The Mammoth Book of Lesbian Erotica (32 page)

Gail roared with laughter. “Yarrow, admit it! You just loved those big Barbie breasts, even when you were little.”

Relieved by the change of topic – and knowing she’d relish an opportunity for spontaneous sex while Brett was safely at a friend’s house for the afternoon – I turned
around my chair so I could cup her breasts. “If I liked Barbie breasts, it was because I didn’t know how much fun real ones were. Especially yours.” Gail’s weren’t
exactly Barbie-proportioned, but they were lovely and full on her otherwise small frame. That was nice, but what I adored about them was their sensitivity, how even a light caress would distract
her and anything more serious would turn her brains to mush.

It was always fun, and sometimes it was damn convenient. Right now I really didn’t want to talk about Christmas with her family.

It’s not for the reasons you might think. After Gail’s disaster of a marriage, they were so delighted to see her with someone who made her happy that they’d have welcomed a
fire-breathing three-headed Martian if it were good to Gail, let alone a harmless granola dyke. And all of Gail’s relatives whom I’d met were genuinely nice and eager to make me feel
like part of the family.

If anything, that made it worse. I could have handled a holiday soap opera in the role of The Queer Daughter’s Dicey Girlfriend. But the idea of spending Christmas with a close family made
me want to hide under my duvet with a pile of hankies and not come out until spring.

Concentrating on making Gail writhe in sexual ecstasy seemed like a much better plan than working myself up into a panic. But even that pleasure only took me so far.

Her hot, responsive body distracted me nicely for a while. I tongued her nipples until she begged for mercy, then pulled her jeans off, knelt between her legs and savoured the smoky, spicy
delight of her until she cried out. She came, squirting as she often does, splashing onto the kitchen floor, and I laughed and used her shirt to wipe it up. But when she went to reciprocate, I
couldn’t lose myself in the sensation. Perched on the counter, I felt her clever hands and tongue doing things that would usually work like magic. Instead of getting all juiced up, though, I
found myself getting more and more melancholy.

Finally, Gail noticed that, while I wasn’t exactly crying, my eyes were at least as wet as my pussy. She stopped what she was doing and just held me. I wrapped my arms and legs around her,
pressed my face against her shoulder and just shook. I couldn’t really cry. It had been too many years and I had cried myself out. Crying would have been easier.

Finally I could talk. “I hate Christmas,” was what came out.

“Something to do with your parents?”

I nodded. “Dying in that fire when I was in college, with my little brother. It was Christmas night – that’s the part I don’t usually tell people because it bothers them
too much. And Oak was . . .”

Gail did the math. “He must have been about the same age as Brett. Okay, I can see why you hate Christmas, and why Christmas with my family is scary.”

“It was never a holiday we celebrated, so I don’t even have good memories to balance the horror. It’s just the day my whole family died.”

“You must have some good memories of this time of year. What about Winter Solstice – Yule?”

Gail hadn’t been raised pagan as I had, but it was something she’d become interested in since we’d been together. She embraced the principles of it, but was still learning
about the rituals and the history. Just yesterday we’d discussed the pagan origins of Christmas, agreeing that the Christian holiday itself had been almost buried in a snowstorm of
commercialism.

I sighed. “That one’s got too many good memories. My last Yule with my family was almost perfect. We did a beautiful ritual out in the snowy woods behind the house, and then came
inside and lit candles everywhere and exchanged gifts – we never gave big presents, just some small thing that would be meaningful – and stayed up until dawn to praise the sun’s
return. Only I was a little distracted because I had a new girlfriend and was leaving the next day to spend the rest of break with her. The house burned down while I was digesting my first
Christmas dinner.”

She shook her head, kissed me again, and pulled away from me long enough to put on tea water and let us both get re-dressed. By the time we were snuggled on the living room couch, tea in hand, I
was composed again, trying to pretend my meltdown didn’t happen, and ready to apologize when it was clear that Gail wasn’t going to let me ignore it. “It was almost fifteen years
ago. I don’t know why it’s affecting me this much . . .”

She set down her cup and took my free hand between both of hers. “What did you do on the winter holidays until now?”

“Hid. Went to the movies, got takeout, found something to read that would engross me. For a few years I took extra shifts at work – they always need nurses on the holidays –
but the ER turned out not to be the best place to be. Sometimes I went on vacation to someplace like Martinique or Jamaica, where it didn’t feel like Yuletide. I’d like to try to be
with your family, for your sake, but I’m afraid it’ll dredge up memories.”

She squeezed my hand. “What we need,” she said, “is to make some holiday memories of our own. I’m going to go make some phone calls.”

I must have made some confused noise, because she added, “The Winter Solstice is the twenty-first, right? I’m going to get a sitter and we’re spending the night at your place.
And while we’re there, we’re going to create a holiday celebration that’s ours and ours alone.”

The day of the Winter Solstice was cool and blessedly clear. Throughout the short day, I’d enjoyed catching glimpses of the mountains in the distance, unshrouded by rain
or snow. I’d had to work, but Gail, a teacher, was off for the week and had spent the day at my house puttering. The sun was setting – a rare treat, in Seattle, to see a proper sunset
instead of rose-tinged rain clouds – and a pale quarter moon was already hanging low at the horizon when I got home. Gail came to the door carrying a sprig of mistletoe and held it over my
head as she pulled me close with the other arm. We didn’t need mistletoe, but it made me smile.

When I walked into the house, I gasped. When I’d left in the morning I had a bare Scotch pine in the corner of the living room and that was it for decoration. Bought on Gail’s
instruction, it was the first tree I’d had in my orphaned adult life. Now pine branches and garlands of princess pine were festooned on the mantle and doorways, covering the tables, even
strewn on the hardwood floor. The warmth of the house released their green, fresh-air fragrance. The room was full of unlit white candles – votives in protective glass holders, a nod to my
uneasiness with fire. In the centre of the room sat the coffee-table altar we’d constructed over the last few days, a simple affair with cotton batting for the snow that would not coat the
ground this year, holly and oak branches for the Holly King and the Oak King who battle for the love of the coming Spring, and a bunch of red roses in a gaudy peppermint-striped vase because Gail
and I both love them and it just felt right. A picture of the two of us was propped against the vase.

On a table next to the altar was the ritual meal we had devised: pomegranate seeds, baked brie with apples, locally made smoked salmon, a bottle of Pinot Noir from a winery we had visited
together over the summer, and, in honour of those boar’s heads that turn up in the descriptions of old-time Christmas feasts, spareribs and pork wontons from our favourite Chinese place. A
chocolate fondue simmered over a candle, the only one already lit in the house. Bright red and white candy canes decorated the areas not covered with plates. It wasn’t like any holiday meal
either of us ever had (my childhood memories involved a lot of home-canned vegetables), and that was the point. And it was all chosen so we could feed it to each other. The food added its own
fragrances to the scent of pine and the faint honey-sweetness of beeswax candles.

“It’s so beautiful!”

“No. It’s just decorated. You’re beautiful.” She kissed me again, helping me slip out of my coat. “Go change into something comfortable,” she suggested.

I stripped off my uniform and shoes and threw on a loose, comfortable caftan. When I returned, she had poured wine for both of us, as well as some in the chalice on the altar.

“Did you see the sunset?” she asked as we settled on the sofa. I nodded. “I spent some time meditating on it,” she said. “About how short the day was, and how long
the night would be. I can understand how our ancestors would have been frightened by the days getting shorter and shorter, and how they felt they needed to have a ritual to bring back the
sun.”

I nodded, savouring the smoke and berry flavours of the wine. “It made them feel in control.”

“Now we have scientific proof of how it works, but ritual is still important in our lives,” she said. “Which is why we’re doing this, even now. Right?” She stood,
extending her hand to me.

“You put it better than I could have, love.” I smiled and thought about what she had said. “Because I was raised pagan, it sometimes becomes a reflex to me, like going to
church might be for someone else. It’s all fresh to you, and you remind me what it means. Thank you!”

Together, we lit all of the candles in the room, bringing light into the growing darkness. As we did, we talked and meditated on the wheel of the year. The Solstice heralded the birth of the sun
and also the divine son, the saviour god. Whether you called him Jesus or something else, the sentiment was the same: a promise of renewal against the darkness and cold of winter.

Soon the room flickered with candlelight. Standing there, in the warm glow, I felt the stress melt away from me as the positive energy of the season coursed through me. This was
our
night, Gail’s and mine. This was our ritual. It wouldn’t cause the sun’s return, but it celebrated the growing sunlight, the inevitable change from one season to the next.

We sat on the floor in front of the food, and fed each other bites: sweet pomegranate, smoky salmon, smooth brie, tangy Chinese, interspersed with sips of wine and luscious kisses.

“I think,” Gail said, “we might be better off getting out of our clothes, so we don’t drip chocolate on them.”

I willingly let her help me out of my caftan, and then I returned the favour, noticing that she had also worn things that were easy to get off. I didn’t usually do rituals sky-clad except
in high summer – it wasn’t practical in the Pacific Northwest and paganism is at heart a practical religion – but in a cozy house with only my beloved there, it seemed like a
wonderful idea.

Make that an awesome idea, in the literal sense of the word. In that dimly lit room, rich with evergreen fragrance and illuminated only by candles, the beauty of her body stunned me. “You
are Goddess,” I whispered, and knelt to press my face between her thighs.

I felt her curl her fingers into my hair, fingers tightening reflexively as my tongue whispered over her clit. So I was surprised when she eased my head away.

“Not so fast,” she whispered. “We have all night.”

She pulled out the massage cushion and had me lie facedown on it. I purred as her fingers kneaded tension from my shoulders, as her palms lightly caressed my back. I shivered as she moved down
to my ass, but alas, she didn’t stop there. Her hands trailed to my feet, and I relaxed into her famed, delicate foot massage.

“Tonight’s the longest night of the year,” she said as her fingers pressed into the ball of my right foot with just the right amount of pressure not to tickle. “The night
when we celebrate that, in fact,
it is
the longest night, and the nights will now start to get shorter, and the days longer. When we celebrate the return of the light while savouring the
night’s own joys.”

Her voice was soft, hypnotic, lulling me into a trance.

“Imagine a ball of golden light,” Gail continued. “It’s surrounding your feet. It’s safe and warm, bringing nothing but comfort and energy.”

This was a basic meditation, but one I’d usually done alone. It took on a whole new dimension with her hands caressing me.

Those hands, coated in eucalyptus-scented oil, slid around to my ankles, then up to my calves. Gently she massaged the muscles there, all the while encouraging me to envision and feel the
peaceful light.

And I did. Meditation has always come easily for me, probably because I learned it so young. It was a simple thing for me to slip into the mental state required, to blank my mind or to fill it
with a particular thought or vision. I believed in the lines of energy that encircled the earth, and was able to tap into them. Now, that energy was golden light to me, moving up my body at the
same rate as Gail’s hands, relaxing and reinvigorating me.

When Gail reached my thighs, I started to tense with anticipation, but she crooned and stroked until I settled down again. It wasn’t that I wasn’t getting aroused, because I was
– it was more that there was no urgency. My clit tingled, but I was more focused on the sensations of the intimate but not entirely sexual massage, and on the light that came with it.

Bit by bit, inch by inch, my muscles lost their tightness. I floated gently, only half-aware when Gail helped me turn over. She massaged my scalp, caressed my temples, worked her way back down.
She reached my feet again and, like a good masseuse, didn’t abruptly cease contact with me. One hand slid up my leg as she shifted, and I was dimly aware of her curling on her side next to
me.

The caress of her lips against mine was blissful. I thought I heard her say “don’t lose the light” before her tongue stroked against my bottom lip. Our kisses were soft,
sensuous, rather than the almost-frantic quality they often took. How long had it been since we kissed this way, like new lovers exploring each other for the first time? I wondered dreamily. And
why had we stopped?

She kissed my throat, tongued the warm sensitive hollow behind my left ear. Her hands, still soft from the oil, didn’t miss an inch of skin on my torso, and her lips didn’t miss
much, either.