Chapter 37: She says I smell like safety and home
You kind of leap at her, pressing your mouth to hers awkwardly. And pull away quickly, because you're not this brave.
"How do you always manage to smell so damn good," she asks paused with her nose near your neck. When she breathes out it tickles you, but not as much as her mouth, gentle and soft, on your neck.
You didn't think you'd be able to stand it, something so close to your throat, something so intimate… and you barely can, but not for the reasons you imagined. Anticipation for something you're still not sure of.
You have her pressed against the door you shut behind her, resting against your dressing-gown. She pulls her head back and rubs your upper arms.
"Cold? She asks, and that's when you notice you're trembling. In lieu of a coat she reaches for her shirt, regardless of the fact that you're in your room, and there are a dozen things you could put on that are a lot warmer than her shirt. With shaking hands you still hers where they're working on a button hole.
"Not cold," you tell her.
"But you're shaking," she starts questioningly, then realisation dawns in her eyes. She thinks you're scared. "Oh," she says. 'I can go..." she says, dropping her hands and yours in front of her.
Don't you dare," you tell her. "You've got all of me, Betty." She's seen all of you, all your scars. She's seen right through Kate Andrews and Marion Rowley and found you somewhere in the middle. You tug her toward you and step back toward the bed. She follows and finally sits beside you. She's left one of her hands in yours and you can see her looking at her other hand, and your knee, then back to her hand again so you're really not surprised when her free hand lands a little too casually on your knee.
She's touched your knee before, you're sure of that, but you didn't pay so much attention to the way she touched you back then. Right now her palm is fitted over your knee. And you certainly notice it now. Her fingers dance out a nervous tattoo on your knee and she looks so... uncertain when she looks back up at you that you start wondering. She's done this sort of thing before, with Ivan at least, if not anyone else; she has a few years on you. She must have done this before.
She turns to face you.
"You know I love you, don't you?" She asks. "And that I think you're pretty good-looking?" She's trying to sound casual but the persistent tapping on your knee belies her nerves. You just nod patiently, waiting out her nervous preamble. "And that I can't take you places, like Ivan could, and that people are never going to understand, other than Gladys but I don't know why she gets it, and it's not going to be easy..." and if you let her keep talking, she'll talk herself right out of this, so you take your hand back and put it on her face.
"I don't care if you never take me anywhere. As long as you're with me, it'll be fine." And she turns her face so she's kissing your palm.
"It's going to be better than fine, Kate," she says, grin spread across her face.
Author's note: title from Mary Lambert's song 'She keeps me warm'.
Also, the most quantifying moment of Christmas was the complete pardon of Alan Turing. 55 years too late to do him any good, and not extended to the hundreds of unnamed homosexuals chemically castrated for 'gross indecency', but a start, nonetheless. God speed, good man.