"I'm here," I said quietly. "Do you want some water?"
She nodded, then sipped when I slipped the straw between her lips. A grimace of pain crossed her face as she swallowed, but she sipped again and the next wasn't so bad.
"I don't think they're going to let me take you home today. I haven't seen the neurologist yet, but they've got you really doped up, haven't they?"
Her attempt to answer was a croaked affirmative.
"Are you hurting?" Another croak. I gently touched her shoulder as I rang for the nurse.
She was too jovial for my mood, but she quickly checked Kylie's vitals and noted them on the chart. "I'll page the doctor. I need instructions before I can give you anything more," she told Kylie.
We waited an interminable fifteen minutes. I babbled on about my classes that morning and the weather. I wanted in the worst way to tell her about the book and Aurora. If she weren't under the influence of the meds, she'd happily speculate with me about what really happened. Our father's queer—in the good old-fashioned meaning of the word—sect of Christianity thrived on debunking the supposed relics of other branches of the faith. Bored children saw holy figures in clouds. Tourism-minded priests claimed bones were from martyrs. We'd laughed together over the account of a grilled cheese sandwich, half-eaten but appearing to have the visage of the Madonna, which had been auctioned for tens of thousands of dollars.
I clutched my stomach as I waited, not wanting to face the fact that the Kylie who would help me make sense of what I'd experienced might be gone forever.
The neurologist from the night before came in with the customary bustle of a man with too much to do. He addressed us both, though his gaze settled more on me. "I'm afraid the news is not good."
I wanted to shut off his voice, leave the building, but I forced myself to listen. I didn't want to translate his long, technical words into ones I could more easily take in, but I did it. He droned on for several minutes and I boiled it all down to the fact that Kylie's vertebrae were disintegrating more quickly than anticipated.
There was a little silence when he stopped talking, then Kylie's rasp made me jump.
"So we can tell the oncologist to kiss off?" She might have been smiling if I had had the courage to look at her face. "It's the bone thing that'll get me?"
"The pressure on your spinal cord can have unexpected results. But you've got the most common—partial paralysis."
"Next I get the whole deal? My brain's messages get blocked? Heart stops?"
She was asking all the questions I could not. Brave, fierce, determined to know the worst, while I cowered from truth.
"Possibly. I can't tell you how likely because your other conditions are probably accelerating the deterioration in ways we don't yet understand."
"Wish I was around for the autopsy." I could hear her hard swallow. "I'm kinda curious, myself."
I don't know how the doctor could smile. Bits of me were freezing.
He made a note on her chart. "Leave a forwarding address and I'll send you a copy."
They both laughed. Laughed.
I struggled to find my voice. "When can I take her home?"
"I'm not sure that's wise."
"I want to go home," Kylie said.
"You're going to be on an IV and loopy from the drugs. You may not be able to easily get out of a bed, which means a bedpan or catheter."
"There will be someone checking on her all the time," I assured him, vowing to make my statement true.
"I'm liking morphine so far." Kylie gave a thumbs up.
"Let's decide tomorrow," he finally agreed. "If your vitals are stable, then it might be possible the day after." I walked with him to the door of her room. In a lower tone, he added, "You'll need someone to check on her three times daily and nightly."
"How long?"
"I can't say. The cancer is more predictable."
"And that's two months at the most, right?"
"I'm not an oncologist, but I see a rapid acceleration of her deterioration."
"So not even that?"
"Not in my judgment, no."
"A month?"
"For the cancer, at the most. But perhaps sooner for the spinal collapse, unless we put her on a respirator."
I shook my head vehemently. "She's signed all those waivers. Absolutely not."
"I know. It's in her chart."
"Thank you for your honesty. And for not dealing in false hope."
He grimaced. "Some people prefer it, but your sister is a realist."
"She played soccer at the Olympic level."
He gave me a look that said he wished I hadn't told him that, and was obviously grateful for the chirp of his beeper. I understood there was a certain distance necessary to do his job, but I'd suddenly needed him to be able to describe Kylie by more than the sum of her disease, syndromes and symptoms.
At her bedside again, I gave her more water as I said, "I've got to dash to class and office hours. I will be back this evening, okay? Home tomorrow."
"Yes. Thank you. I want to go home."
"I want you there, too." I squeezed her hand. I had to be brave because it was the last thing Kylie would ever ask of me.
Chapter 5
When I walked in the door after my early afternoon office hours the answering machine was a welcome distraction. Seven messages awaited me, from home visit nurses who had picked up the authorization for their services from the hospital posting board. I had feared it might be hard to find someone, but it was a relief to know that was not the case. It took only two phone calls to arrange for a visiting schedule to commence when—if—Kylie could come home again.
I'd had my sabbatical last year. If I'd known ... I could still take leave, though Kylie protested vociferously every time I mentioned it. I stood there, lost in thought, until a soft tap on the kitchen door startled me.
Aurora smiled shyly at me. "Is now a good time?"
Any time was a good time, I wanted to say. Her abundant red hair flowed freely around her shoulders today, and I had that overwhelming desire once again to crawl inside her and stay there. She looked warm and glowing in her thick Shetland sweater. "Sure. Thank you, I really appreciate this."
"It's no problem." She followed me up the stairs and surveyed the half-assed job I'd done in the middle of the night. "Have you thought about renting a hospital bed? She'd be more comfortable, and have grips to help sit up and move. Position changes to make her more comfortable."
"I have—she objected."
"I know it's really none of my business, but maybe you should insist."
I snorted. "Kylie is incredibly stubborn."
"What a surprise."
Her tone was so dry I gave her an evil look that she returned far too blandly. Turning away, I sighed. "You're right. Okay, can you help me get this back together? I'll make some calls, then."
We lifted the box spring back to the frame with a minimum of chatter, and the mattress was in place in moments. So much in life is easier with two, I thought. I wanted to look forward, but my mind was trapped in the past, seeing only Kylie and I catching lightning bugs. She'd handled the net and I'd managed the jar.
"Got clean sheets? You might as well make it up."
"I can do that."
"I'm sure you can," she said quietly. "Let me help. I know what it's like. I'll do this and you go make those calls."
It was unnerving to be moving around my study yet deeply aware of Aurora elsewhere in the house. Every creak of the floorboard and whisper of fabric on the bed distracted me.
I was just finishing the call with the hospital furniture rental people when she paused at the door to my study. As I swiveled my desk chair around to face her, I realized I was hearing the familiar rumble of the washing machine from the basement.
"You didn't have to do that."
"Truthfully," she said with a gentle smile, "I wasn't going to, but there were some clothes needing attention on
the stairs."
I blushed upon realizing the sight and smell that must have greeted her. "Oh, I forgot. Kylie was sick."
"When is she coming home?"
"Tomorrow I hope. Maybe not for long." She stayed at the doorway, but the ten feet or so separating us felt like inches.
"Back to the hospital?"
I tried for the same macabre humor Kylie had shown with the doctor. "Or the funeral home."
One look at Aurora's face told me I'd failed. "I'm sorry," was all she said.
"My fault. I'm not handling this very well."
"It's not like you've ever done it before, so who's to say if you're handling it well or not?"
"You make me sound sensible and sane."
She shrugged. "In this situation, it seems to me you are."
"You don't know what I'm thinking," I said before I could stop myself.
"You could tell me." She hadn't moved from the doorway but she felt closer.
I could not blurt out that I could feel her hands on my thighs and her mouth blowing cool air on the parts of me that seemed burning hot. This sexual fixation on a woman wasn't like me. Therefore it had to be about something else, about Kylie because Kylie was the most important thing in my life right now. "She needs me and yet I keep thinking about escaping, for just a little while."
"Caregivers do that, they do escape. They have to."
She didn't know how I wanted to escape. That I was thinking about her red rug and drumming music, the towel and the accessories we could explore. That my fantasy of escape seemed to be her body. I drew in a sharp breath, realizing I had forgotten to breathe. "Kylie needs me."
"She needs you in one piece."
My mouth was dry but there were tears in my eyes I didn't want her to see. What could I tell her that made sense? Why did making sense to her seem to matter so much? "It's not fair," I finally said.
"That she's ill?"
"That I'm not."
She sighed, softly. "Yes, and worse because you're twins."
"I should be sick. I should have all the same problems. We're identical."
"Obviously," she said gently, "you aren't."
"So many tests ..." I stared at my hands while my body tracked her quiet footsteps toward me.
"They did not measure the things that make you different."
Heat covered me. Had she cast another of her spells? I was swollen and heavy with wanting to bury my face in her hair. "That even wasn't what I meant, really. It's not fair that I get to... escape when she can't. Why should I have pleasure when she won't ever again?" My laugh was bitter. "Why should I have what she denied herself her whole life?"
"Hayley..."
Her whisper washed down my body like warm rain. I was steeped in her gentleness but seared by the fire I saw in her eyes. Against my will I said, "Only now, now that there's no time and she can't do anything about it, only now is she realizing she'd probably have liked to have gotten to know you or a woman like you. Only now is she letting her real self emerge, so how can I turn the knife in the wound by flaunting my health, my sex life and ... you ... in front of her?"
She knelt in front of me and the urge to kiss her made my hands clench. "Do you want me?"
"Yes." My answer was nearly a growl, and came from a place so primal that I did not recognize my own voice.
I heard her hard swallow. "It doesn't have to be complicated."
"What doesn't?"
"Sex. Desire. Escape."
"I don't use... sex that way."
"Why ever not?" She smiled, but her words sent a spark of anger through me.
"I'm not even sure what's real anymore." I turned my head. "How do I know you didn't put another spell on me?"
"Because I am telling you that I did not. And the way I feel when I'm near you is one of the most real things I've ever experienced." Her hand gently touched my face, turning me to look at her again. "It can be as easy as yes."
"I don't want to use you."
She trembled. "You can't use the willing. You're not the only one in need."
Her thumb brushed over my lips and my control broke. Burying my hands in her hair, I tipped her head back so I could capture her mouth with mine. She made a small noise, but it wasn't pain and my blood seemed to pound with a repeating Yes that flowed from her body to mine.
I gathered her body in my arms, pulling her up from the floor and onto my lap. She coiled eagerly into my embrace and we kept on kissing—long, wet, hot kisses that intensified the burning behind my eyes. My brain was on fire and her mouth, her body, seemed the only thing that could save me.
"Is this for real?" I feathered my lips across hers, sublimely aware of their softness.
"I hope so," she whispered into my mouth. "This is all us, just us."
"I don't want to hurt you." I stopped kissing her long enough to meet her gaze. "I'm not feeling gentle right now. I don't know why—"
She bit my lip almost hard enough to draw blood, "Maybe because I'm not either."
The next kisses bruised my lips and the sensation made me feel wonderfully alive. I matched her moan for moan, muscle for muscle, until our mutual writhing had deprived her of her sweater and left my shirt unbuttoned.
With a gasp she repositioned herself so she was straddling my lap and I could only groan a long, low, "yes," as I watched her pull her bra straps down her arms, exposing her erect nipples to the supercharged air between us.
She quickly took her nipples between her finger and thumb and tugged, hard and firm. "Like that."
I lifted her hands to my shoulders and pushed her bra down even farther. The confinement shaped the lush roundness of her breasts and I stroked them for a moment, savoring the smooth texture of the soft sides while exploring with my thumbs the roughness of the puckered skin around her nipples.
She was breathing hard as I gazed into her eyes. I was bathed in deep, old green and both our mouths went slack as I captured her nipples just as she had and slowly pulled as I squeezed. She shuddered. Her hips jerked on my lap and I envisioned us just a few minutes in the future, with my fingers deep in the heat I could feel against my crotch.
"Is this okay?" I knew the answer before she nodded, but the question was meant to focus her on not just what I was doing, but what I was going to do. I pulled harder, as roughly as she had bitten my lip, and was answered with a moaning gasp as she closed her eyes.
"You know it is." Then, inside my head like a confirming bell, I heard her say again, You know it is.
We kissed, her mouth panting against mine as I continued to enjoy the play of her nipples. They felt warm in the grasp of my fingers and I wanted to feel that heat in the rest of her body. I crushed her body to mine, pulling her hard down onto my lap. She strained against me and made another of those small, arousing noises that I knew, with certainty, meant she wanted more.
I could feel the temperature rising on her skin as my hands caressed her back, her ribs, then sensuously cupped the curve of her ass through her jeans. She shivered against me and broke our kiss with a half laugh. After the boldness of her showing me how she liked her nipples touched, I was smiling to see her looking shy.
"I really like that." She tightened the muscles under my hands and laughed again. "I really do like that."
I brought my hands to her waistband. "Then I think these pants are in the way."
"Definitely." She went up on her knees as I undid the buttons on her fly. I gently loosened the jeans from her hips, letting them fall around her thighs. The panties underneath were two small pieces of lace, a mere excuse of covering. Their only use was to delight my hands as I cupped her ass again through the sheer fabric.
"Oh, Hayley..." She arched against me as. I touched my tongue to one reddened, plump nipple. I pulled back and she followed my mouth until her nipple met my tongue again. I bit down softly, pulled less gently and her moan was like an electric charge down my spine.
I was momentarily distracted by
the ringing thought that I love women, and this was why. She was female, soft and strong, needing and able to cup the back of my head and say in a low, intense voice, "Please, Hayley, take me to bed."
"What's wrong with here?" I coiled my tongue around her nipple, licking the underside as it stiffened. I loved the way she responded to me, and I loved the way it made me feel. My hands slipped under the lace of her enticing, useless panties and I stroked her ass with my palms.
She moaned as she grappled for the back of the chair. "I want both."
Her hair fell in heavy silken waves around me and I felt enclosed in a world of her making. There was nothing for me to think about but her, nothing for me to do but love her body. The focus was liberating and I thought in amazement how simple it really could be. I was older and wiser than I had been that night with Jane, but that did not mean I couldn't say yes to something that felt as wonderful as her body in my arms.
"Hold on tight," I whispered.
"I will... sacred mother... please." She arched her breasts to my mouth and as I licked each sensuously in turn I felt the brush of her pubic hair against my stomach. "Please, Hayley, touch me."
Looking up into her face, I reached for her nipples again. Her shoulders were flushed with pink and I could see the fire rising in her eyes. A prolonged squeeze drew a hoarse, responsive whimper and I was dizzied by the wonder of her cunt dripping on my stomach. "Now. Like this."
She moaned loud in my ear as my fingertips brushed her open lips. That fevered slick welcome that made touching a woman so wonderful trickled over my fingers and down my hand. I lazily found her firm clit, moving more slowly the harder she panted. I don't know how I knew she would like that except that I could read every reaction of her skin to my touch. I stroked to either side of her clit with two fingers, almost still while she moved more and more frantically.
"Please. Oh, Hayley, please."
"Ask for what you want."
She lifted her head from my shoulder and the green of her eyes enveloped me. She was high on lust, but not insensible. Her gaze was full of intent and though it was her body open and needing me to be inside her, I needed to be inside her as much. In that moment we were both equally moth and flame, blazing with matching need.
Bell, Book and Dyke - New Exploits of Magical Lesbians Page 23
