Periodically, I'll share a short story below as well. For now, enjoy a story set in New Orleans, about the recovery of the city and one girl's heart.

Elsa swung the hammer and missed. Her parents had taught her a little about construction; as a kid, she’d helped her dad build her tree house. Here, she hadn’t caught on. Maybe it was the heat? Elsa untied the bandana around her head and used it to mop her brow. It never got this hot up north.

“How’s it coming?” Pastor Barb crossed the unfinished room to Elsa. Elsa shook her head and sat cross-legged on the bare plywood. She took a deep breath. So humid.

“I’m doing my best.” She wished she were home -- where summer meant seventy-five degrees -- but she’d promised her mom to spend the summer renovating homes with the church group in New Orleans.

“That’s all God can ask,” Barb said. “Time for lunch.”

Elsa pushed herself to her feet and followed Barb. She stopped on the front porch and looked down the street. In the distance, she saw Central Business District. Elsa let her eye rest on the towering, glass-clad buildings. Around her stood several abandoned houses, a few FEMA trailers, and only one or two finished rebuilds. Grass grew through holes in the pavement, and once in awhile, Elsa saw feral chickens. She considered her hometown a little rural, but this was supposed to be a city.

Elsa walked down the steps toward the tent where a few tables sat. Church members were already accepting sandwiches and cold water from a volunteer. A certain breed gravitated toward New Orleans, Elsa realized. The food girl wore an old T-shirt, shredded and knotted artistically, cut-off army fatigues, and sari fabric wrapped around her hair, keeping her long, blonde dreadlocks out of the food. She’d stretched and plugged her ears, and tattoos covered both arms.

The girl drew Elsa in, made her panties damp with something other than the sweat that had trickled down her back. She swallowed hard, took a quick breath, and lined up behind the others. She’d promised her mom to avoid girls and pray that maybe she’d meet a nice boy on the trip. Problem was Elsa didn’t like boys.

Pastor Barb knew about Elsa’s past, but the others didn’t. As far as they understood, Elsa came for a working, come-to-God break after a hard separation and difficult move. All true. They didn’t know the separation was from another woman or how that woman had driven Elsa out of Little Rock, a place Elsa had started to finally feel comfortable. Back in home, she felt like an alien.

“Hey,” Elsa said as she drew even with the new woman. “I’m Elsa.”

“Cali,” the girl replied, holding up a sandwich in each hand. “Turkey or roast beef?”

“Which is better?” Elsa asked.

“I’m vegan. I wouldn’t eat either.”

“Turkey.” Elsa offered a shaky smile, took the sandwich, and sat at one of the empty tables. No one joined Elsa. Their sympathy for her break-up didn’t extend to camaraderie, and she’d just moved back home when her mom suggested she leave to volunteer, so she hadn’t rekindled any friendships. She’d gone to high school with a few of these people, but her intervening time away had severed any friendships.

“Can I sit here?”

Elsa looked up from her sandwich and blinked. Cali waited with a slight smile on her lips.

“Yeah, of course.” Elsa straightened. Cali sat, unwrapped her own lunch and looked at Elsa.

“You been in town long?” she asked then took a bite of a wrap.

“Only a few days.” Elsa picked at her sandwich. “You?”

“Since right after the storm, from Berkley. I was working for college credit, but now I work for First Step.”

Elsa knew First Step organized many of the volunteers that flooded into the city. They lined up jobs, purchased supplies, and set up the infrastructure so that the volunteers could actually accomplish something.

“If you’d like to see more of the city... I mean, I ride a dirt bike, but I’ve got an extra helmet. You only have the van, right?”

Both girls’ eyes drifted toward the huge, twelve-person van with the Green Hill First Presbyterian Church graphic and requisite Bible quote plastered on the side. Elsa laughed. Now Cali looked uneasy.

“Honestly, I’m sorry I snapped at you about the sandwich.” She lowered her voice “I could introduce you to some friends of mine.”

Elsa thought about it for a minute. “That would be cool.”

* * *

Cali picked Elsa up from the church where she stayed, bunkhouse style, in the fellowship hall. Elsa’d never ridden on the back of a motorcycle before, and the rutted roads of New Orleans made it difficult. She clung to Cali, her arms wrapped around the girl’s slim middle and her head pressed up against her back. Elsa inhaled and smelled lavender and the salty tang of sweat at the nape of Cali’s neck. Cali turned her head slightly.

“You okay back there?” she said over the sound of wind and engine.

“Yes,” Elsa called back.

“Because you’re hanging on kind of tight.”

“Sorry.” Elsa let her grip relax a little and leaned against the plastic top case that served as her backrest. They arrived at a bar in a neighborhood close to the French Quarter. Cali’d arranged for some more friends to meet her, and they settled down on a few old couches and chatted and drank. The night seemed to slip away. Two a.m. came and went, and people still filled the bar. Music played, and people shot pool.

Cali sat, sipping her beer, with her arm across the back of the sofa. Elsa perched within the reach of that arm, but the women didn’t touch. The proximity began to make Elsa squirm. She watched Cali out of the corner of her eye, particularly the way her lips formed the words she spoke.

“I’ll be right back,” Elsa said. She stood. Off a small room in the rear she found the restrooms. She entered, locked the door behind her, and stared into the mirror. She splashed some water on her face.

Elsa liked Cali. She’d even gleaned from the evening’s conversation where Cali’s inclinations lay. But still...

Elsa thought of Little Rock and her experience there. It’d be too painful to relive that again, while the wound still festered. I need more time. She resolved to ignore the attraction she felt for Cali. She came to do God’s work. God’s work. Humph. She wanted to do Cali.

Elsa couldn’t deny, now, that she felt horny, and she wondered what it would be like to rope Cali’s long dreadlocks around her hands, to hold her in place against her clit and let the woman go to town.

Stop it! Elsa shook her head. Besides, the girl was clearly exotic and would be less than interested in a broken-hearted, small-town girl. She looked down at her clothes. Wal-Mart jeans, a T-shirt, Payless Ed Hardy knock-off sneakers. Her sneakers were the most interesting thing about her. Hardly inspired. Elsa thought for a moment about staying in the bathroom, partly out of shame for her lack of personality and partly to remove the temptation of jumping on Cali. Elsa steeled her resolve.

As she exited, she saw Cali getting cigarettes out of the machine in the alcove. Her back was toward Elsa as she leaned over and pulled the lever. She bent even farther over, to grab the cigarettes out of the shoot, and her shirt road up, revealing the smooth skin of her lower back. A tattoo of owl’s eyes looked back at Elsa as she mapped the knobs of Cali’s spine with her gaze. Elsa’s resolve melted.

Cali straightened and turned, tapping a pack of Lucky Strikes against her hand.

“Hey, there you are.”

She took a step forward, and Elsa took a step back. She ran into the solidness of the bathroom door behind her.

“What’s up?” Cali took another step, but Elsa had nowhere to go.

“I...uh.” She took a deep breath. “I’m supposed to be here to get my mind off a bad break-up.”

Cali stripped the cellophane off her pack of cigarettes. “You don’t see a summer romance as part of your rehabilitation?”

“Do you?” Elsa looked at her feet.

Cali took a cigarette out of the pack and placed it between her lips. She stowed the pack in the front pocket of her shirt, found some matches in her pants’ pocket, and lit the cigarette. “You know, it wouldn’t be bad.” She reached her right hand out and stroked Elsa’s cheek. “You seem like a nice girl, and if we did anything, we both know it has to end when you head home anyway. Why not just take it as it is?”

Cali took another drag off her cigarette, and her right hand drifted down to caress the side of Elsa’s breast. Even from that slight touch, Elsa could feel her nipple tightening beneath the fabric of her T-shirt. I can’t stop myself, she thought.

She took a step forward, moving through the cloud of Cali’s smoke, and kissed her. Cali retreated a few steps back, and Elsa felt her stop as she ran against the cigarette machine.

Elsa pressed herself into the other woman. Cali kissed back, one hand holding her cigarette out of the way, the other finding its way to skim over the fabric covering Elsa’s ass. She grabbed hold and pulled Elsa into her. Their tongues dance against each other. Elsa tasted red wine and cigarettes. She could feel the pressure of Cali’s thigh against her sex. She nearly came.

“Can I get some cigarettes?”

Elsa broke the kiss and threw herself away from Cali. She glanced at the newcomer -- some guy holding a Budweiser -- then looked at Cali. Cali wiped the back of her hand across her face and smiled.

“I’m gonna... I’m gonna get a taxi.” Elsa pushed past Cali and ran for the front door.

Outside, Elsa paced. She’d never gotten caught like that before. Someone was sure to come out and start screaming at her about how it was unnatural. What if her church group found out?

Elsa laughed at her own paranoia and sat down on the curb. This was a city, after all, not some Podunk town where everybody knew her. Elsa turned at the sound of the bar door slamming and watched Cali approach.

“Why did you run out like that?” she asked.

“I don’t know.” Elsa looked at the gutter.

“Yeah you do.”

“I was afraid.” Elsa didn’t know what else to say. “How do I get back to the church?”

Cali sighed. “Let’s find a cabstand. I’m not getting back on that bike tonight.”

Cali offered her hand, and Elsa took it. Cali’s strong limbs worked to lift Elsa from the street. As Elsa gained her feet, she stumbled slightly and fell against Cali. Cali’s hands came up and clutched at Elsa to hold her steady. Elsa nearly sobbed at the clumsy embrace, wanting to feel those hands touch her without the fabric of her shirt beneath them. Elsa kept her head down, afraid of what she’d see in Cali’s blue eyes: disgust, disdain, rejection. When she did look up to offer some excuse, Cali’s face held nothing but acceptance and openness. Elsa smiled. When finally she felt steady, she pushed herself back. They walked off into the night.

“People don’t care around here, you know,” Cali told Elsa as they walked. “You can do or be anything you want.”

“That might be easy for some...” Elsa trailed off. She had no defense for her action except the years of intolerance she’d faced growing up. That town’s hate had transmuted into self-loathing.

One cab sat parked at the stand, the driver asleep behind the wheel. Cali tapped on the window, and he shook himself awake. She told him where Elsa’s church was and loaded Elsa into the back. He pulled away, and Elsa watched Cali through the back window. The woman stood under the street lamp, waving. The cab turned a corner, and she was out of view. Elsa felt lost.

* * *

Hanging drywall proved infinitely harder than nailing subfloor, because Elsa had to hold up the piece while she hammered. It didn’t help that she’d only slept four hours the previous night and had a hangover. Pastor Barb worked beside her at least, helping to hold up the large panels as Elsa pounded the nails.

“I heard you got in pretty late,” Barb said.

Elsa knew there would be consequences. “Yeah, I was out with that First Step girl.” Elsa could tell the truth, to an extent. “I was interested in the program.” They hadn’t talked at all about the rebuilding last night, only about food, music, books, and traveling.

“That’s excellent. I was hoping you’d find some direction on this trip. They do a lot of good.”

Elsa drove another nail. “It seems like a great program. I might help a bit. Answer phones or something.”

“Good idea. I’m glad you’re interested in helping”

Interested was right, only not in filing permits or nailing down shingles.

“Pastor?” One of the other church members stuck his head into the room. “We need a hand over here.”

“Can you manage this?” Barb asked Elsa. Elsa nodded, placing one of her hands on the drywall to hold the piece. Barb left, and Elsa realized maybe she couldn’t handle it. She had the choice of holding the sheetrock, or grabbing the nail she needed. She sighed and rolled her eyes. She struggled for a moment, trying to decide how to orchestrate getting the nail from the box on the floor while keeping the drywall in place.

“Need some help?” Cali.

Elsa turned. Cali wore old overalls, cut off at the elbows and knees, with stenciled octopuses down the thighs and across the chest. Her heavy boots clumped across the plywood floor toward Elsa.

“You hold it,” Cali told her, “and I’ll nail.”

They worked in silence for sometime.

“Listen,” Elsa began. “I was wondering if maybe you needed help over at First Step. I suck at this construction work.”

“It’ll come to you.” Cali took the hammer from Elsa and nailed an entire row in the same time it took Elsa to do one nail. “But, yeah, I could use a hand around the office. I’m the only full-time employee; others work when they have the time.” She explained to Elsa how to get to the warehouse.

Elsa thought, just maybe, that spending the time in the office with Cali would be enough of a fix, that maybe they could just be social.

“This one’s going to be hard to nail. Here.” Cali lifted a sheet of drywall, positioned it into place, and held it. “You’re going to have to --”

Elsa had to press up against Cali’s back as she hammered, holding the hammer high up over her head and standing on her tiptoes. Her breasts brushed against Cali. She finally got two nails in, enough to keep it up so Cali could let go. She turned and faced Elsa.

“You’re getting better already,” she whispered then leaned forward. Her lips connected with Elsa’s, and Elsa melted into the kiss, breast crushed to breast as she pressed Cali into the corner of the room. In the back of Elsa’s head, something screamed at her, telling her to stop. Right-wingers with low levels of tolerance surrounded her. What if one walked in? They would send her on the next bus back to her mother, utterly shamed. Her mother would be run out of the church, and she would blame Elsa.

“Change your mind about that summer fling?” Cali breathed against her.

Elsa nodded and couldn’t stop. Cali’s hands played across her back, and Elsa wanted to unzip the front of Cali’s overalls and see what she had on underneath. Hopefully nothing. Elsa dropped the hammer, and it clunked on the wood floor. She hoped it didn’t draw attention. She dared just a little, holding the tab of the overall’s zipper and pulling the slider to just below Cali’s breasts. She clumsily thrust in a hand and felt, not bare skin, but a thin wife-beater, worn through with holes. Elsa wormed her finger through one of the holes and brushed a nipple. It tightened at her touch, and Cali sighed against her. Her hand slipped under the waistband of Elsa’s shorts and underwear, caressing the skin of her behind.

Cali’s tongue licked against Elsa’s lips, and Elsa welcomed it in. She sucked at it, nipped at it, tried to make it her own. Elsa felt her knees start to wobble, as if her body gave up to her fantasy, overriding her brain.

“Quitting time!” a shout came from elsewhere in the house, but it was enough to pull Elsa back into the present. She pushed herself away from Cali, her hand coming out from the overalls last, lingering a few moments over the woman’s warm breast. She stared into Cali’s eyes. She didn’t know what to say, so she turned and left.

* * *

Elsa didn’t work at the house the next day, or the day after. She told Pastor Barb that she needed some time to herself, to think, to pray, to journal… Really, she wanted to think about Cali, lay around the hall all day where she stayed and imagine the girl in her bunk with her.

Elsa even had to lock herself in the bathroom on several occasions to get herself off the tension was so bad.

The volunteers, oddly efficient in their eagerness, had nearly completed the rough-in work, and more experienced volunteers and contractors would come to finish. That meant Pastor Barb’s small force would move on to another house.

Elsa decided on the third day to track Cali down at the warehouse. She didn’t know what had happened after the kiss, but she was sure it was somehow her fault, and her lust for Cali hadn’t diminished in the time she’d stayed away from the other woman. She felt like she wanted to apologize, and then do other things. Elsa bought a used bicycle and rode to the warehouse. By the time she got there, sweat trickled down her back, and her legs were sore. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d ridden a bike so far.

She pushed the bike into the warehouse through its delivery bay. Building supplies filled the warehouse. Elsa heard the cooing of roosting pigeons, but found no people. She wandered through the stacks of lumber and tarpaper. Finally, at the very back of the warehouse, she found Cali’s office.

Elsa knocked on the door and poked her head in. Cali sat behind a desk, on the phone. When she saw Elsa, she raised a hand, indicating that she should remain quiet, then finished her conversation. When she hung up, she smiled.

“I just got us a grant for $100,000. That’s almost enough for two new houses.”

“Congrats,” Elsa said, stepping into the office. She looked around. There was an old couch across one wall, a few filing cabinets, and Cali’s desk. “I thought I might help out if you have something for me.”

Cali looked at her thoughtfully. “What do you want to do?”

A loaded question. She figured Cali knew exactly what she wanted to do.

“Nobody from your church is here, Elsa. Nobody’s coming in today.” Cali stood and walked toward her. She closed the office door and turned back to Elsa. Elsa took a deep breath. “So, what do you want?”

“Take your clothes off,” Elsa stated.

“That’s my girl. I felt like celebrating anyway.”

Cali walked toward the couch, dropping clothes as she did: her studded belt, her T-shirt, the same cut-off’s she’d worn the day the two met, her undershirt, her panties, but she left her boots on. Elsa almost groaned at the sight; then she followed suit, stripping as she crossed the room. In the small air-conditioned office, the sweat on Elsa’s body evaporated quickly. Cali sat with her legs spread; Elsa kneeled before her. Tattoos covered Cali’s stomach, twining down across the tops of her thighs and even beneath the trimmed hair covering her sex. Elsa leaned forward and inhaled. Cali was sweet, that hint of lavender rising up in subtle waves. Cali lifted her legs and crossed them against Elsa’s back. Elsa felt the edges of the Cali’s boots’ soles digging into her skin.

“Are you going to stare at it all day?” Cali demanded. Elsa smiled and lowered her head to taste. She snaked her tongue out, lapping Cali’s cunt, teasing around her pussy lips. Thenher fingers parted the lips and probed farther in. With her other hand, she reached up and pinched Cali’s nipple, already hard in the cool of the room. Cali’s hands found their way into Elsa’s hair and grabbed tight to her pigtails. The action reminded Elsa of her own desire to grab Cali’s dreads tight in her fists. She flicked her tongue faster, feeling the nub of Cali’s clit harden.

“That’s perfect.” Cali sighed.

Elsa’s fingers dipped into Cali’s pussy then pulled back again. She swirled Cali’s juices around her cunt and traced a wet trail to her ass. She hesitated only a moment before pushing past the star of muscle. Cali gasped; Elsa pinched her nipple harder and stabbed her tongue into Cali’s cunt. Between finger and tongue, Elsa had Cali squirming on the couch, her breathing ragged. Elsa felt Cali tense beneath her, her cunt pulling at her tongue, her ass contracting around Elsa’s finger.

Cali shouted, and Elsa knew she had made the other woman come. She withdrew her finger and sucked a last taste of Cali from her cunt. Cali’s booted feet dropped to the concrete floor.

Elsa sat upright and smiled. Cali seemed drugged, a dazed look on her face. Elsa stood then sat down on the couch. She pulled Cali into an embrace. Cali rested her head against Elsa’s shoulder, her long dreads spilling over Elsa’s chest and stomach.

Their companionship seemed to blossom in the still room.

Cali raised her head and kissed Elsa. The pressure of it pushed Elsa down to the couch. Cali stretched out against her, deepening the kiss, rubbing her thigh between Elsa’s legs. The pressure drove Elsa crazy. Cali moved down then, trailing her lips to Elsa’s breasts. She nipped and laved her tongue around one nipple. With one hand, she tweaked and pinched the second nipple, while the other hand traveled down the smooth plane of Elsa’s stomach to the patch of curly hair marking her pussy’s entrance.

Cali slid a finger into Elsa’s wet cunt. Another quickly followed. She let them sit there a moment while she licked at Elsa’s breasts: first one, then the other. Elsa squirmed and raised her chest off the sofa, trying to offer more of herself up to Cali. Cali sucked and swirled her tongue. She stroked her fingers inside Elsa. Elsa’s hips lifted in sink with the fingers, and Cali moved her head up to kiss Elsa. As the two women’s tongues met, Cali increased the speed of her fingers. Teeth locked to lip, and breast pressed to breast.

Cali’s fingers pounded away at Elsa’s cunt, and Elsa panted beneath Cali’s mouth.

“Come for me,” Cali whispered, her breath a gentle wash against Elsa’s cheek. Elsa obeyed, incapable of argument. Orgasm racked her body, causing her to shiver then tense. Her pelvis lifted off the couch, carrying Cali’s light form with it. Cali laughed.

Elsa finally relaxed, Cali’s form still pressed full-length against her. She wrapped her arms around Cali and held her close. Elsa felt fee and open. The hate for herself, the fear she’d had, no longer caged her. Cali accepted her and healed her.

Even if this was only a summer romance, she was not going to let Cali go. She’d learned her lesson. Elsa wouldn’t be afraid.