In spite of her anxieties, by the time Monday rolled around, Jules was quivering with anticipation. She’d texted Vivian a couple of times on Sunday, trying to walk the fine line between checking in and not being clingy. That wasn’t as good as being in Vivian’s home, talking and eating and having sex.
The replies had been perfectly normal, as far as that went—which was to say, brisk and to the point. The texts of a woman with a lot to do.
Jules wondered how Vivian’s Sunday had gone, if she really had kept so busy that she hadn’t thought about Jules too much.
She found out on Monday morning when Vivian got into the car and refused to look her in the eye.
What the hell? It was too early for Jules to have screwed anything up at work. There could be a thousand reasons, but only one kept running around in Jules’s head: was Vivian having second thoughts about making their relationship physical?
Her palms began to sweat. This was no good. The cold shoulder sucked. Wasn’t Vivian the one who wanted to be forthright about things?
Maybe she would be as soon as they were alone—more forthright than Jules wanted her to be. It was a mistake, Julia. It can’t happen again.
She gave the usual stream of instructions and commands, her voice calm and unwavering as ever. Jules scrambled to keep up, but she couldn’t help noticing that Vivian didn’t look at her for the whole car ride.
By the time they got to Koening, Jules’s glow of anticipation had turned entirely into apprehension, and she was almost dreading the elevator ride to the office. What would she say if Vivian dropped the bomb?
But once the elevator doors closed, Vivian didn’t round on her with apologies or accusations. She didn’t look at Jules either. Instead she said in a faintly strained voice, “How was your Sunday?”
“Fine,” Jules said, surprised. Even now, Vivian hardly ever made small talk. “I, uh, brainstormed for the Modernity article.”
Then she wished she hadn’t said that. It felt like the first step on a road Jules didn’t want to travel right now.
“Mm,” Vivian replied. At least she didn’t want to follow up.
“What about you?” Jules prodded. “Anything go wrong with work? I’m assuming so—uh, I mean, you’d have called me if everything wasn’t okay with work.”
“Of course I’d have called you.” Vivian’s voice was hoarse and too loud for the subject matter. She seemed to realize this, and her cheeks went red.
Jules’s eyes went wide.
Vivian’s cheeks went redder.
Oh.
“I thought about you a lot yesterday,” Jules said, feeling the beginnings of a smile.
“That’s enough,” Vivian replied at once, standing ramrod straight. Not straight enough to disguise her shiver, though.
Jules pressed her lips together to hide her grin. So that was why Vivian couldn’t look her in the eye. She wasn’t regretting anything. She wanted more. “Sorry. Sort of.”
“Be appropriate today, Julia.” Vivian’s voice was razor-sharp. “The last thing I need is some insinuating, giggling…”
That got rid of Jules’s grin right away. She stared in disbelief.
Thankfully, Vivian trailed off.
“Of course,” Jules said pointedly. Like she’d ever be that dumb. Wearing sexy clothes to work was one thing. Looking all moon-eyed at the boss was something else, and Jules knew it. And Vivian knew that Jules knew it.
In fact, Vivian might need reminding more than Jules did. She hadn’t been kidding about Jules’s opening up a floodgate. As the day wore on, she grew more and more distracted. Her cheeks were constantly flushed and her voice was rough.
“Is she coming down with something?” Simon asked Jules after lunch with genuine concern in his voice.
A bad case of lust. “Uh…not sure.”
Vivian had a meeting at four, followed by a thirty-minute facial. Jules hurried into her office at three forty-five to give her a folder for the meeting. Once again, Vivian refused to look at her, although Jules was pretty sure she didn’t see the layouts right beneath her nose either. Her ankles were crossed tightly together, as if she were trying to restrain herself from wriggling in her seat.
“God,” Jules breathed before she could stop herself as a sudden rush of heat hit her.
Vivian looked up at once into her face and read what was in Jules’s eyes. Her own eyes glazed.
Jules thought for one wild second that there just might be some merit to closing the office doors and— “Here you go,” she mumbled, shoved the folder into Vivian’s hand, and hightailed it out of there at once.
Five minutes later, Vivian left her office without a passing glance, and Jules didn’t exhale until she’d vanished from sight.
“She’s been in a strange mood today, hasn’t she?” Allie said after Vivian had exited.
Jules managed a smile. “When isn’t she?”
An hour later, Simon arrived in reception. “Well,” he said, “that was a fun meeting. I don’t think she heard a word anybody said. It’s a good thing she doesn’t actually have to talk to her facialist.”
Jules gave him a look of noncommittal sympathy.
Then he said, “Changing the subject, Jules, keep Wednesday night clear. Wednesday is your birthday, right? The sixteenth?”
She nodded.
“I’m taking you out for cocktails.”
“Simon,” she said, genuinely touched, “you don’t have to.”
“No, I do. I need something to look forward to. The Charleston shoot is going to hell.”
“The shoots are always going to hell,” she pointed out. “Then they always turn out okay.”
“Well, yes. But that doesn’t make them less of a pain in the ass in the interim.” He sighed. “The shots along the Battery shouldn’t be a problem. It’s posing a bunch of stick-thin models on schooners and sailboats in the harbor that’s giving me nightmares. Sun glare. Flapping sails. Wind.” He shuddered. “And divas. My God, the divas.”
“Aren’t the models used to that kind of thing, though?”
“I meant the photographers.”
“Oh.”
“And of course you want it to be dramatic. Nothing all furled up and stationary, so the sails have to be out. Last time in the Keys, the shoot director didn’t hire enough people who knew what to do with sailboats. So when the booms were swinging around like baseball bats and models and photographers were ducking and covering left and right…”
“Oh no.” Jules laughed.
“Well, that’s just a question of torque,” Allie said casually.
Simon and Jules blinked at each other, then Simon turned to Allie. “Excuse me?”
“Oh, you know,” Allie said, smiling at him. “Torque. It’s just a vector that measures the tendency of a force to rotate an object around its axis. It’s one of the rotational analogs of force, mass, and acceleration. The closer you are to the axis, you know, the sail pole, the more force you need to move your object, like the boom, around it. But the farther out the object is, like the end of the boom, the less force you need to move it.”
“Um,” Jules said.
“Exactly! It’s like when you push open a door. You don’t press at it close to the hinge because that’s harder; you push it by the knob or the edge because that’s where it’s easier. You need less force. That’s sort of like when the wind moves the end of the boom around. It doesn’t take a lot of force, and next thing you know”—Allie swung her arm around in a wide arc—“whammo! So that’s torque. Force is the push, and torque is the twist.”
Simon and Jules stared at Allie with their jaws slowly sagging open.
“It’s simple,” Allie added. “I mean, that’s just the basics. You don’t really need to know all the formulae. Although it gets interesting once you start working out the scalar product of two vectors.”
“Oh,” Jules said.
“Anyway, just make sure the booms are stable where they connect to the poles,” Allie added, beaming at them, “so the wind would have to exert a lot more force if it wants to move the ends. Maybe some kind of buttress, just for the photoshoot. I can draw you a diagram”—she blushed—“if you think it would help.”
“I…” Simon said. “Uh…”
“Allie,” Jules said, and blinked rapidly. “How do you know all that?”
“Oh!” Allie’s face brightened. “I’m double-majoring in physics and media at NYU. I didn’t put the physics major on my résumé, though. I didn’t think it would look very stylish.”
“Um—”
“My advisor said I should think about grad school and a career in astrophysics, but I told him that fashion was my passion.” She suddenly smiled again. “Hey, that rhymed.”
“Rhymed,” Simon said. “Yes.”
“I just couldn’t see myself working in a NASA lab.” Allie shook her head. “Talk about boring. I’m so glad I picked this internship instead of that one. It’s a lot harder, though.” She smiled ruefully. “Physics is so easy. But, you know, I wanted the challenge.”
“Oh,” Jules said. “Challenge. Right.”
“Yeah. Hey,” Allie added, “is it okay if I run to the ladies’ room?”
“S-sure,” Jules said.
She and Simon stared after Allie as she hurried away.
After a moment, he said, “Did I just dream that?”
“I have no idea,” Jules replied, “but I think you better get her to draw you that diagram.”
* * *
“Physics?” Vivian asked in disbelief.
“Astrophysics,” Jules clarified as she put their plates in the dishwasher. “She told me about the senior research project she’s planning for next semester. I think I understood every fifth word.”
“And yet she mixed up Shiseido and Shu Uemura this morning.” Vivian shook her head. “It’s been a strange week.”
“It’s only Monday.”
“Don’t depress me. Speaking of surreal things…” Vivian hesitated. “Something came in the mail.” She nodded at a small cardboard tube sitting open on the kitchen island. “I decided to have it shipped. Have a look.”
Curiouser and curiouser. Whatever that was, it was something Vivian hadn’t wanted Jules to ship on her behalf. Another birthday present?
But when Jules reached into the tube and felt a thin roll of paper beneath her fingertips, she knew.
Sure enough, she unrolled the paper to reveal the ultrasound photo. “Oh wow!”
Vivian shrugged. “I thought about it and realized, What else am I ever going to have that’s like that?”
“Makes sense.” Jules nodded down toward Vivian’s abdomen, currently concealed by the table but also still barely showing a bump. “Is it starting to feel real?”
“It’s felt real since I saw that pregnancy test result. But I haven’t really thought of it as a child until now. I don’t know if that sounds logical. I’ve been busy,” Vivian added, sounding defensive.
“Oh, I know.” Jules looked back at the ultrasound photo and couldn’t help tracing her fingertip over the white outline of the tiny fetus. “How do you feel about it being a girl?”
“I feel the odds were fifty-fifty.” Vivian pursed her lips. “But I feel more confident about raising a daughter without a man around than I would a son. Maybe you’re not supposed to admit that kind of thing anymore.”
“Makes sense to me, especially if you’ve never done this before.” She returned to the table and sat down beside Vivian, taking her hand. “Have you been thinking about names?”
Vivian sounded oddly reluctant when she said, “Occasionally. I haven’t spent much time on it yet.”
That also made sense. Vivian didn’t waste time, and she probably saw thinking about baby names before she knew the baby’s sex as a waste of time. But now they knew.
Jules’s heart beat faster as a smile stretched her mouth again. “Well, maybe now’s the time! Want to look some up?” She reached for her phone. “Or do you have any family names you want to use?”
Silence. Jules, phone in hand, looked back at Vivian to see that her lips were pinched and her eyes hooded.
Oh crap. Vivian never talked about her family. “Uh…”
“No family names,” Vivian said coolly. “But feel free to pull up a list, if you want.”
That wasn’t exactly resounding enthusiasm. Jules tried for a casual tone. “It can wait, if you don’t feel like it tonight. There’s plenty of time.” She tried another smile. “She’ll get a name eventually, right?”
Vivian blinked. Whatever darkness had appeared in her eyes vanished in a quick moment of wonder. “Yes. She will.”
Jules rubbed her thumb against the softness of Vivian’s palm. She meant it to be comforting. Judging by the sudden hitch in Vivian’s breath, it had a different effect entirely.
Her breath hitched too, and they looked into each other’s eyes for a long moment that lasted until Vivian leaned forward when Jules did.
The day’s desire that Vivian had banked all evening clearly came roaring back. She dug her hands into Jules’s hair and kissed her fiercely as if making sure she wasn’t going anywhere.
She wasn’t. She couldn’t imagine it. She kissed Vivian back until it seemed like at least one of them would fall out of her chair. Then she stood up, reaching for both of Vivian’s hands. “Bedroom?” she said, gasping.
Vivian looked up at her and licked her lips. “Bedroom.”
“You got it. It’s about time I show you what else my mouth is good for.”
Vivian’s own mouth said nothing. The sudden, hot plea in her eyes was all Jules needed to see.
* * *
Just like riding a bike, she thought as she kissed her way down Vivian’s belly. It had been a while since she’d gone down on a woman, but some things were hard to forget.
Vivian had already begun to babble softly under her breath, and by the time Jules had slid to her knees between Vivian’s thighs by the side of the bed, she’d started to pant. She struggled to sit up; Jules leaned in and pressed a tender, careful kiss; she fell back down.
And then Jules pushed Vivian’s thighs wider apart so she could see everything, It wasn’t as embarrassing as she’d thought it might be, and wow was Vivian ever soaking wet, all because of her. She leaned forward and licked. The taste down here was sharp, fresh, and it did pleasant things to Jules’s brain.
Vivian said, “Nnngh!” and rubbed Jules’s back with her left foot. Jules tried to remember stuff she liked herself. But she liked it rough, which Vivian obviously didn’t.
She might as well learn by trial and error. Vivian had liked it when Jules had rubbed her here, just to the left (her left) of the clit, so she licked there too, very gently.
Vivian arched and hissed.
“Tell me what to do,” Jules said. “Tell me what you like.” How strange that she actually had to prompt Vivian to give her orders.
She licked again. A hand suddenly dug into her hair, and Jules asked, “What do you like?”
“I don’t know—everything.” Vivian panted. “Just keep, just…no fingers, though,” she added suddenly. “I’m a little sore.”
“Are you okay?” Jules pulled away as her libido instantly withered.
With a tiny cry, Vivian yanked at her hair.
“Ow!”
“I’m fine. Now, for God’s sake, will you please—!”
Relieved and now sore herself, Jules quickly bent back down.
“Oh-h-h,” Vivian finished, arching her back blissfully.
Jules thought fast. No fingers, she’d said, but she loved it when Jules went inside, so…
When she slid her tongue in just a little, Vivian stiffened and squeaked, and when Jules twitched her tongue up and down gently, Vivian sobbed. Then she moved up higher and lazily rolled her tongue over the clitoris again and again until Vivian’s breathing went hysterical and she let go of Jules’s hair to claw at the bedsheets.
She gasped. “Don’t—stop—please—”
Jules carefully pushed back the hood, teased the little pearl directly with just the tip of her tongue—
“Oh, my God!”
Vivian’s thighs clenched, and Jules suddenly found her mouth and chin soaked in come. Delicious. She licked again, and Vivian actually shrieked, pressing her hips up against Jules’s mouth before jerking away again as she sank back down on the mattress trembling all over.
“Stop,” she whimpered. “Enough…”
Jules had already figured that out, and she kissed the inside of one quivering thigh before wiping her mouth and face with her hand. Then she rose to her feet and crawled back onto the bed next to Vivian, who was staring blankly up at the ceiling while she got her breath back.
“Were you,” Vivian began, then stopped, licked her lips, and started again. “Were you born with. Sex hardwired into. Your brain. Or something?”
Jules had never felt so brilliant in her life and probably never would again. She laughed. “I think I was hardwired for you, that’s all.”
She ran her fingertips over Vivian’s softly rounded belly, which twitched beneath her touch. “Huh. Maybe you’re wired for me too. What do you think?”
“I’m not capable of thinking.” Vivian covered her eyes with a hand, a characteristic gesture that Jules was coming to recognize. Like Vivian just needed to shut out the world for a moment after sex while she got herself back together. “My God, I’ve never…”
This time, Jules didn’t think her blush was due to arousal.
“Never what?”
Vivian peeped at her through two fingers. Glared, really. “Never…that,” she said.
Jules’s eyes went wide. “Nobody ever went down on you before?” Surely that couldn’t be right. Three marriages, other lovers, and Vivian had never?
“Of course they did,” she snapped, and Jules came back down to earth. Vivian grunted and sat up. “It just never worked before.”
How should she respond to something like that with someone like Vivian? “Um…I’m sorry.”
Vivian rolled her eyes, obviously finished with her little moment of full disclosure. “Lie down,” she ordered.
Jules obeyed without even thinking about it. She blushed as Vivian looked her naked body over with gleaming eyes, then blushed harder as Vivian caressed her hip and side with one warm hand.
“Well now,” she said softly, “it’s your turn, isn’t it?”
Just the tone of her voice made Jules’s toes curl.
“You’re so bold,” Vivian murmured, “so insistent that I tell you what to do. What I like. That I should just come right out and say it.”
“I mean—seems sort of in character for you—”
“Turnabout is fair play,” she continued as if Jules hadn’t spoken and kept moving her hand, stroking upward to play with Jules’s nipple. “You’ve been thinking about this for a long time. Wanting this for a long time. Haven’t you?”
“Yes,” Jules whispered.
“I felt your eyes all over me on New Year’s Eve. I was…surprised.”
Jules wasn’t sure if she should be elated, intrigued, humiliated, or what. She settled for saying, “Me too.”
Vivian lifted an incredulous eyebrow.
“No, really. I saw you in that dress. And you were so… That’s when it started.”
“Yes?” Vivian plucked her nipple again. “When what started? What were you thinking about? What did you want, exactly?”
She smoothed her hand over Jules’s belly, down into the hollow of Jules’s hip, which Jules hardly noticed because Vivian’s gaze was swallowing her whole.
“What did you want to do to me, Julia?”
“Jesus,” she gasped, curling her toes again. She’d never been with anybody who could screw just with their voice, and it was—
“Slip off into a coat closet?” Vivian continued relentlessly. Her hand lay still on Jules’s hip, no longer caressing her, no longer moving at all. “Or some quiet corner where you could have me up against a wall? Maybe get under my skirt in the back seat of the car?” She leaned in and inquired softly, “Did you like the dress? Would you have had me keep it on?”
“Oh God.” Jules closed her eyes, unable to stop picturing it as she’d pictured it a thousand times before. Vivian in that dress with her head thrown back and her face flushed and her eyes closed, just as she’d been on this bed only a few moments ago.
“Or would you have brought me home? Taken me to my room and made me stay so quiet? On my back on the bed, covering my mouth with your hand, and me still in my gown because I couldn’t wait?”
“Vivian,” Jules sobbed, her hips twitching desperately, “Vivian, oh, my God…”
“My skirt up around my waist, legs spread, and my shoes still on, and me so ready for you, so wet and ready to come for you.” Vivian’s voice was as cool and as calm as it had been on the day Jules had met her, and Jules couldn’t even open her eyes, her body was strung so tight. “Begging you to do whatever you wanted to me. Would you have fucked me in my dress, Julia?”
The word fuck on Vivian’s lips here in bed made Jules arch her back and whine. Little lights were starting to go off behind her eyelids. “I-I—”
“Oh, Julia,” Vivian breathed. “I would have let you.”
“Vivian!” she shrieked and came without a single touch. She cried out more as she twitched and throbbed, knowing that Vivian was watching every second of it with avid, greedy eyes. That made her come all the harder, knowing she was on display for this woman she’d wanted so badly that she thought she’d die from it. Maybe she was dying right now; it felt like it, it felt—
She slumped back down on the bed panting, shaking so hard, she thought she was going to fly apart.
“Juh-juh-Jesus,” she managed when she had her breath back. She opened her eyes.
Vivian looked unbearably smug. “That was lovely,” she said, and stroked the inside of Jules’s sticky thigh.
It made Jules moan again.
“So you were thinking about it. I can’t wait to find out what else you’ve been thinking about. You obviously have a real imagination.”
“M-me?” Jules croaked. “You’re the one who came up with all that.”
Vivian shrugged as if this was a minor detail, as if reading Jules’s id was something she did whenever she felt like it. Oh God. Maybe it was.
“Would you really have let me?” Jules was hardly able to believe it. “On New Year’s Eve?”
“Of course not,” Vivian said, “but I thought you’d like the idea.”
It figured. Jules took a deep breath and held out her arms. “Come here.”
Vivian did. And as soon as her breasts were within striking distance, Jules leaned up and took a nipple in her mouth, sucking and biting. Vivian tossed her head back with a shocked cry.
“You love this,” Jules said and tugged gently with her teeth.
Vivian made a sobbing sound.
“You think about this. You want me to do it.”
Vivian didn’t deny it. She couldn’t deny it. “I can’t, not again…”
Jules ignored her and suckled insistently while Vivian swayed and tried not to collapse on top of her.
“Yes, you can,” Jules whispered, and switched breasts, feeling drunk, feeling like she was having a fever dream. She pushed, and Vivian lay down on her back, her eyes wild and glassy again. Jules bent down and kept at it, sucking and licking, while Vivian tossed her head back and forth against the mattress.
“You love this,” Jules repeated.
“Yes,” Vivian whimpered.
“So you tell me your fantasy,” Jules said, already on fire with the desire for revenge as she slid her fingers back between Vivian’s legs—not inside, just brushing lightly, gently. “Do you want this in the back seat of the car? Or in the copy room? Or do you want me to fuck you”—like it did to Jules, the word made Vivian moan—”on your desk with the doors closed until you get so wet it’s all over your skirt and you have to bite your hand to keep from screaming?”
“I can’t,” Vivian said. “I can’t,” but she could and did. This time, Jules didn’t let her cover her face with her hand.
Jules kissed her gently. “Are you okay?”
“I want to do this a lot,” Vivian wheezed.
“Fantastic,” Jules said, and didn’t care that she was grinning like an idiot as she kissed Vivian once more.