Hummingbird

Birds and Butterflies #1

Frances M. Thompson

Copyright © 2022 Frances M. Thompson

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. It may not be re-sold or given away to others to sell it, and it contains material protected under International Copyright Laws and Treaties. This book or any portion of it may not be reproduced, copied or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the author or publisher, except for the use of brief quotations in a review.

Contents

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Epigraph

Introduction

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Epilogue

Thank You!

Acknowledgements

About The Author

Books By This Author

Five Sunsets

For Marianne, thank you for so wholeheartedly enabling this sexy sapphic story. I hope it lives up to that very promising TikTok we both loved.

“Quick as a hummingbird...she darts so eagerly, swiftly, sweetly dipping into the flowers of my heart."

James Oppenheim

Introduction

The following may contain spoilers but they're included to ensure a safe and enjoyable reading experience for all.

Much of the action in Hummingbird takes place in a tattoo studio so there are many references to getting a tattoo and tattoo guns and needles. There is also an on-page minor panic/anxiety attack. You will also find references to coming out, biphobia and queerphobia. Additionally, there is cursing throughout. Finally, Hummingbird is a spicy novella that features graphic sexual content and is written for readers over the age of 18.

And if you like listening to book playlists, you can find the playlist the author used to write Hummingbird here, or if you search "Hummingbird" on Spotify.

Chapter One

Dove

Why do I keep looking at her? It's like my eyes are magnets and she is made of metal, which I can plainly see she is not. I can clearly see with my magnetic eyes that she is made up of dark goth make-up, peroxide blonde hair in a cute pixie cut, and soft, full curves encased in creamy pale skin that is scattered with tattoos in a variety of colours and styles. In short, she is very, very cool. That must be why I'm looking at her.

I don't fancy her. I just want to be more like her.

"Are you even drinking that?" Jake bumps his shoulder against mine.

"Yes," I say and then take a large gulp of my beer.

"Some party this is," he says with one of his tuts.

"What did you expect?" Dana says from my other side. "Ministry of Sound? They're second year drama students, not professional party planners."

I’m about to thank my friend for her solidarity but Jake has a quick retort, like he always does.

"Well, if we were throwing a party over in hospitality, you'd know about it. None of these plastic cups of warm beer, someone's iPod on shuffle and one single disco light in a corner of the room. The corner? I mean come on, Dove."

"Hey, I did the snacks,” I say. “Lighting was Craig's department because that’s actually what he wants to be, a lighting technician."

"God help Craig at exam time. As for those snacks of yours, they are rather… beige, not to mention inadequate for a party of this size."

"You are such a bitch." I tap his arm.

"That's why you love me." Jake blows me a kiss.

"So, is he here?" Dana interjects looking at Jake.

"Who?" I ask.

"Whoever Jake’s next victim is!"

"Ha! Funny you should say that. Do you know Ahmad Zane? He does French and mechanics, I think."

"What a combination," I mutter, and I hate how my eyes are drawn back to the tattooed goth girl. I watch her talking with a taller friend. In fact, all the people she’s standing with are taller than her. I don’t know why that makes something inside me melt. I don’t normally have this reaction around people smaller than myself, which is just as well because at five foot nine, a lot of people are shorter than me.

"It's a killer combo! It tells me he's cultured and good with his hands!" Jake is saying.

"But is he here?" Dana asks. She’s swaying on her feet already. I’m not saying Dana is a lightweight but I’m also not saying I would want her on my team for group drinking games.

"Just walked in. He's heading over to the drinks table. Over there," Jake says even though he seems to be looking in a different direction, revealing just how excellent he is at multi-tasking when one of those tasks is watching a man he is attracted to.

I do see Ahmad actually, but only because the drinks table is next to the group of people that the tattooed goth girl is part of. When Ahmad bumps fists with a few of them, half-hugs a couple of the girls, and then finally reaches for a beer from the table behind them, I see an opportunity.

"Do you know who he's talking to?" I ask.

"Oh, they're townies," Jake says. "I know a few of them."

"Which ones?" I ask, perhaps a little too quickly.

"The tall lanky bloke is Paul Harrow. His dad is head of security at the Grand." Jake is referring to the hotel where he works part-time. "Next to him is Caroline something. She's a hairdresser down on Broad Street. She used to shag a famous footballer, I think. Division One, not Premier League, mind you. And I met the girl who looks like a colouring book once."

"The what?"

"You know, the girl with all the tattoos."

"Oh, her," I say, keeping my voice as steady as I can.

"She's a tattoo artist - no surprises there. She's a bit older, I think, and I met her because she was going out with Gina from your course. I'm pretty sure they broke up last year, but maybe I’m wrong. Or maybe lesbians are more civilised than us gays and they can actually stay friends.”

"I don’t think that’s a gay-lesbian thing,” Dana adds, although I’m not sure how she would know. She’s as straight as I am. "I think that’s a Jake thing. But wait, Gina’s gay?"

“As a rainbow flag made of glitter and bubblegum."

"I didn't know that," I say but the unsettling feeling of heat and tension in my stomach hasn't got anything to do with the fact that Gina is gay. It's more to do with the tattooed goth girl also being queer. She likes women.

Would she like me? That thought hits the front of my mind, loudly.

"Why would you? Gina's one of the cool kids. She doesn't speak to people like you," Dana explains.

"But she speaks to Jake!" I point out.

"Yes, but I'm gay. That gets me a special pass to hang out with cool kids, as long as I don't overstay my welcome or actually do so in public spaces, unless invited to do so. You straight nerds are simply not worthy."

“I’m not a nerd. I’m a slut. There’s a very big difference,” Dana says and swigs back the last mouthful of her beer. Apparently, room temperature lager is her favourite kind tonight.

"I fucking hate the cool kids." I glance briefly at the group of students from my course that have perfect bodies, perfect clothes, and perfect hairstyles I have no idea how they pay for. I haven't been able to afford cutting my hair since I started uni almost two years ago, which is why it falls to nearly my waist, and the only updates my wardrobe has had in that time have been hairbands and socks.

Except I don't really hate the cool kids. I would love to be one of the cool kids. I would love to move around campus with the confidence that carries them through life. That's why I can't stop looking at this tattooed goth girl, I tell myself again. Because she's so cool and that's what I want to be. I want to be just like...

"What's her name?" I ask Jake and I know it doesn't sound casual. I also know perhaps I shouldn't ask. But I can't help it. I want a name to put to that face, and that full body, and the slightly lop-sided smile she's giving the girl called Caroline who is now dancing to the music.

"Who?"

"The girl with the tattoos."

"Keeley, I think," Jake says before emptying his cup in his mouth. "Come on, we can go and find out properly. I need another drink."

"Oh, no, I’m okay," I say quickly.

"Well, Dana needs another drink." Jake nods at her.

"No, I’m heading out now," Dana says as she applies a thick coat of sparkling lip gloss, the kind that would look utterly ridiculous on me but looks fantastic on her.

"Really? Where are you going?"

"Simon Telford’s dorm room."

"Oh, Dana!" Jake complains. "Tonight was supposed to be all about us. A long overdue night out with my Double Ds!"

"Well, I’m here, aren’t I? I’ve showed my face. But to be honest it’s a little boring and you’re about to go sharking for Ahmad anyway."

"What about me?" I press the tip of my index finger to my chest.

"You’ll be yawning and making your excuses to go to bed in about twenty minutes," Dana says, and I don’t respond because I have no argument for it.

"Anyway. Simon should have finished football practise by now. God, I hope he doesn’t shower," Dana says as she fiddles around with the V of her top. "How are my tits looking?"

"Fabulous!" Jake declares.

I’m still cringing from the shower comment but I nod in agreement. She does have amazing tits - full, firm and pert with a little wobble when she moves - but I always think that about anybody with bigger boobs than me.

"Okay, see you later, bitches," Dana says as she pouts out two loud air kisses.

My hand hasn’t even dropped from waving goodbye to Dana when I feel Jake’s fingers wrap around my arm. Before I know it, I'm being dragged across the room towards the tattooed goth girl who gets even prettier, no, I mean cooler, the closer I get to her.

"Paul! Mate!" Jake holds out his hand and I have to hide my snicker at his very unconvincing attempt at a straight voice. "How's your dad?"

"I dunno," Paul says as he gets pulled into Jake's handshake. "You probably see him more than me."

"Jesus, Paul, I hope you're not insinuating there’s something between me and your father," Jake quickly snaps back into full-on camp mode, and I know exactly whose benefit that's for as Ahmad watches the interaction.

"No," Paul says stonily. "I simply meant I haven't seen him in weeks. He left my mum a month ago."

Jake's face freezes in a grimace that looks like it might be a bit painful. "Oh, shit, sorry to hear that. Me and my big mouth. Anyway, we just wanted to get another drink. I don't suppose there's anything better on offer? Any French wine, peut-être?" Jake levels this at Ahmad whose brow crinkles in what could be curiosity or confusion.

"Do you want another drink?" A voice comes out of nowhere. A female voice, and for some reason, I know exactly who it belongs to, and that it’s directed at me.

I glance at my half-full cup. "Still going, thank you," I say and only once the words have left my mouth do I let my eyes land on the woman with the tattoos.

She is captivating in a way that startles me, and it’s not just because of the bright bleach blond hair or the sporadic tattoos that climb up her neck and arms. Her face is beautiful, accentuated by make-up I can tell she’s a master at applying. The point of her chin is almost cartoon-like, as is the upswing at the end of her nose. Her almond-shaped eyes are accentuated with thick eyeliner  and a bright shade of blue eyeshadow that illuminates the azure swirl of her pupils, even in the dim drama studio light. Her white-blonde hair contrasts with her dark eyebrows, both of which are pierced. I also notice the septum piercing she has and don't have time to count how many earrings each ear holds. I want to say my favourite thing about her is that crooked smile, but I know already it's the tattoo of a hummingbird on the right side of her neck, just below her ear. So colourful and so detailed, it’s a true work of art.

"Caroline's got some vodka in her handbag if you want some of that," she says to Jake then, as Ahmad didn't take the bait.

"I'll make do with the lukewarm supermarket beer," Jake says with a sniff. "Ahmad, do you want another?"

If Ahmad is surprised Jake knows his name, he doesn't act it and I don't hear his reply as he steps closer to Jake. I’m swiftly left alone with the rest of the group as he and Ahmad move closer to the table we're standing near and then gradually drift away. But a second later, when I brave another look up, I realise that I'm not left with the group at all, but rather just with the tattooed goth girl, because Paul and Caroline have also separated themselves and are now dancing in earnest to a song I don't know. A song that is probably too cool for me.

"Are you a drama student too?" Tattooed goth girl steps closer to me. There's still plenty of distance between us, but nonetheless, I feel the temperature change after she's closed the gap.

"Yeah, second year," I say.

"Cool, I'm Keeley."

She holds out her hand to me, and I stare at the black nail varnish and the word LOVE written across her knuckles. God, she is so cool. I fear she can read my mind when her lips lift, hooking at the right side of her mouth, sending sparkles to her eyes, and tingles into my belly.

"Dove," I say, taking her hand and telling myself how perfectly normal it is to enjoy the warmth and smooth softness of her skin. She must moisturise a lot. That’s all it is.

"That’s a beautiful name," she says after blinking once, twice.

"Thanks, my mam’s a recovering hippie." I give her the explanation I give anyone who seems surprised by my name, which in my experience is nearly everyone I meet. It is the truth after all.

"Nice to meet you, Dove." I smile back when I hear my name in her locals' accent.

"Are you a student too?" I ask, hoping I sound more uninformed than I am.

"Fuck, no," she says, her body reeling back a little with the idea. "Sorry, I don't mean any offence or anything but no, studying, college or uni, all that shit. It's not for me. Besides, I'm too old."

"How old are you?"

"Twenty-seven," she says and I am surprised. Not that it's old, but it seems so much older than me. I turned twenty a few days ago but I still feel very much like a teenager. A lost, uncertain and deeply uncool teenager.

"You don't look twenty-seven." I’m unsure if that's the right thing to say. And then I just feel uncertain about my worrying about saying the right thing. That familiar tight feeling in my chest sets in as I tie myself up in mental knots once again.

"It's the shit lighting in here," she says with a wink that only emphasises her wonky smile. I want to write a whole four-act play about that smile.

"So, what do you do? If not studying, I mean."

"Tattoo artist," she says and holds out her arms straight in front of me.

"Very cool," I say like the completely uncool human I am.

"It pays the bills." Keeley shrugs.

"I like the hummingbird... On your neck."

She places a hand to where the tattoo lies, and again she smiles but this time it's smaller, shyer. "That's a special one. I got it for my daughter. The first time I heard her heartbeat it reminded me of how quickly hummingbirds' wings beat. It's not the same number, by the way, not even close, but it was what I thought about, so I got a tattoo to always remember."

"Your daughter?" I say and sound as stunned as I am.

"Yeah, she's three," Keeley replies and of course, this is perfectly logical and reasonable. Lots of people in their late twenties have kids. Lots of people in their early twenties have kids. I am just not lots of people.

"What's her name?"

"Marianne," Keeley says and that tentative smile returns to her lips.

"Do you have a photo?"

"You want to see a photo of my kid?" She looks genuinely shocked.

"Of course," I say. "Why wouldn't I? Oh, God, is it weird I asked. I promise you I'm not a weirdo or a pedo."

Keeley's hand comes down on my forearm and her wonky smile is back. "Relax, I don't think you're being weird. I'm just not used to girls taking an interest in my daughter."

That sentence is so loaded with potential hidden meanings I can barely see clearly. Am I a girl like the girls she pulls are girls? Or am I just a girl like the girls she chats to platonically? Does she think I'm flirting with her? Is she flirting with me? I really don't want to give her the wrong idea, but I’m also rather clueless what the right idea is.

"Here she is." Keeley has pulled out her wallet and is showing me a small photo of a child with the same sparkling blue eyes as her mother.

"She's adorable," I say, noticing her impish smile too. "She looks just like you."

I pull my lips back in my mouth after saying that.

"Thanks," Keeley says and tucks her wallet back in her pocket. "She's my world. But, you know, it's also nice to have nights off. She's with her dads tonight."

I have far too many, far too nosey, questions so I don't ask any of them.

"So, drama, hey? What do you plan on doing with that after you're finished with college?" Keeley asks when I don’t respond.

I blink a few times, unprepared for her question. The gap in our conversation is filled by some whooping and giggling by Caroline and Paul behind her as the song changes. We both turn to smile at them and over the top of their heads, I see Jake and Ahmad are deep in conversation sitting on the stage. Looks like I may as well stay here and talk to Keeley as he won't want me getting in the way.

"I'd really like to be a playwright. Write plays. But I know the chances of me doing that with any kind of success is minuscule."

"Define success," Keeley says with narrowed eyes.

"I mean like, financial success. Making enough money to live off."

She wrinkles her nose. "But is that really success? Don't you think there's more to it? More to life?"

Taken aback by the philosophical direction of this conversation, my reply comes out as a splutter. "There's a lot more to life, but if you can't afford to eat or pay your rent, there's not much chance of you enjoying all that life has to offer."

Keeley holds my eye contact as she speaks. “That sounds like an excuse.”

Her words burn and the tightness in my chest increases. “I’m just being practical.”

"It sounds like you’re giving up before you've even started."

"I'm... I'm not giving up." I feel a heat in my eyes and I swallow hard.

"What you just said... You sound like you already have."

Part of me wants to shout at her. To tell her to mind her fucking business and that she doesn't know me. But I would never do that. That's not who I am. I'm Dove, the quiet mousey girl who sits in the front of my classes because my glasses prescription is long out of date and I can't afford a replacement pair. I’m the dedicated student who always turns her essays in on time. I'm Dove, the girl who does that because she never goes out unless it's a faculty party like this, where part of the budget comes from the department. I'm Dove who has never been kissed properly. I'm Dove, the twenty-year-old virgin.

I am definitely not Dove who stands her ground with the coolest girl in the room. A girl who is in fact not a girl at all, but a woman. A woman who is twenty-seven, a tattoo artist and has a kid. I am not Dove who is thinking about how soft Keeley's full lips would feel on my mouth. I am not Dove who can’t stop looking at Keeley’s thick curves and thinking about how juicy, how generous, how enticing they are. I am not Dove who is wondering what that hummingbird tattoo would taste like under my tongue.

"You're cute when you're all flustered," Keeley says. "It almost makes me not sorry for making you flustered, but I am, you know. I am sorry."

"I'm not gay.” The words spill out of me.

"Okay," she says after a beat, her expression only a little alarmed.

"I'm really not," I insist.

"Okay..." she says again, slower this time. "Do you want me to stop talking to you?"

"Yes, no. No, I don't want that. I'm not trying to be rude. I just don't want you to get the wrong idea and—"

"You're not the first girl to tell me they're straight," Keeley says with a level stare.

"Oh."

"Of course, many of them were lying."

I open my mouth but there are no words. As it happens Keeley's mouth is also open and out of it tumbles warm, deep laughter. "Jesus, I'm messing with you."

"You are?"

"Yes, I'm teasing you. And I probably shouldn't. I apologise."

"I'm sorry for sounding homophobic. I'm really not." My body temperature seems intent on swinging from hot to cold and right now I feel frozen, ice cold.

"I believe you," she says.

"If I were gay, I'm sure—"

"Don't say it." She presses a finger against my lips, a move that silences me instantly. "That's literally the worst thing you could say right now."

"Okay," I say moving my mouth as little as possible because I don't want her to lift her finger off my lips. When she does it anyway, I hope to God my features don't reveal how disappointed I feel.

"You want to run away from me now?" Keeley asks me.

"No," I say, but it’s not the complete truth. For every part of me that longs to stand next to this woman and look at her longer, there’s a part of me that wishes I could run away and hide.

"But you probably will, right?"

It is the worst possible time for me to see Jake waving at me from across the room, beckoning me to him.

"I'm not running away," I nod at Jake. "But I do have to go. My friend needs me."

Keeley seems to find this amusing, which deepens my discomfort while also irritating me a little.

"Go be with your friend," she says, her eyes dull and her lips downturned, and then she turns and walks over to her dancing friends.

It's not until I'm standing in front of Jake in a dark corner of the room and he's giving me a lengthy debrief on how Ahmad touched his thigh for all of three seconds that I realise Keeley had been into me. Keeley fancied me. Whatever it was, Keeley had seen something in me that not many other people do, including myself.

And I have no idea how I feel about that.

Chapter Two

Keeley

Ugh. Straight girls.

I had been so convinced she wasn't one. The way her eyes kept landing on me. The way she smiled coyly. The way she couldn't stand still, shuffling from one foot to another the whole time we talked. Adorable.

Ridiculously, annoyingly, addictively adorable.

And then there’s her face. Long like her physique, it’s dominated by her big brown eyes which take up far too much space behind those round-framed glasses. Their warm walnut colour selfishly kept pulling my gaze into them as I stared up at her, and after a while, it felt like looking away was an impossibility. Her straight nose is covered in light brown freckles, her lips are an almost unnatural pink, and I’m only partly ashamed that it made me wonder if her nipples were the same rosey shade. Likewise, I’m nowhere near embarrassed enough that the first thing I thought when I saw how long her hair fell down her back was what it would look like wrapped around my fist. My impure thoughts were somewhat subdued by her clothes as uninspiring as they are, with her ripped jeans and a saggy well-worn baby blue cardigan, but still they failed to hide the curve of her waist, the slight flair of her narrow hips and the long, lean flanks of her thighs.

So she's not my usual type, but my usual type hasn't exactly worked out for me so far. I spare a quick glance at Gina who has the curves, dark features and overtly sexual aura I normally go for. She was fun while she lasted, but exhausting at the same time with her extroverted personality and tendency to always be performing a little. Then I stopped dating women completely so I could focus on raising my daughter, which seemed like such a good idea but in practise was incredibly boring. Well, Marianne is getting older now and Caroline and Paul were right to drag me out tonight. It has been a long time since I've socialised with people who have cultural references more sophisticated than the names of the Teletubbies. I love being a mum, but I also love not being a mum now and again and wasn't that the whole point of having a child with Nick and Ivan? To ensure I had time to myself while Marianne also gets to have more adults and love in her life? But since Gina, I've been reluctant to even think about dating again. It's also possible I've used my daughter more as an excuse than a reason.

That's why when I saw Dove's flushed cheeks beneath the wide rims of her glasses and the long hair that draped far too teasingly over her breasts when it fell there as she talked, I dared myself to find out more about her. Not that it felt like a dare. It felt like an invitation I'd been waiting for a long time.

But it seems the looks she directed my way were likely more because of my appearance than anything else. My hair, my piercings, my tattoos, my make-up. To me, they're just me and I'm not a big deal. Not something worth feeling intimidated or even especially curious about. But to others I know it's not that simple. My tattoos alone give out negative messages I can't control. I just didn't think they were being received by Dove. At least I'd hoped they weren’t.

I give her only half a glance now as I shuffle on the spot next to Paul and Caroline who I can tell are both about one drink away from snogging, which will pretty much be my cue to leave.

I know Dove’s friend - Jack is his name, I think - was waving at her and I can somehow tell she's the kind of person who will always go running when a friend calls for her, but she didn't have to do it so eagerly, so quickly.

Dove did make it clear that she's straight and not interested. I've learned the hard way that I need to listen to women when they do this. But as my eyes find their way to Dove again, much to my surprise they lock in with hers. She's leaning back against the wall as her friend talks, his hands busy, and she looks...wistful, sad, maybe even a little ashamed.

I offer her a small smile and I know she sees it because she drops our eye contact immediately and turns to the side so her shoulder is now against the wall.

I'm about to moan about long-haired mousey girls into Caroline's ear, but when I look at her, I see her mouth is fused with Paul's and she's virtually humping the thigh he has wedged between her legs.

"Oh, for fuck's sake," I mutter and then walk away. I ditch my drink on the first available surface I find, take my coat off the hook on the wall, and then I keep walking, heading for the door.

"Where are you going?" A voice stops me before I reach the double doors.

"Home," I say before I turn and see Dove standing a few metres away.

"Don't go," she says and I wish she'd repeat it because I can't tell if her tone is as desperate as I want it to be, almost begging.

"We could have another drink together?" She offers. "My friend is now back talking to his latest crush and I don't really know anyone else here so..."

"So, I'll do as a stop-gap, to keep you company while your friend is busy?" I argue, my words heavy with spite.

"That's not what I meant," she says quickly and I don't miss how her bottom lip plumps up in a pout.

I step closer to her. "Are you straight?"

"Pardon?"

"Are you still straight, or did your sexuality magically change in the last ten minutes? I have to ask."

"I'm still straight," she whispers.

"Then, no, thank you."

She straightens up a bit then and lifts her head. "You know, that's kind of rude."

"I am kind of rude," I spit back. May as well live up to the reputation my tattoos and piercings give me. I put my coat on and ready myself to go, confident she doesn’t have a response to that.

"No, you're not,” she says, her shoulders held high. “You were really friendly with me earlier."

I take another step closer. "Well, that was when I was hoping to find out if you taste as sweet as you look," I say slowly, deliberately like the bitch I am.

I'll give her credit, she barely flinches. It's more of a shiver, in fact. But still she doesn't respond, her wide eyes finally fleeing from my glare.

"Go write your plays and be that amazing playwright you should believe you can be," I say to Dove before I turn my back on her and walk away.

Chapter Three

Fourteen Years Later

Dove

"So what's it like? Like, really?" Jake's voice demands in my ear.

"It's exactly the same, but also very, very different," I say into my phone.

"Well, that gives me a very vivid visual, thank you so much."

"Oh, shh." I look around the street I’m walking down. "I'm hardly going to say it's still a shithole, am I? I live here now."

"Yeah, still can't quite believe that. It must have been a big pay rise."

"Jake, I'm head of the old department I studied under. It's a dream come true. I get to make this drama department the best in the country. Okay, county."

"Dovey, go for the country. You can do it," Jake says and I soak up his encouragement, appreciating how I let it penetrate me so much easier than I would have years ago.

"Anyway, enough about me. Tell me about Crete!" I ask, thinking how he's been there a few weeks already working his new job as manager of a luxury resort.

"Well, it's hot. Really hot. Ball-meltingly hot. And it's not even the end of May, which means I will have no testicles come the season’s end in October."

"One less body part to wash," I offer as a silver lining.

"I quite like my balls, actually," Jake muses.

"But it's all going well?"

"Yes, so far so good. Still have a lot of work to do but my sister is coming out next week to visit so that will be a nice distraction."

"How is Jenna?" I ask, remembering her recent divorce.

"Doing mostly okay, I think, but like you, she is in serious need of a good fucking."

"Jake!" I exclaim and cup my mouth to the phone as if to stop him being overheard...by absolutely nobody because I'm walking down a near-empty street. Looking up I see I'm close to getting to where I need to be.

"Am I lying though? Have you been on any dates since Graham?" he asks. "With a man or a woman?"

His emphasis on the last two words is very deliberate and I am torn between appreciating his acknowledgement of my recent coming out as bisexual, and also wanting to tell him off for making a big deal out of it. But I suspect that latter irritation relates to his comment only emphasising, how very depressingly, that there have been absolutely no dates with women since I broke up with my boyfriend of many years and came out.

"You're not going to believe this, but I'm at the shop now," I say. “So must go.”

"You're right, I don't believe you, and I expect a full report on your love life when we next speak, which may well be the day I call you and invite you to a burial for my melted balls."

"Ew. Please don't. Just get them cremated like a civilised person," I reply, a smile in my voice.

"Send me a photo of your tattoo when it's done! And happy birthday again, you beautiful bisexual!" He practically sings before hanging up and leaving me with a big grin on my face.

My tattoo. That's why I'm here, standing in front of a colourful tattoo shop, its frontage comprised of a large window that has the shop’s name displayed in old-fashioned Victorian-style lettering: Kay’s Tattoo Studio. Apparently, it’s been here for nearly ten years, but it’s new to me and that adds a new extra layer of nerves to my already very present anxiety. All my previous tattoos were done in the same studio in Nottingham close to where I used to work.

Every year since I qualified as a drama teacher I have celebrated my birthday and I suppose in a small way, myself, by getting a tattoo. The first was pitifully small - a single-line circle on my wrist - and the following ones weren't much bolder or braver until maybe my fifth, a pile of books tattooed on the back of my upper arm, representing my love of literature. There followed many other tattoos of various descriptions but most of them single-line drawings or writing , all of them on my arms, legs or torso.

Today's tattoo is going to be a bit different. It’s going to be another small one, but it’s going to be my first on my foot and my only tattoo with colour. It will also be arguably the tattoo that has the most meaning of all: a rainbow in the bisexual flag colours. It will go on the bridge of my left foot, my dominant foot, the leg I lead with as I walk around the world. It will symbolise how I plan to live this next chapter of my life since coming out. As a proud bisexual woman.

I hope.

As it happened, after so many years leading up to it, so many years of denying my sexuality, and then a handful of years knowing my sexuality but keeping it to myself, coming out wasn’t that much of a big deal. At least, it wasn't to most of those I shared the news with. My mother barely blinked when I said the words over a Chinese take-away we shared one Friday night. She just lifted her eyes off her sweet and sour tofu long enough for her next mouthful to fall off the fork. She’d swallowed what was in her mouth and then she told me how in the summer of 1978 she’d spent a few months living in West Wittering with a woman named Janine.

"So, I suppose I’m bisexual too," she’d added.

I’d sucked in a breath. "If that’s what feels right to call yourself," I told her.

Many minutes later, when the take-away containers had been cleared away and we were both hugging mugs of steaming tea while watching Eastenders, she’d told me she was proud of me and that she loved me. There wasn't much space for me to feel the full emotion of her rare declaration of affection, because in her next breath she told me she hoped this would mean I got a bit luckier in love and finally meet someone “more interesting than the used tea bag Graham was”.

As for my friends. Well, some of them had been easier to tell than others. Jake and Dana fell firmly and noisily into the first group. Dana screamed and hugged me, Jake whooped and applauded me, and they both agreed they were sorry I couldn't tell them sooner. But some of the others - my straight friends who are mostly in this personally very foreign season of life where they're married, having babies and getting far too invested in wallpaper samples - they had a treadmill of strange responses.

Do you have a girlfriend then? No. Then why come out?

So, are you just gay? No. But how can you like both?

Have you always felt this way? I think so. Are you sure? Maybe it's just a phase.

I'm not sure dating women will be easier, if that's why you're doing this. That's not why I'm doing this.

Have you just gone off guys? Not really. Well, we all go off guys now and then. There's no need to do anything extreme like turn half-gay.

Why come out now? Why not wait until you have a girlfriend? Because I want to.

Are you looking for a threesome? God, no. That's a shame. My husband's always fancied you.

It got to the point where I just decided to stop telling people and now I'll let my tattoo do it for me. And maybe, possibly, my actions will too. If I ever am brave enough to register for the dating app I downloaded, or to, you know, actually speak to a girl who looks at me for more than half a second.

Baby steps. This tattoo is going to be the first baby step.

As I walk in the tattoo shop, I am instantly struck by how light and airy the space is. While the frontage may have suggested a typical tattoo shop, inside the décor is more minimal and seemingly more focused on plants than tattoo designs. The floor is white-painted floorboards which no doubt adds to the lightness in the space that is mostly open with couches along one wall and in the bay of the shop window. In the corner between them, in front of a large strelitzia plant, is a table stacked high with folders, that I assume are full of tattoo designs. The rest of the space includes a wall with coat hooks and some abstract artwork, and towards the back is a shop counter that looks like it’s vintage and has been lovingly restored. There are more plants and folders on the counter, next to a computer, and in the glass display beneath there's an almost mind-boggling number of different rings, bolts and bars for piercings to choose from.

"Hi, can I help you?" A voice asks me and I look up to see it belongs to a young woman standing behind the counter. She has long purple hair in two pigtail braids and a heavy fringe that emphasises her heavily-lined blue eyes that still twinkle despite the black shading they have below and beneath them. Or maybe that's why they do. I know next to nothing about make-up, after all. Wearing black dungarees over a hot fuchsia pink silk shirt, I am immediately conscious of how boring and predictable my own attire is - faded blue jeans, a grey sportswear hoodie and my exhausted-looking corduroy jacket that I can't bear to part with. But I've been here before, I always feel intimidated in tattoo shops.

Without fail, all the tattoo artists I’ve met have been edgy, cool and with truly individual senses of style that I could never match. Over the years I've become a lot more used to just letting this be what it is rather than feeling intimidated or jealous.

"Hi," I say and step forward. "I have an appointment at three o'clock. In the name Travers?"

The young woman who can't be much more than a teenager checks the computer. "Oh, yes, I see you. You're a few minutes early, which is great as I have a form for you to fill in. Would you like a cup of tea?"

I take her warm tone as an invitation. "Do you have something decaf? I'm a bit nervous actually and caffeine makes me jittery," I explain.

Her smile is kind as it claims her face. "We have a special chamomile blend for jitters. I'll go make it now as I leave you with this form." She hands over a clipboard and pen before nodding to the couches behind me. "Take a seat."

A few minutes later and my form is filled in and the thoughtful young woman is handing me a mug of sweet-smelling tea.

"Dion will be with you in just a few minutes," she says. "You've already sent over the design you wanted, right? That hasn't changed?"

I confidently shake my head. "No, that's still what I want."

"Perfect." The woman grins and then walks back behind the counter.

Moments later a man with brown skin, blue hair, dark eyes and a well-worn AC/DC tour T-shirt stretched across a full body and stomach walks through the door behind the counter - the one I assume leads to the tattoo rooms - and after giving me a brief smile he walks up to the young woman at the counter. She then proceeds to ask him some questions about a later appointment while pointing at the computer screen. I start gathering my things, assuming this is Dion who will do my tattoo, but just as I'm about to stand, another voice lands in the room.

"I’ll take this one," it says. It's a female voice and I look up to see another woman standing with her colleagues behind the counter, but she’s looking directly at me.

There is some mumbling from the man and the young woman, but this new arrival who is unquestioningly older nods resolutely at them both and they promptly fall silent. I'm not surprised. Her appearance is commanding to say the least, and it's not because of the tattoos that cover every available inch of her skin apart from the pale tones of her face. It's what she's wearing - a sleeveless roll-neck woollen top in black to match the skin-tight leather trousers that cling to her ample curves - and it’s the way her jet-black hair is pulled back into a slick bun at the very top of her head, apart from the very blunt and low fringe that hides her eyebrows from view. Her make-up isn’t any less formidable - blood red lipstick, long fake eyelashes that somehow don't look out of place at all, and a classic feline flick of eyeliner in the corner of each eye – this is a woman who knows exactly what to do with both make-up and her own features. I stare at her eyes, noting their deep blue colour, but when they flick up and land on me, I immediately look away. There was something scalding about her look. Like she saw straight into me, saw things I don’t want her to see.

"Ms Travers," her voice then calls for me and I stand up. "I’m Kay. I'll be doing your tattoo today. Can you follow me?"

I'm not sure why my heart is racing but when I take that first step, I am relieved my foot lands without a wobble. Do I have a crush on my tattoo artist? Oh, please no. I'm already far too prone to sweating and shallow breathing during these appointments. No, it's not a crush. It's just nerves. Wait. Isn't the name of this shop Kay's Tattoo Studio, which means the eponymous owner is doing my tattoo. Yes, that's enough to make me nervous. Shit, I hope I don't have to pay extra for her.

I try to distract myself by looking around the room that we’re now in after going through the door behind the counter. It appears to be just an extra waiting area, with another couch, as well as water and snacks on offer on a small table. Behind the couch is a glass window that looks into a work room. Through it I see a man lying prone and topless and on top of him is a woman straddling his waist as she works on a large piece that covers the whole of his back. Wings, I believe. The man’s head is turned to the side and he has a strangely calm, blissed out expression on his face - eyes closed, lips together and slightly upturned - and the woman is deeply focused on her work, her whole body bending towards the action of her wrist that holds the needle. I wouldn't say I am ever that calm getting a tattoo done but I can relate somewhat to the sense of stillness and peace that comes from surrendering to the moment as it unfolds. Although I’m pretty sure that’s not going to be happening now for me.

I assume we are going to walk down the corridor at the side of the room that leads on to this work room and probably others, but the woman I'm following turns the opposite way and towards a spiral staircase in the far-right corner.

"It’s just upstairs," she says her head tilted over her shoulder. I get a faint whiff of her perfume - vanilla and something earthy and citrus, lemongrass, perhaps - and I find myself holding my breath so I can keep hold of it. But then she starts heading up the stairs and because I'm following immediately behind her not only do I get more of her scent but I also get the view of her full arse as it sways up each step. I literally couldn't ignore it even if I tried. The swell and dip of each chunky butt cheek as she climbs is right in front of my eyes. It's enough to make me giddy with imagining what a backside like that would feel like under my hands, under my mouth, between my teeth.

Shit. I definitely have a crush on my tattoo artist.

Chapter Four

Keeley

I've never seen a ghost before, but I can imagine what I feel now is similar to what it's like glancing upon someone you thought was dead. Not that I imagined her dead. Not at all. In my dreams of this woman - the ones that have kept me company for years and years - she's alive and well, and bouncing up and down on my hand.

Is it normal to still fantasise over a woman you haven't seen in fourteen years? Probably not, but you only need to take one look at me to know I am anything but normal.

And it's not like she's the only woman I've fantasised over, far from it. But she is the only one that I can't seem to forget. Other women have come and gone - both in my fantasies and in my bed - but Dove has never left my mind completely. Some women stuck around for a while, if you can count a six-month situationship with a woman I met online and a chaotic on-off one-year relationship with someone half my age - but this creature... She is the one I have found myself thinking about in my quietest, darkest and most introspective moments. And not just when I have my hands between my legs. Often, she flies into my mind unexpectedly, like a butterfly, or a dainty bird, or maybe even like her namesake, a dove, a wonderfully welcome and calming presence.

Each and every time I find myself with unanswered questions about her. Where did she move to after college? Did she ever become a playwright? Did she meet someone and marry? Is she happy?

It would therefore be too trite to say I regret walking away from her that night, but in reality, what else could I have done? She told me she was straight. She made it clear there was no chance of us going beyond a platonic relationship and that burned me. And when someone burns me, I walk away from them.

At least that’s how I used to be.

Hindsight has made me wonder far too many times what could have happened had it played out differently. I could have made a new friend. I could have just passed an evening in a timidly beautiful, clearly intelligent and truly intriguing woman's company. Instead, I'd been too hung up on what I wasn't going to get out of it. That's what I regret most about that evening. I regret my youthful ignorance and stubborn selfishness.

However, I am not young anymore.

And apparently, she is not straight anymore.

I don't know this because I have finessed my gaydar to 100% accuracy. I know this because I’ve seen her tattoo design.

It was the first thing I did when I saw her sitting on the couch filling in one of our forms. I'd been standing at the window of my upstairs office, a glass panel very few notice from the ground floor, and once I'd taken in her long limbs, tawny brown hair still long and straight, and her glasses that kept slipping down her narrow nose, I knew who I was looking at. Then I'd practically raced to my laptop and pulled up our booking system. Finding her name - D Travers - I'd internally rejoiced when I saw an attachment file. Opening it, I felt my heart rate speed up. Seeing it, I stopped breathing.

Let's be honest. As tattoos go, it's far from an innovative or exciting one, which makes it precisely the kind of job I would normally refuse to do, and indeed have refused to do no matter how much money was on offer. There's a reason I employ other talented artists with less experience than me to do these jobs while I take my pick and mainly focus on my existing long-term clients. Besides, running the studio takes up a decent enough chunk of my time, and then I also like to have a generous amount of time-off with my child. But today Mari is in the shop doing their work experience - and impressing everyone in the process as I knew they would - and so I was about to get stuck into the accounts when I happened to glance out the window and saw a ghost.

No, not a ghost.

Dove. Dove Travers, apparently. It feels strange to have thought and wondered about someone for so long and not know their surname. Or rather it feels strange to only be discovering it now after she has occupied far too many of my thoughts over the last decade and a half.

I wonder if she thought about me too? I wonder if she recognises me?

"Take a seat," I say, pointing to one of the chairs opposite my desk.

A little stunned, her eyes scan the room.

"It's my office, but I have a bed and machine up here," I say, gesturing to the set-up near the window. "Just give me a minute to get it all ready."

"Are you Kay as in Kay the owner?" she asks in a quiet voice, still not sitting down.

"I am," I say with a half-smile as I move to my machine.

"Oh... I didn't ask for you."

I turn back towards her with raised eyebrows.

"Not that it's a problem. Not that I don't want you. It's just... I assume... You're probably more expensive, right? And I'm kind of on a budget here."

"It's the same price," I say simply, bringing the bed more into the middle of the room. "Don't worry."

"Oh, okay," Dove says and then shuffles over to a chair. She hangs her jacket on the back of it, before sitting with her bag on her lap. I give her another look but other than the slim lines of her legs, skin poking through the tears at her knees, I can't make out much of her body. I should feel disappointed, as hungry as I am to know what she looks like, what she feels like. But I'm not. I already know she affects me just as much as she did in that dingy drama studio a lifetime ago. It’s almost like her actual physical dimensions are irrelevant.

When I have everything set up and I've cleaned the bed with sterilising spray, I wheel my stool to where she’s sitting.

Her wide eyes behind her glasses are tracking me loyally - just as I felt them do as I was getting ready - but when they catch mine she drops the gaze immediately. She keeps doing that. It’s a bit annoying because I want to lock eye contact with her. I want to absorb the way she looks at me. I want to maybe find a hint that she recognises me too.

"Your accent tells me you're not from around here," I venture.

"No," she says then coughs to clear her throat. "I'm originally from Sheffield. I just moved back here for a job, actually."

"Moved back?" I say, testing again.

"Oh, yeah, I lived here like ten, fifteen years ago. I used to study here. At the Technology & Arts College, which is actually where I'm working now. I’m head of the drama department," she adds quietly.

I can't stop my smile or the memories that flood back. Not just that party when I met Dove, but the many parties there. The ones I went to because I always hoped I'd see her again. But I never did. I always wondered why that was.

"I used to go to parties there," I reveal and study her closely. "When I was younger."

Dove's expression doesn't falter or change apart from her smile, it widens but doesn't open up. "You probably went to more than me, then. I wasn't much of a... party-goer. Too busy actually doing the studying part that most students don't bother with."

"Well, that'll be why you're head of the department now. Congratulations on your new job." I say and I sound buoyant, celebratory, but deep inside I'm a little disappointed as I'm almost certain now she doesn't know who I am. She doesn't remember me. Definitely not in the way I remember her.

"Thanks," she says and a cute rose-pink blush fills her cheeks.

"So, this tattoo." I sit on the stool and use my legs to wheel towards her slightly. "I've seen the design. It's all pretty simple, but where’s it going?"

"On my foot. Like on the bridge of my foot, so I can see it when I look down."

"Okay." I nod. "Take off your shoes and you can show me where."

I'm a little surprised by how quickly Dove rushes into action, unlacing her Doc Marten boots and tearing her socks off, but it also charms me, possibly even thrills me that she is so quick to obey my orders. This is when I give myself a stern talking to because thinking about Dove in any kind of submissive role is not going to help me concentrate on the job I need to do. Admittedly, yes, it's a job I could do with one eye closed and a hand behind my back, but I didn't get to where I am now - the owner of this town's most popular and over-booked tattoo studio - by half-arseing jobs, and I definitely do not want to half-arse Dove's tattoo. This brings a question to the forefront of my mind.

"Is it your first tattoo?" I ask because I don't remember seeing any on her body last time, and there aren’t any I can see now.

"No," she says as she tucks her socks in her boots. "It's actually my thirteenth."

"Lucky number thirteen?" I say wryly.

"Let's hope so."

The desire to know where all her other tattoos are, what they are and if they mean something is so strong it's almost over-powering, but I should know better. Tattoos don't need to mean anything and I know only too well how tiresome it can be explaining each one to people. Considering I have over 300 individual tattoos, I do my best to avoid any kind of discussion of what my tattoos are or are not.

"And what are you like with getting tattoos? Do you find it relatively comfortable? Have you ever fainted?"

"I've never fainted," she says quickly. "But I wouldn't say I find it comfortable. I am feeling quite nervous, actually."

I try to offer her a comforting smile but who knows if it lands. She barely sees it anyway because her eyes are still skittish whenever they get remotely close to holding contact with mine.

"So, let me see where you want it." I slide a little closer and tap my right thigh indicating she should put her foot there.

Dove's eyes ping-pong between her feet and my thigh a few times before she hesitantly lifts her leg and places her foot on my leg. Except she barely makes contact. She must be using all her strength to keep her foot hovering and only barely grazing the fake leather material of my trousers with the sole of her foot. Holding onto a smile, I bring my hands close to her foot but before they make contact, I look up at her.

"You okay for me to touch you?" I ask.

She holds eye contact long enough to nod at me slowly, both of her lips pulled into her mouth in a way that sends far too much heat rocketing to my core. Maybe I was stupid to request this appointment. Maybe I should have just approached her on the way out and reintroduced myself. Fuck, yes, that would have been the sensible thing to do. But since when have I ever been sensible when it comes to a woman who sets me on fire?

I rub my hands together quickly to warm them and then I place them on either side of her foot, almost cupping it. The first thing I do is tug it gently, to rest its weight on my thigh. When I don't feel Dove pull away or lift it back up, I feel a silly satisfaction warm my chest. And then I gently bring one hand to her toes - which are painted a pastel pink - and I bend them down so her foot is pointed towards me.

"Show me where you want it?"

She leans forwards and stretches her pointed index finger to the widest part of her foot. "Across here."

"And you didn’t shave already?” I ask.

"No, I didn’t. Shit, was I supposed to? My old tattoo artist always liked to do it himself. Sorry if I was supposed to."

Her fluster does little to calm my growing arousal as I stroke her foot which I hope she thinks is some sort of preparation for the tattoo. And indeed, I am partly checking the contours of her skin there, but more than that, I'm just enjoying the physical contact. I am already dreading putting on gloves and taking this skin-on-skin warmth away from myself.

"It's not a problem at all. I also prefer to do it myself," I bring my other hand up to stretch the bridge of her foot, practically massaging her. "Relax," I add and watch as she does, her back sinking into the chair and the muscles in her leg loosening up.

"Okay," she says, possibly a little breathless.

"And you want pink on the top, purple in the middle and blue on the bottom?"

"Yes, please. It's actually—" she begins.

"The bisexual flag. You want a rainbow of the bisexual flag. I like it."

"You do?"

"My child, Mari, is also bisexual. You met them earlier." I regretfully lift off the stool, placing her foot on it when I come to stand. I move around to my desk and sit at my computer. I open up her design again and hit print, sending it to the thermographic printer behind my desk.

"That's your daughter?" she asks clearly surprised.

I shake my head lightly but keep my smile. "Not daughter. They are genderfluid non-binary."

"Oh, I'm sorry, I think I mis-gendered them. Possibly. I don't actually know if I did it out loud but certainly in my head. Oh, God. I’m so sorry I—"

"Do people ever tell you that you apologise a lot?" I interrupt, as I reach over to my printer and get printout.

"Yes, my mam tells me constantly. She calls me an apologetic doormat because I let people walk all over me and then if that doesn’t go quite to plan for them, I apologise to them for all the inconvenience caused."

"Your mum sounds like she can be quite direct," I say a little tentatively as I place the printout on the bed beside a razor and damp cloth, and then reach for a pair of gloves out of the box on my shelves.

"She's as blunt as a butter knife," Dove replies and I love the dipping vowels of her accent. "But she's me mam and I love her."

"But is she right? Do you let people walk all over you?" I pull a pair of black sterile gloves on one by one.

Dove looks up as she considers this. "I think I have done in the past, but now I'm trying really hard not to let it happen again."

"Good for you," I say, and then I tap a hand on the bed. "Come on, let's get started. Oh, but you may want to take your hoodie off. I don’t want you to get too hot."

Dove nods and promptly stands to strip off her hoodie. I know I shouldn't look, but I do. I practically stare as she pulls it over her head and the vest top she's wearing underneath rises with the stretch. In a flash, I see a butterfly just above the waistband of her jeans but then it’s gone when she pulls her black vest top down. It doesn’t matter because now that her arms are exposed I see more tattoos decorating her fair and lightly freckled skin. All single-line drawings, there’s a circle on her left forearm and a matching triangle in the same place on her right arm. Below the circle is the word LOVE written in capital letters of a typewriter-style font, and lining the length of her right outer forearm is cursive text I can’t quite read.

I take all this in in seconds and then make sure my eyes are averted as she throws the hoodie down on the chair. My eyes may be closed but the rest of my senses are heightening. I get my first proper smell of her; it’s light, airy and a little fruity. Like a bowl of fresh strawberries or juicy cherries on a summer's day. I open my eyes again and watch as she steps up to the bed, her top tucked back into her jeans, which only accentuates her narrow waist and bony hips and long thighs and... I drag my eyes up to her face almost wanting to apologise.

"Lie down and let me know what angle you want your head. Do you want to be more reclined or more upright?" I say as I'd prepared the bed to be roughly in the middle.

"This is fine actually," she says once settled.

"Okay, well we can adjust it if you need it. Can you roll up your jeans a little for me on your left leg?"

She does without saying anything and I watch as her lips are once more sucked into her mouth. When she releases them they glisten with the moisture and I can’t tell if I feel consumed with envy for her lips at being wet from her or if I’m just consumed with want for those lips, for that mouth, for all of her. Fearing that my thoughts are somehow detectable in my face, I step to the sink behind my desk and pour her a glass of water, placing it on the edge of my desk closest to us. It’s a ploy to create the smallest moment of separation. I need it.

"That's yours if you want it." I say, pointing at the glass. "Anytime, just ask me to get it for you."

"Thanks," Dove says.

"So, I'll just shave your foot, then cut the design up, stick it on and you can tell me if you're happy with it."

"Okay," she says again with the same breathlessness. Her hands come to rest on her chest, which is probably a comfort thing for her but only makes me look up and take in the sharp rise and fall of her breasts as her breathing is anything but normal.

It takes no time at all to shave the area I need, although I spend longer than necessary wiping it down and drying it off as delicately as if her foot is that of a newborn baby. It’s a bittersweet relief that I can’t see her reaction to my attentiveness because part of me longs to look at her and see if there’s any response at all to my touch. After cutting around the rainbow on the thermal paper, I ask her to stretch out her toes as much as possible and then also point them down. It's not going to get the skin completely smooth and flat but it will be good enough for me to make a decent imprint. And it is. When I pull away the backing of the thermal paper and her design is revealed to her, I invite her to have a look and tell me if she's happy.

"Oh, wow," she says, her words all air. "It's brilliant."

"You're happy with it, as it is?" I say, throwing the backing away.

"Yes, really happy. Thank you."

"I haven't done anything yet." I smile and sit back on my stool.

"You have," Dove says and I can hear the hesitation in her voice. "You've made me feel really comfortable."

Possibly, if she was anyone else, I would have had a quippy reply for her then. Something like "flattery will get you everywhere" or "we're just getting started", but I don't want to reach for cheap flirtations right now. I want her to keep feeling exactly that way.

Comfortable.

Chapter Five

Dove

I may have just told her I'm comfortable, but honestly, I'm anything but.

Yes, I'm as relaxed as I likely ever will be about the tattoo but I'm hardly calm about anything else, and top of that list is her proximity to me as she slides the stool closer again. But before I can fully react I see the gun in her hand and the buzzing starts.

Whereas this time last year, it was the humming whir of the needle that made me get a dry mouth and a dizzy head, the off-kilter way I feel has nothing to do with my tattoo. It's this woman. This Kay. This owner of a tattoo studio. This mother of an actual teenager. So how old does that even make her? Older than me, surely.

But it's not her age that has me feeling...things. It's her. Her tattoos. Her hair. Her appearance. Her clothes. Her scent. Her mannerisms - that wonky smile and the way her eyes sparkle despite her heavy make-up - and the way she talks to me. Direct but not blunt. To the point but not unkind.

Considered. Intentional. Thoughtful.

Then there was her hand on my foot. Massaging the ball of it and making my toes curl, digging her fingertips into the arch with just the right amount of pressure. It only lasted a handful of seconds, but it made me feel boneless and warm. And wet. I can tell how wet I am already because I haven't become spontaneously wet like this in months, possibly years.

I’m almost certain Graham never made me wet so quickly with such brief touching. Not that there was anything wrong with Graham, but the problem was that there wasn’t much ‘right’ with him either, not if you want pure lust or wild desire. Our relationship didn’t last a long time because we were crazy about each other. Our relationship lasted a long time because there was no passion to die out. We simply were. I was fine when I was with Graham. I was content. But I don’t want to be fine. And I don’t want to be content with being fine.

What I really want is to feel curious, cautious, courageous, and maybe even a little crazy about somebody. I want to feel like I do about this stranger.

Kay is like nobody I've dated. For one she's a woman, yes, but even the men I went out with for more than five minutes didn't have the same kind of enticing edginess and contagious confidence that Kay has.

One benefit of having these many thoughts of Kay bouncing around my mind is that I'm barely aware of the hot, sharp sting of her needle as she gets to work tracing over the outline of my tattoo. I’ve read a bit about how this part of my foot would be more sensitive to pain than the places on my body where I already have tattoos, and it is indeed exactly that - sensitive. Almost ticklish in fact, which is why I'm finding it very, very, very hard to keep my foot still. And because I'm me, I am aware of this difficulty, this struggle, this failing in every single cell of my body.

Thank God Kay suggested I take my hoodie off because I'm already feeling hot and clammy and there is a drop of sweat snaking its way down the middle of my back. I’ve kept my hands crossed over my chest for the entire appointment so far in a useless attempt to try and slow my racing heartbeat and get my breathing back into a rhythm that feels and looks normal, but it's not working. I'm desperate to curl my body up, hide it away, but it's the very last thing I can do. The one thing I'm grateful for is that Kay is sat to my side down by my foot, facing away from me, so hopefully, she isn't aware of the inner crisis that is happening in my body. I'm also grateful that she is working in silence, not trying to attempt a conversation, which makes complete sense. She doesn’t strike me as a woman who indulges small talk and I think that could possibly be another reason I’m attracted to her, as illogical as that may be after just a few minutes of being in her presence. Her silence saves me the embarrassment of try to get words out of my body when I can barely get ragged breaths out of me.

"Are you okay?" Kay suddenly turns to look at me, the needle off my skin.

"Yeah, yeah, totally fine," I say quickly. Too quickly.

"You're not at all, are you?" Kay's shoulders sink and I almost feel guilty for lying to her even though I thought I was doing it for her own good.

I close my eyes so I don't have to see her reaction as I tell the truth. "No, I'm really not."

She switches the gun off and I have to admit just the reduction in noise brings a wave of ease back into my body, like opening a window on a stuffy day. Placing the gun down on the rolling side table, that carries her other equipment, she turns on the stool to face me.

"Talk me through it," she says in that direct tone which makes me open my eyes again.

"Well." I wriggle a little, pushing up to sit a bit straighter. Treasuring how freeing it is to move my foot even if only briefly. "My foot is feeling a bit...ticklish and I'm trying really hard not to move it but the more I focus on not moving it the more panicked I feel I am going to move it and then I just feel generally quite anxious about not being able to move and I really don't want to fuck this up for you." My words fly out of me in a breathless rush.

Kay breathes in slowly, her eyes scrunching. "Fuck it up for me? It's your tattoo." She sounds almost exasperated with me and I can’t say I blame her.

"Right," I say, unable to maintain eye contact.

"What do you normally do when you feel anxious or panicked?" Kay asks, her hands pushing down on her knees as she leans forward. It's a position I have never considered sexy even though I must have seen hundreds of different men and women adopt it. But seeing Kay doing it, it's dizzyingly hot.

"Well, if I’m feeling like this at home, I try to distract myself by putting on some music that makes me feel good. Sometimes I light a scented candle or two - vanilla is my favourite - and I...oh, God, please don't laugh..."

"I promise not to laugh," Kay says with a slight tilt of her head.

"I have a weighted blanket."

Her smile doesn't even threaten to break into laughter as she nods at me. "Well, music and candles I can do. The weighted blanket...not so much. I mean I could find something we could use to cover you up but I also don't want you getting too hot..."

"It's fine. You’re right. I’m already quite warm. I’m sure the music and candles will help enough...if you’re sure you don’t mind."

"Okay, find your favourite playlist while I light some candles. They're unscented I think, but hopefully, it will still do the trick." She stands up and produces a tray of candles that were on a sideboard on the opposite wall. She brings them to her desk and goes about lighting each one. I watch her briefly then pull my phone out of my jeans pocket and set about finding a playlist that won't leave me feeling mortified in front of the coolest woman I've ever met. The chances of her appreciating the upbeat lyrics and addictive melodies of S Club 7 are almost certainly zero. But I still need something that makes me think happy thoughts.

"How do you feel about..." I suck in another quick bumpy breath. "Early 2000s R&B?"

"I love it," Kay says finally and there's something about her side smiles that makes me want to describe them and her as wicked, in a brilliantly good way, which I wasn't even sure was possible until about half an hour ago.

"Here you go then," I say handing my phone to her.

"You don't mind me going in your settings to connect the Bluetooth?"

I shake my head. Depressingly, I have absolutely nothing to hide.

A few seconds later and we're listening to Tweet's Boogie 2Nite and I find myself smiling easily.

"You sure this isn't going to make you want to dance?" Kay asks me as she sits back on the stool and rolls into position again.

"I promise. Music just helps distract my brain a bit. Thank you for being okay with this."

Kay picks up the gun and switches it on, but she doesn't start up again. Instead, she turns back to me with that mischievous half-grin. "Are you kidding me? I'm listening to the songs of my youth. It's going to be hard for me to not dance."

I laugh at that, little high-pitched giggles that sound far too girly and fragile but still they fill the room. And I remember then that yes, laughter also helps.

Chapter Six

Keeley

This is a bad idea. But it’s a bad idea in the way that feels good as well as feeling bad. Because I am enjoying myself. Not in years has doing such a simple and unchallenging design made me feel so electric, so invigorated, so alive.

It's not the way I have her foot in my hand and her leg under my arm, and it’s not even the way I managed to help her calm down a little after I felt her whole body tense up so much it practically vibrated. Rather it’s simply breathing the same air as her. For so long - years and years - I'd wondered what had happened to the shy girl who couldn't take her eyes off me that night. For so long I had wondered if I would ever get the chance to be in a room with her again. And now I do. And now I have some answers. It feels good to have some answers about Dove.

So she's not the playwright she said she wanted to be but being head of a whole college drama department is no mean feat. I know that she apologises too much and that sometimes anxiety can overwhelm her. I know that she’s bisexual and she’s proud enough of that fact to display it like a badge on her body. I know that she used to live in Nottingham and that her dancing northern accent is from Sheffield. I know that she already has twelve tattoos and this will be her thirteenth.

I’ve been itching to touch the constellation tattoo I noticed she has on her other ankle. I’m fairly certain it’s for Gemini as I can make out the two figures side by side, and I am desperate to run down and ask Mari what that could possibly tell me about Dove. I’ve only seen a handful of her other tattoos – the ones on her arms and wrists – revealed when she took her hoodie off. And when she moved one of her arms to cover her face, I saw on the back of it a tattoo of a small stack of books, and I’d love to know if that represents her love of literature, or her still alive hope to write a play one day, if she hasn’t already. If she has thirteen tattoos then I definitely haven’t seen them all and desperate doesn’t even begin to describe the way I feel about wanting to see all the others she has.

There are also answers about Dove in the way she is - shy, anxious and a little jittery. It's the same nervous energy I found strangely inviting and mesmerising fourteen years ago but it's shifted into something less frail and I sense it’s just a thin layer of what makes her her now. Because I strongly suspect under that nervousness is a woman who knows her strengths, her mind, and her heart. Looking at the tattoo I am now halfway through, it feels like she knows who she is, likes who she is, and that maybe she is proud of who she is. And there is nothing sexier than that.

I'm so caught up in what I'm doing - and admittedly what I'm thinking, about how she came to know she is bisexual, about the possibility that some lucky bitch somewhere made her realise this about herself -I don't realise she's shaking again until I lift the needle off her and push back to switch the ink cartridge from purple to blue.

"Are you okay?"

Her teeth chatter as she replies, "I'm fine. I just... I think I'm having a bit of a come down from the adrenaline."

"Okay," I say. "You need a drink of water?"

Dove nods and pushes up to sit straight. I fetch her glass and then roll over to her. The glass wobbles as she takes it.

"God, this is embarrassing," she says before taking a sip.

"I've had twenty-stone body builders pass out from the first touch of my needle, and if that wasn't embarrassing for them - because it shouldn't be - then this isn't embarrassing for you either. Tattoos make people feel all sorts of things."

She swallows. "Are you the kind of person who enjoys it?" she asks with hesitation. "You know, the pain."

"I wouldn't say I enjoy it. More that I find it exhilarating. And I definitely find it addictive," I say then hold my arms out. "Clearly."

"I think you look amazing," she says in a way that I have to tell myself isn’t dreamy at all.

"You're doing great, you know. We're nearly done too. Just the smallest blue bit to go."

She nods but I can tell even that requires her to dig deep.

"Or we can stop for today and you could come back another day to finish it? I'd be happy to squeeze you in." This is a great idea. The opportunity to see her again. Why didn't I think of it sooner?

But Dove shakes her head firmly. "No, I want to get this finished today."

I give her another quick once over and this time for no other reason than I want to gauge if she's really okay to continue.

"You're really shaking."

"Will that make it difficult to keep going?"

"No. I mean, not really because I can basically hold your foot still, but I'm more worried about you."

"That's actually what I need," Dove says with a timid laugh. "Someone to just hold me still."

"Like a hug?" I feel a mix of ice cold and fiery heat flash over me.

"No, like someone to just..." She stops.

"What?"

Dove looks straight into my eyes before she speaks again.

"Would you... Could you tattoo me if you were lying on top of me?"

"Pardon?" I would have been less surprised if she asked me if I could do it standing on my head.

"Downstairs I saw someone getting their tattoo with the artist sitting on top of them, like, straddling them."

I blink at her, waiting for her, the room, anything to come into focus. "That's what you want me to do?"

Dove goes on to surprise me further when she swallows a quick laugh before she replies. "This is going to sound so rude but I really don't mean it as such, but you'd basically be acting as a weighted blanket for me."

It's my turn to pull a chuckle back into my mouth. "That's not rude. It’s almost a compliment. Believe me, I've been called much, much worse."

"So could we try it?" she asks and a flash of eagerness or excitement widens her features.

Eagerness. Excitement. All the things I'm trying not to feel.

"I'm a big woman, Dove, I don't want to squash you."

"That's actually exactly what I want," she says and the innocence with which she says it is almost as damning as the words themselves.

"I don't know..."

"The bed is plenty big enough. I love that, by the way."

"We're an inclusive tattoo studio," I say with a shrug. "I want all my customers to be comfortable no matter their size or shape."

"Then could you make me comfortable by doing this for me?"

I blink at her again, expecting something like recognition or intent to land on her face, maybe even for a little flirtatious smile to accompany her request, but her eyes, her mouth, her expression all stay as open and innocent as ever.

"You have to tell me if I get too heavy or you get too hot or uncomfortable," I say, pointing my finger at her, and I can’t help but waggle it a little when I see a smile emerge on her lips.

"I promise, I will."

Dove gives this little wriggle that makes my legs suddenly feel too weak to stand, but I push up regardless and finish changing the ink. Keeping my back to her, I pull in a couple of deep breaths because I am suddenly the one who is full of nerves and jitters. I tell myself that it will all be over in thirty, maybe even twenty minutes. I tell myself that I can hover above her if I have to. It will be my cardio and strength training for the day. Or who am I kidding, for the year. I tell myself that it will make it easier to finish her tattoo and that doing the best possible job is what's most important. I tell myself that she asked me to do it. In fact, she practically begged.

How I would love to hear her beg some more.

No less nervous but at least a little more composed in myself,  I step back and stare down once more at Dove's long body on the bed.

"Are you—" I begin.

"I'm sure," she says and already she sounds calmer, more in control.

"Okay," I say and then I set the gun down in a place I can easily reach it as I put my right knee up on the side of the bed next to her right thigh.

I don't know why I look back at her face one last time before I push up and swing my other leg over to the other side of the bed, but I'm glad I do. Anticipation lights up her eyes as she watches me and the small, sweet smile she gives me is kind but also keen, possibly even a little conspiratorial. I smile back but also shake my head. I surprise myself how easily my leg comes up to the other side of the bed, over Dove's body which she keeps loyally, almost stiffly still, her hands clasped together on her stomach. I see then what the handwriting tattoo lining the length of her outer forearm says.

To thine own self be true. It’s Shakespeare.

Yes, little bird, that’s what I hope you always are, I think.

Turning back to face Dove’s feet, I shift a little to find a comfortable and sturdy enough position and staying up on my knees, I glance again behind me.

"You're going to have to move your hands or I’ll crush them," I say and it sounds rough, direct in a rude way, but she doesn't hesitate to obey the order.

She really is such a good girl.

"Ready?" I say, which is not what I'm really asking Dove. Rather I want to give her one last chance to tell me to get the fuck off her, that this is a bad idea, that I shouldn't sit on top of her.

"Sit down," she says, once again surprising me with how her words don't match her meek tone. "Please, just sit on me."

I ignore the shudder that ripples through me. I stop thinking and I do. I lower my body until I feel hers under mine. I wait a few seconds before relaxing fully, but when I do and I know she is feeling the full weight of my frame, I hear the faintest, daintiest, prettiest exhale. I close my eyes and try to commit the sound to memory. I wonder what I have to do to listen to that noise on repeat for the longest time.

"You okay?" I say as I reach for the gun, placing one hand on the left side of her legs to balance myself.

"Much better. Thank you."

As I lower my torso further, down over her legs, so my eyes are up close with her foot again, I can't help but roll my hips, once, twice as I try to not think about what part of my body is touching what part of hers, but I fail. I hope she'll think I'm adjusting to get a comfier position, but in reality I'm just trying to reduce some of the tension this position and my skin-tight fucking vegan leather trousers are applying to my pussy. The throb that pulses there is so intense it's almost distracting and it will be a miracle if I still have clean underwear by the end of this appointment. But as my breasts press down on her shins and I grip the arch of her foot in my hand, watching her toes flex again, I can't deny how good this feels. If this is as close to this woman as I'm ever going to get, I'm going to enjoy every second.

"No, thank you," I say in a whisper once the gun is switched back on and its buzzing can swallow my words.

Chapter Seven

Dove

I've gone from having a panic attack about my tattoo to experiencing a full-on bi panic and I have nobody else to blame but myself.

But I wasn't wrong. Having the warm, full, weight of Kay's body on mine has indeed calmed my nerves about the tattoo and has got me over the peak of my dizziest anxiety. The problem now, however, is that I'm literally staring at the heart-shaped curves of her backside, and I am running out of places to put my hands that aren't her bottom or my breasts. I finally opt on bringing my hands behind my head and hope this relaxed looking position will be a fake-it-until-you-make-it self-fulfilling prophecy.

I’d already established at the very beginning of this appointment that I found Kay attractive. I knew then that her ample body intrigued me and her behaviour, her tone, her mannerisms triggered heady shots of arousal to fly through my body. But it's only now I am feeling the warmth of her, inhaling her soft vanilla scent all while I feel the rise and fall of her chest on my legs as she breathes, that I consider how I may have to act on this attraction.

Which is nothing short of madness.

I get my first bisexual tattoo, and all of a sudden, I think I can come on to anyone and everyone?

She's probably not even queer.

Then she will say so, I tell myself. Ironically, just like you have told many women over the years that you weren't queer. That part of the equation is up to Kay. My part is just trying to instigate something. And how am I going to go about that? 'Thanks for the tattoo and acting like a weighted blanket for me. Do you fancy having dinner sometime?'

Hmm. It's not exactly catchy.

Or maybe I need to be more honest with her. 'So funny story about my tattoo. I've only recently come out as bi but I've never actually kissed a girl. Would you like to be the one to change that?'

Jesus, no. Not that.

'Kay, I think I might like you. Could I get your number?'

Yes, that's okay. That’s honest. It's not too many words that I can stumble over. It's direct and to the point, which I sense Kay may appreciate.

One thing's for certain, I want to act on this. Too many times I've let my nerves and uncertainty about my sexuality swallow up opportunities. Too many times I’ve dropped or avoided eye contact because I was too scared to speak to a beautiful stranger. Too many times I’ve jumped to saying ‘I’m straight’ even though I wasn’t sure about that for a long, long time.

And then there was that one girl at the drama studio party. I've long forgotten her name, but I will never forget her bleach blonde hair and that hummingbird tattoo on her neck. I will never forget how my eyes couldn’t look away from her. And I will never forget how she made me feel because she was the first woman who made me feel...things. She made me feel wanted, desired, sensual. Like a fuller version of myself. In many ways, I’ve been working on being that version of myself ever since that night.

I've worked hard on nurturing and growing that seed she planted in me that night. The night I was still so deeply closeted in myself I didn't fully know my own sexuality let alone the deep, limitless possibility of it.

One of the reasons I came out last year is so I don't need to hide from this part of me anymore. I guess it's time to take another baby step toward that very goal.

I open my mouth to speak, but the buzzing suddenly stops. "All done,"  says and she sits up.

"Oh," I say and a wave of disappointment rocks into me. "Thank you."

And then silence falls. Silence in which my eyes trace the curves and dips in Kay's torso, one side, then the other. Silence in which I let my gaze whisper its way over all the ink on her arms, her left first and then her right. Silence in which I study the rich and varied colourful mix of imagery: a skull, a tiger, playing cards, several silhouettes of women with different body types, a cartoon devil, a paw print, the grim reaper, and so much more. Silence in which I look up her back and past the high roll-neck of her top and wonder what colour tattoos she has on the column of her neck. Silence in which my fingers itch to reach up and pull her hair out of its bun so I can feel its softness on my fingertips.

I'm so busy tracking her that I don't notice what she's doing until I feel her roll her hips, so very, very slowly... If I didn't also see movement, I almost wouldn't believe she was doing it. And she doesn't stop, the roll switching into a slow figure eight, as I feel her shift and a hardened seam from her faux-leather pants slides across a soft, swollen and tingling part of me.

The strangled noise I make as a firework of sensations explodes from my clit is obscene and can't be excused away by the tattoo that is already finished. I could blame my anxiety because the rest of my body is mimicking those sensations - short, sharp breathing, hot and cold flushes that chase one another, pins and needles stretching down my arms, and my head a cloud of nonsense - but then there's the tightening of my belly, the hard points of my nipples, and the blush in my cheeks; anxiety is not what has a hold of my body. It's desire.

I move my arms from behind my head, bringing them up in front of me. Reaching forward. I watch as my shaking hands get closer and closer to Kay, closer to grabbing her by the waist and maybe rocking her body against mine a little harder, a little faster. They are centimetres away from touching the soft wool of her top and finding out just how warm she is on my bare skin - but then she is gone.

Pushing forward and resting on her hands, Kay swings her left leg over after giving me a quick look back to check she doesn't make contact with my head. I don't know if she sees my outstretched hands but nothing stops her as she comes to stand next to the bed and quickly sets about finding what she needs to cover my new tattoo with an adhesive wrap to protect it. She does this without saying anything and my hands fall defeated by the side of my body. When she's finished, Kay finally speaks.

"You probably know how to care for your tattoo yourself but wait a few days before you remove this wrap and then clean the tattoo. Remember to pat dry after a shower, and apply Vaseline twice a day if you can. No tight clothing for a while and it won’t need another wrap after you take this one off. If you notice anything unusual or it starts to swell up or hurt more than usual, call us.” She pauses, her eye contact dropping for a second. “Actually, I'll give you my card so you can call me as I'm not always in the studio."

"Oh, okay," I say as I watch her move to her desk. I take this as a prompt to sit myself up and I take my first proper look at my latest tattoo. "Oh, wow. It's perfect."

"Fuck, yeah, I should have shown it to you before wrapping it up. Sorry, that was not cool of me."

"Good thing I love it," I say and I'm trying to make a light joke but who knows if I succeed. It feels like Kay is trying to get rid of me, which is fine because I've been a demanding customer to say the least but that means I'm running out of time to... To do what? To come onto her? To try to get a date? To just try and finally, finally kiss a woman?

"Well, if you don't. If you're not happy with it, or you have any questions or concerns, please just give me a call." She hands me a business card and I glance at it quickly.

"Your name's Keeley?" I ask.

A charged moment electrifies the air between us as we make eye contact. "Yes."

"Not Kay?"

"I'm Kay for short. And I liked Kay better for the shop name."

"Oh," I say and I quickly slide the card under the palm of my hand which rests on my leg. Certain that Kay is going to move away any second now I know this is my chance. My last and only chance. "So..."

A phone rings. It's shrill, it's loud and it's devastating.

Kay moves to her desk to answer it.

"Hello," she says. Then a few beats later. "Mari, I have an appointment up here... It's okay. I'll be down in a minute... Yes... Love you too."

By the time she hangs up, I have her card in the back pocket of my jeans, my jacket back on, and my boots in hand. I also have a broken dream that I’m finding much heavier to carry than anything.

"Thank you so much," I say as I walk backwards towards the door.

"You don't..." She starts but then stops and sits down in her desk chair with something that looks and sounds like a sigh. "You can pay downstairs. Mari will meet you at the desk."

"Of course," I offer her a smile that I hope thanks her for more than just the tattoo even though I can't define exactly what that is.

"Take care," Kay says and her eyes flit quickly to the laptop in front of her. Of course, she has to get back to work.

"You too," I mumble. After clumsily opening the door because of the bag and boots in my hand, I walk out of the room.

Mari is at the counter when I get downstairs but they're on the phone again making an appointment for another customer. From what I can hear of their side of the conversation it seems Mari is finding it tricky to find enough time for the customer's needs so I go to the couch I was sitting on earlier and put my socks and boots on as I wait, wincing a little as the raw red skin where my new tattoo brushes against the side of the boots. When Mari is still busy on the phone, I get out my phone and scroll mindlessly for a few seconds.

Out of nowhere, my eyes are pulled to the mezzanine floor upstairs - where Kay's office is - and I see there's a window there. I keep watching, stupidly and pointlessly wanting Kay's face to appear, so I can maybe see her captivating blue eyes or her cupid's bow mouth once more, but she doesn't materialise. Maybe that's what prompts me to slide my hand into the back pocket of my jeans and retrieve her card again, but I'm only looking at it for a fraction of a second when Mari calls me over.

"Sorry about that. Would you like to pay now?"

I nod and walk to the counter. I hand over my bank card and enter my pin at the appropriate moment.

"Here's your receipt, and do you have our phone number if you have any follow-up questions?" Mari asks.

"I do," I tell them, Kay's card still in my hand. I glance at it again. "Can I ask you a question?"

"Sure," Mari says with a little bounce on the spot and a grin that takes up their whole face.

"Your mam mentioned your name to me. Mari. That's a lovely name. But can I just ask? Is it short for something else?"

"Yeah, originally Marianne. But that's sort of my dead name now," Mari replies and they wince a little, but not as much as I want to.

"Shit, yeah, sorry. I didn't think. I'm sorry if that question upset you," I say, keeping eye contact.

"It's okay." They shrug and smile widely again. "It’s still a nice name. Just not my name."

"Mari is a lovely name too. Your mam said you’re doing work experience. Is that because you’re still in school or college?"

"Last year of school," they reply. "I have my exams in a couple of months and then I’m done."

I nod at them as I do the maths. I hope I'm not staring too hard as I study and search their features for more clues, even a trace of a hint that will confirm one of the hundred impossible theories racing through my mind right now.

"Thank you," I manage to breathe out and then I make my way out of the shop. When the door closes behind me, I have to stop before I walk on. I have to pause and catch my breath. I have to wait until my heart rate slows down, its eager, unstoppable beat pulsing through my whole body, including the hand that holds the card for Keeley, a woman I thought I'd never see again.

Chapter Eight

Keeley

She's gone but Dove has left a piece of her behind. Her playlist. Somehow, it's still playing in my office and I am not going to do anything to stop that. Nostalgia floods me as I listen to all these songs that had me occasionally staying up until the early hours in my twenties and less often, my thirties. These mostly happy memories have me smiling to myself nearly every time the song changes, but nostalgia and reminiscing have nothing on what is occupying every busy thought that has been bouncing around my mind since Dove Travers walked out of my office.

I shouldn't have done it. Any of it.

I shouldn't have said I'd do her appointment.

I shouldn't have taken her up to my office.

I shouldn't have climbed on top of her.

And I definitely, definitely shouldn't have ground my hips on top of hers. She has every right to report me for that. Part of me almost wants her to so I can be punished and bear the consequences of my stupid, stupid actions. If only my shame at what I did was going some way to douse the flames of desire I still feel for her even though she's long left my studio.

Because I am wrecked with longing. I'm drowning in lust that I just know no amount of touching myself is going to eradicate. I'm desperate to know if I'll ever see her again but am just as needy to not know because I can't bear the idea that that was it, that that was the last time I'll ever see her.

There are only two silver linings. Firstly, I didn't go further. I didn't ask her out. I didn't make it any more awkward by coming on to her. And secondly, she doesn't recognise me. Even with my real name in front of her on my business card, my final desperate attempt to prompt her memory, she doesn’t know who I am. This suggests she forgot about me long ago, which is fine. A good thing, really. Hopefully, she'll forget about me again. Another good thing.

If only these good things didn't feel like they were poisoning my insides.

It's been years since I've had a crush like this. The kind that invades your head, your muscles, your veins, your lungs, and your heart.

After checking through the glass panel that Dove has gone, I go down briefly to check everything is okay with everyone else, grateful for a change of scenery, a different space that doesn’t hold Dove’s faintly fruity scent. But still, I leave Dove’s playlist playing on the speakers in my office.

As it happens Mari needs my help with a booking system error, the one they called me about, and while I'm there I look at what my staff has coming up. We're not open late tonight, and I couldn't be more grateful, but still, when I see Dion and Jazz still have another two appointments each, I groan inwardly. For some reason, an empty studio is what I crave right now. A space where I can wallow a little and lick my wounds. An opportunity to wander around this place I built - figuratively - from the ground up over the last fifteen years. A few minutes to gather my thoughts with the help of a glass of the brandy I keep in my bottom desk drawer. A few hours alone in the air that Dove Travers breathed in and breathed out.

Those plans on hold for a few hours, I return to my office, lock the door and set about Googling Dove Travers in an attempt to discover any and every single thing there is to know about her. I am going to let myself obsess and dwell on this today and today only. Tomorrow I will wake up and move on. I've done this before - become borderline obsessed with a woman who doesn't know I exist - and I've gone on to forget their names, the shape of their bodies, or their sweet scents.

Even as I tell myself this, a small but loud part of me is laughing at my own naivety. Because Dove is different. Nobody else has made me forget myself and what I have to lose in the way she did, and she didn't even know she was doing it.

By the time four o'clock rolls around I've poured myself that brandy and called through to Mari to let them know I'm not to be disturbed for the next hour.

When I next check the time, it's after five and I've spent a whole hour studying every photo on Dove's Instagram feed, desperately careful not to like a single one, although I do save more than I should. The sad truth is that there aren't that many. Dove apparently doesn't use social media very much and she is especially reluctant to take or share selfies, something that for my purposes is very frustrating.

My desk phone rings again just before five-thirty and I’m quick to say yes to Mari's request to leave now so they can run to the shops before closing time. I then follow it up by telling them to let Jazz and Dion know they can both go too, as soon as their stations are clean. As I expect, Mari is surprised that I'm effectively offering to do the final clean-up and lock up the studio - something I rarely do - but I simply explain I am stuck doing the accounts, which is exactly what I should be doing, not trying to figure out a way I can look at Dove's LinkedIn while in incognito mode, something that I suspect is beyond me. When I notice the lights go out downstairs,. I move to the window and watch Mari, Dion and Jazz leave, locking the door behind them. I abandon my internet stalking and instead lie down on the bed.

It's something I used to do on my longest days working in this studio before it was the established and popular business it is now. Back then I would lie down because I was bone-tired, my legs lead-heavy and my arms stiff and tense from working for eight or nine hours straight. But I'm not lying down for that reason. I'm lying down now so I can finally do what I've been wanting to do since Dove Travers walked into my office.

As the opening beats of the ODB remix of Mariah Carey's Fantasy fills the room, I close my eyes and let my right hand travel up my body and squeeze my breast. I exhale roughly as I pinch my nipple and I rub my thighs together, chasing friction. My hand is centimetres away from undoing the top button on my trousers when I hear a loud banging noise come from downstairs.

I freeze and wait, although I'm not sure what for. When I hear the banging again - three firm knocks that sound like they're coming from immediately underneath me - I sit up. Slowly, hesitantly, I move to the window and cautiously look down. From this angle, I can't make out all the individual features of the figure standing outside the door but I know who it is from the long hair, the jacket and hood popping out the back, and I know from the way she hops from one leg to another on those long skinny legs.

I stop breathing.

I don't need to put a light on to make my way downstairs. The light from outside gives me enough of a buttery yellow glow to find my way down the spiral stairs and across the waiting room floor. I also use Dove's face like a lighthouse, pinning my eyes on her so I know exactly which way to go while also making sure she doesn’t run away. It takes a while to open all three locks on the door, and I start to smile as I see her hopping from side-to-side speed up like maybe she's cold. Then I recall it's a mild day in late spring and she's wrapped up in plenty of layers so maybe that isn't why she's so fidgety.

However, when I finally have the door open and I step back so she can come inside, she pauses and stops moving. She is completely still for what feels like close to a minute but I know in reality it's not that long. However long it is, all I can do is bounce my eyes from her face which looks equally as frozen and unreadable, to her body which remains unmoving, apart from the quick rise and fall of her chest.

"Dove," I say and it feels like more than I'm allowed, to call her by her name.

This seems to jolt her back into the present moment and after a quick, dismissive shake of her head, she steps across the threshold. Walking past me, she stands in the middle of the waiting room floor and turns to face me. I quickly switch the Yale lock on the door and step closer to her, again something I'm not sure I'm allowed to do.

It fleetingly strikes me as strange that I'm not questioning why she's here because part of me seems to know. Part of me can tell from the way her eyes burn into mine that she's here to tell me something and whatever it is - even if it's holding me to account for my inappropriate behaviour on the bed earlier - that I will let her say it and I will listen.

"Can I..." Dove speaks and her voice immediately cracks. She quickly looks at the ground and swallows, then her eyes dart back up to mine, brighter than ever. "Can I touch you?"

It's the last thing I expect her to say, to ask of me, but I have an answer ready and waiting.

"Yes."

Dove nods and steps closer. Her hands come up into the air between us and I watch them shake a little before they come to land on my shoulders. Keeping her left hand firmly on my shoulder, on my right side I feel her fingers climb the curve where my neck meets my shoulder. They stop when they reach the top of my roll-neck top and I feel the round edges of her nails tuck under the material. Hoping, so desperately hoping, I know what she's looking for, she pulls the ribbed wool down and exposes the side of my neck.

It takes a moment, and she has to step closer to see what she's looking for because it’s no longer the only tattoo on my neck but when she does, I see the flash of recognition flare in her eyes. And it looks like so much more. Like permission, like freedom, like a push into the deep unknown.

She's so close now that when I tilt my head a little to look up at her, her features blur in my eyes, but even so I make out the very clear curl in her lips as she smiles. Just as I have the crashing realisation that she doesn't smile enough, another part of me is audacious enough to make the universe a silent promise that I'm going to make her smile as much as I possibly can for as long as I can. There's no time for me to question or dismiss my boldness because her hand is still on my neck, the skin still exposed and rippling with goosebumps as I wait for her to acknowledge who I am with her words.

But no words come. Instead, there's the soft, warm and slick-wet heat of her tongue licking up my neck across the length of my hummingbird tattoo.

"Jesus," I say as my eyes close and my body sinks into itself.

The licking turns into a series of feather-light kisses dancing around my neck. A shiver shakes my whole body. Maybe alarmed by this, Dove pulls back and finds my eyes.

"It's you," she whispers. "That night."

"That party." I nod.

"Do you remember...me?" she asks and her eyes search mine, full of doubt.

"I remember you," I say and then I cough lightly, clearing my throat because that's not the whole truth. "I couldn’t forget you."

This lights the fire in her again and her fingers dig deeper into my shoulder and into my neck because she hasn't let go.

"I want to kiss you," she says and it sounds like a question, like she's asking for permission.

"I couldn’t forget you," I say again. It's my yes. It's my everything.

Chapter Nine

Dove

Time slows down, which is sort of helpful because I don't want any of this to go too fast, but it's also distinctly unhelpful as it makes me aware of everything, which is both divine and overwhelming.

There's the way Keeley's hands land on my waist and how that makes me suck in a sharp gust of air. There's the way she looks up at me, her eyes blown wide and waiting. And there's the way those eyes drop to my lips just before mine drop to hers.

She's wearing lipstick, which I knew, and I wonder briefly where that will end up when we start kissing. I almost want to laugh at how intrusive and unnecessary this thought is, and yet I've never had to think such things before. None of the men I've kissed before wore lipstick, and I don't wear it myself. But Keeley's deep red lipstick is calling my name now, and I want to know what it tastes like. I want to know what she tastes like.

But more than anything I want this to be good, good for her. She probably has no clue how inexperienced I am at kissing women and I don't want that to show. I don't want her to think less of me because right now it feels like she thinks an awful lot of me and I like, no, love how that makes me feel. It makes me feel like I'm the confident kind of woman who waited for nearly three hours in a coffee shop opposite a tattoo studio just so she could wait and watch for someone to leave her work so she could accost her. It makes me feel like the kind of woman who is going to push aside years and years of fear for the sake of touching my lips to the lips of a beautiful woman. It makes me feel like the kind of woman who could maybe, maybe make another woman go a little weak at the knees with her mouth and hands.

With this firmly in my mind, I bend my neck and lower my mouth to Keeley's. Just before we touch, I feel her breath ghost across my top lip and I can't believe how holy it feels. That intimacy of catching someone's exhale on your skin, it feels like a rare and precious gift even though it's one of millions of breaths she will take in her lifetime. But all of that is nothing compared to what I feel when my mouth touches down on hers.

Her lips cushion mine as I press, perhaps a little too hard and a little inelegantly, against her. I attempt to ease off a little, so I can focus on channelling the abrupt and increasingly intense energy that courses through my veins. My weak attempt is futile and I grip her shoulder and neck a bit tighter. It's not the most comfortable or natural kissing position to be in, my hands all cooped up on her body and my back a little bowed because of how our height difference forces me to bend down, but I don't care. My body can look and feel a little awkward because my mouth is experiencing heaven as her jaw falls open a little and I lock her bottom lip between my own. Delicious and full, plump and pert, soft and slick, there are too many adjectives to choose from as I pull playfully on that lip. More words flood my mind when I feel her teeth graze my top lip as our kiss deepens, and this time they're nouns - tingles, sparkles, glitter, heat, and fizz. These are all the things I feel as our heads move to tilt at opposite angles and I feel her grip around my waist tighten. Taking this as encouragement, I push my tongue forward and slowly let it slide past her lips, over the smooth ridge of her bottom teeth and into her mouth. There, I flick it around searching for her and finding more impossibly soft and wet places that light me up from the inside out. I know I’ve found her tongue when I’m surprised by the smooth and cool nub of a piercing and I run my tongue over it. Feeling like I never want this to end, I slide both hands up so I can cup her face and keep it exactly where it is.

I keep expecting myself to have a clanging realisation - and to be honest, a huge surge of panic - that I am kissing a woman. I am finally kissing a woman. Before this moment, I always imagined it would feel so otherworldly or dreamlike that I would almost feel capable of floating away in the moment, or disappearing, vanishing into my fantasy. But I know exactly where I am, and I know exactly what I'm doing. And it feels so very, very real.

In fact, it's the realest thing I've done in years. And it's the most real I've ever felt.

It's this ever-present sense of reality that has me acknowledging something. It was me who put my lips to hers. It was me who nudged her mouth open. And it was my tongue that ventured further into the warm depths of her mouth. She is not refusing me, and not resisting me, but she isn't exactly exploring me the way I'm exploring her and she definitely isn't leading. From the very little I know about Kay, no, Keeley, that doesn’t quite add up.

Oh, God. Is everything I feel one-sided? Is it only me who is standing here feeling the fastest building crescendo of pleasure in her life? Is it only me who never wants this to end?

I pull back. "Are you okay?"

Her eyes are slower than mine to open and I soak up the way she looks with her lids lowered, those full and curled eyelashes kissing the tops of her cheeks. She pulls her lips into her mouth before she replies, and I pray it's not to wipe away traces of me.

Was I wrong about all of this? Is my first time kissing a woman that awful? Oh, Jesus. Is my first kiss with a woman going to be my last?

"I'm okay," she says finally, her voice a little rough.

I am convinced the chances of me spontaneously combusting are high asking this, but I have to. I have to know. "Is it... Is my kissing... Do I kiss okay?" I look down at the toes of my boots but Keeley's hand is quick to grab my chin and lift my head again. She keeps her grip on me as she speaks.

"You kiss exactly like I imagined you would," she says. "Which is to say, it's incredible."

"Oh, then why...why do I feel like you’re not kissing me back?"

Keeley inhales sharply, her shoulders rising. "I need to apologise to you."

"Apologise?" My body pulls back in the same way my heady, desire-soaked thoughts do. Now I'm nothing but confused.

"Earlier... During your appointment. I acted inappropriately. I took advantage of you and I shouldn't have."

"What are you talking about? The bed thing was my idea."

She shakes her head. "It wasn't that. Well, it was that, but specifically, it was when I was on top of you and I was...moving."

I don't know who's blushing harder, her or me but I'm glad I'm not alone. "You don't need to apologise for that."

Her expression is resolute. "I do. It was wrong. I overstepped an important boundary."

I chew on the corner of my lip as I suck up the courage to say what I want next. "Do you want to know what was going through my mind at that time?"

I watch Keeley swallow. "Can you maybe accept my apology first? Or maybe don't. If you don't want to, because that's your right."

I step a little closer to her, barely an inch, but it's an inch I want behind me not between us. "I accept your apology. Now can I tell you?"

"Yes," she says and I'm relieved when her voice sounds fuller and firmer.

"When you were on top of me, straddling me, and you rolled your hips, I felt your..." It's my turn to swallow and it's bumpy, but very necessary. "When I felt your pussy on mine, it took all I had not to moan out loud. Just that little touch, that little roll, it made me feel more than I have in years with anyone else. I nearly grabbed your hips to keep you on me. I didn't want you to stop."

Keeley blinks up at me. "I still shouldn't have done it."

"Maybe." I shrug. "But I'm glad you did. It gave me the confidence to come back and kiss you."

"You already knew then who I was?"

"Oh God, no. I'm not that smart. I just knew then that I wanted you." Even though my voice is small, those words feel loud and they hang in the room taking up space. I study Keeley's expression for any hint that I've said too much, but all she does is smile, possibly a little smugly.

"Then when did you figure it out? Was it the card?"

"It was the card, and it was Mari. Your name rang bells but I'm embarrassed and sorry to say I didn't connect the dots then. But Mari's age and their name, their dead name, that helped me make the connection," I say, and I feel it's my turn to apologise. "I'm sorry I forgot your name, but you have to know I never forgot you. I never forgot your hummingbird tattoo... Or the way you made me feel that night."

This seems to flick a switch in Keeley and I see the change in her eyes, the brightness in them now becoming a deep, dark burn. Taking a small step towards me she places her right hand on my chest, the heel of it resting on my breastbone. She leans forward and I hold my breath, expecting her to kiss me, and treacherously desperate for it, but she pauses.

"Your heart is racing," she says, looking down at where her wrist rests against me.

I nod slowly, not wanting to waste any more energy on words or talking or doing anything that isn't kissing.

Keeley curls her fingers into the material of my hoodie and uses it to bring me closer to her, and I obey only too easily, trapping her hand and arm between our bodies.

This time it’s very different. I try to do the same exploring, the same hesitant searching of Keeley’s mouth, but she has other plans. Using her teeth to grip my bottom lip in her mouth, Keeley jolts her head back pulling on it. I make a strangled noise of shock that makes her let go, but then she dives into me once more, sucking my tongue into her mouth before pressing our lips so close together I have to cling to her to not lose my balance. I get lost in the kiss, in her magnificent dominance of me and I start to wonder if maybe this isn’t the first time I’ve been kissed by a woman but rather the first time I’ve ever been really kissed.

Just when I start to think I know her rhythm, her next move, it changes. And so I stop trying to predict what she’ll do next, and instead I enjoy it, savour it, which is definitely what I do as Keeley's other hand comes to grip me around my waist, pinning me close to her. It feels like a loss when she finally pulls back slightly and lifts her lips off mine.

"Now it's going even faster," she says, looking proud.

I blink, confused and very possibly not in the same room as her.

"Your heart," she simply says, and funnily enough that's the word I had in my mind too.

Eager to be kissed like that some more, I dip my head towards hers, but she holds back.

"We should... Don't you want to go get a drink or something?"

"Not really," I say before hearing what it sounds like - rejection. I rush to try and fix that. "Not that I don't want to. I do. Another time, maybe. I just want to kiss you more."

Keeley licks her lips. For a second I think she’s going to tell me no, but then she tilts her head up, her chin lifting. "Upstairs."

Yes.

I think about the bed up there and the position we were in earlier and I practically skip behind her as she leads us through the studio and up the spiral staircase. This time I freely ogle her backside, my mouth salivating at the possibility I’ll get a chance to grab handfuls of it.

After closing the door, I watch Keeley move around her space. First, she closes the curtains to the window, then she goes to her desk and lights the same tray of candles that were lit earlier. Finally, she takes her phone out of her back pocket and puts it on the desk.

I notice then that there is still music playing, music I recognise.

"Is this still my playlist?"

"I didn't want to disconnect it." I don't know why but this lights up something inside my chest, something warm and full of fizzy air. Or maybe I feel that way because of how Keeley is stalking her way over to me, eyes fixed on mine and her shoulders pinned back. As much as I want her to do this, my body still reacts to the threat I feel in her stare, and I stumble back until my backside hits the bed I was lying on earlier. I think she'll stop moving now but she doesn't. Keeley doesn't stop until her legs are either side of mine and her stomach is pressed up against the fly of my jeans.

In silence, she slides her hands under my jacket and shrugs it off my arms and shoulders. My exhale is warm and frayed as her palms then travel up the small swell of my chest over my hoodie and she digs her fingers into my hair at its roots.

"I'm going to kiss and touch you now," she says, low and slow. "And you're going to tell me if you want me to stop."

Never. That is the word that darts into my mind like an arrow.

"I mean it," Keeley says when I don't reply. "I've waited a long time to have you like this and I don't want to do more than you want me to."

If Keeley sees or feels the tremble that quivers down my spine she doesn't let on. But I know she makes a note of my nod and my breathless Yes in agreement because a fraction of a second later she is on me.

There's no other way to describe what she's doing to me. It's a pounce. It's predatory. It's a perfect kill.

Her mouth is unforgiving, her tongue relentless, and her body isn’t much slower or kinder. Her hands sweep around to grab my backside and grind the front of me to the front of her. I can’t help but thrust a little, wishing I wasn’t so tall so I could line up with a different part of her body as much as it thrills me to feel her hips thrust into the tops of my thighs.

I always imagined I'd spend the whole of my first time kissing a woman comparing it with a man, but I don't. I don't, and I won't. Because I know what's happening to me right now is about so much more than the jaded social construct that is gender. This is about Keeley, a woman who has haunted the shadows of my mind for fourteen years. A woman who made me look at my body, my sexuality and myself differently for the first time. It may have taken a long time to get from that initial spark of curiosity to where I find myself now - and I have many different complicated feelings about that - but I am still overwhelmingly grateful for where I am right now in this moment. This moment when an intoxicatingly intriguing woman's tongue is fucking my mouth and I feel layer after layer of desire building in my core.

Almost on instinct, I push up a little to sit back on the edge of the bed, and in the same movement, spread my legs and bring my hands to her backside pulling her close to me in the space this creates.

"Dove, you... You need to stop me," she says, and I'm confused again. Why is she saying this?

"I don't want to," I think I would die if this ended, "I don't want you to stop."

Keeley bites her bottom lip as she pulls her head back to look at me. "I should buy you dinner. I should take you out for drinks. I should date you until you're ready...for more."

"I'm ready for more now," I say in a rush. How can I explain that I've been waiting years and years for this? Possibly not with a clear vision of Keeley as she is now, but there is no doubt in my mind that what I've been hoping for, what I've been yearning for, is exactly what stands in front of me now.

"I don't..." Keeley says as she starts kissing my neck. "I don't want to just fuck you. You’re more than that." Her voice cracks again at exactly the same time that my body pulses with need at hearing her say 'fuck'.

God, yes. I want that. But...

"This is probably the worst possible time to tell you this, but I've never...” I swallow down a tight ball of nerves. “I've never slept with a woman before."

Keeley stops kissing my neck and the seconds of silence and stillness that follow my confession are the longest of my life. Eventually, she pulls back.

Her expression is uncompromisingly level. "All the more reason we should go somewhere else, be somewhere else."

The idea of us stopping whatever it is we're doing is incomprehensible to me.

"No," I say, and it lands heavy and hard on my ears, but I need it to be that firm. "I've waited a long time to kiss you, to touch you. I don't want to wait another second more."

"Dove," she says as she rakes her fingers through my hair, pulling it into a ponytail at the back of my head.

"Please, Keeley," I say and I’m not at all surprised it sounds like I’m begging.

Her fist full of my hair pulls down and it yanks my head up.

"This is your last chance," she says as she reaches for my glasses and takes them off. I watch her reach behind her and put them down on her desk not knowing what she means. Surely, it's my first chance?

Confusion must crease my brow because when she returns to stand in front of me she grabs and pulls my hair again, a little harder this time.

"This is your last chance to stop me," Keeley adds and now I understand.

I understand and I rejoice.

"Please don't stop," I whisper, my voice strained, but my intent and want are both loud and clear.

Chapter Ten

Keeley

I gave her a chance. And she didn't take it. So now I'm going to take what I want. And what I want is Dove.

Taking her mouth again, I keep her hair fisted in my hand for a few seconds so I can angle her mouth as wide and open as I want it. Then I put my hands to better use, lifting up her hoodie and breaking our kiss only long enough to pull it off her body. Treasuring the new shape of her now the bulky clothing has gone. I run my hands down the side of her torso and waist and then bring them up to cup her breasts. When she moans in my mouth, I squeeze harder. When she hums on my tongue, I tuck one of my hands inside her vest top and play with her nipple through the thin cotton of her bra, and my other hand goes lower and cups her pussy. Immediately, Dove rocks into my palm.

I'm her first woman. I wish this didn't make me feel even more feral than I already was, but it does. It affects me. It emboldens me. It empowers me.

"Lie down on the bed," I say, and it comes out harder than I expect, an edge in my voice that makes even my own spine straighten, but if Dove is put off by it, it doesn't show. In fact, she obeys instantly pushing back and lifting her legs so her whole body is on the bed. After giving me a quick cautious glance, she lays back down in exactly the same position she was in when I gave her her tattoo.

Shit, her tattoo. I move to the end of the bed.

"You need to take your boots and socks off," I say as I start untying her Doc Martens.

Dove doesn't say anything as she watches me but I swear she wriggles a little when I pull her boots off.

After her socks are gone, I spend a little time stroking the covered skin that I inked earlier. I trace the curves of the rainbow and Dove trembles again. When I look up at her I see her face studying my every move. Encouraged by this, I lift her foot and kiss the arch softly. Dove opens her mouth and I wonder if it's to protest or try and stop me, and it pleases me more than I can articulate when her lips close again and she goes back to watching me as I kiss my way around the heel of her foot and to the sensitive peaks and troughs of her ankle.

"Oh," she says as if she's astonished how good it feels. I want more of those noises.

"Can I take your jeans off?" I ask as I come to stand by the side of the bed.

Dove nods with her bottom lip between her teeth and she brings her hands down to help me loosen her belt and fly. Her hips lift when it's the right time and I slide her jeans down her impossibly long and lean legs.

"I want to see your breasts too. Will you take off your top for me?”

Dove replies by doing just that, whipping her vest top off in one smooth and adorably quick motion. I scan her body as she comes to lie down again and I smile at the mismatched lace purple knickers and her grey cotton bra.

"So pretty," I whisper as I ghost a hand up her arm and then down the middle of her stomach, my fingernails only barely touching the skin there.

"It's literally my worst bra," she mumbles through a shy laugh. "It's laundry day."

"Then take it off," I reply instantly.

This is when she falters, but it's not for long. Just a little flicker of panic, a small surge of doubt perhaps, but a beat later she's lifting her back off the bed and sliding her hands behind her to undo the bra's clasp. I hold my breath and wait.

When the material is gone, her bra on the floor, it's not the swell of her breasts or the pink pebbles of her nipples that light a fire inside me. It's simply seeing her nude, revealed, more completely her. It's the removal of barriers. It's the possibility of my skin on her skin. It's the closeness that is now at my fingertips.

"So very beautiful," I say and bend my head so I can kiss her on her sternum, in between her small breasts that rise and fall jumpily with her shallow breaths. I'm only a little surprised when Dove's hands come up to grab my head and hold my mouth to her skin, but the shock melts away as soon as I slide my tongue out of my mouth and begin to taste her skin and I push against her touch, craving it.

I lick, suck and play with her nipples until she's writhing underneath my mouth. I kiss a zig-zagging line down her quivering stomach until I deviate to dig my teeth lightly into one of her hip bones. I drag my lips along the waistband of her knickers and then look up. Dove's head is lifted and she's watching me, her lips open and her eyes as wide as I've ever seen them. I lock my gaze on hers.

"Can I see you naked?" I ask, my hands already on the top of her knickers.

She nods and makes a swallowed whimpering noise that goes straight to my core. I rub my thighs together not even embarrassed at the noise my trousers make. Suddenly standing by her side feels all kinds of wrong, so as I grip the top of her knickers and slowly pull them down, I also move to the end of the bed, and once Dove's underwear is off her legs and with the rest of her clothes on the floor, I climb up onto the bed between her legs.

Kneeling, I pause and take her in.

My first thought is how angry I am that I didn't see her like this fourteen years ago, but whatever rage I feel evaporates when she starts to open her legs a little wider, bending her knees and revealing herself to me.

"Dove." I hope the way I say her name says everything I want to say but don't have words for.

"I feel very...naked," she says on a giggle.

"You are." I laugh lightly with her. "And it's fucking glorious."

I slide my right hand up her left leg, dancing my fingertips up her inner thigh and when I get to the apex of her legs, I flatten my palm, covering her and feeling her heat.

Mine, I want to say. Mine, I want to shout. Mine, I almost want to cry, but I don't say anything. Instead, I lean forward and apply more pressure. Her body jolts against my hand.

"You must tell me if I do anything you don't like or don't want."

Dove gives me another eager nod and I smile at her.

"I want to touch you too," she says, and it catches me a little off-guard. I literally hadn't even thought about her hands on me or her mouth on me, despite the warm licks of arousal that have heat pooling between my legs.

"Later," I promise as I place a kiss on a small dark mole that lies just beneath her belly button. She trembles again and I am now questioning whether her responsive submission could be enough to make me come on its own, but I push that thought to the side as I remove my hand and get closer to where I want to be.

Inhaling as I lower my face, I cover her inner thighs in kisses before parting her with my tongue.

"Fuck," she hums as I find what I'm looking for and start to lightly lap at her clit.

"Oh, God," she moans when I switch to flattening my tongue and licking as slowly as I can, up and down.

"Shit," she hisses as I open my mouth and suck in as much of her as I can.

"Tell me what feels good," I demand, barely lifting my mouth from her.

"It all feels fucking insane," Dove mumbles.

"Tell me how to make you feel good," I insist. "Tell me how to love you right."

Maybe I'm overstepping throwing that loaded four-letter word into the room but she has to know that that's what I'm doing right now as my tongue enters her. I'm loving on her. I'm giving her body the love I believe it deserves.

"That feels good," she gasps. "So good, but fuck, when your tongue strokes my clit. That could make me fucking come in seconds."

Feeling strangely proud of her for voicing that truth, and using beautifully filthy language in the process, I reward her by doing exactly what she describes. Sure enough, she responds by bringing her hands to my head and digging her fingernails in again. When she starts to rock her hips against my mouth, little mewling noises escaping her lips, I go a little faster.

"Please, don't stop," Dove says, and she's a fool if she thinks I’m even considering it. In fact, I probably won’t stop even after she comes, something she may not be ready for.

"Oh, God," she moans with a grunt and I feel a quick flood as more of her coats my tongue. I lick it up and swallow it down, treasuring the salty-sweet flavour of her.

"This feels too good," Dove mumbles as she grinds her hips faster against my mouth. I pull up only to ask if I can put my fingers inside her.

"Please, God, yes, please," she pants her consent.

With one hand I stroke her inner thigh and with my other, I slowly push two fingers in and curl them up.

"Oh, shit," Dove cries out and her hands fly up to her face, covering her eyes.

Watching her, I flatten my tongue against her again and slide it over her clit. Again and again and again.

"Jesus. Fuck. Shit. Christ. God. Yes. No. Fuck. Me." She pants out as she slams her hips against my mouth, rutting into me. I feel her spasm around my fingers and I smile as I kiss her clit while she rides out her orgasm. And I keep my lips there until her breathing returns to normal.

Just as I thought, I'm nowhere near ready to stop. I start lapping at her slowly again.

"Keeley," she says on an uneven exhale. "Oh, God, please..."

I move my head. "You want me to stop?" I say into the soft flesh of her thigh. "I'll stop. But I don't want to."

When she doesn’t reply, I go back to tonguing her and she goes back to squirming and whimpering. I shouldn't enjoy it as much as I do.

"It's just so sensitive and... oh, Jesus, yes."

Another proud smile curls my lips as I dive even lower and lick her perineum. Dove purrs with pleasure. Sorely tempted to go even further and push my little bird even more, I remind myself that this is our first time and that the night is yet young. Besides, I already want to feel her come on my tongue again, so I return to her clit, kissing and sucking at it as her hands get lost in my hair, her nails occasionally raking across my scalp.

"Let me touch you now," she says, and I shake my head against her pussy. I'm relieved when she doesn't protest further, but I do shift so I can sit on one of my heels, using it to apply pressure where I need it, against the fly of my trousers.

Her second orgasm has more build-up and I feel more in control of it. I tease at it by alternating long, lazy strokes of my tongue with intense kisses on her clit where I suck it into my mouth. I control how close she gets and I torturously take my mouth off when I notice her hips buck more frantically or when she stops breathing. Each time I remove my tongue, she calls out or groans and I’m grateful she can’t see my arrogant smile at the protesting noises she makes. It means this climax is much more powerful than her first, and her body practically jack-knifes when she finally comes. Her torso rises from the bed and I open my eyes to see her back is arched, her head is thrown back, and a mix of tears and sweat have plastered loose wisps of hair across her face. I only lose sight of all this when her hands push my face deeper into her pussy.

Only when her dainty gasps and soft moans stop do I lift my mouth and wipe it with the back of my hand. As I come to sit back on my knees, I look at Dove and see a pink rash has spread across her upper chest and neck. I reach out my hand to touch it and she shivers at the contact. She looks down.

"Oh, yeah. That happens sometimes. Not always, but sometimes. If I come hard, or more than once."

I nod. "Well, you did come more than once."

"And hard," she adds, eyes wide. "I came so hard. Both times."

I lift my hand and comb my fingers through her hair. "Plenty more to come. I'm just getting started with you."

Dove shakes her head then. "No, please let me touch you. Please let me try to make you come too." She looks down briefly. "I'll probably be terrible at it, but I want to try. Do you mind?"

Do I mind? Do I mind? As much as I want to go back and pull two, three, four more orgasms from her I see now that Dove needs to know how much I want her hands on me. I decide to tell her this the best way I know how.

I slide back off the bed and making sure her eyes are on me, I pull my top over my head, toe my shoes off, then undo and slip my trousers down my thighs and kick them off. When I'm upright and wearing only my underwear - a black and red lace knickers and bra set - I smile before bringing my hands behind me and undoing the clasp on my bra.

"You match," Dove says with a slight pout. "That makes me look bad."

"Impossible,” I say.

"God, you're...you're so fucking sexy," she says before starting to giggle. "And not just because your underwear matches."

I laugh with her but her chuckles promptly stop when my bra falls from my body.

And when I put my thumb in the waistband of my knickers and slip them down my legs, she breathes out so heavily the noise fills the room.

Chapter Eleven

Dove

Keeley naked is a work of art I could look at for the rest of my days, and it’s not just because of the tattoos.

While they cover most of her light white skin, there are still some places without ink, most noticeably in the shape of a heart in the middle of her chest and in patches across the rest of her huge breasts and oval nipples, both of which are pierced with silver barbells. Her full stomach is mostly covered but there are sections of her thighs that reveal her natural skin tone. Her tattoos are colourful, but the shades that dominate are red and black which makes me smile because that matches her scarlet-lipstick and jet-black hair, and the underwear she just took off. As my eyes dance around her body, I want to know if her tattoos all taste the same. I want to know if they feel different under my tongue compared with her uninked skin. I want to kiss it all. I may even want to sink my teeth into parts too.

"Stunning," I say with too much air.

"Touch me, Dove," Keeley says.

I swing my legs off the bed and lean forward, reaching for her. She steps into my arms and I first stroke the skin on her back. I can only imagine what art awaits me there. I hope I have time to soak up that view of her too before this is over.

Thinking of this being over threatens to burst the quickly inflating balloon that is my desire for Keeley, a desire that I have already become very comfortable with. Too comfortable, possibly.

Pushing that slight sting to a more distant part of my mind, I focus on the smooth softness of Keeley’s skin as I glide my hands down and grip her butt. Or at least, I try to. In reality, there is too much wonderful flesh there for me to hold onto in just two of my meagre handfuls and that both saddens and excites me. I paw at her backside so much it rocks her body closer to mine. That’s when I feel her stomach press up against mine and it pulls a breath from my body. If Keeley noticed, she’s not doing anything to help me get it back because she then shifts her position so her breasts push against mine. It would be technically incorrect to say her full breasts align perfectly against mine because they don’t. Mine are too small and my body too long, but it doesn’t matter. It really doesn’t matter, because when I feel her nipples graze against my stomach and my own harden against her chest, I feel like I could melt away.

And then I remember I can touch them. She asked me to touch her. So I lean back from our embrace and slide my hands between us. I find her round cherry-red nipples and play with them, pinching, rolling, twisting lightly and feeling the barbells move ever so slightly.

Keeley hums and throws her head back. This only spurs me on to do more, take more, so I lower my head and lift her left nipple to my mouth. It’s impossibly soft in my mouth, apart from the cool metal of her piercing and the hard point of her nipple that I tease with my tongue.

"Dove," she says before it morphs into a deep moan. A moan that has me lifting my face so I can kiss her. I want to hear her moans vibrate in my mouth.

As we kiss – all tongues, some teeth – I continue fondling her breasts until I notice how Keeley has started rocking her body against the side of the bed. I shift myself forward, wanting to feel her rock against my skin, but because of her height and the bed’s position, we don’t quite line up. Still, I want to feel her. I need to feel her in a primal way.

"Can I?" I ask, pulling away from our kiss and dipping my chin so our foreheads press together and she can see what I’m looking at, what I’m looking for.

"Yes, little bird," she says. I don’t know if that nickname is just for me, because of my name, or if that’s what she calls everyone but as we start to kiss again, I really hope it’s the former.

I feel the nerves course through my arm as I lower my hand, slipping slowly down her body. Our kissing slows a little and I feel her shift, opening her legs for me. I tell myself this means she wants me, she’s readying herself for me, and so I shouldn’t back out. I shouldn’t let the fear get the better of me.

And it doesn’t. The desire to at least try to please Keeley is so much bigger than any fear I am experiencing as I coast my fingers gently through Keeley’s curls and find the centre of her.

She’s slick. She’s wet. She’s so very, very warm.

At first, I just glide the palm of my hand back and forth, back and forth, pulling away from our kiss long enough to watch her eyelids flutter. Then I do the same with just two fingers and that helps me feel her a little more. With something that could be confidence, I roll my fingers around the hard bud I find and when Keeley gasps against my mouth I know I’ve found her clit.

Suddenly, I want to know what it looks like. Suddenly, I’m desperate to know what it feels like under my tongue. Suddenly, I want to know exactly what she tastes like.

But Keeley is rocking her pussy into my hand and she is digging her hands in my hair and kissing me like her next breath can only be found in my mouth so I daren’t stop what I’m doing and I daren’t take my lips off hers, which is no hardship when I can feel her groans of delight on my tongue. I’m so lost in our kiss and in playing with her clit that it’s something of a surprise when Keeley pulls her head back.

"Let me ride you," she says, and I don’t know what exactly she means but I nod. In this moment I trust her completely.

In a few seconds, she’s up on the bed again, and I don’t know why but I instinctively open my legs for her.

"Shift to the side a bit," she says. As I do, she moves forward and lifts one of her legs over my right one. She then comes to sit on my thigh. Now I know exactly what she wants to do.

"Tell me what to do. I want you to come."

She grabs my hands and places them over her nipples. "Play with me. Love on these while I use you to come."

The thrill that powers through me when I hear her say the word ‘love’ somehow climbs to the top of everything else I’m feeling. I love hearing her say that word in relation to what is happening between us. Not that it makes sense. But I’m too excited, too curious and much too turned on to interrogate logic.

Using my fingers to play with her nipples, I watch mesmerised as Keeley slides her pussy down my thigh and then shifts back up again. She doesn’t cover much distance and soon the action becomes a slow steady rocking, but it’s a captivating sight. As is the look on her face as her lids lower halfway and she fixes her gaze on me. I smile up at her as I lean forward and lap my tongue around her nipples one at a time, using my hands to bring her full breasts closer to my mouth.

She sighs as her speed increases and before I lay back again, I notice how her knee is now just centimetres away from my own pussy. Pulling her body forward a little, her knee makes contact with my pussy, and specifically my clit, and a bolt of new longing floods me. The noise I make in response catches Keeley’s attention and when she looks down and sees what I’m now rutting my pussy against she changes her position so I can get closer to her knee. Because my legs are so much longer than hers, she is still riding my thigh while her knee caresses my pussy, hard but smooth against my sensitive flesh. Instinctively, I angle my hips so I can gain even more friction and in the process I apply a bit more pressure to Keeley who is now riding me in earnest.

"This is..." I say breathlessly. "The hottest thing I’ve ever done."

"I want you to come with me," Keeley replies as her breasts bounce in front of me. "Do you think you can come again?"

"I know I can," I say, bringing my hands to my nipples, tugging on them, edging me closer to climax.

"Good, because nobody only ever comes once or twice with me. Nobody. And especially not you."

"Oh, God, Keeley." I moan and close my eyes. Her words are nothing but fuel to the fire that is my lust for her.

"Stay with me, Dove. Look at me." Her hand comes up to pull at my hair again, tilting my chin up. Despite the awkward angle, I open my eyes and stare at her. Her pace is quick now and I can feel her slickness covering my thigh. Almost feeling like it’s not allowed, I tentatively seek out some of her with my hand and I bring my fingers to my mouth. She tastes like a headier, sweeter version of me and I can’t help but wonder what we would taste like mixed together.

"Fuck, you’re perfect," Keeley says as I suck those fingers into my mouth. I grind down onto her knee a little harder in response and feel the familiar final tightening in my core.

"I’m so close," I say.

"Come for me," she says.

"With you. Want to...with you," I pant out.

A deep and gravelly laugh bubbles out of Keeley and her hand moves round to hold the side of my neck, applying enough pressure there that it affects my already shallow breathing.

"Watching you come will make me come. So do it loudly, little bird, show me how good you feel," she says while giving me another one of her devastating side smiles.

And I come undone. I come so hard it shakes my body, making my thigh rise under Keeley as my pussy grinds down on her knee. Just as she promised, it seems my orgasm is the last push she needs because through the haze of my pleasure, I watch as Keeley slams herself down harder on my leg once, twice, three times.

"Dove. Oh, Dove," she grits out as she tucks her chin and squeezes her eyes closed. The way she says my name, practically sings it, as she comes has me opening my eyes wide and watching her every tremble, her every moan and her every breath like I’m in a trance.

I’m still staring at her barely blinking when she lifts her head and meets my eyes.

"Are you okay?" she asks, and the concern is clear in her features.

I don’t have words for her – because how can she possibly think I’m not okay after that – so I just reach for her and hope that she lets me kiss her again. Because if I can make that kiss last then this doesn’t have to end. At least not yet.

Chapter Twelve

Keeley

Reluctantly, I break our kiss.

"You need water," I say, pushing off the bed. Grabbing my knickers and top, I quickly throw them on my body then head to the small fridge I have in my office. I retrieve a couple of bottles of water and open one before I hand it to Dove.

She takes it with a shy smile as she closes her legs and sits up a little straighter. I also don’t miss how she starts to shiver. Sensing it’s not the room’s temperature but rather embarrassment or self-consciousness – two things I want to cast out of this room – I go to the hooks on the back of my door and get my fuchsia pink cashmere coat.

"Here," I say as I drape it over her body.

"Thanks," she says in a quiet voice before taking a sip of water.

"You’re welcome." I reach to move some of her hair behind her ear but once it’s safely tucked I pull my hand away quickly, suddenly feeling like I’m overstepping.

"Are you okay?" Dove asks me and I wonder if I flinched in a way that was too obvious. When I don’t reply immediately, she explains, "You asked me if I was, so I wanted to ask you too."

"I’m good." I sit on the end of the bed. "Really, really good."

This seems to light something inside Dove and she leans forward over her knees towards me. "That was...that was something else. Like I’ve never experienced before."

"I should hope so," I say with a huff of a weak laugh. "You said you’ve only slept with men before after all."

She laughs at this like I hoped she might, but when it dies down, her eyes also look away from mine. "Even aside from the... obvious differences... it was still... something."

Her vulnerability in admitting that loads each word and I want to reach for her and pull her into my arms but I still feel like that would be claiming more than I am entitled to. Instead, I tentatively grip one of her ankles, finally stroking my thumb against the Gemini constellation tattoo that sits just above the bone.

"It was something for me too," I say, and her eyes snap up to mine. My own confession and the easy way it left my mouth suddenly floors me, petrifies me, and makes me try to dilute what I just said. "I mean you are the first woman I’ve had on this bed."

Dove wheezes out an exhale that feels laboured. "Right." She smiles but it doesn’t push her cheeks up like the few smiles I’ve seen previously today, smiles I’ve already memorised. In her next move, she pulls her ankle away from my grip and crosses both of her legs under my coat.

There is something in how she pulls away that fires up a part of me I barely recognise. It’s fierce, it’s untamed, and it ferociously but silently screams inside my mind, my heart.

No. Please don’t pull away from me.

"Dove, I—"

"I should get going," she interrupts, looking down and searching for her clothes.

"You don’t have to," I reply.

"I think I do,” she replies in the quietest, most delicate voice.

Knowing better than to try and force someone to stay when they want to leave, I reluctantly stand and pick up her clothes which are scattered across the floor. Placing them close to her on the bed, I turn around then and slide my trousers onto my legs. When I turn back Dove is half-dressed, pulling her jeans on under the coat. The sight of her hiding her body from me after what we just did angers me irrationally.

"Don’t hide from me," I spit out before I can stop myself.

"Pardon?"

I nod at the coat. "You don’t need to hide from me. I’ve seen you, all of you."

Dove blinks at my words and probably my tone too, and then her expression hardens. Much to my surprise she flings the coat off her and reveals her body wearing only her bra and the jeans which aren’t yet done up.

"Good girl," I say, and I let my eyes run up and down her body, hungry once more.

Sliding off the bed, Dove shakes her head at me and I almost want to smile at how cute and flustered she is but then I realise that the cute and flustered woman is about to leave the room. When she’s fully dressed, I reach for the bottle of water she discarded on the bed and hand it back to her.

"You need to drink the rest of this," I say, buying myself more time while I try to figure out what to say to make her stay.

She squints at the bottle first, then at me. "I’ll drink it on my way home." She snatches it out of my hand.

So, this is my little bird all riled up? That didn’t take much. I don’t know why but this revelation thrills me just as much as how quickly and thoroughly she responded to my touch.

"Oh, the fun we could have, little bird," I say barely under my breath.

Dove props her hands on her hips. "I’m not your little bird."

"No, you’re not," I say, my shoulders sinking. I wonder if she hears the regret in my voice because it’s deafening to me.

Her hands fall as she shakes her head, slides her arms into her jacket and steps into her Doc Martens. Without bothering to do her boots up she walks towards the desk and retrieves her glasses. When they’re on her face she takes the remaining steps to the door and there is the light clinking sound of the ends of her laces hitting the vinyl floor.

Although I’m rooted to the spot, weighed down with the enormity of possibly never seeing her again, I feel compelled to act.

"No!" I call out as her hand comes to the door handle.

Dove turns around slowly.

"What?"

"No, you’re not running away from me."

"But..." Confusion creases Dove’s face.

"I’m sorry I’m acting like an idiot," I rush out. "But you’re not running away from me again."

Silence falls and our eye contact feels like it fills the room.

"Technically, you ran away from me last time," Dove says with a voice so hesitant and brittle it’s mostly air. And yet it’s punctuated with a sharp little smile and a flicker of something returning to her eyes.

"You remember?"

"I could never forgot you," she says repeating my words from earlier.

I try to control my smile but I know it’s useless. "Well, you’re trying to run away from me now," I point out.

"I’m not running anywhere.” Dove sighs. “That was...that was really special...for me. But I don’t want to overstay my welcome.”

I set my bottle of water on my desk and step towards her. When I’m close enough that I can hear her soft exhales and catch delicious whiffs of her light and fruity scent I stand still, facing her.

"It was special for me too," I repeat.

"You said that already," she says curtly and nods at the bed referring to my earlier explanation.

I grit my teeth, annoyed at the version of me that couldn’t be brave enough to speak my truth just minutes ago. I know why I did that. She’s the woman I’ve had to become. The woman who tells herself she doesn’t need anyone else. The woman I needed to be when I couldn’t afford distractions. The woman who was raising a child and setting up a business all by herself.

"No, not just that. I mean it was more than just that."

Dove closes her eyes and leans back against the closed door. " so confused."

"Don’t be," I say, reaching a hand to cup her face. It’s a joyous kind of relief when she doesn’t flinch and indeed, a second later, she leans into my touch.

"I can’t tell if you want me to leave or if you want me to stay."

"I want you to stay," I say. Forever, I want to add but don’t.

"If this was just sex for you, that’s okay," Dove says pushing off the door. "I don’t expect anything else from you."

"Why not?"

"What do you mean?"

"Why don’t you want more from me?" I step a little closer.

"Because... Because you don’t know me. I don’t know you."

"Two things we could easily change," I say quickly.

Dove’s lips twitch. "That’s true. But I don’t want you to feel you have to..."

"I feel I want to," I clarify and that makes a smile grow on her mouth. "Now enough about me. What do you want, little bird?"

Dove shakes the hair out of her eyes and steadies her gaze down on me. "I want to know more about you. I want to know what you’ve been doing the last fourteen years."

“Then I’ll tell you."

"When?"

"Right now."

"Right now?" I reply.

"Yes, we could go for dinner somewhere, or drinks, or maybe back to my place and I’ll cook for you. Unless you have plans."

She looks down with a small smile. "I don't, which is all kinds of pathetic when I tell you that it's actually my birthday today."

My eyebrows shoot up. "Then you'll come home with me and I'll cook you something special."

"You cook?"

"I can throw a meal together," I say with a one shoulder shrug.

"You could come back to my place too," she adds like it’s an idea that just popped into her mind. "If you wanted, I mean. I can’t really cook but I have an excellent microwave."

I laugh at that and it’s a noise that eases whatever tension was left in the room. It also undoes the last knot in my own reluctance.

"I don’t care where we go or what we do, little bird," I say in a low, slow voice. "As long as we’re together."

And I mean it. As if to sear it in her mind, I close the distance between us and push up on my toes and kiss her lips.

"You're not running away from me this time," I say against her mouth. "You will never run away from me ever again."

Epilogue

One Year Later

Dove

Mari’s laughter fills the room.

"I couldn’t keep it up, of course," they say.

"I’m amazed you even tried to do the whole tattoo in the voice of Marge Simpson." I chuckle with them as I study the photo they just showed me of someone’s calf that now boasts an uncannily brilliant Lisa Simpson tattoo, saxophone and all.

Mari shakes their head. "You have no idea how much my throat hurts from just the five minutes I did."

"Why were you doing Marge anyway? Shouldn’t you have been doing Lisa?" I hand their phone back to them.

"No way, Lisa’s voice is so annoying. Everybody knows that after Homer and Bart, Marge’s voice is the best. Besides, might as well use my smoker’s voice for something." Mari tucks their phone back in their pocket.

My eyebrows shoot to the ceiling and I spare the door a quick glance. "Don’t let your mother hear you say that. And you promised me you would stop." I point my finger at them.

"I’m working on it. All about vaping now, aren’t I?” Mari goes to sit on the wheelie stool that Keeley normally sits on when she has a customer. The stool she sat on when she inked me for the first time one year ago to the day.

"Fancy changing your mind and getting Lisa Simpson on your leg instead?" Mari nudges me, talking about my birthday tattoo, my fourteenth tattoo.

I’ve thought a few times about getting more tattoos over the last twelve months. It would certainly be convenient to arrange considering how I now live with the owner of an award-winning tattoo studio, but I also want to wait. Should I keep going with this tradition of getting a tattoo every year for the rest of my life, and should I indeed live to be a respectable age, then I am going to acquire plenty more tattoos in my lifetime.

And hopefully, hopefully, Keeley will be the one to do every single one.

"No, thank you," I reply easily.

"Shame. I was hoping to make a whole career out of tattooing the Simpsons characters."

"Stranger things have happened," I say as I shift again on the bed. I’m strangely nervous waiting for Keeley to come upstairs and I know it’s showing when I feel Mari’s hand wrap around my wrist.

"How are you feeling?"

I smile weakly at them. "Like I want to throw up or hide under a rock, or both."

Mari looks around the room. "No rocks or loo in here, so neither is a viable option."

"I’ll be okay," I say, and I almost add “as soon as your mam gets here” but I keep the words to myself. Mari has a limit of how much of our loved-up antics they can put up with.

"You know you don’t have to get that tattoo, and you don’t have to get it there. You can choose something else."

I reach my hand over and grip their fingers over my forearm. "No way, Mari. That’s the one I want. You have no idea how much I want it."

Mari’s other hand comes to stroke the place where my new tattoo will go. They have a thoughtful, peaceful look on their face as they smile at me in silence, all of which is somewhat unusual for them.

"Are you sure you’re still okay with me getting this tattoo?" I ask with a level voice. We’ve talked about it many times before but now I suddenly need an extra layer of reassurance.

Mari’s eyes land back on mine before they reply. "I’m completely honoured. I know it's not really about me. It’s more about you and Mum, and I love that too, but the fact that I’m part of the story, that I’m the reason Mum has hers and Mum is the reason you will have yours. It’s really, really cool."

Squeezing their hand again, I speak slowly so they can hear every word. "It’s very much about you too, Mari. You’re my family now."

Mari’s smile dazzles me and their eyes mist over. But then they open their mouth, their voice goes low and gravelly, undeniably Marge Simpson. "You’re my family too, Dovey, and I love ya."

Torn between laughing and crying, I do a bit of both as I stretch forward and peck their cheek. "Love you too, Marge."

"What are you two up to?" Keeley’s voice seems to land in the room before she does, but as soon as I’m aware of her presence my eyes seek her out.

My woman. My love. My life.

"Giving her the chance to back out if she likes." Mari releases their hold on my arm and slides a bit further away before standing up.

"And?" Keeley’s eyes narrow on me. Her hair is now a fiery red and it folds around her face in soft waves that end just below her shoulders. She still has the same blunt fringe as she did a year ago but now it sits a little higher on her forehead. Her trademark heavy eye make-up is brightened with some emerald eyeshadow that contrasts beautifully with her hair, and with the colours of her tattoos that are on show thanks to a sleeveless button-up black dress.

"She’s going to go through with it, I think. She’s very nervous but also being very brave."

"She is a brave little bird." Keeley’s words may sound patronising to some but to me her voice is laced only with love.

"You do know I’m still in the room and my ears work perfectly fine?" I fidget again, the nerves continue to pulse through me even though this banter goes some way to provide a distraction.

Still standing near the door, Keeley’s eyes level on me before she speaks. "I always know when you’re in the room."

I pray Mari doesn’t see the tremble that snakes through me at her words, doesn’t notice their mother’s edgy tone of voice or the way she holds my stare. Heat surges between my legs and it takes all I have to not rub my thighs together.

It’s not true that Keeley still turns me on as much as she did that first evening we were alone in this room. She turns me on even more. Now I know more about her. Now I know just how firm and domineering she can be with me. Now I know that nothing but nothing turns her on more than my pleasure. Now I know that for all of her independent and control-craving ways she is still the woman who can only sleep when her hand is clamped between my legs and her head is lying on my chest.

"Let’s get this done," I say in a faint voice. Suddenly getting this finished feels urgent and necessary, and not exactly because I want my tattoo but rather because of what I have planned for after.

"Want me to stay and hold your hand?" Mari asks.

"No," Keeley and I say at exactly the same time.

Mari’s eyes flash from their mother to me.

"I’m fine," I say. "Thank you though. Your mam will look after me."

"Yes, I will." Keeley moves to her desk and starts lighting the tray of candles she now always has there. Vanilla-scented candles.

"Okay, well, I won’t see you at home either as I’m staying at Alexis’s tonight." Mari stands and straightens out the bright purple jeans they are wearing with a gold vest top. I smile when I notice they’re wearing my Doc Marten boots; the ones I was wearing when I walked into their life a year ago. I love that they wear them without even thinking to ask.

I’d never describe our relationship as parental, although I do take seriously my responsibility as an older adult in her life. But whatever we have, it’s more than a friendship. What is certain is that I’ve come to love Mari as much as I could imagine loving a child of my own. And I often do imagine loving, nurturing, having a child of my own. A child of our own. Keeley says she thinks about it too. It’s one of the many open-ended conversations we have about the future. Our future.

"Tell Lexi we say hi," I say, smiling at Mari as they leave a quick kiss on my cheek before walking over to their mother to do the same.

"Tell Lexi I’ll do their septum at the weekend," Keeley adds.

"Serious?" Mari practically squeaks. "That will make their day!"

"Yep, bring them into the studio on Saturday." Keeley nods and I can tell she’s trying to contain her smile but it just shows up as a more pronounced version of that wonky grin of hers. "And tell Jazz, Mike and Dion to get out of here."

"You’ll clean and lock up?" Mari’s head pulls back in disbelief but then their mouth forms a perfectly round O. "Oh, of course. It’s a year since..."

I chuckle. "Yes, a year since I stalked your mam for hours from Costa coffee over the road while she sulked in her office because I didn’t remember who she was.”

"I wasn’t sulking," Keeley says quietly and when I catch her gaze she winks, but then she drops our eye contact and starts tapping on her phone.

"I don’t really want to know." Mari holds their hands up and heads to the door. "But happy anniversary, love birds. And happy birthday, Dovey."

And then they’re gone. Just as the door closes behind them, music starts to play on the speakers in Keeley’s office. I recognise it instantly.

"My playlist," I say.

"It’s our playlist now," Keeley says with emphasis.

I laugh to myself as I feel a rush of pure love surge inside me.

"Sure you’re okay?" Keeley asks me as she comes to stand by my side.

"I’m more than okay," I say, and I really am.

Keeley squeezes my upper arm then starts bringing everything she needs over to the side of the bed. When I see her roll the last item, the wheelie stool over to me, I sit up a little straighter.

"Oh, no," I say. " don’t think so."

"I’m sorry?"

"You’re not sitting on that." I point at the stool then bring my hands down to slap my upper thighs. "You’re sitting here."

Keeley looks at where my hands lie and her side smile returns for the briefest moment before she composes her face, ready for her serious voice.

"The neck is very different to the feet, Dove. You will get far too hot if I’m on top of you, and I’ll be all in your face too."

"Good," I say on a deep exhale. "That’s what I need. You’ll be my weighted blanket, remember?"

She coughs out a quick laugh but then levels me with one of her sternest looks. The kind of stare that makes me both want to run away but also drop to my knees in front of her.

"Seriously, Dove," she says pointedly.

I pull in a breath. "Seriously, Keeley. That’s where I want you."

Wordlessly, she climbs on the bed and sits astride me. The luscious weight of her makes a small moan flitter out from between my lips and I see Keeley cock an eyebrow at me. Taking my chin in her hand she turns my head to the side so she can see where the sketch from the thermographic paper is already printed on my skin.

"This is your last chance to stop me," she says and an otherworldly feeling of recognition punches into me. It’s not quite déjà vu, and it’s not a fully formed memory but it’s definitely made up of sweet nostalgia and delicious familiarity.

I bring my hands up to hold onto her wrist as I have hundreds of times when she’s gripped me like this for a bruising kiss, or when her hand has hungrily made me come undone from the inside out.

"Please don’t stop," I tell her referring to her warm weight on me, the tattoo she’s about to give me, and the delicious way she loves me.

Keeley

I find my flow with surprising ease. Dove has her eyes closed and the rhythmic rising and falling of her chest under mine tells me she’s found a certain kind of calm too. This helps me fall deeper into a focus I can often only find when I have the needle in my hand.

When Dove told me what tattoo she wanted for this birthday, and where on her body she wanted it, I was speechless. While I may not be a woman of many words, I am rarely so stunned that even my thoughts come up empty. But once the shock had faded, I had plenty to say, I had plenty of things to think about Dove Travers.

My woman. My love. My life.

There was relief for me too when Dove very intentionally asked Mari if they minded her getting the same hummingbird tattoo as mine on her neck. I understand why. It’s the one I got because when Mari was growing inside me, their precious little heartbeat pounding impossibly quick and so close to my own heart. I knew Mari wouldn’t mind – that they would love it even – but it meant something to us both that Dove had asked.

I would say that watching Dove and Mari’s relationship grow has been the highlight of the last twelve months but that’s not strictly true.

Firstly, there have simply been too many highlights to count, and secondly, the main highlight is just Dove herself. Dove who hums to herself while doing anything that involves concentration. Dove who has a terrible habit of dropping the books she reads in the bath. Dove who has far too much milk in her tea. Dove who always looks her most beautiful first thing in the morning with squinting eyes, pillow creases on her cheeks and a mane of fluffed-up bed hair.

The year hasn’t been just one long reel of highlights. We’ve had tricky times too. While I was keen to have Dove move in with me immediately after that first night together a year ago – a night we spent talking and making love until three in the morning – I also recognised how much of a huge change that would be for me. I hadn’t shared my bed, my home or my life with anyone apart from Mari for more than a few months in nearly twenty years.

A transition period was also necessary for Dove. I could tell sometimes that the way she felt about me, and likely the way I felt about her, scared her. It became clear from what she said and how she sometimes grew skittish after intense love making that she’d never experienced such a deep attraction and sexual connection before. Considering she’d spent eight long years with the same partner previously, this had to be confusing and a little unnerving. So, we took it slow. And by slow, I mean we spent alternating weekends and a few weeknights together until one day, I showed her half of my wardrobe, and it was empty. Dove moved in a few weeks later, approximately five months after we met for the second first time.

"Last little bit," I say to Dove and her eyes flicker open. She licks her lips and I suspect the adrenaline is wearing off now and the fatigue is sinking in. It happens with these longer tattoos on a part of the body that requires you to stay in a less than ideal position. It’s understandable if a slight shame, considering what I packed in my bag for us to possibly enjoy later.

But I can wait. I intend to spend the rest of my life with this woman. I can skip tonight. Besides, looking after her in a non-sexual way, that’s almost as sweet as doing it with her thighs wrapped around my head.

"Okay," she says a little breathless. Underneath my butt I feel her legs wriggling a little, which she should absolutely not be doing.

"Dove," I say, taking the needle off her skin.

"Just keep doing what you’re doing," she says but I keep the needle held aloft as my eyes stare down to where her hands are sliding between us, stopping at the fly of her jeans. I sit up a little to check - am I seeing what I think I am? Her fingers pull the zip down.

"What are you doing, little bird?"

"Just finish the tattoo, Keeley," she says, and because of the way she is faced away from me I can’t tell how much the wicked smile I hear in her voice curls her lips.

Naughty little bird. She should know better than to play with me like this.

Somewhat reluctantly I put the needle back to her skin, pushing the button so it once again fills the room with its buzzing. I go back to adding more pink to the breast of the bird, but I can’t help my eyes from catching what’s happening in my peripheral vision, what I can feel underneath my pussy.

Dove is slipping her hand inside her jeans, inside her knickers. Her hips start rolling the smallest, sweetest amount as her fingers begin to glide backwards and forwards an almost undetectable amount. But I feel it. I feel it exactly where I want to feel it.

"Dove, you can’t move like—"

"Is my head moving? Aren’t I keeping my neck perfectly still for you?" she says with more than a teasing lilt.

"Yes, but—"

"Just focus on my tattoo, Kay," she interrupts me again, and normally I’d never let her get away with that. Normally I’d have taken her to task by grabbing her and taking what I wanted with little to no warning, but I don’t normally have a vibrating needle at her neck.

And she knows it.

It's also true that I’m not not enjoying myself right now. I’m never not enjoying myself when Dove has her hands in her underwear right in front of me, underneath me.

Just when my heartbeat dips a little, recovering from the shock of her little performance, Dove has the audacity to let a slow, lingering Hmm leave her lips and her pulse thumps under the hand I use to stretch the skin of her neck taut. I am desperate to feel it under my tongue, but I know that’s not going to be possible for a long time. At least not on this side of her neck.

"Little bird," I say in warning but I know how it will translate to her. It will be encouragement. And part of me wants it to be too.

I can’t help but compare the woman in front of me now with the one that walked into my studio a year ago. She wasn’t exactly reserved a year ago, but she didn’t have this same confidence, this same ownership of her body and her sexuality. Watching her bloom into this version of herself has been a gift. A gift I hope I always get to behold.

"I’m so wet," Dove tells me and I glance down to see her hand is further inside her knickers, and her hips rock a little more into her palm, and up into my crotch. I imagine two or maybe three fingers exploring inside her and the edges of my mind get fuzzy again.

"Are you going to come for me?" I ask.

There’s a beat of silence before Dove replies and I know this change of direction has surprised her. She expected me to stay angry. She expected, no, wanted me to punish her.

"Can I?" she asks tentatively. “I don’t know if it’s you on top of me or just the memories of what we did right here a year ago, but I am so turned on.”

I chew on this for a moment as I do some slightly longer strokes with the needle. After I pause and wipe with the paper towel in my hand, I blow onto the tattoo and Dove hums again.

“I think coming when I have a needle to your throat and you have to stay still will be punishment enough for this little show.” I adopt the tone she expects.

"What if I can’t stay still?" she asks.

"Then this tattoo will be all the more memorable for it." I see Dove’s cheek move into a broad grin.

"Talk to me," she says, and she rubs her hand a little harder. "Tell me what you’re going to do with me once you’re done."

I’m not wasting any time now as I keep the needle on her. A few minutes and I’ll be done. Maybe I will even beat her to it and I’ll be able feel her come on my tongue.

"Little bird, you have no idea what I have planned for you. You have no idea the ways I’m going to love you tonight. You have no clue the havoc I’m going to wreak on your body."

"Tell me." She gasps.

I keep my eyes on the hummingbird. "First, I’m going to rip your clothes off. If they tear, they tear. I’m going to maul your breasts until they’re red and sore. I’m going to bite your perfect pink nipples. I’m going to tongue my way down your stomach and then spread your legs as wide as they’ll go." I lick my lips. My whole mouth suddenly very dry. "I’m going to stare at your pussy for a few minutes, just because I can. Because it’s mine. And then I’m going to kiss it. I’m going to use my tongue to stroke your clit back and forth, back and forth, just how you like it with those little flicks. I’m going to suck on you. I’m going to eat you, devour you. I’m going to get you so wet and so riled up you’re begging for me to put something inside you. First, it will be my tongue. Then it will be my fingers. And finally, it will be one of the toys I packed in my bag this morning."

"Oh, God, Kay," Dove grits out, her jaw suddenly tense and I know it’s from the strain of keeping still.

The tattoo is all but finished now but something has switched in me, and I now want to drag it out a little longer. I’m having too much fun.

"You’re going to come for me like this at least three times, maybe four, maybe five. And then I’m going to take my mouth lower and I’m going to kiss you where it makes you tremble. I’m going to take that part of you too, because it’s mine as well. All of you belongs to me, doesn’t it, my little bird?"

"Yes, yes," Dove whimpers and I notice her stomach is trembling underneath me. I slam my hips down on her a little harder, clamping her in place and keeping her hand exactly where she needs it.

"Keep still," I hiss.

"Oh, God," Dove mumbles. "I’m so close."

"Good girl," I say. "Fuck yourself. Come for me. Close your eyes and imagine my pussy on yours, our clits rubbing together, my mouth on your breasts and my hands in your hair, pulling it, hard."

Knowing my words will take her closer to climax, I lift the gun, switch it off and wait. I watch the side of her face intently, loving how her mouth clamps shut and her throat quivers.

It doesn’t take long.

The noise that Dove makes is part gasp, part squeak. Knowing the needle is off her skin, her jaw works as her mouth falls open and I place the paper towel back on her skin, not because the tattoo needs it but because I want to be part of it, her orgasm. I want to feel her pulse, her lifeline, as it quickens with joy.

Keeping my hand on the side of her neck, Dove rolls her head back to face me, looking up into my eyes. Her forehead creases with pleasure as her mouth stays open. I hold her eye contact and let my own smile crawl slowly across my face.

"My beautiful little bird," I say and dive down to kiss her lips. She’s still so lost in her orgasm it takes a while for her to kiss me back but when she does, I rejoice at how desperate she still is. As powerfully as she just came, there is still a lot of desire left in my birdie.

"Need you," she says between short, sharp, needy kisses. Her hands come up to start undoing the buttons on my dress.

"Wait, wait," I say and pull back. "I need to wrap this. And don’t you want to see it?"

Dove still has her hands in her jeans and her fingers continue to move. She shakes her head.

"Just want you," she mumbles.

"Little bird." I bend down to kiss the tip of her nose.

"No!" She practically shouts. "Don’t be gentle with me. Fucking take me, Keeley. Fuck me."

Laughing a little to myself, I hop off the bed and set about wrapping her new tattoo. As I do, I see Dove push her jeans down her legs and she kicks them off along with her shoes and socks.

It’s the fastest I’ve ever wrapped a tattoo but I’m mindful enough to ensure that I don’t cut any corners. If anything, I am more careful than usual, double and triple checking that it’s fully covered and in place because I need it to survive what is about to happen. It’s when I’m doing these final checks that Dove’s hand returns to the top of the column of buttons that line the full length of my dress. When she starts to fumble and fail to open the buttons she curses loudly.

"Be patient," I berate her.

"No," she says in that loud voice again. And she pulls at the fabric of my dress, ripping it open and making more than a few buttons fly across the room.

"I was supposed to rip off your clothes," I say as I slide my dress off my body.

"I’ll fix it later," she says with her eyes firmly on my breasts. Or maybe she’s staring at the tattoo that now lies on my sternum, filling the blank heart shape area I kept empty for so long. But now it’s full. Now there’s a white dove, mid-flight, taking up the space that lies above my now fast-beating heart. It’s no surprise to me when she moves a hand and covers it.

"Mine," she whispers.

"Yours," I say.

Any resolve I had to go slow disappears into the charged air that fills the room. I grab two handfuls of Dove’s T-shirt and pull her up to sit more upright. I then yank it over her head and make just as quick work removing her bra. At the same time her hands are behind my back undoing my own bra before diving into my knickers and pulling them down my hips and thighs. In no time at all Dove’s knickers are also shed and we are both naked. I’m about to climb back up on top of her when I remember what’s in my bag.

"Wait," I say and turn to find it, but Dove grabs my wrist.

"No, leave it," she says, still breathless and her cheeks still flushed from her earlier climax. “I just want you.”

"Dove, I had all these plans," I say in a voice that I wish sounded sterner but honestly, it’s not necessary. She’s already completely undone.

"Please just ride me. That’s what I’ve been thinking about for weeks. For months."

"Dove, we have sex nearly every single day..." I half-laugh. "Multiple times a day."

"But not on this bed." She tilts her head to the side. "Not when I still have the hot heat from your artwork burning on the side of my neck."

"Does it hurt?" I rush to ask.

"Only in the best possible way." She brings her hand to lightly touch the skin near her new tattoo. And then, knowing my eyes are on her fingers, she drags her palm down her body and starts playing with her nipple.

I’m not going to indulge anymore of this behaviour. I’m too turned on myself. I practically jump back up on the bed and kneel between her open legs. I look down at her pussy and I’m desperate to dive in there, claim it, own it, love on it, but Dove’s other hand is quick to grab my chin.

"No, Kay. I want to come with you."

"You’re ruining my fun," I complain but I don’t sound annoyed at all.

"Please just come with me this time. You can do what you want with me afterwards," she says, and I wonder if she knows that this promise is going to get her exactly what she wants, but that’s what happens as I climb up on her. Throwing my legs over her and over the edges of the bed I look down as I line us up. It’s not our preferred position, or the easiest, but the width of the bed plus gravity will help us achieve it better than we can on our bed at home. It’s also one of my favourites as it makes me feel like I’m fully taking her and riding her whole body. To get us ready, I use my fingers to spread her open first, circling her clit once, twice, before I take my hand off her and do the same for my own pussy.

"Tilt your hips up," I tell her and that’s when our clits touch.

"Yes, Keeley," Dove moans. "Please."

"Stay like that," I tell her, and my tone is undeniably bossy now. But she won’t care. She will love it. And she will obey no matter how hard I grind down onto her. As if to confirm my prediction, Dove's hands come to grip my thighs, tightly, helping to hold me in place which I also do by gripping the back of the bed behind her head.

I start to ride her slowly, almost lazily, and while she hums with what could be contentment, I feel the way her hips thrust up into me and I know that’s supposed to urge me on. But I don’t. At least not until her hands are on my breasts and she’s pinching and pulling my nipples, playing with the rings I have in my piercings now. That sends want flying around my body in countless directions and I start to add firmer flicks of my hips downwards, meaning our clits rub together harder and faster.

"Fuck, yes," she says, and her desperate tone is more motivation to keep going.

When I start to feel my orgasm approach, white-hot and sharp-edged, I slow down a little but Dove’s hands then grip my backside.

"No, no. Don’t stop. Just give into it, Keeley. Come with me. I’m so close too. It’s okay to just let go. Let go with me."

She uses her hands to show me the rhythm she wants and it’s no surprise when it gets me back on that fast-track to my own climax.

"Little bird," I mutter with a small groan. I sound almost pained, like my need for her is killing me, when in reality it does the very opposite. It lights me up. It fires me up. It makes me feel truly alive.

"Keeley," she says and one of her hands comes to grip the back of my neck. I watch as her eyes flicker to my neck, to where my own hummingbird tattoo lies. The one that matches hers.

There’s something about the way a smile unfurls on her lips at seeing my hummingbird – maybe because she’s remembering how she licked it a year ago, an act that was the catalyst for every beautiful thing that followed - that tips me over the edge and I come. I come so hard I can’t tell if I close my eyes or if I just stop seeing colour. I come so hard it takes me a few seconds to realise I am doing something I so rarely do; I’m coming before Dove. And I come so hard I don’t even feel bad about it.

"Yes, yes," Dove says, and I know that’s for me. She’s telling me it’s okay. She’s telling me that my orgasm is what she wants.

"Shit," I hiss as another surge of pleasure explodes inside me. "Oh, shit."

"It’s okay, my love, it’s okay." Dove keeps her grip on my neck and on my ass, still rocking me into her. When the headiest waves of my climax dissipate, I’m able to pick up my pace again and I do, adding more pressure to each roll of my hips.

"Oh, God, yes," Dove moans and I ready myself to watch her slowly climb to her own climax but then it’s suddenly there, her eyes squeezing shut and her mouth open again. "Oh, Keeley, yes. God, I love you."

I collapse on top of her, my heart coming to line up with hers. I feel the bass of its rapid beat travel through her chest and into mine. I smile as I feel her body tremble. I close my eyes and treasure the noises she makes as she hums and moans and sighs through the last moments of her orgasm.

After it passes, after our heartrates slow and after we’ve been lying still for many long minutes, I finally push off her warm body and out of the arms that she wrapped around me.

"I could never forget you, little bird." I tell her.

"I know, Keeley. And I could never forget you."

I bring my hand to stroke lightly around the edges of the wrap on her neck. "Thank you for getting this."

Dove brings her hand up to stroke my own hummingbird tattoo. "Thank you for getting this. It’s how it all began."

I’m not sure if she’s talking about our first meeting fifteen years ago or if she’s talking about a year ago, but I don’t care. I love all my tattoos, but this one, my hummingbird, is the one I am most grateful for.

I feel my right cheek move as I give her one of my keen smiles. "I meant what I said earlier. I have plans for you and you’re still going to give me what I want."

Much to my surprise, Dove doesn’t even playfully protest. "I know. I have plans too."

I cock an eyebrow. "Oh?"

"You’re not the only one who brought a bag."

"Oh, little bird." I purr as I slide down her body and spread her legs.

Thank You!

Thank you for reading Hummingbird!

If you’d like to leave a review, here are the links:

Goodreads – https://geni.us/HummingbirdGoodreads

Amazon – https://geni.us/HummingbirdNovella

And if you’d like to talk about the book on social media, please use the hashtag #HummingbirdNovella.

If you want to listen to Dove's R&B playlist, you can! Here's the link - https://geni.us/DovePlaylist (or search "Dove's Early 2000s R&B" on Spotify).

To find out about all new releases first, make sure you’re signed up to this newsletter:

https://francesmthompson.eo.page/hummingbird

Frances M. Thompson is currently working on more spicy sapphic romances as well as continuing the Sun, Moon and Stars series, a collection of steamy romcoms about bisexual love. Five Sunsets is the first book in this series:

https://geni.us/FiveSunsetsBook

You can read a free extract from Five Sunsets at the end of this book, where you will also meet Dove's friend Jake again.

If you’d like to keep in touch with Frances M. Thompson, you can find her at the following social media.

https://instagram.com/francesmthompson

https://tiktok.com/@francesmthompson

https://twitter.com/FrancesMTAuthor

Acknowledgements

My thanks firstly go to Marianne for first encouraging me to write this story. Long may the enabling continue!

Secondly, my thanks to Crystal for her editing and proofing skills and for making many suggestions that enhanced Dove and Keeley's love story.

Thanks also to my proofreader, Lee-Ann, for your eager eye and quick turnaround time.

A big thank you to Tatyana Gordeeva for the cover artwork. You can check out Tatyana's work on Instagram, @tproud.

I also owe gratitude to my ARC reader team for their contagious enthusiasm for Hummingbird as well as their prompt reviews and ratings.

Finally, love and thanks always to my partner and children who stop me from disappearing into my imaginary worlds completely.

About The Author

Frances M. Thompson

Originally from the UK, Frances M. Thompson (she/her) lives in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, with her partner and two young children. Please call her Frankie if you ever cross her path because nobody calls her Frances unless she's in trouble or you work for the tax authorities.

The author of three short story collections, a book of poems called Lover Mother Other, the steamy romcom Five Sunsets, and the London Killing series of suspense thrillers, Frankie also runs the semi-successful but oft neglected travel and lifestyle blog, As the Bird flies.

All of Frankie's romance books feature Bi+ main characters and positive representations of bisexuality and bisexual love because that's what she needed more of growing up.

When not reading or writing, Frankie can be found dancing around her kitchen, cycling around Amsterdam, faffing with her many house plants, swearing her way through freezing open water swims, and squeezing in as many sunny or snowy holidays as she can.

Books By This Author

The Moon Also Rises (Sun, Moon & Stars #2) - Coming in 2023

The Way We Were (London Killing #3) - Coming in 2023

Butterflies (Birds and Butterflies #2) - Coming in 2023

Hummingbird (Birds and Butterflies #1)

Five Sunsets (Sun, Moon & Stars #1)

The Weaker Sex (London Killing #2)

Lover Mother Other (Poems)

Nine Women: Short Stories

London Eyes: Short Stories

Shy Feet: Short Stories Inspired by Travel

Five Sunsets

By Frances M. Thompson

“When your world moves too fast and you lose yourself in the chaos, introduce yourself to each colour of the sunset.”

- Christy Ann Martine

Prologue

Jenna

The first time I see him, he's checking out my brother's arse.

“Are your bum cheeks feeling hot?” I ask Jake, nudging my arm into his.

“Excuse me?” he asks, in longer syllables and a higher pitch than is perhaps necessary.

“There's an extremely good-looking young man eyeing you up right now, but don't turn around or he'll see. I'll tell you when it's safe.”

I glance back to find the young man is still standing in the entrance of the resort’s beach bar. He continues to look towards where we’re standing at the circular bar in the centre. However, as I look at him for the second time, I couldn't honestly say he was studying my brother's backside anymore. In fact, did he just catch my eye and give me a lingering look too? I turn my head quickly before I can verify.

“Yeah, still not safe,” I mutter before sipping my drink.

Objectively, thanks to an unhealthy obsession with elliptical trainers, Jake does indeed have a great bum, so maybe the young man was just trying to establish who I am to my brother. As I smile to myself, knowing he will soon see, I feel a warmth spread across my back, as though I can sense exactly where he’s looking.

Or maybe that’s just the light sunburn I acquired today by spending an hour or two too long lying on the beach. I wasn’t even sure why I was there when I’m lucky enough to have my own private pool villa, a perk of my brother being the manager. It’s not that I can’t afford luxury like this, it’s more that I’m reluctant to indulge myself these days. While a spacious villa with the most incredible view is stunning, beautiful, wonderful - all the adjectives - I’m still here alone.

Alone.

I thought I’d be better at being alone by now.

I push all this aside and return to the present moment, a moment that has great potential for not being lonely at all for my brother. And nobody deserves that more than Jake.

Not only is he my best friend and confidant, but my brother is also the person I leaned on most when my marriage was ending. Together, we’ve been through a lot, and it’s nice to think maybe his luck is turning, even if mine is still firmly on hold. It certainly looks that way now he has his dream job managing this luxury adults-only resort on Crete’s west coast.

Iliovasílema Villas is everything he’s wanted in a job: high-end, independently owned by a local family, and in the ideal location. It’s perched at the end of a peninsula that offers panoramic views of the blue waters where the Aegean meets the Mediterranean.

“My, my, my.” My brother pumps his straw up and down in his pink gin fizz, the ice making a satisfying slushing sound. “That is interesting. Not that I can do anything about it though.”

“Why not?” I ask before taking a nice long sip of my raspberry mojito. “It's your night off.”

“But I am the Resort Manager and he is still a guest.” He leans in closer. “It is a guest, isn't it? Not that having a staff member eye me up is any better. In fact, that's a lot worse.”

“It's definitely a guest.” I can easily recall how the man in question looked and how it told me he was a new arrival. There was his white cotton shirt with a very generous and confident three top buttons undone, tight jeans on long, sculpted thighs and the not yet sun-kissed pale white skin of his face crowned with dark hair that looked like it would curl if given time to grow. He looked fresh and perhaps a little lost.

“Well, he will have to lust at me from afar.” My brother pretends to throw long hair he doesn't have over his shoulder. “Is it safe to look now? I'm dying to have a nosey at him. We don't get many here, you know, despite the Pink Pound prices, advertising in Attitude, and rainbow fucking flags plastered all over the website.”

“You don't get many gays?” I ask, surprised.

“God, yes, we get plenty of gays. Just not the cute, young and single ones. Not the kind of twinks I could spend hours daydreaming about corrupting. I guess they don't quite have the budget yet... Oh God, I need to stop talking or thinking like this. But before I do, let my eyes just get hard for a second.”

“Your eyes can get hard?” I ask in a whisper.

He either ignores me or doesn’t hear and instead nudges me quickly. “Is it safe? Can I turn around?”

I tilt my chin to the side to check but quickly see that the young man isn't standing where he was before. Turning a little more, I still can’t place him in the small group of bodies near the entrance, so I pivot and look all the way over my shoulder. That’s when I see him sitting by himself at the table directly behind us, just a few metres away.

“Oh!” I’m a little taken aback.

It's not just his proximity. It's what he's doing.

Leaning back into the chair like it's the most comfortable place in the world, he's got a drink in his hand and his long fingers wrap around the glass like they own every inch of it. How he got a drink so quickly without coming to the bar is beyond me but there it is, and there he is. All of him. And he’s quite a sight to behold.

It's not even the planes and angles of his body I now notice filling out his shirt, nor is it the way his legs are crossed, pulling the ankles of his jeans up to reveal soft dark hair, unapologetically on show thanks to a pair of black leather Birkenstock sandals identical to mine. It’s his face, which I hadn’t fully absorbed previously. With its square jaw, deep-set dark eyes framed by dominant cheekbones and a long nose with a noticeable bump in it, it’s the sort of face that is both arrestingly handsome and intriguingly different looking. And then there’s what he’s doing. Because he's staring at me. And smiling. Smiling so broadly I can see countless white teeth and a matching set of dimples slap bang in the middle of each cheek. I blink at him once, twice, giving myself, him, and the universe time to get this picture back into focus. To get his eyes off me and back onto my brother's arse.

But he doesn't. He keeps on looking at me and smiling.

And I think my eyes get hard.

I can't stop the giggle that escapes me, nor the hand that rises to try and catch it, and this makes the young man chuckle too. I move my hand and pin my index finger to my chest. Me?

He stops laughing but keeps smiling.

I point at my brother. Or him?

He shakes his head then, looking down for a moment. His eyes all but squeeze shut as his smile broadens, opening up his whole face, a face that I am instantly persuaded was created to smile. Then he looks back up and very firmly points his finger at me.

“Oh,” I say again, but it's barely more than an exhale.

I’m looking long enough to make Jake turn.

“Wow.” He turns to look at him, and then whips around so swiftly that it snaps me into doing the same. “That is no twink.”

“He’s not?” I ask. Although I know it myself now, I play dumb. I need Jake to speak so I can figure out why I am currently rubbing my thighs together and doing Kegels at high speed. “But he's young and pretty and...”

“And masculine as hell,” Jake adds. “Mark my words. That man is a cocky top.”

“You always tell me that there are femme and soft tops,” I say, trying to get my brother to talk more so I can feel less. Less heat in my body. Less curiosity in my head. Less anticipation in every cell of my being.

“True, but there is very little that’s feminine or soft about that man,” Jake says with a dramatic backwards nod before he sucks on his straw again.

“Isn’t it strange how much information we can get from someone just from a few looks,” I say, genuinely fascinated by it. I make a mental note to research this later.

“Not to mention the bucketload of testosterone flooding out of his youthful pores,” Jake continues.

“How old do you suppose he is?” I ask, but I know the answer already. It’s young.

But Jake’s not listening to me, he’s on a roll. “And that posture... far too confident and laid back. And did you see how big his hands are? You remember that article you sent me with comparative analysis of digit length and penis size? Did you see how long his thumbs were?”

“You noticed that?”

“Yes, I’m surprised you didn’t,” Jake replies. “Honestly, look at his thumbs. They’re almost obscene.”

“I'm not looking again...”

“Hmm. That’s because he was looking at you, wasn't he?” Jake says in a slower, more deliberate voice. “That's the other reason he's no twink. Because he's not gay.”

I don't speak and it’s not only because I don’t really know what to say. It’s also because of the smile that refuses to disappear. My cheeks are pushed up so high I feel them brush against my eyelashes.

“I swear he was looking at your arse first,” I mumble in something of an apology. “Besides, he’s too young for either of us.”

“Oh, he’s young, for sure. But he's more than legal. And you...”

“Me?”

“You are not the manager of this luxury resort. You are on holiday. And you're single.”

“I'm divorced,” I correct him.

“Which is French for single, n'est-ce pas?”

“It's actually French for undesirable, Italian for soiled goods, and Spanish for don't-touch-me-with-a-bargepole.”

“I'm not sure they have barges in Spain,” my brother ponders, doing that ice-shucking thing again. “But you don’t really mean that, do you? I thought you were feeling positive about it all. I thought you were ready for your Eat, Pray, Love moment. This could be it!”

“Oh, I’m always ready for an Italian to lick gelato out of my navel.” I sigh.

“I’m pretty sure that didn’t happen in the book.” Jake frowns at me.

“Must have been the porno version,” I shrug.

“Eat, Gay, Cum?” he suggests with a wicked smirk.

“Nice. But I think it was Eat, Peg, Lick that I watched.”

“Ha!” He laughs with me.

“Anyway, the point is I do feel mostly positive about my divorce. We both know it was the right thing. But that doesn’t negate the fact that a man who looks like that, is not going to look at a woman like this.” I point to my chest again.

“Jenna Louise Forester, as a gay man and your brother I am both sorely unqualified and much too biased to tell you that you are a smoking hot snack.”

I smile at him but quickly turn it into a smug pout. “Oh, I know. I have a shelf of an ass you could eat off, thighs that could keep any man’s ears warm in the coldest winter, and of course, there are these delectably plump fuck-me-lips...”

“Too much, dear sister, too much.” Jake covers his ears.

“However, I also know that young men don’t always appreciate such things. And it's probably a good thing. I mean, I’m old enough to be his...”

“Don't say it!” Jake quickly glances over his shoulder. “Not until we have at least verified his year of birth, or that of his mother.”

Before I realise what’s happening, Jake is gone. He’s waltzing off to the young man, his hand outstretched and his smooth voice carrying over the hum of the music and the growing number of guests in the bar. “Good evening, I’m Jake Forester, the Resort Manager.”

Mouth hanging open, I watch as my brother walks straight for the man, who interestingly, does indeed have very long and curved thumbs.