Sunset ^beta

   Betty was first out of the van’s side door, followed by only one of Kate’s feet. 

   “Aw Kate, come on, we’re well past curfew,” Betty chided, reaching into the back seat of the van to find the other leg, a hand, a hipbone to grab hold of and pull the other woman out. 

   “Curfew!” Kate giggled. She swanned her feet up and down at the thought until the sound of her high heel dropping in the gutter hits like a hammer in their quiet suburban neighbourhood. 

   There was a two-second pause where nobody said anything. Kate held her breath. Betty glared wide eyed at the red high heel sitting in the gutter. And the van driver looked out the rearview mirror. By the third second, Kate was laughing hysterically.  

   “Was that my shoe??” 

   “Shhhh!” Betty hushed, but Kate’s laugh was catching and a smile broke through her desperate attempt to keep her girlfriend quiet.  

   Their driver, a good friend of theirs, Jackie Shane, jumped out and came to help. The two women grabbed whatever parts of Kate they could get a secure hold onto and hauled her out of the van. 

   “Thanks, Jackie,” Betty said as she hoisted one of Kate’s arms over her shoulder, the younger woman’s body sagging between both Betty and their friend, Jackie. 

   Jackie winked in response. 

   They had gone out to play a show together, or not together per se, Jackie after Kate warming the stage for her. And after, they’d drunk backstage. It had largely been Jackie’s fault for getting Kate disastrously drunk after they’d found out Jackie had broken up with her girlfriend. Jackie had had enough to drink but kept procuring bottles from overstuffed wardrobes and hidden compartments and taking a swig before handing them to Kate, who dutifully downed the mysterious liquid out of respect for Jackie’s heartbreak. Somehow or another they’d managed to bundle Kate into the back of Jackie’s touring van before she passed out on the club’s back of house floor. 

   Whether it was the long trek out to Betty and Kate’s house or whether Kate could handle her alcohol much better than she was letting on, the moment that she was dragged over the gutter onto the footpath that led to their house, she lurched onto her own two feet and stood apart from her human crutches. 

   Doing a 180 on one bare heel, Kate turned her sweet, smiling face to Betty and Jackie. Clearly she still needed support because her forearm found the top of the letterbox to lever her weight over. 

   “Kiss goodnight?” Kate asked, looking at Jackie. 

   Jackie looked between Kate and Betty, the latter of whom was collecting Kate’s shoe from the gutter. It was late at night. The only lights came from the van’s brake lights which cast the three of them in an eerie red, and yet the light was still bright enough to distinguish their skin colour. If anyone had been awoken by their late night antics, a peep through a window could sentence Jackie to prison. She would not have gotten as far as she had in her career if she did such careless things as kiss a white woman on the cheek, so in response she blew Kate a kiss from her hands as she walked backward to return to her van. 

   “Come on, red,” Betty said, sauntering up the path toward their house. 

   Kate was not yet ready to go inside. The cool night air licked at her ankles as she lifted the lid of the letterbox and pulled out three or four letters that had arrived that day. She always liked checking the mail. The ritual felt grounding to her, regardless of the time of night that she did it. The practice made her feel like one of the husbands in the neighbourhood, checking the mail for their wives. Sorting out the affairs of the house. Making sure bills get paid and correspondence gets made. She always checked the mail but it was Betty who did all of the sorting. She was the responsible one. Kate was the artist. 

   Betty unlocked the house and opened the door. She stood under the porch light, the yellow illuminating the blonde strands that striped over grey. Casting her eyes over the front garden, she scanned the weeds that needed to be pulled, the lawn that needed to be mown, the flowers that needed a bit of a sprinkle and the hedge that needed a bit of a trim. They’d been out so many nights that week that neither of them had much time to tend to the garden which they both loved to care for. 

   The other women in the neighbourhood would compliment them on it given the opportunity. They’d be strolling their bubs and if Betty and Kate were at work in the garden, they would say, don’t the lilacs look beautiful , or, those hydrangeas are godly , or who knew that geraniums and begonias did so well together . It was two women’s dedication to purple, to lavender, that the women of the neighbourhood adored without understanding of the underlying symbolism. Betty always thought that if their neighbours loved their garden so much, one day they would learn to love Betty and Kate the way that they loved each other. 

   A yawn raked through her. Kate was not yet by her side. “What are you doing, darlin’?” she asked gently, keeping her voice measured enough to carry over to Kate’s ears but not loud enough to disturb the sleeping street.

   Kate was still by the letterbox and was seemingly engrossed in a hastily opened letter. 

   Betty leant against the door jamb and crossed her arms over her chest. Her blouse slightly rose over her belly, revealing a small gap between her trousers and the hem of her shirt. It was the kind of reveal that attracted the eyes of women in the clubs they would go to, and the kind of reveal that made the church-goers in their street pray to God. 

   “Kate,” Betty beckoned, trying to sound cross but failing. 

   “Oh, Betts!” Kate sang, bounding over the footpath like she was a spark on the Munition’s Factory floor. She leapt up the stairs and nearly stepped on Betty’s toes as she collected Betty’s hands and danced her into the house. They spun around together in the foyer before the stairs, Kate pulling Betty close and the hoop of her skirt swinging out around Betty’s trousers. Sandwiched between Betty’s left hand and Kate’s right was the opened letter.

   “What is it? What is it?” Betty asked. Kate’s joy was catching despite how deadly tired they both were. 

   Finally, Kate slowed, then came to a complete stop and presented the letter under Betty’s nose. “Gladys is coming to visit!”

   Betty could hardly believe it at first. She read Glady’s letter over and over, as did Kate but Kate believed every superfluously curved G and Y in her signature rang true. See, it had been 20 years since Vera died. Gladys swore that after her stint of playing make-believe husband and wife with Jakob that she would return to the Munitions Factory and continue working through to the very last days of the war with the rest of the girls. 

   Despite her written claims, Gladys never did step foot in the Munitions Factory again. Lorna didn’t get her job back. And Kate and Betty finally hung up their gloves. Or rather, Betty put her boxing gloves back on and got back in the ring. The money was good and it helped them cut down the mortgage while Kate built up her music career. The commute didn’t go away with the change of vocation, but they didn’t mind. They loved their house. It was always Betty’s dream to own a house and her secret wish was fulfilled when Kate agreed to live with her. Only took a mountain of patience and a little bit of alcohol for Kate to finally feel comfortable enough to let their drunken kisses lead to where she had previously been too afraid. 

   Nobody in their street suspected that they were anything but very close sisters. Betty hated being so secretive. It was so hard, especially at the start when Kate first came around to her, she wanted to scream at the top of her lungs she was so happy. It was hard enough getting a mortgage with a prison sentence to her name, she couldn’t risk the bank getting any idea that she might not be able to pay her dues, like getting dobbed in by a nosy neighbour. 

   She wasn’t always so fearful. Teresa had instilled the fear in her lesbianism being clocked in public. Betty sort of hated Tersa for that. Before dating Teresa, she never used to care what people thought of her, not really. Sure, she struggled seeing herself as a leader but she didn’t care if people thought she dressed too man-ish or looked at girls too long. Kate was the one dancing with other girls, holding their hands, singing romantic duets with them. If Kate could do that, it was normal for Betty to look at girls in her own way. Of course bigots would make the distinction that Kate was an innocent preacher girl and Betty was a lecherous witch. Little would they know that they’re two sides of the same coin. 

   In any case, Betty had given her some of the best things she could ever gift Kate; providing her security. Safety. Love. They had a roof over their head that they could call their own. In it, they could be themselves. Outside of it, they were sisters for as long as it took them to get to one of the lesbian bars or clubs in the city and then they were Kate and Betty. Or rather, Kate was Kate Andrews, rising jazz star with four albums under her belt and a new extended play on the way, and Betty was her occasionally black-eyed girlfriend, or ‘very close friend’ to the press.

   Gladys knew all of this, of course. They had written to each other on and off over the years. Her letters were often restrained due to the nature of her job, and likewise Betty was careful with what she wrote in return knowing full well who Gladys’ employers were likely to be. In any case, it was the first time that they had seen each other face to face for a very, very long time. There was a show on the same night Gladys was to visit, which turned out to be the perfect way to show Kate off. Of course, as their evenings spent in the front of the club often played out, they had hardly time to get into meaningful conversation as they had been disturbed almost constantly.

   “I’m starting to think getting you to sign one of my records might just be an investment,” Gladys said over a thin glass of champagne. She had been watching the fifth fan of the evening tap Kate on the shoulder and ask for a signature. 

   “I’m sorry,” Kate winced, tucking her trusty pen into her purse before setting it on the sofa in between herself and Betty. “I can’t turn them away, they all ask so nicely.”

   Gladys raised her eyebrows. “Don’t apologise, it’s very sweet. You have a dedicated following, an artist needs that.”

   Kate grins, a blush flickering across her pale cheeks. Her angel face of hers that Gladys remembered so well shone through her now middle-aged complexion. 

   A lock of Kate’s curly red hair fell on her face, and Betty was quick to curl her forefinger around it and tuck it behind Kate’s ear. Gladys understood why each of the girls had approached Kate so sheepishly when Betty’s sitting in the corner of their booth, both arms over the edge of the piped cushioning, one knee on the couch like she’s ready to fight someone at a moment’s notice. The evidence of her last battle was littered over her face by way of purple bruises. She seemed to get away in one piece, who could say the same for her opponent? 

   But Betty was far from menacing. It was impossible with her cherub face. She wore her hair in much the same style as when Gladys saw her last, whereas Kate was probably going to the hairdresser every week, maybe twice a week, and getting a new do. That night she wore her fiery red hair in long, loose waves like Sharon Tate, and where others might have done a beehive, she has teased her hair to add volume at the top, resulting in a mix of wild and tame that reminded Gladys of the way her own hair had looked after a long shift at the factory, only Kate was intentionally going for the look. 

   In addition to her wild hair, Kate wore a voluminous dress befitting a child bride. Excessive tulle volcanoed out around the bust and became ever thicker as the ballgown reached the floor. In contrast, Betty wore a much more understated white T-shirt with denim overalls, two straps hanging loosely over her shoulders. 

   The pair could not look more distinct from each other, yet they were instantly recognisable as some of her oldest friends. And how she had missed them. 

   “So let me get this straight,” Betty said as she set down her fork on her plate, dropping from the tines the piece of steak that had sat on the end of the fork. She’d asked for the blackest steak the chef could muster and hadn’t eaten a crumb of it. At first Gladys worried what game she was playing with her own stomach, but was soon attracted to Betty’s claim that she liked to eat meat the same way her Daddy would make it on the farm. “You weren’t just pretend husband and wife, you married Jakob.”

   “Yes, I did,” Gladys confirmed with no attempt to conceal her dissatisfaction with the concept. 

   “But you never did have children,” Kate pressed. She was eating a bowl of ice cream. It soothed her throat before a performance. 

   “No, I did not.”

   “See, that shocks me,” Betty replied. “I would have thought that you would have had three, maybe four little ones hanging off your hip.”

   “Really?” Gladys could never picture herself with even one child, let alone three or four. She coloured at the thought of what might have led Betty to think that of her. 

   “Gladys was never one to do what was expected of her,” Kate inputted. 

   Betty had just cut a new slice of steak and had raised the fork to her mouth, only to lower it back to the plate when she heard Kate’s response. “Careful now, you’re gonna make her sound like one of us.”

   “That wouldn’t be too bad, would it?” Gladys said playfully. She knew full well what Betty meant. 

   Betty eyed Gladys in silence as Kate ate the last spoonful of her ice cream. The younger of the three kissed Betty on the lips before gathering her dress and crossing the floor to the stage. There, she met her friend, a black woman, who helped her up onto the stage. And, to Gladys’ surprise, gave Kate a kiss on the lips too. 

   “Oh,” Gladys couldn’t help saying. She looked nervously at Betty, who merely shrugged. 

   “Kate loves a good smooch.”

   “From you, I would imagine,” Gladys replied, still nervous. 

   Betty moved the small pieces of black steak around her plate. “Of course, but you know, Jackie’s a good friend of ours. Sometimes we, you know, with Jackie, or someone I like, or someone who likes Kate-”

   “A fan?”

   Betty nodded. “Mmhmm. Kate means the world to me and I to her, we know that. Sometimes we just want to have a little fun outside of each other. That’s how it is.”

   “That’s how it is, huh?” Gladys repeated, bemused at the simplification. 

   It was the first time in two decades that Gladys had seen her friends, and she felt incredibly fortunate that they had so freely invited her into their world. She had never been to a bar like the one they had taken her to. To see so many women in it being openly affectionate to each other was something she had never witnessed before. It felt like she was in a special place, a secret club, and everyone inside was, as she later learned, some variation of a femme, a butch, or something in between, or neither. 

   Betty told her that the bar was one of the only places where women could gather and drink and for that reason, and because of the often overt displays of sexual inversion, the place was occasionally raided. That even the smallest pocket of safety that women could create for each other under the streets of Toronto was not completely safe infuriated Gladys. 

   “Well, how do they know? There are no windows that I can see. An allegation would have to come from within.”

   Betty was careful to describe how the place could be infiltrated. She did not use the term ‘spy’ but selected another term. “Whistleblowers.”

   Guilt struck Gladys momentarily, having played a spy for much of her life. Fortunately she was playing much larger games than what lesbians were getting up to in her home city. 

   The music began to ramp up and suddenly the club was filled with the voice of Miss Kate Andrews and her singing partner of the night, Jackie Shane. They were singing Jackie’s hit single, Any Other Way . It was the right crowd for it. As soon as the two girls began singing the first line, the whole bar erupted in a sing-a-long. Gladys particularly liked:

She wants to know how I feel

Tell her that I am happy

Tell her that I am gay

It was not the first time that she had heard a woman sing the word ‘gay’, but it was the first time she held no doubts about its double entendre. The song carried on and, always one for a dance, Gladys found she could not simply sit in their booth and wait for her friend to return. She got up to join the rest of the club-goers, Betty joining her. Her go-to dance was one that did not fit the scene. The dancing was closer, hardly a gap between her hip and another woman’s. She found that she kept bumping up against someone else but that nobody seemed to mind, least not Betty, who sidled in close to her. She seemed to dance like she was protecting Gladys, a little cagey, claiming Glady’s airspace. With Kate and Jackie’s voices filling the room, and the scent of women’s hairspray filling her nostrils, and Betty’s eyes on her, and champagne tingling her fingertips, she felt electrified. 

   She would tell them that she's divorced. And she would tell them why. But she had to find the right moment. And dancing with Betty was not the right moment. 

   Three songs in, Gladys wanted to top up her glass and so she returned to their table. Betty trailed behind, dancing to the beat. When the two got to their table, Betty’s arm slung around Glady’s waist, slipped down slightly and righted itself as Gladys poured more champagne into her and Betty’s glasses. They clinked glasses and drank. Gladys drank quickly. She refilled but set her glass on the table. She found Betty’s hands and danced with her in front of the table. From there, they had a better view of their Kate and Jackie up on the stage. There was a thick crowd before them, dancing close and tight. Gladys had never seen so many happy gay women together. It was like a dream. 

   As the champagne clouded her sense of time, it felt as if Kate had only just started singing when suddenly her voice fell away. Jackie kept on, it was her turn to shine alone. Kate wafted through the crowd like a cloud pressed by the growing city’s skyscrapers. She wanted to sit immediately and flicked off her shoes. Betty sat where Gladys had previously been sitting, leaving Gladys to push either Betty or Kate further into the curved booth seat. She chose Kate, encouraging Kate to sit in the centre of the curve where Betty had been sitting before. 

   Kate lifted her legs and dropped her feet into Betty’s lap, then twisted and called for Gladys. “Come here,” she said in a beckoning tone. 

   Gladys obliged. As she moved across the cushioned seat, she felt light, like her limbs were made of feathers and Kate was the body to which the feathers belonged. She was drawn to her. And then Kate kissed her. A jolt of surprise struck her, but she did not pull away. Kate’s tongue rolled along hers and it occurred to her that she was tasting the mouth of the woman whose voice had, along with Jackie’s, put all women in the club under a spell. 

   The kiss ended with Kate grinning. She pulled away and withdrew her legs from Betty, relaxing in her spot. “Oh, I’ve always wanted to do that,” she admitted, looking adoringly at Gladys. 

   “You have?!” Both Betty and Gladys said at the same time. 

   Kate nodded. She bit her lip. “Mmhmm… Can I kiss her again, Betts?”

   “Don’t ask me,” Betty said, raising her shoulders. “I’m not the one with a husband.”

   Gladys threw out a hand, halting the words. “Oh, we’re divorced.”

   “I was just getting used to the idea of you being married!” Betty laughed. 

   Kate took up Gladys’ hand with concern and began caressing it soothingly. “Did he cheat on you?”

   “Hardly,” she scoffed. There was a glint in Gladys’ eye. Betty and Kate knew all too well that she was never particularly good at remaining faithful to her men. “No. There was, uh, someone else.”

   She wanted to tell them who it was. She felt she owed it to them. They had taken her to their favourite lesbian bar and had sung gay songs for her and kissed her and Kate’s touching and Betty’s looking kept the electrifying feeling rising through her fingertips to her wrists, arms, heart, and dropping into her stomach. 

   “It was Teresa.” She couldn’t stay quiet any longer. 

   “Teresa… my Teresa?” Betty was frowning. 

   “If anything it was an emotional affair,” Gladys defended herself. There was, in fact, nothing sexual about their relationship at all. Gladys was curious, but she wasn’t ready at the time to explore what Teresa promised. She didn’t tell her friends as she wanted to maintain the illusion of a learned sexual reputation in the hopes that it might earn her some respect. 

   Betty’s nostrils flaring put Gladys on edge. “I write her still. She didn’t tell me about you.”

   It was like they didn’t know the same woman. “Do you really think that Teresa would write her love life down?” 

   In fact, she had in the form of poems to Gladys. Poems that needed to be decoded for her to understand. She briefly wondered whether Teresa had sent Betty codes in her own letters that had gone right over Betty’s head. 

   Kate distracted her by kissing Gladys again. It created a natural end to the conversation that Gladys appreciated. She let her hands find Kate’s waist under all of the tulle, but what she most wanted to do was take it all off. She broke off the kiss to tell her as much. 

   “I booked a hotel closeby.” She kissed Kate’s neck, and jawline, and the corner of her smiling lips. 

   Kate was looking at Betty when she said, “We remembered.”

   They were drunk. They were not getting into Glady’s car and making the trek back to Kate and Betty’s home. A cab would have cost half their mortgage and so they appreciated hunkering down with Gladys in her fancy hotel. They entered the foyer as three friends and fell into the room as lovers. The walls were thick. The bed king-sized, big enough for the three of them. They fell onto it together, skin jittery and on fire. 

   Betty climbed over Kate and kissed her passionately, leaving Gladys to drop off her shoes and pull herself up toward the headboard. She observed her friends, how relaxed they looked. Gladys knew that Betty pined over Kate for so long. She was away for the culmination of their romantic relationship so she didn’t really know how it all began between them. She was just glad that it finalled had. 

   “Is… this ok? Where this is going?” Gladys thought to ask. 

   The straps of Betty’s overalls fell down to her waist when she looked up at Gladys. Betty’s tulle fell about her like exploded strawberry cake. “‘Course. I told you, we like to have fun.”

   It was Betty’s turn to go for Gladys. She clambered over the bed on all fours and when she found Gladys sitting up against the headboard, she rose up to grab the end of it and lifted one knee over Glady’s waist, fitting lap to lap. Betty then lowered her hands to Glady’s jawline and tilted her head toward hers. Betty’s lips were so plump and full. Gladys loved kissing them. She loved feeling the way Betty moved her mouth around hers. She loved seeing, in the corner of her eye, Kate creeping up the bed to join them.

   It became a competition, almost, to see who could learn Gladys’ quirks first. She was running out of breath by the time that Betty forfeited to Kate so that she could unbutton her blouse. Gladys could hardly notice Betty undressing herself when Kate’s tongue was down her throat. Kate seemed to want to take Betty’s place on Glady’s lap, but couldn’t fit, so pressed her front against Gladys’ side and moved her hand to Glady’s breast, palming it. 

   Gladys could feel she was getting very warm in her clothes but didn’t want to disturb the flow. Betty had pared down to her bra and was stepping off Gladys and the bed to rip off her overalls. She clambered back on the bed and thankfully Gladys felt that Betty was slowly removing articles of Glady’s clothing; her shoes, her socks, rising up to Glady’s waist and fiddling with the clasp. Gladys lifted her hips to help, and watched, mouth being devoured by Kate, as Betty pulled off her trousers. 

   She stared at Betty’s breasts. She’d never been able to do such a thing so unashamedly. Sure, she had plenty of opportunities in the changeroom of the Munitions factory, or even the shared showers to look at the naked bodies of her friends, but she hadn’t been particularly interested at the time. Not in that way. Now, she could look at her friends any other way she liked. 

   “Kate, help me get her naked, won’t you?” Betty encouraged. 

   Kate’s lips turned into a smile as she pulled away from Gladys. She flashed Gladys a cheeky grin, the one and the same that Gladys had missed. 

   “Did you like my dress?” Kate asked her in a hushed whisper. 

   Gladys was struck by the question, she didn’t expect it so she didn’t reply right away. The pause seemed to disturb Kate, who frowned as she was unbuttoning Gladys’ blouse. 

   “I did, it’s beautiful. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

   “Thank you,” Kate grinned. “I designed it myself. But,” she got the last button on Gladys’ blouse and splayed the two sides open, revealing Gladys’ toned abdomen. “I can’t get out of it myself. I need some help.”

   Gladys looked at Betty for a second, who gestured to her with an open hand as if to say ‘by all means’, just like she had done when Kate had asked if she could kiss Gladys. Gladys swallowed slightly, her eyes drawn to Kate’s back as she shifted on the bed to be sitting with her back toward Gladys. 

   Gladys pushed off the headboard and sat just behind Kate. Starting on her bare shoulders, Gladys ran her fingers over Kate’s skin. She was slightly warmer than Gladys, and she felt that she wanted to keep running her fingers over the other girl’s skin to absorb what heat she could glean from her. Kate pulled her hair in front of her, exposing the back of her neck. Gladys touched the gentle rises of her spine where it met her hairline, then traced it down, notch after notch until she got to the nearly hidden zipper between cotton candy fabric. Grasping the thin zipper between her right thumb and forefinger, she leaned forward and pressed a kiss on Kate’s neck, and hovered her lips there, her breath rushing over the nape of Kate’s neck as she pulled down the zipper. 

   Kate let out a small moan at the move. Gladys had received the same treatment from a previous suitor, and was impressed by how exhilarating it felt to affect such a response from someone else. Slowly she reached the hilt of the zipper and the fabric began to fall away from Kate’s body itself. She held her breath as she saw the deep scars over Kate’s back. They had faded over time just as her memory of them had, but they were inseparable from the fabric of her body. 

   Without thinking, Gladys ran her fingers over a pair of criss-crossing scars that striped Kate’s back from her shoulderblade down to her lower back. Kate knew what Gladys was doing, but appreciated the attempt to hide it when Gladys turned her grip to the dress. She gathered the material and lifted it up and over Kate’s head. Betty was waiting behind her and took the dress from her, already beginning to rearrange the fabric to its proper place before she draped it over a chair. 

   “There’s hangers in the bathroom,” Gladys offered. 

   Betty nodded and Kate’s hand was on Glady’s chin, pulling her mouth toward her as she said, “You think of everything, Gladys.”

   Gladys’ heart was beating in her throat. She’d never touched Kate’s scars before and she knew that she was sensitive about them. She thought that the best thing to do was to move on as if they hadn’t been there at all. Kate was more than happy to do that, too. She was already turning back to Gladys, sitting only in her bottom undergarments. She had not worn a bra, and she was delighted when Glady’s hand came to explore cupping her breasts in her hands, just as Kate had done with her a few minutes before. 

   Kate was grinning into their kiss and had her hand on Gladys’ belly and wanted to pull her close and press their bodies together, only for Betty to wrap her hands around Kate’s waist and prompt her on her knees. Without breaking from kissing Gladys, she complied with Betty’s gentle encouragement and then felt her girlfriend slide her fingers in between Kate’s legs and caress her vulva over the top of her underwear. Kate moaned into Gladys’ mouth, rutting slightly over Betty’s fingers. She was already wet and her body was vibrating with the excitement of the situation. 

   Betty kept spreading her fore- and middle finger over Kate’s piece, watching the way her little arse keened toward her touch, and could see the sweat beginning to build over Glady’s brow, the red on her cheeks, and the way her feet ground against each other. She knew that Kate was keen to play with Gladys but that wouldn’t stop Betty from teasing Kate. She pushed the silky fabric aside with her free hand and held it with her thumb, her left hand splayed over Kate’s cheek as she ran her middle finger along Kate’s damp lips. She broke away for only a moment to spit on her middle finger then returned, knowing the exact right spot to plunge her finger into Kate. 

   “Ahh—” Kate moaned into Gladys’ ear. 

   It was a different kind of moan, one that Gladys felt she couldn’t possible have brought on just by kissing. She wrapped an arm around Kate’s head, pulling her forehead to the nape of her neck and craned her own neck over the redhead to see what Betty was doing. Receiving a wink from Betty, Gladys’ suspicions were affirmed. 

   “What are you doing back there?” Gladys asked curiously. 

   “Why, you want some?” Betty replied. 

   Gladys blushed. She felt like a virgin, and she practically was with these two experienced women. She was going to reply, only Kate had slipped her hand underneath Gladys’ underwear and was tickling the sensitive skin just above her vulva. 

   “H–what?” Kate said, suddenly standing on her knees. Betty stepped back and Kate grabbed Glady’s underwear and unceremoniously pulled them down like she was ripping the blankets off a sleeping-in teenager. “You wax ?!”

   Gladys sat up on her elbows and looked at her own nakedness. “Y-yeah. It’s–” She was going to say that it’s how her men usually liked her, but she exchanged those words for deflections. “Don’t you?”

   Kate laughed as she replied that she didn’t, as if it was absurd to wax in the first place. Even so, she seemed mesmerised by the appearance. She slid down Gladys’ equally shaved, smooth legs and laid down beside Glady’s hips. She grazed her forefinger over the bare mound. Then, to Gladys’ total surprise, Kate lifted one of Gladys’ legs and fitted her head in between Gladys’ thighs. 

   Gladys knew what was going to happen next. Men had tried and had been unsuccessful in creating the pleasure in her that Teresa had promised in her coded poems. She was giddy with anticipation. She felt Kate’s warm, wet tongue press against the top opening of her vulva, spreading the lips with her tongue. A shiver went down Gladys’ spine and she arched her back. Her hands gripped at the bed sheets, trying to find Betty, who gave her her own hand. Betty’s thumb caressed the top of Gladys’ hand as the two of them observed Kate’s work. 

   Kate’s tongue traced down Gladys’ vulva, tasting each side like one might offer sugar and the other, spice. Then she coaxed Gladys’ legs wider and pressed the flat of her tongue on Gladys’ clitoris, and began to apply and release pressure in rapid succession. At first, Gladys just thought that it felt like a nice sensation, but soon Kate seemed to find a spark. How she knew it was there, or whether Kate made it like flint on a stone, she didn’t know. It hardly mattered how it was created, just that it was there, and the fire had started. Kate built it, working her tongue against Gladys’ clit, and Gladys held onto Betty’s hand probably a bit too tightly. 

   “Hh—oh my god,” Gladys couldn’t help it; she kept saying the same thing. 

   Probably to shut her up, Betty leant over to kiss her. But Gladys could barely move her lips like Betty was. She felt that the pleasure inside her was building and building to a height she’d never felt before. She was clawing at Betty’s hips and shoulders and neck as Kate worked her and the pleasure burst unexpectedly. She cried out in surprise, exhaling loudly and successively, feeling liquid trickle out of her and surely into Kate’s mouth as she continued to stamp her tongue against her clit. 

   Her whole body rippled with pleasure. She didn’t want it to stop and Kate knew it. She was somehow attuned to Gladys’ nervous system, and kept at it. Gladys felt another ripple of pleasure coming on, or the same one, she wasn’t sure how much time had passed, whether it was a second or a handful of seconds, but she felt the spark crackle into a second fire under Kate’s tongue. Her whole body seized as she came. This time she squeezed her legs together, forcing Kate out accidentally. 

   Kate sat up, her chin shiny. She grinned at Gladys, who was still working through the pleasure. Her right hand flung to where Kate’s tongue was now absent, and she touched the area, wet and hot and she moved her fingers back and forth over her clit, carrying herself through her ejaculation. 

   “I want to – I want to see how you do… that,” Gladys told them, breathless, turning slightly on her side.  

   “You can’t, I’m too close. Not without a– do you have a hand-mirror? Oh, I think I have one in my purse.”

   Betty reached out and grabbed Kate’s shoulder. “I have a better idea,” she said in a rather commanding voice that interested Gladys and tickled Kate. “How about you lie down and I’ll show Gladys how it’s done.”

   Kate had one leg off the bed, one knee on the mattress. “How do you mean?”

   “Lie down for me, honey,” Betty said without further information. When Kate did so, lying down on her back next to Gladys, she praised, “That’s a good girl.”

   Kate threaded her fingers in between Gladys’ and the two giggled, Gladys’ laugh more ragged and breathless than Kate’s. 

   “Now, Gladys, I know this is going to be hard for you, but I need you to stand up, just for a second.” 

   Betty was on Glady’s other side. She took the hand of Gladys’ that was closest to her and reached in between Gladys’ and Kate’s hips to wrestle free Gladys’ other hand. She pulled Gladys up to a sitting position, and coaxed her to stand up. She then pulled Gladys toward her until she dropped her knees on the bed. 

   “Okay, now, I want you to just step one knee over Kate, right over her head. Yes, so your knees are going to be just beside her boobs, you got that?” 

   Gladys followed her instructions with the help of Kate getting into position. 

   “Such good girls,” Betty purred. 

   Keeping her eyes on her two women, Betty unhooked her bra and slid off her own underwear, then took Kate’s off too. Now they were all equally naked. Kate and Gladys fit together like two pieces of a puzzle, save for Gladys’ skin tone differing from her sunbathing. Betty marvelled them for a few more moments. She ran her hands over Kate’s ankles, knees, thighs, and drew them across to Gladys’, returning to her ankles. That night, those limbs were Betty’s and she would have her way with them. 

   Betty then took hold of Kate’s thighs and lifted them the same way that Kate had lifted Gladys’, only this time Betty really drove her knees underneath Kate’s bottom so that her hips were lifted and legs were over Betty’s shoulders. “Right. Now I’m going to show you what Kate was doing to you, and if you can’t see you just tell me, okay?”

   Gladys squeaked in response because Kate licked her vulva. 

   “Oh, and don’t squeeze your thighs too tight or you’ll suffocate Kate. That goes for me too, Miss Andrews.”

   And with that, Gladys saw Betty nestle into Kate, plunging her tongue into Kate’s vagina. 

   Heat rippled through Gladys at the sight of Betty’s tongue disappearing and reappearing. It was hotter than seeing dick go into vagina even though tongue was a fifth of the size. It was just so astonishing to not only see but feel the exact same thing happen to her own with Kate fucking her tongue inside her. 

   Betty’s instructions were firm, but it was incredibly difficult to concentrate on not clinching her thighs together at the same time as indulging the feeling, worsened when Kate went to playing with her clit again. She moaned loudly, sinking her head back and rocking it forward when she remembered that Betty should be doing the same to Kate. Sure enough, Betty’s nose had lifted and she was lapping at Kate’s wetted bush. The two locked eyes for a moment. Gladys felt debauched and sweaty and red and fucked, and Betty locking eyes with her made her ejaculate a little, a smaller amount than the first two times, and not to the same intensity, but no less hotter.

   The overhead lighting seemed to make Betty’s tongue glisten, like the sweat over Kate’s abdomen and breasts as she heaved from fucking and being fucked. Gladys was distracted by it for a moment, seeing Kate so busy. Working and being worked. Rising and falling and lurching and moaning into Gladys’ cunt. Kate’s breath was hot inside her, around her. Her knees were sore from pressing into the mattress and her thighs were seizing not from pleasure so much as that it was an awkward position to keep herself raised in for so long. She could only manage for so long, really. 

   At least Kate was not fairing so well herself. Gladys saw Betty grab onto Kate’s thighs a few times, bracing herself from an imminent crush as Kate’s moaning became louder and more erratic. Betty was moaning too, and licking and playing with Kate’s piece with her tongue and fingers, alternating from applying pressure to her clit and fucking inside her. Gladys would have wanted the same cycle but she understood Kate could not reach in her position, and in any case she went wild as Kate came. 

   Gladys wasn’t sure what was happening at first. It became a ferocious fuck. Kate began sucking and lurching her tongue inside Gladys and a luxurious collection of moans began spilling out of Kate. Her chest was heaving and she was nearly slapping her thighs against Betty’s head and Gladys had to fall forward to stop herself from dropping all of her weight on Kate. 

   By the end of it, Kate was laughing and licking all around Gladys’ piece, even her rear hole, which sent Gladys over an edge she didn’t know she was standing on. She came for the third time that night, shuddering and clawing at any body part she could find. Kate’s hip and Betty’s hair, scrunching her fingernails across Kate's belly. 

   She could no longer keep herself up. She flopped down on Kate, who pushed her off and to the middle of the bed. Betty disentangled herself from Kate's legs and sunk her knees to the carpeted floor. She looked at the flat plane of the bed depressed by the beautiful limbs of Kate and Gladys, and found an immense gulp of air filling her lungs. After airing herself, she smiled. Gladys was beckoning to her silently, a finger to her lips. 

   As Betty crawled up next to Gladys’ free side, she saw the brunette pointing at Kate. Unsurprisingly, her girlfriend had fallen asleep. 

   Gladys found Betty’s elbow, then her hand and pulled her close. She kissed her briefly, taking Betty to lie down on her side. Then, she said in a hushed tone, “You haven’t finished, have you?”

   Betty pressed her lips together and ducked her head. Gladys’ hand found Betty’s chin and lifted it, bringing their lips together again. Betty tasted of Kate, and Gladys of expensive champagne. 

   Betty pulled away. She ducked her head again, pressing a faded-red lipstick kiss to Glady’s forearm. “Don’t worry about me. Let’s join her,” she said, referring to their sleeping angel. 

   Gladys wouldn’t take it. Under her breath, she whispered, “I want to make you feel good.”

   She raked her hand over Betty’s breasts, her stomach, her bush, and curled her fingers in between her vulva, and drove two fingers inside. She’d only ever touched her own, and she had been hairless nearly all her life, so it was a curious thing to feel Betty’s pubic hair at the heel of her hand. She began to lift her fingers out and was rearing to push in again when Betty grasped her wrist and pulled her out. 

   Gladys was going to protest but stopped herself when Betty drew Gladys’ two fingers into her mouth. She was tasting herself, lathering her tongue over Gladys’ two digits, generating saliva in her mouth and really wetting Gladys. Behind her, Kate snored. The vibration seemed to come from within Gladys. 

   Drawing Gladys’ fingers out of Betty’s mouth, Gladys moved with Betty to return to her spot. This time, pressing in went smoother. Betty’s walls clung to her fingers, and she began her work. Betty did the same for Gladys, spitting on her own fingers and threading in between arms and legs to find Gladys’ hairless piece. In each other at the same time, their fingers moved by Betty’s preference. She was the one setting the stage. Gladys thought it was in-out, but it was a wavering, a back-and-forth.The finger pads pressing, patting. The knuckles hitting the opposing side. 

   Arousal re-emerged in Gladys, though she wasn’t sure if she could cum again. She already didn’t know she could cum in such quick successions. In any case, it felt as if she might have to be fingered for a long time to reach the point Kate had reached with her tongue. And she was noticing a certain slackness in Betty that was not revealed before. She took advantage of it. Pressed against Betty, focusing on her, their bodies close, boobs against boobs, lips against lips, Betty’s breath in her lungs and vice versa. She cycled her fingers in Betty at a greater speed. 

  When Betty’s wrist went slack, she knew she had won. Betty turned her mouth to Gladys’ shoulder, sealing her lips over the curved tendon and let out a stifled moan as she clenched around Gladys’ fingers. Her body went tight for a moment as she rode out the high, fucking herself on Gladys’ working fingers. After nearly a minute, her body went limp in Glady’s arms. 

   A grin plastered Gladys’ face. She wrapped her arms around Betty and held her, dislodging her fingers and drawing them over Betty’s back. She drew faint pictures with Betty’s cum, caressing from her lower back to spine, to shoulderblades, to neck. As she kept caressing her friend, she felt Betty’s body parts relaxing one by one. Soon she was asleep, leaving Gladys to hold her longer. 

   Though soon she realised that they had fallen asleep on top of the bed sheets. She laid in between her two favourite women and stared at the blank hotel ceiling. The cool of the night was edging over her the longer she did nothing about it. Carefully she crept to the end of the bed, cautious to not disturb either woman. At the edge of the bed she sprung up quickly. First she went to the bathroom to splash water on her face, wash her hands and chin, and drink from the tap like a mongrel. 

   With the water still running, she paused as she spotted in the bathroom mirror Kate’s dress hanging on a wall hook behind her. She turned to collect it and brought it into the main room, hanging it on the door of the wardrobe. The dress had felt so heavy though it had looked so light, like a cloud. She touched the layers of tulle fabric, the synthetic material feeling so alien to her now after having touched the magnificent throbbing parts of her friends. 

   Leaving the dress, Gladys pulled out some bedding from the wardrobe and held the blankets under her arm as she climbed back in between both women. She pulled the blankets over the three of them. Then, before she closed her eyes, she looked at the dress and thought of how Kate was so proud of it. She loved it like a wedding dress.