Very little was said by anyone other than Toni during the appetizer segment of the meal. Kat and Monica kept their attention strangely focused on the food that resided on their plates – delicious though it was, neither had much of an appetite as a sickening anxiety had already taken up residence in their bellies. Toni had ordered the ravioli with the creamy walnut sauce. She was so enamored with her meal, moaning in between each delectable forkful, that she continued to remain oblivious to the discomfort surrounding her. She did, however, manage to dislodge lips from fork long enough to kick-start a conversation.
“So, Kat. Monica’s quite an eclectic artist. She and her partners have a gallery in the city - in Soho, and one in San Francisco,” Toni said in a limp attempt to elicit some interest in Kat.
“Yes, as you’ve mentioned,” Kat responded without ever looking up.
“It seems like the economy is starting to drag again. That whole Y2K thing wasn’t enough to keep the financial world propped-up for very long. Has the art world felt the trickle-down pinch because your investors are now unemployed?” Toni said with the unmistakable stench of desperation.
Toni was insistent that everyone start talking, employing pathetically d.o.a. humor and a tone approaching neurotically anxious until finally, one hour into the meal, she finally realized that no chemistry between Kat and Monica could be coaxed. She would have plunked down good money, as confident as she had been, that the evening was going to be a successful coupling of like-minded people. She fiercely loved them both so thought that they too would have found each other to be nothing short of awesome company. They should have been witnessing words toppling out of their mouths, falling over each other with conversational ideas to spare, but the reality was more like a series of uncomfortably silent blocks of time rather than continuous streams of excited verbosity. Little did Toni realize that Kat and Monica had fallen over each other many times before with nary a word ever having been exchanged.
Kat mused that if sex with Monica had been horrid, then her decision to come clean about their affair would have been easier but Toni’s jealousy was boundless and if she were to discover that Monica was her best ever, she’d have regretted her decision to tell-all for the duration of their relationship. Monica had taken Kat to depths of ecstasy that she didn’t know were possible unless you were passionately in love with someone – odd since she wasn’t at all in love and thought she knew all there was to know about her body and how it responded to every manner of touch. The passion of her kisses, the intensity of her orgasms - that she could transfer those reactions to her lover and seamlessly coordinate multiple, concurrent movements without it ever feeling strained or unnatural kept Kat coming back for more, despite the discomfort she felt while in her presence doing anything other than having sex.
She’d once pondered how much more incredible the sex between Toni and Monica must have been since their physical intimacy was paired with being in love. A painful constriction of her heart accompanied that thought so that one time was also the last time she allowed herself to entertain it. She was so relieved that she never shared her ‘Monica’ stories with Toni as that certainly would have created a rift that would have been impossible to mend. That she didn’t share those experiences due to their unrivalled intensity was a secret she would never reveal, even under duress, not even on her death bed.
“How’s your bass? It looks perfectly grilled and it smells deliciously seasoned.” Toni said in part as a conversation starter but also as a none-too-subtle, passive request to be offered a bite. Monica snickered knowingly and motioned to her plate, ala Vanna White, for Toni to take a piece.
“Oh. Oh my god, oh, that’s incredibly tender and flavorful. Wow – that guy’s a culinary genius. Simply perfect.” Toni closed her eyes and savored the morsel for every sensation it offered her salivating palate.
“Would you like to be left alone to privately enjoy your meal, Toni?” Kat teased.
Kat opened up slightly as witnessing Toni enjoying her food, from a simple cracker to a four-star meal, never ceased to provide her with an unavoidable urge to tease – well, preferably to stuff her muff into Toni’s eagerly awaiting mouth but not only were they in public but also were no longer lovers, so teasing would have to suffice. Kat and Monica exchanged a quick glance and despite their reservations, chuckled, Monica with an almost giddy anticipation of knowing that in a few short hours Toni would be similarly devouring her and Kat, with recollections of past encounters of an insatiably ravenous Toni and how she’d make certain her next sexual conquest possessed a similar skill; she’d be able to close her eyes and imagine it was Toni at the helm.
Toni had ordered three quartinos of wine in hopes that the alcohol might loosen up tongues and inhibitions but she was the only one who drank every drop of her carafe. Monica’s and Kat’s remained three-quarters full, an anomaly for a couple of oenophiles. She had been dieting for the better part of six months and although she had managed to shed a considerable amount of weight, knew that if she didn’t shelve the diet every now again and eat to her heart’s content, that she certainly would loose her resolve to remain on track hence pork back up in a self defeating behavioral misdeed. By the time dessert arrived, a perfectly lovely, caramelly, nutty gelato coupled with the strongest, creamiest, and most aromatic espresso Toni had ever laid lips on, she was quite blotto – despite having put a considerable amount of absorptive food in her belly.
“Maybe I shouldn’t have eaten those last few forkfuls of polenta. I’m over bloated with corn meal and vino,” Toni mumbled in her near-drunken stupor.
Kat and Monica once again took advantage of Toni’s detour into oblivion to exchange non-verbal signals, which prompted them to request the check and a doggie bag for Kat’s nearly uneaten meal. She knew at some point she’d want to finish it – preferably in a setting in which her appetite would once again flourish back to its natural depth.
“This can never happen again, agreed?” Kat solemnly begged Monica once Toni left the table in search of the restroom.
“No, of course it can’t. But I think we should tell Toni. I won’t feel comfortable withholding our affair from her. She’s been so good to me; keeping it from her just doesn’t feel right.”
Monica and Toni had agreed to keep their respective pasts where they belonged but since this particular past was a segment of Toni’s present, Monica believed that the basis of their original agreement became somewhat nullified. She never could convincingly keep a secret from Toni’s prying, and at times suspicious, eyes. Monica intrinsically understood how isolating it felt to be the odd one out so was disinclined to force that upon the woman she loved. She attempted to convince Kat that sooner was better because once time passed, extricating oneself from the deception would come across as self-serving disingenuousness at best.
“For whatever it’s worth, I think I know Toni a little better than you do and I’m telling you she won’t take it well. What’s the point of being honest if we both end up on the losing end of it? You didn’t know it was me that you would be having dinner with tonight but I sure as hell knew it was you and I fucked up by not saying something right away. Now, it’s just too late. I’ve hurt her in the past and I’m not about to do it again so I’m asking you to keep quiet. Toni is great but she has her limitations.” Kat spoke with eye contact that was direct and intense.
She implored Monica to give her an honorable promise and only after she heard Toni shuffling her way back to the table did Monica, ever so reluctantly, almost imperceptibly, nod her head in ascent. They both agreed to tell Toni that they didn’t really care for the other so had no interest in any mutually inclusive future gatherings, which they hoped would put an end to ever having to sit through a meal with the best food they’d ever eaten but with bellies too laden with deceit to properly enjoy it.
******
“Please, my love. Forgive me for not telling you. It’s history for us both so we shouldn’t let it spoil what we have now.” Kat said, after having ca
rried Toni over to the couch.
Kat had loosened her grip on Toni in equal measure to the reduction in Toni’s body temperature and the relaxation of her muscles. The strength of her desire to fight had lessened its resolve to near-zero after she regained full consciousness. Kat kissed her gently on the face and neck while running a hand through Toni’s hair. She reminded her that they were in love and living in the present, that nothing else mattered, that everyone has a past which can at times be overlapping and messy. Knowing that Toni tended to reprise Kat’s past loves with an annoying insistence whenever she was feeling insecure, a sexual ruminator extraordinaire, she knew she had to nip this topic dead before Toni sunk deeply, irretrievably into playing the role of woman scorned, and making life miserable for them both.
Several weeks prior to having confessed her torrid affair with Monica, Kat had been walking down Washington Street after having run a few household related errands. Toni had recently moved in so Kat wanted to provide the smoothest transition possible.
She hadn’t realized how badly she needed Toni by her side, every day, until they experimented with co-habitation for the duration of one entire month. Once their trial-run was over and Toni went back to her own apartment, the emptiness within the condo echoed cavernously, crushing against Kat’s aching heart with such an unrelenting intensity that she decided right then and there that even if she had to resort to employing the tactic of guilt, she was going to convince Toni to pack her belongings and move in for good. Luckily, Toni responded to the offer by undressing them both, keeping Kat awake for a better part of the night.
Kat was a Manhattan girl, which made the prospect of relocating to an outer borough a non-starter. Surprisingly, Toni put up no resistance to relocating as she found the convenience of Manhattan to be far superior to that of Queens. Furthermore, she would no longer have to wrestle with yellow cabs that were so terribly reluctant to drive through a tunnel or cross a bridge, regardless of any promise made for a decent tip at the end of the journey.
Kat made a left on Morton and as she passed Hudson, spotted Monica emerging from a local lesbian bar with a rather brutishly styled butch on her arm. The woman’s tee shirt read ‘I AM IT’, underneath which were a series of 1’s and 0’s arranged in the form of a vagina. However fashionably crude it may have been, that statement wasn’t even close to being the most shocking aspect of the sighting. It was not the unfocused vacuity of Monica’s gaze, the bizarrely ill-suited to her body clothing arrangement or the puzzling, uncharacteristic decision to pair-up with an outsized bull-dyke, but rather the short, almost militaristically spiked, bleached white coif that she was now sporting. Although slim to begin with, her frame had become disturbingly frail-looking and the infamous spark of wit in her eyes, the spark that she barely had been able to conceal, was all but extinguished. Kat felt an involuntary spasm of grief well-up from deep within, finding its outward expression in the form of tears that spilled freely from her eyes faster than she could wipe them away. The intensity of her reaction left her worried that she was turning into an emotional softie – someone that would indiscriminately cry during a Lifetime movie event.
She simply could not keep the sighting to herself and although she, unlike Toni, had never fallen in love with Monica, still felt a clampdown of emotional anguish over witnessing the downward spiral of such an intensely creative soul. She was familiar with the confident, artistically brash and confrontational version of Monica; she only became acquainted with the fragile, vulnerable one, after having been called upon time and again to comfort Toni after Monica would invariably break down, falling into a crumpled heap of sorrow, incapable of sustaining her existence without the aid of multiple rounds of pharmaceuticals. Too many nights were spent cradling an uncontrollably shaking Toni, who had just bore witness to yet another transformation of her lover from functional being to an inconsolable, incarcerated, near-catatonic shell of a woman.
Kat’s initial inclination was to cast blame against Monica for being so selfish as to subject Toni to her inevitable decline but would then transfer blame to Toni for being too stubborn, loyal and guilt-ridden to simply walk away. Guilt factored heavily into Toni’s decision making process to a destructive extent. There were many nights when Kat feared for Toni’s well-being, knowing that Monica could easily bring her down too if Toni didn’t extricate herself before it was too late to be saved.
******
“Ah geeze, Kat. Why are you suggesting that we try and save her! Aside from being freaked out about your affair with her and now knowing she has probably all but given up on ever finding and maintaining her center, I don’t know if I’m strong enough to go through that again. She broke down three times while we were together and each time she ‘came to’ she brought back less of who she previously had been.
“I mean, you were there too, Kat. It wasn’t that long ago. Don’t you remember?” Toni was almost pleading.
“I remember all too well, but I’m your lover now and we have each others unconditional love so I think we’ll be able to get through this without falling apart. Together, we can’t be broken,” Kat said, trying to convince herself as well as Toni.
“So much of her ‘self’ was lost in the process of her breakdowns that by the end of it, the Monica I first met no longer existed. Bearing witness to it, time and time again, was a fucking nightmare. I so don’t want to do it again.” Toni sat up and pushed in on her eyes with the heels of her hands.
Glancing over at Kat, who was sitting on the floor beside her, and seeing the sincerity in her otherwise playful eyes, she realized that Kat must have been deeply moved by the sighting to be making such a generous offer to someone she didn’t even like. Within a few brief minutes, an uncontrollable series of shivers managed to overtake her entirety, her anger over Kat’s admission of sexual congress eclipsed by that which had prompted the confession. She recalled that with each successive decline in Monica’s mental health, there was a proportionate increase in her recreational drug use. Considerable intelligence notwithstanding, the strength of Monica’s negative emotional comportment had a far greater pull on her decision making than did her survival instinct and as such, it found a firm footing within her psyche that even the best psychiatric counseling coupled with mood leavening medication could not ameliorate.
Toni vividly recalled how Monica’s personality suffered tremendously over the course of her incarcerations and multiple infusions of mind-altering substances, leaving her with a sharper, disturbingly caustic edge that found a voice more often than not. Becoming a frequent recipient of that ugly commentary was the catalyst that precipitated Toni’s overture to permanently terminate their union. Before departing for the last time, she offered her continued friendship to Monica should she ever be in need, to which Monica responded with a shrug, mumbling a barely audible comment that Toni thought might have been “no need - soon to be shuffling off of this mortal coil.”
Irrespective of their reservations about resuming contact with an emotional vacuum and fearing the tragic ramifications that failure would invariably bring, Kat and Toni agreed to make a best-effort request to be granted an audience with her and to offer their help; if they were unsuccessful, they at least would know they hadn’t abandoned someone who at one point in their respective lives had meant something to them. Ignoring someone who was so clearly spinning in random, nihilistic patterns toward certain self-immolation seemed heartless and even though neither truly believed that Monica could be saved, they nevertheless planned their intervention with surgical precision.
******
Chapter 2
Kat’s Trip to the Outer, Outer Borough
The day of reckoning had finally arrived – the inevitable, the obligation, the rite of relationship passage, a necessary evil that one simply cannot stave off forever. Kat had been delaying meeting Toni’s family for reasons she couldn’t quite pinpoint. It’s not as though her ultimate objective wasn’t to tether their daughter to her for life, and under those circumstance
s, one would have no choice but to eventually engage in the socially customary meet-and-greet. Perhaps, she thought, too much bad press had been tossed off about their oppressive child-rearing methods and how horribly Toni suffered when she realized how ill-equipped she was to comfortably navigate a hostile world. She harbored a measure of animosity on her lover’s behalf as she was able to see how Toni was adversely affected by having been so overly protected.
A thought that struck fear in her otherwise impenetrable heart was that Toni’s family would eviscerate her as unworthy of their daughter’s love because by gosh, no one could ever possibly be good enough for their darling little girl. Another major concern was that she’d be working against people who harbored negative preconceptions regarding homosexuality and that their level of sophistication about her lifestyle was most likely underdeveloped. She feared that their response could usher in her eventual demise, the brothers Mangiarmi hunting her down on the streets of Manhattan, extinguishing her life, discarding her remains in some Staten Island landfill or burying her within the cement pilings of any number of new construction projects around the city.
Love Finds Its Pocket Page 3
