A hot, sticky summer’s night and I am dancing in a marquee, heady with sweat and expensive perfume. The bride in silken white laughs with the groom. Women in floral dresses and white trainers shake their hips, luscious locks frizzing out of hair-sprayed holds. Men with top buttons undone sashay around the dancefloor. I don’t know what catches my eye first — her perfect red curls tumbling down over her cleavage or her dancing, the way she moves with such confidence, holding the skirt of her dress and twisting in time to the beat.
My desire is immediate. Hot as the summer air. Sticky and all-consuming. I assume she’s straight, probably here with the grey-vested man talking in her ear. She laughs and keeps dancing, her long leg exposed by the slit in her dress, and he wanders off. I edge closer, hoping to dance with her if nothing else. The DJ blasts us with nostalgia and we all belt out the lyrics to nineties pop songs, joined in our ancient love of the Spice Girls.
As grown women slam their bodies down and wind them all around, the red-haired woman catches my eye. Has she noticed me looking? Her eyes are sea-blue, sparkling in the dark. Her lips are deep red, faded in the centre where wine glasses have had the privilege of rubbing off her lipstick. She mouths the words and directs her body towards mine, lighting up my insides. We dance through several songs, playful and dramatic, singing at each other, moving closer. ‘Lady Marmalade’ strikes up and the song’s raunch invokes her to part her legs and grind her body towards the ground. I want so badly to be between her thighs, but I still don’t know if this is seduction or the meaningless flirtation of straight drunk women.
I get my answer soon enough. The music changes again, Chappell Roan now. We exchange a look that tells me everything, both question and answer in our shared smiles. She holds my hips, bringing me closer as Chappell croons her queer anthem. I imagine pressing my lips against this woman’s bare, freckled shoulders. How soft her skin must be. Her finger touches my cheek, my lips. Electricity runs like a shockwave from my mouth to my crotch. I want to lean in but am still too scared. Maybe I start to though, because she says, barely loud enough to hear over the music, ‘Shall we go for a walk?’
We escape the heat and noise of the marquee holding hands, her skin hot against mine. My heart does cartwheels as we stumble across the field, hitch our skirts to clamber over a stile into an expanse of long grass swaying in the evening breeze. There at last her lips find mine, soft and wet and wine-tasting. My hands explore the curves of her body. Her tongue flutters against mine, her kisses as sensuous as her dancing. But quickly, desperation takes hold and there is a furious want in our embrace.
She lies me down in the grass and unzips the front of my dress. I shiver as her lips touch my skin, kissing me all the way down to the top of my knickers where she pauses, looks up with mischief in her eyes. I sit up and reach for her, bury my face in her neck which smells of peaches and summer nights. I kiss her shoulders, as soft as I’d imagined, move her hair from her neck so I can gently bite the skin, which makes her squirm with pleasure.
Not wanting to rush but unable to wait, my lips reach the tops of her breasts, pushed up and exposed above the bust of her dress. They are full and pale in the moonlight. I want to see more of them, more of her, but I’m so distracted by lust I struggle to undo the complex straps of her dress. I laugh into her skin as we tackle them together, until finally straps loosen and the material falls away from her body, exposing her glowing skin and hard pink nipples.
Immediately, I take them into my mouth, so turned on by their hardness my knickers are soaked. She moans and arches her back. I trace my tongue down her torso, peel off her plain black underwear. The soft red hair on her pubis tickles my cheeks as I tease her, circling her clit, building her up and up. I’m aching between my legs, wanting her fingers there but too obsessed with how she feels and the sweet musty taste of her to stop.
My fingers slip inside her, the warm soft chasm of her slick with pleasure. She pushes herself against me, forcing my fingers deeper, and I realise I am moaning too now as my tongue finally touches her clit — light at first then firmer, faster. Her body tenses for a moment, then shudders and a scream escapes her lips.
As she catches her breath, we wonder aloud whether the wedding guests heard her cry out and whether anyone is missing us. But it’s my turn now, she makes it clear by pulling my dress over my head and straddling me. She leans down to kiss me, her ginger curls engulfing my face, her breasts pressing against my chest. I kiss her back hard, grateful to be single and free to spend a wedding night tangled in ecstasy with a beautiful stranger.
