Doublecrossed (14 page)

“Was it horrible porn?”

“What’s horrible porn?”

“I don’t know…like bestiality or something?”

“No! It was regular porn. Dozens of clips of women having sex.” She paused, her eyes narrowing. “A lot of it was stuff we didn’t do, now that I think of it. I guess he liked looking at things that were…different.”

“You broke up with him immediately?”

“Yeah, pretty much.” She looked up at the sky, which had turned a beautiful shade of lilac. “I make it sound like I tore him limb from limb, but I really just cried for a week. I wouldn’t let him come near me, so he left to stay with a friend.” She sighed heavily. “He never came back.”

“Your choice?”

“Yeah. I shouldn’t have been so harsh. He never touched another woman, and he was always ready to have sex when I was. So I wasn’t really harmed by his ‘hobby.’ But he was so insensitive about it. He wouldn’t admit he’d done anything wrong and I couldn’t forgive him when he wouldn’t.”

“You were hurt.”

“Heck, yes! I was really hurt. If he would have at least acknowledged that I was justified in being hurt I might have forgiven him. But, in his defense, he was usually very sensitive. I think he was embarrassed, and he got hardheaded when he looked foolish. We should have worked harder to reconcile, but…we didn’t. I’m not sure why.”

“How long were you together?”

“Six years. We were thinking about having a baby.” She sniffled, wiping her eyes quickly. “He got married this year to someone not nearly as cool as I am.” She lowered her eyes and showed just a hint of a teasing smile.

“You poor thing.”

“Yeah, he really broke my heart.” She sat up and squared her shoulders, looking like she was taking her first view of a new day. “But that made me rethink my views on fidelity. When Marina happened along a few months later, I decided that it made sense to try something different.”

That could explain a few things. Keeping your lover at a distance. Letting her do the things you fear so you don’t get hurt when she does them. “How’d that work? Generally, I mean? I know it didn’t work so well in one case.”

“It worked well. Until…you know. She told me from the beginning that she didn’t do monogamy, so it felt more honest.”

“Uhm, I guess that’s one way to think of it. For me that would be like saying, ‘I’m gonna hit you every once in a while, so you’d better learn how to duck.’”

Callie laughed, showing her dimples. “It’s not for everyone. And it took me a long time, probably close to a year, to get even vaguely comfortable with it. I was just hitting my stride.”

Regan’s vivid blue eyes darted back and forth for a few seconds before she revealed, “I decided to give Angela another chance when she told me about your and Marina’s relationship.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. I figured she got seduced by you she-devils.” She laughed, almost guffawing. “But now that I know you, I can’t even conjure up the evil home-wrecker image I had of you. You’re a very kind person.”

“I try to be. I told Marina I could only consider it if we would only have sex with people who were single or had the same kind of relationship we did. I never wanted an innocent woman to be involved.” She reached over and grasped Regan’s arm, squeezing it. “I’m so sorry you got hurt. If I hadn’t agreed to it…”

That was a huge relief. At least Callie had tried to protect other women. Knowing she’d tried to keep the damage of being in that kind of relationship to just herself and Marina was admirable. “No way. Marina was a cheater, pure and simple. She was a bigger cheater than Angela, in some ways. She could have had hundreds of other women, but she chose my Angela.”

“I don’t know if I believe her, but she says she did it to ingratiate herself so she’d get promoted to Angela’s level.”

Regan stared at her for a very long time. Then she said, in a low, dangerous sounding tone, “If that’s true, I’d better never meet her. I think I’d kill her.”

They had a nice belated birthday dinner for Callie at a restaurant not far from their hotel. Even though it was fun, Callie could tell that Regan was still bothered by their talk at the beach.

After dinner they went back down to the water, took off their shoes and walked along the low, quiet surf. “You seem kinda…down,” Callie said after they’d walked a long time in silence.

“Yeah. I am.” She walked along, not speaking for a while, then she said, “It doesn’t seem to bother you much that Marina was trying to screw her way to the top. That bothers me. A lot.” Her voice was cold and dangerously low.

Callie reached out and took her hand, slowing her to a stop. “No, no, that’s not true. I…I think I have to tell you the whole thing.”

“What?” Regan’s eyes looked dark and hard in the moonlight.

“We talked a couple of times after I left. I think I got the full story out of her.” She paused, took a breath and said, “Do you want to hear it? It’s…not good.”

“Yeah, I do. I need to know the truth, no matter how bad it is.”

They started to walk again, with Callie finding it easier to talk when she wasn’t looking into Regan’s innocent face.

“They started working together a year before Marina and I met. She said she was attracted to Angela from the beginning but she didn’t know she was gay.”

“Probably true. Angela isn’t out at work, even though I know she could be.”

“Neither is Marina. Which irritated the heck out of me. She wouldn’t even consider taking me to events at work, even though two of her salesmen are openly gay.”

“Same for Angela. It would have had to change for us to get married.” She nodded her head slowly when Callie stopped and stared at her. “Yeah, we were thinking of getting married. We wanted to start a family.”

Callie put an arm around her and they wound up standing in the warm water, holding each other for a few minutes while each shed some tears for their fractured plans.

“I’m so sorry,” Callie said again.

“Me, too.” They started to walk again, with Regan holding Callie’s hand as a child would an older sister.

“So Marina was attracted to Angela, but they never acknowledged it. Until one night, about a year and a half ago…” Regan gasped and Callie squeezed her hand. “I told you it was bad.”

“A fucking year and a half ago,” she muttered. “Asshole! Bitch! Whore!” Her voice had risen until she shouted the last word. “The God damned bitch!”

“I know, I know,” Callie said, trying to soothe her. “It’s bad.”

“How could she talk about having children with me? How could she?” She started to cry in earnest, with Callie holding her and rubbing her shaking back.

“I don’t know how she could do it, but she’s an idiot for losing you. Especially for someone like Marina. She’s not one tenth the woman you are.”

Sniffling away the last of her tears, Regan stood up tall and took some deep breaths. “I’ll try to keep it together. I really do want to hear the rest.” A second passed and Regan grasped Callie by the shoulders, her grip so intense it could have left bruises. “A year and a half? That’s how long you were together!”

“I know.” She put her head down and took in a breath. “They started up just when I moved to Dallas. I didn’t get to have her to myself for even a week.”

Regan threw her head back and screamed. “Filthy bitch!” Shaking, she wrapped Callie in a hug so fierce her feet left the ground. “I’ll strangle her if I ever meet her. For both of us.”

They stood there crying for a few minutes, the sound of their tears drowned out by the gentle lapping of the waves. Finally, they started walking again, arms interlocked as though each was trying to hold the other up against a hurricane-force wind. “Do you want to hear the rest?” Callie asked.

“Yeah. Give it to me.”

“They were at a conference in Las Vegas and they came out to each other. I guess there had been some kind of veiled flirtation because they hooked up right then.”

“A year and a half ago.”

“Yeah.”

“Marina didn’t have an explanation for why it happened?”

“She’s just a slut.” Regan didn’t ever need to learn the truth. Angela’s excuse was so damn cold. How could she tell Marina that Regan was lousy in bed? That was such a betrayal of someone she’d claimed to love. Regan was precious. Even more precious than she’d seemed when they’d talked on the phone. No matter what, she was going to take Angela’s insult to the grave. Torture couldn’t have gotten it out of her.

“So how did this help Marina’s career?”

“Well, if she’s being honest, she said Angela wanted the affair to continue, even though she didn’t.”

“Great.”

“Marina claims she knew she’d made a mistake by doing it that first time, but she thought it was harmless. She knew she was in trouble when Angela wanted her to arrange to travel to Boston more often. That’s when she started to worry Angela would veto her promotion if she turned her down.”

“So it was all Angela’s fault, huh?” She sounded bitter and sarcastic, but that wasn’t who Regan really was. Callie could only hope that Regan didn’t allow herself to let this sour her and make her jaded. She was too nice a woman for that.

“No, she didn’t claim that. She admitted Angela would never have been on the list of people I’d approve, but since she’d been attracted to her since before we got together, she saw her as kinda grandfathered in.”

“What do you think?” Regan’s voice carried over the warm, moist wind.

She sounded so hopeful, like she was depending on Callie to reassure her. Unable to resist the unspoken request, Callie stopped and pulled Regan close, trying to let the moon illuminate her face. “I think she’s a user.”

“At least.”

“And I think she’s a person without a real conscience. Even though she claimed to be so contrite about sleeping with Angela, she admitted that they didn’t click at all. And, to be honest, I think that’s the main reason she didn’t want to continue to have sex with her.” She took a deep breath. “I’m an idiot for letting her into my life, much less my heart.”

Regan nodded slowly. “Okay. Then we can be friends.”

They walked back to the hotel in silence. But Callie’s brain wouldn’t slow down a bit. If Marina had screwed up the friendship she was starting to rely on, she would have killed her. Regan was the kind of person she needed in her life. Someone with morals that didn’t change with the weather

*

They were both quiet on the long walk back to the hotel. They weren’t holding hands or touching any longer, and Regan still felt like punching someone. How could Callie have stayed? How could she have given Marina a second chance? There had to be some sick secrets behind that sweet facade. Where were they hiding?

After they got ready for bed, they turned out the lights and each lay in her respective bed, neither one ready for sleep.

“I don’t think Marina told me the whole truth,” Callie said quietly.

“About what?”

“About how easy it was to convince Angela to sleep with her.”

“Why?” Damn. That had sounded way too sharp. But Callie would get a fist in the face if she had any more bad news to deliver piece by piece. Enough was enough.

“I know Marina. When she wants something, she figures out how to get it. I think she wanted Angela, and the fact that she was off limits in many ways made her more fixated on her.”

“What do you mean, ‘many ways’?” Regan asked, unable to keep the rancor from her voice.

“Well, she was in a relationship, she wasn’t pre-approved, and she was a colleague. I never would have approved someone like Angela.”

“And what does that mean?”

“She was someone on a higher level who had a vote about Marina’s future. What else?”

“Sorry. I’m just a little sensitive about her. I always suspect a racial angle, even where there isn’t one. Angela always said I had too much oppressor's guilt.”

“Angela is…what? Black? Latina?”

“Black.” Regan turned on the light and blinked towards Callie. “You didn’t know that?”

“No. How would I? I’ve never seen her.”

How could she not know? A computer geek who didn’t search the internet for a picture of the other woman? Maybe there were so many other women that the details didn’t matter anymore. This was so screwed up. Regan got up and rooted around in her purse, finally finding what she was looking for. She handed Callie her keychain which had a heart-shaped locket on it. Callie opened it and studied the tiny picture. “She’s beautiful.”

“Yeah, she is.” Regan flopped back into her bed and drew the sheet over herself. “You really didn’t know?”

“No idea. But, knowing Marina, that was part of her allure. Being black would make Angela just a little bit more…”

“What?” It was impossible to keep from snapping at her.

“Marina wanted whatever she wasn’t supposed to have, and being partnered, being in a position of authority, and being black would be a trifecta for her.” With a quick look at Regan, she added, “Her parents are socially and politically prominent conservatives. They had a very hard time with her being gay. Her having a black lover would truly freak them out.”

“Typical racists?”