Tara did this sometimes, crawled from the bed, from that spot of
perfect warmth and enclosure and pulled up a chair to watch her lover sleep.
She did not know why, but some part of her felt like the deprivation, the
removal, held some virtue. It was as if total immersion in that bliss held
a lingering guilt.
She liked to see Willow's form in the deep-night's glow---what anyone
unschooled in the ways of Wicca would call darkness---cross-hatched by
the amber glow of the dorm's safety-light that was mounted a floor above
their window and filtered through their blinds. It made her look like some
lithe animal. A jungle cat, Tara supposed, but she wasn't good with similes
and she couldn't imagine Willow as anything predatory.
Willow moved little during sleep, so every faint rustle from beneath
covers quickened Tara's breathing, every slow scissoring of her legs made
Tara's breath catch. The curves, the arcs, the interlaced lavender and
amber slashes across her body---this was the essence of Willow, Tara sometimes
thought. Beneath the exterior guise (which she also adored) there was this
creature, this primal force of pure joy.
She watched until she heard him arrive behind her, but she didn't
look back. She spoke first. "I love her," Tara said simply, her voice catching,
but (mercifully) not stuttering.
"I know," he answered.
"I'd do anything for her."
"Don't worry," he soothed, "I'm not here for her."
Tara turned, faced him in the night's glow. He wore his human skin.
"Why don't you go away and leave me al-lone."
He smoothed the crease of his blazer. "We're not done yet, dear heart.
We will be soon, but not yet."
He smiled and Tara began to cry.
Tara cocked her head as she always did before speaking. "You know you're
not supposed to give cat's baths. They take care of that themselves."
"I couldn't help it," Willow sniffed coquettishly, "she rolled in your
ginseng."
"Well, then you deserved to get scratched," Tara leaned in and quickly
raked her blunt fingernails across Willow's exposed shoulder. Willow recoiled,
giggling, and fell backward on the bed. Tara knelt beside her, causing
the bed to list dangerously to one side, and leaned in only to be blocked
by Pandora, who took the opportunity to run interference. Tara laughed.
"Hey! Get out of there!" She scooped up the kitten and fell onto her back
beside Willow. Pandora promptly curled into a black-and-white ball and
went to sleep on Tara's chest.
They lay there a moment: the kitten sleeping and purring contentedly,
glancing sidelong at one another, and gently lacing and unlacing their
fingers, enjoying the simple, tactile joy of it, when Tara said: "Do you
think that'll be us? You know when we're ap-apart?"
Willow broke her gaze and stared at the ceiling. "We can still e-mail.
Call and stuff. I'll visit...when I can."
"The camp has three open weekends," Tara said, too quickly she realized.
Willow was just saying things to...well, say them. As late, a veil had
fallen between them, thin and gauzy enough to nearly be invisible, yet
it was there and it was stifling communication.
"I've never been to Montana," Willow said with enthusiasm which, while
forced, was at least well-disguised. But Tara knew her lover better than
that. She knew every pitch and inflection of her voice, and she knew that
Willow was being false.
"How did the ap-apartment-search g-go?"
"I couldn't find anything. I think that all the upper-classmen got the
off-campus housing already. I'll try again."
Tara's gaze flitted over to where the uncreased, still-folded Real Estate
section of the local newspaper sat beneath a pile of Willow's books.
But Willow wasn't paying attention to the academic prowess of the students
around her. She was prepared for the exam, and really didn't need to be
at the study session today, but it got her out of the dorm and (she was
sickened to admit) away from Tara.
Tara. The name conjured up new images. A horse camp beneath the endless
sky of Montana, three months away from her stretching into the distance
like a vast, empty hallway leaving her with only questions. Huge questions.
Willow was thinking of triangles and rainbow stickers and words like
"lesbian" and "dyke." She was thinking of female police officers and gym
teachers and porno films. With Tara she was Willow-friend, fellow witch,
lover. Without her she was...what? One of those things? Another campus
lesbian? A college girl experimenting with her sexuality? The moment Tara
left her, she would have to face up to definitions, explanations, descriptions.
The idea of it numbed her.
Willow sat, ignoring the lecture, trying to ascertain if she'd ever
been attracted to any of her female friends when she felt it. She
could not say what--- a prickling, crawling up her neck, invisible eyes
boring into the back of her head. She looked around, twisted in her desk
to survey the entirety of the dull, cinder block room, but could see only
bored stares and manic note-taking.
But the sensation stayed with her even after the bell had rung and the
room emptied out. When it did, Willow was one of the first out the door.
"She's not...it's like she isn't r-really in the room with me..." Tara
absently kicked at a smooth stone that half-protruded from the dirt at
her feet.
"She's drifting away," he said.
Tara didn't look at him, just kept kicking at the obstinate rock. "I
love her. She kn-knows that. What else..."
"It's not that simple," he explained patiently, almost paternally, using
the tone that helped her forget the savagery he was capable of. "She hasn't
fallen out of love with you--that much is obvious. But you're leaving her
for three full months. And I'm willing to bet you haven't spent three weeks
apart since--"
"No," Tara admitted.
"She's disengaging emotionally. It's involuntary. Poor thing probably
doesn't even know why she's acting like she's acting. Just that she is
and she's hurting you and she can't stop it."
She looked up. Faced him, though it was the last thing she wanted to
do. She couldn't place his features, for they were as inconsequential as
his clothes. His essence is what marked him. "What can I do?" she asked.
"Unfortunately, the emotional distance she's placed between herself
and you has a nasty side-effect. Self-doubt. It was all good fun when it
was just the two of alone. Two lonely social outcasts in a small room together
doing spells and..." he smiled wryly, "exploring their sexuality--for the
first time in the case of one of the girls."
Tara's face flushed hot and she looked at the ground again.
"That's easy. But when you're gone she has to face the L word and G
word and the D word. She has to face her friends--one of whom she's had
a relationship with already. Her parents. And she has to face all of it
alone. And that, my dear is scary. Could cause a lonely girl to do something
rash and destructive to her relationship in the long run. This is California,
home of sun-bronzed, hormone-obsessed brainless male animal..."
"But w-what do I d-do?" Tara exclaimed hopelessly.
But he was gone. Tara kicked the rock again, but it didn't come loose.
He would return, but from now on, she knew, he would make demands. And
she'd never been able to refuse him before.
"Everybody loves somebody sometime," Gina concurred. Jennifer Prentiss
knew they weren't looking at her, but she felt hot anyway. A few tables
away, under the shade of a listing poplar tree the two dykes were laughing
and passing a soda back and for the between them.
"Cute couple," she said, her gaze zooming in on the blonde. The redhead's
name was unknown to her. The blonde she knew. Tara. Tara Kinsey. She remembered
it magic-markered on the construction-paper Calvin and Hobbes that had
been on her door the first week of school: Hi! My name is Tara Kinsey.
The RA thought that name tags were a good way to get the floor top mix
and meet.
As if she'd want to meet a fat dyke like her.
Tara's eyes flittered toward her, and Jennifer felt her heart quiver
in her chest. Bitch! She must have told the redhead by now, Jennifer
thought. And who knows what spin she put on her version of things.
For her part Jennifer never told anyone about that day in the locker
room after phys ed. It had been a dumb-shit thing. Her mind was someplace
else, sure not on the generous curves and peachy flesh of the blonde girl
from her floor. The mind did that sometimes Jennifer had noticed in the
tense, disgust-fueled days after that event. The mind wandered and you
just ended up stupidly staring at something you weren't even seeing. She
was just...someplace else. Not staring at the cleft of the girl's ass or
the swell of her breasts or the nipples tinged pink from the shower's sting.
But the bitch had noticed her and thought (mistakenly!) that
Jennifer had been looking to, well, to look. Jennifer still remembered
with revulsion, the way the girl had coyly shoved her lank, wet hair behind
her ear and stuttered a hello. And then the horror of it hit her like a
hammer: the girl was a dyke!
Not surprising, Jennifer thought later. After all, here they were in
SoCal, where there are just some standards as to how you make yourself
up, and this girl was dressing like a freak. And she was fat, too. Lesbians
were mostly fat, Jennifer had learned (or theorized--she forgot which),
and that just made sense. What kind of a guy would want a chunky lard-butt
like her when there were plenty of honey-tanned, gym-hardened bodies like
hers for the taking? And on top of it all, the dumb bitch had the luck
of being a natural blonde--Jennifer knew that for a fact. No dye job necessary.
Who else but a fucking dyke would take blonde hair for granted? Get born
with it and let herself get all fat--that had to be some kind of a crime.
Jennifer had vacated the locker room as quickly as she could without
talking to the girl, but she'd been thoroughly creeped out. The next few
days she'd had to totally fake it with her boyfriend, because she kept
seeing that girl in her mind while Kyle was doing her. When she heard rumors
that the girl was witch, she figured she'd probably put a spell on her
for not returning her attention in the locker room. Shit, she still sometimes
thought of the witch when she and Kyle had sex, or when she was naked in
her shower.
"The other one looks normal," Rachel observed. "I mean, she's not hot
or anything, but..."
"But she could get a guy. She doesn't look like she goes for the Ben
and Jerry's every five minutes. Wonder what her deal is?" Gina concurred
as she picked at her salad.
"Maybe a bad relationship. Made her gay."
"Maybe she was born that way."
"Maybe she's, like, from New York. Or San Francisco. They're all gay
there."
Jennifer felt a slow heat at the back of her neck. She inhaled through
her nose. "Why don't we just ask them?" she whispered between tight lips.
"Can we help you with something?" Willow asked in what she hoped was
a pleasant voice that didn't quaver too much.
"Yeah," the ringleader, sharp-faced blonde with exposed roots said patronizingly.
"We were wondering if you two were dykes because you had bad relationships
and, like, wanted to swear off men, or if you were just born wanting to
go down on other women? If you could answer that it would really help a
lot." The other two girls-clones of the first with slightly different outfits-giggled
at their friend's audacity.
Willow's face flushed. Did they know? Did she know? Did it even
matter anymore? It was all what other people thought anyway...
But then she saw Tara staring morosely at her food like a kicked puppy,
and protectiveness shoved aside her anxiety so fiercely it even surprised
her. "Why do you think we're lesbians?" Willow asked, vaguely surprised
by the calmness of her own voice. "Because we ate lunch together? Or is
it because we don't sleep with as many guys as you do? Because if that's
what it is, you should know that we're really trying to meet your quota,
but you keep pushing it up..."
"Fuck you!" the blonde snarled and leaned in, but noticed that her friends
weren't with her in this. They'd drifted a bit, not anticipating a full-out
confrontation. The girl let Willow boil in her glare for a moment, then
straightened up. "Guess we know who the man of the relationship is." She
stormed off with her friends. As they departed Willow heard one last barb:
"Redhead definitely wears the strap-on..."
Tara's eyes only slowly lifted from the table. "I'm sorry," she said
nearly inaudibly.
Willow managed a lopsided smile. "It's not your fault. Some people are
just stupid. And...narrow-minded. And...well, really mean."
Tara smiled back and they finished their lunch in silence.
And so all she could do was sit and watch her lover sleep beneath a
film of sheets and glowing star stickers pasted to the ceiling.
She watched until she heard him arrive behind her, but she didn't look
back. She spoke first. "I love her," Tara said simply, her voice catching,
but (mercifully) not stuttering.
"I know," he answered.
"I'd do anything for her."
"Don't worry," he soothed, "I'm not here for her."
Tara turned, faced him in the night's glow. He wore his human skin.
"Why don't you go away and leave me al-lone."
He smoothed the crease of his blazer. "We're not done yet, dear heart.
We will be soon, but not yet."
He smiled and Tara began to cry.
"Hey..." he consoled her, his voice simultaneously affectionate and
taunting. "None of that." He placed a claw on her shoulder--though it looked
like a hand. "What would you do without me? You haven't exactly been doing
a bang-up job sustaining and maintaining this relationship so far, have
you? Now granted your altercation today was probably unavoidable, but you
could have handled it better than burying your face in you food like you
so often do when you are troubled. Hence all those aliases you went by
in high school. Let's see, there was 'Tubby Tara'--not terribly abrasive
that one, and rather obvious. 'Tub-'o-Lard Tara,' which has a workmanlike
vulgarity making it somewhat effective despite its general lack of originality.
There was...uh...'The blonde Blimp,'--again, crude but effective..."
"Stop it!" she whispered frantically.
"...and what was the one Ronnie Feaver used? Oh you remember him, don't
you? How you'd get all mooney-eyed--well, more so than usual--during class
and write his name in your notebook. And you'd fantasize about marrying
him and running your own ranch in Montana? Cute stuff..."
"Please!"
"But then, your best friend Amber gave him that story you wrote about
it, and they all laughed...What he call you? Help me out here, complete
the sentence: 'No way in hell I'd be seen in public with that....blank.
What was it? Surely you remember. It goes through your head an any given
moment, right before you tongue gives out and you start sounding like Porky
Pig. What was it? 'No way I'd be seen with...'"
Tara whispered words etched into her heart. "He s-said...No w-way he'd
b-b-be seen with that f-fat-ass f-f-freak..." Hot tears rolled down her
cheeks. She wiped them away furiously. She hated it when she cried in front
of him, but she always did.
"Well, hey, as much of a jerk as Ronnie turned out to be, you did
weigh about, what? One-sixty or so? You were an Orca. Never quite lost
it, either. Just sort of grew into it, didn't you? Still, this is sunny
C.A. Notice how concentration camp-skinny everyone is? Unhealthy, but hey,
it's the fad. Nothing you could do about it. Should have gone to school
in Minnesota or Wisconsin, where everyone's chubby due to the harsh winter
climate and all."
She pulled away, but his claw dug into her shoulder and brought her
near his fangs.
"But you wanted to go someplace where you'd fit in, didn't you?" he
demanded. "And what a bang-up job you've been doing so far. Which one is
it that wears the strap-on anyway?"
More tears. A floodgate. Her heart was pierced and bleeding. He was
right. He was always right. He knew her mind and her heart. He knew she
was alone, here in this place where'd run to escape the bitter loneliness
of her childhood. And she was losing the one anchor to happiness. "What
do you want?"
"You know what I want. And what I want can only serve to help you. You
know that, too."
Tara looked him in the eyes----past the false human corneas and irises
and into the flaming red of his monstrous essence. "I don't want anyone
else to get hurt."
He glanced at Willow. "You want her though? You can't have both. Time
to decide what you're willing to sacrifice for happiness."
Tara closed her eyes, the decision already made.
Buffy spun, bending at the knees so that the Raptor Demon's clawed wing/arm/appendage/thingee
hissed through the air above her.
"I don't know," Willow sighed exasperatedly and shifted on the log.
She pulled her knees up beneath her chin like she did when she was a little
girl, then hunched slightly as the Raptor Demon's appendage whistled through
the air above her. "I feel like...something's wrong, but I don't know what."
Buffy pressed her attack, pivoting into a roundhouse kick from the hip
that sent the demon staggering backward on its thin, taloned legs. "Did
you have a fight?"
The demon ducked and lunged, letting out a shrill, cawing war cry. Buffy
fell into a defensive stance.
"No. Everything's been fine. It's been more than fine. It's been...well...like
when I was with Oz, you know? She's sweet and I feel, like, twenty feel
tall when I'm with her, you know?"
"Ah yes. The invincibility factor." Buffy agreed warmly as she blocked
the demon's attack with a quick blow from her forearm. It had been a close
one, the demon was quick and there was power behind its swing. That'd leave
a mark.
"But now...it's like when she tries to get near me, I just...I don't
know. I get cold. It's like my heart is closing off to save the rest of
me? Does that make any sense?"
Buffy ducked to a crouch as the demon's appendages swished above her,
razor-sharp feathers splitting the air. "A little, I guess." She swept
one of its legs, but they proved more stable than she'd expected. Her kick
bounced off and she found herself splayed in the dirt. "Sounds like you're
scared of something."
"I think I am...But it's like...you know, before when it was just the
two of us together in her room. Willow and Tara, and we had our thing.
Now it's all different."
Buffy leapt to her feet. "Because we know?"
"Kinda. Yeah."
The demon's lunged, its horned beak jutting out like a spearhead. Its
scarlet eyes narrowed with fury when Buffy easily dodged the attempted
perforation.
"It's not that I didn't want you to know or anything like that, but...now
its this thing, this...real thing..."
The demon's long neck whipped the head and pointed beak around, but
Buffy was well outside its arc. "Will, you know I'm not judging..."
"I know, but you shouldn't have to tell me. We shouldn't even have to
talk about this. But we do."
"We don't have to. We're too close of friends for that." The demon recoiled,
squawked again. It's thick, muscular tongue lashed out like a fleshy bullwhip,
throwing a glittering spray of saliva. Buffy cringed. "Ick! Demon slobber!"
"But now..." Willow reached up to brush her hair over her ear like she
used to do in high school, only to remember that she didn't have the same
long hair she did in high school. "Now there's...the names. I mean, it's
not just the two of us anymore. We're a couple now, and...we're a definite
kind of couple."
"You mean a..." but Buffy had to duck again as the demon pushed for
a full frontal assault.
"Yeah, and now I don't know if we have to get one of those triangle
stickers or go to meetings. People send us fliers for rallies and marches.
I haven't marched in anything since band!"
The demon's foot came up, talons poised like steak knives.
"And I just...I just want to be Tara's special person. Not her lesbian
lover or her gay friend or anything like that. I mean...Does this mean
I can't like boys now? I still have feelings for Oz. I think I always will.
I still feel a little soft mushy thing for Xander--what does that make
me?"
The foot pounded down, Buffy rolling out of its way with millimeters
to spare as the ground shook and the Raptor's claws buried nine inches
into the earth.
"People are bisexual, Will," Buffy said as the demon tried unsuccessfully
to dislodge its foot.
"But I don't want to be bisexual...I mean...I don't know. When did I
get this way? How did it happen? How can anyone say I'm bisexual when I
don't even know? And...I'm scared."
The demon wrenched itself free in a small cloud of dirt and rushed Buffy.
She met the challenge, punching underhand with her left hand, while grasping
firmly on the thing's beak with her right. "Knew it was there somewhere."
Willow felt her eyes well up. "Well...this summer Tara's going to Montana
to work at an equestrian camp. You know, taking disabled kids horseback
riding?
"Aww...horseys!" Buffy used her left hand to draw a stake from her sling.
"That's so cool!"
"But what if...Buffy, what if it's easier when she's not around? When
I don't have to think about all these questions?"
The demon made pinched, huffing noises and struggled to break free of
Buffy's grip.
"Will, when you're in love every moment they're away, is a moment you're
a little less alive." Buffy struck once, solidly, with the stake. There
was an abbreviated cry from the demon, then a cloud of dust, and then just
Buffy facing Willow from behind her outstretched arm and clenched stake.
"Take it from one who know. I can tell you exactly how long until Riley
gets back."
"I don't know if I'm going to feel that way when she's gone. Tara."
Willow felt warm tears break and roll down her cheeks.
Buffy stowed the stake. "You have to find out."
Demon in the Closet
By: CDS
Tara's past comes back to wreck havoc on her relationship with Willow
Rated: Fiction M - English - Words: 12,222 - Reviews: 11 - Favs: 3 - Follows: 1 - Updated: 4/25/2001 - Published: 6/17/2000 - id: 34699
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