Are You Tiffani Caine? Ch. 02

"Oh, but that's soooo...sinful." A big gulp of alcohol went down her throat.

Rachel smirked. "So you think the all-powerful God who has to keep track of the whole universe and everything going on with like stars and galaxies and black holes and shit is worried about who I get off with?"

"The Bible says so."

"And that makes sense to you?"

"Well...He cares about us, right? Like all of us. All the time. And He doesn't want us to be immortal...immoral."

"But why would he care? What difference could it possibly make to the all-knowing, all-powerful ruler of everything which ephemeral lifeform another ephemeral lifeform decides to enjoy some time with?"

Sara frowned. She was positive that there was a great reason why God would want to keep track of that, but she was having a hard time thinking of it right now. She opened her mouth, closed it, repeated, and then discovered that she was looking at the dazzling blue of her drink. It was so pretty! With another giggle she said, "Adios, motherflubber!"

"Did...you just say, 'motherflubber?'"

"Yeah!"

"You know that's not even a word, right?"

"No I know but like...I can't say the other word!"

"It's just a word, girl. Go ahead and say it."

"I can't, it's a terrible word!"

"Why? I dare you."

"Don't dare me! I can't say it."

"I double dare you."

"No, I am super not allowed to say 'motherfucker!'"

Rachel's smile went ear to ear. "You know you just said it, right?"

"No, I didn't, I said..." Sara paused, face a mask of confusion - before she suddenly doubled over with laughter, chin on the table. "Oh shit, I said 'motherfucker!' Oh shit, I said 'shit!'"

Rachel laughed with her. "You're alright, Tiffani. Get a little something in you and you're actually fun."

"You're fun too," Sara nodded, downing half of what was left in her glass. "But you make me say bad things."

"I didn't make you say anything," Rachel corrected with a smirk. "You chose to say 'motherfucker,' don't blame me for your potty mouth. But I bet you're too scared to say it louder."

"What? Why would I do that?"

"To prove you're not scared. Go ahead, belt it out."

"I'm not scared. I just don't want to."

"Chicken."

"Oh, you...don't call me a chicken," Sara warned with mock seriousness.

Rachel leaned back against her seat. "B-wwwack-bwack-bwack-bwaaaaa...ck."

Sara narrowed her eyes into a flinty gunfighter's glare, and then suddenly lifted her glass high and bellowed, "ADIOS, MOTHERFUCKEEEEEEEEEEEEER!" She giggled when a cheer answered her from the crowd and she swallowed the rest of her drink at a go.

"Impressive!" Rachel nodded approvingly. "I didn't think you had it in you."

The waitress appeared at their table as if summoned. "Sounds like you two want another."

"I dunno, I'm a little tipsy..." Sara said, "but..."

"We'll do another round and take the check," Rachel said.

The waitress vanished. Sara giggled, said, "I...I...I probably shouldn't have another. I honestly think I'm drunk."

"You? Nah. You're sober as a judge on hanging day."

Sara giggled again. "Well one more won't hurt. I'm not driving. This is fun. Tonight was fun. I think I prolly needed this."

"I think you did. You seem pretty uptight most of the time. Everybody needs to lose control sometimes."

Sara frowned - something bad had happened once when she lost control from drinking, but it didn't seem all that important now. She was about to say something when suddenly a couple of guys were at their table. She looked up at them, wondering who those blurry people were, when one of them asked, "Hey ladies, mind if we join you?"

Sara considered this and what it might mean, but before she could reply Rachel said, "Sorry guys, super not interested."

"Don't be that way," the other guy insisted. "We're cool. We just want to buy you a drink or two and chat."

Rachel snorted derisively. "Look, I don't want to be ruder than you deserve so I'll just say fuck all the way off, 'kay?"

"You're missing out," the first guy insisted. "We're loads of fun. Just give us a chance. You won't regret it."

"OK dickless, listen real fucking close," Rachel snapped. "My fiancee and I are not interested in anything you're packing, not your pathetic dicks and not your roofies, so get out of our space before I kick your balls up your throat and out your nose."

Sara was having some trouble keeping up with the conversation at this point, so it took her a second to register amazement at what Rachel had said. Fiancee? Didn't she say she wasn't in anything serious?

"Let's go, man," the second guy said to his friend. "They're dykes."

The first guy sounded very cocky when he replied, "Nah, they ain't gay. They're just playing hard to get."

Gay? Sara thought. She told me she isn't gay. And who's the other lesbian those guys are talking about? It was all eluding her, so she turned to Rachel to ask her what she meant -

And Rachel put one hand behind Sara's head and pulled their lips together. The kiss was firm and determined, and it took Sara so by surprise that she couldn't even comprehend what was happening. Her body was warm and pleasantly tingly from all the booze though, so an instant later when Rachel's tongue entered her mouth Sara's tongue to respond all on its own and her eyes fluttered shut.

I'm kissing a girl. That is so wrong. I need to stop. When was the last time Isaac kissed me with this much passion? I can't remember if he ever did. This kiss is sinful and wicked and oh it feels so good. Stop it. Stop it right now.

No. I need to be kissed like this.

With that thought she pushed herself against the other pair of lips, gave a happy sigh, and relaxed. Inside her mouth two tongues tangled and twisted, both of them tasting of the drinks they'd consumed, both of them delicious, and what Rachel was doing inside her mouth felt glorious. Kissing was one of her favorite things to do in the whole world, and a kiss this good was too good to pull back from. Sinful. Wicked. Perfect.

She wasn't sure how long the kiss lasted - it could have been one minute or five. Her head was whirling, her heart hammering, her stomach cartwheeling, every nerve in her body singing and alive. She was horny as fuck.

When Rachel wrapped a hand around Sara's breast and squeezed she found Sara's nipple already hard. Instantly Sara arched her back, pushed her breasts forward, and moaned in delight. Isaac had only ever touched her breasts once in the whole time they were dating. Once! And she needed to be touched, she needed it so badly. She didn't even realize how loudly she moaned or that she was sucking enthusiastically on Rachel's tongue like she was fellating it. All the alcohol left room for in her head was that she was finally getting what she had needed for seven long years and it felt astonishing.

When Rachel pulled back from the kiss Sara instinctively tried to follow her, to keep their lips and tongues together, to keep Rachel's hand on her. She opened her eyes, confused, and saw Rachel smirking - her lipstick was ruined. It didn't even occur to Sara that much of it was on and near her own mouth. She also saw that the guys were gone and their replacement drinks had arrived. She gave a little squeal of delight and began to drink.

Somewhere in the middle of that drink she lost track of things. There were vague images, like something that had happened to someone else: slamming her AMF, being in the back seat of an Uber with Rachel, riding the elevator up to her apartment while leaning heavily on Rachel. Everything just sort of faded to black.

Wednesday, April 7

WHY. DID HER HEAD. HURT?

Her alarm was going off, but it took Sara minutes to force herself to roll over and reach it to shut it off. After managing that herculean feat she flopped back, feeling the sheet against her bare skin and -

Wait, why was she naked? She had never slept naked since she was saved! What the fudge was going on here?

Wait...drinking. She had gone out drinking last night. Involuntarily yes, but drinking, and apparently to wild excess. There was something about taking off her dress in a toilet stall and putting it back on, and Rachel was there...oh right, it was Rachel who had made her go out. And something about -

She froze. Had she kissed Rachel? She was pretty sure she had, and kissed her hard. She couldn't remember much about it except that it was wonderful and hot. No. Oh no no no no.

Her head screamed again as she flicked on her bedside lamp - normally she didn't need it to get to the bathroom but her legs were wobbling and the room was spinning even sitting down. She turned - and saw the clothes she had been wearing yesterday neatly folded on her dressing table, and atop them was a sheet of paper.

Her head knocked her ass back onto the bed when she first tried to rise, but she managed it on the second attempt. The note was handwritten in cursive; cursive had always been her nemesis, but by squinting and thinking as carefully as a howling hangover would permit, she managed to make it out:

Hey girl, you were out cold when I got you up here so I undressed you and put you to bed in the safety position. I hope you maintained control of your functions all night but I wouldn't be surprised if you made a mess, you were shitfaced. I had a good time tonight.

Take care,

R

P.S. You're a great kisser.

Rachel moaned miserably and put a hand to her head. What had she done?

She forced herself to go through her normal morning routine, which was not easy in her current condition. She rehydrated mercilessly, did a light workout at the gym - just walking and some light weights - rehydrated a lot more, and made it to work with 10 minutes to spare and the worst headache she had ever had in her life.

Work was a challenge, especially the time in the morning when she spent doing Josh's work for him. Her head was throbbing and she kept thinking about how horrible it was that she had kissed Rachel last night (and, involuntarily, thinking about how good the kiss was). Her memory was still very cloudy but she could definitely recall the vigor with which she had sucked the other woman's tongue, giving it a better blowjob than anything she had given to Man-Bun. And...had Rachel felt her up? She thought she remembered something about Rachel feeling her boob, but she couldn't remember trying to stop it...or disliking it. All in all it made for a rough couple of hours, so she made sure what she had done was right before heading back to her own cube and settling into her own tasks.

She had been rehydrating all morning and continued it at lunch, getting a large Gatorade from a convenience store and polishing it off quickly. She felt much better when she got back to her desk and was deeply immersed in a redesign of a company's accounting department workflow when Josh came at her. "Sara, what the hell? These calculations you did are all wrong!"

Sara felt a sharp stab of panic as she always did when being accused, but she tamped it down and asked, very calmly, "What do you mean?"

Josh claimed her desk, shoving things aside to make room for the pages of printouts he was carrying, and began pointing out multiple places where he insisted the numbers were incorrect. Sara listened patiently until he momentarily exhausted himself, and then quietly asked, "Josh, do you understand how these procedures work?"

"Of course I do!" he exclaimed loudly, puffing out his chest. "Apparently I understand them a hell of a lot better than you do!"

Sara's reply was calm, measured, and in a conversational and deliberately non-confrontational tone. "Josh, I wrote these procedures. The reason I was assigned to help you is because you don't understand these or anything else I was doing with Ingers. If you think you can do these better than I can, by all means take over. I'd be delighted to have a chance to focus on my own work for a change."

He recoiled as if she had spat in his face. "Are you saying I'm incompetent?"

Of course he was incompetent, and everyone except him and Ken knew it. "I am not saying that. I am saying that if you understood how to handle these reports then I wouldn't be doing them for you."

"You...bitch!" he hissed. "Who do you think you are, talking to me like that? Do you really think I'm not going to tell Ken about this?"

Ugh, she had just bought herself more trouble at work, which was approximately the last thing she wanted, and it was all because of an idiotic, entitled man-child. Sara felt her headache return as a vein in her temple began to throb; still, she throttled her fury and remained calm. "Tell Ken what you need to tell him. I'll let Natalie know you're going to talk to him. In fact, we can see if she's available for a meeting right now."

Josh hesitated. He was Ken's favorite lickspittle, but his supervisor was still Natalie and she could make his days immeasurably less pleasant if she had a mind to. With a silent snarl he returned to desk as Sara sent Natalie an email explaining the situation and letting her know there was an impending blow-up.

The rest of the day went fine, and by the time she got home she felt as good as ever - physically at least, because she couldn't get the kiss with Rachel out of her mind. No, that wasn't right - she only remembered flashes and sensations of that. Rather, she couldn't get the idea of the kiss out of her head. She had sworn she would never do any such thing, but she had done it, and apparently she had liked it a lot. That was really the only solid memory she had of the thing: that she had loved it and even compared it favorably with kisses from her fiance with whom she intended to spend the rest of her life. And the worst thing was the guilt - she barely felt any at all, and that made her feel really guilty.

And she was seeing Isaac tonight. She had to face him all evening when they went to Amy and Vic's house for dinner. And she wasn't sure she could handle that at all. She took another shower, dressed in a more casual floor-length dress, and waited for Isaac to come.

Climbing into Isaac's car and seeing his beautiful, kind, sweet face felt like a blow to the stomach, especially when he leaned in and put a chaste kiss on her lips. Her distress was obvious enough that he looked at her in surprise as he pulled away and asked if she was alright.

"Oh...uh...yeah. I just...it's been a strange couple of days for me," she stammered. "I guess I'm not quite myself tonight."

"We can call and cancel if you're not up to it, love."

"No. No, I'll be fine. I'm so glad to see you. I think I need this evening." Maybe the normalcy of dinner with friends would help her put things into perspective.

Isaac kept up the chatter on the way to Amy's place in South Minneapolis. He said nothing of much significance, but his voice and his cheerful tone managed to have her laughing by the time they arrived; only Isaac could turn her mood around like that! And then he kissed her again, a brief peck on the lips, and she discovered that her first thought when he did so was "Is that it?" And then the guilt came back hard.

Amy and Vic lived in a very nice house in East Bde Maka Ska. Amy was doing well for herself these days, but the house was vastly out of her price range and she would have been in something much more modest had she not married Vic Beauford, who was half a dozen years older and vastly wealthier than she was. Just walking up to the front door felt like it cost more than Sara could afford.

The door was answered by Vic, dapper and friendly as always, and he shook Isaac's hand and gave Sara a hug. He took their coats and put them in the closet with a cheerful, "Thanks for coming! We've been looking forward to this!"

Isaac had brought flowers as usual (ones matching the decor, obviously), and as Vic took them Sara could not help but reflect that since the night before there was very little reason not to bring wine...except that Vic and Amy had a wine cellar full of bottles that Sara and Isaac couldn't afford on their best day. Maybe flowers were best after all. Vic bustled them over to the dinner table (which seated 12) and placed them somewhere near the center as Amy appeared from the kitchen wearing an apron over expensive casual clothes and wrapped Sara in a bear hug before kissing Isaac on the cheek. Dinner, she said, would be ready soon, and she shooed Sara away when Sara volunteered to help in the kitchen; pretty much everyone knew that the kitchen help Sara could provide was minimal.

Vic entertained them in the living room, if it could be called "entertainment." Though Vic was handsome, genial, and outgoing, Sara had always found him a bore. Vic had grown up obsessed with cars, and when he made masses of cash during the first crypto boom he decided to pursue his lifelong dream of owning a car dealership - but not just one dealership: he bought a chain of five prominent new car dealerships in the Twin Cities called Preston Motors. Now he sold everything from Hondas to high-end imports like Ferraris. Cars and business were the only things he ever wanted to talk about. Sara couldn't care less about either one and Vic had always given her the willies in some way she couldn't define, but Isaac loved to talk about automobiles and so the two kept each other's attention.

After about 20 minutes Amy called from the kitchen for Vic to help her and the first course appeared shortly thereafter: French onion soup with bubbling gruyere on top. Amy had been taking a French cooking night school course for over a year now and had gotten pretty darned good at it. It was followed by coq au vin and buttery mashed potatoes along with grilled asparagus, and for dessert was a strawberry torte that was worthy of a Michelin star restaurant. Sara loved every bite, which fortunately allowed her to focus on the food and some quiet conversation with Amy while Vic loudly dominated the table talk with a comparative discussion of German luxury car models.

Once the dinner was done and after the mandatory period of postprandial conversation, Amy asked Sara to help her clean up in the kitchen. Sara went along gladly to escape the automobile chatter, but was a little taken aback when the first thing Amy whispered when they got away from the table was, "What's up with you and Isaac?"

Sara's look of guilt was immediate and, to judge by the alarm on Amy's face, severe. "What? What do you mean?"

"You could barely look at him all through dinner, and when you did you looked like you ran over his dog or something."

"Oh no," Sara said, covering her face with her hands. "Do you think he noticed?"

"I don't know how he couldn't have. Did you guys have a big fight or something?"

"No," Sara said, leaning over the counter. "I can't believe it's that obvious."

"You aren't the world's best secret keeper."

"I guess I'm not."

"So what is it? Do you just not want to talk about it?"

Sara considered that deeply - Amy was offering her an out of a very uncomfortable conversation and she was sorely tempted to take it. But she couldn't keep things from the other Three Muskatrixes. Finally she took a deep breath and whispered, "I have something to say, but I need this to be a secret. I mean it, don't tell Isaac and don't tell Vic. Can you promise me that?"

Amy's frown of concern deepened into real worry. She glanced over her shoulder at the doorway to make sure neither of the guys were coming in, then nodded and whispered, "I promise, Sara."

Sara took a deep, steadying breath and said, "I did something really stupid last night."

"What?"

"I...OK there's a woman I met, a friend...well, not a friend. A recent acquaintance. Rachel."