"Need help?" Ryan asked ingenuously, batting her big blue eyes.
"Yeah," Jamie smirked, her normal attitude reasserting itself. "Take my shoes off."
Ryan returned the smirk, grumbling, "I get all the crummy jobs."
"You just wait, Buff," Jamie promised. "Tomorrow, you’ll have full access."
"Tomorrow?" Ryan gaped.
"Oh, shit," Jamie cried. "I mean Monday." She dropped back onto the bed and let out a frustrated moan. "Damn, maybe we should just go home tonight."
"Nah…we can’t do that," Ryan demurred. "I think Mia’s looking forward to spending some time with you. We can’t blow her off now."
A heavy sigh greeted this thought. "Of course, you’re right. I can’t let my baser instincts rule my world."
"Base? You think I’m base?" Ryan pounced on her partner, pinning her to the bed and tickling her furiously. Jamie squirmed and cried, seeming more like herself every minute.
"Okay, Love-Bug," the breathless blonde managed. "You go play with Mia…and get a snack."
"Snack? Did somebody say snack?" The always-hungry woman rose immediately and left the bedroom, nose twitching--every sense attuned to the presence of food.
Ryan went out to chat with Mia for a few minutes and look for that snack. The good news was that Mia was familiar enough with Jamie’s emotional responses to not be bothered by her withdrawn behavior in the car. The bad news was that there was nary a bite to eat in the house. Her desires frustrated, Ryan went back into the bedroom to organize her things.
Jamie wasn’t in the shower very long and when she emerged, wrapped in a big towel, Ryan expressed surprise. "That didn’t take long. Weren’t you tempted to stay in there all day?"
"As a matter of fact, I was, but I decided to make it quick, since I knew I had to leave some water for you." She tilted her blonde head and grinned at her partner, and Ryan was reassured to see the playful glint in her eyes once again.
"Well, I’m not going to be so moderate," Ryan warned. "I’m gonna stay in here until my fingers prune!"
"You go right ahead, Pigpen," Jamie teased, lightly flicking her thumb at the dirt-smudged face. "You’re my little dirt raccoon."
"Dirt raccoon?" Ryan queried.
"Yeah. The dirt sticks to your face, but it doesn’t get behind your sunglasses. So you get this raccoon effect. It’s pretty cute," she decided.
"Dirt raccoon, indeed," Ryan grumbled, going into the bath to dispute the moniker.
After looking into the huge, well-lit mirror over the double sinks, Ryan had to agree that she looked more raccoonish than human. "I’m going to scrub every particle of dirt from myself, Babe. Would you see what you could get for us to eat?"
"Sure Hon, anything in particular you’d like?"
"I’d eat the back door buttered," Ryan assured her in her best Irish accent.
Jamie shot her a fond smile, always amused by her partner’s endless Irish aphorisms. "I think I can do better than that, my little colleen. You take it easy and take a nap when you’re finished with your shower, okay? You’ve had a tough day, Baby."
"Okey dokey," Ryan agreed, shutting the bathroom door.
Ryan stayed in the shower for a good 15 minutes, even though she knew that water conservation was important in Southern California. She needed to pamper herself a little bit today, so she indulged in the extravagance without guilt--washing her hair three times before she finally felt that all of the grit was washed away, then shaving her legs carefully, luxuriating in the feeling of actually being able to move freely in the pounding water after a week of showers in facilities the size of a phone booth.
When she had finished, she was pleased to note that she was feeling much like her old self. Her energy level was better, and she felt so clean that her mood was much improved. Pulling on her cleanest sweats, she climbed onto the neatly made bed and was asleep within seconds.
While Ryan was in the shower, Jamie put on a tank top and a pair of running shorts and went out to join her friend on the balcony.
Mia was sitting in the cool ocean breeze, the wind blowing her jumbled curls all around her head. "Hey," she said in greeting when Jamie poked her head out.
"Hi," Jamie smiled. "Do I look like a human again?"
"Yep. I knew it was you under that layer of grime, but you look perfectly normal now. Feeling better?"
"I feel pretty good, actually. The ravenous beast is going to need to be satisfied soon, though. Where can we get plenty of food really fast?"
"Mmm, we can order in or walk some place close. The nearest place is a little Chinese…"
"Sold!" Jamie decided. "That’s Ryan’s favorite."
"It’s not fancy, Hon. It’s cheap and quick, though."
"Even better," Jamie laughed. "Those are Ryan’s primary requirements in a restaurant!"
After they both got shoes on, they started off on their short quest. As soon as they hit the street, Jamie stretched her arms out and took in a deep breath, tilting her head back to gaze at the milky blue sky. "God, it feels good to be off that bike!" she cried to the heavens.
Mia draped an arm around her shoulders and gave her old friend a squeeze. "Was it really hard, James?"
Pursing her lips together, Jamie considered the question. "Yes and no. In a way, it was absolutely ridiculous, it was so hard," she laughed. "If I never see another hill it will be too soon! My legs feel like I ran three marathons, and I have no feeling left in my ass." She paused and considered the conflicting feelings that flooded her brain. "It’s hard to explain, Mia. I never thought I’d say this, but in a way, it was easy. The energy of the group was so infectious that you found yourself doing things that you didn’t think possible. And mealtimes were so nice! I met tons of people—and some of them hadn’t even slept with Ryan!"
"Yikes!" Mia cried. "Did you run into old lovers?"
"Yep. All ages, all sizes, all shapes. The only thing I’m sure of is that she never slept with a man. Other than that, all bets are off!"
"You seem awfully cool with it," Mia said with a suspicious glance. "Why doesn’t that bother you?"
Jamie thought about that for a minute. "Oh, probably because it wasn’t a surprise. I knew that she’d slept with tons of women, and it stands to reason that lots of them would be on the ride. It was a little weird, but in a way, it helps me to know her better."
"Yeeeeaah, that sounds like you," the mischievous woman teased.
The no-nonsense look on Jamie’s face gave Mia a clear signal that she was completely serious. "Well, it is like the new me. I don’t want to change her. I love her just like she is. And if I really love her, I have to accept that she is who she is because of the sum of her experiences. What matters is that she loves me now, and I believe that she’s committed to me."
"Are you really sure about that?" the curly-haired woman asked, a niggling doubt about Ryan’s ability to be faithful troubled Mia’s mind. As much as she liked Ryan, her loyalty was first and foremost to Jamie, and she wanted to protect her friend as much as possible.
"Yes. I am." The confident look had not changed, and Mia found herself smiling at her friend’s assuredness. A gentle smile slid onto Jamie’s face, and her voice turned wistful. "She’s soooo cute about telling people about our relationship, Mia. She introduces me as her partner, and when I asked her why, she went into this explanation about all of the terms she’d thought about using, and why each of the others wasn’t quite right."
"She told everybody about you?"
"Uhh, we both did," Jamie said, taking a noticeable gulp. "And I do mean everybody."
"Huh? "
"Right before you found us, a group of her friends got the band to play a song for us. We were up on that stage with thousands of people singing to us!"
"Holy crap!!! What were they singing?" Mia gaped.
"Going to the Chapel," Jamie informed her with rolling eyes. "It’s an old song that I think I’ve heard. My beloved knew every word, of course, and we ended up with me sitting on her
knee while she serenaded me! We were making out in front of that huge crowd!" As these words left her mouth, all of the color drained from Jamie’s face, and she reached out blindly to steady herself against a building. "We were making out in front of that huge crowd," she repeated in a whisper, clutching at her suddenly pain-wracked stomach, eyes wide with alarm.
A short time later, Ryan woke with a start as her partner hurled herself onto the bed. "Shit!" the dark woman cried as she jerked up into a sitting position. Turning wide eyes to her partner, she asked, "What’s wrong?!"
"We were making out in front of that huge crowd," Jamie moaned, still clutching her stomach.
"What?!" Ryan demanded, sleep-fogged and confused.
"We had thousands of people singing to us…We were making out in front of all of them…There were probably television cameras there…My parents’ friends might see us on the news…Cassie might see us on the news…What part of that don’t you get?" The words came out in a monotone, all of the blonde’s emotion lodged in her cramping stomach.
"Ahh, shit," Ryan slammed her fists down onto the bed. "God damn it!" She was off the bed in a flash, pacing up and down the large room in a tight oval. "Damn it, damn it, damn it!"
Seeing how upset Ryan was made Jamie immediately try to collect herself. "Honey, HONEY," she said at higher volume. "Why are you so upset?"
"Because YOU are," Ryan cried. "I was so involved in the joy of the moment, that I didn’t even consider the repercussions! That was so stupid! I can’t believe I let that happen…"
Ryan started to pace again, muttering under her breath, but in that instant a perfectly clear thought came over the smaller woman, and she looked up at her partner calmly. "It’s okay, Ryan. It’s really okay."
The pacing stopped and Ryan crossed back to the bed, climbing on and scooting across the surface on her knees. "What?" she asked in a subdued voice. "How can it be?"
"It can be because I’ve just decided that it is," Jamie said, her voice full of her growing conviction. "I’m not ready to tell my parents yet, but if they find out…they find out." She looked completely normal now, and her lips had even curled into a sunny smile. "I’m not ashamed of you…I’m not ashamed of myself…I’m not ashamed of our love. I refuse to be ashamed, Ryan," she added softly. "This is too precious a gift to ever be ashamed of."
Ryan lifted her hand and began to stroke Jamie’s face, fingers gliding over the smooth planes of her face. She stared at the earnest woman for a few minutes before tilting her head and bending for a kiss. Their lips merged in a tender touch as Ryan’s fingers threaded through her partner’s fair hair. Both women rose to their knees and continued the embrace, which was now rapidly escalating in intensity. The kisses grew more heated, more passionate, as each claimed their right to love who they chose, as they chose. Shaking with emotion, they slowly broke apart, finishing with a small flurry of tender kisses.
Ryan’s heart was filled to bursting with emotion for the gentle woman in her arms. Jamie’s heartfelt words seemed to break the shackles Ryan had used to control her desire. Her hands shook as she trailed them over Jamie’s face, lovingly touching each feature. Her eyes were dark with yearning, and her breathing had become more rapid until she was panting softly. "I want to make love to you, Jamie. I need to love you." Her grip tightened, and they tumbled onto the mattress, with Ryan’s powerful body poised over her beloved.
Summoning all of her resolve, Jamie placed her hands on the sides of Ryan’s clenched jaw, sliding her fingers across her ears and down the tightly corded tendons in her neck. "I want that, too," Jamie said, reaching up to place gentle kisses all over Ryan’s flushed face. Jamie blinked slowly, realizing that Ryan was allowing her to make the final decision. The sensations were overwhelming as she tried to calm her racing pulse, feeling the heat radiating from her partner. To her own amazement, she slowly shook her head and tried to kiss away the disappointment revealed in the dark blue eyes "This isn’t the place, Honey. Mia will be back soon, and the last thing I want is to have to rush, or be interrupted."
"But…" Ryan began to beg, her arousal clouding her judgment, "we could just not answer when she comes home…"
Jamie was firm in her resolve. "No, Honey. This isn’t what we’ve waited for. This isn’t special, or private. We deserve that," she insisted.
Ryan slowly lowered herself onto her partner, then rolled onto her side and tossed her arm over her eyes. Just then, Mia called out, "Dinner’s ready!"
When neither woman responded, Mia opened their door a few inches and said, "Let’s go, you two. I’ve got enough food for the whole building."
"Thank God you were in your right mind today," the brunette muttered, "‘cause if I was in charge, Mia would have been eating alone, and we would have missed our plane tomorrow!"
At eight a.m. Ryan’s eyes blinked open, the bright sunlight streaming into the bedroom making it hard to stay asleep. She was lying on her back and Jamie was spooned against her right side with both an arm and a leg thrown over her.
She gently pried Jamie’s sleep-heavy appendages from her body, marveling at how her partner could be manipulated in her sleep. As she stretched and flexed all of her muscles, she gratefully acknowledged how a little affection, a lot of loving attention, ten hours of sleep, and a fabulous dinner could restore her good humor.
She found her sweats and padded into the living room, looking for Mia and a little snack. Their hostess, dressed in running shorts and a tank top, sat on the balcony sipping from a large Starbucks cup while she flipped through the L.A. Times.
"Hey, Ryan, I brought back coffee for you guys." Ryan had poked her head around the doorframe when she spotted Mia, but pulled it right back in when she realized that a cup of coffee was waiting for her somewhere in the kitchen.
A delighted moan reached Mia’s ears when Ryan found the huge cup sitting in the microwave. "God, I’ve missed this," Ryan groaned. She spent a minute figuring out the mechanics of the machine and then turned it on for two minutes, watching the cup twirl around, her anticipation building. She pulled it out when the timer rang and closed her eyes, taking a big sip, then holding the cup up in adoration, "Aaaah, I’ve missed you so." She walked back out to the balcony and kissed Mia on the top of her head. "You have my undying gratitude for this." She hoisted the cup again, gazing at it like a long-lost friend. "I think I missed caffeine more than anything else," she admitted wistfully.
"I’m really surprised they don’t provide coffee for you guys," Mia commented.
"Oh, they do, but it’s a diuretic. It’s hard enough to keep fluid in me without peeing it out unnecessarily," she replied.
Mia giggled when Ryan’s statement reminded her of something. "I’ve gotta tell you, Ryan. I was the most surprised person in the world when Jamie decided to do this, but when I heard that she was gonna have to use a porta-pottie for a week, I knew she had lost her mind!"
Ryan gave her a smirk as she was forced to agree. "I don’t think either of us will have fond memories of those little beauties. You’d be surprised at Jamie, though. She can rally when she needs to."
"You don’t have to defend her to me, Ryan. I love her like a sister."
"She feels the same about you, Mia. I’m glad she has you."
A massive smile lit up Mia’s already sunny demeanor. She was touched that Ryan knew how close she and Jamie were, and very happy that Ryan supported their friendship. "So, what are your plans for today?" Mia was interested in the kind of things Ryan liked to do for fun. "Do you want to go to the beach?"
"I would love to spend some time playing in the surf," Ryan wholeheartedly agreed. "I want to go to church first, though."
"Church? Really?"
"Yeah, I’m going to St. Monica’s, just down California. Would you like to go with me?" She was teasing Mia, already knowing the answer.
"Gosh, I’d love to Ryan," she said with innocent, wide eyes, "but I wouldn’t want to break my record of never having been inside of a church except for funerals and
weddings."
"Far be it from me to try to convince you to give up your beliefs," Ryan joked. "Hey, isn’t your mom Italian?"
"Yeah, her parents were both born in Italy. Why?"
"How did you escape being Catholic?"
"Oh." Her laughter acknowledged that it was an anomaly. "My mother was raised Catholic, but she had a big fight with her parents and the Church over something and she quit on the spot. She’s not the woman you want to piss off," she said with a chuckle.
"What were they fighting about?"
"Not sure. Maybe my dad, he’s a heretic Lutheran, you know." She laughed again.
"So you didn’t go to his church either?"
"He belongs to the church of the holy dollar sign," she scoffed. "He believes God lives in Ft. Knox."
Ryan shook her head, trying to imagine what it would feel like to have no religious background. "Must be funny to have no organized religion growing up. How do you know what to rebel against?"
"Yeah," Mia laughed. "That’s about it, isn’t it? Jamie is the only one of my friends that goes to church, and I think most of them were raised in some religion. I guess you don’t miss it if you don’t know it." She gazed at Ryan thoughtfully for a moment. "So, you and Jamie are both regular churchgoers? I hate to admit it, but I wouldn’t peg you as religious."
"Jamie attends much more regularly than I do, but I get a lot out of a service if I’m in a receptive mood. I guess you could call me religious, even though I do break more than my share of commandments."
There was a brief moment of silence, and it gave Mia an opportunity to decide to take a plunge. "Do you mind me asking you a really personal question?"
"No, not at all." Ryan gave her a curious grin.
"What are your um...intentions...towards Jamie," she finally got out.
"My intentions?" she asked with a frown. "Ohhh, my reputation...." she said, as realization dawned on her. "You want to know if I’m going to ravage her thoroughly and toss her out when I’ve finished with her," she said with a double eyebrow waggle.
Coalescence - SF3 Page 2