Chapter 7

There was a cover over her when she awoke, alone, though, and she was glad to have it. The mornings here, if they were mostly like this one, wouldn't at all run like Miami's. It was cool-if you got right down to it, downright chilly-and the light coming in from the open window was from an overcast sky. She pulled the covers up over her breasts as she sat up.

Beside the bed was a little rolling table with a little hot-water heater and a cup on it. There was a teabag in the cup, and there was a piece of paper stretched out beside it Nan leaned over, poured for herself-the water was still simmering nicely, and the smell of the tea, as the water went through the little bag, was delightful-and only then looked at the note:

Annie darling!! !

It's SO nice to have you here!! ! Don't mind me, I have to get the place open and let these chicks in to pay me some money so I can keep the place open!! !

Come on down as soon as you're ready-no hurry!! !-and I'll introduce you to everybody and show you around and everything. I hope you'll just LOVE it here!!!

Gotta rush Mary Alice

Nan smiled at the letter. Nothing about last night at all. That would be so like Mary Alice. She wouldn't push her ego on you for anything. And the first thing she'd think of would be making Nan feel at home. What a sweetheart!

And now, sipping her tea, Nan had to face the fact that she didn't feel the slightest twinge of conscience, of shame, of bad vibes, of anything negative about the night before. And the thought of that was itself enough to throw quite a shock into her.

After all, here she'd had a real honest-to-God lesbian experience the night before, and it didn't shake her up. As a matter-of-fact, she felt good about it-better than anything had made her feel in simply ages.

In more ways than one, she had to admit to herself now. At the thought of Mary Alice's warm-from-sleep, delightfully padded figure pressed so lovingly to her own-of Mary Alice's affectionate and expert lips diving so happily on her wet and ready cunt, she blushed-and felt a telltale twinge in her lap. God, she was sensitive there! And, holding the cup in one hand, she reached in her lap with the other and touched herself on the button, softly, tentatively. She was almost raw there. But what an incredible series of lovely, guilt-free, sweet orgasms she'd had the night before! It was almost as if she'd never come before, really.

There! Her finger dipped down into the depths of her slit, wet and ready even now, for lubrication to put on her finger. With it, she very gently rubbed her clit How nice! She put the cup down and opened her legs, giving herself long, slow, languorous rubs with the tender fingertip. She shivered and wiggled her toes. God! How lovely she felt! How sweet the night had been...waking briefly in the middle of the night to feel her friend's warm hand on her thigh...guiding it again to her slit---Then, waking again and lying there talking, not saying much, just a word or two now and then, kissing, massaging each other's cracks with fingers that smelt enchantingly funky from each other's bottoms until the two of them, exhausted, came softly and sweetly, lying there like that and slipped quietly off to sleep again...Ohhhhhhh! she said in her silent mind, coming again, softly, easily, and lying back to enjoy the nice feeling afterwards....

She showered and then, letting her body dry in the cool air, padded about naked while looking over the upstairs part of Mary Alice's nice, cranky old house. She went to her bag (Must remember, she thought, to send for the rest at the airport today!) and settled on a pair of stylish pants and very bare sandals. Standing before the mirror, though, staring at her topless body and her delicious little breasts (whose nipples grew longer as she looked at them), she wondered: bra or no bra? as she held her cute little knit top in one hand, undecided. Then she said suddenly to herself in a loud whisper: "Live!" And, an amused smile on her face, pulled it over her head. As she straightened it out she noticed that her nipples stuck out invitingly, and the brown areolas were all but visible through the translucent cloth. "Well...why not?" she whispered. And she went downstairs to Mary Alice's office, already buzzing with excitement, already-she saw even before she stepped through the door-half full of bright-eyed women in gay-colored sports clothes, talking away in animated voices.

Her entrance didn't exactly create a sensation, then. But she saw a few eyes on her, and drew a friendly smile or two, as she threaded her way through the crowd to the reception desk, where a plain but bright-eyed young woman was busily engaged in signing up a great, overweight Jewish lady for something called Tai Chi Ch'uan. She patiently waited her turn, looking around the room at the staff photos showing teachers of various artsy-craftsy disciplines at work.

Most of these, it appeared, were women. There was a blond painting instructor with a nice, mobile-looking face and a ring of ringlets growing close around her shapely little head; a French teacher-wearing a mannish suit, but with a pleasant, humorous face-showing a pupil, apparently, the correct way one holds her face to say "u" a la francaise; a sturdy-bodied, cropped-haired sculptress, with-how fitting!-a marvelously sculptural face, with beautiful wide cheekbones and a simply marvelous nose.. .There was one man visible on the wall, but even as she watched, one of the girls, who apparently belonged to the place, took that picture down and replaced it. The new photo bore the image of a huge, dark-haired man with a big black beard-and, she saw, a kind and gentle face beneath it-bending over a potter's turntable, worrying a clay figure into shape with large, dirty hands.

Dominating the wall display, however, was a series of shots of dancers in action-a set of earnest-faced, frankly lesbian Moderns in black leotards, severe hairdos and gnarly bare feet, a line of young matrons in classical-ballet garb doing bar exercises (and showing surprisingly good form), and...the largest and. most professional-looking of the photographs immediately took her attention.

This was a professional action photograph of a young woman in her middle thirties, with an unusually lovely, if hard-eyed, face, a wildly voluptuous figure that simply begged the viewer to touch it and caress if she dared, and a sinuous grace in her posture that could only have come from the most rigorous professional training. She was wearing the scantiest of Middle-Eastern belly-dance costumes, and her motions, arrested by the camera in the middle, had all but separated her gyrating body from every vestige of covering she wore. Indeed, one dark areola bulged from her tiny bra, and her skirt was pulled so low, over so flawlessly supple a belly, that stray hairs from her pubic area peeped over the top. Her hands and feet, glimmering with gold rings, were subtly expressive after a Far Eastern, not Middle Eastern, manner.

God! Nan breathed to herself. What a woman this must bel Her heart was pounding as the girl at the desk turned to her now and said in a matter-of-fact voice, "Can I help you, dear?"

"Oh," she said, a little flustered. "I...I'm looking for Mary Alice.. . "

"Hi, hon," a familiar voice said behind her, though, and she turned to see Mary Alice, trim-for a big girl in a pants suit and sandals, approaching. "Oh, look, Louise. Here's my best friend in the world that I told you about"

"Oh," said the plain girl, beaming at Nan now and rising. "You're Annie. We've all heard so much about you." She came forward to press Nan's hand warmly. And Mary Alice, hugging her affectionately, proceeded to introduce her to nearly everyone in the room, one or two at a time. Everyone was warmly open and friendly; Nan, used to the New Yorkish distrustfulness of Miami Beach money, was delightfully flustered with the reception she received.

The crowd thinned as classes began for the day, though, and Mary Alice took her out the door. The morning was still a bit on the cool side, and she was glad to get out into whatever sun there was. Mary Alice chattered along pleasantly in her usual fashion as she took Nan on the Grand Tour, grasping her hand and lacing fingers with her as the two went from one little outbuilding to the next meeting the teachers in

Mary Alice's-suddenly charming, Nan felt to her surprise!-little school.

The first cottage they passed was that of the French teacher, who turned out not to be mannish at all, but wise, middle-aged, and unassuming. Then they turned to the dance classes-the male teacher of the classical ballet class was obviously gay, but friendly in a twittery bird-like way, and he was glad to take them next door to the Modern class and introduce her to the girl teacher, who was dark, intense, and who pressed her hand in a sententiously predatory way. His name was Lloyd; hers was Esther.

Next they met the big man with the beard. He was just setting up his equipment, and Mary Alice made it clear that she had just hired him to replace somebody who "hadn't worked out." Nan's hand virtually disappeared into his as they shook, and he grinned shyly. He was like a big pet Teddy bear, and the warmth emanating from the big man was real and irresistible. As they walked away Mary Alice said, "Yeah, isn't he a sweetheart? I took to him immediately. Ii I ever get the time to do anything but run this place, I swear I'm gonna sneak in one night and throw myself on him. We put his picture in the quarterly mailer next week. I bet we wind up with more applicants than he can possibly handle."

Next came the painting class. This teacher's name was Myra, and she was matter-of-fact as painting teachers tend to be; but just once she brushed her hand over Nan's face and said, "You're quite lovely. I must get you down to sit for my pupils. You have marvelous color." Nan stammered, "Yes, yes of course."

The sculptress-the one with the marvelous Polish cheekbones-was even more direct. When they entered her class, several women in dirty smocks were working from the model-a thick-bodied, fortyish nude who stared brazenly at Nan the whole time they were there; somehow Nan felt herself growing warm around the crotch again-and the sculptress, Maxine ("Everybody calls me Max"), was correcting a pupil's conception of the woman's hipline.

"Look," she said. "It goes like this." And her hand swept matter-of-factly down the woman's naked haunch, touching it all the way. (Nan got goose-bumps.) "There has to be a joint under there, and it has to fit together just so. See? Now chop off a chunk of that and build it back up again. Underneath the flesh"-here she patted the naked woman familiarly on the strong buttocks-"is a machine, and the machine has to look like it might work, you know, this muscle pulling that tendon to make such-and-such work." Her hand indicated vaguely here and there on the bare body before her; Nan, flustered, could hardly tear her eyes away from the lush bush of pubic hair in the middle of the strangely sexy figure before her. Then she felt Max's eyes on her again.

"Oh, yes, Annie," she said. Her eyes were business-like, but appraising-frankly sexually. "I couldn't talk you into coming down to sit for me, sometime, could I? I've got a commission, and I need a water nymph. Someone with a nice, petite little body like yours. You'd be just fine, I think. I'm behind schedule on it, you know, and I'd better get down to work one of these evenings or I'm going to be in a lot of trouble. Do say you will? Hmmm? Please?"

"I.. .Well, if you really think...." Nan stuttered.

"Sure, hon," Mary Alice said. "Just let her get all settled in first." She patted Max on the shoulder in a friendly fashion. "Say," she added as she pulled Nan out the door, "come see me tomorrow about that Saturday class, won't you? I want to give it a real big buildup for the mailer." They went out; Max's eyes were on Nan, and a small smile was on the corner of her mouth. The nude looked at her hard, too-unsmiling, sultry.

"Come with me," Mary Alice said, her arm in Nan's. "I mean, back to the office. Just a second. I...I've got some business for a minute."

"Sure," Nan said. "Say...I was wondering...who was the belly-dance teacher whose picture I saw on the wall back at the main office? The one with...."

"Oh," Mary Alice said, grinning. "Sexy, isn't she? That's Zora. The professional name's Zoraida. She used to be in the flicks. She's one of my best friends. She almost supports this place during the summer season when everyone's away on vacation. The kids in her classes just adore her. Heck, so do I. You'll meet her tomorrow. She doesn't teach every day; she comes in and books a whole day full at a time, and we have to turn away students now and then."

"Gee," Nan said. They came to a back door in the big house.

"This is my own sanctum," Mary Alice said, ushering her in. "I have to have someplace-I mean, besides the living half of the house, upstairs-where I can get away from it all now and then." The little office was as neat as Mary Alice's living quarters were untidy, Nan noticed to her surprise. The big desk was totally bare; the little bed in the comer was made.

"How delightful," Nan said, meaning it. "Would you like me to wait outside?"

"Outside?"

"Well...you said you had business. I thought if you had to phone...."

"Oh, sweetheart," Mary Alice said, giving her a hug and looking her in the eyes with a look of pure puppy-dog affection, "You're my business. It's so good to see you." And, taking Nan in her arms the way a man might, she kissed Nan on the mouth-warmly, voluptuously, with a vigor and ardor that surprised her even after the night before.

"I...." Nan said. But she could find nothing to say. She found herself melting, utterly melting, in Mary Alice's strong and persistent embrace. And, in the highly sexual, highly charged atmosphere of the morning (all those hot glances! The naked woman on the stand, being pawed so by the girl with the broad face, and looking hotly at Nan all the time!), she felt her lap grow wet, her breathing growing heavy.

"Darling," she said, and kissed Mary Alice back hard, boring between the girFs heavy lips with her own Little pink tongue, pressing their two pairs of braless, nearly naked nipples together in an embrace whose warmth and passion surprised her.

"Oh, God, Oh, God," Mary Alice said. "Oh, sweetheart. . . " and she bore Nan backward to the desk. Then, her large and capable-looking hands reaching down to Nan's waist, she unbuttoned the side buttons of Nan's pants and slipped them down, and bent to slip one of Nan's sandaled feet out of the pants leg. Then she lifted Nan by the hips and sat her, bare-bottomed, on the desk.

"Sweetheart," she said, and kissed Nan again. Then she lay Nan down gently on the desk, spread her legs gently with her hands, and lifted her bare legs high. "Oh God," she said, looking down at Nan's open and glistening cunt, "you're the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. Oh, Jesus. Oh, Annie, I can't resist you, darling."

And, not looking up, her face eagerly intent on her work, she bent over to kiss Nan squarely in the middle of her eager and dripping slit.

"Oh, Christ," Nan said. She'd never been so hot in all her life. "Oh, God. Oh, Mary Alice, don't Oh, sweetheart, I can't stand it. Oh, don't. Oh, Mary Alice, please stop. You can't...I don't...Ohhhhhhh!"

She'd come once already, and she'd barely got her pants off. God, was she hot!

She tried to sit up, but her friend's mouth was busy again. "No...now, don't, Mary Alice...please, sweetheart, I'm sore...I'm raw down there...I can't take any more of it...Oh, God! Oh, heavens, please baby, don't. Don't baby. Oh, God, that feels so good, I can't stand it. I can't I can't take that much more, sweetheart. It's so...oh, God, it's so good...it's so.... Oh, Lord! Oh, Lord! Oh, God, I'm coming...Oh, God, oh, no, oh, heavens, no, oh, please...please don't...don't...don't stop, don't stop now, don't...oh, please, oh, please stop...Oh...Oh, Christ...Oh, God, Ohhhhhhhhhh!"

"Mmmmmmm," said Mary Alice from between her

"Now don't...don't do it again...oh, that hurts...it hurts...it hurts so good....Oh, God...oh, don't...not there...I can't take much more of this...oh, I can't take it there any more...oh, please don't.. no, no," her voice was not even recognizable as being her own now; it was some strange new musical instrument that went deep down into the contralto register before sweeping up, into the soprano, in a toneless whine, "now, now, Mary Alice, you can't...No, no, honey, please don't...no, no, no, not there, not there, not like that, no, no, baby, oh, please, I can't take that, it's too much, it's too much, baby I won't...I cant...oh, please, oh, God, no, oh, no, don't do it any more, oh, please, oh, yes, yes, right there, yes, baby, oh, God, yes, right there, eat me, yes, yes, right there, yes, eat me, oh, please, sweetheart, oh, yes, oh, God, eat me, yes, yes, eat my cunt eat me, baby, oh, wow, oh God, yes, yes, oh, baby, don't stop, please don't stop, honey, yes, yes, right there...oh, right there...yes, please, oh God God Godgodgodgodgodohgodohgodoh-god...Yesyesyesyesyesyes...Yes! Oh, Yes! Yes, now! Now! There! There! THERETHDERETHERE!...NNNNNOOOOOOWWWWW!. . . "

Her exhausted legs fell on Mary Alice's back. And only then did her friend's eager-eyed, excited face rise from her bunting lap and look with love and devotion into her eyes.

"Annie . . ." Mary Alice said in a husky voice. Her eyes were out of focus. As she raised a hand to her own forehead Nan could see it trembling. She put both hands on the desk; she needed the support, obviously-her head must be reeling with the effort

Nan sat up. She wasn't sure where she got the strength. And she took Mary Alice's tired head between her two hands, gently, ever so gently, and kissed her first on the brow, then on each cheek, then on the mouth-still hot and wet from her own juices (why in heaven's name did she find that so sexy?).

And, getting down, pulling the other leg out of her pants and standing in sandals and braless top before her friend, she said, "Come." And she led Mary Alice gently over to the bed.

"No, honey," Mary Alice said weakly, "no, I've got to go, baby. I've got work to do...."

'Toothing's that important" Nan said. "Everything , will keep."

"But baby...I've got to get the bank deposit to the bank...I've got the power and light check, and the gas company check and the telephone company check to cover, and I've got to get to the tax lawyer and make sure we're going to have enough to cover the franchise tax for the period, and then I've gotta make the note on the house and the place here. You can't understand. It's all coming due right now, and I don't really have the money, sugar. I'm having to kite checks all over the place and hope to God nobody catches me at it"

"Sweetheart.. . "

"Oh, baby, you just don't know. You just don't know. I love this place so much, and I've worked so hard on it and even after, like, all these years of it, I'm still just barely ahead of the cops and the tax man." She sat down, heavily, on the bed, her face disconsolate, her eyes on Nan's. "Just when I thought I was gonna get ahead for a change, somebody called for an audit last year. Then the city condemned a couple of buildings. And I had to hock my shirt to get the variance, and an extension, and pay off a couple of guys to keep the city off my back, and there I was back in debt again right up to my eyes."

She looked up at Nan, a wistful expression on her face, her eyes briefly sweeping down to take in Nan's naked legs and crotch; this brought a brief little smile. "Gee, you look sweet You look so sexy. You always did. I swear to God, honey, I don't blame Max and all the girls for takin' a shine to you. Even if I didn't know you I'd want to make a pass at you. And sugar, Tm not jealous. I saw you give Max a look back there. Right?. . . "

"I...." Nan didn't know what to say. Had she?

"Anyhow, if you want to, I mean, honey, feel free. Max is a nice girl. If she wants to eat your box, I mean, gosh, go ahead, honey, she's kind of nice. We used to be real close friends once, back before I got so busy. Maybe I'm not her type, I mean, for something extended."

Mary Alice reached up and took her hand now. "Jeez, honey. If I looked like you, I'd be putting out for people I can't get close to right now. I'd have that big beautiful Avram, the pottery teacher, down on his back so fast. God, honey, you look so lovely, I mean like that, there, with your bare fanny hanging out and the little beads of juice gleaming on your pussy hair in the morning sunshine. You're so pretty. If I looked like that...Bah," she said. "If I looked like that I known damn well what I'd be doing. I'd be kicking my legs in the air for some rich shtarker in Universal City and putting the toughest price on my fanny I could manage so I'd be able to raise the bread for this place. It's become like an obsession with me. It was just fun, at first. But now...damn it, Annie, I believe in the place. I think ifs something that, you know, ought to be here. People ought to have something like this to come to. All those lonely doctors' wives and all, up there on Pill Hill. I mean, gee, they love me. They love the joint I know it doesn't look like much."

"It looks great sweetheart," Nan said. She stooped to pick up her pants, slipped one foot into a pants leg. "It's a sweet place." She stepped into the other leg and pulled her pants up, shivering (with a little grin at Mary Alice) when the crotch of the pants touched her still-tingling genitals.

"Well...it will, anyhow. Soon. One of these years. Tm going to slap some paint on it, inside and out, when the break between summer and fall terms comes. Jf I can keep afloat till then, I mean."

She looked up as Nan sat down next to her. "Oh, gee," she said. "Here I am, telling you all my damn troubles. I didn't mean to do that, honey. Gee, I hope I didn't bring you down. But I...I just don't have much of anyone to talk to these days, you know. Is that silly? When I have all these dear friends around? And I can't find anybody to talk to in spite of all that? Sounds stupid, but it's true. How can I tell them my troubles-about this joint, I mean? They've got their lives invested in it, just as I have mine. Can I go telling them we've been on the verge of closing for a year now? And shaking them up? When the one thing I gotta provide for them-I mean really, not just the roof over their heads-is the sure knowledge that the joint's gonna be here next term and they'll be able to eat regular? I mean, it's not like they're starving. Max has commissions. Zora can always go back on the stage. And Avram had a nice little business of his own until his wife divorced him and the courts busted up his business to give her half the assets. He could get it together again. But these guys count on me. They trust me."

"Sure they do, sweetheart," Nan said. And she was thinking, I've got to do something nice for Mary Alice tonight when she comes home from work. like fix her a nice dinner, and get a nice bottle of some really good wine. And give her a really wonderful loving to help her sleep....

It didn't occur to her once to reflect that she was thinking the way she'd think if she were hving with a man. Or that the "little surprise" was the kind she had once planned for Ed, back when they were young and full of the kid joy of playing house. He'd be the big papa, and she'd be the little mama, and he'd come home tired after work and she'd make it nice for him. Or that her mind, without a moment's question, had cast Mary Alice in the role of husband and herself in the role of wife.

Perhaps it was this strange confusion of roles that kept her from coming to the other, more instantly obvious, realization that she could, right this moment, solve every one of Mary Alice's problems of the moment with an idle stroke of her pen....