The Color of Dust

by Claire Rooney

  “I don’t want to fit into my wedding gown. I don’t want to fit into any dress that I have to sacrifice a rib to get into.”

  Lilly laughed softly. “Well, the good news is that fashion is starting to catch up to you. Your letter from Aunt May said that the women in Richmond are now wearing something called a girdle instead of a corset, and their dresses don’t always go all the way to the ground but stop a little ways above the ankle. She says it’s much more comfortable, but she wouldn’t dare wear any such of a thing outside the city.”

  “And hasn’t she come a long way,” Carrie muttered under her breath.

  “Who’s coming?”

  “No one that I know of.”

  Lilly looked at her with a frown and laid a hand on her cheek.

  “You’re not about to have one your spells, are you? Where you get dizzy and say strange things?”

  Lilly’s hand felt warm. Carrie’s cheek felt cold. She laid her hand over Lilly’s, softly stroking her fingers. She couldn’t help but look into Lilly’s bright eyes. “I think we should move to Richmond. Just you and me. We’ll rent a small house near Aunt May and keep a little garden outside the kitchen. We’ll grow lilies in the spring and I’ll give them to you on your birthday.”

  Lilly’s eyes dimmed. She took her hand away from Carrie’s face. “That’s a child’s dream, Celia. You’re engaged now.” She lifted the hem of Carrie’s chemise and rubbed at the red welts the corset left in bold stripes down her stomach. “But someday, I’m going to move to Richmond and you know I’ll always keep a room for you.” Lilly kissed her lightly on the cheek, her lips lingering against her skin, her fingertip resting just beneath Carrie’s ribs.

  She stepped back, her eyes glittering, pinched and pained.

  “You don’t like Robert.”

  “Robert’s a fine young man.” Lilly tugged at the hem of Carrie’s top and straightened out the shoulders.

  “Why don’t you like him?”

  Lilly brushed a fluff of lint off Carrie’s arm harder than she needed to. “Why would I like him? I like the way our life is now. In spite of how impossible you are, I don’t want it to change.”

  Lilly turned away from her and picked up the dress she had laid aside. She folded it carefully and put it in the clothes press on top of the corset. She closed the door gently and stared, her hand splayed against the wood. “I don’t like thinking that soon your affections will be for him and not for me anymore.” Lilly dropped her hand. “We’ve been the best of friends for such a long time, but I know that doesn’t give me the right to ask you to become an old maid only to keep me company.”

  Carrie touched her arm. “Would you have done that for me?”

  “What does that matter now?”

  “It matters, Lilly. Please.”

  “Celia.” Lilly laid her hand over Carrie’s. “I would want to stay with you even if we were dirt poor and had to take in washing for a living.”

  “Then why am I getting married?” Carrie felt her heart flutter.

  Lilly turned away from her. “Because your father says you must. He’s been very generous and lenient with you, but he says now is the time for you to put away childish things.”

  “And you are one those childish things?”

  Lilly dipped her head and didn’t answer. Carrie put her hand on her shoulder and gently turned her around. Tears shivered in Lilly’s eyes. They welled up and spilled over. She turned her head away, but Carrie, with her hand on her chin, turned it back again. She pulled Lilly to her and gently kissed her tears. The right cheek and then the left. Lilly put her arms around her and Carrie held her close as her shoulders shook with silent sobs. She stroked the bare line of skin high up on the back of Lilly’s neck.

  “I wish I had been born a man,” Lilly said softly. “Even a poor man would have had a better chance.”

  “Chance of what?”

  “That someday I might kiss you like a man kisses his wife.”

  “Oh.” Carrie shivered. Her hands clenched, bunching the fabric of Lilly’s blouse tight in her fists. “I want you to kiss me like that, Lilly. I do.”

  “I know you do, Celia, but it isn’t right.”

  “Who says it isn’t right?”

  “The Bible says it. You know that. You’ve read it as many times as I have.” Lilly raised her head. Her eyes were red-rimmed and sparkling.

  Carrie dropped her arms. “I sometimes wonder how different the world would be if Paul had never been born.”

  Lilly sniffed and took a step back. “But he was, and now it’s just the way things are. For even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature… Romans 1:26. You heard the reverend say last Sunday that all women are sinful, and for that reason a woman leaves her father and cleaves to her husband so that someone can have a hand over her.” Lilly’s face twisted into a bitter grimace. “It’s not a wonder that we should feel for each other the way we do, with you running around motherless and in short pants until you were ten and me with the devil’s touch on my hair, but if anyone ever caught us kissing like that we’d both be burned for witches.”

  “No one burns anyone in this day and age, Lilly. With electric lights and motorcars, nickelodeons and the telephone, who believes in witches anymore?”

  Lilly took another step back and folded her arms across her chest. “Plenty of people, Celia. This is not the city. Have you ever even seen a motorcar?”

  A small, almost fragmented part of Carrie’s brain thought of her little compact car and the long, boring drive from Chicago to Virginia. The thought tripped over other thoughts of her favorite horse in the stable, the small carriage she liked to drive. The clash of memories made her dizzy. Her knees began to tremble and she swayed.

  “Celia!” Lilly caught her and held her up.

  Carrie put her head on Lilly’s shoulder and breathed. Soap and powder, sweat and whiskey. She leaned into Lilly molding her body against her. The scratchiness of Lilly’s blouse rubbed her bare shoulders. “If we locked the door, who would know?” she whispered.

  Lilly’s arms tightened across her back. “You must be drunk, Celia. I think I should put you to bed.” It was more of a question than anything else with Lilly’s voice sounding soft and unsure.

  Carrie turned her head to look over at the tall canopied bed.

  The thin gauzy curtains hung still and unmoving. Lilly’s arms across her back felt safe and strong. “Yes. I think that you should. You’ll share the bed with me, of course, since I’m not feeling well.”

  Lilly pushed Carrie away from her. She was blushing deeply.

  “Celia, you’re not to touch me. Promise me you won’t.”

  “Can I help what I do in my sleep?” The memory of a cold night, a warm back, legs twined, soft shoulders underneath the press of her palms made her dizzy again. But it was a different kind of dizzy, one that came with a warm pulse and an ache in all her secret places.

  “If you’re not truly asleep, then yes, you can help what you do. Promise me, Celia. It’s wrong. You know it’s wrong.”

  “If you really don’t want me to touch you, then I promise I won’t touch you on purpose.”

  “And that’s as good as I’m going to get from you, isn’t it?” Lilly nodded and then shook her head angrily. “Of course it is. When have you done anything except exactly what you’ve wanted to do?” She stepped away from Carrie, turned her back and started struggling with the buttons on the back of her blouse, pulling on them with sharp, angry tugs.

  “How about right now?” Carrie felt the spark of her own anger kindle.

  Lilly turned back around. “What about right now?”

  “I’m engaged to be married to man I hardly know, much less love, and I’m here with a woman that I can’t kiss, much less touch. I can’t even tell you that I—”

  “Don’t say it, Celia.” Lilly looked at her with fear and alarm.

  “Please. It only makes it that much worse if you put it into words.”

&nbs
p; Carrie lifted a hand to her mouth. Her lips hurt with effort not to say the words she felt, her tongue cramped into knots. Lilly turned her back again and began to struggle with her buttons.

  Carrie watched her twist and bend her arms and wrists.

  Carrie stepped behind her. “Do you want me to help you with those?”

  Lilly glanced over her shoulder. “You should put your nightgown on.”

  “I don’t know where it is.”

  “Fine.” Lilly sighed and let her arms drop to her sides. “Help me with this and I’ll get it for you.”

  It took forever for Carrie to unhook what seemed like a hundred tiny buttons and then Lilly slipped out of her blouse.

  The skirt was easier, but Carrie’s fingers fumbled as she undid those buttons too. She stood back a step as Lilly shimmied it down and off. Her underthings had laces crisscrossing the back.

  Carrie started to untie them. As each one came undone, she let her fingers brush against the narrow plain of Lilly’s back. The last one fell away and Lilly lifted her chemise over her head. She stood with her back to Carrie, the cloth bunched in her arms held tight across her breasts. It was warm in the room, but Lilly was shivering. Carrie stepped closer and Lilly didn’t move away.

  She reached out a hand and brushed her fingers over her skin, bumping them down her spine and up again, circling the soft places underneath her shoulder blades.

  “You promised.” Lilly’s voice was a low whisper.

  “You want me to do this.”

  “That doesn’t make it right. It doesn’t make it safe.”

  That was true, but Carrie couldn’t make her hands stop moving over her skin. “Lilly. Please. Give me something of you to carry with me to my marriage bed. Give me some way to live through it.” Carrie heard the words her voice was saying without knowing exactly where they came from. It didn’t matter. She bent her head and kissed the knobs of Lilly’s spine. Her hands slipped around the curve of her waist.

  Lilly’s shivers turned into trembling. “Is the door locked?”

  “You bolted it when we came in.”

  Lilly’s chemise fell to the floor. She turned in Carrie’s arms.

  “You saw me do that?”

  Carrie rested her hands on the swell of her hips. “I heard you do that.”

  “And you knew?”

  “I hoped and I guessed and then hoped that I guessed correctly.”

  Lilly cradled Carrie’s face in the palms of her hands. “You’re getting sly in your old age, Celia.”

  “And there’s the fox telling the rose it’s red.”

  Lilly pulled Carrie’s face to hers and she kissed her. It was an awkward press of mouths, the bumping of noses, a stiff puckering of lips, a bruising crush with a jarring click of teeth. Lilly pulled back, her face fallen in frustration and disappointment. Carrie pulled her back again. She kissed her cheek and rubbed her lips against her skin. She kissed her eyes and her nose, let her mouth slide down the line of her jaw. Her lips brushed across Lilly’s and then lightly nibbled at them.

  Lilly made a small sound in the back of her throat. “Is that how a man kisses his wife?”

  “It’s how I want to kiss you.” Carrie touched Lilly’s mouth with her fingertips.

  “Do it again,” she whispered against her fingers. “Just like that.”

  Carrie brushed her lips across Lilly’s and then leaned into the push of her mouth. Something clicked and fell into place. Lilly’s mouth opened slightly. Carrie tilted her head and their lips came together like two pieces of a puzzle. Carrie pulled Lilly against her as a whiskey-like warmth spread through her middle, curled lower and flared into heat. Her hands clutched at Lilly’s back.

  Lilly plucked and pulled at Carrie’s chemise, lifting it as high as it would go. She bared Carrie’s breasts and pulled her into a tight embrace.

  The part of Carrie’s mind that was Celia’s, the part that had never been touched before, never felt the weight of another body in her arms, the brush of a kiss against her lips, screamed as Lilly’s heat poured into her mouth and filled her body to bursting. She held her tight, pushing herself against Lilly in a crush of breasts, a thrust of hips. She ached in way that she never had before, even in her deepest dreams, with a throbbing pain between her legs, a pinching tightness at her breast, a wildfire running over her skin. Carrie heard herself mew as tears stung her eyes. “Please, Lilly. Oh, God, please.”

  Lilly held her tighter, her hands flat against her back. “Celia, forgive me. I don’t know what to do next. Tell me what to do.”

  Carrie squeezed her hard and then rocked back. “Let go of me.”

  Lilly’s arms tightened. “I don’t want to let go of you.”

  “I need you to, Lilly, because I want to feel all of you pressed against me. With nothing in between.”

  Lilly made a deep guttural sound as her arms fell to her sides.

  Carrie knelt in front of her and slipped her drawers down and off.

  She stared at Lilly’s small breasts with light nipples, pale freckled skin, light reddish hair between her legs. It left her stunned and breathless. Lilly pulled her up and slipped her chemise off over her head. She knelt before her, slipping Carrie’s drawers down over her hips and legs. Carrie stepped out of them and walked away from Lilly.

  “Where are you going?” Lilly held her drawers against her chest.

  “Here,” Carrie said and slipped into bed. She pulled the sheet up to her thighs. Lilly dropped the drawers onto the floor. She stood and walked over to the bed, oblivious of her own nakedness.

  She stared at Carrie, her eyes scouring every available inch of her. Her expression was fierce and hungry.

  Carrie held out her hand. “Please, Lilly.”

  Lilly grabbed her hand and held it tight. “I don’t know what to do.”

  “Just come here.” Carrie tugged on her hand.

  Lilly crawled into the bed and slipped her feet underneath the sheet. She stared at Carrie with wide bright eyes and deeply flushed cheeks. “What do I do?”

  “What you’ve always wanted to do. It doesn’t matter, Lilly. Do anything. Do something. Please.”

  Lilly took Carrie’s hand and brought it to her lips. She kissed every finger, lightly licking the tips of each one and then slid Carrie’s hand down and placed it over her breast. “I’ve always wanted this.”

  Carrie squeezed gently. Lilly’s eyes fluttered and closed. “Ah.”

  Her nipple pressed against the center of Carrie’s palm and it made her hand tingle. The throbbing between her legs quickened and thickened into sharp pain, a fierce need to touch and be touched.

  She squeezed, rubbed and kneaded, as Lilly’s breath grew ragged and harsh.

  Carrie kissed her, a melding of lips and tongue, and reached to touch her between her legs. Lilly rolled onto her back and opened herself, mouth and heart, knees and legs. “Oh.” Carrie ran her fingers through the coarse brush of hair, over the soft skin underneath, pressing into her, the warmth and the wet folding softly around her fingers. Lilly arched up into her hand. “Ah.”

  Carrie rubbed harder between her legs, her tongue diving deeper into her mouth as Lilly’s hips moved to match the stroking of her fingers.

  Lilly’s hands were on her breasts, squeezing hard. They slipped down her stomach, over her hips, rubbed clumsily between her legs. “Oh, God.” It didn’t matter. She had wanted this for so long. All touch was good, magnificent, divine. Then, Lilly’s fingers rubbed over a spot that made her whole world slip sideways. A deep moan poured from her throat, and Lilly rubbed her there again. Her hips moved to meet her fingers. She couldn’t stop them. They had to press into Lilly’s hands as Lilly’s hands pressed into her, rubbing, stroking, sliding in a rhythm matched in the pounding of her blood. Something began to grow inside her, a trembling delight that filled her body. It grew and filled her so full that it stretched her skin tight. She shimmered on the edge of a glittering brightness, a pounding fullness, a beautiful ache. “Ah.” Her b
ody burst open in spasms of lights and stars.

  “Oh, God, Lilly!”

  Carrie heard herself whimpering. She buried her face in the crook of Lilly’s neck as Lilly murmured soft words, stroked her hair and ran light fingers up and down her spine.

  “All these years,” Lilly said in a voice that was harsh and rough. “All these years, this is what we’ve been missing. I never imagined it would be like that.” Lilly’s fingers traced a circle around Carrie’s ear sending shivers racing down her back. “How sad to find it only here at the very end.”

  Carrie lifted her head and kissed her softly “There will other times, Lilly. Tomorrow night, the night after.”

  “Tomorrow night is a forever away.”

  “Then how about right now?”

  “Again, now? Can we?”

  “We can try. Do you want to try?”

  Lilly lifted her head and kissed Carrie’s shoulder. “Yes. Right now, yes.”

  “And tomorrow night?”

  “Yes.” She kissed the line of her throat. “Tomorrow night, too, and the night after. Every night right up until…”

  “No.” Carrie laid her fingers across Lilly’s lips. “Don’t say it.” Lilly kissed her fingers, ran her tongue in between them, took them into her mouth. “Ah.” Carrie laid her body on top of Lilly’s and felt her legs scissor behind her thighs, the wet of her sliding over her bones, the heat of her soaking into her skin.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  It was too hot a day to be inside, though the ceilings were tall and all the transoms were open. Carrie sat on the front porch, her paper fan clutched in her hand. The air wasn’t moving enough to make the transoms worthwhile. She wobbled her fan back and forth half-heartedly. Even the bumblebees seemed lackluster in their buzzing. An increasingly dim part of her mind remembered air conditioning and freezers, but it made her dizzy to think about it. The kitchen had an ice chest full of the ice that had been harvested from the frozen river last winter, stored in large blocks deep underground in the icehouse. But no one thought of chipping it into little pieces and putting it in the lemonade. It was too valuable for that, seeing that it was the only ice to be had in all of Columbia and would barely last until winter. Still, a girl could wish.