Two of a Kind Ch. 01

I never considered myself lesbian. Bisexual maybe but not even that felt completely right. I used to say "I can live without pussy but not without cock." When the term heteroflexible came into vogue that felt much better, more accurate. So how is it that I find myself telling you the story of two women in love? Happenstance. Fate. Just pure dumb luck maybe? But however Jenny and I came to be, or how many people look down their noses at us, it does not matter, because love is love and it is more powerful than hate. That is what we teach our children anyway. So how did it happen? How did two 'non-lesbian' women end up in such a deep and committed relationship?

It all began in the park one hot summer day. I had taken my 'special' princess out for her daily park trip. Since I taught her at home, I tried extra hard to make sure that she got plenty of time with other children. Socialization as they called it was a huge part of our curriculum, especially when you are raising an autistic child, who does not understand to the unspoken rules of 'polite' society. But unlike most of the other mothers, who could simply bring their children to the park and plop their fat asses on a bench for hours, I had to remain vigilant with Crystal. She had gotten better at understand most of the rules like sharing and taking turns, after two years of my hard work, but she still liked to boss other children around, get her way and play her games then run off without a word. So I spent most of time explaining her unusual behaviors to the other children and their parents.

This day she had glommed onto a young girl about her age, which was unusual; she usually preferred to play with younger children who did not question her authority. I watched as they played for several minutes. Slowly the tension began to drain from my body as I noticed the other gently negotiate and even trick Crystal into compromises. For about five seconds I allowed myself to hope that my daughter might actually have found a 'real' friend. Of course, I quickly stamped out that crazy idea; the girl had not weathered one of her meltdowns yet. But I would enjoy the moment as I watched them run around together, laughing and just being kids.

Then I noticed a boy, a couple of years older than them, approach. While Crystal can sometimes manage one-on-one 'friendships,' anything more is certainly beyond her. I stepped forward, on alert, ready to intercede at a moment's notice. Then I noticed her. Another mother on the other side of the park with a baby in her arms. She was doing the exact same thing. It felt strangely surreal. Almost as if here was another me. Younger certainly. Prettier for sure. But another mother, who battled like a lioness for her cubs in a world where the word protective had become a bad thing.

We reached the kids, who were still playing rather nicely at almost the same time. The words, 'I'm sorry my child...' emerged from our mouths at the same exact moment. We both burst into laughter. Her name was Marcy and these were her children Josh and Mandy. Like Crystal, Josh was high-functioning autistic, which explained why Mandy knew exactly how to manage my daughter's bossy behaviors. We sat down on a bench nearby and let the children do what they do...settle things for themselves. Oh, a couple of times, they could not and came to us, but that was all right too.We stayed in that park until dark that night and considering it was the middle of summer that was quite late. We exchanged cell phone numbers and agreed to meet back there the next day.

I would not say there were any 'sexual' sparks then but I admit I was as excited about seeing them again as a teenage girl going to her first homecoming. When we got there the next day, I was disappointed that they did not come. I took a deep breath and prepared myself for a major meltdown when Crystal realized that her friend was not there. But she just ran off to find a new one. I looked around again and felt my heart drop when I did not see them on closer inspection. Perhaps I had gotten the time wrong? We had been there almost an hour when I looked up and saw a haggled Marcy rushing a packed stroller and two cross children towards me. It seems that Josh had a meltdown. Why did he have to go to a dumb park? Crystal wasn't his friend. I sighed and smiled, realizing how much more complicated this young woman had it, trying to balance the needs of three children, not just one.

We did not stay until dark that time. Instead I invited them back to our apartment for dinner and video games. The girls rushed into Crystal's room to play with her 'hundred' dolls while Marcy and I set Josh up in my bedroom on the computer to play some online war game. Even baby Sadie decided to give Mommy a break and nap in her buggy for a bit. I made us large glasses of iced tea while the lasagna baked in the oven. We talked. Just talked.

I discovered so many things about her that night. Her husband had been one of those private contractors working security in the oil fields. He had been killed almost a year before, but even before that she had felt like a single parent for most of the children's lives. Even when he was home, he was more trouble than help. He always questioned everything she did. He especially resented that it was his only son with the autism, blaming her somehow, she babied him too much, just needed to make a man out of him.

I nodded my head in understanding. Crystal's father was just as bad. He never knew how to manage her behaviors. When she came home from his house, it took at least a day, sometimes two or three, to get her settled back down. Why were supposedly strong men such idiots, we joked and laughed over tea. Wouldn't the world be a better place if women ruled and just kept most of them in chains? It was silly and we did not genuinely mean it of course. But I think in some odd way, it sowed seeds of feminine prowess in our minds.

That became a pattern that summer. Parks, museums, even just time spent in one another's home. I will never forget the day that Marcy admit in tears to me that until that afternoon she and the children had never been invited into anyone's home. A single mom with three 'wild' children, she had been as isolated as I was. I hugged her then. No, not like that. Just a simple hug. The kind you give a sister or best friend.

The other did not come until later, much later. We decided after that summer to take the children away for a vacation. Of course, two single mothers cannot afford a lot so we decided to purchase a tent and take them to the state park, which was only a couple of hours away. We some careful planning even Crystal and Josh should be able to manage that.

To prepare those two for the sights, smells and sounds of camping we decided to start out a couple of weeks early...in my living room. We sat the tent up as best we could in there. We even got one of those stupid nature CDs to play for the sounds. Of course, we discovered that flashlights and lanterns had to be purchased along with loads of batteries.

The next week we upped the game a bit...spending the whole night in the tent in Marcy's backyard. The kids did surprisingly well. Better than this old woman's back that is for sure. Marcy found me a couple of strong tablets for the pain. She even found what my grandmother used to call 'horse liniment' that green smelly mint stuff. I have to say that her fingers were magic when she massaged it into my lower back. I actually told her so too. She just blushed and said that she got enough practice when her husband was alive as he had a bad back.

Of course, neither Josh nor Crystal wanted smelly old me anywhere near that tent. Marcy laughing reassured me that she could manage the situation as she put me to bed in her room. She did agree to let baby Sadie sleep in there with me so at least she did not have them all to manage. I felt super guilty the next morning when I was awoken by cute kids bearing pancakes on a tray. Marcy stood in the door way wearing one of her husband's old t-shirts that was virtually threadbare. She just smiled and shrugged her shoulders when I said that she shouldn't have.

I think that is the moment when I truly began to fall in love with this woman. Not just the friendship that had been developing all summer long. Not some sex-driven, hormone-filled lust thing but genuine, true, deep and abiding love. Partnership. The kind that I had spent a quarter of a century looking for with men. Here was someone who was intelligent, strong, and as beautiful on the inside as she was on the outside. Why had I not seen it before? Probably because I got hung up on the whole lesbian thing. I realized that morning that you fall in love with a person...not genitalia.

But what the hell was I going to do about it? Marcy and I had talked a couple of weeks back about why she did not date. She said that she just was not interested. That her marriage had taught her that relationships were more work than they were worth and that as bad as it sounded sometimes she was glad to be free of those encumbrances. So if she had no interest in men, what made me think she might be interested in women? Me in particular. I mean beyond friendship of course. What even made me think that as complicated as our lives were wee could make it work anyway?

The simple truth that I came to as I pondered my new feelings for Marcy that week as we prepared for our 'family' vacation was...because we were already making it work. In so many ways we had already done the hardest part. We had blended our complex families to the point that we spent more time together than apart. We relied on one another. Hell, Mandy and Crystal had already decided that they were sisters. The only thing missing really was the sex.

Now like I said I am not a 'lesbian' virgin. I had been with a few women in my lifetime, but most of those were for my ex-husband's pleasure, part of his swinging fantasies. But this situation did remind me of my first sexual experience in college with a sorority sister. A drunken fumbling around that had arisen from the depths of our friendship. I laughed as I realized that despite my boasts about living without pussy but not cock, my very first time had been with another woman. Maybe as Shakespeare said..."me thinks the lady doth protest too much." But as we loaded my SUV down with camping gear, food to meet the needs of not one but two picky eaters and more kids than we had sense, I still had no fucking idea how to broach the subject with Marcy.

The drive was a nightmare. A total and complete disaster. Crystal was constantly complaining of car sickness. Josh was fidgeting and fighting with his sister because he was in her space. It was the type of thing that usually met with condemning stares from those all around them. They were forced to pull over at every rest area along the route and even get off the highway a couple of times just to quiet the discord. A trip that should have taken a couple of hours took the whole day. It was early evening as they pulled into their campsite. And it was almost dark by the time that two single mothers had managed to struggle with the tent even though we had put it up and taken it down a couple of times already.

It was pitch black and probably close to midnight by the time that we had gotten everyone settled into their sleeping bags. I was exhausted and stressed and I could tell from the slump in her shoulders and the unusual quiet that Marcy was too. We had managed to get a campfire going simply because it was going to be chilly this high up in the mountains. And we could not afford to cope with sick kids on top of everything else.

"You look about like I feel," I joked as she emerged from settling another personal space dispute between Mandy and Josh. Of course, she had had to put Sadie back to sleep as well since the argument had woken the baby. I had held my breath expecting Crystal to cry out for a drink of water, but she had been blessedly quiet.

She shook her head and chuckled, "You feel that bad too? I thought it was just me that took everything so personally."

"Come take a seat by the fire. Rest a bit," I replied as I patted the ground next to me. Marcy nodded and plopped down hard. I wanted to scoop her into my arms and protect her the same way that I would Crystal. But I resisted the urge. I did not want to move too fast, scare her off.

We sat in silence for several long minutes just watching the flames pop and jump. I noticed that huge crocodile tears were coursing their way down her cheeks then. I reached out and brushed them away softly with my fingers. "Don't cry," I pleaded. I wanted to reassure her that things were not that bad. That everything would be all right in the end. But when you are a single mother of a special needs child both of those statements are simply lies. And I did not ever want there to be lies between us.

She smiled weakly as she turned her head to look into my eyes in the dim light of that campfire. "Do you ever wish things could be different? I mean not like you wish the kids away or anything. Just that you wish things were easier. That people were not always judging you. Looking at you like you and your kids are monsters or something. I don't know. I probably am not making any sense. It is late. I am tired and just talking non-sense I know. But from the moment we met, I just felt that you were probably the only person in the whole wide world who could understand. That got me. Sometimes I wish..." she got really silent then.

I held my breath. Everything that she said made perfect sense. I could not have said it better myself. I had thought those very things a million times over the past couple of years since Crystal had been diagnosed with autism and honestly even before that when I knew that something was not right but did not have a label to explain her unusual behaviors. She was right about all of it, but what did she wish? I was almost afraid to ask. So we went back to staring silently into that fire again.

I knew what I wanted. I wanted to make things better for Marcy. Lighten her load. Share her burdens. I wanted to take her in my arms and hold and comfort her after a bad day like this. I wanted to kiss away those tears as a lover not simply brush them aside as a friend. But how? How did we get to there from here? How could I possibly make this beautiful young creature understand that our friendship could be so much more? Finally, I worked up the courage to ask, "What do you wish, Marcy?"

She remained silent for several more long moments. I thought perhaps she had not heard me. Or worse yet, perhaps she no longer wanted to share her innermost feelings and thoughts with me. I was just about to get up, pretend that I had never asked and go off to my bed in the tent alone...as alone as I had been for years, as alone as I would probably be for the rest of my life. I was about to give up.

Marcy chuckled softly. The sound did funny things to my tummy. It made me want to kiss her silly, show her that soft could be as demanding as hard masculinity. It made me want to hold her and squeeze her so tightly that she could never get away. It made me want to show her all the love that was swirling inside of me.

Her words when she finally spoke floored me as nothing ever had, not even when the doctors gave me the diagnosis of autism had I been as shocked as I was in that moment. She shrugged her shoulders that were stooped under so many burdens. She was too young to bear them all alone. She should not have to. I was so caught up in those thoughts that I almost missed her whispered confession. In fact, I was not certain I heard her right at all. "What? What did you say, Marcy?" I asked dumbfounded.

She shrunk back a bit and stared at the ground. I put my hand on her shoulder. Turned her to face me. "No, Marcy, what did you say?"

She would not meet my gaze even then, she stared steadfastly down at the ground as she shrugged. "I know it is silly. Honest I do. But sometimes," those tears were back and they were breaking my heart. "Sometimes do you ever wish that one of us was a guy. I mean that we could be together. For real. A couple, you know?"

To be continued...