Queermance Anthology, Volume 1 (9 page)

A sweet heat with a salty edge greeted my mouth and Rosalie's clit was firm under my tongue. She
moaned, hands trembling in my hair. I wanted her to climax hard and fast. I wanted her to lose
control. Gripping her clit between my teeth I squeezed, gliding two fingers into her, slowly,
seeking her sweet spot. Rosalie's legs clamped around my neck and her heels dug into my back. Inside
I could feel her inner nub. It was small and offset but the tips of my fingers massaged hard.

Every sensation roared through me as her soft sweet flesh crushed onto my face.

'Fuckin' yeah!' She bucked. 'More Petra. Harder!'

Cocooned in her flesh I let her clit go and sucked hard. Her scent smothered me and every
molecule fed the network of energy sparking down into my groin. I pressed up harder in her, lifting
her hips off the bench, holding her up with two fingers that burned with her heat.

I glanced up at her face framed by two pert breasts, the little nipples rock hard. Her eyes were
on me and chest heaved so they disappeared and reappeared like an old, flickering film. Each time I
saw her lips they were moving silently, chanting one word over and over: Petra.

Rosalie tensed and her sex flared white hot under my mouth. Her back arched and her legs clamped
tighter around my neck I rode her climax, relentlessly. I didn't ease off even when her high-pitched
cry filled the morgue. Her hands kept me pressed hard on her quim. She shook and I felt it. Another
wave roared through her. I sucked, taking her all and riding with her.

My legs shook and sweat covered me. Another flash of sensation sparked in my sex. Loving Rosalie
and holding her as she writhed in orgasm gave me what I'd craved from so many others. Sharing her
pleasure made me feel complete. With each cry and spasm heat surged within me.

Pressure relaxed from her legs. Her hands unclenched and caressed. Cool air greeted my lips and
wet fingers slipped free. The beauty of her flushed sex made me stop and kiss her folds gently. I
pushed my tongue in deep for a second then retreated. Rosalie rewarded me with a wavering sigh, her
fingers massaging my scalp.

'You're dangerous, Petra,' she whispered between breaths. 'That is how I want to die, like this.
If a blood clot took me now, I wouldn't care.'

Unable to resist I pushed my tongue deep into Rosalie, trailed up to her super-hot clit. I sucked
one last time.

'Shit, that's hot.' Her legs clamped tight for a moment then relaxed.

I had to stand. My legs tingled and my sex ached. Rosalie sat up, legs around my hips, hands
clasped behind my neck. I couldn't speak. I just wanted to kiss her.

The image of me kissing her flashed in my mind and Rosalie grinned.

'Does that answer your question?'

'Yeah.'

I leant over and Rosalie stretched up so we could kiss. Her hand cupped my breast. Rosalie pulled
my hips against her. She broke away, licked her lips and sucked one of mine.

I shook. Every time she touched me my heart pounded.

'So that's what I taste like.' She leaned back, fingers rolling my nipple. 'That's what you were
worried about? Me being a newbie and not into the bodily fluid thing?'

'Umm,' I wasn't used to such direct questions. 'Yes, I guess I was.'

My face warmed. How did she do that? Make me blush after what we'd just shared?

'You're so cute when you blush.' She leaned in and kissed a nipple, her lips so soft. Her tongue
sent a spike of sensation spiralling down. Rosalie said looking up with a cheeky grin. 'Love the
colour of your nips, sweetie. I've always wanted to try this but… never found a girl that I
liked enough. Until you.'

Her hand trailed down over my stomach and fiddled with my navel piercing.

'Nice tatts,' she whispered, trailing her fingers down to the top of my jeans. 'It goes all the
way down?'

She pulled at the jeans and peeked down.

'Yep. Underneath this morgue uniform you are full of surprises.'

'That worry you?' I had to ask. If we were to be more, everything had to be out in the open.

'Can you do more, like, other magic?' Rosalie slipped her fingers into the top of my jeans,
wriggling.

'No, that's it. And not always. Only works when-' I blushed again. Saying 'I love you' had
never been easy.

Rosalie pushed her hand down the front of my jeans, under my underwear. A finger cautiously
brushed the top of my sex.

'Only when what?' she asked. She didn't look up, but leaned in and filled her mouth with my
breast. Words struggled to come. Her touch was like wildfire on me. I wanted her hand to go further,
to press up into me. But her fingers only caressed my folds.

'It only works when I… love someone. Love makes it work, nothing else.' Her mouth eased
away from my breast, but her fingers didn't stop.

'You're talking about the L word, living together, sharing our lives.'

'Yes.' I surprised myself and admitted it to her. I touched her face. 'Is that what you want? To
be with me and live as a couple?'

Rosalie went still. Her finger rested flat on my sex, the other circled my navel.

'I don't know. My illness… I've lived week to week for so long because of it. Loving
someone seemed too big a risk. I could die again. You would get hurt.'

'Ah, about that,' I said brushing her lips with my thumb. 'Whatever you thought would kill
you… it's gone. You're healed. Completely.'

Her fingers withdrew. Tears moistened her eyes. Instinct kicked in and I hugged her tight.
Rosalie shook, and then a sob escaped her. Her arms wrapped around me.

'You can have a life with me if you want. And you can have more than hot sex in a morgue. A lot
more.'

'Petra,' Rosalie whispered after a while. Her face was wet with tears. 'I-'

The door buzzer cut through the moment like an angry chainsaw. Rosalie flinched and clung to me.
I twisted around to check the security monitor. Flashing lights and the back of a van greeted me.
The dead wait for no one.

'Do you a deal, Rosalie,' I said, picking her up in my arms and headed for the crib room. 'Stay
with me for a while. Don't vanish on me tonight and we'll see how we go from there.'

She let go as I lowered her carefully onto the bunk bed in the corner. The door buzzer demanded
my attention again.

'Wait.' Rosalie grabbed me and pulled me to the bunk. I ignored the buzzer and kissed her.

'If you leave tonight I, I don't think I could survive that.' I had to say it. All that I had
endured in my life paled in the face of losing her.

'Leave you? No way Petra,' she whispered. 'Go do your thing. I'll be here, waiting for you.'

Justice Harcourt Winterbloom has a beautiful garden in the large grounds of his
secluded Launceston home. He's especially fond of the night garden as he feels an affinity for those
shy and secret flowers.

At the start of the year, Winterbloom employed Jake Constance, gardener and landscaper, to create
and nurture this special garden, with its evening primroses (
Oenothera biennis)
and
fragrant blue four-o'clocks (
Mirabilis jalapa
), the Nottingham catchfly (
Silene
nutans
) and
Gladiolus Tristis
.

Harcourt Winterbloom - or rather, Jake Constance - managed to get a Brahma Kamal, also called
Saussurea obvallata
, to grow in a cool hollow of the sheltered grotto. The flower hails from
China, and blooms once a year in the night. Jake has a standing invitation to visit for that
event.

Jake works on Justice Winterbloom's large garden at odd times: first thing in the morning, late
afternoon, early evening; once, at 2am. If anyone was to ask, which they haven't, he'd tell them it
was to see the short-lived glory of the moon flower, or
Ipomoea,
the petals of which open by
moonlight.

The judge had asked his gardener to sit with him, since Jake had planted and tended the specimen,
and because Harcourt wanted to share the moment with someone who would appreciate it.

And that night was when it began. When the judge placed a tentative hand on Jake Constance's
thigh, and the gardener had turned and cradled Harcourt's face in his large, callused hands, and
kissed him. But only
after
they'd witnessed the blooming of the moonflower in the secluded
garden, of course; neither of them had wanted to miss that.

But afterwards, oh yes, afterwards, on that blanket under the stars, and despite the cold, they
had kissed and touched and bared their skin to the night and made each other so very warm.

So Jake has a standing invitation to visit any time he likes, whether the judge is at home or
not, to tend the garden or simply enjoy it. But Jake mostly visits when Harcourt is home; and he
stays a few hours, and longer if he can, and then he leaves.

Jake is a busy man, and the judge is a very private one. So they keep their schedule unscheduled,
which is as much to do with the erratic demands of their work as to keeping off the radar.
Discretion matters to the judge, because it seems to matter so much to those who would wish him
harm.

Justice Winterbloom, nearing fifty now, has a reputation in the Tasmanian court system: an
incisive intellect; an unparalleled grasp of the nuances of the law; a strict man, but a fair one.
Anyone wrestling for a relevant precedent can turn to him for advice and he will cite two or three
useful references without recourse to a text; although he'll refrain if he senses the slightest
conflict of interest.

He's scrupulous, and self-sufficient; intensely private and inclined to introspection. Many find
him aloof, snobbish even. He's respected, but not much liked.

Jake likes him, though. Jake likes that quiet, shy man, whose head is so full of words and facts,
and whose heart beats with the great theatre of human weakness and tragedy, and of the hopes and
sorrows of lives that play out in the courts. Winterbloom has a cool and sardonic exterior that
keeps the world away, but Jake sees the humanity in him; here at his retreat, in this sanctuary.

Jake's visits could be passed off as household business, relating to the design and upkeep of
Winterbloom's treasured garden - unless you squint and take a closer look. Fortunately, Harcourt
trusts his small household staff, the housekeeper and a cook, but that's partly because they don't
live at the house, so they don't know everything.

He trusts them, but underestimates them.

Mrs Clifton, the housekeeper, and Miss Dalrymple, the cook, do squint and and
they
call it
Household Business, this thing the judge has with the gardener. They're fond of Harcourt. They've
known him most of his life, since he was a small, lonely boy in this house; driven relentlessly to
his books by an ambitious father, largely neglected by his vain and bored mother. Neither Clifton
nor Dalrymple care a jot that Harcourt sleeps with another man. All they care is that for a while
afterwards, their lonely man is happier; the weight of his cares vanishes.

Should anyone ask - whether they wish the judge good or ill - they'll get only blank stares and a
silence pretending ignorance. No-one's going to rob Harcourt of whatever happiness he can find; one
of the few happinesses he lets himself have. So the cook and the housekeeper squint and indulge, and
keep his secrets.

At the start of it all, Jake teases Harcourt, calls him Mr Buttoned-Down. The teasing name has
stuck, but he means it affectionately. Harcourt is always so controlled. It is Jake's mission in
life to coax Harcourt to relinquish that iron will, for a little while at least.

He has his work cut out for him.

In his waking hours, Harcourt always wears a suit, under his judge's robes, in chambers, in the
car, at breakfast and at dinner. Loosening his tie a fraction is as casual as he gets. It's all
about the discipline. His suits feel like safety. They keep people from asking questions, from
criticising his slightly heavy physique, from prying. A man in a suit never looks lonely, only
contained. Even his pyjamas are navy blue and button-up and tailored.

At the start of it all, Harcourt never laughs, except for that dry, rather meticulous laugh, so
well known in the courtroom.

Harcourt thinks that since humans are frail and that they all leave him in the end, he must not
reveal too much of himself. It's as though he's starting to say goodbye even though they are just
getting started, because he thinks the loss is inevitable.

It makes him sad in advance, because Jake Constance is extraordinary. He is very practical, as a
gardener must be, yet he has an artistic soul, another requirement to nourish a truly beautiful
garden. His eyes are dark brown, the colour of the rich, loamy soil in which he works. His hair is
brown too, and glossy, though there are threads of grey at his temple, as befits a man nearing
forty. But Jake remains youthful, in body and spirit. His physique is toned from the work he does,
his skin is sunkissed, in sharp contrast to Harcourt's indoor-pale tone, and his smile is broad and
happy and cheeky.

Harcourt doesn't hold much with religion, but he thinks Jake has an angelic face. Jake's smile,
he thinks, is like sunlight through the clouds. His eyes are the kindest Harcourt has ever seen.

Harcourt fell in love with those eyes but knows one day those eyes will not smile at him. One day
those eyes will look at him with disappointment or disdain or loathing. It's what they do; what
everyone does.

Harcourt even confesses this to Jake one day, in a moment of careless melancholy. Jake is
obviously irritated. That makes Harcourt sad. Their days are numbered now, and he has precipitated
the ending. He's smart enough to realise that his subconscious did that to him, made him start
letting go before he got too embedded, too used to having the man around. Harcourt wishes he could
have just enjoyed the love while he had it. He wishes that his brain was not so practical, preparing
for love's absence in advance.