Beneath the Surface(9)

“I’m afraid grad students don’t live like queens,” Sheryl said.

Kristin let her glance wander around the place. It was small but tidy enough—perhaps some impromptu cleaning up had happened before Sheryl left that afternoon? Her own apartment wasn’t much better. Only six months ago, with her thirtieth birthday looming, Kristin had moved out of an apartment she shared with two other women, one a colleague, the other the colleague’s friend. She’d traded in space for privacy and what she’d thought of as a necessary level of independence for the start of her fourth decade.

“Nor do junior marketing managers, let me assure you,” Kristin said. While Sheryl busied herself in the kitchenette, Kristin walked to a bookshelf that took up almost an entire wall. She found a lot of text books and, in the far right upper corner, almost out of sight, a picture of a woman with whom Sheryl shared some distinct features. Well, mainly the blue of her eyes and that little pout in her lips when she smiled. Kristin thought it wise to not ask any questions about Sheryl’s deceased mother. She didn’t see any pictures of someone who could be Sheryl’s father, nor any family snaps—the kind that were featured everywhere in Kristin’s own apartment.

“Here you go.” Sheryl handed Kristin a glass of water. “Shall we sit?”

“Nice place,” Kristin said, and meant it. Her own apartment, close to the CBD so she could walk to work, was about the same size, much more modern, but a lot less cozy.

“It’s not much, but it’s convenient. And you might not believe it, but more than twenty people have been in here. At the same time.”

“I guess I can imagine it if I tilt my head this way and try not to think about what kind of party it was you were throwing.”

Sheryl huffed out a chuckle. “One with a lot of shouting and posturing. LAUS meetings can get a bit… overheated at times.”

“I bet you slept well that night.”

Sheryl rolled her eyes. “I adore women who have a strong sense of self and firm opinions, but twenty of them crammed in the same room is a bit much, even for me.”

“Poor you,” Kristin joked. “All those women.”

Sheryl put her glass of water on the table. “One is just enough for me.” She bit into her bottom lip again, the way Kristin had seen her do a couple of times already.

Kristin racked her brain to come up with a witty reply, but nothing materialized. So she sat there, Sheryl’s comment hanging in the air, looking into those blue, blue eyes. They were the kind of blue she’d witnessed being photoshopped onto a model whose eyes weren’t deemed blue enough to sell a particular brand of wine. At the time, Kristin had greatly questioned whether a lighter hue of blue mattered, but now, staring into the real deal, she could see that it did. How it made all the difference.

Sheryl shuffled a little closer to Kristin on the couch. She had drawn up a knee, which now bumped lightly into Kristin’s side, startling her out of her reverie on shades of blue.

“Your eyes,” she stammered.

“Have the most beautiful view at this very moment,” Sheryl added. Oh, how suave she was. Sheryl angled her head and leaned in. She paused, blinked, and softly pressed her lips to Kristin’s.

Kristin was still holding her glass of water. She wanted to just let it fall to the floor and wrap her arms around Sheryl’s neck, the way she had done when they were dancing last night, but with so much more intention behind it. Instead, after the first soft peck. Kristin hurriedly disposed of it, not letting her gaze leave Sheryl’s exquisite face for one split second.

The next time their lips met, the air in the room had already changed, had already gone from the possibility of kissing to wondering where it would end. But Kristin did her best not to think of that, and focused on the moment—on the here and now instead of the near and distant future, unlike what she’d been told to do so many times when she was younger—and to let her senses fully enjoy the fact that she was kissing another woman. For a lesbian—because, yes, she was exactly that—on the cusp of thirty, she hadn’t done a lot of that yet. Not nearly enough.

As Sheryl’s tongue probed her lips, Kristin couldn’t help but wonder how many lips that tongue had ventured past. Sheryl looked like a woman of experience—she’d even sounded like one on the phone. That was one of the reasons Kristin had felt so instantly attracted to her. She longed for someone like Sheryl; someone to show her what it was all about. This lesbian life she so hankered for but had, somehow, missed. She had so many questions to ask Sheryl, so much of her presumed knowledge to feast on. But right then, they were kissing, and Kristin’s neglected body was starting to react.