Best Lesbian Erotica of the Year Page 4

  She lowers her eyes again and takes another step down into the Underground, pressing her toes into the well-worn basin at the center of each stair. Countless feet curving even tireless marble: the change that once to her seemed fascinating is now a slow agony of time’s movement. What good is marble at all when nightly, bombs destroy homes and shops, streets and churches? What good is there in permanency when if not destroyed outright, it is whittled away by every downward step?

  The din of voices seeking shelter beneath Borough station suffices as distraction from the weight of her bag that digs sharply into the curve of her neck. Elizabeth looks away from a crying child whose mother is in no better shape, past schoolboys already at play, too young not to see this all as some grand new adventure. She smiles in spite of her own misgivings. There are whole families here, old people and young couples, shopgirls and even a fiddler, his instrument held against his chest as if it were his progeny.

  Chin up.

  In their booths, the ticket-takers still on shift watch placidly as the lobby fills. Even in the direst commuter hours, Elizabeth has never seen the station so full. Overhead, the glass light fixtures that once twinkled prisms across the walls have been removed, revealing only the glaring bulbs beneath. Advertisements for shows linger in their frames, promising romance and intrigue at theaters that have been reduced to splintered wood and the rubble of red fabric seats. She shoulders her bag closer to her side, one arm looped over it for her own security as much as for what little she carries inside.

  From queue to queue she goes, with no children to console or family members to account for here, when they are all safely north in the Lake District. Barring entrance to the Underground, at the top of every stair stand the shelter wardens. Clipboards in hand as if tallying names for a field trip, their eyes are bright with a curious sort of power. Though the trains have stopped, the clock that marked their arrivals and departures has not, and Elizabeth checks it against her watch. The end of her shift would have been in thirty minutes, nightfall not far behind it.

  “Are you in the queue?”

  The voice beside her ear startles her, and Elizabeth squeezes a hand over her heart to settle its skipping.

  “Yes,” she answers, looking past her shoulder to the girl behind her. Dark hair curls loose around a rounded face; freckles are spattered beneath her hazel eyes. “Aren’t all of us?”

  “Thought you might be taking in the sights.”

  Elizabeth meets her eyes for a moment more, and turns away to stifle her own amusement. “I’ve seen enough, really.”

  They step forward, a sinuous shuffle as the wardens begin to let people down to the platforms, name by name.

  “First night?” the girl asks Elizabeth, and she nods.

  “Foolish, really. I couldn’t bring myself to leave my flat until the one next to it came down. Becomes a bit hard to justify then, when there’s suddenly sky outside instead of brick, and all your things have rattled to the floor.” Elizabeth shakes her head, and then corrects the bobby pin holding her own tresses back from her face. “Bookcase nearly killed me.”

  “Better than a bomb,” the girl muses. “But not by much.”

  Another step, and another.

  “You’re from nearby?” Elizabeth asks. She keeps her voice quiet. It feels out of place to be boisterous when there are so many who seemingly can’t control their loud laughter, their cries of greeting, their tears.

  “Was,” the girl responds, and a step out of turn brings her to beside Elizabeth. “Still am, I suppose, although there’s not much of a ‘nearby’ to return to.”

  “Oh. Oh, I’m sorry—”

  “Everyone’s fine,” the girl assures her. “No one’s been there for weeks.”

  “You’ve been here,” Elizabeth points out. “Seems unwise.”

  “Terribly dangerous, you mean. I suppose so. But there’s still work to be had, and once the Germans are done, I’ll find somewhere to stay. See what’s still standing.”

  She smiles, a crooked sort of pleasure in the corners of her eyes, and Elizabeth watches her with dismay. “That’s so morbid.”

  “It is, and so perfectly suited for these trying times,” she says, lowering her voice in mimicry of the nightly news. “We must all carry on, chin up and all that.”

  Elizabeth blinks, and surprises herself with a laugh.

  “Welcome back, Catherine,” intones the sprightly old shelter warden, smiling enough to raise her glasses higher.

  “Good evening, Mrs. Blankenship,” she answers. Her arm slips through Elizabeth’s to tug her forward. “I’ve brought a friend tonight.”

  The wire frames lower. “Have you, then.”

  In an instant, Elizabeth relives every dubious look she’s ever gotten from her parents, her teachers, her friends and peers. Before she learned to stop saying that she wasn’t interested in boys, before she learned to say that she was simply waiting for the right one to marry, before she learned to nod and feign attention when they told her to just find a nice man and settle. She forces a smile.

  Chin up.

  “Elizabeth Dyer,” she says, rising to her toes to peek at her name jotted down beside Catherine’s. The arm around hers remains, long enough that Elizabeth has time to resent the blush rising uninvited to her cheeks.

  “Welcome to Borough Tube, Ms. Dyer. You’ll see that we’ve marked off areas for sleeping, others for personal needs and food preparation—”

  “I’ll show you,” Catherine whispers, before turning a sunny smile to the warden. “Thank you, Mrs. Blankenship. I’m certain the accommodations will be lovely as ever.”

  Elizabeth is tugged along briskly, nearly dropping her shoulder bag as they bound down the stairs. Catherine’s arm slips free, palm skimming Elizabeth’s elbow, to seek her fingers instead and lace them. Elizabeth’s breath stops, her heart ceases to beat for an instant and she finds she can no more stir them to life again than she can tug her hand away. In matching dresses of dreary gray wool, bare legged without stockings available to them, they appear as much to be sisters as anything else. Perhaps they are, of sorts, and Elizabeth only notices the looks they receive because so few are sent their way.

  “You’re mad,” she decides, as the girl turns to face her.

  “No,” Catherine answers, canting her head. “I’m familiar.”

  “Overly familiar.”

  “I can be unfamiliar instead,” she offers.

  There’s a challenge in the words and Elizabeth crooks a brow. Catherine, to her credit, seems entirely genial either way. They only met a staircase ago, but the girl is unfairly charming, breezy as if they’d met at the park rather than hiding beneath it. Elizabeth wonders what might have happened had they encountered each other anywhere else, the long uncertain looks they might have shared before lips caught coy between their teeth in knowing grins.

  Elizabeth thinks distantly of the flat where she kept her own company, but with room enough for two, and her cheeks burn. In answer, she simply shakes her head. Catherine’s smile bounces back, broad teeth peeking beneath rosy lips, unmarked by lipsticks long ago rationed.

  “Elizabeth, is it?”

  “Yes. Just that, not Liz or Beth or anything,” she answers, fighting down a smile that begs to appear in response to the other girl’s enthusiasm. “It’s nice to meet you, Catherine.”

  “So it is. Queens, the both of us,” she grins. “The royalty underground.”

  Where she goes, Elizabeth follows. Tiled walls bend overhead, growing smaller down the darkened railway tunnel. Already large families are staking claim to parts of the platform; already those who came alone are instead making their bed upon the tracks. Elizabeth’s steps slow to watch an elderly couple taking tea together from a thermos and a single cup, shared between them.

  “I’ve my own, if you’d like some,” Catherine offers, giving a nod for Elizabeth to keep with her as they continue on.

  “Tea?”

  “It might have a top-off of scotch in it.”
“Might have,” Elizabeth repeats.

  “Definitely does,” corrects Catherine. “Here, just through.”

  They take a turn to a maintenance hallway, its door removed to allow for better ventilation. No sooner is the corner turned than the beehive hum of voices from the platform is dimmed, and Elizabeth sighs her relief before she can put any mind to propriety.

  “Oh,” she sighs, slumping to the wall. “That’s glorious.” “Best to get here early if you like it,” Catherine says. “Most assume it’s off-limits.” “Is it?”

  “Might be,” she shrugs. “But once the platform’s full they’ll start to push in here if you’re not already in.”

  Elizabeth’s throat tightens when she tries to swallow, and a stark realization slips tense between her ribs. It’s hard to breathe here, harder still to imagine that people like Catherine have spent weeks in this place. She slips lower down the wall to sit against the cold cement and lets her bag slip from her shoulder.

  Chin up.

  “It’s awful, isn’t it?”

  “You just said it’s glorious,” Catherine reminds her, wide smile gentling. Elizabeth looks away, bringing her knees together against the ground, legs tucked beside, and she sits in silence as Catherine unpacks her things.

  “It’s what we make of it,” she adds after a moment more. “No different than being above ground. A flat, a townhouse— any one of them can be a misery, depending on how you see them. Who’s there with you.”

  “Any bed is better than the ground.”

  “Is it?” Catherine asks. Their eyes meet for a moment, and she says again, “Depends on who’s there with you.”

  “Fair,” agrees Elizabeth. She turns the backs of her fingers against her cheek, to cool away her blooming blush, and sighs. “Do you mind if I—”

  “Not at all.”

  They sip together in the relative quiet of their nook, a shared cup passed from hand to hand, lips pressed to the metal made hot by the drink within. What the tea doesn’t heat, the scotch does, and when neither is sufficient to distract from the blur of voices on the platform outside, their fingers brush.

  Elizabeth draws a breath so sharply Catherine blinks at her, and a feline smile curves her lips. A dubious look is sent her way, and Elizabeth snatches the cup back with a prim lift of her chin. It does little to hide what both know, when they share another gaze and it lasts a beat longer than it should. It does little to distance them from the pleasant distraction, meeting someone so much like themselves in such an unlikely place.

  “What do you do?” Elizabeth asks. She rests the edge of the cup against her mouth and notes with amusement how Catherine watches the motion.

  “You mean when I’m not kidnapping pretty girls down into the Tube?”

  “Unless that’s all you do.”

  “I don’t make a habit of it,” says Catherine. “I’m a secretary when the lights are on.”

  “And when they’re off?”

  “I make do,” she says simply, and Elizabeth laughs before she can stop herself.

  “Is that what this is?”

  Catherine grins and sets her back against the wall. She toes off her shoes, the leather cracked and peeling, in a way they wouldn’t be were they not all practicing dutiful austerity. She sets bare feet against the wall where Elizabeth sits; Elizabeth mirrors the movement. Their knees settle together, calves brush opposing thighs softly enough to shiver them both, and neither withdraws.

  “I used to work at the cinema,” Elizabeth murmurs. “I liked being able to finish my shift and take in the films, until newsreels started to take as long as the movies. Endless reels one after the next, until I couldn’t stop imagining what it must be like to be beneath the planes and hear their hum overhead. By the time the film started, all I wanted was to be back in my flat with a novel, somewhere else.”

  She declines the cup again, fingers fanning politely, and Catherine caps what’s left of their scant supply.

  “I feel like the war came to find me instead,” she says. “I feel responsible.”

  “For Hitler?” Catherine laughs. “I’ll have to ask you to leave my corner if you are.”

  Elizabeth shrugs, watching the dim lights glow across the tiles overhead. “Maybe if I’d kept going, it might have—oh, I don’t know. It doesn’t make any sense, does it?”

  “None at all,” agrees Catherine.

  With a sigh, Elizabeth drags her bag nearer. She starts to unpack as Catherine had, a pile for the clothes she could fit inside her rucksack, a few books loved into pale covers and rounded edges, a few squares of chocolate left from her rations. Her hand brushes against the plastic lens of her gas mask, but she lets it stay, for now. “What do we do—?”

  Above ground, a siren agonizes, and their eyes jerk to the tunnel ceiling.

  Chin up.

  Rising and falling, far slower than the stuttering inside Elizabeth’s chest, the alarm’s strange, tuneless melody winds in languid wails. Not the steady pitch of all clear as the city shrouds itself in darkness for the blackout, but a warning, cyclical and endless. It matters not a whit that she’s in a shelter, that earth and scaffold and cement surround them—the pressure in her chest grows, splintering outward and then suddenly drawing in, hollow and cold, into a void at the bottom of her belly. Expansion and implosion.

  Catherine’s hand startles her nearly to tears, the touch too hot compared to the cold cement on which they sit. Without thought for anything but desperate comfort, their fingers pass clumsily over and squeeze, then release. Somehow, Elizabeth manages a laugh.

  “You think I’d be used to it,” she murmurs. “It’s quieter down here, at least.”

  “I’d be more concerned if you were accustomed to air raids,” Catherine answers, matter-of-fact.

  “Like you are?”

  “No.”

  With pensive movements, Catherine bundles their spare clothes together to create a serviceable pillow wide enough for both. Elizabeth follows her lead now as she did before, and they slowly stretch to lying face-to-face. Only a meter away, on the platform outside their little hall, a man speaks in animated voices to distract his distraught children with a bedtime story.

  “They don’t shut the lights off down here, in case we need to evacuate,” Catherine says. With a shrug, she peels back her overcoat, a sprightly pale gray, and drapes it over them both. Warm vanilla scents the lining, a perfume worn enough that now the fabric holds its ghost.

  Beneath this makeshift blanket, the world seems very small, consisting entirely of the other. Even Elizabeth’s anxiety seems shrunken to a nervousness of nearness, pressed so close as this. She’s certain her respiration is too loud, her heartbeat audible, and though she tries to settle both, it only seems to make them more conspicuous. Her body echoes in her own head, drowning out the drone of sirens and voices. Her throat clicks when she swallows.

  The roar becomes deafening when Catherine sets cool fingers against her cheek, and Elizabeth lets break another inappropriate laugh.

  “I’m not easy,” she whispers, never mind that no one can hear them, never mind that her proclamation is weak and meaningless, rendered childish in the circumstances.

  “No?”

  “No,” Elizabeth says. She licks her bottom lip between her teeth and presses them against the tender inner skin. She isn’t easy. But the ground has been uprooted from beneath them by the endless anticipation of an end that has yet to come but could at any moment. A direct hit from overhead would see them gone in a flash, and what good was living if done in dread? What good does reputation matter then?

  “No,” she says again, inching her shoulders closer across the cold floor. “And I’m not going to kiss you lying on the platform of a Tube station.”

  She does anyway. Just a touch, lips curling together, whiskey-warm. Catherine’s hand spreads against her cheek and she tucks a curl of hair behind her ear. No more than that. Only a kiss.

  Their noses brush together when they part.

  “
We shouldn’t do that again,” Catherine considers. She’s scarcely able to keep the smile away, teasing a fine fan of lines beside her eyes. “It would be too easy.”

  They do anyway. Through the stiff wool of their dresses, their breasts cushion together. They seek the other’s hand blindly to press their palms and twine their fingers so tight that the squeeze of bones brings a kind distraction from the dizzying gathering of their kiss. Whatever moves them, moves them deeply, opens each to allow the other within, tongues tracing teeth and breath whispering loud against flushed cheeks. Like kissing for practice in secondary school, like kissing for intent in secret pubs, Elizabeth unfurls with familiarity, if not with Catherine than with the idea of her.

  Damn the war and damn the blitz. Haven’t girls like them always survived?

  Parting just for air, just for a laugh passed between their mouths, it is Catherine now who watches with surprise from the sudden intensity and Elizabeth who narrows her eyes in amusement. They heat quickly beneath the coat above them, breath heavy as hands softly work down the slopes and rises of the other’s breasts, hips, legs. Catherine curls short nails sharp against the outside of Elizabeth’s thigh, no tights to keep skin from skin, and a shiver ricochets up Elizabeth’s spine.

  “I’m not going to keep touching you,” Catherine warns.

  “I hope you won’t,” answers Elizabeth. “I intend on keeping my hands entirely to myself.”

  “Good.”

  “Good.”

  “It would be a very questionable choice if they were to stray,” Catherine adds.

  “Where might they stray? I’ll keep them to myself.”

  “You know how idle hands wander. My blouse, perhaps,” she whispers, dark eyes flashing bright in dim light dispersed through the fibers of her coat.