by Ann O'Leary
“I’d like to,” Kate replied, looking disappointed, “but I 77
promised to meet Mum for lunch and go shopping.”
Laura finished her coffee and gathered up her wallet and keys. She thought Kate looked a little uneasy, as if unsure where things would go from here. “Are you free tonight?”
she asked.
Kate looked up at Laura with an expression of great relief. “Are you kidding?”
Laura gave her a smile. “Well, why don’t you come back here at around seven and I’ll take you somewhere special for dinner.”
Kate wrapped her arms around Laura. “We don’t have to go anywhere,” she breathed against Laura’s neck. “We could stay here all night and just make love. We could make an earlier start than last night.”
“That sounds wonderful,” Laura said, “but I think it’d be nice to go out to dinner first, don’t you?” Then she kissed Kate on the mouth. Kate began to run her hands provocatively down Laura’s body, and Laura had to force herself to move out of Kate’s embrace. “I’ve really got to go…Jude will be wondering where I am. I’ll see you tonight.” Laura stroked Kate’s face with her fingertips and gave her one last quick kiss before she left.
* * *
An hour or so later, Kate was ready to leave Laura’s apartment. She locked the door as she’d been asked, and was just about to push the keys under the door when she changed her mind. The keys in her hand felt like more than just keys to a door. They were keys to Laura’s life. They gave her a sense of security. A sense of a future with Laura. 78
Giving up the keys would place her back in the tenuous position she was in before last night. She didn’t have any dishonest intentions, she told herself as she slipped the keys into her jacket pocket. Feeling them there gave her a connection to Laura, and they were a tangible reminder that everything that had taken place between them was real and not just a dream.
“Well, it’s happened,” said Laura. Jude waited, looking at her. “Kate just turned up at my place last night and, well, all my resolve just went out the window. I lost control with her.”It was a bright, warm day, and Jude and Laura were sitting at a table in the sunshine, on the sidewalk outside the market cafe. The street was filled with people shopping, and the outdoor tables were packed with people talking and laughing animatedly. In the background, the market vendors were loudly competing with each other, their rough voices singing out discount prices for their produce, tempting buyers to empty their stalls before they picked up for the weekend.
Laura felt oddly disoriented. Slightly overwhelmed, she was aware of a sense of fulfillment, and happiness. The kind of feelings she always associated with Alex. But her obvious lack of emotional control in this situation with Kate made her uneasy. She’d trained herself over the past five years to give and take, but only so much. She’d managed to keep a tight rein on her heart, as protection, but with Kate she could feel herself breaking free, running wild. She lit a cigarette and gave Jude a wan resigned smile.
Jude returned her smile warmly, pulling on her earlobe. 79
“I think it sounds very romantic. So how do you feel about her now?”
Laura looked away and gazed unseeing in the direction of a busker sitting on a wooden fruit box playing a poor rendition of a Bob Dylan song. She twisted the ring around on her finger. After a long pause, she sighed. “I’m scared to death, Jude.”
The waiter arrived then and placed before them steaming glasses of café latté.
Jude tried to reassure her. “I can understand why you don’t want to rush into anything, Laura, but I don’t really know why you’re so scared. Maybe Kate is your second chance.”
Laura looked up sharply. “What do you mean?”
“I mean that maybe with Kate you could again have the kind of relationship you had with Alex,” Jude replied. Laura shook her head dismissively. “That’s impossible,”
she said firmly. Any comparison with her love for Alexandra was unacceptable for Laura. It was already bad enough that she could see so much in Kate that reminded her of Alex.
“Do you think that perhaps you might feel guilty about falling in love with someone else?” Jude asked sensitively.
“I mean, maybe the idea makes you feel like you’re being unfaithful to Alex somehow, unfaithful to her memory.”
This was something that hadn’t entered Laura’s head, and the concept made her uncomfortable. She drew on her cigarette and fiddled with the teaspoon in her saucer. She responded in a vague tone, “That’d be ridiculous…it’s five years since she died.”
Jude shrugged. “Well, I think you should go with the flow. And stop bloody seeing Kelly Johannson, for God’s sake!” Jude sipped her coffee, then added, “I’d like to meet 80
Kate. She must be quite something to have got to you like this.”
Laura sighed and smiled. “She is quite something, I assure you, and we’ll all go out together soon. But Jude, you’re forgetting about the age thing. She’s too young for me. Any relationship is doomed to fail. Can’t you see that?”
“I still say that’s not an important issue, darl.”
After a few minutes, Jude asked, “So what are you planning to do?”
Laura sipped her coffee. “Well, I can tell you one thing I’m definitely not going to do,” she began emphatically.
“I’m not going to allow my life to revolve around Kate. I don’t want to find myself wondering all the time where she is and what she’s doing. I’m not going to wait desperately for the phone to ring, or any of that stuff.” She paused while she considered what she was about to say. “I’m still attracted to Kelly, and I feel comfortable with the freedom of that relationship, such as it is. Kelly and I are a pleasant diversion for each other, and I need that right now.”
Jude looked appalled. “Do you really think that screwing Kelly will stop you thinking about Kate?” she asked incredulously.
Laura was amused at her shocked expression. “You don’t know Kelly,” she said with a grin.
Jude looked away contemptuously. “What about Kate? How do you think she’ll feel about that?”
“She knows about Kelly; she saw me with her,” Laura replied. “But if I know Kate, she won’t ask about her again. Maybe she’ll assume I won’t see her again…I don’t really know. But quite frankly, Jude, it isn’t any of Kate’s business, is it?” Laura was having as much trouble convincing herself of all this as she was convincing Jude. But Kelly was a safety 81
net, and she planned to hang onto it.
Jude sighed in resignation. “I hope I’m wrong, Laura, but this sounds like a recipe for disaster. If you don’t end up getting hurt by all this, Kate almost certainly will.”
Laura came downstairs and went into the kitchen. She took the bottle of champagne out of the freezer that she’d placed there earlier and set it down in an ice bucket next to two crystal flutes, on the low table in the living room. The balcony doors were closed, as the night was becoming cool, but the view of the sea, silvery in the evening light, was breathtakingly clear through the glass doors.
It was nearly seven o’clock, and Laura had just finished dressing for her dinner with Kate. She had chosen a dark teal fitted dress, low-cut with narrow shoulder straps, coming to just above the knee, and black high-heeled shoes. She’d wear a light-weight slack jacket over this when she went outside. She’d applied a touch of dark eye shadow as well as her usual mascara and pale pink lipstick. She’d booked a table at an exclusive restaurant. She was well aware that Kate was besotted with her, and she wanted Kate to feel special. She also wanted to find the right time to talk to her about the terms of this affair that they were apparently now engaged in.
She looked out at the sea as she lit a cigarette. She’d been trying to cut down her smoking lately, but her emotional turmoil of recent times had set this back somewhat. She was trembling now and wanted to calm her nerves. She didn’t know whether she was trembling about seeing Kate again and holding her, or about explaining things to her.
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Just then, the sound of the buzzer interrupted her thoughts. The sight of Kate took Laura’s breath away for a moment. Kate had dressed up too, in black pants, and a smart cream jacket with a silky black top underneath. Her lovely thick dark hair was loose and shining, and when Kate combed it back through her fingers, Laura noticed the sparkle of small ear-studs. She smiled at Laura and her brown eyes glowed. She seemed to Laura to look a little different somehow. There was an increased confidence in her demeanor, and she gazed adoringly into Laura’s eyes with an intimate sensuality that sent ripples of desire through Laura’s body.
“You look beautiful,” Laura said.
Without taking her eyes from Laura’s, Kate fell into Laura’s waiting arms and kissed her passionately. She had no intention of bringing this embrace to an end, so Laura reluctantly eased her from her arms and led her to the sofa. Laura poured the champagne.
“You’re very hard to resist, darling,” she said, “but there’s plenty of time.”
Kate looked as if she could hardly believe that Laura was actually her lover.
“I thought we should drink a toast to you before we go to dinner,” said Laura, mischievously. “A toast to the consummation of your lesbian womanhood.” Kate giggled and they clinked glasses, then sipped the cold Dom Perignon.
Kate said, “I think we should also drink to us. To the beginning of something that I thought would never begin.”
Laura felt slightly uncomfortable as she replied, “Well, something has certainly begun, Kate, but I think we should talk about how things should go on from here. So we know 83
where we stand.”
“What do you mean?” Kate suddenly looked concerned. Laura was anxious not to upset Kate, or to disappoint her. She smiled warmly. “Don’t look so worried,” she said.
“It’s just that all of a sudden, we’re having an affair. As you know, I tried very hard to avoid this happening, because I wanted to avoid the complications. But you’re a determined woman, Kate, and in the end I couldn’t resist you.”
“But I’m not making your life complicated, am I?” asked Kate. “Don’t you feel as happy as I do?”
Laura didn’t want to spoil the night by going into details that they would never agree on. She knew that Kate wouldn’t understand that at thirty-nine, she needed to be more cautious about these matters than someone of only twenty-three. So she simply replied, “I do feel happy, but of course my life is more complicated now. All I’m asking is that you allow me to move along at my own pace. I need to take this slowly, and I want you to try to take things for what they are and not get too carried away. Please don’t expect too much of me, Kate.”
Kate distractedly pushed back her hair. She looked a bit insecure, as if she was afraid it might all disappear just as quickly as it had begun. “So what do you want to do?” she asked anxiously.
“Well, after tonight, I think we should make an arrangement where we see each other only a certain amount of the time. I don’t know…maybe twice a week or something like that.”
Kate gazed at her with her soft brown eyes, and Laura was reminded of Alex. She glanced away as Kate protested,
“But I think about you all the time, Laura, and now things are different. We’re lovers now, and I’ll die if I don’t see you 84
every day.”
Laura had to keep her eyes averted while she said as firmly as she could, “Kate, that’s too serious for me. Please don’t push me on this. You have to agree that you’ve made great progress with me, and I’m glad that you did, but I have to have control over my own life, and at the moment, this is the way I want to be.” She looked at Kate’s disappointed expression and smiled at her warmly. “Let’s enjoy tonight together, darling, and tomorrow we’ll plan when we get together again, okay?”
“Okay,” Kate replied with a brave smile.
Laura put down her glass and moved to the sofa. She stroked Kate’s face and leaned forward to kiss her. “We’d better seal the deal with a kiss then.” Laura felt the same falling, helpless feeling she always felt when she kissed Kate. Their desire for each other was inflamed as they kissed passionately. After a few minutes Laura drew away from Kate and gazing lustfully at her, she murmured, “I wonder when I’ll be able to kiss you without wanting to drag you straight to bed.”
“Let’s just stay home,” Kate said breathlessly. Laura stood up. “I’ve booked a table for two at a wonderful restaurant, and we’re going to dinner,” she said smiling.
The background music was a low-key blues instrumental and the atmosphere in the elegant restaurant was hushed. Their table was set with a starched white cloth and napkins, and silver cutlery. Kate gazed at Laura. She looked stunning in that dress, and her exposed shoulders and arms looked golden and glossy. Her dress allowed a provocative glimpse 85
of her cleavage, and Kate couldn’t help glancing down frequently. Her hazel eyes glowed alluringly in the candlelight and just the way Laura held her gaze made Kate tremble.
Handing Kate the wine list, Laura said, “You order the wine this time, darling. I don’t mind what it is.”
Kate ordered a Chardonnay, and they sipped it, saying very little, gazing with an erotic intensity into each other’s eyes.They had ordered entrees of a veal terrine with pistachios, and a seafood crepe, followed by chicken with a mushroom mousse, and a rack of lamb baked with honey. The food was beautiful, but they were too absorbed with each other to manage to eat very much, and not bothering with dessert and coffee, they left early.
When they returned to Laura’s apartment, they fell on each other immediately, and were very soon upstairs in bed, making love.
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Chapter Nine
Late the next morning, they were sitting up in bed nestling against each other, with cups of coffee, while looking out of the windows at flocks of seagulls circling above the beach. Laura felt bright and refreshed, despite the lack of sleep of the last two nights.
“Why don’t I ring my friend Jude and we all go and have dim sum?” she suggested. “That is, unless you have something planned.”
Kate smiled. “I haven’t got any other plans. That sounds great.”
“Good,” said Laura as she got up from the bed, “I’ll ring her now.”
Jude was free for lunch, so a couple of hours after, Laura and Kate headed off to collect Jude, on their way to the 87
restaurant. They traveled across town to an area known as Little Saigon. The streets were filled with Vietnamese shops, markets and restaurants.
As usual, the main street was packed with people, and they had to often step out onto the road to get past crowds gathered around the vegetable stalls on the footpath. Some of the restaurants were owned by people of Chinese descent and they chose one of these to have dim sum.
Squeezing past the tables crammed with people, and the trolleys groaning with food, they found a table by the window.
Soon, a woman maneuvered a trolley up to their table and reeled off the names of the many steaming dishes at lightning speed, lifting lids for their inspection. Laura suggested they get one of everything.
“Great idea,” said Jude, “except the chicken’s feet.” She wrinkled her nose. “I don’t want to look at chicken’s feet.”
Laura and Kate laughed, and agreed with this exception, and soon the table was spread with steaming baskets piled one on top of the other, and small dishes of sauces and freshly chopped chili. Jude unstacked the baskets to reveal the assortment of pearly-white steamed dumplings and steamed pork buns. While Jude and Kate began to help themselves, Laura broke open the lotus leaf around a parcel of sticky rice, releasing the delicious aroma in a cloud of intoxicating steam.
“Mmmm, isn’t this heaven,” said Kate, as she tucked into a light, fluffy sweet-pork bun.
Before the others could respond, a little angelic Chinese face peeped over the side of their table, surprising them. A small boy of around two or three, apparently a child of the owners, was regarding them and what they were ea
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with great interest.
“Would you like some of this?” Kate asked him. The child reached down and brought a handful of fries to his mouth. Jude looked over the edge of the table to see what he was holding.
“I think he’s wondering why we aren’t eating proper Australian food,” she said with a grin.
On cue, the boy proudly held up a crumpled McDonald’s bag, before he scampered away giggling, sending them all into a fit of laughter.
Laura was pleased to see that Jude and Kate seemed to have taken an instant liking to each other. They became very engrossed at one point in a discussion about art. Jude had some knowledge of the subject and appeared to be very interested in Kate’s work.
Laura sipped her tea, watching them, and couldn’t help smiling to herself as she observed Jude’s animated expression and sparkling eyes. She was obviously flattered and charmed by Kate’s genuinely interested questions about her. When Kate left them to go to the ladies room, Jude looked at Laura with a beaming smile. “She’s gorgeous, Laura.”
Laura smiled, “Yes, she is.”
“And she’s head-over-heels in love with you,” Jude added.
Laura took a cigarette from her pack, and lit it. “She’s infatuated.”
Jude shook her head slowly and sighed. “I haven’t seen you like this in years. The way you look at her, speak to her…” She paused, tugging gently on her earlobe, looking at Laura. “You’re obviously in love with her too, darl.”
Laura concentrated on her hands, twisting the ring back 89
and forth on her finger. “I’m in lust with her.”
Just as Kate approached the table to rejoin them, Jude said quickly, under her breath, “You’re in denial, Laura.”
Later that afternoon, back in Laura’s apartment, Laura suggested to Kate that they see each other again on Thursday night. She noticed Kate’s disappointed expression, but was grateful that she agreed to this without argument. Laura had some work to prepare for the next morning and was with difficulty trying to encourage Kate to go home. They were standing near the door kissing passionately, quite carried away, when they were interrupted by the sharp ring of the phone. Laura’s muscles tensed instantly when she heard the caller’s voice.
