Sapphic Voices Romance

When Cows Fly

"That'll be the day." Ana crushed a cigarette into the oily pavement with the heel of her sneaker.

"It’s true. James wants me back for good," Patrice reiterated.

“If he had half a brain, he'd run for his life," Ana sneered. She crumpled the empty cigarette pack and angrily threw it against the metallic blue van.

"You promised to quit."

"What do you care?" Ana frantically searched for and pulled out a broken cigarette from the breast pocket of her aviator jacket.

"Friends don't let friends smoke," Patrice scolded.

"Friends--now there's a concept," Ana said bitterly. Patrice started the engine. Ana, in a desperate search for matches, paid no attention when the van backed slowly away. When their love nest on wheels had reached the parking lot exit, she bolted up to its driver's window. "Hold up, dammit!"

Patrice, who never looked more beautiful, reluctantly rolled it down. "What?"

"Plug in your lighter," Ana demanded with a shiver. She danced on one foot then the other against the biting December wind.

"I will not!" Patrice shouted over the rattle and scrape of an approaching snowplow. Ana was temporarily enveloped in the steamy exhaust. Patrice looked impatiently at her watch. "For godsakes, Annie, I was due back at the office twenty minutes ago," she said and floored it. The van screeched out onto the slushy thoroughfare.

"That’s right, make a run for it, babe! And don't ever look back!" Ana screamed at the top of her lungs. She watched the home of their first kiss fade into traffic. Both of them fugitives, run-of-the-mill slaves to lust, each guilty of calling it love in fantasy only, never out loud, instead vowing forever friendship no matter what. For one roller coaster year one had betrayed her husband, the other herself.

Ana searched every lint-filled nook and cranny of her clothing for loose change and found just enough for one last pack of generics. Her heart ached like an abscessed molar as she gripped the greasy handle of the glass door tinted red by the twenty-four-seven flashing neon. For an instant, everything went black. Next thing she knew, Ana lay flat on her back, staring up at a shifting mosaic of storm clouds that were washing to a monotone gray. Warm liquid ran down her throat.

"She’s bleedin’ bad!" a low voice echoed overhead.

"Is she conscious?" a different voice pierced Ana's left ear. She blinked; her vision remained blurred.

"Oh, my god, she needs an ambulance," a third voice, this one female, came through sharp and clear. Ana tried to sit up, but stabbing pain between the eyes took her breath away. She fell back in a fit of coughing onto the slushy sidewalk, where she helplessly watched expressions of horror mixed with pity slowly come into focus.

"Here ya go, young lady," a hairy hand reached down with a handkerchief.

Acute pain temporarily sharpened her powers of observation. Ana studied the face of the man. Except for the broad purplish nose, it was colorless. Deep-set pale-blue eyes were barely visible under bushy black eyebrows laced with gray. Ana slapped at the handkerchief. "Get that rag away from me," she gasped and nearly passed out again from the red-hot poker that repeatedly stabbed the middle of her forehead.

"I didn't see her, I swear," the man kept repeating to the onlookers. "Where the hell’s that ambulance?"

"I'm not going to any hospital," Ana weakly protested and again tried to sit up. "Somebody...please..." she moaned and felt herself fall weightless through complete darkness.


Two weeks without a smoke added to the anguish of the slow recovery. Both eyes blackened, nose broken in three places and heavily bandaged, Ana refused to leave her apartment. She ordered almost all her meals by phone, which meant a steady diet of pizza and chicken wings. Healthier fare her neighbor from across the hall brought over as often as she could in kettles and steaming casserole dishes.

Patrice hadn't called or written. If not for the pain it would have inflicted, the hapless nicotine addict would have laughed herself silly at the karmic justice of it all. `My guardian angel was always a tough old broad,' Ana liked to joke when the pain was almost too much to bear.

Two weeks stretched into a whole month smoke-free. Ana got to where she could go for two hours at a time without thinking about a cigarette, that is, as long as her favorite cable programs distracted her. But the longing for Patrice, who still had not called, churned her stomach. It was that very longing six months earlier that had driven Ana, never a smoker, to light up in the first place.

"Come on, Mil—just one," she pleaded with her neighbor one evening after a hearty home-cooked meal of chicken and dumplings.

"No way, hon. Here, have the last dumpling," the plump honey-blonde insisted. She scooped up the gravy-soaked morsel from the scorched kettle and dropped it onto Ana's empty plate.

"Aren't you eating?" Ana asked with an eye on the dumpling.

"I'm counting calories," Millie replied.

"Between your cooking and no cigs I'm turning into a sow. Look at this gut!" Ana pinched her belly, which in actuality was as flat as ever.

With a snort, Millie grabbed a hefty roll of mid-drift. "Now this is a gut, my dear."

Ana cut into the dumpling. "So how long you been on a diet, Mil?" she said with a mouthful.

Millie looked at her watch. "Eighteen days, three hours and twenty-five minutes," she answered with pride.

Ana chuckled, spit a bit of dumpling onto Millie's arm.
"Oops, sorry," she giggled, which propelled another chunk onto the couch.

Millie automatically grabbed a napkin and wiped it up. "This new diet is supposed to get me to my optimum weight for my height. I walk every morning like clockwork, but I've only lost two pounds. And now I'm a chain smoker."

If Ana had bothered to notice, she would have seen the desperation in Millie's moist aqua eyes. "Nothing worse than trying to kick a delicious poison," she absently mumbled through another mouthful of dumpling.

Millie smiled. "It sure does my heart good to see you put some meat on those delicate bones of yours. I don't how in the world you carry that tool box around all day."

The carpenter put her fork down and flexed her right arm. "Feel that."
Millie squeezed the small knot of bicep and laughed. "OK, smarty, let's see yours," Ana challenged. When Millie flexed her flabby right arm, Ana had to snort. The pain made her wince.

"Serves you right. I'd like to see you maneuver a two-hundred pound paraplegic from bed into a wheelchair."

"All in the legs, I'm sure," Ana said and licked the gravy from her plate. She rubbed her stomach and reached for the ceiling with both hands, her slender sinewy brown legs stretched parallel to the floor.

"I wish I could do that," Millie sighed and began picking up three-days accumulation of crumpled napkins and empty pizza boxes.

"You could, Mil. Start with just a couple of leg lifts a day and work up to it. Discipline, my friend, discipline," Ana said, still holding her taut legs in position. "Go ahead, try it."
Millie tried and couldn't. "Try just one at a time," Ana urged. Millie couldn't do that either.

"Maybe after I lose a couple more pounds," she grunted and glanced at her watch. "Oh, jeez, I have to get ready for work." Millie grabbed the empty kettle and stacked it on top of the plate. Ana relaxed and sat back with her hands clasped behind her head for another night of mindless viewing.

"Wait Mil, just one...pretty please," she whined. Momentarily caught off guard by that winning smile, the dedicated night nurse at county general automatically reached for the pack of ultra lights in her smock, then caught herself.

"Oh, no you don't," she chided, wagging her finger.

Ana batted thick lashes over her bloodshot ebony eyes. "Have a heart. What's one little cig in the scheme of things?"

Millie stood her ground. "I don't have time for games," she said and headed for the door.

"Come on, Mil! I cleaned my plate," Ana persisted in a little girl’s voice.

With an exaggerated sigh, Millie plucked a cigarette from her freshly-opened pack and tossed it across the room. Ana adeptly caught it and popped it in her mouth, all in one graceful motion. "I always was a sucker for a handsome face," Millie said and flung open the door to Ana’s fourth floor studio apartment.

"Shit," Ana muttered.

"What now?" Millie sighed from the hallway.

"No matches." The fresh cigarette, firmly stuck to her bottom lip, waggled as Ana spoke.

Millie reluctantly produced a matchbook, threw it, but it landed short. When Ana tried to retrieve it, she let out a little scream that brought Millie instantly to her side.

"You OK, hon?"

"It still hurts like hell when I bend over," Ana groaned, gingerly touching her heavily bandaged nose. She impatiently motioned for a light. Millie obliged and plopped down next to her. Ana blew a series of smoke rings towards the ceiling. "I thought you had to get to work," she said dreamily from inside a long luxurious exhale.

Millie lit up. "May as well stick around in case you start to bleed out," she joked and tried to blow a smoke ring.

"This way," Ana said and blew three perfect ones.

Millie tried again and failed. "I don't have the lips for it," she said with another drag.

"It's a throat thing,” Ana said. She illustrated with a couple more beauties, while Millie took in the elegant line of her neck and profile. Suddenly, Ana began to cough. A trickle of crimson oozed from one nostril hole in the nose cast.

Without a word, Millie lumbered into the bathroom. When she returned, blood had splattered the front of Ana's shirt. "Tilt your head back," she instructed, gently placing the cold pack over the bridge of the worst nasal fracture she'd seen in fifteen years of emergency nursing.


Millie missed her bus and tarnished her perfect attendance record with a falsehood: `family crisis.' Ana's nosebleed had stopped, replaced by a steady stream of tears. She did her best not to rip the delicate stitching with all out sobbing. "My life is crap," she whimpered.

Millie put her arm around Ana’s narrow shoulders. "I know it's none of my business, hon, but it’s Patrice again, isn’t it?" Ana nodded, barely able to stifle the urge to bawl like a sick calf.
"We're finished--for good," she hiccupped.

Millie tightened her grip and brushed a stray black ringlet from her neighbor’s clammy forehead. "How you must miss her," she softly said.

Ana stiffened. "I hate missing her."

"It's no picnic--unrequited love," Millie sighed.

"Love has nothing to do with it. The witch is an addiction. Worse than nicotine."

Millie had to chuckle at that one. "In this life, it's the nut house, the cancer ward, or the drunk tank--take your pick."

Ana poked Millie's fleshy upper arm. "You got that right," she said. Millie gazed for a moment into Ana's dark teary eyes, which for once didn't dart away. "Mil, I don't know what I would have done without you this past month."

"You'd do the same for me," the seasoned caretaker was nothing if not gracious. Ana, overcome with emotion, threw her arms around Millie's neck.

"Thanks for everything," she wept into the soft flesh that always smelled of lilac.

Their embrace lingered a little too long for Millie; her heart started to pound, her palms grew clammy. "Jeez, I don't dare miss that next bus," she said, while fondling another stray black curl.

Ana released her arms. When Millie tried to stand, her hair got caught in Ana's bracelet, the one Patrice had given her for her thirtieth birthday. In trying to free herself, Millie's lips brushed Ana's hand. On impulse, she kissed it. To her shock, the star of her nightly fantasies didn't recoil. "I'm so sorry...I didn't mean...I gotta go," she stammered. With great difficulty, she untangled her hair and tried to stand, but was pulled back down for a lingering kiss.


In the harsh light of the next morning, Ana wanted to gouge her eyes out. She sprang lightning quick and naked from the wreckage of her bed and made a mad dash for the bathroom, where she suffered a series of dry heaves. She locked the door and waited until she heard the front door close with a gentle click. Only then could she make herself come to terms with what she had allowed to happen.

Ana found the bed perfectly made, the room tidier than it had ever been. A note was taped to the headboard. On it in bold penmanship were these words: `You gave me the happiest night of my life. Now you know someone in this rotten world cares about you, no matter what. Patrice is a fool. I guess I am, too. But no regrets, just a treasure chest of sweet memories. I'm here if you need me. Be happy and don't smoke. Love, Mil. P.S. You are one heavenly kisser!'

Ana wadded the note into a tight ball and lobbed it into the wastebasket across the room. "You're lucky you weren't smothered," she addressed her pale reflection in the dresser mirror. Somehow the cast over her broken nose had remained in place. She gingerly ran her fingers over it, pushed here and there, but felt no pain. Without breakfast or a shower, she threw on some clothes, slipped quietly into the dark hallway and down the stairway to the street. On the way to the tobacco shop, Ana could feel Millie's gaze as she scooted under her window.

Later that morning, dizzy from the first few puffs of a tasteless generic, Ana sat on a park bench staring at her untied sneakers. Replays of the night's unbridled passion pranced shamelessly across her mind. Clouds of smoke couldn't blot out the truth: Millie was the best lover she'd ever had.

"No way!" Ana grumbled in futile rebuttal. Passersby pretended not to notice the disheveled figure whom they took for another homeless crazy hearing voices. "Maybe on a desert island after months and months of deprivation!" Ana snarled and gagged on a deep inhale of blue smoke. "What a nightmare," she hissed at a woman in tow behind a trio of determined Russian wolfhounds.

"And now it's over," a sultry voice floated over Ana's left shoulder.

The tormented smoker whirled around and coughed, "You!"

"Millie said I'd find you here. Miss me?" Patrice sat down close and slipped an arm around her lover's waist.

"Maybe," Ana instinctively belied her immense relief with a pout and flicked the cigarette butt across the sidewalk. "I suppose you think we can just pick up where we left off," she snapped.

"Poor baby, look at you," Patrice said with a cautious peck on Ana’s bluish cheek.

"I'm not your baby. Besides, things have changed," Ana said, folding her arms tight around herself.

"I know, Millie told me."
"Millie! Exactly what did she tell you?!" Ana grabbed Patrice roughly by her slender wrists.

"Ouch!" Patrice struggled against the vise-like grip until Ana let go.

"Sorry. I had a rough night." Ana pulled another cigarette from her jacket pocket.

"Don't!" Patrice snatched the fix from her lover's twitching lips. "Aren't you glad to see me?" Ana said nothing, stared off at the smoggy skyline. "Man, I nearly freaked when I saw your place. I thought you'd taken up with a neat freak," Patrice chuckled.

"I suppose Millie told you that, too," Ana muttered.

“Are you and Millie on the outs?" Patrice studied Ana’s dilated eyes.

"I wish she'd mind her own business, that's all."

"Millie's pretty closed-mouthed..I can't imagine..."

"I think I know her better than you. She can be a real busy-body," Ana lied, but not without shame. Her stomach was in knots. "She's been smothering me...I mean, you know, hovering since my accident."

"I don't blame her. Look at you. Your eyes are magenta, and your nose. I bet it hurts like the devil." Patrice tried to kiss Ana on the cheek again, but was angrily rebuffed.

"As if you cared. Where the hell have you been? A whole month!" Ana stood, ached for another cigarette.

"You told me to never look back, remember? It's been hell all right, but I stayed away as long as I could. James and I are really through this time. I mean it. He's.."

"Screwing somebody else," Ana interrupted with relish and popped another cigarette in her mouth.

Patrice scooted over and pulled Ana close, fogging up the over-sized horseshoe belt buckle. "C'mon, hon, let's go back to your place before we freeze."


Like so many times before, their reunion was fabulous. Despite growling stomachs, the lovemaking continued non-stop throughout the day and well past nightfall.

"You’re incredible," Patrice breathlessly whispered in her lover's ear. "I think I blacked out for a second."

Ana lay rigid on her back. In the flicker of candlelight, her gaze following the jagged crack that ran diagonally across the plaster ceiling. Patrice traced her lover's profile with her finger. "A penny for your thoughts," she said.

Ana sighed. She sat up and reached for the pack of cigarettes on the bed stand. Patrice grabbed her hand. "Please, don't."

"It's tradition."

"Not anymore."

"Says who?" Ana again reached for the prize.

"No," Patrice said and grabbed her hand.

"Why the hell not?"

"Because…"

“Because why?”

Patrice released her grip, rolled over onto her back and closed her eyes “Because… because things are different now,” she half-whispered.

"What's different?" Ana feared the answer.

"You--you're different," Patrice replied. Ana lay back down and again followed the jaggedness in the ceiling.

Patrice sighed, "Remember our first time?" She faced her lover, who was barely breathing. “Tonight was ten times better.”

"When will you leave me again?" Ana said, close to tears, in a voice faint and small.

"When cows fly, silly."

Just before dawn, in the throes of renewed passion, Ana cried out Millie's name more than once. But Patrice was too busy falling in love to notice.


The End

If you have enjoyed Keeper's "When Cows Fly", then please be certain to e-mail her at  ghwriter[at]msn.com  and thank her for posting this Story.

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

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