The Drumbeat Years (girlxgirl)

18

18

9th. October 2005

Tina didn't have to straighten the covers on the bed, but she did it anyway. In fact, she moved around the room making certain that everything was in it's right place. When she finished that, she headed into the bathroom to have a shower. The strong stream of water particles did nothing to make her feel any better and, for a while, she only stood there, allowing the water to beat against her face and chest.

Dawn still stood by the door, still naked, mumbling into her phone, head dipped like a school child berated by their teacher. It looked pitiful and nothing like the vibrant woman that always seemed to emerge long moments after meeting Tina again. It seemed this was always to be the way.

Leaning against the door frame to the bathroom, she held the towel loose against her stomach, allowing it to trail to the floor. Resting her head against the frame, she could tell that Dawn apologised to the person on the other end of the phone. Several times. She had much to apologise for, but those weren't the things she spoke of to her husband. Those she kept secret. For now.

As Dawn finished her call, ending the conversation, saying 'okay' several times, she turned back to Tina and tried to make a smile that intimated that everything was fine. It wasn't fine. That much was clear. She tossed the phone onto the freshly straightened bed and almost ran into Tina's arms. They stood there for a long time.

"This is it, then?" Tina's fingers dug into Dawn's back. If she could penetrate her flesh with those fingers, become one body, she would. "I'm sorry to cause you so much trouble."

"It's not your fault. Not any of it. It's mine." The vibrations in Dawn's words sent shivers through Tina's shoulder as Dawn pressed her face into Tina's neck. "Well, mostly mine. Some of the fault is his. None of it yours. Not a damn thing."

Earlier, this closeness, this intimacy, would have sent them both crashing back to the bed. Now that little rectangle felt like a door that offered happiness, only to close before they could pass through. A tease of a good life. A happy life that could never happen. Tina both loved and hated that bed for what it had promised and failed to deliver.

With great reluctance from them both, they separated, wiping the tears from each other's eyes. They needed to dress, now, and face the inevitable. Dawn had said she would return to her husband alone, but Tina was having none of it. They had both engaged in this assignation, this brief, powerful affair. She couldn't abandon Dawn.

"I was wondering, it's been bothering me for a long time." Dawn tugged on her panties, running fingers down the edges to pull them from between her cheeks. "You've taken so long writing 'Fragments', when you finish the third book, will that be it? An entire life in three books?"

"I don't know." Clipping her bra behind her back, Tina adjusted the straps, then ran her hands in the cups, making her breasts comfortable, before bending over for her jeans. "I have ideas for prequels and sequels, but, unless I start writing faster, the trilogy is all I'll ever finish."

"You can do it. You just need to get in a routine. Find one place where you can just sit and write, every day." Shrugging into her off-the-shoulder jumper, Dawn fluffed out the waist and rolled up the sleeves before brushing ragged strands of black/blue hair from her eyes. "I think you've focussed on 'Fragments' for so long, it's become a slog. Find the passion in it again. Let it flow, don't think of it as work."

Tina looked at Dawn and saw that young stand-in tutor, giving encouragement and belief to a wayward eighteen year old who cared about little, let alone herself or the future. Without Dawn, Tina doubted she would ever have started writing. She doubted, very much so, that she would have become a published author. She owed Dawn so much and had nothing to give back.