To Face the Rising Sun
The first time Delia said it, Patsy hadn't known what to say. All power of speech deserted her and she was left to gape dumbly at Delia's upturned face, glowing as though they were sitting in a sun-lit park, not curled up by lamplight on Delia's iron-framed bed in the nurses' home.
"You're beautiful."
Delia's shining eyes were flitting over every curve and edge of Patsy's face, flickering down to her lips and back up to her eyes, along her jaw and the blade of her cheekbones, the sweep of her forehead and the intricate swirl of her ears. Her mouth was opened slightly and Patsy could see the corners of her lips lifting as though in wonder at what she was seeing. At her words, Patsy's mind froze and her stomach lurched, but she could not tear her eyes away from Delia's. She felt the tips of her ears burning, and cast about desperately for something to say. Nothing came to her, and, almost in panic, she responded with her body – leaning forward, she lifted her left hand to Delia's cheek, and softly pressed her lips against her mouth.
Slowly, lightly, she trailed her hand from Delia's cheek onto her jaw and down to her neck. She could feel her pulse against her palm, steady and strong, and felt the muscles in Delia's neck shifting and stretching as she swallowed, and tensing as Delia opened her mouth against Patsy's. Her breathing grew shallower and faster, her pulse jumping more as Patsy let her tongue drift, almost lazily, against Delia's. The jolt of dark-red, electric desire was felt by both of them and each instinctively pulled the other nearer, desperate to feel more. They broke apart briefly to shift to a more tenable position, and Patsy glanced at Delia's lips, swollen and almost perceptibly pulsing, a flush rising in the creamy skin of her chest, the downy hair on her arms rippling, her ribs expanding and falling...and Patsy fell back onto her, kissing her hard and hungrily, slipping her hands under Delia's jersey and around to the strong, sculpted muscles on either side of her spine. Digging her fingers into Delia's smooth back, Patsy lowered herself backwards onto the bed and pulled the smaller woman on top of her, ignoring the small jabbing pain of a dozen kirby grips digging into her scalp. She looked up at the face she most adored in the world, framed by a mass of thick, dark hair, and felt a grin tug at her cheeks. Delia grinned back at her and a slightly nervous giggle escaped her lips. Patsy felt Delia's tummy muscles contract with laughter, then release, as, with a contented sigh, Delia dipped her head to Patsy's chest and dripped light kisses onto her collarbone. Patsy's eyes fluttered closed and she turned her head to the side to allow Delia access to her neck. Tension building in every muscle, she felt Delia's weight moving further down her body, her small hands easily unbuttoning and unzipping anything that got in her way. When she had reached Patsy's hips, she glanced up to meet Patsy's eyes and get the nod. Every time, regardless how tipsy they were, how pent up or desperate, Delia would pause and check at this point before slipping off whatever clothing between them and lowering her face into the wave of heat rising from Patsy. Their eyes met, and at the breathless nod from Patsy, Delia smiled hugely and murmured, almost to herself,
"So beautiful."
Patsy had not really noticed the freckles on her hips until Delia paused to kiss them on her way to a more urgent destination, each in turn. She called them "the constellation"; four light-brown dots, reaching like a mountain range from the base of her right iliac crest, swerving and dipping over the tight ilacus muscle, straining against Delia's lips, down to the top of her thigh, pointing like a signpost. Delia's cool breath meeting the aching heat at her core made Patsy gasp in delight. Her hands wandered to Delia's head and she played with her lover's soft hair, tickling her ears and, as the tension grew and Delia's tongue worked more frantically, egging her on, pushing her deeper into herself. The last, inarticulate thought Patsy had before shuddering over the edge was,
"I'm not the beautiful one."
Patsy wasn't beautiful, she knew. There were other words one could use to describe her, that she would use to describe herself. Statuesque was one. Majestic, maybe. Tall, definitely. That was a neutral one, an indisputable fact since she was about fifteen. Always slightly taller than the other girls, slightly more brassy, slightly more posh. Just slightly more, all-round. Her legs, for instance. Patsy knew that her legs were stockier than those of the other girls. Her calves and thighs thicker and stronger, but not quite thick or strong enough to make her a star of the lacrosse team, or darling of the cross-country season. Not enough to be athletic, but too far from her friends' willowy, gamine figures that she so determinedly avoided gazing at while changing for Games or getting ready for bed. Beautiful was for those other girls. Girls whose convent-school uniforms hung easily on their slim frames, girls who could brighten Patsy's day simply by tossing their hair and laughing, full-bodied laughs that would be shed once outside the convent walls for fear the boys would hear and not be turned on. Those girls were beautiful, girls who carried themselves with such unconscious grace that Patsy sometimes wanted to weep at a smudge of ink on an eyebrow, some chalk-dust on the edge of a palm. The golden downy hair at the base of the neck of the girl sitting in front of her in Maths could have held her attention for hours. That was beauty.
Eyes down and back to the wall was how Patsy changed in front of the other girls. Only once, when she had believed herself alone in the dormitory, did she relax her guard and step over to the chest of drawers before pulling her blouse on over her shoulders. The gasp of shock made her spin around, clutching her blouse defensively to her chest, to see Margaret in the doorway, muddy kit bag slung over her shoulder and mouth gaping at the livid scars criss-crossing Patsy's back and shoulders. She backed out again, mumbling a vague apology, and never again did Patsy get dressed in the dorm. She would emerge, freshly bathed and fully clothed from the showers before the others had yawningly swung their feet onto the freezing floor. Margaret never met her eyes on those mornings, and never asked Patsy what kind of hell she had stood before to get those scars.
The first time Delia saw Patsy's bare back, she didn't gasp. She didn't say anything, only let her eyes wander from one scarred and seared shoulder to the other, down along the cruel silver gashes transecting Patsy's otherwise creamy white muscles. She lifted a hand and tentatively, feather-light, touched one of the hard ridges on the other woman's back. At her touch, Patsy tensed, drawing a sharp, shallow breath and holding it tightly in her abdomen. Delia immediately pulled her hand away and Patsy forced the breath out of her lungs, carefully drawing a slower one, forcing her breathing to calm down and become regular, like she had done a thousand times before. She felt Delia moving about behind her but didn't turn to look at her. She kept her eyes resolutely fixed on her knees, focusing on breathing regularly. She had wanted to show Delia, desperately needed her to see, as she knew she would have to eventually, but it was easier when she couldn't see pity on her face. Or revulsion. Or horror, or any of the thousand reactions Patsy had imagined would cross Delia's face when she saw what had been done to her in the camp.
"I'm so sorry Pats."
Delia's voice when it came out of the half-darkness held no pity. It held no horror. Nor was she apologising for making Patsy jump. Her voice was thick with sadness, and it sounded as though she was on the verge of tears. A silent moment passed until Patsy spoke, her voice heavy and resigned as though she found the topic boring.
"At least I can't see them. I know they're...bad...but I'm not faced with them. Out of sight."
In the heavy silence she could sense Delia's warmth coming closer to her bare skin. She felt a gentle hand on the back of her head, stroking her hair from her crown down to where she had swept it aside over her shoulder. She felt Delia press a kiss to the nape of her neck, and another, and another, down to where her spine met her shoulders. Strong arms slipped around Patsy's waist and held her fast, and goosebumps erupted along her arms as she felt soft lips trail warm kisses along the ancient marks on her skin.
They were marks left on the body of a child, a child who stepped out of line to defend the small and broken, a child who ran and fetched and carried for the people who did their best to heal and fix and soothe and comfort, a child who watched and listened and learned and refused to cry as her heart was broken again and again, each time more brutal than the last. They were marks that came with Patsy as she sailed alone back to England, that stretched as her body stretched and curved and tightened, as her back broadened and her waist sloped, as her breasts and hips swelled and her arms and legs grew long and muscular. They were scars that had marked her body nearly twenty years previously; and in twenty years they had never been caressed. No doctor had touched her back with such love or care, and nobody had ever kissed her scars as though they were beautiful.
The hot, scratching ball began in Patsy's throat, and within seconds there were hot tears cascading down her face and her entire body was shuddering with sobs. She grabbed Delia's arms and pulled them even tighter about herself, rocking with suppressed anguish and gasping through gritted teeth. Delia didn't shush her, or tell her it was going to be alright. She simply let Patsy cry, covering her wounded back with her small body as if she would die there. And when the spasms of grief had passed, when Patsy was so exhausted that all she could do was breathe, Delia simply switched off the lamp and pulled the down duvet over both of them, still fully clothed except for Patsy's torso.
The woman in her arms fell immediately into bottomless sleep, punctuated every so often with a racking sob. Delia didn't sleep that night; she lay awake, holding Patsy and stroking her forehead and kissing her cheeks as she mumbled in her sleep, broken phrases in what sounded like Japanese. Delia was certain Patsy couldn't speak Japanese while she was awake, and her heart trembled at the thought of the monsters that the light of her life must face every time she slept. She was struck with an idea then – she gently eased Patsy onto her other side so that they were facing each other. Softly, careful not to move too quickly, she silently padded out of the bed and slipped back in the other side. She resumed her position behind Patsy's shoulder-blades, so that they were back to where they had started, but now they were facing the window, through which pale silver moonlight was pouring onto the planes and curves of Patsy's face. Delia could do nothing to remove the scars on Patsy's back, nor make it that it had never happened; she could do even less for the scars on her mind and her heart. But she could do this for the woman she loved – she could ensure that when she woke, Patsy would have Delia at her back, and the sun on her face. Those scars were faded now, and no stick or whip would ever touch her again; and the darkness would pass, wither and die in the golden heat and light of the sun.