“You’re being obscene with your food.”

“Ummm. Makes it taste even better.”

Angela speared another asparagus tip and circled the tip of her tongue around the end of it. She looked over her fork to Angela and lightly licked the tip of the asparagus.

“Ummm, it’s sort of soft and firm like your clitoris.”

“Stop it. You’re getting me all hot.”

“Good.” But Angela sensed Ronda’s change to a more somber mood and bit into the asparagus.

“Seriously. I don’t think he loves me.”

“Because he’s never here?”

“Yes. If he loved me he’d be here, wouldn’t he? Beside that, he’s keeping some kind of secret from me. I don’t know for sure what it is, but I’ll bet it’s a woman. There’s sure something he’s not telling me about all these trips. Keeping secrets isn’t love either.”

“Maybe he has some other idea of what love is.”

“Besides being with the person you love? Besides letting them in on your life?”

Angela thought about the various ideas of love she’d encountered as a love detective. Everything from picket-fenced cottages to whips and chains, from making money to making babies. She lifted one of the small potatoes to her mouth with her fork, and, from the contemplative look on Ronda’s face, decided to just eat it instead of performing fellatio on it as she had the asparagus spear.

“What do you think it means?” Ronda stabbed some arugula leaves with her fork. “Love?”

“I suppose the purest form is a mother’s love for her child.”

“How’s that?” The innocence of Angela’s response betrayed genuine puzzlement.

“Love is being willing to give everything for another. It means never holding back.”

“Tell all?” Ronda leaned forward, all attention.

“Or having nothing to tell. It means suffering, too, I suppose, because when you do give all, you suffer.”

“How?” Ronda’s fork dangled between her fingers.

“Like with a child. The first thing that happens is you are sick all the time. As soon as you get used to that and things settle down a bit there’s a short period when your hormones kick in and you understand why some women like to be pregnant. It’s like a butterfly’s wing can make you have an orgasm.

“But then you are lugging this huge parasitic growth around in your belly and your arches fall and your feet hurt and your back aches and all you want do is sit down and you can’t sit down and you can’t lie down and nothing is comfortable or right. And your boobs get all huge like a cow’s udder and flop all over the place and hurt.”

Angela slumped back in her chair with the memory.

“This is love?” Ronda took a sip of wine.

“No, this is suffering. But it’s just beginning.” Angela sat up and speared another potato, chewed it contemplatively, and took a sip of wine. “It’s just the beginning of suffering. Because then that parasite has to come out through your body. It’s just sitting in there getting ready to turn you inside out. And then it turns you inside out and you scream and curse the race of men who ever invented this whole damned way of doing things, and then you have this helpless little thing sucking on your nipple and trying to bite it off. But you’re glad it’s there because it relieves some of the pressure on your boobs. And then it starts to cry.” Angela lifted her glass of wine. “This is good. And delicious food.”

“I’m still waiting for the love to come into it.” Ronda stirred her fork in the salad bowl.

“This is still the suffering part. But soon you forget the pain and…”

“Do it again?”

“Some might. I didn’t forget that much.”

“I’d like to have a child.”

“No reason not to.” Angela made an appreciative face as the salmon fell apart in her mouth.

“Asshole doesn’t want one. But where does the love come in?”

“Maybe because of all the suffering, you know that you’d do anything for that little piece of ‘you’ that’s trying to bite your nipples off.”

“You’ve done this?”

“Yes.”

“I thought there’d be stretch marks and saggy boobs.”

“I was a rower in college, so I was in good shape. After the kid, I worked out pretty constantly to get back in shape.”

“It worked.”

“I even did those Kegel exercises to make my cunt tight again.”

“Probably invented by some man?”

“Well, I like it tight too. But my point is that that’s what love is. It’s giving of yourself as you give yourself to your child. You give your whole self to make the baby, and then you give yourself to it to bring it up.”

“And they don’t notice.” Ronda poured more wine for both of them.

“That’s right. And pretty soon, they’re grown up and telling their shrink how you fucked them up by bringing them into the world.”

“So love doesn’t pay?”

“It doesn’t demand payment. It’s a gift. That’s the point. You can’t ask for any return.” Angela pushed her plate away. “Delicious.”

“You’re saying that it’s not just fiscal?”

They both laughed and drank some more wine before they left the dishes and walked hand in hand to the bedroom.

Ronda led Angela into her large closet. “Let me take your clothes off, lover.” Ronda positioned herself behind Angela and gently nudged her to face the full-length mirror as she pulled Angela’s sweater slowly over her head. Angela was wearing a black lace bra.

“What a sexy bra! Not your usual.”

“Mmm. I was feeling sexy this morning when I got dressed.”

Ronda reached around Angela to unbutton and unzip her pants, and pull them down to her ankles. Angela stepped out of them.

“You were feeling sexy, weren’t you?”

Ronda’s hands glided over Angela’s nearly bare hips, over the thin elastic band of her sheer black thong. Angela arched her back to thrust out her breasts.

“I like the way you look at me.” Angela reached behind her to unfasten her bra.

“I’ll get to that in a minute.” Ronda peeled the thong down and Angela stepped out of it.

Ronda pressed herself against Angela’s back and moved both hands across her stomach and down to her mons. “Why do you leave this wisp?”

“I don’t know. I like the feeling of being smooth, but I like to have a little hair. And I’m not sure I can shave that close to my labia without cutting myself. Doesn’t waxing hurt?”

“Not that much.” Ronda twisted the length of pubic hair around her forefinger. She released the wisp of hair and unfastened the bra. With a hand on each of Angela’s shoulders, Ronda nudged the bra over Angela’s arms and it fell to the floor. Ronda cupped Angela’s breasts in her hands and kissed Angela’s neck.

“Your breasts feel so good in my hands, lover.”

“Your hands feel so good on my breasts.” Angela reached her right hand behind Ronda’s head and stroked her hair.

Ronda released Angela’s breasts and stroked the slight swell of her stomach. She used the tips of her fingers to open her labia. “Can you see? You’re all shiny and wet.”

“Of course, I’m all wet. You’ve been stroking me and looking at me and playing with me. Why don’t you take me to the bed and make love with me?”

“I like to prolong it.”

“Umm. So do I. Prolong it all you like.”

Ronda circled Angela’s clitoris with the tip of her right ring finger, then, as it emerged from its cowl, stroked along its back side. Angela sighed as her head fell backwards to rest on Ronda’s shoulder. Ronda kissed the long expanse of Angela’s stretched neck and grasped her buttock with her left hand.

“Oh, make it burn.”

Angela squeezed harder and increased the pace of her finger.

“Let me sit down. You sit behind me. We can both see and I won’t have to keep my balance like this.” Angela pulled Ronda’s hands from her body and sat in front of the mirror with her legs wide open to expose her open cunt.

Ronda sat behind her and moved both hands to Angela’s labia to open them wider. Then she returned to Angela’s now large and purple clitoris to circle it with a fingertip before she started lightly stroking its underside.

“Oh, that feels so good. Don’t stop.”

“Don’t you want to prolong it?”

“Do whatever you want. You can prolong that all night if you like. That is so hot, to see you playing with me that way.”

Ronda dipped her finger into Angela’s cunt where warm moisture was flowing between her labia and increased the pace with featherlight pressure.

“Don’t stop. That’s just the right place. Don’t stop.”

Ronda continued at the same pace and pressure until Angela’s thighs and stomach began to tremble, then quiver and finally to shudder as she gasped and her head slumped backward again to rest on Ronda’s shoulder. Angela’s breath rasped in her throat and a whimper became a shout as her body convulsed and collapsed into Ronda’s arms.

Ronda rocked Angela gently until her breathing returned to normal. “Put your finger back in my cunt. You can feel it pulsing. That was a major orgasm, lover.”

“Want to do it again?”

“Yes. Please.”

“How many times can you come?”

“I don’t know. Let’s find out. If you really want to know, then take me to bed and go down on me and just don’t stop when I come.”

Ronda stood and offered her hands to pull Angela up from the floor and lead her to the bed. Ronda placed Angela at the foot of the bed and knelt on the floor between her knees. Angela draped her legs over Ronda’s shoulders and Ronda pulled Angela’s still throbbing cunt toward her and started to caress her swollen clitoris with fast-paced firm strokes of her tongue.

“That’s it. Don’t stop.” Angela sighed and her thighs began to quiver. “Don’t stop.”

Again Angela shrieked with pleasure as the orgasm overtook her body.

Ronda’s tongue continued its firm massage and Angela’s body began to tremble with convulsions. Her thighs and arms shuddered and her stomach quaked as she gasped for breath. Ronda put her hands under Angela’s hips and felt them quivering in concert with the rest of her body.