Big Love (19 page)

They kissed until the oven timer went off. This time it was Nell who pulled away. She sighed and said, “We seem to live our life with time as our master.’

Nell pulled dinner from the oven and set it on a trivet on the counter. Then she set the asparagus to boil in a shallow frying pan.

She smiled coyly at Zing and said, “We have more time to kiss now.”

“I wish there were no such thing as time,” Zing said. Still sitting on the stool, she took Nell’s hand and pulled her between her legs. She eagerly kissed Nell again. After a moment, Zing’s lips began to wander. To Nell’s neck. To Nell’s ear. Her tongue lightly outlined Nell’s ear. Her warm breath sent shivers down Nell’s spine.

Nell sighed in pleasure. “You’re getting really good at this.”

“I’ve always been a fast learner.” Emboldened, Zing’s hands traveled south.

Nell pulled back. “Did you just squeeze my butt?”

“Uh-huh. It’s very nice.”

“Thank you,” Nell said, panting with desire.

“May I touch your breasts?”

Nell stepped back. “Let’s wait until after dinner for that. Or we won’t be having any dinner.”

“Yes, eating is important. We’ll need our strength.”

Nell lifted the lid on the asparagus and said, “Why don’t you set the flowers on the table and light the candles?”

“Candles? So fancy!”

Nell chuckled. “And fancy cutlery. And fancy crystal glasses for the very fancy wine.”

“You did this all for me?”

“It is your first date,” Nell said, handing her a lighter.

“Thank you for making it special. And we can play footsie under the table if you want.”

“Where’d you learn about footsie?”

“On the internet.” Zing went to the dining room. As she lit the candles she thought about sex. She wanted to have sex with Nell. Badly. Her body was tingly and her nerve endings were on fire. Now she understood what all the fuss was about.

As she lit the last candle, Nell carried two plates to the table and set them down.

“The table looks very nice,” Zing said, sitting down. “And the chicken smells delicious.”

“I hope you like it.”

Nell spread her napkin over her lap.

Zing did the same thing.

“I will because you made it.”

“You’re so sweet.”

“Guardian angels are supposed to be sweet. Except for my boss, Bertha. She’s not very sweet. I think bosses are just like that.” Realizing what she’d said, she amended, “Except for you. You’re a very nice boss.”

“Good save,” Nell said.

Nell cut into her chicken and took a bite.

Zing did the same thing.

The chicken was yummy. So were the potatoes and the asparagus. The wine complimented the meal perfectly. Nell had thought of everything. It made Zing feel special. And loved.

“Love makes people be their better selves,” Zing stated. She ate the last bite
of chicken.

“It really does.” Nell reached out and took Zing’s hand. “Let’s clean up, and then we can sit by the fire.”

“And get romantic?”

“Yes.”

Zing washed the dishes. Nell dried. Zing kissed Nell. Nell nuzzled her neck. What with all the kissing and nuzzling, it took a long time to wash the dishes. Zing didn’t care. She wanted tonight to last forever. Unfortunately, forever was only seven nights and six more days.

After they washed and dried the dishes, Nell led Zing to the living room. She turned down all the lights so only the small fire illuminated the room. Nell took two cushions from the couch and laid them on the rug in front of the fireplace.

Nell sat down and patted the pillow next to her. Suddenly, Zing didn’t feel well.

“What’s wrong?” Nell asked.

“I’m scared,” Zing said. “I’m scared I won’t be very good at this and you won’t want to be around me anymore.”

“First, that won’t happen. And secondly, let’s just cuddle and relax. There’s no pressure to do anything, okay?”

Zing nodded and sat on the offered pillow. She felt stiff and awkward. The sexiness she had felt earlier had vanished. Fear was not an aphrodisiac.

“Sex with the person you love is natural, Zing. It’s instinctual. There aren’t any rights or wrongs.”

“Miracle pretty much said the same thing when I told her I had never had sex and I was one thousand and four years old.”

Nell sat up and stared at her. “You’re a 1,004-year-old virgin?”

“Uh, yes.” Zing shrugged. “Is that weird?”

“Now I have performance anxiety.” Nell lay back on the Persian rug and stared at the ceiling. “Whoa.”

“Are you okay?” Zing asked.

“I’m the one who’s scared now.”

Zing thought about what Miracle would do in this situation. Fear never stopped Miracle from doing anything. Miracle would say, “Get up on that horse, Zing. Don’t be scared. Nothing good ever came from being too scared to do something.”

Zing knew Miracle was right. So she took a deep breath and climbed up on the metaphorical horse. She straddled Nell’s stomach, and took Nell’s hands and placed them on her breasts. “I want us to make love.”

Nell agreed.

Time really did stand still. Or at least it felt like it. Three hours passed in the space of what felt like mere minutes. There was a trail of clothes from the living room to Nell’s bed where the two women lay on top of the twisted sheets, naked and sated. Their limbs were intertwined so that it was hard to tell what leg, what arm, what body part, belonged to whom.

Zing was smiling in her sleep. Now she understood. She finally understood why poets wrote poetry, why musicians composed songs, and why lesfic authors wrote love stories.

Chapter Thirteen

“What the hell have you done?” Carol said the next morning at the bakery. It was the same thing she’d said the day before only this time she was pointing at Zing’s pants.

Zing was wearing a pair of Nell’s pants, which were two inches short on Zing’s tall frame. The reason Zing was wearing Nell’s pants was because her pants had caught on the ceiling fan in Nell’s bedroom and one of the legs had ripped off. That’s what happens when you’re in the throes of ecstasy and so excited to get your pants off that you throw them up in the air.

“Long story,” Zing said. She didn’t think Carol would empathize with her about the dangers of ceiling fans.

Carol glared at Nell who was busy mixing the batter for the bear claws. Nell felt Carol’s eyes and stared her down. “Carol wants to know if you spent the night with me. And yes, Zing spent the night—in my bed. Without her pants.” Nell wiped her hands on her apron and left the kitchen.

Zing was about to follow Nell out when Carol grabbed her by the collar and pressed her up against the large stainless steel industrial fridge. Zing gasped.

“Are you crazy?” Carol growled.

“No. You have to pass a psych evaluation to be a guardian angel,” Zing squeaked.

“That’s the problem. Nell just broke it off with a lying creep and now you’ve made her fall in love with you—the crazy guardian angel.”

Nell appeared back in the kitchen. She tugged on Carol’s sleeve and demanded, “Let her go, Carol. Right this minute.”

Carol reluctantly freed Zing from her grasp.

“I think she might have anger management issues,” Zing said, straightening her shirt.

“Only when it comes to my heart,” Nell said.

Carol banged her own head on the stainless steel industrial fridge, muttering, “I can’t believe this is happening again.”

“It’s not, Carol. This time it’s real love,” Nell said. She pulled Carol away from the door. Carol had a big red blotch on her forehead.

“You call falling in love with a guardian angel real?” Carol said. “For all we know, she’s a figment of our imagination. Or a figment of her own imagination. Or some kind of figment.”

“I take offence at that,” Zing said.

“Shut up. This doesn’t involve you,” Carol said.

“I beg to differ,” Zing countered.

“Zing’s right. We’re in love, and I know she’s leaving, but I wouldn’t change a thing. For once in my life, I’m in bona fide love,” Nell said.

“I can’t believe this! You’re both insane!” Carol threw her arms up in the air and stormed out, slamming the back door behind her.

“Don’t worry. I’m sure she’ll be back,” Nell said, not sounding so sure.

***

“Carol’s really mad,” Zing said. It was afternoon and she was sitting on Miracle’s couch, eating a pint of ice cream, her spoon scraping the sides of the carton. She was doing what Miracle called “chocolate therapy.”

Miracle was sitting next to Zing on the couch. “You can’t plan love. It just happens. Nell knows she doesn’t have you forever, but she’s willing to love the moments she does have. With you, she’s experiencing what it feels like to love a person with her whole heart, mind, and soul. Some people wait a lifetime for that,” Miracle said. “If they’re lucky.”

“You’re very wise,” Zing said.

“No, I read just Lifehack.org every day.” Miracle spooned up the last of her ice cream then said, “I’ve been looking at page 856 like you told me the florist said. There’s one thing I don’t understand.”

Zing went to the kitchen and opened the freezer door. She had a craving for Chunky Monkey ice cream. She’d be gone in six days—what did it matter if she had a spare love tire? “I’m getting more ice cream. You want more?” Zing called out.

“If you’re looking for the Chunky Monkey, I ate it last night. I was so nervous for you that I did empathy eating. I was so glad Carol had her Butches for Bingo board meeting. Or I would’ve had to tell her about you and Nell. I can’t lie to her.”

“Because you don’t lie to the one you love,” Zing said.

“Right. If she’d asked me if you were with Nell…well, she would have put the kibosh on coitus.”

“What?” Zing asked. She’d heard of Stratford-upon-Avon, but never kibosh-on-coitus. She pulled out a pint of Ben and Jerry’s ‘Everything But The. . .’ She’d never tried that particular flavor. Miracle had told her that it was a taste explosion.

“It means you would’ve been dragged out of Nell’s bedroom by Carol with or without your clothes,” Miracle said.

“That would have been awful. We were having such a good time without our clothes.” Zing took a bite of the ice cream and her taste buds nearly fainted. Was it possible for a tongue to have an orgasm? If so, hers just had.

“As I was saying, I did a little reading of your handbook last night,” Miracle said. “And I’ve been thinking about the florist saying 856. Want to know what I figured out?”

“Of course!” Zing sat back down on the couch and looked eagerly at Miracle.

“Well, the florist didn’t say look at page 856. She just said the number 856 is a clue, right?”

Zing nodded.

“Well, 856 when added together comes to 19. I read page 19 of your handbook and didn’t find anything except some weird story about how angel hair pasta got its name. So, I transposed the numbers to 91. Page 91 didn’t have any clues, so I looked at footnote 91. That footnote guides you to the index that takes you to the page that details exceptions to the rules, which in turn takes you to section 85.6 which says in order to retain your current status as a human being you must commit an act of selfless love.”

“What? You lost me at 19.”

“Forget all that,” Miracle said. “Here’s the important part: You must commit an act of selfless love. Then you can be human forever.”

“It said that on page 856?”

Miracle shook her head. “No. Page 856 said that you should not walk through a Zen garden and jump off the rocks if you don’t want to get smacked with a rake. What on earth that has to do with anything, I have no idea.”

“Oh. I did that once. It hurts.”

“Back to the act of selfless love. . . don’t guardian angels practice that anyway? You all save your humans if their activity leads to an untimed death, right?”

“Yes.” Zing polished off the pint of ice cream.

“Which means we’re no closer than we were before.” Miracle slumped down low. She looked depressed.

“Should I make you some green tea?” Zing asked.

“Sure. Why not?”

Miracle followed Zing to the kitchen and watched her fill the kettle and put it on to boil. She sniffed. “I’m going to miss you, you know that?”

“Maybe Bertha will let me come back for a visit. I could tell her how miserable you’d be without me.”

Miracle brightened. “You think so?”

Zing sighed and sat next to Miracle at the bar. “No. My boss, Bertha, is mean.”

“Bosses are like that.”

“Except for Nell.”

“Yeah, except for Nell.”

At the mention of Nell’s name, Zing grew sad. She missed Nell and she wasn’t even gone yet. Like Miracle said, she was pre-missing Nell. She’d never felt a sadness this heavy. It seemed to weigh her down. She could hardly lift her head. And before she knew what she was doing, she was crying. Big, salty tears ran down both cheeks. And Zing knew that this was a sadness so big, so heavy, that no amount of ice cream could ever fix it.

***

Later that night, Zing lay in Nell’s arms. “I brought work clothes so I won’t upset Carol in the morning.”

“You think of everything,” Nell said tracing her fingers up and down Zing’s tummy.

“Except how to stay with you forever,” Zing said, feeling morose. This was a new sensation for her and she didn’t like it.

“I would think falling in love with me and curing my broken heart satisfies the selfless act clause you told me about.”

“I thought the same thing. So I asked Annabelle to find out for me. She’s contacting Human Resources to see if it qualifies. But I’m pretty sure Bertha won’t allow it. She’s got veto power.”

“I have this strange feeling it’ll all work out,” Nell said, as her lips followed her fingers down Zing’s stomach and kissed that special place between Zing’s legs.

After their lovemaking, Zing lay watching Nell sleep. She looked so peaceful and happy. And Zing swore Nell glowed with love like she did. How could Bertha want to take this away from her? And what about Betty and the florist? They could very well be humans that were angels or angels that were human. How did that work? She needed to find out, but no one was talking.

Annabelle materialized in the room. She leaned against the wall. “You make her happy,” she whispered, cocking her head in Nell’s direction.

“I’d like to keep making her happy.” Zing studied Annabelle’s face. “Are you here to tell me that Bertha said no?”

“Not exactly.”

“What does that mean?”

“Bertha said your loving Nell isn’t selfless. But. . . it’s what she didn’t say that I find encouraging,” Annabelle said.

“Oh.” Zing was confused. “What did Bertha not say?”

“It was more the way she didn’t say it,” Annabelle said.

Now Zing was really confused. “Oh. Well, how did Bertha say what she didn’t say?”

“I just think there’s something Bertha isn’t telling us,” Annabelle said. “Like you becoming human can be done, but it’s something you have to discover on your own.”

“But why?”

“Because then too many angels might abdicate their positions.”

“Oh.” Zing hadn’t thought about that. “What should I do?”

“Enjoy Nell while you can,” Annabelle said simply. “I’ll be around if you need me.” Then she disappeared.

Nell stirred. “Zing? Who were you talking to?” Her was voice scratchy with sleep.

“My friend Annabelle,” Zing said, stroking Nell’s cheek.

“An angel friend?”

“Yes. She’s Miracle’s guardian angel.”

“She didn’t see me naked, did she?”

“No. I covered up your boobs.”

“What did Annabelle say?” Nell asked.

“She said I should enjoy you while I can.”

“Mmmm. Good advice,” Nell said. She peppered kisses on Zing’s neck.

“I thought so, too,” Zing said, pulling Nell into a deep kiss. She fully intended to enjoy Nell as much and as often as possible.

***

The next morning Carol was back at work. Zing was glad. After Carol had stomped out yesterday, Zing had made a mess of the chocolate éclairs. Homeless Tom was delighted because his box was stuffed full of the misshapen pastries.

“I’ve decided I’m not angry with you anymore,” Carol stated.

Zing spread glaze over five dozen warm donuts. “I’m glad, but why have you changed your mind?”

Carol sighed and continued filling the éclairs with cream. Nell stood on the other side of the kitchen, hand-mixing banana nut batter for muffins, and softly singing,
The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face
.

“I think that’s directed at you. However Roberta Flack definitely sings it better,” Carol said.

“The first time Nell ever saw my face, her head was bashed and she’d lost a lot of hair.”

“She’s already rewritten your love story. We all do it.”

“Miracle says when humans do that it’s called revisionist history.”

“And she’d be right,” Carol said.

“She’s a very intelligent woman,” Zing said.

“Among other things,” Carol said, smiling to herself. “Are you spending the night at Nell’s tonight?”

Zing was caught off guard. She looked at Carol, trying to gauge if she were on the verge of another stomp out.

“I won’t be mad if you are. After all, I want to stay the night with Miracle,” Carol said.

“You should stay overnight. Then you’ll know for certain if you’ll like living there. Remember to use the fancy goat’s milk soap so you’ll smell nice. It’ll make Miracle happy to know you like the soap.”

“I’ll probably shower before I get there.”

“Oh, don’t do that. Miracle is looking forward to having a romantic bath with you—like with candles and fancy soap.”

Carol was aghast. “She told you that?”

Zing smiled coyly. “She might have mentioned that she’d enjoy a sexy bath with you. I think I’ll invite Nell to sit in the bathtub with me.”

“You need to work on your subtleness,” Carol said.

Nell had snuck up behind them. “Don’t you dare. I like your no-nonsense approach to love,” she said.

“Ooo-kay,” Carol said with an eye roll. The fryer timer went off.

“I’ve been thinking about time. You know, I’m really old by human standards, and this last month has been the best time in my entire life. So time, this time, is a time I’m glad I’m in.” Zing said, smiling at Nell.

“That made absolutely no sense,” Carol said.