Laura finally had enough of the pain. Time was supposed to make it go away. Other sexual encounters were supposed to supersede this constant, gnawing agony of loss, provide distraction, excite new sexual desires to supplant the ones you could never again satisfy. Nothing worked. The pain did not vanish; it continued, it grew, it throbbed, it roiled in her gut, it lacerated her sleep.

If I don't talk to her, I'll die, she realized. Not literally, of course. But pine away. I have to . . . I don't know, make sure it's really over. Make sure she isn't thinking of me too, at least now and then.

But it was over. She knew that.

Still, it was a Saturday morning, and she resolutely phoned Sara's apartment. No more going over there and lurking in the shadows. She would demand to see her. She would insist. She would be firm. Sara, we have to talk. We just have to. I have to talk to you, even if for just a few minutes. Please.

No, don't beg, Laura thought. Just demand a meeting. Just let her know by the tone of your voice that she cannot refuse. It's common decency. Let me explain things, at least, before you reject me forever.

But Dee Dee, of all people, answered the telephone.

"Oh," Laura said, surprised. "When did you get back?"

"Don't sound so happy about it," Dee Dee cracked. "Are you disappointed that your little passion flower, the love of your life, didn't pick up the phone?"

"Don't be silly. I thought you were still in Ann Arbor. How did it go?"

Dee Dee made a noncommittal noise, a sort of contemptuous snuffle, at the other end of the wire. "They're thinking it over." Then she paused. She knew why Laura had called. "She's not here, in case you want to know. She had to go in to work, she said."

"It's Saturday."

"She had to clean up a few things, she said. Do you want me to tell her you called or what?"

"No. I'll . . . call her later," Laura said softly. As soon as I can get up the nerve again, she thought. "What are you doing? Want to come over? I could pick you up."

Such a slut you are, Laura cursed herself silently. Dying of pain over Sara, but quite willing to hop in the sack with her delicious sister, if possible.

"Can't," Dee Dee said, sounding vaguely disappointed, though Laura wondered whether she had read this disappointment into Dee Dee's tone of voice. "Got another meeting in Berkeley."

"Oh." Laura was shocked to hear how disconsolate her own voice sounded. Last time Dee Dee had gone to Berkeley, she said she had been fucked all night by the Czechoslovakian woman professor. This made Laura feel jealous and sad in the same instant. "Well, have a good time."

"Oh, I will," Dee Dee said, with a lilt in her voice, as if to torment Laura further. "Call me. At home. You know, my room. Not here. I only stayed here last night because I got back late." She lowered her voice to an almost threatening whisper. "You know Sara doesn't give a shit about you any more, Laura. Call me."

Laura gulped. Her eyes watered. It was true. "Okay," she croaked softly. "I will. Bye."

And yet, before she half-knew what she was doing, she found herself in her car, heading for 450 Sutter Street, the medical-dental building where she knew Sara worked, having met her there. We're going to have this out, whether she likes it or not, she thought, gripping the wheel with determination, trying to ignore the way her pulse was racing, not this time with sexual anticipation but fear and awareness that this might be the final time they ever faced one another.

In twenty minutes, she was there, sitting in her car in the dark parking garage a block away from the office building, smelling the exhaust fumes, trying to make herself open the door and get out and walk to Sara's office and confront her. Her hands, resting on the steering wheel, were, she noticed, trembling. Oh shit, now I have to turn into a total coward, she thought.

Taking a deep breath, she locked the car and marched down Sutter Street, trying all the way to feel resolute and reasonable and firm. How she was going to get past the door into the office was a mystery to her. Sara could easily just refuse to open it, especially if she knew Laura was there.

She walked with her head held high past the lobby guard desk, acting very much as if she had a dental appointment, which was not so unusual since nowadays several doctors and dentists scheduled weekend appointments. The building was an old art deco masterpiece with marbled hallways and frosted glass office doors. It felt cold and marmoreal, and you could hear your heels click and echo down the corridors as you walked. On a Saturday there were very few people in sight.

Outside Sara's dental office Laura lost her nerve. Several times she started a charge toward the door, her hand extended to grasp the knob and turn it. Each time she faltered after a few steps, turned, faced the offices on the other side of the corridor, hearing her indecisive steps clack and snap against the marble flooring, feeling self-conscious, fearing someone would emerge from the elevator and see her suspiciously pacing and moving in nervous circles.

Finally, she took another deep breath and lunged for the knob. She twisted. It was locked. Oh shit. I'm leaving. I can't go through with this. I'm too much of a coward. I'm afraid she'll hurt me even worse.

Laura fell back, releasing the door knob. She took a few deep breaths, trying not to panic, not to be completely irrational. What'll I do now? Knock? Yes, knock. I can't come all this way and then chicken out.

She was about to advance on the door again, after several deep breaths, when Sara opened it and peeped out, brow furrowed. "Laura?" Her face was opaque, expressionless.

Laura managed a wan, half-panicked smile. "I . . . thought you may have already left," she stammered, blushing.

Sara opened the office door a little wider, grinning in disbelief at Laura, not a friendly grin. Instead, it was an implacable, suspicious grin. "I lock it when I'm in there alone," she explained. "What are you doing here?"

"I . . . want to talk to you. Can I come in, for a minute?"

"We don't have anything to talk about."

"We do. I do."

"How did you know I was here?"

"How do you think?"

Sara lowered her eyelids, as if in disgust. She didn't look at Laura but at the shiny marble floor. "Why don't you just go away."

Laura risked putting a hand on Sara's hand, which was still on the inside doorknob of the door. Surprisingly, Sara did not shrug it off.

"I won't take more than a minute," Laura whispered. "I promise."

She was trying fiercely to control her emotions, which were a tortured profusion of desire, deep love, and wrenching pain. Sara looked so desirable to her, since she had not seen her in over a month, that Laura felt a sharp physical yearning for her. She wanted to grab her and kiss her. But Sara was standoffish and prickly. She seemed, however, to be resigned to Laura's visit. She opened the door to the office further and stepped back, letting Laura in.

"Just a minute . . . only a minute," she said, so softly that Laura could barely hear her.

"Yes, just a minute," Laura repeated.

Sara left the door ajar as they moved beyond it, as if to make it very clear that this was a short meeting. The office was half-darkened. Lights were on only in the receptionist area, where file drawers were open and file folders scattered across the two desks. Sara leaned back against the counter in front of her own desk, regarding Laura skeptically, crossing arms almost impatiently over her breasts.

The moment, already uncomfortable enough for Laura, was made worse by her awareness that under Sara's sweatshirt, her breasts were loose and swaying. She was not wearing a bra. Saturday casual, Laura reflected ruefully. She had dreamed of those naked breasts, perhaps the most beautiful she had ever touched, with their large, soft, puffed black nipples and their slight yaw to each side. The sight of the full mounds swaying under the fabric of Sara's sweatshirt introduced a sexual element into the conversation that Laura had been determined to keep out of it. Trying to make sure Sara did not realize this, she turned around a few times, stalking nervously across the darkened waiting room, trying to collect her thoughts and breathe calmly.

"Well?" Sara finally said, cocking one eyebrow.

Laura had planned this all a hundred times in her mind. She had rehearsed it frequently in order to get the words just right, imagining how Sara would react, anticipating her hostile jabs, responding with deep humility and shame. Above all, she wanted to touch Sara, to reach the deepest feelings she had once held for Laura, and there was no way to do that, she had decided, but to make herself completely vulnerable to whatever lashing back Sara felt inclined to launch at her.

But now that her chance had arrived, she found that all her stratagems had vanished and evaporated, replaced only by her fear of Sara's sharp, peremptory presence, so different from the droll, sexy, affectionate person she had earlier known.

Laura stopped pacing. She looked down at her twisting fingers, then up at Sara, who seemed purposely smug and defensive behind her crossed arms.

"I . . . love you," Laura said softly, realizing that it sounded both sincere and lame at the same moment.

"You can skip the shit, Laura," Sara said, impatiently. "Why did you come here?"

"To tell you that I love you," Laura said, very softly. "I know it doesn't matter to you any more. But I couldn't sleep until I told you. I . . . made a mistake. I know how bad a mistake it was. I tried to avoid it but . . . I got trapped. Anyway, no excuses." She waved her hand as if to push the excuses away. "I have to take the consequences, I guess."

She looked up at Sara, who was listening but staring blankly at her, not giving a sign of her feelings. "Go on," Sara said, but this time without hostility.

Laura paused and gnawed her lower lip. "That's all," she said, bleakly. "What's the point of going on and on about it? I love you so much I could die over what I did." She looked down again at her fingers. "I'm . . . so sorry."

She began to turn, to leave, and glanced up one last time, for one last glimpse of Sara's face before Sara was excluded from her life forever. It was so dim in the outer office, and the backlit glare of the reception area so distracting, that she almost did not see the tear sliding down one of Sara's cheeks. But she did see it.

This paralyzed Laura. She was ready to leave, and yet she could not make her feet move. Instead, she watched the tear slowly descend until it reached Sara's chin.

"You better go," Sara said quietly, brushing away the remnants of the tear with her fingers. There was still a long, shiny path down her dark brown cheek.

Laura did not realize she was shaking her head slowly until she felt her hair swishing around her ears. She took a step forward, now that her feet would move again. Now Sara was shaking her head too. She was leaning back against the counter and thus had less room to maneuver than Laura did, less room to escape.

"Go, Laura. Don't do this."

She now tried to turn away, but Laura caught her and turned her back. "I have to do this. I guess you'll have to call the guards, if you want to get rid of me."

Sara erupted in a quick, helpless guffaw. "Are you kidding? Both those guards are on Medicare." Her eyes were now, paradoxically, full of water, threatening to spill.

Laura was very close to her, close enough so that they would be touching if she moved forward only two more inches. Fearing what might happen if she did not seize the moment, she did lean forward, kissing Sara's smooth, gleaming forehead. It was easy since Laura was five feet eight and Sara a mere five feet tall.

Sara giggled again. "You tall people have all the luck."

Both of Laura's hands swept quickly up to Sara's face, cradling it, and she pressed her lips firmly into the pillowy miracle of Sara's mouth. Since this might be the most critical kiss of her life, Laura had to restrain herself from pouring all her tortured longings into it at once. She kissed Sara slowly, curving her mouth into Sara's exquisitely sensual lips, not opening it, not forcing her tongue into Sara's mouth, just letting her adoration flow through her lip movements, and letting her fingertips caress Sara's smooth cheeks with infinite tenderness.

Sara did not respond at first, though she did not pull away either. She simply let Laura kiss her. But after a few seconds, her mouth and her body both seemed to melt imperceptibly, until she was uptilting her face to Laura's more obviously, and turning her mouth to fit more closely with Laura's. In a few more seconds the tips of their tongues met gingerly outside their teeth, then slowly began a sensual dance which led them quickly to pressing their open mouths heatedly together.

Now they were embracing. Laura's hands slid down from Sara's face to her back, and she dug her fingers into Sara's flesh through her sweatshirt. Though Sara took a few seconds longer, she soon was embracing Laura too, and her fingers too bit into Laura's flesh.

Just when they seemed to be getting to the point where the fires would truly flame up, Sara pulled her mouth away from Laura's. Tears were now streaming down her cheeks, but she made no sound. Laura could taste the salt on her tongue. She realized she was crying silently too, though not as profusely as Sara.

"Don't do this," Sara whispered.

Laura cradled her face and kissed her again, before she could really pull away to a decisive distance. This time in seconds their entire bodies were pressing together, and their breath accelerating.

"Don't . . . do this," Sara tried to mumble again against Laura's lips, but Laura stopped her, driving her tongue now into Sara's warm, wet mouth, stabbing it deep.

"Yes . . ." Laura panted, kissing her neck, licking the tears off her wet cheeks. "I have to. I love you . . . I want you."

"It's just sex with you, Laura," Sara protested, trying to squirm away.

"No, it isn't. I love you. I want you too . . . but I love you more. I love you forever, so hard."

She got one hand up under Sara's sweatshirt, onto the warm flesh of her back, thinking this intimacy would reawaken the passion they had once shared. Sara's eyes flashed.

"Take your hand out."

Boldly, Laura kissed her again and at the same time slid the hand up and around until it cupped one of Sara's naked breasts. Again Sara tried to squirm, but Laura held her tightly. She squeezed the wonderful round ball of flesh meaningfully, kissing Sara more heatedly.

"God . . . Laura . . . cut it out," Sara panted, trying to turn her face.

Laura was feverishly kissing her neck and her ear. She had got her other hand under the sweatshirt too and was trying to pull it up, to expose Sara's breasts so that she could get her mouth on them. Sara batted her hands away, though more playfully than seriously. She broke out in laughter.

"Away, girl! Maybe I'll have to call those senile old guards after all."

Laura grabbed her again, pulling her close. "I want you."

Suddenly Sara's dark eyes went glassy and sparkly with a flux of complicated emotion. "At least let me lock the door first," she whispered.

It was all Laura could manage not to go into deep shock at these words. She was half-paralyzed as Sara slipped away from her and walked to the door, shutting it gently but firmly, making sure the lock was turned. Then she returned, stepping close to Laura again, uptilting her mouth, lips parted, eyes shining.

"One more? For old time's sake?"

Laura hardly dared to speak. Instead, she nodded and pressed her lips into Sara's again, unable to believe her good fortune. Her heart was thundering. She caressed Sara's cheek as they kissed.

"Mind my asking why you did that?" she murmured into Sara's teeth.

Sara's eyes twinkled and a half-smile crossed her mouth. "I think you better just shut up and count your blessings."

God, you're right about that, Laura thought. She burrowed her face into Sara's warm neck, kissing it hungrily, digging her fingers into Sara's thick round buttocks at the same time through her jeans.

"Whoa . . . hold on there, buster," Sara giggled, twisting her ass out of Laura's grip. "You're getting a little familiar there, aren't you?"

Laura slid her hands up under Sara's sweatshirt one more time, massaging Sara's naked back. "You can't blame me for trying," she breathed into Sara's ear, feeling Sara's flesh clench tight as a quick shiver shot through her body.

"Laura, cut it out," Sara gasped softly. "This is going too far."

"Not far enough," Laura panted, raising the sweatshirt up this time, pulling it quickly up to expose Sara's magnificent breasts.

The most startling thing was that Sara made no attempt to stop her. Laura had her face between the delicious mounds before Sara could do anything. She held them in her hands, rubbing Sara's large, soft nipples with her thumbs while she kissed the flat warm expanse of skin between them.

Now Sara squirmed away and pulled her sweatshirt down. "No. Step back. I work here, remember? What if somebody comes in?"

"You locked the door."

"A few people have the key."

Laura raise one hand and ran her fingertip along the curve of Sara's lips, clearly astonished—and showing it—that she had been able to kiss them again, even more than once. Sara could see her astonishment. Without warning, Laura's eyes overflowed with tears, which spilled down her cheeks and kept coming.

"I love you so much," she choked, almost inaudibly.

Sara stared at her, saying nothing. Laura didn't wonder. The emotions in the room were too complex and intense for either of them to understand. Then Sara smiled her half-smile again. Laura was crying, but now Sara's eyes were dry.

"You're cuckoo," Sara said, sympathetically. Then she came over closer again to Laura, brushing away Laura's tears very tenderly with one hand. "Don't do that. You make me feel sad."

Laura smiled and sniffled. "Could I kiss you one last time?"

Sara pondered it, her dark eyes flecked with amusement. "You know," she said, airily bemused, looking up theatrically at the ceiling. "I once had an affair with a supermodel. She looked a lot like you."

Laura sniffled again. "And how was it?"

Sara winked at her. "It was heaven, if you want to know the truth."

"Maybe it could be heaven again," Laura whispered.

Sara shook her head. "I doubt it. Stratospheric, maybe. Heaven, no."

Laura felt glum but thankful that she had finally stopped crying. She hated herself for being so pathetic. She was trying to puzzle out what Sara might be saying. Maybe she doesn't even know herself, she reasoned.

"Could we sit down over there?" Laura asked, being exhausted by all this wracking emotion. She indicated one of the small waiting room sofas with her head.

Sara shook hers. She again stared up at Laura, as if enjoying Laura's desolation at this refusal. I guess that means I have to leave, finally, Laura thought, feeling her heart drop to her feet.

But Sara now reached up with both hands and pulled Laura's mouth slowly down into hers. This time she kissed Laura, instead of the other way around, kissing her emotionally, searchingly, but with exquisite tenderness, holding Laura's cheeks firmly between her palms. No tongues, just moving, aching lips.

"I'm finished here," she murmured into Laura's lips, her dark eyes still shiny with feeling. "Let's go to your place and talk."

Oh god! Laura thought. She had never had a stroke but thought if she did, it would feel like this.

"Don't be mean," she said softly, her eyes imploring Sara. Please say you mean it.

Sara crossed her eyes. She gave Laura one of her most devastating funny faces, a wildly loopy, dorky grimace. "I'm not being mean, cuckoo brain. I think I can still remember how to get there."

"But all those files are still all over the desk in there."

Sara made yet another funny face, not so hysterically amusing as the first one but still hilarious. This one involved scrunching up her nose and sticking out her tongue halfway. "There you go not counting your blessings again."

"I could help you file them first."

Sara took one of Laura's hands. "What do I have to do to get your attention, cuckoo brain? I can do them on Monday. C'mon."

Laura, feeling a little relieved and a little confused, sparred back. "Stop calling me cuckoo brain," she smiled.

Sara playfully poked her on the chin with a loosely balled up fist. "What do you prefer, Buttercup?"

Then she turned and went to switch off the lights and get her purse. Laura stood paralyzed, unable to believe this was happening, unable to figure out why it was happening. But she forced herself to relax and act natural when Sara returned.

"You parked in the garage down the street?" Sara asked. Laura nodded. "Good, then we can walk together."

They walked the block to the parking garage in near silence. Sara's car was parked on the ground level, since she had arrived early, and she drove Laura to her car on the fourth level.

"See you in twenty minutes," she smiled warmly as Laura got out.

"Sure you remember the way?" Laura asked.

Sara nodded. "I remember."

Slowly, almost introspectively, Laura shut the passenger-side door and watched Sara drive off. I can't believe this is happening, she thought.

"I can't believe it . . . I still can't believe it . . ." she said over and over, as she started up her car.

And once she was at home, waiting for Sara to arrive, she began to think maybe she was right not to believe it. Fifteen minutes passed. Half an hour passed. Still no Sara.

Laura began to wonder if she had been taken in. That would be a way to get rid of me and get her revenge too, all in the same moment, she reflected. She could be sitting somewhere just laughing herself silly, imagining me here waiting for her, stewing, longing, crying.

Then the better half of Laura's nature would reassert itself. Oh, you're just getting all worked up over nothing, she told herself. She got stuck in traffic. She had a flat tire. She took the long way. Anything could explain it. I'm being silly. Self-centered, selfish, adolescent.

But why is she coming over here? Laura still had not puzzled it out. It was not as if Sara had said, 'Okay, I was mad at you for a while, but now that's all over. Let's pop into bed and make up for lost time.' She had been sweet, even funny in her old way, but not exactly smoldering with love and sexual heat. And yet, she had been the one to suggest coming here. Here, where it was private. Here, where it was soundproof. Here, where they had shared the most intense moments of deep sexual love Laura could remember having.

And yet, Laura thought, if she really wanted to hurt me bad, that might be exactly what she would do: send me home, here, to sit and have exactly these thoughts.

After another fifteen minutes had passed, she was beside herself. She had not embarked on this challenge only to have everything dribble out into frustrated anguish and desolation. She had been determined to end it forever or start it up again, one or the other, with no gloomy in-between like she had been enduring over the past few weeks.

In a flash, she was out the door again and into her car, cautioning herself not to speed through the parking lots as she gritted her teeth and clutched the wheel, determined to chase Sara down and confront her again, this time probably not so apologetically. She sped down Twin Peaks Boulevard, even screeching to a halt at the stop sign at Seventh Avenue, her head still swimming with anger and rejection and pain and love all swirling together in the same confusing mix.

As she sat waiting for the traffic to clear, her frustration nearly reached a boil. The signals on Seventh were set so that cars from one direction always cleared just as cars from the other direction began coming. Sometimes you had to wait five minutes even to turn onto the street. While she was waiting, through the whirling soft-focus of her anger and fear she dimly realized that it was Sara's old dark green Nissan Sentra turning the corner right across from her and heading up the road in the direction from which Laura had just come.

"Oh shit!" she said, under her breath, to no one in particular. "It's her."

By now there were two cars behind her, waiting too. Laura was a very law-abiding driver, and it was painful for her to immediately rip her car around in an illegal U-turn and leave a little rubber on the pavement too as she took off after Sara. I don't want her to get there and leave because I'm not there myself, she thought, desperately, crazily. At least Sara would wait a few minutes, part of her realized.

A few seconds later, she pulled up into her spot and saw Sara standing on the steps that led up to her door, waiting. She had a wry expression on her face.

"Was that you I saw waiting to turn down there at Seventh Avenue?" she asked Laura quizzically.

Laura blushed. She had controlled her embarrassment pretty well with Sara so far, but this was the last straw. "I . . . I thought maybe you weren't coming," she confessed.

She brushed past Sara, deeply embarrassed, and climbed the steps, opening the front door. Sara followed her inside.

"I had to stop by the ATM for some money," Sara said, softly. "There was a line."

Laura threw her purse on the chair and turned, shutting the door behind Sara. She almost sighed aloud with relief and shame. "I was afraid you hated me. You were laughing somewhere, enjoying my humiliation."

Sara tossed her purse onto the chair with Laura's. She grinned. "I'd kiss you again to make you feel better, but we already went through all that wet, sloppy stuff back at the office," she said. "Why don't you make me a cup of tea and get it through your head that I'm not the kind of person who lies. Cuckoo brain."

Laura swallowed and smiled nervously, feeling like a fool. "I would've died if you didn't come."

Sara gave her a crosseyed moue. "Oh, they all say that."

Laura smiled and tried not to wince inwardly. She could not help taking this both as a joke and as a reference to Evangelina Torres, although a moment's reflection made her realize that Sara didn't know she knew about Evangelina. To steady her nerves, she busied herself in the kitchen, making tea, putting shortbread cookies on a plate. They sat at her small dining table.

I can't act like I want to make love to her, Laura told herself. I do, but I can't act like it. I have to act like sex has nothing to do with it. And really, it doesn't. If she said she still loved me, I wouldn't care if we had sex or not. My heart would be so full I might just be too inert to get up anyway.

Still, Laura's curiosity was killing her. She was dying to ask Sara why she had agreed to come here, even suggested it. Should I ask her now . . . or later, after whatever . . . is going to happen has happened?

"Do you think we can still be friends?" she said softly, tentatively, to Sara, before even considering what she was saying. You couldn't pre-plan every utterance.

Sara smiled warmly. "I don't think we'd be sitting here like this if we weren't."

"I thought you would never speak to me again."

Sara sipped her tea and looked out the window. "I thought about it."

"What made you change your mind?"

Sara looked mysterious. She stirred her tea and ate a small cookie. Laura watched her mouth moving, her thick, sensual lips closing over the cookie, her pink tongue snaking around it. The whole thing was a deliciously sexy action to her.

"Shit happens," Sara said, with crumbs on her chin, her eyes opaque and serious. "Isn't that what they say nowadays?" She saw Laura looking and brushed away the crumbs with the fingers of one hand. She shot a stare directly at Laura, a deep stare, deep into Laura's eyes. "I . . . have feelings too, you know."

Laura did not dare ask what her feelings might be. Maybe they were better left unspoken for a while. Instead, she ran one hand across the table and drew curlicues on the back of Sara's hand with one finger.

"If you say you love me again, I'm going to scratch your eyes out," Sara said, with a straight face.

"I can't wait," Laura breathed. "I love you again."

They both broke into uncontrollable laughter. Sara choked a little on her cookie, and Laura had to get up and go around the table to thump her on the back.

"You okay?" She leaned close. "You okay? Sara?"

Sara stopped coughing and looked up, her eyes watering. She nodded but still seemed unable to speak. However, Laura's face was so close to hers that she could not keep herself from covering Sara's mouth with hers and kissing her ravenously, much more heatedly than she had done in the dentist's office. She kissed her hungrily, tasting the cookie crumbs on her tongue, drinking Sara's mouth, and quickly thrilling as Sara started to kiss her back, having recovered from her brief choking fit.

This was a very awkward position, with Sara still seated at the table, and Laura half-crouched over her. Slowly, while still kissing her, Laura slid her hands under Sara's arms and pulled her up. Sara rose out of her chair almost eagerly, and as she got to her feet completely they were embracing in a feverish clutch.

"Oh god . . . I've died for this moment!" Laura panted, sucking Sara's full lips, digging her fingers again into Sara's ass.

This time Sara did not complain. "You talk too much," she said, touching Laura's breasts through Laura's shirt and bra.

"I love you," Laura panted.

"You talk to much," Sara panted back as Laura slipped her hands under her sweatshirt again, as she had in the office, lifting it, pulling it up under Sara's chin, exposing her naked breasts. "I told you not to adore me."

"I can't help it," Laura gasped, filling her hands with these magnificent, warm, springy globes, kissing Sara's cheek and neck. "I do adore you. I can't help it."

"Are you going just hold them like that, or are you going to do more?" Sara cracked, her face deadpan, looking down at her breasts in Laura's hands.

"I'm going to do everything to them," Laura said, solemnly. "These are the most beautiful boobs in creation."

At this instant Laura felt so close to Sara that she was sure she could almost read her mind. Looking in her eyes, she was nearly certain that Sara was about to ask her how Laura thought these breasts compared with her sister Dee Dee's. This would have been such a sheer, willful murder of their present mood that a shudder went though Laura. Her own eyes begged Sara not to do it, and Sara seemed to acquiesce, perhaps realizing the same thing.

"Are we going to do it in the kitchen, or do you have a bed?" Sara cracked again, her eyes now dancing with irony and mischief, not jealousy.

Laura did not move. Instead, she dropped her mouth slowly to one of Sara's breasts, running her tongue all over the large, dark, puffy areola, then flicking the center nub with the tip of her tongue. In the fairly bright kitchen light, Sara's nipples had taken on their dark burnt umber hue, and Laura could see the tiny bumps appear on Sara's soft areola as if the sensual sweep of her tongue had raised them.

Sara said nothing, but her breathing became audible and more rapid. Laura opened her mouth and sucked the large nipple into it all the way. She released Sara's other breast and now held this one cradled in both hands. She sucked Sara's thick, soft nipple until it became a little thicker and more rubbery, letting it out of her mouth to lick and stroke it with her tongue.

"Are you sure you want to go to bed with me?" she teased softly. "You might not get out alive. I've been dreaming of it so long."

"Hhhhhhhhh!" Sara panted. "Hhhhh . . . hhhhhh!" She looked down at Laura's mouth and Laura's tongue dancing around her excited, wet nipple. "You better do the other one . . . it's getting jealous. Unhhhh!"

Laura could not suppress a few joyous giggles at this. It was so typically Sara, the same thing she had said many other times. It seemed, for the moment at least, to prove to her that they were together again in the old way, relaxed with each other, pulsing with love and physical hunger and sweet, humorous interaction.

"Let me do the other one in on the bed," Laura whispered, raising her mouth again to Sara's, her eyes positively throbbing with love. "Where I can give it my full attention."

Sara nodded. "I've been dreaming of it too, you know," she said quietly, without a trace of irony.

Laura said nothing and pulled her by the hand down the hallway to the bedroom. She found herself closing the door behind them, something she had done almost routinely in the old days, in her old apartment, but never here. For some reason, she felt she wanted to sequester them completely, intimately, in this room, a completely sealed inner sanctum where they could merge in a reunion that could not be violated or defiled even by the dust particles and oxygen molecules outside of it. Sara noticed but did not even ask why Laura had done it.

She stood next to the bed, waiting for Laura, looking fetching and bizarre with her sweatshirt still scrunched up under her chin, her wonderful naked breasts jutting out, slightly turning to the sides, her large nipple that Laura had been sucking a little darker and more pointed than the other one. The expression on her face was a miraculous mixture of sexual anticipation, slight coquetry, and humorous questioning.

"It's only mid-afternoon," Laura murmured to her as she joined her by the bed. "Can we still do this?"

Without answering, Sara pulled her sweatshirt the rest of the way off, over her head, the tossed it behind her without looking. Her full breasts swayed. Now her eyes glinted again with mischief. She knew what a fool Laura was for her body. She held her naked, magnificent breasts in both hands, offering them.

"If you're going to turn these down, just let me know," she murmured back, her dark eyes murky and smoking.

Their eyes were locked as Laura unbuttoned her own shirt and slipped out of it. "I'm not turning down anything," she smiled. "I know when my luck is going good."

Before going any further, she turned and pulled down the bedcoverings, exposing the bottom sheet. Then she slipped out of her jeans and watched Sara's breasts dip and sway and jiggle again as she did the same, kicking off her shoes first. Now Laura had on only her underwear and Sara only her panties. They were lime green, the first time Laura had seen her in anything but white.

Laura quickly reached behind her back and unfastened her bra, which slid down her arms. Sara's eyes fell to Laura's breasts. She smiled.

"Look like we ready," she said, grinning, then sliding out of her panties and falling gracefully onto the bed all in one motion.

Laura almost could not believe this was happening. Her blood thundered through her body. She was actually nervous, as well as sexually excited. I want it to be so good for us, she thought. I want it to be the best we've ever had. And I want it to be so much better than anything she ever did with Evangelina. I hate myself for that, but I want it. I can't help it.

Sara actually held out her arms for Laura as Laura skimmed off her own panties. "Luck has nothing to do with it, darlin'," she said, her voice murky and thick, her eyelids heavy. "Now come to Mama."

Laura stretched out next to her on the bed and unaccountably began weeping heavily. "I can't believe this is happening," she blubbered, feeling now more foolish than ever.

"Now, cut that out, cuckoo brain," Sara murmured, comforting her, smoothing away Laura's tears with her fingers. "Just rub that beautiful body against me until I can't take it any more."

"I thought you'd hate me," Laura blubbered.

"I am going to hate you if you don't cut it out," Sara chided jokingly. "Now look . . ." She took one of her breasts in her hand and offered it to Laura. "I told you the other one was getting jealous. You better be nice to her or she gonna find another mouth to suck her."

Laura sniffled again, sucking back her tears, and smiled. Sara gently rolled her onto her back and rose up over her, straddling her hips, dangling her wonderful breasts in Laura's face. She brushed her soft, black, bulbous nipples across Laura's lips, grinning down at Laura. Finally, she paused, letting the nipple Laura had not yet sucked linger over Laura's mouth.

Looking up into her eyes, Laura slowly encircled the firm globe with the fingers of both hands and opened her mouth. With her fingers she guided Sara's nipple between her lips. When they closed over it, she could feel the happy quivering that suddenly coursed through Sara's body. Sara threw her head back and pushed her body down even more, mashing the rest of her breast into Laura's face.

"Oh . . . suck it harder!" she gasped in a tiny, faraway voice. "Unhhh!"

Laura did, but not too hard. And she quickly stopped sucking and licked it instead for a few moments, unwilling to arouse Sara too fast. I want it to go on forever, she realized. May it never end. We'll just fuck like this until the end of time. I love her body. I love her completely.

But Laura did not say it again, not yet. She sensed that Sara was becoming irritated at hearing her say it constantly. Sara apparently wanted this to develop without Laura constantly yammering about love.

I don't care, Laura thought, now sucking Sara's other breast again, now holding both dangling beauties in her hands and letting her mouth go from one swollen velvet wet nipple to the other one, while Sara, with her eyes tightly closed, moved her head back and forth in a kind of maniacally sexual rhythm, groaning softly with unbelievable pleasure. I do love her, and I'm going to show her.

Finally Sara opened her eyes, which were now swirling and pulsing with sexual heat, and gazed down at Laura almost lovingly. "You sure know how to do that . . ." she panted. "Unhhhh! Oh! You sure do!"

"I love . . . your boobs," Laura said, seeing Sara's expectation that she was going to say 'you' again.

Sara made a mildly goofy face. "I love yours too." She pulled up, removing her breasts from Laura's grasp. "My turn."

Almost effortlessly, they rolled over, reversing their positions, so that now Laura was on top, her small breasts dangling in Sara's face. Sara took each one in her hands, her dark brown fingers contrasting with Laura's creamy skin. Laura, even though she never had come merely from having her nipples sucked, wondered if on this occasion she might do it. She was so aroused that her pussy was burbling like a volcano, and her heart was ready to burst with love and lust.

Sara had an impossibly sensual mouth. For weeks before they had kissed for the first time, Laura had dreamt of pressing her lips to those plump, pillowy, perfectly curved lips. Now she could feel her womb melting and her pussy throbbing as she watched them close over one of her aching nipples and draw it slowly in.

"Ohhhh!" she sighed, gnawing her lower lip, watching, watching the pale coral edge of her areola finally disappear into Sara's warm, wet mouth.

She closed her eyes briefly, overcome by the sweet sensations, but when she opened them she saw Sara staring up into them intently as she sucked, swirling her tongue around Laura's throbbing nipple, then squeezing the firm little ball of Laura's breast in her fingers before moving her mouth to Laura's other nipple. She continued looking deeply into Laura's eyes as she sucked. Laura was so moved that again she thought she might come, just from this. Her body filled with honeyfire, and she began panting and twisting almost uncontrollably, her own eyes glazed with frenetic sexual fire.

"Oh god, honey . . . oh god, honey . . ." she panted, hearing her voice keen upward, feeling Sara's lips between her breasts, feeling Sara's arms encircling her back.

Now they rolled to the side, facing one another, and kissed with fierce, voracious hunger, mashing their breasts together, running their hands feverishly over each other's flesh. Laura dug her fingers into Sara's large, firm buns.

"I love your body," she breathed into Sara's ear, thrilling to the feel of their excited flesh rubbing together from shoulder to foot, their legs tangling, their arms coiling.

Sara kissed her again and made a dopey face. "Who goes first?"

"I want to come with you," Laura panted softly. "At the same time. I want to look in your eyes when I come."

"Mmmm, a wish list, eh? Sometimes things don't work out exactly the way we want," Sara grinned, kissing Laura's shoulder, then her neck, then her mouth again. "But I'm willing to give it a try."

"But I want to eat your beautiful pussy too," Laura murmured. "I want to eat you alive . . . your whole body."

Sara raised her eyebrows comically. "You have to do one or the other, darlin'. You won't be able to see my eyes from down there."

"Can you hold it, if I do that first?"

Sara's eyes suddenly pulsed and flashed with love, the love Laura had seen there long ago and now wondered if she would ever see again. "I'm almost falling over the edge right now, Laura," she confessed softly. "That's asking a lot."

Laura smiled and lay her head on Sara's naked shoulder, looking up docilely at her, drawing an invisible circle around Sara's large, swelling, gleaming black nipple with her fingertip. "I guess we can do everything we want to . . . if you stay," she murmured. "I mean, you're not going anywhere afterward, are you?"

Sara smiled indulgently and kissed her nose. "I'm hoping you're going to give me every reason to stay, cuckoo brain," she whispered to Laura. "Now . . . to return to my question . . . who's first?"

Laura pinched her waist playfully. "If you don't stop calling me cuckoo brain, I won't lick your beautiful pussy," she teased.

Sara's broke into happy laughter, a quick seizure of laughter. "In that case, get busy, Buttercup," she giggled happily. "From the feel of things, there's a lot down there to be licked up."

Trying very hard not to 'adore' her but only fuck her, as Sara had teasingly admonished her to do in the past, Laura nevertheless slid down Sara's body feeling worshipful and solemn. She had enjoyed this pussy in a pure flame of burning love so many times in the past, and then despaired of ever being in this position again, despaired of ever having the chance to taste it again, that she could not completely put aside the reverence she felt at this moment. The only thing that seemed to overcome it was the thick, pungent whiff she quickly got of Sara's excited cunt, which as she inhaled it seemed to send a streak of hot, animalistic lust through her own body. She might love and reverence this delicious woman above any other she had ever held in her arms, but the sheer physical craving she had for Sara's flesh was almost more powerful and magnetic and stirring than any emotional turmoil she might be feeling.

"And I'm just the one to lick it up," Laura smiled up at her.

Sara was staring down at her intently, almost hypnotized, her face transfixed by anticipation, waiting to feel Laura's mouth on her aching slit. Laura had to pace herself, suppressing the urge to devour it heatedly from the first second. As usual, she wanted to prolong this, but this time even more so. She wanted never to have to stop licking Sara's beautiful wet quim, and she also wanted to draw things out so that at the end Sara had an orgasm that would leave her gasping in disbelief.

She wanted to make her beg and shudder—shudder and beg, groan, plead, and whimper. Sara's pussy was one of the most enchanting with its silvery little pussy ring dangling from her clitoral hood, and its plump outer lips that now were parted enough to reveal the dark, shiny pink slash of her raw inner cunt flesh. It glimmered, runny with pungent nectars.

With the tips of her forefingers, Laura coaxed the thick outer lips open further, until the slick black inner folds were exposed, and the hot, glistening pink trench between them. Letting her eyes drift slowly up to Sara's for a brief moment before she invaded this sweet wet cleft with her tongue, she saw there a pure flame of intense passion that she had dreamed of for weeks, a sign that Sara was completely hers at this instant.

"Oh god, I love your pussy . . ." Laura sighed, now slithering her tongue into the warm, runny depths of it, feeling Sara's whole body tremble and clench with excitement.

"Oh! Oh yes . . . Laura . . . oh yes!"

"Mmmm . . . you like that," Laura murmured, feeling her lips become oily with the warm cunt juices, which tasted thick and tart and coppery.

"Oh . . . oh god . . . you're going to make me come!" Sara whimpered.

Laura grinned. She looked up, drinking in Sara's desperate expression. Sara's face was torn by a grimace of acute sexual pleasure. Which is only going to get better, my darling, Laura thought. I can guarantee it.

"Oh no . . . oh no . . . you're not going to come . . . not yet," she murmured to Sara, being very careful how she moved her tongue as she extracted it from deep in the warm, squinchy channel of Sara's delectable black pussy, letting the little pussy ring slide across her tongue as she withdrew it. "I'm going to have my way with you first."

For a short woman, Sara had a remarkably voluptuous body, and since her arms were pressed tightly to her sides, her gorgeous breasts were jutting up. She looked down over the firm, jiggling mounds, peeking through them at Laura, her face animated by humor even though she was caught in the grip of an inexorable sexual momentum.

"Don't be mean, Laura," she panted, grinning.

Laura tongued and sucked her delicious pussy a few moments more without answering. She was not going to be deprived. She ran her tongue from top to bottom of the wet dark pink furrow, then back up again, flicking the silvery ring, wriggling the tip of her tongue up under the little hood, tickling the small bead of Sara's clit.

"I'm not mean . . ." she murmured. "I'm wicked."

"Unhhh! Oh! You sure are!" Sara groaned, her hips now beginning to twist and gyrate involuntarily.

Laura was overcome by a warm, relentless, powerful inner surge of deep love for this woman, a love she knew filled her body and mind but had had no opportunity to express for these many weeks while she was suffering through her loss. She wanted to consume Sara and envelop her completely in this hot, throbbing love and sexual hunger. She wanted to devour her and ingest her and completely merge with her, and yet she wanted it—this piercingly sweet and intense moment, when their warm blood was pulsing for each other, when their breath was quickened, and their words intimate and unstudied, their pussies aching and flowing, when their love was palpable—she wanted it never to end.

Over the years she had developed a talent for occasionally prolonging a moment like this until the tension was unbearable. She could bring the ultimate moments closer, then push them away, lower the temperature temporarily, then resume, bring it to a higher pitch again, then back off, then drop it down another notch, before once again cranking it up, until when the final spasm did arrive, it was a cataclysm, an almost horrific, rending event, an orgasm craved so long that it was shocking and shattering in its intensity. While only half-realizing that this was what she intended, she knew that she wanted more of Sara at this instant than she could have merely from bringing her to a quick, satisfying climax.

Accordingly, while Sara thought Laura was going to eat her streaming pussy until she came, instead Laura swarmed up again all over her writhing body, mashing her own breasts into Sara's, sucking her neck, digging her fingers into the firm flesh of Sara's back, covering her body with hot kisses.

"I want you . . . I want you . . . I want every part of you, every inch of you!" she panted, sliding back between Sara's parting thighs and turning Sara's body to the side at the same time, groping for the round cheeks of Sara's beautiful bottom, then sliding even lower so she could get her lips on each firm moon. "I want to kiss your beautiful ass."

Sara chortled softly, even though partially overcome by sexual tension, and breathing hard. "You mean my big beautiful ass," she laughed. But then the breath seemed momentarily to leave her body as Laura's fingers and mouth quickly invaded the dark crack between her luscious round buns. "Oh! Ungghh! What you doing down there, girl?"

"Nothing . . ." Laura snuffled, her face completely buried in the warm, moist, dark crack of Sara's ass.

In truth, she had really lost control for a few seconds. Her desire to consume and sexually merge with Sara was so strong that she was about to do things she knew Sara objected to before she realized what she was doing. Becoming aware of it quickly, she slid up Sara's body, now pressing her breasts against Sara's back and snaking her tongue into her ear, deviating from her original impulses but not letting the heat dissipate. She drew the fingers of one hand up into the crack of Sara's ass to replace her face, and began gently massaging the tight little aperture of Sara's asshole with the tip of one finger while she continued to kiss and stroke the rest of her body heatedly, clutching and squeezing one of Sara's marvelous breasts with her other hand.

"I want to fuck you . . ." she breathed in Sara's ear. "I want to fuck you everywhere."

Sara writhed, responding in spite of herself to Laura's urgent caresses and hot words. "Oh god . . . you really know how to get me worked up, Laura," she panted. "I'm dying for it."

But she had made offhand comments to Laura in the past, with clear distaste, about guys always wanting to shove their poles up your ass. This was the sister of the 'anal sex is rad' girl, Dee Dee. But Laura was always skittish about veering in that direction with Sara. Anyway, she was so much in love with her that it wasn't necessary. There were plenty of thrilling ways to fuck, and if Sara didn't want it that way, so be it.

Then it suddenly seemed to dawn on Sara what Laura probably meant by 'fuck you everywhere.' Over her shoulder, she gave Laura a look that said: You got a nasty mind, cuckoo brain, but that feels kinda good.

"Oooohhhhh . . . Laura," she panted, her eyelids growing heavy, "I think that feels . . . pretty good."

"Want more?" Laura tongued her ear.

"I . . . don't know. It makes my pussy all gushy and tingly."

"I want to fuck you everywhere," Laura repeated in a smoky whisper.

"I . . . know," Sara gasped, her eyes rolling up as she almost imperceptibly undulated her hips so that her asshole pushed against Laura's fingertip harder.

"I love you, Sara," Laura cooed to her. "I want to make love to your whole body."

"I . . . know," Sara said in a small, distant voice.

But she still seemed unwilling to fall over the cliff. And Laura herself suddenly felt she was pushing things too hard. It was not even important anyway, and she wanted Sara to know that too. She swarmed over her again, now turning Sara over again so that she was underneath Laura completely, scooping up one of her incredible breasts in her hand and sucking the big, soft, black nipple hungrily, wetly, almost fiercely.

"Oh! Oh! Yes, Laura! Yes, Laura!" Sara panted, her voice keening up semi-hysterically, her hips now churning and gyrating under Laura's body.

Meanwhile, Laura moved her hand upward, rubbing Sara's very wet, silky wet, gooey wet pussy again, making no more anal hints. Surprisingly, it was Sara who brought it up.

"Put your hand back there," she panted softly, urgently. "It felt . . . so good. Put it back."

Laura smiled, looking up from the wet, stippled, half-erect black nipple she had been mauling with her mouth. "Like this?"

Sara threw her head back, slightly arching her back as an acute spasm of pleasure gripped her body. "God . . . yes!"

"Oh baby, I can make you come so hard," Laura murmured, now slurping and sucking Sara's other nipple in the same voracious manner.

Sara was writhing and moaning. She was more aroused than Laura had ever seen her, which was just the direction in which Laura had hoped to go.

"Do it . . ." Sara whimpered. "Just go ahead . . . and do it!" she gasped, her eyes red with fiery sexual need as she looked deep into Laura's. "Do it. I want you to do it."

For a brief moment their eyes were locked together, throbbing, swirling, swimming with sexual desire and need, and even love. Laura knew her own eyes were throbbing with love for Sara, and, aware it might be wishful thinking, she thought she saw a glimmer of the same thing in Sara's. But mostly it was sheer, uncontrollable sexual heat.

Laura had to break the spell by reaching for the bedstand drawer and withdrawing the small bottle of oil she kept there. Sara's eyes followed her and watched patiently while Laura spread a thin film of shiny oil over her forefinger. She seemed very solemn as Laura returned to her, nestling between her spread thighs. Her wide, shining eyes seemed to say: I want you to know no one's ever touched me there but you.

"I love you, Sara," Laura whispered once again.

A half grin passed over Sara's face, but nothing like her usual screwy, dorky expressions. "Unfortunately . . . I love you too, Laura," she said softly, almost ruefully. "Now . . . do it and shut up." Still grinning a half-grin.

Laura's heart was overflowing, but she struggled to control her emotions. I have to make it so good for her, she realized. I have to make it the best ever. She began kissing and licking Sara's inflamed, glistening, flowing pussy, flicking the tiny silver pussy ring with the tip of her tongue, sucking it and Sara's clitoral hood and clitoris all together into her mouth too, but only gently, afraid to trigger an explosion too soon.

This sent Sara into transports of bliss. Her eyes rolled up, her head lolled back, her breasts shimmied as her body twisted and shook, the large circles of her puffy dark nipples gleaming, covered with bumps. Laura realized she could make her come just from this gentle sucking, if she kept it up.

"Ohhnnnn!" Sara moaned, her eyelids fluttering. "Oh! Ahhnnnnnnnn!"

Laura released the upper portion of Sara's delicious pussy from her mouth and swiftly introduced her greased finger between Sara's firm buttocks, easily sliding half of it up into Sara's rectum before she had a chance to fear it.

"Oooooohhh!" Sara suddenly half-laughed, a strange, nervous half-laugh. "Ooohhh, that feels good! I thought it was going to hurt . . . but that feels good! Weird . . . but good!"

Laura was overflowing with so much love and lust that she did not trust herself to speak. Even though only one of Laura's fingers had penetrated her, Sara's pussy seemed to swell and glow and puff up excitedly at this invasion of her ass, its slick pink interior all shiny and inviting. Laura began to lick it hungrily while sliding her finger deeper into Sara, feeling Sara's whole body come alive with another level of intensity, all her nerves and her very pores awake to this love assault.

For a minute or more there was no sound but their quickened breathing and the slow, soft whisper of the mattress under them as they squirmed and quaked and surged together, their bodies locked in a rhythm so intimate that no outside stimulus stood a chance of intervening.

"Oh! Oh god!" Sara finally gasped, her eyes fluttering open, looking down her body, over her yawing, swirling breasts, at Laura.

Laura looked up at her too. I love you, Sara. She didn't dare say it again, it was becoming such a cloying, maudlin, even manipulative refrain. Over and over. It's all I can say to her. It's all I want to say to her. But she restrained the urge. She would prove her love by her actions, and she could see from the pathetic pleas in Sara's dark, pulsating eyes that Sara was absolutely in the last stages.

Should I stop her one more time, or go for it? Laura wondered. She fucked Sara's snug asshole with her finger, sliding it in all the way, pulling it slowly out, watching the sublime expressions that passed across Sara's face. I want to watch her like this forever, she thought. I want to watch her face while I give her pleasure. I want to watch her come. My heart might stop from watching it.

"Oh GOD yes!" Sara suddenly cried out.

This was more than enough of an answer for Laura. There wasn't any more waiting in either of them. Laura knew you could spoil something like this if you missed your chance. A powerful, scorching orgasm could dribble off into a few disappointing spasms if you missed the critical moment. She knew Sara was nearly there. She needed to deliver.

"Oh honey . . . hold on," she murmured, twisting her finger inside the warm, tight channel of Sara's ass, stabbing her tongue deep into the soupy, inflamed wet pit of her cunt.

Sara was hissing and gurgling incoherently, clawing the smooth, dark flesh of her own thighs, gyrating her hips so that her pussy rode up and down on Laura's mouth.

"Do it . . . oh, Laura, do it!" she gasped, quivering, shaking with need, completely reduced—the way Laura had wanted her to be—to a whimpering wreck.

"Oh yes . . . oh yes," Laura panted, now fucking Sara's asshole harder and deeper with her finger, feeling Sara's body twist and stiffen with each penetration, hearing the hot, frantic whinnying rise up from deep in her lungs.

Now Laura again took most of the upper part of Sara's small though swollen pussy into her mouth, including the pussy ring, and began to lick and suck the wet, slippery flesh hungrily, bringing Sara quickly even closer to the edge. Sara began pumping frantically, almost maniacally, moaning and keening, her ass cheeks clenching as her whole pelvis churned up off the mattress, wailing in shocking sexual excitement as Laura's tongue found her clit and stroked it rapidly.

"Oh! Oh! Annhhhhhh! Oh! Oh!" she cried out, pumping, writhing, now grabbing her breasts instead of clawing her thighs, twisting her large, thick nipples crazily, pumping, undulating.

It was no longer a matter of technique for Laura. The moment was so heated and the inevitable conclusion so close that she could do nothing but keep her mouth glued to Sara's pussy and her finger embedded deep in Sara's ass as Sara churned and hurtled toward her explosion. Just when she thought their surging and striving could get no more urgent, Sara herself accelerated the pace, now wildly jumping and pumping and moaning half-hysterically.

"Mmmnnnneeee . . . oh! Ungghh! Oh shit . . . oh! Ungghh! Anngghhh! Oh shit . . . oh Laura oh god!" she gasped, her pelvis gyrating in the air as Laura plunged her finger now deep into Sara's ass, knowing that intense sensation would only help at this point, and make the final outcome even more piercing.

She didn't know how long it could last now, and in fact it didn't last much longer. As if she were coiling, conserving her strength for the coming eruption, Sara sank briefly back to the bed, her body briefly still, her breathing ragged and punctuated by small hysterical whimpers. Then, without warning, she grew stiff as a board, then uncoiled and erupted in several violent spasms, screaming in ecstasy as she came.

"ANNGGHIIIEEEEEE! OH! OH! UNNNGGGMMNNIIEEEEEE!" she cried out, her body flipping and jackknifing so violently that Laura was actually flung to the side.

Feeling bizarrely foolish and unnecessary as Sara rocked and moaned her way through a fiendishly intense orgasm, she quickly recovered and embraced her, wiping her wet finger on the sheet behind them and holding Sara tightly as the secondary shocks wracked her shuddering flesh. I want to be with her . . . I want to be part of her when she's coming, Laura thought, pushing her body into Sara's warm, clenching flesh. I love her. Oh god, she came so hard. She's still coming.

She held Sara and pressed her lips to Sara's cheek, feeling Sara's body twitch and quiver as each waning spasm gripped her. She did not let go of Sara for a long time.

"Ohhhhhh!" Sara sighed, her body finally relaxing in Laura's arms, her arms falling like dead weight to her sides, her mouth slack, her eyes glazed. "Ohhhhhh . . . shit . . . don't you ever do that to me again . . . ohhhhhhhh!" But even in the midst of her stunning bliss, she could not resist a joke. "Until I ask you to, that is," she grinned.

"Mmmm," Laura nuzzled her damp neck. Sara's entire body was now coated by a thin, glowing film of sweat from this sweet ordeal. "You didn't ask me to this time."

"I beg your pardon," Sara said, raising an eyebrow, her voice still shaky. "I believe I did."

"Well . . . in a way, I guess."

Sara grew solemn. She kissed Laura lengthily and romantically. "Thank you for making me come harder than I ever did in my life," she whispered. "Even harder than I ever did before with you. Which is saying something."

"Thank you for letting me," Laura whispered. "I lo—"

Sara put a finger on Laura's lips. "Don't say it," she whispered back, her eyes still shining from the afterglow of her shattering orgasm. "I know you do. Don't say it. We don't want to kill it by saying it too much."

Laura nodded, chastened by this good sense and the warm, loving way in which Sara communicated it. They kissed again, soul-kissing, a very moving kiss, and Sara began to stroke Laura's naked body while they kissed.

"My turn," she breathed, nibbling Laura's lips. "Or should I say, your turn?"

Laura gazed into her eyes, still thunderstruck by love and passion. "I've longed for this moment."

Sara smiled, her eyes glinting with ambiguous meaning. "Me too." Nonchalantly, she raised her hand between their faces. "By the way, did you notice how I trimmed my nails back?"

Laura felt a delicious shiver stream down her back. The last time they were together, before Laura's mistake with Dee Dee had caused their whole relationship to blow up in her face, she had fist-fucked Sara in perhaps the sweetest, most intense, and most stirringly intimate moment of their affair, until now. Their union at that instant had seemed so perfect and so pure that Laura was sure nothing could ever touch or defile it. Shows how much I knew, she thought, endlessly grateful at this moment that Sara had apparently forgiven her.

"They're . . . very short," she said, running her fingertip along Sara's trimmed fingernails.

Sara had begun to kiss Laura's body sensually everywhere, her shoulders, her chest, the upper slopes of her breasts. "The better to . . . pleasure you with, my dear," she teased, looking up.

Laura lay back, letting her fingers caress Sara's smooth, dark forehead, then her hair, brushing a few stray filaments away from her temple, watching Sara's phenomenal lips descend until they reached her breasts. Like Laura before her, Sara was in no hurry. They had always loved one another slowly, patiently, with loving skill and tenderness, but this time, perhaps because of their recent estrangement and the sharp emotional residue it left, they seemed to approach each other's flesh with reverence and rapt sensitivity.

Sara covered Laura's small breasts with her dark brown hands and squeezed them gently while continuing to kiss every inch of skin around and under the perfect globes.

"You know . . . I've missed these," she murmured to Laura, looking up once from under her heavy eyelids, holding Laura's breasts apart and kissing the flat expanse of creamy skin between them, licking it, then kissing it again.

"What are you going to do to them?" Laura asked, smiling.

"I think I'm going to . . . have them for dinner," Sara replied, her dark eyes twinkling. "Nummie num."

"Oh . . . Sara!" Laura gasped, nearly fainting with happiness as she felt Sara's thick, sensual lips close over one of her aching nipples.

It was impossible for there to be such bliss, Laura thought as Sara kissed and massaged her breasts and sucked her nipples over the next several minutes. The challenge now for her, apart from simply giving in to and enjoying to the fullest the deep love she felt transmitted to her through Sara's mouth on her sensitive nipples, was not to come too fast. This was the appetizer, not the main course. Sara was going to fist fuck her, she knew, and the mere thought of that was almost enough to make her come prematurely. It wouldn't do to go off early.

And Sara knew she might. Their bodies and minds were very much in harmony and had been from the very beginning. Sara knew that Laura, after having fucked her so beautifully only minutes ago, could only be seething and yearning inwardly for release herself. And so she was careful not to bring Laura to the absolute point of no return too quickly. Nevertheless, by the time she resumed her descent down Laura's body, Laura was in a state of helpless, frantic need.

Whimpering and squirming, she parted her thighs to let Sara slide down between them, then watched Sara's lips on the velvety smooth skin of her flat belly, then on her inner thighs.

"Oh! Oh god . . . it feels so good, honey!" she panted, wincing with pleasure as she felt Sara's fingers spreading her wet, swollen pussy lips.

Sara looked up at her, grinning slightly. "Are you ready for Auntie Sara to give you, shall we say, the finishing touches?"

"Oh god, yes!"

It was a deeply ambiguous emotional moment, and Laura found herself wondering as she looked into Sara's suddenly mysterious eyes if somehow revenge were not mixed with love in this very intimate act that was about to occur. After all, fist fucking could be violent; shoving your fist deep into someone's body offered a tempting chance to punish her, if you were so inclined. Even Laura had once or twice fisted a lover harder than she had intended, partially through anger swirling together with her genuine lust.

This thought made her fear Sara as much as she adored her in this very instant, and the two feelings intermingled together seemed to paralyze her with physical hunger and real terror. Sara had good reason to want to punish her. Laura held her breath as she felt Sara's fingers clumping together in the greasy warm channel of her pussy.

"Don't . . . hurt me!" she whimpered, the words escaping her mouth before she had planned to say them, before she could reconsider.

Sara looked up at her, bemused. Her eyes flickered with recognition, and Laura knew in that instant that Sara knew exactly what she was feeling, what she was fearing. Then a wholly different expression slowly took over Sara's face. It was a warm, loving, deeply affectionate smile.

"Laura . . . I would never hurt you," she said, quietly. "Never."

"Oh god, then fuck me . . . please!" Laura begged. "I need it so bad. I need to feel you inside me."

Sara made a mildly funny face, not hysterically funny but playful and droll. "Oooohh, you have a potty mouth, girl. Here . . . how does this feel?"

She bunched up her fingers and pushed them further into the pulsing, frothing wet gash of Laura's gaping pussy. Laura felt the breath leave her lungs briefly. She threw her head back, feeling the thrilling honeyfire of profound sexual pleasure pour through her body.

"Ohhhhh . . . it's heaven . . . do it . . . yes, do it . . . oh honey, do it!"

Gnawing her lower lip and concentrating, Sara pushed harder, inching the wedge of her hand further into Laura's body slowly. Laura had lubricated so copiously that Sara's hand encountered almost no resistance, and in a few seconds it was completely embedded in Laura's tight cunt, up to the wrist. Finished scrutinizing the process of penetration, she gazed again up at Laura.

This was the moment, Laura knew, both had been waiting for. Their eyes locked, pulsing slowly, rhythmically, in mysterious harmony. For Laura, though she didn't know why, fist fucking was almost always a ceremony of piercing intimacy and shockingly deep emotion. Maybe it was the absolute linkage, the fact that your two bodies were completely united, though it was never something she felt with a man's cock in her. She had ceased trying to figure it out, but she knew that when she had done it to Sara, during their last time together, they had both felt the same thing, this unreal, throbbing, intense closeness, this sense of being completely merged, this feeling of all-enveloping love and incredible sexual joy that they were now feeling again.

Sara began to move her hand, twisting it ever so slowly, pushing it in further, watching Laura's face carefully. "Is it good?" she finally whispered.

"Oh . . .yes!" Laura gulped, almost unable to reply. Her body was rippling with sexual fire, and her mind was overflowing with deep, almost painful love for Sara.

"Are you going to come fast?"

"Oh yes! Ungghhhh! Oh Jesus . . . it's so good! I don't want it to stop!"

Sara smiled, now bunching her fingers into a fist inside of Laura's very tight pussy, then twisting her hand slowly so that Laura could feel the hard bumps of her knuckles against the squinchy, soft, wet flesh. She glanced down at her wrist protruding from Laura's crammed cunt, then up again into Laura's eyes.

"You know I'm not going to let it stop," she said softly.

And remarkably enough, considering how overwrought with sexual tension Laura already was, Sara did manage to prolong the process for several more minutes. She did it by moving her hand very slowly and watching Laura's face at the same time, gauging each small wince and grimace, listening to Laura's half-desperate panting, stopping when Laura seemed briefly to approach spilling over, then smiling and cooing to her and kissing Laura's rapidly heaving belly, then her thighs, then pushing her hand in deeper once again. Laura wondered if she had ever been fucked by anyone with such patient care and skill. She was nearly delirious with killing sexual hunger.

But it could only go on so long. Even though she enjoyed the smoldering buildup, she was also consumed by a sharp and relentless need and could feel the heat inside her body swelling and throbbing and crying for release. Sara knew it too. Tearing her eyes from Laura's, she dropped her mouth to Laura's plundered pussy, flicking Laura's distended clit with her tongue as she now began to fuck Laura a little harder.

"You're going to come now, Laura . . ." she murmured. "You know you are. Just let it come . . . let it come . . ."

"Unhhhhh! Unhhh!" Laura panted desperately, now bucking and pumping her hips in frantic, urgent motions, feeling Sara's hand inside her, feeling it slide out, then back in. "Unhhhh! Ohnnggg!"

"Yes . . . yes!" Sara panted back to her, still flicking Laura's clit rapidly with her tongue.

"Oh! Ungghh!"

"Yes!"

"Oh Sara . . . oh Sara! I lov—"

Unable to stop herself, Laura was about to cry out her love for Sara again, but the breath was literally torn from her throat by a fierce, wrenching spasm of coming that crushed her at the same moment.

"Unnggghhhmmnnieee!" she wailed after her breath returned, her body flipping and surging in helpless, spastic jerks as several shattering spasms struck her. "Oonnmmmgghiiieee!"

Sara's hand was embedded so deeply in Laura's clasping, aching cunt that it did not come out even during these wild convulsions, and in fact Laura in the latter stages of them managed to bear down with her pubic bone on Sara's wrist, so that she could feel Sara's clenching tendons rubbing into her clit, which made her aftershocks even more piercing. She whinnied and shuddered through them for another long thirty seconds.

Finally, exhausted, she fell back, still quivering, still moaning softly, obliterated by a more emotional climax than she had experienced in months. Several minutes passed before she could even lift her arm. During that period, tiny, feathery waves of infinitely sweet pleasure spread through her tingling flesh, and a few fresh, startling aftershocks of ecstasy made her shudder again. She looked up to see Sara gazing down at her and stroking her side, her arm, her shoulder. She had evidently removed her hand from Laura's pussy without Laura even noticing it.

"Oooohhhh, you had a good one," Sara beamed at her.

"I . . . think I must've passed out for a second," Laura confessed.

Sara nodded solemnly. "Uh huh. You sure did. I felt so proud. Never knocked anyone out before."

"You knock me out every time," Laura croaked softly, still finding it difficult to speak.

Sara almost visibly melted before Laura's eyes at this comment. A broad, delighted smile spread over her face. She lay down next to Laura, stretching out, pushing their bodies together from head to toe.

"Give us a kiss," she whispered. "I'm finally happy."

"Me too," Laura said right before their lips came together in a lengthy, very emotional kiss, one that went on so long they both broke it off finally to make breathing easier.

Sara made yet another screwy face. "I guess we better stay alive so we can do more of that." She took a few deep breaths. "You suffocate me with all that love of yours, cuckoo brain."

Laura pinched her ass, then, feeling her strength return, tickled her vigorously under the arms. For the next two minutes they had an exuberant and wildly happy tickling fight, rolling around on Laura's huge bed, tumbling over and under each other, and laughing hysterically. It ended only when they both were nearly weeping from laughter, gasping and giggling, their arms weak again from the struggle.

"I'm going to pinch you again every time you call me that," Laura promised her, blinking away tears of laughter for a change.

But Sara was solemn, her dark, glittering eyes smoking again with sex. "I think I want you to do something else to me instead," she said softly, her eyelids heavy.

They embraced slowly, side by side again, pushing their naked breasts together, kissing gently, soft, brief, love-peck kisses, nibbling each other's lips.

"I think you about wore my pussy out, darling," Laura purred. "Why don't we wait a few minutes. You don't have any plans, do you?"

Sara kissed her neck, nipped her earlobe. "Only to be like this until we get so sick of each other you throw me out."

Laura was again very bewildered. This was so sweet, snuggling together naked like this with her, after a thrilling episode of scorching sex. How could it be happening? What had made all those hostilities and suspicions and fierce rejections melt away? She couldn't believe it was true, or that it would last.

"Are you hungry?" she nuzzled Sara's jaw with her lips and nose.

"Only for you," Sara breathed.

Laura pulled back an inch or so, crooked her elbow, and rested her head on her palm, facing Sara. "Okay . . . it's killing me. Tell me why you are being so nice to me. Why did you agree to come here?"

She knew Sara still had feelings for her. Sara had made that abundantly clear. And yet, Laura could not put to rest her own fantasy, which she had been living with for weeks, of Sara and Evangelina Torres wrapped naked in each other's arms and whimpering together in the grip of acute sexual bliss. She was almost certain Sara knew nothing about how she had seen the two of them together, and so she couldn't help but feel that Sara was being somehow devious and disingenuous.

Sara swallowed, not evading Laura's eyes, looking simply and painfully honest. "I . . . couldn't help it," she said, so softly she was nearly inaudible. "I . . . love you too, Laura," she whispered. A tear suddenly appeared at the bottom of each of her eyes. "I wish I didn't . . . but I do."

Laura tried to grab her and kiss her passionately, but Sara would not let her and pushed her back a little.

"No . . . wait."

"I don't want to hear any more."

"Yes. You have to hear it all." Now Sara did look away, briefly. She looked like she was having trouble framing her thoughts. "I don't think it can ever be . . . the way it was. You know?"

Laura nodded slowly, disconsolately.

Sara sighed and shrugged. "Who knows . . . maybe. Maybe it could. Eventually."

But what about Evangelina? Laura wanted to ask, though she couldn't. She also hated herself for this spurt of jealousy. Clearly Evangelina had little to do with what Sara was confessing.

She also felt a fresh wave of almost irresistible sexual desire for Sara flow through her suddenly, as if flinging herself forward onto Sara and raping her fiercely would somehow wipe out the painful emotions they were both feeling. But she kept control of herself.

"I want to make it up to you," she whispered, again trying to touch her, to caress her.

This time Sara did not push her away. She even smiled, abstractedly. Their faces were close. "There's no one but you, Laura," Sara said evenly, looking straight and deep into Laura's eyes, as if she knew the misgivings and hypothetical jealousies Laura was feeling.

Laura didn't know exactly what Sara meant, since she knew there was obviously Evangelina. Could she herself say the same thing? Yes.

"There's no one but you either, Sara," she murmured, pressing her lips to Sara's marvelous mouth and holding her tightly.

She did at least know what she meant herself. There might be others, there might be scorching sex and sweet, soft moments, but there was no one higher or more intense in her mind than this woman in her arms. It was very confusing to her to love someone this deeply and yet have to come to terms with all these others on the periphery, on both sides. I don't know how we'll manage it, she realized. But one thing is clear: this is so much better than before. We have to figure out a way.

"I love you," she breathed into Sara's ear.

Sara giggled suddenly, a small, startling laugh, since they had both been so solemn. She nipped Laura's earlobe. "Don't adore me, just—"

"Don't say it!" Laura laughed softly, squirming her suddenly hot naked body into Sara's voluptuous curves. "I already know. 'Don't adore me, just fuck me.'"

Sara pulled her head back far enough so that Laura could see the excruciatingly funny, loopy face she was making. "You're a mind reader, cuckoo brain." She beamed warmly at Laura, then lowered her eyelids again. "No more talking."

"Promise."

Sara rolled over on top of Laura, dangling her luscious breasts in Laura's face, knowing how Laura loved them and teasing her by brushing her large, dark, soft, puffy nipples against Laura's lips. Laura cradled them as if they were rare treasures (they were, to her) in both hands, gazing up into Sara's pulsing dark eyes.

"Don't say it," Sara murmured playfully, a small grin tugging the sides of her mouth.

"I have to say it. I do adore you, though."

Sara's smile grew broader, her eyes rolled up, and she yielded her body completely as Laura then sucked one large, soft nipple deep into her mouth.