Ryan lay with her legs spread wide, watching Dex. The pink slit between her fast swelling labia gleamed out between the wet hairs of her pubis. The mound of flesh was splitting open to receive Dex's eager tongue. Daylight glistened in the droplets of water that beaded along Ryan's flesh. Goose bumps rose in concentric circles around the damp breasts. She pressed the heels of her palms into her erect nipples.
"Come to me, baby," she whispered.
Dex snorted, wishing it were already night. Her mouth moved rapidly over the willing body and her own tingled from the contact. Yet the ache throbbing through her loins had a peculiar, lonely quality. The pain of desire was more of an echo now. True, Ryan was here; Ryan wanted her. But today, Dex could not be entirely satisfied with that.
The ghost of Gena hung over her, more tangible than a mere memory. She could still smell the tang of Blue Grass and young, fresh sweat. The odor of her pussy clung to her nostrils. She hadn't noticed it before as Ryan and she had played cat and mouse. Now that the preliminary game was over, it was overwhelming.
It was Gena who had given her this new power over Ryan. And now it was Gena, wanting her again and again, who played in her mind. In a split second of lucid thought, Dex realized that she was just as bad as Ryan. Now that she had what she craved right before her, she wanted something else far away and unattainable.
As Dex pressed her lips to Ryan's belly, and licking down slowly to the tangle of wet hair matted to reveal the widening gash between her legs, she tried to shake herself free from the taste of Gena.
"What's happening?" Ryan asked, her voice barely audible. "Is something the matter with you all of a sudden?"
Dex clasped her arms around Ryan's knees. She did not want to answer Ryan's question. Certainly, she did not want to admit, in her own mind, that Gena had any claim on her whatsoever. The idea was preposterous. Monstrous. It boded evil.
"Nothing's wrong," Dex muttered.
Eagerly, as though to prove her point, Dex moved her mouth up along the side of Ryan's thigh. She felt Ryan begin to quiver. As Ryan's passion grew warmer, Dex felt encouraged. The ache in her pussy needed satisfaction. She could feel it swelling, the lips parting, the clit stiffening, her whole sex coming alive, gushing slightly in anticipation of the satisfaction of Ryan's mouth. If she couldn't have Gena, she would have to settle. Settle for Ryan. Settle for her own true love.
The anger of irony upset Dex. She lifted her hips and drove them down onto Ryan. Her naked flesh rushed against Ryan's, met it, and melted into it. Their cunts joined, shoved together, grinding together. The labia glistened, made their two hot cunts slippery as juice poured out from the contracting muscles of their vulvas. If Ryan had only tried to be faithful through the years, this never could have happened. She had stolen half the pleasure out of their hungry coupling. The heat and desire rushed through her loins, drenching their cunts, but it seemed further away than her own body.
Squeezing Gena out of her mind, Dex concentrated on pleasing Ryan. They knew how to make love together. Knew each other's bodies.
She felt Ryan's fingers working down between them. As the hand reached the upper part of her cunt, Dex hunched upward, giving the eager hand room in which to move. The fingers touched her gently at first, taking in the total area with long slow strokes. It worked over the clitoris, coaxing out of its hood of flesh, squeezing it, pulling it so that it lengthened and stiffened. Dex shuddered at the fingers working on her pussy, now drenched in the juice pouring out of her excited organ. The fingers coated themselves with the juice, burying in her widening red gash, then slipping over her clit. Now the hand cupped and possessed.
Dex submitted to the sensation greedily. Shivers of pleasure rushed up from her cunt as the fingers invaded, churned inside her, rubbed and prodded her clit into erection. She ground her labia against the invading hand, rubbing her thighs together. The invasion continued and became more violent. Ryan was fucking her with her fingers; she plunged in and out of her cunt almost brutally. At each inward shove, Dex drove her cunt lips down on the hand, then rubbed it into her in wide circular movements.
Under the fucking of Ryan's hand, Dex felt her energies rush downward like water into a sucking drain.
"Oh, Ry, I want you," she groaned.
Yet in her heart, Dex knew it wasn't exactly so. Ryan the familiar, Ryan the habitual, had become less to Dex than any stranger. Gena was in bed with them at that very moment, as real as if she were in the flesh. She separated them with the liberation she had given Dex. Ryan was no longer the center of attention, the total center. She was just there as habit. Dex felt all these things as the fingers worked on her cunt, giving her pangs of pleasure, setting her vulva contracting in delicious spasms.
Dex struggled. She had to get over the wall. She had to return to where she belonged. Why couldn't it all just be the same as it had before that night?
The rhythmic abrasion worked on Dex's nerves, and she felt her body responding with a will all its own. Any hand would do. Any interested partner could give her physical fulfillment at so urgent a time. She ground her cunt down on the hand. She wanted the full sensation, the invasion of a hard object deep inside her vulva. She felt the juices gush over the slickened hand. Perspiration spurted up along the ridge of her spine.
"Turn over," Ryan whispered. "You know what I want us to do together."
"Yes. Yes."
Dex moved through the fog of her passion, groping blindly to ease the pain of her craving. She crawled around the mattress on her till she was the way Ryan wanted her.
Dex threw a thigh over Ryan's head, straddling her face with her gaping cunt. Her thighs trembled as she lowered her pussy down on Ryan's mouth, then grasped her buttocks and pushed her mouth between Ryan's legs. Their tongues invaded each other's vulvas almost simultaneously. The sensation was overwhelming. Like an animal, Dex shot her tongue deep inside the hot, wet cunt and sucked. She churned her tongue wildly, fucking it in and out in time with Ryan's mouth-work on her own pussy.
Coupled like the snake eating his own tail, they munched and slobbered on each other's juicy cunts. Their breath came in pants. Small groans would escape from one's throat as the other would stroke some special nerve that would send their cunts into contractions of pleasure.
Almost by prearrangement, they licked up each other's clits and began pulling them with their lips and sucking them out long and stiff. Their mouths and chins glistened with cunt juice and saliva.
Dex felt Ryan pressing upward, shoving her tongue back deep into her cunt. A cry of surprise rushed out of Dex's throat at the unexpected invasion. Her clit stood stiff and trembling in the air, rubbing occasionally against Ryan's slippery chin. Ryan tongued toward satisfaction with every ounce of her strength. Dex clutched her tightly now.
Together they were moving toward orgasm like one animal. Sucking sounds filled the room. They rolled slightly to one side. Dex felt the damp sheet along the side of her arm and hip. The mattress squealed as they rolled. The loose bed sheet tangled around Dex's ankle. She drew in a deep breath as though ready to dive down into the very darkest places of their desire. The smell of Ryan's special lemon soap mingled with the intimate, flesh-stale odor of the room. It was a familiar brew and Dex gave herself quiet urging toward encouragement. Each of them were feeling and knowing how far the other had progressed toward the peak. The mutual sucking and tonguing was working as perfectly as ever.
Dex's tired body responded now all by itself. Worked to the very edge of the precipice, it had to fall off. Ryan began whimpering as Dex opened her mouth as wide as she could, trying to swallow up the swollen labia and the distended clit as if she were working herself into the last shudder of pleasure that would lead to orgasm.
Suddenly it clicked. Dex's cunt could no longer take the fucking of Ryan's tongue, the feel of her lips sucking the dripping labia, the full rubbing of stiff clit against wet chin. She shuddered. Her mouth opened wide and gulped in the shivering pussy under her face. She felt Ryan's back arch, then stiffen, then felt her nose engulfed in the hot odor of cum. She shoved her hot cunt down on Ryan's face, grinding it one last time before she buried her face in Ryan's shuddering, gushing cunt and came herself.
Spasm after spasm shook through her. She wanted to cry out through the wet hot flesh gushing over her mouth and face. Ryan bucked under her sucking. Her tongue churned inside Dex's cunt like an eggbeater. Every convulsion of her cunt rubbed and scraped against this invading stiff tongue.
The orgasm spiraled, taking her away from earth, sending her down the long funnel of ecstasy. Through it, she felt Ryan's contractions, too. They were sharing completion. Small pinpoints of pain where Ryan's nails dug into her flesh darted through the flood of orgasm she rode on. Her face was covered with cunt juices. They held onto each other, clasped together now as one.
As it ended, Dex heard Ryan's voice asking her to come back up on the pillow and lie next to her, close. Dex shook her head. She didn't want to move. With her eyes closed, she wanted to lie down at the foot of the bed and fall asleep there. Asleep by herself. Undisturbed by Ryan's presence.
Ryan reached down and began to tickle Dex behind the ear. She tugged at the earlobe, insisting that Dex give in to her demand for company.
Dex knew that when Ryan got a bee in her bonnet, she would never give up. There was no point in trying to argue.
She turned around and flung herself lengthwise beside Ryan. Dex lay with her back to the other woman. She pulled the pillow to her cheek and exhaled a long exhausted breath.
Ryan drew her forefinger down the naked length of Dex's spine.
"What in hell's the matter with you?" Ryan said without energy. "You're not the girl I used to know."
"I'm sleeping."
"No you're not," Ryan insisted. "You're lying there and thinking about something else. I can always tell when your mind is distracted."
"I'm sleeping," Dex repeated, her voice a mono tone.
"Well, then, what are you dreaming about?"
"Not dreaming."
Dex felt Ryan's body snuggling in closer and wondered how she was going to get rid of all the questions without having to go through the pain of an inquisition.
Ryan slipped her arms around Dex's waist. She kissed the back of her neck.
"Want me to order up some fried chicken?" she whispered.
It had been Dex's favorite dish, once upon a time. But too much repetition had taken out all the pleasure.
"Not hungry."
"But you are. I know you. You're always hungry after sex."
"Not this time."
"Then there's something the matter… which is what I was asking you in the first place."
Ryan's, self-satisfied tone would not quit. Dex groaned and reached around to slap Ryan's behind.
"You're not going to let me off the hook, are you?" Dex said, knowing that they were about to slide into the opening phase of their usual bickering.
Only this time, it was going to be different. Somehow, Ryan's prying would not be able to erase the image of Gena and Gena's devilishness. The intrigue of Gena was a strange potion.
Dex had never had this kind of card up her sleeve. Usually it was Ryan and another woman. Dex felt odd in the reversed role. She now wondered whether Ryan ever was as haunted by one of her tricks as she now was. It gave her an uncomfortable feeling to match her new found superiority.
Superiority, Dex wondered. Perhaps that was what it was. She finally had someone. She was no longer the pining wallflower. She was suddenly Ryan playing with her Dex. It was a heady idea. The only thing wrong with it was that she could never be sure whether what she felt was the same as what Ryan had felt. There was no indication that Ryan had ever been as involved with her one night stands as Dex now seemed to be.
A fresh wave of depression descended on her as she lay curled on the bed. She was not in a position of superiority, damn it; she had just been hooked by another line. She had simply traded one form of slavery for another. Her mind clung to the promises she felt inherent in Gena just as she had clung to her fantasies about Ryan.
Ryan said, "You look so damned distracted that I don't know what to make of you."
"All I wanted to do was go to sleep," Dex insisted. "It's late, for Chrissake. Aren't you tired? You haven't been to bed yet either. Or are you trying to prove to me that you're some kind of tireless Amazon."
Ryan shook her head, ignoring Dex's statement.
"Why don't you want to tell me what you're thinking?"
Ryan's voice was like a drill bit boring down deeper and deeper into Dex's brain. How long had they been going on like this? Had it really been years? Suddenly, Dex wondered at her own patience. That she'd had the strength to put up with Ryan's shenanigans all for the sake of so called love.
Ryan put the tip of her forefinger to Dex's mouth.
"I know what it is," Ryan blurted with exploding insight. "And don't try to deny it. You didn't have a one-night stand. You're having an affair with some woman and you think you're in love." She shook Dex firmly by both shoulders. "Isn't that it, Dex? Well, isn't it?"
Ryan had echoed the words inside Dex's brain. The tangible sound of them, like rain, brought relief from their internalized pressure.
Dex began to laugh. The sound rolled from her like thunder rumbling out of a cave. It sounded crazy to think of herself in love with a fool kid like Gena. The whole world was turning upside down. And yet, stupid as the idea might sound, it held some grain of truth. Maybe she didn't love Gena. Love wasn't the correct word for what she felt. On the other hand, there didn't seem to be any word made for the feelings that tumbled through her. Perhaps it was only desire, but desire of so large and insistent a nature as to be potentially dangerous.
Dex looked at Ryan and realized that the foundations of their home life were being threatened for the first time.
Ryan pushed away from the sound of Dex's searing laugh. A flush of anger mingled with fear distorted the beautiful mouth. Apparently, she, too, realized that something dangerous lurked in the corners of their lives. Whatever it was, it waited. Waited to surface and destroy.
"I don't want to stay alone with you anymore," Ryan said, wiggling out of her side of the bed. "You give me the creeps."
Dex didn't object. She lay back with her hands clasped behind her head and watched Ryan hurry into slacks and sweatshirt. The baggy clothing hid most of Ryan's glamour but could not touch her glowing beauty. If anything, the simple outfit emphasized her natural endowments and the grace of her long limbs. She was something to look, at. Something to want and to cherish.
Yet Dex felt herself numb to Ryan's charms. The habit of wanting Ryan, and of aching because Ryan was off with somebody else, had peeled off.
"Where are you going?" Dex said, trying to be civil.
"Oh, I don't know. Upstairs to Madge."
"Don't interrupt her," Dex said easily. "She's probably in bed with some pretty young boy. Why don't you try Robard?" Dex grinned. "He'd welcome you, you know."
Ryan glared at Dex for a fraction of a second. She bent over swiftly and picked up a sandal. With a flick of the wrist, she tossed it. But there was force behind the effort. The sandal whizzed in close beside Dex's head and missed hitting her only because Dex moved swiftly to one side.
"I could kill you," Ryan said hoarsely. "And I hate you, did you know that? I really hate you sometimes."
"What for?" Dex replied easily, putting the sandal on her stomach and playing with the buckle.
"For being such a vicious son of a bitch. Remember, I know where you were last night. And I'm going to find out who you met there if it's the last thing I do."
"Vicious? Bitchy? Come now, Ryan. You shouldn't talk about yourself in such unflattering terms, honey."
Ryan turned pale. She was not used to this kind of reaction in Dex. The words stung. Ryan knew she was spoiled and capricious. She knew she had always taken advantage of Dex's love for her. But there had always been some kind of a tacit pact in it all. Dex was the strong, abiding one. Ryan was the playgirl who always came back home to roost. Now it seemed that Dex was calling an end to their arrangement…
"I mean it. I'll find the bitch you're making it with if it's the last thing I do."
"It probably will be," Dex answered. "Better watch your step."
The strength of the insult was not so much in the words, but in the casual manner with which Dex spoke them. She was supposed to be angry with Ryan. Anger would show concern. Would show involvement. Her obvious boredom accused Ryan of being a drag. And Ryan didn't know how to deal with this accusation. She was always the sought after one. Nobody had ever thought of her as a bore, even when she was.
Dex dropped the sandal onto the floor, immediately regretting that she had threatened Ryan and dismissed her all in one sentence. She wished she could take the words back but there was nothing to be done except hold still and watch the tears of frustration welling up in Ryan's beautiful face.
"I'm sorry," Dex said, knowing her apology was useless. She stared at Ryan in a kind of fascination, watching the tears run down her cheeks. She wondered if she was actually gloating at the fact that she had finally caused Ryan as much pain as her lover had so often caused her.
She swung off the bed and went to the woman she loved, hoping that there might be some way to comfort Ryan and ease the pain of the wound.
Ryan pulled away from Dex's touch.
"You meant it," Ryan said. "You meant it all."
The tears didn't dissolve Ryan's determination. She wiped them away with a sweater sleeve. Then she picked up a silver-backed brush and began, vigorously, to do her hair.
"Well, I'll do it anyway," she said. "I'm going to find that lover girl of yours and tell her just the kind of crud you are."
Dex turned away from the force of Ryan's voice. The future loomed bleak and inevitable. Ryan would find Gena because she had to. And then the world would go up for grabs.
"Frankly, I don't know why I'm here," said Ryan. Robard grinned at her from across the room as he approached with a glass in his hand.
"For a good, stiff Bloody Mary. Nothing wrong with that reason," he added, handing her the drink. She took it in her hand and noticed that it was trembling.
Dex had shaken her up like never before. Of course this was not their first squabble, but there was a tone to it unlike any of the others. For the first time Dex had refused to play her role. Ryan now felt like a fool.
"Well it's all my fault. Through the years… everything. I've made it all happen," she repeated bleakly, listening to her words as if they were part of a funeral oration. She felt tears rush to her eyes. She had to get control of herself. She still had all her pride intact. And she had no intention of pulling out all the dirty laundry for Robard to see.
"Oh, come on, Ryan. That's impossible. You know the old phrase, it takes two to tango."
"Sure. Sure. But I'm the one who's always depended on Dex to be solid, be present and faithful." Ryan wanted to put her head in her hands and just cry. With Robard she couldn't do that. Why had she come here?
The question echoed in her head until she knew the answer suddenly point blank. It was simply because Dex had intimated that Robard wanted her. It was forbidden fruit, forbidden by Dex and so the perfect taboo to break.
"Well maybe you're not cut out for that kind of living. It wouldn't be criminal to admit that," he added with a slightly sardonic smile.
It was a silly fact. Ryan had to smile. Of course nothing in society helped such a relationship to sustain itself. If anything, people seemed to rejoice when gay relationships fell to pieces. She wondered now if Robard was one of these. She sipped her drink.
"You're gloating, Robard," she said fixedly, watching his face for the truth.
"No, Ryan, I'm not gloating." His face was clear as he spoke. Ryan believed him.
"Then what?" she asked, prodding him for some kind of analysis, anything to help her get over her first confusion.
"Well, maybe you're just not cut out for domesticity. A lot of people aren't. There's no shame in that. For Christ sake, look at me. Am I ashamed?" He hung his head clownishly. Ryan laughed. It rang in her ear like something brand new, like a shattered glass. It surprised her.
"Robard, don't you take anything seriously?"
"Sure. Money. How about you?"
"Money, no. Well, not really seriously. I do take relationships seriously."
"Aha! If that's the case, how do you explain your rampant infidelity?" Ryan bit her lip. Did she really want to go this far, this deeply with a man? This was something a woman should discuss with another woman.
"Who knows?" she said with mock gaiety. As she said it, she reconsidered. Why not discuss it with Robard? She wasn't the kind of lesbian who considered the male as the enemy. She liked men… as friends.
"I suppose because there's something in the chemistry of our relationship that makes for it," she said honestly. Robard stopped grinning and nodded. Ryan was grateful that he was going to take things seriously for once. She needed a compassionate ear.
"What's it all about? Why?" asked Robard with seeming interest. She studied his face again before answering. Then she took a long sip of her drink.
"I don't know for sure. I'm exhausted now so anything I say could be sheer crap. I think it's because Dex asks for it. We've always agreed before that it was me. I was this narcissist, see. I needed attention, lots of girls fawning over me, lots of action on the side. That's how we always figured it out together. Now I wonder…"
"So what do you think it is now?" said Robard, sipping his own drink and shuffling his feet briefly.
"I think Dex is a masochist and that she's always just begging to be deceived, wronged, so that she can feel like a martyr. That way she's always good. What do you think?"
"Possible. People do that all the time. So what are you going to do about it?" Ryan took a deep breath and averted her eyes. That was one question she was in no way ready to answer. She sipped her drink, standing the silence and Robard's patience as long as she could.
"I don't know. I don't know," she blurted out hysterically. "If I knew that I…"
"You what?" asked Robard, already suspecting the answer. If she knew why, she wouldn't be here with him. Ryan was confused. She had thrown herself on his doorstep out of confusion. It was an interesting situation for him, he had to admit.
Robard had known Dex and Ryan since he moved in. They had always gotten along, had drinks together occasionally, bitched about the building together. But lately Robard had noticed a strain. He suspected that Dex's jealousy had constructed some kind of secret liaison between Ryan and himself. She had noticed his appreciative eyes on her lover. It had been useless for him to hide the fact that he found Ryan extremely attractive. Now she was here at the brink of tears.
Robard smiled to himself. What would he do now? He could play the good guy and just talk. Or he could try and go further. He watched Ryan as she stared into her drink in between sips. She was fantastic, the kind of leggy beauty he loved. He could easily imagine her in bed, her body willowy and voluptuous at the same time, her passion like a she-cat.
"I suppose if I knew what I was going to do next, I'd do it. I told Dex I was going to find her girlfriend and wreck everything. I suppose I would like to find out who it is, but then…" Ryan slumped in her seat.
"God, Robard, I'm exhausted." Suddenly all the wind had gone out of her sails.
"Why not try something new?" said Robard, feeling his way. Ryan perked up slightly, looking at him with interest.
"What?" Before she had gotten the word out of her mouth, she suspected his answer.
"Men, of course."
"Robard," she sighed, "I've made it with guys. It wouldn't be very new."
"Oh? I never knew that. I always thought you were a dyed-in-the-wool lez."
"Oh, bullshit. You never thought anything of the kind. Dex was right on that score. She knew that I'd had men and…" She stopped in mid-sentence. She was getting herself suddenly in very deep. She had almost admitted that Dex had suspected rightly that she felt a certain attraction to Robard.
"Dex suspected that we were attracted to each other?" he said aggressively. Ryan blushed. She was already in hot water, she could see.
Ryan sighed and said, "Yes, I suppose she did." Robard beamed in victory.
"I knew it!"
"What did you know, for God's sake?" said Ryan impatiently.
"That you liked me."
"Of course I like you. Why else would I be here?"
"Then it's true. You do want to go to bed with me." His brazen statement knocked the breath out of her. She started to laugh, then stopped.
"I don't think so. No, I like you, Robard. But I don't think that sex…"
"Oh, come off it, Ryan. Sex isn't that complicated. I didn't ask you to marry me or bear my child. Shit, making love is a beautiful, easy thing between two people who dig each other. It doesn't have to be any more complicated than that."
Ryan watched Robard as he spoke. It was like the prey watching the lion. She was scared and fascinated. Especially fascinated as to how or when he would strike.
"Maybe not for you…" she replied lamely.
"I'm sorry. I thought you were Little Miss Unfaithful. Not Old Faithful." For the second time in less than five minutes, Ryan felt herself blush hotly.
"No, I guess I'm not. I didn't mean to imply… Rob, I don't know. I'm exhausted." Robard stood up. The ice cubes clinked in his glass.
"Then why not go into the bedroom and take a nap." Ryan looked at him suspiciously.
"Just like that? Sleep?" she replied sarcastically.
"If you want. Why not. You're tired, aren't you?" Robard shifted his weight from foot to foot. Ryan hesitated, then got up on her feet.
"Okay, it's a deal. And then who knows…" she added. Yes, who knows, she said to herself as she headed off to Robard's bedroom.