Stella

Donald Pleasant had never had any doubts about Stella. To him, she was the most beautiful, sexiest woman alive. They'd been dating for three years when they'd gone to Glitz Gurlz Bar and Grille, a lesbian lounge that Stella, more out of curiosity than for any other motive, had long wanted o visit. Donald and Stella had been intimate so many times in those three years that each knew every inch of the other's body--all the hot spots, all the erogenous zones. They played each other as a musician plays an instrument, helping one another reach the pinnacle of ecstasy each and every time they made love, which, if anything, had become more, not less frequent, over the years. Despite their intimate knowledge of one another, they were as much in love as ever; in their case, familiarity most definitely had not bred contempt.

Had the drunken patron in Glitz Gurlz Bar and Grille known the high esteem in which the devoted couple held one another, she might never have done what she did. Of course, had she been sober, she might not have done so, either. Some people just can't hold their liquor and, drunk, they might take it upon themselves to do anything, regardless of how cruel, crude, or crass.

This woman called herself La-la-la-Lola, or just Lola for short, and, as a lesbian, she fancied herself a connoisseur of feminine pulchritude. She had quite a discriminating eye (she thought) for the ladies, her own so-so looks notwithstanding, and, naturally, she was interested in Stella from the moment that she walked into the dingy dive. The attentiveness with which she regarded Stella reminded Donald of the manner in which the Hungarian voice coach had regarded Eliza Doolittle at the embassy ball she'd attended in the company of Professor Higgins and Colonel Pickering. Lola seemed as intent upon exposing Stella, so to speak, as some kind of fraud as the Hungarian had been intent upon exposing Eliza, the presumed duchess, as a charlatan.

Lola watched Stella's every move, taking careful note of how she rotated her wrists, how she drank, how she pursed her lips, how she winked or rolled her eyes, how she powdered her nose or cheek, how she crossed and uncrossed her legs, how she crossed or uncrossed her arms, how she inspected her fingernails, how she breathed.