I sometimes regretted letting Sally just slip away. Especially after what I thought would be a long-term relationship with someone I met from another firm that I entered into shortly after she was back in London blew up. Once again it was “someone else” who got him. Although my fiancé left me it turned out—I didn’t mention this—for another woman, this time I was left for another man. This time he was caught, kissing yet another lawyer in his bed when I was supposed to be out with Alice. I had keys and often just stopped by. But Alice cancelled at the last minute so I decided to surprise him. We surprised each other.
After his lover unceremoniously fled, Rich confessed. He was trying to “straighten out”—that’s really what he said—with me but had been seeing this man for a while, even before we met.
This time I lost it. Not only at being deceived and dumped but at the inanity of it. “If you fucking loved him, why couldn’t you just love him and been a couple and not been a lying creep.” I knew Rich and his crowd and I knew why he couldn’t let some of them know. His concern for what-others-thought, was embedded in him. One of his less attractive qualities.
Surprisingly for someone who’d been cheated on for a while, over time we became friends. I did like him and I liked him more when we both gave up trying to have him be someone he wasn’t. And when he finally broke free of his friends’ restraints by breaking free of those “friends,” he moved in with his lover and they are now engaged.
When it happened, though, I was not in a good place. Alice of course was there for me again, but she was limited by being married and by being pregnant. Then she was gone. Ben got a job in San Diego and they moved across the country.
The one thing I had going for me was my new job. It was in the legal department of a mid-sized bank with its headquarters in midtown Manhattan. The pay was good and the hours were better than at my law firm. The other lawyers and the staff were more laid-back too and for the first time I became friendly with a number of them. I could walk the three miles or so to work, including through Central Park, and had time for almost-daily runs there, even entering races every few months.
The new friends, of course, begat new dating opportunities, mostly of the friend-of-a-friend type. With my improved work-situation, I began to enjoy myself and with several men I went on a number of dates and brought two or three home with me to spend the night. From then I confirmed just how bad my ex was in bed. Thank God I was rid of him.
None of these relationships turned serious, although I think some of them wanted it to be. But things were not clicking for me. Still, I was having fun.
I came home from one of those enjoyable dates on a Friday night. Bill. It was a third date, but we both knew “we” weren’t happening but we both had a good time of it. I was in a better place than I perhaps had ever been. I was spending some weekends up at my parents’ place in Westchester and getting to know my sister Carly’s two-year-old boy. She and her hubby lived nearby. Carly, older than me by two years, had become my Alice since the latter’s move to California.
It was a bit late on this particular Friday. I’d let my phone run out of power and hadn’t checked my mail for hours, so I raced to boot up my laptop. I was not ready for the third message.
Eve,
Long time. I’m sorry I haven’t kept in touch. I couldn’t.
I’ve been thinking a lot about you recently. I’m coming back to New York for an extended period. I’ve managed to get a transfer to my firm’s New York office. There’s no fixed period for it but it’ll be at least a year.
I hope you’re still available to help me. Please say you are. If not, I understand.
Fondly,
Sally Abbott
Sally Abbott. I hadn’t thought of her in a while. As happened with that first kiss in London, her second lingered on my lips for some time but with all that was going on in my life it faded. I suddenly regretted that, my right hand touching my lower lip for a moment.
Sally Abbott,
I will always be available to help you. You’ve made me very happy.
Love,
Eve
I sent it.
I hadn’t given any thought to what I wrote and as I read it I was afraid she’d get the wrong idea. Then I couldn’t stop staring at it. Every word of it was true.
Her email was three hours old. Who knows what time it was in London. She’d see my response in the morning.
* * *
I went to JFK to meet her. I didn’t need a sign for her to recognize me as she came through the doors after clearing Customs. It was mid-afternoon, and she was dragging two bags and I called to her. She rushed to her right and hugged me over the steel barrier, saying, “Oh my God. You don’t know how thrilled I am to see you again.”
I walked to meet her and help her with her bags as she passed into the open area of the British Airways terminal. We dragged them to a short taxi-line and after the bags were stowed in the trunk we headed to Queens. Bad as the traffic was, I barely noticed as I listened to her go on about her new job. How she saw a posting for it and applied without thinking she’d get it and, well, getting it. She would need to get an apartment, but had a monthly stipend to use. The firm would pay for one month at a mid-range hotel in Queens. We were going to that hotel.
Much of this I knew, of course, from our emails and conversations since that Friday email. She was so excited, though, that I let her tell it again.
The hotel was really mid-range. At least it was close to the subway so she could get to her office in midtown relatively easily. She was too tired to want to do anything so after we checked in and she took a quick shower, we walked to a small restaurant a couple of blocks from the hotel.
She, of course, was still on London time, and she quickly faded. So after our chatting during dinner, I walked her back to her hotel and to her room. I was strangely nervous. Because she’d be up early, I suggested that she take the subway to my place and we’d meet for breakfast. I told her she could call me any time after eight in the morning and I’d be ready for her.
But I was not ready for saying goodnight. We stood awkwardly at her door and I think we both knew. This time I leaned in and kissed her, quickly pulling away. I said, “I’m so glad to see you again” and she echoed it and I left when she opened the door to her room.
As I took an Uber home. The trip was a blur. We were both straight. Yet. This third kiss was riddled with promise and hope and joy and more than a hint of passion. And it was just a kiss.
When I got back I pulled out my vibrator. I used it fairly regularly and it filled a need. As it hit my pussy that night, though, I pulled it away. It was “enough” hundreds of time. It was not tonight. I was burning there but I didn’t want or need the intervention of a vibrator. Instead I tossed it aside and ran my fingers through myself and into myself. I thought of Sally and I spoke of Sally and I came hard.
What if I had it all wrong? What if she was straight? There was passion and she had initiated the first two kisses but she also had stories of the men she had been with over the years. She never mentioned a woman.
And me. What if I had myself all wrong thinking that she might be interested in me? About thinking of her as a lover? About thinking of any woman as a lover? I had almost married a man for God’s sake.
It wasn’t late, although it was a Friday. I texted Rich.
{Eve: I have something important I need to speak to you about. Are you available?}
He got back in ten minutes or so.
{Rich: Yeah. I can talk. Give me a call.}
I called him. When I told him what was going on he couldn’t resist saying:
“What’s with your water? It’s turning everyone gay.”
After I asked him to be serious he was.
“Eve. I don’t know how much help I can be. I pretty well always knew that I was gay. I just tried to overcome it with you. But I knew it was always there. I don’t know if you are gay or bi. You don’t know if you are.
“My advice is not to overthink it. You like this Sally right?”
“That’s just it. I’ve always ‘liked her.’ What if I ‘love her’?”
I explained about that email I sent without thinking when she said she was coming to New York for a year.
“I just sent it. It was like my fingers were talking before my brain could stop them and it was gone and I couldn’t get it back.”
“Did you want to get it back.”
I paused.
“Shit. That’s just it. I don’t know if I wanted to.”
“Paging Doctor Freud.”
“So all these years I’ve been secretly gay?”
“You know it’s not that simple. Look, just go with it. I wasted so much time not.”
“OK. Don’t tell anyone. I don’t know what’s going to happen with her.”
“Just make sure you have my current address for the invite.”
“For that, you’re sitting by the kitchen.”
* * *
Sally called at 8:01 on Saturday. Sounding tentative.
“I hope I didn’t wake you.”
Of course she hadn’t. I’d been awake for over an hour and was nursing my first cup of coffee of the day, staring at my phone and its clock.
“No. I’ve been up. When can you get here?”
“I’m in front of your building.”
That was interesting.
“Come in. I’ll buzz you up.”
And then she was at my door.
“We need to talk.”
I nodded and suggested, “Let’s go for a walk.” I grabbed my keys and phone, locked up, and we quietly took the elevator to the lobby. We got two large coffees at the corner deli and headed the one block to the Park. We were silent until we entered. There was the usual hubbub for a Saturday morning, and we found a quiet path.
“Tell me if you think it’s fate.”
“What do you mean?”
“Our encounter in London. You being so wonderful when my mum and auntie came with me here. Me getting the job here. Do you think it’s fate?”
“Why did you kiss me that first time?”
“I don’t know. I just did it. It seemed the right thing to do, you know? I thought about it every once in a while but I could never figure out why I did it?
“Me neither. I said it was just a human’s touch at a bad time.”
“I remember when you told me that. I felt bad when you did. That I was trying to do something I shouldn’t have. The whole sexual aspect.”
“Look. I didn’t know whether what I said was true when I said it. I was afraid, I think. I don’t know of what. The kiss was one of those mysteries inside of something things.”
She laughed. “You mean Churchill’s ‘riddle inside a mystery’ or something. I used to know that.” She shook her head. “It was probably one of those quotes they made us memorize. But I get your point. What are we supposed to do about it?”
I stopped her. I turned her towards me. I kissed her. Without a thought I kissed her. Then our tongues were touching and dancing. An asshole—arsehole?—shouted “get a room” as he rode by. That broke us apart. It was . . . amazing. She felt it too. Which I know because she said, “that was amazing.”
“Great. What do we do know?”
We sat on a bench. Holding hands.
She said, “I don’t know what I want. I do know I want to be your friend. I just don’t know if I want more and I’m afraid that if I try for something more and it blows up I won’t have anyone. You’re the only person I know in New York.”
“That makes two of us. Although I do know other people here.
“Sally, I don’t know what the fuck’s going to happen either. That first kiss kind of made my toes sparkle but you’re a woman and that’s not supposed to happen is it?”
“Ha. I’ve kissed guys and gotten four, maybe five toes to sparkle. I was lucky to have any toe nails when I got home that first time.”
“So. What do we do now?”
“Can we get breakfast?”
“What?”
“I don’t want to be flippant. But I’m starving and my brain is about to explode and I think for now all we can do is see what happens. It’s not like we have a choice. You tell me you sent that email without thinking. So let’s just get breakfast without thinking. And go from there?”
Breakfast it was. We sat in a coffee shop on Columbus Avenue, like the one in “Seinfeld,” and ate and had coffee and decompressed. She, by the way, made the “Seinfeld” reference, somewhat shocked that such a place really existed with its booth and coffee and little box with napkins and saucy waitresses and plates overwhelmed with food. “I thought an English Breakfast was bad for you.” And after she explained what an English Breakfast is I told her it sounded less healthy than eggs, homefries, toast, and bacon with a coffee chaser.
Life returned to normal insofar as it could return given my realization that I was probably hopelessly in love with a woman who I barely knew and who was in the City for a short-term gig. We agreed that she could stay at my place, sleeping on the sofa, while she looked for her own. The commute from Queens was killing her and it was killing me that she was there. For the weekend after the first one, I visited her and I enjoyed exploring a new neighborhood. But we agreed that we wanted to spend more time together, damn the consequences. So we loaded up her suitcases and she checked out and we Ubered to my apartment. It was tight, but I don’t think either of us cared. She said she was happy to be on the sofa. We spent the nights talking and getting to know one another. Simply knowing she would be there when I got home made my days go faster. We went for walks when we could, ambling around with me telling her about what movies were shot in front of what buildings. “‘Ghostbusters’? Really?” And we began to understand each other’s eccentricities. Like her penchant for horrible British comedies that she tracked down on YouTube.
About two weeks later, with Sally’s apartment search not turning up anything, a Saturday. Maybe it was early Sunday. We’d spent the evening as we usually did. It was her turn, and she made chicken with veggies and we got through nearly a whole bottle of red. We watched a couple of movies on Netflix and turned in around eleven.
Maybe it was the wine, but I couldn’t sleep. I peeked out into the living room when I went to pee and I saw she was up. Her tablet was lighting up her little portion of the room. When I finished in the bathroom I went to see her. I just wanted to check on her, but she surprised me.
“Can I live here?”
“Sorry?”
“I think I love you and I know I love being with you. I know we’re supposed to let things happen. Right now, I just want to live with you.”
I had thought of this myself. I knelt by the sofa. She put her tablet down and turned to me.
“Sally.” Again without thought. “I really like you being here.”
“But?”
“No buts. If you can handle the couch, it’s all yours.”
I got up to walk away.
“What about the other thing?”
“What other thing?” I was being a little cruel but I didn’t want to be too eager.
“That I think I love you.”
“Think?”
I felt bad. This was hard for me. So I quickly added,
“I don’t have to think about it. I’m madly in love with you.”
“Really?” She seemed genuinely surprised.
To convince her, I stepped back and leaned down. I placed my lips on hers and hers locked onto mine and I’m not sure how but I found myself on top of her, grinding into her, completely lost to her as she pulled me closer to her.
“Bed.”
“You sure?”
“BED.”
We rushed into my room. Neither of us knew what to do. But I’d quickly had her nightie off and she had mine off and we stood in nothing but our panties. I’d never really looked at another woman before. I placed my arms to her waist and stepped back to savor her. She was a little taller than me and her light-brown hair was straight. She often wore it up, but for sleep it flowed through her back. Her breasts were round and small and her tummy was flat.
And that was the beginning of the first time we made love. After pointing out our mutual lack of experience, she giggled, “I have some ideas.” I shut her up with my mouth. We’d kissed several times since that first kiss. And the second. We were now, though, in unchartered we’re-naked-and-making-love territory. And that was the last moment of thinking I had for the duration. If memory serves, after we got into bed, we just . . . did it. Our tongues danced and continued dancing as she pushed me to her side so we were on our sides and face-to-face. This freed our hands to wander, and wander they did. I cupped her ass cheek and suddenly she was cupping my left tit. It had been cupped before, but never as intimately as then. Our lips still locked she started making smaller and smaller circles until she had my nipple between her thumb and index finger and she started kneading it gently.
By that point I had pulled my hand from her ass and managed to get it to rub her slit. When I lowered it, a hint of her cream attached itself to my finger. We were both humping one another and I knew I had to bring some order to the chaos. I pushed her on her back and stayed on my side.
“Tell me what you want me to do.” She hesitated, not knowing how to answer. “Tell me what I can do to you my love.”
“Please, God, please Eve put your finger inside me.” So I did. After a minute or so I asked, “More fingers?”
“God yes.” I added a second and then a third and my hand was cupped as I pushed my fingers in and lightly dragged them out. She was so wet and the thought that I had done this to her, had made her erupt inside, made me grab her right wrist and turn her slightly towards me so she could reach my pussy. She began to duplicate what I was doing until we were just a mash-up of arms and legs and fingers and pussies. Both of us speaking gibberish as we each came for the first time at the hands of another woman.
When we were done, we lay on our backs trying to recover.
* * *
About three weeks after Sally’d moved in officially, I had to work late on a Wednesday. When I got home at about 8:30 the apartment was dark. When I turned on a light, Sally sat on the sofa. Shell-shocked.
I rushed to her.
“What is it love?”
“Someone buzzed the apartment. He said you’re his wife.”
“What? You didn’t let him in did you?”
“No. He kept buzzing. He sounded drunk. He kept shouting, ‘I want to see my wife.’ That’s not true is it?”
That explained her look. The bastard was back. I’d blocked him on my phone but he apparently tracked me to my new place.
“Sal. You might remember how we ended up meeting. That must have been the bastard who got drunk and walked away.”
She nodded, beginning to relax.
“Marrying him would have been the worst mistake of my life. And it would have meant that I’d never have met you.” I gave her a kiss on the forehead. “I’m all yours and that’ll never change.”
I realized those were the words of someone in the first blush of love. We both knew it. We both hoped it would prove true, that it would never change. But with that tacit dose of reality, it was what I needed to say and what she needed to hear.
When she was calm I asked her to excuse me for a minute. After using the bathroom I went to the bedroom and closed the door.
I used language that I probably shouldn’t have but I don’t regret using. But I told my former-and-never-again fiancé to stay out of my life. When he started with his “but I’ve changed” I said, “And I have too. I’m so happy I didn’t settle for you.” That last part was a bit mean to someone I did love at one time, but he deserved it. Which is when I hung up.
“Did you love him?”
I was sitting next to her.
“I think I did. Probably even after my trip to London I still did. I don’t know. Maybe I would have said ‘yes’ again if he’d asked me when I got back. I don’t know. I do know that I don’t love him now and I haven’t for a very long time.”
“Do you love me?”
I reached for her hands. “I do.”
“How do I know you won’t stop loving me?”
How does one answer that question? I did not know the answer. My only hope was that my heart knew.
“Sally. My love. I can only speak for me and for now and for the woman whose hands I’m holding.” I tightened my grip. “All I can tell you is that right now I have a need and a want for you and only for you that I cannot see ever lessening. Things may happen. But I cannot see anything happening that would lessen how much I need and how much I want you. That’s all I can tell you right now. It has to be enough. Because if it is not enough, I do not know how I can go on.”
I had difficulty with the last part as the tears started. She reached over to wipe them with a finger, her own eyes misty. She took the damp fingertip and kissed it and returned it to my cheek with a smile.
“Eve. That is enough for me. Please understand that I’m not a fancy New York lawyer with a slippery tongue but if I could I would say the exact same thing to you.”
Feeling her relax, I couldn’t resist: “You think I have a slippery tongue” and she giggled as she nodded.
I turned to close the curtains in the living room and walked back to her. She had her eyes on me the entire time. I moved the coffee table aside and knelt in front of her. She spread her legs and undid her belt and her jeans and let me pull them down. Her panties followed. We’d never done this before. She said, “get a towel I’m gonna need it” and I jumped up and came back with one. She lifted her butt so I could cover the cushion.
She was naked from her waist down. She again spread her legs and allowed me to approach. I’d never studied her before. Like a petalled flower I cannot do justice in describing. Her hair was neatly trimmed so I could see her clearly as her lips spread. A slight reflection in the cream at the base of this flower. She put her hands to either side and opened herself lustfully and lasciviously for me. It was by far the most erotic thing I had ever seen. By far. My tongue ran across my lips and I scooted to get closer.
I placed my right fingers along her, wondering at her. I leaned in and gave a peck to her hooded clit. I felt her thighs shake. Now her hands were in the back of my head, guiding me in. And I let her and then my tongue reached her. I was still in my suit but that was the farthest thing from my mind. Only her. Only this precious part of her. It took up so much space in my brain that there was no room for anything else. Were the room to catch on fire—which it surely might given the heat that I was feeling—I hoped that she would have the wherewithal to raise the alarm because I certainly couldn’t.
My tongue getting wetter and wetter along with her. I sucked on her clit for two, three seconds when I felt her hands push me down. She wanted my tongue inside her. So did I. I made a circle out of it and stabbed her vagina. Reaching in as far as I could. Again and again. She released her hands but it did not matter. I was fully engaged in what I was doing. She began to rock and I lifted my right hand around and began to rub her clit.
“Finger. In me.”
My mouth and my fingers switched places. I was pistoning her while sucking gently on her clit. She had leaned back on the sofa saying who-knows what to who-knows-who until I suddenly felt her hands again grab my head. “Oh My God.” Her hips began to bounce on the cushion as she pulled me closer into her.
Then, as my arm began to cramp she pushed me away. Her orgasm washed over her and she was done. It was the most-primal moment of either of our lives. She wanted to return the favor, and I was so aroused that when I straddled her on the sofa and pulled up my skirt and she pulled my panties down to get access to me, I came within a matter of a minute or two of when she started fiercely rubbing my clit as I pulled her head to my stomach, me holding on to have some semblance of control over my body. After I shifted so I was sitting next to her, my panties halfway down my thighs and me putting a portion of the towel under my butt so I wouldn’t stain the cushion with my flow, I turned to kiss her.
She licked her own juices that surrounded my mouth. While her pussy was the most erotic thing I had ever seen, this was the most erotic thing I ever felt and I made her share me with me as my tongue attacked hers. If we weren’t done, we’d have gone for a second round. But seeing as we were done, all I could do was talk. Barely. I didn’t need much brain-power to get across what I wanted her to know.
“I love you Sally. All I can say is that I loved you so much yesterday but I love you so much more today and I think I’ll love you even more than that tomorrow.”
“Damn you. I don’t really care if you love me. If you do what you just did every day, I’ll keep you around regardless.” And she gave the natural giggle that I’d long found endearing in her.
She added. “You’ve eaten. I haven’t.” I slapped her. “There’s Chinese I ordered that’s getting cold. Let’s take a quick shower and have dinner.”
The shower was not big but it was big enough. There was no hanky-panky. We were way too tired and spent for that. It was a quick I-suds-her/she-suds-me deal and we put the food in a microwave and opened a bottle of Merlot and sat in our robes eating with chopsticks. The curtains were still closed so we enjoyed our privacy. I thought of how nice it would be to eat Moo Shu Pork from her belly, and I think she might have thought the same thing.
Terry Brewer, Author 