When both women got up the next day, they were both feeling good about themselves. It gradually dawned on them both that treating a new day as another drudgery to be endured was an unnatural frame of mind. At best, it was an understandable frame of mind if life was incomplete and they'd both been there. Simone had long been miserable in feeling eaten up by guilt while being painfully aware of denying some part of her own nature while Annabelle had been depressed by the failure of all her best efforts to seduce her bewitchingly attractive teacher. Now that was behind them both. Waking up to the feel of being embraced from behind by a shapely female arm did each woman's sense of well being a whole lot of good. Since they'd started sharing the same bed, it wasn't their habit to be in a great hurry to get dressed and today was no exception.
"I think I'll take a shower. Showers can be fun, you know," Annabelle said with a lazy smile on her face, looking at the fair haired beauty, sitting up in bed and naked to the waist. In turn, Simone loved the sight of her lover, long dark hair falling over her shoulders, eyes glinting mischief and her glorious statuesque body in front of her eyes. Now she turned away and walked towards the shower, lazily taking her time and displaying all her charms. She looked over her shoulder to deliver a meaning look and a roll of her eyes. In no time at all, she slipped out of bed and followed after her.
When she'd cut down the distance that separated them, Annabelle took Simone's hand in her own and a shiver of electricity ran through her. She smiled to herself, wondering why she'd been so slow on the uptake.
"You know, sweetheart, when you give me the eye, I'm bound to follow. When you take me by the hand, all sorts of delicious feelings rise up inside me."
The husky, lust edged intonation in Simone's normally clear speaking voice did wonders for own sense of well being. It said a lot about their relationship except that this woman of hers was coming up fast in so many ways. As she led the way to the shower, she remembered the nervous habit Simone used to have of fiddling with the gold crucifix she wore round her neck. Both habit and crucifix had gone.
"Darling, I can watch all the little moves you make and it really gets my libido going. You're such a fast learner,"the younger woman said, sliding the shower screen aside while Simone reached for the shower gel.
She expertly adjusted the shower system to just the right temperature as they climbed inside. To the older woman's enchanted delight, Annabelle started rubbing the gel into her body while a stream of warm water sluicing down from above made this an enchanting experience. A sideways glance from the attractive woman whose long dark hair hung damply down her back and her delicious proximity hinted to Simone that it was down to her to return the compliment.
"So is this just about showering," Simone hazarded a guess to be greeted by a naughty grin from the smaller woman who reached sideways for the hair shampoo.
This was some kind of exquisite torture, Simone muttered, especially when a stray hand came into contact with one of her already hardened nipples, standing out from her soft skin. An audible gasp escaped her lips while the younger woman expertly scrubbed the shampoo into her scalp. Admittedly her skin and hair was feeling refreshed all over but she was feeling overwhelmed by lustful desires to press herself against her lover and stick her tongue down her lover's throat.
"Does it take this long to shower?" Simone said, an undertone of agonised craving etching her clear tones. She suspected that, as she was not being over thorough in ministering to her lover, this mischievous woman would reciprocate.
"Just finishing up washing down your gorgeous butt. Don't think I haven't been thinking what you're thinking," came the reply in a lazy tantalising drawl while the feel of those expert fingers caused her muscles to flex. She gave Annabelle barely enough time to finish when she rinsed her hands quickly and pinned her lover up against the shower wall, kissing her furiously. Soon, her tongue was deep in Annabelle's mouth and to her delighted pleasure, this woman of hers was starting to take fire. Simone was really getting to love such fast, furious lovemaking as opposed to the gentleness the previous night. It all depended on how they both felt at the time. In return, the dark-haired woman knew she had teased and tantalised her lover but didn't quite expect her to ravish her the way that she was doing. This is the life, she thought, this blonde beauty of hers making passionate love to her against the shower wall.
A definite sense of purpose overtook the two women the next morning. Annabelle could tell that she'd lit the fuse for this extraordinary woman's musical talents to flourish, something she'd never even known if she hadn't picked up on the way Simone had observed her playing guitar. Right from first thing , Simone begged her to write out lyrics and chord arrangements for songs she knew as as they came into her mind. The dark-haired woman filtered out some songs which were way too complicated to tackle but she admired her lover's taste in knowing them in the first place. As time went on, she watched her lover sing and play guitar and really work on it. She studied Simone's finely carved features and intent expression, her guitar bedded down against her body. To begin with, she carefully read the lyrics and studied where the chords changed as an academic exercise to be learned. After a little while, to her amazement and wonder, she saw how Simone poised her guitar playing poised against her singing. Annabelle's generous heart soared as she saw how her lover was coming on by leaps and bounds and knew she was now ready for a crash course in song arrangement.
"OK, let's take this class forward so you get to tune into the structure of the song. Put out of your mind the fancy lead guitar solo or the neat jazzy drumming. They're all frills until you get to play in a group," the younger woman said in a commanding voice with a knowing smirk on her face. The irony of the situation to both of them was irresistible.
"Yes teacher," grinned Simone to the younger woman who laughed out loud in her infectious way.
"What's really important is the difference between major and minor chords. You can have them in the same song as major chords are happy, minor chords are sad and you can have chords in sevenths which are kind of edgy. They can be really cool to play. "
"What's a seventh?"persisted Simone, her curiosity aroused. Annabelle had done a good job in systematizing what was at the back of her memory, ideas that she'd played around with during that long ago vacation but she was now starting to break new ground. The other woman looked a bit sheepish and then finally confessed all.
"I'm not that much of a music scholar. I think it's the seventh note in the music scale which is kind of messed around with. I just know it by the way it sounds, hey."
"So what song do we try next? Perhaps you pick one this time,"Simone said softly, laying her hand on her lover's forearm. This eased the dark-haired woman out of her earlier awkwardness and moved her with her gentleness.
"Sure. Let me think about something really good,"Annabelle replied as she screwed up her face with an effort at concentration. She was prompted to dig up memories of a fragment of a song she'd half heard in passing on the radio a year or so back. The melody and chorus had stuck in her mind but she hadn't properly got the lyrics. She'd puzzled and puzzled over the lyrics and had even considered having done with it and using what she'd got in a song of her own but she'd never got round to it. Now she had a suspicion in her mind that Simone might have the answer, having discovered how closely their musical paths intertwined around each other.
"There's this old folk song I heard once but I never ever got it right. I'll play it for you,"Annabelle said in a hesitant tone of voice, reaching for her own guitar. All at once, her shapely fingers delicately plucked her strings, her fingers framing a C major chord. Her slightly husky voice lingered over the following lines, smiling into Simone's eyes as they obviously recalled nights spent in a dormitory bed with a hard, resistant mattress that gave no joy and waking up to dark loneliness and isolation. The fair-haired woman found no stretch in reading Annabelle's feelings as she'd been asleep in her own double bed that was walled off from the rest of the dormitory as feelings of love and desire had started seeping into her own consciousness.
"Yes and only if my own true love was waiting
yes, and if I could hear her heart a softly pounding
Only if she was lying by me
Then I'd lie in my bed once again."
"That's all,"the dark-haired woman said apologetically as her finger picking trailed apologetically to a stop "Darling if you can fill in the rest of the lyrics, I will be your slave forever."
With a broad smile, Simone picked up the writing pad. Annabelle had lovingly written out a number of songs in her best handwriting as it shaped up to becoming their joint songbook. She carefully inscribed the lyrics from memory, leaving space for the dark-haired woman to work out the chord changes. Annabelle's mouth was open with delight as the answer to the long standing puzzle was at last made clear.
"I heard the same song when I was at my parents on summer vacation while Amanda
was holidaying somewhere far away. Those lyrics were burned into my soul for life as I really felt them at the time. They came back into my mind when we were both at St Theresa's,"Simone recalled dreamily from memories of the distant past. A quick smile delicately told this woman of hers how Amanda had been supplanted in her dreams with due respect which was now turned into reality.
"This is great,"Annabelle replied with gleaming eyes, taking over the pad and paper, humming the tune and playing the chords on her guitar. A quick grin told Simone that she'd struck lucky and the song that had eluded her was now within her reach. As she marked out the arrangement, her first instinct was to sail into the song in her normal finger-picking style but then she stopped short.
"There's only one chord that you've never played it before and that's G7. Do you want me to show it to you? It's pretty easy."
Simone loved her lover's gentle supportiveness. She'd grown up in an environment that said 'thou shalt not' and it had rubbed off on her over the years despite her periods of rebelliousness. She'd even got to the point where she'd been an upholder of this authority though in her subtly different way that she'd customised and her lessons had encouraged a sense of individuality in her students. Without pontificating on the subject, everything about this 'wise beyond her years' woman was to tell her that 'yes you can' while knowing all the while that bad things in life were to be avoided but not because some authority figure said so.
"I've just been thinking to myself, why God had always been made out to be a man. It doesn't make sense," Simone said dreamily to herself as she vocalised this interesting train of thought. More than ever in this relaxed environment, she was able to let her thoughts run free and she felt safe.
"What?" Annabelle said, swivelling her head round in wonder. When she thought about it, of course this intelligent woman was right and, before getting down to the task in hand, felt morally obliged to pursue this interesting tangent.
"I mean, you are right. I get this same image from all the Religious Education classes. It's not so much that they beat you over the head with it but what was insinuated. I couldn't take that crap and used to question it. The teachers hadn't your understanding and maturity and that was partly why I got expelled from my last school. Now back to the lesson of the G7 chord."
Simone grinned widely at the way their roles were neatly reversed in this teacher pupil thing and she had to admit how well Annabelle had handled the situation. The smirk on the younger woman's face showed that she'd got the joke.
"All you have to do is to do a G major but press the top string on the first, not third position. Try your forefinger, not your little finger. There you are, you've got it. Now hit that chord."
Simone did as her clear speaking friend told her and she produced a strange edgy sound came from her guitar. She liked the sound of it and hit it again and jammed around on a few chords. Annabelle beamed with satisfaction.
"Now I'll run through the song first and you'll see how you'll find it," she said in soothing tones. She strummed her way through the song and, at last the mixed loneliness and desire of the song flowed its way through her system. She felt Simone's attention upon her and knew that this woman who had been way less guarded than she used to be, was weighing matters up for her to sing this song.
"Since we're an item,"Annabelle said thoughtfully as they sat out on the front, in the open air watching the waves break endlessly on the beach, lending a soothing feeling to their every existence. The sun was setting low over the sea and the shadows were starting to lengthen."We really ought to tell each other of any really bad habits so we know to work round each other. I'll go first," she offered much to Simone's relief.
"For a start, PMT doesn't see me at my best. Don't worry, you're not going to get some raving monster, a Ms Hyde coming out of nowhere that's going to fool around with steak knives," Annabelle continued, keeping her irony light and reassuring. "In any case, I get to go back to my normal lovable self. I used to be a lazy slob but not around here. I'm becoming more domesticated than I ever knew I could be. We know why that is."
"Now you're asking me," Simone replied, feeling uncomfortable at delving deep inside herself to put it on public display. As she carried on, the words came easier to say. It was not as if everything in her life was going to be subjected to hostile, critical scrutiny."You know I used to be nervous, uncertain of myself, conforming and secretly hating myself for it but since becoming a lesbian and your lover, I think I've become bolder, less afraid to be myself. I'm a naturally guarded person but I think I got that way to stop being swamped by the Mother Immaculata. I feel I'm in transition and sometimes it makes me nervous but the other part of me is excited by the ride especially with you at my side."
The fair haired woman's soft look made the younger woman feel good inside. Her mind felt wide open and anything that could be said, should be said.
"Say, that reminds me. How did we get here after you'd been busted. I'm curious to find out."
"I feel suddenly cold, Annabelle. Shall we go inside?" came the reply in worryingly formal tones while her lover's shoulders felt as if they were contracting on themselves under her touch. Annabelle was beginning to think that she'd touched her lover on a sensitive spot and she'd soon regret her rash words,.