by Lyn Denison
Crys shook her head. “I was pulled in two directions. When I tried to discuss it with Diane, she called me all kinds of a fool for even considering going back to Paul. In the end things were unbearable between Diane and me, and Paul, well, he was waiting patiently in the wings.”
Crys grimaced and looked at Mel. “I know all this makes me sound very weak and indecisive, but I was young, and times were a little different then. I’m not proud of my decision to go back to Paul, Mel. I’m afraid I did him a great disservice by doing so.” She sighed. “At the time I was so confused. But I really did want to make a fresh start, and I wanted a family.”
“So you bought the cottage next door to ours?” Mel said, and Crys nodded.
“My aunt had just died and left me some money, so Paul and I bought the house. I hadn’t seen your mother since she’d left Somerville, and then it turned out she was living next door. It was an amazing coincidence, wasn’t it?”
Mel smiled. “Mum once said she couldn’t believe it when she realized you’d gone to the same school and that you remembered each other. She said you hadn’t seen each other for about thirteen years.”
“At least that long.” Crys smiled at the memory. “We became good friends. As I said, your mother saved my sanity on countless occasions. I don’t know what I’d have done without her to talk to.”
“Did my mother know?” Mel asked softly. “I mean, when you moved in, did she know about you and Diane?”
“Not about Diane and me exactly.” Crys made a face. “But she knew about a certain incident at school. Another girl and I were caught kissing in the sports room. It was a huge scandal at the time. We nearly got expelled. When I turned up next door, safely married, your mother thought I’d grown out of it.” Crys laughed softly. “And talking about the incident at school, I once accused Diane of only seeking me out because she’d heard the rumor and been warned about my, shall we say, tendencies. She said she didn’t.”
“So you were notorious,” Mel said lightly. Crys laughed again.
“You could say that. At any rate, when your mother and I met up again all those years later it wasn’t exactly a terrible surprise to Angela when I eventually confessed about Diane.” Crys shrugged. “Maybe your mother expected as much. Scandal did seem to follow me.”
“What? Kissing a girl when you were a kid? That was hardly a scandal,” Mel reassured her. “You wouldn’t have been the only one.”
“I was the only one caught. I guess I must have been about twelve or thirteen. And in those days it was a scandal, believe me.” Crys looked down at her hands. “And I suppose you remember my very public divorce.”
Mel nodded. “Yes.” She frowned slightly. “But I thought you and Diane broke up before you came to live near us.”
“We did. But Diane phoned me when David was going on two years old. I was really surprised to hear from her, and I agreed to meet her for lunch. It was good to see her again.” Crys absently rubbed her forehead. “We fell into the habit of having lunch together every week. I’d take David with me and we’d talk. That’s all it was.” Crys shrugged.
“Funny, isn’t it? It was all so innocent then. And it was David who guilelessly cooked our goose. He was just starting to string words together. Paul and I were having dinner one night and David said, as clear as a bell, that Auntie Di liked chocolate cake.”
Crys made a negating movement with her hands. “Paul went ballistic. He accused me of having an affair with Diane and swore he’d take David away from me. He was as good as his word. And the rest, as they say, is history.”
“Do you ever see David?” Mel asked hesitantly.
Crys shook her head sadly. “No. In the beginning I used to. The court’s ruling was that I would have visitation in a public place, with Paul in attendance. It was harrowing. And it upset David far too much. It was tearing him in two. I knew Paul would never relent, so I caved in to him again. He took David to Sydney to live near his grandmother, and he graciously let me keep the house.”
Crys paused. “David would be sixteen now. I live in hope that one day he might want to see me again. I’ve written him letters I’ll give him if, when he does.”
“I’m sorry.” Mel wondered how Crys had coped with it all.
“Yes. So am I. Maybe I’d have handled it differently now. I don’t know. But we can’t turn back the clock.”
“No, I guess we can’t.” Mel agreed. She put the photograph back in the drawer. “You stayed on in the house on your own. I mean, why didn’t you and Diane, after the divorce, why didn’t you get together?”
“Paul saw to it that that was one of the stipulations of the visitation rights. I couldn’t bring David into a situation that might morally corrupt him. I had to be so careful.”
“Could they specify that?” Mel asked incredulously.
Crys grimaced. “Oh, yes. A court that decides a manipulative, alcoholic father is a better role model for a child than a lesbian mother can do anything,” Crys said with what was obviously deep-seated bitterness.
“It’s unbelievable.” Mel sat down in the chair opposite Crys.
“That it was. But after Paul took David down south, what was the point? Diane had lost her job teaching because of the court case. Of course that wasn’t the reason given to her for her contract not being renewed but…Anyway, that’s when we decided to get back together, buy the farm, and make a new start. I sold the cottage and we moved down here.”
Crys stood up and walked across to the darkened window, staring out into the night. “We were just starting to make a go of the place when Diane got sick.”
“It doesn’t seem fair.” Mel stood up too, wanting to cross to Crys, put her arms around her, offer comfort. But unsure of Crys’s reaction, she stayed where she was. “I mean, after all you’d been through to be together.”
Crys was silent, and Mel took a couple of steps toward her, stopping when the other woman sighed.
“No. It certainly wasn’t fair,” Crys agreed flatly. “It’s such a cruel disease. It seemed that one day Diane was a fit, vital, healthy person, full of life. And the next day she was—” Crys shook her head. “It was an agony to watch, to know you couldn’t do one single thing about it.”
Mel took the few steps that separated them, reached out, put her hand on Crys’s bare arm, and rubbed the soft skin. But Crys gave no indication she was aware of Mel’s touch.
“Diane was determined to fight it, and she did. To her last breath. She put up an incredible battle, and at the end she didn’t know how to stop fighting. She couldn’t give in.” Crys turned to look at Mel, remembered anguish reflected in her eyes.
“At the end I wanted to put my arms around her, hold her, tell her it was all too painful for her, tell her it was all right to let go. But I loved her and didn’t want to lose her. I was a coward, Mel. I couldn’t say it.”
Tears welled in Crys’s dark eyes, rolled down her cheeks, and Mel slid her arms around the other woman. She nestled Crys’s head on her shoulder and held her close as she cried, her hand gently rubbing Crys consolingly on the back.
After some time Crys’s sobs abated. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to put all that on you, Mel,” she said softly and moved back a little, Mel’s arms still around her.
Slowly Mel released her, and Crys fumbled for a tissue in the pocket of her shirt and blew her nose. “I haven’t cried like that in ages.”
“It’s all right, Crys.” Mel couldn’t seem to find anywhere to put her hands. She shoved them into the pockets of her jeans. “Don’t they say it’s healing to let it out rather than bottle it up inside?”
“I suppose so.” Crys sniffed. “Plays havoc with the sinuses, though.” She made an attempt at a laugh and then sighed.
“You must miss her very much,” Mel said compassionately.
“Yes. I do.” Crys looked up, and her gaze met Mel’s, held that gaze for long moments.
And then the quality of the atmosphere began to change. The air about them seemed to c
ome alive, seemed to expand with glowing shards of electricity.
Mel’s mouth was suddenly dry. She felt hot and then cold and she ached to take Crys in her arms and place burning kisses on the curve of smooth flesh where Crys’s shoulder joined her neck. And her tongue tip unconsciously dampened her parched lips.
Crys’s gaze was still locked with Mel’s, her dark eyes burnished bright, and Mel heard her catch her breath.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Then Mel reached out, gently cupped the side of Crys’s face with the palm of her hand, and let the pad of her thumb slide slowly over Crys’s still damp cheek. She leaned forward, rested her other hand on the swell of Crys’s hip as she lowered her head and put her lips to that so inviting curve below Crys’s ear, her tongue at last tasting the warm flesh.
Crys groaned slightly, and Mel felt Crys’s breath feather her ear lobe. A heady surge of desire swelled instantly inside Mel, and she leaned into Crys, felt the exquisite softness of her breasts, her stomach, her thighs making delicious contact with her own.
Mel’s lips slid along the smooth curve of Crys’s cheek, touched her lips, drew back, touched again, her tongue tip now seeking the softness within. And Crys opened her mouth and hungrily kissed Mel back.
Mel trembled. She gave a soft groan of wanting, moving with unconscious sensuality, straining against Crys’s body.
Suddenly Crys stiffened and pulled back so that she could look into Mel’s eyes. Mel went to draw Crys back into her arms, but Crys frowned, whimpering softly.
“No, Mel. Please. We shouldn’t be…we can’t…I…” And Crys was moving away, putting cold distance between them.
Mel had a blinding flash of déjà vu. This couldn’t be happening again. “Crys, please. Don’t go. I didn’t mean to—”
Crys stopped and turned back to Mel. “I know you didn’t. It was my fault. I shouldn’t have—”
“It wasn’t anybody’s fault,” Mel began.
“Perhaps not. Maybe fault wasn’t exactly the word.” Crys swallowed, and Mel’s eyes focused on the still erratic beating of the pulse at the base of her throat. “Look, Mel. I don’t want to take advantage of you at the moment. We’ve been spending a lot of time together, and you’re vulnerable just now. You’ve recently broken up with your boyfriend and—”
“You think I’m pining for Terry? Do you think that’s what this is about?” Mel asked, dismay mixed with angry disbelief.
“Well, it’s very emotionally upsetting and—”
“And don’t forget the sex,” Mel put in bitterly.
“The…I…” Crys swallowed again. “I didn’t say-”
“But that’s what you meant.” Mel suspected she was being unreasonable, but she couldn’t seem to stop herself. “You think I’m missing sex so much I’d take it anywhere I can get it. Even with a woman?”
Crys paled, flinching as though Mel had slapped her. She drew a deep breath. “I didn’t say that,” she stated, clipping her words.
“Maybe it’s true,” Mel said flatly, and Crys’s features hardened.
“I’m going to bed now, Mel,” she said levelly. “We’ve had a heavy day, and we’re both tired. And I think we’ve both said more than we should have.”
“I haven’t,” Mel said defiantly. “I haven’t said nearly enough.” She took a step toward Crys, and the other woman moved backward, clasping the chair behind her for support.
“I don’t think it’s wise for us to discuss this now,” Crys said quickly.
Mel sighed and turned away, all of the fight suddenly going out of her. Was she a masochist? Crys wasn’t interested in her. She’d made it perfectly plain all those years ago. So why was Mel pushing the point? It was futile, and it could only mean more grief for her.
Tonight, those few precious moments when Crys had kissed Mel back had been a purely physical response on Crys’s part. And Mel didn’t much care for the sudden thought that she may have taken advantage of Crys’s moment of weakness. Perhaps it was as well that Crys had come to her senses and called a halt before more damage to their friendship had been done.
“Maybe you’re right,” Mel said with all the composure she could muster. “Go on to bed, Crys.”
“Mel, I, I do think it would be best if we sorted this all out in the morning, when we’ve had time to put some space between us. Will you…” Crys paused. “Will you be all right?”
Mel nodded tiredly and walked toward her room, passing Crys as she still stood stiffly, her hand on the lounge chair. At the door Mel stopped and looked back at Crys.
“And just for the record, it wasn’t just sex. Not tonight,” she said flatly and continued out into the hallway. “And not the last time.”
Crys sat down at her silky oak dressing table and regarded herself critically in the oval mirror. She looked exactly what she was, she decided, a forty-two-year-old woman who had had a very bad night’s sleep. What little sleep she had had, that was. Damn Mel!
Crys sighed. No, it wasn’t Mel’s fault that Crys had slept badly. It was her own. She’d brought it all on herself by allowing Angela to talk her into having Mel down here to stay.
She should have known what would happen, she told herself disparagingly. The warning signs had been there over ten years ago, and they still held good. Mel was…
Crys absently ran her brush through her hair. Mel was exactly what she’d always been. A warm, loving child who had grown into a wonderfully caring, loving adult. That hadn’t changed.
And, Crys admitted painfully to herself, neither had the attraction between them. It still lay dormant so very close to the surface, as it had all those years ago.
It was the timing that had been wrong, Crys reflected. First it was their ages. Then it was the disastrous circumstances of Crys’s mixed-up life.
After Paul had won custody of their son, Crys had thought she’d lose her sanity. She sank deeper and deeper into a gray depression, one she had to drag herself out of for David’s weekly visits.
Diane was pressuring Crys to move in with her and Crys knew how Paul would react if he found out she was living with Diane. Crys felt Paul was pulling her one way and Diane was pulling her another. And David was the vulnerable child caught right in the middle.
Crys knew she owed Diane some support as she’d just lost her teaching job, but Crys’s contact with her son had been at stake. She’d needed Diane to understand that. The result was that Crys’s relationship with Diane had been wavering on very shaky ground. It had all been so harrowing.
And in the middle of it had been Mel, who had suddenly become transformed from a gangling child into a very attractive, though very young, woman. Crys had to continually remind herself that Mel was, in all essence, still an uncertain teenager, one who was perhaps a little less worldly than other young women her age.
Mel continued to confide in Crys just as she’d always done and, in the midst of her own anxiety, Crys had tried to remain constantly available to the young girl. Mel was always at loggerheads with her mother, and Crys continued to be the go-between, the mediator.
When Mel admitted she didn’t want to go to the high school formal dance, which was something of a tradition in the final year of secondary school, Angela had been disbelieving and then frankly impatient with her younger daughter. Angela couldn’t understand how Mel was so different from her older sister. Amber had shone at her own formal dance.
Crys had always known that when it came to her two daughters, Angela’s usual astuteness and practical common sense went completely out the window. Angela could not comprehend that Mel and Amber were totally different personalities and that while Amber was a carbon copy of her mother, Mel was just the opposite.
So when Mel continued to insist she didn’t want to attend the dance, Crys had tactfully intervened on Mel’s behalf, diplomatically trying to make Angela understand that Mel might not be ready for the social interaction of adolescence.
That was ridiculous, Angela had retorted. Of course Mel would go to the dance. And sh
e’d remained adamant, until eventually Mel had caved in under the pressure and gone to the dance with the nice-looking boy who lived around the corner.
Mel hadn’t said much about the dance itself, but a week later she’d gone to the movies with the same young man. Angela had airily said to Crys, I told you so.
One afternoon after school, not long after Mel started dating Gary, Mel had stopped by to chat with Crys as she usually did. That particular afternoon Crys could tell that Mel was obviously concerned about something and wanted to talk about it. They’d sat down at the dining room table, and Crys had handed Mel a cold soft drink while Crys poured herself a cup of coffee.
For a while they discussed how they’d spent their respective days, and then Crys had gently inquired after Mel’s young man. Mel gazed morosely at her Coke and shrugged her indifference.
“I guess Gary’s all right as guys go,” she said, and then she’d grimaced. “But he’s so intense. He tried to kiss me the other night.”
“That’s kind of the way it usually goes,” Crys replied lightly.
Her mind threw up an imagined scenario where the young man in question pulled Mel into a rough and inexperienced embrace and kissed her urgently. Crys thought she’d find it amusing, but just as suddenly she found she didn’t particularly want to go into details of this aspect of Mel’s life, and especially not with Mel herself.
“Am I expected to enjoy it, Crys?” Mel was asking, and Crys tried to pull herself together.
“Expected? Well, I don’t know that great expectations are set in stone. I guess it all depends on who’s doing the kissing,” she said carefully, and Mel frowned.
“Well, I didn’t enjoy it,” she exclaimed. “Good grief! I felt like he was going to suck me down whole and he’d end up like a python with a chicken in its stomach only I’d be the chicken and he’d slowly digest me.”
Crys did laugh then. “Doesn’t present the best of pictures, Mel.”
Mel grinned reluctantly. “I was using poetic license. But seriously, Crys,” she continued, undaunted. “I don’t like all this dating and stuff. I wish Mum wouldn’t push me to do it. And I don’t care if Amber has millions of boyfriends and loves going out. I’d rather be at home with—” Mel paused and looked down at the table, her finger rubbing at the ring of condensation left by her cold soda can. “I’d rather be at home with you guys,” she finished.
