Coalescence - SF3

by Meagher, Susan X

  The smaller woman climbed onto Ryan’s lap again, sitting sideways with her head resting against the leather chair back. "Do you regret being adventuresome?"

  Ryan slid her arms around her and squeezed her tight. "Not in the least, Honey. I think we’ve had one of the most memorable honeymoons on record. As a matter of fact, I was thinking of starting a journal, and writing down all of the fun we’ve had here. I thought it would be nice to have a keepsake that we could look at in future years."

  "Beat you to it, Baby," Jamie said with a smile. "I’ve been keeping a journal since I was in high school. I haven’t had a lot of free time since we’ve been here, but I wrote the other morning when you were running, and I made a few notes when you were jogging on the beach. It would be cool to start a new book just on our honeymoon, though. We could do it together if you wanted to."

  "I would love that, Sweetie. When you go for your golf lesson, we can stop at a bookstore and buy a new journal. Then we can spend some time this afternoon reflecting on the week."

  "Hey, that reminds me, what was Conor giving you a hard time about?"

  "You couldn’t figure that out?"

  "Well, I guess it was about the surveillance system. Did you have to tell him what we were doing?" She looked a little cross, and Ryan sought to defend herself.

  "All I said was that there were closed circuit cameras that we didn’t know were on. He asked why that was a big deal, and I said that your parents didn’t know about us, and we didn’t want them to see us being affectionate. I certainly didn’t tell him how affectionate we had been," she said, "but he’s a sharp boy, and he knows me pretty well…"

  "So he knows," she stated flatly.

  "He knows we were doing things that we don’t want your parents to see. But I’m sure he doesn’t have any idea exactly how important it is to prevent them knowing what we have been doing."

  Jamie nodded briefly, her worry ameliorated by Ryan’s explanation. "I just don’t want Conor to think less of me," she explained with a shy smile.

  Ryan began to laugh so hard that Jamie had to throw her arms around her to stay on her lap. "Oh, Jamie!" she said, after she caught her breath. "That is priceless!"

  "What?" she asked, slightly embarrassed.

  "He might change his opinion of you, but it wouldn’t be in a downward direction!"

  "What do you mean?"

  "If he had any idea of how totally hot, and sexy, and wild you are, he’d hang himself!"

  "But why?" Jamie asked, rather incredulously.

  "He’s not kidding when he teases you about having a crush on you, Babe. He really likes you, and I guarantee he would have made a very big play for you if I hadn’t asked him not to."

  "Are you serious?"

  "About which part?" Ryan’s brow twitched in question.

  "Start with you telling him not to make a play for me. Why did you do that?"

  "Why?" she asked with a puzzled grin. "Would you rather he had made claim on you before I did?"

  Jamie laughed heartily at the very idea. "Hardly. I love Conor, but even if I were straight, I wouldn’t have gone for him. I’ve never been attracted to bad boys, and he is their poster child."

  "But you seem to like bad girls," Ryan purred as she nuzzled up against Jamie’s ear.

  "Uh--uh," she disagreed, shaking her head. "I thought you were a bad girl for exactly one day. When we met in class I thought you were a total bad girl, but when we went for our drive the next day, I immediately changed my opinion of you, and you’ve never given me a reason to go back to my original impression."

  "That’s fascinating," Ryan mused. "So you really don’t think of me as bad?"

  "Not at all!" Jamie cried. "You’re so sweet and thoughtful and kind. You care so much for other people’s feelings, and you’re so upstanding and moral. You seemed to use that bad girl aura like a shield, but for some reason you took the shield down really quickly with me."

  "The truth is that Conor does the same thing. He’s easily as sweet as I am," she admitted.

  "He could be Mother Teresa with testosterone and I’m still glad that I got you. Now what was that other little thing you were trying to convince me of?" she teased.

  "I was pointing out the obvious, Jamie. You’re one gorgeous example of womanhood, but I don’t think you’re even conscious of how attractive you are."

  Jamie blushed deeply at this compliment. She looked up at Ryan shyly and said, "I don’t think of myself as being very attractive. I feel like I’m kinda cute, but in a little girl way."

  "No way, Babe. I am attracted to women, Jamie. Not little girls." She leaned in to give her a deeply passionate kiss, "You are a very sexy woman." Reaching up with both hands, she tenderly lifted Jamie’s full breasts. "These are a woman’s breasts." Then she trailed her hands down to the round hips, "These are a woman’s hips. Everything about you is full and ripe and sexy." She leaned in for another deep kiss. "Definitely a woman," she said as she closed her eyes and leaned in close for another hug.

  "I’m your woman, Ryan. Always yours," she said fervently as she leaned her forehead against Ryan’s.

  After they had cuddled for a while, Ryan asked, "Does it bother you that Conor has a crush on you?"

  "No, it doesn’t. I think of him like a big brother, so it is a little disconcerting when he teases me, but it doesn’t bother me."

  "I can ask him to stop teasing you, you know. He’ll stop if I tell him that it bothers you."

  "No, I actually think it’s kinda cute. He’s so obvious about it that it doesn’t seem like any kind of a threat."

  "Well, my guess is that he’ll stop doing it when he sees us together for a while. Once they get used to you being their sister-in-law I think they’ll feel funny about having sexual thoughts about you."

  "What do you mean, ‘they’?" Jamie inquired suspiciously.

  "Oh, Brendan and Rory have a crush on you, too. And Padraig and Niall had a big argument about which of them you would prefer," she said with a hearty laugh at Jamie’s shocked face. "I’m telling you, Jamie, you’re a hottie!"

  Jamie just shook her head in embarrassment and leaned against Ryan’s chest. "I’m reserving my heat for you alone, Tiger. For the rest of my life," she intoned with finality.

  "So...." Jamie asked when they went back into the kitchen to plan their day. "What would you like to do today?"

  "Oh, I don’t know," Ryan said thoughtfully. "I’m kinda torn between taking you back upstairs and ravishing you until you scream for mercy..."

  Jamie placed her arms around Ryan’s neck and leaned her head down until they were nose to nose. "Or what?"

  "Or having you take me upstairs and ravishing me until I beg for mercy," she replied with a crooked grin, as she kissed her partner lightly on the lips. "Do your plans differ from mine?" she asked, as she gave her a few more gentle nibbles.

  "I’ve got that little golf lesson, and then I have a surprise for you that might take a while, but other than that…" she teased, eyebrows wiggling. "Would I be able to satisfy you this afternoon?"

  "I’m completely unfamiliar with the level of desire I have right now, Jamie," Ryan replied as she tilted her head and rested her chin on her lover’s shoulder. "I’ve never been with anyone that kept me so constantly aroused. I truly feel like I could make love to you all day long."

  "Believe me, Sweetie," Jamie said as she kissed Ryan tenderly, "if I didn’t feel the need to retain my ability to walk, I’d definitely want to be in bed all day. But I know what you mean about the level of arousal. It’s a little overwhelming for me," she said shyly. "How about you?"

  Ryan thought about that for a minute before she answered, "Yeah, I guess it is. I’m used to a lot of sex, so it’s not that part that’s strange for me. It’s the intimacy that overwhelms me," she said as she wrapped her arms around Jamie and held her tight. "I’ve just never felt this connected to anyone."

  Jamie was touched and pleased by this admission, knowing how close Ryan felt to her family. "
I feel the same about you, Baby," she said.

  She looked up at her partner with a very shy grin curling up one corner of her mouth. "I like it when you call me ‘baby’."

  "Well, you are my big, sweet, beautiful baby, and I love you more than words can ever say."

  Ryan nuzzled her face into her partner’s soft breast and sighed deeply at the comfort and warmth she felt in her embrace.

  Since her golf lesson was at noon they had an hour to kill, so they decided to go into town to shop for a honeymoon journal. They found a small but well-stocked bookstore and decided on a clothbound book with spaces for pictures. They hadn’t used their camera much but Jamie wanted some pictures, so they decided to ask Chip to take some at the course and then have Conor take some that evening.

  While Jamie worked on her game with Chip, Ryan jumped into the sand bunker again and worked for a solid hour. Having learned her lesson from her previous experiences, she placed herself so that the prevailing wind blew the sand away from her body. She was actually quite successful, both in her improved bunker play and her nearly sand free face.

  Chip obliged their request and took a few shots of them by the clubhouse. They didn’t feel free to be too demonstrative, but did manage to drape their arms around each other casually. Jamie insisted on getting a few shots of Ryan hitting balls out of the sand, since she had spent so much of her time there. Ryan retaliated by having Jamie hit some big drives while she clicked away, getting some very good shots of her big follow through.

  It was a little after one and Ryan was starving as usual. To get nourishment into her body as quickly as possible, they chose to eat at the club. "I gotta tell you, Jamie, it’s good to be rich," Ryan said with a big, satisfied grin as they relaxed at their table.

  "I’m glad you like it, Sweetie. Maybe I can make a hedonist out of you after all. Gosh, maybe you can join Mother on some of her shopping sprees!"

  "Do you think I’ll like her?" Ryan asked as she cocked her head slightly.

  The earnest, nearly fragile look on her partner’s face made Jamie tread carefully. "Ummm, I’m not sure," she hedged. "She has impeccable manners, and she’s very good at making people feel like she’s interested in them, so I guess you might," she said with a thoughtful expression.

  "Gee, that was quite an endorsement," Ryan laughed. "Do you describe me in such glowing terms?"

  "Of course not," Jamie said a little abruptly.

  "Jamie," Ryan said slowly. "Did that hurt your feelings?"

  "No, not really." A small shake of her head and a frown preceded her answer. "I guess I’m just in a bad space right now about my mother. I’m really glad that I’m in therapy, Ryan, but I’m realizing things that I’ve ignored for my whole life." She looked down at her plate and sadly admitted, "I don’t much like the person I’m uncovering."

  Ryan stared at her partner for a moment as a realization dawned on her. She had always focused on how much she had missed by losing her mother at such a tender age. Looking at the hurt in Jamie’s eyes reminded her that even though her memories of her mother were few, they were uniformly positive. She had been spared the normal mother/daughter fights and the distance that naturally grew as a child matured. She did not know one woman who had escaped adolescence without some major problems with their mother, and she briefly considered that she was happy that she had such loving memories. "I’m sorry, Baby. That must be hard for you," she said sympathetically. "You’ve told me a little bit about your childhood, and about how little time your mother spent with you, but you’ve never really talked about her. I’ve got to admit that I don’t know a darn thing about her."

  Jamie nodded at the truth in this statement. "I feel like a jerk talking about her like this. I know I shouldn’t be so hard on her," Jamie admitted. "She was truly an awful mother in terms of care giving, but as I got older, and lowered my expectations, we got along quite well. When I was in high school we spent a lot of time together, going out to dinner and the theatre and things like that. I’d have to say we act more like rather reserved friends than mother and daughter. All in all, she’s really pretty interesting, Ryan. She’s bright and actually kind of funny, in a reserved way."

  "How are you like her?" Ryan asked, knowing that she would be drawn to any similarity between her partner and her mother.

  Jamie had to think about that for a long while. "I’m not really sure. I like to think that I’m a lot like my father, since I respect him more, but I know there are a lot of things I get from my mother, too." She pondered the idea for a few more minutes. "I’ve got to admit that I like to shop, and I really like clothes," she said with a blush. "I think I get my sense of style from her. I love architecture and art, and those are two of her passions. I also really enjoy classical music and opera, and that’s purely from her. Come to think of it, I guess I got my love of language from her." She sat back in her chair with a smile as she continued. "When I was little, she spent a lot of time correcting my speech and grammar. I sounded like an English teacher by the time I went to grade school. You know," she said with a laugh, "I have to force myself to speak like other people my age. I actually try to dumb my speech down so I don’t sound like I’m being pompous."

  "You don’t have to do that around me," Ryan said sincerely. "I don’t mind sounding like a dolt compared to you."

  "Ryan, you speak beautifully," she chided. "You actually speak more like a European than a Californian. You know, the first time I heard you speak I thought you might be foreign born. Now, when I think about it, it was the way you pronounced your name. Did you know that your accent comes out when you say it?"

  "It does?" Ryan gaped in surprise. "I had no idea."

  "Yep," Jamie grinned. "It really does. You sound Irish when you say your name and when you talk about Ireland. It must be subconscious."

  "Weird," Ryan mused. "I mean, in a way I was raised in Ireland, but in other ways I’m entirely American. It really surprises me that I sound Irish."

  "Don’t misunderstand, Babe," Jamie insisted. "Your accent is very subtle. You sound European mainly because you speak more formally than most people your age."

  Ryan nodded, now understanding her partner’s point. "Da would not tolerate us speaking like the other kids. I let myself fall into sloppy grammar in college. Funny, isn’t it? The more educated we get, the dumber we sound!"

  "Well, if you can avoid splitting infinitives or dangling any participles, my mother will love you!"

  "Oh, not me," Ryan vowed. "That is the type of nonsense up with which I shall not put!"

  Jamie laughed at her partner’s borrowing of the famous Churchill quote. After a moment she became serious again. "I’m not sure how she’ll feel about our relationship, but since she’s never very genuine, I guess it really doesn’t matter," she opined somewhat flippantly.

  "Is she really that bad, Honey? I mean, is there nothing about her that you really like?"

  She pursed her lips for a moment, deep in thought. "No, she’s not that bad," she admitted. "I’m just so down on her that it’s hard for me to see her good traits. "Let me try to focus on the things that I do admire." When another few moments passed, Ryan felt a pang of sorrow that her lover had such a hard time being positive about her mother. Jamie blew out a breath and began her list, "She spends a lot of time doing charity work—although I think she does it just to be seen by the right people," she added in a disparaging tone. "She’s a devoted student of whatever little topic she is currently interested in. Of course, she has nothing else to fill her time, so she can spend hours and hours on minutiae."

  Ryan shot her a glance and widened her eyes as she said, "I don’t think this is a good time to talk about the things you like about her, Jamie. You’re really damning her with faint praise."

  "You’re right," she agreed, blushing a little. "Anna assures me that I will eventually get my anger out, and then I won’t have to spend so much time grousing about her. But that remains to be seen," she grumbled.

  "I hope you get to a point
where you like being around each other again," Ryan said. "I want you to feel closer to your family, if it’s at all possible. But if it’s not, you know you’re fully accepted as an O’Flaherty."

  "Maybe I’ll change my name," she said thoughtfully. "Jamie O’Flaherty. It has kind of a ring to it doesn’t it?"

  "Not bad," Ryan agreed. "It’s not all that easy to merge a lot of names with O’Flaherty, but yours is darned good."

  "Don’t I know it!" she agreed. "I’ve been thinking up names for our children, and you almost need an Irish given name for it to sound good."

  Ryan flashed a high wattage grin as she asked, "Have you really been thinking of names for our kids? That’s so totally adorable!"

  "Yep. If Conor is the sperm donor, I’ll name mine O’Flaherty, too. That way they’ll feel more like siblings."

  "That is so precious of you, Jamie. You have to tell me what names you like." The nearly giddy look on Ryan’s face made Jamie’s heart beat double-time as she considered how much she loved this emotion-filled woman.

  "Well," she mused. "I don’t know many Irish names, but I think our first daughter has to be Fionnuala," she said softly, barely touching the tips of Ryan’s fingers with her own.

  Ryan immediately pulled her lips in between her teeth in what Jamie recognized as an effort to avoid tears. She closed her eyes slowly and whispered, "Thank you for understanding that’s important to me."

  "It’s important to me too," she replied; as she battled her own emotions. "She’s important to me since she gave me you. I’m forever in her debt." Their fingers moved on the table and gripped a little tighter in a totally unconscious gesture, ignoring all of the other patrons of the busy restaurant, seeing only each other.

  The conversation reverted to a teasing game in which Ryan tried to think of the most awkward Irish names for their children. Jamie finally called a draw with Phelum and Fergal for a boy, and Dymphna or Gobnait for a girl. As they prepared to leave the club Jamie felt a brief flash of panic as she mused, She’s kidding, right? Please God, don’t let her grandmother’s name be Gobnait!