I was so ashamed. I had done it again.
Despite my weekend trysts with Beverly, and no matter how hard I tried, I frequently found myself masturbating and thinking about Lynn. If she ever found out, I would die.
It was deeply humiliating. It had happened before with other lovers. I knew it was just a stage and it would go away, but at the moment I was stuck, and it was unbearable. I would think about being in her pussy, or think of her boots on me, and I would explode, and then I would cry, and spend the rest of the day hating myself.
But it was happening less often and I didn't know whether to be relieved or concerned that our love hadn't meant enough. She was slipping away from me. I was sure I was already less than nothing to her.
It was a sunny Saturday in the middle of the summer. I forgave myself, got out of bed, and took care of the dogs. I had errands to run and got them over with so I could apply my backside to my chair and write. I was coming to the end of my novel and was already thinking sequel. I had to have something to do while I tried selling Captive Planet.
As I put away groceries, I saw I had a message. Probably some giggling kid or confused elderly person.
“Hello, Jane. This is Lynn. I have your disk and I'd like to return it. Please call me. Thanks."
I stared stupidly at the blinking light. Why hadn't she just thrown it away? Some misguided sense of propriety about my literary assets? No, I decided it was some kind of closure she wanted, some way of telling me it was too late.
I picked up the phone and dialed. My hands were shaking as I rehearsed my little sound bite. “Lynn, this is Jane. Just toss…"
“Jane?"
“Um…” Shit! She never picked up. She had been waiting.
“Jane, let me bring it over. Let me bring your disk,” she asked, and she asked nicely.
“Lynn… I… I have been trying so hard to heal. Please… don't make it any harder. Just throw it away,” I begged her.
“I've been trying, too. I think this would help both of us. It isn't just the disk. I have something else. I have to… explain something. Please. Just for a few minutes,” she pleaded back.
My brain was screaming “NO!” but my heart desperately wanted to see her. I sighed. “When?"
“When is good for you?” she asked. “Now?"
“Uh… aren't you busy?” I stuttered.
Lynn was quiet a moment. “No, not that busy. Would you like to come here, or should I come there?"
I decided instantly. “I'll come there.” I didn't want any more memories of her in my house.
“I'll be here,” she said, and we hung up.
I found I had started sweating profusely while talking to her. I had to wash up and change. I sat still and tried to lower my heart rate, and then I got into my car.
By the time I got to Lynn's house I was shaking like a leaf, and I had to sit and try and calm myself again. It didn't work. I gave up and walked up to the door and, before I could ring the bell, it opened.
“Jane. Please, come in,” Lynn said, stepping aside. She closed the door and turned to face me. I saw circles under her eyes. She was so tiny in her shorts and tank top! I had forgotten. She had always seemed so much larger than life to me.
She seemed about to say something, then bit her lip and looked away. I waited for her to gather herself, but she couldn't. When she looked up at me again, her eyes were filled with tears. “I'm sorry,” she whispered. “I'm so sorry!"
I couldn't stand it. I embraced her. She wrapped her wiry arms around me and wouldn't let go.
“Oh, Lynn,” I said, losing control and letting my own tears fall. Now I would have to start all over. It was so unfair. With her solid little body against me, sobbing like a child desperate for a parent's love, it seemed she knew I couldn't resist her vulnerability. “Oh, fuck,” I sighed, resting my cheek against her hair.
I pulled back slightly so I could take her hand and lead her to the couch. There I sat down, let her sink into my lap and lean on me, and waited while she cried herself out.
Clearly, it wasn't closure she sought after all. She wanted something else from me, some continuation of our relationship. However, I wasn't going to chide or reprimand her for it at the moment. Obviously she had been having a worse time getting over us than I thought, and I remembered again how she held herself so far apart from everyone else, and how she may not have had anyone to express herself to while I had.
“I… I didn't lie to you. I do have something to give you. I have your disk and… something else,” Lynn finally said, her face still against my chest.
“Okay, take your time,” I told her. I was in up to my eyebrows already. A few more minutes didn't matter.
“It's in my study. I'll get it,” she said, slipping off my lap.
In a few minutes, she came back with an accordion file that she set on the coffee table. She sat down next to me and opened it. “Here's the disk,” she said unnecessarily, and then she reached in again and pulled out several business envelopes, all of which had already been opened. She looked at me for a moment and handed them over, all but one. “I know these are addressed to me, but they're actually yours.” She seemed very ill at ease for reasons I gathered went beyond our breakup and recent reunion.
“Okay,” I said, taking them. I turned them over and fanned them out. They were all from publishing companies. “What are they?"
Lynn took the first one from my hand, opened it and unfolded the paper. “These are letters expressing an interest in Captive Planet. Some editors are more interested than others. The top three are the best offers, I think."
“Offers? What have you done, Lynn?” I asked her, confused.
She chewed her lip and looked away. “I sold your book."
I looked at the letter. Someone in New York was thanking her for discovering me and asking her to convey an offer for an advance. It was in five figures. Okay, a low five figures, but even so…
“You mean, like an agent?” I was dumbfounded and noted with annoyance that my hands were shaking.
Lynn shook her head. “Not exactly. More like… an intermediary. I don't get a percentage. I just sort of formed a conduit between you and them, temporarily. I'm really not involved anymore. You respond to them as you wish."
I quickly opened the other letters. All were from houses I'd actually heard of, whose books I had held in my hands and sometimes even bought. They all wanted to see more, and the top three offered advances.
“I… I don't know what to say! When… when did you do this?” I asked. Like it mattered! I just couldn't seem to think of anything more relevant.
“Shortly after, uh… the last time I saw you, I started offering your manuscript to my contacts,” Lynn began slowly. “And of course, it took some time before I heard back from these people, as you can see by the dates of the letters."
I looked at them again. The last letter was dated two days previous. “I see. Well, I don't know what to say, Lynn. I mean, of course I'm tremendously grateful. But… why?"
She got up and walked to the window. “I wanted to give you some options. I thought your writing deserved a chance, and I wanted to show you I really do love you, Jane."
I followed her and hugged her. “No matter what happens to us, I will always love you, Lynn. But what options?"
“You don't have to always be a janitor, for one thing. You can be just a writer, and take care of your own benefits,” she explained, resting her hands on my chest.
I couldn't let her go. “You mean, you still don't wanna tell your friends you're seeing a janitor,” I pointed out.
“Okay, Jane, I won't lie. Yes, it does bother me. On the other hand, you could at least admit that you are not a professional janitor! It's what you do to pay the bills. It's neither a profession nor a cause. Isn't that true?"
“Workers of the world, unite!” I announced.
“Oh, shut up,” she said, and we both laughed.
“Lynn, you amaze me. I had no idea. You said nothing for so long!” I took her back to the couch to sit down.
“How could I? I had to have some results. I waited until I had all the answers,” she said, curling herself into my side.
I hated to ruin the moment, but something more had to be said. “But listen, Lynn, I'm still a lesbian, and you're still in public secondary education in a jerkwater county in Florida. You can't come out; I can't stay in. Except that I may be able to stop being a janitor, it doesn't change the basic problem between us."
“No, you're right. That doesn't, but this does.” She handed me the last envelope, the one she hadn't given me before. It was from CFU, the big university where she taught part-time.
I slid the letter out. “Dear Dr. Jeffries, it is with great pleasure that we offer you the appointment of instructor in the department of…” I stopped and looked at her. “You applied for a job? I thought you said…"
“I know, I know. Just listen to me. Don't say anything until I'm done,” she requested. Her eyes were filling with tears again. She was seriously stressed out, and I could relate very easily to that.
“All right, Lynn. Go on."
“I can take early, partial retirement from the county right now. I've been in the system long enough. This job at CFU doesn't have tenure, at least not yet, but it has benefits. I could retire again in fifteen or twenty years. Actually, you only need ten, but obviously, the longer, the more money. And if I work there, I can be out. You can still be a janitor, and nothing else will matter. So I'm leaving it up to you. Should I accept the position? If I take it, will you… be with me?"
“I… I don't think I should be the one making this decision,” I objected. But it was so exciting! “And you won't be the boss, you'll be a drone, and you'll resent me."
Lynn was nodding agreement. “I know what you're saying, but look, I have had two perfectly miserable months to figure out exactly what matters to me. I'm 45 years old, Jane. Do you know what the chances are of finding a husband after 40? How about for a cranky little bitch of a Ph. D. who wants to run the whole show? I'm looking at a cold, lonely bed and no one to share any of this with.” She waved her hand at the perfectly decorated great room in which we were sitting. “Teaching at a university is very respectable. I will still publish and present all over the world. I can eventually become a professor. I'm not giving up much but the corner office and the private potty. If all I have to do to get you back is walk down the hall to pee, I'll do it!” She pulled out tissues and went back to crying.
I rubbed her back, but I couldn't help laughing. “Well, it all sounds very nice and hard to resist, and you're frying my brain. I don't know what to say, but I don't think I should give you a final answer without thinking this all through."
Lynn sighed. “No, of course not.” She took a deep breath and began again. “When I found out you left the school, I was terrified you were gone for good. I called your house from a pay phone. I called my friends at the county to see where you went. When I found out you were still here, I was finally able to sleep again,” she related. “And then the application, and the letters to the publishers took forever, and I couldn't say anything until I was in a position to make you an offer. I was so afraid you would find someone else."
“In two months? Oh, Lynn! You're a lot harder to get over than that.” No need to tell her about Bev then, if ever.
Lynn shifted to look at me. “Really?"
I nodded, too overwhelmed to speak. My lover was back in my arms and she wanted to stay.
She asked hesitantly, “Would you like to stay for… anything? Lunch? Dinner? Supper?"
“I would like to stay, yes,” I whispered, and I leaned down to kiss her.
In seconds, she was on her back, pulling me over on top of her. “Baby,” she sighed. “Don't you ever leave me again."
I rested there, totally unable to think. I didn't know exactly where we would end up, but this was a monumental breakthrough in her philosophy about our relationship. In effect, she had proposed. I would need something more specific in order to make changes and commitments myself, but this was an excellent start.
“Lynn,” I murmured, surrendering to her kiss, “I have missed you so bad."
Her tongue slid between my lips and we were quiet for the longest time, getting reacquainted, loving the feel of each other again. Although I had been with Bev just the night before, I was ready for Lynn. I had been ready for her for two months. I had taught myself to manage without her, but I had always been ready to return to her if she had given me any hope whatsoever.
She rolled us over. I slid my hands under her tank top and undid her bra. She helped me get it off and I tossed it aside. Her breasts fell into my hands as if they had never been anywhere else, and both of us groaned a little at the sensation.
“Do you want me?” Lynn whispered, thrusting her thigh between my legs and making me arch.
“Ohhhhh, God, yes,” I panted. “But I need you to take me. Be my dominant, Lynn. I need you that way, especially now. Please."
Her response was to drive my legs farther apart. “Pull my pants down,” she instructed, and when I had done so, she growled, “Pleasure me, slave."
“Mistress,” I whispered, reaching up into her.
“Mmmmm,” Lynn sighed, relaxing. But she only let me take her so far and then she was up and off me.
“Stay there until I call you, and get undressed,” she said, scooping up her things. She went to the back of the house and the door closed behind her.
I undressed and sat there, looking down the hall after her, torn between elation and terror. It was wonderful and beyond my wildest dreams to be back in Lynn's house and Lynn's life, but dreadful to be so dependent upon the whims of another for all of my happiness. It seemed this was what life always boiled down to: either being lonely and alone, or terrified of losing the one you're with. The third alternative, being with someone you don't love, was part of and worse than alone. How I envied religious people who managed to bypass the whole mess by devoting their lives to God. Unfortunately, I was too old and jaded to delude myself with anything like that. I was back in the reality where if I couldn't have Lynn, I would die. If she dumped me again, I was sure I would go over the edge and stay there.
Therefore it was with considerable trepidation that I rose to go down the hall to her bedroom when she called me. Try telling yourself at a moment like that, if it doesn't work out, you will just pick up the pieces and get on with your life. I knew damn good and well that losing her would be devastating, and that if I left now, before I made love to her, it would hurt less.
Knowing all that, I did it anyway.