by Joy Argento
“And why watercolor?” Emily finished her first drink and set the empty glass on the bar. It only took a few moments for her to reach for her second.
“Watercolor is so free and flowing. It has no boundaries unless I decide to put them in. If I am doing a flower, for example, one petal can flow right into the next or it can be totally separate. It becomes my choice. Once I learned to control the wetness, I learned I could control it all.”
“Are we still talking about painting here?” Emily said, with a smile. I can’t believe that came out of my mouth. Oh my God. Stop it! Stop it! She felt her face burn.
“Maybe not. What do you say we finish these and take a walk on the canal?”
Over Emily’s weak objection, Sarah pulled two bills out of her purse and laid them on the bar to cover their tab. Emily wasn’t at all sure of the proper protocol for such things when on a date with a woman. For that matter, she still wasn’t positive this was a date, so she didn’t press the issue. On the way out, she dropped the bartender’s business card into the trash.
The evening air had a hint of fall but was still warm enough for a pleasant walk without the need for a coat. The moon, a quarter full, shone bright in the sky. It cast a lovely glow over the canal, across the street from Rumors.
Sarah reached out and took Emily’s hand, entwining their fingers together.
Okay, I am thinking definite date here. Heat rose in Emily, then cooled, leaving a trail of goose bumps on her arms. Oh damn, this is a date. Okay, what should I do? I’m thinking throwing up wouldn’t be a good idea. Calm down, calm down. It’s just a date. A date with a woman! I can do this. I can do this. Can I do this? Yes, I can do this. Oh my God. I’m not sure I can do this.
Emily wasn’t sure if the light-headedness she felt was due to the wine or the fact that the hand that she held belonged to a female. She wasn’t a big drinker, and this was the second night in a row that she had shared wine with a beautiful woman. Her thoughts went to Andi and the feelings that had come to life with a simple foot rub, feelings she had pushed down because they frightened her. I am done being afraid. Her mind was still with Andi when Sarah pulled her by the hand off the pathway and behind a tree. She gently pushed Emily against the rough bark and leaned into her. When their lips met, Emily told herself again that she was done being afraid. She closed her eyes and accepted the gentle kiss.
“I have wanted to do that all evening,” Sarah said. When Emily didn’t voice any objections, Sarah kissed her again with more pressure, her tongue darting out and delicately licking the inside of Emily’s lips.
I’m kissing a woman, her tongue tentatively meeting Sarah’s. A flood of sensations ran through her body. Her heart pounded as blood coursed into areas that had long lain dormant. Emily ran her fingers through Sarah’s hair and pulled her face in closer. Emily’s body was taking over, her own thoughts pushed aside.
Her ringing phone jerked her out of the trance and she released Sarah’s hair as their lips parted. Emily silently apologized with her eyes as she struggled to catch her breath before answering the phone.
“Hello.” Her voice quavered.
“Hi, Emily.” It was Mindy. “Are you gonna be back? Daddy gotta movie, and we want you to s-s-see it too.”
Emily’s mind scrambled for an answer. “Sure, honey. I’ll be there in a little while. Go ahead and start the movie, and you and Dad watch it. You can catch me up on what I missed when I get there.” She struggled to keep her voice even and her thoughts coherent.
“Come now. I do not want you to miss some.”
“I’ll be there soon, okay? I’ll see you in a little while. Bye.” Emily was reluctant to leave, but she knew she had to. This was going much too fast for her, and she needed time to think and figure this out.
“You’re going to call it a night, huh?” Emily could hear the disappointment in Sarah’s voice.
“I’m so sorry. I had a wonderful time, but yeah, I really should get going.”
“Can I talk you into meeting me at my studio in the morning? I’ll bring breakfast.”
Emily couldn’t seem to resist the sparkle in her eyes, visible even in the moonlight. “Don’t you have to be at the festival in the morning?”
“Lauren’s watching my booth until noon, so no. I don’t have to be there in the morning.” She raised her eyebrows, waited for an answer.
“In that case, I would love to.” She wasn’t sure if it was her brain or her body answering. Sarah leaned in and kissed Emily again, softly on the lips. The rush of electricity once more surged through Emily. Never mind, it was definitely her body that had answered.
“Come on, I’ll walk you to your car.” She took Emily’s hand and led her back to the parking lot.
“I’ll call you in the morning with directions, if that’s all right.” Sarah swept a single finger across Emily’s cheek, leaving a hot trail in its wake.
Emily nodded, finding it difficult to form words.
“I think we can have some fun,” Sarah said. She turned and walked away.
Emily stood for several seconds watching her go. She realized as she slipped into the driver’s seat of her car that she was wet. Wet from kissing another woman. She’d had the same reaction to Andi rubbing her feet. She had to be well on the way to third base with her ex-husband before her body would even start to react. I need to see where this leads. Fear or no fear, it was time to figure this out. Time to try taking another step out of her comfort zone. No. Doing a couple pieces of art in a different medium was stepping out of her comfort zone. This was more like leaping off a cliff. Emily hoped she didn’t break her neck on the landing.
***
The movie was more than half over by the time Emily walked into the house.
Mindy shook her head in an obvious attempt to reprimand her, but couldn’t pull it off for long. She lapsed into giggles. “Sit down, Emily. I tell you about the movie. Daddy, pause it, please.”
Without objection, Emily did as she was told. It seemed to take Mindy forever to relay the details of the story. She went on and on and Emily had trouble making sense of it. Her thoughts drifted back to Sarah and she stifled a smile.
“…and then the bad guy, that one there,” she said pointing to the man frozen on the television screen, “he put them puppies all in a big cage. Okay, ready, ’cause that is where we s-s-stopped. Here we go. Hit it, Daddy.”
Emily couldn’t focus on the images flickering by on the TV screen. Her mind was somewhere else. The tree. Her back pressed against it. Sarah’s lips pressed against hers.
She lay in bed later that night, replaying the kiss in her mind. The reaction of her body was unmistakable. She felt a surge in her belly and below. She tried to make sense of it all. No matter how many different ways she tried to explain it away or make excuses, there was only one conclusion she could come to. She was gay. The simple act of a kiss had been earth-shattering for her. It had all seemed so natural and right. In an instant, it had changed the way she viewed herself and opened up a world of possibilities. The thought made her giddy with excitement. She thought of Sarah and her soft blond hair and her even softer lips and smiled in the dark.
But the feelings were pushed aside by a questioning voice in her head. Am I some kind of an idiot? I must be. How could I go this long in my life and not know I’m gay? I’m thirty-five frickin’ years old, for God’s sake. How could I not have known? Maybe I did know it. Maybe I just wouldn’t admit it to myself. I never really enjoyed sex with men, but I thought there was something wrong with me. Oh my God, I guess there is something wrong with me. I’m gay. Stop it! Being gay doesn’t mean there’s something wrong with you. You’ve known gay people and you never thought there was anything wrong with them. You know Andi and she’s gay and there is absolutely nothing wrong with her. She’s wonderful. Andi. Andi was kissing someone. Andi. No. Sarah was kissing me. Sarah, who has soft lips, was kissing me. I need to talk to Mom about this.
But she couldn’t.
Her mother
was dead.
Emily had had a lot of moments like this. Her world crashed down around her as she realized, once again, the reality of her loss. This time, the reality that her mother was gone seemed to hit her with even greater force. It knocked the wind out of her, taking her breath away. She wouldn’t be talking to her mother about this. She wouldn’t be talking to her about anything ever again. A tear ran down her cheek, followed by another and another until she was sobbing.
Would her mother have understood and accepted these new revelations about Emily? She had been so nervous when she told her mother that she was divorcing Brian. Emily had been raised in a church that said divorce was wrong. She was afraid that her mother would adopt that idea and tell Emily that she shouldn’t do it. Instead, her mother hugged her and told her she loved her. “God doesn’t want you to be unhappy, baby, and neither do I. You need to do what’s best for you.” She had accepted Emily’s need to get out of that marriage and she would have accepted this too. Emily was sure of it—almost.
“You’re going to look like shit in the morning if you don’t stop crying and get some sleep,” she said out loud. She pulled a few tissues out of the box on the nightstand and wiped her eyes. She flipped on the lamp and looked around the room. Her childhood bedroom. Her parents hadn’t changed it much after she left for college. The pale pink walls had faded over the years. Her books lined up on a small bookcase in the corner were long ago forgotten and more than a little dusty. A single poster was thumbtacked to the wall over the desk. It had hung there since she was sixteen. She laughed out loud at the significance of it. Something that had evaded her until now. While her friends were putting up posters of guys in rock bands and pictures of Tom Cruise, her poster was of Julia Roberts. I wish I had realized a long time ago that I have a predisposition for pretty women. I guess there were a lot of things I didn’t realize.
She turned the lamp off again, plunging the room into darkness. Staring into the nothingness, she thought about her life and all of the clues she had missed that held the truth of who she was. Tomorrow she would begin living that truth. Tomorrow she would be seeing Sarah again. Tomorrow. She closed her eyes and when she opened them again, it would be tomorrow.
Chapter Eight
“I’ll pick you up at one,” Emily reminded Mindy. Mindy skipped from the car down the Burtons’ driveway and knocked on the front door. Timmy Burton pushed passed his mother as she opened the door. He threw his arms around Mindy and hugged her. Timmy, like Mindy, had Down syndrome. They’d been classmates in school, and Mindy often referred to him as her best friend.
Emily returned the wave from Timmy’s mother, waited until Mindy was safely inside and pulled back out onto the road. The directions to Sarah’s studio were easy enough. It was in a large building off Goodman Street, down the road from the Clothesline Art Festival. Emily took mostly back roads to get there, trying to avoid some of the downtown congestion around the art gallery.
She pulled into the mostly empty parking lot. Deep breath. It’s all good. Nothing to worry about. Emily took several more deep breaths in an attempt to calm herself. Okay, let’s do this. She pushed the butterflies down, silently cursing them.
She wasn’t sure she could manage walking up four flights of stairs and still be able to breathe when she reached the top, so she opted for the only other choice: an old freight elevator. The large elevator doors were open when she entered the building. She walked in and pulled on the thick canvas strap that hung down from the large metal door. The top half of the door came down to meet the bottom half as it rose up. She pulled on a second strap and a wire door came down with a loud clang, startling her. It took a few seconds for the elevator to start moving after she pushed the button with the four nearly worn away. It moved much smoother than Emily thought it would, given its obvious age.
The look of the hallway on the fourth floor was very different from the dilapidated look of the elevator. Fresh blue paint greeted her, and to her delight, beautifully framed artwork adorned the walls. A small cardboard sign with neatly handwritten letters pointed the way.
Emily turned to the right and continued down the hall. She glanced at the artwork as she passed and read the numbers on the doors. She came upon a watercolor painting and immediately recognized the style. It was Sarah’s. The open door to the studio was up ahead on the right, and Emily could hear music coming from the room.
Emily took the last few steps to the open door and paused. Damn. I didn’t even think to bring anything. Should I have brought flowers or cinnamon toast or something? Maybe I can offer her a kidney. She giggled to herself as her nerves bubbled to the surface again. With slight hesitation, Emily knocked.
Sarah set a large frame down against the wall and turned. Her face lit up with a smile and she walked to Emily with open arms. She pulled her into a quick hug. “Welcome. Come in, come in.” Sarah closed the door behind her.
“This is great.” Emily took in the large room. Several tall windows starting a few feet from the floor reached up to the ceiling on one wall. Tables and easels were set up in various positions to take advantage of the sunlight coming in. Only a few paintings hung on the walls, but there were empty hooks where other paintings had been. Probably in Sarah’s booth at the Clothesline show, Emily reasoned. A love seat and couch sat facing each other off to one side, a coffee table in between them.
Emily gave Sarah a tentative smile. She was trying to decide if she should mention that she had never dated a woman before. Before she could decide, Sarah took her hand and led her to the couch.
“Come, sit, I got us some bagels and strawberry cream cheese. I hope that’s okay.”
Emily sat and Sarah crossed the studio to get the food. Emily found her eyes roaming over Sarah’s backside. Oh my God. Just because you think you’re a lesbian now doesn’t mean you can stare at a woman’s butt, Emily reprimanded herself. But she didn’t take her eyes away until Sarah turned around, a Wegmans bakery bag in hand. Two bagels, cream cheese, and a plastic knife appeared from the bag, and Sarah set them on the table.
“I have a fresh pot of coffee or orange juice. Which would you prefer?”
Emily cleared her throat in an attempt to clear away the jitters. “Juice would be great.”
Sarah poured a cup of coffee for herself and juice for Emily. She set the drinks down on the table and sat next to Emily.
“So, how are you?” Sarah rested her hand on Emily’s knee.
Emily couldn’t help but smile. “Good. I had a nice time last night.”
“Me too.” Sarah went to work spreading cream cheese on the bagels and handed one to Emily.
Emily took a bite. She hadn’t had a fresh Wegmans bagel since she had moved to Syracuse. Not that they didn’t have Wegmans here, it was just closer to go to Tops to shop.
“Mmm. That is so good. Thank you.” She licked her lips to get a bit of cream cheese that escaped her mouth.
“My pleasure.” Sarah reached over and wiped a small drop of cream cheese from Emily’s lip with her finger. “You missed some.” She brought the finger to her own mouth.
Emily licked her lips again as she watched Sarah’s mouth. “Um, thanks. Would you like a kidney?” Her mouth went suddenly dry.
“What?” Sarah said, with a little laugh.
“Oh my God. I can’t believe I said that. It was just a little joke, but it sounded so much funnier in my head.”
“I’m very interested in your body.” Sarah raised her eyebrows. “But it isn’t your kidneys I’m after.”
Emily felt a blush rise to her cheeks, not sure how to respond. Her body, however, knew exactly how to respond. A jolt of electricity traveled through her and settled squarely in her crotch. But for some reason, that didn’t help her find any words to say.
“I’m sorry,” Sarah said. “Clearly, I’ve made you uncomfortable. I didn’t mean to do that.”
“No, it’s okay.” Emily felt foolish.
“Are you going back to Syracuse tonight?” Sarah said, chan
ging the direction of the conversation.
“Yes.” Emily was grateful for the change. “I have to be back at work in the morning. We’ll be leaving after dinner with my father.”
“Would it be okay if I called you sometime?”
“I would be disappointed if you didn’t.”
“What would you think if I came to visit? I was thinking maybe on Friday. I have an art show at the Rochester Public Market next Sunday, but have Friday and most of Saturday free.”
“I think I would like that very much,” Emily said. She definitely wanted to get to know this woman better. She felt like the conversations up to this point had been pretty much superficial. They had talked mostly about art. She would like to know more about the person, not just the artist.
“So, tell me about your job. What kind of classes are you teaching? Painting? Drawing?” The conversation turned back to art. At least the topic was comfortable.
“I teach oil painting, watercolor, color theory…”
Sarah leaned over without warning and kissed her. She wrapped her arms around Emily and pulled her in close.
Emily barely had enough presence of mind to set her bagel down before running her hands over Sarah’s back. Again, Emily’s body responded in a way that still surprised and shocked her. When Sarah’s tongue entered her mouth, Emily thought she was going to explode. She wanted more. She wanted Sarah’s hands on her. She wanted to feel what it felt like to be with a woman. But she knew she couldn’t let that happen. Not now. Not so soon after meeting someone. As turned on as she felt, she didn’t want to make love with someone she barely knew. She fought to tame her body’s sensations, but she felt a surge of moisture. Oh shit. This isn’t working very well.
Her hands had a mind of their own and she was astonished when they made their way around Sarah’s waist and up her sides. Sarah’s hands covered Emily’s and nudged them upward until they were on her breasts. She could feel Sarah’s nipples harden as her hands ran over the thin material of the blouse and bra that separated her hands from skin. Another rush of her own wetness told her just how turned on she was from touching this woman. She wanted to feel skin. She was sure she wouldn’t be able to control her hands any longer, and she was right. They traveled back down to Sarah’s waist and came up again, this time under Sarah’s shirt. She let out a low moan, directly into Sarah’s mouth, when her hands touched skin, soft skin, smooth skin, Sarah’s skin.
