by Amy Brent
I was about five seconds from walking out the door and saying to hell with this job when Maria walked in.
“Oh God.” I pulled my uniform hat down over my eyes, trying to pretend she wasn't there. I didn't want her to see me in my McDonald's uniform with my stupid name tag with the label peeling off. I felt like a complete dork.
“Hi,” she said. With my hat pulled down over my eyes, all I could see was her stomach and her lower arms.
“Hello, welcome to McDonald's,” I said, quoting the lines by rote. “Will this be for here or to go?”
“Casey...” She sighed and leaned down to peek up under the brim of my hat. “I was hoping we could talk. When do you get done?”
I glanced over my shoulder at my manager, then turned back to Maria with a sigh. “I've got a break in about twenty minutes.”
“Is it okay if I wait here?”
I lifted the brim of my hat. Maria's eyes looked red. I wondered if she'd been crying.
“I don't know if my manager will like you sitting here without ordering something.”
“Oh, well, that's fine.” She looked at the menu, then ordered a salad. I rang it up and took her money. Our fingers touched when I handed her back her change. The simple contact made me smile.
I kept working until it was time for my break. The entire time, I kept glancing over at Maria. She was watching me. At one point while I was wiping down plastic trays, she flashed me a flirtatious smile. I let out a frustrated sound and held one of the trays up to cover my face. She probably thought I looked cute in my little work uniform. I just felt like a complete loser.
When I clocked out for my break, I didn't bother to get anything to eat. My stomach was too twisted up in knots. I took off my hat and name tag and went into the dining room to sit with Maria. She pushed aside the last bits of her salad and folded her hands on the table.
“So,” she said.
“So.” I crossed my arms and stared at the table. I held my name tag in my hand, hidden under my arm, and prodded my skin with the pin. Not hard enough to draw blood. Just hard enough to make it hurt just right.
“I was with my boyfriend tonight,” Maria said. “We...well, I told him about you.”
My head shot up. I stared at her, dumbstruck. In all the months we'd been together, she'd never told her boyfriend about me. “What did he say?”
“Well, he called me a slut,” she said. She leaned back in the booth, her shoulders slumped. “And a bunch of other names I won't repeat. We fought for hours.”
“So does that mean you broke up with him?”
“No,” she said.
My heart broke right in half.
“But I think I'm going to.”
I looked up at her, clinging to some little sliver of hope. “You 'think'?”
“I...” She hesitated, staring out the window for a moment. “I think that, deep down, I need to figure out if I can make my life work this way.”
“What way?” I asked. “The 'being with someone so young' way?”
“No. The being with a woman way.”
I felt cold. I hugged myself tighter and dug the pin into my arm. “So that's what this is about.”
“Casey, it's not what you think. I'm happy with you, and I enjoy our time together. But I've got to think about other things. Like my family.”
“What does your family have to do with it?” I'd left my family behind in Georgia, and I certainly wasn't about to let their opinions of me affect the decisions I made with my life. Especially considering how homophobic some of them could be.
“I went to see my nieces and nephews the other day,” she said. “Some of them are almost your age, and getting ready to start college. And we got to talking about the future, about their plans for life. And they asked me about mine. About whether I was going to get married. Have children. That sort of thing. And the thing is...”
I stared at her, my eyes cold. “The thing is,” I finished for her, “they'd expect you to be marrying a man.”
She lowered her eyes. “I've never had to go through the things you've gone through. I've never 'come out' to anyone. Until I met you, I never even considered it a possibility. I mean, I've found women attractive before. But I always shrugged it off as mere admiration, not sexual attraction.” She shrugged. “But the idea of telling my family that I'm in love with a woman...”
“You're in love with me?”
She looked up at me with tears in her eyes. She nodded.
“If that's really true,” I said, “then it shouldn't be that hard to decide.”
“That's not fair.”
“No, it isn't.” I got up and put my hat and name tag back on. I grabbed a napkin to dab up the little bead of blood on my arm from where the pin had penetrated my skin. “If your family really loves you, they'll respect whatever decision you make. And, well, when my family didn't respect who I was, I left them behind.”
I turned and started to walk away, then looked back at her over my shoulder. “If you can't respect what we are, I'm strong enough to walk away from you, too. I just hope you won't make it come to that.”
I headed back to the employee break room so Maria couldn't follow me. I sat in a chair and pulled my knees up to my chest, buried my face into my arms, and started to cry.
Later that night, it started to rain. I stood at the bus stop getting drenched. I didn't own an umbrella, and even if I had, I probably would have forgotten to bring it with me. I hugged my arms around myself and hopped up and down, trying to keep warm. My feet squished in my non-slip work shoes and my uniform clung to my body. I looked down the road at my McDonald's, wondering if I should wait inside. But there was too much risk that I wouldn't see the bus coming, and then I'd be stuck walking home.
I shivered in the rain until the bus came. The bus driver frowned at me when I trailed water onto the bus, but it wasn't like there was anything I could do about it.
When I finally got to my stop, I got off the bus and trudged through the rain to my apartment. When I got there, I saw Maria standing there in the rain, ringing my doorbell.
“I'm not home,” I said, raising my voice to be heard over the rain.
She turned to face me. “Oh, Casey. I stopped back at your work again, but your boss said you'd left already.”
“I was on the bus.” I shrugged, giving her a wry smile.
We stood there for a few moments in the downpour. I wasn't sure whether I wanted to invite her in or not. If she was here to break up with me, I'd just as soon have it happen in the rain. It would suit my mood.
“Why are you here?” I asked.
She held her arms out to either side. “I told my boyfriend it was over.”
My heart started to race.
“I went home, after I talked to you,” she said. “He told me he wanted us to work things out. That he could forgive me, as long as I told him I regretted being with you. I...I couldn't do that. Because it would have been a lie. I don't regret my time with you. Not any of it.”
I took a few steps forward. “So, that's it then? You...you're all mine now?”
She nodded. “All yours, Casey. I'm ready to give up that part of my life and move on. To accept who I am now.”
“What about your family?” I asked. “I can't promise to be everything you want. I'm just a kid!” I threw my arms up into the rain. “I have no idea where my life is going, and I'm going to need a long time to figure it out. I'm just getting started.”
“The thing is,” she said, “I realized today that I'm just getting started, too. With this part of my life, anyway. It's so new, so different. I've got to work on figuring out who I am now. Who I am while I'm with you.”
“But you'll be figuring it out...with me?”
She nodded. I stepped closer. She wrapped her arms around me.
“I don't want any promises from you,” she said. “We've got time to figure things out. But I know that this is something I want to explore. Something I want to embrace. And I'd like for you to meet my f
amily. If they approve, that is. If not...” She shrugged. “Then that's on them. I won't let it affect my decisions.”
“That...that sounds perfect.”
I pulled her closer and we kissed in the falling rain. Her skin was cold from the damp and her hair clung plastered to her face. I slid my arms around her neck and clung to her, drawing warmth from her lips. I shivered, and not just from the cold.
I leaned my head against her shoulder and laughed, clinging to her. She held me close and stroked my wet hair.
“We should get out of the rain,” she said.
I nodded, then looked up at the apartment window. Brian stood there, watching us. He gave me a thumbs up.
“We should go someplace private,” I said. I knew Brian would go hide in his bedroom in order to give us some space, but I felt the need for something more intimate. Something where my gay roommate wouldn't overhear everything we did.
“My boyfriend is still back at our place,” Maria said. “I'm going to have to pack my things and move out.”
She held my face in her hands, looking into my eyes.
“How about a hotel?” she suggested.
I grinned and giggled. “Sounds perfect.”
We go into her car, soaking the seats. She drove us to the nearest hotel, a place that was a bit out of my price range. But Maria took care of paying for the room, and got us an extra stack of towels from the man behind the front desk. We went upstairs and as soon as we were in the room, we both started stripping out of our soaked clothes. We stood there for a few moments, shivering.
“I think you should warm me up,” I said.
She took my hand and led me into the bathroom. “I think we both need a nice hot shower.”
“Sounds delightful.”
We got into the shower and turned the water up extra hot. I unwrapped one of the little hotel-size bars of soap and rubbed it between my hands, while my eyes roamed Maria's body. She stood there watching me, a shy smile on her lips.
I crooked a finger towards her. “Come here.”
She stepped into my arms and I started rubbing the soap into her soft skin. I took my time, rubbing my fingers over each and every inch of her. She leaned on her arms against the wall and I scrubbed her back, massaging the knots in her muscles until she let out a soft moan of contentment. I let my hands roam lower, squeezing her ass, then rubbed down her thighs, getting her nice and slippery. I knew this was the sort of touch that her boyfriend—her ex-boyfriend—couldn't give her. Only another woman would know just the right places to touch her, just the right ways to do it.
I turned her around and started rubbing the soap into her breasts. I leaned in and trailed kisses along her neck and shoulders. She reached out to touch me but I shook my head and grabbed her wrists.
“Unh-uh,” I whispered, pushing her arms above her head. “Not yet.”
She whimpered buy obeyed, holding her arms against the wall. I pulled down the detachable showerhead, silently thanking God that we'd picked a nice hotel that had one, and shifted it to the massager setting. Maria spread her legs and I knelt down, planting a soft kiss between them before holding the shower massager there and pressing it close against her sweet spot.
She leaned back against the shower wall, bucking and moaning. I held her thighs open and moved the showerhead back and forth, teasing her most sensitive places. I took my time, bringing her to the edge over and over again, then pulling back. She whimpered and complained, but I was relentless, teasing her until she started to beg me for it.
“Please,” she whispered. Her eyes were closed and her face scrunched up. “Please, I need it.”
“What do you need?” I asked, my fingers teasing her.
“I need you.”
“Only me?”
She opened her eyes and looked down at me. “Only you.”
I became more aggressive then, bringing her over the edge, letting her have the pleasure she so desperately needed. She moaned louder than I'd ever heard her moan before, banging her hands against the shower wall. I kept going, bringing her over the edge twice, three times, not letting up until I was satisfied.
She collapsed to her knees beside me in the tub. She wrapped her arms around my shoulders, clinging to me, trembling. I held her and stroked her hair, whispering softly into her ear.
We stayed there like that until the water started to grow cold. I turned the water off and we got out, then started rubbing each other down with the towels. While Maria rubbed me dry, I sat on the edge of the counter and spread my legs. She smiled up at me and got down on her knees. I leaned back against the mirror and propped my legs on her shoulders while she showed me how much better her tongue could be than the shower massager.
I felt the faucet digging into my back while Maria pleasured me. I dug my back harder into it, savoring the pain. I gripped the edge of the counter and dug my hands into it, letting the hard corners bite down into my skin. I rode the waves of pain while Maria brought me to new heights of pleasure. I pressed my lips together as sharp little moans rose up my throat.
Maria didn't tease me the way I'd teased her. She brought me right up to the edge and over it, showing no mercy. I bucked against the mirror and ground the faucet into my back as the climax overpowered me. Then I said there, limp, until Maria got up and helped me back to my feet.
We moved to the bed for more fun, then laid there for hours, talking. The room was dark; we'd never bothered to turn on the lights. I watched Maria's face in the shadows as we talked about the future, about meeting her family, about all the new things we had to explore, now that we were together for real.
“The one complicated thing,” she said as we lay there, “is that I need a new place to live.”
“You're welcome to share the futon at my place.”
She laughed and stroked my face. “Oh, I don't know about that. I feel a bit crowded every time I come over there. No offense against Brian, he's a sweet man. But I think I need a little more space.”
“Well, I guess you could get your own apartment.”
“Or we could,” she said.
I stared at her, mute. “You...you mean it? You want me to live with you?”
“If that's what you want.”
I thought about that. I wasn't yet sure what I wanted. I still hadn't figured out what kind of future career I wanted to pursue, or what kind of major I wanted for college. There were so many things I didn't yet know. Though one thing I did know was that I wanted Maria in my life.
And it would certainly be nice to live someplace where I had a real bedroom, instead of a futon in the living room.
“Brian will miss me.”
“I'm sure he will,” Maria said. She kissed me. “But I'd miss you more.”
I snuggled against her, sleepy but content. I drifted off for a bit, dreaming about our new home together. I didn't know if it would last. I was too young to consider a lifelong relationship. It wasn't like we were ready to get married or anything. But I could see it happening. I could look forward, into the future, and imagine a life with Maria. The two of us, side by side, living in a house with a couple of kids. We could adopt, or find another way for me to have a baby. It would be nice to carry my own child, to feel it growing inside of me, coming to life as a part of me. I wanted that. I think that, deep down, I needed it.
I woke before dawn and got out of bed, pulling an extra blanket over my shoulders. I pulled a chair over to the window and opened the curtains. I sat there, curled up in the chair with the blanket wrapped around myself, and watched the sky start to lighten. It was a new day, for me and for Maria. A new beginning. I was a bit scared, but I knew that I had a wonderful partner to see me through it. Someone who loved me, who would take care of me, and who would do everything she could to keep me safe.
This was going to be a good day. And a wonderful start to something new.
Captivated By Love
Leslie
Leslie was determined to get her life together, one way or another. She stood
back looking at her reflection in the mirror. The make-up had covered the bruise under her eye, at least enough to make it seem like nothing. She wasn’t really sure why she was even in this relationship. She deserved better, at least she felt like it sometimes. Tony had been her everything for a long time now, giving her confidence as a woman and yet there was a delicate thread there, when he wasn’t making her important, he was dragging her back down in the dumps again.
She had been determined to never be with a man again after her first husband. She had met someone special, and although it hadn’t worked out, she knew that being with a woman was beautiful, and it suited her. Tony had accepted that part of her, although he kept a tight reign on who she hung out with because of it. She had given up that side of her to be with him, all because he promised her the world, only to break her down.
It wasn’t all emotional with Tony. True, he could say some of the most horrible things about her, what she needed to change and how she could be better. At 35, she was an average woman, her complexion tan and her hair long and dark. She used to laugh more, use to smile. Her frame was busty, and she was petite. For as long as she could remember she had been told it was the chocolate color of her eyes that were the most beautiful. She seemed to be able to read people easily with them.
At least she had work, something she loved. There she was part of a team, and part of something fun and uplifting. She was no stranger to hard work, she had spent most of her life working hard, whether it was for a company or for her family. Her days were filled with things to do. She stood now, straightening up her shirt and smoothing back her hair. Today she had to train some new people and she wanted to present herself with a smile, at least she had to try.
It was hard to tell where the last argument had started. Something simple had turned into something bigger. She knew he was angry that she wasn’t bringing in enough money, an issue with them most of the time. She wanted to tell him to stop spending it all on beer, but she knew that would get her another black eye. Instead, she quietly dealt with one thing after another, slowly losing more and more of herself in the relationship. Maybe soon she would make some decisions, better ones. Maybe she could get it together and finally be free of him. She shook her head to clear the thought.