Discovery

by Radclyffe

  I can’t stop thinking about what I know she’s doing onstage—looking at the sex manual and trying out different poses. It’s a hot scene, even though she plays it for laughs.

  I notice the wrench still in my pocket. Croaking away, I set it on the prop table. I check my fly, too, just in case, and run my fingers through my hair. I’ve watched Mark’s overacting kill this scene night after night—but will I be able to do it justice? The words of the baby dyke sound op, Jan, filter through my mind. “That Camille is damn sexy for an old lady.”

  Kids, what do they know about growing old?

  I finish the song and take a deep breath, willing myself into a Doug that is worthy of Camille/Anna, one who knows how to make a woman feel her beauty.

  I peek past the flat to see if she’s hit the part where she’s on her knees rubbing her breasts—that’s when Doug is supposed to enter—but she hasn’t. She’s still reading the manual. So I pick the song back up. All of me. Why not take all of me… She puts the manual down and spreads her legs, pretending to beckon Doug toward her. She pooches out her lips in an attempt to look seductive. The audience always laughs here. She abandons the posture and checks in with the book, turns it upside down, and raises an eyebrow. Our middle-aged audience members always get a big chuckle out of this. I guess they relate to grasping for that one magical thing that’s going to make them feel young, alive. I watch Camille flip over and raise her tushy in the air, then study the book one more time before putting it down and rising to her knees…

  Blood rushes to my head.

  Camille puts her hands on her breasts and begins massaging, like she’s polishing a couple of hubcaps.

  One chimpanzee, two chimpanzee, three chimpanzee…

  Here I go…

  “Anna!” I say in a deep voice, a Doug voice. I imagine myself wearing just pajama pants.

  “Sweetheart,” she says, taking her hands from her breasts.

  “No,” I say. “Don’t stop. I like what you’re doing.”

  “Really?” she says, returning her hands to her breasts and caressing them. “I’ve just been reading from this chapter, Enticing Your Mate.”

  Big laugh from the audience.

  “I’m enticed,” I say, walking over to the bed. “What else is in that book of yours?”

  “Well, most of the positions take two people,” she says, flopping onto her belly and paging through the book.

  I’m supposed to join her on the bed, I know, but my legs won’t move. “Shouldn’t we just run the lines for this part?”

  Camille laughs. “Scared?”

  “I just don’t see how we can do it with the script…”

  “Just get up here. We’ll figure it out.”

  I force one foot in front of the next, climb up on the king-sized bed and, finally, straddle the back of her legs, my faded-denim crotch framing her soft, round tush. Trigger, my clit who’s been sleeping for at least a decade, wakes right up as if from a brief nap. My breathing quickens. The blast of oxygen gives me a major head rush and I can’t remember what Doug is supposed to do next. Stage directions reel through my mind: DOUG CLIMBS ON BED LEFT AND LOOKS OVER ANNA’S SHOULDER AT MANUAL. HE POINTS TO SOMETHING ON THE PAGE AND LEANS FORWARD.

  My heart is threatening to pound through my chest. I’m not as lean as Mark.

  I lean forward, my belly pressing into her spine…

  “Ouch! My back!” she wails. This always gets a huge laugh from the audience.

  I swing my leg off her, minus the stupid look that Mark usually tosses to the audience. “You okay, honey?”

  She rolls to her side and looks at me, and honest to God, I can’t tell if it’s Camille or Anna. “You said that line much sweeter than Mark,” she says, touching my nose—a move that’s definitely not in the script.

  “Well, uh, I thought maybe I really did hurt you.”

  “You’re doing just fine,” she murmurs softly. “Shall we continue?”

  “Sure…” I’m both excited and terrified by what comes next.

  “Maybe we should start with something simple. Something from the first chapter,” she says, taking my hand and placing it on her breast. And I know I have a line here, but I can’t for the life of me remember what it is. The softness of her breast through the limp fabric of her dress short-circuits all thought. It’s been so long…

  I try to shift my focus to the script on the bed, but the blue pools of her eyes won’t let me go. She gives me a prompt. “Sounds good.”

  “Sounds good,” I repeat, the nerve endings in my hand shooting sparklers through my whole body.

  “This is the part where the phone rings,” she whispers.

  “Oh yeah…” There’s this whole funny part where Doug pulls away to answer it, knocking the lamp over.

  “Aren’t you going to answer it?” she says.

  “Do you want me to?”

  What she’s supposed to say here is, “It might be one of the kids. Mattie usually calls around this time.” At which point she reaches for the phone and has a long conversation with our daughter. But she brings her mouth to mine and the next thing I know, our tongues are circling together, velvety chocolate. My elbow gives way and I fall back onto the script. Camille pulls it from beneath me and flings it to the floor.

  No script, I think. Now what? But my body knows what. I pull her on top of me, feeling a confidence I haven’t felt in years.

  A whimper escapes from her lips as our hips begin to rock rhythmically back and forth…back and forth… I take hold of her tush and pull her to me.

  “Roque…” she whispers with each thrust. “Roque…”

  And then somehow we’re rolling over again and she’s beneath me. “Am I too heavy?” I whisper.

  “No…” she says, running her hands up and down my back. “You feel so good…soooo good…” Then she takes my hand and slides it into her panties.

  The plumpness of her lips, the wetness…it’s been forever since I’ve felt anything like this… I drive my fingers inside her and she tenses for a moment, then reaches to meet my hand. “Yes…yes…” she utters, her back arching, her head tossed back. “Go deep. Go deep.”

  I slide my fingers back and forth inside her, Trigger pulsing, hot.

  “Yes…” Camille cries. “I’m…I’m…”

  Suddenly, I’m engulfed in white light. I can hear Camille coming too. “Oh…oh…oh…” she’s howling. And I think I’m yelling something, but I’ve no idea what. We end in a giant quiver and both flop onto our backs, breathing heavily.

  “Whoa,” she says, gasping.

  “Yeah,” I gasp back.

  “It’s been a while.”

  And I know I should say something, but I’ve temporarily lost the ability to speak. I look above us at the lavender-gelled light glowing softly, then reach my hand over and squeeze hers.

  She squeezes back.

  And just when I’m thinking I might as well go on and die because life couldn’t possibly get any better than this, she runs her fingertip down my nose, stopping just above my lips, and asks, “Shall we run it again?”

  My Lagan Love - Gill McKnight

  GILL MCKNIGHT is Irish and lives and works in Ireland, England, and Greece. She loves messing about in boats and has secret fantasies about lavender farming. She has contributed to the award-winning Best Women’s Erotica 2008 (Cleis Press) and the e-Anthology Read These Lips 1. Her debut novel Falling Star (Bold Stroke Books) was released in July 2008 and will be followed by Green Eyed Monster (Bold Stroke Books) in December 2008.

  My Lagan Love

  Gill McKnight

  “No.”

  “Can’t you do just one little thing to help me?”

  “No.”

  “Why are you so bitter?”

  “’Cos we’re exes. And I wouldn’t touch you with a rolled-up newspaper. Not even if it were doused in petrol and set alight…and wrapped round a brick.”

  “The question was why are you so bitter? I wasn’t asking for an exampl
e!”

  “’Cos…we’re…exes,” Roisin spelled out.

  “Some people become friends after they break up.”

  “Not us.”

  “But…” Marley almost whined, but remembered at the last minute they were exes and it wouldn’t work anymore.

  “I won’t do it. You can go tell them the truth. I’m not playing any hurtful games for you.”

  “I can’t. It would ruin Sharla and Jen’s wedding. I’ll tell them after, okay? Happy now?”

  “No, I’m not happy now. I haven’t been happy for weeks. Or have you forgotten already?”

  Marley sighed deeply, took a big breath, and put on her most pleading look. She radiated hope and remorse in equal amounts, a subtle and well-practiced combination. “Please help me here. They’re our friends. It’s their wedding day. I’m a freakin’ witness, for God’s sake! I can’t just bounce in the day before and tell them we’ve split up. Talk about throwing a wet blanket all over the happiest day of their lives.”

  “I know, let’s lie to them,” Roisin snapped. “Let’s pretend we’re happy when secretly we’re not. That will fool them for a little while—say four years—until the truth comes out. Now, where have I seen that recently? Where did I pick that nasty little trick up? Oh, I know. From you.”

  Marley winced. Roisin’s point of view stuck like a knife in her belly. But their broken relationship wasn’t what today’s conversation was about. She couldn’t get distracted by that old argument. She had to be back in her office in an hour, there wasn’t time to talk about this.

  They sat almost nose to nose across the table in the Belfast coffee house. Any passerby could have seen through the steam-clouded window and thought them an attractive, passionate couple. And they were, but today for all the wrong reasons.

  “Please, Ro,” Marley said with a sigh. “They’re friends of yours, too. I know you met them through me, but they see you as a good friend in your own right. It would hurt them to know we’re through a few days before they jump in at the deep end. Please…please.”

  “I think you’re overestimating how much we mean to them.”

  “I’m not. I’m really, really not. Look at me…I’m on my belly here, beggin’ ya! Please escort me.” The hangdog expression was genuine this time.

  Roisin stared hard; she knew her ex-partner inside and out, through and through. At least she used to. A few weeks ago she would have sworn to it, until the bombshell. She reined her mind back in. She didn’t need to go in that painful direction, she left that for times when she was alone and could cry. “I’ll need new shoes.”

  Marley just looked at her, then, with a resigned sigh, drew their joint credit card from her wallet. Roisin had cut hers in half in a grand gesture a week ago. “Here. Get a whole new outfit.”

  Roisin snatched it away quickly and secreted it in her voluminous handbag. “I’ll get my hair done, too. I’m thinking of going blond.”

  “Blond?” Marley threw a startled glance at the auburn curls that drifted down past Roisin’s shoulders.

  “Yes. I was blond before I met you. Remember the photos of Tenerife?”

  Marley vaguely recalled some ancient holiday snaps of Roisin by the poolside with Bernie McMillen, a woman Marley had very little time for. Disgruntled, she muttered, “No.”

  Roisin just snorted in response, gathering her shopping bags, ready to leave.

  “So, we’re on for Saturday?” Marley looked up for confirmation.

  “Yes. Pick me up at ten. I’ll be the blonde in new shoes, living in your old home. And you’ll be…what? Tell me again?”

  Marley sighed. “In a lavender tux. God help me.”

  Roisin smirked and leant in to drop a good-bye kiss on the top of Marley’s head, like she always used to do. Marley’s belly contracted. It had been in knots all afternoon, both before and during the meeting. Her face flushed and her chest went tight, and suddenly she wanted to cry.

  Roisin left in a happy bubble, her shopping spree extended with the ageless gift of plastic. Oh, how she’d missed her flexible friend. Oh, how she wished she’d never ever cut him in two to make some stupid point about financial independence. Financial independence was all well and good, but spending your selfish ex’s money was far, far better; especially as she watched you do it. Lavish, lavish, lavish…that was the order of the day. Oh, and she needed her nails touched up, too.

  Marley rubbed a circle in the steamed-up window and watched her ex-girlfriend disappear down the street, her head buried in an umbrella, the wind and rain whipping at her raincoat. She watched the shapely calves and the small feet strapped into the ridiculously high heels whisk along, skirting the puddles. Roisin would undergo any future orthopedic calamity to avoid being the five-foot-one nature had intended. Marley smiled to herself. It was so easy to pick her little lover up to kissable height and set her on a counter top, or table, to simply hug her.

  She noticed three teenage construction workers out prowling on their lunch hour nudge each other with some leering unheard comment as her ex flew past. Roisin was an attractive woman and looked much younger than her thirty years.

  Jealous rage flared in Marley. Dropping her head onto her hand, she played with her cup and stared fixedly at a print of coffee beans on the wall opposite. She was in trouble here. She’d made a terrible, life-altering mistake, and she didn’t know how to fix it. She didn’t have time to fix it. Her wristwatch told her she was going to be late for her next meeting if she didn’t hoof it quick, and she dashed out into the rain toward her office suite on the Lagan riverside.

  *

  Roisin checked the time on the wall clock. Ten past ten. Marley had been on the phone for nearly an hour now, rambling on about next to nothing. They’d had coffee only that afternoon, so what was this call all about? Her first thought had been, Is she checking up on how much I spent?

  But the conversation never really touched on money. Just silly things like, what colour was her hair now? Highlighted and layered, but no, not blond. And did she know the happy couple were going to Cancun for their honeymoon? Yes, she’d heard that. So…had she ever been there herself? No. Okay…so…had she got a man out to check on the dodgy guttering yet? No. Ah, perhaps Marley should come round and do it herself, she could get a loan of her brothers’ ladders? No, she’d rather phone the repairman. Was she sure about that, because Marley could collect the ladd— Yes! She was absolutely sure. Oh…well…okay…so…what kind of shoes did she buy, then?

  “Marley, what’s going on?” Roisin finally exploded at the unending, ridiculous questions. “You’re asking me about my shoes! They’re burnished copper leather and they match my new handbag and my new hair. They cost over a hundred and seventy-five pounds…in the sale. I love them and I keep opening the box to look at them. If I ever get pregnant I want to have copper-coloured twins to remind me of these shoes.” She blew steam down the phone. “Is that what you really wanted to hear? You’ve been on for over an hour now…what do you want?”

  Silence. A long moment of silence. Then… “I never knew you wanted babies.”

  “Holy Mother of God!” She hung up.

  *

  The next night the phone rang.

  “Hello?”

  “Guess what?”

  Sigh. “What?”

  “The tuxedo isn’t lavender! Guess what colour it is?”

  “Lime.”

  “No…be serious.”

  “Silver sequins and you look like an astronaut.”

  “Wise up. Guess proper.”

  “Gold sequins and you look like a moonbeam?” A huge huffy puff greeted that. “Okay, I give up. You’ve outfoxed me, Marley. What colour is it?” Roisin rolled her eyes in exasperation at the stupid, time-wasting, attention-seeking game.

  “It’s indigo,” came the pleased-as-punch answer.

  “Good. It will match your bruising if you call me again tonight. I’ll see you at ten on the dot tomorrow morning.” Roisin hung up and went to run a bath.


  At 9:40 the next morning Roisin’s doorbell tinkled out “I Will Survive.”

  “God damn it!” She was running late and halfway through her makeup. In bare feet and dressing gown she ran all the way downstairs and swung open the door.

  “You’re early,” she accused while taking in the handsome indigo figure before her in one scowling sweep.

  Marley stood frowning on the doorstep, her gaze locked on the brand-new BMW Z3 Roadster parked in the driveway. Her beloved twelve-year-old Jaguar XJ6 nosed up tight behind it.

  “Whose is that?” Marley gestured with her car key, face like thunder.

  Roisin smiled and turned away to go back upstairs, leaving her guest to show herself in. She was on the top tread and heard the front door click closed before she deigned to answer. “Mine.”

  Marley, already scanning the lounge for clues of some other occupant in the house, heard the answer with great relief.

  “A red car?” Marley called up the stairs. “Sure it clashes with your hair?”

  The Jealous Vixen lipstick froze on its way to Roisin’s lips as she stared into the bathroom mirror. She’s right. It clashes with my hair! Well, it’s back to the shop with you on Monday. I’ll go for the silver. Maybe. The car was a test model on loan for the weekend to see if she’d buy one. It did no harm to let Marley assume she had. The vivid red lipstick continued its journey to her mouth.

  Finally puffed and powdered, dressed and shod, she swanned down the stairs totally confident with her ensemble.

  Marley met her in the hall. “Wow. That’s a beautiful colour on you. You’re like…like a brand-new penny.”

  Roisin paused on the last few steps so she was eye to eye with her former lover. She gazed at her sternly.

  “You’re like a wet autumn day. I mean…kinda shiny.” Marley groped for appropriate words to describe this goddess of liquid fire before her. Then she caught Roisin’s expression.

  “Stop it now.”

  Marley had never been poetical, so she took the advice.

  “Whose car will we take?” Roisin asked as she fixed the buttonhole she’d bought onto the tuxedo’s lapel. A pure white rosebud with stem and leaves stained the copper of her own dress.