On Tuesday night they kissed goodnight at Kylie’s blue Nissan Versa Note in the parking lot of a Red Robin at the Lakes. Aly had picked up the signals that Kylie was attracted to her, not the least of which was her looking often at Aly’s lips. So when it came time to say goodnight, she made her move. Kylie was leaning back against her car and she moved in, one leg between Kylie’s legs, a hand cupping left jaw. Kylie responded eagerly, holding her by the shoulders. It was very nice to kiss someone again.
On Wednesday evening, after Kylie initiated more kissing at her car in the parking lot of a Cheesecake Factory, she informed Aly that her sister and her partner were going to be away over Friday night. She wanted Aly to come for dinner and she accepted, knowing there was more planned for the evening than dinner.
The dating protocol at the Milton’s was that no one could spend the night until she had met Erika. And she could not spend the night when the girls were home until the girls were well acquainted with her. Erika also asked that if she was not coming home one night that she text to let her know, just as a courtesy, so she would know nothing was wrong. And that went both ways. Erika, too, would text Aly if she was not coming home on one of the nights when the girls were away.
Aly wasn’t comfortable telling Erika she didn’t think she’d be home on Friday night. For one thing, it would be embarrassing if she did come home after saying she wouldn’t. She decided that, if it became clear she was staying with Kylie, she would text then.
What talking Aly did about Kylie at home was in answer to the girls’ questions. Yes, she liked her. She’s cute, sweet, intelligent, has some interesting thoughts and opinions. She told them about her plans to be a massage therapist and her interest in bar bands. When Erika was present for these discussions she only listened.
On Thursday, Aly’s birthday, she received flowers from Kylie and, in an email, a gift certificate to Amazon from her mother and Dave. Some other relatives, including Gemma, also sent gift certificates. Her brother sent her a big box of chocolates from Sees Candies, something he did every year after she told him once that the best gift she ever got was that particular box of chocolates from them. And her father, Bill, came down from Reno. He was taking a long weekend, but was flying back the next morning. “I have a date,” he said. “You tell me about yours and I’ll tell you about mine!”
Aly wished he would find someone. If asked before her parents divorced, she would have predicted that her father would be the one to remarry. It was hard for her to understand what Dave saw in her mother, but Linda was better to him than she had been to Bill. Perhaps she had learned. But her father, a sweet, wonderful man, in Aly’s opinion, had, since his divorce thirteen years before, only been in a four year relationship. It ended four years before, to the surprise of Bill and everyone but the woman who left. Since then, he had only dated.
Bill Wong was five ten and had a lean build. Like Aly, he ran. He was more olive toned than his kids and his paternal Chinese grandparents showed in his high cheekbones and single lid eyes. His wore his salt and pepper hair trimmed very short. He was a nice looking man who looked younger than his sixty four years.
He was treating himself to a night in a five star Marriott off the Summerlin Parkway. Aly met him for dinner at an Italian restaurant in the hotel. She didn’t care where they ate. She just wanted to see her father.
He gave her a light weight kimono style robe made from strips of reclaimed saris. It was a gorgeous multicolored and multi-patterned patchwork, handmade by Indian women, so no two would be alike. “This is beautiful, Dad,” Aly raved. He was a rare man who shopped thoughtfully for others.
They caught up. She told him about Dave, a man her father liked and got along with better than his ex-wife. Dave was recovering well, in fact, feeling better than he had in a long time. She talked about her new situation and the Miltons and how good they were to her. There were no fireworks with Kylie, she explained, but she liked her and it was nice seeing someone.
He, in turn, told her about the woman he was to see on Friday, someone he’d been acquainted with at work for years, but had only recently gotten to know. This brought Erika to Aly’s mind, but she quickly swept her away.
Bill was going to come back for Christmas when Mark came down. “I like this hotel. Maybe I’ll splurge. Your brother can afford it, too.” He then suggested that she come up to Reno next summer. Aly realized she had all of July available when Whitney and Lu would be away with Julio and she could probably take a week off from her billing work. These plans made parting from her father after dinner less painful.
21
Aly was nervous. If what she thought would happen Friday night happened it would be the first time in a very long time that she had sex with someone other than herself. She didn’t think she’d forgotten what to do. But she had the usual doubts about what she did do. She knew what worked for Toy. But Kylie would be totally new terrain.
Kylie’s sister’s apartment was in the middle of the city off Jones and Charleston. Apartment complexes in Las Vegas are typically two or three story buildings sprawled across several acres. Once in the complex, the trick is to find the correct building and then the correct side of the building. Kylie’s home was easy because it was far in the back of the complex on the second floor of the north side of a two story building.
Aly’s steps resounded and vibrated up the stone and steel stairs, alerting all on that side of the building that someone had a guest. There were two windows along the landing and two doors facing each other at each end. She found the correct one and was about to ring the bell when Kylie opened it. She had heard Aly’s ascent.
She welcomed Aly into the living room of a small two bedroom apartment. It smelled of garlicky sauce, cooking pasta, and, underneath, dusty old carpeting and upholstery. The room was nondescript. The walls were white, the carpeting beige, the blue couch and two beige recliners timeless and well worn, the end tables and coffee tables generic oak veneer. A flat screen television hung on the wall near the front door, across from the couch. Above the couch was a generic oceanscape print. The only window in the room was a glass door leading to a balcony to the left of the front door. It overlooked the back grey concrete block wall of the complex. Aly was reminded of the view along the hall to Erika’s office at Allende Milton.
A quick tour and Aly learned that the windows along the landing were for the master bedroom, which had its own bathroom suite. Across the living room, past the kitchen that overlooked it and a small nook for eating, was Kylie’s room. Her bathroom, which was also for guests, was across from her bedroom.
Kylie settled Aly on a stool at the bar along the kitchen with a glass of acidic red wine and continued preparing food. It was to be a salad and what seemed to be pasta with a chicken Alfredo sauce. They each spoke briefly about their day. Then Aly talked about Whitney. The mystery of “mikent” had been solved. They had been hearing that word on and off for weeks, but no one could get its meaning out of Whitney. Lu had no idea. Was it a new slang word? Aly had resorted to asking Kylie earlier in the week and she had never heard of it.
It turned out it was not “mikent” but “Mike Kent”. He was Whitney’s crush, a freshman in high school, a year ahead of Whitney. She had met him in the summer at science camp. There was a costume dance at the Verkammer for the high schoolers for Halloween. Whitney, in eighth grade, could only go if she had a date and Mike Kent had finally asked. She was over the moon.
Kylie liked to hear about the girls and Aly liked that. She wanted children one day and Aly liked that, too, though she did not think it would be with her.
“By the way,” she said. “Are you free next Saturday? There’s this Halloween party I’ve been invited to…” She and Erika had received invitations at the beginning of October to one of Anita’s Things. It was to be a no costume Halloween party. (Anita hated costumes). Casual attire, black and white and, please, no orange. This was going to be one of Anita’s big Things where a general invitation was sent to all friends and a
cquaintances and their plus ones. It was a Mom’s Weekend as well as Whitney’s Halloween dance, but Julio said he’d take the girls that night so Erika was going, too.
Kylie beamed a smile and accepted the date. She had heard vaguely about a woman who sometimes threw big parties for women, but had never met anyone who attended them.
Over dinner, Kylie announced that afterward she was hoping they could watch the last two episodes of the recent season of Game of Thrones. She had them on the DVR and had been burning for weeks to watch them. She and Aly discussed the show before and she knew that Aly followed it, too. Aly had seen the finale, but she could always watch episodes of GOT. They spent the rest of the meal discussing the show.
Aly helped with the dishes after dinner. And with another glass of acidic wine each, they settled on the couch to watch GOT.
While Kylie was rapt with the show, Aly spent much of the evening wondering who would make the move. So far, she had instigated the first meet up, where they went for it, and the first kiss. But Kylie had not been wholly passive, asking her to hear the bar band and initiating the more intense kissing on the second date, and orchestrating that night.
When Kylie finished the show she was full of it and they had to process it, discuss all the implications, and make their projections and predictions about the next season. And as that was winding down Aly took her hand and started playing with it with her own and one thing led to another and they were soon kissing and touching and fondling and exploring. Eventually, Kylie asked her to stay the night and she agreed and they headed for her bedroom.
It was a simple, neat room, with a queen bed covered in a quilt in shades of blue opposite the door. The headboard, the one end table, and a long dresser were light wood. A window faced west and the walls were covered in photos, it seemed of friends and family and scenery. While Kylie was in the bathroom, Aly sat at the foot of the bed and texted Erika. “Not coming home tonight.”
To her surprise there was a swift answer. “Thank you.”
She spontaneously speculated about Erika’s whereabouts. It was a Dad’s Weekend. Was Erika out with someone and just happened to grab up her phone quickly? Was she at home all snuggly in her loungewear (darker, thicker, and long sleeved now that it was cooler) and under a fleece blanket on the couch watching something on TV? Maybe she was reading in bed. (Did she read in bed?) Behind these speculations was the image of Erika’s sweet, curvaceous, compact woman’s body. Kylie’s boy body was slender and angular and narrow-hipped and nothing like it. She forcefully banished the comparison.
Someone (was it Anita?) once said that if you want to know how someone will treat you in bed just pay attention to how they treat you out of bed. If they are selfish on the streets they will be selfish in the sheets. If they are caring and loving and giving outside the bedroom they will be the same in the bedroom. This had certainly been true with Toy. Aly had learned that if she wanted to reach orgasm she had to manipulate Toy into making love to her first. Because if Toy went first, afterward she suddenly couldn’t understand this insistence among lesbian couples that each gets her needs met every time they made love.
For Aly it was simple. Making love to a woman was a way of caring for her, loving her, nurturing her. Who wouldn’t want to do that for a lover, especially if she was the woman you loved? But Toy, and, Aly knew, many other women, simply didn’t see it that way.
So Kylie was as receptive, gentle, and thoughtful a lover as she was a person. It was satisfying, if ephemeral, sex. Aly wanted more someday. Something more earth and fire than air. But, for a start, this was nice.
22
Aly woke up early, as usual. It wasn’t quite six. Kylie had to be at work by nine and she knew she had set an alarm, so she let her sleep.
She smelled of sex and needed a shower. Should she wait for Kylie? What if they ran out of time? She couldn’t go home like this. She found a towel in a linen closet just outside the bathroom and showered. Afterward, she found ground coffee in the refrigerator and made it in a drip coffee pot. It was Sunday and she had gotten used to bagels on Sunday so she left a note in case Kylie woke up and went to get some. She did not wake up while she was gone.
But she was up at seven thirty. She gave Aly some nice loverly kisses and was grateful for the coffee and bagels. She showered and put on her spa uniform. She had long standing plans with a friend for that evening, so they made plans for Monday night. Kylie was really looking forward to the party Saturday.
They went down to their cars together and when Kylie kissed her goodbye she said, “Last night was really nice.”
Yes, that’s the word.
Aly didn’t feel like going straight home. So she rolled up Charleston to stop at Whole Foods for a box of a particular muesli she liked. The parking lot was filling with Sunday morning shoppers. She didn’t feel like a crowd, either. She went straight to the cereal aisle.
“What are you doing here?”
Aly’s heart accelerated at the sound of the familiar voice behind her left shoulder. She turned to see Erika smiling at her. She cleared her throat. “Oh, hi.” She raised the box of muesli. “Almost out and I forgot to put it on the list.”
Erika had a hand basket and raised it for her to put the box in. From the start, she had determined to not feel awkward about Erika paying for her food. It was part of her compensation. Of course she made small trips like this to buy things all the time and did not charge them to Erika. But if Erika was there and was offering, she went along. She put the box in the basket.
“I mean, where’s Kylie? Assuming you were with her last night?”
Good god, am I blushing? Nonchalant, nonchalant. “Working.”
“Ah.” She nodded. Then she lifted a bottle of wine from among the sundries in her basket. “Something new to try.”
Aly thought of the acidic wine from the night before. It wasn’t that Erika bought high end wines. She bought wine where she found it. Costco, the grocery store, a liquor store. She liked to find new ones to try. She was certainly no connoisseur herself. Aly bet when she started out she drank a lot of cheap, acidic wines, too.
“But it’s white,” Erika continued.
“I’ve been drinking whatever you pour.”
“I know. But I know you prefer the red ones.”
“I liked that Riesling.”
“That’s true.” They were walking toward the registers together. “Where did I get that? I should get some more.”
That was typically thoughtful of Erika. Their easy companionability was not lost on Aly. But she had seen Kylie only how many times? Four? And each time they were easier together, and then last night…Why was she always comparing her to Erika? It was a totally different situation. She had seen Erika everyday for three months. Of course she’s more comfortable with her. It would be more appropriate to compare Kylie to Toy, anyway. New lover to old lover not new lover to…boss-friend?
But then she often found herself comparing Toy to Erika, too. Not as lovers, of course, but as people. These just were not fair comparisons. Erika was…Aly looked at her, right next to her perusing magazines on the rack as they waited in line at the cashiers. She was wearing blue jeans and a light striped black and brown sweater. The brown blended with her skin so the black stripes popped out. She had black old fashioned sneakers on her feet. She seemed to favor sneakers…
Her mind wandered affectionately onto Erika’s loveable habits. How cuddly she was in her inevitable soft cotton loungewear. If she was not going out and no one was coming over, that was all she wore. Of course there was the fast food and wine. No matter what she said, it really was all about McDonald’s for that woman. Her nightly chamomile tea. Her love of the view from her patio. Her childlike delight in electrical storms. Her eclectic taste in music, which so far included country, R&B, pop, dance, and, when she worked at home, classical, something Bianca had turned her onto. (Erika favored Bach). And there was her endearing way of offering little gifts of small pleasures and her disappointment when the
y didn’t please. It was not that she wanted others to like what she liked, but simply that when a gift failed she seemed to think she had in some way, too. And of course there was what was paramount, her fierce love for her girls…
What happened to the Ice Queen?
Panicky fear flashed over Aly, as though a barrier she did not know was protecting her had fallen.
“What are you doing today?” Erika asked as they arrived at the cashier.
Aly, breathless and shaky, quickly pushed away her thoughts and feelings. Her fear evaporated, leaving behind a residue of vague uneasiness. “I have to get something black and white for Saturday.”
“Me too!” Erika said as she pushed her debit card into the machine to pay. “Well, white, anyway. I have black slacks.” She punched the buttons to answer the questions that came up and put in her PIN number. “I’m actually just passing time here before going to the mall. You want to go together?”
“Okay. Sure.”
Aly felt her day had taken an unexpected turn. But why? She meant to go shopping anyway.
They stopped at home to drop off the groceries and Aly’s car. The day was going to warm up so Erika changed into a long, fluid, cobalt crew neck T-shirt. Aly, who was wearing her clothes from the evening before, changed into fresh underwear, blue jeans, and a long red fitted V-neck T-shirt bunched at the hip.
As they headed down the hall to the garage Erika said, “I mean this in a good way. You’ve put on weight.”
“You say that from behind me. Is it all in my ass?”
“You don’t have an ass, honey, you white,” Erika laughed. Then, seriously, “You’ve filled out all over. You look good. Healthy.”
A Good Woman Page 11