The Messenger (A Lesbian Romance) (2 page)

She turned. At one corner of her mouth, I swear I saw a faint hint of a smile. Beneath her thick black eyebrows, her dark eyes burned. If she wasn’t enjoying this, she was doing a good job of hiding it. She turned her palms out, as if to urge me to get on with it. I got ready to unleash my fury on her, but found that there was nothing. The tank was empty.
 

“Fine. I’ll sign it. Bring it here.”

She covered the distance between us in two steps. She didn’t seem to take any pleasure in my acquiescence, which I appreciated. It fooled me into thinking I still had enough spark to threaten her. I said, in as menacing a tone as I could muster,
 

“Your name. Your company. You’ll never get another call from us.”

She didn’t seem phased in the slightest.

“I ride for Bobby’s Messenger Service. And no worries, you’ve never called us. Your competitors do, because we get the job done.”

She waved the signed form in the air for emphasis, then headed for the door. Just as she grabbed the handle, she turned.
 

“Oh, and my name’s Rabbit.”

“Rabbit?” Oh, come on.

“That’s how they know me. If you’re going to try and get me in trouble with my boss, that’s the name you’re going to use.”

She slipped out the door.
 

“God, what a bitch”, Margaret said.
 

For some strange, inexplicable reason, I felt compelled to defend Rabbit.

“She was just doing her job. She didn’t care who she was speaking to.”

Margaret sat back down. “Whatever”, she hissed. I returned to my office, but it was all over for me that day. I would get nothing done.
 

And I would get even less done for the rest of the week, it turned out. Every time I stepped into my office, the place felt filthy, even the walls. I couldn’t get enough light into it. No matter what I did, the place didn’t feel right. I’d taken to haunting the doorways of my colleagues.
 

It wasn’t until I was driving home one evening that I figured it out. A young woman on a bike was crowding the lane as I made my way over a hill. Although I’m normally the most careful driver around, I thought of Rabbit’s thick, confident thighs as I drove. Then, it hit me: although Rabbit hadn’t offended me, despite her apparent lack of respect, I couldn’t remember the last time someone had stood up to me. I couldn’t remember the last time someone had seen me as anything except the ball-busting, bitch on heels that I’d spent so long convincing other people that I was. Somehow, this “Rabbit” had seen right through all that. I began to wonder if it was all bullshit.
 

As I made my way home that evening, as the sky deepened into the kind of azure reserved only for Southern California evenings, I felt shaken to my very core. Somehow, this Rabbit had seen into my soul.
 

Chapter Three

Of course, the only logical course of action was to try once more to force those thoughts and feelings out of my head with work. A new project would be just the thing, I thought. Ideally, I’d be too consumed to feel anything for very long, let alone feelings that were totally foreign and discomfiting. The very next day, I launched a coup to acquire the company that had tried to acquire us the day that Rabbit showed up in the office. Somehow, I blamed them for it. Silly, I know, but the worst thing that could happen would be that we wouldn’t close a deal. The best thing that could happen would be me getting enough distance between these feelings and myself that they would cease altogether, not to mention getting the firm one step closer to total industry domination. It sounded like a win-win if I ever heard one.
 

At the end of the day, I looked at my plans and achieved a kind of high from all the projected hours that would be involved. Is this what drugs are like? There was salvation in those hours; the more occupied my time was, the less I was vulnerable to those feelings creeping back up on me. Mitchell and his department looked over the project a few days later and gave the go-ahead. He grinned and called me, not unappreciatively, a vindictive bitch, and sent me on my way. By the end of the week, the memory of Rabbit’s eyes meeting mine with that frightening power began to fade.
 

For a brief, haughty moment, I thought that I’d done it yet again, and had fooled my heart into trading work for feelings. Within a couple of days, I quickly learned that I couldn’t work those kinds of hours like I used to. Thoughts and words kept getting entangled with one another, rendering me exasperated, if not downright humiliated. It certainly didn’t help matters that when I tried to sleep at night, I thought of Rabbit. Her voice, husky for such a demure woman, lilting out of her perfectly formed mouth and sending words my way.
 

It was disheartening, to say the least, like I was an athlete who’d played past her prime. I don’t know what happened, exactly; working like a demon had gotten me through the toughest times in my life. It felt a little like being abandoned by an old friend. Mitchell stopped by my office early one afternoon. He meandered around a bit, sticking his hands in his pockets and chewing on the inside of his lip.
 

“Soooo… coming along well, I see… “, he began. Whatever was on his mind, I could tell I wouldn’t want to hear it. However, I wasn’t about to make it easy on the slick-haired fucker. I put my pen down and leaned back in my chair, throwing him the look I reserve for people who had better get to the point.
 

“Look. We’re… oh, how do I say this?” he took one hand out of his pocket and whirled it around, as though he was hoping to blindly hit the words he was looking for.

“We’re a little worried. About the project. You holding up okay?”

I wasn’t expecting that. Even if I’d tried to keep throwing him my sardonic look, I doubt it would’ve made a difference.
 

“Holding up?”

“Yeah… the board, well, they think you’re going after our competitors out of vengeance. Which, between you and me, isn’t a bad motivation at all. But personally, I think you’re running from something, Luce. I don’t know what it is, but you’ve got to deal with it. For your sake, if not for your career’s. Take the rest of the day off, and we’ll re-evaluate the project on Monday.”

Good old Mitchell, caring just enough to let me know there was a problem, but not enough to actually maybe get his hands dirty. It was when I began to wonder if Rabbit’s friends would’ve left her alone in such a state that I knew I had to get out of the office for a while. Reluctantly, I agreed. Mitchell smiled, apparently relieved that he could go back to the board and tell them that he’d accomplished his goal. As much as it pains me to admit it, I was actually glad to walk out of there that day.
 

Had I known what I was going to see when I actually got outside, however, I might’ve insisted that everything was alright and finagled to stay at the office. After heading out, the siren call of a gin and tonic began to pull me towards my favorite seedy bar. I managed to focus my thoughts on the kind of gin I would request, and where I would sit in the cozy bar, which would undoubtedly be a cool, dark refuge from the harsh afternoon light.
 

I was all but salivating when I caught myself studying a bike messenger hanging out in a small park. I’d never seen this one before; she was another young woman, a little taller than Rabbit. She had riotous pink streaks in her otherwise long, black hair. Like Rabbit, she wore tight fitting jeans that clung to her lithe figure. She sat cross-legged on a concrete bench, her hands dangling comfortably over her knees as she watched dogs frolic in the grass nearby. Something about the ease with which she smiled at them made me jealous of her. Her full lips framed a wide, bright smile. She seemed to be youth personified. For one unspeakably slimy moment, I imagined that if I were to somehow suddenly find myself nuzzling the crook between her hair and the long, soft line of her neck, I would inhale a sweet musk like I had never experienced. I felt like I was looking at a greek goddess in a moment of repose.
   

 
All my longing to send several gin and tonics down my gullet, as well as for the sweet, dark escape of the bar evaporated. I didn’t know anything about these thoughts suddenly tumbling about in my brain, and I needed to keep a clear head. Pretending to be interested in the dogs, I took a seat near the young woman. I watched her out of the corner of my eye, certain that she would catch me looking if I turned toward her even an inch. I felt like I was glowing like a lantern, and was helpless to quell it.
 

After a few moments of watching other people come and go, I finally felt ready to get up and keep walking. I had no idea if I’d still be heading to the bar, but thankful to finally feel in control again, I stood. Before I could take a single step away from this embarrassing but engrossing moment, a familiar figure zipped by on a bike. Rabbit.
 

She cruised through the grass like she owned the place, and laughed with delight at the ruckus it caused among the dogs in the park. She slowed down just enough to let them nip at her heels, giving them a sense of accomplishment. She came to a rest next to the young woman who had captivated me. I knew that I would be going nowhere soon.
 

Effortlessly, Rabbit swung herself off the bike. For her part, the young woman turned her face toward Rabbit like a flower finding the sun, like she’d been waiting all day to see Rabbit. Rabbit said something to the girl, gesturing with that familiar gloved hand.
 

The girl stood up. I thought she looked nervous; she ran her palms against the legs of her jeans and shuffled her feet. For a moment, she looked like an awkward teenager as she searched Rabbit’s face. It felt like a sin to be watching them like this, but I couldn’t look away. I can’t tell you what I was thinking, because all the thoughts in my head had turned to radio static.
       

When Rabbit gently put her gloved hands on the girls slender hips, then leaned in to kiss her, my thoughts went from static to nuclear winter. My heart swelled, and not in a way that I recognized. I think I actually drew in a sharp breath, which caught the attention of a little terrier chewing on a tennis ball nearby. He looked at me with that quizzical look that dogs have. I was shaken. All I wanted in that moment was to be that slender hipped girl, held still by Rabbit’s gentle touch. My life had just changed, and the only witness to it was a skinny, wiry-haired dog.
 

Rabbit finally released the girl and reached into a pouch in her bag, producing a thin cigar. She stuck it in her mouth and lit it like it was something she did every day. She moved in just the right way to be perfectly lit by the light reflecting off the glass-walled buildings. I felt like she was putting on a show just for me. On any other woman, the cigar might have seemed incongruous, but Rabbit owned it just like she owned the office when she walked in. Just like she owned me in that moment.
   

Chapter Four

If you’re wondering why suddenly realizing that I ached for another woman was so life-altering, let me put it to you this way: I felt like I’d just looked in the mirror and saw a complete stranger staring back at me. As someone whose career had thrived on being able to look at myself each day with nothing but confidence and strength, this was a bit like upending a card table.
 

No offense to those women who embrace their attraction to the same sex, but that just wasn’t me. It’s such a cliche, but some of my most respected friends and colleagues were lesbians. I would’ve had a tough time in the upper echelons of my industry if I had anything against lesbians, as the kind of woman who reaches such heights is the kind that makes her own rules and fears nothing.
 

By my last count, more of my female competitors were lesbians than were not. I’d seen them around and even met many of their wives. They were just like anyone else in the industry, which is to their detriment as much as their credit; I knew exactly how conversations with them would go, exactly what jokes they would tell, exactly how they’d try to mine me for information. So maybe it shouldn’t be so surprising that I’d never had a moment with any of them like the one I had from afar with some women who were young enough to be my daughters.
 

My first thought as I finally walked away from the park that afternoon, notably with a distinct warmth emanating from my crotch like a tiny sun, was that of utter confusion.
What could this mean?
, I wondered.
Was it written all over my face? Was that was Mitchell was really trying to say, “We’ve noticed that you’ve gone homo, Lucy, why don’t you take the afternoon off to try and sort that out?”

The thoughts that followed, however, were ones of very cautious excitement. For all my nervousness about somehow being found out, there was a sense like I’d just discovered a whole new world that had been under my nose all along. It wasn’t the thought of clubs or bars or any kind of scene I could potentially join, but the feeling that I’d just pulled a lever in a bookcase to reveal a set of dark, mysterious stairs. I’d never been one to turn down a good mystery, or to let something as trifling as fear of the dark keep me from satisfying my curiosity. This, however, was something entirely different, because this time, the mystery was me. I wasn’t exactly sure if I wanted to know what was at the bottom of these stairs.

Somehow or other, I made my way back to the office. Although Mitchell had instructed me to take the rest of the day off, I knew better. It was a kind of test. Maybe a week ago, I would’ve called it a test of my dedication. Now, I wasn’t so sure. It seemed most likely that it was a test of my willingness to keep pushing myself, even when to do so could mean harm.
 

Although the fresh air had been helpful, I was even more distracted than before. This time around, I didn’t even know what I was thinking. It was like all the power of focus had evaporated from my brain. I thought about doing the logical thing and going home to try again the next day, but I spied Mitchell walking around the floor, trying unsuccessfully to look like he wasn’t spying on me. While it was enjoyable to watch him make ham-fisted attempts at small talk with the assistants and the junior associates whose names he’d never bothered to learn, I knew that he was following up.