Chapter 10: You Want the Marrying Type, a Commitment
It was a quiet flight. In the five hours of space between Toronto and Vancouver, Tegan slept - or appeared to sleep - for about three. Jamie, normally a good sleeper, still couldn't settle her agitated mind enough to sleep, given the fact that she was heading towards two weeks with Tegan - who was more depressed and distraught than Jamie had ever seen her - alone. The silence was not strained; neither one of them, it seemed, felt compelled to fill it with mindless chatter, which was a relief to Jamie. But Tegan was a talker, and when Tegan was silent, Jamie couldn't help but feel uneasy. Somewhere over the flat expanse of Saskatchewan, Tegan started chewing on her fingernails and Jamie, somewhat hypocritically, gently pulled Tegan's hand away from her mouth. Tegan said nothing, but stopped biting her nails and looked away as Jamie took a glance at her own distressed cuticles.
They took a taxi from the airport to Tegan's apartment. Tegan half-heartedly pointed out the sights to Jamie, who had seen them before, on two separate occasions, for two separate shows. You don't have to entertain me, Jamie wanted to say. Jamie, who had always had difficulty maintaining eye contact with Tegan, now found it even harder to look her in the eye, the way she found it hard to watch a fish twitch and flop in the bottom of a boat. It was painful to watch.
"And this," Tegan said, pointing out the window, "is where you go if you want to buy meth." Jamie looked out the window at an assortment of bedraggled people, toothless in some cases, sallow, erratic. She thought of tiny Tegan walking past these people every day on her way to the bus.
"I'll mark that on my map," she said, and Tegan chuckled.
A moment later, they were setting their bags down next to Tegan's kitchen. Tegan's apartment, Jamie thought, disbelief washing over her. My life. Not real.
Tegan showed Jamie to the guest bedroom; showed her the bathroom, the kitchen, the food in the cupboards. She was trying too hard to be fine, and it was an obvious struggle.
"So, what do you want to do while you're in Vancougar?" Tegan asked, gazing forlornly at the bleak contents of her fridge. "Want something to drink? I've got. . . um. . . mustard and, uh. . . soy sauce. . ." Tegan said wryly, and Jamie laughed.
"As refreshing as that sounds. . ."
"Beer?"
"I think I prefer mustard," she said.
"Haha, oh, I have Orangina."
"That sounds good," Jamie said, and Tegan handed her the bottle, kicked her sneakers off in dramatic fashion, and flopped onto the couch heavily.
"Ugh," Tegan groaned. "Is it bedtime?" Jamie took a sip of her fizzy drink, checked the clock on the stove.
"Well, it's after midnight in Toronto so. . ." Jamie finished her drink, went to the bathroom to brush her teeth and wash the airplane off of her face, and when she came back, Tegan was asleep, face down on the sofa. Jamie fetched a blanket from the foot of her bed and gently covered Tegan with it. From Tegan's balcony, she could see the harbour with its huge orange cranes that looked like skinny metal giraffes. It was raining and silent and she was homesick for a place that didn't really exist. She went to bed before 9:30 Vancouver time.
The next day, they surprised themselves by getting up early and starting in on the editing. There were hours and hours of footage to go through. Tegan was still not in the mood to do much of anything else, and Jamie was only in the mood to be with Tegan, so they stayed in Tegan's condo, sitting at an old wooden table in front of her iMac, and watched countless clips of shows, backstage antics, moments on the bus. They discussed the material, but little more; it seemed like the weight of a smile was more than Tegan's face could bear.
Jamie clicked open another video file and it started playing. Tegan was telling a funny story about what people do when they get out of a five year relationship, and Sara interjected more than once to tease Tegan about doing a DJ set in San Francisco. They were funny, charming; their banter was easy and the chemistry between them was so obvious to Jamie now that she knew the truth. Tegan gave a short laugh at one of Sara's comments which turned into a sigh. She sat with her chair close to Jamie's, holding her chin up with one hand, elbow on the table touching Jamie's arm and, as always, making Jamie's pulse quicken. After a moment, Tegan put her hand over Jamie's mouse hand, and clicked the video off.
"Pick another one. . ." she said quietly, and Jamie did, clicking on the next link in the list. They watched the whole of the song quietly; Sara was singing "Not Tonight," and Jamie had brought the shot in close to her face as she sang. Tegan's harmonies in the background gave Jamie shivers, but the focus was on Sara, her bangs falling over one eye, both eyes closed, her silhouette eclipsing the indigo light behind her.
What will bring me home. . . Sara sang as they watched. What will make me stay, stay. . .
"Wow, she's really beautiful," Jamie said, forgetting herself for a moment. She heard the slightest sigh from Tegan, and then a light laugh.
"Thanks," she said cheekily. Jamie looked at Tegan with a grin, and Tegan shrugged, chin still resting in her hand. "Twins," she explained unnecessarily, and Jamie nodded. They watched the rest of the song and the banter that followed. When Sara talked about how there was no one she would rather share a face with than her sister, Tegan got up silently and went to the bedroom.
Jamie continued with her work. There was a lot of good material from the shows, funny interviews with the boys, some good moments with fans. She worked for another hour with no sign of Tegan. She couldn't really make any big decisions about the footage without Tegan, though, so after that hour, worried, she decided to check on her. She got up from the computer and quietly padded barefoot across the hallway towards Tegan's bedroom door, which stood halfway open. She peered around the edge of the door into the stillness within.
"Tegan?" Jamie spoke, tentatively, into the quiet room. Jamie made out Tegan's shape, as she lay, curled up, facing the door, clutching a pillow to her face. She was shaking, and obviously trying not to. Jamie approached the bed, and, after hesitating for a moment, sat on the edge. What can I say? she asked herself. There's nothing I can do to make this better, but I can't just do nothing, either. "Hey. . ." Jamie said softly, touching Tegan's shoulder. "It's going to be okay. . ." she said, hating the words but at a loss for anything better. Tegan, her face covered by the pillow, continued to shake, struggling to contain it. Jamie sat by helplessly for a few minutes, awkwardly rubbing Tegan's arm, before deciding that she didn't belong. All she could do was deliver kind platitudes, comforting cliches that meant nothing, and, for all she knew, might not even be true. Tegan didn't need someone telling her she'd be fine without Sara; she needed Sara. Jamie was in the midst of standing when Tegan reached out one hand and caught her wrist.
"Wait . ." Tegan started, and Jamie sat down again on the edge of the bed, Tegan still gripping her wrist, her face still hidden behind the pillow.
"Okay," Jamie said, and, after hesitating for a second, cautiously laid down on the bed, curling up on her side, facing Tegan. She waited like that for a while, watching Tegan, listening to her choke back her sobs, suffocating them with her pillow, feeling the tremors of Tegan's body through the mattress. After a few minutes of uncertainty, Jamie took hold of the pillow and gingerly pulled it away from Tegan's face. Tegan finally released the pillow, and then covered her face with her hands. "It's okay to just cry, you know," Jamie said softly. "You don't have to like. . . choke to death. . ." She took hold of one of Tegan's hands and gently pulled it away from her face. Tegan did not open her eyes. Her face was wet with tears, red, pained, her nose running. She's still beautiful, even with her nose running. With Jamie holding one of her wrists, she covered her eyes with the other. "I think you're just going to give yourself a headache trying not to cry. Why are you trying to stop? Everyone cries. It's fine," Jamie said, rubbing Tegan's shoulder, tenderly tucking a lock of hair behind Tegan's ear. "And," she said shyly, trying to add some levity to the situation, "I still like you when you cry. . ." With a short laugh that turned into a choking sob, Tegan put one arm around Jamie's waist and pulled closer, burying her face in Jamie's chest. Surprised, Jamie put her arms around Tegan and held her, Tegan's sobs echoing through Jamie's body, her tears soaking into Jamie's shirt. As she lay there, holding Tegan, feeling her trembling breaths, she thought of Sara's words in the airport. . . this can't go on. . . it's wrong. She thought of all the things that Tegan was losing, then, at least in her mind. Was she losing whatever remained of a normal relationship with her sister? Was she losing a lover, or something more than that? Was she losing a soul mate, if such a thing even existed? Had all of their indulgences in their feelings for each other made it impossible for them to relate to each other in any other way? Or permanently shamed them into silence? As Jamie felt the wetness from Tegan's tears against her skin, she thought that maybe Tegan was losing all of those things, and she wondered which of those things hurt the most.
"Shhhhh," she whispered softly to Tegan, hesitantly reaching up to stroke Tegan's hair as she cried. "It's okay. . . it's going to be okay. . ."
They stayed like that until they both fell asleep.
…
It wasn't the three hour time difference that woke Jamie the next morning, but the odd sensation that someone was very close by. She awoke with a start and opened her eyes to find Tegan's face regarding hers thoughtfully. Jamie was lying on her back with her arms above her head, a position she often awoke in, and Tegan was lying next to her, her head propped up on one hand, watching her closely.
"Hey. . ." Jamie mumbled, groggy and surprised. Tegan lay close enough that Jamie could feel the heat from her body. She was very very close. Jamie's stomach dropped. "Um, are you okay?" she asked Tegan awkwardly. Indeed, Tegan's eyes were very puffy, and she looked like she hadn't slept at all. "You look tired." Tegan nodded a little, not taking her eyes off of Jamie's. The intensity of her look, with the vertical crease between her eyebrows and the faint trace of a smile, added new layers of confusion to a situation that Jamie's brain was still too foggy to comprehend. She'd held Tegan as she cried, for a long time, and then somehow she had slept. . . and now Tegan was looking at her as if she'd just discovered something new. The eye contact, though, was making Jamie nervous; she needed to either say something or do something, but her body's response to Tegan's nearness prevented her mind from catching up. Not to mention the fact that her arms were still up above her head, making her feel very exposed.
She didn't need to say or do anything, though, after all; Tegan looked slowly from Jamie's eyes to her mouth, and, suddenly enough to send a slight spasm through Jamie's body, Tegan reached her free hand over and pulled her body on top of Jamie's. A slight, involuntary gasp of surprise escaped Jamie's mouth as the warm skin of Tegan's belly pressed against her own, in the little space where her t-shirt had lifted. Tegan's hands were now on either side of Jamie's head, Jamie's arms were still awkwardly folded above her, and her surprised eyes were wide and fixed on Tegan's as a rush of heat flooded through her.
"You know, you really are. . ." Tegan began in a low voice, her eyes scanning from Jamie's eyes down to her lips again, "a sexy motherfucker." In her eyes, in her voice, there was curiosity, a hint of laughter, and warmth. And still, as was obvious to Jamie, pain.
Jamie wouldn't have known what to say even if she'd had a chance to say something, but she didn't. Her mouth was still slightly open in surprise when Tegan's lips met hers, soft and warm and a little wet, and Jamie forgot to breathe in the four seconds of the kiss. She didn't have time to breathe much after the kiss, either, when Tegan pulled her face back just a few inches and looked her in the eye again. Jamie's heart was pounding now, hard enough to transmit its pulsations through her chest and into Tegan's, pressed against hers. All she had time for was a quick, surprised uh before Tegan's mouth was on hers again, and this time the wet softness of Tegan's tongue met hers, Tegan's hand was on her cheek, then running through her hair, and then cradling the back of her neck. She could taste Tegan's mouth, a hint of toothpaste, and although she herself hadn't had time to brush her teeth yet, she couldn't make herself care.
Tegan's hips shifted and pressed against hers and her breath caught in her throat. I've literally died, she thought. There are no organs left. The thieves got them all and I've died and this is the afterlife. The pounding of her heart had intensified, sending ripples of lesser pulsations to all the parts of her where blood flowed. She reflexively lifted her arms from where they were resting above her head, and, as Tegan continued to kiss her, her hands cautiously found Tegan's hips and the soft cotton of her pajama pants. Her fingers slipped under Tegan's t-shirt and up her back, over the smooth warmth of her skin, pulling her down, closer, tighter. Part of Jamie wanted to ask her, What are you doing? Do you really want to be doing this? but with Tegan's mouth on hers, there was nothing she could say.
Tegan broke the deep kiss at last and lifted her face. Her chest and belly were still pressed against Jamie's; Tegan's hips, now, were between Jamie's knees.
"Jamie," Tegan said suddenly, somewhat out of breath, looking for eye contact again from Jamie, but Jamie could only look in her eyes for a moment before closing her own; her face, and everything else, felt flushed, inflamed.
"Mmm?" she managed.
"You like me, right?" Tegan asked. Jamie opened her eyes, met Tegan's again, as she repressed a sudden, manic giggle.
"Uh huh," she said, incredulously, with a short, breathless laugh.
"Do you think I'm normal?" Tegan went on, joking and yet not, with a trace of a smile, her eyes laughing, and then sad. Jamie nodded wordlessly, her mouth open, speechless. After a quiet pause, Tegan leaned down and kissed her again, slowly and deeply, pressing her hips down between Jamie's legs until Jamie involuntarily squeezed those hips with her thighs. The pressure of Tegan's pelvis between her legs was getting hard to take.
"Tegan. . ." Jamie struggled to say around the pulsing in her throat, as Tegan's lips grazed her ear, and then her neck, and then her collar bone, just above the neckline of her shirt.
"Mmmm?" Tegan asked, still gently kissing her skin, and Jamie drew in a quick breath as Tegan's fingers slid over her belly, and then, slowly, up inside her shirt. She stopped with her hand pressed against Jamie's breastbone, in the centre of her chest, where, despite Tegan's small frame, the weight of an anvil was flattening her lungs.
"Um. . . really, are you okay?" Jamie breathed, after a moment. Tegan's face was close to hers again, her brown eyes looking into Jamie's. The lines around her eyes were laughing.
"Are you okay?"
"I just mean. . . you've been so. . . sad," Jamie struggled to explain, her chest painfully rising and falling against Tegan's hand, trapped between her conscience and the hot ache that was filling her up. Tegan examined her eyes.
"Are you worried that I'm. . . using you?" Tegan asked in a low voice, with a faint suggestion of a smile. Jamie tried to laugh.
"No. . . but you-" She didn't finish her sentence, because Tegan drew one hand across Jamie's breast, and she shivered.
"You're shaking," Tegan whispered, with the slightest grin.
"No, I'm not," Jamie breathed, blushing more deeply as Tegan's fingers gently traced over her breast.
"You are," Tegan said, smiling, and kissed her again, even more slowly and more deeply than before, as her hand drifted down gradually, over Jamie's ribcage, and down her belly. Jamie's stomach twisted into a knot and she moaned, involuntarily, into Tegan's mouth, as Tegan's fingers slipped smoothly under the waistband of her underwear. Jamie reflexively grabbed Tegan's arm.
"No?" Tegan whispered against Jamie's lips.
"I. . ." Jamie paused, completely at a loss, drawing a breath.
"Then let me in. . ." Tegan whispered, kissed her mouth again, and again, and then, her face so close to Jamie's that the tips of their noses touched momentarily, she slid her hand down further. Jamie's breath caught in her throat, and she stopped breathing altogether.
"Aha," Tegan whispered, "God. . ." as Jamie, one hand gripping the shoulder of Tegan's t-shirt, pulled Tegan forward and pushed her face into Tegan's neck.
"Oh," she gasped, as Tegan's fingers found all the evidence of Jamie's arousal, gently circling, while everything she touched swelled and pulsed. Jamie squeezed Tegan, arms tight around her, as Tegan's fingers continued their slow movements. Tegan lowered her face, pressing her lips against Jamie's collarbone, and Jamie's hand slid up Tegan's back, around the back of her neck, gripping Tegan's hair unconsciously as the pressure from her fingers intensified. Jamie's mouth found Tegan's neck as she held onto her, and she gasped against it a second later when Tegan's two fingers stopped their circling and slid down slowly, lower, and, with gentle pressure, inside.
"Ack!" Tegan gasped in surprise, a whispered laugh as Jamie's hand, quite without her authority, convulsively gripped the hair at the nape of Tegan's neck. Jamie wasn't laughing, though. She didn't want to cry out, didn't want to make a sound, but she did anyway, her breath heavy with Tegan's, as Tegan's fingers pressed into her slowly. Her body was burning; they were both sweaty, and hadn't bothered to undress, so the fabric between them dampened and stuck to their skin. She clutched at Tegan, their bodies rocking together slightly as Tegan's fingers continued. Jamie's chest heaved, and Tegan's hot breath on her neck intensified her own laboured breath. She moaned, in spite of herself, as Tegan's fingers curled inside of her, come here. And she did, everything inside of her clenching, squeezing Tegan's fingers as the wave of contractions overcame her and, with one arm around Tegan's shoulders, she pulled her in tight and cried out, shuddering against Tegan's shoulder once, and then again, gasping, and then exhaling, hard and fast. She could hardly hear Tegan's soft murmur over the pounding of blood in her ears, in her chest, and her own ragged breaths.
"Oh, wow, haha. . ." came Tegan's soft voice.
Jamie released her tight grip on Tegan, went limp, a hand over her face as she lay there, catching her breath, each additional contraction an aftershock, shaking her body, squeezing Tegan's fingers again. Tegan's hand stayed where it was, still, and she looked at Jamie's face, flushed and damp with sweat, covered by her hand.
"Hey," Tegan said softly, but Jamie wasn't going to look in her eyes while her fingers were still inside. Maybe Tegan sensed this, because she gingerly, slowly withdrew her fingers.
"Oh," Jamie gasped a little. Tegan's hand moved softly over her belly again and came to rest, once more, in the middle of her chest. Jamie reluctantly moved her hand away from her face and opened her eyes to see Tegan's face, pink and damp like hers. Tegan leaned down and kissed her lips again, softly, brushing a damp strand of hair back from Jamie's forehead.
"You're sweet," Tegan said.
"God," Jamie said, covering her eyes with her hand again. Tegan laughed and gently pulled it away. After a few more kisses, Jamie's fingers tentatively slid down Tegan's hips and found the waistband of Tegan's pants, but Tegan gently caught her fingers, and lifted Jamie's hand to her face.
"Next time," she said, turning Jamie's hand and pressing her lips against its palm. "I just want to sleep."
"We just woke up," Jamie said, still somewhat breathless.
"Mmmhmmm," Tegan said, resting her head on Jamie's shoulder. They were asleep within minutes.