By Medella Kingston

©2014

May the holes in your net be no larger than the fish in it. ~Irish Blessing

Chapter 1: The Waiting Room

Pete looked up from the mystery she was reading and scanned the faces in the waiting room. There was Tired Pinched Mom with faded blond ponytail and dark roots coming in. She had one kid under control and was now quietly negotiating with the other. Next to this trio sat Man Too Large For His Seat, who seemed to be staring at his shoes or sleeping with his eyes open. In the corner was someone so nondescript she couldn't instantly name her- then it came to her: Any Woman. This woman was neither thin nor large, short nor tall, and had a slightly exotic yet familiar face. She looked as if she could be from many different places, like Greece, Morocco, Central America or New Jersey. She was text-messaging so quickly, Pete half expected her thumbs to spark and set fire to her phone.

Doesn't anyone people watch anymore? Was she the only person left who liked to read faces and create narratives? Maybe so. She'd never stop doing it. She'd been spinning this stuff since she was little - much to the annoyance of her mother. Instead of acknowledging the creative gifts of her child, or at the very least being entertained by them, she'd say, "God will punish you, Petra Marie, for thinking bad thoughts about people and making up lies." Some traits must skip generations, because Grandma Sweets had the right attitude. She'd join right in and embellish her granddaughter's rough outlines of strangers' lives with additions that could only come from a seasoned mind. If Pete said a passenger on the bus looked guilty, Gram Sweets would say, "Of course he looks guilty, he ought to! Instead of cooking a turkey for Thanksgiving, he cooked his wife!" Suddenly her reminiscing was perforated by the staccato of a telephone.

"Cambridge Holistic Health and Wellness Center, please hold."

Please hold? Pete thought. No one else was on the line, is this receptionista just fucking with the caller? Pete dog-eared the page in her paperback, closed it, slipped it into her bag, and decided to devote all of her energy to observing. She studied the receptionist and saw her stare into space just chewing her gum for a half a minute and then return to the caller. What was that? She was just about to make up a story about her when her eyes landed on something strange. She hadn't noticed the cheap plastic clock on the wallpapered wall before, but now she couldn't take her eyes off of it because the second hand was moving backward.

At first she thought she was seeing things, since her imagination was such a well-developed muscle. So she did something that made her feel seven instead of

thirty-seven. She closed her eyes to reset, inhaled a long slow breath, and then opened them, hoping this simple act could alter what she saw, or make things feel right again. She didn't return her gaze to the clock right away, but rather avoided its face like you would dodge direct eye contact in a volley of flirt and stare with a stranger who'd

caught you looking.

She panned her eyes evenly over all she had just taken in. Now the previously obedient child of the two was acting petulant, Man Too Large For His Seat actually was asleep, and Any Woman had stopped texting and was staring back at Pete. This startled her a bit. She looked away and then forced herself to look at the clock again. The red second hand was still moving backward and now instead of 2:27, it was 2:26, and the room seemed brighter to her than it had been just a minute ago.

"Petra Orvatch?"

She heard the automaton call her but she couldn't move - she felt obligated to monitor the clock and confirm that it was in fact going backward, but knew she shouldn't say anything about it. It was one of those times when she couldn't expect people to understand her. These occurrences had happened ever since she could remember and could be confusing, amusing, or even downright dangerous. Like that time five years ago in the pet store.

"I'm telling you, I saw a fish in that fish tank that had the face of a human," Pete said as calmly as she could to the pet store employee. He was a mouth-breather, but she thought she saw his lower lip droop a little more with incredulity. "I couldn't make that up!" She shoved her fists in her jacket pockets, hunched a bit forward in his direction, read his nametag, and continued. "Look Vince, I know I sound crazy, but I also know what I saw and all I'm asking you to do is check it out."

"Miss," he returned slowly, an excess of saliva making his large lower lip shine beneath the florescent lights, "I can assure you, we do not have any unusual, exotic, or illegal fish for sale here at Petworld. Ivan, the tropical fish department manager, is on his lunch break. He's due back in -" He paused to look at his watch, which was a large, garish Mickey Mouse watch. "-fourteen minutes. When he is back, maybe he can help you. I can't because -"

"You can't? But you're right here next to the tank." Pete's posture was taking on

the shape of anger and even the tips of her short, dark, spiky hair seemed furious as she spoke. Interestingly, she did not raise her voice. Vince opened his mouth but couldn't find words, instead he tugged nervously at his blue and yellow Petworld vest and scanned the store as if looking for help with this bizarre customer. Pete took a few steps toward the massive tank and put her face close to the glass. She tracked different fish and followed them silently with both index fingers at the same time. Vince stayed where he was, closed his mouth for the first time in a while, and watched. It occurred to him that perhaps a friend put her up to this, that a joke was being played on him. One of his friends was a bit of a trickster and knew he was nervous about his new job. He started laughing, which didn't amuse Pete. She glared at him until no more noises came out of his throat.

Her voice was still not raised, but the slow deliberate pace of her words told him she was mad. "Are you laughing at me?" As Petra questioned him, she stepped closer until she was less than two feet from him and looked up into his face, which was

beginning to lose its grin. Vince couldn't tell if she was a real actress that his pal Gary hired and this was all part of the gag, or if he had gotten it very wrong and this woman was going to take a left turn onto crazy street right here, right now, his first week on the job.

He backed up. She advanced toward him. "No, miss, I- well... I know I was laughing, but not actually at you." Two tiny beads of sweat appeared on his forehead as he searched for the words. There was nothing in his employee orientation that could have prepared him for this. 'The customer is always right' flashed in his mind, but that was what his mother always said when she dragged him around to the superstores. This credo was not in his recent training, but maybe it could serve him somehow. Where was Ivan? Was this woman on drugs? He fiddled with his watch nervously, looked to the side and found some words. "I laugh when I'm nervous so -"

"I make you nervous?" she cut him off, her words short and overly enunciated. "Well-" She touched her pointed index finger ever so lightly to his chest, barely making contact with his vest. "-that goddamned fish with a face should make you nervous, Vince, not me. Don't you know fish with human faces are bad omens? In Japan, they are known to cause tsunamis! That fish is a disaster just waiting to happen. Now are you going to take a look or what?"

"Miss, there's no need to get upset." He looked at Mickey Mouse. "Ivan will be back in ten minutes or so. He's our tropical fish person and-"

"Fish person!" she hissed. "That's exactly the problem. There is a fish in that tank that looks like a person and it's only a matter of time before it disturbs other people and this should be your fucking concern, not Ivan's, because you're here and he's not!"

The customer is always right, he repeated in his mind. He needed to make a decision. He tugged the bottom of his vest down with both hands as if to bolster himself, straightened his back, and responded with the best he had. "Well, uh - let's take a look."

"Finally! Are you going to get in there with a net so we can grab the fucker for a close inspection?"

"Excuse me, what aisle are the poopy bags in?" came from an elderly customer

who appeared around the corner. "I know this is the fishy section but you must know where the poopy bags are in the doggie section, right?"

Poopy, fishy, doggie, Pete's head was going to explode. This was absurd. If the woman hadn't reminded her of Grandma Sweets before her stroke, she might have told her to go to the fucky section.

"Aisle 11, ma'am," Vince answered with a forced smile.

"Thank you, son."

"No problem, Ma'am. Thanks for shopping at Petworld." Right after this last bit came out of his mouth, he regretted it.

"Real dedicated, huh Vince?" Her volume was slightly increased now, and she had a mocking tone. "But it took me five minutes to convince you to help me. Let's find this crazy fish!" Vince was thinking that she was a crazy fish, but acted calm, and

hoped that however this turned out it would somehow all be over before Ivan returned. He liked Ivan; they were supposed to go out for beers after work on Friday and he didn't want to screw up the chance to be friends with someone at his new job. He focused his thoughts on the situation at hand and hoped it would be an amusing anecdote to share over those drinks. He retrieved a long-handled net from behind the counter, rolled up his sleeves, and prayed this would end soon. Pete's eyes brightened at the sight of the net and she began scanning all the fish in the tank. She moved systematically, almost robotically from left to right, top to bottom. "How far back does this thing go? Two feet? I can't tell, it's kind of distorted."

"Not sure. I'm just going to open the top and get ready to get that fish." He pulled a green formica panel open from the wall above the immense aquarium, revealing the bubbly surface of the water. He was looking into it when he heard her.

"There it is!" She sounded like a delighted child who just proved a grown up wrong about something. Vince saw her on her knees in front of the bottom left corner of the tank and knew he couldn't reach in that far down, so he crouched next to her. Then he saw what she saw. On one of the larger black fish, he couldn't remember what this type of fish was called, he saw the face of a customer standing about fifteen feet down the aisle reflected in the glass and had his 'a-ha' moment. "Do you see it? Get that fish! Right there! That fish is not right!"

"Petra Orvatch?" rang through the waiting room, snapping Pete into the present.

"It's Pete," she hissed under her breath. She didn't want to stop reliving the memorable incident just because her name had been called. She'd prefer to enjoy the

details of it all but she fast-forwarded, stopping only on highlights: Vince calmly, almost compassionately, explained about the reflection. Petra didn't believe him. He demonstrated with his own reflection until she believed him. She was embarrassed almost to the point of crying. He felt bad for her.

They stayed crouched, gazing at their reflections in the tank rather than looking at each other directly. As Pete stared, her mortification morphed into a sudden rush of affection for Vince. She traced her left hand slowly along the inside of his right thigh and asked if there was a back room. His better judgment lost out to his involuntary response. Ivan returned from his lunch break just in time to catch his colleague getting a hand-job from Pete. Unbeknownst to her, the two men talked about it over beers the next evening.

Pete put her bag on her shoulder, straightened her jacket collar, and walked up to the counter. "It's Pete, actually."

"Your doctor is running late and you'll have to wait another hour, until three-thirty.

We're sorry for the inconvenience but it's either that or reschedule. She's dealing with an urgent situation." The receptionist's words came between snapping and chewing that actually revealed the pink gum. Her voice was nasal and she seemed completely unconcerned. Shit, Pete mused, she couldn't be more stereotypical if she had a beehive hairdo and cats-eye glasses!

"Uh, I suppose that's okay." Pete thought about it and decided it would give her time to figure out what was up with the clock - or if she couldn't, perhaps she could calm herself by reading her book until she could see Dr. Percy. She turned around and headed toward her seat, but saw that it was occupied by a woman who must have just come in. She was a stunningly beautiful redhead about the same age as Pete or slightly younger, and when she saw Pete leave the counter, she left her coat on the chair and headed over to check in with Gum Snapper. Pete's first impulse was to move the woman's coat and reclaim her seat. She liked her seat. It gave her an optimal view of almost every person in the waiting room and it faced the mysterious clock. She very nearly did move it but stopped herself when she felt two little eyes on her back. It was one of Tired Pinched Mom's kids staring laconically.

Petra Marie Orvatch had never been someone who cared much about what others thought of her, but for some reason this little girl's gaze stopped her from behaving rashly. Pete glanced up at the clock and saw that now the second hand had stopped altogether, then sat down across from her former seat. With her back to the clock, she started feeling anxious. Her cell phone told her it was 2:31. That was reality. That's what she focused on as she crossed her legs, removed her book from her bag, and opened it to the dog-eared page.

Her mind flooded rapidly with the printed words as images played in her head.

Pete was such a fast reader that she was at the bottom of the page before the redhead

sat down. As she walked past, a faint scent of lavender striped the air, which Pete enjoyed because it instantly reminded her of Grandma Sweets' backyard and all the happy times she spent there. She closed her eyes and inhaled more deeply, and when she opened them, the woman was looking right at her. With large clear eyes that looked to be a greenish blue, flawless skin, high cheekbones, a regal nose, and a wide mouth hinged with full lips, this woman was a knockout. Pete could no longer concentrate on her novel and since the beauty was now reading a magazine, Pete decided to spin a story about her.

She definitely seemed like one of those women who was beautiful but didn't fully know it. Well, all right, she knew she was pretty but didn't seem to capitalize on it. She didn't have a fancy haircut; hell - her hair wasn't even really styled, just sort of loosely arranged. She didn't appear to be wearing any makeup and Pete thought that if she had

been wearing it, she would look as good as any of those women in the beauty magazines. Red the Seat Stealer did not wear any fingernail polish and had on fairly inexpensive clothes from head to toe, except perhaps for her red cowboy boots. They looked pricey. They made her taller than she was. Pete had met a fair amount of women who wore boots and they not only liked power, but weren't afraid to wield it.

As she continued the fantasy about Red, she distinctly smelled lavender. Pete uncrossed her legs, squeezed her thighs together ever so slightly, and became aroused as she continued studying the woman, who was reading an issue of Popular Mechanics. The fact that she chose to read this magazine instead of the homemaker magazines Pete knew were in the stack was a turn on in itself. Red was definitely not a homemaker. She was an adventurer, but not in the obvious ways. She didn't have a dangerous job; she had a scientific job. She didn't drive a sports car; she probably owned a hatchback. She lived on the edge by doing things like mixing painkillers and booze, masturbating on trains, and having sex with strangers. Red the Seat Stealer came from a broken home, had a high IQ, and owned a predatory libido. Pete realized that while she was staring she'd been fiddling with the corner of her book cover so much that it was now frayed. Shit, she thought. I'm sexually frustrated. I haven't touched anyone but myself since July. Maybe Red can help me change that.

"Fiona Angeli?" the receptionist called through her nose, "I forgot to give you your insurance card back, hon. Sorry." Pete caught the term of endearment from Gum Snapper and wondered if Fiona's beauty had somehow subdued her, bringing out her gentler side.

Her name was Fiona. Pete thought that was an awesome name to say in bed. Fi-on-a. Each syllable hung musically suspended in Pete's mind like chimes. Fiona got up to reclaim her card and Pete turned to study her ass. A little too big for the rest of her: perfect. Suddenly Pete felt guilty, or not quite guilty, but distracted from her purpose. Her purpose was to figure out what the hell was wrong with the clock, not have girl on girl fantasies. Her last lover had been a man who wasn't particularly skilled in bed, just energetic and fun to be with. Having sex with him was a bit like throwing a ball for a dog. Being with this woman would be more like driving a racecar or playing a cello, it would require skill and focus. It never occurred to Pete that Fiona might be as interested in having sex with a woman as she was in the stack of untouched magazines with smiling women and baked goods on their covers.

"Mom!" one of Tired Pinched Mom's kids sang out abruptly," how much loooooonger do we hafta wait?" She grabbed the small boy's wrist forcefully but not abusively and answered him so quietly that Pete couldn't make it out, even with her better than perfect hearing. It must have been a threat, Pete concluded, because the child went instantly from petulant to robotically compliant and slumped back down in the turquoise vinyl chair. But just as he calmed down, some unseen hand wound up his little sister, because she started poking her mother in the arms, the belly, and the legs over

and over without saying anything. Poke, poke, poke, until her frustrated mother took a wrist in each hand and brought them together, then leaned her face very close to the girl's as she said something very quietly, slowly, and deliberately. At first the girl looked as if she were about to cry, then she squirmed to free herself from her mother's grasp. Tired Pinched Mom said it more loudly this time, "Please stop poking me. If you don't, you'll have a consequence when we get home."

Pete got the feeling this woman had acquired a special skill set for managing this behavior and that she had to manage it often. Some of the other people began staring in their direction; even Man Too Large For His Seat woke up and knitted his brow as he looked at the family. His furrowed forehead relaxed and his eyes enlarged when they landed on Fiona. Her looks had woken him fully and Pete thought she saw his pupils dilate with desire as he eyed her up and down, knocking his knees toward each other like a boy with a hard-on. Fiona must have been a lighthouse since she was a girl and Pete wondered how it would feel to grow up with that kind of magnetism, to call all those ships into port no matter what cargo they carried.

When Pete landed her gaze briefly on Fiona, she noticed a slight smirk on her face and wondered if they were in cahoots or somehow testing the waters for a mutual opinion of the family drama unraveling in front of them. Their eyes met and Pete curled her lips too, then self-consciously smoothed her hair back, but it was so thick and willful that it just sprang back to where it was before she attempted to tame it. Crap. Now instead of just fantasy, Red was reality. Pete didn't always trust reality, not just because of the fish with the face on it, or this clock now with its drunken second hand, but because there had been so many times in her life when she came by information in inexplicable, magical, and sometimes crazy ways. Like the time her dog spoke to her, and no one in her life believed her, except maybe her best friend.

This was four years back, when Turtle was still a puppy. Overnight he went from a healthy active pup to a sickly lethargic one. Pete woke to find him dull-eyed, listless, sick. He wouldn't eat, was vomiting, and had diarrhea. Pete had a much smaller salary back then and usually before deciding to take him to the veterinarian, she would consult her canine health book. She stroked his wiry fur with one hand and flipped through the pages with the other. The list of possible ailments was too long for her to sift through and she felt a flash of panic. Turtle was so young and pups this little could easily die from something like this. She was not going to let him die when he had already been through so much in his short life. He'd been found in a parking lot, so thin his ribs protruded, cowering inside a cardboard box, shaking and terrified of people. Pete heard about him from her best friend, Sheila, who worked at an animal shelter. It was love at first sight when she met the little mutt. He looked like a combination of every terrier in the book with his scruffy coat and small features. He was mostly white, except for a circular patch of brown on his back and sides that reminded Pete first of a saddle, and then a turtle shell. And so she named him Turtle.

He'd come a long way in the month since she'd adopted him. His belly had rounded out and he was much less afraid of people. And now he was ill and she was about to take him to the vet when she got an idea. She would ask him what was wrong. She stared at the little guy and asked sweetly, "Turtle, boy, what's wrong with you? Why are you sick?" After Turtle heard those words, he stared at her intently and Pete had an experience like she'd never had before: she heard him talking to her in her own head. Their eyes were locked the whole time and he communicated to her that he had chewed some of the wooden trim in her apartment and it had lead paint on it. He had lead poisoning and would need to go to the vet for treatment.

"Okay, boy," she said. She took him to the clinic immediately. She had a high limit on one of her credit cards, so she was not too concerned about the bill. When she arrived, she told the person at the front desk that it was lead poisoning. When he asked her how she knew this, she didn't think and blurted out, "My dog told me." The vet tech looked at her the way people do when shock prevents them from finding words, opened his mouth in silence, and then simply asked her about the pup's symptoms. Pete then sat with him and waited just a few minutes to be seen. She decided not to tell the vet about how she knew what was wrong with Turtle. She'd sit on that information so she didn't have to endure another scrutinizing glare. She knew what she knew, and she also knew that reality, as other people described it, was not to be trusted.

The treatment for the poisoning was fairly simple and inexpensive. Turtle would make a full recovery. This was a tremendous relief. She'd adopted Turtle a few weeks

after her breakup with Robin, and the dog was a huge comfort to her. Walking him three times a day kept her connected to the world outside of her pain. People came up to her all the time to pet the puppy, and in the months following the split, this was often the extent of her social contact for the day.

She turned away from Fiona and looked back at the clock. The second hand was still frozen. No wait, now it was moving! She blinked and hoped it would have a windshield wiper effect, that she would see more clearly. The second hand was moving all right, and the time on the clock was the same as the time on her

cell phone. She wasn't sure what had happened, but she was sure that Fiona was trying to get her attention and that was exciting. Forget the book, Pete thought, I have less than an hour until my appointment and I don't know when she will be called in, so I have to connect with her somehow. There's something between us.

Robin. She hadn't thought of Robin in about a year. They'd almost married and had talked of raising children together. They were together just about four years, and after the break up, Pete had recurring dreams about her for almost as long as the relationship. These visits through the sleep channel were torturous; Pete would see Robin's deep blue eyes brimming with desire, the way they had when things were good between them. Their first three years had been filled with passion and connection and then everything fell apart. She knew that people parted ways more than they stayed together, but when something whole became jagged shards of memory, it stung Pete hard. Robin had been the only lover she could see herself with indefinitely.

Her stomach growled and she realized she hadn't eaten a proper lunch. It was so loud, she half-wondered if anyone near her heard it. Again came a thunderous roar from her belly. Fiona looked up at her and grinned slightly. She too must have bionic hearing, Pete thought. She smiled back and let out a small laugh. Fiona reached into her bag and produced an apple. She held her arm out in Pete's direction with the shiny red fruit in the palm of her hand. It was quite an unexpected and generous offering. How could Pete say no? She got up from her seat, took two small steps and took the apple from Fiona's hand.

"You sure you don't want it?"

"I'm sure. You need to feed that beast you've got in there."

Don't I know it, thought Pete. Looking at you is making me hungrier and hungrier… "Well, um, thanks. A lot. My name's Pete," she sputtered quietly as she extended her other hand to the woman.

"Hi, Pete. Fiona," she responded as she shook Pete's hand. Her words were infused with her smile, so much so that if you only heard them and couldn't see her, you'd hear the smile like you sometimes can with radio announcers. Pete wished the seat next to Fiona was empty so she could slide into it and chat her up, but alas it was occupied by a

cheerful senior so she had to sit back down where she was too far away to have a private conversation. She would not miss this opportunity. She looked at the elderly woman sitting beside Fiona. She was smiling to herself as she knitted a brightly colored scarf. Pete decided to take a risk.

"Excuse me, ma'am?"

The woman paused her knitting and looked up. "Yes?"

"Would you mind terribly trading seats with me? I've just run into someone here and we'd love to talk without shouting across the room. I'm really sorry to

ask, but if it's not a problem..."

The knitter then glanced first at Pete and then at Fiona and her eyes seemed to soften as she soaked in Fiona's radiance. "No problem, dear. I don't mind moving."

"Thanks! Very kind of you," Fiona said to the lady as she shifted her weight and faced her body toward the empty seat, looking up at Pete to take her in. She was waiting for this bold woman to say something else because Fiona very much liked the sound of her voice; it was deep, resonant, and warming. She could listen to this woman talk for a long time. The old woman got up, moved, and settled herself quickly back into knitting.

"Hi. That was cool of her, you never know," Pete offered quietly.

"Yeah, most people are kind. Wish I knew how to knit. Do you knit?" After she asked this, her eyes trailed down to Pete's hands which, like her voice, seemed too big for the rest of her. She couldn't picture those large paws knitting. Changing oil, maybe, but not knitting.

"Uh, no. My grandma tried to show me when I was a kid, but I didn't have the patience for it. This apple looks great, thanks again," she answered as she tore into the red skin with a crunch.

"Happy to share. I almost forgot it was in there, but then that can happen when you carry around a bag this big." Pete looked at the bag and saw that it was in fact really big and fairly full. It was well-worn and had once been a shade of orange, but the patina of time had turned it to more of a brown.

"What else have you got in there?" She raised one eyebrow playfully, almost flirtatiously. Fiona leaned in closer to her. More lavender.

"You really want to know?" Pete nodded a yes. "Okay - but don't judge me too harshly..." she said conspiratorially. She unzipped the canvas behemoth, turned it to

face Pete, and pried open its jaws briefly for her to see its contents: pepper spray, a

battered old leather wallet, a pale blue scarf, a pair of handcuffs, a few tampons, a balled up pair of panties, and various small items she couldn't quite figure out. Before she could get a closer look at the contents, Fiona zipped up the bag. Pete thought she

should be frightened, or at least on guard, but instead she felt an adrenaline rush like the kind she got when she used to exceed the speed limit on her old motorcycle. Yes, Red the Seat Stealer was in fact a dangerous woman.

"Fiona Angeli?" the receptionist sounded, this time without the perforation of gum chewing. "We're ready for you now."

"Oh, sorry, Pete - got to go. It's my turn," Fiona said with an apologetic smile. Pete fumbled in her jacket pocket, took out her wallet, produced a business card and handed it to Fiona.

"In case you want to know what I think about all that stuff in your bag," she said provocatively. Fiona took it, gathered up her things, smiled at Pete for a few seconds and left the waiting room. Pete breathed in her scent like an animal as she watched her walk away. She hadn't felt this intrigued and captivated by anyone before. With those panties, handcuffs, and a distinct air of mystery, Fiona was a puzzle she wanted to solve. Fate had just put them in the same place at the same time, and though reality was not her most loyal friend, Pete did trust her own instincts and they were telling her she'd see Fiona again very soon.

Forty-seven more minutes until her appointment. She was grateful for the apple, which had quieted her stomach. All she could think about was Fiona. Even though she couldn't be sure Fiona was into women, she did know for certain that she was bold, incredibly sexy, and utterly unafraid of social risks. Pete felt a butterfly flap its wings inside her gut as she imagined kissing her. Her mouth was fabulously inviting, and Pete had found it difficult not to stare at her ample lips as she spoke. Pete had been with many women who didn't know they liked women until they met her. Maybe it would be like this with Fiona.

The clock caught her attention because it said 3:00 when it seemed like just a moment ago it was 2:40. Weird. Where did the time go? Was Fiona a sorceress? Was Pete under her spell? All she knew was that she hoped Fiona would come out before she went in. It was possible, though highly unlikely.

Suddenly Pete felt anxious about seeing Dr. Percy. She knew she needed these regular check-ins, but the clock made her feel off about it. Like something might go wrong. Attempting to shift gears, she closed her eyes, leaned her head against the wall and fantasized about Fiona.

With her cowboy boots off, they were almost the same height. Fiona was just a bit

taller than Pete's 5'7". She didn't mind tipping her chin up to kiss this woman because the kissing was so amazing. Those delicious padded lips absorbed hers completely. Their tongues met as equals; neither dominated, so the kissing was more like dancing than fencing. Her mouth was the perfect wetness, and even though they were both

incredibly turned on, they couldn't stop kissing to engage in more adventurous activities.

Pete longed to be naked with her; she imagined the curves awaiting discovery beneath all those clothes. She crossed her legs and, feeling warm, undid a button on her blouse.