At this point, it shouldn’t be a secret, but just in case it is: I’m a sucker for stories in which the characters display a bit of a difference in age. I was very happy to be able to include Alyssa‘s story Vee’s Notebook in Anything She Wants, because, not only does it tell the story of young Vee and her more mature lover Alex (gosh, that really must be the most popular character name in lesbian erotica), it also speaks of ‘punk rock bookends’ AND mentions Debbie Harry. Any one of those ingredients alone would have been enough to please me, but this story boasts all three and left me very satisfied indeed.
Here’s a snippet:
I love my combat boots with a passion, and I own more pairs of fishnet stockings than I can remember, but one day I want to be like her. All elegance and poise, icy cool like Catherine Deneuve in The Hunger. She wears her dark hair in a chignon, her face tastefully and dramatically made up, so sophisticated that I could stare at her all day.
I put my hair in a chignon once, but since I’d just dyed it purple and blue, it looked absurd. A fancy hairstyle on a punk like me. Ridiculous. I was making so much noise that Alex burst into the bathroom to see what I was up to. And she laughed too. We laughed so hard we ended up on the floor, the tile cold on my bare ass. I’m taller than she is and her towels never seem to cover all of me.
“Oh, Vee,” she said, wiping the tears of amusement from her eyes. “You’re beautiful.”
Her lips were on mine, soft yet demanding, and I let the towel drop, an invitation she couldn’t resist. I don’t know what she sees in me, my lanky body, the smallest breasts known to mankind, my knobby knees and skin so pale it has a blue tinge. I’m twenty-one and I look like an adolescent boy with A-cups.
Alex tugged at my chignon, which had already started to come loose. I didn’t put it up right, trying to remember the steps on the video I found online. The hairpins clattered to the tile. She ran her fingers through my hair, spreading it over my shoulders in a purple and blue wave.
“I love your hair,” she said, twining a lock through her fingers.
“You should try it,” I said. “Except you should go dark blue, almost navy. Or maybe pink.”
“On a woman my age?” She raised a carefully plucked brow. She was still in her velvet dressing gown, but she had the poise of one of those old movie stars, like Elizabeth Taylor, or Marlene Dietrich. Even sprawled on the bathroom floor with me, she looked regal.
ALYSSA LINN PALMER is a Canadian writer and freelance editor. Her novella Prohibited Passion and short story Betting The Farm are available as ebooks. Her short story Vee is a part of the charity anthology Felt Tips. She’s online at alyssalinnpalmer.com, or on Twitter @alyslinn.
2 Responses
Love Vee and Alex : )
That makes two of us! 😉