The Mammoth Book of Lesbian Erotica (43 page)

“Defective candles,” she answered.

“Ok, so I’m guessing that is what’s left of your birthday candle that you just blew out again.”

“Very good, Kai. Two points for you.” She poked me in the side, making me squirm.

“At your restaurant, I saw you sitting there by yourself and then you looked so cute when Gina got you flustered, I wished for some way to meet you. I was this close to putting my own hair
in my food just to have a reason to talk to you,” she laughed.

I put my arms around her, holding her tight, and pressed my lips to the top of her head. “First,” I stated, “I am not cute. Second, I do not get flustered.” More laughter
from Riley. “Lastly, are you going to tell me what you just wished for?”

She reached around behind me and pinched my cheek. “Are you insane?” she asked, disbelieving. “I’m not telling. That candle works!”

Hail Warning

Jean Roberta

KC dumped me in the rain, as though she wanted to wash me out of her life. Or maybe she did it then because she didn’t want to see me cry, as if I would. Maybe she had
some blood memory of her ancestors leaving their nearest and dearest in the Scottish mist as they boarded a ship bound for Canada. I had seen it coming, of course. KC had been on the rebound when
she besieged me in the bar six months before after too many beers. In some sense, our whole relationship had been a long hangover on her side, while I had just been hanging on. Our soggy, muddy
ending by the Victoria Street bridge was very predictable. Knowing this didn’t make it easier to take.

“You know we don’t have much in common, Jo,” she told me diplomatically: no accusations or self-blame. “It wouldn’t have worked.” I choked back all the
desperate words that sprang into my mind:
Relationships aren’t just a matter of fate! You have to make them work! How can you say we have nothing in common? Have you forgotten my clit
already? And my hungry cunt and my sensitive breasts and my eager fingers? They haven’t forgotten you!
But I didn’t say any of this to her in the rain, in the mud, under a vast grey
prairie sky. “If you don’t want to see me any more,” I muttered, “then it can’t work. If you want your freedom, I won’t argue. It can’t work if it’s
not mutual.”

KC’s eyes, which could pass for blue on good days, now looked as grey as the sky, and she couldn’t look at me. “We had a good time while it lasted, didn’t we?” she
pleaded, fighting off her sense of guilt. “I’ll see you around, Jo.” In a small lesbian community, that was guaranteed, for better or worse. “We could have lunch
sometime.”

I couldn’t resist a parting shot. “You’re interested in someone else, aren’t you?”

Her face gave her away. “Coral and I sort of want to get together.” This meant she was already courting Coral with flowers, perfume, coy love notes and invitations to dinner, movies,
concerts, and the gay bar. Trying to be fair, I admitted to myself that KC had a talent for courtship, although she always floundered in the follow-up.

I was about to walk away, my face turned toward the rain so that it stung just enough, when KC threw her arms around me and pulled me to her with a strength born of guilt. That strength tempted
me more than I wanted her to know. I like to think I’m not a weak woman, but rejection takes its toll. Against my common sense, I sighed and relaxed into her deceptively firm hug. She
searched for my wet lips with hers, and gave me a kiss filled with the relief of knowing that her freedom had already been granted. I kissed back like an obsessed follower of lost causes. To
complete the shame, tears filled my eyes and trembled in my lower lids, about to spill over.

She pulled away from me in the nick of time. “What are you doing this afternoon?” she asked as if my life still interested her. My mind shrieked a menu of answers:
Slash my wrists
and write your name on my walls in blood! Ask around to find out where I can get a machine gun! And never mind why. Dig out all the old leather clothes I own and get ready to go to the bar so I can
start a fight with a total stranger. Pick worms off the pavement and eat them with a flourish in front of a downtown department store.
Instead I answered, “I have errands to do,”
keeping it vague, aiming for a contemptuous monotone.

KC was giving me that patronizing look I sometimes get from other women in their thirties who think I’m cute because I look younger than they do: small and girlish. “I didn’t
want to hurt you,” she crooned into my hair, tenderly lifting wet black strands off my face. “You probably shouldn’t be alone today, honey,” she had the gall to advise me.
“Why don’t you go see Ted? You haven’t seen her for a while and she’d probably like to go for coffee. You two always have things to talk about.”

I shivered slightly as an image of our friend Theodora sprang into my mind. I told myself this was caused by being drenched in cool rain after being dumped. KC’s comment sounded like
further evidence of how wrong she was about so many things, especially everything to do with me.

KC and all the shallow women we both knew seemed to think that Ted and I were friends. They saw only the obvious: I was rarely at a loss for words and Ted seemed like the kind of dyke who would
never lose her cool, even in a natural disaster or the front lines of war. When we met, our conversations were usually witty and daring enough to entertain our audience, and we both liked to
perform for a familiar crowd. I wondered if any of our friends had the faintest clue that I really didn’t know Ted very well and wasn’t sure if she would ever let me get past her public
mask. Or vice versa.

“KC, don’t tell me what to do,” I told her. “I have a lot to do today. I’ll see Ted when I see her.”

I realized that I didn’t have KC’s attention when I noticed her looking over my shoulder in the direction Ted would come from if she were driving toward us from her apartment. The
significance of this jumped into my stomach like a baby frog from the river. “Did you ask her to meet us?” I demanded.

KC reached for me, and I moved quickly out of her space. “At Java’s across the street,” she confessed. She looked at her watch. “I wanted to talk to you out here first,
where we could be alone. We should go. I said we’d be there ten minutes ago.”

“You can meet her,” I instructed, deadpan with rage. “I have things to do. I’ll see you later.” I hoped my emphasis on the last word was unmistakable. I turned my
back on the woman I hoped to forget as soon as possible and began walking into the rain toward my future as a lone wolf in the uncaring human pack.

Ted approached me head-on, hands in her slick vinyl jacket. Her short, assertive brown hair, almost a crewcut, looked unaffected by the rain that was running down my neck and chilling my nipples
to hard points. “Hey, where you going?” she asked with rough sympathy. “I looked for you in Java’s but you weren’t there.” The situation was getting unbearable.
“Josephine, don’t jam out on us. I promised KC I’d meet her for coffee because she said you’d be there.”
Hold on tight,
I told my temper.
Some dykes are
always cool, and I could be one of them.

The self-talk didn’t work. “KC doesn’t fuckin’ make my dates!” I yelled hysterically into Ted’s faintly-twitching face, having to look up to do this. I took a
deep breath, realizing that I had just made a fool of myself and probably couldn’t undo the damage. “Look, Ted, I’m sorry and I’d like to see you some other time, but not
now. I never agreed to this. I have things to do.” KC stood discreetly to the side, looking as uncomfortable as a wet cat.

The sarcastic lift of Ted’s thin, beautifully arched eyebrows hurt me like the sting of an insect, right in my heart. Somehow her pale olive skin colour enhanced the expressiveness of her
features. “So you have things to do in the rain? Did you know the weather office has put out a hail warning? In about an hour, hailstones like golfballs are going to be bouncing off your
head. Were you planning to go for a long walk in that?”

I hesitated for a moment too long. Ted’s strong fingers, each a knuckle-length longer than mine, gripped my upper right arm while her other hand pressed firmly into the small of my back.
She began pushing me toward the cross-walk which led across the street to Java’s. She was doing it in such a way that she didn’t appear to be using force, but I couldn’t resist
her without making a scene. Even the weather was on her side. “Come on, Josie,” she cooed in my ear. “Come inside to get warm and have a coffee, then I’ll drive you
home.” She was letting me save face by letting me appear to co-operate. I felt like the bride in an arranged marriage, like one of my ancestors whose submission had eventually led me to be
here at this moment.

“Okay,” I sulked. We were halfway there anyway. Ted smiled at me in a way that sent more shivers down my spine. This time I was sure this wasn’t only a reaction to the
rain.

The welcoming light and warmth of Java’s made me feel better in spite of myself. A scattering of other customers showed various degrees of wetness, depending on how long they had been
there, and they all looked reluctant to leave until the downpour let up. The three of us found a table in a corner.

KC’s impatience was noticeable because it set her apart from everyone else in the place. “I can’t stay long,” she explained, looking away from me and Ted. “I sort
of said I’d meet someone.” Her whole plan was now blatantly exposed: she had invited me to go for a romantic walk in the rain so that she could break up with me as quickly as possible
before assuaging her conscience by handing me over to Ted, who had agreed to babysit me so that KC could rush off to meet Coral somewhere.

“May you both be struck by lightning,” I said quietly, with as much dignity as possible. “If you survive, may your car skid on wet asphalt and crash into a power line. May the
roof cave in at your place and hers. May the hail kill all your tomatoes. Have a nice day, KC.”

A waitress appeared at my elbow to hear the last few words. “Small cappucino,” I told her without changing my tone. Ted quietly ordered a French dark roast while KC chewed her
lips.

My betrayer couldn’t look at me. “Well, yeah, I’m sorry you feel that way, Jo. I’ll phone you later. See you, Ted.” She ducked her head, and faced the door as
though she looked forward to the sting of rain after being pelted with my words. “Sorry about all this,” she muttered vaguely. She left with speed, and I could see her breaking into a
run as she headed back across the street toward her parked car.

Ted was watching me through narrowed eyes. “Famous last words,” she remarked. Do you really want your good wishes to stick, Jo?”

This question had an adult-to-child tone, and I hated it. “Right now,” I said, looking her in the eyes between damp strands of my hair, “like glue.” Her mouth widened
until she was giving me a smile that was like the hug of a conspirator, as though we shared a secret that tickled her immensely. When the waitress brought our coffees, she couldn’t interrupt
the silent bond that was building between us. Something about Ted’s expression made me wonder what diabolical revenge she had carried out against any of her ex-girlfriends. Instead of feeling
alarmed, I wanted to hear all the details.

I wasn’t prepared when she casually reached across the table to stroke my face. “You’re already wet,” she remarked. She made it sound like a comment on the weather, which
in a sense it was. “I think you need a drink, baby. How would you like to come to my place for a hot rum? It might prevent you from catching pneumonia, unless that’s what you’re
pushing for. In that case, I could drop you off – but never mind. I could make sure you don’t dry out.” Her intentions (not to mention the way she was looking at my nipples, which
must have been visible under my T-shirt) were now crystal-clear.

“Do you always try to pick up women who have just been dumped?” I demanded. “Your friends’ leavings?” I knew I was only stalling for time.

She blew the air out between her lips in a “pffft” of contempt. “I pick up women who interest me,” she told me as though I were a slow learner. “Sometimes I do it
when they’re vulnerable, or when I have a good chance. I don’t always play fair, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“If I say yes,” I asked slowly, “can I expect you to lose interest by tomorrow? Or shoot the shit to everyone we know?” Even as I spoke, I was vaguely aware that an
untrustworthy date wouldn’t answer such questions honestly while an honest one wouldn’t need to be asked.

“Josephine,” she explained, clearly wanting me to notice that she was more tolerant than I deserved, “we’ve seen each other a lot over the years, and we’ve shot the
shit. How much do you know about my private life? Could you name the singer I was with in our home town when we were both teenagers, the one who went on to top the charts? Do you know who
I’ve been with here? Do you even know what my first language was, or where my family came from?”

The full silences she could maintain in a conversation were exactly the point for me, I realized. Ted, I wanted to ask her,
who the hell are you, and what would it take to find out?
I
took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Okay,” I answered, smiling my consent. “Let’s go to your place.”

As soon as we stood up, she wrapped a long arm around my shoulders. As we left the shelter of Java’s, she squeezed me against the rain, which now pounded the pavement in sheets. Looking
down, I saw that the ground was salted with little hailstones. I thought they looked like crystallized tears, visible signs of nature’s own rage and grief.

In the passenger’s seat of her little car, I was glad I wasn’t driving. Like a fool, I trusted her competence or my own luck.

She pulled smoothly into the parking lot of an old brick building. Too soon, we had to leave the mobile shelter of her car and run through hail again. I hoped she would hold me as she had
before, and she did.

Pulling me down a hall toward her apartment, Ted asked me something that sounded completely irrelevant: “Do you eat fish?”

“I’m one-quarter Japanese,” I answered. I thought I should seize the chance to tell her this, since I look more-or-less white, and some people treat me differently once they
find out, even if they’re not WASP themselves and didn’t seem racist before. You just never know. “I grew up on fish. I could eat it seven days a week.”