Risky Investment

by Beth Moore

  “What was so embarrassing about that?” Matt questioned.

  “It kind of turned out not to be my house,” Chris admitted. “You know all of those houses looked exactly the same—especially after smoking a few joints.”

  Lynn laughed. Matt looked irritated. “I thought you said you don’t use drugs!”

  “Oh, come on! Everyone experiments during their teenage years.” Then placing her hand over her heart, she promised, “I don’t touch the stuff anymore.”

  Matt didn’t look convinced but shrugged it off and relayed his story about the time that he made a pass at a straight man.

  “Yeah,” Lynn broke in. “That turned out to be one of my most embarrassing moments too!”

  Chris looked confused. “How so?”

  “It turned out the man that I thought was giving me the eye, was actually giving Lynn the eye,” Matt said sheepishly.

  “After the man rejected Matt’s advance, while I was in the ladies’ room, by the way, he came on to me,” Lynn explained. “Not knowing what Matt had done, I made a big scene at how he was making a pass at me, right in front of my boyfriend.”

  Matt continued the story, “The man proceeded to tell Lynn about what I had said to him, and then told her that she should leave me and join him.”

  “Needless to say, we had to come clean. By this time, the entire restaurant had overheard the conversation. The man wasn’t too happy with us.” Lynn mumbled, “I still think he was the one that broke my windshield that night.”

  “Just another story about my unluckmess with men,” Matt whined. “If they don’t want to hook up with Lynn, they want to hook up with the guy next to me…”

  “Hey, just another story of Matt’s bad judge of character!” Lynn said sarcastically.

  Chris felt the conversation turning into an argument and focused on her tiles before her. She smiled because earlier that day she had thought long and hard, trying to make a mental list of items to get revenge for some of the items that Matt had asked of her the other night. She laid down the letters SEX. Turning toward Matt, she asked, “How many guys have you slept with?”

  “Why do you need to know how many guys I’ve slept with?” He looked up at Chris, expecting an answer.

  “It just tells me about your character, you know, if you’ve been the promiscuous type, or if you’ve stayed at home alone, waiting for that one special person,” Chris replied.

  Matt shook his head again, then smiled. “You’re answering this one first. How many guys have you slept with?”

  Chris leaned back in her chair. “Let’s just say more than I should have.”

  “I don’t think that’s a clear enough answer,” Matt teased.

  “Okay, more than ten and less than fifty,” Chris teased back.

  “Okay, that’s a little less vague.” He smiled and continued, “I guess I’m more inexperienced, I’ll say less than ten.”

  Lynn laughed. “You should say less than five!”

  “Okay, Miss Smarty Pants, you answer the question!” he snapped.

  “I’d have to stick with the ‘more than ten, less than fifty’ answer,” Lynn replied.

  “Ha! Maybe in the last six months!” Matt exclaimed.

  Lynn looked at Chris. “He’s exaggerating just a little!” She explained, “He’s just jealous because he doesn’t get it as often as I do.”

  Feeling a little hot under the collar, Matt said sarcastically, “Why should I? I’m not the one trying to break Susan’s record!”

  Lynn glared at Matt. “You know, you can be a real bastard sometimes.” Lynn felt the tears welling up in her eyes and quickly excused herself. “I believe that’s my cue to leave,” she said as she turned away and rushed into the house.

  Chris looked at Matt. This was another conversation that she did not understand. She had seen the tears in Lynn’s eyes. “What… ?”

  Matt put his head in his hands and ran his fingers through his hair as his face reddened. “Shit!” he exclaimed. “Here’s one of my flaws. I take things too far, I just don’t know when to stop.” He looked up at Chris, then looked through the glass door, just as they heard the front door slam. The sound made Matt wince; he stood up, walked over to the railing, and leaned on it as if for support.

  “Matt, what was… who’s Susan?” Chris asked.

  “Someone that hurt Lynn really bad.”

  “What happened?”

  “I’m sorry, I don’t think that it’s my place to tell you. You can ask Lynn sometime.” Matt’s expression softened. “All I can tell you is that a broken heart must be the worst thing to carry around with you, day after day.” He sat down across the table from Chris and began, “My last serious boyfriend dumped me after a couple of months, and I thought that I was going to die at the time, but I eventually got over it,” Matt shook his head and ran his lingers through his hair again before continuing, “But I don’t know if Lynn will ever allow herself to really feel anything again.” He stopped and looked into Chris’s eyes. “You know, she has all of these one-night stands, just so that she can leave it behind in the morning. I mean she’s honest with the women, she never leads them on. She just walks away in the morning.” After a moment he asked, “Would you like to hear my diagnosis?”

  “Oh, please,” Chris said sarcastically, as if she had a choice.

  “I think Lynn thinks that the breakup was her fault. That she couldn’t keep Susan satisfied, and therefore drove her to promiscuity.” Matt paused and then continued, “In some way I think that Lynn is sleeping around to make up for that.”

  Chris looked confused. “How so?”

  “You know, trying to satisfy other women because she couldn’t keep Susan satisfied.”

  Chris shrugged, not wanting to make a quick judgment without all the details.

  Matt began again, “Or, it’s like I stupidly said before, Lynn is just trying to get even with Susan by sleeping with more women.” Then finally stopping, he admitted, “I don’t know, I’m just a mechanic!”

  They sat in silence for some time. Chris had never been hurt like that. She thought back over her relationships. She had never really cared that deeply about any of the men that she had been with. The truth was, she hadn’t really cared for them at all. She had seen the tears in Lynn’s eyes. Lynn’s tough exterior hadn’t shown any of the pain before, yet the mere mention of Susan’s name had sent her spinning. What would it be like to be that devastated over someone?

  Matt broke the silence. “Well, I guess we need to clean up the dishes.” He stood and started collecting the plates. “Would the future Mrs. Matt McKinley like to rinse or load the dishwasher?”

  “Oh, I see the honeymoon is over already!” Chris tried to lighten the mood. “I’ll rinse.”

  Matt and Chris rinsed the dishes, loaded the dishwasher, and cleaned the counters. When all was finished, Matt looked at the time. “You know, I could really use a drink, and Lynn should be at the bar by now. Would you mind dropping by there so that I can apologize? I feel like a real jerk.”

  “I could really use a drink too. By tomorrow at this time I’ll officially be engaged, you know.”

  “Did you bring a change of clothes so that you can spend the night tonight, like we discussed on the phone today? I just think it will be a lot easier than you having to get home late tonight and then having to get up early in the morning just to drive back.”

  “Yeah, my stuff is in my car, or rather, your car.” Chris smiled.

  Entering the bar, Chris could see that Matt had told the truth, a lot of people came out on Thursday nights. The music was loud, and the voices straining to rise above it were even louder.

  “You might want to grab onto my hand, I wouldn’t want you to get lost in this crowd,” Matt shouted to Chris.

  Chris agreed and latched onto his hand, which pulled her through the wall-to-wall bodies, mostly women, to the bar, where he screamed out his order. The bartender nodded and came back with two beers and shook her head when he offered
her money. Matt grabbed the bottles and said something to the bartender that made her laugh.

  “They never let me pay for drinks, they always get put on Lynn’s tab. I told her that I didn’t know if I liked being a kept man!” Matt laughed.

  He grabbed Chris’s hand again and led her through to the seating area. “Lucidly not too many people actually like to sit down.” He motioned for her to have a seat. “I’ll be right back. Don’t pick up any women while I’m gone!” he kidded.

  Matt headed through the dancing crowd to the front of the stage. He reached up and pulled on the bottom of Lynn’s jeans. Lynn looked down and showed surprise that Matt was there. She waited until her vocal was finished, then leaned down while Matt yelled in her ear. She signaled for him to wait a minute by raising her index finger, and sang a few more fines into the microphone before ending the song. Turning, she motioned for the band to take five, jumped down from the stage, and followed Matt to the side of the stage. Chris watched as Matt held Lynn’s hands in his, looked Lynn in the eyes, and apologized. She couldn’t see what was said exactly, by Matt, or by Lynn who responded to his apology, but she knew when the two embraced that all was forgiven. Lynn wiped her eyes and Chris knew when Matt led her to what must have been the dressing room, off the side of the stage, that Lynn was still in pain.

  Matt exited the dressing room and called one of the band members to the side of the stage. The woman listened to Matt, nodded, and instructed the band to start playing. Matt walked back toward the table as this woman, obviously the other vocalist, began singing.

  “She’ll be okay in a minute,” he said as he pulled out a chair and sat down.

  “You weren’t kidding when you said this place was busy on Thursday nights. If it’s this packed tonight, what does it look like on Friday and Saturday nights?” Chris asked.

  “Not too much more crowded than this, there wouldn’t be room! This is the only gay bar in this area. There’s another bar down the highway, but it’s mostly men. I don’t really like it, too much of a meat market for me. I don’t really like meeting men in bars.”

  Just then, Chris saw a nice-looking man approaching their table. He placed his hand on Matt’s shoulder and said something in his ear. Matt leaned over to Chris. “Do you mind if I dance with him?”

  Chris smiled. “I thought that you didn’t like meeting men in bars?”

  “True, but there’s nothing wrong with an innocent dance, right?” Matt answered.

  She nodded. “No problem, I’ll be fine,” then watched as the man led Matt to the dance floor.

  Chris found herself looking around. It was hard to believe that all these women, very attractive women, were gay. A chair slid out and Chris turned to find a woman sitting beside her.

  “Hi, you’re new around here, aren’t you?” she asked Chris, placing her arm around the back of Chris’s chair.

  “Umm… I’m…” Chris didn’t know quite what to say. Just then, another woman came around the back of their chairs and scooted the occupied chair beside Chris away from the table. The woman was like an amazon, muscles rippling from every exposed area on her body.

  The woman spoke to the seated woman. “Later, Trish,” was all she had to say. The seated woman stood, looked at Chris, shrugged, and walked away.

  “Hi, I’m Samantha. My friends call me Sam,” she said as she extended her hand to Chris.

  Chris shook it and replied, “Look, I’m just here with a friend…”

  Sam smiled. “I know, Lynn told me to keep you company while Matt was away from the table. Chris, right?”

  Chris looked up toward the stage at Lynn and met Lynn’s eyes. Lynn saluted her with her beer bottle. Chris picked up her bottle, smiled, and saluted back. Then realizing that she had ignored the question posed to her, she responded, “Right. Nice to meet you. That was nice of Lynn.”

  “Yeah, she’s great. You must be pretty great too, to be helping Matt out like this,” Sam said, and seeing the worried look on Chris’s face, continued, “Don’t worry, I won’t let the secret out, I’m trustworthy.” Sam put her hand on her forehead as if to salute Chris, then smiled and looked at the stage.

  Chris’s eyes wandered back up to the stage area and watched as Lynn and the other vocalist shared a microphone. The two looked cozy, Chris thought to herself. The other vocalist turned with her back to Lynn and started playing a guitar riff. Lynn stepped behind her and molding their bodies, the two moved together, very seductively. Chris turned away. For some reason this really bothered her.

  “Who’s that?” Chris asked Sam, nodding with her chin toward the action taking place on the stage.

  Sam smiled. “That’s Nikki.”

  Chris tried to look unconcerned. “Do they have a thing going or something?”

  Sam, still watching the stage, replied, “No way, that’s just an act. They get carried away up there. Lynn won’t have anything to do with her offstage. Nikki is ‘bi.’ Lynn won’t have anything to do with that.”

  Chris nodded. It sure seemed real.

  The song ended and Matt found his way back to the table.

  “Hey, Sam. You better watch out, you’re starting to look more buff than me!” Matt smiled and curled his arm to show his bicep. Laughing, he poked at his arm with his finger. “I know it’s here somewhere!”

  “That’s okay, Matt.” Sam’s eyes were occupied on something over his shoulder. “I don’t think it bothers that guy over there, you know, the one you were dancing with.”

  Matt turned around to catch the man looking his way, then swiftly turned back toward the women with embarrassment.

  “What’s his name?” Chris teased.

  “Yeah, and did you get his phone number?” Sam joined in.

  “His name is Paul,” Matt gushed. “And he took my phone number!”

  The three spent the rest of the evening talking and laughing, broken only by the band breaks when Lynn joined them. At midnight, Matt and Chris said good-bye to Sam and found their way home.

  Lynn unlocked the door, trying to be quiet. She looked at her watch: two a.m. Walking into the living room, she wondered if she should try and sleep for a couple of hours, or just find a good movie to watch before leaving for the restaurant. Through the dim light, she saw a bundle on the couch. On closer look, she realized it was Chris, snuggled up in a blanket. I can’t believe that Matt is having her sleep on the couch, she thought to herself, he couldn’t give up his bed? Shaking her head, Lynn tiptoed down the hall, into her room, turned on the bedside lamp, and changed the sheets on her bed. “Chris needs a good night’s sleep tonight of all nights,” she caught herself saying out loud. She knew that tomorrow would be a very stressful day for Chris. Lynn grabbed some clothes, then went back into the living room and gently shook Chris’s arm.

  “Chris,” she said softly “Chris.”

  Chris slowly opened her eyes. “Is it morning already?” she asked.

  “No, come on, you’re going to sleep in my bed.”

  Chris looked at Lynn with a hint of confusion.

  “Come on, you need a good night’s sleep. I changed the sheets on my bed. I’ll sleep on the couch.” Lynn helped Chris up from her crumpled position and led her down the hall. Chris climbed between the sheets and rested her head on the pillow.

  “Thanks,” Chris whispered before closing her eyes and immediately falling back asleep.

  Lynn stood there for a moment, watching Chris’s steady breathing. Then for some reason, before she could catch herself, she leaned over and softly kissed Chris’s forehead. Realizing what she had done, she quickly backed away. Watching to see if she had woken Chris, she felt her heart melt as Chris sighed and faintly smiled in her sleep.

  For a moment, Lynn thought Chris reminded her of a young child. But as she gazed further, down to the firm breasts barely contained in the white cloth, then to the tan legs curled up in such a way to be daring Lynn to feel the smoothness of the skin, her lower extremities reminded her that Chris was indeed a woman.

>   Lynn tiptoed out of the bedroom and closed the door. Coffee, she needed coffee, and another cold shower. She wandered into the kitchen and started the coffeemaker. Picking up her clothes, she quietly entered the guest bathroom and shut the door. She peeled off her sweaty clothes and turned the shower faucet on. Letting the cool water run on her head and down her body, she examined the feelings going on inside of her. What exactly was she feeling for Chris? And more importantly, how could she push it away? She pictured Chris’s faint smile just moments ago. Once again, she repeated to herself—she’s straight, she’s straight, she’s straight,

  Lynn’ turned off the shower, dried off, and got dressed. Returning to the kitchen, she poured herself a mug of coffee and wandered back into the living room where she plopped down on the couch. She could still smell Chris’s perfume in the air. She flipped on the television and searched through the channels. Sipping on her coffee, she settled on a Mary Tyler Moore marathon on TV Land. At five o’clock, and a pot of coffee later, she headed out the door to the restaurant. She was exhausted, and—after smelling Chris’s perfume for the past few hours—frustrated.

  Chapter Seven

  “Chris, are you awake?” Matt’s voice boomed through the bedroom door. “I thought maybe we could grab some breakfast before we started out on our adventure.” Chris rolled over, not quite remembering how she had gotten into Lynn’s bed. Focusing, she remembered being woken up on the couch, climbing in between the cool sheets, Lynn’s soft voice in the dark. And then she saw them. There on the bedside table sat a vase full of daisies. Chris smiled.

  Realizing that she hadn’t answered Matt’s question, she quickly replied, “Sure, give me a half an hour to shower and dress. I’m starving!”

  A half an hour later, Chris emerged from the bedroom, wearing a pair of white shorts and a lavender sleeveless shirt.

  “Do I look all right? I wasn’t sure what you wanted me to wear,” Chris said to Matt, who was pacing in the living room.

  “You look great. Everything is going to be just fine, don’t you think?” Matt asked for reassurance.