Bette was taken aback that this avowed ***** didn’t make any overtures toward her.  If Bette kissed Gail, Gail was responsive, but the older woman had shown not a hint of her own assertion.  Something about that pleased Bette to no end. 

Bette followed Gail into the kitchen. “Oh, are you going to help me?”

“Help you what?”

“Make dinner.”

Bette looked around the kitchen as if she were expecting mice to come flying out of cupboards and baseboards.  “Uh…”

“You don’t know how to cook, do you?”

Grinning stupidly, Bette answered that she didn’t. 

“Then we won’t really cook tonight.  Tonight…” Gail proclaimed, “We have salad!”

“I like salad.”

“Okay, so you’ll do the slicing and dicing.”  She reached into the refrigerator to pull out some cheeses and Italian cold cuts along with vegetables. 

Bette sliced two types of cheese, julienned a red pepper and an organically grown carrot, diced two tomatoes, and stacked prosciutto and salami to make thin strips.  Gail had boiled a couple of eggs and just as she was cracking them open, she explained, “You’ll need to know this in life.  If there’s one thing that you need to carry with you, it’s how to boil a perfect creamy egg.  Boil the water, set the timer for 13 minutes exactly, then put the eggs in and boil.  The second that timer goes off, get them out.”  As she peeled the eggs, Bette glanced around her shoulder. 

“The outside looks good.”

Gail sliced through one and held it up.  “And the inside?”

“Creamy.  I can’t wait to taste the inside.”

“Are you flirting with me?”

“I think I am,” Bette admitted and pulled her close, running her hand up her arm, and kissing her with enthusiasm.

“You’re as randy as a twenty-one year old guy.”

“And you’d know that how?  Anyway, all twenty-one year olds are randy.”

Gail mixed all the ingredients in with the butter lettuce in the large bowl.  “Really, you never acted that way when you talked about Ash.”

Bette shrugged, but had no comment.  She had been thinking about that this evening.  Bette had thought of herself as pragmatic in love.  She dated men who shared her interests and who were intelligent.  She had been fortunate that they had been handsome, too. But good looks weren’t important.  She had to be able to communicate with them, talk to them, argue and laugh.  Most men hadn’t done that for her, but a few had.  Ash certainly had, but with all of them, the *****… At best she could say that she liked it.  Tonight, she was aroused in a way she couldn’t measure.  She had been all day next to Gail.  She hoped that more might happen tonight.