Chapter 1
Amy put her Kindle down, sat back against her headboard and let out a breath.
“Oh my God,” she said to the empty room. “That was awesome!”
That was Jillian Ashley’s latest lesfic novel, Rego Park Romance, book four of her best-selling Gotham Lesbians series, a collection of wlw romances about the intersecting lives of a group of New York City lesbians. Each book takes place primarily in one of New York’s five boroughs and this one took place in Queens. It featured two rival softball players whose teams meet for the city championship, played at a local ballfield in the titular neighborhood. It was one of Amy’s favorite tropes: enemies to lovers, and it delivered big-time. All of Jillian’s books delivered, quite frankly. Jillian Ashley was Amy’s favorite lesfic author—hell, Jillian Ashley was practically every gay woman’s favorite lesfic author—and each new release filled Amy with excitement and anticipation. Rego Park Romance was close to her best work yet, topped only by Fordham Road Fling, the series’ Bronx-based novel. Not only were the characters well-developed and the pacing good, but the sex scenes were out-of-this-world hot. In fact, Amy’s center was still reacting to the last sex scene in the book, about ten pages from the end. Amy was certain she hadn’t blinked once while reading it and she knew she’d have to take care of the throbbing between her legs if she wanted any hope of getting to sleep tonight. Such was the danger of reading a Jillian Ashley novel this close to bedtime.
However, that could wait—though not for long, she knew.
Managing to ignore her arousal, she reached over and picked up her MacBook from the nightstand, placing it on her lap. She took a brief glance at her bedside clock. It was only just past nine p.m.; still early. Her alarm would wake her up for work at seven the next morning. As long as she was asleep by ten, no later than eleven, she’d be fine. Midnight tops.
She opened her website in edit mode and began editing her blog, Lesbeing, first, hammering out a glowing review of Rego Park Romance, being sure to also link the review to a written interview Jillian had agreed to do for Amy last year after the third book in the Gotham series was released. For that interview, Amy had emailed Jillian the questions and Jillian had sent back her written responses.
Naturally, Amy had wanted to conduct that interview over the phone but Jillian had begged off, writing that she was painfully shy and would probably come off sounding like an idiot or something. Disappointed, Amy had nonetheless understood. She knew that a lot of writers were introverted and shy and she certainly didn’t want to ask Jillian to do anything that would make the author uncomfortable.
But since the release of that book and this one, Amy had branched out into podcasting. Lesbeing—the Podcast, had just released its twenty-fourth episode, a discussion with a professor of Lesbian Studies at UCLA about the changing representations of women in contemporary cinema. Previous episodes had included topics ranging from lesbian sex tips to real-life examples of common lesfic tropes. She had also produced several episodes featuring interviews with some of the top lesfic authors in the world, women who were always more than happy to discuss their work and the world of lesfic in general.
Except Jillian Ashley.
“Jillian’s the holy grail, apparently,” Susan Lyons-Dell, another popular lesfic author, had told Amy just before their podcast interview began several months ago. “You’re not the only one with a podcast who’s tried to get her on their show, but Jillian turns them all down. Don’t know why. I mean, any publicity is good publicity, right?”
Susan had even added that perhaps not appearing on podcasts was part of Jillian’s marketing strategy. After all, the reclusiveness of Jillian Ashley was actually a popular topic in the lesfic community, Susan had pointed out.
Sitting on her bed now, Amy sucked her bottom lip between her teeth and thought for a moment.
She wanted to do something special for the twenty-fifth episode of Lesbeing—the Podcast. It was a milestone—a quarter of the way to one-hundred!—and should be celebrated by having a truly special guest on. Jillian Ashley would be such a special guest, and, damn it, Amy was going to have her even if she had to beg.
She picked up her Kindle again and paged ahead to the About the Author page at the end of Rego Park Romance.
Her eyes went first to the photo, which, unlike a typical author’s photo, did not show the smiling face of the woman whose book you just finished. Instead, it showed a taken-from-behind shot of a shapely brunette woman on the beach, looking out at the sea. Even from behind, the woman seemed young and she was certainly very fit. But completely anonymous.
Amy already had Jillian’s bio memorized—an easy task given how it only contained one line and that she used the same bio for all of her books.
Jillian Ashley lives in sunny Oceanside, California.
Oceanside.
The next town north from Carlsbad.
A town so close to Amy’s apartment that she could actually walk to it.
That fact had always somewhat excited Amy. One of her favorite daydreams was imagining encountering Jillian in a meet-cute fashion somewhere and the author falling madly in lust with her. They’d end up back at Jillian’s place, not able to get their clothes off fast enough; then, in the bedroom, Amy would push Jillian down on the bed, totally top her, look into her eyes and say, “Chapter 25 in The Fordham Road Fling. Do that to me!”
Putting the Kindle down again, Amy opened her Gmail account. Tomorrow was Friday and should be an easy day. The North County Women’s Rights Group, the non-profit Amy was assistant director of, usually wasn’t terribly busy on Fridays; ergo, Amy felt like she could do with less sleep tonight. Which was good, because she planned on spending however long it took crafting the most perfect email to Jillian Ashley, trying to convince the author to be a guest on her podcast. As long as she was asleep by midnight. One o’clock, tops.
After that, seriously, she really needed to take care of what was happening between her legs.
Chapter 2
Sally put her Kindle down and stretched out on her sofa, easing the muscles in her long legs because she had been sitting still for a while.
“Awesome!” she exclaimed to the ceiling of her one-bedroom condo.
She had just finished Jillian Ashley’s newest lesfic book, Rego Park Romance and, a
s usual, she absolutely wanted more. Seriously, why couldn’t the woman write faster? Sally knew of lesfic authors who practically churned out a new book every month. Granted, they weren’t very good and the writing proficiency was somewhere around the grade-school level, but still…
No, no…Jillian Ashley was an artist, Sally reminded herself now, and artists take time to craft quality work. Sally would have to be fine with waiting the few months it might take Jillian to put out the final book in the Gotham Lesbians series.
But, seriously, Jillian couldn’t write just a little faster? She made a note to ask her that—jokingly—on Twitter. Jillian was one of several lesfic authors Sally followed on that platform and Sally wasn’t above doing a little fangirling every time she finished one of Jillian’s books, sending Jillian a DM to say how much she enjoyed it. Sometimes, Jillian even responded, just to say thanks for her kind words, which always made Sally super excited.
Sitting up, she poured herself another glass of wine and then pulled her black hair into a ponytail. It was Friday night and so a little wine headache tomorrow wouldn’t matter.
Just as she was about to take a sip, her phone rang. It was her bestie, Lisa.
“Did you finish it?” Lisa asked in lieu of hello.
“I did! Did you?”
“I did!”
Both women then squealed.