Rowena Raven: Chapter Eleven

I always go out for lunch or dinner on Sundays, they’re my second personal day of the week. On that Sunday, Rowena came with me. Well, I was going to meet with her at my usual place. The anticipation was very hard to handle, but I can at least say that because of it I was very well prepared. Neat, and casual like we had agreed on. The concept of meeting Rowena casually after this long was elusive at best.
At least she appeared to be some fraction of as nervous as I was. I’d only known her to be very rarely nervous. The occasion was saved for when she was giving birth, or about to jump off a bridge. Not when she went to work somewhere normal for the first time, barely even when she’d woken up somewhere strange.
But when we were eating lunch there was just something about the way she held her fork, or how she kept touching her hair, like she was scared of what I thought of her. I’ve never been good at hiding my emotions around her, and I found that I kept trying to remember what kissing her felt like, trying to remember the precise feel of her body.

“So, what happened to Renewing Springs Inn?” She asked, smiling a bit because it was clear she could guess that it wasn’t exactly a successful venture.
“Ah, well, I guess we didn’t make enough money for the state to be happy with us. Not like it was any trouble for me, of course.”
“No trouble at all? Where are you working now?”
“Well, I’m a doctor of course!” I half joked. “Just a regular old doctor.”
“No brain surgery? I expected more of you, Vanilla.” Nobody called me Vanilla anymore.
“Well, I don’t want to brag about my extensive knowledge of the human body.” I winked at her, and she laughed.
“I forgot your humor.” She said, smiling and casting her eyes down.
“I like your hair longer like that.” I said, “It makes you look your age.”
“Ha,” She said, “I doubt I could ever look my age again with a seven year old.” She waved my compliment away.
“How is he, anyway?” I asked, “Velvet, I mean. How’s he doing?” I was trying to hide my intense curiosity but I don’t know how well I came off.
“He’s good.” She said, sullenly. “Smog had him for a bit before I got him back.” She explained. “Smog’s got no filters for children, so he was definitely around some things he shouldn’t have been around that young, even though he doesn’t appear to remember them.” She smiled at something.
“But that’s depressing,” She continued instead, “How’s Daisy?”
“Oh, yeah. Daisy’s good. She’s got herself a girlfriend.” I smiled and waved my hand as if to say, ‘that’s Daisy for you.’
“Didn’t think she had it in her.” She paused. “I’m happy for her, she always seemed to have trouble with those sorts of things.” And she really was. Rowena had never told me she’d made up with Daisy, I was still under the impression Rowena hated her for whatever reason. To anyone else, the pieces would have seemed to all be falling right into place.
I mean, meeting the girl you love and just can’t get over, after seven years, and she’s still single, and you’ve both got steady jobs and stable lives, and she even likes your family. It’s just never that simple,  never even for me. And especially not for Rowena, no matter how much she deserves it.
“So does Velvet ever give you any trouble?” I inquired.
“Not really,” she laughed. “I mean typical seven year old boy stuff. Never wants to take a bath. He goes to bed easy, though. You can just tell him to lay down and he’ll be out like a light in two seconds, no matter where he is. I swear the boy could sleep in the middle of a nuclear war.” She laughed, talking about him. It was just lovely how she cared for him, and I felt some sort of pride for it, and not just to be vain because I knew the relationship wouldn’t be there if I had never been involved with her.
However, maybe things would have been better between us if I could have just stayed away and been a normal therapist.

“So what about you, Vanilla? Guy like you with no girlfriend? I mean, you’re a doctor after all. You should be married with children and a white picket fence.”
“Ha, that’d be something.” I laughed. I wanted to tell her how strained life was without her, but it just wasn’t the thing to do. “No, though. Just not interested.” I wrinkled my nose at it.
“So no dating for you then?” she continued. She almost seemed sad. What did she think this was?
“Oh no, no dating for me.” I stopped, shaking my head. “There’s only one girl I want to date.”
She smiled and played along. “Oh? What’s she like? Funny like you?”
“Oh yeah,” I said, “Great sense of humor.” I smiled. “Very brave. She’s beautiful, too. I mean, shiny black hair, smooth skin.” I bit my lip. “I mean, I can barely even resist her red eyes. They just look right through me.” I put a hand on my chest to accentuate how heartfelt my speech was. She smiled and leaned in closer.
“I’ll let you in on a secret,” She almost whispered, I leaned towards her to hear better. “I think she might want you too.” She bit her lip and the edge of her hand passed against mine.
I was frozen in my seat, so I ate some of my food to try and keep it in my pants. God, she was something else.

~o~

She stood beside my bed, illuminated from behind by strains of early sunlight. She’d come home with me after our date and stayed late chatting, had ended up asleep in the guest room. Apparently that wasn’t going so well.
“Vanilla.” She urged me awake with my name, and I propped myself up on my elbow to get a better look at her. She was in her panties, and nothing else. She reached her arms up above her head and arched her back slightly, stretching and simultaneously putting her body on display.

Utterly unabashed to be mostly naked, she smiled coyly at me and asked “Can I get in with you?”

What else could I have done but let her? She got on the bed with me and pushed my chest back to drape herself over me. Our lips and our legs tangled and finally we lay together and I slept comfortably for the first time in a long time.

   ~o~

Voodoo became my best friend after going back to living like a normal person. There was one particular afternoon during one of the court meetings it took to get Velvet back, that I decided I was going to treat myself to something at a bakery. In a town an hour away. I left court and thought to myself that I just needed to leave for an afternoon, and when I finally arrived in Sugar Valley, the first place I found that sold food was a little supermarket with a particularly nice little bakery in one of the little corners.
Working the counter was a woman with vibrant purple hair, paler purple skin, and striking blue eyes. She struck me as a very independent woman, and asked to eat with me as I’d come in just before her lunch break. We had a very nice chat, and seemed to just click. She was very independent, as I had originally thought.
We agreed to meet up again, and because she had more money than I did, she usually ended up visiting me in Briocheport. We talked about a lot of things, her infertility, my child, our past relationships. She talked a lot about her family, and I talked a lot about Vanilla.

She appeared to like him enough from what I described, however much it was tinted by my rose glasses. After two years, I got Velvet back and realized that I needed to move into a larger apartment.
Being from an influential family, Voodoo agreed to accommodate me for a bit. She lived in a large apartment her family owned, and she was happy to accept me as a roommate, rent free. It was a better setup than I could have ever dreamed of.
There was once when I came to see her at the supermarket, and met up with her just as she was leaving the lady’s room. We chatted for a bit, Velvet standing beside us, when I heard someone off to my right drop what they were holding. And there he stood, glowing golden and beautiful.

“Voodoo, fuck. That’s him!” I managed to get out while he bent over to pick up what he’d dropped.
“Who is it?” She said, and then thought “Wait, THAT’S Vanilla? He’s a regular, but we all know him as Lemon. Dang, Rowena. Way to pick your men out.”

I laughed in disbelief and stood there for a minute to process.
“How long has he been a regular for?”
“Every week for the past, six? years I think.” She continued, leaning in. “He’s got money, Rowena. Looks like he remembers you, too. You should go after him.” She said, and I don’t know if she realized how influential she was being. She was half joking, but this seemed like some god given sign that Vanilla was my destiny, no matter how cheesy it was.
I smiled at her and said “I think I will.” and she gave me a thumbs up, so I took Velvet’s hand and left to walk after him.

~o~

Velvet learned very early on not to ask me questions about his absent father.
However, when I started dating Vanilla he seemed to get much more hopeful about it.

“Do you think I’ll ever get baby siblings?” He asked once, after I picked him up from school. “Auntie Voodoo says you and Vanilla are gonna get married. And then you’ll have babies with him, right?” He was completely serious, and I couldn't help but laugh.
Stifling it, I walked on. “How would you feel about that?” I asked him. “Do you like Vanilla?”
“Why are you asking me?” He said, crinkling up his nose. “It’s you who’s marrying him.”
“Well,” I explained. “You’re the number one man in my life, Velvet. I would never get married without asking you if you liked him first. Your happiness is very important to me.” I smiled at him and he frowned.

“Well of course you should marry him, mom. He takes us out for ice cream like, every week.” My eight year old boy, marriage was a matter of ice cream for him.

 ~o~

“You know,” I brought up one night, over dinner with Vanilla at my apartment while Velvet was looking for his shoes in his bedroom. Vanilla was taking us out for ice cream. “I think Velvet likes you a lot.”
“Really?” he inquired, raising an eyebrow.
“Yeah, he told me I should marry you because you take us out for ice cream all the time.” We laughed together, and when we calmed down he said.
“He’s catching on to my seduction techniques. Boy’s gonna be a ladykiller.”
                           
                              

  ~o~

Daisy and her girl, Zig had a very small private wedding. It was in a little park not that far from the beach and there were tons of flowers.

The only guests were Vanilla and I, and two more guys, who I assumed were Ziggurat’s friends. It was quiet and pleasant and sat in the park and grilled food together instead of  having a “real party.” Zig told me she would have preferred a party but this was the way Daisy wanted it.

They were very sweet together.

Vanilla and I certainly enjoyed ourselves, laughing and talking loudly and drinking with everyone. Vanilla made sure not to let me drink too much.  In my buzzed state I expressed to him what my plans were upon going home with him, because I had already made sure Voodoo had Velvet for the night. He made sure to rush through his meal after that.

Afterwards we ended up sitting in the chairs in front of the fireplace in his room, warming up. I looked over at him and brushed my hand up his arm. I tried to imagine a future without him, and it was impossible.

“Vanilla,” I said, worried. He looked slightly confused at my tone. “I can’t ever leave you. Never again. I just wanted you to know that.”
“I love you.” He replied.
So I said “I love you too.” and then thought for a moment, bit my lip. “I want to marry you.”
He smiled at me, and the moment was perfect.

  ~o~

A week later I was doing our laundry at his house, since I could use his washer and dryer for free. Velvet was watching TV in the living room, and I was sorting through everyone’s socks. There was a pile for me, one for Vanilla and one for Velvet. There was a match for every one of them except for one of Vanilla’s. He was out in the kitchen fixing lunch, so I got up to look through his sock drawer to see if I put the missing sock in there as a single the last time I did the laundry.
I was searching through his drawer when I saw a little velvety box. Obviously curious and with my own assumptions, I reached in and picked it up, forgetting about the sock I was looking for. I looked inside and my suspicions were confirmed, a golden ring with a big yellow stone set in it.
“Shit.” I breathed, and I had half a heart to stick it back in the drawer and forget about it until Vanilla brought it up. But the other half was way more persuasive. I stuck the box in my pocket and left Vanilla’s room to go out into the kitchen. As I walked in he heard me, and turned away from the salad he was preparing.
“Hey,” He said.

“Hey, Vanilla?” I asked, with a sly smile I began to get down on my knee. He leaned forward, intrigued and touched my shoulder.
“What are you doing?” he asked, somewhat panicked. I pulled the box from my pocket and he took a surprised step backwards.

“Vanilla, I’ve known from the first day I met you that-” I heard the television mute when Vanilla panicked and went,
“Oh, what the hell Rowena? How did you find it?” I laughed and stood back up, handing him the little box.
“I was sorting the socks, and I found one that didn’t have a partner, so I went looking.”
“Shoot, I had nice reservations and everything.” He laughed nervously, running one of his hands through his hair. “So I guess now that you know my plans, anyway..” he continued, holding the box out towards me. I swear my heart stopped for a moment, which was silly because it had been obvious what was going on for the past five minutes and this was the first time I was taking it seriously.
“Yeah, Vanilla. Of course.” I said, taking the box from him gently, and surprising him with a soft kiss. I heard the TV go off of mute, but not before Velvet scoffed and said “Finally!”

~o~

Vanilla and I had taken Velvet to the park, and Vanilla sat down to take a break from playing catch with Velvet. He told Velvet to go play with the other kids, so he could take a break. Velvet didn’t want to, but he did anyway. Velvet and Vanilla got along seamlessly. It was beautiful. Vanilla sat back on the bench with me, not even out of breath. He smiled and pushed some of my hair out of my face.
“I want to have a small wedding.” He said. “Just you, me, Daisy, and Velvet.”
“No Zig?” I asked.
“Maybe.” He supposed. He didn’t really like her that much, and she probably wouldn’t be offended.
“I don’t even think we know enough people to have a big one.” I said to him.
“I could deliberately make it a disaster and invite my family.” He joked and I replied “Right, yeah. Totally wise.”

~o~

Vanilla thought I was totally cool and calm about our impending marriage. The truth was I was too excited for my own skin. Voodoo knew this, and helped me out as often as possible. When I told her about his desire for our small wedding, she shrugged it off and said,
“Guess I’ll have to break out the binoculars then.”
She was constantly offering to buy me dresses, and I finally caved in. Since Vanilla and I had agreed on the small wedding soon afterward (and eventually included both Zig and Voodoo), I decided a small dress would be best as well. A simple light yellow dress with red accents. It hung in the hallway closet of Voodoo and my apartment.
At times I thought she was more excited about it than I was. I wasn’t really versed in the technicalities of a wedding, but she was always asking me things like what sort of a cake I wanted, because I had to have a cake, and always brought me home cupcakes from the bakery to sample. She told me she had all the food handled, even though I told her six people don’t even need that much food.
She disagreed, quite blatantly. She told me that everyone at my wedding was going to gain five pounds at the sight of the food alone.

~o~

We decided to set the wedding up in Vanilla’s backyard. Even though we told her we didn’t want it to be big, Voodoo played florist and caterer and she brought carpets and an arch to lay out. We did it later in the day and it turned out to be very beautiful.

The light dress turned out to have been the perfect choice. Vanilla looked delicious and later Daisy admitted to it being her doing.

Velvet was very excited and spent the entire evening being social and running about being generally excited.
“Don’t pee yourself, Velvet” Voodoo said to him at one point.
“Auntie Voodoo, if Vanilla was your dad you’d pee yourself in two seconds.”

Arguably, it was the most memorable exchange of the entire evening.

Everyone danced with everyone in our tiny group, at one time we had everyone in a big circle. Voodoo had picked out the perfect music. During our first dance together, Vanilla leaned in and whispered in my ear.
“I have a surprise for you afterwards.” I smiled and winked at him and whispered back, “Me too.”

And at the end of the night everyone made innuendo jokes about leaving us to do what newlyweds do, and Velvet smiled obliviously and I hugged him and told him I’d see him at the end of the week.

Voodoo had agreed to look after him, because Vanilla and I had both racked up tons of vacation time and Vanilla had ridiculous amounts of money to spend on a vacation. He was taking us to Egypt, and we were going to spend time at private beaches and probably visit some pyramids.
“Ready for your surprise?” I asked him, once everyone had left, kissing him chastely on the neck.
“Mine first,” he insisted, and took my hand to lead me back into the house. He led me up the stairs to the second floor, and I thought about how the only time I had been up there was to go to the guest room and to use one of the bathrooms.

He led me down the hallway to the right, where I had never been and opened one of the doors, sweeping his arm in a 'Voila' sort of motion.
I stepped inside and was met with a nursery, done up in rich reds and yellows.
“Oh my gosh, Vanilla.” There were two cribs, ‘just in case,’ he explained.  There was a bookshelf and a big cushy chair. There were so many toys. It was hard to contain my emotions. I hugged Vanilla tightly and he rubbed his hands over my back.
“This is so beautiful.” I told him

“Only the best for our family.” He told me, and went to go show me another room. This one was a bedroom, clearly done up just for Velvet.
“He’s going to love it.” I said, smiling enormously.
I led him back downstairs, and we were both barely able to keep our hands to ourselves, I left him sitting on the edge of his bed and went into the bathroom to prepare my surprise. While in there, getting out of my dress and fixing up my makeup, I thought of how my surprise could not possibly ever match up to his.
When I was done I stood in the doorway, my hair had been taken down and I was wearing some tiny lacy thing Voodoo had bought me, and god knows how she’d found out my size.

Vanilla had taken off his suit jacket and his bowtie. He was in the process of removing his shoes when he looked up at me and was caught in the middle of his movement.
I walked forward to stand directly in front of him and played with a bit of the fabric on my hip.
“Do you like it?” I asked him.
“Do I like it?” He scoffed, and put his hands on my hips, bringing me down onto the bed with him and kicking his other shoe off in the process.

We pulled away from each other and I rested my head on his chest. We sat there peacefully for a series of moments until he finally quietly spoke.
“I think I’m still finding new tattoos.” He said, bemused.

 ~o~

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Rowena Raven: Chapter Ten

       Four PM, I wake up, Jog till five. Eat breakfast. Leftovers, probably. Something Daisy has made and left in my fridge, or something I brought home from a restaurant if it’s Monday.

Five thirty PM, I shower. At six I walk to the hospital where I work and have time to spare, because it’s closer now that I’ve moved to Sugar Valley.
It took less than a year after she left for my mental practice to go under, if only because I was just barely qualified to run it.
I keep track of our lost time by silently celebrating Velvet’s birthdays.

I feel some sort of male responsibility to care about him, because she was my responsibility nearly the entire time she was pregnant.
Six of them have gone by, now. In two months, It’ll be seven.
Nearly seven years since the last time I’ve seen her. I’ve managed to keep myself from checking up on her records to see if she’s gotten Velvet back, but I’m pretty confident. It’s taken all of my self control not to keep track of every little thing the state knows about her, even though I easily have the power.

When I get home at four in the morning, I check my email and eat something. There’s no time for dating. Daisy’s work has been kinder to her, but she’s not a surgeon.
Saturdays are my grocery days. I like Saturdays. There is something totally Zen about having all the money I could possibly need to buy gourmet cheese puffs, or organic cheese whiz.
                                                            ~o~

I woke up on Saturday “morning” with a sort of spring in my step. It felt like my life was wasting away, one week of work at a time, fifty two weeks of work in a year, and I don’t even think about leap days. I did get vacation time, but where would I possibly spend it? I could just see it now, sitting on the shores of some sandy beach in egypt, drink in hand. There’s an empty seat beside me, a table between us and on that table is another drink. There’s supposed to be someone there, but she’s missing. I know who she is, but I’ve forbidden her name to myself.
Names hold certain power, right? If she hasn’t got a name, she doesn’t exist and I can’t be sad about never seeing her again. User not found.
So I’ll still punish myself for thinking about her as my hands hover over this one container of jam, when I put juice into my basket and wonder what sort of juice Velvet drinks.

Does she make him breakfast in the morning? How many snacks does he get to eat? Does he pack a lunch, or does he buy one at school?
Has she turned into the mother hers was?

I punish myself for thinking about the things she’s said of her mother, just to me. Our secrets. She was never home, and when she was it was like she wasn’t there anyway. She was concerned, but not motherly love concerned, more like concerned the way she treated her child might get her in trouble with the law. Thankful that through her fuck ups her child had learned to take care of herself.
My scorn for a mother like that did not even compete with my love for the woman who could have possibly turned out to be a mother like that.
The juice is heavy in my basket, so when I turn around and catch the shape of her nose and the glint of her hair, I drop it.

I pause for a moment, acknowledging my hallucination, and lean to pick up my juice. But when I cast another casual glance back up, she’s sighted me, and she’s still there. She’s speaking with someone. My hallucinations don’t interact with other people. If I was hallucinating this, I wouldn’t have included Velvet because god only knows what I’d do to the woman after missing her for this long.

She shakes her head a bit and turns back to the woman she was talking with. I pick my things up and put them into my basket, I leave to check out even though I’ve still got quite a few things to pick up here. Amazing how my reaction was completely different than I thought it would be if I ever saw her again. I’m still have convinced she’s a hallucination. Did I even pay for my groceries? I could still be standing there dumbstruck blind by the sight of her.

I’m sitting on the bench out front of the store when she walks out through the sliding doors. Velvet’s in front of her, and he’s the first to see me. She stands there for a moment, just looking at the road in front of the supermarket, or maybe the stores across the street. Velvet tugs on her hand and says to her, “Mommy, do we know him?” he points to me. “He seems familiar.”
Her gaze follows her childs’, and her eyes catch mine. We share a look and I am completely unsure of what it means. She doesn’t answer him, but she does make sure he follows her over when she comes to stand in front of me.
“Hey,” she says. She’s satan and I’m Jesus, starving in the desert. I imagine my throat catching, too dry to speak. Not nearly satiated enough with the human contact I’ve been getting lately to reply. So instead I just sit up a bit and say something intelligent.

“Rowena.” And, I could be wrong, but I think the word sets me free.


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                                     FORTH

Rowena Raven: Chapter Nine

“It feels uncomfortable.” I told Daisy, smoothing down the fabric covering my chest.

I had told her I needed to borrow some clothes to go to work in, and had apparently forgotten the way she dressed all the time. But I did need something appropriate to work in, and this was my last resort. It wasn’t like Vanilla’s clothes would fit me or anything.
“Yeah, I don’t wear it that much, so the fabric is probably itchy and stuff.”
“No, it just feels wrong.” I interjected, and she realized she’d completely missed my point.

“I mean, it’s just so yellow.” I made a face at myself, and she laughed a little bit. When I looked at her she stopped, and I felt bad.
“Listen, Daisy.” I started, “I don’t hate you. Loosen up a bit, okay?”

Earlier in the day when I’d come to confront her I’d almost spilled my heart out to her and told her everything and how I felt like such a cock to her and how sorry I was, but I just decided on acting like nothing had ever happened. I felt somehow that this was probably the wrong way to handle it, but I put that feeling behind me.
I was being honest, I didn’t hate her, but I couldn’t really understand why I pitied her instead.
I’ve never really gotten why everyone always thinks keeping your emotions to yourself is a male thing. Not telling anyone and just leaving it all in, hardening yourself while on the outside seeming mysterious and aloof. I’ve never had  much desire to go around complaining and whining about how bad my life has been and how hard it is to pick up the pieces. I just go on, and pick them up as best I can without telling anyone.
Hell, even with Vanilla I hardly ever strictly say “And it made me feel sad.” He’s just  good at deducing what I mean when I say “So I smoked a joint and walked home.”
So I’m sure he knew perfectly well what I meant with my silence when I went downstairs to eat lunch before I left for work. I didn’t start for two hours, but since I was a “special case,” I got all the info and the tour and I got to meet all the people before I put my time in.
Obviously, I was so looking forward to that. All I could imagine were a bunch of Pomegranate and Sea Melon type assholes walking all over. I shuddered in my stupid little yellow outfit.

  He laughed a bit when he saw me, and then apologized. “The kind of person you want to attract, eh?”
“And I’m totally going for “rich producer.” Don’t you know they like yellow dresses? I thought it was obvious.”

“Oh, certainly.” He said, very seriously.

I got up to put my dishes away, and happened to take a glance over my shoulder as I passed, and caught his lingering eyes. Honestly, it was very surprising to me, but then I realized that my eyes were lingering too, and I decided I didn't have anything to say about it.
                                                                            ~o~

“This has gotten very monotonous,” I said, sitting down in my chair the next morning.

He gave me a look, like “continue.”

“I mean it’s the same old song and dance every day, shit happens, I come in and recite it to you and we try to make sense of my feelings and all that, and then I leave.” While he considered it, I got daring.
“So I really don’t know what the fuck is up when all of a sudden a year later I look at you once, maybe when the room is particularly sunny, and I see your jawline, or maybe your eyelashes and I’m just like, ‘damn, what ever will I do without you for the rest of my life?’”
“Oh, Rowena,” He says, looking concerned and scooting forward. I get up and pace to his desk.

      “Fuck this, you know.” I say, exasperated. “You’ve turned me into a goddamned parasite. You know what’ll happen when I leave? Every day I’m going to wake up and I’m going to get all broken up about everything, I’m going to go ‘god, Vanilla should be here right now. I wish I could tell him what happened at work yesterday.’ And it’s gonna suck, because that’s not what I want my life to be like.”

He had been coming up behind me, I could feel his hands reaching out to me, their warmth. Men were always especially warm weren’t they? But before he got the chance to touch me he stopped suddenly and let his hands fall back to his sides. I relaxed and exhaled, chancing a glance back at him. He looked torn up, ran his hand through his hair.
“I know, I’m sorry.” I looked back down at the floor in front of my feet.
“I’ll feel it too,” He continued afterward, very quietly, but not so much so that I thought I wasn't supposed to hear it.

“I was supposed to tell you today,” He continued, clearing his throat. “That you’re cleared to go. Tomorrow, I mean. Not right away. After work I’ll pick you up and bring you to the apartment we’ve arranged for you. The state’s paying the first two months’ rent, and then you’ll be expected to come up with the rest.” He let out a short, curt laugh. “Took me a fucking arm and a leg to get them to do just that much.”

“Ha, thanks.” I said, almost painfully, turning around and touching his arm. We were caught there for a moment, suspended in space. I can honestly say that I have no idea which one of us moved first, but it didn’t take long for me to have nowhere to go, pressed up against his desk. We were in a hurry, frantically trying to touch each other everywhere in an effort to memorize each other, with the sort of desperation two people who know they won’t be seeing each other for a long time would have.

And the only thing I could think, beyond “this is wrong and I am eventually going to end up fucking myself over from this.” was “This is so amazingly right, and is something that has been missing from my life since the moment I was born.” My heart ached and called out for forever, to be smothered and absolutely devoured by Vanilla until there was nothing left of me.
And briefly, I wondered how I had ever made it through life without feeling like there was something missing, that there had been this inexplicable piece of my soul out there left for me to find.

And I might have wondered before why it was that we weren’t having sex yet, but I understood so well that that wasn’t what Vanilla wanted for me. Our hands were not moving to strip each other, our kisses weren’t hot and fiery, the touches were sad and lingering and meant to just know, just touch and know and remember the texture of his skin, of his tongue, the smell of him and how his clothes hid the muscles you wouldn’t think he had.
But finally we slowed down, we looked at each other and we were both crying, and we held each other and I told him how I could never keep in contact, because I needed to become my own person in a healthy way, and I felt his tears on the top of my head, and he said “I know.”

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