Doublecrossed (27 page)

“Sounds like progress to me. I like not talking or thinking about her.”

“I guess you don’t want to talk about her now, but some things about your relationship have always puzzled me.”

Callie lay down on the grass and stared at the deep blue sky. “Ask away. I’m feeling so good that I can tolerate thinking about Marina.”

“Stop me if this is too personal, but I’ve always wondered why you agreed to having an open relationship.”

“I think we talked about this one of the first times we spoke. Didn’t we?” She lifted her head just enough to be able to see Regan’s face.

“Yeah, I think it was one of the first times, but I didn’t know you very well then and you didn’t elaborate. I’m interested in how the whole thing played out, if you feel like talking about it.”

“I don’t have any secrets from you. If you’re interested, I’ll tell you anything.”

“I’ve always gotten the impression that it was Marina’s idea.”

“Oh, yeah. It was all her idea. At first I dismissed it without even considering it. But she was really persistent. She was in Dallas and I was in Phoenix and she came to see me a lot.” She emphasized the last word dramatically.

“That doesn’t surprise me,” Regan said smiling at her. “That smile of yours could make women weep.”

“I think you’re exaggerating.” Callie couldn’t help but show her best smile. It was fun to taunt her a little bit. Regan was so transparent about some things that it made toying with her irresistible. Her blue eyes opened wide, and she stared at the smile a moment longer than a friend would have. Desire infused her expression, but Callie didn’t push. She knew the key to their future relationship was to wait for Regan to be ready. “She was very persistent. And she kept reminding me why Rob and I had broken up. Over time, she convinced me that having a little ‘breathing room’ as she liked to call it made fidelity much less of an issue.” She rolled over onto her belly and rested her weight on her arms. “I know you probably don’t see it this way, but our agreement isn’t what caused us to break up. The fact that she was dishonest was the problem.”

“If you say so.”

“I do. Open relationships are really pretty common, especially for gay men. I think, if both people feel the same about it, it can work.”

“Not for me it wouldn’t. Never.”

“I’m not the spokesperson for open relationships. It takes a certain kind of person and you’re not that person.” Callie smiled warmly at her. “I think you’re the kind of person who would give her all to one woman. I’m just sorry the woman you chose wasn’t able to accept everything you had to give her.”

Looking hauntingly sad, Regan nodded her head. “Yeah. Me, too. Sometimes you can’t help but fall for the wrong person. I guess the key is to learn from it so you don’t have to repeat your mistake.”

“You won’t. I’m sure of that.”

“So am I,” Regan agreed firmly. “Never again. I’d rather have a girlfriend with no sex drive at all than have one who cheats on me.”

“That’s being a little extreme. Sex is too important to throw it away, girl.”

“Not as important as honesty,” Regan said, her pretty mouth set in a grim line. “Well, I guess the issue is fidelity. I could take an occasional lie about something that wasn’t critical. But I would never, ever accept cheating. Never,” she emphasized, her eyes almost glowing with fervor. “I’m one hundred percent monogamous, and if I’m going to be, so is my partner. No excuses.”

Laughing, Callie said, “I think you might be the spokesperson for monogamy.”

“We need one,” she replied, frowning. “It’s almost out of style.”

*

Regan lay next to Callie that night, smelling her sweet scent and longing for her in a way that was physically painful. The words they’d both spoken in the park flitted around annoyingly. It wasn’t possible to be any clearer. She was antagonistic to open relationships. Being in one was the same—exactly the same—as casually dating. But Callie claimed she’d loved Marina and that they’d been partners. She could call it whatever she liked, but that wasn’t what a partnership was. The amazing thing was that Callie had taken the whole discussion very lightly, as though it hadn’t pertained to her. There had to be a way to get more clarity. No matter the expense.

*

They were at Callie’s apartment the next evening, trying to decide whether to order Chinese or Thai. They finally picked Thai, and after calling in the order, they settled onto the sectional to have a beer while they waited. Regan took a sip of her beer and said, “You know, there’s something that’s been niggling at the back of my head.” Callie playfully tried to see the back of Regan’s head but she was unsuccessful.

“I’m being serious.”

Callie reached out and gently touched her on the leg. “I can see that. What is it?”

“Do you ever think I’m too narrow minded about fidelity? I wonder if you think that I’m immature or that I don’t have a big enough worldview or something.” She felt very uncomfortable, and knew that Callie could see that.

“I don’t think that at all. Nothing like that has ever crossed my mind.”

“You sure?”

“Yes. Really. I think you really have to want a certain kind of relationship to have it be open. And I try not to judge people about how they behave sexually. I learned that after I reacted so badly with Rob. People have different ways of getting their needs met, and if they’re not hurting anyone I try not to be judgmental.”

Regan nodded slowly. “I’m pretty judgmental.”

“I’ve never noticed that.”

“I am. If I know someone has cheated, I don’t feel the same about them. I lose respect for them. I don’t think I can change that, and to be honest, I don’t think I want to change.”

Callie looked at her quizzically. “You don’t have to change. There’s nothing wrong with feeling a certain way. You’re not out on the streets punching people who you know have had affairs. It’s cool.”

“I guess. It just occurs to me once in a while that maybe I was too judgmental with Angela, but then I realize there are things I just can’t change. And that’s one of them.”

“That’s the last thing you should worry about. No one needs to put up with an unfaithful lover. No one.”

“Uhm, wasn’t it hard for you the first time that Marina was with someone else?”

“Oh, God, it was hard,” Callie said quietly. “It was very hard. When we first got together we agreed that we’d be monogamous until we were both ready. But she got ready after about two months. She called me from somewhere, maybe Utah? And said she’d run into someone she’d been with before and she wondered if I minded if she was with her that night.”

Regan’s eyes were wide and she looked as though she were seeing a ghost. “What did you do?”

“After I tried to stop myself from throwing up?” Regan didn’t reply, she just stared. “I had to follow through. It was part of the deal we made. I realized I wasn’t going to feel any better about it in the future so I just bit the bullet.”

Regan put her face into her open hands. “I would have gone berserk.”

“Marina made it crystal clear that she could not and would not be in a relationship that wasn’t open. I knew from the beginning that this was something she wouldn’t negotiate. So I went into this with my eyes open. Yes, she pushed me faster than I was willing to go, but I think she had to push me.” She shrugged, looking unconcerned.

“So how did you get past feeling jealous?”

“Well, this might be more than you want to know, but I have a uhm…I guess you’d call it…a voyeuristic streak.” She was blushing by the time she got to the end of the sentence.

“If this is too much…”

“No, I don’t mind talking about it, but I don’t want to tell you more than you want to know.”

“I’m interested. If you want to add something, go ahead.”

“All right. I think it goes back to when I was fairly young. My mom was out for the night and we had a babysitter. That was pretty rare, so I remember it clearly. The girl was in high school and I got up to ask for a drink of water or something. She had her boyfriend there and they were having sex right in our living room.”

“Damn!”

“I know. She had a lot of nerve, to be honest. My mom would have killed her if she knew she’d done that. But I was, I don’t know, ten or eleven maybe and my knowledge of sex was rudimentary at best. All I knew was that there was a guy on top of Kathy and he was doing something very weird to her. I don’t know how long I watched, but I was there until they finished. You couldn’t have pried me away.”

“And you think…”

“Yeah. I think that seeing that gave me a proclivity for watching other people. It’s always been part of my orientation.”

“Do you go looking for…”

Callie laughed and slapped at Regan hard. “No! I don’t go peeping in windows. But when my first boyfriend and I started having sex we used to talk about bringing another girl into our bed. That got me off.” She shrugged her shoulders again. “That’s just what turns me on.”

“That’s…interesting.”

“Interesting or upsetting? You don’t look very happy. Should I have kept my mouth shut?”

“No, no, not at all.” Regan put on a smile that looked forced. “I guess it just surprises me that you’d want to have threesomes. I can’t imagine being drunk enough for that.”

“We didn’t ever have a threesome. We just talked about it.”

“You talked about it?”

“Yeah. We talked about it rather than doing it. It was just a way to turn each other on.”

“Huh.” Regan moved around on the sofa, looking like she had an itch she couldn’t get to. “Uhm, did you and Marina have threesomes?”

“No, no, I don’t think we ever would have wanted the same person. Our tastes were very different. But she’d tell me what she did when she was away and I’d get off on that. I didn’t think that would happen, but it did.”

“That actually turned you on? Hearing about her having sex with someone else.”

Callie paused, looking tentative. “Is this too much?”

“No. It’s fine.” It was so hard to look normal. How could you love a woman and get off on hearing about her having sex with other people?

“Okay.” She peered at Regan carefully. “Sure?”

“Yeah. Absolutely.” It hurt, but it had to come out. It was too important to ignore any longer.

“So, sexually, we were very, very compatible. I’ve never had sex with anybody who turned me on more than she did or who knew how to get to me. Our sex life was frankly tremendous.”

Stunned, Regan chugged her beer and got up to head for the kitchen. “I’m getting another. Are you ready?”

Callie looked at her beer from which she’d taken two sips and said, “No. Not yet.”

When Regan came back, she sat down and took another long drink. “I told Angela when we’d just started going out that I never wanted to hear about anyone she’d been with. I don’t like to think of the person I’m with ever having been kissed by another person.” She took another drink of her beer, still flustered. “I don’t think you and I are made the same way.”

“That’s what I was referring to earlier. Everybody has stuff when it comes to sex. You just need to figure out how to make it work if it’s important to you.”

Regan took another drink, her eyes focused on the window. “Sex is very important,” she said quietly. “Sex is how I show someone I love her. It’s a great way to communicate. But if you don’t have love and trust and respect and concern for each other the best sex in the world isn’t going to hold your relationship together.”

“I understand that. I really do. But that’s the ideal. You don’t always get the perfect lover. So you figure out how to make it work, even if it’s outside of your comfort zone.”

The front door buzzed and Regan got up to answer it, mulling over Callie’s words. Her view seemed to be that you took people as you found them, then figured out how to make sex work. That was so ridiculous that it didn’t merit a comment. You only let yourself fall for the right person. You didn’t take every bit of trash you found by the road. But Marina was trash, and Callie would have still been with her if Marina had been more careful. And that was unconscionable.

*

They ate their food in relative silence. That wasn’t odd for them, so Callie chalked it up to Regan’s being tired. But she had an edgy energy that showed itself when she got up to clean the kitchen, telling Callie to stay where she was.

Callie watched her work, seeing the tense, rigid set to her shoulders. She knew something was up, and as soon as Regan came back into the room she could feel her stomach start to flip. Regan sat down beside her and said, “We need to talk.”

Trying to create some moisture in her arid mouth, Callie merely nodded.

Regan looked as earnest and as nervous as Callie had ever seen her. The first words from her mouth caused Callie’s mouth to drop open in astonishment. “I love you,” she said, her voice shaking. “I love you so much it hurts. And I wish with all my heart that we could be together, but…we can’t.”

“What?” She jumped up so fast her head spun. “What are you talking about?”

“It wouldn’t work. It just wouldn’t.”

“Regan!” she snapped. “Spit it out.”

“I don’t think it was wrong of you to be in a relationship like the one you were in with Marina, but… Oh, shit. I’ve gotta be honest. I do think it was wrong. I can’t get that out of my mind. It’s like you were cheating even though you weren’t.”