Appetites Read online

I couldn’t believe I’d forgotten that there was a holiday this week. I rolled my eyes internally. Of course I believed I had forgotten. I’d spent every waking hour this week with my face in files and accounts and idea boards.

  “No plans, I’m assuming?” she asked with her back to me as she dried off glass after glass from the sink.

  I couldn’t help taking the opportunity to admire the shape of her body under the slightly large plaid button-down that ended just above perfectly fitted jeans.

  “Work,” I laughed. I took a big gulp of the liquor and savored the burn as it slid down my throat and into my belly.

  “I hear you,” she laughed.

  I watched her brush her bangs back again. Her edgy, short haircut led me to believe that she was “one of us,” as my best friend Anna would always say. My gaydar was shit, and she’d been trying for years to teach me how to pick out “our kind.”

  “I’ve seen you in here before, haven’t I?” she asked, never looking up from her work.

  “Yeah, I come in from time to time. It’s just down the street from my office.”

  “What do you do?”

  I wondered if she was genuinely interested in my life, or if she was just regurgitating the traditional bartender conversations. “I’m in marketing,” I answered, taking another gulp of my drink. I found that an easier response than going into the details of my job.

  She grinned at me. “I don’t see many girls who can drink whiskey like it’s soda.”

  “I grew up in Nashville. Drinking whiskey was the entirety of my early twenties,” I said, just a little embarrassed, finishing off my glass.

  “You’re from Nashville, huh?” she asked, getting another tumbler out of the drying rack. She sat it down next to mine and poured whiskey into both of them. I began to protest, but she waved her hand to shush me. “Second round on the house. What’s your name, Nashville?”

  I felt myself flush and swore at my fair skin for giving away any and every emotion I feel. That’s what I get for never letting myself see the sun. “Kennedy.”

  “Nice to meet you, Kennedy. I’m Nora. Nora Kelley.” She walked around the bar and took the stool next to mine.

  “Kelley as in Kelley’s?” I gestured around the interior of her establishment.

  She nodded. “It’s my dad’s place. He’s not in the best of health these days, so I’m running the show.” She swirled her drink around in the glass. “There’s an apartment upstairs that I live in. It’s a pretty sweet deal, except for the fact that I’m literally always at work, even when I’m not working.”

  I felt that pain. I watched her take another sip. Her reddish hair matched her freckled complexion. I’ve never been particularly interested in ginger girls, but something about this Nora Kelley stirred something in me. It was the same feeling that I got when I meet with a big client or speak with the higher ups—hungry.

  My stomach growled loudly and I was chagrined. Nora giggled.

  “Hungry, Nashville?”

  “Sorry,” I stammered, picking up my glass and hoping that my last mouthful of whiskey would silence my audible starvation.

  Nora finished her drink and turned her glass upside down on the bar.

  “Come upstairs. I haven’t eaten either.” I wriggled uncomfortably on my stool. That same stirring craving crept up in my gut even though I knew I should probably just go home. I had to be back at the office in…what time was it anyway? I checked my watch. It was already 2:30. Only five hours until I’m back at my desk, desperately clinging to the rungs of the corporate ladder.

  “I should probably head home,” I said, standing up and grabbing my coat. Nora snatched it from my hands.

  “You’re already out this late, what’s another hour?” she asked. I shrugged. She had a point. “I can’t send you home hungry.” Nora winked and spun on her heel. Her brown lace up boots clicked on the oak floor as she headed toward the kitchen. She looked back at me and nodded her head toward the swinging door. “Stairs are in the back.” She grinned. “I promise I’m not a psychopath; you won’t end up in the basement freezer.”

  My mother had panicked when I told her I was moving to Chicago. She’d researched crime rates and safe neighborhoods, and insisted that I sign up for a self-defense class. I told her that Chicago wasn’t going to be that much different than living in Nashville, but she would hear nothing of it and lectured me on the dangers of strangers and walking alone at night until the day I left. Yet here I was, following this stranger (well, practically) up a narrow, creaking staircase into her above-a-bar apartment, slightly tipsy and craving more than a midnight snack.

  “Here it is, home sweet home,” she sighed, opening the door and motioning me inside. The studio apartment was fair-sized. The floor was the same dark oak that covered the floor downstairs, and she had twinkling clear lights strung across the enormous windows on the far side of the huge room. At the farthest right of the space, a gauzy curtain fell from ceiling to floor around a brass bed covered in a black duvet and white pillows. I stepped inside and lay my bag on the brown suede loveseat where Nora had dropped my coat.

  “I haven’t been grocery shopping in a while, but I’ve got a frozen pizza,” Nora called, holding up a box with a deceivingly tasty-looking pepperoni pizza on the front. Typically, I eat a strict diet of plenty of organic fruits and vegetables and grilled chicken and fish. But my hunger, and Nora Kelley, clouded my judgment, and I smiled and nodded.

  “Sounds great.”

  Nora switched on the oven and slid the unboxed pizza inside. “Make yourself at home,” she offered.

  I sat in a red, modern-looking arm chair that was positioned in front of the window looking out onto the street below. I kicked my shoes away from me toward the wall, realizing that I must feel somewhat uninhibited. Nora came and sat in the identically-shaped black chair beside mine.

  “Don’t you need to set a timer or something?” I asked, pointing to the oven.

  “We’ll smell it when it’s done,” she said, laughing and handing me a glass of red wine. I sat it down on the small round table between us.

  Nora cocked her head to the side and crossed her ankle over her knee. “You’re kind of a control freak, aren’t you?” she asked, with the same crooked grin that she’d invited me up with.

  “No,” I disputed. “I just don’t want you to burn your bar down.”

  Her grin spread into a smile. “You’re not drinking your wine.”

  “Because I’ve already had two glasses of whiskey, and I have to be at work in the morning,” I replied indignantly.

  “Your job that you’ve been living at? Let me guess, you’re trying to get some kind of promotion?”

  I side-eyed her. “Maybe,” I admitted, shifting in my seat to face her. “What’s wrong with that?”

  Nora sat down her wine and stood. “What’s wrong with it,” she began as she walked around the back of our chairs, “is that in your attempt to satisfy your appetite for power, you’ve deprived yourself of basic human needs.” I felt her hands on my shoulders and jumped. She began kneading in rhythm, and the feeling of her cool, long fingers through my silk blouse made heat shoot down my spine. I felt her breath, hot on my neck and I closed my eyes as a tingle covered my body. “You’re too pretty not to have a Valentine’s date.”

  Her finger dipped inside my collar and traced along my throat. I exhaled audibly. I could almost feel her smile on my back as she brought her hands around to my chest and began unbuttoning my blouse.

  “Nora, I just met you. You don’t even know me,” I protested, albeit half-heartedly. But her hands were sliding my top down over my shoulders and when her lips touched my neck, fire raced across my skin like electricity.

  “Stand up,” she whispered coarsely. I began to protest again, but she walked around the front of my chair and put her hands in mine.

  “Kennedy,” she began, as she pulled me up. “I realize that you’re a power hungry, control-freak businesswoman...” she dropped my hands and slid h
ers across my hips to the zipper of my skirt and roughly unfastened it before yanking the whole thing down where it pooled around my feet.

  Nora held her hand out to me. Reason told me I shouldn’t take it. I should go home, and go to bed. But I put my hand in hers and stepped out of my skirt. She smiled and led me behind the white gauze curtain that she closed behind me. She slid her hands up my stomach and pulled my camisole over my head.

  “One of us is significantly more nude than the other,” I said nervously.

  “Take your bra off.” Her voice was firm.

  “You’ve got to take something off, too,” I protested.

  She took a step to me and grabbed my chin in her hand. With her other hand she traced the line of my panties across my hipbones.

  “Take. It. Off.”

  I felt heat begin to pool low in my belly as I unhooked my bra and let it slide off my arms and onto the floor. The chill hit my nipples and perked them, drawing her attention. She delicately brushed her thumb over one, which sent a spark straight to my pussy and caused my back to stiffen. My hand reached for her face but she smacked it away.

  “Lay on the bed,” she commanded.

  My mind told me to argue, or at least try to negotiate, but my hunger begged me to lie down and accept whatever she had planned for me. I slid across the black duvet, my panties swishing as silk rubbed silk. I positioned my head on the mound of pillows and looked back at her. “Now what?” I asked.

  “Now close your eyes.”

  I did as she asked and I heard her rustling around the bed. It creaked and I felt it dip under her weight as she climbed up to straddle me. Her thighs were hot on my hips, and I realized she’d taken her jeans off. I reached out to run my hands up her legs, but she swiftly grabbed my wrists and pinned them down beside my head. I felt her bare breasts on mine and the heat of her sex on my belly. My breath caught. She released my arms and suddenly I felt soft velvet covering my eyes. I heard metal on metal and then she had my hand in her hands. Her mouth was hot and wet on my wrist as she kissed it. Then velvet again, this time more firm than soft as she bound first one hand, then the other, tightening as she went.

  “You see, Kennedy,” she whispered in my ear. “Power is a good thing to have. Until you feel what it’s like to lose it.”

  I couldn’t help but moan when her tongue found the skin below my earlobe and traced intricate filigree down to my collarbone. I reared against the restraints, longing to reach out and touch her, to flip her over and devour her. But the manacles didn’t budge. Nora moaned softly and took both of my breasts into her hands, kneading in slow circles, purposely avoiding my stiff peaks. My back arched up off of the bed.

  I had to have her. My pussy ached against the silk of my panties, and was more than ready to take as much of her as she could give me. And I wanted all of her. Her mouth found my right nipple, searing and wet. Her tongue and her teeth worked together, nibbling and licking and sucking. I whimpered, and she raised her head, turning her attention to my other breast. Her hand scraped down my belly to my panties and began tugging. I thrust my hips at her and she snickered.

  “I bet you’re this aggressive at work as well, aren’t you, Kennedy?”

  All I could do was moan in response. In one swift movement she had my panties off.

  “You’re not the one calling the shots this time, though, Nashville,” she whispered in a low, husky voice that made my pussy clench. “Now,” she began, as she lightly drew circles on my inner thighs. “This is what you need, isn’t it?” She brushed her finger across my slick folds and I couldn’t help but moan louder.

  “Yes, it is,” I said through my ragged breath.

  “You need this more than dinner, more than sleep, more than a glass of whiskey, even more than some promotion, don’t you?” She traced circles around my swollen clit.

  “Yes,” I said louder, my voice quivering. “Please, Nora,” I begged, casting away any last shred of control I thought I had. I wanted to give in to all of her.

  The bed creaked as she shifted and before I could beg again she thrust inside of me. I shrieked and bucked against my restraints. She was slow at first, drawing out my moans with long, purposeful strokes. I moved to her in rhythm as she added another finger and I groaned. The rhythm picked up until she fucked me hard, swirling her fingers inside of me, making my hips grind into her, begging her for more. Her thumb circled my clit, pushing me closer to the edge. Abruptly, she stopped. I screamed out as the furnace growing inside of me reached a blazing summit.

  “Please, Nora!” I shouted at her. She lowered herself on top of me until I could feel her breath in my ear.

  “You’re going to cum for me now, Kennedy.”

  And then she was inside of me again, rough, abrupt, and fast. The tension peaked and I cried out, rocking my hips into her as my muscles contracted around her fingers and my orgasm rocked through my body.

  I fell back on the bed out of breath and trembling. Nora lifted my blindfold and smiled at me. “I hope you found what you were looking for when you stumbled into my bar this evening.”

  I laughed as she unfastened my arms and then I leaned up and kissed her. “You taste better than the whiskey,” I whispered.

  “That might be all you get for dinner because I smell the pizza burning.”

  ***

  I sauntered into work the next morning utterly exhausted, but exhilaratingly alive. I ended up getting the job a few days later. The position is more work than I thought it would be, but I have the perfect spot for an after hours drink where the whiskey is good and the service is better.

  The Sweetest Fruit

  Elle

  Lillian had spent the entire weekend watching sad movies. The Story of Us and Whatever Dreams May Come had been watched three times each. She wanted to cry, to let it all out, to purge, to expel the sadness within her, but all the while, she knew that it was an impossible goal, one that could never be achieved.

  That's why a bottle of sleeping pills and one of wine sat on her bedside table. She couldn't get the sadness out—no matter how hard she tried—so she would it put it down. Kill it. That's the only way she would be rid of it with any real finality.

  The sun was just beginning to rise. It was time. She was already wearing her most comfortable pajamas, the same ones she had been wearing since she changed into them on Friday after work. Her bed had nice, clean sheets, which she had sprayed with lavender-scented baby cologne—the same cologne her grandmother had sprayed on her as a child. Her entire adult life, the scent of that perfume could transport her within seconds to some of the happiest times of her life. It did nothing for her now except make her sheets smell good.

  She turned off the TV and all the lights. There was just enough light coming in through the windows to create a dusk-like atmosphere inside her penthouse apartment. She had worked hard to earn these things. Hard to push the pain down and move on. But she couldn't do it anymore. She had lost the strength to fight.

  Once in bed, she wrapped the thousand thread count Pima sheets around her, briefly enjoying the soft, smooth feel of the expensive linens against her skin, until she remembered her first time buying an expensive sheet set.

  They had been at one of those big box stores. Isabella was clowning around, ragging on Lily and her desire for “adult sheets.”

  “Well, it's true!” Lillian had insisted. “I'm sick of our college sheets and college furniture and college cookware! We make plenty of money and I'm going to fucking upgrade—whether you like it or not,” she added, mock-angrily, pushing Isabella into a display of body pillows, then running away.

  Isabella got the last laugh when Lily ran smack into the store manager who scowled at her before stalking off.

  “If you want to have adult things, then maybe you should stop acting like a child,” Issy smirked.

  They had spent all night making love on their new sheets. And next morning. Then there were more sheet sets, and more lovemaking, and all of it ended abruptly six months ago to
day.

  Lillian sighed as she poured out a full glass of the 2012 Far Niente Cabernet Sauvignon. She was going to enjoy the little things right until the very end.

  As she let the wine breathe, she looked through the pictures on her phone. Her and Issy in Uruguay. Paris. Chiang Mai. Hungary. Issy's mischievous hazel eyes and almost constant smirk staring back at Lily through the Gorilla Glass screen.

  Giant sobs racked through Lily's slight frame as if they came out of nowhere. The onslaught of tears left her red-faced and snotty and she was not going to die like that. After washing her face in the bathroom, she lay back in her California King, another “extravagance” that Isabella had teased her about.

  “Fuck you, Is,” said Lillian, flinging spinach at her wife. “We're getting one and that's that!”

  “But you're a midget! How will I ever find you? I'll have to send the dogs on a rescue mission just to find your precise location on the mattress!” Isabella shouted, chasing Lily around the island, her hand holding a spinach-encrusted spatula high in the air.

  No matter what happened, or how it ended, I don't regret a single moment.

  She set the phone down next to the bottle of cabernet. She picked up the bottle of pills, opened it, and carefully poured the contents out onto the tabletop. She wanted to make sure she was taking enough pills to kill a wooly mammoth. Funny how these pills had originally been prescribed to Is, thought Lily. And now they're going to be used to end my pain.

  Lillian cursed herself for not turning her phone off. Who the hell is calling me this early? Lily wondered, her muscle memory moving her hand towards the phone before she formed a conscious thought about taking the call.

  The phone clattered to the floor with a noise that seemed cacophonous in the dead silence. Her hands immediately began to shake and her breathing became ragged.

  “Hello?” After picking the phone up off the floor, she held it tight against her ear as if to get closer to the person on the other end.

  “I need to talk to you.”

  Lily hit mute and let out a scream before coming back on the line.