Seasons of Love: A Lesbian Romance Novel Read online

  While we’re kissing, I press her body down with mine. She clasps her hands around my neck, pulls me closer, as though she can never get enough of me, and that feeling, that sensation of being wanted, is one of the most exquisite I’ve ever experienced. It turns me on more than anything else. I kiss her mouth one last time and then hover my lips over her neck, inhaling her, revelling in being so close to another person, in what it does to me.

  “Oh, Alice,” she says, again. It’s not a pleading tone she uses, but a beguiled one. “Oh, Alice, fuck me.”

  Another crass word that’s made its way from the States, I guess, but again, it sounds strangely enthralling coming from her lips. Daring, and a little bit dirty. Untoward, perhaps, but in a thrilling way. So that’s what I’m about to do: fuck her. Last night, I heard her use the term quite loosely as well, when she was referencing my ex-husband. I took no offence then, and I take none now.

  When I try to make my way down with my head the way she did earlier, she grabs me by the chin, and says, “I know you want to lick my pussy, Alice, and you can, later. I just really want you to look at me when you fuck me, I really get off on that.”

  I do a double-take. So much communication, so eloquently making her wishes known. In my world, and back in the day before I became sexually inactive, it was—as far as I know, and admittedly, I don’t know much—unheard of, especially for a woman. But there are two women in this bed, and that changes everything.

  I’m also glad for the instructions, because I want to make her feel the way she did with me earlier. And I don’t mind looking at her face at all at the moment of complete surrender. It’s a thrill, in fact. Something I can’t wait for to happen.

  As requested, I gaze into her eyes, while my hand travels along her breasts, although I have to look away when my fingers find her nipple, and squeeze it gently. And if I’m not going to taste her down there—just yet—then I at least need a taste of her nipple, of something of her. Her breasts are still so firm, their skin so supple and taut. They’re tanned a golden-brown from all the topless sunbathing she’s been doing, and they take my breath away.

  When I wrap my lips around one of her nipples, heat rises from within me again, it travels through me in broad, unrelenting swoops. And the prospect of having the entire night, and the next two days, in fact, completely to ourselves, thrills me even more. It’s an unimaginable luxury. A culmination of events. The sweetest coincidence ever. And to think I didn’t want her here to begin with.

  My hand focuses on her other breast, rolling her nipple between my fingers while I keep sucking on the other one. And to hold her breast in my hand like that, is already such an act of intimacy, of implied trust, of so much more than two virtual strangers who ended up sharing a holiday home. And the question repeats itself in my mind: what has she done to me?

  “Oh, please, Alice,” Joy moans. “You’re driving me crazy.”

  I let her nipple slip from my lips and look at her. Her mouth is slightly agape, and in her glance I see the exquisite pain of desire unmet.

  “I’ve had days of foreplay. I need you to fuck me now.” Is this still being eloquent, or is she being downright bossy? Oh, we do indeed have so much to talk about later. And then, she has the audacity to take my hand that is resting on her breast, while I’m still a little flabbergasted, and push it down between her legs.

  I can’t help but smile at the sheer boldness of this girl. But it’s not as if she hadn’t warned me earlier: when she wants something, she goes for it. She’s making swift progress, then. And, I must admit, her forthrightness turns me on, because it’s a display of how I am decidedly not.

  While my hand is there, I may as well venture down a bit more. I’m a little bit miffed that I can’t see exactly what I’m doing, but then I think it hardly matters. My fingers skate down, through a wetness that astounds me as much as it turns me on. Who knew there could be so much raw power, so much lust hidden in a mere touch?

  As though set free, and suddenly imparted with the kind of knowledge this moment requires, I circle my finger around her clitoris. Lightly at first, in wide circles, while I look into her eyes as instructed, and this too, turns me on again beyond belief. So this is what it’s supposed to be like, I think. A level of arousal that just takes you there over and over again.

  “Please, fuck me.” Joy almost mouths it, so quiet are her words. I take it she wants me to push a finger inside her. And I like how the prospect of it has made her go all silent, and how her eyes go wide when my finger finds her entrance and I, slowly, slowly, enter her. But my own amazement is much greater than anything displayed on Joy’s face. To be inside another woman like this, to be a part of her, to feel her warmth, is more than sensational—it’s world-altering. I’m not a heavy drinker, and I’ve never done drugs, but as I move my finger inside Joy, I conclude this is what it must feel like. Like something you can’t help but return to, something so intoxicating you will always need more of it, something so bewildering, so out of the ordinary, it can, truly, only be described as life-changing. And I’m grateful that she made me look at her face, that we can share this moment.

  Joy starts bucking her hips upwards, meeting my strokes. “More,” she says, her voice a low groan. “Oh, fuck, Alice.” And the way she keeps repeating my name is like being brought more into the situation, like her letting me know I’m not interchangeable in this equation. This is Joy and Alice in bed together.

  I slip a second finger inside her, and feel the rim of her sex contract around me. I quicken my pace, curling my fingers inside her, and the look in her eyes is one of complete focus, of determination, of stubbornness making way for the opposite of it.

  When Joy comes, I feel as though I’m coming with her. We are connected not only by my fingers inside her, but also by our locked gazes, and an intimacy so intense, it shakes me to my core.

  “Oh fuck,” she mutters, and lets her arms fall on the pillow next to her head, as though in a gesture of capitulation. “Oh fuck, how I needed that.” Unlike me, she doesn’t shed a tear, but giggles instead. “Oh, Alice, come here.” She throws her arms around my neck and pulls my face into her, buries her nose in my hair. “Oh, sweet Jesus, hallelujah.” She giggles more, and it’s infectious, although I’m also chuckling to hide how overwhelmed I am, and, ultimately, how intensely satisfied.

  CHAPTER TEN

  I’m awake well before dawn breaks and I lie stiffly in bed, unable to move, Joy’s body glued to mine. Did this really happen? I overlook the evidence of what happened last night from the corner of my eye. Did I drink that much? But it’s not the fact that I find myself waking up next to Joy that shocks me the most. It’s the memory of how she made me feel. Like someone else—someone I’m definitely not. A wanton woman. A loose woman. A woman capable of sleeping with her best friend’s daughter. But by God, what Joy did to me was glorious and, more than anything, I find myself wondering how I can ever return to the life I led before.

  Nevertheless, I see the madness in what happened. The complete unacceptability of it. I frantically push any thought of Miranda from my mind.

  Next to me, Joy sighs in her sleep, and topples onto her back. I vividly recall the rush with which I drove back from Vila Real de Santo António, that unquestionable, firm desire to be with her. I try to remember if, while I was driving back with nothing but thoughts of Joy in my head, I wanted her to kiss me—and do all the other things she did to me. And then a bigger question starts rearing its head: do I have feelings for Joy?

  I must have. Or perhaps this is what is called a holiday fling. A temporary loss of my faculties, induced by too much sun and leisure time. Is this what happens to me when I stop working for a few days? I turn into—what did Joy call me?—a cougar? I can’t help it. A chuckle escapes me. Alice ‘Cougar’ McAllister. And while renewed desire is already warming up my veins, a desire I don’t plan to ignore as long as I’m on Portuguese soil, I already know that whatever it is I’m feeling will end the second Joy jets off in her re
ntal car to the airport. It will have to. I’ll catalogue it as a fever dream. Pretend I was sick on my holiday and had a bunch of demented visions.

  “A penny for your thoughts,” Joy’s voice croaks next to me.

  I turn to her, willing to move a bit more now that she’s awake. I haven’t slept in the same bed with another person since Alan left. “Morning.” A smile breaks on my face at the sight of Joy’s half-open sleep-crusted eyes. I guess I do have feelings for her.

  “What time is it?” Joy asks, her eyes already falling shut again.

  “Early. Go back to sleep.” I trace a finger over her cheek, and the touch electrifies me.

  “Okay,” she says, “but, Alice, I was thinking that I should probably move my flight to Sunday.”

  “Yeah?” How can words so mundane touch me so deeply?

  Joy just nods and crawls a bit closer towards me, pressing her cheek against my shoulder.

  Now I surely can’t move. So, I revel in her touch, and in the memories of last night. No wonder Joy is still sleepy. The sprinklers had already come on by the time we settled down and our bodies fell, exhausted, onto the mattress. I recall the look in her eyes when she came—so different from any of her other looks. Stripped of bravado with not the slightest bit of room for arrogance. Her head thrown back, her throat on display, her entire body a testament to how she was relinquishing to my touch. A display so addictive that, when I did finally crawl between her legs and lick her ‘pussy’ until she came, a sadness overcame me because I wasn’t there with her when she climaxed, and the exquisite look on her face was lost to the world. When she made me climax later, a finger circling my clitoris insistently, at an ever-growing pace, her gaze locked on mine, it was hard for me to let go—although I did eventually. It was not an easy ask, and I contemplated begging her to look away, but instead I closed my eyes, and saw her face on the back of my eyelids anyway.

  Then, as Joy’s breathing slows, another question burrows to the forefront of my mind. Am I a lesbian? Was I completely honest when I told Joy I had never—never!—been attracted to another woman before? Could it be that I have the sort of personality that can suppress my most honest urges? While I know full well how uptight and focused on work and my daily routine I can be, I really don’t think I would have denied myself that knowledge, at least not willingly.

  I watch as the light slowly diffuses the darkness in my room, the darkness that protected me from the morning after. But this is not the cold hard light of day that’s being shed upon us, upon this tableau of older woman in bed with younger woman after an unbelievable night together. It is warm Portuguese morning light, a dawn so soft and inviting, it makes me curl my toes in contentment, and slant my head until the side of it touches the top of Joy’s unruly hair, and I wait patiently until she wakes up again.

  “Hey,” she says when she does. “Best morning I’ve had in quite some time.” The light catches in her brown eyes, makes them glimmer.

  “What do you want for breakfast?” I ask, because I truly don’t know what else to say.

  “You,” she says, “but I may need a minute.”

  My cheeks flush. My skin burns. That’s not what I meant, I want to say, because I’m not used to living in a world full of sexual innuendo, where my every word is turned into an invitation, but I remain silent, and look at the sunlight on Joy’s face, and enjoy the unexpected rush of happiness that travels through me.

  ✶ ✶ ✶

  Later, when we do have breakfast, and the pool looks much bluer than the day before, and the sky seems even more spectacular than any time I’ve seen it in the days before Joy kissed me, and the breeze in the trees is just perfect, I ask her if she remembers what she said when she briefly woke up earlier.

  “About changing my flight?” she asks. “Already taken care of. I called the airline while you were in the shower.” At first, she had wanted to join me in the shower, but I desperately needed a few minutes by myself to cool off after waking up next to her. Needed to roam my hands over my body and re-assess it as mine. Stand in front of the mirror and check for signs of me. Alice McAllister. Solicitor. Fifty-one years old. Celibate for fifteen years. “Not anymore,” I told my reflection.

  “Really?” I watch Joy pop a piece of toast into her mouth and chew it triumphantly, if that is even a thing.

  “I can’t fuck you and leave you, Alice,” she says with her mouth full, something that would have irritated me before. Now I find it endearing. Even when she uses the word fuck, which I most certainly haven’t grown accustomed to yet, and doubt I ever will.

  “What about your new job?” I find myself sounding like her mother when I ask that question.

  “It doesn’t start until Monday. I wanted to stay until Sunday in the first place, but Mum forbade me.” Joy’s mention of Miranda stiffens my limbs. How can I ever face her again? And how can I not when she will be the first person I see after I return, and the day after, and the day after. A person with question after question about my stay in her house, who will also grill me on how much of a nuisance her daughter was. A woman who probably, right at this moment, feels guilty for inflicting Joy’s presence on me. A woman who knows me better than anyone in this world, and who will surely notice that something has changed, despite the fact I’ll be extra careful not to reveal anything.

  “Are you, uh, in touch with her at all? Does she text or call you?”

  Joy sighs. “Don’t worry about Mum, okay? I promise you, with my hand on my heart”—she puts her slice of toast down and puts her hand on her chest—“that Mum will never find out.”

  “You don’t work with her every day.” What started as a tingle of discomfort is quickly turning into a mountain of unsurmountable fear in my gut.

  “Alice, Alice… listen to me. We have”—she stops to calculate—“three and a half days left. During that time, I’m going to make it my mission to relax you as much as possible. And right now, Mum is a faraway notion. She’s not here. When she texts, I’ll just tell her what I tell her every other day: that everything is fine. We’re getting along well. So well, in fact, that you have given explicit permission for me to stay an extra two days. She’s not a suspicious person. Never has been. For her, this is a good outcome. I had to beg her to come here. She’ll be so chuffed to learn we’ve become friendly. No need to tell her exactly how friendly.”

  It’s so easy to believe Joy when she declares things like that, as though her reasoning is the most logical and elegantly leads us to the only possible outcome.

  “I understand your worry.” Joy surprises me now. “But there’s plenty of time for that later, like next week for instance, before you go back. It’s a beautiful day.” Her eyes scan the garden. “And I’m going to fuck you under that tree, Alice. As I live and breathe.” Her gaze rests on the biggest tree at the far end of the garden. “I don’t mean to be presumptuous, but I bet you haven’t been initiated in the joys of al fresco loving.” She faces me, her lips curved into a wide smile.

  I shake my head at her, unable to suppress a grin. “I wish you wouldn’t say things like that,” I say, even if I don’t mean it. But, it’s as though if I cling to a modicum of decorum, I can at least pretend to control what is happening here. This seduction. This steamrollering over the person I have been my entire life. This metamorphosis.

  “Things like what?” There’s a smile in Joy’s voice. “Al fresco?” She shrugs. “I always thought that was a perfectly acceptable word.”

  Joy is right, there’s plenty of time to worry later, and I am glad that she’s staying longer. Glad because of what it implies. She wants to be here with me longer. It’s a flattering, blush-inducing thought. Stronger than the fear of returning, because this is now and going back is only for later.

  ✶ ✶ ✶

  “Hold on, Alice,” Joy says, “I’m going to rock your world once more.” She’s so cocky, so overly confident it should put me off, but it does the opposite. It makes my legs turn to liquid, my muscles to jelly, my resistanc
e into a faraway notion.

  Joy has me pressed with my back against the tree she mentioned at breakfast. Its trunk is wide and rough, and scratches me when she leans in to kiss me again. I am not this person leaning against this tree, I think, this is not the Alice I know—the Alice I am. And it’s true that in moments like these I don’t recognise myself. I have become someone else. Someone who willingly goes along with silly ideas like being ‘fucked’ against a tree in my business partner’s holiday house in the Algarve by her only daughter. It’s easier when I think it’s not me.

  Joy’s lips are by my ear now. I have noticed she never lets pass an opportunity to whisper something often crass but ultimately excruciatingly enticing in my ear. “You change when you come,” she says now. “I can see your true self.” This is not as much crass as it is upsetting. I do? But, of course I do. How can I not. When a climax thunders through me, I am not the Alice who wakes up at 6 a.m. every day. Who spends the first forty-five minutes of her day on the elliptical watching BBC breakfast, and arrives at the office every single weekday at 7.45 a.m. sharp—and more often than not on Saturdays as well.

  And what is my true self? I wonder. Joy doesn’t give me time to ponder this question. She sinks her teeth into my earlobe and even though it doesn’t hurt as such, I flinch anyway. I can feel her lips stretch into a smile against the skin of my neck. I can feel how much she’s enjoying this. This awakening of an old spinster she has set in motion. Because this is all Joy’s doing. For the life of me, I would never have kissed her. I would probably never have even recognised the need within me to do so—even though the need, now, is great. So great, I pull her towards me and slip my tongue between her lips. Her naked breasts push against my flesh and my entire body has turned into one big pulsing mess once again.