Silence and the Word

by MaryAnne Mohanraj

  He slid forward, and his fingers found the moisture between her thighs. She had started masturbating again a few days ago, and had found that being pregnant made her wetter than she had ever been before. It had surprised her, and it seemed to surprise Gabriel too. He made a small sound, and his cock hardened. A finger slid inside her, curving upward to find that sweet spot—she had had to teach him where it was, but he had gotten so good at touching it, stroking it; and now his thumb had found her clit, was rubbing slickly over it; and Roshan’s mouth was at her neck, his lips leaving light feathery kisses over shivering skin, then sucking gently, his arms holding her as Gabe moved inside her, pushing her up and up, until she felt herself expanding, exploding, still held tightly in Roshan’s arms.

  When she came back to herself, she tilted her head back and grinned up at Roshan. “Hey—aren’t you supposed to be gay?”

  He smiled back at her. “What, I’m not allowed to help a little?” His expression softened, and his hand came up to stroke her long hair, fingers slipping gently through it. “It’s good to see you smiling, Shefali.”

  “You too.” A vast peace settled inside her as she turned back to Gabriel, who looked very uncomfortable, crammed into a corner of the backseat, with his cock still sticking out of his pants. “Hmmm…do you think we could… ?”

  Gabriel laughed. “I don’t think so. There’s just not enough room—not if I don’t want to squish the baby.” His hand came up to rest on her barely-rounded stomach—not pressing down, just resting gently there. “And we’re late, and we really ought to stop at a motel and shower if we don’t want your folks to know exactly what we were just doing. But if you’re okay for now, then I think I can wait. We were just messing around earlier, you know—killing time on the road. I’m not as sex-crazed as you think I am, you know.”

  Shefali grinned. “Uh huh.”

  “Are you okay, Shef? Really okay? Not just on an endorphin rush?” Gabriel kept his eyes locked on her, waiting for her answer.

  She felt fine—better than she had in a long time. She felt like she could cope with this baby; could maybe even cope with her parents. Shefali wasn’t sure how long the feeling would last; her mother had a way of making her feel twelve again. But with both of her guys there to help hold her up—to carry her through it—she thought she’d probably be okay, at least for now.

  Shefali reached out a hand and took Gabriel’s in hers. She squeezed it hard, and his face relaxed, the lines smoothing out. Then Roshan’s big hand came to engulf both of theirs.

  They stayed like that, despite the lateness of the hour and the discomfort of the cramped back seat, for just a little while longer.

  Kali

  So you’re walking up and down Telegraph, up and down, trying not to look like the new dyke in town, trying not to telegraph that you are fresh off the boat, innocent new meat just in from Indiana, come to the big city. Actually, the small city, to Berkeley in fact, because San Francisco is a little intimidating to start off with if you’re a twenty-two-year-old dyke who just came all the way to California to get laid because you have just been dumped by the only other lesbian in Franklin, Indiana and you just can’t take it anymore.

  The women certainly are pretty, in Berkeley, in the springtime. Campus chicks in blue jeans and T-shirts and bandanas; skin in shades you’ve never seen off a TV set. Lots of skin—they don’t seem to feel the cold that’s shuddering your skin. You are determined not to pull the sweatshirt out of your backpack, not to shiver in this dark green tank top with the scoop neck that shows your ample cleavage for the benefit of any cute chick who might happen to like tall redheads who probably still look like farm girls.

  You’ve been cruising Berkeley for weeks now. Days working over on Shattuck, over at the games store that seemed really surprised to have a woman actually want the job. Boys and their toys. Evenings on the street, up and down, occasionally smiling at a woman with short dark hair and long legs, the kind of legs that could reach back and wrap all the way around your neck as you bump and grind, oh yes. Smiling at her and she smiles back and your heart does the thump-thing and then she keeps going down the street, or asks you if you have the time and then keeps going and you’re back to walking the street again wondering where the hell women go to get laid in this town.

  Up past the hippie chicks, up past the man who tries to sell you beads for your hair at three times what it would cost in Franklin, all the way up to the campus, turn and start walking down again. Maybe it’s time to get up the nerve to go into the city, into the Mission, find one of those girl-gyms, those dyke-diners you keep hearing about, uh huh. You walk down past Cody’s, past Moe’s, hover in the window of the poster shop, scope out the new New-Age books at Shambhala.

  It sure would be a lot easier to walk into one of those diners with a beautiful woman on your arm, a pretty little thing like that dark-skinned girl behind the counter, the one with the long black hair braided down her back, with the tight white shirt that outlines breasts the size of softballs, the one walking out to take something out of a window, the one smiling at you through the glass. Right. And now she’s going to turn away or come to the door and ask if you wanted to actually buy anything or were just planning to hang out there and scare away the customers. You brace yourself, and then she stares at you real serious, and then she winks. Long and slow, and you can’t believe what you’re seeing, and you check to make sure you’ve got your pink triangle earring in where she can see it and oh yes, it’s there, and then she’s coming to the door and it’s “I get off in fifteen minutes. Want to buy me coffee?” and you are stumbling over yourself to say yes.

  Fifteen minutes and the coffee shop and her name all slide by in a blur—you’ve forgotten her name but you can’t admit it, so you just keep smiling and hope and pray that she doesn’t think you’re a total twit, a ditz, a baby dyke without a clue. After coffee you’re walking down the street and you tell her all about your last relationship and how bad it went, doing your damnedest to convince her of your dyke credentials until she grins and says “Hush—now is not the time” and then she pulls you into a doorway and starts kissing you. She is at least a foot shorter than you but she’s up on her toes and pulling you down with no hesitation and the kissing is easy, so easy and hot you’re melting into it and then the door you’re leaning on starts to open and you realize that that her hand is on the doorknob and her key is in the door and this is, of course, her door to her apartment and she’s taking you upstairs, woohoo!

  She kisses you all the way up three flights of stairs and her hands are all over you, over the tank, under the tank, under your bra to cup your breasts, squeeze your nipples, pull you up the last steps with her fingers tight on your nipples and her mouth latched to yours and you are tumbling into her apartment and closing the door with your bodies ’cause your hands are too damn busy to spare. She breaks long enough to turn on the light and light some candles and incense and turn off the light again and then you are falling to the futon in the living room, lit by candles, the room is full of candles and statues and flowers and incense. You’re a little dizzy but when she pulls off your shirt and bra and starts licking a nipple you have to know, you say “Hang on,” and “I hate to ask this” and “What’s your name again?” and wait for her to throw you out.

  She laughs instead, and says “Kali, my name is Kali” and then she gets this wide grin and lies back on the futon and says “Kali is a goddess, you know? Worship me… .” You’ve never touched a goddess before, but your mama didn’t raise no fools and so you skin you and her out of clothes as fast as you can, before she has a chance to take a proper breath or change her mind and then you’re kissing her. Sucking on her toes and calves and knees and thighs, up around her clit, up her curving stomach and softball breasts, down to fingers and up again, kissing and sucking and licking until your mouth is dry and her skin is wet and shaking in the wavering light of what seems a hundred candles.

  You worship her with mouth and hands, you slide a finger
in her cunt and then another until they are slick and salty and you bring them up to your mouth and taste them, lick them with Kali’s eyes on you, glittering, and she breathes “More” and you go down, you breathe on, lick and suck her clit, slide two fingers in again, thrust back and forth and she is writhing beneath you, she is silent but her body speaks. It whispers and moans and whimpers and screams and she is almost almost there and you can’t quite do it, you can’t get her there, you can feel the crest waiting there, the last lap, the last mile and you’re not going to make it, you’re not good enough and you are ready to lay your head down on her stomach and cry if she will permit it.

  You stop, removing the once-thrusting, now-sore fingers. She whimpers, and your stomach churns and you take a deep gasping breath. Kali opens her eyes then and sees you and she is not angry. She is twisted in on herself, she is bathed in sweat, dripping in the candlelight and she says, “It’s okay” and takes a deep breath and you can see that she is going to try to come down, to relax, to let it go and dammit, that is not good enough, you know you can do better than this and then inspiration hits. You slide back down, your mouth is on her again, on that sweet-salty mound, on that wet nubbin, and while you lick and she convulses silent again, starting the climb again, your hand reaches out and grabs a candle.

  Your eyes are closed against her skin but you can feel the slim, cool shape of it, bubbled with old dripped wax, long and hard and untiring. You wave it in the air to put it out, you wait for it to cool as your tongue tickles and touches, twisting to penetrate every crevice, every inch it can reach and when it is exhausted, when it feels that it is about to break in two, to shatter into a thousand pieces, that is when you reverse the shape in your hand and slide it into her, into her dripping cavity, sliding it smooth and hard into her and Kali gasps beneath you and her hands come down to your shoulders, her fingers dig into your skin and you know that you guessed right. You push and pull, thrusting hard and fast until finally, finally her back arches, her hips convulse and she freezes still and silent for an endless aching time and even if your fingers and tongue fall off you are not going to move one inch in the wrong direction. And then she relaxes.

  She pulls you up, after a time, and you make love in all the clever ways that two young dykes in the prime of their strength and stamina can, and she discovers how easily you come, how even nipple-sucking can do it, and she says that she might forgive you for that someday. Hours pass, and the candles are long burned out, and you are settling down to sleep but can’t quite get comfortable, there’s a lump, a bump in the sheets under your hip and you realize that you’ve left the candle there and are surprised it’s still in one piece and you reach down and pull it out and in the thin moonlight you realize that it wasn’t a candle after all.

  A statue of a goddess, a naked goddess, and the bumps you took for dripping candle wax are breasts and curved hands, many hands, and you catch your breath, wondering if you have committed some form of sacrilege, if Kali will recoil in shock, horror, dismay and she must see it in your eyes because she laughs and laughs and eventually, gently, explains that she is not religious, definitely not Hindu, that her family was in fact Catholic.

  She herself had turned atheist long ago, and got the statues from the New-Age bookstore for free. She tells you that she only kept them around ’cause they were pretty and they seemed to turn on the chicks and you blush and are grateful for the thinness of the light. She also said that even if she did believe in the goddess, she didn’t think She would have minded being deep inside a woman’s wet cunt. Then she confessed a secret, that Kali was only her work name after all, that it impressed the bookstore clients. Her true name was something she took seriously, and she never told it to lovers unless they stayed around long enough for breakfast. And when you’d gotten over being embarrassed and amused and slightly shocked, you told her that you thought you could probably arrange that.

  catch me if you can

  limb-tangled, sweat-rank, they speak in whispers:

  a haze of wedding white mosquito netting

  lies across their vision, swelling belly, his hand

  pressed against her flesh, legs spreading

  to deliver one, two, a dozen—fecund

  explosion, and oh, the joy, the terror; her heart

  thumps, hard. it waits only for their readiness.

  there are broad bright rooms, towers too,

  dream-spires reaching up, high-windowed,

  stained crimson cobalt silvered starred

  broken, ivy-tressed, rose-thorned, falling

  down the stone wood glass walls, to the

  lakeshore, the forest verge, the pulsing

  beat of a screaming city, feet quick quick

  on the summer hot pavement, breaking

  fast on a cold morning, chai steaming,

  two pairs of hands clasped around

  a single cup. the house is infinitely large,

  refuses to be bound to a single location.

  she laughs, and agrees—there is no need

  to decide right now, he with one hand tracing

  a line along her cheek, another pressed

  against her heart, that infinite expanse—

  no end to her love, so why should

  there be limits at all? he says, i want

  to live forever in your arms. as quick

  as breath, their doom spoken, aloud.

  one day they will die, will rot; each

  day she wakes, aware of the body’s new

  creakings, the encroaching layers of flesh,

  the hardening habits of mind, practice

  giving rise to both rigidity and skill. she

  does not regret the years, she is calmer,

  more joyful with every passing breath, eager

  to see what comes next, what possibilities

  open (her thighs, her arms, her heart)

  when only forty, thirty, twenty years

  are left to you. she does not know it yet,

  but this is why she will leave him, in the end.

  mortality does not frighten her, and he,

  he is small and hurt and terrified, howling

  into the unforgiving darkness,

  lost and lost and lost.

  Wild Roses

  It started with a phone call. Sarah had been expecting the call, but it was still a shock. She had learned over the last few years, as friends succumbed to old age, and to one or another disease, that there were limits to how well you could prepare for death. It was usually cancer, of one type or another. Cancer had gotten Daniel, too. It was hard when it was someone you’d loved.

  “He’s gone.”

  “I’m so sorry, Ruth.”

  “Can I come out? Tonight?”

  “Of course.”

  “The next flight down arrives at 8:30.”

  “I’ll meet you at the airport.”

  Sarah put down the phone, meeting Saul’s calm eyes as he walked out of the studio, wiping paint-stained hands on his pants. She bit back brief irritation at his calm. He and Daniel had never quite gotten along, though they had tried, for the sake of the women. Saul had been quietly pleased when Daniel’s career had taken him to Seattle, though not so pleased when Ruth joined him there, a few months later. Saul had locked himself up in his studio and painted huge dark canvases, ugly compositions in a dark palette: black, indigo, midnight blue. But Ruth had been happier with Daniel than she had ever been with them, happier married and with children on the way. Eventually Saul had bowed to that truth.

  Old history.

  Sarah said, “I’ll pick her up. You go ahead and finish.”

  Saul nodded, stepping forward and leaning down to kiss her forehead gently. “You okay?”

  Sarah managed a smile. “I’ll be all right. Ruth didn’t sound good, though.”

  “No.” He opened his arms then, and she stepped into them, heedless of drying paint. She rested her cheek against his chest, wrapped her arms around him, desperately glad that h
e was healthy. Some arthritis, a tendency to catch nasty colds; nothing that couldn’t be fixed by keeping him out of the studio for a few days. After this many years, she could manage that, at least, even if she had to scold like a shrew to do it. She rested in his arms a moment, breathing in his scent, cinnamon sugar under sharp layers of paint and turpentine. He kissed the top of her head, and then let her go.

  “I’ll make up the bed in the guest room,” she said.

  Saul nodded, turned, and walked back into the studio, quietly closing the door behind him.

  Sarah waited at the Alaska Airlines gate window, her face an inch or two from the cold glass. It was raining outside, a cold hard rain, typical for Oakland in January. The baggage handlers drove their little carts back and forth, luggage covered by dark tarps. The plane had been delayed, leaving her with nothing to do but wait and remember.

  The last time she had made love to Daniel, they had been alone. He was leaving in the morning; Ruth had already said what they all suspected would only be a temporary goodbye. Sarah knew her own would be a final one, and so she had taken this last night alone with him. She had planned for it to be tender, sweet and slow. That had seemed appropriate for a goodbye. But instead, Sarah had found herself biting his neck, raking his back, riding him until they were both exhausted, until she was trembling with tiredness. Daniel hadn’t been gentle with her either, had dug his fingers into her ass, had bitten her breasts. They had left marks on each others’ bodies, dark and brutal and bruised. They had kissed until their lips were puffed and sore. And it was only in the morning, with the long night giving way to a grey sunrise, that their pace had slowed, that they had settled into a hollow of the bed, his hand stroking her dark hair, her fist nested in the curls on his chest. He had asked her then to come with him to Seattle. She had let silence say no for her, and he hadn’t asked again. Sarah had gone to Saul the next night with Daniel’s marks on her body. He had been gentle with her that night, and for some time afterward.