The Prodigal Daughter

by J. P. Garland

My heart stopped.

  “I’m half-asleep but I heard you. You’re in a crazy place right now, with your family and all.”

  “But—”

  “No ‘buts.’ Here’s the deal. I give you an option. You can ask me in two weeks.”

  I released her hand. She continued.

  “If you ask me in fourteen days, I will say ‘yes.’ But you need to put this crap with your family behind you.”

  “I have.”

  “Just two weeks. That’s all I ask. Can you do that for me? Sweetie?”

  “I guess.” It was admittedly sulkily said.

  “Don’t give me attitude, young lady.”

  Which made me pout even more.

  Mel took the blanket off her and sat on the side of the bed, her arms reaching for me. In a moment I was up and sitting next to her. After a hug, she jumped up to pee. She left the door open and I heard her.

  “How about we see if this shower thing works?”

  I peeked around the door.

  “I’ll get the towels,” and after I opened the shades to let light in—who cared what the passing cows saw?—I went in. Mel had stripped and tossed her T-shirt and panties into the other room. I was naked. I turned the water on and pointed the nozzle into the sink until the water was warm. Not a lot of room, so I sat on the toilet lid and sprayed my chest and the rest of my front until I turned it on Mel, who was standing in front of me in anticipation. I lingered on her boobs and especially on her pussy until she told me to stop.

  With the water off, we opened the little soap package and proceeded to soap each other down as best we could. As I say, not a lot of room.

  It was one of those things that seem erotic in the mind but the eroticism was only half-baked and now we were simply making a mess of things and I rinsed her off and she rinsed me off and it was chilly so we did not waste time teasingly toweling each other dry. We then went back into the other room, kicking the discarded clothing to the side.

  We turned to face each other and began to kiss and what began as something gentle and delicate rapidly became anything but. Mel reached beneath my towel and grabbed my ass, pulling me towards her. With that touch, I lost control. I began to stutter, vibrating in my love’s arms as what happened the day before hit me. The holding that at first had all the promise of great sex fundamentally changed to something far more intimate as we swayed, comforter and comfortee.

  Mel whispered, thinking I did not hear her, “I hope you ask me again in two weeks” as she tightened her grip and led me to the bed, where I finished my cry, awash in apologies to Mel.

  Eventually, we managed to make ourselves, and the room, presentable and we headed to the dining car for coffee. We got that and two Danishes. We sat at a table, watching the landscape of Upstate New York, content in our silences and our lightly touching fingers.

  Home Again

  When we finally got to New York, we took a cab home to Brooklyn. Both exhausted, we went straight to bed and fell asleep. It was dark when I awoke and Mel was still asleep, on her stomach, her face turned away from me on her pillow. After using the bathroom, I returned to my side of the bed and lay on my left side watching her breathe. I raised up and lowered my lips to hers. She reacted but did not awaken. My lips lowered to her neck and I ran the fingers of my right hand across her cheek. She reacted more. Suddenly I was on top of her, grinding into her as I wrested her lips apart. Her eyes opened and she looked confused and disoriented and for a moment I feared she would push me away. I felt her hands instead circle to my back, clutching me closer, her tongue battling mine. Her hands reached to unclasp my bra—which I’d slept in—and she raised so I could do the same to her.

  It was nice to be in our bed, so unexpectedly, and we explored each other as we never had before until the next layer of exhaustion hit us both though not until I had been more assertive with her than ever before.

  When I was done, I stepped over her and stood by the bed in tears.

  “I’m sorry. I don’t know what came over me. Please forgive me for forcing you—”

  Mel reached up and scooted to the side so I could again lie next to her, placing my head on her chest.

  “You never force me to do anything. You know I’m always here for you. For whatever you need. You know that, right?”

  “I do.”

  “Now what do you need me to do?”

  “Just be you and tell me I’m not a terrible person.”

  She kissed my head. “Do you think I would love you if you were a terrible person?”

  I lifted my head so I could look at her. “So, you still love me?”

  “Today and always.”

  “So, you’ll—”

  “Sssh. We have a deal on that, remember.”

  “But you will say ‘yes’ when I ask.”

  “I’ll still say ‘yes’ if you ask.”

  I put my head back down on her chest and my left hand began to play with her right nipple. Followed by my lips, encouraged by her shortening breath. I was suddenly pushed away and down. My tongue weaved its way down until it was hastened by a “Please.”

  I walked around to the foot of the bed and removed her damp panties, a curtain-raising that permitted me to feast on the sight of her, glistening between her spread legs. I devoured her in a different, more pleasurable manner till it was her hands gripping my head and pulling me in.

  She came once and I continued light lapping, which I knew she liked as she entered an almost semi-conscious state, which ended when she shook for a second time, after which I knew she was spent.

  When we finished, she headed to the bathroom, naked, and after I enjoyed the pleasure of watching her ass cheeks in motion I went to the kitchen, in a robe, to see what we had to eat. There were some left-overs in the fridge and we ate them after they were heated up in the microwave with a nice bottle of merlot.

  On Sunday, we went for a walk and spoke more and calmly about what happened on our trip. In the end, we agreed that I did the only thing I could do, that were I to have compromised on the essence of who I am I would never get it back. That my family was gone long ago. Whether it came back to me was something we had to wait for.

  But first, we passed the death of my father. Word reached me about a week after we got back to New York. Marcie called. She asked if I would be coming to the funeral, and I told her I did not know. That was a lie. I knew. I was not vengeful or anything. I simply understood that he had no part of my life as eventually I had none for his. Mel and I spoke about it.

  I called my sister later that day, after discussing it again with Mel, and told her we—the word I used—were not coming. The hard part was when my mom called to try to get me to change my mind.

  “It’ll tear apart the family.”

  “Mom. The family is what it is. Give it time. I didn’t hate him. In the end, I was sorry for him. Give it time. You can call me whenever you want. Same with everyone else.”

  So we did not go.

  Tim sent me an email with a copy of the local paper’s obituary for my dad. The email itself simply said, “This may be of interest to you.” At least it mentioned my existence.

  My old family’s issues had interrupted my new family’s, but I put them aside as I had for so long before that call from Marcie. At 6:42 am on the Saturday after my dad’s death, my alarm went off.

  “What the—?” was Mel’s entirely appropriate reaction, seeing that it was Saturday.

  “Will you marry me?”

  “What?”

  “You said if I asked in two weeks from 6:42 two weeks ago you’d say ‘yes.’ So, I’m just making it official. Will you marry me?”

  Mel was now on her elbows looking at me as though I was insane.

  “Did you adjust for the different time zones?”

  “I did. It’s now,” and I looked at my watch, “Two weeks plus one minute. You haven’t forgotten, have you? You’re not having second thoughts, are you?”

  She decided to tease me and waited before answering. B
ut her smile was clear.

  “What about names?”

  “We’ll figure it out. Will you marry me?”

  “Of course, I’ll marry you.”

  Unlike the first time I asked her, now we were quickly naked and making love, hoping not to wake the neighbors.

  Mel’s Folks

  This was in the early days of gay marriage in New York but even then the community was completely geared up for it. We flew down to meet Mel’s parents and several of her siblings in Florida. She had no issues with her folks, and they had no issues with me. They were of the she-loves-you/you-love-her school and that is all they wanted for Sweet Melissa. I also met branches of her family that lived in New York and they were fine.

  My family, though, decidedly was not. I would like to say that with my father’s death everyone reconciled. Far from it. My going changed me from the family’s deviant embarrassment to its deviant embarrassment who could not give a dying man his final wish. That they lied to me to lure me into going with their promises that my father had seen-the-light and wanted-to-reconcile-with-me were forgotten. My not going to the funeral was the final straw.

  When I called Marcie to tell her of my engagement, she merely said, “I’m happy for you. I hope we can make it. If we’re invited.” After I assured her she and the rest of them would be, she thanked me, told me she would tell the others, and hung up. None of them called me back.

  Marriage

  Having agreed to get married and met Mel’s family, we did not see the point of delay. We decided on an August date and found a loft in Brooklyn. We kept the guest list relatively small—neither of us had many non-acquaintance friends—and though they were all invited none of my family came. We both wore white gowns and walked down the aisle with Mel’s dad.

  After the “I do”s, the first kiss and the first dance, and the toasts and the tossed bouquets, we were off to our honeymoon in Cape Cod. After our first, second, third, fourth, and fifth night of making love as wives, we hopped an Amtrak train back to Penn Station in Manhattan and sprung for a cab to take us to our home in Brooklyn.