"We'll come back, maybe. I'm so hard-I need you now. My hotel is around the corner." She interlaced her fingers in mine and grabbed the award with the other hand. "Come on,"

We practically ran to the hotel. The night air cooled my flushed, hot skin, but it did nothing to alleviate the fire inside. We reached the lobby of the hotel in record time and made out in the elevator on the way up to her room.

Shivering from antic.i.p.ation, l knew in my heart that I was about to embark on new territory and realize my dream. Suddenly, I knew what I wanted and I was surer than ever. The mere thought of her kissing me, caressing me- f.u.c.king me, made me wet. The reality of it overwhelmed me. I felt as if I had finally arrived at the place I was supposed to be.

Angel didn't waste any time getting her key out and opening the door. In one fluid motion, she lifted me into her arms and carried me across the threshold. My limbs were putty. Again, I relinquished all control to her. She set me down beside the bed.

My strapless Lycra dress slipped off easily as Angel grasped the hem and pulled it down. She sucked on my neck as she removed my Victoria's Secret bra that wasn't a secret anymore and playfully teased at my b.r.e.a.s.t.s. She returned her attention to my waiting mouth and penetrated me with her tongue. I heard myself moan as her thigh made its way up against my c.l.i.t. I had my hands on her head pulling her closer.

Angel pulled away just long enough to kick off her boots, remove her shirt, sports bra, pants, and underwear. She was a true redhead. I smiled. Her curves were beautifully accentuated with smooth muscles that rippled slightly as she moved. Her skin was a creamy white that I often dreamed about. She was flawless. We backed onto the bed, her touch never leaving my tingling skin.

I couldn't take it a moment longer. "Please...I need you...inside."

"Soon. Let me look at you first."

She removed my lace panties, slowly torturing me as she spread my legs as far as they would comfortably go. She licked her finger and opened my lips before touching my tender, swollen c.l.i.t. I thought I would die.

''You are so beautiful. Just as I imagined you'd be," she said and continued to stroke the length of my c.l.i.t on either side with her thumbs, slowly easing her finger inside me.

"So good." I'm sure I dug my nails into her arms, but she didn't even flinch.

"Deeper," I begged. I wanted her inside me. She took her time.

"I'm going to come..."

''No, wait. Hold on. I want to taste you." Before I knew it, she had my swollen c.l.i.t in her mouth and was sucking it in a way that I had never felt before. I was so wet, so close...instinctively she looked up for a second "Soon," she said.

And I obeyed.

The hints and the innuendos in a year's worth of e-mail and chat had prepared me for this moment. I wanted her in ways I never trusted any woman before. She inserted one, then two, then four fingers inside me as she sucked and licked. The combined effort was sensational.

Enthralled, I held my breath to avoid even the slightest distraction each time I got closer to o.r.g.a.s.m. I didn't care if I died just then from asphyxiation.

"I want all of you in me," I begged.

"Have you ever?"

''No, but I want to with you."

"Are you sure?" she asked.

"Yes...please."

"I don't want to hurt you."

"You won't. I trust you. Please, Angel. Take me. f.u.c.k me, please!"

"Can you relax for just a minute, baby? I won't do that without lube."

"Okay," I said shakily. I didn't want her to, but her concern that I not be hurt touched me.

She was only gone a moment or two, and after a hot, rea.s.suring kiss, her slick hand was between my legs again. Carefully, watching my expression, she guided her fist inside me tentatively, at first compressing her fingers to fit in the tight s.p.a.ce. I leaned on my elbows to watch as she skillfully guided her fist up and in me as high as it would go. It cut like a knife at first but then, ooh, it felt soooo good in a wicked way. The more turned on I became, the more delicious it felt A mixture of concern and awe on her face made me feel special- loved, even. She looked like she was in a wonderful place and I was right there with her. I concentrated on relaxing as she worked her hand inside me, but my muscles had a mind of their own, tensing and flexing with each thrust. I swallowed her up as she went deeper still. Watching her excited me further until I could not bear it any longer. I lay back and enjoyed the sensation as she eagerly entered me at an increased pace. I brought my legs up over her shoulders. She fit inside of me perfectly. I was so wet, and I cried out in ecstasy again and again with each thrust, "Harder, harder." I was so close-the rougher the better.

"You sure?"

"I'm sure! Do it! I'm almost there."

The last thrust accompanied by one last lick sent me convulsing as I came all over Angel's fist. I shuddered again, letting the o.r.g.a.s.m take me over and over again until the last ripple ceased and all I could feel was the calm of a warm glow. It was everything I'd imagined my first time being fisted would be, but more importantly, it was Angel who took me to that special place. Slowly she removed her fist, taking her sweet time, and when she licked her fingers, I quivered. ''Ooh, baby..."

"You like?" She kissed my thigh, her voice sounding smug.

"Oh, I like. Come here. I want to give you my award for outstanding performance. Turn over." I wanted to please her so badly.

"Two awards in one night. I don't know if I can stand it."

"You can stand it." Luckily, I had pored over Angel's every word and knew what she liked, but I was happy I had a few tricks of my own.

Her reactions rea.s.sured me that I was a bona fide s.e.x G.o.ddess.

After we were sated, dressed, and freshened up, we walked back to the auditorium hand in hand with the gentle breeze in our hair and lightness in our step. Her arm was draped protectively around my shoulder, and I had my arm around her waist with my hand in her back pocket. She kissed my neck and I pulled her closer. Finding my soul mate on the Internet was unbelievable enough, but our first encounter and my first experience with fisting exceeded my wildest fantasy. We made it back to our seats just in time for the lights to come up, signaling the ceremony was over. If we had been missed, n.o.body mentioned it.

Angel accepted congratulations from all who offered them, then finally reached for my hand. She smiled at me and I melted at the heated promise in her eyes.

We both had won debut awards.

PERSPEX WINDOW.

CHEYENNE BLUE.

ate pushes her way a.s.s first onto the promenade deck. The wind curls around the door, threatening to slam it back on her, and the K sea swells enough that she lurches along the deck with a rolling gait. Carefully, she cradles her gla.s.s of Chardonnay. A second quarter bottle sticks out of her pocket.

She staggers along the deserted deck until she finds a sheltered corner. Metal and Perspex windbreaks divide the open area, and she presses up against a bulkhead, carefully setting down her gla.s.s on a ledge and turning away from the wind to light a cigarette. She huddles into the merge shelter and turns her collar up for the illusion of warmth.

Here, the wind isn't strong enough to be unpleasant, which is a good thing for an addicted smoker on a nonsmoking Irish ferry. Kate inhales, holds, and feels the nicotine steal through her blood.

She's the only one on deck as far as she can tell. One o'clock in the morning, and the ferry is rocking its way from Rosslare to Cherbourg, packed with holidaymakers and Irish couples on swift shopping jaunts, off to buy cheap booze and cigarettes in France. Down on the car deck, her Suzuki waits, its back seats removed to fit more cases of wine.

Shopping bags are piled on the pa.s.senger seat.

Kate pulls on the cigarette and the small lines crease above her upper lip. The wind whips a strand of graying hair across her mouth, and she pushes her free hand deeper into her jacket pocket. She can smell the sea, taste its briny sharpness. Seven hours into the crossing, and her body leans with the boat.

Inside the ferry's heated interior the corridors are nearly deserted.

There's a faint smell of puke creeping out under the door of the toilets- probably from the group of underage lads determined to put the pints away. The restaurants have closed, and most people have shambled off to their tiny cabin bunks to close their eyes until morning.

Kate likes the sea air and she needs her nicotine, so she's here, on the promenade deck, watching the moon carve a path across the slatey sea. Out here, she is alone. Only the white bench seats stand solemn sentry duty in the night.

A door crashes open behind her. Laughter, slurred and female, reaches her across the nonslip blue matting.

"For f.e.c.k's sake, Annie, can't you walk in a straight line?" The voice is young and Dublin and has an indulgent lilt to its censorial question.

"I can so. It's this bleedin' boat that can't sail straight."

Kate watches the women making their stumbling way to the railing. One bird-thin and fragile, the other stout with drafthorse b.u.t.tocks; one with cropped hair, the other with a mess of tangled curls.

They hold each other's arms as they weave their way across the deck.

''Not here," the thin one with cropped hair, Annie, mutters.

"Anyone can see us."

"There's no one around."

Annie is led back to a dubious shelter, to a nook behind one of the entrance doors, sheltered from the wind by a sheet of rust and Perspex.

Kate waits, watching idly, as she finishes her cigarette and takes a sip of Chardonnay. She can see them clearly, but obviously they haven't noticed her.

"Here," Curly-head says decisively.

She turns Crop-head and wraps her arms around her. Her mouth comes down, and Kate stifles a gasp. The kiss is long. Kate huddles deeper into her jacket and sips. Women. Kissing.

She's not nave; she knows it happens, and happens here in Ireland, in spite of the church's stranglehold. And she has sometimes wondered, in a sort of vague afterthought way when the TV showed a lesbian kiss, what it would be like. But never has she seen it unfold in front of her. The cigarette burns down to the b.u.t.t as the women kiss, and Kate watches. It's a long kiss, a deep, drugging kiss, and the two figures merge in the moon-wrapped night, blend into the deep blue of the deck matting, fade into the shadows of the lifeboats. And still they kiss. Kate can hear the short pants of breath merging with the lap of the water against the sides and the creak of the boat as it rolls. She waits, not wanting to interrupt them now, although will they even notice?

They break apart. "I love it when you kiss me like that," the one called Annie says.

"You'll like what I'm about to do better."

''Orla, no, not here-"

"Here, yes here." Orla is insistent. "There's no one around. All the families have gone to bed. The football has finished. And if you'd booked a cabin we'd be in it now, loving our brains out in peace and privacy instead of out here on deck."

"It's cold," Annie whines, but Kate can see her hands burrowing around Orla's waist, pushing up the bulky sweater to reveal a line of white flesh. Is it really that ethereal white, or is it the moonlight?

"You were hot inside," points out Orla.

She's the one ch.o.r.eographing this. Kate can see her pressing Annie into the Perspex, her hands moving purposefully over the waiflike body.

Kate knows she should move. Her cigarette is finished, and she should return to the privacy of her own cabin, go to bed, and steep. But instead, she takes a sip of wine and continues to watch. Orla and Annie.

Annie and Orla. A nice coupling to their names.

With a swift movement, Orla moves back, pushes up Annie's shirt, flicking the b.u.t.tons so that the garment falls open. Kate sees pearlescent flesh and small high b.r.e.a.s.t.s, tipped with moonlight. No bra. Annie's nipples are raised to the moon. A brief moment of clear sight, then they are covered by her girlfriend's hands, thumbs flicking her nipples.

Annie's head falls back, hits the Perspex.

Kate tilts her head the better to see, peering slightly around her shaded alcove. She tries to breathe quietly, although it's doubtful the women will hear her above the thrum of the diesel engine and the creak of the boat as she cleaves through the inscrutable sea. In front of her, the women are kissing again, and although she can't see, she senses that Orla's fingers are working the fastening of her girlfriend's hipster jeans.

"Ker-iste! Don't b.l.o.o.d.y bite!" Orla 's fingers m.u.f.fle Annie's shriek. Orla holds her hand over Annie's mouth, even as her face is buried in her neck.

The objection fades to a sigh, and Annie kisses those same fingers as they stroke across her lips. Orla stoops, and one of those high, tight b.r.e.a.s.t.s is engulfed in her mouth. Annie's hands wind in those disordered wild curls.

Kate fancies she can feel a mouth on her own b.r.e.a.s.t.s. There's a tingle between her thighs, a sensation long absent. The scene in front of her has a surrealty to it; the moonlight, the dark night outside its path, and the two girls, edged in gilt and silver.

Orla kneels-how hard the deck must be on her knees and Annie's jeans descend. There are bowed white thighs and black panties banded across her narrow hips. Then the panties are gone, slipped down below her knees.

Annie spreads her legs as wide as the bunched jeans and underwear allows, there's the dark shadow, the hidden cleft. Fingers part the bitter sea, and then Orla's mouth ducks down, her nose wedged firmly in the forest. She's there a long time. Annie's fingers wind in her hair, holding her there. When she lifts fractionally, Kate sees her chin is wetly shining. Her hand shakes as she takes a sip of wine, and her mind spirals back to the last time someone's face was between her legs. How long ago? She's forgotten the exquisite sensation, forgotten the feeling of being completely loved, forgotten the feeling.

Kate is so caught up in her own memories, her own c.u.n.t throbbing hotly, that when Annie comes with a gla.s.s-shattering shriek, she's caught by surprise. Kate's wine gla.s.s slips from shaky fingers and crashes to the deck.

"What the f.u.c.k?"

Orla rises, wiping her mouth with her hand while Annie struggles to pull her jeans up. They are impeded by her panties, which have twisted around her thighs. Both women are peering into the long shadows that spill from the bulkheads.

Kate waits until Annie is decent again, then moves forward.

"Sorry," she says. "I dropped my gla.s.s." She moves as if to retreat back to the ferry's interior, but Orla's harsh words stop her.

"Have a good look, did you? Like what you saw? Going off to complain to the steward?" And under her breath, ''f.e.c.king middle-aged puritan."

Kate pauses, turns slowly. "Guilty on the middle-aged part. But I'm not going to complain. You were..." She hesitates, knowing she should simply offer a frosty smile and leave, but is compelled to tell them how they made her feel. But the words are too clumsy for the poignant feelings of love and loss entwined within her. She settles for, "You were beautiful."

Silence greets her answer, and the girls exchange surprised looks.

Suddenly, they're no longer the confident young lovers; they're shy and used to censure from strangers.

Annie moves to stand with her lover, wraps an arm around her waist and leans her head on her shoulder. "How so?"

"I like to see young people in love. It gives me hope that sometimes there's a happy ending."

"What do you mean?" Orla stands protectively of Annie.

Kate shrugs, aware she's said too much. She considers several replies, but simply says, "It's not always a fairy tale."

"And don't we know it." Shared smiles, and a tentative bond strings between them all.

Kate moves again, makes to sidle past them and away, out of their lives, but an impulse makes her say, ''I have a cabin to myself. Why don't you take it instead of me? Then you can continue uninterrupted."

The women exchange wary glances. "Why would you do that?"

says Orla. "Where will you sleep?"

"Where were you going to sleep?" Kate watches them. She's already slightly regretting her impulse. Her bones are too old to sleep on the floor.

"In the children's play area," replies Annie. "There's foam on the floor, and there's only a couple of people there."

''Then that's where I'll go," says Kate, decisively. She fishes the key out of her pocket. "Come with me now, let me get my stuff and I'll be out of your way."

They hesitate, so she adds, "I promise I won't disturb you, and you can have some privacy." She addresses her comment to Orla. "Besides, I think you'd like to let Annie return the favor."