The Mammoth Book of Lesbian Erotica (69 page)

Beth and Mary Jane soon found one another and fell to the floor in a frenzied embrace, their mouths and tongues intermingling while they thrust against each other in growing ecstasy. Nina and I
fondled each other as we watched. Then, aroused by their lovemaking and desiring each other so much it was almost unbearable, we lay on the bed in each others arms.

Nina was everything I remembered. Soft. Sweet. Hot with lust. We thrilled to each others touch, kissed and fucked with a passion I had not felt since the last time we were together. There was no
one like Nina.

The rolling, passionate love play left us all weak with pleasure and sexual satisfaction. Beth and Jane lay on the floor, drowsy and smiling. Nina rose and stood in front of me. I stood up.
Taking her in my arms, I turned her around until her back was against me. I stroked her softly, neck, breasts, stomach and pussy. She moaned with pleasure.

“Nina. Now that we have found each other again, let’s be lovers.”

“Yes,” she said. She turned and kissed me hard, her moist lips, soft warm tongue and sweet breath sending me to a new height. I was drunk with happiness.

“Let’s go home,” she said.

“Your place, or mine?” I asked.

“Ours,” she replied, linking her arm into mine

Saying goodbye to Beth and Mary Jane, we left the house together.

A Feast of Cousins

Beth Bernobich

Consanguinity
was Cousin Tessa’s new favorite word. The one she whispered to me last week, when we made sticky, bone-crunching love in her bedroom. Tess collected
words like pennies, snatching them up from wherever, setting them sideways and spinning them around, before she lost interest and tossed them aside for a newer, shinier word. She did the same with
lovers.

Okay, that’s not fair. But as Aunt Louisa would say, it’s true.

Back to
consanguinity.
Of course Tess knew what it meant. Family. The thicker-than-water blood. She had a point, I guess, because our family does stick close. Thanksgiving. Easter. Baby
showers. (Even the Our Lady of Polenta Feast, as my brother Eugene says.) Two things I know. That we’re always celebrating something, and Great-Aunt Gabriella is always cooking an enormous
family dinner.

“Christmas Eve, my favorite,” Uncle Teo said to me, pouring out the white wine. “Come, I hope you’re hungry, Maura.”

I smiled and took the glass he offered, looked around for a seat. Christmas, and Christmas Eve, meant a stuffed and overheated dining room, long loud conversations that unraveled and rewove
themselves, and a gorgeous soup of smells – cinnamon and baked apples, tangy pine and crushed peppermint. And tonight, the fresh baked haddock and breaded flounder, shrimp with hot sauce, and
more. Always more.

Spotting an empty chair, I squeezed in between my brother Eugene and my cousin Donny. Uncle Sal was passing around the dishes of noodles and anchovies. Across the table, Aunt Delores and Aunt
Louisa bent close, plunged into talk about their kids, while Great-Uncle Umberto argued politics with my father. It was like fireworks and cannons, the noise, but somehow we all managed to keep
talking and eating, eating and talking.

Eugene snagged a handful of shrimp and popped them into his mouth. “Hey, sis.”

“Hey, yourself.”

A shriek directly behind my chair made me jump. “Antonio!” My cousin Lia scooped up my nephew Antonio and deftly removed the fork from his grubby hands. “You nutty kid. You
might stab someone with that.”

Little Antonio screamed happily and squeezed his aunt, who carried him back to the kids’ table, singing a nonsense song. I thought she hadn’t seen me, but she gave me a passing wave
before turning her attention back to Antonio.

Good, capable, dutiful Cousin Lia. None of the kids were hers, but she always ended up watching over the children at these things. Just as Aunt Juliette helped in the kitchen. Just as Uncle Sal
always vidded the whole evening. Tradition, Sal called it. Like a thick knitted muffler that kept you warm, and sometimes made it hard to breathe.

And here came Sal, with a tiny new vidcorder in his meaty fist, swooping in between the tables. “Formaggio,” he cried. “Say cheese, Antonio. Oh my god, the kid’s gonna
burp anchovies. Hey, Teo, did I tell you how these new vidcorders pick up smells, too?”

“. . . he’s shipping out next week, Delores . . .”

“. . . hear about Pauly and Anita getting back together . . .”

“. . . have some more noodles . . .”

“. . . I think I’ll have some salad . . .”

“. . . no more room on the table . . .”

“. . . always more room . . .”

More wine appeared in my glass, even though I didn’t ask for it. Cousin Donny winked at me. “Cheers, cuz.”

His face was sweatier than usual, and his muskrat aftershave made me gag when he leaned too close. I mumbled a hello-and-thanks and turned to Eugene. “So, how’s the new
job?”

“Good enough. What about you?”

I shrugged. “Same as usual. Hey, do you know if Tess will show up tonight?”

Before my brother could answer, Donny leaned in. “Yeah, she’s coming tonight. She emailed Grandma about half an hour ago to say she’d be late. At least, I think she did. I was
kinda busy.”

He leered at me, and I shifted my chair a couple inches back and away. That’s when I noticed the mesh glove on Donny’s left hand. “What the hell is that?”

Another leer. “Early Christmas present. Watch.”

He wriggled his fingers, and a funny look came over his face. Good god, I thought yanking my gaze away. I’d heard about those things, advertised on lurid X-rated websites. Cousin Donny
hadn’t changed since we were eight and he tried to catch me naked in my bath on his camera-phone. Only now he’d figured out how to jerk off in public and not get arrested.

A loud popping noise caught everyone’s attention. “Umber-to!” came a cry from the kitchen. The next minute, my Great-Aunt Gabriella staggered through the doorway, wreathed in
clouds of acrid smoke. “System crash!” she wailed.

I sighed. Last month, Great-Uncle Umberto had replaced all the kitchen appliances with the latest stainless steel AI models. Everything had sensors and links and touchpads and programmable
features. It was all supposed to making cooking easier, but it turned out that the new AIs had a few bugs.

Cousin Nicci wiped her mouth with a napkin and slid from her seat. “No problem, Aunty. I know how to jig the system.”

Nicci, Gabriella, and Juliette vanished into the kitchen. The roar of conversation swelled up in their wake.

“Good thing Nicci knows her hardware,” Donny said. He was busy stuffing his face, using only one hand.

“Not like some,” Eugene said with a grin.

Donny had just opened his mouth to toss back an insult when the front door banged open. Tessa ran through, laughing and chattering, and exclaiming how cold it was outside. Her cheeks were ruddy,
her black eyes bright with mischief. Dark hair tumbled from underneath her knitted cap, which sparkled with miniature Christmas lights. Oh, yes. Already my mood got better. I lifted my hand to
wave, when I saw Cousin Lucia.

Lovely Lucia, who wore a bright red cashmere dress that barely covered her thighs. Uncle Teo called her the family angel, but seeing her slip an arm around Tessa’s waist, I thought she
looked more like an imp.

Not fair. Not even really true.

“What’s the word, Tess?” someone called out.

“Serendipitous!” Tess replied with a laugh.

I closed my eyes, feeling sick. Oh yes. I could just imagine how Tess picked
that
particular word. Next to me, Eugene muttered something about some cousins being idiots, but I ignored
him. He knew about me and Tess. Everyone did. But the last thing I wanted right now was pity.

One good thing about family dinners: you eat. And if you eat, no one bothers you. So I loaded up my plate with the baked flounder and noodles with cheese and spinach bread, and with my aunts and
uncles and cousins and parents all chattering over and around me, I ate. But all that time, I could see Tess and Lucia flirting with each other, bumping shoulders and giggling and who knows what
else.

Just like Tess and me at Thanksgiving. Or my parents’ anniversary celebration last week. Or . . .

. . . or that lovely luscious first time. Through a bright haze of tears, I could see the images, like ghosts over today’s feast.

Tess giving me secretive smiles all through the Labor Day picnic. Tess cornering me in the second-floor guest room, after Aunt Juliette’s birthday party, where I went to fetch my
jacket. Hey, she whispered. Don’t leave yet. I have a present for you, too. And before I knew it, we were wrapped up in each other, Tess giving me nibble-kisses over my cheeks and lips and
throat, until my knees turned into water and we both fell over into a pile of leather and wool coats
. . .

“Presents!” called out Uncle Teo. “Time for the gift exchange!”

Shrieking even louder, the littler cousins thundered into the living room. My mother and Aunt Juliette and Lia stayed behind to clear the tables, while Uncle Teo took charge of handing out
gaudily wrapped packages, some of them smothered in ribbons, and Aunt Delores trailed after him, picking up discarded wrapping paper, and writing down who gave what.

Nothing ever changed, I thought, rubbing my forehead, which ached from the heat and the noise. Cousins yelling and laughing. Cousins drinking too much. Cousins pretending that tonight was the
best night of the year. Part of me wanted to see where Tess and Lucia had gone. Part of me knew better.

A whiff of roses wafted past, sweet and soft. “Hey,” murmured a voice in my ear.

Cousin Lia knelt beside me, a tumbler of water in one hand. “You look like you could use some aspirin,” she said.

I shook my head. A mistake, because my headache-addled stomach gave a lurch. Without saying anything, Lia wrapped my hands around the tumbler. For a moment, our hands made layers, mine cold, her
warm and soft and strong.

“You filled up my hands,” I said, stupidly.

“So open up.” She popped two aspirin deftly into my mouth. “Now drink the whole glass full. Want some coffee, too?”

“No, thanks.”

When I finished off the water, she took the glass, but lingered a few moments. She wore her dark brown hair coiled around her head, but a few strands had worked loose – tugged free by the
irrepressible Antonio, no doubt. Lia tucked one curl behind her ear. “So. Any good presents?” she asked me.

I shrugged. “A couple. The usual.”

Lia gave me a crooked smile. “Nothing ever changes. Sometimes that’s a good thing. Sometimes . . .”

“Yeah,” I said, standing up. This time, my stomach didn’t protest the sudden movement. “Well, I think I’ll go home.”

She said nothing more, but when I came back with my coat, I found all my presents neatly packaged into one, easy-to-carry bag. Lia herself had vanished.

Soft brown shadows, threaded with light. Rippling, as though stirred by a woman’s quick breath. Soft lips grazed my cheeks and throat and breasts. The spicy scent,
warmed by skin and sweat, filled the air. Maura, Maura, Maura, oh, yes, that’s exactly where
. . .

I woke late and miserable. A sour taste coated my tongue. That would be from the glass of straight bourbon I drank after I got home. A headache lurked behind my eyes, which
felt grainy from the wrong kind of sleep.

No wonder I had such bad dreams.

Remnants of those dreams flickered in and out of recall, along with little flames of warmth that teased me in all the wrong places. I groaned.
Cousins. I’m sick of them.

And there would be more cousins today. More aunts and uncles and gossip. Great-Aunt Gabrielle and Juliette would have had started cooking at dawn for the Christmas Day feast. There would be
gnocchi, of course. And roast turkey. Asparagus drowning in a buttery death. Not to mention Aunt Louisa’s fabulous apple pies.

My stomach ached just thinking about all that food. First the Turns, I decided. Then aspirin and warm ginger ale, followed by coffee. Neck and shoulders creaking, I levered myself upright. For a
hideous moment, my balance tilted, as though I were navigating the world underwater. No more bourbon, I swore. Especially not after white wine.

A needle-hot shower helped ease the stiffness, and the medicine settled my stomach well enough that I could face the morning. Coffee mug in hand, I shuffled into my living room, where I checked
my v-phone, skimming through the voice and text messages left by half a dozen relatives. When I came to the end, I leaned back in my chair and closed my eyes.

You expected a call, didn’t you? Idiot.

No, I expected – a good-bye, perhaps.

I sighed and let my face soak in the scent and warmth from my steaming coffee. Maybe, just maybe I could skip Christmas dinner this year. No. Bad idea. Aunt Delores the human vid-machine would
never let me forget. Besides, Grandma Rosalie looked awful frail the night before. I didn’t want to miss any time with her.

Another mug of coffee. A leftover raisin bagel steamed into life. (Like me, I thought, inhaling the coffee.) I rifled through the bag with my gifts, the one Lia had so thoughtfully packed for
me, and started making my own notes for thank-you cards. Three identical gift cards to BooksNBytes. (Those from my brother.) A thermal scarf with solar heating threads woven into the yarn. (That
from my Aunt Carlotta.) A mini vid-card with a flash of my youngest niece laughing. A bottle of cheap air freshener from Donny. (Idiot, I thought.) DVDs. Movie tickets. Refrigerator magnets. A
bottle of my favourite perfume.

Then, at the bottom, underneath a layer of green tissue paper, I found a square black envelope. Hmmmm. No name. No imprint. How odd.

I sliced the flap open and pulled out a thick rectangular card, glossy and black, with a wafer-thin connector port around the edge. As I tilted the card back and forth, silvery dots coalesced
into letters that glided across its surface, only to dissolve as they slipped over the edge.

Je Ne Sais Quoi.

Joyeux Noël.