Homecoming (Lesbian) - Chapter 32: Chapter 32

It had been so long. So long since I had last touched her that my fingertips were sensitive to the slightest of pressures. And wherever our skins made contact, her hair would stand on end. I laid her down on the bed and running my hands from her cheeks to her hips to sneak them under her blouse. She moaned as a reply. I rolled up her blouse and began to kiss every inch of her stomach.
She grabbed my face and pulled me back up to kiss me again, harder this time. As the kiss became deep, she took my left hand and placed it on her breast.
She felt different. The Faye I had made love with during most of my teen years, was a little more dubitative, less aggressive. This Faye was not. She knew where she wanted me to kiss her, where she wanted me to touch her and how, and made no apologies for it. It might have come with age. The older you get, the more you understand yourself... or the more you try. The more you realize the things that excite you and the things that don't, and the more you realize you should let them guide you. But something told me it wasn't the case with Faye.
Faye put her hands on my hips and pushed me over to place herself on top, then sat up and removed her shirt. I sat up and kissed her stomach letting my fingers trace down the line in her spine until they reached the zip of her bra.
As I snapped it open, she smiled at me while the skin of her breast caressed my skin.
"You have no idea how much I've missed you," she whispered as I sank my face in her chest. "If it were for me, we would've done this since the moment we ran into each other at the Walmart."
I flipped her around to get on top again. "We would've gotten arrested for public indecency."
She waved that off, "Minor issues."
She smiled and kissed me again. She removed my clothes, and I removed the rest of hers. I kissed her legs, from the tip of her toes to the bone in her hip. She felt so familiar, yet so mysteriously exciting. It was like rediscovering her.
We made love until five am, then we went to bed and slept until around nine. Woke up and made love again.
I had no nightmares that night.
At ten we walked into the kitchen to find Faye's mom drinking coffee and reading the news in her tablet. She couldn't hide her surprise when she saw me, especially because I was wearing some of Faye's pajamas. But she quickly changed her expression and smiled.
"Good morning. Riley, what a pleasant surprise."
"Good morning," I said.
"We got breakfast?" Faye asked looking for something to eat in the cupboards.
"Cereal."
Faye asked me to sit at the breakfast table with her mom while she poured me cereal. She also brought a basket with fruit, bread and some jam. We ate comfortably, but Barbara wasn't really happy with me that day, I could imagine why. As I ate my cereal and put jam on a slice of bread, she asked.
"What time did you get here last night? I didn't hear you."
"Oh, I'm... late. I didn't really had plans to come but, well, things just happened."
"I see. Well, you know you are always welcome."
"I know. Thanks."
Barbara turned to Faye and gave her a disapproving look. Faye ignored it and kept eating. After breakfast, Faye offered me the bathroom to take a quick shower and get going. I could understand her, she didn't wanna stay in her home longer than she had to, especially since her mother was giving her that attitude.
We agreed I would take a bath, she would take a bath herself afterward, and then we could get dress, go to my place so I could get a change of clothes and we'd spend the day together. As I stood in front of the bathroom mirror I looked for bite marks, bruises, scratches or maybe a hickey. Anything that could tell Mrs. Burton, or pretty much anyone for that matter, that Faye and I had slept together. What? Yes, Faye likes it rough.
I had scratches in my back next to my scapular, a bite mark on my left shoulder and another one on the inside of my right leg, close to my groin. A couple of bruises here and there but none in a place that a t-shirt couldn't cover. That calmed me down. I walked into the showered and took ten minutes to refresh my body with warm water.
My brain wanted to think about 'what next' and 'what would happen now'. Was I making a huge mistake? Had that night been a huge mistake? As we already know, it was. But boy, was it a mistake worth making.
I finished my shower, put on my clothes from yesterday and walked towards the stairs to hear Mrs. Burton and Faye arguing quietly.
"What were you thinking?" Mrs. Burton said. She wasn't angry, but her voice seemed apprehensive.
"What? What was I supposed to do? I told you, we had a fight, she came over and we talked and then fell asleep."
"What do I look like to you, eight?"
Faye sighed, not wanting to lie anymore. "I love her, mom."
"Then leave Scott. Don't play this stupid game."
"You know I can't do that. I won't let him kick you out."
"Oh, for God's sake, Faye! I can take care of myself. It's what we Burtons do, we stick together. I can rent a small room somewhere and if you come to life with me, I'm pretty sure you could get your job back and we could rent a small apartment, just the two of us. That is if Riley doesn't ask you to move in with her again," she smiled at that.
"But mom... this is our—"
"I know. I know this is own house. The place you grew up in. Your dad's home. But I would rather live in a tiny room knowing you are happy, than living here and knowing you are..."
"I can't do that, mom. I can't just let this place go. I mean, remember this breakfast table? We bought this on a sale for $200. Dad kept saying he could carry it alone but he couldn't so Riley helped him while I got on top because that was me 'helping'." Barbara couldn't stop a little laugh. "And that stupid dent on the counter? Remember how we got that? Steve got Riley a helmet after buying her her first bike. She liked it so much she wore it day in and day out until one time she slipped and landed head first against the counter. If it wouldn't have been for that helmet, she might have died."
"Faye..."
"And this," she said standing up, walking towards the kitchen door to point at the dent that had once being a way to measure our height. "I grew up faster than Riley, but she grew up for longer so by the time we were twelve I was taller, but by fifteen she was about my height. By sixteen she was one whole inch taller than me. Remember? You said that if she kept growing she could play professional basketball."
"Faye..."
"I won't do it, mom! This is our house! I will figure out a way to get our home back from Scott. I don't know how but I will. That day I'll leave him, but I'm not ready to give up on our home just yet."
The conversation ended there and I pretended I haven't heard anything when I got down. Faye went to take a shower leaving me with her mom. Barbara didn't make any type of conversation; she seemed sad. She was trying to protect her daughter, make her realize that being happy was more important than keeping the house, but Faye would not listen.
Once Faye was ready to go I apologized to Mrs. Burton for any problem I could be causing. She disregarded that and said I was always welcomed. We stopped by my place to pick up some clothes. My mom saw me arrive with Faye. Smiled and pretended not to know I hadn't spent the night.
I decided to go with something easy, a t-shirt, jeans and a hoody. Faye helped me put on the hoody. My arm was a bit sore because of the action yesterday. She walked around me to slip my arm through the sleeve and pulled the neck down.
"How do I look?" I asked.
"You always look great to me," she said before kissing me.
I stepped back at her kiss. Hesitant to what she'd done. Was this who we were now? Kissing, and touching and making love while her husband was not looking. I shook those thoughts away. She didn't love him, she was with him because of the house. So what did it matter?
Faye stared at me not knowing what to do, one moment I was eager to kiss her, the next I was doubtful. I smiled and pulled her toward me to kiss her back.
"I want to ask you out," I said.
She frowned. "On a date?"
"Ah, yeah, I mean... if... you know. If it's not out of line."
She grinned, "I would love to... But, we can't really go on a date here, can we? Everyone knows everyone. Chances are someone who knows someone who knows someone who knows Scott might see us."
"Portland?"
"What?"
"Yeah, let's go to Portland for the day. Eat ice cream, have a picnic, anything!"
Her smile became wider. "Yeah! Yeah, sure, that is a great idea."
So that is what we did. We went to Portland in Faye's car, with the music on, talking and laughing. It almost felt like we were together again. Like it was us again. I held her hand through the entire drive while she kept her on the stick.
We got to Portland a bit past twelve and decided we wanted to go to Oaks Park.
There was something deeply fulfilling and refreshing about everything that day. I got to put my arm around her shoulder as she hugged me from my waist. We kissed and squeezed and held each other, holding our hand together, not being able to keep them off each other. It felt as if we were beginning to date again. Like nothing had changed.
I won a white teddy bear for her, and she had no problem kissing me for it. The guy who handed us the bear said, "Here you go, for your girlfriend."
We didn't even try to correct him. Instead, I handed Faye the bear and I put my arm around her shoulders and walked away. At two, after we had ridden some of the attractions, we were hungry, so we bought a couple of hotdogs. The place was filled, so we were trying to find a table when a little boy running for no reason ran into me and spilled some of his ice cream on my jeans. His mom came soon after.
"Honey!" she yelled. "What have I told you about running away without me." She looked up at me and said, "I'm so, so sorry. It's just... he's a bit much."
I smiled, "That's okay, it's just a tiny spot."
"Still. I'm so sorry. Rome, what do you say to the nice lady?"
The kid, who couldn't love older than five looked down at the floor and whispered, "I'm sorry, Miss."
"He's very sweet," I replied.
"Thank you," said the mom.
We found a table not far, and as things were, the mother asked if she and the boy could seat with us. We told her that was no problem. Faye and I started eating as the boy sat by his mother, who kept him controlled, which seemed to annoy him.
"Karen, Rome?" A female voice cut through the crowd.
"Here, honey! We found a place."
The woman calling their names came closer until we could see her. She was carrying two hotdogs, a burger and three sodas on a tray. As she came closer, she said, "I couldn't find you guys."
"Yeah, these nice ladies were kind enough to share the table."
The recently arrived woman turned to us, and our mouth opened at the same time. "Rosie?"
"Riley?"
"So, this is my family. My wife Karen and my son Roman."
"Very nice to officially meet you," I said shaking Karen's hand.
"Same here."
"It's really good to see you. When did you get back?" Rosie asked.
"A few months ago."
"And you didn't even email me. That is just rude," she replied, but there was no anger in her voice. "But it's good to see you guys are still together."
Faye blushed, but didn't answer. Rosie frowned and said, "Hit the nail?"
"A bit, yeah."
"Sorry."
I smiled putting that comment behind us. "So, how's married life?"
"Pretty great, can't complain," she said kissing her wife's hand.
Rosie took a quick peek at me. I knew what she was doing. "Please don't do that."
"Do what?"
"Doctoring me."
Rosie laughed and let it pass. Faye felt she had to get the conversation to go somewhere else, she knew how much talking about my time in the army upset me, so she went with, "So how did you two meet?"
"In a surgery."
"What?" I asked.
"Yeah," Karen said "I wasn't even supposed to be there that night but the other anesthesiologist cancelled, so there I was. We got along and then she asked me out."
"Wow, how long have you two been married for?"
"Two years now."
I frowned, "But Roman is like, what, four?"
Rosie nodded. "When I met her, she already had Roman."
"And you were going to leave me for it," Karen joked.
"That is not true... kind of. I mean, I did think about it, but then I thought I really loved her and I had always wanted a family, and Rome is the cutest boy in the world." She said kissing the boy's cheek "So I said, fuck it, let's do it. About a year ago they finally allowed me to legally adopt Roman. The dad was never there anyway."
"I'm very happy for you," I said. It was a breath of fresh air seeing Karen and Rosie so in love, so happy, with a family of their own. "Who would've thought, Rosie Carroll, married and with children."
"It's Carroll-Tun now, and I've always being the family oriented type."
"Oh, please," I joked and we laughed. Anyone who knew Rosie knew she was the career first, everything else later type. And now she had a family.
"And Karen, you took Rosie's name right?" Faye asked.
"Yeah. It's Tun-Carroll."
A sad smile formed in Faye's lips.
"Uh, Rosie?" I started "Can I ask you a favor? From old girlfriend to old girlfriend. I need you to take a look at my arm."
Rosie, laughed. "I thought you didn't want me to 'doctor you'."
"Without my consent!"
She grinned, "Sure thing. Come here."
I sat next to her, removed my jacket and showed her the wound. "Uh, partial amputation," she said out loud, but it was clearly just for herself. "Radius and Ulna severed. What was this made with?"
"Glass. A broken piece of a window."
Faye looked up. I hadn't told that to anyone, not even her. Rosie continued. "Yeah, I can see that. The first few of inches were cut partially clean, you see. But here, there is some scaring common to tearing. Which tells me you moved the arm, even after the initial injury, which caused the skin to tear even more."
I couldn't stop my brain from reliving that movement. Me, with my arm hanging, running for my life, repeating to myself, 'I am not dying here'.
"Yes."
"You already know, don't you? You just want a second opinion."
"So you haven't lost your ability to read people's minds, have you?"
Rosie sighed. "There was massive tissue damage when you got this. Just like the flesh and the bones, the nerves were cut too. Stretch it for me, please." She pushed my hand backwards to stretch my muscle, something my physiotherapist did too. "Did that hurt?"
"A bit."
"Nerves grow back, if you are seeing a physiotherapist for this, eventually you will recover full mobility... but certain functions will never be the same. But they already told you that."
"Yeah, I just wanted to make sure."
"What's the verdict?" Faye asked.
Rosie looked at me, as if asking for permission to tell Faye. I nodded. "That's okay, she knows."
"It's very possible that Riley will never feel anything from this side of her hand down," she signaled the center of my palm towards my pinky.
Faye licked her lips but didn't say anything.
"Can you hear from your right ear?" Rosie asked looking at the scar my hair apparently wasn't covering well.
"No. I don't hear anything. My eardrum was pierced."
"You can get surgery for that."
"I spent the last month before coming home in a hospital bed, I have to intention to go back on one any time soon."
"It's an ambulatory process, don't be a baby," she joked.
"Oh, shut up," I joked back.
We laughed and it felt comfortable. Friendly. Rosie's wife was incredibly kind and her little boy was sweet.
Everything seem to be okay except for one thing.
After lunch, we went our separate ways, but Rosie made me promise I would call her every now and then, once a week or so. I probably wouldn't remember that so Faye did what she'd been doing, she wrote Rosie's number down for me and whenever she felt it was time to call Rosie, she'd tell me 'Have you called Rosie yet? Have you called Rosie yet?'
As they went on their way, Faye and I walked holding hands in silence. We walked through the park with no place to go in mind, just wandering with plenty to say, but none of the guts to say it.
Faye was the first one to interrupt the silence. "You are think what I'm thinking, aren't you?"
"What?"
"About Rosie, and Karen, and their kid."
I sighed. "You are thinking that if I wouldn't have left, that could be us. We'd had bought that apartment and we would've been done paying for it by now. Maybe a car, much cheaper than yours but gets the job done. We would have a dog, probably a golden retriever and maybe, just maybe we'd be talking about having kids of our own. Is that what you are thinking?"
She nodded. "Yeah. I can't help it. I know I should be thankful. And believe, me every single time I look at your scars, every time I touch them I thank God you came back. That I get to have you with me again. Even if we can't be officially together. But still. I try to act like I don't care but..." Faye's got watery and her voice started to break "Still... what would've been of us if you would've chosen me instead of your brother. And I know. I know that is the most selfish thing I could think of but I can't stop myself from thinking about it."
"It wasn't like that; I wasn't choosing my brother."
"Yes, you were. And I don't recent you for it. He's your brother. But thinking about what could've been. It torments me more than I let you know."
"Then tell me." I turned to her and held her hands "Tell me everything, I'm here. I'm not going anywhere. I'll never leave you again."
"Promise?"
"I swear."
With tears falling down her cheeks, Faye kissed me and wrapped her arms around my neck as I pulled her closer.
Yeah, looking back on it... I shouldn't have sworn to that.
We rode another couple of attractions but it wasn't the same. For some reason, we didn't want to spend that day making fun memories anymore, we wanted to spend the rest of the day with our hands on each other as much as we could. Maybe because seeing Rosie and Karen, made us aware that we couldn't possibly have that. A life together, a family of our own.
So we rented a hotel room, we got under the covers and we held each other. Having her warmth against my chest was so calming, feeling her breathe on my neck. I kissed her and we made love again. This time it wasn't just a mere flesh desire. This time, we were trying to connect emotionally through physical actions. I was trying to reach into her, as much as she was trying to reach into me. We wanted to find that there was still a place in each other's life for us. And we believed there was.
After making love, I laid on her stomach, with my cheek against her skin and my wrapped around her back. She had her hands on the back of my head, but was looking out the window.
"What are you thinking?" I asked.
She took her moment to reply. "That... that it's night already. And our day is over."
"Don't take like that. We work together, we can see each other every day."
"Yes, but, this was the first time when we were together, really together without anyone else. And now we have to go back to everyone else. And I have to go back to Scott."
"Do you really have to?"
"Yeah. He lets me get away with some things like spending a couple of days at my mom's or not calling him for a while, but he only lets me get away with those things, because... he knows I'll come back. And I don't want to make the comeback any more annoying than it should be. I'm sorry."
"Don't, I understand."
Faye grabbed me by the cheeks and pulled me up to kiss me. "Does that mean we can't do this again?"
"I was going to ask you that."
"I don't mind."
"Then neither do I."
She smiled and kissed me. We left the room at nine PM and headed home. Faye left me in front of my home at ten-thirty. I wouldn't see her on Sunday, but could meet at the store first things in the morning on Monday to finish putting everything up. I didn't kiss her goodbye, and she knew why. We were back in the real world, and the real world couldn't find out.
She waited until I was inside to step on the accelerator and leave. I closed the door feeling my chest tighten. I took a deep breath to keep those feeling at bay and looked up to see my brother inside the kitchen, sitting on the breakfast table, drinking.
"Connor?" He didn't respond, so I walked up to the kitchen and sat next to him. "What's going on, little bro?"
"Like you give a shit."
I sighed. "Connor, acting like that doesn't make things easier for anyone."
"And why would I want to make things easier for anyone?"
"Including yourself?" Again, he didn't say anything.
He was wearing a nice outfit. Black dressing pants, white shirt and a formal jacket. And drinking whiskey neat. It was still very odd for me to see him drinking, my little brother was old enough to drink.
"What's wrong? And please, just answer the question, your bad boy act is getting annoying."
"Then don't be here."
"What's wrong?" I repeated.
He licked his lips before answering. "Mom's gonna kick me out. She gave me a week to find a job and I haven't. As of tomorrow I'm out of here. So I thought why not spend their good whiskey."
I looked around, the house was empty. "Where are mom and dad?"
"Out. I don't know if together, but they are not here."
I glanced back at him. He really looked sad. Mom had put her foot on his neck and now he didn't know how to shake it off. He didn't really have any particular skills, wasn't too smart, or too committed or responsible. And most people in the neighborhood and some in the whole town talked about the Brennan boy as a screw up. He didn't have much to pick from.
"Then come work with me."
"What?" This time, he's eyes laid on me.
"Yeah. I mean I can't really pay you much but the bookstore should be opening up by Wednesday and Faye and I could use an extra set of hands. You can help with lifting heavy stuff."
He laughed. "Oh, please. You have more muscle than me."
It was true. It wasn't just that I tried to exercise and keep my body as fit as it was in the army, but Connor had never been the top of the testosterone mountain, nor did he want to.
"Yeah, but I can't use both my arms. Also there's always something to be done. Wha'cha say?"
She frowned, as if he were considering it. "What do you offer?"
"Monday through Friday ten till four. A hundred and seventy a week."
"You shitting me? Of course not."
"Fine, then let mom kick you out," I said standing up.
"Wait!" I stopped. "Two hundred."
I frowned, just as he had when he was considering it. "Fine. Two hundred a week. You start on Monday."
"So I got the job?"
"Yes, little bother, I mean brother, you got the job. You can tell mom I gave you a job so she doesn't kick you out."
I stood up and walked towards the stairs. "Riley, wait!"
I turned, "What?"
"Why are you helping me?"
"Because I love you, even if you don't love me."