Broken in Soft Places

by Fiona Zedde

  “There always seems to be when you’re around.”

  “Ha!” She ordered a Dewar’s on ice and, after Sara indicated she wanted nothing, sent the waiter on his way.

  Rille cleared her throat and clasped her thin hands. “You know, I think I owe you some truth.”

  “Oh, you’ve been lying to me already?” The acid in Sara’s tone splashed up between them.

  “Ouch.” Rille toyed with a loosened curl at the back of her neck. “The person I was in college may very well deserve that, but the one sitting in front of you doesn’t. I’m not the same.”

  “Why should I believe that?” Why should I believe anything you say?

  Rille must have seen beyond the disbelief in her face to the nearly decade old feelings of resentment for past actions.

  “Sara, that day you told me that I might be sick, I lost my mind. Even after I spoke with that RA and he tried to get me to calm down and take things logically. I’d seen the truth of it in your face. And I couldn’t look at you anymore.”

  Sara glanced over at the bar to her father. He laughed at something the thick-middled man behind the bar said and took a sip of his drink. Her eyes moved back to Rille.

  “Jason, the RA, went to the doctor with me a few days later to take the test,” Rille continued. “When the results came back, I had another breakdown. They confirmed the worst, and all I wanted to do was curl up and die. But I didn’t. I managed to finish the semester, finish my thesis, and because I didn’t know what to expect, I gave up my place at MIT and enrolled in a program here in Atlanta.” Rille paused when the waiter reappeared with her drink. She put her mouth to the glass. “As you can expect, my parents were surprised, but glad, I think, to have me home. I found a regular doctor near the school and lived with Mummy and Daddy while I finished my degree.”

  “Did they help you deal with your illness?” Sara knew that both Rille’s parents were doctors and might have access to more advanced information or medicine than was available to the general public.

  “I never told them. They don’t know.” Rille shrugged. “Anyway, as the years passed, I figured I wasn’t going to die, so I just made adjustments. And here I am.” She toyed with the rim of her glass, circling it with the tips of her fingers.

  Watching her, Sara remembered what those fingers could do. She took a long sip of her water.

  “I still don’t understand how you can live in the same city as your parents, move in the same circles—I assume—and they haven’t noticed anything different about you or your habits.”

  “They don’t pay that close attention to me,” Rille said. “Unless my doctor came out point-blank and told them, there would be nothing for them to notice. They’re not the most attentive people.”

  Sara clamped down on the impulse to pity her, and instead made a noncommittal motion. Rille appeared to have survived it all intact and was even more herself than ever.

  “Not to sound unsympathetic or anything, but why are you telling me this?”

  “Because I think you deserve my honesty. Over the last few days, I’ve had the chance to think a lot about the past. Even with what I’m going through now with this tainted blood, my lies are what I regret the most.”

  “You’re just trying to tell me whatever I want to hear to get in my pants.”

  Rille dipped her head low to peek at Sara through a fan of lashes. She smiled. “Is it working?”

  It was. Too late, she realized she had been leaning toward Rille, her body a pliant and attentive slope.

  “Daddy’s been gone a long time,” she said, feeling her face grow hot with guilt. She’d been more interested in the words in Rille’s mouth than what her father was up to. That guilt brought her to her feet and to the bar where her father still sat.

  “Hey, Daddy. Why so far away?”

  “I wanted to get myself a real drink.” He glanced over his shoulder to the table with Rille’s solitary figure. “Besides, I thought you ladies needed some time to talk.” He put a finger under her chin and lifted it, forcing her gaze to meet his just like he used to when she was a child. “You know, the music sounds just as good from here as it did from the table.”

  She batted his hand away, grinning.

  “I hope we didn’t drive you away, Neville.” Rille came up behind them, her hand warm on Sara’s shoulder. “These days it’s hard to get me to shut up, especially when I’m with your beautiful daughter.”

  Sara twitched under Rille’s palm.

  “Trust me, I understand. I was infatuated once.” He laughed, tickled at his own joke.

  A loud crash jerked Sara’s attention from her father.

  “Slippery bottle.” Behind the bar, the bartender shrugged in feigned nonchalance before glancing around to see who else had noticed his accident. He knelt to sweep up the glass fragments at his feet.

  “And I think that’s a sign for us to return to the table. The unexpected arrival of such beautiful company is making my new friend nervous.” Her father dropped a ten-dollar bill on the bar and nodded at the bartender before standing up. “Shall we?”

  They moved back to the table where they shared dessert—bread pudding made with croissants infused with bands of dark chocolate and pistachios—and a bottle of port. With the music from the quartet falling as background to their conversation, Rille and Sara’s father charmed each other, exchanging compliments and laughter while Sara half participated, watching Rille’s ease with her father and feeling bewildered by the turn of events. But she should have remembered that Rille could be very charismatic when she wanted to be. And tonight, she apparently wanted just that.

  The sweet wine that spilled over her tongue helped Rille to enchant her senses. Sara relaxed into the evening, allowing herself to be charmed too. She didn’t shrug Rille’s surreptitious hand from her thigh. Instead, she stayed laughing at the table until the waiters glanced meaningfully around the otherwise empty restaurant where even the band stood packing up their equipment and a tall boy with a mop lurked, waiting to clean the floors.

  In the underground parking deck, Sara’s father and Rille exchanged a warm good-bye hug.

  “I like this woman,” he said, eyes dancing between Rille and Sara. “Hopefully, when I come back to Atlanta I’ll see you two together again.”

  “I’m sure we can get together for dinner again or something like that.”

  “Or something,” Rille said, conspiracy plain in the smile she gave Sara’s father. “Enjoy the rest of your visit, Neville. It was truly a pleasure to meet you.” She squeezed his arm then kissed Sara briefly on the cheek before getting into her car.

  Sara didn’t watch her drive away. Only opened the door for her father before getting behind the wheel. Thankfully, her buzz from the wine had worn off and she could navigate the well-lit streets without worrying about attracting police attention.

  “She’s a really nice girl.” Her father leaned back against the seat watching the city lights pass by the car window.

  “Rille can be.”

  “And you like her.”

  “I’m trying not to.”

  Her father chuckled before his face settled into grave lines. “Life is too short to waste it on futile things, my Sara.”

  Life is too short.

  Sometimes it did seem that way. Things happening too soon. Friends passing in, then out of her life. Five years, then ten, gone. In the blink of an eye, twenty.

  “She’s not always a good person, Daddy. In college, that tortured me.”

  But with the flavor of their shared port still on her tongue, the music from the band still echoing in her ears, it was difficult to recall those old hurts. Oh, she remembered the infidelities and lies all too clearly. Yet the sting of them had eased. Despite everything, she wanted that old madness. The vertigo-inducing high of being with Rille. She wanted to be the center of her gaze, her touch, her smile.

  It was dangerous loving that woman. If nothing else, Sara knew that. Rille’s coldness. Her often self-serving natur
e. And that damn HIV. Since Rille came back into her life, even in the face of her earlier denial that she wanted Rille again, Sara had been doing research into the disease, called clinics to find out the likelihood of female-to-female transmission. Slight, but not impossible, they told her. Then she asked what steps she could take to lower risk. Yes, she was afraid, but she was also ready.

  “Are you trying to talk yourself out of a decision you’ve already made, my Sara?” her father asked.

  “Maybe.” A smile pricked at her lips. But she already knew.

  He laughed and squeezed her hand.

  At the condo, her father only yawned, signaling with a kiss on her cheek that it was well past his bedtime and he wanted to rest. After the lights flickered off in the spare bedroom, Sara changed her clothes, left a note in the kitchen for the next day, then got back into her car.

  The Atlanta landscape again. Distant stars glinting beyond her sunroof as she stopped at the red light. But no second thoughts.

  When she knocked at the house with the ruthlessly manicured lawn, visible even in the glow from the far-off streetlamp, Sara invited those seconds thoughts, waited for them to rush and overpower her, for them to shove her back down the cobbled path and to her car sitting ghostlike in the driveway. Those thoughts didn’t come.

  Instead, the door opened.

  Her breath rushed out. “Don’t say anything.”

  Rille’s surprised mouth fell shut, her eyes blinked once, but she obeyed Sara’s hushed command and opened the door wider. Sara came in and closed it with the weight of her body, pulling Rille forward while she fell back against the sturdy wood, hand hooked in the burnished curls at the nape of her neck. Those curls, rougher than they seemed, clung immediately to her fingers. The mouth under hers opened. And kissed back.

  All Good Things…

  Sara/Atlanta

  “I think you’re bored.” Sara put the last plate in the dishwasher and closed it. “Bored and self destructive.” She programmed the machine, stabbing at the buttons, then turned it on.

  “Self-destructive? I don’t think so.” Rille turned from the refrigerator, a sandwich in her hand. Looking at Sara, she peeled off its plastic wrap and bit into the neat stack of bread, vegetables, and meat. She crumpled the plastic in her hand.

  “Jesus.” Sara left the kitchen, shaking her head.

  It had been days, or maybe just a few hours, since Rille confessed there was a girl at the university she had a very unprofessor-like crush on. “She reminds me of myself when I was in college,” she’d said, a smirk tugging at her lips. “Fearless.”

  Fury erupted in Sara’s belly. But she held it in. Instead of letting it explode, she said, “Oh, really?” before getting up and walking out of the house. Hours passed before she was able to return home. Hours of walking around the neighborhood and along the paved paths of the university campus, her mind flooded with what had brought her to this place. On the way back home, she held on to herself, hugging her torso against the bite of spring breeze that already nipped at her bare shoulders and arms. Was this girl the reason for Rille’s moods and emotional distance? The reason that it felt Sara was getting less and less attention from Rille? It was bullshit.

  With Rille trailing behind her from the kitchen, Sara treaded heavily up the stairs and into the bedroom. Near the bed, she turned.

  “You know I don’t like anyone eating in here.”

  Rille walked in anyway, but she moved the sandwich away from her mouth, still chewing. “Is this because of what I said yesterday?”

  Was it just yesterday? “What the fuck do you think?”

  Rille’s jaw stopped moving. She gulped, swallowing the bit of sandwich as if also digesting the fact that Sara just cursed at her. Sara never cursed.

  “You’re angry with me.”

  “Do you have any idea what I’ve given up to be with you? No—” Sara abruptly shook her head. “Do you even care that I’ve given up things to be with you?”

  Rille stared at her. Speechless for the first time since Sara had known her.

  Why did I even ask? She turned, stumbled around the bedroom, unable to recall what she was doing in the bedroom in the first place. “Dammit.” She raked fingers through her hair. Pressed palms against her hot cheeks.

  Rille’s eyes darted around the room, flitting over then past Sara. She put the sandwich to her mouth and took a bite. Lettuce crunched between her teeth. Crumbs from the whole grain bread tumbled down the front of her blouse and scattered across the hardwood floor. Yesterday’s submerged rage bubbled to Sara’s surface.

  “Get the fuck out of my goddamn bedroom with that piece of shit, motherfucking sandwich!”

  Rille startled. The sandwich fell from her hand and tumbled to the floor in its separate pieces.

  “You know what?” Sara threw her hands up. “Never mind. I’ll leave. You can have all this to yourself. All your lies. All your promises. Your crumbs.”

  Sara grabbed a suitcase from the top of the closet, jerked open the drawers of her dresser, tossed in her clothes. Bits of small things—panties, bras, stockings, a purple blindfold—tumbled to the floor in the uncertain transition between the drawer and suitcase.

  “Wait! What are you doing?” Rille wrestled the suitcase away. More silken flotsam against the cherry hardwoods. She dragged it to the other side of the bed, out of Sara’s reach.

  “I’m tired,” Sara said, her voice soft. She held out her hand. “Please give me my suitcase.”

  “No. I can’t let you do this.”

  “Let?” Sara’s eyes narrowed.

  Rille immediately backpedaled. “No, what I mean to say is—”

  “I’ve let you get away with everything. You brought a man into my bed, into my life, and all I said was ‘okay.’ You wanted me to move from my condo in town to this little suburb with higher property taxes.” She ground her back teeth. “And I gave in. All that nonsense is done.” Sara felt as if her blood bubbled just under the skin, threatening to incinerate her. “Right now the only thing that I’ll allow you to do is let me go.”

  “Sara.” Rille dragged the suitcase even farther away, her voice a low lull. She moved toward Sara, arms held out. “Sara.” Smells from her recent meal—of mustard, cold bread, and turkey—brushed Sara’s nose. Her hands moved in languid circles on Sara’s arms. Rille hummed her name again.

  She allowed Rille to pull her close, allowed her anger to be tucked away again. Her head fell forward. “Please,” Rille said.

  The turbulent breath inside her eased. Rille pulled her closer then down onto the unmade bed that still smelled like the three of them. “Don’t be hasty. I know you’re angry.”

  Yes, Sara was angry. It felt like she had been angry for so long. Angry and impotent and dragged along on a tide not of her choosing. And now after having let go of many of her life’s possibilities—for Rille—Rille was abandoning her, giving everything Sara had sacrificed for to that girl. On the bed, she rolled onto her side, away from Rille but felt her move to follow, adjusting herself to tuck Sara into her body’s shallow cup. Beyond the bedroom window, the sky was an empty blue.

  “Don’t be angry,” Rille murmured, lips a moist apology against Sara’s neck.

  Sara flinched and turned over. But not away. Not this time. That’s what she would do if there were more time. She pressed her lips to Rille’s and Rille made a low sound in her throat, one of victory, and opened her mouth. Slid her hands down to pull Sara against her.

  Their lovemaking had come a long way. Before Rille had taken her virginity in college, Sara had no idea what to expect from sex. Or perhaps she expected too much—a miraculous transformation into womanhood, into realizing the sensual person she was meant to be. But now she knew sex as animal. Every beast for herself.

  Some days, it meant pleasure; wanting hunger to claw at Rille until Rille surrendered herself completely, until the words she spoke weren’t her own, until she’d do anything Sara asked. Beg. Cry. Bleed. Just for the storm of orgasm
to decimate that need and wash her clean.

  Some days, sex was surrender. To a lover’s touch. Not a particularly gentle one, but a knowing one. This surrender came from giving Rille the satisfaction of knowing that she could make Sara come as many times in one night as she had fingers.

  Today, though, sex meant good-bye.

  Under her, Rille smiled. Offering herself, ready to be pleased. Sara pushed aside Rille’s clothes, not needing the full revelation of body to appreciate the supple skin, the curve of breasts, to slip her hand between thighs that loosened around the assertive musk. She loved the way Rille groaned her name, how she bit her lip, turning her eyes away so she wouldn’t have to face the one making her lose control. Hips thrust against Sara’s hand, provoking the humid scratch of pubic hairs into her palm. Her breasts, dotted with sweat, trembled.

  Sara devoured those breasts, pressed her face into the musky sweat between them. Sighed in the smell of Rille’s desire. For her.

  “Oh! God!”

  Rille bucked against the sheets and tore her gaze wide open. She didn’t wait to recover; instead, she pounced on Sara, mouth open and ferocious. Kissing everywhere. While Sara fought for pleasure under the firm grip of Rille’s hands, water leaked from her tightly closed eyes. Rille stole her senses twice, leaving her thrashing like a hooked fish in the bed.

  Her body quieted. Her breath steadied. The minute aftershocks released their hold on her sensitized nerves. Rille watched her, a smile on her damp mouth.

  “You know,” Rille murmured, her hand stroking Sara’s bare hip. “Six years ago when we came together again, I thought I had been given another chance.” At Sara’s attentive silence, she continued. “A chance to do what, I didn’t know. But I knew I had to take it. Those first few months were so…transforming. I thought I could become someone else with you. Someone better.”

  “Then what happened?”

  “Life, I guess.”

  “Reality, you mean.” Sara blinked at the blurring image of sky and light beyond Rille’s shoulder. “The first months were incredible,” she said, refocusing on Rille. Lashes fluttered against Rille’s cheek as Sara traced a sharp cheekbone, the low dip of her nose.