Touched
by Fire
Monica Conti
SMASHWORDS EDITION
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PUBLISHED BY:
Monica Conti on
Smashwords
Touched by Fire
Copyright © 2010 by Monica
Conti
All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters,
places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the
author's imagination or are used fictitiously. The author
acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various
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without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not
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Chapter 1
Kelsey Michaels was not my type at all. I had lived 33 years and that was long enough for me to have a “type” and I wasn’t interested in a woman who was so masculine in her mannerisms and appearance. She made me uneasy and uncomfortable at work and she stared at me in ways that I didn’t accept from men, and I had no intention of accepting it from a woman either. That never stopped the impudent dyke from staring at my breasts any time she was able to do so. Once, if you can imagine it, I was walking down the hallway and turned to see if I’d dropped something and I caught that vulgar woman staring at my ass. I simply coughed and gave her a look that would have frozen the blood of most. But, with that impertinent slut, it was not bothersome at all. She just smiled and kept looking at my ass. How dare she? I mean, I’m Bethany Sand, accomplished editor, New Yorker with attitude. Who the hell did this woman think she was?
We both worked for the same publishing house in Manhattan and she had started working there about six months prior to the time I caught her looking down my shirt in the break room one day as I leaned over to grab a coke out of the machine slot. I made sure she knew I saw her staring, but it didn’t stop her from doing it. I hated that woman, honestly, I did. But, she was always so polite and so confident when she spoke to me. Her eyes were the only thing that told me for sure what she was wanting from me because her demeanor was mostly professional. Still, those eyes, dark piercing blue, were always staring at me—either my breasts or my crotch. I could read her thoughts. There was no mystery in that. And, I really prefer a bit of mystery. There was nothing mysterious about this one. She looked like a man. I had no desire to be with a woman who undoubtedly wore aftershave and men’s underwear.
One afternoon as the clock slowly approached 6 p.m. and I was almost done with a dreadful manuscript I had been editing, she appeared at my office door and had the audacity to ask if I wanted to have a drink. I answered curtly, “I rarely touch alcohol.” And, I was surprised when she tossed back at me Stanley Kowalski’s infamous line from Streetcar saying, “Some people rarely touch it, but it touches them often.” The smile on her lips and the way the smile slyly accompanied the line was a bit more than I was prepared for. I confess that I let my guard down for a moment, slightly impressed with her ability to cleverly insert a line from a good play. So, I agreed to the drink.
As we made our way downtown to an older drinking spot called 169 Bar and Club, she spoke very little and I saw that she was wearing a rather mannish coat over her outfit. This wasn’t surprising, but something about the darkness of the coat’s chocolate brown color and the way it fell across her flat chest made me want her to push against me. Still, I had deep reservations about her.
We fell into a table at 169 and ordered a couple of martinis. After talking for a short time about our various editorial projects, we both seemed to run out of things to say. The silence was vast, and it was more than uncomfortable. I simply did not like her. I didn’t like her look, her voice, her smile. I told her I needed to make a quick run to the back for cigarettes and she waited for me. Honestly, I just couldn’t deal with her, so I headed out the side entrance to get away. I didn’t bother to say goodbye.