Chapter 8

Date: 2015-10-07; view: 532.

Andi had been keeping quiet and letting her talk but when Gill paused for breath, she quickly interrupted.

“Girl you are making me dizzy pacing back and forth like that. How about you grab us another beer then come park your butt before you wear a hole in the floor?”

This attempt at levity had the desired effect of dissolving some of the tension coiled in Gill's small frame and she visibly relaxed as she popped off the bottle tops and handed Andi another cold one, before settling herself back against the cushions and taking a long swig.

“Ahhh, damn that is good! So there we were,” she continued, “new town, new job, new friends and for a while things were pretty good. Several times I thought about finishing up high school but Rick always had reasons why it wasn't feasible right then. I mean he never actually forbade it as such, but he always managed to convince me to put it off to a later date. He kept me on a pretty tight rein those first ten years or so. In the beginning I didn‘t actually mind much, he seemed so mature and smart and I felt I needed him to tell me what to wear and how to act when we went out socially. Most of the time it was with people older even than him, so I was way out of my depth and I guess I saw his attention to every little detail of my life as caring about me.”

Gill paused and looked cautiously at Andi, as if expecting to see disgust or annoyance displayed across her features, but Andi gave her a sympathetic smile and reaching across the space between them, she smoothed the lines on Gill's brow.

“Don't look so worried, hon, it's only natural you would think like that. I'm guessing that he didn't encourage you to keep regular contact with your family back home either. Am I right?”

Gill nodded her assent. “Spot on, he liked me to be available for him and him only. Rick could throw a tantrum better than any two year old if he thought I was letting anyone else come before him. As I got older and began making some friends in the neighborhood, they didn't understand why I got so anxious about anyone dropping in for a visit close to dinnertime. Truly it wasn't worth the consequences and the days of walking on eggshells afterwards, wondering when he would stop being cold and snappy with me. But I was also beginning to look at the way my friends and their partners interacted and realize that the way Rick behaved was not the norm. I saw that these women had independent lives away from their marriages that their husbands actively encouraged.”

Gill raised her beer bottle to her lips and expressed surprise that it was empty.

“Shit!” She shot a devilish grin at Andi. “Boy that disappeared fast, must be all the talking I'm doing. Wanna go another?” Her normal good humor was returning and Andi couldn't help enjoying that smile, so quickly chugging the last of her beer, she proffered the empty and took the refill offered without protest.

Andi sighed and stretched her arms above her head. Finally it seemed she too could relax after a week of unhappiness. Not that she intended to let this get anyways out of hand, but the story unfolding was intriguing. Her original concern that Gill was a straight girl playing games was dissolving with each new revelation. And she was pleasantly buzzed from the beer, so what harm could there be in sliding her arm along the back of the sofa so, when Gill sat down again, it was perfectly placed to stroke the back of her neck and shoulders? No harm at all except for the little jump of fire in her belly that radiated throughout her body at the feel of Gill's warm, soft skin under her fingers. Andi swallowed hard in an effort to distract herself from the unnerving sensations and prodded Gill verbally to continue her story.

“So you started your own little rebellion then? I mean, you must have because here you are, as free and independent as they come. So tell me what happened that put such a bomb under you,” she teased.

Gill chuckled out loud at this turn of phrase. “Not a what but a WHO! Sarah Jane Wyatt is who. I used to read a lot and she was the new librarian one summer. The word was she had recently moved to the area from L.A., single and very cute. And very, very gay and not at all afraid of flaunting it. Oh God, that feels good, don't stop!”

Gill's storytelling was momentarily silenced as Andi's hand rubbed the nape of her neck and shoulders and she shuddered noticeably, before resuming with a slightly huskier tone to her voice.

“Sarah Jane! What can I say about that woman other than she knew what she wanted - and what she wanted was me. Lord knows why, or what she saw that indicated I would be receptive, but see it she did.”

Gill paused and took another long pull on her beer, using the moment to twist her body sideways, indicating that Andi should use both hands to massage the tense muscles in her shoulders. It was, she acknowledged to herself, getting harder and harder to keep her place in the story. The feelings Andi's hands were stirring up had turned the blood in her body to something approximating warm maple syrup, as well as having a delicious effect on certain other parts of her anatomy.

“In the end, it was pretty simple actually. She pursued, I retreated, she pursued some more, I stood there blinking like a deer caught in the headlights, she pounced - and I don't recall struggling at all. It was as if all those years as a wife and straight woman just peeled away, like a dress-up costume, the moment her lips closed on mine.”

Andi's hands were now roaming down the length of Gill's arms and back to her shoulders. There was a distant part of her brain trying to penetrate the heat haze enveloping her body, screaming something about this not being a good idea. But it never had a snowball's chance in Hades as Andi grinned to herself and leaned forward, her lips almost brushing Gill's ear.

“So, she woke you up, little one. Tell me about it, was it good, your first time?” She almost growled the words and had the instant satisfaction of hearing Gill groan as she leant her body back into Andi's and quivered from the recollection.

“Ahhh, yeah, it was so good”. Gill replied. “She took me in her apartment one sunny afternoon with the windows open and the sounds of everyday life drifting in though the curtains. I may have been a late-bloomer but you better believe I was a fast learner. It felt so good, so natural and right.”

Twisting around in Andi's arms, so they now faced each other, Gill smiled and continued.

“Suddenly I knew what had been missing all those years. It felt just like coming home but there was pain too. Subconsciously I had made myself forget Kendall but now the floodgates were opened and I was forced to deal with all the memories, including the sense of loss and hurt I had felt at her actions. Hardest of all, I had to face the fact that my marriage had been a sham. That there had been no real love for Rick, just thankfulness for the escape route he had provided.”

Reaching out Andi wiped away the suspicion of a tear from the corner of Gill's eye, before pulling her into a gentle embrace and whispering softly, “But I can see you've come a long way since then and I'm sending up a prayer of thanksgiving to Sarah Jane Wyatt, wherever she is!”

Her lips were dropping soft kisses over Gill's neck and cheeks; she was breathing in the clean, warm smell of her skin and she could feel her own heartbeat pounding in her ears. Caution and reason, hallmarks of the life she had lead the past four years had been cast aside and it didn't feel scary at all, Andi thought wonderingly. She slid a finger under Gill's chin and tilted her face up. Blue eyes met brown and recognition of their mutual want and need was silently acknowledged before their lips met, gently at first, then more urgently as they surrendered equally to those twin passions.

Soft kisses, hard kisses, gentle tasting and urgent taking, joyful giving and grateful receiving. Andi was unable to remember when something in her life had ever felt as good as this but somehow she was managed to subdue her innate need to control the situation completely determined to let Gill set the pace of their lovemaking. Because that was certainly what this initial collision of lips and tongues and feverished stroking over clothed bodies, would become. Eventually they would end up transferring from the confined space of the couch to the relative luxury of the bedroom but she wanted this to be something they both desired equally. Her line of thought was interrupted by Gill placing a hand on either side of her face and pushing back slightly, a maneuver designed to separate two pairs of lips that were in danger of becoming fused.

“Andi, babe.” Her breath was coming in gasps and Andi couldn't help leaning in and stealing another kiss from those trembling lips as they struggled to form the words.

“Hey, don't cheat, unfair” Gill exclaimed breathlessly. “Listen there really is one more thing you need to know before we, well, you know, before things go too much further here. Ah!!!”

Gill groaned as two hands slipped around her butt, one from each side, and pulled her even more tightly against Andi's body which was now stretched the length of the couch. She wriggled futilely for a moment, and then stopped when she realized from the satisfied smirk her struggles were invoking, that Andi liked that way too much. Panting, she lay quietly, enjoying her entrapment, before trying one last time.

“Look, it's not that I don't want you. Hell, I've wanted you since before you even knew I existed! But I feel there is one more thing I should tell you…” Yet again her remonstrations were cut short by a finger laid softly against her lips.

“Hon, you have said more than enough for the moment, we have a long time ahead of us to catch up on life stories. Heaven knows I have a few confessions of my own.” Andi smiled and tried to look coy, not succeeding for a second. “Right now, I definitely have a few better ideas about how to spend the rest of this evening, but they don't include the spring that is poking into my lower back. So if you wouldn't mind taking me into your bedroom, I could no doubt expand on my plans more coherently in a soft bed.”

Andi struggled to a sitting position, then up to her feet, pulling Gill with her into an embrace that started at the couch and ended up with the pair of them tumbling across Gill's bed.

Several hours went by in what mysteriously seemed like a much shorter time interval to the bemused Gill, as she lay, wrapped in Andi's arms, sleepily eyeing the bedside clock. Her body felt heavy and sated. Her partner had proved to be a considerate and thorough lover, both on the giving and receiving side of things, but the need for total honesty was still giving Gill little pinpricks of conscience. Maybe it would be easier to disclose her secret here, with the darkness leavened only by the faint light coming from under the bathroom door.

“Hon,” she whispered. “It's only fair that you should know this one thing about me because it's really important.”

She had been talking for several minutes before she realized, partly from the lack of response and mostly from the loud snoring just above her right ear, that Andi was fast asleep and wouldn't have heard a word. Sighing, Gill gave up the task and let herself sink slowly into slumber, relishing the warm soft body wrapped around hers and sending up her own silent prayer of thanks to Sarah Jane. Her last coherent thought was that there was really no need to worry, she'd tell Andi about Jason some other time.