by Ann Roberts
“And did that other woman—or women—break your trust?”
“That or they never called again because they thought I was crazy. It’s happened every time I’ve told women other than my shrink.” She shrugged. “I basically gave up on the idea of having a girlfriend.”
Mazie’s heart hurt, but she was relieved to know Addy saw a professional. “Hey.” She drew Addy’s face between her hands and caressed her cheeks. When Addy finally looked at her, she said, “I’m not those women.”
“I feel that,” Addy whispered. “I really do.” Addy’s gaze flitted to the side. “They’re all about sex. In one I was a cashier at a store. There was this princess in my line… We wound up doing it in the frozen food aisle.”
“Really? Oh.” Mazie could tell Addy was watching her for any trace of judgment. She licked her lips. “That’s really hot.”
“You think so?”
Mazie nodded.
“Sometimes I’m in a position of power and sometimes not. Usually I don’t know the other woman.”
“Usually,” Mazie repeated. “Have I ever been in your fantasies?”
“No.”
Mazie looked away, dejected. Apparently she didn’t rate. “What about Bianca?”
Addy couldn’t meet her gaze. She had her answer. She closed her eyes and envisioned herself taking a step away. She took a breath and reached for Addy’s hand. Suddenly she saw a different image—taking a step forward. She decided her goal was to be the subject of all of Addy’s little mental vacations. She caressed Addy’s chin and turned her face so Addy had to gaze into her eyes. “I’m not a psychologist or psychiatrist, and if it makes you feel better, I’ve seen a psychologist for years, even more so after I got stage fright. I think we’re a lot alike. Just know you can trust me, and if you’re not ready to trust me yet, that’s okay. I’m here when you are.”
Addy’s look of relief sent tingles through Mazie. Their lips were only inches apart, and Addy closed the distance. Her kiss was hungry. Mazie gave her control, allowing Addy’s tongue inside her mouth.
It was a fiery kiss unlike any Mazie had experienced. It was as if Addy could anticipate when Mazie would slightly shift left or right, or when it was the perfect moment to take Mazie’s lower lip between her teeth. All Mazie could think about was Addy’s lips on her other lips. She was so wet, but when she reached for Addy’s zipper, Addy gently swatted her hand away.
“Not yet,” she whispered.
Another minute of kissing was all Mazie could take. At an apropos moment (as if there was one!) Mazie regretfully and gently pushed Addy away. “I have to stop.” Addy seemed bewildered and hurt, so Mazie added, “I’m about to explode, Addy. I want you—bad. But I respect your wishes. Do you understand what I’m telling you? That was the greatest necking session I’ve ever had. You’re like a fifteen on a scale of ten.”
Addy slowly grinned. “Thanks.”
“How did you become such a good kisser? I’ve kissed women twenty years older than you, and none of them are as talented. I’m not as talented as you.”
While Addy didn’t disagree, she said, “You’re a great kisser.”
Mazie buttoned up the front of her dress, which had miraculously come undone during the kissing session. “So what’s your secret?”
Addy looked amused and content. “I may not have a lot of experience, but I’ve done a lot of research. I’ve studied the kisses in every lesbian movie scene I’ve ever watched.”
“Well, your research has paid off,” Mazie retorted. “But tell me what you’ve learned.”
Addy fidgeted uncomfortably. “Well, I have a list.”
“Let’s hear it.”
“Okay.” She sat up straight, as if she were preparing to give a lesson. Her formality had the opposite effect on Mazie, who reclined on the bed to listen and learn.
Addy held up her index finger. “First, and perhaps most important, is to read the moment. Is it right for a kiss? And to be clear, I’m not talking about quick pecks or the end-of-the-movie-kisses. I’m talking about the first kiss.”
“You mean like the one we just shared?”
Addy’s face turned beet red. “Well, technically that was our second kiss.” She cleared her throat. “Don’t interrupt the lesson, please.”
Mazie held up a hand. “My apologies. Please continue.”
“Most films get that part right, but there are some where it’s just stupid. Like they’re right in the middle of a personal crisis or a natural disaster. No one is going to be kissing, at least not passionately.”
“Agreed.”
“Second factor. Approach. If someone is right-handed, she’ll usually lean to the right. Opposite for lefties. Have you ever had the experience where you go in for a kiss, but the other person’s head is at the wrong angle? So you shift your head and she shifts her head—”
“And then you just laugh at each other.”
“Exactly. And the moment is ruined. That’s number two. Number three: contact. The second that both sets of lips touch determines whether the kiss will be long and lingering or a complete crash and burn. Think about the first kiss between Vivian and Cay in Desert Hearts. And contact should always start with cradling the upper lip, not the lower lip. Moving for the lower lip makes it seem like you’ve got vision problems and you missed.”
Mazie chuckled. “You’ve just explained why it didn’t work out between me and a college blind date.” They both laughed, and Mazie said, “What’s number four, Dr. Smooch? And for the record, I’ve decided that’s what I’m calling you.”
“I like it,” Addy said proudly. “So number four is continuation. This is tricky because the kisser has to read the ability of the person being kissed. Think of it as mouth dancing. You know how in ballroom dancing the leader guides her partner around the floor by gently pushing on the small of her back? This is the same. And it depends on the experience level of the woman being kissed. The kisser may bring in a little tongue action, but if the other person isn’t ready for French kissing, the kiss will probably end, or, and this is worse in my opinion, the tongue action will resemble two dogs lapping at a water dish.”
“Not a pleasant image.”
“Indeed not,” Addy said primly.
“What about all the kissing in The L Word? I noticed you don’t have any TV posters.”
Addy scowled. “TV’s not the same. There are too many plots and too little time to build up the necessary suspense.”
Mazie sat up and faced Addy. She placed a hand on each of Addy’s knees and lightly stroked her thighs. “Now that I’m aware of your very important kissing criteria, I’d like to practice my form. I want an ‘A’ in Dr. Smooch’s class.”
Mazie knew how cliché she sounded, but Addy laughed and willingly obliged.
Chapter Sixteen
Had it not been for her date—and kissing lesson—with Mazie, Addy’s mood would have been awful. Fortunately she was only mildly glum when her internal alarm clock woke her at five a.m., the time she normally got up for work. She’d just swung out of bed when she realized she had nowhere to go. She remembered she was on leave, and her appointment with Nadine wasn’t until eleven thirty.
She’d texted Nadine after Mazie had left, saying she had new information about Pratul. Nadine texted back with some choice adjectives, a few emojis, and several different marks of punctuation. Although company policy forbade Jackie from sharing the details of Addy’s leave from the Transportation Department, once Addy told Nadine, Jackie could comment freely to Nadine as a friend. She may have blurred the lines, but neither Addy or Nadine felt compelled to second guess her. Then right before Addy fell asleep, when her mind reviewed the kiss with Mazie, she got a reassuring text message from Jackie. We’ve got your back.
Around seven, Jackie’s familiar soft knock sounded on her door. She held two steaming mugs of coffee and she handed one to Addy. “I wanted to check on you before I left. Are you okay?”
“Yeah. It’s weird not going to work s
ince I’m not sick.”
Jackie leaned against the front porch railing and Addy joined her outside. “You’ve never missed a day. Perfect attendance for the last year.”
“Yeah, and this is a stupid reason to miss work,” she pouted.
“Well, maybe you can find someone to spend the day with,” Jackie said quietly.
“You mean Mazie, the woman who was here last night.”
Jackie shrugged. “She didn’t seem to be your type.”
Although she wanted to defend Mazie, Addy held her tongue. While she knew she was standing on her own front porch, the property belonged to Jackie. And although she counted Jackie as a friend, Jackie was her supervisor. No matter how hard they attempted to keep their relationships separate, it was complex.
“I’m not sure what my type is. We have fun together.”
Jackie started to say something but then bit down on her lip.
“What?”
“Nothing. Forget it.” Jackie looked away and sipped her coffee.
“No, I want to know.”
Jackie glanced at Addy but quickly averted her gaze. It seemed as if she was embarrassed by what she was going to say even before she said it. “It’s just…Do you think… Could this woman possibly be a substitute for your mother?”
The question spewed out of her mouth quickly and it took Addy a moment to process it. Once she did, she turned furious. She slammed her cup on the porch railing and coffee sloshed everywhere. She didn’t bother to apologize and retreated inside, slamming the door behind her. She heard Jackie’s car start, but before it pulled out of the driveway, Jackie sent a text. I’m sorry. That was a no-win. If I asked, I offended you. If I didn’t ask, and there was truth to it, and you got hurt down the road, I’d be angry with myself. I don’t want you to get hurt.
Addy replied, Are you sure that’s the reason? I’d rather you were angry with yourself. Jackie’s car pulled away and Addy assumed it was the end of the conversation, since Oregon had the strictest laws in the nation regarding texting and driving. Then one more message came through. I only want what’s best for you. I accept that I’m not the right person for you, but if it’s not me, it better be somebody worthy of you.
Addy wrote four different replies and deleted all of them. She finally tossed her phone on the counter and buried her head in her hands. Was Jackie wise or petty? In the course of the discussion the previous evening, Mazie had disclosed she was eleven years older. But what did that matter? Mazie didn’t mother her. She didn’t tell her to pick up her house. She didn’t condescend to her. She treated her as an equal, and while she had more experience in the bedroom, she’d said Addy was indeed the better kisser. Still…
She couldn’t think about this now. She needed to focus on getting her job back. She needed to help Mazie pass her vocal performance test and save the Bijou. They could sort out their relationship later, or maybe it would develop organically. She jumped off the stool, suddenly feeling claustrophobic in the tiny house. She decided to use the morning for a bike ride. She could take the wide loop of the Willy, and she’d end up close to Nadine’s office downtown.
It had been over a year since she’d ridden all twenty-five miles of the beautiful path, and while the six miles she rode to and from work each day were lovely, it was the outskirts on the north and south side that illustrated the vastly different ecosystems of Wilshire Hills. There were usually a few overgrown sections where the bike path was invisible, covered in hostas and blackberry bushes. The hostas she didn’t mind, but the sharp and thorny blackberry bushes, known as the Pacific Northwest Weed, regularly punctured bike tires. She’d learned to carry reinforced gloves and her clippers in her bike pouch, since her phone calls and emails to the parks department had only yielded the empty promise of, “We’ll look into it.”
The farther she pedaled, the fewer bikers, joggers, and walkers she saw. She constantly glanced left and right, always observing her surroundings. The homeless regularly camped in the bushes or under the trees with thick canopies. Most of them just wanted to be left alone, but she’d endured a few scary encounters with guys who’d stopped taking their meds and were mentally unstable. They would leap out from the bushes and a few had tried to steal her bike.
She was surprised by how many small encampments she found along the way. Their number had doubled, an indication that a growing percentage of the population couldn’t find work or a way to participate effectively in the community. She knew Cammon University was partly responsible. Several homeless camps had been closed as Cammon erected more buildings and parking structures to accommodate more students. The higher the enrollment, the greater the university’s wealth and need for land.
Up ahead the path disappeared and Addy screeched to a stop in front of several sinewy blackberry branches. Two more inches and she would’ve been walking her bike to the nearest bus stop and replacing her bike’s inner tubes. She grabbed the clippers and gloves and went to work on the jungle in front of her.
Her machete slices effortlessly through the tall grass. The cooing and cackling of birds smothers the crunch of her footsteps. A veil of fog ensures she can’t see more than a foot in front of her—and she almost slices off the leg of the Amazonian woman emerging from the mist, camouflaged in a green and brown pelt, ala Tarzan. It covers all of her tasty bits but hardly anything else. She is incredibly tall but curvy at her calves, stomach, and breasts. She is soft and fleshy, not rock hard as Addy would expect. The possibility of a smile lingers on her lips. Addy gazes into her eyes. They are familiar but she doesn’t know why.
“Don’t move,” Addy commands.
She places the machete into the Amazon’s cleavage, and with the slightest flick of her wrist the top pelt falls away. Addy slides the cold steel across the dark areolaes. She gasps and her fine nipples stand at attention. The Amazon has no tan lines, and Addy pictures her nude, lying on a flat rock, basking in the sun’s rays. She says nothing and stands still. Addy sees the bottom pelt is two pieces, a front and a back, connected by leather string around her hips. The goddess doesn’t flinch as Addy’s fine blade slices twice—and then the Amazon is naked.
Two steps and she is in Addy’s arms. Their lips merge in a steamy kiss while Addy caresses as much slick, wet flesh as she possibly can. When she cups a breast and strokes her nipple, the Amazon moans and breaks the kiss. She pulls Addy to the ground and rolls on top of her. She straddles her and guides Addy’s fingers to her wetness. She slides inside and the Amazon moans, “Deeper.”
Addy obliges. The Amazon rocks her hips. It begins to sprinkle but as the intensity of the Amazon’s impending orgasm builds, so does the rain. The Amazon turns her chin to the dark sky, welcoming the forceful shower that smooths back her long dark locks. By the time she cries out in ecstasy, it is pouring. She looks down at Addy, a sensual smile on her face. Addy gasps. Staring down at her is Mazie.
She was nearly thirty minutes late for her appointment with Nadine. Although she’d left that morning with a straightforward plan—ride the Willy and go to Nadine’s office—she’d passed the downtown and rode fifteen more miles. She was completely perplexed by her latest daydream. Rarely did she know the subject of her sexual fantasy. They were usually nameless strangers, beautiful enough to be in the movies. Even Bianca was “movie-worthy,” by Hollywood’s standards. Mazie was different.
And Jackie’s question rattled in her brain. Could this woman be a substitute for your mother? It was a ridiculous question. Growing up, Addy had a horrible relationship with her mother, with Addy running away as often as possible. When Addy’s “peculiarities” started around the time she turned fourteen, the school principal tried to convince her mother to get her help, but her mother refused. And she had her reasons.
Once Addy had her high school diploma, that very same principal paid for a bus ticket for her out of West Virginia. Addy remembered standing in front of the large electronic board at the bus terminal, reading all the cities where she could go. She picked one the farthes
t away—Portland, Oregon. Portland immediately soured for her. It was the new “it” place to move, full of hipsters, crowds, and noise. If Addy had known this, she never would’ve gone there. She got a job in one of the million local coffeehouses that existed on every corner and rented a decrepit room from a creepy cigar-smelling guy, a room that took all of her tip money.
She met a woman outside a theater one night and they went on a few dates, but when the woman—Lydia—invited her home after a make out session in Lydia’s old Toyota Camry, and Addy declined, Lydia squealed out of the parking lot, nearly running over Addy’s feet. Although she was attracted to Lydia, there was a wall of anxiety, and the thought of climbing it gave Addy more anxiety. As she watched Lydia’s taillights disappear into the night, she vowed not to date again until she conquered the wall.
She decided to leave Portland once she had a place to go. One day she overheard a coffeehouse hipster mentioning Wilshire Hills, a town south of Portland. She spoke of it with disdain in her voice. “Yeah, it’s beautiful, and it’s got the university, but it’s so slow and quiet.”
It sounded perfect to Addy and she left a week later. Then she met Jackie. And Dr. Pfeiffer, who was slowly helping her climb the wall.
She smiled as she rounded the corner to Nadine’s office. She’d prepared an apology, but it was all for naught. She found a note tacked to the front door: Addy, had to go. Not much to tell yet. See you tonight. Jackie has the deets. Bring gfriend. Couldn’t see much of her since you hurried her inside, but I like what I saw!
Addy sighed. She read the message again. While Mazie wasn’t her girlfriend, she liked the word and wondered what it would feel like to have a real relationship. She wanted a girlfriend who treated her well and understood patience. Maybe Mazie was that person. She turned her bike toward the Bijou and decided to find out.
Chapter Seventeen
Mazie was uncomfortable. Deception wasn’t one of her talents, and while Pratul certainly deserved what was coming to him, she struggled with her decision to be a participant. She reminded herself that it was for Addy, and she’d do just about anything for Addy.
