Once classes started, things got crazy and I hardly saw anyone. Mason didn’t call or come home, but that wasn’t much of a change from the norm. Carrie called though. She encouraged me to come over, to meet after class and go out for coffee.
Usually I turned her down. Dante was a lot tougher than I’d thought it was going to be-
the Italian wasn’t a problem, it was the literary interpretation that was killing me-but that was just an excuse. Carrie was the thing I’d broken out of my shell for, the catalyst that cracked the veneer I’d painted over the surface. Now I was desperately trying to crawl back into that shell and somehow piece it together again.
But it wasn’t working. Even if I only saw Carrie once a week or so, I thought about her and Doc way more than that. I spent nights trying to bury myself under pillows and covers so I couldn’t hear them having sex. I wasn’t avoiding the Baumgartners exactly. I think I was really just trying to avoid myself.
When I passed Carrie on the way back from getting my mail one brisk October afternoon-there was a silver row of boxes at the end of our line of apartments-she stopped me with a hand on my arm, reminding me just exactly why I’d cracked out of my shell in the first place. Just her gentle touch through my coat made me shiver and not from the autumn wind.
“Wow, nice dress!” She eyed me appreciatively. “Going on a date?”
“Coming back from an interview,” I countered with a smile. “The last step in the application process for studying abroad.”
“How exciting!” She sounded genuinely enthused which was really nice to hear. It was certainly a change from Mason’s reaction. Even my mother was against my going, but that was just because she wouldn’t be able to afford to call me every week in Italy and tell me how I’d ruined my life. “Hey, Doc won’t be home until late. Do you want to come over and order pizza? I’m jonesin for some Bella’s.”
I hesitated. I had a paper to write this weekend on Dante’s use of numbers in the Divine Comedy, but it was Friday after all. And Bella’s had the best pizza in town. “I have to change first.”
“Okay,” Carrie agreed cheerfully, getting her mail and following me back to my apartment.
“I hope you’re not allergic,” I remarked as Jezebel met us at the door, tail swishing. Carrie had never been in my- our-apartment before.
“I love cats.” Carrie squatted and held her hand out to Jez by way of introduction.
Jezebel, like most cats, took her time getting to know someone. She sniffed and twitched and swished, stalked away and then wound her way back. Carrie just waited patiently through these ministrations until Jez nudged her hand to be petted.
“I’ll be right back.” I tossed my purse, keys and the mail on the table and went through the kitchen into my bedroom. I was nearly stripped down completely when Carrie came in, Jezebel following, both of them startling me.
“Have to pee!” Carrie waved on her way through to the bathroom. I just stood there, seeing her looking at me in my black bra and panties before she grinned and shut the bathroom door.
I pulled on a pair of jeans and a Counting Crows t-shirt while Jezebel mewed at the door Carrie had disappeared through. Even Jez had a girl-crush on her.
“Traitor,” I whispered, sticking out my tongue at the cat and sitting on the bed to wait.
“I love your soap.” Carrie came out of the bathroom sniffing her hands. “It’s so fruity and nutty. What is it?”
“It’s Italian.” I smiled. “Imported. It has an olive oil base.”
“No wonder your skin is so smooth!”
I flushed, remembering the afternoons we’d spent on the lawn when she’d spread oil over my back. “I can give you some.”
The words were out of my mouth before I’d even had time to think. The bar in the soap dish was the last of it-unless I wanted to go into the closet in Isabella’s room, which I decidedly did not want to do.
“Really?” The glow in her eyes was so hard to resist. “I’d love it!”
How could I say no to that? I got up, moving mechanically toward the door to the second bedroom, sure the doorknob would be made of fire or ice when I touched it. I hadn’t been in Isabella’s room in over a year.
“Oh how sweet.” Carrie was behind me, glancing over my shoulder at the nursery, all set up still, ready and waiting. Mason’s mother had wanted to take it all down when I was still in the hospital and I’d told him I would kill her if she did. He’d somehow managed to stop her. I think it was the one and only time he’d said ‘no’ to his parents, aside from making the decision to marry me in the first place. And so it had stayed for the past year and a half.
“It looks like Pepto-Bismol threw up in here.” I looked around at all the pink-the walls, the comforter in the crib, the stuffed animals lined up on the windowsill. “Why did I buy so much pink?”
It wasn’t just me, though. Once we’d seen the ultrasound and had announced it would be a girl, nothing arrived in any other color.
“What happened?” Carrie asked gently, looking at the picture on the dresser-a tiny baby on a pink blanket, eyes closed, mouth slack, so obviously lifeless.
“Isabella.” I breathed her name. How long had it been since I’d spoken it out loud? I turned to open the closet, giving myself something to focus on. “She was stillborn.”
“Oh no.” Behind me, Carrie gasped. “Dani, she’s so beautiful. She looks just like you!”
She did-thick dark hair, the same little rosebud mouth and sooty lashes. She was the prettiest baby I had ever seen. Even the dark hue to her lips, so unnatural in a newborn and caused by the blood pooling, just served to accentuate her beauty, as if someone had rubbed her lips with kisses before sending her to me. I didn’t know if her eyes were dark like mine though. She’d never opened them.
I blinked back my tears, finding the soap in a box up on the shelf and grabbing two bars. “Here. Let’s go.”
Carrie put the picture back on the dresser and I saw her eyes filled with tears too.
“I’m so sorry.”
“Me too.” I swallowed, holding out the soap, and she took it. “Come on.”
She followed me out and I felt a little bit of relief when I could shut the door behind me.
“You don’t want to talk about it?” Carrie sat on the bed and looked at me.
“Most people really don’t want to hear about it. They say they do, but they don’t.”
I shrugged. “Grief lasts a lot longer than sympathy.”
“I know. I’ve lost three.” The tears that had welled up in her eyes spilled over.
“But never like that. I can’t even imagine.”
“I’m sorry.” I echoed her own apology to me, sitting on the bed to slide an arm around her shoulder. They were such useless words.
“Just miscarriages.” Carrie turned the soap over in her hands. “All before twelve weeks. We keep trying, but…” She shrugged and I saw tears fall onto the soap label, blurring the words.
“A baby is a baby,” I said firmly. “Love is love. I loved Isabella just as much at twelve weeks as I did at thirty-eight weeks.”
I thought saying her name out loud, making her real like that and bringing her back into this world, would just break my heart into a million pieces all over again. I thought it would take me back to that time when I couldn’t do anything but stay in bed and sob, full of leaking milk and love for a baby who would never need it. Instead, I found it almost a relief to be able to tell someone about her, someone who had experienced a pain similar to my own.
“I can’t imagine losing a baby at thirty-eight weeks.” Carrie’s wet eyes meeting mine. “How do you survive that?”
“I don’t know.” I shook my head, my hand squeezing her shoulder. “Sometimes I think a miscarriage would be even harder. At least I got to feel her kick and move inside of me. I got see her and touch her. Hold her.”
She gave me a sad yet grateful look. “Why do these things happen?”
“Isabella had a knot in her cord.” I swallowed, remembering the doctor showing me as if revealing the solution to a mystery-ah here it is, this is the reason your daughter isn’t breathing, kicking, crying, this little knot, like a kink in a garden hose.
Such a small thing, yet enough to kill a child, drive a woman to the brink of insanity, a man to violence. As if anyone could ever solve that mystery?
“Why anyone has to experience that kind of loss?” I shrugged. “I wish I knew.”
We were quiet, just sitting there together on the bed, Carrie brushing her tears off bars of soap and me watching Jezebel butting up against our shins for attention.
“Okay, I think we need to take a little trip, you and me.” She wiped her face with the end of her t-shirt, standing up and holding out her hand.
I looked at her, bemused. “Where are we going?”
“Margaritaville.”
* * * *
We took a long, extended vacation that night in Margaritaville, and who could blame us? We discovered that we both loved alternative music and turned it up way too loud, dancing around the living room, whirling like Sufis in ecstatic bliss. We had Bella’s pizza to fill our bellies, margaritas to numb the pain and music to drown out our sorrows.
It was a recipe for either perfection or disaster and I think we delved into a little bit of both.
It was Carrie who took her shirt off first.
“Too fucking hot!” she gasped as she threw it onto the sofa. I followed suit about ten minutes later with my own t-shirt and we danced in our bras, belting out the words to
“Teen Spirit” as loud as we could. I don't remember when her pants disappeared. Or mine for that matter. We were doing “Flashdance” imitations in our bras and panties by the time we heard the pounding on the door.
“Shit!” Carrie turned the music down, rushing to the door in her underwear. I think the cop who stood outside was more than a little surprised to find two half-naked, sweaty women drinking margaritas and shaking their tail feathers. Thankfully he wasn't really a cop-just campus security. And I think he was fairly distracted by our state of undress. Not to mention our teasing. Because Carrie had clearly talked her way out of a ticket or two in her life time and was putting her skills to good use.
“I'm sorry, ma'am, but we had a complaint about the noise.” He stood there with his hat in his hands, kind of twisting it around, his gaze skipping from her back to me as if trying to find a safe place to look. “Can you keep it down?”
“Oh, we're just having a little fun, officer.” She winked and crooked her finger at him. “Want to come in and join us?”
He cleared his throat and blinked really fast. “I'm just trying to do my job, ma'am.”
“Ma'am!” She rolled her eyes, glancing over her shoulder at me. “I'm not that old.
Do I look like a ma'am to you?”
“M-miss,” he stumbled, correcting his mistake. “I just need to ask you to turn the music down a little. I'm sure you can keep on…um…doing what you were doing. Just do it a little quieter.”
“Do you want to see what we were doing?” Carrie put her arm around my neck as I came up behind her, pulling me so close I could smell the fruity mix of alcohol on her breath.
“No, ma'am.” He shook his head, eyes wide. “Miss. I mean, I just need you to-”
His words stopped when Carrie kissed me. Everything stopped, I think. At first it was just the soft press of her lips, but then her tongue licked at my mouth, seeking entrance, and I couldn't help but give it to her. I moaned softly and wrapped my arms around her, pressed belly to belly. Right there in front of the cop with the door open, standing in bra and panties for the whole world to see, we kissed and kissed and kissed. I felt her melting against me, her breasts molded against mine, and as undressed as we already were, I was wishing for less clothing.
“Want to join us?” Carrie breathlessly asked, turning her face to the cop. I couldn't stop looking at her, the soft curve of her jaw, the delicate stretch of her neck, the way her hair fell over her shoulders. The cop couldn't either. In fact, he looked like he wanted to say yes. He looked like he wanted that very much.
“I'm going to leave now.” He took a step back as if to convince himself. “Just keep it down. Please don't make me come back, okay?” He was actually pleading.
Carrie shut the door, giggling, and looked at me. “Well, that was fun while it lasted.”
“You're bad.” I was still breathless from our kiss, my heart hammering in my chest.
“You have no idea.” Her eyes had a very naughty glint and when she reached out and grabbed me, pulling me in again for another kiss, I didn't protest at all. I'm sure it was partially the alcohol, and partially our afternoon of painful confessions, but mostly I think we just both wanted to.
“A threesome would have been fun,” Carrie murmured against my neck, her hands trailing down my back. “I have fantasies about cops.”
“Oh god, who doesn't?” I groaned when she cupped my ass, sliding a thigh between mine.
“Men in uniform.” She sighed joyfully. “Very hot.”
I was being pressed back toward the kitchen and pretty much knew where we were going to end up. “But I don't think Doc would have appreciated that.”
“True.” Carrie reached around and opened the bedroom door. “He's fine with me being with other girls. But other men? Um, not so much.”
“So this isn't cheating.” I fell back onto the bed with a little exhale when she pushed me.
“Well…” She stretched out beside me in her white bra and panties. We were quite a sight, I'm sure, like an angel in white and a devil in black. Although I wasn't sure which was which at that point. “There's your husband to consider.”
“No, there isn't.” I slipped an arm around her neck and pressed my mouth to hers to emphasize that statement. She rolled toward me, her thigh sliding up against mine like satin on silk. Her hand moved up my ribs toward my breast and I held my breath, waiting for her touch.
“You're going to tell me what's going on with that some day, right?” she murmured, her lips trailing down my neck, my collarbone.
“Not right now,” I whispered, trembling as she feathered kisses over my cleavage.
“No…” She smiled up at me, both hands moving over my ribcage, finding their way to my breasts and cupping them through my bra. “Definitely not right now.”
I moaned when she rubbed my nipples through the lacy material. I'd gone to my interview dressed to the nines from my underwear out and I hadn't bothered to change my bra and panties. They happened to be the best set I owned, Victoria's Secret black lace and elegance. Hers were plain in contrast, white cotton bikini panties with a little bow in front and a plain white bra with a tiny pink rosebud in the center, and still I'd never seen anything so sexy in my life.
“I want to make you feel good.” Her words had already accomplished the task, but her tongue was trying hard to keep up, lashing at my nipples through my bra, her fingernails tickling my sides. “I want to make you come so hard.”
Oh god. My pussy was already soaked from being next to her all night, watching her dancing half-naked, a little drunk, wild and out of control. Those words out of her mouth melted me completely.
“Yes.” It was all I could think of to say, but I wanted to give her even more affirmation so I reached around and undid my bra, peeling the straps down my shoulders. Her eyes brightened when my breasts were free and her tongue went back to work, circling my nipples and making me squirm on the bed. I let her do that for while, I don't know how long, experiencing every sensation as if it were the first time. Her mouth was practiced, sure, her hands roaming freely, and just her tongue on my nipples took me to heights I couldn't remember reaching before.
“Here,” she whispered, stopping and reaching around, undoing her own bra. “Me too.”
It wasn't that I'd forgotten, or that I didn't want to. God knew I wanted to. It was just that she was so beautiful, I wasn't sure I could. It was like touching perfection. I was too afraid I would spoil it. But Carrie wasn't having any of my hesitation or shyness. She guided my hands to cup her bare breasts and the moment I felt the weight of them, the lush curves and the thick arousal of her nipples against my palms, I was lost. Her body became a roadmap I followed behind closed eyes. Touching her brought me almost as much pleasure as her hands on me.
She gave me all those soft, sweet noises I'd heard the night she was making love to Doc, and the sound of them thrilled me beyond words. Everywhere I touched her came alive under my fingers. Her nipples hardened, her breasts swayed, her belly fluttered, her thighs quivered. The exploration went on a long time, and we hadn't even taken off our panties. By the time her mouth made its way down past my navel, the crotch of my underwear was soaked. She nudged at them with her nose, teasing me, making me wiggle. I had no reservations now, no more second thoughts. I wanted her-
her mouth, her tongue, her fingers. And she knew it.
She made me wait, teasing my labia with her tongue through the material, rubbing her face against my crotch like a cat. I tried to guide her, my hands finding the tousled mass of her hair and pressing, but she wasn't having any of it. Instead, she nipped at my thighs, making me squeal, and raked her nails gently down my quivering belly.
“Please,” I begged finally, not able to stand another minute. “Oh god, please!”
“Please what?” She kissed and licked all the around the elastic edge of my panties. “Tell me.”
“Please lick me,” I pleaded, thumbing my underwear off, feeling it stick at the crotch. She rolled them the rest of the way down and then spread my legs with her palms flat on my thighs, making me moan in anticipation.
“You want this?” She flicked her tongue, barely touching, at the top of my cleft. I shuddered. “Right here?” She used her fingers to spread me slowly open, revealing my clit. I just nodded, gasping as finally, finally, she covered my mound with her mouth, fluttering the soft, hot wetness of her tongue at my center.
“Oh god.” It was so good. Too good. I'd waited so long, wanted it so much.
Carrie's fingers slipped down to find my entrance, wiggling their way in, first one, then two. My pussy clamped down on her fingers the moment she sucked my clit between her lips. I was going to come. Right now. Right fucking now. “Carrie!”
She drank me in, hungry for more, as I came all over her face. My juices were everywhere, all over her chin, her cheeks, my pussy throbbing with release. But I wasn't done. Nowhere near. When she went to remove her fingers, I thrust against her hand, whimpering. “More. Please. More.” She made a delighted noise in her throat, obliging me, giving me her tongue again, concentrating on my still quivering clit. The sensation was almost too much to bear but I pushed past it, through it, riding the wave of my climax toward another.
And then I was there again. It was too much, too soon, I wanted it to last forever, but her tongue and mouth drew another orgasm out of me almost immediately. I bucked and rolled with it, my moans rising to near screams, and she grabbed my hips, trying to keep me steady as I came all over her face. I didn't even know who I was when she kissed her way up my belly to my mouth. I whispered her name, I kissed her back, I remember that, but not much more. I was floating somewhere above it all and it was divine.
It was her body that brought me back to earth again, the weight of her thigh, the shift of her hip. She was all soft curves and gentle valleys, no sharp angles or lines. I began to explore her like she had me, with my mouth, my hands, my tongue. She was so responsive to my touch it was like magic. I traced my fingers down her spine to feel her arch and rubbed my cheek against her neck to make her tilt her head. She liked my tongue there, over her collar bone, dipping into the hollow of her throat.
I thought she would be in a hurry like I was, desperate to come, but she didn't mind that I took my time, pressing her breasts together in my hands so I could lick her nipples, back and forth, teasing them hard, harder, hardest. She petted me as I stroked her, a hand in my hair, over my shoulder, her fingernails brushing me lightly, making me shiver. By the time I reached the wet stretch of her panties between her thighs, we were both ready for more.
“Here.” Carrie moved us and I groaned in anticipation at our new arrangement.
She was poised over my face, turned around so she could lick me too. “Better?”
Yes-and no. I wanted to concentrate on giving her pleasure-it had been a long time since I'd been with a woman, although it was a little like riding a bicycle or a horse, I guess. You never really forget how to do it. But every woman was different. I knew I would get distracted by my own pleasure and I wanted to make her feel as good as she had made me feel.
“Oh Dani, you have such a pretty pussy.” She kissed and licked at my swollen lips, quickly changing my mind about not liking this new position.
“So do you.” I explored her with my eyes first, still shaved smooth. Her labia was thick, just as swollen as mine, her inner lips a hot, deep pink. Her whole pussy glistened with wetness and I fought the urge to immediately bury my face there. “You shaved again. God, it's soooo smooth!”
“Waxed,” she replied, rubbing her cheek over my thigh. “Hurt like hell but isn't it worth it?”
“You're braver than I am.” I kissed her mound as if to make it all better. “Doc must love it.”
“He does,” she confirmed. “He says it's the softest thing he's ever had in his mouth.”
“Well let's see if he's correct.” I pressed my tongue between her pussy lips, tasting her for the first time-tangy and tart, the smell of her like hot musk. I moaned softly at the smooth glide of her labia against my tongue while I explored the soft folds of her flesh. She arched her back, directing me, and I found her clit hiding way up at the top of her crevice. I knew I'd found it when she groaned and rolled her hips, feeling her nails dig into my thighs.
“Your fingers,” she whispered. “Put them in me.”
I obliged, sliding two of them easily into her slick entrance, feeling her pussy clench. She rocked on my hand, my tongue. There was no stopping her now. She'd been patient until that moment, but when I found her clit with my mouth, she lost it.
Something in her snapped and her body went wild, writhing and shivering and rolling on 64
top of me. It was all I could do to hold onto her and keep my mouth anchored over her mound. And she didn't make it easy to focus because with every lick of my tongue, she grew even more eager with her own mouth between my legs. She sucked my clit hard, even raking it with her teeth, making me shudder beneath her.
“Oh fuck!” she cried as I fingered her hard, harder, driving my whole hand against her pussy, giving her as much as I could and she still wanted more. “Oh baby, yes yes!
You're gonna make me come so good!”
She wasn't the only one. My whole body was on fire for her, slick and sweaty and writhing under hers. I couldn't tell anymore what was her fingers, her tongue, it was all sensation, urging me toward yet another climax. I couldn't hold it back and when I felt her thighs quivering against my cheeks, her pussy juices dripping down my chin and pooling at the hollow of my throat, I gave into it, sucking and lapping like a greedy nursling at her cunt as I came, and she came with me too, both of us shuddering with pleasure.
We stayed that way a while, not facing each other, just stroking and petting and purring like two kittens nuzzling each other before a nap. I think it was me who moved first. I got a cramp in my thigh and she massaged it out before turning around and coming up to cuddle. I thought it would be strange, awkward. The alcohol was still in my system, making everything fuzzy, but I knew it was going to wear off and we'd have to think about this in the morning. What we'd done. What exactly had we done?
“I wish you were happy.” Carrie traced circles around my navel with her fingernail. “I've never met anyone who deserves to be happy more than you.”
I kissed the top of her head. “Except maybe you.”
“But I have Doc.” Her voice was small, almost apologetic. “And you don't have anyone.”
I hated hearing that truth. I almost hated her for saying it. But I didn't, not really.
“I have you.”
“Yes you do.” She kissed me and sealed the deal.