching Ramona’s arms through her satin jacket. “I’ve fallen off my rocker and can’t get up!”

  Okay, obviously she’s right about me—I am bizarre. I’m a totally different person onstage than off. And not just for obvious reasons. Onstage, no matter what kind of character I’m playing, I’ve got nerve and verve and unquenchable confidence. But when the curtain closes and the lights come up, my shell goes right back on.

  Well, not immediately. There’s a brief bracket of time when the show is over but I’m not over the show—that’s when I’m at my silliest and my sassiest. I love it when I’m like that, so I try to stay out-of-character for as long as possible.

  “Do you think my…bizarreness is nifty or shifty?” I inquire, adjusting the flipped fluff that is my Frenchy wig. It’s a cute pink color, like the nose on a stuffed bunny. Or the nipples under a stuffed bra.

  Not that Ramona stuffs her bra. Anymore. She and the socks had a bit of a falling-out in the seventh grade and after that, she—

  “I think it’s nifty,” Ramona is saying as she holds my wig stand steady. She fondles my fingers a little and I look up, then down when her brassiere comes into view in all its unstuffed glory. “Now your eyes, on the other hand—those are kind of shifty. Are you going to stand there gawking like a fangirl while I get changed?”

  ”I thought you liked it when all eyes are on you.”

  “I do, especially when they’re all yours.”

  When she gets gushy, I get mushy, and right now, my insides are gooier than s’mores.

  Ramona reaches for my hand. I let her take it. If there was anyone else in here, even one of our nearest and dearest, I’d follow the first rule of kindergarten: hands to selves, please. But in their haste to get to the cast party, the other girls did a quick change into their street clothes after the performance. This is the advantage of being a slowpoke—we have the dressing room all to ourselves. And Ramona takes just as much time as I do transforming from starlet to your everyday gay.

  “I like holding your hand,” I muse, enjoying the cozy cushion of Ramona’s palm and the gentle pressure of her lavender-frosted fingers.

  “Me, too,” Ramona says, and smiles her picture-day smile.

  “I always knew you could hold your own. I just didn’t think you’d want to.”

  Ramona giggles and rubs her nose against mine and in that brief bit of friction, I feel our signature spark. “The only thing I don’t want to do is strike the set tomorrow,” the diva laments. “I hate saying good-bye to Rydell High.” Ramona frowns then, her brow pleating like a paper fan.

  “What?”

  She drops my hand. “You made me rhyme,” she flouts, and pouts. “This is the end of the beginning. We’ve officially entered that stage of coupledom where we become adorably and disgustingly interchangeable.” She pauses,
looking at me like…I don’t know, like she’s looking for something. I just hope she finds what she’s looking for.

  Now she’s looking for something else—inside her shoulder bag. “Now may or may not be a good time to give you this,” she says, and hands me a folded tee as square as Sandra Dee. “But it’s as good a time as any.”

  I unfold the garment and hold it out in front of me. It’s a black T-shirt with hot pink text traveling across the front.

  I’m not a lesbian, says the shirt, but my girlfriend is.

  “I’m a lesbian,” I insist, in a decidedly dull roar.

  Well, I am. And I’m out and proud—to myself, my parents, my…well, I guess the only other person currently on that list is my girlfriend, and I know she’d like it if I were…outer. I’m not really sure why I’ve been so reluctant to reveal our relationship to our peers. Maybe it’s my aversion to aspersion, a rational fear of bullying. Maybe it’s because I prefer to fade into the background when I’m not in the spotlight.

  Maybe it’s the fact that theater is a gay man’s world. If a guy’s into drama, people just assume he’s gay, right? Not that that’s a good thing, but what about those thespians who are lesbians, like Ramona and me? If anyone’s looking for us, we’ll be in the Dyke Drama Department, established…well, not yet established.

  I just wish I could be as cool with it as she is. People know Ramona’s gay—I mean, when they ask, she tells. Like, when a guy asks her out, she’ll come right out and say she’s not into guys. Of course, not everyone believes her, because she doesn’t “look” gay—whatever that means anymore, although apparently it still means something.

  I think it means that unless we drop the BFF act and start acting honestly—walking the hallways hand in hand, sharing smooches and moony, swoony looks—no one will know what we mean to each other.

  “Hey, Ramones, how come you’re so…out there?”

  She shrugs casually, but her ego trips the light fantastic. “Just call me Ramona the Brave.”

  “Ramona the Brave, why do you tolerate me?” We’ve been going steady for an entire semester. How much guile can one put up with after a while?

  She shrugs again, a sign that she’s resigned to this. “Just hopelessly devoted, I suppose. I don’t press the issue because it’ll just make things tense and awkward. The more we fret together, the unhappier we’ll be.”

  “I see.”

  “No, you don’t,” Ramona counters, and passes me my glasses.

  I don’t need them. I can see Ramona quite queerly.

  My head starts spinning like a pinwheel, the colors whirring and blurring into a bewildered rainbow. “Look, I know I’m not worthy, but I want to be because you’re the one that I want—I don’t need anything but you, and I’m sick of all this cowardly lyin’ and even though I’m totally mixing up my musicals right now, I mean every word, Ramones.”

  Ramona starts to laugh, but the look she’s giving me is soft, clear, sincere. I marvel at the beauty of her authenticity.

  I’m thinking of falling in love with her.

  Actually, I’m thinking I already have. Our connection is… perfection is what it is. When I concentrate on that, instead of on the “consequences” of being her not-so-secret girlfriend, I realize there really aren’t any. There are only perks and possibilities.

  I decide to exile the denial, a.k.a. the shirt, so I toss it to the floor.

  “We’re going together,” I announce.

  “I know we are.”

  “To the cast party,” I clarify. “We’re going together.”

  “I know we are.”

  “As a couple.” I try again. “We’re going together as a couple. A couple that’s going together. A couple that’s…a couple.”

  Ramona’s smile is wide with pride and her eyes shine like stage lights.

  I open my arms.

  She closes the space.

  I hug Ramona to my heart’s content.

  “Well, let’s get going together,” she chirps, loosening her grip. Ramona dons her denim blouse and begins to button it—badly.

  I giggle, feeling lucky and loopy and lovesick. I take a picture of Ramona, my eye the camera lens, and add it to the thousands of snapshots that have accumulated in my cerebral scrapbook. This one is captioned: Don’t fail to sail on that dreamboat.

  “You’re magnificent,” I tell her, shooting Cupid’s arrows at Ramona with my eyes.

  She leans forward until our foreheads are touching. “And what are you?”

  A serene smile tickles my lips. “I’m yours.”

  “In that case, I’m glad you lost your shirt,” Ramona says, glancing at the rumpled lump on the floor.

  “I’d rather lose my shirt than lose you.”

  A grin nips at Ramona’s lips, and then Ramona’s lips nip at mine.

  When we kiss, my whole body takes note, an ensemble of tingles all too happy to harmonize.

  “Ready, Les?” Ramona asks.

  She loops a lock of hair behind my ear and I slip my arm through hers so that we’re linked like a magician’s rings. There’s a song in our show—“Those Magic Changes.” I just hope I can say the same for our situation.

  Revelation?

  Celebration.

  Yeah, celebration. That’s the most optimistic option.

  “Ready, Ramones,” I answer. “Time for our relationship to take center stage.”

  When we make the scene, we make an entrance: my arm around her waist, her arm around mine.

  I can do this. No big deal. No sweat—except on my palms.

  “Come on, snake,” Ramona says. “Let’s rattle.”

  “Are you asking me to dance?”

  “Duh, dummy.” Coming from her, it sounds like a term of endearment.

  She leads me through the throng of thespians convened in the converted basement of the school’s Drama Queen (our director and favorite acting teacher), and we exchange greetings and congratulations with our cast mates.

  No one cares how couple-y we look. Either that or no one notices, which, I have to admit, bugs me a bit.

  What do we have to do, put a bug in someone’s ear?

  Apparently. After a dozen dances, including a few slow ones, not one cast member has cast an eyeball at us.

  I guess we’ll have to show and tell to get through to these folks.

  “I’m twist-and-shouted out,” Ramona announces midway through the shindig. “I’ll grab some punch and you grab a seat.”

  “Okay,” I say, my hand heading toward her heinie.

  “Get away from my party pooper!” Ramona giggle-shrieks, and tips me into an inelegant dip.

  Doody enters, as if on cue (ewww), accompanied by Roger, Jan’s love interest. That’s funny—I don’t recall asking where the boys are. They’re nice and all, but during rehearsals, I got the feeling that they were hoping life would imitate art and a “showmance” would develop.

  “They’ve entered right and left,” Ramona whispers, and I try to ignore the warm welcome her breath brings to my ear. “Actually—and unfortunately—they haven’t left.”

  “You girls were awesome,” says Roger. Real name: Rob, as in I’m-stealing-your-girlfriend, although in all fairness, I’m sure he doesn’t consider it stealing since he has no idea that I’ve already stolen Ramona’s heart.

  A slow song comes on: “I Love How You Love Me,” a gender-neutral girl-group great.

  Doody, more eloquently known as Jack, inquires, “May I have this dance?” He extends his hand. Take it or leave it.

  I leave it. “I’m taken.”

  “With me, I hope.”

  “By her, you dope.”

  “What, are you gay or something?” Jack chuckles. It’s not mean-spirited, but my heart still feels like it’s jumping on a moon bounce.

  Ramona looks at me. I look at Ramona, who looks more hopeful than expectant. I take a deep breath. An order of oxygen with a side of courage—and make it snappy.

  “As a matter of fact,” I reply, an
d push my glasses up the bridge of my nose, because that’s what bespectacled people do when we mean business, “I’m gay and I’m something.” I hitch my hand to Ramona’s. “This is my girlfriend,” I continue. “She’s something else.”

  “She’s also as gay as a lady is pink,” Ramona adds, our joined hands swinging to and fro like a swishy poodle skirt.

  “Unreal,” Rob remarks. In the ’50s, that meant exceptional, so we’ll take that as a compliment.

  “That’s the word from the bird,” Ramona affirms, and we watch as the dejected duo departs. “May I have this dance?” She extends her hand. Take it or else.

  I take it.

  We sway together, huddled in a cuddle, because I don’t need a Jack in my box or in my arms.

  “Leslie, I have so much gay pride in you right now, it’s not even funny.”

  “Just call me Leslie the Lesbo.”

  “Leslie the Lesbo, I love you.” The declaration is delicate, decisive, definitive. The words barely hover before they cover my heart, which proceeds to melt into a giant puddle of fondue. Meanwhile, my eyes have started to water, but I don’t mind, because on a queer day, you can see forever. And right now, I can see myself with her forever, and—

  Oh, boy. It’s official. This girl totally Ram-owns me.

  “I love you, too,” I ditto without further delay.

  “You love U2? I thought you were all about the Ramones.”

  “Oh, I am all about the Ramones.”

  The distance between us dwindles, the frenzy of freckles on Ramona’s nose getting fainter; the scent of her hair, a duet of almonds and oranges, getting stronger.

  “Don’t be afraid to take risks,” she whispers, kissably close. “No risk, no reward. Right, Lesbo?”

  My breath zigzags in my throat.

  “I could care less what people think,” Ramona reminds me. “Could you?”

  “I…could care less, too.”

  “Then do it. Care less. And kiss more.”

  I give her first a half-smile and then a whole one and now I’m tilting my head for a meet-and-greet with her mouth. I pursue the pressure of Ramona’s lips and discover, to my surprise, that I thrive under pressure.

  I also discover, to my surprise, that no one flips or flips out or offers us a knuckle sandwich. Nobody gives a hoot and only a handful give a holler: an LOL here, an OMG there, and the rest are all in “awww.” Those kooky kids.