She was not merely afraid of her, she was terrified. She saw her the first time when one night a group of them went to a popular bar and restaurant called Reilly's to celebrate someone's promotion. They had a new hostess, a tall curvy brunette about thirty-five with large breasts and a willowy shape. She was beautiful. Trey had her eyes on the brunette's ass nearly constantly, because their table was right behind the small reservation counter and she sat facing it, looking at the back of whoever was standing there to welcome the customers as they walked in.
The brunette had a drawl of some kind, Texas, Trey guessed, and she could hear the woman's voice and look at her and let wild fantasies float through her head as she sat with her friends. Only once did their eyes ever meet, the eyes of the hostess and Trey's, and nothing at all was in the woman's look except the pleasant disinterest that went with her job. Of course she knew Trey was a dyke. They were four dykes in the restaurant, and the brunette was too experienced not to notice what they were, especially since Reilly's was in a part of town where dykes were as common as steak sauce in a steak house. The hostess did look at them as a group several times, but Trey detected no sign of any special interest.
So why did Trey go back alone the next night and sit at the bar? Dumb yearning, Trey supposed. Trey enjoyed merely looking at the woman. At the end of that first night she had masturbated thinking about the brunette, brought herself off again and again thinking about what might be under that dress and what it might be like to hold that woman in her arms. When Trey had fantasies like that about a woman, the woman became fixed in her consciousness in some way, fixed so that Trey thought about her a long time afterward. Trey went back to Reilly's out of dumb yearning, not expecting anything, just to look at the woman and enjoy herself.
The brunette hardly noticed Trey the second night, but she did notice Trey the third night, and on the fourth night, after Trey had been sitting at the bar almost an hour, the woman casually walked over to Trey, smiled at her a long moment without saying anything, and then whispered:
"You're cruising me, aren't you?"
Trey stammered. "Cruising you?"
"You've been here three or four nights in a row and you're always looking at me."
Trey felt destroyed. "I'm sorry, I didn't realize it."
But instead of making some smartass comment, or accepting the apology and walking off, the brunette said: "You want to come back at eleven, honey? I'll be through then and you can take me for coffee somewhere."
Trey had to ask, because it was her policy to always ask first. "Are you gay?"
The brunette raised an eyebrow and smiled at Trey, more a smirk than a smile. "Try me, honey."
So that was how she met Lily. In a daze, really. Trey was in a daze at the beginning, and she never did come out of it. When she returned to Reilly's at eleven, Lily was already waiting at the entrance.
"There you are," Lily said as she took Trey's arm. "Do you have a car, honey? If you don't have a car, we can find a taxi at the corner. I always take a cab home. Why don't we just go to my place and have the coffee there?"
Trey felt so clumsy with her. She was so beautiful, those dark eyes flashing at her, the white teeth sparkling when she smiled. She was taller than Trey, and the heels she wore made her even taller. As they stood together at the corner to flag down a taxi, Lily seemed to tower over her. Big Texas girl. What the hell was she doing with her? Trey never had success with women like this one. Lily was too exciting.
Nothing happened in the taxi. Lily talked about her job, about how happy she was to get away from the shitkickers in Texas, about the plans she had to get her daughter to come live with her. She had Trey grinding her teeth. All Trey wanted was to grab those big breasts in her hands, but she was paralyzed with fear Lily would push her away or say something nasty and she would feel dumb and devastated.
Lily lived in a clean little apartment in an old building. When they were inside, she pulled the shades and asked if Trey wanted coffee or liquor. "How about bourbon?" Lily said. "I don't have any dope, honey. I don't like dope."