18. One orgasm and done #3
‘Horrific doesn’t do it justice…the adjective doesn’t exist, Dylan.
There aren’t the words, either on their own or in any combination, to describe what it was like—what it's been like.’ Greta held onto her tears, quickly blinking them back.
‘Having dealt with the loss of so many patients over the years, I thought I understood grief, but I didn’t.
’ She shook her head lightly. ‘What I understood was death. Grief is…it’s so powerful.
The force of it is destabilising. It changes you, as a person I mean, it changes you so fundamentally, it’s just— It’s Earth-shattering…
I miss her so deeply, so very…’ She inhaled a shaky breath.
‘I just miss her so much. Nothing on this Earth could prepare a person for grief. Not therapy. Not religion. Nothing.’ Greta gave Dylan a weak smile, before she kissed her fingertip and pressed it to Dylan’s lips.
A few moments passed as they both watched their fingers intertwine on Dylan’s chest.
‘Are you still religious?’ Dylan asked softly.
‘Not any more. I know that my father was not a reflection of Judaism, not at all. When I was with him we observed major Jewish holidays and some traditions but we also did Christmas and things. He would sometimes go to Synagogue…that ramped up as I got older, but I just find it too much. I’m very proud that I’m Jewish, and from day one of living with Mum and Dad, although they’re not particularly religious either, they always maintained that I would be supported in my faith if I chose it, but…
’ She huffed a breath through her nose and shook her head.
‘Organised religion is just not for me.’
‘You’re not alone in your opinion of religion. I was brought up Catholic, but I’m pretty sure my skin would start to fizz if I went in a church.’
‘I think all us lesbians fizz in churches, don’t we?’ Greta laughed.
Dylan raised her brows in agreement and gave a chuckle.
‘I had the full First Holy Communion Day thing. They dressed me as a mini bride because I was marrying God or some shit. White dress, veil, the whole shebang! How fucked up is that?’ She rolled her eyes.
‘I’ll get the pictures down from the loft, they’re really quite something…
the veil made my eyes pop!’ They both laughed loudly.
‘It was all about getting into a decent school, though, nothing to do with God…it’s absolute bollocks.
One of my proper old Irish teachers, Mrs Kelly, used to say—’ Dylan slipped into a flawless Irish accent.
‘“Your pretty curls and flapping tongue won’t make you a living, St John!” I’d love to tell her how wrong she was, but I don’t think it would quite be the gotcha moment I’d hope for. ’
Greta belly laughed and placed a hand on Dylan’s sternum. ‘Why the Sacred Heart tattoo? Was that for Mrs Kelly?’ She winked.
Dylan hooked two fingers into the collar of her T-shirt and peered down at her chest. ‘Yeah, actually. Then she broke up with me. It was bloody horrible… I’m still not quite over her.
’ She poked out her bottom lip as if Mrs Kelly had genuinely wronged her before releasing her collar, which snapped lightly back against her throat.
‘You might be a rebound thing, actually.’ Greta shook her head fondly and giggled.
‘It’s just an image I was always drawn to, weirdly,’ Dylan continued.
‘I find it beautiful. So I reclaimed it as a symbol of devotion to something other than some made-up deity. It symbolises my love for Mum.’
‘You’re very sweet, Miss St John,’ Greta whispered as Dylan smiled softly, her cheeks blushing pink. ‘Speaking of religious symbolism. My name was Galya before I was adopted.’
Dylan’s eyebrows arched up. ‘Galya? That’s so pretty. How come you changed your first name, too?’
‘My grandparents insisted I had a proper Hebrew name and Galya means Wave of God, or God has redeemed, in Hebrew.’ She bulged her eyes and pursed her lips around a smile as Dylan grimaced.
‘Yeeeah. Greta is Mum’s—Elaine’s—middle name…
it just made sense to me. I wanted more than anything to be theirs, fully theirs, in name, in everything…
absolutely everything. Even then, I knew I needed, and wanted, to leave it all behind and start again.
It was such a powerful feeling, I often struggle to articulate how it was to be honest.’
Dylan kissed Greta’s knuckles. ‘You just did, perfectly… Did you see your grandparents when you were growing up?’
‘My grandparents all died when I was very young…it was just me and Dad…and then steadily more Elaine and Eddie.’
‘You’re so fucking brave, G.’ The comfortable silence stretched for a moment.
Dylan brought Greta’s hand to her mouth again and pressed her lips to her palm as Greta smiled back at her.
‘So tell me, Greta Vincent.’ Dylan cocked an eyebrow and chuckled as she caged Greta’s hand with her own.
‘When did Margot emerge? Like, she was one angry bitch, G. I mean don’t get me wrong, she was fucking hot, but Jesus H Christ, she was mean! ’
Greta cringed, pulling her hand free to cover her face. Her cheeks pink from a rush of heat. Dylan tugged at her wrists, pulling against Greta’s resistance until she met her gaze. ‘Come on, tell me.’ Dylan’s amused smile remained firmly plastered across her face.
‘Margooot,’ Greta stretched the vowels low in her throat, letting the name unfurl slowly on an exhale.
‘She was my way of getting what I needed, or at least what I thought I needed, and remaining impassive and impervious to everything else.’ She pushed her fingers into Dylan’s curls while drawing in a deep breath.
‘The rules weren’t arbitrary, Dylan… I thought they were protecting me.
The meaner Margot was, the more I was able to avoid risking feelings, or my “bloody armour”, as Mum calls it, being chipped away at.
But there was something in the way Remi fucked me that…
’ As she gently played with Dylan’s curls, she allowed her eyes to fall to her lips fleetingly before dragging her gaze back to meet Dylan’s.
‘Well, it just hasn’t really worked out as planned. Has it?’
A visible flush crept up Greta’s neck and cheeks as Dylan softly shook her head.
‘I get it,’ Dylan said. ‘I always knew there was something between us.’
‘Oh?’
‘Yeah. You were the only client that I thought about outside of work. The only one that turned me on and drove me fucking insane… Every week in the six days before we hooked up again, I’d hear the noises you would make when you were close, imagine your face as you came.
Fuck me, it used to drive me mental, G!’ She chuckled deep in her throat.
‘Sometimes, when you would disappear into the bathroom to wait for me to leave, I’d have to make myself come quickly. ’
Greta’s eyes rolled shut, sighing heavily with retrospective regret. Dylan pulled herself up to sit beside Greta, both their backs pressed into the mound of pillows against the headboard.
‘It all feels so strange now,’ Greta said softly. ‘The way I have been…the way I ignored how I was feeling.’
Dylan’s lips curled into a gentle smile. ‘Can I ask you something?’
‘Of course.’
‘Why couldn’t I come…when I was with you? Why couldn’t I have an orgasm?’
‘I was scared…which sounds ridiculous I know, it all sounds bloody ridiculous now, but it was much like not wanting to be held by you. I knew that if I saw your pleasure, if I heard you and felt you climax I would need it more and more. I set the rules before we met and when we did I was so relieved because I…well you might as well know, and I’m glad you’re sitting down while I tell you this, but I was so incredibly attracted to you,’ she chuckled.
‘Watching you come for me would have unravelled me in a way I wasn’t ready for.
’ Greta’s expression grew serious as she shook her head.
‘I wanted you to disobey me, or follow me into the bathroom so many times. Jesus, I was in some denial.’ She widened her eyes before her gaze moved slowly over Dylan’s face.
‘I wanted you, Dylan. I’m just so sorr—’
‘No! No more sorries. It’s pointless. We’re where we need to be right now.
’ Dylan gave Greta a sweet sideways glance and smile.
‘I’ve known for ages that I had feelings for you,’ she continued as her fingers fidgeted with the belt of Greta’s dressing gown.
‘And when you started to slip, I knew things would change.’ Greta smiled while thinking back to the first time she had broken the rules and how she knew, deep down, it was the start of something that had been coming for a while.
The start of the chain of events that led them here.
‘When you told me to go down on you, I was screaming fucking finally, let’s go Margot!
in my brain.’ Dylan held her hands to her chest as if praying, laughing as she kissed her steepled fingers before shaking them at the ceiling. ‘And I knew you wanted me.’
‘Oh, really?’ Greta said wryly, softly bumping her shoulder against Dylan’s.
Turning to whisper, Dylan brushed her nose over Greta’s neck, inhaling softly as she moved her lips, just tracing the soft shell of her ear. ‘Greta, you were literally dripping down my chin.’
Greta whined at the memory. ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’
‘What? That you were dripping down my—’
‘No.’ Greta tutted. ‘Well, yes… No. That you had feelings for me? That...’ She hesitated at the ridiculousness of her words. ‘That I had feelings for you. Why didn’t you tell me?’
‘I wasn’t allowed to speak, G.’ Greta snorted a laugh as Dylan belly chuckled. ‘We just needed to work it out. Which is what we’re doing now.’ She pressed her lips to the top of Greta’s arm. ‘And it might seem chaotic and stressful now, but it won’t always feel this way. I promise.’
***