Conscious that they should be making the most of every moment spent in actual proximity, Victoria still let her sleep on. It was simple enough to shower and dress, discreetly order room service, and be tucked up on the sofa with the morning’s digital edition of Le Monde by the time Anna stirred and joined the land of the living.
“Hey,” she said, springing from the bed without a single visible ache or pain. She leaned over the couch to kiss Victoria good morning. “Can we—”
“Breakfast is imminent, I figured you’d need to reload,” Victoria said. Although most dancers lived on the minimum protein they could get away with, Anna had maintained her healthy appetite. After the considerable exertions on stage and on the bed, she’d be ready for at least two servings of breakfast, which Victoria would be providing alongside her own coffee and eggs. “You have time to freshen up.”
“You showered without me?” Anna was definitely pouting.
Victoria gave her ass a playful squeeze as she turned toward the bathroom. “We can make up for that later. You have another show tonight, can’t overdo it.”
Anna scoffed with the invincibility of someone who still had good years of dancing ahead of her.
Victoria swallowed a pang of something that tasted a lot like jealousy. It had been a while.
“After the show tonight,” Anna began to ask, but Victoria had her own invitation already in her purse.
“You’d like a date for the gala. I was planning to stay another night, now that you mention it.”
That earned her another kiss before Anna skipped off to the shower, serenading Victoria off-key with a song utterly distorted by the echoes from the tiled walls. Still, the noise was welcome. It made the space feel alive in a way Victoria’s Parisian apartment had yet to experience.
When they finally settled into breakfast, the busboy having taken his time to check out Victoria in her short silk robe, Anna was full of her usual enthusiasm.
“We don’t have to make it a thing, like we can go separately tonight. But just knowing you’ll be there, that we can sneak off to a corner with our drinks instead of making small talk with donors and politicians…”
“Mmm,” Victoria agreed, sipping at her coffee. “And fuck separately. I want you on my arm tonight, Anna. I intend to show you off while I can.”
As recommitting to their long-distance mutual pining went, it was pretty suave on Victoria’s part. Unfortunately, every pleasure lately had a sting in the tail.
“I’d love that,” Anna replied. “But there’s a catch, right?”
“I won’t be able to make the wedding,” Victoria said, ripping the Band-Aid right off. “I checked my diary this morning, and yet again the French press has another hatchet job out on me, on the new season that isn’t even public yet. I’ll have to be there, have to see it through. This will be the year they realize they can’t live without me, you’ll see.”
“Of course they will,” Anna said, plucking at a strawberry with an apparent lack of appetite. “Living without you is pretty fucking hard, you know?”
Victoria absorbed the snap and burn of Anna’s equivalent of an angry outburst. “It’s not forever,” was all she could offer. “Once I’m established, and if you have another season of reviews like that… maybe then we can pick and choose where we get to be. But for right now…”
“We have Berlin. And a whole day and night together before I’m off to China, and you go back to making Paris fall in love with you.” Trust Anna to rebound the quickest of the two of them. “How could they not?”
“We’ll make it count,” Victoria promised, reaching across the small table to take Anna’s hand. “You know you’re worth all these complications, don’t you?” It was as much romance as she had in her at the moment, but Anna seemed to draw strength from it.
“You’re always worth it, too,” she said, popping the strawberry in her mouth with a smile. “Now let’s see how comfortable that sofa is.”
Victoria let Anna scoop her right out of the dining chair and onto the plush leather. Maybe a brief interlude really could be enough for now.
If you enjoyed this short story, check out The Music and the Mirror by Lola Keely, the novel in which Victoria and Anna met and fell in love.
Dress-Tease
by Jae
Lauren loved lazy afternoons in the cottage above Topanga Canyon. Holed up in Grace’s loft bedroom, she could pretend that they were the only people in the world and that Grace wouldn’t have to fly to England on Monday to start shooting her new movie.
Crickets chirped outside, and a light breeze stirred through the open skylight, bringing with it the citrus scent of the shrub that bordered the backyard.
Up here, they weren’t a publicist-turned-screenwriter and a world-famous actress who had outed herself on national TV a week ago; they were just Lauren and Grace. Nothing else mattered when they were here—no movies, no paparazzi, no script deadlines, just the two of them.
Too bad they had to leave their sanctuary in about an hour to meet Grace’s hair-and-makeup artist and then head to the premiere of Nick’s new action film. This was one of the few times Lauren wished Grace hadn’t stayed friends with her ex-husband.
Sighing, she sat on the edge of the bed, put on her wristwatch, and secured the cuffs of her white satin blouse.
Downstairs, the bathroom door opened, and the tapping of Grace’s bare feet across the hardwood floor drifted up. “Are you okay?” Grace called.
“Yeah, why wouldn’t I be?”
“You’re coughing. You’ve been doing that a lot lately,” Grace said, a hint of worry in her voice. “You’re not getting sick, are you?”
Lauren shook her head, even though Grace couldn’t see it. “No. You know me. It’s just my little quirk when I’m tired. Certain activities have kept me up most of the night—and I’m not talking about my writing.”
The ladder creaked as Grace climbed up to the loft. “Are you complaining?”
“No. Never,” Lauren said and realized that her voice had dropped a register. She didn’t regret a minute she’d spent making love with Grace, even if it meant she’d fall asleep during the showing of Nick’s movie. Sometimes, she had a hard time believing that Grace returned her feelings.
The first thing that appeared over the edge of the loft was Grace’s long hair, piled on top of her head and held there by a large claw clip; then the rest of her followed—covered by a towel that was knotted above her full breasts. A single blonde strand had escaped from the clip and caressed the nape of her slender neck.
Lauren, who’d been about to stand up from the bed, sank back onto the mattress. Even after four months together, the sight of Grace’s half-naked body made her weak in the knees. Her gaze followed Grace as she strode past the bed and went to the closet built into one side of the loft.
Grace rummaged through her wardrobe and selected a powder-blue silk dress—Lauren’s favorite. She held it out for Lauren to see. “Do you think this will do?”
“Will do?” Lauren echoed. “It’ll blow their socks off.”