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It was not that unusual really when she thought about it, how many moveie and television sets she had walked onto by accident being a New Yorker. This time it was unusual, because she knew the actor on the set and she had disrupted the scene.

“Eliza!”

When Marcus called her name, Eliza turned to look at him.

If she did not know Marcus personally as her friend’s husband, she would have known him anyway. His ubiquitous face and body were plastered on billboards and subway posters. In the poster for the new season of the show he was in, his face and sculpted body were shadowed under his character’s signature fedora. Above his head on the poster like a halo, was the word or directive “Taste,” and his perfect complexion was emblazoned beneath the glow of it.

Looking at him now as he walked toward her, she could not help but feel like any other random woman might have felt if this godlike man called their name and walked toward them.

“Eliza…”

He kissed her forehead, and she felt the scruff of his stubble on her temple.

“I did not mean to interrupt your shoot–”

Marcus shook his head and looked at her.

“You didn’t,” he turned, made a wrap sign with his hand to the crew and put his arm around her.

Eliza grinned. Now that he was a producer, she guessed he could make his own rules about what he wanted to do on set. He pulled her away, and leaned her against a nearby building.

“What are you doing here?” he questioned her, as if he was the one who had stumbled upon her on set.

“I was just walking, I found you on set!”

Eliza laughed nervously because she was very conscious she had never been alone with Marcus. There had always been a crackling chemistry between them even before she had opened her relationship with Rafe. She had only ever been alone with him long enough for Sandrine to put dirty dishes in the sink, get tea or pour drinks.

He stood so close to her, she was sure she was shadowed by his fedora like in his posters. She held her clutch purse between her blue velvet skirted thighs, as she looked up at him.

“Have dinner with me tonight,” he said finally after he had looked at her for a very long time.

“With you and the kids and Sandrine?”

“Sandrine and the kids are in France visiting her family there.”

“So you want Rafe to come?”

“No, I want you to come.”

Eliza was practically on fire when he said that and his closeness made her damp. She felt perspiration bead like liquid fire on the temple he had kissed. The double entendre in what he had said, that she knew he meant that way.

“Are you going to cook for me? Sandrine always raves about how well you cook!”

Marcus looked in her eyes,

“You have never tasted my cooking? Then I absolutely have to cook for you and give you a taste….”

She nodded.

“I am not sure when I am going to get off of the set, but I will text you when I do. I will come get you in my car.”

Eliza continued to nod, pushing her clutch between her thighs involuntarily before she realized it and stopped.

“I have not had dinner with anyone since Sandrine left with the kids. It will be nice to have someone with me tonight.”

He squeezed her hand, and Eliza realized that he had infected her with a taste for more than just his good cooking. She was not sure what she was going to do with him, she was not even sure she was going to do anything. The possibility was more tantalizing than the deed.

For now.

More Wicked Wednesday here:

 taste via duck duck go images

Polly winced as Colin grabbed her hand.

“You’re hurting me!”

He let his fingers dig in a little more along the thick vein of her wrist, caressed it and then stared in her eyes.

She stood up, and backed away from the table.

“I came to dinner with you because you told me that I did not know who you were. I am trying to, and all you do…”

Colin got up, blocking her from leaving.

“Don’t leave, I’ll take you home…”

Polly nodded, followed him after he stared at her for a long time before turning around.

They walked out to the car, and Stephan held the door for both of them. Colin sat beside her, and she looked out of the window which made her think of the time she was in the car with Oscar going to Shanghai. She felt like she need a how-to book on relationships, men and everything about personal development.

“I am sorry that I got excited in there Polly, I did promise that I just wanted to talk to you…”

He put his hand on her thigh, she put his hand over his.

“I’ll always love you,” she said as she stared out of the window.

Now she held her blood-stained dress, and beckoned Oscar to follow her. Polly had left a thick oak box with brass knobs open in the middle of her bedroom. She put the dress down, only to pick up pages that had crusted blood on them from the dress.

“These are newspaper clippings of me and Colin. I was always into art,” she said kneeling on the floor, looking up at him. “But when I met him, he kicked it up a bit for me. I was really exposed to it, and I think in ways he was a reason why people took me seriously in the beginning. But I loved him for him, or who I thought he was. We went out to dinner because I realized that I do not know who he is, and I also realize that you do not know…all of me.”

Oscar knelt beside her, and let his fingers caress her hair which soothed her, the way Colin’s drinking her blood did once.

“I know who you are with me now, that is all that matters. With Eliza, I was not who I want to be with you.”

Polly looked at him, pressing the tips of her fingers together feeling dried blood on them as grit.

“I like who I am now, but I cannot forget who I was…”

“When I saw you tonight in the restaurant, I just thought you were perfect and that is why I confessed. I did not stay with Eliza because I wanted to be with you.”

“I left Colin because I wanted to be with you.”

Polly was sure that she would not have read what was happening in a how-to book, but she believed she was learning how to have a better relationship from life experience.

More Wicked Wednesday here:

 wooden chest via duck duck go images

At least three times Oscar wanted to look back at Eliza, well he wanted more than to look back at her. He wanted to caress her mound and hold it in hand, until the tip of her slit was damp and then shove his finger inside her. He had done that to her in elevators in New York, Paris and Shanghai. 

But he did not turn around, he looked forward and walked to the restaurant where he had told Polly to meet him in case he had lingered too long with Eliza.

Polly waited for him by a window, she wore a blouse that showed off as much of her modest cleavage as was decent. Her long hair was pulled back in a tight ponytail that slanted her eyes a little, she smiled at him and her softness and her beauty overwhelmed him. Sitting with her through dinner, he felt such a degree of guilt. The same guilt he knew he would feel if he had given into Eliza. 

They walked out of the restaurant, his hand on Polly’s back. She felt so perfect to him in that moment. Her perfection drove him to need to tell her what had happened. It wasn’t guilt as much as it was he finally wanted someone to tell the story to. He knew Fiona knew, but he had never talked about it to anyone before. Never told anyone about the relationship that first he had to keep a secret, and then didn’t have to keep a secret.

Polly’s body stiffened next to him as they sat in the back of the car. Oscar did not touch her, or move to get closetr to her. The car pulled up in front of her apartment building.

“Are you coming in?” she asked him turning back to look down at him.

Oscar said nothing, got out of the car and followed her. The door man smiled at him because he was familiar. But everything felt surreal to Oscar, unsure what Polly was thinking. 

They went to her apartment. Oscar stood in the doorway. Quiet, unsure and she left him there

Polly walked back out with a bundle of white lace that was soiled with blood, old blood.

“Remember when I was little Bo-Peep? And I would not tell you the entire story?”

He nodded.

“I kept the dress.”

“With blood all over it, how did you get blood all over it?” he questioned, his voice back.

Polly held the dress close to her chest.

“I used to be very goth, my boyfriend at the time liked to drink my blood. He’d cut me, I cut him a few times and tasted his blood. I don’t anymore and neither does he. I saw him in Paris, he sold me the Dubuffet.”

Oscar took a deep breath. He’d exposed all the details of his affair with Eliza, and was trumped by Polly exposing her secret teen past and…her own unfinished ex business.

He suddenly felt the metallic taste of blood in his mouth.

More Wicked Wednesday here:

 soiled dress via duck duck go images

It amused Eliza that Bebel Gilberto was playing in the background at the bar where she and Oscar had agreed to meet. She knew that she could not say anything to him at Fiona’s house, but it was time to address him in some way. She had been in so much pain since their long talk in Shanghai.

When he walked into the bar, she felt a sense of deja vu. It was like how he had twisted all of her goals that night when she met him. Her goal was to face him, and tell him about how hard it had been for her no matter how selfish it was for her to feel that way.

He sat beside her and looked at her.

“So am I really going to be able to talk to you? Or are you going to put up all your walls?”

Eliza stared at him, let her fingers rest on her cigar. She was not a cigar smoker really, but she had been here enough times with Rafe smoking and drinking. The cigar was kind of like a crutch, a reminder she was with him and that she knew they were unbreakable. But she also loved Oscar…and it was breaking her.

“You expect me to be okay, you expect me to act like nothing happened in Shanghai? Like you did not break my heart there? You want me to be okay that you have this perfect woman, who honestly if Rafe had met her first he would not maybe have wanted to be with me!”

Oscar grabbed her shaking hand, she relinquished the cigar.

“Do you think it was easy to let you go? It was the hardest thing I ever did, you lying on my bed in Shanghai. But I was with Polly, and I know that I could not have given her a fair chance if I got involved with you. It would not have been fair to her.”

“So you are in love with her?”

“Yes. I did not plan anything with her in Shanghai, but it happened after years of us not wanting it to happen.”

“So I was just a substitute then?”

“Eliza, stop it! Stop this victimization process! You can have any man you want, you can be with any man you want.”

“I want you.” 

“You’ve had me.”

Eliza picked up her gin and tonic, and her cigar. Was it Paris or nervousness why she was smoking like a chimney? Actual, or electronic, she was constantly puffing on something.

“I know it is selfish Oscar, but it is how I feel. I have been in a bad place ever since I left Shanghai…”

“Is it me, or are you just not happy?”

She sipped her drink.

“Are you happy?” he repeated.

Eliza looked down at her hands: gin and tonic in one, cigar in the other.

“Do you care?”

“Eliza, I care about you. I–“

“What,” she pressed.

Oscar looked at her with stern eyes.

“Stop acting like a stray cat.”

Eliza pushed her drink off the table, and stubbed her cigar out on the top of his palm.

“You motherfucker!”

Oscar grabbed her wrist, Eliza felt her eyes widen.

“You’re hurting me!”

“You are hurting yourself!”

He thrust her hand to the side, and got up.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” she mewled, clinging to him, scratching. That flimsy touching of his body, she savored like a child’s first communion wafer. She needed his body, and she knew she would not get it.

“Stop it, Eliza!”

“Keep saving yourself for your precious Polly!”

Oscar threw her off of him. When she came back toward him, he raised her chin up to face him.

“What is precious to you Eliza?”

Her eyes watered, she sobbed soundlessly. Oscar drew her to him, caressed her cheeks and temples.

She heard “Precious Things” by Tori Amos in her head.

“Just because you can make me come does not make you Jesus,” she said, pushing him away.

She walked away from him, dabbed at her eyes but did not turn back to look at him.

She had different goals, as looked down at her phone. There was a message from Adrian that she had avoided. Hoping Oscar…

Will be in New York. Axxx

Her labia felt tangled the way it did every time she thought of Adrian.

When she looked up from her phone, Oscar stood in front of her.  

“What–“

He pressed her to the wall, his face so close to hers…Eliza did not realize she was not breathing until she felt his breath on her upper lip. Oscar caressed her hip, she closed her eyes.

She waited for him.

When she opened her eyes, he was gone like smoke and she fumbled through her bag for her cigarettes because she needed one. Ashes hit her calves as she chain-smoked, and she did not notice…

More Wicked Wednesday here:

 cigarette ashes via wikipedia

Eliza was in a mellow mood listening to the sensual music of Bebel Gilberto coming through the speakers, and looking at Fiona. Even though they were far past Fiona’s admission of love for her in Shanghai, she was happy that Fiona was really in love. It was clear, especially in the way that Fiona denied anything that even suggested that she was in love with Alice. Alice was very clearly lovestruck, and had a way of hanging on Fiona’s every word and shadowing her, but not in a clinging way. It was almost a synchronization between them. It was clearly the beginning of a very lovely love affair.

Being back in New York, after being in Paris for so long was weird. It was an effort not to speak French, and not to crave French comforts. Eliza looked for Rafe, he found her with his eyes and his smile soothed her. She was walking toward him, when the apartment door opened and she smiled easier than she would have if it had been her own dinner party.

Her smile almost cracked on her face, but she kept up the facade as best as she could. Oscar was standing behind the woman that she had spied him with in Shanghai. The woman who she saw him with, and who he held with emotion that she could not fault him for, but it made her heart hurt.

“Hi,” she smiled.

“Hi,” Oscar said looking at her face in the warm caring way that he did to let her know he wondered what she was thinking. 

The woman he was with smiled softly at her,

“Hi,” she said.

Eliza moved to the side, so they could walk in. 

“Oscar!” Fiona walked over to them with glasses of the delicious fruity sangria that was made with a bubbly red Lambrusco wine. “I did not know you were coming?”

“I am Polly’s plus one,” he said with a smile. 

Polly, her name burned like a tiny fire out of control in Eliza’s head.

Polly looked at Eliza softly, it was clear that she had no idea who she was, and she had no reason to, but Eliza resented her for it.

She remembered the beginning of her relationship with Oscar. If they had met like this unexpectedly, they would have ended up tucking into a restroom or somewhere, and making out or making love.

“Oscar is my partner,” Polly smiled.

She looked so happy, the same happiness she had had when Eliza saw her in Shanghai with him. 

“Well Oscar and I go back, he and Eliza and I.”

Polly looked at Eliza now with interested eyes.

Eliza stared at Fiona briefly, then smiled at Polly.

“The art scene you know.”

“I know! Why that Dubuffet on the wall is a recent private sale.”

Alice ran over to Polly at that moment.

“It looks amazing there, doesn’t it?”

Eliza let the rest of the conversation come in and out of her head. She never expected that she could have a moment alone with Oscar. Rafe noticed him immediately. She and Rafe spoke again with their language of eyes, and Eliza shrugged.

It was by accident that Eliza was did end up alone with Oscar.

She had picked up a cigarette, as was her social smoking habit. When he stood by the open bedroom window with her, she blew smoke in his face.

“You could have told me!”

“I did not know that Fiona was Polly’s client. I just agreed to come with her, and I did not know where Fiona lived! Why are you so upset?”

He waved the smoke out of his face, and Eliza looked up at him. Her body responded to him as it always did. With urgent desire, just like it had in the beginning, same as the night they met when he picked her up. 

Eliza stared at him. She shook her head when she imagined him like he was the first time that they met, the rakish way that he approached her. Now he was restrained, it was that calm that lingered worse for her than any calm before a storm.

She leaned against the wall half tangled in the curtain, and blew more smoke so that it clouded her face and closed her eyes.

More Wicked Wednesday here:

For more of me, visit Kay Jaybee’s blog where I am a guest!!!

 window via duck duck go images

Polly never had close female friends. She did not have a set of girls that she confided to about everything that was going on with her, and her relationships in particular were usually very private. 

Since Alice her new assistant had seen her with Oscar, and since she was involved with so much of her life as it was, it was a new thing for her to try to confide a little bit in her. Nothing intense, but little things and that was a lot for her, because she was intensely private. Some of her colleagues had their assistants involved in all of the minutiae of their lives. First and foremost, she wanted to foster Alice’s interest in the art world. She reminded her of herself when she was young, because she was so intense and ambitious.

But when her assistant started to be distracted, and in a world of her own seemingly, she was not sure what to think. 

“Alice, can you come into my office?”

Alice walked into her office, with a suggestion of a smirk on her face, as if she could not keep from smiling.

Usually Alice put up her hair at the end of the day, but it was up already.

“Is this about Fiona?”

Polly stared at Alice, her mouth open but nothing came out.

“Polly, I know that it is a conflict of interest. But I…I am in love with Fiona. And I know that she might not really be in love with me, but right now I believe she is.”

“You are dating Fiona?”

“You did not call me in about Fiona?”

Polly shook her head. Who was she to say anything to Alice? She had fought all this time not to get involved with Oscar, and what had she done after their umpteenth trip out of the country but fall in love with him?

Alice stood up as if she wanted to leave, but then she sat back down.

“What did you call me in for? I am sorry to have had diarrhea of the mouth…”

“You’re in love with her?”

Alice’s eyes were glazed, and she nodded.

“I met her in Paris, and nothing happened but when she was in New York…we got together.”

Polly nodded. It was equally as new for her to confide, as it was for her to listen and she felt responsible for Alice.

“My mother says she did not know I was a lesbian. I did not think if Fiona was a woman or a man, I just liked her and wanted to be with her.”

“Love is never convenient, and if you try to deny it it only gets stronger.”

“I that how it was with you and Oscar?”

Poly realized that it was easier for her to listen, than it was to talk.  

“I am not going to tell you what to do with your life Alice, I was just worried because you have not been as focused as you have been.”

Alice looked horrified.

“I am so sorry Polly. I have been distracted, I guess afraid that you would call me into your office, and tell me you know about Fiona and I…”

There was a knock on Polly’s door, and she looked at the door with disdain until she realized it might be important, and Alice as not at her desk to be the go-between.

“Come in,” she beckoned the intruder.

Fiona walked in, and when Alice looked at her it was clear that they were in love.

Polly was warmed by them, wondered if people saw the same thing when she was with Oscar.

Oscar who was in Shanghai without her…

More Wicked Wednesday here:  literary love via wikimedia

Eliza could not get the lyrics of Madonna’s song, “Nothing Really Matters,” out of her head. It made her smile, the mixture of American and French songs and menu items that had been at the café where they were in. She felt her smile on Rafe’s chest, as the expanse of her cheek touched the top of her hand on his chest.
It made her happy that he was here, that Severine had told him where she was.
Severine was a rare bird, and Eliza could see why Rafe had fallen in love with her. She was beautiful and warm, and loved him enough to share him.
Like she did.
Sharing him was not something that Eliza had ever thought she would do, until she met and fell in love with Oscar. Looking back on everything, their relationship had gotten better as a result of other people in their lives. They stopped taking each other for granted. When she met Oscar, she was feeling resentful of who she had become with Rafe. She felt like a trophy fiancée, everything was so automated between them. Now she felt like a woman who had found someone she loved, and there was still room in her to love someone else as well.
And she had.
She swore that Rafe could smell that she was thinking too hard, because from his apparent slumber…
“What are you thinking about?” he said suddenly.
“Aren’t you asleep?” she said with a husky as if she had been asleep voice.
“I could feel your pensive position on my chest.”
She looked up at him, he was looking up at the ceiling. Almost like he was reaching for the stars with his eyelashes.
Eliza had fallen in love with his mind, he was gorgeous, but it was his mind that she fell in love with. For Valentine’s Day, once he took her to a gallery to see a Joseph Beuys multiple of a rose, surrounded by chocolate and meat. Rafe loved art as much as the next person, but he took her there because it was all dead decaying and yet worth more than the live roses and fresh chocolates most women would have gotten. Maybe even coveted. It was an inside joke because she had not really been a fan of Beuys who she had studied in college. There was so much of that between them.
“I was thinking about what it is like to be an American in Paris. I met a guy here who was obsessed with my Americaness,” Eliza lied because she did not feel like having a conversation about everything that had passed between them. It did not really matter, love was all they needed much like the lyrics in the Madonna song. She remembered reading a magazine article that said that that song was about Madonna’s new daughter. What would it be like to have a baby with Rafe? To expand their relationship even more than it was already expanded?
“Did you sleep with him?”
Eliza stiffened.
“Does it make a difference if I did or not?”
Rafe took a deep breath.
“No.”
“So yes then?”
She pushed off of his chest, and looked down at him.
“I came here because I wanted to be with you, and you were not with me.”
“Are you saying I abandoned you?”
“You are saying it.”
“So you made love to me angrily?”
Rafe took another deep breath.
“I needed to be with you.”
“Were you even asleep?”
Rafe laughed, and sat up.
“I got here looking for you, was mad and Severine calmed me down. She said it was ridiculous that I was freaking out when I asked her to take care of you. Asked my lover, to take care of my fiancée…”
Eliza stared at him, not sure what to say, but knowing him well enough to know what he was feeling before he said it.
“It is hard for me to get used to you being with someone else. I know it is selfish, and I could not deny you when you said you wanted to open us up…but knowing someone else is with you…”
Leaning into him, she rubbed her breasts against him and wrapped her arms about him.
“Right now, you know you are with me…and nothing else matters does it?”
On her back and her face lit by the moonlight pouring in from the hotel window, Eliza understood Rafe’s silence more than his words from underneath him.

More Wicked Wednesday here:

joseph beuys dead rose & chocolate & dried meat multiple photo by f dot leonora

Eliza moved her fork through the raspberry sauce that was left on her plate, using its side so she could gather the sauce up like a spoon. The fork slipped between her wine-colored lips, and she closed her eyes again savoring the almost unexpected sweet and tangy sauce. The first bite with her flourless chocolate cake had been orgasmic. She closed her eyes again remembering, took her foot out of her shoe and wiggled her toes.
Opening her eyes slowly, recovering, she saw Rafe.
It had been a long time since she had seen her fiancé. She thought that he would be in New York with Fiona, since it was her birthday.
Rafe picked up a fork, and tilting it on its side, gathered raspberry sauce the way that she had.
“What are you doing here?” she asked, her voice a cocktail of incredulity, surprise and shock.
“I missed you.”
Eliza put her foot back in her shoe. Seeing him was unexpected and expected. Hadn’t she wanted him to come to her? With her budding relationship with Severine, listening to her talk about him made her long for him. How ridiculous, that she needed to hear another woman talk about her fiancé to make her long for him in a way she had not for a long time.
Or maybe it was like he said that she knew she had him, so she took it for granted.
The glint of her ring on her hand shown off his eyes.
“I thought you would be in New York with Fiona.”
“Fiona is in love, she did not have time for me.”
“In love really?”
Fiona had not mentioned anything to her about anyone, and she found that odd because she had Skyped with Fiona earlier. But then again love and relationships had been awkward to discuss, ever since she had been in Shanghai with Fiona…
Eliza closed her eyes as Shanghai made her think of Oscar.
“Yeah love, you remember that don’t you?”
“What do you think I am arrogant because I am wearing your ring? That love evaporated or something?”
“You haven’t kissed me.”
Eliza put her fork down, got up and stood before Rafe.
“Did Severine tell you I was here?”
“Fuck Severine…”
“Did you?”
Eliza paused between his knees, looking down at him. She knew she was testing him, but she could not help it. Sometimes she needed to.
He grabbed her about the knees and pulled her onto his lap, her arms automatically surrounded him. Her legs curled onto his lap, her need to be closer as she kissed him. Rafe’s hands caressing her backside, was sensual and proprietary at the same time. Pulling away from their kiss, she saw the waiter who had seen her there with Adrian several times look at her with a deep smirk.
“I did not fuck anyone since you went to Shanghai Eliza, all I have been doing is missing you in New York. Severine called, and told me that you missed me so I am here. I will always be here for you.”
Eliza studied her proprietary wine-colored lipstick stains on his face, neck and shirt and shrugged,
“Doesn’t really matter.” He looked at her, and she knew he wanted to ask her if she had fucked anyone. She knew he did not want the answer, anymore than she wanted to answer him. “I missed you.”
“I want to fuck you. Are you going to lick the sauce off of that plate, or are you going to come with me?”
Eliza stuck her finger on the plate, let the last thick puddle of raspberry sauce roll over it and smeared it over Rafe’s lips and hers.
“I always come with you.”

More Wicked Wednesday here:

raspberry sauce left on a dessert plate photo by f dot leonora

Fiona walked about the rooftop, restless. The stars were practically on top of her, along with her own photographs hung up everywhere. She loved the attention, she always had. 

Ever since Shanghai, when she was there with Eliza, it was all that she relished. The attention that she got because of her own talent. Photographs had always been her map to the world, the way she absorbed things and the way she translated everything. Holding her camera, the circles she made around this earth, everything that was in her eyes was in her pictures. It did not matter if it was the supremely beautiful, or the most common of things for her as an artist. It made her smile because she had told Alice about her love of Jean Dubuffet, who loved to highlight the most basic of things. Alice had introduced her to her boss Polly, who had just acquired a Dubuffet as a surprise in Paris. They were negotiating now the private sale of the painting.  

Fiona smiled even more when she thought of Alice. The beautiful girl had wandered into her vision through a crowd in Paris, like she was tumbling down the hole and Fiona felt like the bunny that led her down. She could tell when they first met that Alice was starstruck, Fiona’s reputation as a lothario of sorts was out there and a lot of girls wanted to be her next conquest. But that was just it, Fiona wanted a conquest. Someone she had to chase. Well she used to, anyone she could not get that was who she wanted. She had to admit that that was part of her love for Eliza. Not that it negated her love, but she had to admit where it was coming from.

But as she talked to Alice, she saw that she was really smart about art, self-possessed and that she liked her. 

Alice was the reason she had agreed to this birthday shindig at the gallery which she was going to veto, but she wanted to see Alice again. As it turned out, she was with Polly when they went in the private viewing room to look at the Dubuffet earlier which made Fiona’s heart burst with joy as soon as she saw it. The almost fecal tones, it was that earthy and she loved it. She started snapping pictures of it, and one she snapped while Alice was looking at it. Alice’s side profile defined with her lovely head cocked to one side, and her hips thrust out.

Fiona liked her, and judging by the way Alice looked at her with alternate smiles, or avoiding her eyes she was pretty sure Alice really liked her.

It was with the stars on top of her, and with a birthday cake on the table covered in edible gold and silver stars, that Alice appeared. With her hair out, Alice effortlessly made the transition from day to night. A touch more makeup and glitter, made her shine more than all of the stars in the sky to Fiona.

“I was wondering where you were,” she said to Alice, watching her sentence register over her face.

“I had to finish up some work, but I told you I would be here. Especially since Polly could not make it…”

“Let us eat cake then!” Fiona took Alice’s hand in hers, and the softness of Alice’s hand felt like a soft fire in hers. “I eat cake on my birthday, but I want more champagne really!”

“I barely like sweets,” Alice said.

They cut into the buttercream-filled layer cake, and took one piece. Fiona piled stars on their slice, laughing as people watched her pile on the stars. Balancing two glasses of champagne, 

they took the cake back out onto the roof,  Eating cake to distract her from staring at Alice, Fiona captured a forkful with lots of buttercream frosting and a small star. She let it hover over Alice’s mouth. Alice looked surprised, but she opened her mouth to accept the cake. Fiona took out her phone, knocked a glass of champagne off the ledge of the roof, and took a picture of Alice. When Alice looked like she was protesting, she took more pictures and continued to feed her cake.

“You’re beautiful,” she said finally, as she filled Alice’s beautiful mouth with the last scraping of buttercream frosting.

“Thank you,” Alice said quietly.

Fiona’s eyes lifted toward the stars, as she fingered the frosting-smeared plate.

“What was your birthday wish? I see you looking at the stars, and I was not here when you blew out the candles.”

Fiona stared at Alice, turned to face her fully, pushed out her hips and lowered her lids.

“I wished for you.”

Fiona whirled away from Alice, and mingled with the crowd. She had not been drinking, but she barely heard anything that was being said because all she was thinking about and feeling was Alice. When Alice left, she was no longer there either.

It was awhile before she left herself, but she eventually did and got into the car that was waiting for her. Alice sat by the window. When Alice turned and looked at her, Fiona leaned forward and pressed her lips to the mouth that she had photographed on the roof, focusing on it like a Tom Wesselmann. Alice moved into her, and Fiona pulled Alice’s legs over her own and felt herself click like a key had been turned between her legs. Fiona closed her eyes, and before she did she saw the stars in the sky. Such a heavenly view, she heard that fragment of Coldplay’s ‘Sky Full of Stars’ in her head as they kissed. Alice’s soft fire turned hard, as their kisses deepened.

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tom wesselmann study for smoking via google images