Warm November

by Kathleen Knowles

  Hayley snuck out of bed to run to the bathroom. She was pleasantly sore in some spots, and she was euphoric. This was actually real. When Merle had made love to her, she’d never experienced that kind of touch; it was tender but firm, gentle but assertive too. She hated to compare it to sex with Howard, but that was the point. There was no comparison; it was completely different. Hayley supposed that had more to do with her psyche than with anything else. It helped that she was genuinely and profoundly aroused. She replayed their lovemaking in her mind, and her heart and her ego swelled as she thought about making Merle come.

  She slipped back into bed as quietly as she could, wide-awake and craving that touch again. Merle’s magic touch. She smiled in the dark and ran her finger down Merle’s spine, probing between her butt cheeks gently. Merle stirred in her sleep, and Arthur snuffled from somewhere on the floor.

  Oh, God, Arthur. They’d made a headlong dash for bed, and it had barely been seven in the evening. She ought to get up and let him out, poor guy. She swung her legs over the side of the bed and began to pull her jeans on, then felt a warm hand on the small of her back.

  Merle whispered, “What’s the matter?”

  “Arthur. I’m going to let him out.”

  “You don’t have to. I did a couple hours ago.”

  “You did? Was I asleep?”

  Merle moved over and wrapped an arm around her waist. “You were. Three or four orgasms will do that to a woman.” She dipped her hand mischievously into Hayley’s crotch, tugging on her pubic hair.

  Hayley was getting turned on again. She dropped her jeans on the floor, flung her legs back up into bed, and grabbed the covers to pull up over them. It was so warm and comfortable in Merle’s arms yet so arousing.

  “I’m awake now. I could go again.” Hayley spoke into the hollow of Merle’s throat.

  “Is that right?” Merle asked, her hands moving over her body.

  “Yes. It is.” Hayley moved sensuously, her body anticipating what was to come.

  Merle rolled over and pulled Hayley on top of her, stroking from her neck to her thighs. “I have an idea,” she said, continuing to stroke her. “Sit up.”

  Hayley obeyed. Her wet pussy rubbed over Merle’s body.

  Merle gripped her butt and said, “Now scoot up and get your legs on either side of my head.”

  “Okay.” Hayley did as she was told.

  “Now hold on to the headboard and just, well, sit on my face.”

  Hayley laughed but she did as ordered. When Merle’s hands gripped her ass and Hayley felt her tongue on her sensitive flesh, she stopped laughing. Her legs jittered and flexed as Merle’s mouth and tongue worked on her, first hard and fast, then light and slow, over and over.

  “Oh. God!” The pleasure was nearly unbearable. She came, the contractions of her orgasm reverberating down her legs all the way to her feet. She let go of the headboard and collapsed into Merle’s arms.

  “Like that?” Merle asked, her voice tender and amused.

  “I can’t even describe how that feels.”

  “Don’t try. That’s why they’re called feelings.”

  Hayley shoved her a little but ended up kissing her instead.

  *

  The next day, they walked up Bernal Heights Boulevard, hand in hand with Arthur trotting alongside, his leash in Hayley’s other hand. They didn’t say very much. Merle’s head hummed with fatigue. It was a major undertaking just to go out for a walk with Arthur. She desperately wanted to just be horizontal for the rest of the day. Horizontal with Hayley, of course, but that was the problem. In the bright midday sun, things looked much different.

  It’s always nice when your fantasies come true and reality exceeds imagination, but reality is something far more complicated. Also, be careful what you ask for, because you may get it. Even if the voice asking is unconscious.

  Merle squeezed Hayley’s hand and smiled at her every so often. Hayley beamed back at her, her eyes sleepy and her smile lazy and relaxed. One of Merle’s college buddies had christened that the well-laid look. Hayley surely had it. She supposed she did too. They’d gotten very little sleep, but somehow, substituting sex for sleep worked out okay.

  In between the sexy little smiles and the warm hand squeezes and the tingling in her crotch, Merle thought about regret. Along with its cousin, guilt, it was her least favorite emotion.

  Now what? This wasn’t a question Merle was prepared to ask or to answer. It was her experience that the first time for anything made a huge impression on a person. Make that the first time of sex with a woman, and the scale of the impact was upped exponentially. Merle hoped Hayley wasn’t in love with her but merely in lust. For the younger version of the newly minted lesbian, lust would easily equate to love. For the more mature woman, who the hell knew for sure, but Merle hoped it wouldn’t be the same.

  The old phrase “the heat of the moment” floated through Merle’s mind. They had certainly shared a moment, as well as heat, and it traveled from Hayley’s hand to hers, up her arm to her brain and through the rest of her.

  But was either of them truly ready to jump into a relationship? Merle thought for herself, anyhow, the answer was no. Kay hadn’t been gone that long. She’d barely processed their breaking up. It had to be the height of stupidity to start another relationship before the old one was truly done. True, Kay was gone, for good, it seemed, but Merle still felt her presence like the toxic cloud left over from a chemical spill. It wasn’t really over for her, and she didn’t know when it would be or when she would be ready to dive into the dating pool again.

  There was also this sticky little detail of Hayley and her living together. It was like they were in a relationship already. That staggered Merle. They’d already begun behaving almost exactly like they were a pair of cohabiting lovers. And then they’d stirred sex into the mix. Voilà. They were a couple walking their dog on Bernal Hill on a sunny September Saturday afternoon.

  Except…this wasn’t right. It was completely wrong. It was a huge minefield. Merle’s barely functioning brain struggled to process her feelings.

  “What are you thinking?” Hayley’s playfully voiced question jolted Merle out of her reverie.

  “Ah, um. Nothing. Just that it’s a beautiful day and you’re a beautiful woman. It’s lovely to be in San Francisco.”

  Hayley grinned and squeezed her arm.

  All true enough, but Merle hoped that her lack of complete honesty wouldn’t show on her face.

  “Really? I was thinking about last night.”

  “Were you then? What do you think?” Merle asked the question automatically but was terrified to hear the answer.

  Hayley grabbed Merle’s arm and turned her so they were face-to-face rather than side by side. She kissed her, then held her head between her hands.

  “I am never ever, as long as I live, going to forget it. There aren’t enough superlatives to describe how I feel. How it felt. That was the single most phenomenal, miraculous, amazing, ecstatic experience of my life. That’s what I think.”

  “Ah.” Merle tried to calibrate her smile to appropriately sunny because she feared her face would mirror what she felt inside, which was “Uh-oh.” She said, “Me too.”

  Hayley squeezed her arm and they continued their trudge up the hill.

  Merle liked being wanted. She’d missed the feeling for a long, long time. It was as gratifying as the actual sex they’d experienced. But that was the problem. She’d been seduced simply by a woman wanting her. And she wanted to be wanted. God, it had all felt so good.

  But the woman in question shared her home. Her bedroom was right across the hall from hers. It gave a whole new meaning to the question “Your place or mine?”

  If she gave in to her desire and spent another night with Hayley, she had no idea what would happen next. If she rejected her, it would surely hurt her feelings and cause discord between them. It was the old rock-and-hard-place scenario. Damned if you do and damned if you don’t. Scylla and Char
ybdis. It was hopeless.

  When they returned home, Merle said, “Look. I need to go to a meeting. Haven’t been to one in a while. Please don’t wait on me to eat dinner.”

  They’d awakened to the congealed remains of their enchiladas. Merle hated to waste food, but they were truly unappetizing.

  Hayley looked a little disappointed, but all she said was, “No problem. I’ll make something and you can eat when you get back.”

  “Okay. Great. Thanks.” She slunk out of the house feeling like a coward.

  *

  Merle slouched in her chair and fought to concentrate on what people were saying at the meeting. What was the topic? Fear. Right. Well, that was a good topic for her today. She didn’t feel like speaking up though. Her thoughts were way too personal. She’d save them for Sigrid and Clea. She’d come to the meeting to get a little perspective. In the past, when she was upset about something, attending a meeting had always worked. Not so much this time.

  She sat up straight and rolled her head to stretch her neck. It didn’t help that she was so tired, and sore. She ought to be happy, but she wasn’t. Yes, she was scared. Too scared to keep going forward with Hayley and too chicken to tell her the truth: they couldn’t be lovers. That was it. She could tell Hayley it was a fluke, a mistake, and they could go back to doing what they’d been doing before. That was the answer. Hayley could handle it. They weren’t sensitive young things anymore. They were mature women, adults with rational perspectives and life experience.

  The meeting was over and Merle had her plan. She remembered that she had wanted to talk to Hayley about the attraction she’d sensed between them. Okay, her attraction to Hayley. Well, guess they didn’t need to have that talk now. They were going to have to have a whole other talk. She drove home, her head spinning with dread.

  *

  Hayley assembled a few vegetables and some ground turkey into a casserole and looked at her email while it cooked. She couldn’t concentrate because she was so tired that she was wacky. But overriding her fatigue was the thought of Merle coming home and going to bed with her again. She didn’t know if that would happen though. After a quick kiss when they woke up, Merle had withdrawn. She’d acted as though nothing momentous at all had occurred between them. Her feelings about it obviously weren’t as strong as Hayley’s. She had to pull her socks up and get over it. Her damn inexperience with women was to blame. Sometimes adults fell into bed with each other without deep emotional attachment. No big deal.

  But it had been a very big deal to her.

  Hayley slammed her laptop shut and went back downstairs and turned the TV on. She needed something to take her mind off Merle. Once the casserole was done, she carried her plate to the living room and turned on a movie. She didn’t really care what it was about. As she watched it, she ate her dinner mechanically.

  She must have fallen asleep because the next thing she knew, someone was shaking her shoulder. She opened her eyes and saw Merle leaning over her.

  Hayley sat up, yawned, and shook herself awake. The sight of Merle woke her up quickly. Merle looked so good.

  She favored Hayley with a small, tired smile and said, “Hi. Sorry to wake you up. Your plate is about to slide off your lap. Arthur may have cleaned it for you.”

  Hayley looked down and, sure enough, her plate was as shiny as it would be after the dishwasher got through with it. Oops. Arthur wasn’t allowed human food. But Merle didn’t seem to care. She looked distracted.

  Hayley followed her into the kitchen and put her plate in the sink, while Merle served herself some casserole and sat down at the kitchen table. Uninvited, Hayley sat across from her.

  “How was your meeting?” she asked, studying Merle for clues about her emotional state.

  Merle took a little time to stir her plate of casserole, tasted it, then said, “Needs microwaved.”

  Hayley watched her perform her little cooking task, then resume her seat at the table. She took a bite and said, “Mmm. Good. Thanks for cooking.”

  Hayley was about to explode with frustration and leap across the table on top of Merle and ravish her. But she waited, as patiently as she could, for her to reply.

  “The meeting was good. I always get something out of a meeting when I go.”

  “That’s nice,” Hayley said, faintly, praying for Merle to kiss her or to at least start talking, preferably the former. But Merle stolidly ate the turkey casserole, and Hayley struggled to keep her cool.

  “Look, Hayley—” Merle put her fork down, dropped her chin to her chest and stretched her arms on the table on either side of her plate, and sighed deeply. At last she met Hayley’s gaze. “Let’s go sit in the living room.”

  They sat facing one another on the couch. “I don’t want to hurt you but…”

  Oh, boy, here it came, the “I don’t want to hurt you” speech. Hayley was so on edge, her head had started to pound. The next thing to come out of Merle’s mouth would be, “It’s not you, it’s me.” She so didn’t want to hear that.

  She narrowed her eyes and folded her arms. “I know what you’re going to say next.”

  “Would you at least hear me out?” Merle looked very tired and very unhappy, and Hayley had a smidgen of compassion for her, but just a tiny bit.

  “Sure. That’s fair.”

  “We shared something wonderful last night. I don’t remember ever having an experience quite like the one I had with you.”

  “Me too. I really like you. I think you already knew that but…” Hayley spoke in a small voice, about to start crying.

  “And that’s sort of the problem. As lovely as our encounter was, I can’t be in a relationship with you. In other circumstances, maybe…” Merle had ignored her confession and just kept talking.

  “What other circumstances?” Hayley was afraid she sounded whiny, but she truly wanted to know.

  “That didn’t come out right.”

  Merle took a deep breath. “Neither of us is in a space in our personal lives that can really accommodate a serious relationship. You’re just coming out, you’ve got a long way to go, and I don’t want to tie you down. I’m just out of the breakup with Kay, and I just can’t get involved with anyone right now.” She stopped talking and stared at Hayley, her eyes wide and sincere.

  “How do you know what I need to do?” Hayley asked, gritting her teeth.

  “Oops, that didn’t come out right either.”

  Hayley was swiftly losing any sense of feeling sorry for Merle. Instead she was getting really pissed off. All she saw was someone who regretted her encounter and was trying to weasel out of further involvement. This wasn’t turning out right at all. She inhaled and mentally crossed her fingers.

  “I’ve been agonizing for weeks about what to say to you. I’ve met a few women, sure. But none of them are anything like I want. They’re not even close. None except you.”

  “Me?” Merle looked stunned.

  “You. I didn’t want you to know how I was really attracted to you because I didn’t think you felt the same way. But I think I was wrong.”

  She paused to let her words sink in. “I really do like you. Very much.” Hayley tilted her head and looked at her like Arthur when he was trying to comprehend his human companion’s words.

  “Oh, gosh.”

  “Oh, gosh? Is that all you can say? I’ve never in my whole life had sex like we had last night. What about you, Miss ‘Oh gosh’? Are you going to tell me it wasn’t supposed to happen or that you didn’t feel anything?”

  “Er. No. What I mean is…What I want to say is I’m not emotionally available. I’m not sorry we slept together and…” Silent, she looked away, then said, “But you may decide you’re not even a lesbian.”

  Obviously their lovemaking hadn’t affected Merle nearly as dramatically as it had her. “That’s just great. You’ve made up your mind I may decide I’m not a lesbian. Boy, wouldn’t that be inconvenient since I’ve already gotten a divorce, uprooted myself, and changed my entire life. Yo
u have no idea what you’re talking about. You decided how you’d respond and how I would, but you forgot to ask me.”

  She leapt up from the chair and ran upstairs so Merle wouldn’t see her tears. She could hear Arthur whining and Merle’s murmured reassurances to him. Swell. She’d scared the poor dog.

  She flopped on her bed and cried. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d cried so hard. Certainly nothing Howard had ever done or said had made her that emotional. She was a mess. She didn’t know which was worse: Merle’s infuriating emotional remoteness or her own wildly emotional response.

  This lesbian thing wasn’t working out at all.

  She sat on the side of her bed, attempting to pull herself together. “Talk about acting like a teenager,” she said aloud. “I’m like an over-indulged fourteen-year-old who hasn’t gotten her way.”

  It helped a little to say it aloud, though her mind was still screaming, “No, no, no,” and her body still craved Merle’s touch. How could Merle be so cool about it? She hadn’t been cool last night—far from it. She’d called her “love” with such tenderness. Guess that was just part of the sex. The contrast between the Merle of the night before and the Merle of today stupefied and disoriented Hayley.

  She went to the bathroom and blew her nose and washed her face. She looked like crap, but that wasn’t a surprise. After she combed her hair and straightened her clothes, she took several deep breaths. She knew what she had to do. Her reaction was her own problem, not Merle’s.

  When she walked down the stairs, she could see the back of Merle’s head, neatly trimmed, shiny gray hair in place. The TV was off and she was staring at a distant corner of the room. Arthur was surely curled up next to her on the couch and her arm was around him.