Can't Get Enough (13 page)

Rose rubs her temples vigourously. “I do apologise for being a bad host. I think I’ll need an extended lie-down today.” No doubt, she means with me between her legs.

“Me too,” I concur. “That stuff he poured us was really vile.” I feel a tad sorry for them. They already spent the better part of yesterday alone and now we’re sending them off on their own again. We’ll need to find a balance for the rest of the week, but today the hunger for each other is too demanding. “I’ll prepare us a nice supper when you get back.” Already I feel as if I need to make amends.

After breakfast, Rose and I can’t make it to the car fast enough. I drive and she immediately puts her hand on my thigh, her fingertips zapping electricity through my flesh.

“Just so we’re clear.” A myriad of emotions crashes through my brain and I try to direct all my attention to driving. “They can never know about this.” Rose’s fingers dig into me, her nails scraping my skin. “They’ve accepted I’m a lesbian, but they would never understand this.”

“No one understands.” Her hand snakes under my shorts and I need to gasp for air. “Least of all me.” She retracts her fingers and places them chastely on my knee. “Let’s make a detour. Turn left there.”

She co-pilots me to the secluded spot where she made her first move yesterday. I salivate at the sight of it.

“I don’t think we have a blanket in this car.” I rush to the boot but all I find is a spare tire.

“We don’t need it.” She takes my hand. “Come on.”

The light falls differently on the grass before noon. The sweet scent of our surroundings and the vibrant green of it all unleashes a fresh wave of nostalgia from my soul. Or maybe it’s happiness. 

She shoves me against one of the thick trees and peers into my eyes. “Let’s make a deal.”

I nod eagerly, impatient for what’s to come.

“Let’s not consider any consequences of our actions this week. Let’s just do what we want. We’ll worry about the rest later.” I admire Rose’s carefree spirit and I want nothing more than to go along with it, but again, it’s more complicated than that.

“We can try.” I curl my hands around her neck. “Are you going to kiss me today, or what?”

“I’ll do much more than that.”

I’ve always had a thing about kissing out in the fields. It makes it more visceral, more primitive, and so much more exciting. A light breeze whips up Rose’s hair, making her curls dance in the wind. I inhale the mossy scent of the valley and Rose’s fruity perfume. Even before her lips touch mine, I know I’m already soaking wet.

It’s a flashback to puberty when the only place I could make out with girls safely was hidden in a corner or stowed behind a tree. To revisit that sensation as an adult, to actively have to conceal this summer fling, is a potent aphrodisiac.

Rose trails her lips from my mouth to my neck and all I see when I open my eyes is a picture perfect landscape of blue and green irregularly bordered by her hair.

“Have you ever been naked against a tree?” she pants into my ear. “Because you’re about to be.” She hoists my top up and wastes no time yanking down the cups of my bra. My nipples firm in the midday breeze, pointing upwards to the climbing sun. Her lips nibble on my breasts before she drops to her knees and her tongue swirls around my belly button. I’m wearing shorts with an elastic waistband so all she has to does is give them a tug and they come off. I feel the hotness of her mouth through my panties, which must be drenched by now. One kiss is enough to set my blood on fire. She slides her hands under the fabric at the back and cups my buttocks. Her touch is electrifying and I’m glad I have the tree to balance myself against. She presses her mouth into me and finds my clit.

“I’ve been waiting for this,” she says. Suddenly, my undies are off and Rose’s hands fumble with them around my ankles. I spread my legs, the outside air tingling my swollen cunt. She licks me all the way up and down, her tongue wet and hot against me. My mouth stretches into a smile as the world around me tilts.

Rose’s nails dig into the back of my thighs as she buries her face deeper into me. She drives her tongue inside and the sensation, the pure emotion of standing in this field with an inescapable massive orgasm on the way, makes me tear up. I don’t care about Jenny anymore and, when push comes to shove, I couldn’t care less what my parents or anyone else may think. All that matters is this moment of joy I’m sharing with Rose. 

She laps feverishly at my juices. My clit is rock hard as her tongue flicks over it, over the hub where all the nerve-endings in my body seem to collide.

I sink my hands into her hair, that golden-brown chestnut mane that flickers in the sunlight. Her curls swing from left to right as she licks me and I hold on to them.

“Oh yes.” I push her head into my pussy and her tongue writhes and nudges and I’m about to explode. Sparks course through my blood. I close my eyes and give in to the sensation, wave after wave of pleasure drowning me. I let go of her head as the final ripple shudders through me before sinking to the ground.

Rose drags the back of her hand over her mouth and smacks her lips together. “Amazing,” is all she says.

“Never too old to learn,” I say when I catch my breath. “Not bad for a first-timer.” I shoot her a tender grin. I would probably have come even if she’d only just looked at my clit.

“Giving a woman pleasure is so much more—” She hesitates for an instant, searching for the right word. “Overwhelming.”

“Speaking of pleasure.” I glance at the nearest tree. “I believe I owe you some.”

Rose has shifted backwards and green patches stain her pants where her knees bend. “You don’t owe me anything.” Her smile is warm and floors me again, so much so, in fact, that I’m already beginning to wonder what I will do when I leave and no longer have access to it. “But since you’re offering.” She checks her watch. “Not here though.” She stretches out her hands and we pull each other up. “However, I do believe we have a house at our disposal this afternoon.” She curls her arm around my shoulder and we walk back to the car like lovers holidaying in a sunny paradise.

* * *

We spend the rest of the week stealing moments and sneaking in and out of each other’s room. Every morning when I wake up and see her face, satisfied and tan, the flawless joy of that moment drowns out the impending doom of the end of my holiday. I shove the thought of leaving as far back in my mind as possible, but soon my mum starts making allusions to it and my dad feels the need to repeat our boarding time incessantly.

On the morning of our departure I lay awake long before Rose pries her eyes open.

“Never had a summer love before?” Her soft words cut through the silence of dawn.

I shake my head, suddenly unable to speak. For hours I’ve been quizzing my brain—and my heart—about these feelings that have snuck up on me. How do you shelve something like this? How do you let go? What do I say when I run into her at my parents’ house once she’s back in London? I even, very tentatively, asked myself the question if we stand a chance at all.

“Neither have I.” She nestles her head on my shoulder and I run my fingers over the length of her arm, maybe for the last time. 

“Perhaps it doesn’t have to be.” My heart thumps in my throat. She must feel it thunder underneath her ear. “Confined to summer, I mean.” I hadn’t planned to say it. The words just rush out of my mouth, as if they have a life of their own and need to do their utmost to either make a fool of me, or attempt to save my silly little heart.

“Is it time for the talk?” 

“I’m leaving in a few hours, so maybe we do need to discuss some things.”

“No need.” Her breath scorches my skin. She’s supposed to be the wiser one. Then again, I’m the lesbian. “I booked a flight back home next week.” She lifts her head from my shoulder, her lips edged into a triumphant smile. “I can’t bear the thought of spending the rest of the summer here without you.”

“Are you serious?” I sit up and find her eyes.

“As if I’m the world’s biggest prankster.” She cocks her eyebrows up, ready to receive my tokens of eternal gratitude. I pummel her down with my body and smother her in kisses. With the prospect of a British summer without her—and Jenny—eradicated from my thoughts, I suddenly can’t wait to get back and properly date her, no matter how complicated it will be.

“Let’s celebrate.” My fingers wander down her chest, stopping at her mound of frizzy hair, then dipping down, to touch her eager lips one more time before I take off. I stare down into her eyes as I part them. I feel her wetness on my fingertips and it burns through me. I need to fuck her again, need to leave my mark.

A loud knock on the door makes us jump. We both hold our breath.

“Kit-Kat, darling?” My dad’s voice beams from the hallway. “Are you up? We must go soon. We board at three.”

Rose and I stifle our giggles. “I’ll be ready in half an hour.” I try to suppress the arousal in my voice and make it sound sleepy, as if I just woke up.

“All right.” We listen as his footsteps shuffle away from the door.

“Has that killed your hunger for me, Kit-Kat?” She shoots me a sensual smirk.

“Never,” I say, and slip my finger inside her wet folds.

Hired Help

Olivia slipped one hand between her hot skin and the sheet. She tried to hold on to the remnants of the dream she just woke from. A faceless woman with a pleading voice repeating the words over and over again, “Yes? Can I? Yes? Can I?” She attempted to block out the early morning sunlight by screwing her eyes shut, stubbornly ignoring the beginning of a new day alone, but she was unable to find the feverish state of half-dreaming and half-waking again. The woman was gone and so was her spell on Olivia.

Her fingers reached the part of her belly where nerves seemed to multiply, the first step on that straight path to a bliss she’d been denied for too long. She tried stroking herself, tentatively but with plenty of purpose. With two fingers she pulled her lips apart, the sudden exposure of her pussy to a rush of morning air covering her in goosebumps. She wanted to come, she needed the quick release, but the prospect of another almost mechanical and passionless climax hardly enticed her to continue. She sighed, her usual stop sign, but just in case, mentally checked her excitement levels. The string of fantasies she was used to relying on seemed buried too deep inside her mind. Imagination wasn’t cutting it anymore. She needed some real life experience, an event so exhilarating its memory could effortlessly feed her orgasms for months to come.

* * *

Véronique had disappeared four months ago, leaving Olivia’s bed cold and empty. She’d just gone, back to Bordeaux or wherever it was she came from—that particular piece of information had always remained vague between them, as if it needed to be kept secret for their transient affair to work.
 

“I am unattached,” Véronique would say, her words English but the sounds unmistakably French. “I’ll stay for a while, but not forever.”

She stayed for two years, certainly long enough for Olivia to get attached to her unattachedness. Véro drifted in and out of her life, sometimes lingering for days on end. Days filled with smoking cigarettes while hanging out of the window of Olivia’s fourth floor flat on the Rue Madame. Olivia clung to Véro’s irrationality and all the parts of her she couldn’t tie down. Maybe it wasn’t love—at least not the kind Olivia had thought she was after—but it sure had a close resemblance to it. The way it hurt when Véro walked out of the door, usually on a Sunday night well past midnight, and Olivia could tell, just by the way Véro held herself, that she wouldn’t see her lover for days, maybe even weeks. Until one last Sunday four months ago when Véronique had curved her neck so her lips couldn’t be closer to Olivia’s ear and said, “Je t’aime.” Not something you would expect unattached people to say.

Olivia had roamed the city throughout winter, a messy wet season in Paris. She’d braved the cold and stuck her head in cafés she’d otherwise avoid, in search of Véronique. If you wanted to disappear a metropolis was easy. Olivia disappeared as well, into the streets around the Gare du Nord and their rough kind of acceptance of everyone, especially people looking for something. She could buy everything she wanted there—drugs, men, women—but she only wanted Véronique, who was nowhere to be found. After work she’d change into a pair of sneakers she used to wear to play squash in another lifetime, and face the darkness. She walked and walked through rain, sleet and the occasional melting snow storm, the icy drops on her cheeks a constant reminder of what she was missing. After two months she’d given up her quest. It wasn’t as if she hadn’t been warned.

The branches of the tree outside her window at last showed signs of spring. Olivia stirred sugar into her coffee and let her gaze wander over the puffy clouds in the Sunday morning sky. The day stretched out in front of her like a succession of desolate hours. She’d do yoga with Sam at noon, followed by lunch at Les Philosophes. An old routine they’d revived after it had finally sunk in that Véronique wasn’t coming back and a normal social life was an easy way to pass time. Olivia could choose to drink the afternoon away at a heated terrace in le Marais. It’s what she usually did on a Sunday afternoon, but she was trying to quit smoking, which was too much of a reminder, and casually consuming alcohol wasn’t the best catalyst to kill die-hard habits. She checked the length of her raven black hair in the reflection of the window. Maybe she should cut it off and give her appearance the spring cleaning it had been lacking for years.

“I disagree,” Sam said, a glass of rosé in one hand and a lit Gauloise in the other. “Blond would only make you look more desperate. As if you know your midlife crisis is looming.”

“I’m only thirty-eight. It can’t be that obvious.” They sat huddled together, still strapped in warm winter coats, squinting into the careful midday sun.

“You have millions in the bank, Liv. You don’t need a new haircut to boost your confidence, you need a shag.” Sam stated it matter-of-factly, as if reading from one of the economical reports she specialised in during business hours.