Sara
The passing of time, dear—the passing of time is what makes our hearts complete again, somehow intact, sort of cured—sort of. The passing of time is what makes us forget, change, wither slowly. Winter after winter, summer after summer and the pain goes away, the memories fade, the visions vanish. They say time heals the wounds and that's because with time you start to get over things, and sometimes forget.
With time, I also start to speak normally again…almost. However, time still doesn't heal my paralysis easily and quickly as my mother has anticipated.
April, 2009—I still use the wheelchair. I still can't walk. Jane has taken my mother's role. It's good and bad at the same time. While my mother was making Tegan uncomfortable, we still had our private, alone time. Jane is an obnoxious, curious woman. We don't get to have our alone moments without her butting in. We don't get to talk, or touch, or kiss. The only time we can be alone is when we sleep, or when she runs some errands on the weekends.
And that's the only time we can have sex.
"Oh god, oh god. I'm getting there, I'm so close," Tegan screams while fucking herself on top of me. I watch the black phallus move in and out of her while she straddles my hips. I put my hands on her sides and push her up and down roughly, trying to get my body to join the moves and thrust in her, but it's hard and I give up on it. She doesn't need it though, because she is very close. I touch her clit and rub quickly. Her breasts are swaying with every little move, making me crave putting my hands on them. They are tantalizing. I cup them while she moans and shudders, lowering her head to kiss me while coming.
A dulcet giggle leaves her breathless lungs while she collapses on top of me. "Oh, God," she says. "I can't fucking breathe. That was so good."
"I'm glad."
She pulls the toy out of her carefully and gets up, searching for her puffer. "It's so hard to pull out like that. The pain rushes in, making you forget the sweet orgasm." She pushes back her sweaty locks. "Fuck."
"I'm sorry."
"It's not your fault, hun. Don't apologize." She gets me rid of the harness then stretches, looking at her phone then back at me. "Babe, I want to touch you. You think we have time before Jane gets back?"
"I…I hope so." I bite my lower lip to hint at my need. If only I can spread my legs.
"Okay, love." She sits near my legs in order to grab them like she does each time. Slowly, she parts them and puts them on her shoulders. She lowers her body between them and lifts me up a little bit. She begins to kiss my thighs, slowly, gently, sweetly.
We usually practice this position and I receive enormous pleasure when she eats me out, making sure to prolong the sucks on my clit so when she lets go, I miss her warm mouth instantly. Sometimes she pushes a finger or two, which makes me shake uncontrollably till I come. One time we tried a position I never thought we would ever actually do. She straddled my face because that's the only way I could eat her out. A little bit throughout the process, Tegan turned around. Slowly, her body descended till I began to feel her hot breaths cooling off the saturation between my legs. She fucked me with her tongue and I did as well. It was a moment of supreme euphoria, an undiscovered galaxy of revelation. Fresh ideas always make our spark glow, make us receive each other's thoughts beautifully, make us understand each other a little bit more. Sex always toys with the emotional state of our relationship, which has to fiddle with the rational one eventually.
So in sex we let go of the suppressed, we put everything on the surface. After making me reach the nirvana I seek for when I'm around her, my nerves calm down and my body relaxes. We spend the few minutes before Jane's return kissing each other passionately, whispering loving words and giggling as if we are teenage lovers.
Life has been passing by quickly; I've been reading none stop. Jane makes me read aloud fifty pages daily while she cleans the house or drinks her afternoon tea. Sometimes we chat about private things like our sex lives and our feelings like we used to when I still lived in my parents' place and she worked there. When she helps me shower, we prefer to talk about the weather and what food she and I would like to make. She taught me how to master my cooking skills, making Tegan moan in delight when she tastes anything.
Rob calls me each day to check on me, so does Melancholic Emy (that's what Jane calls her).
"She's so depressed all the time, I just feel, I don't know, strange when she's video chatting with you and I'm around."
"She…she has her issues, Jane. Th…they're trying to make a b..baby and it's not working." Jane is rude, so I try to make her stitch her lips at times but I always fail. I suppose now I know where I've taken that trait from. I've lived with her my entire childhood and teenage years. We played together, grew up together and almost did every little thing together. She is a big sister to me. However, she is rude and I've taken that from her and that explains my past behavior many years ago. Things have changed drastically. Sometimes I wish I still had that exaggerating, fiery tongue that said things without thinking them a hundred times in my head.
"So?" Jane shrugs. "Luke and I have been trying for the past two years, too."
"Oh, I didn't know."
"It will happen when the time is right," she says. "All doctors said there is nothing wrong with us. It's a matter of time."
"Yes," I say, despite not knowing how that feels.
I think the reasons that my depression has been reduced to a great extent are Jane being around so I'm not alone when Tegan is working, and Tegan opening up about all her issues without any fear of judgment. Of course the great effort we both are putting in therapy is a factor, but Tegan has changed a lot in the past months. Work changed her and made her think of others more than herself. She is not selfish anymore, she does not demand, she does not think of others as inferior to her. Sometimes she tells me about her long days and how hard work is. Expressing her insecurity towards her work and how others see her makes me upset because I worry she would break down one day.
"I feel like I can't do it, Sara. Like I can't do it at all. I just want to collapse sometimes. I want to cry and sleep at times. But I have to because my father gave me this huge responsibility and I can't let him down. But, God, how I wish he saw me as I am."
"He did. He s…saw you as the strong woman you are, Teetee."
"But I am not," says Tegan.
"Yes, you are," I say back. "You are the s…s…strongest person I've seen and I'm so happy you are my destiny."
She pushes her blushing face in my lap, hiding her bashful features from me. "Shut up, don't make me blush."
"I love you," I say.
"I fucking love you, too," she says back.
The weekends are the best parts of the week because Tegan, Jane, and myself usually plan to do some activity. Sometime we go out to a restaurant, but my favorite times are staying at home and chatting while abandoning a movie we decided to watch hours before. We talk about everything without shame or shyness. A few drinks and we are all quite tipsy to notice what our mouths are blabbering.
"Guys, stop talking about sex. It makes me jealous. I miss my husband."
"Aww," Tegan says, petting the cat on her lap.
"Luke probably h…hates me," I say.
"Oh, no," says Jane with a chortle. "He's working this time of the year. You know, he doesn't come home quite often. Night shifts are not the best."
"Imagine that was Sara? I would die. God, I would die. I can't not annoy the shit out of her by pushing my face literally in her boobs." The room lights up in laughter at Tegan's words, but my heart floods with the warmth her charm sends. I give her hand a soft rub. "Seriously, I can't fucking sleep unless she holds me."
"Well at least we know who's a top deep down." Jane winks. We've been joking about how my current state makes me a bottom no matter what our sex position is.
"She's maybe a pillow queen now, but she will always be the top somehow." Tegan sends a wink my way.
"Oh my god, stop." I can't help but giggle embarrassingly. She kisses me quickly. Jane whistles.
"Get it on."
"No, behave," I tell Jane.
"Let me fuck you right here," Tegan whispers, smirking slightly at Jane. "I'm just kidding, I'm just kidding." She sits back and we continue our calm evening.
Sometimes we have sex after those evenings, sometimes we don't. It all depends on our moods.
Each Sunday I have a long physical therapy session at home. Tegan and Jane join my therapist as he lets me make a few exercises that are just now beginning to benefit my muscles. I can move my toes now. I can bend my knees, especially in baths.
"As soon as change happens, recovery follows it. Once you start, everything becomes possible. It can appear very slow, but from my experience; you could end up walking next week. You just have to try each day."
I try each day. Jane and I walk around the house each day. Hand in hand with her support. Of course, I don't end up walking after a week, but now I can part my legs.
Tegan and I have sex when she's back. I part my legs without her help. We use the black dildo, but this time she fucks me with it and it feels wonderful.
"I'm pretty sure sex is helping, too. You feel pain?" she asks.
"No." We kiss for a little bit, then I speak, "You know…uh…the cortisone numbed it all. I mean…h…healed it. But…I'm fat."
"Shut up and let me kiss you so I can come." She moans in my mouth while we make out. She rocks her body on my thighs and reaches her orgasm shortly.
What bother me mostly when I speak to Rob are the constant questions about my memory. He tells me that we talked the day of the accident. I told him stuff, he said. I'm not sure what I told him, but I don't remember anything. He does not want to tell me.
"Ca…can you tell me what is it?"
"No," he says. "It's not important actually. I just want to know if your memory is back."
"It's not."
"What's the last thing you remember?"
"I told you." I sigh frustratingly into my phone. "Feeding Cyndi…j…just that. I don't know."
"Okay, I guess. I'm sorry I keep asking. I don't know, I just want to know if you are alright."
"Rob, I…I haven't been better. I'm honest."
"I'm glad to hear that. I really am."
"I know we probably talked about me...t...trying to find my birth parents, but..." I sigh then continue, "I don't want that anymore. I don't even think of it," I tell him and tell Jane, too, when she asks me about it. I have parents who love me and a girlfriend who would do anything to be with me, I don't need anything else.
Jane has to leave in the end of June, which makes me quite upset. However, in July Tegan's mother visits us. She is an amazing woman and the more I see her the more I fall in love with her mind. I enjoy each minute of the two weeks she spends with us. The time Tegan at work is the time of the best therapy I have ever gotten.
In July, I begin to walk again thanks to Sonia's help. Two weeks change everything. Sometimes all you need is a fruitful chat about the things you love mostly, the books you read, the human brain.
I take my first step in front of Tegan on a Friday night when she returns from work. Her crying excitement brings us both to tears. I can't stand for too long, but I try my best without falling down.
"Healing is a process," Sonia tells me. "It takes so much time, but it happens if you are surrounded by the right people, the right thoughts, and the willpower. You not being able to walk is psychological but you are healing and I can see it."
"I like…like having people here because I get lonely when Tegan's at work."
Sonia laughs quietly, nodding her head. "I know how that feels. I used to run from one guy to the other just so I can fill the void. I had a daughter and I was young, still I felt empty. When she went to school and I sat in my house and did nothing, God…that was torture."
"You…you didn't work?"
"Oh, honey, no." She laughs again. "I had…very tough years when I was young. I was very depressed." She looks at her hand, chuckling slightly. "I never told Tegan any of that. When I was a teenager I made so many mistakes. I lost so much. I couldn't go to college. I couldn't get a proper job because I couldn't go to college. I married Stephen to fix the mistakes we used to make, I loved him, I wanted a kid from him. I just wanted stability. We got the kid and we realized it's not going to work at all. We were different, very different."
"Why? What m…mistakes? Why different?"
"You know, just some past mistakes. I mean, he came from a rich family. I came from a normal family, very religious. It was not a good match. We loved each other. Everyone wanted to separate us. At the end we discovered we couldn't be together at all. His parents hated me so much and mine didn't really like him, too."
Tegan has not told me any of that. I know her father's family is rich. I also know she does not interact with them at all. She has never seen her grandmother and only saw an aunt once. She told me her aunt said she looked like she would be knocked up at seventeen. "Well, if I was straight, that would have been true," Tegan joked once.
"I couldn't study or work and raise Tegan. She was not really an easy child to handle and I was...not healthy. Psychologically, I was not healthy. Sometimes I wished I hadn't brought her up thinking having a kid would make me feel better, would make my depression go away, would make things right."
"You regret her?" I ask timidly, remembering all the times Tegan mentioned she felt like a mistake even though she was not, all the times I told her I am the mistake and she envied me for my parents, the ones I never appreciated.
"When I was young, yes. But right now I am so thankful I have her." Sonia smiles. "I'm so thankful she has found you."
"Thank you."
"Don't blush. You are a great person. You remind me of myself so much."
"Really?"
"Yes." Sonia pauses. "I felt the same way you did all my life, except I did way terrible things. I caused my daughter trauma. I made her life a living hell. You're helping her even though it's hard to help someone when you need help."
"You understand me."
"Yes." She puts her hand over mine and smiles. "You're a very smart woman."
"Thank you." I never feel like that, but she makes me believe it. Nobody ever does that.
"After years of distress, I decided to major in psychology. I just wanted to discover the human mind. I wanted to know why we did certain things, loved certain people, acted in certain ways."
"Yeah, I…I never liked it until I started to understand it." I look at my wheelchair in the corner of the room then look back at Sonia sitting next to me on the couch. "Actually, I never liked it until...until I began to fall for Tegan."
"You wanted to get her and you were trying to," Sonia remarks with a grin that looks a lot like her daughter's.
"Yes. Very much."
"Life was hard for me, too. I never thought I'd be a decent human being, successful or hardworking. But you know what? I did and I am now and I can see that you will reach your dreams the way I reached mine. I'm not saying it just because I am trying to be sweet. I see something in you, Sara. I don't know what that is, but I really do. I know you are going to be someone you wish you are now."
And I believe her. I believe every word she says. I don't know what makes her seem reliable but I believe her. Maybe because her story resembles mine and her dreams are a lot like mine. Yes, I love music and I always wanted to sing, but my bigger project is to have my own clinic. I want that. I really want to help people. I always wanted someone to help me and now I feel better, I want to plant that feeling in other people's minds. I know it's hard, I know it needs work and study, but nobody is giving me the chance. I want to go to graduate school. I want to start with teenagers, maybe work in schools and then start from there. But how does one start? How does it all happen?
In August I receive an acceptance letter for the MA program I did not apply to. I call Tegan immediately, not even able to breathe. She shrieks into the phone and an hour later she's at home with cake and champagne.
Tegan has applied for me. She knew by September I'd recover, she said she had faith in that.
Knowing that takes me aback. It makes me feel unsettled in a way. I become overwhelmed with the thought I'm now back to school again that I spend the night awake in the living room, thinking and over thinking.
I call Sonia first thing in the morning to tell her the news then I cry into the phone for an hour. I don't know why I cry, something in me feels strange.
"It's starting to happen like I told you, and you're scared because you feel like something will go wrong."
What if something goes wrong? God, I don't want anything to go wrong.
When I inform my parents through Skype, my father tears up. My mother says she's proud about a hundred times. Joy squeals for me. Everyone is proud, everyone is happy, including me—it scares me.
That first day is even more terrifying when I sit in the classes again and hear the professors speak again. Can I do it? Can I really do it? I barely did university, what made me think I can do graduate school?
I have to do it, though. I must try. I have nothing else to do but try. I have nothing but time. I don't even need to be distracted anymore.
The first paper I'm required to write takes me two days with thinking, researching and no sleep. But the outcome is good because I end up getting an A-. Tegan calls everyone she knows to tell them that. The second paper I get an A. Tegan takes me out to celebrate. The first quiz, I get an A as well. I cry from fear, from joy, from happiness. We make love at night.
My walking begins to get better slowly. The first days of going back to school were the hardest because people looked at me limping and walking very slowly. I had to sit down each few minutes because I was scared I would fall. I don't know why I fear walking or falling or any of that, I don't know what's in my mind that's banning me from normal human activities.
I turn twenty-nine in September and Tegan turns twenty-three. On her birthday, I decide to make love to her using our old maroon dildo. I clean it well and strap myself before we go out to the bar so when we get back home, I can do it.
At the bar we have a few drinks and share a bowl of nachos while chatting about work and school. She tells me about her day and I tell her about mine, just the way we do each day. Secretly, I order a small cake for her and I. We have agreed no lavish birthdays or anything big this year. She surprised me with a cake on my birthday and we made love, so I'm doing the same. I asked her to go out today because it's the weekend. Tegan has gotten me a backpack, two shirts and two pants for my birthday. I wanted to shop for awhile now, but didn't have the time. I got her new jewelry for her nipples; pearl nipple rings, which I'm sure she will laugh at but love because she's been eyeing them for awhile now. I haven't given them to her yet. Maybe after sex I'll help her put them on.
"I'm not getting out of bed tomorrow." Tegan yawns.
"Lucky you. I have tons of papers to write."
"You can write them in bed next to me." Her grin sends thousands of gleaming stars inside my stomach, making me long to get back home as soon as possible so I can touch her.
"I'll get distracted by you."
"And why is that?" she says flirtatiously. Slowly, she shifts her body closer to mine and wraps her arm around me, making me rest my head on her shoulder. "Do I still manage to distract you after all these years?"
"Of course." I kiss her chin while looking up at her. Her hand rubs my arm, making the fire burn my insides. "God, I want to touch you," I whisper carefully in the dimmed, loud bar.
"What's stopping you?" Her touches become sensual and my willpower starts to recoil, giving space to the flames of lust to shower my brain.
"Fuck, Tegan," I moan when I feel the heat on the seam of her pants. She laughs loudly and kisses my head. I put her hand between my own pants to let her know what I'm hiding. The shadow of her gasp makes my ears buzz and the hair on my skin stand up.
"You're fucking…" She sucks in her breath while squeezing the toy between my legs. I'm glad the booth we're in is shielding us with the help of the dark room. "I want it right now. Like, right now."
"Let's go." I grab her hand to pull her up.
I think lust is one of the most dangerous intoxicants ever known to humanity judging by the speed Tegan is driving in just to get home. Our laughter is loud and cheery as we rush down the rainy road. If I die in this moment, I will die happily.
"Hi, Cyndi," Tegan shouts jovially before picking the cat to take her out of our room. "Bye, Cyndi."
"Aww, poor kitty. Let her watch."
"You're sick," says my girlfriend with laughter.
"Lie down," I say calmly while pushing her small body against the mattress.
"Wait, are you gonna…"
"Yes,"
"Are you sure?" I take off her jacket and pull up her dark blue sweater. "I don't want you to hurt yourself." I unbutton her jeans and pull it down after I remove her boots.
"Don't worry. If I…if I feel anything s…strange, I will tell you."
Just like most of our sexual ventures, this one starts with soft, slow kissing that makes us both more eager to ravish one another. I miss being on top of her. I miss it so much, the way she is tender and powerless in my hands while each touch I perform makes her jolt and scream.
Looking at her toned, muscular body, a sense of jealousy stings me for mere seconds. How I wish I still have that body that made all eyes admire it as I walked around my university. Everyone wanted to touch me, to try to give me an orgasm, to put their hands on my breasts or sneak them under my pants to test whether this innocence my face carried would be shredded with their touches. But now nobody looks at me or wants me, nobody finds me sexy enough to stare at with this swelling in each part of my body because of my medical treatment. Except Tegan, somehow she is still aroused by me. When I touch her folds to inspect, I find a river of saturation; a river of love, of need, of sweetness.
Her features are full of innocence and honesty when she smiles at me as I wait for her consent to start making love to her. I kiss her quickly just to hear that soft whimper her lips release while my fingers circle her clit. The small button is pulsing against my two digits; I can feel the trembling need.
"Please, come on."
"You want it?" I tease, kissing her again.
"So much," she whines.
Whoever this human is—I don't know why she was made and how she was made, I don't know anything about the universe outside of this entity we exist in—but whoever she is, I know that she is the only human being that can ever make me feel the way I am feeling now; something I will never be able to verbalize. It's not a stomach pinch, or a heartbeat, or a type of ecstasy; it's a way of knowing, or realizing, of having that light that goes like Ah! I know it, I know this person, I know this power, I know this feeling. It's the one and only, she's the one and only. And knowing this is just beyond terrifying.
I spread her lips in order to push in. This phallus is quite small compared to the ones we've been using, but I love it because it's the first one she used on me and I used on her. I look between her legs as I begin to plunge in, watching the maroon toy disappear inside while her lips wrap around it; a sight that catches my breath. I love this act, and I love doing it to her. I love watching her lips engulf the phallus each time I push and pull. When she used to ride me, I could only focus on her pussy; so swollen and sweet. And right now, with this position, I can only see her face; her wrinkled nose and tight eyes, the quiver in her lips. I kiss her plump lips, pushing my tongue and moaning while I thrust. When I make sure I'm okay with moving my hips in this position, the fear diminishes and so I commence to quicken my pace.
I pull away to look at her. We smile to one another as the sounds of the thrusting and our breaths fill the quiet room.
"Sara."
"Yes, baby."
"Get my clit." Her cheeks turn pink; as if it's the first time we are having sex, as if she has never vocalized a crude comment in front of me.
I rub her clit, like she asked, and plant kisses on her chest. My free hand caresses her breasts softly, squeezing now and then whenever I hear a moan. When I begin to feel the tightness in her walls restricting me from pushing, I stop rubbing her clit. She opens her eyes in surprise.
"You're gonna come?"
"Yeah, please don't stop."
I stay in there without pushing for a few seconds then I begin to roll my hips in a quick motion that makes her scream. Her legs wrap around me. I can see the veins in her neck when she arches her back. I put my index on her clit once again. Gently, I rub the hood in very slow anticlockwise motion. This sends her to the edge. I can feel her walls wrapping around me, not letting me push freely.
"I'm coming, Sara." She squeals, closing her eyes and locking her legs around me as she reaches her orgasm. "Oh god, oh god," she chants when the high is over, her arm above her head. "Fuck."
"That was good?"
"That was fucking amazing." I kiss her lips, watching her teary eyes smile at me. "I'm tearing up, wow."
"How come?" I start to pull out of her, hearing the faint gasp when she is free of me.
"It was intense," she says, looking up at me standing on my knees. "I haven't been, you know, fucked by you since…wow, a long time ago. I fucked myself on you, but ...yeah." Her nervous laugh is a ringtone of long sought for relaxation.
"I'm happy," I mumble. "I'm happy right now."
The dopey smile she sends me is one of the purest I've witnessed; genuine, angelic. Once I free myself from the harness, Tegan pulls me underneath her, straddling me all of a sudden.
"What do you want?" she questions, surprising me with a hungry kiss.
"No," I whine with a giggle when she takes my breast in her mouth. "It's supposed to be about you." She sucks my hardened nipple with prurient eyes stripping off my confidence. I scream when she bites the pink bud, rolling the tip of her tongue over it. When she lets go, I feel my core watering and going into spasms for release. I start to moan lewdly, almost like the girls do in porn.
"You want me to fuck you, though," she breathes out with an octave full of life and lust. "Don't deny it." She smirks when her thumb presses on my clit while she sits between my legs. My right leg is resting on her shoulder to give her a better view.
I never thought relying on fingers only could be that entertaining. I have forgotten the joy a simple flick of the wrist can bring; when she taps on my clit a number of times and twirls her two digits inside my pussy for a few minutes, I begin to lose it, pushing myself towards her.
"Oh, yes," she says breathlessly. Her chest is heated and full of glistening sweat. "Come for mama." I laugh when she leans in to peck my clit. "Come on." She pecks it again, making it jump for her lips to hug it. "I can feel it happening." And so can I. My walls are tightening around her curious fingers. "Fuck, you're so soft and hot inside." She pushes more, reaching where I want her to be, pushing on the spot that makes my stomach flip. I scream when she squeezes my red, swollen clit between both lips. "Yeahhh," she says, blowing on the inflamed parts. "There you go." I whimper when I release my gooey fluids on her hands. When she pulls out, she dips her fingers in her mouth and sucks with a sound that makes my chest flutter with secondhand embarrassment. "Yum." She pecks my clit one last time, making me lock her head between my legs with a shudder. "Looks like someone wants me to stay eternally there."
"Shut up."
She kisses me when her head touches the pillow. "Fuck, man, it's crazy what we'll do for a fucking orgasm."
"Yeah," I say. "And then…then…w…we have it for like less than a minute and then…"
"And then everything is back to normal and we can function again, but before we reach there, we turn into monsters and animals." I laugh, looking at her rambling lips. "Like, do you get these weird fantasies and thoughts while almost getting there?"
"Like?" I tease.
"Like, you know, you're like…" She pauses, blushing. "Like I was about to come and at that moment I was like, I want to have sex forever and ever and tomorrow I'm gonna keep my legs spread so Sara can fuck this cunt whenever she looks at it and I will walk naked and fuck every piece of furniture and also film myself naked and post it on porn sites, and like go to a nude beach and have an orgy, and then have a sex tape and become a porn star because sex is the best." She takes a deep breath. I am sufficiently amused while hearing her sex thoughts. "And then I came and I was like, whoa, what the fuck? I am disgusting."
"Wow, you are something."
"Shut up, you get these too."
"Hmm." I wiggle my eyebrows at her. "Maybe not…not the porn star one. I think of being a stripper and…and riding stuff."
"Like teddy bears and pillows?" she teases back, making me hide my face behind my hand as memories hit me.
And that's time, somehow it passes, somehow you heal yourself through it. You adapt, you adjust, you find a new getaway. Memories become the shelter you run away to when things are hard, or it's the monster of time that you fear looking back at. There are good ones, there are bad ones, but everything passes by and when you look back you feel astonished with how much a few months or a year can change.
Some days you wake up deciding you want a haircut; you want to give yourself that haircut. You know exactly what you want and you know very well nobody can give you that haircut but your hands. You know that this is not just a haircut, but a symbol of change, I consider it a way of redemption, others think it's a statement. You can call it whatever you want, but I know that this haircut is a change within, a light from inside. I am not that person, not anymore. My thoughts are not underestimated, my words cannot be ridiculed. And even though I am vulnerable, I am not weak; and Tegan can see, understand, and respect that.
"You cut your hair," Tegan comments when she spots me in the bathroom with the scissors in my hand.
"Yes." I smile at my new bowl cut well-reflected in the mirror along with my girlfriend's stunned face. "You don't like it?"
"I do," Tegan says. "I always do."
I look back at her, tracing my collarbones. "You know, I thought it's a nice change. I wanted something new. I thought that, well, I just turned thirty yesterday, I'm writing my MA thesis, I am better now. I stopped the meds and I'm in shape once again. I've never been happier, so why keep that sad fringe covering my face? I mean, God, it's been there since what? 2008? Yeah, 2010 is almost over. I want to look fresh."
She puts both hands on my exposed arms, tracing each new piece of ink there, noticing the differences that are covering my body, not only my mind; reading with details, reading with admiration. "I love you, and I'm happy with each change and each step you take. I don't even care what you do to your looks or body, I just care whether you're happy or not, comfortable or not, hurt or not." I brush the few hairs covering her eyes, pushing them back with a gentle caress that makes her close her sleepy eyes.
"What if I get a clit piercing?" Her eyes widen, making me laugh while stroking her hair. While I cut mine short, hers is getting long and neat.
"I think my clit is welcoming that as we speak." Her two tired eyes look down at my bra-covered breasts while I laugh at her remark.
"Oh, honey, keep on dreaming." I give her a wink, searching for my shirt. "Let's go get you something to eat. I've made some nice ribs today. You'll love me."
"I already love you so much, but I think I just love you a little bit more."
And so days pass by with normal domesticity any lesbian lovers would wish for. The calm before the storm, I believe. There is always a little calm out there to prepare you for a greater blow. However, this calm seems like it's taking too long, which means a greater storm will be happening. I'm not sure if Emy is right and the reason I am happy and satisfied right now is because I have finally let go of the need of finding my birth parents, or it's because I am destined to meet a disaster I will never be able to overcome. Emy tells me I am anxious, and my anxiety puts me in unlucky situations, and if I stopped thinking of bad things, they would not come my way. However, I know better than Emy because I'm the one who is majoring in Psychology. I know for a fact such conceptions are not true; human beings try to convince themselves with them. I have an intuition, and my intuition is never wrong. I wish it is, but I know it's not.
However, I don't wait for the bad to happen this time. I know it's out there around me so I try to embrace it. I live my life normally in preparation for the blow. I hear different news each day, bad news, good news, but I know the blow is out there. What is it, God? What is it?
After I graduate from graduate school, I start to feel the dark shadow that surrounds me. I start to feel the quietude that's starting to hover over my girlfriend. I start to read her slowly. When 2011 approaches, different awful circumstances surround us. Sonia and Stephen break up again. Tegan tries to know why, but none of them tell her. My back begins to act up again. I discover another inflammation in my right hip that needs to be treated with heavy doses of cortisone. Emy and Amber's relationship falls down and crumbles in front of my eyes as I try to help them get through their differences each day while chatting with them. Emy does not want to give up her stubbornness; does not want to give in to the fact that if they want to have kids, she has to carry because her girlfriend is not fertile.
Between being a shrink to my friends, and, practically, a housewife to my girlfriend, I begin a small business of online therapy that occupies my entire time while Tegan at work. Even though it does not pay well, it makes me forget about the recurrent pain in my hip whenever I sit and do nothing.
Sometimes Tegan returns home with a good mood and we go out for dinner or go to the movies, other times she comes back masked with Satan's wrath so she decides to hide in bed with tears in her eyes. I go to comfort her when she calms down. When I see her playing with Cyndi, I know it's the right time to talk to her. She rants about her days, eats, then sleeps while I give her a massage.
At other rare times, like today, she stands with a frown on her face in front of my disheveled, smelly body while I clean in the afternoon. I sigh and wipe the sweat off my brow when I look at her. "What happened?" I ask.
"I hate my job," she says. "God, I'm so tired. I'm tired. I'm tired, okay?" She sighs exasperatedly, walking towards me. "I wanna go on vacation."
"Tee, come on. You're a manager. Calm down, take some break, everything will be alright."
"Why can't I sit at home and do nothing?"
"Because you had a dream and you're making it come true."
"But people suck," she whines. "Corporate sucks. "I suck."
"Well, somehow you're good at sucking, otherwise you wouldn't be handling a big project right now and we wouldn't have gotten that much money in the bank right now." She sighs, putting her head on my shoulder. "Babe, I'm cleaning."
"I'm hungry," she says.
"I haven't cooked. Let me clean, it's still afternoon."
"But I'm hungry, Sasa, please."
"Tegan, I'm dirty and I smell. I still have to shower then think of something to make. I didn't know you were getting back early. You can order or cook something yourself. If you're too exhausted and too hungry, just boil some eggs."
"Eww, eggs." She wrinkles her nose.
"What's wrong with eggs?" I ask while sweeping the kitchen's floor.
She sits on the counter. "I don't want eggs. I'm craving something…I don't know, something good that you can make."
"Well, deal with it today. I don't work for you. I've been having a terrible day. I wasn't even gonna make anything to be honest with you. I was going to boil eggs."
"What's wrong?" she asks me, alerted and concerned. "Are you okay?"
"My back, Tegan. It's hurting me."
She gets off the kitchen counter in order to walk up to me. She takes the mop away and I try to reach for it, but she puts it behind her back. "Stop cleaning. That's why your back is always hurting you. You never listen, you have to exhaust yourself."
"Tegan, come on. Give me, I'm almost done."
"No. It's clean as fuck, I can see my reflection." She throws the mop on the floor and holds my hands to ban me from picking it up. "Nah ah. You're not cleaning. Look at me."
"Tegan," I say irritatingly.
"Nope." She backs me up against the counter. "No more cleaning, stinky head."
"Shut up. I didn't know you were coming."
"I'm glad I caught you in your natural state of scruffiness." She wraps her arms around me while pushing me against the counter, making me giggle with each sweet peck. "I'm sorry for the little attitude. I know you don't work for me."
"It's okay." She kisses me again, a bit longer, making me give up and wrap my arms around her. Her hand sneaks up to my short hair, brushing it softly.
"Do you know you're a turn on like that?" I hum, shaking my head teasingly. "With your hair all sweaty and your shirt stuck to your body. I fucking love it."
"Are you trying to win your way inside my pants with flattery, little girl?" I touch her shaggy locks, ruffling them to increase the torture she's in.
"Oh my God," she exclaims with laughter. "Don't call me little girl. You know what it does to me."
"Well, you're not getting anything right now." I pick up the mop and walk out of the kitchen into the long hallway towards the bathroom. "Not before I get a bath and relax."
"Yes, ma'am."
I begin to undress myself, watching her do the same. "Are you going to join me?"
"If you don't mind?"
"I don't." I grin at her while removing my underwear.
I brush her shaggy shoulder-length hair while she sits between my legs in the tub. I hear the soft sighs of burdened lungs coming out of her mouth.
"Do you like my hair?" she asks, suddenly looking at me with small, glassy eyes.
"I love your hair."
"At work they call it soccer mum hair."
I chortle a little bit before saying, "I think I have that, too."
She looks up at me once again to inspect my locks. "It's cute. Better than the bowl-cut."
"Ahhh." I tsk amusingly. "So you hated the bowl cut."
"No," she says. "This is not very different, to be honest. Just a little neater. It's still short, still hot. But it's better than the bowl cut. It makes you, you know, more mature."
"Older, perhaps?"
"Well, yeah."
"You like that, don't you." I wink at her. "Me looking older than you."
"You are older than me." She winks back.
She turns around to face me with a bright smile on her face. We look at each other for a few seconds before jumping at each other to French kiss till our mouths are tired. When we're done, we wash our bodies and dry them then move to our bedroom with a clear understanding of what we both want.
Making sure the cat is nowhere in sight, we lie on our mattress and resume our kissing with hands discovering our damp skin. It's marvelous that after all these years we are still astonishingly captivated with what the other offers. Tegan at twenty-five is honestly the hottest woman my eyes have fallen on. Her body is a wonderland, a heaven, a pure paradise offered for me each night to touch and caress. I've known her since she was eighteen, and now she is a responsible adult, a mature woman who is not afraid to show weaknesses and admit to making mistakes.
"I want to please you," she mumbles softly while kissing me.
"Yeah, I want that, too." I kiss her nose before she gets up to bring a toy from our closet.
She chooses my favorite toy; the yellow dildo. I spread my legs, ignoring the pain surging through my body. We makeout while she fucks my cunt using her hand. She thrusts quickly, reaching the spots I want. We both look down between my legs while she rubs my clit and pushes in and out with speed and vigor. My swollen parts are red from arousal and my nipples are sharp and hard between my squeezing fingers. Whenever I approach my climax, she slows down to increase the feeling, which only makes me shriek and moan pathetically. She takes a nipple in her mouth biting into it while I continue rolling the other between my thumb and index. She pushes the toy farther in and rolls it inside me, allowing me to finally experience the joy of the release I've been waiting for. I fall down on my pillow panting and pleading for air. I close my eyes and legs as the pain spreads between them and in my lower back.
She kisses me like she does each night till my head stops buzzing and my mind sobers up. "Back?" she asks the way she does after each intercourse. I nod with closed eyes. "I'm so sorry. I'll get the gel." I groan in protest because I detest its smell.
"I'm so sorry, I can't touch you. I feel so exhausted," I inform her while she rubs the cold, comforting gel on my lower back.
"Oh babe, I've come already."
"You have?"
"Mhm."
"How?" I look back at her flushed face. She shrugs bashfully. "You were that aroused?"
"Yes," she says quietly. "Sara?"
"Yes, honey."
"I…I think I…"
"Yes?" I wait for her to speak, but her eyes shift and dim all of a sudden, refusing to let me inside her mind even though I know exactly what's there.
"It's…it's nothing."
"Tell me," I encourage.
She sighs. "It's nothing, really. I'll talk to you about it later. Maybe tonight." I know what's on her mind, but I want her to speak about it before I force her to do so, so I give in and nod, smiling at her. It's always good to give her space, give her the time to talk when she is ready; she has to feel free, not forced.
"Whatever suits you, babe." I grab her face and pull her down to peck her lips. "I'm always ready to hear it, alright?" She nods with bitten lips. "You're still hungry?"
"Very much." She bites her lower lip. "But not for eggs."
"Wanna order something?"
"I'm craving Chinese food."
"Chinese food it is."
While having our meal in the living room and watching a movie like any ordinary couple, time decides to spice the dull ticking hands by giving us a call from our best friend. Crying hysterically into the speakers, Emy informs us that she and her wife are going to end their marriage.
"Calm down," Tegan says sternly. "Calm down and speak slowly."
"Em, honey, calm down, please," I say.
"I can't, I can't." She sniffles and sobs. "I can't deal with it. I'm…I'm coming over."
"Emy," says Tegan.
"I'm coming over to you guys. Is that okay? I have to see you. I can't be alone with my mind right now."
"It's okay. Of course it's okay." I glare at my girlfriend's annoyed face, hearing her soft sigh of defeat and watching her slow nod of surrender.
"You're welcomed here anytime, Emy," says Tegan.
"Th…thank you guys," says Emy.
"Everything will be alright, don't worry," says Tegan.
"Yes, honey, everything will be fixed, I promise you," I say.
We look at each other, knowing our promises are lies.