As the summer evening drew in, somehow neither woman thought to put the lights on. The sun sank slowly, blood red as it edged down slowly into the ocean, bisected by the line of the limitless ocean. Above it, the blue-green twilight cast its fading illumination over the lands and dark shadows lengthened in the world they shared.
Annabelle bit her lip and swallowed in agitation. She knew that they'd skated around the one unresolved question that lay between them and that was what had happened between when Simone had been arrested and she'd found her lying on the beach. She'd felt guilty as hell that she'd made no effort to reach out to her even though she'd been in the hands of the government investigators who'd spirited her away. Now, she'd blabbed the unmentionable and couldn't back out, if only that no better chance would come up again. What was going to happen now?
"I've been meaning to ask you, Simone," the very self-consciously younger woman asked, stammering slightly and then stopped dead. Simone raised her eyebrows and looked through her spectacles at her. The dark haired woman wished the hell she could read her lover's expression. She was so cool that it was intimidating or was it the facade she reached for when she was insecure?That was it, she concluded, Simone was as scared as hell, as much as she was.
"I mean what happened to you when you were arrested?"
Instinct told the fair haired woman what to do. She got up from the chair she'd been sitting at, went round the corner of the table, moved a chair and sat next to Annabelle, deliberately placing her hand in her own. She could feel the younger woman's nervous tension start to subside and she cut to the chase with conclusion first, story afterwards.
"I know very well why you had to lie low darling. You could have been packed off to military school or the army if you'd made a move. Living without ea\ch other has been very hard for us both but I knew in my heart you'd be there for me when things were ready even in my darkest moments. I had faith, you see."
The younger woman's wound up tension was exhaled in one continuous stream of breath and she went limp, leaning her head on her lover's shoulder. Simone's other arm slid round Annabelle's shoulders
"You can tell me everything if you're able to,"Annabelle said in a curiously adult protective kind of way.
The dark room faded into the background as another form of blackness rose up before Simone's eyes. Her shiver could be felt through Annabelle's skin who clung onto her lover's hand.
"I was driven away in this black military looking car with two men in the front who said nothing in a pointed kind of way. The greenery flashed past my window in a weird psychedelic way until I was taken into this compound which was behind this police station. They slung me into a bare cell as if I was contaminated..."
Annabelle shuddered. She could picture it all so horrifyingly clearly. This was serious shit and way worse than being hauled up before some headteacher and being lectured at for her sins.
"I'm afraid I let you down here," Simone said, clearly embarrassed at her confession. She had fallen painfully short of a Joan of Arc standard and no one was more torn up about it than she. She had been marked by a guilt-ridden form of Christianity, all penance and possible forgiveness for all our sins."I was questioned for hours by these cops who shone hot lights into my eyes. They pored over every detail of my life. I panicked and I denied my love for you, everything we'd meant to each other. I even said that you'd been upset and you came into my bedroom and comforted you. I said that you'd got loaded and emotional so I couldn't disrupt the dorm, that my pupils must have got the wrong idea. I said it with so much conviction that I half-believed my own lies."
The twilight made it hard to read expressions but Simone senses that she could feel a smile of admiration spread across the younger woman's face, someone who could be pretty streetwise. Peter denied thrice that Jesus Christ was the Son of God before his interrogators when he'd been arrested. The words of the Bible came back as a terrifyingly male voice, the carved wooden pulpit leaning crazily over her. She was a miserable sinner, the voice thundered at her in her overheated mind.
"Wow, that's the neatest fast footwork I've ever seen,"Annabelle replied, breaking the spell with her warm, infinitely understanding tones."I couldn't have thought how to explain me in your room, wearing my slip and you, dressed in your jeans and red bra."
Simone both laughed and cried at her friend's gentle kindness. This was the very first time she began to think that she'd done a pretty neat job of talking them both out of trouble. It was the younger woman's turn to slide her comforting arms round her and hold her. The feeling was like heaven.
"So I signed a statement just as I'd said. They didn't believe a word of it as they charged me with the offence of 'corrupting the morals of a minor." Simone almost gagged at the ugly obscenity of the official words but she rushed ahead to carry on with her story." They slung me back in a cell for an hour or so to sweat it out. Finally, I was told that I'd been bailed and I could go. My parents did it, I suppose. They never came to see me or offer me any kind of support. They paid over the money out of guilt..."
Simone pressed her hand to her forehead. She'd never forget or forgive the senseless cruelty of what happened next.
"I came out of the front door, feeling defiled and emotionally beaten up all over. I was blinded by the harsh daylight and couldn't get my bearings. A crowd of reporters started hounding me, getting right in my face. Flashbulbs exploded close up and voices started shouting.'Tell me, did you really screw Senator Tillman's daughter? How do you think Annabelle Tillman's parents think?' over and over again. I kept on saying 'no comment,'
no comment,' 'no comment.' I stumbled through the pack and found myself helpless, in a part of town I didn't know. I felt I'd been raped. So how did I ever get here, I don't know."
Annabelle held her dear lover to her breasts, making gentle shooshing sounds. She wished so much she could take her pain away from her and knew that, even if she couldn't, she must make the attempt. Religion didn't mean that much to her but something within her told her that she must do right. What worried her was the way Simone was struggling to recount her experiences in a consecutive order and she knew more than anyone how structured her lover's thinking was. Annabelle had not imbibed her lover's poetry analysis for nothing and not without drawing conclusions.
"I know what happened. I caught sight of the Mother Immaculata in this crummy sidestreet. It struck me as pretty weird. She gestured angrily to me to come over. I obeyed and looked inside the back seat of the car. It turned out that she'd got all my possessions at the school all packed up and placed there, the rest in the trunk and she said nothing, but drove me here She dropped everything at the roadside, at the top of the steps where you parked the car and shot off. I've never seen nor heard from her since..."
Annabelle read the feelings behind this flat, emotionless final series of statements. It felt exactly the same as when her mother had dropped her off at St Theresa's in the first place. Two of a kind, she thought, powerful women who did good public works but didn't know where to begin emotionally connecting with or dealing with real people.
"I've been here three weeks and, do you know, I've never been on the beach? I went to the top of the steps and bought food at the local store and sat in and stewed without talking to a soul. I went out one morning, feeling drained and empty of emotions with the court case hanging over my head. I've had so many sleepless nights waiting to be dragged into court that when I got a letter that morning saying that no charges would be brought against me that I went out on the beach and fell asleep out of sheer exhaustion. When I saw you leaning over me, I wasn't sure if I was in some kind of dream only to wake up out of it and find myself in the same misery as before."
Simone's voice died away in quiet exhaustion. The sharp eyed woman who held her close knew that her lover had not so much remembered what had happened to her but relived it. She continued stroking her body very gently and lovingly, feeling her presence next to her. The gathering night had almost come and it was dark outside but not in her large heart.
"Could you do me a favour and switch on that sidelight?"murmured Simone sleepily as the feel of her lover's breasts comforted her. "I could do with a little illumination in my life right now."
The younger woman moved quickly to click the light on and it cast a gentle, warm glow on the crevices and corners of their home. It painted warm colours on the fair-haired woman's tanned features. Annabelle could imagine how pale and washed out she had been and how healthy she started to look right now. Annabelle looked on affectionately, noting how the worry lines that had marked her face when she'd been at St Theresa's had been smoothed out. She looked at peace with herself right now. There was one last thing that nagged at the young woman's persistent intelligence. It had to be voiced.
"There's one thing I don't get. You did a great job in getting us out of this hole but how come the Mother Immaculata didn't push it further and testify against us? I bet she suspected what we'd been doing, more than she let on to us..."
Simone laughed cynically. She could see through her saintly aunt right now and had emotionally got right out from underneath her. That pervasive spider's web of guilt had hamstrung her for so long and now she was free. The inscription she'd written in the book she'd once given to Annabelle, the Marcel Proust line of seeing the world with new eyes was never so more meaningful as now, once she'd lived this liberating experience.
"I think I can work that out. Don't you see that the Mother Immaculata is running St Theresa's as a highly lucrative business for well-heeled families to send their troublesome offspring to lick them, to lick us, into shape. If a quote sex scandal unquote had blown up, parents would have pulled their children out of school and she'd got the blame. She's the CEO of her company operating under licence from the Vatican, just as your father is of his firm. All she had to do was to refuse to give evidence and even the Governor of California wouldn't subpoena her to give evidence. She knows too much, you see. Far better for me to be gently eased out as expendable and my career ruined."
Annabelle's mouth opened wide at this sharp woman's insightful observations about her corporate parents. She hadn't really studied all that self-important political shit but it felt right. Simone was certainly bitter and cynical but she had every right to be because of the sweat and effort she'd dedicated to the school and there was certainly a powerful idealist within her. This woman's powerful love for her was evidence of that. It all made sense, every piece clicked into position and she started to feel very guilty about the pressure she's put Simone under. She saw that Simone had foreseen something like this happening to her which was why she'd desperately tried to back off from their blossoming relationship taking off.
"Did you reckon we'd get busted like we did? I got so wrapped up in our love. I figured out that what we were doing was morally right so what's the big deal? I never used you to get good grades. Adolescent, I know."
Simone nodded her head meditatively Certainly, the more immediate and accessible part of her sense of growing nightmare was the very real threat of losing her job. She'd come down off that cross and the crucifixion wounds had mysteriously healed. It was Simone's turn to raise herself up and comfort Annabelle's obvious sense of contrition. She ran her hands lovingly through her lover's long dark hair.
"I never really talked it through to you. It wasn't easy to talk openly. I know now that the fear of being socially disgraced was very powerful, something I couldn't emotionally deal with at the time. It crippled me, made me draw back when I should have been bolder. Now we're here to live our lives with nothing and nobody to stop us," Simone said dreamily before she shook her head as the obvious question popped itself into her mind . The something obviously missing was Annabelle's experiences."But what of you, sweetheart? What happened to you in all that time?"she asked in tones of melting concern.
"Cat snitched on us as you might expect. She was jealous of me and resentful of you for stopping the shit she got up to. The atmosphere changed around as both Kristin and Collins turned against her. It was her turn to be the outcast. I never forgot the look you gave me as you were being taken away by the police. It gave me comfort for all those miserable weeks. I stayed out of trouble as I felt kind of numb inside. There were two weeks left of term left so I worked like a robot. I quit being the smartass in form and I buried myself in my work. I had to find something to hold onto. Finally I let myself be taken home by my parents. I remember looking at your car in the car park as I was being taken away. I stayed out of the way and said nothing, not having the energy to argue. I used to dream of our one night together but that made me feel more sad and alone than ever. I really wanted to phone you up, ask how you were getting on, to give you my love but I dared not in case I got you into more shit than you were already. My heart wanted to do one thing and my head the complete opposite. Finally I started to pull myself together and schemed with Cat's brother to pick up your convertible from St Theresa's. I had to do something to make myself feel better, that and passing my driving test. Finally I overheard some shit from my mother that you weren't going to be charged. I packed my bag, sped off in your convertible, saw a copy of the paper and sped off here and here I am."
Annabelle's incredible torrent of words moved Simone very profoundly. In her clipped fashion, she was understating the incredible love and loyalty she felt for her. She'd go to the wall to do what was right for her and she had that driving force behind her that would move mountains. She took both the other woman's shapely hands and declaimed in fierce intense tones.
"If it were legal to do so, I swear to God that if you felt the same way, I would marry you. I feel that way already. Annabelle, you are my lover, my soul mate and my dearest friend."
"Wow, Simone. You're such an amazing woman. You are everything that I could ever want in my life. I want to be around you so much,"Annabelle said, stumbling for the words to express the depths of her feelings, her eyes wide open and her heart soaring up into the skies.