“I thought I was paying?” Monica said.
Chenoa shrugged, her long dark hair moving across her shoulders. “You can get the next round.” She opened the bottled water, poured the water into the ice-filled glass and handed it to her mother.
“Drink.”
Mrs. Whitecloud frowned but drank the water. The glass was half-full when she finished.
“All of it, Mother.”
“All right, all right.” Mrs. Whitecloud finished the water. Then she stood up.
“Where are you going?” Chenoa asked.
“If it is alright with you, Miss Nosy-Nell, I am going to empty my bladder.”
Mrs. Whitecloud moved her rotund body through the obstacle course of tables and chairs toward the back of the bar.
Chenoa sighed, making the exact same sound her mother had earlier. Then she looked over at Monica. “Your mother anything like her?”
“My mother died when I was fifteen.”
Chenoa’s dark eyes widened. “Oh, I’m sorry.”
Monica took a swig of her beer. It was cold and bitter and slid past the tight knot in her chest that always appeared when she thought of her mother.
“Don’t be,” she said. “I mean, I appreciate the sentiment and all but it happened a long time ago.”
Chenoa’s eyes narrowed. “Not so long ago it doesn’t still hurt.”
Monica said nothing. She didn’t like talking about her mother. She didn’t like talking about anything personal. But, at the same time, she wanted to make a connection with Chenoa.
“Your mother.” Monica jerked her chin to where Mrs. Whitecloud was now emerging from the bathroom. “I like her.”
Chenoa looked over at her mother. Instead of returning to their table, she edged her way in among the other union members gathered at the bar.
Chenoa shook her head. “She’s stubborn.”
Then she looked over at Monica and graced her with such a dazzling smile that it tore at Monica’s heart. “But I love her, too. And, well, I wanted you to know that despite how I must have come across, I’m glad you got her involved in the union.”
“You are?”
Chenoa took a drink from her beer and nodded. “When I left for grad school, I was afraid she would just go to that awful job at the hotel, get off work and then sit at home worrying about me.”
She laughed. “And that’s exactly what she did. Ran her phone bill up, calling me every day. But then she got involved in the union. Oh, she still worries about me but it isn’t a twenty-four-seven kind of thing, you know? She has something else to occupy her mind. To make her feel important. Needed.”
“It’s empowering,” Monica ventured.
Chenoa screwed up her face. “Yeah, I suppose so. Although I hate that word. Sounds so…yuppyish.”
Monica laughed. Chenoa took another drink of her beer and Monica admired how her long, smooth throat worked as she drank. Soon the table between them was littered with beer and with the labels Monica had torn off the bottles as her state of inebriation and subsequent horniness had increased. She hadn’t meant to drink so much but the more she and Chenoa had talked, the more relaxed she had felt and the more beer she had ordered.
Chenoa, however, had stopped after one beer and switched over to club soda.
Mrs. Whitecloud came over to the table. “Silas is taking me home. Are you going to stay here, Monica?”
Monica shook her head and wished she hadn’t. “I need to get back to my hotel room. I’ve got a meeting in the morning with management.” Monica stood up and swayed. She’d driven over to the bar in her rental car but she knew she was in no state to drive back to the hotel. “I’ll call a taxi.”
“No, Chenoa can drive you,” Mrs. Whitecloud offered. “You can get your car tomorrow.”
Monica looked over at Chenoa, who shrugged. “Sure, I can take you.”
She rose from her chair and Monica, after making sure she wasn’t going to pitch face forward onto the floor, followed her outside.
Monica slid her key card through the reader on the door. She opened the door and stepped inside. Chenoa walked in behind her. Then, when Monica saw the state of her room, she wished she had not invited Chenoa in.
Clothing, underwear, books, computer discs and an assortment of half-opened bags of cereal bars and potato chips were strewn across her bed. The desk near the window was in no better shape, covered as it was with her laptop, stacks of flyers, newsletters and boxes of union buttons.
She looked over at Chenoa and gave her an embarrassed smile. “Excuse the mess.”
Chenoa shrugged. “No problem.”
She went over to the bed and, surprising Monica, swept everything on it onto the floor. Then she jumped on the bed, leaned back against the pillows and looked over at her. She patted the empty space next to her.
“Well, come on.”
Monica stared at her. Was this some kind of alcohol-induced hallucination?
Chenoa laughed. “Don’t tell me a big-time union organizer like you is bashful.”
“I’m not…” Monica stopped and drew in what she hoped was a head-clearing breath of air. “…a big-time union organizer.” She pinched her fingers together. “I’m more like a flea on the humped, bristly back of the union.”
“Really?” Chenoa smiled wickedly. “I thought you were going to insist you weren’t shy.”
Chenoa sat up and pulled off her T-shirt. She was braless. Her breasts were round and full with dusky-brown areolas.
Monica walked over to the bed and sat next to her. “What I am is confused.”
Chenoa reached over and caressed the line of Monica’s jaw, her cheek, the side of her face. Her voice was a low whisper. “Confused about what?”
“About…” Monica stopped. She gestured to where Chenoa lay on her bed. “About this.”
“What? This?”
Chenoa gently pulled Monica’s face toward hers and kissed her. It was a soft kiss, a wet kiss, a kiss that burrowed straight down to Monica’s cunt.
Chenoa pulled away, her dark eyes sultry. “What’s so confusing about me wanting you as much as you want me?”
Monica’s throat tightened. She cupped Chenoa’s breasts and stroked them. “Nothing. There’s nothing confusing about it at all.”
She tenderly twisted Chenoa’s nipples. They hardened, becoming long and firm. Monica lowered her head and wrapped her mouth around Chenoa’s breast. She slowly, attentively sucked it.
Chenoa moaned. She pulled off Monica’s baseball cap and tossed it onto the floor. Then she undid the tie Monica had put around her dreads and pushed her hands through them.
“I love your hair,” she whispered. “It’s so beautiful. Like you.”
She leaned back against the pillows, and Monica followed her, her mouth still wrapped around Chenoa’s succulent breast. She moved her hand down to the curve of Chenoa’s waist, just above the top of her shorts.
Moving her hands past Monica’s, Chenoa took her shorts off and tossed them to the floor.
Monica stroked Chenoa’s long, smooth thighs. She leaned over, her face mere inches from Chenoa’s panties. She parted her lips, her breath coming short as much from her state of drunkenness as from the tantalizing aroma of Chenoa’s cunt. The dark bush of it underneath the sheer lilac bikini-cut panties plumped the already damp material.
Monica pressed her lips onto the roundness of Chenoa’s stomach. She kissed her, over and over, reveling in the quivering of her belly. She moved downward and pressed her nose onto Chenoa’s panty-covered cunt. Slowly she breathed in the scent of her. Then gently, yet thoroughly, she slid her tongue over the front of her panties, tasting Chenoa as she did so.
Chenoa moaned, long and slow.
Unable to stand it any longer, Monica slipped her fingers beneath Chenoa’s panties and pulled them off her body.
She looked down at Chenoa’s cunt, a wave of dizziness flowing through her.
“I’m still drunk,” Monica murmured. “But that’s okay.”
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She lowered her head and brushed her nose and lips over Chenoa’s mound, breathing in, over and over, the smell of her; sweat and musk and soap.
Monica licked and sucked the tender lips of Chenoa’s cunt. Then she wrapped her lips around her clitoris and gently sucked. Chenoa writhed beneath her, her thighs quivering. She feverishly whispered words in Spanish, her fingers digging through Chenoa’s dreads.
Monica moved her wet, eager tongue deeper into Chenoa’s juicy cunt. And she did as she had fantasized since first meeting Chenoa. Making low, hard sounds deep in her chest, Monica thoroughly ate that sweet, succulent, candy-coated pussy out.
Crying out, Chenoa violently shuddered and a flood of wetness gushed from her and onto Monica’s tongue and lips. Monica kept on eagerly sucking and licking her slick cunt.
Chenoa climaxed again, her body trembling, her breasts jiggling wildly as she thrashed on the bed.
Once she had quieted, Monica pushed herself up until she lay next to Chenoa. Her caramel-colored eyes were glazed, her full, lush lips still trembling.
“Where…” she gasped, drew a breath, laughed and shook her head. “Where’d you learn to eat pussy like that?”
Monica shrugged. “More than a couple of bottles of beer and a few months of being horny as hell were instrumental.”
Chenoa laughed. She pulled Monica’s face down to hers and kissed her, thoroughly, deeply, wetly. She tasted of beer and mint and her own female musk.
Monica pulled away and took off her shirt. Unlike Chenoa, she wore a bra. Reaching around, Chenoa quickly unhooked it. Once Monica’s breasts were free, Chenoa lifted her head and sucked first one, then the other nipple, her agile tongue licking them into a sweet, tart hardness, her full lips sucking earnestly.
Some of that Tucson heat must have still been smoldering inside Monica because, despite the air-conditioned hotel room, she started sweating as if she were still outside.
“Oh, baby,” she moaned. “That’s it. Suck ’em. Suck my titties.”
Chenoa readily obliged her. Then she pushed one of her hands down the front of Monica’s jeans, slid her fingers under her panties and, as she continued to suck and lick Monica’s breasts, finger-fucked her to not one, not two, but three blistering orgasms.
After the last mind-blowing climax, Monica moved away from Chenoa and onto the side of the bed, the sweat pooling off her body and onto the sheet.
Chenoa rolled over onto her side and smiled at her. “So, what does it mean?”
Monica was still gasping for breath, her heart slamming. “What…what does what mean?”
“Bread and roses.”
It took a moment for Monica to register the words as she continued to struggle for breath. “Oh, yeah. Well, the phrase…it first appeared in a poem in…1911 but it’s mostly associated with…a textile strike in Lawrence, Massachusetts. Some say the women carried signs that said, ‘We want bread, but roses, too,’ but it’s never been verified.”
“We want bread but roses, too,” Chenoa repeated softly. “I like that.”
“Now, can I ask you a question?” Monica said.
“Sure.”
“Does your mother know?”
“That I’m gay?”
Monica nodded.
Chenoa sighed. “No. She’s so set on having grandchildren I haven’t had the heart to tell her. And, yes, I know I can still give her grandchildren but I also know she wants me to be happy.”
“And she won’t believe you’ll be happy if you’re a lesbian?”
“Yes.”
Monica stroked her arm. “I can’t say I know your mother better than you do, but I have a feeling she’d be a lot more open than you think.”
“Maybe.” Chenoa moved over Monica, her black-licorice hair falling like a curtain around their entwined bodies. “But for now, I don’t want to think about that. I just want to be with you.”
And, for now, that’s all Monica wanted, too.
Anna Black resides in the Midwest where she enjoys both reading and writing a wide variety of fiction ranging from mysteries to science fiction. She collects tarot cards and enjoys watching her eclectic collection of DVDs. She has erotic fiction published in The MILF Anthology, Cowboy Lover—Erotic Tales of the Wild West, and Zane’s upcoming anthology Asian Spice. She is currently working on an erotic mystery.
My Side of Things
Raquel Moore
H ave you ever had a loose secret? One that dangles inside your mouth so that every time your lips move, you fear it will fall out into your conversation? The kind that won’t stay put but can’t be freed ’cause you know it will change everything? Well, I got one of those and I can’t bear it alone any longer. I wanna tell you everything. Exactly the way it happened…maybe with a little slant toward my side of things…but the truth nonetheless. Just listen, okay? And know that I am telling you the truth. You know, the way you would tell your girlfriend about a tiny little thing that happened a long time ago, before you two were really serious about each other and that really wouldn’t be brought up at all if ol’ girl you did it with wasn’t threatening to make it sound like more than it really was? Yeah, that kind of slant.
It started about six months ago on the elevator, after a long day at the university. I was losing my cell phone connection while talking to ol’ girl who was threatening to tell “everything,” when in steps the most alluring woman I’ve ever met. She was dark like freshly brewed coffee, with full lips and a smile that beamed right into my soul. In one smooth motion I snapped my phone shut and dropped it in my pocket. I would have to deal with ol’ girl later. I made some flippant comment about the unreliability of modern technology.
“It’s not the technology,” the alluring one said with a crisp British accent. “It’s those among us who act surprised every time the phone loses reception in the elevator.” I couldn’t tell if she was flirting, or calling me out. Or both.
“By the way,” she introduced herself with a hint of a smile. “My name is Sabela.” We ended up sitting at the bus stop together, giggling like schoolgirls about the culture of absurdity called MTV and its blackface twin, BET. It was more than an hour later when we realized the parking lot shuttle was unusually delayed. Not ready to separate, we walked across campus to the lot together, our shoulders bumping lightly with each step. We never really separated after that.
From that moment on, I communicated with this woman almost every day. We emailed, IM’ed, texted, had lunch, brunch and sometimes just a quick coffee. Our connection was crazy. All I had to do was think her name and my phone would buzz in my pocket. My friends assumed we were already a thing ’cause usually I claim my territory early in the game. But I decided not to disappoint them. They need me to succeed so that they can maintain hope that their bland, humdrum academic lives might have some passionate flair too one day. Besides, I was working on it.
This is how it really was: Sabela was magnetic. Our thighs, shoulders, hips or hands would find each other like old friends, like they knew they belonged together and didn’t care who saw. Every time she looked at me, it felt like she looked into me and it always sent a charge through me. A jolt that commanded certain parts of me to stand and salute. Every time. The thing is, she would never consent to a date. She agreed to a movie once but canceled. Other times she would say she’d have to check her schedule and get back to me, and each time the answer was “we’ll have to do it another time because blah-blah-blah.” As the kids say: she was stalling me. I was persistent because I thought maybe it was her first lesbian attraction. I’ve bedded enough first-timers and bi-curious types to know that past experience is no measure of present-day willingness.
My girl? Oh, Sabela didn’t know about her then. I knew better than to mention my long distance “situation” up front. Geographically speaking, I was single so why complicate the matter with unnecessary details?
Anyway, for weeks I tried to get to her alone off-campus. Meanwhile the electronic intimacy was nice. It began with a three-hour
discussion about our research and its relationship to our own liberation. She’s from Tanzania. While her parents are progressive Africans in their views about a woman’s role in society, she said they also expect her to maintain their old customs. Their desire for her to be as equally educated as her brothers allowed her to train in London. She left her village to research Natural Resource Management to help enrich the lives of her people. Stuff like clean air, water and natural habitat preservation. I write about gay people who make a healthy space for their sexuality in their spiritual life. Tell me what you think is most important in your everyday routine and I’ll tell you how you define freedom. We ended most weeknights talking for two to three hours at a time. Basically spent every night together without going on one date.
Week twelve, it finally happened. She had just returned from a two-week trip home. She said “yes” for Saturday night, but only if I cooked dinner. She said I should show her what home-cooked American food is supposed to taste like. Shee-it, I couldn’t have planned it better. Just the two of us breaking bread in my house, with nothing to distract us from our desires? Spicy sex was definitely in the stars. So I prepared angel hair pasta with shrimp and crabmeat in a zesty pesto sauce, garnished it with parsley, tossed a spinach salad and topped it off with my momma’s blackberry pie (if that ain’t American, nothing is.)
When Sabela rang the doorbell, I felt a ruffle in my stomach. I greeted her with a soft kiss below the ear. She was a magnificent specimen of femininity in form-fitting jeans and a black sleeveless top. The white shawl draping her neck had red, gold and green embroidery along its edges.
“I really like the design of your shawl,” I said, caressing the fringes of the fabric.
“Thank you. It was a parting gift from my mother,” she replied in a dreamy voice.
She fingered one of her shoulder-length locs and her eyes seemed to be looking at her mother. Immediately, the desire to touch her face rushed upon me. Instead I touched her hair and commented on the recent addition of cowry shells. As she walked slowly to the living room, I followed with my eyes. Below Sabela’s right armpit was an armlet decorated with tiny wood squares and polished bone. The shawl fell long past her waist but with each step the mound beneath pushed against it, announcing its roundness through the veil. I had to shake my head to stave off the pornographic images my imagination created. Dinner before dessert, playah.