Free Lying In Bed by MJ Rose

that had no barrel and had to be dipped after every few sentences. I picked the dipping pen. The deliberation it required fit the mood of what I was going to write.
    The next decision was what color ink to use, like the decision to leave your hair down or pin it up and show more of the naked skin of your neck. For that evening’s story, I picked a dark velvet blue-purple, the color of bearded iris or blueberry juice.
    What paper to use was like picking sheets with which to make the bed. It wasn’t only that you wanted fresh sheets when you were expecting an assignation, you knew the color and pattern would be a communication in itself. Clean pristine whites that invited a contrast to raunchy lust? Or a dense flowery pattern that inspired soft sweet romance?
    The paper I put on top of my desk was a thick stock in the palest blue.
    The options became even more complicated after that. Choosing the first words was like giving someone a small look across a room. Determining an evocative phrase was like giving an open mouth kiss. Shaping a sentence that would elicit a thrill was like opening for the first penetration. Or taking a lover into your mouth.
    The process was a Passion play.
    The pen point disappeared into the ink like a swimmer dipping into a lake of green-blue water and emerged dripping. Once the last of the ink had splashed back into the bottle, I started to write.
    The car was waiting for her when she came downstairs
.
    She had obeyed all of his instructions, dressing in a long, black velvet dress that he had picked out for her. It was high necked and sleeveless. But it was also backless and had a slit going up the side that reached the top of her thighs
.
    He had been specific. She was to wear stockings with a garter belt. The one he had bought for her. No brassiere. No other underwear
.
    It was a silly game she thought as she went from the building to the car and felt the breeze blow the dress apart and caress her skin. She shivered. It was late fall and she should have had a coat. But he’d been explicit that she not wear a coat
.
    The chauffeur got out of his side of the car, came around and opened her door. He wore a pearl gray uniform and hat, white gloves, and murmured “good evening” as he held the door for her. She barely glanced at him as she anxiously climbed into the limousine, where she expected to find her lover
.
    He wasn’t there and that disappointed her. She’d thought he’d been watching her come out of the building and get into the car. That had pleased her
.
    No, he hadn’t watched. He wasn’t there
.
    But a woman was
.
    She stared at the seated woman
.
    Right away, she noticed that the other woman’s arms were as bare as her own. That her neck was just as covered. But the similarities went further. Their black velvet dresses were identical. Their hair color was identical. So was the way their hair was cut. The stranger’s eyes were lined with the same smudges of eyeliner that Gaia wore. The lipstick that filled in the woman’s mouth was the same rose color Gaia used: the color of Gaia’s nipples
.
    Was it also the color of this stranger’s nipples?
    Even the perfume the woman wore – which was a fairly unusual scent which Gaia’s lover purchased for her from an obscure shop in Paris that made its own fragrances – was identical
.
    A sharp click alerted Gaia that the driver had returned to his seat, shut his door, and pulled away from the curb
.
    “Do you know where we are going?” Gaia asked the woman sitting beside her
.
    She wanted to ask her other questions. Wanted to know why she was there, who she was, why she didn’t seem as surprised as Gaia was at the similarities in their appearances
.
    The woman didn’t answer, but poured Gaia a flute of champagne from the bottle of Cristal that sat in a bucket of ice. After Gaia took it, the second woman drank from her own glass with the same particular mannerisms that Gaia used
.
    It was mesmerizing. This was her twin. Almost