Big on Education

by Laurie Ames

  “Did you really kick us out of our booth just so you could drink alone?”

  The voice that spoke to Lena was dark and warm, smooth. She didn’t hear any irritation in it – bemusement, maybe, and perhaps a touch of mockery. But no anger.

  She focused on the voice because the woman who was speaking took her breath away. She was tall and solidly athletic. Her skin was lightly tanned, and her hair flowed down around her neck like black ink on a piece of parchment. She had high, strong cheekbones, and her mouth looked like it was made for kissing. Her eyes were foxlike and had an icy grey-green hue like the first sprouts of flowers in the snow.

  Lena mentally shook herself. This wasn’t lounge 69. She needed to focus. Even though this wasn’t one of her restaurants, plenty of people she worked with could be here. This wasn’t the time or place.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, the truth bubbling out before she could think better of it. “I was going to be drinking with a friend, but then she took off with the bartender, and now I’m here by myself.” Well, that was slightly better than babbling about how gorgeous the woman was. Slightly.

  “I thought you guys were on your way out?” Lena continued. That wasn’t any better. She resisted the urge to clamp her lips shut with her fingers.

  The woman watched her for a moment, then slid into the booth across from Lena. Her fine eyebrows were arched high, and a smile that teased the corner of her mouth gave her the look of someone who was pleasantly surprised.

  “We were. They ended up going somewhere.” Her voice trailed off and she shrugged. “How corny would it be right now if I said I wanted to stick around and see about a girl?”

  Lena blinked. It took her a minute to get the reference. “Are you – did you just quote a Robin Williams film at me?”

  The girl raised one eyebrow higher. “Maybe.”

  Is she flirting with me? Lena took a deep breath, trying to slow down her thumping heart.

  “Well,” she said. “I guess it would depend on the girl you wanted to see.” She traced a finger down the cool side of her glass of wine, trying to find her inner cool. It was showing no signs of presenting itself.

  The girl raised her eyebrows a little higher, then raised a hand at the bar. The bartender who’d taken over for Dmitri – Sarah, Sally? Sandy? Something with an S – saw the gesture and nodded. Lena was casually impressed, the girl was here often enough that Sally or Sandy, knew her drink.

  “I’m Kel,” the girl said as she turned back. She extended a hand across the table. It took a moment before Lena took the hand. The girl’s grip was firm, solid, and her fingers and palms were well-callused. It was a nice grip. A pleasant shiver ran up her spine at the contact, and Lena firmly reminded herself that she was at least ten years older than this young lady.

  “Lena,” she replied, after a silence that had strung along until it was uncomfortable. It took another moment to remember why she needed to let go of the girl’s hand.

  “Look,” Kel said after another long moment. “I really suck at picking up girls. I’m pretty sure you’re trying not to look at my cleavage, but maybe you are? And if you are, do you wanna get out of here?”

  It was absolutely the worst pickup line that Lena had ever heard, but the answer was a strong, resounding yes. She wanted to be somewhere else, maybe even someone else. And this girl – she was just a kid. What could go wrong?

  “Yes,” Lena said. “I really do.”

  Chapter Three

  “So, this is me,” Kel said, spreading her arms wide and spinning just a little. She wore a long cotton skirt that flared around her knees in an innocent, childlike way. The loft apartment was tiny, but it was well organized. Soft, gauzy curtains hung down from the ceiling, creating partitions in the open floor plan, and twinkling lights hung from the ceiling, wound together with strings of ivy. The bed in the corner was covered in a plum purple duvet and mounded with pillows.

  “Sorry,” Kel said after the pause that once again grew uncomfortable. “I don’t have a lot of visitors. In fact – I mean, I hardly ever do this – “

  Lena lifted a hand and set her purse down. “No, I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m standing here like I’m judging you, and it’s completely wrong of me. Honestly, I don’t do this either. I was just trying to figure out how I go from admiring your décor to kissing you.”

  Kel laughed, and the sound was merry without being thin. “So, if neither of us do this, what are we doing here?”

  Lena stumbled over her words, suddenly unsure of what she wanted to say. What was she doing in this room and in this place with someone that reminded her of a mature teenager?

  Kel, however, read the sudden shift in mood and stepped in close. Her hands danced up Lena’s arm, watching her expression closely.

  “Hey,” she said, her voice as soothing as if she were speaking to a frightened animal. “Hey. I’m sorry. I was trying to tease. This is kind of ridiculous, but I just kind of figured – “her cheeks flushed bright red and she laughed.

  Lena picked up the thread. “Since I’m older than you, obviously I’ve done this more?”

  Kel gave a little shrug that was clearly as close as the girl was going to get to saying yes. “I didn’t mean that.”

  Lena found herself giggling. “Random sex, I’ve done. I promise. But this – going back to someone’s place and making conversation? This part I’m not so good at.”

  The girl’s pupils were dark enough to fall into, spreading out into the deep green of her eyes. “Well, then. Maybe we should stop talking.”

  She stepped into Lena’s airspace, and this, Lena knew how to do. Her hands went to Kel’s waist, digging ever so gently into the soft flesh, tugging her a little closer. Lena was all angles and Kel was soft curves; Kel was a little bit taller, but not so much that it made it awkward to lean in and kiss her.

  The first brush of lips was tentative, soft, and careful. Almost exploratory. The second brush came with Kel’s mouth opening in a moan, and the girl diving for Lena’s mouth, her tongue and teeth finding Lena’s lips and tracing them with soft heat. Lena pulled her harder, then trailed her fingers up the girl’s sides, light enough to be ticklish, to find the bottoms of Kel’s breasts. The girl made a sound that fell somewhere between a sigh and a moan, then broke the contact all of a sudden.

  Lena caught her ego before it fell to the floor and shattered. “Everything okay?”

  “My knees are weak,” Kel said, her voice a little broken. “I want to take you to bed.”

  “Okay,” Lena replied, and let herself be taken by the hand and led across the studio to a gauzy pile of pillows. Lena watched the girl have an awkward moment when she realized there was no graceful way to toss the fluffy obstacles onto the floor, then saved her by doing exactly that. She sat down on the edge of the bed and made a come-hither gesture to the girl. She knew what she wanted and was fairly sure the girl would oblige her. “Take off your pants.”

  Kel raised a surprised eyebrow at the simple command, but then willingly complied. She didn’t waste time making it a strip tease. She hooked her thumbs to the top of her leggings and calmly pushed them down her thighs, kicking them off in the direction of the pillow pile. Lena drank in the view of her beautiful freshly shaved vagina that peeked out slightly from the vee in her panties. She was wearing simple cotton blue panties, which was somewhat interesting. Lena guessed that she hadn’t gone out planning to pick someone up. Which was both flattering – it was one thing to get picked up for random sex, and another thing entirely to be so tempting that someone changes their plans – but also concerning – what would she expect after tonight. And then Kel’s mouth turned up in a soft grin, and Lena didn’t care anymore. When Kel stepped towards her, Lena leaned back a little on the edge of the bed, enough to give Kel space to kneel in her lap, facing her. It put an interesting discrepancy in their heights, letting Lena put her hand on the back of Kel’s neck and pull her down for another kiss. “Tell me what you want,” she whispered while breathing ag
ainst the Kel’s mouth.

  Kel murmured something that Lena didn’t catch and ground softly – and then less softly – against Lena’s lap. “I want to forget what’s in my head,” she said after a moment, more clearly.

  Lena swallowed a giggle. She remembered being that earnest, and she was pretty sure the girl wouldn’t understand what she found funny. “I’m glad to help you with that,” she replied. “But how would you like me to go about it?”

  The girl didn’t say anything, and Lena reached up, pressing the flat of her thumbs against Kel’s nipples, which were hard as stones inside her bra. The girl gasped, leaning into the caress. “Do you like this?” Asked Lena.

  “Yes,” she said, nodding hard.

  “What about this?” Lena reached between them, cupping the heat of Kel’s sex with her hand. Kel groaned, grinding against Lena’s palm.

  “Yes,” Kel said again. “All of it, yes. Please. I want. I want more.”

  A horrible thought ran through Lena and she pulled her hand back for a moment. Kel’s eyes opened – her gaze hazy with lust and her eyes unfocused. She made a kittenish sound, and Lena pressed a finger against her lips for a moment. “Hey,” Lena said. “I need to talk to you for a second.”

  “Yeah.” Kel nodded. She closed her eyes hard for a moment, then opened them again, her gaze more tightly focused.

  “I need to know I’m not your first.”

  “What?”

  There went her ego. “You deserve better than me for your first. Anyone deserves better than me for their first.”

  Kel blinked rapidly, a bunch of times, then leaned back a little and laughed. “Oh, honey,” she said.

  Lena sensed a touch of Southeast drawl in her reply.

  “Oh Honey, no,” Kel said. “I was the girl that takes all the other girl’s virginity. It’s just that – it’s been a while. I was with one guy for a long time. And it didn’t work out. So, it’s been a while, and I – well things got awkward with my friends. And I’m in a new city, and I’m so damned horny that I want to scream. I swear to you, that’s all you’re sensing. I don’t want to rush, and I want to come slow and long, because it has been too damn long since it was anything but a vibrator or my own fingers, you know?”

  Lena knew. She knew so well. In answer, she pulled the girl close to her again and nipped at the swell of her breast between the vee of her shirt. “So if I did this,” she said, sliding her hand inside the girl’s cotton panties and dipping a finger into the growing wetness there, “this wouldn’t fit into your careful plan?” Kel started to quiver and shake as Lena’s hand pressed right against her G-Spot.

  “Oh Jesus,” Kel whispered. She was shaking, struggling just a little. Lena wasn’t giving her quite the contact she needed to ride her palm to a shattering orgasm, but it was so close that she could taste it. “What are you trying to do to me?”

  “Make you forget,” Lena said. “Put you in the now.” She slid that one finger inside the her, expecting another one of those kittenish mews, but instead, she got a groan that seemed to come from her toes. She stroked inside the girl, noticing the intimate places that made her hold her breath and arch her back. As she expanded, Lena added another finger, finding the rhythm that made her gasp. Kel started to ride her hand, fucking herself on Lena’s fingers, but when Lena shifted her palm to let Kel slap her clit on the heel of Lena’s hand, the girl shook her head.

  “Too much,” Kel said. “Like this. Too much. Just your fingers for now. And please kiss me. Can you kiss me? Will you kiss me deep?”

  She said it like it was some kind of hardship. Lena pulled their mouths together again, parting Kel’s lips with her tongue and thrusting into her with perfect rhythm, while exploring her entire mouth.

  Lena wildly fondled her with an index finger and thumb, and this made Kel go wild, as if an inferno had burst inside her. It was moments before Kel exploded, shattering everywhere. It wasn’t a pretty orgasm, nothing you’d see in a movie. She groaned harshly, her chest heaved, her belly shook, but it was one of the most honest and organic things that Lena had ever seen. It was pure sweaty sex, and oh so hot.

  Kel sagged as the twisting tension passed out of her muscles, and Lena slipped her fingers free, careful to avoid the clit that she was sure would be almost painful right now. Lena let them fall backwards onto the bed, and Kel’s head naturally pillowed onto her shoulder.

  “Better than strawberry cheesecake,” Kel murmured, her voice gently sleepy. “Sorry. Gimme a minute. I’ll get to you, love. I just need a minute...Wow!”

  Lena didn’t manage to fight back the giggle this time. “You like strawberry cheesecake, I take it?”

  “It’s one of my specialties, I’ll bake it for you sometime, my love,” Kel said, her voice still distracted and fuzzy.

  And for a moment, it was just a cute thing that the girl who’d just fucked herself on Lena’s hand was muttering in a sexy post-orgasm haze. But then pieces started to fall into place. She was someone who loved to cook, and she had just moved to town…

  OMG!

  “Kelsie?” Lena said, hoping against hope that she wouldn’t respond to that name.

  Instead, she lifted her head up, her brow furrowed. “How did you know to call me by Kelsie?”

  It was probably not the sexiest thing Lena had ever done, but she started thumping herself gently in the head with the heel of her hand.

  Chapter Four

  The next day, Lena drove towards her mother’s home, trying to script how the whole event would go. “Hello! We’ve never met before. I certainly did not finger fuck you last night. I absolutely did not go to your place and spend some quality time with you. I tried not to imagine you spanking me with a wooden spoon for putting too much saffron in the risotto. Would you like a job?” It left something to be desired.

  She’d basically walked out of Kel’s – Kelsie’s – apartment. It hadn’t been graceful. She hadn’t managed to say why she was leaving, just stumbled through some words about having an early morning, and have a good night, and she was sorry. The poor kid probably thought that Lena had some sort of trigger event because of her full name.

  She’d thought of a dozen excuses to avoid the damn party, but none of them had worked in her head, so putting them out into the world seemed both foolish and useless. A plain “I can’t make it” would never work with her Mom.

  So she drove to the house, parked, and walked inside. There was another car in the driveway, and one parked on the road. The Donaldson’s and their daughter Kelsie, Lena had supposed.

  As soon as she walked in the front door, she heard laughter and music coming from the back yard. That was nice; Mama hadn’t laughed all that much in the last few years. It was a gorgeous sound to hear her laugh again. But she braced herself for the awkward moment when she had to lock gazes with her supposedly random hook-up from the night before and walked outside.

  Mama saw her first, of course, and waved like they hadn’t seen each other in weeks. “Lena-love,” she called out. Lena pushed her lips up in a smile and waved cheerfully back. Meanwhile Lena’s eyes were fixed on the strong curved hips and sexy backside that was turned away from her. The back that had suddenly gone stiff and rigid. She saw the quick sideways peek over the shoulder, and suddenly she felt worse – so much worse – for not warning Kel about what was coming down the pike. She’d owed the girl that much at least.

  The Donaldson’s shook hands, and Lena smiled and nodded, but it was that firm backside that she couldn’t take her eyes off. She saw the quick sideways glance as the tall woman confirmed what her ears had probably already told her. She saw the shoulders square, and then the smooth turn, just as Mrs. Donaldson said, “And I’m sure your mother told you about our dearest daughter, Kelsie?”

  The girl shook her head even as she extended a hand towards Lena. “Kel. My friends call me Kel.” She shifted her gaze so that her eyes met Lena’s, and – Lena wasn’t entirely sure what she’d expected to see. Anger or disgust? Maybe demands and t
hreats? But instead, all Lena could read on the girl’s face was a quiet understanding.

  “Pleased to meet you,” Lena said, extending her hand and sealing a bargain that she didn’t entirely understand.

  The tension in the air ratcheted down. Lena sat down to the meal and beer that her mother had put in front of her. She complemented Mr. Donaldson on the barbeque, but when pressed, he happily confessed that his daughter was the chef in the family, and she’d made the sauce. Which of course naturally turned the conversation towards Lena’s business, and gave her the perfect opportunity to mention that she was looking for a new head chef for the restaurant she’d just acquired.

  Kel had been quiet through much of the conversation, but at that, she glanced back and forth between her parents, looked over at Lena’s Mom, and then stood up so quickly she almost tipped her chair over. “Excuse me,” she said, “I need to run to the ladies.”

  A quiet fell over the table for a moment, and Lena found herself wracking her brain for an excuse to follow the woman into the house. She couldn’t come up with one, and after a moment, she just stood up, and walked into the house.

  The downstairs bathroom door stood open, so Lena went upstairs, to the larger bathroom off the second-floor hallway. She tapped gently on the door and heard Kel snap “Go away.” Then, there was a long sigh, and she heard, “I mean, I’ll be out in just a moment.”

  “Kel? It’s me,” Lena said.

  The door yanked open so fast that Lena almost fell forward. “What?” Kel asked. “What the fuck do you want?”

  “I wanted to say that I’m sorry. Honestly, I had no idea – “

  Kel pulled the door open farther, put her hand on Lena’s elbow, and pulled her into the room. Her cheeks were damp, like she’d been crying, which twisted up Lena’s heart. The door closed, and Lena rested her butt on the counter, trying to keep her body posture open and friendly without – shit, she didn’t even know what she wasn’t trying to do.