"That was something else…" muttered Ryan. She pulled her hands out from between the girl's ass and the floor. She wiped her mouth and chin with the back of one of them. Her eyes were watering.
"Did you like me, Ryan? I loved you. Ryan," Gena added, sitting up. She threw her arms around the exhausted woman. "You're so beautiful."
Gena began kissing her all over. First her neck, then Ryan's shoulders and her breasts. There she stopped for a while, nibbling at the excited, distended nipples, sucking them hard. Then she continued, kissing her shoulders, then she went back to her neck and chin. When Gena reached her mouth, she drove her tongue inside it and kissed hotly.
Ryan shut her eyes and enjoyed the prodding young tongue. She felt a burning in her loins. If the girl kept this up, she would have to come, too, and somehow she didn't want to. She was tired of sex. Sex and all the mayhem it seemed to bring with it.
"Let's get up off the floor at least," said Ryan pulling her mouth off Gena's…
Dex pushed herself back against the seat of the cab and wondered where Gena learned to have so much nerve. Was it the sheer bounciness of her youth? Or was she a born troublemaker? Dex shook her head as recollections of Gena swarmed around her head.
"We're here," she called to the driver as her gaze caught sight of the house number.
Dex paid and flew out of the taxi. She took the stoop steps of the brownstone two at a time. A rubber ball whizzed past her ear, zigzag from the side wall. She caught it, turned and flung the ball out to the boys in the street.
Then she started up the staircase at a run in an effort to use up some of her rage before reaching the two women.
At the top floor, she felt alive with the pounding, driving force inside her ribs. She glanced down the dim hall and saw that one door stood ajar.
A grin came to her face. Gena was waiting for her to appear. She had even opened the door for her after she had called. Gena had anticipated her.
No one had time or inclination for the ceremonial behavior of civilized adults. No one had the need to preserve the semblance of pride. Dex pushed the door wider and walked in, bracing herself to find anything, see anything that the woman might have concocted for her added displeasure.
And Dex saw that she was not wrong.
They stood in the small living room, both of them naked and lovely and close to each other. They stood with their backs to her so that Dex could see the round firmness of their high behinds.
Dex swallowed hard as she realized that they had banded together. They intended to outsmart her. Get her in some way. If they had argued, if they had fought over her, they were managing to conceal their competitive spirit. Ryan and Gena might hate each other. But they hated her more, she was sure of it. And, obviously, they were out for blood.
Dex had shut the door and locked it with unconscious desire for no further interruptions. She had come here to make peace, somehow. And she had come here to seduce Gena once and for all.
"Hi, fellas," Dex said. "Anybody got a drink for me?"
Instantly, Dex knew she had started off on the wrong foot. She saw Ryan lift one arm and slide it around Gena's shoulder.
Dex realized that Ryan's hand, unseen, was reaching downward to cup one of Gena's breasts. Ryan was no slacker after all. And she was accustomed to sleeping with strange women. The habit had given her a head start.
Gena turned slightly. But she turned inward so that her body brushed along Ryan's. Shorter than Ryan by many inches, Gena could move easily, even within their embrace. Her nipple flattened out against the ribbed rise of Ryan's diaphragm.
"Help yourself," Gena drawled and nodded to an end table with some bottles that glinted emptily in the cast light of a small table lamp.
Dex actually didn't want the drink at all. She had asked for it just for something to say. An opening line that came out easily. But the empty bottles warned her. She looked around for the telltale glasses. If Ryan had a load on, there could be no end of trouble.
"No, I haven't," Ryan said. "I haven't touched a thing all afternoon… I've been too busy."
The implication fell like bricks onto Dex's toes. She winced and turned away from the two. If they had worn each other out, what use could it be to start them up again? They might not need it, might not want it.
And yet Dex knew better. They were two femmes. Though either of them could take the initiative, it could add up only to child's play.
Dex smiled to herself, feeling suddenly needed in a way that required no explanations.
She sauntered up behind the two women and put each of her hands on a cool buttock. The situation was strange, but the women were familiar and suddenly Dex pressed herself in close, warming up to the idea of taking Ryan and Gena to bed at the same time.
Ryan said, "What makes you think we need you?"
Now Dex grinned openly, sure of her role. She had anticipated the question and the answer came up in a welling of flame that lit her eyes and her total expression. She saw Ryan blush under its impact.
A hand slid down and touched the back of Dex's thigh. Gena leaned in closer as her hand began to stroke upward along the material of the slacks.
"Who's your friend?" Gena said to Ryan. "She feels tough."
"No friend of mine," Ryan answered. "Just some bastard I happen to know."
Ryan's answer was a case of the pot calling the kettle black, and Dex knew that Ryan knew it well. The situation was shaming Ryan. Throwing up to her all the years of her own misbehavior. The breath came from her parted lips in short, anxious gasps. She was struggling to keep up a brave front. Hiding the truth of her guilt behind the nakedness of her flesh.
But Gena's face was all alight with mischief. Her soft curls bobbed as she moved her head about, flirting alternately with Ryan and with Dex. She seemed to like huddling close with other bodies. The touch of many breasts, the radiating warmth, added fuel to her devilishness.
"I suppose you want to go to bed with us, don't you?" Her voice was a languid wash of words.
The impulse to lean over and kiss her hard, stop the lightheartedness and turn it into serious, craving passion, made Dex tremble to control herself. If she kissed anybody, it had to be Ryan first. That was the least she could do to soothe Ryan's destroyed security. And it would also put Gena in her place. Cut down some of her big-shot notions.
Dex looked directly into Ryan's eyes.
"Yes, I wouldn't mind going to bed with you… for a change."
Ryan shook her head as though trying to ward off the blow of Dex's meaning. Her long hair fell forward, covering her lowered eyelids. Dex lifted her hand away from Ryan's behind and stroked the hair back from her cheek. She saw Ryan's lower lip jutting defiantly.
A tinge of tenderness swept lightly into Ryan's blush. Dex saw it and responded with a savage anger. Ryan had wasted so many years of their life together. Was now the time for her to try to make up for it all? Did Gena have to come between them before Ryan woke up to the sordid rottenness of things?
Dex felt shaken to the marrow by a convergence of feelings. As she leaned in to kiss Ryan, her body ached to grab Gena. She wanted to lose herself with Gena…
As her lips met Ryan's mouth, Gena's hand tightened into Dex's thigh.
There was no getting away from the girl. Not even for the fraction of an instant's kiss.
"What are we standing around here for?" Gena said, her voice intruding upon Dex's desire to soothe Ryan. "I have a nice, big, comfy bed in there."
Dex lifted her face away from Ryan and asked her with silent question if that was what she really wanted… for the three of them to tumble around together, have a three-way, watch each other make love.
The defiance blazed up now in Ryan's wide-eyed, steady stare. She seemed to be reading Dex's need. And now it was Dex's turn to blush beneath the scrutiny. Dex knew that she could not hide from Ryan the crazy passion for Gena. There was no use trying to fool anyone. Both women knew, even now, without having to see it born out in bed. Now both women seemed to want to bring it all to a climax.