by Harper Bliss
“I would like to take the day for myself, if you don’t mind.” My words sound as practiced as they are. Before I opened the door of my room earlier, I was pacing in the exact way I do when I’m preparing for a big client meeting.
“Sure.” Joy crosses her arms over her chest. “Does this have anything to do with last night? I mean, you didn’t mention this day trip at all yesterday, so I’m just wondering.”
Another question I had prepared for. Human beings are so predictable, really. “Nothing at all. I just want to make the most of my time here. And this way, you can have the house to yourself today. Fully relax.”
“I’m quite relaxed already, Alice, but all right.” Joy doesn’t move, just stands there, looking at me sceptically. “How about I make us dinner then? Give me a call when you’re about an hour away, and I’ll have it ready.”
“That won’t be necessary. I expect to be back rather late.”
She cocks her head now. “Okay. Very well. I shan’t wait up for you then.” She imitates my unnatural tone of voice. “Have fun.”
I ignore the way she’s speaking to me. “Thank you. You too.”
I walk past her, to the front door, and leave.
✶ ✶ ✶
At first, in the car, I wish I had Bruce Springsteen albums to listen to, but then, on second thought, I’m glad I haven’t because they would only make me think of that near-perfect day we spent yesterday. And about the odds of a girl like Joy enjoying music made when she was barely born. I like old things, she said, which sounds so disrespectful now.
On the drive over, when my thoughts are scattered and free-flowing, I applaud myself on the good decision I made. On how I handled this maturely. But by the time I arrive at Vila Real de Santo António, when the blue of the sky floors me again, I’m reminded why I hardly ever travel: because, more than any other activity, doing it alone makes me feel disproportionally lonely. Then I start missing Joy’s easy chatter of the day before, and how she spoke about her father, and the chat we had in the car. And I don’t know how it’s possible, but I realise that I miss her company. It’s not logical, it’s not sane, it’s hardly proper, but it’s how it is.
I’ve only been en route back a few minutes before I pull over and take my phone out of my purse. It’s an old-fashioned non-smart model, because I draw the line somewhere, and I know it would impair my sanity if I carried work emails around with me everywhere I went. I put Joy’s number in my phone after Miranda gave it to me when she called that first day I was here, for emergencies.
This is not a change of heart, I say to myself. But as I felt increasingly miserable in the course of the afternoon, I was able to convince myself very easily that, if I truly wanted to put this behind me, escaping Joy’s proximity was not the best method. I had to tackle it head-on: by chasing the unwanted images from my mind while face-to-face with her.
I compose a text, erase it, write the exact same words again, then send it.
I’ll be back by 7 if you still want to have dinner with me.
A little needy, perhaps. And a tad passive-aggressive. All adjectives that have never applied to me before. On the long drive back, with nothing but silence in the car, I know that I’m fooling myself. “Nice try,” I tell myself—my silly, wanton, overly eager self. Because what has transpired in my psyche over the past three days, subtle at first, but then bursting to the fore with great explosions of realisation, cannot be undone. Not even I, with my stiff upper lip, my carefully planned out days, and my emotions in check, can undo what Joy has unleashed in me. It’s only normal that I’m terrified, and my actions are stuttering cries for something. I just don’t know what it is exactly. I certainly haven’t turned lesbian overnight. I don’t know much, but I know that. I also know that I want to spend more time with Joy. The desire beats in my blood like a gentle, steady drum. Being with her brings out a different side of me. A side I like. She makes me more communicative, more in touch with my emotions, more ready to share. More alive.
My phone is on the passenger seat, and I glance at it furtively, waiting for a reply. She’s probably in the pool, I think. Most likely with nothing on at all. The thought causes me to have a hot flash and I turn up the air-conditioning. Then my phone makes its old-fashioned beep, and I pull over again.
Sure thing, the message reads. That’s it. And her curt reply makes me wonder again, makes me question my sanity. But it’s not as though I’m speeding back to Quinta do Lago for something unseemly. It’s a meal. It’s company. A new friend. As unlikely a pair as we might be, if the past few days have convinced me of anything, it’s that Joy and I could be friends. After all, I’ve been friends with her mother for the longest time, and her father was a good friend too, before he passed away. She’s quite different from the both of them, but reflections come through. Miranda’s zany zest for life, her taste for luxury, for unashamedly taking what belongs to her. And Paul’s—although this is harder to remember—directness, his stout unwillingness to care one iota about what anyone thought about him. Joy Perkins is a child of her parents, for sure, but she’s also, and even more so, her own person. A funny, relaxed, slightly arrogant girl with her heart in the right place. A young woman still looking for her place in the world. Much the opposite of me, but isn’t that something to value in a friend? A different take on things. The option to look at an issue from a totally different perspective and just step out of my own head, the one I’ve been in my entire life.
CHAPTER EIGHT
“Friends?” I say, as soon as I walk into the door of the house.
“Of course,” Joy replies. She’s in the kitchen and, to my huge surprise, she’s wearing a bra. Oddly—or not—it’s the first thing I notice. The black straps peeking from underneath her tank top. “Good day?”
“Not too bad.” I feel it squirming inside me already, this beast, this presence, this announcement of change.
“Feel free to have a swim. I’m making grilled chicken and it needs a bit longer. There’s sangria in the fridge, if you would like to partake.”
“What a feast.” I’m still standing near the door, as though ready to make a swift escape.
“I aim to please.” Joy plants her hands on the kitchen counter behind her, making her chest jut out. “Why don’t you come in, Alice? I’m not going to bite.” She does that giggle, the slightly offensive one. Only Joy has the uncanny ability to offend and charm me at the same time. Or perhaps, it now dawns on me, it’s called flirting.
“No need to dress up, okay?”
“You’ve certainly dressed up.” I make a point of staring at her chest, in spite of how dizzy it makes me feel.
“Yeah, I went to the market in Loulé, and I figured I had to cage the girls. Not to worry, though, that bra is coming off asap.”
“As if I would worry about that.” I make my way to the corridor, but don’t turn the corner before shooting her a wink.
✶ ✶ ✶
Of course, she has made the sangria very strong—I doubt someone like Joy would even realise it doesn’t need that much alcohol. I opt to sit in the shade and take small sips, carefully measuring the time in between drinking, so as not to let it get to my head too much. The last thing I need to be this evening is tipsy, but I don’t want to be rude, either.
“I’m going for a quick dip,” Joy says as she saunters out of the house. “Let me know when the oven beeps.”
Perhaps out of courtesy, she’s wearing the hot pink bikini top. I’m at a point where I see messages in everything, and I’m not as good an expert in non-verbal communication as I ought to be.
“It’ll come with experience,” Miranda used to say. But it never really did. Miranda, my once mentor, who took me under her wing after I had just finished university and started as a trainee at Beechums. Miranda, whom I got along with so well, that it was a no-brainer to start our own law firm after five years of working together.
“Sure,” I say to Joy, and when she cocks her head like that, I see a bit of Miranda in the
lift of her cheekbones, and in that demanding, unwavering stare.
“You’re really not coming in? It’s illegal to not go in the pool at least once a day when you’re staying at this house, you know?” Her stance is all bravado, like she’s testing me. One hand on her jutted-out hips, her lips scrunched into that half-pout she does so well.
“I’m a lawyer, Joy,” I say. “I believe I know my rights.”
“Suit yourself.” She turns and, without any hesitation, dives in.
Even though, despite the shower I just took, my skin is overheated and sweat puddles in the small of my back, I’m wise enough to avoid a situation where I would find myself in the pool with Joy. Additionally, I don’t enjoy having dinner while dripping wet. It’s not right.
I sip my drink as I watch Joy, who swims a few quick laps. Her phone is on the table and it keeps lighting up with messages. If it were waterproof, I’m sure she’d take it into the pool with her.
I have nothing else to do but watch how Joy pushes herself out of the pool. She doesn’t use the built-in steps, but prefers to hoist herself up on her arms, her biceps gleaming with water, and bring her feet in between her legs. Her movement makes me realise, again, how much younger she is than me. She towels off with her back to me, then pulls her hair into a high pony tail.
“Bear with me, Alice,” she says. “I messed up the timing a bit, but it should be ready now.” On her way in, she grabs her phone, her eyes immediately trained on its tiny screen. I hear her sigh, then patter farther into the house.
“My dad taught me how to make this when I was twelve years old,” she says, as she deposits a tray onto the table. “In this very kitchen.”
The chicken is golden-brown, its skin deliciously crispy.
“I hope you don’t mind a bit of spice. Over the years, I’ve added more and more piri-piri.” She flashes me a grin before taking a large gulp of sangria.
“This is truly scrumptious,” I say, although my tastebuds do need to adjust to the heat of the spices.
“Let’s enjoy it in memory of Paul Perkins—” She gets cut off by the sound of another message arriving on her phone. “You know what? I’m just going to turn this off. Someone is massively getting on my tits.”
I raise an eyebrow, more amused by the expression she uses than curious about who keeps messaging her.
“It’s Alex. She’s drunk texting me.” Joy shuts down her phone demonstratively.
“Oh.” I put down my fork. “Does she want you back?” It’s more a joke. An indulgence I allow myself in the form of a quick, easy question.
“Who knows what Alex really wants.” Joy pushes her phone to the very end of the table. “Either way, I’m no longer interested. Tell me about your day, Alice.”
I don’t tell her about how, long before I was supposed to start making my way back, the prospect of seeing her at the house pulled me towards it. Nor do I let her know how much I missed her company in the car. Instead, I marvel at the delights of Vila Real de Santo António, and the beauty of this region, and how uninterrupted days of nothing but blue skies above you must be the best cure for just about everything.
“I’m glad you had a good time,” she says as we reach the end of our meal. “This morning, it really seemed as though you were running away from me. I’m making a point of being more respectful towards you now. I hope you’ve noticed.”
“I have.” So that’s why she put on that bikini top earlier. “And I did, uh, sort of run away from you.”
“We had a moment, didn’t we?” Joy has pushed her plate away and sits back watching me. “Last night before we went to bed. I got the distinct impression you were more upset about that than about what I asked you.”
“I’m not sure what you mean by having a moment.” I’m glad Joy waited until the meal was over to corner me like this. Is this what she means by being more respectful? Or am I being too uptight again?
“Can I speak freely? If you were anyone else, I wouldn’t ask, but I don’t want you to clam up on me again. If you don’t want to have this conversation, we won’t. But, and perhaps you’re not even fully aware of it, Alice, I think you do. I even think you need to have it.”
I mull over the day I’ve had, and my mind drifts back to ‘the moment’ she’s referring to, and I know I’m deliberately playing dumb about it, and it really doesn’t suit a woman my age. “Okay. Be my guest.”
But Joy doesn’t say anything. Is it her way of making me say something? More sweat drips down my spine. I’m just about to utter something deflecting, when she gets up out of her chair and heads towards me. Flabbergasted, but with my stomach turning in on itself with unprecedented excitement, I witness how she plants her hands on the armrests of my chair, leans in, and kisses me full on the lips.
That’s speaking very freely, I think, at first, because my mind is racing, and so is my pulse and—what is happening? I push myself forwards, though, in order to better receive her kiss, and when I feel her lips open a fraction, I do the same, and then our tongues meet, and it’s as though I can feel it in the tiniest cells in my body. I feel it tingle in my toes, and chase up my spine—where, oddly, the sweat has cooled—and ripple underneath my skin.
Joy brings her hands to my cheeks, her fingers splayed, and the gesture engulfs me in another shockwave of emotion, and desire, and abandon. Her tongue twirls freely in my mouth now, meeting mine, darting to and fro, and all of this is, by far, the strangest thing to have happened to me in decades. I barely remember kissing a man, yet I know this is distinctly different. It’s softer, gentler, endlessly more erotic.
And even though I’m really still too stunned to move, I bring my own hands to Joy’s neck, and I pull her closer, because where she is right now, is exactly where I want her to be. We kiss for long, slow, delicious minutes, which are probably only seconds, but time stretches into infinity as I surrender, as I let go of everything, and recognise wholeheartedly what it is I felt on the beach two nights ago.
Desire.
When, at last, we break from our lip-lock, and my brain starts working again, I immediately feel myself stiffen. Because what does this mean? Does this make me gay? And where will this go?
“Fuck, Alice,” Joy pants. “I’ve been wanting to do that for a while.”
“You have?” I ask, stupidly.
Joy just smiles and leans in again, but I can’t enjoy this second kiss as much as the first. I’m no longer stunned into shock, but into something else: realisation. When the kiss ends, and Joy looks at me with what I think is longing in her eyes, I can’t help but back off a bit.
“Do you want me to stop?” She hovers over me, her breasts level with my eyes, and I don’t know what to say or do.
“I, uh, just thought you wanted to talk,” I mumble.
She grins, and sits down, putting her hands on my knees. “Sometimes it’s easier to say something without words.”
I wish I could go home and think this over. Give it the analytic Alice treatment I give my clients. But I’m trapped in this house with Joy, who is making me feels things I can’t name, I can’t even fathom.
“When did you want to kiss me?” I ask.
She pulls her face into a quizzical expression, as though contemplating my question vigorously. “When we were at the beach. I was so disappointed when you left.” She catches my ankle in between hers. “And last night. Definitely last night. God, I was flirting so heavily with you. And you were responding so… favourably. Until I got impatient and screwed up.”
“Look, uh, Joy, I’m not saying I didn’t enjoy that kiss, but this is extremely confusing for me.”
“I understand that. It’s quite confusing for me as well.” She squeezes her fingers a bit harder around my knees. “But, please, do me one favour, Alice. Please, don’t go into hiding in your room. Please, don’t leave me here by myself to process this.”
Truth be told, it is my first instinct. I need to mull this over. At least attempt to explain it, and give it a place in my life. “I
won’t,” I say instead.
“In the end it’s only a kiss. It doesn’t need to be any more than that if that’s what you want.”
“I have absolutely no clue as to what I want.” I interlace my fingers behind my neck and let my head fall back.
“I do.” Her fingers creep up my thighs just a tiny bit, but enough to nearly make me jump out of my chair. “I’m sorry.” She removes her hands entirely from my body, and releases my ankle from the prison of her clasped-together legs. “I have a tendency to get way ahead of myself.”
“I won’t claim to know what it is you want from me right now, although I do have an inkling, but a kiss is absolutely definitely as far as this can go for me.”
“Absolutely and definitely, huh?” Joy leans back in her chair. “Of course.”
“And, no matter what happens, you can never tell anyone about this.”
“Cross my heart.”
My heartbeat slows, and the most acute rigidness is leaving my muscles. I’m starting to recover from the kiss, starting to feel a little like myself again—even though I have no idea who that is anymore.
“Do you want to talk?” she asks.
“Freely, you mean?” This time, I stretch my legs, and lightly touch my shin to hers, so she knows that, despite not fully realising it until it occurred, I have thought of kissing her as well.
Joy giggles, then bites her bottom lip. “Well, Alice, if this is what happens when I keep my top on—and wear a bra when you come home—I do wonder where it will end once I fully dress up.”
I’m so grateful for how she defuses the tension, and her comment coaxes a laugh from me that is more than a nervous chuckle. And then, I want to kiss her again. So much so, in fact, that I’m the one rising from my chair, towering over her, and pressing my lips to hers. Instantly, her hands are in my hair, drawing me closer. And, this time, our mouths open at once, letting each other in, and I feel like I’m floating on air, like decades of ignoring the urge to be touched are being erased, dumped into oblivion without mercy, because as of now, I do want to be touched. Oh, I do.