Curious Wine (16 page)

Diana watched Lane as she drove—the slim leather-booted foot on the accelerator pedal, free leg arched to rest gracefully against her thigh. Her gaze traveled up to gloved hands on the steering wheel, and then to Lane’s face, edged with gold, her profile clear and lovely against the bright sky.

Lane teased, “It’s hard for me to drive when you’re looking at me.”

“I’m only looking,” Diana said, smiling.

“You’re right, looking can be like touching.” Lane glanced over at her. “Besides, you’re supposed to be watching for a place.”

Diana hung up their coats, and Lane opened the drapes to lighten their room. “God, look at that,” Lane said, gesturing to the Lake and the encircling chalk-white mountains.

“Yes,” Diana said, her gaze on Lane, coming up from behind and sliding her arms around her, bathing her face in perfumed hair. She kissed the back of her neck and felt tremors in Lane’s body. Lane’s hands held Diana’s arms to her, and she tilted her head back so their faces touched. Diana’s fingers opened Lane’s belt; she pulled it slowly through the belt loops until the small gold links lay in her palm. She released Lane and turned her and took the thin cord of the white silk blouse in her hands—and saw the rapid pulse beat in her throat. She took her into her arms; but Lane was lethargic, almost inert, breathing shallowly. Diana looked at her, saw that her face was hardened into the same tense ascetic beauty she had seen in the bar at Harrah’s. Her eyes had deepened to gray and looked blurred, unfocused.

Lane said dully, “I seem to be… in a very bad way about you.”

“It’s all right. It’s all right.”

Lane stood passively as Diana undressed her gently and without pause. “I don’t want to… be like this.”

“It’s all right. Believe me.” Diana’s voice was strained with the effort to convey conviction. “Believe me it’s all right.” She pulled off her own clothes and led Lane to the bed.

“I need to hold you,” Lane said helplessly.

Diana sat on the bed, drew Lane down, astride her.

“Oh God, Diana,” Lane whispered, her arms tight around Diana’s shoulders.

“Lane,” she answered, fingers seeking her.

Lane’s body crumpled, her breath leaving her. Diana caressed, glided in her, but Lane’s body arched, her hips thrust in their own urgent rhythm, her arms trembling around Diana’s shoulders, her breath ragged and gasping. “Lane,” Diana whispered again and again. Lane’s hips writhed on her thighs in an increasingly frenzied erotic dance, her breathing desperate sobs, her hands clutching at Diana’s shoulders. “Oh God,” she gasped into Diana’s neck as her body suddenly tensed. “Oh God—” Her head jerked violently backward, the sounds in her throat abruptly stilled as her body convulsed with shudders.

Diana, an arm around her shoulders, lowered her to the bed, fingers still within her, feeling powerful tremors continue to pulse against her fingers, hearing the struggle for breath. Her lips brushed Lane’s face and the swiftly beating pulse in her throat. “You are so beautiful,” she said softly. “Dear God, so very, very beautiful.”

Strands of blonde hair lay across Diana’s face; as she held Lane she blew on them gently, watching them flutter. It was some time before Lane spoke, and her voice was quiet, near Diana’s ear. “Thank you for telling me I was still beautiful to you after that.”

“You were. You are.”

“When we were having the drink together I was ready for you like that. When we were playing that game. When that man asked me to have a drink—I was ready for you like that.”

“Lane,” whispered Diana, closing her eyes, her arms tightening.

After a while Lane said, “That had some of the qualities of a sedative, and I don’t want to sleep. Would you take a shower with me?”

“Why don’t you sleep for a while, let me hold you?”

“I don’t want to sleep. I want to take a shower with you.”

Diana smiled. Lane’s voice had contained the stubbornness of a child.

“It’s obligatory,” Lane said. “You know, the obligatory shower scene.” She smiled coaxingly, her eyes heavy- lidded with tiredness.

“Since it’s obligatory,” Diana said, kissing her forehead, filled with tenderness, humoring her as she would a child.

Lane stood under cool water. Diana looked at her from the open shower door, at the curving slenderness of her as water streamed off her body. Lane turned the temperature higher and held out her hand.

Diana stood under the spray, Lane leaning against the wall, watching. Then she was in Lane’s arms, eyes closed to tender, melting kisses on the bruises on her shoulders.

Lane murmured, “I hope that will make them go away.”

Playfully, Diana pushed her away and brushed at her shoulders as if to rub the kisses off. “I like them. I don’t want them to go away.” Smiling, she slid her arms around Lane’s shoulders and stood on tiptoe so that their eyes were level.

Lane laughed. “You’re crazy. And lovely. So lovely I can’t decide what I like best. The first night I thought it was this.” She kissed her mouth lightly. “Then I thought nothing could feel like these.” Lane’s hands cupped her breasts. “Overflowing my hands. Wonderful, incredible to kiss.

Then last night I discovered an altogether new place.”

Lane’s mouth was close to her ear: “It’s my current favorite.”

“I have no preference,” Diana teased. “I love you everywhere.”

“Everywhere?” “Everywhere.”

“Kiss my breast. Any breast.”

“I don’t think I trust you. What do you have in that interesting mind of yours?” She bent to her, and Lane passed the bar of soap in front of her mouth.

“What’s the matter? I thought you loved me everywhere.”

“You’re a tease. A rotten little tease.” Diana seized and tickled her.

“I can’t stand being tickled!” Lane shrieked convincingly, and Diana stopped. She soaped Diana’s body vigorously as Diana squirmed and laughed. “What about you, Diana? Are you ticklish? Are you?” Her fingers probed.

“Of course not,” Diana said, gritting her teeth.

“Aha!” Diana had suddenly leaped away from her fingers. “You liar!” Lane grabbed her and moved her body into her, rubbing against the soapsuds lasciviously, eyes sparkling with mischief. “You look cute in soapsuds. Adorable, in fact.”

There was the taste of water on Lane’s lips, then a tongue that touched Diana’s and was gone; then warm breath on her ear, the caressing tip of Lane’s tongue; then Lane’s mouth on hers again, weakening her with each tongue stroke. Lane’s hands moved on her hips, down to her thighs. Diana clung to her. The shower spray stripped the soap from their bodies; Lane held her, kissing her, fingers caressing.

“I want you,” Diana breathed, trembling.

Lane moved her to the far wall of the shower. “Tell me again.” She knelt to her. “I want to hear you say it.”

“Oh God I want you,” Diana whispered, eyes tightly shut, her inner thighs quivering, bathed by light warm tongue strokes. Then she arched, as shower spray thrummed on Lane’s shoulders, bouncing up into her hair.

“Showers are too small to really maneuver in,” Lane said, vigorously toweling her hair. “And the water washes away what you love to taste.”

“I liked it,” Diana said, her legs still slightly tremulous. She took Lane’s towel and patted her dry, drinking some of the translucent drops from Lane’s skin.

“Come to bed,” Lane said, taking her hand.

Diana took her into her arms as they lay down together.

“Let me hold you for a little while.”

“I don’t want to sleep,” Lane said in her stubborn child’s voice. “Don’t you want what I want?”

Diana said soothingly, “Of course I do.” She pulled the sheet up, and drew Lane’s face to her breasts, and stroked her hair. “Let’s just be warm together for a little while.”

Sighing luxuriously, Lane pressed her face into Diana’s breasts. Moments later, in total happiness, Diana held Lane’s soft body asleep in her arms.

Chapter 12

Diana awoke in darkness and picked up her watch from the night table. Nine o’clock.

She sat up, and for a long time gazed at Lane, who slept on her stomach, hands beside her head like a child. Then she stared out the window at the dark shapes of the Sierras, and for the first time in two days, thought of Jack.

How could she love holding the broad shoulders of a man, she wondered, again watching Lane sleep, and these slender shoulders. Love burying her face in the hair on Jack’s firm chest, and love to press her face into the incredible softness of Lane’s breasts, and breathe in the delicate scents of her. His mouth—so firm, hungry, exciting. Hers—sweet, soft, melting. His arms, his body— insistent, carrying her, sweeping her with him. Her arms, her body—tender, giving, dissolving her. Diffuse, enveloping sensations with him, combined with his own urgency, his excitement. Orgasm with her, strong and pure—eclipse, sometimes lights behind her eyes—with Lane a rapt audience knowing the heights of her ecstasy. Her own rapture when ecstasy flooded Lane, ecstasy that she had given her.

Butterfly interlude. The words haunted her. Would Lane simply return to San Francisco, her desire to possess a woman satisfied, and resume her life without a backward glance? Tomorrow assumed a black, terrifying shapelessness, and she turned her thoughts from it.

She contemplated Lane—a beautiful, tender blonde child breathing deeply, slowly, her body moving almost imperceptibly.

You’re all I want, she told her in her mind. Seeing you here and knowing I can hold you in my arms is all I want.

She woke Lane, saying her name very softly and kissing her forehead.

“Diana,” Lane said sleepily, turning over and reaching for her. “What time is it?”

“Nine-thirty,” Diana said, stroking her hair.

Lane held her, kissed her face, her eyes. She sat up, an arm around Diana, and stared at the dark shapes of the mountains. “How did it get to be so late?”

“We’d better get back,” Diana said, kissing her cheek.

They dressed. Diana stood by the night table putting on her bracelet, watching Lane at the mirror brush her hair with a few swift, expert strokes. Diana’s eyes traveled down her body, lingering on her hips. With a hot surge of pleasure she remembered the night before, the passion of her mouth and hands on Lane, the sounds Lane had made that had been only partly muffled by a pillow.

Lane’s eyes met hers in the mirror. “Caught you,” she said, and came to her, a half-smile on her lips. Her hands circled Diana’s waist. “Exactly what were you thinking about?”

Diana looked at her frankly. “Something I plan to do to you again.”

“One of us is a sex maniac.”

Diana slid her hands over her shoulders. “Which one?”

Confident of their power to please, they were staring boldly into each other’s eyes. Lane smiled, again a half-smile, and kissed Diana, hands moving slowly up her back under her sweater.

Inflamed by cool silk in her hands, against her skin, Diana yielded to tightening arms, her body penetrated by desire, sweet, hot, melting. Lane’s hands slid down her back, over her hips; she clasped Diana’s hips as their kiss deepened, pressing her hips into her, undulating them. Diana took her mouth away, gasping.

“I am,” Lane said, her hands at the belt of Diana’s pants.

“We have to get back,” Diana said unsteadily. Then she tensed; and soon began to tremble.

Lane lowered her to the bed, drew clothing over her hips, off her body, and knelt beside the bed. She whispered, “Oh God, Diana…” Diana moaned, and her legs rose, to wrap around cool silk.

Chapter 13

They sped down Highway 50 toward the cabin. Diana, head back against the headrest watching Lane drive, noticed her scrutiny of restaurants along the road. She asked, “Are you hungry?”

“Starving. I was about to ask you.”

“Me too,” Diana said, realizing that she was ravenous.

“Thank God. I thought you were going to tell me again we have to get back.”

“I have only the vaguest recollection of saying that. Somehow I must’ve known you were going to make the world fall apart in flaming pieces.”

Lane laughed, low, pleased laughter. “How about some junk food?” She gestured at a McDonald’s sign looming along the Highway.

“I’m a junk food junkie,” Lane said a few minutes later, munching contentedly on her hamburger. “However nutritionally unsound that may be.”

“Do you cook?” Diana asked, looking at her in amusement.

“When I have time. I like to sometimes. Do you?”

“Yes. I had to when I was married, when I lived with Jack. But I like to, even for myself.”

“McDonald’s French fries are the greatest in the world,” Lane said, crumpling an empty carton. “Do you like living by yourself?”

“Not really. I’ve needed to, for a while. Do you. live by yourself?”

“I do now. It’s easier, overall.”

A question surfaced in Diana’s mind. She asked casually, “What was Carol like?”

Lane glanced at her. “What do you want to know?”

“What kind of person was she?”

“She was eighteen. I don’t think anybody’s terribly interesting at eighteen.”

Diana was disturbed by her evasiveness. “What did she look like?”

Lane sipped from her Coke before she answered. “Tall, dark hair, dark eyes.”

“Was she pretty?”

“Unusually. She reached the finals of the Junior Miss Beauty Pageant.”

“Oh.” Dismally, Diana bit into her hamburger.

“Carol’s mother pushed her into things like that. It was criminal, it turned Carol completely narcissistic about her looks, she spent an amount of time you wouldn’t believe on herself.” Lane sipped again from her Coke. “Father always called Carol’s mother a barbarian. He told me a thousand times physical beauty is grotesquely overvalued in our society, and those who possess it are more cursed than blessed.”

“Do you agree with that?”

“Absolutely. It was the origin of all my little games. To find out who saw me as a person and who wanted to wear me as an ornament.”

Diana asked suddenly, impulsively, “Lane, do you care for me?”

Lane looked at her. “Your courage simply astounds me.”

“I don’t know why you keep saying that. When we were first in the motel today, what you trusted me with was an act of total courage.”