by Julia Watts
It was at least two hours before Aaron’s usual Saturday night bedtime. Chrys knew he was making himself scarce so she and Dee could be alone. She didn’t know if she loved him or hated him for it.
She and Dee were sitting in the same places on the couch, but without Aaron in the room, she felt like they were closer together. “I’m…I’m really happy you came with me,” she said, her voice tight and shaky despite the three glasses of wine. “I was so nervous asking you…I was sure you’d say no.”
Dee smiled, her lips stained purple from the wine. “I didn’t even think about saying no. But I did wonder if it was a date or not.”
Chrys felt her face heat up. “It’s…it’s whatever you want it to be.”
“Well…I guess it doesn’t matter what we call it. I just like being with you.”
“I like being with you, too.” What should she do? Take her hand? Lean in and kiss her? Chrys had never been the pursuer in a relationship before. Her relationships had always begun the same way…with her being the often oblivious pursuee.
“I guess it is getting pretty late,” Dee said. “Maybe I’ll go get changed for bed.”
“Okay,” Chrys said, wondering how she’d let the moment pass so quickly.
After Dee left, Chrys sat alone on the couch, the same couch where she’d sat alone for so many miserable hours after Meredith left her. It was easy to fall back into those feelings sitting here, feelings of being alone and unloved.
“Hey!” It was a stage whisper.
Chrys looked up, and there was Aaron in the doorway of his room, wearing a white T-shirt and lavender pajama pants, holding Miss Celie in his arms.
“What?” she said.
He put down the cat and sat next to her on the couch. “Get in there,” he said, his head indicating the bedroom where Dee was.
“What?”
“Have you become hard of hearing? Get in there! She wants you to.”
“No, she doesn’t. She said it was late and she was changing for bed.”
Aaron rolled his eyes. “Which is code for ‘excuse me while I slip into something a little more comfortable.’ For somebody with a PhD, you sure are dumb.”
“I’ve never been the one who makes the first move.”
“Which is a good thing since you sure do suck at it.” He grinned. “Like when she said she didn’t know if this was a date or not and you said ‘It’s whatever you want it to be.’ What kind of Zen master bullshit was that?”
“You were eavesdropping on us.”
He shrugged. “In an apartment this small, it’s hard not to.”
“Yeah, well, something tells me you weren’t trying very hard not to.”
Aaron stood. “I’m not going to allow you to sit on this couch and argue with me while there’s a beautiful woman waiting for you behind that door. If there’s a hair on your twat, you’ll get in there.”
Chrys couldn’t help but laugh. “What the hell kind of expression is that?”
“One that’s designed to move you from talk to action. Get in there, honeybun.” He disappeared into his room and shut the door behind him.
Chrys took a deep breath. She wished she could knock back one more glass of wine for courage, but then again, it probably wasn’t in her best interest to cross the line from pleasantly tipsy to sloppy drunk. She knocked on what, for a while, had been her bedroom door.
“Come in,” Dee said. She was lying, half under the covers, in a cream-colored, spaghetti-strapped nightie. “Hey,” she said.
“Hey. Is it okay if I sit down?”
Dee smiled, scooted over, and patted the spot next to her.
Chrys sat, turning a little to face Dee, whose honey-wheat hair fanned out across her pillow. “You’re beautiful.” The words came out before she could stop them.
Dee let out a nervous-sounding laugh. “What?”
In for a penny, in for a pound, Chrys thought. “You’re beautiful, lying there in your gown, with your hair all spread out like that. You look like the queen of the Amazons. Or a goddess.”
“Wow.” Dee blushed and looked away, but her smile stayed. “I’ve never had a woman tell me I’m beautiful before. You are, too. Beautiful, I mean.”
“Thank you.” Chrys took another deep breath. “Listen…you know in the play tonight how the people in the forest were enchanted?”
Dee nodded.
“What if this was our night of enchantment? Then in the morning, if you want to say it was all a dream, you can.”
“I wouldn’t pretend it wasn’t real.”
“Well, what I mean is—if I were to lean over and kiss you—when we go back tomorrow to our regular lives, it wouldn’t have to change anything if you didn’t want it to.” She looked into Dee’s blue eyes, which were focused on her. “I…I mean, I don’t know if you’ve ever been with a woman before.”
“I haven’t.” She smiled shyly. “Well, not really. I mean, back in college there was this girl I guess I had a crush on, though I didn’t realize it was a crush until we got drunk one night and ended up kissing, kind of a lot. It didn’t go any farther than that, though.”
So Dee had had a college near-lesbian experience, Chrys thought. It was something to build on anyway. “You know, the first time I answered the door and it was you standing there, I…” She fumbled for a verb phrase: wanted you? Loved you? “Uh…”
“I thought you were going to lean over and kiss me.”
She might be inept at taking the lead, but by God, she knew how to take directions. She turned around, placed a hand on Dee’s cheek, and pressed her lips to Dee’s. Even though they were in bed, it was still a first kiss, soft and sweet.
The second kiss was longer, with Chrys’s fingers tangled in Dee’s hair, and Dee’s strong arms wrapped around Chrys’s shoulders. So many poets and singers, from Robert Frost to Johnny Cash, had described desire as fire, but it was only in this moment that Chrys understood this metaphor within her body. Heat radiated from Dee’s touch, but heat also radiated from within Chrys, the consuming desire to touch and be touched.
“Was that okay?” Chrys asked, her breath short.
“Better than okay,” Dee said, smiling.
“If I do anything that’s not okay, just tell me,” Chrys said. She had never been responsible for anyone’s lesbian devirginization before, and she didn’t want to pounce too aggressively and send Dee fleeing back to heterosexuality.
“I have a feeling,” Dee said, reaching up to stroke Chrys’s hair, “that everything from here on out is going to be better than okay.”
“Well, I’ll definitely strive for better than okay.”
“Okay,” Dee said, laughing.
Chrys and Dee’s mouths pressed together, so did their bodies, their breasts, their bellies. Chrys became painfully aware that while Dee was wearing a whisper-thin nightgown, she herself was still fully clothed. “I have to get rid of some of these clothes,” she whispered as they broke, gasping, from their kiss.
“Please do.”
Chrys stood and unbuttoned her dress, feeling Dee’s gaze upon her. She let the dress fall and climbed back into bed, glad that she had optimistically chosen to wear her pretty black bra and panties.
“Wow,” Dee said and pulled her into bed.
Chrys lost her mind in the best possible way. She was a body discovering Dee’s body, feeling the contours of her muscled thighs, the curve of her hips. When Dee slipped off her nightgown, her body was golden all over, her bronze-nippled breasts full but firm, the fuzz between her legs only a shade darker than the hair on her head.
“Honey,” Chrys said, and it was an endearment but also a description. There was something about Dee that was like honey, the sweet, sun-kissed gold of her.
Chrys kissed her neck, her collarbones, her breasts and belly, every surface lovely and new. She didn’t need to ask if what she was doing was okay because Dee’s body told her all she needed to know. She kissed her way across Dee’s belly to her hip, then her thigh, then settled in
the soft nest between her legs. At the first stroke of her tongue, Dee gasped and clutched Chrys’s hair. Chrys varied her pace from slow, sensual strokes to fast flicks, and then back to slow again until Dee’s body quaked and she cried out loud enough to disturb the neighbors.
When Chrys moved up to lie beside her, Dee said, “So that’s what all the fuss about oral sex is about.”
Chrys laughed. “Surely you’d had it before.”
“Yeah, but not like that. It was always some dude lapping away like a dog at a water dish. They were never even in the zip code of the place that would get me off. But what you did”—she touched Chrys’s cheek—“was like music.” She ran a finger under Chrys’s bra strap. “So why are you not naked yet?”
“I guess I just hadn’t gotten around to it.” She sat up to unhook her bra. She was always a little self-conscious about the size of her breasts. “They’re big,” she said, as she let the bra fall away.
“They’re perfect,” Dee said.
Chrys lay back, and Dee kissed and stroked her. Dee hooked her thumbs in the waistband of Chrys’s panties, then stopped. “You realize that once I get these off, I have no idea what I’m doing.”
“Sure you do,” Chrys said. “Just do what would feel good to you.”
Chrys felt the slide of her panties down her hips, her thighs, her ankles. Dee breathed what sounded like a sigh of appreciation before she started stroking her, first lightly with her whole hand, and then with one finger pulsing on her most sensitive spot. Chrys wanted the feeling to go on forever, but then the ripples of pleasure turned into great crashing waves.
“Did I do okay, teacher?” Dee asked as she snuggled beside her.
“If there were a grade higher than an A plus, I’d give it to you.”
They cuddled for a while in silence, and then Dee murmured, “Willadeen.”
“What?”
“Willadeen. You know how I told you I only tell my full name to people I’m really close to? Well, I think we’re definitely close enough now that I can tell you my given name is Willadeen. My dad’s William, and my mom’s Deena, thus my fate was sealed.”
Chrys laughed but restrained herself from laughing too hard. “Well, it’s a pleasure to meet you, Willadeen.” She closed her eyes and imagined one of those airbrushed custom bumper plates redneck couples put on their pickup trucks. In airbrushed cursive against a sunset background, it read, “Chrystal + Willadeen.”
Chapter Fourteen
The silence was driving her crazy.
The morning after her and Dee’s Midsummer Night’s Dream had been pleasant. Aaron made blueberry pancakes, and they laughed and chatted through breakfast. On the ride home, though, Dee grew quieter as they reached the state line. After they crossed the “Welcome to Kentucky” sign, Dee said, “You know, what happened last night was really huge for me. It’s going to take me a while to process it.”
“I understand,” Chrys said, a knot forming in her stomach.
“I mean, I’ve gone through some big changes the past couple of years, and now this, too.”
“You make it sound like some disaster’s befallen you.” Chrys saw a dead possum on the road and felt like roadkill herself.
“I don’t mean it that way,” Dee said, running her hand through her hair in obvious frustration. “I just mean this changes the way I think about myself and my life and what I want. I’m…I’m overwhelmed.”
“You had a good time last night, though, right?” She didn’t want to sound needy, but she couldn’t help it.
“I had a great time last night. I think that’s why I’m overwhelmed.” She laughed a little, but it sounded like nervous laughter. “I just need to think things through for a few days.”
“Okay. How about I leave you alone until Nanny’s appointment on Thursday?”
“Okay.”
And so for the past two days, there had been silence from Dee but the noise of a million “what ifs” in Chrys’s head. “Good lord, honeybun,” Aaron said when she vented her anxiety on the phone. “It took you years to come out. You’re expecting her to do it in a twenty-four-hour period.”
She knew he was right, knew she was being irrational to want Dee to pledge her everlasting love to her after just one night. And what an idiot she’d been to tell Dee that their night together didn’t have to change anything between them. Of course it did.
Right now Chrys was sitting at the supper table with Nanny, picking at a plate of macaroni and cheese.
“You feeling poorly?” Nanny asked.
“What?”
“It just seems like for the past couple of days you ain’t had much of an appetite and you’ve had this kind of faraway look about you. I just wondered if you might be coming down with something.”
Chrys had been trying to act normal around Nanny but had obviously failed. Trying to act normal was probably always a failure, just like trying to have a good time. “I’m just a little out of sorts. Maybe I’ve got a summer cold coming on.”
“Maybe so,” Nanny said. “The way you’ve been acting…all dreamy and not eating…if there was anybody around here for you to have taken a shine to, I’d say you was in love.”
It took a tremendous amount of effort for Chrys to fake a laugh.
* * *
Chrys ran hot, soapy water over the breakfast dishes and looked at the clock for the hundredth time this morning. 8:42. Nanny’s appointment was in a little more than an hour. What if Dee was cold to her when she showed up? Or—and here was a possibility that was even worse—what if she opened the door to find a different physical therapist because Dee had fled entirely? Tears sprang to her eyes. She was hurting from a rejection she hadn’t even experienced yet.
She washed the dishes and told Nanny she was going to take a quick shower. She let the hot water pound her shoulders, trying to force herself to relax. As she washed her body, she remembered the feeling of Dee’s hands on her, sure she would never know that pleasure again.
It was hard to decide what to wear. She didn’t want to look like a slob because that would make her more easily rejectable, but if she made an effort to look her best, she would seem desperate to please. She finally settled on a denim skirt, a plain white T-shirt, silver hoop earrings, and the holy trinity approach to makeup.
The next time she passed the clock it was 9:22. She settled in the living room with Nanny and pretended to watch some inane morning talk show with grinning hostesses who seemed to find everything—from low-cal versions of Mexican favorites to an appearance by some reality star Chrys had never heard of—equally thrilling. When the doorbell rang, she jumped as though it was connected to an electrode that shocked her.
Dee stood in the doorway in her green uniform shirt. She gave a shy smile. “Hi.”
“Hi.” Chrys’s face was too tense to return the smile.
“So after I work with your nanny we can talk, okay?”
“Okay.” In Chrys’s experiences, talks that were announced before they actually occurred were never good.
As Nanny and Dee worked together, Chrys paced the floor of her room. She made herself sit down and try to read an article from an issue of Vanity Fair Aaron had given her, but she couldn’t concentrate. Desperate for some physical activity to occupy her, she unmade her bed so she could remake it. When Dee’s voice finally called out, “We’re done,” she jumped as though the moment she’d been anticipating for the past hour came as a total surprise. She took a deep breath, slipped on her sandals, and walked into the living room, where Nanny was relaxing with a bottle of water.
“She did a great job today,” Dee said in a pleasant but professional voice that gave nothing away.
“And she plain wore me out,” Nanny said. “Chrystal, can you walk her to her car?”
Once they were out in the yard, they stood for an awkward moment, looking at each other and then looking away.
Chrys wanted to touch Dee, to stroke her hair, but she willed her arms to stay at her sides and said, “I’ve misse
d you these past few days.”
Dee reached out and took Chrys’s hand. “I’ve missed you, too.”
Once Dee’s hand was in hers, Chrys didn’t let go. “Would you like to sit at this incredibly uncomfortable concrete picnic table and talk for a few minutes?”
Dee nodded. When she sat, she said, “Nothing says comfort like concrete.” But then her face turned serious. “Listen, I appreciate that you’ve given me a few days to think about things. I know it was hard, being left in the dark like that.”
“I’m sure it was no picnic for you either, trying to figure things out.” She thought of where they were sitting and smiled. “I said no picnic, yet here we are at a picnic table.”
Dee smiled back. “I guess being a mom, the first thing I think about is how this would affect Anna. She’s been through a lot of emotional upheaval the past few years—being picked on at school, the divorce. And then since the divorce, her dad hasn’t been as attentive to her as I wish he would be. And there was the move here. That’s a lot of change.”
“It is,” Chrys said, trying to prepare herself for rejection.
“I don’t want to rush her into any more big changes. And you’re just coming off a bad breakup. You probably shouldn’t be rushing things either.”
“Wise men say only fools rush in,” Chrys half-whispered.
“Yeah. So what I’m wondering is…do you think we could just kind of date a little? Take things really slow?”
Chrys felt like she’d been awaiting the sting of a whip, only to get a pat on the back instead. “Really? You want to…date me?” She sounded fifteen, but she didn’t care.
Dee broke out in a full-fledged grin. “Yeah, I do. But let’s go slowly, okay? This is all really new.”
“Slugs move faster than I will, I promise.” Chrys was smiling and tearing up at the same time.
“And I haven’t talked to Anna about this yet. I thought maybe we could spend some more time with her together first…let her get to know you better. She already likes you.”
