In Charlotte’s eyes, in Charlotte’s hands, she was Rita Hayworth ... Marilyn Monroe.
When Charlotte finally joined Lily on the bed, their lips met in a fierce, bruising kiss. Lilywrapped her arms and legs around her lover, who pressed down on her, as each of them tried to get asclose to the other as possible.
Charlotte pulled down the shoulder strap of Lily’s black dress and kissed her from shoulder tocollarbone to breast. And when Charlotte’s hand slipped between Lily’s legs, Lily was ready for her — soready that as Charlotte entered her, a sound escaped her mouth, the sound a woman can only make at theheight of passion — a breathy, desperate...
SNORT!
Snort? Lily awoke from her dream to find that her arm was wrapped around not the curvy form ofCharlotte, but the flat, hairy chest of Benny Jack McGilly, who was snoring with the volume of a sea lionwith bronchitis.
Disoriented and still not quite removed from her dream state, Lily leaped out of bed. Where thehell was she, and what in the name of Sappho was she doing in bed with a man?
SNORT! Ben’s snoring shook the bed.
A man with obvious respiratory problems, no less? She backed away from the bed, horrified, onlyto feel something sharp stick her shoulder blade. She wheeled around to see the black, beady eyes of thestuffed turkey staring at her. She couldn’t help it. She screamed.
Ben stopped in mid-snort, sat upright, and flipped on the lamp. “What the — ?”
The peck on the shoulder had woken Lily up. “Um... I’m sorry. I was dreaming ... about Charlotte,and then your snoring woke me up, and I don’t know... In my dream it was like everything was so normal,and then when I woke up everything was just ... weird, y’know?”
“Well, that’s no excuse for hysteria when some people are trying to sleep. And besides, I do notsnore.”
A knock on the door froze Lily and Ben stiff. “Hey,” Big Ben’s voice called. “Everything okay inthere? We heard screaming.”
“Everything’s fine, Daddy,” Ben said testily. “Go back to bed.”
“Oh,” Big Ben said. “Oh. Sorry to, uh, interrupt.” Ben’s face turned the same shade of red as thepreserved turkey’s wattle.
“What?” Lily teased. “You’re embarrassed that your father thinks you were driving me toscreaming heights of ecstasy?”
Ben flipped the light off. “Let’s go back to sleep, okay?” He rolled over, and soon the snoringresumed.
Lily crawled back into bed. She hated Ben for waking her up, because she knew that dreams werethe only place she’d ever feel Charlotte’s touch again. Lily’s six years with Charlotte had been a blur of