Her afternoon with Shavon was undeniably sweet, and chock full of a sexual intensity that Laura had not experienced for a while, more emotional than her recent trysts with Karen and Ada. But the thought of Ada would not leave her, or the pain she felt at having scared her so completely that she could think of no way out but to flee back to Texas. Laura knew Ada had loved 'playing tennis' with Laura, but the fear of her own sexual nature, apparently, had been too strong. And I wonder how complicated it was by the fact that she was my boss? Laura wondered, idly.

Even after leaving Shavon, her body still tingling in the afterglow of their exhausting sexual encounter, she found her mind gnawing over the Ada problem. I've got to talk to her, she thought. I've got to reassure her. It's okay for her to want it. Ada, I made you pant! she thought, for more than the second time.

When she got home to her darkened apartment, she poured a glass of wine and sat in the dark in front of her 'view' window, finally deciding to check her voice mail. She checked work first, surprised, as always, to find a message marked 'private.' It was from Ada.

"Laura . . . it's me. I know you must have been a little shocked. Can't say I blame you."

Ada's voice betrayed not a trace of the raw, nauseating, uncontrollable whine and twang it frequently did when she was upset or excited. It was calm, distant. Laura, though she felt everything had become a little cold, was relieved, since Ada's voice was, for all the woman's charm and sweet nature and irresistible sex appeal, the single feature that made her recoil.

"I guess I have an apology to make," Ada went on, now seeming nervous and sad at the same time. "What I had with you, what we had together, was a total shock. Don't get me wrong, I loved every minute, every second of it. I still think about it all the time. But I sure didn't expect something like that to happen. I'm pretty, you know, self-sufficient. My relationships have been . . . oh, you know, not successful, not deep or lasting." There was a brief pause during which Laura thought she could detect a very real despair, something she had seen hinted at in the past in Ada's face when she thought she was not being noticed. "Then you. It took me by surprise. Not only the . . . 'tennis.' You know what I mean by that. But the feelings I had. I really started . . . liking you too much. It just . . . didn't feel right to me, but it was so strong I couldn't stand it. I had to stop. I had to. I wish we could go back right now to the shower . . . and forget the rest, you know? But don't get me wrong. I think about the rest every day, every night. I still want you, if it makes you feel any better. There, I said it. I'm rambling. I have to stop talking. I loved knowing you. I'll never forget it. Really. Have a great life, okay? Bye."

Laura was in tears, in the dark, with barely enough volition left to hang up the phone. It was so quiet that she could hear the traffic in the streets downstairs. The city's lights were blurred by the stinging water in her eyes.

For some odd reason in her mind she heard the refrain of an old song that she didn't even know she remembered.

More than you know,
More than you know,
Girl of my heart,
I love you so . . .

And I don't even love her, she sniffled to herself, wondering where the Kleenex was. That voice . . . that horrible voice. I don't. I love Deshona. I love Randi. I even half-love Shavon, after today. I don't love you, Ada. How could you think so?

Lately I find,
You're on my mind,
More than you know . . .

What did she mean by 'the rest'? Laura wondered. 'I wish we could go back right now to the shower . . . and forget the rest,' Ada had said. It was inescapable. Ada had meant that the fucking was wonderful, but the feelings had scared the daylights out of her. Or maybe they had both scared the daylights out of her.

Fresh tears streamed silently down Laura's cheeks. I'm going to have to have something stronger than wine, she thought. This pain is too hard. She got up, went to the kitchen, and poured herself a vodka over ice. After drinking it, she felt better. She recalled that in the past, feeling this kind of pain, she would run to Karen, and they would torture each other into one excruciating climax after another through an entire evening of demonic and depraved perversion, until the emotional pain was driven into the shadows by a physical agony that could not be ignored.

But she had given that up in recent months. And anyway, she and Karen had already revisited their little 'chamber of horrors' only a few nights ago; enough to last them both for a while, Laura thought grimly.

Whether I'm right,
Whether I'm wrong,
Girl of my heart,
I'll string along . . .

The song would not go away. That was the bad thing about songs. Once they got lodged and stuck in your brain, there was no getting rid of them.

Laura had another vodka and glumly tried to get some sleep. By morning, she had managed only a few hours of slumber, and many of tossing and rumpling the sheets and staring hollow-eyed into the darkness. She dragged herself out of bed for work, going through the motions as if in a dream, the dream she had not had through inability to sleep.

Feeling emotionally and physically numb, she noticed Shontay Something again as she passed through the Project Management area on the way to her office. This morning Shontay wore a black business-style pants suit that was identical to the tan one she had been wearing yesterday. Looking at it, Laura thought the pants must be about two-thirds the length of her own, Laura's, whole body. God, she is tall. And skinny.

But this time Shontay was not surrounded by other employees, as she previously had been, and Laura was so fascinated that she again had to warn herself not to stare. The woman wasn't very attractive sexually (not like Ada! Laura realized with a pang), but there was clearly something about her that riveted Laura. The cold exterior, all business, aloof, even verging on the hostile, no smiles, no softness. Maybe it's the worst temptation of all, Laura thought. You want to break through it, like I did with Deshona. Talk about making Ada pant! That really wasn't hard at all. Imagine the challenge, making Shontay pant. It might even be impossible.

But right now she didn't have enough energy even to contemplate it. In her office she put her head on her desk and managed to sleep for twenty minutes before the telephone awoke her. She got through the rest of the day somehow, and, dead tired, found herself driving aimlessly down unfamiliar streets on her way home, until she realized where she was. In a kind of stupor, she had driven to the neighborhood where Tamara had lived, before fleeing to Italy with her boyfriend. Where Laura and the dancer Shayla had spent a wonderful night fucking and laughing and giggling and fucking again.

What am I doing here? she wondered. Why did I come here?

She parked down the street from the apartment building, only remembering slowly, as she sat in her car, refusing to get out, that Shayla had moved to New York to join the Dance Theatre of Harlem, and that her friend Dawn and Dawn's boyfriend had taken over the apartment. Dawn. Laura recalled having been sharply struck by her good looks and deeply black skin, as well as her friendly manner. For Laura, a girl's very black and silky smooth complexion was wildly aphrodisiacal, though even admitting it to herself was embarrassing, since it seemed somehow perversely racist or twisted to respond sexually to the color of someone's skin.

She had on a few occasions confessed it bashfully to Cecilia, to Charise—her darling Inky—two girls whose skin was just as deeply black as Dawn's, and both had seemed delighted to learn she found their skin so erotic. Both were artlessly pleased and flattered, and if anything had encouraged her to keep loving it and quit worrying about it. With them Laura had relaxed, and allowed herself the supreme pleasure of kissing every secret inch of their delicious, deeply black bodies, but she could not help feeling skittish and self-conscious about it around someone she had not shared a bed with.

On the other hand, sitting there in the car thinking it over made her hungrier than ever to see the girl again, as if to validate her earlier attraction, the brief, wild, hot, happy impulse of familiar lust she had felt on seeing Dawn, when Shayla had introduced them, for the first time. Dawn lived with her boyfriend, which clearly meant the chances of successfully beckoning her toward the kind of friendship Laura would cherish most were almost non-existent. So, as she got out the car, she questioned herself.

Do you really want to do this? You're just going to make yourself feel worse. You know how hard it is to chat and make nice with some ravishing dark black gorgeous girl you're dying for while she's cheerfully rattling on about her boyfriend. It'll kill you, Laura. Is it going to make you feel any better to see someone else you can't have? First Ada, then Dawn?

Meanwhile, as if sleepwalking, she was heading for the apartment house down the street. When she got there and quickly called up the courage to knock on the door of the correct apartment, it was answered by a young, quite handsome black man wearing a Chicago Cubs baseball cap and a yellow sweatshirt.

"Oh . . . maybe I got the wrong apartment," Laura stammered, blushing a horrific deep red. "I was looking for . . . Shayla. She's a . . . dancer."

He smiled. "No, you got the right one." He opened the door a little wider. "She went to live in New York. We took over the place for her."

Now he opened the door even wider, and behind him Laura could see Dawn, back in the kitchen, peering over his shoulder at her, too far away to register immediately on Laura's ever-ready lust meter. But now she seemed to recognize Laura and came toward them.

"Let her in, Robert," she said to him. "It's Shayla's friend. The one who knew Tamara. I told you about her."

Robert looked a little puzzled but not unfriendly. He now opened the door wide and invited Laura inside. But she realized that Dawn was giving her a weird look. The last time they had met, Dawn had mentioned that she and her boyfriend were moving into this apartment the next day. Why would Laura come here looking for Shayla, whom she knew very well had moved? In fact, why would she, Laura, be here at all?

But in the confusion of the moment, and out of the urge to be polite, she smiled and came in from the kitchen, holding a dish towel in her hands. Robert, however, seemed to be in a hurry. He grabbed a jacket and a lunch cooler.

"You'll have to excuse me," he said to Laura. "I was just on my way out. Nice to meet you."

"Oh. Nice to meet you too, Robert," Laura smiled, genuinely.

Not really knowing why she had come there herself, except to dissipate her sadness, she really hadn't viewed it as a sexual opportunity, or him as a competitor. She had been fiercely attracted to Dawn the first time she had seen her, but Laura was used to that happening, even on the street, or in a store.

But as soon as the door closed behind him, and she could get a better, less guarded, look at Dawn, she realized that she was kidding herself. Her thoughts of Ada were instantly relegated to the background. How could I have thought I wasn't interested in her? Laura wondered, letting her eyes, though surreptitiously, roam all over Dawn's face, then take furtive glimpses of her body.

The girl might not be conventionally beautiful, but to Laura she was thrillingly lovely. She had dark, intelligent eyes, an amused, sensual mouth, a high forehead, and her smooth very black skin was every bit as dark as Laura had remembered. Reliving the twinge of embarrassment she had felt sitting downstairs in her car, Laura could feel a tiny, hot, insistent itch inside her pussy as she wondered how Dawn's smooth cheek would feel under her fingertip. Even Dawn's hair, which was wiry and coarse, black and shiny, spritzing up from her head in a disorganized array of stiff filaments, tied by a white cloth and spewing out the top in an unruly bush, was enchanting to Laura, who found it touchingly natural and fetching.

Afraid she might be staring without knowing it, Laura looked away nervously. But Dawn was friendly and relaxed.

"You must've forgot, right?" she said, gently. "I mean, about her moving? She been gone a few weeks now. I just got a letter from her yesterday."

"Oh," Laura smiled. "How's she doing?"

"Fine, I guess. She says it's hard work."

"I'll bet. Well, she's in good shape. She can handle it."

Laura only realized after saying it that this remark seemed to have sexual innuendoes. Dawn only smiled and said nothing.

"I was just cooking up some beans and rice," she said, smiling very warmly. "Why don't you come over here and sit so I don't burn 'em."

They moved to the back of the apartment, where the kitchen was located. Laura realized, following Dawn, that she was completely aroused and stimulated by Dawn's lovely face and her marvelously smooth and very dark skin, but that she had no idea what the girl's body looked like, other than the fact that Dawn was not shockingly skinny, like Shontay Something, or fat either. And Dawn wore a large, roomy sweatshirt and baggy brown pants and sweat socks, so that it was impossible to draw any other conclusions. She was charmingly oblivious to her personal appeal, apparently, and seemed unembarrassed to be talking with Laura, who was dressed to the nines, while looking like she had just thrown on the nearest rumpled garments.

She looks like a college girl just cooking up a quick dinner, Laura realized. Laura watched, fascinated, enjoying every exquisite detail of Dawn's presence as Dawn moved around her small kitchen, whipping up a fragrant, appetizing meal.

"Wow, it looks good," Laura said. "Where'd you learn to cook like that?"

"My Gramma," Dawn smiled. "She mostly raised me. I can cook a lot more than this. I just do this cause it's quick, after I get home from school."

"I'll bet Robert likes it."

Dawn grinned, as if to say, Laura suspected, 'He likes my pussy, then he likes this, in that order.' I don't blame him, Laura thought. But Dawn surprised her.

"Oh . . . he probably won't eat any of this at all. Says I make it too hot. And it don't have any meat in it. I like it hot, though. You want to try some?"

Laura shrugged. She was certainly enjoying Dawn. Just being in her presence felt good. Dawn was fresh and bright and friendly, devastatingly attractive too, though Laura tried not to think about that part. Robert, after all, had only left a few minutes ago.

"I didn't mean to drop by and invite myself for dinner," Laura said, feeling uncomfortable.

"You ain't inviting," Dawn said, with a crinkly-nosed, infectious smile. "I'm the one who's inviting." She stirred the beans and rice one last time, then covered them and turned off the fire. "There, it's ready. We can let it sit for a few minutes and talk. Then we can eat."

"What about Robert?"

"Oh, he was going off to work. He won't be back until after two this morning. He work nights for PG&E."

Laura could not prevent her heart from racing at this news, though she knew she shouldn't be feeling that way.

"So . . ." Dawn said, walking back into the larger room of the apartment, with Laura following. "Why did you drop by?"

Laura could feel the blood rising in her face again, but she took a couple of quick breaths, trying to keep from turning into a lobster. There was also something about the way Dawn had asked the question that seemed to imply an ulterior motive on Laura's part.

"I . . . guess I really don't know why," she stammered, sitting across from Dawn in a flimsy-looking canvas director's chair.

Dawn sat on the brown leather sofa, where Laura had exuberantly fucked with Shayla on her last visit. It was hard to look across at her without remembering Shayla's lean dark brown dancer's body stretched out across it, with Laura nestled between her spread thighs, passionately tonguing and sucking her delicious black pussy. It caused a dangerous flare-up of sexual excitement in Laura, who desperately searched in her mind for a topic which would quickly squelch this feverish and unavoidable lust, which in this case was not even directed at Dawn but at Shayla, who was not even present.

Dawn looked solemnly at her, but when it appeared that Laura would have nothing to add, she relaxed her shoulders imperceptibly, and a small, very alluring, amused grin tugged at both corners of her mouth.

"Where are you going to school?" Laura asked, hoping the subject shift wasn't too abrupt or obvious.

"San Francisco State."

"Majoring in?"

"Don't know yet. Maybe economics."

"Economics," Laura said. "Wow . . . isn't that pretty deep?"

Dawn's eyes twinkled. "Gets you a good job."

"You must be brighter than I am if you can make sense out of it. I can barely balance my checkbook."

Dawn smiled and let it pass. "Did you come over to see me?" she asked, her dark eyes holding Laura's.

Now Laura was unable to contain her hot blush, which suffused her face like a red cloud. "I guess . . . I did," she stammered, almost choking on her words.

"You don't have to blush," Dawn said, concerned. "I think you're beautiful. Like that Victoria's Secret girl, the gorgeous one with all the hair. I kind of like it that you wanted to visit. I know you ain't coming over here to see Robert. I might have to scratch your eyes out, if I thought so," she giggled. "You didn't even know he was going to be here anyway, right?"

Laura nodded. "Right. I didn't."

Dawn shifted on the sofa, pulling her legs up under her butt, growing more animated, more girlish, more interesting to Laura by the second.

"You and Shayla had a little thing going, didn't you."

Again Laura blushed, unable to prevent it. "Why do you say that?"

"Cause she told me, that's why. She said you guys did it. She said you did it with Tamara too, which is why she ran off with that bonehead football player to Italy."

Laura gulped and tried to make the blood in her face fall by will power alone. "I guess there aren't any more secrets left in the world these days, are there," she half-croaked.

"Don't worry, I wouldn't tell anybody. Certainly not Robert. Ain't none of his business anyway." She smiled broadly. "But I am a little envious. After all, I didn't get none of what they both got . . . and they both seemed to like it a lot."

Now Dawn's lovely face dipped, and she was looking up at Laura from under her eyelids, across the room, a dangerous and exciting glance, full of unspoken—but fairly clear—meaning.

"You're the most beautiful of all," Laura said quietly, almost under her breath, hoping it didn't sound too much like a seduction line. Only a second after she said it did she remember Tamara, who had the unquestioned, conventional beauty that easily contradicted her.

Dawn shook her head. "Tamara is the world champion beauty," she said softly. "She's a little hollow up here . . ." she pointed both forefingers at the sides of her head. "But down here . . ." Now Dawn ran her hands in wavy fashion up and down her own body, but out three or four inches from her clothes. "She got it. Curves and more curves. The dudes cream when they see her."

She looked pointedly at Laura as she said this, implying that Laura had 'creamed' too. Laura felt another blush coming on and fought it down valiantly. She nodded.

"She is beautiful." Now she caught Dawn's eyes and held them with hers. "But smart and beautiful is a more lethal combination."

Dawn broke into soft laughter. "I ain't smart. Just because I'm taking economics? Shit . . . I can't balance my checkbook either."

"Have you three known each other long?" Laura asked, wanting to veer away from this dangerous conversation.

Dawn nodded. "High school. Mopsy, Flopsy, and Cottontail, right?" she grinned, fluffing the wire brush of hair that spurted up at the top of her head from the white cloth band. "Three black bunny rabbits. Tamara got all the guys, Shayla got all the awards, and I got the grades. I want to know, is that fair?"

"Which did you want, the guys or the awards?"

"I want everything," Dawn said, forthrightly. "Everything."

This time she looked straight into Laura's eyes, both playful, which she seemed to be normally, and serious. Laura swallowed.

"I'm sorry," Dawn said, noticing it. "I didn't offer you anything to drink. We got beer. Robert drinks beer. And I got tea. I got Evian, too. You like that?"

Laura nodded. "That would be fine."

"You know," Dawn said, returning from the refrigerator with a plastic bottle of Evian for Laura, "if you had me, then you will have had the whole rainbow." She smiled sweetly at Laura, as if she had said nothing unusual. "As my uncle used to say, we are a rainbow race. Tamara is almost white enough to pass, except for her face has a little hint of the African in it. Shayla is just plain normal chocolate. And I'm as black as an old rubber tire."

She sat down again on the sofa and grinned at Laura, who was stunned and excited by this clear invitation. She glowered briefly at Dawn to let her know that she did not accept this characterization.

"Or a beautiful knife of priceless obsidian," she murmured, giving Dawn a murky, ambiguous look.

"Excuse me, my vocabulary ain't great. What's obsidian?"

"It's a very black polished glassy stone formed by cooling lava," Laura said. "The Indians made knives and arrowheads out of it. It's one of the most beautiful things you've ever seen. There's also a 'Rainbow Obsidian,' in case you're interested."

Dawn couldn't help raising one eyebrow.

"What does it do?"

Laura shook her head. "I don't know, just sits there and lets its admirers think how beautiful it is, I guess."

Dawn pondered it. "I think I'd rather be a tire than a knife, thanks."

"You don't look a bit like a tire," Laura grinned at her, now totally falling, a sensation she recognized but had not felt for a while, even with Ada.

You lovely, beguiling thing, I'm beginning to want you badly.

"I don't know," Dawn said, petulantly. "I'm kinda round in places."

Laura could feel her own blood beating in her neck. She didn't know what to do, how far to go. "Can I feel?" she asked, very softly.

Dawn nodded slowly. "Guess you can. Come over here."

Laura got up from the director's chair and went over to the sofa. She placed her water bottle on the gnarled, worn mahogany coffee table and sat down next to Dawn, very close. Now she could feel the hot blood almost roaring through her body. She was closer than she had ever been to Dawn, so close that the smooth, dark sheen of Dawn's cheek actually beckoned to her lips. So lovely, she thought. You are so fresh and lovely.

Dawn turned her face to Laura. Her dark eyes were murky and questioning. Her mouth, Laura now realized, staring at it with undisguised hunger for the first time, was a marvel of sensuality. She raised a finger and ran the tip along the surface of Dawn's full lower lip. Dawn's eyes dropped to the finger as Laura moved it. She let her tongue emerge just long enough to tickle the tip of Laura's finger with the tip of it, looking up at Laura at the same time.

"Your lip is curved but not round," Laura whispered.

"I'm really round down here," Dawn whispered back, taking Laura's hand and drawing it down to her hip.

Laura ran her palm over it, and Dawn shifted her position on the sofa, rolling halfway over to make her ass more available. She drew Laura's hand over onto one round, beautifully firm moon, it's perfection quite obvious through the loose fabric of her pants. Laura squeezed it gently. Oh god! she thought. This girl, under these baggy pants, has an ass like Chanitra's and Jane's. Oh god.

"I see what you mean," she murmured, her lips closer and closer to Dawn's.

"And here too," Dawn breathed, her eyelids growing heavy now.

She took Laura's hand and slipped it under the hem of her sweatshirt, bringing it up to her bra, placing Laura's palm directly onto one of her breasts, though it was still inside the cup.

"Very round," Laura whispered, almost inaudibly, bringing her mouth closer to Dawn's, so close that they could feel each other's warm breath on their lips.

The point where their lips actually met was imperceptible, but Laura slid her tongue effortlessly between Dawn's open teeth, her hand still gently, but insistently, squeezing the full globe of Dawn's breast through the bra cup. Dawn kissed her back, but neither one rushed the other with unseemly haste. Instead, they kissed as if it were planned long ago for them to arrive at this moment, and they would take it calmly and deliberately, enjoying each micro-instant of their mouths blending, and searching, and exploring.

In the middle of the kiss, Dawn pulled back only an inch, pulling their lips apart, staring into Laura's eyes at close range.

"You can feel how round it is better if I take it off. You know, the bra."

"Would you?" Laura asked dreamily, all of a sudden wildly in love.

"Sure."

Laura extricated her hand, and Dawn pulled the sweatshirt up over her head in one fluid motion. Her bra was a simple white one, not fancy, just utilitarian, but the white cloth against her coal black skin was very alluring. Her breasts were larger than Laura's but not huge, perfectly proportioned to the rest of her body. She was a healthy, strapping girl, not a voluptuous full-figured one like Karen or Shavon, but beautifully proportioned from a classical perspective, with a narrow waist, marvelously straight clavicles, and a smooth, taut midriff.

In short, she was breathtaking, and Laura could barely control her desire. Again the charming little amused pinch at the corners of her sensual mouth lit up Dawn's face as she watched Laura's eyes kissing her body. Her own eyes sparkled with sexy mischief.

"Guess you like it so far," she said softly.

Laura gave her back the same half-smile. Her eyes came to rest in the delicious cleavage between Dawn's very dark breasts.

"I want to kiss you right there," she whispered.

"I ain't stopping you."

Dawn's eyes twinkled. Laura bent her head forward, inhaling the fresh fragrance of Dawn's half-naked body as her nose moved closer to the girl's flesh, letting her lips come to rest in the valley between Dawn's breasts. They were bigger than she had thought, not enormous but large, full, round globes, as firm as any she had ever seen, and just as black as the rest of Dawn. They were also warm and springy, and Laura kissed the bottom of the valley, then the bulging side of each breast where the bra dipped enough to reveal it.

"Oooohhh, Laura . . . you know what you're doing there," Dawn sighed softly. "That feels good."

"May I take it off?"

"Hell with that," Dawn grinned. She pulled the straps off her shoulders and peeled both bra cups down abruptly, exposing both of her perfect breasts. "Just go on and go for it."

Laura grinned up at her, filling her hands with the warm, resilient, black globes, running her thumbs over Dawn's even blacker nipples, not puffies, but big, shiny areolas and thick, nubby centers. God, if she had real puffies, I'd die of lust for sure, Laura thought, already nearly dying of it anyway, now pinching Dawn's nipples more aggressively, watching her face, watching a new intensity of sexual heat seem to spread over it and flicker in the girl's sparkling, dark eyes.

"They're so beautiful," Laura murmured. "I want to kiss them. May I kiss them?"

Dawn grinned. "I'm glad you keep asking." She pulled Laura's face up to hers with both hands. ""Look, I would really like to go on with this, you know? But I can't do it here. Robert lives here too. I just feel awful doing something like that when he lives here too. Know what I mean?"

Laura nodded. "I understand completely," she said, feeling her raging blood subside a little. "What about . . . somewhere else? My place?"

"You live far?"

Laura giggled. "Does it matter?"

Dawn grinned back. "I'm kind of hot from this. I don't want to drive to San Jose or something."

"Russian Hill. Ten minutes."

"You'll have to take me and bring me back. I don't have a car."

"It will be my pleasure."

Dawn pulled up her bra cups again very quickly and rearranged the straps on her black, gleaming shoulders. She pulled her sweatshirt back on.

"Let's go. Hope you can drive fast," she smiled devilishly at Laura. "I didn't realize it would be this much fun."

"I hate to leave all that lovely beans and rice on the stove. I was looking forward to eating it."

"I don't think that's all you were looking forward to eating," Dawn cracked, giving Laura a salacious, saucy glance.

Laura, as usual, blushed beet red.

"There you go blushing! I get such a kick out of you blushing. Hold on while I pack up the food. I got some Tupperware around here somewhere."