Ghost Days, page 3
Parrish’s legs were on the outside, knees breaking the surface. Garza had positioned her shorter legs in the center of the tub. Their four knees looked like a shining archipelago separating the continents of their bodies. Garza reclined against the curve of the tub, her arms resting on the edge. Parrish’s arms were inside the tub pushing her breasts together, intentionally or not, and Garza found herself staring at the pale pink nipples she’d spent the past few hours getting to know very well. Parrish’s face, throat, and arms were dotted with freckles of varying darkness. The parts of her that were usually exposed - arms, hands, face, were obviously darker. But more clusters were scattered across her breasts, stomach, thighs... Garza hoped she would have time to map them all.
They hadn’t had a real conversation since that morning. Parrish had made her come with her mouth, and then Garza fucked her on the floor of the kitchen. Then they dressed and Parrish drove them to town to buy groceries, since Garza finally had to admit she really didn’t have much food in the house. She was self-conscious as she walked the aisles of the store, certain everyone could smell what they’d done. She thought Parrish felt the same way, the way she hid behind Garza’s shoulder and refused to wander out of her sight. It was like she didn’t want anyone else to get too close to her. They’d washed up, to a degree, in the sink before they left the house, but she knew that was a piss-poor substitute to actual bathing.
When they got back to the house, Parrish offered to make them a meal. “It’s my one concession to domesticity,” she explained, “and I only do it because I love cooking.” They sat down together to eat, and Garza tried to picture being okay with just this. No deeper feelings, no intimate conversations, just wild and passionate sex and quiet meals together. It wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world. And the sex was phenomenal. They’d fucked again after lunch, napped, and now they were in the bath together.
“I know you said we weren’t going to have deeper conversations,” Garza said, “but I’ve gotta know how you usually fill your days. Do you have chores or a job or something? You just spent the entire day lounging around my house naked. Why’s your schedule so free?”
“I don’t have any responsibilities that can’t be put off for a day or two.” Parrish grinned and closed her eyes, settling back against the tub. “Mr. Oakhill makes a very good living.”
“So you’re a kept woman?”
“You say that like it’s a bad thing.”
Garza said, “So you get a place to stay. Spending money, probably. And what exactly does Saul get from you?”
Parrish raised an eyebrow. “You’ve been appreciating it too much to have already forgotten how good it is.”
“I thought this whole endeavor was because he didn’t appreciate... that.”
“He appreciates it,” Parrish said unconvincingly. “He definitely doesn’t mind it. He gets hard just like any other man, barely takes any prompting from me to get him ready to go. But I guess if you want a more sincere answer, I give him respectability. I give him, mm... normal. His bank has parties. His colleagues invite him to barbecues with the big boss. A man of a certain age showing up unchaperoned? Well, that would raise eyebrows. So I pretty myself up and put my arm around his, we kiss in his boss’ backyard so he’ll be remembered at promotion time.”
Garza shook her head. “I couldn’t live like that.”
“Like what?”
“A prop.”
Parrish rolled her eyes. “We all do what we have to in this life. This is far less demeaning than some other things I could be doing to make a living.”
Garza grunted. She had a point there.
She shifted against the tub, trying to sit up straighter, and her foot slipped forward and brushed firmly between Parrish’s legs. Parrish jumped, chuckled, and then settled back into place.
“Well, hi there,” she said.
Garza considered her options. Then she moved her foot again, this time intentionally resting it against Parrish’s sex. She pressed down just hard enough to make herself known. Parrish tensed, lowered her chin, locked her eyes on Garza.
“What are you doing?” Parrish asked under her breath.
“Not sure,” Garza admitted. “This, I think...”
She bent her knee a little, moving the arch of her foot until she felt Parrish’s softness against the meaty part of her foot just under her big toe. She rolled her ankle like she was crushing a cigarette in slow motion. Just the slightest amount of pressure, a smooth roll. Parrish lifted her arms out of the water and gripped the edge of the tub with both hands, rolling her head back until her chin pointed to the ceiling. She was breathing hard now, and Garza watched the rise and fall of her breasts as she moved her foot in a way that felt alien but also strangely familiar.
Parrish moved her hand under the water and loosely gripped Garza’s ankle, meaning to guide her, but Garza shook her head.
“Don’t. Let me.”
Parrish put her hand back on the edge of the tub, closed her eyes. “I can’t believe how amazing it feels. Weird... but...” She sighed and rolled her head back. “Amazing.”
Garza didn’t know if she’d go as far as amazing, but it was certainly interesting. And it let her watch Parrish’s pleasure from a distance, which she greatly enjoyed. Her foot wasn’t as limber as a hand, and her leg moved more awkwardly than an arm for this purpose, but when she figured out the angle and the pressure, Parrish arched her back and closed her legs around her calf.
“There, don’t stop. Oh God...”
Garza watched Parrish’s face as she came, her jaw trembling, eyelids fluttering. When her body relaxed, and reached down and pulled Garza’s foot up out of the water and placed it on her stomach, stroking it with her fingers in a gentle massage. She sat up straighter, opened her eyes, and after a few seconds focused them on Garza.
“You just gave me an orgasm with your foot, Miss Garza.”
“Yeah,” Garza said. “Didn’t know I could do that.”
Parrish let go of her foot and pushed herself up. Garza was mesmerized by the water cascading down her curves, dripping from her nipples and down her thighs. She stood above Garza for a moment, the birth of Venus all over again, and then she stepped out of the water and stood dripping on the mat. She held out her hand to Garza.
“Let’s see what some other parts of your body can do.”
Chapter Four
Thursday
“You dress like a man.”
Garza rolled over, put her hands behind her head, and stretched her legs out from under the blanket. She’d been awake for a few minutes, stirred by Parrish sliding out from under her to go to the bathroom, but she hadn’t opened her eyes or shifted position. She had almost fallen back to sleep when Parrish ruined it by speaking, forcing her to see why the other woman hadn’t come back to bed. She was standing in front of the closet, fully nude, examining the shirts hanging in order of color. There wasn’t much variety, but Garza could see the shift from dark white to brown even if no one else could.
“I dress comfortably,” Garza argued. “It’s not my fault that they market those things to men.”
“So you’re not playing dress-up?” She found a pair of trousers and stepped into them, tugging them up to her hips. Parrish was taller and Garza was wider at the hips, but she was able to get them buttoned. “Not trying to be a man or trick people?”
“Well,” Garza said, enjoying the show, “it helps if they don’t realize I’m a woman until they’re actually standing in front of me. Harder for them to suddenly decide to go with someone else. I don’t have any desire to be a man, but letting people assume I am one certainly has its benefits.”
“I thought you were a man at first,” Parrish admitted. “It was the main reason I got out of the car. I wanted to get a closer look at you.”
Garza raised an eyebrow. “So you planned this from the start?”
“Well, not this exactly.” She slipped on one of Garza’s shirts. The sleeves were too short, so she rolled them up to her elbows. “But a strapping young mechanic-slash-pilot was a prospect I couldn’t pass up. When I saw you were a woman, well... I spent the whole drive home thinking of the possibilities.”
She found a fedora on the top shelf of the closet and put it on, tucking her hair up underneath. She left the shirt unbuttoned so that when she turned around and spread her arms out, her breasts and stomach were on full display. She grinned and then put her hands on her hips.
“What do you think?” She ran her finger along the brim of the hat. “Do I make a good boy?”
“You’re lacking a few parts,” Garza said, “but I’m not going to miss ‘em.”
Parrish put her hands in her pockets and slumped her shoulders a bit, adding a swagger to her walk as she paced in front of the bed.
“Maybe if I dressed like this all the time, Saul would be a little more excitable.”
Garza felt a twinge of jealousy at the mention of him, but she fought it down. She knew exactly what this was, and she couldn’t deny the tingles building from the sight of Parrish dressed like a man.
“Maybe you could borrow that get-up. Give him a real welcome home.” She thrust suggestively with her hips.
“It would be a little hard to explain where they came from.”
Garza furrowed her brow. “Just tell him they’re mine.”
Parrish laughed. She climbed onto the bed and straddled Garza’s legs, walking up her body until she could settle on her waist.
“Then he’d wonder why I’m borrowing clothes from you.”
Garza propped herself up onto her elbows. “You’re not going to tell him about us?”
Parrish looked horrified at the thought. “Why in the world would I do that?”
“You said he knew... you both had a... an arrangement.”
“We do. But I don’t give him details. And I certainly don’t want to know what he’s getting up to in Calgary. These are ghost days, you understand? They’re not normal days that add up on the calendar. They’re the special days. Like your birthday or Christmas or the first day of summer vacation. The last day of summer vacation. The most special of days, when it feels like anything can happen. Because anything can happen.”
“Ghost days,” Garza said quietly.
“And no one else gets to be part of our ghost days.” She put her hand in the center of Garza’s chest and gently urged her down onto her back. When she was flat again, Parrish moved her hand to caress Garza’s breast. She pinched the nipple between her first two fingers. “The stuff happening in Calgary is all for him. And this is all for us. Is that okay?”
Garza tried not to be distracted by her nipples getting hard under Parrish’s touch, or by how good Parrish looked in her clothes, or how great it was being under her.
“Do you know how weird it’s going to be sitting in a plane with him for two hours and not saying anything?”
“You think it will be less weird if he knows we’ve spent the past couple days fucking?”
She had a point there. “So I’m just choosing between which flavor of awkwardness I’m more comfortable with.”
Parrish stopped playing with her nipple and started idly running her hands over Garza’s chest. Her fingers were splayed to cover as much space as possible.
“And this keeps things between us. We don’t have to worry about how he would feel about being in a plane with you. Ignorance is bliss, after all. As long as I’m happy, he doesn’t need to know who is making me happy.”
“I guess,” Garza said.
Parrish bit her bottom lip. “What time do you have to be in the air?”
“I’m picking him up at 5:30. I want to be there and refueled when he’s ready to go, so I should probably leave here by two.”
Parrish looked at the clock, nodded, and bent down to kiss Garza.
“Plenty of time.”
***
Garza saw Mr. Oakhill’s car on the road below the plane as she took off. Parrish stuck her arm out the window and waved, so Garza wagged the wings a bit in response. She still didn’t know how she felt about their agreement. Keeping quiet felt illicit, like cheating, because that’s exactly what it was without Saul’s side of the story. But she couldn’t exactly ask him to confirm without giving everything away. The man was logical, he would know there’s only one reason she would ask about that. So she had to take Parrish’s word that it was true and hope for the best.
However she felt about the situation long-term, she was grateful there was a solid endpoint to it for now. She could put some literal and figurative distance between herself and Christine Parrish so she could get her head on straight and think clearly about what to do next.
It was so risky to mix business with literal pleasure. She never fucked a client (“Hah!”) and she didn’t see how fucking a client’s wife was anything but a lateral move.
The ‘hah’ had been so real to her that she actually looked over her shoulder to make sure she was really alone in the plane. No sign of anyone, let alone the person she knew the voice had belonged to, so she faced forward and ignored it. She had two hours to get her thoughts in order before she would have to sit next to the man she was potentially cuckolding.
“Not that it bothered you before.”
Garza bent her head to the left, the right, keeping her eyes straight ahead, not daring to look in the copilot’s seat. If she just ignored the voice in her head, it would fade. It would stop getting in the way.
Lips warm against her ear, she shuddered. “Just a bit of fun,” Renee Barrett whispered, her fingers unbuttoning Garza’s shirt. They were only a few feet away from the rest of the class. She could hear their voices, the music, celebrating their graduation. She remembered the weight of Renee’s body pinning her to the outside wall of the hangar. Not that Garza was doing anything to escape. She kept perfectly still, like she was trying to become invisible, to sink into the metal of the wall, if that was the only way to escape Renee’s touch and ignore how much she wanted it.
“Mrs. Barrett...” Garza said.
“Mm-mm. Not here, not now,” Renee said, placing a kiss on her jaw, “we’re just two people. Erika... and...”
“Renee.” Her voice was a harsh whisper.
“Good girl.” Renee’s voice was a soft purr. “Two people who deserve a little relaxation. It’s no different than touching yourself in the shower. Or under the covers when you go to bed. Which do you prefer, Erika? Do you touch yourself in the shower or in bed?”
Garza’s cheeks burned, both in the memory and reliving it on the plane. The question was a trap, no option for saying she didn’t do it at all, no opportunity to lie. Her mouth was bone dry, as if all the moisture in her body was going somewhere else. She squirmed and finally looked Renee in the eye. Her instructor, more than a decade her senior, but for fuck’s sake why did that make it hotter?
“In bed,” Garza finally admitted.
Renee smiled, which drew Garza’s attention to her lips. “I like doing it in bed, too. I like feeling the sheets on my bare legs.”
Garza had responded to that information with a guttural whimper, a noise she didn’t know she could make.
“We could watch each other do it sometime,” Renee suggested. At some point, her hand had moved into Garza’s now fully-unbuttoned shirt, and her fingertips were hot on her collarbone. “Would you like that, Erika?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Good.”
Renee leaned in and pressed her lips to the corner of Garza’s mouth, then kissed her hard and passionate. Garza cried out, the sound muffled by Renee’s tongue, but then she leaned into it. She clung to Renee, desperate to make her first kiss last as long as possible before it ended. She’d fought this for so long, denied this attraction, ignored the images that popped into her head when she masturbated, but now that she’d given in, she never wanted to let go of it.
“All right, stop, stop,” Renee whispered, pushing Garza back against the wall. Her eyes were shining in the dark, and her hands were like vices on Garza’s shoulders. “When I leave, wait ten minutes and follow me. I’ll be waiting just outside the airport in my car. Get in the passenger side. I’ll take you home. Okay?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Renee softly stroked Garza’s cheek. Then she looked away to make sure no one else had wandered out from the hangar. Confirming they were alone, she kissed Garza one more time and then let go of her, walked away from her, marched back into the light and shouted to someone as if the last five minutes hadn’t happened. Her skin felt like it had been flayed off, leaving only exposed nerves everywhere. She shuddered and took a moment to compose herself, buttoning her shirt before she followed Renee back into the hangar.
Inside, Renee had become Mrs. Barrett once more. She was their instructor, the woman who had spent the past few weeks teaching them everything they needed to know about a plane. “It’s not just about what you do at the controls,” she’d said at the beginning of the class. “It’s about know what those controls do, and how they do it, and how to keep yourself alive when something goes wrong.” She was strict, she was uncompromising, the kind of instructor who would praise you one second and then berate you for a mistake the next.
The transformation was so complete and convincing that Garza started to think maybe she’d hallucinated the entire exchange in the dark. Everything from Mrs. Barrett putting a hand on her shoulder and whispering, “Could I see you outside for a moment, Miss Garza?” to coming back inside was just a fantasy. It wouldn’t have been the first fantasy she had about her instructor. But it would have certainly been the most vivid.
But then Renee bid everyone a good night and, at the door, caught Garza’s eye. She held the stare for too long to be accidental, and then she was gone.
