The Rules of Love: A Lesbian Romance

by Cara Malone

  The next time Max saw her wasn’t until McDermott’s class on Monday night.

  It felt like an eternity, and she thought they might run into each other before that, in the dorms, or at the dining hall, or in the library, but Ruby was nowhere to be found. Max made a few more rounds through the cafeteria than she normally did, and she walked much more mindfully through the library stacks on Sunday evening hoping to find Ruby at one of the study carrels working on that History of Library Science essay.

  No luck, though, so Max had no choice but to spend the rest of the weekend alone, wishing that she had been more adept in prolonging their time together.

  Instead, her anticipation for McDermott’s class built. Ruby would be there, and Max spent an inordinate amount of time preparing that afternoon. Usually, this meant completing the readings, taking notes in advance, and studying in advance of midterms and finals. This Monday, though, it meant grooming.

  Max spent several hours that morning in her tiny white bathroom. She showered and trimmed her nails neatly back, then meticulously gelled her hair into something approaching a messy pompadour. She liked to keep her hair cut short because it meant she didn’t need to pay much attention to it, and if it was flying off in a dozen directions that was just fine by Max. But Ruby made her want to do better, and she found herself preening like a bird ready to impress its mate.

  After more wardrobe changes than Max had ever made in a single day, she finally emerged from her apartment in a pair of slightly distressed jeans, Converse, and a red and gold flannel button-down that felt very soft against her skin and which she hoped would tempt Ruby to touch her, too. By the time she hoofed it across campus and up to the third floor of the library, most of the class had already arrived, including Ruby. Max slid into the seat beside her.

  “Hi,” she whispered just as McDermott made his way to the front of the room.

  “Hey,” Ruby said. She barely looked at Max, despite all her efforts at preening, and turned away to pull out her computer.

  “How was the rest of your weekend?” Max asked. She’d decided on this question on her way across campus – it came to her like a gift from the neurotypical gods. This was exactly the type of question Brad would ask – a thin layer of small talk with flirtation running beneath it and reminding Ruby that the weekend had started with a bang, quite literally.

  “Fine,” Ruby said, opening her laptop and scrolling down to the bottom of her Information Theory notes.

  Was she being dismissive? It sure seemed like it, but Max couldn’t connect their last experience to this regressed, colder version of Ruby. Did she regret it?

  These questions were spinning through her head like a tornado made of doubt and confusion, but when Max opened her mouth to inquire about them, Ruby simply nodded toward the front of the room and said, “Shh, class is starting.”

  Max closed her mouth, and McDermott opened his. He started talking about the satisficing theory of information seeking behavior, and Max’s brain filled in the appropriate definition without actually processing his words – the information discovered suffices to answer an information need and satisfies the seeker, even though they could probably find an even better response if they kept looking. She’d read it in the articles for this week but for once, she couldn’t concentrate on the lecture.

  She wanted to know if she’d done something wrong, or if Ruby hadn’t enjoy herself as much as Max thought she did. The sudden realization that Ruby might regard the whole thing as a mistake, or a one-night stand, made Max’s stomach hurt.

  Max hadn’t prepared for anything except a joyful reunion the next time they saw each other, and Ruby’s dismissal of her was making it impossible to sit through a two-hour class wondering the whole time if the goddess sitting beside her was now just as unobtainable as she had been on Friday morning before their group meeting.

  So she decided to try another tactic that she’d observed other people using during lectures to great effect: the time-honored tradition of note-passing. She took out her notebook and instead of dating it and titling it for the lecture, she turned to a fresh page and wrote, If I was seeking you on the library shelves, no other girl would satisfice.

  Then, practically holding her breath, Max slid it across her desk toward Ruby, briefly bumping her elbow against Ruby’s to get her attention.

  Another small eternity passed between them, and then Ruby glanced from Max to the notebook. She squinted to make out Max’s chicken scratch handwriting. It felt like Max’s heart had stopped beating in her chest.

  When Ruby finally made out the line, though, she let out a snort, clapping her hand over her mouth as McDermott looked over at the two of them.

  Max’s heart leapt into her throat and resumed beating with a fervor, and Ruby grabbed the notebook, their fingertips brushing over each other momentarily. She turned away from Max and scribbled something on the page, then with a cautious glance toward McDermott, she slid it back onto Max’s desk.

  Is that an information theory in your search bar, or are you just excited to Google me?

  Max felt color rising into her cheeks and heat building in her core. The secondary feeling running like a current beneath the arousal was a deep-seated relief. She must have been over-analyzing Ruby’s body language and her clipped words after all. She’d read something that wasn’t there.

  What are you doing after this? Max wrote beneath Ruby’s pickup line, then let her shoulder linger against Ruby’s as she passed the note back to her.

  McDermott was watching them pretty closely now, and Max had to admit that she hadn’t heard a single word of his lecture after he’d introduced the topic. She’d have to rely on the readings alone to learn today’s lesson, but for the first time in her life she’d found something more important than academics to devote her attention to.

  She waited with baited breath for Ruby to pass the notebook back, trying to keep her eyes on McDermott to at least give the impression that she was paying attention to him. Then she felt Ruby’s hand brush against the outside of her thigh, and she slid the notebook back over to Max.

  For a fleeting moment, Max wondered if there was someone sitting a few rows back, watching the two of them and taking notes about their interaction. This flirtation was certainly worthy of a few notes.

  Then she looked down at the page. Ruby had written a single word at the bottom of the page, big enough to span three lines of the notebook.

  You?

  ***

  It was dark by the time they got back to Founders Hall, and this time there was no need for small talk or niceties. Ruby had grabbed Max’s hand in the elevator to the lobby after class and pressed her palm between her legs, and Max could feel the heat that she had conjured.

  They spent the entire lecture sliding the notebook back and forth across Max’s desk, their notes becoming increasingly explicit as the minutes ticked by, and even though Ruby managed to keep a completely straight face as her eyes followed McDermott at the front of the room, Max hadn’t been so inconspicuous. No matter how neutral her expression was, the flush of her cheeks gave her away instantly.

  It didn’t matter though – nothing that was important before she met Ruby seemed to hold any value now. Max would have flunked out of library school and never learned another information theory if it meant she could trade all that in for another few hours with Ruby’s body pressed up against hers. She’d never taken an illicit drug in her life, but she was pretty sure this feeling was analogous to the craving that addicts got. She’d give anything for more of the sense of wholeness that being with Ruby gave her.

  Tonight, Max was the aggressor. As soon as they got back to Founders Hall, she took Ruby by the hand and pulled her down the hall to her apartment. She led Ruby through the small living room and they made it all the way to the bed this time.

  She pushed Ruby onto it, then got to her knees at the foot of the bed, parting Ruby’s legs. She was wearing a short navy skirt and the quintessential preppy sorority girl shoes – M
ary Janes. Max slid her hand over Ruby’s smooth thighs and beneath the hem of her skirt, and she could feel herself shivering already, simply in anticipation of touching her. Max’s fingers brushed against Ruby’s panties, lacy and soft, and Ruby clenched her thighs around Max’s hips.

  Max slid Ruby’s panties slowly down her legs, pulling them over her shoes and then tossing them to the floor. Ruby moaned as Max put both hands on her thighs, sliding them back under her skirt, and she dragged one heel along the top of Max’s thigh, scratching over her jeans.

  Max’s fingers found wetness beneath Ruby’s skirt, gliding up and down through it while she watched Ruby arch her back and moan with each stroke. She squirmed and clamped her thighs around Max, and each reaction that she elicited sent another shiver of joy through Max’s body. She slipped one finger deeper, slowly drawing it in and out while Ruby threw her hands out on either side of her, clutching at the sheets as her body reacted.

  Max let out a groan, pressing her hips against the edge of the bed and feeling herself beginning to lose control. She wanted to take it slow, to memorize each expression that flashed across Ruby’s face and every moan that echoed through the little apartment… but at the same time, her body was demanding more, faster, harder. She wanted to make love to Ruby, and she wanted to fuck her senseless in the same moment.

  Soon enough, though, Max’s animal instincts won out.

  She flipped Ruby’s skirt over her hips and bent down. She tasted sweet and Max lapped at Ruby as if she could spend an eternity between her thighs and never be satisfied. She kept moving her finger in and out in a slow motion, and with her tongue she teased every inch of her. She found Ruby’s clit, made a few swirls over it, and then moved torturously away, kissing her way out to Ruby’s thigh to bite and suck at her tender, supple flesh. Then she inched slowly, teasingly, back inward.

  Ruby flailed her arms on the bed, grasping at whatever she could as she moaned and her body undulated beneath Max’s tongue, and when she found Max’s pillow she dragged it from the top of the bed and threw it over her face, letting loose a long and tortured moan while her thighs clamped around Max’s head.

  Finally relenting, Max put her mouth around Ruby’s clit and sucked, her tongue flitting over the flesh swollen with desire, and soon she felt Ruby shivering and moving her hips against her, desperate for release. A similar shiver ran down into Max’s core – she wondered if she might just come at the sight and sound of Ruby’s own orgasm. She’d never been this turned on before, and it felt like a real possibility.

  At the first spasms of Ruby’s muscles, Max moved her hand faster in the rhythm of Ruby’s labored breathing. She lapped at Ruby’s clit and thrilled each time Ruby moved her hips against Max’s hand, riding her and taking her deeply. And then Max could feel Ruby tipping over the edge, her whole body shaking on the bed, and Max couldn’t take it anymore.

  She grabbed Ruby by both hips and yanked her to the edge of the bed, pressing her hips tight against Ruby, and that was all she needed – a little extra pressure, a little contact as Ruby wrapped her legs around Max’s hips and held her tight while she rode out the waves of her orgasm. That was enough to send Max into her own bliss, grinding her hips against Ruby until she was panting and doubling over on top of her, her face mashed into the mattress in utter exhaustion.

  CHAPTER 18

  Max crawled onto the bed and collapsed next to Ruby, nuzzling her face into the crook of Ruby’s neck. She reached across Ruby and pulled the blankets over to cover her before she had the chance to start shivering in the cool air.

  For the moment, Ruby was content to lay there, one arm wrapped beneath Max’s shoulders as they both caught their breath, but she knew that staying too long was apt to send her into that panicky state that she’d felt on Saturday night. She had fully intended to give Max the cold shoulder after that because it wasn’t a feeling that she wanted to revisit, but then it had probably been a mistake to sit down at a desk that had open seats beside it while she waited for Information Theory to start.

  If she really didn’t want this to happen again, she would have sat in the middle of a crowd, or she would have gotten to class late so Max wouldn’t have the opportunity to sit beside her. If Ruby wanted to dig deep enough and be honest with herself, she would admit that she’d purposely chosen the seat that she had because she was hoping to lure Max to her again.

  It had only been forty-eight hours since their first tryst, but she was ready for a distraction again. Ruby couldn’t stop thinking about that voicemail from Megan ever since she first played it, and each time she played it since, a lump formed in the back of her throat. How dare she leave such an emotionally manipulative message, after saying nothing for three months? The more Ruby listened to it, the more her reaction to it turned from tearful heartache to unchecked anger, and the more she craved another evening with Max to obliterate the feeling.

  Sex was so much more effective than yoga in helping her forget about Megan, but Ruby still hadn’t found anything to help her avoid the panic attack that came after the sex ended, when she was laying in Max’s arms and starting to feel comfortable there. That was most certainly not part of the plan, and all she could do was run away from it.

  Before she had the chance, though, Max kissed her forehead and asked, “Are you hungry? It’s past dinner time.”

  “No,” Ruby said, the anxiety jumping into her chest at the notion of sharing a post-coital meal with Max. But her stomach growled at the mention of food, betraying her hunger, and Max became insistent.

  “We’ll go over to the dining hall, nothing fancy,” she said. “I’m starving.”

  “Uhh,” Ruby stalled, trying to think of another excuse like the fictitious essay to avoid this, but her mind went unhelpfully blank and Max rolled out of bed.

  Ruby sat up and pushed the blankets away, pulling her skirt back down while she watched Max go to the foot of the bed and retrieve her panties, handing them back to her.

  “Come on,” Max said as she checked the time. “It’s only open for another forty-five minutes.”

  Ruby sighed and stood up, carefully stepping back into her panties so as not to snag them on her heels. Rushing just to quell their hunger in under forty-five minutes hardly counted as a romantic meal – she could manage that, and besides, she was hungry.

  So she straightened her clothes and gave her makeup a quick check in Max’s bathroom mirror, then slung her backpack over her shoulder.

  “You can leave that here if you want to,” Max said. “We’ll come right back.”

  “I don’t want to inconvenience you,” Ruby said. “I have a lot of reading to do tonight.”

  “Oh,” Max said, her face falling slightly as they stepped into the hall and Max pulled the door shut. Then she reached for Ruby’s hand, threading her fingers into Ruby’s as they walked out of the building.

  This gesture caught Ruby so off-guard that she didn’t have the heart to pull her hand away. She couldn’t count the number of times she’d walked across campus hand in hand with Megan, and it was a gesture that never signified casual sex. Ruby wondered just how sincere Max had been when she said she didn’t have time for a girlfriend. Holding hands, going to dinner, snuggling – this was not the behavior of a woman who truly thought that relationships were bullshit.

  Ruby let go of Max’s hand to shift the weight of her backpack from one shoulder to the other, and then kept her hands on the straps, trying to be casual about this choice and wishing she hadn’t agreed to this little outing. She should be back in her apartment, telling herself she was studying and actually wondering obsessively about whether Megan wanted her to return her call.

  They ate quickly – Max because she seemed keenly aware of the time constraints of their meal, and Ruby because the longer they shared a meal, the more it began to feel like a date. So she grabbed a cafeteria tray and the first slice of pizza she came across, then sat down next to Max and focused her attention entirely on the act of consuming it.

&n
bsp; Max was mostly quiet, continually true to her distaste for small talk, and in that moment, Ruby appreciated that about her. Then as Ruby was making her way doggedly through the chewy crust of her pizza, Max threw a curve ball at her.

  She said, “I’m going to take myself out of the running for GLiSS president.”

  “Oh?”

  “I think you’ll make an excellent president,” she said, keeping her eyes down to her plate. “Besides, I’m taking twice as many classes as you for my second major. You’ll have more time to devote to the organization.”

  Ruby rolled her eyes at this inevitable dig and said, “Okay.”

  CHAPTER 19

  Being with Ruby was turning out to be the happiest Max had ever been – especially in the blissful moments when she was inhabiting the space between Ruby’s thighs or closing her eyes and clutching the bedsheets as Ruby touched her. She’d managed to lure Ruby back to her apartment most nights that week, and even though their interactions were somewhat brief and Ruby always had somewhere to dash off to afterward, Max found heaven in those moments when they were together.

  She never had to think about interpreting or decoding Ruby in those moments – she knew exactly what to do and how Ruby felt, and they were the only moments in her day when she felt completely at ease. She would have walked through fire to get to Ruby and feel that again.

  Fortunately for Max, Ruby seemed to need her just as much, and it was never hard to convince her to come over after class.

  “I have a ten a.m. class and then I’m going to yoga afterward,” Ruby told Max this morning when they ran into each other in the hall and she’d tried to tug Ruby into her apartment. “But I could come over after if you don’t mind letting me use your shower.”

  “What’s mine is yours,” Max said, and Ruby slipped her hand out of Max’s to head to class.