by Lee Lynch
Jefferson asked, “How many did she take?”
“There was an empty hundred-tablet bottle on the sink,” Dawn told her, still resting in Jefferson’s arms.
Yolanda added, “And she was lying in a puddle of what came up. Your whole backseat may need to go to the dry cleaners.”
“So if Shannon does make it, she could be in bad shape.”
“Let’s put it this way, Jefferson.” Yolanda looked across Rayanne, who sat between them, to meet her eyes. “The Guard isn’t going to want her.”
“Not true,” Rayanne said. “Who would make better cannon fodder than a suicidal dyke?”
Chapter Thirty-Eight
That night, a doctor finally told Shannon’s parents that her friends had brought Shannon in time and she would be fine except for a very sore throat. He told them everyone might as well go home. Drew and Ryan stayed because they’d just arrived, but Jefferson walked out to her car feeling drained and scared and guilty. Couldn’t she have helped Shannon or at least made her feel better about herself?
The hospital was tiny compared to those in New York. She was all too familiar with the place. The ambulance had rushed to Ginger only to declare her dead. She had no desire to stick around tonight, especially since no one but Shannon’s parents would be allowed to visit.
She felt so unsettled. In New York, she would have gone to the bar and had a cup of that tranquillity tea Amaretto made up. The act of drinking something she was told would calm her, did calm her.
So when Dawn hugged her extra long and asked her back to her house for tea, an herbal concoction Dawn’s grandmother mixed that would practically knock her out, of course she said yes.
“You keep your place shipshape,” she told Dawn when they’d settled in her living room, side by side on the couch, mugs and teapot on a low bamboo coffee table before them. From a big boom box on the entertainment center came soft, bouncy electronic music.
“It’s easy when the place is too big for me—and I don’t have six kittens turning it upside down and shedding everywhere,” Dawn said with a gentle smile, then added, “You have your work cut out for you. I should adopt some animals, but I’m away all day.” She poured the tea for Jefferson. “Inhaling the steam makes my eyelids heavy.”
Jefferson inhaled. It was probably only taking more oxygen in that did it, but she was able to reply, “Yes. Yes,” she repeated, breathing again, “it’s like taking a Xanax.”
“Do you?” Dawn asked, slipping a new-age CD into the player.
“Do I what?”
“Take tranquilizers.”
She nodded. “My life’s been so full of changes. And now that I don’t drink… Well, I started using liquor so early I never learned how to calm myself because I always had my liquid tranq.”
Dawn touched her hand. “You’ve had a tough time.”
Something—maybe because of the tea, maybe the aftereffects of her adrenaline spike—had changed radically. No longer was she two streets over from Saturday Lake, in a plain, sparsely furnished ranch house in a little cul de sac cut out of the New Hampshire woods, but she was in a softer world, where hints of a design emerged. A framed picture here and there, of birds, fantastic, long-tailed, crested birds; a piece of woven art, also depicting birds; an unusual orange lampshade and a warm brown carpet; several daffodil yellow pillows, including two very large pillows on the floor—all were knitted into a sheer weightless fabric around her. Dawn was stroking her hand. She was in a safe place with a safe woman whose eyes were tender and whose hands were hot.
At the same time, guilt was tearing her up. How could she be so happy in Dawn’s company when Ginger was dead? What was she stealing from Dawn, when they were together, by thinking so much about Ginger? When she added guilt about Shannon, her serenity threatened to flee.
So she reached out to Dawn, to hold her and to be held after the events of the afternoon, but their cheeks touched, Dawn’s softer than she might have imagined had she ever tried to imagine it, with little hairs that brushed along the hairs on her own cheek.
A cloud of desire enveloped them, like fog rushing off the lake, exotic as the sea, and they, to Jefferson’s pleased surprise, were kissing. Oh, such hungry little kisses Dawn gave her, unusual in their brevity and light quick touches. She couldn’t get hold of Dawn, like the woman was a little Yankee sprite in the fog.
Through the fog and her struggle to still Dawn, to get serious, as she thought of it, about what they were doing, appeared a memory of Shannon’s face, tight with muteness, trying so hard not to blurt what she felt about Dawn, how she feared Jefferson’s handsome looks, how desperate she was for this woman now taking comfort in Jefferson’s arms, in arms that right now sought only the warm animal closeness of a desiring woman, Dawn or not.
“I’m sorry to be shaking.” Dawn flopped against the back of the couch. “It’s been a long time.” She straightened Jefferson’s collar and smoothed it down.
“For me too,” she said, although it felt so natural to move into this space with a woman, with such an appealing woman, as she’d been swimming in Saturday Lake all her life, dipping in, out, stroking, diving, so she felt held up by the buoyancy of her love for all of them, for Dawn, Ginger, Lily Ann—they were one endless lake and she a was a lone long-distance swimmer, immersed in them.
Or was she only skinny-dipping into love with this tomboy femme librarian? Ah, she thought, my first librarian, then erased the thought. She would not be a collector of encounters anymore. She hadn’t meant this to happen, never intended to be lovers with quiet Dawn. Her habitual attention to femmes made Dawn seem available and interested whether she was or not, and then she couldn’t say no when they thought they were responding to her overtures. She could never say to them that it was very simple: she loved women. She loved the challenge and the acquiescence of them, the touching and the entry to their protected places.
The moment was what she treasured: the moment laughter turned to recognition, the moment a hug got serious, the moment friendship spilled into desire, the moment yearning was released, the moment tenderness flamed to passion. Above all, she admitted to herself, they loved her. For that moment, or for years, they imagined something loveable about her. Weren’t lovers all figments of one another’s imaginations? Each thought the other had something she wanted. With time, they saw how they had enhanced their simply human lovers and what remained. Ginger had obviously been disappointed, although Ginger, for Jefferson, had always retained her appeal. How did Dawn see her? How long would her interest last? There would be no love-her-and-leave her solution here at the lake. What was she getting herself into?
Dawn said, “It’s because of Shannon.”
“Do you mean the shock is messing with our emotions?” Jefferson asked.
“Not that.” Dawn was playing with the hair that had grown too long down the back of Jefferson’s neck.
Jefferson realized it felt good to be touched again.
“Shannon’s been so—there—all the time. As soon as I think of being with someone, it’s as if I’m being unfaithful to Shannon, as if she’s my lover. I want you to know that she is not and never has been. I have brought her home and fed her, found her cottage for her, listened to her troubles endlessly.” Dawn turned her eyes up to Jefferson’s. “Oh, but I’ve had my eyes on you since that first church supper. And your hands. Such strong, lesbian hands.” Dawn used one finger to stroke with the conscious sensitivity she might use to outline a wild bird’s body.
“And you’re moving to Concord to escape Shannon?”
“Maybe I was,” Dawn said, with a timorous voice. Her tone became animated. “Am I moving? Now?” Dawn gave Jefferson another of her quick kisses.
Jefferson wanted to object that Dawn shouldn’t stay around for her, that she wasn’t a U-Haul kind of woman, that she might only be running away from her grief, but the kisses were making her nuts so she slid her arms around Dawn’s rib cage—so narrow it made her feel protective and Dawn fragile—and pressed
herself to her, locking their lips, not hard, but steady, varying the pressure delicately, as she liked to, committing herself and Dawn to what they could give each other.
Dawn pulled away. “I don’t do this with just anyone.”
A little ashamed, she realized, I do. With just about anyone who wants me. She thought of Dawn’s first girlfriend in her unkempt home with her stream of needy married women. She could see the attraction for the women: the forbidden, the other side, the eroticism of the überbutch in her splendid, sordid isolation. Would she become a monied version of her if she didn’t get things right this time? The thought was as dismal as the butch’s trailer. That was no way to get love. She didn’t want to think about how close it was to her way.
“I’m not just looking for some fun.” It was clear that Dawn expected from Jefferson a declaration similar to her own. “I don’t know what I’m looking for.” She touched Dawn’s shoulders with the hands she’d been told were competent, confident, persuasive hands, her tools of seduction.
Dawn hadn’t struck her as one of those women who needed to process her way into bed. She added, “Except you,” and kissed Dawn’s neck, just behind the earlobe.
Dawn, hot to the touch, fingers rhythmically kneading Jefferson’s upper arms as if to restrain herself, told her, “You’re claiming me.”
She was taken aback: this little terrier sank her teeth in. Damn. Did she want this? Wasn’t she thinking just the other day how much easier life was now that she needn’t worry about anyone but herself and the kittens? Why put herself at risk for more pain?
She remembered the hurt. If Ginger had only stayed with her a few more months, the pain would have been simpler, cleaner. Death happened, it was not a choice; but when a woman left a woman for a man—that was 3-D rejection. Whatever the circumstances, she didn’t plan to go through it again.
Dawn returned with two bottles of Poland Spring water. “You haven’t left,” said Dawn, setting down the water.
“No, but let’s go the slow route. I need to be sure.” Why was she hesitating? It must be some sign of maturity in herself that she could even appreciate and allow a woman like this in her life. Dawn wasn’t one of her bad girls, or a woman with love stuck in her craw, choking on it rather than letting it out.
Dawn dug her fingers into her shoulders and massaged so deeply it hurt where she hadn’t known she was tense. Dawn kissed her on the forehead and stroked her hair. “I would never leave a woman for a man, Jefferson. You wouldn’t have to be scared of that. I’m lesbian to the bone.”
She tensed. “I meant that I need to be sure of me.”
“These muscles are rock, Jefferson. Let it go.”
She did then, letting her shoulders sag, her neck bow forward to Dawn’s wise fingers and words.
“Jefferson, I’ve fallen in love with you. No, I fell for you the first time I saw you. You’re what’s missing in me. I want to be yours in every way there is. Will you let me?”
She wasn’t dreaming, was she? How had she gotten so nuts about this woman?
Dawn began to unbutton her own fancy pearl-like buttons, but Jefferson stilled her hands under one of her own. “Hey, Dawn, let me,” she said, “when it’s time.”
“It’s time, Jefferson.” Dawn kept unbuttoning under Jefferson’s hands.
Jefferson let her and touched Dawn’s left nipple through the blouse with the flat of her pinky, sending all the electricity in herself into that light pressure. Dawn slumped against her, but straightened immediately, pushed her hand aside, and pulled up Jefferson’s sweatshirt.
Okay, she thought, sighing, the woman wants skin. When their breasts came together, Dawn’s were like little birds against her, not the proud crested birds of her prints, but darting wrens she could keep in her hands. Once they were undressed, Dawn did the femme thing, leading her by the hand to her bed, looking coyly but shyly back. Briefly, Jefferson remembered that Bonnie had lived there with Dawn, shared this bed.
Dawn turned some lights off and some on, arranged the bed linens and pillows, smiling and softly chattering. Jefferson, standing naked on a small patterned rug by the bed, worried again; her body was no longer that of a twenty-year-old. Dawn might not like what she saw, or felt, or smelled. She sagged and swelled where she never had before. Jefferson might not be able to keep up with someone years younger. Then she thought of what it would do to Shannon if she knew what was going on right now. Of what it would do to her if she learned about them during her recovery? Would it drive her over the edge again. She considered stopping, but Dawn had mounted the bed and sat, legs tucked modestly to one side, smiling widely. She was so obviously pleased with her catch she wasn’t thinking of the incident that had catapulted them into this moment, but only of their pleasure and a future of love.
Who could resist this slight, competent femme? True, she’d been with no one but Brandi since getting sober this time, including Ginger, but what had come of such self-control? First, Ginger had left her; second, left her for a guy; and last, left permanently. No, this was who Jefferson was: a lover of women, a body seeking heat, a heart unable not to love, a woman who felt she had never been loved for who she was, but only for her butchy poses, her intuitive hands, her good looks, for whatever it had been that Ginger thought she’d found in her. Maybe this one, this thirsty Dawn, really wanted to know who she was and could embrace more than her hands and lips, could love her as no other woman had, as her parents never did, as she herself could not. What exactly had Emmy wanted before she could love a daughter? A debutante?
She didn’t want to hurt Dawn. That would be like snapping her lovely tender neck, but how long would it be before she learned to stop begging for love on every street corner. It looked like she would find out.
Hope thrummed through her like blood as she caught sight of their clothes commingled on the floor at the foot of the bed. That was a powerful stimulant, that mix of blue-denim legs. Dawn had put a CD of Japanese drumming on the boom box. Jefferson dropped to the bed and enclosed the end of Dawn’s breast with her mouth as if suckling for love.
“Hey, Kitten.” She brushed her lips along Dawn’s incredibly smooth skin. “You’re as playful and independent as a kitten.”
Dawn laughed and called her a big old tiger, then growled and pretended to pounce on her. As Jefferson wrestled her onto her back and lay atop her to hold her down, she said, “I’m no ravenous tiger, Dawn. I’m a wounded lamb, but I’ll try.” She would try to be Dawn’s tiger.
Dawn reached for her head and pulled it down, then enclosed Jefferson’s lips as if to drink her in and pushed her tongue into Jefferson’s mouth, her pelvis grinding up into Jefferson. What was there, then, but Dawn? Everything was Dawn: she tasted, smelled, felt the miracle of Dawn. She couldn’t get enough of Dawn and heard her quick breathing, saw her closed eyes, a vein throbbing in her neck, her pretty breasts, her thin left leg, her little belly, her fluted labia, slick and puffy.
She was lost in sensation as never before. There was no leading, no following. She reached for Dawn, shaking with a deep desire she’d thought she would never feel again. Dawn reached for her. Dawn kissed the palm of her hand; she licked between Dawn’s fingers. Dawn entered her with one slow, gentle finger, and she found Dawn’s opening with her forefinger while her thumb stroked her clitoris and she kissed the inside of Dawn’s velvety thighs, betraying Ginger again with her mouth. They were seldom still in the next hours, and they moved as one. She felt astonishment at the ease of their lovemaking, how one action flowed to the next and each touch completed a circuit she’d never known was open. Dawn insisted on giving as much as Jefferson gave and knew how. She seemed to genuinely desire Jefferson. The woman was a talented, or perhaps accomplished, lover.
As Jefferson caught her breath, Dawn said, “Finally. Finally I found a woman who fits me.”
These were words Jefferson had wanted to hear. Now that they were said, she feared that she needed to feel so powerfully loved and wanted that she believed Dawn, whether
she should or not.
Dawn became utterly wanton then, thrashing in Jefferson’s arms, twisting on her hand, loudly crying her name. That call, acknowledging Jefferson as the source of her pleasure, as her choice of lover, broke something in Jefferson, broke some raw tendon tie-down that had held a tent of self-protection over her all her life. She trusted this woman, whose boldness inspired her further, and she gave herself over to the force field that enveloped the two of them, to the undeniable power and honesty of their matched desires.
Dawn left her side for more and colder bottled water. Jefferson lay alone on the big bed, naked, uncovered, tired yet energized, and found herself grinning. Dawn reminded her a little of Angela in the innocence of her passion. Dawn’s deep sensual responsiveness was healing the lover in her.
“What?” Dawn asked when she returned.
Without thinking, she said, “I’m happy.”
They drank, each from her own bottle. Then Dawn lay beside her and gently rubbed her head on Jefferson’s breast. “Me too.” They lay silent for a while.
Dawn asked, “It’s not the sex, is it?”
“No, baby,” she answered with a confidence that surprised her. She was not lying. “It’s not the sex.” She tightened the arm that encircled Dawn’s shoulders and wondered how long she could keep her close and if keeping her close would preserve this startling happiness.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
The next time Jefferson went out to the farm was like a walking-on-air celebration. She finally knew what walking on air felt like. She thought she’d been in love before, but no, except for Angela and Ginger, she’d had conquests, and Ginger had been a painful, muted kind of love. She’d been won herself and been paraded around like a trophy. She’d used and been used. Now she knew she’d never really loved and never really been loved. She was plain happy when she was with Dawn, when she knew she was going to see Dawn, when they spoke by phone, when she awakened in the morning and remembered that Dawn was in her life.
