Nolan Trilogy (11 page)

Leah’s whole body thrust against her friend as she came, and Erica’s tongue moved even faster, the vibration of her moaning against Leah’s mound making her climax even more intense.  It went on and on, and Leah felt those wild, snapping contractions around her friend’s fingers, drawing them in deeper, her hot little bud fluttering against her friends lapping tongue.  When the tremors began to subside, Erica rested her cheek against Leah’s thigh, her hair tickling. 

Leah couldn’t open her eyes, too overwhelmed with feeling—and shame.  How could she have let this happen?  In the wake of her ecstatic release, rational thought finally returned.  Erica moved up next to her friend, her breath warm against her cheek, and there was a musky kind of smell on her breath Leah knew was from having her face buried between her thighs.

“Did it feel good?”  Erica pressed the length of her body to her friend’s.

Leah nodded, not opening her eyes.  Good wasn’t the word for it.  She swallowed hard, still a little breathless, and that’s when she felt Erica’s lips touching hers.  They were soft, warm and wet.  Her whole face was wet—her cheeks, her chin.  Leah’s eyes flew open when Erica’s tongue touched hers, and the taste in her mouth was tangy and strange.

“You taste good,” she whispered, breaking the kiss and looking at Leah—Erica’s eyes were searching, hungry, pleading.  “Can it be my turn now?” 

Leah bit her lip, the shock of her friend’s request making her recoil with shame. 

How could she possibly do such a thing? 

How could she not? 

“Please?”  Erica rolled off, pulling up her skirt and spreading her lips.  Her pubic hair glistened, and her finger nudged the pink, hard button, showing her friend where she wanted a hot, wet tongue.  “Just right here.  Just lick it a little.” 

Shaky, Leah sat up and knelt between Erica’s legs, looking down at her.  Erica looked almost shy, like she was afraid Leah would say no, and that decided it.  Leah stretched out between her friend’s thighs, spreading them wider to make room, the skin there so soft it was shocking against her palms.

“Here,” she said again, her finger pointing to the small, hooded nodule of flesh.

Leah took a deep breath and touched her tongue to it, moving just the tip back and forth as Erica spread herself wide.  The taste wasn’t much different from what she’d tasted in her friend’s mouth.  The smell was kind of musky, and her curly blonde hairs tickled Leah’s nose.

“Oh, Leah,” she moaned, arching, pressing up against her tongue.  “Yes, yes, like that!” 

The sounds Erica made were encouraging and Leah moved her tongue faster, sinking deeper into her flesh.  Erica moaned louder, rolling her hips, encouraging Leah to do circles, and she licked her that way, tongue flat, moving around and around.  Erica’s breath came faster, and she moved her hands up to her own breasts, pulling on her nipples as Leah licked her.

Erica’s swollen lips swallowed Leah’s mouth now that Erica wasn’t spreading herself open.  And Leah had to really move in to keep focused on that tender pink button, her nose pressed against the soft hairs of Erica’s mound.  Between her own saliva and Erica’s juices, Leah felt like she was drowning, and all she could do was swallow as she tried to keep up that same, fast rhythm.

“That’s it,” Erica whispered, looking down, her eyes just slits.  “You’re doing it.  Oh God, Leah, you’re going to make me come again!” 

The power in those words was incredible and Leah’s own sex contracted, pulsing, as Erica started to climax.  She could feel the vibration of her friend’s flesh under her lapping tongue as Erica moaned and thrust against her mouth, taking every last bit of pleasure from her climax as she could manage.  Leah kissed her way slowly north as Erica’s trembling began to subside, her lips brushing her friend’s hipbone, the slanted scar over her hipbone from her brush with appendicitis, her navel, Erica’s skirt pushed far up her waist now.  Erica’s hands pulled at her, and Leah moved from between her legs, coming to lie next to her friend on the bed.

“Mmmm.”  Erica’s hands moved over her own thighs like they had after her orgasm before, just petting herself lightly.  She looked over at Leah and smiled.  “Doesn’t it feel good to be bad?” 

Leah raised her fingers to her lips, still wet with her friend’s juices, and nodded.

She had to admit—it really did.

“Did you know Liz Taylor’s waist is just nineteen inches?”  Erica huffed, tossing the magazine she’d read the particular fact in and standing in front of the full-length mirror on the back of her bedroom door, attempting once again to tighten the belt around her waist.  The dress was a gorgeous pink Christian Dior with a pleated, sweetheart bodice.  Beads and sequins were appliquéd down the sheer overskirt in a floral vine, and she was wearing a tightly cinched corset and two petticoats to emphasize the curve of her waist. 

“Mine’s nineteen inches.”  Leah abandoned her pursuit through Erica’s 45s—they were scattered across the floor, as usual—and came to stand next to her friend.  She was also wearing a Christian Dior, borrowed from Erica’s closet of course.  Hers was a creamy ivory affair, just as strapless, the skirt just as full, thanks to her own two petticoats, with a fat, red rose pattern.  “But I have to stuff my bra.  So before you go getting all frosted about the size of your waist, you should thank your lucky stars you were blessed with what’s above it!” 

“Aw, don’t get all cranked about it.”  Erica kissed Leah’s cheek, leaving a lipstick mark.  “Those falsies make you look like Jane Mansfield.” 

“Not when the dress comes off,” Leah scoffed, wiping at the lipstick on her cheek  and adjusting the uncomfortable padding in her bra.  She hated how it felt, but she had to admit, the resulting swells in the front of her dress were satisfactory. 

“Well your dress has no chance of coming off before bedtime tonight, unless you plan on forcing Father Michael to stray from his vows.”  Erica raised her eyebrows and then waggled them.  “Not that I would mind!” 

Leah looked at her friend with wide eyes, taking a very exaggerated step away from her side. 

Erica stopped primping, smoothing the blonde waves in her hair.  “What are you doing?” 

Leah smirked.  “Standing out of the way of the lightning bolt.” 

“God doesn’t strike down Catholics.”  Erica rummaged through her drawer, pulling out a pair of long, elbow-length white gloves, and another ivory pair for Leah.  “That’s why we have confession, remember?” 

God would strike
me
down if he knew what I was thinking
, Leah thought, busying herself with pulling on her gloves and getting her little beaded ivory clutch.  Her sins were far greater than thinking lustful thoughts about a man of the cloth—Leah was fantasizing about her best friend’s father.  That had to be at least two levels of hell worse somehow, she was sure of it. 

“So do you know who it is?”  Leah inquired, pinching her cheeks in the mirror to give them more color.  They were wearing pink hues, as usual—no red allowed on lips or fingernails—but she still looked pale as a ghost. 

“Of course.”  Erica grinned, pinching her own cheeks.  “No one can keep a secret from me.” 

“Who?”  Leah asked, grabbing Erica’s gloved hand in hers and squeezing.  Mr. Nolan was unveiling one of his portrait photographs that night at a small, but very prestigious, dinner party.  The guests included local clergy so the girls had been advised to be on their best behavior. 

“My lips are zipped.”  Erica drew her finger across her mouth, shaking her head and opening her door for a quick escape as Leah chased her down the hall, trying to get it out of her. 

“Girls! Girls!”  Solie met them coming from the other direction, carrying a cascade of coats, most of them mink or fox, her dark face beaded with sweat.  She’d been cooking all day, and Leah and Erica had been “helping” by sampling most of the menu, getting their hands slapped on several occasions.  But it had been worth it.  “Slow down! You’re young ladies, not wild injuns!” 

Erica stopped short of the living room, out of breath from her sprint, and Leah stopped behind her, seeing the grown-ups look up as they made their entrance, a cloud of hazy blue smoke hanging over the room, wafting upwards in the draft of the ceiling fan high above them.  Mr. Nolan didn’t smoke and refused to let Erica start—although she snuck cigarettes with Bobby anyway—but he made exceptions for guests. 

Mrs. Nolan had smoked like a chimney, dying of lung cancer at the age of thirty-seven, and Leah had heard Mr. Nolan’s lectures about the dangers of smoking so often she could quote the statistics by heart.  He was adamant that the European studies had it right: smoking caused cancer, in spite of Robert Young’s assurance
“Camels agree with your throat”
in all the ads.  When Erica did it, she was just trying to look cool, but Leah figured there wasn’t much she could add to her own repertoire to improve her cool factor, so she abstained.  Besides, she didn’t know if it did or didn’t cause cancer, but she figured she was better safe than sorry.

The living room divider had been moved, pushed back to the wall of her little dance studio to make room, more chairs set up for the extra guests.  She recognized half the faces, including Father Michael and Father Patrick, as well as Mother Superior and Sister Abigail and Leah’s mother and her boss, who Leah had called Mr. Eyebrows since she was little, although his last name was Highbrow.  There were more faces she didn’t recognize though, a sea of black and white, cassocks and wimples alike. 

“It’s like a penguin convention,” Erica turned to whisper and Leah squeezed her hand hard, shushing her. 

The person Leah noticed first, whose eyes locked with her own, was Mr. Nolan.  He stood near the edge of the living room wearing a gray suit and a shiny blue and silver tie that made his eyes seem even more blue.  He’d gone for a haircut, but he hadn’t changed the length much, his hair just brushing his shoulders.  He stood holding a cocktail, his usual, a gin and tonic with a wedge of lime, and he raised his highball glass as he saw the two of them clustered at the end of the hallway. 

“Here they are! Two of the most beautiful girls Detroit ever produced—with cleaner lines, smoother curves, and brighter exteriors than anything off Henry Ford’s assembly line!” 

The group chuckled at his risqué comparison, in spite, or maybe because of, their religious leanings.  Cocktails had been passed around a few times already, Leah noted by the number of empty glasses sitting on the tables, and even the nuns and priests had been partaking. 

Erica pulled her along as the two of them murmured hellos all around and people went back to discussing politics and Eisenhower’s second inauguration, as well as Elvis’s last appearance on Ed Sullivan and the capture of the “mad bomber” the month before, none of which interested Leah—except for Elvis, but this wasn’t a crowd who would appreciate his appeal. 

Elvis had been the subject of Father Patrick’s Sunday sermon from the pulpit four times already in the past six months, and each time the man had been labeled “the son of Satan” and rock and roll “the devil’s music.”  The record player was playing Pat Boone’s
Bernadine
.  That was as close as they would get tonight to anything really cookin’. 

Erica introduced her to the people she didn’t know, although Leah couldn’t remember any names, except a few—Mayor Cobo was there with his wife, Ethel, and she shook his hand, incredulous.  She was also introduced to the infamous Soupy Sales.  The only place she’d ever seen them before was on television. 

Then Erica sidelined them at the hors d'oeuvres table, loading up with hot cheese puffs and shrimp puffs and melon and salted almonds and something that tasted like sardines rolled up in bacon, which were good if you just ate the bacon, Leah discovered.  The girls were technically still too young to drink, and while at most dinner parties, Mr. Nolan looked the other way, they’d been warned, given the number of religious guests for the evening, to not approach the bartender for cocktails. 

So they ate canapés, taking off their long gloves and putting them in their pocketbooks, listening to the adults talk and pretending they were just a part of the crowd.  Leah wanted to go over and talk to Mr. Nolan but he was talking to her mother and Mr. Eyebrows and she didn’t want to take part in that particular conversation, whatever it might be. 

She wanted to talk to Mr. Nolan alone, about anything, anything at all. 

Instead she listened to Erica go on about what a dream Father Michael was in street clothes (he was, admittedly, wearing his collar with a dark suit instead of robes) and how boring the music was (Dean Martin singing
Memories are Made of This
) and how unbearably tight her corset was, and how she wished she hadn’t worn it (even though the dress probably wouldn’t have zipped without it!)

“I have to go to the little girls’,” Erica groaned.  “Come with?” 

“Leah!”  She glanced up, seeing her mother waving her over, and she sighed, shrugging at her friend.

“Hi!”  Erica mouthed the word and waved to Leah’s mother, smiling brightly, and then turned back to Leah, rolling her eyes.  “Ugh.  Meet you back here in five.” 

Instead of running off to do her mother’s bidding, Leah turned toward the appetizers, contemplating the celery and cucumbers stuffed with Roquefort and wishing she could slip over to the bar for a screwdriver or a gin fizz, something to calm her nerves.  And she never drank.

“Your mother’s calling, little girl.”  Mr. Nolan’s voice was so close in her ear, she felt his breath on her neck, could smell the gin on his breath. 

Leah felt her heart leap and tried to keep her hands from trembling as she glanced over her shoulder at him with a smile.  “Do I have to?  And… I’m not a little girl anymore.” 

“No?”  He smiled a smile just short of wolfish.  “All grown up, indeed.  May I have this dance?” 

She laughed self-consciously, glancing around the room.  No one else was dancing, but he insisted, holding out his hand, crooning Dean Martin’s song, “One girl, one boy, some grief, some joy...” 

“Mr. Nolan!”  Leah laughed as he put a hand at the small of her back and took her other hand in his, leading her in the beginning of a dramatic slow dance.  It was a show—he was kidding, of course he was—but there was something very real about it, feeling his body moving hers as the next record dropped. 

“Oh now here’s a challenge!”  He twirled her, petticoats lifting her dress two feet, as Margaret Whiting started singing about a tropical heat wave, and it sure felt like it from where Leah was standing.  “Dance with me, beautiful!” 

“Jitterbug!”  she cried as they began to swing, her feet following him without a second thought, like she’d been born to dance, and of course she had, she just hadn’t known until this moment she was meant to be in his arms at the time.  Rock step, rock step, they laughed and jitterbugged, feet kicking out, Mr. Nolan’s hand pressed to hers briefly before she was rolling out to the left, twirling away and then caught again, pulled back into his arms. 

“Dip!”  he called, and then he did, holding her as he swept her so low her hair brushed the floor before pulling her back up again, the room and everyone in it fading away as they faced each other, breathless and laughing, the attraction between them crackling like something alive.  It reminded her of the night he watched her dancing, except this time it was both of them together, a different sort of dance. 

Neither of them heard Solie’s dinner bell.  It was Erica, back from the bathroom, who reminded them with a tug on her father’s sleeve. 

“Daddy, dinner!” 

He smiled, hooking his daughter’s arm with his, Leah’s with the other.  “Shall we?” 

Leah was delighted to find she was at the same end of the table as Mr. Nolan—and it was a huge table, all the leafs in, with twenty guests seated at it—because she was seated near Erica, whose father was at the head of the table on her right with Father Michael between them.  Mother Superior and Father Patrick sat across from them, and Leah’s mother sat on her left with Mr. Eyebrows between them.