Faltering Read online

  “Wake up, Lara,” I whispered close to her ear. She stretched, twisting over onto her back and blinking a few times as she focused up at me. In an almost hesitant gesture she touched my cheek with the backs of her fingers in a gentle caress.

  “My sweet Sylvie,” she whispered. “You’re still here. You stayed with me.”

  “Yes,” I replied. “I’m headed downstairs to make lunch, though. It’s actually a little late. I fell asleep. Will you go with me? We could have lunch in the garden room.” She nodded and yawned, stretching as she sat up.

  “What’s my reward if I eat all of my food?” She grinned roguishly. I shook my head.

  “What would you like?” She pressed her lips together and stared at me, her bright hazel eyes betraying intensity I was unable to understand.

  “How about I think on it and tell you later?” I nodded. She got up shakily, steadying herself with a hand on the bedside table. I hurried around to her side of the bed to help her, but she waved me off. “I told you there’s nothing wrong with me. I’m fine,” she said quietly. “I’m going to be fine now.”

  ****

  A couple of months later Lara was much stronger. She was the model patient, compliantly consuming everything I asked her to eat, and always leaving her room to spend the afternoon downstairs at my suggestion. The only capitulation on my part was our regular morning naps, which I minded not at all, once I became accustomed to the idea. I planned to coax her out of the house, to accompany me on a walk around the estate grounds after lunch, but I’d yet to broach the subject. Lara was finishing her last bite of a praline, another of my mamma’s recipes, when I decided to ask her.

  “I’d like to stretch my legs a bit this afternoon. Will you show me around your property?” Her gaze narrowed the way it always does when I ask her to do something, as if carefully weighing the barter value of her consent. She nodded and responded as she had been for weeks.

  “And you’ll do something for me, later, when I ask?” I nodded and laughed.

  “I can’t imagine I’d refuse you anything, Lara. What’s going on in that complicated head of yours? What are you plotting?” I grinned, teasing her, but her gaze was clouded. “What is it?” She licked her lips and pressed them together, her eyes shifting to my mouth. “You don’t want to tell me?”

  “You think I look better now, healthier, more like my old self?” I smiled and nodded.

  “Of course, Lara,” I agreed quietly. “But you’ve always been beautiful, even when you were too skinny and your hair was matted to your head.”

  “Will you kiss me, Sylvie?” she whispered. I smiled, remembering the day she dressed me up in her room all those years earlier, the first time I’d ever seen myself as anything but awkward. I leaned over and kissed her on the forehead the way my mamma used to kiss me when she checked me for a fever.

  “Anything else?” I grinned.

  “Not like that,” she said softly. “Really kiss me.” I gazed at her mouth as it dawned on me. The subtle flirtation of the past few weeks, the innuendo, suddenly everything registered. She must have read the shock in my expression because she moved back from me. “I’m sorry,” she stammered. “I didn’t mean it. Please. Forget I said anything.”

  “Lara?”

  She turned away from me, obviously embarrassed. I eased over, closer to her, and took her hand in mine. I didn’t want her to feel uncomfortable, or worse, rejected. She was too fragile, and sweet. I realized as I waited for her to look back at me that I wanted to kiss her. I wanted to feel her lips against mine, more than anyone else’s anyway. I reached out to catch her chin and turned her face so she’d look at me. For a moment I saw what I thought was fear in her eyes, but then her expression solidified, an eyebrow arched, her expression shifting to a curious sort of amusement. At the time I didn’t read her correctly, but later I realized, she knew what I was about to do. She was playing her part, waiting for the inevitable, having already tenaciously worked her way beneath my skin.

  I cupped the back of her neck and leaned forward to press my lips into the almost unbearable softness of hers. I’d not kissed many people in my life. When I was younger I was too busy with school, and then it was work, or just life in general I guess, so, naturally, I was unsure of myself. She must have sensed this, because her hands came up to the sides of my face as she easily held me there with her. Haltingly, I eased my arms around her waist. She drew back slightly and nibbled lightly against my bottom lip before grazing her mouth across my jaw and down my throat. A sort of lightness spread through my stomach and tingles ran down my spine as I sat back to collect myself. She wore the sweetest smile, as the backs of her fingers ran across my lips.

  “You’re always so gentle with me,” she whispered in a breathy voice. “Let’s try it with your mouth open.” I pulled back from her, startled. She smiled softly, her eyes shining in amusement.

  ****

  We walked the grounds together, my hand tightly entwined with hers, as was our custom most afternoons. We always ended our walk in the perfectly straight lanes of the pecan orchard, acres from the main house. The mid afternoon sun was filtering through the leaves of the pecan trees in little splotches. I appreciated the way the shadows played in Lara’s hair, contrasting light blond with darkness. She turned and caught me watching her and a slow smile spread across her lips.

  “How did I get so lucky?” she asked quietly. I watched as she ran her free hand through her hair, pushing it back from her face, unfurling the pale light held captive there.

  “What do you mean?” I asked, mesmerized by the grace of her movement.

  “It was a rhetorical question, Sylvie,” she answered. “You shouldn’t take everything I say so literally.” I nodded. “I just meant that I’m happy. You make me almost unbearably happy.” I didn’t know what to say. “I don’t deserve you.”

  “Lara.” I stopped in my tracks, uneasy with her willingness to acknowledge that I meant something to her. “Maybe we should head back to the house. I don’t want to tire you too much.”

  “But I’m not tired at all. Not yet,” she answered distractedly. “I like being out here with you, and I’ve never shown you the old hay barn,” she offered.

  “No,” I replied. “But I’ve seen plenty of barns.” She smiled as her fingers tightened against mine.

  “You goose! It’s not really the barn I want to show you,” she chided. Her pace quickened, forcing me to walk faster to keep up with her.

  “What then?” I asked.

  “You’ll see. It’s just around this row,” she explained, pulling me with her until we rounded the turn, where she stopped. I saw an old red barn with a rusted tin roof. There was nothing extraordinary about it aside from the unkempt state it was in. I glanced over at Lara searchingly. “No one uses it, ever, and no one comes out here either,” she said. “It was used for storing hay, but that was years ago.”

  The first thing to pop into my mind came out of my mouth. “Then there might be snakes, copperheads.” She cut her eyes and smiled as if I’d made a joke, but the idea of coming across a copperhead inside the barn was far from funny to me. Rattlesnakes weren’t impossible either, I thought.

  She started walking again, this time at a more tenuous pace, as she watched me, almost coaxing me along as we approached the big sliding door. The hardware on the door had rusted, so it took both of us shoving, throwing all our strength into the effort, to get the barn door to budge. It groaned on its tracks as it cracked open, revealing the darkness within, and allowing barely enough room for us to squeeze inside. My eyes had not yet adjusted to the changed light when she grabbed my hand and pulled me toward the ladder, only to release me as she started climbing up to a loft. I followed her, stepping onto a slatted wood floor at the top. Lara quickly opened a trap door in the wall, allowing the light to spill in around us. She stood surveying the area, the sunlight illuminating her fair hair as it hung down her back. “See, there are some tarps over here. Help me spread them, will you?” I joined
her, shaking the dust from the old canvas tarps before spreading them on the slatted wood floor of the loft. When we finished, she sat down in the very middle of the tarps and gazed up at me challengingly.

  “This dust can’t be good for you,” I whispered nervously. “I don’t want you sick again.”

  “Don’t treat me like an invalid, Sylvie,” she shot back at me in a sharp tone. “I’m almost as strong as you are now.” She was right. I was being overprotective. I nodded my agreement and sat down beside her on the tarp, maintaining a safe distance.

  “You’re making me nervous,” I admitted. She smiled at my honesty.

  “I know, honey. I can tell,” she answered. “And it’s really very sweet.”

  “I don’t know what you want from me,” I said in almost a whisper.

  “That’s easy,” she replied. “I want you, every delicious inch of you. I want to eat you up, swallow you whole.”

  “What?” I asked, confused.

  “I want to make love to you, Sylvie.”

  “Why?” I asked quietly.

  “Lust mostly, I guess,” she said in a teasing tone. “I can’t stop imagining what it will be like with you. The images keep spinning in my head, making me dizzy almost.”

  “I don’t know how,” I admitted, completely unprepared.

  I’d grown accustomed to her kisses, and she always reached for my hand when we were out walking, but I’d told myself what we were doing was innocent, like a school girl’s crush. What she was proposing was not innocent. It was adultery. I sat next to her trying to gather the words to tell her that what she was asking of me was wrong, and that I couldn’t cross that line, when her hand found its way to my thigh. She eased close to me.

  “Then let me show you,” she whispered, next to my ear.

  “But what about your husband?” I asked. She was kissing my neck, her breath warm, spurring my heartbeat. She tugged sharply at my earlobe with her teeth before answering.

  “What about him?” she whispered as her lips moved across my cheek to find my mouth. She kissed me deeply, the tenderness of her lips overwhelming me as she guided me down to the floor, her hands skimming over me. “You’re exquisite,” she sighed as she pressed a hand between my thighs.

  “Oh god, Lara.” Shock waves coursed through my body, waves of a hunger I’d never imagined overwhelming me. She smiled against my lips and continued to kiss me.

  “Don’t be scared. We’ll take this really slow,” she assured me, “but you’re going to need to unclench your jaw, honey, and kiss me properly.”

  She was trying to calm me, but I was growing increasingly unsettled by the depth of my reaction. As she kissed me, she worked on the buttons of my blouse. Carefully, her nimble fingers eased them loose before I could summon the wherewithal to stop her. After tugging my shirt down my back, she easily unfastened my bra, slipping the straps down my shoulders as her mouth glided down my neck. I was so wrapped up in her lips, caressing my skin. I paid little attention to the rest of her, until she had my pants unfastened. When she started gently easing them over my hips, I caught her hands to stop her. She gracefully entwined her fingers with mine, pressing my hands to the floor beside us, gently pinning me under her.

  I had quite a lot of experience over the years avoiding intimacy, but nothing had prepared me for wanting someone. It had always been a foregone conclusion I didn’t want whoever was hounding after me. By the way my body was responding to her, it was clear this situation was different. Her mouth was on my neck, her hands on my breasts, as my heart pounded so violently in my chest I knew she must feel it too.

  Her hands charted the territory before her mouth claimed it, as she moved down my body. Her tongue glided over a nipple, sending waves of electricity, as her warm, wet mouth devoured me. She paid equal attention to my other breast, continuing her adoration as her weight settled between my thighs. She skimmed across my ribs with butterfly soft, pausing to press her tongue into my bellybutton. The muscles of my stomach quivered as she kissed lower, and gently tugged at my unfastened pants. Alarms rang through my head and I sat up quickly.

  “Lara, don’t,” I gasped, trying to control my breathing.

  “But I want to taste you,” she explained. “I want my mouth on you.”

  “Stop,” I insisted. She bit the corner of her bottom lip, and raised her right eyebrow as she appraised me.

  “You’ll like it,” she promised. “I’ll make you feel incredible.” I turned over on my side pulling away from her. Still fully clothed, she laid down beside me, running her fingers gently through the side of my hair.

  “We can’t do this,” I explained.

  “But we’re already doing this,” she insisted. “I can slow down if you want. I didn’t mean to spook you.”

  “Girls aren’t supposed to mess around with each other,” I replied cautiously. She laughed with her mouth next to my ear before pulling back to look at me.

  “Whoever told you that?” she asked, clearly amused. “Of course, we do, Sylvie.”

  “I can’t,” I whispered. “It’s wrong.”

  “What we’re doing is natural. It’s beautiful even. It’s the other that’s not,” she answered evenly. “At least not for me.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “Forcing myself to tolerate him on top of me, his crushing weight grinding into me until I can hardly breathe as he rams himself inside of me, grunting, and exhaling his wet, sour, bourbon breath on my skin. I always want to fight him, to scream for him to get off of me, to leave me be, but I don’t because it’s his right to have me. That shrink told me the revulsion I feel exposes deep seeded perversion, but I don’t believe him.” I forgot my fear, turning over on my back to focus up at her, reading disgust, and something else even more powerful, contempt or hate, on her face. “If that’s normal, I want abnormal,” she spat. “I hate normal. I’d rather be a pervert than endure it.”

  “Lara, that’s horrible,” I replied, shocked. “It’s really like that?” Her eyes narrowed as she focused on me.

  “I take it your experiences with men have been better?” she asked. I stared at her, suddenly tongue-tied. “Sylvie?” I diverted my eyes, hating the immense sense of vulnerability overwhelming me. I shook my head. Lara was quiet for a moment, apparently realizing the implications of my reaction. “Honey, have you ever been with a man?” I glanced back at her and shook my head again. “Jesus. No wonder you’re so skittish.” She leaned forward and kissed my nose lightly. “You should have said something. If I’d known I would have... You should have told me.”

  She reached her arms around me and refastened my bra, and then lifted my bra straps back on my shoulders, letting them pop slightly against my skin. She then buttoned a few buttons on my shirt. She slowly lay back down at my side without touching me, waiting for me as I moved close to her, to rest my head on her shoulder. She held my upper arm lightly as I lay there, uncertain of what I should say or do. When I could summon the courage I lifted up to meet her eyes. She sat up and propped up against the wall, golden hair falling around her shoulders.

  “What do you want me to do?” I finally asked. “Tell me. I’ll try.”

  “Just relax, Sylvie.”

  “Don’t you want me?” I asked. She shook her head.

  “On a ratty old tarp in a dilapidated barn? No, I think not.” She smiled and shook her head. “We were playing a game, or at least I was, but you’re hardly more than a child. It never occurred to me that your innocence was more than a ruse. If I’d known, I’d never have touched you like that.” Her grip on my arm tightened.

  “I’m sorry,” I said quietly.

  “About what, honey?” I stared at her, suddenly even more confused. “You’ve nothing to apologize for, Sylvie.” I tried to shift away from her, but she caught my shoulders, preventing me from moving away. “Hold on. It’s all right. Relax. You’re safe with me.” I didn’t know how to respond, so I relaxed my head against the wall of the hayloft, as she absently skimmed her finger
s through my hair, straightening it.

  ****

  My confession put a sudden and utter end to her advances. She still sought my hand when we walked, and she still kissed me sometimes, but usually on the cheek, or the forehead. Occasionally, when she was especially happy with something I’d said or done, she would press a quick kiss to my lips, but it was nothing like before. Before, her kisses had been languorous, tempting, awakening hunger deep within me. After that afternoon in the barn, they became quick and innocent; as if I were only a pretty child she adored. To be honest, I was relieved at first by this change, but slowly the distance she was creating became somehow painful. For the first time in my life I was aware of the emptiness caused by my emotional isolation, the self-imposed stagnation that was my life.

  All this time she was growing stronger, every day, as I weakened. We started leaving her home, heading out for lunch with her friends, and shopping. She no longer needed my care as a nurse by then, but she insisted that she still needed me with her. At that point I had to admit I was more of a highly paid companion than a nurse. The idea made me uncomfortable. At the many lunches we suddenly had scheduled every day, with her friends from the Junior League, or the Daughters of the Confederacy, or the Garden Society, or whatever random organization she was busy running that day, Lara introduced me as her ‘dear friend from way back’. She pulled me into the conversations whenever possible, offering her rapt attention if I managed to find anything at all to contribute, but it was painfully obvious. I had nothing in common with her friends. I didn’t belong in her world, and every day I was becoming less essential to her welfare. Her life was restructuring, reclaiming its shape, and making me wholly irrelevant.

  It was after one of these lunches that I decided to broach the subject of moving on. I thought I should try again to find work at the hospital, or maybe even think about heading back up to Chicago. Mamma was recovering nicely, but she still needed financial help, since her health wasn’t good enough to allow her to work as she had done before. She was already cleaning the Elgin house again, though she could only manage two days a week at that point. Still, Mamma didn’t need me around fussing over her, any more than Lara did.