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All the well-rehearsed words in the world don’t help her get through a night with Harge as much as alcohol does.
Of course, that’s for no one to know except her. Their marriage is nothing if not a storybook tale for others – a doting and successful father, cheerful and dutiful wife, and a daughter growing up into a proper young lady – and the most pathetic way to shatter that delicate image would be to appear at someone-or-other’s garden party one drink shy of an embarrassment, their reputation all dragged through the messy winter mud.
But in the privacy of their own home, after the dinner parties, after the cocktails, after the airy kisses to cheeks and the stiff hugs and the happy goodbyes, after the drive home with Harge that seems shorter and shorter the less she’s had to drink, Carol heads straight to the kitchen.
He’s had some as well, as all men are free to do in public, and he trumps upstairs, footsteps loud. “I’ll be right up, Harge,” she calls back over her shoulder, letting the kitchen door shut just the slightest bit behind her. But she and Jeanette and the others have all had some as well, each nipping back into the kitchen for any manner of excuses. Just because they’re more discreet doesn’t mean the Old Fashioneds don’t have the same effect. “Just a moment.”
Flicking on the lights, she heads to the bar, gaze lingering on bottles of all shapes and sizes before she pours herself the rye, stirs and strains it, adds a cherry from the icebox and lets out an amused chuckle before downing it. The perfect image extends to their home, too. She’s sure Harge doesn’t even comprehend how very quickly they go through whiskey.
She cleans up after herself, taking time to wash the mixer by hand, quietly, in the kitchen sink before drying it and the glass and putting each back in their respective places. As she works warmth begins to creep over her, the house as stifling as if Florence has left the heater and the fireplace on all at the same time. She takes the stairs up to their bedroom with both hands gripping the railing, the familiar path and steadying banister lending her motions a routine she finds harder and harder not to run from as time goes by.
It had been easier when they had first married, before she understood. God, she'd been so young. She had said yes to Harge’s proposal because that was what everyone did, wasn’t it? The girls from school who had fellows all seemed ecstatic, and she would be, too, if she just said yes, wouldn't she? And so what-ifs and eventuallys had turned into nows, a wedding follow by a husband and a house and a car, and she had come to realize almost instantly that she had thoroughly misunderstood what she had gotten herself in to, too late to call it quits.
If only Abby had cracked four years earlier. She’d never needed anything with Abby.
There are many things that Harge wants her to be, and though not the most frequently asked lie of her – he’s never roughed her up, and she counts herself lucky given how many headaches she’s faked – the part of the willing wife is the one that comes hardest. The one time Harge had noticed her sway as she had undressed, she had blamed it on the heels and the lateness of the hour. He had believed her, and with no reason not to.
The less she feels, the better.
-
Abby had taken the last of her bourbon home with her after their little party and if she uses any more of what alcohol they have left it will be too easy for even Harge to see, and so the drive into New York the next morning sets her on edge.
Why, she wonders as the elevator dings, another woman squeezing into the tiny box before they ascend another level, are the toys all the way at the top of the department store? It’s all so exhausting, but she’s run out of time to find Rindy that doll she had asked for. The catalogues won’t get the order in time for Christmas.
She makes her way through the crowds, people jostling around her as she stops in the middle of the floor, looking about for a salesgirl not thoroughly overwhelmed. They dash through the store, behind the counters, and back into the throngs again, harried-looking and unapproachable, and she wonders how long this little excursion will end up taking.
She turns, looking about, and the sight of a woman walking away from the counter propels her forward, slipping through the crowd. The sea of people parts, and the empty space swells, for just a moment the way waves do before they come crashing back down, and in that instant the salesgirl looks up from the register.
She’s a bold thing, greeting her with a smile too sincere on someone working at Frankenberg’s. And an admonishment, too.
“I’m sorry, there’s no smoking inside.”
She’s placed her cigarettes on the counter as she digs for her wallet, and it’s as if the girl knows that if it’s not one vice for her, it’s another. She slips the silver case back in her purse with a conciliatory nod.
“But of course.”
She leaves Frankenberg’s with a train set on the way instead of with a doll in her hands, amused less at the peculiar purchase than at what skipping her morning martini and a simple parting smile from the salesgirl has already done to her.
-
They toast, but she takes only a sip and it’s not the champagne talking as she throws caution to the wind. She leans down, certain Therese wants it as much as she does as she leans closer this time, no longer rebuffed, and finally kisses her. She runs her hands through short brown hair as their lips meet, urging Therese closer, though she hardly has to. Therese parts her lips and leans up and then, eager, breaks their kiss and whispers, hoarse with want, “Take me to bed.”
It’s not the champagne that urges her to shed her robe, that finds them both in bed, that graces her with Therese under her touch, shaking but still kissing her. It reminds her of the magnitude of exactly what they're doing, and there is no question as she settles between Therese’s legs that she is aware of what they're doing and grateful – so infinitely grateful – at what she’s being given.
She makes her way slowly down Therese’s body – a kiss to the curve of her jaw, three more to her neck that have her gasping, a scattering to the jut of her collarbone, and a myriad to the swell of her breast and the peak of her nipple. She had surprised Abby and delighted her, too, she’s certain, when she had taken the lead, responded to the other woman’s questioning touch with eager movements. Therese’s thighs hold her tight where she is, and it’s clear their arrangement suits them both.
She feels Therese move under her and continues, a kiss to each rib, hands following, and down the curve of her waist.
She nudges Therese’s legs open a shade wider with the press of her shoulders, settles between her thighs and reaches under a leg, hooking her arm around for better purchase and to draw Therese closer. The motions are as familiar as breathing. With her free hand she reaches up, runs fingers through her hair and lacking any pins or ties pushes it behind her ears to keep it well out of the way.
She bows her head and drinks her in like she’s been walking through the desert so long she’s forgotten what water tastes like.
Therese is slick and easy to please, and so she takes her time. What sort of lover would she be if she were to finish in only a minute? She slides messy against her, teasing, the act very much doing something for her as well. She would be guilty if she said she had not thought about doing so before, hadn’t gone to bed alone in that big, dark house and sought some comfort with a fantasy and nothing else to keep her warm.
She so often feels as if she has to guess what Therese is thinking, but there is no guessing as the bed shakes briefly, as she pauses and looks up and sees Therese grasping the headboard, back arched, eyes closed, and pleading breathlessly –
“Oh, Carol, keep going.”
Therese does make the most delectable noises and they do things to her that she simply cannot resist, and so she holds her tighter, doubles her efforts as she realizes Therese is close. It feels so right that something slips within her – the façade of the happy family cracks straight down the middle quick as a gunshot, as clean and irreparably as the one that had run through the china vase in the hallway that Rindy had tipped over onto the hardwood as a toddler. She wants nothing more, at least at the moment, than to feel Therese shudder and cry out and go slack with relief and pleasure, to taste Therese on her lips and fingers all night long. Luckily for her, this as well Therese is eager to give her.
She hardly has time to lick her lips before Therese is urging her up, kissing her with the urgency of youth. Although she appreciates the honest reaction, she slows the pace, reveling in the softness and taste of Therese's lips, the sudden and welcomed confidence, a visible manifestation of what Therese wants, always so rare. She feels arms slip around her shoulders, pulling her close as Therese moves against her, and smiles.
Therese feels it. “You’re laughing at me,” she says, incredulous, but her disheveled appearance and pleased tone take the bite out of the remark.
She's not. She's simply happy, smiling like a damned fool, and she's afraid there's no hiding it, either here between them or tomorrow and all that comes with it. She nudges Therese back down onto the bed, careful of her weight, and lets the other woman's breathing slow and even out before she kisses her again. For the first time in years the thought doesn't fill her with dread, but rather a hunger that's only begun to be sated.
“Darling, what's the rush? We’ve got all night.”