"Brandy." "Oh. I’m sorry; was I asleep?" She bit her tongue immediately. Jodi reassured her. "It’s all right. You may speak now. Maniqua wouldn’t come." "I didn’t expect she would." Pretending this insulted her, Jodi turned away. Brandy rose to apologize; the room appeared to warp as she collapsed back into her chair. "Are you all right!?" It was Jodi, now, who rushed to Brandy’s side. "I don’t know. Yes. A little dizzy, is all. Must be I'm allergic to that bittersweet tea." "Let me get you a glass of water." "That might help." Jodi filled a tumbler and carried it back from the sink. "Do you feel ill?" "No." Brandy drank. "I must have stood up too fast. You know, feeling that the blood all rushed to my feet? Jodi pressed her hands. "You’re cold as ice!" She rubbed them until the friction brought back some warmth. Brandy puckered her lips, moving her tongue underneath, still aware of the tea’s peculiar tang. "Odd taste." "Hm?" "That tea." "Allow me." Jodi, bending over, slid her tongue into Brandy’s mouth, then kissed her. "Sleepy, my sweet?" Stunned, but not repulsed, Brandy replied. "No. As a matter of fact I'm feeling wide awake. Maybe I can meet your friend another time." "We could visit Maniqua tomorrow… that is if you're willing to spend the night." "I’ll ask Simon. We’re not in any big hurry. I’ve rented a motel room in town for the entire week. Except I left my present." "Your what?" "Huh? Oh, nothing… But where will we all sleep? Simon's hogging the bed." "I have a hammock out back and a good sleeping bag. Have you ever slept in a hammock?" "Not since I was a girl scout." "It might be a bit snug with the two of us, but it’s wonderful to be rocked asleep by a breeze. If you’re really not sleepy yet we could do some star-gazing. You can see millions." Brandy hesitated. Jodi quickly addressed the unspoken thought. "You go check on your friend while I get things ready. Remember, if he calls, we won’t be far. Prop a note by his pillow. That way, if he wakes, he'll know where we are. Okay?" "Okay." Brandy, candle in hand, returned to the living room. Jodi followed her in, then detoured toward the wardrobe where she rummaged for her sleeping bag and something on which to write. Handing Brandy a note pad and a broken purple crayon, she pointed at the window (indicating the trees beyond), then padded off (content that her plan had worked). Simon, lying on his back—hands overlapped on his chest, legs crossed at the ankles—breathed as if immersed in an untroubled sleep. Brandy watched for a moment (as he, she recollected, had once watched her). ‘"Don’t get any ideas," I told you. Well, you certainly haven't. Or, if you have, you've kept them all to yourself. Chastity, like loneliness, Simon, is a sin." Taking the purple crayon, she wrote: WE’RE OUT BACK on the note pad, and placed it like a sandwich board next to his head. ‘As soon as Jodi’s asleep, I’ll come lie with you.’ Thus resolved, she tiptoed out into darkness. "Jodi?" "Over here." "It’s freezing." "Not inside this eider down. Climb on in; I’ll warm you up in a jiffy." Jodi opened the sleeping bag, its shape like a blunt banana, its nylon sheath conforming to the hammock’s pliant sling. "Will this hold both of us?" "How much do you weigh?" "I’m not telling." "Well, I’m just shy of a hundred pounds; you can’t be much heavier—even with those extraordinary curves." "Yeah, bigger bust, bigger backside, bigger… " "You’re not overweight, just pleasingly fleshy." Brandy still demurred—Jodi misinterpreting the hesitation. "It holds five hundred pounds; I think we’re safely below that." Reluctantly, Brandy eased herself inside. The lining smelled of incense and freshly powdered skin. "Jodi, you’re naked!" "Do you mind?" "Aren’t you cold?" "Just my nose. Hey, look up." The sky, through the branches overhead, was awash with pinprick stars. "Oh, my goodness gracious… Never, in my life, have seen so many!" "I told you. Aren’t they incredible? I can only look so long and then I get lost. It’s like magnifying something too many times. You forget who’s looking at what, it all seems so vast. And we're so small, by comparison, unimportant." "Except to ourselves." Their tree-slung bed, by design, embraced both bodies in a tip-to-toe squeeze. Brandy shifted; Jodi inadvertently molded against her—though purposely slipped her hand under the flaps of Brandy’s gown. "You shave down here?" "Is it rough already?" "No, not at all… not if I move my fingers down… like this… Smooth as peaches, in fact. The question is, why? " "Why shave, you mean? Who knows?" "Peaches and cream; yummy!" Jodi, where she probed, felt a telltale goo. Encouraged, she nuzzled her face into Brandy’s (equally hairless) underarm… breathing deeply… inundating herself with its seminal sweat… … while Brandy scanned the heavens for various constellations, poignantly aware of something throbbing against her thigh; Jodi’s member, stiff with impatience, lobbied for caresses lavished before… …when Brandy, in a dream-like state, had obeyed, had obliged, had indulged, had even gone so far as to suckle the tiny protuberance, nursed it like an infant glued to a teat, marveled at its likeness to the sex of a little boy; Jodi's hand, enclosing idle fingers, guided them to the source of her pride (and abject shame), moaning upon contact, flinching with a pang both raw and exquisite. "Did I hurt you?" "No. I’m tender, is all." "Jodi, you should have told me." "Touch it. Squeeze it. Never mind the agony—believe me, Brandy, pleasure without it is incomplete." "But, I don't like to cause… " "Wet it, then. Use you." Brandy spread a film over Jodi's "little man." The coo that this elicited was like an un-caged dove's. Returned to star-gazing, each woman lost herself in the nebulous Milky Way that stretched across the cosmos like a shimmering necklace, swathed in mists as lustrous as mother-of-pearl, infinite, near and far, both indifferent and all-encompassing… … then, like a moon-pulled tide, they mutually came… … as wind (obstructed by goose down) rocked their cozy chrysalis, lulled its sated occupants into a swoon of post-passion ease, then ushered each exclusively into the Land of Nod.
"Brandy?" Upon hearing Jodi’s voice, Brandy snapped awake. "Huh? Oh, sorry. Go back to sleep. I have to pee. " Jodi’s heavy-lidded eyes blinked once then closed. Brandy, holding the hammock as stationary as possible, unzipped the sleeping bag and slipped out. The ground (as in her dream) was frigid underfoot. The moon had made its arc across the starlit sky. Tremblingly, she hurried into the house and groped her way to the bathroom. ‘Thank goodness it’s real this time; I thought I’d burst! Imagine having to shuttle, indefinitely, with a waterlogged bladder. Am I really here? You’d think I’d know the difference. Seems like just a minute ago I was floating around outside… with two distinct Simons… one asleep, the other raving like a lunatic, mistaking me for someone he was accusing of who knows what? This place gives me the willies. I wish we’d never come. If I hadn’t promised Jodi… Did I dream that, too? Jeezus, Brandy, it’s time to sort out fantasies.’ Relieved at last, Brandy flushed the toilet, wiped her crotch with tissue, then blushed at finding a patch of crumbly residue… Had she been complicitous, or somehow seduced? Why, with a man nearby, had she surrendered to the charms of a woman? Confused, she walked to the living room and curled up next to Simon. * * |
