Love, Lust, and Other Mistakes (14 page)

“Wow.
I’m impressed,” Hunter notes.  

I glance over
at Hunter.  Unlike myself, Hunter seems unfazed by Troian’s early morning presence and the fact that our friend saw us emerge from the same tent.  I scratch at the back of my neck. “After last night, I didn’t think you’d find anything dry enough to burn.”

Troian shrugs and pokes
at the fire with a long stick. “There was some wood left over in the back of Nik’s Jeep.”

I scan
the campsite. “Speaking of which, where
is
she?”

Troian jerks
her thumb down in the direction of the lake. “She said something about trying to catch us some trout for breakfast.”

I turn
toward Hunter. “I’m going to go see if she needs any help. You okay up here?” All I want is to wrap my arms around her and bring her back to the privacy of my tent. But for now, that will have to wait.

Hunter
bites her bottom lip. “Yeah,” she confirms. “I’ll help  with the coffee.”

I nod, but linger. I look
at Troian, who at the moment seems more engrossed by the morning campfire rather than curious why her two friends spent the night together in the same tent.

Hunter can
tell I’m hesitating. It’s clear I want to
do something
, but not when we have an audience. Instead of leaning in for that see-you-soon-kiss I want,  I brush my fingers along her hand.  “See you in a little bit,” I smile, feeling shy.

+++++

Hunter watched Elle stroll down the short path that leads to the lake. She smiled wistfully as she follows her form until it disappeared into the dense forest.

             
“Hey, Hunter,” Troian called, garnering her attention.             

             
Hunter looked away from the path and back toward her friend. “Yeah?”  A set of keys flew in her direction. She grabbed them out of the air just before they hit her in the face.

             
“Thought you might want these back,” Troian stated. “Oh, and I’m sorry about your tent.  I’ll totally buy you a new one.”

             
Hunter stared at the keys tossed her way.  They were her car keys – the keys she had futilely searched for the previous night to no avail before swallowing her pride and seeking shelter with Elle for the night.  Her hand closed around the key ring.

             
She looked up at her friend with disbelief.  “You...you hid my keys.”  She glanced over at her pop-up tent, which had practically collapsed on itself by this point. “And you
ruined
my tent!”

             
Troian held up her hands as a sign of truce. “Don’t get mad at me, okay?” she pleads. “I was just trying to help out.”

             
All the pieces slowly clicked into place. “You planned this whole thing,” Hunter murmured out loud, more to herself than to Troian. “Keeping Elle being here a secret. Hiding my keys. Shredding my tent.”             

             
Troian grinned, clearly pleased with herself. “And don’t forget planning a camping trip on a weekend with 100% chance of thunderstorms.”
              “I can’t believe you!” Hunter exclaimed.

             
“It worked, didn’t it?”

             
“What if she had turned me down?” Hunter retorts. “What if she had made me stay outside all night?  Or if forcing us together made us hate each other?  That would have
crushed
me.”

“But it didn’t happen that wa
y, did it?” Troian pointed out.

“I’m still mad at you,”
Hunter huffed, crossing her arms defiantly. “You can’t just meddle with other people’s lives.”

“I am fully confident you wi
ll get over that,” Troian beamed. “After all, I
totally
heard those noises coming from Elle’s tent last night. If that’s not forgiveness, I don’t know what is.”

Hunter shook
her head, unable to keep the smile off her face and the laugh off her lips. “You are impossible.”

“C’mon,”
Troian urged. She stood up from her camping chair and absentmindedly brushed at her backside. “Let’s go down to the lake and see if our lumberjack girlfriends have caught us any breakfast.”
 

+++++

Makeup

I watch myse
lf in the bathroom mirror and highlight my dark eyes in an even darker shade of eyeliner.   It’s not as dark of a color as I used to wear, however.  I have you to thank for that.

I lean away from the vanity momentarily to inspect my work. This is a ritual I enjoy; it reminds me of the subtle differences in the way I put myself together now. All thanks to you, I no longer hide behind my former mask of kohl and foundation.

I notice your reflection in the mirror.  You’re standing in the bathroom doorway, wearing that black slip I love to see you in.  You saunter over to me, wrapping your arms around me – one hand on my chest, another rubs my abdomen through my thin tank top, then slips lower.  I swallow hard.  You smile at my reaction.

“This is why we’re always late,” I remind you in a raspy tone. 

This is the second time this evening we’ve gotten dressed to go out.  I think you see it as a challenge: can you make us late one more time?

Verbally you agree to get dressed, but you continue kissing my face and neck.

“I got lipstick on you,” you murmur in my ear before carefully wiping it off.   Your touch and the burr of your voice make me shudder.

You get as close to leaving as the bathroom door, then turn to watch me continue getting ready for the evening. 

“Do you remember when you first started wearing makeup?” you ask me.

A strange question.  I hesitate, putting down the tube of mascara on the bathroom countertop.  “Yes.”

“When?”

“Over fifteen years ago,” I answer laughing, but I’m shaken by my own words.   God I’m getting old. “It’s a long story,” I add.

You look hurt.  But I promise to tell you someday when we have more time.  I watch your reflection disappear in the direction of the bedroom as the memories overtake me.

+++++

I’m eleven.

My mom had never been part of the picture,
always drunk or high or getting fucked over by one guy after the next.  So I guess you can say I never had any healthy female role models.  That’s why I looked up to her so much – Kristy O’Connor. 

Kristy was a few years older than me – maybe 14 at the time – but it felt like we were a generation apart. She came from one of those Good Irish Catholic families.  But nothing about this girl was good at all.
She looked about as Irish as they came – cheekbones speckled with tan freckles on pale, ivory skin and a mop of tight, orange curls on her head.  She hated her hair.  I remember she didn’t like me at first because my hair had always been dark and straight as a stick.  No amount of flat-ironing was going to straighten out Kristy O’Connor’s hair though.

We’d walk home from school together every day, our little Southie gang. There was a cemetery between the public school and our neighborhood.  Kristy always found some excuse to climb on top of the limestone retaining wall that separated the cemetery grass from the lower sidewalk. She was the daredevil of the group.  There was no reason why she had to walk along that elevated stone wall, but because it was there, Kristy had to conquer it.

If the Streets were our domain, then Kristy was the Queen of our street-urchin kingdom. None of us was particularly physical strong, but we felt invincible roaming the streets in our tight-knit pack.

I remember once, when it was just the two of us hanging out together, Kristy dared me to shoplift a tube of lipstick.  I’d never stolen anything in my life previous to that. I didn’t do it because she intimated me or threatened me though.  I did it because I wanted her approval more than anything.

I still remember the shade and everything –
Tropical Pink
.  Don’t judge - it was the ‘Eighties.

We didn’t even leave the store before Kristy insisted we try it on. I just wanted to leave the store as fast as we could; the lipstick container felt heavy, like it was gonna bust a hole in the pocket of my jeans and then all the world would know I was a thief.

I remember Kristy grabbing my wrist and dragging me to the bathroom at the back of the department store.  After making sure we were alone in the small semi-public bathroom, she locked the door behind us, and then she proceeded to show me how to properly apply the lipstick so I wouldn’t get any stuck between my teeth.

She smacked her lips a few times and kissed the mirror over the vanity sink, leaving the impression of her mouth on the bathroom mirror.  Bright pink lips stood out against the mirrored pane of glass.  Then Kristy handed me the tube of lipstick, wordlessly suggesting it was my turn next.

I rolled the tube around in the palm of my hand.  I had never felt like a girl before. I’d never pretended to be a princess or play dress-up with my mom’s makeup and clothes. It was always climbing trees and playing baseball in the vacant lot by our apartment complex.  My dad was absent, but so was my mom, so it’s not like I’d ever had a real role model to influence me.  All I had was Kristy back in those days.

I didn’t like the way it felt on my lips at first.  Kind of cakey and sticky.  When I smacked my lips together like I’d seen Kristy do, my top and bottom lip kind of stuck together.  I remember momentarily wondering what would happen if I kissed someone else wearing lipstick – maybe our lips would get stuck together like sticking your tongue on a metal pole in the dead of winter.

Then I kissed the bathroom mirror, near the imprint Kristy had left behind. Thinking back on it now, it definitely wasn’t the most sanitary thing I’ve done in my life. Our lip-prints looked nearly the same, mine maybe a little fuller. 

I looked at Kristy’s and my reflection in the mirror, with our matching bright pink lips.  And for the first time in my young life, I felt something.  I felt pretty.

+++++

I make it back to the bedroom and see you struggling with the back zipper of your form-fitting dress.  I stand in the doorway long enough that you turn and look at me with concern.

“Are you okay?” you ask me.

“Sure,” I answer, laughing at myself gently.  You know that my answer is both a lie, but also very true.

Forgetting your zipper momentarily you come to me.  You put your arms around me again, looking for answers.  I have none.  Just questions. 

The words feel heavy on my tongue: “Am I…”  I trail off, unable to finish.

You cock your head to one side and look at me with your perplexed hazel-green eyes. “Are you what, hun?”

I hesitate. “Am I beautiful?”

You look like you’re close to tears.  “Yes,” you answer firmly. “Inside
and
out.”

Now
I
feel close to tears.

“Do you still want to go out?” you ask.

I nod.  “Just give me a minute,” I respond brusquely.

You look worried, but you let me walk back to the bathroom again, alone.

When I finish applying my makeup, I look at my reflection again and it makes me smile.  I can still see her – that lost, naïve girl who grew up in Southie. I see the whole course of my life that has brought me to this moment. 

Your reflection appears again in the mirror.   You’ve abandoned the dress and stand behind me in only your black slip. 

“Wardrobe change?” I ask with a raised eyebrow.

You give me
a smile – that half-smile that’s always made my heart flutter.

“Destination change,” you state, taking my hand and leading me back to the bedroom.

When you pull my top off over my head and discard it on the floor, I suddenly realize that we won’t be making it to that party tonight.  And I don’t mind at all.

+++++

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Eliza Lentzski is the author of lesbian fiction, erotica, and romance novels, including
Date Night
,
Love, Lust and Other
Mistakes, and the forthcoming
Second Chances
. A historian by day, she and her partner live in the Midwest with their pet turtle and cat.