The First Love

by Erinne Bates

  “These will keep ya in shape,” I said, breathing heavily as I made it to the last step. Fenne turned to me and kissed me quickly on the lips.

  “You look really beautiful,” she said and knocked on the door. Before I could ask where we were, a plumpish elderly woman opened the door, almost as if she had been already waiting just on the other side.

  “Oma!” Fenne exclaimed, kissing her grandmother’s cheeks. Fenne took my hand and led me inside the tiny apartment. Something was baking in the oven inside the kitchen. It smelled familiar but I couldn’t place my finger on it. Speaking in Dutch, she introduced me to her grandma and then another woman, quite a bit younger, appeared from the kitchen, full of curiosity. I knew instantly it was Fenne’s mother. Fenne spoke in English as she introduced the two of us.

  “Calli, this is my mother, Katerina. Momma, this is the woman I told you about,” she said. I took her extended hand before she kissed my cheeks. Her eyes were an older, more exhausted version of Fenne’s, though she couldn’t have been too much older than I was.

  “I’ve heard so much things about you,” Katerina said to me, smiling.

  “Fenne’s very special,” I replied.

  “Alsjeblieft mama, please!” Fenne interrupted, grabbing my arm and pulling me to the back of the apartment to a small bedroom. “This used to be my room,” she said, shutting the door behind us. I looked at the shelves above her desk, expecting to see dolls or stuffed animals, but instead, it was crowded with books. Specifically, they were books on history and ancient art.

  “Is this what you were reading growing up?” I asked, taking in all the titles that appeared to be far more advanced than a young person would be expected to understand.

  “Mostly,” she said, turning me away from the books to face her.

  “I’m happy,” she whispered. She embraced me, quietly wrapping her arms around me and keeping her forehead pressed to mine.

  We did not stay at the home Fenne grew up in for very long. As soon as her grandmother brought out a photo album, Fenne snatched me from the couch and rushed us out the door. Of course not before I got to see a picture of seven-year-old Fenne with very short uneven bangs and a missing tooth on the bottom row of her huge grin. She was standing in front of their Christmas tree holding a drawing pad that was nearly as big as she was.

  “I want that picture!” I said, laughing as we headed back down the steep stairs. I really truly did.

  “My mother loves to show that picture of me. It’s the first time they bought me a real easel and a drawing pad. I barely came out of my room after that.”

  “What did you draw?” I asked

  “Whatever was in those books. Well, however my mind interpreted it anyway. It was mainly just streaks of color that didn’t make sense.”

  “It’s where it all started to take place, though.”

  “Yeah, I guess. It would have come out either way.”

  “I wish I had some of those early paintings,” I said, wrapping my arm around her thin waist as we strolled along the sidewalk at a more relaxed pace than we did earlier.

  When we arrived at what I referred to as “the pot bar,” but was labeled, “coffeeshop,” we sat in a lounging area in the back, where Fenne rolled the marijuana she bought into a joint for us to share.

  “Do you come here often?” I asked her. She looked at me as she licked the rolled paper, sealing it.

  “No,” she said, “I am not a regular smoker if that’s what you are asking.”

  “Sorry, I guess that kind of question can be personal. I wasn’t trying to pry,” I stammered. Fenne looked at me with a confused expression as she lit the joint.

  “At home, if you go to a bar with someone, it’s normal to ask if they go there often. Why would it be personal here?” she asked, exhaling and passing me the joint.

  “Can we take pictures?” I was completely amazed at being able to openly smoke a big ole doobie in public.

  “Do you want to take a selfie?” she asked clearly mocking me as she pulled out her phone.

  To this day, it is my most favorite picture of the two of us together. Our eyes had both become narrow slits, as we leaned our heads together and made peace signs while sticking out our tongues like screaming rock stars.

  Grabbing a couple of sandwiches and a bag of chips, we made our way to Fenne’s small studio. We didn’t expect that the anticipation of being alone together had grown so much between us that suddenly neither of us knew how to approach the other. It was a strange awkwardness blanketed by the effects of the pot we had smoked earlier at the bar. It was as though we both felt unsure but we also didn’t care.

  “I really need to shower, do you mind?” she asked me. I was already getting hungry and was pulling the insides of my sandwich out without eating the bread.

  “Go ahead, I’m starving all of the sudden,” I said.

  I sat at her small kitchen table as Fenne showered, and looked at the stacks of books she had lined along her walls and the unique drawings and paintings that were framed and hung when my own painting caught my eye. She had mounted it with a tiny picture light above it, giving it a special setting of its own. I switched it on and stood back to view my painting beneath its light. Filled with emotion I could no longer wait to feel her body against mine.

  By the time I reached the shower, I had stepped out of every particle of clothing I was in. My lips were on hers the moment the water was upon me. Fenne pulled me into her, as the water streamed between our bodies, forming puddles where our breasts pressed together.

  “I didn’t know when to touch you all of the sudden,” Fenne admitted between kisses.

  “I know, me too, it’s been such a crazy day for both of us.” I looked into her sultry eyes as water ran down her face, across her parted lips.

  “Take me to your bed, Fenne.”

  Chapter 28

  She lay beneath me, staring into my eyes as I slowly penetrated her with a soft rocking motion. If it were possible to leave a part of my soul with her after I was gone, I willed it to be done. I stayed as quiet as I could, listening to the sound of her breath and the way it quickened when I would thrust deeper.

  “This is so beautiful, “ I said. Her hips rose as her hands clasped around my neck, drawing my mouth to hers. She rolled me onto my back so that she was now over me and pressed her mound hard against mine. Still feeling a little high, it seemed as though the earth was gently rocking us while our fluids flowed together with each back and forth motion.

  I could feel her arms begin to tremble. Lightening heat swept over me in that very moment as we had reached each other’s sweetest spots and there was no turning away from the flittering swirling inside that had begun thunderously charging forward.

  When she collapsed against me, we were both trembling.

  “We’re inside each other now,” she said quietly. Our legs wrapped together beneath the covers. “I’ve never… not like that,” she added.

  “I love you, Fenne,” I said, “I think I have from the very beginning. I had things to sort out. From before I ever met you. There were reasons I came to France that would never make sense—but I need to tell you that my feelings for you—” Fenne put her finger on my lips to quiet my rambling.

  “Get it sorted,” she said softly. “You are here now. Tonight I have you.” I watched her eyes blink close as she started to drift off to sleep.

  Fenne did not have to be at the museum until eleven, so we spent most of the early morning wrapped in each other’s arms. I made her scrambled eggs while she showered, and - at her request - coffee. All she had was instant coffee, but she said she bought it because it reminded her of me. She did not know she would actually get the chance to try it. I ate both mine and her eggs as we sipped cheap instant coffee at her tiny table set beside a small kitchen window that gave a view of the city.

  “It doesn’t feel like goodbye, but I know when I leave here I probably won’t be back and I can’t wrap my head around that,” I said to her, trying to dr
ink the last bit of my coffee without grimacing. The time had come for me to head to the train station.

  “Maybe because you don’t know for sure that you won’t be back.”

  “I’m sorry I ever doubted—”

  “No, don’t Calli,” Fenne said, cutting me off, “Be happy.” I nodded and gave a half-grin. She put her forehead to mine, “It wasn’t the perfect timing but I think everything has fallen into place.”

  I allowed myself to adopt that notion as my own.

  “Als u op mij wacht, kom ik voor u...”

  “What does that mean?” I asked.

  She shook her head slowly, smiling, “I’ll tell you one day.”

  Part Three

  Chapter 29

  Home

  Everything felt mostly familiar as I entered my home after being gone for three months. The air was quiet and still, but the scent was familiar, and I found it pleasant. Dragging my luggage into my room, I sat on my bed and looked at all the things I felt were important to me. At all the things I loved or treasured. Some of them – maybe even half of them—I now wanted to throw away. I wanted to replace them with the things that represented the changes I was destined to make.

  A tiny part of me, almost like a voice, had been freed. Unshackled from a person who had been nothing more than a ghost for many years – a ghost I had clung to with a false hope that one day she’d want me again. Things that I kept in my room reminded me of her and before I could second-guess myself I picked up my waste-paper basket and tossed them all into it. The last to drop was an old worn little lamb and I cried when it landed inside the basket. I couldn’t help but feel I had betrayed it. I reminded myself it was only a stuffed animal, but I had given that thing life for many years, and for so many years it was my reminder that I belonged to Justine.

  She was the first love I knew. She was the woman who opened my eyes to the nature of myself. For twenty years I waited for us to take the path we started. Every time we met, I thought we would continue where we left off, only to have to let her go again… until the next time. She never chose me, however. She kept the one connection we thrived at strong, but in the end, someone else made the ultimate choice for us both.

  After the confrontation with her husband, it became obvious to me how blinded I had let myself become. She told me she would never leave him, but I suppose I never believed her. And perhaps I never wanted to believe there was ever somebody else – somebody real – in her life. I was guilty of thinking we were above consequence, that our time together belonged solely to us. Family and lovers were always to take a temporary back seat when she was around. My only regret now was that her husband had been the one to step in and end our relationship when it should have been me.

  With a deep breath, I mentally flipped a switch. I now belonged to no one but myself.

  “What are your plans?” Elise asked me when she came to visit three nights later.

  “Finish my book. Find a paying job. Maybe paint this place,” I said, looking at the grayish tones of my walls. I remembered the day I had painted them, adding a starch white trim. Something about those two colors gave me the feeling of an old typewriter and some paper. I longed now for the brighter colors of France.

  “Did you get what you wanted from France?” she asked me as we stepped onto my deck and sat on the Adirondack chairs – the same ones my mom had years ago – and overlooked my patchy lifeless lawn.

  “If I told you, you wouldn’t believe me,” I said, looking upward for the moon. What would Juliette have toasted to this evening? New beginnings? A nod toward life’s lessons? What wine would she have chosen? I could almost smell her fresh stew as I watched her in my mind cutting vegetables. From the corner of my eye, I could see Elise looking at me curiously.

  “Something happened,” she said knowingly. “You know you are going to have to spill it.” She stood and went back inside to retrieve a couple of cold beers from the fridge.

  “I will,” I said when she handed me one. It would not be that evening, however. Whatever I was feeling was mine that night. I knew I had not the words to express the smells and the sights and way I felt underneath the moon when it was recognized the way it was, and the way I felt when I met the girls for the first time, and the way I felt when Fenne kissed me for the first time. And the way I felt when I said goodbye to Justine for the last time. Or was it for the very first time?

  Chapter 30

  A Year Later

  After my book was published, I immediately began working on my second love story. This one closely followed my own story of self-discovery, a fictionalized version of Justine, and life’s lessons on love. Claude Fritz, the young literary agent I had met before leaving for France did very well to get my book about the female spy sold and we formed a nice friendship over the year that followed. We often met for cocktails and on a couple of occasions, he asked me to be his ‘plus one’ when he wanted to attend fancier events.

  This always surprised me since I was older than him in an obvious way, and could probably be mistaken for his mother. I never told him I was gay, although I imagine he could guess by the content of my stories. I enjoyed his company. His mannerisms were as nostalgic and charming as his wardrobe. It was easy to sense he was from an era long ago, reborn. Sometimes I thought of how well he and Fenne would have gotten along. One day, Claude surprised me with a proposition.

  “I think you would make a great literary agent,” he said, over our Friday evening cocktails. We called it that, but really we would meet so I could hand him sections of my work to be looked at and he would return previous sections with nice red marks all over it, for correction. I laughed initially at his comment, then I saw that he was serious.

  “Wow, Claude, that’s quite a compliment. Thank you.” I took a sip of my Margherita while images of myself working in such an environment flashed through my head.

  “I’m serious, Calli,” he continued, leaning towards me. “You have some working knowledge of how this all works. You have a few connections already, and you’ve been in this business of writing for a long time. You have all the angles. Why not?”

  “I never – I mean, it never crossed my mind,” I said.

  “Well look, my company is seeking new agents. I already talked to my boss and he’d be willing to talk to you if you’d like.”

  “You talked to your boss about me? Why?”

  “Why wouldn’t I? You’re smart, you’re out-going… if you’re not interested it’s ok to say so. I won’t take it personally. It’s not for everyone.” Claude sat back as though he had handed me a ball and it was mine to do with what I wished. I looked at his face and for the first time, I saw him as a man more than a boy starting out. He knew how to sell and he had just sold something to me. But I knew Claude would not waste his time urging me to try it if he didn’t think I would be good at it. That would reflect poorly on him.

  “I can see it sinking in,” Claude remarked with a satisfying grin. “Honestly, I wouldn’t approach you with it unless I thought you’d be a good fit for Blended Publishing. You are a good fit.”

  I nodded. “Okay. I’d like to talk to your boss,” I said feeling excited and opportunistic suddenly. Me, a literary agent? Me. A literary agent.

  Chapter 31

  Forty

  On the day I turned forty it was a Sunday, and a rainy morning. I stayed snuggled under my comforter with my eyes closed, listening to the sounds of the rain outside the window. On the nightstand next to my bed was a plastic tiara with the number 40 dipped in glitter glued to the top of it. My temples ached slightly from the amount of tequila I had the night prior with my colleagues at the agency. They had become my friends and to a degree, they were already becoming like family.

  Every year on my birthday my mother made sure to call at seven-thirty a.m., in order to be the first one to wish me a happy birthday. Since my phone had not yet rung, I guessed it was still fairly early. The sound of the soft rain steadily falling against my window nearly brought me to a me
ditative state when my phone began to vibrate. My hand blindly felt along my sheets in the direction of the vibrating sound until it grasped my phone and I dragged it to my ear under the pillow.

  “Hello?” I said into the phone, sounding as though I had a mouth full of cotton, and feeling as though it were true. There was a pause before a response was heard.

  “Hel-lew?”

  My whole body stiffened. My head shot up and I looked at the phone screen to see if I could believe what I was hearing. The number that shown wasn’t familiar, and I could see the time was only six-forty.

  “Hello?” I said again, thinking I might get a different response the second time.

  “It’s me.” Justine’s voice was quiet and distant.

  “Hi,” I said, sitting upright. I grabbed a half-empty bottle of water from my nightstand that I think I opened two days prior and guzzled what was left.

  “I believe today is your birthday, and it’s a big one.” The sound of Justine’s voice felt as though it had reached through the phone and wrapped itself around my body. I closed my eyes and saw the image of her over twenty years prior walking into the center of a horse ring and looking up at me as she announced her name and asked us for ours. I pulled my knees into my chest.

  “Where did you get my number?” I asked, rocking slightly. It had been two solid years since we had spoken. It wasn’t that I thought we’d never speak again—I planned on it being on my terms the next time.

  “I spoke with your mother last night. She gave me your number. I hope that’s alright.” When I hesitated, she added, “Is it alright?”

  “Sorry,” I said with a slight laugh, “I’m just so surprised to hear your voice.”

  “Would that be a yes, then?” I could almost hear desperation in her voice and jumped to rescue her.

  “Of course! Yes, it’s wonderful to hear from you,” I said. “How have you been?” I didn’t wait for an answer before adding, “How is everything?”