22. Michaela
MICHAELA
“Mickey,” Jay’s quiet and soothing voice came from behind Michaela, but Michaela couldn’t answer. Her mouth was hot and felt cemented, even as her lips trembled under the weight of her sobs, her embarrassment and frustration, and so much more she couldn’t name.
“Mickey.” After a pause, she said more forcefully, “Michaela, baby, can I hold you? Would that be okay?” Michaela turned her head enough to be able to see over her shoulder and nodded.
She felt the bed dip under Jay’s weight again and then felt Jay’s warm body envelope hers.
Michaela wanted the touch, and at the same time, she wanted to run from the room.
“I got you baby, breathe, just breathe,” Jay said, from behind her as she stared at the wall next to her bed.
Finally, she felt like she could speak. “Jay, I am so sorry, I—”
“Now, none of that,” Jay said, squeezing her tighter.
“There is nothing to apologize for.” But there was.
They’d been walking around with what Iris called “heart eyes” all week.
They’d shared cuddles and kisses; they’d been taking their time.
But Michaela had pushed for more, desperate to make out again.
They hadn’t after their date, or any other time since the first time.
And Jay had done the thing where she’d slid a pillow between them, and all had been fine.
It was a rare Thursday where neither of them had to work, they didn’t have classes the next day, and Iris and Davis weren’t home.
So, Michaela had decided to push things.
Her body ached for Jay’s touch; she wanted more.
So much more. So she’d pulled the pillow out from between them and in one quick motion pressed her body against Jay’s.
The pressure of themselves rubbing up against one another had been exquisite, and the way Jay had moaned, like she was barely holding it together, had driven Michaela crazy.
Until a small pit started to form in her belly, sucking all of the lust and heat from her slowly.
And then suddenly she was thinking about who else had seen or heard Jay this way, and she thought about all the ways she was different from Jay’s ex-girlfriend, and the pit widened till she had pulled back and asked Jay to stop.
Jay had stopped and leapt from the bed, concern in her wide eyes.
That look had been all Michaela had seen before she’d rolled over, shame washing over her.
She had ruined the moment, and she couldn’t do what she knew she wanted to.
Each sensation was so much stronger and harder to process in the moment than the dissociation she used to feel with Brian.
“Mickey, what can I do, baby?” Jay’s voice washed over her swirling thoughts. Right, she was in bed with Jay. Jay who had her even when she was confronting her fears.
“Jay, I’m sorry, I know you said I don’t have to apologize because I didn’t do anything wrong, and I get that. But I also want you to know that I am sorry–for me, too. That was nice, until—”
“It was super hot and now it is still nice because I have my arms around my girlfriend.” Michaela smiled at that, the rush that always ran through her at that word beginning to help steady her.
“It’s just me and my stupid bod—”
“Please don’t talk about my girlfriend that way.
My girlfriend has da bomb bod, and I dig it whether I am looking at it, kissing it, or holding it.
But I do know sometimes your relationship with your body can be funky, and that’s okay.
So let’s just lie here till you find your way back to our moment. ”
Michaela was quiet for a moment. Sometimes it was hard for her to talk to Jay, because Jay never seemed to feel strange in her body.
The woman literally posed every which way in the mirror before they went out.
Sometimes Michaela thought she was just doing it for fun.
Michaela really wanted to talk to Iris, since she did say she’d experienced it from time to time.
But Jay was the one with her arms around her right now; Jay was the one who was asking her to trust her.
And Michaela did.
“It’s just–you don’t feel this way, do you? I feel silly for not being able to make out with my girlfriend without thinking about how your ex-girlfriend had, well, didn’t have a body like mine, and—”
Jay squeezed her tighter as Michaela wiped her face. When it was clear she wasn’t going to say anything else, Jay said, “Look, baby, I want to be with you. I want you. You felt how much I wanted you. And we will figure this out, okay?”
“With Brian I could just disassociate if it got bad, but—”
“I don’t mean to cut you off but, ew. No, I don’t want you to ever find yourself having to do that to like, get by or something with me. I am happy when I get to make you happy in any way. Emotionally, duh, and also physically.”
“What if I can’t figure this out, or it takes me forever to come around and we are stuck at first base?”
“I would come up with a cute sports metaphor or some shit if I knew sports but I don’t. So, all I can ask is, do I make you happy? Emotionally–you know, when I am not acting like a coward?”
Michaela let out a small scoff, she really needed Jay to let the week before midterms go. She certainly had. “Of course, that’s why I am so upset that I—”
“And,” Jay continued, “are you happy kissing me, cuddling me? Are you happy right now in my arms?”
“Yes, but—”
“Then I am happy. I am happy when I get to make you happy and that includes physically. If me holding you makes you happy, I am happy. I don’t need anything else but that, Mickey, your happiness.”
Michaela didn’t know what to say, didn’t know what steps in life had led her to Jay, but she would do them all over again if meant meeting her. Being with her, having her. “Thank you,” Michaela said, the only words that she could bring to mind.
“Always baby, I will always kiss you, and hold you, and rub my face in your always so soft hair that always smells so fucking good.”
Michaela cringed slightly. “You think it always smells good?”
“Yeah, like honey and vanilla, and something else I can’t quite place, but it’s a warm smell.”
“Smells can’t be warm—”
“You know what I mean.” Jay pinched right underneath Michaela’s rib, a spot that she’d recently found made Michaela ticklish.
“Okay! I’m asking because this weekend is when I was going to take down and wash my hair, but then it's Halloween and I wanna be out with you, but I also don’t want it to–I want you to like it.”
Jay was quiet for a moment. She wrapped her arms around Michaela again, pulling her into a tight hug. “Why don’t we wash your hair now?”
This was unexpected. Michaela had always disappeared into the bathroom to de-twist, oil, wash — which usually involved an everything shower, conditioned, and then went through the process of moisturizing, re-oiling, and re-twisting.
Door to door, the whole process took about two hours, but the results lasted for two weeks.
She could probably get longer out of the style, but she refused to sleep with a bonnet.
“Like together? In the shower?” Michaela heard the apprehension in her own voice. She could barely deal with Jay touching her, let alone seeing all of her.
Jay seemed to pick up on her apprehension. “No, while I would love showering with you and shaving your legs, I can wait until after, and then you just show me what to do.”
Michaela felt a nervous and warm feeling spread through her. Nervous for her non-Black girlfriend to be pulled into her very Black, and very sacred, hair care routine. She also felt warm because she'd never had someone wash her hair for her, and she liked the idea of Jay toiling in her hair.
“Okay, um but I can do the first part here with you. It's the take down–un-twisting my hair and oiling it so it doesn’t dry out when I shampoo it,” Michaela said.
“Let’s do it baby, let me help take care of you,” responded Jay, and Michaela felt her kiss the spot between her neck and jaw before adding, “I told you, if you’re happy, I’m happy. That’s all I want Mickey, your happiness.”
After showing Jay how to use a rat-tooth comb and untwist her hair so that it didn’t tangle, the process had gone much faster than Michaela expected.
It had also been incredibly more intimate and soothing than she’d expected, Jay’s hot breath on her skin as she worked her fingers through two twisted strands and then combed through them with her oil-coated fingers.
The sensation of Jay’s fingers on Michaela’s scalp sent a warming tingly sensation from the tip of her head down to her shoulders, and she thought one day she’d ask Jay to wash her hair.
She just knew the scalp massage would be amazing.
But maybe another time when she felt more comfortable, whenever that would be.
The shower had been a great recalibration, especially running through the regular routine of washing her hair, adding the conditioner, shaving, bathing, and then rinsing.
It was like she’d fully come back to herself.
And, in the post-shower clarity, she remembered something Kevin had suggested to her a while ago, about talking to Iris.
She would find a way to also raise it with Jay.
Now she sat on her bed with Jay, a towel, and her three favorite hair products: a twisting butter, castor oil, and a balm. She already had a leave-in in her hair that helped her detangle it, a must since she’d been growing it out now for over five years and had quite the length to show for it.
“So we just need to part my hair evenly, and then I like to put some of the twisting butter on, then the oil and then the balm. It’s okay if it feels saturated, my hair will drink it up.”
“You’re not worrying about it becoming too gunky?” Jay asked after following Michaela's every word.
“My hair is like my mother’s, it drinks everything I put in it.” And then because she wasn’t trying to give a run-through of the various types of afro hair, she asked, “I mean, does my hair ever seem gunky?”
Jay thought for a moment and shook her head. “No, it's so cool that you don’t have to worry about that. I have my dad’s hair. If I go more than two days, my hair is slick at the roots.”
Michaela gave a small smile and said, “Then we balance each other out.”
“Surprise, surprise,” Jay said, returning her smile.
They worked without talking for a while, Michaela doing the bottom pieces of her hair that Jay had parted for her, and Jay working at the top of her head. Michaela was listening to the music Jay had put on, trying to figure out how to raise what was on her mind.
“You’ve played this music before, I like it.” Michaela went with a soft opening, plus she meant it. She noticed Jay didn’t play Spanish music a lot, and she hoped it wasn’t on her account. She only ever seemed to catch Jay listening to it alone.
“Oh yeah, I’m obsessed with Selena,” Jay said easily from behind her.
“How come you never play this when I am home?”
Jay was quiet for a moment. “I just have a weird relationship with Spanish in general. Like I told you my parents really wanted to make sure I took to English. They didn’t want me to be held back in school or anything, the whole immigrant assimilation thing.
I guess, I've kinda been conditioned to hide that part of myself.”
Michaela thought that over. Strange, that that was the part of herself that Jay hid, versus everything else.
Jay was so open and in your face all the time, in a way that you couldn’t help but love and appreciate.
The idea that even someone like Jay had something to hide to fit in made her sad.
“You know you don’t have to hide any part of yourself with me, right?
I mean, you were playing it when I came in, and I like that. ”
Michaela heard Jay’s small chuckle. “I plan on taking Spanish while I am here. I also find both the goddess Selena and Spanish super comforting, and I thought we could use that right now.”
Michaela smiled, more to herself, since she knew Jay couldn’t see it.
“Thank you,” she said finally, and Jay paused what she was doing to plant a kiss on Michaela’s temple.
All of it: them talking; Jay’s hands in her hair as if they’d always done Michaela’s hair ritual together; Jay sharing a side of herself Michaela hadn’t known; it all felt so right and so safe.
Michaela swallowed and said, “I think it may help to know about her.”
“Who,” Jay said.
“Your ex?” Michaela said it like a question, because truthfully, it was so many questions.
“Diana?” Jay asked. “What do you want to know?”
“How did you two meet?”
“Oh well, she was the hot daughter of my parents’ boss. Her family owns an orchard business in Vermont.”
Michaela digested this information. So her ex was hot, rich, white, and assigned female at birth. She was everything Michaela wasn’t. The gap Michaela envisioned between her and Diana widened.
“Mickey?” Jay’s voice broke through her thoughts.
“And she,” Michaela’s mouth had suddenly turned very dry, “she was fine with you?”
“More than fine,” Jay replied in the most Jay way. “But what is this about? What does this have to do with us?” With us, that simple phrase course-corrected Michaela’s thoughts.
“I guess, part of my freakout before was that I was wondering–her body and my body. We are so different, in more ways than one.”
Michaela felt Jay’s hand under her chin as she guided her to turn in her direction. Jay looked down at her. “Mickey, I have eyes, I am well aware–”
“But how can you be sure, how can I be sure?”
Jay sucked her bottom lip into her mouth and then let it go with an exasperated pop.
“Michaela, you just asked me not to hide anything for you. So believe me when I tell you, I have eyes, I can see, and I know who I want. Diana is Diana, beautiful in her own right, and I will not lie to you, I still care and think about her a great deal. But,” Michaela had tried to turn her head and Jay held onto her chin.
“I also care a great deal about you. I want to be with you, I have been from the first moment I laid eyes on you. Please do not ask me to compare, because I refuse to. Neither of you deserve that. And please, I am begging you, if you are unsure how you feel that’s one thing, but do not ever dismiss my want for you.
” Jay leaned down and kissed Michaela. Michaela had been expecting a light kiss, but Jay kissed her hungrily and almost forcibly, licking her way into Michaela’s mouth as if to ensure her mark was left on her.
When Jay finally pulled back, she kept her hand on Michaela’s chin and said breathily, “Okay?”
“Okay.”