Blue Angel (11 page)

Bette moved her mouth down Mallory’s stomach, kissing and licking her. Mallory arched her back, her hands in Bette’s hair. She felt Bette’s mouth get closer to her pussy, and it made her tense. But why should she be nervous? Bette was a girl, too—if anything, she should be totally at ease.

And then she felt Bette’s tongue brush over her clit, then softly slide lower until she found the spot to push her tongue deep inside. Mallory cried out, arching her back and pulling Bette’s head closer. Bette moved her mouth back to Mallory’s clit, working one finger in and out.

“Oh, my God,” Mallory said, feeling her pussy clench against Bette’s finger in waves that made her whole body tremble. Bette moved back up to lie lengthwise with Mallory, the rhythm of her hand not missing a beat. Mallory kissed Bette’s mouth, licking her full lips, tasting herself on this strange and beautiful woman.

Bette sensed when Mallory was finished, and she brushed her hand softly along the outside of her pussy, kissing her breasts.

“What do you want me to do?” Mallory said.

Bette smiled at her, her fingers languidly tracing Mallory’s thigh.

“Why don’t you just watch me?”

“Really?”

“Yes. You know I like putting on a good show.”

Bette stretched out next to her, spreading her legs. Mallory felt uncomfortable watching her, but she knew it was what Bette wanted, so she kept her eyes on Bette’s hands. Bette cupped her breasts with her left hand and sucked on the middle finger of her right, then rubbed her wet finger all over her open pussy. To her surprise, Mallory felt herself getting excited again.

“I changed my mind,” Bette said, her fingers skimming over her clit. “I want you to touch me.”

“I don’t know what to do,” Mallory said.

“Lie next to me.” Mallory moved across the bed and pressed her body against Bette’s. They kissed, their mouths wide and hungry for each other, and Mallory let herself feel the wetness between Bette’s legs. Bette took her hand and pressed it firmly into her pussy, and Mallory gingerly slipped a finger inside of her.

“Yes,” Bette breathed, and Mallory’s stomach did a tiny flip. Bette guided her hand, pulling it up to massage her clit, then returning it to her center. Mallory moved her finger in and out, and felt Bette clench hard around her hand. Mallory wondered if this was what Alec felt when he was doing the same thing to her.

Bette climaxed with a shudder, and when Mallory withdrew from her, Bette took her wet fingers and pressed them into Mallory’s mouth. They locked eyes, and Mallory knew she wanted her to lick her finger, to taste her. She hesitated a second, then sucked Bette’s stickiness from her hand. Bette sat up and kissed her deeply, then pulled her down to lie with her against her pillows.

“I’m a little freaked out,” Mallory confessed, her head against Bette’s shoulder. She could feel the rise and fall of Bette’s chest as she breathed, and she was surprised by this intimacy more than by the sexual encounter they’d just shared. She thought of Bette the way she had first seen her, this unimaginably remote creature who seemed almost unreal. And here she was beside her in bed.

“Why? Because I’m a woman?”

“Well, yes. That. And because I haven’t been with anyone except Alec in four years.”

Bette rolled over to face her.

“I don’t think you should tell him about this.”

“I have to—I can’t just keep something like this from him. That makes it like I cheated on him or something.”

“I hate to break it to you, darlin’, but he most certainly will see this as cheating on him.”

“No, he won’t. He wanted me to sleep with you.”

“Yeah—with him
there.
I see your logic, but trust me, you will not get a free pass because of that.”

“Oh, God. I’ve just made things worse. Now I have to sort out the fight
and
deal with this.”

“Blame it on the vodka. Do you have any Russian in you? I mean, aside from when I’m fucking you . . .”

“Bette, I’m serious! I love Alec. I don’t want to lose him. I think I should just deal with the fight we had tonight, work through that, and then when things are better on that front, tell him that I kind of hooked up with you.”

“Sounds like a plan.”

They both stared at the ceiling.

“You are really hot, by the way,” Bette said, rolling over and kissing her cheek. “I’m going to take a shower and get some sleep. I have to be at the club at noon for Agnes to fit me for a costume, then to practice a new act I’m trying out tomorrow night. Want me to make up the couch for you? Or you can sleep here if you want. I’m not great at sharing a bed, though.”

“The couch would be great,” Mallory said, knowing full well she wouldn’t sleep a wink.

M
allory tossed her bag on the sofa, and dropped her coat in a heap on top of it.

“Hello? Alec, are you here?”

It was almost eight o’clock at night, and the day of silence between them had been agonizing. She’d called him twice from the office but got his voice mail. She couldn’t wait another minute to finish the conversation that had escalated into a fight, then find a way to move on.

Mallory sank into the sofa, trying to remember the last time she’d been so exhausted. Maybe the night she pulled an all-nighter junior year. Or the first weekend she spent with Alec when she was so excited to be next to him she couldn’t sleep. Last night was the same—she would doze off for a short while, then wake with a start, realizing where she was, her body still feeling the thrill of Bette.

She’d slept on Bette’s couch, under the picture of the redhead. She had dreamt she colored her hair, but it came out bright purple. The firm sent her home for the day and told her not to come back until she looked like a lawyer, so she left, but when she arrived home in the dream, she looked like Bette, and Alec told her he could never be in love with a lesbian.

She heard the key in the door, and Alec walked in, clearly happy to see her.

“Hey,” he said.

“Hey.”

He took his time putting his coat in the closet. When he turned to face her, his expression was warm but guarded.

“I’m glad you’re here. We need to talk,” he said.

“I know.”

He crossed the room and pulled her into a hug. It felt so good to be held against him, to breathe his familiar Alec smell, to feel the brush of his lips against her temple.
This is love
, she thought.

“I’m sorry about last night,” he said, sitting next to her on the couch. “I was way too harsh. I was thinking about it after you left, and I thought about texting you, but I decided to let us both have the night to cool down. Did you stay at Julie’s?”

“Um, Alec, I really feel bad about last night.”

“It was my fault. I know you’re not a quitter, and if you are this unhappy at the firm, we will talk about it and figure out a way to fix it. I love you—I want you to be as happy in your career as I am in mine. I thought you had that with your law career. It seems impulsive just to change your mind about something after you’ve invested all these years.”

“I know. I’ve thought that too. But until I got into the firm, I had no idea what it really meant to be a lawyer. I love the law; I like the ideas behind it. . . . I liked learning it. I just don’t want to spend my life practicing it. So a part of me is thinking, if I know this now, why spend another five years going down the wrong path? Won’t it just be harder and more of a waste to leave then?”

“What else would you want to do?”

“I don’t know.”

“Then I think you should give it some more time—see if you can figure out something else. But until then, try to give this your best shot. Certainly don’t make a decision until after you’ve taken the bar again. I know you’re going to ace it, and I want you to experience that, so you stop feeling so bad about what happened in August.”

He hugged her again, kissing her forehead, her nose, her lips. He moved his hand inside her blouse, and when his fingers brushed her nipples she thought of Bette.

“Alec,” she said, pulling back.

“It’s fine, baby. We’ll figure it out,” he breathed, his mouth moving down her neck.

“Wait—I need to tell you something.”

She pulled back, taking his hand and leading him to the couch.

“I was really upset last night. You and I are supposed to be able to talk about anything, and I was admitting something to you that was hard for me even to admit to myself, and you freaked out. I left here, and I tried calling Julie, and she didn’t pick up, and Allison wasn’t around. I even went down to Allison’s building. I didn’t want to come back here, so I thought of calling Bette, and luckily she was home.”

“You called Bette Noir?”

“Yeah. I saw her yesterday, and I’d started telling her about my job situation and she was so understanding. . . .”

“Well, I’m glad she was there for you. It’s a bit odd that out of all people she’s the one who you ended up confiding in, but so be it.” He reached out and stroked her hair.

“Yeah. Well, it was a little more than confiding.”

He stopped touching her.

“What do you mean?”

“This is hard for me to explain, Alec. I was upset—not just about the fight last night, but about the way things have been between us since I got to New York.”

“What do you mean, how things have been since you got to New York?”

“It’s hard to explain.”

“Try.”

“I feel less close to you. I feel like an appendage to your life here instead of really being a part of it. Part of the reason I let myself get pulled on stage the night of my birthday was because I thought, on some level, it would make you finally see me. I don’t feel like you want me physically the way you used to. . . .”

“I think our sex life is as good—if not better—than ever.”

“Then why do you look at other women all the time? And why are you so fixated on the idea of having a threesome—like I’m not enough?”

“First of all, all guys look at women. It’s human nature. And I’m not fixated on the idea of a threesome. I just think it could be interesting, and I would like to experience that with you. If it doesn’t happen, it’s not a big deal.”

“It feels like a big deal.”

“I think you’re overthinking things.”

“Maybe. But that’s the way I’ve been feeling. And so last night I was upset. I went to Bette’s, had a few drinks. And then we . . . hooked up.”

Alec smiled a funny smile and shook his head. “What are you talking about?”

“Just what I said. We hooked up.”

He pulled back on the couch, looking at her as if she was a stranger.

“Can you be more specific?”

Mallory thought of herself being blindfolded, of Bette unbuttoning her blouse. . . .

“She kissed me and . . . I let her touch me.”

“I can’t believe you. You are such a hypocrite! You get of-fended—angry, actually—because I admit to you that I fantasize about bringing another woman into bed with us—
us
being the operative word here, Mallory—and then you run off and let another woman fuck you the minute we have an argument.”

“We didn’t . . . she didn’t fuck me. It wasn’t sex. She just touched me. . . . It was nothing.”

“Did you come?”

“What?”

“Did you have an orgasm?”

“I mean, yeah, but . . .”

Alec pushed himself off the couch and stalked off to their bedroom. He slammed the door.

Jesus. Mallory put her head in her hands. Bette had been right—this was a disaster. How could she have done this? She’d spent all this time worrying about his losing interest in her, his neglecting her, about their not having the same connection any-more—and then she’d gone off and hooked up with someone else. But did it really count if it was a woman? She wasn’t a lesbian. It wasn’t as if there was a chance she would have a relationship with Bette, leave Alec for her. That was the basic problem with infidelity—the risk that one person would leave for the new partner. Bette was not a threat to her intimacy with Alec—it wasn’t the same as if she’d slept with another man, someone she could fall in love with and have a side relationship with. What had happened with Bette was nothing. And it wasn’t the same as his hooking up with another woman, even with her in the room. Alec had relationships with women; she, Mallory, had not—had never, would never. Plus, she wasn’t the one asking to do things to spice up their sex life; she was the one focused on him, and on them. So why should he be mad that she’d done something a little crazy? Wasn’t that what he wanted from her? Be adventurous—go to the Slit. Be open-minded—let me grope Bette under the table. Be more interesting—let me fuck you in a public bathroom. But the second she’d acted on the adventurousness he’d asked her to tap into, he was freaking.

She followed him into the bedroom.

“You’re the hypocrite!” she said. “You ask me to do things that are way out of my comfort zone—you take me to see women take off their clothes on my birthday, an experience you have
no
idea if I’ll even like; you tell me to dance for you, as if I need to step it up a notch to be worthy of your interest. You kiss another woman in front of me, ask me to be open to having sex with her, fuck me in a bathroom because God forbid we just come back here and do something pedestrian like make love. And then I have the opportunity to push my own boundaries a little, and you can’t handle it!”