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

  “I totally get what you’re saying,” Amy said. “Like Milton Glaser’s I Love New York logo. It’s such a simple design and yet every time I see that, I picture everything awesome about New York City.”

  Sally blinked.

  She knows who Milton Glaser is?

  In the world of graphic design, Milton Glaser was God; yet very few people outside the industry knew his name, even though practically everybody around the world knew the I Love New York logo with that big red heart standing in for the word love.

  Sally couldn’t believe it but her center was getting slick. She was actually getting turned on because this gorgeous woman she was with knew the name of a renowned graphic designer and one of Sally’s heroes.

  Oh, Jesus…

  The wine arrived then, which Sally knew wouldn’t help. Wine, particularly good wine, always heightened her arousal.

  Max is going to kill me.

  “Anyway,” Amy went on, after they had clinked glasses, “I think your job is super important.”

  Sally scoffed.

  “Says the woman who literally improves other women’s lives.”

  Amy waved that off, but Sally noticed Amy had blushed deeply.

  “Fine, I help others, but so do you,” she said. “People take comfort in familiarity. Things like the Nike swoosh and the I Love New York logo and even the golden arches, can make people feel safe in a world that is always changing. One day, you may also end up designing an image that is known worldwide and will give people comfort because of its familiarity.”

  Sally’s heart was thudding.

  “After dinner, let’s go the beach,” she said.

  Amy arched an eyebrow and Sally knew, just knew, that Amy was reading her mind.

  “Any particular reason why?”

  Sally gave a little nod.

  “Because I want our first kiss to be on the beach.”

  ***

  Dinner ended up being fabulous with great food and lots of instances of Sally and Amy finishing each other’s sentences—a fact Sally appreciated more than the great food. She really had never felt this in tune with another woman; it was like her and Amy were vibing on the same frequency.

  Luckily, Sally had had some fabulous girlfriends before—the major exception being Brooke, who had cheated on her—but all of those previous relationships had been lacking an undefinable thing which had contributed to those relationships eventually fizzling out and ending.

  Had she found that undefinable thing now?

  Was it synchronicity?

  She had to remind herself that this was just date number one. Date number two could be a disaster. Date number ten could reveal that Amy was a psychopath.

  That is, if Sally ever got to date number two with Amy, let alone date number ten.

  That thought was preying on her mind now as her and Amy walked along Carlsbad Boulevard following their dinner, heading towards the entrance to the beach. Sunset was fast approaching and the sky was filled with small fluffy clouds that were tinted pink and lavender. Sally was genuinely worried that the decision she had made almost instantly when she had walked into that coffeeshop and laid eyes on Amy was going to cost her dearly. But she also knew the decision was the only right one.

  Maybe I should just do it now…

  But her thoughts were interrupted when Amy suddenly said, “I have to admit that I like first dates more when I know I can expect a kiss later.”

  Sally laughed, blushing.

  “I hope I didn’t ruin the surprise,” she said, pushing aside her recent thoughts as she remembered her bold declaration back at the trattoria.

  “Ruin? I thought it was hot.”

  Sally stopped just short of the pedestrian ramp which led from Carlsbad Boulevard down to the beach. Amy halted also and turned to face her.

  “Hot, huh?” Sally said.

  “Mm-hmm,” Amy replied. She glanced over her shoulder. “But we’re not technically on the beach yet, are we?”

  “Nope.”

  After walking down the sloping footpath and just before stepping onto the sand of the beach, both women removed their shoes. As usual for a Friday evening at sunset, the section of the beach near the northern terminus of the seawall was crowded with people waiting to watch the sun disappear. This was the part of the beach near the restaurants and the hotels and timeshares. Sally noticed, though, that towards the south, close to the lagoon, the beach was less populated and so she started in that direction, Amy right beside her.

  The two women walked in silence, close together. As their feet shifted in the sand, they would bump gently against one another and with each touch, Sally’s excitement kept rising. Eventually, they reached a point near one of the empty lifeguard towers that was remarkably devoid of people. Not that they were completely alone, per se, just that other beachgoers were far enough away that Sally felt like her and Amy were in their own little haven.

  Then, everything happened so fast.

  No sooner had Sally stopped than Amy was right in front of her, pressing her body against hers as she wrapped her arms around Sally’s neck. With a groan of lust, Sally abandoned her original of plan of saying what she wanted to say, cupped the back of Amy’s head and brought their lips together for a hungry kiss that immediately made her curl her toes into the sand.

  There was nothing tentative about this kiss, the way most first kisses are. Amy’s soft lips moved against Sally’s with an intensity that liquified Sally’s center and when their tongues began playing together, Sally swore she was thisclose to coming as her clit pulsed in time with her escalated heartbeat.

  But this was wrong.

  She could kiss Amy like this for hours, she knew. She could kiss Amy like this from today’s sunset until tomorrow’s sunrise, but it was wrong.

  She forced herself away from Amy.

  “Wait!” she suddenly blurted out. Already she missed feeling Amy’s lips against hers.

  Amy was looking at her with a confused expression.

  “Babe, what? If you’re worried that you’re moving too fast, don’t be. I want this too.”

  Sally loved that Amy was already calling her babe.

  “No, it’s not that. I…I need to tell you something before we…Well, before anything else happens.”

  “Do you already have a girlfriend?” Amy practically screeched, stepping away from Sally.

  “No! I swear, I don’t. And before you ask, I don’t have a wife either.”

  Amy knitted her brows.

  “Are you straight?” she asked in a whisper.

  Sally rolled her eyes.

  “Of course not.”

  “Then what is it?”

  Sally swallowed. This was going to be hard to get out but she knew she needed to do it and do it now before things with Amy went any further. This first date was fast heading toward the bedroom and Sally could not let that happen without first telling Amy the truth. In fact, she shouldn’t have even started kissing Amy until she had come clean.

  Of course, she understood the potential implications. There was a very good chance that in the next few moments she would see Amy walking out of her life forever. That scared Sally to no end. Sure, this was just their first date—ergo, they hardly had a long history; but Sally wanted to keep seeing Amy. Their connection was just…it was what people write about. In screenplays, in novels, in poems. And she knew Amy was feeling it too.

  She felt a gentle touch on her arm. Amy had stepped forward again and was now within kissing distance once more.

  “Hey,” Amy said softly. “Whatever it is, just tell me. I’ll understand.”

  You’re speaking too soon.

  “I’m not Jillian Ashley,” Sally said.

  She watched as Amy’s featured morphed from one of gentle encouragement to utter confusion.

  “What do you mean?”

  Taking a deep breath, Sally ploughed on.

  “I didn’t write the Jillian Ashley books. My friend Max did; Jillian Ashley is his pen name. I
just found out about it myself a week ago. Anyway, he asked me to impersonate Jillian for him because he knew Jillian needed to start doing some interviews before people started getting suspicious and so I said I would.”

  For twenty percent.

  Sally decided to leave out that little tidbit.

  She continued. She didn’t want to give Amy a chance to interrupt. Not yet. And so she hurriedly told Amy how the interview was set up in Max’s house, with Max feeding her the answers to Amy’s questions as he sat off-screen.

  “You have to believe me, Amy,” she went on, “I figured I’d do the interview, one and done, that’s it. But then…”

  She sighed. How to explain this part?

  “But then you asked me to join you for coffee. I should have said no, I know that, but I wanted to see you. I felt we had a connection that I’ve never felt with anyone ever before and I wanted to have a chance to see if it held up during an actual face-to-face meeting. And it did! I know you probably hate me now but I swear to god, Amy, I really do feel amazing just being with you. I see fireworks when we kiss and I want nothing more than to sit here on the beach holding you all night. Please believe me.”

  Sally stopped then to take another deep breath.

  “I just wanted you to know that,” she murmured.

  There. It was done. Sally knew that compared to the courageous things countless other people have to do on a daily basis, this confession paled in comparison; yet to her, it felt like she had just done the most frightening thing she had ever done in her life.

  And it was the right thing to do, even though she knew it might very well cost her.

  Oh, and that Max was going to kill her.

  Chapter 13

  What the fuck just happened?

  Amy was having a hard time wrapping her brain around this.

  Sally wasn’t Jillian? The whole thing had been a lie?

  Was this a joke?

  But no matter how hard she scrutinized Sally’s features now, Amy could detect no sign of mirth or humor. Sally was telling the truth. She wasn’t Jillian. Even weirder than that: a man was Jillian!

  She stepped away from Sally again, farther this time than when she had asked if Sally already had a girlfriend. Right now, she was compelled to give this…imposter the finger, tell her to fuck off and leave her standing here on the beach. But first, there were things to get off her chest.

  “You came on my show!” she screamed, the volume of her voice somewhat tempered by the sound of the mighty Pacific’s surf. “Do you have any idea how important that show is to me?”

  Sally mutely nodded.

  “Fuck, Sally!” Amy threw her hands up in the air and started pacing in the sand. Eventually, she stopped and stared at this woman who less than five minutes ago she had been kissing and had wanted to take home to fuck her brains out.

  I still do.

  She shook her head. She needed her brain to do the thinking now, not her vagina.

  “Why?” she demanded. “Why did you do this?”

  “I told you!” Sally said. “It was just going to be this one interview! Maybe a few others just to get people off Max’s back and show them that, yes, Jillian Ashley really exists.”

  That made sense. Amy knew from various sources—Twitter, Facebook, comments made by readers of her blog and listeners of her podcast—that Jillian Ashley’s Salinger-like reclusiveness, once part of her appeal, was beginning to make people suspicious. The question that was out there was, “Why wouldn’t Jillian show herself?”

  The theories about that were far-ranging. Most believed Jillian wasn’t the seemingly young, shapely woman seen from behind in her author photo but was instead far older and heavier. Others considered that maybe Jillian had been disfigured in a horrible accident. More than one person—unbelievably—had even speculated that all of the Jillian Ashley novels had in fact been written by an AI computer secretly developed by the government.

  Amy’s eyes went wide as she suddenly remembered someone starting a thread on Twitter, postulating that Jillian might in fact be a man. The original poster had been shot down rather quickly and brutally for even suggesting it. Some of the comments could have even been categorized as bullying. Jillian Ashley had legions of devout and fiercely protective fans.

  Another thought came to her, this one so frightening that she knew her legs would no longer support her and she quickly sat down on the sand before she fell down on the sand. She pulled her knees up against her chest and wrapped her arms around them. After a moment, when her nerves felt steady enough to allow her to speak, she looked over at Sally.

  “Do you have any idea how many lesbians I just lied to?”

  Lesbeing—the Podcast may not be on par with something like This American Life but it also wasn’t small potatoes anymore. Twenty-five episodes in and she was already over ten-thousand subscribers and the interview with Jillian Ashley had increased the rate of new listeners signing up almost exponentially. She expected to break the fifteen-thousand mark by the end of next week. And her subscribers weren’t just SoCal women—not anymore. Amy’s podcast had listeners in Japan, Russia, Australia, and other countries, even Liechtenstein! Amy had had to Google that one. And now she was faced with telling all of them—even what had to be the only lesbian in Liechtenstein—that her exclusive Jillian Ashley interview had been a farce.

  “Oh god,” she groaned, resting her head on her knees and shutting her eyes.

  Eventually—minutes later?—a voice said, “You don’t have to tell anyone.”

  Amy opened her eyes and saw that Sally was also sitting on the sand. Despite everything, Amy almost laughed when she noticed that Sally had chosen a spot presumably out of her striking range, about fifteen feet away.

  Little does she know how cat-like I can be.

  “Who else knows about this?” she asked quietly.

  “The whole story? Just me and Max.”

  Amy thought about that.

  Three people.

  Not telling anyone was plausible. If the true story was limited to three people—one of whom, this Max character, had a serious vested interest in not letting the secret out—then why not? It wasn’t in her nature to be so willing to participate in a deception but, really, what did it matter in this case? She had given the lesfic community what it wanted, a look at “Jillian Ashley.” And from the reaction to her interview, the lesfic community was satisfied and happy. What harm would it do for her to keep the ruse going? No one need ever know.

  Besides, the alternative was horrible. It meant the end of her podcasting career. It had started as a hobby but was now not only a passion of hers, but a money-making passion because of the advertising spots she was able to sell on the show’s website, not to mention the bits of Lesbeing merchandise she occasionally sold through the show’s online store.

  “Wait a minute,” she said. “What did you mean just now when you said ‘the whole story?’”

  Sally sighed.

  “My best friend Lisa watched our interview and now she thinks I’m Jillian Ashley.”

  Amy blinked.

  “You didn’t correct her?”

  Sally scoffed.

  “You don’t tell Lisa secrets,” she said. “That’s how they stop being secrets.”

  “I see.”

  Amy bit her bottom lip, thinking things over.

  “You could have avoided this whole conversation we’re having if you had just turned me down for coffee. Why didn’t you?”

  Sally’s green eyes, which were catching the orange and purple rays from the setting sun, pierced Amy’s.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I know I should have turned you down but it was impossible. I wanted to go on a date with you. I just felt like there was something between us that was more than physical attraction and I felt like it would be a decision I’d regret if I didn’t at least meet you for one lousy cup of coffee.”

  Amy sighed. She knew what Sally was referring to, that “something” between them, something w
hich was more than physical attraction—although, Sally was hot. But during the interview on Tuesday and then while they were talking afterwards, Amy had felt insanely connected to this woman sitting on the beach with her, connected enough to feel like she finally understood when other people would tell her “I just knew” when talking about meeting their special someones.

  “The coffee at La Vida Mocha is not lousy,” Amy said.

  “You know what I mean,” Sally replied.

  “And why did you tell me now?” Amy pressed. “I don’t mind admitting that things were going your way tonight. Right now, we could have been at my place with a lot less clothes on.”

  Amy was gratified to hear Sally gasp and then work her mouth, trying to form sentences.

  “I told you,” Sally was finally able to say, “precisely because I knew things were going my way tonight. Amy, when I arrived at that coffeeshop, I didn’t know what would happen. I figured, if our date fell flat and there was no chemistry then, fine, we go our separate ways and I let you keep thinking that you met Jillian Ashley. But our date didn’t fall flat.”

  No, it didn’t.

  “Amy, I know you probably think I’m some kind of deceitful witch but I’m really not. There was never any malicious intent in any of this. I pretended to be Jillian to help out a friend, that’s all. What I didn’t count on was meeting you. Even over a stupid webcam I felt connected with you and then when we met in person…I just suddenly wanted to spend every minute of the rest of tonight with you. And I swear I’ve never felt that before.”

  “Fuck!” Amy exclaimed. “Why are you making this so hard!”

  She sprang to her feet and resumed pacing. Everything Sally had just said, Amy had felt too, especially that bit about wanting to spend every minute of the rest of tonight together. Of course, Amy had planned to spend those minutes exploring every inch of Sally’s body with her tongue, lips, fingers and anything else she could use, even her toes if Sally was kinky like that. But Amy also knew that if she and Sally had simply gone back to her place and spent the rest of the night together watching bad TV shows before finally falling asleep in each other’s arm, she would have considered the night magical.

  “I should be hating you right now!” she exclaimed, stopping in front of Sally, who stood up.