Claudia

She collapsed onto the table, her head on her arms and she began to cry. It shocked me, stunned me and I sat rigid in my chair in disbelief, then I struggled to get up, but her hand came out and touched mine. "I'm sorry," she raised her head from her arms, tears in her eyes. "Nothing has ever mattered to me like this. I just can't image another day without you."

We left before the waitress came, we floated down the street without a word, arm in arm, leaning against each other, bumping in to each other, loving the contact, feeling the intimacy. We had begun our journey together, we both knew that. We didn't know where it would lead, where it would end, but we both knew where it was heading now, the few blocks to my apartment.

Neither of us hesitated when we got through the door. We both headed to the bedroom and we collapsed on the bed and into each others arms and we held on. We were both wrecks, exhausted, neither of us had slept since Friday night, both of us had been stewing in nervous, angst-ridden anguish and doubt.

"Good morning." I said, kissing her lightly on the lips.

She snuggled into me, laughing, "I feel sick. I'll have to call in."

I kissed her lightly again and looked at the clock. "I can't," I said, "I'm already late." I hurried to the bathroom.

She was fully dressed when I came out with a towel wrapped around me. "Tonight?" she asked, trying to hide her fear.

I smiled, and pointed to the bed, "Sit down." She did, but her apprehension was growing. "I have a proposition for you. I want you to think about it, Claudia. Carefully." I had prepared what I wanted to say while I was in the bathroom. "Look, this is a gigantic step for me but I don't want to make it a baby step." here was my proposition, "I don't want to see you every once in a while, Claudia, I want to live with you. I want you to pack some bags and come here and live with me for a month. We'll have a pretty good idea about 'us' in 30 days."

She sat motionless, her eyes growing wide with excitement, "Do you mean that?"

I tried to take it in stride, to pretend that this woman, who was frantically scurrying around my kitchen preparing my dinner, was somehow a familiar addition to my world. But she wasn't. Sharing a space that had once been only mine couldn't have felt more strange, even disconcerting. Who was she? Really. I didn't know. I had never really asked the question. I had absolutely no doubt that she loved me, or, at least, that she was infatuated with me: she couldn't have made that more obvious. But who was she?

After supper I was in my chair in the living room looking at her over my newspaper. She was blowing up a very large ball. When she saw the curiosity on my face, she put her thumb between the lips pressing against the ball to block the valve and explained, "I usually do this when I get home from work."

When she went back to blowing up the ball, I gave expression to something that had bothered me about her almost from the beginning. "You know you really should work on your conversational skills. You have a tendency to answer a question with as few words as possible; you never seem to try to keep the conversation going. And sometimes, like now, your explanations, as terse as they are, don't make any sense." As soon as I finished, I felt awful fro my admonishment. There would be time and other words to address the problem.

But she wasn't offended. With her lips again pressed against the ball, her eyes grew wide and she waited for her thumb to secure the valve before speaking, "It's a pilates ball."

She returned her lips to the ball but I got my question out before she had released her thumb from the valve, "A what?"

She appeared shocked. "A pilates ball? You don't know what pilates is?" She could see that I didn't and grew excited, "You'll love it."

I didn't. She made me change into the only sweat suite I owned, which I used when cleaning the house. As I sat on the ball, she explained the principals to me and a little of the history. Then she made me move on it: on top of it, beside it, against it, with it in my hands, rolling it. Her directions were crisp and illustrated. She was an expert, graceful and unbelievably flexible. She showed me each move in slow motion, then insisted I try it. I had never felt more like a cow. Her young, athletic body bent and contorted around the ball with the grace of a dancer. My body assaulted the ball, punishing it, as it punished me.

I could already feel my joints stiffening when I crawled into bed.

She could see my discomfort and tried to be encouraging, "It will take awhile, but not as long as you think. If we do this three or four times a week, you'll feel like a new woman in no time."

Feel like a new woman? I'm living in a lesbian relationship, an unconsummated lesbian relationship, some of it on a pilates ball. Feel like a new woman? I didn't know who I was any more. But I didn't say anything, I was too tired. I pulled up the sheet and eased myself in, grateful for the familiar comfort of my bed.

She was kneeling beside me in her pajamas. She pulled the sheet back. "Turn over."

I saw the seriousness on her face and not having the strength to argue, did as directed. When I settled I could feel her move over my legs. "My sister is a masseuse. We lived together when she was in school and she practiced on me and taught me. I really liked it. I was actually thinking at one time of taking courses so I could help her out when she opened her business. But she moved out and I had no one to practice on, so I didn't."

I wasn't really listening to her words so much as the amount of them: this was the longest burst of dialogue I could remember hearing from her. There was hope after all! A almost jumped when I felt her hands on my legs.

"Now I do."

I fought to regain my composure. What did she say? "Now I do what?"

"Now I have you to practice on. Relax. I may be an amateur but my sister thought I was a pretty good one."

She began with my feet, expertly kneading them, one then the other, then she worked up my legs, taking her time, expertly pressing her fingers deep into my muscles. I did relax, almost at once and it was a totally natural and spontaneous when I lifted my pelvis so she could pull my nightgown up, and she continued kneading at my bottom, into my back and shoulders. I was almost asleep when she reached my neck, thankful for her patience and skill, so I barely hard her words. "Roll over." Then it occurred to me. Was this a come-on. Was she massaging me to have sex with me? Was this foreplay? No, God, no. That wasn't her. I didn't think she had a devious bone in her body. Still, I wasn't ready for full frontal nudity. Not yet. Maybe never. I pulled my nightie down and turned over, pulling her into my arms.

She pushed me away. "I haven't finished."

But I pulled her into me again. "That's all I can take, Claudia. Thank you." And I kissed her gently on the lips, then guided her into her now familiar place against my body, trying, as I had since I met her, to make sense of it, to make sense of her.

I got home a little late the next night and when I did there was a second ball, a red one, beside the equally sized blue one. And there was a large pillow on the floor beside them.

"I don't think I have the energy tonight, Claudia."

I expected to see disappointment, but there was none, "No. Every other day at first. We'll begin together tomorrow." I was so relieved to avoid exercise that I didn't complain about the skimpy dinner she had prepared, but what there was of it was delicious.

One of my great pleasures in life has long been the time I spent each evening after supper in my chair in the living room reading the paper. But for the past few days I hadn't actually read the paper; my eyes scanned it while I tried to make some sense of my new life — and Claudia's place in it. Tonight was no different. I had settled in knowing she would bring us tea, then I expected her to sit in the chair opposite me, where we would look at each other from time to time and smile. But she didn't. She put my cup of tea on the table beside me and she put her cup on the floor, then she pulled over the large pillow beside my chair and sat down, leaning lightly against my legs.

No contact with her had been so jolting, not my hand on hers, not feeling my chest press against hers, not touching my lips to hers. Nothing came close. Her shoulder against my leg sent an earthquake of joy through me, with long after shocks of pleasure. My most favourite part of the day had just got better. I loved her for her tenderness, for her casual intimacy. I settled back in the chair and as I blindly read the paper, I stoked her hair.

I don't know what I expected when I went to see her, little more than a week ago. I sensed she was lonely, as lonely as I was, and about as lost and as anxious for a change. I didn't see her lesbianism in a sexual way. I saw it more as the passion in compassion: that she would somehow be able to understand me, know how I hurt, perhaps know how to heal me. I was emotionally down and vulnerable. Men offered me no comfort.

I bent forward and kissed her hair, leaving my face in it, smelling her. I ran my hand along her shoulder onto the not skin of her neck, then I caressed her cheek as she looked up at me, smiling. She put her hand on mine, pressed her face against it then took my hand to her lips and kissed it. She seemed a dream, as light and fluid as a dream and I was captivated. I shifted on my chair, placing her between my legs, then I lay my breasts against her head and folded my arms around her chest squeezing her gently, feeling her press into me.

"This is always the way it begins for me." Her voice was faint, as if from a dream.

"When what begins?"

"When I think of you. I always have my head on your breasts. Usually we are lying down. That's how it begins."

I felt dizzy, "Sex?"

"Loving you. Yes."

"And then what do we do, Claudia?"

"I take off your shirt, it is always a blouse. My hand are on yours as you unbutton it. When it's off I lie against you, kissing you through your bra."

I could feel my heart pounding against her head, I held her tighter, opening my hands and pressing them against her ribs. My mouth was dry, "And then what happens?"

"I've always wondered."

"You didn't go farther?"

"I would never take what you didn't want to give."

Oh, God, Claudia. I fell on my knees beside her, took her in my arms and lay with my head on the pillow, her head on my chest. "I want to give you everything, Claudia," I was stroking her face, feeling her kisses on my blouse, "I want to care about you more than I care about myself."

When my fingers found a button she got to her knees and leaned over me, her fingers on mine, one button after the other. I knew I was going to give myself to her, to let her take whatever it was she wanted. And I could see she wanted me, the desire on her face stripped away any doubt. She slowed my fingers and smiled at me, "We have been together so many night — I have loved you for so long."

She helped me off with my blouse and when I settled onto the pillow she settled onto my chest, with her legs straddling one of mine.

She was as delicate as a flower blowing gently kisses into me, running her lips across my nylon bra, leaving a little trail of split. I thought it was the sound of a soft moan at first, but it wasn't, she was humming to herself and kissing my breasts, my nipples, my cleavage, sometimes pressing my breast to her face, sometimes spreading my breasts apart so she could kiss her tiny little pecks deep within my cleavage. And then her hand move behind my back and I leaned forward so she could unsnap my bra.

It was an act she had long wanted to perform, but for which she never had permission. When I lay back she was sitting beside me, smiling at me with her hands on my bra which she slowly peeled away. She looked at my breasts in the same way she looked at me, lovingly, without a hint of lust. When she got to her knees and bent into me, putting her lips on my nipple she was humming again. And then she lay down with her head on my stomach, closed her eyes and sucked. Her humming never stopped.

When, sitting on the chair, I had leaned into her, feeling her head press against my breasts, feeling my arms around her chest, I knew I had stepped into her world, stepped away from mine. It surprised me how willingly I went. It surprised now how comfortably I felt. Strangely, what had always been to me a sexual act, someone sucking on my breasts, now wasn't. When I caressed her face, she looked up at me with a smile that made me melt, then she place my nipple back in her mouth and continued the song in her head.

I had almost dozed off when I felt her hand on my stomach, it was open and it lightly explored from below my breasts to my waist band. While the sucking had always been soothing, this felt overtly sexual and when her fingers pressed under my waistband I think I must have flinched because she looked up at me with questioning eyes. I smiled at her, brushed my hand across her face and when I pushed against my pants she quickly got to her knees and stripped them away, dragging my panties with them.

I felt old and fat and ugly and I didn't want to look at her, didn't want to read the disappointment on her face. And then I heard the tune, the almost mournful humming and I felt her lips on my belly and her hand on my thigh, they moved lightly, gently exploring, her lips to my naval, her hand slowly along the inside of my leg.

She sat down now and gently pulled my leg to her, opening me up. And then she touched me and sent a charge through me that I hadn't felt in years.

"You're so pretty, Laura, so soft and pretty." She ran delicately into the gully of my groin and I could feel myself rising to her fingers.

"What is that tune?" I asked, trying to control my breathing.

She looked at me with surprise, "Tune?"

"You're humming a tune."

"I always hum when I'm happy." She placed her fingers on my pussy and explored along the outer edges of my lips. "I'll always be humming around you."

"Are you happy, Claudia?"

She opened me with her fingers, bent down and kissed me on the clitoris, then she lay down on me, put her head on my shoulder and put her lips on mine, "God, happy, Laura. I just didn't know I could be so happy."

I waited for more, but there wasn't any, she seemed to be asleep, or heading that way. "Claudia?"

"Hmmm."

"Would you?" I didn't know how to say it, so I took her hand and put it on my pussy.

She sprang off me and onto her knees. "Do you want me to? Really?" Excitement flared in her eyes. I guess she thought that because I wasn't a lesbian I would never want this. When I smiled, she quickly lay her head on my belly and watched her fingers disappear into me.

It may have been more instinct than experience, but she touched me in just the right places, at just the right times and when I came, I could feel her face pressed against me and her tongue sucking my clitoris and I didn't want her to stop.

She wouldn't let me dress, would let me bathe. She made me lie there on the living room rug, my head in her lap, her eyes on me, her fingers touching me, never leaving contact, tracing routes connecting my neck to my naval, my shoulders to my breasts, my stomach to my pussy. She didn't say anything, not for the longest time, she just sat there, looking at me and hummed to herself. I knew she was thinking and I didn't want to interrupt her thoughts. Finally, she said, "I've waited for this, Laura, waited for you. I just have no way of telling you what you mean to me."

She let me up when I complained that my neck was getting sore and she kneeled on the floor next to the bath tub and caressed soap into my skin and when the water began to cool I got out and she rubbed me with a towel, thoroughly, tenderly and she watched me brush my teeth. But when I reached for my night gown her hand stopped me, not tonight, Laura, please, and she followed me into the bedroom and held up the sheets as I got under. Sweet dreams, she said, and she kissed my as a mother might kiss a child.

I thought about her all morning at work and summoned the courage to call her mid-afternoon. "Hi, it's Laura."

"Yes, I think I knew that before I picked up the phone."

"I phoned to apologize ..."

"No, ..."

"Claudia, please. Can you talk?"

"Yes."

I wondered how much privacy she had, "Do you have an office?"

Yes."

"I phoned to apologize. I set out last night to bring you pleasure, instead, it was you who brought me pleasure. That was selfish. It just happened. I'm sorry."

"Oh, God, Laura, I'm not. That was fantastic, you were beautiful, I loved touching you."

"And I loved your touch, your sucking ...oh, God, this sounds like phone sex."

She laughed.

"I loved you sucking on my breast, Claudia, your fingers in me, your face on my belly. I loved it all," I laughed, "as you might have notice. And you got nothing."

I felt a little awkward dead air in my ear. "I got something."

"What?"

"You went to sleep immediately. I took a bath, put on that blue negligee in your closet, turned on the light, sat on our bed, pulled the sheet from you and looked at you, thinking about the things I wanted to do with you."

I handed her the bag just after she kissed me. She tore it open, as excited as a little child. But when she held it up, her face, in an instant, turn from glee to disappointment. "What's wrong? Is it the colour?"

"You don't understand. It wasn't a negligee I put on last night. It was your negligee."

I didn't understand and apparently proved that to her when I told her she could have my other negligee, too, she could have them both.

"But I don't want a negligee. I want to wear your negligee, the one you have worn."

I pretended to understand and apologized for the misunderstanding but it occurred to me that the perspective she was bringing to this relationship and my perspective would be on two different planes, not mutually exclusive planes, but different one, in many interesting, yet to be determined ways.

Having spent most of the day thinking about her, I had forgotten that this was pilates night and we had to do the balls before supper. Well, we did them, me at my pedestrian level, Claudia at her expert level. She had asked me to watch her carefully, to study the moves and to try as best I could to replicate them. You won't be able to do them well now, she had forewarned me, as if that was necessary, but practice makes perfect. So I watched her, watch this woman who loved me, who would appear to do anything for me, wrap herself around the ball in the most graceful, sensual ways.

It happened unexpectedly. I didn't really know what caused it: her sweat shirt pulling away as she stretched, the contour of her bottom as she hugged the ball, her facing glowing from effort. But I found that after awhile, even through my pain, I was looking at her in a different light. In a way, it was proprietary: I was beginning to think of her as mine, as my own. But I was also seeing the girl who last night lay on my stomach with her lips on my nipple. I felt an emotional stirring I hadn't felt in years.

When I sat down beside her, she was on her back, curved round the ball. She didn't know I was there so she jumped when she felt my hand on her bare stomach. "Don't get up. I want to touch you."

She relaxed, once again almost sagging around the ball, her sweat shirt riding high, her white, tight belly glistening with sweat. "You move beautifully, Claudia, like an athlete." She lay still, stretched out as if on a circular rack and I got on my knees and kissed her tight, white belly and dragged my tongue around it, feeling the heat, tasting the salt. I could feel her body begin to roll back on the ball, deliberately moving my tongue down her stomach, intentionally dragging my lips lower, "Oh, no you don't," I protested and she laughed, placing her hands on my head and pushing as I nuzzled my face into her stomach. It was only then that I realized I wanted to see her.