Elena Undone (22 page)

She swallowed, got up, walked around the house quietly, surreptitiously, making sure everyone was indeed in bed. Back in her office she paced momentarily, then sighed heavily. She sat back down at her desk and studied the sites. Was she really going to do this?

She clicked on a site. And then she Googled to another site. She went to search lesbian lifestyle and then followed up with lesbian books, lesbian movies.

What was that?
A creak on a floorboard? Elena slammed her laptop shut. She held very still for quite some time, then realized she was being utterly ridiculous. If she wanted to make sure she wasn’t going to get caught, she needed to go somewhere where no one could catch her.

She grabbed her laptop and headed to the bathroom. She locked the door behind her, then sat on her makeup bench and pulled up YouTube; pulled up lesbian kisses, watched scenes from
Claire of the Moon, Desert Hearts
, and clips from so many other movies she couldn’t keep the names straight.

Safely sequestered, she eagerly digested the information before her. As she watched lesbian love scene after lesbian love scene, a myriad of emotions overcame her, intrigue, awkwardness, embarrassment, fascination—but none gave her the feeling that she had expected.

The next morning, she sat at the dining room table, tired from her late-night research, sipping Earl Grey tea. She picked up the phone, called Peyton’s land line, a phone she knew would be answered by a machine. “Yeah, Peyton, it’s me. You know, I don’t have to get those earrings—I know you’re going to be tired when you get home. I’ll call you later in the week. Hope you are having a great trip.”

*

Flying back to Los Angeles, Peyton sat tapping her seatbelt with two fingers in series of threes that equaled nine. Over and over again as she peered through the window and the endless sky and knew, had known even when she had promised Elena that they could continue to see one another, pretend to be “pals, BFF’s, whatever,” the reality was that the situation was not going to work. Not even remotely.

Peyton continued to tap as she stared out the window.

When Peyton returned and heard Elena’s voice telling her that she couldn’t meet after all, and hoping she had had a nice trip, she was relieved. But then she played the message again. Again. And again. She sensed an air of finality in the words. And the tone.

A day passed, then another. Peyton didn’t know what to think. She was getting exactly what she wanted: space. Only it wasn’t working all that well for her.

The following evening Elena called while she was out, and when Peyton returned she listened three times to the message:
“Hi Peyton. It’s me. Elena. So…I’m hoping you’ve had some time to settle back in…and…well, I, I wanted to know if we could get together. You know, to talk—to talk about the project. Okay then. Call me. If…well, when you get this.”

Peyton paced. Listened to it again.

“What are you doing? You idiot!” she screamed at herself. She went ’round and ’round about not calling her, but then, thinking she was just being petty and small-minded, and that she should just tell her this really wasn’t going to work at this point. But every time she picked up the phone, she couldn’t make the call.

“You are some kinda chickenshit!” Peyton walked away from the phone yet again, but as she did it rang. She waited a second, picked it up.

“Hi.”

The second she heard that voice, the liquid, beautifully accented voice, Peyton felt her chest tighten. “Hey there.”

“Hey.” Elena’s voice was soft, sweet, almost curious. “Peyton…I…I—”

“Look, you don’t have to say anything—”

“Yes. I do.”

An agonizing silence ensued.

“You aren’t the only one…Peyton…”

Peyton clenched her jaw, eyes shut. “What…what do you mean.”

“You aren’t the only one.”

“The only one what?”

“That is confused.” A long pause, and Peyton could hear Elena struggling. “I—I am so confused.”

“Confused about what I said?”

“Yes.”

Oh, crap!
Peyton wasn’t really sure how much clearer she could have been.

“About what I said?”

“Yes…well, no…I understood what you told me…” Elena paused. “I just wasn’t sure why I was responding the way I was…and as long as you didn’t bring anything up I didn’t need to look at what was going on for me.”

“I’m sorry, Elena, now I’m confused.” Peyton felt exasperated and anxious.

“What I’m saying is it didn’t make any sense. I mean even before you told me how you were feeling, I felt as if I needed to see you. Be with you. Why did I feel the need to see you—so strongly? Why did I check my e-mails, a hundred times a day? Why did I feel so disappointed if we couldn’t get together? I felt like a child who couldn’t put two and two together.”

Peyton paced.

“I felt silly, you know?”

“I think so?” Peyton wasn’t quite sure what Elena was trying to say.

“It’s just that—” Elena stopped. “Oh, my God. Nash just walked in…I’m going to have to call you back.”

Elena hung up. Peyton looked at the phone.
You’re shitting
me.

*

“I spent last night and the whole day today looking at lesbian sites,” Elena told Peyton as Peyton lounged in bed on her phone later that same night. It was near midnight. Everyone had finally retired for the night and, Elena had told her, it was the only moment she’d had to herself to return to their earlier conversation.

“I’m not attracted to them, Peyton. Any of the
women
in them.”

Peyton found herself laughing.

“But what does that
mean
?” Elena pleaded.

“I don’t know. What does it mean to you?”

“I don’t think I’m a lesbian, Peyton.”

Peyton could hear the long sigh that accompanied Elena’s assertion. Then heard knocking in the background accompanied by a low mumbling from a male voice.

“Yes…I’m fine. I’ll be there in a second.” Then to her, quickly, “I…I’ve got to go…I’m sorry.”

*

The next night, right before dinner, Peyton’s phone rang again.

“Can we just agree to call it a serious crush?”

Another long pause.

Elena continued, “I don’t know why—or what it is about you–and the way we are together. I just want to be in it…I just want to be around you—all I can think about it…is…”

Elena stopped.

Barry stood in the doorway studying her. She quickly flipped her phone closed, horrified that she had just hung up on Peyton, horrified that her husband now stood before her, a questioning look in his eyes.

“Are you all right?” he queried.

“Yeah,” she said breathlessly.

His eyes drilled into her own. “Something’s burning.”

He looked at his wife for another long moment, then left the room.

*

Peyton was just finishing a call with Emily about a possible new assignment that would present the opportunity to travel to Paris. Paris! She had only visited this extraordinary city once with her mother, before she knew she was a lesbian and knew anything at all about the rich and textured universe of the Left Bank, the expatriates, the literati of Paris in the ’20s and its unique lesbian subculture. Even though she hated traveling because her OCD made her flight-phobic, Paris was an adventure she would not let slip through her fingers.

She had just hung up when her doorbell rang.

Peyton walked to the door, still distracted by the call and when she opened it she was utterly taken aback to see Elena standing there.

“Hey—” she managed.

But Elena did not respond, nor did she wait to be invited in. She strode in, put a hand to Peyton’s chest and gently pushed Peyton up against the wall. Their faces were inches apart. Before Peyton could even speak Elena’s amazing brown eyes pierced her own until she could barely hold her gaze.

Elena’s eyes continued to laser into Peyton’s. A question lingered, momentarily. Elena slowly, agonizingly slowly, moved her lips closer to Peyton’s, Elena’s eyes still holding Peyton’s, as her breathing became more ragged. Surprisingly it was Elena’s eyes that gave Peyton strength, and before she could utter Elena’s name, Elena’s lips gently grazed her own.

Peyton buckled. Hands trembling she reached for Elena’s shoulders to hold on for dear life as she succumbed to Elena’s lips, the silky gentle questioning, the invitation, the exploration, the sensation blinding her, sinking her as she let Elena’s lips own her and then, because she could not hold back a second longer, began to kiss Elena in return, answering the hunger, the need, the waiting, a thudding in her temples blotting out the world.

“Elena…”

“Oh…I knew you’d feel like this.” Elena’s voice was low, husky, murmuring the words against her lips. “Soft…so soft…like velvet...”

Peyton felt her knees go numb, but she managed to breathe, “Look, we can stop right now,” still kissing her, “stop here before we go any further.”

“Really?” Elena’s lips continued to linger ever so gently against her own, the vibrations of her voice as erotic as their touch. “Are you afraid to be alone here with me?”

“Yes...”

“Seriously?”

“Seriously,” Peyton insisted, but the exquisite feeling was so present as Elena’s lips continued to caress her own, the intensity of her gaze, the pureness of her want, until that was all she knew, Elena’s lips on hers, her silky tongue now thrusting gently against her own, the seduction into a new world where nothing existed but Elena enveloping her, where thinking ceased and for the first time ever Peyton found herself engulfed, completely lost in a kiss.

Elena’s hands found Peyton’s hair as Peyton’s hands snaked their way up Elena’s back. Completely swept away, Peyton was aware of a frenzy of warning bells. They were heading to a place from which they could not return. But Elena was now master of their fates, holding Peyton fast in an embrace that neither could break, both fully absorbed in the kiss, their bodies pressing ever closer together as Elena, again the master choreographer, moved Peyton near her couch, and without parting, they tumbled upon it, the urgency and heat of the kiss creating more heat, more desire, more intimacy, more layers uncovered, stripping themselves bare. The desperation of that first entanglement easing into deeper exploration as they continued to taste and feel one another, hands softly exploring, a long sigh escaping them both, as Peyton tried one last feeble time to reason, even as Elena’s mouth moved firmly upon her own, owning her, until Peyton, senses reeling, thought she could no longer breathe. Finally, a tenderness to the kisses, a sweet softness, the purity of desire sated for a moment.

They lay wiped out from the kiss, breathing deeply, then turned to one another.

“...that was so much better than I even thought it was going to be...” Elena said with conviction, then smiled and laughed.

They kissed for hours. Hours, an endless passage of time where they traveled to another place where Peyton knew only Elena and Elena knew only Peyton, a place where souls met—had to have met—and could not escape, their lips never sated, their hunger ileheir hufor one another growing stronger, more urgent, infinite.

“We…we’ve got to stop,” Peyton begged at one point.

“Why?” Elena asked as her mouth kept ravaging Peyton who lay in disarray beneath her.

“I…I don’t…”

“Shh…” And on they kissed until Peyton was only vaguely aware that the afternoon’s sun had set and it was dark, and the darkness enveloped them into a time and place beyond Peyton’s chaise lounge where their lips fed off one another as their bodies lay hungrily enwrapped, until sometime, hours and hours later, when Peyton glanced at the clock and it was after eleven p.m.

“Oh...my...God,” Peyton moaned.

Elena gazed at her, her eyes searching for an answer…for what had just happened…

“Wow,” Elena sighed, and put a gentle finger to Peyton’s face. “How can this be? That I’ve gone my entire life without ever having been kissed?”

“Oh, my God…we’ve been kissing for seven hours.”

Elena shook her head, amazed that such a thing could be true.

“I don’t know, Elena… All I know is I think we’ve just kissed more today than I have all the rest of my kissing put together for my lifetime.”

Elena smiled. “Well, it certainly is more kissing than I could possibly imagine ever taking place.”

“Oh, my God.” Peyton was incapable of any other words.

Elena leaned to her. The moment her lips touched Peyton’s they both slipped into that other world again, where time and space did not exist, just their togetherness, stronger than any reality either had ever known.

*

The next day Elena and Diana were sharing tea at the church office. Elena was trying to keep pace as Diana, looking more frazzled than usual, reeled off every anguish she’d ever had about all her children and the troubles she was having with her current issue around getting pregnant yet again.