by Toni Draper
The honeymoon phase of their early togetherness was filled with travels, both to and from their respective homes and to vacation destinations near and far. One of their most memorable journeys was to the Hawaiian Islands.
“C’mon,” Mena pleaded and cajoled, “there are so many beautiful fish down in the coral. You can’t see or appreciate them from the boat. The water’s not as deep over by the rocks, and it’s no fun going and seeing them alone.”
Sydney, unable to swim and so afraid of drowning, panicked at the thought of having even just her face underwater and balked at putting the mask and fins on.
“I promise I won’t let anything happen to you,” Mena said. “Trust me. If you don’t want to use the vest or float belt, they have a paddleboard with a viewing window you can lay on and see through. I’ll pull you around.”
Whether because of the splendor of the sun, the joy of the moment, or some other reason yet undefined, Sydney gave in and gave Mena her hand, allowing her to guide her to the steps at the rear of the catamaran.
They were on a charter cruise to the sunken crater of Molokini off the coast of Maui at the time. Sydney had managed to be firm with her refusal to snorkel at both Black Rock and at the resort where they were staying on the Ka’anapali coast. But the beauty of the day and fervent desire of her lover conspired to help her shed her fear and inhibitions as she donned her light blue tankini top, swim shorts, wide-brimmed sun hat, and slathered on the Kōkua Sun Care. Soon, she was pointing out tangs and Picasso fish, and wincing away from eels herself. At her first sighting of the humuhumunukunukuapua’a, Hawaii’s state fish, she was giddy with the excitement of a child.
The first time they’d made love, Mena was the one to chart their course. They’d gone hiking near the Shenandoah River at Harper’s Ferry in West Virginia. The afternoon had been a beautiful autumn one. When they’d tired of trekking the trails, they made their way through the historic town, their day outdoors culminating in a climb up to Jefferson Rock. From that vantage point, they could look out over three states: Maryland, Virginia, and West Virginia. It was no wonder the area was considered strategic during the nation’s civil war.
After resting there for a while, enjoying the view, the cool breeze, and the warm sun, they went in search of a few sandwiches and found a place under a colorful maple tree that still held onto many of its leaves; they were no longer green, now varying shades of red, gold, and brown. Mena and Sydney spread out a blanket they’d packed in the trunk of the car and relaxed before beginning the short ride home.
Mena couldn’t remember ever having felt so much happiness, enjoyed anyone’s company more, believed so strongly in the possibility of love. Sydney had already reached and touched a place deep inside her where no one had ever gone. They’d spent countless hours together talking about so many things. Sitting across from one another on the bank of the peaceful river that day, they’d even enjoyed saying nothing at all.
After they finished eating, they stretched out across the grass and allowed a glass of wine they’d brought along to induce the heat of a blush. They felt comfortable in each other’s company and arms, so much so that Mena allowed impulse to take control. Leaning slowly forward, closer and closer, unsure, she gave Sydney the chance to stop what she surely knew was coming. Sensing no more hesitation than that of a desire on the verge of being explored, Mena’s lips brushed Sydney’s lightly. She pulled back, then inclined her head and moved a little closer, then a little more.
Their mouths met in a sweet mingling of emotion that intensified with each tender caress and touch. Their eyes searched deep into each other’s soul. Reaching out to one another, hands moved and warm, wet lips teased. Their bodies responded to a desire that had been held at bay for far too long.
“I won’t hurt you,” Mena promised.
“I won’t leave you,” Sydney countered as they lay across the bed later that night, talking, kissing, feeling, touching.
The tenderness of their emotional foreplay lingered passionately long after they arrived back home. Mena, unable to wait any more, got on her knees between Sydney’s legs, and looked lovingly into the woman’s eyes as her fingers gently probed, trying desperately to reach all the way to her lover’s soul. Separating the folds of her warm skin, she circled Sydney’s swollen and sensitive clitoris with a thumb, causing her to moan. Sydney’s pelvis lifted, slid down and all around, arching hungrily in desire, seeking Mena’s touch. She was getting close, but Mena wanted something more. She wanted to taste her lover as she came, so Mena lowered her face down between welcoming thighs, and let her lips and tongue take her fingers’ place. Soon, they both felt what they’d longed for as Sydney’s body tensed, then relaxed, and Mena responded by wrapping her arms around her and pulling her close.
As the high tide of their desire gave way to a peaceful and calm low, Sydney removed a gold chain from around her neck and held it out to Mena, who immediately recognized it as one she’d always worn.
With tears on the verge of spilling over her lids, an emotional Sydney looked longingly at her lover and said, “I want you to have something of mine that has been close to me, to my heart, for so very long. Something that has the scent of me, maybe even part of me.” She smiled at her. “Something to remember me when we can’t be together, and you are gone.”
Stretching to make the ends of the necklace meet, she closed the clasp around Mena’s neck, and with the flat fronts of her fingers, splayed the gold across her collarbone.
Moved by both the significance of the gift and the power of the moment, Mena sat back on the bed, looked Sydney in the heart, wrapped her right hand around a few of the links, and whispered, “I’ll never take it off.” She then pulled her into a hug, and as tears of profound pleasure and joy spilled out from both of their eyes, the women melted into the embrace and fell asleep, savoring the incomparable beauty of a love being born.
Chapter 6
In the beginning, the interludes between their reunions blinded them to the realities of what life together for two people accustomed to being alone would look like and become. As with all relationships, the more time the two of them spent together, the more they came to see and know one another—the good, the bad, and the ugly.
Sydney and Mena had gone out to dinner for Chinese at Hunan Gourmet on the Golden Mile in Frederick. Because the campus where Sydney taught was more than an hour away without traffic, she rarely ran into familiar faces around town. Most of her colleagues, who would gladly expound their reasoning, favored proximity and a short commute to a more relaxed and scenic getaway, therefore she hadn’t considered the aftermath of a collision between her private and professional lives.
As luck would have it, just as the server put steaming plates of kung pao chicken and moo shu pork on their table, Sydney looked up to see George Miller and a woman she assumed was his wife being ushered directly by their table.
“Fancy meeting you here,” George acknowledged her presence with a smile. He stopped at their table and said, “This is my wife, Margaret. Margaret, this is Sydney Foster, a colleague of mine at the university.”
“It’s a pleasure to meet you.”
“Good evening, Mrs. Miller.” Sydney stood and moved closer to the woman, so she could give both her customary two-cheeked hug and a more personal receiving.
“Please, dear, call me Margaret,” she said as she patted Sydney’s hand before turning to go.
Meanwhile, Mena sat forgotten in the shadows until Sydney turned to sit and saw her. “I’m so sorry, Mena, where are my manners?” She called to George and Margaret before they made it to their table and said, “Please forgive me and my rudeness. This is…my friend, Jimena.”
“How do you do, dear?” Margaret waved, and George nodded his head in Mena’s direction before they moved to sit.
Sydney looked across the table at Mena and apologized profusely. “I’m so sorry, Mena. It’s just…I’m not used
to you being here, running into people I know, and having to—”
“Expose your ‘dirty little secret?’”
Sydney looked at her and shook her head in disbelief at what she perceived to be Mena’s continued inability to understand, to comprehend how different their lives were. It was not only years that sometimes separated them, but their distinct life experiences and ways of thinking about themselves and the world. Sydney tried to make conversation, but she gave up after several attempts of addressing a silent void.
Thus, neither one of them spoke another word until the check and fortune cookies arrived. Mena reached for the tab, looked it over, put her American Express in the folder, and placed it at the end of the table.
Not wanting this ill feeling to follow them outside of the restaurant, much less all the way home, Sydney attempted to make amends and bridge the gap by breaking open the folded wafer and playfully sharing her pre-printed destiny with Mena.
She read, “You will take a chance and win…in bed. You do know that’s what they say you’re supposed to do, right? Add the words ‘in bed’ to the end of your fortune.”
Mena looked at her, unsmiling, unspeaking, obviously still upset.
Sydney wasn’t making much progress in lifting the somber mood that had set in.
When the waiter returned with the credit card receipt and thanked them again, Mena asked her, “Are you ready to go?”
Sydney finished chewing the ill-fated fortune’s container and said simply, “Yes, I am.” Turning to wave goodbye to her friends, she stood and preceded Mena out the door into what would become a volatile night of anger and regret. She couldn’t help herself. She was outraged and indignant at what she considered to be an undeserved reaction to a harmless incident.
Safely out of sight and hearing, inside the car, Sydney challenged Mena’s behavior. “How dare you? I did nothing wrong. I was merely taken aback by running into a professional colleague, something that almost never happens here, and for only a moment, I forgot my manners.”
Mena turned to her. “Oh, is that what it was? A failure of politeness, a polite faux pas, nothing more, nothing less? It couldn’t possibly have anything to do with the fact that you’re afraid that someone you know might get the idea that I’m more than your friend, could it? Or am I, Syd? How do you think of me? When you’re surrounded by others and I’m nowhere near your closet? You seem to live in this veiled otherworld of which I’m not a part, not even as a mention. How can we possibly make it as a couple when you can’t even admit that I’m anyone to you, other than a friend? Do you even admit that to yourself? I don’t advertise our relationship to the world, and I don’t expect you to either, but it would be nice to know you at least stand your ground once you’ve been seen on it.”
With those words hanging in the air, Mena backed out of the parking space. Knowing Sydney had gone from being on the defensive to shutting down for the evening, her typical response to what she perceived as confrontation when it was communication that needed to happen, Mena gave up and dropped it.
Once back at the house, Mena stormed up the stairs and slammed the door to the bedroom. “Why don’t you just grow up?” Sydney called up the stairs, knowing it was the one retort Mena hated more than anything. She’d asked her repeatedly, in moments of reflection, not to use it, yet it remained Sydney’s number one choice of weapon in her arsenal of verbal offense.
Why was she so stubborn and hard-headed? Why had she continued to insist Mena had been stalled in her development at an early age after being traumatized by the loss of her parents, in a way that she knew hurt her deeply and would send her into an angry outburst? Was there any truth to the accusation that she had internalized hatred of her relationship with a member of the same sex? Of herself? If so, what was she afraid of? Losing her job? The bad things people might say about her? Why should she care what others thought? They didn’t live her life, and they certainly wouldn’t die her otherwise lonely death.
Sydney sat back in her chair, in need of both a whiskey for her heart and an aspirin for her head.
Despite the threats of their revealing differences, they always kissed and made up. And the end of the school year seemed like the perfect time for them to start their life together. Since Mena was the one who’d first reached out to Sydney, she’d always known she’d be the one to make the move. Besides, Sydney was a tenured professor at her university. Mena would have no problem at all finding a teaching position near what would be her new hometown.
They’d talked about it. Living together and what that might look like for each of them. Of course, the reality of it was more than the shared vacations they’d mostly enjoyed up to that point. While Mena was undeniably excited about the newness of it all, Sydney felt a little unexpectedly encroached upon. Unfortunately, Mena hadn’t noticed, and Sydney hadn’t shared. That would prove to be their downfall.
“Syd! Syd! Where are you? I’ve got a sur-prise for you,” Mena playfully drew out in song. “Guess what?”
She had come home from work, excited about a plan she’d made for a weekend trip to find empty hangers still swinging from a once-shared cedar rod in their bedroom’s walk-in closet. The ringing sound of the wires as their movement caused them to crash into one another left behind an overwhelming sense of mourning, abandonment, and loss. Mena’s fears jumped to inevitable conclusions, and her head reeled in desperation as her body quickly followed. Dropping the tickets from her hand, she nearly fell down the stairs on her way to the lower-level guest suite. Sydney was hanging and arranging her clothes with her back to Mena. When what appeared to be the most recent additions of her wardrobe relocation had been situated, she was left with no excuse and turned around.
Mena was stunned into a heartbroken silence. For the longest time, she stood, merely looking at the stranger before her, unable to comprehend the reason for Sydney’s inexplicable actions. When she again found words, she pleaded with her, “What happened? Have I done something wrong?”
Sydney lowered her head and moved toward the bed where she sat. Patting a place beside her, she said, “We need to talk, Mena. Please sit down.”
Mena refused and remained standing.
“I’m afraid I don’t really know where to start.”
“How about at the beginning? That’s usually a good place.”
Sydney smiled, but the gesture failed to reach her eyes. “You know I love you, Mena, I have from the start. Before we ever met in the flesh, our souls had already united. But, and I don’t know how to say this without hurting you, I need some space, some alone time.”
Mena wasn’t sure she understood Sydney’s words. She felt a protective shield encircling her body, growing thicker by the minute. Still, she listened. Or, at least, she tried.
“Your constant need for togetherness is suffocating me. I’ve spent my entire life, until now, mostly by myself. Not that I’m not overjoyed we’ve found one another, that you’ve come into my life, it’s just…I didn’t realize, had no way of knowing, I’d feel like this. So smothered, overwhelmed, and forced into a new way of life.”
“Forced? Really, Sydney? Have I forced you, in any way, shape, or form, to do anything you haven’t wanted to? Or, at least, that you told me you didn’t want?”
“No, of course not. I just need some time. We can still be friends, partners, if you want.”
“Friends? If I want? Sydney, what’s this all about?” In response to the silence she received, Mena asked, “Is there someone else?”
Sydney looked at her as if she’d just suggested the most ridiculous thing in the world, then shook her head and answered, “No. Of course not.”
“Then why are you doing this? Can’t we work this out another way? Without you leaving our bedroom, and me?”
“I’m afraid that’s impossible. Not right now. And I haven’t left you. We’re still in the same house.”
Without considerin
g the weight of her words, Mena impulsively responded, “That’s not the kind of relationship I want.” She was reacting with pure, irrational emotion, allowing old fears to rear their ugly heads and open their better-left-shut mouths. She said many things she would later regret to hurt the one who was hurting her, the one she so deeply loved. She let her shattering heart and all her unhealed wounds break open, and a lifetime of uncensored, unbridled anger at being left alone so long ago poured out. In that unguarded moment, she was thirteen again, reliving the pain of her most devastating loss, the unrecognized cause of her perceived clinginess, unwarranted fears, and jealousy—the root of her self- and relationship destruction.
Later that evening, after the rawness of their emotions had been exposed, exhausted, and had worn them down, the two of them sat before the fireplace in numbed silence. Each, in her own way, absorbed the aftermath of what had been revealed when walls that had long ago been built and fortified around their most vulnerable inner selves came crashing down.
A loud pop of exploding embers breaking free from a log served as a segue for Mena in what would be her last attempt to draw Sydney into her arms and back from wherever she had gone.
“Look me in the eyes and tell me you don’t love me,” Mena demanded of her lover, from out of the blues into which she had now looked and had sunk.
Sydney got up from her chair and kneeled on the hard floor. Pulling aside the wire curtain that separated her from the burning flames, she lifted the poker from its place near the hearth and turned the charred stump of ash, giving a last breath of life to the dying fire.