All That Lies Within

by Lynn Ames

  She slid her thigh between Sharon’s legs and rocked against her damp panties.

  “If you keep that up,” Sharon said, in between licks, “I’m going to lose my place.”

  In answer, Rebecca wrapped her arms around Sharon and rolled them over. Then she got to her feet and stood alongside the bed. “I’m sure you’ll find it again, but right now I’ve got other ideas.” She slid her fingers inside Sharon’s panties, brushing her thumb lightly over Sharon’s clit. “Help me get these off?” Rebecca indicated the underwear and Sharon lifted up to facilitate their removal.

  “You too.”

  Rebecca complied, pleased at the look of admiration in Sharon’s eyes. “You like what you see?”

  “What’s not to like? You’re a knockout. Surely you know that now.”

  Rebecca smiled wryly. “It’s always nice to be reminded. Now, where was I?” She maintained her position by the side of the bed, enjoying her vantage point. She trailed her fingers from Sharon’s jaw, down along the curve of her neck to the hollow of her throat, where she leaned over and planted a soft kiss. Sharon reached for her, but Rebecca evaded her touch.

  Sharon groaned in protest.

  “You’ll get your turn. All in due time.”

  “I didn’t figure you to be sadistic.” Sharon’s eyes followed Rebecca’s every move.

  “Your idea of sadism and mine must be very different.” Rebecca resumed her exploration, allowing her fingers and tongue to roam freely over Sharon’s body, creating a trail of goose bumps in their wake. She’d never made love to anyone while standing over them. The feeling of power was exhilarating.

  “Please,” Sharon pleaded, reaching again for Rebecca. “You’re killing me.”

  “You want me to stop?” Rebecca grazed her teeth over the pulse point in Sharon’s neck.

  “God, no. I want you to take me. Now, please.”

  Sharon’s breathless plea was all the encouragement Rebecca needed. She entered Sharon with two fingers, simultaneously circling her clit with her thumb. In seconds, Sharon was rising off the bed to meet her thrusts. Sharon’s face was the picture of rapture. She came on a strangled cry, a light sheen of sweat covering her body.

  When Sharon’s breathing slowed, Rebecca gently extracted her fingers. Sharon sighed. “That was…different.” She rolled on her side to face Rebecca. “Any chance I can get my hands on you now?” Her tone was light, but Rebecca had no trouble hearing the undercurrent of desire.

  In truth, although Rebecca was incredibly turned on, she wasn’t inclined to be touched. Not by a stranger. But Sharon wasn’t really a stranger, was she? After all, they’d known each other once, many years ago, hadn’t they? Still, sex with a virtual stranger was not something Rebecca did. Sex was an act of love, not of lust. And yet, here she was, having just brought this woman to climax in a hotel room after only an hour’s worth of conversation. What was she doing?

  Sharon cleared her throat, and Rebecca snapped back into the moment. “Should I take that as a stinging rebuke?”

  “No.” Rebecca motioned for Sharon to slide over, and she sat gingerly on the side of the bed. “It isn’t you.” Rebecca ran her thumb across Sharon’s bottom lip. “Heaven knows you’re sexy, and I’m completely soaked.”

  “But?” Sharon propped herself up on an elbow.

  “But this isn’t me.” Rebecca struggled for the words; Sharon deserved her honesty. “When Cynthia cheated on me—”

  “Ouch.”

  “Exactly.” Rebecca fidgeted with the sheets. “Anyway, when she cheated on me, I think I lost my confidence. I no longer trusted my judgment and I felt so…I don’t know…unattractive. It was like being that teenager all over again.”

  “I totally get that.” Sharon’s eyes were kind. Rebecca noted that she made no move to cover herself.

  “I think maybe tonight, this,” Rebecca indicated the two of them, “was my way of reminding myself that there are women out there—remarkably attractive women—who might want me.”

  Sharon nodded sympathetically, but did not try to touch her.

  “I’m really sorry. I shouldn’t have let this go so far.” Rebecca started to get up. Sharon stopped her with a hand on her wrist.

  “Hey. It’s okay. I don’t want you to feel badly about this, Rebecca.” Sharon covered her hand with her free hand. “I’m a big girl. As I told you up front, I was just looking to mark the experience off on my bucket list. I’m not deluded enough to think this was ever going to be anything but a pleasant diversion. And it certainly was that.” Again, she eyed Rebecca appreciatively. “You are very beautiful. And that Cynthia, whoever she is, is an ass.”

  “Still, I feel like a cad.”

  “Stop it. I’m well satisfied, my body feels great, and I’ve got a wonderful memory to tuck away in my mental journal of outstandingly fun experiences. I promise you, this is one reunion I’ll remember quite fondly.”

  Rebecca rose from the bed, leaned over, and gently kissed Sharon’s lips. “You’re an amazing woman. Whoever ends up with you will be very, very lucky.”

  “I’m not planning to settle down anytime soon, but thank you for the compliment. Now you’d better get going before I forget my manners and decide to ravage you anyway.”

  Rebecca caressed Sharon’s cheek with her fingertips, and then planted a kiss there. “I’d tell you to keep in touch…”

  Sharon laughed. “I promise if I’m ever in Vermont, I’ll look you up.”

  “Good. Seems I owe you that champagne we never got around to ordering.”

  “Good point. Goodbye, Rebecca. I hope you find everything you’re looking for.”

  “You too, Sharon. You too.”

  Sharon rose and disappeared into the bathroom. Rebecca understood that this was her way of allowing Rebecca to dress and slip out without any more awkwardness. And she was grateful.

  Rebecca managed to get out of the hotel and back to where she was staying without running into anyone from the reunion. She let herself into her room, tossed her purse and the room and car keys on the dresser, and stepped out of her clothes on her way into the bathroom. She still was aroused, and the fact that her hands smelled like sex didn’t help.

  She stepped into the shower and allowed the hot water to flow over her back as she soaped herself. Her breasts were sensitive, and the slightest touch sent pinpricks of pleasure shooting directly to her center. She slipped a finger into the wetness and groaned. That’s when she saw Cynthia’s face in her mind’s eye. Rebecca withdrew her finger, rested her forehead against the coolness of the shower wall, and cried. It had been more than a year since the ugly ending with her ex, and in all that time, Rebecca had successfully brought herself to orgasm exactly once.

  Rebecca wondered if that wasn’t the real reason she had resisted Sharon’s touch. How embarrassing would it have been to fail to reach orgasm with a woman as attractive as that?

  “This is ridiculous.” Cynthia certainly wasn’t having any sexual dysfunction over the break up. Rebecca was certain of that. The woman had no conscience. “What did I ever see in you?” Rebecca wondered aloud.

  She knew the answer. Cynthia was sleek, and confident, and very, very persuasive. She had the ability to make any woman think she was the center of the universe…until she got bored or got everything she thought she could get out of the relationship.

  Rebecca finished her shower, toweled herself off on the bathmat, and stood looking in the mirror. Her breasts were high and firm. Her belly was flat. There was no hint of the overweight, awkward teenager she’d been, except in her head. In her head, she couldn’t shake the memories of the taunting cruelty of her peers, the very same peers who most likely were still, at this moment, laughing it up at the reunion, every bit as immature and insufferable as they had been twenty years ago.

  Again, Rebecca wondered what had possessed her to come to the reunion. Then her mind flashed on the image of Sharon, head thrown back, lost in a moment of pure pleasure, and she smiled. The connection wi
th her made the trip all worthwhile. Despite the way the night turned out, Rebecca easily could envision Sharon showing up one day in her Middlebury office, offering to take her to dinner. And it wouldn’t be the least bit uncomfortable.

  Rebecca snorted. Maybe by then she’d be sufficiently recovered from the Cynthia trauma to truly enjoy herself.

  CHAPTER SIX

  The arrow rested ominously on the Play button icon as Dara’s finger hovered above the track pad. She was fully dressed for day two at the hospital and had been for an hour. Several times, she’d clicked on Play and then, just as quickly, on Pause. Although she’d been up for a long time, she’d been unable to shake off the remnants of the dream. The idea of listening to more of what her mother thought she ought to know had her stomach in knots.

  Dara thought about her time at the hospital yesterday. The person the nurse described was nothing like the mother she remembered. It was possible her mother’s monologue would get better. Wasn’t it? Shouldn’t she give her the benefit of the doubt?

  She rubbed her damp palms on her pressed slacks. Visiting hours would be starting soon and she needed to get back to the hospital. There was no point putting it off any longer. Dara pushed Play and resigned herself to hearing her mother out.

  “Anyway, I don’t want to dwell on all that.” Her mother was wracked by another coughing spasm. “It was a long time ago and there’s no use revisiting what I’m sure must be painful memories for both of us.”

  The covers rustled and Dara’s mother groaned in pain.

  “Yes, I suspect it might come as a surprise to you that I recognize how difficult that time must’ve been for you. I wasn’t completely unsympathetic, Dara, despite what you might think. I was simply out of my league when it came to dealing with a child. Period. And you weren’t just any child. You were bright, inquisitive, head strong, and that imagination… Well, who could keep up with it, or you? In the end, it just seemed easier to give you a wide berth than to constantly fight with you.”

  Dara paused the recording, closed her eyes, and willed herself not to cry. Again. All the familiar feelings of loneliness, isolation, and abandonment, all the days and nights when she’d longed for her mother to take her in her arms and tell her she was loved and valued—every painful moment bubbled up from deep within her, threatening to swallow Dara whole.

  “Enough.” She’d shed enough tears over her childhood. That time was done and gone. There was no sense mourning it at this late stage. Dara got up and poured herself a glass of water and took a big gulp before sitting back down. She could get through this. She had to. She pressed Play.

  “I’m not proud of myself, Dara. I know I wasn’t the mother you needed or the mother I should have been. Every day I looked at your unhappy face that was abundantly clear. You seemed so lost, so solitary in your own world. I hated being constantly reminded just what a failure I was at this nurturing thing. Often, I wondered if you wouldn’t have been better off if I had listened to your father and put you up for adoption.”

  Dara gasped as a renewed blast of pain bloomed in her chest. What kind of mother tells her daughter that she should’ve gotten rid of her when she had the chance?

  “Damn it.” This time the coughing lasted for several minutes and left her mother gasping for breath. “There I go getting off track again. I’d blame it on all these darned medications making me dopey, but the fact is, I’m old and I get distracted easily.” Her mother cleared her throat. “On with it, then. I didn’t decide to make this tape to justify myself to you. There are things I want you to know. Things you should know.”

  Dara’s heartbeat accelerated. She wasn’t at all sure she could take any more of her mother’s revelations.

  “I’m very proud of you, Dara.”

  “What?”

  “There. I said it. I know I can’t take any credit for the woman you’ve become, but I want you to know that I burst a button every time I read about something you’ve done, whether it’s using your fame to raise money for charity, or conducting yourself in an interview. You have such grace and poise. I know that’s not just your acting, either. I know you well enough to know the genuine you when I see it. Of course, I’ve seen all of your movies. You really are quite good. In a way, you remind me of a young Kate Hepburn.”

  Dara nearly choked. Katherine Hepburn was her mother’s favorite actress. How many times had she sat with her mother watching Hepburn and Spencer Tracy or Hepburn and Bogie? It was the closest she and her mother ever came to bonding. Those were the moments when she first decided she wanted to act. She’d watched as her mother sat riveted to the screen and wanted nothing more than to command that kind of attention and evoke those types of emotions. As much as she didn’t want to admit it, there were moments in the middle of one of her movie premieres when Dara secretly wished her mother was in a theater somewhere watching with that same expression she remembered seeing as a little girl.

  The sound of her mother’s coughing and gurgling brought Dara back to the present.

  “I’d better wrap this up while I still have the breath to talk. I want you to know that I regret things turned out the way they did between us. I’m sorry that you couldn’t see your way clear to come home once in a while after you left for college. I’m not blaming you. I just wish it could’ve been different. I know that I’m as much to blame as your father for you thinking you needed to stay away. In case you’re wondering, he passed away eight years ago. But maybe you knew that. I tried to find you to tell you. I even contacted that friend of yours, Carrie. But… Well, I guess you didn’t want to be found.”

  Dara turned her head to look out the window. This day looked very much like the day she learned her father had passed away. Dara had been on her way out to an audition, when Carolyn unexpectedly showed up at her door. Carolyn wanted to tell her the news in person. They sat down on the front stoop of Dara’s small townhouse in Burbank and talked. Carolyn didn’t pressure her to go home for the funeral, a fact for which Dara was very grateful. She hadn’t shed any tears for the man who never treated her as more than an inconvenience and a tax deduction.

  In the end, she went to the audition, channeled her churning emotions into the scene, and got the part in her first major movie. After that, she’d never looked back. But now the past beckoned.

  “If you’re listening to my ramblings, it must mean I’m at the end of my rope. I’m sorry to burden you with me at this late stage, but as you know, there’s no one else. So I’m going to try to make this as easy as possible for you. If I’m unable to speak for myself, to hold a conversation, to live with dignity… Well then, I hope you’ll be kind and compassionate, even if you don’t think I deserve those things, and end my suffering. The young woman I’ve witnessed you to be in those instances when I’ve been able to catch glimpses of you here and there, leads me to believe you’re a bigger human being than I ever was. I’m sure I’m in good hands.”

  Dara didn’t want to care. She didn’t want to feel grief or despair or anything at all for this virtual stranger who’d given birth to her. But she did. She put her hand to her chest where her heart ached. “Oh, Mother.”

  “I don’t know if you can, but I hope you’ll find it in your heart in the end to forgive me all my shortcomings. Please know, Dara, that in my own way, I loved you very much. I always did. I’m sorry I wasn’t very good at it and I’m sure it’s cold consolation to you now, but it’s the truth. I’ve lived the past eight years all by myself, but somehow I was never bothered about being alone until now. Now, I’m scared. I’m scared that I’ll die all alone and no one will care.”

  Dara covered her mouth as a sob escaped. This woman she knew so little sounded so small, frail, and frightened. All Dara wanted to do was to bring her comfort.

  “I-I just wanted to be sure that the last words you ever hear from me are these: I love you, Dara. I’m proud of you. I’m so proud to be your mother, even if I never deserved you. I hope you’ll forgive me and I hope you’ll go on to be the greates
t actress of your generation. But more than that, I hope you’ll find lasting happiness and love. You deserve all that and more. Goodbye, Dara. I love you.”

  Tears streamed down Dara’s cheeks as she listened to her mother weakly call for the nurse to show her how to stop recording. She clicked out of the program and shut down the laptop.

  “Goodbye, Mother.”

  The movie theater was packed, despite the fact that it was a matinee. Rebecca found herself a seat on the aisle and dug into the popcorn bag. Since her flight home wasn’t scheduled to depart until that evening, she decided to take in Rock Me Gently.

  Dara Thomas’s face and lithe body filled the screen. She was wearing a body-hugging leather ensemble, her hair flying wildly around her face as she paced a concert stage in stiletto-heeled boots. Rebecca silently sighed. This would be a most pleasant distraction before her flight.

  She wondered if Dara actually was doing the singing or if she was being voice-dubbed. If she’s faking that, she’s an even better actress than I gave her credit for. Watching Dara play a self-indulgent, hyper-exposed, but vulnerable rock star, Rebecca flashed back to Sharon’s dismissive inference that being an actress would be a waste of intelligence. Here was a Yale graduate on screen—the antithesis of an airhead, and watching her bring this character to life reinforced Rebecca’s belief that it required plenty of mental acuity to play a role that she imagined must be so different from the actress’s reality. Rebecca happily lost herself in the performance. Catching this movie might prove to be the best part of her trip.

  “Are you on your way to the hospital?”

  “Yes.” Using her shoulder, Dara held the phone against her ear as she put in her earring. She hoped Carolyn couldn’t hear how relieved she was to hear from her.

  “Don’t come downstairs.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because there’s a pack of paparazzi camped out in the lobby.”