CHAPTER 17
Helena
“You okay?” Jennifer asked.
“Sorry?”
“You’re staring at them.”
“Who?”
“I think their names are Becky and Carrie,” Jennifer replied.
“Oh, no.” Helena laughed nervously. “Just going to get the cards.” She walked over to the table and grabbed the stack with their names on them. “Ready to go?”
“Do you want to grab anything from in there?”
“Um…” She looked at Becky and Carrie, who weren’t getting anything from the den. “No, I’m okay.”
“Your room or mine?”
“Yours,” Helena replied.
They headed into Jennifer’s room, and Jennifer locked the door behind them. Helena walked over and sat on the bed before she quickly looked down at the first card in her hand, wanting to take her mind off the fact that Becky was here.
“Are you a competitive person?”
“Sorry?” Jennifer asked, approaching the bed and sitting down next to her.
“Great question to start with, huh?” she asked herself more than Jennifer. “Yes, I’m competitive. You?”
“I don’t think so. Not about life, anyway. I’m a doctor, and that was pretty cutthroat when I was in school and then in my internship, but–”
“I can’t believe she’s here.”
“Sorry? Who?”
“My matchmaker.”
“Nia?”
“No, Becky.”
“Becky is your–”
“I hired Becky to help me find someone, and she did a horrible job. I only went to her specifically because she’s gay and works with women who want to date women.
I gave her everything she said she needed, and the women she sent me off with were awful.
Not right for me at all. One of them was a woman who travels one hundred percent of the time for work.
Like, she’s only home for a few days a month, if that, and I specifically told her that I wanted someone around as much as possible because I’m ready to settle down.
One of them had three big dogs, and I’m allergic, which I told her before. It was so bad, I fired her, but–”
“But?” Jennifer asked.
“We became friends.” She smiled. “And we hung out a few times.”
“You became friends with your matchmaker?”
“I thought so. But after I told her that I wasn’t going to keep trying, she kind of pulled away and kept telling me we couldn’t spend any time together because she was busy with work, and I haven’t seen her in a while.”
“You didn’t know she’d be here?”
“Nope. I’m not sure Nia could’ve been aware that we know each other, but still… What a coincidence, huh?”
“I suppose, this kind of service is pretty expensive, and only some people could afford it, and then, an even smaller group would be interested in it, so maybe it’s not so much a coincidence; it’s just that you both belong to that group.”
“She’s dating someone,” Helena said.
“Who?”
“Becky. Last time we talked, she had a girlfriend. She’s been with her for years. I’d know – it was another reason I hired her. She had someone long-term, so it made me feel like she knew relationships. What is she even doing here?”
“Well, you have to be single or in an open relationship to come to these, so maybe she and the girlfriend broke up.”
“Maybe. But, God!” Helena flopped back onto the bed and set the cards aside. “I liked her.”
“Becky?” Jennifer asked as if she were trying to keep up.
“Yes. I really liked her. Every terrible date she seemed to send me on, Becky and I would end up talking about, and yeah, we became friends, but I really liked her. I didn’t say anything, obviously, because she had a girlfriend, but it got too hard to have her set me up with women when I wanted her to set me up with– Well, her. ”
“Ah.”
“And now, she’s probably having sex with that young, attractive Carrie, and I’m in here with you, being a jerk because I’m making this about me and not about us.”
“I can imagine this is a little shocking.”
“Yes,” Helena said. “I came here to maybe meet someone, yes, and I’m still hoping for that, but I also wanted to have sex this week.”
“Me too,” Jennifer shared. “I mean, love would be great. I’m about to start a new chapter of my professional life, and I was hoping for a new chapter in my personal life as well, but I also wanted to just… fuck, if I’m being honest.” Jennifer laughed a little.
“I get it. I had a date last night, and I still have no idea what happened in the end. We had sex.” Helena’s eyes went wide. “Don’t worry; I was safe.”
“I’m not worried.”
“She technically made me come, but barely. Then, she got upset with me because I didn’t want her to go down on me and left.”
“She got upset because of that?”
“Yes. And I couldn’t go down on her, either, obviously, because I was coming here, and I wasn’t exactly feeling our chemistry, but I wasn’t unwilling to return the favor, if you know what I mean.
I had to get myself off in the shower just to calm my clit down, and I cannot believe I just said all of that to a total stranger.
I’m a freaking mess.” Helena shook her head.
Where was all this coming from? She’d never been the kind of person to tell a stranger her deep, dark secrets. She hardly even told her friends her thoughts and feelings unless she’d known them for a long time and knew that she could trust them.
Jennifer laughed and asked, “Are we a good match?”
“What?”
“I’m getting the vibe that you might be into this Becky woman a little more than you thought you were, considering how you’re acting at the thought of her sleeping with someone else right now.”
“God, she is, isn’t she?” she asked herself. “She’s probably single, or she wouldn’t be here, and she has no idea that I like her. Why am I so stressed out about this?”
“Want an orgasm?”
“What?” Helena turned her head to Jennifer, wondering where that had come from.
“That’s why we’re here, right? Are you and I going to ride off into the sunset together?”
“I don’t know; maybe. I don’t know you, but that’s how most things start with people. They meet someone and find out if there could be something there. We should probably do these cards. That’ll help us figure that out. That’s the point, isn’t it?”
“You like someone else, Helena.”
“I do, yes, but–”
“But that didn’t stop you from going on a date and sleeping with someone else?”
“No, because I thought she was with someone. And to be honest, the woman I went on a date with wasn’t exactly my type. I was just trying to move on from Becky, who was taken and didn’t know that I liked her. I went because I felt like I should. It was time, you know?”
“Want to maybe get her back?”
“My date?”
“No, Becky.”
“Get her back for what?”
“Sending you on a bunch of shitty dates.”
“I don’t think she did that on purpose.”
Helena heard a sound then, and she turned her head to listen more closely. Someone was grunting on the other side of one of the walls. She was listening to two women have sex.
“That could be her, couldn’t it?” she asked.
“Possibly.”
“Jesus,” she said.
“Want to make some sounds of our own?” Jennifer suggested. “I’m game if you are. If not, I get it, but it could be a one-and-done thing; a little stress relief for both of us. Then, you can head to your room if you want, or find Nia and complain.”
“I could really use a good orgasm,” Helena replied. “But I don’t know. Should we? Feels weird. I’ve never done anything like this before. I don’t know how it goes.”
“You didn’t let her go down on you, right? The woman from last night.”
“No.”
“Want me to? I happen to very much enjoy that.”
“Really? Even after everything I just told you? How did I get so lucky on the first night?”
“I don’t know.” Jennifer chuckled. “Maybe it’s because I’m in the mood.
I have been since I got on the plane today, knowing that I was coming here and might have a chance to, well, at least get lucky if nothing else.
If you want something, we can. If you don’t, we don’t have to.
Sex can just be about a biological need. It doesn’t have to be more than that.”
Jennifer moved until she was kneeling in front of Helena, and Helena couldn’t stop herself from spreading her legs, but she closed them again when she remembered that Jennifer needed to remove her panties under her dress.
“You can just lie back and enjoy this. You don’t have to worry about anything else.
Picture Becky’s face under your dress, if you want to.
It won’t bother me.” Jennifer lowered her head under Helena’s black dress and added, “I’ve been told I can be clinical, and that applies to sex, so maybe that’ll pay off here. ”
“Oh, fuck,” she let out when she felt Jennifer’s tongue meet her clit.