Mavis was delicious, Tamara and Dawn were exquisitely thrilling, but Laura in her heart longed for Sara. It had only been a week since they had christened Laura's new condo with a night of deep love-fucking that seemed to have changed their relationship forever. Or at least Laura felt that way, when she allowed herself to feel the full significance of it. Of course, in the meantime she had been her usual promiscuous self, fucking like a cat in heat with the other three. But that didn't for a second alter the way she felt about Sara.

She wondered if Sara felt it too, and also wondered, idly, jealously, if she too had been busily fucking anybody else during this week, as if to stave off her possible feelings for Laura. This was the kind of speculation that could nearly kill Laura with gut-lacerating emotional pain, and she ended up doing almost anything to avoid thinking of it.

Finally, she called Sara at work, unable to stop thinking of her.

"Hi, kiddo," Sara said, very upbeat and natural, as if days had not gone by without them speaking. "I was just getting ready to call you. Been kind of thinking of you a lot, you know?"

"I can't get you out of my mind," Laura confessed softly, as usual wondering if she was being too blunt, too forward.

Sara's voice changed, lowered, became instantly more intimate. She whispered into the phone. "I can't forget about you either, Laura," she said seriously. "Want to meet at my place after work?"

"Oh god, I wish it were five right now."

Sara laughed softly, letting Laura hear her obvious pleasure at being so desired. "Better be careful, girl, or you'll have me sliding off this chair."

Laura knew exactly what she was talking about, having felt a happy warm ooze herself between her thighs just at the sound of Sara's voice. "I'll be there as quickly as I can get there," she breathed into the phone.

After work she drove to Ocean View and spent twenty minutes trying to find a place to park. Encircling a three block radius, she wondered why she did not notice Sara driving in circles too, with the same intent. Good old San Francisco, Laura grumbled. Why do we live here?

At last she snapped up a parking space that someone was leaving, only about a block and a half from Sara's apartment. She was a little out of breath, still in a hurry, when she got there and took a few seconds to regain her breath before ringing the downstairs bell. She heard the door open upstairs, then watched through the gauzy white curtain that veiled the inside of the glass door while Sara came down the stairs to open it for her.

Only it wasn't Sara. A young woman who had little resemblance to Sara opened the door. She was several years younger, very black, much darker than Sara, very pretty, though with a disturbingly vacant stare as she looked at Laura. Then she smiled, but it wasn't a particularly warm smile, just a tight little smirk.

"You must be the famous Laura."

Laura tittered nervously. "Guilty . . . I guess."

The young woman tilted her head in the direction of the stairs behind her. "Come on up."

Laura followed her. She could hardly take her eyes off the girl's ass, which was in the Hall of Fame category, encased in tight gray pants, full hard moons, swaying ever so slightly as the girl went up step by step. Oh god, I can't be staring at her ass like this when I came to see Sara! Laura chastised herself.

Inside Sara's apartment, the girl shut the door and turned, smirking at Laura again.

"Where's Sara?" Laura asked, looking around.

"She tried to reach you at work, but you were in a meeting. She had to fly out quickly to Jackson, Mississippi. Her father's dying. She was afraid to leave a phone message . . . said it was too impersonal."

"Who're you?"

The girl's dark brown hair was done in an elaborate shoulder-length cascade of wavy rivulets that she shook coltishly away from her neck, looking momentarily regal and haughty and, Laura had to confess to herself, infinitely desirable.

"I'm Demetra, her sister. She asked me to meet you here . . . to tell you."

A light went on in Laura's head. "Oh . . . Dee Dee."

Dee Dee smiled more warmly now, and nodded silently. "She must've told you some nasty shit about me, right?"

"Oh no," Laura lied, turning her face away to hide a brief blush she knew was coming. "Nothing, really. I was just startled because . . . you don't look very much like her."

Dee Dee pointed to the sofa. Laura sat, but only on the edge of it. She was very nervous and figured she must be going immediately.

"That's why I said her father," Dee Dee explained. "We have different fathers." She paused, looking at Laura. "We're both short, though. I think our mama's genes came through in the short department."

"Was he . . . ill?" Laura asked, nervously making conversation.

Poor Sara! she thought.

Dee Dee nodded. (Laura found herself wondering if she should think of her as 'Dee Dee' since she had called herself Demetra.) "He's been slowly dying for about a year. I guess he finally reached the finish line."

"Poor Sara," Laura said out loud.

Dee Dee was sitting in a chair across from Laura. She lowered her face, looking out dourly from under her eyebrows at Laura. "You sure she didn't tell you all kinds of shit about me? I know you're special. You and her are . . . how should I say it, special friends? She gets all blushy and bubbly when she talks about you. Laura this. Laura that. I spent the night over at Laura's. Laura is just so sweet. See? Now what did she tell you about me?"

Laura shook her head. "Not a thing. Really."

Dee Dee frowned skeptically. "Right."

"I guess I'd better go. If you talk to her on the phone, tell her how sorry I am."

Dee Dee's eyes flashed mischievously. "Sorry he's dying, or sorry she isn't here?"

Laura ignored the question and started to get up.

"Sit down, I'll get you a drink," Dee Dee said, softer and more conciliatory now, rising too, gesturing for Laura to sit back down. "You want a drink? I can make us martinis. Or maybe you'd rather have weed."

Laura sat back down. Now she was feeling increasingly uncomfortable, because the knowledge that Sara was halfway across the country was allowing her to experience in full the fact that Dee Dee was sensationally attractive. The more Laura looked at her, the more she allowed herself to see that the girl was gorgeous. She was very black, always a physical turn-on for Laura, and her body was tightly compact and curvaceous, not as fleshy as Sara's, harder, younger, more athletic. Under any other circumstances, Laura knew, she would be dying to sleep with Dee Dee, whether or not she was truly a drug addict, alcoholic, and 'equal opportunity fuckup,' as Sara put it.

She also was finding it hard to come to terms with the mental image she had formed of Dee Dee, influenced by Sara's descriptions of her sister, and the actual person. This was not some ill-kempt, slatternly tramp and skanky crackhead, who spent her days and nights snorting coke and slutting around for kicks. It was even hard to imagine she had had a succession of abortions and venereal diseases.

She looked so clean, intelligent, and well-mannered. She might be a little sharp and skeptical, her black eyes a little vacant and glassy now and then, but she seemed educated and well-spoken. Dee Dee could see Laura thinking.

Laura shook her head. "I'd better leave."

Clearly eager to have her stay, and not embarrassed about showing it, Dee Dee went hurriedly over to her own purse, which was lying on the dining table.

"Maybe you'd rather have some candy cane." She opened the clasp and rummaged around in the purse. "Believe it or not, I think I've still got crackers in here too."

"I . . . I'm not hungry," Laura smiled, demurely, nervously, squirming, wanting to leave.

Dee Dee turned her head and laughed out loud. She was really quite vivacious and beautiful when she laughed. "I don't mean those kind of crackers," she said.

But then she realized that Laura did not have a clue about what she was saying. Slowly, she refastened the clasp. She came back over and sat down across from Laura.

"How stupid of me," she said, genuinely chagrined. "I know you're Sara's friend. She doesn't touch that stuff either. My bad. Please forgive me."

Laura found her embarrassment touching. "Look, I'm very confused about whether to call you Dee Dee or Demetra. Which is it?"

Dee Dee looked at her dourly again, even frowning a little this time. "Sure you won't have a drink with me? I hate drinking alone."

Laura looked at her watch. "Maybe one. Not a martini, though. I think you shouldn't have a martini unless you're within walking distance of your bed." She giggled nervously again.

"Sara's got a bed," Dee Dee said, grinning, nodding her head in the direction of the bedroom, as if she knew Laura had spent some time in that bed, and in fact had been planning on spending some more time there this evening.

Laura looked down at her twisting fingers, trying mightily to suppress another blush. "I'm not talking about that one."

Again Dee Dee got to her feet. This time she reached down and touched Laura's nervously twisting hands with one of her own, her fingers cool and very black and tapered, salmon-pink on the undersides. It was just a passing touch, but almost tender and meaningful, somehow conveying that she was sympathetic to Laura's anxiety.

"You call me Dee Dee," she said softly. "I hate Demetra. It's just my . . . real name, but I hate it."

Laura looked up and smiled at her. "I think it's kind of pretty. But I'll call you Dee Dee."

"How about a little vodka and soda water with a twist of lemon? I also brought a bottle of rum for myself, the kind with the lemon already in it."

"Vodka is okay," Laura smiled. "Not too strong. I've got to drive home."

Dee Dee went into Sara's small kitchen and returned a minute later with a vodka for Laura and a tall glass filled with ice and rum for herself. For the next hour she rambled on about herself, while Laura sipped her vodka and listened, trying to be attentive.

Dee Dee had got a masters degree in sociology from UC Davis. This was something Sara had never mentioned.

"I wrote my thesis on Theodore Adorno's Dialectic of Enlightenment," she said, almost primly. "You ever read that?"

Laura shook her head. This was a whole new side of Dee Dee that had not yet appeared. While it was stupefyingly dull to Laura, she nodded patiently, trying to follow Dee Dee's train of thought.

"'The fully enlightened earth radiates disaster triumphant,'" Dee Dee intoned, somewhat pretentiously. "That's a direct quote. The total effect of the culture industry is one of anti-enlightenment, in which, as Horkeimer and Adorno pointed out, enlightenment, meaning the progressive technical domination of nature, becomes mass deception and is turned into a means for fettering consciousness. You know?"

Laura nodded.

"'It impedes the development of autonomous, independent individuals who judge and decide consciously for themselves.' Also a direct quote."

Laura smiled. "From you, or from him?"

"Oh, from him." Dee Dee took a deep drink from her glass of rum. "I'm so eager to get back there, to graduate school, I mean, because those shits and assholes are stealing all my ideas. I know they are. I saw one of my ideas published the other day in a journal I get."

Laura's head was swimming. This stunning girl, though a crushing bore with all her pretentious allusions and glib intellectual jargon, was nevertheless very bright, articulate, and sharp. She also seemed capable of putting almost any intoxicant known to man into her body. And a delicious body it was, too. Laura could not take her eyes off it. No wonder so many guys had been willing to sit through this waterfall of gibberish to get to her pussy.

"Why did you drop out?" Laura asked, calmly.

Dee Dee's eyes briefly clouded over, and Laura wondered if she had made a terrible gaffe, bringing up something that was off limits, or desperately painful. Probably the latter, she soon realized.

"Ran out of money," Dee Dee sniffed. "And . . . I got pregnant. Had to . . . oh, you know . . ." She took another stiff drink of rum.

Laura nodded. "That's really too bad."

"Let's not talk about that," Dee Dee said abruptly, sniffing, brushing away whatever wetness might have been there in her eyes with her wrist.

Laura, who had only drank about a third of her drink, which had been about half the size of Dee Dee's in the first place, noticed that Dee Dee was nearly finished with hers. Dee Dee was getting a little twinkly and giddy, now that she had veered away from her intellectual and her maudlin moods. Her eyes were still watering a little when she looked back up, betraying a vulnerability that touched Laura.

"You know," she said, almost flippantly, "you don't look a thing like I thought you'd look."

"Really."

Dee Dee shook her head. "You look like a model or something. Really gorgeous. Where'd you ever get all that hair?"

Laura fluffed her hair self-consciously with the fingers of one hand. "Just grew, I guess."

Dee Dee frowned. "I think mine's falling out."

Laura could not believe this, since Dee Dee's hair rippled in luxurious, curly, dark coppery cascades around her head to her shoulders. But Dee Dee plucked at it with two fingers, coming away with a few hairs, which she threw to the floor.

"Too much frying and boiling and twisting and scalding it," she said. "I'll be bald before I'm thirty."

"Oh no!" Laura said, concerned. "It's so beautiful."

Dee Dee ignored her.

"You really don't look like I thought you would," she repeated. "I mean . . . I know you and Sara are . . . you know, getting jiggy. And I don't really have a problem with that. I want you to know that. But I just didn't think you'd look like some super model. I thought you'd look—"

"Dykey?"

Caught, Dee Dee squirmed uncomfortably and took a long drink of rum, finished off her glass. "I guess," she said, very softly, almost inaudibly. She stood up. "I'm going to get another drink. Want one?"

Laura held up her glass, still half full, so that Dee Dee could see it, and shook her head. You shouldn't have one either, darling, her eyes said to Dee Dee. You're getting slightly crocked, my dear.

When Dee Dee returned with a fresh glass of rum and ice, Laura stood up. "I guess I'd better be going . . . while I can still drive."

Dee Dee's face looked briefly panicked, an expression that surprised Laura. "Oh . . . don't," she said. "Don't go . . . please."

Slowly, Laura sat back down. "I really have to go home. I'm tired," she explained. "I've been working all day."

Dee Dee's eyes suddenly became vacant and abstracted, as Laura had seen them now and then since she had been there. But then her focus quickly came back.

"You know, I've never had a lesbian experience," she said, staring directly into Laura's eyes. "I think maybe—"

Laura abruptly stood up again, setting her glass down on the side table firmly. "I've got to go. Don't say it."

But she didn't move. She couldn't move. Dee Dee's eyes held her. There was total silence in Sara's apartment, and they could hear one another breathing. Laura wanted to leave and wanted to stay at the same instant. This is Sara's sister, she kept telling herself, over and over. This is Sara's sister. Not some beautiful stranger. Sara's sister.

"You know, lots of guys find me pretty attractive," Dee Dee murmured, looking up at Laura.

"I'm sure they do. You are." Laura could feel the pulse beating in her throat.

"Oh?" Dee Dee gave her a slow half-smile. "Am I attractive to you?"

Laura said nothing and did not move.

"Maybe you need a little encouragement?"

Dee Dee wore a thin white sweater with a cable-knit pattern in it. She slowly lifted it up from the bottom, pulling it over her head, slipping it off her wrists. She wore a stark white bra, which was fantastically alluring as a contrast to her deeply black and very smooth skin. Laura was paralyzed with lust.

Dee Dee could see it. Her black eyes flickered. "It opens in the front," she whispered, looking down, as Laura was, at her bra. "Want me to open it?"

Now Laura did tear herself away. She turned her head. She stumbled a few steps away from the sofa, toward the front door, snatching up her purse almost as an afterthought.

"I . . . really do . . . have to go," she stammered.

Dee Dee was right behind her, lurching a little, having had too much to drink. She grabbed Laura's elbow.

"Laura . . . look . . . stay. Please stay. Look, here, feel this . . ."

She took one of Laura's hands and placed it on her naked flesh, on her back, just below the line of her bra. She had caught Laura next to the door and pushed Laura away from it, backing her into the wall. Laura could smell the rum on Dee Dee's breath, but the warmth and incredible smooth resilience of her taut flesh under Laura's fingers was nearly fatal. Laura couldn't take her hand away.

"I want you to do it with me," Dee Dee breathed, her breath soaked in rum. "I want to know what Sara knows. I want you to make me as happy as you make her."

"Oh Dee Dee . . . we can't," Laura gasped, desperate now to escape.

"I have a nice body," Dee Dee purred, half-drunkenly. "Want to see it? Here, I'll let you see my boobs. They're smaller than Sara's but they're really nice. Here . . . let me—"

"No," Laura almost wailed, slapping Dee Dee's hand away from her bra clasp, between the cups. "Let me go, Dee Dee," she pleaded. "I . . . I love Sara. I . . . can't do this."

Dee Dee looked half-hypnotized, either by sex or drink, or both. "She won't know. I won't tell her." She lifted one eyebrow sexily. "I know you won't tell her."

"There won't be anything to tell," Laura panted, not knowing whether she was breathing hard out of sexual excitement or desperation. Probably both, she realized. "Now, please let me go."

Dee Dee eased up and stepped back, as if chastened, sobered even, by Laura's refusal. Then Laura could see an odd glint of madness, mixed with a remote, ambiguous pain, pass briefly through the girl's eyes as Dee Dee again raised her fingers to her bra, between the cups, and quickly released the catch. The cups fell away.

Laura didn't let her eyes leave Dee Dee's, even though the bra now sagged around Dee Dee's arms, her breasts completely naked. Then, as if yielding to the inevitable, she glanced down at them. When a beautiful woman bared her breasts and asked you to look, there was not a force in the universe that could make you not look.

Dee Dee was right. Her breasts were beautiful. They were as unlike Sara's as possible, small and pert, upswept, with large but not huge nipples, not the mammoth, soft, puffy areolas that Sara had, but much blacker, coal black, like April's. Laura looked up again, quickly.

"Let me go, Dee Dee," she pleaded, alarmed to hear the desperate, imploring tone of her voice. "I have to go."

Dee Dee looked at her in disbelief. Clearly she could not believe that anyone, male or female, would turn down her delicious, half-naked, sleek black body. Laura couldn't believe it either but was biting down as hard as she could on her determination, clenching her teeth, making fists, trying to summon up the last ounce of her strength and loyalty.

Slowly, agonizingly disconsolate, Dee Dee pulled the bra cups back over her naked breasts and fastened the clasp between them. Her lovely face was blank, desolate. She was also, as Laura knew, not a little drunk, and appeared woozy and confused.

Laura put a hand on her arm. "I hope you'll understand."

Dee Dee gave her a semblance of a nod, her eyes now (or am I wrong? Laura wondered) showing a stricken look, a horrible wound of rejection, which made Laura feel doubly bad.

"It's okay . . ." Dee Dee said in a soft voice, moving back so that Laura could get to the door.

"I think you're so beautiful," Laura stammered awkwardly. "Really. I just . . . can't. You know? Sara—"

"I know," Dee Dee cut her off. "Sara always has all the luck."

Oh no! Laura thought. Oh god. How can I leave her like this? "Are you going to be okay?"

Dee Dee sniffed and looked away. "I'm okay."

Still Laura did not leave, feeling incapable of taking the last step out the door. "It was so nice meeting you."

Dee Dee said nothing, looking out the window, which was about twenty-five feet away from them.

"Dee Dee . . . don't you want to come downstairs and lock up the door after me?" Laura prompted.

Dee Dee nodded. "You go ahead. I'll lock it in a minute."

Laura put her hand on the knob. "Okay. Please . . . call me if you need to talk. I'm sure Sara has my number in her book."

Dee Dee smiled ruefully, her eyes reflecting so much ambiguous emotional pain that Laura could scarcely bear to look into them. "Oh yeah . . . she has a whole page just for you. With little hearts and shit scrawled all around the edges."

Laura felt her blood leap up with joy at this unsolicited news, but it was wholly inappropriate to show it. She gulped. "That's nice," she said, lamely. "Okay, I'll be going."

"Bye, Laura."

"Goodbye. Please get some sleep. Don't go out like . . . this."

"I won't."

Laura left her staring blankly out the window and let herself out down below.

 

 

+ + + + + + +

 

 

 

Unable to drive straight home because of her own emotional turmoil, Laura drove to Baker Beach instead and sat in her car, looking at the surf and at a huge rolling bank of fog steaming in over the Golden Gate Bridge. She had not been part of such a painful scene for a long time. She and Shontay had clashed and abraded one another emotionally, of course, but it was not because Laura refused to sleep with her. And anyway, Shontay was an outward success in life, at least. But Dee Dee appeared to be a wreck, in spite of Laura's first impression of her as a smart, attractive, articulate girl.

She had not seen anyone hurting so much for a long time. Dee Dee was glib and even charming, but below the surface there was a constant undercurrent of pain. Some people could handle it and others couldn't, Laura reflected. God, she drank almost two tall glasses of rum just while I was there. No wonder Sara is always nervous about what will become of her.

On the other hand, Laura was proud of herself. Just a little. Sara's sister might be completely out of control when it came to alcohol or other drugs—Laura, even though naïve, clearly realized that several illegal substances had been offered to her in the space of only a few minutes—but she was also shockingly gorgeous, much more beautiful in any conventional sense than Sara herself, delectably black and alluring, and sexually receptive. I could have fucked her in a minute, Laura realized. She almost begged me to.

But I was strong. Sara's own sister . . . the very thought of it makes me shudder. What if she found out. God, it would be over. I'd lose her. Laura recalled what Dee Dee had said, almost with a sneer, about Sara having devoted an entire page to Laura in her phone book, embroidered with hearts. This made her feel warm all over, tingly with happiness, and yet the moment by the door as she was leaving kept coming back to her. She couldn't get the image of Dee Dee's delectable half-naked body out of her mind either.

I did want her, she thought. Who wouldn't want her? That's why she was so hurt when I turned her down. Oh god, I hope she's all right! She was getting so drunk. What if she went out somewhere? No wonder Sara is always tracking her down.

Still suffering from this confused welter of feelings, Laura finally, reluctantly, drove home. She took a shower, pulled on a thin nylon housecoat, and fixed herself a small broiled steak, then sat down to watch a little TV, thinking warmly of Sara and purposely staving off any unwelcome thoughts of Dee Dee.

She dozed and was awakened by her doorbell twenty minutes later. Since hardly anyone knew she now lived here, she approached the door warily, peeking through the security peephole, then turning on the porch light. Dee Dee was there, still weaving, apparently still drunk but not looking much worse than she had earlier.

"Oh shit," Laura cursed under her breath. She quickly opened the door. "Dee Dee . . . how did you get here?"

Dee Dee giggled, acting a little ashamed. "I've got Sara's car. She left me the keys."

"You didn't drive over here."

Dee Dee grinned mawkishly. "I've got a drunk driver's license."

Laura was determined not to invite her in. What am I going to do? she asked herself. Of course Dee Dee was not fall-down drunk. She was tipsy, not completely wasted. Maybe I can drive her home or something, Laura figured.

"I came over to see if you changed your mind," Dee Dee said, now fixing Laura's gaze with her eyes, which were pulsing and smoking.

"How did you find this place?"

"Sara has your address written down in her book. You know, on that 'I Love Laura' page I told you about." She frowned. "I have to pee."

Exasperated, Laura felt herself weakening. She couldn't just leave her out there. "But if I let you in, you have to promise me we can have a cup of coffee together and sober you up a little," she lectured, feeling smarmy and righteous, hating herself for feeling that way.

Now Dee Dee began to wince and shift back and forth on her feet. "I'm not kidding. I really have to go bad." She was half-squealing now, looking desperate. "It just all came on me at once. Please."

Laura knew how it felt. You could be holding it off, holding it off, then it came on in a rush.

"I'm gonna wet my pants, Laura!"

"Yes . . . yes!" Laura quickly threw open the door. "Down the hall on the left," she pointed.

Dee Dee raced to the bathroom, leaving Laura standing, totally shocked and befuddled, by the open door. Slowly, she closed it.

When Dee Dee emerged from the bathroom, Laura was already in the kitchen making coffee. Dee Dee found her there.

"It'll keep me awake," she said. "I never drink coffee. I don't like the taste."

"You're drinking some now. Go in and sit down and I'll bring it to you."

"I'd rather stay here. With you."

Laura acted as if she were ignoring Dee Dee's words, but she heard every one. When the coffee was ready, she poured her a cup and handed it to her. "Nothing's going to happen, Dee Dee," she said firmly. "I already told you that."

For the first time, Dee Dee flirted overtly with Laura, smiling coyly, her black eyes flashing. But she said nothing. Laura had to swallow. Dee Dee, in spite of her affectations and self-destructiveness, was infinitely desirable.

God, she's making it so hard on me! Laura thought, unable to take her eyes off the girl's firm, impossibly beautiful bottom as Dee Dee walked out of the kitchen, carefully holding her cup of hot coffee. It was an ass every bit as beautiful as Chanitra's or Jane's. Black women as a rule seemed to have beautiful asses, but some were a cut above the rest. This one was near the top. And I'll never be able to touch it, Laura thought, almost mournfully.

She had poured herself a half cup too and sat down across from Dee Dee on the famous white sofa, while Dee Dee sat in the easy chair. Actually, Dee Dee looked fresher now, not as drunk as she had looked on the front steps. She had washed her face in the bathroom. Her eyes were clearer.

"So . . ." Laura said, not wanting the conversation to veer back to Dee Dee's reasons for 'dropping in'. "Tell me more about Theodoro . . . whatever his name was."

Dee Dee looked momentarily cross, then smiled, raising her eyebrows in an 'oh brother!' expression. "Theodore Adorno," she said in measured tones. "He was a very important thinker. Adorno is central to any discussion of postmodernity, because he has had a formative influence on the philosophical assumptions of postmodern thought."

"No kidding. How come I never heard of him? I mean, I'm not exactly an intellectual, but I know about Freud . . . and Sartre . . . and, you know, Marx . . . and . . ."

Dee Dee made a face. It was not an uproariously funny face, not the kind Sara often made, but it was droll and indulgent. "Maybe we should talk about something else. I'm kind of out of practice anyway since I've been away from it so long."

"How long?"

Dee Dee sighed. "Almost a year." She looked away. "I guess I don't really want to talk about that either. It depresses me." She sat her coffee mug down on the side table. "Why don't you show me around? Didn't you just move in here? Sara said it was a new place. I really dig all the trees and the fog outside. It's cozy and warm. Show me the rest of it."

"It's nothing special. Just like an apartment."

But Dee Dee stood up, looking around the room. "Come on . . . show me. I was just a graduate student, living in a hovel. I like to see how other people live. Show me the bedrooms. Do you have another bathroom back there?"

She wandered off toward the hallway, and Laura stood up to follow her. This time she disciplined herself not to look down at Dee Dee's spectacular ass. Nothing is going to happen, she repeated to herself, as she had told Dee Dee. You are Sara's sister. Sara has a whole page devoted just to me in her phone book. She cares about me after all . . . the same way I care about her. I am not going to do anything—anything!—to endanger that.

"Wow, look at what a big bed you have," Dee Dee said as she peeped into Laura's dim bedroom.

Laura said nothing. She always left a small bedside lamp lighted, but it was very weak, just enough to light the way so you wouldn't trip. Dee Dee turned and leaned back against the doorjamb, looking at Laura. Her pose, it seemed to Laura, was very provocative, her head cocked slightly to the side, her mouth uptilted, her body somehow gracefully arranged in an attitude of sexual receptivity, if not temptation. She's been seducing people—men—for years, Laura thought. She knows exactly how to do it.

"Show me the master bathroom," Dee Dee said. "I like to see them. They're always so much more luxurious than the other one."

Laura shrugged and walked over to it. Her bathroom, while certainly a little more sybaritic than the guest bathroom down the hall, was nothing special, certainly not measuring up, in Laura's mind, to the gold-and-marble splendor she remembered Ada's townhouse master bathroom to be, for example. The bathroom where we fucked in the shower, for the very first time, Laura thought, tingling with secret guilt and erotic excitement at the brief memory. God, we had fun in that bathroom! Dear Ada. I hope she's okay. I hope she remembers it too.

Dee Dee looked around the bathroom, though, as if it were the purest Roman luxury. "Oh god, you have a jacuzzi bathtub," she exclaimed, going over to it and inspecting it minutely.

"Oh . . . right. I guess I forgot."

Having used it infrequently in the brief time she had lived there, Laura had not really got used to having it yet.

"Oh god, I would die to take a bath in that," Dee Dee said.

"You could just sink back into some bubbles . . . and read Theodoro . . . or something . . ." Laura grinned.

Dee Dee scowled at her. "You're patronizing me, Laura."

"I am not. I mean, sorry if I sounded like that."

"Anyway, you wouldn't let me," Dee Dee pouted. "You're trying to get rid of me."

"I'm trying to get you sober enough to drive home, if that's what you mean. Now scoot for a minute and let me use the toilet. I'll be right out."

Four minutes later, when Laura emerged from the bathroom, she found Dee Dee, dressed only in her underwear, astonishingly black now that lots of her body was visible, standing by the open bureau drawer and holding up the Double Penetrator in both hands, scrutinizing it with a look of delighted wonder on her face. In a quick glance, Laura saw her clothes piled on the chair by the vanity table.

"I hope you don't mind . . ." she drawled blandly, looking over at Laura's shocked face. "I found your little treasure drawer."

Laura could feel herself blushing about as deep purple as an eggplant, and it wasn't because she was embarrassed but outraged. She didn't know what to do. She couldn't just throw her out. She would have to make her put her clothes back on first. How could you make somebody do that, if they refused? She didn't want to go over to her either because the closer she got, the more she knew she was in danger of succumbing to this delicious girl's half-naked body.

She went over to her anyway, unable to think of anything else. Laura was very confused and exasperated. Others had tempted her this way—notably Jane, Mavis—but they had been coy and teasing about it, sparkling with devilish mischief and droll provocation. But Dee Dee, as Laura had noticed from the start, was completely humorless about it. In fact, she was completely humorless about everything, which was startling enough, considering that she was Sara's sister. Sara, who could barely get out more than two sentences without a joke.

There was another difference. With both Jane and Mavis, Laura had given in without a thought, but she was determined not to give in to Dee Dee. The stakes were too high. Still, it was very hard.

Dee Dee was perfectly formed. She had a beautiful, small, shapely body, and smooth, deeply black skin, skin like Charise's or Cecilia's or Dawn's skin, incredibly smooth, glowing in the half-light with a fine dark sheen. It was all Laura could do not to extend her hand and touch the girl. She had already touched Dee Dee's body once, back in Sara's apartment, when Dee Dee had grabbed her hand and pressed it against her back and side. It seemed like the feel of the warm, smooth, resilient flesh was still imprinted on Laura's palm.

"You have to put your clothes back on," Laura said calmly.

Dee Dee acted as if she had not heard Laura. She held up the Double Penetrator between them, running one slender black finger up and down the inner curve of the lengthier lower appendage. Her eyes were wide and shiny, and a little glazed again, as if her sexual plans had re-energized her earlier half-drunken state and left her woozy and overheated.

"Did you use this on Sara?" she asked Laura softly, eyes big with wonder.

Although it was a shockingly impertinent question, Dee Dee seemed to ask it in a daze, as if she had no idea what she was saying. She almost seemed to be sunk in some sort of hypnotic trance. Laura wanted to snap at her that her question was uncalled for, but she sensed it was useless. She merely shook her head slowly.

"Anal sex is rad," Dee Dee breathed, her eyes pulsing and shining.

She looked through the Double Penetrator's two upthrusting, obscene stalks at Laura. Dee Dee's eyes, though glazed, were smoldering. The sexual tension in the bedroom was electric and palpable.

"Why don't you want me?" Dee Dee whispered. She lowered the Double Penetrator so that they could see one another more clearly, without having to look through it.

"I do," Laura admitted softly, realizing as she said it that it gave Dee Dee her big victory. There was no way she would leave now. "But I can't."

The bed was only about six feet away. Dee Dee tossed the Double Penetrator onto it. Still not smiling, she reached back into the drawer and pulled out one of the ball gags, the one with the single strap attached on each side to a shiny red rubber ball. Her other hand brought up the handcuffs. She dangled them in front of Laura's face.

"These too. I like it . . . rough . . . sometimes."

Oh god! Laura thought, knowing her anguish showed on her face. "Dee Dee . . . I can't. Please . . . don't push me."

Dee Dee tossed the gag and the handcuffs on the bed too. Her fingers went to the clasp between her bra cups and undid it again. Her bra fell open. She moved closer to Laura. Again Laura could smell the rum on her breath.

"You want to fuck me," Dee Dee whispered. "I know you do." She shrugged off her limp bra straps and let the bra fall to the floor between them. Her wonderful small black breasts jiggled. "I'm better than Sara," she whispered. "I'll bet she won't let you fuck her in the ass."

"I . . . I never tried," Laura said, finding it hard to speak now, her breath coming faster.

Now Dee Dee's hands came up to Laura's face, her cool slim fingers lightly touching Laura's cheeks, then moving back into Laura's hair.

"I never had such a hard time getting anybody to fuck me as you, Laura," she murmured, bringing her mouth right up to Laura's.

Laura was lost. In a brief twinge of self-awareness, she felt the warm nectars in her pussy almost overflowing, even trickling down her inner thigh, since she was wearing no panties under her housecoat. Dee Dee's sensual lips brushed her cheek.

"Oh . . . no . . . please," she whimpered softly, but by this time Dee Dee knew she didn't mean it.

"You want to fuck me," Dee Dee whispered, pressing her lips now into Laura's.

Laura's mouth opened, and Dee Dee's tongue was inside it in an instant. Instead of embracing Laura, she dropped her hands to Laura's and drew them up to her naked breasts, placing one of Laura's hands on each one. They were marvelously firm and warm, and Laura's breath quickened at the feel of Dee Dee's soft nipples pushing into her palms.

Now that Laura was holding her breasts, Dee Dee opened Laura's housecoat and slipped her own hands inside. "Ooohh, Laura, you have a nice body," she breathed, running her hands all over Laura's hot flesh.

Laura was now kissing her smooth black neck, and her ear. "Dee Dee . . . we shouldn't be doing this," she panted, squeezing the small globes in her hands, then twisting Dee Dee's soft black nipples with her thumbs and forefingers.

"Mmmm, you want to do it," Dee Dee breathed, kissing Laura's neck too, finally cupping Laura's breasts with her own hands. "You want to fuck the shit out of me. I can see it in your eyes."

"Yes," Laura gasped.

"Come over here."

Dee Dee drew Laura over to the bed, grabbing the bedspread and pulling it down while still clinging to Laura's body—her hand still under Laura's housecoat—with one hand, as if she were afraid Laura would change her mind and escape. Laura felt so funny. It was all such a switch, with someone dragging her to the bed, instead of the other way around.

But since they were going to do it, there was no way she could keep her hands off Dee Dee's body. Dee Dee stood up again after pulling down the bedspread, and Laura was all over her. She dug her fingers into Dee Dee's long naked back, and dropped her hands to the girl's phenomenal ass, slipping them under the elastic band of Dee Dee's panties. She nearly drove her tongue down Dee Dee's throat.

"See . . . I knew you wanted me," Dee Dee panted into Laura's shoulder, breaking off their flaming kiss, letting her lips slide down to Laura's breasts. "I think I can get into this lesbian thing easy."

Groping and grasping and sucking one another's flesh, they fell onto the bed, face to face. Laura quickly struggled out of her loose housecoat and then almost ripped Dee Dee's panties trying to get them down her squirming legs. Dee Dee scooped up one of Laura's breasts in her palm and immediately sucked Laura's nipple deep into her mouth.

"Unhhh!" Laura gasped. "Oh . . . god!"

"Mmmm . . . this is fun. I never did this before." Dee Dee looked up. "Does that feel as good to you as it feels to me?"

"Oh god, yes!"

"Can I do the other one?"

Laura nodded, biting her lower lip, waiting for the thrilling squirt of sexual fire that shot through her whole body when Dee Dee sharply sucked her nipple.

"Anngghh!"

Dee Dee was like a hot whirlwind. Even though still half-drunk, she wasn't slow, or sloppy. She was fast and urgent, her mouth searing and sucking Laura's breasts hungrily, while Laura whimpered and moaned, almost overwhelmed by the suddenness of this hot sex she had been trying to avoid. She could not keep her hands or her mouth off Dee Dee's sleek young flesh either.

Laura rolled the girl onto her back, kissing her naked body everywhere, unable to get enough of Dee Dee's sleek black skin, licking it, licking her shoulders, her collarbones, her neck, her throat, then descending to her marvelous young breasts. She bunched them up in her hands and began to lick Dee Dee's coal-black nipples sensually, curling her tongue around them, watching them harden, watching the nubby centers rise and the areolas wrinkle as Dee Dee became more aroused.

"Oh . . . unhhh!" Dee Dee panted, watching Laura, whimpering. "Oh god . . . Laura . . . oh . . . please . . ."

Laura knew how to make a woman quiver and beg. If this was Dee Dee's first girl-girl experience, Laura was determined to make it as earthshaking as possible, and she began here, with these marvelous pert little black doves, Dee Dee's upswept young breasts, so firm and resilient. She toyed with Dee Dee's very black nipples until they were shiny and wet and stiff, and Dee Dee herself was cawing and gurgling, dying for Laura to suck them.

"Honey, your boobs are so pretty," Laura murmured, slurping Dee Dee's nipples thirstily. "And your beautiful nipples are so black and shiny."

"Oh . . . suck!" Dee Dee gasped, her head falling back after the effort of keeping it up so long to watch Laura's mouth and fingers on her breasts. "Please, Laura . . . do it! Do it hard!"

"Mmmm . . . like this?"

"Unngghh!"

Dee Dee stiffened, then relaxed, following the same rhythm Laura's body had fallen into earlier in the same situation. Her nipple was still inside Laura's mouth, but Laura had momentarily relaxed the grip of her lips on it, and Dee Dee was enjoying the fierce wave of pleasure that shot through her when Laura sucked harder. Now Laura did suck it harder, pulling it way in, lashing the rubbery wet bud with her tongue, feeling Dee Dee's body shake.

"Unngghh!" Dee Dee groaned again.

She lifted her head again momentarily, her eyes red and wild, looking at Laura, who now shifted her mouth to Dee Dee's other delectable breast.

"Yesssss . . . suck it suck it suck it!" she chanted, half-panting in some kind of wild sexual dementia that jolted Laura's own lust up a notch.

Oh god, I really want this hot girl! Laura realized. I can't help myself! I want to swallow her, to eat her alive. She is so beautiful, so hot!

She sucked Dee Dee's other nipple deep into her mouth, now holding Dee Dee's small breast in both hands, kneading the round firm flesh, pinching her thick wet nipple between her tongue and the roof of her mouth, until Dee Dee was literally thrashing and moaning under her.

Laura really mouth-mauled Dee Dee's beautiful small breasts, first one, then the other, then back again, not letting up, sensing that Dee Dee did not want her to let up. In the back of Laura's mind, even though she did not let the thought get anywhere near her present consciousness, was the certainty that this would never happen again. She had done what she could to prevent it from happening at all, but since that hadn't worked, she knew she and Dee Dee would never share this moment again, and she had to make the most of it. Her lust, having been unsuccessfully bottled up and suppressed, seemed doubly strong now as she unleashed it on the lovely writhing woman who whimpered and moaned under her on the bed.

"Oh god . . . oh god!" Dee Dee groaned hoarsely, holding Laura's head in her hands as Laura's mouth moved from one wet, erect, rubbery black nipple to the other. "Ungghh!"

Soon Laura moved lower. She wanted all of Dee Dee, all of her delicious black body, every inch, every crevice, every moist secret. Her lips skimmed across the girl's taut stomach and she quickly realized that Dee Dee had magnificent abs, which Laura had not noticed before, firm but contoured ridges of hard muscle beneath the sleek smooth skin.

"Mmmm . . . you've got a hard stomach," Laura purred, kissing it everywhere, feeling an especially rhapsodic lechery now, an even more consuming hunger for the girl's luscious body.

"I . . . used to work out . . . when I lived up in Davis . . ." Dee Dee panted, raising her hands now to her wet nipples and scissoring them with her fingers while Laura's lips explored every last inch of her beautiful stomach.

"I love your body," Laura murmured, letting her hands precede her mouth, dropping them to Dee Dee's crotch.

Since Laura wanted every inch of her, she desperately wanted Dee Dee's pussy too, wanted to suck and lick it and fuck it with her tongue and her fingers. She could not help but remember, however, Sara's stories about how many times Dee Dee had had the clap, syphilis, who could say what other venereal diseases. She still didn't know whether that could all be true, but her whole experience with Dee Dee had been a weird appearance-vs.-reality exercise, a two-way one, really, in which Dee Dee did not appear to be what she seemed, and at the same time was different somehow from the picture painted of her by Sara. How could this sweet, beautiful creature, who looked about seventeen though she was at least twenty-four, who was clean and bright and articulate, though a little humorless, who was vulnerable and self-destructive but also personable and soft and sensual, how could this be the same girl as the promiscuous drug addict and alcoholic sometime crack-house resident that Sara described? It was all too bizarre for Laura.

I want her pussy, Laura thought, but I don't dare eat her pussy. I know it's an insult, in a way, but I can't do it.

Her fingers brushed a small metal object. She smiled and slid down further between Dee Dee's yawning thighs. There it was, a small silvery pussy ring, right at the top, hooked through Dee Dee's clitoral hood, just like Sara's. God, it must run in the family or something, Laura thought indulgently. Below the tiny ring Dee Dee's long, juice-slick black pussy lips parted to reveal the hot wet red flesh inside, the glistening feast Laura wanted so badly but was convinced she had to deny herself.

"You've got one of those rings," she murmured, flicking it with the tip of her finger.

Dee Dee smiled at her, but her smile was half-laced with sexual torment and need. "Never mind that," she panted. "Aren't you going to use these?"

She fished around beside her leg on the bed with one hand until she came up with the handcuffs, and the ball-gag. Laura, having pretty much abandoned such toys, and having in fact forgotten all about them in her overheated desire to consume as much of Dee Dee's delectable naked body as possible, could not prevent a dour frown from spreading briefly across her face.

"Are you sure you want that?"

Dee Dee nodded. "I want it." She could see Laura's reluctance. "I want you to fuck me so hard I scream."

"I can do that without . . . those things," Laura said, barely concealing her disgust, which she realized she was partly using to cover up her real excitement at the idea.

Dee Dee glowered at her, a glare both of fierce sexual need and sharp anger. She pushed both implements roughly in Laura's direction.

"Okay . . . okay," Laura shrugged.

She had certainly done this before, though not for many months. First, she drew up Dee Dee's arms and handcuffed her wrists to the left corner bedpost. Dee Dee seemed to drop into a trance of anticipation. She looked up passively, fascinated, at Laura as Laura handcuffed her.

Now that her arms were stretched upward, her whole torso was unnaturally distorted but in a very alluring way, her ribcage protruding a little, her breasts pulled up, her hard stomach more exposed and beautiful than ever. It was an unnatural, tortuous position, but, Laura realized, wildly erotic. She ran her hands over Dee Dee's body, squeezing her breasts again, pinching her sensitive nipples meaningfully, caressing her smoothly rippling abs.

"You are so gorgeous, Dee Dee," she purred, meaning every word.

"You want to fuck me," Dee Dee panted, almost unable to speak now from being so sexually excited. "Say it."

"Yes . . . I want to fuck you. I want to fuck you bad."

"Then put that thing on."

Dee Dee's eyes raced to the Double Penetrator at the end of the bed. Laura's eyes darted to it too, and she felt a hot rush of blood gushing throughout her body, a hot pulse throbbing wildly in her pussy and her throat. Only she and Dawn, among her lovers, had used it on each other, but those experiences had nearly burnt the bed down on the spot. The device was magical and wicked with erotic potential, and she would never have suggested it to anyone, especially the first time. But Dee Dee was a special case. Laura would never have her again, and she was apparently a holy demon for fucking.

"Are you sure?"

"Yes!" She also grabbed the ball-gag in one hand and held it up. "And this too."

Okay, honey, if you want it, Laura thought. God knows I can deliver it. She hopped off the bed and returned briefly to the half-open bureau drawer, retrieving the hip harness. Dee Dee again watched her in fascination. Laura's fingers shook a little as she tried to snap the huge obscene device into place, but she took a deep breath and fastened it tight the second time. She slipped into the harness quickly.

"God, will you look at that thing?" Dee Dee laughed, a little nervously, Laura thought, as Laura walked toward her and the two huge curved prongs bobbed up and down. "I'm going to faint, I think."

Laura smiled, a half-sinister, half-sensual smile that seemed to come naturally to the wearer of the apparatus. She had noticed Dawn making the same smile at her. She climbed up onto the bed again with Dee Dee, slowly taking the ball-gag from her hand.

"You're going to wish you could faint," she whispered with erotic menace, slowly looping the straps around Dee Dee's head and fastening the buckle at the back.

To emphasize Dee Dee's powerlessness, Laura brushed her own naked breasts across Dee Dee's face before straightening back up, loving the thrillingly wicked feel of the rubber ball brushing her own excited nipples. Honey, I'm forgetting all about Sara from this moment forward. You and I are going to go up in smoke. There won't be a wisp left.

Dee Dee was equally excited. Now she had to breathe solely through her nostrils, and she was chuffing and gurgling, squirming as Laura's hands again roamed over her marvelous naked body. But her eyes showed no fear. They were hard and clear, as if this moment had sobered her up completely. Her eyes bored into Laura, daring her, taunting her, almost goading Laura into giving her a sexual experience she would never forget.

Moving slowly, almost as if in slow-motion, to emphasize every little detail, Laura removed the bottle of baby oil from the bedside table drawer, uncapping it and spreading oil all over her forefinger. Her eyes went to Dee Dee's, who was watching in almost paralyzed awe. Laura put the bottle back on the table.

"We want to make it easier for Mr. Ass Rammer here, don't we," she said, almost under her breath.

With her dry hand, she reached down and spread apart Dee Dee's incredible buns. It was a moment of almost breathtaking sexual excitement for Laura, because by now Dee Dee's wet pussy was completely blossomed, its shiny pink inner folds all buttery and raw and inviting. And below it Dee Dee's miraculous ass, which she was touching with her fingers, was enough to make Laura herself faint with desire.

She actually regretted that she couldn't turn Dee Dee over and fuck her from the rear, although she wanted to fuck her this way too, missionary style, so that she could look at her face, and touch her breasts. Even though the Penetrator was shaped for frontal assault, with the top shaft fatter and a little shorter than the thinner bottom one, she had actually fucked Dawn from the rear often with it, since Dawn loved the contrast, and could take either shaft either way.

But she would have to make do with what they had already arranged. Without much warning, she slipped her greased finger up into Dee Dee's rectum.

"Mnnggggg!" Dee Dee grunted into the gag, her luscious black body stiffening, water coming quickly to her eyes.

"Oh yes . . . you have a tight little asshole between these absolutely gorgeous buns, don't you," Laura purred to her, fucking it slowly, gently, probing, loosening. "We have to make way for Mr. Ass Rammer."

"Ummgghh!" Dee Dee groaned again, nodded, wincing, as Laura slipped in a second finger to widen the passage even more.

By now Laura herself was so sexually aroused that she felt a fierce urge simply to throw herself onto the beautiful girl and fuck her in wild, heated abandon. And she realized that Dee Dee was just as hot, her cunt oozing, her breath labored, her fantastic hard stomach rising and falling, her thighs clenching, her coal-black nipples swirling as her torso surged and writhed. Oh god, you are so lovely . . . so desirable! Laura thought, desperately. How can you be Sara's sister? How can I be doing this?

Dee Dee's black eyes were wide and shiny, imploring Laura, begging to be taken, ravished, consumed, and Laura was dying to do it. She removed her wet fingers from Dee Dee's ass, wiping them hastily on the sheet, and used the same hand to guide both monstrous appendages toward Dee Dee's well-lubricated passages. The upper prong, of course, slid easily into the girl's puckered wet pussy—it was fat enough to stretch her glistening black cunt lips taut as it sank in, causing a tight little groan deep in Dee Dee's chest—but even though Laura had loosened it, Dee Dee's asshole still clenched tight to prevent the bottom one from sliding in fast.

"Ommnggg!" Dee Dee grunted, her eyes watering again as she looked down at the huge stalks protruding from her groin in a sort of mild panic, her nostrils flaring, as Laura pushed with her hips slowly forward, inching them in.

"Just a little . . . more . . ." she panted, also watching, as the last few inches disappeared slowly inside Dee Dee's impaled pussy and crammed asshole, between her amazingly round and hard black cheeks.

Both cocks had penetrated her completely, so that the cream-colored base of the Double Penetrator was pressed right up against her cunt, and Laura, still looking down, was amazed once again by the contrast of the pale white skin of her own thighs pressed up against the sleek smooth blackness of Dee Dee's, now that their bodies were mated, linked, and entirely locked together. She leaned forward, smiling at Dee Dee, placing her palms on either side of the girl's head, swishing her own naked breasts against Dee Dee's so that they could both feel their nipples sliding together, brushing, tingling.

"Now . . . you want me to fuck you hard?" Laura teased, panting herself, barely speaking, whispering instead.

Quickly, Dee Dee nodded her head vigorously. "Unngghh!"

"Why not soft?" Laura teased, beginning to slide both dildos in and out of Dee Dee's body with a smooth, gentle rhythm of her slowly gyrating pelvis. "Why not slow . . . I like it slow. I want to take a while. I want to enjoy your beautiful body, Dee Dee. I want to fuck you slow."

Dee Dee, having little choice, seemed to relax a little as Laura began thrusting. It took two or three thrusts for the dildos to begin moving smoothly in and out, but finally the lubrication spread completely over everything, and Laura found as she had with Dawn that even the most delicate finesse in her hip gyrations could cause delighted quivering and whimpering from the delicious girl under her. Oh god, I love fucking her! Laura thought. I'm so sorry she's Sara's sister! I love fucking her like this!

Laura too could feel hot, wonderful twinges of sexual excitement as the base of the Double Penetrator rubbed against her pubic bone, forcing the hood to slide up and down across her own aroused clit. The pressure against her own pussy gave her feathery pulses of fantastic pleasure, and she wondered if she too might come, just from the excitement of this gentle thrusting. Oh god, it'll be terrible if I come before she does, she realized, trying to control her own excitement, but unable to keep her hands or her mouth off Dee Dee's supple naked body.

Fucking her missionary-style had been Laura's choice specifically because of this opportunity, and she wasted no time in bending close, sucking Dee Dee's smooth neck, biting the flesh between her neck and shoulders, squeezing her small upswept breasts, twisting her nipples, all the while pumping her in a smooth, deliberate, forward motion, noticing that Dee Dee's eyes were increasingly delirious. A constant low guttural moan now came from her throat, and she tossed her head and gyrated her own pelvis in synchronization with Laura's.

"Nnnmmggg! Nnnmmggg!" she groaned into the gag, her breathing now more ragged and punctuated by sharp snuffling gasps.

"Oh yes . . . oh yes," Laura could not help panting, nipping Dee Dee's very black, delectable earlobe, dropping her mouth to Dee Dee's coal-black nipples once again, sucking her gently, then more passionately, feeling Dee Dee's hips leap up, pushing her body into the probing shafts more urgently as Laura sucked her harder. "Oh . . . you want it harder now?" Laura panted. "Harder . . . now? Faster?"

"Ummngghpphh!" Dee Dee grunted, nodding, but squirming and writhing so much that it was almost impossible to tell if it were actually a nod or only a violent jerk of her head.

Even the chain that linked the handcuffs together began to clink and grate against the bed post as Dee Dee's wrists twisted spastically. The bed itself began to sway a little more as their two striving bodies grew more violently active. Laura's hands slid down to Dee Dee's thrusting hips and held them steady so that she could plunge the two cocks more deeply into the girl's quivering body.

She wondered when she had last fucked so heatedly, violently, excitedly, in such a flaming frenzy.

"Owwmmgggnnfffpp!" Dee Dee groaned as Laura stabbed the cocks deep into her. "Unghhmmpff! Owwmmgggnnfffpp!"

Laura was gripped by a fierce, hungry mania of sexual passion for this beautiful naked girl, who had come into her life so unexpectedly, so disastrously, only hours ago. Dee Dee's thighs were scrunched up, her knees close to Laura's shoulders already, as Laura pumped her heatedly and energetically, and Laura could not resist the temptation loop her arms under each knee, lifting both of Dee Dee's legs high into the air and rolling her ass slightly up off the mattress. This gave Laura even greater leverage, and she now slam-fucked Dee Dee mercilessly, piercing the squealing girl with sharp thrust after thrust of the hard stalks.

"Unmmggphh! Unmmggphh! Unmmggphh!"

"Yes . . . oh yesssss!" Laura purred to her, softly murmuring to the increasingly delirious girl, cooing to Dee Dee, her soft voice belying the sharp, piercing thrusts of her hips as she plunged the two dildos deep into Dee Dee again and again.

Dee Dee's legs flailed in the air above Laura's shoulders, her feet kicking, her thighs flexing, her ass squirming each time the thick shafts slammed down into her crammed channels. Laura, in the back of her mind, wondered why the girl hadn't come yet. God, I would have come like the furies after three or four thrusts, she realized. But some women took longer. That, and the possibility that Dee Dee was so numbed and deadened by alcohol—and who could say what else?— that it took a little longer for the impulses to ignite the final combustion.

"Ummngg . . . ummngg!" Laura heard herself grunting, almost as if she were overhearing someone else, as she pumped and ripped the cocks into Dee Dee's marvelous, supple, twisting body, feeling Dee Dee's feet leap spastically over her head, feeling her pelvic girdle begin to shudder a little with each gyration, knowing this signaled the fiery finish. "Oh . . . you're going to come now, honey," Laura half-whimpered, picking up the pace even more.

By this point Laura was fucking the girl mercilessly, slam-fucking her with almost malevolent energy and exuberance, and she briefly wondered if she were fucking her so hard because Dee Dee claimed to want it or because Laura was releasing her own fury at having been trapped into this moment. She finally had to drop Dee Dee's legs and grab the Double Penetrator with one hand, fearing it would slip out during all this frantic, violent thrusting. Her other arm she slipped under Dee Dee's back below her armpits, mashing her own body now down into Dee Dee's as they approached the finish line.

Again Laura was feeling like she might come too, not as explosively as Dee Dee, probably, but certainly a little pop. She could feel it stirring in her own dripping cunt, which tingled and flared each time she slammed the two dildos deep into Dee Dee's body and felt the base of the Double Penetrator push back into her own groin. Also, she could now feel all of Dee Dee's writhing, squirming, delicious body sliding against her own since she was crushing the girl in a fierce embrace, her mouth buried in Dee Dee's smooth black neck as she pumped her in a frantic, savage, fiery finish.

"Ummggnhhoomphhgghhh!" Dee Dee suddenly groaned into the ball that was stuffing her mouth.

"Oh yes! Oh yes!" Laura panted, feeling Dee Dee's wonderful young body quiver and strain under her slamming thrusts.

Then Dee Dee stiffened. Sharp little pinched-off squeals began to come from her throat, one after another, like animalistic yelps. Laura knew she was going to come, but to her great chagrin and delight, Laura began to come first. She could feel rapid, searing flares begin to fire off in her pussy even as she plunged her hips forward, burying the two thick cocks one more time into Dee Dee's shuddering body.

"Unngggh!" Laura cried out. "Oh! Ungghnnieee!"

Her wails were quickly obliterated, however, by a loud groan from Dee Dee, so loud that even the ball gag in her mouth could only partially muffle it.

"AAWWONNGGMMMMPPHHH!" Dee Dee groaned, her lovely young body arching, her flesh shaking as a horrific climax crushed her.

The force of her orgasm was so powerful that she lifted Laura up too in the same arching convulsion, and they both fell back to the mattress together. The chain linking the handcuffs now rattled and scraped loudly against the bedpost, and Dee Dee writhed in excruciating pleasure under Laura as each successive spasm of killing ecstasy rolled through her body.

"Owwnnmmmnngghhoownngghh!" she moaned into the gag, her eyes tightly shut, her face grimacing in the seizure of these rapturous spasms, her hips shuddering and still bucking wildly up into the huge dildos, which Laura held steady with her hand, feeling her own little climax die away as Dee Dee's completely overwhelmed it in duration and intensity.

Now, after four or five horrendous shocks, Dee Dee's climax began to wane too, slowly, and her hips slowed their frantic gyrations, her tortured snuffling and grunting faded into softer panting through her nose, and her eyelids finally fluttered open, revealing eyes so bloodshot and clouded and stricken that Laura for a second wondered if she were sunk deep in pleasure or pain. There was wetness in the corners of her eyes were involuntary tears had been squeezed out.

Laura, running almost on automatic now, as if she knew what she had to do, and nothing could stop her, reached forward, around Dee Dee's head, and unfastened the buckle of the ball-gag, which slipped loosely down to the bed beside Dee Dee's head. She could not bear for the girl's breathing to be so cruelly obstructed another second. Then she pulled both dildos out of Dee Dee's body, trying not to do it too fast, and slipped quickly out of the harness, flinging the whole apparatus off the side of the bed onto the floor.

Still stunned from her climax, Dee Dee watched and panted, regaining her breath slowly, having no idea what Laura was up to. But Laura knew. Even though she had come herself, a small, unexpected jolt just preceding Dee Dee's extravagant orgasm, she needed more, she needed a huge explosion too, and she knew precisely how she could get one. Without a word, she climbed up with both knees until her thighs were straddling the girl's slender waist. Dee Dee watched, finally croaking a question, now that the gag was gone.

"What . . . what're you doing . . . Laura?"

"Oh god, I've got to have your body!" Laura gasped, almost insane with hunger for Dee Dee's wonderful smooth sleek black flesh. "I want your beautiful abs . . . I want to rub my pussy all over them!"

Dee Dee watched in wonder as Laura reached down and spread open her wet pussy with her fingers, then lowered it directly onto the smooth rippling muscles of Dee Dee's stomach. The sensation of Dee Dee's smooth hard muscles pressing against the wet inner flesh of her pussy was so acutely pleasurable that Laura nearly lost her senses for a brief second.

"Ohhhhhh!"

Dee Dee caught on quickly. She undulated her body, pushing upward, so that Laura's wet, warm pussy slid across her stomach, her eyes pulsing and throbbing with renewed sexual excitement as she stared up into Laura's face.

"Go for it, girl . . . go for it," Dee Dee panted, tightening her abs, thrusting, as Laura quickly began to lose it.

"Oh god!" Laura whimpered, dismissing from her mind whatever misgivings and guilt she had about Dee Dee, enchanted by the girl's scrumptious body and her sexual adventurism, her clear willingness to do just about anything.

She reached down to touch Dee Dee's small, lovely breasts, grasping and squeezing them with her fingers, drawing Dee Dee's coal-black nipples up in her fingertips, twisting them, kneading them. At the same time, she moved her cunt slowly up and down across the now-wet ripples of Dee Dee's hard stomach, feeling the warm mucous discharge of her pussy lubricating it into a slippery plane of pleasure. Each minute impulse in her pussy seemed to send an electrical charge through her whole body, and it didn't take long for her to realize that she wasn't going to be able to make it last.

The little climax she had had just before Dee Dee had started to come was only a tiny hint of the crushing locomotive she felt hurtling toward her now. She released Dee Dee's marvelous breasts and planted one hand on either side of the girl's head, leaning down now, digging her knees into the mattress and tightening her thighs on Dee Dee's slender waist. Both of them seemed shocked by the sudden strength she was able to unleash as she began almost to ram her pussy up into Dee Dee's hard stomach, sliding it up and down in quick, short jabs, pumping, gasping, whinnying almost hysterically.

"Unh . . . unh . . . unh!" Laura grunted.

"Oh yeah, Laura . . . oh yeah . . . oh yeah!" Dee Dee panted back in return, gyrating up, pushing her stomach up into Laura's flooding pussy, her eyes swirling with sexual excitement.

Trying to stave off her climax for as long as possible in order to enjoy this piercing, thrilling sexual moment that she knew would never happen again with Dee Dee, Laura forced herself upright, throwing her head back, riding Dee Dee, bucking, groaning, her long flag of hair swishing and tossing in the air behind her as she surged and bounced, scissoring Dee Dee's waist with her thighs, jamming her cunt down fiercely into the lovely smooth slippery hard flesh of her stomach. Dee Dee looked up at her as if amazed, awed by Laura's deep, wanton fuck-mania, and the fierce, athletic urgency of her striving body as she hurtled toward the ultimate explosion.

Laura lost it quickly. As much as she wanted it to go on forever, she felt the pulsing, seething honeyfire in her flesh well up like some roiling volcanic geyser inside of her and spill over. As if she had no choice in the matter, the inner convulsions of her body flung her forward onto Dee Dee, her dangling breasts mashing into Dee Dee's face, her hands again barely catching her as she fell. From her spasming cunt shockwaves of shattering pleasure spread up throughout her shuddering body.

"Aunngghhh . . . ungghhh! Oh! Umngghhh! Anngghiieeeee!" she screamed, feeling a new spurt of fire shoot through her as Dee Dee somehow got her mouth on one of Laura's nipples and sucked it in hard and deep. "Auungghh!" Laura howled, tossing her head, writhing on top of Dee Dee. "Ohhnggnnmmiieeee!"

Time was obliterated, and Laura had no idea how long she groaned and thrashed on top of Dee Dee, coming in great shuddering spasms, then slackening, mewling, then panting and feeling her body tingle and quiver from the roots of her hair to her curling toes. Somehow, ages later, it seemed, she came to, realizing that Dee Dee's wrists were still handcuffed to the bedpost, and that, slim though Laura was, she probably was crushing the poor girl under her dead weight.

She struggled up onto her elbows. She could feel the cold wetness on her nipple, which slid out of Dee Dee's mouth at that moment. Dee Dee smiled up at her.

"You sho do know how to fuck, Miz Laura," she grinned, her black eyes dancing salaciously.

Laura grinned back wanly, still devastated by the aftermath of her orgasm. "You don't exactly seem like an amateur either," she said hoarsely. She let her eyes drift up the handcuffs. "Want me to get you out of those?"

"I don't know . . ." Dee Dee said, with mock coyness. "You might want to have your way with me again." She let her gaze slide slowly down her own beautiful and vulnerable naked black body. She knew how Laura had enjoyed it. "What do you think?"

Without answering, Laura was off the bed in an instant, going to the bureau and extracting the keys, which she kept taped to the bottom of the drawer just so she could be sure she knew where they were.

"I think . . ." she said as she unlocked the handcuffs, "I think . . ." But then she had to stop. She didn't know what she thought.

Could she just send Dee Dee home, wherever home was, or to Sara's apartment, now that she had fucked her hungrily, almost maniacally? Just kiss her goodnight, say bye-bye, sober her up first, maybe, then send her on her way. Maybe she was already sober. Certainly the scorching sex they had just shared should sober up anyone. Drunk on fucking, maybe, but not alcohol. Or whatever else she had ingested before showing up on Laura's doorstep.

You think too much, Laura, she told herself. In fact, she was enchanted by Dee Dee's body, and couldn't take her eyes off it as Dee Dee sat up, rubbing her wrists.

"You think what?" she said, suddenly very soft and pliant and sensual and open.

"I think . . . you'd better go," Laura murmured. "We shouldn't have done this."

Dee Dee pouted. "You didn't like doing it with me."

"I . . . loved it," Laura said introspectively, drawing an invisible circle with one fingertip on Dee Dee's bare, black, shapely, gleaming shoulder.

Dee Dee suddenly became sprightly and perky, a very big change from her usual solemn, serious, or devious manner. "I want to take a bath in your jacuzzi bathtub," she said, as irresistibly innocent as a young child. "Please."

Laura looked skeptical. The longer Dee Dee was here in her condo, the more temptation there would be. And the more guilt too, since she was suddenly feeling it seep back into her consciousness: the shame and sharp regret for having fucked Sara's sister behind her back, and having enjoyed and exulted in it, having screamed in ecstasy. The fact that she was unable to take her eyes or her hands off Dee Dee right now was enough to make her blanch with guilt.

"Please," Dee Dee begged again.

Laura nodded slowly, almost noncommittally. I can't just make her leave, she thought. It's so . . . cold. And cruel.

She nodded toward the master bathroom. She took Dee Dee into it and showed her how to operate the faucets and jets. "No bubblebath. Just a little soap. Understand? It clogs the drains and whatever. Okay?"

Dee Dee nodded, all eyes. "I promise." She watched while Laura turned on the faucets. "You're going to join me, aren't you?"

Oh god, it just gets worse, doesn't it, Laura thought. "The tub's pretty . . . small," she said.

Dee Dee beamed and touched Laura's naked back tenderly with her fingers. "I think we can both fit," she murmured sexily. "If we sort of scrunch together."

Almost wearily, Laura nodded. "I'm going to the kitchen to get something. I'll be back. You get in."

Dee Dee smiled, more warmly and intimately now than she ever had before. Laura realized that they were no longer strangers. God, we really burned it up together, she thought. We can't pretend to be strangers any more, not after that. I can still feel little happy tingles in my pussy. What a gorgeous body! God, she made me come so hard.

She was in the kitchen getting a couple of bottles of spring water out of her refrigerator when the phone rang.

"Laura . . . is that you?" It was Sara.

Instead of blushing, Laura could feel all the blood drain out of her face, almost out of her whole body, as she stood, quivering, holding the phone to her ear.

"Oh . . . Sara. Hi. Uh . . . yes . . . it's me. Where are you?"

"Didn't Dee Dee tell you? I'm in Mississippi."

"She did. She did. I . . . feel so sorry. I don't . . . know what to say."

Sara sounded extremely weary. "Oh . . . thanks, you don't have to say anything."

"Is he . . . okay?"

"No. He died about a half hour before my plane landed."

"Oh god . . . Sara . . ." Laura was crying. She did not realize it until she felt the tears slide down her cheeks. Crying for what? For Sara's father, whom you never even knew? Crying for her? Crying for me, because I'm such a stupid idiot and a slut?

But Sara did not sound depressed, just tired. "It's okay . . . it's okay, baby. Laura? It's okay. I knew it was coming. He knew it was coming too. It's okay. Stop crying for a minute, now."

"Okay," Laura said, snuffling and wiping the tears away with her hand.

"Laura . . . I . . . keep missing you," Sara confessed softly. "I had to call. Somehow . . . you know, when something like this happens, you start to . . . oh, I don't know . . . you start to think about what's really important. I keep thinking of you. I think I have to tell you something. Who knows," she giggled softly, her irrepressible (but now darkened) humor coming to the fore, "my plane might crash on the way back, ha ha."

"Don't ever say such a thing!" Laura said, alarmed to hear her voice rise almost hysterically in the kitchen.

"Laura . . . I . . ." Sara paused, finding it somehow difficult to go on.

"Yes?" Laura said knowing and not knowing what Sara was going to say in the same instant.

"Laura, I love you. I—"

Laura rushed her words into the mouthpiece of the phone, speaking very softly, as if Dee Dee in the master bathroom would overhear her, which was absurd. "Sara, oh god, Sara, I love you!" she said.

Laura realized that her involuntary tears had started again. Oh shit. Stop crying, Laura! She's going to think something's wrong, or something's weird! Stop crying!

"Oh god, Sara, I love you!" she repeated.

Sara giggled softly at the other end of the wire. Way off in Jackson, Mississippi, Laura thought. She sounds like she's in the next room. Even though I know who's in the next room.

"I love you too, Laura," Sara giggled. "I just think of you all the time. I can't wait to get back."

"Oh god, I am going to cook you the best dinner . . . and I'm going to kiss you so hard," Laura laughed, brimming over with happiness.

"And then I hope you're going to do something else," Sara laughed suggestively.

"Just you wait," Laura warned her, beaming, wiping away her annoying, disgusting tears.

"Okay. I have to go. Family, you know. I won't be back for a few more days. Nobody here seems to be able to take care of business except me."

"Call me? Call me tomorrow?"

"I will." Sara paused again, as if unable to hang up. "I love you . . . Laura."

"Oh, I love you!" Laura gasped, before they hung up.

Laura stood silently in the kitchen for a few moments, stark naked, she realized, trying to get control of herself. The sister of this wonderful woman who loves you is waiting in there in the bathtub for you to come in and fuck her again, Laura, she said to herself. How do I get myself into these jams?

She took a few deep breaths and grabbed a paper towel, going to the sink and washing off her face, hoping her eyes didn't look too puffy. The last thing she needed from Dee Dee was an idle question about why she had been crying. She took the two bottles of water with her and walked slowly back to the bathroom, feeling glum, a letdown from her elation only moments ago while talking with Sara.

She felt completely rotten. I have to send this girl home, she thought, feeling herself stiffen inside with resolution. But when she rounded the corner, and glimpsed Dee Dee's wet black body in the jacuzzi, with water foaming up around her shiny flesh, she was completely overcome by a fresh influx of confusing impulses. Dee Dee looked up at her with a delightfully salacious moue, a half-smile, almost a conspiratorial smirk. They were, after all, and both of them knew it, doing something neither should be doing, which they would both have to keep a dark secret forever.

"Finally," she said to Laura, with mock exasperation.

Laura crumbled immediately. Looking into Dee Dee's eyes, she could see the cause of everything she herself was feeling: the deep, smoking sexual appeal, the vague, constant emotional pain she had seen there earlier, the glassy, drug/alcohol-induced stare, the vulnerability, the petulant vengeance she was taking on Sara for being perfect, as Dee Dee thought, and getting all the luck. And Laura could not take her eyes off the girl's wet naked body. Dee Dee saw her looking and squirmed in the water, letting it stream off her thighs, splashing a little on her delectable naked breasts, which jiggled slightly as she moved.

"Here . . . I brought you a bottle of water," Laura said, handing it down to Dee Dee.

Dee Dee held it up to her nose and sniffed it, never breaking a smile. "Didn't you put anything in it?" She made a face, repulsed. "I can't stand drinking just water. Don't you have anything stronger?"

"I have me," Laura said, hating herself, stepping into the tub opposite Dee Dee, squatting down. "Move your legs."

Dee Dee pouted and set the open water bottle in the corner ledge behind the tub. She raised her legs to make enough room for Laura. Laura could see the silvery ring at the top of her pussy glimmering.

"See. I told you there was enough room," Dee Dee said, slipping one long wet black leg over Laura's pale leg, letting Laura scoot closer. "Did I hear the phone?"

The water jets in the jacuzzi were really very loud. Dee Dee had them turned up all the way. Laura was relieved. You might hear the distant electronic bleating of the modern telephone, but you couldn't hear anything else.

"Your ears are good," Laura said, sipping her own bottle of water. "Turn these down a little." She turned the jets down so that the water, instead of gushing out, simply bubbled and roiled gently. "It was my . . . mother," she lied. "She calls now and then to chat."

Dee Dee grew kittenish. She stroked Laura's thighs, then moved her hands up to Laura's naked breasts. "I've never been fucked in a jacuzzi before," she purred. "There's a lot of things I've never done that I'm doing with you."

I want to kiss her, god help me, Laura thought. Suddenly, as if to quickly extirpate from her mind all thoughts of Sara and what she herself was actually doing, Laura was overwhelmed by a fierce desire to kiss Dee Dee. They had only kissed once, in a brief flare of hot passion when they had been standing by the bed, before falling onto it in a hot hunger. This time they kissed slowly and sensually.

I'm not doing this, Laura told herself. Someone else is doing this. I'm only watching. Some evil, self-destructive part of me is doing this, kissing her, feeling her . . . wonderful body. Somebody else . . .

Their lips moved slowly, expressively together, and each held the other's breasts in her hands, twisting and lightly pinching each other's nipples, until their breathing started to become more labored. Their groins were only inches apart under the water. Just a small movement forward by either one would press them together.

And yet Laura was again struck by her earlier fear of possible disease. I don't want to push my pussy into hers. Or rather, I do! Desperately! But I don't dare.

Now they were both becoming more aroused. They kissed more heatedly, panting, pinching each other's nipples more roughly, urgently now.

"Oh shit . . . you're getting me going again!" Dee Dee panted against Laura's cheek. "God, that feels good!"

She looked down at Laura's fingers on her thick black nipples. Laura bent forward and kissed her wet neck, then dropped her mouth to Dee Dee's small, lovely breasts, cradling one in her palm and lifting it slightly to her mouth. She licked it all over, licking off the water droplets, licking Dee Dee's large black nipple before sucking it into her mouth.

"Ahhhh! Oh!" Dee Dee gasped.

Now Laura pushed Dee Dee's body back slightly so that she was half-reclining against the back of the tub. She filled her hands with the girl's marvelous wet breasts and licked and sucked them hungrily for several minutes, bringing Dee Dee to a squirming frenzy. Dee Dee's eyelids fluttered. Her hands scrabbled across Laura's back and shoulders.

"Want you to fuck me . . ." she panted. "Want you to fuck me . . . I'm gonna come."

Laura quickly hit on a solution to her fears, dropping her hand between them, sliding two fingers up into Dee Dee's warm, oily cunt under the water, letting them slightly scissor the girl's clit and pussy ring.

"I am going to fuck you," she panted into Dee Dee's ear. "Please . . . oh Dee Dee . . . fuck me too. Yes . . . like that!"

Electrified by the feel of Laura's two fingers sliding up into her own pussy, Dee Dee came to life, dropping her own hand too, finding Laura's cunt with her own fingers. Their wet bodies rubbed together, their mouths meeting again in a searing, savage kiss, their wrists pumping. Even their earlier orgasms, Laura realized, had not arrived as fast as these would. They both seemed quickly possessed, aroused to an incredible sexual pitch, unable to restrain their hunger for each other's body.

Their thrashing around in the jacuzzi began to splash water out of the tub, but they were oblivious to everything but the sweet, rising tensions in their rubbing, striving bodies.

"Oh! Oh god!" Laura gasped, slipping her arm under one of Dee Dee's and encircling her wet back, pulling her closer, feeling her own nipples brush against Dee Dee's.

"Ungghh! Yes!" Dee Dee whimpered. "Oh yes . . . it's coming, it's coming!"

This time they both came in nearly the same instant. Maybe it was because of the jacuzzi, the warm water billowing and burbling all around them, but instead of a hammering shock, Laura felt as if a hot throbbing cloud of intense pleasure was enveloping her, growing stronger and more intense by the second, swallowing her up, enclosing her in a throbbing wave of incredible heat.

"Aunnngghhh!" she began to moan, feeling her muscles clench, feeling the hot, throbbing pulses stream through her body. "Ohnnnn!"

At nearly the same moment, she saw Dee Dee's eyes roll up in her head, and heard her groan softly deep in her chest. Dee Dee began to shake, then quiver almost violently, then collapse forward into Laura, moaning in high, rising wails.

"Ohhhhnnnn . . . ungghmm . . . oh!" she moaned. "Ahhnnniiiieeee!"

Her screams, much louder than Laura's, filled the bathroom, echoing off the tile walls, rising over the soft burbling noises made by the water jets, then died away slowly as Laura held her wet body tightly against her, feeling her own aching flesh slowly being released from the fierce tension of her own thrilling climax. They sat, facing one another, clinging to one another, panting and mewling, for a long time before they pulled apart.

Dee Dee appeared dazed. She blinked. "I'll take a little of that water now," she finally growled softly, her voice altered momentarily by her screams.

Laura handed her the bottle. Dee Dee drained most of it in one gulp. She was not a girl for half-measures.

Laura was abstracted, thinking of Sara, thinking of how Sara had said she loved her, thinking of how she was ruining everything by this mindless, uncontrollable rutting. She had loved every second of fucking Dee Dee, but now she felt not crushing guilt but just devastating sadness and bottomless regret. Dee Dee sensed it.

Thinking she was cheering Laura up, apparently, she said, "Now I can see why Sara digs you so much."

But it was the wrong thing to say to Laura, who had to bite back yet another flux of tears, and turn her head. She quickly stood up and got out of the tub, grabbing a towel.

"Did I say something wrong?"

Laura scowled at her. "Come on, Dee Dee. You know I'm in love with Sara. You knew I couldn't resist you. I'm . . ." Laura toweled off, wrapped her body quickly in the damp towel, and turned away, leaving the bathroom. "I'm . . . sick, that's all. Just sick. We shouldn't . . ."

But she couldn't go on and quickly left, going to sit on the bed, her head in her hands. Dee Dee, after draining the jacuzzi, appeared moments later, also now wrapped in a towel. She sat beside Laura.

"You aren't going to make me leave, are you?" she asked in a small voice. "I hate being alone."

"Don't you have anyplace to stay?"

Dee Dee shrugged. "Sara's apartment. It's spooky."

"She stays there alone," Laura said, stone-faced. "What about your boyfriend? What was his name?"

Dee Dee looked down at her fingers. "We split. He's a fuckhead."

Laura smiled. "Look," she said wearily, "you can stay, all right? But no more . . . you know? None of that. We've done enough."

Dee Dee's black eyes glinted suggestively, but she said nothing.

"And in the morning, you have to go. And not come back. I . . ." Laura swallowed. "I like you . . . but I'm in love with your sister."

Dee Dee nodded. "I know. I won't ever tell."

"Oh god, don't even mention it!" Laura said in anguish.

"I'm sorry. Want me to sleep on the sofa?"

"Yes."

And so Dee Dee started on the sofa, but by morning she and Laura were both entangled in the sheets.