Chapter 272

Laura finally had enough of the pain. Time was supposed to make it go away. Other sexual encounters were supposed to supersede this constant, gnawing agony of loss, provide distraction, excite new sexual desires to supplant the ones you could never again satisfy. Nothing worked. The pain did not vanish; it continued, it grew, it throbbed, it roiled in her gut, it lacerated her sleep.

If I don't talk to her, I'll die, she realized. Not literally, of course. But pine away. I have to... I don't know, make sure it's really over. Make sure she isn't thinking of me too, at least now and then.

But it was over. She knew that.

Still, it was a Saturday morning, and she resolutely phoned Sara's apartment. No more going over there and lurking in the shadows. She would demand to see her. She would insist. She would be firm. Sara, we have to talk. We just have to. I have to talk to you, even if for just a few minutes. Please.

No, don't beg, Laura thought. Just demand a meeting. Just let her know by the tone of your voice that she cannot refuse. It's common decency. Let me explain things, at least, before you reject me forever.

But Dee Dee, of all people, answered the telephone.

"Oh," Laura said, surprised. "When did you get back?"

"Don't sound so happy about it," Dee Dee cracked. "Are you disappointed that your little passion flower, the love of your life, didn't pick up the phone?"

"Don't be silly. I thought you were still in Ann Arbor. How did it go?"

Dee Dee made a noncommittal noise, a sort of contemptuous snuffle, at the other end of the wire. "They're thinking it over." Then she paused. She knew why Laura had called. "She's not here, in case you want to know. She had to go in to work, she said."

"It's Saturday."

"She had to clean up a few things, she said. Do you want me to tell her you called or what?"

"No. I'll... call her later," Laura said softly. As soon as I can get up the nerve again, she thought. "What are you doing? Want to come over? I could pick you up."

Such a slut you are, Laura cursed herself silently. Dying of pain over Sara, but quite willing to hop in the sack with her delicious sister, if possible.

"Can't," Dee Dee said, sounding vaguely disappointed, though Laura wondered whether she had read this disappointment into Dee Dee's tone of voice. "Got another meeting in Berkeley."

"Oh." Laura was shocked to hear how disconsolate her own voice sounded. Last time Dee Dee had gone to Berkeley, she said she had been fucked all night by the woman Czechoslovakian professor. This made Laura feel jealous and sad in the same instant. "Well, have a good time."

"Oh, I will," Dee Dee said, with a lilt in her voice, as if to torment Laura further. "Call me. At home. You know, my room. Not here. I only stayed here last night because I got back late." She lowered her voice to an almost threatening whisper. "You know Sara doesn't give a shit about you any more, Laura. Call me."

Laura gulped. Her eyes watered. It was true. "Okay," she croaked softly. "I will. Bye."

And yet, before she half-knew what she was doing, she found herself in her car, heading for 450 Sutter Street, the medical-dental building where she knew Sara worked, having met her there. We're going to have this out, whether she likes it or not, she thought, gripping the wheel with determination, trying to ignore the way her pulse was racing, not this time with sexual anticipation but fear and awareness that this might be the final time they ever faced one another.

In twenty minutes, she was there, sitting in her car in the dark parking garage a block away from the office building, smelling the exhaust fumes, trying to make herself open the door and get out and walk to Sara's office and confront her. Her hands, resting on the steering wheel, were, she noticed, trembling. Oh shit, now I have to turn into a total coward, she thought.

Taking a deep breath, she locked the car and marched down Sutter Street, trying all the way to feel resolute and reasonable and firm. How she was going to get past the door into the office was a mystery to her. Sara could easily just refuse to open it, especially if she knew Laura was there.

She walked with her head held high past the lobby guard desk, acting very much as if she had a dental appointment, which was not so unusual since nowadays several doctors and dentists scheduled weekend appointments. The building was an old art deco masterpiece with marbled hallways and frosted glass office doors. It felt cold and marmoreal, and you could hear your heels click and echo down the corridors as you walked. On a Saturday there were very few people in sight.

Outside Sara's dental office Laura lost her nerve. Several times she started a charge toward the door, her hand extended to grasp the knob and turn it. Each time she faltered after a few steps, turned, faced the offices on the other side of the corridor, hearing her indecisive steps clack and snap against the marble flooring, feeling self-conscious, fearing someone would emerge from the elevator and see her suspiciously pacing and moving in nervous circles.

Finally, she took another deep breath and lunged for the knob. She twisted. It was locked. Oh shit. I'm leaving. I can't go through with this. I'm too much of a coward. I'm afraid she'll hurt me even worse.

Laura fell back, releasing the door knob. She took a few deep breaths, trying not to panic, not to be completely irrational. What'll I do now? Knock? Yes, knock. I can't come all this way and then chicken out.

She was about to advance on the door again, after several deep breaths, when Sara opened it and peeped out, brow furrowed. "Laura?" Her face was opaque, expressionless.

Laura managed a wan, half-panicked smile. "I... thought you may have already left," she stammered, blushing.

Sara opened the office door a little wider, grinning in disbelief at Laura, not a friendly grin. Instead, it was an implacable, suspicious grin. "I lock it when I'm in there alone," she explained. "What are you doing here?"

"I... want to talk to you. Can I come in, for a minute?"

"We don't have anything to talk about."

"We do. I do."

"How did you know I was here?"

"How do you think?"

Sara lowered her eyelids, as if in disgust. She didn't look at Laura but at the shiny marble floor. "Why don't you just go away."

Laura risked putting a hand on Sara's hand, which was still on the inside doorknob of the door. Surprisingly, Sara did not shrug it off.

"I won't take more than a minute," Laura whispered. "I promise."

She was trying fiercely to control her emotions, which were a tortured profusion of desire, deep love, and wrenching pain. Sara looked so desirable to her, since she had not seen her in over a month, that Laura felt a sharp physical yearning for her. She wanted to grab her and kiss her. But Sara was standoffish and prickly. She seemed, however, to be resigned to Laura's visit. She opened the door to the office further and stepped back, letting Laura in.

"Just a minute... only a minute," she said, so softly that Laura could barely hear her.

"Yes, just a minute," Laura repeated.

Sara left the door ajar as they moved beyond it, as if to make it very clear that this was a short meeting. The office was half-darkened. Lights were on only in the receptionist area, where file drawers were open and file folders scattered across the two desks. Sara leaned back against the counter in front of her own desk, regarding Laura skeptically, crossing arms almost impatiently over her breasts.

The moment, already uncomfortable enough for Laura, was made worse by her awareness that under Sara's sweatshirt, her breasts were loose and swaying. She was not wearing a bra. Saturday casual, Laura reflected ruefully. She had dreamed of those naked breasts, perhaps the most beautiful she had ever touched, with their large, soft, puffed black nipples and their slight yaw to each side. The sight of the full mounds swaying under the fabric of Sara's sweatshirt introduced a sexual element into the conversation that Laura had been determined to keep out of it. Trying to make sure Sara did not realize this, she turned around a few times, stalking nervously across the darkened waiting room, trying to collect her thoughts and breathe calmly.

"Well?" Sara finally said, cocking one eyebrow.

Laura had planned this all a hundred times in her mind. She had rehearsed it frequently in order to get the words just right, imagining how Sara would react, anticipating her hostile jabs, responding with deep humility and shame. Above all, she wanted to touch Sara, to reach the deepest feelings she had once held for Laura, and there was no way to do that, she had decided, but to make herself completely vulnerable to whatever lashing back Sara felt inclined to launch at her.

But now that her chance had arrived, she found that all her stratagems had vanished and evaporated, replaced only by her fear of Sara's sharp, peremptory presence, so different from the droll, sexy, affectionate person she had earlier known.

Laura stopped pacing. She looked down at her twisting fingers, then up at Sara, who seemed purposely smug and defensive behind her crossed arms.

"I... love you," Laura said softly, realizing that it sounded both sincere and lame at the same moment.

"You can skip the shit, Laura," Sara said, impatiently. "Why did you come here?"

"To tell you that I love you," Laura said, very softly. "I know it doesn't matter to you any more. But I couldn't sleep until I told you. I... made a mistake. I know how bad a mistake it was. I tried to avoid it but... I got trapped. Anyway, no excuses." She waved her hand as if to push the excuses away. "I have to take the consequences, I guess."

She looked up at Sara, who was listening but staring blankly at her, not giving a sign of her feelings. "Go on," Sara said, but this time without hostility.

Laura paused and gnawed her lower lip. "That's all," she said, bleakly. "What's the point of going on and on about it? I love you so much I could die over what I did." She looked down again at her fingers. "I'm... so sorry."

She began to turn, to leave, and glanced up one last time, for one last glimpse of Sara's face before Sara was excluded from her life forever. It was so dim in the outer office, and the backlit glare of the reception area so distracting, that she almost did not see the tear sliding down one of Sara's cheeks. But she did see it.

This paralyzed Laura. She was ready to leave, and yet she could not make her feet move. Instead, she watched the tear slowly descend until it reached Sara's chin.

"You better go," Sara said quietly, brushing away the remnants of the tear with her fingers. There was still a long, shiny path down her dark brown cheek.

Laura did not realize she was shaking her head slowly until she felt her hair swishing around her ears. She took a step forward, now that her feet would move again. Now Sara was shaking her head too. She was leaning back against the counter and thus had less room to maneuver than Laura did, less room to escape.

"Go, Laura. Don't do this."

She now tried to turn away, but Laura caught her and turned her back. "I have to do this. I guess you'll have to call the guards, if you want to get rid of me."

Sara erupted in a quick, helpless guffaw. "Are you kidding? Both those guards are on Medicare." Her eyes were now, paradoxically, full of water, threatening to spill.

Laura was very close to her, close enough so that they would be touching if she moved forward only two more inches. Fearing what might happen if she did not seize the moment, she did lean forward, kissing Sara's smooth, gleaming forehead. It was easy since Laura was five feet eight and Sara a mere five feet tall.

Sara giggled again. "You tall people have all the luck."

Both of Laura's hands swept quickly up to Sara's face, cradling it, and she pressed her lips firmly into the pillowy miracle of Sara's mouth. Since this might be the most critical kiss of her life, Laura had to restrain herself from pouring all her tortured longings into it at once. She kissed Sara slowly, curving her mouth into Sara's exquisitely sensual lips, not opening it, not forcing her tongue into Sara's mouth, just letting her adoration flow through her lip movements, and letting her fingertips caress Sara's smooth cheeks with infinite tenderness.

Sara did not respond at first, though she did not pull away either. She simply let Laura kiss her. But after a few seconds, her mouth and her body both seemed to melt imperceptibly, until she was uptilting her face to Laura's more obviously, and turning her mouth to fit more closely with Laura's. In a few more seconds the tips of their tongues met gingerly outside their teeth, then slowly began a sensual dance which led them quickly to pressing their open mouths heatedly together.

Now they were embracing. Laura's hands slid down from Sara's face to her back, and she dug her fingers into Sara's flesh through her sweatshirt. Though Sara took a few seconds longer, she soon was embracing Laura too, and her fingers too bit into Laura's flesh.

Just when they seemed to be getting to the point where the fires would truly flame up, Sara pulled her mouth away from Laura's. Tears were now streaming down her cheeks, but she made no sound. Laura could taste the salt on her tongue. She realized she was crying silently too, though not as profusely as Sara.

"Don't do this," Sara whispered.

Laura cradled her face and kissed her again, before she could really pull away to a decisive distance. This time in seconds their entire bodies were pressing together, and their breath accelerating.

"Don't... do this," Sara tried to mumble again against Laura's lips, but Laura stopped her, driving her tongue now into Sara's warm, wet mouth, stabbing it deep.

"Yes..." Laura panted, kissing her neck, licking the tears off her wet cheeks. "I have to. I love you... I want you."

"It's just sex with you, Laura," Sara protested, trying to squirm away.

"No, it isn't. I love you. I want you too... but I love you more. I love you forever, so hard."

She got one hand up under Sara's sweatshirt, onto the warm flesh of her back, thinking this intimacy would reawaken the passion they had once shared. Sara's eyes flashed.

"Take your hand out."

Boldly, Laura kissed her again and at the same time slid the hand up and around until it cupped one of Sara's naked breasts. Again Sara tried to squirm, but Laura held her tightly. She squeezed the wonderful round ball of flesh meaningfully, kissing Sara more heatedly.

"God... Laura... cut it out," Sara panted, trying to turn her face.

Laura was feverishly kissing her neck and her ear. She had got her other hand under the sweatshirt too and was trying to pull it up, to expose Sara's breasts so that she could get her mouth on them. Sara batted her hands away, though more playfully than seriously. She broke out in laughter.

"Away, girl! Maybe I'll have to call those senile old guards after all."

Laura grabbed her again, pulling her close. "I want you."

Suddenly Sara's dark eyes went glassy and sparkly with a flux of complicated emotion. "At least let me lock the door first," she whispered.

It was all Laura could manage not to go into deep shock at these words. She was half-paralyzed as Sara slipped away from her and walked to the door, shutting it gently but firmly, making sure the lock was turned. Then she returned, stepping close to Laura again, uptilting her mouth, lips parted, eyes shining.

"One more? For old time's sake?"

Laura hardly dared to speak. Instead, she nodded and pressed her lips into Sara's again, unable to believe her good fortune. Her heart was thundering. She caressed Sara's cheek as they kissed.

"Mind my asking why you did that?" she murmured into Sara's teeth.

Sara's eyes twinkled and a half-smile crossed her mouth. "I think you better just shut up and count your blessings."

God, you're right about that, Laura thought. She burrowed her face into Sara's warm neck, kissing it hungrily, digging her fingers into Sara's thick round buttocks at the same time through her jeans.

"Whoa... hold on there, buster," Sara giggled, twisting her ass out of Laura's grip. "You're getting a little familiar there, aren't you?"

Laura slid her hands up under Sara's sweatshirt one more time, massaging Sara's naked back. "You can't blame me for trying," she breathed into Sara's ear, feeling Sara's flesh clench tight as a quick shiver shot through her body.

"Laura, cut it out," Sara gasped softly. "This is going too far."

"Not far enough," Laura panted, raising the sweatshirt up this time, pulling it quickly up to expose Sara's magnificent breasts.

The most startling thing was that Sara made no attempt to stop her. Laura had her face between the delicious mounds before Sara could do anything. She held them in her hands, rubbing Sara's large, soft nipples with her thumbs while she kissed the flat warm expanse of skin between them.

Now Sara squirmed away and pulled her sweatshirt down. "No. Step back. I work here, remember? What if somebody comes in?"

"You locked the door."

"A few people have the key."

Laura raise one hand and ran her fingertip along the curve of Sara's lips, clearly astonished-and showing it-that she had been able to kiss them again, even more than once. Sara could see her astonishment. Without warning, Laura's eyes overflowed with tears, which spilled down her cheeks and kept coming.

"I love you so much," she choked, almost inaudibly.

Sara stared at her, saying nothing. Laura didn't wonder. The emotions in the room were too complex and intense for either of them to understand. Then Sara smiled her half-smile again. Laura was crying, but now Sara's eyes were dry.

"You're cuckoo," Sara said, sympathetically. Then she came over closer again to Laura, brushing away Laura's tears very tenderly with one hand. "Don't do that. You make me feel sad."

Laura smiled and sniffled. "Could I kiss you one last time?"

Sara pondered it, her dark eyes flecked with amusement. "You know," she said, airily bemused, looking up theatrically at the ceiling. "I once had an affair with a supermodel. She looked a lot like you."

Laura sniffled again. "And how was it?"

Sara winked at her. "It was heaven, if you want to know the truth."

"Maybe it could be heaven again," Laura whispered.

Sara shook her head. "I doubt it. Stratospheric, maybe. Heaven, no."

Laura felt glum but thankful that she had finally stopped crying. She hated herself for being so pathetic. She was trying to puzzle out what Sara might be saying. Maybe she doesn't even know herself, she reasoned.

"Could we sit down over there?" Laura asked, being exhausted by all this wracking emotion. She indicated one of the small waiting room sofas with her head.

Sara shook hers. She again stared up at Laura, as if enjoying Laura's desolation at this refusal. I guess that means I have to leave, finally, Laura thought, feeling her heart drop to her feet.

But Sara now reached up with both hands and pulled Laura's mouth slowly down into hers. This time she kissed Laura, instead of the other way around, kissing her emotionally, searchingly, but with exquisite tenderness, holding Laura's cheeks firmly between her palms. No tongues, just moving, aching lips.

"I'm finished here," she murmured into Laura's lips, her dark eyes still shiny with feeling. "Let's go to your place and talk."

Oh god! Laura thought. She had never had a stroke but thought if she did, it would feel like this.

"Don't be mean," she said softly, her eyes imploring Sara. Please say you mean it.

Sara crossed her eyes. She gave Laura one of her most devastating funny faces, a wildly loopy, dorky grimace. "I'm not being mean, cuckoo brain. I think I can still remember how to get there."

"But all those files are still all over the desk in there."

Sara made yet another funny face, not so hysterically amusing as the first one but still hilarious. This one involved scrunching up her nose and sticking out her tongue halfway. "There you go not counting your blessings again."

"I could help you file them first."

Sara took one of Laura's hands. "What do I have to do to get your attention, cuckoo brain? I can do them on Monday. C'mon."

Laura, feeling a little relieved and a little confused, sparred back. "Stop calling me cuckoo brain," she smiled.

Sara playfully poked her on the chin with a loosely balled up fist. "What do you prefer, Buttercup?"

Then she turned and went to switch off the lights and get her purse. Laura stood paralyzed, unable to believe this was happening, unable to figure out why it was happening. But she forced herself to relax and act natural when Sara returned.

"You parked in the garage down the street?" Sara asked. Laura nodded. "Good, then we can walk together."

They walked the block to the parking garage in near silence. Sara's car was parked on the ground level, since she had arrived early, and she drove Laura to her car on the fourth level.

"See you in twenty minutes," she smiled warmly as Laura got out.

"Sure you remember the way?" Laura asked.

Sara nodded. "I remember."

Slowly, almost introspectively, Laura shut the passenger-side door and watched Sara drive off. I can't believe this is happening, she thought.

"I can't believe it... I still can't believe it..." she said over and over, as she started up her car.

And once she was at home, waiting for Sara to arrive, she began to think maybe she was right not to believe it. Fifteen minutes passed. Half an hour passed. Still no Sara.

Laura began to wonder if she had been taken in. That would be a way to get rid of me and get her revenge too, all in the same moment, she reflected. She could be sitting somewhere just laughing herself silly, imagining me here waiting for her, stewing, longing, crying.

Then the better half of Laura's nature would reassert itself. Oh, you're just getting all worked up over nothing, she told herself. She got stuck in traffic. She had a flat tire. She took the long way. Anything could explain it. I'm being silly. Self-centered, selfish, adolescent.

But why is she coming over here? Laura still had not puzzled it out. It was not as if Sara had said, 'Okay, I was mad at you for a while, but now that's all over. Let's pop into bed and make up for lost time.' She had been sweet, even funny in her old way, but not exactly smoldering with love and sexual heat. And yet, she had been the one to suggest coming here. Here, where it was private. Here, where it was soundproof. Here, where they had shared the most intense moments of deep sexual love Laura could remember having.

And yet, Laura thought, if she really wanted to hurt me bad, that might be exactly what she would do: send me home, here, to sit and have exactly these thoughts.

After another fifteen minutes had passed, she was beside herself. She had not embarked on this challenge only to have everything dribble out into frustrated anguish and desolation. She had been determined to end it forever or start it up again, one or the other, with no gloomy in-between like she had been enduring over the past few weeks.

In a flash, she was out the door again and into her car, cautioning herself not to speed through the parking lots as she gritted her teeth and clutched the wheel, determined to chase Sara down and confront her again, this time probably not so apologetically. She sped down Twin Peaks Boulevard, even screeching to a halt at the stop sign at Seventh Avenue, her head still swimming with anger and rejection and pain and love all swirling together in the same confusing mix.

As she sat waiting for the traffic to clear, her frustration nearly reached a boil. The signals on Seventh were set so that cars from one direction always cleared just as cars from the other direction began coming. Sometimes you had to wait five minutes even to turn onto the street. While she was waiting, through the whirling soft-focus of her anger and fear she dimly realized that it was Sara's old dark green Nissan Sentra turning the corner right across from her and heading up the road in the direction from which Laura had just come.

"Oh shit!" she said, under her breath, to no one in particular. "It's her."

By now there were two cars behind her, waiting too. Laura was a very law-abiding driver, and it was painful for her to immediately rip her car around in an illegal U-turn and leave a little rubber on the pavement too as she took off after Sara. I don't want her to get there and leave because I'm not there myself, she thought, desperately, crazily. At least Sara would wait a few minutes, part of her realized.

A few seconds later, she pulled up into her spot and saw Sara standing on the steps that led up to her door, waiting. She had a wry expression on her face.

"Was that you I saw waiting to turn down there at Seventh Avenue?" she asked Laura quizzically.

Laura blushed. She had controlled her embarrassment pretty well with Sara so far, but this was the last straw. "I... I thought maybe you weren't coming," she confessed.

She brushed past Sara, deeply embarrassed, and climbed the steps, opening the front door. Sara followed her inside.

"I had to stop by the ATM for some money," Sara said, softly. "There was a line."

Laura threw her purse on the chair and turned, shutting the door behind Sara. She almost sighed aloud with relief and shame. "I was afraid you hated me. You were laughing somewhere, enjoying my humiliation."

Sara tossed her purse onto the chair with Laura's. She grinned. "I'd kiss you again to make you feel better, but we already went through all that wet, sloppy stuff back at the office," she said. "Why don't you make me a cup of tea and get it through your head that I'm not the kind of person who lies. Cuckoo brain."

Laura swallowed and smiled nervously, feeling like a fool. "I would've died if you didn't come."

Sara gave her a crosseyed moue. "Oh, they all say that."

Laura smiled and tried not to wince inwardly. She could not help taking this both as a joke and as a reference to Evangelina Torres, although a moment's reflection made her realize that Sara didn't know she knew about Evangelina. To steady her nerves, she busied herself in the kitchen, making tea, putting shortbread cookies on a plate. They sat at her small dining table.

I can't act like I want to make love to her, Laura told herself. I do, but I can't act like it. I have to act like sex has nothing to do with it. And really, it doesn't. If she said she still loved me, I wouldn't care if we had sex or not. My heart would be so full I might just be too inert to get up anyway.

Still, Laura's curiosity was killing her. She was dying to ask Sara why she had agreed to come here, even suggested it. Should I ask her now... or later, after whatever... is going to happen has happened?

"Do you think we can still be friends?" she said softly, tentatively, to Sara, before even considering what she was saying. You couldn't pre-plan every utterance.

Sara smiled warmly. "I don't think we'd be sitting here like this if we weren't."

"I thought you would never speak to me again."

Sara sipped her tea and looked out the window. "I thought about it."

"What made you change your mind?"

Sara looked mysterious. She stirred her tea and ate a small cookie. Laura watched her mouth moving, her thick, sensual lips closing over the cookie, her pink tongue snaking around it. The whole thing was a deliciously sexy action to her.

"Shit happens," Sara said, with crumbs on her chin, her eyes opaque and serious. "Isn't that what they say nowadays?" She saw Laura looking and brushed away the crumbs with the fingers of one hand. She shot a stare directly at Laura, a deep stare, deep into Laura's eyes. "I... have feelings too, you know."

Laura did not dare ask what her feelings might be. Maybe they were better left unspoken for a while. Instead, she ran one hand across the table and drew curlicues on the back of Sara's hand with one finger.

"If you say you love me again, I'm going to scratch your eyes out," Sara said, with a straight face.

"I can't wait," Laura breathed. "I love you again."

They both broke into uncontrollable laughter. Sara choked a little on her cookie, and Laura had to get up and go around the table to thump her on the back.

"You okay?" She leaned close. "You okay? Sara?"

Sara stopped coughing and looked up, her eyes watering. She nodded but still seemed unable to speak. However, Laura's face was so close to hers that she could not keep herself from covering Sara's mouth with hers and kissing her ravenously, much more heatedly than she had done in the dentist's office. She kissed her hungrily, tasting the cookie crumbs on her tongue, drinking Sara's mouth, and quickly thrilling as Sara started to kiss her back, having recovered from her brief choking fit.