More Than a Kiss (7 page)

Three’s Company

Jordan
exited the sliding glass doors of the hospital and did a touchdown victory
dance that looked a cross between clogging and disco.

"Does
this mean the date is on?"

Jordan
jumped.  "My God!  Don't sneak up behind me like that!"

"I
didn't sneak.  I walked like a normal person,” Edison said.  “If you weren't so
busy spazzing out, you'd have seen me," Edison said.

Jordan
went back to her jubilant state, hopping from foot to foot.  "She said
yes.  She said yes.  She said yes!"

"So
when’s the big day?"

"Today. 
Now.”

"Right
now?"

"Yes,
right now.  She's meeting me out here in a few minutes."

Edison
looked at her watch.  "Okay.  I guess I can do lunch."

"Not
you," Jordan said.  "It's a date.  That usually means only two
people.  You know, the whole ‘three’s a crowd’ saying."

“I
thought it was ‘three’s company.’”

“That
was the TV show, not the saying.”

“I
liked that show.  I had a crush on the brunette.  What was her name?”

“Maryanne,
I think.”

“No,
that was the brunette on
Gilligan’s Island
.”

“Aha! 
I know what you’re trying to do.  You’re trying to divert my attention so you
can go on my date with me.  But it won’t work because her name was Janet,”
Jordan said.

"I'll
drive you, that's all.  I won't sit at your table or anything."

"You're
going to stare at us.  I know you.  You're going to sit and stare and
eavesdrop.  I won't be able to concentrate."

"I
will not!  Besides, it's my car.  I drove you here.  How will you get home if I
don't go and take you home after?  And you don’t want her to see where you live
until the house is finished.  Your house will make you seem like you never
finish a project. I read a book once that had this psychological test where
people went into dorm rooms and did a personality profile on the person based
on what they saw.  It was spot on.  That’s why if you’re checking out a person
you should go to their place and see what it looks like, then you’ll know if
you want to date them."

Jordan
was horrified.  “The state of the house is your fault.”

“Ah,
but you let me do it,” Edison said.

Amy
appeared behind them.  "I'm ready."

Edison
and Jordan jumped.  Edison said, "My God!  Don't sneak up on us like
that!"

Amy
laughed.  "Yep, that's me.  Miss Sneaky Pants."

“Edison
is going to be our chauffeur.  She'll be driving us to lunch.  If that’s all
right."

"Great!"
Amy said. “I left my car at the dealer.”

“Is
something wrong with it?” Edison asked, her I-can-fix-it-myself proclivity
quivering with anticipation.

Jordan
was certain if Edison ever got hold of Amy’s car it would end up being Chitty
Chitty Bang Bang – except it wouldn’t be able to float or fly.  Or even drive.

“No,
they’re giving it the once over so I can pick up my new car after work.”

“New
car?” Jordan asked.  “What kind?”

“It’s
a surprise.”

“Are
you going to show me the surprise sometime or will I always have to wonder?”
Jordan asked.

“We’ll
see how lunch goes,” Amy said, smiling mischievously.

"I'll
go get my car," Edison said, giving Jordan the evil eye as she walked to
the parking lot.

Jordan
watched her go, thinking having Edison as a best friend was like having a cold
sore – she never went away and as long as she was around, Jordan would never
get kissed.

Date or Date-Date?

As
Jordan sat scrunched in the back seat, listening to Edison and Amy chatter, she
began to wonder if this was a real date in the conventional sense that the word
“date” implied.  Meaning: two people sharing a meal, a couple of hours together,
with romantic intentions.  Maybe Amy didn't know it was a date.  Maybe she
thought it was friends going to lunch together.  Maybe she thought they were
going to talk about girl things and tandem eat sandwiches.  How could Jordan
let Amy know that she considered their mutual sandwich eating a date-date and
not just a date without scaring her off?  Then again, if it did scare Amy off
didn't that mean she didn't want to date-date?  And wouldn't it be better to
find that out on the date before it became a date-date?

Jordan
was working herself into a headache.  This was exactly why she didn't
date-date.  Irma was so much easier.  She wished she had taken Amy up on that Vicodin
offer.  Then she could pop one right now and relax.

Edison
scored a parking spot right in front of The Original Dinerant, which was a
miracle in itself.  Jordan even had enough change to plug the parking meter for
two hours.  Another miracle.  They got a table right away, a window seat –
yet another miracle.

“Wow. 
This place is really cool.  It’s like retro,” Amy said.  She pointed to the
staircase.  Where does that go?”

Jordan
and Edison looked around as if seeing it for the first time.  They always ate
here so they no longer realized the grooviness of the place.

“There’s
a lounge upstairs with couches and a floating fireplace.  It’s pretty awesome,”
Edison said.

Edison
led the way upstairs, giving a tour of the couches and floating fireplace like
she was the owner of the place.  Jordan sat at a table and studied the menu
while Edison chatted up her date.  She hoped Amy couldn’t see her seething
behind the menu.

Ten
minutes later, Jordan and Amy had both ordered a turkey sandwich with baked
chips and extra pickles.  Jordan took their turkey symbiosis to be an omen of
their compatibility.  She was silently pleased that Edison ordered breakfast.

Jordan
caught Edison's eye and made head motions away from the table.  Finally, Edison
figured out what Jordan was trying to communicate in charades.  She stood and
said, "Well, ladies, if you'll excuse me now."

"Where
are you going?" Amy asked.

"Um…"
Edison said.  "Um…"

Jordan
jumped in with: "She likes to eat alone.”

“I
do?” Edison said.  She quickly changed her question to a statement, “Yes, I
do.”

“I’ll
tell our waitress to send your crème brulee French toast up to the lounge,"
Jordan said.

"Why?"
Amy asked.

"She
has an eating disorder.  That’s why she’s having breakfast instead of lunch at lunchtime,"
Jordan said.

"Oh
no, but lots of people order breakfast food for lunch," Amy said,
concerned.

"Not
an eating disorder per se," Edison said.  "More like an eating…
phobia."

"You're
afraid to eat?" Amy asked.

"With
other people," Jordan answered for her.

"It's
called masticaphobia," Edison said.

"Never
heard of it, but I’m not a psychologist," Amy said.  "If it would
make you more comfortable we can leave.  I don't want you to feel like…"

Jordan
interrupted, "Stay, Ed.  Sit down and eat with us."  She couldn’t
keep the disappointment out of her voice. "Please."

"Okay,
I’ll try to overcome my fear of sandwiches and people eating sandwiches." 
Edison smiled tightly and sat back down.

Jordan
sighed.  It was obvious Amy wanted Edison to stay.  A horrible thought struck
her.  What if Amy discovered that she liked Edison better?  Ed was cute and
very approachable.  Jordan tuned back in to their conversation just in time to
hear Amy ask Edison, "So what do you do for a living?"

Edison
put her chin in her hand, looked at Amy and asked, "Well… Do you like
toys?"

Jordan
cleared her throat and kicked Edison under the table. "Ow!" Edison
said and promptly kicked Jordan back, but Amy dove into her answer without
missing a beat.

"Well,
depends on the toy, I guess.  I loved Barbies when I was a kid.  I had maybe
twenty Barbies and a dream house and a pink convertible.  Tons of clothes for
them and a cute little pink suitcase to carry them in.  The problem was I had
this puppy, his name was Humphrey, and he liked to chew on my Barbies whenever
I left them on the floor, which was most of the time. So all my Barbies ended
up with chewed off hands, gnawed feet, missing hair, teeth marks all over
them.  That's when I got the idea to be a doctor.  I know that sounds stupid,
but I turned the dream house into an operating room and surgically removed the
chewed parts of the Barbies with steak knives.  I made prosthetic devices for
their missing limbs out of bent paper clips."

"Then
we have a lot in common," Edison said.  "I make prosthetic devices,
too."

Jordan
coughed loudly.  Amy looked at her quizzically then asked Edison, "What
kind of prosthetics do you make?"

Edison
smiled.  "Well… Do you like
adult
toys?"

"You
mean like chess?" Amy asked.

"I
love chess!" Jordan said much too quickly and way too loudly.

Edison
ignored her and continued, "I mean like sex toys."

"Oh,"
Amy said.  She took a sip of water, and said “Oh,” a second time.

Jordan
interrupted, "Ed, that's not appropriate lunch conversation."

"She
asked what I did for a living," Edison said.  "I’m giving her an
honest answer."  She turned back to Amy and said bluntly, "I make sex
toys."

"Oh,"
Amy said.

"I'm
an inventor," Edison explained.  "That's why they call me
Edison."

Jordan
explained further, "She invents sex toys.  She has several patents on
file."

Edison
sat up straighter and said proudly, "Dildoes are my specialty.  I've
invented The Corndog, The Muffin Mucker, and The Plunger.  Just to name a
few."

"I
see you’ve chosen very descriptive names," Amy said.

After
a long silence during which they all looked at their menus even though they'd
already placed their order, Amy said, "I need to go to the rest room. 
I'll be right back."

Jordan
watched Amy walk into the ladies’ room before she turned and whapped Edison on
top of the head with her menu.

"Ow!"

The Ice Queen Cometh

Jordan
whispered harshly, "What's with the sex toys talk?  Are you trying to
scare her off?"

Edison
crossed her arms.  "Wouldn't you like to know right off the bat if she's
squeamish about lesbians?  That way you don't waste your time?"

"Sex
toys are personal.  Not all lesbians use them, you know."

"Oh
yeah?  Name five who don't."

Jordan's
eyes flickered to the front of the diner.  "Oh, shit," she mumbled.

"Sex
toys are a way of life…”

Jordan
interrupted, "Not that.  Oh shit, Petronella's here."

Edison
immediately went into bodyguard mode.  "Quick, hide."

Jordan
looked around.  "Where?"

"Under
the table."

Jordan
slid out of her chair and onto her knees.  The tablecloth hid her from view.  She
scrunched herself into a little ball, knees under her chin, and watched in
horror as Petronella's white heels clacked toward their table.

Meet
Dr. Petronella Bleeker
,
the Dutch lesbian poet.  She had gained a modicum of success for publishing a
thin volume of poetry ten years ago.  She won a few awards, made little to no
money, and now much to her chagrin and humiliation was a professor at Portland
State University.  Petronella felt she was working below her status.  A poet of
her caliber should be teaching at Yale or Harvard or not even teaching at all. 
She carried a chip on her shoulder everywhere she went and never missed a
chance to beat people over the head with it.

Petronella
was revered by the lesbian community because she was the only poet who had ever
successfully rhymed the word vagina.  Petronella always dressed in all white. 
Even her hair was bleached white.  It was her signature color because it was
the absence of color.  She was also fashionably thin – all gristle, no white
meat.

To
Be Continued…

Jordan and Petronella’s Story

Jordan
and Petronella had been lovers for one year, twenty-seven days and three
hours.  At the beginning Petronella was everything Jordan had ever fantasized
about.  Petronella was smart, educated, creative, attentive, an excellent
lover.  She was beautiful in a Queen Frostine kind of way.  But like all ice
sculptures, she had melted over time and left Jordan standing in a puddle of
cold water that turned her toes blue.

Jordan
should have known Petronella was too good to be true.  But how can somebody
know something like that?  You don't really know somebody until you live
with them.  Then their façade cracks and you get
glimpses of who they truly are.  That's where Jordan went wrong.  She ignored
the glimpses of the real Petronella that she saw between the cracks.  She
wanted to be loved so badly that she pretended.

The
first time she had crossed paths with Petronella had been on campus.  Jordan
had been hired to teach a semester seminar on girls as protagonists in
children's lit.  The class was the Dean's brainchild – a liaison between
women's studies and the Education Department's Early Childhood Development. 
Jordan had been recruited and hired because she was famous and local. She was
more the latter than the former.  She also worked for peanuts.

Jordan
had been invited to the Women’s Studies bi-annual potluck.  She had felt out of
place.  Her contribution had been a bag of nacho cheese flavored Doritos and a
can of bean dip.  She put the dip in the center of the table and realized that
once again, she didn't fit in.  Everyone else had brought typical lesbian
dishes:  tabouli, humus, salad, stinky cheeses made out of milk that wasn't cow’s,
and gluten-free desserts.

Jordan
sat alone in a corner of the room munching Doritos when Petronella approached. 
Petronella stared.  Jordan looked into Petronella's glacial eyes and a shiver ran
down her spine.  At the time she thought it was lust that made her tremble. 
She didn't realize until much later it was actually fear.

She
held out the bag of chips to Petronella.  Petronella only smiled.  It reminded Jordan
of the wolf's smile in the story of
Little Red Riding Hood
.

"Come,"
Petronella ordered.

Jordan
obediently followed Petronella out the door and to her car.  “Where are we
going?”

“You
will see and you will like it,” Petronella said with authority.

Petronella
drove four blocks from campus and parked in front of a beautiful house.  She showed
Jordan into the foyer, up the marble staircase, through the immaculate white
bedroom filled with mirrors and out onto a terrace.

"You
wanted me to see your house?" Jordan asked.

Petronella
laughed.  "No," she said.  "I want to show you the only thing of
beauty that even begins to compare to you."

Jordan
laughed nervously.  Petronella gracefully lifted her palm above her head and
gestured to the moon.  "Behold, the moon," she said dramatically. 
Everything Petronella did was with great flair as if she knew she was going to
shape it into a poem later.

Jordan
beheld the moon.  It was orange, round and full.  When she looked back at
Petronella, she was shocked to see that she was disrobing.  Petronella let her
silk blouse slide off her shoulders to the tile floor.  Her breasts glistened
in the moonlight.  She had large nipples like eyes opened wide and staring.

Petronella
stepped out of her white wedge shoes, unbuttoned her linen slacks and kicked
them aside.  She was ghostly pale in the moonlight.  She had no pubic hair. 
Her entire body was smooth and white like a marble statue.

"I
want to make love to you," Petronella said.  "From the moment I saw
you, I wanted nothing more than to hold you in my hands, suck you into my
mouth, to feel your heat against my tongue, to make you writhe in orgasmic
ecstasy."

"Wow,"
Jordan said.  "You don't beat around the bush."  She thought, but
didn't say, "If there were a bush, which there isn't."

Petronella
slinked up to her and boldly kissed Jordan’s neck.  Her shoulders.  Her
cheeks.  Her lips.  She lightly brushed Jordan's nipples and stroked her butt. 
Jordan felt her insides tighten, then release.  Her body was betraying her.

Petronella
knelt before her, took her into her mouth, and devoured her greedily.

Jordan
stared up at the moon.  When she came, she opened her mouth and swallowed the
moon.  It filled her belly and lit her up from the inside as if she were a Jack
O' Lantern.  Jordan knew this happened because the next day Petronella detailed
their sexual liaison in her newest poem, "The Woman Who Swallowed the
Moon."

When
Jordan looked back at the sky, the moon was gone and she was in love.

Petronella
led her back through the sliding glass doors and into her bed where she made love
to Jordan three more times.

"You
are my muse," Petronella said while she cradled Jordan in her arms. 
"I shall write beautiful poems about you.  I will never let you go. 
Never, ever let you go."

It
wasn't until months later Jordan realized she meant
exactly
what she said.

Jordan
had been living with Petronella a full month before she noticed the control
issues.  Petronella told her what to wear, what to eat, what to read, what kind
of coffee she should drink.  Jordan noticed as time went on that she didn’t
even have to talk.  Petronella took it upon herself to single-handedly run
Jordan’s life.

One
day Jordan woke up and discovered that she no longer had a life.  And to make
matters worse, Petronella became possessive to the point that no one could look
at Jordan without Petronella going ballistic.  She swore that Jordan encouraged
these looks.  According to Petronella, Jordan was a vixen that needed watching.

It
exhausted Jordan.  And when she complained and said maybe she would rather live
in her own house, maybe they should break up, Petronella had responded by
throwing the
Anthology of Feminist Poetry as It Concerns the Vulva
at
her.  Jordan had been too surprised to duck and ended up with a black eye. 
Petronella cried.  She promised things would change.  She wrote her a poem. 
And afterwards, she made passionate love to Jordan.

The
second time she tried to leave, Jordan was sneaky.  She packed her clothes when
Petronella was at work.  She was in the driveway, putting the clothes in her car’s
back seat when Petronella came home early and tried to run her over with her
car.  She took a sledgehammer to Jordan’s car’s lights, the engine and the
windows and then ran into the back end twelve times.  Jordan's insurance didn't
cover crazy girlfriends demolishing her car.  Petronella cried.  She promised
things would change.  She wrote her a poem.  And afterward, she made passionate
love to Jordan.

The
third time Jordan tried to end the relationship was when she caught Petronella
on her moonlit balcony devouring one of her graduate students.  Petronella
managed to turn the tables and make the whole thing Jordan’s fault.  That had
to be the master manipulation of the century.  She accused Jordan of being
frigid, unemotional and unresponsive to lovemaking, consequently Petronella was
forced into cheating on Jordan.  All these insults were hurled at her along
with books, picture frames, frozen fish, chopsticks, bowls, and the microwave.

The
graduate student had cowered in the corner until there was a lull in the
fighting and then she ran out of the house.  She called 911 and the police came
and escorted Jordan home.  Jordan didn't press charges.  She was just happy to
be away from Petronella.

That
was a mere six months ago.  And since that time, Petronella had a knack of
showing up anywhere Jordan was.  Jordan was beginning to think Petronella had
secretly installed a lo-jack up her ass.