Refrains of the Heart Read online

  “Oh God, please.” Louise moaned, her head thrown back, the edge of the piano digging into her back. She tried to spread her thighs wantonly, going past any shame into desperation as Jennifer’s cruel teasing fingers played with her so lightly. “You’ve got to give me more.”

  Jennifer grinned and leaned in to kiss her neck with light sucking kisses that made Louise’s skin rise up in shivery-good goose bumps.

  “All right, since you asked.” She pressed deep into Louise’s body, reaching lovely long inches inside her, and it was good. But it wasn’t enough.

  Jennifer wasn’t done, though. She rocked her finger in and out a few times, then pressed in two. Her fingers curled, a blunt pressure against the side of Louise’s cunt, a promise, maybe. Three fingers then, and Jennifer crossed them at the tips, a narrowing long presence inside her. It was better, so much better. The warm tingling of her own body, the push of arousal and the firm insistence of Jennifer’s hand seemed to coalesce into something else, something perfect, and Louise arched up, her body rippling around the width of three fingers. Jennifer’s thumb was resting outside her body, the pad resting on her clit. She rubbed it gently and the intensity of it made Louise twitch and whine hard through her teeth.

  “Your hands.” Louise could only think of those beautiful fingers stretched all the way up inside her. “Your hands, God.”

  Jennifer distracted her with a kiss. Her beautiful mouth was soft and sweet, her breasts brushed against Louise’s, and all the while she rocked in carefully, firmly.

  The muscles in Louise’s thighs twitched and jumped. Her heart was pounding a heavy, thudding rhythm in her chest and in her cunt, gripping Jennifer’s fingers close and hot with each pulse.

  Louise could feel Jennifer’s fingers moving, stretching up inside her, uncurling and going deep. She arched back and shuddered all over when Jennifer started thrusting her fingers. The hot slippery insides of Louise’s cunt let her thrust well enough. It was a dull pressure that could’ve hurt, but just amped up the intensity of feeling so full, so fucked.

  Jennifer moved her fingers inside Louise, a gentle flex, like she was playing Louise as expertly as she did her piano. It was an insane thought, but an incredible one. Louise could feel her orgasm coming, a growing awareness of her body, the anticipation making her flush hot all over. Jennifer’s thumb was a quick clever pressure at her clit, flickering relentlessly.

  It was incredible. It started in her toes, swept up her body in rolling pulses, waves rising up and then cresting. Jennifer fucked her through it, little thrusts inside Louise’s soaked cunt as it fluttered wildly.

  Louise zoned out, head buzzing with the intensity of the orgasm and leaving her dumb and pliant as it faded. The next thing she was fully aware of was of Jennifer easing her fingers out. She groaned as she was left empty.

  “Holy shit,” she mumbled.

  Jennifer looked at her with awe. “That was incredible.”

  Louise leaned forward and dropped her head into the crook of Jennifer’s neck. Jennifer rubbed her back soothingly with her dry hand, then coaxed Louise upright and got them both off stage.

  *

  “That was definitely not how I was anticipating the evening would end,” Louise said as they locked up the theater.

  Jennifer laughed. “Me neither. I mean, I hoped something, but whew.”

  “Where are we going now?”

  “There’s this coffee shop on campus that’s open late. I thought we could talk.”

  At that, some of Louise’s euphoria faded. “You’re going to Europe.”

  Jennifer tugged on her hand. “Come on.”

  They sat in a booth, faced each other over the table, hands wrapped around mugs of coffee.

  “Yeah,” Jennifer finally said. “I’m going to Europe.”

  “But you’re coming back, right?”

  Jennifer didn’t say anything right away, and Louise felt herself start to panic. “But we just…you can’t just leave!”

  “I have to. But Lou, listen.” Jennifer put her mug down and leaned across the table, wrapped her hands around Louise’s. “You can come with me.”

  “A vacation?”

  “I was thinking more indefinitely.”

  Louise blinked and laughed. “You’re kidding, right?”

  Jennifer shook her head.

  “But, come on. I have a life here. I barely know you, not really. I can’t just leave and go to Paris with you.”

  Jennifer grinned. “Why not?”

  “Because…because…” But she couldn’t really get beyond that. Just because. People didn’t do this sort of thing.

  Jennifer was looking at her earnestly. “I can play, you can paint. We can figure out the rest once we get there. Look, I get that it’s crazy. Maybe it is. But you feel this, right? You’re looking at this objectively, at the facts and the logic, but love isn’t objective.”

  “Love?” Louise shook her head. “I don’t know. This is crazy. None of this makes sense. What I feel—what you’re suggesting—”

  Jennifer smiled. “Love is like art. It’s not facts, any more than music is just notes on a page or art is just paint on canvas. It transcends its composition. Like us. Look at us. We’re just two girls who met. That’s facts. Except we’re not, we’re more than that. We’re epic. We can be anything.”

  Louise stared at her. “You’re insane,” she said slowly. Then she felt herself start to smile helplessly. “I don’t know. How would we live? What about money, and work, and—”

  “We can figure it out. I have work contacts and some family there. Trust me. And just think about it, right now. Really think about it. You think we hardly know each other, but I know you well enough to see that at your core, where it matters, it’s not money and jobs and logistics. It’s art and freedom and love.”

  “You really think I’m that impulsive and romantic?”

  “Yeah.” Jennifer caught her lip between her teeth. “I do.”

  Louise pictured it. She couldn’t help it. Wide blue skies, history steeped into the narrow streets, Jennifer sitting at a Parisian cafe, smiling at her, long fingers around a coffee cup, music and art washed through the air between them, all around them.

  Maybe she’d already made this decision without realizing it. She’d already quit her job, made plans about the house. It was like a part of her knew this would happen, was just waiting for Jennifer to ask. Waiting for Jennifer to take her to a new life. And whether it lasted forever between them, or ended up no more than a wild fling that started here and ended in some European city far from home, Louise wanted it. She wanted to trace this path to see how far they could go, what her life could truly be. And whatever happened, she had her art, now. She’d never be able to regret anything, for that.

  “Paris, London, Berlin,” she said, shaking her head. “Can we fit in Rome?”

  Jennifer smiled wide at her, bright and happy. “Anything. We can do anything.”

  “Then yeah. Yeah, okay. Let’s do this.”

  About the Author

  AJ Mars is a late-twenties wanderer who’s lived everywhere from New Mexico to New Zealand, via half of Western Europe. Her writing reflects her love of travel, although she’s now fairly settled in the UK with her partner and their cats. AJ has a PhD in a useless subject and a passionate interest in Shakespeare. She teaches creative writing and literature classes and tries her best to practice what she preaches.

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