"Don't you allow that cat to take over my apartment. She controls enough already," laughed Cara.
"She took over your apartment a long time ago, baby doll. You just haven't realized it yet."
"Sounds like the two of you are getting along well."
"One of us is…and it's not me," yelled Vanessa trying to drown out a purring Anisette who was rubbing her face against the phone.
"Now that I've assured you that your oldest child is well and sassy, I think I'll put her in a closet and get back to my favorite breakfast."
Hearing a woman's laughter in the background, Cara's face suddenly reddened. "I can't believe you said that on a diplomatic phone-line."
"What's the matter, don't you think Americans do it?"
No more calls for now, decided Cara, as she laughingly turned off the phone, and changed into shorts and a tank top. It's time to sweat.
Eager to see the equipment, she resolutely pushed open the door to the gym and almost tripped when she found herself looking directly at Jessica peddling an exercise bicycle.
As though intruding on Jessica's privacy, she started to back out, thought better of it, marched in, put her towel down and mounted the bicycle alongside her. "It was a beautiful morning for the beach. I'm sorry I missed you." When she barely nodded, only glancing in her direction, Cara continued, "I went to your lair and was visited by a doe with her two fawns. They were entertaining, but it wasn't as entertaining as being with you."
Staring straight ahead, Jessica finally spoke in a polite, unemotional voice. "I awakened very early this morning and decided to go for a swim before breakfast. I've been working out ever since."
Peddling hard, trying to match her speed, Cara was having difficulty maintaining the rapid pace. Several times she adjusted the pedal pressure, but could not keep up. "Will you be having dinner with me tonight? Or am I being punished for something?" she asked in the encompassing silence.
Waiting an indeterminate time, she never took her eyes from Jessica's proud profile. The bottom lip quivered and Cara thought she-was going to respond, but instead, she jumped off the bicycle, ignoring the spinning pedals, and moved quickly for the door. Leaping after her, Cara reached out and turned her around so they were facing each other squarely. "Wait! At least tell me what I've done wrong. Is it something I did? Something I said?" She looked down at the troubled gray eyes. "Talk to me, damn it!"
"Last night, I told Roland I could no longer see him."
"Why? Why did you do that?" Breathing rapidly, she grabbed Jessica by the shoulders, gently pinning her against the closed door. "Why?"
"Because I'm falling in love with you," she shouted angrily.
Feeling her knees tremble, Cara relaxed her grip, slumping against the wall. Her voice was barely audible. "That's impossible. This can't be."
"Right!" she responded as she walked out the door.
Sitting on the bench, running her hands through her hair, Cara was immobile for several minutes. An urgency of thoughts passed through her head. Something was terribly wrong. This could not be happening.
Overwhelmed by the need to feel familiar territory, she left the house through a side door and went down to the beach. Ignoring the security man she had spoken to earlier in the day, she began walking in an easterly direction, deliberately away from Jessica's Lair. When she reached the boundary of the estate, she sat down in the sand and stared at the sea, searching for answers. She sat motionless for the remainder of the afternoon, but came no closer to an understanding than when she began.
Feeling her energy return, she removed her shorts and her tank top, piling them neatly on the sand, and dove into the surf. On the beach, a security woman who Cara had noticed that morning walked over, checked her clothing and sat down and watched the waters.
Tiring more quickly than she had anticipated, she turned over and floated on her back, feeling the rhythm of the gentle waves calming her trembling soul. She thought about the prime minister who had put Cara's name in nomination for this assignment. Had she let her down? Had she disgraced her country?
She squinted at the sky, growing dimmer with the approaching sunset and tried to sort the facts. She was in love with Jessica. Of that, she was sure. But, knowing Jessica was heterosexual, she had been very careful not to encourage physical contact; even withholding the customary expressions of affection she naturally extended to her friends. She had asked nothing of her, made no allusions to sexuality, and encouraged conversations about the men in her life. She had anticipated that she, herself, would be inadvertently hurt by this futile love for a heterosexual, but accepted that as the price for Jessica's passing friendship. Where had things gone wrong, and was she responsible?
And Jessica's anger. Where was that coming from? Did she blame Cara? Did she fear that she would have to go to Cali? Surely, she knew better. During their discussions Cara had repeatedly explained that only people with the Scarpetti gene were allowed into Cali. Was she afraid? Had she read those books written in the 1930s and 1940s about the "love that dared not speak its name?"
And what about now? What would happen now?
Feeling the air getting cold against her exposed skin, she began swimming back to shore, surprised at how far she had drifted. Stroking strongly against the current, she felt better when she was once again able to see the security woman, now standing in the moonlight. Spotting Cara, the woman spoke into her transmitter, then unobtrusively receded into the shadows.
Crawling from the surf, Cara remained on her hands and knees, gasping deeply as the incoming tide nipped at her toes. Several minutes passed before she was able to retrieve her clothing. Dressing quickly, she huddled on the sand, trying to slow her uncontrollable shivers before attempting the long walk back. I almost became a heroine of one of those 1940s novels, she speculated sardonically.
It was past 10:00 p.m. when she finally reached the house. Too late, she decided, to even apologize to Mrs. Anderson for missing dinner, she went directly to her room, enjoyed a long, lingering shower, and dragged herself to bed. Channeling her watch to music, she fell asleep to the heartrending sounds of Ellyn Hargreaves.
At 2:00 a.m., awakened by the sound of the surf through the open window, she lay on her side and patiently waited, wistfully following the moonlight as it paved a path across the waters.
Several minutes later, she arose, crossed the bedroom, and opened the door.
"You knew I would come," faintly whispered Jessica, who had barely touched the knob.
"Yes," she said softly as she reached for her hand and gently led her to the bed. Bathed in the night's light, looking more seductive than she had ever thought possible, Cara gaped in wonder at her karma, her sensibilities heightened by the erotic rush that echoed in every crevice of her being. Let this be sweet and wondrous, she begged silently as she tenderly removed the robe that sat lightly on Jessica's shoulders.
"Are you sure?" Cara asked before she dared to touch her.
"Yes," she answered. "Very sure."
Reaching out with her hand, she felt Jessica tremble as she began to trace the outline of her body, the fluid lines that flowed so gracefully beneath the silken skin. When she reached a spot whose sensitivity threatened to scream, she bent forth and kissed it before moving on to the next. The rhythm of the tremors grew more erratic and she knew Jessica was ready. Lovingly, Cara brushed her eyes closed with her tongue, and gently parted her lips, kissing her deeply, inhaling her sweet odor of lust. Pressing their bodies together, skin on skin, they kissed again and again and when she was sure that Jessica was beyond pain, she lowered herself, spreading Jessica's labia apart, first with her hand, and then with her tongue. She flitted quickly from spot to spot, holding Jessica's imploring hands with her own. When she was sure that Jessica could endure no longer, she hastened the rhythm on the clitoris, feeling it stiffen and swell beneath her touch. As Jessica's body arched to threatening heights, Cara plunged with her tongue and came in unison, the two of them thrashing in pleasure to the sound
of the pounding sea.
They made love again and again, caressing, touching, exploring, kissing, searching…Jessica, tentatively at first, but then with greater and greater intensity, demandingly, until Cara, soaring to peaks never before experienced, cried aloud for her to stop.
"Was I a good lover?" she asked shyly when their bodies finally lay motionless, her head resting on Cara's shoulder.
"For a beginner."
"You shit," she grinned. "I guess I'll just have to keep practicing."
"How about every night for the next seventeen?"
"And then?" she asked after too long a pause.
"And then, ten days of separation, and I return to New York for the one-week conference follow-up for legislative personnel. And now, no more 'and thens,' we both have a big day tomorrow." Brushing the black ringlets with her lips, she held Jessica until she felt her rhythmic breaths of sleep. Summoning her own mind to a blank, she finally joined her, her body curled around Jessica's in a question mark.
Twenty
It was after 10:00 when Cara entered the dining room on Wednesday morning. Jessica had left earlier for the conference center to meet with the presidential press assistant to review the welcoming speech. There was little left for Cara to do except shower and prepare for the afternoon's activities. She had thought about taking a swim, decided she might drown, and chose to begin the day with a self-cooked breakfast instead. Walking into the kitchen, she was startled to find Tim doing the same thing.
"Well, it's about time you showed up," he scolded jokingly as he-put the second breakfast package into the cookery machine.
"Tim, welcome back. I'm glad to see you." Stepping on her tiptoes, she kissed him lightly on the cheek. "What happened in the city? Any word on Barbra?"
"Lots of leads, but no action. I'll tell you about it over breakfast," he-responded as he turned around and hugged her to his broad chest, taking note of her tan and her radiance.
Sitting over their trays at the dining room table, Tim related his adventures of the previous five days. After leaving the estate at midday on Friday, he went directly to a New York City gay bar that he had learned about from Brian Rayford before departing from Cali. The quaint 1900s-type tavern, called "Stonehenge," catered to those homosexuals who had chosen not to emigrate to Cali during the initial exodus. Although the United States had passed laws criminalizing homosexual relationships, gays could not be stopped from congregating, so there sprang up a network of dingy underground bars that catered to the elderly, dwindling gay population. Stonehenge was the best known in the New York area.
Initially, the Stonehenge treated Tim badly, the patrons fearful of a stranger so much younger than themselves. However, after he presented his identification as a citizen of Cali and answered their questions about some of the celebrities who had fled during the exodus, their tongues loosened and they referred him to Dr. Helena Wordell in the borough of Queens who conducted a private practice catering to gays only, theorizing that if anyone would know Barbra Weiss-man, it would be a lesbian physician.
Arriving in Queens after Wordell's office had already closed for the day, Tim trekked back to the city, staying at a transient hotel where he knew his identity would not be questioned. To prevent any suspicion about him being in contact with American citizens for non-diplomatic purposes, he spent the weekend in his room, venturing out only for meals. "I'll tell you, Cara," he complained, "I thought about you back here safely in the luxury of this estate with a view of the sound and Mrs. Anderson's cooking and concluded that I must be crazy."
On Monday, he returned to the doctor's office, informing the receptionist that he had been referred to Dr. Wordell because of pains in his ears. "Her answer made me feel like a jerk." He chuckled. "She answered, 'Well, ears should be interesting—Dr. Wordell is a proctologist and treats problems of the rectum only.' I told her that she must have misunderstood me, because I had said that I was having pains in my ass."
Laughing until the tears rolled down, Tim stopped to regain his breath before finishing the story. After entering Wordell's office, he explained to her that he was looking for a woman physician named Barbra Weissman. Attempting to allay Wordell's suspicions and especially her fears of the Olms, he told her that Barbra had been very kind to Brian Rayford when she had treated him eight years earlier and he had given Tim a gift to pass on to her. Searching through her computerized medical directories, Wordell was able to give him no concrete information. The only thing she could tell him was that she had heard a rumor about three months before that there was a new lesbian doctor working for the United States government out of a New York City office.
He spent the rest of Monday and all day Tuesday trying to ferret out more information from the various government offices. To no avail.
"But I'm sure that Wordell's rumor is correct and that the new lesbian doctor is Barbra. It all fits. She's been missing from the Fantasia for about three months and she does work for the government."
"So, what are you going to do next?" she asked, licking her fingers after wiping up the last of her gooey eggs with a piece of rye toast.
"There's still two weekends left when you'll be safely ensconced in this palatial splendor, so I thought I'd use those days to continue my search in the hell holes of New York…I'm not complaining, of course."
"Of course." She smiled.
"Now tell me," he asked, as he pushed away his tray and leaned back in the chair, his big body causing it to perch precariously on two legs, "what's been happening with you? Do I perceive some changes in your life?"
Realizing that her relationship with Jessica would be impossible to hide from Tim, she related the events of the past several days. "So, that's where it's at…everywhere, yet nowhere," she said despairingly at the completion of the story. In the silence that followed, she felt herself looking a bit too defiantly at Tim. Casting her eyes downward, she rose from the table, circled round and stood at his back, glaring out the window that overlooked the sound. "Are you ashamed of me?" she spat out.
"No…no. Of course not." He pivoted in his chair to look at her. "I'm just shocked. This is going to take a little getting used to." He sat silently for a few moments, then slapped his hand on his knee in a gesture of discontent. "I don't get it. I just don't get it. All this talk about the Scarpetti gene. How can this—"
"Tim, I did nothing to mislead Jessica or to seduce her in any way. I was very careful—"
"Cara," he interrupted as he stood and hugged her to him, gently patting her on the back as one would a child, "I'm not suggesting you did anything dishonorable. I don't know you very well, but I certainly know you well enough to know that much. But there is something wrong." Stepping back, he looked at her with an earnest expression. "Is it possible that Jessica is experimenting? Or that she's simply curious and looking for a juicy story to share with her upper-crust friends? Is this something for them to laugh about after we leave?"
"No!" Realizing she had responded almost too quickly, almost defensively, she tried to organize her thoughts before speaking further. She looked directly at him and spoke slowly. "I'm very much in touch with my feelings, Tim. I love Jessica. Of that I have no doubt. And, incredible as it seems, she loves me. There are no doubts there either. As to the whys or how’s…I have no answers. I'm as mystified as you are."
"Do you suppose it's possible for persons without the Scarpetti gene to enter into homosexual relationships?" As Cara began to shake her head, he put up his hand, "Wait, let me finish this thought. In Cali, we would have no statistics on heterosexual behaviors, but there might be some data on this in the United States. As long as I'm going to be visiting government health facilities this weekend, let's see if I can find out anything that would be helpful." He hesitated before continuing. "Don't get your hopes up, but I'll also try to find out if there's such a thing as a false negative result for the Scarpetti gene. Maybe it's possible that Jessica tested negative in error."
"Thanks, Tim."
"For what?" he
asked.
"For being Tim Felmar."
Twenty-One
The weekend arrived much too quickly. Although Cara was anxious to again spend days with Jessica, she mourned the rapid passage of time. The first three days of the conference had been interesting. Jessica's speech, delivered in her wonderful resonant voice, was well received by the participants, especially Cara. The meetings had been well attended and, as expected, a great deal of attention was given to Call's accomplishments in the care of the elderly. Time and again Cara was called upon to provide data, debate issues, and offer advice. Although the conference was only in its first week, it had already been made clear that Cali was the acknowledged leader in the field of aging, and Cara the respected expert.
But it was not the days that were special to Cara. It was the nights and the time spent with Jessica. She couldn't wait to return home each evening and run to her room where Jessica sat waiting. Together, they would spend a few hours walking the beach or talking by the swimming pool. Then they would have a quick dinner with Tim, and go back to her room for another wondrous night of lovemaking.
"You're right, Cara," said Tim as they had left that Friday for the conference, "this is not Jessica's fodder for gossip. She really does love you." He and Jessica had become good friends on the first night of his return when he had shown his support for their relationship by suggesting that they plan their evenings without him. "I prefer to spend my time alone," he explained to Mrs. Anderson. Although the two women were grateful to Tim for enabling them to spend their evenings in privacy, they still missed the special daylight moments and long hours the weekend would provide.
On Saturday morning, Tim was departing for New York City at the same time that Jessica was leaving for the beach. "What a difference in lifestyles," he sighed. "You go to the beach and I go to the city. And on such a pretty August day. There's something wrong with this picture."
"Are you sure you don't want to stay and join us?" she asked teasingly.
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