Red Light (31 page)

It occurred to me that sometimes, just sometimes, Nina and Samantha were up extremely late, and even if they weren’t, well, I just didn’t want to be alone at the moment, and simply knowing other people breathed nearby…it appealed to me, and I’d be able to hear Jean’s car when she pulled up, anyway.

Tomorrow, we’d do something normal, and good, and fun: we’d go and enjoy the parade, say hellos to everyone, then go to the local pub with Nina and Samantha for dinner.

It was dark as I made my way inside their house, but as I approached the top of the stairs, I could see a soft light at the end of the hall where their room was.

Though thinking I’d say hello or something equally banal, I stopped three feet away from the entry, arrested by the sight before me.

At first, I couldn’t tell what I saw, but as my eyes adjusted to the half light, I realized that my cousin moved slowly, languidly, over Samantha. There was such intensity and grace in the curve of her back, the fall of her hair, the proud line that followed her now-fuller breasts, then led down the slimness of her rib cage to the gentle swell of her belly before she disappeared into the blankets that covered them, I caught my breath. She was so mind-blowingly beautiful, beautiful in her love for the woman who moved beneath her, beautiful in her body that changed because of the love within it.

And as close, as physically
joined
as she was at that moment to her love, clearly she—they—reached for still more, in the fingers that quested for and captured Nina’s face, then drew her nearer still, the clutch and clasp of hands that revealed taut lines of muscle, the strain of the work of devotion laid bare as together they built, they created…something I had no words for but I understood, in a place I’d only just discovered.

When Samantha softly called her name as she arched up under her, only to gather Nina in her arms, the kiss they shared reverberated through my soul, a chest-clenching throb, a sublime, radiant ache that threatened to bring me to tears, and I turned away as she gently rolled them over.

I quietly walked down the hallway to my room, the room they both had said would always be mine. It was strange, I mused as I turned the knob on the door, that thing, that desperate thing that had crawled in me had quieted.

It hadn’t completely disappeared. I could feel it, awake and alive, but like a cat that for the moment sits next to you and purrs quietly, content to just be there, it had settled and curled on my chest, sated for the moment.

I flipped on a low light and grabbed a book from the shelf as I adjusted myself on the bed. I really wanted to take the next medic class, and it would do me no good if I forgot the things I’d learned.

How amazing, I thought as I flipped through the pages with my head full of the feelings that my unwitting voyeurism had brought me: they loved each other, they really and truly loved each other so much they wanted to have a child together. Utterly, fantastically amazing. And so beautiful. Perfect. At least one kid would have all the love it deserved.

My phone woke me just after three a.m. I’d fallen asleep in the house after all.

“Scotty.”

“Hey, there,” Jean said across the airwaves.

“Hey, yourself, what’s up?”

She sighed. “I had a flat just as I crossed the bridge. I managed to get to…” and she named the cross street.

I was on my feet in seconds.

“I’ll be there in under five minutes—we’ll take care of it in daylight,” I promised as I grabbed my jacket and left as quietly as I could.

*

The temperature had dropped significantly, and when I pulled up not more than three minutes later and cut the engine, Jean stepped out of her Chevy Blazer.

“Yo.”

“Hey,” I returned and suddenly, as I crossed the several feet that separated us, everything crashed down on me: the fear and the stress, the pressure from the grilling at the precinct, the unfairness of Lukaski’s injury, and the poetry, the absolute, silent, powerful clarity of what I hadn’t meant to witness for even those few seconds between Nina and her Sam, and I had no doubt that was exactly what Samantha was,
Nina
’s Sam, just as Nina was completely, unconditionally hers: she’d put her own body on the line to prove it. And that’s when I realized that’s exactly what Jean had done—she had put herself between me and certain harm, something no one other than my cousin or my grandmother had ever done before.

I needed her, needed
Jean
, with an urgency that pounded and scraped through me as my head filled with the knowledge of what she’d volunteered to sacrifice, my ears with the hyper-reality of gunfire, and my face with the scent of a friend’s blood.

Close, she was
so
close, and the deepest pit of my gut clenched with the unmistakable new knowledge that the most miraculous thing I’d ever witnessed was two people building the ineffable together, their bodies translating what their hearts held. It was Beauty in a world gone mad, something good, something
wondrous
, and I held on to that as the world shifted into hazy shades of red, blinded by rain and smoke and fire as I curled my fingers into the collar of Jean’s coat and pulled her to me.

Her tongue fucked my mouth with electric intention, the lightning crack of warning, as her hands spread on my hips with near-bruising demand and I rocked her on my thigh.

We fell into my backseat and kept falling as the door crashed behind us, the ghost replay of thunder, a clouding echo that filled my sky as I dropped through it while she ripped at my shirt, left me gasping as the air hit my bare skin, her lips, her tongue hard and fast with unmistakable intent on me.

Her leg eased up between mine, and I sighed, grateful for the pressure as the scud of her zipper sliced through the air.

“Oh, I need you…” she said, her voice barely a whisper as her fingers gently gripped my wrist and urged my hand on.

I was lightning in the sky, a burning brand tossed away and discarded by a forgetful god, then Jean’s mouth caught mine. It was a desperate reach that
hurt
, my chest
hurt
as her cunt wrapped around my fingers.

“Stay with me, Tori,” she breathed and shifted, twisting to reach me, touch me. Her hands drew lines of cool blue fire down my back, eased along my ass, lines that wove around me even as I fell, a whirling tumble as I cut through Lukaski’s pant leg, spinning and falling in a red wet haze, falling and spinning as Jean fell too, her body between me and deadly thunder.

“Look at me. Tori…look at me,” Jean said, her voice thick, low, and sure, and I did, I looked into her eyes, those beautiful eyes that arrested my frantic, pathless drop through the clouds and carried me in their cinnamon-and-sugar sight.

“God, Jean…” I choked, the words fighting against gravity, the words that would weigh me, smash me down into cold, wet ground unless I released them. “You
know
I love you, don’t you?” I had to tell her, I had to let her know because tomorrow…tomorrow
anything
could happen. It could be her, or it could be me, and I would never, ever, get the chance to tell her, to let her know because—

“You’re not there, it’s over,” she whispered, “it’s over, baby. You’re here, and I’m here, and it’s
us
, Tori…it’s
us
, right here, right now.”

She kissed me—her lips, her mouth the net that caught me as her body cradled me. “And I
love
you,” she said as she entered me, filling me with fluid grace that guided me safely home, “I love you so…damned…much…”

She was crying when we got back to the bed that waited for us, and the first tear hit my skin as I lightly rubbed my thumb against the scar that marked the edge of her beautiful breast. I caught the next tear on my lips before it fell. I planned to catch all the rest of them too, for as long as she needed me to.

“I’m right here, baby,” I murmured to her as she caught me up in her arms and her rhythm. “You’re safe…I’m not going anywhere. It’s just us…you and me.”

We spent the rest of the night proving that to each other—every movement, every shift and turn a restatement of emotions we had no words for. I tasted and touched every high plain and low valley of the wondrous living creature that was my Jean, kissed the tender skin that covered defenseless pulse points, sucked on the birthmark that crowned the hill of her bicep, and my lips painted the immunization scar that rounded her shoulder.

I reverently savored the tiny taut ridge that topped her navel, then continued exploring until she was pulsing under my tongue, the force of her life, the life she’d shielded mine with, blending with the beat of my heart as she came for me.

Not long after, she knelt above me, thighs embracing my hips.

“I want…I hope you like this, Tori,” she said, her voice low and hoarse as her hands gently unfurled me. “Hold yourself open for me, baby.”

I did as she asked and was struck dumb by how beautiful she was when she did the same, the tender, vulnerable parts of her open to my hungry eyes.

I couldn’t breathe as I watched her lower herself upon me, and the first hot contact found me half seated. Jean wrapped her legs around me, and I closed my arms about her as her cunt ground against mine with an intensity of touch I’d never felt before. We edged closer and closer to that final burst of cunt-fire and I
knew
, with a certainty that painted my very marrow with its brightness, that as much as Jean was mine, I was hers too, for as long as we had each other.

By the time we were fully convinced of each other’s realness, the satisfying solidity of presence, nothing was left as we wrapped around each other—not the fear, not the sorrow. Nothing was left but us.

*

We woke relatively early to repair that tire and bring her truck back to the neighborhood before the parade made that impossible, and as we stood on Forest Avenue watching the cycling O’Something family perform all sorts of fancy whirls and weaves on a variety of odd-pedaled vehicles, including an old-fashioned velocipede, Jean nudged my elbow.

“Have you ever thought about that?”

“What?” The hat debate hadn’t even happened; she wore one of those huge foam things on her head and a temporary tattoo of a shamrock on her left cheek. This gear, however, did not make her stand out from the local crowd, who wore not only similar hats and tattoos, but also the traditional “Kiss me—I’m Irish” T-shirts and buttons, and one colorful fellow wore a T-shirt that read “Unrepentant Fenian Bastard.”

“That…” She tilted her head toward Samantha and Nina where they stood two feet away from us in the human crush.

A MacCrae tartan blanket draped over Samantha’s shoulder and arms, which were in turn wrapped protectively around Nina. Sam’s hands rested under the blanket on the now-obvious swelling that meant my niece or nephew was comfortable, snug, and growing well.

“I can’t wear the MacCrae tartan,” I said and grinned back at Jean. “I’m not married to Samantha.”

“Ha ha,” Jean mocked. “I meant,” and she gestured, “that.”

Ah. Nina’s pregnancy. Hmm. I knew family meant a lot to Jean, it meant a lot to me too, and while I really liked kids, I’d never thought much about having them or, at least, how they’d arrive.

“I’ve never discounted it. I just sorta assumed, well, it would happen somehow, sometime, I guess. How about you? You thought about it?”

Jean flushed and glanced down. “Yeah, I’ve thought about it. I, uh, I think it would be very cool.”

I closed the slight distance between us, put my lips to her ear, and touched her cheek carefully. I could feel the flush under my fingertips. “If they look like you? It would be.”

“Really?” she drawled, putting an arm around my waist as I turned to see her face. “That
could
be arranged, though I’d rather they looked like you…” She smiled that gentle smile that told me so much. “And that? Could also be arranged.”

I pulled the brim of that ridiculous hat down lower over her head. “I’ll make you a deal,” I said as I stroked the sensitive line of her nose and the profile of her lips, then rested on the tip on her chin. “We discuss this in depth after I finish the medic class, and in the meanwhile? We can…practice.”

“I like that,” Jean murmured against my finger and kissed it. “When can we start?”

“How fast can you walk three blocks?”

*

In the end we headed back to the house with Nina and Samantha: it was still very cold, and Nina was tired. As we walked, Jean pulled me tighter and slipped her hand under my jacket, warming it by tucking her fingers into my waistband and tickling my skin.

We all spent the afternoon together, and instead of going to the pub, we ordered in some Italian food. I insisted on paying the delivery guy when he arrived—it was the very least I could do in light of everything Nina and Sam had done for me.

I left Jean chatting with Nina in the living room and joined Sam in the kitchen to play with the pizza, the only thing Nina could tolerate lately; baked ziti, which was Jean’s request; and the eggplant parmesan, which got both Sam’s and my vote.

“Got that?” Sam asked as I carried the plates and glasses to the counter.

“Yeah, no problem.” I grinned as I settled the glassware safely and intact on the sleek amber marble.

“Hey, I…I need to ask you a favor,” Sam said finally into the companionable silence as we opened the various containers and divided the food according to everyone’s preferences.