The Mammoth Book of Lesbian Erotica (19 page)

The priests began leaving their places and swinging their censers around the coffin that lay under flowers by the altar. Everyone stood and Rose did, too. She faced the aisle as the coffin was
wheeled down it and ushers were standing at the end of the pews indicating that the people in those rows should join the procession.

I was just so afraid, Rose thought to herself. Afraid of what society would think and too afraid to confront what ever that would mean to my life. I gave up love and settled for something
else.

She averted her eyes from the coffin as it passed her pew, looking at the floor and thinking, What if that was me in there?
What if this is the sum total of my life?

Then the ushers were at her row and she joined the end of the procession back out into the bright sunshine of the day, to watch as they slid the casket into the back of the black hearse.

“Rose? It
is
you, isn’t it?” Rose turned and there she was.

The years have been kind to her, Rose thought. Some grey in her chestnut hair, but not as much as Rose had, hidden as it was under the latest hair colouring. Still with the deep, green eyes that
were bright and clear and sparkling.

Her hands reached out and grasped Rose’s empty one, the one without the purse, and the world melted away in that moment.

“Melody,” was all Rose could manage to say although there was much more she wanted to say. She wanted to ask for forgiveness, wanted to apologize for the death of Katherine but
mostly, she wanted to apologize for settling for an unhappy life. She wanted to explain that she now knew that the cost to herself had been expensive. That settling for less costs more than
anything else in the world. It had cost Rose thirty years of her life.

“Wait here,” Melody said. She turned and walked over to a small group of huddled mourners, said a few hushed words, hugged a couple of people, then came back to where Rose stood,
shivering, even in the heat of the day.

“Come with me. I have my car. We can go and talk somewhere.” Rose nodded again, afraid that if she spoke even one word the tears would flow. “We can come back and get your car
later.”

“I don’t have a car,” Rose said.

She had one thirty years ago. She had gradually given up driving because Jack said they didn’t need the extra expense of a second car, and besides, “The buses go where ever you need
to go,” he had told her.

She had acquiesced, of course, because by then, settling was in her nature and this was the lot in life she had chosen. She would make the best of it.

They had talked then, at a little coffee shop a couple of blocks away, and Rose brought out the old pictures of Steven and Patricia that she had in her wallet, and a picture of Jack she
didn’t realize she had in there.

Melody had shown Rose pictures of her cats and of nieces and nephews, and spoke of her job and her house and her flower garden.

But it was Melody who asked the question, “Have you been happy?” and Rose started crying.

It all spilled out then. The regret. The fear that her entire life had been a sham, filled with useless drivel that had only eaten time and not given her any sense of fullness. And her shaking
hands had spilled a glass of water and they laughed then, because the diner was not a place to talk of the real things, the things that couldn’t be said in a public booth, tender words and
words of memories and longing.

All too soon it was over, and Melody was driving her home.

They had exchanged phone numbers and with yells of “Call me!” she watched Melody’s car turn the corner and disappear. It was only then that she realized she had never asked the
real question she wanted to ask. “Did you think of me as often as I thought about you?”

Many were the nights that Rose had laid in bed unfulfilled after lovemaking with Jack. She would listen to him gently snoring and she would silently get out of bed and, after checking the
children, would sit in the dark living room with a glass of white wine and she would touch herself in her woman place and she would remember.

Rose realized, as she went to her room to change out of the skirt she had worn to the funeral, that she would probably never see Melody again. “Call me!” Sure. Why had she gone to
the funeral at all? To see if the price, the settling, was justified? And was it?

Her dreams had been fulfilled. She had the children, the house, a white picket fence, and even the flower garden. But what a price she had paid.

“I want to go back again,” she whispered aloud. “I want to live my life over and tell society to go take a hike. I want to realize that where there is love, true love, you can
face all the troubles that come your way.” She had looked at herself in the mirror and said, “I want to know
then
what I know
now.
”

The doorbell startled her. She had quickly pulled on some sweat pants and walked to the door and opened it.

Melody stood there, tears running down her face, and Rose had pulled her inside the house and shut the door and they held each other in the hallway, the tears on their cheeks mingling as they
kissed.

And Melody’s hair had smelled as sweet, and her breasts were still as soft, and Rose realized, that wherever you were, as long as you were alive, there was still time. There was still the
rest of your life, however long that might be. That settling didn’t mean forever.

She would never settle again.

Nose Dive

Jennifer J. Sowle

Nicki pulled her T-shirt over her head and stood in the middle of the living room.

Not bad – most of the dog hair had given up after a struggle and surrendered to the lint brush. Every once in a while her old compulsiveness surfaced, like it had this morning. She wanted
the house “presentable for company”, as her mother would say back in the fifties. She opened the fridge for a diet Pepsi and remembered she had put the litre bottle back with an inch of
backwash on the bottom. She spotted a Corona behind the milk container – how long had that been in there? She popped the top and fell onto the sofa. The place looked pretty good after three
hours of solid cleaning, a chore so abhorrent she had been in denial about how long it had been. There were definitely benefits to living exclusively with a dog and two cats. They never complained
about how things looked and when you pushed them out of bed, they got over it. The sweat ran between her breasts and pooled in her belly button.

That was another thing – when you live alone you can be naked whenever you want, and never give it a second thought. If you’re hot, you can take off your shirt. If your jeans are too
tight, zip those suckers off and relax. She tipped back the beer and felt the prickly coolness fill her mouth.

The call from Corrine came out of the blue. They were the kind of friends who showed up at the same parties, played or sat in the stands at the same softball games, and, depending on who they
were coupled up with, occasionally spent time at each other’s houses. She always had liked Corrine; and when she hadn’t been falling in love, or in the throes of love, she’d
flirted with her a time or two. They hadn’t been close enough for Nicki to touch base before she moved. In fact, after they caught up, she had asked Corrine where she got her number. Not that
she didn’t want her to have it – just curious about who she got it from. Sometimes break-ups can be brutal – like hers was – and you couldn’t be too careful about
forwarding addresses. You might answer the door one day and find your old lover standing there with an axe in her hand. Her ex had made almost every other attempt to contact her – phone, fax,
email and letters – who knows, next time she might just show up at the doorstep.

Now Corrine was coming up to Petoskey to visit her. They had chatted a bit – long enough to find out they were both single – and Nicki had invited her up. The drive was too long for
a day trip, so she spent a good part of her morning clearing boxes and junk out of the spare bedroom and making up the bed. Now she sat back, her arms up over the back of the sofa, airing out her
armpits and enjoying the cooling effect of the sweat evaporating on her chest, making her nipples stand up like little soldiers. The last couple of swigs in the bottle were warm, so she dumped it
in the sink and put the bottle in the trash. It was only noon, she had plenty of time to relax and get cleaned up. Corrine’s ETA was between 4:00 and 5:00.

A light rapping at the front door – Damn. Sadie the rottweiler thundered down the hall to the door, her butt wagging with excitement. Nicki ducked down and scooted into the bedroom like
some kind of dwarf wind-up toy. She scanned her closet, and grabbed a pair of baggy shorts with an elastic waist and a tank top.

“Hey . . . how’s it going?” It was the landlord – or, as Nicki referred to her, the Lesbian Landlord.

“Hey, BJ. You caught me cleaning,” Nicki said.

“Too hot for that, girl,” she laughed.

“Yeah, tell me about it.”

Sadie rushed by her legs and twirled out onto the yard, reveling in the freedom.

“The dog is okay . . . she won’t run. What’s up?”

“Not much. I have to pick up a ladder and could use a hand. Would you mind?”

“Not at all. Let me slip on my shoes.”

It was a heavy old wooden extension ladder – not a fancy lightweight aluminum one. They wrestled it out of the shed and hoisted it into the bed of the ratty pickup.

BJ was a strange mixture of butch and fern. She had long strawberry hair woven back into a single fat braid, with loose tendrils surrounding her face like a halo. She had millions of freckles
sprayed everywhere. Nicki watched her muscles strain under the ladder.

“Hey, I got a cooler in the truck . . . beer?”

“Sure, why not.” Nicki wanted to be polite. She didn’t really know BJ that well, but she wanted to. She was new in town and needed friends. She’d been up north for six
months, but spring was slow coming and it seemed that everybody stayed holed up during the winter. This summer she planned to get out more and meet other dykes. She was comfortable being alone, but
her record showed that she didn’t stay that way for long.

It felt good to be outside. BJ pulled a couple of lawn chairs from the shed, and shook them open.

“Might as well sit right here, huh?”

“Sounds good.” Nicki popped open the beer and took a swig. Then she tipped her head back and raised her face to the sun – the warmth soothed away the stress of her cleaning
frenzy – the beer helped too. They talked easily and laughed a lot. BJ had always seemed so serious; Nicki was pleasantly surprised that she could be so warm. They opened their second beers
and the conversation turned – as it always does – to relationships. BJ had just been dumped by her wife of eight years, and Nicki could tell she was still pretty broken up about it. Her
eyes glistened as she drank her beer silently, staring off into the yard. Nicki’s eyes settled on her black SUV sitting in the driveway.

“Geez, I’ve got a friend coming up, and I just noticed how filthy my car is. I might have to wash it this afternoon.” Her tolerance for relaxation was waning and her
compulsivity was kicking in. She wanted to give the SUV a quick going over, although her legs felt like lead and her head was spinning a bit from the beer – she typically didn’t drink
much.

“I’ll give you a hand.”

“Really? Thanks.”

They pulled out the hoses, and BJ hooked them together while Nicki ran into the house for the bucket, sponge, and brushes. They divided up the car by sections and started to work. Nicki was
standing by the front bumper as BJ sprayed the top of the car.

“Hey, watch it with the hose!” She stood back with her arms outstretched, the front of her top and shorts stuck to her body.

“Sorry.” BJ dropped the hose and came around to the front of the car. At first she was embarrassed to see Nicki so vulnerable – her wet top almost completely transparent, and
the fabric clinging to her perky nipples like a second skin. She tried to focus her eyes anywhere but on Nicki’s chest.

“I . . . ah . . . I’m sorry.” She looked down at Nicki’s shorts. They were plastered to her thighs and hugged her crotch. BJ could see she wasn’t wearing underwear,
a dark bolt of pubic hair revealed itself beneath the wet cotton. BJ’s heart was pounding in her chest, tingling shocks shooting down through her body, briefly stopping at her nipples, and
ending up in a wet sizzle between her legs. It had been way too long since she’d allowed herself to feel this way.

“God, you’re gorgeous.” She couldn’t help herself. It was if her hand wasn’t attached to her body as it swept up Nicki’s arm and rested on her wet
shoulder.

“Yeah, right.” Nicki pulled her top away from her body with both hands.

“No, I mean it.” BJ ran her hand to the back of Nicki’s hair, took hold of it, and gave it a little tug. “I think you’re beautiful, Nicki.”

Nicki had seen that look before. It was the “I want you” look. A thought went through her head about the time, and the car being half-washed, and Corrine coming up – but it was
transitory. She moved closer to BJ and put her hand on her waist. She lifted her head and willed a kiss with her eyes. BJ’s lips were soft and urgent.

“God, that feels good,” BJ said as she ran her hand under Nicki’s shirt. She brought her other hand around and brushed the back of her thigh, slowly coming up under her shorts
and grabbing her butt, pulling her close. “Oh, baby, baby.” She ran her hand over Nicki’s butt to the place where her thigh met it. She made circles with her hand, up onto her
butt and waist, back down to her thigh, and closer and closer to her pussy.

Nicki was squirming and pushing into BJ’s hand. She leaned into her and straddled her thigh. BJ yanked her own shorts up so that her bare leg was against Nicki’s pussy. She could
feel her warm wetness against her leg. They kissed as BJ rubbed her hand over Nicki’s ass, gently tugging at her butt cheek with short gentle pinches. With each tug, Nicki arched her back and
spread her pussy wider, her juices running onto BJ’s leg as she slipped up and down on her thigh. She reached under BJ’s T-shirt and shoved up her sports bra, freeing her breasts. She
pulled at her nipples and swayed her breasts with her hand. BJ leaned back against the side window and moaned. Her fingers slid into Nicki’s wet pussy just as she came, the soft walls
tightening around her hand with rhythmic massage.