Scene One

cene One

"Simone!" that well remembered voice called out anxiously, her fingers across her mouth in horror. The object of her sudden surge of fears was the fair-haired woman who was lying inert on the beach on which the endless Pacific breakers broke in soporific tones."What's happened to you?" It was the second most shocking moment of her existence when everywhere else here was paradise.

The young woman who spoke had clattered excitedly down the long wide flight of steps from the beach road, leaving her convertible parked by the roadside and her long dark hair trailing in the wind . Her heart had been singing at the thought of being reunited with the one person who was the centre of her universe when the worst of all possible fears had slapped her in the face. Gradually the fair haired woman who was lying on the beach unglued her eyelids at the voice ringing in her dreams and turned her head to focus both her eyes and her thoughts. She had taken a book to read on the beach and a beach towel to lie on and, in the hypnotic glare of the noon day sun, had been gradually deprived of energy and simply fallen asleep on the beach. She'd floated in and out of weird, meaningless dreams and was totally disoriented so when that voice broke in through her mental meanderings it almost felt that this was just another random, dissonant happening divorced from any meaning. Now, she was pulling herself together, halfway suspended between her unquiet dreams and an unbelievable reality.

To the onlooker, things looked so much worse for a fraction of a second. Annabelle Tillman, recent graduate of St Teresa' Catholic High School had had been subjected to life's sudden, cruel and undeserved turnarounds just like Simone Bradley, the older woman who had so recently taught her. They'd not seen each other for three weeks since Simone had been dragged away in a sinister looking black car and the only news there'd been was good news on the front page of the Los Angeles Tribune that Annabelle had spotted in a roadside store she'd only just called in. It was entirely possible that the motionless woman lying on the beach might be ill or, god help her, the word she couldn't name. She ran over the smooth even sand which dragged at her boots as they sank in and hurried to cut down the distance that separated her from the centre of her existence . Finally, she arrived at her life's destination and to her intense relief, the fair-haired woman was starting to move. She simply must help her out.

Gradually a pair of female rocker boots, short miniskirt and shapely legs came into Simone's view from that peculiarly distorted perspective from lying on her side. Her jumbled mind, woken out of sleep, flashbacked to when she was the dark trouser suited restrained but liberal teacher at St Theresa's Catholic School, California State where she had once been a pupil under the emotional dominance of the Mother Immaculata. On that day, the girl who boldly returned her polite gaze possessed the authentic teenage slouch, nose ring, denim jacket and a reputation of the archetypal, uncontrollable troublemaker. For one second, she thought that life had subjected her to the first cycle of an experience loop to be endlessly repeated . This time, she took in the white, long sleeved top, the clear sun tanned look, dark glasses and a loving smile underscored with fear that anything bad should have happened to her. This helped start to get over the sense of dislocation of being separated for the past three weeks.

"Annabelle, it's lovely to see you at last. I've only dozed off on the beach," Simone Bradley answered in an unusually fuzzy, unclear tone of voice, her tongue sticking to her mouth as she struggled to scramble to her feet. The younger woman fondly remembered the clear precision in the fair-haired woman's speaking voice."I don't know how I came to be down here."

"I'll help you," she volunteered, her fiercely protective instincts out there in the open that she let hardly anyone see. She'd had to be so tough for so long- until she'd met her first love. The older woman let that amazing strength wrap itself around her, something she knew by now she shouldn't spurn to honour some outdated values that had never given her anything meaningful back in return. The intensity of Annabelle's love gave her so much she felt blinded by it.

Only because Simone stumbled back a step as the shifting sands weren't firm enough for her to secure her footing meant that the younger woman momentarily doubt the strength of her own fixed purpose. Regaining that emotional tie might be harder than she had supposed.

"Don't tell me I'm not wanted? I don't know what stuff has gone down since we last met."

The downcast eyes and the sheer irresistability of this woman's love erased any doubts Simone might have had. She'd never apologized so much to her in the past when it was all about working through her feelings of guilt. Her heart flowed out towards this most amazing of women, her eighteen years old soul mate.

Annabelle blinked to see her lover's arms outstretched towards her and was delerious with joy to see such a profound acceptance of her, her blue eyes glinting in the setting sun and a glorious smile spreading across her face. The time that elapsed since Simone had been taken away from her since their love had been found out didn't matter. They were both here right now. The younger woman let herself be enfolded in a warm embrace and the blond-haired woman planted kisses all over her face before pressing her lips against her own and slipping her tongue deep inside her with all the sense of assurance in the world. Simone's such a confident lover, so gorgeous, Annabelle sighed into her lover's open mouth. This was heaven for them both and they were finally home at last. They both wanted that kiss to last forever.

The gorgeously warm sunlight glistened off the Pacific ocean and warmed both women as they sat on the balcony of Simone's beach house which was blessed by a gentle soothing westerly wind. The sun was sinking low in the endlessly blue sky and, at times like this, conveyed a glistening magic to the world at the best of times. It was as nothing compared with each woman's unbelievably felt presence of the other as they gently talked. Annabelle gently placed her slim fingers on the other woman's hand and a smile spread slowly across her face.

"I still can't believe it's happening to us both, darling. I've had my life turned upside down but I'm getting it back."

"Saw a copy of the Los Angeles Tribune in a service station as I drove up this way. I'm so glad you're free. All that stuff about teacher student sex scandal, such bullshit."

Simone shuddered as Annabelle in her well-meaning way, had gently touched not so much as a a sore spot but a deep psychic wound. She closed her eyes briefly and a whirlpool of traumatic memories whirled around inside her head. Everything had all blown up on the night of the end of term party with St Paul's Catholic School. All it had taken was one jealous, spiteful bisexual schoolgirl, Catherine, the form bully, to put two and two together to say that Annabelle hadn't returned to the dormitory, to pretend concern for Annabelle's moral welfare and hint to the Mother Immaculata to check out Simone's bedroom. The woman who was her aunt and had dominated her in the past for so long had stomped forth in a moral crusade and had discovered both of them half naked trying to get dressed. Certainly,it was impossible to deny that they'd slept together. All the time that their relationship had been building up, Simone had feared that she might be seen to be in a state of sin in breaching her 'duty of care' to a student under her moral guidance as a mature adult, taking advantage of an impressionable child, that she had brought herself into conflict with the teachings of the Catholic Church and that she would be sacked from her job. All this had held her back from following what her heart was telling her to do. Put into words like this, it ought to have stopped her from crossing the line but the reality of their relationship had been so completely different..

She certainly hadn't conceived how government officials had moved in such smooth and sinister deliberation and had arrested her. It smacked of a secret police operation in some South American military dictatorship. Neither had she conceived how a papparazzi fuelled newspaper would grab and twist their very private love and make it the stuff of tacky headlines. It was only when time and psychic imprisonment had given her dead time to research Senator Tillman, Annabelle's mother, that Simone realised what a dysfunctional world she'd been innocently dragged into. However, her loyalties ran deep and she knew that the younger woman was really a self created adult who had distanced herself from her family and really had nothing to do with such a rising politician. She could readily understand that as she had done the same with her own moneyed and powerful parents.

During this pause in their conversation which seemed to last a lifetime, Annabelle read the fair haired woman's distress and feared that she might still be blamed for the spectacular disasters which had been the fallout from her ardent pursuit of her form teacher. She'd made all the running, especially at the party and she accepted her fair share of responsibility since she was made that way.

"We're here right now and we're free- for whatever freedom means to us,"she said in cautious and guarded tones.

Simone's eyes opened and all she saw was anxiety in case she rejected the younger woman and her infinite compassion for her. This wasn't teenage lust on her side and weak- willed acquiescence on her own.

"I regret absolutely nothing of what we did that night nor anything that led up to it apart from a detail or two. I should have had the foresight to lock my door and gain time to smuggle you out the window."

This absurd image made Annabelle laugh out loud. The image of her shinning down the drainpipe like some naughty schoolgirl, her low cut short red dress riding up around her body was irresistible, especially as her one time teacher was suggesting shared sense of humour had helped draw them together in the first place and that magic was happening again.

"Exposing my butt for everyone to see? Some hope."

"Apart from me. I'll never forget what a wonderful night we spent together," Simone said with a heartfelt sigh before suddenly cryptically switching tack again,""We broke the eleventh commandment, Annabelle. That's all."

This made Annabelle sit up and take notice. This woman knew so much it was like riding a switchback in keeping up with her. That was part of her appeal. This woman was so goddamn inscrutable at times. Something was going on down with this guilt ridden woman who'd stopped denying to herself who she really was when she saw her last. This was going further down this line and that intrigued her

"And what's that? Nobody taught me that in Religious Education classes not that I was listening anyway," she asked behind lowered eyelids. This smart attractive woman was a couple of steps ahead of her.

" 'Thou shalt not be found out.' I've learnt a few things about life since I last saw you. I'm really an idealist though. Believe it or not, I'm still a good Catholic even though I don't practice it formally."

Annabelle got the connection straightaway. It crystallised how much contempt she had for authority figures who came over so high minded in their public pronouncements while concealing their sordid little secrets. She could have feigned conformity at all her schools and misbehaved on the quiet as she saw others do. She could never be like that and that was why she got into trouble time and time again. More than ever before, she felt so connected with this remarkable woman and felt so safe and secure in her beach house.

"I accept you exactly as you are, Simone." Her simple answer received a warm and melting smile from Simone who was emboldened to further speak from the bottom of her soul, something not normal for a natural introvert.

"I could have lived a lifetime and never really noticed you. You're the best thing that's ever happened in my life, our lives. I'm only just working out how I want to live my life. Since I was little, I was always told at school that I was the golden girl, someone special who stood out from the rest." Simone said dreamily as time and spoken words floated past them both on the soft and gentle wind.

"With a really cute ass," replied Annabelle insouciantly in her habitual quickfire wit. For a second, she wondered if she'd gone a bit too far. In the past, she'd stretched Simone's elastic tolerance so that the teacher in her had come to the surface. Her lips had pursed as she hid behind her glasses. This time, the blond haired woman dissolved into helpless giggles in an appealingly girlish fashion. In times past, the rare moments when Simone let herself go was worth hours of tedium in other lessons where starchy, authoritarian teachers had brought out the rebel in this precociously intelligent schoolgirl.

"I'm gratified to hear my girlfriend give me such rhapsodical, generous compliments on my physical charms," Simone said in florid, literary criticism, drolly askew. "I can now admit how spellbound I always was by your beautiful eyes fixed upon me, your shapely lips."

"There must be more to me than this," quipped the younger woman, her straight brown

hair falling loosely over her open necked T shirt."I know I'm a looker so how come you can't put lust into words?"

"And your gorgeous breasts," added Simone bashfully, slightly blushing at being so skillfully eased out of her linguistic shelter by her sharply observant lover.

"You mean tits," exclaimed Annabelle gleefully."They're the right words, I'm telling you."

Simone collapsed into helpless laughter and was joined by her lover. As the realisation slowly worked through that, despite everything bad that had happened to them recently, they could work through it all, the joy that they felt in each other made them feel giddy with relief. They hadn't laughed so much for such a long time. All the tension and spiritual oppression and, most of all, their enforced separation was now abolished by the wonderful feeling that they, now are one as a magical reconnection was forged in this moment. . Simone finally slid sideways and lay in her lover's lap, looking upward at the blue sky and into her lover's gentle face smiling down on her. She loved the feeling of her hair being gently and lovingly stroked and, above all else of being made to feel secure once again.