by Harper Bliss
“I’m sorry.” I’m not really apologizing. It’s more something automatic coming from my mouth as I wipe some of the tears from my cheeks.
“Don’t ever say sorry for crying.” Dolores kisses me on the cheek.
“I don’t really know what else to say.” I manage a bit of a chuckle.
“How do you feel?” she whispers.
I turn on my side, facing her. “Like I owe you something.” I give her a quick smile before pressing my lips to hers.
She puts both her hands on my cheeks and pulls away from me a bit. “Sophie, please, you don’t owe me anything.”
“I do owe you this.” I bring a hand to her belly, the way I did before, when I started all of this, but it’s not the same anymore. Most of the fire inside of me has been extinguished. Though I can hardly consider that fair.
Dolores reaches for my hand, presses it against her body. “You don’t.” Her tone is insistent. “Not now.”
Not now? Does that imply she’s expecting us to do this again?
“I just thought… I—” I have no idea what I’m supposed to say.
“I know what you’re thinking.” Dolores’ voice is buttery soft. “But it’s okay. I promise you. It’s more than okay.”
I decide to let it go, following Dolores’ lead—again. “For what it’s worth, and despite that river of tears, I really, truly enjoyed that.” I can’t keep a hint of bashfulness out of my voice. Because we can’t go back anymore now. After that quick kiss this morning, it was almost ridiculously easy to pretend it didn’t happen. However, knowing what I know now, the memory of it must have been doing some work in the background of my mind. We slept together in the other sense of the expression. Dolores’ fingers were inside of me. She made me come so hard I howled, the echo of my scream still reverberating somewhere in the house.
“I know.” She kisses me on the tip of my nose, almost innocently.
“Where do we go from here?”
“To sleep would be my suggestion,” she says matter-of-factly.
I feel myself mellowing again, recovering from the shock of orgasm and the subsequent onslaught of tears. I melt into Dolores’ embrace a little more. Why does life feel so much more bearable in her arms? The world like not such a hopeless place?
“What about when we wake up?” I whisper. My body is exhausted by the shedding of tension, but I’m not sleepy. My brain is too alert, trying to process too much.
“When we wake up, we’ll take a shower. Then we’ll see.”
“We’ll need to talk about this in the cold hard light of day.”
“Only if we want to.”
“There’s just some things I want you to know. I didn’t crawl into bed with you tonight with what just happened as the outcome I was hoping for. I had no such intention. It just… happened. However lame that sounds.”
“Tell me this, Sophie. Did you enjoy it?”
“Yes, of course, but—”
“No buts. It’s too late for buts. Or for any other negative emotion you might experience. This is something that happened between us. Something that made us feel good. Something that will help us sleep at night. Try looking at it from the bright side.” She presses her lips to my scalp.
Try looking at it from the bright side. An expression so quintessentially Ian’s, it makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.
“I’ll try.” It’s easy when I’m ensconced in Dolores’ loving embrace.
“I have an early day tomorrow. We’re setting up a new show and I need to be there when the pieces arrive. Will you be all right on your own? You’re welcome to join me. We can always use an extra pair of hands at the gallery when it’s set-up time.”
Ian loved going to his mother’s galleries when new pieces had just arrived. He’d often leave work early and give Dolores and her staff a hand.
“What time does the alarm go off?”
“Six,” Dolores says.
“You may have to use force to get me out of bed, but yes, I’d like to go with you.” I already have no clue how I’ll catch any sleep tonight, how I’ll silence the stream of new thoughts coming my way after what just happened. There’s no way I’m staying home alone here all day tomorrow, working on what’s supposed to become a novel, but is really just me fretting about everything under the guise of trying something new. Being out of the house will do me good. Using my hands will do me good. I’m suddenly flattered that Dolores asked.
“I’ll use my imagination to get you out,” she says, a chuckle lurking under the breathiness of her voice.
Chapter Eighteen
“Sophie,” Dolores whispers. “Do you want to get up with me?”
When I open my eyes, for the very first time my initial thought upon waking is not that Ian is dead, but that I slept with his mother. Oh fuck.
“Er, yes,” I murmur, because I need to get out of that bed pronto.
My body is still exhausted, but my mind is instantly wide awake. Memories of last night assault me. I was the one who started it. I was the one who put my hand on her belly. How can I possibly face Dolores—and myself in the mirror?
I jump out of bed and just stand there in the dark for a while, not knowing what to do, so thrown by my own actions, by being in this bedroom, which has been such a place of comfort and which I have now made into something else entirely. Did I really agree to spend the day with Dolores? I would have last night, while under the influence of a, frankly, mind-blowing orgasm. Dolores watched me climax. She made me climax. Ian’s death has really fucked me up well and good.
“Do you want to shower first?” Dolores asks.
Only then do I realize I’m standing in her bedroom fully naked. Dolores is still wearing her tank top, and her underwear for that matter, while my garments are spread about the room, like a filthy—guilty—reminder of what happened here last night.
“I’ll use the other bathroom.” I don’t say anything else, just hurry out of the room.
When I reach the guest bathroom, I don’t look in the mirror, but hop straight into a spray of scalding hot water, as if the hotter it is, the more it can wash away what happened. Because none of this, not a single second of it, can be construed as acceptable. I can’t even write this to Ian in a letter he will never read.
There’s no way I’m going to the gallery with Dolores.
I stand under the cascading water for long minutes, scrubbing my skin raw and, eventually, putting my hands against the wall to catch my breath because my motions have been too frantic. It’s too early, I didn’t get enough sleep. Ian is dead. I slept with his mother. Well, not technically his mother. Oh yes, I’m making the distinction now, even though Ian never did.
I asked him once whether he considered Dolores less of a mother to him than Angela, who had given birth to him, who shared DNA with him. Ian got so offended by that, claiming that, even though Dolores had never been able to legally adopt him—because, on paper, Ian always had two parents—she’d been a million times more a parent to him than his biological father, who didn’t care about him enough to not move to England shortly after the divorce, when Ian was only five years old.
Right at this minute though, I’m finding it, for the very first time, terribly convenient that Angela and Dolores never married. But as I turn off the tap and inhale gulp after gulp of steam, I know that a piece of paper doesn’t make a difference.
I slept with Ian’s mother. It’s as dreadfully simple as that.
“Sophie?” Dolores says. She’s standing in the doorframe of the guest room when I exit the bathroom. “Do you want breakfast? We can grab something next door to the gallery later if you don’t feel like it now.”
How can she even speak to me like this? Like nothing happened? How can she expect me to spend the day with her? Or is this what lesbians do?
“I don’t think I will join you after all, Dolores. I’m sorry. I don’t mean to hold you up. You go on without me.” I somehow manage to make my voice sound even and free of tremors. I wrap
the towel tightly around me—as though she hasn’t seen, and felt, all of me yet.
“Are you sure?” She gives me a funny look. “Will you be all right on your own all day?”
“Yes. No.” The stammering begins. “I should probably move out. I’ve been here long enough. This is all wrong.”
“You’re freaking out. I understand. Just… don’t do anything rash. Let’s meet for lunch. I can come home or we can meet wherever you want. Let’s talk first.”
How can she be so calm about this when she had her fingers inside of me last night?
“Okay.” I just want her out of this room, out of my sight. I don’t want to be reminded of what she has let me become. A pervert. Someone who degraded the memory of her dead partner by sleeping with his mother. A harlot.
“Sophie.” Dolores’ voice has lowered to a whisper again. “Please remember, it was just sex.” She gives me a slight nod, then walks out of the room.
I start to shiver. My skin is still partially wet. I close the door, wrap the towel around me more tightly, almost cutting off my breath, and crawl into bed. The bed I should have been sleeping in all along. I wait until the noises downstairs die down and I hear the front door shut with a little bang.
Once I’m alone in the house, and I feel as though I can start breathing again, I get dressed and sit at my desk. What the hell am I going to do? Maybe I should write my novel about this. About a grief so obliterating it crushes all common sense. Then my stomach starts growling. I’m appalled that my body could even experience something as mundane as hunger right now. And I’m reminded of what Dolores said to me last night over dinner. That she was glad I was eating again. Dolores, whose kindness lulled me into a state in which I’m capable of instigating sex with her. I can’t deal with this alone. I need to talk to Jeremy. I need someone to judge me, because having to do it on my own doesn’t seem like sufficient punishment. I need someone to mock me, to tell me exactly what kind of person I am.
I text him and, while I wait for a reply, go downstairs to make myself a cappuccino.
Like every morning, Dolores has set a place for me at the breakfast table. The sight of the plate, a napkin on top of it, folded just so, and the cutlery on the side, a little spoon above, just floors me. Because it’s a sign of Dolores’ affection for me. Her love. And I’ve gone and squandered it.
Chapter Nineteen
Jeremy arrives at the house around ten. By then I’ve paced all about the place, through every room—except for Ian’s old bedroom. I’ve done the dishes. I’ve removed all my remaining clothing from Dolores’ bedroom and put the sheets in the washing machine.
Dolores has a cleaner who comes in every afternoon. She won’t have a lot to do today. I wonder what she must think of this. She must know I’ve been sleeping in Dolores’ room. I never had any reason to hide it before.
“Hey, Soph.” Jeremy gives me a long, un-Jeremy-like hug—he’s usually more the air-kissing type. “How are you?” He smiles sheepishly, as though he’s the one who did something so wrong he can’t even put it into words. “God, I love this place.” He heads further into the house, admiring it all over again. “If I were you, I wouldn’t want to leave either.”
After I’ve made us both a cappuccino—my third of the day already—we sit on the living room couch and I suddenly consider how easy it is for me to have a friend over, how this house has become my home.
“Thanks for coming all the way to the Gold Coast.”
“You know I love coming here. Once my party days are over, I plan to retire here. Though, of course, prices are through the roof now.”
I expel a big sigh, bite my bottom lip.
“What is it?” he asks.
As tears of pure agony pearl in the corner of my eyes, I blurt out, “I slept with her, Jeremy. I slept with Dolores.” I let my head fall into my cupped hands, unable to face even my very best friend.
I hear Jeremy put his coffee cup onto the table. I can’t look at him, but was that a gasp?
“Damn, girl,” Jeremy says. “I truly never thought you had it in you.”
I look up into Jeremy’s astounded face. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You’ve been sleeping in her bed for months. A man’s mind can’t help but go there from time to time. I just never had you pegged for the type. Not that I consider you a prude, but you are very proper and all of that. Very traditional. A little uptight sometimes.”
“What are you talking about?” This is not how I had expected this conversation to go. “She’s Ian’s mother, for crying out loud.”
Jeremy leans back in the couch. “How much do you hate yourself right now?”
I shake my head. “I can’t even begin to tell you.”
“I know you, Soph. I know you never set out to seduce your mother-in-law. I know you were wrapped in this bubble of coziness and comfort and trying to make sense of it all together. Things happen, that’s all. You can’t beat yourself up over this. You can’t take any more beatings. Be kind to yourself.”
“I don’t think you’re fully getting this. I started it. I kissed her. I kissed her for the first time yesterday morning and then I kissed her again last night. I kissed her and… and we had sex, Jeremy. I wanted her so badly, because it made me feel so good, but at what cost?”
“Exactly,” Jeremy says. “At what cost?”
“I’m going to have to move out of here. Start dealing with stuff I’ve been avoiding. I guess it’s about time, anyway.”
“Do you want my opinion or do you just want to rant?”
“I need someone to tell me in no uncertain terms what a fool I have been because I know Dolores won’t have it in her to do so.”
“First, take a deep breath. Second, you’re always welcome at my place. But, and this is the point I actually want to make, I don’t think you should move out of here at all. You love it here. And I get it. I really do. I fully understand the comfort you and Dolores find with each other, and if that comfort has now taken the shape of sleeping together, really sleeping together, then I really don’t see anything wrong with that. Furthermore, Dolores would never call you a fool. She was there as well. As far as I know, and from what you’re telling me, you were two consenting adults.”
“You’re missing the point entirely. She’s his mother. It’s so wrong. I can’t think of anything more wrong.”
“Really? How about Ian dying just before his thirty-sixth birthday. That is wrong in all sorts of ways. You dealing with it however you see fit is only normal.”
That gives me pause. “I just… don’t want to lose her.”
“You want to go back to how it was before she licked your pussy?”
“Oh Christ.” I actually manage to utter a little groan of a laugh. “Must you really be so crass? Besides, she didn’t lick my pussy.”
“Oh. I thought that was what you lesbians did primarily. Or is it scissoring?”
“You are such an inappropriate asshole.” I can’t help but snigger. Because this is what Jeremy does best. Remove the tension from a conversation by making stupid, tasteless jokes. It’s what makes his podcast so popular, this total irreverence he has for decorum and boundaries. It’s also one of the prime reasons I love him so dearly. It’s why I chose to stay with him after Ian’s death.
“So, did you lick her pussy?” His smile goes up to full beam.
“No, Christ. Do you want all the details?”
“Of course I do, darling. Isn’t that why you called me over here?”
“I’ll tell you one thing. It was much more satisfying than I ever thought it would be. It kind of blew my mind.” Only then do I allow actual memories of pleasure to enter my head again. Maybe I would be able to deal with it better if I hadn’t enjoyed it so much.
“Another reason to not beat yourself up about it, Soph. Life is short and it can be really shitty at times. Get your pleasure where you can.”
“I guess I was hoping you would judge me more.”
“I’m you
r friend. I only want what’s best for you. I’ve seen you suffer for the past couple of months. While it was great to see you at the party on Saturday, it’s even better to see you now. To actually see you smile. To sit next to you after you’ve truly enjoyed something. Though, and let this be noted for the record, I understand your trepidation. Of course, I do. But it’s not up to me to give you a hard time about that. I think you’re doing a pretty good job of that yourself.”
“I kind of blew Dolores off this morning. I was going to go to the gallery with her.”
“You can still go. You texted me at an ungodly hour. You have all day.”
“But it’s so awkward. Where do we even go from here? I can’t possibly get into bed with her again tonight. That’s simply not an option. Even though it was the one thing that gave me the most comfort. The proximity of another human being. Not just anyone, but Dolores with all her unconditional love for me.”
“Well, unless you plan on becoming a lesbo—and you can skip the U-Haul phase, by the way—you can’t sleep in her bed forever.”
I nod. “I just can’t imagine not sleeping there, either. I guess it’s back to Ambien for me.”
The sound of someone unlocking the front door startles us both. At first I think it’s Theresa arriving early, but then I remember Dolores’ promise to come home for lunch, though it’s very early for that.
“Oh, hi, Jeremy,” she says casually upon entering the living room.
“Good day to you, Dolores.” He gets up to kiss her on the cheek, not leaving any air between his lips and her skin.
This puts an abrupt end to the conversation Jeremy and I were having.
“I have to get going. I have a meeting with Jackie O. in exactly twenty-five minutes,” he says.
I’m sure it’s not true, that he’s just making up an excuse to get out of the house and away from the tension that appeared after Dolores walked in.
“Bye, Soph.” He opens his arms wide for a hug and when I step into his embrace, he whispers in my ear, “Please be kind to yourself.”