Companion

I was stunned by her words. She was glaring at me, really angry, waiting for a response. "It was all about her."

"It was all about the her with you. She was nervous, excited, scared, thrilled, she had every emotion known to women running through her body while you were only thinking of, oh, I don't know: you ... the one I met in Florida, not the one you've become, the one who cares, the one who gives a shit, who wants to make an effort to reach out ... to give. What a fuck up."

I drank about a gallon of water and ate the breakfast she made while she talked to me the way I needed to be talked to, like she was a kindergarten teacher.

I had to put myself in Jessa's life. I had to understand her past, appreciate her prospects. That took time because she's right, I'm not anywhere near as aware and empathetic as I should be ... alright, OK, I know. So she drummed it in, she had to, she made me know and understand. Yes, yes, OK, I get it: the great divide. Then she said: "You are the brass ring to her, she couldn't wait to get her ear pierced."

This sounded shabby to me, unbelievably shabby, as shabby as Maria tracking me down was shabby (and shabbier still because I took advantage of her).

I was feeling a disgust. It showed.

She sat down across from me, pulling my mostly ignored plate away.

"Some people wait to fall in love. You don't have that time or luxury and nor does she. You have to decide to love and go after it. She did. You didn't."

"She didn't decide to fall in love, she decided she wanted my money."

"Like me?"

I was about to agree, but couldn't; wouldn't.

"I wouldn't be here if I didn't think you would help me ... a lot. You could and you have ..."

"And I will."

"Is it about the money?"

"No, of course not."

"It's about the freedom; you've given me an unlimited freedom where once I had none. That's what she is feeling."

"But we ... connected."

"Because I made us connect — that's what I brought to us, the determination to make it work; all you brought was the money." She picked up the plate and stood up. "The one thing we know for certain is that we have to give to get. She's met you, she's thought about you, she wants you and she's prepared to give everything she can to get what you can offer her. I told her I was going to have it out with you. I told her I'd call her. What do you want me to tell her?"

I thought I looked like a floozy but getting this way, with Maria's help, had been fun and by the time she knocked on the door on time I had been thoroughly schooled to understand that it wouldn't be just me opening the door, a me in a very tight, very V-necked sweater that showed about a full foot of cleavage, it would be me, a very wealthy woman with enough money to plant a wonderfully glowing sun on a wonderfully distant horizon ... that's the me Maria told me Jessa wanted. We had time, Jessa and I, lots of it to find a happiness neither of us could imagine.

We stood frozen, looking at each other. She was scared. I wasn't. She was scared because she was Maria on that bench in Florida. I wasn't because, thanks to Maria, I now knew I could have her and I could have her on my terms.

Maria told me what those terms could be because she knew, she had already discovered them with me. Just as I wanted the best for Maria, so I would want the best for Jessa. Why? Because it would be entirely selfish and I am entirely selfish.

But caring is the one human action that enriches way beyond money, Maria has taught me that, too.

I stepped forward and took her in my arms, feeling her doubt slowly dissipate. I kissed the face looking up at me. "You were awful," I said.

She glowered. "You were worse."

"I felt my pierced ear was for nothing."

"I asked my daughter to take mine out. She wouldn't. She said I hadn't tried hard enough yet."

"I'm sorry," I gave her a squeeze.

"I told Maria I won't go in there unless I stay."

I stepped back and yanked her in, closing the door.

She was finally grinning and flicked at my shirt. "You sure didn't get this at my store."

"Maria said I have to start showing you I want you. She said you liked them."

It was like she couldn't wait to get it out. "I was just babbling on that walk, you know ... I was nervous, really nervous."

"I'm fragile, not as fragile as I was but I can read things the wrong way."

"And read me the wrong way." She touched her ear. "When I got this I was making an announcement to you and to the world."

"Yes, so was I."

Her face showed doubt. "Hardly."

It was time to lie down. "Come on."

She didn't move. "How fragile are you?"

"I barely know you, of course I'm fragile — unsure of myself."

"You know me, I'm Maria, she's explained that to you and you have no problem with her ... including on the very night we were supposedly committing to each other."

Maria had told me she told her. "Without that, you wouldn't be here right now."

"She loves you, you know. Legitimately loves you and not just because of all of the things you've done for her ... it's the reason I was interested in meeting you, she made you sound fantastic."

I reached out my hand. She took it without hesitation and I began the long march to my bedroom, my march to caring, her march to freedom.

When I pushed her onto the bed, harder than I had intended, her shock soon turned to a weird kind of teenage joy then she youthfully leapt onto her knees and faced me.

Maria and Janet were right, when you think of someone as chattel it changes everything. And it did now. I was buying her; I could replace her; I could take what I want and replace her when I want to. It is empowering, shockingly empowering and frightening that it is so easy — you don't need confidence when you can own.

Anyway, she has enough confidence for the both of us, she is glowing with it, that's why, when I knelt on the bed I sort of threw my shoulder into her and knocked her back, just like I pushed her onto the bed. She laughed out loud about this as I collapsed on her, straddling her thigh and began the lesbian kiss I had learned with Maria.

My audacity was met by her audacity, my hunger by her hunger, my tenacity, by her tenacity ... we both wanted to break through our shroud of doubt and just get on with it, to prove this is real or to see if we are just play-acting, just pretending to be women we aren't.

Kissing is a lot of things I am discovering, it's giving and taking in its most superficial intent but as a means to communicate it can offer a physical force words can only hint at. And it's freedom, freedom to strip yourself of all inhibitions, to be, to show, to give, to take ... to want, that was the little Filipino woman, the pretty, perky little item who controlled me so effortlessly in her store, who guided me so effectively to this remarkable fantasia and who was now convincing me utterly that the freedom she sought was in my freedom, our freedom to invest in each other.

She started laughing first into my lips before she pushed me away and just lay squirming with laughter, a contagious laughter that was filled with joy and awe and freedom. I was just hitting my stride with it when she grappled onto me as aggressively as I had banged into her and her laughter was in my mouth and in the hand that went up under my shirt, in the fingers that squeezed at my breast, in the pussy that was now thrashing so expressively at my thigh.

You want to express if you care, you want to show, you want to convince. She could, whatever baggage she had brought to me was out of sight and out of mind, this was her moment, this felt like the first new minute of the rest of her life, it felt like her freedom unbounded.

I was a mess in a moment, my shirt up, my bra pushed above my breast, my pants half way down my hip, my face slathered with her spit.

No, no, this can't be happening. This is the way you dream it would happen, this is the way you dream it would feel, you know it can't be true, delirium is fantasy but her flesh and blood is real enough, as real as the laughter, as real as the ravish, as real as her lips on my nipple, as real as the frantic fingers now in my panties.

But the wary can cut through these sensations. Is she giving or taking? My arms pinned her's to her side as I squeezed her tight, turning her over, pressing my full weight onto her, my knee hard between her legs now. I wanted control, time to think.

Her laughter had stopped with my squeezing but continued the moment I released her. She felt none of my hesitation, my reluctance, none of my confusion, she was lost in her freedom, there was no taking in the sounds of her laughter only joy, only giving.

The kiss I gave her now, stopped all that, the laughter turned to moans.

You can decide to invest, to end your own freedom, to go all in for another, I didn't know that until now. You can decide to take on a new responsibility, I knew that with Maria, I knew she taught me that and I knew that you can care enough to make that responsibility life long.

But this is new to me, totally entangling my life with another's, there is no joy in that for me, there is only fear.

"Maria called me a self-centred selfish rich bitch." I had pulled back so I could see her reaction.

Her eyes crinkled, her lips grinned. "I've always wanted to try a little of that, see how it feels ... the rich bitch part."

I don't know why, I knew it would be a factor I just didn't expect her to admit it. My face must have shown it.

Her hands shot up, her fingers went into my hair. "OK, OK, I won't join your life, you can come and join mine." She tugged at my hair then made to escape from under me. "Let's go and do this at my place."

I thought for a moment she was serious then, part way out from under me, she looked up at me and grinned. "How much do you like Kraft dinner?"

I barely have a sense of humour, I know. What I have she likes to test and tease, I'm learning that, too.

My tongue touched her crooked tooth, my tongue touched her only imperfection, my tongue touched what felt like a new reality. As her arms tightened around me I was flooded with an unimaginable joy ... I can be free from myself, finally I can be free from myself.