It started small. You know, like a spring where water bubbles up, a tiny place. Tiny, that is, compared to the raging river it will become. That day, the spring bubbled from a table across the room.
A woman about my age sits alone, dropping the occasional tear into the heart-shaped foam of her cappuccino. How do I know the foam is heart-shaped, you might ask? Because in this coffee shop, the heart shape is what they do with the foam unless you ask them not to.
It occurs to me later that perhaps she had asked them not to.
Why is she weeping? I want to know. I ache to know. I never will. I observe as, eyes down, she sips her coffee so gradually that it would be stone cold by the time she tipped the cup for the last time. Stone cold, like a love that has died. Is that what the tears are for?
Surreptitiously, I watch as she heaves one silent sigh, her dark lashes wet with tears, her sweet face flushed with the emotion the tears had tried to drain away—unsuccessfully, I gather, by the way her slender shoulders slump under the baby blue trench coat she wears against the chill of early spring.
In my mind, I sit quietly, respectfully, in the chair beside her.
My gesture slow and tender, I thread a lock of your auburn hair away from your face and tuck it behind the curve of an ear. You don’t look up as your breath catches, an attempt to draw to a close the mourning of whatever had caused the grief. I wait, patient and silent, until I see your face relax. A smile begins, small at first, and you look up at me. The sweetness of that smile rises into your eyes. I reach for your hand, and we stand together.
There is a gap in time, here. It doesn’t matter how we arrive at a private place. The room is dark enough to be moody. The bed beckons.
Slowly, achingly slowly, we undress, exploring with our eyes what our clothing had hidden. Our first touches are tentative, full of a quiet longing for a fulfillment each of us has denied ourselves until this moment. As the space between us diminishes, I feel—for the first time (Oh My God!)—the breasts of another woman touching mine, teasing mine, then crushing mine.
Our faces meet, and the ecstasy of your soft skin against my soft skin is beyond words. No stubble scrapes my cheek, my chin. No three-day-old beard prickles its spikey way between us. Nothing interrupts the blending that happens when like meets like.
I close my eyes, imagining the intensity of sensations as our bodies begin to recognize ourselves in each other. My breath and heartbeat quicken together. I feel tears of anticipated joy waiting behind my eyelids.
"Here you go, sweetheart. I hope I remembered your coffee order correctly.”
My eyes fly open and I gasp, almost but not quite silently. I see Kenneth’s hand, dark hairs decorating the fingers, veins standing out prominently—clearly the hand of a man. The hand places a white cup and saucer before me.
I stare at the pale brown liquid, a white fluffy heart floating on its surface, and glance up at my husband.
“You look a little flushed,” he says, then shrugs and adds, “unless that’s a blush of passion for what you were just thinking about us.”
He takes the chair across the small table from me, his own cup before him, his smile edged with flirtation. He has no idea.
I love this man. I do. That hasn’t changed since the day, three years ago, when I wore a white dress and pledged fealty to him. But something in me, something that was always there, something stubborn that has become gradually more demanding, is now so close to the surface that a random woman across the room has become my unwitting lover.
I sway internally. Insanity has never felt so close.
I do my best to mirror his smile with mine, hoping he doesn’t see the loneliness it tries to conceal. I am in a marriage. Yet I am alone.
I was asked once whether I would ever write a story featuring lesbians. It was during a book party, celebrating the release of my second novel featuring gay (male) teens. A het/cis woman, I hadn’t thought about the question before, but the answer came to me quickly.
“I don’t think so. I’m not that good a writer. You see, I know what it feels like to want a man.”
Now, fourteen books featuring gay boys and men behind me, I wonder whether my writing has evolved enough for me to give a different answer. “Alone” is my first foray into a world I can only imagine.
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I’m an inveterate observer of human nature, writing stories about understanding and connecting with each other. My primary goal is furthering acceptance of people who appear to be different from “us,” whoever that “us” might be. Check out my books on my website.
Robin, you have an incredible talent for expressing/describing peoples’ thoughts and feelings, their deepest emotions and concerns. Male or female, gay or straight, bisexual, transgender, or asexual, I believe you can tell anyone’s story because of your empathy for others. You always “do your homework.” You never write anything without researching it thoroughly. I know how hard you worked on the “Blessed Be” series, and I believe you can write about anything and anyone that/who touches your heart.