My husband was always encouraging me to make more female friends, so when my son's soccer coach invited me to get coffee with her, I took her up on it. While Mike drove Justin home after practice, Riley and I walked across the street to Peet's.
She was in her late twenties, a tall, athletic woman with short-cropped blonde hair and a no-nonsense way of talking. Coaching kid's soccer was a side-gig for her. In real life, she was a chemistry grad student at UCLA. We hit it off immediately. It was kind of weird how quickly we clicked. We had the same quirky sense of humor and it wasn't long before we were laughing at each other's jokes.
She told me I didn't seem like the typical soccer mom.
"What's the typical soccer mom?" I asked.
"You know ... 'Karen'-ish, like nothing is ever good enough for them. You've met the other moms on the team. You know what they're like."
"No one has given you any trouble, have they?"
"Not overtly. But sometimes I get the feeling they'd prefer having a guy in charge. I don't think they're entirely on board with having a woman coach their little darlings. It's not like I haven't been playing soccer since I was eight."
"For what it's worth, we think you're doing a great job. Justin is having a ball."
"
We
think ...?"
"Mike and me."
"Oh right. Your husband." There was an odd tone to her voice.
It was getting late. Mike texted he was taking Justin to Macdonald's for dinner so there was no rush to get home.
Riley invited me over to her place so we could keep talking. She lived alone in a tiny one room apartment over the garage of a larger house. She parked her Kia in the driveway and led me up the narrow stairs.
There were piles of books everywhere, spilling out of bookcases, stacked on her cluttered desk, even on her bed.
She casually stripped off her tee shirt as we walked through the front door. She was wearing a black sports bra underneath.
Riley lifted one arm and took a whiff of her armpit. "Wow, I'm really rank! I hope you don't mind if I hop in the shower."
"Sure," I said. "No problem."
She kicked off her sneakers and started getting undressed. I couldn't help but watch. She had a boyish, angular body--lean and spare--with prominent ribs and hipbones. Her tits were almost non-existent, but she had dark prominent nipples. Her bush was a messy brown tangle, much darker than the hair on her head.
I'd never really been attracted to other women, but seeing Riley's naked body stirred something in me, and I got the impression she liked me looking at her. She certainly didn't make any effort to cover up.
She vanished into the bathroom, and after a few minutes I heard the shower start. While I was waiting, I studied her bookcases. They were mostly filled with chemistry books with long, opaque titles like
Principles of Stochastic Analysis
, but there were also a few paperbacks and art books mixed in. I took a volume of black and white photographs off the shelf and started paging through it. It was filled with female nudes, ranging from mildly titillating to shockingly explicit.
In one of the photos, a young woman lay on her stomach atop a freshly-made bed. She was looking back over her shoulder at the photographer. Her thighs were open, and her bottom was slightly raised, providing a perfect view of the baroque folds of her sex.
I heard the click of the bathroom door being opened.
"Find anything that appeals to you?" Riley said. She was standing in the doorway wearing nothing but a towel, her wet hair combed back.
"You have
a lot
of chemistry books," I said.
The floor creaked as she came up behind me. Hurriedly I closed the book of nude photos and put it back on the shelf where I'd found it.
"Why did you invite me here?" I said.
"Isn't it obvious?" Riley said.
"But, I'm not ...."
Riley finished my sentence.
"... a lesbian? I know. I always fall for straight girls. It's like a curse."
"I'm not saying I'm not curious," I said. "I really like you."
"What about your husband?"
"Mike and I have an understanding," I said. "He's cool with ... whatever ... as long as I don't keep any secrets from him."
Riley was standing right in front of me, dripping on the floorboards. When had she gotten so close? My nipples were achingly hard, poking out through the striped fabric of my top. She reached out and tentatively brushed her fingers across them.
"I love your tits," she said. "You're so much bigger than me."
"I think yours are pretty too," I said.
"Like I have tits," Riley said, rolling her eyes.
She bent down and kissed me on the lips. Time stopped. Her mouth was soft and warm and she tasted faintly of toothpaste. I wasn't sure what to do with my hands, so I held them straight down at my sides. Then her tongue was in my mouth and
my
tongue was in
