Beguiled.
"Ooops, sorry."
The girl danced lightly round her, swaying sinuously out of her path and straight back onto it again. It was a pleasant surprise, contrasting politely with the hint of drunken threat that Jenna could already feel in the air. More than that, it was simply beautiful to witness for its own sensuous sake. She couldn't resist the temptation to turn with her, watch her flow past like a thick heavy stream of massage oil. She was drunk - or something - and not at her most subtle about staring.
She had seen her before, a week or so ago. A face that jumped out of the city centre shopping crowd and grabbed her attention for that second look that asked 'is she? I think she is'; and then had gone. Enough to turn her head and kindle a passing wistful pang, but surely she hadn't looked as stunning then as she did this evening.
She stopped, turned back and looked Jenna full in the eye. She couldn't meet it, was too aware of her own gobsmacked face and the fact that she probably looked pissed too. She glanced away from the face that made her legs feel even weaker, and instead came to rest on her right arm. Emerging from the pale sleeveless top was toned and tanned bicep - not bulging but firmly smooth. There was a Celtic knotwork cuff around it, like those tattoos that were so common now, but pewter instead of ink and biting slightly into the skin. It drew all her attention to the muscle that was there, tied her stomach into a knot of her own at the thought of it tensing against the metal band.
She had been walking up the slope, from under the railway bridge, and her momentum had carried her to the front of the pub. Her head, which had been tilted slightly to the side as she regarded Jenna, nodded towards the door.
"Want to come in for a drink?"
Of course she would like to go in. Not so much to drink any more herself, but to watch this new vision tilt her head back and let the swallowing ripple down her throat. Raising even so insubstantial a weight as a glass would flex the arm under that band, wouldn't it? It wasn't worth the risk, the pavement was pitching like a trawler and she was in that awful in-between state of knowing exactly how drunk she was. Somewhere she retained enough self-control to know she really didn't want to make a fool of herself in front of this one.
"Better not."
"Want to do something else?"
*
Her name was Lynsey. She mentioned that she was a nurse but appeared far more interested in listening to Jenna on their half-hour walk through the raucous city centre than talking about herself. She seemed normal, pleasant and friendly, letting Jenna ramble on in her own way rather than firing questions - a stark contrast to the eerily inquisitive Lucy. The walk helped clear Jenna's head, but she knew she must have been babbling to start with. Part of it was about Lucy and how weird the whole thing had been, her mouth ran away with her and she realised she'd just said that business about frigging strangers in the lady's.
"Not your thing then?"
"Not really. I think I'd have to know someone very well to do that. Or not at all."
Lynsey laughed, loud and natural, something that came from herself rather than booze.
"Naughty. Well don't worry, I'm not expecting anything like that."
It was meant kindly, she realised that even as she felt rejected and unattractive. Was she really that much of an embarrassment?
"Charmed."
"Taking advantage isn't one of my failings, darlin', and you've had quite a night. Why don't we put you to bed with a hot chocolate and see what we both feel like in the morning?"
Lynsey led the way round the back of the hospital to the sort of tree-lined road of subdivided Victorian villas that invariably attracts students and nurses. She had a small neat flat on the first floor, with a big leather-effect sofa and a couple of the more famous Schiele prints on the wall. Jenna had seen enough of those in student houses but she had never taken to the style, other than that inevitable redhead with her cheek resting on her knee. They were too ugly and ungainly for her taste. Lynsey made the promised hot chocolate, and Jenna felt even more drowsy. It wasn't just drinking a few too many, the Lucy business had wound her up and yet now she was feeling as relaxed as she could remember. She apologised again for nodding off.
"Nonsense. Do you want to crash there, or come to bed?"
Which was the unspoken yet self-evident point of everything since Lynsey had stopped and turned round outside the pub, but somehow it didn't feel like she had been picked up and taken back home for a quick and desperate fuck. Jenna's earlier resentment had evaporated too, it was more than obvious than Lynsey was interested. It was just gentle and easy-going - no pressure, no drama - exactly what she needed.
"Can we go to bed? Just to kiss and be close, and see what happens?"
"Come on."
They went through into the bedroom. Lynsey started undressing naturally in the light from the hallway, taking off trousers and top as if Jenna wasn't even there. She glanced over her shoulder and noticed Jenna looking hesitant, smiled encouragingly and kept her knickers on as she pulled back the duvet. Jenna scrambled out of her jeans and got in beside her, accepting Lynsey's arm around her shoulders and letting it draw her T-shirted chest against the wonderful temptation of Lynsey's petite but full-nippled breasts. She reached out a tentative hand and felt Lynsey's cheek fill her palm, stretched her face to meet it... felt herself falling into some ridiculously girly sensation of weightlessness on Lynsey's lips. They kissed, until her eyes lost focus and her skin seemed to dissolve into the memory foam underneath her. She badly wanted to make love to this girl, join and melt together mouth to mouth and cunt to cunt, but she was too tired and comfortable and just plain safe to make the effort. Her hand found the warm comfortable security between Lynsey's legs. Lynsey gripped it between her thighs, sighing at the touch. Jenna felt herself smiling: how wet they were, just from kissing her. And then she fell asleep wrapped in Lynsey's limbs.
It only took a second or two to realise where she was. That was surprising, she wasn't used to waking in strange beds spooned against strange women, but this seemed perfectly comfortable and normal. The hall light was still on, bright enough through the half-closed door to look across Lynsey's shoulder and see the bedside clock reading two-seventeen. She slid herself carefully out of bed and tiptoed off to the loo.
Lynsey was nice. Lynsey was really nice, sweet and thoughtful, taking mercy on a poor pissed stray like that; taking a complete stranger into her home and not using it as a pretext to just barge into her knickers when she barely knew up from down. Lynsey was nice, and fit, and Jenna couldn't think about those firm flat-topped nipples without imagining her tongue against their clearly defined edge. She had woken to a head cleared of booze and intoxicated instead with the close warm smell of the woman's hair and skin against her nose. She cleaned herself up, remembered just in time not to flush and wake the whole building, and crept back towards the bedroom.
"Turn out the light."
