The Taste of Lavender (3 page)

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I
t was just what I needed to assuage the
winter blues— a weekend shopping trip with my best friend Mirabel in
Washington, DC. We were supposed to be leaving in the next few minutes for two
days of Outlet shopping, museum strolling and elegant upscale meals. Quiet time
to just enjoy life and put the real world on hold. So naturally, my husband
picked that moment to get his panties in a twist.

The trip had been planned for weeks, so
why he chose the minutes before I was to leave to pick an argument was beyond
me.

“I don’t understand why you feel the
need to drive for four hours to go shopping, when there’s a mall just up the
road.” He pouted on the couch, arms crossed over his chest, legs propped up on
the coffee table in front of him.

I rolled my eyes, zipped up my suitcase
and deposited my bag by the front door. “It’s a girls weekend. You know,
shopping, spa time, fancy meals. It would be kind of stupid to take a
mini-vacation within thirty miles of the house, don’t you think?”

He picked up the remote and clicked
through the television channels rapid-fire. “I don’t like it. What if something
happens?”

Oh, good lord. I didn’t have the
patience for that. I was already anxious enough to get the show on the road.
And I’d be dammed if he was going to guilt me into staying home.

I tossed my makeup bag inside my
over-sized purse and set it down by my big suitcase. “Like what? I spend
ridiculous amounts of my hard-earned money on the designer deals of a life
time? I drink to many lattes and get so jittery I can’t sign a check properly?”

I finally act on my ridiculous
girl-crush regarding Maribel?

I shook my head, as much to clear the
last thought from my head as to dissuade my husband from continuing to try and
talk me out of going away with Mirabel for the weekend. I was going. His
opinion didn’t matter. Not anymore.

“Cindy, I just...”

“No.” I wagged my finger at him. “You
don’t get to have a tantrum now. I never ask for anything. I never go anywhere.
You are a grown man and you can take care of yourself for two days. Now, I’m
leaving. Are you going to kiss me goodbye, or what?”

I stood at the door and tapped my foot.
He eyed me for a minute before turning his attention back to the television.
“Fine. Go have yourself a ball.”

Heat spread across my face. “Fine. I’ll
call you tonight.”

I gathered up my stuff and pulled open
the front door as he muttered
whatever
, tossed the remote on the coffee
table and stormed to the back of the house. Call it a last-ditch effort to win
the battle, but I wasn’t playing.

Out the door I went. The air was crisp,
but calm, and the gray skyline gave everything an eerie greenish cast. What I
wouldn’t do for some sunshine, I thought.

I popped the trunk and struggled to get
a grip on my suitcase, so I could lift it into the trunk. It sure would have
been nice if I had a man to help me with the stupid thing. Oh, right. I did
have one, but he was choosing to act like a toddler.

“Andiamo!” Maribel’s voice floated
across the street.
Ah, there’s my sunshine now.

She jogged over the asphalt, juggling a
half-dozen bags of all shapes and sizes. She slid to a stop and threw her stuff
into the trunk next to my bags with a grunt.

“Everything okay?”

She shrugged her shoulders and paced to
the passenger door, jerking it open with a little too much force. “It is fine.
Let’s go.”

It seemed like we were both having a bad
start to the day. Things could only get better from there.

We drove for several hours, talking very
little and enjoying the silence. My mind wandered here and there. Mostly there,
if the truth be told.

With every mile that passed I became
more upset by my husband’s attitude right before I left. More and more, I just
didn’t understand his mood swings and outbursts. He became petulant at the most
innocent things. And while I was trying to figure out what his problem was,
he’d come up behind me with such puppy-dog affection that it would overwhelm
me. Smother me.

My body would stiffen before I could
stop myself, setting off a chain reaction of hurtful words, angry glares and
the taste of my own salty tears. Hours, sometimes days of silence would follow.
Then, like a slate wiped clean, he would be back to his normal
video-game-playing self. The house would be peaceful for a few days, and then
the discontent would sprout again. Something small, and seemingly insignificant
would be said— like the time he noticed my new scarf.

I’d responded that Maribel had given it
to me, saying it looked better on me then it did on her. Darkness had flitted
across his face and he’d demanded that I give it back. He’d buy me another
scarf,
dammit
. In hindsight, I’d missed the undertone of his comments.
At the time, I’d been so angry that he was trying to order me around, that I’d
overlooked the root of the turmoil.

To him, Maribel was the devil in a
dress. To me she was an angel barely keeping her feet on the ground. The chasm
was becoming insurmountable.

“Look, there is our exit.” Maribel
nudged me back to reality.

“Oh, you’re right. Hang on.” I checked
behind me, then maneuvered the car onto the off-ramp. She reached for the
console to steady herself, and ended up with her hand on my leg instead. She
left it there until we pulled into the valet station of our hotel, and I didn’t
seem to mind. When the car came to a stop, and she removed her hand, the
absence of her warmth was noticeable. 

We checked into the hotel and decided to
take a nap before going out for dinner and a stroll around DC to take in the
blooming Cherry Blossoms. I set the alarm on my phone and looked at Maribel.
“You want the one on the right, or the left?”

She looked at the two bed options and
shrugged, “It matters not to me. You pick while I wash up.”

I chose the bed nearest the window and
furthest away from the door. I’ve always done that, on some instinctual level
protecting myself from a possible invasion. I laid down with my back to the
rest of the room and let the sunlight filtering through broad window warm my
skin. I felt like a cat, soaking up the radiant warmth. I could hear Maribel in
the bathroom, humming along with the sound of running water. My body relaxed
and I felt myself lighten as sleep headed my way.

The bed rocked slightly and I felt my
best friend slide into bed beside me. She pressed against my body and wrapped
one arm around my waist. My breath hitched, but I struggled to remain still. I
was scared that if I moved Maribel would release me.

In that moment, I never wanted her to
let me go.

“What are you thinking?” She whispered
in my ear.

“I’m not.” I replied. “I’m enjoying.”

She laughed softly into my neck.
“Enjoying what?”

I paused to consider my answer. I could
say plenty, but my tongue was on the verge of saying something I couldn’t take
back. What was I enjoying? The peace, the super-comfy mattress? The feeling of
Maribel’s breast pressed against my back, her breath on my skin?

“I’m enjoying the moment. Being here in
this historic city, relaxing. I’m enjoying the warmth of the sun on my skin.” I
paused, gathering my courage up like a hoop skirt. “And... laying here with you.”

I turned to Maribel and touched her
face. Her lips parted slightly and she averted her eyes.

“What are you thinking?” I turned the
question back to her.

She raised her eyes and locked them onto
my own eyes. There was a certain sadness in them, but also a glimmer of
something else. Hope, maybe?

“I think that you have cast a spell on
me. You make me feel upside down and right with the world. And I want to kiss
you.” Her lips parted, asking permission.

Our mouths met slowly, in utter silence
and without a breath shared between us. We drowned in each other as the tides
of undeniable attraction crested and swirled around us. The blood roared in my
ears, my heart skipped a beat, and my hands roamed over Maribel’s body.

She slipped her hands under my sweater
and around to my back, her hand gliding over my skin like silk. I pulled her on
top of me and felt her legs fall on either side of mine. He skirt rode up
around her hips, exposing her creamy thighs. I ran my hand over her knee, and
up to her hip, snaking my way under her skirt. I cupped her backside and felt
her arch into me. She pulled me up into a sitting position while kissing me,
savoring me. My shirt was lifted over my head and my bra undone. The
air-conditioned air hit my exposed flesh, tightening the buds on my chest.

Maribel cupped one breast, then the
other, kissing each nipple lightly before running her tongue over the hardened
center. A warm tingle spread across my body.

There were too many obstacles between
us. I removed her clothes as quickly as possible, flipping her over on the bed
to remove her skirt and panties last. At last, she lay on the bed in front of
me in all her naked glory.
Oh god, she was lovely.

Standing at the foot of the bed, I
removed the rest of my clothes without breaking eye contact with Mirabel. The
outside world didn’t exist. It was only us and our bodies and that hotel room.

I started at her feet, kissing the
delicate arches, her taut calves, the inside of her knees. Then I continued on
my journey north, spreading her legs slightly. The skin of her thighs was so
soft she practically melted in my mouth. By the time I arrived at the junction
of Maribel’s legs, she was squirming beneath my touch. Warm and slick, my
tongue found it’s way home. Buried inside of her, as close as humanly possible
to another person, my fingers writhed and my tongue flicked. My mind might have
been clueless as to how to love another woman, but my body had it all figured
out.

Maribel’s body shudder and bucked, she
pressed her legs at the sides of my head and pumped herself against my mouth.
She grabbed a handful of my hair and pulled my face further into her. As she
cried out, warmth spread across my lips and down my chin. And I tasted it.

Lavender and Longing. I’d found my home.

“Oh, Dios mio!” Maribel panted and
flipped me over on the bed. “Now, it is my turn.”

We drove all the way to DC, only to stay
in the hotel room the entire weekend.

T
hose first few days after we returned
from DC were hard. I vacillated between being unreasonably irritated and
psychotically chipper quicker than the my husband could slam a door. I’m sure
he was baffled by my mood swings, but as confused as he must have been, I was
even more confused.

Conflicting thoughts played tug of war
in my mind.

What had I done? I was a horrible
person, damned for my deceit and lustful ways. There was a whole host of
commandments I’d broken. I wasn’t a particularly religious person, but morality
knows no particular church. There’s right and then there’s wrong. And I’d done
a whole lot of wrong.

Several times over, even.

But oh, my! What I’d done... I felt
reborn. Washed clean in the glow of a love so true and whole that it could only
be described as miraculous. How could something so beautiful be a sin? Was it
wrong to listen to the desires of  my heart? No, I didn’t think so. The sin
would be denying how I felt. The sin would be locking down my feelings and
forgetting the weekend in DC had ever happened.

So I did what I had to do to muddle
through daily life while I sorted out all of my yo-yo emotions. I threw myself
into work, taking on two more projects than I normally carry at any given time.
I stayed up late into the night working to avoid having to go to bed. I wasn’t
a very convincing liar— probably because I rarely lied up until I had a very
good reason to— so I tried to keep myself removed from situations where I would
be forced to lie.

Still, no man is an island and I could
only avoid my husband and our marriage but so much. This was one of those
nights where he caught up to me.

I was hunched over my laptop, absentmindedly
sipping on a hot cup of coffee despite the late hour, when I heard a knock at
my office door. I looked up to find Paul leaning against the door frame,
sporting wet hair and a tiny little towel around his waist.

“You coming up?” he wagged his eyebrows
suggestively, as if I wouldn’t catch his meaning without a little assistance. 

It was further proof of how much I’d
been avoiding him. Normally, his idea of foreplay was a clumsy crotch-grab
while I was preoccupied reading or watching television. As if that would ever
turn me on. In desperation, he’d stepped up his game.

And then he stepped it up again by
giving me a puppy-dog look before coming around behind me. His hands caressed
my shoulders, kneading the tension that had built in the muscles as I’d sat
hunched over my laptop for hours. I felt guilt flow over me. He was thinking of
his self, sure, but he was also being sweet to me. And that slayed me worse
than anything he’d said in anger.

He was killing me with kindness.

Without a word, I stood and headed up to
the bed room. Paul followed quietly, with the one exception of slapping me on
the ass as I climbed the steps to the second floor. Seriously.

I climbed into bed and tried to relax as
he turned out the light, pulled my clothes off rather clumsily, climbed into
bed and pulled the covers up over the both of us. He knew how I hated to be
naked and cold. Again with the kindness, dammit.

The weight of his body felt felt so much
heavier now, since I’d grown used to Maribel’s lithe body pressed against my
own. We didn’t fit together any more either, Paul and me. Hip bones, elbows,
ribs, knees— the meshing of our parts no longer felt familiar or right. In
fact, it all felt so very wrong.

He was pushing all the usual buttons,
but it wasn’t working. Not that he was aware, but those buttons had shifted,
moved and only responded to a softer touch now. My body was a new-fangled video
game system, and
X
no longer meant forward, and
Y
no longer meant
jump.

I closed my eyes. It was easier to
detach myself from the moment when I wasn’t looking it in the face. I felt
guilty for not doing my part. I felt guilty for not wanting my husband they way
I used to. I felt guilty, which made me lay down and take one for the team.

When asked the standard questions like
“does that feel good?” or “how about this, do you like that?” I just uttered a
non-committal grunt.

The thing about lying is that it
is
something you get used to. What once seemed so hard, now falls freely from my
mouth as I navigate the battle-field of my home. In this case, lying outright
would serve no purpose, and I felt like I should save up the lies for when
truly needed— like a castaway rationing water.

When he finished, I forced a satisfied
smile on my face and slid out of bed, slipped on a t-shirt and yoga pants and
crossed to the door. “I think I’m going to work for a little while longer. Good
night.”

Paul hardly noticed as I left our
bedroom, already half-way to the post-nookie snoring. I was thankful for that
because I didn’t know if I could handle talking at the moment. I felt too
emotionally raw, and oddly enough, very empty. Drained almost, and I couldn’t
stomach the thought of having to lie any more that night, no matter the size.

Small lies can damage a relationship
just as much as the big ones, if you tell them enough. Erosion still changes
the landscape, no matter if it comes during one hurricane or just season upon
season of ebb and flow. The beach is never the same either way. And it hadn’t
stood a chance against Hurricane Mirabel.

On some level, I feel remorse and I know
the deceit is not only wrong, but it’s so unlike me. But passion cares not for
reason or morality. When under its spell, a person can justify just about
anything to themselves, swallowing the lie with a smile, because it’s easier
and keeps the train a’chugging along.

Only in hindsight can we see the moments
where our lives skewed off-course, where we traveled down the wrong path, where
the worst lies we told were the ones we told ourselves.