Best Lesbian Romance 2014 (20 page)

“Brett, I was afraid—”

“Fuc—”

Her hands cupped my face. I got lost in her eyes as she stroked my cheeks, my eyebrows, my forehead, then brushed my lips with hers. As my anger drained away, she brought my hand to her lips and kissed my palm. I gasped.

She led me to the bed. And I, always the aggressor, lay there, staring into her eyes, and let her undress and caress me with fingers gentle as feathers.

“Dr. Caldwell, the party?”

“Just us.” She kissed my eyes, my nose, then my breasts. She looked up and smiled. “You can call me Emily.”

“Emily.” On fire, I rolled on top, pulled off her clothes and made wild, passionate, gentle, intense love to her. Good thing her loft was in an industrial building with concrete walls and floors, or for sure, we would have incinerated it that night and in the weeks following.

Turned out Em had fallen for me, too. She'd applied to New York University before we met and wanted to surprise me. She did. Three months later, I moved in with her.

My fan club was right about commitment. Em was right about never knowing what the future holds. And I was wrong about forever. Now forever doesn't seem long enough.

SEPIA SHOWERS

Andrea Dale

I don't usually bring Kathy with me when I visit my mother.

Oh, my mother knows that Kathy's my friend, that we share a house. But I don't know if, when she was more lucid or now, my mother ever figured out that Kathy and I were
together.

Now, it doesn't seem worth it to try to explain. While my mother hasn't (yet) forgotten who I am, other people in her periphery have become more fluid. And although I've never exactly hidden my preferences, I don't think my mother ever fully comprehended that I'm a lesbian.

My father, god rest his soul, would never have understood. It became second nature to me not to spill the truth.

“It's time for me to go, Mom,” I say. It's past time, really, but it's always hard for me to leave. I know how alone she must feel, despite the staff who check in on her several times a day, make sure she takes her pills and eats balanced meals.

It's dementia, but a mild form. She remembers me, knows the people around her. It's the day-to-day things she forgets. Where
she put things. Whether she ate. Where my father, who died last year, has gotten to this time.

I know it could be far worse, but it's still hard.

I start to rise, but she doesn't let go of my hand. “I just wish you'd find someone, Dana,” she says. “A good man to make you happy.”

I smile for her. “I'll see what I can do.”

But before I can get up, she looks over my shoulder. Her eyes widen and her free hand goes to her throat in shock. “Charlotte?” she whispers.

I turn. “Oh, Mom, it's just Kathy, here to pick me up. You remember Kathy, don't you?”

Kathy steps into the room. “Hi, Mrs. Hollander.”

“Oh, Kathy, of course. Pardon my manners.” My mom reaches out to take Kathy's hand. “You just reminded me of someone for a moment there.”

We say our good-byes, and I gather up the box of photos she's sending home with me. In the doorway, I glance back. Mom's looking at the picture of my father on the table next to her chair.

I wish, more than anything, I could tell her that I
have
found someone, someone who makes me deliriously happy.

But I can't.

When we get home, Kathy makes tea. Lady Grey, my favorite. She knows I need to wind down. I wrap my hands around the cup as she drapes the hand-woven mohair blanket over our laps. A watery slate blue, it's the first thing we bought when we moved in together, and now it smells like roses because she'd been sitting against it earlier today.

We burrow into each other and the sofa.

I sigh, just shy of contentment. “My poor mom.”

“Oh?” She's stroking my hair. I should be too old to enjoy such a simple act.

“She wants me to find a nice man who'll make me happy.”

We both laugh at the irony of that. It feels good to let the sound bubble out of me, releasing the tension in my chest, an ache I didn't even realize was there until now.

“I'm sorry,” I say to Kathy now. “I don't like keeping you a secret. I'm not ashamed of us, you know…”

“Oh, dearheart, I know. I've always known. And it's okay. I don't want to cause your mom distress any more than you do.”

Her own parents know about us, embrace us and adore me so much that Kathy jokes if we split up, they'll keep me instead of her.

“The more important question,” she continues, “is what's in the box?”

“Pictures,” I say. “Uncle Dan's been reorganizing the storage unit and brought them to her, and she thought I'd like to go through them. I'll scan them, and hopefully get some stories out of her before…”

I can't say the words “before it's too late,” but Kathy knows. She kisses my head, my cheek, and I take a few shuddery breaths to center myself.

Later that night, when I most want to sleep, most want to run away from the thoughts, I lie awake.

When Kathy rolls over and spoons against me, her back to my front, I snake my hand beneath her arm and grope for her hand. In her sleep, she twines her fingers with mine.

It's all I can do not to squeeze so hard I wake her.

How can it be possible to forget?

I don't want to forget.

I press my face into her shoulder. The soft strands of her hair tickle my face. Disengaging my hand, I gently run it across her hip, savoring the spot at the joint that's warmer than the rest of her, then down her thigh. She's taken up running again in an effort to stave off the middle-age spread, and even with my light touch I can feel the muscles, hard and strong.

I hadn't been thinking about sex, really, I hadn't, but apparently my exploring hand plants the idea in Kathy's subconscious. Still asleep, she murmurs, a happy hum of a sound, and presses herself back against me.

I vow never to forget the feeling of her body against mine, nor how my own body responds to it. My nipples harden, pressing against her smooth back. Even in the dark, I know the constellation of freckles on her shoulders, and I trace them with my lips and tongue, still gently, easing her into wakefulness. At the same time, I snake my hand back up to circle her nipples with my fingertips, feeling them crinkle in response.

When she does finally rouse, she's already half-aroused; I can smell her earthy musk. I move my hand to touch her, but she captures my wrist.

“No,” she whispers. “Let me.”

I assume she means she'll pleasure herself—although, half-lust-fogged myself, I'm not sure why—but instead she rolls over, insinuating one of those strong thighs between mine, pressing against my mound. Almost involuntarily, I grind against her, smearing her skin with my own wetness.

I hadn't realized how excited I'd become, either.

She cups my face, then tangles her fingers in my hair, pulling me in for a kiss that starts sweet but rapidly grows urgent. Now I feel almost frantic, not for orgasm, but to kiss her, feel her lips and teeth and tongue. To lose myself in the sensation and forget my sadness.

But not forget her, not forget how she feels, how she makes me feel. Never that.

She rolls me on my back, rises above me, her thigh flexing against me as she takes first one, then the other nipple in her mouth. We're past the soft strokes like the ones I used to wake her. Now she's nipping, pinching, tweaking.

I'm ramping up, passion overtaking rational thought, and yet the two are fighting against each other. I want to track every sensation—her flesh against mine, her quick breaths, the taste of that drop of sweat I just kissed off her forehead—create snapshot memories, preserve them.

But then she begs, “Come on, baby. Come for me.” Her voice is tight, and I know she's on the verge, too, from the way I've been humping up against her in my own quest for orgasm.

“You…first…”

“No.” It's a moan. “You.”

I'm not sure which one of us starts first, just that one triggers the other, and back again, and again. We build on each other's joy, a twining spiral of fever pitch and release.

“I love you,” she whispers, and I'm sure I will always remember that sound, and the catch in my own throat as I say it back to her.

Now, exhausted, I finally sleep.

I'm busy the next few days, so it's a while before I have the chance to look through the box of photos. I curl up on the sofa with another cup of tea. Kathy's already there, feet propped up, laptop keys clicking as she works.

She puts down the computer and sets her glasses on her nose. They're from the dollar store, shocking green, and she wears them on a beaded chain she made. I don't need reading glasses—yet—but I borrow them a couple of times to look at some of the
older photos where the faces are small and a little blurred.

Then I pull out one, and in my own intake of breath I can hear the echo of my mother's gasp from the other day, when she saw Kathy.

Kathy plucks the photo out of my hand. Her eyes widen.

“Yeah,” I say. “So, are you a vampire or a time-traveling alien?”

The picture is of my mom, I'm guessing during college from her age and clothes. The black-and-white photo shows her with another young woman, their arms around each other's waists as they laugh into the camera. My mom's scarf is whipping in the wind, while the other woman has a hand up to keep her own hat from blowing away.

The other woman looks a hell of a lot like Kathy.

Kathy flips the picture over. “Betsy and Charlotte,” she deciphers the faded penciled words. “Who was Charlotte?”

“I have no idea.” I dig into the box. “I don't remember Mom ever mentioning her.”

There are more photos of Charlotte, more than I've seen of any other friends of my mom from that era. The ones she'd been close to, she was still in contact with (if they were still alive)…or so I'd thought. The more we find, the more we realize Kathy isn't Charlotte's doppelgänger, but at the right angles, there's certainly a resemblance.

And, I suspect, there had been something going on between my mother and the lovely Charlotte.

“Tell me if I'm losing my mind…” I begin.

“Always,” Kathy vows. I smack her thigh, which reminds me of a few nights ago, which distracts me for a moment.

“There's something about the way Charlotte is looking at the camera in some of these,” I finally say. “And the way my mom and Charlotte are together. I know women were…they
held hands as friends more often then, that sort of thing. But I feel like I'm seeing a…closer relationship?”

“I was actually thinking the same thing,” Kathy agrees. “These shots here, of the two of them”—she fans them out on the coffee table—“I think they might have been done with a self-timer, rather than someone else taking the picture.”

“Which might explain why they were free to be so… snuggly.”

“I think,” Kathy says with a grin, “that your mother might have some 'splaining to do.”

By the time I visit my mother the next day after work, I've convinced myself I've been reading too much into the pictures.

We have our usual hellos, the small talk about the food at the home, that she won at bingo yesterday. Then I bring out the manila envelope.

“I started scanning those pictures you gave me,” I say. She doesn't remember, so I remind her about Uncle Dan bringing them. I'm not sure if she agrees because I jog her memory or because she doesn't want to admit she's forgotten—whether to me or herself isn't clear. Is that what we fall into? Playing games with ourselves, convincing ourselves everything is okay?

“I was wondering,” I continue, handing her a photo. “Who's Charlotte? I don't think you've ever mentioned her before.”

I watch as an array of emotions cross my mother's face. I'm not imagining things. I see fondness, sadness…love.

“She was a friend,” my mom says.

“From the looks of it, she was more than a friend,” I say.

She glances at me. I raise my eyebrows, but I also smile. “Mom,” I say gently. “You can tell me.”

She bites her lip, and tears fill her eyes. She doesn't cry, though—she's cried in front of me only once before, and that
was when my father died. Our family, we don't believe in that sort of thing. Thankfully Kathy's broken me of that bad habit.

And then my mother tells me the story. Not in graphic terms. In fact, she dances and skirts around things, darting looks at me to see if I'm picking up the innuendo. Then she looks away again, lost in a memory that thankfully she still has, still clings to.

What comes out is roughly what I'd suspected. A college fling, she says, that nobody else knew about. It was more than that, though, I can tell from her voice that she'd loved Charlotte. She tells me she and Charlotte had a relationship, but it wasn't as accepted back then, and—as she insists over and over—she loved my father very much. I'm tempted to say, “So you're bisexual—that's fantastic,” but I think using the word will shut her down.