Fist of the Spider Woman (19 page)

Over the weeks they spent together, Sal started to understand how she had isolated herself and how she could change. She trusted Brianna. She wasn't sure why, but it seemed impossible not to. Theirs was a symbiotic connection. Brianna confessed that she, too, had been alone, isolated, frustrated with human contact and interaction, unable to find solace in conversation.

“I feel like I can actually talk to you. I never feel that way,” Sal said one afternoon.

“Can I ask you something? Are you a lesbian?” Brianna asked. She had a way of putting Sal on the spot like that, a trait that made her both alluring and frightening.

“I thought no one was supposed to talk about that. Don't ask. Don't tell.”

“Maybe I'm not asking in a professional capacity.” Brianna pulled her chair in close to Sal's horizontal body. Sal could smell Brianna's hair, a fresh herbal scent. She wanted to breathe Brianna's hair deep into her lungs, suffocate on her long brunette locks and be enveloped in that mane. Brianna rested her head, unprofessionally, on Sal's chest. They enjoyed the sound of each others' breathing.

“Do you believe in fate?” Brianna asked. “Do you think that maybe all this was meant to happen so that we could meet?”

Sal, who had always been an atheist and a practitioner of science, mathematics, and calculable randomness, heard her voice declare without hesitation, “Yes. I believe in fate.”

“I really like you, Sal.”

The phrase, like butter melting on toast, seeped into Sal.

“I like you, too, Brianna. Can I confess something? Part of me wants to stay here with you forever, even if it means never walking again.”

“Can I tell you something?” Brianna asked. “I want that, too.”

“Can we stay in touch when I get better? What are your plans? Would you ever leave the military?” Sal's mind flooded with visions of the two of them. They were on horseback, riding through New Mexico, the sun beating down on their warm, free bodies. They were in Alabama, baking pie in their shared home that had once been a salvaged plantation-turned-organic-farm where they would renovate the land, maybe lobby to have it rezoned as park land. They were in Canada, signing papers, declaring their love, celebrating their marriage. All kinds of fantasies seemed possible.

“Of course I want to leave with you. Let's concentrate on getting you to walk again first,” Brianna said, reaching into her coat pocket for the daily syringe that had become part of their afternoon ritual. “Don't be scared, Sal.” Brianna placed the palm of her hand on Sal's arm, tender, light. Brianna radiated heat. Sal's skin burned hot like the Texas sun. A tiny prick, a cool puncture from the steel tip of the syringe, and Sal felt a refreshing stream trickle into her.

Brianna's hand was firm as she gave Sal the injection that allowed her to relax. She trusted Brianna. The extent of the trust was surprising. Perhaps it wasn't trust as much as tension, that she wanted the touching to go further, even as she resisted the desire. How plainly we self-censor, not wanting things that we are told we shouldn't want. Doctor and patient. Touching. Two military women. Touching. An introverted engineer and an extroverted counsellor. Touching. So wrong. So right.

“If you want me to stop, just say so,” Brianna whispered as she lowered her face to Sal's, so close that Sal's whole body, though still, glowed like embers. Brianna's lips descended, closer and closer until the soft skin of her bottom lip touched Sal's top lip. Unstoppable, they pressed hard against each other, skin on skin, lips on lips, determined.

“I don't want you to stop. I don't ever want you to stop,” Sal managed to muffle the words.

Brianna liked the sound of those words, her body lithe and warm next to Sal. She stopped, mid-kiss, and jolted toward the door. One quick turn of the lock, another pull of the curtain across the only window to the corridor, and a final flick of the light switch and the room was transformed. Brianna tossed her lab coat onto the empty bed beside Sal's.

Sal watched her with intensity. Being unable to move, Sal relied entirely on Brianna. She was desperate to touch Brianna. She had wanted that for a long time now, had thought of it often when Brianna rested her head against her chest. How infuriating that her body would not allow her to act on it.

“It's almost like bondage,” Brianna teased as she stood next to Sal's bed and slowly undid the buttons of her shirt.

“Come back, let me kiss you,” Sal pleaded.

Brianna straddled herself atop Sal's limp body. Sal could feel her deep inside and imagined being able to wrap her arms and legs around her. She wanted to cradle Brianna, hold her close and caress her skin. She cursed the blankets and paralysis between them even as she savoured every second of Brianna's presence on top of her.

Brianna enjoyed Sal's immobility. She liked playing. She liked controlling Sal's fate. She liked being so close to Sal's mouth that they were nearly touching and then pulling back just a little and watching Sal's disappointed expression. There was something powerful about being the object of Sal's affection. She enjoyed the vision of herself as unattainable. Near Sal, she felt like she could realize a part of herself that she longed for. She needed to be needed and Sal needed her in every way imaginable.

“Tell me how much you want me,” Brianna urged. “Tell me how badly you want to fuck me.”

These words made Sal nervous. She saw herself as shy, a little awkward. It wasn't her style to speak her fantasies, even though she did want to fuck Brianna. But what did that mean? What did she know about fucking another person? She had never even kissed a girl before. She moaned, hoping that Brianna would delight in the pleasure of the sounds they made together and forget about words.

“I want to hear you tell me. Tell me I'm sexy. Tell me how badly you want to touch me,” Brianna ordered, taking her shirt off to reveal a lacy bra. “Tell me you love the way my tits look.”

Sal's palms sweated and she did everything she could to force the words out. “You're beautiful, Brianna. I'm lucky to be here with you.”

“Yes,” Brianna said, unhooking her bra, tossing it aside, “you are very lucky that I picked you to be my patient. You're my favourite, you know.”

Sal soaked up the palpable currency of Brianna's words, like desert cacti thirsty for rain. All forms of desire she had experienced in her life became abstract in contrast to this very real longing. She wanted not just to feel Brianna's body against her own, she wanted closeness, the erasure of barriers, a sacred connection, which struck her as odd since she had not considered herself a believer. She believed in this. She wanted this.

“I'm going to help you fuck me,” Brianna whispered into Sal's ear. She lifted herself up, positioning her breasts right in front of Sal's face. Sal instinctively reached her tongue out as far as it would go and licked Brianna's hard left nipple. Brianna tilted her head back and moaned with a delightfully low pitch, one that came from deep inside.

“I've wanted to feel your mouth on my nipples ever since I first saw you,” Brianna said, looking toward the window through which she first saw Sal, many months earlier on the six-a.m. runs.

Brianna hiked up her skirt and balanced herself, holding onto the metal frame of the hospital bed, creating the perfect angle, positioning her raspberry nipples a sugary distance from Sal's lips. Sal's unmoving hand lay curled, just so, beneath the salt-watery moisture. Brianna shoved her nipple into Sal's mouth. Through sheer violet panties, Sal could smell and feel Brianna's wetness against her skin.

Both of them were breathing heavily, practically panting as Brianna slid Sal's limp hand into her panties, moving it back and forth against her wetness. Her eyes rolled into the back of her head, and she sighed with pleasure. Faster and faster she pumped Sal's hand, moving it back and forth against her clit.

Sal had not even known how to imagine sex, especially with Brianna. She watched her and listened to her moans, feeling almost envious that she would not be able to feel the same sensations. Brianna pumped Sal's hand over her clit, her speed and expression intensifying. Sal watched in disbelief as though her hand was someone else's, as though this was all happening in front of her, not because of her or with her. She held her breath with anticipation as Brianna arched herself backward, slippery with determination, and let out a cry that sounded painful. Brianna gasped for air, then crumbled, as though she had deflated, onto Sal's chest.

The two of them lay there together, Brianna clutching Sal, her heartbeat slowing to its usual pattern.

After what seemed like forever, Sal spoke. “Once I learn to walk again, I'm hoping to get a discharge. I want you to come with me when I leave. I want to make you happy, Brianna.”

“You already make me happy,” she countered.

“I have to concentrate on walking, on getting better, on getting out. Then we can get out of here. Right now everyone here thinks I'm crazy, hysterical.”

“You're not crazy.”

“You say that so effortlessly.” Sal was flattered at Brianna's faith in her. “How do you know? How do any of us know?”

“It's my profession.”

Against her better judgment and everything that Sal had learned to believe about love and intimacy and connection and attraction, she felt herself changing, opening. The layers of cynicism and solitude, layers she relied on, layers upon which she built her existence, were questionable. Brianna's mere existence put Sal's beliefs under scrutiny. Maybe she wasn't alone after all. Together, they could get out of this labyrinth, this maze of military horror. Together, they could start a new life.

Brianna dressed slowly as though she wanted to linger in the moment, savouring their union.

“Let me give you your injection before I go,” Brianna said, pulling a vial from the pocket in her lab coat. Even in the dark, Brianna's control of the syringe seemed effortless and natural, as though giving inoculations was an extension of her very being.

The cold steel needle slid gently into Sal's side. It was delicate— a tiny prick followed by a tiny push, filling her muscles with the clear liquid that promised to stimulate. It was strange how medicine worked. With each injection, she found herself more relaxed, more limp, more reliant.

In the hallway, outside the closed door, the doctors gathered. It was the usual check-in, a team of superiors visiting Dr. Van de Kroop and everyone else at the ward. It was routine.

“How is this patient progressing?” The one with the clipboard gestured to the window in Sal's door.

“I'm afraid she isn't.”

“Hmm. I would have thought that two months in intensive care would have done the trick.”

“I thought so too, at first,” Brianna said. “Now it looks like she might never walk again.”

Here Lies the Last Lesbian Rental in East Vancouver

Amber Dawn

For Maz Sykes, and for anyone who has paid more
than just rent to be at home
.

Trinket wrapped her arms behind her knees and buried her face between her thighs—as if bracing for a crash landing—a limber pose she only does when she's showing off, like the splits or the crab walk. But Trinket wasn't flaunting. She was delirious. She was drooling, crying, hyperventilating with emotional overload.

Her girlfriend Zoya stabbed at the ignition with her keys, missing once, missing twice. The third time she jammed the key in crooked and let out a frustrated groan. She sat back in the driver's seat to try and quiet her trembling hands with a few long, deep breaths. If she didn't relax she was bound to snap the key in the ignition, or be suffocated by her own corset, or both. “Breathe,” she instructed herself out loud. She laid a hand on Trinket's back, urging her girlfriend's gasps to slow as well.

Under the street lamp's yellow glow, Zoya watched Trinket's ribs move with each inhale and exhale. Her boney spine looked like a rippled sand dune, the kind Zoya had only seen in photographs of Morocco or Death Valley National Park. The notion of driving all the way to the desert—any desert—popped into Zoya's head. They could go wherever they wanted, she thought as she successfully slid the keys into the ignition. They were alive.

And that … thing … inside the house definitely was not.

The house didn't stand; rather, it sat in a slumped-veranda, recumbent-rooftop position, two doors from the corner of Templeton and Sixth Avenue. No one bothered to notice exactly when the house began its weary way toward the earth, but once it had sunk it stayed that way.

In 1949 Guido Gambini's heavy black eyebrows touched as he squinted at the three-bedroom stucco bungalow salted in broken glass. Guido had never seen a broken-glass stucco before. He pondered the number of crushed wine bottles stuck to the exterior of his new home. He imagined the many people who had drunk from those bottles; picnickers cuddled under a cypress tree, large families who shouted across the dinner table.
This
house will bring us many happy years
, Guido thought when he bought it.

Biba Gambini, a green-eyed Calabrian with a sturdier frame than her new Canadian house, was especially fond of the basement. It was her matronly citadel, her woman's fort. If she wasn't in the basement canning then she could be found in the garden, growing more vegetables to can. She stomped up and down the basement stairs so frequently Guido grew exhausted just listening to the booming sound of her steps.
If only she'd bring that
kind of vigour into the bedroom
, he pined. Each night she slipped into bed smelling of damp earth, and promptly fell asleep.

Guido only descended into her domain on two occasions.

During the first autumn of their marriage, he heard an awful crash below him and rushed to find his wife at the bottom of the stairs, half-buried beneath a heavy pine table. “We just had a wedding and now you want a funeral?” he asked, after he had her sitting upright again. “Why would you carry it? Down the stairs! By yourself! Do you not have a husband?”