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Leah was not particularly interested in English country dancing. It had been fun to learn the basics in college, and she didn’t mind participating in it now and then—when, for example, the dance band at an early music festival included the guy she was dating. But he was firmly based in New York, and Leah wasn’t willing to join him there, so they broke up before long, and she went on with her life. Her day job as a risk analyst and her side hustle as a semi-professional singer took up most of her time, and her friends and family members readily called dibs on what was left. There was rarely room in her calendar for anything she wasn’t already committed to.
But COVID-19 saddled her with a violent, nagging cough that forced her to give up her standing gigs and turn down invitations for new ones, ceding them to performers whose lungs weren’t compromised. For more than a year, she couldn’t even attend her friends’ or relatives’ concerts—not when her bronchial fits defied predictability and suppression—and she gave up altogether on going out after an explosive coughing attack took hold of her while her mouth was full of soup.
She methodically logged every respiratory incident in her bullet journal, and when she finally completed a two-page spread with a full column of dates and no black squares, she purchased a ticket to her city’s Playford Ball—the fanciest English country dance event of the year. Her friend Heidi was one of its organizers—and also the dinner companion she’d involuntarily splattered with cioppino. When Leah offered to pay for the damage, Heidi had said, “The hell with dry-cleaning—make it up to me by bringing your beauteous self to Playford one of these years. Once you’re no longer possessed by La Dame aux camélias.” She’d then tittered at the face Leah had pulled. “What, cosplaying consumptive courtesans not your thing?”
Heidi was one of Leah’s besties, but “way too aware of how smart she is” and “way too pleased with her gift of gab” were criticisms Leah had heard from mutual friends as well as adversaries and sometimes couldn’t help agreeing with, even though brilliant, hyper-articulate people were definitely her type. They’d slept together years ago for a couple of weeks, but the arch bossiness Leah found refreshing and funny as a friend had been wildly irritating when directed at her as a lover, and Heidi had in turn discovered that Leah was at home a vanilla pillow diva who found Heidi’s demands taxing rather than relaxing.
Leah’s thoughts flitted back to that long-ago fling as she entered the community center gym that Heidi and the other organizers had transformed into a storybook ballroom, with garlands of glossy leaves, strings of twinkling lights, and pouffy swags of tulle. As Leah scanned the crowd, she sort-of recognized a few faces from her past forays into duple and triple minors, but no one she’d socialized with long enough for anything meaningful to materialize in her memory. Some people were wearing buttons that displayed their names in an elegant font, but many had eschewed them as incompatible with their period finery.
For the event, Leah had borrowed a fabulous, extremely flattering gown from the local opera company: she’d been fitted for it during a run of La Traviata a few seasons back, and it showed off her decolletage to great effect. She anticipated being a wallflower through most of the program, however: she wasn’t known to most of the attendees, and she knew full well she wasn’t as cute or approachable as the younger women men of all ages tended to gravitate toward. That wasn’t going to spoil the evening for her, though: It was not a hardship to help Heidi out by adding herself to the attendance total—the historical dance community had been hit hard by the pandemic and was struggling to build its numbers back up—and unlike the participants who were there specifically because they were keen on eighteenth-century dance forms and costumes, she would be happy with getting to hear some fine music-making and sip some decent punch. Among other things, Heidi’s presence on the ball committee ensured that the refreshments would meet her standards, or else.
Leah started to ponder where to situate herself so that she would be left in peace to listen to the music, rather than attracting fellow spectators wanting to chat through it. As she eyed the bleachers nearest the stage, she heard a low, appreciative whistle, followed by a low, appreciative “Leah?”
She swiveled toward the speaker—a lanky woman with dark, close-cropped hair, dressed in a simple black button-down shirt and slacks and stationed at the bank of sound equipment next to the stage.
“Maikki?” Leah said.
She was rewarded with a faint smile. “Am I that hard to recognize outside a cathedral?”
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you away from an organ,” Leah admitted. “How often do you moonlight like this?”
“Full time since January,” Maikki said, holding up hands encased in fingerless compression gloves. “Therapy and shots couldn’t fix me enough to keep playing for the masses, so to speak.”
“Shit! I’m sorry,” Leah said. Casting about for what to say next, she felt her brain stutter on the platitudes and advice she found stupid or annoying when people offered them to her.
“You understand,” Maikki said, her smile twisting into a wry expression. “I was sorry you had to drop out of Messiah year before last.”
“Thank you. At least you can tell me and Emiko apart.” The cathedral had hired another Asian American singer as Leah’s replacement. Leah was glad that Emiko had done a great job, but she couldn’t help feeling salty when she subsequently fielded compliments about the performance from people who believed she and Emiko were the same person. While they overlapped in repertoire, they didn’t sound alike: Emiko was a lyric mezzo-soprano, with lighter, flirtier hues in her timbre, whereas Leah’s natural colors were heavier and deeper. Leah was willing to concede that it wasn’t realistic or reasonable to expect occasional concertgoers to discern that kind of difference between voices, but she and Emiko didn’t look or dress alike, and being mistaken for a smaller woman with a rounder face, bangs, and pinker preferences in lipsticks and accessories—she felt she should be allowed to feel irked by that. Moreover, some music directors had misremembered Emiko as the singer sidelined by COVID-19 complications and preemptively ruled out considering her for gigs, thinking she was Leah. It was in no way Leah’s fault that that was happening, but she felt terrible about it nonetheless.
Maikki said, “Emiko would get swallowed up by that gown. She definitely doesn’t have the rack for it.”
“Young people these days,” a nearby woman loudly said, fanning herself furiously. “No decorum whatsoever.”
Smirking, Maikki said, “I mean, when the shoe fits—or, in this case, the bustier—” She paused to enjoy the chorus of reactions from the stage: a guffaw from behind the keyboard, a smothered laugh from the violinist, and open cackling from the recorder player. The fellow tuning a mandolin was silent, but his eyes were alight with amusement.
“That’s no way to talk about a lady,” the dowager insisted. “No matter how inspiring her charms or deficient her rivals.”
Rivals?! Oh, dear. Leah hadn’t previously run into this type of Regency reenactment fan, but she’d heard Heidi venting about them impinging on other people’s fun. There was something officious about the woman that conveyed an investment in gatekeeping rather than courtly speech. Leah drew a deep breath, consciously reveling in how good it felt to fill her lungs without them convulsing into paroxysms of coughing, wheezing, and gagging. This was not her turf, and it was not her job to put snobbish biddies in their place, especially if doing so might make things harder for Heidi.
Just as Leah was about to exhale, Maikki executed a deep, theatrical bow to her—as elegant as any choreographed for a ballet or opera—and, with an outrageously plummy accent that perfectly complemented the gesture, intoned: “O dearest, fairest lady in my sight, fain would I dwell on thy form and features for as long as thou giv’st me leave to linger and adore. Grant me the bliss of breathing in the sweet, soft syllables that drop from thy lovely lips like the finest jewels of the richest kingdom. Sit thou here, o queenliest of queens, and behold how I labor to command all the sounds of the air to please thy most discerning ear.”
Calling on all her years of experience to keep a straight face, Leah seated herself regally on the folding chair Maikki pulled out for her—and then they both cracked up as the recorder player bombastically tootled out the start of “See, see the shepherds’ queen.” By the time Leah and Maikki got themselves back under control, the full band had launched into a Tudorcore rendition of Bruce Springsteen’s “Badlands,” which had drawn much of the crowd to the stage—many decidedly amused, some distinctly horrified. Within the swarm of people, Leah could no longer see the woman whose disapproval had sparked Maikki’s outlandish prattle.
Catching Maikki’s eye, Leah said, “You! How in the world did you come up with all that nonsense on the spot?”
“Ah, my lady has caught me out.” Maikki radiated both mirth and sheepishness. “My first girlfriend was a RenFaire rat, and wherever she went was where I wanted to be. So I spent two summers trailing after her as a courtier and troubadour, and I learned right quick to flatter and fawn over everyone in our orbit. For purses grow not plump without compliments and cozening.”
“For shame.” Leah pretended to pout. “Here you had me thinking I was special, when you’ve been saying the same thing to all the women you meet.”
“Men, too,” Maikki said, unrepentantly. “It’s served me well enough all these years. Charming priests, canons, and vestry wardens to renew my contracts and let me play what I want isn’t too far removed from sweet-talking soused fairgoers into parting with their money. Flirting is just a pretty variation of manipulation.”
“How very unromantic of you,” Leah said. “Where have you been all my life?”
“Sorry to interrupt you two, but it’s time to get this party going,” Heidi said, swanning up. She was resplendent in a voluminous gold gown fit for an empress, and Leah momentarily regretted not having tried harder to be a more accommodating lover: under all that fabric was a superb pair of legs and a pussy that had responded beautifully to the petting and fingering she’d given it. But Heidi had wanted more variety and stamina than Leah could muster enthusiasm for, and Leah’s acting chops had never been up to conveying unbridled passion convincingly.
Fortunately, Heidi didn’t require that from her as a friend—and she didn’t have much to say to Maikki either, sailing off to the dance floor after Maikki confirmed everything was ready. Leah sat back and proceeded to enjoy her view of Maikki at the controls during the first four dances on the program. She’d expected the band to capture most of her attention—she’d previously witnessed the violinist flawlessly incorporating AC/DC’s “Girls Got Rhythm” and Shakira’s “Whenever, Wherever” into Baroque cadenzas, and the recorder player had a similar reputation for virtuoso hijinks—but it was Maikki’s watchful competence that entranced her. She wasn’t familiar enough with audio equipment to recognize which sliders and knobs Maikki was twiddling, or why, but she had herself suffered through plenty of inept, imbalanced efforts at amplification in the past—enough to marvel at the seamless adjustments Maikki was calmly making as more dancers entered the ballroom, band members switched out instruments and switched up configurations, and one of Heidi’s co-organizers propped open a door to allow more air to circulate. The band was extraordinary—it was too early in the evening for cheeky interpolations, but Leah could see from her seat the tablets the keyboard and mandolin players were reading from, and how they were translating each tune—three to four lines of a melody, displayed on a single screen with a smattering of chord symbols—into a full-bodied foundation beneath the cheerful lilting of the violin and recorder, not to mention their own turns at frisky solos within each piece. Leah had witnessed such sorcery before, with her New-York-rooted ex and other friends schooled in figured bass, Nashville numbers, and other musician-on-call shorthand, but it was no less magical to behold it now. The prime view of Maikki’s tantalizing ass, the close fit of those tailored black slacks highlighting its toned curves—Leah began to wish she’d included a fan with her accessories, the better to hide her face behind, especially after Heidi reached the top of the center longways set—the middle two lines of dancers—and flashed a “go get that!” grin at her.
During the walk-through for the fifth dance, a young man loped up to the sound console, set down his backpack, and silently looked over the settings. As the band struck up the opening bars of “The Astonished Archaeologist,” he began murmuring questions to Maikki, and midway through the dance took over the controls. Patently supervising him as a mentor, Maikki remained beside him through the band’s first two passes through “Rosamond’s Pond” and then dropped back, pulling a chair up next to Leah.
She quietly said, “My lady, it was not my wish to sequester you from the merry throngs.”
Leah said, “There’s nothing stopping me from going out onto the floor, if I wanted to. This is the best seat in the house.”
“Is that so?” Maikki’s tone was nonchalant, but her eyes were searching. “You are content, then?”
“Content for now,” Leah said. She hoped she sounded equally nonchalant as she added, “I wouldn’t say no to a dance with you.”
“Is that so?” Maikki repeated, placing a hand lightly over Leah’s.
“Only if you can, and wish,” Leah said. “I wouldn’t want to tax your hands, or draw the wrath of Heidi.”
Now Maikki looked amused. “Heidi will be delighted to see us on the floor.”
They didn’t join the next dance, or the one right after the break, as Maikki stepped back up to the console for those, but as “Apollo’s Hunt” ended, the caller said, “Thank your partner and find a new one, and line up longways for ‘Beautyberry.’” Maikki nodded “All yours” at the younger sound engineer and held out her hand to Leah.
They walked to the bottom of the two lines—the left longways set—nearest the audio console. When the caller said, “Hands four,” they waited as each quartet above them established itself before joining hands with the couple immediately to Leah’s right. The dance was simple enough that the caller deemed the single walk-through sufficient, saying, “You have it. Go back to your original places, for ‘Beautyberry.’ Two notes.” The violinist played a G and a B, and they were off.
It was a delightful, lively tune, with bouncy but undemanding steps and optional skipping amid its cross-and-casts and turns and star formations. At the first call to “slow set and honor,” Maikki stepped out to the left, brought her right foot to the left, and then winked roguishly at Leah before executing a bow, while Leah step-closed to her own left and let her eyes twinkle back at Maikki as she curtsied. It was impudent, lighthearted fun, the gestures carrying no weight beyond their getting into the spirit of things.
But as they repeated the figures, parting and meeting again and again within each pass through the tune, Maikki’s gaze became less mocking and more intent, and Leah felt her own mien shifting into a similar register. There was yearning imbued in the music right where they honored each other, Turlough O’Carolan’s melody climbing to its highest note before descending into the to-and-fro of back-to-backs and right- and left-hand stars. As Leah twirled toward and away from Maikki, their steps perfectly in sync, it felt as though the dance was invisibly tying them together, even though the choreography had them touching hands for just two measures out of forty. They weren’t blind to other people as they traveled up the set—Leah made eye contact with everyone willing to do so when paired with her on a figure, and Maikki checked in on her junior soundman with a speaking glance when they reached the top of the set. But, that duty discharged, her attention to Leah seemed even more charged, and Leah was breathless not from exertion but attraction as the dance wound to its close.
Maikki lifted Leah’s hand to her lips as the caller said, “Thank your partner.” Leah didn’t want her to let go, but it was poor etiquette to stay together instead of circulating, and as soon as Maikki released her, a kilted man at her elbow immediately asked her to be his partner for “Wa’ Is Me, What Mun I Do.” Maikki remained in the same line, the air practically crackling when the dance brought her into the same foursome as Leah. Claimed by a woman in a modern evening gown for “Good Man of Cambridge,” Leah glimpsed Maikki back at the sound console as the band fired up the Mozart march the dance was based on. Within each line of four surging up the hall, Leah stole a glance, seeing Maikki look up from the mixer and look for her every time the dance reached that part of the tune.
Leah remained on the floor after that, and the extended applause after “Barbarini’s Tambourine,” the final dance listed on the program, allowed Maikki to reach her as the closing waltz was introduced. Without any ado, Maikki pulled Leah into her arms and began propelling them around the room, exuding banked energy in the spins and sweeping steps Maikki’s forceful lead demanded of them both. Leah needed to breathe, but she didn’t want to break the spell that had them gliding together with immaculate timing.
Maikki dipped her as the last chord vibrated through the speakers, huffing a light breath over Leah’s neckline before bringing her back up.
For a long moment, they didn’t speak. Then Leah shrugged herself out of their embrace and said, “You have to stay for a while to close up shop, don’t you?”
“It shouldn’t take too long,” Maikki said. “There’s a waltz brunch and closing dance tomorrow for the people making a weekend of it, so we don’t have to pack up everything tonight. I do need to make sure everything’s where I want it before Heidi locks the room.”
“I drove myself here, and I don’t want to leave my car. Come over to my place once you’re done?”
“Put your address in my phone,” Maikki said, steering her to the sound engineers’ station and fishing the device out of a jacket. “I’ll find you soon.”
* * *
Upon arriving home, Leah left her driveway lights on and, instead of closing the garage door right away, kept the remote in her hand and stepped back outside. On the way to her house, she’d mentally compiled a list of things she ought to do to make her place more guest-ready, and she’d even considered stopping at a supermarket, since her pantry and fridge were idiosyncratically stocked, with very little she could offer in terms of appealing snacks and beverages for most conventional palates. She’d decided, however, that it wasn’t worth the risk of Maikki reaching her house first and then wondering if Leah had gotten cold feet when no one came to the door, and shooting a just-in-case text to Maikki seemed at once too forward and too mundane for what was shimmering between them: food bought specifically for their rendezvous could impose a sense of obligation or urgency that Leah wasn’t ready to deal with.
Standing a few feet from the juniper and lilac shrubs lining her front walk, Leah couldn’t bring herself to go inside just yet. As the garage door rolled down behind her, she inhaled deeply and looked up at the sky: the combination of house, street, and city lights made it impossible to see from her yard any celestial bodies other than the moon, but she took pleasure in it regardless: lingering with the hues and textures of the night was as satisfying as stroking velvet or fur, or sipping a tumbler of smoky whisky, and the attraction she’d felt toward her New York boyfriend had not been even remotely strong enough to outweigh the homesickness that would have plagued her if she’d abandoned her beloved quarter-acre for his sixth-floor walkup.
To-do list forgotten, she went to the second lilac from the driveway. It had been a gift from a favorite aunt, to replace an older bush that had succumbed to leaf blight, and Leah’s private rituals included whispering wishes against its bark when it was bare, and into its blooms when it was flowering. She didn’t have words yet for what she wanted from Maikki, so she instead hummed the “slow set and honor” musical phrase from “Beautyberry” into a fragrant, snowy cluster, and then indulged in a curtsy to the shrub.
She and Maikki had been more physically entwined during the waltz—there was a reason waltzes figured heavily in Regency romance novel balls as expressions of passion and possessiveness—but her mind wanted to dwell on that first dance together, and how impeccably music and movement had matched their mutual feeling at that juncture. She wanted to linger in the frisson of pleasure she’d felt with each wink and bow, the honors bestowed on her as questions and declarations in time with each instance of the melody swelling up to its plaintive high point.
A car turned into her street as she curtsied a second time, and as she straightened up, it pulled into her driveway. Leah remained by the lilac as Maikki turned off the engine and headlights and got out of the car. The night breeze was ruffling the tendrils of hair that had escaped her chignon during the ball, and amplifying the perfume of the flowers.
Maikki paused at the start of the paved front walk, eyes raking over Leah from head to toe. “You make a pretty picture, my lady,” Maikki said, looking taller and sharper away from the softer lighting of the ball and its swirl of people in fancy clothes. “To gaze on you thus is reward aplenty.”
Leah rolled her eyes and extended a hand. “I didn’t invite you here for your proficiency with patter.”
“No?” The corners of Maikki’s mouth lifted into a genuine smile as she walked forward and bowed over Leah’s hand, brushing a kiss against her knuckles before asking, “What would you like from me, then?”
Leah slipped her hand under Maiki’s, rubbing her fingertips gently against the short edges of the compression glove. “Forgive me if I’m getting too far ahead of us, but how careful should we be?”
Maikki sounded rueful as she said, “I was wondering when I’d have to disappoint you. The gloves can come off, but my hands get tired and achy too damn fast. If you want anything inside you, you’ll have to handle it yourself, or wait another day, when I know to pack my strap.”
“Not disappointed,” Leah said. “I’ve gotten hand cramps myself mid-bang. And cramps pretty much everywhere else, from brain to foot. The worst is when whomever I’m with can’t get past it, especially if the cramping’s happening to them. I don’t mind people not being able to do stuff, or not wanting to, but don’t make it my job to make you feel better if you pretend you don’t have limits.”
“I see we’ve slept with some of the same baby divas,” Maikki said, not without humor.
“Sorry,” Leah said, embarrassed at the unplanned tirade. “It just sucks so much when people aren’t up front about where they are.”
“A lot of people don’t know where they are,” Maikki said. “Where I am is wanting to dance a bit more, out here, and then to play with your tits and your clit, if you like that.”
“Not right out here where the neighbors can see,” Leah said. Guiding Maikki’s arm around her waist, into a side-by-side cuddle hold, Leah drew her up the walk, which split before her front door into a side path that wound around the house, leading to her back patio. She hadn’t switched on her backyard lights, but the same light pollution that impeded her ability to pick out stars in the night sky also provided enough ambient light for her and Maikki to see the floor of the patio—free of furniture and other clutter, because Leah liked practicing yoga out there—and the outlines of the plum trees, viburnum hedge, and holly border guarding her privacy.
“Lovely,” Maikki said, turning Leah to face her, with both hands resting at the small of Leah’s back. “Where do you see this going, before we dance some more?”
“I don’t like giving oral at all,” Leah confessed. “I don’t like the risk, I don’t like the taste. I’m a hard no on teeth making dents and marks anywhere, especially in kissing. I’ll put fingers and toys anywhere you want me to, but I get tired out before most people get off. I’m not a great deal—”
“None of that,” Maikki said firmly. “I’m fine with your noes, but don’t make me do the emotional support coddling you can’t stand doing.”
Leah stiffened, and then exhaled. “Okay. Fair. Anyway, there you have it.”
“I can work with that,” Maikki said, nudging Leah’s arms up around her neck. She began humming a melody that Leah recognized as “You meaner beauties of the night”—a stately Renaissance song about faint stars being eclipsed by the mind and beauty of the poet’s glorious queen.
“Appropriate,” Leah said, resting her head on Maikki’s shoulder as they swayed.
On her second pass through the song, Maikki’s hands drifted up and down Leah’s back, breathing the music against Leah’s hair as a tuneful caress. Leah joined in the humming as well, and as they arrived at the third stanza’s refrain, Maikki’s hands reached Leah’s breasts, thumbs dipping below the neckline as Leah lifted her head and shaped her mouth around its climbing question:
What are you
What are you
What are you
When the rose is blown?
Both song and swaying came to a halt as Maikki tugged at ribbons and unfastened hooks above Leah’s waistline, loosening the bodice enough to bare Leah’s breasts. Leah felt giddy as Maikki fondled them and trailed her mouth over the exposed flesh, cool night air chasing the scalding heat of lips and tongue. Heeding Leah’s stated strictures, Maikki did not scratch or gnaw or inflict any other damage as she roamed over Leah’s curves: she didn’t need to. The play of her hands and mouth was exquisitely intense: it had Leah craving the relief that hard, furious fuck between her legs would provide, and she also desperately wanted to be held in place right where she was, with Maikki continuing to lavish such worshipful attention to her neck and chest until the break of day
Soon, however, Maikki muttered something indistinctly profane and stood back, massaging her right wrist with her left hand. “I’m sorry,” she said, her voice clipped with frustration. “Apparently I don’t know where my own stupid limits are, ’cause this is way earlier than I thought they were going to get me.”
“No harm, no foul,” Leah said. “At least you’re not spraying soup everywhere when your body misbehaves.”
“Oh no,” Maikki said. “No, at least it’s not that, but I feel you. One of my exes dumped me when I farted while she was eating me out. Which I get was heinously rude, but I couldn’t help it, and she never believed ‘flatal incontinence’ was a real thing even before she took her mouth down there.”
“Oh God.” Leah slapped a hand over her own mouth, wanting to snicker but thinking she shouldn’t.
“So, you see,” Maikki went on, “I am totally okay with you not wanting your face in the blasting zone—”
Leah doubled over, giving in to the urge to laugh her ass off. Patiently waiting her out, Maikki sat back on her haunches, right hand now rubbing the left.
“Whew,” Leah finally said, sitting back herself and wiping at her eyes. “There goes any mystique I had.”
“Oh please,” Maikki said, scoffing. “I’ll take your realness any day, away from the mic and in front of it. Half the sessions I do have people using Auto-Tune, and needing it. I’ve always known you were good, but I didn’t really get that you were really good, until now. When running sound was just a sometime thing on the side, I didn’t have to say yes to so much mediocrity.”
“Picky, picky,” Leah said, not without sympathy. “You sound like why I never wanted to be a voice teacher. I don’t have it in me to pretend someone’s doing great when they’re not. I never learned to gush right, so people don’t believe me half of the time when I’m having fun for real.”
“Really?” Maikki said. “Then either I’m very lucky or very good, ’cause I’m somehow awfully sure you liked dancing with me at the ball, and here.”
“You’re very good,” Leah said. Gathering to her chest the fabric bunched at her waist, she stood up. “I want you to be good to me some more. Come inside.”
Maikki followed her into the house, where they took off their shoes in the mudroom. Maikki accepted a pair of guest slippers and put her jacket on one of the wall hooks there. Then Leah led her to the bedroom, its lights turning on at their lowest setting as they entered. She gestured at an armchair next to an armoire. “Sit.”
Obeying the order, Maikki cocked an eyebrow at her. “What kind of attention would you have me give from here?”
“The kind where you let your hands rest some more,” Leah said, “and let me see some of you.” She dropped the top half of her gown as she walked toward Maikki, letting it flop over the skirt like a lopsided apron. Then she rucked it all up so she could climb onto the chair without crushing its occupant, settling one knee on an armrest and then the other.
Releasing the gown so that it billowed out over Maikki’s lap, she grinned and tapped the top button in use on Maikki’s shirt. “May I?”
“Yes.” Maikki was openly beaming at Leah’s naked chest. “I don’t know what I did to deserve this, but the gods be praised.”
“I like being admired,” Leah said, liking that she could straight-up admit that to Maikki. “I don’t mind doing the rest of the work, as long as you’re fine with me doing it the way I want.”
“Why wouldn’t I be?” Maikki said, immediately following the question with “Don’t answer that. Whichever shitty ex gave you shit for knowing how you like things doesn’t deserve more words from you.”
“No, they don’t,” Leah agreed, unbuttoning Maikki’s shirt, including the cuffs. Placing Maikki’s wrists on her knees, she pressed down lightly on them as she planted her mouth over Maikki’s, starting a kiss that swiftly deepened into a hot, wet mutual devouring.
“God, you’re delicious,” Maikki said, when they broke apart for air. “Tell me we can do this again when I’m not too tired to take you.”
“We can do this again,” Leah said, dipping her head down to kiss a wrist. “Not with this exact dress—it isn’t mine—but I have an old bridesmaid gown you can mess me up in, if you want.” She grinned as Maikki’s wrist twitched under her palm. “Oh, you want that. Okay, then—that goes on the list for later.” She eased herself off the armchair and twirled once around, which nicely floofed out the lower half of the dress.
“What a lovely thing to look forward to,” Maikki said. “What a lovely thing you are to look at now.”
“So glib, but I like it,” Leah said, thrusting her shoulders back. The motion lifted up her breasts, showing off the curves Maikki had so gloriously, gleefully lapped at on the patio. Maikki’s eyes darkened as they followed Leah’s left hand—how it squeezed and stroked its way across and up and down breasts and collarbones and belly before returning to her right nipple, pinching and rolling it while Leah’s right hand tugged down the zipper at her waist, causing her outer dress to fall to the floor. A tug at ribbons and Velcro tabs sent her underskirts pooling on top of the gown, and she dropped her panties on top of the heap of fabric after stepping out of them.
Relaxing back in the armchair, Maikki licked her lips. “My lady is shapely in every guise, be she clad in silk or lamplight.”
“I’m glad you think so,” Leah said, deliberately swaying her hips as she strolled to her nightstand, pulling out her pelvic wand. She pulled the comforter on her bed over to the side she didn’t usually sleep on, and flipped the blanket that had been below it to that side as well.
Maikki unbuckled her belt without taking her eyes off Leah, and then unbuttoned her waistband and pulled down the zipper below. As she slipped her left hand into her underwear, Leah could see the bulge it made behind the front of Maikki’s slacks. Maikki’s other hand was a ripple between her heart and the fabric of her shirt, twiddling her left nipple like a dial.
“Let me see,” Leah said, standing at the foot of the bed, back in front of the armchair. Maikki shrugged off the shirt and waited. Leah set down the wand and cupped her breasts with both hands, which Maikki mirrored.
“Ah,” Leah said, bringing her hands up and then splaying them to show off the abundance of warm flesh one could pay homage to. She kneaded her way from breasts to thighs, her breath hitching at how good it felt and how enthralling it was to watch Maikki match each movement, like they had matched each other so wonderfully during the dancing of “Beautyberry.” As she teased the hood of her clit, tickling herself with precisely the right amount of pressure, the reflecting back-and-forth of the bulge at Maikki’s crotch continued their playfully lewd duet.
“I need more now,” Leah said, dropping down on the bed.
“Where do you want me?” Maikki asked.
“Up to you,” Leah said. “Whatever works best for you.” She grabbed the wand, spread her legs, and thrust it inside with a groan of relief.
Maikki stayed in the armchair, but Leah heard a kind of purr on the heels of her groan. Flicking on the wand, she let it vibrate against her inner walls for a count of five seconds to propel her closer to the edge, and then she cut off the power and started railing herself in earnest. She heard Maikki hiss in appreciation, and the rustling of fabric becoming more pronounced with whatever the woman was doing to keep pace with Leah’s self-pleasuring, but her focus was of course on how hard and fast she needed to pound and rock the wand inside herself to go flying. She was so, so close, and so not yet goddamned there, and so, so much closer, and she could hear Maikki panting now with matching desperation, and—there. There it was, the deluge of sensation that was like sinking into a lush vat of chocolate, her body overwhelmed with a sweet, satiny heaviness that was the cushioniest degree of too much.
Basking in its voluptuous warmth, she was dimly aware of Maikki standing up, shucking her clothes completely off, collecting the wand, and retreating to the adjoining bathroom. She heard the noises of the toilet being used and the start and stop of the faucets several times—hands, she idly guessed, and then the wand, or parts of the body.
Maikki came to the bed and said, “I left the wand on a towel, to dry.”
“Perfect,” Leah said. “I’ll get up in a sec.” She waved at the bedding piled on the guest side. “Make yourself comfortable.”
“I already am,” Maikki said, burrowing directly under the entire heap without shifting any of it. Leah snorted and rolled off the mattress to spread the upper layers back into place.
“Seriously, thank you,” Maikki said. “I think this could work,” she drowsily added, and Leah knew she was speaking of more than how the blanket and comforter were once again properly arranged on top of the bed.
I think so too, Leah thought. She wasn’t quite ready to say it back, but she squeezed Maikki’s foot before she went into the bathroom to deal with her own cleanup, as well as her winding-down routine. When she got back to the bed and doused the lights, Maikki seemed to be fast asleep, facing away from Leah’s side. As Leah dropped a kiss on her shoulder, however, she mumbled, “Fruits may have abiding.”
Leah paused, but the next noise out of Maikki was a snore. A sleep-mumble it was, then. Leah lay back, tumbling the phrase around in her mind until she placed it—a Dowland air she’d sung a few years back, in a recital at the cathedral:
In stead of weeds, Love’s fruits may have abiding—
At harvest you shall reap increase of all.