A Stringed Instrument Ch. 06

"Who's that, Phoebe?" asked Kate.

Phoebe didn't give anything away as she read the message and tapped in a reply. "Oh, just a friend up to mischief."

"Like you can talk," I replied. "After what you got up to at the music shop today." My phone was vibrating, but I didn't want to give us away by checking it just yet.

Maggie looked curious. "Oh? What have you been up to, Phoebe?"

"Well." She laid down her word: 'CASTOR'. "Sixteen points..."

The others were looking at the board, probably weighing up the openings she'd just given them, so I took the chance to sneak a look at her message to me: You make that sound like a bad thing.

"...I was showing Yvonne the electric cello. Now, Mr. Janos doesn't approve of rock..."

A touch on my ankle. Phoebe's bare toe, rubbing against my skin, hooking around to tickle at the back of my calf.

"...so I started out playing a nice bit of Bach..."

Sliding upwards.

"...he's heard me play that one before, he knows it's one of my favourites..."

Up and down, stroking. Don't think about being ticklish!

"...but we were wearing headphones this time, so he couldn't hear it..."

Behind my knee. I could feel myself starting to blush. I slipped my hand below the tablecloth and caught her by the ankle, rubbed her calf with my thumb.

"Your turn, Yvonne." Maggie might be listening to Phoebe, but she wasn't going to let it distract her from the battle in front of us.

"Oh, um." I laid out QAT: not too impressive, but at least it would save me from getting stuck with the Q, and it was short enough to play one-handed without attracting notice. "Twelve points."

And as Phoebe finished her story, I trapped her heel between my knees, ran fingernails all over her foot and watched her try not to squirm. She glared at me, but to no avail, and I started toying with her toes.

Kate, working to catch up to her husband with MAXED and XI: "So, Yvonne, you're here for the weekend? What do you have planned tomorrow?"

"Well, I was thinking of going to Scotty's Market." Under the table, I took Phoebe's big toe between my fingers and wiggled it side-to-side. "But it's been a hectic week, I might end up being lazy and just staying home." At which point I wiggled her second toe all around, eased it away from its big neighbour, and slid my forefinger between the two.

Try it some time. You might be surprised how sensitive a lady is between the toes, especially after a good shower. I felt her calf muscles tense, saw her inhale a little harder than normal before she replied. "Um. Scotty's is overrated, if you ask me..."

I explored that little sensitive spot. "Yes?"

"I... if we don't have aircon tomorrow, my place is going to be horrible. I was going to ask, have you visited the Blue Mountains?"

Stroke. Tease. Her toes spread apart, my fingertip busy between them, another finger curled round to caress the pad beneath. "I've never been. Sounds lovely. By the way, Phoebe?"

"...yes?"

"I think it's your go."

"Oh. Sorry!" Was that a hint of a blush? She frowned at her tiles and ran fingers through her hair, eventually managing to squeeze CODA into a tight spot.

That gave her the last two tiles from the bag, but she never got to play them. Maggie pounced, using Phoebe's word to play PANICKED, and that was game over. I was left with too many points in my hand and not nearly enough on the board.

I released Phoebe's foot and excused myself to go use the facilities. After doing my business and washing my hands, I opened the bathroom door to find Phoebe standing there waiting for her turn, with her back to me. Before she could turn around I grabbed her and pulled her in, closing the door behind her, holding her tight and kissing her hard.

"I want you, Phoebe."

"Oh god. I, yes, but not here!" She pushed me back. "Need to be discreet."

"Then you do the talking. If we have to sit through another massacre like that one, I'm really going to molest you under the table." I slipped my hand between her legs, felt her squirm. "And if you come that'll be your problem, not mine."

We returned to the table, where the Taylors had already dealt out the tiles for a new game, and Phoebe made our apologies: we'd had a long day, and she was still headachey from the heat, and thank you that's very kind but she didn't need a Panadol, and we probably shouldn't stay for another game, not if we're heading up to the mountains tomorrow.


From the back door of their dining room it was a very short walk (too short!) to Phoebe's flat. The evening breeze had picked up, pleasantly cool. By tacit agreement, at her door we stopped and listened: yes, we could hear the Taylors' conversation over the gaming table. Not clear enough to make out the words, but enough to make it clear that we'd better be quiet. If that cat wasn't already out of the bag.

Alistair had run the extension cord through Phoebe's front door, which meant we couldn't close it enough to latch. As soon as we were inside I took her by the waist and pulled her in for another kiss, like I had in the bathroom. This time she didn't resist, not when I kissed her on the lips, not when I kissed down the side of her neck, not when my fingertip ran down along her throat and into the 'V' of her blouse, and flipped open her top button.

"I have a new game," I whispered, fingernails grazing her sternum, nudging the door almost-closed with my foot.

"Oh?" She nipped at my lip, released it. "How do we play?"

"If you manage to stay quiet, you win. If you don't, I win."

"I think we've played that one before."

"That's not 'quiet'. You lose." I caught her nipple through the bra, squeezed, twisted. She gasped, and I leant in to lick her earlobe. "Want to play again?"

An intake of breath. No answer.

"You're learning. I'll take that as a yes." I kept hold of her, backed toward the bed (not quite tripping over my suitcase on the way), sat down with her standing in front of me. With the door almost-closed and the curtains drawn it was very dark, but I had no difficulty working by touch. My hands slid down her front, popping her buttons down to her waist. As I worked she began to run her hands over me, sliding under the hem of my T-shirt and dragging up my sides.

I circled her belly, fingertip spiralling in to lodge in her navel. "I'm pretty sure Alistair and Maggie and Pat and Kate will be playing their game for a while yet."

My other hand slipped down past her shorts, stroked her thigh, slid between her knees. "Do you know what would be happening if we were still in there?"

Above me, I felt her shake her head.

"I'd be sitting next to you." Fingers sliding up, inside the leg of her shorts, moving inwards. "And you would be trying to keep a straight face and concentrate on the game." Finding the gusset of her underwear, feeling her heat through the fabric, hearing the shift in her breath. Her hands pulling my T-shirt upwards, pausing at my breasts. "Trying not to let them know that I've got my hand in your shorts and I'm touching you." Nudging the gusset aside. "Do you think you'd be able to hide it when I slipped my fingers inside you?"

And I did it, and felt her bend at the knees, and even as a sigh escaped her lips she shook her head again.

"No, I don't think so either. Or I would've stayed." Deeper in, heat engulfing my fingers, my other hand moving down to stroke the sensitive spot at the back of her knee. "But now we're back here —" slickened fingers, in, out "— we can do what we want. Can't we?"

Her hands on me tightened.

"Come on, sweet thing." And I rose to my feet, finished undressing her, let her do the same for me. Her fingers were clever and gentle, and paused in all the right places. When it was done we stood face to face, hip to hip, breast to breast, warmer than the night air. I folded my arms around her and stroked her neck, and I felt her fingers on my buttocks.

"Let's go to bed." And we rolled onto the bed together, running hands over one another, in no particular hurry; just the friction of her body against mine was delicious. I kissed her throat and her breasts, and I eased her onto her back and crouched astride her kissing her mouth.

That was the moment when a soft male voice spoke from under the bed in a creepy sing-song:

"Daisy."

If I hadn't been there, I think Phoebe would have hit the roof. As it was she started, banging her chin into my lip, ramming it into my teeth, and scrambled backward into the corner against the wall, "Jesus!"

I clutched my mouth and tasted copper, too dazed to respond to her. There was a sound of heavy breathing nearby and a hissing noise behind it. And then the voice again, lower this time, sing-song:

"Daisy."

"S' okay," I managed to mumble through a mouthful of blood. "It's just —"

"...give me your answer, do."

"— my phone. Low battery alert."

"I'm half crazy, all for the love of you...." And the voice trailed off, dropping to an inhumanly low pitch before petering out altogether: HAL's death scene, from '2001'.

"God, Yvonne! I thought there was a burglar in here!" She sounded quite upset, and I hugged her, feeling her trembling. But after a little while it turned into a quavering sort of giggle. "Well, I guess I lost that round."

"Not... part of my strategy."

My bottom lip was starting to throb, and the 'p's and 'm's and 'f's hurt coming out. She must have noticed the oddness of my speech: "Are you okay? I didn't mean to whack you like that."

"Just my lip. Bumped it a bit." I reached for the switch by the bed, but of course the light wasn't working. "Got a torch?"

"Top drawer. Are you okay?"

"Yeah." I liked that word; it might not be one hundred percent true, but I could pronounce it without using my lips. I pulled open the drawer, fumbled around until I found something cylindrical, and pushed the switch at the end.

Buzzzzzzzzz.

"Oh. Yeah. Um, that's not the torch." She reached past me, brushing against my shoulder in the darkness, and scrabbled about. "Here."

Then there was light, dazzling at first. Phoebe pointed the torch at me and examined my face anxiously. "Oh, poor dear, I'm SO sorry." She pulled out a handkerchief from under the pillow and used it to dab at my face. "Let me get something for that."

She went to the freezer and brought back an ice-pack wrapped in a dishtowel. I sat on the bed with my back against the wall and held the pack to my lip. The cold was unpleasant, but it helped dull the ache, and I hoped it would reduce the bruising.

After a couple of minutes: "Feeling any better?"

"Uh-huh." I took the ice away for a moment and wobbled my lip tentatively. "Going to bruise a bit, but it'll be okay."

"I don't usually maul people like that. Really."

"Hope not. Like to think I'm special."

"No fear." She patted my shoulder. "Aw, you're shivering!"

So I was. The night air had cooled off a little, but not that much; most of it was the cold of the ice-pack, and the adrenaline that comes with an unexpected smack in the teeth. "So come warm me."

She switched off the torch and climbed halfway over me, kneeling astride my hips, and we held one another while I warmed up again. It was very effective, and it wasn't long before I started to think less about my lip and more about the proximity of a naked woman. Comforting embraces turned into something more sensual: her fingers running down my spine, mine stroking her thighs. I sat, leaned her backwards, and kissed her throat, her chest. It was too dark to see, but I imagined I was leaving bloody smudges on her breasts; it's not something I'd thought to sexualise before, but that evening it was a powerfully arousing image.

"Let me try something."

I shuffled her back until she was sitting between my legs facing me, her own legs stretched out over mine. Then I pulled my right leg in, rescuing it from under her, and hooked it over the top instead. Now we were symmetric: face-to-face, her right leg up over my left, and mine over hers, holding one another close together and touching in all sorts of interesting places. It wasn't a relaxed position — it took a bit of muscle strain to keep us there, and my legs hadn't entirely forgiven me for the other day's climbing session — but it was no less enjoyable for the tension it created.

As we fidgeted, trying to find a comfortable position where neither of us was in danger of falling over, every movement gave us both little flickers of pressure on overexcited nerve endings. Not orgasmic in itself, but very very pleasant all the same. And once we'd made ourselves as comfortable as we were going to get we settled into a slow rocking motion, arms clasped around one another, Phoebe very gently kissing my blood-salted mouth.

Our movement was very slight, and a voyeur might have seen only two women locked together like a statue, clasped as close as hunger and desire. But in the middle of that embrace the sensation was delicious. I could feel it pulse in my own flesh; I could feel that pulse mirrored in Phoebe's flesh, in the tempo of her breath and the pressure of her arms on me.

It felt like we were there for hours. But eventually my hip started to twinge and I knew we were going to have to finish some time. I reached back behind me a moment, then slipped my hand in between our bellies and downwards through our tangled curls...

Buzzzzzzzzz.

I held Phoebe's vibrator with the head squeezed in between us, right where it needed to be. It was only a little one, but it felt like all the bones in my pelvis were humming in sympathy. Since my hip was already complaining I let Phoebe do the work, bucking against me and the vibe, grinding. I came first — perhaps because I was handling the vibe — and perhaps second as well, depending on how you count these things. But she was close behind. When she was done I switched off the vibe and put it aside, and we sat there breathlessly in one another's arms until my leg could stand it no longer and we had to disentangle.

Afterwards, as we lay caught up in lassitude, wrapped up in one another, she said: "Thank god you're not a musician."

"Hmm?"

"I'd be forever measuring myself against you. Feeling threatened and inadequate if you were good enough to notice my imperfections, or feeling sorry for you if you weren't."

"Hm. No, I'm happy with this instrument." I ran my fingernails lightly down her back: five parallel lines, a clef that would be gone before the light came.

She wriggled against me. "Mmm. You play beautifully."

"You're not so bad yourself." And somewhere not long after that, we drifted off.

On Saturday we fled the heat of Phoebe's flat and the din of Chinese New Year, and visited the Blue Mountains. We got up early, took the train up to Leura, browsed antiques and bookshops and admired the view: the city sprawled out below us, eucalyptus forests and huge sandstone gorges around us, and in the distance the blue haze of evaporated eucalyptus oil that gives the mountains their name. It was cooler and much less humid than down in the city, pleasant enough that we went for a walk along one of the tourist tracks after lunch. I had thought of taking advantage of the solitude, but the walk was popular that day, and we scarcely had a moment to ourselves along the way. The most I managed was a quick kiss stolen in a short lull between Japanese tourists and a noisy pair of German backpackers.

It was getting dark by the time we got back to the station, and it was a long trip back, almost three hours altogether. Phoebe and I sat side by side and eventually — tired out by an early start and a busy week — we fell asleep leaning on one another, holding hands under the jacket draped across our laps.

When we got back to her place the power was back on; the electrician had been and gone. We tumbled into bed and slept. No doubt I could have tempted Phoebe in other directions, but that night I preferred to just hold her and sleep with her; as good as the sex had been, I wanted to remind myself (and her?) that it wasn't just about the sex.

My last day in Sydney flew by. We both slept in, and by the time I was up and packed it was time to start thinking about my flight. Phoebe accompanied me into town and we shared afternoon tea at a cafe. We chatted for a while about inconsequential things, and then I said what was on my mind.

"Phoebe, I've had a lovely week here with you. I don't just mean the sex." I mouthed the word 'sex' without speaking it aloud; the cafe was crowded and I didn't want to embarrass her. "Are you, can we... would this happen again? Or is it a one-off?" Not the most articulate speech in history, but enough.

"Um." She looked down, not meeting my eyes. "I had a lovely time too. Seeing you again is awfully tempting. But I'm at an odd place right now. Still on the rebound from Luke. It's like... going on holiday to a place that's beautiful and lovely, but not knowing whether you could actually live there?"

"Oh."

She still didn't look up, but she touched the back of my hand with one finger. "That's not a 'no'. I'd like to keep in touch and... see how things go? I'll be down again in a couple of months, Yaya always likes to have the family together for Easter, and maybe we could meet up then? That's Wog Easter, it's the weekend after the long weekend."

"Okay." Although that would depend very much on where things were by Easter. I could feel a great big crush forming in my belly. After I'd gone home, if Phoebe were to decide the last week had just been a vacation from heterosexuality, I didn't think we would be staying in touch. I'm not cut out to be a holiday destination.

Our awkward moment was interrupted by a burst of operetta from Phoebe's phone: "Fo-or he himself has sa-aid it — And it's greatly to his cre-e-dit!"

"Dad." She picked up: "Hi, Dad, how are you — what? Oh, oh no. Oh dear. Well, has she — okay, that's good, at least." A long pause. "Should I come down? I can probably get something tonight, but I'll need to borrow — okay then, well, let me know if she does want me to come. Give her my love, and let me know when she's okay for a phone call. And look after yourself, Dad. I love you too. Bye."

She put away the phone, and I waited until she spoke. "Dad's taken Yaya to hospital, he thinks she's broken her arm."

"Did she fall?"

"No, she was just digging in the garden with a shovel and it went... they'll know when they get an X-ray, but it sounds like osteoporosis to me. She's not young, and I've been encouraging her to get checked for it for years, but she doesn't like doctors."

"Oh dear. Will she be okay?" I gave her hand a comforting squeeze, and she reciprocated.

"Hope so. She's stubborn as hell, the main problem will be forcing her to go easy on it long enough for it to heal."

It was almost time, so we paid the bill and wheeled my suitcase to the station. Phoebe was headed in the opposite direction, but first she accompanied me to wait for the airport train. "Safe trip back, Yvonne. Text me if your flight gets held up or anything."

"I will." A breeze building in the tunnel: my train coming in. "And look after yourself. Best wishes to your grandma." I'd have said: feel free to stay at my place if you need to visit. But of course, she'd be staying with her dad.

"Thanks." The train squealed to a stop, and the doors opened. "Look after yourself, and I'll see you at Easter. Text me tonight so I know you've arrived safe?"

She hugged me goodbye, and I hugged back. Then I got on board, and as the train pulled out I got to thinking about how long it was until Easter. But as it turned out, I was to see her sooner than that.

It wasn't osteoporosis.