The Goodmans
Page 33
“It was after the dance.”
“What’s that?”
“I wanted to tell you that I was attracted to you, even if it wasn’t already obvious from that dance.”
“In retrospect it was.” Abby grinned.
“So I…”
“So you?”
“I thought you’d gone home.”
“I did.” Then Abby seemed to stall, perhaps beginning to recall.
“So I followed. When I caught up, your lights were on and I knocked on the door.”
“Yes?”
“But you couldn’t hear because you had music playing.”
“Uhuh.” Deep red consumed Abby’s cheeks, almost as glowing as Jude’s. “Yes, I remember something like that.”
“So.…”
“So?”
“I tried the door and called up to you.”
Abby gulped.
“And I could hear you upstairs.” Jude’s heart was beating like thunder. And that blush on Abby’s cheeks had stopped in its track and was blanching to white.
“I saw you,” Jude hesitated, “touch yourself.”
Abby was frozen and stared at the grass. Jude wasn’t sure if she’d entered a catatonic state.
“Oh God,” Abby choked. She lifted her legs and embraced them, burying her face beneath her arms. “Oh fucking God,” she said muffled into her knees.
OK. That had been the wrong decision.
“I’m sorry,” Jude chattered. “I’m so sorry. I had no idea you were doing that when I came in.”
“This is the most embarrassing moment of my life.”
“Please don’t be embarrassed,” Jude said, holding her arm. “Please.”
“I want to die.”
“You mustn’t.”
“Seriously, if the ground could just open up that would be great.”
“I’m sorry.” Jude couldn’t help giggling. “I’ve wondered whether I should tell you ever since.”
“Oh God oh God oh God. It’s not getting any better.”
“Please don’t feel like this.”
“Did you by any chance turn off the radio?” Abby groaned.
“Yes.”
“And lock the door?”
“I did.”
“Oh God.”
Jude leant in and pulled Abby to her. “Please stop, because I have another confession to make.”
“You’re bloody kidding,” Abby moaned.
“This one’s about me.”
Abby’s sheepish face peeped at her.
“Please don’t feel embarrassed because,” Jude gulped and whispered beside Abby’s ear. “Because it was, without a doubt, the sexiest thing I’ve ever seen.”
Abby was silent. The babbling had stopped. She continued to peep from beneath her arm. “Really?”
“Absolutely.” Jude nodded. “It made me so wet.”
“Oh.” That brought a healthy colour back. “Hmmhmm?”
“I couldn’t stop picturing it all the way home,” Jude said. “You coming was all I could think about.”
Abby was wide-eyed.
“And I when I got home.”
“Uhuh?”
“I jumped straight into bed.”
“And?”
“Touched myself.”
Abby’s mouth had dropped open with an, “uhuh,” a pitch higher.
“Beyond a doubt, seeing you like that was the most erotic moment of my life.”
Abby suddenly deflated. “And the most embarrassing of mine. Oh God.” She buried her head in her knees again. “I can’t bear it.”
Jude gazed at her, filled with adoration, and arousal at the vivid memory that kept popping into her head.
“How about I make it up to you,” she said naughtily.
“I don’t think anything can make this better.”
“Well,” Jude smiled, “how about we even things up?”
Abby looked round. “In what way?”
“Perhaps,” and Jude leaned in so close to Abby’s ear that she knew it would tantalise her, “you should watch me?”
Abby’s gulp was possibly audible to the whole garden.
“Do you mean….?”
“To make it up to you, I’ll undress, lie on your bed and touch myself. And you can watch or join in as much as you desire.”
Abby was motionless, except for her chest, which rose and fell with rapidity. Jude wondered for a moment if the idea appealed. Then a grin began to spread on Abby’s face. It widened and widened, and she beamed and beamed, until it was impossible to look more pleased.
“Let’s go home,” Abby rasped. And before Jude could respond Abby had grabbed her arm and was hauling her to her feet.
Maggie and Juliette sauntered into the garden, a glass of Champagne for Maggie and English sparkling wine for Juliette, at Maggie’s insistence.
“Sorry, Mum.” Jude and Abby came thundering past. “Forgot. Erm. Something. At home. Back in a bit.” And the two blushing woman sped past.
The front door slammed shut and Maggie and Juliette looked at each other.
“They’re going home to have sex, aren’t they?” Juliette deadpanned.
“Yup.” Maggie rolled her eyes. “Do they ever stop?”
“Do we ever?” Juliette smiled, suggestively. “Which reminds me.” She sidled closer. “I brought you a present.”
“Oh yes?” Maggie’s whole being perked up at Juliette’s tone.
“A very fetching pair of cuffs are lying on your bed, next to a slender double dildo in black.”
Maggie’s grin couldn’t have been wider.
“Are you free later?” Juliette asked.
“I don’t know,” Maggie purred. “I think I might be tied up.”
Juliette laughed. “Good. We’d better do the rounds before we disappear.”
The two women strode into the garden towards their growing family. Maggie sank onto the blanket to steal her granddaughter from Eli’s nostrils. She cradled Alicia in the crook of her arm, marvelling again at the delicate perfection of a young baby. Juliette nuzzled next to them both and they gazed at the baby who seemed wide-eyed with marvel at them.
“She has your eyes,” Maggie said. “Beautiful dark irises like yours and Selene’s.”
The baby smiled and stuck out her tongue. “Hmm,” Juliette said. “Maybe some attitude from a different lineage too.”
Maggie chuckled. “That’s my girl.”
And as she looked up, Maggie Goodman marvelled at her fortune, so different to what she’d envisaged all those months ago. And in her mid-fifties, with a new political career, the love of her life, a best friend, children and a first grandchild, she had to confess she was the luckiest woman in the world. No matter what life threw at her now, she vowed to never regret another moment.
“Auntie Maggie?” Liam cried. “Can we play with the police costume?”
“What’s that?”
“The truncheon and cuffs from your room?”
Well, maybe apart from that one.
###
Acknowledgements
Thank you beta readers for feedback and almost infinite patience. As you have gathered, I haven’t mastered the art of taking criticism gracefully, but I do always appreciate your feedback, eventually.
Thank you Diana Simmonds, for having the force of personality to make me rewrite the first quarter and most of all for simply being Diana.
Chris Paynter for your encouragement from the very first. Authors give up in the absence of people like you and I am always grateful.
Cindy Rizzo with your enviable knowledge of lesfic and always insightful comments as well as finally persuading me that epilogues aren’t pure evil.
Gabby Benson for fabulous and giggle-worthy commentary and you also have a mean eye for plot holes and wonky character motivation. Although, I still haven't forgiven you for spotting every turn of the plot!
The above are all authors I admire and I feel very lucky to have had their input.
Thanks to my
wife for so many things beyond the cover, editing and general agony of having to live with an author, too many things to mention here (besides being either embarrassing to me or my wife).
Please note, beta readers and editors can only go far with a bloody minded author, and all remaining errors are my own.
Finally, thank you to my kids – just-a-fart Ellie and killer-fart-bats Joe – inspiration and delight always.
About
Clare Ashton’s first novel, Pennance, was long-listed for the Polari Prize and After Mrs Hamilton is a Golden Crown Literary Society (Goldie) award winner. Her first foray into romantic comedy, That Certain Something, was a Goldie and Lambda Literary Award finalist and Poppy Jenkins won the Rainbow Award for contemporary romance.
Clare Ashton grew up in Mid-Wales and having a brain stuck somewhere not particularly useful between the arts and science ended up studying History and Philosophy of Science at Cambridge University. After college, and still at a loss as to what to do with such a brain, she bimbled around the UK from London to Sheffield being everything from Little Chef waitress to software engineer. On the way she met a wife, had two children and recently came to a rest in the Midlands with the vocation of lesbian romance writer – nothing like the career they suggested back at school.
Also by Clare Ashton:
Pennance
After Mrs Hamilton
That Certain Something
Poppy Jenkins
Find out more about Clare
http://rclareashton.wordpress.com
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Clare-Ashton/327713437267566