by Sacchi Green
It felt so good to sink into her now—to dip her hand in the river of her, warmer than the sun, sweeter than wine. Jenny tucked her pinkie against her ring finger and felt Tessa draw her in, a gentle, gradual welcome home. She turned her hand slowly, hearing Tessa sigh, hearing the stir of wetness where they connected. She had to pause to manage her own breathing. She’d forgotten to do it for a few seconds.
Her pulse was jumping in her chest and behind her clit. It fluttered like a caged bird, not just from anxiety but from exhilaration, ready to take flight. She brought her other hand to Tessa’s chest, having to stretch a bit because of her girlfriend’s height. Tessa tried to wiggle down to meet her, drawing her legs farther up, letting Jenny’s fingers move a little deeper inside her.
Jenny rubbed the slopes of her breasts, bending every so often to kiss her navel and the edges of her slit. “You’re so fucking gorgeous,” she said. “This feels amazing. For me. Does this feel amazing for you?”
“Of course it does,” Tessa said, but her laughter wasn’t mocking—instead it was half a moan of pleasure, half a gasp at the thrill. “You’re gorgeous too, Jenny. I love looking up at you from this angle—your hair’s got the blue highlights today, did you know? Maybe it’s the sunlight . . . and goddess, the things your arm muscles do when you fuck me.”
Jenny didn’t think of herself as having especially impressive arm muscles, but what Tessa was talking about happened when she worked them like this—not extreme gestures but focused tension, a small flexing beneath the surface of her skin that you’d have to be watching very closely to see. And Tessa was. And she thought it was gorgeous.
“Also,” Tessa said, “I’m green for another finger, if you are.”
Jenny smiled. “I’m out of fingers.”
“You mean . . . ?”
She passed her thumb across Tessa’s labia, rolling it gently over her clit, then folded it to join the rest of her hand at her entrance. Jenny pressed her fingers into a star shape, narrow as she could make it, and added more lube.
“I’m green for this,” Tessa said, but slowly, reverently, as if she couldn’t fully believe it herself.
“You’re doing awesome,” Jenny said, her own voice hushed in awe. “Let me know if you want to try something different.”
She moved into her. Reached into her. Slid into her, a key into a lock. Not easily—nothing so overwhelming could be easy—but fearlessly.
Tessa cried out.
“Are you—”
“Green! Please . . . ”
At first she only held in place, appreciating their achievement. After months of slowly working up to it, she had found her place inside Tessa again. She fit her as she always had—tighter, but slick from the lube and honeyed with her juices and warm and right.
Then Jenny moved her fingers slightly, stroking for her G-spot. It was obvious when she found it. Tessa was always a responsive lover, but not always big on volume. Now, though, they could probably hear her across the state line—and Jenny adored the idea.
She kept flexing her curved hand, feeling the familiar rough tissue against the pads of her fingers, wet heat against her skin, the close grip all the way to her wrist. Then came the ripples of Tessa’s orgasm. Jenny stopped moving, letting it happen, feeling it happen. Her girlfriend’s strength stole her breath, like always. An expression swept across her face like a summer thunderstorm. Jenny watched, vision blurry, and realized she was crying herself. Happy tears. She licked a salty drop from the corner of her mouth.
With her fingers relaxed, slick, squeezed, it felt as if Jenny had let go of something . . . and somehow the exact opposite, all at once. As if she were being given a gift so precious it couldn’t be physically held.
Eventually, Tessa nodded, and Jenny began to pull out, adding a little more lube to ease the way. When suction made it tricky, she slipped the finger of her opposite hand in alongside her wrist to help break it. Suction, not wrist. The thought and the feeling as she was released were both kind of funny, but her heart felt squeezed as tightly as her hand had been at another realization—Tessa’s body didn’t want to let her go.
Once she was free, she stretched her fingers, curled them in a tight fist, and unfurled them again. They gleamed with Tessa’s juices, and she couldn’t resist licking them. Tessa moaned at the sight.
Jenny made herself get out of bed to pour water for both of them, and as she turned around, it was her turn to moan. Tessa lay in the middle of the mattress, flushed, shining with sex, the sheets crumpled and stained around her. She grinned up at Jenny, blissed out, barely able to move. But after emptying the glass Jenny held to her lips, she said, “Here. Want you. I want to taste you.”
Kneeling beside her on weak knees, Jenny felt dizzy, ready to fall. But she straddled Tessa’s body, moved over her, bracing her hands on the wall above the pillows. Tessa’s hands climbed up her legs, came to her waist, pulled her down to meet her mouth.
She flicked her tongue over the pearl of her erect clit. Jenny sighed and rotated her hips to meet her licking. Then, with sudden ferocious playfulness, Tessa caught her between her teeth—her unfaltering, unhesitant, loving teeth. It was a gentle hold but undeniable. Jenny’s breath caught. Her most tender flesh, already alive in every nerve, seemed to catch fire from the intensity, not the sensation alone but the idea of it.
She felt herself there.
She let herself trust.
And then with another flick of the tongue, she was released, sliding free. A rush of blood filled her, and another sweep of pleasure as Tessa sipped at her salt-honey-tartness, warm as the sun, shook through her body and ignited. She flew into bliss.
Not invulnerable, but fearless nonetheless.
THE NIGHT SHIFT
Pascal Scott
“Thank you for calling Western North Carolina Adventures,” Angel says in her sweet voice.
Some callers expect to hear a Southern drawl when they reach us and are disappointed by anything else. Angel has yet to lose the Manila accent that marks her as “not from around here.” But Angel is a good employee—conscientious and dedicated. I’m not going to discriminate just because she doesn’t talk like a local.
Angel is my latest hire. She’s twenty-two and newly married to a native-son soldier, which is how she ended up here in North Carolina from the Philippines. From what I’ve observed, Angel is a very young twenty-two, innocent and unsophisticated by American standards.
“How may I help you this early morning?” Angel continues, politely.
I’m listening in my office on my headphones. I’ve got my checklist in front of me, making sure Angel hits her marks. Check one is for thanking the caller: one point. Check two for asking to help. Another point. But she forgot to tell the caller her name. I’ve got to dock her for that, two points off.
The caller seems hesitant, taking a breath before she answers in a low, throaty voice, almost a whisper.
“You sound nice,” the caller says.
Angel doesn’t miss a beat.
“Thank you,” Angel replies, brightly. “May I have your name?”
Check three. Get the caller’s name. Another point.
“Samantha,” the caller responds. “Call me Sammy.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Sammy. How may I help you this early morning?”
Check four, repeat the name. Use a formal title: Mrs. until she says otherwise if the caller is female. Another point.
“It’s not Mrs.,” Samantha corrects. “But call me Sammy. Please.”
“Thank you, Sammy,” Angel goes on. “What may I do for you this early morning, Sammy?”
“I was hoping you could talk to me for a little while,” Sammy says, her tone becoming more confident but remaining low and smoky.
I hear the slight slur of alcohol on Sammy’s tongue and check the shiny white face of the wall clock in my office—2:40 a.m. Adventures always seem like a better idea at 2:00 a.m. than they do, say, eight hours later.
We give our agents three minutes
to hook the caller or they lose points. That’s not a lot of time. Lose enough points or fail to make the minimum, and you’re fired. Corporate’s rules, not mine. Our sales pitch is simple. Life is stressful, but not here in the mountains. Here you can escape your worries for a few days or a few weeks just by booking a stay at one of our three properties in Western North Carolina. Pick your adventure: mountain climbing, white-water rafting, hiking, gem hunting, zip lining, or try our sample package that includes a little of everything.
Angel continues.
“Yes, Sammy, I’d be happy to talk to you,” she says quickly. “What might you be interested in this early morning?”
“I’ll get to that in a minute,” Sammy responds. “But first, tell me your name.”
“My name is Angel.”
I add a point back because Angel did it—she gave her name— although she had to be prompted.
“Angel,” Sammy repeats. “That’s a pretty name. You sound pretty. Pretty and petite. Are you pretty and petite, Angel?”
“Why yes I am,” Angel says, ingenuously. “How did you know?”
I put down my pencil and tear off my headset. In another moment I’m out of my office and bounding the six long strides it takes me to reach Angel’s cubicle. Spotting a yellow Post-it note pad on her desk I use a WNCA-branded ballpoint pen to scribble an urgent message. PUT HER ON HOLD, the note says.
Angel looks at me with wide-open, dark eyes.
“Excuse me for one moment, Sammy,” she says into her mouthpiece. “My supervisor is asking me to put you on hold.”
I wait while she listens to something Sammy is telling her.
“No, I won’t . . . ” Angel says pleasantly to Sammy before hitting the hold button and turning to me with an expression of bewilderment and protest.
“Angel,” I say slipping into my older-and-wiser, I’m-in-charge voice. “I’m going to go back to my desk now and when I get there I’ll call you, and then I want you to transfer that caller, Sammy, back to me. Can you do that?”
Angel is a Millennial. Of course she can do that.
“No problem,” she answers, using her favorite American tag line.
“Good,” I say. “I’ll take this one and then you can take the next call that comes in.”
“Oh,” she says, clearly disappointed.
“This wasn’t a call for you,” I tell her.
As I walk back to my desk, I’m thinking, no, not a call for you at all.
After the call center went 24/7, Corporate assigned me to the worst shift, 11:00 p.m. to 7:00 a.m. No reason was given but I knew—Corporate doesn’t like queers. Here in North Carolina we LGBT folk don’t have legal protection in the workplace, and employers can discriminate any way they choose.
To climb the management ladder at WNCA you have to be the right age, race, gender, religion, and sexual orientation. I’m a fifty-three-year-old, lapsed-Catholic lesbian. That’s why I’ll never be more than a low-level supervisor with a closed door and a closet-size office in the basement, working the witching hours. I made supervisor at all just because turnover in the call center is so high, between seventy and eight-five percent during any given season. I’m the only one who has stuck around. The Millennials don’t stay because they get bored and want to try something new. Gen Xers find better-paying jobs. The Boomers can’t handle the technology.
I stay because of inertia. I’ve worked for WNCA for the last ten years and, unless I win the Powerball, I doubt I’ll leave any time soon. My paycheck is enough to cover a rented room in a gay household, food and beer, and Saturday nights on a bar stool nursing a whiskey at Scandals, our local queer dance club. At this point in my life, that’s all I really need—except maybe a girlfriend. But on my salary and at my age, romance doesn’t seem to be happening. I’ve pretty much given up hope. I haven’t had sex in longer than I care to admit.
Back in my office I close the door, put on my headset, and press a button on my phone system to complete Sammy’s transfer to me.
“Thank you for calling Western North Carolina Adventures,” I say in my most professional tone. “This is Alexis. I’m the supervisor here in the call center. How may I help you this early morning?”
“Who is this?” Sammy asks.
“My name is Alexis. I’m the supervisor in the call center of Western North Carolina Adventures. You were speaking a few minutes ago to one of my agents, Angel. I’m hoping I can help you. What can I do for you this early morning, Sammy?”
“Where am I calling?” Sammy asks, sounding genuinely perplexed.
“Western North Carolina Adventures,” I repeat, more slowly. “May I ask what number you called to reach us?”
“Sure. Let me find it . . . Here it is. Nine hundred eight seven seven zero six one six.”
I press the recording Off button on my phone system to make sure that no one will ever hear this conversation except Sammy and me. I’m in my cinderblock office with the door closed and a Do Not Disturb sign hanging on the outside knob. My staff is on the phones. Corporate left hours ago.
“Yeah,” I say, relaxing now. “I know what happened. You dialed eight hundred eight seven seven zero six one six by mistake. It’s happened before. This is Western North Carolina Adventures. We’re a tourist destination. I think you were trying to reach a sex line.”
There’s a long silence.
“Oh my god,” Sammy says at last, breaking into a coughing laugh. I hear her take a loud gulp of something before she speaks again. “I am so sorry.”
“Oh, it’s happened before, believe me,” I assure her. “The one you didn’t reach is a sex line out of Greensboro. They recruit a lot of their employees from the university, I hear. We’re here in Altamont, in the mountains. Where are you calling from?”
“Boone,” she answers.
“Another university town. You work at the college?” I ask. “No, I’m unemployed at the moment. Laid off. I drove a forklift for Foote Industries for twenty-three years before they went Chapter Eleven.”
“Wow,” I say. “Too much of that going on these days.”
“Yah,” she agrees.
“Yah?” I repeat. “What’s the accent?”
“What do you mean?”
“Yah. We say yeah or hell yeah here in the South.”
She laughs again.
“Foote Industries moved me to Minneapolis when the plant relocated there in ’02. That’s where I picked it up, probably. Naw, I’m homegrown. I’m from Boone. How about you? Are you from Altamont?”
“Hell no,” I say. “I’m a Cali girl. Born and raised.”
“How’d you get to the mountains?”
I sigh.
“Long story. The short version is this is where the van broke down. Girlfriend went back to LA. I stayed.”
“Yah,” she says. “I mean yeah. It happens.”
“Usually we get men calling that line, men who have misdialed,” I say, reflecting. “I think this is the first time we’ve ever had a woman caller.”
“Really?” Sammy asks. “Well, I guess this is a night for firsts then.”
“I suppose it is,” I comment. And then I consider what she’s just told me.
“So are you saying you haven’t done this before? Called a sex line?”
“No, I haven’t,” she admits. “And isn’t it just like me to dial up the wrong number?”
“Sounds like something I’d do,” I tell her.
“Have you ever?” she asks, her tone lightening.
“What? Dialed a sex line by mistake?”
“No, you know what I mean. Called a sex line. Not by mistake.”
I adjust my swivel chair so that I’m facing the blank wall. The fluorescent ceiling light bounces off the whiteness. I switch on a desk lamp and turn off the overheads.
“No,” I say. “I haven’t. I’ve never really considered it. It’s sort of like thinking about finding a call girl for the night. You know, if you’re a lesbian your mind just doesn’t really go there.”
“You’re a lesbian?” she asks, more interested.
“Uh-huh,” I say, although my head is still back on the idea of hiring a prostitute for the night.
“Not that there’s anything wrong with wanting to hook up with a call girl,” I elaborate. “A sex worker, I guess I should say. Or calling a sex line, either.”
“Yah, but you do feel funny about it,” she replies. “I mean, I do. You wouldn’t believe how many shots I needed before I worked up the nerve to dial that number tonight. And then of course don’t you know I dialed the wrong number. Blame it on Jack Daniels.”
“Ah, Jack Daniels. I’ve spent some lonely nights with Mr. Daniels myself,” I say.
Now why did I tell her that? I wonder for a quick moment before I remember that sometimes it’s easier to confide in a stranger than it is in a friend. There’s something seductive about anonymity whether it’s in the confessional booth or the closet. That’s why people have sex with strangers, which I’ve done a time or two myself.
“So what were you expecting tonight when you called the sex line?” I ask.
I kick off my new leather penny loafers. They’re not broken in yet and a little stiff, especially the left one. I pull my left foot up, cross my ankle over my knee, and massage the toes. I work the ball of my foot and up to the heel.
“I don’t know,” she says. “I didn’t know what to expect.”
“Do they really ask what you’re wearing?” I wonder aloud. “That’s what you always hear. ‘What are you wearing?’”
She laughs. “I guess,” she says.
My eyes wander down to what I’m wearing. It’s the opposite of sexy. I’ve got on the WNCA uniform: a green polo shirt with the company logo on the right sleeve, khaki pants, and mud-brown socks and penny loafers.
“All right,” I say, making an executive decision. “I’ll play along. Let’s pretend you’ve just called a sex line—”
“Well, I did just call a sex line, at least I meant to call a sex line—”
“And you’ve reached the sexiest woman on the planet. Me.” “Hmm,” Sammy says. “That sounds interesting.”
I slip my voice into a lower register.
