Coalescence - SF3 (35 page)

"Do they keep the tapes here, or is there some service that does it?"

"I’m not sure," she said, starting to cry. "Oh, Ryan, if they find out about us this way, we’ll never be able to have a relationship with them. This would kill them if they saw us having sex here. Like we did," she added with a deep blush, as scenes from their gym adventure flooded her brain.

"Jamie, Jamie," she said as she patted her heaving back. "We’ll figure this out, Honey. I promise you. " Staring into Jamie’s eyes, she
repeated sincerely, "I
promise
you."

Jamie clung to her tightly, her mind running through various scenarios, all of them disastrous. She looked up at Ryan, her tear-stained face reflecting shame and embarrassment. "It’s making me sick to my stomach to think of someone watching us," she said as the sobs overtook her again.

"Jamie…" Ryan slowly pulled back and lifted her lover’s face with her fingertips. "I swear to you that we will figure out a way to make sure your parents don’t see that tape. No matter what we have to do, they will not see it," she said firmly. "I’ll bring all of my cousins down here to tear this place apart brick by brick if we have to, Honey. We will absolutely figure out a way to make sure your parents do not ever see that tape, Baby."

Jamie still looked physically ill, and Ryan continued to soothe her. "There is nothing wrong with how we made love today, Jamie." She lifted her chin as her partner dropped it again in shame. "What we do together is intensely private, and I never want another soul to watch us. But whatever we do together is done with love, and trust and tenderness." She softly kissed her lover on the lips. "Sometimes we’ll be a little wild. Sometimes we’ll be very tame. But no matter how we touch each other, it will always be based in love," she said fervently. "Always."

Jamie curled up into her embrace and laid her head on her strong shoulder. "I do love you, Ryan. So very, very, much," she said softly.

"I love you too, Jamie,’ she said as she nuzzled into her neck, "with everything that I am. I’ve never lied to you, Baby," she said fervently, "and I’m not lying now. We will fix this, and no one will ever know."

As soon as her partner was asleep, Ryan slipped out of bed and went downstairs to find the keys to the gym. Walking down the path to the garage in the heavy fog, she got the key into the lock by feel alone. When she went in to investigate the workout space, she spotted a door in the corner that she had not previously noticed, and she wondered if the equipment might be kept there. She tried the knob, but it was, of course, locked. There were no other potential hiding places, so she glumly walked back to the main house. She spent another few minutes looking all around the library and the kitchen, searching for a set of keys that might work for the door, but they all looked like the ones for the front door or were clearly for automobiles. She sat down on a stool in the kitchen and rested her head on her crossed arms, deep in thought. After a bit, an idea hit her, but she couldn’t explore the thought until morning, so she turned off the lights and went back upstairs to slip back into bed, her temporary absence completely unnoticed by her partner.

Anxiety over the cameras caused Ryan to rise even earlier than normal. She hadn’t really slept that well, with thoughts of her partner’s anguished face waking her repeatedly.
Jamie’s really depending on me to make this right
, she mused as she crept around the room, trying to successfully dress herself in the dark.
There has to be a way to find out how the system works and to stop the Evans's from ever seeing any evidence of our lovemaking. God, Da knows I’m gay, he knows I’m a horn-dog, and he loves Jamie. With all of that, even he’d freak if he saw photos or tapes of us together…like we were.
She blushed a bit as she considered how they had pleased each other in the gym.
That wasn’t just sex
, she reminded herself with a sly grin.
That was…that was…I don’t even know what that was
, she laughed to herself.
But I want to make sure we do more of whatever it was in the very near future!
After a stop in the kitchen for a small snack, she paused in front of the alarm display and shook her head at her own lack of imagination.
How in the holy hell did I not understand that "surv" meant surveillance?
She was quite angry with herself over her failure not to pursue her question about the various zones, knowing that if she had pressed the issue Jamie would likely have remembered the cameras.
Water under the bridge, Ryan. You can’t change the past, but you can get your butt in gear and fix this problem as quickly as you can.
Grabbing the keys, she headed over to the gym to investigate her idea of the night before.

Bounding up the stairs, she walked around and looked carefully at the cameras, noting the manufacturer and the model number. Going to the locked door, she checked the lock manufacturer and then went to the phone located on the wall, making a quick, but productive, phone call. After checking a few more minor--but possibly important--details, she felt her anxiety begin to ease now that she was taking some action. Her mood lightened appreciably, she took off for her run, a bounce to her step, singing softly to herself most of the way.

After an hour she was headed back up the drive, but stopped short when she remembered that there was a very attractive alternative to cooling off in the shower. By the time she reached the pool house most of her clothes were off, and she reflected on how delicious it felt to be able to strip outdoors. She kicked off her shoes as she entered and immediately dove in, using a racing start. The water felt divine, and after 20 graceful laps she hopped out. She was just about to grab a towel and dry off when a childlike grin crossed her face as a delicious sounding idea lodged in her head. Leaving her clothes where they lay, she opened the door of the glass building and stood on the stone entryway for a few minutes, gauging the safety of her plan.

Since she had awakened so early it was only 6:45, and she was fairly confident that no one would be on the grounds that early, even if they did have business to attend to. Deciding the reward was worth the risk, she started to run across the wide expanse of perfectly manicured grass that separated the pool house from the oceanside cliff.

Naked as the day she was born, chlorine-scented water droplets covering her body, the lanky woman began to cover ground at a quick clip—no destination in mind. Her goal was not to reach a destination at all—it was to revel in the journey. And today’s journey consisted of enjoying the delightful sensation of running on thick, spongy grass on a dark, foggy morning, completely naked.

One of Ryan’s favorite sensations was to expose every inch of her skin to the great outdoors. When she was a small child, her parents fought a constant battle to keep clothes on her, and she had never lost the desire to feel the kiss of a breeze on normally covered skin. The dense population of San Francisco prevented her from indulging her wish very often, but this isolated, protected estate was made to order. She had traveled only a hundred yards or so when the telltale hiss of an automatic sprinkler alerted her just prior to erupting from the lawn and emitting a fine, cold spray in a wide, pulsing pattern.

The chance to experience this new sensation beckoned, and she found her body propelling itself towards the streaming water as one sprinkler after another kicked in.

The water was colder than she would have guessed, the fine, icy needles pricking her skin everywhere it hit. But she did not let that detail deter her—instead it urged her on, and she picked up the pace until she was running at her limit. The sensation was so intense that she heard her own voice let out a joyous whoop of pleasure as she ran through the water. Not surprisingly, the fine, short grass, the foggy morning and the cold spray did not provide a good running surface, and after a short while, she took a header—falling onto her belly, arms extended. She slid a good ten yards, grass tickling her chilled skin. But the fall did nothing to disrupt her enjoyment of the experience—instead it allowed her to create a variation on the game.

Getting to her feet, she took off in a mad sprint, and then intentionally flopped onto the ground, sliding as far as her momentum would take her. This wild romp continued for some minutes until she heard a gentle, bemused laugh floating up from the pool house.

Turning quickly, she spotted her lover, clad only in one of Ryan’s Tshirts. The small, shivering woman smiled engagingly at her wild lover, shaking her head in amusement at the antics.

Ryan started to run over, waiting until she was about 20 feet away to launch herself again, sliding on her belly until she stopped just a foot or so from her laughing partner.

"You obviously didn’t get the memo, Sweetie, but you ceased to be a three-year-old twenty years ago," she said with a warm smile.

The dark head shook forcefully as Ryan returned the smile. "I never read memos," she declared. "And if you take that shirt off and join me, you can act like you didn’t read it, either." Dark eyebrows twitched in challenge, and Jamie knew that she had made a tactical error in coming outside in the first place. Still, the luminescent smile on her lover’s face compelled her to whisk the shirt off and grasp the hand her playful partner extended.

They took off together, Jamie screaming at the shock of the ice-cold water pelting her body. Ryan’s joyful laugh caused her to forget the discomfort and revel in the experience—forcing herself to feel only the exhilaration of the moment.

They got up a good head of steam and dove across the ground together, hands clasped as they slid through the spiky blades of grass. Ryan grasped her lover’s chilled, soaked body and wrapped her in a joyful hug, their joined bodies almost immediately creating warmth everywhere that they touched.

"That was fabulous," Jamie cried, throwing her head back to let out a yell.

"That rocked!" Ryan released her partner and took off one last time, this time executing a stylish feet-first slide, then rolling onto her back and spreading her arms and legs out fully. "Race you to the spa!" she yelled, scampering to her feet and taking off.

Shaking her wet hair like a dog, Jamie ran after her mischievous companion, laughing the whole way.

After 15 minutes in the spa, both women were warm and invigorated. Jamie had thoughtfully brought a set of sweats for each of them when she noticed her partner’s antics, and they now each put the welcome outfits on.

"Got any plans in mind?" Jamie asked.

"Nope. Not a one," Ryan smiled. "You?"

"Let’s drag a couple of chairs out by the cliff and watch the sea birds eat breakfast," the smaller woman decided.

"Okay," Ryan warned. "But watching those birds eat sashimi is definitely gonna make me want a big breakfast."

It took a few minutes to drag a pair of heavy, wrought iron chaises from the pool house out to the cliff, but the view was worth the effort. It was 7:30 now, and the fog, while still thick, showed signs of dissipating. The temperature was in the high 50s--brisk, but not too bad with the warm sweats covering their bodies.

They watched the surf crash and thrum against the rocks for a long while, each silently lost in her own thoughts. Jamie finally broke the silence, squeezing her partner’s hand as she asked, "What goes through your mind to cause you to do wild things like that?"

"Wild?" Ryan laughed. At Jamie’s nod she answered, "I don’t know, Hon. I love to be naked outside—always have. Whenever I get the chance to be out in the elements I jump at it. Today was a perfect opportunity." She smiled broadly.

"But how do you feel when you do something like that?" Jamie asked, wanting to understand her partner better.

Ryan mused about her answer for a few moments. She finally turned and said, "I feel…alive. I don’t have a better way to put it, Jamie. I love to feel sensation—the cold, the wet, the sharp blades of grass tickling my tummy—all of those things just remind me that I’m alive."

"Have you always been like that, Babe?"

Ryan’s face darkened noticeably. She paused a second, then answered. "I had to make a decision about how I was going to live my life when I was young. I could choose to let the fear of death ruin my life, or I could consciously embrace every day that I had on earth. I try, with all my heart, to do the latter."

Jamie squeezed her hand firmly, then drew the hand close and kissed the warm palm. "It always hurts to think about that time, doesn’t it?"

Ryan nodded, lips slightly pursed.

"I’ve um…been thinking, Honey," the smaller woman said. She had been mulling an idea around in her head ever since the AIDS Ride, and this seemed like a good time to bring it up. "I might not have any idea what I’m talking about, but it occurred to me that you never talk about your mother or Michael without ending on a really sad note. Now, this might not help at all, but I thought maybe you could try to talk about the happy times with them, rather than just their deaths."

Ryan nodded again, lips still pursed, but a thoughtful look on her face. She ran her hands through her dark hair, fluffing it in the breeze to help it dry. Jamie was resigned to have the short nod be Ryan’s only reply, but after another minute of silence, the dark woman finally spoke. "Do I really never talk about them in happy times?"

Jamie shook her head, smiling briefly as she grasped Ryan’s hand again. "Um…you might with your family, but…you never have with me," she said softly. "I think I understand more about your mom, but I really don’t know what Michael meant to you when he was alive. I don’t know about the good times you had together, Baby."

Ryan turned her head enough to make full eye contact with her partner. "Do you really want to know?"

Jamie did want to know, not just to make Ryan feel better, but so she could feel more like a member of the O’Flaherty family. "Yes," she said, just loud enough to be heard over the waves. "I want to know because he means so much to you, Honey."

"That he does," Ryan murmured, her gaze returning to the sea. "Okay, I’ll make an attempt. I’ll do my best to tell you about the fun we had together." Her face was set in a stoic grimace, and she looked like she was about to have a few important teeth pulled.

Jamie wasn’t at all sure that this exercise would help, and she briefly regretted bringing it up. "You don’t have to do it all at once," she cautioned. "I just want to help you get some of the sadness out of your system. It might help to temper it with some good memories."

"It might," Ryan agreed. "I mean, I know that the family should talk about this stuff, but we really don’t. We talk about my mother, but Michael is still pretty much off-limits."

"There’s a lot of pain there." Jamie empathized, knowing that his youth, his devastating illness and the split with his father had to make the loss all the more traumatic.

"Yeah, of course there is, but there’s a lot of joy there too, and I’ve ignored that for a long while. Let’s give this a try, Babe. Maybe we can chip away at some of this frozen grief." She gave Jamie her most winning smile, but the smaller woman could see the sadness hiding behind the bright blue eyes.

"I’m game," Jamie declared.

Ryan set her jaw and gathered her thoughts for a moment. "What did Michael mean to me…Let’s start with music. That’s one of his biggest influences on me."

"Really?" Jamie was a bit startled by this revelation. "I had no idea…"

"He got all of us started," Ryan smiled. "His life was music…either playing, singing, or getting others to play. He played the piano, the guitar, the mandolin, the fiddle…He could pick up almost any instrument and figure out a way to make something pleasant come out of it."

"Did he take lessons?"

"Yeah…he took lessons in a number of things, but I think it was mostly just his natural talent that shone through. We all wanted to be just like him when we grew up, so we all started taking lessons in something as soon as we were able."

"That’s so neat," Jamie said, green eyes twinkling. "What kind of music did he like?"

"Ha! Let’s start with what he didn’t like! He didn’t like…I don’t think there was anything he didn’t like," Ryan laughed. "I’d have to say his favorite was R&B and soul, but he was an aficionado of traditional Irish music, he knew a lot about African music, and he liked a lot of artists from Western Europe. He didn’t know much about classical music or opera, but he probably would have gotten to them if he’d had time." She laughed gently, but the sadness started to show through again.

Trying to get back on the positive track, Jamie asked, "R&B and soul were his favorites? That surprises me."