Love Finds Its Pocket

by Mary Scarpelli

  “Toward the end, I hated being with him so much that no manner of vengeance against you could make it worth my time to tough it out with him. If I had stayed with him even one more day, I think there would have been bloodshed. What a total waste of time.”

  Toni became lost in wishful thinking about how she would eradicate those months from her life if she could. Her entire thought process stopped dead when she looked over to see Kat engaged in a silent, open-mouthed, full-on belly laugh, one that continued to cycle in a round, seemingly without end.

  “My tragic life amuses you?” Toni knew that Kat would be angry – an expected reaction for which she would beg forgiveness, but raucous laughter? At that point she felt more foolish than she ever had, especially so after witnessing Kat’s reaction. She sat patiently, waiting for Kat to compose herself.

  “Oh, you must have been such a pleasure to be with, Toni. Apparently you now know, unequivocally, that you are not straight. I am now, officially, no longer upset, angry, hurt, incensed. You had a relationship with a man just to spite me, yet you were the one living in hell the entire time. I’m sorry my love, but the irony is simply too precious; I couldn’t have scripted it better myself. No bonding, no chemistry, sexual or otherwise. How horrible.

  “Oh, wait a minute - please tell me you didn’t bring him home to meet the family.” Kat paused after Toni became quiet; her calm, beginning to fray.

  “Only to Marcella and Gene’s place. Don’t look at me like that! Geeze!

  “I needed to parade him around to someone, and I was having a hell of a time trying to locate your whereabouts. My intention was to ‘run into’ you somewhere and, well, you know... kind of shove him in your face, like you’re not the only one who can snag a man but when that failed, I brought him over to my sister’s place.”

  “Yes, because the Upper West Side is where you would be certain to ‘run into’ me...” Kat sardonically replied.

  “Stop it!

  “Needless to say, that didn’t go over well. Gene threatened to disown me if I didn’t end it immediately. He said I was behaving in a reprehensible manner that was not befitting someone who had worked so diligently to achieve some measure of enlightenment, that I obviously held only contempt for the guy so I had an ethical and moral obligation to dump him pronto.

  “I now know that he was working his machinations to get us back together but the main point he was making was totally valid. It hit me so hard that I was being an absolute shit by using this guy like he was no better than a mallet or something.

  “I broke up with him the next day and I haven’t seen him since. Part of me still feels guilty about what a dick I was to him but then I think that if he hadn’t been such a competitive, stupid asshole then he would have gotten fed up and left me after the first month.

  “What I mean is, in retrospect, I think he stayed with me because he just wanted to make me succumb to his greater authority, like it was some kind of power-grab game and he was hell bent on being victorious. If that’s what opposite-gender relationships are like, controlling mind-fuck one-upmanship bullshit, then I’m happy to never again have anything to do with it. Since he’d been straight his whole life, he seemed comfortable with how crappy our relationship was, like it was normal – expected or something. So then I started thinking it stands to reason that to him, that was how relationships were supposed to play out. As bad as it was, I bet he was relieved to no longer have to troll the bars to get laid. Such blatant bullshit.”

  “My opposite gender relationships – well, I guess they never really were relationships, were they? With men, it was only about the sex so I never had to deal with their foibles of inadequacy because once one started to show his insecurity, out he went with the day’s trash. But we digress; please continue – oh, but before you do, would you mind filling a bowl for me? I will enjoy this so much more over some weed and one of those lovely mini cakes Marcella made for me.” Kat asked with eyes that had been regaining more of their sparkle with each new day.

  “I don’t think pot is good for you right now; you’re still convalescing.”

  “Oh no, no. Not only are you spilling your guts about how you sought to rip apart my sensitive heart – perfect for achieving maximum tragic effect by the way, but I had cancer so you should be catering to my every whim.” Kat smiled as she exaggeratedly batted her eyes.

  Toni acquiesced, so susceptible she was even to Kat’s most casually tossed off guilt trips, and walked over to her with a smallish bong, filled the bowl and, before lighting it, told her that she was being rationed to one hit so she’d better make it a good one. Kat held it in as long as possible, then bade Toni to come closer so she could blow the smoke back into her mouth. Kat did so while also kissing her, finally a real kiss, the quality of which had been absent from their lips since her return from the hospital. The lowly peck, an uninvited house guest, was being tossed out on its ass for gross romantic negligence.

  Their kiss was enticing, soon accompanied by Kat’s hand gliding softly against Toni’s stomach, fingers eventually stretching down into her pants, finding her swollen wetness a welcome sensation. Toni’s deep moaning stoked her desire as Toni began gyrating up and around Kat’s hand while pulling Kat’s sweatpants down and away from her body. She allowed herself to come quickly as she wanted badly to taste Kat once again, the logistics of which had to be carefully considered lest she lose sight of the vulnerability of Kat’s healing body and make one wrong move that would cause her great pain or worse. Her tongue dug deeply into her lover, nearly drowning from the gush of liquid pouring forth, fingers and tongue working together to make her come in multiple, successive rounds of orgasm. Kat held onto Toni’s face, gently at first then grabbing firmly as the strength of her orgasms demanded it.

  Toni reached over and pulled from the drawer a phallic implement they both favored, not quite a penis replica but one designed to fit snugly in either one of them, helping them to access pleasure points that would otherwise remain neglected. As the intensity of her orgasms continued to increase, Kat felt her labia tighten and pull away from her swollen clitoris as Toni continued kissing, licking, sucking then releasing, refusing to stop even after she no longer heard Kat breathe, the confluence of vaginal contractions and clitoral orgasms overlapping one another so powerfully that life, for those few minutes, became very still, an alternate reality bordering on unconsciousness, whose depth was seemingly infinite.

  Her internal combustions finally subsided and although she was unable to move, unable to speak, barely able to focus and could not for the life of her close her mouth, she watched as Toni disengaged from her, inspecting the tissue expander to make certain it hadn’t exploded and then slid up to make direct eye contact with her as she breathlessly said, “I. Love. You.” Kat wanted to respond in kind but still couldn’t speak. She had no idea what had just happened to her but she sure as hell wanted to experience it again.

  Five minutes passed, Toni sitting on the floor next to the sofa on which Kat continued to recline, basking in her post coital euphoria, when Kat managed to squeak out, “wow” in a barely audible whisper. From that point forward, she reallocated every ounce of energy she had into healing, working diligently to hasten the process so they would be free to explore their new level of lovemaking even further.

  The weed, coupled with their orgasmic workout, had given them both a serious case of the munchies – they were ravenous, the immediacy of which in addition to Toni’s inability to form a cogent thought let alone prepare a meal lest she burn down the kitchen, made their decision to order take out Chinese, fast, tasty and immensely satisfying to the palette of a stoner, a no-brainer. While they waited for their food delivery, they decided to eat bizzaro-style and gorge on one more of Marcella’s incredibly delicious desserts accompanied by a demitasse of espresso. The chocolate mousse was sublime - Kat sang Marcella’s praises with each new forkful of pleasure. Reclining on the sofa, having just experienced the most intense orgasms of her life, eating a decaden
t confection and sipping espresso she felt very Roman. When an unprompted Toni started feeding her grapes, she laughed until her stomach muscles ached.

  The quiet in the apartment was broken with the sharp insistence of the lobby buzzer. Toni got up as quickly as her leaden legs would allow her to, lumbering toward the video display panel, one leg still tingling due to constricted circulation. She caught a glimpse of the person that was requesting access into the lobby from the intermediate vestibule and whooped with delight when she recognized their usual food delivery guy. If it hadn’t been him, she and Kat had agreed to start eating sofa cushions. She buzzed him in and stood at the door, patiently waiting for the elevator to ping, twenty dollar bill in hand.

  The building’s managing agent had an audio-visual security system installed shortly after one of the older tenants fell victim to a piggybacked entry in which the n’ere-do-well criminal forced his was into her apartment and stole her jewelry and the forty dollars she had in her purse. Luckily his moral structure was developed enough not to physically harm her although he threatened to come back and kill her if she dared call the police. Being a feisty nonagenarian, and realizing that her remaining days on earth could literally be counted in mere days, which considerably lessened the impact of his threat, she promptly called the building super to apprise him of the invasion to her premises. She provided an accurate, detailed description to the super and his son who readily identified and apprehended the suspect before he was able to flee from the emergency exit on the north side of the building’s basement. Her next call was to the police department, who dispatched a car with immediate effect. The super received approval the next business day to purchase and install the security system.

  From that point forward, not one of the building’s residents, ninety percent of whom were owners, would feel even one iota of guilt for denying access to someone they did not recognize. The building had only sixty-two units so knowing ones neighbors was easily accomplished; guests would simply have to wait in the vestibule until a resident buzzed them in. Periodic socials, replete with food, drink and name tags, were held in the lobby, organized by the board president as an excellent way to ensure the continuation of tenant solidarity. Within the microcosm of New York neighborhoods, a building’s residents gained a sense of comfort with the constancy of familiar faces in an otherwise faceless, nameless city.

  “Whenever you’re ready to disengage your lips from those chopsticks, you can feel free to resume your story. You’re like a human vacuum when you’re hungry, do you realize that? Wait until you get to be my age – you won’t be able to eat like that anymore.” Kat smiled while herself skewering another dumpling.

  “I’m not able to eat like this and get away with it now. I’m one meal away from getting a belly.” Toni shrugged.

  “Oh no you don’t, missy. There’ll be no more of that nonchalant bullshit in this house. Keep it svelte – I like your body the way it is.

  “The only reason we interrupted our little talk was to satisfy our long overdue need to make love, but as un-fucking-believably mind blowing as it was – and, by the way, thank you for the hand moisturizer, I can’t let you off the hook just yet; just thought you should know that.” Kat was dipping her steamed vegetable dumpling into the soy sauce, ready to savor every bite, her appetite and sense of taste finally returning to near-normal.

  “It’s not like there’s much more to tell, Kat; you were there from then on, you know?” Toni responded with a mouth half full of a vegetable chow fun concoction whose noodles were thin, perfectly seasoned and gratefully, not too greasy.

  “Maybe so but we never did discuss the root of your issue with men. I mean, your dad is a really great guy – a good dad to have, your mom’s stare can slice through glass but she’s a real cream puff once you get to know her and I know they both love you tremendously so I don’t think your lesbianism is a nurture thing.” Kat paused again to refuel.

  “Yeah, I know the drill – emotionally distant, junked-up mothers or sexually abusive fathers coupled of course with a mother who turned a blind eye to the abuse seem to be prerequisites for a nurture-based turn of the back. And neither of those things applies to my situation. Your proclivity, on the other hand, can so clearly be blamed on your mother...” Toni tossed an Antonia face at her, intending it to be obvious.

  “Bitch.”

  “Yep.”

  “Do you think it’s a ‘nature thing’ with me?” Toni asked in all sincerity, surprised by Kat’s hearty laugh.

  “No, Toni. No.” Momentarily stuffing her chopsticks into an opened food container, Kat reached for the bong, imploring Toni to fill it again for her. “I had cancer.” She added for dramatic effect.

  “Manipulative bitch.”

  “You betcha. So you’ll take care of it?”

  “Fine. One more. One more for both of us. I’ll have to call Damien and ask for more of this particular harvest. It packs quite a potent wallop.” Toni took her hit then made one for Kat.

  “I’m thinking it’s probably nature because I was disinterested in boys as far back as high school. My friends were salivating at the thought of snagging some guy and I was always like, ‘eh, I guess he’s cute’ but I didn’t make any effort to ingratiate myself. I mean I dated guys and everything but when I think back on it, now that I know what real attraction feels like, I would categorize my feelings for the boys as meh. You wouldn’t classify that as nature, Kat? You’re supposed to discover your sexuality in your teens, right? But I didn’t.” Toni asked, truly perplexed and hoping for some clarity although given the state of her mounting head, probably wouldn’t remember the impact as intensely the next day.

  “Good point; I was sexually attracted to both boys and girls in high school but hold on – you didn’t mention anything about being attracted to any girls back then either so perhaps we need to backtrack. We may be on to something,” Kat said with renewed interest.

  Kat then took her hit and exhaled a long, slow plume of smoke, punctuated by perfectly formed smoke rings. Toni had already become transfixed, lost in their softly swirling movements, their interwoven dance, longer streams of smoke being blown through them; an ephemeral, acrobatic routine with endless variation soon to be lost, dispersed into the atmosphere of the room. Toni’s mesmerized observation of the artistic intricacies of pot smoke was shattered by the sound of Kat’s bellowing laugh.

  “Earth to Toni! It’s a good thing we don’t partake that often. I think you could easily become a blitzed-out pot-head.”

  Toni returned yet another slit-eyed broad smile that resembled Giovanni so perfectly that Kat involuntarily recoiled a few inches into the sofa cushions. Not having any siblings herself, she found the Mangiarmi clan a constant form of intrigue, investigation and amazement, the amusement factor of which rated off the charts. She would tell everyone that Giovanni, and not Dolly, was the first ever successful clone.

  “Well, in senior year I was – there was this one girl, like wow, but are you saying I should have been having those feelings before then? Is seventeen, a few months shy of eighteen, too old to be considered normal development?”

  Toni forgot what she was saying before even finishing her sentence. She chucked, then stopped, having forgotten why she was laughing, but then started laughing again for several additional minutes after remembering. Kat took advantage of Toni’s laughing jag to finish her dumplings although not succumbing to Toni’s infectious laugh was becoming near impossible.

  “You are so adorable, my love. So did you fuck her?”

  “Fuck who?” Toni asked, truly perplexed.

  “Like I said, you are absolutely adorable. But to answer your first question, who the fuck knows what ‘normal’ development is?” Kat said then held her stomach as she and Toni fell into another round of gut-busting laughter.

  “I can feel the pressure of my tissue expander moving underneath my muscles when I laugh this hard. It’s... weird.”

  They laughed again but the mood had sobered with t
he reintroduction of Kat’s new reality. Kat attempted to shake fear out of her thought process by closing her eyes and breathing in slowly, deeply, then true to form, continued with her commentary.

  “My expert opinion is that – and I can say this with more authority because now I know the cast of characters that is your family and have been closely involved with them, I have observed the following,” Kat raised a new finger each time she added a new line item:

  “You were cloistered within a narrow physical space; your well-being was fiercely protected by at least four adults at all times; you were cautioned to trust no one outside of the inner sanctum of la famiglia; you were held in high regard by your parents and taught to respect yourself, your body being sacred and that your self-respect couldn’t be taken away by anyone but that you should be careful not to give it away to just anyone because no one would ever be deserving of you – unless of course your parents gave that person the thumbs-up, which, come to think of it, makes sense that you only brought home Monica and me because you never thought anyone else stood a chance in hell of passing familial muster.

  “Well, how you could possibly have thought that Monica would be accepted by them continues to baffle. Oh right, I almost forgot - she was incredible in bed so you weren’t thinking clearly.” Kat was stoned inside out but not so deeply that she didn’t realize she’d just said too much. She swore she would take that fact with her to the grave and since she had no intention of dying that evening, kicked herself for being too high to exert adequate self-censorship.

  “You know, I thought a lot about that – the Monica affair and you know what?” Toni furrowed her brow, then nodded her head in the affirmative when the thought returned to her and added, “We both know what an incredible lover she was, like holy shit, what-the-fuck good but... you never fell in love with her and I was always so freaked out that she was about to spontaneously combust that I couldn’t really enjoy it fully so what was the point? What good was it?