Hungry for It

by Fiona Zedde

  More than any woman she’d ever met, Matsuko loved kissing. While her sisters lay on the bed, gasping in the aftermath of sex, lethargic like sunbathers, she pulled Rémi down and clambered on top, small and succulent breasts swinging, pussy opening up over the dick Rémi held steady, mouth already seeking. She growled, soft and kittenish. The scent of pussy clung to her face and, hidden in the slightly damp hair, the essence of chlorine and early morning sun.

  Matsuko kissed the same way she liked to fuck. Slowly, intently, paying attention to each detail of the flesh she shared hers with. Her tongue licked delicately at Rémi’s mouth. Tasted. Her pussy settled around the scarlet dildo, pressing into it so Rémi felt her presence, a hammer of sensation against her clit. It was her turn to groan.

  “I like having you to myself, Rémi,” she whispered, slowly riding the dick, her lips brushing Rémi’s, breasts pressing into breasts. Belly to belly.

  And the kind of attention she paid was addictive. Matsuko’s ass was like butter in Rémi’s hands, churning around the tool that gave her pleasure. Her juice dripped to Rémi’s fingers, slick and plentiful. The lush length of her tongue in Rémi’s mouth, lips wet and open, the breath huffing like a distant freight train. She rode Rémi slowly but forcefully, sweat between their bellies slipping and warm. Rémi could have forced her to move faster, but she didn’t. She allowed Matsuko her leisure, courting the liquid slide of sensation in her own belly until the heat crawled up her chest, engulfed her face, squeezed her eyes tightly shut.

  It was an orgasm she saw coming from minutes away. Minutes in which she imagined Claudia’s face, imagined that it was her moving like a wave on the jutting red cock. Her gasps, relentless. Her lips like Scotch whisky. The orgasm split Rémi from the inside out, carved out a wide space in her throat for her to call out Claudia’s name and mean it.

  Rémi shouted into Matsuko’s mouth. The girl shuddered on top of her like a small bird, heart fluttering, cooing sounds in her throat. With her body flush and breathless with release, Rémi barely moved when Matsuko sat up, mouth rosy wet and breasts and belly glistening with sweat.

  “Thank you,” the small woman panted. A pulse beat heavily in her throat.

  “Glad I could oblige,” Rémi gasped.

  She brushed her palms up Matsuko’s thighs, the slight curve of her hips, her small waist. Her nipples shrank like late summer strawberries under Rémi’s thumbs. The electricity in her body fizzled out and she became aware, slowly, of the wet spot under her ass and the cooling dampness between her thighs. Matsuko, sensing her withdrawal, dismounted and, looking at Rémi over one pale shoulder with eyes soft as love, blew a kiss before disappearing into the bathroom. Her sisters crawled toward Rémi to take her place.

  The women lay spooned, like children, naked and exhausted under the sheet that Rémi pulled over them. An existence with them floating in and out of her bed was someone’s dream. And as she watched them, Rémi realized that this was no longer her dream. Claudia. She wanted Claudia. But she couldn’t have her. It was simple as family. The older woman, her warm heart, and her daughter who was also Rémi’s best friend were the only family that she had left and could count on. She could take sex from women like these. Willing, passionate women who shared tenderness along with their bodies. Afterward, only afterward could she go into Claudia’s house for something beyond the flesh. For sweetness that had nothing more attached to it than a desire for Rémi to be happy.

  Quietly, with the sun a blazing amber ball falling outside the window, Rémi pulled on her clothes. The rumpled slacks, thin undershirt, long-sleeved shirt rolled up at the sleeves. She gave the women one last look before she left the hotel suite, pulling the door shut behind her.

  At home, Yvette swept her once with an amused gaze. “Long day?”

  “Not really.” Rémi threw her keys in the bowl by the door and walked between her sister and the flickering television. “I’m leaving again in a few, but I’m taking the bike this time. Feel free to use the car for errands or whatever.”

  “Thanks.”

  She felt her sister’s eyes on her as she bounded up the stairs, lightly gripping the railing. “I have been known to be generous,” Rémi said.

  Yvette’s laughter followed her into the room. Hours later, showered, dressed, and back at the club, she paused. Twenty-four hours ago, she had been right here. It felt like nothing had changed. Despite her cathartic marathon with the Nakamura sisters, Rémi still felt empty. As if she’d done nothing more fulfilling the last few hours than brush her teeth. There had to be more to it than this.

  On the stage below, Sage crooned one of her original songs to the restaurant’s early crowd. In her leather pants, white muscle shirt, and miles of tattoos etched over her body, she could have been any rock star. And even as her friend moved across the stage, seemingly singing for everyone within ear’s reach, it was obvious to Rémi, watching from above, that she was only aware of Phillida, her woman draped back in her chair watching with a smile of possession. Despite the very unique aspects to their relationship, the two women were happy together.

  Rémi shoved her hands in her pockets. Sighed. Pushed away the image that came automatically to her mind in the most inconvenient moments. This, she thought looking down at her friends, was what she wanted for herself. Happiness.

  But could she get it with Claudia or was she setting herself up for heartache and an even bigger loss than she was prepared to take? The phone in her pocket rang and Rémi reached for it. Claudia’s name flashed across the cell phone screen and she was helpless to the surge of happiness that flooded her chest. But... she didn’t answer the call. Rémi let it ring until the small beep sounded, her voice mail picking up. Fuck.

  Chapter 11

  The next day, Rémi dialed Claudia’s number, but after the fourth ring, she got dropped into the voicemail. She hung up. That’s psycho behavior, Bouchard. She’s going to know it’s you. Caller ID fucking up the stalker again. Shit. It had been over a week since Rémi had seen Claudia. Over a week since she’d made the decision not to pursue the older woman. But that decision wasn’t an easy one to sit with. At night, at the most unexpected times, her body remembered the feel of Claudia against it. Recalled the smell of her breath. The sound of her voice. The way she asked nicely for something she really wanted. Those memories became too much. Rémi had to call. Just to see how she was doing. Besides, she hadn’t returned Claudia’s call from three nights before, only sent a message directly to her voicemail letting her know she was managing the club while Elena was away.

  She called back. At the second ring, Claudia answered. Breathless.

  “Sorry about that. I was getting dressed.”

  Rémi’s eyes fluttered closed at the image of Claudia, her pretty breasts in a bra, something black and lacy, a delicate swell in the A cups, as she bent down to fasten black silk stockings to a garter. Rémi breathed deeply.

  “Candy Dulfer will be at the club tonight,” Rémi said. “Do you want to come check it out?”

  “Oh. Really? That sounds so good.” Disappointment leaked into her small pause. “But I can’t.”

  Rémi put one and nothing together. “You have a date?”

  “Yes.”

  “Who is it?” Then she cursed herself for asking.

  “No one you know.”

  Okay. She deserved that. “You’re probably right. Have fun anyway, and give the lucky guy my regards.” And she closed the cell phone. Then cursed herself for being an idiot. Not smooth at all. Not even a little bit.

  Night was approaching. It slid between the cracks of the sun, signs of impending darkness. The skyscrapers emptying of their daytime prisoners, cars speeding toward more comforting destinations, lights flickering on all over the city. Rémi sat in her truck, remembering how Claudia had filled it with her presence and her scent. Tonight, she would do the same to someone else’s car. She would tease them with her light laughter, with the way she arched her neck and reached toward the source of her amusement
, touching with a careless hand or feather-light fingers. Rémi imagined Claudia kissing her date, this mystery man, and she felt her jaw clench. She forced herself to shake it off. She had to get to work.

  The parking lot behind the club was quiet, misleadingly so on some nights. Most people didn’t know about this smaller lot that she and club employees used. As Rémi neared the back stairs, she heard the sound of voices raised in argument and other noises, of an instigating crowd that didn’t belong at her club.

  “Fuck off! I can’t believe you did that shit.”

  “I didn’t do anything.” The sound of a slap connecting stopped the rest of whatever that person was going to say. “Stop this nonsense right now.” The voice came back with a hoarse shout.

  “Nonsense? I can’t believe you slept with her. She is supposed to be off limits.”

  Sage and Phillida stood in a loose circle of over half a dozen people, arguing. As the onlookers saw Rémi, they nudged each other, met Rémi’s eyes in quick greeting, then walked quickly toward Gillespie’s entrance. Sage had her hands wrapped tightly around Phillida’s wrists. The muscles in her arms and neck stood out in harsh relief as she tried to keep her struggling girlfriend under control.

  Rémi walked toward the couple. “Aren’t you guys kinda early? The stage show doesn’t start until ten.”

  Phil glared at Rémi. “Back off. This is none of your business.”

  Rémi’s generous mood vanished. “It actually is my business. Gillespie’s to be exact.” She glanced around, noticing the lingering pairs of eyes peeking out the club’s window. A car pulled up, another employee coming in to work for the night. Aimee, the sous chef, emerged from the small silver Toyota and glanced quickly toward the threesome before making her way toward the building, the hem of her pink skirt fluttering quickly around her knees.

  “There’s no drama here. None.” Rémi looked from one woman to the other to push her point home. “Take it somewhere less public.”

  “Listen, Rémi—”

  Sage cut her girlfriend off. “It’s cool. Sorry about that.”

  “No—” Phil tried to protest but she tugged her hands forward until the two women were chest to chest. She hissed something, and Phil subsided. Then the two women turned and walked quickly into the club.

  This was definitely not what Rémi wanted to deal with today. Her friends didn’t often fight, but when they did it was a pain in the ass for everyone around them. She scrubbed a hand through her curls and blew out a harsh breath. Women.

  She missed Claudia’s presence. One of the main reasons she’d invited Candy Dulfer to come was because Claudia loved her music. Dulfer was one of the few modern jazz artists that Rémi was guaranteed to hear when she walked into the older woman’s house. Otherwise Claudia preferred the classics like Dinah Washington, Johnny Hartman, and Billie Holiday. And now she was out on a date with some fucking guy. But Rémi would get over this. She had to.

  In her office, she went through one of her many nightly routines, going over the accounts and employee evaluations with a sharp-eyed diligence she trusted to no one, not even Elena. Once finished, she prepped for the night. Found the right clothes to wear in her massive closet hidden in the bedroom at the rear of the office.

  When she was at Gillespie’s it was mostly a show. She was a version of herself that burned hotter, haloed more brightly than usual. The clothes, shoes, even accessories—cufflinks, watch, even the three diamond earrings winking from each ear—represented a certain kind of image: the success and sexual magnetism of Rémi Bouchard, owner and manager of Gillespie’s Jazz and Martini Bar. It was part of the show that people expected when they came, and it was what she gave them. They expected to come to Gillespie’s and see the life-sized version of the androgynous demigod on the billboards hovering above the city. And that’s exactly who she gave them. In the club she flirted with men and women alike, smiling, charming, and seemingly available.

  The cool AC combined with the lazily turning ceiling fans churned the air in the club. Rémi felt the thick waves of her hair begin to loosen from the mousse she’d put through it earlier. The short curls tickled the tops of her ears and the back of her neck, telling her it was time for her to get a haircut. The trim she’d had just before Dez’s wedding was already grown out, leaving her hair in loose black curls around her head. If she wasn’t careful, she’d soon start looking like a butch Shirley Temple with a tan. Not the impression she was going for.

  Rémi wove her way through the crowd as Candy Dulfer reigned on the stage, lulling the audience into an ecstatic stupor. Those not captivated by the saxophone watched Rémi. She felt their eyes on her, and she acknowledged those she could. Her eyes licked over them: the cool widow who’d lured Rémi into her bed a few months ago and wanted an encore, a stranger with friendly green eyes, the waitress walking by with the flirtatious saunter. Rémi turned and walked away from the need in their faces. Not tonight. She slipped quietly through the tables and the darkness and jazz-perfumed air to find her office.

  Light peeked from beneath the not quite closed door. Rémi heard noises and smelled a familiar combination of scents. Jaw clenched in irritation, she shoved the door open.

  They had barely made it inside the office before they started fucking. Sage’s pants lay discarded on the floor beside her shirt and Phil’s purse. Her shirt was unbuttoned and pushed aside to show her heaving breasts. The carpet must have been scraping her back as she took the pressure of Phil’s hand filling up her pussy, thrusting three fingers deep and grunting as Phil, still wearing her frilly peach polka-dot dress with her forehead dripping sweat and her lips skinned back to show clenched white teeth, fucked the cum right out of her girlfriend.

  One of the tattooed woman’s legs pointed toward the ceiling, a sleekly muscled calf grasped tightly in Phil’s hand.

  “I love you,” Sage hissed between her clenched teeth. “I love you.”

  The sound of their frantic fucking expanded in the room until it was just Sage’s snaking breath, Phil’s fingers plunging in and out of the dripping pussy, Phil’s panting excitement. The two women were swallowed by it. Arousal gnawed at Rémi’s skin. Suddenly it felt like years since she’d shared pleasure that powerful with a woman.

  The two lovers only saw each other and only heard the sound of their shared passion. Although she knew that they wouldn’t mind if she stayed to watch, Rémi backed out of her office and closed the door firmly on her friends. She wanted a smoke. The bite of her seven-year-long nicotine habit sharply made itself known. Her lips suddenly longed to feel the stroke of a Marlboro Light. She even missed the sting of the smoke in her eyes and the heavy scent it left on her clothes. But cold turkey or not, she’d quit and was determined to stick by that decision. She didn’t want to pollute Claudia’s air with it.

  Rémi leaned back against the wall near her office door and took out a piece of peppermint gum. It wasn’t ideal, but it would do. With a powerful act of will, she carefully emptied her mind of anything to do with Claudia or sex or what was going on behind her office door.

  Nearly an hour passed before Phil and Sage emerged from the other side. The two women, pleasantly rumpled and smelling of mouthwash and sex, didn’t notice her at all as they came out. Phillida slowly walked backwards down the small flight of stairs leading from Rémi’s office, and Sage followed, chasing the other woman’s lips with her own. Phil giggled and tangled her fingers in her girlfriend’s shirt.

  Rémi rolled the peppermint gum around on her tongue.

  “Does this mean I can have my office back now?”

  Her friends barely looked away from each other.

  “Yeah,” Sage muttered between kisses. “Thanks for the loan.”

  Phil laughed and passed by Rémi, brushing a hand over the tall woman’s belly clothed in the pressed white shirt. She watched them drift into the darkened club with the music of Candy Dulfer the soundtrack to their graceful escape. Envy tugged at her skin, and she looked away as if from a too-bright lig
ht.

  Chapter 12

  Rémi left Gillespie’s for her first night off in too many days. She left the club in the pseudocapable hands of her assistant manager, Gerard, with instructions to call her if he needed anything at all. Anything.

  The night seemed as if it would be a trouble-free one, just like the past two weeks. Whatever trouble Anderson seemed intent on stirring up was dormant, and Rémi was grateful. It was hard enough for her to manage the club and remain socially available to her patrons plus maintain a life of her own. Her attentions were stretched and her nights of sleep were getting fewer, but it was nothing she couldn’t handle.

  Tonight all she wanted to do was stretch out on the sand and watch the moon overhead. But another part of her, the more responsible, less selfish part wanted to go home and talk with Yvette. Her sister seemed wounded even with all her bravado and charm. Like Rémi sometimes felt on the inside. But...

  The bike growled under her as she coasted down Biscayne under the slivered moon and too-bright streetlights. Strip malls. Roti shops. Tanning salons. The eerie glow of the twenty-four-hour McDonald’s. She passed them all, stripping everything from her mind but the essentials of navigating the bike, keeping out of the way of reckless drivers.

  It had been days since she’d seen Claudia. Those days felt like a yawning gap of time. Before it would have been nothing to go a few days without seeing her. Even with Dez out of town, she had felt no hesitation about dropping in on her former professor, whether it was to talk for a few minutes or an hour about the events of the day or sit in her kitchen or on her deck while Claudia took care of her own business. Now, things were different.