I’ll tell her. I want her to know. “She’s very beautiful. Extraordinary.”
“Oh?” There, she reddens again, the first sign that anything in her has been unsettled. I want to see more, knock her off the chair with nervousness. She feels so vulnerable when she lets the slightest feeling slip.
“Mmm,” I say, like I’m sucking on candy. “Calm but powerful. Can I see her again?”
She hands it to me. My fingers wrap around hers, and that was why I asked for it, to feel the little chill of her skin. She lingers so long I don’t think she’s going to let go, but she does. I feel her gaze on me while I’m staring into the cup. We’re so close now, the space between us has warmed. I feel the heat from her body.
My heart seems to be right up against the skin of my chest, pounding, raging to be let out. I’m too nervous to move. My eyes are open, looking at the grounds, but I’m not seeing anything now.
“What does a woman mean?” I ask. The most I can do is look at her, away from the cup. And this, facing her full-on, is itself an invitation, our faces already so close. She’s breathing visibly now, her chest, her face, widening and blooming before me.
I feel her breath, soft and warm. “Can I show you?”
My yes is flutter-light, and we both lean in, her nose, then lips,silken-soft and slick with gloss, mine with velvet coating. She tastes of cardamom and sea salt. And my heart, it’s so big, and it’s radiating energy in waves and colors all around us, pulsing with every breath we sneak through our mouths. This, this, this is how it’s supposed to feel. Flying through the city, catching every green light, headed exactly where you want to go.
Her fingers twine through my hair, and where they drag against my scalp they leave tingles in their wake. I don’t know how long we kiss, but when she pulls away I almost cry out. It’s a relief to have kissed her at last, to have plunged myself into this.
We were sitting so upright, clashing up against each other, so we both relax back into the couch, nose to nose so we can look right into each other’s eyes. To see what’s there now, what’s changed. Her whites brighter, her irises darker. Her pupils are round and huge, sucking me in like a black hole. I reach for her hand, and it is cool like we’re in outer space.
She speaks first, voice breathy. “I’ve been wanting to do that for some time. When I first noticed you in the car, I hadn’t seen your face yet, but I was pulled to you. I had this immediate need to know you, this stranger, based on next to nothing at all.”
It wasn’t just an accident, then, her being a good Samaritan. There was more from the start. Her saying that, it lends weight to everything. Like we’re not just taking out our lust on each other, the way every one of my hookups with women has gone.
“I thought you were the coolest person I’d ever seen and couldn’t believe you were talking to me. I insulted you so many times that night.” Briefly I cover my eyes in embarrassment, smiling through it, and I hear her low chuckle. She traces the edge of my cheekbone with her finger, and my whole body burns for her.
“They were accidental. I saw the core of you, all goodness.”
“Mmm, I don’t know about that.”
“I do.” And she reaches in to kiss me again.
After a while, when I’m partially blacked out, she releases me. She pulls back my hair, and her mouth creeps up to my ear. She pours her voice into it: “Do you want to see my bedroom?”
14
Misfortune and fortune are sisters.
??????????? ?? ???????????? ??????? ??:
—Armenian Proverb
My breathing isclumsy. I’m foolhardy with joy and shock. I’m lying here, naked, her pewter sheets crumpled beneath me. My God. The way she gasped at the peak, like she was dying, I don’t think I’ve ever made anyone feel that way. She’s panting next to me, eyes covered by her arm, and I know the feeling, because I was there not too long ago. She’s trying to hold on to it as long as possible.
And me. My whole body feels like a heartbeat. One flushed, pulsing being.
What. The hell. Have I been doing with guys this whole time? I curse myself for never letting an actual queer woman into my life before this. My God. Years of missing out. Not that men haven’t been extremely pleasurable, because they have. But there was something different about what happened here, the attentiveness and attunement. It’s wild. Maybe it’s not women; maybe it’s Erebuni.
I never want to move. I want to lie here until the end of time. My eyes are wandering, and there’s an antique brass alarm clock on her nightstand. The kind that would become animate andbrrrrrrringin old cartoons. I was never very good at telling time, never quite learned it to the point of it becoming second nature. In first grade, when we were being taught to read clocks, I remember blowing off the lesson, thinking,Get with the future, people. Analog is out.And a year later I wore this hideous green-and-black Casio digital watch everywhere, with every outfit, no matter how frilly and girly. Ah, the things that come to mind when you feel like you can melt into whatever surface you’re lying on.
But that does look like it says eleven o’clock. My head’s so airy, I could be wrong, but no, I’m sure it is well within the realm of “late.” Which means, ugh, Mom. Some people can get away with living with their parents and never telling them where they are, but I sure as hell am not one of them. I texted my mom earlier but haven’t let her know where I am lately, and I fear the missed calls and texts that must have piled up. And I don’t know what I’m going to say to her now. I missed the last train home, just barely. Not that I want to be on the train alone at this hour, or in a shared ride for that matter. I guess I can call a Lyft at, like, six a.m. and sneak into the house and into bed? It’s going to suck being so tired tomorrow, but this was worth it. Still, the thought of my mom is killing the mood fast.
I inch out of the bed and stand, feeling dizzy. Her room is, like, eighty percent bed, so I squeeze by, spot my underwear where she flung it, and pull it on.
Erebuni rolls over and asks languidly, “Where are you going and when will you be back?”
I open the door. With some hesitation, I ask, “You know how I live with my mom?”
She makes a face, lemon-pucker sour. “You’d think they’d understand we’re full-grown adults. Happens to me every time I go back home.”
