That Friday night at the strip club I get lucky, and make out with a stripper in the VIP room. The bouncer doesn't stop us, I think, because he likes to watch. She is beautiful, with dark cocoa skin, and long curly jet black hair.

It's been weeks since I've been laid, and that is way too long for my tastes. Perhaps I'm a slut, perhaps I'm a sex addict. I just know that sex completes me. It is spiritually essential. After, I can stretch like a cat and feel that life is good and practically purr. And I have too much fun to fret over the fact that I'm probably a cliche.

By Sunday I’ve put a coat of paint on at least every wall. I love the results. It's very cool to be in one room, and see the deep color of another beckoning beyond, like another world, or a whole other state of mind.

The fans are still going but the smell of paint is everywhere. I like the scent, personally. The smell of new perspectives.

I keep touching up the walls until about six-thirty and then take a shower, rubbing paint splotches from my skin. I sit on the porch swing, one foot propelling myself back and forth on the swing, the other drawn close up to my chest. I finger-comb out my wet hair and watch the first shadows among the trees as the day stretches down, long and golden, across the land.

I inhale the scent of spring, which in California is more like summer, and zone in on the sound of kids laughing several yards away, skateboards, the distant whoosh of cars on Santa Monica, steady like blood through an artery.

I should probably play by the Chick Rules and get up and put on some makeup, scrunch up my hair or something. But the rocking of the swing is perfect and the breeze is perfect, and fuck it, this chick has met her match.

I rest my hand gently over my crotch, feeling the red cotton panties, damp from my shower, underneath my shorts. Oh, this will be great.

I think about Leah, the last woman I had sex with before leaving Texas, an encounter that tasted of melancholy and leaving. I miss her, miss spooning up to her curvy back and the softness of her skin, but I know that she is missing me far more. That feels empty and hollow, and I don’t want her to ache, but there’s nothing I can do about it.

I try to reassemble Shane’s face in my mind, but I can’t do it. I recall her features individually, her hair, her androgynous jawline, and especially those lips. But I can’t put it together. I just reel with that feeling of shock that I recall perfectly.

I pick up the book I‘m reading, an autobiography of the painter Artemisia Gentileschi. I get lost in the illustrations of her sumptuous, dramatic work, full of color and texture and drama.

It’s about seven thirty when a truck slows to a stop in front of the house. The door slams, and I hear footsteps on the walk. Shane.

Good Christ, she is beautiful. White sleeveless tee shirt, no bra, white pants. Lots of chunky silver jewelry. Berry red lipstick, and she gives me that incredible lopsided grin.

“Hey.” Was her voice that deep on Friday?

“Hey there. Have a seat.” I nod to the other end of the swing. She looks at me for a second as if unsure, then sits. I’m not sure what this means.

“What’s up?” Oh, her voice is deep and so sexy.

“Just chillin’.”

“Whatcha reading?”

“Have you heard of Artemisia Gentileschi?”

“Yeah, there was a movie, wasn't there? I forget who she was.”

I close the book and hand it to her. “She was a painter in Renaissance Italy. Her father was the famous one but her work was just as good. Good stuff.”

“Cool. Are you an artist?”

“No,” I laugh. “Shit, no, I’m a nurse.”

“Cool.”

“And you do hair, I presume?”

“Yeah.” She smiles.

“That’s cool. Maybe you could do something with mine?”

“Any time.”

“Come inside,” I say, standing up. Enough of the chitchat. I wanna make with the fucking.

I hear her footsteps, feel her following me into the house. I’m very aware of how I look. It’s been a while since I enjoyed strutting for someone so much.

“Something to drink?”

“Um, sure.”

“What would you like?” I gesture to the bar in the living room.

“Oh, um, whatever. Surprise me.” She has a sweet shyness that wasn't apparent when we first met. I wonder why. It's quite intriguing.

“Okay,” I say, feeling catlike as I smile. Oh, honey, I'll surprise you.

I walk away past her, into the kitchen. Two glasses of ice, some OJ. I walk back to the bar and find her looking at the photos on the wall. I throw a splash of Midori into each glass and the concoctions bloom an intense shade of chartreuse.

“What's that?”

“A modified Alien Secretion. They’re yummy. Like a Jolly Rancher.”

My hair has tumbled down from its knot, falling to the side, and it’s in my face, covering one eye. I feel her approach behind me and my bare neck tingles.

Then I feel her hand on my neck, her weight behind me, pressing me to the counter. She presses her lips to my neck. She is skilled, dragging her teeth slightly, nipping, soothing, kissing. So good. I part my lips and gasp, god, it’s good.

She is utterly silent. Her hands are everywhere on me, skinny arms snaking around me, holding me against the bar. One hand roves down between my legs, sliding under panties, cupping, probing. I don’t want it like this, I want to look at her, but then she presses my clit just right and I waver, shake and moan indecisively.

She gets me off so high, so quickly, with the wriggling pressure of her fingers and the press of my body to the bar where our drinks sit untouched. I arch my back and lean dangerously into her, feel her breath in my ear, its pace fast and hot.

“Stop,” I whisper, just before I come, turning around. She doesn’t want me to move. She wants to fuck me like that and I feel her pressing, coercing.

“I can’t do it like this. I have to lie down.”

I meet her eyes, and she looks somehow off-balance. Disarmed.

“Come on,” I order, smiling. “Take your drink. It only looks like toxic waste, honest.” I pick up my drink with one hand and pull her into the bedroom with the other. I can tell by the way she stumbles up the stairs that she isn’t fond of following anyone’s lead.

Well, girlfriend’s in trouble, because I’m also an alpha female.

I push her down onto my bed gently, nimbly unbuttoning her top, spreading it, pressing my face to her hot flesh. Her breasts are tiny and remarkably pert, insistent pink nipples that feel tight between my teeth. The breathy sound she makes is inadvertent and sweet. She’s not used to being topped, and I’m going to top her ass, just a little.

Just a little. I pull back a bit and look at her. It’s a form of intimacy she seems to hate, and she presses up with considerable strength to kiss me roughly. It’s too fast, she’s not doing me justice, but when she bites my lip gently I don’t care either.

Somehow I wind up back on my back, she wastes no time in going down. Oh, slick hot heaven. So good. I breathe heavily out as she takes me right back to where I was before. I reach to tangle my fingers in her hair, but as fucked-looking as it is, some product has made it impenetrable. Still, it's soft under my fingers, and her tongue is simply so damn good, that I don’t care. I scream, hoping that the fans swallow the sound, then lie there quivering, noting the passing headlights that flash across the ceiling, trying to catch my breath.

She is grinning that lopsided grin like I knew she would, and I roughly pull her to me. She is so thin, a wisp of a thing, skin feels so good under my fingers. I lick the slickness of my pussy from her lips, sighing, and it is sweet as hell, but she doesn’t want to kiss me like that, it’s too slow and sensual.

She shifts and I feel her pressing up against my leg, rocking back and forth. She’s humping my leg like a dog, and that just won’t do. The girl clearly has issues, but fuck it, I’m gonna taste her.

I’m bigger and stronger and when I roll us over and take down her pants, seeing very feminine, very long thin legs, pale white skin, oh, god, she’s lovely. I want to worship on the damn altar of her beauty, spend long minutes teasing every inch of those legs, but I know she won’t let me.

So I immediately spread her legs and dive in. It goes against my nature to rush, but I lick her good enough that she isn’t going to up and leave. So wet and warm, a bit salty, so good. I bring her close to the edge, once, twice, then three times, until she is shaking, whispering “stop teasing, dammit.”

I keep going until I hear her whimper. I’d love to go for another hour, but I’m being greedy. So I suck her clit hard between my lips, again and again and again, the friction of each in-and-out movement making her shake.

She doesn’t scream, or even moan, to my disappointment. She just quivers and hisses “fuck!” and explodes in my mouth. I feel it from the inside, my fingers slicking even more, sliding wetly in her.

We uncouple, then she flops down and rolls over, not touching me anywhere. I lick my lips slowly, then start on my fingers. Oh, god, so good. I notice that a sex blush has swept down from her face to her shoulders and neck, and it’s cute. She lays there trying to catch her breath.

I linger with my fingertips on my lips, wanting to suck them into my mouth. I wait until she finally opens her eyes, then slowly suck them in, tongue flickering. It would be nice to have her stay for a second go-round, but I know she’s about to bail.

When sees me unabashedly sucking her juices from my fingers, her eyes widen a bit. I don’t look away, and suck them in all the way.

Then she grins, chuckles. “Shit,” she says. “You’re a freak.”

“You ain’t seen nothing, Miss Maybe.”

She gives me the same grin I use when I‘m flustered. “Hey, I gotta get going. I have this thing-”

I laugh. Loudly.

She clearly doesn’t expect it. The inner edges of her eyebrows press together and rise, giving her a look of adorable confusion. “What? What’s funny?”

“Ahh." I laugh. "You. I know there’s no thing. You don’t have to bullshit me. Go. Call me if you ever want to fuck again.”

I stretch out like a cat, admiring the skinny lines of her body, her cute little tits, as she gets dressed. I lazily trace the circle of my nipple, enjoying her surprise. She leans over me for one last kiss.

“I’ll call you. Bye.”

“Bye,” I say, repressing my laughter until I hear the front door slam. The two drinks sit untouched on the nightstand. I drink them both.

.

Life continues on. I make progress on the walls, then go back to work on Monday. It feels good to stop obsessing about paint and move back into the crazy rhythm of life in the ER.

I’d lie if I said that Shane wasn’t on my mind frequently throughout the rest of the weekend. I see right through her player ways. I could practically taste her fear, feel the walls behind her freely given skin. A delectable paradox, that one. So closed off, but I know she craves flesh like a drug. That much is obvious in her carriage and her demeanor.

Of course I see those things because I am those things, or rather, used to be, to a large extent. But I’ll freely admit that I haven’t had anywhere near my fill of her yet.

And the more I think of it, the more it dominates my fantasies. Her yielding, her laying passively and letting me touch her, slowly and sweetly. Oh yeah, that’s what I want. To teach her rash little self about sensuality, about exquisite, decadent, leisure.

I know she’ll call again. I irritated her and unsettled her, but that made her respect me in some convoluted player way.

I also made her come for long earth-shattering seconds. She’ll be back.

By the middle of the second week I still haven’t heard from Shane. I’m a bit disappointed. I’m craving the feel of her skin and her desperate mouth on me, I never thought to get her number, but she’ll call, eventually.

.

One afternoon before work I run into the Planet for a quick breakfast. The place is inordinately crowded for two in the afternoon.

I try to juggle keys, pastry, my usual double capp, and purse. When I glance around the room I see that there isn't a single available table.

A spritish blonde meets my eye, taking in my predicament with amusement over a battered copy of Girlfriends. She points to the empty stool at her table and smiles. I smile back. You've gotta love the kindness of strangers.

"Hi," I say, unloading all my crap onto her table. "Thank you."

"No problem. You looked like you were struggling a little." Her voice has a slight California lilt to it, very high and girlish.

"Just a little."

"I love your scrubs."

"Thanks," I say, sliding onto a barstool and setting my purse underneath. The scrubs I have on today are my favorites, with cats and dogs holding little rainbow flags. "You know, I moved here from Texas, and back there these scrubs caused a minor scandal."

"No kidding?"

"No kidding. I'm Darah."

"Alice," she smiles, shaking my hand. She has a jittery, chatty energy that is endearing.

Alice is easy to talk to, very connected, and gives me the lowdown on the Planet “under new management and working out glitches, but with these cute little pastries that look kinda like vulvas," and the lesbo scene “for the love of all that is holy, avoid Twat: The Night.”

"Twat the what?" I say, almost coughing on my drink.

"Never mind." She shakes her head, and disappears momentarily behind her big green cup of coffee. "You're probably better off not knowing anyway."

"Okay. So what do you do, Alice?"

"Um, I write for L.A. Magazine."

"Oh, wow. Cool."

"Yeah. Really cool. Sometimes. When I'm not on a deadline. What do you do?" Her eyes flicker to my scrubs, probably wondering if I'm a doctor or a respiratory therapist or something.

"I'm a nurse."

"That is a job I totally could never do, never."

"And I could never write, so we're even," I say, lifting my cup.

She clinks hers against it, and it's that easy, we're instant friends. She's totally not my type, but when she invites me out, I agree. I need some friends out here.

So, that weekend, Alice takes me to the Chinese theater, which I haven’t seen yet, and we walk over the names of stars, arguing heatedly over who we would and wouldn’t fuck, attracting the baffled looks of tourists, giggling like freshmen. We eat dinner at a Thai restaurant that looks like a bordello, but where the pad thai is amazing. I'm having a fabulous time. I get up to use the restroom and when I return, Alice is on her cell phone.

She sees me. “Hold on,” she says to the person on the phone. “You wanna go to a bar with some of my friends?”

"Sure," I say. So, we get in her car and in minutes are crusing through the sultry night.