But I had a feeling that she was thinking along the same lines as me. The sultry look in her eyes, the heat behind her kiss… It was very likely that I’d be getting Lora Dayton naked in the next few minutes, and I was as terrified as I was excited.
“Hey, Virginia!” Lora called when we got into her apartment. “I missed you, did you miss me?” She tipped cat food into Virginia’s bowl while I unlooped my scarf and took off my jacket.
Once Virginia was nose-down in her food bowl, Lora smiled at me. “What kind of drink would you like? I have wine, rum, Kahlua…”
“Do you have hot chocolate?”
“Naturally.” She opened the cupboard. “A Kahlua hot chocolate, then?”
“That sounds amazing.”
She switched on some music with a Bluetooth speaker, a wordless soft jazz that put me more in the mood than I already was. She hummed to herself as she bustled around the kitchen area, putting two cups of milk in the microwave and then spooning in cocoa powder.
I waited, watching her affectionately. She didn’t seem nervous, so I should try not to be, either. It was just that sex was going to solidify the fact that we were dating – even though we’d already been on a date. If we went through with this, she was more than likely going to become my girlfriend.
It was scary because I worried about her, but also for myself. I’d be handing her my heart – it was already halfway gone. What if she couldn’t handle being in a healthy relationship? What if she’d become addicted to the highs and lows of being with Chantel? Her ex was still trying to get her back, and I doubted she’d stop – so what if Lora ever decided to go?
“Here you go.” She handed me the warm mug, placing another kiss on my cheek. “I hope it’s hot enough.”
“Oh, I’m sure it’s more than hot enough.” A giggle escaped me, making me cringe at myself. An almost forty-year-old woman giggling?
Lora didn’t seem to mind. “You’re more than hot enough,” she murmured, her arms snaking around my waist.
My core fluttered as her lips met mine once more. Setting my drink on the counter, I backed her against the wall. Had that been too rough? Would I scare her? She let out a moan, nipping my neck, and my worries vanished.
I tipped my head to the side to give her access to my neck, and every nerve in my body came alive as she worked her way to my collarbone. Her hands were on my waist, gripping me, and she spun me around so that my back was against the wall now.
Wait, this was wrong. I wanted to do things to her… to bring her pleasure. She was too beautiful and amazing – I needed to worship her – but what she was doing felt too good to tell her to stop.
Besides, I wasn’t supposed to be helping her. And even if that probably didn’t include helping her to orgasm, it seemed appropriate to let her do me first.
She nipped down to the neckline of my shirt and paused, her eyes searching mine.
“Keep going,” I breathed. “Yes…”
She pulled down my top and my bra, and my head spun with pleasure. My world tilted as she guided me to the bed only a few feet away, and I obediently lifted my arms for her to take my clothes off.
“Oh my God,” she murmured. “Sydney, you’re… you’re fucking gorgeous.”
I quivered at the sincerity behind her words – then quivered because she was reaching between my thighs. Her fingers met my heat, rubbing and circling with a light touch that left me breathless. Her mouth on my breasts again, she had me at my edge within minutes.
“Oh, honey,” I moaned. “Just like that… Lora…” She stopped, and my hips bucked in protest. “Baby… please…”
She dove between my legs, and then I understood. A second after her tongue landed, my entire body seized up. “Aaaahhh…” The climax came in waves, one after another, her soft tongue coaxing them out of me until I thought they’d never stop.
When I was spent, it was my turn to explore her gorgeous body. I couldn’t wait to make her feel all the things she’d just done to me. I eased her out of her clothes, one piece at a time, taking a minute to admire each new expanse of smooth skin. By the time I got between her legs, she was panting and unbelievably, beautifully wet.
I dipped in to taste her, and she gave a soft cry. She was just as sweet and tangy as I would’ve imagined, and I let my tongue delve deeper. Hearing her sighs, I longed to elicit more out of her. I wanted to make her come for hours.
My tongue danced on her little nub, and after only a few minutes, her body shook beneath me. “Holy fuck,” she breathed. “Sydney…”
“Mmm?” I asked, sensing she wanted to say more, but unwilling to stop.
She grabbed the back of my head, holding me to her core as her legs began to tremble again. “You really are an angel.”
Twenty-Three – Lora
“So, you’re going to come over after your volunteer shift?” I asked over the phone.
“Yep, unless you’d like to come over here.” Sydney’s voice was bright and warm, making me miss her more than I already did. I’d just seen her the night before, but I hated to spend even a few hours apart.
“Either way works,” I said. “Do you want to hang out with Virginia, or do you want to hang out in a nice condo?”
“Hmm… as much as I love that cat, I’m going to go with option B.”
I didn’t blame her. My place was the size of a shoebox, and even though it was fully furnished now, it still felt like student housing. Sydney’s condo was a grown woman’s home.
“Sounds good,” I said. “I’m going to get back to work.”
“All right, honey. Come over around six.”
I hung up, my nerves tingling at the sound of the pet name. We’d been dating for two weeks, and as much time as we spent together, I still hadn’t gotten used to the fact that I was honestly going out with Dr. Sydney Burgin.
Things felt more comfortable than I’d imagined. While I did get intimidated by her PhD and her career, I knew she was just as laid-back as me behind the scenes. She did read academic feminist theory for fun, but she also had a surprising passion for cheesy rom-coms and trashy talk shows.
Since I’d finished my lunch break, I went back to the article I’d been editing this morning. It wasn’t bad, just lacked a little polish, and I wished for the millionth time that I could ask Sydney for her thoughts on it.
The no-helping thing had been my idea, and I did think it’d given both of us some perspective on our relationship. I just kind of wondered whether we could’ve made an exception for my FemWorld articles. Without her feedback, maybe my writing would be so bad that my boss wouldn’t want it anymore, and I’d have to go back to working at the grocery store.
Ugh… I couldn’t believe how long I’d lasted there. Now that I was gone, I wondered how I’d ever made it through a single shift. It was so boring, and being on my feet all day had sucked. Plus I hadn’t given two weeks’ notice, so my boss there might not even be willing to take me back.
But that wasn’t seriously an option. I’d gotten the FemWorld job because they saw something in me, and even without Sydney’s help, I was going to make it. This experiment we were doing was to make both of us confident that I could stand on my own two feet.
And I could do it – I was sure I could. I’d ask someone else for feedback if I was unsure about an article. Any of my grad school classmates could do it, or I could ask my boss for her thoughts before I officially submitted it.
And yet somehow, when I arrived at Sydney’s place a few hours later, I was clutching a printout of my latest draft.
“I was thinking you could just read it,” I said, pressing it into her hands. “You don’t have to give me any comments. I’ll just watch your facial expression, and I’ll be able to guess if it’s good or not. Or if it’s really horrible, you can write down one or two things I need to fix. If you’re not saying it out loud, it’s not like you’re actually helping me, as such.”
She placed the papers on the counter behind her, keeping them out of my reach. “For s
omeone who came up with this whole experiment, you sure are keen to find a loophole.” She kissed my forehead. “I’m not going to read it, honey.”
“But I need you to,” I said. “I wouldn’t normally ask, but I’m really not sure about this one, and there’s no one else I can ask.” I reached around her to pick it up, then held it out to her with my best puppy-dog eyes. “Please, Syd?”
She took it from me, and for a joyous moment I thought she was accepting – until she tore the pages in half once, twice, three times. “I’m not going to, and you don’t need me to.” Another forehead kiss. “You’ll be just fine on your own. Now come have a glass of wine and tell me what else you did today.”
Although I sighed, I sat on the couch next to her, and after a few sips of wine, I started to relax about the article. Tomorrow I’d look over it one more time and send it off to Carly, my boss. If there was anything she wanted changed or added to it, she could tell me herself.
By the time we decided to order in rather than cooking, all of the anxiety had left me. “Thank you for standing up to me,” I said, wrapping my arms around her from behind as she examined the take-out menu. “It can’t always be easy, but you’re good at it.”
“I’m getting used to it,” she said. “By the time this month is up, you won’t even want me to help you anymore.”
We hadn’t actually discussed what would happen beyond this month – with the experiment, or with us. “Maybe you’ll be bored of me by then,” I said in a small voice. “Maybe helping me was all you ever found interesting.”
She set the menu on the table and spun around to look me in the eyes. “Do I seem like I’m bored with you, honey? I’m absolutely fascinated by you. Everything about you.”
“Oh.” Despite myself, I gave her a little smile. “So you’re not just sticking out this month to prove you can do it, and then you’ll never talk to me again?”
She gaped at me. “You come up with some strange ideas, Lora.”
“Well, I just… you know…” I fidgeted.
“I don’t know. What?”
“We haven’t really talked about, like, how much we like each other, or whether we’re official…”
She blinked. “You don’t know how much I like you?”
“I know we’re dating… I don’t know if I’m your girlfriend.”
A tinge of pink came into her cheeks. “Do you want to be?”
An image of Chantel came into my mind, and I immediately chased it away. I wasn’t betraying her by being with Sydney, because we weren’t together. I might’ve thought she was the love of my life, but I was wrong. I had a chance with an amazing woman now, one who’d never hit me or put me down, and there was no reason to even hesitate.
“Yes,” I said.
“Good.” Her lips brushed against mine. “Because I want to be your girlfriend, too.”
I kissed her for real then, and she ran her fingers through my hair… and it was quite a while before we got around to ordering take-out.
*
Being Sydney’s girlfriend came naturally to me. I would’ve thought I’d be stressed, knowing how brilliant she was and how I could never measure up. But she was so warm and kind, so completely genuine, that I often forgot she’d ever been my professor.
We fell into a routine – one night at her place, one at mine. We spent Sunday nights apart for some healthy space and so that we could each prepare for our week – but since our Saturday sleepovers lasted well into the afternoon, we still got more than enough of each other.
Sometimes we went on nice dates, and sometimes we stayed in. Although the movies and restaurants were all great, I preferred our nights in – cuddled up on the couch with some hot chocolate, her body fitting perfectly against mine.
Things were going well enough that I wondered if I might give up my shoebox apartment sooner rather than later. I didn’t want to rush things by any means, but paying rent felt silly when we practically lived together already.
“Today’s the day,” Sydney announced one day when she arrived at my place. She scooped up Virginia, who squirmed for a moment before reluctantly allowing herself to be petted.
“What day?” For a moment, I thought she was about to ask me to move in with her.
“It’s been a month,” she said with a grin. “I can help you again. Give you advice, read your articles…”
My eyes widened. I hadn’t realized the month had gone by so fast. It felt like we’d been together forever, and also like it’d been no time at all. “Is it weird that I’m more excited about our one-month anniversary than about you giving me advice again?”
“Yes, it’s really weird,” she laughed, putting Virginia down and taking me into her arms. “In fact, we should continue the experiment for another month because of that.”
“Really?”
She gave a slow shrug. “I’m glad you came up with the no-helping idea. Now that I’ve gotten used to it, I actually prefer our dynamic this way. I wouldn’t mind going on like this indefinitely.” She pinched my cheek and grinned. “It’s not because you said that about our one-month, though. Our one-month anniversary is very exciting, actually.”
Hmm… I did see where she was coming from. I’d been surprised to realize that Carly liked my articles just as much now as she had when Sydney was reading them. I’d learned a lot from getting and implementing her feedback, and now I automatically knew where to look for more sources and how to flesh out my arguments.
As for the rest of the advice she used to give me, I seemed to be doing okay. I didn’t need career advice, at least for the moment, and the Chantel situation was dead and buried, as far as I could tell. I felt like Sydney’s equal now in a way I hadn’t before, and I had to admit I liked the feeling.
“Let’s try,” I said, nodding. “If you ever really want to help me with something, you don’t have to hold back – but for day-to-day, you can try not to.”
“Perfect.” She kissed my nose, and I felt something press against my legs. Virginia rubbed against each of us in turn until we both bent down to give her some attention.
With my girlfriend and my cat at my side, everything seemed perfect.
But that was before we ran into Chantel.
*
It happened about a week after that conversation, and all things considered, I was surprised it hadn’t happened sooner. Bayridge was a small town, and I often ran into people I knew. In the queer community, circles were even smaller.
I’d taken Sydney out for drinks at the lesbian-friendly bar-slash-cocktail-lounge on the third floor of the Graham-Waites building. I’d been here with Chantel a few times during our relationship, and she was already at the back of my mind as we chose a table.
Sydney and I ordered quirkily-named mixed drinks from the menu. Her hand lay across mine, her thumb slowly stroking the inside of my palm, as we waited. After a few minutes, the drinks came, and we tried first our own, then each other’s.
Unfortunately, the peacefulness only lasted so long. As we sat and talked, a gasp came from behind me. I spun to find Chantel staring at me with a wild look in her eyes. A gaggle of her friends stood around her, all staring daggers at me until she shooed them away.
“So you are dating her,” she said. “You told me you weren’t, so when rumors started going around, I told everyone they were wrong. That you wouldn’t do that to me.”
“Chantel, we’re just trying to enjoy a drink,” Sydney said. “Lora didn’t do anything wrong, so please try to calm down. If you go sit with your friends, everything will be fine. No need to cause a scene.”
“I don’t need your kumbaya BS, bitch,” Chantel lashed out. “She was mine first, and I’ll talk to her however I want.”
“She’s your ex,” Sydney said. “You’re not together anymore, and she never belonged to you in the first place. She’s her own person, and you seem to have an issue understanding that.”
“Why don’t you go away and prey on another younger woman? I’d like to talk to Lo
ra alone.”
I rubbed my hand over my eyes. Maybe it was for the best if I took care of this by myself. “Do you mind just giving us a minute?” I said to Sydney. “Just go stand at the bar, and I’ll wave if I need you.”
Sydney hesitated, but she must’ve realized she’d still be in earshot, because she nodded. She got up and, with another scathing look at Chantel, headed over to the bar. Her eyes never left us as Chantel slid into the seat she’d vacated.
“I can’t tell you how heartbroken I am to see you with her,” Chantel said. “You’re really dating her, aren’t you?”
“Chantel, we broke up.” I held onto the edge of the table as if it was keeping me from sinking. “I’m moving on. You should do the same.”
“You can’t tell me she loves you like I love you,” Chantel said. “You know you’re the only one for me. I thought it was the same for you.”
She seemed genuinely pained, and that made me hurt inside, too. “I’m sorry,” I said, wondering how she’d twisted things so I was the one apologizing to my abuser. “It’s not about you anymore. It’s about me and her.”
“And I’m sure you two started this up before we even broke up, didn’t you?”
“No. I told you the truth about that. We’ve only been together for a few weeks, I swear.”
Her eyes bored into me, and I hoped she could see I was telling the truth. “Even if I believe that,” she said slowly, “you’re with her now. You’re not denying that.”
“I’m a free agent,” I said. “We broke up! We broke up! We broke up!”
With every repetition, she cringed back a little more. Her eyes closed with what seemed like pain, and she lifted her hand to cover her mouth. “I never thought you meant it,” she whispered. “I was always sure we would get back together. I knew you needed some time away from me, but I thought you’d come back to where you belong. With me.”
Seeing her hurting, it took everything I had to not rush over to her side of the table, wrap my arms around her, and press my lips to hers. But I’d never forget all the horrible things she had done to me. And my current, amazing girlfriend was standing right over there, watching us.
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