Appetites Read online

  APPETITES

  TALES OF LESBIAN LUST

  APPETITES

  TALES OF LESBIAN LUST

  EDITED BY ILY GOYANES

  2015

  Appetites: Tales of Lesbian Lust

  A Lizzie's Bedtime Stories Anthology

  © 2015 by The Liz McMullen Show Publications. All Rights Reserved.

  ISBN: 978-0692363683

  This Book is published by

  The Liz McMullen Show Publications

  [email protected]

  www.thelizmcmullenshow.com

  First Edition: February 2015

  Credits

  Editor: Ily Goyanes

  Copy Editor: Adrian Blagg

  Book Cover: Boulevard Photografica/Patty G. Henderson, www.boulevardphotografica.yolasite.com

  All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into any retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the copyright owner or the publisher of this book.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  Table of Contents

  Introduction

  Be a Gal Pal by Allison Wonderland

  Two Meals and a Funeral by Foxy Kettir

  Hot Blood by D.L. King

  Kissing Whiskey by Lauren Jade

  The Sweetest Fruit by Elle

  Naughty Cookie by Erzabet Bishop

  The Tomb of Radclyffe Hall by Bonnie Morris

  A Taste of Home by Liz McMullen

  The Second First Time by Ashton Peal

  Kicking the Habit by Jillian Boyd

  Tiger by the Tail by Beth Wylde

  Labels by Jean Roberta

  Lucky in Lust by Kiki DeLovely

  No, Tell Me How You Really Feel by Ily Goyanes

  About the Authors

  About the Editors

  Introduction

  In a way, I've always been somewhat epicurean. I've definitely made pleasure a priority. I've also lived in excess, and at times, put my myriad appetites above all else.

  That's why when publisher Liz McMullen and I were discussing possible themes for an anthology, the word “appetite” really hit the spot.

  I didn't want my inbox flooded with a hundred submissions about food (although, for all you foodies reading this, there are enough delectable dining details in here to appease your inner gourmand). I wanted writers to explore appetite in its various forms, from hunger for power to carnal lust.

  Because what is appetite, really? According to the Oxford English dictionary, the word appetite means “a strong desire or liking for something”. I tend to crave adventure, sex, and food, in an order that varies according to my mood.

  Some people hunger for control, others for chaos. Some for romance, others for no-strings-attached sex. Whatever it is you hunger for, I'm pretty sure you will find it represented between these pages.

  Of course, as I stated earlier, there are various mentions of food, from amuse bouches to tofu steaks to fresh-baked cookies to frozen pizza, but as you will soon find out, the need for food, the most basic of all desires, serves as a backdrop for what the rich and varied characters in this anthology are really craving.

  So yes, there are mentions of such tasteful goodies as madeline cookies, macarons, apple tartlets, pâte, and even a fennel and endive salad dressed in a sherry apricot vinaigrette, but the characters who come alive on these pages are interested in sampling something much more organic in nature.

  So no, you will not be reading about food in every story, in case you were wondering. Nor will every story revolve around Valentine's Day, a holiday which I deplore. The one thing that every story has in common is that they all feature characters who are hungry, whether it be for love, romance, excitement, acknowledgement, respect, pain, control, or blood.

  And even though the fourteen stories in this anthology are not all food-related, each one does have its own unique flavor; some are savory and some are sweet, and some, the ones featuring distinctly unique appetites, can only be considered umami.

  For those of you with a sweet tooth, there are some quixotic tales for you to feast on in which the main character strongly desires to reconnect with a spouse, such as in “The Second First Time” by Ashton Peal and “Two Meals and a Funeral” by Foxy Kettir. I am proud to say that while these two writers have had non-erotic writing published elsewhere, their erotic fiction cherries were popped by moi right here between these pages.

  Speaking of yet another virgin I've soiled, Lauren Jade is also making her debut here with her story “Kissing Whiskey” about a workaholic who yearns for a promotion and comes across something equally, if not more, satisfying.

  Some of the characters are consumed with more highbrow desires, such as the professor in three-time Lambda Literary Award finalist Bonnie Morris' “The Tomb of Radclyffe Hall” who has such an ardent passion for words that it takes her “across the pond” to connect with a writer long dead.

  I'm proud to say that some of the best and brightest erotica writers around, including D. L. King, Erzabet Bishop, Beth Wylde, Kiki DeLovely, Jean Roberta, and last, but most definitely not least, Allison Wonderland, shared their work with me so that I, in turn, could share it with you.

  I don't know about you, but I've worked up quite an appetite.

  Bon appétit!

  Ily Goyanes

  Seattle, Washington

  Be a Gal Pal

  Allison Wonderland

  I love Lucy and she loves me not.

  She doesn’t know I think she’s the bee’s knees, the cat’s pajamas, the living end.

  She doesn’t know my heart bangs out Babalú every time I see her.

  She doesn’t know I want to hug her and kiss her and wrestle her in a vat of grapes.

  She doesn’t know.

  What she doesn’t know can hurt me.

  I guess I’ve got some ‘splainin’ to do, huh? Yeah, I figured as much. Well, for starters, Lucy isn’t really Lucy—she’s an incredible simulation. Lucy is actually Roberta and Roberta is a celebrity impersonator. I am, too, in a way, because I’m the Ethel in Ethelu, Roberta’s entertainment company. It’s a fledgling little enterprise, but we’ve already booked some pretty good gigs: birthday parties, fundraisers, retirement homes.

  We premiere next week at Cone Heads, the ice cream parlor that Roberta owns (no copyright infringement intended, by the way). Six months ago, the head cone posted a sign in the shop’s window. It said “Help Wanted”. I thought she was looking for someone to sweep or scoop or make shakes. I thought wrong, as you’ll see in this transcript of the job interview:

  She: Do you have any acting experience?

  Me: I have enough trouble just being myself.

  She: Can you carry a tune?

  Me: How heavy is it?

  She: Congratulations. The part’s yours.

  I felt my insides start to crumble like an ice cream cone. But I put on a happy face, bobbing my head in a nod and stretching my lips into a smile the shape of a banana. In all honesty, even though I really do love Lucy, I never would have auditioned in the first place or accepted in the second place if my leading lady weren’t such a looker.

  Roberta is hardly a dead ringer for Lucille Ball. Well, they’re both natural brunettes, but Roberta looks more like a cross between Jo from The Facts of Life and Belle from Beauty and the Beast. She is slender but not skinny, with skin the color of French vanilla and eyes the color of a root beer float. Her beauty is just so
...appallingly authentic.

  I’d never even eaten at Cone Heads until Roberta took over the place. Then I became a regular. I started working my way through the menu, all the while hoping to work my way into her heart, her head, her bed.

  I haven’t succeeded. See, the trouble is I’m terrible at sending out signals and even worse at picking them up.

  Roberta and I rehearse after hours. When we’re finished, we unwind, and that’s when the shenanigans begin. Roberta will flip on the jukebox and we’ll sing into scoopers, belting out sock hop tunes like It’s My Party and The Loco-Motion. Roberta will get goofy and giggly and she’ll say things such as “You can dish it out, but you can’t taste it,” and I’ll wonder if she’s flirting with me but will be too afraid to ask.

  One time, we were sharing a sundae and I got chocolate sauce on my face—Roberta leaned over and licked it off my cheek. She said she saw a picture of Desi doing that to Lucy right after they filmed the chocolate factory scene in “Job Switching” and wouldn’t it be cute to copycat.

  Well, what do you think? Is she dropping hints? Is this desire in disguise?

  Is this desire in its birthday suit?

  No wonder I got the part. I am Ethel Mertz. If I were her, I wouldn’t be interested in me, either. What’s so appealing about a gal who is dutiful and diffident? Who shadows you like Mary’s little lamb in a never-ending game of Follow the Leader? Ethel is the patsy, the underdog, the bottom to Lucy’s top (so to speak). She’s the sidekick, plain and simple, and nobody ever gets a kick out of the sidekick. I mean, with Lucy, you think “What’s not to love?” With Ethel, it’s more like “What’s the point?”

  I guess the point is that the situation doesn’t have to be hopeless. I don’t have to settle for a relationship where the intimacy is purely platonic. I don’t have to be the second banana first, last, and always. I don’t have to…

  “Our costumes are almost finished!”

  I don’t have to go on. My pout slips into a smile. “Hi.”

  “Hi?” Roberta scoffs, setting a stack of flyers on the table.

  “All you can say is hi? Everyone says hi. Give me some originality. Something like ‘Bring me my soda, jerk’.”

  “Bring me my soda, jerk.”

  “Get it yourself, lazy bones,” Roberta retorts, straddling the vacant seat across from me. “My work day is done.” She drapes her arms over the back of the chair, its chrome frame curved into the shape of a heart.

  I snag one of her flyers. “The level of customer disservice in this joint is unsurpassed,” I counter as I peruse the print, an advertisement for our debut performance. We’re going to re-enact Cole Porter’s Friendship number from “Lucy and Ethel Buy the Same Dress,” where the girls duet while demolishing each other’s formalwear. Roberta’s mother is making our costumes: gauzy white gowns with pink and gray accents and a flower affixed to the bodice from shoulder to waist, sort of like a seatbelt. The components of the dress will be rigged to come apart at the slightest provocation.

  Roberta is grinning at me. “What?” I ask, at once demure and defensive.

  “I’m dressing you with my eyes,” she answers, and I feel my face getting hot, red hot, like those little cinnamon candies she sprinkles on top of my sundaes. “That dress will look fabulous on you.”

  “Thank you,” I manage, sounding about as sexy as a chair scraping across linoleum.

  Roberta smirks and plucks a pencil from her bun. “We still need to figure out how far we should go.”

  “I could not agree more.”

  There’s an outburst of silence.

  I stare at the checkerboard floor and pray that my face is not the same shade as Lucy’s locks.

  Roberta clears her throat, crosses her legs, and continues, “In the episode, Ricky and Fred step in and pull the girls apart before the scene gets unsavory. I suggest we just stop singing, stare at each other, and crack up. As in, can you believe how childish we’re acting? We’ll hug and kiss and get so wrapped up in our apologies that we forget all about our routine. When we finally do remember, we’ll smile sheepishly at the audience and apologize to them. And then we’ll pick up right where we left off and finish the song BFF style. That sound good?”

  “Oh, that’s keen.”

  “Peachy.” She gives me a Fonzie-style thumbs-up. “Okay, here’s the revised outline for our intro,” she says, passing me a piece of coconut-colored paper. “We’ll work the crowd separately, chatting up the customers. Give ‘em little anecdotes—you know, recaps from episodes. You could say ‘Did I ever tell you about the time Lucy and I pretended to be Martians for a publicity stunt?’ And then tell ‘em all about it. Feel free to harp on stuff, really get into character. After a while, Lucy will announce the show and introduce her very dear friend Ethel Mertz. Then Lucy and Ethel will see each other in their matching dresses for the first time—and so will we. It’s easier to pretend to be surprised when you don’t have to pretend.”

  I try to smile but my lips won’t cooperate. “I don’t think I can do this.”

  “Do what?” she asks cautiously, as if...well, as if she’s afraid of reading too much and too little into my statement. She stretches her arm across the table.

  I take her hand and hold it, unfold it, mold it into mine. “This show. I don’t think I can...do this show. I’m no drama queen. I don’t know what the heck I’m doing.”

  “You’re bananas,” Roberta says, exhaling with a bit too much vigor, and I wonder if she knows that her thumb is stroking the back of my hand. I wonder if maybe it’s deliberate, just a little bit.

  “Lucy and Ethel,” she says, in a voice befitting a superheroine, “are unflappable, unstoppable, and most definitely uninhibitable!” She thrusts our hands into the air in a victory punch. “We can do anything,” she says, “if we do it together.”

  ***

  “Pull yourself together, would you please? I told you I turned him down.”

  I survived our debut only to die of embarrassment. Right after we finished performing, the proprietor of the local gentlemen’s club approached and asked if we wouldn’t mind “adapting” our routine for the club’s clientele as G-rated material is highly unsuitable for his establishment.

  Roberta guffaws: a grand, lavish, Lucy-like laugh. “Hey, it might’ve been fun. We could’ve called our routine ‘The Girls Want to Go to a Strip Club’.”

  “Oh, Lucy, you’re so droll,” I quip, peeling off Ethel’s curly blond wig and settling onto a stool. Roberta lets her hair down, too, setting her red wig beside mine.

  “Relax. I’d never make you strip.” She stops, smiles, tacks on: “For strangers.”

  I swoon while I swivel, pastels swirling past me as the seat spins: lemonade yellow, poodle skirt pink, baby blanket blue.

  Roberta is behind the counter, fixing us The Scatterbrained Screwball, a banana split without bananas. Rumor has it that Lucille Ball got fired from her job as a soda jerk because she could never remember to put the bananas in the banana splits. Now it’s the most popular dish in the parlor. After Roberta, of course.

  “You know, I’m actually kind of glad we got that offer from that gentleman guy,” Roberta remarks, coaxing a pale pink glob out of a cardboard tub. “Thanks to him, I’ve been getting in touch with my feminist side.”

  I run my fingers through my hair and kick off my flats. “Is that so?”

  “Yeah, I mean, think about it—Lucy wakes up one morning, looks in the mirror and says ‘This life is not all it’s cracked up to be. Domesticity is for the birds, but not for this bird. This bird is no sitting duck. She’s got wings and things to do with her life.’ So she marches into the kitchen, tells Ricky off, flips Ricky off, and goes off in search of Ethel for some tea and sympathy. And maybe a little spooning.”

  So saying, she grabs two spoons and joins me on the other side of the counter. “Well, how about it? Wouldn’t that make a great routine?”

  “It would, if we had someone to play Ricky.”

 
Roberta looks at me like I’m nuttier than a dish of Rocky Road. “Who needs Ricky?”

  “But you just said—”

  “Or Fred, for that matter? Remember the ‘Vacation from Marriage’ episode, where Lucy and Ethel take a little hiatus from their husbands and live with each other? And one night, they get all gussied up and pay a visit to their spouses, and Ethel says she hopes Ricky and Fred have as gay an evening as she and Lucy are planning on having?”

  “Yeah, and later—”

  “Or how about that time the gals are quarreling with the guys and Lucy asks Ethel if she wishes there were something else to marry besides men, and Ethel answers ‘Hell yes!’ or something a little more fifties-friendly? They really were pioneer women, those two, what with all the advocating they did for gay marriage: the happy kind and the homo kind. Do you get where I’m going with this? Let’s create a bunch of skits that are très gay. It’d be a shame to let all that Sapphic subtext go to waste.”

  “I’m in love with you.”

  The words are out of my mouth faster than you can say, Ricky, can I be in the show?

  I don’t know what came over me. I guess it was a now or never, carpe diem sort of thing.

  I hold my breath, anticipating the nervous laughter and stretch of silence that are sure to follow.

  Roberta slams her spoon onto the counter. It rattles like the chains my baby’s got me locked up in. “Drat, I was off by six months,” she pouts, folding her arms across her chest.

  She stands up, starts pacing. “I knew this would happen. There’s no way you could hang around me for as long as you have and not gain the confidence to profess your unabashed adoration.”

  She stops in front of me. “By the way,” she says, clamping her hands on my shoulders and fixing me with a look that makes me wet and wary at the same time, “the feeling’s mutual.”

  My breath comes out in a slow, sugary wisp. I ingest the words, digest their meaning. My thoughts run amuck: happy thoughts and sappy thoughts, dreamy thoughts and steamy thoughts.