I love you, and I can’t do this. She touched Cade’s number.
“Selena.” Cade picked up on the first ring, breathless.
Selena clutched the phone. There weren’t a lot of reasons people were breathless at midnight. Cade might be exercising, but there were other possibilities. Selena hadn’t even thought about Cade hooking up with someone else. She clutched her arms around her knees.
“I’m sorry,” Selena said.
I love you, and I can’t.
“Where are you?” Cade gasped.
Did Cade think Selena was outside her building? Had she become Alex, showing up where she wasn’t wanted?
“It’s okay. I’m in Portland.” She rocked back and forth, curled in on herself as tightly as she could. “I just need to talk to you for a minute.”
“Are you at the auction?” Cade’s voice was full of urgency.
“Yes?” It came out as a question.
“Where?”
How could it matter?
“I’m outside,” Selena said, hope rising in her chest, even while her brain told her no.
The street was quiet, but she heard someone running from the Aviary, their footsteps clanging on the metal staircase. Selena stood up.
She would have recognized that silhouette anywhere. Cade. Her overcoat flapping, running toward her.
“Am I too late?” Cade gasped, her eyes full of hope.
“For the auction?” Selena was so surprised, it came out sounding confused, not happy.
Cade’s face fell.
“For you.” Cade bit her lip, her face suddenly taut with worry. “The painting. It’s beautiful. I thought…”
The surprise that had held Selena rooted in place for a second evaporated. She flung her arms around Cade, cradling Cade and falling into Cade’s arms at the same time.
“Oh, Cade.”
Cade clung to her.
“I was upstairs looking for you,” Cade said breathlessly. “I didn’t say what I meant to say when I left. I meant to say I love you. I’ll move to Portland. You could live with me in New York. I know we’ve only known each other for a month, and you wanted to keep it casual, and you’re probably thinking I’m a stalker, but I got the painting. And I knew I’d fucked it up. Even if you don’t—” Cade caught her breath. “Even if you don’t want what I want, I want you to know. I want you to know how amazing you are. Last month, being with you, that was the happiest I’ve ever been. I thought that kind of happiness was for other people.” Cade wiped at her eyes. “Maybe it is, but when I saw your work, I thought maybe…”
“I love you,” Selena whispered against Cade’s cheek. Over and over. “I’ll go with you wherever you want. That’s what I wanted to say, but I didn’t want to freak you out. Go big or go home, but I thought be chill and don’t fuck this up.”
“We were already engaged,” Cade said with a soft, teary laugh.
“I should have just set the date.” Selena’s heart expanded with love. “I wanted to tell you how I felt, but I thought…this is too important to mess up. You don’t make crazy decisions, so I tried to be cool, but that was messing it up. That wasn’t me.”
“I was in New York this morning.” Cade looked at Selena. Her eyes were moist but there was that spark of humor that Selena loved. “I got the painting, and I had to see you. My mom said her friend’s nephew’s ex-girlfriend could get me a flight to Portland if I got to the airport in ten minutes. Things don’t work like that.” A smile spread across Cade’s face. “So, I ran for the airport. Crazy.”
“And she got you a ticket?”
“First class. It was waiting for me at the counter. And once I got up into the air I realized, I was so massively high I didn’t know my own name.”
Selena squeezed Cade’s waist and kissed her.
“I would have loved to see that,” she said. “How did you get high?”
“My mother. I tried to text you, but I couldn’t figure out how to turn on my phone, and then I was here, and not high, and if you want to choose the monogrammed napkins, I’ll say yes.”
With that, Cade pulled Selena into a kiss so deep the world disappeared. Selena’s soul expanded. They were in love, and their love filled the street. It soared above the lampposts. It was brighter than the Aviary lights. It was bigger than the sky.
I love you. I love you. I love you.
When they finally drew apart, Cade stroked Selena’s cheek, a worry crossing her face.
“You’re auctioning your work.”
She hadn’t told Cade.
“How did you know?”
“Josiah saw the website.”
“You didn’t tell him?”
“I didn’t know,” Cade said. “Josiah said I was faithless because we’d both been trying to find the woman who painted Ruth’s portrait, and I didn’t tell him that I had. How did it go?”
“I don’t think it’s gone up yet,” Selena said.
Cade stroked Selena’s back. “It’s yours to sell”—Cade frowned—“but why?”
They still had their arms around each other. Nothing else mattered.
“Rent money,” Selena said. “Becket wants her couch back. I suppose I should go in and watch.”
“Your work should sell for millions.” Cade spoke slowly. “But good work doesn’t always get traction. People buy what’s trendy. People buy what they think their friends want.”
“What goes with their carpet.”
Cade rolled her eyes. “Sad but true.” She stepped back, still holding Selena’s hands. “If I go in there and tell them the Elgin Gallery is buying a piece, you’ll go viral. It’ll triple whatever you were going to make or more. You shouldn’t need that, but it’s true.”
“I know.”
Every artist in the Aviary would kill for a chance to be in the Elgin Gallery. They’d kill to be mentioned in an Elgin Gallery tweet. They’d kill to buy Cadence Elgin a drink from across the bar.
Selena cupped Cade’s face and planted a soft kiss on her lips.
“But I want to do this on my own,” she said, “And I don’t want you because you’re Cadence Elgin of the Elgin Gallery. I want you for you.”
They kissed again. Then Selena took Cade’s hand, and they climbed the stairs and stepped into the warmth of the Aviary.
“Our final artist,” the auctioneer was saying, “Selena Mathis. We’ll begin with William with Sunflowers. This is a three-by-five oil.”
Becket caught sight of them. Her mouth dropped in surprise, then she grinned, pointed to Cade, and mouthed, Fuck yeah!
“We’ll begin the bidding at five hundred,” the auctioneer said.
Cade squeezed Selena’s hand.
From where Selena stood, she caught strains of whispered conversation.
“That’s beautiful.”
“Five hundred,” the auctioneer said again.
Another person whispered, “I’ve never heard of her.”
“Do I hear four-fifty?” the auctioneer continued. “Four hundred and the big five O. This is a beautiful piece, folks. My assistants are placed around the room to take your bids.”
The price dropped. Four hundred. Three-fifty. Three hundred. Less than the cost of materials. A man in the back waved his paddle. The auctioneer tried to bring the price up, but it stayed at three hundred.
“Going once. Going twice. Sold to bidder 103.”
Selena thought she didn’t care about the money, but her painting’s failure stabbed at her heart.
“The money doesn’t mean anything.” Cade stood behind Selena with her arms around Selena’s waist. “You are amazing.” Cade made each word a sentence.
The auctioneer’s assistants brought another painting to the stage.
“Do I hear four hundred?”
The assistant standing behind the computer called out, “Online bid. Four hundred from New York.”
A man in the back raised to five.
“Online bid. Six hundred. Minneapolis,” the assistant called out.
A few paddles went up.
A thousand.
Two thousand.
“What’s happening?” Selena turned to look at Cade.
“What’s supposed to happen,” Cade said.
“Online bid. Six thousand. New York,” the assistant called out. “Online bid. Eight thousand. Miami.”
The room sang with excitement. The Portland bidders flung their paddles in the air, but they couldn’t compete with the online bids.
“This is all you,” Cade whispered.
As exciting as it was to hear the price rise, it was Cade’s lips brushing her ear that made Selena tremble and her knees go weak.
The bidding closed. The auctioneer didn’t count up the total sales for each person, but the artists did.
Becket flew across the room, holding her phone up, open to the calculator.
“One point two million! Million!” She grabbed Selena and squeezed her so hard Selena’s breath rushed out. Becket released her and looked at Cade. “Did you do this, Cade?”
“I would have, but no.” Cade was beaming.
People swarmed around Selena, taking her picture, congratulating her, and asking about commissioning work. For a moment, the crowd separated her from Cade.
“It’s your night,” Cade called out. “Enjoy it.”
But it wasn’t her night without Cade in her arms.
“Come here.” Selena reached through the crowd and pulled Cade to her. “This is our night.”
It was after two when they finally stumbled into the boutique hotel room Cade had rented.
Selena wriggled out of her sweatshirt—Cade’s sweatshirt—and handed it to her.
“I wore it every day.”
“If I’d had one of your corsets, I would have worn it,” Cade said.
“You would have looked lovely.”
Selena switched off the overhead light, and they were bathed in the light of the city skyline. Cade looked gloriously happy, and the dark circles under her eyes made her look like a soulful Norwegian actor who had been in New York that morning and had flown across the country, high, on a first-class ticket from a woman she didn’t know, so she could declare her love to a woman she wasn’t quite sure would say yes.
“Are you tired?” Selena said.
“God, yes.” Cade rested her forehead on Selena’s shoulder.
Selena reached for the hem of Cade’s shirt and lifted it over her head.
“How about,” Selena said, “we get naked, fall asleep until noon, order champagne, and then I show you how much I missed you?” She trailed her fingernails up Cade’s back. “And you show me how much you missed me too.”
“Yes,” Cade said. “Yes. Yes.”
Naked together, Cade’s body felt so good, Selena almost went back on her suggestion. The way Cade’s hand trailed over Selena’s body told her Cade wouldn’t mind if Selena rolled her onto her back and ravished her. But the beautiful thing was they also had time. They could wake up together like a couple who always woke up together.
“I love you,” Selena whispered.
“I love you.”
Cade wriggled closer. Selena loved Cade’s muscular back, her hard thighs, her strength, her vulnerability.
“You know,” Cade said dreamily, “with the kind of money you made, you could probably still buy back the house, maybe even the store. There are deadlines, and then there’re deadlines for rich people. That kind’s easier.”
Selena rested her cheek on Cade’s chest.
“Yeah,” Selena said thoughtfully. “Absolutely, we can keep it if you want to. And we should do that if it’s a good investment. But I was thinking…what would you say if I said I wanted to do something else? Something new? Something we do together? I don’t think Ruth wanted us to live her dream. I think she wanted us to live our dreams.”
Epilogue
Cade stood by a twelve-foot-tall, blown-glass clitoris illuminated from the bottom with an ever changing show of LED lights. Behind her, summer evening light spilled in through high windows. Selena stood on a platform in front of the crowd that packed the opening of the Artemisia Studio. Part gallery of art exploring female sexuality, part studio space for emerging artists: it was the Aviary in New York with giant clitorises and Selena’s new collection of portraits. She had painted customers from Satisfaction Guaranteed. Selena had flown back to Portland for a few weeks to paint them, sleeping on Becket’s couch because they’d rented Ruth’s house to Zen and his new partner.
“Thank you for being here,” Selena said.
She looked gorgeous in tuxedo slacks and a jeweled corset that Becket had made for the occasion.
“I am so excited to welcome you to the Artemisia Studio. As some of you know, I grew up in a trailer. A lovely trailer with a view of the desert. My father”—she gestured to her father, who stood near the front looking proud and uncomfortable—“taught me to love art. Thank you. And I made it to art school and through…recently. Diploma is in the mail.”
The crowd clapped.
“But it was a long trip. School, materials, studio space; it’s all expensive. And it’s doubly hard for people who want to explore things that society tells us…maybe don’t.”
Selena looked up at the vulva mobile rotating slowly in the summer breeze. The crowd chuckled appreciatively.
“So, this will be a space where new artists doing groundbreaking work will find a home, mentors, and support.”
Cade already had a long list of past Elgin Gallery artists ready to coach Selena’s emerging artists.
“But before I let the first generation of Artemisia Studio artists speak for themselves, Cade…” Selena held out her hand.
Cade made her way to the front of the room.
Everyone knew who Cade was, but no one had given her their elevator speech that night. People had been too busy giving Selena their elevator speeches. Cade loved seeing Selena at the center of everyone’s attention, like Selena deserved.
Selena took Cade’s hand. Cade would never get tired of that. When they were a hundred and twenty-nine, she’d still be holding Selena’s hand.
“I want to thank my partner, Cade, for everything she has done for me, with me, for being my everything.”
She kissed Cade, then raised their clasped hands above their heads in victory. The crowd applauded. People cheered. It felt like the whole world was smiling at them. Cade felt herself blush with happiness.
“Welcome,” Selena said, “to this wonderful new adventure.”
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About the Author
Karelia Stetz-Waters (she/her) writes happily-ever-afters for women who love women. Her novels include Lambda Literary Award and Golden Crown Literary Society finalist Forgive Me If I’ve Told You This Before.
She lives her own happily-ever-after in Oregon with her wife of over twenty years. Karelia has a BA in comparative literature from Smith College and an MA in English literature from the University of Oregon, and she currently teaches English at Linn-Benton Community College. Karelia loves to hear from readers. Be sure to stay in touch by signing up for Karelia’s newsletter, available on her website.
You can learn more at:
kareliastetzwaters.com
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Also by Karelia Stetz-Waters
Something True
For Good
Worth the Wait
Reading Group Guide
When I teach creative writing, I teach my students the difference between plot and theme. Plot is what happens. Theme is what it means. The theme of Satisfaction Guaranteed can be summed up by one of my favorite quotes of all time:
“To look at a thing is very different from seeing a thing. One does not see anything until one sees its beauty.”
—Oscar W
ilde
I didn’t start Satisfaction Guaranteed thinking I was going to write a story about the transformative power of being seen for your true self. I thought I’d write about a sex toy store because that would be funny. I got the idea while shopping at She Bop, my favorite sex toy store in Portland. My dog had eaten one of my best vibrators. (Don’t worry. The dog’s fine.) I had to explain this to the salesperson to stop them telling me about all the features of the vibrator I was holding.
“It’s okay,” I said. “I’ve had this one before. It’s just that my dog ate it.”
The salesperson nodded sympathetically. “My ex’s rottweiler ate three of my dildos. That’s probably why I broke up with her.”
I had to write about a place where you could have this conversation with a stranger.
And so Satisfaction Guaranteed was born. Google She Bop and you’ll see what it looks like after Selena cleans it up: colorful toys spread out on clean shelves. A bright, cheerful atmosphere that says have fun and don’t be nervous. It’s one of my happy places.
I always do research before I write, so I started reading up on female sexuality. I took pleasure education classes. I talked to sex educators. I read about the pleasure gap: the gap between how often men orgasm and how often women orgasm. Only fifty-seven percent of women report having an orgasm all or most of the time, while ninety-five percent of men report having an orgasm all or most of the time.1 That’s a big difference.
But the pleasure gap diminishes to almost nothing when women have sex with other women.2
Satisfaction Guaranteed Page 24
