Best Lesbian Erotica 2014

STITCH AND BITCH A. L. Simonds

Luisa was going to fall.

A split second before, she saw it coming. The world tilted; the ground rose to meet her.

She smacked down on her side, her hip and shoulder catching the worst of it, and slid a few inches down the asphalt ramp. Her skateboard sailed out of sight. The impact flashed across her vision and shook her nerves. She could have sworn she heard bells tolling.

She had to lie there, just for a couple of seconds, in order to remember how to breathe.

When she struggled up—first onto her palms, then her knees, then to her feet—she rolled her shoulders and shook away the worst of the pain.

“Ow, dude,” she said. “Ow.”

As the pain cleared, she realized that she did hear church bells, over on the university campus, tolling six o’clock.

She’d asked Charlie to watch the time for her, but, typical Charlie, he’d wandered down to the hot dog truck and forgotten.

She’d been so absorbed in working on her heelflip that the seasons could have turned, barbarians invaded and she wouldn’t have noticed.

Now it was already six and she was going to be late.

Cursing, she jumped to her feet, shaking off the reverberating pain of her fall, grabbed her bag from under the bleachers and kicked off her board.

She passed Charlie as she came out of the skate park and hit the sidewalk. He waved cheerfully at her and she had to swallow the urge to stop and give him a piece of her mind.

She’d just be later if she did that.

So she pushed faster, sailing off the curb into the street. Cars were hard to contend with when she was on her board, but they were big and easy to navigate around, unlike pedestrians, who were both slow and unpredictable. As she careened down quiet side streets, the low evening sun warmed her side and cheeks. She zigzagged through the lengthening shadows, breathing through the lingering ache of her fall, then turned a hard right onto Ossington Avenue.

She didn’t have time to stop and change her shirt, let alone shower.

She caught a draft and zoomed forward.

“Just like clockwork,” Toni, her boss, said when Priya arrived at the shop. “You’re a marvel, you know that?”

Priya grinned as she stowed her knapsack under the counter. “All in the planning.”

Toni shook her head. “You take planning to a whole new level.”

Priya allotted herself fifteen minutes on Tuesdays and Thursdays to walk from her seminar on campus to the yarn store, which was a pretty generous window, but not overly so. It was good to have the time to let the seminar sift and settle into her mind before she had to switch gears.

She was usually at least five minutes early. Today was no different.

“Quiet today,” Toni said from the back, where she was eating a takeout dinner.

Priya looked around the store, at all the vibrant colors and cozy furniture. “I’m sure it’ll pick up.”

Toni slurped some sesame noodles. “And then we won’t be able to get rid of them.”

Tonight was Stitch and Bitch. A regular crowd always dropped in for gossip, advice, and crafting time away from families, jobs and other responsibilities.

As the regulars arrived, Priya manned the counter to sell last-minute needles and splurge skeins of yarn. When she was not needed there, she tidied the shelves, returning stray balls to their rightful places, reorganizing lace-weight and sock-weight skeins, straightening and neatening the disarray from an ordinary business day.

“You don’t pay her enough,” one of the regulars told Toni when Priya emerged to join the group around the table in the center of the shop. “Look at her work, work, work!”

Priya ducked her head and focused on finding the one ball of blue sock yarn missing its label. Toni did not actually pay her at all; Priya kept the books and helped out three nights a week in exchange for wholesale prices on yarn and the bachelor apartment over the shop.

She had been lucky to get that deal. When her fellowship at the university fell through, she’d had to find a few part-time jobs just to cover tuition; a place to live had started to seem like an unattainable luxury. Although her apartment was little more than a creaky half-converted attic with questionable plumbing, she wasn’t about to complain.

Finally, when Toni had nagged her enough, and there truly was no more yarn to tidy or needles to inventory, Priya joined the group at the table. She pulled out her latest project, oatmeal-colored yarn flecked with green and blue, which she had unraveled from an unwanted sweater. She had spent an entire weekend pulling the sweater apart, skeining up the yarn, washing it and hanging it, weighted down with soup cans, to dry.

“Still doing the recycling?” Gillian asked. She was a newcomer to the group, and liked to wield her husband’s corporate Amex card for the finest silk and cashmere weights.

“Aren’t you worried about,” her nose wrinkled slightly, “pests?”

Priya shook out the sock she was knitting from the yarn and extracted the fifth needle from the center of the ball. “I didn’t get the sweater out of the garbage or anything.”

“Just from a piece of garbage!” Toni put in, and rubbed Priya’s arm.

“My ex,” Priya explained to Gillian, who looked both puzzled and nauseated. “That’s all she means. The yarn came from a sweater I made my ex.”

Gillian tossed back her impeccably bobbed hair. “Well, wherever it came from, I don’t see why you bother.”

“I like it,” Priya said, and pressed her lips together. She could have said more—recycling the yarn was therapy for her: reclaiming what she had given to Amy, cleaning it up and making it into something new, all of that helped her not only move on, but mark her movement, measure it as she grew farther away.

After her breakup, she gave up her ambition to become a theater director, and went back to school for a degree in elementary education. She promised herself that any new relationship, if there ever were one, would fit in with her new goals. Simple, careful and thoughtful were going to be her guiding lights.

As well, recycling the yarn was frugal. And if she hadn’t had knitting in her hands, she couldn’t be responsible for what she might do.

Gillian turned her attention to someone else now, an older woman named Catherine, who was struggling with making a cable. Priya sighed, happy to have a chance to work a few rounds on her sock.

The sock would be knee-high, with a plain foot and leg in a trellis lace pattern. She loved the way kneesocks looked on a woman’s legs, at once rustic and sexy. The wool and lace interplayed delicately, the wool robust and reassuring, the lace subtle and coquettish, revealing small patches of skin like light dappling and splashing through the leaves of a tree on a summer afternoon. The combinations and contrasts were what captured her fancy: smooth skin and slightly scratchy wool, nudity and covering, the curve of a calf and strong line of a shin, maybe a leather high-heeled shoe over the snug sock.

Just then, the bell on the shop door rang and Luisa crashed inside, a riot of color and wind and noise, skateboard in hand, corkscrew curls flowing around her face like a lion’s mane. Her face was flushed, her smile wide and bright as she greeted everyone with high fives and quick hugs, pecks on the cheek and squeezes of the hand.

Luisa had a way of entering a room as if she were donning it. The space shifted and molded itself around her, arranged itself so that she was always at the center.

“How’s it hanging, Gill?” Luisa asked as she dug in her ratty messenger bag for her yarn and other materials. “Having any luck with that crepe recipe?”

Even sour and pinched Gillian smiled when Luisa collapsed into the chair next to her and knocked her elbow into Gillian’s side. Gillian smoothed back her hair and sighed. “I’m working on it, but…”

“I took the worst digger just now,” Luisa announced, tossing down a lumpy ball of yarn and her crochet hook. “Fell on my ass like some kind of newbie.”

The ladies around the table tut-tutted in sympathy and asked for details, shared the names of their chiropractors, and offered advice about warm baths versus cold, compresses versus ibuprofen.

Priya set down her sock. “You probably want to wash up, right? Come with me.”

Luisa tilted her head, grinning at Priya, then scraped back her chair and bounded toward the little washroom behind the counter.

It was barely wide enough for a sink and the commode. Somehow, Priya and Luisa squeezed into it.

Priya turned on the faucet. “You came right from the skate park?”

Luisa bit her lip and held up her shirt so Priya could press soapy, wet paper towels to her abraded hip and ribs.

“Pobrecita,” Priya murmured. The first time she’d spoken Spanish, Luisa had staggered and pretended to faint, as if Desi people didn’t live all over the Caribbean, including Trinidad, where Priya’s parents were born.

There was no broken skin, just darkening bruises and the imprint of gravel overlaying the friction burn from Luisa’s slide. Priya swabbed it off again.

Luisa was looking at her, lower lip gone white in her teeth, curls crowding her face.

“What?” Priya asked when she was finished.

Luisa smiled, slow and shy, and leaned back, foot up on the toilet lid.

“Nothing.”

“Liar.”

Luisa tipped up her chin and reached for Priya, managing to graze her shoulder. Her shirt was still hiked up to her armpits. The fabric was twisted across her breasts; one cup of her bra was held to the strap with a safety pin.

Priya plucked at the pin and cupped her palm around Luisa’s breast. She leaned in and rubbed her face in Luisa’s hair. “Stinky, stinky.”

Luisa breathed in sharply. “Nah,” she said, her hand going around Priya’s waist. “Just… alive. Or something. Yeah.”

Priya snorted with laughter and kissed Luisa quickly before pulling away. “We should get back out there.”

“Don’t wanna.” Luisa curled two fingers into Priya’s belt loops. “Do I have to?”

Priya kissed the tip of her chin, then bit down lightly. “Yes, you do. Be good.”

“Fine,” Luisa grumbled, and tugged down her shirt. “But you owe me.”

Rolling her eyes, Priya slapped her lightly on the leg before opening the door.

Luisa’s version of being good, however, was more than slightly obvious. Although she kept up several conversations for the rest of the evening, her eyes rarely left Priya. She told jokes, laughed and all the while tracked Priya’s movements around the shop.

While the group became absorbed in helping Catherine untangle a mess, Priya helped a customer who had just wandered in. They selected a nice hank of gray wool and a set of large needles. Priya showed her how to cast on and start knitting a simple scarf. She knew Luisa was watching her. The attention, subtle but persistent, warmed her. She became more conscious of her gestures, more careful with her words, as if she were performing, privately, for an audience of one.

When the newcomer was settled in, frowning over her needles, Priya started cashing out the register. Luisa interrupted her, waving a set of German stainless-steel needles, double-pointed, five in all, just two millimeters in gauge.

“You don’t knit socks.” Priya slid the package back to Luisa. The set was exactly the sort she longed to use, but she had never been able to justify the price. “These are hard-core.”

“Hard-core,” Luisa repeated. Before Priya could stop her, she had torn open the package and fanned the needles out, running her fingertip over their lethal-looking tips. She pressed the tips into the soft skin on the inside of her wrist. The points made tiny, perfect dents. “Sounds about right.”

Priya swallowed hard.

Luisa grinned. “Ring ’em up.”

“They’re eighteen dollars.”

Shrugging, Luisa rooted around in her front pocket and extracted a twenty. She only ever paid with cash that came crumpled and damp from the depths of her pockets. Priya was not entirely certain where her money came from, or how regularly she was paid, if at all. Her status as a pro skater sounded impressive, but all it seemed to mean was that she got a lot of free stuff and occasional travel vouchers. Nothing steady, nothing predictable. This uncertainty was the only constant when it came to Luisa. She didn’t seem to have a permanent address; she crashed with various friends and acquaintances, an ever-changing and expanding population of skateboarders, musicians, self-appointed artists, and hangers-on.

Toni was excited that Luisa was taking up sock knitting. “It’s addictive! Like chocolate,” she declared. “Once you turn your first heel, you’ll never go back!”

Luisa nodded amiably. “Heard that, yes.”

Another woman leaned in to confide, “My husband married me for my socks.” She paused and waggled her eyebrows. “If you know what I mean.”

Cocking her head, looking more than a little puzzled, Luisa just smiled. “That’s something to consider, huh, Priya?”

“Sure it is,” Priya said, not looking up. Her chest felt tight, her face hot.

The needles were still on the counter. They pointed like daggers at Priya, promising something irresistible.

Luisa had met Priya at the crochet basics class last spring. Her sister was pregnant and wanted Luisa, probably to piss off their mom, to be the godmother. So Luisa had set herself the task of learning how to make sweaters and booties and other tiny, cute things for the impending infant. After nearly strangling in cheap plastic yarn from the dollar store, she decided to take a class so she’d actually know what she was doing.

Priya taught the class with grace and good humor. She never lost her cool, not even when Luisa lost control of her crochet hook and sent it flying at Priya’s face.

Afterward, pretty sure that she had felt a vibe between them, Luisa had asked Priya out for coffee.

Priya blinked, opened her planner, and said after a lengthy consultation, “How about next Wednesday at ten?”

Not only was that a long way off, it was really early in the morning, as far as Luisa was concerned. She twirled the crochet hook between her fingers and gave Priya her best flirtatious smile. “I was thinking more like right now?”

“No.” Priya closed her planner and set it down on the table. “I have plans.”

Luisa would come to learn that Priya always had plans; eventually, Luisa found that fascinating. Here was this beautiful girl, she thought, smart as a whip, working three jobs and going to graduate school, and she barely let herself ever relax. Or, Luisa suspected, sleep.

But back then, Luisa figured she knew how to take a hint, and stepped away. “Okay, well. Maybe I’ll see you around?”

She was nearly out the door when Priya grasped her wrist—she had very strong hands, probably because of all the knitting. “If you’d like, there’s Stitch and Bitch the day after tomorrow. We could meet then.”

Luisa had no idea what that was, but she liked the name right away. After adjusting to the sight of a roomful of suburban-looking moms and grandmas, she came to like the people a lot, too. She spent so much of her life skating and hanging with dudes that it was nice, almost restful, to kick back with females and work on cutesy baby accessories.

Her friends claimed she was going soft, even as they began demanding toques and fingerless gloves from her.

Maybe she was soft, but if they’d ever met Priya, they would understand. She wasn’t the type of lady you gave up on.

When the last of the crowd had trailed out the door, Toni turned off the lights and started locking up. Priya got out the push broom and swept, starting just in front of the washroom and working outward into the main area of the shop floor.

“I can do that,” she told Toni, who was putting the chairs up on the table. “You should go home. You’ve had a long day.”

Toni rubbed the back of her neck and didn’t argue. After she had gone, Priya finished sweeping and ran the feather duster over the tallest shelves before she opened the washroom door.

Luisa stumbled out, blinking against the dark. “Dude, what took so long?”

Her impatience was equal parts charming and exasperating. Priya kissed her hard, like she’d been longing to do all night. Her mouth ached for it, and Luisa gurgled a little into the contact. Her hands ran restlessly up and down Priya’s back, pulling Priya closer, holding her in place as she returned the kiss.

The broom fell away as Priya backed Luisa up against the shelves, and the pillowy, welcoming warmth of balls of chunky merino yarn.

Priya cupped Luisa’s neck with one hand while the other pushed under her shirt and curved around her bruised waist. Luisa hissed into the kiss, her teeth sudden and sharp on Priya’s tongue, before she relaxed.

They moved well together; they had right from the start. Priya was a few inches taller, and Luisa seemed to like looking up at her, leaning back, opening up for her touches. In turn, Priya reveled in the chance to touch this girl, twist her arms up over her head and hold her there, teasing her breasts. It never took long before Lu wheezed and pleaded, face flushed dark as liver, eyes glittering, sweat spangling her collarbone, desperately twisting, trying to find more contact.

Priya’s ex, Amy, didn’t like being what she called “pushed around.” It was both a political and emotional principle and point of honor for her that they were equal in all things, from their joint checking account to the number of orgasms they each had, as well as time spent on each one.

Luisa, however, gasped and grinned, whatever Priya did, pushing into her touch and asking for more. She could take a lot of teasing, nipples pinched and tugged, her mound and thighs lightly stroked and fondled until goose bumps broke out all over her body, until her breath caught in her throat and she grew so wet and desperate that she could be entered in a single slow thrust.

“Harder,” Lu would say whenever Priya hesitated. And she did hesitate, especially in the early days, half-drunk on the fact that it was okay to do this, half-nauseated by her need to do more. “Please, harder. More.”

That permission, phrased as a request, was what Priya needed. Her acceptance, her need for this was astounding. Hearing the rattle of her breath and feeling Lu’s damp, flushed skin was enough to make Priya ache. She had to clamp down, clench and release, ride her own need.

Tonight, as Luisa trembled before her, the traffic outside threw long, angular bright shadows across the ceiling, down the shelves of yarn, and illuminated her hands. Luisa’s rosewood skin was blanched momentarily, then flushed again, darkness returning as Priya ran her teeth along the curve of her hip.

Luisa pushed her hand into Priya’s hair, clutched her tight and thrust her hips. Priya outlined the jut of Luisa’s pelvic bone with her tongue, then her teeth, before biting down and sucking hard. Luisa moaned.

She whimpered when Priya pulled away, but bit it off when Priya hushed her. When Priya returned from the counter, Luisa reached for her with blind, searching hands.

Priya stood out of reach until Luisa had quieted and stilled. Then, with the care of a master calligrapher, she drew the tip of one needle around Luisa’s nipple, down the swell of her small breast, to the bite mark. The sound Luisa made was nearly indescribable. It was greedy and choked, a moan and plea rutting together.

“Shhh,” Priya said, not expecting Luisa to comply. She pinched the bite mark, then circled the needle over the tender skin.

Luisa banged her head against the shelf. She bit down on her lip, her chest heaving. Her knees started to buckle, but she locked her stance.

Priya teased her for as long as she liked. She drew Art Nouveau swirls and curlicues, best suited to a Tiffany lamp, over Lu’s warm, pliable skin. She strummed the stiletto point against one nipple, then the other, until they were both peaked painfully hard, the breast’s skin puckered and goose pimpled.

She scratched runes and swept signatures across Luisa’s taut skin, turned her around and did the same across her lower back, down the swell of her hips, until Luisa sank to her knees, a sob muffled against her arm.

She trembled and shook when Priya knelt behind her, a length of cotton yarn from the bargain bin in her hands. For a moment when Priya tugged at Luisa’s arms, nothing happened, but then they rose over her head and Priya looped the yarn around Luisa’s bony wrists, then eased her down onto the floor.

“Had enough?” she asked, straddling Luisa’s thighs.

Luisa struggled to raise her head and meet Priya’s eyes. The sharp curve of her smile was a dare and an acknowledgment. “Nope.”

The curls between her legs were slick to the touch. She shuddered, hard, and let out a wracking sigh when Priya slipped her hand through them and curled her thumb around Luisa’s clit.

“How about now?”

Luisa thrust up to meet the touch, canting her hips. Priya’s index finger slid down between her inner lips to circle her hole. “More,” Luisa said, the word half-gargled, “you’re so good…”

Perhaps Priya should not have been so aroused by praise, but it felt so good, to no longer be bound by the “rules,” to make someone, especially someone as hot, as wild as Luisa feel this good. To be trusted like this was intoxicating. Two fingers inside, she twisted and thrust. Luisa moaned in response, struggled to sit up and reached for Priya. They kissed again, teeth clacking and tongues pulsing, as Lu fucked herself on Priya’s hand, desperately asking for more, needing all of Priya to be in her, to answer and resolve the howling Priya had created. Two fingers, then three, then four, tightly wrapped on each other and crushed on all sides: they struggled to move, to reach ever deeper, as Luisa came, wet and cascading over Priya’s wrist, down her arm.

Priya’s body hurt all the way through, like her muscles were barbed wire wound around her bones. Luisa clung to her, wobbling, butting her face against Priya’s throat. Priya let her head fall back as Luisa licked down her neck, sucked on the knobs of her clavicle, then nibbled across the rise of her breasts. There was a moment, and then another, where Priya’s pulse thundered between her legs, wrenched her nearly double. Luisa grinned and grazed Priya’s mound, then her lips, with her knuckles.

Luisa pinched Priya’s clit between her index finger and thumb, and the other woman snapped upright. Priya clenched and thrust against Luisa’s palm, seeking sharp edges of calluses and rocky bumps of knuckle. She rubbed herself nearly raw, compelled by the need for release so deep it seemed to be squeezing her lungs and closing up her throat. Luisa bit her shoulder, mouthed the sharp pain and bit again, pressing ever closer as Priya came. The waves and rattling throbs drowned out all the pent-up tension, soothed away the ache of desire, and she wanted nothing more than to open herself back up to Luisa’s teeth and fists, and do it all over again.

Sex wasn’t supposed to be like this. Shame hurt as much as any bite, and somehow, perversely, felt just as good. Priya gasped for air, riding the rippling aftershocks, and tried not to question herself.

She succeeded, but not for long.

When Priya left the library around lunchtime, she had to stop abruptly when a skateboard flew across her path and tumbled off the curb. Only two days had passed since Stitch and Bitch; she was not due to see Luisa for another three or four days.

“Hey,” Luisa said, feigning surprise. “Fancy meeting you here!”

“What’re you doing here?”

Luisa shrugged. Her legs dangled against the low stone wall on which she sat, like a tramp riding a train. She looked out of place on campus, a little too dark, a little too wild and messy amid the ivy-covered walls and quiet footpaths. As soon as she thought that, Priya cursed herself for it. By the same token, she too could be considered too dark.

“Sorry,” Priya said, “I’m just… distracted.”

“It’s okay. I—” Luisa started.

At the same time, Priya continued, “What are you doing here?”

They both stopped, then opened their mouths to speak again. Finally, waving off objections, Luisa mimed zipping shut her lips and motioned Priya to go on.

“Surprised to see you here, that’s all,” Priya said. “Is everything all right?”

Luisa slid off the wall and hopped from foot to foot. “Everything’s great! I wanted to show you something.”

Priya didn’t like the sound of that. Luisa’s enthusiasm was always contagious, but it was also occasionally dangerous. Carefully she asked, “What did you want to show me?”

Bending at the waist, Luisa yanked up her shirt and pointed at her bare hip.

There, where the other night Priya had left a line of hickies and scratches, was a much more permanent mark. A dark-inked tattoo, shiny ink on swollen, painfully red skin, captured Priya’s marks, made them indelible.

Luisa straightened up. “Isn’t it awesome?”

“It’s…” Priya didn’t know what to say. She felt horrified and baffled all at the same time. Proud, too, but that wasn’t the point. “It’s permanent.”

“Yeah!” Luisa nodded rapidly, beaming a grin and crinkled eyes. She was so beautiful, if reckless. “Pretty much the whole point.”

Gradually, as Priya stood there, mouth open, frozen into silence and worry, Luisa’s good mood dimmed. It wavered, then flickered, and finally, just winked out.

She folded her arms across her chest. “What did I do now?”

She made it sound as if Priya were always taking her to task. That wasn’t the case. Maybe it was at times, but she was so heedless, so impulsive, that someone had to say something, haul her back from the brink.

“Nothing,” Priya replied. “Sorry. Do what you want.”

“I wanted to do it for us,” Luisa said. She sounded sullen.

That was Priya’s cue to make nice. She should apologize, cheer up Luisa.

She didn’t have the time, however, not with midterms approaching and her next shift at the grocery store across town starting in less than half an hour. “For us?” she said. “What does that even mean?”

Luisa blinked up at her. There were tears on her lashes, and she looked heartbroken. Priya wasn’t a monster; the sight made her chest feel like it had caved in.

“Us,” Luisa said. Her voice rose to make it a question. “Us?”

Priya took in a breath, then another, reminding herself to keep the big picture in view. She really liked Lu. The sex was fantastic, but she was nearly still a kid. Whatever age her ID said, she acted like a teenage boy. She wasted her money on tattoos and six-packs of beer and punk concerts.

“There’s no us,” Priya said. It was the truth, wasn’t it? “We just fool around.”

For a long time, Luisa said nothing. She looked very small, round-shouldered, and slight, dwarfed by her glorious riot of hair and baggy T-shirt. “If that’s what you think—”

She did not finish. Priya saw her swallow, watched the sharp line of her jaw as she turned away and dropped her skateboard to the sidewalk, and still, she could neither move nor speak.

At the end of that week, Luisa went down to North Carolina to film a video for her sneaker sponsor. She stayed in Charlotte when the shoot was over. Her tattoo scabbed over, then the scabs fell off. It itched all the time, and she scratched it hard enough to make it scab again.

She wished that she skated the regular orientation. Then maybe she could fall and just scrape the damn thing off.

“Big talk,” she could almost hear Charlie say.

He was right, of course. She didn’t want to lose the tattoo. She didn’t know what she wanted to lose.

Priya earned a (disappointing, but solid) B+ on one of her midterms, and an A- on her seminar short paper. She took over the group presentation, not quite trusting the others in her group to carry their weight. She picked up two extra shifts at the grocery store and maintained her schedule at the yarn shop.

Three Stitch and Bitches passed, and there was no sign of Luisa. Priya told herself it was probably for the best. Luisa was so flighty and flaky that she made Amy—an actress and dancer, of all things—seem sensible and down to earth. She was the last person that Priya needed in her life. She was charismatic, sure, and funny and sweet, but she was hardly going anywhere. Indeed, she seemed perfectly content to coast through life on her skateboard. Priya’s life was much more organized, calm and well-ordered now that Luisa had disappeared. The calm reminded her of nothing so much as the lifting of a migraine or the effects of Novocain: the pain, or Luisa, might still be somewhere out there, but she could no longer feel a thing.

Ignorance was, it appeared, numbness. Not bliss. That fact was tolerable, but not exactly optimal.

Luisa returned to Toronto when the leaves were dead and gone. Black branches scoured the gray sky, and snow swirled in the air. She skated indoors most of the time now, rising earlier in order to get the most out of the ramps before kids got off school.

The afternoon of the first storm, when the city was abuzz about expected snowfall, Charlie hip-checked her as they left the ramp and headed to the diner for lunch.

“Where’s the toque you owe me, Venceremos? I’m going to die of frostbite and it’ll all be your fault. I can’t wait much longer.”

It was a small comment, the first time any of the guys had mentioned her knitting and crocheting since she came back from North Carolina, but it stopped Luisa cold.

“You’re right,” she told him, and hung a sharp left to get to the subway station.

“I am?” Charlie stood on the corner, arms out, yelling after her. “What did I say?”

The first thick, wet flakes were gathering thickly on the sidewalks when she left the subway station and dashed for the yarn shop. Half the businesses on this stretch had already closed; the dusk was blue and gray, the color of old newspapers and older bruises. She slipped and stumbled in her worn sneakers, trying to hurry, hoping she could catch Priya.

Priya was uptight and bossy and every other dark, angry thing Luisa had mentally called her over the past month. But she was also intense and melancholy and she kissed like an angel.

Lu had no idea what she was going to say.

But she had to try. She was a woman who could practice the same flip for two weeks, all day, every day, all night too, and fall on her ass every time until, finally, she landed it. And then she practiced it more, kept at it, stubborn and bloody minded, until the motion was as easy and familiar as walking up stairs. As knitting a scarf, as kissing a girl.

As she pushed open the shop door, a gust of frigid wind blew her inside. Luisa slipped in the puddle on the tiled floor and collapsed against the door.

Priya and Toni were standing at the counter, a pile of invoices between them.

Luisa untangled her long red scarf from around her neck and held it out as she walked up to the counter. The wool was soaked with her sweat and the snow; it was the first thing she had knit for herself, and there were holes where she had looped the yarn too many times, and knots where she’d lost stitches. She lay the sad, damp thing on the counter, arranging it into the approximate shape of a heart.

“It hurts without you,” she told Priya, and did not look at Toni. She had to get this out. “I don’t want it to hurt.”

Priya’s eyes were dark, her mouth pursed. She looked a little thin, hollow-cheeked, like her clothes were a size too big. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m sorry I…”

“I want it to hurt with you,” Luisa said, and wrapped the scarf around one of Priya’s hands. “Does that make sense?”

Toni muffled a noise against her fist and left them alone.

Priya still hadn’t said anything beyond “I’m sorry.” Outside the big plate-glass window, the snow sleeted down.

“Don’t be sorry,” Luisa said, and tugged her hands until Priya leaned over the counter, their foreheads almost touching. “Just say yes.”

“I made you some socks,” Priya said at last. Her breath was warm on Luisa’s cold cheeks, her lips very soft. She laughed a little, self-consciously, and Luisa kissed her.

“I’m sorry,” she said later as she led Luisa up the narrow stairs to her apartment.

Laughing, Luisa slapped her ass. “Make it up to me. Make it hurt really good.”