by Anna Burke
Another song faded in, and then another, before Lillian turned around again. They didn’t look at each other; Ivy was intensely aware of the fragility of this moment, though there was nothing fragile about Lillian. She felt impossibly solid beneath her palms as she ran them up Lillian’s back and over her shoulders, then into her hair, bringing their foreheads together. Lillian slid her thigh between Ivy’s and pulled her closer.
Ivy couldn’t help the whimper that escaped her lips as Lillian’s leg pressed into her. The world vanished behind the backs of her eyes. She kept them shut, feeling Lillian’s hands on her own hips and her own waist, thumbs pressing into the line just inside her pelvis. Her hands were now buried in Lillian’s hair for support, and she had the sense that if she let go, she might slide bonelessly to the floor. She wanted Lillian’s touch everywhere—her ass, her back, her breasts and her legs, and she wanted to rub herself shamelessly against Lillian in this crowded room, heedless of the proximity of their colleagues or the fact that this was the woman she’d once vowed to push in front of the nearest bus. That level of abandon, however, was a line she wouldn’t cross even in her current state. She danced with Lillian like an adult who, if she lacked self-respect, at least had morals.
Then Lillian kissed her.
She didn’t see it coming—courtesy of her shut eyes—and so she had no time to stifle the sobbing sound that mewled up in her throat as her lips parted to accept anything and everything Lillian Lee was ready to give. Lillian’s lips moved over hers, taking their time. Ivy was aware she had pressed herself as close to Lillian as it was possible for her to get while remaining vertical, and that Lillian’s hands on her ribs were doing more of the work of keeping her upright than her own legs. She didn’t care. Lillian took Ivy’s lower lip in her teeth and drew slowly away, stealing Ivy’s breath as she went.
She opened her eyes to find Lillian looking at her. Color stained her cheeks, and her lips were still parted from their kiss, but there was flint in her gaze. Ivy longed to strike herself against it.
“Lil?”
“I’m just fucking with you, Ivy,” she said as she pulled away. “Why, did you like it?”
Lillian gave her a sharp-edged smile over her shoulder as she cut through the crowd and out of sight.
• • •
Lillian searched for her friends in the crowd, avoiding elbows and heels as best she could with her vision blurred. It wasn’t the alcohol. She felt as if the past had superimposed itself on the present. Everywhere she looked, she saw two scenes: the club and a smaller party years ago in a friend’s Ithaca apartment. It had been cold then, too—December in Upstate New York, right after finals. Everything had smelled like cheap booze and stress sweat as the veterinary students mingled and yelled to be heard over the bass beat. They’d each convinced themselves they’d failed their exams and would soon be the latest to drop out, ground to dust beneath the med school machine. Her friends had danced as they shouted at each other in the endless reiteration of the same exam questions. She couldn’t take it. She downed her drink, unsure of what number it was, and moved away to find a drink and someone to talk to who wouldn’t make her relive the horror of the afternoon’s last test.
Ivy stood with her group of friends between Lillian and the drinks. Her scant top showed the smooth muscles of her shoulders, and her hair fell in blond ripples down her back. Light glinted off the golden strands. Somehow this seemed important. She stared at Ivy’s hair until the other woman turned around with a frown.
“What, Lee?” Ivy crossed her arms and gave Lillian her best “why is the carpet speaking?” look.
“Nothing.” She turned to go.
“No really, what? Bad exam?”
“Fuck you, Holden.”
Ivy’s eyes had a glaze to them that might have warned her if she had not been hammered.
“Try me, Lee,” she’d said, though her gaze was unnaturally glued to Lillian’s lips.
Morgan, ever her protector, swooped in at that moment and put a hand on Lillian’s shoulder.
“She’s good, Donovan,” Ivy said, sounding irritated. “We’re just dancing.”
And they were—though more to the rhythm of their argument than the music.
“I’m good,” Lillian told Morgan. Morgan shook her head and sauntered back to her other friends.
They shot exam questions at each other as the songs changed. Forgetting that this was exactly what she’d been trying to get away from, she warmed to her subject. Physiology was her weak point, but as Ivy fired answers back, some of the nausea receded. Ivy had chosen the same answers. Odds of them both being wrong were low.
“What about that cat question?” she asked at last. She didn’t need to clarify. It was the question that had everyone sweating. Instead of answering, however, Ivy spun until her body was flush with Lillian’s. They’d moved to a corner of the room away from their respective friends, and she placed her hands on Ivy’s hips instinctively as she moved with her.
She’d danced with plenty of girls before. None of them had felt like this in her arms. Ivy leaned back into her and let Lillian take her weight. Exam questions fled her mind. Everything fled her mind. All that remained was the floral scent of her perfume.
Ivy turned around, flushed and wide-eyed, and something in Lillian snapped. She didn’t protest when Ivy grabbed her hand and pulled her into the next room. The door shut. Music pounded through the walls.
“What—” she said before Ivy kissed her. She tasted like sweet wine and cloves, and her hair was honeyed silk in her hands. When they resurfaced, both rumple-haired and breathless, their lips bruised and puffy and Ivy’s eyes more open and vulnerable than anything she’d ever shown Lillian before, she felt like molten glass.
“Ivy?”
“Come over to my place? Please?”
It was the please that had done her in, she reflected as the club came back into focus around her. She’d sounded so genuine. So real. A lie, of course. After a night she still dreamt of with alarming regularity, made all the worse by the longing that shadowed her for days after, Ivy had made her true feelings plain.
Nothing they’d whispered to each other beneath the moon had mattered. When the sun had risen, the Ivy Lillian knew returned.
“Get the fuck out of my house, Lee.”
She’d been used.
“Who was the sexy blonde?” Stormy asked when Lillian found her friends again.
“Didn’t get her name.” If her friends hadn’t noticed she’d been dancing with Ivy, she wasn’t going to tell them. Morgan, at least, had definitely been distracted—the way she looked at Emilia would have been nauseating on someone Lillian didn’t love. Stevie was too short to see over the crowd, so unless she’d gone to the bar or the bathroom, Lillian thought she was safe there, too. That left Angie and Stormy. Angie pouted, suggesting another get out of jail free card had found its mark. Stormy, however, was studying her out of narrowed eyes.
Shit.
“Lillian had a sexy blonde?” Stevie asked. Morgan and Emilia broke apart to stare at her, and she prayed the music would swell into a sudden and earsplitting crescendo. It didn’t.
“Yeah she did,” said Stormy.
“Where did she go?” Stevie craned her head to see over the crowd, which was a futile pursuit. Lillian scanned the way she’d come but saw no sign of Ivy. Disappointment and relief mixed with the cocktail in her stomach.
“Did you get her number?” Angie asked.
“Nope.”
“Why not?”
“She wasn’t my type.”
“She sure looked like your type,” said Stormy. “Ever heard of leaving room for Jesus?”
“You’re Jewish.”
“You’re bad.”
“What I am is tired. Any chance you want to head out soon?”
“Sure.” Stevie rolled her shoulders. “My ass is sore.”
“In a minute. Lil, grab a breath of fresh air with me?” said Stormy.
Lillian followed S
tormy outside on wobbly legs. Squats had not prepared her for dancing like that. Nothing could have prepared her for dancing like that—not with Ivy. Her victory didn’t change the fact that the places Ivy had touched her still tingled, or that her hands had memorized the way Ivy’s ass had felt in that dress. When did I touch her ass? And Ivy’s mouth on her neck—she breathed in the cold night air, choking on the cloud of cigarette smoke from the smokers clustered outside the door, and tried to clear her mind while Stormy bummed a cigarette off a grungy hipster with an easy smile.
“You shouldn’t smoke,” she said.
“You know I don’t. But it’s cold as fuck out here. Want to tell me why you were making out with Poison Ivy?”
“Not particularly.”
“I thought you said you hated her.”
“I do.”
“That’s not what it looked like.”
“I can hate her and still . . .” she trailed off.
“Want to jump her bones?”
“Crude, but yes.” She sagged against the wall. “I told you things were complicated.”
Tonight proved that unequivocally. Walking away from Ivy was much, much harder than she cared to admit to herself. The tether between them tightened with each step.
“That’s what she said, too.”
Lillian froze. “What do you mean?”
“She came into the brewery yesterday and I asked her what her deal was.”
“What? Why?”
“You’re my friend. I was curious.”
“You’re nosy.”
“I was right,” said Stormy.
“About what?”
“She’s into you.”
“Ivy Holden is not into me.” Even she could hear the bitterness in her words.
“Your hickey says otherwise.”
“I do not have a hickey. I’m a doctor, not a sixteen-year-old.”
“Tell that to your mirror.”
Lillian felt the spot on her neck where Ivy’s lips had been and frowned. Then, as she stared at her friend, her frown deepened. “Did you tell her to come out tonight?”
Stormy took a drag of her cigarette and exhaled away from Lillian before answering. “Yes.”
“What the hell?”
“You can’t honestly be mad at me. I saw you. You had a good time.”
Lillian found herself speechless with rage for the second time that night.
“Oh. Shit,” said Stormy. “You are mad.”
“Yes.”
“Lil—”
Lillian left her to finish her cancer stick and shoved her way back inside, where, with one look at her face, the rest of her friends wordlessly made for the coat check. Ivy was nowhere to be seen.
Victory.
As they drove, she leaned her head against the windowpane and let the cold glass leech the flush from her cheeks. She’d won, yes—but at Ivy’s game.
Chapter Five
Sunday dawned with a full body ache that started in each of her pressure points and worked its way outward. Darwin burrowed deeper into the crook of her neck and grumbled in his sleep, not keen on rising early unless pitched out of bed, and she breathed in the sweet smell of sleeping dog. He always smelled a little bit like maple syrup.
A gray morning sent shreds of mist rising off the river, and the clouds looked like they were thinking about snow, if not in the immediate future, then as a worthy possibility for tomorrow or the next day. Black branches swayed slowly against the gray-white of the sky.
Lillian. She touched her burning fingers to her lips and then traced the nerve pain along her jaw and down her numb neck, the pain forgotten as she remembered what it had felt like to kiss and be kissed by Lillian Lee.
“I’m just fucking with you, Ivy.”
She’d earned that a hundred times over. And yet, there was only so much a person could fake, and Lillian’s pulse had beat just as quickly as her own. That hadn’t all been anger, had it?
Would it matter?
I am not hate fucking my coworker, she told herself as the idea spread like warm honey through her limbs. Not today, anyway. Today she needed to focus on reclaiming her nerve endings for less thrilling pursuits than their current pastime, which combined electric shock therapy with freezing numbness. No one had told her numbness could hurt. It seemed obscenely unfair.
“Why, did you like it?”
She had. Too much.
And yet, she didn’t think working with Lillian after this would be a problem. In so many ways, it would be easier than the way things had been going. They were even now, and it wasn’t like things between them could have gotten any worse. If anything, they’d just leveled up their game, and she’d always been good at playing with high stakes. The only part about last night she regretted was seeing Lillian dancing with another person. The molten jealousy that had poured down her throat rose again as she recalled the proprietary way that woman had looked at Lillian.
Lillian was hers, whether to torment or to touch, and the depth of that jealousy unnerved her.
Unnerved. She wished she could unnerve herself. Literally. She fumbled for the gabapentin she kept by her bed and popped an extra two before flopping back down, exhausted by the effort. Her doctor had warned her that moving would likely trigger a flare-up, but that with luck it would die down like the others after a few weeks or months. In the meantime, she would lie here until the drugs took the edge off, force herself to eat and drink something, and then slather her body in whatever cream did the trick today. Sometimes the medicated nerve cream worked, while other times over the counter IcyHot at least changed the sensation from biting ants beneath her skin to the tingling the menthol promised on the label.
She groaned as her phone rang.
“Hello?” she said, recognizing the number of the barn manager where she stabled her horse.
“Hi, Ivy? It’s Kelly. I just wanted to let you know I pulled Freddie from pasture this morning. He got kicked real bad by Moose, and he’s favoring the left hind.”
“Swelling?”
“Some. Mostly above the stifle.”
“Keep him on stall rest. I’ll be in soon.”
She hung up and breathed slowly out through her nose, then pushed the covers back and propelled herself out of bed.
The full-length mirror in her bathroom greeted her. She glared at her body. Toned muscle and smooth, pale skin covered the screaming nerves beneath, hiding the illness that was stealing her life. People lived with MS for years and years before it became debilitating, she knew, but the thought of those years—waiting for the damage to worsen, knowing there was no reversing it—left a coppery taste of fear in her mouth. She wrapped her arms around herself and stared at her eyes in the mirror. She was alone in this, and she always would be, trapped in this body until it failed completely. All the money in the world couldn’t buy her way out.
The barn was quiet when she pulled up. A few cars sat in the lot, but the barn aisle was empty when she walked in. Horse heads popped out over several stalls, including Freddie’s black nose.
“Hey, baby,” she said to him as he thrust his muzzle into her chest. She eased into his stall and brushed some shavings out of his mane. His hide was nicked with bites, and the kick on his hind had left a half moon cut with significant swelling. He let her probe it with the patience of years.
“How’s he looking?” asked Kelly from over the stall door. Kelly was a broad woman with thick dirty-blond hair she kept in a perpetually messy bun. She was also the reason Ivy had chosen this stable; Kelly radiated confidence and horsewomanship, and Freddie loved her.
“Have you tried putting him out by himself?”
“That’s next. I thought Moose would go easy on him, but . . .” Kelly trailed off as she stroked Freddie’s head. “I don’t know what’s going on with the herd. I’ll change up the pasture rotations, though.”
“Thanks.” Ivy rested her cheek against Freddie’s neck. “How’s your baby?”
“Psychotic.” Kelly was training
a green colt with more speed than sense, and Ivy enjoyed watching her work when she happened to be in the barn. “He’s going to break a leg.”
“Freddie was like that once.” She stroked his bay coat, feeling the velvet of his winter fuzz against her burning hands. Animals helped more than any medication. “Now he’s a perfect gentleman, aren’t you?”
“I just wish the rest of the herd would agree. Our turnout is limited, and he looks so sad out there by himself.” Kelly paused. “I looked you up the other day. You were brilliant in the USEA intercollegiate series.”
Pride for her horse swelled inside her. “All Freddie.”
“Whatever you say. Do you still compete?”
“I don’t have much time.” Freddie arched his neck around to lip at her belt. She pushed him gently away. “And I don’t want to ruin him over fences at his age.”
“Dressage circuits,” said Kelly. “He’d be stunning.”
“He is.”
Kelly nodded and gave Freddie a parting pat. Ivy leaned her head against his flank and let the brain fog descend again as Kelly’s boots sounded on the padded concrete, growing more distant with each exhale.
• • •
Lillian listened to the sound of the greenhouse fountain trickling over the rocks she’d hand selected from the coast and wondered if she would ever feel tranquil again. Hermione lay curled in her lap. Muffin usually avoided the greenhouse in daylight, finding it too warm, but Circe munched hibiscus flowers in her sand enclosure. Their presence barely took the edge off the buzzing knife of anger and something else, something less definable, that sawed her each time she breathed. Her anger at Stormy at least made sense. But her feelings about Ivy? Those defied logic.
