After the guilty pleasures of fucking secretively with Charise in the back seat of Laura's car, while Charise's younger brothers were inside the house playing Nintendo, Laura found herself wondering how she could be such a disgusting crud and female lecher. Child molester, she told herself. The girl is sixteen. And pregnant. Sure she's enchanting, and wildly sexy. And has a delicious body.

You're an adult, and you're supposed to have self-control.

Since this was unanswerable, but since she still could not stop the warm glow throughout her body and the specific tingling deep inside her pussy when she recalled their stolen moments together, she spent a few days alternating between gloomy depression and happy exhilaration. There was also a little guilt mixed in because of her feelings about Dawn, whom she could not avoid feeling she had betrayed. As if to dwell on it further, to punish herself, she called up Dawn's earlier message on her voice mail, which she had saved just to listen to it whenever she needed to hear Dawn's voice.

Hearing Dawn's voice did the trick, and the fresh guilt came flooding in. To stanch the flow, she quickly skipped to the next stored message, which happened to be Ada's. She didn't even know why she had saved it other than it was a link, the only link now, to their very exciting moments together.

"Hiiiiii, Laura. I know it's not fair for me to call you after I ran out on you like that. I hope you've forgiven me by now . . . I just got out of the shower. I couldn't help remembering . . ." Then she began to cry softly. "I . . . oh never mind . . . I shouldn't have called. I . . . wish I could erase this." Then she had hung up.

Laura had not heard from her since. Now, listening to this message again, she was almost overcome by heart pangs of an entirely different sort. She didn't know exactly how to explain them. Her feelings for Ada were not the kind of love she felt for either Dawn or Charise, but they were very intense nonetheless. Ada had not been able to truly enjoy sex until Laura had shown her how, and then she had been so scared and so troubled by her own feelings for Laura—so deep, so exciting, so unexpected, and so contrary to her strict religious upbringing—that she had seen no alternative but to quit her job and flee back to Texas.

The shock of loss had been great for Laura, but she realized that it not been as great as Ada's own realization that she could really do this wicked thing over and over with Laura and fiercely enjoy it. It had embarrassed her deeply to fall so hard and so quickly for Laura, and apparently just because Laura had given her complete, continuing affection and attention, as well as orgasms that had no equal in her life to that point. It had not helped that she was also Laura's boss at the time.

Laura turned it all over in her mind, recalling the haunted, dismayed sense of loss in Ada's voice on the phone message, which reminded her so much of the few times she had seen Ada staring out the windows of her office, looking completely forlorn and lonely. It was part of Ada's appeal to Laura, this guarded vulnerability which, when coupled with the brassy, twangy Texas foghorn voice she also had, most noticeable when she was excited or impassioned about something, made her a marvelous mixture of the sublime and the horrible. Laura exulted when making love to her, only to live in constant fear that the fiendishly awful voice would erupt at any second to destroy her bliss.

She found herself missing Ada very much, and she realized she had not even been thinking of the woman's spectacular, voluptuous body, her love goddess body, as Kendra would no doubt have called it. I'll bet there's a lot of disappointed fellas who tried to bag that preacher's daughter, Laura thought, feeling a warm tingle in her own groin as she recalled the wild orgasms she herself had shared with Ada.

But there was nothing to do but try to keep her mind off it. She spent some time in the next week with Randi, with Shavon (now unmarried and so much more available), still longing for Dawn, and brooding about Charise. One evening as she returned from work and stopped to check her mailbox in the lobby, she was surprised to find, just closing and locking the mailbox a few spaces down from her own . . . Shontay Something.

They both recognized one another at once. It had been over a week since Shontay had caught Laura inadvertently staring at her, and Laura had taken pains since then to avoid any place where they might meet. And so, at this moment, it was very difficult for her to suppress a wildly embarrassing blush.

"Say, don't you work at Transkaryotic, down at 333 Market?" Shontay asked. She snapped her fingers, trying to remember. "Laura . . . Laura something, isn't it?"

Laura broke into a grin. "Well, at least we have the same name. Laura. Laura Robbins." She extended her hand. "I always think of you as 'Shontay Something'."

Shontay smiled. She was, for the moment at least, not nearly as icy and aloof as she often appeared at work. "Shontay Gibson."

She shook Laura's hand. Laura looked down at Shontay's graceful, beautifully-shaped hand. Shontay was not dark like Dawn or Charise (or even as dark as Ada, over whom Laura had now been mooning for days) but more a rich caramel color, and her long fingers clasping Laura's hand were tapered and sinuous.

"Are you living here now?" Laura asked, now opening her own mailbox. "I mean, I've lived here for a while and never seen you before."

"Oh no," Shontay laughed and shook her head. "Apartment sitting. My parents live here. Ninth floor."

Laura's eyes widened. She had never felt so stupid. Of course. Gibson. "You're the Gibsons' daughter? They're in the apartment right above mine."

As soon as she said it, she wondered if she should have. Since Kendra and Jane had moved out and the Gibsons in, she had tried to be on her best behavior about making uncontrollable rutting noises with her girlfriends. But she knew she and Jane and probably a few others had let their guard fall a few times, and she had never known, of course, if anyone had been home in the Gibsons' apartment during those outbursts. For all she knew, they had told their daughter that a lesbian lived downstairs who was always screaming away in loud ecstasy with her various lovers.

She peered through the huge lenses of the oversized glasses that Shontay always wore, trying to see if there was some spark of recognition there. Oh, the noisy lesbian! Something like that. But she saw nothing but Shontay's light brown eyes, so pale brown that they looked almost green, very beautiful and in a way electric and alluring, though somewhat obscured by the glossy reflections glancing off the large lenses.

"What a coincidence," Shontay said, Laura thought somewhat uneasily.

Now Laura had collected her mail, and they walked slowly together toward the elevators. Though she had always found Shontay vaguely attractive, in spite of her painful thinness and her apparently very cold nature, Laura was relieved to find that she was not urgently drawn to the girl in any way and could leave well enough alone. Not such a good thing to be making a pass at your neighbor's daughter, she told herself. After all, you already did that once, with Jane. It so happens they lived in the same apartment. We will make sure history doesn't repeat itself this time.

Shontay of course helped matters by being almost wholly asexual. Today she was wearing her loose-hanging (because of her tall, bony frame) light brown business suit, in contrast to the identical black one she wore on alternate days. Once Laura had glimpsed her in an ivory-colored one, exactly the same. She seemed to have found one sexless garment and then cloned it in different drab colors until her closet was full.

Under the suit she wore a conservative white silk blouse, and around her throat a string of pearls. She had a long, exquisite neck. Actually, she looked elegant in a 'corporate' way. Today the pony tail she often wore, which seemed to soften her features and her aloofness a little, was absent, tucked up behind her head in a bun. Laura, incorrigible as ever, managed to sneak a peak at her cute little butt as they entered the elevator together and found it as wonderful as she remembered, high, jutting. She could, however, only imagine what it must really look like under the limp swaths of cloth that hid it.

Elevators made everyone uncomfortable, Laura knew. Shontay broke the silence, almost perfunctorily, gazing abstractedly up at the ceiling as she spoke.

"My mother has this cat. She's afraid it will be lonely. They're down in Mazatlan, at a conference and vacation add-on. So . . . I'm taking care of Willie, that's the cat. And staying there for a few days."

Laura was so glad, as the elevator reached the eighth floor, that she didn't feel a desperate urge to get into Shontay's pants. She's okay, but gosh is she skinny, she thought. She smiled at Shontay.

"Well, if I can be of any help, just let me know. I'll be right downstairs. You can even stamp on the floor to get my attention."

Shontay gave her a genuinely friendly grin, so friendly that Laura realized she herself must have been exaggerating the incident where she had thought Shontay had caught her staring. Maybe it had not even been noticed.

"I will. Take care."

Laura smiled as the elevator doors slid shut.

In her apartment, she promptly forgot about Shontay, feeling for once very proud of this demonstration of her self-mastery. Instead, she fell to thinking about Ada again, and Dawn. There was certainly enough emotional turmoil in her sex life to keep her occupied, and she didn't need to go falling again for that melt-the-ice-cube challenge she had already gone through with Deshona. She had not seen Deshona either for months now, and that brought her a fresh set of pains.

Reading her mail, drinking a glass of wine, watching a little of the news on TV, she lost track of time. When her phone rang, she reached for it distractedly.

"Is this Laura . . . Laura Robbins?"

She recognized Shontay's voice. "Yes. Shontay?"

"I didn't know how to spell your name. Whether it had one 'b' or two."

"Yes, it's me. Is something wrong?"

"Oh no. I was just . . . fixing something to eat. The idea of eating it all alone . . . or just with Willie . . . didn't seem too hot. I wondered if you wanted to come up and eat dinner here. You know, it's kind of lonely in this big old apartment."

Laura felt a tiny acceleration of the pulse in her neck. She had done her best not to think about Shontay in a sexual way, which was not hard since Shontay wasn't very attractive. Too skinny and remote. But now she could easily recognize a hot, feathery little excitement in her body that meant her interest was awakening. Could she turn the invitation down?

"I . . . haven't eaten yet. I guess I could," she heard herself saying.

"Good," Shontay sounded relieved. "I'll see you in a few seconds."

"Are we 'dressing' for dinner?" Laura joked, suddenly wondering if that sounded too risqué.

"Wear what you've got on. Willie won't care, and I won't notice."

"Be right there."

Laura went to the mirror and combed her hair and washed her face, so that she would appear more fresh and vibrant, feeling a little end-of-day fatigue. She blinked and scrutinized her eyes. Do I look like a sexual predator? she wondered. Well, I won't be. This is just a friendly dinner.

She tried on several causal smiles, then, dissatisfied with any of them, resolved to be warm, relaxed, and . . . what? Neighborly. At the last minute, before going out the door, she decided to bring along a bottle of wine.

Upstairs Shontay met her at the door, holding Willie in her arms. Willie was a white Persian, with startling pale blue eyes. She had changed out of the severe business suit and was now wearing black jeans and a faded red sweatshirt. She had removed the pearl necklace from her exquisite neck, too. Most noticeable to Laura, however, was the fact that Shontay's hair, always so primly combed and pulled back tightly, was now loose around her face, falling nearly to her shoulders.

Laura held out the wine. "My little contribution."

Shontay smiled, closing the door behind them. "Let's go see if we can find a corkscrew. My Mom and Dad don't drink." She raised her eyebrows sarcastically. "Their only vice is overwork."

They could not find one, and Laura had to go back downstairs to get one of hers. When she returned, they shared a glass of wine and sat by the window. The view was identical to Laura's but somehow seemed fresh, since the furniture was different, and she suddenly felt herself being attracted to Shontay in a way that she had not been before. She felt it even more so when Shontay removed her glasses, placing the huge frames and lenses on a nearby lamp table and revealing a face that now seemed smaller, more proportional to the rest of her body, and very lovely, though still in a cold, remote way.

But now Laura could see her eyes better. They were light brown, almost green, and made her stare somehow electric and unusual.

"Why are you looking at me that way?" she asked Laura.

"Your eyes, I guess. I . . . don't think I noticed them, really, until you took off your glasses. They're stunning."

Shontay looked annoyed. "You think so? Maybe that's why I wear the glasses all the time."

"You don't like having beautiful eyes?"

Shontay gave her a curt smile. "They're odd. That's all. Big deal. How long have you been working at Transkaryotic?"

"About five years now."

"How can you stand it?"

Laura was mildly startled. Shontay was a newcomer to the company, but—as gossips had nastily asserted—she was only about twenty-five and had been hired in as a Director. It had taken Laura over four years to be made Director. Shontay was smart, attractive, aggressive, completely in charge, and could look forward to a very rewarding career.

She saw Laura's puzzlement.

"I mean, there's so much politics . . . so much devious political maneuvering. Don't you find it suffocating?"

This was always dangerous territory, talking with someone you barely knew about job politics.

"Oh, I guess I just wiggle my way through the sharks with a little smile that says 'Don't eat me, please'," Laura laughed uncomfortably.

"Do you mind if I smoke?" Shontay asked abruptly. "I mean, I'm not supposed to in their place, but if I air it out before they get back, maybe they won't know."

Laura smiled. "I don't mind. It's your neck, not mine. Your parents too."

Shontay crossed the room to her purse and took out a pack of cigarettes. Laura could not help letting her eyes linger on the girl's long legs and pretty ass, so much more apparent now that she was wearing jeans that fit her more tightly than the limp business suit pants had. Again she marveled at how tall Shontay was. She was skinny-shanked, long, and lithe, but her curvaceous little rump stuck out when she walked.

After a brief trip to the kitchen for a saucer to use as an ashtray, Shontay returned and lit a cigarette with a brief, brusque, almost angry flourish. She was very angular and intense, Laura noticed. In fact, Laura had noticed it before, though only from a distance, and it had been one of the things that put her off. Now it only made her uncomfortable and wary.

"They hate it that I smoke," Shontay said, exhaling two long streams of smoke from her nostrils. "Anyway, I've only been there a few months, but I could sure tell you some of the sharks to avoid. Like that imperious bitch Rhonda Reardon for one." She looked at Laura for a reaction. "Maybe I shouldn't say anything," she said, looking away, taking a deep drag. "You and she are probably friends."

Laura was amused. "Did you have a little run-in with dear Rhonda?"

"What a cunt! Excuse me, I did it again."

"She and I are hardly friends," Laura said, delighted to have a way to ingratiate herself at Rhonda's expense. "She is a little hard to take sometimes."

If you only knew, darling Shontay, how she probably goes home at night and just dreams of pushing her face up between your long, skinny thighs.

Shontay scowled. It was clear that just the thought of Rhonda about ruined her evening. That's fine, Laura thought, since I feel the same way. Let's change the subject.

They talked for a while about other things, but Shontay continued to be tense and sharp and her conversation full of treacherous angles that Laura preferred to avoid. After one glass of wine, they went to the kitchen, where Laura helped her make a salad. It was a small kitchen, identical to Laura's downstairs, and Laura was used to maneuvering around in it, but Shontay was not. While Laura was leaning down to replace something in the refrigerator, Shontay passed behind her, and when Laura stood, they collided.

"Oh shit!" Shontay said, dropping the knife she had been holding. "Look out!"

The tip of the knife grazed the knee of Laura's pants but did not cut through the cloth. The knife clattered to the floor. They both watched it, and when they looked up found themselves staring into each other's eyes, their faces very close, Shontay's hand on Laura's shoulder, and Laura's on Shontay's hip. For a moment it was as if they were caught in a freeze-frame, not moving, not breathing.

"Did it get you?" Shontay murmured the question.

"No," Laura murmured back.

Their eyes were locked. This girl is lovely, Laura found herself thinking, enchanted by the unusual soft billowing of hair around Shontay's face. She let her eyes drop to Shontay's mouth, which she purposely had not examined closely until now. Shontay's lips were full and curved and sensual. I want to kiss them, Laura thought.

She looked back up into Shontay's mysterious pale brown eyes, hoping to see a warning there. You'd better not try it, something like that. But Shontay seemed paralyzed too.

Usually Laura had good self-control, but now she was unable to stop herself from leaning her head just a few inches more forward, tilting her face up—since Shontay was a good two inches taller than she—until her own lips brushed Shontay's. She moved her mouth slowly back and forth, letting their lips brush but not actually kissing the girl. Shontay did not move. Then she said,

"What are you doing?"

She did not raise her voice, but her stare did not flinch either. Laura stared back, trying to equal the steely force in Shontay's mesmerizing eyes. But it was very hard to control her anxiety at having made a huge mistake.

"I . . . don't know," she said, her outward calm concealing a wild turbulence inside. She pulled her head back. "I just . . . wanted to. Something about you just made me want to."

Shontay had not smiled throughout the encounter. She still did not smile. Her face was cold and suspicious. Finally, she seemed to relax a little, dropping her shoulders, which neither of them had realized were elevated until she lowered them. Laura realized that she too was tense and tried to relax.

Shontay bent down to pick up the knife. "So . . . you like girls?"

Laura's eyes were on the knife. Shontay saw her looking at it. A large, uncontrollable grin spread over her face.

She lay the knife down on the butcher block table next to them. "Don't worry," she half-laughed, "it's safe to tell me. Nothing worth killing over."

Laura played nervously with her fingers, smiling back now. "I'm sorry. I apologize. Something about the moment . . . I was looking into those wonderful eyes of yours . . . and we were so close . . . I could smell your perfume . . . I just gave in to the impulse."

A flicker of amusement and pleasure now began to dance in Shontay's eyes. She, like anyone, enjoyed being praised, enjoyed the thought that something about her had been irresistible to Laura. But she felt the need to taunt Laura further.

"You didn't answer my question."

Laura could see the steel flashing again. "Now I see why they made you a director when you were hired."

"Well, it wasn't any affirmative action bullshit, if that's what you're implying," Shontay snapped.

Laura was floored. "I wasn't implying anything. I think you're very . . . self-possessed."

She turned and walked out of the kitchen. You and Rhonda would be a good match, she thought, trying to get control of her feelings. Two of a kind.

Momentarily, but not immediately, Shontay followed her. She seemed conciliatory. Laura was gazing out the window at the view, the same one she could see from her own apartment. She acted as if she were alone when Shontay joined her there.

They both looked at the view, silently. They could hear one another's breathing.

"You don't have to answer it," Shontay finally said, softly.

Laura turned to her. "I . . . just wanted to do it," she repeated. "I couldn't help it. I can go now, if you like."

Shontay looked down, embarrassed, and Laura suddenly realized that the girl had been excited by the brushing of their lips, and she didn't want Laura to go but didn't know how to say otherwise.

"I . . . I can't eat all that salad myself," she half-whispered. "It'll just get rotten. Willie doesn't eat salad." She grinned.

Suddenly, and for the first time, Laura felt an overpowering lust for Shontay, a true, hot, physical craving for her body, painfully skinny though it might be. She wanted to enfold the girl, and break through the ice shield into the quivering vulnerability inside. If I stay, Laura thought, I won't be able to ignore this feeling. Better to let it all out at once, better to risk it now than later.

"I want to do that again. What we did in the kitchen," she said softly, boldly, letting her eyes dive deep into Shontay's pale brown miracles.

Shontay shook her head every so slightly. "I don't think so."

"Why not?"

Now Shontay's embarrassed look became even more acute. She realized it and turned away from Laura, even moving a few steps back from the window.

"I just . . . don't go for it is all. I just don't do that. With men either. It's just not my thing."

Laura pursued her. She felt that she had no choice, and she moved a few more steps toward Shontay. Finally she was as close to her as they had been by the window. Laura reached out and caressed her smooth light brown cheek.

"Your skin is so smooth," she whispered.

She let her finger move around to Shontay's mouth, turning it so that the knuckle slid tenderly across the girl's sensual lips. Shontay seemed hypnotized by this tenderness, which was exactly Laura's intent. She could almost feel the yearning inside the girl, fighting to get out of the ice cage that entrapped it.

Abruptly, Shontay turned her head away, then turned her whole body and walked away without a word, returning to the kitchen. Laura did not follow her. She needs to be alone with those feelings for a minute, she reasoned. Whatever they are. Laura found Willie and began stroking him, making friends. Willie purred like a love-starved tractor and rubbed the side of his head violently against Laura's hand.

After a few minutes had passed, she went into the kitchen. It was remarkable how not talking, not facing one another for a brief interval could alter the mood again. Shontay was brisk and indifferent, as if Laura had never brushed her lips with her own. Laura fell right into the mood and picked up the salad bowl, moving it to the small dining table on the other side of the counter top.

"Another glass of wine?" she asked.

Shontay smiled. It was a very different smile from any she had given Laura before, somehow more intimate, warmer. We kissed, Laura thought. It was only a little brush of the lips, but she knows we kissed. That's what she's smiling about.

She poured each of them another glass of wine. Shontay had still not moved from the kitchen toward the table. Laura waited. Shontay turned and looked at her.

"You really want to do that again?" she asked, so softly that Laura almost could not hear her.

Laura's heart fluttered. Yes!

She walked calmly around the counter and back into the kitchen. "Yes," she whispered, looking dreamily up into the electrifying pale brown eyes. "But you're so tall . . . you'll have to stoop down a little."

"I don't mind that," Shontay whispered back. "No touching, though."

"No touching," Laura shook her head.

Their eyes were locked in a pulsing connection as they brought their faces close, then closer. Shontay bent her head down slightly. Their lips brushed again, as before. As promised, Laura kept her hands at her sides, letting her lips express everything she felt. First she lightly brushed Shontay's with them as before.

Their eyes were still open, still looking at each other, though too close to really see anything but skin and facial contours. Laura could almost taste Shontay's sweet, moist breath. Shontay did little but let Laura's lips caress hers. She didn't move or blink.

Laura slowly pressed closer. She pressed her lips into Shontay's marvelously sensual mouth, tilting her head to let them curve naturally into the receptive curvature of Shontay's own lips, finally feeling a slow awakening, a responsive movement in Shontay's mouth against hers. Now they were really kissing, not flirting with it, and Laura saw Shontay's eyelids fall, feeling an almost palpable warmth that had not been there before begin to radiate between their bodies, which were still separated by about six inches.

Moved and aroused by this warmth, and by Shontay's pliant, yielding mouth, Laura barely realized that she had raised her hand and let her fingertips run very gently across Shontay's cheek. But Shontay opened her eyes.

"No touching," she said softly. "You promised."

Laura dropped her hand. "You're right. I did. I forgot."

Now they had broken off the kiss and needed to start it again. Shontay looked at Laura, unwilling to resume it herself. Laura smiled and moved her mouth back into the position it had occupied when Shontay had spoken, now for the first time flicking just the tip of her tongue into the crease formed by Shontay's closed lips. Surprisingly, Shontay parted them a little, not enough to let Laura's tongue slip inside, but enough to encourage her.

Ever patient, her hot blood beginning to surge through her body, Laura teased Shontay's half-parted lips with the tip of her tongue, expressively moving her mouth against them too. She tried to communicate telepathically with the girl, beaming her feelings at Shontay, reassuring her, verbally caressing her too, but silently. I think you are so lovely, Shontay . . . so much lovelier than I had thought . . . so soft and luminous now with your hair down around your face . . . so afraid of a little warmth and so scared of your feelings. I would just love to kiss every bit of you . . . all of your long, smooth body. Wouldn't you like me to do that? Wouldn't you like me, for example, to kiss you between your thighs? Wouldn't you like me to kiss that pretty little bottom of yours? Would you let me? I could make you feel so good.

This kiss had now gone on quite a while, and Laura marveled that neither of them grew impatient enough to push it further, or in Shontay's case, perhaps, to break it off. She likes it, Laura realized. She pushed a little harder with her tongue, trying to get it inside Shontay's mouth. Almost imperceptibly, Shontay's full lips parted more, then even more, and soon Laura's tongue was sliding in past her teeth.

This was a penetration of sorts, and both of them knew it. Laura could even feel a faint, very faint shudder in Shontay as she felt Laura's tongue enter her mouth. Her own tongue did not meet Laura's. Passive and yielding, she did nothing to stop Laura's probing tongue, though Laura could feel her breathing accelerate.

After about half a minute, Shontay slowly pulled back, breaking off the kiss. She was breathing more heavily, her eyes slightly glassy. She gave Laura a tight, nervous smile.

"I liked that," Laura breathed, smiling back. "Let's sit down and do some more of it."

Without nodding or making any other sign of assent, Shontay walked slowly into the living room, with Laura following. They sat down together on the sofa. Now Shontay's mysterious pale brown eyes were glowing, throbbing, dreamy.

Laura raised a tentative hand, as if to caress her smooth cheek again. "Still no touching?" she asked.

Shontay shook her head. "No touching," she croaked softly, betraying a physical excitement Laura knew she was trying to conceal.

Laura shrugged and smiled. "Okay."

As long as I can kiss you, I'll agree not to touch you. Laura leaned close, but this time before pressing her mouth into Shontay's, she let her lips skim the side of her cheek, then slid them down her jaw to her long, brown, swan's neck, so smooth and flawless. Laura kissed the delectable smooth column slowly, with great tenderness, down to the beautiful curved shallow indentation of Shontay's throat, then back up under her chin, until her lips again arrived at Shontay's mouth.

Now when they kissed again, even Shontay was more excited. She mingled her half-open lips with Laura's more ardently than before, letting Laura's tongue inside more quickly this time, even meeting it with her own. It became very hard for Laura to kiss her but not touch her.

"Can I touch you?" she panted softly.

"No," Shontay shook her head.

"Why?"

Laura kissed her neck again, the other side, waiting for an answer. Shontay was panting now, too. But she shook her head again with determination.

"I gave this up," she responded, after a moment's pause. "I mean, you know, sex."

She pulled back to look at Laura. Her eyes showed her sexual excitement, but her mouth was now pinched and cold and grim, the way Laura had often seen it at work. She looked exasperated, as if there were no way to get out of owing Laura an explanation, since they had gone at least this far.

"I never . . . liked it." She looked away, out the window. "So I quit. I've been happier since I gave it up."

Laura said nothing. She didn't know what to say. Shontay looked back to see Laura's puzzled, sympathetic expression.

"Never like this, of course. I never kissed a girl . . . until you. But guys, yes. A few. I'm so tall . . . a lot of them won't say 'boo' to me. But I did it . . . with a few tall guys. I never . . . really had a climax with any of them. And they were jerks. So I figured, why keep it up? I can be fine without it."

She gave Laura a tight smile.

"You never came at all?"

Shontay shook her head. "By myself . . ." her voice trailed off.

"By yourself you can?" Laura asked gently, trying not to be too pushy.

Shontay nodded.

Laura shrugged. "I love kissing you," she confessed softly. "We don't have to do anything else. You like it, don't you?"

Shontay grinned, embarrassed. She nodded. "I do."

"Let's do some more."

"Okay."

They had another long, expressive, exploratory kiss. Shontay allowed herself to get deeper into it this time, coiling tongues with Laura, kissing back. While they were kissing, Laura got an idea. She didn't spring it on Shontay immediately, being too overjoyed at this moving kiss, and Shontay's growing warmth. But when they stopped, she kissed Shontay's ear, her earlobe, her neck again, giving her the excited shivers.

"Ooohhhh . . . you're tickling me," she giggled.

"I have an idea. If you don't like it, just say so and we'll drop it." Laura smiled. "I'm enjoying this too much to stop it if you don't like my idea."

"What is it?"

Laura blushed a little even to say it. Her face suffused with rosey tinges, but her embarrassment seemed to charm Shontay, who leaned closer, as if to encourage her.

"Why don't we just lie down together and each do it ourselves? And we could kiss . . . we wouldn't have to touch any more than that. I'd really like to do it with you that way. I mean, it's not really like we're doing it. Just kissing, you know, while we do it alone."

This was very perverse reasoning, but Laura thought Shontay might be excited, and titillated, enough to swallow it. She might want to go through with it if Laura made it sound tempting enough. But Shontay just kept staring at her, as if in disbelief.

"How about it?" Laura prompted, losing hope quickly.

Shontay shook her head. "I gave it up," she said again, softly. "It's nothing against you. I . . . even like you."

She said it as if she could not understand why. Laura, in spite of the prohibition, again ran a fingertip along her cheek to her lips.

"May I keep kissing you?"

Shontay gave her the curt smile again. "Maybe we'd better not."

"One last kiss?"

Shontay tilted her head. Again her pleasure at being so sexually attractive to Laura was transparently obvious. She nodded.

This time their kiss, though it began slowly, became even hotter than the last one. Shontay was sending Laura very mixed messages. Not content to offer her open mouth to Laura, now she slid her own tongue back into Laura's mouth too, her lips searching, her tongue probing, her warm yearning very clear. It was an agony for Laura not to touch her as their mouths entangled in a hungry, aggressive kiss, hungrier by the moment.

Finally, they had to break it off before they incinerated one another. Both were half-dazed by the intensity of it. Shontay looked at Laura oddly, as she had before in the kitchen.

"You really want to do that?"

Laura smiled and nodded slowly. "I think I would come in only a few seconds if I were kissing you," she whispered, her eyes smoking with meaning.

"I . . . guess we could try it," Shontay said, tentatively.

Laura reached out and took her hand. Somehow it seemed to her as if they were moving under water as they slowly rose together from the sofa and walked in slow motion, still holding hands, toward the bedroom. Since the floor plan of this apartment was identical to Laura's own, she could have found the bedroom in her sleep, and indeed it did seem as if she and Shontay were sleepwalking as they floated, glided, and sailed airily down the short hallway.

Only as they went through the doorway did Laura realize—and she knew Shontay did, too—that they were going to undergo this potentially marvelous experience in the bed of Shontay's parents. The bedroom, so familiar in its contours, felt at the same time very alien to Laura since it was furnished in a completely different taste, with golden draperies and French baroque furniture.

Fortunately, she and Shontay were still at least half-sunk in the sleepwalking mode, and together they peeled back the bedspread from the queen-sized bed, then turned on the small lamps on each bedstand. It was all so neat and clean and somehow elegant, and Laura could feel sexual excitement trembling deep inside her belly as she looked up to see Shontay's pale brown eyes glimmering and shiny, full of fascination mingled with a sexual allure that she probably didn't even know was there.

Laura went around to the other side of the bed and took her hand again. She encouraged Shontay to sit down on the edge of it with her, knowing how uncomfortable she must be, and knowing that they just couldn't stand there across from one another in Shontay's mother's bedroom and start stripping off their clothes.

"Lie back with me here and give me another kiss," she murmured, gently pulling Shontay down on the bed, face to face with her. "No touching," she added, partly as a little wry joke between them, which, Laura could see from the twinkle of her eye, Shontay caught.

They kissed, much more seriously now that they were lying together on a bed, where something definitely would happen. When they finally stopped, Shontay for the first time lifted her own hand to Laura's face and touched Laura's lips with her fingertip.

"How does it feel to have all that hair?" she asked, softly.

Laura had begun to unbutton the front of her own shirt, and she paused, sitting up, shaking her hair self-consciously. She remembered how, long ago, Vanessa had asked her the same question.

"Feels like I'm a lioness," she purred. "And I'm about to eat you alive."

"Lionesses don't have manes," Shontay smiled. "The males do."

Laura smiled back at her, a little suggestively. "Would you rather I were one of them?" Laura said, finally undoing the last button.

Her shirt came open, revealing her black lace bra, cut low on her breasts, a very enticing one. She had not put it on specially for this but had worn it to work and just not removed it yet. But Shontay's eyes went to it immediately.

"No . . . " she shook her head.

Slowly, realizing this was a bargain, she began to pull her own faded red sweatshirt up over her head. Laura watched her smooth, rich, creamy caramel skin come into view, her lean stomach and waist, the nicely-defined cambers of her ribcage as she lifted the sweatshirt over her head and patted her hair back down. She wore a simple white bra, but Laura was delightfully surprised to see that it contained actual breasts, small but definitely there, round and bulging.

From looking at Shontay fully-clothed, you would have to guess that she was flat-chested, but actually she even had cleavage, and though very thin and a little bony, as Laura had expected, she was well-formed. The bones of her shoulders and her clavicles did not protrude in awkward angles but were sculptured and fine, and Laura realized that, though it might be a matter of taste, this thin, starved-model look was not totally without appeal. Shontay in only her bra was very lovely.

She also appeared more vulnerable to Laura than ever. Gone was the abrupt, sharp sarcasm and dour wit, even the aloof, remote scorn that was so apparent in her manner at work, and, even though she had moderated it, in her bearing when she had met Laura down at the mailboxes in the lobby. It was hard to be imperious and distant when you were in your underwear, about to share an intimate physical moment with someone you had never imagined you would do this with only an hour ago.

Laura smiled warmly at her. She unzipped her own jeans and began to slip out of them. As if hypnotized and only following the leader, Shontay began to do the same with her black jeans. Laura could not keep her eyes away from Shontay's long, skinny legs coming into view as the girl pulled her jeans down. She saw Laura's eyes on them and became self-conscious.

"My legs are pretty skinny," she apologized.

They were pretty skinny, Laura had to agree, and immensely long, but Laura found them very attractive, not really sticks of bone, as she had anticipated, but thin and shapely and smooth, with a glowing, almost mahogany sheen that made her want to press her lips to Shontay's shins, and her supple calves, and her elongated but satiny thighs. Oh god, I want to fuck you more than ever now, Laura thought, letting her eyes communicate it to Shontay since their eyes frequently locked and throbbed together.

"I think they're beautiful," Laura murmured. "If it weren't for 'no touching,' I would kiss them."

"You would?"

"Yes."

Now they both wore only their panties and their bras. Using both hands, Laura lifted her hair off her back, then turned it to Shontay.

"You help me . . . then I'll help you."

Shontay obediently unfastened Laura's bra. Laura slid the straps off her arms. She turned back, seeing Shontay's eyes fall to her naked breasts, then rise again quickly, as if she were unwilling to let Laura see that she was interested.

"Now you," Laura prompted softly.

Shontay looked at her, expressionless. After this garment was gone, there would be only one more apiece. Then they would be naked. Laura wondered if Shontay were having misgivings. On the other hand, when you had gone this far, it was hard to go back.

A small, ambiguous smile tugged up only one corner of Shontay's mouth. Her hair did not fall far enough to obscure her bra clasp, and so she merely turned her back to Laura and waited. It was an enchanting back, which Laura had not really seen until now. It was long, incredibly long, smooth, a rich, warm brown in color. I could spend a year just kissing this back, Laura realized as she slowly unfastened Sontay's bra. And she won't let me touch it.

Impetuously, she asked, in a soft, sultry murmur, trying not to seem too seductive. "Shontay . . . you have such a beautiful back. Are you sure I can't just touch it . . . or kiss it . . . just for a second?"

Shontay grinned back over her shoulder, as if she had known that once Laura had seen her back it would be endless love. Of course, Laura reflected, one rarely knew how beautiful one's back actually was, if indeed it was. Instead, Shontay was giving in to a coquettish impulse, of all things.

"You know the rules," Shontay said, eyes flashing with mischief.

Laura's face collapsed in disappointment. Shontay turned to her, slowly removing her own limp bra now. A subtle shift had taken place in her mood. She seemed delighted that Laura was so captivated by her body and was well aware that if Laura liked her legs and her back, she had a more surprising treat coming.

Shontay's small breasts were exquisite little round balls of firm flesh, not mere swellings, as Laura had expected, having slept with Jonelle, who had been surely as skinny as Shontay when they had first been together. They were small enough so that when she wore a silk blouse under a business suit, her chest appeared completely flat, but actually they were the size of tea cups, almost perfectly round, with soft, dark brown nipples the size of quarters, a slightly deeper shade of caramel from the rest of her lovely long body.

Laura was overcome by a craving to hold them, to kiss them, to suck them hungrily and make love to them painstakingly. And she knew Shontay could see it. Her expression said: I knew you'd like these. See what I mean? It always surprises people that I've got these little gems.

"God, they're beautiful," Laura said in a whisper.

Shontay looked down at her own naked breasts, feigning interest, as if her attention had been called to them for the first time. "You think so?"

Laura nodded.

"I wish I had bigger ones . . . like yours."

Laura could not suppress a giggle. It was rare that her breasts were bigger than anybody's. "Would it be 'touching' if we just . . . sort of, you know . . . pushed them together for a second? Just to see what it feels like?"

Shontay gave her another prim but coquettish smile. "I think we better stick to the rules."

But this time Laura could sense that Shontay now had acknowledged that this was a sort of game, and the outcome was still uncertain. Laura was willing to play along. Again she drew Shontay down beside her, face to face. They were still both wearing their panties.

"I want to kiss you again before we go on," she whispered.

Shontay smiled slowly. "I want you to know I'm really enjoying this," she half-breathed, very softly, almost inaudibly, as if hoping neither one of them would hear it.

"Good. Me too. I especially like kissing you. Your mouth is . . . so warm, so sweet. I love it."

Shontay squinted. "I kind of like yours too."

They kissed, very tenderly now. Again it was agony for Laura not to touch her. Shontay's tongue entered Laura's mouth this time before Laura had a chance to be first, and it made Laura's heart flutter all over again. She realized that she was very wet and wondered if Shontay was too. How could she not be? Laura thought. God, this is so exciting.

"You know, honey," she panted against Shontay's half-open lips, "if we don't get on with it, I think I'm going to come just from this."

Again Shontay was curious. "Really?"

Laura nodded. "I'm pretty wet. Aren't you?"

Shontay nodded. "Yes. Let's do it."

They disengaged their lips and slowly pulled their panties down and off. Their eyes never unlocked, and they could hear every rustle, every creak of the bed springs, every soft hiss of their naked skin sliding against the sheet, as they each slowly skimmed their panties down their legs and kicked them free of their ankles. Now they were completely naked, facing one another side by side on the bed, their mouths just inches apart.

Laura reached down with one hand to her crotch, parting her thighs, feeling the moisture in her pubic patch, the overflow from a wildly aroused cunt, which was throbbing and pulsing madly. Not wanting to be too obvious, she tried not to look directly as Shontay's hand descended too. Instead, she pushed her head forward again until her lips met Shontay's.

"Kiss me . . . Shontay," she breathed.

"Yes," Shontay sighed.

She bit her lower lip, and her eyes rolled up as she touched herself. Laura slid two fingers into the warm, buttery folds of her own pussy, feeling her whole body stream and glow with fire. Imperceptibly, almost as if they were sharing a dream, Laura could feel the whole atmosphere change as the two of them actually began to masturbate, slowly at first, but, in Laura's case, quickly accelerating. She wanted to go slowly, to give things a chance to develop, but as her tongue intermingled with Shontay's, and their hot, rapid breath filled the air around their searching mouths, she found herself rubbing her wet pussy more and more frantically, unable to stop herself from hurtling toward a thrilling climax.

"Oh!" she heard her own voice, softly gasping. "Oh! Oh . . . yes!"

Shontay's eyes rolled up again. Laura let her gaze travel down the girl's long, smooth, light-brown body. They stopped at Shontay's beautiful little breasts, the size of tea cups, jiggling and bouncing slightly now as she swirled her hand in her crotch, her deep caramel brown nipples winking out at Laura from behind Shontay's elbow or forearm as her arm moved. Oh god, I want her! Laura thought in a rush of desperate lust.

"Ummmm! Unnhhh!" Shontay groaned softly. "Laura . . ."

"Yes . . . yes, honey," Laura panted. "Oh, it's so good to do this with you. Kiss me!"

"Unhhh! Ohhhh!"

They writhed and squirmed, only inches from touching, their mouths moving hungrily together, their tongues dancing and stabbing more passionately now, their panting quickly modulating into an uncontrollable mewling as they both became more and more aroused. Breaking the rules, but almost without knowing it, Laura raised her free hand to Shontay's cheek, brushing back the black filaments of her soft hair and letting her fingertips graze the perfect, smooth skin.

"I want you . . . I want you," she panted, kissing Shontay more aggressively now, unable to hold herself back.

Shontay's pale brown eyes were now streaked by fierce sexual need, an expression Laura had never seen there before. She began to respond to Laura's feverish kissing more heatedly, opening her mouth wider, pushing her tongue further into Laura's mouth, whimpering now, writhing and shaking, moving her own hand faster, as Laura could tell from the way her elbow jumped and rotated.

"Oh . . . Jesus!" Shontay gasped, her eyelids fluttering.

"Shontay . . . I want you, I've got to touch you!" Laura panted. "You are so beautiful. Let me touch you . . . please!"

Shontay's eyes fluttered open, glassy, burning with sexual fever, telegraphing a message to Laura that all resistance was fading fast, that she was sinking and would not try to prevent anything Laura decided to do. Laura pressed her advantage quickly, not knowing how long it would be until either, or both, of them came. She pushed her face into Shontay's long, smooth neck, kissing and sucking it hungrily, nibbling the lobe of her ear.

"I want to lick your pussy," she whispered hotly, breathing into Shontay's ear while gently pushing her onto her back. "I want your beautiful pussy . . . let me have your beautiful pussy . . . please . . . please, Shontay."

"Oh Laura . . ."

By now Laura had slipped down to her wonderful little breasts, so perfectly round and firm, and was licking her thick caramel nipples, feeling them grow taut under her tongue, digging her fingers excitedly into the pretty round balls.

"I want to suck you," she panted, teasing Shontay's stiffening, saliva-wet nipples with the tip of her tongue, bringing hot little mewls of sexual delight from deep in the girl's throat.

"Oh Laura . . . please . . . ohhhh!" Shontay sighed, almost inaudibly.

Now, feeling Shontay yield to her caresses, Laura unleashed the full force of her passion, which she had been holding tightly in check for so long. She sucked one delectable, shiny, wet dark brown nipple into her mouth, trying to be gentle, not wanting to alarm Shontay by the full heat of her need, but unable to hold it all back. She sucked the thick, pulpy bud and pinched Shontay's other nipple with her fingers, sucking harder, until she could hear a reaction, a sharp, clotted intake of breath that told her she was on the right track. Shontay's body also clenched spasmodically, suddenly.

"Unhh!" she half-choked. "Oh . . . yes! Unhh!"

Laura was unrelenting. She switched to Shontay's other nipple, now twirling and pinching the wet, erect one with her fingers, devouring the second one with her mouth, sucking it hard, pinching it too with her lips. It was almost as if Laura, being so surprised and thrilled to find these marvelous little breasts where she expected nothing but a flat expanse of skin stretched over hard bone, was intent on sucking the beauties right down her throat.

But Shontay's reaction was not dismay; instead, having her nipples voraciously sucked by Laura in this way seemed to ignite whatever kindling in her body that was not yet burning. She keened and whimpered, rolling and surging and writhing and squirming wildly now under Laura, totally consumed by sexual needs Laura would never have guessed were there.

"Oh yes . . . oh yes!" she gasped, her eyelids fluttering open to watch as Laura squeezed and mouth-mauled her pretty little breasts, her head falling back to the mattress as Laura began quickly to descend lower, afraid that Shontay might even come before she had a chance to kiss her sweet pussy.

Shontay's body was long. Her legs were amazingly long, but her torso was long too, and Laura wanted to spend days just kissing the smooth, sleek, light-brown stretch of her lovely long stomach, so sleek and firm, her ribs a little more defined than most since she was so skinny, her hip bones protruding more, her belly shallower. But Laura was also in a hurry, and she had to resign herself. Save it for later. I want her pussy, and I can smell it.

Shontay was so aroused that the thick, pungent odors of her excited pussy had begun to reach Laura's nose even as she had her mouth stuffed with the girl's delectable caramel nipples, and now, as she descended, the sweet, heady smells grew even thicker, and more erotic. Slipping between the girl's long, thin thighs, she came face to face with the small, gaping, swollen cleft of Shontay's open cunt.

Shontay had a small one, not long and sinuous like the rest of her body, but a modest little aperture, all runny and inviting with juices, the black inner lips puckered and protruding beyond the home provided by the outer folds, the inside a flaming, glistening magenta hole that beckoned Laura's tongue.

"Oh god, honey, it's so pretty," she murmured, spreading away with her thumbs the fibers of moist pubic hair that would get in the way of her tongue-rape.

"Ohhhnnn!" Shontay moaned, looking down her long body at Laura again.

Laura, peeking up over her black-fringed pubic bone, smiled warmly at her. "Are you going to come?" she whispered in a sultry whisper. "I'll bet I can make you come."

Though completely overpowered by sublimely urgent sexual needs, Shontay managed a frightened nod, like an entrapped deer, as if she had never come close to this feeling before. And of course, maybe she hadn't, Laura thought. Didn't she say she never came except by herself? Then this is completely new to her.

For some reason, this excited Laura further. It was like fucking a beautiful virgin, one who had thrown up every resistance she could think of but had been finally overcome by sheer dogged adoration and persistence, and the thrill was indescribable. Her thumbs, having spread away the stray hair, found the little hood at the top of Shontay's oozing pussy and pulled the skin back a little on each side, exposing the tiny nubbin of her clit.

It was really quite small, though proportional to the rest of her lovely small pussy, and Laura extended her tongue, touching the tip of it tenderly against the sensitive bud.

"Ungghhhh!" Shontay suddenly groaned, her head falling back again, and the lower part of her body quivering as unbearably sweet sensations shot through her. "Oh god!"

Laura was now in ninth heaven. "Does that feel good? Ummmm. Does that feel good, honey? How about this?"

Now she began licking Shontay's wet, inflamed pussy slowly and sensually, and since it was so small, it was no trouble for Laura to cover the entire slick, magenta blossom with nearly every stroke of her tongue.

"Unh! Ohnnn! Oh god . . . yes! Laura . . ." Shontay gasped, again holding her head up for a second, as if she could see what Laura was doing to her pussy.

"Oh . . . you are going to come so hard," Laura purred, now massaging the flesh on each side of Shontay's pussy as she licked it, again using her thumbs to pull back the small hood, now tongue-flicking the tiny nubbin of Shontay's clit repeatedly, hearing the high, semi-hysterical whimpering that fought its way out of Shontay's throat.

Shontay was closer now than ever, but still she did not seem to have reached the point of no return. Laura had to concede that it was true, she probably was not an easy comer. God, I would have come about three times by now, she thought. I couldn't take much more of this.

But Shontay was quivering, moaning, twisting, looking down at Laura between her thighs, then letting her head flop back to the mattress, groaning, now undulating her hips in slow, rhythmic fuck motions. Laura knew she could bring her there, but it was a delicious challenge nonetheless. Thinking maybe a little penetration would help, she slid one long forefinger up into the warm, greasy channel of Shontay's cunt, twisting it and tonguing Shontay's swollen clit at the same time.

This seemed to ring Shontay's chimes, and the sexual tension she was feeling immediately seemed to jump up a notch. Her lovely long body flexed, writhing more violently, and the high-pitched, semi-hysterical moaning that seemed half-strangled in her throat became more desperate.

"Hhnnneeee . . . hnnneeee!" she gurgled, now digging her sharp elbows into the mattress and arching her back, quivering so wildly that her wonderful little breasts jiggled and rolled, making Laura want to mouth-maul them again, even though she was heavily involved in her present task. "Hhhnnnneeeee . . . oh god . . . oh god!" Shontay gasped, churning desperately.

"Oh baby . . . oh baby!" Laura purred back to her, redoubling her loving passion.

You are going to come, you are. I'm going to make you come, I know I can do it.

But Shontay seemed to have reached the breaking point. Her body was so tense, so raw and knotted with unreleased sexual frenzy, that she was shaking uncontrollably, cawing and gurgling in the grip of a frantic desperation, hungering so urgently for an orgasm that tears were actually leaking from the corners of her eyes as she thrashed and clenched and squirmed, trying to come. Then, with shocking suddenness, she collapsed, completely limp, slumping back to the mattress.

"Oh god . . . I can't!" she cried out softly, a wail more than a cry.

Laura looked up and saw that Shontay's face was now slick with tears. Overcome by concern and tenderness, she immediately slid up, enfolding her in her arms, kissing her fervently, warmly, fondling her delicious little breasts with her hands, cooing to her reassuringly.

"Oh, you can . . . you can," she murmured, kissing the tears from Shontay's shiny cheeks, kissing her eyelids. "You can . . . but you're trying too hard."

Shontay gave her a wan, bleak smile, blinking, her eyelashes bejeweled with tears.

Laura kissed her incredibly long neck again, nibbling her earlobe, breathing hotly into her ear. "Didn't it feel good?"

"Oh . . . god yes," Shontay gasped in a vulnerable, faraway voice. "It was . . . heaven."

Laura kissed her lips, a long, lingering kiss that rose in a simmering crescendo to a very fevered pitch. At first Shontay was again reluctant to open her mouth, but soon she was coiling tongues and writhing under Laura as heatedly as before.

"Now you just relax and leave everything to Laura," Laura purred to her. "Just don't try . . . just let it happen, okay?"

With a fetching sniffle, Shontay nodded. Laura slid down her long, smooth, light brown body again and resumed her attentions to Shontay's pretty little pussy, now puffy and glimmering with juices, all soupy and tangy to the taste. Again she slid her finger into it, feeling Shontay jump slightly, hearing a tight, excited gasp. Now, when Laura's tongue began to stroke her clit, Shontay began to moan in a distant, rhapsodic way, as if she were being transported into a realm of the senses she had always feared and desired but never experienced before.

Her moans were soft, but as Laura gradually accelerated the tempo, they became transformed into keening groans and deep, guttural whimpers. Laura knew she was on the right road this time. Oh yes, you're going to do it now, honey. You're going to surprise yourself. Come on . . . come on, just a little farther . . . a little more.

Laura realized, as she had moments ago acknowledged to herself, that she too was about to come. She never had the kind of difficulty Shontay was having, and by now she could feel the overflow of juice in her crotch. Her pussy was throbbing like a fire alarm. Almost instinctively, she reached down to stroke it with her hand, wanting to get her own body into rhythm with Shontay's, since she knew the girl was about to come. Shontay's orgasm would be enough to trigger her own, she knew.

"Ohhnnnnn! Ohnnnnn god! Oh . . . Jesus!" Shontay moaned, twisting, raising her own hands to her swirling, naked breasts for the first time, pulling her nipples, now churning her pelvis in constant, even circles into Laura's face, clearly more wildly aroused than she had been even moments ago, when she had approached the pinnacle and then turned back.

"Mmmm," Laura hummed happily, massaging her own throbbing clit, now sucking Shontay's cleverly in persistent, rhythmic sucks, bringing the girl to the absolute inescapable brink.

"Oh . . . Laura, I think—" she suddenly gasped. "Oh! Oh, yes!"

Laura's hand moved faster in her own groin. "Yes! Yes, honey! Go for it! Unhhh! Oh god . . . me too!"

"Anngghhh! Ohngg! Unh! Unh!" Shontay began panting frantically, her moans now constricted into tight, hysterical little squeaks as she was sucked up into an inevitable crushing finish.

Laura, in the back of her brain cursing her bad timing, actually began to come before Shontay did. She could feel the molten honeyfire begin flooding her body, feel her muscles contracting and her toes curling, feel the birth of star deep inside her belly followed by wrenching spasms as she began to be swallowed by it. Shontay, on the other hand, clenched, and clenched, her long, sleek body straining, her knees twitching up and to the sides spastically, her face seized by a terrible, agonizing rapture, and suddenly dissolved into a shuddering, mewling wreck as a huge, inundating orgasm engulfed her.

At first she made no sound but a raw, choked cawing in her throat. Then a low, keening moan seemed to travel up from deep in her body to her mouth.

"Unnhhhhoowwwnnooaauunnggghhhhh!" she moaned, starting softly but then erupting in a loud cry that reminded Laura of how cats sounded when they were doing it.

Once this cry was out, a flood of wild squeals and groans escaped from her lips as her body began to thrash and quiver with each successive wave of her orgasm.

"Unhh! Auungghhhh! Oh . . . oh yes! Mmmnngggeeeee! Auuggnnhhh!" she groaned, coming in fierce bursts, her body almost shattered by each sharp, rupturing spasm.

Laura, though her own orgasm had not approached this intensity, was still half-crippled from the sweet spasms that were only now beginning to subside in her body. She slid up to embrace Shontay, feeling the heat that both of them were generating as it wound around their two naked bodies like a hot sheet, linking them together in a warm, throbbing union of sweet coming that took another thirty seconds or so to finally fade. Even then, Shontay was thrilled by four or five aftershocks that seemed to paralyze her as she stared dreamily into Laura's eyes.

"Unhhh! Oh god . . . there's another one!" she gasped, burrowing her face into Laura's shoulder and shuddering until it passed.

Laura simply held her, without speaking, stroking her long, smooth, naked back with her fingertips as Shontay suffered through the excruciating delights of this stupendous climax. They clung together for about five minutes. When it was over, Laura noticed that Shontay's cheeks were still damp, and she daubed them dry with the edge of the sheet.

"I guess that wasn't anything to cry over, was it," she murmured with a warm grin.

Shontay smiled back, suddenly bashful, so charming in a woman who often seemed like an ice sculpture. She shook her head. "I . . . never . . ."

But she couldn't get it out.

Laura kissed her mouth. "I know you never. Now you have."

"What about you?"

"I did it the way we first planned. You were too . . . busy to hear me groaning and gasping, that's all."

Shontay's brow knitted up. Her pale brown eyes, so electric moments ago, but now clear glowing pools, showed her deep concern. "But that's not right. I mean, you got me there. Boy, did you ever get me there." She made a funny face. "I don't think I've ever been there before." She paused, still scrutinizing Laura's face with concern, as if Laura were somehow still bottled up and ready to pop. "It's really not fair for me not to help you get there too."

Laura smiled wryly. "I'd sure like to go where you went. Looked like it felt good."

Shontay smiled, embarrassed. "You watched me. I feel kind of shy now."

"No need. You were beautiful."

Shontay's brow was still knitted. Without another word, she slid down Laura's body, pushing apart Laura's thighs with both hands. She remained silent, but Laura could almost feel her stare, even though she couldn't see her face.

"Laura . . . I didn't know what you meant when you said that about mine . . . but yours is really . . . lovely too. I didn't know it would be so pretty . . . so curvy and pink. It's like a seashell."

"Unhh!" Laura gasped, feeling a hot arrow of pleasure shoot through her whole body as Shontay's tongue first touched her pussy.

"Oh . . . I didn't do it wrong, did I?"

"You're doing it . . . just perfectly," Laura panted, falling back, parting her thighs further. "Yes. Oh yes! Unhhh!"

About a minute passed while Shontay patiently explored Laura's tingling wet pussy with her tongue, going at it tentatively but not shyly, determined to reward Laura for the stunning experience she herself had just had. She was unsmiling, very serious, as her face appeared for a moment above Laura's pubic mound.

"I even like the taste," she said, grinning suddenly, delightedly.

Then her head dropped again, and Laura moaned as the sensations grew more and more urgent. Her first orgasm had merely been a byproduct of Shontay's thrilling seizure, a little like yawning when you saw someone else doing it, but this time Laura gave it her full attention. And though Shontay was not very experienced, she was very ardent and deliberate. In about a minute, Laura was groaning and shuddering through a sweet and powerful climax that made her first one seem like an accidental sneeze.

Shontay patiently waited for Laura to recover her senses, which took a few minutes, before smiling and looking self-satisfied. "You do it pretty easily," she said softly, seriously. "Wish I could do that."

Laura had finally regained her breath. She put a finger on Shontay's wonderful, sensual lips. "It only takes a little practice."

She didn't know if she might not be lying, though. Some women might never climax with ease. It might always be a little harder for Shontay than for her.

At this moment, Willie leapt up onto the bed and quickly jumped between them. He looked half-astonished, it seemed, at both of them, then began to purr loudly. Laura and Shontay laughed and began to pet him.

"Hello, Willie," Shontay said, scratching him behind the ears. "Don't you wish you could do what we just did? Laura just did something to me nobody else ever did."

Willie licked Shontay's long brown arm.

Laura winked at her. "I think Willie better watch his step. I'm getting jealous."

Shontay looked askance at Laura, half-embarrassed again. She knew what Laura was talking about. Their relationship was irreversibly altered now. No going back. They had fucked, heatedly. They would doubtless do it again, and again, in coming days and weeks. Where there had been distance and suspicion, there now was intimacy. Oh god, Laura thought, seeing the expression on Shontay's face, which reminded her so much of Ada, of Tamara, of the others who were so afraid of what they had done at this moment.

But instead of dwelling on this thought, Shontay brightened again almost immediately. "Do you think we could . . . do that again?" she asked, almost shyly, looking down at her hand on Willie's fur so she would not have to meet Laura's eyes. Then she quickly looked up. "I mean, after we rest a little, you know. Not right away."

"Mmmmm, what's the matter with right away?" Laura asked, reaching across Willie to caress her face, letting her hand fall to Shontay's naked breasts.

By now Willie was truly in the way, between them, and he seemed to know it. With the instinctive escapist skill of cats, he speedily leaped over Shontay's long legs and bounded off the bed onto the floor. Laura had Shontay's long, warm, naked body clasped hard against hers and her mouth glued heatedly to Shontay's before either of them quite knew what was happening. Shontay responded happily, yielding her mouth, rubbing her body against Laura's, coiling tongues hungrily.

"Only if I can kiss that perfect bottom of yours," Laura whispered to her, letting both hands fall to the wonderful little rump she had admired for months. "I love your little ass. I want your little ass."

"You're going to make me blush, if you don't watch out."

Laura nuzzled her everywhere she could reach with her mouth. "Mmmm, I'm going to make you glow . . . I'm going to make you beg."

Shontay pulled back, almost flirtatiously, batting her eyelashes at Laura, acting faux-coy, twisting her body so that her ass was sticking up, more visible. "You like that bony little thing?"

Now Laura's caresses grew more aggressive. She squeezed one round, spongy-hard little bun with her hand, a delicious, exciting squeeze that made her whole body tingle and made Shontay gasp and instinctively gnaw her lower lip.

"I don't feel any bone there," Laura whispered, eyes flaring. "Just wonderful ass." She slid her fingers into the crack between Shontay's round little buns. "Turn over. Let me kiss that fantastic back of yours too."

With slow, feigned reluctance, Shontay turned onto her stomach, stretching out luxuriously next to Laura, extending the full length of her smooth, supple, slender body, relishing the feeling of Laura's eyes roaming excitedly all over it.

"You are so beautiful . . . how can you hide all this beautiful flesh under those awful suits you wear?" Laura said in an awed, hushed voice, unable to control her renewed lust.

She didn't realize what she had said, about the suits, until it came out of her mouth, but it turned out that Shontay was more thrilled by Laura's enchantment with her naked body than she was hurt by Laura's criticism of her taste in clothes.

"It isn't beautiful. It's skinny," she said, pouting. "And too tall."

That was all Laura needed to unlock the torrents of fresh desire she was feeling, and she immediately straddled the backs of Shontay's thighs and began giving her a slow, sensual back massage. She had earlier thought she could spend a year just kissing this long, smooth brown back anyway, and now she had the chance. She began at the nape of Shontay's neck, truly making love to it and to Shontay's thin shoulders so hungrily that Shontay began shivering and giggling in a soft, sexy voice.

"What's the matter, you don't like the way I dress?" she tried to tease Laura, but very quickly she was panting and even mewling softly as Laura turned up the heat.

Laura kissed her way slowly down the shallow valley formed by Shontay's spine, then back up again, taking constant detours onto the smooth, resilient flesh of the rest of her back, tickling the sensitive nerves under her shoulder blades, which indeed were more prominent than most due to her thin frame. On her second time down the spinal column, Laura's lips arrived at the upward curve of Shontay's sacrum, highlighted on either side by a delicious deep dimple. Oh god, it's perfection! Laura thought, kissing one dimple with carefully controlled but burning adoration, then the other.

Shontay squirmed and whimpered. "God, Laura . . . you're getting me all hot and sticky again. So quick."

Laura's hand dipped between her thin, sleek thighs, finding the small, wet blossom of Shontay's cunt again, while she kissed her way from the second dimple over to the firm, swelling moons of Shontay's small, jutting ass. It was a compact ass, small but beautifully shaped, and she spent the next minutes worshipping it thoroughly with her mouth and her fingers, kneading and squeezing the hard little melons, kissing them, then biting them suggestively, even snarling softly with hungry passion, until Shontay was squirming and whimpering, looking back over her shoulder, grimacing in pleasure, as if fascinated by the sensations Laura was arousing in her perfect little bottom.

Laura's attentions were making Shontay a lot wetter, too. Laura could feel the warm, buttery fluids bathing her fingers as she lightly massaged Shontay's small pussy, reluctant to do it too fast since she didn't want Shontay to come again before she had finished her selfish little feast. By now she knew that Shontay was unlikely to go off unexpectedly, but still she didn't want to risk it. I want to drive her wild, she realized. I want her to claw the sheets and scream. There's only us, nobody can hear us, no Kendra, no Gibsons, except this long, lovely one. Shontay . . . I want you to scream.

"Ohhnnnn!" Shontay moaned, again looking back at Laura, her face contorted in an expression of fierce sexual arousal. "Unhhhhh! Oh god, that feels good!"

It's going to feel a lot better than that, darling, Laura thought, beginning to part Shontay's tight little ass cheeks with her fingers and to run the tip of her tongue into the dark, warm crack between them. At first Shontay seemed not to notice, but as Laura's tongue descended further into her crack, she could not help but notice. Her hips shimmied in a sharp, excited spasm, and she tried to twist her body to the side, but Laura was strong and held her steady.

"What . . . are you doing?" Shontay whimpered.

"Mmmm, I'm loving your ass like nobody's ever loved it before," Laura purred.

"Jesus . . . that's what I'm afraid of," Shontay gasped, with a repressed giggle.

"Doesn't it feel good?"

"It feels wonderful!"

The tip of her tongue had finally arrived at Shontay's tight little black rosebud, her ultimate destination, but she already knew it would be too shocking to the girl simply to enter it without warning. Her fingers in Shontay's pussy were all gooey now with warm nectars, and as she slid one up higher into Shontay's crack, she moved her mouth to the side and took a sizable piece of ass-flesh into it, biting it gingerly but firmly.

"Anngghh!" Shontay yelped, distracted enough by the momentary squirt of pleasurable pain not to notice Laura's forefinger sliding up into her anus.

Now Laura peppered the smooth, brown moons with love bites, repeating her first bite everywhere, sucking chunks of firm flesh into her mouth, clamping her teeth on them, burrowing her finger deeper into Shontay's ass at the same time. Shontay mewled and squirmed, but after a few seconds she seemed to know something unusual had happened.

"Oh!" she gasped. "What's that? Unghhhh! Oh . . . Laura," she moaned, her eyes full of hot sex and unanswerable questions as they caught Laura's.

Shontay appeared so shocked that she could not understand where Laura was going with this, but Laura knew very well. Now that she had somewhat loosened the opening, the true rape she had planned was possible.

"Oh, sorry," she winked at Shontay, teasing her, but letting her eyes smoke with sexual threats at the same time.

She extracted her finger from the girl's back track, dropping her hand again to Shontay's dripping pussy. Now she returned her tongue to the wonderfully deep little crack between Shontay's smooth brown buns and, using her free hand to pull them apart, slid the tip of it into the girl's rectum, wriggling it in quickly and as deep as it would go.

"Ahhnnnnneeeee!" Shontay suddenly screamed, though to Laura's ears it was only a hint of the screams she hoped were coming. "Ohhhnnn . . . shit!"

But by now Laura had her in the grip of a thrilling, magnetic sexual rhythm that would not let her go. Now Laura increased the speed of the two fingers she was using to rub Shontay's flowing, throbbing slit, swirling her taut little clit in a hot frenzy now, and driving her tongue deep into the girl's ass. Shontay whooped and clenched her firm little ass cheeks and squirmed, but Laura was aware that she really didn't want to get away, even though the sensations were very intense.

"Oh god . . . what are you doing! God, Laura . . . stop!"

Laura wasn't exactly in a position to discuss it, and in answer she withdrew her tongue temporarily from Shontay's pretty little asshole and began biting her round, swelling, hard buns again, rubbing her pussy even harder and faster.

"Mmmnnggeee!" Shontay squealed, now perceptibly jumping up a notch in tension, so that Laura now knew the girl would come any time. "Oh! Ohnggg!"

"I'm making you come," Laura panted, sinking herself into a passionate depravity that she could barely control. Shontay's long, smooth brown body, though slim, was wildly desirable, especially in this writhing, flexing, quivering state as Shontay approached another orgasm.

"Oh god . . . you're right!" Shontay gasped, dropping her head back to the mattress, even lifting her ass a little to give Laura easier access, swirling it back and up slowly into Laura's face. "Oh god Laura . . . yes! Ungghh! Yes!"

It was a beautiful ass, and Laura worshipped and passion-mauled it at the same time, biting and excitedly pinching the smooth brown moons, now pulling her hand up from Shontay's dripping pussy for a moment to pry both of her buns apart and stab her tongue deep into Shontay's tight little rectum.

"Unggghhh! Oh! Mmmnnggggeee . . . oh . . . Laura! Oh . . . I'm going to—"

Shontay's long, thin body grew suddenly stiff. Laura, her tongue wriggling deep in the girl's moist, clenching asshole, knew she was going to come. Nothing could stop it. Dropping her hand again to Shontay's streaming pussy, she found Shontay's clit with two fingers and pressed it hard, then rubbed it vigorously, tongue-fucking her ass in a fierce frenzy at the same time.

Shontay's stiffened body suddenly jackknifed up off the bed, a violent, twisting, surging motion that almost dislodged Laura's face from its happy haven between the girl's taut little buns.

"AUUNNGGGGHHNNIIIEEEEEE!" she screamed, collapsing into a mass of shuddering spasms that Laura sustained by continuing to tongue-fuck her ass and rub her pussy. "OHHNNGG! Ungghhhh! Oh . . . shit! Oh Laura . . . auungghhhhh! Nnnggmmmiieeee!"

Her climax seemed about three times more intense than the first one, and about three times longer too. She wailed and screamed and writhed as Laura refused to let her stop, coming, then slumping and panting, then coming again, two full orgasms punctuated by a whole sequence of smaller shocks, until finally she lay gasping and moaning on her stomach, wincing as the last aftershock made her wince and shiver.

Slowly, Laura removed her fingers from Shontay's pussy and her tongue from the girl's pretty little asshole, which she had tongue-raped enthusiastically. Shontay was still trying to regain her breath and her senses. Laura kissed her way up the girl's naked back, now much more tenderly, again brushing away the hair from her neck and kissing the nape sensually.

Shontay stirred and smiled. "You don't give up, do you," she murmured, hoarsely. "I never knew anybody like you."

"Mmmm, I don't know how anybody who could come like that could give up sex," Laura whispered in her ear.

"Are you kidding?" Shontay grinned, rolling over now, facing Laura. "I never came like that in my life. If I had, I probably wouldn't have given it up."

Laura tried to kiss her, but Shontay playfully turned her face away.

"Would you mind rinsing out your mouth before doing that?" she asked. "I love to kiss you, but you just had your tongue in my . . . you know where."

Laura grinned. "Honey, it's clean as a whistle. I just cleaned it out."

"You sure did," Shontay grinned back. She was suddenly gripped by a quick, intense shiver. "See, it makes me almost come again just thinking of it. But do it anyway, okay? Just to make me feel better?"

Making a face, Laura hopped off the bed and went to the bathroom, rinsing out her mouth and returning in seconds.

"I came back for my kiss. It's the least you can give me after coming twice."

Shontay looked very sultry as she welcomed Laura into her arms. "I bet you can too," she purred sexily, much more seductive than Laura had ever dreamed possible. "Twice, I mean. Why don't you stay here tonight? I think I'd be lonely now if you went downstairs. Just stay here, sleep with me, and you can go down and dress before work."

Laura kissed her. "We might not get much sleep."

Shontay looked demurely down, shy and at the same time very excited by what had transpired. "We've got all the rest of our lives to sleep, right?"