Chapter 11
Warm, red morning light on the lids of her eyes. Then Anne opened them.
Everything loomed into focus immediately: the cracked wall of the motel room and what they’d done. What she’d done.
The enormity of it stunned Anne. She stayed still on her side of the bed underneath the sheets, a brand new resident in an alien world.
Where was the panic? The fear? The recoil? You just had a sexual encounter with your female best friend. You’re different from everyone else, just like you were always terrified you’d be.
If you keep moving forward with this, your entire life will change.
All undeniably true. But she searched herself and found—at least right at that moment—only amazement and want. For the very first time in her life, Anne’s body and brain had been mastered by a need so demanding that her only purpose now was to feed it.
Sadie was asleep, turned away from Anne, her hair a wild nest on the pillow. She was still wearing the dress she’d had on—they’d fallen asleep before they could change for bed—and the yellow linen fabric was just as crumpled as the sheets.
Any second now, Sadie could wake up, turn over, and look at Anne. Would her face still be glazed over with sleep? Would she smile at Anne, that beautiful, bright smile?
Or would she look at Anne—who was still topless—and flush with fresh arousal?
Yesterday, Anne had learned that desire stammered first in her chest and shoulders before spreading elsewhere.
Now, in the still-quiet morning, she pressed her palm against her sternum.
The cool pressure felt good against bare, warm skin.
Beneath the sheets, she curled her legs further in, then stretched them back out, restless now as she began to spin her fantasy.
Maybe when Sadie opened her eyes, they’d burn with her frustration. After all, she hadn’t had any release last night, and no matter what she’d said about finding satisfaction, she’d still be strung tight.
You need it, too, Anne would whisper, looking into Sadie’s face, a mirror.
This time, they might try something else. Not in bed, but with Anne’s back thumped up against the wall as they kissed, Sadie’s hands grabbing her ass and pulling her in. The sound of Sadie’s needy gasp, a hot arrow splitting up and through Anne.
Clutching at Sadie, breaking the kiss, she’d begin to beg. Want to feel you, come on, please, and what she’d meant to say would start breaking too, into a fragment that exposed what she really wanted: Come—please— Incoherent. Obvious, not caring. Sadie’s gasp against her cheek.
In the quiet of the morning, Sadie was still fast asleep next to Anne.
For the second time in twelve hours, Anne sucked two fingers, then pushed them below the waistband of her joggers.
Last night, she’d felt an ache like a weight between her thighs, so heavy it almost hurt. Did Sadie get like that, too? What if Anne nudged her leg right up into the loose center of Sadie’s dress?
Her mind spun. Sadie would beg something wordless into the curve of Anne’s neck and, at the same time, rub down onto Anne’s thigh.
Anne would feel her heat, even through their layers of clothing, and Sadie might groan at first contact, too far gone already to do anything but chase relief.
Into Anne’s ear, fragmented, desperate: I’m going to come, Anne; you’ll make me come just like this—
Already, Anne’s clit felt tender underneath her wet fingers. She stroked herself, shocked herself. Shook.
She’d only been at it for a minute, but that didn’t matter. It was right there in the room: Sadie, suddenly stiffening against Anne, then whimpering oh oh oh into Anne’s skin. She’d move faster on Anne’s thigh, seizing with her pleasure.
Under the morning light, Anne came with Sadie and let fantasy make another wreck of herself.
Then, breathing hard, she uncurled, relaxed, and cupped the side of her face in quiet delight.
She’d done it again. Self-indulgent beyond anything she could’ve let herself imagine two days ago: to touch herself like this and be downright greedy for the best thing she’d ever had.
According to her watch, it was half past nine. Anne squinted to make sure she’d read the little hand correctly. She never slept this late, not without being sick. That was Sadie’s territory. Sadie, who was still out like the light she was.
She’s tired, Anne figured, and then, but she’s tired because of me; I wore her out.
The idea of it was so pleasing, so unfamiliar, that she actually laughed, then clapped her hand over her mouth, not wanting to wake Sadie.
She got out of the bed carefully, doing her best to avoid touching the sheets with the hand she’d just used, and found herself amazed, again, at how caught off guard she could still be by the realities of aging.
God, her neck hurt. Her lower back, too.
Apparently, you could be sixty and sixteen, too, all at once, your loud body craving so much in the same second.
Sex, a heating pad, ibuprofen. A shower. Oh, a shower.
Slowly, Anne stood up, wincing as stiff ligaments cracked. The back of her neck twinged.
Worth it. She’d take every bit and more in exchange for Sadie’s hands, Sadie’s mouth.
And—the realization swamped her with relief so immense, it made her briefly lightheaded—she didn’t have to make that deal, because she’d have Sadie again.
Not here, but at home, in her own bed, or in Sadie’s bed, or maybe someday in a bed that was theirs.
All over again, only with fewer clothes and nothing to hide behind.
Because Sadie wanted Anne. She’d said so over and over last night, with her words and with her hands, with that stunned look in her eyes.
As she made her way into the dingy bathroom, Anne was lost in thought.
Just yesterday, she’d stumbled, fear-blind, into—well, Sadie was right.
A marriage proposal. Anne had proposed marriage while calling it by every other name in the book, unwilling to look directly at the thing she desperately wanted.
She’d grabbed at commitment the same way you’d feel for a handrail in the dark.
Now, though, as she undressed, the future slowly took shape in front of Anne’s open eyes. It was funny, really, how familiar it was—just with a few important differences. Walking on the beach together; only now she’d lean up against Sadie, holding her hand.
Or slow-dancing in Anne’s living room to Cyndi Lauper, Anne leading. The best of high school and the best of now, wrapped in “Time After Time” and Sadie’s arms.
Or: they’d move to New York City together for Sadie’s new job at Barnard, and Anne would eventually get dragged to a faculty dinner with the other members of Sadie’s department.
Anne would go with a glad heart—even if she had to talk to academics for two hours—because the moment of introduction would be worth any amount of pretentiousness.
This is Anne, Sadie would say proudly. My wife.
Hello. It’s nice to meet you. I’m Anne. I’m Sadie’s wife.
Her chest suddenly burned and pulled with how much she wanted it, the longing so fierce it pushed out any other thought or feeling.
The fantasy seemed so real, so near. Now that she and Sadie had fully acknowledged what they were to each other and what they wanted, nothing could keep them apart, could it?
All barriers had crumbled. The hunger Anne had seen in Sadie’s eyes last night, her eager mouth, her seeking hands, her whispers and gasps and embraces; together, they were her clear answer to Anne’s proposal, all of her earlier anxiety gone.
No fear, no hesitancy, could be stronger than their shared joy.
Yes, she’d said, in every way but with her words. Yes, I’ll spend my life with you.
And now Anne would start her life. With Sadie by her side, she’d be able to build that happy future her child self had confidently predicted so long ago. Not another second to waste.
Wife.
Out of the corner of her eye, Anne saw movement. Startled, she twisted her head toward it, neck protesting, only to realize she’d caught herself in the bathroom mirror.
At first glance, she didn’t immediately recognize what she saw. The woman in the mirror was naked, touching her neck with her fingertips, blonde hair rumpled, cheeks flushed pink from what she’d been imagining.
But the bright sunlight that blazed through the bathroom window was uncomplimentary, and quickly, uncomfortably, Anne became familiar to herself again.
Normally, she tried her damndest to avoid the honesty of her naked body—her whittled, aging, human body. For some reason, though, despite her discomfort, Anne wouldn’t let herself look away.
There it was: the small rise of her stomach, curved despite her rigid diet and all the exercises she’d done to exhaust it into flatness.
She cupped the little mound, caught between resignation and resentment.
After Claire and Brooke’s births, she’d never been able to get back the firmness she’d had in her early twenties, and the faded cesarean scar just above her pubic bone was a stark reminder that underlined the soft arc of her belly.
Anne’s stomach wasn’t the only part of her that didn’t measure up.
The slackness of her upper arms clawed at her awareness.
Her facial skin had thinned, and while she couldn’t see any creases in the mirror at a distance, she knew what a closer inspection revealed.
Slight shadows persisted below her eyes no matter how much she slept or hydrated.
And despite the intervention of Botox, her nasolabial folds were deepening by the year.
At least her breasts were mostly acceptable, if less pert than in her younger days. But the rest—the rest of her body—made Anne flinch.
What will Sadie think when she sees me like this?
The thought made Anne shiver with a combination of elation and worry. She wrapped her arms around her middle, holding herself close, and kept her gaze on the woman in the mirror who seemed increasingly strange again.
This is Sadie, she reminded herself. The way she looked at you last night wasn’t critical. She’d never judge you. Not like you judge yourself.
Anne would want to ignore the soft slope of her stomach, pretend it didn’t exist, but Sadie would go out of her way to touch it.
She’d stroke the scar left by Anne’s first pregnancy with one reverent finger and say do you have any idea how extraordinary this is?
You made a miracle, and your body won’t ever let you forget it.
She’d kiss the thinned skin on Anne’s thighs, whispering, Wait, sweetheart, just be patient for me, I need to love this part of you first, while Anne lay back on the bed, eroding into desperation.
And her breasts. She’d already learned how Sadie would treat her breasts.
Sadie would be so kind.
The woman in the mirror still clutched her own waist, and Anne could make out the pale splotches of color on her upper chest and neck, her tightened nipples. The visual markings of Anne’s need, apparently infinite.
No more of that for now. She needed a shower. Then breakfast. They could stop at the café down the road on their way home. Oatmeal. Or—her mouth watered at the thought—maybe even eggs over easy.
Sheets rustled in the next room as Sadie turned over, then sighed loudly in her sleep.
Anne smiled at herself and pulled back the shower curtain.
Time to get ready, even if the sound of Sadie tugged her back.
She wouldn’t walk over to the bed, wouldn’t slide under the sheets.
Wouldn’t curl up close against Sadie’s warm body.
Wouldn’t whisper into her soft hair I want to keep saying yes.