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In her case, she had to go to San Francisco if she wanted the full experience of foggy autumn mornings full of fluffy coats and pumpkin-spiced lattes.
San Francisco, however, was not where she lived. Instead, Rhea’s life took a very different direction as she and Paige became regulars at the local swinger’s club, as Rhea casually called it. And every time she referred to Hellfire asthe swinger’s bar,Paige rolled her eyes and reminded her wife they weren’t ready forswinging.
Didn’t stop Rhea from chortling every time, though.
It surprised her, however, how quickly they fell into a routine whenever they attended a party on the weekends.Not every weekend, but often enough I’m on a first-name basis with some of the employees.They arrived, they checked their coats, they got their free drinks, and they either wandered around by themselves or hung out with their friends until everyone naturally broke off to do whatever fancied them that night. In Rhea and Paige’s case, that often included catching whatever show was on stage if it appealed to them or finding the ladies’ only room to do a different kind of people-watching.
If Paige had more than one drink in her, she openly watched other couples as if this was her best-kept secret.
“It kinda reminds me of those Greek parties,” she said one night when a half-naked woman had wandered into the room and instantly had couples fighting over her. “Except way fewer frat guys. The sorority girls could be as crazy. Remember?”
Rhea was usually too shy by then to admit to anything but breathing. She didn’thatebeing a voyeur, but it was challenging for her to face some of the very things she now wrote about. Because she hadn’t started on her “next great American novel,” but she pretended as if she had whenever someone brought it up.
Most of the time, they came with friends and hung out with them in the main room long enough to call it a night before anything else happened. Neither Paige nor Rhea were dancers, but as the weeks turned into months, they were more comfortable with showing overt affection in front of others – both strangers and friends.
On the weekend after Labor Day, they attended the monthly “Blackout” night, which requested guests to either dress in all black or dark-inspired clothing.If they wear clothing in the back at all.Rhea had seen more bare ass that past summer than she had in her whole life. At some point, those perky cheeks lost their luster, didn’t they?
Paige had completely cleaned up in a black halter dress with a plunging neckline. Her hair was done up on top of her head, teardrop earrings dangling against her neck. Rhea wore black trousers and a suit jacket over a dark blue camisole that would soon be the only thing she wore up top as the heat got to her. Their friends were likewise decked out in their best black duds that didn’t always cover what they boasted beneath their clothes. Like Jocie, who never met a halter top or push-up bra she couldn’t wear in public. The woman was more skin than clothes, yet Rhea felt completely comfortable around her.It’s how she dresses outside of work all the time!Probably at work, too. Paige knew more about that.
Jocie’s girlfriends also wore black, but they couldn’t be more different from her. Loren wore leggings with a black vest, her short hair recently cut to put more emphasis on her natural makeup. Maya sported an off-the-shoulder dress that complemented her dark brown hair and the tanned hue of her skin. All three looked more Californian than Rhea, who still couldn’t believe she hailed from the beach-bum capital of California, let aloneAmerica.
Nobody there was a natural exhibitionist, yet it didn’t stop Maya from sitting in Jocie’s lap and sharing a drink with her, their lips comically smacking together every time they sipped at the same time. Loren sat beside them, rolling her eyes and looking at Rhea as if to ask,“See what I put up with?”Rhea didn’t see the problem. She knew Loren was as freaky as the rest.
It also served as a lovely reminder that Rhea had no interest in introducing a third to her marriage, not even as a plaything first, girlfriend second. That was the kind of stuff that stayed in her stories… where they belonged.
“Let’s play a game.” Jocie squeezed Maya closer to her as she made her magnanimous announcement to their group of loveseats. “Called ‘two truths and a lie, with a twist.’”
“No,” Loren instantly said. “Absolutely not. Your games suck.”
Jocie poked her in the thigh. “All the more reason for you to play,sweetie.”
Paige refrained from drinking her cocktail. “What’s the twist?”
“The twist is that whoever’s ‘it’ doesn’t talk until the end,” Jocie explained. “For example, if my sexy biscuit here wasit…” Maya squealed in embarrassed delight as Jocie kissed her right on the heavy cleavage, “I would say two things about her I knew were true, as well as something I was like 99% sure was a lie. Everyone else has to guess the lie. If everyone guesses, I take a drink. If it turns out it’snota lie, I have to chug the whole drink in one go.”
“Interesting,” Paige said. “What happens if nobody guesses the lie?”
“Then the person who’s ‘it’ takes the drink.”
Loren looked at her girlfriend as if she were crazy. “How is this fun?”
“For that,” Jocie announced, “you’re going to beitfirst, and I’m the one who is going to guess two truths and a lie about you.”
“If you want to get drunk, just get drunk,” Loren muttered.
“Because you hate me when I’m drunk!”
“Wrong. I hate it when you throw up in my toilet and are too hungover in the morning to admit that you’re not twenty anymore.”
Paige glanced at her wife before saying, “Sure. Let’s play.”
“All right.” Jocie shoved the drink she shared with Maya into her girlfriend’s hand. “Loren, you’re up. You’re in the hot seat.”
“I’malwaysin the hot seat around your ass.”
“Okay, but you like it.”
“You sure like to think that I like it.”
