“Are we in a Bruce Springsteen song?” Sabina shot back. “Are we in high school? Let’s just fuck.”
The night they’d first met, Sabina had no idea she was being seduced. Syd moved with such incredible, calm, embodied assuredness it seemed as if she was just being nice, just being friendly and extra attentive. Sabina thought she was simply making a new friend, until the very moment Syd’s tongue was in her mouth.
They were at a bar in Durham. Sabina was on a mini-tour with four other writers, the Porn Tour, they’d dubbed it, each of them reading material about whoever they’d fucked the night before. Durham was the last stop, and Syd had been her last story. She wrote it all down the next morning, her prose graphic by even the Tour’s standards. The two of them managed to extend what should have been a one-night stand into a tumultuous eight months of long-distance torture, but eventually the distance proved fatal. Sabina needed a lover who slept in her bed each night, who stayed put. She was less wild than her writing.
Syd kissed her, and Sabina felt an overwhelming sense of relief. She kissed back, leaning in, pushing her face against Syd’s. Her body felt electric. It was the hottest, most exciting feeling she’d had in what felt like forever. She wanted everything now, in this moment, she didn’t want to wait. She didn’t need warming up; she was already there. She scrabbled at Syd’s clothes, wanting her naked, wanting them both naked. Syd smelled like sandalwood soap and the herbal-scented pomade Sabina remembered. She felt a familiar pull in her cunt. It was so strong it eclipsed everything else.
“Hey, Sabina, slow down,” Syd said. She leaned back against the couch teasingly, knowing the effect she had on Sabina. Knowing how good she was at making her want it.
“Sit still,” said Syd. “Don’t move.”
Sabina leaned back in a huff. She felt irritated and childish; she was the one taking risks after all. She didn’t want to go slowly. Her cunt felt like a gaping maw, like a sheela na gig. She wanted to be stuffed full; she wanted to fuck until the constant throb went away.
Syd took out a pocketknife and opened it carefully. “You have too many clothes on,” she explained.
“This is a new trick,” Sabina said.
“I’m just going to undress you a little bit,” Syd told her. She placed the knife at the bottom of the neckline of Sabina’s T-shirt and made a small cut. She then set the knife on the couch carefully, the blade open, next to Sabina’s thigh, and began to pull at the edges of the cut, tearing it apart. The material gave quickly, and with a ripping sound, Sabina’s shirt quickly split down the front, nearly to her navel. Her small breasts were exposed, her nipples dark and hard. “Beautiful,” muttered Syd, “Fucking gorgeous.”
Sabina reached down and ripped the material the rest of the way, cleaving the shirt in two and peeling it backward off her small shoulders. She picked up the knife and ran the flat side of the blade across her nipples while Syd watched, mesmerized. Then she dropped it on the floor, stood up, and peeled off her shorts.
“Oh fuck,” said Syd, staring. She leaned back in an attempt to mask her need, stroking her crotch with one hand, reaching for Sabina with the other. “You’re still a bitch, Sabina,” Syd said. “You still never let anyone else drive, do you?”
Sabina smiled, staring back at Syd. Everything was soft focus and bright like the way heaven always looks in Sophia Coppola films.
“Mmmm. Come over here.” Syd unbuckled her belt and pushed her jeans down around her hips in the same deft move.
Sabina leaned down, ran her hands across Syd’s chest and down her arms before kneeling between her legs and pressing her face into Syd’s damp cunt. Sabina licked Syd, small licks at first, testing the waters, just to see how far she was going to get. When Syd groaned and leaned back into the couch, she took the hint. Syd spread her legs wider, and pressed Sabina’s head against her crotch, moving her this way and that, positioning her. Forcing her playfully to stay on her knees, demanding that Sabina make her come.
Sabina brought Syd to the very edge with her mouth, feeling her clit tighten and grow and Syd’s hips press harder into her face. She stopped then, with Syd so close, and whispered, “I want you to come inside me.”
She climbed up onto the couch, straddling Syd’s lap, her cunt wide open and ready for fingers. Syd thrust three fingers inside her, then four, stretching her open, pushing, then all of them. Her fist slipped into Sabina’s cunt, filling her as full as she could get. They fucked like that, leaning into each other, slippery and groaning on the leather couch, rocking back and forth in a crazy rhythm. Sabina gasped and yelled, demanding more, harder. They held on to each other tightly, pulling and pushing, slippery and hot and fast until they both came in a heated, sweaty, screaming rush.
After a long while, Syd slipped her hand free, her fingers slick and sticky. She looked at Sabina’s face and her own face showed first a tight twinge of need, and then happy satedness.
Slowly, slowly, gently they peeled their bodies apart. Sabina feeling slightly broken open, and Syd seeming elated and renewed.
Sabina looked around, still feeling like an explorer, like she was observing her own life. She looked at her lover’s body, and at her girlfriend’s things littering the small apartment, and she knew clearly there was no fixing this. She pressed her forehead to Syd’s chest and sighed.
BIG LESBO CUPCAKERY
D. L. King
The kid, all three feet of him, was standing with his mouth open, lips pressed against the glass, the tip of his tongue moving forward and back, touching the glass in a staccato rhythm. What was that? I mean really, how do people think it’s okay to let their kids do something like that?
Forget that it was going to be the fourth time I had cleaned the display case glass and it was only 10:30. But, hell, how does his mother know I’ve cleaned the glass? He could be contracting Ebola while she tried to decide between the raspberry and the marshmallow. Jesus.
My partner Fran and I had opened Spun Sugar and Dandelion Fluff last September and now, not quite a year later, I can say we may have made a success of it. Yes, I know, but I’m not a very decisive person, as a rule. Anyone who knows me knows that. I’m not much of a baker, either. Fran is the baker. And I’m not that great at naming things. Like the shop: I wanted to call it Big Lesbo Cupcakery. I liked it. It made sense. And there was an established precedent, sort of, with Big Gay Ice Cream, but Fran nixed the idea. I would have been willing to go with Little Lesbo Cupcakery, but she said no.
So, I wait on customers, do the books and clean the display case—a lot.
The mother of the little bastard pointed and said, “What’s that one like?” It was a yellow cake with an unassuming light-golden-brown frosting.
“That’s ginger and honey. It’s spicy.” I looked at the kid again. “It’s an adult flavor. Not something most children like.”
“Oh, these aren’t for him, not at these prices. He’s perfectly happy with Entenmanns.” She continued to browse.
Here’s how the whole thing started: I’d fallen in love with red velvet cake, specifically the red velvet cake from a little bakery in Brooklyn, close to where I worked. I’d been bringing it home every few weeks when I finally asked Fran if she’d ever made it. She said she hadn’t, so we decided to try our hand at cupcakes. I began researching recipes and found that red velvet cake was a very odd cake with very odd ingredients. No wonder I liked it. I found a TV chef’s recipe that felt right to me and gave it to Fran. That, actually, was my whole contribution—finding the recipe. That, and commenting on the finished product. Neither of us had any idea what to expect, but the cupcakes turned out to be the best I’ve had—before or since.