I'm Not the Girl You Used to Love Ch. 02

Interlude: Two lesbian lovers meet some new friends and try to reaffirm their love.

"Hi," Sarah Yearwood said as she took a barstool in the Night Shadow club. She offered a shy smile to the bartender.

"Hi," said the bartender, a petite young lady with curly brunette hair and strangely attractive features. "May I get you something?"

"Just a Coke, please," Sarah replied.

"No Coke. Pepsi?" the bartender replied in a funny voice. Sarah looked puzzled until she recalled seeing a Saturday Night Live rerun on late-late-late TV one night when she was unable to sleep despite the best attentions of Beth Garner.

"Darn," Sarah said, brightening up at the joke. "I guess a Slice if you have it."

"Coming right up," the bartender replied. As she mixed the ice and the soft drink, she said: "You must be from Georgia."

"Is the accent that strong?" Sarah replied, exaggerating it for effect.

"No," the bartender replied cheerfully, "but I had a whole voice class on dialects. I can do at least ten of them from the South, fifteen if you count Texas." She wiped her hands on a towel and reached out to shake. "My name is Alicia Thomas. Nice to meet you."

"Sarah Yearwood," Sarah replied, surprised at the lady's friendliness. But, then again, it was a lesbian bar. "I've been here a couple of times but I don't remember seeing you before."

"Just started working here," Alicia replied. "I'm a student at Washington, but the dorms are closed and I'm living with my mom for the break. She owns this place."

"Really?" Sarah replied, surprised. She had seen Courtney, the owner, before, with Courtney's partner Susan. She and Beth had had a nice chat with them once, talking about living together and all the foibles of partnership. Nowhere had there been any mention of motherhood.

"Yeah," Alicia replied. "Mom was a CPO and Susan was an electrical engineer on one of her ships. Mom and Dad were both Navy but they were never on the same boats, so Mom had a lot of time alone. After they broke up, Susan got a hardship discharge from an injury and Mom took a shore post. That's how they got together."

"Spilling secrets?" boomed a woman's voice from the back room. Sarah looked around nervously, but the bar was almost deserted and the few women in there seemed used to Courtney's voice.

It didn't sound like Courtney was mad. Courtney came out, also wiping her hands on a towel, and put an arm around her daughter. The two women were almost a foot apart in height, and Courtney had construction-worker muscles.

"Loose lips sink ships, that's what they taught me," Courtney said more quietly but with a smile on her face. By this time, Susan had come out from the kitchen. A mid-size woman, she carried herself with considerable grace.

"It's all right," Sarah said to Alicia. "My lover had a hardship discharge of sorts. Messed up her knee in a car accident, messed it up worse when some asshole did his own form of gay bashing on her." She raised her hand as Courtney's features darkened. "Don't worry. My lover's brother-in-law at the time would have busted the guy all to hell if the guy had dared him. And one of my best friends was the daughter of two Sheriff's Deputies – they were on the scene to help out."

Susan digested this. She had a strange look on her face. "Lover's brother-in-law at the time? I hope she wasn't a cheating wife."

Sarah froze in horror. "Oh, no! Beth and I didn't even think about getting together until after the divorce. Beth was a lesbian virgin. I think she still would be if she had married the brother-in-law instead, and ..." she furrowed her brow ... "hell, he was one of my coaches and I might have adopted HIM as a brother."

Courtney snorted, but not derisively. "I have four of 'em, plus two sisters. Eleven nieces and nephews. I'm grateful to the ones who have stayed nearby and offered me support. Still, I never felt like any guy friends were THAT close." She looked over at Susan, who was still looking at Sarah. "Or girl friends either."

Susan let out a smile, directed at Sarah. "Didn't mean to worry you. Actually, I run a church support group for people who've been in broken relationships, and most of the people there are women who have been dumped. But there is a man there whose wife ran off with another woman, and he is so down in the dumps. He can't figure out how he could have missed the signs. What signs, we ask him? He never has had an answer."

Sarah smiled widely. "That's what I tell Beth. She and Joey had been changing for a long time and it was nobody's fault. Her and my love sure has grown over the last few years. Changing in a good way, I guess."

Courtney spoke up as Susan left to clean tables, not that there was much to do. "It's been a while since you came in here. Been busy over the holidays?"

Sarah nodded. "Oh, yes. We have a house guest now. A guy, no less. He just graduated with a theater degree and he's going to graduate school. His mom asked us to put him up and teach him some responsibility. So far, pretty good. He's a really good cook and he reads poetry to us some nights, and he likes the cat we took in."

Susan came back. "Did you say really good cook?"

Sarah nodded, somewhat bewildered.

"Does he have a job yet?"

Sarah grimaced. "No, still looking. He's paying our share of the rent out of his savings from working in an Italian restaurant back home."

Susan walked back. Courtney walked over. Alicia moved in a little bit.

Susan asked: "How good do you think he'd be at cooking for 50 people?"

That's not something you ask of a house guest. Sarah used a raised eyebrow to throw the ball back into Courtney's court.

"The building next door is going up for sale next week. It has a full kitchen and a big space we can convert to a dining area. Susan and I have wanted to branch out, and these lunch-only restaurants do really well with business people on the other side of the Sound, so we've wanted to try one over here. We have a bunch of our moms' and grandmothers' home recipes and we can buy the kitchen supplies, but we need people. Depends on your house guest's schedule, but we could start him out busing tables and taking orders and move up to cooking."

Sarah was intrigued. Jonathan Wheeler, said house guest, was dipping into his savings to pay his share of the rent, and didn't have a car as yet, so Sarah and Beth had to chauffeur him to employment agencies all over the county. Plus, school over in Seattle was starting soon and his availability would be limited.

"I'll talk to him," Sarah said. "If he thinks he can swing it, I'll bring him over here tomorrow night and let him fill out an application. He was going to live in the graduate dorms, but we could use him at our place. If somebody could drive him to Seattle when he has classes ..."

"I'm a student there," Alicia volunteered. "Theater department. I'll probably go back to the dorms in a couple weeks, but I could come down here and help if he's willing to pay for the gas."

Sarah looked pleased. "Theater department? He'll be a graduate student there."

Alicia's face darkened. "A bunch of snobs. They go out and play regional theater or the touring cast of some Broadway show or maybe do a few days on some movie, and they think they own the university."

"Oh no, he's not a touring professional," Sarah hastened to say. "He's an actor, yeah, but he seems really unpretentious. If you're working here tomorrow night, you can check him out."

"Like you were checking me out?" Alicia said.

Sarah blushed as deeply as a woman of her complexion could. The lighting of the bar highlighted it extensively. She tripped over a dozen words of apology and said she was very happy in her current relationship.

"Don't sweat it, Sarah," Courtney said kindly. "I have a very attractive daughter and I am proud of her." Alicia smiled too and put her arm around her mom's waist.

"I'm straight and I'm proud, but I like to look nice," Alicia said. "At least when I'm not on stage. Plain Janes get the good character roles, at least in the theater. Out in Hollywood ..." she made a face.

"Women hit on you a lot?" Sarah asked.

"If they're drunk, yeah," Alicia replied. "Here isn't so bad, because Mom can just call them cabs and send them on their way. But in school, a lot of people get drunk. I've seen girls making out in cars in the dorm parking lot at night. It ..."

"Grosses you out?"

"I didn't want to say it that way, but ... yeah."

Sarah smiled. "Actually, I've been there. A past girlfriend of mine loved to kiss me and sometimes touch me. It wasn't bad enough to get us arrested, but I really wasn't comfortable with it. You'll be happy to know I don't drink, Beth doesn't drink and Jonathan doesn't drink. We know Jonathan's mom pretty well and we're pretty sure she raised him right. I just hope you get along when you meet."

Alicia was pensive. "Can I tell you something?"

Sarah looked at Alicia for a second to make sure her answer wasn't flip-sounding, and then said: "Go ahead."

"I broke up with my boyfriend a few days ago. We saw each other for four and a half years. The first year, I was chasing him and he wasn't interested. The second year, he was chasing me and I wasn't interested. The third year, we got together and it was great, I fell in love with him. The last year, things went downhill because he was at another college and we didn't see each other, and we had arguments when we did. This last half year has been a nightmare. I'm still in love with him and I'm pretty sure he is with me, but we can't stand to be together. I'm pretty vulnerable at this point."

Sarah nodded.

"I'll keep that in mind," she said kindly. She smiled wistfully. "A lot of people go to the bartender to talk about their troubles. Where does the bartender go? But I'll tell you ... the reason Beth and I are together is she felt she could come to me. My players will come to me, I hope. If you need to come to me, please feel free. If I'm not around, Beth is the best listener and counselor I know." She got up from the bar stool. "How much do I owe you?"

"Four dollars."

Sarah mock-winced, then pulled out a ten. "Keep the change," she said.

She went over to Courtney and Susan, who had gone on to other tables, and gave each a big smile and a handshake. She told Courtney that she'd bring Jonathan by tomorrow and have him fill out an application. Courtney said that the restaurant wouldn't open for a few weeks yet, and Jonathan could practice cooking some recipes for the bar patrons.

After Sarah left, Courtney came back over to her daughter, who had changed out the ten and put six dollars in her tip jar – her first tip of the night.

"Penny for your thoughts," she said.

"Just wondering how she was so nice to a total stranger," Alicia said.

Courtney shrugged. "Big sister instinct. She gets a lot of pleasure from helping people. Maybe it's all the happiness she gets. Maybe not. Accept it for now and look for happiness down the line when you don't feel so messed up. Just don't fall in love with the first person who's nice to you."

Courtney was called away before she could read her daughter's reaction.

That night, at home ...

"Can I make a request?" Sarah said to Beth Garner. They were sitting on the couch watching a movie on DVD. Jonathan was in the old office that had been converted into a spare bedroom, looking up the course catalog for University of Washington on a computer.

"Sounds pretty serious," Beth said, "if you have to ask me." She took Sarah's hand.

Sarah smiled at the contact. "I just wondered if I could stop fucking you with the dildo, for a while at least."

Beth didn't respond for a second. Susan mistook the silence and tried to explain herself.

"It's not my back or my elbows or anything, and I love lying right there with you. It's just that ..."

"You're not comfortable being a 'man,' are you?" Beth replied. She caressed Sarah's cheek. Sarah blushed and nodded.

"I've never had a psychology class dealing with a cock-loving lesbian, which I feel you are," Sarah said softly. "It feels like you cum harder whenever you get fucked by me. I know you give me back a lot more vigorously."

Beth grimaced. It was true. "I know you don't feel much from wearing it, so I'm trying to give you more to thank you more. Do you like any part of it?"

"Oh, hell, yes," Sarah said. But her face darkened. "It's something else."

"Joey." Beth put her hand in front of her face. "You think I think you're Joey!?"

A prolonged silence followed. Beth started to tear up.

"I'm not Joey and I never will be. I am not the guy you used to love. I want you to love me for me. I know you do that, but you miss him terribly. He was your rock of caring and he helped make you what you are today.

"But you fell in love with me, FOR me. And I fell in love with you as much as one person can do for another. If I lose you to him, I will never get you back. You could leave him again and maybe you would. But you couldn't come back to me because it would hurt too much. It may be abused, but even if we didn't get married I would never love anyone but you. And I think, deep down, you love me for me too. You are a very loving person and you want everything to be beautiful, no matter whom you meet. But now it's my turn."

Beth kissed Sarah deeply, a wife-wife kiss. Her tears ran down Sarah's neck.

"It is your turn," Beth said. "We still have a lot of things to work out. Not least is that I think Jonathan has a crush on you. He sees something of his mom in you and I think he would be so honored to have you love him."

Sarah sighed. "I know. He is a boy in a man suit. But I did find a possible woman friend for him, and his mama taught him how to BEHAVE around us. We'll just have to let Nature take its course with him. I know he was really hurt by seeing his dad die, and I'm not the least bit surprised. I know his mom really cared for his dad and his dad appreciated it. He never tried to interfere in her gay relationships. But I think he has only a little idea of how to treat a woman. Maybe he can work through his grief and start being a real man." She smiled and gave Beth a playful rub on the nose. "We don't know EVERYTHING and men don't know just NOTHING. They can be really good if they use their brains."

Beth smiled warmly. "I'm so glad you agree." She gave Sarah a warm smooch and they headed off to the bedroom ... without the dildo.

(End of Chapter 2)

AUTHOR'S NOTE! I found this story while recovering some files, and wrote the last few paragraphs in the space of a few minutes. It's my re-entry into the Lit world, where many of my stories were left unfinished when I stopped writing. This is a short chapter and I had to find some way to keep it from being impossibly abrupt. I decided to test the waters for my own writing while I work on some other stories. I visit Lit every day and correspond with authors I really appreciate. They have been very nice (with some exceptions) and I have more friends here than on most places. This is dedicated to all the people (mostly women) on here who have suffered loss and have no rational explanations for what could have happened to them. I can't explain either, but I can give them hope for the future.

I'll figure out some more about Chapter 3 – and the ex-husband who hasn't yet re-entered the picture – as I can.

CM