When she opened the door of the sauna a cloud of steam enveloped her.

“Close the door!” said a voice from the cloud.

“Ronda?”

“Top bench.”

As Angela’s eyes adapted to the dim light inside the sauna, she saw the slim figure of Ronda sitting on the top bench, her legs dangling over the edge.

Ronda didn’t know what to say or do, so she waited quietly. She leaned against the back wall and pulled her feet up to rest on the top bench as she replaced her hand where it had been when Angela opened the door.

The image of Angela’s face filled Ronda’s mind as her fingers began to pull her labia apart and stretch them idly. She imagined Angela naked, below her, on the bench, beginning to sweat in the steam. She tried to visualize Angela’s breasts. The images shifted in her mind as she reviewed the possibilities. The uplifted boobs of her college roommate? The small conical tits of one of her high school soccer teammates? The full womanly breasts of the goalkeeper?

Did she get waxed as Ronda did? Or did she have a full curly bush as Ronda had imagined in the bath?

When Ronda opened her eyes, Angela was standing in front of the door of the sauna, smiling at her. Then she saw the womanly beauty of her real breasts and started to move her finger around her clitoris wishing that Angela would do something. I sure didn’t know what to do next.

Angela must have gotten the message because Ronda saw Angela move up to the bench beside her. Angela turned her face to the left and kissed Ronda slowly and deliberately on the lips, her tongue moving slowly but firmly into Ronda’s hungry mouth. Ronda returned the kiss with mounting pleasure and did not move her hand from between her legs, but increased the pressure of her finger circling her clitoris.

Angela took Ronda’s left breast in her right hand as she leaned her head down to take its nipple between her lips, draw it in, and circle her tongue around it. Ronda gasped as Angela’s hand moved over her sweat-beaded stomach and down to the smooth crease where her inner thigh became her mons. Angela nudged Ronda’s hand from between her legs and caressed the inner edge of her thigh until Ronda shuddered in anticipation.

But again Angela knew what Ronda wanted and resumed her kiss as the fingers of her right hand teased open Ronda’s labia and found their way to the drenched interior. As soon as Ronda imagined it, the pressure decreased and moved up to orbit her clitoris, now throbbing and hard.

Before her mind could even form the image, Ronda’s clitoris registered a featherlight stroke on its underside. A sigh escaped Ronda as Angela began to kiss her again. Ronda’s bones melted in the heat of the kiss and sensation of the rhythmic caress. When Ronda thought of prolonging the pleasure, the pace of Angela’s finger slowed, but then Ronda knew she wanted to come fast and the pace resumed.

Ronda struggled for breath as the vibrations moved from her clitoris to overtake her thighs and then her whole body in a shudder that sent her into the oblivion of pleasure.

Ronda didn’t know how much time passed before her eyes fluttered open to see Angela bringing herself to an orgasm at the end of the bench.

“What can I do for you?” Ronda asked.

“Come into my arms and hold me.”

Ronda complied and the two lay side by side, the streams of their sweat mingling. Ronda felt Angela’s breasts on her own, felt her back under her hands, stroked the curve of her hip and marveled at the sensation of her thighs on Angela’s. They kissed.

“The tub is full of cold water when you’re ready,” Ronda said.

“No snow to roll in? I guess cold water will do, let’s go.”

Hand in hand the two women left the steam of the sauna and stepped into the cold tub of water.

“Ayyyyy,” Angela shouted as she ducked her head under the water and then lifted herself out of the tub. “That is cold.”

Ronda ducked and then led Angela to the shower where they soaped and washed each other’s bodies.

“How do you make yourself so smooth down here?” Angela asked as she soaped Ronda’s mons.

“I visit a waxing salon every ten days or so.”

“I shave, but I can’t get my skin that smooth unless I do it every day.”

“It’s nice the way it is. And I like the fringe you’ve left,” Ronda said as she twirled the long lock of pubic hair that decorated Angela’s labia between her fingers.

They rinsed off the soap, stepped out of the shower, toweled each other dry and went into the bedroom where they both collapsed onto the large bed.

Angela’s thick, wavy, shoulder-length, honey blonde hair fanned out around her head as she lay on her back, spread-eagled on the bed. Ronda lay on her side, propping up her head on the palm of her hand, beside Angela.

“Have you ever done this before? I mean…with other women.”

“Yes.”

“Do you do it often?”

“No. I’ve been with other women. Some for quite a while. Does it matter?”

“I don’t know. Does it make us…lesbians?”

“I don’t think there’s anything wrong with being a lesbian. But I don’t think of myself as a lesbian. That’s just because I also like men. It’s been a long time since I found a man that I liked enough to sleep with, but I have done it and I like it. I won’t deny that. And I won’t deny that I like men. Some of them anyway. I don’t think I’m promiscuous if that’s what you’re asking. With either men or women. I’m pretty picky.”

“Yeah, me too. But I have to say, I don’t really like most men. If it’s a question of liking someone, I like women better. Not all women. But I like more women than men. If you get my point?”

They both laughed. Then they were silent until Ronda said, “Do you think women can love each other? I mean in the same way that we can love men? Not just…physically, but real love?”

“Of course they can.”

“But can it ever be the same?”

“Why not? What does it mean anyway, love? It means you’d sacrifice everything for the other person. It means you trust them with everything you have and everything you are. Does it matter if the person is a man or a woman? I think you can love someone and not be physically involved. And I know you can be physically involved with someone and not love them.”

“Yeah, like my asshole husband. Well, maybe not. He’s not that physically involved. Fiscally, maybe, but not physically. It’s like he doesn’t want to fuck me anymore, much less do all the other…things.”

“Yeah, when I deduced you were well-off, I had no idea-”

“He’s a corporate big shot. But that’s why I think he’s involved with another woman. Or other women. He doesn’t seem to be interested in me.”

“It may not be that.”

“What? You think he’s really in meetings all the time? You think he’s really in Zurich now?”

“Could be.”

They lay silent and Angela absorbed the patterns of the place, patterns of frustration, doubt, anxiety.

“Do you think we could love each other?”

Angela wasn’t sure whether Ronda had spoken or whether she’d intercepted the thought. It doesn’t matter whether I heard it with my ears or my mind. The question is the same.

“Yes. Don’t you think we’re already there?”

“We don’t have a joint bank account yet.”

“Is money the measure of love?”

“I don’t know…”

Then Angela knew she was intercepting a mental image because it was strong and vivid. The image of her going down on Ronda.

Angela slipped her hand under Ronda’s shoulder and pulled the other woman toward her to give her a long kiss. Then she lay Ronda on her back and kissed each nipple, ran her tongue along her chest and stomach, circled her navel, and reached one hand under each thigh to lift her legs over her shoulders as her tongue flowed over the crease of her left thigh and mons down to her labia and back up the other side of the sensitive triangle.