“That’s different,” Brenda insisted. “It’s only natural that I should bring you gifts.”
“Please. I know that my worthless gift is small and will not measure up to the receiver. Forgive me for insulting you with it, and try not to judge it too harshly. I know it cannot please you.”
“Damn clever these Chinese!” Brenda grinned. “All right. Unworthy as I am, I shall accept it.”
Ling-Foi smiled back and took a large, ornately wrapped package from the closet. She bowed low. and handed it to Brenda. Returning the bow playfully, Brenda removed the wrappings.
“Oh, it’s lovely!” she exclaimed when the box was opened.
It is nothing,” Ling-Foi demurred. “Will you do me the honor of trying it on?”
Brenda pulled off her sweater and slacks and donned the gift. Ling-Foi turned on the overhead light so that Brenda might see herself in the mirror. “Perfection,” the Chinese girl breathed as Brenda slowly pirouetted to display the garment.
It did indeed become Brenda. A floor-length robe of gold lamé, it had a low-cut, square neckline well suited to Brenda’s ample, slightly low bosom. Two dark embroidered dragons circled under Brenda’s breasts and challenged each other across the bared triangle of her navel with garnet-red eyes. The robe reached to the floor and was slit down each side, revealing long, slender legs and the sleek, almost straight line of Brenda’s hips. As she turned, her tight-muscled haunches, tanned from constant exposure to a sunlamp, played hide and seek with the slits of the robe.
The style of the gown followed the straight, slim lines of Brenda’s body from her rather square shoulders to her trim, almost delicate ankles. The color accentuated the deep, tawny blonde shade of her short-cropped hair and added depth and intensity to her dark brown eyes. But the texture of the material—so feminine — contrasted with the year-round tan of Brenda’s face. The face, without make-up, with its strong jaw line and the almost angular set of its features, was more boyish than female, and it was this quality which the robe brought out and stressed.
Ling-Foi was delighted with Brenda’s pleasure at the gift. The Chinese girl clapped her hands and her eyes glowed as Brenda approached her. Brenda put her hand under Ling-Foi’s chin and raised the delicate face to her own gently.
“Thank you, my darling,” she said and kissed the moist red lips.
When the kiss was over, Ling-Foi turned off the overhead light again. Then she lay back on the, bed and raised her arms to Brenda. The motion revealed the ivory-white silhouette of one of her plump breasts.
Brenda sank to her knees at the side of the bed. She pushed back the material of Ling-Foi’s kimono slightly and cupped the perfect globe of the breast in the palm of her hand. “Like a dove,” Brenda murmured. “It flutters in my hand like a dove.” Pursing her lips, she bent and took only the pink-shaded roseate of the breast in her mouth. Brenda’s tongue was feather-soft on the peak.
They remained like that for a long moment. When Brenda finally raised her head, the pink roseate of Ling-Foi’s breast had moistened and spread, opening like a flower. In the center the crest had grown long and darkened to an almost purple shade. It quivered as if with a life of its own, and a single dew-like drop was suspended from the very tip.
Brenda bared Ling-Foi’s other breast and repeated the caress. Then her lips traced the slit of the kimono down to Ling-Foi’s belly and her tongue probed deep in the Chinese girl’s navel. Ling-Foi squirmed and laughed deep in her throat. “That tickles.” she told Brenda. “But it is such a lovely, sweet tickle. Here, let me show you.”
She moved over on the bed so that Brenda might join her. Then she rose up on her knees and bent over Brenda. Her lips fastened lightly on the naked triangle of flesh at Brenda’s midriff. Slowly, expertly, Ling-Foi increased the suction of her lips until Brenda’s- hands clutched spasmodically at the back of her neck. Finally Ling-Foi raised her head and looked impishly into Brenda’s eyes. “There. Does it not tickle?” she asked.
“The sensation is exquisite,” Brenda said. Her eyes were squeezed shut tight and her breasts were rising and falling rapidly.
“I told you.” Ling-Foi’s laugh was a low, affectionate thrill, almost birdlike. She lay back on the bed again.
Brenda moved over her now, stroking the silk-covered legs, feeling the fleshiness of the thighs burning hotly through the thin material of the kimono. She raised the hem of the garment slowly and her hands trailed intimately up the length of the legs. Ling-Foi’s hands moved nervously to the twin slits of Brenda’s gown and fastened over her hips, her nails digging almost to the bone.
Brenda pushed the kimono up over Ling-Foi’s belly now, and she stared adoringly at what she had exposed. Then she grasped both the Chinese girl’s hands in hers and gently slid one long , slender leg under Ling-Foi’s body. Pushing the rear flap of her gown out of the way and tucking the front one up to her navel, Brenda pushed upward until the tip of one foot was visible under Ling-Foi’s shoulder. She angled her own body and that of the Chinese girl slightly so that now their legs were apart like half-opened scissors joined at the fulcrums. As she pushed harder, the fiery clutch of Ling-Foi’s response aroused Brenda tremendously and she felt the lotions of love mingling as the pressure grew.
Still holding hands, the girls moved in an erotic ritual of love-making. They rocked gently, then faster, their joined hands providing the leverage. Now their rhythm was wild and they abandoned themselves to it, all consciousness concentrated on the writhing suction of their merged womanhood. Unthinkingly, Ling-Foi’s head came forward with the forward motion of their rocking and she nipped passionately at the brown-tipped pendulum of one of Brenda’s breasts. Then the reverse motion tore her target from her mouth, and the Chinese girl thrust her hips upward uncontrollably as though trying to envelop Brenda’s being. But the envelopment was mutual, and both girls sounded their delight simultaneously—Ling-Foi whimpering, Brenda almost shouting her ecstasy—and their bodies froze spasmodically as they prolonged the moment deliberately, squeezing every last drop of enjoyment from one another.
Later—much later—Brenda stood up and smiled down at Ling-Foi. She felt wonderfully relaxed, and she inhaled deeply. The delicate whiff of burning incense she drew into her lungs made her tighten with a renewal of sexual desire. Brenda sighed and stifled the impulse. “I have to get going now,” she told Ling-Foi.
“Why don’t you spend the night?”
“I can’t. I have to go home and change my clothes for work in the morning. I can’t go to the office in sweater and slacks.”
“I would offer to lend you clothes, but they would not fit you.”
“I know. Thanks anyway.” Brenda pulled on her clothes, turned on the overhead light, and sat down in front of the mirror to comb her hair. A loud clap of thunder sounded from outside. “Will you listen to that!” Brenda said. “It must really be coming down. Boy, I'm sure not looking forward to the trip home.”
“Don’t you have a raincoat?”
“Not with me. It wasn’t raining when I left the house.”
“But how can that be? I thought it had been drizzling heavily for some time when you got here.”
“Oh! Yes. I guess you’re right.” Brenda caught herself.
“I even wondered before how it was that your hair didn’t get wet.”
“I ran between the raindrops.”
“No, seriously. You didn’t come straight from home, did you?”
“No,” Brenda admitted’
“Where were you then? Have I a rival?”
“Don’t be silly, darling.”
“Well, where were you then?” There was suspicion and jealousy in Ling-Foi’s voice.
The question hung in the air between them, thicker than the incense, more ominous. Brenda’s mind was racing. She had never told Ling-Foi about her visits to Dr. Golden, or about the group sessions. She was very self-conscious about going to a psychoanalyst, and she feared that Ling-Foi might be disgusted at the confirmation of mental illness which such treatment implied. Besides, she was afraid that Ling-Foi might try to question her about what she discussed with Dr. Golden, and any such interrogation would be difficult, even painful, to Brenda.