”Mm,” Kerry murmured encouragingly, hoping by the time Dar finished telling her whatever it was, she’d have the guts to go ahead with her own issue.

”I guess you know I haven’t been really successful in relationships,” Dar continued, awkwardly. ”I don’t know, it’s probably my fault. I get so driven. I get so caught up in work, and...” She stopped, and shrugged a little. ”Anyway, I was in my senior year at college. I’d just figured out my orientation. That was a shock.” She exchanged grim little smiles with Kerry. ”At any rate, I don’t know, I guess I must have been a dreamer when I was a kid, always expecting things to be like the books. I guess I...” She stopped, trying to find words.


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Kerry just stroked her leg, gently.

”I, um, I guess I fell in love.” Dar said it as thought she wasn’t sure.

”And, I was this idealistic kid, and I’d read about fairy tales. Mostly, I guess I thought that’s what it was going to be like. I threw everything I had into it. I figured I’d found my future.” She thought back to that golden fall wistfully. ”I remember being deliriously happy.” A pause.

”Stupid. I know.”

Kerry’s eyes closed in empathic understanding.

”Anyway, I um, it went along great for a while. She was older than I was, really pretty successful in school. I couldn’t believe it. I felt like I belonged to something, to someone for the first time ever.” Dar’s voice was gentle, almost abstract. ”I figured she felt the same way I did, so one day, I remember it was a Saturday, we were supposed to go to the movies.”

Kerry picked up a walnut from the dish, and fingered it, her body tensing against what she knew was coming. ”Yeah?”

Dar shrugged. ”I told her how I felt, how I wanted to spend my life with her.”

Kerry looked up, reading a long lost pain in her lover’s face.

”And?”

The answer was almost spoken casually. ”She laughed.”

The sharp crack startled them both, making Dar jump a little. She stared at Kerry, who blinked, and looked at her hand, where shards of walnut were tumbling down. She opened her clenched fist to reveal the cracked nut and sighed. ”Sorry.”

A tense little smile caught Dar’s lips. ”Anyway, she proceeded to tell me just how deficient I was in all aspects, and how she wouldn’t have been caught dead with me at any place other than one of our local pool halls.” Dar looked down at her hands. ”She said I was

unsophisticated, which I was, and uncultured, which was also true, and that I’d never have a relationship based on anything other than mutual bed sports because I just wasn’t emotionally capable of it.” This last with a wry grimace. ”And she was right.”

”She was not,” Kerry shot back angrily. ”She was a stuck up piece of horse’s ass without the sense that god gave a dead hedgehog, Dar.”

The taller woman laughed gently. ”I know that, now,” Dar stated softly. ”But the kid I was then didn’t.” She looked lost, and very bleak.

”And I believed her. I think some parts of me still do,” She admitted lowly. ”So that’s where that reaction comes from, Kerry. There is a part of me that remembers what she said, and what she told me about nothing being permanent, and how people really just use each other until they’re ready to move on.”

A pause. ”I guess intellectually I know better, but emotionally, I’m still waiting for the other shoe to fall,” she finished, regarding the flames quietly. She decided she wouldn’t tell Kerry about the little prayer she said every night, as they were falling asleep. ”So, what’s 224

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bugging you?”she asked, quietly.

At least she talks about it, Dar mused. At least she’ll give me a chance to try and fix things, if that’s what’s wrong. She watched Kerry pluck at her sleeve, and noticed the slight tremor in her hands. If it’s that simple.

”Dar.” Kerry picked up her hand, feeling the chill in it, and kissed it gently. ”I guess that brings me to my little problem.” She cleared her throat nervously. ”I, um, I’ve been really thinking about things, and about what I, about what I need in order for me to live my life, I guess.”

Dar gazed at her, with an open, haunted expression. ”Yeah?” Her voice cracked, and she wondered what was coming.

”And, see, I’ve got this—I’m not really sure what you would call it—maybe it was the way I was brought up. I dont really know.” She sucked in a breath again. ”God, I’m having such a problem with this. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. You’d think I could just spit it out.”

She stood, and paced back and forth, visibly trying to relax. ”Okay.”

She turned and saw blue eyes round with apprehension. ”Oh Dar, don'’t look at me like that. You’d think I was going to tell you I was a cross dresser, or something.”

It broke the tension, and Dar muffled a relieved laugh. ”Sorry, but the way you’re pacing, Jesus, Kerry, you’re putting me all in knots just watching you. What is it?” She swallowed once. ”I thought maybe, I thought you were maybe still mad about last week, or—”

”Last we...oh.” Kerry exhaled, thinking about that. ”Do you know what I was upset about?” she asked, seriously. ”You didn’t ask me.”

Dar blinked. ”Didn’t ask you. About what?”

”You quit. You just quit, and you did it because of me, and you didn’t ask me about that,” Kerry told her, poking her in the chest with each word. ”That pissed me off.”

”It did?”

”Yeah, it sure did,” Kerry assured her. ”We’re partners, right?”

A nod.

”Stuff you do affects me, Dar, and that surely affected me. I should have had a part in the decision,” Kerry told her. ”Or, at least you could have given me a chance to try and talk you out of it.”

Dar remained silent, thinking about her lover’s words. Bringing Kerry into the decision had truthfully never even crossed her mind.

She’d considered it hers to make, just like it had always been every time before. It was her job, and her career, after all, right? She couldn’t be expected to make decisions by committee, even by as close, and as intimate a committee between herself and Kerry.

That would be unthinkable. She looked up at the serious green eyes regarding her. ”It was a spur of the moment decision, Kerry. I had the facts, I knew my options, and I made it.” She watched the hint of disappointment color Kerry’s gaze. ”I can’t guarantee I won’t do the same thing again, given the same circumstances.” She paused a Hurricane Watch

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moment, then exhaled. ”But I’ll try to keep in mind that I have a responsibility to you, and that you’ve got a right to a say in what happens to me.” Another pause. ”To us.”

I can live with that, for now. Kerry decided. ”Okay.” She rearranged the unruly hair scattered over Dar’s forehead. ”That’s hard for you, isn’t it?”

Dar nodded. ”Very.” She exhaled. ”But I’ll try.” A pause. ”So, was that what was bothering you?”

”Um, no.” Kerry stopped and turned, facing her. Now or never, just suck it up, Kerry, and do it! She hesitated, then she took two steps forward and knelt at Dar’s feet, resting one hand on Dar’s knee for balance. ”I have this thing about commitment.”

A double thump of the heart. Dar’s eyes scanned her face alertly, then a brow edged up a little. ”You do?” she murmured softly. ”Um, I mean, well, yeah. I know you’re a very, um, you seem to be a very loyal and committed kind of per... Kerry, what exactly is this about? Just level with me.”

Kerry scratched her jaw. ”Um.” Now that she was right down to it, the whole thing started to seem really silly to her and she hesitated, torn between continuing and just... ”This is going to sound maybe a little crazy to you,” she temporized. ”And, I just want you to know it’s just something that I...” She stopped, and dug in her pocket, pulling something out and focusing her attention on the tiny, embroidered fir trees that were dancing across Dar’s chest. ”Okay, look.” She put her closed fist against Dar’s stomach, still staring intently at her sweater. ”I tried to find a way just to let you know how important you are to me, and how important our relationship is to me.”

”Okay,” Dar responded, obviously deeply at sea. ”Well, Kerry, it’s very important to me, too. I hope you know that. It’s changed my whole life.”Kerry regarded the sweater. ”Is it a good change?” she whispered.

Long fingers gently grasped her chin and tilted her head back, so that she had no choice but to meet Dar’s now very serious eyes. ”Is that an honest question?” Dar replied. ”I hope not. I hope you know the answer to that already.” She paused. ”Yes, it’s been the best thing that’s ever happened to me.”

Kerry managed a nod. ”Good,” she stammered softly, folding Dar’s fingers around the small box she’d taken from her pocket. ”Because for me, it’s this all my life thing and I want you to know that. I want you to understand that even if we can’t go into a clerk’s office and say this, I want this to be forever Dar, that whole in sickness and in heath, for richer and for poorer, in good times, and bad, and have death never part us.” Her words fell into a shocked silence. ”Kind of thing.” A long pause. ”Okay?”

Well. That was the stupidest proposal in the history of the lesbian world, wasn’t it? Maybe I should have downloaded those practice scripts 226

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from the Internet. She eyed her lover unhappily.

There was a soft, almost incoherent sound as Dar started breathing again. ”K.” Her voice disappeared into a soundless squeak, and she self-consciously cleared her throat and tried again. ”K...Kerry did...did you just...” Another sucking in of air, ”p...propose to me?”