One Month Later
T he Manoir didn’t often host private parties for the sole enjoyment of those who lived there.
The most private things got were when everyone’s patrons were invited to a monthly banquet, but June’s patrons often chose to skip that in favor of doing other things…
like absconding with her to Mexico or Europe for either one-on-one bonding or one of the raunchiest ménage a tois anyone had seen.
But they made an exception for the party she threw the last weekend of Monique’s maternity leave.
Up there in the mountains, the August weather wasn’t so bad.
Cool, fresh air mingled with a warm, shining sun, bringing forth plenty of greenery and cute critters flitting about.
Most of the party was hosted on the grand balcony overlooking the backyard, although a few stragglers were wandering inside and below in the hedge maze.
“Look at you, mi reina del castillo .” Miquela surprised June when she passed by, snatching her hand for a kiss. She had a glass of wine in her other hand. “You’re the most important-looking woman here, so you must be mine.”
Anyone looking chuckled, but not in front of June.
Her arrangement with her patrons was the stuff of legend now.
Not just how much money they were paying a month, but how beneath the finances and other business transactions was the aura of them actually being in love.
June didn’t often talk about it. She had a business to run in Monique’s absence.
“Excuse me, Ms. Bolivar, but I need to make sure the other guests are well tended to.” She shirked her hands with a flirtatious grin. “If I may.”
All it took was walking a few steps forward and letting her fingers touch the tip of Sette’s chin.
Both women sat in lounge chairs facing one another on the balcony, engaged in conversation until June sashayed her derriere by them.
Ever since they signed their contracts, June’s patrons had engaged in a friendly rivalry to vie for her affection.
She never paid more attention to one over the other, but if they weren’t goading each other until they cracked, they didn’t know how to function.
Especially with that derriere on the line.
“I know the greatest designers and tailors in Europe. Come to Italy with me next week after Monique gets back,” Miquela had said earlier.
“I’m going to give you the greatest massage of your life.
Bubble bath, the works.” Sette wasn’t about to be beaten.
“After I’m done pleasuring you, I’ll paint how beautiful you are.
” She left out the part where she would probably send it to Miquela as a trophy.
She would keep it in her Monegasque apartment, so her sister could see it. Such a lovely woman, Dolores was!
“You two are freaks,” Zara said from her seat next to Sette’s.
She had no problem also staring down June’s ass as she walked away.
She could never contain her jealousy. “Lucky, lucky freaks.” After Sette drunkenly told her about the mind-blowing threesomes, Zara had a change of heart regarding her best friend’s love life. Again, the jealousy.
“We need to get you a girlfriend.” Sette found her wine glass being filled by Chelsea – or was it Holly? – the moment it was empty again. “A serious one. No more Hot Girl Summer for you. Time to grow up.” She reached over and patted Zara on the knee. “If I can do polyamory, you can do monogamy.”
“Why don’t we focus on getting our new friend some other friends first?” Zara lifted her glass to Miquela, who in turn lifted hers as well. “Ever since she got here, she’s been hanging out with your girlfriend and us. Shouldn’t she be expanding her social circles?”
Miquela shrugged. There were other guests at the party, but she wasn’t in a hurry to introduce herself to the suits in slacks and the other women milling around.
Sure, some of them were the girls’ friends from outside of the Manoir, but Miquela only had eyes for one woman these days.
Now, if they were going to play matchmaker for Zara…
“I socialize plenty back home. I see my time in America as an opportunity to kick back and relax, as you say.”
“Never lose that accent, Ms. Bolivar,” the girl with the bottle said. “It’s a treat to hear.”
“Sorry, dear, my money’s reserved for your boss.”
“Can’t blame a girl for trying…” She left, greeting a pair of guests in dress shirts and trousers. They settled on the far end of the balcony and laughed about their latest game of tennis at the racquet club.
“You hear that?” Miquela said. “She was trying to seduce me.”
“Don’t flatter yourself. Look at her. Always flattering herself.”
“It’s because you’re insecure, and I like to make you even more insecure.”
“I am not. I have nothing to be insecure…” Sette stopped. “Now that I sound insecure…”
“What in the world is going on here?”
Half the party stopped and turned to the hallway, where a confused Mrs. Warner stood with a party of servants carrying a baby and baby bags. The music continued to play on the speakers, but lips were sealed.
Both Sette and Miquela lifted their glasses. “Enjoying ourselves, Madame!”
“Very much so.”
Someone squealed and darted into the hallway, intercepting Minerva as she strolled by with an infant in her arms. Before Monique could say, “Someone explain this to me right now,” she had half a dozen estrogen-fueled ladies swarming her baby, cooing and making faces.
June chose then to make her reappearance.
“I’m making us some money.”
“With your friends?”
“They’re all paying. You think there’s gonna be someone without at least two lovers in them before this party is over?”
“We’re not talking about you, June.”
“Sooooo what are you doing here? You’re not supposed to be back until Wednesday.”
“Decided to come early. Now I know why my gut told me to.”
“You seriously brought the baby?”
“Like I would leave her for almost a week? What kind of mother do you think I am?”
“The kind that brings her child to a pleasure house to learn the finer points of seduction and making love.”
“Don’t be crass. She’ll be staying in my chambers until she’s weaned. She’ll hardly remember anything, unless you plan on having your orgies in my room.”
“We will reach a point where it’s the only place we haven’t fucked around here.
” Had someone told Monique about them commandeering Chelsea’s room the weekend before?
It had been the most convenient place when hormones skyrocketed.
June had half a mind to invite her friend to partake, but her patrons were way too involved with her to care about anyone else.
Sette got up from her seat and meandered to the gaggle of girls playing with the infant.
“I’m calling her Anna,” said one woman. “Bella is cuter,” retorted another.
Sette gazed at the baby, who hadn’t grown that much since falling into her hands straight from the mother’s womb.
What’s her name?” she asked Mrs. Warner.
Monique parted the people surrounding her baby and plucked her from Minerva’s grasp. “Annabelle Rose.”
“A lovely name. May I?”
Monique protectively held her child before relenting to Sette. “Don’t see why not. You’re more qualified than any of them.” She referred to the young women now dispersing. So much for holding the baby when there was work to get back to.
Sette took little Annabelle. Out of the corner of her eye, she caught a glimpse of June sitting with Miquela, as if she was going to protect her from Monique, who was still trying to get an explanation.
After counting Annabelle’s digits and asserting that the baby was, in fact, a normal human being, she handed her back to her mother.
In time, too. One of the most unfortunate parts of having a baby was starting up. Loudly.
“Thought you were supposed to be a baby doctor!” Miquela bellowed from the balcony. “At least now we know why you were forced to quit!” She looked to June after she playfully smacked her for being too mean.
“You’re thinking of a pediatrician,” Sette said, once returned to her lounge chair. Her eyes never left June’s beautiful form, bedecked in a red sundress. “I had nothing to do with them after they were a month old.”
“Can you believe this girl?” Miquela asked June. “Making babies cry.”
“You both make me cry.”
“In nothing but pleasure, we hope.”
“June!” Monique called. “Can I see you in my office, please?”
Monique may have been halfway back to her original size, but she still walked around her office in ballerina flats and a second-trimester maternity dress.
She gestured to a chair as soon as June entered.
Holly was already in there, although she expressed a great interest in going back out to the party.
“I’ve almost hooked this one potential client,” she said more than twice.
“She’s so loaded I think I could break her bank. ”
While Monique settled back into her office – now furnished with a bassinet, albeit currently empty – she made June give a brief rundown of how things had been.
Nothing that she hadn’t reported over the phone and emails from the past month.
Business was always up this time of year, and June hadn’t botched anything.
Except then she had to explain the origins of this party that Monique was never supposed to know about.
“How are your patrons?” she asked, once she was done giving June the stink-eye. “Happy, I presume?”
“Obstinate, bickering, uncontrollable.” June finally sat down. “Absolutely wonderful.”
Holly snorted. “You can hear the three of them fucking at the worst hours. Sometimes a girl is trying to sleep, you know.”
“Some of us are trying to make money,” Monique reminded her. “I understand that overnight clients have gone up 20% since they started coming around at the same time.”
“Yes, well, what better ambiance is there than two hotties pounding a woman’s pussy into oblivion?”
“Is that what you call it? Ambiance?”
June ignored her coworker.
“Anyway, as soon as this party settles down for the evening, I want to get right back to work. First order of business is getting you,” she looked to Holly, “a patron. Time you certified your keep around here.”
“Yay!”
“What about the other thing?” June asked.
They exchanged a heavy look. “If you want to start remodeling a room and going through potential personnel, be my guest. Let me know if you see someone suitable, and I’ll consider it.”
That was code for, “We’re hiring another woman. Make it happen.”
Once business was taken care of, June returned to her party, now in the throes of breaking up.
Some were in the Entertainment Den. Others retreated to the Cigar Lounge.
One guest was already halfway into Grace by the time they stumbled off to her room.
It was the makings of a swell evening at the Manoir, but June felt no inclination to make her usual rounds.
Not when she knew exactly where she wanted to be.
“I’m getting hungry,” she announced, perching on the edge of Sette’s lounge chair. Zara was gone. Was she the one halfway into Grace? “I haven’t had anything to eat in hours.”
Sette wrapped an arm around her midsection and held her close, both of them glancing at Miquela and her glass of wine. “What are you hungry for, hm?”
Ripples of desire tore across her skin. How was it that this woman could turn her on with one sentence? “You know what I want, ladies. I’m hungry.”
It wasn’t a question of whether they could get to her room before they made a spectacle of themselves in front of everyone. It was a question of… did they care to?
(Yes, they did, but only because both Sette and Miquela were still too enamored with their love to dare show her off. Yet.)
THE END
If you have enjoyed this story, please feel free to leave a review so other readers can find it. Hildred has a mailing list so you can stay on top of future sapphic cowriting projects, as well as solo works featuring billionaires and lesbians… sometimes at the same time!