Okay, we want hipster cemetery,” Greg said.
Filming in a cemetery seemed a little sacrilegious Merritt thought—especially filming in Uncle Oli’s cemetery—but she was too happy to care. She could still feel the exact moment when she’d given herself over to Avery completely, trusting Avery to bring her to climax and to hold her afterward. Even as she’d arched off the bed, suspended in that movement when orgasm was inevitable and so far away all at the same time, she knew Avery wouldn’t say what other women had said: Can you only come on top? It takes you so long. Are you even turned on? It was unfair, really. Who could come with a woman holding a stopwatch over the bed? Avery made her feel like time disappeared and the only thing Avery wanted to do for eternity was to captivate her with that irresistible kiss.
Now Merritt and Avery were back at work, the King & Crown crew carrying equipment past them on their way to the perfectly photogenic cemetery location, but in some way everything had changed. Everything was new. The sun was brighter and softer at the same time. The air smelled sweeter. The crew’s voices belonged to another world. Merritt and Avery wandered as far away as they could. Their hands were so close they were almost touching. Beside them, the headstones were set in couples. Loving husband. Loving wife.
“Uncle Oli is here,” Merritt said. “On the far side with the economical plots.”
“Do you hate us filming here?”
“I thought I would, but Oli would like it. He was always complaining that no one paid attention to old gay men. It was all boys, boys, boys. Dead gay men get even less attention.”
Avery laughed and took off the enormous sun hat Tami had given her. They slipped behind a mausoleum.
“Was it all right last night?” Avery asked.
Merritt smiled down at her shoes, her hair falling in her eyes. She was glad she’d been too busy to cut it. King & Crown liked the look, and she needed someplace to hide.
“You are trouble, Avery Crown.”
If Avery were a regular girl and there weren’t a film crew coming up behind them, she would have leaned back against warm stone of the mausoleum, drawn Avery to her, and kissed her. Maybe there were dead lesbians hidden among the pioneer tombstones. Maybe they would cheer them on. Maybe it would be okay to bring that heat and life into the still air.
Everything else Merritt wanted to say sounded like one of Iliana’s self-help books. You make me feel safe. I live in gratitude. In case Avery couldn’t hear it in her voice, she added, “It was amazing. It’s never been like that for me. I…I don’t let women go down on me. Not since my ex about three years back.”
“Why not?”
“It’s so close, so intimate.”
“Isn’t sex supposed to be intimate?” Avery said, looking at Merritt with a searching smile.
“I’m not good at that part. But last night…” Merritt shook her head. She couldn’t stop smiling. She wanted Avery again. She wanted her more than she had ever wanted a woman. And at the same time, she felt like a schoolgirl. “Last night I thought I would—” Fly? Faint? Explode? Scream? Sing? “I had a good time with you,” she managed.
Avery slapped her arm lightly, the kind of flirtatious touch that turned into a caress and meant everything from a girl you had just slept with.
“I had a pleasant evening with you too, Miss Lessing,” Avery said with playful formality.
They kept walking, their feet crackling in the dry grass.
“I was worried I’d get it wrong,” Avery whispered a moment later. “I read a book on it when we were at Vale. It was called Cunnilingus! You Can! by Dr. Bingo Sterling.”
Merritt was so full of giddy joy, her laughter burst out. “No? Cunnilingus! You Can!? Dr. Bingo?”
“Yes.” Avery laughed too. “I was practicing for you.” She glanced away, as though suddenly there was so much between them. “I would have loved to have been your first.”
“You were amazing. Dr. Bingo did right by you,” Merritt said.
“It’s you who’s amazing. Ever since we were in high school, you were just better than other people at everything. If I didn’t like you so much, I’d hate you.”
Merritt bumped Avery’s shoulder with hers. “There are lots of things I’m not good at.” Getting women to stay, she thought, a hint of wistfulness touching her heart like a cool breeze.
From across the cemetery, Alistair called, “Avery,” with a slight hesitation in his voice. “Where are you? Remember you’re working this set.”
“Come on,” Avery said to Merritt. “DX says I’m nine-to-fiving it. She makes it sound like I’m in prison.”
Beyond the mausoleum, the crew had covered a set of gravestones in plastic marigolds and sugar skulls.
“Don’t worry. We have permission from the family. Day of the Dead.” Greg handed Merritt a little skeleton figurine riding a bicycle with a beer in hand. “Merritt picks this up and says, ‘Classic Portland. They have IPA in the afterlife.’”
“Day of the Dead isn’t until October,” Merritt pointed out.
“We’re running in October,” Greg said.
“And the wildfire smoke from California,” Gould said. “It’s given this whole season an autumn feel.”
That was true, Merritt thought. Time was flying by so quickly. She wondered why she had resisted Avery. She’d missed days that she could have been stretched out across her bed with Avery leaning over her, her touch firm and gentle at the same time. Days she could have caressed Avery’s body, from the soles of her feet to her signature hair. Avery had been right about summer flings. Time changed. Moments lasted. But they didn’t last long enough.
“Avery, you’ll pick up this mask and chase Alistair to that tree there,” Greg said.
The crew took their places. Merritt could imagine the shot as it would appear in the camera. They filmed the usual half dozen takes. Then the sun was in Gould’s lens. Then it was right behind a cross.
“We’re moving,” Greg said.
Merritt knew enough not to offer to help move the equipment.
“You’d still get it done sooner if you worked together,” Merritt called to the crew.
“Unions kick ass for the working class,” Setter called back.
Finally, the flowers had been moved, and the mask had been worn. Alistair chased Avery across the grass, his blond hair glowing in the sunlight. Merritt picked up her skeleton hipster.
Greg said, “I don’t know. Post-production might cut this. We’ll have to get marketing to see if it’s going to play Satanic to the Bible Belt.”
The crew didn’t groan. Avery and Alistair shrugged. By the time they packed up, the shadows of tombstones were stretching across the grass. Alistair gave Avery a single, almost imperceptible nod. Still Merritt could read it clearly. Go on, he seemed to be saying, and behind that, Be careful.
“Stay,” Merritt whispered to Avery. “I’ll drive you back in my truck.”
Once the vans had pulled away, Merritt took a blanket out of her cab. “I want to show you something.”
Beyond the cemetery, a huge field sloped and rolled. The grass came up to their knees. Below them, the Sunset Highway was a ribbon of gray. A distant row of trees obscured houses in the northwest hills. As they walked, the cemetery slipped from view. When they were out of sight, Merritt brushed Avery’s hand. To her surprise, Avery took it.
“We have to go all the way out to the middle,” Merritt said.
She knew the field well. She had paced it all summer after Uncle Oli died. Then she had slogged across it in the rain of winter. Now she only visited in the spring, when the field was covered in wildflowers.
In the center of the field, Merritt settled the blanket on the grass. She sat down and gestured for Avery to join her.
“See?” Merritt said.
Avery looked around. “What is it?”
“Nothing.” Acres of wild grass surrounded them. From where they sat, the grass made a wall around them. Only their heads rose up above the sea of yellow-green.
“I used to come out here after my uncle died. I wanted to keep him in an urn at Hellenic Hardware, but Iliana said I was stuck in the past.”
“What was it like after he died?”
“The shop was a mess. He’d let the books slide. I didn’t know what to do. I was eighteen. Before he died I thought I’d go to community college, study business, maybe open my own shop in ten years. Then Hellenic Hardware was all mine. But Oli had a mortgage on the shop. He had suppliers he hadn’t paid. He had medical bills. And I didn’t have enough money to rent an apartment. Kurt wanted to go back to his family in Florida.”
“What did you do?”
“Kurt stayed long enough to make sure I was okay. He got me into construction. He knew some guys who would look after me, and then I met Iliana. Her family was shit, so she’d been on her own and working since she was sixteen. She knew how to survive, and we got along. She convinced me we should do aikido. That kind of construction is hard on you, and aikido loosens you up.”
Avery touched the back of Merritt’s neck, massaging her gently, and Merritt felt like her touch reached back to the stiffness of those long days.
“Kurt and I let the lease go on the Elysium. We both cried when we did the final walk-through. It had been so beautiful. We’d been happy. I slept in the shop for two years after that. I just put a mattress on one of the bedframes and slept under that gazebo.”
“You were homeless.”
“I had ten thousand square feet of home. I still do. Sometimes I do wonder, though,” Merritt added slowly, “what my life would have been like if Oli had lived a little longer. Or if I’d stayed in one place my whole life. Maybe I’d be like you and would travel the world.”
Avery took her hand and held it palm-up. “I can read your future,” she said, stroking the lines that crossed Merritt’s palm. “You’ll be happy.”
The touch shivered through Merritt’s body.
“You’ll make millions of dollars. You’ll be loved. You’ll have fifteen children.”
“I don’t know if they do in vitro after fourteen. Don’t you think that’s a little much?”
“They would in Hollywood.”
Merritt closed her hand around Avery’s.
“Did you know, at Vale, how much you turned me on?” Merritt asked.
She remembered Avery drawing her nails down the back of Merritt’s shirt as if tracing an invisible pattern. Sometimes Avery would tickle her feet. Then the touch would become a caress. Then Avery would rub her thumb up and down the arch of Merritt’s foot, activating some nerve that seared right into her core.
“I tried,” Avery said coyly. “You never noticed.”
“I thought it was this straight girl thing, like you were so straight it didn’t even occur to you that you were driving me crazy.”
“Did I really turn you on?”
“I thought about you all the time. I masturbated thinking about you.”
“I was flirting,” Avery said. “Why didn’t you ever do anything?”
Merritt thought she should be angry. You never told me you were gay! But the sun and Avery’s touch melted away any anger she could have felt.
“You were my best friend. I didn’t want to risk anything,” Merritt said. “And why didn’t you? You read that book by Dr. Bingo. I didn’t have that kind of insider information.”
“I was working my way up to it,” Avery said. “I really was. I was going to make a move, but I was afraid you’d say no.”
Merritt lay down and smiled up at Avery. “I’d say no to you? What kind of lovesick teenager would I have been if I’d said no to a beautiful woman coming on to me? Come here.” She touched the blanket next to her.
Avery lay down.
“Let’s make up for lost time.” Merritt didn’t dare to hope that Avery would kiss her in the middle of a field, but her body was glowing and restless. “I want to show you what we should have done back then. Don’t worry. There’s no one here. I’ve come here for years, and I’ve never seen anyone.”
She was certain Avery would shake her head apologetically, but Avery drew one finger down Merritt’s sternum, coming to rest on the clasp of her lace bra.
“Studied more?” Avery asked.
Merritt gave Avery a close-lipped kiss. Avery didn’t shrink away. “We would have done that one night in your car, and then we would have been so shy, we couldn’t talk to each other for a week. Should we wait a week?”
“I think we’ve waited long enough.”
Merritt saw her own desire reflected in Avery’s eyes, and it turned her on even more.
“I’d be convinced you hated me,” Merritt went on. “Then you’d invite me over. After your father went to bed, we’d do this.”
She kissed Avery again slowly, her hand resting on Avery’s shoulder, not holding, just touching. She kissed her for a long time, barely slipping her tongue between Avery’s lips. But each time their tongues touched, she could feel Avery stir.
“Then we wouldn’t have a moment alone all week,” Merritt said. “You’d read that special book of yours.”
Avery leaned up on one elbow and surveyed the field. Merritt thought she might tell Merritt to stop, but she lay back down.
“Then what?” she asked.
“Then this.”
Merritt rolled Avery onto her back, kissed her neck, and cupped her breast. The desire she’d felt the night before, which had subsided for only minutes after her orgasm, nearly swept her away, but she resisted. Avery wriggled beneath her touch.
“Hours,” Merritt said. “Hours like this.”
“I read my book. I would have made you go faster.” Avery tried to press against her, but Merritt shifted so there was an inch of space between them.
“Would you really?”
“No. I’d have lost my nerve. I’d have made you make all the moves.”
Merritt kissed the front of Avery’s dress, then took Avery’s nipple between her teeth and bit down softly through the fabric of her dress and bra. Avery moaned.
“Delinquent,” Avery said.
“Undisciplined,” Merritt agreed.
Merritt bit her again, palming Avery’s other breast, massaging its sweet weight. Avery stretched beneath her.
“You tease,” Avery said.
If only this were enough to keep her, Merritt thought. If she could tease Avery forever, maybe she’d never leave.
Avery kissed her, a hard kiss, full of affectionate irritation.
“And eventually this.” Merritt put one leg over Avery and mounted her, so her legs held Avery’s legs closed. Avery’s hips pushed up against Merritt’s in way that did not say, Naive teenage love. It was all Merritt could do not to pull her dress up and touch her. She kissed her lips instead. Merritt felt like her body expanded. And even though they were clothed, their bodies fit together perfectly.
“We’d have gone on and on like this, until we just wanted to pound our fists against the ground because we were so turned on and we didn’t know what to do with it.”
They were old enough to know now.
“Check the field,” Avery said.
Merritt looked up over the tall grass that surrounded them.
“No one,” Merritt said.
With that, Avery parted her legs, pulled her skirt up, and pulled Merritt to her. The seam of Merritt’s pants pressed against Avery’s underwear, the fabric between muffling the building pleasure.
“Oh, yes,” Avery moaned. “You terrible, terrible tease. How could you?”
She shifted her hips back and forth, as if trying to find the perfect angle to relieve her longing. Then she thrust against Merritt again and again, rotating her hips.
She clutched Merritt’s hips. “I’m almost there. God! I can feel you.”
Merritt thought she could feel the moment Avery found exactly the right pressure, the right angle, the right pull. Avery cried out, her hands covering her mouth. Then she rolled Merritt over with the confidence of an aikido master, kissed her, and pressed into Merritt. Merritt felt the orgasm claiming her. She resisted. If she came, nothing would ever be good enough. She’d want Avery so badly she’d go crazy. And Avery would disappear in a white chem trail, just like before. Twenty days. If she could just stop this swell within her, hold it back the way she did with other women, refuse it and then fake it, she would—
“Yes!” Merritt cried. “Oh! Damn it, yes, yes, yes!”
She fell back on the blanket, and it felt like her pleasure filled the sky.
Avery snuggled up against her, pulling her enormous sun hat over their faces. The hat smelled of Avery’s sweet perfume. Merritt could see specks of blue through the straw.
“Now we’re invisible,” Avery said.
If Merritt could just stay perfectly still, time would stop and they would stay there forever.