Queen of Love

“You think you get something, huh?”

Did Genevieve have to train Aya at all? She was already so good at this!

“Some friendly advice: if you offer your girlfriend something in return for her potentially disastrous nudes, she’s more likely to send them to you.”

“Oh, I am aware, but I’m not going to tell you what I have in mind until you show me yours first.”

“Are you going to teach me a new word?”

“If I keep teaching you the naughty words, you’ll never learn anything helpful. Like, how to ask for directions when you’re lost somewhere between Meguro and Shibuya.”

“Am I in Meguro because I’m visiting your place?”

“Would you like to see my place?”

”Is that what I get in exchange for my body?”

“Who said anything about your body?”

Genevieve opened her robe the whole way. As she dithered with what position to get in, Nyla’s words continued to blare in the back of her mind. “Send her nudes!” Like it was an option now. “Are you telling me you haven’t thought about my body since you last saw it?”

“The one dripping in hot tub water? I haven’t stopped thinking about it. Or your smile. Or your giggle. Or that big hat you like to wear. You’re a beautiful woman, Genevieve. I can’t stop thinking about you.”

“I can’t stop thinking about you, either,” Genevieve whispered into her bedroom. She gave herself a moment as she sprawled across her bed, imagining Aya there with her. What part of her body would Genevieve’s lover touch first? What would she want me to remember?

With the thrill of young and wild love lingering in her blood, Genevieve shot a closeup of her left breast. She ensured her nipple was perfectly hard before it got its moment in the spotlight. Then, she sent it.

“Chikubi,” she wrote in hiragana, the most prominent phonetic Japanese script.

Waiting for Aya’s response was more excruciating than waiting for the first kiss on a first date with somebody new.

“Very good,” Aya eventually wrote. “Both your skills and the picture.”

“Do I get something in return?”

“Patience.”

That was the last thing Aya wrote for a long while. Genevieve was about to give up her chances of hearing back for the rest of the night. Hell, she was this close to taking more nudes that were sure to wreck Aya’s imagination – and potentially ruin Genevieve’s future, should they get into the wrong hands.

She finished getting ready for bed, instead. As she turned on the news about the local happenings in Taipei, her phone buzzed with a new attachment hitting her chat with Aya.

It wasn’t only a picture of a half-naked woman. It was a mirror selfie, complete with nipples out and the happiest trail descending from Aya’s navel to where the picture cut off the goods. The only reason Genevieve knew for sure it was Aya she saw in the picture was because she now recognized the small freckle on her girlfriend’s stomach. Otherwise, Aya had smartly left her face out of the picture.

“Had to wait to take a shower,” Aya wrote. “I wanted you to see me at my best.”

“It is most definitely your best,” Genevieve said.

“Will you be thinking about me tonight?”

“How could I not?”

“I’d love to wake up to some proof in the morning,” Aya said. “I mean, from tonight. You and your thoughts about me.”

“What do you want, exactly? Are you extorting me?”

“I don’t care what you send me. Make it truthful. Good night, Genevieve.”

“You can call me Genny.”