Silence and the Word (19 page)

That’s the story. That’s all.

Is this how the ocean feels

at night, when the waves

move through her, when they pound

against the shore? The moon

so far away; its light is

silver-bright but cold, and the wind

sings shivering down from the ice,

from the place where the water

lies trapped, held still in the cold

(underneath it is shaking,

underneath it is aching). So

lonely, such broad and empty

places where only tiny fish

shiver, slipping under the ocean’s

skin, where a gull sweeping down

will only remind her how empty

is the still blackness of night,

of sky. The sailors are all away,

at home, asleep in the arms of patient,

frightened wives, rocked safe and

held tight against the day, against

the moment when they slide out

of those arms, that bed, that warm

house, slip down to the water’s edge

where the boats are waiting,

waiting for the clear grey edge of

dawn, when they will go dancing

along the sea-skin, singing faithless

love songs for her, during the brief day.

Shefali struggled up from sleep, her body
aching. The baby moved within her, restless. The gentle movement of
the car, which had soothed her earlier, now provoked a quick wave
of nausea. At four months, she had expected to be past the
queasiness, and it was certainly better now than it had been; for
the first three months she had done little else but try (and fail)
to keep food down. She hadn’t got any of her work done, and it was
just a good thing that the small start-up she worked for had a
generous policy on maternity leave. Shefali would have been fine
financially even if they’d laid her off; between Gabriel’s doctor’s
salary and Roshan’s internist’s pay, they didn’t really need her
programming money. But every little bit helped with a baby on the
way, especially since they weren’t likely to be getting any help
from her parents or Roshan’s. Though perhaps this trip would change
that.

Her back was sore, despite the pillows the
guys had tenderly tucked around her when they settled her in the
back of the car. Her back was sore and her head felt like it was
stuffed with cotton; the baby was kicking and the last thing she
wanted to hear right now was what she was pretty sure she was
hearing from the front seat. Her eyes were still closed, but she
knew that sound, that slick slide of hand on cock, the quick rise
and fall of Gabe’s breaths. She had heard that sound so many times
in the last few months—she had watched, fascinated, as Roshan’s
dark hand slid up and down the pale shaft. Sometimes he would add
his mouth, the tongue slipping out to caress the bulbous head, the
long curve of cock. She had taken mental notes. Everyone said that
gay men gave the best blow jobs, and as a straight woman who was
now fucking a bi guy, she figured she needed to study if she wanted
to keep up. Though Gabriel always refused to comment when she asked
him if Roshan was better. “Comparisons are odious.”

She could smell the excitement rising from
them both, the sweat in the small, closed car. Why didn’t they open
the damn window? So what if it was icy cold outside? At this rate,
they’d fog up the windows and then crash the car into a tree and
they’d never make it to her parents, which would be a relief in
many ways—her stomach clenched—but it would not be fair to the
baby.

“Hey, you fuckers. There’s a goddamned baby
in the car, you know.”

Shefali opened her eyes to see Gabe
half-twisted in his seat, watching her, smiling. Roshan’s left hand
was on the wheel, his eyes on the road—but his right arm was
stretched across the gap between the seats, his right hand
invisible, buried in Gabe’s crotch.

“Well, technically,” Roshan said, “it’s not a
baby yet.” His eyes flicked back and forth from glancing at Shefali
in the rear view mirror, to watching the empty highway opening
before them. “The clinical term is fetus.”

“Oh, thanks.” Shefali said. “I didn’t know
that. Thanks for that very helpful bit of information. Now will you
two stop fucking already? All you ever think about is sex!”Roshan’s
arm continued its slow motion, up and down. Gabriel grinned, his
face flushed. “Well, technically, this isn’t fucking, you know. I
can show you fucking later, if you want, Shef. I’d be happy to
teach you… .”

“Oh, shut the fuck up!” Shefali was hit by an
almost overwhelming urge to cry; she squeezed her eyes tight,
clenched her fists together.

“Hey—hey.” Before she could catch her breath,
Gabriel was climbing over the gearshift into the back seat,
squeezing into the small space to the right of her, pressing one
gentle hand on her knee. Shefali opened her eyes to find him
watching her, concern sharp on his face. His pants were still
undone, and a thick erection jutted out. It should have been
funny.

“What’s wrong, Shefali?” That was Roshan.
“Should I pull over?”

“No, no—we’re late already. My mom’s going to
kill me. She hates it when dinner gets cold. She’ll have the
samosas and vadai in the oven by now; she’s probably checking the
clock. The drinks are made; my sister’s setting the table.” Shefali
was babbling; she knew it, but she couldn’t seem to stop. “The rice
will be ready in half an hour. The curries have been simmering for
hours; they’ll be okay, but if the rice sits too long, it won’t
taste as good, you know.” And now she was blubbering, tears welling
up in her eyes, pooling there as she refused to give in and cry.
Shefali hated crying. She almost never cried. She Roshan was
pulling over, taking an exit she didn’t know, pulling into a small
off-road station, an empty parking lot. They parked under the shade
of a huge tree, its bare branches coated with last night’s heavy
snow.

“She’s not going to kill you,” Gabriel
said.

“She will… she will.” Shefali was shaking
now, her body shuddering. She couldn’t seem to stop it, even though
this kind of emotional outburst couldn’t be good for the baby.
Sometimes she hated having to think about what would be good for
the baby. She wrapped her arms around herself, rocking against the
smooth fabric of the back seat. Now Roshan was climbing out of the
car, opening the door to her left, climbing into the back, somehow
squeezing into the seat and pulling her into his arms. She was
engulfed in the broad strength of him, his solid chest supporting
her. Skinny Gabriel was squished into an even smaller corner of the
backseat, gently rubbing her knee; the fabric of her loose skirt
slid up and down against her bare leg. She could feel the weight of
their concern, their love, wrapping around her like a blanket. But
she was still shaking.

“No, she won’t,” Roshan said firmly. His arms
wrapped around her. “And if she looks like she wants to, we’ll
climb right back in the car and drive back to Boston. They said
they wanted to meet Gabriel; they wanted to talk to us all in
person. Fine. But if they give you any grief at all, we’re going to
leave. We can manage just fine without them.”

“I know, I know… .” Shefali did know. They
had talked about all this endlessly—when her parents first asked
them to come out, while planning the trip, in the car over the last
two days. This was a ridiculous time to get the shakes, when they
were less than half an hour from her parents’ house. “… .I just
don’t want to have to manage without them.” Roshan’s arms tightened
around her body. “I want my Amma… .” And now she was sobbing, tears
finally flowing down her cheeks.

She knew she must look awful, but she
couldn’t stop. There was just so much to cope with—they’d been
doing pretty well working out their own problems, but there were
her parents who still screamed at her over the phone, and Roshan’s,
who barely spoke to him. Gabriel’s father had been quiet, but at
least he wasn’t actively hostile. She wished Gabe’s mother were
alive. She wanted a woman to talk to about this. She had never had
close female friends, and now she wanted one desperately. The guys
were terrific, and medically trained, so they gave her all the
information she wanted about the baby. More than she wanted. What
she really wanted was her mother—and Shefali didn’t know what her
mother would do when she finally met the bisexual Jewish man her
daughter had fallen in love with; when her mother was forced to
confront the reality of the triad they had created. Shefali just
didn’t know—and she hated it when she didn’t know what was going to
happen.

Roshan kept holding her, and when her sobs
eased and she could see properly again, Gabriel was looking
anxiously at her. She blinked the remaining water out of her eyes.
He looked almost frightened—well, that wasn’t surprising, really.
Shefali couldn’t remember the last time she’d let herself cry in
front of anyone. It had been years. Maybe this was the first time
he’d seen it. She tried to smile, to reassure him. A quick smile
answered her, though his eyes were still worried.

“Shef—I can’t promise it’ll be okay with
them. But I can promise that I’m here for you. And you know Roshan
is too, right? You know how much we love you… .”

She did know that. The last two years had
been hard sometimes, but they’d worked through things, together.
They’d gotten through a lot. Her body relaxed a little in Roshan’s
arms, and his arms relaxed as well.

“I’ll be all right. It was just everything
piling up, you know? And then waking up, and not feeling well, and
hearing you two going at it again, when I haven’t even wanted to
have sex in months… .”

That had really bothered her. She’d been so
sick for a while, and then after that, the guys had still been
solicitous of her; Gabriel had been careful not to press her for
sex, had assumed that she wouldn’t want to be bothered. He and
Roshan had discreetly kept their sex play for the study, and for
when they assumed that she was fast asleep. Lately, though, she
hadn’t been sleeping well, and she’d often woken to hear them—hear
Gabe, at least. Roshan never made any noise at all.

She looked at Gabriel—her eyes slid down, to
where his penis still stuck out, not as hard as before, but not
quite soft yet either. Her cunt shivered, a swift contraction
sliding through her. Gabriel followed her eyes down, and then
looked at her again.

“Hey.” His voice was soft.

She didn’t know what to say, but when his
hand slid down from her knee, down along the fabric to its edge,
resting on her bare ankle, she leaned back further in Roshan’s
arms, sliding her foot towards him. And when he slid his hand back
up, under her skirt, to gently begin caressing her thigh, Shefali
bit her lip, and moaned softly in the back of her throat. It had
been so long.

He slid forward, and his fingers found the
moisture between her thighs. She had started masturbating again a
few days ago, and had found that being pregnant made her wetter
than she had ever been before. It had surprised her, and it seemed
to surprise Gabriel too. He made a small sound, and his cock
hardened. A finger slid inside her, curving upward to find that
sweet spot—she had had to teach him where it was, but he had gotten
so good at touching it, stroking it; and now his thumb had found
her clit, was rubbing slickly over it; and Roshan’s mouth was at
her neck, his lips leaving light feathery kisses over shivering
skin, then sucking gently, his arms holding her as Gabe moved
inside her, pushing her up and up, until she felt herself
expanding, exploding, still held tightly in Roshan’s arms.

When she came back to herself, she tilted her
head back and grinned up at Roshan. “Hey—aren’t you supposed to be
gay?”

He smiled back at her. “What, I’m not allowed
to help a little?” His expression softened, and his hand came up to
stroke her long hair, fingers slipping gently through it. “It’s
good to see you smiling, Shefali.”

“You too.” A vast peace settled inside her as
she turned back to Gabriel, who looked very uncomfortable, crammed
into a corner of the backseat, with his cock still sticking out of
his pants. “Hmmm…do you think we could… ?”

Gabriel laughed. “I don’t think so. There’s
just not enough room—not if I don’t want to squish the baby.” His
hand came up to rest on her barely-rounded stomach—not pressing
down, just resting gently there. “And we’re late, and we really
ought to stop at a motel and shower if we don’t want your folks to
know exactly what we were just doing. But if you’re okay for now,
then I think I can wait. We were just messing around earlier, you
know—killing time on the road. I’m not as sex-crazed as you think I
am, you know.”

Shefali grinned. “Uh huh.”

“Are you okay, Shef? Really okay? Not just on
an endorphin rush?” Gabriel kept his eyes locked on her, waiting
for her answer.

She felt fine—better than she had in a long
time. She felt like she could cope with this baby; could maybe even
cope with her parents. Shefali wasn’t sure how long the feeling
would last; her mother had a way of making her feel twelve again.
But with both of her guys there to help hold her up—to carry her
through it—she thought she’d probably be okay, at least for
now.

Shefali reached out a hand and took Gabriel’s
in hers. She squeezed it hard, and his face relaxed, the lines
smoothing out. Then Roshan’s big hand came to engulf both of
theirs.

They stayed like that, despite the lateness
of the hour and the discomfort of the cramped back seat, for just a
little while longer.

So you’re walking up and down Telegraph, up
and down, trying not to look like the new dyke in town, trying not
to telegraph that you are fresh off the boat, innocent new meat
just in from Indiana, come to the big city. Actually, the small
city, to Berkeley in fact, because San Francisco is a little
intimidating to start off with if you’re a twenty-two-year-old dyke
who just came all the way to California to get laid because you
have just been dumped by the only other lesbian in Franklin,
Indiana and you just can’t take it anymore.