Jane was waiting for the elevator when Laura and April got to the lobby, on the way to taking April home. She leaned against the opposite wall, smirking, appraising them salaciously. Laura’s heart sank, and her ire rose up, both in the same instant.

Jane looked at April, up and down, evaluating her, as Laura tried to brush past without speaking. "Hold on, Laura," she said. "Ain’t you gonna introduce us? Isn’t this the one who was screaming like she was dying of pleasure up there in your apartment a few minutes ago?"

"Jane—" Laura warned.

April looked at Laura inquisitively. "She your neighbor?"

"One of them," Laura said, grimly.

She remembered how Jane had interrupted her and Charise not long ago, how jealous Jane had been, and also how they had nearly burned the place down with hot fucking after Laura had returned from taking Charise home. Was history about to repeat itself?

Jane leaned close to April, as bold and nasty as ever. "She fucks me too," she said in an exaggerated whisper. "In fact, I scream like that when she fucks me in the ass. Is that what she did to you?"

"Jane!" Laura snapped.

"Mmmm, you got a big one, too," Jane said, appraising April’s ass. "Bet she had a cool time munching on that one. Did she stick her finger in it? Laura likes black ass. Don’t you, Laura."

Laura was about to die of mortification. And April was both shocked and acutely embarrassed. Both of them now tried to brush past Jane, but Jane actually held out her arms to stop them.

Her eyes suddenly glowered, turning her lovely face into a sharp mask of ugly, accusatory spite. "Let me tell you two something. This is a family building. We families want a wholesome atmosphere. We don’t want no lesbian hoes fucking and screaming and interrupting everybody’s dinner with their cheap little sex acts, dig? You girls hear me? You understand?"

Laura grabbed April’s hand and roughly pushed her way past one of Jane’s extended arms. "Jane, this is the last straw—!" she said under her breath, pulling April hard and fast to get her by the half-crazy teenager before Jane did something worse.

She half-thought that Jane was going to pounce on them from the rear, so crazed was Jane by her usual jealousies and hell-I’ll-do-anything nature. But Jane just stood and watched them leave, almost steaming from the ears with hatred and pain. God, what did I ever do to make that girl so jealous? Laura wondered. In the back of her mind, she recalled Vanessa, and Sholandra, but neither had ever been as shockingly bold as Jane.

In the car, April was silent and glum. She stared out the window without speaking.

"She’s a little liar," Laura said lamely, regretting it the moment she said it. April wasn’t stupid.

"Seems to me like you the one who’s lying," April said calmly. "She was jealous. I would be too, up there listening to you doing it with someone else."

"April, you don’t know how much you mean to me."

"How much did she mean to you?"

Ouch! Laura could hardly bear moments as painful as this. She loved them both and didn’t want to give up either one.

After a few minutes, April added, "She’s pretty good-looking, too. Great body. And young."

"I know," Laura said meekly. "It was a mistake."

"Don’t sound like she thinks so."

April was unforgiving. At her apartment in Oakland, she hopped out of Laura’s car with barely a word and waved perfunctorily. Laura was hurt to the quick. After what we just shared? she thought. Couldn’t you at least smile, or say you had a good time?

But Laura was a big girl. I won’t cry over it, she thought. If I see Jane, I’ll kill her. But she thought differently about marching up to Kendra’s and Jane’s apartment, as she had done the last time. That had resulted in a firestorm of fucking with Jane that still made her tingle when she recalled it. She couldn’t risk that again.

She had to concentrate on work anyway. She spent the next two days in Burlingame, working with Deshona Reed. It was both a stimulating and uncomfortable time, for she kept recalling what April had said, that Deshona Reed looked at her, Laura, when Laura was not paying attention, as if she were ‘interested’. What did that mean?

All Laura could see was her brusque, cold, aloof exterior, her hard eyes, her unsmiling mouth. On top of that, she was physically gorgeous, a petite woman with small bones and yet a very curvaceous figure under her severe business suits. She was also very successful, a hard worker, and impressively bright. Laura did not dare to make any mistakes in her presence.

It wore on her. Deshona Reed was sexually attractive, but her demeanor discouraged anything but the most curt formality. Even after weeks of working together, Laura could not get her to warm up. And then, shockingly enough, after their two days were finished, Deshona invited Laura to her house for dinner.

"We should just go out somewhere . . . but I’m so tired, I’d rather just go home and whip up an omlette or something," she said wearily. They were both tired. "Care to join me?"

Laura tried not to act surprised. "I . . . guess I could. For an hour or so."

Deshona smiled ambiguously. She gave Laura careful directions to her house, which was in the hills among the trees, a beautiful, large, and expensive home.

"This looks like almost too much for one person," Laura commented, looking around at the expensive furniture, wondering who lived there with her.

Deshona was very quick, and she saw Laura looking for evidence of another person. "My husband and I are divorced. I got the house."

"I’m sorry to hear that. About the divorce, I mean," Laura mumbled awkwardly.

Deshona smiled in a self-mocking way. "He left me for a blonde."

Now what was this supposed to mean? Laura wondered. Does it mean that you hate me, or hate all white women? If so, then why did you invite me here? At least it explains your personality.

But then she thought, This is a woman in great pain. Maybe she doesn’t really know how else to reach out. And all I can think about is what it would be like to break through that ice, to make her moan. She’s so beautiful.

Meanwhile, Laura didn’t know how to respond. "I . . . I’m sorry to hear that."

"Oh, it’s okay," Deshona smiled. "I don’t mean to be so dramatic. It was last year. I’m thinking of getting a dog. What do you think? Wouldn’t that make it less lonely around here?"

"Someone as gorgeous as you shouldn’t be lonely," Laura said.

"You’re the gorgeous one. Did anyone ever tell you that you look like the Victoria’s Secret model?"

Laura smiled self-effacingly. "Yes, a few times. Thank you."

Deshona again raised that self-mocking eyebrow. "Good thing you aren’t a blonde." Then she smiled to let Laura know it was a joke.

"Good thing," Laura laughed uncomfortably.

Now they loosened up. Deshona dropped the frigid exterior and actually began to smile. She shed her suit jacket and told Laura to make herself comfortable too. Under her jacket Deshona was wearing an expensive pearl-colored silk blouse that contrasted beautifully with her smooth, dark skin. She was not jet black, like Charise or Cecilia, but her skin was still dark, more like Randi’s and Karen’s.

"This blouse cost me seventy-five big ones, and I’m not splattering it with grease in the kitchen," she joked. "I wasn’t going to change and make you uncomfortable, but I am going to take it off."

This sounded so suggestive that Laura almost blushed, though she knew Deshona meant nothing risque. She decided to help with dinner while Deshona was changing and was in the midst of making a salad when she returned. Deshona poured each of them a glass of wine, and they cooked dinner together. Somehow, it made them feel more intimate and friendly than ever. Afterward, they sat in Deshona’s spectacularly decorated living room, decorously across from one another on facing small white sofas.

Laura felt as if she were in a movie. She knew nothing sexual was going to happen. She had risked too much already lately, with April, and with Stevie Archer. She was content simply to look at Deshona Reed, who had changed into jeans and a loose sweatshirt, which occasionally stretched and shifted as her fairly large and unfettered breasts swayed underneath it.

Laura tried not to look, but at one brief instant Deshona saw her looking. She had half-stood, reaching to put her wine goblet on the glass coffee table between them. She looked down too, where Laura was looking, and saw her breasts swaying under her sweatshirt. She smiled broadly, very relaxed now after dinner and two glasses of wine.

"Oops. Maybe I should’ve left my bra on. I’m a-swingin’ and a-swayin’. Sorry."

"Don’t apologize. I was just admiring the view."

Deshona shot her a brief, hard glance, but then relaxed again. "So . . . tell me about yourself. A woman who looks like Stephanie Seymour must have a lot of adventures."

"Oh . . ." Laura blushed. "Not many."

"I can’t believe that. Even though you’re not a blonde," her eyes twinkled mischievously, "the fellas must still be beating down your door."

Laura smiled politely, not knowing what to say. Then she heard the oddest words coming out of her mouth. "I’ve had a steady boyfriend for about two years. His name is Rob."

Now she did blush, and swallow nervously. Why had she said that?

"Well, you just hang onto him tight, that’s my advice. A good man is hard to find. And I oughta know."

She suddenly felt so chummy that she came around the glass coffee table and sat down next to Laura. Uh oh, Laura thought. She smells good. And up close she’s even more lovely. And she’s not wearing a bra under that sweatshirt.

Both of them were slightly tipsy, not really drunk, just relaxed. Deshona’s dark black eyes shone. All the frost of the past was gone. She was Laura’s dear friend now.

They talked for another hour about men, about work, about whether Deshona should get a dog, about what she should name it if she did, whether she should get a big dog or a little dog, or maybe two dogs. Laura grew to like her very much, now that her protective layer of ice had melted.

She also enjoyed just looking at this beautiful woman, at the soft, smooth curve of her throat, at her sensual mouth, at the cloud of frizz-curled hair that framed her head, something that would look bad on a larger woman but that was perfect for her petite size. She tried not to look down at the breasts occasionally bouncing and swaying under Deshona’s sweatshirt.

Deshona lay back in the sofa cushions next to Laura, with her face uptilted, her profile enchanting. She was very desirable. Laura looked at her longingly. She lay her head back against the cushion too, her face turned sideways, looking. After a minute, Deshona turned her own face to Laura’s.

Her eyes made it clear she knew this was a dangerous moment, and Laura felt it too. Without speaking, Laura pushed her own face closer until her lips brushed Deshona’s. Their warm breath intermingled. Deshona did not pull back. Her eyes, very close, peered into Laura’s.

Fearing to stop now, Laura began to kiss her, gently, not insisting on anything. Deshona’s eyes never closed. But finally, she did pull her head back a few inches.

"You know," she said softly, "I think I’m going to pass on this. Don’t take it personally, Laura. I like you a lot. But I’ve never done this, and I don’t think I’m going to start now. I haven’t been laid in about a year and a half . . . but I think I’ll hold out for a guy. No offense?"

Laura shook her head sadly. "None taken." She caressed Deshona’s impossibly smooth cheek with the backs of her fingers. "You are very lovely."

"Thank you. That stuff about your boyfriend was a lie, wasn’t it."

"Only partly," Laura smiled. "I see him now and then."

"It’s probably best if you don’t tell me any more."

"I know."

"Under the circumstances, maybe you should leave. I hope this won’t spoil our working relationship."

"I’m sure it won’t." Laura gave her a wry smile. "Just keep the bra on next time."

Deshona laughed. She pointed a friendly finger at Laura. "You got it. Drive carefully, okay? You need a cup of coffee?"

Laura shook her head.

"I haven’t been . . . kissed for over a year and a half either," Deshona said. "By a man or a woman. Don’t want anything to happen to you."

"It won’t."

Laura did cry a little, though, on the drive back to San Francisco. Why am I crying? she wondered. Must be the wine. On the other hand, she felt an ache. Deshona Reed was lovely, and Laura wanted her, but Deshona had been very mature about it. She too had been tempted but turned away from temptation, as Laura was never able to do.

Laura remembered April—not their uncomfortable parting yesterday, but the first time, when April had called her cellular phone number and asked her to come back. Then they had made love heatedly. But Deshona Reed did not call Laura’s mobile phone. It was silent all the way.

At home, she glumly contemplated the video tape that Rhonda had left in her office. She had taken it home, eager to view it but having no chance until now. She knew it would make her feel better and could scarcely wait to get it into the VCR.

She undressed hurriedly and threw on a bathrobe. Laura’s bedroom was for fucking and sleeping only, and so her TV was in her living room. She pulled the drapes shut, then started the VCR.

Even though she knew in detail the contents of the tape, it was a very unusual experience to watch it. For one thing, the video camera was three or four feet away from the two naked bodies intermingling on the bed. My bed, she thought. She had never seen either herself or her lover from such a point of view. For another, she tried not to see them from Rhonda’s point of view, but it was very hard not to.

And yet Stevie had such a perfectly gorgeous naked body that it was impossible not to become aroused all over again. Laura only recalled as she watched that they had already fucked once before Stevie had retrieved the video camera from her luggage. She watched herself closely, as if studying her technique as she swarmed all over Stevie’s beautiful body, and Stevie swarmed all over hers.

As she watched, her body quickly became overheated. She had been aroused earlier, from kissing Deshona Reed, and now when Stevie had an orgasm on the video tape for the first time, it had an electrical effect on Laura. Her bathrobe had slipped open, due to her squirming on the sofa, and her hand slid down between her thighs very easily, finding her soupy wet quim, fully blossomed and aching.

She was unconsciously swirling her hard, tingling clit under two fingers as she watched, and she realized that she was very close to an orgasm herself. And yet she knew that even better things were to come. She had taped Stevie having one of her over-the-top g-spot episodes, and even at least a partial sequence—before she completely lost control—of Stevie eating her, Laura’s, pussy until she began to come.

Carefully, she withdrew her hand, determined to climax only after she had seen the whole tape. But this proved to be difficult. First came the section where Laura had lovingly photographed every smooth, sinuous inch of Stevie’s perfect naked body. Even though she had fucked the beautiful girl repeatedly on two different occasions, Laura could not suppress her physical excitement as seeing every part of Stevie’s delicious body again. And Stevie, camera hog that she was, had taken advantage of this moment to strike every devastating sexual pose she could think of, her mouth in a fuck-me moue as she cupped her small breasts, or caressed her wet, puckering slit, showing off the glistening pink insides.

Now Stevie began to moan and writhe. Laura was tongue-caressing her clit and fingering her pussy at the same time, and Stevie was intoxicatingly beautiful, desirable, pumping her slim hips, grabbing her small breasts, twisting her swelling, gleaming black nipples.

This was the section where Laura had persuaded herself that she could fuck Stevie with one hand while holding the video camera with the other. It went on much longer than she had remembered, and by the time Stevie had nearly reached her peak, Laura herself was almost a basket case. Watching Stevie’s naked body undulate, seeing the palpitations in her sleek stomach as she panted and whimpered, watching her marvelous small breasts jiggle, hearing her soft, keening moans, all of it had Laura so wet that her juices were smearing her thighs as well as her fingers, and her own breath was short, her pussy throbbing wildly.

Scrutinizing every second with hot, fascinated attention, Laura saw the girl flinch, then freeze for a split second. She knew this was the instant just before Stevie had exploded in wild strings of orgasms. Hastily, she reached for the remote and stopped the tape. She rewound it and started it again about a minute before the critical moment.

"Oh god, I can watch her come over and over again," she said out loud, marveling at her opportunity. "Even in slow motion, if I want to."

Now she was nearly as close herself to a climax as Stevie was on the tape. She finally slipped out of the loose bathrobe completely and lay back on the sofa, stroking her naked body and watching every exquisite detail of Stevie’s approach to a fierce ecstacy she, Laura, had actually brought about. The tape drew closer and closer to the telltale flinch.

Then it happened. Stevie’s lean, long, lovely naked body shuddered, and she began to moan loudly and come in rolling, undulating waves, her beautiful face torn by a sublime grimace of total rapture.

"Unh! Unh!" Laura gasped softly, her fingers frantically swirling over her own throbbing clit. "Aunngghhh! Oh shit! Aunngghhh!"

She came herself in a sharp convulsion, her body churning and bucking out of control. At the same moment, her phone beside the sofa began to ring, a piercing, cutting ring that mingled with her tight, helpless cries. She was still coming in aftershocks, still watching Stevie groan through the spasms of her final orgasm, when the answering machine clicked on.

"Laura? Laura, are you there? It’s Deshona Reed. Just calling to see you made it home okay. You must’ve stopped off. I’ll call you back in half an hour."

Slack and panting from a quick, self-induced orgasm, Laura nevertheless had the presence of mind to reach for the remote control and quickly switch off the VCR. She smiled dreamily. Deshona called me. She wanted to make sure I’m safe.

She rewound the answering machine tape and played it again. Still glassy-eyed and throbbing, she idly rubbed her pussy gently as she listened again to Deshona Reed’s voice. I wish we were rubbing each other’s, she thought dreamily.

Then she realized that she had about thirty minutes until Deshona called again. And there was still a part of the video tape she hadn’t seen. This was the part in which Stevie licked Laura’s pussy while Laura video taped it, and as she watched it, Laura was unable to resist the temptation to give herself another orgasm. In about five or six minutes, she was coming again, this time a long, hot, throbbing climax that seemed to take forever.

She only half-realized that the video camera had fallen out of her hands onto the bouncing mattress, recording only a jumbled blur of dark and white skin, as well as Laura’s helpless cries of pleasure. Then came the giggles as she and Stevie retrieved the video camera, which was still purring along.

"At least we got to hear you coming, girl," Stevie was heard to say as Laura awkwardly pointed the camera again at her, dropping it, as if she were leering, to Stevie’s peerless small breasts once again. "I’ll bet your neighbors heard it too," she said, making a face at the camera as she pulled the lens up abruptly. "You are loud, girl, loud."

Then they both dissolved in giggles one more time. It had been a sweet, intimate moment, and Laura enjoyed reliving it again. Then she suddenly grew more grim as she realized what it must have felt like for Rhonda to view it. That was all it took for her to feel a burning in the pit of her stomach. Imagine me watching it, she thought. What if Rhonda was screwing Inky, for example?

She couldn’t dwell on it and shut off the tape. She also wondered how Rhonda had got her hands on it. Had Stevie been so careless? Or so cruel? What was the status of their relationship now?

She was still thinking these things over when the phone rang again. She tried not to snatch it up, not to seem too eager.

"Hello?"

"Laura. I called earlier. I just wanted to be sure you were safe."

Laura was overcome with tenderness for this woman, so much so that she could barely speak. "I stopped for a quart of milk," she fibbed. "I got your message and wanted to call you back, but I don’t have your home number."

"It’s unlisted," Deshona said. "But I’ll give it to you."

Laura’s heart fluttered as she wrote it down. She suddenly realized that she was stark naked, lying slack and spent across the sofa, having just masturbated twice. What would Deshona think if she could see me like this? she wondered wryly. But, as if being watched, she sat up and pulled her robe over her thighs.

"I . . . had a good time," she said softly. "Nice dinner. Nice company."

Deshona did not respond immediately. "Nice kiss," she finally said, very faintly. "Thanks for understanding."

"You’re welcome. Thanks for calling. I’ve never had anyone actually call to see if I made it home all right before."

"First time for everything," Deshona said softly.

"Yes . . . there is," Laura said pointedly, regretting it afterward.

That was too bold of me, she thought. But Deshona did not react. They would meet again the following week for another work session. Laura could hardly wait.