Paige gets suspicious. A confrontation with Renee Perry.
*****
It was light out when I woke. I wasn’t on my normal side of the bed, and the sheets felt strange. Before the fog in my head cleared I felt someone move behind me, and an arm slid across my bare waist.
The realization that I was naked brought reality crashing in. I was with Sandy; I’d been with her last night. As the lovely memory surfaced, a warm body pressed against me from behind, and I let out a happy little noise.
“You awake?” Her voice was soft in my ear.
A grin spread across my face while I kept my eyes closed. “Nope, still dreaming.”
“Really? Is it a good dream?”
Her breath on my neck made me shiver. “Yeah, the best ever.”
I felt her nuzzle into my hair. “Am I in the dream?”
I put my arm over hers, tears suddenly stinging my eye. “You are the dream.”
“Oh, Sweetheart.” Her voice was thick with emotion, slipping her other arm under my head so she could pull me close, and I turned toward her, seeking the wonderful kiss I knew was waiting for me. It was, and I just let her hold me as our lips moved together in unison.
After a wonderful long moment we broke apart, and I let myself open my lids and gaze into Sandy’s beautiful green eyes as I lay back on my pillow. She rolled toward me, saying nothing as she stared softly at me, her hand running down over my breast to my waist.
“So how did I do? Was it everything you imagined?”
I giggled at the playful nature of her voice. “Not too bad.”
“Just ‘not too bad’?” She dug her hand into my side and tickled me, making me break out laughing. “I love the way you laugh.” She kissed me on the cheek. “It’s adorable.”
I couldn’t help but do it again. “I feel like a teenager. I don’t usually laugh like that. I don’t usually laugh at all.”
“Melanie.” Her voice tinged with just a touch of remonstrance.
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry,” Sandy ran her fingers through my hair, “I just hate to think of you as unhappy. It hurts my heart.”
The pure, honest feeling in her voice made a tear slip from my eye, and I touched her waist under the covers. “I’m not unhappy now.” She covered my body with hers, and our lips came together for several blissful moments.
Eventually she pulled away, her strong features now wearing a wry smile. “Are you sure you’ve never done this before?”
Her voice was playful, and I grinned. “Yeah, why?”
“You just, um, I’ve been a few women’s first, and they’re always a little stunned at where they are. And after you almost bolting on me at Bryan’s concert, I just wasn’t sure.” She cocked her head. “You don’t seem surprised.”
“Oh, believe me, I can’t believe I’m here. But wanting you, that doesn’t shock me at all.”
“Really, but you’ve never been with a woman?”
“Not like this.” I bit my lip for a second, pondering whether to reveal something only one other person on the planet knew. “Actually, my first kiss was with a woman. Well, we were just girls, but still.”
Sandy propped herself up her elbow. “Really? Do tell.”
I blushed. “Not much to tell. It was a girl from down the street, Katie. It was nice. It was a nice summer.”
“So what happened?”
I took a deep breath. “Do I have to say? I’m not proud of it.”
“No, of course not. But I won’t judge you. No one should be judged on things they did when they were teenagers.” She grinned as she said it. Her hand found mine under the covers. She pulled it out and kissed the back. “But I’d like you to tell me. What happened?”
I closed my eyes. I was scared, but here with Sandy I felt safe. So I opened a corner of my mind, letting the shame that had occasionally bubbled out throughout my adult life flow forth. “Cheerleading tryouts started in August, and I made varsity as a freshman. It was stunning, especially to me. I remember the first Friday of school. All the football players were wearing their jerseys, and I was in my cheerleading outfit, with blue and red ribbons in my hair. My mother had helped me tie them that morning, and she’d told me how proud of me she was.”
“I was walking between classes with a couple of the other girls on the squad. I could feel the envy, see the way other students made way for us, it was very heady, and I was walking a little taller than I should have been. Katie was coming the other way. She smiled and said hello, and I felt my cheeks flush, like they always did when she was nearby. I waved at her and smiled, and we passed each other. When I glanced up at Saralynn, one of the older girls I was walking with, she was staring down at me with this ugly look on her face. ‘You’re not friends with that dyke, are you?’
“I was stunned, I just stammered out that she was just my neighbor, and that I’d known her since I was little.
“‘We don’t allow dykes on the team, Melanie. Stay away from her.’
“I was so scared. I mean, I had no idea what a dyke was. Of course, this was before Google, so when I got home after the football game I asked my brother. He was a senior, and he just laughed. I almost cried, but eventually he told me what I wanted to know, in the crude way of seventeen-year-old boys. If I was scared before, now I was absolutely terrified.
“I mean, I was a girl who liked kissing other girls. I had no concept how two girls could have sex, but the kissing, yeah.” I lay back, trying to keep my voice calm, as the shame of what was coming in the story filled me. I’m not sure if I’d have kept going if Sandy hadn’t asked.
“So what happened?”
“Um, I avoided Katie all weekend, and when I saw her at school I completely ignored her. She finally cornered me the next weekend and asked me what was going on.” A tear slipped out of my eye, my voice breaking with emotion. “And I told her we weren’t friends, that I wasn’t a dyke like her. She looked so hurt.
“After she left a terrible thought occurred to me; she could tell everyone what we’d done. I spent the rest of that weekend almost in a panic. But when I got to school no one knew anything, and it stayed that way. She kept my secret when she didn’t have to, even though I was so horrible to her.”
Sandy’s finger trailed through my hair. “And you never tried with a woman again?”
“I buried it as deep as I could. Whenever I’d get that flush around another girl, I’d run. I got asked to Homecoming by a sophomore boy, and, again, what if I didn’t like boys? I thought I did, and I really liked it when I danced with him, and when he stole a kiss I got all those fluttery tingles like I had with Katie. Not exactly the same, but close enough. I knew then I could pretend to be normal, and that my whole life depended on keeping up the pretense that I was. It wasn’t too hard, I always had guys interested, so I had my pick. And when I finally worked up the nerve to have sex, I really did like it a lot.
“After college I met Bill. He was so handsome and confident, but still tender and kind, and I was so in love. It was real, what we had. At least it was for me. And then it was over.”
“Why?”
The words kept tumbling from my mouth. I’d gone over all this in my head so many times, but I can’t remember the last time I talked to a real person about it. Maybe I never had. “I wore a size six wedding dress, I was a perfect 36-24-36. I was marrying a gorgeous, successful man from an important, wealthy family, and in less than a year and a half I had a beautiful baby girl. Paige was such an easy pregnancy. Will was harder, I had more trouble keeping my weight down. My doctor told me I was close to having gestational diabetes, and I had to work really hard to get my figure back afterwards. Then, with Charlie, there was no ‘close to’. I gained more than seventy pounds. After he was born I couldn’t lose it. I was miserable, depressed and overwhelmed, and losing my husband. He was having an affair, and I wasn’t even mad at him about it. Who wouldn’t have cheated on a disgusting pig like me?” I dissolved into tears as the horrible memories resurfaced. Sandy pulled me into her arms and I cried on her shoulder, clinging to her.
She whispered into my ear as she held me. “It was no excuse. You didn’t deserve to be left. You deserved to be loved, adored, and desired. You still do.”
“No, I don’t.” I sobbed.
“Yes, you do. You do!” She repeated herself with more gusto when I shook my head. She took me in her arms and rocked me as I cried. I let the warmth of her body and peace of her presence soothe me, and after a few long minutes I was simply resting quietly against her.
“I’m sorry.”
“You’re forgiven.” The playfulness in her voice made me smile, and that smile turned into a giggle as she nuzzled into my neck. “But I may still have to punish you.”
“Really?” I hunched my shoulders against her continued, delicious assault on the most sensitive parts of my neck. “What did you have in mind?”
“You’re going to lay there,” she rolled me onto my back, “and not interfere while I enjoy you.” Her mouth closed over my left breast and I moaned into the morning air.
“If, ooh, god, if I have to.”
“You do. Now relax, I assure you, resistance is futile.”
My laugh turned into a sigh as her lips moved down over my belly, and my back arched in ecstasy as she settled between my legs. Moments later I was floating away into blissful insensibility.
When she had finished with my ‘punishment’ I was resting my head on her shoulder as she twiddled my dark hair. “So what comes next?”
She grinned at me. “Well I don’t know about you, but I’ve worked up an appetite. You want to go out for breakfast?”
“Oh, god,” I covered my eyes.
“What?”
“The only clothing I have here is that stupid dress.”
“First,” Sandy booped my nose, “there was nothing stupid about that dress. You looked amazing. But we can just run past your house and you can get dressed, and we can spend the day together.” I met her request with a nod, and Sandy kissed my forehead. “But first, a shower.”
She climbed out of bed and walked into her bathroom, me watching her cute, firm backside as she did. I heard the water come on, and I only had a moment to reflect on what had happened in the last twelve hours before Sandy’s voice rolled in with the steam from the shower.
“The water’s hot. You coming?”
Ooh, yes, yes I was.