Prairie Fire

by Djuna Shellam

  Prairie’s spirits were dashed. “Well, so much for a perfect, cozy, weekend.” She groaned. “I guess I’ll go see how bad my room is and maybe put on even more clothes—if that’s even possible. Crap.”

  As Prairie turned to leave the room, Fiona reminded her with urgency, “Leave quickly, okay? And close the door really fast. Thanks, Prair.” Fiona pulled the covers up over her head as Prairie departed.

  ~/~/~/~/~

  Depressed, Prairie did as Fiona asked, dreading the impending night and however long they had to go without heat. Shivering her way to the other side of the dwelling, she opened the door to her room and was received by a blast of refrigerator air.

  “Oh, for cripe’s sake,” Prairie muttered as she was stopped in her tracks by the intense cold. Her one window seemed to have ice forming on the inside of several of its panes. “Oh, man. This is going to be a long john night for sure!”

  Prairie quickly moved to the dresser that came with the room—an old, not quite antique, battered wood dresser. It had been refinished and painted, poorly, several times. She yanked open the second drawer down and pawed through it until she retrieved a set of long underwear. Guttural sounds made their way out of her freezing lips as she quickly stripped and almost literally jumped into her thermals and then into her twin bed.

  “Holy smokes it’s cold. And here I was afraid I was going to get sent to Alaska,” Prairie muttered to herself as she tried to warm her body up.

  She curled her body into as tight a ball as she could, gathering her blankets snuggly into her, but nothing seemed to work. Everything was just unbearably damp and cold. Prairie continued to toss and turn, hoping the activity would help, but it didn’t. It just frustrated her more. A cup of hot steaming tea crossed her mind until she remembered the stove that ran on oil probably wouldn’t work either. She wasn’t about to check it out, especially if she failed. Just the thought of messing around in the icy cold kitchen made her colder still.

  After an hour of unmitigated misery, Prairie jumped out of bed, ran to the dresser and quickly found another pair of thermals and put them over the pair she was wearing, and added another pair of woolen socks for good measure. “Jeez, I can barely move,” she complained to no one as she lunged back into her bed. “Ugh, I think someone has to die over this.” In a short time, slightly warmer, she fell asleep.

  Just over two hours later, Prairie was awakened by her shivering body. “Whoa,” she groaned through chattering teeth. When she tried to wiggle her toes, she yelped. “Ouch!”

  ~/~/~/~/~

  “Fiona! Psssst! Fiona!” Prairie whispered loudly through a crack in Fiona’s bedroom door. “Are you awake? Can I come in?” She waited a few moments, but there was no reply. “Psssssst! Fiona!”

  “What is it, Prair?” Fiona gave a muffled, groggy, reply from under her blankets.

  “I’m freezing, Fi. And I have popsicle toes,” Prairie complained. “My room is so fucking cold!” Prairie waited a beat, “Can I sleep in your bed tonight? I just can’t get warm.”

  Without hesitation, Fiona answered, “Sure, c’mon in, but hurry!”

  Prairie practically dove for Fiona’s bed and sidled up to Fiona’s warm body, pulling the covers over her. “Ahhh, you’re so warm!” Prairie exclaimed.

  “And you are a popsicle,” Fiona retorted. “Blimey, love! Come on, get over here.” Fiona pulled Prairie close to her, then wrapped her arms around Prairie, sending a different kind of shiver through her body.

  “You’re a Life Saver,” Prairie purred. “A lime Life Saver—my favorite flavor.”

  “You calling me a Limey?”

  “I wouldn’t.” Prairie chuckled to herself.

  “Good thing,” Fiona replied sleepily. “G’night, popsicle toes.”

  “Night,” Prairie whispered. If it weren’t so damned cold, she thought, this could be a night to remember. She smiled contently. Warmed by Fiona’s body pressed next to hers, Prairie fell fast asleep.

  2.4—And Just Like That

  The decisive knocking on the cottage door sent Fiona and Prairie into an explosion of activity.

  “Oh shit!” Prairie exclaimed in a hushed voice as she scrambled to gather her clothes off the floor on her side of the bed. “Who’s that?”

  Fiona, while not nearly as panicked, was still moving quickly in an attempt to get her clothes on. The room was dimly lit from a small amount of light seeping through the curtains, indicating late morning. As she hopped from one leg to the other, pulling on her jeans, her eyes darted around the room looking for a shirt.

  “Coming!” Fiona hollered, loud enough, she hoped, to hold the mystery caller at bay for another minute or so. Spying a long-sleeved thermal top lying on a chair in the corner, she darted across the room to it, whispering, “Prair, you stay in here and I’ll go see who it is.” Socks… she needed socks. Fiona quickly did a scan of the room but couldn’t see her socks. She went to the bureau to get a new pair when the knocking commenced again. “Oh, hell already!”

  Prairie pulled the mountain of blankets back to find her own missing socks as Fiona rushed out of the room, barefooted, grabbing a sweater off the back of the door as she exited the still freezing room.

  As soon as Fiona pulled the door shut, Prairie plopped on the side of the bed, completely nude and freezing, and shook her head as if to clear a fog.

  What the hell happened this morning? While trying to listen to the conversation taking place in the front room, Prairie couldn’t get the morning’s surprising turn of events out of her head. Her entire body was buzzing and it wasn’t from the surprise visitor. The murmur of conversation continued on the other side of the door, but instead of trying to ascertain any details, Prairie instead laid back on the bed, burrowed under the blankets, and allowed herself to reminisce.

  ~/~/~/~/~

  Just before dawn, Prairie was awakened by a strange sensation. What is that? she wondered. Where was she? Who…? Wait…

  Ooooooh. Prairie instantly remembered crawling into Fiona’s bed only hours before in order to get warm. She was all kinds of warm now with Fiona’s body rhythmically pressing against her from behind. Fiona was spooning Prairie, but Fiona’s spooning was nowhere near the kind of spooning she remembered with her sisters. This was…

  And then Fiona moaned softly. In an instant, startling sensations began happening in Prairie’s nether region.

  “Um, Fi?”

  “Mmmm…”

  “Fi, it’s Prairie…” Prairie frantically fought off the physical urges she was experiencing just in case this was a dream—of hers or Fiona’s.

  “I know,” Fiona practically purred.

  Silence. Should she panic, or go with the flow? Prairie wondered.

  “Should I stop?” Fiona cooed.

  “Um…” Somewhat hindered by the blankets and layers of thermal underwear, Prairie clumsily turned over to face Fiona. She asked suspiciously, “Are you really awake, Fi?”

  “I am quite awake, Prair.” Fiona’s come hither voice almost sent Prairie over the edge.

  And then Fiona gently pulled Prairie close and kissed her passionately with an open mouth and a hungry, searching tongue. Her hips continued to undulate—and in an instant, it was on.

  Before either of them knew what had happened, every stitch of their layers of clothing had been discarded, and they were lost in the throes of lovemaking that seemed to go on forever. At least that’s how Prairie remembered it. Forever. Cold? What was that? Prairie breathed in deeply, filling her entire being with the incredible desire her memories were evoking. It almost felt something akin to a bad case of love.

  ~/~/~/~/~

  “Hiya!” Fiona rushed into the room and jumped onto the bed and Prairie.

  “Hi,” Prairie replied with somewhat confused amusement as she braced herself for Fiona’s boisterous landing.

  “That was the guy from the heating place,” Fiona said while trying to get herself under the blankets with Prairie. “I told him you were still sleeping and
we’d have to get dressed and eat and stuff, so he’s going to go work on another place and come back at noon. We have three hours ’til then!” she squealed with glee.

  Fiona cuddled Prairie, as if they had always been intimate.

  “Okay.” Prairie, the ever practical woman that she was, had to ask. “Fi, um, what’s happening here? Not that I’m not digging it, but…”

  “Something that should have happened a while ago?” Fiona giggled, and then became more serious. She sat up and looked directly into Prairie’s big blue eyes. “It’s okay, isn’t it? I thought…”

  “No, no, Fi. I mean, hey, it’s totally cool, I mean, completely cool. It’s just…” What was it? She’d been lusting after Fiona almost since day one, but Fiona had never let on that it was mutual, so Prairie just wrote it off as her own personal torture. “I didn’t expect it would ever happen.”

  “Me neither, but… Bob’s your uncle!” Fiona giggled again as she curled into Prairie’s body and began to nuzzle her neck. “Mmmm. I love the cold, don’t you?”

  “Oh yeah.” Prairie replied as she dove under the covers and began to undress Fiona. “Love the cold.”

  2.5—FWBs

  Prairie sat at her desk at the end of the day wondering where the time had gone. It had been a year and a half since she and Fiona had become a secret couple, living double lives. At the cottage, they had been the picture of romantic domestication; but at work, everywhere on base, or anywhere in public, they were just great roommates. Best friends. Practically sisters. It had to be that way if they didn’t want to get kicked out of the Air Force, or worse. Despite Fiona’s initial first move, Prairie was the one who had accepted the confines of their relationship far more easily than Fiona had.

  Without any effort or doubt, Prairie had fallen headlong into love with Fiona and couldn’t imagine life without her. She’d never felt so emotionally bound to another human being in her entire life. She always thought her love for her brothers, sisters, mother and father could never be surpassed by another human being, but Fiona proved her dead wrong. Her love for Fiona made her deep and everlasting sentiments for her family incomparable. She would do anything to be with Fiona, even if it meant pretending to be someone she wasn’t. Prairie loved Fiona with everything she was.

  She knew Fiona loved her, too, but from time to time, Fiona would fret about their secret. It would consume her sometimes to the point Prairie thought the unthinkable could happen—that Fiona would end it. She would die if Fiona ever left her, something Prairie knew to her core to be true.

  On their one year anniversary, Prairie had taken Fiona away for a weekend trip to London—one she’d been planning for months. She splurged, using a significant chunk of her savings in order to make the celebration memorable and special, but she didn’t care about the expense. Fiona was her everything and Prairie wanted to prove it to her. They still had to be careful, but at least they would be freer in London than in the vicinity of, or on the base.

  Prairie stared at the clock on the wall. She should have left work an hour ago, but she couldn’t move. Making it through each day was torture enough, but going home seemed worse than torture. Holding in her emotions at work had always been second nature to her. Whether she was blissfully happy and in love, or heartbroken, her co-workers or patients never knew. Prairie was just ‘happy-go-lucky Prairie’ to them. Before London, when she went home, she could be herself. She could cry if she needed to, she could be mad, happy, silly, depressed—it didn’t matter because she had the freedom to be herself, and someone with whom she could easily share everything she was feeling. But no more. London changed everything.

  ~/~/~/~/~

  The London pub was filled to capacity with Saturday night revelers, and the air was thick with the contented murmur of happy drinkers. A three-piece band played English folk music in the far corner of the establishment. Fiona and Prairie had stopped in on their way back to their hotel room from dinner to experience a hopping London hangout. Despite her best efforts to maintain an upbeat attitude, Prairie feared the evening was quickly going south as Fiona downed one pint of ale after another.

  “Hey babe, I think you’re drunk,” Prairie laughed at Fiona who was having trouble getting back up on the wooden barstool at the pub.

  “Go on. I am not,” Fiona replied defiantly, slurring.

  “I think you are, love. We should go.” Prairie took Fiona’s arm to steady her. “While you can still walk, don’t you think?”

  “Tosh. I’m gonna have another.” Fiona wrested her arm from Prairie’s gentle, but firm, grip.

  “Fi, c’mon. Don’t, okay?” Prairie pleaded, then whispered in Fiona’s ear, “Fi, it’s our anniversary.”

  “So what?” Fiona scoffed. “I don’t know what’s the bloody big deal, Prair. Don’t be such a twat. It’s just another day, right? Blimey. It’s not like we’re engaged or married or something—not like we could even if we wanted to. Which we don’t.” Fiona waved Prairie away. “Bugger off. It’s just another tossing day.” Fiona’s words practically drowned in her drunken slur. She finished the small amount of ale and stout in her glass and hollered at the young man on the other side of the counter, “Hey! Hey barman! Another Black and Tan pinta, eh? Ooooh, you’re a handsome bloke now, aren’t ya?” Fiona clumsily winked at the young barman who winked back, amused.

  It was as if the world around Prairie had gone mute. She could hear nothing but the pounding of her heart—or was that a shattering sound? She looked at Fiona and didn’t recognize the woman she loved with her entire being. Prairie fought against an all out melt down, realizing in that moment, she was all alone, and lost.

  ~/~/~/~/~

  “Hey, Big Sky, what you still doin’ here? Your shift’s been over…” The lanky Airman from the Appalachian mountains leaned on his mop handle and checked his watch to confirm his assertion.

  Prairie snapped out of the past and replied to Jarod Dolly, also known as Mountain Man, from the night shift. “I know, Mountain Man, I just, um… had to catch up on some paperwork. And stuff.”

  Mountain Man dunked his mop into the rolling water bucket and drawled. “I don’t know how to break it to you, sis, but this outfit don’t pay no overtime.” He laughed out loud and began to mop the floor. “All right then, y’all be careful of the wet floor, y’hear? Don’t wanna find yourself in PT on the other end of the stick now.”

  Normally she would laugh heartily hearing an Appalachian use a British colloquialism, but tonight was not normal. Instead, she leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes.

  ~/~/~/~/~

  “Wow, Prairie,” Fiona said softly, “Are you… winding me up?”

  Prairie glared at Fiona.

  “Oooh. I guess not.” Fiona closed her eyes for a moment. “I didn’t realize you thought… that you thought this was something more than it is. This…” she paused, trying to explain how she felt about her relationship with Prairie without hurting Prairie any more than she already was.

  “This is us, Fi.” Prairie leapt out of the hotel bed from where she had been laying awake for hours, waiting to confront Fiona. “I know what this is to me, but apparently I don’t have a clue what this is to you,” Prairie fumed on the outside while inside she was decimated. Gutted was the more apt description.

  “Why do you think I planned this whole romantic weekend in London? Because we’re mates? I spent half of my life savings because I love you, Fi. I’m in love with you. I wanted… I wanted this special day to be memorable.” she scoffed. “Oh, boy, it’s memorable all right. Be careful what you wish for, right?”

  “No one asked you to do that, Prairie,” Fiona huffed, then winced. She was seriously hung over and not enjoying the current volume of the argument.

  “I don’t even know who you are right now, Fi.” There was a sickening churning in the pit of Prairie’s stomach.

  Prairie didn’t understand why Fiona was acting so strangely. Fiona loved her. She had never actually said it, but Prairie believed it with a
ll of her heart. Even though Prairie told Fiona often, every day, how much she loved her, Fiona never said it back. At first it bothered her greatly, but as time passed, Prairie felt that Fiona showed her how much she loved her, and that was enough for her. Until London, Prairie never doubted Fiona’s love and devotion to her. But here they were, and Prairie had no clue how Fiona truly felt about her.

  “Oh, bollocks. Have we ever talked about being in a relationship?” Fiona asked, fighting the urge to throw up as her head pounded mercilessly. “We’ve never talked about the future, or… anything, Prairie. We’re great mates. We have phenomenal sex. We have fun. Suddenly you act as if we’re this thing…” Fiona took a deep breath trying to redirect the pounding in her head to somewhere, anywhere else. “You’ve just really… You’ve completely lost the plot, that’s what, Prairie.”

  Prairie stood at the edge of the bed and stared at Fiona, wondering where the woman she loved so dearly had gone. Hadn’t she been clear about her intentions all along, of the depth of her emotions?

  Prairie drew a deep, slow, breath. “So then what is this, Fi? What do you think we are—exactly?”

  “We’re…” Fiona tried to find the words to describe how she felt. “I guess we’re, you know,” she shrugged. “FWBs.”

  “What the…?” Prairie shook her head, not understanding the reference.

  “Friends with benefits?” Fiona offered. “Great friends. Shag buddies? Mates. Mates forever. Who have great sex together. But, not a couple, Prairie. I don’t want to be a couple. I don’t think of us as a, I mean, I don’t want to date or be with anyone else but you, but… I don’t want to label this, whatever this is.” She scoffed.