Out on the Sound

by R. E. Bradshaw

  Decky was in shock. She hadn’t thought it was possible for Charlie to be sexier with clothes on than off, but my God. She was frozen to the spot, unable to do anything but stare. Then Charlie dipped her chin and gave a 'come hither' look that caused an explosion in Decky’s chest. Charlie crossed her arms in front of her about to take her shirt off over her head, when Decky finally spoke.

  “No.” It was more a croak than a word. Charlie stopped taking her shirt off and instead ran her fingers through her hair, down her neck and then pressed the wet material tight to her breasts, before settling her hands behind her, on her hips.

  Decky was beside herself. Her legs were like jelly and her hands trembled on the crutches she had somehow managed to stick under her shoulders. Charlie wasn’t finished, but Decky almost was. When Charlie turned around and slowly, ever so slowly, slid her underpants to the floor, Decky’s blood was rushing so fast she could hear it. She looked down to see her heart beating through her shirt.

  Decky looked back up just in time to watch Charlie step into the Jacuzzi attached to the end of the lap pool. She kept her back turned until she reached the center of the tub, then she slid down into the water. Charlie emerged from the water facing Decky, with the now soaking shirt clinging to every curve of her body. Then and only then did she speak, “Miss Bradshaw, have I motivated you?”

  Decky blurted out, “Hell yeah, I’m motivated, but there seems to be a problem.”

  “And what might that be?”

  “I can’t walk. I can’t feel my legs.”

  “Do I have to come get you?”

  “No. Just stay right there, I think all the blood rushed to my heart. I’m sure it will make its way back to my legs eventually.”

  “Is there anything I can do to help?” Charlie wasn’t really trying to help. Decky could see that. Charlie was enjoying Decky’s predicament. She dipped her chest in the water again, kind of a bobbing peepshow.

  That’s it, Decky thought. If I have to crawl over there, I’m moving now. She didn’t even stop to take her clothes off when she got there. She dropped the crutches and hopped down the steps on one foot and then it was on. Wet clothes flew from the water in all directions, all except the baseball shirt.

  #

  Decky finished swimming a few laps in the pool with a float on her ankle. There was no way she could do her normal distance. She couldn’t have done it with the banged up ankle, and she sure couldn’t do it after all the recent activities. She had time to think while she swam. Zack would have to be told, and soon. Cell phones had made the grapevine so short she’d have to hurry.

  Zack was an unbelievably cool kid. Raising him had not always been an enjoyable experience, but he had turned out all right. He was intelligent, although his grades did not always reflect it, a major bone of contention for a while. He was off to music school in Boston this fall, but right now, he was working on a science expedition, studying whales in Alaska. If being a student came as easily to Zack as music did, he might be a marine biologist. That was a big if. He called it his fall back plan.

  Zack was not going to have a problem with this. He would love Charlie. He would probably say something like, “That’s cool.” That’s just the person he was. Decky envied his ability to glide through life. She associated this ability with his love of jazz music.

  Satisfied that Zack would not be a problem, she turned her thoughts to bigger fish. Daddy’s reaction would directly reflect how much shit he had to put up with from Miss Lizzie. Charles Robert Bradshaw was a religious man, but he loved his daughter. Decky knew a few debates over the good word were coming, but they would be debates not dictates.

  It would all go back to the same argument they always had. Decky believed the bible was written by men, to control men. They could agree that men had compiled the books that made up the old and new testaments. That’s where they would part ways. Decky had read enough literature to recognize the creation myths and their constants. The same stories played out in history, long before Jesus walked this earth. It made it hard for Decky to believe this one book and only this book contained the keys to God’s wishes and demands.

  That there was a God, Decky had no doubt. She just didn’t have a conventional way of looking at the whole religion thing. Faith in a higher power she had, having looked to it for guidance in times of turmoil, but she didn’t buy the judgmental, white haired old guy watching your every move. Decky’s faith was in the power of free will bestowed upon us all. It’s what people do with that free will that matters. The decisions we make, not what people think about what you wore to church last Sunday, make up one’s true character.

  As far as the bible thumpers went, it also says kill your wife if she wears the wrong kinds of fabrics together. If you wanted to get specific, it doesn’t say a word about women lying with women, probably because men wrote it. That was something Decky would never understand, the way men acted over two women in bed together. Now that she had actually been to bed with a woman, she thought, well guys, the joke’s on you, because those gals can get along just fine without you.

  So checking her moral compass one last time, Decky took stock. Could something that felt this right, so absolutely as it should be, be wrong? If the way Decky felt about Charlie was simply a chemical reaction, a scientific mix of pheromones and hormones, it also was a once in a lifetime chance. The odds that two people, born in different states, thousands of miles away from each other and who reacted this way to each other, would come in contact was astronomical. It was a fucking miracle and Decky was going to go with it. “You don’t mess with mother nature.”

  The jukebox in Decky’s mind started playing, “If lovin’ you is wrong, I don’t wanna be right…” She was singing it when she hopped up on the side of the pool.

  Charlie threw a towel at her. “Well, you’re just a regular ol’ little dolphin aren’t you?”

  Decky caught the towel and grinned, that one dimple smile Charlie seemed to be quite fond of. “Thank you.”

  Charlie was seated at the bar, nibbling on cheese. She wore one of the terry cloth robes Decky kept in the downstairs shower. Charlie’s left ankle rested up on her right knee. Decky could see the soft blonde hair she had grown to know and love peeking out at her. Charlie seemed very comfortable in her nakedness now, as if they had crossed an unspoken boundary of trust.

  As Decky dried off and hobbled over to the nearest stool, Charlie went behind the bar, retrieving another robe she had placed there earlier. She handed the robe to Decky with one hand, while stuffing a Wheat Thin coated in smoked Gouda cheese in her mouth with the other. She reached into the cooler for a bottle of cold water for Decky and then picked up the crutches. Charlie brought the crutches to Decky, kissed her on the cheek, and sat down opposite her. Throughout the entire process, Charlie kept a running monologue.

  “I have to tell you, you have the best body of any woman I’ve ever been with. And that whole watching you swim naked is something I could get used to. It’s very beautiful in a ‘Greek statue in motion’ kind of way.”

  Decky toweled her hair, “I’m flattered.”

  “You should be. Not many thirty seven year olds have asses like that.”

  “You’re thirty eight and your ass is perfect.”

  “Yeah, but I was born with a perfect ass. No kidding. My mother has this picture of me lying on my stomach at three months and everybody always says, ‘What a cute little ass.’ Of course it has been displayed prominently in our house since it was taken, so everybody in town has seen my ass.” Charlie belched.

  Decky was afraid she would fall off the stool. She was laughing at Charlie, “God, you’re funny.”

  Charlie’s foot slipped off the bottom rung of the stool. “I also think I’m a little drunk.”

  Decky looked at the now empty wine bottle on the bar and then back at Charlie. “You finished off that bottle by yourself?”

  “Well, you were doing your dolphin thinking thing, so I was doing my drinking thinking thing, okay.�
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  Decky reached over and helped Charlie steady herself. “So, did you come up with anything while you were thinking and drinking?”

  “I was kind of distracted by your tight ass going up and down that pool.”

  “Sorry.”

  Charlie put both hands on Decky’s shoulders. “I know I’m drunk, because I never, I mean never, talk like this.”

  “Do you normally do wet tee shirt strip tease acts?”

  “I have never done anything like that in my life either. I’m not exactly sure what happened there, it just sort of came out of nowhere.”

  Decky was really enjoying this. “It’s okay really, I don’t mind. If the urge ever strikes you again, feel free.”

  “Okay, I have another ground rule.”

  Charlie was trying to be serious, so was Decky, but it was really hard with Charlie weaving back and forth.

  “I’m listening. Let me get you a coke. I think you need a little sugar and some real food.” Decky hopped around the bar. “Here, have another cracker.”

  “Look, I know I’m drunk, but I have to say this. Sometimes I can be, let’s say, a little more uninhibited than others. I am all about having fun at these particular times, but don’t ask me about it later. I know it sounds weird, but it’s just a thing with me. I will fuck your brains out, but let’s just not talk about it… Oh my God, listen to me.”

  “Your secret is safe with me. You know, I suspected that under that homecoming queen exterior lurked the soul of a sailor mouthed old broad. Come on, let’s get upstairs and get some food in you and some dry clothes on you.”

  Charlie started laughing, “Well, now that’s a switch. You’ve been taking my clothes off every chance you’ve had since I got here.”

  To Decky’s utter amazement, they made it to the elevator and into the kitchen without falling down. She got Charlie situated on a stool and quickly started making sandwiches. She handed Charlie two Advil and a coke with the sandwich. Decky sat down beside her with her own sandwich, watching to make sure Charlie ate. After a half a sandwich, Charlie started to come around.

  “While you were swimming, Decky, did you have any ideas about how you were going to deal with this, us, out there in the world.”

  “I did think about it. I decided Zack would be okay with it, Daddy will get over it and, well, there’s my mother.”

  “She can’t be all that bad.”

  “You haven’t met her.”

  “Well, then maybe I won’t have to.”

  Decky had known this moment was coming, but she still hadn’t fully prepared for how she was going to broach this subject with Charlie. “I’m not sure you’ll be able to avoid meeting her, as a matter of fact, I know you will meet her on Friday, at the new-faculty luncheon.”

  Charlie perked up, “And you know this because…?”

  Decky could see no way around it. She was going to have to tell her eventually. It would be better than Charlie being blindsided with it. “My mother is on the board of regents at the university, as a matter of fact her name will be one of the ones on your check.”

  Charlie dropped the sandwich and spit out the bite she had just taken. “You have got to be shittin’ me.”

  “Bigger than life. Elizabeth Bradshaw, right there on the middle line.”

  “When exactly were you planning on telling me this?”

  Decky slid her stool back a little. She really thought Charlie might hit her. “I hadn’t really thought that one all the way through.”

  “That’s an understatement.” Charlie was really panicked now. “What were you thinking? Oh, dear God, I’ll never find another job and my career will be ruined. Brenda knew, too. She didn’t think to warn me either. Am I the only one thinking here?”

  “Come on Charlie, it’s not like I’m some young thing, student you have the hots for. What can she do to you, but snub you at faculty receptions?”

  “You are unbelievably naïve.” Charlie got up and walked toward the deck. “You have insinuated that your mother is nosey and judgmental. She is exactly the kind of person I have been trying to warn you about. I’ve dealt with her kind before. One day, everything is going along fine and the next you find yourself being fired because of ‘budget cuts.’ Except you know it’s because some idiot in the community decided you might unduly influence the young women you’re teaching. They don’t even have to be sure you’re gay, it only takes a rumor and a determined zealot.”

  Decky followed Charlie; “I wouldn’t let her do that to you.”

  “You think you can stop her?” She was crying now.

  “Jesus Charlie, I’m sorry. I didn’t think…”

  “That’s the problem. You didn’t think and now look at the mess I’m in.”

  “We are in … the mess we are in.”

  “Decky, I love to teach. I’m good at it. At one time, that was taken away from me, because of a rumor that wasn’t true. Luckily, I found a new job and moved on, but that one instance has haunted me my entire career. How will I defend myself against something that is true?”

  “As far as I know, being gay is not a reason to be fired from the university system. Everyone around here knows Lizzie is a pain in the ass. Who knows, most people will probably relish in her misery and rally to your side.”

  “I hope you are right, but as far as I can tell, the good ol’ boy attitude of don’t ask, don’t tell is alive and well in this little part of the world.”

  “Come on, there are lots of gay people teaching out there.”

  Charlie was starting to look a little green around the gills. She glared at Decky, desperate for her to understand. “Yes, but how many of them are lesbians that just happen to be fucking a member of the board of regents’, here to fore, straight daughter!”

  With that, Charlie hung her head over the railing and threw up.

  Decky went to her and held her hair up out of her face. “Go ahead, it’ll wash off and you’ll feel better.”

  “No, I will not feel better,” Charlie said, as she began to sob. “Oh my God, what have you done to me?”

  Decky’s mind raced. What could she say to make her stop crying? She would rather Charlie screamed at her. A mad Charlie had to be better than this, because the crying one was tearing Decky apart. For God’s sake, say something Decky.

  “Oh no, Charlie. I didn’t get you pregnant did I? I mean, of course I’ll do the right thing.” She fell down on one knee. “Charlene Warren, if you’ll have me, I’ll marry you and raise the child with you.”

  Charlie started laughing, softly at first, then a full-fledged belly laugh. “Decky, you are stark raving mad, do you know that?”

  “I mean it. I mean to do the right thing here. Your happiness is my only concern.”

  Charlie turned around, looking down at Decky. “Do you have any more little tidbits you think I should know about? As you can tell, surprises are not exactly my cup of tea.”

  “That’s it. No more surprises. Cross my heart.” Decky crossed her heart.

  “Then get up from there. I need to lie down for a minute, but first I want to brush my teeth.”

  Decky scrambled to her feet and followed Charlie into the house. After a few steps across the floor, Charlie turned around. Decky stopped short, not sure if the storm had really passed.

  “I think it’s best that your mother doesn’t know I know you, at least for a little while.”

  “If you think, I’m going to tell her, you’re nuts. My policy with her is it’s best to ask forgiveness, than permission. When she finally figures this out, there’ll be hell to pay, and that’s not a check I’m in any hurry to write.”

  “Sounds like you are afraid of her.”

  “No, I’m not afraid of her. I’ve just been dealing with her Tennessee Williams in drag personality for so long; I know this is going to be a wild ride. She’s a bit bi-polar. We catch her on the upswing it won’t be so bad. We catch her on the way down; let me tell you, it’s a long ride to the bottom.”

  Charl
ie turned toward the stairs again. “This just keeps getting better and better.”

  #

  Decky tucked Charlie into the bed. Decky could see that she was exhausted from all the spent emotions of the day, not to mention the wine. She kissed her sweetly on the cheek, as Charlie sighed and slipped into sleep.

  Decky sat in the reading area on the third floor. She did not get in the bed, because she knew she probably would not let Charlie sleep. The wireless computer system she installed allowed Decky to access the main CPU from any area in the house. She had a laptop or tablet in nearly every room. She never knew when an idea would come, so she was prepared to sit down anywhere in the house to write.