For Good

by Karelia Stetz-Waters

  Kristen’s face was all angles and shadows cast by her glasses. And they were strangers, more so now than the day Marydale had offered Kristen a room, yet as she watched Kristen, she thought, I’ve always known you.

  “When I saw you at New Year’s Eve…” Marydale couldn’t finish the sentence. The sentiment was too huge. Instead she leaned down and kissed Kristen. Her lips were cool, and Marydale’s whole body ached to warm her.

  “Please be with me,” Kristen said, and took Marydale’s hand and led her to the bedroom.

  Like the living room, the bedroom offered a view of the skyline. In the back of her mind, it occurred to Marydale that the bedroom was probably bigger than her entire boat. Then she lost track of everything but Kristen’s kiss.

  Soon they were tumbled together, their feet hanging off the edge of the bed. Kristen’s movements were gentle but certain as she divested Marydale of her shirt and bra. And Marydale briefly thought of how many times she had unhooked a woman’s bra like this and how, suddenly, now, beneath Kristen’s hands, she felt the magnitude of the act.

  Then Kristen straddled her, so light, yet the pressure of her hips sent a hot surge of longing through Marydale’s body. It was more than sex, more than just the swelling of her clit or the moisture between her legs. Her hips moved of their own accord. Marydale tried to kick off her boots, but they remained stubbornly in place.

  Kristen caressed Marydale’s chest. She could barely cup Marydale’s large breasts in her hands.

  “You’re perfect,” she said, her face serious. “You didn’t want me to touch you in the hotel or in your boat.” It was a question.

  “I’ve been with other women,” Marydale said. “A lot, I guess. But with you…” I’m scared. She couldn’t say it.

  Kristen rolled off Marydale and lay beside her, gently stroking Marydale’s naked chest, trailing her fingers along her collarbones, down her sternum, and along the sides of her breasts.

  “I don’t want to pressure you,” Kristen said. “We don’t have to hurry.”

  Marydale’s body said otherwise.

  “Aldean says I learned how to pick up women from him, which is bullshit, because I was picking up straight girls at church camp when we were fifteen. And Portland’s a good place to meet women. But those girls haven’t meant anything to me. It was just physical, and I probably should have thought about that. I just didn’t really think there was going to be…more. I’m a felon. What can I expect? Damaged goods, you know?”

  “Oh, Marydale.” Kristen pulled her closer.

  “At Deerfield and at my place…” Sheltered in Kristen’s embrace, Marydale could say it. “…I was afraid. I wanted it too much. I don’t know where this is going, where we’re going, but I want to know it means something to you.”

  “It does. It means everything.”

  “I guess it’s karma.” Marydale tried to laugh. “These past few years, I couldn’t get out of a girl’s room fast enough. As soon as we were done, as soon as I came…I was thinking about how to leave.”

  “Are you going to leave if I make you come?” Kristen asked, her voice both serious and flirtatious.

  “No,” Marydale said.

  Kristen leaned down and drew Marydale’s nipple into her mouth and sucked gently for a long time. Marydale felt an answering pull deep inside. She pushed her breast up toward Kristen’s kiss, and Kristen grazed the engorged flesh with her teeth, sending a shiver down Marydale’s spine.

  “Mmm.” Kristen sighed. When she finally released Marydale, she asked, “So how did these girls…these other girls you loved and left…how did they make you come?”

  “The usual ways.”

  Kristen nodded with mock solemnity. “Ah, the usual ways.”

  Marydale smiled. Kristen touched her cheek.

  Very quietly Kristen asked, “May I kiss you in the usual ways?”

  Marydale laughed and nodded, and Kristen slipped her fingers under the waistband of Marydale’s jeans. She felt Kristen’s fingers drifting over her cotton underwear, not touching any particular spot or repeating any particular motion, just stroking like one might stroke a cat or finger a piece of velvet.

  “I missed you,” Marydale said, closing her eyes to focus on the sensation.

  Kristen continued to touch her, and Marydale squirmed.

  “Are you sure this is okay?” Kristen asked. “If something happened to you and you’re not ready, I can wait.”

  “No,” Marydale said. And part of her knew that a week earlier, a day earlier, the moment before she walked into the party, she would have said, You happened to me. Now Marydale whispered, “I want you.”

  Kristen rose and pulled Marydale’s boots off and then her pants and then her underwear. Then she stripped her own clothes, and they were both naked. Kristen kissed Marydale on the lips, then moved her kisses down Marydale’s body until she lay between Marydale’s legs. Kristen parted the soft skin of Marydale’s labia and pressed her tongue into Marydale’s body. The heat of Kristen’s tongue startled her, and the sensation stole all her words away. Kristen massaged Marydale’s thighs while she moved her kiss from the opening of Marydale’s body to her clit and back again. Marydale felt like she was rushing toward orgasm and then falling away. She clutched the sheets as her body arched.

  “Oh, yes!” Marydale gasped, as she lifted her body to Kristen’s kiss. She tensed. She couldn’t breathe, and she couldn’t bear the pleasure, and she couldn’t bear for Kristen to stop. She felt like a trapeze artist flung to the farthest reach of her swing and then frozen, motionless, at that utmost height.

  As if sensing her distress, Kristen slowed her movements and pulled away.

  “No!” Marydale cried.

  “No, stop?” Kristen murmured, her breath touching Marydale’s sex. “Or no, don’t stop.”

  Marydale’s hips strained upward.

  “Don’t stop. Just…go gently.”

  Kristen chuckled softly, and her laugh was full of love. She blew on Marydale’s sex, then opened her mouth and exhaled a warm breath against Marydale’s skin.

  “Yes,” Kristen whispered.

  She circled Marydale’s clit with a light touch. Then she slipped a finger inside Marydale’s body, still teasing Marydale’s clit with her tongue while she moved her finger in and out. She stayed like this for a long time, and Marydale relaxed. Then Kristen touched the inside of Marydale’s body, right behind her clitoris, and she drew Marydale into her mouth—her clit, her labia, her hair, her salt, her center—and sucked very gently, all the while moving her tongue slowly and pulling with her lips and pressing on Marydale from inside. Marydale felt a bright, wild joy mount inside her. Then suddenly she was tumbling over the edge of a waterfall, exploding into stardust.

  “I’m coming!” Marydale cried.

  Kristen held Marydale in her mouth until the last spasms of orgasm subsided. Then she draped her arm over Marydale’s hip and pressed her cheek against Marydale’s belly. Marydale stroked her hair, staring up at the enormous window and the city lights.

  “Don’t leave,” Kristen whispered.

  Marydale wrapped her arms around her shoulders. “No,” she said. “I won’t leave.”

  A moment later, Kristen stirred. “May I?” she asked.

  She straddled Marydale’s thigh, rubbing her sex into Marydale’s leg with hard, confident determination. Part of Marydale felt she should do something. She should make Kristen come. But watching Kristen move against her, her eyes closed, her head thrown back, was so beautiful and so arousing, she simply held Kristen’s hip bones, awed by her lean strength.

  “That day on the Tristess,” Kristen said, her voice strained with pleasure, “I’m sorry. I was so embarrassed.”

  “Why?” Marydale said quietly, not wanting to interrupt Kristen’s rhythm.

  “I…” Kristen drew in a fast breath. “I…came like some teenage boy. I wanted to seduce you.”

  She looked like she was close to coming now.

  “You’re love
ly,” Marydale said.

  “I’ve wanted you so much.” Kristen gasped. “You’re the only one…the only one…”

  Marydale urged her on, rocking her hips to meet Kristen’s.

  “Yes,” Kristen cried out. “Nobody…It’s never been like this…Oh God! Now! Yes. Yes. Yes!”

  Kristen arched her back, her mouth open in a silent cry. Then she collapsed against Marydale’s chest.

  As they lay together, Marydale wanted to tell Kristen how vividly she remembered Kristen’s first shy touch and how much she enjoyed the confident pressure of her body now, and that whatever time or distance stretched between those two points, it didn’t matter because they were here now. But it was too much to explain, and a few minutes later Kristen rolled over and said apologetically, “I have to walk Meatball. Will you come with me? I don’t want to leave you even for a minute.”

  They dressed, and Kristen wrapped an extra scarf around Marydale’s neck. They rode the elevator down in tender silence. Outside, the rain had stopped and the sky had cleared. On Twenty-Third Street, the bars were still open. Christmas lights were still hung from every lamppost. The smell of chocolate wafted out of the late-night coffee shops. Meatball moved down the street like a heavy canister vacuum cleaner, snuffling up the city’s crumbs. Somewhere Aldean was probably flirting with a woman whose heart he would invariably break, all the while checking his phone to make sure Marydale was okay. She pulled out her phone and texted him, I won’t be home tonight.

  “I’m so happy,” Kristen said, putting her arm through Marydale’s and leaning against her.

  Marydale leaned down and kissed her, in the bright light of a streetlamp, in front of the wide window of a wine bar, full on the lips for everyone to see.

  “I love you, Kristen.”

  8

  Kristen woke before Marydale and tiptoed into the kitchen. It was seven thirty. The high-rises in her window were turning from gray to blue. She called work.

  “I’m not going to be in today.”

  The law school intern assigned to the receptionist’s desk sounded worried. “Mr. Falcon’s here. He wants to talk to you about DataBlast.”

  “I’m sure he does,” Kristen said.

  “And Donna wants to know if you’ve invited the partners from Steward-Gore to the corporate law banquet. Last year they didn’t go, and Donna wants to make sure they get a personal invitation from the Falcon Law Group. She said to catch you as soon as you came in.”

  The banquet. The class action against DataBlast. The partnership that Donna was negotiating for her, perhaps because they were friends, perhaps because Donna needed another ally in the firm.

  Above the city, the sun had broken through the clouds, illuminating a single golden shaft of rain. Kristen had bought the condo for the view—the green city, the glass high-rises, the pink Bancorp tower rising up and up above it all—but she had never noticed how beautiful it was or how the photographs of the Firesteed Summit reflected on the glass, as though she were living in a valley that was both the city and the mountains.

  “Good morning,” Marydale said behind her.

  To the receptionist Kristen said, “I’ve got to go.”

  Kristen turned. Marydale was naked. Kristen’s whole body sang, She’s here. She wrapped her arms around Marydale’s waist.

  “I called out from work today,” Kristen said. “I know you’ve probably got stuff to do, but…”

  “I’ll text Aldean again,” Marydale said.

  Later, walking Meatball on the street below, it seemed to Kristen that the sidewalks felt new. The air was sweet. The bare branches of the trees were a miracle. She returned with coffees and pastries from a little bakery she had never visited although it was only blocks from her building. And they ate and talked and made love again.

  Afterward, as they relaxed in bed, their hands drifting over each other’s bodies, Kristen said, “I want to know everything about you.”

  Marydale stretched her arms over her head, lifting her large breasts, flexing the muscles in her shoulders.

  “Like what?” she asked, with a smile that said she knew just how beautiful she was.

  “Anything. What happened to Lilith? What’s it like living on a houseboat. Tell me about all these awful women you’ve dated. How did you get to Portland?”

  “Lilith died,” Marydale said wistfully. “She was old, so it was okay. And the women I dated…they aren’t even worth mentioning.”

  Kristen snuggled closer, and Marydale rested her cheek on top of Kristen’s head.

  “I’m still on parole,” Marydale said. “You need to know that. I can’t live the same way you do.”

  “How long are you on supervision?” Kristen asked.

  “Right around the time I…of my conviction…some legislators wanted to get tough on crime, so they passed a lifetime provision.”

  “You’re on parole for life? No matter what? That doesn’t make sense.”

  “They changed the law a few years later. It was too expensive, and it didn’t really make a difference, but they don’t change your sentence when the law changes. You get stuck with whatever was on the books when you offended, but you know that.”

  “How did you get to Portland?”

  “Aldean moved out to Portland about the same time you left Tristess.”

  Kristen wished she could see Marydale’s face. She took Marydale’s hand and held it to her chest instead.

  “It was hard,” Marydale went on. “My parole officer at the time wouldn’t let me date women or associate with gays or lesbians. I couldn’t leave Tristess County. I started violating my conditions, crossing over the county line just to do it. I made it all the way down to Nevada once. I don’t know if I was going to run away, or if I just wanted to prove they couldn’t control who I was. I got sanctioned so many times. I lost my house. I couldn’t pay the taxes. I had to put most of my stuff in storage in Tristess. I think they sold it all at auction one time when I got locked up. Finally my parole officer, Cody, quit his job. My new PO…she’s good. She cares about people. There was no way I could move to Portland with that many sanctions on my record, but eventually she just let me go anyway.”

  “And when you got here?” Kristen asked.

  “Aldean was waiting for me. Good thing, too. He’s great at running a business, but he makes shitty whiskey. He gets all manly about it, and it comes out tasting like somebody’s leather shoe.” Marydale grew serious again. “I can’t give you the kind of life someone else could. I can’t take you to Ireland. I can’t leave the state. I can’t even go across the river to Vancouver for dinner.”

  Kristen stroked Marydale’s arm, examining the swirls of her tattoo.

  “I think it was malpractice.” Kristen sat up so she could look at Marydale. “You should never have been convicted. We could look into it.” It had been years since she practiced criminal law. “I wonder if we could get your parole changed to probation. We might be able to void the original sentence.”

  “Post-conviction relief?”

  “I’ll have to check the statute of limitations, but if we won a post-conviction relief hearing, you wouldn’t just be off parole; they’d erase your record. It would be like getting an innocent verdict. It’s a long shot, but you deserve it.”

  “I can’t,” Marydale said. “My PO bent the rules for me. If someone finds out where I am, they could send me back to prison. At the very least, they'd send me back to Tristess, and I'd have to stay.” She rolled over onto her back. “I know you don’t have to live like that.”

  Kristen put her arms around Marydale, pulling her close, burying her face in the vanilla scent of Marydale’s hair.

  “Baby,” Kristen whispered. “It doesn’t matter to me. I don’t care if we don’t go to Ireland or Vancouver.” She drew back so that she could look into Marydale’s eyes. “My life stopped when I left Tristess.”

  She remembered a commercial that she had seen shortly after she returned to Portland. She had been staying up until t
hree or four every morning, staring at the television. Every few commercial breaks, a genderless cartoon character trudged across the screen while a voice-over asked, Have you lost interest in things that previously made you happy?

  “I ran three marathons and I don’t know how many half marathons,” Kristen said. “For a while I was running every road race I could find. I bought the condo. I went out in the evening like it mattered, but it didn’t matter. I wasn’t happy.”

  That night Marydale invited Kristen back to the Tristess and lifted the trapdoor in the sofa-bench. Kristen eased her way down the short ladder. The room glowed in the light of the pink salt lamp.

  “You can’t really convince a girl you brought her down here to play board games,” Marydale said, draping herself across the bed.

  Kristen remembered a fantasy she’d had as a teenager, going to school in the day and working the night shift to pay the bills her mother left unopened on the kitchen table.

  “When I was a teenager,” Kristen began. “I used to pretend I had this imaginary place I could go. It was a hidden park or a secret room in our apartment, someplace only I knew about. When I went in, time stopped for everyone but me, and I could just…be. That’s silly, isn’t it?”

  She lay down next to Marydale and looked up at the low ceiling.

  “What did you want to do in your secret room?” Marydale asked.

  “Sleep mostly or do my homework or read. I didn’t have time for anything. I was always working or looking after Sierra.”

  Marydale rolled over onto her side and looked at her. “That’s a shame. Every kid should have time.”

  “Your boat reminds me of that room,” Kristen said. “It’s like a secret world down here. I didn’t even know people lived on the river.” Marydale traced the curve of Kristen’s jaw.

  “You can come here whenever you like.”

  Kristen nestled closer. “You can come to my place whenever you like, too. I’d like to give you a key, if that wouldn’t feel weird to you.”

  Kristen had been afraid Marydale would demure. It was too soon. She wasn’t ready. But Marydale said only, “I’d like that.”