A Real Mentor

Luisa

The faint hum of the engines provided the soundtrack for Luisa as she leaned back in the wide leather seat, her bare feet nestling into the soft wool of the blanket the flight attendant had given her.

It wasn't her first time flying business class, but it was her first time doing it long haul and Luisa had settled into it as if she belonged there. She turned her head slightly and watched Amy beside her, bathed in the soft overhead light, reading something on her tablet, a faint smile playing on her lips.

Luisa's stomach fluttered as there was a small jolt, a one off, nothing major, just a little turbulence. But, Luisa thought, it had been there before, every time she thought about Amy.

For a moment she just studied her. Amy's brown hair was tied back loosely, as it often was when she wanted to look casual but somehow ended up stunning anyway. She was dressed down in yoga leggings and a hoodie, but there was an elegance and comfortable self-possession about her even like that... legs folded under her, eyes focused, occasionally chewing on her lower lip as she read.

Luisa's fingers itched to reach out, to trace that jawline, to kiss those lips. God, she was in love. Stupidly, breathlessly in love.

And it scared the hell out of her.

Amy glanced over then, as if sensing the attention. Their eyes met, and the smile Amy gave her was soft, warm... intimate. The smile of someone who loved her too.

"You're staring," Amy said, sliding one earbud out. Her voice was quiet, for Luisa alone.

"You're beautiful," Luisa replied, smiling back.

Amy's smile widened just a little to almost a grin. "Careful," she teased, "flattery makes me dangerous."

Luisa laughed quietly, trying not to draw attention. Their flight was nearly empty, a mid-week flight from LA to London, and there were only six other passengers in the business class cabin, all of whom seemed to be asleep. The lights were dimmed and, if they were sensible, Amy and Luisa should be getting some sleep too.

They'd got a pair of seats next to each other, designed for couples travelling together, and with the divider down they were as good as sat in one giant seat, a perfect arrangement for them.

Amy reached out under the blanket between them and squeezed Luisa's knee, and Luisa's heart jumped. Amy just seemed to be able to do that to her, there was something almost intoxicating about her.

They'd been inseparable for three weeks in LA. Days spent over the weekends swimming, hiking, laughing at nothing. Nights spent out and then tangled together, mouths, hands, bodies hungry and sated, and hungry again. The only thing that had come between them was work, Amy needing to go to her office most days, Luisa doing a couple of photoshoots where she'd had to stay away for a few nights.

They'd told each other that they were in love, and they meant it. At least Luisa knew that she did... she loved Amy like she'd never loved anyone before.

But there was an undercurrent. Something unspoken. Something about this not being real life, a worry for Luisa that she was Amy's holiday fling, her rebound from splitting with her boyfriend, one of several alongside this person Sarah that she knew Amy had been seeing but rarely talked about and God knew who else.

Except Luisa wanted it to be real, with every fibre of her being.

Amy squeezed her knee again. "You're thinking too much," she said softly. "I can tell."

"You're not thinking enough," Luisa shot back, teasing.

Amy raised an eyebrow. "Am I not?"

And there was the game again, the little power play between them, the one Luisa lost willingly every time. Suspension of reality one day at a time, avoiding a conversation of what would make them real, a true relationship.

Ok, thought Luisa, time to play the game.

"Come here," Luisa said quietly.

Amy's brow furrowed, but she leaned closer, their heads nearly touching.

"What?" Amy whispered, smiling but wary.

"The lavatory," Luisa whispered back, feeling wicked and reckless and loving it. "The big one at the front. Five minutes."

Amy's smile took on a hungry edge. "You're serious?"

Luisa shrugged, feigning nonchalance. "Unless you've lost your nerve."

"I never had any nerve," Amy whispered with a quick kiss on Luisa's cheek, but she was already unfastening her seatbelt. "You're the reckless one."

Luisa sat there a moment longer after Amy left, letting the tension build. She knew how to make an entrance. After three minutes by her watch, no four, to make Amy wait she rose, stretching casually as if she were going for a walk. No one paid her any attention as she strolled toward the front of the cabin.

The door opened almost instantly when she knocked, and Amy pulled her in by the front of her hoodie. The door clicked shut behind them and Amy locked it.

Luisa pushed Amy back against the wall, her hands already sliding under Amy's hoodie, cold fingers meeting hot skin. Amy's breath caught.

"You're trouble," Amy said quietly, grabbing Luisa's hips.

"It takes two," Luisa said, and kissed her.

It was messy, desperate. Luisa didn't care. Her hands found Amy's breasts, pushing her bra up, her fingers teasing her nipples until she felt Amy moan into her mouth. Amy's own hands had found Luisa's ass and were squeezing hard.

"This was your idea," Amy whispered against her ear. "You'd better not half finish it."

Luisa laughed. "Shut up."

And then she was on her knees, Amy's yoga leggings and underwear tugged down just enough.

They were quick, but not quiet. As she got close, Luisa took hold of Amy's hand and held it against Amy's mouth, Amy moaning hard into it as her orgasm rolled through her, Amy's other hand holding on to Luisa's head, almost pulling her into Amy.

After a few moments, Amy helped her up and wiped Luisa's mouth clean of her wetness before kissing her slowly and passionately. "You're amazing," Amy said quietly.

Luisa's heart skipped, stuttered, then raced. "I know," Luisa replied, and she kissed her again before she could say anything more.

When they finally left the bathroom, they surprised one of the flight attendants who was passing, who flashed them a knowing grin before going back to her work.

They settled back in their seats, half reclined, cuddled up to each other as far as the seatbelts would allow, but after a few minutes got a surprise... the same flight attendant leaning over them.

Worried they were in trouble, Luisa relaxed when the flight attendant set down two glasses of champagne.

"Oh, we didn't order these," said Amy.

"You didn't need to," replied the flight attendant with a wink. "But I figured you'd want them."

Luisa felt herself blushing, and her and Amy sat there giggling, enjoying their surprise drinks, more in love with each other at that moment than ever.

Several hours later Luisa lay awake, the lights still dim, everyone else in the cabin asleep. Looking to her side she could see Amy deep asleep herself, her chest rising and falling slowly.

As she so often did when she couldn't sleep, she let her mind wander... and right then the only thing she could think about was Amy, and what their future held.

She loved Amy, without a doubt, and she could tell that when Amy told her she loved her too that she meant it. But... there were so many obstacles, so many things that could get in the way.

Distance, first of all. They lived 5,000 miles apart and while so far they'd made it work to see each other, Amy visiting LA twice so far as part of her work and now Luisa flying back to London with her to stay for a few days enroute to a modelling job in Italy, Luisa was enough of a realist to know that at some point the good luck with travel would stop and one or both of them would have a hard decision to make. Possibly a very hard, life changing decision.

But then, possibly more significant, was other people. Important other people in each of their lives. When they'd first met Amy was in a long term relationship with her then boyfriend James while also in a more transactional, secret relationship with a senior partner at her work, Sarah. If she was being brutal about it, Luisa had started seeing Amy in secret when Amy was already having an affair with someone else... not exactly a recipe for a long and healthy relationship built on an easy foundation of trust when put like that, particularly at long distance.

When they'd parted at the airport for Amy to fly back home that first time she could see Amy wavering, on the verge of her saying thank you for my holiday fling, this was nice, but I won't see you again. What else was she going to do when she had a long term boyfriend back home, not to mention Sarah?

Luisa, almost in desperation, had acted pre-emptively before Amy could go down that path, suggesting an open relationship between them, anything to keep that door open. It was presented by Luisa as a practical accommodation but in reality reflected her desperation to do anything not to lose Amy, not so soon after Luisa had found her.

Amy had seemed relieved, grateful for the permission to keep her relationships without having to make painful choices. But what Luisa had carefully omitted from all their subsequent conversations was that the openness wasn't just for Amy's benefit... it was for her own too.

What would Amy think if she knew the whole truth? That Luisa's love life had been carefully compartmentalised for the last eight years, inextricably interwoven with her professional existence since her modelling career had taken off at the age of 18. The question circled again and again in Luisa's mind as she watched Amy sleeping peacefully next to her.

One name stood out above all others... Alethea, the one constant in Luisa's ever changing career taking her from a callow 18 year old model on her first big shoot in Tulum through to the experienced, 26 year old fashion professional that was lying there next to Amy, trying to get some sleep.

Alethea... Luisa's Greek goddess, and her kryptonite.

Just days before first meeting Amy, Luisa had been in Miami with Alethea on a shoot. For two nights, they had fallen into their familiar pattern, the magnetic pull between them as powerful as it had been in Tulum eight years before. It was always like this with Alethea... inevitable, electric, beyond her power to resist.

They never planned these encounters, they simply occurred whenever their paths crossed on shoots, an unspoken certainty as reliable as gravity. It could be next week or next year before they found themselves in the same city again, but Luisa knew with absolute certainty that when they did, she would end up in Alethea's bed.

How could Amy possibly comprehend this when Luisa herself struggled to define it? That Alethea wasn't simply an ex or an occasional lover, not really a friend either, but a constant, maybe a colleague who just understood Luisa was the closest way to describe her, who had been in and out of her life for eight years. That their encounters weren't planned but inevitable, a gravitational pull Luisa had never been able to resist and, honestly, had never wanted to. That between encounters there was nothing, it was as if Alethea disappeared, only to reappear whenever they were next booked together for work.

Luisa was terrified to tell Amy about Alethea, worried that it would scare Amy away, but at the same time knew that she must, if not immediately then certainly before she next worked with Alethea and the inevitable happened again. Alethea was kind of Luisa's version of Amy's Sarah, a significant other person in her life even though the timescales and involvement were very different.

And Alethea was just one compartment among many. How could she explain the strategic calculations that had occasionally led her to powerful industry figures, usually men, whose favour could accelerate her career? That she had approached these encounters and even quasi-relationships with a clear eyed assessment of the potential benefits, maintaining her agency while using every asset available to her? That while such situations had become less frequent as her own industry standing grew, she knew deep down that they could and would happen again?

Perhaps worst of all, how could Luisa admit that Amy was her first personal relationship in eight years? That every relationship she had formed since leaving behind her home city of Aguascalientes and her high school boyfriend as an inexperienced 18 year old had been, in some way, entangled with and in the service of furthering her career?

The self-admission felt humiliating that she, at twenty six, had no idea how to navigate a relationship untethered from professional advantage, that she was terrified of her inadequacy in something where most people had been gaining experience since adolescence.

When, not even two weeks before, Luisa had told Amy that she loved her, and Amy had told her the same, it should have been a moment for Luisa of pure joy... the first person in her life that she could honestly say, hand on heart, that she was truly in love with.

Instead, it had triggered a cascade of anxiety in Luisa. Amy was choosing her, had finished with her boyfriend James, was creating space in her life where Luisa would be central rather than peripheral.

The implicit expectation terrified her... not because she didn't want it, but because she wanted it too much, wanted it with an intensity that threatened the careful control she had kept over her compartmentalised existence.

Just at that moment, Amy's fingers curled around Luisa's under the blanket as she turned in her sleep, warm and sure, and Luisa squeezed back. Luisa was acutely aware of the emotion that swelled within her at Amy's touch, at her vulnerability.

This was what frightened her most about sharing the truth... not the potential judgment, but the possibility that complete honesty might shatter something precious before it had fully formed.

Yet the alternative, offering Amy only the carefully edited version of herself, felt increasingly impossible. Not just because the logistics would become more challenging as their lives became more and more entwined, but because Luisa found herself wanting, with unprecedented intensity, to be known completely by this woman who had somehow slipped past all her defences.

Perhaps tomorrow in London, or the next day, or when she stopped back in London after Italy to see Amy again, she would find the courage to begin dismantling the walls between her separate selves, to open up to Amy and to hope that she understood.

But that was for another time. Because right then, that touch, the feel of the woman she loved, that was enough.

More than enough, it was everything.

Amy

Amy looked up at the house and tried, in the gathering dark, the rain threatening to fall again, to hide her slight grimace. It wasn't that she wasn't looking forward to moving into her best friend Naomi's house share, not really, but after the long flight from LA what she would have ideally liked was to be back at her old flat, the one she'd lived in for years, with all her things, with privacy, everything set up just as she liked it.

She'd have loved to show it to Luisa, watch the expression on Luisa's face as she admired some of the furniture, or the décor, or anything. She'd have loved that.

But they weren't there, they were here. Part of her deal with James after she'd split up with him getting on nearly a month before was that he'd stay in the flat, at least for the six months where they were nominally in a trial separation... in reality it was over between them, Amy knew that even if James might not.

She turned to Luisa and gave her hand a little squeeze. "We're here," she said with a smile that she suspected betrayed her thoughts.

The taxi driver put the last of their bags on the pavement and left. Amy could see some lights on in the house visible through the large sash windows.

"You ready to meet one of my best friends?" asked Amy.

Luisa smiled reassuringly. "Better... I'm excited to."

Amy smiled back and stepped up, about to ring the doorbell, when the front door opened on its own, a voice called out, "Amy!" and she found herself enveloped in a big hug.

Luisa stood patiently, and Naomi said, "And you must be Luisa," before wrapping her up in a big hug too. "It's so nice to meet you, I've heard so much about you!"

Stood just behind her, Amy was smiling happily. "As you might have guessed, this is Naomi. Naomi, meet Luisa." She paused and laughed. "Though I think I'm a little late to say that."

As they stood there a few heavy drops of rain started to fall. "Come on, let's get inside," said Naomi, picking up Luisa's bag and ushering both her and Amy into the hall.

A few minutes later Amy and Luisa were alone again in Amy's new room. Looking around it was nicer than Amy had expected, at the back of the house on the top floor, its own small shower room off to one side, a large double bed, a couple of comfy chairs, a wardrobe and chest of drawers. There were three lamps placed around the room which gave a nice glow, and with the warmth from the radiator it felt cosy, particularly with the noise of the rain against the sash window at one end. Naomi had bought pillows and a duvet with covers for the bed, enough to get on with, but the room still felt like it needed Amy's possessions to really feel like home.

"Home sweet home," said Amy, with a smile. "Are you ok? You seem quiet."

Luisa smiled back and walked over to Amy, putting her arms around her. "More than ok, I'm so happy to see your life. Even if you've just moved in here. It's just London... it's all so different to what I'm used to. A lot to take in."

Amy put her arms around Luisa too and kissed her. "That makes perfect sense. I love you so, so, so much. Thank you for coming back here with me."

"I love you too... there's nowhere else I'd rather be." She kissed Amy again, and they held each other tightly, both tired as much as anything from the travel.

They were interrupted by a knock on the door and Naomi came in with two mugs of tea, handing one to each of them.

"This'll sort you out," she said with a kind smile. "Luisa, I didn't know how you take your tea so I went with milk and no sugar, just like Amy and I take it. I hope that's ok?"

Luisa smiled gratefully. "To be honest, I've never had tea before. So that sounds perfect. Thank you."

She took a sip while both Amy and Naomi watched her. "Mmm... that's perfect," she said. Amy could tell that she was lying, but felt her love for Luisa swell at her lying about it to be so kind to Naomi, who had a beaming smile on her face.

They'd landed on the Thursday, and Amy and Luisa were kind to themselves for the next 36 hours, taking it easy to get through their jet lag and not venturing far from exploring Amy's new neighbourhood, albeit a neighbourhood that she'd lived in a few years before prior to her moving in with James. There was none of the urgency to connect with each other that there had been when Amy had arrived in LA, this really feeling like a continuation of their adventure together, so they could just relax in each other's company with Amy safe in the knowledge that she wasn't expected back in the office until Monday.

Amy could tell that Luisa loved it. Every single minute. Everything was so new to her, so different to either LA or back in Mexico. Even wrapping up in her newly bought coat and scarf for an early morning walk together around Clapham Common, stopping for coffee on the way, her excitement was palpable... for Amy it made her yearn for Luisa to live in London, but she didn't say anything out loud.

On the Friday night Naomi had organised a welcome to the house dinner out nearby for Amy with her new housemates, two other women besides Naomi and one man. All were good company, were friendly, and had no problem whatsoever that Luisa had tagged along, in fact two of the housemates brought their partners along too. Amy had felt a little nervous turning up at her new house share with a girlfriend alongside her, but everyone was so welcoming that there was nothing for her to worry about really.