Whispers of Desire

Authors Note #1 - Although ratings are nice, nothing beats a comment or two about what you liked or disliked about a story. Please take a moment to leave one. Thank you.

Authors Note #2 - Although there are some heterosexual elements in the story, I feel that it's still primarily a girl/girl tale and have posted it as such.

September 1990

"And that should just about do it, Miss Templeton," Carolyn Bainbridge said as the thirty-three year old loan officer laid the last page of the mortgage application onto the pile on her desk, a stack that had grown to almost a quarter of an inch in height.

"I never imagined there'd be so much paperwork involved in a simple loan," the forty-three year old blonde sitting on the other side of the desk remarked. "But then again, I've never tried to borrow more than a few thousand for a new car before. Oh, and please call me Dana. Miss Templeton makes me sound so old."

"Dana it is, then," Carolyn agreed, "and, as I explained before, the bank just likes to have a full financial picture of an applicant when they consider a mortgage."

"Oh, I understand," Dana Templeton laughed. "They want to be sure you're going to be able to pay the loan back."

"Well, basically yes," Carolyn smiled, thinking how many people had sat where the well-dressed woman did now and couldn't seem to understand that.

"Now that all the paperwork is done, how long do you think I'll have to wait for a decision on the loan?" Dana asked.

"Normally, I'd say a week to ten days," the long haired brunette replied, "but, as I explained before, approval is a two-step process. Once I complete my part in it, the application needs to be reviewed by my superior, Mr. Goodwin, the head of our loan department. And unfortunately he won't be back from vacation until the end of next week."

"Are you saying it could be a week to ten days after he comes back?" Dana asked, concern in her voice.

"Oh, not at all," Dana reassured her. "In his absence, I can send the packet over to our Westlake Branch and let the manager there review it. At most, it should only add a day or two to the process."

"You had me worried for a moment," Dana said, breathing a sigh of relief. "I have to let the building management know by the end of the month if I'm going to exercise the buy option on my apartment. I've lived there almost ten years now and would really hate to move."

"That doesn't seem right," Carolyn observed, thinking that a tenant usually had a few months to make that kind of decision. If the bank didn't approve her loan, there might not be enough time to apply anywhere else.

"It's my fault, actually," Dana said as she brushed back her hair. "I was away for the summer and the person I had picking up my mail didn't think to open the letter from the management company. She just assumed it was something run of the mill, since it wasn't marked urgent."

"I see," Carolyn said, pausing a long moment before adding, "Well, I can't say so definitively, but based on my experience and what I see on the application, I don't think you're going to have any problem getting the mortgage, especially with the down payment you're making."

"Oh, that makes me feel a lot better," Dana said as her smile returned.

Carolyn knew she shouldn't have said that, but there was something about Dana that made her want to reassure her. After nearly ten years at Amalgamated Savings and Loan, working her way up from teller, Carolyn knew what the bank was looking for in a loan applicant. The application she'd just put into an inter-office routing envelope had all the right boxes checked off as far as financial stability went, and, like she'd said, it didn't hurt that Dana was putting down nearly twice the down payment the bank required.

"I'm afraid it's too late for the afternoon messenger," Carolyn added as she glanced at the oversized clock over the teller cages, "but there's another one at the end of the day. That should put this in their hands by Monday morning."

Those words had no sooner left her mouth before Carolyn began to worry that she might've been too optimistic in her estimate. Last summer, following her promotion, she'd done a rotation at Westlake and knew that paperwork sent in from other branches were treated as a secondary priority. Realistically, it could be Tuesday, or even Wednesday before anyone even opened the packet. It might be prudent, she told herself, to revise her estimate in light of that.

Before she could do so, however, she was distracted by the sight of three of the junior tellers standing by one of the tables out on the lobby floor, just beyond her cubicle. Normally, that in itself wouldn't have been enough to attract her attention, except for the fact that all seemed to be staring in her direction. She had noticed Eddie Palmeri standing there a few minutes before, but, now that he had been joined by Phil Cain and Tommy Jordan, it seemed rather odd.

Phil and Tommy had only been at the bank for a bit over a year, and Carolyn didn't know either well. Eddie, on the other hand, had been at Amalgamated for three years and had worked with her for the first two. In fact, despite being eight years younger, he'd even asked her out once.

Coming on the heels of her ex-husband getting remarried, Carolyn had seriously considered saying yes, thinking that an uncomplicated fuck might be just what the doctor ordered. But reason prevailed and, despite Eddie having what could be described as movie star looks, he was a bit too juvenile for her tastes. She'd softened the blow by saying that she made it a policy not to date anyone from the office. Which was a lie because, if it had been Josh Taylor from new accounts who had asked, she'd probably have been willing to screw him right on his desk. Josh, unfortunately, had moved up north to Alameda last year to take a position there.

It then occurred to Carolyn that it wasn't her they'd been staring at -- after all, they saw her every day -- it was the woman sitting with her. Why they were doing so piqued her curiosity even more.

Carolyn would describe Dana Templeton as attractive, to be sure, but not in a way that might turn a young man's head, much less three of them. She had pleasant rather than beautiful features, framed by rich blonde hair cut just above her shoulders. There were some age lines around her eyes and the corners of her mouth, but they seemed to add character rather than signify age. Carolyn hoped she looked that good in a decade's time.

Dana did have one physical attribute that might garner a young man's fancy, Carolyn thought -- an impressive bust that had to be at least a 38D. Given her five six and hundred and twenty pound frame, it certainly stood out. Carolyn also stood five six, but had a much more slender frame and breasts that, while nice, only measured a more modest 34B.

"Well, I'm sure you'll do all you can to expedite things," Dana

said, interrupting Carolyn's musings as the blonde rose to her feet, extending her hand as she did so.

Carolyn did likewise, moving out from behind her desk, both to return the handshake and escort Dana out of the low walled enclosure. She paused at the swinging gate, waiting until Dana exited the bank before moving over to where the three tellers were still engaged in animated conversation.

"All right, you clowns," she said in a tone that, while low, still reflected a bit of annoyance. "What was so interesting about my client that all of you felt the need to make fools of yourselves staring at her?"

Each looked to one of the others to answer the question, but no one seemed eager to do so. Finally, Phil and Tommy fixed their gaze on Eddie because, after all, he had been the one who had started it all, whatever it was.

"You don't know?" Eddie finally said, as if he expected Carolyn to know whatever secret they had been sharing among themselves.

"Know what?" Carolyn asked.

"That was Patience McCauley," Eddie said with the same certainty that one might say the sky was blue.

"No, that was Dana Templeton," Carolyn corrected him, the name he'd said having no meaning to her. "Her building is going condo and she's applying for a mortgage."

"I don't know what name she put on her application, but that was Patience McCauley," Eddie insisted, as the young men on his right and left nodded their heads in agreement. "She's been in almost thirty films and I've seen just about all of them. I know what she looks like."

"She's an actress?" Carolyn said, thinking that wasn't what was written on her application.

"Some people might call it that," Tommy Jordan snorted.

Carolyn didn't get the joke, if that was what his snickering was supposed to indicate.

"She makes adult movies," Phil Cain chimed in.

"Adult movies?" Carolyn repeated.

"Porn," Eddie clarified.

"Don't be ridiculous," Carolyn rejoined. "She's over forty years old."

Even as she said that, Carolyn wondered if that actually was too old. The last time she'd seen anything resembling a porn film had been during her marriage, and the women in that one certainly hadn't been twenty-somethings.

"I didn't say she was still making them, although she probably could," Eddie said. "Ever since Taboo, older women are all the rage."

He went on to explain that the woman he called Patience McCauley started her career back in the seventies when she was in her mid-twenties and had, over the next decade, starred in a good number of films, the last being about five years ago. Then she disappeared from the genre.

"You have to be mistaken," Carolyn repeated, not having any idea what Taboo was, or even if she wanted to know.

But none of the three could be dissuaded from their conviction.

It was then that Carolyn noticed Ralph Cunningham, the branch manager, looking in their direction from the door of his office. Even though the clerks were on breaks, she suggested that they should all get back to work, adding that this wasn't the type of thing they should be discussing during working hours anyhow.

Returning to her desk, Carolyn removed the loan papers from the envelope and again reviewed them. The apartment that Dana was looking to buy was located in West Hollywood, a nice area which had become an independent city a few years ago. Her business address was over in the San Fernando Valley, which made the location ideal. Under occupation, Dana had put customer relations representative for Phoenix Restorations, a company that restored old cars to original condition and then rented them out to film companies making period pieces. From the income and assets information she'd provided, the job seemed to pay quite well.

'They had to be pulling my chain,' Carolyn finally said to herself, recalling that the three had a history of practical jokes. In fact, only a few weeks before, they'd almost convinced Jack Parris, one of the security guards, that his beloved Dodgers were planning to move back to Brooklyn. "Well, they're going to be disappointed because I'm not going to fall for it," she added softly under her breath.

With that, Carolyn returned the file to her outgoing box and shifted her focus to her next appointment. Reaching into the bottom drawer of her desk, she removed a set of blank forms and began to fill in some preliminary information.

-=-=-=-

As the afternoon progressed, Carolyn found the outlandish notion that Dana had once been a porn star not as easy to dismiss as it should have been. Despite that, she refused to let Eddie or the others see that they'd gotten into her head, maintaining a neutral expression whenever any of them passed her desk. When her day ended shortly after four, she made it a point to give them a friendly wave goodnight as she headed for the side exit and the employee parking lot.

Halfway home to her apartment in Duarte, Carolyn had a sudden idea as how to settle the matter once and for all. One of her friends, Fiona Reeves, managed a video store just off the Foothill Freeway, one that, she'd noted on previous visits, had an adult film section. She'd never rented one herself, but perhaps today might be the day to make an exception. For all she knew, this Patience McCauley might not even exist.

-=-=-=-

"I never figured you for that sort of film," Fiona grinned after Carolyn had inquired if the store had any videos featuring Patience McCauley. "I always thought you were more into Rom-Coms and such."

" I already explained why I wanted to check one out," Carolyn replied. " It's just research."

"Research, right," the forty-nine year old redhead smirked, "but hey, no judgment here."

"I'm serious," Carolyn insisted.

"Honey, you don't have to give me a reason," Fiona laughed. "A lot of quite respectable people rent adult films nowadays. In fact, some days we make more money renting porn than anything else. So let's see if I can find your mystery woman for you."

Fiona moved over to the small computer that the store used for inventory control. They'd gotten a great deal on it second hand and it allowed her to easily keep track of the store's merchandise. A friend studying computer programming had set it up so that she could not only search for a video by title, but also by its primary cast.

"Well, in answer to your first question, there is a Patience McCauley," Fiona said as she brought up a list of tapes. "The bad news is that she must be quite popular because it looks like all of her films are ... no, wait a minute, we do have one still in stock -- The Prime of Miss Jean Brody."

Looking over Fiona's shoulder at the entry she was pointing at, Carolyn recalled the similarly titled film of the late sixties, which she had seen on television. It was a safe bet that the change in spelling of the central character's name was not the only thing that set this movie apart from the Maggie Smith classic.

Getting the attention of the teenage assistant stacking the shelves, Fiona told him to watch the front desk for a few minutes while she handled something in the back. She then led Carolyn into a small side room that had originally been storage space. Now it housed three walls of tapes, access to which was barred by a thin cloth curtain and an overhead sign that read 'No Minors Allowed'.

There was one customer already in there, a middle aged man in a well-tailored suit. On seeing the two women, he quickly cradled his selections to obscure their titles and rushed past them on his way to the check-out counter.

"My word, so many," Carolyn noted as she surveyed the rows of boxes, silently reading off some of the titles as she did.

"Straight, gay, lesbian, and that's just the beginning," Fiona remarked as she focused her attention on the wall the computer had referenced. "Then you have all the sub-cultures, older women, interracial, bondage; the list just seems to grow longer all the time."

"Older women," Carolyn inquired, recalling what Eddie had said earlier. "Is that popular?"

"Surprisingly so," Fiona replied as she narrowed her search to a single row. "Some men seem to enjoy watching women with a bit of mileage on them."

Carolyn only half heard the response, her attention caught by a row of similar-looking boxes, all bearing the label, Swedish Erotica, and a volume number. Taking in the photographs on the front, she noted that all the women in them wore decorative scarfs around their necks. Perhaps a trademark of the series, she thought.

The last box in the row gave her even more pause with its depiction of an unbelievably endowed man receiving fellatio from a black woman wearing the obligatory scarf. Carolyn had no idea who John Holmes, the name prominently displayed next to the photograph, was, but there was no way, she thought, that cock could be real.

"Ah, here we go," Fionia cried out softly from behind her.

As Carolyn turned, the store manager handed her the box she had been searching for. Unlike the Swedish Erotica boxes, this one held only drawings of the film's characters on the front. But on turning it around, she found a photograph of a thirty-something woman having cunnilingus performed on her by a younger man. Intently, Carolyn compared the face of the actress with that of the woman from the bank.

"It's not her," Carolyn said, a touch of relief in her tone.

"Oh, you can't always go by the photographs on the box," Fiona said as she looked over Carolyn's shoulder. "Sometimes they use a different model for the packaging -- or so I've been told. You're going to have to actually watch the movie to be sure."

"Think we could run it through the VCR out front, just for a minute, long enough just for me to see her?" Carolyn inquired.

"Not without flashing it across every screen in the store," Fiona laughed, making reference to the four ceiling mounted televisions in the outer room.

"I'll guess I'll be taking it home then," Carolyn relented.

Truthfully, after having gone this far, she was now a bit curious about the film.

"Excellent, we'll just ring it up then," Fiona said.

To prevent theft, the actual tapes were stored on shelves behind the front desk, the front row of which was set on wheels to allow easy access to the one behind it, a set up that doubled the storage space.

Adult tapes were stored in the second row and, after swapping the empty display box for the tape Carolyn wanted, Fiona scanned its barcode into the system before slipping it into one of the plastic storage cases from under the counter. Finally, she put that into a bag with the store's name on it and handed it to Carolyn.

"Enjoy the movie," Fiona said in a mischievous tone as she did so.

-=-=-=-

As curious as she was about the film, Carolyn put it aside as she entered her apartment. She had a date this evening, her first in a while, and still needed to take a shower and change. It was a blind date actually, set up by another friend, Julie Nelson. She had only talked to Kevin Burke on the phone, but he seemed like a nice guy and Julie promised her that he was really cute.

Stripping off her business attire, leaving only her bra and panties, Carolyn stepped into the bathroom. There, after discarding the undergarments as well, she glanced at her naked form in the mirrored medicine cabinet.

The image was the same that greeted her yesterday, and the day before, but as she seemed to constantly remind herself of late, was not the one that did so a decade before. The firmness that she used to take for granted now required a more concerted effort to maintain, one that increased with each passing year. Eventually there would come a day, she also reminded herself, when she might no longer be able to do so.

"Age eventually comes for us all," she said to her reflection.

Once in the shower, it only took a few minutes to soap herself up and scrub the day's grime off her body, then a bit more time to give her hair a quick wash. As she was drying herself off, Carolyn glanced down between her legs and wondered if perhaps she should trim her pubic area. She wasn't planning for the night to end with sex, but seeing how long it'd been since one had, it might not be a bad idea to prepare for the possibility.

Draping her towel over the bar on the wall, Carolyn removed a small barber's scissors from the cabinet and, balancing her leg over the toilet seat, proceeded to trim her bush. As she cut away, she considered the idea of shaving it completely. There had been a woman at the gym last week with a totally bare mound, and while most of the other girls in the shower tried not to be seen looking, it had become an object of conversation after the woman left.

'Nah, it'd be a pain in the ass to keep smooth,' she finally concluded, 'and if I didn't like it, it'd probably itch like hell while it grew back.'

She'd just put the scissors back in the cabinet when she heard the phone ring out in the living room. Sliding the towel off the rack, Carolyn wrapped it around herself before rushing out to try and catch the call before the answering machine picked up. As she did, Carolyn thought it funny that she'd felt the need to cover herself before exiting the bathroom. After all, who was going to see her if she ran through the apartment naked?