Layce Gardner - More Than a Kiss

"Okay, I’ll try to overcome my fear of sandwiches and people eating sandwiches." Edison smiled tightly and sat back down.

Jordan sighed. It was obvious Amy wanted Edison to stay. A horrible thought struck her. What if Amy discovered that she liked Edison better? Ed was cute and very approachable. Jordan tuned back in to their conversation just in time to hear Amy ask Edison, "So what do you do for a living?"

Edison put her chin in her hand, looked at Amy and asked, "Well… Do you like toys?"

Jordan cleared her throat and kicked Edison under the table. "Ow!" Edison said and promptly kicked Jordan back, but Amy dove into her answer without missing a beat.

"Well, depends on the toy, I guess. I loved Barbies when I was a kid. I had maybe twenty Barbies and a dream house and a pink convertible. Tons of clothes for them and a cute little pink suitcase to carry them in. The problem was I had this puppy, his name was Humphrey, and he liked to chew on my Barbies whenever I left them on the floor, which was most of the time. So all my Barbies ended up with chewed off hands, gnawed feet, missing hair, teeth marks all over them. That's when I got the idea to be a doctor. I know that sounds stupid, but I turned the dream house into an operating room and surgically removed the chewed parts of the Barbies with steak knives. I made prosthetic devices for their missing limbs out of bent paper clips."

"Then we have a lot in common," Edison said. "I make prosthetic devices, too."

Jordan coughed loudly. Amy looked at her quizzically then asked Edison, "What kind of prosthetics do you make?"

Edison smiled. "Well… Do you like adult toys?"

"You mean like chess?" Amy asked.

"I love chess!" Jordan said much too quickly and way too loudly.

Edison ignored her and continued, "I mean like sex toys."

"Oh," Amy said. She took a sip of water, and said “Oh,” a second time.

Jordan interrupted, "Ed, that's not appropriate lunch conversation."

"She asked what I did for a living," Edison said. "I’m giving her an honest answer." She turned back to Amy and said bluntly, "I make sex toys."

"Oh," Amy said.

"I'm an inventor," Edison explained. "That's why they call me Edison."

Jordan explained further, "She invents sex toys. She has several patents on file."

Edison sat up straighter and said proudly, "Dildoes are my specialty. I've invented The Corndog, The Muffin Mucker, and The Plunger. Just to name a few."

"I see you’ve chosen very descriptive names," Amy said.

After a long silence during which they all looked at their menus even though they'd already placed their order, Amy said, "I need to go to the rest room. I'll be right back."

Jordan watched Amy walk into the ladies’ room before she turned and whapped Edison on top of the head with her menu.

"Ow!"

The Ice Queen Cometh

Jordan whispered harshly, "What's with the sex toys talk? Are you trying to scare her off?"

Edison crossed her arms. "Wouldn't you like to know right off the bat if she's squeamish about lesbians? That way you don't waste your time?"

"Sex toys are personal. Not all lesbians use them, you know."

"Oh yeah? Name five who don't."

Jordan's eyes flickered to the front of the diner. "Oh, shit," she mumbled.

"Sex toys are a way of life…”

Jordan interrupted, "Not that. Oh shit, Petronella's here."

Edison immediately went into bodyguard mode. "Quick, hide."

Jordan looked around. "Where?"

"Under the table."

Jordan slid out of her chair and onto her knees. The tablecloth hid her from view. She scrunched herself into a little ball, knees under her chin, and watched in horror as Petronella's white heels clacked toward their table.

Meet Dr. Petronella Bleeker, the Dutch lesbian poet. She had gained a modicum of success for publishing a thin volume of poetry ten years ago. She won a few awards, made little to no money, and now much to her chagrin and humiliation was a professor at Portland State University. Petronella felt she was working below her status. A poet of her caliber should be teaching at Yale or Harvard or not even teaching at all. She carried a chip on her shoulder everywhere she went and never missed a chance to beat people over the head with it.

Petronella was revered by the lesbian community because she was the only poet who had ever successfully rhymed the word vagina. Petronella always dressed in all white. Even her hair was bleached white. It was her signature color because it was the absence of color. She was also fashionably thin – all gristle, no white meat.

To Be Continued…

Jordan and Petronella’s Story

Jordan and Petronella had been lovers for one year, twenty-seven days and three hours. At the beginning Petronella was everything Jordan had ever fantasized about. Petronella was smart, educated, creative, attentive, an excellent lover. She was beautiful in a Queen Frostine kind of way. But like all ice sculptures, she had melted over time and left Jordan standing in a puddle of cold water that turned her toes blue.

Jordan should have known Petronella was too good to be true. But how can somebody know something like that? You don't really know somebody until you live with them. Then their façade cracks and you get glimpses of who they truly are. That's where Jordan went wrong. She ignored the glimpses of the real Petronella that she saw between the cracks. She wanted to be loved so badly that she pretended.

The first time she had crossed paths with Petronella had been on campus. Jordan had been hired to teach a semester seminar on girls as protagonists in children's lit. The class was the Dean's brainchild – a liaison between women's studies and the Education Department's Early Childhood Development. Jordan had been recruited and hired because she was famous and local. She was more the latter than the former. She also worked for peanuts.

Jordan had been invited to the Women’s Studies bi-annual potluck. She had felt out of place. Her contribution had been a bag of nacho cheese flavored Doritos and a can of bean dip. She put the dip in the center of the table and realized that once again, she didn't fit in. Everyone else had brought typical lesbian dishes: tabouli, humus, salad, stinky cheeses made out of milk that wasn't cow’s, and gluten-free desserts.

Jordan sat alone in a corner of the room munching Doritos when Petronella approached. Petronella stared. Jordan looked into Petronella's glacial eyes and a shiver ran down her spine. At the time she thought it was lust that made her tremble. She didn't realize until much later it was actually fear.

She held out the bag of chips to Petronella. Petronella only smiled. It reminded Jordan of the wolf's smile in the story of Little Red Riding Hood .

"Come," Petronella ordered.

Jordan obediently followed Petronella out the door and to her car. “Where are we going?”

“You will see and you will like it,” Petronella said with authority.

Petronella drove four blocks from campus and parked in front of a beautiful house. She showed Jordan into the foyer, up the marble staircase, through the immaculate white bedroom filled with mirrors and out onto a terrace.

"You wanted me to see your house?" Jordan asked.

Petronella laughed. "No," she said. "I want to show you the only thing of beauty that even begins to compare to you."

Jordan laughed nervously. Petronella gracefully lifted her palm above her head and gestured to the moon. "Behold, the moon," she said dramatically. Everything Petronella did was with great flair as if she knew she was going to shape it into a poem later.

Jordan beheld the moon. It was orange, round and full. When she looked back at Petronella, she was shocked to see that she was disrobing. Petronella let her silk blouse slide off her shoulders to the tile floor. Her breasts glistened in the moonlight. She had large nipples like eyes opened wide and staring.