She checked it. It glistened with something yellowish and seemed a bit pink by the fleshy part where her hand met the thumb.
She heard someone clearing their throat. “Good morning. Or rather, good 4:37 a.m., love.”
Gwen blinked again, taking in Charlotte perfectly now. Her roommate was standing over her, hands on hips and an amused expression on her face.
Gwen sat up properly. “Sorry. I… Why am I here? What’s wrong with my hand?”
“Answer to first question: you sleepwalked. Second question: when I came in here, you were finishing up slathering butter on it. Then you bit into it.”
“I WHAT?!”
Charlotte pressed her lips together, probably stifling a giggle. “I can’t think of any other way to explain the scenario, duck. I woke up because you were making a racket out here. I came to check you were okay, assuming you couldn’t sleep and got up for a glass of water.” She paused to offer Gwen a hand up. “When I got in here, you weren’t answering my questions and you acted like a zombie. Also, you were buttering up your hand and then tried to chew it.”
Gwen groaned. “Bloody hell. Sometimes when my depression really kicks in, I sleep a lot in the day. Then at night, I either can’t sleep at all or I have restless nights with nightmares and sleepwalking.”
She surveyed the kitchen in amusement. The tub of disappointing butter-impersonating spread was right on the floor where she’d been slumped. Next to it was a knife and, for some reason, three spoons. It was frightening to think that she was doing things in the kitchen while asleep. What if one night she thought she was cutting carrots and ended up chopping her fingers off? She needed those to draw, not to mention lovemaking. Oh, and the small issue of being able to make latte art on customers’ posh coffees!
She put her hand over her eyes and laughed at the absurdity of it all. Only then did she realise that it was the buttered hand. She now had spread on her eyebrows, making her laugh all the more.
Charlotte joined in before gently steering her friend to the kitchen sink and pointing at the soap. “Unless you’re going to eat that hand, I suggest you wash it, shug.”
“I will. My eyebrows, too! Tomorrow I think we should talk about locking up any knives and sharp utensils,” Gwen said with a tired giggle.
Better to laugh than cry, right?
“Sure, I can hide them. Or we’ll get a drawer that locks. Either way, it’ll be fine, I promise.” Charlotte smiled kindly. “For now, I hope you’ve finished with your sleepwalking. You need your rest, and I have to be cooking greasy sausages in a few hours and would like a little bit more sleep.”
Charlotte worked in a local pub, known for its cheap Full English in the morning and its extensive array of ales and beers throughout the rest of the day.
“Of course. You head to bed, mate. I’ll clean up in here. Sorry I woke you.”
Charlotte patted her shoulder. “It’s perfectly fine. Just try and get some sleep.”
Gwen gave her a nod and watched her leave the kitchen. Charlotte kept throwing surreptitious glances back at her. She was worried. That made sense; you would worry if your best friend was buttering their limbs at night. Or, as the case was here, if you thought they were about to lapse further into their chronic illness and wondering if this was the time they wouldn’t be able to get back up.
Gwen cleaned up the kitchen, then washed her hands and eyebrows with warm water and the kitchen’s lavender soap before heading back to bed. She didn’t believe in god, but she found herself praying for more sleep and less fear of that big, black ocean of nothingness. Also, for less buttering of body parts. After all, she needed that spread for sandwiches.
Chapter Twenty
The Cougar and Her Wild Thing
Aya stretched out in Susannah’s big bed. Her hand brushed the warmth Susannah had left on the expensive sheets. The owner of the sheets was in the bathroom now. Aya heard water running. She closed her eyes and exhaled blissfully, enjoying the soft bedding and the scent of Susannah, which enveloped the room.
When she opened her eyes again, Susannah was returning to bed. She was even more gorgeous without clothes on. Every scar, bit of cellulite, and mark on that feline, hourglass-shaped body paraded her life experience and the confidence with which she showed it off. She slid back into bed and laid herself on top of Aya in one lithe, precise move. Her head rested on Aya’s chest, right on top of the smoke creature tattooed between her breasts.
Aya started playing with Susannah’s silky hair, glad that the older woman couldn’t see her. She knew she was smiling like a teenager after a first kiss and wanted to appear a little more worldly than that.
“I’m glad you came back to my place tonight,” Susannah said. “I move between cities often, and it can be tricky to find new lovers right away, especially one as wild as you. Shame I didn’t find you back when I lived in Stoke-on-Trent. We could have enjoyed many more nights together by now.”
“Agreed. Still, I don’t mind the drive here from Stoke. I’d travel the whole damn country for a taste of you.”
Susannah craned her neck up to connect their gazes but stayed resting on her. Susannah’s warm weight, with every curve so very noticeable against Aya’s currently hypersensitive skin, felt too good to be true.
Aya tried to read her expression. Susannah looked pleased with her reply, showing a self-assured smirk and twinkling eyes.
“Keep saying such sweet things, and I’ll let you taste me again right away.”
“I’m ready if you are,” Aya said, leaning up on her elbows.
Susannah’s smirk grew. “Whoa. Slow down, wild one. We’re not in a hurry.”
Aya fell back onto the pillow, hoping she didn’t look embarrassed. “Right. No, of course not. Just proving my point.”
Susannah leaned down and planted a row of kisses on the tattoo along the alley between Aya’s breasts. Aya tried to relax her eager body, reminding herself that she wasn’t a seventeen-year-old virgin but an experienced woman.
She startled when Susannah’s mouth moved on to the flesh of her breasts and the scraping of teeth entered the kisses. Susannah only hummed in an amused manner at Aya’s jolting but did, eventually, stop the sharp kisses.
“I suppose I could come to you next time,” Susannah said, looking back up. The intense eye contact made Aya’s mouth go dry. Susannah, however, merely gave slow blinks of her blackened, long eyelashes. “Did you hear me, hot stuff? I offered to come to Stoke when we next have sex.”
Aya couldn’t imagine having such confidence. Susannah didn’t for a second consider that there might not be a next time. Or pause to ask. A voice in the back of her mind wondered where the line between confidence and conceitedness was. That voice sounded a lot like Gwen’s, she realised. She dismissed the thought as petty and buried it deep.
“Sure,” Aya replied, breaking eye contact before Susannah could see her vulnerability. “But, if we’re going to end up in bed together, um, we’ll have to be here again.”
“Suits me, but I do have to ask why? I trust you’re not ashamed of me,” she said with a fake pout.
Aya snorted. “I’m about as ashamed of you as I’d be of boxing for Britain in the Olympics. No, it’s just that I…”
“What?” Susannah asked, trailing a finger around one of Aya’s breasts, starting at the base and making smaller circles until the fingertip landed right on Aya’s nipple.
She tried not to moan at the touch. This was hard enough to talk about without that sort of stuff distracting her. “Because I still live with my parents.”
Susannah retracted her fingers. “Really? How old are you?”
“I’m twenty-seven.”
“Blimey, for a moment there you had me worried you were much younger than you look. I thought I might be some cougar robbing the cradle.”
“Nope, not at all. There’s only, what, ten years between us?”
Susannah gave her a meaning smile. “That’s very kind of you, honey, but it’s more like fifteen.
And a few more if we go by the age on my passport and not the one I give when asked.”
“There’s nothing hotter than an older woman.”
“Thank you, wild thing.” Susannah patted Aya’s abs almost patronizingly, then began running her fingers over the hills and dips of them. “So, you still live at home, hm? Well, I suppose that is more common these days with the housing market being so challenging.”
“When I used to box, I was on the road a lot,” Aya said, looking up at the ceiling to feel less watched as she explained. “Spending most of my time in the gym meant I didn’t need my own place. It was more convenient to have a home base that someone already cleaned and stocked with food. I pay rent, of course.”
“As in a monthly bill or as in you let your mummy keep your weekly allowance to cover the detergent she uses to do your laundry?” Susannah joked.
It was banter. Aya worked out with testosterone-filled, manual-labour blokes all the time. She’d heard much worse insults than that and always batted them off with a roll of the eye and a foulmouthed comeback. This was different. She didn’t want Susannah to use that tone with her. Especially not when she was naked underneath her, in her stylish bed and in this posh town. She couldn’t stand Susannah thinking of her like that. Her cheeks grew hot, and she clenched her free hand.
“No. I pay properly.” She retracted the hand that had rested on Susannah’s shoulder. “It’s not like it’s weird. You were right about the UK housing market, only it’s not ‘challenging,’ it’s complete rubbish! Younger people can’t get a bloody mortgage, can we?!” She heard her voice get louder and her Stoke accent more pronounced with every word, and yet she couldn’t stop herself.
Susannah didn’t laugh, but she carried on smiling in a way that spoke of holding a chuckle back with great effort. “Calm down. It was only a joke. My, you can get touchy, can’t you?”
Aya wasn’t sure what to say. She felt as much rage as she did unexpected shame. She still wanted to impress Susannah. To seduce her. Feelings warred within her, her heart thudded like a jackhammer, and her mind gave no answers. Luckily, Susannah answered for her.
“However, that shows passion. I like that in my lovers.” She paused to place a nibbling kiss on the side of Aya’s breast. “Besides, ‘touchy’ can mean so many things. And you’re certainly very ‘touchy-feely’ in bed. I can’t remember being so wildly and thoroughly pawed in my life.”
Aya gave a small chuckle, the worst of the negative feelings beginning to ebb.
“Would you like to paw me again right now, wild thing?” Susannah asked in a tone of voice erotic enough to count as porn.
Aya’s emotions shut off like light bulbs burning out, one by one, leaving her only with physical sensations, and her body… it knew what it wanted. She grabbed Susannah by the shoulders and hoisted her lover the small distance up her chest until their mouths could connect. Then she put every bit of effort she could muster into kissing Susannah’s breath away.
Chapter Twenty-One
Down
Gwen frowned at her reflection in the hallway mirror. Her hair was so flat today, and she couldn’t get it to behave, despite having tried three different sorts of hair products. It hung there, limp and taunting. She was trying to dredge up the energy to find a solution. Or to truly care.
“Hurry, pleeease,” Charlotte whinged. “It’s a Sunday. If we don’t hit the shops early, all of Hanley, no, wait… all of bloody Stoke-on-Trent will be there.”
Gwen let her frown sag into the empty stare that had proceeded it. “Sure. Let’s go.”
She grabbed her bag and followed Charlotte to her car.
When they were seated and belted in, Charlotte surveyed her. “Shug, are you all right?”
“I’ll be fine. I just need to get out and do something.”
“Okay, well, let me know if you change your mind and want to go home and rest.”
“Will do.”
They parked in the Potteries Shopping Centre, and Gwen trailed after Charlotte, who was desperately hunting for an autumn coat. They were in their third shop when Gwen froze by a rack of shirts. A couple of metres away, stood Aya. She was browsing the shirts with her usual focus and force, so Gwen had time to duck away before she looked up and spotted her.
Gwen couldn’t face her. She slunk out and stood outside the shops’ doors, waiting until she could motion for Charlotte to join her.
When Charlotte finally did, her worry lines signalled what she was about to say. “Gwen? You all right?”
“Yeah, I’m fine.”
Charlotte watched her with big eyes full of concern. “No, you’re not. You’re really pale. Why are you hiding out here?”
“Aya was in there.”
“Okay, so? I mean, I get that you didn’t leave it at the best of places, but there’s no reason for you to avoid her, is there? You could’ve just smiled or nodded at her and then gone about your business.”
Gwen closed her eyes and leaned her head against the wall. “I can’t face her right now. Not when I look like this. Not when I feel like this.”
Charlotte rubbed her arm, bringing some heat to Gwen’s cold extremities. “Okay, shug. We’ll go to another shop.”
“Thank you.”
As they walked away, Charlotte kept casting glances at her, those worry lines still in place under the trendy, contoured make-up.
“What, Charlotte? Spit it out.”
“I was just wondering. Do you think this deeper depression phase was set off by missing Mocha’s visits at the café as a pick-me-up?” She paused before adding, “Or maybe by losing Aya? You know, before you’d even started this promising friendship properly?”
Gwen wrapped her arms around herself as she walked. She was constantly cold these days, no matter the temperature or how many layers she put on. “Come on, you know I was diving down this rabbit hole before Susannah moved and I met Aya.”
“True, you were showing all the signs before, but—”
“No,” Gwen interrupted. “This isn’t normal sadness or world-weariness. It’s a chronic mental illness; it comes with ups and downs. This is a standard down period. That’s all.”
Charlotte gave a quick nod, but those frown lines didn’t smooth. Gwen could read them. They said that the situation with Aya and Susannah might’ve made things worse. Sadness worsened depression, and there were usually triggers to down periods. Gwen shivered. They walked on in heavy silence.
* * *
The next day, Gwen woke up just before 4:00 a.m. She tried to go back to sleep, knowing her alarm would go off in two hours, but no luck. She sat up, sighed, and switched the lamp on before getting her sketching implements out.
She brought the pencil down to touch the notebook’s page. She’d finished her latest set of commissions, so now she had time to draw for fun. She usually didn’t feel confident enough to put time into her own designs. She used her drawing skills for extra income and to make people happy, and her own art was usually on the backburner. Here was the moment, though.
She stared at the pencil tip resting on the expanse of white paper. It would normally have started moving by now. She would’ve drawn something, started a line, begun a shape. Even if it was something silly or bad, she would have started.
The pencil was frozen in place.
Her mind was a smooth, dark surface of water. There was nothing coming from it.
She thought about the last commission she’d done, the kissing mermaids. Maybe she could try drawing that again? Then she wouldn’t have to think up a motif. She set out to sketch the outline of the first mermaid, but it was as if somewhere between the will to draw and the action of it, something in her had decided it was pointless. Not because she couldn’t sell the illustration, the author who commissioned the last one would be happy for a slight variation of her mermaids, but because everything was pointless. Every part of her mind was blank and rigid.
For the first time in a long while, the fear of her mind and life force collapsing cr
awled into her like a cold, diseased snake.
She threw the pencil and pad down on the floor and stared at them as if they’d bitten her.
Her world narrowed, and she hugged her knees to her chest. Not being able to draw. That was how it had started all those years ago. Then it had been darkness, sadness, and emptiness for more than a year, leading to the point where she didn’t think she could go on any longer. She would forever love Charlotte for stopping her that night and for getting her to an emergency room.
Gwen wasn’t sure how long she sat staring at the pencil and paper, but after a while she knew she had to do something. She used a huge amount of willpower to get herself out of bed and out into the kitchen. Hoping she wouldn’t wake Charlotte, she drank a tall glass of cold water and then stared at the empty glass. There was no putting it off anymore, she had to call in sick and get an appointment to see her therapist as soon as possible.
She forced herself to eat some yoghurt, take her medication, and get her shaky breathing under control. As soon as it was a decent time to do so, she called the couple who ran Coffee4U.
The husband, Alan, answered. “Gwen?”
“Yes, hello, sorry for the early hour.”
“That’s fine. I need to get to the café soon anyway, so I was up. Is everything all right?”
“No. I’m having… a depression day. I’m so sorry, but I can’t come in today.”
There was a beat of silence, only a beat.
“All right. I’ll take your shift myself. Let me know how you’re getting on, so I know if I need to find someone to take your other shifts this week.”
Gwen wanted to cry. Partly out of gratitude, partly out of shame for cancelling on such short notice, but mainly because she hated not being able to do her job. Still, no tears came. Only a dense, gnawing ache in her heart and lungs.
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