This is the quote that I thought of midway in the chapter from What's Love Got to do With It.

You know, ever now and then, I think you might like to hear something from us nice and easy. But there's one thing: we never, ever do nothing nice and easy, we always do it nice and rough. So we're gonna take the beginning of this song and to it easy, and then we're gonna do the finish rough.

-Tina Turner.

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"You should leave," the words came out slowly.

Tara felt Pam's shadow as she stood over her. She expected a scathing remark. Perhaps something fitting like the apple doesn't fall far from the tree or something other nonsense. She didn't want to think anymore she didn't want to feel anymore she pinched the bridge of her nose lost in her own thoughts hearing Pam's heels recede the front door. She wanted to reach up and grab her. To stop her from leaving because the last thing she wanted was to be alone. Then again this was her penance. She had let her mother in her life yet again and she would pay for it alone because involving Pam was out of the question.

Waiting to hear the door close instead she heard the click of the lock. She kept her head lowered until she finally braved a glance upward to find Pam standing with her arms crossed leaning against the wall. She was a goddess in Tara's mind. A woman she didn't deserve and she'd said as much, but it didn't stop her from loving her or being filled with a warm reassurance that there was still a chance for them despite her efforts to end it.

This woman was incredible.

"What are you doing?" she heard herself say. It sounded pathetic, but at least it wasn't harsh and unwelcoming.

"I don't have any plans for tonight. I'd thought I'd keep you company, to talk."

Tara rubbed her forehead, "what if I don't want to talk."

"You're going to," Pam assured her.

"Look Pam," she began but a warm finger pressed against her lips stopped her.

"I get it, I'm not happy about it, but I get it."

"Get what?" she asked around her lover's finger.

"You're ashamed of me."

Tara frowned.

"I didn't think that you'd be the type to worry about color."

"Shut up," Tara moved her hand away pulling her lover down onto her lap. "I'm not ashamed of you," she stated harshly eying the blond with passion and love. "It's the other way around, I'm sorry if I ever made you feel like you weren't perfect, you are—this has nothing to do with you."

"Why?"

"Because my mother…." She trailed off sighing. Tara knew she'd have trouble with this conversation.

"You're going to let her come between us," the blond attempted to pull away. Tara wouldn't let her.

"She's a leach, a bad thing that comes in and out of my life when I think I'm finally free."

"Babe?"

"Hmm?"

"You're mother's not herpes."

Tar ducked her head in her lover chest in an attempt to hide her amusement, "this is serious."

Pam chuckled, "so your mother's not going to win any awards for her maternal instincts. She doesn't own you," Pam continued soberly hooking her fingers under Tara's chin to look into her chocolate depths, "and she doesn't have a say in us. So stop pushing me away—you're not allowed."

"You don't know what you're getting yourself into. I want to be done with her but…"

Pam finished for her, "she's your mother."

"That no excuse," she turned away fighting the tears the subject of her mother provoked.

"Sometimes it's enough to look beyond her shortcomings and forget for a little while that she makes you unhappy."

"When'd you get wise and all knowing?"

"Since you left I've had some time to think about how I felt about you…everything really. You? Us? What's come between in a short amount of time?"

"I'm sorry I'm used to figuring these types of things out on my own."

"Don't."

Tara gave her a curious look.

"You don't have to anymore," Pam explained softening her tone. "You have me."

"You don't need to deal with my shit that's why it's called my shit."

"It's our shit if it affects you because we're a team as corny as that sound it's that simple my dear," she pushed Tara's hair behind her ear to admire her. "And I can excuse the last six months on one condition."

Tara looked at her warily.

"Tell me everything. I want to know everything."

The writer was at a loss for words. Loving Pam was easy opening up to her about everything including her mother filled her with trepidation. She felt Pam pulling away from her and she tightened her grip. The reassuring stroke of her hand calmed Tara down.

"I just want to get more comfortable," she crawls on the bed sitting against the headboard with pillows behind her.

Tara followed her dropping her head on Pam's lap.

"Where do you want me to begin?"

Pam stroked her hair, "wherever you want to begin."

Tara began appropriately at the beginning and with each story Pam saw her lover painting her life in a dark hues that belied her melancholy upbringing. And it made her relationship with her mother clearer. Lettie Mae was ultimately bad or ultimately good. She had a habit that she let take over every aspect of her life until something as dear as a daughter felt she needed to compete against the drink for her mother's affections. But, young Tara learned it was a losing game and it was better to let her mother's drunken stupors take their course throughout the night. There were other stories happier ones giving Pam a glimpse of the woman that Tara saw and loved. Whatever face she wore she would always be her mother and Pam didn't judge her for that—she didn't persecute her lover for the mother's shortcomings because Tara wouldn't the woman she was today without it.

The writer didn't want to move and the blond didn't want to either content to lay there elated that Tara would share so much after thinking the dark skinned woman didn't want to work at all. They were worth it weren't they.

"I still can't come home yet," Tara broke the companionable silence to deliver a blow to Pam's optimistic musings.

The blond considered, "ok."

Tara slid up to look into blue eyes. There were many meanings behind that single word and the writer wanted to know that Pam was truly ok. She could share her soul with her and everything that made up the dark skinned woman, but if she still had demons she needed to work out then it created problems for them. Lettie Mae was a problem for them. Whenever she comes into Tara's life she could bet to receive a visit from the nefarious friends her mother made in the short time she was in town. She gravitated to trouble and dragged it behind her damaging everything she came around including her daughter.

"I need you to understand. I'm doing this because I love you, this distance is killing me, but I love you that hasn't changed."

"You can't always fight you're battles alone. Why would you when you have someone willing to fight with you," she stroked her cheek, "for you." Pam was teetering on sappy, but she'd come here knowing she might risk an overly sentimental word or two for the sake of knowing Tara gave a damn. And she did give a damn so the blond had no qualms with whatever words that came out of her mouth that shared how she truly felt.

"You don't know what you're getting into?"

"I have a vague picture."

"You're not going to drive full speed ahead in a fog," Tara reasoned tiredly. "Let me weather this storm with my mother."

"You're not running," Pam wanted to be clear.

"I'm not running." Tara reiterated meaningfully, "I'm not."

They returned to their former positions at the head of the bed holding each other like buoys keeping each other afloat in the difficulty of being unable to give the other exactly what they needed. Resigned to not being enough they held onto the few things they were still sustained by their connection which were their love, devotion, and trust which had only recently been renewed after Tara let Pam in.

Pam didn't want to be understanding and say, "you have all the time in the world," because she didn't. She wanted their lives to go back to the way it was. She wanted her nights to be passion filled and the writer's hands alone knew where to please her and how much she could handle when teasing her. She didn't want to say it so she didn't.

Feeling their bodies react to one another again Tara was the first one to pull away. She didn't want Pam like this under these circumstances. She still lusted after her, she still loved her, but she wanted their reunion to be perfect and that couldn't happen when Tara was still in her current state of mind. It was wise to move away and she did avoiding blue eyes that were probably questioning her current move. And when she rose on her feet and found the blue she saw love and understanding staring back at her as she reached for her belongings again like earlier. Placing a feather like kiss and mildly responsive lips Pam fell into her lover's eyes hoping to impart with one look that she was loved and needed and sincerely missed.

"I love you."

Pam returned was happy to return the sentiment glad she didn't have to say it first and wonder if she had said it first would Tara have only replied to please her.

The blond's walk was shorter to the elevator. Her mind was filled with the possibilities of their lives together and happy because now she had hope. It was a wonderful feeling that catapulted her out of the elevator and into the lobby en route to her car. Her surroundings didn't matter she discovered they had faded away to her fantasies of feeling Tara under her bare skin again.

"Hello," she answered her phone with more life than she had in a long time which surprised the caller on the other end.

"Hello?" Sookie asked, "Pam is that you?"

"Yes, it's me," she smiled into the phone, "it's my number, my phone, my voice."

"You just sound…" Sookie couldn't put her finger on it, but she was displeased to hear it. Overjoyed might have been the words she was looking for in regards to her reaction to Pam's disposition. "So it went well?" she decided to ask instead of jumping to conclusions. Pam told her her plan to visits Tara's hotel in hopes to seeing her and talking. Sookie encouraged it knowing that the writer holed away in her room would enjoy the view of something other than uniform maids and the cold surface of the city and her room.

"Better than I expected," Pam gushed. "We talked, I met her mother—"

"Whoa," the blond stopped her, "you met her mother, when?"

"She came by tonight the woman is horrible, nothing like Tara at all. She was trying to protect me from her, she thinks she bad news or something. I just told Tara I wanted her and everything that came with her."

"What now?"

Pam shrugged first pausing outside of her car to the reflection. She was excited and she knew how to relieve that excitement lengthening her strides to get home. And this time she wouldn't mind as much going to bed alone with the smell of her lover still clinging to the sheets, she was inspired.

Too inspired to notice she was being followed or to react when someone stepped in front of her hitting her on the head. She crumbled to the ground dropping everything looking up at the dark sky from the flat of her back finding the floor and the room where Tara stayed.

The cell phone lay under the blond's car still on the line and listening intently after being startled by a struggle.

"This her?" Pam heard a male voice ask.

A familiar voice, familiar because she had just recently heard it, answered with a yea and then began a fit of coughing. Pam couldn't move. She was losing consciousness knowing she was in trouble faintly hoping someone would come for her. And the last thought before she was swallowed by dark was that no one would.

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For years running water the sound of it and the warm spraying down on her was a comfort to her. She remembered many nights without hot water when her mother used it all for herself or her boyfriend at the time leaving Tara the coldest water before she went to bed. Deeply affected by chill water during bath time she refused to wash in lukewarm water. She liked to the sensation of her skin burning while the hot water rushed down on her. She almost decided against a shower just to savor the scent of Pam on her, but she was consoled with the fact her sheets and her pillow would smell like her lover. When she dried and dressed she dropped down face first on the exact spot where the woman lay.

"Pam," she murmured in a hum. "Pam," she repeated in a smile her nipples hardening when she remembered what they had almost done on this bed.

She wondered if the blond texted her if she was home and safe. It was a habit they'd gotten into one evening when Tara insisted the blond stay one of the first nights they met each other. Pam had refused, but she promised she would text her when she got home creating a tradition. When Tara turned on her phone she saw messages and missed calls none of them were from Pam. This worried her. She recognized the number having yet to save it in her phone. It was Sookie Pam's best friend.

She dialed it.

Sookie answered on the first ring, "where the fuck have you been? What's wrong with your phone? Do You know how long I've been trying to call you?"

Tara ignored the questions responding with one of her own, "what's wrong?"