Falling for Jillian Ashley: A Carlsbad Village Lesbian Romance Page 25

  It was about time.

  After the emergency landing, all the passengers had had to abandon the plane in haste, ordered by the flight crew to leave everything behind. Later, in the hangar, they had been promised that once the plane was deemed safe enough, airport personnel would find their baggage and other belongings and contact them for retrieval. Sally just hadn’t expected them to take this long. Not that any hardship had been created by the delay. Despite the haste of the evacuation, both Sally and Amy—as well as pretty much every other woman on the aircraft—had had the presence of mind to grab their purses, which had been stowed under their seats, so at least neither of them had had to worry about canceling credit cards or getting new IDs. But in addition to their checked baggage, Sally’s Kindle had been left behind in the cabin—who knows where after she dropped it—along with Amy’s laptop. Sally had a brief flashback now of seeing the computer almost jump out of Amy’s grasp just when the plane did that first gut-wrenching freefall or whatever it had done.

  Driving her BMW on the I-5 as they approached Irvine, Sally said, “I bet you’ve been going crazy without your laptop.”

  Amy chuckled.

  “Thank god my old one still works,” she said. “But it’s soooooo slow! I, like, try to do something on it and end up wishing I can make it drink coffee to speed it up!”

  Sally laughed.

  “Well, you can pour a few drops of your Amy’s Jet Fuel into the circuitry,” she joked. “That oughta speed it up. Anyway, I hope that they found your regular one and that it still works.”

  “Me too. But even if it’s destroyed, everything important is backed up to the cloud. Trust me, I spend a bunch of money a year on my cloud storage.”

  “Oh, good. I’d hate to think the unedited, raw footage of my debut appearance on Lesbeing as Jillian Ashley was lost forever! That’s historical, after all.”

  Amy nodded.

  “I expect the Smithsonian to be calling me any day for it,” she replied with a smirk.

  Sally navigated her car around a slow-moving taxi and then sped past a dump truck. As she did so, she was smiling to herself.

  She was happy.

  Last night had been mind-blowingly amazing, she considered now after reading a sign stating that the airport was three miles ahead. She had always felt that so far, she had had a good sex life. Most of her past girlfriends had been good-to-great lovers, and even the handful of one-night stands she’d had pre-pandemic had been fun. But with Amy, her sex life was now pornographically good. Off-the-charts good. Stratospherically good. And with what they experienced last night…it had been everything Sally had wanted: an erotic way of opening of new doorways to each other souls.

  That was unusual for her.

  Usually, Sally ignored anything that had a mystical or supernatural bent to it. But after the Incident, she wasn’t certain she wanted to be so close-minded anymore. So, when she started looking into tantric sex, it sounded like just what she wanted. Of course, she chose to ignore a lot of suggestions she’d read on websites about it. Eye-gazing, for one. Who wants to spend two minutes just gazing into their partner’s eyes? And synchronized breathing with hands on each other hearts? Sally could do without that too. Besides, Amy’s heart was under one of her gorgeous and pert breasts. Sally knew that if she placed her hand on that part of Amy’s chest, it wouldn’t be to feel Amy’s beating heart.

  And so Sally had devised her own method of tantric sex: still slow, still appreciative of her partner’s presence and body…but with the added bonus of a constantly vibrating toy in her core.

  In fact, she had come so hard last night that she had hurt herself, tweaking a muscle near her ribcage, close to where her Sally Brown tattoo was.

  Last night’s mind-blowing amazingness, however, was only one aspect of what was making Sally happy right now.

  The other aspects all had to do with Amy and her Amy-ness.

  Amy was meant for her, Sally was convinced now. And the thing was, she knew that she had come to that conclusion even before the Incident, even before their time in San Francisco was up. Sally had been wanting to feel the things she feels for Amy all her life. The Incident merely heightened that awareness and made her determined to keep Amy with her until…

  Forever.

  And okay…Amy was a bit of a workaholic; and okay, that had started to bother Sally a bit that one morning in San Francisco when they’d had that row. But Sally knew there are worse things Amy could be doing in the wee hours of the morning.

  And okay…Amy drank an alarming amount of caffeine. Yesterday morning, her girlfriend had gotten up super early (no surprise) and gone to La Vida Mocha to bring back coffee for herself and Sally before they both left for work. When she returned, Sally, out of curiosity, had taken a sip of the Amy’s Jet Fuel. One sip. Yet all that day, Sally had had an elevated heartrate and even wondered if she should get an EKG.

  But all of these quirks, and others, were part of Amy’s Amy-ness and Sally wouldn’t have Amy any other way.

  “Hey,” Amy began, interrupting her reverie, “after we’re done at the airport, can we maybe grab dinner in town?”

  “Absolutely,” Sally answered. “That’s a great idea.”

  Amy reached over and laid her hand on Sally’s right leg.

  “God, my heart is starting to beat faster,” she whispered.

  Sally nodded.

  “Mine too.” This was true and it was because she had just steered the car onto the exit for the airport. Even though they weren’t getting on an airplane—and Sally wondered when she’d be ready for that again—it was still a little unnerving returning to this airport. The memories of Saturday…

  God, was it only Saturday?

  …were rushing through her mind like one of those jump cut flashback scenes in a thriller movie.

  The terror of feeling the plane freefalling.

  The stomach-churning sensation of when the plane banked sharply that one time, making her feel as if the aircraft was about to do a barrel roll.

  All of the noise: passengers screaming; the engines whining; sounds of metal straining and unseen things in the undercarriage banging about.

  Assuming the crash position.

  Feeling certain she was going to die.

  The landing: successful, fine, but even Sally knew that it had not been textbook by any means. In fact, when the plane touched down, she could have sworn that she had heard even more screeching metal sounds, as if it wasn’t the landing gear that was skidding along the runway.

  She shook her head, trying to clear her thoughts so she could concentrate on navigating the car through the airport roads to where they had been instructed to go.

  Taking her right hand off the steering wheel, she placed it atop the one Amy had on her leg.

  “It’ll be fine,” she said.

  ***

  Turns out, the airline people found her Kindle. And her sunglasses which she had left in the back pocket of the seat in front of hers. Her Coach carry-on bag (with the vibrator/pipe bomb inside) was intact, and remarkably unscathed. Apparently, it had fallen out when the overhead compartments had burst open and according to the customer service rep helping them now had been found all the way in the back of the economy section, so the bag must have endured some pretty severe bopping and banging around the cabin during the emergency, yet from what Sally could tell, it bore no visible signs of damage.

  Always buy quality.

  Amy’s laptop, on the other hand, bore some new scratches. Fortunately, the damage was limited to the casing. The screen was fine and unmarred. Alas, because it had been unplugged for so long, Amy was unable to simply turn it on to determine if it still worked. However, to Sally’s surprise, Amy reached into her tote bag-sized purse, pulled out the laptop’s power supply cable, found a nearby outlet and plugged it in.

  “Only you would have a power cable for a laptop in your purse,” Sally said, shaking her head but loving the Amy-ness of it.

  “Did you really think I
’d be able to wait until we got home before knowing?” Amy asked, her eyes fixed on the screen. After a moment, she let out a relieved sigh. “Whew! It boots up!” She closed the cover. “I’ll check it out more when we get back.”

  Sally was surprised. She had half-expected Amy to start writing a new blog entry, right there in the airline’s customer service lounge. The Best Laptops for Lesbians to Have in a Plane Crash, or something like that.

  Their checked baggage was all in good shape, which was a relief. Sally had had visions of being told that the plane’s cargo compartment had burst into flames or disgorged its contents somewhere over Long Beach.

  With their belongings returned, their work at the airport was done, which was fine by Sally. She had felt on-edge the entire time they were there. This bothered her because traveling was something she enjoyed and she didn’t now want to become one of those people who was afraid of flying. There was still too much of the world she wanted to see and she sure as hell couldn’t drive to it all.

  This matter was still on her mind when her and Amy sat down for dinner at a Korean grill restaurant in downtown Santa Ana about twenty minutes later.

  “Maybe we should take another trip soon,” she said to Amy after they’d ordered.

  Amy’s face registered surprise but she also smiled that gorgeous smile Sally loved.

  “Really?” Amy asked. “Like, how soon?”

  Sally shrugged.

  “I don’t know, but the sooner the better, I think. I’m just hating how I felt at the airport just now and I’m worried that if I take too long to get back on an airplane, I’ll end up never wanting to fly again.”

  Amy nodded.

  “I totally get that. I feel the same. I don’t want to be one of those lesbians who owns a Winnebago because that’s the only way they’ll travel. Ooh! Podcast episode idea! Anyway…horse…saddle…let’s get back on.”

  Sally was liking this plan, especially the part about never seeing Amy in a Winnebago.

  “Are you sure?” Sally asked. “I don’t want it to be like I’m pressuring you. If you’re not ready—”

  “You’re not traveling anywhere without me,” Amy stated, looking directly into Sally’s eyes.

  Sally’s clit actually pulsed.

  “I don’t want to travel anywhere without you,” she said softly. “Like, ever.”

  She saw Amy swallow.

  “Ever ever?” Amy asked quietly.

  “Ever ever,” Sally declared.

  “Me either,” Amy said. “Ever ever.”

  Sally just had the best idea.

  “Let’s go somewhere tonight!” she said.

  Amy laughed.

  “Seriously?”

  “Why not?” Sally went on. “We have everything we need with us right now! Credit cards, ID, a car full of luggage…”

  “Sex toys,” Amy added with a wicked grin.

  “Sex toys,” Sally confirmed.

  “My laptop,” Amy said.

  “Which is like a third arm for you,” Sally joked.

  “Where would we go?” Amy asked and Sally could tell she was just as enthused about it as she was.

  Sally bit her lip, considering.

  “Vegas?”

  Amy made a face.

  “No, too cheesy. Back to San Francisco?”

  Sally shook her head.

  “Nah, I want someplace different.” Her face lit up as an idea came to her. “Have you ever been to Seattle?”

  Sally knew by the look on Amy’s face that she had picked the winner.

  “I love Seattle!” Amy exclaimed. “And you can get amazing coffee, like, anywhere in that city!”

  “Oh my god, you have a problem!” Sally teased her, rolling her eyes.

  “Whatever! You love it!” Amy said, already looking at her phone and tapping the screen. In a few moments, she said, “Shit! We missed the last flight to Seattle out of John Wayne.” She tapped her screen a few more times. “But there’s a flight out of L.A. in three hours.”

  “No time to eat!” Sally declared, already gathering her purse.

  Amy was doing the same.

  “You drive, I’ll book!” she told Sally.

  Their server came by, ready to take their order. “I’m sorry,” Sally told the young woman. “But we have to leave.” She pulled a twenty out of her wallet and hastily handed it to her. “But take this!”

  In the car, before she started driving, Sally unlocked her phone and handed it along with her wallet to Amy so her girlfriend could make all the bookings.

  “Ooh,” Amy began when she had Sally’s phone in her possession. “Now I can see what other women you’ve been texting.”

  Sally laughed.

  “Go ahead,” she challenged, pulling out of the restaurant’s parking lot. “You’ll find tons of messages from Lisa, my bestie; too many messages from my Mom; a woman from work named Sandra, who’s, like, sixty-years-old and, let’s see…”

  “Someone named Ainsley,” Amy said in a teasing voice.

  Fuck!

  Sally had forgotten about the handful of texts she had shared with Ainsley leading up to their one and only date.

  “That’s nobody!” Sally exclaimed.

  “Hmm…looks like you met up for drinks with Ainsley Nobody the day after our first date…”

  “Amy, seriously, she’s nobody! It was one of my mother’s stupid fix ups! And her mother’s too! We agreed to meet just to get them off our backs! But I swear to you, five minutes after I met her I told her that you and I had started dating!”

  “Five minutes!” Amy exclaimed, an edge to her voice. “It took that long?”

  Christ! Why didn’t I delete those messages!

  “Amy…baby…” Sally began in a pleading tone. But then she stopped.

  In the seat next to her, Amy was laughing.

  At first, Sally was confused but then the penny dropped and she took her right hand off the steering wheel to reach over and playfully smack Amy’s leg.

  “So, you really believe me when I tell you Ainsley is nobody?” she asked.

  “Yes, babe, I believe you,” Amy said, reassuringly. She leaned over and gave Sally’s cheek a quick kiss. “As if you would ever date someone named Ainsley!”

  Sally nodded.

  “I know, right? God, that name!”

  Sally decided to leave out the fact that despite the pretentiousness of Ainsley’s name, the woman herself was actually quite charming and sweet. Oh, and sexy as fuck.

  “Oh, Ainsley! Oh, Ainsley!” Amy exclaimed, mimicking a woman in the throes of sexual passion. She even put her feet up on the dash with her legs spread open and thrashed about a bit in the passenger seat. “Don’t stop, Ainsley! Oh, Ainsley, I’m coming!” She shuddered and put her feet back on the floor. “Brrr! It just doesn’t work!”

  Sally was laughing and had to slow the BMW down until she got control of herself again.

  “What’s her middle name?” Amy asked.

  “No idea. Probably something equally pretentious, like Penelope.”

  “Well, anyway…you will never find out because I am deleting these messages from Ainsley Penelope, so say ‘bye-bye.’”

  “Bye-bye, Ainsley Penelope!” Sally said.

  Chapter 41

  This time, Amy insisted Sally take the vibrator-that-could-be-mistaken-for-a-pipe-bomb out of her carry-on bag and put it inside her checked luggage once they reached LAX.

  “I know, I know,” Sally said when they stopped just inside the terminal so that she could transfer the toy from one bag to another. “Season two, episode ten.”

  After checking their luggage and making it through security, Amy was sitting with Sally in the boarding area at the gate, her legs crossed, her hands folded in her lap, tapping her foot nervously.

  This was the right decision, she considered. Getting back on a plane was the right decision but goddamn if she wasn’t jittery about it. She chastised herself silently, telling herself to stop being silly. What had happened on the
previous flight had been a fluke and unlikely to repeat itself.

  Fine, that was true but it was doing little to help.

  She took another glance over at the gate agent’s station. On the wall was an LED sign displaying their flight number and destination along with a handy-dandy countdown clock showing the time left until boarding was going to start. It currently read 31 minutes.

  Amy let out a puff of breath. 31 minutes. And once more, her and Sally would be among the first passengers to board because, yet again, they had bought first-class tickets, which meant they’d be sitting on the airplane that much longer before takeoff.

  Sitting. Sitting and waiting. Sitting and waiting and wondering. Sitting, waiting and wondering if the hexabolt thingamajigs which keep the wings attached to the plane had really been manufactured to the highest standards; or if the flight control software in the cockpit had been programmed by some loner dweeb who was having a bad day.

  This isn’t helping!

  “Fuck!” she muttered.

  “Hey,” Sally whispered. “Why don’t you work on something? You have your laptop back.”

  Amy shook her head, still tapping her foot.

  “Good idea, but I can’t concentrate on anything right now. Aren’t you nervous?”

  “Of course I am,” Sally whispered, placing her hand on Amy’s leg. That simple gesture was like a magic soothing balm which lowered Amy’s heartrate instantly and sent a surge of strength through her entire body.

  “Fuck, that’s amazing!” Amy exclaimed, her eyes closed as she enjoyed the sudden calm.

  “What is?”

  “Your touch. It instantly calmed me down! You’re magical…”

  Sally chuckled.

  “My turn,” she said. “Let’s see if you’ve got the touch too.”

  Amy placed her hand on Sally’s leg and Sally gave her that zillion-watt smile Amy adored.

  “Like Xanax,” Sally said.

  “Great,” Amy began, “all we have to do is keep our hands on each other during the flight and we’ll be fine.”