Chapter Two #2
Kit feigned her enthusiasm for Cory’s new relationship and muttered a “Nice.” Why ask the question of her bestie, anyway?
She and Annalise were tight, but never in their decade-long friendship did the two have a fling in common.
Annalise enjoyed flaunting her many significant others, yet rarely mourned a breakup, let alone announced one.
Her relationship status on her profiles never changed from single.
When she ended a courtship, she’d eventually show up somewhere with a new gal on her hip.
It made sense, then, for Annalise to lay low among the geriatric set at Rumors.
Once Cory settled in with her latest girl, Kit’s friend could return to the Den triumphant with her new squeeze.
Ob-la-di, ob-la-dah. Hell, maybe this Barb person she mentioned this morning wouldn’t last but a few nights, and Annalise would come with somebody “two girls from now.”
“Hey, you seen Annalise around?” Cory asked, and the words sent Kit’s heart to the ceiling. She took a deep breath and shook her head. It wasn’t a lie, for she had missed her by minutes at the coffee shop earlier.
“If you do, tell her we’re good. I can guess why she’s not here tonight.” With that, Cory saluted her with the bottle and ambled back to her date.
“Sure thing,” Kit muttered. She couldn’t even hear herself over the music. A part of her wanted to call Cory back and get some details, find out when the couple split. She was tempted to hand her a business card for the store with an invite to reach out if/when this thing with Denise busted.
As often as Kit came to the Den to socialize, sometimes she felt so out of the loop when pairings connected and fractured. Nobody looked her way, either So much for the lesbian sisterhood, and all that jazz.
Turning back to the bar, she brought out her phone and shot Annalise another text.
Think I’m heading home, take a rain check.
Not feeling good. She powered down the phone to avoid Annalise’s wrath, then reached in her front pants pocket for her credit card wallet.
She sensed a body sliding up beside her, and took a moment to savor the warmth.
This was new.
“Were the angry pigs winning?” rang a sharp, high voice in her ear, and Kit turned to that same pert nose and smile and bright eyes behind charming geek-girl glasses.
Oh, shit. She couldn’t decide whether to feel joyful or scared. Had a fleeting fantasy the chance to become real?
The sight of Sidney Campbell nearly caused Kit to forget she’d blown her chance to shimmy through that short window of opportunity with Cory.
Sidney’s new outfit definitely soothed the burn.
The petite dark-haired woman now wore a tight black T-shirt with a distressed image of a Rubik’s Cube, black leggings, and a skirt patterned with many multi-colored squares, not unlike the popular Eighties puzzle toy.
“Nice outfit,” Kit said, and twirled her finger downward to guide Sidney to move away. “I have to see the shoes.”
Sidney laughed and offered the full model strut. She whirled around and sashayed along the bar a few steps, wiggling her slim hips, then returned with an exaggerated en pointe of one high-top sneaker, which was actually designed to look like a red Uno playing card.
“How come they don’t match?” Couldn’t be too difficult to find checkerboard-patterned shoes.
“The shoes that go with this outfit are worn out. I haven’t had time to make another pair.”
“Really? You don’t buy these?” Kit asked. Baking, sewing…this girl was a one-woman craft bazaar.
Sidney smiled. “What can I say? I’m good with a glue gun and a pastry bag, so long as I don’t get them mixed up.”
“Cool. Uh, what brings you here?” Did Sidney know this was a lesbian bar? The décor of The Woolf’s Den didn’t outright advertise it. No rainbow bunting or pink triangle beer coasters. Yeah, framed lithographs of semi-nude women in tasteful poses hung on the walls, but Kit saw those at other places.
“I heard this was the best place in town to meet women. We’re technically not in Dareville, though, are we?”
“Yeah. We were thinking of calling this place West Vagina.”
Sidney snorted up a sip of her drink. “You have to warn me when you make a joke like that.” She waved over the bartender for some napkins.
Sidney attracted many appreciative stares from other patrons, leaving Kit to think of the right words to get her to a more secluded place to chat.
Luckily for her, Sidney shared her idea. “This music is so damn loud, how do you stand it?” she called out. “Wanna sit out on the patio?”
Kit nodded, and a minute later they found two Adirondack chairs on the concrete, screened-in patio that abutted the alleyway behind the club.
Kit had heard, when the building once housed an Italian restaurant, this area served as a smoking lounge for the wait staff.
Nobody lit up here now due to new laws, but the folks at the Den tried their best to make the patio look pretty.
Fake palms trees wrapped with white twinkle lights adorned each corner, and standing space heaters kept the area comfortable.
Though no door separated them from the club interior, Kit noticed that the distance did mute the music’s volume to a low, steady boom.
“What were you drinking? Refill’s on me,” Sidney offered, and flagged down a server making the round to others lounging on the patio.
“You don’t have to do that, I’m good.”
Sidney smirked at Kit’s reluctance. “Please. I’m a working woman now. I can afford it,” she said with a wink. Kit couldn’t argue with that.
“I usually get the Key Lime Pie martini. It’s their signature drink.”
“Ooh, that sounds good. Two, please,” Sidney told the waitress, and Kit watched the silent exchange between them that followed.
Well, she counted the seconds the waitress lingered, shuffling backward with her eye on Sidney, before finally retreating to the bar to place their orders.
Pretty petite girl nerd proved tonight’s favorite flavor, and Sid no doubt tempted many an appetite.
Kit placed a hand on her growling stomach.
Sidney crossed her legs and turned in her seat, squeezing her arms close to her body as though to preserve warmth. “How does a key lime drink become the specialty of the house in a Virginia bar? It’s not my first guess.”
“Yeah, you’d probably think it was some kind of bourbon drink. The couple who own the Den are from South Florida. They used to run a gay bar down there. I guess they got tired of the competition, so they came up here to carve out their own audience.”
“I like the Virginia Woolf reference,” Sidney said. “It’s only my second time here. I was expecting the place to look like a library.”
Kit laughed. “One of the owners taught college English in her past life, so that’s where the name comes from.
” She crooked her head toward a poster of Virginia Woolf’s profile on the brick wall.
Several artistic renditions of the famed author decorated the establishment, in places where one didn’t find the semi-nudes.
“I would have loved a place like this in Wyoming when I lived there.”
“Yeah?” Images of gorgeous women in tight blue jeans, bouncing in saddles as the horses they straddled galloped in some wide prairie, filled Kit’s mind. One rarely ran into country girls in town, and suddenly Kit pictured Sidney in a Stetson the color of her geektastic shoes.
Sidney in a cowgirl hat, stripped down to a Rubik-colored thong, straddled over her hips and bucking with one hand in the air… yee-haw.
“Not a big queer community there, I take it?”
Sidney shrugged and thanked the server when their drinks arrived. “Eh, it’s about the same as anywhere else in the country if you know where to look. Finding third spaces can be a challenge in rural areas, though.”
“Is that why you moved to Virginia?”
“I came here mainly to go to school. I wanted to live near a coast, too.” Sidney’s cheeks pinked and she looked away. “I won’t say I wasn’t looking. Oh, are you cold, too?” she asked when Kit folded her arms over her chest.
“I’ll be fine. The vodka’s good for warming me up,” Kit said, and sipped her drink. Her new co-worker didn’t need to know how Kit’s nipples tightened in response to her erotically rampant thoughts.
“I like how you think.”
Oh, if you only knew. Kit raised her martini glass. “Here’s to you, Sidney Campbell, and your new job.”
“Please, call me Sid. To many years of happy baking.”
They clinked glasses and Kit pondered the toast. How long did Sid expect to work the front register before hinting her desire for time in the kitchen?
The idea that she might push Kit out of the way completely still niggled at her, but Kit really wanted to give Sid the benefit of the doubt.
Anybody behind the service counter would outshine Gloria, and though Kit hated bearing bad news she actually looked forward to swinging that axe.
“Wow, I expected to pucker all night after the first sip, but this is really smooth.” Sid held up her glass and the opaque green liquid sort of glowed in the forefront of a twinkling fake palm.
She licked away tiny crumbs from the graham cracker rim that stuck to her lower lip.
“I wouldn’t think there was any liquor at all in here. ”
Kit nodded. “They use real key lime juice, and marshmallow vodka with lots of cream. You have to watch who’s working the bar. Like tonight it’s Marie, and she’s notorious for fixing a drink that doesn’t hit you until much later.”
“Well, she’s amazing. It’s like I’m drinking a pie!” Sid took a deeper sip, taking in more martini than she probably should in a short time. “Damn, I can’t remember when I last had a good slice of Key Lime pie. I need to make one.”