Dane looked at Brad quickly. “Brad—” she began.

“Oh, don’t worry, Dane,” Brad said lightly. “Nancy will be quite safe with me.”

Nancy rose, pulling Brad’s arm. “Oh, come on, Brad. These two are just no fun.”

Brad shrugged in Kyle and Dane’s direction, allowing herself to be led away.

“Oh, boy,” Kyle said. “That’s Nancy.”

“She okay?” Dane asked.

Kyle shook her head. “I’m not sure. I mean, yes—she can take care of herself.”

They sat in silence, a silence that intensified Kyle’s desire to break the barrier between them. Finally, Dane leaned toward her.

“Will you come upstairs with me?”

“Here?”

Dane nodded, waiting.

“Yes,” Kyle agreed, accepting that for now, at least, she would only reach Dane on her own terms, in her own territory.

CHAPTER TEN

SILENCE SURROUNDED THEM as Kyle pushed Nancy’s sleek Ferrari through the tight turns of the darkened highway. They had met back at their table an hour or so after going off separately and had left shortly thereafter. The good-byes exchanged between the four women had been formal and terse. Nancy, for once, had been strangely subdued.

“Cigarette?” she asked Kyle finally.

Kyle reached automatically into her jacket pocket and pulled out two. She handed one across to Nancy, who lit both of theirs.

“You quit,” Kyle said after a moment.

Nancy smiled slightly as she softly blew out a thin stream of swirling smoke. “I think I just started again.”

“You okay?”

Nancy nodded. “Weird. But okay. You?”

Kyle laughed without humor. “No, but I’ll tell you about it some other time.” Her emotions were still too raw and painful to put into words. She knew she had to be alone with them awhile before she shared them, even with Nancy.

Nancy accepted Kyle’s silence, knowing her friend’s deep sense of privacy. She, however, wanted to talk.

“Is it always like that?” she began at last.

“Like what?”

“So intense—so exposed. I mean, I felt like I didn’t have a private thought.”

Kyle laughed grimly. “That whole place is designed to strip away privacy. The people don’t count—just the sensations. No, it’s not always like that. I’ve never been anywhere like that before. Believe it or not, Nance, it’s usually the same for us as it is for you. A lot of strangers trying to find one face, one soul, they recognize in a crowd.”

Nancy looked at Kyle quickly, concerned by the hollowness in her voice.

“What the hell happened to you in there?” she asked sharply.

“I found out I was just another person who didn’t count,” Kyle said tightly.

“I don’t think so, my friend,” Nancy replied softly.

Kyle looked at her, her anger suddenly surfacing. “How would you know? To you people are just bodies anyhow, right? You said it yourself—men or women, it doesn’t matter. It’s just another experience.”

“Not fair, Kyle. You’re not just another body, and neither is poor old Roger, for that matter.”

Kyle sighed and pulled the car to a stop in Nancy’s driveway. “I’m sorry, Nance. It’s not your fault. You were just catching the bad end of my anger.”

Nancy reached over and touched her friend’s arm. “I know. Come on, let’s go sit on the deck, look at the stars and get drunk.”

“Sounds perfect,” Kyle said tiredly as she followed Nancy up the stairs. She sat in a lounge chair and watched the sky revolve overhead while Nancy got them something to drink. She shivered, but she knew the chill came from somewhere inside herself. The breeze from the sea was actually quite warm. She feared the cold within would turn her heart to stone, but she didn’t know how to stop it. Her tears fell softly in the darkness, unnoticed, until she felt Nancy’s fingers lightly on her cheeks.

“Tell me, sweetheart. What is it?” Nancy murmured gently, sitting softly on the end of Kyle’s chair.

Kyle reached for the glass in Nancy’s hand and swallowed deeply before speaking. “I don’t know how to say it,” she began, feeling helpless in her confusion. “I’m not sure what I feel.”

“Tell me what happened, then.”

“We went upstairs after you and Brad left—to one of the private rooms,” Kyle began softly, remembering as if in a dream. “We made love—no, that’s not right. We had sex.” She stopped as the bitterness welled up inside of her.

“I’ve always wondered about that distinction,” Nancy said lightly. She knew Kyle needed to talk, and she also knew how hard it was for her old friend to do that.

“You know there’s a difference!”

“Yes. But only the first couple of times. Then, after the romance dies, it’s just two bodies together,” Nancy replied.

“Not for me!” Kyle insisted.

Nancy sighed, “I know. That’s your problem. You expect the honeymoon to last forever. And you’ll be heartbroken when you find it doesn’t. So tell me—what was wrong with it?”

Kyle frowned as she searched her pockets aimlessly for her lighter. She must be getting drunk if she couldn’t find her lighter. It was one of those little possessions she thought of as a talisman, her good luck charm.

“Damn,” she muttered.

“Here, I’ve got a light.” Nancy lit them both another cigarette, refilled their glasses and sighed. “So, continue. What happened?”

“We went into this room, it was dark. There was a small light under a ledge up near the ceiling. It turned everything into shadows.”

“Sounds marvelous,” Nancy said with a touch of envy.

Kyle laughed. “I can’t stand you!”

“I know. Then what?”

Kyle sighed. “I didn’t know what to do—big surprise. So I just stood there. Dane closed the door and locked it. She didn’t say anything—she just started to take my clothes off.”

“Was she rough with you?”

Kyle shook her head. “No. Just the opposite. She touched me like I might break apart—her hands were so gentle—but she didn’t say anything. I said her name. She put her fingers over my mouth to silence me. She seemed so far away, like a stranger. I tried to touch her, but she wouldn’t let me. She pushed my hands behind me—” her voice faltered, but she continued. “She handcuffed them behind me. I couldn’t touch her. Her face was in shadows; she could have been anyone!” Her tears started to fall again as she remembered how she felt. Alone. Wonderfully gentle hands stroking her skin, soft lips caressing the hollows of her throat and shoulders—but she had felt so alone! She could not touch back, she could not return the tenderness.

She wiped her sleeve angrily across her face. “She made love to me, and after a while, I didn’t care that I couldn’t see her or touch her. I just wanted her to keep touching me. I wanted her to be everywhere—inside of me, all over me. I didn’t care who she was, I only wanted it to go on.”

“Jesus,” Nancy muttered, draining her glass, “that sounds good to me.”

“Fuck you!” Kyle said angrily, trying to extricate herself from the chair. Her long legs got tangled in the webbing as she tried unsteadily to rise. Suddenly, they were both toppled to the floor, the chair overturned on top of them. Nancy ended up between Kyle’s legs, her wineglass still held high in one hand, unspilled. She laughed delightedly and wrapped her free arm around Kyle’s thigh. “You’re drunk, Kyle.”

“Am not,” Kyle replied as she attempted in vain to sit up. “But you’re an unsympathetic son of a bitch!”

Nancy laughed again, righting the chair. “I am not. You just have everything all backwards, that’s all.”

Kyle pushed herself up on her elbows and shook her head. “What does that mean?” She recovered her glass and filled it, nudging her toe into Nancy’s leg. “Huh?” she said belligerently.

Nancy looked at her seriously for a moment. “You really want to know?”

Kyle nodded.

“What you told me about you and Dane tonight—it’s what you’ve been looking for. You asked for someone to make love to you that way.”

“What do you mean?” Kyle said in confusion.

Nancy continued. “You went to that bar because you were interested in power, or S and M, or whatever it is you all call it. You wanted to relate to someone differently— more basically, more physically, more real-ly. Is real-ly a word?”

“I guess so,” Kyle said dumbly. “So?”

“So, that’s what you got. That’s what Dane did. She dominated you. She defined you. She said you are this and I am something else. I am the controller, the giver, the doer, the—what do you guys call it?”

“The top.”

“Yeah—that sounds right. The top. You told her to be that, and she was.” Nancy reached for another cigarette and lit it with a flourish. “See?”

Kyle looked at her. “How did you know all that?”

“I read a lot.”

Kyle laughed. “I can’t stand you.”

“I know.” Nancy twisted around on the deck and leaned against the wall next to Kyle. Kyle slipped an arm around her as Nancy emptied the last of the wine into their glasses. They sipped it slowly as they watched the stars revolve overhead. Sometime, much later, they staggered into Nancy’s bedroom, both of them falling asleep almost instantly.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

DANE AWOKE TO a cold nose in her ear.

“Go away,” she muttered, pushing the huge head away with one arm. She tried to regain her dream, a dream filled with soft, tanned skin, warm tender lips. Just as she began to drift again into Kyle’s deep recesses, the covers were tugged off her, leaving her shivering.

She sat up suddenly. “Damn you, Baron!”

Baron sat happily at the foot of her bed, the blankets in a tangle around him. He almost seemed to smile at her as he panted excitedly.

Dane swung her legs over the side of the bed as she pulled the covers back up over her bare legs. Just as she reached for a cigarette, the phone rang.

She snatched the receiver up angrily and snapped, “Hello.”

“Well, a nice hello to you, too,” Caroline replied. “Are you awake?”

“No!” Dane shouted as she drew on the cigarette. Immediately she began to cough. “The only one up around here is Baron.”

Caroline laughed. “It’s seven o’clock. We’ll be ready for you in an hour. Are you alone?”

“Yes.”

“Then you shouldn’t have any trouble getting ready on time. See you.” Before she could lower the phone, she heard the click on the other end.

“Is she up?” Anne asked as she walked in from the bathroom, toweling her hair.

Caroline looked over at her fondly. “Sort of. Sounds like she’s in a bitchy mood, though.”

Anne sighed. “So what else is new?”

“Does she seem that way to you, too?” Caroline asked.

As Anne pulled her tee shirt on, the blue one with ‘Daneland’ printed above a large dog’s head, she scowled over at her lover. “These last few weeks she’s been unbearable. I don’t think I’ve done one thing right around the kennel. I can’t even answer the phone properly!”

Caroline went to her, wrapping her arms around Anne’s waist. “You know it’s not you, don’t you?”

Anne stared at her for a moment, the hurt in her eyes giving way to softness. She kissed Caroline very lightly on the lips and rested her head against her shoulder.

“I know, but it still bothers me.” She often felt left out of what was happening around the kennel, and the personal closeness between Caroline and Dane didn’t help. “Do you know what’s wrong with her?”

Caroline stiffened slightly, not wanting to discuss Dane’s personal life. Anne felt her response and pulled away angrily.

“Oh, sorry. I didn’t mean to infringe on your special relationship with Dane.” She turned away, afraid Caroline would see the tears quickly brimming in her eyes.

Caroline stepped closer to her, her hands gently resting on the younger woman’s stiffened shoulders.

“Babe,” she said softly. “Hey, babe—” she repeated as she turned Anne to face her again. “It’s not that our relationship is so special, it’s just that Dane hates to have anyone know what’s going on with her. It takes a long time for me to get anything out of her.”

Anne nodded and wiped her eyes. “I know that. It’s just that sometimes I feel like I don’t even belong there with you two.”

Caroline hugged her tightly. “Anne, oh, Anne. You are the most important thing in the world to me—don’t you know that yet?”

Anne smiled up at her. “I’m being stupid, right?”

“Yes, but you have a point. My relationship with Dane is special, but I don’t want it to take anything away from you and me. And if I knew what was bothering her, I’d tell you. But I don’t. She’s stopped talking to me, too—ever since that night a few weeks ago when she left here to go out to the bar.”

“Is she seeing someone?” Anne asked as they locked their door and headed toward the van marked Daneland Kennels.