Chapter 10
Victoria
The evening went as badly as it possibly could have and then explored a few ways for it to go even worse, and the whole time, I still couldn’t bring myself to look at Bridget.
I felt horrible. I was obviously stressing her out—from the first time we saw each other in the morning, I’d brushed her off, and she was desperately trying to figure out what was wrong and fix it.
And it wasn’t as though I could just say what the problem was.
I kept telling myself okay, Victoria, you’ve had your moment, this time you’ll see her and be back to normal.
And then I’d see her again, and my whole body would stir, and the embarrassment and guilt felt like a hot bath I was sitting in, enveloping me and steaming up all around me.
God forbid she looked back at me. Her eyes looked the exact same as always, but somehow completely different. I had a hard time not seeing them as the eyes that were fixed on the camera in that video.
She’d gone out of her way to help me, getting me a place to stay and everything, and now I was making her feel terrible over nothing she’d done, just because I’d… well.
Which meant I’d already been exhausted even before I got to my family’s house, and every step was more overwhelming than the last. I guess at least Mother deciding Sam was a terrible influence corrupting her son meant she couldn’t spare another thought for me and Bridget, and the subject of us didn’t come up again after that initial interaction went south, not until a tense dinner and a tenser dessert had wrapped up, and I’d followed Mother to the kitchen with a heavy weight in the pit of my stomach to where she was making coffee.
“Mom—” I started, coming up behind her, and she sighed, setting down the coffee beans, turning to me.
“Maybe you can talk to Kevin,” she said, and I shook my head.
“This isn’t about Kevin or Sam, it’s about me. I’m—”
“You could certainly talk some sense into him. If he could find someone like Bridget, I’d be ecstatic.”
I stopped, staring. “Like… a woman.”
She rolled her eyes. “I am aware we’re in the twenty-first century now.
If he wants to date a man, that’s fine enough, I suppose.
But if Mister Clark were half as intelligent and well-spoken as your girlfriend, with even a shadow the independent drive and clever perception, I would be more receptive. ”
I stared a while longer. “You… er… like Bridget that much, then.”
She took a long breath, and her eyes wavered when she turned to me, putting her hand on my arm.
I think we’d touched about five times in my life.
I stiffened. “Victoria, I… I think you did well. I know I don’t say that much.
But you knew what you wanted, and you went for it.
You crossed the country for work, you reached your dreams, and you came back for love.
And I can see why. Bridget is charming, intelligent, hardworking, and she has a brilliant future. ”
I blinked. “What?”
“From the moment I met her, I knew she was… she’s…
well, she’s perfect. She’s showing up unafraid to own her care and compassion for you.
She’s not trying to prove anything, just being powerfully, unapologetically herself.
It didn’t take long to recognize how much she knows what she’s doing, what she’s talking about. ”
“Mom… is this because she complimented the house?”
“Don’t be silly,” Mom said, with a tone that said yes.
“It’s more than just that she complimented me.
She knows all the right things to say at every moment.
She’s an incredibly intelligent and well-spoken woman.
I know you’ve had your bad experiences, but I think you’ve found the perfect person.
I was… at first, when I realized what was going on with you and Bridget, I didn’t know what to think.
I grew up very traditional. I was devastated to think you’d have some kind of…
gay wedding with your lesbian lover. But I was a damn fool.
I could never ask for anything better than Bridget as the person to love my daughter. ”
I blinked, once, again, slowly. “Mom… Bridget and I aren’t dating.”
She looked, initially, like she didn’t register I’d said it, and then she transitioned to disbelief, and then a look of amazement. “You’re… you’ve already gotten engaged.”
“What? No! No. I’m—she’s just my roommate. We’re friends. That’s all it is.”
She sighed, squeezing my shoulder. “Victoria, it’s all right. You don’t need to hide anything. I love her, and she’s more than welcome.”
“No—I mean—thank you, genuinely, I’m delighted to know that you think so, but she and I are not dating.”
“It’s—”
“And we’re not engaged. Nor married.”
She stared, on and on, uncomfortably long, before I saw the moment her heart broke. “What do you mean?” she said, her voice small, forcing a smile and a laugh, visibly in denial. What the hell was happening? How was I devastating my traditional churchgoing mother by not dating a woman right now?
“She’s a very good friend, and I’m really happy to know her, but… we’re not… we’re just friends.”
“But you were so eager to live with her,” she said, her voice thick, still smiling in disbelief, shaking her head. “I would have had objections to you living together before marriage, but… I just see how wonderful she is…”
“No—I mean, she is wonderful, but—we just live in the same apartment. With two bedrooms. We’ve never been in each other’s bedrooms.”
She nodded quickly. “The traditional approach. Waiting until you’re married.”
“Mom, what the—no. No! There is no courtship! Nothing! Bridget is my friend!”
“You’re not gay, then?” she said, halfway to tears now. My traditionalist mother was having a breakdown that I wasn’t in a gay relationship with a lesbian porn creator. Maybe Nan had spiked the drinks with something more potent than usual.
“No. I mean… er…” I scratched the back of my head. “Well, I’m… I identify as bisexual, if you want to know, but I didn’t think…”
She lit up. “So you are with Bridget?”
“No!”
“Is she not gay?”
Oh, she definitely was. “I don’t… know.”
“So she might be. There’s a chance, right? That you two could be together?”
“Mom, I’m not looking to date anybody. We’ve already talked about this before. Bridget’s… she’s lovely, and I mean, I don’t know, if she asked me on a date, well… I’m not looking to date anybody, but I’d be very flattered. I’m just not interested in romance.”
“You should give her a chance,” she said. “She loves you.”
“We… have no reason to believe that. I kind of hope not. That would be a little intense. We were coworkers who only interacted occasionally, and we’ve only been roommates for a week.”
She sniffled, and I watched as my mother, the most intense and terrifying woman I’d ever known, the one whose stony expression had haunted my dreams, began to cry that I wasn’t dating a lesbian porn creator.
At this point, I wondered if she’d even blink at Bridget making porn, or if she’d just nod and say she’s so enterprising, look how creative she is, so dedicated and hardworking. “I feel like I’m losing a daughter.”
“Mom, all she did was compliment the house…”
“Will you at least bring her around for next time? I don’t want this to be the first and last.”
“I’ll… ask. Just treat her well and maybe she will. But she likes Kevin and Sam, so probably be good to them too if you want her to keep coming around.”
She nodded, taking a long, shaky breath. “Okay,” she said. “Okay. I understand. I’ll put my feelings aside and try to be… supportive. Lord, give me strength. Show me the way right now,” she sighed, closing her eyes, sinking back against the counter. “Victoria, sweetheart, I just need a second.”
“How about I make the coffee for everyone, Mom? You can go upstairs for a bit.”
“That sounds lovely. Yes. Yes, I think I will.”
True to her word, Mother was absolutely saintly for the rest of the evening, smiling warmly at Bridget and even clearly working to bury the hatchet with Sam—the hatchet she’d inexplicably taken to waving around because he wasn’t up to par with the perfect girlfriend I didn’t have.
It was a relief, but I was still exhausted by the time we got back out to the car at the end of the night, and I reached towards Bridget.
“I’ll drive,” I said. She shook her head, not looking at me.
“I got it. It’s my car, I drove you here thinking I’d drive you back.”
“I can really do it.” The part I should have said, I’ve been a jackass to you for no reason and I want to do something nice to show I know I’m in the wrong, didn’t come out. She shook her head, hitting the button to unlock her car and going for the driver’s side.
“It’s your family’s hospitality, so it’s yours by extension,” she said, and I sighed.
“Did that count as hospitality?”
That got a laugh out of her. “Your nan’s interesting.”
“That one I will give you.” I relented—slid into the passenger’s seat and buckled in as she started the car. “Thank you. I owe you.”
“Don’t owe me anything,” she said—just that, and we fell back into silence.
I hated it. Wanted to apologize, but there was no way to explain the problem.
Wanted to make conversation as normal, but I didn’t know how.
So we put the music back on and drove for half an hour to get to the apartment, where we barely exchanged any words on the way inside, and I took a quick shower before I crashed in my bed, staring out the window, snow piled up in the corners outside.
I really had to do something to make this better. Maybe tomorrow I could be a grownup.
Except that as the night grew late, I was uncomfortably aware of my own body, memories of last night made physical, hot under my skin. It felt like I’d had a delicious dessert, but only a small serving, and I was desperate for another piece.
I could not get myself off to Bridget again tonight.
That would be the number one way to make a bad problem worse.
But I lay in bed for almost an hour estimating the distance to my laptop, rehearsing the movements in my head that it would take to pull up her page again.
To see what happened in the video after I’d stopped watching last night. To see what else she had on her page.
I’d already overheard a little bit of her narration.
Just… because I was curious, I found myself thinking maybe I just wanted to know the rest of that clip, to know the context of what I’d heard her saying.
Bridget chose to put these things out there.
It was no different than looking at my friend’s paintings, or their music.
I was just… prudish. How could I not be, given the parents I’d grown up with?
I just had to normalize it a little bit.
I could be a better friend then, too, couldn’t I?
If I was able to see it as normal that she’d make these kinds of things.
I took my phone, plugged in my headphones, and I had shaking hands as I opened a private browser and went to her page again.
I got a pulse through my body at the sight of a post that hadn’t been there yesterday—a product review, with an associated video for subscribers only.
The thumbnail showed herself wearing the sweater she’d had on today, and no pants, holding up some kind of toy.
I couldn’t describe the flush I got through my body seeing her like that—how gorgeous and sexy she looked, how desperately I wanted to watch the video even though my mind rebelled against it.
What would she look like when she was using it?
Fuck, fuck, fuck. This wasn’t what I’d come here for. But still. She’d done that this morning. Not twenty-four hours ago, she’d been on the other side of the hall, using that vibrator and recording herself… masturbating… with it…
That was what had been in the box in the mail.
I’d held that vibrator. The thought blossomed through me with a wave of heat, and I found myself going breathlessly to open the review, reading it.
Every detail of her using the toy… how it worked, how it looked, how it felt in her hand, and then about her inserting it… inside herself…
I was already soaking wet again. I couldn’t even blame myself for this.
I hadn’t realized I was a… sexual… person.
I’d been depriving myself of something I guess I’d needed.
I just wanted to be a little more like Bridget.
In every way. She was kind, caring, compassionate, intelligent and independent, with strong emotional and interpersonal skills, and she was so confident in how she owned herself, her body, I just…
I just wanted to be a little bit more of a Bridget.
I wanted to do more than just be like her. But I couldn’t go thinking things like that right now.
I put on the audio that had been coursing through my head since last night, and I couldn’t describe the rush I felt all through my body when I heard her voice in my headphones. I slipped my hands down to my thighs, and I let the sensation carry me away.
Not just her voice, but her and that Gina person—she had a beautiful voice too, and I recognized objectively that it was sexy too, but I orbited around the sound of Bridget’s voice as I touched myself.
The way she talked, how she described the sexy office girl like there was something so hot about a corporate woman in a shirt and slacks who was fully consumed with her work until she was fully consumed with you…
part of me fantasized desperately that it was more than just an audio for Bridget.
That she wanted to wait for a girl who was at work and have them come home to… to…
Oh, fuck.