Like I Love You (Love Wins (JMS Books))

by J. T. Marie

  “You can’t.” Bethany’s smile lit up the room, eclipsing the candlelight. Reaching up, she tucked a stray strand of hair behind Dana’s ear. “Last time I wasn’t ready, that’s all. I didn’t know how you felt, and I’ll be honest with you—I didn’t want to admit that, deep down, I really felt the same way.”

  Dana felt a glimmer of hope flicker inside her. “So tonight isn’t going to end with us both storming off in separate directions and not speaking for the next six or eight weeks, like it did the last time we kissed?”

  “Oh God, I hope not.” Bethany traced the curve of Dana’s cheek and leaned in to touch her lips to Dana’s in a brief kiss that hinted at so much more. She shifted on her cushion, moving closer, and her next kiss pressed their mouths together deliciously. Her hand cradled Dana’s jaw, keeping Dana near, as she opened her lips to slip her tongue between Dana’s.

  This time was headier than the last, probably because Dana was the one being kissed and she discovered she quite liked the sensation. She liked the feel of Bethany’s hands and mouth on her, the crush of Bethany’s breasts against hers, everything about it. When Bethany pulled away, Dana found she no longer wanted her glass of wine; no, she wanted another taste of her lover, and wondered what she could say or do to get Bethany back where they’d been a moment earlier.

  “See?” Bethany asked, a little breathless. “No one’s running off, and we’re still talking to each other. But hopefully not for long.”

  Dana’s heart lurched. “What do you mean?”

  Rising from the couch, Bethany took Dana’s hand and pulled her to her feet. “Come to my room and I’ll show you.”

  Dana almost tripped over herself in her haste to follow.

  * * * *

  In the morning, Dana woke to the unusual sensation of arms wrapped tightly around her waist and another body backed up against her own. When she tried to roll over, she heard Bethany moan in protest behind her. The arms around her tightened, and Bethany’s head burrowed into the middle of her back between her shoulder blades.

  “Don’t move yet,” Bethany murmured, her voice drowsy with sleep. “We’re perfect right where we are. Why ruin this so soon?”

  Carefully Dana turned, raising an arm over Bethany to hug her close. “Because one of us has to get to work,” she reminded her friend.

  Friend? No—after the night they’d spent together, that no longer adequately described them. They were lovers, finally, in the fullest sense of the word.

  Bethany cuddled into the pillowy cushion of Dana’s bare breast and sighed. “I’m calling in sick. Too much rich food last night, chased down by too much wine, topped off with too much loving. Do you think my boss will buy that?”

  “If you groan just right…”

  Without warning, Bethany let out a low, guttural sound that seemed to well up from the very depths of her soul. Spooky and ethereal, it made the hairs on Dana’s arms stand up to hear it.

  “What the hell was that?” Dana asked with a short laugh. “You said sick, not dead.”

  “We’re staying in bed all day long,” Bethany announced. “I finally have you right where I want you.”

  “I’m pretty sure this was always my fantasy,” Dana told her.

  Bethany snuggled into her and sighed. “Hush up. It can be mine, too. Just because it took me longer to realize it doesn’t mean I want it any less than you do.”

  “Want what?” Dana asked.

  She knew, but she wanted to hear Bethany say the words out loud. She needed to hear them, after all this time. She couldn’t remember if the L word had been said the night before, and if it had, the wine may have been partially to blame. But here, by the light of day, when they were both sober and aware of what they were saying. When they knew the consequences.

  Placing a hand on Dana’s side, Bethany propped up her chin so she could look Dana in the face when she answered, “You, me, this. Us. There, I said. I want us. Together, like this. I want to wake up beside you every morning, and I want to go to sleep beside you every night.”

  Dana thought that would be the end of it, and if it were, she’d be satisfied. Sitting up, she kissed the kip of Bethany’s nose. “Deal. But next time I’m bringing my own pillow.”

  “Yesterday was magical,” Bethany continued. “I don’t know how else to describe it. I’ve never had a date that felt quite like ours did, you know?”

  With a grin, Dana teased, “How many dates have you had that ended in sex? Not counting Terrance.”

  “Terrance and I didn’t always have sex,” Bethany replied, defensive. She frowned as she traced a swirling pattern into Dana’s skin, her touch ticklish. “In fact, near the end? I didn’t want to have sex every time we got together because I felt that was the only reason he came up to see me. Plus…and this sounds bad…”

  Dana sat up a little, interested. “Plus what?”

  Bethany shrugged. “Plus I don’t think I was really in love with him anymore, at the end. I mean, I was in love with the thought of being in love, if that makes sense? But we’d been together for so long, and after a while I felt like I was just going through the motions. Like I was expected to love him. People wanted us to be together, so we were. Even though by then neither of us really wanted to be.”

  Leaning over, Dana kissed Bethany’s nose again, then slid down to catch the next kiss on her lover’s lips. She cradled Bethany’s face in her hand as her tongue dipped inside, savoring the soft heat of Bethany’s mouth.

  When she pulled back, she didn’t go far. Instead, she rested her forehead on Bethany’s and murmured, “If you think that sounded bad, wait until you hear this.”

  “What?” Bethany whispered.

  Dana waited a heartbeat, then answered, “I’m glad he’s gone.”

  With a breathy giggle, Bethany replied, “Me, too. I never loved him like I love you.”

  * * * *

  August 2001

  Time passed like the world rushing by outside the commuter train Dana took twice a week into Queens for grad school. She got into the program she wanted, and though she hated the commute at first, by the end of the first semester, she looked forward to the downtime spent speeding between her apartment and campus. Time off from her job at the bookstore, when she could focus on coursework and her reading, just as Bethany had predicted.

  The only thing she still hated about the long hours away from Manhattan was the time spent away from her lover.

  That first date never really had to materialize into another; neither of them had to ask the other out again because from then on, everything they did was done together. There was never a question of, “Do you want to be my girlfriend?” or “Are we dating now?” Instead, when Bethany invited Dana to a work function, she was introduced not as “my roommate” or “my friend” but “my partner.”

  As in the other half of her soul.

  When Dana asked her about it once, Bethany shrugged it off. “Girlfriend sounds so…I don’t know. Temporary. I mean, anyone can have a girlfriend. It doesn’t quite capture what we are. It belittles our relationship.”

  “But partner sounds like we’re…” Dana searched for the right word. She didn’t want to say married because everyone knew two women couldn’t get married, at least, not legally. “It just sounds a bit dry. Like Scully and Mulder were partners on The X-Files, you know?”

  Bethany gave her a beguiling grin. “Yeah, and I don’t know about you, but I think they had one of the sexiest relationships on TV I’ve ever seen. I mean, hell. They didn’t even kiss and every time they were together, I got all hot and bothered.”

  “They kissed eventually.” Dana tried to think back to which particular it was where they’d kissed but drew a blank. “I mean…didn’t they? At least once?”

  “All I’m saying is, partner sounds more meaningful to me than girlfriend.” Bethany shrugged. “Who knows? One day maybe I’ll even get to call you wife.”

  Dana stared at Bethany for a long moment, not daring to trust herself to spea
k. When she finally found her voice, it was small and unsure, belonging to a little girl and not the thirty-year-old woman she had become.

  “Did you—did you just propose to me?” she asked.

  “Not yet,” Bethany said with an off-hand laugh. “Not until we can do it right. You know my mother is miffed enough about you turning me gay, as she puts it. Nothing less than a full-blown wedding ceremony with all the bells and whistles is going to make her accept you as one of the family. No handfasting or commitment ceremony is going to satisfy her.”

  Narrowing her eyes, Dana deadpanned, “Really?”

  Bethany shrugged. “Well, it’s a start. She likes you, she does. She just doesn’t like me with you.”

  “And you think a wedding is going to change that?” Dana’s mind spun out in a whirl. I can’t believe we’re talking about this. About getting married. Holy hell.

  Me, marrying the woman of my dreams. Stop the press!

  Leaning across the couch, Bethany planted a lingering kiss on Dana’s mouth. “Maybe not,” she conceded. “But it’ll shut her up, at least. You’re the only one I want, and once you put a ring on my finger, no one’s going to ever take it off.”

  “Damn,” Dana murmured. “Guess I better start saving up, eh?”

  With a laugh, Bethany sat back. “Pssh. We have plenty of time. Right now everyone’s falling over themselves to ban gay marriage.”

  * * * *

  Bethany had been right about graduate school—the actual number of classes Dana took per semester were fewer than what she’d taken as an undergrad, but God, the sheer volume of work made up for it. A course she attended for two hours a week required four times as much reading on her own time, not to mention the paperwork involved. There were take-home quizzes and exams—which sounded easier in theory than they were in reality—and weekly reports and term papers and Jesus Christ! If Dana had even guessed at how much work it would all entail when she’d been looking into grad school, she would’ve never mailed in the application in the first place.

  But she persevered. It was either that or drop out, and she’d come too far to admit defeat. Besides, there were students in her classes younger than she was; no way would she concede that she couldn’t do something they were able to do. She wanted a better job, doing something she loved, and she wanted to help contribute to the home she and Bethany were creating.

  Only half-joking, Dana told her lover, “If we ever do get married, I want to be something more than just a trophy wife.”

  That had earned her a laugh. With a smile, Bethany teased, “What, don’t you think kept woman looks good on a resume?”

  * * * *

  Because Dana was commuting to school, and the ride could sometimes be an hour away if the trains were running late, she only took classes two days a week. She still worked at the bookstore, though she cut her hours back to accommodate her studying. But some semesters the classes she needed for her program weren’t offered on the days she’d be on campus, so she had to wait a semester or two until she could take them. Her idea of graduating in two years evaporated quickly.

  “You were right,” she complained to Bethany on more than one occasion. “Grad school is nothing like undergraduate. At the rate I’m going, I won’t get my master’s until I’m forty!”

  “Oh, hush,” Bethany said. “You haven’t even hit thirty yet.”

  Dana squinted at her in disbelief. “Hello? It’s right around the corner. Newsflash, babe—we’re getting old.”

  Laughing, Bethany asked, “Didn’t you hear? Thirty is the new twenty.”

  “Where’d you hear that mess?” Dana wanted to know. “What’s twenty, then? Then new ten?”

  “Hush.” Bethany did what she always did when she wanted Dana to stop being so contrary; she leaned over and kissed her lover quiet. “At least we’re getting old together. I’m so proud of you for going back to school.”

  “Yeah,” Dana groused, “because professional student looks great on a resume, too.”

  Chapter 6: Je t’aime

  May 2004

  As it turned out, Dana managed to graduate just before her thirtieth birthday. Well, not technically—her birthday was in October, and she needed to finish an independent study scheduled over the summer months, but the school agreed to let her walk early anyway, with the other graduates at the end of May.

  Around the middle of the month, Dana sat on the couch in the early morning before work, the TV on for background noise, and had finally bitten the bullet and called home. As much as she didn’t like making small talk with her mother, she thought maybe she might have to tell her parents about her impending graduation. They would want to come up, after all, and hell, they might even want to give her a gift of the monetary persuasion.

  A girl could hope, couldn’t she?

  “I’m getting a diploma, I’m getting a diploma,” she crowed on the cordless phone receiver to her mother. “Well, another one.”

  “Oh, honey, I’m so proud!” But of course, leave it to Mommy Dearest to put a dent in things. She followed up the praise with the cutting question, “So what will this degree do for you? Hopefully help you get a real job, finally.”

  “Mom, God.” Dana felt her good mood dissipate like a dandelion gone to seed. “Just be happy for me, okay? Let’s leave it at that for now, and worry about a job after commencement is over. You and Daddy are coming up for it, right?”

  “Sure, sure,” her mother replied. “Wouldn’t miss it for the world. I hope you don’t want us to stay with you and Bethany, though. I mean, your place is so small.”

  Dana sighed. “I’ll get you a hotel room, don’t worry. Heaven forbid you see real life lesbians hug and kiss, or something.”

  “That’s not what I—”

  “Have to go,” Dana lied. Something on the television caught her attention—she was only half-listening, but had she heard the words lesbians and married in the same sentence? “Love you. Call you soon. Bye.”

  Quickly she reached for the remote to turn up the volume as she hung up the phone. On the television, a reporter stood outside of a weathered brick building; Dana didn’t recognize it, but if she had to guess, she’d say it was a government building of some kind. Not in DC or New York, though, nowhere she’d ever been, though it looked old and atmospheric. Where…?

  And what was he going on about? “A historic day,” he kept saying. “History being made. “ Why?

  The image cut to two women, both older than she was—easily her mother’s age, who beamed as if being on television had been their only goal in life. One of them looked as if she were about to faint, and her friend—no, her lover, Dana’s gaydar was pretty sharp, and she could spot a pair of lesbians a mile away—her lover had an arm firmly around her waist, as if to keep her from swooning to the ground. “Breathe, babe,” Dana muttered. “In through the nose, out through the mouth. If you pass out on TV, your friends and family will never let you live it down. What the hell is all this about, anyway? What’d you two do, win the lottery or something?”

  Then, across the bottom of the screen, flashed the words, First lesbian couple to wed in the U.S.

  Dana felt the remote control slip from her numb fingers. “What the—no.”

  As if he heard her, the reporter popped back into the screen, nodding and smiling alongside the happy couple. “That’s right, folks. History was made today here in Boston when these two lovely ladies finally tied the knot after eighteen years together. Same-sex marriage is now legally recognized here in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts as of yesterday’s state Supreme Judicial Court ruling—”

  Dana fumbled for the cordless phone just as the receiver rang. Without looking at the caller ID, she knew who it would be. There was only one person who could be calling now. Answering, she gasped, “Oh my God! Did you hear?”

  “Everyone here’s talking about it,” Bethany said, breathless. “I rushed into my office to find it online for myself. Are you watching it on the news?”

  “Of co
urse!” Dana muted the TV and huddled up with the phone, enjoying the sound of her lover’s voice in her ear. “God, this is great. Those women look so happy. Eighteen years! Can you imagine?”

  Bethany scoffed. “Please. If you count from the day we met, we’ve been together eleven.”

  “You were dating Terrance then,” Dana reminded her. “That doesn’t count.”

  “Well, it should.” Bethany’s fingers clicked on her keyboard, the sound echoing through the phone. “Listen, I’m looking now at the requirements to get a license in Massachusetts. There’s a three-day waiting period, but we can just make a mini-vacation out of it, if you want. I’ve always wanted to visit Boston.”

  Dana frowned, a gesture Bethany couldn’t see. “Wait, what?”

  “Did you want to go before or after your graduation?” Bethany asked. “I just need to know so I can schedule the time off, but it should be fine. Actually, if we wait until after, our parents can ride up with us and—”

  “Hold up. Stop.” Dana switched the phone to her other ear, as if that might help her hear better. “Are you talking about us going up to get hitched? Like, now?”

  “Not now,” Bethany corrected. “There’s a three-day waiting period. Weren’t you listening? I have to ask for the time off, and I don’t know about your parents, but my mom will want to be there, at least. Even if it’s just a courthouse wedding, she’s going to expect to see me in a dress and veil, the whole nine yards. So if we can coordinate this, they won’t have to make two trips—”

  “We haven’t even talked about this.” Dana wondered why the thought of marrying Bethany made her nervous. She loved the woman, more than anything else in life—she was committed to her lover heart, body, and soul, so why not justify it in the eyes of the law?

  Because I shouldn’t have to, she thought. We shouldn’t need a piece of paper to prove our love. We don’t need a name to show how much we feel for each other.

  Did they?

  Bethany sighed, exasperated. “Hon, we did talk about it, remember? I told you my mother wanted a legally binding ceremony before she’d even think about accepting you in my life. You said—”