As You Were (14 page)

15

TRU WOKE SUDDENLY AT 8:35, HAVING FALLEN ASLEEP sometime after four that morning. She blinked, last night’s events coming back to her in strong fashion.

After a stop at the bathroom, she went to the living room to check on this morning’s victim.

The sofa held only a rumpled blanket, but she found her at the kitchen table drinking coffee and staring out the bay window at another light snowfall. Approaching her from behind, she tossed a packet of Alka-Seltzer on the table by Brit’s hand, waiting for her reaction.

“Cute,” Brit said.

“You remember the bit about the Alka-Seltzer, huh?” Tru took a mug off the mug tree and poured herself some coffee.

“I do.”

She sat to the right of the young woman, whose hair was still wild and sexy from sleep. “What else do you remember?”

“Don’t toy with me. I know what happened.”

Tru couldn’t tell by her even tone exactly what that meant. “Sorry.”

“I’ll bet.”

“Oh, jeez. You’re pissed. What did you expect me to do? You seduced me. You haven’t forgotten how to do that, you know.”

Brittany’s mouth fell open. Tru took notice of this reaction and pointed at her face. “Put some coffee in that hole, Artemis.”

“Tru Morgan, I did not seduce you.”

“Is selective memory part of amnesia?”

“You are—” Brittany huffed. “You’re so damn smug. You took advantage of me.”

“Who took advantage of whom?”

“You could have stopped.”

“At which point? When I said ‘Don’t start what you won’t let me finish’? Or when you grabbed my head and pulled my face down to kiss you? When?”

“No...
I mean...
after that...” She rearranged the salt and pepper shakers evasively.

Tru turned the mug around so that she could grasp the handle. “What?”

“After...
you know...
after that...”

“Oh, great. Cryptograms. My favorite.”

“Smartass.” Brit drank her coffee, making a face at how cold it had become. She stood and freshened her cup. “Look. I don’t remember much after a certain point.”

“Which point was that?”

“After you...” she struggled, first setting her mug down, then picking it back up, and adding more coffee to it.

“Brittany. My God. Say it.” Tru secretly delighted in Brit’s rare embarrassment.

“After you opened my robe.”

“You don’t remember anything after that?”

“Didn’t you notice that I passed out? Or do you like your women like that?”

“Kidney punch,” Tru reminded Brittany of her slipping civility. “No. I don’t ‘like my women like that’ as you put it.” Tru sipped again. “What makes you think I did anything after that?”

Brit sat down again. “Didn’t you?”

Tru sighed laboriously. “Brit...
you’re not some one night stand. I could never ravish you while you’re unconscious...
unless of course you told me to, before you became unconscious.” This seemed to smooth Brittany’s ruffled feathers a bit. “Besides,” Tru couldn’t help but add, “I’d miss out on hearing you moan.”

Brit’s eyes flared like a Roman candle, and she slapped Tru fiercely on the arm.

Tru laughed and rubbed the place where she’d been struck. “You’re so worried about it. Nothing happened. Not that I didn’t want it to, doncha know—”

“I can’t believe I acted that way.” She pouted, recalling the way she had responded to Tru’s kiss.

“Vintage Brittany Jabot.”

“Was I really like that...before?”

Tru flashed back in her memory to the picnics when they would ride out to the clearing and make love on a blanket in the grass. “We had some great times.”

Brittany remained quiet for a long moment. She drank her coffee and watched the birds knock snow from the limbs outside. “I do want to remember us, Tru.”

Tru looked up, surprised. “Even if it makes you uncomfortable?”

“It’s better than pretending I’m someone I’m not.”

Tru glanced out the window to her right, her eyes catching some movement at the tree line near the barn. She leaned closer to the glass and squinted.

“What are you looking at?”

Tru got up and took the few steps to the bay window, peering out at the tree line. “I could swear I saw something—”

“What?” Brittany got up and studied the area Tru focused on. “What was it?”

“Looked like a person...I don’t know. Maybe it was a hunter.”

“Can people hunt this close to the house?”

“No. We own this land. It’s posted. But that doesn’t mean some hunters won’t ignore the signs.”

Brittany wandered into the living room and plopped in the sofa, seizing the remote from the coffee table, clicking the television on. She flipped through cable channels, and landed on a documentary about Madagascar. Amid the hooting of Lemurs and the various nocturnal movements of the Fossa, she could see Tru in the kitchen, still peering out the bay window into the trees. “What are you going to do about it?”

Tru sighed, “Nothing, unless I hear shots. I’m toasting a bagel, you want one?” Tru called.

“Not right now, thanks,” she called, without taking her eyes off the colorful Chameleon, perched on a limb. “You could hand me my coffee, though.”

A few moments later, Tru carried the bagel out and handed Brittany a fresh cup. As she was about to sit, the phone rang, and she grunted her disapproval and got back up to answer. “Hello?
...hi ya Mace’...
hey, let me go into the bedroom, Brit is watching something on TV...” She

glanced at Brittany, as she responded into the portable receiver, “Well, we haven’t killed each other yet...”

Brittany tossed a half-serious glare at her and then propped her feet on the coffee table to continue her viewing, taking a sip of Hazelnut cream.

Tru moved her guitar to the other side of the bed and sat down with her bagel on her leg as she sipped coffee.

“Are you saying you got me a gig in Denver, then?”

Macy’s voice pierced her ear, as Tru held the receiver with one shoulder to take a bite of the cream cheese on whole wheat.

“That’s exactly what I’m saying. Next Week. I’ll call you back when I get the details worked out, but be ready to pack and go by then, okay?”

“Okay,” she garbled through the bread in her mouth.

“Is everything all right there, really?”

“It goes up and down, but it’s getting a bit more bearable. I think it would do her good to be here alone, so this gig might be right on time.” Tru swallowed a bite and choked slightly.

“Are you eating too fast again?”

“Yes, mother, I believe I am.” Tru addressed her hunger by devouring all but a portion of the bagel.

At length, Macy asked carefully,
“Has she remembered anything?”

Tru understood the real question, and didn’t care to dredge up that night, or what had happened. “Not really. She keeps prodding about it, though.”

“Why don’t you tell her?”

Tru sighed, her appetite gone. She dropped the remaining bread on the nightstand. “Macy, I want her to remember it on her own, and—”

“And what?”

“And I’m not exactly without guilt.”
There.
She had said it. To someone other than herself.

“What are you guilty of? I thought—”

“Macy, I didn’t want to tell you this, because Travis is your own flesh and blood...”

She could hear Macy’s measured breathing, and then,
“Flesh and blood and innocence are mutually exclusive, in this case. I know how my brother is.”

“Well, I did something awful myself, it’s that it wasn’t really my fault...and I didn’t see any reason to bring it up after I came home and—”

“Wait, wait. You’ve lost me. What’s this awful thing you did?”

Tru leaned to look at the open door of the bedroom, and got up with the portable phone to close it softly. Returning to the bed, she released a long breath. “You remember when we met at Lost & Found last December, before the accident?”

“Yeah?”

“Travis was with you.”

“And?”

“Well, after you left, I got a little hammered, and he drove me to a hotel, because I was too lit to drive.”

“Okay...”

“Long story short: I woke up the next morning in bed with him. We were both naked, and he got a real kick out of telling me how great it was.”

Silence for a moment, then Macy asked softly,
“What do you remember about it?”

“Nothing. Getting to the hotel and then waking up with him.”

A chuckle came across the line, and then the chuckle turned to derisive laughter.

“What the hell is so funny, Macy?”

“I’m sorry, Tru, but...
let me ask you this: are you sure you don’t remember anything about the dirty deed?”

“I said no. I was passed-out-drunk.”

Laughter again.

“Why do you keep laughing?” Tru glanced at the door quickly, and lowered her voice. “This isn’t funny, Macy.”

“Honey, let me clear a few things up for you...”

“Please.”

“You remember that Travis had been released from County jail, right?”

“Right.”

“Well, they give them salt peter while they’re there, and it takes sometimes a few weeks to wear off.”

“Salt peter—” The genesis of truth emerged in Tru’s head, but not quite fully evolved.

“He was telling me about how he couldn’t get it up at all.”

Tru’s turn to be silent for a long moment, then, “So, if—”

“Honey, if he couldn’t get it up, he couldn’t have done a thing to you, drunk or sober.”

“Oh my God.”
A lie
. A lie Travis let her believe.

“Don’t bother putting your shit-kickers on, Tru. I’m gonna kick his ass myself. That little prick. So now, you may want to tell her the whole story.”

Tru stared at the remnants of the bagel on the nightstand.
It didn’t happen...it didn’t happen...
Relief washed over her. “I’m not going to open that can of worms unless I have to. It would make things more complicated.”

“But if you tell—”

“There’s nothing to tell, Macy. If nothing happened, then there’s nothing to tell. I don’t want this to be any more complicated than it already is.” She glanced at the door again. “Keep this under your hat.”

“Ooookay.”
Macy said doubtfully.
“It’s none of my business. And my lips are sealed.”

Tru said goodbye, and clicked the phone off. She sat on the bed for a long while, staring at the floor. Finally, she got up and returned to the living room.

“Who was that?” Brittany asked.

“Macy.” She saw Brittany’s expectant expression and added, “I have a concert in Denver next week.”

“Denver? That’s not very far.”

“Yeah. It’s not quite as big as the Seattle gig was in December, but it’s a great fan-base.”

“Great.” Brittany went to refill her cup. “How long will you be gone?”

Tru gave her a sidelong glance. “I didn’t know you cared.”

“It’s not that. I don’t relish the idea of being stuck in Bumfuck Egypt while you’re crooning goopy love songs to a room full of baby dykes.”

“Jeez, did you rehearse that?” A commercial came on, and Brit muted the television and went to the kitchen window, wordless. “You’ve got your own car again. Feel free to go for a drive or something.”

“Yeah, that should break the monotony,” she said without emotion.

“You could take some photos. Paint a picture. Sculpt something...” Tru moved to the coffeemaker and refilled her own mug. “Time alone might be what you need.”

Brittany studied the woods again. “Maybe.”

“At least you’d be alone with your favorite person.” Tru winced, realizing she should have edited that remark before it came out, but Brittany did not seem to hear her.

“Don’t you ever cook anything around here?” Brittany turned in mid-sentence to scrutinize the young woman.

“Help yourself. There’s bacon in the deep freeze outside the kitchen door. Eggs in the fridge.”

Brittany turned back to the view in the back yard. Everything looked cold and hard and inhospitable. The thought of thawing a slab of bacon seemed distasteful. She started for the pantry. “I’m having a bagel.”

O lyric Love, half-angel and half-bird

And all a wonder and a wild desire’

- Robert Browning

16

Fort Lee, Virginia, 2000

THE DREAM AWAKENED TRU TO THE SIGHT OF BED SPRINGS. The empty bunk above her own served as a stark reminder of this temporary home. The lonely home. But the dream had allowed her escape for a time; a pulsing amnesia which she struggled to retain, but lost as her eyes focused in the dim room and she caught the scent of the green wool blankets, boot polish, and paste wax.

She lay there, trying to regulate her breathing; erotic, residual images from the dream were still passing through her mind’s eye. Tru considered the light coming under the door from the hallway a wedge of hope in an otherwise hopeless night.

She had to be close to Brittany now. Dreaming of her made the desire all the more acute, all the more reckless. Dreaming be damned!

She slid herself out of the regulation tight sheet and blanket and slipped into the barracks hall. The corridor gleamed as a well buffed floor should, and she slid in her socks a few times, spitefully reminding herself that they’d never identify the culprit who desecrated its perfection.

She paused at the end of the hall, quietly opening her door. Last week’s graduating class had left one female soldier to wait for orders, and she snored from the top bunk on the other side of the room. Tru moved to kneel beside the only other occupied bunk. Brittany breathed, slow and regular, and Tru did not want to wake her abruptly, so she touched Brittany’s shoulder, brushed a strand of flaxen hair from her temple and watched her sleep for a long moment, feeling a great welling of something which she could only identify as desire mixed with love.

Brittany stirred, almost aware of Tru’s presence, and Tru kissed her brow softly, prepared for the possible rejection when she awakened enough to realize the intentions of this almost-lover in her room late at night. But Private Jabot did not reject her; she moaned and sighed at Tru’s touch, and it only made Tru want her more.
I may never get another chance,
Tru thought, knowing that sleep was a trusting state, free of the barricades which were fortified during waking moments. She hated to resort to such tactics, but she knew her passion would overwhelm her if she could not touch her, kiss her, feel the passion returned.

Tru lowered her lips to that silken neck and lingered there, seduced by the texture of her skin and the fragrance of her soap mixed with the natural scent of her. Brittany stirred, not retreating, but responding. Tru dropped more kisses on her face and neck, caressing the delicate inside of her elbow.

As Tru continued, Brittany slid her fingers into Tru’s hair, like talons, clenching, urging.

Tru’s lips went up to Brit’s, hungry for the taste of her mouth and tongue, and Brit surprised Tru with her fervor. Her nails raked Tru’s shoulders, piercing the fabric of her olive-drab T-shirt, and Tru shuddered, wanting the blood and scars if it would bring the passion. Tru lay her cheek on her warm belly, kissing, licking, caressing—her hands searching for each intimate place, agonized at their inability to tear the fabric away and explore her every peak and valley.

The danger of this rendezvous pressed at the back of her mind, but somehow it was easily forgotten, pulsed away, fainter and fainter, with each crescendoing heartbeat.

Brittany’s breaths were heavy, and Tru heard a soft bumping which grew louder. Seconds later, Tru lifted her head and listened. The bumping did not originate in Brittany’s chest, but from the corridor.

She identified the sound of a latch being released, and heard a door close back again, seconds later. The only person who would wear boots on this floor after lights out was the Sergeant in charge of quarters. “Shit! The C.Q.!” Tru whispered.

The door opened abruptly, and a circular beam of light paused on the top bunk at the far end of the room, swept over the other bunks, and finally came to rest on the gentle rise and fall of Brittany’s chest, and up to her closed eyes. The sergeant darted the light quickly over the padlocks on the lockers next to Brittany’s bed, and then clicked off.

The door latched behind him quietly, and Brittany’s eyes sprang open. “Tru?” she murmured.

Tru slid out from under the bunk like a mechanic from under a car. Brittany leaned over the edge of the bed to face her, lying there on her back with a Cheshire grin, her heart hammering in a new exhilaration, one not born of passion. “Yes?”

Brittany captured a lock of her hair as it fell within an inch of Tru’s cheeks. “You little shit!” she whispered.

Tru barely contained her laughter. “That was close.”

“How did he keep from seeing you under there?”

“Magic dust,” she explained, wiggling her eyebrows.

“Get out of here before we both end up with an Article Fifteen.”

“Actually, Leavenworth would be more like it. Look at that! I was willing to go to jail for you!” Tru heaved herself up and kissed Brittany quickly.

Brittany’s eyes grew in the darkness. “Get the fuck out of my room, Morgan!” she squeaked in a muffled tone.

“Have your agent call my agent, we’ll do lunch,” Tru retorted, slipping to the door and out.