Stripped Down (10 page)

I didn't get out of bed the next day until the doorbell rang.
I grabbed my robe, threw it on over my Melissa Etheridge T-shirt, and shuffled to the door. I was actually feeling better than I had in three days, but post-illness exhaustion had settled into my bones and showed no signs of leaving.

I opened the door and blinked, convinced the high alcohol content of my cold medicine was causing hallucinations, because it couldn't be Marissa the hot produce dyke standing in my doorway with two sacks of groceries in her buff little arms.

“Hi,” she said, and that's when I knew she was real.

I also realized I was real—red nose, blotchy skin, ratty bathrobe and all. Oh, and jaw dragging on the floor. I did the only thing I could do, I closed my mouth and ushered her in.

“Where do you want them?” she asked, looking over her shoulder at me.

“Kitchen table,” I muttered, trying to hide behind the curtain of my unwashed hair.

She deposited the groceries on my small kitchen table and grinned at me. “You don't look so good.”

I made a face. This wasn't exactly the conversation I'd fantasized about our having. “I'm getting better.”

Marissa nodded. “You got some good stuff. You'll feel better tomorrow.”

I fumbled with my purse hanging over the back of the door, looking for a tip. Part of me wanted to stall her, since I finally had her to myself. Another part of me, the rational, coherent part, wanted her gone so she wouldn't have too clear a memory of me looking like shit.

“You know what you need?”

I noticed the way her jeans hugged her muscular thighs and how her bicep flexed when she ran her hand through her
short, dark hair. Marissa had what I needed, only she didn't know it because I was too chicken to tell her. “No, what?”

“A good steam. It will clear you up.”

I was hallucinating. I refused to believe I was standing there listening to the sexiest dyke on earth tell me how to clear my stuffy nose. “Thanks. I'll try that.”

Marissa studied me for a long moment. “No you won't. You'll go back to bed and then you'll never get well.”

Hard to argue with that. “Okay. I'll do it as soon as you leave.”

“How about you do it now?” Before I could say anything, she headed down the hall toward my bedroom.

The babe I'd been lusting over for six months was going into my bedroom. My bedroom, with the unmade bed, the snotty tissues tumbling off the table onto the floor, the underwear kicked in a corner because I was too sick to do laundry.

“Wait! No! Stop!” I said, getting more nasally with each panicked breath.

Too late. Marissa was in my bedroom.

“C'mon,” she called. The echo told me she was in the bathroom. I frantically searched my brain, trying to remember the last time I'd scrubbed the shower. “You're not going to get better standing there.”

Even while I was trying to figure out how this had happened—how the produce girl from the market was standing in my bathroom—my body was moving of its own accord. I found Marissa with her head in the shower, turning the water on full blast.

“Okay. Sit down,” she said, when the water was adjusted to her satisfaction.

There really wasn't anywhere to sit except on the toilet. I sat down, miserable and humiliated. This was not the fantasy I'd envisioned about when and if I ever got Marissa into my apartment. I felt like her invalid mother.

Marissa, on the other hand, seemed to be enjoying herself. “Cheer up. This will make you feel a lot better.”

The bathroom began to fill with steam. Marissa pushed my hair dryer and a bottle of cough syrup out of the way and leaned against the counter. The steam at least provided some atmosphere. It made Marissa look fuzzy, so it could only be helping my sad appearance. Of course, she'd already seen me in all my glory.

“Now, take a deep breath.”

I breathed. Or, I tried to. It's hard to breathe through a clogged-up nose.

Marissa shook her head. “Blow your nose.”

Now I felt like a sick kid she was babysitting. I obeyed her though, using the last of the tissues in the box on the back of the toilet. “Okay. I'm as clear as I'm going to get.”

“Good. Now, a slow, deep breath.”

I did as she said. It was really getting hot in there.

“Exhale. And do it again.”

This was the most bizarre situation I'd ever found myself in, but I was too exhausted to complain. I breathed, Marissa smiled. I'd do anything for that smile, even take a steam bath in my less than pristine bathroom.

“Good. Keep breathing, I'll be back in a minute.”

She didn't give me a chance to ask her where she was going. I figured she was escaping the germ fest while she could. I was in no condition to wrestle her to the floor and have my way with her, not that the thought hadn't crossed my mind.

She returned a few minutes later with what looked like half the contents of my spice rack in her hands. She deposited the glass bottles on the counter and began to line them up.

“What are you doing?”

She had her back to me and I found myself staring at her well-muscled, denim-covered ass. I was starting to feel better already.

“Just some herbs to add to the water.” She reached into the shower once more and put the stopper in the tub drain. Then she started picking up bottles one at a time and shaking the contents into the tub.

As the steam began to do its job, I recognized a few scents. Rosemary, at first. Then mint. Something that smelled spicy, but I couldn't quite place it. Soon, the scents were blending together so that I couldn't distinguish between them, but the mere fact that I could smell them at all was amazing.

“See, I told you,” Marissa said.

“Thanks.”

We stared at each other as the steam thickened and the scent of herbs filled the air. The whole thing was too surreal for words.

“Why are you delivering groceries?” I finally asked.

“I saw your name pop up on the list and I wanted to see you.”

Whatever I'd been expecting, it wasn't that. I suddenly forgot about being sick and her seeing me in my ratty bathrobe. “You did?”

She nodded. “I did.”

“Wow.”

She smiled. I was starting to get used to that smile. “You're welcome.”

Now, if this had been my fantasy, she would have led me to bed and done wicked things to my body, but I guess the runny nose, grungy bathrobe and unwashed hair just wasn't a very sexy combination. Half an hour after she had gotten to my house, Marissa kissed the top of my head and left me sitting in the bathroom. I could breathe again, but I was also horny—the real sign that I was feeling better. I was now a true believer in holistic dyke medicine.

By the time I returned to the market the following week, I was humming with sexual tension. I needed to get laid. More importantly, I needed Marissa to do the job. Instead of throwing me against the papaya display and fucking me senseless, she only smiled at me and kept stacking bags of carrots.

“Good afternoon,” she said.

“Hi.” I stood there, wondering if I should ask her out. Wondering why she didn't ask me out. “Thanks for your, um, advice last week. You were right, I felt much better.”

She nodded and turned back to her carrots. “I'm glad. Told you it would help.”

“Right.” I wandered away, wondering if maybe I had imagined the entire thing after all.

Two more weeks went by and the same thing happened. Marissa was nice, polite, friendly. Problem was, I wanted the sexy dyke who had come to my apartment and I wanted to be healthy and full of energy the next time she got there.

I concocted a plan. It was childish and pathetic, but a girl has to do what a girl has to do.

On the day before my usual Saturday trip to the market, I signed online and placed another grocery order. My entire list consisted of items from the produce department. If Marissa was working, she'd see my name. And maybe, if I was lucky,
my greengrocer would be back to give me a different kind of steam.

 

At 4:45 on Saturday afternoon, there was a knock at the door. My heart hammered in my chest even while I was trying to convince myself not to get too worked up because it might not be Marissa. But when I opened the door, there was Marissa smiling at me.

“Not feeling well?”

“No, I feel fine—” I stumbled over my excuse. “I've just been busy.”

She just grinned.

I moved out of the doorway and gestured back toward the kitchen, as if she'd never been in my apartment before. “You can put them on the table.”

I followed her, my entire body throbbing. “Um, I really didn't—uh—I was hoping to see you again,” I said, rushing through the words so that they barely made sense to my own ears. “I mean, it's nice to see you again.”

Marissa set the groceries on the table and looked at me. Her eyes were so dark they seemed bottomless, yet they sparkled with humor. “It's nice to see you again, too.”

Clearly, she had no intention of making this easy for me. “About the last time you were here…”

“Yes?”

“Was there something between us, or was that just the cold medicine?”

Her smile faded and she got an intense expression: pure sensuality, exuding lust and sex and confidence. It was a heady combination and I gripped the edge of the table for dear life.

She took a step closer to me and leaned forward just a bit.
“What do you think?” she whispered.

“I think if you don't kiss me soon, I might just have a relapse.” I was tired of playing games. I wasn't getting any younger.

She put her hands on my shoulders, drawing me closer until our bodies were touching, chest to chest, hip to hip. Then she was kissing me.

It wasn't a first kiss. Hell, it wasn't a second, third, or fourth kiss, either. It was the kind of kiss you give someone you've been fucking for a while, but not so long you're used to each other. When the heat and throb are still insistent and you're both always needy. That kind of kiss.

She was groping my ass before the first kiss even ended. In my premeditation, I had made sure to wear a skirt. I was also wearing panties, but I didn't really think about that fact until they were somewhere down around my knees. I wasn't quite sure how she'd made that move, but I didn't complain because she was stroking my cunt and nibbling my bottom lip as if someone had given her a road map of my body with the erogenous zones marked as points of interest.

When I was thoroughly kissed and dripping wet from her fingers working between my thighs, she pulled away. “Is that what you had in mind?”

I blinked at her, waiting until I regained some feeling in my lips to speak. “Something like that, yeah.”

“Why didn't you say so?”

I ran my tongue over my lips. “I'm kind of old-fashioned.”

She looked skeptical. “Does that mean I have to take you out to dinner before I can fuck you?”

I grabbed a fistful of her T-shirt and dragged her closer.
“You've already brought me dinner. We can move on.”

“Good.”

She wrapped her hands around my waist and backed me up against the kitchen table. Thankfully it's one of those heavy, butcher-block style tables that can withstand a hell of a lot of weight and motion, which was what I hoped she had in mind.

With one hand on my hip, she gently pushed me back on the table until I was lying flat with my legs hanging off. I could feel my panties sliding the rest of the way down to my ankles and I kicked them off. I lay there waiting for her to slide her fingers into me, but it didn't happen.

I propped myself up on my elbows and looked at her. She was going through the grocery bag on the table.

“Um, hello?” I wiggled my fingers at her. “Remember me?”

“I haven't forgotten. Hold on.” She pulled out a pint of raspberries and a pint of blackberries.

“Hungry?” I snapped.

Her grin was feral. “Oh, yes.”

That was enough to make me lie back down. Whatever she was up to, I was pretty sure I was going to enjoy it.

Marissa walked over and stood between my spread legs. She looked into my eyes, rather than between my legs, which automatically earned her a couple bonus points and made me whimper with impatience.

“I love blackberries,” she said, softly. It was the single most erotic thing I've ever heard a woman say.

“Me too.”

I closed my eyes as I felt her kneel between my legs. I waited for the feel of her tongue, but it never came. Instead, I felt
something cool against my cunt. It took a moment for it to register in my lust-filled brain that she was pushing the blackberries into me.

“Hey, wait,” I said, struggling to prop myself up on my elbows. “I don't think that's a—”

“Sshh,” she murmured, sliding the berries in deeper. “Don't think, just relax.”

It seemed silly to argue while her fingers were in my cunt, so I lay back and tried to relax. The berries tickled. Or maybe it was the juice that tickled. Or was that my juice? I couldn't really tell anymore.

Marissa braced her hands on my thighs and breathed against my cunt. “Mmm, you smell like a briar patch.”

It sounded like a compliment. I was from Miami, home of strip malls, highways, and parking garages, so I wasn't sure.

She stood and the bag rustled again. I tried to remember what I'd ordered. Raspberries, blackberries, strawberries. Blueberries? I couldn't remember. I kept my eyes closed and felt Marissa between my legs again.