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Six Weeks

It's late morning, although this surely isn't the same day it was when I woke up.

There's so much more to say, there's more to ask. I don't know what I can even cope with, but real and imminent and close any day now, is Pip, for my mother and I to face.

One kiss can change your life.

Infrequent dating, meetings with strangers set up by well-meaning friends, hello-goodnight-thank-you-for-a-pleasant-evening, both of you. All of these events going nowhere, both of you. Pip's experiences documented in print, Renee's residing in a soft little memory compartment in my head. Mother, you lost Charlie. Is there someone else you haven't honestly acknowledged? To yourself? Someone who stopped you from finding anyone? Stopped you even from finding her? Maybe you've been living a long, long while blind. Because if you knew there might be someone you wanted, surely you would have pursued.

Lips won't even scaffold the words, I don't know how to approach this, though inside I'm eloquent. Internally I could frame it. All these years, your aloneness, your sporadic encounters. You didn't bring anyone home. Were they women, were they men, these people you were going out with? Not that it matters which, because it's okay. Just - what now? Pippa will walk through the door soon, soon, and surely you have to address this, Renee. She may have been in your past, and the two of you may have parted and left one another behind years ago, but you're about to be each other's present. You'll be under the same roof. She wrote a book about you! You can pretend to discount the before, you can make passing reference to it and smile fondly - I don't know. How important was it that you two kissed? How significant? Was it life-changing, Renee?

I already know it was. It engendered me. But mother, mother - what about you? Was it anything? Was it something? Because now we know it was something to Pip. It was everything to Pip.

And mother, don't tell me you haven't thought about this. Just don't. Although, knowing you - maybe you have, and you've moved to the next thing. Not because you don't care, not because it was too hard. Because you're intangible, unholdable, a dandelion clock. It's not your choice, it's your nature. You love, and love deeply, but you've no internal anchor. I hold you by a slender thread, and I'm all that keeps you anywhere near the ground. I've had you for years, and gotten to you know over the last few weeks, and I've gotten to know you over the last hour or so. It's new, this you. So new.

"Bella-Bo, it wasn't easy. Mom took me away, I gave birth to you; I looked after you and Mom worked, and then I worked while Mom looked after you. I studied - and there was no time. No time at all - every second was taken up with the demands of getting through every day and every next day. I pushed everything but the immediate to the back of my mind. Knowing Charlie was gone killed a part of me that's gone for good. In a way, it gave me a stoicism - but God it made me so mistrustful and wary. I did meet guys I liked, but I was terrified they'd be struck by lightning - the curse of me. If I had sex with someone they'd die. It took me years, and a lot of therapy before I could let anyone touch me again.

"And whoever I met - all the time, every time, my primary concern was my little girl. Who is this person asking me out? Are they interesting and amusing and attractive? That's what other people think about, but those weren't my concerns. My concerns were: does this person like kids? Specifically, my kid? Will my kid like them? And: if I'm going to go out with you, you have to understand - I don't get drunk, or take drugs, or stay out all night, or do anything that can compromise my ability to be physically present for my child.

"You've asked me about my dating. We were all young then, everyone I knew, and I was the only one with a baby. Any potential partners I met simply weren't mature enough. So, there were parties now and again, or dances, and there were people I had fun with, and who were nice, but never anyone I could be serious about."

"Were you dating women?"

"Occasionally. I was trying to figure it all out. And now I feel like I'm a hundred years old, and like I'm still a teenager at the same time. I don't believe there's just one love for any of us - I believe if you're open and receptive, and you're a loving person you'll find different levels of compatibility with different people, and you'll have options. Having said that, I think if Charlie had lived, he and I would be together and happy now."

Pause, long exhalation.

"Even when I dated women - and yes, Bo, I slept with some of them - I didn't think of myself as gay. I thought it was all about the personality and the mind, regardless of what body shape it turned up in. With Pippa, I thought I knew her inside out, and I never questioned or examined the way I felt about her. Being around her was just as natural as breathing. It simply didn't enter my head to consider whether I found myself attracted to her until well after she'd kissed me. When she kissed me it felt like an earthquake, and I had to get out of there. Then there was Charlie, and I knew I liked him. Then there was - well - then there was you. It was a long, long time before I let myself myself think about much more than diapers and bottle feeds.

"And, Bo - my world was turned on its end, anyway. I'd moved away from everyone and everything I ever knew - and Charlie wasn't around, and Pippa wasn't around. There was me trying to raise you while I was still growing up myself, and my mother trying to help me. You were an easy baby - I'll say that - you didn't demand much. You used to just look and look, all wanting to know about the world, curious and calm, open and ready for the knowledge to just flow into you. I read aloud to you, book after book after book, and you soaked up every word, and you'd repeat things back to me - whole phrases! So bright. And like your Dad, you didn't say much - but when you did, you went straight to the heart of everything. You and I were so different sometimes I didn't know what to do with you. But you were a gift to me, darling. I tried to show you everything - music, art, theatre, science, sport. Wherever your interests lay, I wanted you to find them. I hope you think you have choices open to you, baby."

I picture it, Renee, excitable, childlike, skipping on pavements and flying over the cracks, hand-holding with a skinny little child. "Look at the flowers, look at the birds!" she'd sing, but the child, me, was looking at the cracks. What an incongruous pairing. Or were we? Had I been born so that Renee would grow up? Renee is surely an adult now. But am I? Or are we growing up together?

That's something to ponder, and probably unanswerable. My mother in silver hair and lined skin will still be thrilled by every new day, I'm sure of it. She'll still dance to the beat of her senses, facing thrilled by the breeze, kinesthetic everlong and smiling at inner thoughts and outer wonders.

So what are her inner thoughts about what's just about to erupt? Let's work up to it.

"How was it when Pippa called you after all that time?"

Another moment, long and without breath. I don't know if she's formulating an answer, or thinking about conserves.

Then, "Could we have some lunch, Bo? Melon marbles with blue cheese and chilled chili prawns? We can talk some more later."

Not conserves, but she's lost the thread. Renee is exhausted. So am I.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Late afternoon, a knock on the glass door between the inside and the outside of the shoreside palace, and I jump.

Brown, sun-tossed in the sand and sea, scruffy and hairy-legged, mouth smiling but eyes not. They're intent, just for me, touching and want and sex and mouth and sex. A current flows between us, despite Suzy at his heel interrupting it, floating, whirling flash that she is.

"Come to the cafe?" he asks, voice musical and fluid and not something you could say no to.

Unless you - well, unless you just found your existence was predicated on a whim, or you just found out your father and your mother fucked in a flash, once ever, and then your father died by misadventure without knowing you were a speck on his horizon, or you just found out that your holiday house was given to you for free because its owner has harbored a lifelong crush on your mother...

Still, I feel the pull.

"I think that's an excellent idea," Renee says heartily.

The intensity of my day has left me somewhat over-sensitized, I know it. But I'll compartmentalize it all and store it somehow, because the necessity of him can't be over-ridden by what's happened. If he was an everyday ongoing mainstay perhaps I could put him on hold while I puzzle myself out, but he isn't. He and I have so little time I can't turn down an invitation. I can't decline a second. Renee and I can deplore ourselves for years, but Brown isn't tied to me inextricably by law and convention the way my mother is.

Yes, the cafe. Beach-walk, trudge the sand that Suzy skips over. You, Brown, yes.

Suzy pushes past her keeper and looks for Hal, nose in his basket rumpling the blanket as though she'll find him hiding somewhere in it. I gather sandals, and pass Renee on my way out. There is sorry and I love you in her eyes, and in mine too, mirrored right back. The truth she's imparted is not anything I could ever have imagined. I've already forgiven her, though she's paid for what happened - paid daily, yearly, and now she's paying again, wondering if I'm okay.

I can hardly bear to leave her, but Brown and I walk down to the sand, his arm immediately around me, fingers to my waist. Lips to my neck. Teeth to my neck. Oh, the Brown I surrender to, wanting to play and play. With me. His correct assumption of permission to touch.

He's effusive, telling me about his morning. Every little thing. He makes brushing his teeth anecdotally rich. Before we slept together I thought he was quiet - and now he wants to share all his moments. Mine, over the last few hours, are too private to share. I need to digest them into a form that can occupy space in my own head, never mind in somebody else's.

But he knows I'm a quiet type so he's undeterred, and the kissing and nuzzling and nibbling and story-telling continues with Suzy prancing about yelling her head off at seabirds. Introspect that I am - I don't utter a word.

In the cafe Tori, who was probably nicely conceived, not on the side of a road - bends towards him. Ostensibly to wipe our table, affording him a clear view down her front. She's not stacked, not by any means, but she's a girl, and those are tits in there. Brown averts his face and says, "Takeout?" to me.

Under a tree, one puppy panting and lolling, two humans sitting facing out to sea, Brown finally responds to my half-hour of silence.

"Bella?"

It's not directed at him, just beamed outwards.

"Hey, you've hardly said anything. In fact - oh, you're not really talking. Is anything the matter?" and, "What's wrong? What is it?"

I turn into him, seeking a dimness that will hide me, seeking his shoulder, which saved me from monsters when we were watching "The Thing", and saved me from vertigo and fear of falling on the ferris wheel. That shoulder, and the top of his chest and the curve of the arm that holds me could save me from all ills except the one weighing on me today.

I'm given time to wallow briefly in the warm place of him, but briefly is all. He pulls back and raises my chin with a finger.

"You're being very remote."

"Aren't you speaking to me?"

"You're leaving - when? A couple of days? Is this how you've decided to do it - this awful aloofness? Shut me down? Freeze me out? Are you ending things?" I register pain on his face.

Oh no - I don't mean to give him that impression.

"We haven't talked about this, about you going - I've avoided it, and so have you." A very deep sigh, from him. "Can we please talk about it now? Will you please just say something?"

"Sorry I'm like this. I don't intend to be. It's not you," I mumble, and the look he responds with is open-mouthed shock.

"You're not actually giving me the "It's not you, it's me" speech are you?"

No. "No."

"You can't, you can't!" Setting his jaw, eyes sparkling into the far away over the blue, he's very tense, and it's awful. This beautiful, beautiful boy has me at breaking point. The knowledge of my upcoming departure from him makes me ache. For a few hours back there, I forgot our impending separation, because of what my mind was suddenly filled with. Oh, I want to tell him what's going on, but although the past concerns me, it's someone else's story, and I can't violate their privacy. Constraint makes me into a mute. He takes my shoulders, and the tears tremble on his eyelids.

"Please. Be honest with me."

Well, sure. How do I phrase this? I'm weirded out is all, because I discovered this morning that my mother hasn't a clue as to her sexual orientation and my father is a guy she fucked for five minutes in a car one night when she was trying to figure out if she was a girl's-girl or a guy's girl, and he died shortly afterwards. To add to the absurdity and tragedy, the only other person who ever evoked her carnal desires and who is probably the one true love she never realized she cared for is turning up in two days time - and I'm smack-bang in the middle of this whole shitstorm, oh, and I think I love you, but Jeez, I'm leaving town. That's what's got me pre-occupied.

Brown's hands are at the sides of my face and I will fall.

"Bella." Quietly, deeply, heartfelt. "I know that, well, physically speaking, this thing with the two of us has only been a matter of days. But all in all it's been going longer than that. Hasn't it? And it's not a holiday romance. We need to talk. You need to tell me what you think. Don't leave me in this limbo."

Where are we? Who are we? I need to find a foundation again, to lock my self in now and here. We're on the grass. The sea beyond us, the street behind, the cafe to one side, the whole of this summer town and summer mood all about. It's not the real world. It's not mornings when you don't want to get up but the alarm clock nags you, and the bus will leave you behind if you're not at the stop, and you have to wear stockings and stupid horrible business clothes and work nose to the grindstone in an office or you'll be in penury. The real world is not this place where a beautiful boy sighs at you from beneath curved eyelashes and he has the most perfect mouth you've ever seen and his words touch you like velvet caresses while his body is both a pleasure machine and a playground and the scents and noises that come from him turn you into an animal.

"Edward." I have two more days. Two more days to have you. But Renee has knocked the stuffing out of me so that I don't even know if I have two minutes. Me? There was a me, I think, dimly.

And Brown, poor Brown, doesn't know without me telling him, and he assumes the very worst.

"Okay. Okay. Well, not okay. I've been thinking - hoping - that you and I really meant something, and we'd work out a way to see one another, and shit, Bella, I don't care how long it takes. You're studying - three years for your undergraduate degree? We can do it. Holidays, weekends... And then we decide where we'll be. Is this all too much for you? Are we on the same track?" Slow hurt in his voice. "What is this, and what are we going to do?"

Oh, it's so real. So real. What he's saying - every word. The look on him, his eyes, his face, he's waiting to take flight or to plummet. So am I, almost, if there's a way through the pure sludge that makes me feel so ill-conceived. Wrapped in self-absorption, self, self, I have to look outside, because just beyond the limits of my vapor-thin cowl of skin, Brown sits, anxious. He thinks it's about him, that this is rejection, and in doing so he is unguardedly showing me a fragility I hadn't suspected. He is showing me what I want - that he wants. Both of us want us. If I hurt him it could be irreparable.

"Edward, I'm kind of a mess right now. The timing is bad, really bad."

Tells him nothing, and he swallows and bites his lip, then puts his hands over his eyes.

"Just tell me straight out, please. Whatever you're going to say."

"Okay."

He waits.

"I've never said anything to you about my dad. That's actually because I didn't really know anything. Renee told me some stuff this morning, and it's wiped me out. That's it."

Instantly, his hand to my cheek.

"Truly? That's what you mean about the timing? You're so withdrawn like this because of hearing about your father?" Brown.

"God." Brown.

"I'm so fucking selfish. Jesus. I thought - never mind what I thought. Do you want to talk about him?" Brown. Relieved and concerned.

"No. Sorry. No. I can't. It's too raw."

"Oh, fuck." Reaches for me, pulls me in, holds me lightly. "I'm sorry. Putting pressure on you. You've never mentioned your father, and I didn't want to ask, because I thought if things were cool you would have spoken about him."

"He's dead."

Sharp intake of breath, Brown's hands move to my hair. "Bella, Bella." His lips are there too, he's kissing me. "Jesus. Did you just find out?"

"I kind of knew, but I hoped it wasn't true."

Not telling him any of the rest of it, I need time to get used to it all. Anyway, the tale is still unfolding.

"Sorry, sorry I hassled you. I just - when you didn't say anything I was so scared - I was worrying that this thing with me and you - well, oh, I'll shut up, I'm being stupid."

I haven't said anything to reassure him. I haven't declared myself. He's still anxious and he's trying to make out like he isn't. I want to kiss him. They're numbered now, our kisses. Reach up, hand to the back of his head.

"Mmm?" he says, not expecting this. His mouth, open for me immediately, tasting of coffee. I press, holding him and he makes a quiet sound, my body twisting towards him and then he makes a louder sound, still muffled because my mouth is over his.

He pulls back. "Is there anything you want to tell me?" he says, hope a quiet gleam.

"I - "

He won't let me kiss him again. But this shouldn't be hard to say. Even with whatever the hell else crapstorm flung itself around me today. What I need to tell Brown snuck up weeks ago and has become stronger and more of an imperative. How do I phrase it?

"Edward. I don't know how to do this. I want to work out a way I can still see you, after Renee and I leave. If that's what you want. It's what I want."

Oh! Now I'm allowed his mouth again, in fact I couldn't dodge it if I tried. There's an instant of a smile before his tongue hits mine. Suzy barks at us and we're both grinning in the kiss, trying to ignore her, trying to forget that our hands have to stay above board and decent, and I can't just open my legs, and he can't just roll between them.

When he finally peels away, that grin is plastered in place.

"Yes, definitely. Definitely. Oh, God, fuck, yes," then, "I did know that you weren't just pretending to like me. I could tell."

Cocky now, the opposite of how insecure he was a minute ago. Then he was heartbreaking, now he's irresistible. Breath on my neck, fingers stealing up my throat, his thumb rubs my ear lobe before he nips it in his teeth.

"How could you tell?" I murmur, faint as he tugs gently. He doesn't answer until he's had enough and I've gone limp against him.

"Your nipples. They like me a lot."

I have to laugh at him. Or rip his shirt off. "Yes, they do," I nod. They're pointing right at him.

Silence, but for snuffling noises and kissing sounds, until Suzy sticks her nose on my bare waist, where Brown's devious hand has pulled my shirt free of my jeans. I yelp, and we resurface, blinking, laughing. Brown takes the fluffy puppy's blazed face and regards her seriously.

"Bella?" he asks her. "Could you maybe - have you thought about - would you consider - not going? As in - staying?"

.

.

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Well, that only took forever. Sorry for the delay.