Falling for Jillian Ashley: A Carlsbad Village Lesbian Romance Read online

  “Just don’t go telling her about Jillian Ashley also!” Max called out as Sally exited the house.

  ***

  At five minutes to two o’clock, pleased that she was early, Sally approached the entrance to the bar Ainsley had chosen. It was a laid-back, chill-vibe kind of place, fronting the beach, with a mid-century tropical décor aesthetic.

  She had considered canceling this silly fix-up thing. She hadn’t even bothered changing her clothes after rushing home from Max’s to prepare. All she had done was apply some makeup—some mascara and a little eyeshadow—made sure Lena had some food and then left, figuring that her current outfit of denim shorts, pink tank and flip-flops was suitable enough. After all, she had just had an amazing night with Amy and wanted to take the time to explore having a relationship with her. That’s who she wanted to be with right now, not here in Solana Beach about to meet some snooty doctor from Mount Olympus named Ainsley.

  Opening the door to the bar, Sally rolled her eyes again at how pretentious that name was. She didn’t care if earlier today, Ainsley had saved some little kid’s life by performing some kind of radical emergency surgery. Good on her. But there was no way Sally was going to enjoy spending more than five minutes with someone named—

  “Sally?”

  Sally turned at the sound of her name.

  Holy Jesus!

  Standing near the hostess’s station was a stunning blonde with eyes the color of sapphire. She was dressed much like Sally was: shorts and a tank (a blue one which Sally couldn’t help noticing really brought out her eyes). And she was tall! Because the woman was also wearing flip-flops, Sally could assess that she was the same height as herself, a refreshing change because Sally was used to being the tall one.

  The woman stepped forward, pink lips upturned and parted in a devastating smile.

  “Hi, I’m Ainsley!”

  Sally swallowed.

  They know how to build them on Mount Olympus!

  She suddenly remembered her manners.

  “Sally,” she said. “Nice to meet you!”

  Ainsley pointed behind her, over her shoulder.

  “I’ve already found us a spot. Shall we?”

  Certain she was smiling goofily, Sally nodded and followed Ainsley to a small table near the window offering a view of the beach.

  “So, I don’t know what you like to drink,” Ainsley began, “but this place makes the best margaritas! And they have, like, every flavor imaginable.”

  “I love margaritas!” Sally told her.

  Ainsley smiled.

  “Meddling mothers and a love of margaritas. Two things we have in common.”

  Sally laughed.

  “If only meddling mothers were as easy to make disappear as margaritas,” she joked.

  A male server with the kind of chiseled good looks Sally knew straight women typically lost their minds over, stopped at their table and took their drinks order: a raspberry margarita for Ainsley and a watermelon one for Sally. Giving both of them his best flirting smile, having no idea what a waste of energy that was, he promised to be back soon with their drinks.

  Left alone again, Ainsley was about to say something when Sally noticed a peculiar look come over her features. Suddenly, Ainsley’s hands flew to her face and she gasped, looking at Sally with wide eyes.

  “Oh my God! I just realized who you are!” she exclaimed.

  Sally blinked.

  “Um…Dr. Lassiter’s daughter?”

  “Jillian Ashley!”

  Now, Sally’s eyes widened.

  Oh fuck!

  “Um…”

  “I watched your interview on Lesbeing the other day!”

  Shit! Shit! Shit!

  Seriously? In the most populated state in the union, the lesbian universe was still this small?

  She gulped. There was no way she could tell yet another person—in less than twenty-four hours!—the truth about Jillian Ashley. Amy might be cool about it now—and Sally was certain that the several orgasms she had given Amy had played something of role in that—but Ainsley might not be cool with it and might start blabbing the truth to anyone who would listen. And Sally wasn’t about to arrange things so that she would end up giving Ainsley several orgasms as a way of buying her silence (though, quite frankly, the thought of doing so made Sally cross her legs under the table).

  “Yep!” she said. “I’m Jillian Ashley!”

  “Sally, I’m not kidding, you are my favorite author! When I heard that you were going to be on Amy’s show, I got so excited.”

  Sally started panicking a bit. She didn’t have Max feeding her lines this time which meant she was going to have to come up with how to pretend to be a famous writer all on her own.

  “I’m…I’m so glad you enjoy my work,” she said, feeling rather pleased. That sounded like something a famous writer would say.

  “Like it? I love it! My god, you have no idea! Reading is my favorite way to unwind after a long day at the hospital. And your books are the best. I’ve read The Fordham Road Fling six times now.”

  “Oh my god, me too!” Sally enthused.

  Shit!

  “I mean,” she started her backtracking, “I…um…I re-read it six times while I was…editing it?” She smiled. She was going to have to remember all this great stuff to tell Max later so he could know what a great job she did. He’d be so proud of her.

  Ainsley nodded.

  “It shows,” she complimented. “Your books don’t have a lot of the silly mistakes other books have.”

  The server with the chiseled face returned then with their drinks. Sally was glad for the interruption. Maybe now they’d stop talking about what a great writer she was.

  But no such luck.

  After clinking their glasses, Ainsley leaned forward and said, “So, my meddling mother didn’t tell me I was going on a blind date with a famous writer.”

  “Oh! Well, um…that’s because your meddling mother doesn’t know I’m a famous writer and that’s because my meddling mother doesn’t know I’m a famous writer.”

  Inwardly, she groaned because she knew that she had just started them down a rabbit hole of conversation. She knew—just knew!—Ainsley would then ask why Sally’s mother didn’t know about her writing. And sure enough, Ainsley asked that very question. Sally then had to come up with some balderdash about how she wasn’t sure how her very image-conscious mother would react to learning her daughter was writing lesbian fiction books.

  When she was done, Sally was amazed at herself. She was actually getting quite good at making shit up on her own!

  And the best part was that Ainsley bought it!

  “I totally understand,” Ainsley said. “But, really, by now, I would think that Dr. Lassiter would be so proud of what you’ve accomplished. Your books do really well, don’t they?”

  Sally nodded.

  “Yep. Really well.”

  It was when Ainsley’s leg inadvertently brushed against hers under the table and Sally realized how much it thrilled her that she realized she needed to change the topic.

  “Listen, Ainsley, there’s something I need to tell you.”

  “Go right ahead,” Ainsley replied, and Sally was certain her voice had a touch of a lascivious purr to it.

  “Turns out that Amy—the host of the podcast, you know—and I really hit it off and, well, we started dating.”

  “Oh!”

  Ainsley’s face registered her disappointment.

  “I’m so sorry!” Sally added. “It literally just happened last night! Our first date, I mean…”

  And first orgasms together.

  Smiling—and she really did have a devastatingly beautiful smile, Sally considered—Ainsley said, “No worries. We did agree to just meet up in order to get our mothers off our backs.”

  “Yeah, but…” Sally hesitated but decided to plow ahead. “Trust me, when I saw you…I was like, wow!”

  “Oh god, don’t tell me that!” Ainsley said, pretending to cover
her ears, laughing. “Because I was, like, wow, too!”

  Sally blushed.

  Ainsley leaned forward again.

  “Actually, thank you for telling me. Especially since…”

  Sally quirked an eyebrow.

  “Especially since…?”

  Ainsley bit her lip and smiled.

  “Especially since I’ve been giving you fuck me signals since we sat down. You could have kept me in the dark about you and Amy and after we were done here, we could have ended up at my place sharing a lot more than margaritas.”

  Chapter 17

  Back in Carlsbad, Amy was at her apartment sitting on the floor of her living room, laptop on her lap, working on notes for her next episode of Lesbeing—the Podcast. This next show was going to be a discussion about depictions of lesbians in period dramas with particular focus on why such films tend to always have tragic endings for the main characters. Amy loved period dramas. Amy especially loved period dramas with lesbians in them. But she was growing impatient with filmmakers for not ever providing happy endings. Wasn’t the world shitty enough?

  She had already lined up a pair of really cool guests for the episode. One was a film archivist at a LGBTQ museum in New York City; the other was an up-and-coming young gay actress who had recently starred in an indie period piece about two lesbians in the eighteenth-century whose story—surprise, surprise—ends tragically.

  After returning home from Sally’s, Amy had taken a nap. It had been a long night, after all. She had ended up sleeping well for a couple of hours but had woken up absolutely soaked between her legs, her clit throbbing thanks to the dreams about Sally she’d had. At the time, she was torn between taking care of that urge right then and there or waiting. Tonight, she had another date with Sally and wouldn’t it be fun to let Sally release this climax for her?

  But lying there in bed, she had also realized that she had a lot of work to do today: notes for the next podcast episode, responding to fans’ emails and laundry. She knew herself well enough to know that being incredibly horny was always counterproductive and so, after edging herself for a few minutes to really get the engine going, a few swipes of her finger over her clit in her panties was all it took before she was gasping and moaning as a strong orgasm took possession of her core. If things ended up well for her tonight after her date, there would plenty more for Sally to unleash.

  Now, she finished writing the notes for the next podcast episode and closed her laptop, standing to stretch her body. The late afternoon sunlight was lying in streaks across her living room floor, filtered through the blinds of the window. Noticing how orange the sunlight was, Amy looked at the clock on the wall next to her flat-screen TV. It showed just past five-thirty. Her date with Sally was at seven. Well, their reservations were at seven; Sally was going to pick her up at six-thirty. They were going to Vigilucci’s, an upscale Italian seafood restaurant on Carlsbad Boulevard. If she hurried, she’d have just enough time to get ready.

  Naturally, her phone rang. Instead of being annoyed, however, when Amy saw who it was, she muttered, “Finally!”

  Really, what was the point of having a best friend if said best friend wasn’t around to talk to immediately after Amy had slept with a new woman for the first time? But Rachel, a junior realtor at a local agency, had spent the whole day at an open house for one of her listings and thus couldn’t take any time to hear about the sapphic exploits of her best friend.

  “I know, I know…” Rachel said as soon as the call connected, “but at least I got three solid offers on the place.”

  “Congratulations!” Amy was happy for her friend, who was working hard trying to establish herself in the SoCal real estate market—an incredibly competitive challenge. “I’m putting you on speakerphone because I need to get ready for my date.”

  “So, there will be a second date, huh? Spill the beans about last night!”

  Amy had to pause then, standing in the hall, halfway between the living room and her bedroom.

  All day long, what with lurid recollections of what her and Sally had gotten up to last night, combined with all the work she had had to do, Amy hadn’t actually spent any time considering what she would tell her best friend regarding what she now referred to as the Jillian Ashley Thing.

  On the one hand, she trusted Rachel. Moreover, Rachel wasn’t part of the lesfic community and thus wouldn’t really care that Jillian Ashley was in fact a man. Rachel would probably spend all of ten seconds laughing about it and then change the topic.

  On the other hand, the Jillian Ashley Thing was a really big secret and even though Amy trusted Rachel, Rachel would nonetheless be another possible vector for the truth to be leaked out, and Amy really did not want this truth to be leaked. The ramifications to her reputation as a podcaster and commentator on all things lesbian would be harsh, sure, but they could possibly be mitigated and perhaps over time would fade. She was more concerned about playing a role in the lesfic community losing the books of Jillian Ashley.

  Since Tuesday night, when she released her interview with “Jillian,” Amy had been shocked at the response. Every day since then, her email inbox, her Twitter account, her Facebook page and her website had been flooded with messages from readers from all over the world—even that one lesbian in Liechtenstein. Many of the messages had been standard good job! compliments on how well she conducted the interview.

  But the majority of the messages had been from women who had very emotionally explained to Amy how meaningful it had been to actually see and hear their favorite writer talking about her books, books that meant so much to them!

  Amy had no idea how this guy Max had done it, but he—a man!—had somehow created a body of lesfic works which were super important to so many gay women. She really needed to meet this guy!

  Now, though, she decided to keep Rachel in the dark. Well, in the dark about the Jillian Ashley Thing; not in the dark about what happened last night.

  “Oh my god!” Rachel exclaimed a few minutes later, while Amy started getting ready in her bedroom for Sally’s arrival. “You slut! On the beach? But you never have sex on the first date! Even in a bedroom!”

  “I know!” Amy agreed. “But, Rach, it was bam! I just wanted her!”

  “And it sounds like she wanted you, too!”

  “I knew that five minutes after she sat down at La Vida Mocha. Basically, our date was one long session of both of us not tearing each other’s clothes off.”

  “And how was the sex when it moved to the bedroom—you know, not out in public on our town’s beach?”

  Amy laughed, choosing the dress she was going to wear tonight from her walk-in closet.

  “Rach, it was amazing! Of course, I won’t bore you with the details of girl-on-girl sex. I don’t want to make you cringe.”

  Shoes…which shoes?

  “Whatever!” Rachel said. “I’ll have you know that I am already familiar with descriptions of girl-on-girl sex because I’ve been reading your girlfriend’s book for the past couple of days.”

  Amy, who had been crouching in her closet in front of her shoe rack, trying to decide on which heels to select, stood up.

  “You have?” she asked. “Which one?”

  “The first one, Something Road Fling,” Rachel answered. “It’s really good! She’s a great writer! I’m, like, all into the whole ‘Will Marisol and Karen get together?’ thing. They’d better; I have feelings invested now.”

  “Have you read chapter twenty-five yet?” Amy asked, stifling a laugh.

  “No, I’m only, like, up to chapter seventeen. Why?”

  “You’ll see,” Amy told her.

  “Okay, intriguing…Anyway, yay! I’m so happy for you! The dry spell is over! Does she have a brother for me?”

  “I’ll ask tonight,” Amy said, laughing.

  Chapter 18

  Sally made it back from Solana Beach with plenty of time to get ready for tonight’s date with Amy. Walking into her condo, she had to admit that she had enjoyed
meeting Ainsley. For someone from Mount Olympus, Ainsley had been really down-to-earth and approachable.

  And sexy as hell!

  Sally allowed herself that thought, which seemed a bit sacrilegious considering how much she enjoyed this nascent thing with Amy and was, in point of fact, about to get ready for her second date with Amy, because it was undeniably true. Ainsley was definitely sexy as hell.

  Only twenty-four hours…

  Sally stopped walking towards her bedroom, thinking about that.

  Only twenty-four hours separated Amy and Ainsley. If she had accepted Ainsley’s original suggestion of meeting for drinks Thursday night—one night before her first date with Amy—who would she be getting ready to go on a date with tonight? Ainsley or Amy? Would she have sat in La Vida Mocha on Friday evening with Amy out of politeness, preparing to brush her off and make sure things didn’t progress beyond a friendly cup of coffee?

  Only twenty-four hours…

  The realization sent a shudder down her spine now, especially as it proved, yet again, that the Universe worked in strange and mysterious ways.

  No sooner had she stepped into her bedroom than her phone rang. Her mother.

  “You’re a writer?” was Leslie’s greeting.

  Fuck my life!

  Word travels fast on the Meddling Mothers Hotline and Sally hated it.

  “Um…” she began.

  “Why have you never told me this?” Leslie screeched.

  “Um…”

  “My daughter has written four books—four!—and her mother is the last to know!”

  And starring in the role of the Martyr…Dr. Leslie Lassiter.

  Sally realized she could never tell her mother the truth. If telling Lisa the truth about Jillian Ashley would be like taking out an ad on Super Bowl Sunday, telling her Mom would be like somehow landing on the Moon and spray-painting “Max Tremont is Jillian Ashley” on the surface in letters large enough to be seen from Earth. Especially since her mother wasn’t particularly fond of Max. Leslie never understood why a man Max’s age (which was more or less her age) was such close friends with someone as young as her daughter and so always distrusted his motives, which always made Sally upset. In fact, the absolute only times Sally wished she was straight was when she would think of how fabulous it would be to marry Max and really piss her mother off.