by Fiona Zedde
"You want some dick in your life?"
The voices followed the women. From the corner of her eye, Sinclair saw that they belonged to four men, still boys really, with the hard muscles of laborers but none of the honest intentions.
"Pussy don't belong with pussy, you know. You need this-" he grabbed his crotch, "every time."
Lydia turned around. "Fuck off."
"Keep that as an inside thought, my dear," Hunter murmured near her girlfriend's ear. "We don't want any trouble from these assholes."
"Unfortunately, I think we already have it." Sinclair laughed nervously.
"You dykes think this is funny?"
"Not at all." Hunter stepped back. "So since nobody is amused let's just call it a day and go our separate ways. OK?"
A ring of spectators was beginning to form around them.
"No. No damn way some man-woman is going to disrespect me and walk off."
"Disrespect?" Hunter made a rude noise. "Didn't you start this?"
This was going to get ugly. Sinclair's fists tightened convulsively.
"No, man. You bitches started this. And we're going to finish it."
"Can these punks be any more clicheed?" Hunter turned to Sinclair with a sneer.
"Don't piss off the nice man, Hunter."
"What nice man would that be, sweetheart?" Not the one who was advancing closer and closer toward them.
"Any of you fucks touch me and you're dead!" Lydia hissed, anchoring her purse across her body.
The one in orange took her up on her dare. Her punch was solid, loud in the enclosed space. It set off the other three like firecrackers. They came at the women, fists flying, teeth bared. Sinclair had never felt such fear in her life, not even when she was mugged in the city. She kicked and punched, grateful that her body remembered the lessons from the selfdefense course she'd taken two years ago. Her elbow connected with something solid and someone howled.
"Hold her down!" Sinclair felt hands pull at her limbs, then at her blouse. Pain exploded in her side and against her face. She kicked at the body closest to her legs and felt a jolt of relief when he screamed and fell against the concrete. Hands grappled roughly at her arms and breasts. Somewhere glass shattered.
"Back the fuck up!"
Sinclair looked up to see Lydia with a broken bottle in one hand. "Get off my fucking sister or I'm going to shove this glass up your ass, then come back for your balls."
A cold fever swept over Sinclair's skin, then suddenly she was free. The boy backed away from her with his hands up. Lydia feinted closer to him, stabbing at him with the broken bottle. A hand tugged at Sinclair's and she recoiled, bringing her elbow sharply up. The body next to her staggered and cursed.
"Fuck!" Hunter's voice was loud next to her ear. "It's me, dammit! Come on. Let's go."
The mist cleared. She could see one of the boys on the ground, holding his crotch, his body gripping itself in the fetal position. His arm and back were bloody. Another held his nose, making harsh gagging noises as blood gushed between his fingers. The other was nowhere to be seen. Hunter stood next to her, gripping a rock in her bloodied fist, chest heaving. The crowd stared but did nothing. It backed away as the women emerged from their human boxing ring, thrusting their way through the suffocating heat of hostile bodies to find Lydia's car.
They didn't talk on the ride back to Lydia's house. The wind filled the silence in the car, brushing like a soothing salve over naked bruises. Lydia's face was the worst. An ugly purpling bruise smudged the right side of her mouth. In a few minutes it would start to swell. Aside from a slightly bruised mouth, Hunter's face was still intact. Little gashes decorated her knuckles and the palm of one hand where she had gripped the rock. She held that hand outside the car to let the cool breeze ease its burning. Sinclair's arms were a mottled purple where the men had held her down and her cheek had a small cut, probably from someone's ring. Right now she was just tired, her mind still shied away from the fact that grown men had done this thing to them, and no one from the market had tried to help.
When they parked in the garage, Sinclair stumbled from the car, then followed the two women into the house.
"Can I go lie down in your guest room?" she asked. "I'm a little tired."
"Sure, go ahead. I'll call Papa and let him know you'll be spending the night here."
"Thanks."
Sinclair went into the bedroom and took off her clothes. The bed was soft, but she felt suffocated, and instead of being comforted by the paintings on the walls-images of banana trees and coconut groves, of young men walking through otherwise empty city streets-she felt threatened by them. Sinclair turned away but her mind replayed scenes of the attack, the terror and violence of it. She finally got up, wrapped an oversized towel around her like a sarong, and walked through the empty sitting room and made her way to the back patio. She pulled off the towel and sank into the silken hammock with a sigh. The breeze immediately comforted her. Within moments, she fell asleep.
Moments later, voices from beyond the opened double doors interrupted her rest.
"I can't believe you're asking me that. Was I the only one getting beaten on in that market earlier?" Lydia's voice floated out on the faint breeze.
She heard the whisper of leather against flesh as someone sank into the sofa near the door.
"I'm asking you that because of what happened today. This makes being out to your family and friends even more important. When you come home with bruises from so-called god-fearing Jamaicans who beat you up for being who you are, don't you think that you could get your family to see the abnormality in that, that a person who tries to destroy or hate someone because of who and how they love isn't much of a person?"
"I don't see the perfect harmonious vision that you see. In my eyes there are no benefits to being out. For what? So that I can get my ass beat again by some boys on the corner?"
"What about your life? Don't you think that you're living it just a tad bit dishonestly?"
"This is not America, Hunter. This isn't even your precious England. I can't walk around here holding my girlfriend's hand like it's nothing. Women get raped and beaten for that kind of stuff around here."
"I'm talking about your family, your friends."
"You are so damn naive."
From her swaying hammock, Sinclair could feel the heat of her sister's frustration and hear her harsh, angry breath.
"Do you think us being more out would have saved us from almost being gang-raped in the market? Do you? Nobody tried to help us. They didn't give a damn what happens to three lesbians. They probably thought that a little forced entry was going to save our souls and pussies for Jamaica. Because surely we can't be real Jamaican women and be dykes." Lydia made a low sound of frustration. "It kills me that you women who leave here and come back understand the country so little that you bring your foreign ways here and expect us to adapt."
"Don't you ever get tired of hiding? Of lying about who you're going to see and why?"
"This is what I get tired of." Sinclair imagined Lydia gesturing to her bruised arm and the swelling at her mouth. "I get tired of being called names when I go out to get my shopping done. I wished that I lived in San Francisco or Manchester but I don't. I don't believe in Jamaicans the way that you do. I don't think they can change, or at least not soon enough for me not to be a casualty in this useless war."
Hunter sighed. So did Sinclair. This fear that Lydia was talking about, the threat of violence, could happen everywhere. She could have just as easily gotten gay-bashed walking to her apartment after a date with Regina as she could have walking down her father's stretch of country road.
"Unless you plan to date a different kind of woman from what you prefer now, I say that you out yourself almost every day. Don't you think it would be better for your family to know because you told them rather than for them to speculate and get all the facts wrong?"
"No, I don't. You need to stop thinking about what's best for me, because obviously you
have no idea what I need to do or be."
"Just because I've been gone from this country for most of my life doesn't mean I understand it any less. When I was fifteen I left Jamaica. I knew that I was a lesbian then and, because of what I looked like, I was an out lesbian. It was hard for me. It was hard for the thirteen years I was in England, for various reasons, and it's going to be difficult here as well. I don't anticipate anything being easy. But I'd rather suffer the chance of someone accosting me for being a dyke than suffer the emotional violence I'd do to myself if I wasn't honest about who I am."
"I don't see it as hiding, like I said. I see it as saving my skin. And I have absolutely no problem with that." Lydia's voice was final.
The leather creaked as someone stood up. "This is a difficult conversation. We should finish it some other time. It's too soon after what happened today."
"Yeah. I guess you're right." The sofa creaked again. "I'm going to bed."
"OK. I'll just stay out here awhile and clear my head."
"All right, I'll see you in the morning." Soft footsteps gradually faded away.
Sinclair heard Hunter's low sigh. "What the blazes did I get myself into with this woman?"
In the morning it was just Lydia and Sinclair.
"She left to do some work," the younger woman said. Her voice was strained. Although it was seven in the morning, she was already made up and ready for work. With her skillfully applied makeup, it was nearly impossible to see her bruise from the fight.
"You can stay here while I go to work if you like, or I can drop you at Papa's on my way to town."
"I'll stay here. You have a good collection of books to keep me occupied all day. We can go over to Papa's for dinner after you get back."
"In that case I'll try to come home at a decent hour for a change."
After Lydia went off to work, Sinclair changed into a pair of borrowed shorts and a shirt and went to explore the large subdivision and its adjoining woods. Despite its manicured facade, the neighborhood still managed to keep many of the natural elements that made it beautiful. Sinclair took out her camera and quickly lost herself in the landscape.
By the time Lydia came home it was too late for dinner, so she just took Sinclair back to their father's, promising that they would do something less dangerous sometime soon.
Chapter 9
' inclair couldn't sleep. When for the second time that )morning she heard someone stirring in the house, she decided to get up. It was Nikki, already showered and preparing to leave for work. It was barely six.
"Hey." Sinclair stood in the doorway of her room, yawning.
Nikki smiled a greeting.
"Going to work already?"
"Yes. I have to be there by seven thirty after I take Xavier to school."
In the kitchen, the boy sat quietly eating his breakfast of hominy corn porridge and fruit juice. Apparently, he wasn't much of a morning person.
Sinclair glanced at the clock on the refrigerator. "Mind if I tag along?"
"Uh ... sure you can come. But it's going to be boring."
"That's OK. Just take me up there with you and I'll find some way to occupy myself."
"All right. Hurry up, though. We have to leave in about twenty minutes."
In less than fifteen minutes Sinclair was showered and dressed in a long denim skirt and a thin white blouse that covered the bruises on her arms. Sturdy sandals and a bag with some personal essentials, including her camera, corn-pleted the outfit. Xavier waited by the front door for his mother, propped in the doorway with his full backpack nearly dragging him backward to the floor. He looked like a pint-sized zombie.
Nikki came up behind Sinclair. "Ready?"
During the walk to Xavier's school, the boy slowly livened up. By the time they arrived at the school's gate he was blinking happily into the sun and waving at his classmates playing a few yards away. They left him to play while they caught the bus heading into the hills to the house where Nikki worked.
"I work for the Breckenridges," Nikki explained as they rode the small minivan up into the Blue Mountains. "They're nice white people who came here from England about five years ago to settle down with their retirement money."
"How often do you work?"
"Only four days out of the week. They pay me good enough that I don't have to get a second job."
They passed miles of luxuriant greenery, hanging vines, an occasional splash of color from blossoming fruit trees. The road was rough. Unpaved dirt and gravel kicked up as the bus passed, leaving it and any passenger unwise to leave the window open, brushed with red dust. They got off on the third stop, walking past a half dozen expensively built houses with their electronic gates and satellite dishes, before they found the Breckenridges' bright yellow, two-story Tudor mansion with its high white fence.
"It's beautiful up here." Sinclair said, breathing in the crisp mountain air.
"Yes. One time I wanted to live up here with the rich people. Then I realized I was afraid of heights and mountain goats."
Sinclair laughed. "What time do you finish up here?"
"Around five thirty. Why? Are you bored already?" she teased Sinclair with a tiny smile.
"No, not yet. But I know that you have to work so I planned on going for a walk to take in the sights up here. I can come back when you're on your lunch break."
"OK. That sounds good. I'll let them get used to the idea of me bringing somebody up here before they actually see you." Nikki surprised her with a quick hug. "Come back at one o'clock. And be careful."
The roads here weren't quite as rough as the ones they had encountered on the bus. At least it was easier to walk in her sandals without worrying that she'd turn up at the end of the journey looking like she'd walked through a bauxite mine. These roads were paved with asphalt that was spread out like a beautiful black rug then abruptly stopped three feet from the growth of vegetation on both sides. A slight breeze came up, bringing with it the unexpected smell of the sea. Sinclair took a small dirt road that led from the main one, being careful to note where she came from so she wouldn't get lost trying to get back.
The houses along the dirt road were smaller and less pretentious than the ones she just left, lined up like giggling schoolchildren in their small yards. Their facades were painted in wild gorgeous colors, scarlet splashed with blues, carmine, and yellows, teal ribboned with pink. One house was straight out of a fairy tale with ceramic goblins crouched in the flowerringed yard. The fairies perched on the walls with their nimbuscloud hair and soft brown faces looked ready to separate from the wood and fly into the air. Sinclair took out her camera.
Hours later, the front of her skirt was dusty from her kneeling in the dirt to take photos and her stomach complained mildly of being empty. Sinclair ignored it and walked back into the forest.
The shifting canopy of plants welcomed her with their sheltering coolness. Sinclair put her camera away, anxious instead to explore the beauty around her with her own eyes. She sat at the base of an old mahogany tree and leaned back into the smooth bark. Its familiar scent brought back the childhood memory of playing with neighborhood children, digging in the dirt for whatever it was that children looked for back then. The smell of the earth was the same and the breeze on her face felt intimate and familiar. If she narrowed her eyes just so, with the sun playing in her lashes, Sinclair could almost see her mother rushing out to usher the children inside before the rain came.
"You look comfortable."
Sinclair let her illusion go and opened her eyes. "I am." She hugged her knees and glanced up at her sister's gorgeous girlfriend. "What are you doing here?"
"Talking to you of course." Hunter stepped closer. "You know, you shouldn't be walking up here alone like this. It's not safe."
"What about you? I don't see your escort."
"I'm different."
Darkness slid suddenly across the sky and thunder rumbled overhead. The air became ripe with the smell of impending rain.
"The sky is g
oing to fall down on our heads any minute."
"Yeah, I should be getting back." Sinclair definitely didn't want her camera to get wet.
"You'll never make it back to the Breckenridges' in time. Come with me."
Without turning to see if Sinclair followed, Hunter walked out of the forest, unerringly finding the dirt road and the few houses that lined it. Moments later they arrived at an unassuming stone house, mostly hidden by dense layers of flowering plants and shade trees. A profusion of hibiscus in lavish shades of red and lavender nearly hid the gate from view. Hunter lifted the vine-covered latch and held the gate wide for the other woman to pass through. The rain began to fall in slow sparkling drops. By the time they were inside the house, it was pouring in violent bucketfuls, slapping against the plants that surrounded the house with a fierce roar.
"Come in. Make yourself comfortable."
But Sinclair was too busy gawking to do that. The walls of the entranceway shimmered a vivid cobalt blue. Two bookshelves on either side of the hallway held pale, silver-shimmered blue vases of varying sizes and shapes. Their glazed surfaces were smooth and warm under Sinclair's touch. They reminded her of Della and her clay garden figures.
Paintings of blueness hung from the walls, a dark blue woman with pale blue eyes and red lips, a day sky bleeding away its vivid colors under the slow retreat of the sun. The entryway's vivid, eye-catching blue faded as they walked deeper into the house to a softer shade, the blue of the sky in the afternoon, lazy and welcoming. Every bit of furniture, the long velvet couch, the draperies, the ottoman in its solitary corner by the window, the rug thrown down on the red tiled floor, was all in shades of blue. The harmony of the room was absolute. The calm it evoked, complete.
"This place is gorgeous," Sinclair murmured, sinking into the velvet sofa.
"Thank you." Hunter brushed a hand through her hair to rid herself of a few errant raindrops. "I'm going to put on some lunch. Do you want to share?"
Sinclair's stomach growled the answer, but she said yes anyway.
Hunter laughed. "Feel free to look around. The food will be ready in about half an hour." She disappeared into the kitchen. A few minutes later she came back with a phone.
