Author's Note: The story contains lesbian BDSM and sexy sculpture but no genital sex.
Carla and Leah also appear in "Leda and the Swan," though it's not necessary to read that story in order to understand this one. The alert reader will notice that Carla is a switch in this story, whereas she's a top in "Leda and the Swan." That's because there's a story in between the two, in which Carla discovers her bottom side. Unfortunately, so far that story only exists in my head...
*
Carla and I have been lovers for a while now. Although I have a husband and another lady love, and Carla has as many lovers as there are days in the week, still the bond between Carla and me is special. Of course, making her lovers feel special is something that Carla is awfully good at. For example, Carla would look at me appreciatively and say, "Mmmm. I love tall women." This is true, but like many of the things Carla says, it isn't the WHOLE truth. If I were a foot shorter, Carla would look at me, and with equal sincerity say, "Mmmm. I love petite women." And, of course, if I were medium-sized, she would tell me, entirely truthfully, that she loves women who are neither too big nor too small. The fact is that Carla just plain loves women, period. But, since I love them, too, I can't complain.
Carla is as tall as I am but bigger-boned, and where my hair is fair and straight, hers is black and curly. Carla is a sculptor, and when she laughingly threatens to "go commercial," as she does periodically, she says that she could make a GREAT pair of salt and pepper shakers out of us. She only does this so that I will threaten mayhem on her person if she goes through with it. Carla likes a little mayhem from time to time. Well, so do I.
Friday night, Carla was due to have a show of her new pieces, and of course I was planning to go. Her last show, two years ago, was a series of mother-daughter pairs -- some loving, some fighting, some coldly indifferent. Carla's work is always very realistic and packed with emotion, and lots of women broke down and cried at the last show, even the butches. Yeah, a lot of women have some left-over mother-daughter shit to take care of, and Carla knew how to tap into it all. Carla had been mysterious about the theme of her new series; all she would say was, "It'll get you where you live, Polly." My name is actually Leah, but Carla almost always calls me Polly. She says it's short for "polymorphously perverse," which is partly a Carla-style compliment and partly ragging on me for being bi when she herself is pure dyke. It's typically Carla to combine a compliment with an insult, so I wouldn't know whether to squirm, defend myself, or feel proud when she called me Polly. Yeah, she's a bitch, but she's also magnetic as hell. I can't get enough of her.
So, I dressed myself up and took myself off to the opening. There was a small crowd of women already present when I got there -- I had timed my arrival so that this would be true. I didn't want Carla standing over me when I first saw her pieces -- I wanted to be able to react to them honestly.
I approached the first piece in the show and started to giggle. Like her previous show, this show appeared to be of a series of life-size pairs of women, but they weren't mothers and daughters. The first piece showed Carla and Mary; in fact, it showed Carla with her fist inside of Mary. It'd met Mary several times and had even had a threesome with her and Carla once, and she did indeed like fisting -- that was what made me giggle -- Mary looked EXACTLY as she had looked when I last saw her -- head thrown back, mouth gasping for air, cunt stretched impossibly wide. Carla was wearing a sexual grimace herself, and I wondered how Carla the sculptor knew what Carla the sexual person looked like while in the act. Does she masturbate and then run to the mirror, I wondered, or did she photograph herself somehow? It seemed somewhat disconcerting to appraise oneself dispassionately enough to sculpt when one was engaged in such passionate activities. If sculpting required dispassionate appraisal, however, the result left the viewer anything but dispassionate -- looking at Mary's sculpted form made my fingers itch.
The next piece showed a standing Stephanie, legs spread wide, and a kneeling Carla with her mouth on Stephie's vulva. I'd met Stephie at parties at Carla's house and wondered what she looked like under the baggy garments she often wore. Now I knew, and I liked what I saw. She looked quite tasty.
The third piece also showed two women, and I was rocked when I realized that one of them was me. If Carla were sculpting a piece featuring each of her lovers, of course I would have to be in one of them. It made sense, but somehow I was still surprised. I'd never told her that she couldn't sculpt me, and I was flattered at being included, not angry, but still ... there I was, having sex in front of a hundred people. Looking closer, I realized that Carla had somehow made the stone Leah look lush, voluptuous, and desirable, not fat or dumpy, the way I felt on the days when my self-esteem was low. I wondered if that was truly how she saw me and felt warmed by the positive depiction. The stone Leah was on her hands and knees while Carla fucked her from behind with a strap-on. Carla looked as if she were having a very good time, and Leah looked transported, in a way that seemed nearly spiritual. By the time I finished looking at it, I was both dripping and floating.
I floated through looking at the fourth, fifth, and sixth pieces, which were of Carla making vanilla love with three of her many loves. I knew all of them, of course, and I was amazed at how well she managed to make each woman's personality come through. What a gifted sculptor she was!
The seventh and last piece was different. It showed Carla, whip in hand, arm upraised, about to beat a woman who was lying belly down but with her head turned round to look at Carla, an incredibly lascivious expression on her face. The small brass plate at the bottom of the piece read "Samantha." It wasn't anybody I'd ever seen before. It wasn't anybody I'd ever even HEARD of before. I crashed abruptly to earth. "Why didn't she tell me?" I thought. "Is there some reason for keeping this woman a secret?" I tried to think of a reason why Carla would hide Samantha from me. "Does Carla like her better than me, and that's why she can't tell me about her?" As soon as I heard myself saying this, I was overcome with shame. "Oh, shit, not JEALOUSY. I thought I'd gotten over that." Evidently I had not gotten over it, because here it was again, beginning to consume my love and my reason and my better nature.
I found Carla, told her the show was magnificent, even better than the last one, and left as quickly as I could. I tried to act normally while doing it, since I didn't want to ruin her show with my childishness, and I think I succeeded.
As soon as I got home, I gave in to my feelings. I was angry with Carla for loving others more than me. I felt hurt that she had lied to me, even if only by omission. My pride was wounded, and my self-esteem. One minute, I felt scared that I would lose her; the next minute, I declared to my empty apartment that I was through with her -- we were finished, over, kaput. The next minute, the thought of never seeing her again made me cry as if my heart would break. And overlaying it all was shame. Shame that I was feeling such a dishonorable emotion as jealousy, shame that I was engaging in self-pity, shame that I seemed to care more about my own insecurities than about Carla's happiness. It was not a pretty sight.
Eventually I stopped raging and crying and making resolutions, but I still didn't feel that I had resolved anything. I was still angry at Carla, and I was still ashamed of being angry at her. I spent the next few days avoiding her, hoping to put myself back together before I saw her again.
But, Friday was my night (when you have as many lovers as Carla has, some scheduling is necessary), and we had a date to go out dancing. I could break it, or I could show up. There was never any chance that I would break it, but I was afraid to show up, too. I always was a coward.
I picked Carla up in my aged blue Volkswagen and drove to CG's, the local gay bar/disco. When we got there, she didn't get out of the car, but turned and looked at me.
"I was surprised you didn't stay for the party after opening night."
"I wasn't feeling too well," I said. This was true, I figured -- mental illness counts, too.
She looked at me and waited. I hate it when she does that. She can endure a silence longer than I can, and she can get whatever she wants out of me, just by being quiet and looking.
I looked at the dashboard. I think VW's are cute, but I was pretty familiar with this particular dashboard, so it wasn't all that interesting. I examined the stick shift, then the handbrake, then the heater controls. "I never have understood why Volkswagen decided to make the heater controls look like baby hand brakes," I said. God, I'm a scintillating conversationalist.
"Leah, you ran out of the show, and you've been avoiding me for days. Just tell me what the fuck the problem is."
"I must really be in trouble," I thought, "she called me by my right name." Aloud, I said, "The show was great. The pieces were very powerful. You're the best, Carla."
Again that silent stare. I wasn't going to be getting off the hook. I might as well just tell her.
"Um, I'm sort of bothered about the last piece."
Dead silence. She wasn't going to make it any easier.
"Uh, it upsets me that you never told me about Samantha."
"And?"
I took a deep breath and babbled it out, all at once. Maybe it would be easier if I blurted it out, and didn't stretch it out. "Carla, I'm feeling jealous and hurt and angry, and I'm ashamed of myself for feeling this way. I haven't been able to face you all week, because I've felt too guilty for feeling this way, but I haven't been able to STOP feeling this way."
"Yeah, you always hate yourself when you discover you're human."
She was trying to make me laugh, but it didn't feel like a laughing matter. (I always take myself too seriously, too.)
