Begin Again

by Sarah Sanders

  ******

  I don’t quite understand what is happening but suddenly Beth has become a very big part of my life. I’m not sure why she came the next day or why she took such good care of me. I don’t know why she makes sure I don’t mope.

  All through the day we text each other. It started the Monday after that fateful weekend. As soon as I had reached my office, Beth pinged me.

  Ah! Joyful Monday…do I dread thee or welcome thee? Whatever you have…I dare thee! 

  I smiled and responded with something equally inane. We ended up sending texts, touching base and sharing our feeling of the moment all through the day. Sometimes funny and absurd thoughts, sometimes anecdotes, irritations, frustrations…everything. Then it just became our thing each day.

  ******

  It’s been almost two months since Beth came into my life.

  Strange that I think of it as Beth coming into my life and not as David dumping me. There are moments when I think of the whole big being dumped fiasco, but those moments are few, infrequent and fleeting.

  I am caught up in the tornado of happy that is Beth. I’ve truly never been so happy or complete in my life.

  We meet most evenings for coffee or dinner. On weekends she shows up bright and early and then we take the day as it comes. Sometimes we just sit at our ends of the sofa and reading, both in our own worlds but together.

  I am not particularly a morning person – of sometime I just open the door and go back to sleep while she does whatever she does at those times. I sometimes think I should just give her a key to my house, but it feels weird. We watch concerts, go to museums, go for walks to the park, go for long drives, cook, talk, laugh, share.

  I discover that Beth is keenly interested in everything happening around. She is enthusiastic about going to poetry slams, pop-up events, wine tastings, farmers markets, zoos, petting zoos, animal shows, flower shows…just about everything.

  But interestingly, we find that she enjoys being a spectator while I am the one who likes to participate – even if I make an ass of myself. Looks like I have an adventurous streak, a devil-may-care attitude that I knew nothing about.

  For the first time in my life I am with a person who wants me to be just me, and I am just now discovering who ‘me’ is. There are no expectations. No judgements. No embarrassment. Just pure joy in living. In experiencing.

  It is suddenly like I am able to grab life with both hands and I have a person who is holding me through and holding on to me every step. She loves the enthusiasm and energy with which I embrace all new experiences. She enjoys my successful, unsuccessful and face-palm attempts at everything. She laughs with me but never at me.

  I feel I can let go of all ideas of who I ‘should’ be…whether those ideas came from others, from upbringing, from the need to be liked, from my own complexes…I can just let go of them. The feeling is incredible. I am soaring.

  I have never felt so connected to another person. This is the kind of couple hood that I had always dreamed about. Who knew that I’d find it with a friend? We are friends, right?

  The emotional fulfilment that this unnameable relationship with Beth gives me is what all my girlish dreams had defined as being in love.

  ******

  Weekends with Beth are getting harder and harder for me. I itch to touch her. I haven’t ever felt such a need to touch someone constantly.

  When I lie in bed at nights, I am repetitively assailed by those moments when she had responded to my kiss. When she had caressed my breast. I want to feel her lips and hands on me again. I am not quite sure what is happening with me, but I want her so badly. I see no reason to examine this need that I have for her.

  But I know something got to give.

  She is very careful about maintaining a physical distance. I guess when you’re gay you tend to be more careful to not give the wrong impression to your new straight friend.

  But I want to get the wrong impression.

  There are all these times when I catch her looking at me with longing. With a yearning. She wipes out the look quickly, but I know what I have seen. I’ve seen her eyes darken when she looks at me. I’ve seen her eyes drop to my lips. I’ve seen her checking me out appreciatively. I often see her cruising me as I walk towards her.

  I hoard these times. I store these moments. I memorise her expressions. I carefully pick them and revisit them…relive them…when I am alone.

  I don’t want to jump to conclusions but I do believe that Beth’s interest in me is beyond platonic. Beyond friendship. It is not only reconnecting with an old high school acquaintance.

  Sometimes I wonder if I am imagining all this as a salve for my battered ego at being dumped. It is weird, but in the aftermath of GooFace David’s cruelty in the way he ended with me, it is my ego that is more hurt than my emotions. Did I ever really love him?

  I know I wasn’t head-over-heels with him but I think that is how I am built. I am really not a head-over-heels kind of girl. I have never been that. I have never felt that.

  Maybe because I have romanticised and idealised the idea and concept of love so much in my head that I have sublimated all my head-over-heels emotions into the image…the picture…I have constructed in my head about love. Nothing has ever come close to that in real life.

  But things with Beth are different. She makes me feel different. She gives me a sense of esteem. A value. She gives me sense of freedom. Of personhood that I have never got before.

  She gives me a feeling of being valued.

  Without having made a move on me, without having touched me, she makes me feel more desired than anyone else ever has. She makes me feel beautiful. She makes me feel attractive. She makes me feel sexy. She makes me feel all this without a word…without a touch…with only a look.

  I wonder whether I am wishfully imagining these things or whether I am really seeing what is there. I know I don’t want to do what I’d done that first night again. But I think that even then my body was probably telling me something that the rest of me has been slow to catch up on. I find her irresistible.

  And I don’t want to resist.

  I don’t want to have to resist.

  ******

  I am in the midst of all sorts of introspection about Beth.

  I have had close friendships with women and men. I still have close friendships with people of both genders. I am friendly and have long-term relationships. Some of my friends date back to play school.

  While I may not be in daily or even regular contact with my wide number of friends spread across the world – I am close enough to many, many people.

  For me everydayness is not as important as the emotion. I could be just touching base with someone even once in a year, but we pick up like no time has passed in between. Our feelings for each other remain constant and continuous.

  Clearly, I am more an emotion driven person than anything else – but like I said I am a committed person, but not exactly head-over-heels intense even in friendships.

  But I have never had the kind of reaction to anyone else as I have to Beth. The more I meet her, the more I hunger for her company. The more time we spend together, the more I fall into her intelligence, magic and enthusiasm for life. I can’t get enough of her.

  This was never the case even with the two disasters of my life – Rick and David. I was happy enough to meet them but needed breaks from them. Not so with Beth.

  I am also having a physical reaction to her which is completely out of my experience.

  I often feel a shiver skittering across me at her voice. When she sometimes touches me, a wave runs across my skin. When we touch while passing things to each other, my skin tingles. Sometimes my legs feel wobbly at the sight of her. I have butterflies in my stomach at the thought of meeting her. My hear hammers when I lay my eyes on her. A feeling of unabashed and uncontained excitement grips me when I’m on my way to meet her.

  I have never been attracted to women. Yes, I know when someone is good looking…lik
e, let’s say some of the actresses…but it is just passive knowledge that that person is good looking. But this intense urge for physical closeness is completely out of my realm of feelings.

  I start questioning my sexuality.

  I agonise for days.

  I examine what it means to me. With surprise I realise that I am not particularly bothered by labels about sexuality. I don’t give a damn about any of the burgeoning terms that are being introduced.

  I don’t have any need to ‘identify’ who I am.

  To me, a complete relationship is meant to make you feel good emotionally, physically, sexually and intellectually.

  I already have two of the four with Beth.

  Since the emotional aspect is of such high importance to me, it is little wonder that I am craving the physical and sexual aspects too.

  I’ve never had so many, such strong emotions churning within me for anyone. My emotions, while dependable and long-term have been fairly controlled. I do not have flights of highs and/or lows about anyone.

  I’m not sure about what is happening to me with Beth.

  It’s not my sexuality that needs introspection and examination…it is the emotions overpowering me that demand more attention.

  If I am behaving out of character, it is not about being attracted to a woman physically…it is about how deep my emotions are running for her.

  ******

  “…so I’m working on building 3D recognition techniques into electronics that will put an end to phishing, vishing and cyberstalking. If it is successful, we can even end the menace of children being groomed and lured using electronic media. In the next phase, I want to expand it to have more interconnectedness across all devices with the ultimate goal of ending human trafficking and kidnapping.”

  Beth’s work is fascinating. She is some sort of a genius.

  While still in college she invented a cell phone that did not need batteries. It was a solar charging device. She had also simplified and developed the machine such that it was guaranteed to work as perfectly as on the first day for thirty years.

  A leading mobile phone producer bought her patent for a whooping hundred million but never manufactured the phone. “They bought the patent to keep it from being manufactured,” she’d said wryly. “Think about it, if something doesn’t need batteries and works perfectly for decades, where will their continuing sales come from? There would be no year-on-year profit. Still, I made a lot of money,” she’d shrugged.

  She has Masters in three streams of engineering – mechanical, electronics and computers. And she has also built a neat nest egg.

  She pursued her ideas and soon had over a hundred patents to her name. Her work caught the eye of Radhika Rao, co-owner of Translink the biggest organisation in the world. They are into all sorts of aspects of the virtual world and are humongous.

  Radhika liked what Beth was doing and the way she thought, so she set up a pure R&D centre with Beth heading it.

  The gazillions that Translink has, makes funding easy. Besides the electronic world, Reeth Sharma, the founder and co-owner of Translink is deeply interested in renewable energy and water conservation. So a lot of research is also being done in those areas.

  It is a Saturday evening and we are chilling at my place. We’ve just had Chinese take-out for dinner and are lounging around sipping wine…rather, she is sipping wine and I am sipping apple juice.

  I shift my feet and groan sub-vocally. My feet are killing me. This godawful pain is one of the indicators of my period being around the corner.

  “Gimme your feet,” Beth says.

  “It’s okay, I’ll just take a couple of Tylenol,” I demur, though mentally I want to do nothing more than put my feet into Beth’s lap and have her massage them. I want her to touch me in any way…anywhere.

  My need for physical contact with her has become unmanageable. I am barely able to keep any physical distance from her.

  It is the greatest achievement of my will power in my whole life that I don’t continually touch her. I never imagined that I’d have to exert will power in this area because while I am okay with touching and being touched, I am not an extremely tactile person. I am moderate to low in that area.

  “Don’t make it a struggle…c’mon,” she grins, “you know you want to,” she adds in a ridiculous tone and voice.

  I giggle and shift so that I’m lying down with my feet in her lap. She rubs the sole of my right foot a few times and then starts massaging it. I moan softly with pleasure. I swear, at her very touch the pain disappeared and sparks flew up my leg straight to my groin.

  “Can I ask you something?” I ask.

  “Sure,” she says concentrating on my feet.

  “You’ve been spending all your time with me…taking care of me…don’t you have a girlfriend?”

  She looks up at me surprised but shakes her head, “No, I don’t.” There is a weird expression on her face as she drops her head down back to my feet. Again, I have a feeling that she is suppressing words.

  “What about that redhead at the bar?” I persist.

  “A colleague.”

  “How come someone as gorgeous and wonderful as you is single?” I dig.

  She shrugs, refusing to look at me. It’s a strangely adolescent gesture and an adolescent look. Like she’s trying her damnedest to hide something from me.

  I pull back my feet from her lap and sit up. I am close to her. Very close. She still doesn’t look at me.

  “Beth, do you like me?” I ask her softly.

  She looks at me with a false smile, “Of course, I like you,” she says quickly and heartily, deliberately not quite answering my question.

  But I refuse to play along. “Beth,” my voice has become husky, “do you like me like me?”

  She looks at me. Desire clear in her eyes. Her eyes drop to my lips briefly before coming back up to look into my eyes. I am sure my eyes are showing her my desire. Spilling it out to her. She licks her lips like they are suddenly dry and pulls her lower lip between her teeth.

  If I had any doubts earlier…I have my answer now.

  I move closer and place my hand on her face, cupping one side. “You know, I like you like you, Beth,” I whisper.

  She draws in a sharp breath. I can see a protest forming before she speaks and I cut her. “I’m not drunk this time. I am not in a bad place. In fact, I’m the happiest I have been in my whole life…and you’re the reason for it.”

  She is still speechless. I lean in. “Kiss me, Bethy,” I say. “Please,” I practically groan.

  She leans in and our lips touch…At last! She kisses me softly. Her lips moving over mine with exquisite tenderness. There is a reverence in the way she is kissing me. She licks my lower lip and draws it between her teeth, biting it gently and then sucking it. I moan moving closer to her.

  Her arm encircles my waist and the other hand goes to the nape of my neck. Her tongue seeks entry into my mouth and I gladly open it.

  The moment our tongues touch, I explode. I am on fire. I am pressing into her…kissing her like I have been offered ambrosia and I just cannot get enough.

  I break the kiss finally only when I need air. I find that I am sitting on top of her, straddling her. She is breathing as hard as I am, gazing up at me with wonder. “Wow,” she breathes.

  “Yeah, wow,” my voice is breathy. I go back for another kiss. I try to take it slower, but Beth’s need to kiss me cannot be contained. She totally owns me this time. Her hands slip under my tank top and my skin jumps at her touch.

  “Take me to bed, Bethy,” my voice is a cross between a whisper and a moan, “ravish me,” I lick her lips.

  I get off her and we make our way to the bedroom clumsily with me walking backwards and both of us unable to stop kissing. We make it to the bed and fall into it.

  Hands are in the mix. My hands are in Beth’s hair and her hands are under my shirt, lightly scratching my back, leaving lines of tingles shimmering down my back and lighting a fire low
in my belly.

  We break away momentarily. I pull my shirt over my head; Beth unbuttons my shorts pulling them down and I raise my hips to help her ease them away.

  I am lying in my scarlet lace underclothes. I wear lace, silk and satin bras and panties on the daily – yes, I am very girly.

  Beth’s breath catches as she looks at me. She draws a fingertip around the edges of my bra, sending shivers through me. My nipples harden in response to the light touch. They pebble with anticipation.

  I arch my back ever so slightly. She rubs her thumbs over my nipples and I whimper. Se tweaks my tits and I can’t take it anymore. I reach up and open the front hook of my bra to set my breasts free. She parts the cups and gazes at me with something akin to wonder.