by C D Cain
“I’m telling you, it’s freakin’ hot.”
I felt the blush color my cheeks.
“Aw, and you blush so adorably.”
The heat in my cheeks intensified a hundred-fold. “You know most people don’t call it out when they make someone blush. It makes it a thousand times worse.” I felt the coolness of my palms as I patted my cheeks to reduce the sting.
“At what point did you ever start to confuse me with most people?” She laughed and stepped to the side of me to walk further into the apartment.
“I’m beginning to see my error.”
“Beginning?” She reached under the counter to pull out a wine glass. “Are you sharing?”
“Oh, sorry. Yes, please have some. Jazlyn left it out.”
Mo poured herself a glass of wine, leaned against the counter, and gave me a quizzical look. She slowly sipped the wine as she watched me over the top of her glass.
Under her gaze, I felt the color return to my cheeks. I took more of a swallow than a sip of the white wine. “What brings you to Birmingham? Are you doing a…what’s the word you use? A show or a gig?”
She smiled at me as if she found every expression I gave her and everything I said to her as something amusing. “I usually say gig but don’t know that there is one term better than the other. And no. Not a planned…” She smiled. “Show.”
“Oh.”
Mo stepped closer to me. “Although, I try to always spin a few when I crash at Jazlyn’s.”
“I usually see postings when you’re coming but I didn’t see any.”
“Ah. Keeping tabs on me, are you?”
Another blush. “Ummmm…no. Nothing like that.”
She laughed and took a swallow of wine. “No, this is a stop on my way to another show. But like I said, I’ll try to spin a bit to pay for my room and board.”
“So, how will anyone know you’re here? That you’re playing?”
Mo held my eyes with hers. She didn’t release me when she spoke. It was like she was reading every single thought I had. It made me very nervous. “I sent out a text to a few regulars earlier today. They’ll get the word out.”
“Oh.”
She stepped even closer until she was nearly inches from me. Make that extremely nervous. I felt the wine glass slipping from my dampened palms but had no idea what to do with it. Mo stood so close to me that I would have had to slide my arm in between us to place the glass on the counter. I didn’t dare let our skin touch with the way she continued to hold me within her emerald stare. Instead, I placed my other hand at the base of the glass to help support the stem.
“You say that a lot.”
“What?”
“Oh.” I was drawn to watch her mouth as she let the word draw out from her lips.
I felt the desire of my eyes not to leave the beauty of them. In barely a whisper, all I could think to say was, “Oh.”
She watched my lips as I had done hers. I felt a rising heat not on my cheeks but one escalating between us as we both studied each other’s lips.
Buzz. Buzz.
Mo and I jumped.
“Are you expecting someone?”
“No.” I walked to the intercom and pressed the button. My legs were like Jell-O and took a great deal of will to get them to make it to the door without stumbling. “Hello?”
“Hey,” a man’s voice called back. “Got your delivery.”
“Oh, yeah, that’s right. Come on up.” I looked back at Mo. “Sorry, I forgot I ordered Thai food to be delivered.”
“Don’t be sorry. Unless you didn’t order enough for two. Then you can be sorry.”
I laughed. “Well, I was starving when I ordered and they give really big portions so there’s definitely plenty to share.”
The smell of curry, lemongrass, and shallots escaped into the room as I opened the stapled paper bag. They swirled around my head like an aromatic tornado.
Mo walked from the kitchen carrying two plates. “Smells fantastic. What did you order?”
“Tom yum goong and green curry chicken.”
“Nice. How about this? We eat, share another glass of wine, and then you bring that sexy new do downstairs with me while I do a set?”
I grimaced. “I don’t know about that. I’ve never been when people are there.”
“I’m sorry?” She dipped healthy portions of both dishes out onto her plate and filled both of our glasses back up with wine. “What do you mean? Jazlyn said she met you at the club.”
“Well, yes. That’s true. But I’ve never stayed late.” I took the container she was handing me. “I come early before the crowd and leave before it fills up.”
“Ah. Gotcha.” She licked the spilled sauce from her finger. “Can I ask why?”
I dipped out slightly smaller portions than Mo’s and sat across the table from her. “I live here. I work here. I’m not sure what would be said if I was seen in a lesbian bar.”
“Darling, the only way people can see you there is if they are there as well.”
“Yes, I know.” I sipped my wine. Okay, I took another swallow instead of a sip. “I heard about The Pineapple Post when I overheard a conversation between a girl in my program and her friends. She’s really out and really loud. I wouldn’t put it past her to say something in front of everyone. I don’t know it just makes me nervous.”
Mo pointed her chopsticks at me. “Now, that I get. I’ve known some lezzes like that in my day.”
I pushed a large shrimp and shallot stem around on my plate. Why did I let everyone else, especially someone like Kylie, control what I did?
“You know that’s probably why you’ve lost so much weight.”
“What is?”
“You have to actually put the food in your mouth to be considered as eating. It’s a little-known fact.”
“Oh, is it?”
“It is.”
I knew she was joking but I also knew she was right. I’d been guilty of mostly pushing my food around on the plate since coming back from Atlanta. Yet I hadn’t noticed the weight loss until the nurses began giving me a smaller size in my scrubs when I came into the OR. Then there was the hint of that damn ring fitting looser upon my finger. I hated the way it slid up and down along my skin as a constant reminder of things left undone. Grant hadn’t necessarily noticed or rather hadn’t commented on the weight loss but he had made acknowledgments to the ring easily slipping from my finger. He’d offered to have it sized. That was his comment, an offer to have the ring sized for fear of me losing it. I vehemently declined as I didn’t want its tightness to return to my finger.
“So why is that?”
I looked up from my plate to see Mo staring at me. “Why is what?”
“The food is pretty damn good so why do you sit there pushing it around your plate?”
It did smell absolutely delicious when I first caught its scent. On my plate, the scent only made a wave of uneasiness in my stomach. A wave that had been there since I watched Sam walk away. The wave which crashed through me with the knowledge she was gone from my life. No words had made her stay. No expressions of an unchanging love kept her by my side. All that stayed was a deep pit of loneliness left by her retreating form. Food smelled. Sometimes it smelled heavenly but the taste was absent on my tongue.
I felt Mo’s hand cover mine. I realized my cheeks were soiled with fresh tears.
“That’s some seriously big hurt in your eyes, Rayne. It’ll consume you if you let it stick with you.”
Consume me. Take me. Conquer me.
I let her fingers slide over the top of mine before I squeezed them to hold onto her strength. “And how do you stop it?”
“You feel it fully. Absorb every fiber of it.” She squeezed back. “Then, you let it go. Let it leave you without a mark showing it was ever there.”
&
nbsp; “You can do that?”
“Absolutely I can do it. I’ve done it. Hell, I even wrote a book about it.”
“You’ve had your heart broken?”
She released my hand and returned to her chopsticks. “We all hurt. Have been hurt. Maybe not in the same way but still with pain. It’s what you do with it that makes the difference.” She filled both of our glasses equally until the bottle was empty. “I tell you what. You quit beating that food around the plate and actually have dinner with me. Then we’ll go downstairs so you can get lost in my music. Jazlyn always leaves a small sitting stool up in the booth. She knows I never sit but it’s there anyway. I’ll position you where no one will see you. You’ll be my little secret.” She held up her glass until I raised mine. She tapped against it lightly. “Good. It’s settled. Eat.”
Mo was true to her word. We entered the deejay booth through the back of the club. She sat me on the stool in the corner. I could barely see anything as it was quite dark in the booth. The overhead lights were positioned to shine out onto the floor and not on the little corner tucked in the back. She wasn’t wrong about the crowd either. The place was packed. From where I sat, I could see the dance floor and part of the entrance to the bar area. The unrecognizable faces were a mix of women below me. There didn’t seem to be an empty spot on the floor as they huddled in together. The aura of their excitement filtered up onto the booth and caused me to anticipate Mo’s appearance as much as they seemed to.
The crowd screamed out when the lights went dark. They shouted Mo’s name. The music silenced.
Mo’s low, sultry voice sounded out over the crowd. “I’ve a vision for us tonight.” She spoke slowly, meticulously giving each word its own showcase. “Let the lights…the music…the vastness of the night’s possibilities take you away from the day.” The silent crowd in the pitch-black space held on to her words. “Trust me. Take my hand. Come with me into the night.” A rhythmic beat slowly built in the background. “I’ll not let you go.” The thumping beat was joined by a higher pitched almost siren-type sound. “It’s our night.”
A loud boom sounded as the lights blew up blazingly. The crowd screamed and there she was. Standing right next to me. She stole my breath again just as she had done earlier in Jazlyn’s apartment. When she went upstairs to change for her set, I had never imagined she would come down dressed as she was. Her body was swaying back and forth as she manipulated the board in front of her to create the sounds that had the women matching her motions below us.
Why wouldn’t I be attracted to her? She was elegant in her natural beauty. Her lean form stood a couple of inches taller than me. Up until that moment, I’d only seen her with her hair either in a ponytail or stylishly messy and hanging off of her shoulders. The most makeup I had seen her wear was light-colored lip gloss. And in all of those times, she was still quite unbelievably beautiful.
That was not the Mo who walked down the staircase to greet me with a glowing smile. This woman was perhaps the most gorgeous woman I had seen outside of a runway or movie. She wore a form-fitting black dress that stopped below her hips to show off the legs I had seen sprawled across a catamaran but never had they looked like this. Maybe it was the black high-heeled shoes. Maybe it was the way she walked with a sway to her hips. I don’t know what it was but I couldn’t take my eyes off of her. She had stopped at the stairs and gave me a look which told me my ogling had not gone unnoticed. Now those legs stood within arm’s reach of me. The effect they caused at this close distance was far more than the one they had triggered with a simple walk. Her hips and legs moved with the music. Her head bobbed in a harmonious flow with the cadence. I sat in my little black corner and soaked in every drop of her.
“Feed my craving, ladies.” Mo put her hands up over her head and counted out the beat as she pointed out into the crowd. “Let me feel you,” she sang out.
She shifted her weight and leaned over me. “Feel the music, Rayne. Let nothing else be in your mind.” She tapped my forehead lightly with her finger. “Let this go and feel the music.” She put a set of headphones over my ears. The music flowed through them uninhibited by any other sound or noise of the crowd.
Mo slowly mouthed. “Feel it.”
With nothing but the metrical tempo sounding in my ears, I could watch her with unreserved eyes. No, I could feel her. I could feel the vibrations of the music. Everything about her was sensual. Her hips bumping against the board as her fingers turned dials and slid across the turntable to spin it in her desired direction. Each movement for a purpose. Turning, spinning, dancing in the air, adjusting her headphones. All with the beat of the music in my ears. I felt sweat bead at the small of my back as I gave in to her rhythm and the precision of her fingers manipulating the board to her whim. She wasn’t touching me in any way. No skin upon my skin. Yet I felt her. Felt the warmth of her long slender arms and hands. The strength in her fingertips pressed against my body. The pressure of her hips against me. It was as real to me as the night she held me in a dance.
I caught the gleam of her eyes as she looked at me. She leaned over me and placed both hands on the sides of the stool by my legs. She pushed one side of the earphones off of my ear as her lips came to rest there. I could feel the softness of her hair across my cheek and chin. It tickled me.
“That’s it. Now you’re free.”
The moonlight bounced off of the tinted shower wall to light the bedcovers I laid beneath. Nearly two hours ago, I had said goodnight to the verdant eyes which had held me entranced in the form that was Mo. I had stared into the eyes emphasized with black eyeliner and blue eyeshadow until the moment she blinked to break our contact.
Kiss me.
The words had sung in my head as I stared at the twitch in her lips. I let my fingertips run along the edge of the coolness of my own lips. The October night’s breeze carried a chill into the apartment. My stomach rolled in a wave of mixed emotions. The chill in the air—the chill of my lips last truly kissed by Sam.
Sam.
Guilt came with the vision of her eyes of blue holding me once as Mo had held me tonight. My desires for Mo felt like a betrayal to the only form of true love I had felt for someone whose blood didn’t flow in my veins. I felt the all too knowing ache in my heart with thoughts of Sam. I still loved her and feared I always would. But she had said goodbye. She was the one who walked away and left me questioning every single thing in my life. My head pounded with the pressure of it all.
“Let all of this go.” Mo’s voice rang out over the mottled emotions that clogged my brain. I felt the gentle tap of her fingertip on my forehead as it released the pressure underneath. “That’s it. Now you’re free.”
I rolled over to bury my head into the empty pillow next to me. I breathed in the scent of clean linen. This was my weekend of escape. I’m in a distant world away from my daily struggles. This was my time.
Free to be. Free to let it go.
Different but the same.
“Get up, sleepy head. I need coffee,” Mo yelled from downstairs. “If I don’t hear movement in two seconds flat, I’m coming up there and yanking you out of bed. Your call.”
“I’m up. I’m up,” I called out in my unflattering first-morning voice.
“Then come on. Let’s go get coffee.”
I walked to the railing and leaned over to see Mo standing below dressed in black yoga pants and a long sleeve loose-fitting white T-shirt. “We’re going out for coffee?”
Her face was freshened as if she had rested much more peacefully than I had the night before. Either the pull-out sofa was more comfortable than the bed or she hadn’t been tormented by rambling thoughts. I predicted it was the latter.
“Yes, we’re going out. Get a move on.”
“Isn’t there coffee here?”
She put her hand on her side. “Why, yes, smarty pants, but the bakery down the block has blueberry scones. Unless
you can whip one of those up for me, I suggest you get your butt down here before I leave you.”
I held my hands up in submission. “Okay. Okay. I’m going.” I stepped away from the railing and got a few steps out of sight before I heard her shouting.
“Hey, you got any hiking boots or something like it?”
“I need hiking boots to go a block down the road for blueberry scones? These must be some pretty darn special scones.”
“The best.” She laughed. “You better wear pants too. Jeans if you got them. Coolish today.”
I walked down the stairs in jeans, a long-sleeve pullover, and tennis shoes. “Sorry, these will have to do.”
She smiled. “They’re perfect.”
I looked down at her feet clad in ankle-high, old-style Vans with no socks. “Okay so why is it I have to wear jeans and tennis shoes as I have no boots while you look mighty comfy in your yoga pants and Vans?”
“That’s a very good question.”
“One I suppose you aren’t going to answer.”
Her smile beamed. “Not at the moment but eventually. Let’s go.”
Mo stretched her legs out to rest her crisscrossed feet on the chair across from her. “What do you have planned today?”
“For the first time in a long time, absolutely nothing. I know you said yesterday you were stopping over on your way to a gig. When are you set to leave?”
She picked off a corner of her scone and plopped it into her mouth. “This morning.”
I felt disappointment creep in. Hadn’t I hoped my plans for the day had involved her? “Oh.”
“And again with your favorite word.”
“I’ll see if I can’t find another one between now and the next time I see you.” I took a swallow of my coffee and winced at its coolness.
“You could do that or you could just hold that thought and decide to spend your energy on something more productive.” She bit off the other corner of her scone. “Like spending the day with me.”
