Author's note: Please be advised that the following chapter contains scenes of consensual foreplay between consenting adults of the same sex. 'bout time!
Chapter 9
Mel blinked rapidly, astonishment plain on her face. Clearly, despite her heartfelt appeal for indulgence, she hadn't anticipated Janice to yield. Her legs were watery, anesthetized by a combination of whiskey and anxiety, but she was determined to deliver this next bit of information standing, if for no other reason than it might give Janice pleasure to knock her down. A quick inhale and on the exhale, the words, "I love you, Janice." There was the smallest twitch between Janice's brows, easy to miss unless one knew what to look for, but seeing it was one thing, and translating it was another.
The response was inflectionless and noncommittal. "I see." The two syllable equivalent of a polar bear in a white room.
Janice's apathy took Mel by surprise, and sent her scrambling for elaboration. "I plan on leaving here when Jack returns next month." She shrugged, "Don't love him...love you." On the strength of that claim, Mel crossed the floor on shaky knees. "I'm askin' to come back, Janice... I'm askin' to be a part of your life again." Her eyes, swimming in hot, unspilt tears, scanned Janice's carefully-set face. "Well...say somethin'..."
Janice breathed in through her mouth; she could taste Mel on her tongue, a frothy concoction of whiskey and guilt and fear. There were few things that sobered a drunk faster than fear. "God knows, Mel, when I arrived here, I'd have forgiven you anything just to have you back in my life...and a few minutes ago, those words and your tears might've been enough to reconcile our differences. But frankly, now...I have to say I don't come that cheap."
Light-headed and loose-lipped, Mel saw the folly of argument. "What can I do? What do you want me to say? I've been as honest as I know how to be."
Janice was tight-lipped. "In vino veritas." She clucked her tongue. "Wine or whiskey, you had to knock back a third of a bottle to be honest with me...to confess the truth: I was a mistake, and our relationship was an experiment." Mel opened her mouth to argue but was cut off abruptly. "Mel, you said as much." She turned her eyes to the sagging ceiling, struggling to recall the exact turn of phrase. "Did you ever try something just to get it out of your system...ring a bell?"
"If you're gonna go around quotin' me, at least get it right. I never referred to you as an experiment or a mistake. The truth is-" cough Mel fought down a brief wave of nausea, holding up a finger indicating that Janice should wait..."...the truth is..." cough
"The truth is you left me because you were afraid I would leave you. Somewhere in the back of my mind, that makes sense, in a paranoid, insecure kind of way. It's even kind of flattering. What I don't understand is your situation - here and now - this mop-the-floors-laundry-on-the-line-dinner -on-the-stove domestic bent. I don't get the attraction, Mel. Granted, Alice is a great kid, any woman would be proud to have her as a daughter, but -"
"I can explain."
Janice waved her off. "It's okay, Mel. I understand. You were raised in a conservative, Southern household, by a conservative, Southern grandmother. Your future included white picket fences and babies, and a husband. But before you settled down to all of that you wanted to sow your wild oats, as they say ...experiment with different things. Well, I had a good time. I hope you did and now that you've got that out of your system, you can settle down to marital bliss with the partner your parents always wanted you to have...someone with facial hair, who dresses left or right."
Indignation and embarrassment fought a pitched battle on Mel's face. "Now, you jes' hold on!"
"Although, I have to get my own two cents in here and say that you have lousy taste in men. I mean, I don't know Jack Greenway from Adam, but from everything I have heard and seen in the last few hours, I know that he's the last man on earth I would pair you with. What is it, Mel? Does he remind you of your daddy?" she quipped facetiously.
"Are you through? Can I talk now?" Mel asked through clenched teeth, a reaction that was as much anger as it was a way to bite back her rising gorge; she was a proficient drinker, but a terrible drunk. " You keep sayin' you understand this, and you understand that - news flash, Janice: you don't understand anything." Mel looked seriously down into the youthful face of cynicism; it was one of those times when her height was an advantage. "Now...you sit." She thrust a finger at the bed. When Janice hesitated, she raised a single eyebrow and from some- where deep in her ancestral line, summoned up ‘The Look'. "Your butt on that bed. Now."
Janice lighted on the corner of the mattress and watched in silence as Mel struggled to maintain both her composure, and her upright position. "Maybe you should be the one sitting."
In response, Mel took a step back and leaned against the wall for support. "You say you talked to my mother? Long conversation?"
"Ten minutes, thereabouts."
The corner of Mel's mouth twitched. "That's plenty time enough, trust me. Did you love your mama, Janice? I mean, before she left you and your daddy, did you have a good relationship?"
Janice scratched her ear and shrugged. "We were close, yeah. Is this going someplace?"
"Indulge me. Would it be safe to say that you did your utmost to please her?" Janice nodded and Mel countered, "Out of love and respect." Again, a nod. The tall Southerner melted against the wall, kept upright by sheer force of will. "You had ten minutes, long distance with Miss Julia Pappas. How was it?"
Janice labored for just the right word. "Interesting."
Mel coughed, and then laughed into the back of her hand. "Don't play the diplomat, Janice; it doesn't suit you."
"You want me to say she was cold and abrupt? Okay, I will. One minute into the conversation, I was ready to throttle her."
"Perfectly natural response," Mel said, nodding sagely. "Knowing my mama as I do, I'm gonna venture a guess that she didn't tell you I called her from the airport in Athens the night I left."
"Funny...she didn't mention it."
"We had quite a long talk...or maybe I should say: she lectured and I listened, a first for me. All those years growing up, I managed to tune out a lot of what she was saying and find my own way, my own paths, always to her dismay. I could never please her and she never tired... ...tires... of reminding me of my failures. The way she saw it, leaving you was the smartest thing I'd ever done, which only reinforced my opinion of her. I had called for understandin' and sympathy and gotten a slap in the face. She said, ‘Come home, Melinda. I forgive you.'...like lovin' you was some kinda crime. She even offered to wire me plane fare, but I didn't want anythin' from her." She flushed and weaved; Janice was at her side in an instant. "I have to sit for a spell..." Without speaking, Janice helped her back to the bed, though she herself remained standing. "Look at you," Mel said, her voice softly marveling. "Even now, as angry as you are with me, you have such good instincts, Janice; that was one of the things that drew me to you."
Janice softened just slightly, though it would take more than flattery to win her back. "And Jack..." she prompted with genuine curiosity. "What drew you to him?"
Mel closed her eyes briefly, as if conjuring forth the recollection. "His innate decency, I think. He spoke of his family, his daughter with such affection."
Sitting on the bed, with some distance between them, Janice remarked on the only thing about Jack Greenway she liked, apart from his absence. "Like I said, Alice is a good kid. You had a ready-made family here."
Mel looked at her hands, trembling in her lap. "Certainly that was an attractive prospect. It wasn't until later in our relationship that I discovered I was merely the last in a long line of sweethearts. When he left here seven weeks ago, he gave me the house keys, two hundred dollars in cash and his word that he would be back. He gave me all that, but..." She held up her left hand and wriggled her fingers. "No ring." She shrugged. "You don't give a ring to your house sitter."
"It never...well, it never went beyond that?"
Mel smiled, amused by Janice's delicate approach. "If you're askin' if we ever consummated the relationship, the answer is no. Oh, there were a couple of false starts, but I think he knew my heart wasn't in it. My first night here he took a blanket and pillow out to the sofa and never pressed the matter again."
Janice heaved a sigh of relief. At last, the ‘experiment' had been identified and the only thing that shocked her more than the identity was Jack's surprising depth of character. "If you didn't love him, why did you stay, Mel?"
"Because I fell in love," Mel replied simply. "With the country. You've seen enough of it to know what I'm talkin' about...there simply isn't another place on earth like it. I got off that steamer, flat broke, needin' isolation, time to think. This house provides all that. Jack. Well, I suppose you could say I fell in serious like with the man. He's kind and generous. He knows when to talk, and when to listen, and he doesn't hoard his emotions like a lot of men do, so when you ask if he reminds me of my daddy, I'll have to say - no. He most certainly does not."
Janice reserved comment. She had closely watched Mel's face throughout her confession, gauging sincerity or deception based on what she saw there. Her instincts told her that what she was hearing was the truth, stripped bare of all pretense, absent of mitigating circumstances. She wanted to return that honesty with words, a touch, a kiss...a caress...yet something inside her screamed for caution. She didn't trust her hands, so she sat on them. "I want to believe you, Mel."
Mel turned to face her head on. "I don't know what else I can say, Janice, except that you are not and never have been anything but what I absolutely wanted out of life." She extended a hand and cupped the heart-shaped face lovingly in her palm. "Can you accept that I made an awful, horrible mistake the day I left you? Do you know how much that has hurt me every day since?" Her hand, unsupported by Janice's own, began to tremble with the fear that she had misread the situation and moved too soon. "Tell me you don't want me...tell me there's not this huge achin' chasm where your heart used to be...tell me you don't love me and you can walk out of here and never hear from me again."
Janice's brow furrowed; Mel's hand against her skin was almost painful. Beneath her thighs, her own hands scrunched the bedspread into moist fistfuls. "I don't think I can do that, Mel."
Mel dropped her hand slowly to her side, and swallowed deeply, audibly. "Do you hate me very much?" She dreaded the answer.
A smile turned up the corner of Janice's mouth. "Some day, I gotta compile a book of useless questions."
Mel almost wept with relief. Her plea, "Kiss me, Janice," carried all the weight of a dying man's cry for water, a request that, in good conscience, could not be denied. She leaned forward, meeting Janice halfway, and when warm lips connected, she felt a shudder run down her spine, hot and icy at the same time. "More..." she urged, her lips sliding against Janice's, an unquenchable thirst begging to be slaked. She plunged one hand into sweet-smelling honey hair while the other slid beneath the blouse to cup a firm breast, its nipple made hard and erect by the single brush of a calloused thumb.
Janice was not prepared for the mindless lassitude that gripped her at the first touch of those talented hands. Had she not been able to taste the whiskey on Mel's lips, present in every kiss rained upon her face, she might have been content to endure such an assault indefinitely. She knew she should resist; it was the honorable thing to do, even if she would hate herself in the morning. "Mel...Mel...we have to stop..." she murmured without conviction. She groaned, tilting her head back as feather-soft kisses grazed her from chin to cleavage and fingers fumbled at the buttons of her blouse. "I mean it, Mel..." she protested, even as her nipples sprang to life, minds of their own. Traitors. Summoning up her last reserves of self-control, she wrested herself from Mel's embrace and stood up. "I think we should stop..." Janice said as she observed her lover, laboring for breath, her eyes bright and slightly out of focus. Janice could see her reflection clearly in those wide, cerulean pools and it flattered her to be seen as an object of lust. Which made her self-denial all the more difficult. "I gotta go splash some water on my face or somethin'..."
Mel caught the retreating figure by the arm. "Janice...did I do somethin' wrong?"
"Aw, no, sweetheart, it's just...well..." Janice tugged at the front of the blouse, pinching the icon of St.Ignatius between her thumb and forefinger. "There's just somethin'...I don't know... indecent about being groped in this blouse."
"If it bothers you that much...take it off."
Janice chuckled. "Oh, you'd like that, wouldn't you?"
"So would you," replied Mel pointedly. "Make love to me, Janice." She held Janice's gaze as her long fingers drifted down to the buttons of her blouse.
Janice raised her eyes heavenward. "This is a test...it's gotta be." Passion's gauntlet. She shifted her gaze back to Mel, who was murmuring soft obscenities as she struggled unsuccessfully with the top button of her blouse. "Not tonight, honey. You have a headache."
Mel grabbed a handful of Janice's shoulder and pulled herself to her feet. "I am not drunk."
Mere inches from Mel's face, Janice could smell the proof. "Oh, yeah?" She held up three fingers. "How many fingers?"
"Ohhh," Mel grinned slyly and groped Janice. "I like this game!"
Janice squealed and captured Mel's roaming hands in her own. "Jeeze Louise, Mel!"
Mel managed a genuinely wounded expression as she stood there, both hands pinned against her chest by Janice's strong grip. "I'm comin' on too strong, aren't I?"
"Oh, God...don't ask me that. I'm almost certain I'll lie." She released her grip and gathered Mel to her in an embrace that seemed to temporarily satisfy their mutual need for intimacy without jeopardizing either woman's integrity. They had been moving in a slow, almost indefinable circle for a full minute before Janice was conscious of the movement. With the covert introduction of a melody, it graduated from random motion to sensuous dance. The words of the song wound their way from Mel's lips to her ear in a sweet, mournful sigh, taking on the aspect of a heartfelt confession. She would never again listen to the lyrics in the same way.
Then carelessly I told you good-bye But now at night I wake up and cry I wish I knew a way to find the love I threw away so carelessly.
"That was nice, Mel," Janice murmured. "Reminds me of that night in Athens...remember? Our first night?" She felt Mel nod against her shoulder. "Cole Porter on the radio, $8 champagne on ice...you and me...it was perfect."
Mel disengaged and stepped back, putting enough space between them so that she might look Janice seriously in the face. "I promise, Janice, never to be intimidated by perfection ever again."
Janice winked and once again pulled Mel into an embrace. "I'm gonna hold you to that," she replied. She spun Mel out to arm's length and held her briefly by the fingertips. "Dip?" With a snap of her wrist, she pulled her partner into her and dropped her in a dip that even Astaire would have envied. Grinning, she said, "Am I good...or what?"
"Janice...would it spoil this moment for you if I threw up?"