Love Burns Bright Read online

  We break apart and I see that Eileen is just as scared as I am. She takes a step back and touches her lips. But that fear isn’t disgust or shame. It’s a realization. It’s the truth.

  “How do we do this?” I ask, because I know now for sure it’s not Walter who I want to be with. It’s not men at all.

  “I don’t think we can.”

  My heart sinks, but I understand how she feels. It’s more than this feeling between us. It’s our babies. It’s these two men who’ve given us everything. Walter who’s worked so we can afford for me to teach dance for next to nothing, and Harry who allows Eileen to stay home with the girls. It’s friends and family. For Eileen it’s church and community. How do we turn our backs on that?

  I grab her and kiss her again. It’s a final kiss. At least it is for a time. I know this is not our fairy-tale ending, that we won’t get to experience that life, but I kiss her so she knows without a doubt how I feel. When I’m hundreds of miles away it’s her I’ll be thinking about. I kiss her again so I can remember how kissing is supposed to feel in your toes, in your gut. I want to remember the fireworks her lips set off between my legs. She moans and I know she feels it too. A truck rumbles on the gravel a ways down the road and we jump apart. It’s just a neighbor, Eileen explains as the man drives by. He waves and we wave back and then we head back toward home.

  It’s a long time before I write Eileen again. I didn’t know what to say. That kiss broke something in me, for better or for worse. I can’t look at Walter the same. Every intimate moment we have, it’s thoughts of Eileen that help me finish. Everything in my life is a lie.

  Her next letter is the one that changes everything. The paper is nearly falling apart, I’ve read it so many times. It’s short, but it says everything I need to hear.

  Dear Juney, I love you. I’m putting on a brave face for Harry and the kids, but I’m thinking of you all the time. I can’t leave him. He’s innocent in all this, and it feels wrong to just toss him aside because of feelings I can’t control, and I have to think about the kids too, but I do love you. My heart is yours, Eileen

  Eileen looks up from the pages.

  “I wrote this while Cole was napping. Woke her up and we went right to the post office.”

  “This was the one you didn’t want Harry to find,” I say. In her next letter she begged me to burn it. I didn’t.

  “I didn’t want Harry to find any of them. I’m glad you kept it.”

  After that we barely mention our husbands and our kids anymore. We talk about what we want, what we wish we had. I tell her, now that I’m paying closer attention, I know women who are living together. People think them widowed or sisters or even just strange, but they are making it work. Eileen understands, but she can’t leave Harry. Still she writes. The letters become more frequent and more open. I keep them all.

  Dear Juney, I had a dream about you last night. You were chasing me through the pines. The sun was out and it was raining. I let you catch me this time. Even though we can’t be together, you are still in my heart. Forever yours, Eileen

  We go five more years without seeing each other. Between her letters, I focus on the boys and my students. Slowly, I start to let Walter go. It starts with my classes, more students now that the boys are older. More Saturday afternoons apart and more evenings where I leave dinner for him in the fridge. Then I start coming to bed later and later. It’s easier to deny a man who’s already asleep. He asks me once if there’s someone else. I don’t even sound offended when I tell him no.

  Later that week I meet a woman at the library. There’s no attraction, but she tells me about a great dance workshop they’re having at NYU. I hide my left hand the whole time and don’t tell her I’m married. When I meet her by the ticket booth a few days later, my ring is zipped into my purse. I tell Eileen about her in my next letter. I’m happy to hear that she’s jealous when she writes back.

  There’s a spring wedding. Eileen’s oldest, Patricia, is pregnant, but that’s between the families and the pages of our letters. Eileen invites us down. Walter agrees, thinking we’ll find our romance somewhere in that Southern heat, but all I find is Eileen the morning of the ceremony. We’re alone in the powder room at the church. She doesn’t say a word, but her eyes tell me everything. She’s been waiting for this one stolen moment for us. I seize it, not knowing if we’ll ever get another. I kiss her, and this time it’s aching and pain and relief. We’ve had time apart, time to think things through, but the feelings haven’t changed. I love her and I know she loves me too.

  “I don’t know what to do,” she whispers as my lips brush her forehead. I know what I want her to do, but mostly it’s what I want for myself. I don’t have it in me to ask Eileen to be that selfish.

  “We endure it.”

  She stares back at me and I offer her what I can of a reassuring smile. She nods. I hold her a moment longer even though I know we are out of time. We both turn back to the mirror and fix our lipstick. The last time I dance with Walter is at that reception.

  Six months later I move out. I tell Walter 90 percent of the truth: that I’m gay and that I can’t be with him anymore. He doesn’t understand, and neither do the boys. I’m the villain for a long time, but I know the decision is right. My confidence wavers, though, when I see that I’ve made this decision alone. I’m free of Walter, but no closer to Eileen. It’s a struggle not to beg in my letters to her. It takes everything I have to balance an expression of love and the bottomless desperation that claws at my heels.

  Harry’s heart attack surprises everyone, but I’m relieved by Eileen’s first letter after his funeral. I don’t think it’s appropriate for me to attend.

  Dear Juney, I don’t know how to say this, but I will. I miss Harry. He was a good man. I already miss his companionship and I miss him for the kids, but I feel free. Is that horrible for me to say? I know it is, but I’ve always told you the truth. How much longer can you wait for me? Forever Yours, Eileen.

  By now there are cell phones and we text each other pictures of our grandkids, but I need my reply documented correctly.

  Forever, I write back.

  It doesn’t take forever, but it feels that way. Four more years. Two for the kids. A year for them to process that she is not what they thought her to be. And in that time, months to learn of her feelings for me, time for them to form an opinion on those feelings. Eileen’s pre-diabetic and her doctor wants her to lose a few pounds. She says she wants to look good for me. There’s another year, and then Eileen needs some time for herself. I tell her I can wait. She calls me late one night.

  “We should take a trip first. I want to go to Las Vegas and Paris. You can show me all the fancy French you learned.”

  I think of the money Walter was kind enough to tell me to save, and Eileen tells me she has plenty from Harry.

  “We’ll take a trip, then.” I feel myself smiling in the dark. “What do we do after the trip?”

  “I figure if I can handle traveling with you, I can handle living with you.”

  “You want to move to New York?”

  “You keep saying the city keeps you young.”

  “That’s true, but—”

  “Then I’ll come live with you. After our trip. Night.” She hangs up before I can argue. Later, though, I give her a practical out. If the trip is too overwhelming, she can go back to Mississippi with no fight from me. With all this time gone by, I need her to be happy.

  She’s near now and I can’t read the expression on her face.

  “Will you touch me?” she asks. I get up and scoot into the booth beside her. Under the table I take her hand. Everything feels right. For a moment.

  “I thought it would be easier. I thought I would feel...lighter. Freer?” she says.

  “But you don’t.”

  “I don’t know how you made it through. I never thought I could be so lonely.”

  I hold my breath and think things through before I react. She’s sad. She’s hurting, but she�
��s here. That matters.

  “What do we do?”

  “We travel. Like we planned,” she says.

  “I want you to be sure.”

  “I am.”

  “Then we’ll decide when we get back.”

  “I said, I am.” She shakes her head and tries again. “I’m saying this all wrong. I think I feel guilty. About Harry and the kids. I feel bad because I feel so good about being here with you. I’ve wanted to be here with you all along.”

  “You know what I’ve realized,” I say. “It’s okay to feel two ways about things. It’s okay that you care about your family and their needs. I never wanted that to stop.”

  “I know.”

  I turn and look at Eileen. For once it’s not a secret. We don’t have to hide. I kiss her. She kisses me back. We keep it tame because we’re in public and there’s no need to frighten the young people. Later, things will get more interesting.

  She sighs and puts her head on my shoulder. We’re nine again, hiding under the church porch. Eileen yawns and tells me her grandma lost another tooth. I laugh to myself and tell Eileen why. She laughs too and squeezes my hand back.

  I kiss her again, and this time we have an audience.

  “Ow, ow! Get it, Grandma.” Two teenagers at the counter are watching us. The yeller winks. Her friend gives us a thumbs-up and a toothy grin. Beside me, Eileen laughs and I feel it down in my gut. She’s happy. She’s relieved. And so am I.

  A STORY ABOUT SARAH

  Cheyenne Blue

  They tell you that when you start writing things down, you should write about what you know and what you love. When my head was so full of stories that I had to let some loose, I started with those that were easiest to tell.

  What do I know: I know how to sing. I know how to cook. I know how the land smells after the rain that rarely falls. I know how to stop a child’s tears although I’ve no kids of my own. I know how to gentle a skittish colt so that he follows me around like a dog. And I know Sarah.

  What do I love: I love this land, I love its silence and its emptiness. I love the red rocks that jumble along the creek. I love the gargle of magpies in the morning. I love how under my hands food comes together to make a meal. And I love Sarah.

  This, then, is a story about Sarah. It’s the first story that fell out of my head, but stories about Sarah are as many and winding as the tracks on a scribbly gum.

  My name is Melly and I’m forty-four years old. I’m half Yamatji and half white. The Yamatji half came from the desert in Western Australia, where I sometimes go; the white half came from Germany, where I’ve never been. My Yamatji mother died when I was little, or maybe she went outback. I like to think of her roaming the land, digging for grubs, knowing where to find food, living the old way. Maybe she died of drink, but I don’t want to know if she did.

  I cook for the workers here at the mining camp where I live. I got the job when I was fifteen. My German pa worked at the camp, and we lived here as well. Most of the kids wanted to leave. They wanted to go to Perth or to the shore where the waves curled. Not me. I wanted to stay in this sunburned little settlement. So I took the first job that was offered.

  I met Sarah when I was sixteen and she was a year older. She also worked at the camp, in the office. Her pa was the mine manager, and Sarah used to do something with books and paper. We were the only two girls there, so it was natural that we’d hang together. Sarah never minded the color of my skin. It mattered to people then. It doesn’t now.

  Sarah was slender, back when we were girls. She was skinny, with knees that were the widest part of her legs, and a chest like a boy’s. She had long curly brown hair that fell nearly to her waist. She wore it in a thick plait down her back, all crinkly and barely contained. Now she’s sturdy and wide, and she has breasts that are ample and spreading. Her hair is still thick and curly, but now there’s gray in it, and it’s short and hugs her head. That’s Sarah.

  The boys at the mine all wanted to take Sarah out, but her pa kept a strict eye on her. The boys didn’t want to take me out, at least not where we would be seen. And I didn’t want to go with them anyway. Instead, Sarah and I would go places together: down to the billabong to swim, up the wallaby path to the top of the rocks where we’d sit and look out over the camp. Sometimes we’d spy on the men and giggle. More often, we’d sit in the shade of a scribbly gum and talk.

  This is a story about Sarah, but it’s also a story about Sarah and me. Sarah and me together. She kissed me the first time. I kissed her back the second time. The times after that, I don’t remember. We weren’t girls then. I was twenty, she a year older. And then we were lovers.

  We’d do our loving outdoors, always in the open, never in my room at the camp or at her da’s house. We’d climb to the top of the rocks where there was a hidden place. The red sand was soft, and there was patchy shade when the sun was low. Best of all, you’d never guess it was there, not unless you happened over the rocks, not following any path, and stumbled across it. So we never worried about being caught. I’m not sure what would have happened had someone found us, but it doesn’t matter now. After nearly thirty years together, most of them know and most of them don’t care. Any that do care stay away.

  We had a blanket that we stashed in a cranny in the rocks. We’d shake it out well, so that the spiders and sometimes a scorpion or little tiger snake were dislodged, and we’d spread it down on the sand. We’d take off our clothes immediately. There was no delicate disrobing, we’d just stand and undress. The red sand would spill over the edge of the blanket and often our skin would be so wet with sweat that the sand would stick, coating us with marbled patterns of red. It seemed right to be naked there, out in the sun, out on the earth. Once we were undressed, we’d never put our clothes back on until it was time to walk home. Have you ever been naked under the sun? If you have, you’ll never forget it.

  Sometimes we still do our loving outdoors, although it’s not as easy for us to climb the rocks to reach our place, and often we’re too lazy.

  This is a story about Sarah and how she kisses.

  At first, we did nothing but kiss. Gentle kisses, almost chaste. Sarah says that she wanted to make them into more, but she was afraid of what I’d do, what I’d say, how I’d laugh at her. But I wanted the same, and one day, suddenly, we were really kissing. Tongues together, and there were wet lips and saliva and it was all very hot and desperate. I loved her kisses. I loved how her lips were so firm and how soft they would be if it weren’t for the sand that coated them. There was an edge of pain from the way that the grains rubbed and ground into our lips. She’d stop and wipe the sand from my lips and hers with a finger, but it was no good. It would be back again the next time.

  It was a long time before we did anything but kiss. Months. Why seek more when what you have is so perfect? Sarah’s kisses are like the creek that flows down the red bluff after rain: at first it’s barely there, the merest hint of what’s to come, before it swells and falls into something so deep you could drown in it. Then it overflows, and unleashed it swirls into a fierce, raging passion.

  This is a story about Sarah and how she likes to be loved.

  Sarah likes to be in charge. When we make love, she likes to direct how it will go. She leads my fingers to where she wants them on her body. I never mind, as I love her skin and I love to caress her, slowly if that’s what she wants, so slowly that I think I can feel each pore, each grain of sand on her skin. I love to touch her breasts like that, circling around and around, a sort of aimless pattern that is not actually aimless at all, closer and closer to her nipple. Sarah’s breasts were tiny and barely there once. Now they’re ripe and full and lush, just as she is. When I stroke her like this, she wiggles like a black snake caught by the tail, twisting, trying to slide her body under my fingers if they won’t move faster over her body.

  “Mel-ly,” she says, and my name is broken down into long pieces, each a part of the whole. Sometimes she just calls me Mel, and when she does, I
think she’s leaving part of me behind.

  When my fingers finally find her nipple, she sighs, just once, as if she’s come home. Maybe she has. Her nipples are sensitive and she doesn’t like them treated roughly. So I worship them, stroking their dark peaks, as dark and red as desert flowers, and then take one of them in my mouth and suck gently, oh so gently. She loves that, and her hands wind into my hair, not holding me there, just letting me know she likes what I’m doing.

  Sarah lets me know when she wants more. If I touch her cunt before she wants it, she’ll push my hand away, gently, not rudely, just telling me she’s not quite ready. I stroke her waist while I’m waiting for her signal, the indent above her hips—once so narrow and boyish, now wider with padding that hides her bones. I kiss her tummy, tickling with my tongue to make her giggle or sigh, and I stroke her thighs, feeling for that special place on the inside where the skin is softest.

  I can always smell her cunt. Sarah’s smell is different from mine—and I have no one else to compare with. She smells musky and warm like fresh baked bread, salty like the sea, sharp like bush lemons. When she’s excited, her woman-smell surrounds her so that I can taste it on her skin, not only in her pussy.

  When she wants me to touch her cunt, she takes my hand and pushes it down. Or she’ll shift so that she’s sitting and open her legs invitingly. I’ll use my fingers to stroke, to circle her clit with the light touch she loves—too heavy and she’ll flinch away. I’ll push two, three fingers up inside her and I’ll use my thumb to rub. My hands are as dexterous as a piano player’s. She hums and I play.