Sapphic Voices General Fiction

Very Short Stories

Synopsis

We are witness, through a series of conversations, to the emotional growth of a young Woman, from her first coming out experience through her acceptance of romantic self-hood.

The first conversation in the novella is between Celeste Clark and her good friend -- and object of her not-so-secret desire -- Sonya. Celeste reveals her confusion over her sexual identity and the "signals" she perceives she is receiving from Sonya, who is herself confused.

The issues between them are left unresolved, but Celeste is nevertheless determined to discover where her true proclivities lie. She engineers an encounter with the older, more worldly Vera, who eases her into the gay lifestyle. This experience opens the flood gates, and Celeste becomes entangled with a series of Women. "long the way, however, she must confront her own feelings of ambivalence, as well as the rejection and then grudging acceptance, of her loved ones. Even the unconditional acceptance of two of her former boyfriends muddies the waters, leaving her with feelings of inadequacy. After several failed Lesbian liaisons, Celeste makes a feeble attempt to squelch her new found identity by proposing marriage to a childhood friend, who is actually more like a brother than a potential suitor.

Celeste strives for self-acceptance and self-respect, yet she remains easily swayed by carnal urges and allows herself to be seduced by a mysterious stranger. It is this experience, however, which solidifies her conviction that she is her own best cure for loneliness and that she will only cease to be lonely when she learns to enjoy her own company.

The dialogues are interspersed with poetic reflections relative to Celeste's growth. They serve as segue to the various stages of her emotional development and provide insight into her turmoil -- and eventual triumph -- over her conflicting emotions.

SONYA

The room was dark, save for a candle burning in a bottle cap on the night stand. Celeste sat on the windowsill watching a silhouetted Sonya stretched out peacefully on the bed. They had talked for hours about the two month training session Celeste had recently completed in Raleigh-Durham, about Sonya's Grecian vacation, about the future. Now they were silent, having retreated to private thoughts.

The night air was clear. The stars, it seemed to Celeste, waltzed across the black sky one by one, no longer in their familiar constellatory formation, as if each one wished to be observed and judged on its own brilliance.

Sonya stirred slightly and put her hand behind her head.

"Have you been to the club since you've been back?" she asked, her eyes closed.

The club, Celeste knew, was the Europa, their old, all night haunt. They went so often that they weren't even required to pay the cover charge and only very rarely did they pay for drinks. They knew everyone; everyone knew them. But their lives had changed. Their paths diverged. They didn't go there much anymore.

"No, Celeste replied quietly.

"I went last week. Most of the old crowd is gone. There seemed to be more women there than there used to be.

"Probably hags, Celeste retorted, cautiously.

Fag-hags, she meant. Straight women who hung around gay bars and gay men for reasons often fathomable only to themselves. They'd been accused, Sonya and Celeste, of fitting the mold, since the Europa, their haunt, was a gay bar. But being thought a hag had its advantages, like the privilege they enjoyed in the bar, and it was a lot more desirable than the alternative - being suspected of lesbianism.

Celeste had such suspicions about Sonya. They were immediately piqued by Sonya's mention of the number of women in the club.

"Some, but not all. Some of them looked kind of... interesting." Sonya opened one eye slightly in a reverse wink. Celeste watched her very closely, trying to read between her lines. "Women are usually such bores, though," Sonya qualified.

"True," Celeste agreed, relieved.

"Although, last week I was looking around the club and thinking..." Celeste squinted a little, trying to better read Sonya's face. "I thought maybe one day I'd let some very classy lady take me home."

"What?" Celeste exclaimed, surprised, but by no means shocked by Sonya's comment. Sonya had been making concentric circles around the possibility of a liaison for years. Celeste had come to realize that her statements were intended to shock, not enlighten, and that very realization had robbed the statements of much of their power.

"Just to see what would happen," Sonya explained.

"What would happen," Celeste said authoritatively, "is that you'd get yourself into trouble." 'Women really can be such bores,' she thought, realizing Sonya was up to her old game of teasing, prodding, probing, baiting.

"Well, it was just a thought. " kind of fantasy."

That was a word Celeste had not previously heard her use in this context. Could it be that Sonya's intentions and desires had changed, Celeste wondered, or had the game just escalated?

"Oh, you're having fantasies about women these days?"

"About a particular kind of woman. Haven't you ever thought about it?"

"No," Celeste answered - too quickly. "I've never fantasized about women," she lied.

"Not even so much as a passing thought?"

"No. I mean, when it was thrown up in my face, of course I couldn't help but think about it." She wasn't thinking anymore about Sonya's motives. She was thinking of her own.

"And when was that?"

Celeste hesitated. She was not sure she was ready to share her news. She was not sure Sonya was ready to hear it. She proceeded with caution.

"One of my fellow trainees was constantly raving about Jo. Jo, Jo, Jo! Seemed like all she ever talked about. One day I found out Jo was short for Joanne."

"How'd you find out?"

"She told me. I mean, she showed me a picture of her."

"She just showed you a picture of this woman out of the blue? Why you?"

"I don't know, but I just acted like it was no big deal. And it wasn't."

"So you just said, 'Yeah, well, that's nice,' and that was the end of it?"

Celeste began to fidget, remembering what had happened next. She was conflicted as to whether she wanted to share with Sonya events about which she had not yet accepted her own complicity.

"Not exactly. She kept asking me how I felt about it. Once she even told me that she thought I was, you know, like that. She asked if I'd ever thought about it. I told her it was no big deal and that I didn't think anything about it, you know. It's her life. She does what she wants. I told her I was seeing Greg. I even showed her pictures of him. She just went on and on about how she thought I was... well, she was really quite persistent."

"But was she successful?"

"No!" Celeste shot back defensively. "What do you mean, 'successful'? She didn't force herself on me or anything, if that's what you mean."

"So you went willingly, eh?" Sonya teased, yet determined to know. "Celeste, have you or have you not had...an experience?"

"Hardly," Celeste said in mock indignation.

"Come on, Celly, you can tell me."

Celeste was still hesitant. She wanted to tell Sonya all the details and how she'd felt about it. She needed to share with someone that which she'd kept bottled up for months. Although Sonya claimed to be a woman of the world, interested in all kinds of experiences, Celeste wondered if she could really handle the truth for which she'd been so diligently digging. She thought perhaps Sonya wasn't quite as worldly as she pretended to be.

Celeste felt she'd gone too far, too fast. She knew that this was her last chance to keep her own counsel, but on the other hand it might also be her last chance to find out, once and for all, the nature of Sonya's intention. She knew now was the time to find out whether Sonya could live up to the reputation of free spirit she'd built for herself. Now was the time to win the game - or lose it.

"She...uh...she kissed me," Celeste said to Sonya's reflection in the window.

"And did you kiss her back?" Sonya asked coolly. She seemed almost hurt.

Celeste didn't answer. Instead, she stared out of the window and watched the stars wink at her behind Sonya's reflection. Sonya sat up and folded her legs under her, rolled her head from side to side, twisted her torso, this way and that. She seemed unconcerned with the answers to her questions, more concerned with her own flexibility. She was, in fact, living up to her reputation... so far.

Celeste knew that Sonya was making every effort to appear unconcerned. But she also knew she was aching to know the answers to her questions and had many more yet unasked. Celeste wanted to say, 'Yes, I kissed her back. Yes, I enjoyed it. Yes, I would enjoy more of it. Yes, I have thought about enjoying it with you.' It was the last thought that kept her silent. Her secret desire for Sonya hid just beneath the surface. Celeste feared that confessing her desire for any woman would force her to reveal her love for Sonya - a love Celeste could only imagine was unrequited - a revelation that could only lead to rejection.

"So what, are you gay now?" Sonya asked almost accusingly, puncturing Celeste's thoughts.

"I don't know." Celeste spoke quietly to the reflection that was now sitting erect and staring intently at her, trying to read her innermost thought - trying to discover her shared secrets. Her answer had really only left a bigger question.

Silence became a bottomless pit, a timeless void into which all existence fell. Celeste knew that she was being challenged but emotion, trepidation lingered stubbornly. 'Come out, come out wherever you are,' Sonya seemed to be saying. 'Come out now. Come out to me. Draw me out?' Celeste wondered. Her challenge to herself was to make a decision: either move into Sonya's arms or out of the room, out of the house, out of the trap Sonya had set.

"I've got to go," Celeste said firmly, rising from her perch. Sonya escorted her silently to the door. "I'll call you tomorrow," Celeste offered as she opened it.

"Celeste, what was it like?" Sonya asked casually.

It was a final challenge to force Celeste into making a choice that Sonya couldn't make herself - to force her to make the move Sonya wanted.

Celeste turned to Sonya and saw the question linger upon her lips. She put her hand gently on Sonya's cheek. Sonya leaned forward, just slightly, in anticipation of an answer.

"You're not ready for this," Celeste said, turning to exit.

"You're not ready for me to be ready," Sonya replied softly.

Celeste turned again to Sonya, certain for the first time that her desire was requited. She stroked her hair, allowing only the most fleeting final doubt before she drew her close, kissing her fully on the lips. Sonya's whole body returned the kiss. Her lips parted. Her arms encircled Celeste's waist. Suddenly frightened, Celeste gently pulled away.

"Goodnight, Sonya," she said decisively.

"Goodnight, Celeste."

VERA

"You want something, don't you?"

Celeste sat quietly as Vera swung her small yellow sports car into the parking lot of a roadside motel whose sign they had spotted along the side of a dark stretch of Maryland highway.

Vera went into the office and secured a room for them - single, one bed. They went into the room silently, Celeste following a few steps behind Vera, glancing over her shoulder before stepping over the door jam. Vera turned on the TV - picture, no sound - then sat on the chair, crossing her legs and folding her hands on her lap, waiting for an answer. Celeste sat on the bed and crossed her legs. Vera stared at her - picture, no sound.

"Well, do you?" she asked.

"Do I what?"

Vera was patient. "Do you want something?"

"Me? No!"

"Uh, uh. You were the one who suggested we take a drive in the country late at night..."

"Well, yeah, but..."

"You insisted that we find a room rather than drive back."

"You were tired."

"And you love to drive. In fact, you usually can't get enough of driving. You could have driven back and forth and back again. But you have no ulterior motives tonight?"

"No."

"Yeah, you do," Vera said, pleasantly. "You want something and you think I can give it to you."

Celeste rose abruptly and leaned on the dresser as if her position on the bed had revealed some secret her heart was keeping.

"What could I possibly want from you?" she asked.

Silence again. Vera was amused by this game of cat and mouse, hide and seek, twenty questions.

"What you want from me is something you've already got," she said. "You just need someone - a woman - to share it with."

Celeste blushed. She thought to refute Vera's analysis, but the fact was, she had set up the whole scenario. Now that it was unfolding as planned, all her conflicts were internal.

Vera got up and stood in front of Celeste with her hands behind her back. They were very close, but Vera was careful not to touch. Celeste froze. All her concentration was on meeting Vera's gaze. Vera brushed her lips lightly across Celeste's frozen grimace. She gently put one arm around Celeste's waist, but did not draw her close. She kissed her gently, Celeste yielding a little, and put her other arm around her. Still she did not draw her near. Celeste's lips parted hesitantly as she returned Vera's embrace. The butterflies in her stomach fluttered down to her womanhood, up to her throat, and settled, finally, around her heart. Vera's arms tightened around her as Celeste gently pressed her body against her. Celeste's arms encircled Vera's neck as she gave herself to the kiss. Vera slid her lips softly across Celeste's cheek to whisper in her ear.

"I like a woman who knows what she wants."

JENNIFER

"You've been mighty quiet tonight."

"No, I've just been listening to you."

"Oh."

They walked in rhythm under familiar trees, past familiar houses, on familiar streets. The streets of their adolescence where they had stood talking about things they had done, wandered looking for things to do, sat wondering about things to come. The memories were sweet. They had shared similar goals then and could not have imagined that one minor difference in their lives could have forced so strong a wedge between them.

This tiniest fracture had shown itself, Celeste realized, even before she had left to accept a new position and begin her career. It had started with Sonya. Celeste's friendship with her had strained their "bosom buddy-dom." Celeste spent a lot of time with Sonya and went with her to places Jennifer cared not to go. The Europa, for example. That often left Jennifer without a pal and the time spent apart only widened the space between them.

At first Celeste justified her choices, by saying it gave Jen time to be with her boyfriend, who always seemed to come before whatever plans they had made. Then she decided that at that point in her life she had more in common with Sonya than Jennifer. It had taken her years to finally figure out - to finally admit to herself - what the shift in association was all about. She was attracted to Sonya and that attraction was more important than her friendship with Jennifer, just as Jennifer's boyfriends came before her friendship with Celeste. Thus the wedge had revealed itself, creating a real threat to their true friendship.

Now, as they walked their familiar streets together again, Celeste sought to chip away at the wedge, to come to an understanding so that they could share those streets, and their memories, freely again.

"I noticed that you usually get quiet when I talk about women or when we're around my women friends. Is there..."

"I just don't know what to say," Jennifer interrupted defensively.

"Is it still a problem for you?"

"Not really. It's just that I don't know anything about that stuff. I don't know what to say," she repeated. "I don't feel like I have any... input." Jennifer spoke with her hands and averted her eyes.

"Try to think of it in terms of romance rather than in terms of men and women."

"I guess," Jennifer answered apprehensively.

Silence shrouded them. Cold crept into the space between them and threatened to push them even further apart.

"When it comes to you, I still feel guilty about it," Celeste admitted, her words breaking like crystals on the cold air, falling at their feet.

"Why?"

"Because of all the times you defended me against the rumors, only to find out they were true, but they weren't true at the time - at least I didn't know it." Celeste ran her words together in a rush of explanation. "Still," she said more slowly, "I feel like I let you down."

"You didn't let me down."

"I didn't exactly bear you out, either. That's why I'm always telling you how important your friendship is to me. I want you to know that I would never do anything to upset it. Not on purpose. I feel like I have to make it up to you, but short of going straight I don't know how."

"But you don't have to make it up to me and you don't have to go straight to please me."

"But I feel like I do. Jenny, I was so afraid to tell you because I knew how you would feel. I knew you had defended me even to the point of bringing suspicion on yourself. " teenage girl risking being called a butch to defend a friend's reputation is a pretty big sacrifice. I was afraid you' d hate me if you found out I was really gay.

"But I couldn't go on lying to you. I felt guilty about that, too. Pretending Vera was just a friend. Turning my male co-workers into imaginary lovers. It just didn't feel right. Not with you.

"Then, after I'd told you, I thought I'd made a mistake. I knew I had hurt you and you can't tell me it didn't hurt. You can't tell me you didn't cry because I saw the tears in your eyes. I felt like shit that night."

"Yeah, it really bothered me at first, but I've accepted it. It's your life, Celeste. I can't tell you how to live it. You don't owe me an explanation."

"But I do, in a way. If I owe anyone an explanation, it's you. In a way, I betrayed your trust. But it's not just that. It's like there's a whole big part of my life we can't share because it makes me feel guilty and it makes you feel awkward."

"There's no law that says we have to share everything," Jennifer said calmly.

"But I don't want to hide from you. I don't want to be in the closet when I'm with you, like I am at work."

"Then don't be. Honestly, Celeste, you worry too much. You don't have to be a monk about it. Just don't rub my nose in it."

They walked a block in silence before Celeste spoke again.

"You know, we never touch."

"What?" Jennifer's not-so-silent alarm sounded.

"You know, like sisters. Not when you got married, not when your son was Christened, or at graduation. Never so much as a peck on the cheek, let alone a hug."

"I'm just not a touchy person and neither are you. Besides, you weren't at my wedding and I wasn't at graduation."

"Oh, yeah."

"Celeste, it's true we've been through a lot together and we'll probably go through a lot more. So I'm married and have a kid and you're gay. So all of a sudden we're supposed to start hugging and kissing all the time when we never did before? For what? To make a point? This ain't the movies, Cel. I would no more expect you to tell me the details of your sex life than I would tell you about mine. That doesn't mean we're not close. "ll right, maybe I do have a little way to go to complete acceptance, but don't get paranoid on me.

"After you told me, I thought about it. I doubted myself. I wondered if maybe I wasn't denying my own feelings, if maybe that's why we were so close. But I realized that wasn't true. I like men. You like women. I love you like a sister. We're still best friends. We're probably the only two from our little gang still talking to each other. That means something."

"You're right."

When they reached the school yard, they instinctively went in and sat on a bench, Celeste with her legs straddling each side, Jennifer with her hands deep in her jacket pockets and her legs stretched out, crossed in front of her. Familiar positions for them, that took them back to a time when they were totally at ease with each other.

"Hey," Jennifer said smiling, bridging the gap in their friendship, "remember the day I decided I wanted to learn to play paddleball?"

"Oh, yeah. You spent more time dodging the ball than hitting it. What about the time Bobby broke the spoke on my sister's bike with that hockey puck?" Celeste laughed. "I knew I was going to get into big trouble for that. I wasn't even supposed to have the bike."

"You called him 'puck' for years after that."

Jennifer was laughing too, at ease with her old friend, her sister by choice, for the first time that night - for the first time in years.

"Probably still would if he was around."

They felt friendship's warm embrace, finally secure in the knowledge that the crack would close and seal forever.

ALEXIS

"I was going to write to you."

"About what?"

"Do I need a reason to write?"

"Usually."

"Well, I've been meaning to write more but, you know, grad school keeps me so busy."

"Yeah, I know."

Celeste was silent for a few moments. She knew by the gentleness in Alexis' voice what direction the conversation was going to take. She knew from the fact that her only sister had invested a portion of her meager income on a long distance phone call that something was weighing heavily on her mind. She knew what it was. She knew, but she played the game anyway, thinking it ironic that sisterly love had never before been reason enough for Alexis to call.

"I've been thinking a lot about what you told me last week," Alexis said, getting to the point in her way.

Celeste knew, but asked, "Have you? Why?"

"I don't know. It's just been on my mind."

Celeste breathed a heavy sigh, already tiring of the game.

"Does it bother you?" she asked impatiently.

"No, not really. I just feel we should discuss it."

"Why? There's nothing to discuss."

"Yes there is!" Alexis urged.

"You want details?" Celeste asked, tauntingly.

"Of course not. I just feel we should talk about it. I mean, you're my baby sister and I want to know how you feel."

"I feel fine. Great! Terrific!"

"I just think..."

"Look, did you discuss it with James when you found out about him?"

James was their older brother, who was known to be gay but, unlike Celeste, never felt the need to confess it to his family.

"That's different. James is not my sister."

"That depends on how you look at it," Celeste joked, trying to lighten up the conversation.

Alexis laughed, a little. "That's terrible, Celeste. At any rate," she continued lightly, trying to share the humor, "he's not my baby sister."

"Neither am I," Celeste mumbled. "So, how's school?"

"Celeste!"

"You're going to insist we 'discuss' this, aren't you?"

"Yes! I mean, is there a problem with talking about it? "re you ashamed?"

"No," Celeste said patiently, knowing Alexis had hit her target by challenging her. She never could resist a challenge. "Okay, what is it you want to know?"

"I don't understand why... why you're doing this."

"I'm not 'doing' anything. I'm gay. I love women. It's no big deal. It certainly isn't something I'm choosing to do like I'd choose to wash my car. It's just me."

"I'm just concerned that you may have turned to this out of loneliness or because you're looking for happiness. You're always saying how lonely you are down there and you've never been very happy. I..."

"And you've never been very concerned about it before. You know, Alexis, I thought you had some sense," Celeste said, fully irritated. "First of all, I didn't turn to lesbianism, it turned to me. It turned to me one day and said, 'Either you accept yourself or stay miserably closeted the rest of your life.' Second of all, if you're so concerned about your 'baby sister's' loneliness, why don't you ever visit me? And as far as happiness is concerned, well, I'll settle for a little contentment and I'm content being gay - so stop trippin'!"

"I'm not tripping. I'm just... concerned."

"Well, it's a little late to play big sister," Celeste hissed. "You should have been concerned all those years I was getting screwed over by men, not because I get a little satisfaction from women. You barely acknowledged the fact that I was pregnant and unmarried at nineteen by a guy who was practically a stranger. You just shook your head when I had an abortion. Now you want to bug-out 'cause I'm gay. I don't get it. You don't get it. I may be your sister, but I'm not a baby anymore."

"Is that what this is about? Of course it is! You're dissatisfied with men so you've turned to women," Alexis averred, pleased with her own powers of deductive reasoning.

"Give-me-a-break, Alexis. You've missed the whole point. This is me. This is who I am and always have been. The only turning I've done is turning to the light to really see myself. I seriously doubt that your concern is going to change that."

"Alright, maybe I haven't always been there when you wanted, but that doesn't mean I didn't care," Alexis answered defensively. "You've always been so intense and I couldn't always return that, but I still cared. It's not too late to show that, it is?"

Celeste was surprised to hear, for the first time in her life, something that sounded very close to pleading in Alexis' voice. It softened her a bit to Alexis' authoritative intrusion upon her life.

"No," she said more tenderly, "it's not too late to show you care, but there's no reason for you to worry about me. Things are going smoothly for me for the first time in years. I'm okay, really," she assured.

"Well," Alexis said, reverting to her smug tone, having elicited what she perceived as contrition from Celeste. "I just hope you know what you're doing."

She hung up abruptly, leaving Celeste to stare at the receiver, listening to dial tone, wondering about the definition people attach to caring.

CORY

Her kisses burned impressions in Cory's skin - on her neck, her shoulders, her arms, her cheeks, her breasts. Burned like quick-fire, like a laser - quickly, quietly, almost painlessly - leaving a subtle tingling in their wake.

Cory lay there absorbing, savoring the sensation of sparks igniting all over her body seemingly all at once. She stroked Celeste's hair lightly, traced her face with her fingers, let her hand fall gently to the bed. Celeste stopped, rested on one elbow and stared at Cory for a long time. Cory opened her eyes and asked a silent question.

"You're so beautiful," Celeste said in explanation of her gaze. Cory smiled. "I can't believe you're here with me like this." Celeste kissed her again in the shallow valley between her breasts.

"Why can't you believe it?"

"You're so beautiful," Celeste repeated. "I've dreamed of being with a woman like you."

"You've fantasized?"

"More than fantasized. I mean, more than sexual fantasy. Something more round, more complete. Like the way I feel now. Like when we touch, it's more than just feeling."

Cory's hand gently traveled the length of Celeste's back. Celeste closed her eyes. Something inside of her, everything inside of her seemed to gasp softly.

"Like that?" Cory asked.

"Yes, and like this." Celeste kissed Cory's neck.

"Ssss. It burns," Cory said. "It sizzles. I like that. No, I love that."

"It's like that for me all the time. When I see you, talk to you, understand you. When you understand me."

"When we argue?"

"We don't argue. We sometimes disagree. Yes, it sizzles when we disagree."

"You flatter me," Cory said.

"No." Cory knew.

"Then you're hot for me."

"No."

"No?"

"I mean yes, but more than hot."

"What then?" Cory knew.

Celeste kissed her lips tenderly, caressed her body gently, answered her question silently. She breathed Cory's question back into her ear.

"What then?"

"Ssss. I love you."

LEE

Sweat crawled across Celeste's face like a curious picnic ant and trickled into her ear. With a sleepy hand she instinctively brushed away the droplet. She turned on her side, burying her face into the back of the sofa and revealing her soggy back to the beams of sunlight that streamed through the window. Sleep gave way to moist heat. She forced her body upright and her feet to the floor.

Celeste got up to wash, dress, cook, listen from the kitchen for the sounds of another stirring in the bedroom, remember the events of the night before, contemplate the ensuing confrontation with her "straight" friend, to whom she had made love.

Lee started singing in the shower and continued as she dressed. Celeste was confused. Could Lee have enjoyed the night's activities without the characteristic remorse, regret and recriminations that sometimes follow the first such experience? Perhaps she didn't remember it. Perhaps she remembered but chose to ignore it. She seemed unaffected by the situation. Celeste's every move, on the other hand, was affected by recent memory.

"My, my, we are up early this morning," Lee said cheerfully as she entered the kitchen. "And look, you've made breakfast. Ah, and cleaned the kitchen. You really didn't have to."

"Well, I was up anyway and I needed something quiet to do so I wouldn't wake you."

"Quiet? Darling, I heard you all the way from my bedroom, in my sleep, with the door closed."

"Sorry about that."

"Oh, don't be sorry. Anyone who cleans my kitchen has nothing to apologize for." Lee seemed no different than she had been the day before. She seemed so at ease, in fact, that Celeste began to doubt her own memory. Perhaps they had not made love. Perhaps she'd only dreamed it.

"You know I don't eat much breakfast, don't you?"

"That's why I didn't make much breakfast," Celeste said, trying to seem as nonchalant as Lee.

"Good. Let's eat in the living room."

Lee advanced to the table. Celeste retreated. Lee stopped, looked at Celeste curiously, then proceeded to move breakfast into the living room. She placed the items on the coffee table and sat on the sofa. Celeste sat on a chair across the room.

"Aren't you eating?"

"I ate while you slept. I've been up for hours. I'll just have another cup of coffee."

Breakfast was quiet. Conversation was cordial. The night was not discussed. Celeste was a nervous wreck. She traveled in wide paths around Lee. Each time Lee neared her, Celeste moved away. Celeste stood at the kitchen sink washing the breakfast dishes and as Lee approached quietly to put a cup in the sink, she brushed Celeste's arm. Celeste was startled.

"What's the matter with you? I'm not going to bite you."

Celeste tried to ease her own tension with a joke.

"You're not? Shucks," she said snapping her fingers, "I was hoping you would."

Lee jumped into a tease.

"You want me to bite you?" she asked seductively.

Celeste, her anxiety unabated, had to call her bluff. She knew it had been Lee's teasing that had initiated events the night before, but she was properly teased -- thoroughly tempted. She dried her hands and turned to Lee.

"Yeah, bite me right there," she said, pointing to her neck.

Lee slowly moved to her. She kissed, then bit Celeste's neck. Celeste closed her eyes and began to swoon. Still, she was careful not to put her arms around Lee, as she wanted to -- careful not to let herself go.

Lee moved away as slowly as she had approached, leaving the sensation of her bite tingling on Celeste's neck, dancing on her spine. She stared intently at Celeste for a moment, trying to share her emotion.

"Is that what you wanted?"

"What I want right now is for you to kiss me. Last night I wanted to sleep in the same bed with you."

"Uh, uh!" Lee said, suddenly serious. "I don't kiss women." It was true that throughout the hours of love making she had not once consented to brush lips with Celeste. "And I sure don't sleep with them." Celeste's face was a question mark. "Last night was something different. It was something I wanted to try, that's all."

"And did you enjoy it?"

"I think the question you're really asking me is, am I ready to jump into the gay life. The answer is no. If I were, you wouldn't have slept on the sofa."

"But you did enjoy last night? You were excited by me?"

"No one excites me unless I want them to," Lee declared lamely.

"Really? I disagree."

"Disagree if you want to but it's true."

"I can excite you," Celeste said with uncharacteristic confidence, remembering Lee's head thrown back in ecstasy, her melodic cries like a siren's call.

"I'm glad you think so." She remembered the steady, rhythmic stroking of Celeste's tongue, the sound of her urgent gulps, her firm grasp on Lee's ankles. But that was last night. Just a passing fantasy she knew she could resist in the morning. She loved men in every sense of the word and she could have two, or ten in a week, and feel no need to return to any of them. Why would Celeste, then, be so special? Surely she could resist her as well.

"I know so," Celeste said, giving her no more time to argue the issue.

She put her hands on Lee's face and kissed her cheeks softly. She gently nibbled on her ear. She thought she felt a tremble but was not sure if it was herself or Lee who had shaken so slightly. She let her hand slide down Lee's back as she kissed her neck with a growing passion. Lee moved closer to her and put her arms around Celeste's waist. Lee's mind fought against what her body, rubbed sensuously against Celeste's, wanted. Celeste could not tell if she was giving in or trying to break away. Lee's quiet moan gave her the answer. She mumbled a few words before she found her voice.

"Celeste, you've proved your point."

"Have I?" Celeste asked between bites.

"Yes," Lee conceded, "you have."

Celeste loosened her embrace but did not let go. She looked at Lee, who had let go but did not try to disengage Celeste's embrace.

"This doesn't mean anything."

"It doesn't?"

"Not what you think it does. I don't understand you. Earlier you were acting like you didn't even want to be near me and now... this."

"Lee, I know you don't want to be gay and, despite everything I've said, I do understand that last night was just an experiment for you. I don't want to blow our friendship on lust, which is why I was so nervous this morning. But I do like you and I am attracted to you. When you started teasing me, I just gave in to my desire. I'm willing to do it your way. Take your time with it. It's a big adjustment to make."

"There' s nothing to adjust to. I like men, not women. I'm not going to be a lesbian no matter what you think."

Celeste drew Lee to her again and kissed her passionately. Finally, Lee returned the kiss hesitantly, enjoying it cautiously. Celeste nibbled her neck. She spoke between bites.

"Okay... but if that's... the way it is... then... no more kissing... no more biting... and no more teasing." She kissed Lee again, then stepped away. "Deal?"

Lee gathered her wits and tried to sound casual.

"I've got to go to work."

"Yes, you do. I just want to make sure we understand each other. Do we?"

"Let' s go."

JOYCE

They had embraced gently at the airport and filled the ride to the apartment with casual conversation of home and family. "t home they had dressed quietly, moving around the familiar apartment easily, laying out clothes for the return to work, laughing about family antics. They didn't speak of death or funerals or grief, except to inquire about the emotional state of family members. ("How's your mother taking it?" "Pretty well, actually." "Good.")

Joyce had lost her brother to a gun - accident, suicide, murder - no one was sure which. A quick, sharp, painful loss, which Joyce had met with strength, through which Celeste had been supportive. Celeste had held her before taking her to the airport, sensing that Joyce needed to release some of the pain she'd been protecting from the public eye. Joyce had let only a few tears reach her cheeks - no sobs. Strength had been her constant companion in public, until she had been able to share her grief with those whose pain was as great as her own. Celeste was content to share only as much of the loss as Joyce would allow and was, in fact, pleased with herself for having felt as deeply about it as she had. It seemed they had known each other for such a short time.

She was grieving proudly when she received a call four days later about her father. He was ill. Celeste knew death was imminent. He had never been seriously ill a day, at least in her life. She went home to be with family, to give and take support and succor, to say good-bye. She fled home two days before she was due back to seek the solace of being someplace her father had never been, someplace where his memory wasn't quite so free to haunt her.

Now, back in the security of surroundings not quite so familiar as home, they spoke quietly, walked softly, touched lightly. Celeste sat up in bed watching letters dance across the pages of a magazine. Joyce came in from the bathroom and slid into bed beside her. Celeste put the magazine down, turned off the light, shimmied down under the covers. They embraced.

"Are you alright?" Celeste asked Joyce, or herself.

"A kiss for reassurance was returned with a kiss of gratitude, followed by one of understanding. Grief and the brief abstinence coalesced to form passion. What had simply been sex became love making. Torrents of emotion carried them past the physical, the real, the here and now, to a world of release unattainable in churches or funeral parlors or cemeteries.

Celeste was afraid to close her eyes. Afraid that if she did her father's face would appear before her as it had at home, just as he had stood in the dark suit that hung from the door of his bedroom, the suit in which he had died. She loved her father, but now she wished he would either come back in the flesh or just go away.

Joyce gave Celeste everything she wanted, just as she wanted it and before she had to ask. Her kisses fell on target, her timing excellent, her stroke superb. Celeste could not help but relinquish control to the pleasure. Slowly, slowly she closed her eyes. Her father's face flashed before her, smiling in his way. Smiling as he had at her high school graduation, as he had when her brother came home from the service. Smiling his proud, happy smile. The smile, Celeste realized, she would never see again.

Celeste wanted to open her eyes and vanquish the image before them, but she couldn't. She tried to embrace the figure and as she did she wrapped her arms tighter around Joyce. She addressed the image in an echoing whisper.

"Don't leave me. Don't leave me. Please don't leave me. Don't ever leave me, please."

Pain, passion, tears, release lingered. Her body responded to Joyce's artistry. In her mind's eye the image smiled, laughed, mocked her.

"Ssh," came the soft reply. "I'm right here. I'm not going anywhere."

Celeste's eyes popped open. The image of her father faded. She was in the room again, in bed with Joyce again, wrapping her arms around Joyce. Her father was gone and Joyce was saying she'd never leave her. Celeste was at once confused and embarrassed. She quickly realized she had lost herself in her grief and had cried out loud. She wondered if she should, if she could tell Joyce in this torrid moment that her pleas were to her father. ("Honesty," her father had taught her, "is of paramount importance.")

"Joyce," she said softly.

"I'm here, baby."

"Joyce, I...Joyce...Joyce, stay with me. Promise you'll stay with me."

"I'm not going anywhere."

"Don't leave me like he did."

GREGORY

They laughed as they walked through the park. The dim lights along the foot path and the crescent moon protected them from the shadows darting in and out of the bushes. They sat at a picnic table and let a moment go by silently.

"Isn't this a bit dangerous?" Celeste asked. "After all, this is New York."

"Lost your nerve already? Come here. I'll protect you."

Celeste moved into his arms and he hugged her as though he was never going to let her go.

"You feel so good. I've really missed you," he said with sincerity.

Celeste enjoyed the security of being in his arms, but she knew she could not stay there long. With her head pressing gently against his chest, she could hear the slow, steady beating of his heart.

"Gregory, there's something I want to tell you."

"So tell me."

"It's not going to be easy."

"What, you got crabs?" he asked, laughing.

"No," Celeste said, gently disengaging herself from his embrace. "Not, crabs. Not anything really...except a lover."

"And he's got crabs."

"No."

"But you don't want to cheat on him, right? You don't have to worry, Celeste. I don't have crabs."

"Not him, Greg, her."

Gregory looked down at the ground, then at the sky, then all around him.

"That's funny, I didn't feel the earth move. The sky didn't fall. The trees are still standing. What was so hard?"

"You're not upset?"

"Upset about what?" He again gathered her into his arms. "I don't decide who you sleep with. As long as it makes you happy and you're not just into deviant relationships."

"Deviant relationships?"

"Yeah, well, you know, you and me - black and white, now woman-to-woman."

"You may be a little pale, but you're not deviant, and if it makes you feel any better, she's black."

"Oh, well, that's better." They laughed. "You want some tea?"

"Yeah, that sounds good."

They strolled, holding hands, the few blocks to the house Greg shared with his family. They raced from the corner of the block to his driveway. Once inside he made tea, which they took upstairs to the room he shared with his baby brother.

Gregory sat proudly in his newly acquired over-stuffed chair, which he had retrieved from a neighbor's trash pile. Celeste sat on the floor beside him. Gregory stroked Celeste's hair, neck, shoulders, back, never breaking the physical contact between them. When they finished their tea, the silence became awkward. Gregory pierced it with a question.

"You wanna play chess?"

"No."

"More tea?

"No."

"What then?"

Celeste climbed onto his lap with a look of seduction.

"Let's neck."

"You wanna swap spits?"

"Well, I could think of more romantic ways of putting it."

Gregory kissed her suddenly, as though he'd truly missed her all the months she'd been away, kissed her as though he loved her. Celeste responded, unbuttoning his shirt to stroke his bare chest. She slid her lips along his face, down his neck and across his chest, lingering there, nibbling gently at his nipples as she would a woman's. She let her hands play all over his body and in his hair, searching out the sharp creases of his muscular frame, seeking his rough and smooth spots. She slid to the end of his lap and fumbled with his zipper, kissed him as she gently, caringly fondled his nature. Gregory leaned his head back as Celeste nibbled his neck. He let his hands roam only her upper body. She wanted him, but he sighed heavily, grabbed her arms and shook her gently, just enough to interrupt the mood.

"Celeste," he called quietly, "are you sure you want to do this?"

Now it was her turn to sigh. She let her body fall against his.

"Why do you do that?" She sat up and looked into his eyes. "Every time we're together like this, you... Have I ever asked you if you were gay?"

Gregory chuckled a little. "Yes and no."

"What does that mean?" she asked, a little annoyed.

"Yes, you've asked me and no, I'm not gay. I like you. I respect you. Does that make me a queer?"

"Don't use that word."

"Sorry."

"But Greg, if you respect me, you must believe that I'm not going to do something I don't want to do. You're not exactly pressuring me, you know."

"It's just that... Well, if you're so gay, then why me?"

Celeste again rested her head on his chest. She took a moment to gather her thoughts - to invent an answer.

"Because you're cute. Because you turn me on. Because we never did and I'm curious. I don't know! Look, I never said I couldn't be excited by a man, just that I prefer women."

"So you're bisexual?"

"I don't know. Maybe. It's too soon to tell. You're a terrific kisser. I like physical contact with you. That's not a statement about all men. That' s just the way I feel about you."

"You sound a little confused."

'I'm very confused,' she thought, but said nothing.

He patted her leg lightly, indicating that he wanted her to get up. Celeste crossed the room to stare out of the window. She didn't know if she had hurt Gregory or just confused him as much as she had confused herself. She turned to watch him tuck his shirt in and run his hands through his hair.

"You know what's the biggest turn on about you?" she asked rhetorically. "You're such a gentleman."

Gregory walked over to her and wrapped his arms around her. He held her a long time before he spoke.

"You know, I have a funny feeling that when you get this all straightened out in your head, I'm really going to miss you."

He kissed her forehead softly, like a brother kissing his sister. Like a lover saying good-bye.



                                                                    HAUNTED

                                                                    Ghosts of you leave

                                                                    shadows in my eyes.

                                                                    Follow me to

                                                                    hell if I should die.

                                                                    Crowd me in my empty,

                                                                    unlit room.

                                                                    Fill my heart with

                                                                    hopeless, wondrous gloom.

                                                                    You, unseen, are at my

                                                                    every side.

                                                                    Leaving me with not

                                                                    one place to hide.

                                                                    Echoes of your voice are

                                                                    in my ears.

                                                                    Filling me with

                                                                    unrequited fear.

                                                                    Never can I find my

                                                                    peace, my space.

                                                                    With you is my only

                                                                    Hiding place.

SONYA

"I've missed you, Celeste."

"Have you?"

"Very much. There were so many times I wanted to talk to you... just you. There were so many things over there I wanted to share with you, even when Eva was there with me. I mean, she's my sister and we had a great time together, but there were experiences I felt were uniquely for you and me."

"Well, why didn't we?"

"You were here in the States and you wouldn't come visit me."

"We could have shared them in letters. It wouldn't have been the same, but... You know, when the letters stopped coming, I didn't know what to think. I didn't understand."

"But I explained all that. Remember Vanelli's Song? I thought that said it all."

"Said what? That you were happy with Bill? I was happy for you about that. But what did that have to do with us? Did that mean you didn't need me anymore? Was your marriage supposed to mark the end of our friendship? I used to get more letters from your husband than I got from you. Hell, he used to write every week."

"I know he did. When you wrote to say you wanted to hear from me, not him, it really hurt him. You know, before we were married, I was questioning my sexuality and considering going to bed with another woman named Celeste. Can you believe it? He asked me why not you? He has always been your champion. He just wanted to be friends with you."

"I know, and I didn't mean to hurt him. I did appreciate his letters. In fact, when I was in Florida, his letters were all that kept the cobwebs out of my mailbox. I just didn't want his letters to become a substitute for yours." Sonya didn't answer. She stared into her hands and fidgeted a little. "Sonya, it's not like we were lovers or ex-lovers. Your getting married didn't have to end our friendship."

"Weren't we? 'Lovers of the mind,' we used to call ourselves. What did that mean?"

"I don't know," Celeste answered quietly.

"I think it meant we felt like lovers but were afraid to touch."

"So after I came out, you had to end the friendship because you were afraid I'd touch you?"

"I didn't end the friendship! I'm here now."

Celeste had no answer. Sonya was there - had sought her out to renew the friendship. Perhaps if she told Sonya how she felt...

"You know, for a long time I wouldn't let myself think about you, or talk about you, or even write about you in my journal. When you wrote and said you were coming back to the States, I had mixed emotions. I knew I had to sort some things out before you got here."

"Like what?"

"Like how I felt about you. Why I didn't mind your loving Lorenzo or his loving you. I mean, I did consider him to be my boyfriend at the time. I introduced him to you as my boyfriend. When I did feel a twinge of jealousy, I couldn't quite put my finger on it back then, but it seemed somewhat... misplaced. It was as if my heart wasn't feeling exactly what my mind was telling me. I just figured out last week that maybe I wanted you more than I wanted him."

"I know."

"I think maybe Jennifer knew, too. I think that's why she got so cool towards you. She never said it, of course, but I expected more from you. I was so confused and so desperately lonely, especially in Florida. I didn't need or understand your encrypted messages, like Vanelli's Song. I wish you'd just been direct. You could have helped me out of that maze of emotions I was in."

"And what was I supposed to have said, 'I know you're in love with me, Celeste, but I'm a married woman'? You weren't even sure you were gay at the time."

"And you were afraid I'd try to find out with you?"

"Yes! I was afraid. After that kiss..."

"Which you engineered."

"I know I did. I'll admit I was curious, but I was still afraid. I'm not anymore."

"But you were overseas and I was here. What was there to be afraid of?"

"I don't know. Maybe I was afraid that my love for you was the same as yours for me. I don' know." She paused. "Look, Celeste, I love you. It's taken me a long time to know what that means, but I know now and I think you know, too. Can't we just get back to being friends?"

"Like before?"

"Yes, like before."

"And 'lovers of the mind'?"

"No, no more lovers of the mind. Let's not play that game anymore. Let's give ourselves a break and just be very good friends for a change."

VERA

Celeste gently knocked on the bedroom door.

"Come in!" came the friendly reply.

She pushed the door and shyly poked her head through the crack. Inside she saw piles of clothes on the floor. On the bed were two empty suitcases and a stack of hangers. Vera stood among the disarray fiddling with a length of speaker wire.

"I see you're all packed," Celeste jibed, entering the room and sitting on a corner of the bed.

"I'm doing pretty good. I got it down to six piles. These I'm definitely packing today," Vera said, pointing to one of the piles. "These need washing. These are old, but have sentimental value..."

Celeste let her mind wander to a similar scene, when she and Vera first moved in together. Their time as lovers had already ended by then, but their time as very special friends was just beginning. Others had said it couldn't be done, that they couldn't go from having been lovers to being just roommates. They were asking for trouble, they'd said. But they were determined, or at least Celeste was determined, to give it a good try.

Back then, Vera had clothes spread out to decide what was worth hanging up and what should go to charity. It had taken her two weeks, but pile by pile she had gotten it all in order. Every day Celeste had gone into Vera's room and chided her about getting it done. "This is fifteen years of memories," Vera had defended. "You can't just throw them around. You have to give them the respect they deserve."

"Honey, elephant bells no longer command respect," Celeste had averred.

The memory brought a smile to Celeste's lips as she faded back to the present.

"...and these - I don't know who they belong to or how they got here, and what are you grinning about?"

"You! You went through this same thing when we first moved in here. It's only been two years and here you are going through it again."

"On a different value system. This time it's a new job, a new town, a new start. "ll old things must go."

"Well, I guess you'll just have to throw yourself in behind the velvet blazer."

"I guess so."

"I hope you plan on treating your old friends a little better than that."

"Only if they're good friends."

"Like me?"

"You'll do. Pile number three, please."

Celeste waited for the humor to pass.

"I came in here to say something, but I know how you hate being mushy."

"Yes, so if you plan on being mushy, please excuse yourself until the feeling passes."

"No, I'm going to say what I have to say and get it over with."

"Write me a letter. You're good at that."

"I've written you so many letters that it seems impersonal."

"Impersonal? I can't tell you what a source of inspiration and comfort those letters were to me on nights I had to work late," Vera mocked.

Celeste again waited for the humor to pass. She knew she had to change direction a little to get past Vera's emotional road block.

"Remember when you asked me what I wanted from you?"

"You mean that first night?"

"Yes. Well, what I wanted and what I got were totally different."

"And you wait until now to bring it up? That was over two years ago, Celeste."

"I was just looking for a way to explore what was inside of me. What I got was a whole lot more."

"I hope you don't mean my introducing you to loving women. That was no gift. You've had nothing but trouble ever since."

"I had a few good experiences, however brief they may have been. I also got a sister for life."

"Life's a long time."

"You've taught me about money, about temper, about growing up. You've taught me about womanhood in a way my real sister never did."

"I should hope not!"

"I don't mean sexually. You taught me more than that. You taught me more than you had to. I mean... well, you know what I mean."

Vera dug into the closet busily. Celeste waited for some sort of acknowledgment, some sign that Vera knew how much her standing by her had meant to Celeste, but Vera did not turn around or speak. Celeste got up and started for the door.

"I guess what I'm trying to say is that I'm going to miss you."

Celeste left the room, slowly pulling the door closed behind her, trying to give Vera time to respond.

"Celeste!" Vera called. Celeste opened the door anxiously. "Are you going to be around tomorrow to help me load up my car?"

"Yes," Celeste answered quietly. She again began to close the door.

"Celeste," Vera called, causing Celeste to stop in her tracks. "I'm going to miss you, too."

Celeste smiled and pulled the door closed.

ALDEN

It had been ten years since they'd seen each other and in that time they had exchanged perhaps ten letters and even fewer phone calls. While she was struggling between activism and hedonism, he was becoming a staunch conservative. Even before that they were very different from the other children with whom they had played in a New York city housing project.

She'd called him because she was going to be in his part of the country and she hated to let go of good things from her past. Now she walked awkwardly beside a respected businessman, appropriately casual in his dress for a Saturday, appropriately warm towards an old friend in his demeanor. Chicago's Water Tower Place provided a conveniently distracting setting for their reunion. If the years had separated them as much as she feared they had, they could always pretend to be shopping.

"Alden walked with his hands deep in his pockets. Celeste fiddled with a rubber band.

"So, how's my first love doing these days?" he asked.

"Better now. For a long time I didn't think I'd make it through my Dad's passing."

"Hey, I was sorry to hear about that. What caused it?"

"We're not sure, heart attack, stroke. Mom didn't want to go back for the autopsy."

"It had to be something pretty big to bring him down."

"Pretty big and very sudden," Celeste said quietly.

"I think I was more afraid of him when I was a kid than even horror movies or bang-bang-shoot-'em-ups."

"He was bigger than life to all of us. I still can't believe he's gone." She took a moment to clear her head before memories of her father could begin to haunt her. "So, how've you been? Tell me about yourself."

"I've been doing well, financially anyway. But I still want to break away from advertising and open up a Soho theater. I'm just so attached to the little luxuries in life."

"Like eating?"

They laughed.

"I was serious about your writing plays for me once I get my theater started. I can put you on retainer, you write a couple of plays a year for me and..."

"I don't know, Alden. I mean, it sounds great, but my life is so confused right now, all I can think of is straightening it out."

"What's wrong?"

"Everything, just... My transfer from Washington to this new position here in Chicago is a career woman's dream, but it's not what I want. It's not even close."

"Well, what do you want?"

"I don't know. Not this. Something else. Chicago's a nice town, but it's not where I want to be. It's not home," she said pensively. "Anyway, we're supposed to be talking about you. So you're dissatisfied with your job. So how's your love life?"

"That's getting right to the heart of it! Well, it's good. I guess it'll be great if I ever decide which of two very intelligent and attractive ladies will get my undivided attention. They have both put in fervent requests for my fidelity and, believe me, the choice is not an easy one. How about you?"

Celeste sighed heavily. "I was involved with someone when I left D.C., but the idea of quitting my job and rushing back to that hot romance didn't go over too well."

"Trouble in paradise?"

"It wasn't ever paradise."

"Then why go 'rushing back,' as you put it?"

Celeste thought about Joyce, about the relationship they had built more on grief than on anything else, and she could not figure out why she would go rushing back to it. She answered honestly.

"I don't exactly know, Alden. Probably because I don't know what else to do. It may be because I need someone to lean on, or maybe I'm looking for the security I had when I was living there."

"Maybe you're trying to fill the void your Dad left."

"Maybe."

"Would you like to talk about it?"

"I thought we were talking about it."

"No, Celeste, we're talking around it. You've mentioned your job, your romance, your dad, but that's all. I feel there's something else."

Of course there was something else. Women -- all women, not just Joyce. The feeling of being closeted. Not being able to share her strongest emotions freely with someone she'd known her whole life. She felt so close to him just then, but he was from another world, another, simpler time.

"Something like what?"

"I don't know, but it's making you even more unhappy than any of the things we've talked about so far. I can feel it. I can hear it in your voice. It's so...not deep, but low. What is it?"

"I don't know," Celeste lied. "That same confusion, I guess."

Minutes passed silently as they rode the mall escalator and stared into store windows.

"Alden," Celeste said suddenly, "let's get married." He stopped, two steps, she stopped.

"Let's do what?"

"Let's get married. Today... or if you're busy today, tomorrow then."

"Good God, Celeste, you haven't seen me in ten years!"

"That's just the point. It's been ten years since we've seen each other or spent any time together and look at us! We're talking like we've been together every minute. We're made for each other. Even our mothers knew it when we were just kids in New York. It would solve both our problems. You wouldn't have to choose between your two lady friends and I wouldn't have to go rushing back to paradise."

"But that was so long ago and..." He started to smile, shaking his finger at Celeste. "Oh, I get it. You just wanted to see how I would react."

She smiled, too. "No, I was serious, but I guess it was pretty silly. Forget it." She started walking.

"No, wait!" He caught up to her and gently stroked her shoulder. "What's bothering you? What's got you so upset that you would just throw caution to the wind and propose to a man you haven't seen in ten years?"

Celeste tried to breathe a heavy sigh, but all she could manage was a squeak of air. She looked around the crowded mall, not caring that people had to squeeze to get around them. She noticed the carpenters busily building Santa's before Thanksgiving, a young boy trying to walk up the down escalator, the incongruence of things around her.

"Alden," she said, putting her hand gently on his cheek, "you are the kindest man I know and after all these years you still care about me. Isn't that reason enough? Maybe I've lost too much lately. Maybe I just want to hold on to something." She dropped her hand and her head. "Maybe I'm just in the marrying mood."

"The marrying mood? I don't know if I understand that. I mean, of course I've had fleeting moments when marriage seemed like a good alternative to loneliness. I don't think I'd call it a marrying mood. Don't you want the big, flashy wedding? Don't you want the house with the white picket fence? Don't you want to be the little woman? Don't you want to be in love for the rest of your life?"

"You're right, Alden. You're right. Like I said, it was silly. Let's forget it."

"This is more than just a little confusion, Celeste. Something in your life is coming unglued."

"No, not unglued, just a little complicated. Just a little bit... Come on, let's do some shopping."

CORY

"How do you feel, Miss Clark? Are you drowsy? Any queasiness? Nausea? Do you know what you took? How many? How long ago? Has there been any vomiting? Headache? Did you really think it would kill you?"

"Fine. No. No. No. Yes, Actifed and Norgesic. About five of each. About four hours. No. No. I had hoped so."

The emergency room staff, it seemed to Celeste, moved slowly, but with great flourish, as though this was a dry run. As though they were "making like" there was an emergency. And truly, she thought, "making like" was all they could do, for the emergency had passed. It hadn't passed as she'd slowly taken the pills one by one, thinking each one down her throat and into her system, or when she sat waiting patiently for her body to react to them; not when she'd calmly dialed 911 four hours later, when she realized she was not going to die, but was damned if she was going to be sick and unhappy, too; not when the ambulance, two police cars and (of all things) a fire engine had come screaming to her building and all the emergency personnel in the city, it seemed, tramped through her living room; not even when they had insisted upon strapping her onto a stretcher (just to play it safe) and ceremoniously wheeled her out to the ambulance in front of an audience of neighbors who had never spoken to her or each other, but were front and center at the first wail of a siren. The crisis had passed, she thought, sometime during the four block ride to the hospital, when she quickly replayed all these events in her mind and it seemed so comical to her that she had to stifle a laugh and try not to grin, lest the paramedics think she truly was insane. She knew they would not see the humor in the city sending all that flash to take one person four city blocks to the hospital, when all they really needed was an ambulance and perhaps a police officer to take the report. She knew when she stifled that laugh that the emergency had passed and she would one day laugh again in earnest - that her life was not, as she had thought while taking the pills, boring and worthless.

Now, as she lay in the emergency examining room, she wanted only to go home and sleep off her binge of self pity. She wanted only to go home to wallow in it, troubled, but no longer distraught.

A police officer walked into the room. She immediately recognized him as the one who had answered a call she'd made a month earlier, on a night Cory had called to say she was going to kill herself and just wanted to say good-bye. He asked the doctor questions that Celeste thought silly: "How is she?" (Couldn't he see that for himself?); "What happened?" (Didn't he already know? If not, what was he doing there?). He approached her and asked the same silly questions, then went into a long explanation, which included his wife and kids, about how he couldn't understand why anyone would want to commit suicide.

"You look very familiar," he said, changing the subject. Celeste stared at him blankly. "Didn't I answer a call at your apartment about three or four weeks ago?" No reply. "Something about your roommate, yeah, on Beacon Street. Is she involved in this? I hope she's not the reason you tried to kill yourself."

He launched into "Who you sleep with is your own business, but..."

Celeste sighed heavily and turned away from him.

The doctor hustled the officer out of the room - as much as a man in a white lab coat armed with only a stethoscope can hustle off a uniformed man with a gun.

Celeste thought of Cory and the things she'd said as she packed her belongings with remarkable speed. They were such harsh, hateful words that Celeste knew they had to be excuses, lies Cory had convinced herself were true in order to find the courage to move away from the woman who had all but taken care of her for the last year, to strike out on her own and leave Celeste to do the same, finally to end their on-again, off-again affair.

~

"I'm leaving because I'm afraid of you. The other night when we were sitting in the car and you started banging on the steering wheel like a mad woman, I thought you were going to kill me. I was really scared of you."

"You know good and well I wasn't angry at you, Cory. You know I was angry at myself that night. I never touched you. In all the years we've know each other, I've never laid a harmful finger on you. Not once! There were times when maybe I wanted to -- maybe I should have put you over my knee and spanked you like a child, but I've never threatened you in any way."

"Well, I'm not giving you the chance to do it now."

"That's not what this is really about. This is about your silly little girlfriend crawling into my bed at five in the morning in a half drunken stupor and then denying it."

"I don't believe that ever happened."

"So I'm a liar. I've never lied to you. I thought it was funny at the time. Hell, we laughed about it together. But because she isn't willing to admit, or doesn't remember doing it, I'm a liar."

Cory was silent as the truth of Celeste's words fought a desperate battle with the lies that sustained her resolve to flee, for reasons only vaguely defined.

"You're wrong! This is about your being a crazy woman. I'm not taking any chances with you. I called my mother and told her about you."

"And what did she say?"

"She told me to get out of here quick and that's just what I'm doing."

"Cory, your mother didn't say that, so STOP LYING!" she shouted, throwing the bathroom cup against the wall with all her might and immediately thinking that if it cracked she'd have to get a new one. (A very sane thought, she realized now, as she was reliving the moment - a little late, but sane.)

Cory jumped when the plastic cup bounced off the wall and fell to the floor at Celeste's feet. She stared at Celeste, Celeste at her. Thirty seconds passed, then a minute. No words were spoken. Celeste picked up the cup and returned it to its holder in the bathroom, then went into her bedroom, undressed, and went to bed with her tears.

~

Was that the reason she'd taken the pills, she wondered? Was it Cory and the lies she threw up in the face of Celeste's trust, caring and love? Was she so hurt by this young woman's words that she wanted to die to escape the pain? Was it all the mistakes she'd made in the last eighteen months?

There was no doubt that coming back to D.C., to Joyce, to the relationship built on grief, had been a mistake. Thinking they could move beyond being lovers to being roommates, as she had with Vera, was a mistake. Trying to rekindle her affair with Cory was a mistake, and trying to end yet another relationship while still living together was pure folly. Maybe it was just crazy. Maybe she was insane.

"Miss Clark. Miss Clark!" " hand rested lightly on her shoulder. 'Cory,' she thought. "Miss Clark, we're going to have to send you to the county hospital. You'll see a doctor there and he'll decide if you need to stay for treatment. There'll be an officer along in a little while to take you there."

The doctor went out to the nurse's station. Celeste closed her eyes and listened to the doctor and nurse discuss her.

"She needs help... that cop talking... She doesn't need that... I asked him to leave..."

She lay there waiting - one hour, one and a half hours, two hours, a paddy wagon. There were two officers, one black female ('Cute,' she thought) and one white male. The female frisked her, took her keys, handcuffed her behind her back.

"It's for your own protection," she said. Celeste cruised her, smiled at herself for cruising, and climbed into the wagon. 'One thing they do not have to worry about,' she thought as they pulled away from the hospital, 'is me hurting myself.' "I may want to die," she said aloud to the grated windows, "but I'm not going to hurt myself doing it." Her own laugh left a bitter taste in her mouth, her smile burned her skin.

'Die,' she thought, 'I don't want to die. I just want to go home, feed my fish and get a good night's sleep.'

That's what she told the oversized doctor as they sat in an uncomfortable room with faux-leather couch and chairs in faux-relaxed colors. The doctor even wore his faux-smile. He was so fat that in order to sit he had to lower himself down to the chair, bracing himself on its arms, and slide back, then reverse the process to get up. Celeste calculated his lack of speed as he told her she'd have to stay overnight and see the magistrate in the morning.

"I'm not staying," she replied.

"But you must, Miss Clark."

"Well, you'll have to shoot me in the back to keep me here because I'm leaving."

And she did just that. She didn't see the police officers in the lobby, so she just walked out. Then she ran. She ran along a fence she thought would surely lead to a dead end. She found a hole, crawled through it, and ran. She hid behind trees and poles from searching car beams. She walked in the darkest areas of an unfamiliar and possibly unfriendly neighborhood, fearing that at any moment the female officer would again be handcuffing her "for her own protection," taking her back to the fat doctor.

She walked for an hour before trying to get on a bus, explaining to the driver that she was lost, had no money and was trying to get home. He said he'd like to help her but according to where she said she wanted to go, they were both headed in the wrong direction. She walked the ten miles to her apartment in near freezing temperature, climbed into her window because the female officer still had her keys, righted the plant she'd knocked over in the process of breaking in, and went to bed.

The phone rang.

"Hello."

"Where the hell have you been?"

Click.

Ring.

"Hello."

"Are you alright?"

Click.

Ring.

"Don't hang up."

Click.

Ring.

"I don't want to talk to you, Cory."

"Just tell me if you're okay."

"Why? You don't care."

"Yes I do."

"I don't want to talk to you, Cory. I don't ever want to talk to you. I'm sick of you. I gave you love, you drank it up and asked for more, so I gave you more. Now I need a little understanding, a little support because you left me, lied to me and hurt me, and you tell me I'm crazy."

"No, I..."

"Look, right now I'm very close to hating you, so just leave me alone. I'm not turning my hate on myself anymore, so if you don't just get out of my life you may very well have something to fear."

"Celeste..."

Click.

She fell into a dreamless sleep, escaping her pain as effectively as dying. As she drifted off she thought, 'And in the morning I'll wake up refreshed. And in the morning this will all seem like a bad dream. And in the morning the pain will be gone. And in the morning...'

LINDA

"Don't you understand? I don't feel that way about you. I never did!"

"But you said..."

"I said nothing."

"You said you didn't want to say it. You said you were afraid to."

"And I was right to be afraid."

"I thought that meant..."

"No, that's just it, you didn't think, you felt, you wanted. This was supposed to be an affair form, both of us - something to cleanse the emotional palate for the next big thing. We talked about it. We agreed."

Linda squirmed in the chair, tucked her right foot under her, got up and walked across the room... paced across the room, shook her head, pursed her lips, sucked her teeth... sat.

"It's always like this. I get involved, let myself go, and wham! "t first it's all laughter, caring, loving. Then come the petty arguments, the nit-picking, the..."

"The long explanations," Celeste interrupted.

Linda got up, sat down.

"You see," she exploded. "You won't even let me finish my sentence. You're so stubborn. You make me sick."

"So why bother?"

"Because..." Linda could not think why.

"You know what your problem is?" Celeste did not wait for an answer. She wanted to get it over with. "You're spoiled." A pause for effect, and... "Yes, you! You want everything your way, at your convenience. You were all ready to end it a few hours ago. I'm just following your lead. But because you're not in control now you're all upset."

"I'm not upset and that's not what I meant before."

"Well, what did you mean?"

"I don't know. You've got me all confused. You're obnoxious."

'Stay calm,' Celeste told herself. "So I'm obnoxious and you're spoiled. So why don't we do us both a favor and end it right now?"

"I don't want that!" Linda yelled, out of control again.

"What you want doesn't matter. Not this time." Nothing could disturb Celeste's calm. This was her moment, her first chance to be the one to end a relationship - she wanted to do it right. She wanted to make a clean break. No equivocation. No going back.

"I'm leaving now." 'Ugh, unnecessary,' Celeste thought.

Linda curled up, withdrew, removed herself. Celeste headed for the door.

Linda: "I didn't want this."

Celeste listened, stopped, left.

THE FALL

I was in the park in autumn.

Early autumn, it was,

And the leaves had not yet turned.

The grass was green,

Almost to its end, but green,

The sky was gray-blue,

And the air was like

Autumn city-air,

And I loved it.

But then,

Autumn is my time of year.

I did not stop to rest

On a log by the river.

I leaned against a tree.

Pulled my trusty camera from my pocket,

Aimed it at the sky,

Its endless clouds blinding my view,

Then changed my mind, thinking,

'God doesn't pose for pictures.'

Shoved my hands deep into my pockets,

Fully expecting to find marbles,

But instead found change,

Which I frivolously

Tossed into the river

Unaccompanied.

What more could I wish for?


Again I strolled.

My blue tennies

Now covered with moist dust.

The hem of my pants

Tailor marked by the land.

An evergreen complimented my beauty.

I curtsied, thanking it ever-so-much.

We danced,

Then I continued on.

I stood at the edge of the park,

A moment of reflection

Before my departure,

And looked again at the gray-blue sky,

When from its highest branch, a single leaf

Fell from a tree.

LORENZO

Celeste walked across an island in the middle of the Potomac. She wished it had been uncharted, undiscovered. Signs of civilization, manifested as park benches and a great stone slab likeness of Theodore Roosevelt, presented themselves for her use. She avoided the statue, but took advantage of the invitation from a bench.

'A conversation with myself,' she had thought after talking to him over the phone the night before. 'What I need is to have a conversation with myself.' She had come to the island to have that conversation. Instead she recalled long-ago conversations with him. Conversations they'd had at their last meeting four years earlier when she'd told him she was gay.

"Stop lying," he'd said then, a mocking little laugh adorning his words. "You're just saying that," he'd insisted in his way, using childish phrases with adult conviction. This at the age of twenty-five. What would he be like at thirty, she had wondered. Now he was almost thirty and she almost knew. He was still the same.

That year she was twenty-three and had strongly defended her lesbianism to him, despite the fact that at fifteen, sixteen, eighteen and twenty she had just as vehemently denied it to Jennifer, Louie, Nardo, Sonya and herself.

"Really, Renz," she'd said emphatically, then continued more casually as if to present her credentials, "I've been with a few women now."

He stared at her, unblinking, just as she remembered him to have done in high school, then spoke without warning.

"It's about time! I told you all through school and even after graduation, but you said 'Oh, no. Not me! I love my mens!' Remember?"

"Yeah, but I have never said 'mens.' Besides, you were looking for allies then. It must have been pretty lonely being gay in that school of macho teenage boys. It was either that or you were looking for a way to get me off your back. Honestly, Renz, if I weren't such a gourmand, I'd have pined away over you."

"But you look great now!" he said with enthusiasm.

She blushed. He still had that power.

"I guess I still loved him in a way," she said to the birds overhead. " wayward theory interrupted her thoughts. "Maybe that's what that statue is for," she said aloud, instantly embarrassed by the sound of someone crushing dry leaves under foot within earshot of her words. She rose abruptly and headed straight for Teddy.

~

He had softened towards her after her revelation, she remembered. Wanted suddenly to show her all the points of interest in the little upstate New York town where he had settled, he'd said, forever. But Mexico had been forever, too. And Colorado and Jamaica and Canada. When she spoke to him on the phone, he said Germany would have been forever had he not had so many bad experiences there. To Lorenzo, forever lasted until boredom set in. In the case of upstate New York forever had lasted one year, in the case of Germany, two.

In New York they had slept together for the first time. It was something Celeste had wanted to do since high school and had probably still wanted to do even then. She hadn't been gay long enough to have gotten over her obsession with men and she'd wanted him for so long it didn't seem right suddenly to just not want him anymore. But they'd touched in only the most platonic ways. Or perhaps not. They were wrapped up in each other in the morning, but without desire, without passion. They were, after all, good friends - old friends - the fact that she'd been in love with him throughout adolescence not withstanding. 'Not withstanding what?' she wondered. Not withstanding the fact that she was gay now, as he had been for years. Not withstanding that they could now finally settle into the unburdened friendship he'd always wanted.

"Do you remember the fight we had?" she asked him over the phone.

"You mean the one I let you win?"

"Yeah, right. Only you didn't let me win, I just won."

"Well, you caught me by surprise."

"So now surprise was your undoing?" she said, laughing.

"Well, I hadn't expected you to hit me."

"I hadn't expected to hit you," she said more seriously, "but I think I needed that fight because, as gay as I was, I still hadn't gotten over you. Not until I pried you loose from some cash and drove home. I felt cleansed after that."

"And I had the scars and the empty pockets to show for it," he said, trying to keep the conversation from getting mired in a painful past.

"I was... I am sorry about that, Renz. I don't know where all that anger came from. Probably frustration. I knew there was no other place for all those years of pain to go. It wasn't really your fault that you hurt me, but you did hurt me, and I guess I had to hurt you, too. It was bad enough that you couldn't return my love for you because you're gay, but then when I watched you falling in love with Sonya, well, it was just too much, I guess."

"Hey, what are friends for? By the way, I was never in love with Sonya. I'll admit I was infatuated with her and on some level I was attracted to her. But I was never in love with her. You know, she was never afraid to hurt me like you were, so she used to do things that infuriated and intrigued me. Kept me coming back for more, I guess. But I always loved you more than I cared for her and I always liked you more, too. If I had ever decided to dip into the hetero pot, it would have been with you. I guess my mistake was in not telling you that."

"I finally understood that - your hurt, your anger, the fight. Forgiving you was easy. Forgiving myself was the hard part."

~

"I was right!" she said, standing safely on the grass and staring at T.R.'s likeness with her hands shoved deep into her pockets. Birds settled on the statue's head and shoulders, as if to validate the notion that it was really just a perch for them. 'I wonder what that says,' she thought, squinting, leaning forward trying to read the inscription.

"Who cares?" she said, turning on her heels and walking away without a backward glance.

LYDIA

Celeste awakened early in the bedroom of the luxurious hotel suite. She smiled as she snuggled close to the long, lean body next to her. The beauty responded to her embrace by melting into her and they lay there for a while, Celeste gently rubbing the firm stomach and smooth skin of her paramour. The lady slid her foot along Celeste's leg even as she slept. Celeste propped
herself up on her elbow and looked into her lover's face -- she was in a deep sleep, with a hint of a smile at the corners of her full mouth.

Celeste gently extricated her arm, which was pinned under her new mate, slipped out of the bed and into the living room of the suite. There she ordered a light breakfast.

She had been sitting at the round, white breakfast table near the french-doored balcony for an hour before the bedroom door opened. In a blue teddy, lacy around the next-to-nothing neckline and the legs, stood Lydia, smoothing her hair into place as was her way, looking wonderfully refreshed. Celeste stared at her for a few moments. She could hardly believe that this classic beauty had consented - had really been eager to spend a vacation with her. Celeste had been fastidious about the arrangements - the travel, the hotel room, the itinerary. Everything had to be perfect. She had spent much more than she could afford, but no more than she had wanted to bestow upon this vision. She wanted to give her the best of everything. In fact, it was Lydia who suggested she stop just short of traveling first class and renting an entire chalet.

"Why not?" Celeste had argued. "My credit rating is very good. I can get the money."

"And pay for it the rest of your life," Lydia had replied.

Finally, she had to admit that her original plan was a little extravagant. They settled for a week in one of San Francisco's finer hotels.

Now that Lydia stood before her in their hotel suite, Celeste could hardly believe it had all come off without a hitch. She had fully expected Lydia to pull out at the last minute, having some business or family dilemma to attend to. It seemed to Celeste that Lydia always had some problem that interrupted their plans. Yet here it was day four of their vacation and they had been having a great time. This time it had worked out.

"Good morning," Lydia said as she crossed the room and sat at the table with Celeste.

"Good morning. I took the liberty of ordering breakfast for you. It'll be here in a minute. Did you sleep well?"

"Honey, I always sleep well with you," Lydia replied with a smile. She reached across the table, touched Celeste's hand gently and stared into her eyes. A quiet confusion came over Lydia's face.

They were not committed to each other, as Celeste wanted them to be. Instead, they were having an affair. They had agreed to it early on. After all, there were Cassandra and Keith to consider. They were Lydia's estranged lovers, each having stormed out in a rage upon discovery of the other. Lydia loved them both, she said, and while she was not sure she could get either of them back, she was not yet ready to let them go. They each had a piece of Lydia's life. Celeste respected that.

Celeste had her own reservations about Lydia. It was against her personal policy to get involved with attached or bisexual women. Lydia was both. Besides, Celeste had been burned too many times before to go diving head first into another relationship. She wanted, this time, to take it slowly, to feel every emotion as it happened, to be aware of what she was getting into and possibly pull out before it was too late. She didn't want -- she could not handle -- another Cory, another Lee, another Joyce. She wanted this one to be different.

She did, however, empathize with Lydia's confusion. She, too, had been feeling confused since they'd started their vacation. It was a fight each was having with herself, part of her wanting to get involved, another part wanting to remain detached. She had seen Lydia's face fog over with confusion in the same way when she faced the water which she so feared, and yet by which she was so enticed. Lydia had said that when she stood before a large body of water she thought about how it had once almost killed her and wondered how she could be sure it wouldn't happen again. Still, she was always tempted to challenge it. Celeste had told her there were no guarantees in life. Who knew that better than Celeste? Not many people, she was sure.

"Last night was wonderful," Lydia said finally, leaning back in her chair.

"It's always wonderful for me with you," Celeste replied. "You're really something special to me."

The knock on the door was room service. Lydia got up to answer. It was a momentary reprieve from what she was feeling. She took a few minutes to find her robe and gather tip money and her thoughts. She took longer than she needed to gently smooth her napkin over her lap once, twice, three times. Her feelings would not be so easily smoothed.

"You remembered the tea," she said, staring into the cup and tenderly adding, "You remember everything."

Celeste didn't answer. Instead she got up and went out onto the balcony. She, too, needed to take a moment to control what she was feeling - an emotion so deep and dangerous - a flood of tenderness toward this woman. "After a few minutes Lydia called out to her.

"Come sit with me while I eat, honey."

She returned to the table and watched the delicate way Lydia handled her food. She marveled at the delicate way Lydia did everything. She was a woman both feminine and independent -- a rare and, to Celeste, irresistible combination.

"Celeste, we need to talk."

"So let's talk," Celeste said, trying to sound casual even though she knew Lydia was serious.

"Well, first of all, I want to thank you for this vacation. It's been great. I'm really enjoying myself."

"It's not over yet. There' s still plenty to see and do."

"Let me talk, sweetie."

"Okay."

"Last night I almost said something we agreed not to say and it's been bothering me ever since." She paused. "Okay, I'll get to the point. I'm really getting attached to you and I don't know if it's the atmosphere or moonglow or whatever you want to call it. I mean, I don't want to say one thing and then get back east and find it was all the thrill of the moment. I'm not really ready to commit to you, or anyone, for that matter. There are already people around pressuring me to choose one above the other and I'm not sure I can make these choices. So, now what are we going to do about this?"

"Well, you certainly don't give me a whole lot to work with."

"But that's all I have. I'm just so confused."

"I know. So am I. This morning I came to a realization and I know it has nothing to do with moon glow. I think I've known for a long time, but I was afraid to admit it to myself. The reason I arranged this vacation was probably to come to terms with my feelings one way or the other. But now I know I'm falling for you, Lydia, in a big way. I'm not exactly sure where that leaves us, but I know that's what's happening. I've been trying not to think about it, trying to tell myself I'm misreading the signs, but I know better. I know we agreed to the terms from the start, but my feelings have changed. I want you for my own now, but you've still got Keith and Cassandra in your heart. Where does that leave us?"

"I don't know," Lydia said, playing with her food.

"Well," Celeste replied after an uneasy silence, "one thing we're definitely not going to do is get all depressed about it. I mean, what's the point of feeling good about someone if you're going to feel bad about it?"

Celeste forced a smile and tried to catch Lydia's gaze, but Lydia did not look up or respond.

"Look," Celeste finally said quietly, reaching across the table for Lydia's hand. "I care for you and you say you care for me, too..."

"I do care for you. That's the problem."

"No, it's not. I know there are others in your life who have been around a lot longer than I have. They're important and they have to be considered. I also know that you've been hurt before and you're not sure if getting involved again is worth the risk. I don't blame you. I wasn't sure either, not until this very moment. Now I'm sure. When I look into your eyes, I'm sure we need to be together. Otherwise, we'll always wonder if we should have been and I think that's worse than being hurt. I know it's hard to let go of the people who have been important to you, but give us a chance. Lydia, will you be mine alone, my one and only, my love?"

Lydia gently drew her hand away from Celeste's. She got up and paced around the room for a few minutes, one hand on her hip, the other smoothing her hair back. She finally settled down on the sofa with her back to Celeste.

She sat there in silence for what Celeste would later recall as a lifetime, but was actually only a few minutes.

"Yes," she said quietly.

Celeste got up from her seat at the table, knelt behind the sofa, put her face close to Lydia's and whispered into her ear.

"What?" she asked.

"I said yes, I think we should be together. Yes, I will be yours alone. I already am yours alone in my heart."

Celeste put her arms over the back of the sofa around Lydia. She hugged her and gently kissed her neck and cheek. Lydia put her arms around Celeste's neck and tried to pull her closer. Celeste climbed over the back of the sofa and caressed Lydia, kissing her, exciting her. Lydia responded by holding Celeste closer, and closer still. She trembled. She found Celeste's ear and nibbled gently on it, then whispered, "I love you, Celeste."

They melted into each other, celebrating their confessions.

THE BOX

"I wish I could love anymore."

"What do you mean?"

"Just that. I wish I could love someone. I can't."

"Do you mean that you have no one to love, or that you're incapable of it?"

"I don't think I'm incapable, exactly. I think I'm afraid. I feel like my heart is encased in a glass box. It wants out. It's always pounding against the glass. But the glass is very thick. It's all very confusing."

"Can you see this box? Is there a door in it?"

"I don't know." Celeste closed her eyes. "What I see is eight brass corner pieces that hold the box together. I feel my heart beating against the glass, but I can only see the brass corners. And I can only see it from one angle, so I can't tell if there are any hinges or openings."

She opened her eyes and looked at the woman whose name she could not remember, but to whom she nevertheless felt very close. They'd been stretched out on the sofa head to toe all evening, chain smoking and rambling on about anything that came to mind.

Celeste started suddenly, swinging her feet to the floor, an unexpected paranoia rippling through her.

"What is this anyway, therapy?"

"Come on, Celeste. Talk to me. Tell me about the box."

Celeste rubbed her eyes and temples, settling back onto the sofa. She sighed, feeling that all this discussion had become a chore. But when she visualized the box again, her need to talk about it returned.

"Okay. I can see my heart beating inside of this box, but it's a tight fit and I only know there's glass there because when it expands it gets flat on the sides, like when you press your face against a window. It's just beating for the hell of it." She paused for a moment. When she spoke again it was almost in a whisper. "Sometimes, when I meet someone I really like, someone I like more and more as time goes on, it beats really hard and I go to sleep with visions of this heart beating inside of this box and the box jumping around in mid-air like a jumping bean."

"In mid-air?"

"No, not exactly mid-air, but there's no floor and no ceiling and no background. Just the box with the heart in it."

"The heart?"

"Uh?" Celeste kept her eyes closed. She felt almost entranced as she visualized the heart in the box. She smiled a little because the picture of a heart in a box jumping around suddenly struck her as very funny.

"You said, 'the' heart. Why not your heart? It is your heart, isn't it?"

She opened her eyes. "Oh, I didn't realize..." She closed her eyes again. "Yeah, it's my heart, but it's not connected to anything. There are no...leads, oh, what do you call them... arteries connected to the rest of my body. It's just the heart in the box. Sometimes, if I think about it long enough, I can see myself walking up to it. I stop, look at it and tilt my head to one side, you know like a dog does when he sees something curious. But whenever I see myself in the picture, it soon fades away. You know, I never really put it into words before like this. Wow! That's really..." She opened her eyes again and when she looked at the woman across from her, her face changed. Her train of thought was broken. Something new had occurred to her. "I don't know who you are."

"What?"

"I don't know you. I can't remember your name. You're a stranger to me. Who are you?"

"Celeste, what's in those cigarettes you've been smoking? It's me, Carmen."

Celeste put her hand over her face. She was embarrassed. She'd blanked. She'd lost touch with reality, as she did from time to time. Only this time she'd expressed it out loud and now someone else knew it.

"I'm sorry. Talking about the stranger parts of my perception sometimes does things to me. Does that ever happen to you?"

"Not really. I've learned not to talk to anyone about 'the stranger parts of my perception,' as you call it."

"You just listen to the confessions of others, right?"

"Not really that either. I like listening to you talk. I like what you have to say when you're being serious. You touch something inside of me a lot of the time. You're a good friend, Celeste. Do you know that?"

"No, I didn't know that, but I'm glad you feel that way."

"Well, I do feel that way. That box you were talking about, sometimes I feel like that's my whole life. I feel like I can't touch anyone or anything. Sometimes you can open the door and let me out. That's one of the things I really like about you. I like you a lot, Celeste."

Celeste stared at Carmen. They were both blushing, embarrassed by the verbal statement of emotion. Carmen was unused to giving compliments and Celeste was unused to receiving them.

"Carmen," Celeste said, wanting to respond in kind, but not knowing how, "pass me the cigarettes."

BIRDS WITH BROKEN WINGS

They had flocked to her since as long ago as high school. The birds with broken wings. The physically, the emotionally infirm. The young ladies uncertain if the time was right for that first affair. The young men seeking motherly advice about things they dare not ask their mothers. The flock had grown as time went by. It grew still. She wondered when people would start calling her "Aunt Celeste."

'My God,' she thought, 'I'm not even thirty yet.'

It seemed she would try to solve anyone's problems and if she could not solve them herself she'd try to find someone who could. Lessons learned from Pow Wow, the Indian Boy, too much television growing up. Far too often she had been stepped on, accused of one great evil or another, or simply forgotten. That was the most painful result of her caring, to be dumped into a wasteland called the past, relegated to distant memory without thanks, or acknowledgments, or good-byes. Many a night she'd lain in bed wondering about one of her former charges. She'd have been satisfied with a simple phone call from any one of them. Then she'd know that her part in straightening out someone else's life had at least been remembered. But her phone rarely rang at night.

Still, it had become habit, helping people out, and she found it difficult to turn anyone away. She might be tired, have problems of her own, not want to be bothered with anyone else's, yet she would listen. What scared her was that now she found herself giving unsolicited advice. That, she'd discovered, could cause more trouble than giving the wrong advice.

Everyone, it seemed to her, had one or more of the same three problems. Either they were scared, lonely or just plain horny. Of the three, loneliness was by far the hardest for her to deal with. She was, herself, quite lonely a good deal of the time, even though she knew the steps to take in order to find, make and keep friends. She'd recited those steps to others often enough and they'd worked. Her problem was that, like her mother, who taught swimming for years but never learned to swim, she could not follow her own advice.

~

"You gotta get out!" she'd told one young girl. She was a pretty little thing of about nineteen. Petite, sweet and very shy. They'd met at Celeste's office where the girl had gotten a summer job running the copy machine. Everyone had been nice enough to her. She was so sweet and so shy, one could not help but be nice to her. But Celeste had seen something else behind those big, brown eyes, and had gone out of her way to initiate a friendship. Finally, one day over lunch, the girl confided that she was unhappy being so shy and alone, yet she felt unable to change her situation.

"Start with the simple things," Celeste had advised. "Try to respond to questions with more than one word. Speak up in class. Say hello to people before they say hello to you. Go out to clubs and street fairs. Smile."

"I can't go out alone."

"Surely you must have some friends?"

"Not really. Classmates. Study partners, but no real friends. None to go out with, anyway. Except you, of course."

Celeste was flattered.

"Okay, I'll tell you what," she'd offered, "I'll take you out one night."

What did she want to say that for? She'd opened a Pandora's box - a summer of taking this girl everywhere, of teaching her basic social skills, of being her mentor. The girl eventually found a boyfriend, but once she'd started saying 'yes' socially she had a hard time saying no. She got pregnant. She blamed Celeste for everything, despite the fact that by that time the fall semester was almost over and Celeste hadn't seen the girl since October.

"If it hadn't been for you, I wouldn't be pregnant," the girl had accused.

"Whoa! I had nothing to do with that," Celeste had defended.

"You're the one who said I had to get out and be nice to people. How am I going to tell my parents?"

"It's a long way from being nice to having sex."

"I don't want to hear it. It's your fault. You're just as bad as him. No one wants to take the blame."

"Not even you," Celeste said quietly.

The girl stormed out of the apartment and slammed the door. " week later she was back, crying and asking for Celeste's help. She'd decided to have an abortion and wanted Celeste to help her find a good clinic.

"Next month you'll decide that you really wanted to keep the baby and that it was my fault you aborted it," Celeste said.

"No, no I won't. I need your help. I don't know where else to go. Please help me. I'm sorry I blamed you. I was upset. Please."

And, of course, she did help. She found the clinic, made the appointment, took the girl there and brought her home with her when it was over. She even called the girl's parents and told them where she'd be for the night. She pampered the girl all through the night, but in the morning over breakfast in bed she took a stand.

"Today I'm taking you home," Celeste said definitively.

"I know."

"You're starting your life over today and you're going to do it without me."

"What do you mean?"

"I can't take care of you anymore. I can't be responsible for you."

"Responsible for me? You've never been responsible for me," the girl said, instantly offended and defensive. "I mean, I asked you for a little help, but I take care of myself."

"Okay, but I'm just saying that from now on you've got to stand up on your own. I can't be your safety net anymore."

"Boy! Oh, boy!" the girl had responded angrily. "You ask someone for a little help and all of a sudden they're up for sainthood. I did just fine before I met you and I'll do just fine now. Boy, you've got some nerve!"

The girl jumped out of the bed and quickly gathered her clothes. "I'll get out of your way right now. If it's not too much of an imposition, I'd like to take a shower first."

Celeste sighed heavily, weary of an old routine. "Sure," she said quietly.

The girl showered and left. The slamming door echoed deep inside Celeste. She sat in her rocker by the window feeling the emptiness inside. She even cried a little. She felt alone, unneeded, unappreciated.

~

Now as she sat again in that rocker, thinking back on the incident, she realized how often they had come, the birds with broken wings, and that they all seemed to have left in much the same way. Cory had left that way, and Joyce had left that way, and Sonya and Lee. She wished just one would be different. The phone rang. She crossed the room to answer.

"Hello."

"Hi. How'ya doin'?"

"Vera!"

"I just called to see how you were doing. What's going on in your life?"

Celeste talked and Vera listened, consoled, advised.


After they hung up, Celeste thought of Vera two thousand miles away, yet ever faithful, ever true to their friendship. She thought again about Cory, Joyce, Sonya and Lee. She sat back down in her rocker, not feeling quite so bad about them anymore. Talking to Vera had reminded her that Vera had been there to care for Celeste when she had had a broken wing of her own.

THE ROOM

Here am I, standing

Across the room

Looking at you,

Across the empty room

Talking to you.

And you, standing

Across the room

Smiling at me,

Across the empty room

Winking at me.

I cross the floor,

You flee. I turn

To you across the room,

Laughing at me.

This empty room

With just me

And you, beckoning me.

I step, one step

You step two,

I, too, step

Across the room and

Touch your hand.

I smile at you,

You quiver. I touch

Your arm, you shake.

Your lips part, slowly

Your eyes tear. You

Touch my hand.

I kiss your lips,

Your honey-sweet lips

And turn

And cross

The room.

VERY SHORT STORIES

It was not that she hadn't had her share of love relationships. It was just that they had all been very short stories. Fleeting romances whose beginnings, middles and endings had passed so quickly that she could barely remember some of them.

The four or five affairs she'd had with Cory were as a faded photograph, although she still had warm feelings for her and probably always would. The incident with Lee hadn't been an affair at all but a sexual comedy, and not a very funny one at that. Then, of course, there had been Lydia. They'd started out with so much hope, having hacked through the web of outside entanglements and stubborn emotion. No sooner had they declared strong emotion for each other than had the relationship fallen apart. But then, she'd held hope that each of her relationships would last. They hadn't. Perhaps she'd invested too much in them - had tried too hard to make them work.

'I probably did try too hard,' she thought. She remembered Vera telling her never to let her desire show. But it went against her grain not to say the endearing things that others liked to hear, and that she, herself, longed to hear. She guessed that when she said those things, she wasn't supposed to have meant them. She was a poor competitor, however, at the game of cat and mouse. Consequently, it was a game she could not win. She finally had to face the fact that she was a romantic and, while she may not have climbed the highest mountain or swam the widest sea for love, she was not above going into debt and despair for it.

Her phone never rang anymore. She'd gotten a reputation for being too serious. And she was serious about love. More serious than she'd been about her career or her hard-won independence -- and she was very serious about them. So serious, in fact, that it seemed sometimes to depress her to even think about love. It had certainly depressed her lovers to hear her talk about it.

"Maybe I'll get a cat," she said aloud. They seemed to understand depression. She pictured a cat jumping onto her lap when she was feeling blue. The scene was pleasant, but not fulfilling. It was not what she was looking for. She didn't need someone to share her loneliness, but to relieve her of it. She still hung on to those romantic fantasies - the ones she had tried to live in every relationship. The one in which she and her lover found a huge secluded beach house somewhere and lived happily ever after, taking long walks on the shore. The one in which she and her lover both had very successful careers in the city and a fabulous penthouse to show for it, to go along with their vacation cottage on the Atlantic coast. The one where she walked into a club and her eyes met those of some gorgeous creature who had to have her right then and forever more. The one in which someone she cared for, just once, said with true feeling that she loved her.

Fantasies, to be sure, and very short stories, just like the ones in her real life. Except the real stories didn't usually have happy endings. Those stories secured her right to days like these, when she would sit at home, alone, wallowing in self pity. She thought that if she were to pen the story of her life, it would be so sad that no one would buy it. Radcliffe Hall would have nothing on her. Instead of The Well of Loneliness, she'd call her book The Black Hole of Loneliness, or The Bottomless Pit of Despair, or The Void of Desolation, or...

She got up from her rocker and shook her head. 'Lots of people are lonely,' she thought. 'They need only come together. Our problem is we're snobs. We don't think there's anything wrong with us, but that there must be something wrong with other lonely people or they wouldn't be alone. My life is good,' she went on. 'I could be in the middle of some war-torn country searching through the rubble for pieces of my relatives. I could be hungry or on the street somewhere. I could be strung out on drugs or severely handicapped or mentally deficient. If you think you've got problems, Celeste old girl, look around you. The world is full of people with real troubles. Loneliness is a luxury you're lucky enough to be able to afford. Some people, lots of people don't have time to think about being lonely. They're too busy trying to survive.'

This line of reasoning, a form of whipping herself into shape, worked, at least temporarily and she resolved to bemoan her situation no more that day. Instead, she slipped into her shoes and took a walk down her gentrified street, confident that she was dressed to be noticed in her well worn baggy cotton pants and the denim jacket she'd had for years, the one she wore as a shirt, with the sleeves cut off and the top three buttons that were never used. She'd spent the last year putting all her energy into her career, her home and her body. She'd had success with all three, yet she remained empty, unfulfilled.

~

She walked for miles thinking, but her thoughts were discordant. She could never have untangled them to see where each one led or from where each had originated. She may as well not have thought at all. She realized she'd walked as far as the shopping district when she noticed a pet store with kittens in one window and puppies in the other. She stared at the kittens
for a while, but when she'd decided they'd be too depressing, she went to the window with the puppies. 'Too hard to train,' she decided and continued on.

A few blocks down she was passing a pub that looked like a quiet place and, as she wasn't driving, she decided to go in and have a drink. She dug into the pocket of her baggy cottons and found a twenty dollar bill. 'Yes,' she thought, 'I'll have a cocktail.'

Stepping in, she noticed that she was underdressed, but it didn't really matter to her. These people were obviously from another life. They were mostly paired off, or in small groups who looked like they'd dropped in for a drink after a hard day at work. Well, she'd had a hard day, too, what with all that wallowing. She'd just have a drink and blend.

She avoided the bar and made a table for two a table for one. She ordered white wine from the waitress. 'Something light,' she thought, 'so I can float home.' She sat sipping her wine and wishing she had brought something to read. She had decided to resort to eavesdropping when an uninvited visitor was suddenly sharing her table.

"Do you mind?" asked the graceful, almost beautiful woman.

"Would it matter if I did?" retorted Celeste, who was quite taken aback by this stranger who had decided to approach, no, accost her.

"Oh yes, it would matter a great deal," she answered, staring intently into Celeste's eyes. "I'm Niki. I came over because you looked like you wanted company. Of course, I could have gotten my signals crossed, in which case I'd be terribly embarrassed. So you see, it really would matter a great deal." Celeste nodded but said nothing. "You're trying to figure me out, aren't you? Well, it's really quite simple. This is a pick-up, or at least an attempted pick-up."

Celeste looked at Niki's clothes and realized that she was dressed just like everyone else in the pub - like she'd just gotten off work and had dropped in for a drink with the folks from the office. Celeste had not previously noticed her. Nothing distinguished her from the rest of the patrons, except, of course, that she was now sitting at Celeste's table, talking to her.

"Try not to look so shocked. I told those people I knew you."

"You have an accent," Celeste said, as if Niki didn't know.

"Yes, I'm French. Oh yes, there are quite a few blacks born in France. Americans always act as though they don't know this, but it was inevitable." When Celeste didn't respond, she went on. "I have surprised you! But why? You are a very attractive woman. Surely you must have been approached in this manner before?"

"Actually, no. I was just thinking about that, and it's all very mysterious, your coming over here just at this moment."

"So, you were just sitting here thinking about some woman you don't know coming over to pick you up, eh?"

"Yes, well, no. I was at home and I decided to take a walk and..."

"Take me there," Niki interrupted.

"Take you where?"

"To your home. I'd like to see where you live."

"I can't."

"Oh, you have someone there. I have intruded."

"No! I mean, I don't have my car and it's far from here." Celeste thought for a moment. Something else was wrong with the request. "Besides," she said, realizing what it was, "I don't even know you."

"Nor I, you. Comme vous appellez-vous? What is your name?"

"Celeste," she said, awkwardly extending her hand to shake. Niki responded in kind.

"And now we know each other. Take me to your home. I have a feeling it is very nice. I have my car and I know the city well. Wait, I'll say good-bye to my colleagues."

She rose quickly and went over to her associates. She said a few words to them and gathered her purse. In a minute she was back, urging Celeste along. Celeste allowed her loneliness to lead the way and in what seemed like seconds they were at her apartment.

Celeste made coffee while Niki wandered around the living room looking at everything. She didn't sit when Celeste brought the service out and put it on the coffee table. Rather she poured herself a cup, black, and continued to wander, cup in hand, saying little.

"You've worked hard for this place, haven't you?" she asked suddenly.

"Why do you say that?"

"It shows. What is the statement? " place for everything and everything in its place."

"Do you read fortunes, too? I've heard that women with accents do."

"Yes, of course." She sat, finally, on the sofa beside Celeste and took her palm in her hand. She did not look at Celeste's palm, but stared into her eyes just as she'd done in the pub. "I see that you are a woman with a lot of love and no one to give it to, so you put it all into your home."

Celeste was mesmerized by the spell that was being woven around her. Niki leaned closer as though she were going to kiss her, but Celeste pulled away and sprang to her feet.

"And you have been hurt too," Niki said, completing her reading.

Celeste, a bit flustered, didn't respond. She stood gazing out of the window, trying to regain her composure.

"And who is this?" Niki asked, having risen and walked over to the wall unit. Celeste turned to look at the picture Niki was asking about.

"That's my sister and my nephew," she answered, smiling.

"You and you sister are close?"

"We've had our moments, but I love that little boy."

"Mmm," Niki replied, seeming to have lost interest. "You work-out, don't you, with weights?"

"Yes," Celeste answered, once again trying to be relaxed, cordial, animated, a good hostess. "Would you like to see my gym?"

"Is it here?"

"It's just down the hall. Come."

They walked down the long hall to the bedroom Celeste had converted to a gym. When Celeste opened the door, Niki saw that the walls were covered with pictures. Some were posters, hung there primarily for the bodies attached to the faces (incentive, Niki guessed), but most were snap shots, good amateur photography, to be sure, but obviously home grown pictures of faces she supposed were familiar to Celeste. Women from a past that was, so far, a secret to her. The ones who had hurt her? Niki assumed so. Why else would the pain be so fresh as to expose itself in Celeste's eyes? They, too, must serve as a kind of incentive, but a painful one which Celeste must live with every day. Every time she throws a weight. Every time she jumps rope or does a sit-up, they are there as a painful reminder of what was lost.

"Who are they?" Niki asked.

"Just people. Some I know, some I don't. They keep me going when I want to quit."

Celeste was doing curls with a dumb bell in front of the mirror. She couldn't resist. She needed something to do with her hands. Niki approached her from behind and felt her muscle.

"You're a strong woman," she said. She slipped her arms around Celeste's waist and held her. "Strong but gentle."

Celeste stared into the mirror, but could not believe the reflection. She put down the weight, but Niki did not let her go and her buttocks pressed firmly against her as she bent. She straightened up, not knowing what to do next, wanting and fearing the offer.

"You are a woman of many emotions, yes?" Celeste didn't answer. "What were you doing before you decided to take your walk?"

"I, uh... I was reviewing some short stories," Celeste replied nervously.

Niki had started gently rubbing her stomach. It was a stomach of which Celeste was very proud. It had taken her a year to get it firm and she had longed to show it off, to have someone rub and admire it just as Niki was doing. Now that it was happening, it served only to make her ill at ease. Her arms hung uselessly at her sides. She was nervous, but not frozen. In fact, she
was pliant. She could be turned any which way at that moment and Niki chose to turn her around so that they were face to face. Niki placed a very gentle kiss upon her lips before she spoke again.

"But no happy endings, eh?" She kissed her again, full this time, and drew Celeste's body very close. Celeste responded to the sensation, a voice in her crying 'Oh God! Not now!', but her body would not cooperate. She pressed closer to Niki, her arms still hanging at her sides as Niki nibbled on her neck.

"There is still some love left," Niki said. "This room is full of ghosts," she continued, taking Celeste's hand and leading her out and down the hall to the bedroom. Niki unbuttoned the last two buttons on the jacket. She spent hours, it seemed to Celeste, kissing her. Kissing, sucking, licking, biting. Celeste didn't know when her pants had been dropped, but suddenly she was nude and Niki knelt before her. She crawled around Celeste in a circle, meeting every inch of her lower body with her lips.

Celeste began shaking. She exploded and dropped to the floor, writhing in pleasure. Niki watched her as she took off her own clothes and met her on the carpet. She entwined her body with Celeste's and they rode out another storm together.

~

It was later, in the shower, when Celeste flinched in pain as Niki washed her back, that Niki said, "You won't be able to forget me for at least a week now, until the scars heal." She rinsed and kissed Celeste's back.

"You say that as though I would forget you today if you weren't a scratcher," Celeste replied.

"Tomorrow."

"Not likely."

"You are a strong and gentle woman, just as I had suspected, but I didn't know you would respond so fabulously as well."

"It's been a long time, Niki," Celeste said, stepping out of the shower.

She was embarrassed now, but she was also annoyed with herself. She'd always disapproved of casual sex and she'd sworn that no matter how much getting attached hurt, she'd be attached before she got sexual. She was detached now. Niki, it seemed, was determined to compound her annoyance.

"I have a friend," she said emerging from the bathroom still nude from the shower, "who would love to meet you."

Celeste sat on the bed in her robe, smoking a cigarette from the pack she kept for emergencies such as this, when her nerves got the better of her. She choked a little. It had been a long time since she'd smoked, too, she'd been so calm in her solitude.

"She is a great admirer of American women. She's had lovers from all over the world and she thinks American women are the best. She says it is because their own sexuality is still new and exciting to them," Niki continued as she crawled onto the bed and snuggled close to Celeste. "The three of us together would be wonderful," she purred.

Celeste sighed heavily. She wanted to ask Niki to leave. She felt that was the only moral thing left for her to do. It was the only way she could salvage any of her convictions this day. But one of her convictions, she quickly remembered, was not to be rude. She'd even managed to tone down her sarcasm in this year of self-improvement. She was determined, now, to be polite.

"Niki," she began slowly, each word carefully. "Niki, I don't usually do this sort of thing at all, let alone with women I barely know. I, uh, I really hadn't planned on making it a habit."

"I have offended you! I didn't mean to," Niki replied.

Her tone had changed from sultry to serious. Her touch, however, remained constant, a gentle stroking of Celeste's bare thigh that left stars glistening on her skin.

"But perhaps you should 'make it a habit,' as you say. You're very good at it. It would make your stories much shorter, but they would have happier endings. Brief interludes, uh... trysts. That is the word. Such a cute English word. Yes, brief trysts like this and on to the next. Was this evening not satisfying?"

"In a way, of course it was," Celeste sighed. Niki did not speak, but her face asked the obvious. Celeste turned away from that look in her eye but decided that was not enough. She slid from Niki's embrace and walked across the carpet to the window. She stood there a while, feeling like she was in a scene from so many movies -- a woman standing by a window smoking cigarettes, obviously upset, lost for words. She crossed the room again and went into the bathroom to drop the cigarette in the toilet. She stood in the doorway facing Niki, who had sat up to watch her movement around the room.

"Niki, the body is satisfied, but it's not enough." She crossed over to the bed and sat on the edge. "I'm not passing judgment. I'm not saying there was anything wrong with what happened. It's just that there was nothing right with it either. Not for me. Last year I was a little overweight. I was living in a small but comfortable apartment. I was suffering through an affair. It was alright. It was all alright, but it wasn't enough. I decided then that 'alright' was not enough. When you leave here, I'll probably go back to reviewing my short stories -- going over the past. I'll still be empty, but at least I'll be true to myself. Niki, sex is not enough. I'd rather have nothing at all than not have enough of anything...or anyone.

~

She sat again in her rocker by the window, watching the fall of beams of light from the street lamps across the brownstone steps. Looking at the sky, the stars reminded her of Niki stroking her thigh. There'd be no more short stories. She knew that now. She'd realized it, finally. But she still had hope. Not that she'd find the perfect love in the eyes of the next woman she met. Not that she could make her fantasies, the beach house, the dual careers, the exquisite exclusivity of two hearts together, come true. Those hopes had been crushed before. Those hopes had only caused her pain. Instead she had hope that the loneliness would cease. That being solitary would mean having solitude. That she could love herself as she'd loved others, because she knew now that only she was capable of loving herself as she needed to be loved. She had hope - she was certain that now the short stories could be reviewed and enjoyed and when the last page was turned she could savor the warm feelings they left without the pain, the ache, the need they left unfulfilled, eating her up inside. She had the proper perspective now. They were, after all, just very short stories in the collection that would someday make up her life.

THE END

If you have enjoyed M. Alicia Scott's "Very Short Stories", then please be certain to e-mail her at  mswildi[at]hotmail.com  and thank her for posting this Story.

Click here for a list of all of M. Alicia Scott's Stories and Poetry at  Sapphic Voices Authoresses.