Chapter 1

Red lips.

Smooth skin.

Perfume.

These are tricks a lot of women know. Stella had learned and later, re-learned them. Men like silky hair and clinging dresses, high heels and gartered stockings like the ones she wears now. In her twenties she taught herself how to be sexy for a man; it wasn’t until she was older that she discovered it was so much better to be sexy for herself.

Her feet whisper on the cool industrial tiles as she tips her scarlet-soled pumps into the bin and pushes it along the rollers toward the x-ray machine. Next, her bag, which she affectionately calls the Tardis. Like the traveling police box time machine from an old favorite TV show, Stella’s bag is bigger on the inside. It can hold a weekend’s worth of everything a woman needs to make herself beautiful, plus a book in case she doesn’t find anyone worth being beautiful for.

Her coat goes next. She’d prefer to keep it on, but even if they let her through the scanner with it, the buckle will set off the alarm. Then again, so will the clips on her garters, probably. At this point, Stella knows most of the TSA agents who work at the Harrisburg International airport by name. They still have to pat her down, of course, but by now it’s become sort of a game for them and for her.

“Hi, Pete.” She doesn’t miss the way his gaze dips to her seam-stockinged toes and lingers on her calves when she turns to add her cellphone to a second bin before pushing that one through behind the first. She can’t see it, but she’s sure he takes a good, long look at her ass too.

This is good.

It doesn’t matter that Pete is at least her father’s age and wears a walrus mustache. Or that he’s married with kids and grandkids whose pictures he proudly displays on his phone. Or even that the gum he chews constantly can’t cover up the pervasive odor of bad breath. It doesn’t matter that she will never take Pete home and fuck him.

It only matters that she could, if she wanted to. If she tried hard enough. If she let him stand a little too close, breathe a little too hard, if she shifted just the right way so the slit in her dress parted just enough to give him a glimpse of her bare thighs.

Stella is pretty sure Pete thinks she’s a relatively expensive call girl, or at the very least some rich man’s mistress. It’s the clothes, hair, the manicured nails. It’s the shoes. There’s no way for anyone to mistake anything about her for a woman on a business trip, unless her business is pleasure. Pete doesn’t know she doesn’t get paid for any of this, at least not with money.

“Where you off to tonight?” Pete lets the wand move up and down her body as she holds up her arms. The wand beeps around her thighs. He moves it again, slowly. Up and down. “Sorry about this, Stella.”

“No problem.” Her warm smile isn’t forced. He doesn’t know it’s as much artifice as the fake lashes and fingernails. The only difference is she doesn’t need glue to hold it in place. “I’m used to it by now.”

He waves her to the side, where a pair of TSA agents will pat her down, explaining the process every step of the way and asking repeatedly for her permission to touch her in places that no longer even feel intimate. Stella makes it easy for them. She’s seen people who complain and scowl, who grumble about their “freedoms” or make stupid jokes about the agents’ sexuality as though anyone could possibly get turned on by having to put their hands on strangers who didn’t bother to look in the mirror before they left the house and could really use a couple hundred hours’ time in the gym. Then again, she thinks with a small, secret smile, she shouldn’t be surprised at what turns people on.

The agent bending to slide her fingers up Stella’s calf is new, or at least has never worked the Friday night shift before when Stella’s passing through. Her name tag says Maria. She has dark hair, slicked into a tight bun that can’t disguise the natural curl. Big dark eyes fringed with lashes that don’t need to be glued on. Her mouth isn’t painted red, but it’s lush and glistening just the same. She does her job efficiently, barely cracking a smile. Not unfriendly, but definitely distant. When she looks up, Stella, who’s looking down, thinks she understands why.

Stella’s never been with a woman, but that doesn’t mean she hasn’t thought about it. These tricks — they work on women too. That gleam of interest, however faint and trying to be ignored, calls to her just as much as it does in a man’s eyes, because all of this effort that Stella makes isn’t so much about the wanting as being wanted.

When Maria’s fingertips skate along the inside of her thighs, Stella’s reaction is immediate but not unconscious. Her feet shift on the blue-painted marks on the floor, the rough paint that could snag her stockings if she’s not careful. The tiniest amount, not enough to draw attention to herself, but the agent notices. Their eyes meet. Under the layers of silk and lace, Stella throbs.

Maria looks away.

What would it be like to hide yourself that way, so the world can’t guess something that is such a basic part of you? Such a defining thing? Stella understands. Everyone has secrets, and most of them are about sex.

Maria doesn’t look at her again, not throughout the entire rest of the inspection, and her voice doesn’t falter as she gives, in monotone, the speech and instructions Stella could recite from memory. Stella’s voice, however, has gone husky when she gives her permission for every single pat of Maria’s hands against her. By the time it’s over, Stella feels flushed and shivery; she fumbles with her belongings and Maria has to help with her coat and bag.

“Take your time, ma’am,” Maria says in a neutral voice. “Have a nice day.”

Stella slips into her shoes and pulls the bag along behind her, her coat over her arm. She doesn’t look back, keeps her head high, draws in breath after breath to keep herself steady. In the bathroom, she locks herself inside a stall and leans against the chilly metal, eyes closed, and pushes her hands into the slit of her wrap dress. Up the insides of her thighs, over the stockings and bare flesh, to press her clit through her panties. Her back arches. Her nipples are hard. She lets herself imagine for a few moments what it would be like to have that woman’s face against her flesh. Those lush lips between her legs. Would it be different than the beard-rough touch of a man? Probably. She laughs at herself, but silently, and at the sink splashes water on a paper towel before pressing it to the back of her neck.

She studies her reflection. Dark-lined eyes against pale skin, those red lips. Her hair is naturally auburn, worn to the shoulders, usually with the ends curling up, but not tonight. She wears it in a deep side part now, pinned behind one ear and hanging loose on the other. Because she’s alone in the bathroom, she allows herself to give the woman in the mirror a sly smile and an assessing gaze. Stella doesn’t stare at herself because she’s vain. She does it so she knows how she looks to other people. She does it so she can be sure the expressions she feels on her face look real, her smile bright or sexy or sympathetic as needed and not some Joker-faced grin. She used to never have to think about how she looked, but that was a long time ago. She was a different woman then, one who never worried about her makeup or hair or if she was going to scare someone with her smile.

She’s gotten better at it.

She touches up her lipstick and powders her nose. She adjusts her stockings and her pushup bra, opens the neckline of her dress just a little bit more. She slips into her coat and belts it. By the time she gets to the gate, her plane is boarding and she waits patiently in line to take the seat that’s left. Sometimes when she gets to the gate she finds out she won’t be going where she thought she would, that she’ll have to try another flight, but not often. Harrisburg’s airport might be international, but it’s also very small and hardly ever busy. Tonight, there’s no problem.

Tonight, she’s going to Atlanta.

It will be warmer there than it is in central Pennsylvania in late September, and that’s fine. Stella doesn’t plan on sightseeing. She’ll barely even leave the airport. One night in, the next out. She has that book if she’s not lucky…but she almost always is.

She likes the Hartsfield-Jackson airport in Atlanta. It has a couple of nice bars and coffee shops where she can sip iced tea or coffee or the occasional hot cocoa, depending on her mood. Like every airport she’s ever used, it has a wide selection of hotels no more than a quick shuttle ride from the terminal. She belongs to all the rewards programs. It only ever takes a quick call to confirm a cheap vacancy.

Stella is still thinking of Maria when she sits at the bar and settles her bag at her feet. Having to keep it with her is one inconvenience about these trips, but also the easiest escape route. She can always say she’s on her way to catch a plane if she needs an excuse to get away. She’s used it a few times, though there’s the possibility she’ll be caught in the lie when the man whose attentions she’s fleeing sees her in a different bar with a different man — but really, what does she care? She doesn’t owe them anything, even if they do buy her a drink or three. Even if she does lean a little closer than is necessary, fluttering her lashes, or crosses her legs artfully so that her dress gives them a glimpse of her unspoken promises.

Today wasn’t the first time she’s ever been checked out by a woman. Women look each other over all the time. Women assess each other with bright and knowing eyes that broadcast their approval, envy, disdain. The tricks of gloss and glitter are meant to lure men, but impress other women. Stella might have to study her reflection to know if an expression is portraying what she means it to. All she has to do is look at other women to know if her body’s doing the same thing.

Still, there is something different about being looked over and checked out. That fleeting glimpse of desire in Maria’s eyes, coupled with the too-polite way she went about her inspection have lit a familiar fire inside Stella. Sometimes, she likes to flirt and be coy, to dance around her desires and draw them out. Make the outcome uncertain. Sometimes, she likes to be pursued. And sometimes, like tonight, she wants to be the one making someone else cross the line they might not even know they had.

A man sits down beside her. One always does. He doesn’t try to hide his assessment of her, and it’s nicely appreciative. He’s conventionally attractive — square jaw, good haircut, a few feathery lines of crow’s feet and a glint of silver at his temples. Businessman, suit and tie, white shirt, nice watch. Class ring on his wedding finger. He smells good.

He’s not what she wants. Other nights, definitely, but not this one. Stella makes a quarter turn with her body away from him, and focuses her attention on her phone. He gets the hint, orders a drink and lets his attention fall on a woman on the other side of him. Stella eavesdrops on his opening line. It would’ve worked on her. Almost all do.

She sees what she wants. He’s sitting at the other end of the bar with a pint glass of beer in front of him. He’s watching the sports channel on the flatscreen above the bartender. He’s youngish, at least a few years younger than her. Clean cut, dark hair cropped close, no hint of a beard. He wears a long-sleeved black shirt and black trousers, and yes, she looks for it — the peek of a white collar from his pocket.

Stella has made an art of observation. She studies him surreptitiously, noting the black bag nestled at his feet like a faithful dog. Was that a line from Death of a Salesman, or had she made it up? The bag’s the sort you get at a conference, emblazoned with a dove and the words Episcopal Diocese Fall Clergy Conference circling it.

Episcopalian, not Roman Catholic, but it still makes him a priest.

Guh.

He doesn’t look around the bar even when a couple of women pass right behind him on the way to the bathroom. Not even when one of them brushes his shoulder with her bag as she passes. He looks up long enough to move his chair when there’s a little bit of a roadblock between the kitchen and bathroom, so he’s not totally oblivious or entranced by the week’s sports highlights. But he’s definitely a guy who’s there to enjoy a beer and some food, not company. Especially not female company. If the tucked away collar didn’t give that away, the onion rings do.

Stella finishes her drink and gathers her things. She gets little more attention from him than the other women did, but when she sits next to him, he does give her a quick glance and a small, polite smile. Stella returns it with the same lack of heat and interest. When the bartender tells her that yes, they do have iced tea, she orders a glass, and when it arrives she makes a show of looking for the sugar.

“Oh…excuse me.” A smile with the right amount of friendly, her gaze kept indirect enough not to be threatening. She points to the small dish of packets to his right. “Could you pass me the sugar?”

She’s already seen that the dish contains a rainbow of artificial sweeteners. He pushes it to her with a murmured “oh, sure.” Stella frowns. This time when she looks at him, she makes sure to catch his eye completely. Another smile, this one a little slower. She holds his gaze a little longer than is comfortable before she says, “Is there any real sugar?”

He looks again to his right, but this is a bar, not a diner. She’s judged him correctly, though. Before she can say anything, he’s waving at the bartender and asking for real sugar, which the bartender has to hunt for beneath the bar for a moment before he passes over a handful of white packets. They spill from the man’s hands, across the polished top of the bar, and Stella laughs as she helps scoop them up and tuck them into place alongside their chemical cousins.

“Thanks,” she says. It’s enough. She thought it might be.

He smiles at her. “You’re welcome.”

She tears two packets at the same time and stirs the sugar into the tea, then takes out the long spoon and tucks it in her mouth to suck the sweetness before setting it on the napkin in front of her. He looks away, but not quickly enough. She leans closer, but not too much.

“I hate the taste of artificial sweeteners.” This is a dance. Maybe he knows it. Maybe he doesn’t. But Stella does, and she’s very careful with the steps. “They’re terrible.”

“Yeah, I know what you mean.” He lets his gaze tilt toward her again, but not his body. His hands close around his glass, but he doesn’t drink.

Gloss and glitter. It’s like dangling a sequined worm in sun-dappled waters, letting it drift and catch the light until the fish decides it wants to bite. The question is, will he bite? Will he?

“Some crazy weather, huh?” The second he opens his mouth to speak, it doesn’t matter what he says. It means he’s hooked. He points at the TV, across which a banner is running. Freak tornados have swept the Midwest and also odd places on the East Coast that don’t usually see them. He doesn’t quite look at her and she’s most definitely not looking at him, but she can feel him sneaking a peek.

For one long second, she feigns inattention enough that his words don’t turn her toward him. But then… “Hmm? Oh. Yes! Crazy.” A soft frown, a crease of concern. “Those poor people. I hope nobody’s hurt.”

“A few have died, I think.” Other men might’ve said it with a hint of suppressed glee, the joy of the unscathed, but this guy…His sincerity is probably genuine. “And who knows how much the damage will cost.”

Stella angles her body, the smallest twitch, toward him. “Yeah. Scary. Have you ever been in a tornado?”

The question, as she’d meant it to, seems to take him a bit off guard. He shakes his head. His body angles toward hers too, almost like an afterthought. “No. Have you?”

She shakes her head. “No. I hope I never am. With my luck, I’d end up in Oz, dropping my house on a witch.”

He laughs. He has nice white teeth. Straight. The lines at the corners of his eyes settle him as older than she’d thought. He looks at her now, really looks. There’s that gleam, deliciously reluctant, and it sparks a fresh heat inside her.

“I’m Glenn.” He holds out his hand.

She takes it. The shake is firm and brief, still utterly polite. “Maria. Should I call you Father?”

He looks almost startled for a second, and when he lets go of her hand, his fingers touch his throat briefly. Then his pocket. “Oh. No. I mean, you don’t have to.”

Her head tilts, gaze taking him in, like the smile a few seconds longer than is necessary. “Would you like me to?”

For half a breath, she thinks she’s misjudged him. Either he has no secrets or he’s just that good at keeping them. But then… “You can just call me Glenn. Maria.”

There’s conversation after that. About the weather. About the game on TV — he’s impressed she knows enough about the sport to keep up. Men always are; it annoys or amuses her, depending on the situation. Tonight, she’s amused. They talk of other things, too. Music, for one. Concerts. He’s been to see a few of the bands she likes. He shares some of her favorite songs. By the time an hour passes, she has him leaning in to her, getting closer. He offers her an onion ring and laughs when she declines. They order a plate of mozzarella sticks to share.

They don’t talk again about his collar…or it’s place in his pocket instead of around his throat. She expects that at any minute he’ll tell her he has to leave. They are in an airport, after all. Then he explains his plane’s been delayed by those very same storms that had started their conversation. She tells him she’s also been delayed because of weather, and as lies go, it’s so small it could almost be the truth.

There’s a moment when she can tip this the other way. She can thank him for the food and the iced teas he paid for. She can walk away and let him keep the secrets he already has, instead of becoming one more he has to keep. Stella, momentarily moral, stands to wish him a good night and good luck.

Glenn stands too. He asks her where she’s staying. The moment for doing the right thing has passed, and who’s to say what’s right and wrong, anyway? He’s an adult. She isn’t forcing him.

All she did was offer the temptation. He doesn’t have to take it. But as she gathers her bag and he helps her with her coat, Stella knows he already has.

“I have a reservation at the Mariott,” he tells her.

“Me too,” she says, and excuses herself to the restroom, where she makes one.

In the lobby, she gets her key while Glenn studies the nondescript paintings of horses and flowers with the intensity deserving art hung in the Met. She’s asked for a room on the lobby level — no elevators, no stairs, just the shortest of walks down a hallway smelling of antiseptic. They pass a housekeeping cart, and as always she fights the urge to hook a couple of soaps and some tiny shampoos she doesn’t need. Just wants.

At the door, she turns to him with a smile. “Good night, Glenn. Thanks for walking me.”

“You’re welcome.”

Stella’s the one who offers her hand. Palm to palm, fingers link, and there’s a long, slow and lingering squeeze. She tugs him, gently. One step closer. Then another. There’s only space enough for a breath between them, and she takes it. In these shoes, all she has to do is tilt her head and offer her mouth, let her tugging hand make him believe she’s pulling him when he’s the one taking the steps.

She doesn’t kiss him. That’s important. Stella lets Glenn start the kiss, and she lets him break it, too. She keeps her eyes closed and can’t stop herself from smiling. Without opening them or looking to make sure they’re alone in the hallway, she leans back against the door to her room and puts his hand, fingers still linked with hers, inside her dress. Against her skin. She curls her fingers around his so that his knuckles brush lace and heat. He kisses her again, harder this time.

Glenn’s tongue strokes hers. He’s an excellent kisser. The hand not between her legs slides up her body, over her breasts, to cup the back of her neck. He breathes a little moan into her mouth, and Stella arches against him.

This is what she likes, what she craves. This is what she wants. Being wanted so much he’ll do anything, finger her in a hotel doorway, maybe fuck her right there, not caring about anything but getting his cock inside her.

“Inside,” Glenn whispers against her lips.

Her eyes open as she fits the key into the slot without turning around. The door swings open, and they push through it without moving apart. They’re already at the bed by the time the door clicks shut. Glenn’s hand is still against her cunt, his mouth on hers. His hand on the back of her neck keeps her from falling.

He breaks the kiss and presses his forehead to hers, eyes closed. He licks his lips. It’s Stella’s turn to cup the back of his neck, and she feels him shudder at her touch. She’s no longer holding his hand between her legs, but he hasn’t moved it. His fingers uncurl enough to slide beneath the lace.

She’s been wet for hours. His fingertips slide against her. They brush her clit, and Stella groans against him. The sound is low and raw. She doesn’t care. She wants him to hear the desire in her voice the same way he feels it between her legs.

She wants to hold nothing back.

Because this is what Stella really wants and craves and needs and seeks. This naked, somehow desperate connection of two people who don’t even know each other’s last names, but know exactly how the other tastes. Glenn tastes like guilt and fervor. She wants to eat him up, so she opens her mouth and invites his tongue inside.

Should she be surprised when he goes to his knees in front of her with a mutter like a prayer? Still, it startles her enough that if the bed weren’t behind her, she’d have backed away. She can’t move, and even if she could, his hands move to the backs of her thighs and hold her still. He doesn’t look up at her face when he pulls the tie at her side open, nor when her dress falls open to show off her pale blue, lacy bra and matching panties. The garter belt and stockings she loves so much.

The hair, the mouth, the shoes, the tits and ass and pussy no longer matter. When she stands in front of a lover for the first time — and there are only ever first times, first and last at the same time, she wants to hide herself behind her hands. She wants to fuck in darkness so everything becomes nothing but heat, scent and touch. So they don’t have to see her scars.

Men don’t care. She understands this. By the time she’s naked in front of them, their cocks are hard and their mouths hungry. They see curves and flesh. Nothing else. That’s why no matter how much she wants to hide, she never does. She stands naked in the light even though she’d prefer the darkness, because she deserves this scrutiny and though it’s more than a little twisted, she loves and craves the agony it brings her.

Glenn kisses her through the lace. He shivers, his hands moving up to cup her ass and pull her closer. One slips around the front to pull her panties aside, giving his tongue room to find her clit. It’s good, oh fuck, it’s so astoundingly good that her fingers have wound into his hair before she realizes it. Her hips bump forward. He sucks gently on her swollen flesh.

Then he looks up at her.

His mouth is wet, eyes bright. There is that desire she wants to see, along with the guilt she tasted in his kisses. He swallows, hard. “Maria. I —”

“Shhh.” Her fingers twist in his hair for a second before she softens her grip to pass her hand over his head and down to cup his cheek. Episcopalian priests don’t take vows of chastity. They can get married. Get divorced. Still, she imagines his congregation might judge him harshly, as he seems to be judging himself. “It’s okay. Nobody will ever know.”

Glenn shudders and presses his cheek to her thigh as his fingers dimple her ass. His breath is hot through the lace of her panties. His tongue, wet. His teeth press her skin, and she braces herself for the sting. He doesn’t bite her. She’s a little disappointed.

It took her a few trials to figure out the best way to wear lingerie is to put the panties on over the garter belt, so they can be easily removed without having to take off the stockings first. It makes it so much easier to fuck in places where it might be important to keep most of her clothes on.

Glenn’s fingers hook into the lace and pull her panties over her hips, her thighs. She steps out of them, and he uses his hands to settle her on the edge of the bed. Still kneeling, he parts her with his thumbs and finds her clit with his lips and tongue. Oh, God. His teeth. Again, not biting, though the pressure’s enough to make her muscles leap.

Stella opens herself to him. Legs spread. One goes over his shoulder, pulling him closer. Her hips rock under his mouth. Sometimes she bites her tongue to keep herself silent, but when he slides a finger inside her, she lets herself cry out again. She blindfolds herself with her hand.

Her pleasure is a spring, coiling tighter. Her world narrows, focused on the finesse of Glenn’s mouth and fingers. Even though she twitches and wriggles beneath him, he keeps the pace steady, almost teasing. She hovers close to orgasm, and he eases her off again and again, until in a sobbing breath, she begs.

“Please. Oh, please…please, please, please…”

He’s made her blind with desire, but not quite deaf. She hears the sharp intake of his breath and feels it against her. Then, finally, the relentless swipe of his tongue moving in time to his thrusting fingers. Stella goes over the edge, full-force. Her orgasm is brutal. It breaks her open so she’s left panting and limp, blinking away stars.

Still fully dressed, Glenn gets up and sits on the bed without touching her. He says nothing. Stella finds her breath and pushes up on her elbow to look at him. His head is bowed, shoulders slumped a little.

“I used to be married,” he says. “We split up a few years ago. And with my work, it’s hard…to find someone…dating is almost impossible. I’m…sorry.”

She wanted him to be reluctant. Not regretful. “Please don’t be. I’m not.”

His smile’s faint, but it’s real when he finally looks at her. “Would you be offended if I thanked you?”

Stella laughs, just a little. Shakes her head. “No. Of course not. I should thank you.”

When she puts her hand on his thigh, the muscles tense under her fingers. When she slides her hand a little higher, he covers it with his. She lets him stop her.

“I can return the favor,” she says, already anticipating the feeling of him inside her.

But Glenn shakes his head. “It was enough.”

“But I —” She stops, understanding suddenly and not wanting to make him feel bad.

Glenn looks a little embarrassed, but not too much. “It had been a long time. And you…you’re very sexy.”

He looks over her whole body so thoroughly that by the time his gaze meets hers, her cheeks have flushed. Again, she wants to cover herself, but settles for another thank you. When he leans close to kiss her, Stella puts both her hands on his face and holds him to her mouth. Then she hugs him close. His hands stroke her back before he lets her go.

He doesn’t ask to stay, and that’s fine because then she doesn’t have to find a way to ask him to leave. When he’s gone, Stella showers, opening her mouth to the spray to wash away the taste of him. Just once, she thinks, maybe some stranger she seduces will ask her about the scars. And maybe, someday, she’ll tell him.

The Bottomlands

Richard Bacula

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