by Ronica Black
“You look…pretty strong to me.” Janice heated at her own words, and when Carla looked at her quickly with obvious surprise, she glanced away and cleared her throat.
“So, is this going to be okay?” She busied herself smoothing down the homemade quilt on the bed. “You’ve got a nice queen-size mattress, an empty closet.” She crossed to the dresser. “Plenty of drawers. And,” she picked up a remote control, “your own remote for the ceiling fan and light. If that doesn’t absolutely blow your mind and sell you on the place, I don’t know what will.”
Carla laughed. “It’s pretty impressive, I must say.”
“I aim to please.”
“Yes, it seems you do.”
They fell silent and Janice swore she could literally feel the temperature in the room rise.
“You have your own bathroom,” she said, breezing past her. “It’s here.” She turned on the light in the bathroom which was next to her own bedroom and across from the study. “There are towels and washcloths and all kinds of toiletries in the drawers and under the sink. I even have new toothbrushes should you need one.”
“Wow, okay.” She leaned against the doorjamb to the study. “This is great, Janice, thank you.”
Janice shrugged, hoping she came off as casual and relaxed when she was anything but. “I have the room and you need a quiet place, so it works out. It’s no trouble.”
“Still, it’s very kind of you to have me.”
There was another pause and this time Carla glanced away. “What’s in here?” She stood in front of the study.
“Oh, that’s my study.”
“Can I…go in?”
“Sure.”
Carla walked in and Janice trailed behind.
“This music.” She grinned. “I like it.”
“Really?”
“That surprises you?”
She shrugged. “A little.”
“I can appreciate vocal jazz,” she said, looking around. “Especially the classic stuff. Only, I like to take mine all alone, in the dark, and sometimes with a nice glass of wine.”
“Alone,” Janice said softly. Maurine had mentioned her breakup some months ago, but Janice had assumed she’d been dating since then. Was she? She felt a twisting tightness in her gut at the possibility.
“Here lately, yes,” Carla said.
“You’re—not seeing anyone?”
She let out a short laugh. “Uh, no.” Then she quickly changed topics. “Great posters,” she said, taking in all the vintage movie posters Janice had collected and framed. “You’re a classic sci-fi movie buff. How did I ever forget that?” She moved to the framed Frankenstein movie poster. “And, yes. I remember now. It all started with Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. Your all-time favorite book. You read that and thus began your lifelong obsession with Gothic literature. And from there you got into the classic Frankenstein films and fell in love with the old horror and sci-fi flicks.” She sank her hands into her back pockets as she studied the Bride of Frankenstein poster. The movement caused her muscles to flex beneath her tanned skin. Janice felt her pulse beat in her neck, and for a second what she was seeing before her seemed surreal. Carla was in her study, scantily clad, deeply tanned and slightly moist with sweat, which set off the cologne she always wore. But tonight, it smelled a little different, and Janice knew it was probably because it had mingled with her perspiration as well as her pheromones for hours, all day long, in the heat and in the sun. Now her skin was coated with their heavenly mixture and Janice wanted to know what that mixture would taste like if she put her mouth there, in the crook of Carla’s neck, where the essence of her collided.
Would it taste like heaven? Or would it be more primal and taste more like a nectar she desperately needed to survive?
“Janice?”
Carla was looking at her, obviously having said something.
“Hm?”
“You okay?”
“I was just amazed that you remembered all that.”
“I always found your interests a bit fascinating,” she said. “You were so different from Maurine. You were…deeper. More introspective. And you thought about things a lot. Big things. Like why we exist and what does it all mean. I remember one time, we were lying out under the stars back behind Grandma Betty’s house, and Maurine had gone in for something, and you told me the universe was infinite. That it went on forever.” She smiled and moved her gaze from the poster back to her. “I didn’t sleep peacefully for weeks after that.”
“What?” Janice laughed. “Why?”
“Because knowing that scared me to death. How could something just go on and on and never end without anything beyond it or outside of it? Meaning that there is nothing else. Nothing. Just fucking space. The concept of that, of realizing that there probably isn’t a God, not as we perceive or understand God to be, scared me. It still does.”
Janice just stared at her, awed by the way her mind worked.
“You had thoughts like that then?”
“Uh-huh.”
“I didn’t know,” she said. “I wish I had.” A brief flash of memory came, and she saw Carla lying next to her on a blanket out under the stars. She was smiling and pointing at the sky. “I remember now,” she said. “We used to lie out under the sky a lot during the summer months. You loved it. And you would beg Maurine and me to go out with you. I even started calling you Stargazer.”
Carla seemed touched. “Yes.”
“Why did we stop doing that?”
“You guys grew up. Moved on to bigger and better things.”
She crossed to the drafting table and once again changed topics. “What’s this? You paint, too? Now, that I didn’t know.”
“Just ceramics mostly. It relaxes me.”
She knelt to examine the knight she’d been working on.
“There’s a lot of detail. Looks pretty tedious.”
“It is.”
“That relaxes you?” She straightened.
“Believe it or not.”
“Must be the focus,” she said, moving on to the books on her bookshelves. “Probably takes a lot of that to paint so intricately. But I’m sure that’s what keeps your mind off other things.”
She was still so observant. Insightful. “It does.”
She turned to face her. “Do you have anything finished you can show me?”
“Sure.” She led her back into the living room and into the adjoining dining room. She used it as a den and furnished it with two large leather chairs flanked by end tables, a coffee table, and numerous shelves where she had a lot of her work displayed. She switched on the lamps and Carla went straight for the shelves and examined her completed chess sets.
“These are incredible,” she said. “Can I pick them up?”
“Sure.”
She held up piece after piece, examining the details of the hand carved ceramics.
“What a difference,” she said. “From the white to this. You must get such a rush when you finish one. To see all that color and shine and the absolute perfection in detail. I can see why you like doing this so much. You’re very good.”
“Thanks.” She was a little overwhelmed at her admiration. She was a little overwhelmed at everything.
Carla smiled at her. “There’s so much more to you than I ever realized. Where have you been hiding all these years? And more importantly, why have you been hiding?”
“I—”
“It doesn’t matter. I know now and I plan on exploring all of your layers.” Her eyes danced and Janice swooned. “If that’s okay with you, that is.”
Her mind once again failed her, overloaded with both panic and excitement. She said what she’d already said a few times before. The only word she could think of and possibly mutter coherently.
“Sure.”
Chapter Nine
Carla ran the towel through her hair one last time before she finger-combed it in front of the bathroom mirror. The shower had felt wonderful after the long, hot day, most o
f which she’d spent in the sun with Erica and her boys. It was late, and though she’d arrived at Janice’s exhausted, she now felt refreshed and for some reason seemed to have the elusive energy that had been evading her, and she knew she wouldn’t be able to settle down to sleep anytime soon.
She finished with her hair and rolled her two favorite colognes on her wrists and neck. Their scents were both unisex and meant to be worn alone. But she’d found, by accidentally applying one over the other one crazy morning getting ready for work, that she liked them best combined.
Why am I putting them on now when I’ll be going to bed soon?
She studied her reflection, curious at both the newly present energy and her choice to put on the cologne. Any answers, however, were quickly ignored as she focused on her gray cotton shorts and matching soft gray bra. They were a sleep set she’d bought at a popular lingerie store, and she wore them every night. But given her circumstances at Maurine’s, where anyone could walk in at any moment, she’d thought it best to wear a T-shirt over the bra. Now, with Janice, she did the same, but she wasn’t happy with the way it looked. She picked at it, then fingered her hair again and then caught herself and sighed.
Why am I so worried about how I look?
And, for that matter, how good I smell when I’ve just stepped out of the shower?
The reason, she was reluctant to admit, was probably still sitting in the living room where she’d left her and probably still looking girl-next-door gorgeous in a worn, paint-stained pair of blue jeans and a body-hugging T-shirt.
Yes, she’d noticed. She’d always thought Janice beautiful, so that wasn’t anything new. But that had been before, when she’d seen Janice through a filter, like a thick screen on a window. A screen that long-time family friendship had erected, a screen she’d never been aware was even there. That screen had kept her from seeing the details, the layers, and the depth of this woman.
Now that filter was dissipating, and with every blink of her eyes, she was seeing more and more. And what she was seeing was leaving her mesmerized.
Her jaded attitude toward love and relationships didn’t seem to be stopping her. Nor did the very real possibility that Janice was straight, like she’d always known her to be, thereby dampening any notions that she was somehow suddenly feeling otherwise for Carla.
All she could think about was the way Janice had looked at her in the church. Under the tree. And tonight, on the porch. There was something there. Something different. Something more.
Maybe Janice was seeing her differently now too.
Oh God, what a thought.
She killed the light, needing to move, to walk, to go. She padded into the living room intending to tell Janice good night so she could go to bed and feign an attempt to read until her eyes could no longer remain open. But that idea went right out the window when she entered from the hallway.
Janice was curled up on the end of the couch in the dim lamplight, holding a glass of red wine. Another full glass sat on the coffee table next to a plate of cheese and crackers.
“I thought you might be hungry,” she said. Her thick auburn hair was down around her shoulders, rather than in the ponytail she’d sported earlier, and her eyes, which were a crisp blue-green, reflected in the light. Despite their cool, crisp color, however, they seemed to be giving off waves of heat, like the waves of heat she often saw as a distant blur on a long stretch of road in the Arizona summer.
“It’s probably been ages since you’ve last eaten.” She gave her a soft smile, and though Carla recognized her gentle, genuine concern, she was too caught up in looking at her through the new filterless window to pay attention to anything else.
Her features were fine and delicate-looking, making Carla want to lightly touch her face, to run her fingertips along her beautiful brow and high cheekbones, and then down to her lovely rose-colored lips. How would she react to her touch? Would she close her eyes? Would she sigh, completely overcome? Would she open her eyes and part her lips, longing for her kiss?
“Or maybe just some wine?” She stood and held up the other glass from the coffee table.
Carla nearly backstepped, so slammed with sudden desire she couldn’t respond to her.
Janice, too, had also changed into sleepwear, most notably a tight-fitting, virtually see-through tank top. And somewhere below that, were a patterned pair of sleep pants.
She forced herself to stare at her forehead, for nowhere else was safe. Not her fiery eyes or her beautiful face. She just focused on her forehead and tried not to think about the visible weight and fullness of her breasts or the hint of pink from their circular centers.
It has been way too long since I’ve seen a nude woman.
She let that excuse bounce around her mind for a few moments, hoping it would suffice and explain why she’d just about been knocked off her feet. It really had been a long while since she’d been with a woman. But was that really the only reason why she was reacting so strongly? Or was there something more? Like maybe Janice herself?
“Carla?”
She snapped back to reality and tried to recover with a quick smile as she took the offered glass. She sat on the love seat perpendicular to the couch and took a few swallows.
“Mm, thank you,” she said. She helped herself to a cracker with cheese. Janice sat on the end of the couch closest to her and watched her eat.
Carla avoided eye contact, wondering why Janice would wear something so provocative. Surely, she wouldn’t have worn something like that to tantalize her, would she? She’d told Janice she wasn’t dating, so she knew she was probably lonely, and more than likely sex-starved, right? But even if Janice was attracted to her, her wearing something as revealing as that seemed a little forward and risqué for her. She knew Janice to be quiet, more reserved, more of a romantic. Maurine was always the wild one.
“So, you like my sets?” Janice asked.
Oh, hell yes.
Wait.
What?
Carla coughed, having swallowed her wine wrong as she realized Janice was asking about something other than her breasts.
“Sorry?”
“The chess sets.”
“Oh, yes. Very much.” She gulped her wine like she was dying of thirst. She nearly finished the glass.
“I’ll go get us some more.” Janice headed into the kitchen.
Calm down. You aren’t exactly sure what’s happening or why she’s wearing what she’s wearing. It’s not a good time to assume anything.
Janice smiled when she returned and poured Carla another glassful. She left the bottle open to breathe and sat and crossed her legs. She sipped her wine and Carla took several more swallows from her own glass and took in the quaint and cozy living room. The colors were deep red and gold, and they were shown off nicely with throw pillows, artwork, and various other items throughout the room. It was tasteful and both warm and welcoming.
A lot like Janice herself was.
Warm. Janice is warm. I’m warm. Yes, I’m feeling warm.
She didn’t drink often, and she’d forgotten what a lightweight she was. Nevertheless, the warmth was leading to relaxation and that felt good. Especially after the week she’d had.
“I like this house better,” Carla said, recalling the one Janice had shared with her ex-husband, Chuck. It had been larger and more modern, but this one had Janice’s influence. Janice’s touch. “It’s more you.”
“Thanks, I like it, too.”
“I can tell,” Carla said. “It’s nice, seeing you so content.”
“Thank you,” she said, obviously touched. “I am quite happy now.”
Why is that, I wonder.
She drank more wine. “You know, a lot of women would probably be depressed after what you went through with the divorce and then being on your own and everything. But you don’t seem to have gone that route.”
“No, I didn’t. And you don’t seem as though you have either.”
Carla felt the sting at the reference to
her relationship and Janice must’ve seen it.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to upset you,” she said.
“No, it’s fine. It’s just…I was never depressed because I was too hurt and too angry. And once those feelings passed, I think I was just so relieved that they were gone and so relieved that she was gone and that the whole thing was over that I just moved right on. I just focused on my life and on my future.”
“She…cheated?”
Carla looked at her. “I thought you knew.”
“Maurine said your relationship had ended. She didn’t say more, and I didn’t press.”
“She probably didn’t know yet herself. I didn’t tell her the entire story until everything was over and Megan was gone for good. That, unfortunately, took some time. We were tied together in some financial aspects and with our home. And, she, for a time, tried to convince me to give her another chance. But I wasn’t interested, even if she really did regret her affair and was willing to change. I decided then that I’m done with love.”
“Done with love?” She shifted as if uncomfortable. “That sounds a little extreme.”
“It’s where I am. To think about falling that deeply again for someone scares me.”
“It could happen though,” Janice said. “You’ve considered that, right? That your feelings may change. If you met someone…who…someone special.”
Carla stared into her wine as her mind tried to explore the reasons Janice might have in asking her these questions. But her need to shield herself overshadowed her curiosity into Janice’s possible motives.
“I’m not saying it can’t happen, I just—I’m not sure how I would handle it if it did. Love and relationships… Let’s just say I’m not holding out any hope where those two things are concerned.” She sighed.
“I understand. You’ve been through a lot. It must’ve been really hard.”
Carla laughed a little, feeling the wine full on now. “Not any harder than it was for you, I’m sure. We both got the shit end of that stick it seems.”
“I wasn’t hurt, though. Not like you.”
“But he…had an affair, didn’t he?”