Best Lesbian Romance 2014 (8 page)

I blinked at its brightness as Niccie and the lads burst back into our cavern. It was smaller than I'd pictured it as we sat
there in the dark. Funny how your mind plays tricks on you. It'd felt larger than the main cavern, with just the two of us in it, and all of it had been ours. Now it was back to being barely the size of my mum's front room.

“Been having fun, have you?” Niccie asked with a knowing grin.

“Nah,” I said straight-faced. “Bit boring, really, waiting for you lot to finish gallivanting around the underworld.” But I couldn't help glancing over at Kim and smiling.

“Yeah, you know what?” Niccie said, with sarcasm that could bite clean through a stalagmite. “As soon as I saw you, I thought, there's a girl who looks really bored.”

“Are you ready to go back now?” Kim asked me, and I nodded, hoping I looked more certain than I felt. “Just remember—it'll get wider all the time, this way. So you'll always know the worst is behind you.”

“You go in front,” I told her. “Then I'll have to keep going, right?”

We let Niccie and the lads lead the way, then Kim followed. As she bent to creep into the passageway, she turned. “You're sure about this? Sure you don't want to go first?”

“No,” I said. “I'll follow you.”
Anywhere,
I could have added, but Niccie might just have heard and she'd never have let me live it down.

I almost seized up when I had to get into that tiny crack between the rocks, down on my belly like a snake, but not half as agile. My breathing started to go, but I flicked on my torch and shone it on Kim's boot soles, moving ahead of me at a slug's pace, and I thought about how grand it'd be to take those off her and play with the toes within. Before I knew it I'd slithered in behind her. I just kept my mind on those feet. I wondered if she painted her toenails, and if she wore rings on her toes like
in the nursery rhyme. Did she like to wear heels when she went out for the night? And all the time, somehow, I managed to keep breathing, keep moving.

“Okay there, Han?” she asked from time to time, and I answered with a “Yeah” or a “Fine” and I knew she wouldn't take offense. There'd be time for proper talking when we were out of here.

Some lovely bugger had been at that passageway while we were in the cave, and they'd shortened it, I reckoned. Wasn't that long before we were off our knees and crouching. Kim reached a hand back to me and I squeezed it tight, then let it go again. Hard enough walking through here without trying to hang on to someone as well. My thigh muscles ached and my back didn't like it much either, but then the passage opened out again and I could see light past the bodies in front.

We sidled out into the main chamber, which seemed even bigger than I'd remembered. Looking up to the roof, a hundred and fifty feet above us, I took a deep breath of chill air. It tasted sweet, but no sweeter than my Kim's lips.

“You did it!” she said softly, and I saw the gleam of her smile.

As we neared the bottom of the chairlift, the lights got brighter.

“Bloody hell, Han, we're all covered in t' mud!” Niccie cackled. Her lad had his arm around her. I supposed I'd better think about finding out his name. She was right, too—head-to-toe mudlarks, the lot of us.

Kim had a smear of dried mud on her cheek, pale against her skin. She smiled at me. “You've got mud on your nose,” she said. “Want me to get it for you?”

“Is it worth it?” I asked, looking down at myself ruefully. Thank god I'd worn full waterproofs. Even if they did make
me look like a walking tent. Now I looked like a tent after a weekend at Glastonbury.

“Probably not. Still, nothing a hot shower won't cure.”

I felt a bit hot myself, her voice conjuring pictures in my brain. “We're staying at a B-and-B back at Horton in Ribblesdale, me and Niccie. Don't suppose you'd like to come back with us?”

Kim's face twisted. “Can't—I'll have to stay and help dismantle the winch, it's our last day here. By the time we've done that—well, and had a few drinks—I won't be fit for anything but sleep. But we'll swap numbers up top, all right?”

“All right,” I said.

We watched a lad being strapped into the chairlift, flirting with the caver doing the strapping.

“Okay,” the girl said as she finished the last buckle and stepped back. “When you get up to the top, you give us a yodel, all right?”

He grinned. “Got it.”

“It's traditional, but I'm always too scared,” Kim whispered. We watched as he rose up and up, the ceiling of the cave seeming to get higher as he did, until he started to block the sunlight coming down that big chimney. Then he let out a great call, whooping like one of the monkeys in Chester Zoo, and disappeared.

“You'll be fine,” I told Kim.

“I know, I know—I'm just being daft, really.”

“No dafter than me thinking a cave that's stood for a million bloody years is going to pick today to fall in on me.”

“Actually, it's more like eleven or twelve thousand years old. Since the last ice age.”

I laughed. “Good thing you didn't tell me that back there, then.”

“You were so brave,” Kim said, her hand slipping into mine. “I was worried you'd freeze up or hyperventilate, but you just kept on going.”

“Had an incentive, didn't I?” I squeezed her hand. “Didn't want you getting away from me.”

“Oh, don't you worry,” she teased back. “Climbers and cavers are known for keeping a firm grip on things.”

We watched Niccie and the lads going up on the chair. The lads all howled like werewolves when they got to the top, and Niccie screeched out a battle cry I thought would bring down the whole bloody cavern.

Then it was our turn. I made Kim go first, and I saw how her fingers were trembling as she held onto the harness. “You'll be fine,” I told her, and she managed a smile.

I watched her soar up toward the daylight, and my heart ached to think of her scared, with her eyes tight shut. I'd loved the trip on the way down, being gently sprayed by the thin summer flow of the waterfall and passing sheer rock walls with brave flowers and plants clinging stubbornly to life. I wished I could be up there with Kim now, holding her close so she wouldn't be frightened.

Then I heard her voice, yodeling down from the top of the cavern. “Woo-hoooooooo!”

My heart soared up to join her, and I couldn't wait for the rest of me to follow.

LAW OF THE CAMAZOTZ

Lisa Figueroa

The moment I stepped off the plane in Cancun, the heat surrounded me like a feverish demon, both sticky and slick, attacking in shimmering waves of unrelenting sweat. It seemed to cling to me, particularly focusing its wet mouth—if such a thing even had a mouth, which I'm pretty sure it would—directly on my pussy as my knees threatened to collapse from the sheer force of its intensity. I knew it would be hot in the middle of August, I knew the humidity in the southernmost part of Mexico would very likely be uncomfortable, but this was almost inhuman. What had I been thinking, agreeing to a vacation in such tropical weather? With a sigh of dismay I noted that my long, curly hair was morphing into a mass of unmanageable frizz. I shot a disapproving look at my sister, Marga, who stood next to me with our luggage, grinning back at me like she'd just unwrapped this paradise on Christmas morning. When we were kids, she was the one who had always managed to wake up first, desperate to see the toys Santa left her, and then she'd drag me
sleepily out of bed to follow her to the Christmas tree. She was always in a hurry, rampaging through her gifts like someone might cancel the holiday any minute, while I preferred to take my time and savor each wrapped bundle. I even tried to guess what was inside. It drove her nuts and she'd eventually abandon her opened boxes and wander over and sit in front of me on folded legs, tilted head resting on her hand as she stared at my efforts like she was trying to figure out how we could ever be related.

We were the same way when it came to our love life. Despite the fact that I was attracted to women and she to men, she tore through her men, eagerly unwrapping them as soon as possible and then discarding them just as quickly when what she found inside wasn't to her liking. I, on the other hand, was content to explore each of my women slowly, always looking to discover something new inside each one, never wanting to give up even when I knew better.

“God, Antonia, I love the heat. It makes me feel so fucking alive. I think I never want to leave,” my sister announced with a throaty and cheerful inflection I hadn't heard in a while, at least not since her breakup with Marco.

I suppose that was the point of this vacation. To get to a happy place, to commiserate together as only sisters can and in the process help each other get over our exes. If only I could laugh about Delia. I was particularly bitter about my breakup with her because she had cheated on me. It had devastated me because I never saw it coming. I was too busy thinking of future dreams, of us moving in together, instead of the reality of her betrayal. I pushed away the memory as I regarded my sister with a wan smile of resignation.

“Great. You feel alive and I feel like I'm dying. I can see this is going to be a wonderful trip.”

“Just give it a chance, will you? Don't start checking out on me yet. Let's at least check
in
to the hotel first,
hermana.”

I nodded compliance and headed toward the hotel, very intrigued by the idea of getting inside and basking in the comfort of air-conditioning.

The hotel room was nicer than I'd imagined, terra-cotta floor tiles, handcrafted rustic furniture mixed with modern paintings and luxurious bed linens. Authentic but comfortable. I went immediately toward the wall panel to flip on the air conditioner as Marga opened the French doors that led out onto a small balcony, and with a quick smile over her shoulder at me, she went outside. I flopped onto the bed, only slightly feigning exhaustion. When I realized that Marga had no intention of coming back into the coolness of the room, I got up to join her on the balcony. She was leaning with her elbows on the rim of the wrought-iron enclosure, watching the breaking waves and cascading foam. It was a lovely view and took the edge off the unrelenting heat.

“So, what should we do first, grab lunch or go on that diving tour of the caves?” Marga asked without taking her gaze off the ocean.

Marga was an experienced diver. She'd been talking about diving in the wondrous stalagmite caves of the famed Dos Ojos caverns for days. She had several brochures that showed beautiful pure and tranquil water and unique rock formations that turned the caves into another world. There was so much to see that even the bats that lived and roosted high up among the stalactites didn't bother her as much as I thought they would. But I was not in the mood for adventure. Anyway, it wasn't like we were a married couple. We were each free to do as we pleased.

“How about you go diving and I'll go shopping,” I said lightly. She blinked in surprise, not sure if she was supposed to be happy about my suggestion or act disappointed.

“Well, okay, but we'll meet back at the hotel for dinner? How's that sound?” she said with a little too much enthusiasm.
So much for acting disappointed.

“
Perfecto,”
I replied. I left her to her personal commune with the natural wonders of Mexico as I grabbed my bag and went to commune with the simple splendor I often found shopping.

On the advice of the front desk, I walked six blocks away from the beach and turned left onto the main street of the town. It supposedly offered the best variety of shopping. There were several shops that sold the usual tourist trinkets; sandal key chains, T-shirts and wide brimmed hats, but a few stood out with lovely and authentic Mexican crafts: leather bags with incredible tooled design, delicately painted Talavera pottery, hand-woven blankets with intricate detail and Alebrijes, papier-mâché sculptures in the shape of every known animal. By the time I reached the end of several blocks, and the limit of how many shopping bags I could comfortably carry, I decided to take a break. I stopped at a café for a soda, sipping it as I stretched my tired legs and rubbed my sore arms, people-watching while luxuriating in the cooling air. It was then I noticed how much darker the day was getting. Twilight was settling in and I decided it was time to head back to the hotel. Actually, if I didn't hurry, I was going to miss my dinner date with Marga.

The light faded even faster as I made my way down the winding streets. I kept looking at the shops around me for help in distinguishing landmarks, but I couldn't seem to note anything familiar, and when I turned the next corner, I realized with a fluster of anxiety that I was lost. I was about to take out my cell phone when a man walked up to me out of nowhere.

“
Hola, señorita.
Can I interest you in some silver? I have bracelets, rings, necklaces. What would you like?” He opened
up his coat and I found myself gazing at an amazing display of jewelry arranged neatly on the inside lining.

“No, gracias,”
I said, moving around him. He quickly moved back in front of me. I hesitated before firmly stepping past him again but he blocked my way and stared at me without smiling.