by Harper Bliss
“It didn’t used to be. You used to be so disciplined.”
Sheryl shook her head. “Back then, it had nothing to do with discipline. It was a mere matter of principle. I might have had a glass in front of me, but it was just for show, just to not feel like a pariah in this booze-crazed country where not drinking makes you look like a spoilsport or an uptight judgmental bitch. I didn’t really know how it made me feel because I didn’t give myself the opportunity. I only felt disgust for this substance that took away whatever was left of my youth after I had already lost most of it.”
Kristin didn’t know what to say to that, so she put a hand on Sheryl’s knee and squeezed. “How about this,” she said. “How about you follow my lead. If stopping altogether is too hard, why don’t you let me curb your intake? Only drink when we’re together and I’ll let you know when it’s time to stop. You can count on me for that.”
“How do you do it? How do you know when it’s time to stop?” Desperation clung to Sheryl’s words. This time she really did appear serious. Or perhaps all the previous times, Kristin had been too preoccupied with other things to listen.
“Because I can’t help but think about the consequences of one more glass and the prospect of a hangover is more than compelling enough to make me stop.”
“I suppose we can give it a try.” Sheryl covered Kristin’s hand in hers. “But enough about me. What are we going to do about you?”
“I wasn’t aware something needed to be done about me.” Kristin tried to sound shocked, but she knew exactly what Sheryl was talking about.
“You’re not someone who does well without a proper occupation.” Sheryl squeezed her hand. “Either you get yourself a very time-consuming hobby or you start looking for a new job.”
“Maybe I should become an adult student of Gender Studies. Go to all your classes,” Kristin joked.
“You’re very welcome to come to any of my classes, just don’t expect preferential treatment.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it.” Kristin raised both their hands and planted a kiss on Sheryl’s knuckle. “Speaking of fun pastimes, when are we going to that shop we’ve been talking about in Darlinghurst?” Kristin waggled her eyebrows.
Sheryl fixed her with a stare. “Very, very soon,” she said.
Sheryl opened her eyes, then abruptly closed them again. It felt as though if she even so much as blinked, all the memories from last night came rushing back, whereas when she kept her eyes tightly shut, she could keep a lid on them. But no, even the darkness could no longer hold back the resurgence of the words that had fallen from her mouth last night—because that was the only way she could describe it. She hadn’t consciously spoken the words. That thought would make everything even more unbearable than it already was.
There was the memory, crystal clear in her mind: Kristin’s father had insisted on having a barbecue, the way he always did when Sheryl came over. Somehow, over the years, it had become a way for them to bond—as if the thought that Sheryl was the ‘male figure’ in the relationship she had with his daughter made him feel more comfortable. The one who ‘manned’ the grill with him while Kristin and her mother made salads in the kitchen. While this sort of stereotypical thinking went against everything Sheryl believed—and taught in her classes—she had allowed him to get away with it from the start.
“Lecturing them will make things very uncomfortable,” Kristin had said.
“Speaking the truth has a tendency to do so,” Sheryl had replied. “It doesn’t mean you should lie.”
But it had been the beginning of their affair and Sheryl wanted Kristin’s parents to like her and, really, if that was what it took, this tiny transgression, then yes, she would allow Kristin to convince her it was all for the better, to keep the peace and not ruffle anymore feathers.
After they’d eaten, and Sheryl had ignored Kristin’s subtle cues that four beers were enough, and as Kristin’s father cleaned up the barbecue, she had let him pour her some of that rice wine he always talked about, but Sheryl never felt compelled to taste. Surprisingly she had liked it. With the ingestion of it, an extra dose of verbal confidence, which was not something Sheryl lacked even when sober, had seemed to come over her. Looking back, it had been a bout of foolishness, but at the time, it had felt like the polar opposite.
“I guess your wife is kind of my mother now as well. And you’re kind of like my surrogate dad,” Sheryl had said, and it had felt so good and so true to her, that she had nodded approvingly at her own comment, completely ignoring Kristin’s father’s reaction.
But it didn’t matter how he had reacted. It didn’t even matter that she could have said much worse—something along the embarrassing lines of what a fine-looking woman his wife was. Looking back on that short bout of conversation, in the cold light of day, the only conclusion was that she shouldn’t have said it. It was not how the Parks conversed with each other. Way too much intimacy was conveyed in that stupid little sentence of which Sheryl didn’t even know the provenance. It was just utterly ridiculous. But a disturbing thing had happened.
When Kristin started putting a well-meaning hand on her knee and didn’t top up her glass the way she did with the others’, Sheryl had brushed her off with a simple flick of the wrist because she was convinced she wasn’t drunk. She felt a mild buzz, but it didn’t impair her in any way and it didn’t spiral into the boozy madness the way it used to. Instead, she was convinced that the copious amounts she’d put away didn’t affect her one bit. And went on to blurt out silly things like likening her not-even-legal parents-in-law to the parents she’d lost a long time ago, even though one of them was still alive.
The shame she used to feel just for drinking too much was now multiplied by sheer mortification at embarrassing herself in front of Kristin’s father.
Because of this, her headache felt worse, her limbs felt heavier, and she didn’t want to get up at all. But she had promised Kristin they would finally, after weeks of saying they would but never getting round to it, go to Darlinghurst, to that shop and all it stood for in their relationship. She couldn’t possibly blow Kristin off because she had a heinous hangover, not after ignoring her obvious signals to stop drinking the night before, and violating the unspoken code they had drawn up between them.
Chapter Twenty
“Can we turn the music down, please?” Sheryl asked. She groaned when Kristin lowered the volume. Sheryl had spent most of the ride yawning and sighing. Now it looked like her headache had intensified since they’d left home on their shopping venture. Kristin gladly ignored the signs of Sheryl’s massive hangover. She had done her very best to stop this hangover from happening at all, but as had quickly become the custom, Sheryl had again ignored her gentle prods to switch to water after a couple of drinks. Clearly the plan Kristin had come up with to curb Sheryl’s drinking wasn’t working, and the fact that she was even trying to was having an adverse effect on their relationship.
Instead of her usual spiel of profusely apologizing for drinking too much and saying inappropriate things, Sheryl was also saying sorry for ignoring Kristin. It wasn’t so much the fact that Sheryl had ignored her—because, really, that was to be expected of an inebriated woman with a strong will of her own—but all the endless apologizing she felt she had to do the day after.
Kristin was fairly sure Sheryl saw this entire trip to Darlinghurst as a way of atoning, because she sure as hell didn’t look in the mood for sex toy shopping. It was hardly the right atmosphere for a little excursion that was meant to inject some much-needed vitality back into their intimate life. This was supposed to be fun. They should be giggling like girls half their age—not that Sheryl was the type to giggle in a sex shop.
“This place has changed,” Kristin said, after she had struggled to find a parking spot.
“Gentrification,” Sheryl said in between groans.
Over the years, they had become very confined to their set neighborhoods. They had bought a house in Camperdown, close to the uni
versity, and Kristin worked in the Central Business District. Most of their friends, who were mainly people Sheryl knew from the university, lived in the same area. And somehow, Kristin had forgotten there was a whole city outside of their cramped circle. A city with up-and-coming neighborhoods like this one.
The street they’d parked in was residential with neat rows of houses with a cozy deck at the front. When they arrived on the main road, bustling with Saturday afternoon activity, they stopped at a real estate agent’s window.
“Bloody hell,” Sheryl said. “Can’t wait for Camperdown to gentrify. Our house will be worth a fortune.”
“When did we come here last?” Kristin asked. “This place is unrecognizable.” Kristin scanned the other side of the street. There was a coffee shop, the obligatory yoga studio, a juice bar, all squeezed in between restaurants offering the most exotic cuisines.
“I don’t know if we ever even came here. This was always too sleazy for you, babe.” Apparently Sheryl’s hangover had receded enough to give her back the ability to joke.
Just walking down the main street, examining the menus and inhaling the electric atmosphere, Kristin found a new bounce in her step. She’d been cooped up in the house and her own neighborhood and habits for too long. She already knew she’d be back in this area, to see what it was like on an ordinary weekday. She had all the time in the world to explore.
“You do know what gentrification equals, right?” Sheryl hooked an arm through Kristin’s. “Breeders and strollers.” Her voice dripped with cynicism.
Just as she said it, they had to make way for a mother pushing a toddler in a state-of-the art stroller. After a few more steps, they encountered a man with a baby strapped to his back.
“Oh yes.” Sheryl nodded vigorously. “They have arrived already.”
“But will they have already driven out the gays?” Kristin chuckled. “Or are they coexisting peacefully?”
“Peace is still upon us.” Sheryl tipped a finger to her forehead, the way she always did when she assumed she was crossing paths with a fellow lesbian, a habit that drove Kristin crazy with its presumptuousness as much as with its whiff of elitism.
“How is it elitism?” Sheryl had asked when Kristin had called her out on it once. “How can you even consider that word for such a suppressed subculture as ours?”
“Because it excludes others.”
“So?” Sheryl had stroked her chin the way she did when she was about to go into professorial mode.
“How do you even know if someone is gay, anyway?”
“I knew when I saw you.” That had put an uncontrollable smile on Kristin’s face.
“Where is this shop?” Sheryl asked. “It looks like it doesn’t belong in this neighborhood anymore.”
“Let me check my phone.” Kristin looked on Google Maps. “It’s probably on the other side of that big intersection over there.”
“How about a hipster coffee first?” Sheryl said, looking very much like she needed a giant dose of caffeine.
“Crikey,” Sheryl said. “I always forget how much money there is to be made selling coffee.” They were sitting by the window, waiting for their drinks.
“It’s at least a dollar more per cup than anywhere near the uni. About the same price as in the CBD.” Kristin was not an accountant by education or trade, but she had always found a lot of joy in making the marketing budget, despite marketing dollars spent not always being quantifiable when it came to results. She always came up with a way, usually by means of a complicated calculation, to put a more precise price tag on the strategies she pitched.
“When you really think about it, it’s utterly ridiculous to pay four dollars for this.” Sheryl pointed at the steaming mug in front of her.
“But clearly not ridiculous enough to stop us, and many others, from doing so.”
“Remember when we first met and we went on our coffee date? How much did we pay for a cup then?” Sheryl shook her head. “I’m on the verge of feeling severely ripped off.”
“I don’t feel ripped off at all. You pay for more than the coffee. You pay for the experience and the service.”
Sheryl cocked her head. “Does your coffee have a substance in it that mine doesn’t?” She gave a small smile.
“No, but I guess my body is in a better state to receive it.” Kristin didn’t pay much attention to Sheryl’s reaction to her jibe. The germ of an idea had been planted somewhere deep in her mind.
“It is good coffee,” was all Sheryl said.
Kristin looked around. The coffee shop was small but cozy. She thought about a discussion she’d had years ago with someone working in the marketing department of Starbucks, who were trying to gain ground in Australia.
“Ozzies love their coffee,” he had said, “and they’re willing to pay for it, only not to us.” Since hearing that, she’d paid notice every time a new Starbucks branch popped up somewhere, and how it was almost always mainly visited by tourists. When it came to coffee shops, Australians really did have a fiercely independent streak. And they truly couldn’t get enough of it, what with the way coffeehouses had sprung up everywhere in the past decade.
Kristin had spent a large portion of her career making foreign markets fall in love with Australian wine. Could she possibly make Australians fall in love with American coffee? No, joining another marketing department didn’t make her heart beat faster, especially not one of a big international chain, no matter how challenging and possibly rewarding it might be. What really made her heart beat faster was a place like this.
“On the way over to the shop, I’d like to stop by that real estate agent again. Just to have another look.”
“Sure.” Sheryl knocked back the last of her coffee. “But first I’ll have one more overpriced cup of this.”
When Kristin was mulling something over, she turned inward. Sheryl could strip naked right there in the street and Kristin would hardly notice. Her brain was churning, Sheryl could tell. What she couldn’t tell, was the subject occupying Kristin’s mind so much she suddenly seemed to have lost interest in visiting the sex shop that had been the very reason for their trip to this neighborhood.
They were walking in the direction of the shop regardless. It made Sheryl think of the long and heated discussions she used to have with her fellow grad students and LAUS members on the importance versus the insignificance of sex toys. A bout of nostalgia rushed through her. Last she’d checked—and it had been a while—LAUS membership had gone down again. Did that mean that lesbians nowadays missed out on the conversations she used to have? Or was it all a matter of context and general inclusion, and they just talked about all of it openly with their straight friends, no distinctions made or necessary? How the world had changed.
When they finally found the shop, tucked away in a tiny alley, its facade so discreet you really had to know what you were looking for, Sheryl remembered the reason Kristin had insisted they’d come.
During one of her cleaning-up sprees, of which she’d had many since becoming unemployed, she had found the dildos and harnesses they used to fuck each other with, and had been appalled by the state of them.
“It’s silicone,” Sheryl had said. “Just pop them in the dishwasher and they’ll be good as new.”
Kristin had stood there with her hands on her hips. “There’s no way I’m using these ever again. They’ve become unusable by not using them.” She’d wrinkled up her nose.
Sheryl had quickly sussed out the real reason for Kristin’s indignation and agreed to go shopping for a set of new ones.
Sheryl hadn’t entered a sex shop in a decade. The products on offer seemed to have multiplied.
This, however, didn’t seem to deter Kristin at all. She went straight for the display in the back, Sheryl following her, picked out two that looked almost exactly the same as the ones she had binned a few weeks prior, cast a furtive glance at the vibrators, seemed to decide against them, and—as though time had suddenly become of the essence—without c
onsulting Sheryl very much at all, headed to the register.
When they stood outside, Sheryl grabbed her by the hand and asked, “Why the sudden hurry?”
“Something has come up,” Kristin said. “We need to talk.”
Chapter Twenty-One
“You’re probably going to think I’m crazy,” Kristin said.
“There’s also a good chance I won’t,” Sheryl replied.
“Wait until you’ve heard what I have to say.” They were drinking coffee in the living room, the plastic bag with the toys they’d bought discarded somewhere in the kitchen.
“I’m all ears.” Sheryl sank back onto the sofa. She looked a million times better than this morning, when Kristin had practically had to drag her out of bed.
“I had this idea and now I can’t stop thinking about it.”
“So I’ve noticed.” Sheryl sported a hint of smile.
“I need something to do. Something I can be passionate about. Something of my own.”
“I’m in triple agreement.”
“How about opening a coffee shop?”
Sheryl’s eyes grew wide. She sat up a bit straighter.
Kristin didn’t give her a chance to counter-argue. “You said so yourself earlier. There’s money to be made with coffee.”
Sheryl leaned forward and put her elbows on her knees.
“Obviously I haven’t yet thought this through. I haven’t done any of the math. I’ll need a business plan.”
“You’ll need much more than a business plan.”
Kristin shook her head. “No. It’s all I need, along with the support of my partner.”
“You always have my support.” Sheryl looked at the carpet when she said it.
“I can’t go on moping around the house all day doing nothing. I don’t much feel like joining the corporate world again. And today, as we sat there in that coffee shop, in that amazingly vibrant neighborhood, the thought came to me. And why not? What have I got to lose?”