by B Anders
"I loved her so much. Not having her here is like having half of me ripped away and I hate that feeling. I hate living my life like none of it happened.” Courtney whisper, "There were so many times I tried to wish myself away."
"As funny as this might sound coming from me," Harper said as she hit the directional signal to exit the highway. "Suicide isn't a good option. If you blow it then you're likely to end up on a road trip to Hell with the hard ass bitch that fired you."
Courtney actually laughed between her tears, "You can say that again, and who are you calling hard ass."
"I guess it isn't that hard." Harper smirked with a goofy confidence fatigue can bring. “You really have a nice round firm ass, you know. Guys check you out all the time. You never seem to return any interest. You know, some guys aren’t half bad if you give them a chance.”
“Hmmmmmmmmm.”
“Is that a yes or a no?” Harper asked playfully.
“I could say the same thing about you.” Courtney replied softly.
Harper abandoned the conversation that had suddenly become too uncomfortable for her to continue and switched her focus back to the road. The ramp descended into a dark wooded country road with a curious hazy glow just around a bend. Harper drove as if she knew the way like the back of her hand.
"Where are we? Why are we off the highway? I thought the tank was still full," Courtney sounded panicky.
Harper answered, "Relax. We have plenty of gas. But, we both need to rest and clean up. I booked us a room so we..."
"Oh great. Where's this hotel? Under a roller coaster?"
"Look at that, a joke. You must have needed a cry," Harper said.
Courtney rolled her eyes. "Who knows, maybe I just needed a face full of pepper spray?"
***
"Okay, I take everything back about you being an incompetent asshole." Courtney said as she dropped into the king-sized bed fully dressed. "You did good for once. This bed looks delicious."
Harper pushed their suitcases far enough into the room to shut the door. She shot Courtney a pained look, but kept silent.
"So, what's the plan? Get some room service and then hit the sack before we head out on the highway again?"
Harper shrugged. "Sure."
"Sounds like a plan. You wanna go put your suitcase in your room and freshen up? I'll call room service?" Courtney offered. “What do you want? They have steak, chicken, wouldn't recommend the fish this far from Boston.”
"About the second room..." Harper began.
Courtney stood up in a flash, swaying slightly from the sudden movement in her drunken state. "Don't even start with me! If this is one of your rules I swear to God I’ll kick your..."
"No, it's not. Courtney calm down. Look, I got to explain something. They were booked up. I was lucky to get this room. There's some kind of football game this weekend. Homecoming or something like that." Harper rushed to explain as she watched Courtney's grim features slowly start to relax.
“Oh, that’s cool, I guess. Nothing we can do about it anyway. Okay, the bed’s a king, so there’s plenty of room for both of us as long as you don’t hog the blanket, and it isn’t like I haven’t seen your half-dressed ass before. And, it's only for one night. Besides I owe you one for this afternoon.”
"Great. I was hoping you would understand. We can put pillows between us so you don't touch me in my sleep and..."
"So I don't touch you? What the fuck? So I don’t touch you?" Courtney was incredulous. "Listen to me, Harper! I might be stinkin’ drunk, but I'm not the one everybody thinks is sleeping with chicks. I've heard the rumors about you. Everybody knows, Harper. You never fooled anybody. If anyone has to worry about sharing a bed with you, it’s me, okay Harper. Me, not you. So you can..."
Harper sat heavily in the only chair in the room. Her body curled forward until her face was cradled in her hands.
"Why do people have to be so mean?" She muttered.
Courtney was left trying to recapture the momentum of her anger. "No, no, no! I'm the one wronged here. Me. This isn't about you. Don’t you dare make this all about you, Harper. Why does everything have to revolve around you and your god damn stupid rules? And don’t you worry about my wandering hands, because I'd rather chew them off myself than have to touch you. Don’t touch me in my sleep, my ass.”
"Get over yourself." Harper growled through her brimming tears. "Everybody is wrong about me. They don't know anything about me. They tried to make me fit into their worldview, but they don't know shit. You don't know shit."
"Right, I don’t know shit." Courtney scoffed and burped. "I looked through your personnel file, Harper. I know things about you that even your mother swears is not true. So you're trying to tell me you're not gay. Right. Sure. You’re not gay, and I’m Mike 'I'll bite your ear off' Tyson. Everybody's got poor Harper all wrong."
"Everybody has got me wrong."
"So, you're not a lesbian. Okay, what are you? Straight? I'll put my Ha-Ha in right now. So, you trying to pass for a bisexual? As if that means anything other than lesbian with an occasional side order of sausage, and I should know, I took care of one for most of my stinkin’ life. Patty was a fucked up slut. There wasn’t anything on two legs she wouldn’t fuck."
Harper looked stunned. "You are being incredibly cruel."
“What’s cruel? It’s the fuckin’ truth and the truth stinks. Patty fucked men, women, and anything in between. Hell, she even made it a point to score with the guys I went out with in High School. My mother got worried when I stopped dating, and shipped me off to therapy. But you see, I wasn’t the problem. I was never the fuckin’ problem, like I’m not the problem now. You, Harper, are the problem and the problem is your sexuality. What’s the big fuckin’ deal, Harper? Just come out already. Jesus Christ, it's the twenty-first century for cryin’ out loud," Courtney paused. "Isn't it? Or is it the twenty-second? Doesn't matter. What the fuck are you afraid of Harper? You afraid of not getting your membership card to the sworn sisterhood? Personally, it’s an overrated rip off. Come out and make sure you continue to live on the upper edges of the country and you'll be fine. Stay out of the south and the middle and you can lead a perfectly happy life."
"I'm not gay. I'm not a bisexual either." Harper paused as tears began to stream down her face. "I'm not straight either. I'm nothing. I'm not attracted to anybody."
"Eeewww," Courtney shivered. "If you're going to start talking about goats then this conversation ends now. I don’t care how much you like them, I draw a line at fur."
"You really are a vicious bitch when you drink."
Courtney rolled her eyes, "What? Me mean? You should take a leaf out of my old man’s book when that bastard drank. That was why my mother left him and started collecting ex-husbands. Do you know how many times my mother has been married, Harper? She’s on to husband number five now. I can’t even freakin’ remember all their names. Anyway, you're the one who’s ruling out humans as sexual partners. You’re the one with the problem. There's not a lot left after men, women, or both. Other than goats and tentacle alien monsters..."
"There is none," Harper sounded miserable.
The room fell silent. The air seemed to have been sucked right out of it. Harper wiped her nose and continued staring at the floor, while Courtney just sat on the bed with her mouth wide opened. If the phone hadn’t rung, they might have sat there all night trying not to look at each other. Courtney reached over and picked up the receiver.
"Huh, what?"
"This is the front desk. I'm very sorry, but housekeeping located the last rollaway cot and it’s in disrepair. We apologize for the inconvenience. Please allow us to offer you free breakfast for two in our café..."
"Huh, that’ll be fine." Courtney muttered absently before hanging up on the clerk. "I don't think I understand, Harper. When you say, 'none' what do you actually mean? ‘None’ as in I’m the world’s oldest virgin or ‘none’ as in," Courtney paused in mid-sentence. "I don't have a clue what another
version of none would be."
"If you don't know what the word means, go find a fuckin’ dictionary. I’m done with this conversation. I'm going to take a shower." Harper moved to get up, but Courtney motioned for her to stop.
"Wait, Harper, please. I’m not making fun of you. I'm having trouble following what’re saying. I'm thinking you're trying to tell me you don't have sex. Is that what you are saying?"
Harper scrubbed her face. "It's more than that. Most married couples don't have sex. I have no interest in it. Men or women, men and women, it doesn't matter to me. I just don't become aroused."
"It's an illness, right? With a treatment? How long has this gone on? When was the last time you were intimate?" Courtney fired the questions out in rapid success.
Harper looked her square in the eye and uttered the truth for the first time, "Never."
After a long awkward pause, Courtney slowly got off the bed and went over to kneel beside a shivering Harper.
“Shit, you’re not kidding are you?”
“No.”
“Look, Harper, I’m sorry I yelled at you. You were right. I didn’t know shit. In case, you haven’t noticed already, I’m a dickhead by profession and by nature.”
“That’s ok. You didn’t know, and I did get you maced in the face today. So we’re pretty even.”
“I got myself maced in the face. What happened in the bar didn’t have anything to do with you. I just lost it. Besides what’s a little pepper spray between friends, right?” Courtney winked as Harper slowly brought her head up to meet the other woman’s soft blue eyes.”
“Can I ask you something personal, Courtney?”
“Sure, if I can find an answer for it.”
“Why do you hate Patty so much?”
“I…I don’t know. Ancient history perhaps. Patty and I, well, we’re pretty screwed up, both of us. It was like we were each playing out a set of roles our parents scripted out for us. I was the smart one, and she was the wild one. I was expected to go to Harvard, and she was expected to do drugs, drink too much, and get pregnant at sixteen. Patty wasn’t stupid, I think she resented the fact that everything she tried to do was ignored or dismissed, and she lashed out at everyone around her, especially me.”
“Did Patty ever hurt you?”
“She hurt me all the time. It was a game with her. There was one time I came home from class, it was the last week of school before term break. Patty and I were sharing an apartment off campus in our sophomore year. She was flunking out of school, and I was going to make the Dean’s list. She must have hated me bad because I caught her in bed with my best friend, Thad. They were making fun of me and laughing behind my back. The things they said about me were just plain mean.”
“What happened?”
“I moved out, never spoke to Thad again. I couldn’t face him, not after what happened. Patty dropped him a week later and turned up on my doorstep hungry and broke. I lent her money for the rent and made her a sandwich.”
“Ouch.”
“Thad and I had been friends since we were eight. We kept in touch when I went away to school. He wasn’t my boyfriend or anything, but somehow the betrayal hurt worse.”
“Courtney, I swear you don’t have to worry about me treating you like that.”
“I know. I don’t even care if you’re some asexual tentacle monster from Planet X. I'm getting the feeling I can trust you.”
“Thanks, but you never know it might just be the booze making you think that." Harper watched as Courtney giggled. The next question followed almost without a thought. “Do you know what happened to Thad?”
The giggling stopped immediately. Courtney looked wounded, but answered. “No. He tried a few times over the years to get in touch with me. A lawyer told me to send him a 'disinvite' letter. After that, he left me alone.”
“That’s good.”
“I was sure I would have to spend more to get his knees broken with a sledgehammer.”
Harper smiled. “Are you always so direct in your intentions?”
Courtney smiled back. “Not always, sometimes I’m coy when I play hard to get.”
“That’s something I’d like to see.” Harper grinned.
“I like it when you smile. It’s like the whole of your face just lights up. Harper, I just wish you knew you could trust me too? I know no touching, but can I give you a hug?”
“Courtney, I’m not sure,” Harper sat back as she spoke.
“Then forget it, no pressure. I just...”
The arms that suddenly enveloped Courtney were strong and fierce, and it seemed so natural then for Courtney to turn her head up and gently kiss Harper on the lips.
“Come on, Harper let’s go order dinner.” Courtney whispered as Harper rested her head against her shoulder.
“I don’t want any dinner. I just want to stay here a while.”
“You got to eat. We need to keep up your strength. We have a long way to drive tomorrow.”
“No.” Harper muttered. “I just want to stay here for a while.”
***
December 5
Harper gave a contented sigh as she snuggled up against something warm and soft. It was just the right size to fit perfectly pressed up to her chest. Happily, she hummed a little as she slowly swam back from the depths of slumber. She could not remember ever feeling this contented. Yawning, it took her a few blinks to clear her vision as she reached up to wipe away the crusting from her eyes.
"Holy Mary, Mother of God," Harper screamed in horror like a frightened schoolgirl as she back peddled across the bed.
"What the..." Courtney moaned as she found herself suddenly tossed out of Harper's warm embrace and dumped gracelessly onto the floor in a tangle of sheets. “Harper! What the fuck is wrong with you?”
Harper was babbling incoherently as she escaped to the opposite side of the bed. "No, touching. You know the rules. No touching. Keep your hands to yourself. You promised me last night..."
"Fuck the rules! And, don’t you even try to pin this on me! I wasn't doing anything. I was sound asleep." Courtney snarled as she sat up on the floor trying to free her legs from their bindings. "And, for the record, you were the one cuddling me. I woke up, and you had me in a bear hug so tight that I could hardly breathe."
"Liar!" Harper screamed frantically grabbing her clothes. "This was a terrible idea. I'm going to get a cab...I got to..."
Courtney burst out laughing. "You're going to take a cab to Graeme’s World? Harper! Listen to yourself. We’re in a motel in the middle of southern nowheresville. All they have on the room service menu is chicken fried steak or fried chicken. Where the fuck are you even going to get a cab here? Pull it out of a hat like some magician’s rabbit? And would you just calm down for a minute and stop screaming, you’re giving me a fuckin’ headache."
Harper stopped and glared balefully at Courtney.
"Well, now that I have your attention. Look, Harper what happened was perfectly innocent. You must have rolled over the pillows while Kung Fu fighting in your dreams again..."
"I don't dream," Harper muttered. "I have nightmares."
Courtney nodded. "Whatever. The point is while you were having a nightmare, you somehow managed to launch over our cotton replica of the Berlin Wall and wrapped around me like a boa constrictor. It was an accident, okay? Nobody touched you and nothing happened. So quit flipping out. I so need a valium."
"Why didn't you push me away? You could have woke up and pushed me away."
"Hello, I was drunk. You did realize that when I kissed you last night, right? Not completely in my right mind."
Harper sat with a thud on the edge of the bed. "Liar, you could have pushed me away if you wanted to and you weren't that drunk not to know what you were doing. You managed to wolf down a bucket of fried chicken and two bottles of mountain dew while I was in the shower.”
"What I was doing was wrong, you friggin' ignorant twit," Courtney muttered as she scrubbed her face. “Look, I was hungr
y. Really hungry. Do you know why I was hungry? I didn’t eat the entire day because someone didn’t feed me and, for the record, you could have pushed me away too. Nothing stopping you from doing that, Ms. Righteous Indignation."
Harper stuttered on her defense, “I just did.”
“Yah right, after you held me hostage in your arms all night like a human shield against your bad dreams. By the way, Harper, the nightmares are in your own head. Nobody else can save you from those. Look at the bruises your death grip left on my arms. Way to go, Harper.”
“It was an accident. It didn’t mean anything like that."
“Like hugging and kissing me last night didn’t mean anything too.”
“I didn’t say that. Stop putting words in my mouth. I felt bad about you getting maced, but you’re the one who kissed me.”
“After, you gave me the Goddamn hug.”
“I told you I felt bad about you getting hurt.”
“So you gave me a hug and let me kiss you because you felt bad, is that it Harper? Great!" Courtney was disgusted, "I’m now your charity case.”
Harper paused and looked away.
“Fine. I get it. You just feel sorry for me, that’s all it is.” Courtney got off the floor in frustration and started making her way to the bathroom.
“Courtney, wait.”
“Why? So you can insult me some more. Is that it, Harper? All I know is that something started to change between us last night. Something good. It was like we finally connected for once and now you aren’t even honest enough to admit it. You know what you are? A freakin’ coward.”
“I...I...”
“Fuck you.”
“I’m sorry it’s coming out all wrong. Courtney, please listen. Don’t turn away from me.”
“Tell me a good reason why I shouldn’t just pack up my stuff and leave your freaking psycho ass behind.”
