Vee

by

Alyssa Linn Palmer

ISBN: 978-1-928098-05-8

Copyright 2013 Alyssa Linn Palmer

Smashwords Edition

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The stories "Vee" and "Vee's Notebook"
originally appeared in the anthologies "Felt Tips: Office-Supply
Erotica", and "Anything She Wants", respectively.

"Sylvia, my brightest star, my desire. My
lust, my soul.

"She was Lia to her co-workers at the
bookstore, Sylvia to her mother, who clicked her tongue
disapprovingly at her bright blue and hair and her Monroe stud. But
to me, she was simply Vee."

In Alex's notebooks, the story of Vee
unfolds, from their first kiss, their first date, and the moments
in between. It’s a May-December romance between a former punk girl
gone conservative, and a gamine young woman in combat boots and
fishnets, finding each other on the streets of New York City.

This is a short collection of stories, two of
which have appeared in the FELT TIPS and ANYTHING SHE WANTS erotic
anthologies.

Table of Contents

Vee

Heart of
Glass

Birdland
(I)

Birdland
(II)

Vee's
Notebook

Other Books
by the Author

Vee

(originally released in FELT TIPS:
Office-Supply Erotica, 2012, 8th Circle Press)

Sylvia, my brightest star, my desire. My lust, my
soul.

She was Lia to her co-workers at the bookstore,
Sylvia to her mother, who clicked her tongue disapprovingly at her
bright blue and hair and her Monroe stud. But to me, she was simply
Vee.

Before you start to think I’m some sort of pervert,
let me assure you. Vee is no nymphet, for all that I wish I had the
talent of Nabokov.

She stood five-six in buckled combat boots that
looked far too big for her gamine figure. Her driver’s license when
she flashed it at me said twenty-one. I’d commented on what she
must look like with her hair tamed and everyday. She’d showed
me.

I didn’t mind her rebellious looks. In truth, I
preferred her with the blue spikes in her short hair, the dark
violet lipstick, the piercings. My first had been a girl at CBGB’s,
and I’d kissed her sloppily in the bathroom, my fingers catching in
her lacquered hair, and on the safety pin stuck through her ear.
She’d taken me home and fucked me thoroughly. From then on, I was
hooked.

Except it hadn’t lasted. Two weeks later I found her
dead of an overdose, her lips blue and cold. Heroin.

I still see her in my mind’s eye, ripped jeans
hugging the curve of her ass, heavy combat boots, their laces
dangling. She made the fire escape rattle, clambering up the steps
to sit high and watch the sun rise. Her worn leather jacket,
smelling slightly smoky, lay under us as we looked up at the
sky.

But here I am in my middle age, sneaking glances
over the cash register from my spot by the notebooks, waiting for
the moment when she’ll be free. The line at her till seems to
stretch for a mile. Christmas.

I wait, my hands clutching a pair of Moleskine
notebooks, their shrink-wrapped covers slick against my palms. I
love these notebooks. I love the feel of their smooth pages, the
easy glide of my pen. I’m quite sure that Vee keeps them stocked
especially for me. I buy little else while I’m here. Without fail,
every week, two notebooks.

“I’d love to read your work
sometime, Alex,” she tells me as she hands over my parcel and the
receipt. She asks me regularly, but I’ve always
demurred.

“One of these days,” I tell her,
smoothing my dark hair in a nervous gesture left over from an
anxious childhood. To lengthen my time, we talk of other things,
until she has to help someone else.

Finally, finally -- the line in front of her till
has disappeared and I can make my way over. It’s my favourite time
of the entire week.

“Alex!” Vee grins at me as I lay
the notebooks on the counter. “I almost thought you wouldn’t be
here. And I love your dress.”

I can’t help the pleased flush that heats my cheeks.
I’d worn this dress for her, its dark crimson a far cry from my
usual muted suits. It seemed appropriate, given what I had to
say.

“I’ve brought some of my work for
you.” I pat my purse and and am rewarded with an even larger grin.
I want to kiss that mouth, with the gap between her front teeth and
the plump lower lip.

“I’ll read it tonight.” Vee puts
my two notebooks in a bag. I hand her a twenty.

“I can’t let you keep it.” Now for
my chance. “But there’s a coffee shop on the corner. Let me buy you
a drink and you can read it.”

“Promise?”

Her fingers brush mine and she hands me my change.
Did she feel that frisson of electricity as I just did?

“What time are you off?” I
struggle to keep my voice even, though the question itself must
betray my eagerness.

“Soon. You’re my last customer.”
She closes the till drawer with practiced ease. My eyes focus on
her lips, soft under their violet paint. Will she taste of
sweetness?

I put my change in my wallet and replace it in my
purse, the regular movement calming my nerves.

“Meet me there?”

“Give me half an hour,” Vee
says.

Her manager is coming near and it’s time to make my
exit. I’m sure he knows; his beady eyes follow me out. I think
everyone must know, aside from Vee herself. I don’t even know if
Vee is a lesbian.

I can only hope. If she isn’t, I think my heart will
shatter.

I’d trudge onwards and find myself another store. I
wouldn’t be able to face her again, knowing that body under its
fishnets and paint wouldn’t be mine. The humiliation of having
tried and lost would be too much.

Before you start to judge, or tell me to get over
it, just wait. It’s not like I didn’t get over Lucie. I did. I went
to the therapist the counsellor at NYU recommended; I said all the
right things and tried to believe the platitudes. I even tried to
date others, but I had no taste for the femmes with their made-up
faces, their high heels and their hair blown in a poor rendition of
Farrah Fawcett. I had even less liking for the occasional butch
lesbians I’d meet out bar-hopping.

When I went back to CBGB’s, I kept looking for Lucie
and none of the women there could measure up. They lacked her
confidence, her joie de vivre, the surprising delicacy under the
punk face she showed to the world. I wanted her.

The bell over the door jangles and I look up from my
coffee and my memories to see Vee walk in. She’s changed from her
plain work uniform to a spectacularly short mini-dress. On anyone
else the combination of blue hair, mini-dress and combat boots
would be comical, but she wears it with a brash confidence I find
utterly alluring.

She slides into the chair across from me, her bare
knee with its ripped fishnets brushing mine, the toe of her boot
crushing my toes in their thin high-heeled leather boot. The slight
pain is like a tiny orgasm and I struggle not to let it show.

“You made it,” I say to cover my
relief. If she hadn’t come, I really would have been lost. I take
my wallet from my purse along with a worn notebook, kin to the new
ones in their shiny plastic.

Vee takes the money with a smile that just quirks
the corner of her mouth. “Of course I came.” She goes to buy a
drink and I watch her saunter up to the counter. She flirts with
the young woman who makes her coffee, and I look away, down to the
notebook.

I find what I’m looking for, flipping through the
weathered pages to a short story I wrote. It’s about the punk scene
of the 70s, a nostalgic piece I’d meant to submit to any number of
erotic anthologies. I had to write about Lucie, but I just couldn’t
part with it in the end. It felt too intimate to let go, but it
would be perfect for Vee’s first taste of me. Despite my age, she’d
see a kindred spirit.

I doubted she’d fall into bed with me after one
story. After several, perhaps. I could show her the pieces of my
soul I’d put down on paper.

I place the notebook face down before the other
spot, my fingers lingering on the worn cover. The matte black is
creased, worn in some spots almost to white. I can see some finger
marks, a larger crease where I’d held open the cover.

Vee returns with her coffee and settles in across
from me. She sucks up some of the foam, licking her top lip. Her
eyes light on the notebook.

“Is this it?” She reaches for it,
flips it over, her gaze skimming my words, deciphering my
handwriting. I hate writing straight to my computer screen. My mind
gets slow, distracted. Better to sit with a pen and paper as I
always have.

I watch Vee as she begins to read. She’s the only
other person to touch that notebook, the only one to read those
words. I’d like to think there’s an intimacy in that, one as great
as a relationship.

Her thumb absently strokes the cover as she reads.
What would her hands feel like on me? I’d rather her thumb stroked
the curve of my breast or the hollow of my inner thigh, or the bud
between my legs. I shift noiselessly in my chair.

Vee licks her lips again. She has forgotten her
coffee. She leans forward, resting her elbows on the table. Her
foot in its combat boot brushes mine and stays. I wonder if she
even notices.

I let myself relax. My knee touches hers and I can
feel the heat of her skin on mine. The threads of the rent in her
fishnets tickle as I shift against her. She glances up at me.

“This is good,” she says in a low
voice before taking a sip of her cooling coffee. I wait for her to
say something more, but she doesn’t. She continues to
read.

I trace the grain of the tabletop and circle a knot
in the wood. She should be getting to the first encounter now,
where Lucie and I had made love in her tiny studio apartment, on a
bed that creaked and shook with age.

She’d kissed me hard, her tongue in my mouth, her
lips demanding. We’d stripped off each other’s clothes in our
haste, just enough to feel skin on skin. I’d rolled her tight jeans
down over pale hipbones, cupped my hands over the globes of her
buttocks, dipped my hand teasingly between her legs, her dark curls
tickling my fingers.

When she’d had enough of my teasing, Lucie had
pushed up my skirt, pulled down my panties and buried her head
between my thighs, her mouth closing around my bud. What I wouldn’t
give to do the same to Vee.

I shift in my chair and Vee glances up at me, her
lips parted. I can see the tip of her tongue, pink and enticing.
She adjusts her position and I feel her hand slide across my knee.
She goes back to her reading, but her fingers stroke my skin in
slow circles. I try to casually sip my coffee, but I can hardly
manage to swallow a mouthful.

The minutes stretch out, broken only by the sound of
Vee turning the pages of the notebook. Finally, finally she
finished the last page.

“Do you have more?” she asks. She
lays a hand on the black cover.

I manage to answer, though my throat is dry and the
words come out as more of a croak.

“Not here.”

“Could I read more tonight?” Vee’s
hand on my knee stills and I can feel the increase in
pressure.

“I live nearby.” My language
faculty has shrunk to the basics at the thought of taking her back
to my apartment.

“I know.” She grins. “Your address
is on file at work. I walk by there sometimes on my way to the
subway, but I’ve never seen you.”

“I stay in, usually. You should
have buzzed. I’d have let you in.”

“You will tonight.” She meets my
gaze directly, confirming what I had hoped.

I push back from the table and stand. I can’t bear
waiting; the anticipation until now has been agonizing. Vee rises
with me, scooping up the notebook. Our fingers brush as she hands
it to me, and I want to take her hand.

We leave the cafe and she does take my hand as we
stroll down the sidewalk, skirting around the bags of garbage left
out by the restaurant next door. I inadvertently squeeze her hand
as I spot a rat huddled among the bags. Vee laughs.