"WHERE ARE WE going?" Sarah asked, as they worked their way down a darkened staircase.
"My office," Paula whispered.
"Isn't this, like, sacrilege?" Sarah asked. There was no doubt in her mind what why Paula was taking her down into the bowels of the church.
"Yes," Paula sighed, "I suppose so."
"It wouldn't be the first time, would it?" Sarah said.
Paula stopped dead in her tracks. "Yes," she said, "yes, it would be, will be, may be, whatever. Let's go back." She turned around.
"No," Sarah stopped her. She had a baby in each arm, but she reached out a foot to block the other girl's way. "No. You owe me one."
They went into Paula's office without another word. A dim light trickled through the windows; they left it that way, almost dark, but as their eyes adjusted they could see each other clearly enough. There was room on the couch for the babies. That left the desk, piled high with clutter, for the two of them.
"All right," Sarah said, "who is going first? Choose for it?" Giggling, she held out a fist, Paula an open palm.
"Paper beats rock," Paula said. She pulled off her shorts and sat on the desk, spreading a leg out to each side.
"No good," Sarah said. "Take your shirt off. Sit up. Like that." She took off her own shirt. "Nipple to nipple, that's what got us in trouble, wasn't it. Did anyone ever tell you that you have a perfect little body?"
"Of course." Paula leaned forward to caress Sarah's lips with her own. "Did anyone ever tell you that you were the most beautiful woman in the universe?"
"Not lately," Sarah said. "My sister, maybe, or Karen. Not me, not any more."
"Yes," Paula said, "you." She kissed between the other girl's breasts, down her belly. "Take your shorts off."
"I thought you were going first," Sarah said, but she did not hesitate to step out of the shorts.
"I want to see."
"You've seen me."
"I want to taste."
"That's different. Oh, Goddess! Where did you learn to do that! No, don't stop to tell me!" Each touch of Paula's tongue was a revelation. Her fingers knew just where to caress, where to probe, to magnify, to resonate, so that Sarah's whole body was tingling with pleasure. If I come, she thought, it's going to end it, but it didn't end, it just made her start to tremble, to quake with an urgency that could never be filled. And, just when it seemed that she could not take any more, that she would faint from exhaustion, the tongue quickened, the fingers dug in, and she realized that she had not been coming at all, not compared to this final explosion.
"Remember," Paula said, when she was free to speak again, "Eve is my wife."
"You do this for Eve?" Paula nodded. "And she for you?" Another nod. "All the time?"
"Of course. Adam too."
"Adam can do that for you?" Sarah was revising her opinion of him very quickly.
"Yes," Paula was spreading her legs again in invitation.
"I'm going to be a disappointment," Sarah said. "I'm not that good. Lift up your ass more."
"Why, what are you doing? No, don't lick me back that far, I don't like it. Oh, God, do you have your tongue up my ass?" There was a muffled murmur of agreement. "Oh, that's so gross!" But the tongue began to move, and fingers found her clitoris, and she climaxed.
"Did you like that?" Sarah asked.
"Oh God, I don't know! It was different, I'll say that!" Paula was trembling still.
"Adam has never, you know ..."
"With his tongue?" Paula shook her head.
"Any part of him?" Sarah said, but the other girl did not respond. "Sorry," Sarah added quickly, "it's none of my business."
"How can you do that?" Paula asked.
"It's part of our training," Sarah said. "You get used to it. Try it."
"What?" Paula's face was hard to see in the dim light, but the tone of her voice indicated her disgust.
"Try it," Sarah said. "You can work on a little surprise for Adam and Eve."
"No way in hell," Paula said.
"Do you believe in hell?" Sarah asked. She was sitting back in Paula's desk chair now, probably staining it with the moistness of her groin.
"Hell?" Paula drew her knees up to her chin, suddenly pensive. "I don't know. It's in the Bible. Some people think most of us are going to hell, and some think most of us are going to heaven. Didn't you read Dante?"
"That was bullshit," Sarah said, "that was nothing like what hell is really like."
"You've been there?" Paula asked. It was a serious question. There was something about Sarah's tone that gave her an air of authority.
"I was in hell for a thousand years," Sarah said, with great conviction. "I'm only out on probation. The way things are going I'll be back there soon enough."
"No," Paula said. She reached out to touch the other girl's hair. She began to kiss her, but remembered where that tongue had been, and drew back. "No," she repeated, "you're just imagining it."
"No," Sarah said, "I can remember, I can remember what it was like."
"Fire and brimstone? Demons tormenting you?"
"No," Sarah said, "it was grey, like a cold grey fog, and your body aches, even though you don't have one, like you need to stretch your muscles, you need to use the bathroom, you've been asleep too long, but you can't wake up, because you don't exist. You need to scratch an itch, but there is nothing to scratch. They say," she went on, "that if people lose an arm or a leg, it can still ache, it can still itch. It's that way when you lose your whole body. It still feels like it's there. It's hungry, but you can't feed it. It's horny, but you can't touch it. It's restless, but there's nothing to move. It's just grey. All you have are memories. And you can't remember anything that is happening now, happening in hell. You can try to count to a billion, but you can't remember back more than three numbers. I did it once," she added.
"My God," Paula gasped. "How can you know this?"
"They let me remember, just a little," Sarah said, "as a warning. I disobeyed them the last time, and they want me to understand the consequences."
"They? Who are they?" Paula was shivering now. "What do they want?"
"I don't know," Sarah said. "I'm afraid to know."
Paula leaned forward and kissed Sarah. She did not care now, where that tongue had been, what it might have tasted. She kissed her slowly, tenderly, for a long time.
"What?" Sarah said, when she was free to talk again. "What was that?"
"I could love you," Paula said. "Maybe I love you already."
"No," Sarah said. She stroked the other girl's hair, kissed her gently on the forehead. "No, I'm not worth it."
"Turn around." Paula said.
"Around?" Sarah spun the chair so that she was facing away from the desk.
"No, silly, kneel on the chair."
"I don't think I'm ready to come again," Sarah said, but she did change positions.
"This is for me," Paula said. She was kissing Sarah's back, running her tongue along the little bumps of her spine. It paused, right at the end of the tailbone. "I want to know everything about you," she said. "Teach me, tell me what to do."
"Run your tongue around the edges, very lightly," Sarah said. She was suddenly very cold, very professional. It was, now, nothing more than a simple physical exercise, one that was almost routine. "Just get used to the idea that your mouth is there."
This is a waste, Paula thought, what was I thinking? She was drained of all emotion, all passion, and there she was, calmly licking her friend's asshole. At least it didn't taste like anything. But it didn't feel like anything, either. Then, she felt Sarah's flesh begin to quiver at her touch. "Lips," Sarah gasped. She didn't sound nearly so calm now.
Lips? Kiss my ass. That's what Adam would snarl at one of the boys when they made a suggestion he didn't like. And now, that's what Sarah was asking her to do. God, it was strange, like a little puckered mouth. And then it opened, and she was French kissing. No tongue to meet hers, just a smooth, muscular shaft, hard to push through. She knew that she could come, just from Eve's tongue on her perineum, and she wondered if it would work from the inside, also. She pressed the bottom of her tongue down hard, then added a finger on the outside, feeling the sensitive flesh roll between tongue and finger. Sarah was shuddering, the muscles around Paula's tongue were in spasm, then, abruptly, her chin and neck were drenched.
"Oh my God!" Sarah said. "I am so embarrassed!"
"Why?" Paula asked.
"Why? I peed all over you."
"Here," Paula said, crawling next to the other girl. "lick it off my face."
"Ooh," Sarah said, "kinky." She tested the clear fluid with her tongue. "It's not pee."
"Nope."
"You're not surprised."
"Nope."
"Mary never told us about this," Sarah said.
"Really?" Paula seemed very amused. "I guess she concentrated more on training you to please men."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"She trained me," Paula whispered into Sarah's ear, "to please her." And she ran her tongue delicately along the ridges of the ear. "Want to find out what else I know?"
But there was a knock at the door. "Oh my God!" Paula said, and they went scrambling for their clothes. But when they opened the door, it was Susan and Noah.
"I guess," Paula said, "choir practice is over?" Her hair was tousled, her face still covered with slime, her shirt only half pulled down, her shorts askew. Sarah, behind her in the dimness, had not even bothered to pull her shorts on.
"It's been over for a while," Noah said. "Quite a while."
"I guess you two have been practicing something," Susan said. She gave a little sniff. The room was redolent with sweat and desire. It was possible that one of the babies may have added a little extra, she thought, to the general aroma. "Jacob," she sniffed again, "Esau?" another sniff.
"It's probably Lucy," Paula said. She tried to gather up some dignity and walk over to her daughter.
"What?" Sarah said, glaring at her husband. "What?"
