AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I mean I’ve been on top before,” Paige insisted. “It was fine, but mostly I haven’t done it since…” Great. Here came the loudclickof a lightbulb turning on in her brain. Right up there with the gong ringing and the car horn honking.
She had figured it out. She realized why Rhea blew up in the car all those weeks ago.
“I was always the top in my other relationships.” Paige smacked both hands against the counter. “I datedthedefinition of pillow princesses, and I gave them what they wanted. When I reassessed what I wanted from a ‘real’ relationship, Rhea came along and got me addicted to being the bottom. Because I thought that’s what she wanted.”
“Damn, Paige.” Jeanette laughed. “Sounds like Rhea has spent the past fifteen years waiting for you to treat her like you treated those other girls.”
“Except it wasn’t great! I don’t know what she thinks it was like with my other girlfriends, but I didn’t feel anything. I mostly took over because otherwise nothing got done in the bedroom. You know how it is. You get these girls,especiallyin college, who flop around like fish either because they don’t know what they’re doing or because they immediately dissociate from whatever other trauma they’ve got going on.” When Jeanette suddenly frowned, Paige explained, “I dated a lot of girls who should not have been dating anyone at all. College was wild like that.”
“Yes, I vaguely remember those times. You were the rebound, huh?”
“Took me years to figure out I was the campus queer rebound, yeah.” Paige tried not to think about it. For while Rhea may have romanticized her wife’s love life before they got together, the fact was that Paige shouldn’t have been going out with most of those girls.There was nothing there. Nothing good.Sure, Paige had good sex in college, but it came at a price.
They didn’t love her. She didn’t love them.
She never knew what love was until Rhea was in one of her classes.
Rhea hadn’t been fresh from a relationship when she went out with Paige. She didn’t ask to immediately forget whatever lover had come before Paige. She wanted to get toknowher future wife. Who was she? What drove her to live and succeed? What did she want to do with her life? Where did she see herself in ten years? Twenty?
Did she want to get married someday? How did she feel about kids? What about settling down with a woman from Malibu? But notthatMalibu?She was so embarrassed the first time I met her father and saw where she grew up.That was before Danny sold the original house and moved into his bungalow.
“I’ve got a lot to think about,” Paige said. “I never knew Rhea could be… complicated.”
“Aren’t we all?”
“How do I even broach this subject with her?”
“Maybe you don’t. Maybe you rely on what you know about her and…” Jeanette snapped her fingers. “Give her what she wants?”
“Is that what you would want Roxy to do?”
“That’s like a regular Friday night at the club for us. Do you know how many times we’ve played,‘excuse me, ma’am, but I really must have you right now?’It’s one of the hottest things in the world.”
“I’m not sure she’d go for something like that.”
“Hey, I should hope you know her better than I do. You’re the one married to her.”
That’s right. Paige was.
The strangest thoughts occupied her mind, no matter what she did.
Life went on with Rhea (and Danny,) but it wasn’t the same as before. Paige questioned everything she did, said, and experienced as she looked at her wife through a new pair of eyes.
She didn’t divulge that she had read one of Rhea’s stories. Or flipped through most of them. Not even when she accompanied her wife to the post office and watched her mail the portfolio to her publisher in New York. Rhea was visibly out of sorts afterward, and Paige now knew why – some other person was about to read her deepest, darkest fantasies and decide if there were enough readers out there who wanted some of that shit from an author who usually wrote literary family dramas.
They celebrated by having their first date since Danny moved in with them. A nurse stayed at home while Rhea and Paige enjoyed a quiet lunch at one of their favorite spots and watched a short movie at the local theater. It took Rhea’s mind off sharing such a deeply personal part of herself, but Paige was going crazy.
“Will you ever let me read one of your stories?”
Rhea had been driving them home when her wife asked that. “Why would you want to read some silly erotic story I wrote?”
“Becauseyouwrote it, for one thing.”
“Ah, well, it probably won’t be published. If it is, you’ll be the first to know.”
“It’ll be published. I’m sure of it.”
Rhea was so red that Paige feared her wife’s heart had pumped too much blood to hereverything.
