by Radclyffe
Danny tossed a piece of crust into the empty pizza box. “Hey, Kevin, want to come outside and play ball with me and Piper?”
Kevin looked at Diane for permission, and she looked at Pam.
“Sure, Kevin,” Pam said. “I’ll bet Piper would love that.”
Pam stood up as soon as they’d left the room. “I need…I think I need to take a walk.” She put her hand on Mel’s shoulder. “Okay?”
“Of course,” Mel said as she started to gather their used napkins. “Take your time.”
Diane picked up some empty pop cans and followed Mel into the kitchen. “That didn’t seem to go well.” She set the cans on the counter. “Maybe it was a bad idea to come here.”
Mel looked out the window at Danny and Kevin as they played with the dog, and she struggled to get control of her anger. Diane had forced Pam out of Kevin’s life, and now she was trying to wrest them apart again. Too soon. “Give them time,” she said. “They haven’t seen each other for eight years, so you can’t expect them to become best friends in one hour. They have the weekend to get to know each other again.”
“We’ll see.” Diane walked over to the painting hanging by the kitchen table. The watercolor was washed with pale yellows and blues—the beach at the height of a hot summer day—and two women sat with their backs to the artist, leaning toward each other with their hands intertwined where they rested on the sand. Mel and Pam. Pam had painted it based on a picture Danny had taken of them when they hadn’t realized he was there. The original photo, enlarged and framed, hung in their downstairs bedroom.
“How do you live with it?” Diane asked, turning back to face Mel.
“Live with what?”
“Her talent. How do you live with someone so gifted and consumed by her art? How do you keep it from consuming you?”
Mel paused, uncertain how to answer. Diane’s jealousy of Pam’s talent had been what drove them apart, but Mel couldn’t understand such pettiness. Pam and her gifts were interwoven. To love Pam was to love what and how she created. “She makes me more, not less. When I’m with her, I’m more myself. More the person I want to be. She never tries to overshadow me, and she always supports and encourages me, no matter what I do.”
“But she never stops drawing, or thinking about what to draw.”
She did stop, for eight years after you took Kevin away from her. Mel didn’t say it out loud. She never wanted Pam to bury her desire to paint again. Mel loved the faraway look she’d get when she saw something that inspired her. The frantic search for a pencil and paper so she could capture a moment and later bring it to life.
“I hope she never does.”
Diane shook her head. “I used to worry she wouldn’t make time for me and Kevin. She let her art rule her life, and I always knew that if she had to choose us or a paintbrush, we’d have lost.”
Mel made a pot of coffee so she’d have something to do with her hands besides strangling Diane. “She has never once let me or Danny down. I have no doubt we’re her first priority, just like Kevin would have been if you’d let her stay in his life.”
“You don’t understand—”
Mel put the coffee filters on a shelf and slammed the cabinet door shut. “I understand perfectly well.” She pointed out the window. “That is my son. His father and I are divorced, but I’d never try to cut him out of Danny’s life. I want Danny to be surrounded by people who love him. I wouldn’t let my own insecurity or jealousy get in the way of that.”
Mel felt her hands shake with the ferocious need to protect Pam. She stepped toward Diane, her voice quiet and low, but sounding dangerous even to her own ears. “You made a mistake. Not in letting Pam go, because I know for certain you were the wrong partner for her. But you never should have stood in the way of her relationship with Kevin. Don’t make the same mistake again. You’re going to give them this weekend, give them as long as they need to form a bond, because it’s the right thing to do for both of them.”
“Ooh, I’m scared,” Diane said with a laugh, but she took a step back. “Don’t get all riled up. Kevin is old enough to make his own decisions. If he wants Pam in his life, I won’t stand in his way. But he doesn’t even remember her, so don’t get your hopes up.”
Mel looked out the window again. She saw Pam walk past the boys and go into her studio. No matter what Diane said, Mel had no choice but to keep her hopes up. Because more than anything, she wanted to see Pam become whole again.
*
Pam moved through her studio with a sense of calm. The anxiety she’d felt in the morning, the emptiness of loss she’d felt when first talking to Kevin, were gone now. She chose a large canvas from a pile and picked up some paints, brushes, an easel. She lugged everything out the door and onto the stone path that curved through the garden. Without looking at the boys, who were still playing with Piper, she set up her easel and prepared to paint.
The surety of her vision gave her confidence to quickly spread and mix oils on her palette. She smeared a brush in some black paint and made an interlocking set of ovals down the center of the canvas. Some gold inside the shapes, and she had the twisted pole of a carousel. Next, she outlined the horse. Dapple-gray, with brightly painted saddle and bridle in shades of blue. Royal and navy and aquamarine. Tassels and gilded medallions made the frozen horse look worthy of a Bedouin warrior. And on his back was a young boy, his coppery hair a fine complement to his fancy mount. Pam’s hand moved swiftly and easily over the canvas as she blended and outlined and brought the carousel to life.
She had started the background when she came out of her painting zone enough to realize she had an audience. She smiled at Kevin before returning her attention to the canvas. She took some liberties with her memory of the state fair, where she and Kevin had played and explored just days before her world fell apart and Diane took him away. Although the fair had been large and spread over several acres, she condensed the best parts into the space on the canvas. The goats and sheep, the ice cream and hot dog stands, the slats and tracks of an old wooden roller coaster.
“I remember that.” Kevin pointed at the animals. “We got to pet goats and one tried to bite me. And we shared a big banana split before we went on the roller coaster, even though Mom said it’d make me sick.”
“It didn’t, though, did it?” Pam’s brush almost rushed over the painting. She drew a mechanical arm with a gaudy red ring at its end. “Do you remember trying to grab rings as you went around the carousel?”
“I couldn’t reach,” Kevin said, looking at her instead of the painting now. “But you helped me get one.”
“Yes, I did.” Pam blinked away her tears as she continued to paint the memory.
*
Pam turned the covers back and crawled into bed, pulling Mel into her arms. She burrowed her nose in Mel’s hair and inhaled the scent of warmth and roses from Mel’s shower. She moved slightly and her breasts rubbed over Mel’s smooth back. Mel sighed and pressed closer, her hips nestling against Pam’s crotch. Pam held Mel in the same position she had that morning, but this time they had nowhere to go for at least eight hours.
“Mmm.” Pam nuzzled Mel’s neck. “I thought I had dried off after my shower, but I seem to be getting wet again.”
“I can help with that.” Mel turned in Pam’s arms and kissed her on the lips, her tongue tracing Pam’s front teeth before she leaned her head away and laid her hand on Pam’s cheek. “Are you sure you’re all right, sweetheart?”
Pam understood the depth of the question. “Yes. It was…a good day.”
And it had been. She had imagined this day thousands of times over the past eight years. Joyful reunions. Blame and guilt-ridden shouting matches. And everything in between. She hadn’t anticipated the total emptiness she had felt at first, or the slow and tentative day of getting to know Kevin again. It hadn’t been what she’d expected, but it had been good. Quietly, hopefully good.
“He’s an interesting kid,” Mel said. “Smart and athletic. And he
has an artistic side. He reminds me of you.”
“Me, too,” Pam admitted. Once she and Kevin had reconnected through the shared memory in her painting, they had been able to make a new connection in the present. He had shown her a kata from his karate class, they’d tossed a baseball around on the beach, and he’d followed her with seeming interest as she showed him the paintings in her studio. Diane had even stepped aside and let him go to dinner with her, Mel, and Danny. She had discovered that as much as she had loved the toddler Kevin, she wanted to get to know Kevin as he was now.
“I couldn’t have done it without you,” she said, kissing Mel again and sucking gently on her lower lip. “You were right there every time I needed you. With the pizza, with baseball mitts. But also you were just there. Every little touch or smile or look you gave me today helped me feel less alone. And Danny was great, too. They sure got along well.”
Mel laughed, her breath tickling Pam’s ear. She swirled her tongue over Pam’s earlobe. “He used to write letters to Santa asking for a little brother. Maybe he’ll finally get his wish.”
“Better late than never?” Pam gasped as Mel nibbled her neck. She rolled Mel onto her back and kissed her collarbone. The sentiment was a stale one, but it fit today perfectly. She had to stop mourning the loss of Kevin as a toddler in order to appreciate the Kevin he was today. Mel’s words to her this morning—that she and Danny were Pam’s family—had been the catalyst for her new perspective. She had a family and a future, and she needed to live moving forward. Not looking back.
And right now her future, her hope, her love was sighing and squirming underneath her. Pam smiled as she kissed a trail over Mel’s breastbone and toward her abdomen. Onward and downward. No going back.
Lee Lynch is author of The Raid, Beggar of Love, and Sweet Creek from Bold Strokes Books. Her work has been honored with the James Duggins Mid-Career, GCLS Trailblazer, and Alice B. Readers Appreciation awards. Her novel The Swashbuckler was first recipient of her namesake award, the Golden Crown Literary Society’s Lee Lynch Classic Award.
This story features characters from Beggar of Love.
Dawn Knew
Lee Lynch
Dawn knew from day one that Jefferson was an excitement junkie, a quality that kindled her. In the past, Jefferson’s fix was new, or at least illicit, women. The women were gone, but not the excitement.
One Saturday, they joined the tourists in downtown Wolfeboro. The bakery, as always, pumped out hot bread and cinnamon scents. They stopped to say hello to the owner of the hippie store, where the incense reeked more of balsam than the surrounding pine woods. Annoying little gift shops displayed windows stuffed with silly gewgaws, as her dad would call them, which they laughed at, arm in arm, as they passed.
Another of Jefferson’s addictions went back to childhood, when she spent summers in New Hampshire at the vacation place that was now her home. Saturdays, the Jeffersons boated into town. There was an old restaurant on the pier where the tourist and mail boat, the Mt. Washington, docked. Ice cream cones were served from the restaurant’s window. Fifty years later, Jefferson still enjoyed the hot summer excursions into town for cold ice cream.
Dawn went to town as a kid, but more often her family ate at home, much cheaper. Those were happy times with the whole family at the supper table, spooning ice cream from the small rice bowls her aunt brought over from Vietnam. U.S. ice cream and spicy fish sauce—just the thought of the unlikely combination of foods she’d grown up with brought happy tears to her eyes. She only wanted with Jefferson what her father and mother had—a long, fun, harmonious, even luminous marriage.
Watching Jefferson’s pleasure as she sat in her boat, rocking on the water, licking the melting vanilla with that wonderful tongue of hers, Dawn wondered how to make her this happy all the time.
“What’s the frown for?” Jefferson asked, touching her hand.
“I’m trying to figure you out, J, so I can keep you forever and ever,” she said, exaggerating the frown with a squint and pursed lips.
Jefferson leaned over and gave her a quick sun-chapped kiss on the nose. “Am I going somewhere?”
“If you could, where would you go?”
“To bed. With you.”
Why didn’t Jefferson’s quick response reassure her? Had she said that to a lot of women? Of course she had. Jefferson’s tumultuous past love life haunted her more than it did Jefferson, who seemed to have moved on. Did Jefferson have regrets? Did she miss the longtime lover who died after leaving her? Did she carry invisible hurts?
The happy kid in Jefferson was showing in her smile and her eyes. What could be more reassuring?
They sat on blue lifesaver cushions on the stern bench of Jefferson’s launch, watching runabouts, small sailboats, and yachts come and go. Jefferson wore white shorts, a black polo shirt, and white deck shoes, no socks. Dawn was in a white-and-yellow print cotton skirt, lace-trimmed tank top, and white sandals. Jefferson looked around, ice cream cone in one hand, with the other reached under Dawn’s skirt.
“J, no!” She pulled back. The boat rocked.
“Why? No one can see.”
“You’re not in New York anymore.”
“You’re so alluring in that top,” Jefferson said, grinning.
“You’re embarrassing the town librarian.”
“Aren’t librarians allowed to have sex?”
Damn. She’d done it again, said no to something that excited Jefferson. And herself. But she couldn’t enjoy those seeking, commanding hands in public. At least not this public, not where she worked. “Take the boat out a little farther,” she whispered.
“The lady,” Jefferson said, making her way to the helm, “wants privacy. I can do that.” She turned the ignition key, deftly backed the launch, in all its polished mahogany glory, away from the dock, and bumped through the wake of a large white yacht as she brought the boat about and left the marina.
Dawn stayed where she was, the air cooling as they got farther out on the lake. She pulled Jefferson’s white sweatshirt over her bare shoulders. Jefferson accelerated slowly, steadily, until the bow rose out of the water. Ignoring the posted speeds, she stood at the wheel and sliced through the water, her graying, overgrown hair brushed back by the wind. Dawn loved to watch Jefferson in her element like this, masterful, as if she was the actual source of the boat’s power. God, she cherished this woman.
Minutes later, tucked in the boathouse, Dawn was more than ready.
Jefferson tied up and rejoined her. “Better?”
The boathouse was dark and cool, a world of wet. She shrugged the sweatshirt off and shivered a little. To the touch, her hair felt like lake grasses. She was sunburned and chilly, but refused to say no to Jefferson again, maybe ever again.
She locked eyes with her lover and lifted her foot to the gunwale. Her gauzy skirt fell back to the tops of her thighs. As Jefferson twisted to kiss her, Jefferson’s strong fingers pulled aside the crotch of her panties and opened her to the damp air. She clenched inside. Then, to her surprise, she was coming, all limp against Jefferson’s shoulder, Jefferson’s free arm holding her up.
“God, J.”
“Nice?”
She leaned on Jefferson, unable to sit upright. “Nice? I think you just turned me into something like that vanilla ice cream you devoured earlier.”
“Did I devour you?”
“Is that what you call it?”
“I call it love,” Jefferson said. “Come in the house so I can really love you.”
She followed, a boneless version of herself, stepping in Jefferson’s footsteps. The surprise of it, the way she’d let herself fling away control—Jefferson was her siren song: once heard, ever obeyed.
In bed, she had no will to resist her conquering lover. Was that when Jefferson left women, once she had thoroughly overwhelmed them? Dawn clung to her, empty of self, subsuming her consciousness into Jefferson’s, living for a time only as part of this untethered, unaware being.
�
�Stop!” she breathed, wanting more, coming hard on Jefferson’s fingers. Jefferson ignored her, using her mouth and fingers, licking her, driving her, seducing her into yet another orgasm and then another, slower, longer and powerful.
“Let me love you,” she managed to demand, seeking, in her exhaustion, to maintain the ecstasy of her immersion in Jefferson, of her pleasure at merging.
But Jefferson simply held her, brushed Dawn’s skin with gentle lips, and whispered, “Later.”
After a brief nap, she struggled to place herself, to replace spaces left hollow when Jefferson withdrew. It grew more and more difficult to differentiate between herself and Jefferson after lovemaking. Naked, she joined Jefferson on the porch, still a bit frightened of her powerful emotions, and at the same time, grateful.
“Is it later yet?” she asked with an impish grin, tilting Jefferson’s newspaper down so she’d acknowledge Dawn’s offering. Dawn unbuttoned and unzipped Jefferson’s white shorts. “Here? Can I touch you out here on the porch? I guess you’re not worried someone will see us?”
Without a word, Jefferson eased her to her feet and then stripped. When they kissed, soft on soft, she still tasted of vanilla.
“Yes, here,” Jefferson answered, guiding her onto her lap and easing a finger inside her. Dawn rocked on Jefferson’s finger, hugging it while stroking Jefferson’s wet clit, circling with a thumb until Jefferson’s long exhale told her she was done.
“Don’t wear me out,” Jefferson said. “It’s time for my swim.”
Only once, for Jefferson. Always only once; no matter how insistent Dawn was, Jefferson could give herself over just once. Dawn was torn. How could she explain that Jefferson was withholding as much as Dawn gave? She smiled against Jefferson’s neck, thinking there was a kind of balance in that. Was it possible that she would love Jefferson less if Jefferson didn’t tie herself to some emotional mast to protect herself from Dawn’s love, all love, and from betrayal? Would Jefferson, rather than leave because Dawn posed no challenge, stay to prove she could? Dawn had told her she didn’t tolerate straying lovers. It was all or nothing with her.
