Waiting Page 15

  Caris drew in a breath. "Oh," she whispered.

  "Like what you see? Told ya they got better."

  Caris wriggled her fingers. "I'm a kid in a candy store." She ventured a touch and a few nibbles. "You're beautiful, Lena. I'm going to sound like a broken record, but you are. Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful. Lovely. The kind to inspire a library of badly written poetry."

  Lena laughed. "Wow. I'll have to remember that. So beautiful I inspire a library of badly written poetry."

  Caris tugged Lena onto the bed, and Caris's mouth led her to the trimmed patch of dark hair between Lena's legs.

  Lena arched her head back and shuddered.

  Caris tasted her. "You're a river."

  "A river named Caris."

  "You taste good."

  "You have a fantastic body."

  "You're a fantastic liar." Caris hoped her tone signaled that she knew Lena meant every word.

  Lena pulled Caris back up and rolled atop her. She kissed Caris's stomach and ran her tongue over the light stretch marks. "I'm not lying. If you had a perfect body, you'd be boring."

  Caris grinned. "So you admit I was boring before."

  "You were snoozeville. Zzzzz. Is it any wonder I used to avoid you?"

  "Then you're terrifically boring. Because your body is, I…I…I don't mean I'm shallow. I only mean that…maybe I should shut up because I don't know what I'm saying."

  Lena brought herself to Caris's mouth for another long kiss with lots of tongue. They were skin to skin, nipples to nipples. Caris abandoned herself to the whirl of sensation, let Lena see her face, let Lena feel her, her moans, groans, cries, expressions of torture, of ache, of need.

  The next couple of hours were one of the best, if not the best, of Caris's life. She and Lena came separately and together, their lovemaking more on the side of sweet and exploratory, lots of kissing, than mad animal lust.

  But they had mad animal lust in them too, oh yes they did. They had so much potential, and Caris could not wait to experience everything.

  She hoped she would get to.

  *****

  "You had sex," Jennifer said when Caris got home.

  "What?"

  "That's a sex flush on your neck. Blind date, my ass. More like a booty call." A mischievous grin. "Who is it?"

  The lie came easily. Too easily. "No one you know."

  Maybe Caris should feel guilty about the lie. Maybe her head should hurt. Maybe mortification should be snaking around her heart. So what? She did not care what she had done, why she had done it. She might later, but in this minute, she was happy. She would make no apology for her feelings.

  Jennifer, her gaze eager, tugged Caris to the couch. "So? Tell me about her. What's she like?"

  Caris had to say something. Get it off her chest. "She scares me."

  Jennifer frowned. "Huh?"

  "My feelings for her scare me. I've never felt like…" Caris swallowed. "She's really sweet. Funny. Gorgeous as all hell. We connect, we really do. She doesn't expect anything from me. She accepts me for who I am. Stretch marks and big tits and Dale and Donovan and all. That by itself is scary enough. But there's just something about us together that…" Caris gestured vaguely. "It's scary. Also one of the best feelings. I didn't expect this to happen. And so soon after Dale. And the baby."

  "Think you're on the rebound?"

  "Could be. My body playing tricks on me. My heart playing tricks on me."

  Jennifer's eyes narrowed. "Is she taking advantage of you?"

  "No way. Anyway, there's no future for us. We both know that. Maybe that's why I feel the way I do, because she's safe. So I'm giving myself permission to…oh, I don't know."

  "Why is there no future?"

  "I don't want a relationship. Not for a long while." And not with my wife's daughter.

  "What's her name?"

  "I need…" Caris pictured Lena rubbing her own cheek. Lena thinking. Lena stalling.

  "I know her, don't I?"

  "No."

  "It's a man."

  Caris snorted. "Sure."

  "It's a man. You're seeing a man."

  Caris rolled her eyes. "I'm seeing a woman. A wonderful, lovely woman."

  Chapter 19

  The next morning, Caris and Donovan headed to Pinewood. Dale's room was empty. "She's outside with Shirley," Joe said.

  Caris found them at the banks of the duck pond: Dale in her wheelchair and Shirley on a bench under weeping willows. Good spot in the shade.

  Shirley took the baby from Caris. "Your grandma says hi!" Shirley chirped.

  Something was off about Shirley, despite her apparent cheer. She did not have the somewhat manic vibe she had developed after Dale's wreck.

  "You okay?" Caris asked. Missing George, maybe?

  Shirley pursed her lips. "Are you going to wear your rings again?"

  Caris studied her bare fingers. "No."

  "Dale hurt you too much." Matter-of-fact voice.

  "Yes."

  "I'm sorry."

  "Me too," Caris murmured.

  "That cloud," Shirley said. "What do you think it is?" She indicated the sole cloud in the sky.

  Caris saw a shell and a head poking out. Four little feet. "A turtle."

  Shirley laughed. "That's what I thought, too." She squeezed Caris's hand and let go. "What's going to happen when Dale wakes up? She can't get her heart broken. It'd put her rehab back years."

  "She was leaving me," Caris said. "She'd already resigned herself to the fact we were over."

  "You know for sure she was leaving you?"

  "Yes."

  "It's good of you to visit."

  "She was my wife. I loved her. She was supposed to be Donovan's mother."

  "Do you think she's waking up?"

  "I don't know," Caris said. "I look at her and I find it hard to believe she might. But other people have woken up." Shirley, she's not waking up. I'm sorry. Caris knew in her heart Dale was not waking up. Dale was dead. Caris would not be with Lena otherwise. Period.

  Shirley rubbed her forehead, and the energy she had absorbed from Dale over the past months seeped out. Shirley looked her age now. Then some. "What are you going to do if my daughter wakes up?"

  Caris opened her mouth. Closed her mouth. First time Shirley had said if, not when. "I have no idea, Shirley. I'll be at her side, if she wants me. But not as her wife. I'm not going to be part of her second chance." Caris cleared her throat. "Shirley, I've started dating again. Nothing serious. But I'm dating."

  Shirley gazed out to the pond. "Dating. I see. I woke up this morning and called for George." She chuckled wryly. "Took me a moment to remember he'd gone." She sniffled. "We're eighty-two. Too old for this. What if he forgets to take his heart pills?"

  Caris snaked an arm around Shirley. Lena, Lena, Lena. I think I love you, Lena. No, you don't. Desperation for affection and contact is driving this. Don't dare think you love her.

  The twittering of birds brought Caris back to the present. "I was going to contest the living will," Shirley was saying. "I'm not anymore. My daughter wouldn't have wanted this. I'm beginning to think George is right. Dale is gone. She's dead."

  "Perhaps."

  "Caris," Shirley said.

  "Hmm?"

  "I'm not blind. I see what's happening between you and Lena."

  The sentence was a jolt in Caris's body. "Nothing is—"

  "I'm not blind," Shirley repeated. "I knew right away when I saw how Lena was dressed that night you went bowling. That girl, bless her heart, never dresses up. I've tried to pretend, tried to stay out of it. I can't anymore. I don't like it. It's disrespectful."

  "Shirley, I—no. Nothing's—Shirley, Lena went bowling from work."

  "Lena wears that green skirt to work, or jeans and T-shirts," Shirley retorted. "Please don't make me recite how else I—it would best if you didn't come here anymore. If you didn't spend time with me anymore. Or Lena, for that matter."

  Caris tensed her hand, still on Sh
irley's shoulder. "Shirley," Caris said. "Please don't do this. You're like a mother to me, and—"

  "I didn't do anything," Shirley said. "You did it. I don't know how far it's gone, and I don't want to know."

  "It's not like that."

  "Stop. Please just stop."

  "We were going to end it soon."

  "I don't want to hear any more." Shirley stood and pushed Dale away.

  *****

  In the parking lot, Caris secured Donovan in his car seat and slumped into her own seat. Her chest was like cement.

  Crap.

  Crap.

  Was Shirley going to talk to Lena? Probably not. Lena was her granddaughter, her flesh and blood. Best to blame the outsider, the daughter-in-law. The blond vixen. Certainly not her own secretive, emotionally distant, emotionally abusive daughter.

  Maybe Caris should have told Shirley about Dale being transgender and how that had brought Caris and Lena closer. Maybe that—no, it would have made matters worse. Bottom line was, there was a reason Lena and Caris were afraid to articulate they had relationship potential. Maybe they were not having an affair, per se, but they were sneaking behind people's backs. They felt like their connection was wrong, illicit. Hell, Caris had not been able to tell Jennifer, her own best friend, about Lena.

  Caris hated how she had hurt Shirley.

  She hated how she herself could not stop thinking about Lena. Lena's smile, Lena's laugh. Lena's nipples and pussy in Caris's mouth.

  Then Dale's blank expressions.

  When Caris got home, she retrieved her rings from the jewelry box. She slipped them on one last time. Light caught the diamond, giving it an unearthly shine, as if it knew its last breath had arrived.

  "Goodbye, Dale," Caris whispered. She knew what she would do with the rings. She would bury them with her wife.

  *****

  The Pleasure Place was much the same as Caris remembered from her most recent trip, about two years ago. The sex shop was one of several in DuPont Circle, Washington, D.C.'s gay and lesbian district.

  Lena held Donovan as Caris maneuvered his stroller down the steps into the store. With the cashier's permission, Caris left the stroller behind the front counter, and she and Lena started looking. The store was on the small side and five people, four of them men, meandered about.

  "Your baby is adorable," a man wearing a rainbow tie-dye shirt told Lena.

  Her cheeks flushed. "He—he's not mine. I mean, uh, he's my bro—thank you."

  The man smiled and walked off.

  "No big deal," Caris whispered. She took her son. Donovan was sleepy; his eyes kept opening and closing. "So. See anything you like? I like silicone better."

  "Me too."

  Caris was not sure why she was at the store. Lena had suggested it; Caris should have told her right then that Shirley knew. But Caris was not ready just yet to say goodbye to Lena.

  They settled on a double penetration dildo, a regular purple silicone dildo and a harness but kept looking at other merchandise, such as handcuffs, lube and costumes. "I'm horny," Lena muttered. "Didn't think I could get any hornier, but I am."

  "Me too," Caris said, although she was not. She felt hollow and stiff, like an arthritic tin man.

  "Ever done it in public?"

  "Once. Semi-public. On a racquetball court at the gym."

  "Come on," Lena whispered.

  Caris and Lena paid for their purchases, and Lena led them to the Starbucks across the street. She locked the bathroom door behind them. Donovan was asleep, and Caris positioned his stroller so that he was facing the wall.

  Lena pulled Caris's pants down and got on her knees. Caris shoved Shirley out of her mind and let Lena work her magic.

  *****

  They had an early dinner at the DuPont Italian Kitchen. "Want to come to the house tonight after you finish work? We can break in the dildos," Caris said.

  Lena returned her lover's smile. "You read my mind." She wanted to tell Caris many things: how Caris made her feel alive, so unlike anything that had come before. That what she had with Caris paled to everything else, that she could stare at Caris for hours on end and kiss her for hours on end, too.

  Lena said nothing. That would never unfold. She could not imagine telling her grandparents, who were just about the only family she had left, that she was screwing their daughter's wife.

  "Donovan's teething," Caris warned. "He's going to cry."

  "I'll get him if he cries. No problem."

  Caris replied with a tense smile.

  I'll get him if he cries. Bzzz! Wrong answer, Lena. No need to telegraph how much you like Caris. You're not supposed to be that easy about the kid.

  *****

  They made love after Lena finished work, the same dildo in both of them. Caris was on top first, and when Lena's turn came, she straddled Caris. Cupped Caris's cheeks in her hands and left them there as their bodies moved. Her stare was bold and assessed Caris frankly.

  Caris wanted to look away but could not. Lena was reaching into her very soul, reading and caressing it.

  Lena knew they were right together, too. Caris was sure of it. Lena is in love with me. Head over heels in love with me, just like I'm with her. This shouldn't be happening. We're supposed to be passing ships.

  Passing ships.

  She's supposed to want nothing to do with Donovan.

  Lena's expression scared her. Her own feelings for Lena scared her, and no woman had looked at her like this during lovemaking.

  Lena moaned, sweat glistening on her forehead. The "mm-nn" moan, unique to Lena, that meant she was close to orgasm. Caris took one of Lena's breasts in her mouth. Their bodies moved in greater harmony, but then Donovan howled.

  "Shit," Lena said, but she got him, like she had said she would. She returned with him. "I changed his diaper. Does he need a bottle?"

  "Nah."

  Lena got into bed with the baby. She lay Donovan on her stomach and studied him. Made faces at him.

  She's so good with him, she looks and acts like his mother sometimes, she looks more like his mother than I do, they're natural together…

  Remember she doesn't want kids. Big difference between being a parental figure and making faces at him once in a while.

  "Why?" Caris asked.

  "Why what?"

  "Why did you really get these infant-care books from the library?"

  "Because I like him. Because he's family. To help you out."

  "Okay."

  Lena did not meet Caris's gaze. "Didn't mean to freak you out."

  "You didn't."

  "La la la!" Donovan.

  "Maybe we should stop," Caris said. The words were icicles in her own heart.

  Lena's expression turned careful. "Stop what?"

  "This. Us."

  "Why?"

  "Your grandmother knows about us. She's upset. I don't want you to lose her."

  Lena was silent for a few seconds. So silent and so still Caris was not sure Lena had heard. Then Lena kissed Donovan's nose. Once, twice, three times. "Oh, Caris." Lena sounded like she was going to cry.

  "So we should stop," Caris said. "We weren't going anywhere, right? This was what it was. A fling isn't worth the—"

  "I get your point," Lena whispered. "I get your freaking point." She continued looking at Donovan. "How does she know?"

  "First, she saw the clothes you wore the night we went bowling."

  "The—oh, Christ." Lena's tones were angry. Outraged. "You have got to be kidding. Fucking clothes is how she knows?"

  "Among other things she wouldn't tell me."

  "I should've worn jeans," Lena muttered. "It was stupid of me not to. My fault. Shit."

  "Lena, don't. You didn't know you'd be going home with me."

  "So she's known since bowling?"

  "Apparently."

  "Hmm."

  "Hmm," Caris echoed.

  "Mom really did love you. For what it's worth."

  "I really did love her, too." And I lov
e you.

  "All right," Lena said slowly. "All right. If that's what you want."

  "It isn't. It's not what I want at all."

  "Not what I want, either."

  "So let's talk about us."

  Lena got up from the bed. "I'll put him up and go home."

  "What about us?"

  Lena shook her head. "It's best this way. You know what would happen? Same thing that happens to everyone else. Intense for a while, then a breakup. We're getting it over with now is all. You're right. This isn't any different from Caroline or anyone else. This isn't worth losing family over. Lovers come and go. Family doesn't."

  Caris studied her lover's full breasts, nipples pointy and pink, her stomach, her long legs. We're different, Lena. You know it. I know it.

  Caris said nothing, though. She knew no such thing. Hell, she had probably felt this way at some point with Dale: crazily, dizzyingly, dazzlingly head over heels in love. And look what happened.

  "Maybe I'll write you a letter sometime," Lena said.

  "I'll reply."

  Lena bent down, as if to kiss Caris, but apparently had second thoughts. Lena drew back."Can we not say goodbye?"

  "No goodbye."

  Putting Donovan up and going home was exactly what Lena did. Exactly what Caris let her do. No kiss, no goodbye.

  Chapter 20

  The razor was pink. CVS brand, plastic and disposable, for shaving armpits and legs. Plastic and disposable. Unlike Lena. Caris had been staring at the razor long enough for her bath to go from steaming hot to chilly.

  Blood.

  Caris blinked and swore. The water bloomed with blood. Must be from a razor nick. Caris was shivering. Her teeth chattered. "Fine," she muttered. She preferred this discomfort to thinking about Lena, who had left an hour ago.

  Caris gazed over the blood in the tub. Right. I'm supposed to be shaving. Instead I'm starting a blood aquarium. How mundane. How boring. Her heart was numb, so why shouldn't her body be, too? Let the cold do what it wanted. Why was she shaving, anyway? She had no lover or wife to run her hands over her legs, no lover or wife to whisper into her ear.