Carol combed back one of her curls behind her ear and tilted her head towards Therese, who was nestled between her side and her arm. She surrounded the girl's shoulders, looked at the lens, and smiled. Everyone remained frozen for several seconds, however, when nothing happened, she glanced at Therese, wondering if she wasn't smiling. With her hand poised as if she were holding an invisible camera, Therese was subtly indicating with her index finger where Abby had to press, and still, Carol didn't hear the familiar mechanical sizzle of the camera.
"What are you waiting for?" she asked, speaking through her teeth, her smile congealed.
"I'm waiting for you to kiss," answered Abby, with mock impatience.
Throwing her head back, Carol let out a string of heartfelt laughter. She peered at Therese again and saw that she was smiling widely and slowly shaking her head in incredulity, and that was when Abby chose to press the button.
"What the hell kind of picture was that?" Unable to minify her gleeful smile, Carol crossed one leg over the other and reached over to retrieve her golden lighter from the coffee table.
"Come on, where's the fun in posing?" Abby set down the camera, apparently pleased with her own cleverness.
"I agree." remarked Therese, with a smirk.
"Well, if the brilliant photographer says so..." Carol returned the smirk and lit another cigarette. "That's that."
Where was the fun in posing, indeed, she mused. One was so used to doing it, though, that it was often harder to act naturally: after becoming such an adept at walking around with a veil covering one's eyes, it was easy to forget that it could actually be removed. For as long as she could remember, there had been a kind of barrier acting as a filter between her true core and the persona which met the outside world's expectations, with her consciousness dallying between the two of them: for instance, in the past, becoming suddenly aware of her own solitude in a roomful of people at some agonizing dinner party.
Navigating a society of surfaces was like being an expert ice skater slashing figure eights on a flat, solid layer of ice. One could keep it up forever, and many did, since it was as straightforward as painting by numbers, provided one's surface didn't crack. She had always maneuvered rather competently, but she'd witnessed it happening to a number women in the shape of brief disturbances which had to be quickly stifled: a glass being smashed against the floor, a sharp "No, I won't!" or "I don't want to!" followed by a hissed command for the woman in question to lower her voice, and a shuffling of feet – for they were always removed from the room, those women, taken somewhere where they wouldn't be seen or heard. The fact that other people considered their reactions as out of the blue (because the triggers for those reactions were invisible to them) meant that they were passed off as nerves, fatigue, or inebriation ("She's had too much to drink – went straight to her head"). Everything, it seemed, was always passed off as something else – something blander, without edges, so it could be swallowed or assimilated easily.
People were generally not very accepting of individuals with baggage, preferring the company of those who had blanks to be filled: submissive beings onto whom they could project whichever traits they considered a proper lady, wife, mother should have. And then there was Therese, to whom she'd given a practically empty suitcase as a Christmas present, a suitcase which had only been empty in appearance; in truth, Carol had been about to fill it to the brim with her own baggage.
She finished off her drink and rested her head on the back of the loveseat, feeling slightly guilty for zoning in and out of Shirley's recounting of a work-related anecdote. Her eyes were intermittently watching Therese, who had taken off her jacket, set it aside, and folded it with care. It was possible, she'd discovered, to be at once pleased with the fact that Therese had warmed up enough to remain in her short-sleeved shirt, and to feel a jounce of arousal, for her body recalled having kissed that V-shaped neckline just a short while before. As her fingers traveled up the concave line that was the inside of Therese's bent arm, Carol remembered being told about her encounter with that girl -Genevieve something or other-, of how she had approached Therese and how Therese had excused herself. Carol had teased her a little about it, wondering if she'd liked the girl at all, but had mostly found it comical that Therese had hidden inside a bathroom because, quite simply, Therese was the bravest person she had ever met.
Late one night, in bed, around the time they'd finished moving all of Therese's belongings into the apartment, Therese had countered that it was Carol who was courageous. But Therese had been the one to face the enormous weight of Carol's baggage the first time she'd visited her house and, instead of stealing away, her wondrous reaction had been to say that she wanted to know more: a cautious "I want to ask you things" over the phone. After an initial amusement and curiosity, Carol had soon perceived that that unwavering, quietly strong girl wished to help her, to do things for her, and it had disarmed her completely. Moreover, Therese had wanted to know her – they'd both wanted to get to know each other, as if the mysterious, ethereal sense of understanding each other had only heightened the need for materializing it. Carol had in turn pleaded for her to ask her things, because she'd felt so alone that she'd started to believe that she was slowly fading, blown away little by little like a statue of sand.
How to explain that Therese's mere presence and her clear acceptance of Carol's propositions to continue seeing each other had helped her to feel more solid, more real, as the vacuous world surrounding her rapidly crumbled? "How are you possible?" Carol had whispered to her more than once in the amber cocoon of their bedroom. The more Therese had looked at her and the more Carol had allowed herself to react to her, the more she'd felt like she was recovering an old, buried sense of self. No wonder Therese was a photographer, and no wonder Carol's present for her had been a camera. Stuck to the wall of Therese's kitchen, Carol had seen an image of herself taken from a certain distance, seeing herself as Therese had seen her: with an uncertain half-smile on her lips, like the possibility of a promise, or a yet uncooked feeling. She had inspected herself from that new point of view, disregarding Therese's self-criticism, for she'd inhabited a universe where practically everyone made a point of telling you how you looked -be it with excitement, with concern, or comparing you with others-, but few people truly meant it, and fewer people still attempted to really see you. "No, don't," Therese had protested when Carol had been about to switch off the lamp that night in Waterloo. "I want to see you," she'd added, and Carol had let the amazement wash over her, asking herself for the millionth time what went on inside that astounding head of Therese's, and if she actually knew that those were the most perfect words she could have chosen to utter.
"No, no, leave it." Therese gestured for Shirley to stop piling up plates and glasses, but the redhead pretended not to hear her, and marched into the kitchen with a smug smile on her face and with Therese trailing behind, still asking her to leave it.
Glancing at Abby, Carol chuckled and shook her head. "Well, I guess that's you every single day."
"I don't know what you're talking about," said Abby, pretending to ponder about it with a faraway stare.
The four of them moved towards the entrance of the apartment at the sluggish pace of guests who didn't particularly wish to leave and of hosts who didn't want to usher them too hastily. Huddled around the front door, they chatted about doing this again soon, in the manner of every single group of people who met once in a while, with the exception that they were being honest. Carol felt so much joy and comfort in having both her friend and Therese with her that she could only compare it to the warmth of Christmas.
"Goodbye, my darlings," Carol slid over to kiss Shirley's cheek while Abby did the same with Therese, and then they changed places, shifting with difficulty in the reduced space.
A lingering cocktail of perfumes, caused by the distribution of coats and scarves, descended upon them once they shut the front door behind their friends. Therese inched closer to her and kissed her, slowly letting go of her lips, with her hands just above Carol's waist.
"Is Abby hiding somewhere with a camera?" she asked softly, touching the girl's nose with her own.
Therese briefly stroked her cheek with the back of her fingers. "I'm going to take that shower."
She watched the dark-haired girl walk down the corridor and enter their bedroom, and then realized what she'd said; offhand, jocose remarks about people spying on them would simply never be very funny. Following Therese's footsteps, Carol paused before the closed door of their unused, spare bedroom and pictured herself opening it and seeing it transformed into the bedroom of a child, a small bundle of a girl asleep on the bed. Why would she decorate it, to visit it and make a fuss over it as if it were a mausoleum? But maybe someday Harge would allow Rindy to stay, and then together they'd decide the decoration of her room. At least she saw Rindy enough that she would not forget that Carol was her mother and enough for Carol to know who or what Rindy was talking about without needing to interrupt her to ask for further contextualization.
Upon reaching the bedroom, she heard the sound of running water and spotted Therese's clothes neatly folded on the cedar chest at the foot of the bed. She dropped her earrings, necklace, and bracelets into her jewel case and, as always, paused to look at her photograph with Rindy -her favorite-, which Therese had taken when they'd gone to a park. She took off her clothes, placing them next to Therese's in a small pile. The smallest things appeared to make her smile dreamily now, such as the sight of her shoes aligned with Therese's on the floor, for there had been a time when something so simple had been nothing but a chimera. At first, she'd done the opposite of keeping Therese away from the chronic intricacies of her life, but had released her impromptu when there had been nowhere to run. During her weakest moments, she'd wished she'd asked Therese to wait, but it had all seemed too hopeless when she'd sat down to write that letter. And so Therese had flown, so that, when they'd met at the Ritz Tower, apart from bursting with pride for her, Carol had felt insecure – more than on previous occasions when she'd proposed her something. "It's nice of you to see me," Carol had said, right before sitting at the small table for, if she'd been trained for anything, it was to move behind that vapid and dishonest -but safe- filter of propriety. "Don't say that," Therese had responded. It had been offensive, Carol admitted, to reduce the importance of their seeing each other to that nonchalant, formulaic phrase.
Stark naked, Carol tiptoed into the bathroom's icy floor and glanced at their robes, which hung side by side from two pegs on the inside of the door. She opened a fraction of the coral shower curtain and stepped inside the tub, thankful for the hot cloud of vapor which welcomed her. Therese was standing directly below the shower head, facing the wall, and she smiled at her without startling and without turning around completely, her dark hair plastered to her forehead and temples like a cute plane pilot cap. Setting free the hunger which had been building up all evening, Carol approached her, reaching the bell-shaped rainfall, and pressed her lips to the back of Therese's neck. She made her way down the girl's vertebrae with devotion, as if they were the cobblestones forming the path which would lead her home.
"God, that feels..." muttered Therese, placing her hands flat on the tiled wall and bowing her head, but Carol was already grabbing her hips and turning her around.
She kissed round Therese's navel and moved upwards, enjoying the texture of her skin with the constant, warm layer of water covering it. Her parted mouth slid effortlessly over the brunette's breasts, and she made a point of avoiding the girl's nipples for as long as she could bear it. Grinning when she felt Therese's hand gripping her hair, Carol pushed up against her with her thigh, earning an unabashed moan which echoed through the bathroom. Her fingers dug into Therese's lower back, keeping her propped against the wall as she started moving her hips and her thigh. She delivered a series of lingering bites to Therese's breasts and dragged her tongue underneath and between them, finally arriving to her nipples. She took her time tending to them, drawing unending circles, and releasing them only to start again. Meanwhile, her right hand departed from Therese's back and squeezed the inside of her thigh before crawling upwards. She leveled her head with Therese and kissed her, reveling in the way the girl attempted to communicate her desperation through the urgency of her lips and her tongue.
But Carol knew everything about the language of Therese's body; she listened to the hypnotic hum of that skin and knew how to act accordingly. Her fingers moved between Therese's legs and brushed her lips, gasping at how good it felt to touch her. The brunette bit and sucked on her lower lip, wanting to incite her further, and Carol pressed her fingers to her lips, slipping between them with ease. Her fingertips became instantly coated with a warm wetness which had nothing to do with the hot water from the shower, and she traced shapeless, infinite shapes with Therese clinging to her, biting Carol's neck, and emitting the most delicious, nonsensical sounds against her skin.
"I want..." mumbled Therese, between deep but hurried breaths.
"Yes?"
"I want to touch you. I've been waiting all day... to touch you."
"Have you?" she asked teasingly, kissing the rivulets of water which broke off at Therese's jaw. "Let's go to bed."
They climbed out of the bathtub and scrubbed their bodies and their hair with a couple of towels, quickly, to get over with such a formality. Meanwhile, Therese's eyes never left her own. There was nothing coy about Therese, despite appearances or misjudged first impressions from other people. Her vitality sparked Carol's every day, and aroused an instinct in her which had been dormant since forever. For all her ruminations about how Therese looked at her, more often than not, Carol found herself looking at Therese with renewed wonder.
She followed Therese's adorably tousled hair into the bedroom and they both hurried to get into bed, damp as they were. Carol loathed the idea of Therese being cold, especially at home, and she pulled the covers over their heads and got as close to the girl as she possibly could in a tangle of limbs. After a moment or two of breathy giggles with their faces buried in the curves of each other's necks, Therese's lips searched for hers. Gently pushing Carol against the mattress, the brunette moved on top of her, and Carol felt her own legs part with a will of their own to make room for Therese's hips.
The coolness of their skin, it seemed, had already faded, for Carol cupped Therese's face and found that her cheeks were burning. A groan caught in her throat when Therese lowered her head to kiss her breasts and she was able to feel the vibration of her muffled sounds. Her back arched as soon as Therese's mouth began designing a path of her own, a thorough itinerary down her body, with plenty of stops, not unlike they'd done months and months before in her car.
Therese placed a warm hand below Carol's navel and sucked on her lips with what could only be described as gluttony. She traced them with her tongue briefly before pushing into her center, stroking her clit with an ardent rhythm. Carol hooked her legs around the brunette's shoulders, feeling as if Therese were holding her very existence between her hands.
"Look at me." whispered Therese, as she entered her with her fingers, and Carol managed to do so, wanting to scream, or actually screaming, surrendering all that she was, and yet feeling more complete than ever.
When Therese appeared magically beside her to kiss her, Carol swirled her tongue over the girl's moist lips, tasting herself. She had materialized in an equally magical way in her life -"flung out of space", as she herself had put it-, and she considered it nothing short of miraculous that they had paused long enough to recognize each other, to realize that they had found each other, so that, when they had looked at each other across the crowded restaurant of the Oak Room, it was as if their fretful souls had rested at last, saying "Oh, there she is. Finally."
"My love," she murmured, stroking the corner of Therese's mouth with her own lips as she uttered the words.