Born Again

by Heidi Lowe

There were fillings aplenty, but I’d never tried any of them. I had a nostalgic connection to the mushroom and spinach. I know, totally pathetic. I was hopeless.

  We turned onto the street. I was so ready to devour my calzone and wash it down with some root beer, whilst engaging in mindless yet entertaining chitchat with my favorite coworker. I didn’t realize I’d been smiling until I walked in and felt the smile slip from my face. I saw Josie first, as her seat was facing the door. And then I noticed the brunette locks. Even from behind I could pick her out in a line up.

  Josie caught my eye and shifted uncomfortably, prompting Naomi to turn around. When she saw me, she sighed.

  At our table! Just like that they’d destroyed the sweet memory I had of the place. Our place, seated at our table. Ruined. And I knew how irrational my feelings were, and that I had no right to them, but rationality didn’t factor into emotions. If it did, my life would have been very different.

  “I’ve changed my mind,” I said weakly. “Let’s go someplace else.”

  Saeed protested but followed me out.

  “Don’t wanna eat in the same place as the boss? I get it,” he said, amused. “Wow, those two were on a lunch date, weren’t they?”

  “Can we not talk about Naomi Pierre for like five minutes,” I snapped.

  We didn’t know each other well enough for me to snap at him like that, so when he mumbled that he would grab something from another shop, and disappeared, I knew I’d gone too far.

  “Shit!” I said. A few passersby heard, shot me funny looks.

  “Sorry about earlier.” I presented him with the smoothie I’d been holding behind my back. It was his favorite, and the most expensive smoothie I’d ever bought, but grovelling cost money.

  We’d both returned from our lunch break.

  He glowered at me, but then broke into a smile, snatching the drink from me. “Forgiven. You really know how to grovel, don’t you?”

  I laughed. “I’ve had a lot of practice.” Countless times having to apologize for things I didn’t do all to avoid my parents’ wrath. He had no idea.

  By the time I looked up it was close to seven. My coworkers had already left. I still felt the need to prove myself, so the late finishes had become a habit.

  I packed up and headed out. Through the cracks in the blinds, I could see that the light was on in Naomi’s office. She must have forgotten to turn it off, because I was sure I’d heard her leave. That was what I told myself as I crossed the room into forbidden territory.

  I opened the door without knocking, thinking no one would be inside.

  “Oh my God, sorry, I didn’t know you were in here,” I said, nearly jumping out of my skin.

  “I don’t know how you were raised, Miss Adams, but where I’m from we knock before we enter someone’s space.”

  “I’m sorry, I saw the light on and thought you’d forgotten...”

  She leaned back sexily in her chair. I really wished she wouldn’t do that. Or was this deliberate? I couldn’t ever tell what she was thinking. She never lost her cold as ice, apathetic stance. Not unless she was flirting with butch lawyers.

  “I never forget anything,” she said coolly. God, she was killing me! I didn’t want to focus on how the top two buttons on her white blouse were open, revealing just enough cleavage to entice. Or how some of her hair fell lazily down her chest, strands of it having broken off from the pack to caress her bosom. Or how soft her lips looked under that dark cinnamon lipstick.

  “Okay, well I just wanted to check. Goodnight.”

  She nodded, her eyes skeptical, amused.

  I turned to leave, but... goddammit, something compelled me to stop. Don’t do it, Dakota. That mouth is gonna get you into trouble. My mother’s voice rang through my thoughts. But she wasn’t here, I was, and I needed to know.

  “So Josie, that’s your type?” I had my back to her, too afraid to look. This was crossing so many boundaries, she could have sacked me on the spot. I would have sacked me by now. Despite what people had said about her, she’d given me chance after chance — a string of second chances. If she was even half as mean as people claimed, she would have fired me the first week.

  She stayed silent for so long I thought she would never answer. But then, “Colin seems like a nice man. I think you should focus on that, Miss Adams.”

  “Are you... dating her?” She probably had a file as long as my arm of all the inappropriate things I’d done in my three months working with her. Every day I added to it.

  “You’re a good match, with similar values—”

  I spun around to face her now, embittered. “Why won’t you answer my question?”

  She shot up from her seat. “Because it’s none of your business. And you need to leave, now!”

  I’d poked too much and knocked off her cool facade. Maybe this was what I wanted.

  “I just think you can do better, that’s all.”

  “I don’t remember asking for your opinion—”

  “Well I’m giving it to you.”

  She laughed without humor. Opened her mouth to speak, closed it again. Calmed down. She stepped out from behind her desk, came around, sat on the edge of it.

  “You must not like your job, because ever since you got here you’ve been working overtime to lose it.”

  I stood quiet, still, emotionally powerless, totally at her mercy. She said nothing for the longest moment. Was she waiting for me to speak?

  “Well? Do you want me to fire you? Genuine question.”

  “No,” I said quietly, casting my eyes down at my shoes.

  She folded her arms across her chest. I felt like I was back in school, being reprimanded by a teacher. “Then what do you want?”

  What happened next I would blame entirely on forces out of my control. Something drove me to it, something far worse than any fallen angel: unbridled, unrelenting desire. It consumed me, led me slowly to her. I stood in front of her, mere inches between us. She stared up at me, her lips parting slightly, as her gaze lingered on mine, as though anticipating what would come next. And before I knew it my lips were on hers.

  There was resistance, but it didn’t last long. Soon those soft lips parted, granting my tongue entry. My eyes fluttered shut when I felt her hand on my face — not pushing me away, but holding me in place.

  Our tongues did their frantic dance; hers dominating mine. I could hear my light, breathless moans, hear her desk creaking beneath her. I pressed my palm to it to steady myself.

  My sense of touch was heightened; I could feel everything. The softness of her lips, the wetness of her tongue. There was a sensuality I wasn’t expecting, something I’d never come close to with men.

  I wanted the kiss to last forever, for my tongue to move in permanently, but without warning, she drew her mouth away.

  My eyes sprang open. I was still floating above the clouds.

  The area around her mouth was red. “You need to leave,” she said, breathless, pushing me away and heading back behind her desk. I couldn’t help but notice how unsettled she looked.

  I wanted to stay; there was nowhere else I’d ever wanted to be than right there with her. We didn’t have to kiss again, just being in her presence was enough. But I knew when to cut my losses, when to take the win. I’d gotten far more than I ever would have imagined.

  She didn’t look up again, nor did she say goodbye as I left.

  A smile the size of North America broke out as I practically skipped to the elevator, her scent clinging to me.

  My first kiss with a woman; the first kiss that made me feel alive.

  EIGHT

  I was still singing the words to Wet Wet Wet’s classic, Love is All Around, as I stepped out of the shower the following morning. My voice left much to be desired — rather, I sounded like hyenas being strangled! But none of that mattered to me.

  I wrapped a towel around my wet torso, another around my dripping hair, then opened the door.

  I screamed, and the towel nearly slip
ped off. “Are you trying to kill me?” I scolded Brit, who’d been standing right outside the door.

  She laughed. “I wasn’t, but can you imagine? D’you think I’d go down for murder or something?” She had such a dark sense of humor.

  I stepped past her, headed toward my bedroom. I looked back and noticed she was behind me. “Why are you following me?”

  “You were singing in the shower!” she said, sounding outraged.

  “So?”

  “You never sing in the shower.”

  “Yes I do...” I tried to think back to a time when I had. There wasn’t one. “Well now I’ve taken it up. I’m trying something new.”

  She narrowed her eyes at me. “No... there’s something you’re not telling me.”

  She wasn’t home when I got back yesterday evening, so this was the first time we’d seen each other since the previous morning. Had she been home, my compulsion to shout from the rooftops that I’d locked lips with the most beautiful woman on the planet would have compelled me to tell all. But I’d managed to sleep off the urge, and now vowed to keep my lips sealed... unless Naomi’s lips were close by, of course.

  “We have no secrets, you and me,” I said. My smile simply couldn’t be contained.

  “Bullshit! I can’t believe you’re keeping something from me.” She slapped me on my bare back, which, thanks to the water, hurt a little.

  “Ow! What is wrong with you?” I made a dash for my bedroom, slammed and locked the door behind me.

  “You are, like, the worst!” she sulked.

  I just laughed.

  A mixture of trepidation and excitement consumed me as I parked my scooter in the underground parking lot, and spotted Naomi’s Lexus. I could always count on her to be early, to be there before anyone else. Maybe we’d have more time to... I didn’t know. I wasn’t expecting much — another kiss, maybe. The other stuff was way above my pay grade anyway, and I wasn’t sure I even wanted that. But kissing her, now that I could do all day long. The small matter of the setting being inappropriate didn’t concern me. For five years I’d been doing the right thing, the proper thing; now I was ready to break the rules a little.

  With a bounce in my step, I exited the elevator, my heart doing an expeditious gallop. What would I say to her first? Would I confess that I’d relived our kiss a million times the night before? Tell her that I’d sung in the shower because of the joy she’d given me? I was giddy with anticipation.

  I went straight to her office before putting down my things. I couldn’t wait to see her. I knocked on her door, a little too heavily, probably.

  No response.

  I knocked again.

  Silence.

  I peeked through the slits in the blind. She was definitely in there. I could see her hair. So she was ignoring my knocks?

  I opened the door anyway, closed it behind me.

  “Er, hi. I knocked twice, but you...”

  I’d never seen her with a ponytail before, but I loved it immediately. This woman could pull off any hairstyle.

  She continued tapping away at her computer, her face unmoved by my presence.

  “It doesn’t matter,” I continued. “H—how are you?” I almost told her that she looked incredible, that the light blue three-quarter-length sweater was really working for her, but stopped myself. I didn’t want to come on too strong; any stronger.

  Tap-tap-tap on the keys. Dexterous fingers flying across the keyboard. She reached for her steaming cup of black coffee, took a casual sip, continued typing.

  It didn’t take long for me to realize what was happening, and what all of this meant. My heart sank to the ground.

  “So you’re just going to ignore me?”

  Yes, clearly. She took another sip of her coffee.

  It felt like someone had punched me multiple times in the stomach, kicked me a dozen times, then proceeded to punch me some more.

  “Wow,” I said, shaking my head in disbelief. “Is this fun for you? Do you get some kind of sick thrill out of treating people like dirt?”

  Still nothing. But I thought I saw the vein in her neck tense slightly.

  “Fine.” I threw up my hands in surrender, sensing that I was growing hysterical. This side of me had been buried so deep I’d forgotten it existed. “But just remember, you didn’t stop me. You were right there with me, and... you didn’t stop me.”

  She got up slowly, stepped right past me, opened the door, then said, with a penetrating glare, “Get out.”

  I searched her eyes for any signs of empathy, signs of humanity, but there were none. She wasn’t human.

  My speedy departure from her office wasn’t for her sake but mine. I needed to be as far away from her, or anyone, as possible so I could bawl my eyes out.

  The melodic, upbeat warbling from the church choir was strangely comforting. They seemed to reserve the real fun for Saturday morning service, when some of the younger members of the congregation stopped by. In any case, I welcomed the distraction from my own thoughts.

  When the congregation stood up and joined in, I remained seated, clapping spiritlessly. From his podium, Pastor Hugh scanned the room. As soon as he spotted me, I knew I would have some explaining to do.

  Once the service was over, I tried to make a break for it, but too many people wanted to stop me and say hello. That was the problem with local churches where everyone knew each other, they noticed when you hadn’t been attending.

  Pastor Hugh caught me just as I made it to the exit. I sighed inwardly, but forced a smile. “You weren’t trying to escape without saying hello, were you?”

  I smiled guiltily.

  He chuckled in his light-hearted way. “I’m a bit much, I know it.”

  “No, it’s not you, Hugh.”

  He gave me a concerned look. “Come.” Then, with a hand on my back, he led me into his office, so that we were alone. “Have a seat.”

  “Really, I’m fi—”

  “What’s on your mind, Dakota? I’m family; I’m here to help.”

  He wasn’t family, thank God. I knew what that looked like, and he didn’t come close. He was everything that family should have been.

  I let out a breath. “I feel myself slipping back into, let’s just say an unpleasant place. And I don’t want to go back down that road.”

  He sat behind his desk, set his bible aside, focused all of his attention on me. “Does this have something to do with the new job?”

  I nodded but didn’t elaborate. Getting into the details would have meant outing myself. I knew our church’s stance on homosexuality; and no matter how progressive they claimed to be, I was certain I would be shunned if my desires became public knowledge. There would inevitably come a time when I’d be forced to choose between the two things, if this female attraction was here to stay.

  “It’s like I can feel control gradually slipping out of my hands, but I can’t do anything to stop it. It might be the wrong word, or the tone I use. Then before I know it, there’s just this... this rage. Rage because of the loss of control. A vicious cycle.”

  He steepled his fingers, studied me sympathetically, nodded. “What used to happen when you lost control in the past?”

  This was more than I’d shared with anyone. The very fact that I was doing this was proof of my deteriorating mental state.

  “Nothing good,” I said with a shudder. That was all I would give him. Unproductive, reckless, selfish were just some of the traits I was in no hurry to reestablish. It had taken me years to tackle the crippling neurosis that led me to drink. And although I’d never fully committed to being an alcoholic, I feared I was fighting against biology and would eventually succumb to it like the rest of my family. Then it would be too late.

  “Dakota, are you familiar with Psalm 46:1—2?”

  I shook my head. My bible knowledge was severely lacking. I’d taken a hands-off approach to my religion, hadn’t spent much time on independent study outside of church. Maybe Naomi was my punishment for abandoning it; f
or abandoning Christ.

  “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore will not we fear, though the earth be removed, and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea...”

  I nodded slowly, getting the general gist of the verse. They usually went right over my head and had to be explained to me.

  “The point is, these things are sent to test us, to strengthen our connection to God. Losing control simply means you’re losing your connection to the Lord. And once you repair it, that control will come back to you.”

  I contemplated his words. Was there truth to them? It was true that my church attendance, since starting the job, had waned. Would everything be solved by simply reopening the door to God so he could help me? I knew that it had worked five years ago, when I really needed it. Help had come in the form of Colin. For the first year of our relationship I thought he’d literally been sent by God to be my guardian angel.

  “Thank you,” I said, getting to my feet. “You’ve really helped me. Given me a lot to think about.”

  So it was settled: Out with Naomi and everything she stood for, in with God.

  Then Saturday night arrived, and despite my protests, Brit ordered me to get my glad rags on for our big night out. A night I’d completely forgotten about.

  The Uber driver’s lecherous glances at us in his rearview mirror were starting to creep me out, and we’d only been on the road a couple of minutes. He was an older guy with an accent I couldn’t place. He’d let one off before we got in, and the unpleasant smell still lingered in the air. Brit had started drinking before we left and was totally oblivious to all of it.

  “Who’s that? Not Dove again?” She tutted, glaring at my cell phone as I tapped out a text. “I know he’s your brother and everything, but you’ve got your own life to live.”

  Dove had been messaging me nonstop since early afternoon, because some gig he was supposed to perform at fell through last minute, and he wasn’t taking it well. Although she’d known me, and Dove incidentally, for years, there were still so many facets of our personalities she didn’t yet understand. Like the rejection thing. The Adams siblings did not take rejection very well at all. And the world was full of it, everywhere we looked, yet we hadn’t managed to build up a thick skin. So when I saw that my brother was in trouble, though it may have looked minor to her, I knew how failure could lead him to spiral out of control. Replying to his texts, whenever they came in, and no matter how many there were, was at the top of my list of priorities.