Donna and the Invitation

It had never occurred to me that Donna harboured feelings of insecurity, she had always seemed so self-confident. I invited her to come to a dinner-dance organised by my office. We were, at the time, sitting in our favourite seat in the pub, sipping white wine when I popped the question.

‘Dancing and dinners aren’t altogether my thing,’ she said and it seemed to me she said it rather hastily. I tried gently to ask why that was. She was unusually evasive and I pondered on this as we discussed other things. When we got home, my home that is, for Donna had still not moved in. We never went to her place and I never asked why, mainly because I liked her being in my space.

I went to the kitchen, ground some beans and made some coffee and when I got back to her you may imagine my astonishment when I found her in tears. I sat beside her and held her gently to me but didn’t ask what was the matter. I knew somehow that she was going to tell me.

She wiped her eyes, using the front of my blouse, and looked at me. ‘I don’t want to embarrass you.’ I said nothing. ‘All your mates at work would think I wasn’t good enough for you. I don’t know stuff like you do, I don’t talk properly and I don’t dress like you do.’ This last was true. I have mentioned before that the only time I saw her in a dress was when she had her interview for the job at the gallery. ‘They’d all laugh at you and that’s what I couldn’t stand.’

I kissed her mouth. This was not easy. I’d never seen this vulnerable side to her and I had no idea how to handle it. It was, of course, nonsense. My work-mates were a good bunch, knew I am lesbian and would never have been even remotely unkind to either of us but she didn’t know that and whatever I said was unlikely to seem anything other than an attempt to push her into it. Then a light came on in my head.

‘Who is the nicest person we know?’ This was easy, because we both knew it was Nellie, the barmaid at the pub. She said that and I smiled. I straddled her legs, put my hands on her shoulders and kissed her again, a long, tonguey kiss. I leant into her and felt her hands sliding up my legs under my skirt. I didn’t stop kissing her as I undid her shirt and palmed her hardening nipples. I leant back and looked into her eyes. ‘Nellie works in my office.’

Despite everything, Donna was still uneasy about the dinner. She stayed with me the night before and had arrived with a suitcase. She insisted that she should get dressed alone, so I had a shower and got into my underwear while she dressed in the spare room. She came into my bedroom, wearing a long, black dress. It had tiny straps and fitted her svelte frame like a sheath. She had a silver necklace, her only jewellery. She wore strappy sandals and I could see she had stockings or tights on. Her short hair was shining. I had to sit down. Very slowly she lifted her dress, teasing me and her eyes locked on mine.

‘You’ll catch your death’, I told her. We were late.