by Jae
She loses herself in the flow of ink into flesh, and the rose comes into focus. For her first tattoo, Rosie chose her namesake flower, but instead of small and delicate, she asked for dramatic and bright. It surprised Beth when Ava let her take the appointment. Sure, she’s done a lot of flowers, but this one was by far the largest and most intricate in terms of shading. It takes her two hours. Ava would have easily finished in one, but it looks good when Beth’s done, and Rosie is happy enough to give her a tip.
There’s a picture on the wall above her workstation—a snapshot from last winter of Beth making a snowman with her daughter. She doesn’t even know who took it, but it captures the quintessential childhood moment. Gemini, barely five at the time, is stretched up on her tiptoes, pushing a carrot into place for a nose. She’s beautiful in an otherworldly kind of way, and Beth can’t believe that she created this amazing, perfect little creature.
Maybe Willa wants to make a snowman with them this year. It’s snowed enough today, and Willa hasn’t spent much time with Gem yet. Beth has been moving slow, slower than she’s ever moved before. The last time she fell this hard and this fast for someone, she ended up a single, teenage mom. As much as she wants Willa, she’s trying to not lose her head completely. Not to mention, the whole idea of being with another woman is new enough to make Willa skittish. She could bolt at any moment.
Well, maybe not now, not after that kiss. The touch of Willa’s lips to hers was sweet and gentle, but the location—in full view of her father and whoever else might be looking—was a declaration of war. Up until today, Willa insisted on discretion. She doesn’t trust her dad not to kick her out and disown her on national television. Beth hopes it doesn’t come to that; Willa deserves better.
Beth sighs and tucks the twenty she got as a tip into the back of the picture frame. She’s not the best parent, but the envelope labeled college is fat with bills. Gem deserves options. And Beth has no problem making little changes—like drinking drip coffee from her own kitchen and not smoking—to give her daughter those options. It’s not Gemini’s fault Beth got pregnant when she was fifteen.
She hangs the picture back up on the wall and then breaks down her station. She cleans everything and sets up for the next appointment. This one is little, just a bit of flash from the wall, and she should finish it quickly. She’ll get the shop minimum, and this guy will get his ink-cherry popped.
“Are you dying to get out of here?” Ava asks with a teasing grin.
That woman is so in love with her own wife, yet she still gets off on giving Beth crap for being so ridiculously smitten. Beth doesn’t blame her. If anyone else acted the way she does over Willa, it would make her teeth hurt.
“Almost done. Just a quick anchor and that’s it.” She shows Ava the American Traditional style tattoo that the customer chose. He just joined the navy and ships out in a few weeks. She likes working with this style of art. It’s bold and illustrates the beauty and history of tattooing in the US. She likes other styles, too, and is focusing hard to improve her portrait work, but the legacy of the iconic technique makes her happy in a way she can’t quite explain.
Ava checks her sketch. Sure, it’s flash, but she still took the time to sketch it out and personalize it a little. She drew one version with an American flag billowing in the wind behind the anchor, and she hopes he’ll pick that design. Ava nods slowly and points at the detail on the anchor. “This is nice. How long will it take, do you think?”
Beth shrugs and tries to look casual. “Maybe forty-five minutes?” She actually thinks it’ll take thirty because it’s relatively small and doesn’t require a lot of intricate shading, but she knows Ava is sizing her up. She’ll be judged by how close she comes to her mark. She’d rather come in under than over. And really, when it comes down to it, she’s not so worried about how long it will take compared to how good it looks when she finishes.
Ava hands the sketch back. “What’s your day like tomorrow?”
Beth glances outside at the relentless fall of snow. People in this town are hardcore and will drive in anything, but Christmas is in a few days. The few jobs she has set up might want to spend the time shopping instead. “Four, but we’ll see how many cancel.”
“If you have time, maybe you could do one for me?” Ava says it super casual, but Beth gasps in a sharp intake of air. More than anything else Ava’s said about her tattooing, this is…huge. It’s as if she’s saying Beth has graduated. She knows that’s not really the case, but her heart still races with the possibility.
She nods and tries not to grin like an idiot. She fails and decides she doesn’t care. “Yeah? Sure.”
The front door swings open, and her customer comes in. Ava turns back to her paperwork, and Beth settles into her last tattoo. She works carefully and methodically, but all she can think about it Willa and how much she wants to run up the stairs and join her.
When she finally finishes, Ava laughs at how fast she cleans up her station, but doesn’t stop her when she heads for the back. “I’ll be upstairs if you need me, yeah?”
“Go see your girlfriend. I’ve got this.”
She checks the clock as she takes the stairs two at a time. Her mom is supposed to drop Gem off at nine tonight. That gives her a couple of hours to figure out what’s going on with Willa and if she’s staying over. It’d be a first, and Beth has a weird knot of uncertainty churning in her belly over what it might mean.
The door to her apartment is locked, and Beth bounces off of it when it doesn’t swing open. She never locks her door. Ever. She’s not even sure where her keys are at the moment. She slaps her pockets, hoping to find the set in one of the deep cargo pockets of her khakis. No luck. She knocks softly on the door. “Will?”
“She locked you out?” Ava isn’t outright laughing at her this time, but Beth can hear it in her tone. “You give her a key of her own, and this is how she responds?”
“Don’t just stand there.” Beth isn’t irritated, not really. But she can’t hear any noise coming from the other side of the door, not even the low music that Willa favors, and the quiet is causing her to panic slightly. “Help me.”
Ava grabs her own keys from the desk. “Here.” She tosses them up to Beth.
“Thanks.” Beth unlocks the door and drops them back down to Ava. By the time she gets inside and closes the door, Ava has given up trying to hold back and is laughing loudly. Thank God she finds Beth entertaining or she would have kicked her out a long time ago.
“Willa?” She walks through the apartment, glancing at the couch and into the kitchen on her way to the bedroom. There aren’t a lot of places to hide, and she rules out all but one immediately. The Christmas tree lights are on, and they cast a soft blue glow over the living room. There are only a few presents underneath it. Gem is already crazy spoiled and will get more toys than she can play with from her grandmas.
Beth spends her money on memories, like the trip she has planned for the two of them for the following summer. She wants her daughter to see the world, to know about all the possibilities that life has to offer. So far Gem has two stamps on her passport—the same as Beth. When they add the third, Beth hopes Willa will be with them.
She half expects to find the door to her bedroom locked too, but it opens easily. The room is dark except for the weak threads of light coming through the snow-flurried window. Still, it’s enough light for her to make out the splash of blonde on her pillow and the distinct Willa-shaped lump beneath her blankets.
When Beth sits on the edge of the bed and lightly touches Willa’s cheek, Willa sighs in her sleep and curls her body toward Beth. Most of her—all except for her head and the hand she reaches out to Beth with—is beneath the covers, but Beth’s pretty sure Willa’s naked. She pulls the blanket down a bit and drops an easy kiss on the exposed skin of Willa’s bare shoulder.
Willa obviously had plans when she climbed in Beth’s bed ear
lier—plans that involved stripping off her clothes—but Beth lets her sleep. Willa looks relaxed in a way she never does when she’s awake. Beth kicks off her shoes, drops her hat on the bedside table, and climbs in beside her. She moves slowly, carefully as to not jostle Willa from her sleep.
As soon as she’s laid properly next to her, Willa scoots closer until all Beth’s senses are swamped by the proximity. She inhales deeply and surrenders. She is so deep in this, so in love with this beautiful angel of a woman; there’s no way she can deny it. Until today, Willa has been reluctant to fully embrace their relationship, but from their very first kiss, she has been willing to let Beth hold her in the privacy of her room.
“I love my present,” Willa murmurs sleepily; her breath washes over Beth’s skin, and the words tickle against her ear.
“Yeah?” Beth barely speaks. The answer is too important, and Willa’s more likely to tell the truth in this half-awake state.
“Yeah.” She snuggles in deeper, throwing one leg over Beth’s hips and resting her hand easily in the valley between Beth’s breasts. “But you have to fix the angel.”
Willa sounds nowhere close to actually waking up, so Beth concentrates on slowing her heart rate to a normal pace. It’s harder than it should be, but she’s human and Willa’s lips are close enough to kiss her neck and her hair is soft beneath Beth’s fingers.
She wants to roll Willa onto her back and slip inside her. She wants to build her up slowly and wake her as her body surrenders to orgasm. She wants to kiss her softly and bring her back down with slow, easy strokes and then build her back up with precise circles against Willa’s clit.
She wants all of that, but instead she pries the key and crumpled angel from Willa’s grip and kisses the top of her head. “I love you.”
“Mmmm. Love you too.” Willa burrows her face into the crook of Beth’s shoulder, and the words come out muffled but not so much that Beth can’t understand what she’s saying.
Beth holds her breath and waits for the words to register with Willa. She’s tried for so long to convince her this thing between them is more than just a physical reaction; Willa has consistently rebuffed her, declaring at every turn that they are fucking, not loving.
The reaction she’s waiting for never comes as Willa’s breathing evens out and drops further into the deep rhythm of sleep. Beth sets the present she gave Willa on the bedside table. She almost didn’t give it to her, afraid that it would make things too real—and therefore too hard—for Willa. But she’s glad she forced herself to breathe through the anxiety long enough to convince Holden to help her earlier.
It was a bold, dangerous move on so many levels. But this, the feel of Willa resting in her arms, her body warm and languid and soft to the touch, makes the risk seem inconsequential. And even though she wants to talk to Willa about what it means, and even though she wants to explore Willa’s naked body because she never tires of doing that, she’s content—happy, even—to simply hold her.
What they share is a forever kind of thing; Beth knows it. They have every day after this to talk and touch. For now, she’s happy to hold Willa to her, thankful for the gift of Willa in her life.
RED SUITS AND SECOND CHANCES
by Eve Francis
The elevator was broken again. Gina stood in front of the yellow sign, written in Sharpie ink so fresh the pungent smell was unmistakable.
Sorry, pls take the stares! the sign read, followed by a frowny face.
Gina sighed, fighting the impulse to correct the sign’s grammar. Stairs. Not stares. Someone from marketing had probably written the notice—definitely not one of Lederman’s copy editors. Gina had spent a few summers working as a copy editor before she was promoted to a PR person who came up with the campaigns for the large Lederman company. She saw a lot of bad grammar over that time period, where smart and savvy people, with great ideas and wonderful ways to execute them, couldn’t tell the difference between there, their, and they’re or any of the most basic homophones.
So maybe people in the office just sucked at grammar, and their slips with Gina’s pronouns were simple mistakes and not manifestations of transphobia. Maybe. Gina considered this for a few, lingering moments as her high-heeled shoes grew damp from the puddles of snow which had thawed inside the front foyer. The snow on her red coat melted into the fabric on her shoulders, adding to the gray puddles of sludge already formed around her feet. Winter in Toronto always came on so suddenly, she had no time this morning to take boots instead of her nice shoes, and now she was stuck with cold toes and smarting insteps.
She’d barely realized it was almost Christmas until last night when she came back from her electrolysis appointment and saw the Christmas lights in everyone’s apartment windows. Angie, her electrolysis girl, always blasted punk rock during the treatments to distract her clients from the pain. But even Angie had slipped in “Oi to The World” by the Vandals between “Why Can’t I Touch It?” by The Buzzcocks and “Sheena Is a Punk Rocker” by the Ramones.
One day, it’s just cold. Then it’s snowing. Then the next day, it’s Christmas. A little rough around the edges, Gina thought, touching her chin reflexively, but still Christmas.
She hated Christmas now more than ever.
Gina’s hand was halfway into her purse, pushing past her cell phone and compact mirror to find a pen to correct the sign when she heard familiar footsteps behind her.
“Hey, Gina!” Felicia called from the front foyer of the Lederman PR building. Her dark hair was flecked with snow, her pale skin slightly pink from the cold, but her red lips were still immaculate. She moved the strap of her briefcase higher on her shoulder and then looked Gina up and down. Not in the way everyone else in the office did—like they were trying to see her former self under the edges of her clothing, mentally cutting her hair or removing her makeup, straining to see the former version of herself she’d left behind. No, not like that at all.
Felicia was new to Lederman by most people’s standards. She’d been hired out of school as a temp three years ago, then promoted to full-time staff about a year ago. But she’d been around long enough to know Gina when she’d still been hiding her identity. Even with this information, Felicia never treated Gina any differently after the inter-office e-mail from HR had gone around, asking for Gary DiMarco to now be addressed as Gina DiMarco. Felicia looked at Gina as if she was Gina. Not a ghost of someone she used to know, or an aberration that was wearing a different skin suit too tight.
Felicia focused on Gina’s red shoes and smiled. “Man, I saw those in the store a few weeks ago! I didn’t buy them—though they were on sale—because I figured the snow would ruin them.”
“Oh,” Gina said, looking down. Already there was rim of salt around the edge, just above the sole. She sighed. “Well, you may have made the right choice.”
Felicia smiled again, making her green eyes pop. She looked past Gina, toward the elevator door, and huffed. “This elevator is always broken. At least someone had the decency to put up a sign before we got on and got trapped, right?”
“Yeah. That would have been a completely different start to the day I didn’t need.”
“Well, maybe if we were together, I don’t think it would have been so bad.”
Gina lifted an eyebrow, unsure if that was a compliment or not. Being trapped in an elevator with anyone was hardly a fun time, even if you were an office butterfly. When Felicia’s arm moved to dig out her iPad from her briefcase, and Gina saw the familiar account e-mail for Bed & Bath Works, she sighed. Right. Of course. They were both working on that account, and were under a looming deadline. Even if they got stuck in the elevator, it would still be a place to work. That and nothing more.
“Eeek.” Felicia made a face. “Okay, our client is freaking out—and so is Sam. Everyone else is already upstairs.”
Felicia tucked away her iPad without waiting for a response from Gina. She wal
ked a few paces ahead, toward the stairwell, and propped the door open with her knee as she turned back to Gina again. “You coming? Lederman’s only the second floor. It’ll be good for us to get some exercise.”
“Right. Sure.” Gina glanced down at the sign across the elevator door again, saw the wrong word, and grabbed her pen from the bottom of her bag. “Just give me two seconds. I have one last thing to do.”
As Gina crossed out stares and wrote in stairs, Felicia laughed, light and throaty.
“Happy now?” Felicia asked, still holding the door open for Gina. As she passed through the doorframe, Gina hunched her body. She was only five ten, maybe five eleven with the added height from her small heels, but Felicia’s five-four frame made her feel as if she towered over her. Even when Gina had presented as a man for the first thirty-four years of her life, she had always hunched. She hated being this tall, especially when she’d rather be so much closer to Felicia.
“More or less,” Gina said, referring to her minor correction. “I suppose it’ll do for now.”
The only gender-neutral bathroom in the Lederman building was on the fourth floor. Gina had no idea why. The fourth floor was almost always under construction, and the company stored most of its older files there until they could be stored electronically. Located between the two typically gendered stalls, and down a long and creepy corridor, was a handicap stall that had no discernible gender marker on it. It was the type of bathroom Gina coveted in public places—in airports, malls, and even the local library. She needed to use the family or the handicap stalls in order to make sure she didn’t cause a fuss. And if none of those stalls were available, then Gina learned to hold it.
Maybe this was more of an issue in the first part of her transition. Gina realized, sitting at her desk now, that she mostly passed in her day-to-day life. Her dark hair was much longer, and her electrolysis, though it seemed like the never-ending story most days, was actually doing a lot of work. Her skin was hairless, if not quite smooth. She dressed, for the most part, as well as she could with her body type. And after years of practice, she finally had the hang of makeup.