“Goodnight, Aunty Bella,” Stef said in a baby voice, making bambina wave her tiny hand.

“Goodnight, bambina,” I softly said, leaving a kiss on her tiny forehead.

Our little ritual done, Stef withdrew to the bedroom to put bambina to sleep. Her name was Felicia, for how fortunate Stef felt after giving birth and holding her in her arms—it was customary for wives to name daughters and husbands the sons. Originally, she had planned to call her daughter Maria, but Felicia felt right at that moment.

The only problem was that Felicia (the cia pronounced cha, like ciao) didn’t have the best nicknames, so we had ended up just calling her bambina. Once she was older, we were thinking Felina. It meant cat-like (feline), so, if she was like a cat, it would certainly fit. Otherwise, Felly, or Stella—her middle name.

Only a few months old, yet we were thinking so far into the future for the most trivial things.

Thinking that made me think of the past. In the end, I had come to live with Stef, but not quite as her lover. She had wanted my comfort and support and that was something I could give her as friend. So I stayed, accompanying her through her pregnancy, and now with her child—my “niece”.

That wasn’t to say nothing had changed between us. Slowly but surely, we had, for lack of a better term, opened up our friendship. When we were alone, she greeted me with a kiss and cuddled with me. Things I was comfortable with. We hadn’t been intimate, but it very much felt like a “yet”. Something we didn’t bring up as she had only given birth a few months ago.

Although I still had worries and fears, the best “cure” was seeing how happy Stef was. How happy being with me made her.

As if summoned by my thoughts, the door opened and she stepped through, delicately closing it behind her. “She is asleep already?” I asked.

Stef turned around with a smile. “She had a busy afternoon, no?”

Well, we certainly had taken her on quite the adventure, going all around the flower garden for a good hour. She liked being outside, happily babbling the whole time. “I suppose she did.”

Letting out a long sigh, Stef fell onto the couch without her usual elegance. Before I could ask her the matter, she reached up and massaged her breast, saying, “I do enjoy the bonding, yet I understand why everyone else told me to have a wet nurse.”

I felt a twinge of guilt, apparently the lone voice suggesting she breastfed Felicia. Again, before I could say anything, she spoke up.

“Come now, as if I would decide something so important purely by your opinion. I discussed this with my mother and some friends with children of their own. That you are supportive is my small joy, glad I may freely feed her in your company.”

Overcome with awkwardness at my previous expression being so easily read, I looked away. “It is a natural and beautiful act.”

However, she may have misinterpreted my reaction as shyness, asking, “Is it the act or my breasts that are beautiful?”

She couldn’t always read my mind and that was probably for the best. “They are beautiful in different ways,” I said.

She chuckled, her laughter deep and warm, and she finished with a peck on my cheek. I didn’t feel a burst of heat from it, my heart didn’t race, but I felt comforted, knowing it was a way she showed me love.

“You know, it is early and she has been sleeping well these days,” Stef whispered, her hand finding mine.

I knew what she was asking for, but felt a spike of guilt. “You really are content to be with someone who cannot return your feelings?”

Ever so slightly, her touch changed, the way she held my hand like she was hugging it with her own. A small, but welcome, comfort.

“Being in unrequited love was a rather exciting thing. In our younger years, I would hop between being euphoric over the smallest, silliest thing, to then being in utter despair over another trivial matter. I would endlessly question whether you loved me as more than a friend, endlessly fret over if you would choose one of the others.”

She spoke softly with an even softer smile.

“Now, that unrequited love is comforting. While I understand the situation may one day change, at least for now, I may love you with all my heart without a worry. I need not worry that your love for me has cooled or switched to another, confident that, whenever I fall asleep at your side, your face shall greet me upon waking.”

Pausing there, she leaned over and rested her head on my shoulder.

“The romantic love in books is certainly thrilling, yet this warm and gentle love is wonderful too. Content? I am. Perhaps it is hard for you to believe as you cannot experience it, but it truly is enough for you to accept my feelings. If nothing else, I need you to believe that,” she said, ending with a squeeze of my hand.

She had always had a way with words and this speech of hers seemed almost planned, like she had carefully thought over it. However, knowing she probably had, didn’t make it any less compelling.

I slowly turned to look at her and she raised her head from my shoulder, looking back at me. There wasn’t the deep rush of affection others spoke of. There wasn’t a tightness in my chest, or butterflies in my stomach, or an overwhelming urge to kiss her bubbling up.

However, that didn’t mean she didn’t feel those things.

It was a surreal moment, realising I could inspire feelings in others I couldn’t feel, perhaps a glimpse of why art existed—why artists existed. Compelled by that realisation, I painted her lips with my own. Painted her in colours I, the colour-blind artist, could never see.

“Oh Bella,” she whispered between kisses.

“Ania,” I whispered back, not something I’d thought of before, but, in this moment, wanting her to know I wasn’t thinking of her as a friend.

She caught on instantly and replied, “Mari.”

It was a good thing she hadn’t called her daughter Maria.

Kiss after kiss, I felt the feelings I could feel rise, my hands feeling what of her I could feel. It wasn’t a beautiful feeling, instead desperate and needy. However, she responded so beautifully to my touches, so beautifully touched me back.

I had no intention to go far this time, carefully finding the boundaries of this new space in our relationship. Just that, before I got too far, she chuckled into our kiss and then broke away, her hand stilling mine that had been fondling her breast.

“If you make a mess, I shall expect you to clean it up,” she said wryly.

Another unfortunate misunderstanding, I licked my lips—and not in anticipation of a taste.

Her eyebrow rose. “Well, well, does mia Marina require a wet nurse?” she asked.

I wanted to curl up and die, but, to make sure she didn’t say any more, I found it prudent to keep her mouth occupied. Only after it looked like she had lost the ability to speak did I relent, watching her laboured breaths with satisfaction.

Just as I was about to resume touching her, a cry broke out, both of us breaking into a “of course she woke up now” smile.

—

I arrived at Ella’s manor, or rather her husband’s. Almost her birthday, I had assumed that was the reason for my invitation, the parties and balls all my friends threw were hardly the intimate affairs we preferred.

“Bella, darling, I am ecstatic you could make it,” she said, gently holding my hands with a warm smile.

“I was ecstatic to receive the invitation,” I said, smiling back.

She led me upstairs to her sanctuary: the music room. Every surface had a plant, the floor covered in thick, shaggy rugs, delicate paintings of flowers and meadows on the walls. It had rather poor acoustics given all that, but the atmosphere blended with her performances to make something special, memorable. I often found myself remembering her melodies when around similar plants.

However, there was to be no music this day.

She guided me to the couch, then sat down next to me, so close our legs touched, dresses scrunched between. I chuckled, not exactly unusual for her. “Have you been feeling lonely?” I asked, usually the reason for this behaviour.

Her answer was a mysterious smile, then she tugged at the neckline of her dress, drawing my gaze down, noticing that she apparently lacked a bra—or wore a half-cup style I hadn’t seen sold anywhere.

“Do you remember our discussion?” she whispered.

Not our as in the two of us, but our whole group of friends, and it was a memorable discussion to say the least. “I do,” I said, confused why she brought it up.

Confused until her hand drifted down the front of her dress to just below her stomach. “I am married and expecting and so very horny,” she said, an innocence to her voice and to the pouty look she gave me.

That was the agreement we’d come to. I didn’t want to interfere with their “obligations”, so it had seemed best to wait until an heir was conceived. Even with Stef, I had moved out once she was ready to try again for a son, albeit still a common visitor to see her as a friend—and, of course, to see my niece.

However, I really hadn’t expected to learn my friend was pregnant with a proposition for sex….

What made matters worse was that, despite the swell of emotion from finding out she was pregnant, I was overwhelmed by, well, a horniness of my own, some months since I put a pause on being Stef’s lover.

“I heard that gentle exercise is good for the baby,” Ella whispered, idly playing with a loose strip of her hair, bringing my attention back to her face.

“From Stef?” I asked lightly, smile wry.

Her smile turned wicked and she deliberately licked her lips, a slow swirl of her tongue that left behind a sheen. I hadn’t noticed her scarlet lipstick until now, now couldn’t look away. Although we hadn’t gone far before, we had tested some boundaries, one of our favourite little games one where she applied my lipstick with her own lips, kiss by kiss.

If there was one thing Ella was good at, it was making me feel sexy. I liked feeling sexy. After all, I did feel sexual attraction—why I wanted to have sex instead of sorting myself out.

“What kind of exercise have you in mind?” I asked.

She tugged her loose neckline side to side, over her shoulders, working it down until her breasts spilled out, no half-cup bra to be seen. “I have been somewhat tender,” she said softly, head bowed so she looked up at me through her eyelashes, every bit mia diavolina.

Despite saying, “How does this count as exercise?” I still reached up and began to massage her.

Her breathy moans, the look on her face—so sexy. Little by little, I kneaded, squeezed, pinched. Once her voice grew too loud, I sealed her lips with my own. She played the opposite game to our usual, instead of many little kisses, sinking deep into this kiss, her tongue asking to enter—and I let it.

Our closeness gave her hands ample access to me and she used it. There was no heat to her touch, but a tickle that tingled up my spine, legs quivering as she firmly slid her hand up my thigh.

It didn’t take her long to stir up a fire inside me, too hot for such bulky clothes. Stripping down to our one-and-a-half pairs of lingerie, she continued to kiss me, to touch me. All I did was massage her breasts like she’d asked, yet her moans and heavy breaths made me feel so sexy. How arrogantly she touched me, I couldn’t help but think she desired my body, feeding into my own arrogance, my own desires.

Growing needy, I couldn’t stop from squirming, rubbing my thighs together. She seemed little better, moments where I felt her strength give out for just a second.

However, this was rather far for our “first time”, especially with how sudden it had come about. I didn’t want to stop, though. Couldn’t stop—not entirely.

Gathering my willpower, I broke from her kiss and, under her questioning gaze, leaned back in the couch, spreading myself. Before she had the wrong idea, I brought my hand down and started rubbing.

She caught on quickly, mirroring my position, the two of us staring as we began to masturbate. I watched the way she brought up her own nipple to suck on, how she liked to give her quim a few sharp pats between rubs, how big the wet patch was on her underwear.

I tended to need some help, so, before I slipped my fingers inside, I reached over to her mouth, let her wet my fingers. And she did, her tongue swirling all around them as if eager for a taste of my nectar. I shuddered, the feeling electric, something so erotic about touching myself with her spit.

“Must you bully me? Showing me such a sight and forbidding me from touching?” she whispered, deep and husky.

“What of you, Ella? Do you see yourself? Inviting an old friend over and look at how you have ended up,” I said, not thinking, just saying something sharp.

She didn’t wince so much as clench and I watched the pleasure roll through her. Stained with blush, wearing nothing but scarlet underwear and slippers.

Beautiful.