Ah. This took forever to write, and a while to get it around to posting
too. ;) This is the last chapter. *sigh* If you liked it, let me know,
leave a review. Hope you enjoyed it. Thanks for reading.
**
She wouldn't let me drive her; we both knew the possibilities. If I would drop her off, if I would go in. Then I'd watch the woman I love, and feel like puking because I'd feel so depressed. This whole thing, feeling stuff strongly, is new, and it's throwing me. I'm thinking the masculine 'Me man!' part would come out and I'd jump on stage challenging every guy, looking to fight. I even brought up the robbery, trying to sway her into letting me go along, but she informed me she wasn't going to be taking the back way anymore, and she's been working there two years, and that was the first real incident. She stressed that she was fine like *I* was being a fuss-budget. She even used the word fuss-budget. But I tried.
What can I say? People in love are crazy. Now I am too. Doesn't seem like it though. It's not like I'm angry with Dana, though, I don't look down at her job anymore. It's just the fact of someone - not me - seeing her topless. It's more intimate then it's been with any other woman, even if that sounds senseless.
But I've done that thing in the past, that thing where you like other people looking at the woman you're with and being envious - Never wanted her to get on stage and strip to increase that envy though.
Getting up I head into the living room, pulling on my boxer shorts again and falling onto the couch. Everything's different now. That's strange, but the good stuff outweighs it.
**
"Brigitte!"
"Grainy."
"How are you? Didn't expect to see you in the pit for a while." He smiles a little and knocks my arm, trying to be supportive. He can be a nice guy.
"What can I say? I love the work . . . no, wait, it's the money I love," I shrug. I look around and there is a pretty good crowd tonight, mostly businessmen coming in after a long day. They pay well. I can do this, it's just a job, even with Harry's words in my head. 'It's just that once I've seen . . . you . . . it's kind of hard to know other guys are too.'
Dammit. I know.
But I can do this. It's my job.
"You should go back and get ready now, the schedules running pretty ragged tonight." I nod and head to the back room when he calls me again. "Hey, Brigitte? I . . . Ginger told me, and I'm glad your mom's going to be alright."
I smile a little and nod once more. "Thanks, Grainy."
"No problem."
The stereo blasts out an eighties hair band whose songs must have been custom made for places like these. I toss my bag onto the table and start to take out my things. Maybe it's because I've been out a while, I'm just not comfortable right now, it's like I'm nervous but . . . I can't really pin down the exact emotion.
Maybe it's because I was robbed.
But I'm willing to bet it's related to the fact I'm head over heels in love.
. . . When I say that, I can't resist adding that he's in love with me . . . Whee.
I tend to get off-track with that lately.
But I feel awkward. Yes! That's it, awkward . . . and I don't want to do this . . . I'm almost dressed, the very short, cleavage bearing, white dress with the shear pieces that cling to the bottom. I've run my hands through my hair, letting it fall over my shoulders.. . . in fact right now I'm snapping my shoes on . . . and I just want to take them off again - and not on stage. Ugh.
Dammit and Ugh.
I see what he's saying so clearly at this moment. Because it's the exact same thing I feel like.
Dammit.
But I do see it; I love him and I get that ultimate, private intimacy thing. I don't want to share one thing with anyone else . . . even my breasts. It's just stripping, but if I look at it closer . . . I don't want anyone else seeing me without my clothes. No one but Harry. Before it was a job, now I just don't want to.
And when I don't want to do something . . .
The gloss clinks to the table top and I stare at my reflection, dramatic eyes, shiny mouth . . . completely reluctant expression. I've always been a private person, and now that I'm with someone I want to make certain things . . . our stuff.
I sigh and stand up.
But I can do this, I've done it for a while and it's my job . . . I sneak over to the stage area, peeking out from the thick, black curtains as best I can without being seen. They're all out there, loosened ties and dollar bills . . . I don't want them to see me topless, I only want Harry to . . . Words like those, in this business, are career suicide.
Fuck.
I never felt so connected to someone as I've felt in the last few days. The question is . . . If Harry hadn't made me see how special and private that connection felt, would I still be doubting my job?
. . .
. . .
I need to talk to Grainy.
**
I'm watching Tony again. Ordering a hit again. Must be a repeat, I think . . . I don't know, someone's always getting whacked . . . Whacked? I've been watching this show too much. I change the channel and settle my forearm on the stack of Teaching Plans I was working on before finishing them up faster than I thought and pushing them off for television . . . and aimless thinking of Dana.
Ring.
"Hello?"
"Harrison!"
"Yes, Mom."
"Is this a good time to call? I figure I waited a long enough time."
I put my hand over my eyes and lay my head on the back of the couch. My mother, ladies and gentlemen. "Dana's not even here, Mom."
"You two didn't have another fight did you?"
"No! I--"
"Oh, good. Now I want to hear every little iota of when you figured out you were right for each other! Have you told her you loved her yet?"
How is it everyone knew this, but me?
"Yes."
"OH!" . . . I think she's crying.
"Mom?"
"I'm going to have grandbabies! I knew it, as soon as you met the right girl."
"She's not pregnant, and you're sounding like very stereotypical, ask Charles, I'm sure it's some kind of syndrome."
"Stop that, I'm merely anticipating. You two are going to make beautiful children." Does she really *want* me to have an anxiety attack? Maybe that's the general idea, I can start hyperventilating, and it'd be a great opportunity for the Most Boring Psychiatrist in the World to talk me down and bond with me over my mental incapacity.
"You have a long wait."
"Accidents happen."
"Mom!"
She laughs uncontrollably.
She keeps this up and I may really need Charles.
**
After being robbed I'm not too keen on going through the back exit - even if Grainy has been having the guys who work the door and bar take turns escorting us out - so I wait outside for the cab I called. It's a short ride until I get home and I'm still a little separated about my choice at the club I . . .
Mom.
Mom. Her leg is in a cast and she's leaning on a crutch.
I pay the cabby without really looking and I hear him pull away as I walk forward. My mother is standing there in front of my apartment building looking hardly sauced. Almost normal. It's been a long time since she's been like this, if she could help it. How did she know where I lived?
"Mom?" She looks at me like I appeared out of nowhere and her eyes dart over me. At that moment I'm glad I washed off the heavy eye make up so she wouldn't know where I've just come from. I glance down and it's one-twenty seven so if she tried she'd probably guess anyway. But she seems a little spacey. "It's late."
She looks at my face, then my watch, and closes her eyes . . . God. When she opens them, God, she looks just like my mother. The one with the soft eyes that were happy most of the time, the tamed red hair I used to wish I had . . . Now it's frizzy and dry, her skin is sallow, her lips chapped and she's wearing a pair of cut-off jogging pants and a long-sleeved cotton top. Mom. She's still my mother.
Her eyes look at me gently and she opens her mouth.
"I don't want to see you again."
And now I'm crying, great big hiccuping cries, feeling all the things I felt at the moment she threw me out. That I was useless, a whore . . . nothing.
I feel the warmth on my arm and I wipe my face enough to look through the tears and see her hand on me. I see her face and it has concern, real concern like before she drank, and just after. God, I miss that.
"I don't mean it like that, Dana."
"Mom?"
"I love you." She tells me it like she's pounding it into my head, making sure I'll remember and that makes me cry even harder than when I thought she was completely rejecting me. "You are my only child, the only baby I'll ever have. I love you."
"Then why don' . . .don't you want to see me?" I gasp. "I'm sorry I do what I do, but I don't anymore, you can see me because I don't strip. I stopped it. I swear, Mom."
"It's not that. Hey. Listen to me!" I remember that voice and I do what she says. It was when she actually cared to discipline me and not just order me to give up something of mine to sell for liquor. "I don't want you to see me like this, Dana. I can't stop . . ." She shakes her head and her grip tightens as she eeks out painfully. "I don't *want* to stop."
She opens her eyes and she's crying. "It's okay, Mom."
"No it isn't . . .You're good, Dana, the only good thing in my life, no matter what you do you'll always be the only good thing. But needing to drink is too strong in me, and I don't want to deny it. See? I'm wrong. I didn't like you doing what you were doing, but it's because it made me see how much I failed you, you shouldn't have had to do that. . . The money . . . I turned a blind eye to it as long as you had money that I could steal, and when you refused to give me anymore . . . It made me see what I was doing. My God, may he forgive me, Dana."
"It's okay, Mom. I don't care."
She sighs, smiling a little and touching my cheek. "I love you, Dana, but don't look for me. I don't want to stop, and I don't want to drag you into it with me. You're too good for that, Dana. I was just too stoned to see it and when I got out of the hospital. . . I was thinking as I lay in that bed, in between dosages, I'm ashamed to say that otherwise I wouldn't have been remotely together. I always . . . you know I always make sure I'm out of it, and when it wasn't under my control . . . I begged any one I could for your address so I could see you one last time . . . I just want you to be happy."
"We can both be happy," I tell her, I don't want her to leave me. "I love you."
"Are you happy with that guy, Dana? The one you came to the hospital with?"
"Harry," I whisper. She doesn't know anything about him, she doesn't even know he was my teacher once. It seems like so long ago . . . "Yes. I'm happy with him, I love him."
She seems pleased with that. "I'm glad."
"Do you want to meet him? He's just upstairs."
"No," she says sadly. "I'm sure I already made a horrible first impression on him . . . I'm sorry, Dana. For everything."
She hugs me and it feels so good. Oh, Mom . . .
"Goodbye, Dana," she says as she pulls away.
"Mom, please don't go."
She doesn't say anything, just gives me a sorrow-filled little smile before turning away and hobbling away.
I call her repeatedly as I cry fervently but she doesn't look back . . .
**
I hear her unlock the door over the whirling fan, the thud of her bag follows as she walks through the dark living room and into the bedroom. I see her form perfectly as she comes toward me and sits on the bed.
"Hey," I say, reaching out to touch her back. She sniffles and I can feel the soft crying. "What is it? What's wrong?"
I sit up quickly and wrap my arms around her. I flash back to the night she came home sliced up and my heart starts to race.
"My mother," she cries softy.
"What happened, Dana?" She just lays down, turning to face me and wrapping her arms around me.
"I saw her outside and she told me she never wants to see me again." Anger surges through my system and I think she senses it because she shakes her head. "She loves me, Harry. Isn't that amazing?"
As fast as my heart started to race before, that's how quickly it breaks now. How could she think anyone couldn't love her? Hell, *I* love her and I thought my capacity for that emotion was drained.
"Of course she loves you," I comfort, holding her tightly.
"I didn't know it . . . She told me I was the only good thing in her life, even after every . . . everything she said before . . . and she doesn't want to drag me down with her so she doesn't want to see me again."
Her heart is shattering and I don't know what to do for her. I've done stuff like this before, students with problems; I know just what to say and when it's someone you love . . .
"Dana . . . What do I do?"
She just snuggles closer, sighing against my skin. "This is just perfect."
I love her.
The End.
**
She wouldn't let me drive her; we both knew the possibilities. If I would drop her off, if I would go in. Then I'd watch the woman I love, and feel like puking because I'd feel so depressed. This whole thing, feeling stuff strongly, is new, and it's throwing me. I'm thinking the masculine 'Me man!' part would come out and I'd jump on stage challenging every guy, looking to fight. I even brought up the robbery, trying to sway her into letting me go along, but she informed me she wasn't going to be taking the back way anymore, and she's been working there two years, and that was the first real incident. She stressed that she was fine like *I* was being a fuss-budget. She even used the word fuss-budget. But I tried.
What can I say? People in love are crazy. Now I am too. Doesn't seem like it though. It's not like I'm angry with Dana, though, I don't look down at her job anymore. It's just the fact of someone - not me - seeing her topless. It's more intimate then it's been with any other woman, even if that sounds senseless.
But I've done that thing in the past, that thing where you like other people looking at the woman you're with and being envious - Never wanted her to get on stage and strip to increase that envy though.
Getting up I head into the living room, pulling on my boxer shorts again and falling onto the couch. Everything's different now. That's strange, but the good stuff outweighs it.
**
"Brigitte!"
"Grainy."
"How are you? Didn't expect to see you in the pit for a while." He smiles a little and knocks my arm, trying to be supportive. He can be a nice guy.
"What can I say? I love the work . . . no, wait, it's the money I love," I shrug. I look around and there is a pretty good crowd tonight, mostly businessmen coming in after a long day. They pay well. I can do this, it's just a job, even with Harry's words in my head. 'It's just that once I've seen . . . you . . . it's kind of hard to know other guys are too.'
Dammit. I know.
But I can do this. It's my job.
"You should go back and get ready now, the schedules running pretty ragged tonight." I nod and head to the back room when he calls me again. "Hey, Brigitte? I . . . Ginger told me, and I'm glad your mom's going to be alright."
I smile a little and nod once more. "Thanks, Grainy."
"No problem."
The stereo blasts out an eighties hair band whose songs must have been custom made for places like these. I toss my bag onto the table and start to take out my things. Maybe it's because I've been out a while, I'm just not comfortable right now, it's like I'm nervous but . . . I can't really pin down the exact emotion.
Maybe it's because I was robbed.
But I'm willing to bet it's related to the fact I'm head over heels in love.
. . . When I say that, I can't resist adding that he's in love with me . . . Whee.
I tend to get off-track with that lately.
But I feel awkward. Yes! That's it, awkward . . . and I don't want to do this . . . I'm almost dressed, the very short, cleavage bearing, white dress with the shear pieces that cling to the bottom. I've run my hands through my hair, letting it fall over my shoulders.. . . in fact right now I'm snapping my shoes on . . . and I just want to take them off again - and not on stage. Ugh.
Dammit and Ugh.
I see what he's saying so clearly at this moment. Because it's the exact same thing I feel like.
Dammit.
But I do see it; I love him and I get that ultimate, private intimacy thing. I don't want to share one thing with anyone else . . . even my breasts. It's just stripping, but if I look at it closer . . . I don't want anyone else seeing me without my clothes. No one but Harry. Before it was a job, now I just don't want to.
And when I don't want to do something . . .
The gloss clinks to the table top and I stare at my reflection, dramatic eyes, shiny mouth . . . completely reluctant expression. I've always been a private person, and now that I'm with someone I want to make certain things . . . our stuff.
I sigh and stand up.
But I can do this, I've done it for a while and it's my job . . . I sneak over to the stage area, peeking out from the thick, black curtains as best I can without being seen. They're all out there, loosened ties and dollar bills . . . I don't want them to see me topless, I only want Harry to . . . Words like those, in this business, are career suicide.
Fuck.
I never felt so connected to someone as I've felt in the last few days. The question is . . . If Harry hadn't made me see how special and private that connection felt, would I still be doubting my job?
. . .
. . .
I need to talk to Grainy.
**
I'm watching Tony again. Ordering a hit again. Must be a repeat, I think . . . I don't know, someone's always getting whacked . . . Whacked? I've been watching this show too much. I change the channel and settle my forearm on the stack of Teaching Plans I was working on before finishing them up faster than I thought and pushing them off for television . . . and aimless thinking of Dana.
Ring.
"Hello?"
"Harrison!"
"Yes, Mom."
"Is this a good time to call? I figure I waited a long enough time."
I put my hand over my eyes and lay my head on the back of the couch. My mother, ladies and gentlemen. "Dana's not even here, Mom."
"You two didn't have another fight did you?"
"No! I--"
"Oh, good. Now I want to hear every little iota of when you figured out you were right for each other! Have you told her you loved her yet?"
How is it everyone knew this, but me?
"Yes."
"OH!" . . . I think she's crying.
"Mom?"
"I'm going to have grandbabies! I knew it, as soon as you met the right girl."
"She's not pregnant, and you're sounding like very stereotypical, ask Charles, I'm sure it's some kind of syndrome."
"Stop that, I'm merely anticipating. You two are going to make beautiful children." Does she really *want* me to have an anxiety attack? Maybe that's the general idea, I can start hyperventilating, and it'd be a great opportunity for the Most Boring Psychiatrist in the World to talk me down and bond with me over my mental incapacity.
"You have a long wait."
"Accidents happen."
"Mom!"
She laughs uncontrollably.
She keeps this up and I may really need Charles.
**
After being robbed I'm not too keen on going through the back exit - even if Grainy has been having the guys who work the door and bar take turns escorting us out - so I wait outside for the cab I called. It's a short ride until I get home and I'm still a little separated about my choice at the club I . . .
Mom.
Mom. Her leg is in a cast and she's leaning on a crutch.
I pay the cabby without really looking and I hear him pull away as I walk forward. My mother is standing there in front of my apartment building looking hardly sauced. Almost normal. It's been a long time since she's been like this, if she could help it. How did she know where I lived?
"Mom?" She looks at me like I appeared out of nowhere and her eyes dart over me. At that moment I'm glad I washed off the heavy eye make up so she wouldn't know where I've just come from. I glance down and it's one-twenty seven so if she tried she'd probably guess anyway. But she seems a little spacey. "It's late."
She looks at my face, then my watch, and closes her eyes . . . God. When she opens them, God, she looks just like my mother. The one with the soft eyes that were happy most of the time, the tamed red hair I used to wish I had . . . Now it's frizzy and dry, her skin is sallow, her lips chapped and she's wearing a pair of cut-off jogging pants and a long-sleeved cotton top. Mom. She's still my mother.
Her eyes look at me gently and she opens her mouth.
"I don't want to see you again."
And now I'm crying, great big hiccuping cries, feeling all the things I felt at the moment she threw me out. That I was useless, a whore . . . nothing.
I feel the warmth on my arm and I wipe my face enough to look through the tears and see her hand on me. I see her face and it has concern, real concern like before she drank, and just after. God, I miss that.
"I don't mean it like that, Dana."
"Mom?"
"I love you." She tells me it like she's pounding it into my head, making sure I'll remember and that makes me cry even harder than when I thought she was completely rejecting me. "You are my only child, the only baby I'll ever have. I love you."
"Then why don' . . .don't you want to see me?" I gasp. "I'm sorry I do what I do, but I don't anymore, you can see me because I don't strip. I stopped it. I swear, Mom."
"It's not that. Hey. Listen to me!" I remember that voice and I do what she says. It was when she actually cared to discipline me and not just order me to give up something of mine to sell for liquor. "I don't want you to see me like this, Dana. I can't stop . . ." She shakes her head and her grip tightens as she eeks out painfully. "I don't *want* to stop."
She opens her eyes and she's crying. "It's okay, Mom."
"No it isn't . . .You're good, Dana, the only good thing in my life, no matter what you do you'll always be the only good thing. But needing to drink is too strong in me, and I don't want to deny it. See? I'm wrong. I didn't like you doing what you were doing, but it's because it made me see how much I failed you, you shouldn't have had to do that. . . The money . . . I turned a blind eye to it as long as you had money that I could steal, and when you refused to give me anymore . . . It made me see what I was doing. My God, may he forgive me, Dana."
"It's okay, Mom. I don't care."
She sighs, smiling a little and touching my cheek. "I love you, Dana, but don't look for me. I don't want to stop, and I don't want to drag you into it with me. You're too good for that, Dana. I was just too stoned to see it and when I got out of the hospital. . . I was thinking as I lay in that bed, in between dosages, I'm ashamed to say that otherwise I wouldn't have been remotely together. I always . . . you know I always make sure I'm out of it, and when it wasn't under my control . . . I begged any one I could for your address so I could see you one last time . . . I just want you to be happy."
"We can both be happy," I tell her, I don't want her to leave me. "I love you."
"Are you happy with that guy, Dana? The one you came to the hospital with?"
"Harry," I whisper. She doesn't know anything about him, she doesn't even know he was my teacher once. It seems like so long ago . . . "Yes. I'm happy with him, I love him."
She seems pleased with that. "I'm glad."
"Do you want to meet him? He's just upstairs."
"No," she says sadly. "I'm sure I already made a horrible first impression on him . . . I'm sorry, Dana. For everything."
She hugs me and it feels so good. Oh, Mom . . .
"Goodbye, Dana," she says as she pulls away.
"Mom, please don't go."
She doesn't say anything, just gives me a sorrow-filled little smile before turning away and hobbling away.
I call her repeatedly as I cry fervently but she doesn't look back . . .
**
I hear her unlock the door over the whirling fan, the thud of her bag follows as she walks through the dark living room and into the bedroom. I see her form perfectly as she comes toward me and sits on the bed.
"Hey," I say, reaching out to touch her back. She sniffles and I can feel the soft crying. "What is it? What's wrong?"
I sit up quickly and wrap my arms around her. I flash back to the night she came home sliced up and my heart starts to race.
"My mother," she cries softy.
"What happened, Dana?" She just lays down, turning to face me and wrapping her arms around me.
"I saw her outside and she told me she never wants to see me again." Anger surges through my system and I think she senses it because she shakes her head. "She loves me, Harry. Isn't that amazing?"
As fast as my heart started to race before, that's how quickly it breaks now. How could she think anyone couldn't love her? Hell, *I* love her and I thought my capacity for that emotion was drained.
"Of course she loves you," I comfort, holding her tightly.
"I didn't know it . . . She told me I was the only good thing in her life, even after every . . . everything she said before . . . and she doesn't want to drag me down with her so she doesn't want to see me again."
Her heart is shattering and I don't know what to do for her. I've done stuff like this before, students with problems; I know just what to say and when it's someone you love . . .
"Dana . . . What do I do?"
She just snuggles closer, sighing against my skin. "This is just perfect."
I love her.
The End.
