by Radclyffe
“Are you? Do you?” I asked back.
“Divorced,” she said. “No kids. Has it really been…?”
“A lifetime,” I said. “No kids for me either. I’m with someone though. We’re happy. She makes me happy.” A pause. A long pause. I wondered if Lise was going to hang up. I could hear her breathing.
“So you’re…”
“Happy, yeah,” I agreed.
“Well, god bless ya,” she said. “You can’t turn that down.”
“I like to think not,” I said. “Have you found…?”
“Well, it wasn’t my husband,” she said with a sour laugh. “I don’t think I’ve found what I’m looking for, yet. But maybe I will one of these days. At least I’m looking in the right place these days.”
“Took me long enough,” I said. “I was thirty-seven before I…”
“I was forty-two,” she told me. “I guess we’re both slow learners.”
I couldn’t help it. I started to laugh. In a minute, she did, too.
“Do you remember back before you left town, we went out to that Mexican place…Sancho’s or Pancho’s?” she began, and I knew what night she was talking about.
“Rancho’s,” I said. “We thought margaritas were the coolest drink ever…we put away a couple pitchers…”
“I don’t know how we got back to your place,” she said. “I was sure I was fine to drive, but we must’ve been plastered. They were a lot more lenient about DUI back then.”
I shook my head at dumb luck, which has probably saved my ass far more times than I deserved. Somehow we’d made it back to my place, and I invited her in for a nightcap in my already-packed apartment. There were boxes all around and the pictures were off the walls, and I’d disassembled my bed and there was just the mattress on the floor.
She threw herself on it, and I crawled in next to her, and we curled up next to each other.
“I thought you were asleep,” she told me, two decades and time zones later.
“I thought you were asleep,” I confessed. “I wasn’t.”
“Neither was I.”
“If I’d known…” I began. Known what?
“What would you have done?” she asked.
I thought about it. Rocky moral ground here…but I wanted her to know.
“I would have kissed you,” I said, and something inside me melted. It was both incredibly sad and such a relief. “It would have been so good to kiss you, Lise.”
“Yes,” she said. “It would have.”
“Do you know how beautiful you are?” I asked her. She sighed. “Yes. Still. And now I can tell you. This is what I would have done, Lise: I would have touched your face. I would have run my fingers through your hair, because it was so thick and bouncy. And I always wanted to touch it. And I would have held your face in both my hands and kissed you, so deep, so gently. I would have opened your mouth with my tongue, and you would have moved in closer and rolled over onto me, and I would have felt every inch of your body touching mine. And we would have taken off our clothes so we could feel each other’s skin all over.
“And you would have pressed your breasts against mine, our nipples rubbing together as you rubbed your leg between mine, and you know I would have been soaking already. I always got wet when I was near you.
“And I would have taken one of your nipples in my mouth and nibbled at it, using my teeth, as you reached down and touched my clit. We were both so hot for each other, Lise. If we’d ever let ourselves know it. If we’d ever actually touched each other, we would’ve come in seconds. And then come again and made love all night and into the next day.”
“I can see your body, plain as day right this minute,” I told her. “And we would have woken up still touching, and I would have moved down to your clit and started to kiss it, and suck it, and reach deep up inside you with my fingers and my tongue, and I can hear the moans you would have made and what it would have sounded like, when you were getting ready to come, and when you came, and how you wound down afterward. I can hear it plain as day.
“It was so hot down there, remember? And I was always worried about the electric bill, so I only put on the AC when I had to. We would have been so sweaty in a few minutes, rubbing up and down against each other, slick with sweat and come and tears and kissing. Can you imagine the sounds we would have made when we touched? Sliding and groaning, reaching up and in, biting each other’s lips, raking our nails down each other’s back?”
I paused, aroused enough to want to touch myself. I heard Lise draw in deep, harsh breaths. I wondered if she were touching herself. Or crying. She made a sound, and it was one I had never heard from her, but I knew what it was, and it sounded familiar, because I had imagined it so many times.
“Are you all right?” I asked her. I wanted to ask her Was it good? Was it like you thought it would be?
“Are you?” she replied, with a catch in her voice. I knew she really was crying. “Yes. It would have been…like that.”
“Well, then, that’s what we would have done. Should have done,” I told her. Told myself. And I couldn’t go on. We didn’t say anything for a bit.
“It was really good to talk to you,” she finally said.
“I’m glad I sent that email. I’m glad you called,” I told her.
“Me, too.” A pause. “We probably shouldn’t talk again though…like this. I have a lady friend.”
Same old Lise. She knew what was right and what was wrong. Whether what we’d just done constituted cheating could be debated. I didn’t think I would discuss the finer points with my partner. But I didn’t regret it. Couldn’t happen again, though.
“Well, you know, Christmas cards. If we’re passing through, kind of thing…”
“Yes, that,” she agreed. “But I’m glad we…talked. It means a lot. That you said what you did. It’s always something I wondered about.”
“Well, then, I’m glad I could answer that for you,” I told her. I heard my sweetie’s key in the door.
“Good night,” I said. “Pleasant dreams.”
“I think I’ll have some,” she said, and hung up.
I wasn’t sure whether to be proud or ashamed of myself. It had been so mysterious, so long ago, a permanent question mark (one of many) that had worn itself into my mind. I’d forgotten about most of them or chosen not to think of them. Pointed myself toward the future, determined not to get pulled backward into the darkness. It had been so lonely. But not all bad. At least I could erase that question mark. I was glad for Lise. And for me.
“I picked up something for dinner…” my partner called from the living room. “Hungry?”
“For you,” I told her, hanging up the phone. It never ceases to amaze me how lucky I am.
DIRTY LAUNDRY
Cheyenne Blue
We can only talk when we’re folding the sheets.
Pick up the sheet, take two corners each. Spread it out. A hard flick to straighten it. Walk toward each other, the sheet goes corner to corner.
“What’s your name?”
Bend, take the bottom corners, step back, flick. Walk toward each other again, sheet goes corner to corner.
“Maura. What’s yours?”
Bend, take the bottom corners, step back, flick. No need to walk toward each other this time. Sheet goes corner to corner.
“Eileen. Why you here?”
Maura bends, places the folded sheet on the pile and takes another from the laundry basket of crumpled, sun-warmed linen. She hands me two corners. “I had a baby. A little girl.”
Her face is closed, shuttered, but the pain is stark in her eyes. She’s only been here for two weeks; the loss is still raw, the milk still leaking from her breasts. She doesn’t need to say any more; half of the girls cloistered here in the convent have had babies out of wedlock, a mortal sin. The other half are here because, well, they’re fallen women in their own way. Catholic Ireland is unforgiving of such things.
Step back, flick the sheet. Walk toward each o
ther again, sheet goes corner to corner.
“Who has your baby?” Sometimes it’s a sister or a parent who takes the child, raises it as her own, but the mother is still banished to pay for the sin of being pregnant.
Bend, take the corners, step back, flick, move toward Maura again.
“I don’t know. They took her from me and told me I couldn’t leave until I signed the papers.”
The sentence was too long. Sister Ursula comes sweeping down and her cane cracks on the back of Maura’s hand. “No talking while working.”
She doesn’t wait to see that we comply. We’re aware of the punishment. If we don’t stop talking, we’ll be hauled into Mother Superior’s office and then the cane will be on the backs of our bare thighs and the switches will draw blood and the cuts will chafe on our rough-spun dresses.
Maura’s mouth twists and I think she’s going to protest. She hasn’t been here long enough to know the futility of resistance.
“No,” I mouth at her.
She gives a little shake of her head and bends to take the bottom corners again. We work in silence for the next hour until the bell goes, and it’s time for prayer before what passes for lunch.
I’m nineteen and I’ve been here for three years. I didn’t have a baby, although sometimes I wish that I had, so that at least I’d have something that belonged to me, however briefly. My mother is dead, and my father is gone. My aunt unwillingly took me in, blaming me all the time for my mother’s death—dead in childbirth with me. My aunt wasn’t kind, but she wasn’t cruel. She gave me food, clothing, tuition in the faith, a toy at Christmas and a hug sometimes—brief, hard, her face turned away as if any emotion would make her weak—but a hug all the same.
When I was sixteen, the parish priest started touching me. Touching me there. I knew it was wrong, but you’re told to obey the word of God, so I’d stand, holding my skirts up above my head while he stared at my exposed gee. I couldn’t see what he was doing, swathed as I was in my skirts, but I’d hear his breathing, fast and rough, and the rustle of his hand in cloth. And then he’d touch me with a finger, pushing it in. It stung, but if I tried to move away, he’d drag me back and it would sting more, so I learned to stand still. He’d finger me, and his breathing would come faster until he groaned, and then the finger would be gone. A rustle of cloth, then he’d say, “Put your skirts down, you wicked girl. Go! Go!” and I’d scurry from the room in confusion and shame.
And then one time, his housekeeper walked in as I stood there, skirts around my ears.
I heard the door. I heard her screech of horror. I dropped my skirts and turned around, took a step toward her. She was shaking, her hands out in front of her, as if to ward away the devil.
“You evil, evil girl,” she cried.
I glanced at the priest. He was on his feet, his cassock in place. He crossed to me in a single stride and backhanded me across the face. “Sinner,” he spat.
My eyes skittered from one to the other. “I was only doing what he asked,” I cried.
“Liar,” the housekeeper hissed. “How dare you tell untruths in front of a servant of our Lord?”
I ran with tears of shame streaming down my cheeks. I ran all the way home to my aunt’s house and, avoiding the kitchen where she sat, crept up the stairs to my bed.
The priest came the next morning and talked to my aunt. I hid upstairs, confused, not knowing what I could say to make it right. Then my aunt came into my room. “Pack your things, Eileen. You’re going with the priest.”
“Where?” I cried, but she wouldn’t answer me, just threw some underwear and a couple of pieces of clothing into a bag and thrust it at me, turning away as the priest came and took my arm, dragging me down the stairs to his car.
And here I am.
Some of the girls have been here for many years. Some are now old women, but they still call them girls. Some are simple. Some had babies. Some are like me. We’re all here to work and repent and be cleansed through hard work and discipline. Unpaid work, and the “discipline” involves cruelty you wouldn’t think nuns were capable of. We’re slaves. Few ever leave. Fewer ever escape.
That night, Maura is moved into my dormitory. The nuns do that. When they think you’re docile enough to be with the other girls, they move you from a solitary room to the communal dorm.
Maura comes in, head down, feet dragging, her sheets and bag bunched in her hand. The other girls ignore her. It’s every girl for herself. Maura hovers, unsure of where to go. I take pity on her and go over, taking her arm and leading her to the vacant bed. It’s next to mine.
“Here,” I say. “Sheets go on the bed. Put your things in the trunk.”
Maura’s eyes flicker nervously. “Thank you,” she says. Her fingers pick at the cotton bag.
“Is that your clothes?” I ask.
She nods. “And a bonnet for my baby.”
Forbidden.
“Don’t put it in the trunk or under the mattress,” I whisper. “The nuns will check. Unpick your pillow and put it inside.”
She nods, although she’s so passive, I don’t know if she realizes what I’m telling her.
She cries that night. Stifled, gulping sobs muffled by the lumpy pillow. We all hear her, of course. I imagine her, lying face down, streams of salt soaking her pillow, her nun-cropped hair disarranged and sweaty.
I’m halfway out of my bed before I reconsider. I should leave her well alone, for her sake and for mine. My bare toes curl on the icy wooden boards. Why am I even considering this? Maura’s face, all angles and lines and chapped red cheeks, swims into my vision. She needs me. We all need a friend in this feckin’ place.
Before I can talk myself out of it, I’m padding across the short space to her bed. I pull back the thin cover and slide in next to her, wrapping my arm over her thin back. Her shoulder blade juts up like a chicken’s wing.
“Shh,” I say. “It will be all right.” Meaningless, soothing nonsense. Of course it won’t be all right.
But Maura turns onto her side and curls trustingly into my body, like a kitten squirming into safety. “I want my baby back,” she whispers. “I should never have signed the papers.”
I stroke her damp hair. Time enough later to tell her that there is no going back. Those papers are final. Others have tried, and others have failed. For now, I can only offer her comfort. My hands stroke her back, her hair, her soft, damp face.
“Sleep now, kitten,” I say. “I’m here. Tomorrow is another day.”
She sighs, and her fingers grasp my nightdress, curling loosely into the rough cloth. Soon, the soft exhalations tell me she’s asleep.
I lie awake for a while, holding her. It’s like coming home. But I know I can’t stay, and in the frosty starlight through the open window, I move like a shadow back to my own bed. I can’t be in her bed in the morning. The nuns are merciless for things like that.
The seasons move through time, and we go through the motions. Washing the sheets, slapping them in the sink, wishing they were Sister Ursula’s face. The small, sweet pleasure of hanging wet laundry on the line on a sunny day and for brief stolen moments turning my face up to the weak sunshine and imagining I’m free. The weekly health walk to the small town, where, although we’re laughed at, pointed to, titters behind hands and twitching curtains, at least we’re out, in the real world, albeit for a few precious minutes.
And then there’s my lifeline. Nighttime. Waiting until the lights are out, and the breathing of the other girls settles into rhythmic snorts and sighs. Waiting until the darkness is absolute and my movements hidden. I steal out of my bed, bare feet gliding cautiously over the floorboards. A step, another, and then I’m sliding into Maura’s bed.
We don’t talk, except in whispers, our heads under the covers. Often, we don’t talk at all, we simply align our bodies together and let our hands do the talking, gestures of reassurance, of caring, of love. I’ll spoon behind Maura, and my palms will smooth over her belly, smoothing away the pain from
her womb, and the absence of its produce. I’ll soak in the warmth and comfort of another body and let my hands convey all the love that I have. Or Maura will cradle my head on her breast and stroke my shoulders, my back, and whisper words of love into my hair.
The first time she kisses me properly, I feel the tremble of her lips on mine, their hesitancy and their sweet, chapped, feather touch. She draws back, and her whisper floats through the darkness. “I’m sorry.”
My fingers settle on my own lips, reliving her kiss. “It’s a sin. It has to be.”
“Any more than the sins we’ve already committed? They said my perfect baby was a sin, and that can’t be right.” She kisses me again with more assurance and her fingers clutch my shoulders. “I love you, Eileen. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”
When she kisses me again, I kiss her back.
We have to hide our love. From the other girls, who would sell what was left of their souls if it got them a small favor from the nuns. And especially from the nuns. Although we don’t know exactly why, we know that what we do, together under the cover at night, will be considered wicked. Evil. And we will be punished and separated forever. So during the days we work in silence with the rest of the girls, taking care that we are never seen together too often. We sit apart at mealtimes; we ensure that in the two-by-two weekly march to the town we always walk with a different girl. If by chance, we both are hanging wet sheets on the line at the same time, we content ourselves with a brush of fingers.
Nighttimes are our time. I learn to place my pillow down in the bed so that to the casual glance, it looks as if there’s someone there. It’s often so cold that most of the girls sleep with their heads under the covers, although that too is discouraged. We’re supposed to have our hands visible, so that we can’t be acting out our impure thoughts on ourselves. But unless a nun comes in at night—and they seldom do—there’s no one to police us on that. So I get away with it. And Maura’s bed is in the corner, so there’s no one too close to hear our whispers or the rustle of the stiff sheet as our hands slide over each other, learning the pathways and expressions of love.
