by Harper Bliss
“You’re young, Joy. You’re learning, discovering your likes and dislikes. I think it’s good that you haven’t settled down yet. But, erm…” I’m glad the candle in the middle of the table is dying so the blush on my cheeks is hidden.
“What?” Joy has finished her glass of wine again. Perhaps Miranda should be more worried about the amount of wine her daughter can put away than about the age of her suitors. “No need to be shy anymore now, Alice.”
“You do seem to have a propensity for falling for older women.”
Joy just cocks her head in acquiescence. “True. I do. Even in college I was always lusting after my professors instead of my roommates. It’s been like that for as long as I can remember being interested in other people amorously and… sexually. I don’t really know how to explain it, but I find older women so much sexier than women my own age, let alone younger ones. It’s just my preference, I guess. I’m a real cougar lover, me.”
“A what?” I’m confused again. I thought we were discussing Joy’s liking of more mature ladies, not wildlife.
“God, Alice.” She throws her head back in mock-desperation. “You really are so not down with popular culture.” She looks at me again. “A cougar is an older woman who devours younger men or women. I’m the opposite of a cougar, I guess, although I’m not sure there’s a name for that.”
“Someone who likes old meat. Hm, I’ll have to think about that.” The things I’ve learnt today. Perhaps I will have to start believing what Miranda sometimes says to me: that an entire world is passing me by because I work too much.
“Quid pro quo?” Joy asks. I do know what that means, although I’m not sure I like the implication of it. “I’ve answered your question as honestly as I could, can I ask you one in return?”
“Will I need another glass of wine to comply with your request?” I reach for the bottle already, knowing full well that Joy won’t ask me an innocent question.
“Good plan.” She holds out her own glass as well. I divide what is left of the bottle between us.
“I don’t mean to be indiscreet, but you just said that you and Alan split fifteen years ago, and that you haven’t really dated since.”
“That’s correct,” I say, before sipping from the wine.
“So you haven’t had sex with anyone in fifteen years?” Joy’s voice is surprisingly low and solemn.
“Also correct.”
Joy is silent, but at least she doesn’t send me a look of pity, the way Miranda used to do back in the days when she was still trying to get me off the shelf. “Don’t you miss it?”
“Miss is definitely not the correct word. I miss intimacy, and touching someone just because you want to and you love them, but to say that I miss having sex, would be a lie.”
Joy sits up and rubs two fingers across her chin. “Was Alan that bad?”
I burst into laughter. She giggles with me. After the ripples of laughter subside, a silence descends upon us.
“All jokes aside.” Joy fills the silence. “I’m by nature quite a tactile person, what with having spent so much time in LA, the city of hugs—sincere and, more often, otherwise—and I do have the habit of inadvertently touching people around me. I’ve noticed how surprised you’ve been by that.”
“It’s okay. But I’m touched that you would bring it up.”
“Ha, good one.” She lets her feet drop off the other chair and turns towards me. “But, just for the record, it’s a damn shame that you’re not having sex, Alice. And not just because you have a killer body for a woman in her fifties.”
I decide not to take offence. It’s easier than I thought. “It’s a gradual process. It’s not as though, fifteen years ago, I decided to stop having sex. I had to take the time to ‘de-Alan’ first, and digest my broken marriage. Then, in the beginning, I was on the look-out, which led to my platonic affair with Pierre, and after that, I started looking—and caring—less and less. I’m not an unhappier person because of it. I have my work, to which, Miranda repeats often enough, I am as good as married. I’ve never really felt as though I’m missing anything.”
Joy drinks again and her stare gets bolder. “Okay, ask me a another question, Alice, because I can think of a few more for you.”
“It doesn’t have to be tit for tat. Now that I’ve told you all of this already, I have no qualms about telling you more,” I say.
“No, I like it this way. And I also feel like unburdening myself some more. God, it feels good to just sit here and talk. I don’t do enough of that back home.”
“Okay, let me think.” But I don’t have to think for very long. There’s so much I want to know about Joy now that we’ve started sharing. “When did you know that you liked women?”
“That was predictable.” She smiles and leans her chin on her upturned palms. “It wasn’t a big aha-moment, more like a culmination of conclusions. It all added up in my mind by the time I left for college. But as for when I really knew, I guess that was just before my eighteenth birthday. School had just ended, as had my guitar lessons with Miss Stevenson. I realised I wasn’t going to be seeing her anymore, and I nearly wanted to cancel my enrolment at UCLA just at the thought of it.”
“Teacher crush?”
“Oh God… the worst!” Joy straighens, and draws her feet up on the chair the way she always does. “Once I arrived in LA, I got over it quickly enough, though.”
“Your turn,” I say, while wishing I’d had another glass of wine.
“Okay, but just so I know how to play my cards here, how much longer are we doing this for, because I have at least two pertinent questions remaining.”
“Two is fine.” I can’t remember the last time I shared so much extremely private information about myself with someone else.
Joy paints a smile on her lips. The candle on the table has died and all that illuminates us is a faint porch light on the wall behind me. “Okay, the easy one first.” She sinks her teeth into her bottom lip before she speaks. “Seeing as, after Alan, you didn’t appear to be very interested in pursuing anything with men, have you ever considered women?”
My eyebrows shoot up, my mouth falls open. “Honestly, with my hand on my heart: no, I haven’t.”
“Why not? I mean, I know I’m very biased, but in my eyes, relationship-wise there’s nothing designed to work better than two women together. Two men will almost always want an open relationship, which is fine, but not easy to maintain in the long-term, and heterosexual couples can be so unevenly matched in their desires. Personally, I do believe in monogamy—a lot—but I also believe that, specifically for men, it goes against their very nature.”
“Very biased, indeed.”
“I know very well I’m over-simplifying to get my point across, but I’ve seen it happen over and over again.”
“Purely theoretically, the argument you make is sound, but, of course, there’s the small matter of attraction to take into consideration.”
“True, but what are you saying, Alice? That in all of your fifty-one years, minus the years when you were a child, you have never looked at a woman and thought: hm, yum?”
“Yum?” I blurt it out because I feel caught out. And whereas I’ve certainly admired many a woman’s physique, or fellow female lawyer’s work ethic, or the way Kirsty Young’s accent rolls off her tongue on Crimewatch, I’ve certainly never consciously entertained the notion of… of Yum. Not until last night at the beach, it dawns on me now. “No.” I shake my head for emphasis.
“Your loss.” Joy sits there grinning. “But yes, I am truly and profoundly biased, I admit.”
“Have you ever been attracted to men?” I ask quickly, to deflect attention from the blush creeping up my neck.
“Not since I realised that I wasn’t required to be.”
I can’t help but laugh, again, at Joy’s quick one-liners, and her forwardness, and how she is so intensely sure of herself when it comes to this. Not that I’ve ever had any reason to doubt my sexuality. “Have you slept w
ith men?” Her forwardness is surely rubbing off on me.
“Uh-uh!” Joy wags her finger at me. “Wait your turn, Alice. My question now.”
I smile at Joy, a wide smile coming from a place deep within me, and for the briefest of instances, I let myself feel it. This giddiness, this sensation of being totally at ease with someone, so at ease that I’m telling her things I’ve never told anyone.
“So…” Joy wraps her arms around her knees a bit tighter. “I’ve saved the big one for last.” She grins mock-apologetically. I do think she’s enjoying this immensely as well, which flatters me. “Do you, Alice McAllister,” she begins, her voice low and dramatic, “satisfy yourself? Your sexual needs, I mean.”
I huff out a loud, nervous laugh, while shaking my head. She’s crossing a line now, and the giddiness of only a few seconds ago, flees my system rapidly. Joy stares at me intently, as if not wanting to miss a split second of my reaction. “I’m sorry, Joy.” To my horror, my voice is trembling a little. “I’m not going to answer that question. That is just too personal.”
She scrunches her lips into a pout. “Fair enough, I guess.” Her eyes are still on me. “But Alice, just so you know, your refusal to reply is a response in itself.”
Why would she do this? I think. Why would she endeavour to end this perfectly fine day we’ve had, this companionship that has grown between us, by asking me something crass like that. I let my guard down too much. “I beg your pardon?” I push my chair back, ready to make my escape.
“Alice, I’m sorry. I went too far. It’s what I do sometimes.” Still in her chair, she scuttles closer to me and puts her hands on my knees. “Forgive me?”
“Feel free to make all the assumptions about me you want, Joy. If I’m an uptight old spinster in your eyes, then that’s perfectly fine with me. The only thing I was after was a quiet holiday on my own. I let you crash here, put up with all your displays of, of… loose morals, and this is how you show your gratitude? By asking me the rudest questions? I don’t think so.” As I say the words, I know I’m exaggerating, know that I’m taking something I can’t deal with out on her. I also can’t move because her fingers are claws around my knees, and her touch, innocent though it is, is doing something to my skin—something I can’t rationally explain.
Luckily, Joy removes her hands from my knees, and holds them up in a gesture of peace. “Okay, before we both say things we don’t mean: time out.”
I see this as my chance to get up. My brain hasn’t been this rampant with emotion since… since as long as I can remember. I have no idea what to do with myself, what to say next, how to get myself out of this pickle.
“Please, Alice, accept my apology.” Joy looks sincere when she says it but, even though her face is half-obscured, it’s as though I can sense something else. It’s not just forgiveness she’s after, I conclude. With the corner of her mouth turned up like that, and the stare she keeps laying on me, I think she’s also trying to tell me that she has sensed something. Not just that she hit on subjects I never talk about—dating, sex, masturbation—but that, perhaps, the reason why I fled the beach last night might have been something else entirely than fatigue. “I’ll be a good girl from now on,” she adds. “As good as you want me to be.”
“Apology accepted,” I say, because I don’t want things to be like this between us. “Just… respect my boundaries a bit more, please.”
“I will.” She puts her hand over where her heart is, and gives me a tiny nod of the head. Then she extends her hand and offers it to me. “Let’s shake on it.” I meet her hand and take it in mine. We shake while her eyes are still fixed on mine. “And for the record, Alice, you really are a great listener. You’re not nearly as uptight as I first thought you were, and I had a truly wonderful time with you today. Thank you.” She’s still clutching my hand in hers. I make no move to remove my hand from her grasp either. So we stand there, under the feeble light of a quarter moon, hand in hand, and something is changing within me. I just haven’t figured out what.
CHAPTER SEVEN
In bed, I can’t stop thinking about Joy’s last question. Not the untowardness of it, or the fact that it threw me so much, but what it implies about Joy. What is she doing in her room right now? After the prolonged handshake, we both retired to our bedrooms, and ever since slipping under the sheets, it’s all I can think about. As though Joy has awakened something inside me. Perhaps it all started when she first jumped into the pool with her top off.
I’ve already got up twice. Once to look out of the window, at that sliver of moon that has witnessed this—for now—unspeakable change within me, and once to take off my nightgown which, suddenly, seems too much. Too warm for the hot Portuguese night, and too constricting for the thoughts swirling in my brain.
And while I lie here, my mind drifting to Joy’s bedroom on the other side of the wall, her last question still fresh in my mind, my naked body feels free under the flimsy sheet, and I think to myself: why not? Because Joy was right, I’m not in the habit of ‘satisfying myself’. Frankly, it’s not something I allow my mind to dwell on. Until she brought it up. But now that it has, I feel as though I should try. For someone who puts a lot of work in maintaining a healthy body, I spend far too little time enjoying it. So, I spread my legs. A strange sensation at first. To feel the shift of air there, between my legs. I trail one finger between my breasts, and marvel at how my skin breaks out in goosebumps. It’s all about intention, I conclude. I’ve traced a finger over my skin many a time, but never with this in mind, and just the notion of it changes everything.
How would Joy do this? I wonder. Would she fondle her breasts first? Or go straight for where the action is? And it’s thoughts like these that throw me the most. The Alice who boarded a plane to the Algarve mere days ago, would never have them. The easy conclusion would be to say this is my midlife crisis. Acute and obvious. Because here I lie in bed—and this seems most ridiculous to me—lusting after a woman twenty-two years my junior. It’s not right. It’s not who I am. She’s Miranda’s daughter, for crying out loud. But yet, it’s true. It’s happening. The real question is: can it be undone? Because this is preposterous.
Does this make me worse than Alan? At least his new wife is only ten years younger than he is, and he was much younger than I am now when he met her. No, this is not something I can allow. It was just a momentary lapse in judgement. I’m kind enough with myself to admit that we all display signs of weakness sometimes. It’s human. I’m human. It’s the circumstances, and the conversation we had, and Joy’s blunt but charming way. It’s a fluke. As of tomorrow, I will keep my distance. I’ll stay off the alcohol. I’ll discover the Algarve by myself and give Joy all the space she wants in the house, which, one day, will belong to her. It’s easy enough to keep up for a few more days, and then she’ll be gone, out of my life, and I’ll forget about this episode, pretend it never even occurred. No one will ever know.
For this to happen, it’s imperative I close my legs this instant. So, I do. Easily. I throw the sheet off me and reach for my nightgown which I draped over a chair earlier, and quickly put it on, as though it will make it so I never took it off in the first place. As though this simple act of covering up my naked body can erase the madness in my brain—or no, not my brain. Something more primal than that. My loins, yes. Anyway, bygones, I’ve covered myself up and I’m Alice McAllister again, a respectable woman and respected lawyer. It’s all over.
I slip back under the covers, take a few deep breaths, and try to sleep.
✶ ✶ ✶
I wake up with my nightie twisted tightly around my waist, after the worst night of sleep I’ve had in years. I’m usually a good sleeper, because I make a point of being at peace with myself before I go to bed, and I maintain excellent sleep etiquette. Keeping last night’s feelings at bay may require a bit more effort, but I’m more than prepared to make as much effort as needed. To become myself again. Before I get up, I reach for the guidebook on my night stand, and c
hoose my destination for the day. I want to be prepared when I run into Joy, want to have my words ready to speak—to clearly state my intentions.
I read something about Vila Real de Santo António, which is close to the border with Spain and will keep me out of the house for most part of the day. Perfect. Culture, pretty landscapes and redemption.
In the shower, I hum, pleased with myself and how I’m handling the situation. Relieved, even, to not have to deal with whatever was stirring within me. And happy to have found the means to lock it away.
Ideally, Joy will still be in bed, so I can just leave her a note and have breakfast en route. I’m hopeful, because she did drink a lot yesterday, and a hangover is a real possibility. The first moment of deflation comes when I walk past her bedroom door and find it open. But I can deal with this. It’s not even a setback, just a situation a fraction less than ideal.
“Morning.” Joy is in the kitchen making coffee. She turns to me when she hears me, and she’s wearing that barely-there tank top again and, truthfully, it makes me swallow hard for a second. But what it also does is spur me on to leave as soon as possible. “Just in time. I’m making coffee. Want some?” Joy lets her gaze travel across my body. “You’re all tarted up this morning. Fancy date?” She laughs that carefree—and, come to think of it, rather inconsiderate—laugh of hers.
“I’ve decided to take a day trip to Vila Real de Santo António,” I declare formally.
“Oh.” There’s no hint of disappointment in her voice. “Do you want to be alone or would you like me to join you?”