Chapter Text
The first time it happens, she blames Joe. Joe and his cheap ass birthday gift despite all his ‘extra shifts.’ Blames that floral fucking Miss Dior his clothes smell like after every one. Blames the way there’s somehow a fire that needs him of all people, twenty minutes into the birthday dinner she cooked herself. Happy fucking thirtieth.
His gifted chocolate box lies half eaten on the counter. She’s seen the same one countless times, thinks she knows exactly which gas station he gets it from each time. There are only so many bites of oversweet nougat centres a girl can convince herself he’s ‘coming right back’ for. Turns out her limit was three boxes ago - the Valentine’s box.
She doesn’t need him. Doesn’t care if her tits are boosted to high heaven in the bra she bought just for the occasion. Is unbothered that the dress she fished out from the back of the closet and prayed to four different saints to fasten the zipper on earned only a vaguely disinterested “I seen that before?”
There are plenty of other things she can do on her birthday. Other people who love her, who’d love to spend the evening eating the best damn lasagna of their lives while assuring her women only get better with age.
Her mom goes to voicemail after a minute of echoing rings - like she’d ever be home on bingo night. All she gets is the beep of an engaged line when she tries Kristen Marie. For the best really. She doesn’t need the same, condescending, speech again about how she could do better than Joe if she got out there again. What her sister’s never understood (what Melissa herself only started to accept after year five of her own marriage) is that staying married isn’t about whether you could do better. It’s about deciding what flaws you can live with as long as your husband knows he’s never doing better than you. Eleven years in, Joe’s just due a reminder.
There’s not a chance she’s calling any of the others. Doesn’t matter if they’re only ten months apart, word gets back to Tony and his big brother ‘duties’ would have Joe in a body bag before the night was through. He’s got her back whether she needs it or not. (Sometimes she does.)
Before she can set the handset back in the cradle, the post-it catches her eye. The one Barb had somehow found in the near-empty cubby that passed for Abbott’s supply closet.
Barbara Howard
267 368 3457
It’s sat on their fridge for at least half the year now, added at around the same time that Melissa’s seat at Barbara’s lunch table became a firm fixture. Long enough for the glue to lose its stick and a banana magnet to be all that stands between it and a plummet to the floor.
“For emergencies,” Barb had nodded as she’d handed it over. It hadn’t been exactly clear what kind of emergencies she expected that a kindergarten teacher would be better suited to fix than the firefighter in her home, but Melissa had taken it all the same. “Or if you ever want to chat when we’re not beholden to the toll of school bells.” Trust her to somehow befriend the kind of woman who used ‘beholden’ in a sentence. What were they even supposed to talk about outside work?
No, her fingers toy with the phone’s keypad, she’d just try Kristen again. If she started getting all high and mighty, she’d just–
“Howard residence.”
Shit. Barbara’s phone voice was different, somewhere between the gentle platitudes she offered her class and the deeper, richness that infused it in the rare moments of joy Melissa could elicit with a scandalous story mid-lunch break. Well that was new. What was she supposed to say to that Barbara? The one with muffled sounds of a TV in the background, and a voice full of warmth, and a whole life on the other end of the line.
“How’d you like lasagna?”
–
Melissa’s never been on this side of Philly before - the drive over just long enough for the A-side of her cassette to run out and leave her alone with her own thoughts. Not long enough to warrant flipping to the other side and have to compose herself after the lineup of Misery, Dear Diary and Eventually though. They’ll need to reheat the lasagna too - the sheet tray is barely warm when she pulls it from her back seat.
She doesn’t know what she’d been expecting at first - some blaring neon sign that read Barbara Howard lives here, or maybe just that same sense of calm that washes over her when she passes the kindergarten classroom. Instead, it’s ordinary. Could easily be anyone’s home, if it weren’t for the address she’d been given over the phone, twice. And the woman leaning in the doorway, waiting.
That god awful flushing feeling hits her all of a sudden, the one she knows has her neck just as red as her dress. It’s all the more annoying for seeming unique to her - no one else in her family ‘blessed’ with such a blatant siren of bashful nerves or wanton desire. She doesn’t know which this is, only that the cause is home Barbara. Still just as put together as ever, but bathed in the softest yellow light and bearing the warmest smile Melissa might ever have seen.
Melissa shifts in her heels,.12lb of lasagna and her best fuck me dress the wrong combination to be bringing to any coworker on a Saturday evening, let alone to Barbara fucking Howard. For a moment, she contemplates leaving - handing over the lasagna as a gift and getting back in the car for what remains of M!ssundaztood’s overly morose B side. Except then, when August finally rolls round and Barbara’s already pouring the both coffee from the staffroom pot, when any potential conversation about tonight has to come in the full morning light, it’ll feel all the worse.
Whatever she’s doing, she’s in it now, and tonight is all the easier to put on Schemmenti charm.
“Could’a told me you lived over the fancy side of Philly, never seen so many cop cars in one neighbourhood.” There’s only a tinge of saltiness in it, she really could have been there before the lasagna needed reheating if she hadn’t had to stick to so many speed limits, but saltiness was better than whatever else could have come out.
“To think,” Barbara steps to the side, welcoming her in from the balmy summer air with a beckoning hand on her shoulder, chill skin a welcome reprieve from the heat (both from July and that stubborn, sticky flush), “I should have been seeing all those sirens as something fortuitous.”
“Means you got the good stuff to steal.”
She’s in Barbara’s home and Barbara’s everywhere. The rose centrepiece on the side table - pink in all its shades. The pictures adorning every wall - from wedding, to christening, and a toothy toddler with that exact same dimple when she grins. The ‘bless this mess’ sign in what might be the cleanest house Melissa’s ever seen. The floral scent that is oh so much more sophisticated when it’s not clinging to Joe’s clothing. Except no, today, on her birthday, she is not thinking about Joe while she’s this enveloped in Barbara. Today she gets only what she wants.
She’s been here all of three minutes and that flush is back with a vengeance. Though in all honesty it never truly left. What is she, a school girl? It wouldn’t be so bad if it weren’t still in the 80’s outside and not far off that in here, even with the AC buzzing. But then Barbara always runs colder.
If her cheeks weren’t red before, they certainly are now. Maybe just the thought of someone else’s touch wouldn’t be enough to set her skin ablaze if just the thought of the same from Joe wasn’t like being set upon by some double-dipped chip; soggy with some other woman’s saliva. Joe does not exist inside the walls of Barbara Howard’s house.
Only Barbara exists. And the toothy toddler from the wall, peeking out from behind Barb’s left leg.
Tracking Melissa’s line of sight, Barbara flourishes with pride, that runs-cold hand settling on her daughter’s shoulder, hugging her in closer to her in that way she does with her kindergarteners too.
“Someone’s been so excited to meet you that bedtime’s been pushed back a whole hour.”
Guilt floods Melissa’s system, rivalling the flush of heat and if she’d stopped to consider what exactly her plan was before she picked up her phone, Barbara can’t just do what she wants when she wants would have been top of the list for reasons not to dial. But she hadn’t thought, and now she’s standing in an overcrowded entryway, doing her best to avoid cheese stains on her dress, and disturbing the Howards’ night in a way she could only hope to get away with with family.
“Jeez, Barb, I didn’t mean to ruin your routine. You take this,” She offers out the lasagna, “and I’ll get out of your hair.”
“Nonsense, I gave you my number for a reason.” Barbara’s comforting kindergarten-friendly tone is back and, for once, Melissa’s not mad that it’s directed at her, “Besides, it’s about time you met my best girl.”
If it were possible to be irrationally jealous of a three year old, she just might be. This bubbly little ball of joy, glancing up for her mother’s nod of permission before bounding over to Melissa’s side.
Before she knows it, there are spindly arms reaching up ready to take the sheet tray through to the kitchen. Fingertips barely touch it with her arms outstretched but still she remains resolute.
“Mama says I’m so strong, Mrs Bianchi.”
Joe does not exist inside the walls of Barbara Howard’s house.
“Melissa.” Melissa leans down, the smile she reserves for her second graders tugging at her lips. She hovers the dish over Taylor’s outstretched arms, weight still supported by her own. Not a chance she’s losing four hours of work to a toddler’s biceps, “Come on muscles, lead the way.”
Together the two waddle on through to the kitchen, Taylor’s giggles their guide.
“Aunt Mel.” Barbara confirms, with a firm finality that brokers no room for question, and follows them through.
–
It’s only somewhat awkward when she’s introduced to Gerald and his hand is in hers, shaking it with a firmness that seems to mean welcome and comfort and warmth in this family. Awkward because while his right hand is in hers, his left is around Barbara’s waist and it’s the most natural thing in the world. Inherently supportive.
Every complaint she’s ever made about Joe comes to her mind at once, along with Barbara’s staunch adamance that she wouldn’t add her own complaints. How could she if this was the guy? He busies around them in the too small kitchen, always a hand on Barbara’s waist, or arm, or a hand in her own. A constant I’m here despite never being out of sight. He pours drinks, readies plates, never losing contact.
Melissa accepts her glass, a red would have gone better with dinner but Barb loves a chardonnay, and leans back against the oven for want of some place to fit. It’s not as simple as a table with two waiting seats universally accepted as theirs. The ovens warm against her back, not helping with the general heat in the air but with the routine Barbara and Gerald clearly have, trying to exist any closer than that would be all the worse.
She chugs from her glass, setting it down, all but empty, at her side. Gerald tops it up without question, the ever-vigilant host.
“Gerald,” Barbara’s hand presses against his chest, stopping him in motion, “why don’t you wait for us in the dining room? I’m sure Taylor could use some supervision with those crayons.
“Yes ma’am.” He leans down, pressing the softest peck against her lips, before retreating with Taylor’s bright juice cup.
There’s a moment or two of silence, but for the oven fan, and the room feels endlessly bigger just the two of them. Cavernous almost. Barbara takes up her own glass, positioning herself in front of the sink.
“Now sweetheart,” Barbara starts, “you didn’t make that whole lasagna for us. I’ve got nothing but time if you and I need a little catch up, hmm?”
She wants to say yes. Wants nothing more than a chance to call Joe on his bullshit. Bemoan how her love language is food but, eleven years in, she doesn’t know if Joe even has one. And how 30’s just a number but it means something if she couldn’t even keep him interested until then. And how the person she comes to with all this shouldn’t be someone she’s only known since last August when there are more Schemmenti’s out there than she has fingers. But every version of that screams know me with such sincerity that the words can’t even form on her tongue.
Slippered feet nudge against her stilettos and the contrast is almost enough to break her from her reverie.
She clears her throat, staring down into her glass, an easier target than trying to meet Barbara’s eyes for the time being, “Something ever just…not go the way you wanted it? For a while?”
It’s a maddeningly nebulous way to word it, but the alternative isn’t something she’s ready to voice even to just herself. If anyone will get it, it’s Barbara. She always does.
“Mmm,” Barbara muses, “Senior year of college I met this boy, pretty young thing with big dreams too. Now he asked me on a date first time I saw him - took me to the football game that night, wrapped his jacket around me and walked me all the way home in the dark.” She stares wistfully at the opposite wall, lost in the memory, “I don’t care a jot about football, never have, never will, but do you know how many games I went to that year? Thirty-eight. Thirty-eight games with a jacket to keep me warm and a pretty young thing to walk me home. Told myself, Barbara, that’s the man you’re going to marry. Until he invited Deborah Murphy, of all people, to the last game of the season.”
“What’d you do?”
“You know I’d never stand for that. I walked straight up to him and told him it was time for him to step on up and be a man. And he did.” Barbara sips at her own glass before using it to gesture over at Melissa, “You can do the same, you know.”
For all of a minute, Melissa entertains the notion. Envisions waiting for Joe to stumble home, standing between him and whatever he was hoping to grab from the fridge and…what? Telling him to choose? Maybe he couldn’t do better than her before, but she’s not the seventeen year old he first met - all perky tits and flat stomach and hanging on his every word.
She squeezes Barbara’s hand in hers, “Nah, nice thought an’ all, but right now I just need someone to appreciate that lasagna and tell me I look smoking.”
“Baby, you look a million dollars.”
There goes that flush again, settling itself deep within her, and maybe it’s time she just got used to it. She’s a grown-ass woman, she can live with a little flush. Hell, if this is all the attention she's gonna get tonight, she might as well make the most of it.
“A billion, at least.” It's bragging, she knows, but the way she's looking? Not even her cooking should have been enough to tear Joe from her.
Barbara’s laughing, that deep chuckle she gets when Melissa’s all too incorrigible. It's throaty, and warm, and barely a hop, skip and jump away from how Melissa imagines she'd sound in the midst of a full on seduction attempt, “You be careful now, no one in Philly’ll be able to afford you.”
“Like I’m some woman of the night?” Melissa balks, hand rising to her barely contained chest in faux-scandal, “Barbara Howard!”
“Oh you know what I mean.” Flustered Barbara might be her favourite kind. She becomes all bashful eyes and gentle arm slaps for the security of touch.
“I tell you what, I’ll do a friend’s discount, just for you.”
Melissa winks before she even knows she’s doing it, so lost in whatever play they have going that the only goal left in her mind is leaving Barbara speechless. It doesn’t happen often, maybe once or twice in the time that she’s known her. But today, when cool-to-the-touch Barb is all hands aflutter to fan herself, slap Melissa’s arm, cover her own mouth at the impropriety of it all, this is a third time worthy of note.
“What Barb?” Oh she can play a little longer, lean in close and tease just a little more, “Cat got your tongue?”
And then a tiny chicken egg timer is making itself known, filling the air with a shrill reminder of why they’re in this kitchen in the first place. Melissa silences it, about-turning to check the lasagna’s progress. If she scoots her ass a little higher than she needs to, well that’s between her, God, and whoever fitted an oven that low.
When she turns back around, Barbara’s directly behind her, oven mitts in hand and her very best cool, calm, collected demeanour back in place - almost.
“Simmer down,” Melissa shoos her back, ceding no ground, “it ain’t ready yet.”
“You said 20 minutes.” Barbara’s terse, not collected, and it’s all Melissa can do to keep the smirk off her face at having succeeded in her riling.
“And you said your oven got hot.” Oh how she wants to tap that angry nose just to push one more button, “The cheese ain’t bubblin’. If the cheese ain’t bubblin’, it ain’t gooey. If it ain’t gooey, it ain’t hot. You wanna get me disowned with the first thing I serve you?”
Melissa pops her hip, hand bracing against it in a clear statement of finality. The room’s silent for a beat, two, and she preps for the wroth of a hungry, ruffled Barbara to really get her going. There’s no reason to create such tension, there never is, and yet why shouldn’t she when she has such a gift?
From her place at the dining table, Taylor pipes up with a hearty, “The cheese ain’t bubblin’!” and, just like that, the tension pops.
–
Over the course of one dinner, so many of Barbara’s Barbara-isms gain new context. The best way Melissa can describe a Howard dinner is like some saccharin sitcom. They say grace. Gerald serves, leaving his own plate until last (not that there’s any worry there’ll be a shortage with how she cooks.) They chit chat, and laugh at Taylor’s three year old attempts at humour, and they’re truly content in each other’s company.
Dinners with Joe, when she gets them, are a different world entirely. Tension-led. Both tight lipped in the knowledge that if she snips and he bites back, then she'll be yelling everything except the real cause (fires smell like smoke, Joe) and he'll out the door ‘til gone midnight.
If he were here now, if for just one night Joe could exist inside the walls of Barbara's home (never.) he’d sit in Gerald's spot, no question about it. He'd have crayon in hand, all through dinner, suggesting colour schemes and outlandish additions to the artwork Barbara had Taylor set aside before washing her hands. He'd be pulling faces that set her giggling, bringing in his full compliment of funny voices, so effective that Melissa had adopted them for use with her class, hanging on the kid’s every precocious word.
Maybe it really is like her ma says - a kid makes all the difference. Because she knows that Joe. She fell in love with that Joe at Schemmenti family dinners - the way he won over every baby cousin, every niece and nephew, even Seamus when he was still all puppy fat and growth spurts and Toni ruined Santa for him.
Maybe their own sitcom life wouldn't be that bad.
Maybe she could like this.
Except, she hadn’t gotten married to play second fiddle. Joe’s attention between her, a toddler and his flavour of the month? She'd all but starve. She's living on scraps and the odd cursory Friday fuck as it is.
A firm grip takes her forearm and the cold of Barb's skin against hers has her back in the room. Joe does not exist inside the walls of Barbara Howard’s house. But for a moment, in her mind, that hunger, and need, and Fridays with something hot between her thighs meld with roses and firm grips, and a cool thumb comforting back and forth against her wrist and everything is so, so messy.
“Melissa?” Home Barb is concerned - home Barb knows two glasses of white is nowhere near enough to have Melissa glassy-eyed and contemplative, “Why don't we let Gerald get Taylor settled in bed, and you and I can take the rest of that bottle to the porch, how about that?”
Taylor's already in Gerald's arms, bleary-eyed and on the cusp of sleep and Melissa missed exactly when that happened and when someone made their way through enough second servings to feed three Schemmenti's. If Gerald’s equally sedate expression is anything to go by, it was him.
It all feels so cosy and sweet and she’s part of it, but she’s not and how her skin isn’t burning Barb to the touch she doesn’t know.
“I gotta go.” She pushes out from the table abruptly, loses contact with the comfort that is Barbara, and regrets it for all of a second before Barbara’s confusion reaches her and she’s on the move again.
There’s some quick agreement that happens between the Howards and they move as one, Gerald towards the stairs and Barbara to her. She’s caught in the entryway before she can make a quick getaway, a cold hand grasping hers.
“Melissa, honey.” Why is she that soft and firm and encapsulating all in one heartbeat?
Barbara pauses and in that moment Melissa feels oh so justified for hating being known. Knowing that Barbara knows she’ll need a minute before she can meet her eye. That all that’s keeping her pinned to the spot is Barbara’s expectation and their fingers laced together.
She breathes deep, flares her nostrils with the effort, and shoots her glance up before she really should. But there’s Barbara, waiting. Patient. Holding the most daintily wrapped present in her hand - lilac paper and gold ribbon.
“Happy birthday, dear.”
Her smile is too warm and alarms flare in Melissa’s stomach at someone other than family knowing. At being this fucking known.
“Who said it’s my birthday?” It comes out less acerbic than she’d intended - an odd watery note seeping in and it sounds more like there’s something lodged in her throat than the warning it should be. But she’s angry. At least she thinks she is. She wants to be.
“It was on the work calendar.” A squeezing arm wraps around Melissa’s shoulders, firm yet supportive in that specific Howard-household way, “I would have wished you all the happy returns sooner, but I didn’t have your number until you called.”
It’s only acceptable that Melissa’s blinking back hot tears because, at this angle, they’re all but hidden from Barbara.
“Melissa, the guest room has fresh bedding and no doubt Gerald would love to repay your delectable cooking with waffles in the morning.”
If she steps back into that comfort, accepts this being known, she might just never leave.
“I’ll see you next month, Barb.”
And just like that, she’s free of comfort, and welcomes, and the Howard family sitcom, and back in the July night heat.
–
The heat’s finally breaking as she pulls into the gas station forecourt, dropping towards the 70’s and she’ll take what she can get. She half expects to glance Joe through the glass, woman on his arm and yet another box of chocolates in his hand. He’s not, of course, just a willowy cashier who doesn’t even think to ask for her ID, just hands over a pack of smokes and charges her card.
If she’s had no reason to be this end of town before, why would Joe? Unless this is where Miss Dior lives. It’d be just like him to find someone from North Philly to fuck. No, not if they’re all like Barb. He’d be more likely to walk just next door and bang their neighbour. Easy access.
Another car pulls into the vacant forecourt and Melissa’s cursing to high heaven because Barbara’s followed her to the gas station. Except that’s not Barb’s car and there’s no way it’s Geralds, not with rims like that.
No, maybe it’s time to start bringing the readers out for more than just reading because the only similarities between Barbara and the woman extricating herself from her car are the prim and proper way this woman carries herself and the way Melissa would absolutely beg if she told her to.
Okay, no. Today was a long day, and she’s tired, and emotional and bought new lingerie ready for Joe to appreciate and this has nothing to do with Barb. It probably has nothing to do with the goddess of a woman at pump six, putting on a disposable glove as she tries to work out which nozzle is the right one to use. She’s just a little pent up is all.
She’s across the forecourt before she knows it, hip popped, head tilted towards the gas pump, “Need a hand?”
“I-” Maybe it’s the grateful smile, or maybe it’s the disarmed nod, but Melissa would do anything for this woman right now, “I’d really appreciate that, thank you–”
There’s a pregnant pause - a beat for Melissa to decide exactly what this is going to be. If Joe can do it, why can’t she?
“Melissa.” She smiles back, glancing up through lowered lashes and reaches out a hand.
The glove crinkles within their grip but all Melissa can hear is comfort, and warmth and Barb’s grasp is firm too.
“Sandra.”
“You don’t look like a lady who should be pumping her own gas.” Melissa demures, pairing it with an assured grasp of the right-most gas nozzle.
“No, well,” Sandra’s throat clears like her admission is still new to her, “New car…divorce money.”
Choirs sing. She doesn’t know what she’s done to deserve this perfect scenario but she’ll be taking a trip to church in the morning to show just how thankful she is for such a gift. Right before she confesses for whatever this leads to.
“Mmm, free woman. How are you celebrating?”
“Should I be?”
“Some schmuck didn’t know what he had and I get to spend the night with a knockout. I’m celebrating”
There’s that familiar tension - the one that sits deep between two people, waiting for someone to ask and someone to accept.
It’s been a while since Melissa’s flirted with the intention of it meaning something. But if the smile it unleashes is anything to go by - full and bashful in the way that only a woman far too modest for her own good gets (she knows a few of those) - it’s been just as long since Sandra’s had anyone flirt with her.
The nozzle thunks in her hand as the tank fills and the gas disengages.
“I tell you what, why don’t I get this,” She gestures at the gas pump ringing out the total, “and you can get the drinks to celebrate? A woman like you deserves to live a little.”
“How do you feel about whiskey?”
–
Melissa feels incredible about whiskey, especially about the 25 year aged Talisker Sandra had tucked away at home. And especially about tasting it on plump lips as she pins the other woman against the wall.
“I don’t…usually…do this…never done this…” Sandra’s words are ragged, drawn out between messy kisses with each breath she can manage.
Already she’s irrecoverably kiss-drunk. It has Melissa preening with the sense of a job so well done before she’s so much as undone a single button.
She moves to the shell of her ear, tongue tracing to the bottom where her teeth can toy with the lobe.
“Do you want me to stop?” She breathes out, as her knee parts sensible slack-covered thighs to press up against the woman’s core.
The whimper it elicits is obscene. It’s certainly not a no.
After over a decade of no one but Joe this should feel clunkier; her hands shouldn’t have routes they want to take already, her lips shouldn’t have their own plans to kiss every sensitive spot until the woman before her is begging for release. Somehow, she’s had time to build the strongest need to know what a woman this proper sounds like when she comes undone.
Her lips kiss down, teeth toying with every inch of sensitive skin until she’s nosing pearls aside and using her every god-given gift to leave a mark of her own where they should lie. There’s a hand firm in her hair, keeping her at her purpose all the more resolutely and if she stops for even a second to think about how perfectly at home that firm touch has her, she really will be crying on her birthday.
Instead she doubles down, lets her hand roam of its own free will. Skims it over full hips, down to overly-sensitive thighs and back up to slip beneath a crisp, starched waistband. Sandra’s grip around her arm is possessive and pleading and firm and maybe that’s what ‘firm’ can mean too - mine and I need you.
Either way Melissa needs this just as much. She’s just as lost in every bruising kiss, and desperate moan. The way that grip tightens with every loose circle she makes round her clit.
“God, Melissa, please.”
She wonders if that’s how all church women sound when they blaspheme. She hopes it is.
“Beautiful.” The word leaves her lips before Melissa knows she’s even thinking it, full of reverence.
Sandra dissolves against her, all that poise gone as her hips jerk in much needed release and it’s as perfect a crescendo of moans and pants and ‘please’ as Melissa could ever have hoped.
In the relative quiet of hastened breathing, Melissa lets her head rest against a fast-thumping heartbeat, still relishing in the hand in her hair and the now lax grip at her arm. She brushes soothing circles with her fingertips, seeing the woman through the aftershocks before the world can come back to them. Sandra still barely has her footing. They have time.
The problem with time is the space it gives for thoughts to creep in. There’s nothing that harshes that post-orgasmic glow quite like self reflection. Like questioning what she just let happen and why. It’s her birthday, she made a good time for herself. Made a good time for Barbara.
Sandra.
Melissa glances up at the house around her for the first time since they crashed through the doorway, entangled as they were. She was busy before - had a goal. Didn’t take in the ‘bless this mess’ motif off to her left. The wall of pictures, half of which are askew thanks to the force she pressed Sandra against them with. The centrepiece of hydrangeas in all shades of pink.
Just like that, there’s no time at all.
“Sorry hun, if I’m not home soon, my old man’ll be waiting.” She slides her hand back up the other woman’s soft torso, leaving a slick trail behind. Whatever’s left, her tongue makes short work of, leaving her fingers damp but no longer sticky, “Congrats again on the divorce.”
At least Sandra had the good sense not to pick roses.