Chapter 06
The evening marked the end of a long, strange yet intensely exciting week. Maura felt she had earned the right to uncork her treasured bottle of the 2005 Chateau Lassegue, Saint-Émilion Grand Cru, and share it with Jane.
With a soft cotton cloth, she gently caressed the bottle from the neck and shoulder, down all along the body. She swapped the cloth for the two-step corkscrew. Unfolding the knife, she placed the sharp end below the lip of the bottle while holding a firm grip on the neck. Pressing her thumb on the neck on the opposite side of the knife she applied just the right amount of pressure until the knife penetrated the foil. Her grip tightened around the neck, while a twist of her wrist began to run the knife twice all around until the foil came loose. In one precise movement, she stripped it the metal skin from the neck. The tip of the corkscrew found the perfect center of the cork, and her hands swiftly rotated the body, taming the resistance until the corkscrew was all the way in. She latched the first step of corkscrew on the top of the bottle and felt the cork move. With the second step firmly lodged in, the naked cork found its way to freedom.
The deep popping sound made her smile, satisfied; the surgical precision required released her tense muscles and the anticipation to discover the wine's body, to absorb its bouquet sent shivers along her body. She would take her time. Her eyes assessed the rich color of the liquid as it poured out of the bottle and twirled into submission inside the crystal womb of the glass.
And that's how Dr. Maura Isles found the peace and strength she needed to face the evening with Jane, which she suspected would not be without storms and crevasses.
"Are you pressing the grapes to make the wine? I'm dying of thirst here… Beer is a lot faster!" Jane's mockingly impatient voice trailed from the couch, making her snap back into the real world.
Maura joined her and gave her a glass. "Please, take your time. You must –"
"Let it catch its breath, I know, I know."
Maura laughed silently, knowing perfectly well Jane was aware that the correct expression was "to let it breathe."
Jane relaxed into the couch watching the liquid go around and around inside her glass as she swirled it. She knew Maura was proud of her stepping up from uncapping a beer to knowing how to savor good wine. Wine wasn't that bad after all, but it still made her want to pee.
"Be right back. Don't drink my wine."
Maura settled in, airing her wine as she ordered her thoughts. Now that she was with alone with Jane for the first time after her lunch with Julia, the first and most nagging concern -apart from Jane's reaction-, was Julia's assumption about them.
Julia had been right about one thing: she did love Jane with all her heart. She couldn't possible imagine life without Jane's constant, reassuring, warm presence, her sense of humor, her moods, her companionship, her unwavering trust. Jane was an incredible person, the best of friends. But it was puzzling that Julia had sensed something more, confusing it all with being in love. It was clearly nothing like that.
She had never felt for Jane what she felt with Julia; Jane had never made her tingle.
Or had she?
Before she considered even thinking about that, Maura discarded the question again as a preposterous one. They had even joked about it once or twice, many years ago, but they mostly ignored the issue, as it did not have any relevance in their lives. Starting to think about it now would be a futile exercise that could only worsen an already tense situation. Satisfied with her conclusion, and just as she was rehearsing mentally a way to tell Jane about what had happened, she heard Jane coming back She saw her long, lean body fall somewhat ungraciously on the couch as Jane made herself at home.
She fondly watched Jane lift the glass until the cold crystal touched the skin below her nostrils. Tilting it and moving it gently awoke a deep bouquet that she inhaled deeply. She lifted the base of the glass until the wine reached her lips.
Maura saw how Jane closed her eyes –just as she had taught her- to concentrate on just the taste.
"Hm. Nice, but a beer goes down easier, a less complex bouquet." Jane turned to Maura and flashed a mischievous, endearing grin.
Maura smiled, overcome with a wave of pride but also something else, something deep and warm that confused her. Is this what Julia was talking about? She felt a blush creeping in, and she turned her head to her glass, shocked by the thought. She lifted the glass and took a sip of her wine, focusing on the flavor. It was powerful and young on the palate, with a distinctive taste of red fruits. The finish was very long; the tannins and bright acids in her palate told her she should have decanted it, or have left it for a few years until it really delivered its best.
"So, are we going to spend the rest of the evening swishing wine in our mouths?" Jane's joyful mood gave Maura the encouragement she needed. It was time and there was no point in stalling, which would have only made Jane angry.
"I kissed her." Maura delivered the words quickly, softly but firmly.
Jane's smile froze. Inside the glass she was holding, the wine continued going around and around, completely unaware that its motion was now mimicked by Jane's brain.
"Jane?"
"Heard." The raspy voice groveled out of her mouth and died.
"I liked it."
Jane closed her eyes for a second, concentrating on getting air to her lungs. Then she downed the wine.
Maura ignored what she would have considered sacrilege any other time. Her eyes were pinned on Jane's pale face.
"It bothers you. Why?"
Jane avoided the questioning eyes. Good question. You just sit there for the next 20 years and I may have an answer for you by then. Jane got up and went to the kitchen to get a beer. When she sat back on the couch, her fingers choked the bottle until her fingertips were white.
"Jane?"
"What?" Her voice verged on exasperation.
"You didn't answer. Why does this bother you?"
"Fine. It doesn't bother me. It's your life. It's the 21st Century. Gay Marriage is legal. It's just… I didn't see that one coming from you."
"You're upset."
"I'm shocked."
"You're not curious?"
Jane looked at Maura and frowned.
"Curious? Why? Are we, like, 15 years old now and we're having a sleepover where you tell me all about your first kiss and I giggle?"
Maura exhaled against the sheer brutality of Jane's words.
Jane heard her, and she turned to Maura, feeling her face melted by regret and rage for her massive out-of-place tone and comment.
"Oh god Maur, I'm sorry, I'm really…. I don't know why I said that." Jane stretched to hold Maura's hand but Maura lifted it out of reach, opening it; the palm was now blocking Jane from afar.
"Don't, Jane."
Jane watched the hand as if it had just slapped her; she would have preferred that to Maura's icy words. She knew that 'upset' was one of the words that described her state of mind but, because it made no sense, she denied it.
Denial can make all problems go away.
Except it couldn't.
The problem now was not just Maura kissing a woman; it was also her own behavior. She needed to crawl out of the deep hole her stupidity had dug for her.
"I am upset, Maura, and don't know why. That's it."
"Discombobulated."
Jane's eyes shot up, wide as she could open them, and stared at Maura with a speechless 'what?' hanging from her mouth.
"Confused, disconcerted, frustrated, upset. That is what it means, and that's how you are feeling. That's how I am feeling."
"Kissing that woman made you feel all that?" Jane ventured, her voice thin.
"No, Jane. That is how your reaction makes me feel. The kiss was nice. Very nice."
Dejection forced Jane deep into the couch. Her fingers held onto the beer bottle as if it were an oracle hiding the right thing to do.
The silence fell like a flat hand on their heads.
"Do you want me to go?" Jane ventured eventually, bracing for the worst.
"Of course I don't. Even if this is not how I would have liked you to react, I… expected it."
"You did?"
Maura nodded.
"So not only am I an ass, I'm also a predictable ass?"
"I do not predict behavior, Jane. But based on your behavior regarding Julia, added to your work-related tension, I did anticipate a somewhat negative reaction."
"So I am a predictable ass."
Maura turned to face Jane, her eyes now clear except for a trace of deep sadness.
"Okay." Jane nodded as she met and recognized Maura's gaze, capitulating before her own mess of jumbled thoughts and holding on to the need to see Maura happy.
"Okay?"
Jane shrugged with a grin that betrayed genuine remorse and concern. "Yes, I'm okay." Jane took a deep breath and folded her hands on her lap, some fingers holding the bottle, some rubbing her scars. "We already knew she likes you but, please tell me what on earth has gotten into you."
Maura hesitated for a second but Jane seemed interested now –or open, at least, which was better than her initial reaction.
"It took me a while to understand what was going on. Eventually I had to admit you were right; I knew that Julia was attracted to me, and I knew exactly the nature of the reactions I was having to her presence. Like you said, if she were a guy I would have not doubted for a second. So, even though she is a woman, the reactions were real, so I let it happen."
"You let it… happen." Jane nodded, but it was clear that she wasn't following her.
"I actually realized that it is not about the gender; it's about the person."
A gust of new, unknown conflicting emotions left Jane's mouth dry and made her dizzy. She shook her head, forcing herself to understand what about the whole thing made her so profoundly uncomfortable. Maura was still Maura. Nothing had really changed.
"Jane?"
"I'm listening." Jane nodded carefully, feeling the room dance in front of her eyes. "Is that a post-sweat lodge revelation?"
Maura smiled and shook her head. "That is not what is troubling me, why I wanted to talk to you."
"It's not? Is there more?" Jane sunk in the couch.
"Well, Julia does not date straight women, and according to my dating history, I am classified as heterosexual."
Jane raised her eyebrows, finally hearing something she could understand.
"Yes. So there you go: you kissed a girl, you liked it, and that's it. No biggie. Write another song."
Maura tilted her head and stretched her lips, ignoring the confusing cultural reference.
"Well, thing is. I really do like her, Jane. I haven't felt like this in a while, and I'd like to see where this could take us, but maybe she's right; I've never been with a woman before and I don't know how it will all turn out." Her eyes unfocused, remembering the kiss, the first touch, her skin tingling, her heart beating wildly. "Although I am quite certain that it will not be an issue for me, I don't want to pressure her now and then maybe end up hurting her. I don't know what to do."
Jane nodded, trying to process the information. No clear thought materialized over the buzzing noise in her ears.
Maura gave Jane time to process and think of something. Doubting she had been clear enough, she continued.
"And this is why I needed you. I'm awful at relationships and you know me better than anyone else; even better than I know myself. I had resigned myself not to finding someone that makes me feel like this again. She does. So it happens that she's a woman, but somehow it doesn't matter. What she makes me feel does. And she has no teenage kids in another city and she's not a serial murderer."
The joke went lost on Jane. She downed the rest of her beer. There was nothing at the end of that bottle to help Jane get out of her dumbstruck state, but at least her mouth was no longer bone dry.
"Please say something?" Maura's plea cut Jane deeply, shaking her out of her concussion-like state.
"Well." Jane finally said, but only air came out. She cleared her throat and tried again. "I may not know you as well as you think. I'm…"
"Speechless, I see."
"Hm."
"But you do know me, Jane. This is new for me too."
Jane agreed in silence, praying that whatever came up next out of her mouth wasn't idiotic or hurtful. Maura was hanging on her every expression and she had to be there for her, no matter what.
"Go for it."
Maura questioned her with her eyes.
"I mean, if you like her, what's the harm. She has more to lose than you, and I doubt you'll hurt her on purpose." Jane's eyes grew wide, amazed at the level-headedness of her own comment.
Maura sat up on the couch and smiled with her lips and eyes. "You're right. Again. You see why I needed you?"
"Glad to help." Jane's smile was not as pure as Maura's. The dizziness had been replaced by a rock in the pit of her stomach. Only Maura's joy and relaxed face kept her together.
"Why is this bothering you so much, Jane?"
"It's not. I don't know. You caught me off guard, I guess. I'm cool." And I'm lying to Maura through my teeth. Forcing a smile, she decided to change the subject as fast as she could and pretend that everything was really okay. She really wanted to pretend that nothing had happened, that she didn't care that she was reacting so badly to something that in theory should not bother her.
Truth was that she actually felt like running home, getting in bed and not coming up until some natural catastrophe blew her roof and duvet off. Instead she smiled and pointed at the TV.
"Let's watch that movie."
.
A/N: I know from your comments and PMs (thanks!) that a lot of you had been waiting in anticipation for the moment Maura and Jane discussed it for the first time. And, finally the time has come. What do you think? Thoughts on what lies ahead? :)