Chapter 14
Victoria
Bridget said she got a lot of… inspiration from me, but it seemed like she wasn’t the only one.
I carried myself more confidently, more relaxedly, like a weight had been taken off, and I was able to show up more fully to discussions with other people in the field, potential employers and contacts who I interviewed or just chatted with while trying to scope out the current state of the industry.
Well, usually I was showing up more fully.
When Bridget sent me off to a work-from-home session with a remote-controlled panty vibrator, I was tense as piano wire even when it wasn’t turned on, knowing it could start at any second.
Luckily, the first time she’d started it was while I was just filling in a form, because I let out a cry and jolted my knees up against the desk, the tension I’d held for an hour suddenly resolving.
I think she was paying attention to when I was on a call or not, because she, er, worked me up to…
eased me into… well, the second work session where I wore them, and she activated it while I was in the middle of a call, and I…
well, I at least managed to wait until the instant the call ended before I collapsed in a gasping mess.
But even with the occasional distraction, the next two weeks were marked by success—I filled out more applications and made some good contacts, even though I was starting to feel complicated feelings about potential job leads that would make me move away again.
It was what I’d been hoping for… somewhere in New York or San Francisco or maybe back to Seattle.
And it wasn’t like I’d talked with Bridget about…
whatever was happening, if we’d keep doing it indefinitely, let alone that it would be… more than that?
We met Kevin and Sam regularly, too, catching up on how the family was handling things—it had made a bit of a stir when the four of us had shown up, and Kevin was the one who was the most in-touch with the family still, so we dropped by Sam’s place or to a café in town or something every now and then and got the updates.
And I tried to keep a straight face every time Kevin made a comment about me and Bridget in that subtle tone that implied things I wasn’t going to answer.
But he was getting better after the whole fiasco at the family house. And he could tell I was doing better, too, figuring out my work and making progress.
It wasn’t just me making progress, either, though we didn’t tell Kevin and Sam that part—Bridget lit up, knocking out books and narrations at twice the speed, and I knew she was doing well with the online outreach, because her live shows were picking up on view numbers and donations.
It did not need explanation why I knew the status of her live shows.
Not like I didn’t give it away by mistake anyway—I commented offhand over dinner one night that it was nice that the live donations went to LGBTQ advocacy charities, and she lit up and asked how I’d enjoyed the show, and I’d choked on my food.
It wasn’t long before I found myself helping her with her videos too—it was first just telling her she was welcome to record in the common areas, and then when I’d found her recording in the living room and I ended up staring at her, she asked if I could help her with a camera angle.
And I wanted to pretend I was just being a helpful friend, but kneeling in front of her to record a close-up of her playing with herself was, well…
She was an independent woman. Didn’t need a lot of help with her content. It was… a shame. I looked forward to every time she asked my help with something.
I still had my hangups, but somehow I wound up friends with some of her friends, too, and Nikki especially was insightful about it.
“Your formative memories were all baking in a culture of shame around these things,” she said at one point over the phone while I was sitting on the couch, the shower running in the bathroom—a chat with Nikki had turned into a quickie with Bridget on the couch, and when I’d clearly pulled embarrassed into myself after Bridget had kissed me sweetly and told me I’m cleaning myself up, you and your gorgeous self can hang out with Nikki and catch your breath, Nikki had picked up on my embarrassment and weighed in. I scowled.
“If you mean my family environment, thank god, my grandmother wasn’t telling me not to fuck.” I faltered. “At least… not then she wasn’t.”
“I don’t just mean sex,” Nikki said. “I mean pleasure. Things that are nice for you. Sex, food, falling in love, accepting help, having somebody give you a place to call home when you need it and looking after you with no questions asked.”
I stared at the phone. “I… don’t know how to handle having a heart-to-heart while I’m sprawled out messy on the sofa. And not even a heart-to-heart with my… with… with the person who got me, er, like this.”
She laughed. “You really like her, huh?”
“I’m not dating Bridget.” My face was hot.
“Just… we just have sex. I mean, she’s fantastic, but, er…
” I slumped back on the couch, staring up at the painting over the end table—Rothko No.
61, Rust and Blue. Bridget had made fun of me endlessly for the paintings that were just squares, but she’d still bought me that one.
It wasn’t as though a gesture like that didn’t mean something. And it wasn’t as though I missed that.
“Yeah, yeah. This is what I was saying. Girl is right there and desperately into you, and you won’t let yourself be part of it.”
“It’s not—she’s not interested in me like that. She was just sexually repressed with me here and is happy to let go of that.”
“Girl, you don’t believe that.”
I swallowed. Thinking about the past weeks since we’d started doing this…
mornings with Bridget, where seeing her in a shirt and slim panties had just been sexy at first but had morphed into something more tender and comforting the way it felt looking at her, and the way she looked at me.
Seeing how passionate she was about all her work, when I’d never really thought of it as a job that somebody would approach with so much passion, dedication, enthusiasm.
Trips out onto the town together, weekend mornings at a coffee shop in the city, shopping Christmas gifts for family and friends.
Including a trip to the sex shop where I stood rigidly and blushing and I’d withered in embarrassment when the clerk knew Bridget and they chatted about what Bridget was, uh, after.
But at the end of every day, it was always the lingering smile, loaded as she looked me in the eye, hovering in her doorway, and a goodnight, Victoria that hung in my head.
“Do you kiss?” Nikki said, pulling me out of my thoughts. “Outside of sex.”
“Well—no.”
“I mean, she is a huge slut, but I wonder how much of her wanting to fuck you all the time is because that’s when she gets to kiss you.”
“I don’t do dating. And I’m not dating a…”
“Not dating a whore?”
“No, it’s. I mean. It’s a bit rude to call her that.”
She laughed. “Only if you think being a whore is a bad thing.”
“Well.” I slumped onto my back on the couch, sighing, staring out the window, a rare crisp clear day with a steely blue sky. A winter for me and her, and then come February, we’d part ways. “I just don’t think I’d be… enough for her.”
“Oh, so you do want her.” She lit up, and I withered.
“No—I mean, she’s lovely, but I just told you, I don’t do dating. It’s just that even if I were, then I wouldn’t… I don’t think I’m really what Bridget wants, in the long run.”
“You remember what I said? Guilt about having good things?”
The shower shut off, and I sat up. “Ugh—you can go talk to Erica about it. I’m sure she’ll be delighted to know she has allies in her cause.”
“Oh, I’ve been talking to her. And I don’t agree with her very often, just so you know. Anyway, I’m gonna roll out, I’ve got stuff to do. Go enjoy your date.”
“It’s just a regular outing,” I said, but I didn’t know who I was trying to convince.
She hung up anyway, and I was left to think about it myself over the next few days, where Bridget and I kept revolving around each other.
Wondering how she actually felt about me.
Wondering how often she kissed me with a hand on my ass just for the sake of kissing me.
Wondering how often I wanted to kiss her.
I’d done a good job of dismissing it whenever I felt the urge to kiss her as that I was horny, but Nikki’s words hung in my head. When I asked Gina one day how she’d gotten together with her girlfriends, she zeroed in right away.
“Is this because you’re falling for Bridget?”
“Erica’s been talking to everyone,” I sighed. “No, I just want to hear about you and your girlfriends.”
“Oh, you’ve been curious? They’re so pretty, right?
If you want to book a trip and come over here, we could have a foursome.
I’m always inviting Bridget, but she’s like, no, I’d be a third wheel, and I’m like, no, you’d be a fourth wheel, and fourth wheels are useful to balance things out!
Either way, maybe you can both come and have fun with us. Does Bridget want to be a fifth wheel?”
“I’m not trying to fuck your girlfriends, Gina. I’m asking how you met.”
“Well, I met Cara online, but Evie and I were together even before—”
It worked well enough, managed to put her back on track, and I didn’t want to read into why it hung in my mind so much.
Especially with her second girlfriend Cara, who she met after she’d already started sharing adult content online and had slow-burn fallen for each other, interspersed with forbidden longing that turned into plenty of sex that had, finally, turned into getting together.
Especially since it was only an hour after that Bridget came back into the apartment all bundled up in her big, cozy coat and knit scarf, and she said, “Hot chocolate at the Mountain View?”
“The café? It’s like an hour away.”
“I can drive us. I’m so cooped up, even I need to get out and get some air, winter snow be damned.”
I paused at the kitchen table where I’d been working, looking up at her, and I shut the laptop. “I thought you loved Christmas.”
She gestured at the Christmas tree across the room. “I am not a cold-weather girl. I set that thing up so I could shoot a sexy Christmas video that I thought I wouldn’t be able to shoot while you were here.”
“Oh…”
“I like warmth! Warm enough I can walk around without pants on without having to blast the heat, ideally, but you take what you can get. Anyway,” she said, leaning over the table towards me, eyes sparkling, and I found myself caught on them again—those big, shining blue eyes that fixed on me like I was the only thing in the world, and I felt my chest tighten.
“Hot chocolate escape, or no? I’ve been releasing like a million things and I need a break and to celebrate them. ”
I wasn’t sure what possessed me to say it, but I blurted, “Is this you trying to take me on a date?”
“Oh—um.” She frowned, retreating into herself a little.
I wanted to take it back, but I… well, I’d come this far.
“You don’t have to,” she said, trying for a light voice.
“I just thought it’d be nice to celebrate and…
I mean, you’ve been making a ton of progress and stuff too, so I thought it’d be nice to celebrate you too. ”
My heart beat faster, chest tightening uncomfortably. “So you are asking me on a date.”
“No—it’s not that.” She shoved her hands in her coat pockets, hunching her shoulders, and she sighed, walking past me. “Sorry, I don’t want to make things weird. I can just—”
“Hey—Bridget.” I caught her, a hand on her arm, before she could slip through the doorway into her room.
“Sorry, I’m not… I don’t want to be rude or anything, I’m just trying to figure out…
” I couldn’t sort the thoughts in my head.
I shook my head. “I’m sorry, I’ve just been in a weird mood.
Can we go? I’ve been staring at the screen too long, and I’d love to get some fresh air. ”
She looked at me cautiously, carefully, and she gave me a small smile. “Yeah? Hot chocolate on me.”
“No, on me. If you’re driving, it’s the least I can do.”
“Okay. Great.” She stood up a little taller, lighting up more. “I’ll let you have it this time.”