Chapter 15

Sabra rolled out of Mick's bed a couple of hours later. She thought it important they didn't get caught by the others in the band. She helped herself to one last kiss before scooting out the door and back to her own bed.

She was feeling sweet and tired - that strange contradiction of feelings that'd marked her illicit escapades before fetching up with Mick. Her mind was energised, but her limbs hung limp with fatigue. She knew she wouldn't sleep, now, so she fetched up on the back balcony and just stared out at the hills.

In truth, she viewed the future with apprehension. Until now, she'd felt superior that her husband had compromised their marriage whereas she hadn't. Now, she didn't even have that moral position to fall back on.

Mick churned her insides in a way no-one had achieved since their tempestuous relationship finished. Certainly not her arsehole of a husband. Why was she drawn to such men, she wondered? Always those with talent, the looks and the charisma. With that recipe, she mused, why wouldn't she feel attracted?

Mick had shorn off her years as surely as she'd abandoned her common sense. She'd felt like a teenager, giddy with her first true love experience. Impatiently, she looked at her watch and found the time was only 8.30. She had at least a couple of hours before she had to organise some lunch for the band. She closed her eyes and tried to doze.

Mick woke to the smell of blueberry pancakes and fresh coffee. The bed was in a mess with evidence of sexual activity all about. He staggered out in his boxers to the dining room, grabbed a mug of coffee, before going outside for a cigarette. Standing on the balcony, Sabra appeared beside him.

"What have we done, Mick?" she asked.

"You don't know?" he replied, smiling.

"Don't... don't do that. You always have some smartarse comment to make. I think it's your way of avoiding the truth."

"Ok, Sabra," he shrugged, "we had some great sex." Mick looked around in case anyone else was within earshot, but they were alone. "I've loved you ever since you quit on me. I also love Michelle, even though she prefers Anna. I even love Anna in a way, although she's a dyke. Beyond that, I don't have any answers."

"Ok," she turned around and leaned back against the rail. "We're wired differently, you and I. Guys love to mate, whereas we women mate to love. I think it's always been the sex that was important to you. As much as I love screwing you, it was always your heart that intrigued me. I don't think I ever had that completely, Mick, try as I might. You can be very tender and caring, but the grind of a relationship has always been a little more than you can manage."

"You think?"

"My sense, Mick, and that's not going to satisfy me. I always needed your full attention and the lifestyle always came first for you. I guess I'm saying that it's never going to work so long as The Curse is there to divert you."

"Assuming I ever want to get together with you again, of course."

"Oh, Mick, you're such a bullshit artist!" she laughed, "you hold a candle for twenty years and you're saying the thought hadn't crossed your mind?"

"I really thought I'd flushed you out of my system," Mick told her. "When you suddenly appeared that day up at the University..."

"Ah, yes, you were tongue tied," she laughed.

"And how!" he agreed, "I can't tell you what a shock that was. It was as if my brain was stood up on its side and all these thoughts shaken loose from their positions. You create disorder out of order and order out of disorder. I've heard your voice for twenty years... right here in my mind. You've tortured me all these years just by not being there. Now you shuck yourself back into my life and you're going to leave it again? What, take off in the middle of the night without a note?"

"Whew, Mick, first you need to forgive me. You want we should troll through the slights and disputes that were never resolved? Face it, Mick, we both fucked up and I had to do what I had to do. But," she turned towards him, "it was never without cost, Mick, never! You need to remember how much I suffered from that decision. You were... and are, the love of my life and I can't see that changing. But how do we stop from burning each other out? I could never figure it."

"Age, I guess," he shrugged.

"Age? You think that makes us smarter?" she laughed, "what did we just do last night?"

"Um... yeah," Mick grinned.

They all ate breakfast on the patio out back. Mick thought Michelle was scrutinising him and Sabra because he'd caught her eyes flicking between them. Perhaps it was no more than his paranoia, he thought?

Karen grinned at her mother strangely and Mick sensed Sabra growing uncomfortable. There was some little interplay going on and there was likely only one cause.

"Is something going on between you two?" asked Michelle, taking the bull by the horns. Beside her, Anna looked puzzled and Karen could barely restrain herself from laughing out loud.

"What?" Mick asked.

"Oh, fucking guilt all over your face!" Michelle continued.

"Guilt? What are you on about?"

"Sabra?" Karen asked, still grinning.

"I fucking knew it!" Michelle burst out.

"Knew what? What's happening?" Anna asked.

"They're sleeping together," Michelle declared, "Sabra and Mick."

"They are?" Anna raised her eyebrows, "how nice!"

"No it's not," Michelle said, "Mick? You owe me an explanation."

"I do? Since when?"

"Oh, like, since we had a child together? Like since all those soppy things you said to me? Like, when you said we hadn't split, but..."

"Michelle?" Sabra interrupted, "don't you think that's just a teeny bit fucking outrageous? You and Anna have been getting it on ever since you arrived and you have the cheek to criticise Mick?"

"Hey! I'm not talking to you!" Michelle raged, "Mick told me all about you. He said..."

"Well, I'm talking to you, sweetheart," Sabra replied. "You had the chance and Mick's been more than understanding. I know that man at least as well as you," she continued as Michelle's fair features darkened, "and if I'd been sleeping with someone else, not more than ten feet away, while that man waited, I'd..."

"Excuse me, but you don't understand..."

"Well, just tell me what I don't understand, Michelle? You think the fact Anna is a girl doesn't matter? You think that doesn't hurt as much? What fucking planet are you on, sister?"

"Tell her, Mick!" Michelle insisted.

"Tell her what, Michelle? Just what the fuck are we, cos I've never been able to figure it out?"

"There you go, sex again!" Michelle sat back, as if in satisfaction.

"So when did sex become unimportant in a relationship, Michelle?" Sabra asked, "and when does fidelity enter the equation?"

"He wants to own her!" declared Anna, "you cannot own another person!"

"When the fuck did I want to own you, Michelle? Have I tried to impose my will on you?"

"You want a traditional wife," Michelle told him, "I'm sorry I can't give you that."

"So what the fuck are you if you're not a wife to Anna? You can't marry Mick because you're already married. It's as plain as the nose on your face," Sabra said.

"I'm not married to Michelle!" Anna said, outraged, "we are partners, no more!"

"Oh, pull the other one," Sabra told her, "wake up and smell the coffee. You're a dyke and you're living with your girlfriend. I don't care what you are but don't try and bullshit me like you bullshit all the others. I deal with all kinds of stars and most of them a crazy. Listen, the world doesn't give a fuck. Your hangups are your own."

"Mich? What is she saying?"

"Anna, your English seems pretty good to me. Get out of the closet, declare your sexuality and let everyone else get on with their lives. Really, no-one on either side of the Pacific is going to care."

Anna looked shocked and Michelle took up the slack. "We don't have to do that," she declared, "whose business is it?"

"No-one's," Sabra told her, "except those close to you, love you, and can't understand why you lie to them. Maybe you can't be honest with yourself? But that dishonesty is hurting people, Michelle, and creating disruption within the band."

"I am normal," Anna said, as if in a dream.

"No-one said you weren't," Sabra assured her, "but tell me? Why would you suggest sleeping with Mick? You attracted to him?"

"Sure!" she shrugged, "he's a nice man."

"I know he is. The world is populated by nice men. Tell me, you ever slept with a man?"

"I want Mick to be the first."

"Ah! So Michelle is the only lover you've had?" she nodded, uncertainly, "and here she was, going off with a man. You must've felt like shit!"

Mick braced himself. Sabra should have been a psychologist. In fact, she could well have done the training, for all he knew.

"I wanted her to be happy," Anna, nearly in tears, explained, "at first, I thought Mick wouldn't stay. Mich, she had other boyfriends but none of them lasted."

"Uh huh," Sabra grinned, "I'm not surprised."

"Mick was different," Anna continued, "and Michelle was in love with him, I could tell."

"So you couldn't bring yourself to face down this rival because that would be like admitting you're a lesbian? But maybe you had another solution - one in which you could keep your girlfriend and not break her heart by having her give up Mick? One, in which you were prepared to sacrifice yourself for the sake of love?"

"By going two on one?" Mick said.

"What's the harm?" Anna asked, "it is only a little sex! Mick could give me a baby like he did Michelle. It is a good solution!"

"For you two, maybe?" Mick said.

"I've never known Mick to turn down two babes before," Sabra smiled. Beside her, Mick choked on his coffee, "but it's not only about 'a little sex'. Mick used to have 'a little sex' during our relationship and it didn't matter to him at all. But he loved me and, sometimes, he even showed it - not through 'a little sex' but through love. Anna, Mick can fuck you but you can't compel him to love you. Michelle, Mick loves you but he can't stand the dishonesty. If I'm leaving anything out, Mick, please say so?"

"No, ah, you're doing fine!"

"You want to be in a relationship with him, Michelle? A monogamous one?"

"I can't, I..."

"I'd say that's your answer, Mick. Do you want a father for Emily, Michelle?"

"Sure, I'd never..."

"There! Easy to work out!" she twinkled her eyes.

"If you say so?"

Michelle glared at Sabra and Mick for a little while before getting up and storming out. Anna looked confused before following her. Karen squirmed in discomfort and Sabra shrugged.

"I don't think that's fair!" declared Karen.

"I think we upset the applecart, Mick," Sabra said.

"Never could get my head around women," Mick sighed.

"Not sure I get those two either," Sabra replied.

"You really think no-one cares? I thought with the moral climate, here..."

"Oh, there might be some howling from the usual suspects - religious groups and so on. But they're not likely to come to the concerts anyway. It'll make even less difference back home, providing you don't turn it into a crusade for gay rights. Folks'll think you're grandstanding and gays'll think you're exploiting them. Let Anna bang on about their 'special love' and leave it at that."

"The gossip mags'll start to tear into us!"