Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Chapter 1

Mariah isn’t gay, okay? Okay.
 Right.

It’s just that she feels like a drink, but not in the hotel bar again, which is all dull decor and bored businessmen, the latter a little too excited to be away from their wives, and not one but two of whom (thankfully at least separately) last night had hit on her as she was just trying to enjoy a quiet glass of wine.

And the bar is so close to this hotel GC Buzz have booked her into after it had gotten so late, and it’s a cold winter’s night in the Windy City, and Mariah doesn’t want to walk another block or two to the nearest “straight” bar just for the sake of it. I mean, what would be the point in that?

And it’s no big deal. Mariah is cool with gay people, of course she is, and there will be less chance of anyone making a pass here, right?

After thirty seconds out in the freezing Chicago night, Mariah’s happy with her decision as she pulls open the door and gets herself off the cold street into what seems like a quiet, pleasant, very rainbow-beflagged venue. There’s two guys dancing to fairly low volume music, two women talking intently in one corner and a few other visitors who seem to be on their own, but it’s not too busy or crowded, and seems the perfect place to get a nice, quiet glass or two of red.

There’s what looks like a free, comfortable stool up at the bar and Mariah takes it, and orders the second-most expensive glass of wine recommended by the bartender. Not the most expensive; but a nice one. She deserves it. It’s been a long day chasing some incomprehensible story idea of Hilary’s about some GC politician’s Chicago apartment that has possibly been acquired with incorrectly-claimed expenses, or something, and no-one she actually needs to interview about the story seemed to be available, in fact it would be better if she had stayed in GC to try and cover this thing, so it had all been a wild goose chase if ever there was —

“Long day?”

Mariah turns to see a brunette woman, attractive, a little younger than Mariah herself perhaps, who has settled into a seat a little further down the bar and is... apparently talking to her.

“I get it. Relatable. And it’s cold, right, even for this city. I’d recommend something stronger though, tonight, if you want to warm up a little.”

Mariah looks at her. 
The woman gestures to Mariah’s glass. Oh, right.

It’s not possible that I am being hit on here, Mariah thinks. This woman doesn’t seem gay, for a start. I mean, Mariah knows there are all different kinds of gay people, but still. And she’s absolutely beautiful, so she wouldn’t be hitting on me anyway. This girl has probably done the exact same thing Mariah herself has — headed to the nearest bar for a nightcap on a cold night like this. Totally understandable.

The woman gestures to the bartender, and suddenly a glass of whiskey each is in front of both Mariah and the mystery woman.

“Cheers,” the woman says, lifting her glass in Mariah’s direction and taking a sip. “You won’t feel the cold after this, I promise.”

It’s good, strong, liquor, and Mariah feels the blood rush to her head a little as she tries it.

“I’m Tessa,” the woman says.

“Thanks for the drink, Tessa.”

“You’re welcome.” There’s a pause, Tessa taking another sip of her drink before saying, “Do I know you from somewhere?”

Now if this Tessa were a guy, Mariah would certainly think this was a line. One of the corporate types from yesterday had used this one as his opening gambit, too.

“Don’t think so.”

“TV, maybe...? Daytime...?” Tessa seems to stop and think for a moment. “You on a soap or something?”

Mariah laughs. “Not me.”

“I’m sure I know you.”

“Ah well. I’ve got one of those faces.”

“A great face,” Tessa smiles, and Mariah feels it, then: that little buzz, the butterflies in her stomach, when Tessa looks at her that way.

Damn, this is some good whiskey, right?

“Sure is,” Tessa agrees, and Mariah realizes she’s spoken aloud. She’s feeling nervous, all of a sudden, but no, that’s not the right word. Something close to it, but not quite that; something more positive. More exciting.

You know what you’re feeling, something at the back of Mariah’s mind, something she herself pushed back there long ago, says. Those butterflies...

Don’t be ridiculous, Mariah tells herself, but she’s thinking suddenly, absurdly, of that spontaneous kiss she planted on Summer that one time. Of the softness of Summer’s lips against her own, yielding a little against hers, not resisting. Of how for a crazy moment she thought Summer would even kiss her back, before Mariah herself was the one to pull away. And she’s thinking of how absolutely crazy that spoilt, rich girl drives her. Of how irrationally furious she gets with Summer Newman. Almost without any real explanation...

Why is that, Mariah?

“You didn’t tell me your name.”

For a brief moment, Mariah somehow thinks of saying “Cassie.” Why? Does she feel like she wants to be someone else tonight?

But she stops herself before she gives this woman a fake name. Her dead sister’s name.

“You’re right, I didn’t.”


Tessa smiles again and lifts her glass. “Ah, I see.” She shrugs. “I guess it’s not my night.”

What if... what if she is hitting on me?


“I’m not gay,” Mariah says.


“Good to know,” Tessa says evenly.

“I just came in here for a drink, that was really my primary motivation, it just so happens that this is an LGBT establishment. I have gay friends, of course, which sounds like something you just say, doesn’t it, you know, some of my best friends are gay! But now actually that I think about it, maybe I don’t have any particularly close gay friends, but then again I live in Genoa City, you know, it’s all about the straight people and their drama most of the time. But, why I’m here, the fact is, the hotel I’m staying in for work is so close, you see, and I didn’t want to walk any further, and it’s so cold tonight, but you’re totally right in fact that this whiskey is warming, so thank you for that recommendation.”

The bartender looks up from the glass she is drying. For a moment, the only sound is the squeak of cloth against glass, and the low decibel Lady Gaga in the background.

“I don’t know why I babbled all that,” Mariah says quietly, at last.

“It was great. A very efficient walk-through,” Tessa says. “But I feel kinda like I’ve just read your entire journal of your most private innermost thoughts. So let me even this out. I just ran into my ex at this dumb party, which I didn’t even want to go to in the first place, you know when you just know it’s going to be a bad idea and you should stay home and watch cable but you get pressured into it? And so, we get there and Alex is like, stumbling around the place, clearly on more than just tequila or, you know, high spirits, and I was like, I don’t even want to deal with this right now, I mean, everyone likes to party, right, now and then, but you know, you can take things too far, this was part of the reason we broke up in the first place. So I was like forget it, I’m out of here, but then, seeing as I was out already, I thought I wouldn’t just go straight home, so I wound up here.”

“Were you and your ex together a long time?” Mariah asks, draining the last of the whiskey and buying herself and Tessa another.

It’s polite to buy someone a drink who has bought one for you, that’s all.

“Oh you know, six months. But she was going through a lot of stuff and not really in the best place to be in a relationship.”

Mariah knows it shouldn’t, of course; she’s in a gay bar, after all, and it’s of course the case that “Alex” as a name could be Alexandra, Alexis, Alexa or just an Alex who is a girl, but the word “she” jumps right out and grabs at her. So this woman is gay or lesbian or bisexual or something.

Or maybe ‘no labels’, that’s how people are these days, right? But she’s been with a woman. Maybe with women, plural?

“I’ve never been with a woman,” Mariah says. “I mean, there was that time I kissed Summer, but —”

“Lucky Summer.”


Now, that’s blatant. Ok, so I am being hit on? Mariah thinks. Really?

Something... fizzing, crackling, simmering, cooking-type words? Something is happening. Mariah can feel it now, like flames licking around a fireplace or... she can’t think how to express it, even to herself, can’t find the words.

Maybe she doesn’t want to find them.

“I mean, it was at the coffee shop, in front of a bunch of people, and I was just saying thank you, you know, it wasn’t like, some whole Fried Green Tomatoes deal or anything.”

“Love that movie.”

“It’s my favorite,” Mariah says immediately, and she hopes she doesn’t blush — she hates when she does that. She likes strong female characters and a good story, okay??

Anyway, it’s not like the film actually is about a lesbian relationship. They toned down the book quite a bit in that regard.

Yes, Mariah read the book. She likes to read now and then, okay???

“So what do you do?”

“Me, I’m a... well. A reporter, sort of.” Mariah takes another sip of whiskey.

“Wow, that is seriously cool.”

“I mean, I’m not exactly Woodward or Bernstein, kind of more, in the gossipy, um, sphere, I guess... What about you?”

“Oh, this and that. I don’t think I have what you’d call a career. Not yet.”

“Give yourself time,” Mariah says. “It can take a while to figure out what you want to do with your life. Well, it did for me. God, I sound forty years old, sorry. I’m not forty.”

“I see, so the gay bar thing isn’t a mid-life crisis...”


There’s a mischievous smile from Tessa that Mariah can’t even begin to protest against.

“Well, I know what I want to do,” Tessa saves Mariah by going back to discussing careers again. “But, it’s competitive as hell, and honestly, I don’t even know if I’m good enough.”

Then, there’s a shout from somewhere on the other side of the bar. “Porter, you’re up!”

“That’s my cue,” Tessa says, glancing down at the whiskey and deciding better of finishing it. “Best not.” And taps her throat, a little mysteriously.

And then she’s gone.

Probably never see her again, Mariah thinks, feeling a sudden strange sort of grief for a woman she’s known for literally five minutes.

And then the next moment there’s the sound of a microphone being switched on, some scattered applause, and Tessa is up on a small stage at the back of the room that Mariah hadn’t noticed before, and she’s holding a guitar and looking out across the bar.

“Hey everybody. Hope you’re all having a great night. Mine personally, has taken a turn for the better, after a shaky start. So this is a song I wrote about the heartbreak of not being in love. Hope you like it.”

Tessa’s gaze meets her own and Mariah feels herself smile. Tessa smiles back and then starts to play, and sing, and from the first note, Mariah finds herself captivated. Tessa’s voice is... exquisite. Truly beautiful, with a tone Mariah isn’t sure she’s ever heard before.

The lyrics of the song are about a relationship that has gone wrong, but one the singer isn’t even sure she should have been in to begin with, and something in it speaks to Mariah, makes her think of her misguided fling with Kevin, for example, and basically every other romance that’s failed so terribly over the years. Did any of them really ever start from the right place?

It’s a strong, relatable song. Tessa somehow makes even a couple of lines about how she’s a terrible cook sound good. The whole thing gets a positive reaction from the crowd. When Tessa finishes, the applause the room gives her is warm, heartfelt.

At least, Mariah knows the clapping she’s doing is. This girl is truly talented.

“You were fantastic,” Mariah tells Tessa when she returns to the bar.


“You think? Thank you.”


“You should definitely be a professional.”

“Have I got my first fan?” Tessa looks at her.

“Oh, I’m sure I’m not your first.”

What the hell. Am I hitting on her now?

“Mariah,” Mariah says, because she has to say something, quickly, so that she just stops staring right back at Tessa. “That’s my name.”

“Good to meet you, Mariah.”

Tessa extends her hand for Mariah to shake it. Her touch, when their fingers meet, at once sends a tremble down Mariah’s spine.

Not that she is gay, or even remotely interested in women, nor did she just hit on this Tessa girl, and it’s not like she thinks about that kiss with Summer every single day, or wonders why she did it.

You know why.

“One for the road?” Tessa says.


“I don’t know why people say that. It sounds irresponsible, don’t you think?”
Babble, babble.
 ”But I’m not driving, so why not,” Mariah says.
 One last drink and back to the hotel and see what’s on TV before bed, she tells herself.


Somehow that one last drink becomes two or three. Mariah thinks she mentions Kevin. She knows she mentions Summer again. Tessa hints at some family issues. Mariah alludes to her own. She doesn’t mention the cult, or Cassie, or that she had pretended to be her dead sister, but she tells Tessa she’s only in the last few years got to know her birth mother, after a difficult start to their relationship, and how glad she is that she did.

And then somehow, they are up on the dance floor where the same two guys have been valiantly holding down the fort for the last couple of hours, and suddenly these guys are their new best friends. There’s requests to the DJ, and a round of shots (tequila? Ugh! Mariah thinks, downing it quickly so she doesn’t taste it too much) and then Tessa tells her the bartender, who is confusingly called Maria, is a good friend and invited her to play the one song, kind of a little unofficially, but just to give her more experience, because music is absolutely what she wants to do with her life.

“You should do it,” Mariah tells her. “You should do what you feel.”

“Should I?” Tessa asks, looking into Mariah’s eyes with an intensity that feels like it’s turned the music volume down to zero, and taken everyone else out of the room, and which leaves Mariah’s heart pounding.

“I... uh... Ladies’ room,” Mariah says, and dashes off to the sanctuary of a bleak strip light and an unflattering mirror, to the dull thud of music from the bar in the background, to cold water splashed onto her face, to telling herself that she is drunk but she isn’t gay.

“We’ve all been there, honey,” Maria the bartender tells her with a friendly pat on the back as she walks past.

“Great, so the inner monologue is... out there again,” Mariah says to her twin in the mirror. She opens the bathroom door back into the bar to see Tessa standing there.

“You were a while, so I just came to check you were OK. Was it that last tequila? Want me to walk you back to your hotel?”

It’s not said as a come-on; the tone is friendly and helpful, in fact. Tessa’s genuinely a little concerned, and Mariah knows this, and she knows she herself isn’t gay. But for some reason, the very straight Mariah Copeland who isn’t being hit on right this moment, decides, all the same, to take the initiative. Maybe it was that last tequila.

You know it isn’t.

Mariah steps forward, into the unknown. She pushes Tessa gently but firmly against the wall of the corridor they’re standing in, and kisses her.

It’s tentative at first. Maybe Tessa doesn’t want —


But Tessa welcomes the kiss, responds. She lets Mariah sets the tone and pace, but is kissing her right back.

I’m kissing a woman, Mariah thinks, and then she feels as though she is being lifted off her feet, and it isn’t just the height difference in play — this kiss is like nothing Mariah has ever felt before. Passionate, although they only met that night. Deep and meant, even though they don’t know each other. It feels incredibly right, and good, Tessa’s lips so soft, and her tongue so delicate, and her touch so good and, and...

So this is why people make a big deal of kissing someone, Mariah thinks. It can feel like this.

Tessa’s hands in Mariah’s hair. Mariah’s hands... well... places... that she’s never put them on a woman before, put it that way. In the back of a bar in Chicago on a cold winter’s night. I don’t know what I’m doing but I love it, Mariah thinks. She and Tessa are pressed close to one another, but somehow, Mariah still feels, at one and the same time, an incredible closeness and as though she is reaching, searching for this other woman all the while.

“Good for you!” one of the guys from the dance floor tells them, as he staggers past. “That goddamn tequila...”

And then she and Tessa are laughing against each other, and Tessa lays a gentle kiss on Mariah’s smiling mouth.

“I’m sorry I... sorry for... just, er... I’ve never done anything like that... I mean, I’ve kissed people, but you know, men. Primarily.”

“It’s ok.”


“I shouldn’t have just...”

“Do I seem like I’m complaining?” Tessa’s hands are around Mariah’s waist, and now she pulls her in a little closer.

“Walk me back to my hotel,” Mariah finds herself saying.

Chapter 2

When they get outside, the moon is high and bright above them, and it’s snowed, quite a lot. Mariah is in heels. Flimsy-looking ones, to boot.

“Quite the footwear choice for this city, this season,” Tessa observes.

“You don’t like?” Mariah lifts a foot to show off one shoe, and nearly tumbles headfirst onto the sidewalk, saved only by Tessa’s hand quickly slipped around her waist.

Tessa is glad her reflexes are relatively intact, even after the bucketload of alcohol she had at the bar... jeez. Tessa had been sure that she’d be able to drink Mariah under the table, but as a matter of fact, she might just have met her match. Tessa makes a mental note never to take this girl on in a drinking contest.

“My hero...” Mariah smiles at her and places her hand over Tessa’s own. “Heroine. Let’s see. Your hobbies include, playing guitar, and saving women on the treacherous streets of Chicago.”

“Only the very beautiful ones.”

“You... think I’m beautiful?” Mariah looks at her.

Tessa had been thinking the night was going to be a write-off. She had a slot for precisely one song at Sanctuary Bar, but dropping in at that party earlier had been a mistake. Alex was not only her ex but her... what. Co-conspirator? Potential co-defendant? Alex was engaged in a long-running scam of some guy with a shop over in Jewelers Row; and Tessa had helped a few times by pretending to be a “friend” who was interested in acquiring diamonds or whatever Alex had had her doing. But Alex had gone too far, as usual... Tessa had ended the relationship, and didn’t want to run into her again unless she had to.

She had forgotten all about Alex, however, the moment a certain redhead walked into the bar.

“Mariah... please. You’re completely gorgeous. Confirmed by the evidence of all five of my senses.”

Mariah blushes, and it’s immediately one of Tessa’s favorite things, ever.

“Let’s get you back to your hotel,” Tessa says, feeling the chill now they’ve been standing around outside for the best part of a minute. “It’s nearly an entire block in... well, that’s gotta be at least three inches of snow.”

“Right. And you’re telling me only half of this expedition party is properly equipped.”

Mariah smiles at her, a truly divine smile that sends Tessa’s pulse racing almost as fast as their kiss had.

Ok, another favorite thing right off the bat.

It really isn’t a good time to start really liking a girl you just met, Porter.

“I can’t believe you don’t like my shoes,” Mariah says, as they start walking. Slowly. Because of Mariah’s shoes.

“I didn’t say that. But you’ve got to admit, they’re not exactly practical.”

Mariah makes a noise that sounds like “Psshaaw.” “Fashion isn’t always practical, Tess.”

Personally, Tessa has always chosen shoes that meant she could get out of a place in a hurry. Like that last day at home, when she had grabbed the bag she’d packed and stashed days before, for when she might need to get out quickly, and when the day came, earlier then expected, she threw on the boots she’s wearing now, got out of the front door and ran for the bus at the end of the street and just about made it. Didn’t look back then. Tries not to look back now.

And it hadn’t been the last place she had to get out of fast, either. Maybe Mariah’s never had to run away from somewhere, Tessa thinks, but then again, something tells her that isn’t true.

Maybe this girl just likes ridiculous shoes.

“Nearly there.”

“Thank goodness. This must be how Roald Amundsen felt,” Mariah says.

“The who now?”

“The guy who led the first expedition to the South Pole. When he realized he was almost, ya know, at the Pole.” She pauses. “But then again, he still had to go the whole way back again.”

There’s something about the combination of Mariah’s nerdy fact knowledge, and her delivery, that has Tessa laughing.

Damn, when did anyone last make her smile, and laugh, like this?
 Real bad timing, Tessa. This is just some fun for tonight.

She doesn’t even live in Chicago, and she’ll be gone in the morning. Just for tonight. Don’t go thinking anything else.

“So...” Mariah says, in the hotel lobby. “You want to, um... you know, I’m not very good at this...”

“You seem pretty good to me,” Tessa tells her.

“I have a room, I mean, it’s not a suite or anything. But, um... wanna see it?”

“Who needs a suite?” Tessa shrugs. “All you need is one cozy room. Yes, I would love to see this room.”

“Oh, OK. Then let’s, er... go there,” Mariah says, hitting the elevator button.

They are moving to each other, getting wrapped up in each other again, the moment the elevator starts moving up.

“How did I do?”


“On the asking me up? It was very smooth.”

“Liar. But it’s alright.” Mariah says. “I’ll forgive someone who is so hot... I mean literally, extremely warm. Damn. You got an electric heater under that coat?”

Tessa smiles. “I personally tend to feel the cold. But I do like to receive compliments on my temperature.”

When they kiss again, Tessa knows she’s in trouble. For sure. The best kind, but still. Mariah said she hadn’t been with a woman before, and Tessa wonders if that is true; because Mariah doesn’t kiss like she’s in any way uncertain, like she’s experimenting or like she doesn’t know what she’s doing... Mariah’s kiss feels very, very meant. And more than that; like it really does mean something.

Uh-oh.

It’s the alcohol, it’s seeing Alex. It’s the full moon, I mean maybe it’s more three-quarters right now but it’s getting there. Don’t be an idiot, Tessa, you met this girl a couple hours ago in a bar. You’ll have a good time tonight and probably never see her again.

But damn, if she isn’t gorgeous. And hell, if her kiss isn’t everything...

“Not exactly the Four Seasons, huh?” Mariah says, as they step into her hotel room. “My work booked me in here.”

Tessa stands her guitar up against the wall carefully and looks around. The room is warm, clean, has a comfortable-looking double bed and a decent view. Looks like paradise from where Tessa’s standing.

“It’s a lot nicer than my place,” is what Tessa tells Mariah. She isn’t lying.

The Four Seasons, huh? Tessa’s only experience in a five-star hotel has been a brief stint waiting tables until she was fired for mixing up orders on account of too much daydreaming about song lyrics. That, and refusing to sleep with her boss. Her instant read of Mariah is that she is comfortable in life: not rich, exactly, but hardly poor. Their talk in the bar earlier had suggested a tougher childhood than Tessa would have guessed, but she doesn’t know all the details. It seems like later life has been a little kinder to Mariah, though; she doesn’t act like someone who is struggling now.

Tessa can’t help doing this. Reading people. Even incredibly beautiful women who invite her back to their hotel rooms. Maybe one day she will change. Maybe one day she will have a reason to.

Right now, there’s something she does have to say; one right thing she should do.

“We don’t have to do anything, you know.”


“What?” Mariah looks at her.


“We can just talk, or whatever.”

“You want to just talk?”

They gaze into each other’s eyes for a bit longer than is reasonable. If this was a TV show, this bit would need to be cut down a little.

“No, Mariah.” Tessa says, at last, closing the gap between them and kissing Mariah’s lips softly. “I don’t want to “just talk”. But... you said this was new for you. And you know, all the whiskey and the tequila... And I.. I am just saying... I’m not... expecting anything.”

Mariah nods her head. “That’s really lovely,” Mariah says. “Really. Lovely. I love that.” She kisses Tessa. “But I want you.”

Tessa feels her breath hitch.

“I wanted you the moment I saw you,” Tessa tells Mariah. Once again, no word of a lie.


“Me?”


“You.”

“You’re like, the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen,” Mariah says. “Now I know you’re drunk.”

“I’m not! Ok, yeah, I am a little drunk. But I have eyes. And you know, the other sense things. Your voice, I mean, is, it’s just... wow.”

“I’m going to put your review on my posters. Mariah from Genoa City says, ‘wow.’”

“Oh she does,” Mariah says. “She does... say... wow...”


It’s the last thing either of them says before they make it to the bed.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Mariah likes to thinks of herself as a woman of the world. She’s seen some things, done some things. She grew up in a cult. There was, of course, that time she pretended to be her dead twin sister. She had at one point tried to seduce her mother’s husband — well, no, now is not the time to think about that, if there ever is a time to think about that. But for all her life experience, her sexual experiences have so far only ever been with men. And you know, sure, just like any heterosexual woman — right? — there have been times when she’s wondered, been a little curious, perhaps, what going to bed with a woman would be like.

But she realizes, as clothes begin to be discarded, that she isn’t thinking of what it will be like to sleep with a woman, not in that sense. Instead, she’s thinking of what it will be like to be with Tessa, specifically her, this crazy-talented singer, who looks and sounds stunning, and who for some reason is interested in spending the night with Mariah.

“What do you mean, for some reason?” Tessa murmurs against her mouth. “I got to tell you that you’re gorgeous again?”

“Yeah, but... look at you. Just look at you,” Mariah says, and she’s pretty sure she even gasps a little at what Tessa looks like underneath the now removed, several layers of winter clothing that are now scattered around the hotel room. The woman is incredible. “I don’t even want to think what your gym routine must be like.”

Tessa laughs, runs her fingers along Mariah’s collarbone in a way that makes Mariah tremble, and kisses her. And there’s that feeling again that Mariah has, that this kiss isn’t just a kiss, that she’s several miles above herself? Doesn’t even make sense, but... That she’s standing on the top of a cliff and not looking down in fear, but feeling like she could take a step off and realize she can fly. There’s no drink, no drug — not that Mariah has too much experience of drugs, but still, she’s sure she’s right — that could feel like this, like the rightness of this kiss, at once taking her breath away, and also feeling like an oxygen supply. This kiss is making her wet, now, she knows she is pooling down there, and she’s turned on in a way she can’t ever previously remember experiencing — does that mean, then... she’s not gay, but... does it even matter if she is ? Maybe it doesn’t, if this is how it feels to be gay, or bi — OK Mariah , that voice at the back of her mind says, name a guy who got you this wet, go on, and we will go with “bi” — listen, Keanu Reeves is still looking great for his age — Keanu doesn’t count, he is a perfect angel, everyone loves Keanu, even lesbians, you lesbian — and Tessa’s kiss, her kiss, over and over, her touch, her lips, her tongue, so good, Mariah needs more, can’t get enough of her, and suddenly realizes she wants and needs the control in this whole thing, and Tessa lets her have it, responds to her naturally and quickly, is so gentle, pliant but in this quietly powerful way. Mariah’s never had a lover like this before.

Is it because she is a woman or because she is Tessa? Mariah doesn’t know, but either way, she is the one moving on top and beginning to explore Tessa’s body with her hands and even her mouth, not really knowing what she is doing, but somehow not feeling any doubt.

“You’re sure?” Tessa asks her. “We don’t have to...”

“I don’t seem sure to you?” Mariah makes a downward movement with her head to signal their respective positions.

“I mean honestly, you really do. It’s just. I always like to ask.”

Mariah will find out later one reason why Tessa is always asking and checking so much that sex is wanted, but tonight she just finds it very sweet. She assures her she is very sure, and kisses her way down Tessa’s body, extends her tongue to lick each of Tessa’s perfect nipples, presses kisses firmly against her taut stomach. She must do, like, fifty sit-ups a day.

“Only twenty,” Tessa says. “Who has time for fifty? Oh God, Mariah —“

Mariah didn’t even actively decide to taste Tessa. She just did it, and the expressions that are crossing Tessa’s face very quickly, one after the other, are most decidedly a sight to behold. And now her mouth is moving against Tessa more intently.

“Mariah, Jesus, Mary and Joseph —“


Ah yes. The holy... quadrilateral?


“You taste so good... Am I doing this right?”

“Fuck — oh — fuckkkk...”

Mariah decides to take that as a yes. And finally shuts up talking so she can concentrate on moving her mouth against Tessa, drinking her in. At first, she just enjoys the sensation of what she is doing, but after a little while, she realizes her purpose, and concentrates on Tessa’s clit, but varied with other parts of Tessa here, caressing in a pattern, now not a pattern, and now a pattern again, and feeling Tessa’s hips begin to move, Tessa’s hands in her hair. There are more of what sound like quite Catholic exclamations from Tessa’s mouth, an increased movement of Tessa’s hips and Mariah is kissing, licking, caressing, tasting Tessa all at once, feeling the pressure build, the thrilling pleasure of what she is doing to, for, the other woman, the delight of it. It’s delicious, Tessa is delicious, did making love to someone ever feel this good? And Tessa’s head is thrown back, she looks so beautiful, and she is crying out Mariah’s name when she finally comes in Mariah’s mouth, hard and fast and strong, Mariah enraptured to the extreme to have the taste of Tessa all over her lips, and her tongue, and yeah, somehow her nose too. Tessa’s legs are trembling and she is gesturing to her, inviting Mariah back up the bed, for Mariah to hold her.

“Mariah.”


“You know, the way you’re using it, you’re gonna wear my name out.”

“You... you...” is all Tessa can say. Mariah feels Tessa’s legs still shaking.

“So, I did it right?”


Tessa nods.


“I’m new at this, so.”


Tessa raises her eyebrows to suggest she now doubts Mariah is new at this.

“I just, er... went with my instincts, I guess.”

“Good instincts,” Tessa manages. She swings a leg over Mariah. “Don’t go anywhere. Just gimme a second.”

Mariah kisses Tessa’s forehead, lies back. The bathroom door is open, and she can see a little bit of herself in the bathroom mirror, but this time she doesn’t bother to tell herself she isn’t gay. Not that her realisation is a settled one; she will waver on this, at least when it comes to saying it out loud. Even after tonight, and what happens later, it will take her some time to accept that when women, one woman in particular, make you feel this way, so thrilled and yet so comfortable, so sure of yourself and what you are doing that sex is no longer ever a battle with, or over, yourself, or a chore, or a regret that you know you’re going to have before you even do it, but instead something joyous, life-affirming, restorative, and deeply right — when sex, which you’ve never thought was really so important or such a big deal, turns out, with the right person, to be so important, and such a big deal — despite all this, Mariah will have a journey of self-reflection before she ever says the truth to anyone, even Tessa. She’ll tell Tessa, and the world, that she loves her, before she will say that she is gay.

But she won’t say either of these things tonight.

What she will do is wait for Tessa to be able to move again, and as she stirs, take Tessa’s hand and place it between her own legs.

“You feel that?”


“I feel that,” Tessa confirms, in a low voice.
Mariah can feel herself: dripping wet and ready. Isn’t that something. “You’ve got me like this.”


“Me?”


”You. Just talk, huh? Well how about... you just fuck me?”


This is not a joke, and neither of them are laughing.


“Yes... ma’am...” Tessa murmurs, getting right to it.

Tessa is, Mariah realizes immediately, a naturally thoughtful lover. She’s gentle, careful. Not rough, doesn’t push anything. Beautifully considerate. When she slips her fingers inside, she does so delicately, despite the fact Mariah has implored Tessa to fuck her. But actually, it’s really nice and right that she does, because it’s Tessa, it’s who she is, and it lets Mariah be who she is too. Because Mariah loves this, that Tessa is a sweetheart in bed. She isn’t sure what she expected, but not this level of natural gentleness. It’s delightful.

But she needs more tonight. And so asks Tessa for more and they both enjoy and value Mariah asking. Mariah asks for harder. Yeah, rougher, too. That’s what Mariah needs. Not every time. She rarely ever asked men for this. Hardly ever wanted to ask men for this.

She feels she can, tonight. Feels she must. It’s there from this first night, the natural connection, the understanding but also the ability to talk. To ask for things. Mariah didn’t know, until tonight, that sex doesn’t in fact have a set order or pattern, or even rules other than both of you wanting it. Mariah is beginning to realize that she has always thought of sexual acts really as things you do because they’re done, and she’s not ever considered that it’s because you actually want or enjoy them. She’s not thought that you don’t have to miss out on anything, either. She didn’t know sex could be anything that she and her lover liked and wanted. Which sounds absurd, really.

Mariah feels very stupid.

Mariah feels extremely empowered.

“Like that,” Mariah says. “Yes. Yessss,” she hisses, as Tessa slides fingers in and out of her with the intensity that Mariah has requested of her, and touches Mariah’s clit at the same time — with her thumb, Mariah realizes. Hey, this lesbian sex thing is smart . Maybe Mariah should be gay more often...

“You feel so good,” Tessa is saying. “So good...”

Tessa’s body, her manner, are soft, but her fingers are strong, if must be all that guitar-playing, and she’s good, oh, fuck! — so very, very good with her hands.

Mariah doesn’t always climax. Well, yes, on her own, usually she does, but not always with guys. But she knows she’s going to, from the second Tessa touches her, and maybe she knew even before that, in the bar. When they kissed. Maybe before they kissed. Maybe that’s why she kissed Tessa, why she asked her back to the hotel, although it wasn’t the only reason. Orgasms aren’t everything, Mariah had always thought, which whilst always true in some ways, will nevertheless seem an amusingly quaint notion later on.

Tessa is moving her fingers in and out just how Mariah wants and needs it and Mariah loves it, pushes her body against Tessa’s hand. It’s so necessary. So desired.

“God, yes. Give it to me,” Mariah tells her. It’s heaven every time Tessa’s fingers enter her, it’s something higher than heaven when they’re deep inside her, it’s almost sad when Tessa slides out of her, but it has to happen so that Tessa can slide into her again.

She tells Tessa she’s going to come, because she feels the need to share. It’s a climax that has started somewhere deep inside her, and is working its way up slowly to the surface, but it is inevitable, beautifully so. Mariah enjoys that: the inevitability of it. No need to search for it, no need to pick the right fantasy in order to get off. She only needs what’s happening right here and now, she only needs this sensuous, gorgeous, perfect woman fucking her so gloriously the way Mariah asked her to.

Mariah’s climax arrives as a mind-exploding, life-altering sensation that is also a very real physical act. She comes hard, fast, her hips bucking; she comes all over Tessa’s hand, and she keeps coming for longer than she ever has before. Half-drenches the bed.

“You’re beautiful, you’re beautiful,” Tessa is saying, and then she surprises Mariah by moving down the bed, putting her mouth on Mariah and teasing out another climax, a third, with her tongue, even though Mariah could have sworn she had no more to have. She’s the one wearing out Tessa’s name by the third time.

No-one’s ever made love to her like this before, Mariah is sure. So perfectly, with so much care and appreciation for her, not to mention, well, it must be said, such a degree of sheer technical skill... Tessa’s tongue glides over her, into her, she somehow has a move where she works on Mariah’s clit in the same stroke as putting the tip of her tongue inside her... Mariah’s never known anything like this. Ever.

They lie together in post-orgasmic bliss, a seeming glow all around them as they hold each other, Tessa’s head on Mariah’s shoulder. Tessa kisses Mariah’s chest.

Mariah is exhausted and spent, but satisfied, more satisfied than she can ever remember feeling. Perhaps truly satisfied, in bed, or perhaps at all, for the first time in her life.

“Wow,” Tessa says, after a time.
“Hey, that’s my line,” Mariah murmurs, as she drifts off to sleep.

Chapter 3

Tessa wakes early, much earlier than usual, with a dry mouth and a gentle banging in her head; to steel-grey sky through the not-quite-closed curtains. It’s still night-time; the clock next to the bed says 4:42am, but downtown Chicago is like the center of every other big city, and never fully dark.

She doesn’t know where she is for a few moments. Certainly not at that place over at McLinton Street where’s been sleeping the last few nights, since her car got impounded for non-payment of parking violations. That hovel, recommended by an acquaintance of an acquaintance, and accessible only via a not-fully-boarded up window at the back of the building, is freezing cold, certainly doesn’t have a comfortable bed, and absolutely doesn’t come furnished with a gorgeous redhead wrapped around you in the morning. The redhead in question is sleeping soundly and peacefully, one arm draped over Tessa’s body and the other thrown above her own head.

The night comes back to Tessa all at once — not in mere waves, but in an overpowering tidal rush. How she had been sure the night would be a write-off, and hitting the bar. The beautiful woman walking through the door and into her life, and Tessa knowing she had to talk to her, so sure she would be shot down pretty quickly (surely a woman like this has someone already?) but wanting to connect all the same. And then the drinking, the slight dreamy haze settling in, singing her new song, the applause, more drinking. Talking. Feeling something flow between them, not just the conversation but an understanding too. That buzzy feeling in her stomach. Thinking about kissing Mariah, wondering if she should.

And then, Mariah kissing her instead. The taste of her mouth, and the feel of her surprisingly soft, delicate hands in the small of Tessa’s back. Mariah asking Tessa to walk her back to the hotel. The cold street, the snow on the ground. The elevator. The guy who had gotten in the elevator with them and seen them kissing and said something crass, had he? — and Mariah had annihilated him with her reply. Tessa can’t remember what Mariah said, exactly; only that it was fierce, cutting, and perfect... Just like Mariah... Tessa already a little in awe of this woman for more than just her looks: her ready wit and fearlessness, too...

And speaking of perfect, and being in awe, the stunning ivory of Mariah’s skin, once they were close against one another, Tessa gasping a little, she knew, at how beautiful Mariah was, everywhere. Expected and yet unexpected. And Mariah’s soft hands on Tessa’s body, no clothes in the way now, and her self-assurance, her poise... How Mariah hadn’t hesitated or doubted for a moment, and what was more, the dynamic between them immediately so clear and true and right, the immediate understanding between them, of Mariah assuming the control and Tessa giving it over to her freely and happily, even joyously.

The taste of Tessa herself that was on Mariah’s lips when Mariah kissed her again... after she had made love to her.

It’s dizzying, overwhelming, and Tessa is glad, now, she is lying down, when she comes to think over how the evening ended — how Mariah had wanted to be taken; had, truth be told, implored Tessa to be a little raw and rough. Tessa had built up to it carefully, not rushed; wanted to give Mariah everything she wanted and asked for, suddenly pleasing Mariah was her number one task in life — but Tessa also really wanted to be sure that Mariah meant it. How Mariah had both insisted and reassured.

How “harder,” and “yes” sounded, from Mariah’s lips. The beautiful arch of Mariah’s back when she came hard over Tessa’s hands. How Tessa had moved to drink her in afterwards, couldn’t help herself, felt Mariah’s surprise at coming again, and again, Tessa delighted that she could do this for her, give her something special, make this completely incredible woman feel this good.

Above all, Tessa is now conscious of, awakened to, the intimacy created by Mariah’s immediate and full physical trust, in her, in Tessa. She’s trusting me, of all people, Tessa thinks, with herself.

Right from the beginning, making love to Mariah brings about a closeness Tessa can’t remember having with anyone, and she met this girl last night.

“Making love??” Do you hear yourself, Porter?? You met the girl in a bar. Last night, for God’s sake. Don’t go catching feelings or anything.

But... but...

So you had a good time in bed, for once. So what?
So WHAT? So, everything. Tessa knows, at once, that her life is different, now, somehow.

Mariah’s heat and passion has seared into Tessa in some way. Marked her. For good.
 It’s just sex, Tessa tries to tells herself, but it’s too late. She already has a new feeling: that it really isn’t. That it is more than sex and what’s more, it’s sex that finally means something.

She won’t want you. Why would a woman like this want you?

This is the thought that works, that takes Tessa down quite a few hundred notches from her high. That’s it, there’s the truth. So Tessa has finally met someone she’s really into, but no way is Mariah going to feel the same way. Of course she isn’t! Be logical here. Mariah’s had her little lesbian experience in the big city and she will be back to that town, what’s it called, later today. She’s probably got a boyfriend. Maybe even a husband. Surely a woman like this has someone special in her life. It would be naïve to think otherwise. Tessa’s many things; but a delicate flower, she is not.

That’s it, Tessa thinks, that’s the answer. And, feeling something similar to, but not quite the same as, reassured, she goes back to sleep.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Mariah wakes late, much later than usual, with an urgent need for the bathroom, and the taste of whiskey, and something else...? in the back of her throat. Tequila? No...

The clock by the bed says 8:48am. She wonders where she is, in her first few waking seconds. She knows at least she is not back at the ranch, where Sharon likes to turn the air conditioning up even in winter, Mariah’s bed is more luxurious than this simple, functional standard hotel model, and also where she can definitely, honestly say she’s never managed to wake up next to probably the most stunning woman she’s ever seen in her life.

Tessa’s legs are wrapped up in her own, and one arm is around Mariah’s own waist. Mariah thinks of Tessa saving her from falling over... where was that.. outside somewhere? Tessa’s murmuring something unintelligible in her sleep... song lyrics? Mariah espies the guitar in the corner, recollects seeing Tessa up on stage last night. She was good, more than good. Oh yes. That’s right. Mariah has slept with a musician. That’s pretty cool.

A female musician.

That’s pretty... let’s face it, something else...

It hits her, full force, everything she did with Tessa last night, and it’s a tsunami of remembered, evoked, vision, touch, taste, scent, and sound... all five of her senses. That sounded familiar, somehow... The craziness of kissing Tessa in the bar. The madness of bringing her back here, telling herself she was still not sure if she was going to do anything (liar!) and then wanting Tessa so badly she thought she might be heartbroken if the girl left without them getting to go to bed together... which is really insane, Mariah, you don’t even know her...

And then how gorgeous Tessa was in the flesh. She has a perfect body, she’s gorgeous everywhere. Mariah loves touching her, loves tasting her, recollects and savors again her delight in bringing another woman, no, this woman, to such great pleasure.

Then she thinks of the release, relief, and sheer ecstasy when Tessa made her come. Over. And over.

Name a guy who ever made you feel like that.

“Mariah?”, Tessa says, rubbing her eyes in a way that is somehow both adorable and... What ridiculousness do I mean, Mariah thinks.

“Hot”? I think she’s hot when she regains consciousness in the morning after taking her daily rest?

Firstly, you are absurd, Mariah Copeland and secondly, yes. Tessa makes waking up look sexy. Her existence is hot. Tessa, living, breathing, walking around on Planet Earth? Incredible. Iconic. Glorious.

“Hey”, is what Mariah says.

And: “Excuse me, but I really need to go to the bathroom.”

Why am I always saying I am going to the bathroom?? She’s going to think I have a kidney infection or a bladder problem. Then again, if you think about it, I am only going a normal amount in fact... but... why have I always got to goddamn announce it?

Mariah realizes it’s Tessa she can still taste, as she brushes her teeth. And feels a little weak at the knees (so that’s a real thing, huh) as she realizes she can still feel Tessa inside her, how Tessa’s hands and mouth had not only taken her to new heights, but also left a sense of themselves behind.

Mariah had wanted... something she’d never really wanted before last night.

You must have been drunk. So you got drunk and had sex with a woman. Really, really, mind- blowing sex. Well, OK. It makes a good story. It’s all part of life’s great tapestry...

Tessa’s gentle caresses, and how Mariah had wanted more, suddenly, desperately — almost begged Tessa to give it to her. Her toothbrush stops, mid-brush, as she looks at herself in the mirror.

She’s made a fool of herself, hasn’t she? This girl is going to think she’s, that she... that she goes around picking up women in bars, tells them it’s her first time, asks them to... to... well, she’ll probably be gone when Mariah gets out of the bathroom, now won’t she and it’s really just as well —

Tessa is lounging on the bed in a hotel robe, looking at the room service menu.

“You seen this? You can get them to bring you pancakes! I thought you said this place wasn’t fancy.”

“I wasn’t sure if you —” Mariah stops. “Er, yeah. You hungry?”

“Worked up an appetite somehow,” Tessa says, with a look that makes Mariah’s heart explode like confetti, and which induces a particular sensory reaction somewhere a little lower in her body.

“Well, I could definitely do with some coffee,” Mariah says, in what she hopes is a breezy tone. Damn, did she not close the curtains properly last night? Good job they’re on the sixteenth floor... She walks over to the window, sees Chicago beginning to go about its day...

Tessa’s warm hands are around her waist, and Tessa’s warm breath is on her neck, and the kiss Tessa applies to her collarbone is at once playful and sensual, fun but very serious all the same.

“Tessa,” Mariah says.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This is where she tells me it was fun, but it was definitely no strings attached.

Tessa knows how it goes. She’s been around. Not that much, but a little. She knows enough.

They met in a bar, right? What else can you expect, Tessa? That this girl is going to risk it all for you? Come on, now. She’ll say how actually, she has someone, maybe she wasn’t sure about them, but now, she’s got whatever was in her system right out of it, thanks for that, she appreciates it. She’s scratched that itch, she’s ready to commit to whatever his name is. She’ll suggest skipping breakfast. And can you leave already? — she has somewhere to be.

And then Mariah turns and kisses her. Not fiercely, not wildly, not even passionately, at first. Softly, like it’s a first kiss, like last night didn’t happen. Like they are more than strangers, like Tessa is in fact someone she has known for a while, and this is important to get right. Mariah tastes fresh, clean, pure... Tessa isn’t thinking about the wild time in bed last night, but about how delicate Mariah is, about their height difference, she’s wondering if Mariah has brothers and sisters or a cat or a dog or what her favorite color is, her favorite ice cream flavor, does she like sports or hate them? Which season does she love most? — and Tessa bets it’s fall.

And this time, when they go to bed, and it begins again, their touches are gentle, languorous; they take their time with each other, they explore every inch of other carefully, thoughtfully, and, well, it’s dumb to think it, Tessa thinks, I am a dumb, dumb, dumb as all hell person but the word is “lovingly”, even though some of the sex begins to get a little wilder, it’s all so beautifully done between them. Lovingly, yep, that’s the word, you idiot, you absolute fool, this girl will forget you in a hot minute the second she gets out of this city.

Mariah in between her legs, Mariah in her lap, Mariah lifting herself up and over Tessa and... and then Tessa up against the wall, why? That’s how Mariah wanted her, so suddenly that was very much what Tessa wanted, too, and then they were together in the shower, water running over them, cascading hot water running down like a revelation, Tessa thought as she was dropping to her knees, and then holding Mariah by the hips when she comes, so she doesn’t collapse, and escorting her safely back to the bed, holding her close. Lying together, and Tessa running her hands through Mariah’s hair, which is even redder in daylight then it was last night, and incredibly curly, now, after all that hot water on it.


“Oh, god. I need to... straighten it or something....” Mariah makes to move from the bed.

“What are you talking about. It’s gorgeous how it is.”


“I think you’re still drunk. Don’t go operating any heavy machinery this morning.”

The imaginary concept of Tessa, say, maneuvering an industrial saw, is a roundabout reference to them not being in the same place, even if it’s a jokey one, and Tessa’s heart breaks a little, fairly quietly.

“Yeah, I guess I should...” Now Tessa is the one trying to move, and Mariah the one protesting.

“Where are you going?”


“I should... get out of your hair. See what I did there? You’ve got to get back home, right?”

Tessa’s phone, in her jeans pocket, on the floor, buzzes, and she glances at the bit of the screen that’s visible, to see the three missed calls, the “Two new notifications” from “AR”. She pulls it further out of the pocket and sees the time.

11:08am.

She’s late, and Alex is pissed.

“Ah, shit.”

“Someone waiting on you?” Mariah asks.

“Yeah...” Tessa replies, without really thinking.

“Ah,” Mariah says. Tessa hears her tone, looks up from the phone. The look on Mariah’s face is a dagger to Tessa’s heart.

“No, I mean — I... not like that!”

“Hey, look, er... it’s fine. We weren’t making each other any promises, right? We met last night, so. I mean, I probably should have asked. But then again, it’s none of my business... if you have... well, yes, exactly, like I said, totally none of my business.”

Mariah is babbling now, and Tessa doesn’t seem able to stem the flow of words.

“I mean, it’s not like I asked you to fill out a form or something, why would I? I didn’t specifically ask the question...”

“No, really, Mariah. It’s not..., you know, a girlfriend or a boyfriend, or like a... husband, or a wife... “ Tessa’s enunciation puzzles even herself. She’s getting this wrong. “You know, in that sense, I mean... it’s not like...”

With every word, Tessa can see, from Mariah’s face, that she is not helping the situation one bit, and in fact is making things quite some degree worse.

This is much more familiar territory than meeting beautiful women and falling into bed with them hours later. Saying and doing the wrong damn thing comes much more naturally than anything else. Always making the wrong choices.

“Really, you don’t need to justify yourself to me.” Mariah is getting out of the bed, and opening her suitcase. “You have someone, I get it.”

“I don’t, I really don’t.”

“You know, you don’t need to lie to me. I am really not important enough that you need to do that....”

Mariah is dressing quickly; if it’s possible to dress angrily, then that is what she is doing.

“Mariah —” Tessa goes to her, reaches for Mariah’s hands, holds each of Mariah’s in each of her own. She expects Mariah to tell her not to touch her, but she doesn’t.

“Besides you, there is no-one else in my life. Man, or woman,” Tessa says.


“Besides me?”, Mariah says, and Tessa realizes she has said something, without meaning to.

The thing is, when she says this, it’s true. In more than one way. She and Alex are over. She had agreed to help Alex out one last time with her dumb scam, and she’s late for their meeting planned for that morning; hadn’t wanted to talk to her about it last night, wanted a night off from all the criminal machinations Alex had her mixed up in, and didn’t want Alex making a pass Tessa would need to reject again, as Alex so often did when she was high, and Tessa always did whether high or drunk or not. But after today, when she most definitely does not sleep with Alex and in fact doesn’t get anywhere near to it, she will be done with “AR” for good and never see her again. Tessa isn’t dating anyone, she isn’t interested in anyone; from the second she meets Mariah, her private thoughts will all be about this beautiful, intelligent, somewhat tempestuous woman who claims not to have a way with words or a fiery temper but who really, really, does have both and which Tessa really can’t get enough of either of, sometimes...

And “besides you”? yes. It means something too.
Right there and then, Tessa sees that Mariah does finally believe her. Because it was true. It was totally true. When Tessa said it.


The thing is —
Well —

It’s just that the circumstances of Tessa and Mariah’s next meeting, some months after that day, after they have swapped numbers, and promised to look each other up sometime in the future; after they have said goodbye to each other in the room, and then without another word of discussion, made out in the elevator one last time on their way down to the lobby; after Mariah has left to go get the train home and Tessa is ninety minutes late to meet her partner in crime (but not, ever again, in anything else) and wonders if she shouldn’t have damn well run after Mariah and told her she’ll try Wisconsin or wherever Mariah wants if that’s what it takes — it’s just that, next time they do lay eyes on each other, the situation in which this happens causes Mariah to doubt everything she thought she knew about Tessa Porter, but then again, as she tells Tessa later, that “isn’t so very much, is it? I don’t know you at all, here I am, I’m falling so hard —”

But that’s later.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Besides me?”, Mariah says.

“You know, I thought we were really... connecting,” Tessa says, giving her another one of her looks.

Come on, I just put clean underwear on, and now I’ve ruined it again...

Not the sort of thought she’s ever had in the morning after being with a guy, some part of Mariah’s mind that is not currently at the forefront, notes.

“I mean... connecting. That’s... a word. For it,” Mariah says. She had seen the look on Tessa’s face when she looked at her phone. It was a guilty one. Someone wants to know why she didn’t come home last night?

But the “besides you”, the way it was said, won’t leave her head, not today, not for a while.

I mean, it’s ridiculous to care either way, though, isn’t it? Tessa could be married with seven kids or free and single, the fact is that this is... well, it’s a one-night and, er, next morning-stand, isn’t it? This is just... something that happened, you know, they were drunk, and probably Tessa doesn’t want any kind of repeat... performance.

Besides you, besides you...

And so somehow, as these things happen, they make their arrangements to separate. Separate? Go their separate ways? Why are you thinking of it like that, huh? They swap numbers. They say goodbye. They kiss one last time. Mariah experiences, and does not act on, a crazy thought that she shouldn’t get back on the train to GC after all, but go after Tessa, tell her she will give Chicago a shot if it mean if they can spend some more time together.

And now you really are losing it. A couple of orgasms... OK, closer to a dozen, fine, who’s counting —OK maybe I counted, a simple eleven earth-shattering, insanely satisfying and yet left you wanting more, climaxes —... and you’re losing your mind.

That’s all it takes, some good sex and you’re throwing your life away? Get a grip! Mariah is furious with herself.

But the sensations of Tessa, physical, emotional... they don’t leave her. And Mariah will think about texting Tessa a few days from now. Type out a whole message, delete it. Type, delete. Compose in her head, type, amend, delete every single word again. Eventually, comes a night out with Hilary, and her boss’s instincts for human drama are as impressively, disturbingly spot-on as ever, as she quickly, after only half a jug of cocktails, intuits Mariah is pining after someone or other. She is not specific with the gender references, Mariah notices, either, and she wonders whether to say something about this, or not... To admit, or deny. Instead she picks up her phone, scrolls to the number, taps out the message quickly and hits send before her nerves fail her or she sobers up: “hope your good!” [sic].

Yes, just like that, with the bad grammar! Yes, of course it should be “you’re!” YES, SHE KNOWS THAT!! The message haunts her, mocks her, for days; her spelling, for one thing. How soft, weak, she is, for having reached out in the way she did, for another.

She sometimes wonders about sending a follow-up: “*you’re”

But she’s left it too long, and she can’t correct herself. And she can’t message again, anyway, not when she never does get a reply. You’re so stupid, Mariah thinks to herself. On a daily basis. Several times a day, in fact.

To distract herself, Mariah throws herself into work so hard that Hilary ends up being fairly impressed, and even barely complains about Mariah’s professional performance for several months.

I’ll never see her again, I guess, Mariah thinks.
 Mariah guesses wrong. But then, not that she was ever going to guess right, how she’d wind up crossing paths with Tessa again, some six months later.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Noah is beaming. And Mariah’s head and heart are already pounding. Wait —


“So, Mom, Mariah. Thanks for making the time. I wanted to tell you first. Before Dad. Don’t get me wrong, he... anyway, look, I’ll talk to him later. Don’t freak out.”

“You’re —” Mariah is saying, to the woman on her brother’s arm, but Noah is already happily talking over her.

Tessa’s hair, clothes, styling are different, but no doubt it’s her. Mariah would know that face anywhere, in fact she now summons up from the memory bank the very distinct recollection of the morning after the night before, of her hands gripping the hotel bed headboard, and then of her lifting herself up, placing a knee on either side of that that very beautiful face, and gently lowering herself onto Tessa’s lips—

Hold up. WHAT did Noah just say??

“WHAT did you just say?” Sharon asks.

“It’s great, right? I said, you’re looking at Mr and Mrs, Noah Newman!”

Tessa is looking at Mariah, the color drained from her face. The look on it says pretty much what Mariah is thinking, namely:

“What the fuck?” —

Mariah is, despite her protests, and the occasional ramble, and the odd, drunken, misspelt text, objectively pretty good with words. But that’s all Mariah can manage to say. For a while, at least.

Chapter 4

Mariah’s expletive hangs in the air for a few moments.

“I mean — maybe not exactly how I would have put it, personally, but in terms of the overall sentiment, I can certainly see where your sister is coming from,” Sharon says at last, looking from Mariah to Noah, to Tessa, and back to Noah again.

Noah shrugs, a happy grin on his face. “I know it’s sudden, Mom, I get that it’s gonna come as a surprise and everything...”

Tessa’s gaze meets Mariah’s, perhaps for a fraction of a second too long, if anyone were looking in their direction; but perhaps thankfully, neither Noah nor Sharon are paying attention to the two of them just at the moment: the familiar dynamic of protective mother, and somewhat indulged son, now in full flow between them.

“Oh, it’s most definitely a surprise. I mean, honey, I didn’t even know you were dating anyone?” Sharon inclines her head.

“Me neither,” Mariah agrees, pondering why, exactly, hasn’t the ground opened up and swallowed her yet? She isn’t asking the universe for much, surely: just immediate, sweet oblivion.

“Well, you know, I was busy, concentrating on work...” Noah says. “And then, I happened to meet Tessa.” He turns to his new wife and smiles. “ And it just kinda went from there, you know, we just clicked. It was all a whirlwind, truthfully. But sometimes you can just meet someone, and know right away that she’s special. When it’s right, it’s right. Right?”

“So people say,” Mariah mutters quietly.

There’s another, were anyone to observe it, mysteriously meaningful look exchanged with Tessa, but thankfully the Newman Show is continuing apace without them, albeit directly alongside them, as Sharon allows herself a non-committal, yet at the same time seemingly unconvinced, raise of her eyebrows at her son’s attitude.

“I mean, where did this... how did you...?” She gestures with her hands. Noah seems to get her meaning.

“Oh, well... we officially tied the knot in this little chapel in Reno. We saw the sign and — we just went for it! ”

“You got married in... a chapel... in... Reno?”

Sharon pronounces the city’s name in a tone that Mariah isn’t sure she’s ever heard from
 her mother before. Italics just wouldn’t cover it. Alarmed disbelief, is the best description Mariah can come up with. She knows for sure that Sharon would never have anticipated her beloved boy’s big day taking place without her, without any of them, and in such an impromptu fashion, in a chapel somewhere in
 Nevada — with a woman he barely knows.

“We did that whole, getting a couple of strangers off the street to be witnesses!”, Noah grins. “Totally romantic, right babe?”

Babe. If Noah had impulsively married literally any other girlfriend of approximately the last five minutes in some desert town, and come back home to tell Sharon about it, Mariah might, perhaps, almost have been able to take a step back and enjoy the fireworks unfolding before her in a somewhat detached, happy for her little brother, amused big sister kind of way, but as it is, Noah has married Tessa. And Mariah still can’t shake the thought of the night and morning that she had spent with this exact same woman; of how Tessa’s hands, her lips, and tongue, had felt, on Mariah’s own body; of the sight of the gentle curve of her breasts, her hips...

“What were you doing in Reno, exactly?”

“Well, we were on a little road trip.” Noah tells his mother, “Actually, Tess and I met in San Francisco...”

Tess. God, this is unbearable. In the absence of a local or global natural disaster that would stop any more of this scene playing out, Mariah wonders if she can simply leave. She attempts to calculate the number of steps from where she is standing, to an escape via the front door.

“What were you doing in San Francisco?”

Mariah has a brief flight of fancy of Sharon as the programmed voice in a GPS device, ever increasingly horrified at the destinations its owner asks it to navigate to.

She imagines an aghast Sharon’s enunciation of “Sacramento?!”


“I was at a music festival. And I was scoping out, like, maybe another possible location for Underground. I met Tessa on day two, and that was it — the rest is history.”

“I see. Well, I think,” Sharon takes Noah’s arm gently, smiles and nods politely at her daughter-in-law, “if you don’t mind, Tessa ? — Yeah, um... I think it’d be best if you, personally, Noah 
filled me in on the history here. If you’ll excuse us a moment — ?”

“Oh Mom, now, whatever you have to say, you can say it in front of —” Noah is attempting, but in a clash of personalities, his own will, will never be more forceful than Sharon’s, and she is sweeping her son away into the kitchen before he can properly stop her, or effectively object.

And, notably, before Mariah has any chance to make her getaway.

“I’ll be right back,” Noah tells Tessa, as the kitchen door closes behind him. “Don’t go anywhere!”

There is silence, for but a fraction of a moment.

“OK, so, ya know, it was fun to catch up and all, but I have to be somewhere else, immediately,” Mariah says, beginning to turn on her heels.

“Mariah...” Tessa says.
The sound makes Mariah stop dead in her tracks.

Tessa says her name differently to anyone else Mariah has ever met. Mariah has played the recollection of it over in her mind, again and again, now and then, since those fifteen or so crazy hours together in Chicago. How her name sounds from Tessa’s mouth. How she’s missed it, how she’s missed Tessa.

How pathetic I am! Mariah’s fury is mostly for herself. At how she is unable to shake a one night stand from her head, from her sensory memory. At the way she is somehow missing someone she had known for such a short time, who in fact she didn’t really know at all... and who clearly hasn’t missed Mariah in the slightest.

Mariah fears she’s a joke. Fears she’s laughable, as a person.


“What do you want to tell Noah and Sharon ? — sorry, I mean, your husband and mother-in-law! I’ve got to remember to get that right from now on, haven’t I? — we’re family now after all!” Mariah can feel full-on burbling, rambling mode approaching rapidly.

“Let’s see. You could tell them that I had to go to back to work? Needed to collect my dry cleaning? Went to go undergo a root canal? You choose. Really, honestly, I have to be anywhere but here.”

“Mariah, look.... listen.... can we talk? I didn’t know ... I mean, I had no idea that —”

“How can you have married my brother?” is what Mariah says.


“I... I didn’t know that Noah was your brother. I swear, Mariah, you have to believe me.”

“It’s quite the coincidence. You know, I didn’t even know that you....” Mariah stops.
  What didn’t I know, exactly? That Tessa liked men? That she... as it turns out, wasn’t gay?

Like I’m not gay, right? Why shouldn't Tessa like men?

Sure, why not, Mariah thinks. I mean, I like men. Of course. You know. The men people. Men, men, men. Men are great, aren’t they? Sure they are.

So, it turns out that Tessa likes them, too. Why not?
 Most women do.
 But Noah??

“I really do have to go,” Mariah says.

She can hear Tessa trying to say something, explain something, but Mariah knows she doesn’t want to hear it. She can’t hear it. She has to get out of there. She knows where she will go; and it’s not to the office, and it’s not to collect her dry cleaning, and it’s certainly not to the dentist.

The last thing she hears as she closes Sharon’s front door is Tessa saying her name again.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

There’s a silence, that stretches. And takes up space. After the door to the ranch is closed, and Mariah is gone... and Tessa feels the loss of her. The grief of her absence.

For one brief, entirely reckless, utterly crazy, moment, Tessa had considered going after Mariah after she had practically stormed out of the house going on about dental appointments, or laundry, or whatever her thrown-together excuse was.

But she had controlled herself, as she knew she must. How would it look, to be dashing down the street pursuing her new sister-in-law, rather than staying and waiting for the conclusion of whatever tête-à-tête was going on between Noah and his mother....?

Noah and Mariah’s mother, that is.

Of all the places Tessa might have imagined bumping into the hottest, sweetest one night fling she had ever had in her life, there was no way she expected it to be here. But now, a thought is occurring to her, a memory is returning...

Mariah had said she was from some small city or other in Wisconsin, right? — and now that Tessa thinks about it, it might just have been this Genoa City place. Tessa never had, as it happened, caught Mariah’s surname, had she? —no, she doesn’t think she did... so, was she a Newman too?

As Mariah says, it’s quite the coincidence; but then again, of course, Tessa knows that her meeting Noah had not been quite so accidental, and serendipitous, as Noah’s account to his mother had made it sound. As Tessa herself had made her new husband think it had been. That was all part of the plan... Not that it was all her own plan, by any means. It hadn’t been Tessa herself, had it, who had arranged for —

“Tessa... so sorry to have kept you....” Sharon is sweeping back into the living room with a polite tone in her voice, but an imperious look on her face. Tessa already knows better than to underestimate this woman. Her new mother-in-law is already suspicious, given the rapidity with which the marriage has taken place, and Tessa will need to deploy her very best acting skills to try to convince Mama Newman that, at least for the moment, she’s an innocent young woman who has simply fallen for Sharon’s handsome, charming son, and that, whaddya know? — young hearts, run free, and so on... they had, as it happened, married in haste.

The repenting at leisure would come, all in good time.

“Let’s have dinner, here, tomorrow night, and we can start to get to know you properly, Tessa. How does that sound? I’ll invite Nick — that’s Noah’s father”, Sharon adds, as if Tessa may not know who he is — “and Mariah too, of course. Oh, did she leave?”

”She, er, had to get back to work,” Tessa lies quickly. One of the easier lies she’s told today. ”Uhm, dinner, well, you know, no need to go to any trouble —”

“Sounds great, Mom!” Noah is saying, at the same time. “I can’t wait for you all to get to know each other.”

“No trouble,” Sharon assures Tessa. “My pleasure. Keen to learn all about the newest member of the family. Shall we say, seven-thirty? Noah — you’ll have caught up your father with your news by then I hope...”

Noah smiles and nods; and so what else can Tessa do, but the same?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Mariah Copeland is not gay. Didn’t we go through this already?? We did, we did. Check back a little, okay? She’s not. I mean, come on, to be gay, means —

That I like women a hell of a lot more than I’ve ever liked men.

Well, yeah. But no! No. Not just that, Mariah tells herself. More than that. Way more than that. Other stuff. It means lots of other things, too. Gay things. Lesbian things. Things that aren’t me, that never could be me. That don’t, and won’t, apply to me. Right?

I had an intense experience with someone who happens to be a woman, that’s all, Mariah thinks to herself. It could happen to anyone in the modern world...! Tessa had been... exceptional. And a woman. But that was just incidental, wasn’t it? Mariah could, of course, have met an exceptional man, couldn’t she, if she had hit a straight bar that night.

Right? That’s possible.

Is it? Ok. Sure. So Mariah, name one real, living, breathing “exceptional” man you can think of.

There was Devon, who has asked her out a couple of times, who is a perfect gentleman, a total catch, and who also fails to set Mariah’s pulse racing in the slightest.

There was Kevin, her sweetheart best friend. I mean, sure, the sex had been terrible, but that was because friends shouldn’t do it. Their chemistry was of another kind.

It’s a simple technicality that, in the event, Mr Right hasn’t showed up just yet. How can that be Mariah’s fault? That she hasn’t met him? That she did happen to meet, hook up with, and spend a night and the first part of a day, in blissful intimacy with, a woman...?

A woman who has now married my brother, Mariah thinks. Like I care.

It hardly means anything that a fantastic woman happened to show up ahead of a fantastic guy. I mean, maybe it matters to closed-minded people. Which Mariah isn’t!! That’s all, she just has an open mind, an open heart, has not closed herself off to life’s possibilities.

Not the same as being gay.

“Happy hour, two-for-one cocktails,” the bartender tells Mariah, and she’s grateful for the practical, money-saving interruption to her own cycling thoughts, from the same blonde girl who works here most days, and who is as upbeat as ever.

“Then I guess it will be ‘two’”, Mariah holds up the same number of fingers; “for ‘one ’”, she concludes, pointing at herself.

Mariah is, as she has noted to herself, not gay and has her pick of any and all, including the 99% straight, establishments in the city for some day drinking. Nevertheless, it is a fact that The Matchbox, GC’s premier — on account of being the only — fully-licensed “ladies ’ bar” is, outside of Friday and Saturday nights, a nice, quiet place to go for a drink. A random Wednesday afternoon when your love life... correction, sex life... (that’s all) is in the toilet again? Perfect location, to drink to forget.

Realistically, Mariah’s highly unlikely to run into anyone she knows here, even in a place as closely-connected as Genoa City; that quintessential big town, with a small town feel. As she had burbled to Tessa that night in the bar, she doesn’t really have any good gay friends, so... that means none of those non-existent people are, quite logically, going to show up here.

Although days like this, Mariah starts to think maybe she should begin making some proper gay friends.

As part of life’s rich tapestry of experience.


“Long day?” the bartender asks, setting down two cosmos in front of Mariah.

“You could say that.” Mariah takes her first sip of the first drink, experiencing the reassuring, welcoming buzz of alcohol on her lips and tongue; a warmth that will soon be in her throat, and thereafter, coiled in her stomach.

There. That’s better. A couple more of these, and I won’t care so much. About any of it.

Mariah’s mind is suddenly, unbidden, struck by flashes of that night in the hotel room: how Tessa’s hands had felt on her body, how Tessa had tasted. Mariah’s mouth, between Tessa’s legs. Tessa’s fingers sliding in and out of her... Close to the last thing she needs to be thinking
 of, or recalling, right now, and Mariah tells herself so, and takes a large swig of cocktail, as if gulping down booze will somehow push down the memories to somewhere much deeper.

Mariah had, that night, immediately felt close to Tessa; in more than one way. Opened up to her... in more than one way too. But there never had been any reply to that text message that she had sent like an absolute weak fool, and the next time she saw or heard from her, Tessa had become an in-law, like they were in some dumb soap opera and it needed a dramatic twist out of nowhere to keep things moving.

Mariah felt so stupid for having shared anything about herself at all; but she had
never dreamed, that night, telling Tessa bits and pieces about Sharon, for example — not everything, but still the kind of stuff she would never usually impart to a perfect stranger — that Tessa and Sharon would ever meet in person. And she had certainly never imagined the context of that meeting in actual fact.

How could Tessa possibly be married to Noah?

There is something wrong about it, Mariah thinks, and it isn’t just the fact of her brother marrying someone that she herself had slept with, as impossibly awkward as that is in and of itself. Something else is off.

Way off.
 Was it some kind of sick joke?

“Someone I was... involved with, has gotten married. I just found out”, Mariah tells the woman behind the bar.

Mariah isn’t drunk, not yet; but she’s feeling just that little bit careless. Why should Tessa be the only one who is privy to her secrets? Time to start confiding in the nearest bartender. Make sure Tessa isn’t so special, after all.

“Whew, ouch. Gotta hurt.” Mariah’s audience looks sympathetic, but then again, listening to increasingly inebriated people’s personal issues is probably somewhere in this girl’s job description. “Someone special, huh?”

Mariah only nods.

“I see. Figures. That there’s someone on your mind. Because I always wondered,” the blonde tells her, “why a woman like you, was always on her own. Never let anyone buy her a drink.”

“What?” Mariah looks up from her cocktail glass. Well, one of her cocktail glasses.

“You not seen the line around the block at this place trying to get your attention?”

Mariah glances pointedly around the empty bar.

“All right, so today’s a little quiet. But when you’re here on the weekends, I mean. You always sit up here at the bar. And you always get everyone over here, trying to talk to you. ”

So, as it happens, Mariah goes to The Matchbox on weekends sometimes, okay? Only now and then. And Mariah supposes that now she comes to think about it, and honestly not that often as far as Mariah is concerned, some women do come up and try to engage her in some form
 of conversation; but she can’t really say she pays them much mind. It’s not like she’s interested in any of them.

“It’s just sometimes, it seems to me like you could do with a little company, that’s all,” the bartender says, looking at her. She extends a hand. “I’m Lindsay, by the way.”

Mariah hesitates. Extends her own hand, after a moment’s thought. After pushing all thoughts firmly to the back of her head, truth be told.

“Mariah,” Mariah says.

“Pretty name. Suits you.”

Mariah sips more cosmopolitan, and prays for the ethanol to kick in more fully, sometime very soon. She’s still nowhere drunk enough to even begin to deal with today.

“I’m sure you’re paid to say nice things to the customers.”

“Between you and me, I’m paid to keep them drinking. Which, from back here,” Lindsay gestures to the bar, “means applying a mixture of positive and negative reinforcement. You know, yeah, you did the right thing coming here! ‘Cos it sounds like you had a terrible time of things lately. I got something right here to help you forget about that.”

Mariah raises the glass to her lips again and narrows her eyes. “Are you meant to give away trade secrets like that?”

“You’ve got a very trustworthy face,” Lindsay shrugs.

”Oh, yeah. That’s what gets all the girls,” Mariah sighs.

Lindsay smiles at her.

Mariah realizes, trying to tip the contents of an empty glass into her mouth, that she has somehow finished her first cocktail. Sets the glass down, moves onto the second.

“How much longer has Happy Hour got?”

“Let’s see... seventeen more minutes.”

“Hit me,” Mariah says, tapping the bar. “Same again. Wouldn’t want to miss that happy window.”

“Coming right up.”

Mariah’s phone, sitting face-down on the bar, buzzes. She swears at it. Picks it up. Reads the message. Throws down her phone on the bar as though it is scorching hot to the touch.

“Not good news?” Lindsay is mid-cocktail creation.

“A social invitation that I’d really rather decline.”

Noah’s message has invited Mariah to Underground for a few drinks that evening with Tessa so they can all “get to know each other.” Mariah can “bring a friend” if she likes.

Mariah thinks that Noah must know his sister is single. Then again, she didn’t know her brother was married.

“Bars used to do some very good business off of people avoiding social invitations”, Lindsay tells her. “But apparently these days people just stay home. By the way. If you ever feel like going somewhere,” she finishes, disappearing to serve another customer who has appeared at the end of the bar.

Mariah looks down into her hand, where Lindsay has just pressed something. It’s a card for The Matchbox, with a telephone number written in careful script on the reverse.

Mariah pockets it.
Thinks for a moment.
And picks up her phone.
 And scrolls down the contacts to the right one.

“Hey, Devon”, Mariah says, as breezily as she can manage. “That drink you’ve been inviting me for? How about tonight? The Underground. Yeah, Noah’s in town, going to say hi, but thought you might want to join me. Sure. Ok. See you there.”

And when she next catches Lindsay’s eye, orders one more cosmopolitan for the road.

Chapter 5

“Well, I’d say that went about as well as we could have expected”, Noah declares, carefully hanging up his jacket, equally carefully closing the closet door, and turning to his new wife with a smile.

They’re a “we”, now. Tessa is Noah’s wife. Of course, it was all part of the plan; but sometimes, Tessa forgets the role she is playing, even though she is supposed to know the script. She can’t quite say she knows it by heart.

Tessa never could have anticipated Noah would propose so soon, nor that she could so easily persuade him into a budget wedding, in the desert, within a couple of hours of their first conversation about getting hitched. All of this, whilst making Noah think it was all his own idea, of course. But it turns out that Tessa’s new husband is, as she had been briefed, indeed a hopeless romantic with chronically awful judgment about women. In the circumstances, what else could Tessa do but accept when Noah had asked her to marry him? There might, after all, not be another opportunity.

If Tessa had turned him down, suggested they get to know each other more, it might have added more overall credibility to the enterprise —but she would risk Noah’s family talking him out of the whole thing. The way Noah had talked about his parents, it sounded as though he expected more resistance to the union from his father than from his mother; but Tessa had now seen the steely gaze in Sharon’s eyes, and had quickly appreciated that Noah's mother was a million times more worldly-wise than her soft-hearted son. She would be no pushover. Sharon was already suspicious, and Tessa knew that the supposed casual and impromptu and sociable dinner tomorrow 
night would in fact be a full-on grilling about Tessa's background, her family, her intentions; more than anything, the simple fact of who she was. She would need to have all her answers prepped and ready.

There had been no time for a pre-nuptial agreement; Tessa had seen to that and Noah had fallen so easily into line. But there was still time for a post-nup. And still an opportunity for a premature divorce, without Tessa achieving what she had set out to accomplish.

Tessa smiles, now, at the very tidy, very thoughtful, Noah, and makes a special effort to hang up her own coat properly, too, rather than instinctively throwing it over the nearest chair. Noah’s place is ordered; perhaps verging on obsessively so. Extremely neat. Later, Tessa will learn that that’s how a home looks when a professional cleaner comes in three times a week; and that this, in fact, is how rich people live — never mind their options, their endless horizons of possibility — these people don't even have any particular need to clear up after themselves. But to be fair to Noah, he is, truth be told, organized and methodical when it comes to his personal possessions and his personal space. Everything here is ordered and has its place, in this spacious apartment that no doubt Noah’s parents, or his parents’ money at least, bought for him.

Tessa thinks the last thing either of her own parents bought her was probably a Happy Meal. And here’s Noah Newman, living somewhere that probably cost a million dollars or some impossible number like that, and which is most likely all paid off, too.

Think of it (and Tessa does). No rent check to cover each month. No sleepless nights or distracted days, worrying that your dad drank it all. Or that your mom did god knows what with it.

Or thinking what you might have to do, to get the landlord to let it go.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“We can come to an arrangement, beautiful,” the guy who owned their place, or at least chased the payments, had said, when Tessa went to plead the case for the Porters not to be kicked out after one too many bounced checks.

“Cash ain’t the only way, girlie,” he added. “You got other things you can pay with.”

The up-and-down look this slug of a man gave her had made Tessa feel sick to her stomach. It was nothing new, she supposed. Men had looked at her like that before. A couple had done more. Had touched her in ways Tessa didn’t want. Tessa didn't like to think about it, didn't want to make a big deal of it, even to herself, but sometimes, it was too much. The memories pushed through, and the fear and anger, the humiliation, the helplessness, would come rushing back. And it was the last of these that was unquestionably the worst of all, this feeling of having no power or control over what happened to her, the hot tears it prompted, the feeling that she had to go, get away.

To where? Just somewhere. Not here.

One day, she had been walking home from school, and out of nowhere, a car pulled up. It was a guy who used to work with her dad, back when he had a regular job. Terry Something-or-other, his name was. He had offered Tessa "a lift home."

Tessa wasn’t dumb. She said no. But Terry Whatshisfuckingname had got out of the car, and he tried to grab her. It was getting dark already, early, the winter now, and this piece of shit might have succeeded, too, if someone hadn't stepped in.

“Leave her alone!”

It was Mallory, a girl who had been in the class above Tessa at school, who lived across the street. A girl Tessa had kissed a couple of times over the previous, raging hot summer.

Now cast as Tessa's savior, Mallory had dragged Terry Thewannaberapistpieceofshit off Tessa, somehow, kneeing him in the balls for good measure. She sent the guy sprawling over the sidewalk, his mouth full of cusses and insults. He called them bitches and sluts and whores and everything else, but Mallory had managed to stop him, and the next thing Tessa knew, the dumb fuck's car was gone, with a frustrated screech of tires and a final set of expletives. She and Mallory were left standing on the sidewalk, looking at each other.

Since they had kissed those two or three times, Mallory had not even really acknowledged that Tessa existed. Would walk right past her, if they happened to encounter each other in the neighborhood.

But Mallory had so been different when it was just the two of them, together... they were close, closer than Tessa had ever been to anyone else, physically or otherwise. Mallory was gentle, thoughtful. Told Tessa how beautiful she was. There was nothing frightening about being with her, no terror about what Mallory might want from her next. Not like some of the times when Tessa had spent time with guys. She had wondered what the fuss was about, kissed them and felt nothing, let them touch her and felt even less; done more, whether or not she really wanted to, and decided there was something wrong with her, because she couldn't see the big deal, not at all. And sometimes, after a particular stage, she'd found she'd dreaded what the next push from them would be. Other times? She felt nothing.

Worse things would happen to Tessa, after this. Guys who really didn’t take no for an answer. Not pushy teenage boys. Much worse than that. When there was no Mallory or anyone else to save her.

But not then. Not that day.

That day, Mallory escorted Tessa home, and made sure she was safely inside the house. If you could, in fact, call Tessa's parents' house safe. Already, some time before splitting for good, Tessa was out of it as much as she could be. As much as her conscience permitted her.

But Mallory had dropped her off and was turning to leave, and it was Tessa who stopped her, reached out, pulled the other girl inside the porch and held her close. Unlike the other times, it was Tessa who made it happen, initiating the kiss, calling Mallory a hero — and smiling at her. Tessa hadn't smiled for a while, her muscle memory failed her, but at that moment, she felt those unfamiliar nerves and sinews move into formation, because here was an occasion for it. Mallory was a hero, no, a heroine, rather, Tessa corrected herself, smiling wider, leaning in, Mallory's lips soft and tasting like Cherry Coke and marshmallow, as they always did.

Girl had a sweet tooth for real.

Yes, it was Tessa who started the whole thing up again.

"We should get out of here," Mallory used to say, when they were alone. She had these dreams, these fantasises of running away, of getting the hell away from where they were. To where? Tessa would wonder, sometimes aloud. To absolutely anywhere else, was Mallory's take.

And if Tessa had only had to worry about her own self, she would have forgotten about the landlord or the landlord's enforcer or whoever he was, and the rent, the bills, all of it. She would have gone. Taken her chances.

But it wasn't just herself she had to look after. Her mom and dad could go to hell, but her brothers and sisters? They had no-one but her.

And so back on that day, with the rent not paid, and so many thoughts of Mallory and her plans to get the hell out, and not wanting to give herself to that disgusting man, Tessa had returned to the house. Ransacked the place.

And finally found her dad’s stash.

He should learn to hide things better.

Tessa took the money, but left the drugs where they were. Paid the rent in cash, not in kind. That latest creep who had sleazed on her, whoever he was, had shrugged, and told her, fine, the debt was settled; but there were, after all, so many other months in the year. So he would expect to see her again sometime soon.

A day or so later, Tessa's dad went crazy when he realized she had stolen from him. Although was it stealing, really? The rent was her father’s debt, and they couldn’t all live out on the streets just because he couldn’t get his shit together, could they? Tessa had told her dad so, and got the beating of her life in return. His fists. His belt. He had lifted her off of the ground, slammed against the wardrobe in the room she shared with Crystal and Holly, and thrown her to the floor and kicked in the stomach. It was the worst her Dad had ever beaten her, amongst stiff competition. She could hardly move when he finished. At one point, she had had this terrible thought. That her dad might do something else, something worse, something he never had, but something she knew incredibly disgustingly shitty fathers sometimes did to their children. Maybe he thought about it, but he thought better of that. He didn't do that to her, not that. Just the physical stuff. Just giving her cuts and bruises and aches and pains that Tessa would feel and show for days.

Yeah, only that.

Her mother not intervening. Not at all.

Fuck the both of them.

Tessa stayed home until she could see out of her right eye again. And when she finally left the house, she went to Mallory.

“Son of a bitch.” Mallory’s hands had balled into fists when she saw what Tessa's dad had done. She was shaking. Rage. The helplessness. Tears in her eyes.

“It’s okay...” Tessa mumbled.
“No. It’s not.”


“It’s not,” Tessa had agreed quietly.


“You should come with me. When I get out of here.”

“And go where?” Tessa asked.

They could jump on that bus at the end of the street. Get to the bus station, or the railway station. Get a ticket. To where? To anywhere. Tessa had some money saved from this and that, in a safer place than her dumbass dad had left his money (he kept it in a gym bag in the closet?? I mean, come on!)

But what about Crystal...? Holly...? Bobby... the others...

“Just somewhere, Mallory said, in barely contained fury, "that isn't here."

Tessa had reached for Mallory’s hand. Uncurled her tightened fingers.

Kissed them.

"You shouldn't be reassuring me," Mallory had said quietly. "I should be the one who..."

And something shifted, became more serious, between them, and then Tessa knew it would happen.

Her first time with a woman, well, still a girl, then, Tessa supposed, as she herself was. But in any case, later, Tessa would wonder if she could count it as her first time, period. Those guys, after all, who she had let do what they wanted to her, had never done anything for her. It had all been about them, and maybe inadvertently pleasurable on her own account, and anything she felt, she knew, was less than an afterthought to them.

But Mallory? She wasn't anything like that. She was loving, gentle. She kept asking if Tessa was okay, so many times. Tessa was officially more than okay. What they did had been beautiful, life- affirming. Actually good and pleasurable.

Tessa thought she had worked sex out, then. Didn’t know it wasn't always that way, even with women.

Because, after that, it had never really been like that again. Not in that same, unqualifiedly good way.

Not until Mariah.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“I’ve got a date,” Mariah announces, sipping what is definitely her last cosmo, and splashing some of it on the bar in her enthusiastic swing of her wrist.

“Well hey, good for you,” Lindsay replies. “I’m glad to hear, that you do, after all, have your eye on someone. I hope she knows how lucky she is.”

“Uh." Mariah swallows hard. When will she feel sobriety slip away? It's outstaying its welcome?? Surely it will be gone very soon??

"It’s a ‘he'," Mariah says quickly, and takes another gulp of cocktail.

There is an audible pause. Mariah fancies that she hears clocks tick and pins drop, even though the bar's background music is even at its lowest volume, enough to obscure anything of that nature.

“Really?” Lindsay leans on the bar. Her eyebrows are raised. Overall, Mariah, if asked, would describe Lindsay's look as less than convinced.

“What? I could like men,” Mariah says. “I mean, I can like men. I mean, I do like men.”

“Sure,” Lindsay says mildly.

“You say that like it's not how it is."

Lindsay smiles and shrugs. “Well you know, Mariah, I don’t think I’m the one who needs convincing.”

Mariah lifts her glass to her lips. Comes up empty.
 Damn, there’s no more drink in here, really? What about one more after this? It’s not like I’m driving.

“You know, for your information, he’s a really nice guy. And a billionaire”, Mariah adds.

Lindsay nods. “Aha, I see. It’s making more sense now.

“I mean, that’s not why I like him,” Mariah says quickly. “The fact that he... owns buildings. Truth is, you know, he’s... hot.”

“Right,” Lindsay says, with the same gentle tone.

Two women enter the bar, and promptly slink into a corner, where they apparently want to talk closely and be undisturbed. Mariah glances over quickly before looking back down at her empty glass. What is happening over there is either a hook-up, or a fight. You have to really care, to get that angry. Whatever is going on is something with a dangerous level of intimacy; but hard to tell, from this distance, which type.

“I slept with a woman,” Mariah tells Lindsay suddenly. Oh, is it here, finally? What oblivion through yonder cocktail breaks... or... let's pretend I made some mangled reference that makes sense.

“Uhm-hmm.” Lindsay is drying a couple of cocktail glasses and rearranging the drinks bottles behind the bar as they talk.

“You... you don’t sound surprised?”

“Oh, I’m sorry. My apologies, Mariah. Let me try that again... Uhm-hmm.”

“But that was... exactly the same...”

Lindsay performs an exaggerated shrug. “Okay, okay, you dragged it out of me, Red. Breaking news: I’m not surprised.” In a softer voice, she adds, “I hope you had a good time.”

“Time of my life,” Mariah admits. She must definitely be a bit drunk now. “But now... I mean... it's gotten complicated."

"Oh yeah?" Clinking noises, as Lindsay discards an empty bottle of vodka and opens another.

"Yeah." Mariah pauses, and throws her arms wide, her palms upwards, a gesture of near-surrender to whatever bullshit the universe has planned for her next. "You'll like this. Get this. This woman... she’s... married my brother.”

The two women ensconced in the corner look up suddenly.

Mariah's face feels hot. She has been perched against the bar, leaning on the edge of her stool, but now she sits back, and takes a moment. Observes Lindsay's palpable wince at this latest revelation.

“This one's on the house,” the bartender says, her expression saying what her words don't quite, and her hand carefully sliding over to Mariah, what is definitely Mariah’s last cocktail.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“How about we spend some quality time together?”

Tessa’s reverie, her trip into her own past, is interrupted. In the here and now, she is not, after all, in Chicago, be it a few years ago or a few months ago, but in this strange little city a couple of hours away. Noah — her husband, somehow — is sliding his hands around her waist, and pulling in her close. Beginning to kiss her.

It’s not that kissing Noah is gross, or disgusting. Not really anything like that. It’s just that Tessa feels absolutely nothing with him. It’s a numbness, more than anything. Which, she supposes, isn’t exactly a surprise, when she has been playing the guy since the day they met — since even before that, actually, given that even meeting Noah in the first place had itself been a setup.

Perhaps also not a surprise, given she's never felt anything when she kisses a man, at all.

Tessa doesn’t say gay about herself. Or lesbian. Never has. Truth is, she doesn’t say anything. She just does what she does, and feels what she feels. It’s just that oftentimes, with her free choice, and without any ulterior motives... she ends up with women.

Since those teenage years back home in Chicago, Tessa has always had a better time with women, than with men. Even if not quite as good and pure a time as with Mallory, not until... Well... Yeah... Women. Better. In bed, or out of it. She has always felt safer with them, and closer to them, but it’s more than that, she knows. She even prefers the person she herself is when she is with women, to who she is, when she is with guys. The “straight” her is fake, false; distant from her true self. An act. Not just with Noah, not just for the reasons she is with him. But with all men.

But right here, right now? She still has to follow the plan.

Can’t screw it all up.

Can't... think about Mariah...

Noah is still kissing Tessa. But wanting more from her. OK. She can do this. Noah is a great guy, right? Handsome. Thoughtful, for the most part. Sure, he’s crazy rich in a way he himself doesn’t even begin to appreciate... and he will never know the powerlessness of poverty, the quiet sad rage of no options, of not even being sure there will be a roof over your head tomorrow... and there’s just a little hint of arrogance in how he carries himself...

But the wealth is, after all, why Tessa is doing this, isn’t it? And the touch of arrogance makes him just that little bit oblivious to what Tessa is really up to, so maybe it’s for the best.

Tessa just needs, she tells herself again, to put up with a bit more of this. Not much longer. Just as long as it takes. Noah’s meaningless kisses. His always rough face, even though he is meticulous about shaving, and tries to be considerate... It's just... it would be easier if there wasn't... if she hadn't... if...

Noah’s lips are hard against her own. Tessa’s mouth always hurts afterwards.

Not like with Mariah, and there it is, the thing she can't think, the distraction she can't allow but which she feels in every cell of her body now, in every brain cell, in her soul, if she had one, which when she is with Noah she thinks doesn't exist but other times, other times... She is not supposed to be thinking of the impossible softness of Mariah's touch, of their melting into one another. Nothing like that.

But today Tessa had seen Mariah again and...

It was like... water, in the desert (and Tessa didn't mean Reno). It was like coming up for air after being underwater (and not at the safe, boring, municipal pool). It was like breathing again, after holding her breath for such a long time. She thought at first, seeing the redhead again, that somehow Noah must have worked her out, realized her game, was ready to confront her, and had brought his sister to play a significant part in the showdown. But Tessa quickly realized that Noah didn’t know the truth of anything, and that Mariah was as taken aback as Tessa herself was. There was some explanation there, that Tessa couldn’t quite grasp, the coincidence of it all; she knew she was missing a piece of the puzzle, but in any case right there and then, in the same room as Mariah after such a long time, Tessa wanted to drop the whole charade she was engaged in. She wanted to go to Mariah, to wrap herself up in her, the second she saw her.

It had been there again, that recklessness, that crazy feeling she had had at the end of their encounter back in the city; even though, of course, they didn’t really know each other at all — but Tessa wanted to know Mariah, wanted to know everything about her. Wanted to say how neither of them would go anywhere this time.

Or maybe they could, together? Go somewhere? Maybe they should? They could run away! They could forget this place. They could find somewhere, just the two of them, and, and... it didn't need to be scams or even grand gestures or even anything busy, they could just... couldn't they? Curl up and watch movies together, popcorn, and dumb old horror films, and sleep in the same bed, not needing to be apart, and Tessa could burn the pancakes in the morning.

So long as they were together, it wouldn't matter what they did. Or where they were. They didn’t need somewhere really expensive or fancy, not if they had each other. Not if they could wake up wrapped up in each other every morning, like they had that day after that night.

But then... then. It’s madness, Tessa thinks. It's not real. It can't happen. The curtain falls, and a cold fist is once again seizing hold of her heart. When all is said and done, she and Mariah don’t know each other. In particular, Mariah doesn't know how low Tessa has fallen, the things she has done, had to do, to survive. The things she is choosing to do now, to try to thrive.

There are facts that Tessa can never tell Mariah about herself, things Mariah would never, could never, accept. For Mariah's own sake, as much as anything. Tessa has signed up, committed, to lie to Noah... but that’s different. She won't get Mariah mixed up in this. She can't. She has to finish what she is meant to do.

But... Mariah... Mariah... how she looked today... how she looked, then...

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Oh my god, Tessa.”

A freezing cold Chicago night outside. But such heat between them in the hotel room. Moving together, against each other, hands and tongues on, and inside one another. Not rough, not that; just meant. Bodies slick with sweat and other essences. Not able to stop, not able to let go of each other.

Mariah wanting more. Insistent.
Demanding.
Loud.

“Damn, I knew you’d be noisy,” Tessa had murmured, against Mariah’s neck, and smiling. Feeling Mariah still trembling from the aftershocks of her climax.

“How’d you know that?”


At least Mariah hadn’t bothered claiming she had been quiet. Tessa was thinking some hotel staff might bang on the door in a minute and ask them to keep the hot lesbian sex noises down a little.

“Mmmph, well, you’re a redhead,” Tessa had told her, as if that explained everything. Kissing her shoulder. Breathing her in.

“Oh, I see." Mariah set her mouth at an angle that denoted complaint. "Had a lot of redheads, have you??”

“Ah you know, Chicago,” Tessa had shrugged, making her local accent much more pronounced, and pressing a kiss against Mariah’s lips. “All that Irish blood...”

“Great. Fantastic. Charming. I’m one of dozens... You do know how to make a girl feel special...” But Mariah was kissing Tessa back through her grumbling, anyway.

“Truth is, Mariah, you’re my first,” Tessa whispered. 
And this was, in fact, the truth. But:


“Likely story... I bet there’s a trail of broken-hearted Irish girls all over this city.”

“I swear by... um... St Patrick...? But I always loved red hair, though...”

"Good to know. If you think you can handle it."

And then Mariah was moving her over, rolling Tessa onto her back, starting to touch her again. Gasping against Tessa as she teased and stroked and pushed and pressed; as though Mariah herself were the one being touched. Mariah obviously enjoying her, delighting in her, in a way Tessa had never felt or heard anyone do before.

As though bringing Tessa pleasure, was itself bringing Mariah pleasure.

The heaven, then, of Mariah’s fingertips against her. The ecstasy when Mariah pushed inside her. The thrill Mariah seemed to be getting from doing this to her. No-one, man or woman, had, Tessa realized then, recollected later, ever been like this before.

Mariah gasping beautiful expletives, and Tessa coming hard against Mariah’s hand...

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

In the present in this cold little city with apparently one coffee shop, Tessa tries to clear her mind. To create a perfect blank. To think of nothing. That’s how she has dealt with all that sex, after all, that she has had in her life, that she didn’t want to have. Just not been there, not really. Just absented herself from the world, from the act, for a little while.

But now, feeling nothing doesn't work. She feels something. But not for the man on top of her. Tessa finds she can think only of Mariah; to want her... to wish for her... and in ways that aren't just beautiful and romantic, but raw and real and base... between her legs. Inside her...

At the right time, Tessa fakes her climax, as always with Noah; and as always, Noah doesn’t realize. He is himself satisfied, tired, and content to drift off to a happy mid-afternoon sleep.

Tessa waits a few moments, to be sure he is settled. And then, as her husband snores gently alongside her, Tessa quietly picks up her phone, and scrolls through her contacts.

Until she finds her sister-in-law's number.

Chapter 6

The light is beginning to fade; night is starting to draw in. And even now, all these years later, Mariah finds that this time of day still brings about that same uneasy, uncertain feeling.

As though she is about to be judged, and found wanting.

When Mariah was growing up, this was the time, as the sun went down, that they would all have to gather together, for their own form of reckoning. It wasn’t called that, that wasn’t how they made it sound. It was called “taking stock”. It was probably meant to seem like an appropriate moment for self-reflection. To Mariah, it just made her think of herself, of them all, as cattle, waiting to be counted. Stock, supply.

What would Mariah be, these days? Not a sheep, or a goat. A crate of vodka in the back of the bar, perhaps, waiting to be ticked off on Lindsay’s list.

What?! What the hell is in these cocktails??

Whatever they were called, the gatherings ended up with Mariah being publicly told everything she had done wrong in the last twenty-four hours. And there were so many things in that "everything": mistake after mistake. All the ways in which she was not being the best possible person she could be.

Mariah tried, over and over, in the light and in the dark, in either side of that time in between the two, that terrible shift from day to night, to envision the very best version of herself. What would that person look like, sound like? What would she say? What would she do? She found, for all her effort, for all her near-exhaustion pushing herself to solve the problem, that she never could quite picture the right her; perhaps, then, that was why she felt she could never be the right her.

Every day, whatever Mariah was told was wrong with who she was, seemed like a contradiction to what had been said the day before. If she had been told she was too reticent, she would have tried to be more assertive; and then the next day be cut down for her ego. If she were told to help others more, Mariah would take this to heart; and during the next session, find she was now “overbearing” and “interfering”.

If it was only this, if it was only criticism, only being undermined, maybe she would have realized sooner, even as a child, a teenager, that she had to get out. Even as someone with no real experience of the real world. But that's the thing about, well, cults... and other abusive backgrounds, something Mariah now knows, no, not from therapy; she declined that, wouldn't do it, avoids the topic when Sharon recommends it, when her real mother tries that whole "psych" thing on her, that's not for her — it was instead, something Mariah had learned, had had to learn, for herself. From books, and reading online, and hell, even from watching TED Talks — Mariah had realized, on her own terms, slowly, that it was the mixture of love and positive (if in what she now knew to be a sinister way) reinforcement, with the pain and the control, that kept her there.

That, and being someone who had never known any other way to live.
And she was loved, they said. Claimed, at least. Flawed human being that she was, imperfect person she lived as, Mariah was even special. Chosen. That was the message. Later, she would learn what that really meant.


Stolen to order.

But at the time, all she knew was what she was told. Which was that she was important, she was vital, but she was defective, and the world was worse, and they were trying to protect her, to help her, to enable her to succeed. To help her overcome her failings in an unforgiving, even brutal, universe. That was why Mariah had to run the gauntlet of her mistakes every day.

And so there was an always possible, better, Mariah; or so it seemed. One she could be... Tomorrow.

It was only, that any time that tomorrow came — and it did, over, and over, and over, without fail, the routine never changing — Mariah was still, somehow, never quite good enough.

Later, Mariah learned about Cassie. They could never talk, never meet, never compare themselves to one another. All the things that twins would naturally do, would most assuredly have done, were denied them; and could never now happen. There would never be any making up for lost time. No way to determine all the ways that they were so similar, and all the ways that they were not. Mariah learned at one and the same time, that Cassie had existed, and was lost forever.

Ever since then, Mariah had wondered, about that recurring sense of loss she had always felt: of being incomplete, of lacking, of not being quite right...? Where did it come from? Mariah had heard and seen Sharon talk about her sister, and even Nick, too; what they said, over time, and how they said it. The expressions on their faces, the looks that Mariah knew they never had, never would have, when they talked about her.

Knowing what she did, when Sharon would tell Mariah she loved her, Mariah would ask herself, sometimes even wanted to ask aloud: was that love really for Mariah as herself; or for Mariah being the carbon copy of her tragic sister?

Well. In looks, at least. Because from everything Mariah had heard about Cassie, they were, for twins, nothing alike.

Mariah sometimes wondered if the explanation as to why she could never get anything right, least of all how she could not get herself right — how to live, how to be? — wasn’t really, after all, because the best version of herself, had always been Cassie.

The daughter who had been lost, and found, and lost again. The one who was, Mariah thought sometimes, still supposed to be here. If Cassie was a belated addition to Sharon's family, what was Mariah?!

An afterthought to an afterthought, Mariah thinks. A painful reminder, in more than one way. But perhaps, she sometimes considers, often after alcohol or some other excess, Cassie would at least have understood a little. if Mariah could ever ask her. So talk to me, Cassie, Mariah asks sometimes.
Are you there?
 Visit me.

Tell me it's OK.

There is only the silence of the gap between the end of one song on the tape in the bar and the start of another, and the squeak of Lindsay's towel against rinsed glass, and the fighting couple murmuring in the corner. Only the corporeal, only that, only Mariah's hands pressed firmly against the bar. Only, as usual, the lack of any answer.

Only the darkening day, silently and inexorably changing tone outside.

So, sure... it's not like, these days, when she is her own person, when no-one is pulling her strings, when she is decidedly not a cult member, that Mariah has a regular scheduled appointment where she needs to listen to all the ways she’s messed up. She’s a grown-up now, isn't she? She grew up. She got out. She's her own person, even if sometimes she can feel Cassie's shadow, echo, the sense of her, around every corner, in the gap in every conversation with Sharon, in any encounter she ever has with Nick, haunting this whole, at one and the same time, backwater and yet weirdly influential small town...

But Mariah is a woman. Not a girl, not child, certainly not a victim. She has survived. She is still here. She makes her own appointments (at least for now, until she is successful enough for a personal assistant). She lives by her own, imperfect, but adult, rules. She knows now, that the family she grew up in, was not really a family at all. It was not how other people lived. It was disordered. Fundamentally so.

And yet.

This time of day still brings back all those thoughts.

Of how she is... lacking. Incomplete.

What does that make her?

Half empty?

Or half full?

A simple matter of perspective.

Mariah studies her cocktail glass from a number of different angles. And finishes what’s left in the glass, when she’s tired of looking at it.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

When her phone buzzes, Mariah assumes it’s Hilary, wondering where she’s been all afternoon.

The optimal version of Mariah would probably not ditch work to sit in a bar...

Or maybe Devon, reconfirming their date.

Will she be a better version of herself, if she dates a thoroughly kind and decent man? For whom she feels absolutely nothing except a courteous liking and respect?

Mariah certainly doesn’t imagine that the text will be from a number she no longer has in her contacts; a number she has deleted, saved again, and then deleted, saved again, and so on, every few days for the last few months, and which is currently, as of cocktail number four that day, at the “not saved” stage of the cycle.

Although she has, in varying moods, saved and then erased the contact, Mariah hasn’t deleted the text thread, that one with her own gallingly mistyped and ignored message above, and so when she looks at her phone, even without the name on there, she knows immediately who the SMS is from.

“Can we talk? x” That’s all it says.

Just that, only that. With the one kiss.

Like Tessa really is just the woman now married to Mariah’s brother, and the appropriate level of affection is only this.

Now, she wants to talk?? Mariah emits a swear word, and bangs her phone down on the bar.

“One more,” Mariah is saying, but Lindsay is shaking her head.
“I’m cutting you off.”


“What? Why?”

“You will pass out on this date of yours if you have any more. Trust me, I’m a bartender.” Lindsay quickly produces a cocktail anyway, and Mariah stares at it.
“I thought you said...”


“That’s a virgin Sex on the Beach.”

Mariah takes a moment to attempt to process what has just been said. “That’s... a thing?”

“It is, around here. My sober specialty,” Lindsay tells her. “We get a lot of women in here who don’t drink, actually, for one reason or another...”

It’s actually pretty delicious.

“Glad you like it,” Lindsay says.

“I would still be fine with a real one.”

Lindsay is doing that damn unconvinced expression again.

Mariah looks back at her phone and feels the heat rising once more.

Can we talk??

One kiss??

What is there to say?!

And one fucking kiss?! She’s spent an entire night in bed with this woman... I mean, just the one night, but all night... If she could just stop thinking about it... And move on...

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


"I don't know why I... I've never done anything like that before." That's what Mariah says.

It's most assuredly winter in Chicago. Cold enough for snow, and then some. In fact, the snow is still falling, Mariah can see through the open curtains; spiralling flakes swirling in the night, and landing on the window, making her feel snug and warm to be in bed inside, even with someone she hardly knows. Someone she has slept with... no. More than that. Allowed in...

Ok. So you were wild, you were impulsive, that's all! No big deal. Everyone needs to let off steam sometimes...

And Tessa? Well, she's been here before; but nevertheless, although she's been here, and there, and done this, multiple times before — she could be the tour guide, she could most definitely wear the T-shirt, and/or the fluffy five-star-hotel-branded-matching-dressing-gown-and-slippers... all the same, she still doesn't entirely understand how this whole thing works, sometimes; how it happens, how one person is drawn to another and where it goes from there. How that pull, between her and someone else — always, truth be told, when it matters, whether it be after a couple of years or a couple of hours, with a woman.... How what's between them, manifests. How, one way or another, they end up in the here and now, after the fact. How Tessa's own fingers are now, after they have been so close to Mariah, more than close... somehow even closer again.

Interlocked with those of someone beautiful, who is full of jokes and yeah, those nerdy facts, about... polar expeditions and... what... precipitation? What is this woman talking about now?

Yeah, it's snowing. So what? It's Chicago, it snows...

Someone exceptionally gorgeous in that just tiny bit absurd way that makes it all the more real and powerful.

"But I've never...", Mariah is saying.

"Hmm, sounds like something you said already," Tessa advises, nuzzling Mariah's neck and jaw. Again.

"I... don't know... why..."

"Um-hmm", Tessa tells her, planting a kiss full on Mariah's perfect lips. "It's a perfect mystery. You OK? Want me to stop?" Reaching for her. Again.

"No," Mariah says. "Probably never," she adds, more candidly than she means.

Tessa moves down Mariah's body again. Hands, fingers, lips, tongue, breathing in the other woman, drinking her in...

"Yes?" Tessa asks.
She always asks.
"Yes," Mariah replies, simply and yet definitively. " More than yes." Her answer is always more than yes, too.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

So, let’s get this straight... for want of a better word. The woman Mariah had met in a Chicago gay bar... who didn’t necessarily have to be gay, or course, being in a gay bar doesn’t mean you’re gay...! Haha, obviously, of course, who would think that...

Anyway, this person, Tessa, the way she had kissed Mariah (you started it!)... how she had kissed, had made love —

Idiot, what are you calling it that for? It was just sex —
Ok, so the way she... how Tessa was, in bed, well. It didn’t seem like a straight girl.

Would you listen to yourself, Mariah Copeland?? One night of girl-on-girl action and you’re suddenly an expert in who is and isn’t straight.

But people could be bisexual... couldn’t they?

“They can,” Lindsay agrees.

“Oh. I said some... perhaps all.. of that.. out loud, didn’t I?” Mariah sighs.

“You did. But don’t worry, this is like a confessional. Your secrets are safe with me. I am sworn to strict silence. An oath all us bartenders take.”

“Bartenders... take an oath?”


“I can see you’re a literal kind of person,” Lindsay tells her.

“My brother, though? I mean, how? Why??”

These are important questions, ones to which Mariah cannot even begin to fathom the answers. More than three hundred and twenty million people in the United States, nearly seven billion on the planet... what are the odds...?

“Hmm.” Lindsay’s expression turns thoughtful. “Perhaps you share certain... qualities.”

“Yeah, sure, we have a lot in common. Same mother, for starters.”


“And similar taste in women...?”


Mariah glares at Lindsay.

“Sorry. Just saying.”

“Woman. Singular. I’ve been with one woman. It’s just... my brother happens to be making an entire life, apparently, with the same one. That’s one, corresponding... overlapping... absolutely identical, woman. That’s all.”

Mariah’s phone buzzes again. If that’s Tessa —
But Tessa’s last message had made Mariah angry. So why is it now, she’s disappointed to see the text this time is from Devon...? “Looking forward to later. Xx”

But see? Even Devon had managed two kisses. And Mariah hasn’t even slept with him yet. Maybe she will now, yeah! Maybe that’s what she will do. She will sleep with Devon. Devon’s getting lucky tonight. Brilliant idea.

“You sure about that?”


“I said that out loud again, didn’t I...”


“Let me get you another one of those,” Lindsay says, mixing another non-alcoholic beverage.

Mariah finds herself announcing to yet another woman that she’s going to the bathroom.
 And in another gay bar, she splashes cold water on her face.
I might be drunk, but I’m not gay.

May as well be Mariah’s catchphrase at this point.

Back at the bar, Mariah gets ready to leave. And to go to a different bar.

“Have fun tonight,” Lindsay says. “But, just throwing this out there... if you ever feel like upping your number of women, from one? Call me.”

Reading and re-reading Tessa’s text, fingers hovering over the delete button, and then over the start of a reply, and back again, Mariah is in the cab on the way to Underground, before she realizes that Lindsay was hitting on her.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The three tell-tale dots appear, disappear. Appear, disappear.

But there’s no reply.

Tessa thinks she probably deserves that.

And then her phone does buzz, and Noah murmurs, rolls over in his sleep, and Tessa swipes up quickly, but it’s not the message she wanted. And not from the person she wanted.

“How’s it going? Enjoyed meeting the family?”


Tessa has been hoping not to hear from them. Not yet, at least.


“All fine”, she replies quickly.


“Been added to the trust yet?”


Tessa swears under her breath.


“Are you serious? Bit early for that. Not even met V or N.”


“No? You’re usually much more efficient than that, songbird. Get on with it. Clock’s ticking.”

“I am aware,” Tessa replies. And then deletes the entire thread.

She looks over to where Noah is still sleeping soundly, that slightly dumb, happy expression on his face that he always has in bed. And often, out of it. If Noah does suspect anything, he really doesn’t ever show any sign.

Tessa switches back to the text conversation with Mariah, brief as it is, and reads it again. There’s the three dots again.
 Dot, dot, dot. There, and gone.
 But no reply.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


“I was surprised to get your call,” Devon says. “In a good way, that is.”


“You were?”


“Yeah, I mean... Well, you know, you turned me down before." Devon meets her gaze briefly, before Mariah looks away. "I wasn’t sure you were interested in... giving this a try.”

“Definitely! Of course I was. Am,” Mariah says. “I’ve just been so busy, with... you know...”

Across the bar, Noah and Tessa enter. In different clothes to the ones they were wearing earlier today, Mariah notices. Probably dressed up for the evening, Mariah thinks.

“Busy... with?” Devon prompts.

“Oh, you know. With... work,” Mariah manages. “Yeah, work. Find it hard to switch off, you know.”

Or maybe changed clothes because they spent the afternoon together.

In bed.

“Oh yeah, I get it,” Devon says. “That can be tough.”

“Sorry?”

“Balancing the professional and the personal.”

Noah is introducing Tessa to people. He’s smiling. She’s smiling.

“Um, yeah, that’s right,” Mariah says. “The challenges of being an adult, right? Keeping all those plates spinning.”

“Well, I did hear that you’ve been working especially hard. Hilary said you’d been doing a great job lately.”

Mariah nearly chokes on her non-virgin cocktail. “She did?!”

“Absolutely. ‘Like a woman possessed’, I think she said. But that’s a compliment from Hilary, trust me on that.” Devon smiles, and sips his beer. “And I totally get what you mean about not being able to let stuff go.”

“What?” Mariah says.

Damn, if Tessa doesn’t look incredible tonight.

Damn, if she isn’t married to my own brother.

“What you said, about the spinning plates, such a lot to juggle, and feeling like you never stop. You know, allowing yourself the downtime from it all. Like now, and you know, I’m really glad that —”

“Oh yeah, yeah,” Mariah says. “That’s so funny!” And laughs. Because she has to look like she’s enjoying herself, given that Noah and Tessa are nearly on top of them.

Devon looks mildly puzzled, but then Noah is introducing his new bride, and the moment passes in favor of, at least from where Mariah is sitting, an even more awkward one.

“Tessa, please meet Devon. Devon, this is Tessa. My wife.”

Noah says “wife” so happily and proudly. Mariah tries to overlook the knife in her own chest when her brother says it... does her best to talk over the blade that’s been driven into her damn heart... attempts to carry on being sociable, even though she feels herself practically bleeding out at the sight of Noah and Tessa holding hands and looking happy together.

Why does it even matter. She was a fling. Get over yourself. And her.

There’s a brief, wildly intoxicating lull in proceedings when Tessa’s gaze meets Mariah’s own. Don’t look at me like that, Mariah thinks.

Is she imagining it, is it the vat of cocktails she’s consumed today, does she need an updated eye exam or — does the flicker of Tessa’s eyebrows convey in reply:

I can’t help it?


“Oh, wife, really?” Devon’s tone is warm, and happy, rather than surprised, as such. “Well, hey. Congratulations.”

“It all happened really fast,” Mariah says.

She can feel Tessa still looking at her, and decides it would be best to stare down into her glass. An olive, didn’t she say no olive? Well, there’s one here anyway. How about that?

Noah is shaking Devon’s hand. “You know what, man, it was a total whirlwind. But when you know, you know.”

“That’s the prevailing logic!” Mariah declares, and feels all of them, not just Tessa, look at her.

Is that a napkin folded up under one leg of this table? It’s true that it’s a little wobbly, now that Mariah thinks about it...

“Well, good for you,” Devon says. “Hey, let me go get us a bottle of something so we can celebrate properly.”

“Oh, there’s no need...” Tessa is saying.

“It’s fine.” Mariah interrupts. She pats Devon’s arm as he stands up and begins to make his way to the bar. “He’s really rich. I mean, you, know. Successful.”

“Oh, wow,” Tessa says.


“He’s a billionaire.”


“No way,” Tessa says.


“Would I lie to you?” Mariah asks.
 She drags her gaze away when Tessa looks at her again.


“Hey. You OK? What’s going on with you?” Noah asks, when Devon is out of earshot.

“Um, going on? With me?”

“Yes, with you. You’re being really weird.” Noah is looking at her. 

Tessa is looking at the floor.

Mariah’s mouth is suddenly dry, her heart pounding. She tries to aim for safe territory. Safer than the truth, anyway.

“Well... I’m... I’m on a date. With Devon. Yeah, first date, actually. Ya know.”

“Oh, right!” Noah says, and his face breaks into a grin. “OK, so now, I get it. Well, that’s great! I’m happy for you guys. I think you make a great couple.”

“Early days,” Mariah says.


“Those can be some of the best days,” Noah says. “Right?” he asks Tessa, turning to her.

“Yeah, you two took the ‘honeymoon period’ concept to the max!” Mariah exclaims; but Noah seems not to hear the edge in her voice, as his response is a chuckle.

“I’ll go help Devon bring the glasses over”, Noah says, looking over to the bar, saluting Devon, and gently touching Tessa‘s back as he leaves.

There is a pause, during which Mariah judges Noah’s taste in background music. Fairly bland and predictable, is her verdict, and this tape has got to be five years old...

“So, I, uh, sent you a message,” Tessa says, when Noah is out of earshot.

“Did you? Hmm. Don’t know if I got it. But then, I don’t seem to have much luck with messages from you.”

Not that I care.

“Listen, Mariah, I... I wanted to message you, you know, after we...”

“Slept together."

Yeah, the sleeping together, after we had done a huge amount of fucking. And before we did a huge amount more of that again.

“Yes... But I... couldn’t.”

“You couldn’t...” Mariah wants to stay in control, but she knows her mouth sometimes has a mind of its own, especially when fuelled by ethanol. “Right... why was that? Were you on the International Space Station, maybe? Or perhaps you were stuck in quarantine with some mysterious virus, but without your phone.”

“I... uh... lost my phone. Of all the times for that to happen, right?”

“Oh OK, I see. So you lost your phone six months ago, but what, you magically found it earlier today so you could text my number on it?”

“Um...” Tessa says.

“It’s fine,” Mariah says. “Like I told you back in Chicago. I’m not so important that you need to lie to me. And I’m certainly not important enough for the truth.”

And then Devon and Noah are back, with a big bottle of champagne, ready to toast the happy couple.

Mariah is, she knows, pretty drunk, but she’s still not sure she’s drunk enough to get through this. She downs her champagne quickly, and pours herself another.

“Tessa’s an amazing musician,” Noah says.


“Really?” Mariah’s tone is becoming more difficult to moderate the longer the evening goes on, but her brother remains seemingly oblivious. “You don’t say.”

“She’s the best. Well, you’ll get to hear for yourselves a bit later.”

“Oh, you’re gonna perform tonight?” Devon asks Tessa. “Can’t wait to hear it.”

“You’ll love her, believe me,” Noah assures him.

“I believe you,” Mariah replies.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The song is about a snowy night in Chicago. Meeting someone in a bar. Spending a beautiful night with them.

Never seeing them again.

I mean, is this girl fucking serious?

“You’re right, she’s incredible, “ Devon tells Noah.


“What did I tell you?” Noah smiles.


“I’d love to hear more from her. I want to consider her for my label.”

Mariah can feel it, finally, now, many drinks later. The oblivion she’s wanted all day is creeping in now at the edges of her mind; slightly affecting her balance, and fuzzing out the edges of everything. She’s finally on that tipping point level of drinking, where she can go in a number of different directions, but where she is, at last, beginning not to care so damn much.

“Ladies’ room,” Mariah announces. Seeing as that’s a thing she does now.

She’s staring in the mirror at herself, or at least a copy of herself, again, pretending to wonder whether now is the right time to call it a night, knowing that she will stay out and drink more, when Tessa enters.

Now they both have twins.

Mariah’s full of vodka, of a sort of confidence, of a heady self-assurance at least, and ready to fight. She’s ready to tell Tessa to go fuck herself, or her husband, or whoever, because Mariah sure as hell doesn’t care who this girl has sex with or whatever else this girl ever does!

But when Mariah opens her mouth, she finds herself saying:

“Of all the gin joints, in all the towns in the world, she walks into my brother’s. I guess not that surprising, given you’re married to him... And these drinks were pre-arranged. Actually, you know what? Forget I said anything. Like... ever.”

They are so close. Not so close as they have been, in the past. But Mariah could, if she wanted, and she doesn't, and she won’t, but she could... just reach out and touch Tessa.

“Maybe I should change the ending,” Tessa says quietly, meeting Mariah’s reflected gaze.

“To Casablanca? Can’t do that! Sacrilege.”


“To my song. Because... I did see you again.”

Mariah looks at her, or at least the image of her. “Oh, yeah, great idea. Maybe you should also write in another verse, where you marry your mystery lover’s brother. Or is that not your style? A bit too country?”

Mariah isn’t sure how Tessa will react, but her response is almost a laugh. And there is something else in her voice when she says... “Mariah...”

In that way she does, the way no-one else does.

Being the best version of herself. A daily challenge.

“I’m not doing this, Tessa. I’m not going to do this.”

Mariah looks at the girl in the mirror. At her own reflection, that is; not Tessa’s. That girl’s left hand, is Mariah’s right.

WWCD?

“Not going to do this?” Tessa echoes.

What Would Cassie Do?

The opposite of whatever Mariah would.

“Whatever this is," Mariah says. "This... interaction. This whole... thing. We don’t need to talk, Tessa. There’s nothing to talk about.”

“I just... wanted to explain...”

“Like you explained about your phone?”

“I... that was...”

“Look, I get it.” Mariah swallows hard, ready to get it all out in one breath, so she can get the hell out of there, back to the bar, get another drink, settle herself, once she’s spoken.

“You’ve fallen head over heels for Noah. He’s so great, he’s the man of your dreams. You can’t live without him, blah blah. I get it... Oh, and could I not ever mention, at any point, for the rest of any of our lives, the fact that you and I hooked up. Right? That’s what you want from me. Well, don’t worry. I will keep my mouth shut, I can promise you. I am not going to embarrass myself —well, not any more than I have already.”


“No, Mariah... that’s not what I—"

Mariah knows Tessa is talking. But she acts as though she doesn't hear.

She walks out of the door, goes back to the bar, orders a vodka shot, waits and watches as the small glass is filled to the very brim. Knocks it right back. And before the drink has barely hit the back of her throat, is asking for another.

Chapter 7

There are, in truth, other lessons that Tessa would rather have learned, over the years; but her life experiences have taught her always to run from anger. She’s been a victim of the tempers of others, too many times; and so she avoids conflict, wherever she can. If, in fact, the truth would cause trouble, then Tessa tells a lie. If sticking around would make things more difficult, then Tessa gets the hell out of there. If trying to calm someone down is just going to put her in the firing line, then Tessa knows better than to engage.

And yet.
 An angry Mariah is a different prospect; a different person, from anything or anyone Tessa has seen before. Faced with Mariah’s fury, Tessa finds she, somehow, at last, doesn’t want to run.

Instead, she wants to explain, to Mariah, what’s really happening. To win her over. To tell Mariah about who she really is. Or at least, to try.

But is the Ladies’ room, at the bar Noah owns, really a good place for that?

Not really.

But then, Tessa wonders, where is? What, after all, can she say?

Don’t worry Mariah, it’s all good. I’m not really into your brother! I’m just scamming him for that sweet, sweet Newman dollar — and then I’m going to be outta here.

She’s not in this town for this soap opera, is she? — but for a very simple reason: to do a number on poor rich boy Noah, and then get the hell out of Dodge, a.k.a. Genoa City. And she really shouldn’t allow herself to get distracted. There’s too much at stake. Whatever is going on between her and Mariah, she can’t let that mess everything up...

Logically, rationally, that’s how things are. Tessa knows this. But when Mariah is around, all her hard-learned lessons, and whatever semblance of reason she feels she has, seem to leave her.

Mariah taking her by the hand, pulling her into one of the stalls, and slamming the door closed. Pushing Tessa up against the door or the wall, it really doesn’t matter which, just the act of taking control is paramount; and Tessa gasping Yes into the other woman’s mouth. Mariah’s lips pressing against her own. Then, that unruly tongue of Mariah’s slipping inside Tessa’s mouth, Mariah’s hands unzipping Tessa’s jeans. Mariah sliding her fingers inside, the pleasure — no, the sheer relief that they are connected again... Mariah imploring Tessa not to make so much noise, damn it, when she is spiralling towards her climax... be quiet —in case anyone should hear that Mariah is bringing Tessa off quickly, urgently, here in the bathroom...

No, it didn’t happen. But dear God in heaven, Tessa wished that it did. And she now adds a further detail to the fantasy: Mariah whispering very bad words in Tessa’s ear as she comes, as Mariah takes out all that frustration and anger on her, with Tessa’s very enthusiastically-given consent.

Who is she, now?

Who, exactly, is the person she wants to tell Mariah about?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Devon is hot.

Right?

Right.

Sure he is, sure he is! He owns buildings! He works out. He’s handsome enough. Isn’t he? And he’s a really nice guy.

Mariah should snap him up. A guy like that isn’t going to stay single for long!

So why is it, then, that Mariah can’t rustle up a single iota of desire for him?

She’s been doing her best. To concentrate on Devon, to focus on him — Mariah, Mariah, eyes back on the guy over here... and not look Tessa’s way, even when — especially when — she can feel that Tessa is looking at her. Mariah smiles and laughs at everything Devon says, which is slightly problematic when it turns out he is talking about the devastating effects of a hurricane in El Salvador that a friend of his in Doctors Without Borders (see the quality of friends he has? He’s amazing! Come on, Mariah!) is helping with the rescue efforts for; but she thinks she gets away with it. Mariah also tells anyone and everyone at Underground who will listen how rich her date is, how successful, how much of a catch he is. And so on, and so forth.

After about three hours of this, Mariah glances quickly at her phone, and sees from the time displayed on the screen that in fact, it’s only been about thirty-five minutes of this.

What?! How?!!

Mariah is committed to ignoring Tessa. Tessa is with Noah. Which is her choice. And good luck with that. Mariah is not going to back down. Mariah would not hurt her brother, but in any case she wouldn’t even have the opportunity because Tessa is not interested.

But of course, Mariah doesn’t care whether she is or she isn’t!! She has better things to do than worry about Tessa Porter.

Or Tessa Newman, as she is now. Ugh.

God, this is tough. And a gallon of gin and vodka have barely helped at all, truth be told; although at least there’s finally a welcome fuzziness around the edges of these incredibly embarrassing proceedings.

But still, Mariah feels like she can’t breathe.
 She finishes off the dregs in her glass, excuses herself from the table, claiming she needs some fresh air. Declines Devon’s offer to accompany her. Such a gent.

If only being a gent did a single thing for Mariah in any way at all...

As Mariah moves past Tessa, her hand, involuntarily or at least inadvertently it seems, brushes Tessa’s shoulder.

There’s a fierce shiver down Mariah’s spine as she does so, and does she imagine it, or does Tessa tremble too?

Mariah is too momentarily taken aback to remember to look away, and her gaze meets Tessa’s.

There’s a rush of feelings, a sudden crazy idea to take Tessa’s hand and say, wanna get the hell out of here?

To where? It doesn’t matter, anywhere, as long as they’re together. You dumbass, Copeland.
 Tessa doesn’t want her, of course.
 And you’re supposed to be ignoring her, idiot.

Mariah’s fingers rest on Tessa’s shoulder just a fraction of a second too long, before she snatches her hand away.

Clutching the Tessa-touched hand with her other, although she has been scalded, Mariah makes it to the door of Underground, and stumbles outside onto the street. Where the traffic fumes are higher, but the tension is lower.

That is, at least, until the person she is running from, catches her up.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

One time, Tessa’s dad threw her down the stairs. Even now, Tessa can’t remember why. Odds were, it wasn’t for anything she herself had done wrong. Could have just been one of her dad’s regularly-scheduled rages. Or she could have been playing the punchbag to spare one of her little brothers or sisters; that was very possible, too. Tessa would take their beatings whenever she could. In any case, that day, it turned out her father was even more tanked-up than usual, and whaddya know — he went too far. His show of force meant Tessa went flying, and hit her head on the wall somewhere on the way down. She was fully unconscious by the time she reached the bottom step.

“I thought you were dead,” Crystal said later, her face pale in the late evening, and only the light from a not-so-close street lamp outside to see her by. “I thought he had killed you.”

“I’m right here, and I’m OK,” Tessa told her, one truth and one lie. Damn, if her head and ribs hadn’t hurt like hell.

She had come round at the bottom of the stairs, with water being thrown in her face, and her cheeks being slapped.

Her father was saying he was sorry, he didn’t mean it, wake up Tessa, wake up Tess!

Pops trying to make sure he wasn’t going to catch a murder charge, Tessa supposed. All the same, she couldn’t help but think the dark thought that her father checking that he hadn’t, in fact, ended her life, was one of the kinder things he had done for her, those last few years.

In the kitchen, trying to patch herself up, Tessa had lifted a hand to the back of her head, and brought her fingers back down in front of her eyes, streaked and wet with her blood.

“It’s not as bad as it looks,” Tessa told Crystal.

Another lie, of course.

Tessa went to school the next day. She mostly liked school, mostly because it wasn’t home; and her dad was still at the house and still in the same mood, and she wanted to stay out of his way.

But she hadn’t done the best job of hiding what her father had done, and she needed to resist the probing questions of the teacher and the guidance counselor, who had both tried, unsubtly, to ask if something was wrong at home.

Tessa had told them she had gotten into a fight with another kid at school, some girl she didn’t know the name of, and over something she couldn’t remember. Not the most believable story, but at the same time, hard to disprove. But still, she spent weeks wondering if Child Protective Services were going to show up and take the little ones away, to who knows — maybe even worse shitholes than their family home...

So the next time her father laid into her, Tessa had learnt one lesson, at least. She was ready, prepared. Changed the tone of her voice, called the school pretending to be her own mom, told them: “Tessa was sick and wouldn’t be in today, maybe for the rest of the week.”

Stayed in her room. Watched black-and-white movies with the sound on low. Hoped the cut across her eyebrow wouldn’t scar. Told Crystal not to worry. Finally got back to class bearing a note with her mom’s signature — not that it was, in fact, signed by her mom.

“Please excuse Tessa, she had the flu.”

Tessa remembers the loops and swirls when her mother signed her name, a signature much fancier than her mom probably had any right to have. A thing of true beauty. Imitated by her eldest daughter over and over, in the back of her math book, on the kitchen table; until Tessa had it just right.

My first scam, Tessa thinks now. My first fraud.

Nowhere near her last.

That’s who Tessa is: a con artist. A grifter. A fraud. A liar. Mariah doesn’t really know her, and that’s for the best. Maybe they couldn’t have had such a good time together, as brief as it was, if Mariah really had some idea who Tessa was. Maybe the whole point was that they didn’t know each other; maybe that was why it was so good. In the cold light of day, things would always look so different, and Tessa knew she herself would too.

There are so many things Tessa can never tell Mariah about herself. Won’t tell her. Because Tessa couldn’t bear it, couldn’t live with it, couldn’t stand to see the look on Mariah’s face, if Mariah knew the truth about her.

What would Tessa see, if she looked into Mariah’s eyes after she had told her what she had done; what she was doing, right now? To get money. To get through. To try to save Crystal. Sure, she had her reasons; but wasn’t it all the more pathetic, that the state of her life required her to debase, to demean herself in the ways that she had?

What about when she had worked for Zack in that godawful place of his, more than desperate for money, and promising herself, when she got out of there, that she would never do anything like that again, no matter how bad things got. She would lie first, steal first, rob a goddamn bank first...

The thing is, sometimes, when Tessa is with Noah, when he is kind to her, and wants to know more about her, and god, tries to do things for her —in bed or out of it, and Tessa doesn’t know which is worse — when he takes care of her, when she is killing time in his palatial apartment and not in some flophouse, or her car —Tessa wonders if what she is doing now, with Mariah’s brother, to him, is any better, after all, than when she was in that massage parlor, touching guys she didn’t want to, in ways she really didn’t want to, for the money.

What’s the difference? If anything, her current hustle is less honest than the work she did for Zack. What makes what she is doing to Noah any “better” than that?

Only the size of the pay check involved. That’s all, Tessa thinks. That’s all. Same game. Different bottom line.

So, no, she can’t level with Mariah. Not about any of the things that have happened to her. Or any of the things she’s done. Who she really is. It’s impossible. Being judged would be bad enough. What if, even worse, Mariah felt sorry for her? Having the person who represented the most perfect, pure, honest of nights, of experiences, of her life, look at her and no longer see Tessa as someone self-assured and talented and brilliant, but someone to be pitied, as some broken person... as damaged goods.

Tessa will not do it. Leaving aside the fact she has to get Crystal away from the people who have her, that she really has no choice in the matter now and must see through what she has started, she will not ruin... whatever it was she and Mariah had had, even as fleeting as it was. Tessa will put whatever they were to each other, away, in a box in her mind. Turn the key, and not reopen it. She will just be comforted by the fact that it is there, that it’s in her life. That it happened at all.

That’s what Tessa tells herself. She will sit here with Noah and Devon, she will smile at Noah and never let him suspect a thing.

She absolutely will not finish off her own drink, get up from the table, and go outside to find Mariah. I mean, that would be an absolutely stupid, foolhardy thing to do, wouldn’t it? To go after Mariah right now? Given everything she can’t tell her?

Really, if anyone is to see whether Mariah is OK, it makes much more sense it to be her brother or her (potential?) boyfriend, it really makes no sense at all for it to be Tessa who is saying she will go check on her, pushing her way through the people who are milling about in the club and queuing at the bar. Finding the exit and stepping outside into a reasonably mild Genoa City evening.

That’s the thing. When Mariah is mad at her... (and she is, and will be, a couple dozen more times at least ...) when Mariah won’t talk to her... when Mariah runs from her... when Mariah pushes her away... Tessa finds that, after all, she can’t help but go to her. To try and make it better. To try and win Mariah over. Whatever the risks involved.

I can’t tell her things, Tessa thinks. But also: what if I could, tell her things? That I haven’t told anyone? Certainly not Noah.

She thinks of Mariah storming out of the Ladies’ room. Will Mariah even listen, if she tries to talk?

(You’d have to be pretty invested to get that angry, Mariah says later. And something about make- up sex).

The thing is, that when not prevented by the vicissitudes of life — life events she has not disclosed yet to the love of her life, although that aforementioned firecracker of a love will surely find them out, sooner or later — it turns out that where Mariah goes, Tessa follows.

Always.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


“Mariah,” Tessa says simply, when she finds her outside.

Mariah is standing leaning against the wall, and throws her hands up in the air when she sees her. “Why are you following me?! I told you already. I don’t want to talk to you.”

Tessa wants to tell her: I know, I know. I’m bad news. But you make me want to be... the STOP PRESS, hot off the presses, revised early evening edition...?

Okay, so my lyrics could do with some work....

“I just... I wanted to see if you were okay. You ran out of there pretty quickly.”

“What can I say. It was getting a little claustrophobic at that table. Four is a crowd.”

“But... are you all right?” She’s certainly been drinking a lot, Tessa thinks...

Mariah almost, but not quite, laughs. “My life is going brilliantly, thank you for asking. Very considerate of a one-night stand to ask about my feelings, I must say. You can go back to Noah now.”

Tessa feels it then: that familiar urge to bolt, to get the hell out of there, it’s back — but this time, for the first time of her life, she finds she doesn’t want to run away on her own. Forget the men they are supposed to be with, forget the plan, forget what she’s supposed to be doing here in this godforsaken town that she’s landed up in...! She can find another way to get Crystal out...

They could travel. They could see places. Mariah would be the kind of person who likes interesting destinations, Tessa determines. There’s Paris, London, Rome. Tessa’s never been to Europe, she’s never been out of the country, not even Canada; she’s never ever been on a plane, but she’s heard of places, she’s seen them on TV, she’s read a little here and there, and what about South America, there’s waterfalls they could look at, aren’t there? That they could stand under, swim in...

There’s, who cares, just... to hell with all of this. She and Mariah can just get in a car and leave. Their backdrop could be Angel Falls; or it could be the diner in some other godforsaken town where they could just order black coffee, hold hands under the table, watch the sun rise or set,
or, hell, stare out of the window at stubborn clouds that refuse to clear. So long as they were in the same place, could be together, it really wouldn’t matter what the scenery is.

That’s what Tessa thinks when she sees Mariah standing, fuming, angry at her, angry at the world Tessa would like to travel with her...

“And I don’t need to feel stupid as well!” Mariah adds.
 Then there’s, “Don’t touch me”, when Tessa tries to step closer. “Save it for your husband, or... whoever you’re with!!”, Mariah near-explodes.

So, here it is: Tessa’s final cue. To get the hell out there.

She misses it. On purpose. And does something else.

Noah doesn’t really matter to Tessa (sorry, Noah). As it happens, Tessa will mean Devon doesn’t really matter to Mariah either (sorry, Devon, too).

Not that either of them ever really stood a chance.

Oh sure, they’re just inside the club. Go back inside — step through the door into Underground and you will see them still at the same table, oblivious to the drama outside, now discussing a business deal, sipping beers, and agreeing that the girls are best left to their girl talk for now. Noah, thinking how great it would be if his wife and his sister could get on with one another. Devon thinking he won’t crowd Mariah — he doesn’t want to push too hard right at the outset of something finally happening with her, and he will give her some space.

Oh — but wait. Perhaps, like Mariah and Tessa, you’re not, after all, so interested in those guys... (sorry again to them both)?

So back to outside Underground, where the tension between the two women supposed to be on a double date where the pairings don’t include being with each other, carries the suggestion that they are far more than squabbling in-laws.

Anyone watching this scene, for example the guy across the street out for that late-night jog, or the woman over here using the excuse of needing to take the dog out around the block but who really wants to spend ten minutes away from her boyfriend — even these casual observers would think, with the sparks flying, that it’s the two of them, Tessa and Mariah, who are together, really together. Whatever their official relationship status is; and whatever they tell other people, each other, themselves about what is going on between them. Random Jog Guy and Dog Ruse Lady have it right.

Because whatever her marriage certificate says, however much time she spends with Noah, it is Mariah who Tessa feels she is really with. And what is more, she is never alone, not now. Mariah’s there, in every silent room, in every empty street; standing, possibly furious, inside or outside every bar she plays her music in. In the middle of the night, when Tessa can’t sleep and she quietly paces around Noah’s huge, perfect place, she writes songs in her head, but they’re never about the man whose bed she is failing to sleep in, the man who has shown her great kindness and who really is sweet; no. They’re always about his sister.

Tessa has one muse, one inspiration. It’s Mariah she looks for around every corner, Mariah’s every word she hangs on the end of. Mariah she writes about, sings about. Mariah she gets out of bed in the morning for.

She will learn, later, that Mariah is always quick to anger, and quick to forget; that she reacts in the moment, even overreacts, and then overcompensates. That her moods are tempestuous, that for someone who has a habit of giving out unsolicited advice to others, she is anything but level- headed; and that her brain even works, truth be told, too quickly most of the time, making leaps and connections out of thin air, ones that don’t stack up. Wrong-headed conclusions, which typically collapse pretty easily under Tessa’s reassuring words, or touch.

It is Tessa who makes Mariah angrier than Mariah has ever been before or ever could have imagined; but it is only Tessa, too, who can stop the other woman’s ever-spinning, mental merry- go-round.

Slow down, Tessa will say. Switch off. Stay in bed.
With me.
But that's later.

Tonight, she says: “I’m sorry. That I didn’t text you back. I couldn’t...”

“Oh, okay. You’re sorry for not being on top of your messages. Riiiiight. Kind of overtaken by events, that one, don’t you think? But you know what, Tessa, if you’ve come out here to tell me another lie? — you can really save that, too... I thought...”
 Mariah shakes her head, sadly.

And Tessa sees it now, that the anger comes from hurt, most of all.

“You know what I thought? I thought that that night we spent together... meant something. Didn’t you? Am I crazy, or delusional? Or drunk. Well, sure. I’m kinda drunk, you don’t need to answer that one... But if you want to make any of this better, this is the part where you need to help me out.”

They are looking at each other, and all Tessa can think is how beautiful Mariah is, and hear the crack in her voice.

“It did,” Tessa says quietly. “Mean something.”


The clouds on Mariah’s face clear slightly, but then her look darkens again.

“So, what, then... after that, nothing? I don’t hear from you? Not a word? And then, the next time I see you...”

“You’re... you’re just gonna have to trust me, that I couldn’t —”

“Well, forgive me, Tessa, but I don’t. I don’t trust you. I don’t know anything about you, do I?! But all the same, I’m still —” Mariah stops. “Okay. So let me make this simpler for you. How about this. Why don’t you just tell me one true thing?”

How incredible you are, Tessa thinks. How I’ve thought of you of every day and every night since Chicago. How I can’t stop thinking about your sense of humor, and the curve of your hips, and the taste of your lips, and how ridiculous your shoes are. How I just knew you would be a top, and you are such a top and I love it. And I want you to top me again right now. Let’s totally ditch this double date and go find another hotel room...

All true, all things she could say. But Mariah wants to hear something real, as well as true, doesn’t she? So Tessa will give her something real.

And what she says is:

“I wanted to text you, Mariah, but I couldn’t... The reason is... I was in jail.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“You got arrested?!”

Mariah can’t imagine why Tessa would lie about that. It’s sufficiently “bad” that it’s probably indeed, the one true thing that this girl has told her, like she asked.

“Yeah. ‘Later that same day’...” Tessa throws her hands up. “After we had said goodbye to each other. I met up with some people for this... thing, and... well. It was the wrong choice. Got
 picked up by the cops, and that was that. All the charges were later dropped, I should say, but I was away for a while there. So, I didn’t get to read your message until a couple of months after you sent it.” Tessa’s smile is rueful. “I probably should have said I would come with you to Genoa City that day after all, huh?”

“Come with me?”

Tessa blushes slightly; Mariah’s never seen this from her, and she feels a clutching, a grabbing, in her chest, at the sight of it.

“Oh. Damn,” Tessa mutters. “We didn’t actually... talk about anything like that, did we...”

“You wanted to come with me?” Mariah says again.

“A little fantasy I had,” Tessa shrugs. “You know, running after this incredible woman I just met, back to her hometown.”

“I thought about staying in Chicago,” Mariah blurts out. “With this incredible woman I had met there. And leaving this hometown behind.”

Neither Random Jog Dude on his jog back home again; nor Dog Ruse Lady coming up on her circuit of the block and ready to go back to the apartment where she hopes her boyfriend will already be asleep and she can just sneak in bed beside him without having to talk to him, are so surprised at what they see, when they go past the stunning redhead and brunette couple outside that bar again.

But Mariah herself couldn’t explain exactly how it happened, not this time. In that bar in Chicago, Tessa had, maybe, provided the touchpaper; but Mariah was, she knows, the one who had set the whole thing fully ablaze.

But tonight? Well, no. Mariah couldn’t say who initiates the second “first” kiss... It seems to happen almost all at once, that they were each telling each other the truth, and then truths were spilling out, falling over each other, as lies tend to follow lies, too; and Mariah was thinking she should really ask what exactly Tessa was arrested for, and then she was forgetting to ask that question, and anyway all charges were dropped, right...? And Mariah’s short-term memory failed her, because they suddenly were so close together, physically, and in finally talking after such a long time, what follows seems somehow inevitable.

The heady rush, just like the first time, when Mariah finally kisses Tessa again. Or when Tessa kisses her? When they’re back kissing, anyway.

Certainly, it’s Mariah who murmurs against Tessa’s lips:

“People will see...”

And then it’s both of them who move, who find a quieter corner of the street, the kiss never fully breaking, the contact and connection between them not stopping, even as they push and pull each other into the cover of darkness.

Chapter 8

It was Tessa who had stepped closer, who had told Mariah how amazing she looked, how amazing she was. Who had said she knew she should stay away, but she couldn’t.

It was Mariah who had kissed her.

But, everything taken into account, Tessa thinks of this kiss, as one that she herself had initiated, all the same.

They are in an alleyway at the side of Noah’s bar, which at least is less public than right out on the street, where this had started; but it’s not the greatest of locations for what they are doing, truth be told, because as the kiss deepens, becomes more passionate, all Tessa can think of, is how much she wants Mariah to take her to bed.

How she isn’t sure she will be able to do, focus on, anything else at all until that happens, in fact. They can’t exactly do it out here in the street... can they?
“Probably shouldn’t...” Mariah says.

But Mariah’s tongue is as wild as ever, and her lips are as hot and soft as Tessa remembers them, and her hands are beginning to explore Tessa, gliding over certain, critical, places, slipping under Tessa’s shirt, pressing against her in a way that makes Tessa want to cry out. Tessa lifts one of her own hands from around Mariah’s waist, moves up to touch the other woman’s body, runs her fingers over Mariah’s chest, caresses her there. Tessa knows what Mariah looks like, feels like, here, all under all these clothes. Truly beautiful. She can’t help but want to experience Mariah in the glorious flesh again.

Tessa knows, then, if she didn’t already, a simple fact: that Mariah will screw everything up; ruin all the plans Tessa has: for Noah, for Genoa City.

And that Tessa will more than let her. She’ll need to find another way to get Crystal out; but when she’s with Mariah, she sees so many ways out — for Crystal, and even, for herself.

Mariah makes Tessa see possibility and opportunity. Life is no longer a series of dead ends, so many disappointing days and nights stretching ahead of her, always running, never getting where she wants to be, not even to somewhere where she can simply be settled or comfortable... Always trying to see the angle, work out what edge she can get, what leverage she can take, what money she can make... playing people...

That is what Tessa has always known. That was how Tessa had thought things would always be. But Mariah’s changed all of that.
One night spent together, months ago, had changed that. Waking up to see the spell hadn’t been broken, Tessa hadn’t dreamt the whole thing: Mariah was real, and still there, still with her. And somehow, in such a short space of time, Tessa’s feelings were already settling on this woman, just as the winter snow was on the street outside.

But she had hardly dared to really believe it: that she could have found someone. The someone.

So when the cops, who had been waiting for them the whole time, of course, had burst in on that guy’s shop later in the day, as she and Alex tried to seal their ill-conceived scam, Tessa had simply stood and nodded, resigned to her fate. This turn of events made sense. This was what she deserved. Not any more time in the company of a beautiful woman with jokes for days, who tastes like heaven, and makes love like an angel — who is so delicate and yet so fiery; who is so unsure of herself, sometimes, out in the real world, but who never shows a moment’s doubt, Tessa finds, when they are wrapped up safely in one another in bed.

A woman unlike anyone Tessa has ever met.

Tessa had not tried to make a run for it, as Alex did (Alex had been caught, just the same) — no. Tessa had thought, this is what I am due. She had accepted the fact of being arrested, gone along with the police quietly, made the right choice for once; thinking to herself that all of her past had finally caught up with her, here in her home city, previous crimes unpunished and debts unpaid... and what was more, here was her punishment for being so happy, so fulfilled, albeit so briefly.

After all, why would Mariah really want her?

Tessa did her best to push the special feeling she had had with Mariah all the way down inside while she was, well, inside. But there was little to do, little to occupy her days, waiting weeks and weeks for the DA to realize how unreliable those witnesses were, and sometimes the fire Mariah had lit in Tessa would rise up in her, could not be contained, and she would feel the sense of loss and absence of Mariah as a true, visceral pain.

But then had come that visit from a stranger, out of nowhere, being asked to take on the mysterious “job”; and finally, the charges were dropped. And when she got out, Tessa thought she couldn’t contact Mariah, now, even if there was any remote chance Mariah was interested — which maybe, Tessa sometimes thought, her text had meant she was? — but it was hopeless, Tessa couldn’t pursue the connection. Not when she had been tasked with what she was doing to Noah.

But what she had told Mariah was true. She had had no idea Noah was Mariah's brother. That meant there was a puzzle in there somewhere that Tessa hasn’t yet solved; Tessa knows this. Mariah, then Noah... only the first of those had been her own free choice, and was all too much of a coincidence that she went from sister to brother by someone else’s design... but Tessa doesn’t have all the pieces to be able to put the whole thing together. Not yet.

And truth be told, all of this is all something of an aside, because tonight, Tessa has already stopped thinking of the bigger picture. It’s hard to think of such things as the grand scheme of life and what the patterns of human interaction mean, with Mariah’s hands and lips on her. Tessa is thinking right now only of one half...or whatever proportion Mariah is... of the equation.

Let’s face it, math was never Tessa’s strong point. She hopes she’s better with metaphors, if only for the sake of her lyrics.

If there were any bigger, deeper thoughts in Tessa’s head other than the here and now, they’ve been dispatched, in a flash of pleasure.

“Sweet Jesus, Mariah...”

“I love how you blaspheme...” Mariah tells her.

Tessa’s reaction was to a particularly targeted sweep of Mariah’s fingers, and can she be blamed, because whichever way you add everything up, same result: she’s only human? Tessa uses her very best math, physics, chemistry and biology to work out that Mariah could make her come, right now, even a) though they’re out in the street, 2) she’s not at the most comfortable angle up against this wall, and — hell, what number was she up to? — well, anyway, she’s fully-clothed... but all the same... Tessa’s nearly there as it is, just from the way Mariah now slowly runs one, two, delicate but strong fingers between Tessa’s legs, along the seam of her jeans, and up.

The touch is not even skin on skin, but Tessa thinks that if Mariah does that again, then yes, her rudimentary calculations tell her, she will climax, all the same.

“Mariah. I need you,” Tessa tells her. “Please.”

“Not here...” Mariah mutters.

“Let’s go somewhere...?” Tessa near-pleads.

Mariah murmurs assent, ends the kiss. Disentangles from her. Tessa can hardly stand the break in contact, wants to reach for her again.

“But we can’t just leave...” Mariah is saying. “We’ll have to go back inside first... ”

They don’t know what they will say. How they will explain these too many minutes they’ve been away from the guys. What reason can they invent, as to why can’t they sit at that table anymore? There’s no very good plausible cause that would mean sisters-in-law need to suddenly leave together, late at night, to some unspecified destination.

Tessa isn’t even sure how, if challenged, they could possibly justify what they must look like when they get back to the table. She feels as though the evidence of what she has been feeling, what they have been doing, what they nearly did up against a wall outside, is all over her, and Mariah too. They are flushed, ruffled, and more than distracted by each other. Like each has left their mark on the other.

Very much, in fact, how two women who were just kissing each other and getting a little hot and heavy out in the street, would look.

Tessa rehearses some lies in her head. About being sick, about having an emergency phone call from her family. What has she told Noah about her family?! She tries to remember. Yes, some bunch of Hallmark card-style garbage about a successful middle-class set of individuals who happen to be related to each other and an upbringing that wasn’t entirely dysfunctional and even abusive, as she recalls...

But when the two of them finally sit down with Noah and Devon again, it seems a deus ex machina has landed on some foreign shore; and the butterfly effect has rippled across to a small city in Wisconsin several thousand miles away.

“London called,” Noah announces.


“London?” Tessa echoes.


Mariah looks at her.

“Big city. Over the ocean. Capital of the United Kingdom,” she says.

Tessa fakes a glare.

It starts there; their express public show of intense dislike for one another. The best cover for how they really feel.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“I was just about to come and find you two and tell you,” Noah says, and Mariah thinks of what she was doing a couple of minutes ago, how she had Tessa up against the wall, how Tessa’s hands had felt on her breasts, how Tessa had trembled when Mariah had begun to stroke her, how Mariah wanted her right there and then and had had to compel herself to stop, to take Tessa somewhere nicer, at least...

“Something up?” Mariah says. The champagne bottle looks empty, damn it.

“There’s been a fire at the club over there. No-one hurt, thankfully, but the bar has taken some serious damage. I’m sorry, but I’m gonna have to jump on a few calls. The manager, the insurers...”

“At this time?” Tessa says. Nice acting skills. She’s doing a good job at sounding disappointed. If Mariah didn’t know better...

But she does.

“Sorry, honey, can’t wait. I have to go to the office. But by all means, you three stay here and carry on enjoying the evening...”

“I hope you get it all resolved,” Mariah says. “But, you know what...” — Mariah wonders, even as she herself does it, if the fake yawn she throws in here isn’t slightly overdoing it — “this has been really great, but I guess I should call it a night. Got an early start tomorrow.”

“I can give you a lift home?” Devon offers. He’s only had the one glass of champagne by Mariah’s count.

Such a sensible and responsible guy... if only Mariah liked sensible and responsible. Or guys.
“No, no that’s fine,” Mariah says. “I can get a cab.”


“Well – if you’re sure,” Devon says.

Always such a gentleman. Not trying to get her back to his place and in his bed, but genuinely offering to see her back to Sharon’s safely.

He really is going to make a wonderful boyfriend.

For someone else.

“It’s fine,” Mariah says. “But thank you for the offer.”

“Well, um... if you’re going to be a while, then... I guess I’ll go home too”, Tessa says to her husband, with the slightest of shrugs.

“Good idea,” Noah tells her. “I’m sorry, I’ll probably be a few hours. You go get some rest.”

“I guess I’ll get a cab too,” Tessa says. “Can I wait with you, Mariah?”

“I suppose,” Mariah says, an edge to her voice.

Because they don’t like each other, do they?

Noah and Devon share a look, a guys’ kind of look that says, uh-oh, girl fight...

And then they are outside, and Mariah is saying goodbye to Devon, telling him how fun tonight was, and engaging in a delicate peck on his cheek, and Devon is smiling, saying he will call her tomorrow. And Tessa is pretending to be getting a cab, and Mariah is pretending to be getting a cab too — that’s, two different cabs, if anyone is counting — and then Devon is leaving, as Tessa and Mariah pretend their very separate cabs are here to take them to their very different locations, when in fact they’re very much getting into the same one and going to the same place.

In the back of the cab, Tessa takes Mariah’s hand. It’s dangerous intimacy, this. Kissing, even sex, is one thing. Holding hands in what is, well... a not exactly public, but not exactly private, place, either... it could make it obvious, at least to the cab driver, that they’re more than just friends.

Tessa’s thumb strokes along Mariah’s fingers, and Mariah finds she can’t draw her hand away. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

They get to the hotel. Mariah is at the front desk getting the room, putting it on her credit card while Tessa hovers over by the TV that is turned to the news channel, pretending to show an interest in current affairs, and also pretending to be able to register anything the box says or shows. Then they are in the elevator, and then they’re in the room, and then they can finally close the door, and Tessa feels she can breathe, for the first time in a while.

Tessa sets her guitar against the wall carefully with a sense at one and the same time of déjà vu, and of crossing a new line. In the same way, she both knows what will happen next; and doesn’t.

She leans back against the door that has thankfully closed on the rest of the world at last, and then Mariah moves to lean against her, and Tessa wraps her arms around her. They hold each other, breathe each other in, saying nothing at all, doing nothing at all, for a few moments.

“You know... I... I grew up in a cult,” Mariah says.

“What?”

“And when I first got to this town, I pretended to be my dead twin sister.”

Tessa nearly laughs, but a glance down at Mariah’s expression tells her the other woman is serious.

“Oh... you’re not joking?”

“Wait until you hear why I was pretending to be my dead twin sister. But I guess that’s enough sharing for now.”

“Why are you telling me this...?”
Mariah runs a hand over Tessa’s shoulder. “Quid pro quo. For telling me about the jail thing.”

“Glad I did,” Tessa says. “And that we could talk, finally. Just so you know, you were officially the best reaction I have ever received to my telling someone I had my liberty temporarily forfeited.”

Mariah doesn’t quite smile. “Does Noah know?”

Tessa slightly shakes her head. “But there’s a lot Noah doesn’t know,” she says, quietly.

“I wish I had known. At the time.”

“What, that I was locked up?”

“Yes, I could have... I don’t know.” Mariah shrugs, slides her hand back down to Tessa’s waist. “Done something.”

Now Tessa gives out a little laugh. “Well, woman of hidden talents, I didn’t know you were secretly a qualified defense attorney on the side.”

“Well, I could’ve... I don’t know... bailed you out, at least. You didn’t kill anybody, right?”

“No dead bodies were involved. It was this... um... alleged tax scam thing,” Tessa says.

In part, yes, it was. It’s not a total lie. There were indeed a couple of inaccurate government filings in the mix. But hinting at tax irregularities sounds better than the charge sheet Tessa had been hit with when it all went to shit that day in Chicago.

Theft, fraud, blackmail and extortion.

All charges dropped, mind you.

“But Mariah, please. I would not let you use your money to bail me out. You hardly knew me!”

You still don’t know me, Tessa thinks.

But that’s another part she doesn’t say out loud.

“I knew enough,” Mariah says simply, and looks at her.

Did you? Tessa wonders. Do you know enough now?

Then again, she thinks, do I?

A cult? A dead twin sister? The what, now?

“I want to hear more about your life,” Tessa says. “And if you liked the jail thing, you should hear my other life stories...”

Mariah looks at her.

Tessa wants to tell Mariah things. Wants Mariah to ask her things.

But...

“You want to talk some more?” Mariah breathes out slowly, runs her fingers along Tessa’s jaw as she asks.

Tessa turns to kiss Mariah’s hand.

“Afterwards,” Tessa says.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Mariah doesn’t want to hurt Noah. No, they didn’t grow up together. No, she didn’t even know he existed until a few years ago. And somehow, while Nick is Noah’s dad, and, the way life works out sometimes, he had become Mariah’s late twin’s parent too, they don’t share him as a father.

But none of the modern family details matter. The fact is, Noah is Mariah’s little brother, just the same. She cares about him; she wants him to be happy. That’s all true, it’s just...

This... whatever this is, with Tessa... it’s something Mariah did not expect, and something which she has never experienced before. She used to roll her eyes at the plot developments in books or films or on television, the dumb ways that characters would behave just because they had caught some love bug. Wondered how it could possibly happen in real life that two people could meet by chance, connect so definitively, and get totally hung up on one another. Start tearing up their lives for each other. All rational thought thrown out the window! So dumb.

Oh please, Mariah would think, sitting in the cinema or on the sofa, inwardly sighing at the sweeping epic love scores, and munching through her popcorn, and deciding she would go for safe old schlocky horror next time. What was on screen may as well be pure science fiction for all the connection to reality it had, Mariah used to think. At least there might be sentient life on other planets. Whereas she could never imagine behaving so crazily over one other particular human being on a whole damn planet crawling with them.

Even in the real world, being a bystander looking on at Sharon’s love life, even Noah’s... the way they, well, would fall in love so quickly, commit, get their hearts broken... it all seemed so unnecessarily melodramatic, so far as Mariah was concerned.

And then Mariah met Tessa.

And now she’s doing things like this. That is, taking her brother’s wife to a hotel, and pretending they’re not checking in together, and then going up to a room with her, and when they get in the room, and Tessa’s fingers move to begin to unbutton her own shirt, she’s intervening, with:

“Woah, woah, woah. You know, I can help you with that...”

Mariah knows all the feelings she should be having. She should be sorry, she should be guilty, and so on. But all she can think of now is Tessa, how she wants to make her feel, her hands gliding down Tessa’s chest, her fingers getting to work on undressing her, and, as she does something she really isn’t supposed to be doing, she’s rewarded for what she would herself admit is frankly insane behavior with an indescribable look from Tessa: at once so gentle and yet full of need. Mariah’s never seen anything like it. No-one has ever looked at her that way.

It’s one of a continued series of revelations, which began months ago in Chicago and will continue tonight, of how it feels to be with a woman, more specifically with Tessa: that Mariah can be in control of making love, and love it. When Tessa gives herself to Mariah, it’s more beautiful than anything Mariah has known, or could imagine. She feels, now, as she felt that night six months ago; that the world is, in fact, different to how she had thought it was. That there are possibilities she hadn’t accounted for before. That it has secrets she is only now discovering. Like Tessa, the fact of her, and how Tessa makes her feel. And what intimacy really means.

When it begins between them, it is urgent, and as always, mutual. Mariah pushes Tessa down on the bed, gently, not roughly; but no less than this, Tessa is pulling Mariah into position too. Both of them needing Mariah on top, quickly. It’s so long since they have been able to do this, but now they can do it, they can’t wait.

Mariah kisses down Tessa’s body, marveling at her; at, as she did the first time, the fact of her physical presence. How she looks, how she feels. How she reacts to Mariah’s touch. Mariah has never felt this need to... what can she call this? Worship anyone physically before, but with Tessa, it’s an instinct, a reflex, she can’t help but kiss her all over, over and over. Since she got out of the cult, and has been required to register herself in all those official places; to have a government ID, that whole deal, Mariah has checked “No Religion” on all official forms, the census; but she’s beginning to think she might have some kind of belief in a higher power of some kind.

Mariah flicks her tongue between Tessa’s legs. She’s wet and ready, shaking at Mariah’s touch. Mariah moves back up to kiss her face, dropping her hand to where her tongue has just been, and Tessa gasps as Mariah strokes Tessa’s clit carefully, gently, not rushing. Taking her time, sensing what Tessa needs.

And then Mariah looks deep into Tessa’s eyes, as she gently slips two fingers inside her.

Neither of them moves for a moment, not a muscle. They both simply revel in how this feels, at last. To be connected in this way. It’s total bliss. Mariah feels a sudden sense of calm and peace, like she’s in the right place, for once in her life. As though she’s been on a journey, and she’s finally arrived.

It’s Tessa who breaks the silence with: “I missed you.”

“God, I missed you too,” Mariah responds quickly. And moans as Tessa moves, wraps her legs around Mariah’s own, now, and Mariah feels herself tremble, too, as Tessa opens up more, pulling Mariah’s fingers in deeper, as Tessa spreads her legs wider.

“It feels so good when you’re inside me,” Tessa tells her. “Do I feel good to you too?”

“Tessa...”


“Tell me,” Tessa pleads.

“I can’t describe how incredible you feel,” is what Mariah says, and it’s true, she doesn’t have the words for the sensation of this. After so many nights fantasizing about being right here, and doing just this, they’re finally together again.

Tessa’s like velvet, inside. Soft, and delicate. Mariah curls her fingers slightly, hears Tessa moan gently as she does so.

Mariah already knows she can — sometimes, must — dominate Tessa but she must always listen to what Tessa is telling her with her body, and from her lips, too; must be careful and gentle sometimes.

And other times, not so careful and gentle at all.

It all depends.

As Mariah now begins to move in earnest, her fingers beginning to stroke in and out, she sets the right pace and pressure by heeding, and reacting to how Tessa moves against her; Tessa’s gasps, and the odd uttered word here and there, these guide Mariah and what she does, and how she does it.

If the rest of Mariah’s life sometimes feels just a little monochrome, and that little bit awkward, Mariah bringing all the jokes and little funny comments to lighten the mood, yes she knows that her sense of humour could be a form of self-defense too, you think she doesn’t know Psych 101, thanks, she is aware! —Tessa is vibrant color — somehow not familiar, not even reassuring, sometimes, and often unpredictable. To be carefully studied. But beautifully inevitable, all the same.

It’s not that Mariah knows everything about Tessa – hell, she barely even knows one or two things, even by her own admission. But she also knows it’s not going to matter, because she also knows full well what she realized the first time they were together.

That she doesn’t want to be without her. That she wants to help her, protect her, save her, adore her. That she wants to do other things to her, too.

Mariah now slides gently out of Tessa, to Tessa’s murmured protest, brushes a kiss against her lips, and moves down the bed. Drops her head, and lifts her hand again. Puts her tongue on Tessa while slipping her fingers inside her softly again, touching her both ways, at the same time.

Her touch, now, is most definitely deliberate in its particular pace and pressure: good, very good, but not too good. Perfectly imperfect.

She keeps Tessa on the brink, on purpose; and they both know it.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“I... didn’t... know...” Tessa notes, in a particular pitch of voice, “that... you... could... be... so... cruel.”

“Oh yeah. Thought I’d share more about me...” Mariah is back on top of Tessa, kissing her, her fingers still keeping Tessa on the edge. “Without the need for a big conversation.”

“Oh god,” Tessa moans, hot, flushed and needy, barreling towards desperation, if she is honest. Wanting and needing to come so badly, but the torment of Mariah’s control is a high of its own kind...

“Please...,” Tessa gasps, because she can’t help it; she is writhing under Mariah’s hand. Suffering terribly, enjoying completely.

“Oh... I like it when you say please.”

“Do you?”

“Very much.”

“Where... did you learn to do this?” Tessa fixes her lover with what she hopes is her best steely glare, in the circumstances.

“Instincts...”, Mariah shrugs.


“Beginning... to... get suspicious about... those instincts…”

Another occasion on which Tessa wonders if Mariah can really be so inexperienced with women as she claims...

“What can I say. You bring out a different side to me, Tessa!”

"Fffffuck...." Typical. I’ve created a monster, Tessa thinks. She would say so, if she could now say anything other than:

“Ugh... god... I can’t... Mariah. Please...”

Mariah sighs, relents.

“Well... okay... I guess. Seeing as you’re asking so nicely...”

Mariah shifts position, shifts how her fingers move.

Now, it’s going to happen. Tessa wants the end... but then again, doesn’t want this to stop. But the certain end of this can’t not arrive, not if Mariah does that.

The delicious delight of knowing for certain how she will soon feel.
Only one person can do that for her, in this way. Only one person ever has. Mariah doesn’t even need to say it, but when she does say,
“Come for me...”

Then, Tessa does — lifts her hips and crashes her whole body down, her climax so hard, and strong, and deep, rushing over Mariah’s hand, she feels as though she is spilling over, she’s needed this so long, and hardly dared believe she would get it again, and now it’s happening, it’s finally happening, Mariah’s fingers and the earlier work from her tongue have done this, brought her to this point, and pushed her right over the edge. Tessa closes her eyes, it’s too much, too intense, but then she opens them again, she has to see Mariah, has to see the look on Mariah’s face when the other woman does this for her... Mariah loves to see her like this, and it shows.

Months of frustration and desire are released in a hard, strong, true bucking of Tessa's hips on Mariah's hands. Not since Chicago has this happened for her, Tessa hasn’t felt pleasure like this all that time, not since the last time with Mariah, and it’s a pleasure that comes in waves, over, and over. They’re both swept away by the force of it by the end, both crying out, both holding onto one another. And then Mariah is moving, kissing her: everywhere, everywhere, but especially there.

Chapter 9

Tessa is still on a high from what Mariah has done to her. Yes, she had engaged in extensive teasing and tormenting; but she had made Tessa come deeply, fully, Tessa thinks, in a way she hasn’t for months. Not since the last time, the first time, that they were together.

And Mariah is still on top of her, above her, telling Tessa to relax, it’s okay; but Tessa’s able to sense how ready Mariah is, how much she wants this, needs this.

All the same...

“Is this OK...?” Tessa asks, hands hovering, waiting for Mariah’s answer.

“You have to ask?”

“Well... I always like to.”

Mariah looks at her carefully. There’s a conversation they need to have, will have. Later. For now, Mariah simply tells her:

“You always have my yes,” and kisses her, and now Tessa moves to touch her, urgently. Differently, of course, to how Mariah had made love to her, but no less wanted, by either of them, and in any case, the result is as inevitable as Tessa’s own climax was, albeit faster, less controlled, Mariah quickly bearing down on Tessa’s hand, thrusting her hips fiercely, and making as much noise as she always does when she comes.

Mariah doesn’t make to move anywhere immediately afterwards, but stays right where she is, lying between Tessa’s legs, comfortable there, it seems, with Tessa’s legs wrapped around her. Tessa moving her hand to run her fingertips softly up and down Mariah’s spine. Mariah leaning in to kiss her again.

Mariah’s the best kisser Tessa has encountered. She always seems to luxuriate in the movement of her lips against Tessa’s own, and Tessa simply can’t think when Mariah kisses her —in the best kind of way. She’s beyond distracted, she cannot plan or assess anything, but there are no bad memories, there is no uncertain future, and no current troubles. And all effort at calculated scheming that she might have had in mind for this city when she got here, gets lost somewhere between Mariah’s lips and her own.

And then Mariah is moving, slipping through Tessa’s hands; and sliding down her body, and shifting so that her mouth is on her, and Mariah has turned herself, no, the two of them, a certain number of degrees so that in this position, Tessa finds she can reach to taste her too, and she does so, that was clearly Mariah’s intention, and Tessa is at once both giving and receiving pleasure — and it’s a little much, honestly. Very intense, almost too good... if that's possible. All Tessa’s senses near-overwhelmed with searing shock at how it feels.

One of a number of positions — and she will find, as the two of them continue to get to know each other better, that there are others — that Tessa has previously found awkward, and never particularly enjoyed, not before Mariah, but which now, Tessa finds she wants to do, if she can do them with her; and only her.

However good the sex is, there are, it turns out, limits: Tessa cannot both herself come and make Mariah come, not at one and the same time. Their synergy is not yet perfect, then; not that Tessa is so sorry that they have things to work on, excuses to spend more time in bed together in the future. Tessa stops her own movements, just for a while, and enjoys Mariah’s alone for a few moments; lets her lover draw out her pleasure for her. Rides the wave out, on Mariah’s tongue.

And after that, does the same for Mariah, too.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Lying somewhere between deep satisfaction and a light sleep, Tessa considers writing a song about Mariah’s touch.

(Much, much later, it so happens that she does write a song along these lines. Mariah’s reaction:
“You’re incredible.”
Tessa’s — interrupted — query:

“I am? Is that in like, a good kind of w—”

The bedroom door shutting, with a fierce slam. And from beyond it:

“It’s like nothing is sacred!.”

Tessa, tapping a pencil against the side of her head and pointing at the decidedly closed door:

“Hey! “Nothing Is Sacred!” Great title. I love it.”


An exasperated noise from the bedroom.

“For god’s sakes, why are you always using my words—”


“I can’t help it! You inspire me, Mariah... Sweetheart. Beloved. You know that all my songs... they’re all, every time, every word, about you.”

Mariah letting out a somewhat charmed sigh, opening the door, rolling her eyes at Tessa, and reaching for her, all apparently at the same time....

After a few moments, Mariah: “You know... you absolutely can’t write a song about... this...”

Tessa: “About this?”


Mariah: “Definitely not about... Jesus Christ, Tessa... god... yes... that...”)

The song that Tessa had debuted earlier that evening at Underground, which yes, as always these days with her compositions, was about Mariah, was really more of a “story” kind of song. Not one conveying sensation, as such, Tessa thinks now, sweeping her hand around the perfect curve of Mariah’s hip as she holds her, nuzzling the back of her neck gently...

With time on her hands when she was doing time, Tessa had come up with the Mystery Chicago Lover track — well actually, officially, it’s entitled “Sanctuary”, after the bar the two of them met in that first night; but to Tessa, it is always “MCL.”

(And sometimes, she imagines that the “M” is in fact for Mariah, and then, thinks of what the “C” and “L” could stand for...).

Sanctuary, had, of necessity, been a song composed in Tessa’s head, scribbled on scraps of paper torn out of the back of library books (Mariah seemingly more horrified about this confession, when she hears it, than the details of Tessa’s actual crimes — those were, she will later declare, understandable, in context. Tessa herself will in turn understand this understanding from Mariah better later, when she learns more about Mariah’s own past — but the wanton vandalism of literature is apparently beyond the pale, even for someone who once pretended to be her dead sister to drive her own mother crazy....)

Denied her guitar in jail, only getting paper when she effectively stole it, because jail is fundamentally a human rights violation in action, ya know, Tessa had hummed the melody of her new song to herself, whispered the evolving lyrics under her breath.

Had been told to Shut the Fuck Up, and had replied: “Oh, OK — you want to try me?”, and declared: “Shut me up, then — if you can!”

Because, however tough you do or don’t feel, you can’t let anyone push you around in that kind of place. That would be a sure-fire way to go under.

There was no-one on the inside to keep her company. A couple of women seemed interested, at a guess, but Tessa wasn’t, and anyway, all behind-bars relationships seemed overly dramatic from what she could tell from what went on with others, an easy way to get caught up in fights or other nonsense, even if she had been inclined to start anything up with someone, which she wasn’t really; because nearly every night that Tessa spent on her own in that little bunk bed in the “big house”, she was thinking about MCL.

The person; not the song.

(Mariah... Cries Liberally? I mean, it’s true.

Mariah... Comes Loudly... one hundred per cent verified.

Mariah Can’t Like.... And leaving the end hanging. Me? The Thought of Us Ever Seeing Each Other Again?!)

But if I do write a song about Mariah’s touch, Tessa considers now, continuing to kiss the back of Mariah’s neck as Mariah mumbles her enjoyment at this attention, it will need to get across the fundamental elements of Mariah: which is to say, both fire and ice.

Fire for Mariah’s passion, for the wildness, for her hands moving all over Tessa’s body in a way that is insistent. That said, she is always patient, always communicates the wanting of Tessa without any pressure, without ever even beginning to cross any lines. But, then again... sometimes Mariah’s hands and mouth can draw out and mark, deliciously, exactly where certain lines might be.

All of this, taken together, is evidence of a quality so rare, Tessa wasn’t even sure it even existed, or if she would like it even if she found it: someone who pushes her, but only just as much as Tessa wants to be pushed.

Now, she finds, for whole hours at a time, that she can barely think of anything else but exploring that line...

But she guesses they will have to know each other better. She can sense Mariah holding back sometimes; careful not to show too much of a certain side of herself too soon. Well, they hardly know each other, after all; tonight has been only their second time sleeping together. And now Tessa considers whether they’ve had more sex more times than they have had proper conversations...

Fire is there, too in the simmering hint of anger Tessa had felt when Mariah had been drawing out pleasuring her earlier that same night, in an almost torturous manner.

“Is this because I... I... made you wait? For... a reply... for us to see each other again?” Tessa on the cusp, and held there, begging for relief and Mariah denying her.

“A little. Perhaps. Part of my motivation. A girl has feelings, you know... But mostly? Mostly, just because,” Mariah had told her.

Yes, Tessa wants to know more about that side of Mariah. That side of that line...

And then, there was the ice. For just how cool and collected Mariah can be, the casual way she exerts and maintains control, even — no, especially, in bed. For the same act, in fact, of not letting Tessa come, not until Mariah decided she wanted it to happen.

Pretty stone cold.

Also ice, because quite frankly, the woman’s hands and feet are goddamn freezing sometimes.

“Poor circulation,” Mariah says, as, she turns over in Tessa’s arms and reaches out, and Tessa expresses her shock at the two ice blocks that have apparently been attached to the end of her lover’s arms again. “Sorry.”

Tessa takes Mariah’s cold right hand, presses it between her own hands, tries to transfer heat. “You know what, I don’t think I’m helping here. I think I’m just making myself colder...”

Mariah smiling at her, moving her other hand moving down Tessa’s body, her fingers spreading their chilly but not unwelcome touch, somewhere lower...

And then:
“You know, I wondered... What’s this from?” “Mhmm?”

Mariah is running two fingers gently over the jagged scar on Tessa’s hip, and now Tessa makes a sudden movement, feels Mariah's surprise as she reaches down instinctively, reflexively, her hand hovering over Mariah’s. Over where she had been been marked.

“Oh... that...” Trying to keep her tone light, hearing that she's not quite succeeding. “An accident.” Noah had believed Tessa when she told him that it was from a childhood accident. A fall off a

bike, she thinks she had said; something innocent and wholesome. But Noah believes every word Tessa says, truth or otherwise.

And Mariah is not her brother. She didn’t grow up in cosseted privilege; is not, Tessa already knows — albeit they haven’t gotten into the chapter and verse with each other — without her own demons. And now Mariah frowns; is unconvinced.

“Does it hurt?”

“No. Well, sometimes. Not right now,” Tessa tells her, but Mariah lifts her fingers and breaks the contact, all the same.

“It doesn’t look accidental, Tessa...” Mariah says. “What happened...? You landed on something sharp?”

Tessa shrugs. “I... can’t really remember. Must have done.”

Tessa can see the look in Mariah’s eyes. 
Perhaps Mariah had seen the look in her own.
 She’s not buying it.

This isn’t what she wanted. For the tone to shift like this. They had been... well, not having fun, that’s too frivolous for what they’re doing tonight, but they have been so physically close, and even as close as Tessa emotionally can be, haven’t they? — she thinks; there’s been a true connection between them. She feels as intimate with Mariah as she is capable of being.

But now... Now Mariah wants to know things. And there are things that Tessa doesn’t tell people. “It’s nothing, Mariah”, Tessa says. Trying to sound dismissive, relaxed. Once again, getting it wrong. Hearing fear in her own voice, somehow.


“Someone hurt you,” Mariah says quietly.
A statement. Not a question.
 And she’s right back there, right back at that godawful house, that night —

“... A long time ago”, Tessa says, at last. “And it’s really not that bad.”

“Not that bad?”

“Yeah, I mean — I’ve had much worse happen to me than that,” Tessa says. “I mean that looks bad, but...”

Realizes, as so often, the moment the words are out of her mouth, that she’s said entirely the wrong thing, said exactly the kind of thing that will not reassure her lover at all, but instead have Mariah saying:

“What?”

— her voice possessed of a tone that Tessa has never heard from her before, and with one word, one look, showing a kind of hurt on Tessa’s behalf, that Tessa’s barely ever seen from anyone at all.

“Let’s... let’s not talk about it tonight,” Tessa says. “Please...”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

That last night, Tessa’s dad had had a “friend” over. They were all to stay upstairs, none of them were to go downstairs tonight, he told them, or they’d be sorry. That includes you, Tessa, dumb fuck who doesn’t listen.

But then —

They are all upstairs, Tessa is reading, and almost able to concentrate, but below, it’s a couple of bottles of whiskey later, judging by the repeated sounds of the clinking glasses, and her dad’s ever- raised volume of speech, and then he’s stomping up the stairs.

Walk past, walk past, keep going: Tessa wills disaster to skip their door — for her dad to need the bathroom, to be ready to pass out in bed; but there he is, throwing their bedroom door open with a crash.

He never respected their privacy at the best of times. Certainly not when drunk. And he is drunk tonight, very, slurring his words, and telling them his “friend” wants to say to hello to Crystal.

So, if she could get down the fucking stairs and be nice to him, already.

Tessa leaping from her bed, to block her dad’s way to her sister. Crystal sitting up in bed, staring.

“Hell, no.”

“Excuse me? Did I ask you?” Her father leaning in close, his breath stinking of booze; his eyes bloodshot, blazing.

“No. But, I’m telling you, dad.”


Crystal was barely fourteen years old. What did some random guy want with “saying hello” to her?

Tessa could guess what; and it wasn’t good.

She’d been thinking, for a while, of how their dad’s friends seemed to be changing a little — up until now, they had mostly been low level drug dealers like he was, or so she had thought, wannabe gangsters going nowhere, and they lived in a dump after all, it was hardy like Goodfellas or Scarface or any of those films she watched that she shouldn’t have (like either of her parents gave enough of a shit to do something like monitoring her viewing habits) — where at least, crime seemed to pay, for a while anyway... They lived in this hellhole with mold and roaches, there was never any food in the place, they were constantly broke...

But lately, something had changed.

Different people at the house. A different air about them. Didn’t seem like dealers. Not even addicts. Another category altogether. A worse one...? And they’d started to look at her, Tessa thought.

But not Crystal, surely not Crystal? She was too young...


“Leave Crystal alone,” Tessa told her dad, and he turned his head to the side and now, to her surprise, he was nodding, almost seeming to agree.

Almost smiling.

“Hey, you know what, Tessa? You know something? You’re right, actually. I think I will. In this situation, it’s probably better if you are the one to take care of our guest. He asked for Crystal, but I think he’s more in the mood for a girl who knows what she’s doing.”

“What?”


“Oh, don’t act the innocent with me, you little slut.”
 Still that half-smile on his face, but his fist was ready for something. To hit her, to grab her...?

“You think I don’t hear things? Huh? That it? You think your old man is stupid, I don’t know what my own daughter is? I know what you’ve been doing with everyone in the neighborhood. Half the guys around here. And women too, right? You’re going dyke as well?”

At that age, Tessa could count everyone she had done anything sexual with, male and female, on the fingers of one hand; but for so long as her father was denigrating her, she could handle it. Just words. Tessa didn’t care about what her dad said, any of it. Not then, not later.

Yeah, her Dad's insults, Tessa could take. But then there was — and hell, maybe it was because she had always held out that bit of hope for her mom that it hit the way it did. Tessa always had what she knows now to be a naïve idea, she was a baby, thinking that her mother would one day come through for her, for all of them, in the end, that she would get her shit together and look out for them, defend them, stand up to dad, maybe even get them out of there. Some part of Tessa had always thought her mom would step in, when it mattered, and stop the bad things from happening.

So maybe that's why, even though her mother's words aren't as vicious on the surface as her father's, it cuts ever the more deep when, after Tessa goes to her for help, tells her what her dad is trying to make her do, Tessa hears her say:

“Tess... can’t you just go along with it?”

No, Tessa doesn’t want to tell Mariah this story.

Especially not how it ends.

Not tonight.

She is saved by Noah, in a way.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Tessa’s phone is ringing, and the name of the caller is coming up on the screen, and both of them are looking over to see it, and any moment between them is broken by the flashing word:

Noah.

“I should get that.”

But Tessa doesn’t move, not for a few moments. Seems to Mariah to be steeling herself, to be summoning up courage, to answer.

When she finally does, she’s adopted a breezy tone. It would almost convince Mariah, if she were Noah. But she is not, of course, her brother.

“Hey, no,” Tessa says, on the call. “You didn’t wake me... I was... writing a song.”

Mariah registers it: how readily the line is delivered. How easily the lie comes.

“Oh, all done? Great," Tessa says. "Can’t wait to see you...”

“Love you too,” Tessa ends the call with.

Truth or lie, Mariah wonders, as Tessa hangs up.

“I have to go", Tessa says.

“You know... you don’t have to,” Mariah finds herself saying. “You don’t, not really. You could just... stop this, right now. You could... we could...”

“I’m married to him, Mariah.”


Mariah’s painfully aware of that absurd fact. Says so.
 Asks: “But why, Tessa?... why him? Why marry him? Just... tell me.”

Mariah hears the words, and she knows they're not untrue, but they're not the whole truth. Are they?:

“You know, your brother... he’s a good guy,” Tessa says. “He’s never... He's not like other..."

Mariah thinks about that scar Tessa won’t tell her the truth of. And that’s not the worst of it. What has happened to her, in the past? What is she saying? That other men... even women, maybe, have what? Abused her?

“No-one has ever treated me so well...”, Tessa is saying.


“You know, Noah’s not the only person who would do that. Who’d make you feel safe,” Mariah mumbles, finding she is fighting back tears.


“I know,” Tessa says softly. “But... I can’t leave him...”

Maybe it’s the alcohol. Maybe it’s the situation. All common sense is telling Mariah that she should let Tessa go, for good, let go of this whole crazy situation. But it's impossible. Everything, and giving her up, too.

“You want us both to keep pretending... ” Mariah finds herself saying.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Pretending: Mariah’s word, Mariah’s choice of how to frame things. Not a word Tessa would use, not tonight. No, she isn’t telling the full truth to some of the questions Mariah asks; not yet. That will take a little longer.

But since the hotel room door closed on the rest of the world earlier that evening, and they could really be together, the two of them, Tessa can say that for once, no, she doesn’t feel she has been pretending. She hasn’t had to fake the way she feels, not since they ended up safely shut away from the world here.

No faking. Not in any respect at all... (Later, Mariah in fire mode:
“You told him you were writing a song?!”

But in a way, that was true, Tessa will argue. She was. The one she’s always writing in her head, about she and Mariah...)

Tessa gets home a mere ten minutes before Noah. Just enough time for her to grab the quickest of showers, brush her teeth, and almost literally leap into bed, before her husband opens the front door.

Noah’s tired after his night of conference calls, but he is not so exhausted, as he slides into bed alongside her, that he doesn’t gently reach for her, to see if she’s really too fast asleep for anything to happen between them tonight.

Not in a pushy way, not that. Noah is never demanding, and certainly never forceful. Noah always takes no for an answer, and no answer, for no. Like she had told Mariah, he treats he so well. He really is sweet, and he’s never taken advantage of her.

Noah’s hand slides around her waist. Tessa doesn’t move, keeps her breathing at its steady, dishonest pace. It’s far from the first time in her life that Tessa’s feigned sleep. She is, of necessity, an expert in all kinds of bedroom artifices these days, and Noah — bless the guy’s heart — has never been anything other than an easy mark. As is his nature, Noah believes what Tessa wants him to, and so, tonight, he quietly, gently, readily seems to let go any idea of making love to her. He just holds Tessa close, gently kisses her shoulder. Doesn’t try to touch her in her “sleep”, doesn’t attempt to wake her. And it isn’t long before he himself does fall asleep, Tessa feeling the pressure of his touch slipping away as he drifts off.

Tessa gently drops a hand, runs her fingers over the rough skin of the nasty scar, deliberately inflicted, and shaped like a butterfly, that lies over and around her hip. Thinks of years past.

Drops her hand further. Runs her fingers between her own legs softly. Thinks of Mariah, approximately an hour ago.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Mariah wakes in an unfamiliar bed. Sun is streaming through the windows. Somewhere nearby, she’s not immediately sure where, her phone buzzes, insistently and somewhat angrily.

Mariah stretches out hands and fingers, legs; sweeps limbs around. Opens her eyes slightly to check: confirmed.

She’s on her own.

Not unusual, after all, and Mariah’s pretty used to sleeping alone by now — she much more often wakes without company, than with, of course — but this morning, it doesn’t feel right. There’s something immediately wrong about the empty bed, other than the fact it isn’t her own.

Tessa isn’t here.

Mariah misses her, suddenly, fully. Fragments of memory spin in her mind. 
Last night. 
The bar. The bathroom. The alleyway. The cab. The hotel room... this hotel room... The two of them... together...
And then Tessa had left. Left her. To go back to Noah.
 She’s really going to choose him...?

Mariah’s phone buzzes again. Wherever it is.

Mariah stretches a hand, searches the side table next to the bed with her fingers, not quite being able to open her eyes fully against the morning sun, closes her hand around her cell, drags it in front of her bleary eyes.

There are several notifications from Hilary: three missed calls and four texts. The messages, firstly, tell Mariah to get to GCBuzz already; secondly, ask where the hell is she??; thirdly, query whether she still wants her job; and finally, advise her that Hilary has found a random person off the street who is an immeasurably better reporter than Mariah is or ever will be, so she may as well not bother coming in.

Another text arrives now: “You had better be on your way!”

Mariah sighs, checks her other messages. One is from Devon, “I had a great time last night. Let’s do it again soon. Xx”

Oh that’s right. She was on a date with Devon, wasn’t she. Officially, at least.

Well, I had a great time too last night, Devon.

Just not with you...

There’s a message from Sharon: “Did you go out early this morning honey? Don’t work too hard. And don’t forget, dinner tonight, 7.30pm.”

Why is she specifically reminding me about dinner? Mariah feels she ought to remember why, it seems vaguely important; but she can’t recall, can’t grasp what’s meant to be significant about a meal with her mother...?

Despite careful checking, Mariah cannot find anything new in her phone from Tessa. Isn't that typical —

But there’s a message thread that — oh.

4am or so, and Mariah was, apparently, texting:

“She was all like, oh, your brother’s lovely and I have to go!”

Who the hell’s number is this, exactly?... Mariah doesn’t recognise the contact, doesn’t even recognise her own words from last night, is momentarily clueless. Who is this?

“MG” is the person she was texting. Apparently. At least, that's what she has saved in her phone.

Wait...

Mariah blinks a few times, espies the crumpled card on the side table, next to a couple of empty minibar miniatures. The design on the card is a small box, intermingled with some rising flames, and there are numbers carefully inked on it.

Oh yeah. That’s right. Mariah rubs her head.

Matchbox Girl... Lindsay. After Tessa left to go home to Noah... after Mariah had investigated, assessed, and, it seems, mostly worked her way through, the in-room alcoholic refreshments... she’d had the bright idea to start mouthing off about her love life to someone she barely knows.

Although perhaps that’s better than broadcasting her business to anyone who might tell Noah, or Sharon, or Nick... this is still a small city.

“Leaving you alone in bed to go back to a guy? Crazy. 100% batshit,” the reply from Lindsay says. “I’d dump my — to be clear, purely hypothetical — husband for you in a hot second.”

It was, it seems, this particular communication that prompted Mariah to invite Lindsay... to dinner... at Sharon’s... this evening... with guests of honor, Noah and Tessa.

Mariah lets out a mild howl and shoves a pillow over her own face; dislodging the folded-over piece of paper addressed to her that was sitting on it.

Chapter 10

It is late morning in Genoa City. The sky is grey; the bright, early sunlight has slipped back behind gathering clouds.

Noah is gone. Up, and out, and seizing the day already. Back at Underground, fixing faraway problems.

And his wife is home, in bed.
Not that Tessa feels she is, exactly, alone. She never does, these days.

This is, objectively, one of the best beds Tessa has ever slept in. If you are measuring by comfort, luxury, thread count; by how many zeros you can afford to place on the price of a mattress — and, even better, if you have an actual bedframe to put that mattress on too, and don’t just throw it on the floor.

But peace of mind, is not so easily bought as are high-end household furnishings out of a Newman family bank account or budget, and Tessa has spent hours, now: not quite resting; not quite awake.

She stretches out, curls up again. Rolls this way and that, drifting in and out of sleep. Thoughts turning over and over in her mind.

It doesn’t matter what she does, how she moves, how she lies... In every waking or dreaming moment, with every breath, and whichever position she takes —Tessa can still feel Mariah.

Everywhere.
Mariah’s hands, her lips, all over Tessa’s body. Exploring every inch of her, up, and down.

Touching her, tasting her. Mariah, breathing her in.

It was too much.

It was not enough.

I shouldn’t be doing this, Tessa tells herself. Thinking of Mariah in the morning. Thinking of her last thing at night...

And thinking? — is barely the half of it. Last night actually with Mariah was... wonderful. And completely insane.

What is she thinking, sneaking around Noah’s back with his sister? Is she crazy?! What is she doing?! She shouldn’t be messing everything up. There’s too much at stake, and she’s so close now, isn’t she?

To getting Crystal out, and safe, after letting her down for so long. A little longer, a bit more time in this strange little city; of seeming to answer, but in fact sidestepping, at best (responding with bare-faced lies, at worst...), Noah’s questions about her family, her friends, her history, her background, her favorite holiday movie, her goddamn childhood memories... whatever picket fence, candy floss, Hallmark card details her husband asks her for now and then, when he wants to get to know her better, when he starts from a place Tessa has never even visited, never mind lived in...

But it’s just a little longer of going through the motions, of playing the game. Playing the man himself, not that Noah seems to notice, except every now and then he sees he has hit one of her boundaries and seems upset she won’t let him in. So she goes away and conjures up more backstory for him.

It is just a bit more time, showing Noah the requisite attention and affection that Tessa does not, cannot, mean a moment of. Certainly doesn’t, is utterly unable to, feel.

A little longer, and she and Crystal will have what they need, the means to live somewhere together, and they can maybe even start to think about how to find their sisters, their brother too; somewhere in the system in Chicago, last Tessa heard. The whole enterprise is no longer some sort of fairytale, not now Tessa really has managed to marry a prince — if not by title, then at least by wealth. She lets Noah kiss her, after all, doesn’t she? And he really isn’t so bad, she’s been with much worse, and he isn’t a frog, or a beast, or... whatever. Just a regular guy, a nicer than average one, with (sad for him) absolutely shocking judgment when it comes to the female sex.

When she needs to, Tessa lets this guy do more than kiss her, and so what? — What is the big deal? — all while she switches off and tries to forget... What Noah needs and does? — It really doesn’t matter, does it? Not when she has a bigger plan and purpose. Look: Tessa has been through much, much worse than the attentions of this soft, spoilt boy, okay? Put it that way.

It turns out that there really is a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow in Genoa City, after all. Tessa’s seen the evidence for herself, how Noah and his family live. It is the magical Newman money that will fix all the Porter problems, and Tessa is going to take her, and Crystal’s, share. She has to.

And Noah? He decidedly isn’t Tessa’s problem, is he? It sucks for him, sure it does, but he will get over it. He will move on. He can marry another, nicer, girl further on down the line, can’t he? — Tessa will just be a bad memory, a footnote in the family history, a bad idea the most romantic of scions had back in the day...

It shouldn’t matter, not at all, that she feels nothing, less than nothing romantically, and it wouldn’t.

It really wouldn’t, if —
If...
If it weren’t for...
Tessa’s fingers ball into fists against the bedsheets.

If it weren’t for the fact Tessa’s met someone. Someone who does make her feel. It hasn’t happened often in her life. She has largely assumed it wouldn’t be for her. But...

Mariah is here, she’s here and now. She’s the one, and it seems the universe won’t let Tessa forget her. She was in the bar in Chicago, she’s in this stupid, small, dumb town, she’s, for the love of God, if God exists, and Tessa doubts it, what she’s seen, what she’s been through, if he does then he’s a sadist — Mariah is Noah’s goddamn sister, she will be there at the family dinner tonight, won’t she? Yes, and now, Tessa fears Mariah will indeed be around every corner, and sitting in the corner of her mind like she was sitting in the corner of that bar, every day and night from now on.

Will you listen to yourself?! Tessa’s fists clench tighter.

Feeling something? So what? You have feelings, now? What are they? A luxury, that’s what it is, a goddamn mirage, one that will collapse into dust compared to safety and security. Those things you have now, that Noah gives you, that Noah’s money will give you more of. Tessa has never had such things before now, and it’s stuff Crystal still only dreams of. Feelings are, let’s face it, the kind of thing Tessa cannot afford— certainly not at her sister’s expense.

Mariah? She was a fling. You don’t even know her, even if you’re family now. She certainly doesn’t know you.

And you know what? Maybe all she wants me for now is an affair , Tessa thinks now, the cold light of day making itself literal, as the morning sun, which had been temporarily back in business, now takes the opportunity to slide back behind that cloud again, and Tessa herself slides back under the covers.

I’m risking a whole life with my sister, our future, the life she deserves, that I owe her, for god’s sake — for wild nights in bed with Mariah? Is that what I’m doing?

Yeah, sure, so the sex — okay, more than that — the intimacy is so good that in other circumstances, and were this another universe, another timeline, another story — were you even with your husband for the right reasons, Tessa reasons with herself, you would consider doing the right thing and leaving him, because you can’t stay married to a guy when his sister makes you feel like this.

But in a strange way, the fact that Tessa’s marriage is an utter sham makes it all the more complicated.

Sure, the way Mariah makes love even makes you feel a little stupid, even more angry at past you than you have been in the past, thinking of the sex you kind of wanted, the sex you kind of didn’t...

Leave aside the sex you really didn’t want at all. That’s something else, and you know you don’t think about that. Not if you want to get through the day, the night...

Unbidden, Tessa thinks of Mariah’s fingers gently caressing over even that terrible, ugly scar, Mariah knowing, even without asking (and she did ask), that it wasn’t the nothing, the non-event that Tessa had told Noah.

Mariah saw the story. Asked for it.
Most people Tessa had been to bed with, didn’t.

But Tessa’s never told anyone, and she doesn’t know how to explain — what words to use? How to put those words together?

She isn’t supposed to think about it, not if she wants to keep herself together, but —
“It’s you or your sister to keep our guest company,” Tessa’s dad had told her. “Your choice.” It was, of course, no choice at all...


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“And what time do you call this?” Hilary asks, as Mariah makes a highly futile attempt to sneak past her into the GCBuzz offices, succeeding for all of zero point zero seconds in not catching her boss’s eye.

“Well I don’t know, Hilary, let’s see. Time you got off my goddamned case?”


An intern somewhere in the background raises her eyebrows skywards; then sees the look on Mariah’s face, and Hilary’s posture, and swiftly makes herself scarce.

Hilary feigns taking a step backwards in surprise. “Oh, really nice way to talk to your boss when you’re... now let me see... two and a quarter hours late for work. And there was me thinking you had been doing so much better lately.”

“I was out... um... working on a story,” Mariah says, with a wave of her hand, wondering how quickly this dressing-down can be over with, so she can go to the kitchen and sit and guzzle aspirin and coffee for a few minutes at least, before Hilary starts another round of “why Mariah is the worst.”

“A story? What about?”

“Uh...” Mariah’s throat is dry, even after the two bottles of expensive minibar water she had downed this morning in an attempt to sober up. “Modern... relationship... dynamics.”

Hilary gives her a look, as if to say, so you got laid last night, that’s what all this horseshit is about?

“Oh, really? You don’t say, Well, I really look forward to this story. Love in the modern climate, as seen by Mariah Copeland. Sounds like a real eye-opener. Truly.”

“There’s a lot of facets to it,” Mariah mumbles, asking the universe for a black filter coffee to materialize in her hands. Well, in a mug or cup, ideally, which in turn is in her hands... is this specific enough for the universe to do her a solid for once and grant her goddamn simple wish...?

“I should say, speaking of love and romance and such things...”, Hilary says, “these arrived for you.”

Hilary gestures to a beautiful bouquet of flowers that Mariah now notices are sitting rather prominently on the table before them. A mix of seasonal blooms, the choice of colors delicately complementing one another, all clearly selected, and arranged, with elegance and taste. There are yellow and white flowers that Mariah isn’t sure she can readily identify without the internet, but which are truly lovely. Purple iris — is it? — is the only flower Mariah thinks she recognizes from the memory bank in her own mind, at least while so caffeine-deprived.

And now Mariah feels her face grow hot; and it’s not the dregs of last night’s booze, which even after consuming a full, daylight-robbery-level, fifteen bucks of hotel water is still swilling around her system — nor is it even the thought of last night spent in bed with Tessa — but imagining who, exactly, would have sent these to her work.

“It seems someone at the front desk simply assumed they were for me, which I have to say is indeed entirely logical... “ Hilary shrugs, “and so they were delivered to my office. It was only when I read the card that I realized... the mistake that had been made.”

There’s a particular edged meaning Mariah can hear in Hilary’s tone, which Mariah more fully understands when she reads the card for herself.

“To Mariah,
I had a great time last night!
Beautiful flowers, for a beautiful woman. Hope you like them.
Devon xx”

“You know, it’s funny... I did hear something on the grapevine about Devon asking you out, but I was thinking that maybe I should get my hearing tested. So I’m here wondering... Is your ‘story’ going to cover different types of behavior on a first date?”

Hilary has adopted a mock-innocent tone, and now places her fingers under her chin in a mock gesture of thought to boot. “I mean, I have to say that I personally usually wait until date number three, at least, — which I would say is customary — to show up at work the next day looking rumpled and disheveled... doing the walk of shame...”

“For your information, Hilary, Devon and I didn’t...” Mariah stops herself, and draws a line in the air with her hand, as if under the conversation. “You know what, I don’t even know why I’m explaining myself to you.”

The dull ache in Mariah’s head is now becoming a throbbing pain; the need for substances to kill, or at least deaden, the sensation, is ever more urgent. She has a brief thought of trying the hair of the dog... but that’s not right, is it...

“Oh, you don’t want to explain yourself? Well, okay, I have to say it wasn’t exactly what I had scheduled for this morning, but it appears incumbent upon me to remind you how a job works.”

An espresso, please, that’s all I ask... just a little espresso. Surely the universe can deliver that up??

“So, here’s the deal: you show up here at a pre-appointed time, and provide services. In exchange for those services, you receive monetary compensation. One of the conditions that is imposed on you is...”

Mariah has tuned out. Her headache is full-on pounding, now, and worse, wavy black lines are starting to appear before her eyes. It seems Hilary will continue in the same vein for another couple of minutes, and Mariah uses the time to engage in a very recent flashback: thinks of those fleeting, brief seconds just moments ago when she had imagined the flowers might even be from Tessa.

A frankly idiotic flight of fancy on my part, Mariah tells herself. Not for the first time, she feels somewhat embarrassed by the private thoughts she is having, in her own mind, to which no-one else has access. Why would Tessa send her flowers? A public acknowledgement of private feelings, and actions, that they have to keep secret, and you know what, maybe Tessa even already regrets what happened between them last night. She got out of that hotel room so quickly, after all... True, Tessa had kissed her before she left, full on the lips, hard and deep and meant, it felt like. But she had still gone, hadn’t she? Back to Noah...

There’s so much Mariah still doesn’t know about Tessa. The jail story...? There must be more to that, Mariah thinks. And that scar she has...? Someone hurt her, on purpose, and she won’t talk about it...?

But then again, Mariah muses, have I told Tessa everything about myself? Hardly.
 And yet there I was, doing the dirty on my own brother...

What was it Hilary had been saying about, well, putting out on the third date? What does it say about me, Mariah wonders, about me, and Tessa too, that we haven’t even been on a single date yet at all and yet —

“I said, do I make myself clear?” Hilary is standing looking at Mariah expectantly, and apparently finished with her lecture, at least for now.

“Um...” Mariah begins the journey to the kitchen, to the blessed relief offered by the coffee machine....

“Crystal,” she says.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


“Crystal,” Tessa says.


“What?” Noah looks up from his laptop.

Tessa couldn’t take the silence at Noah’s place — at her home, as it apparently is — a moment longer. She can’t come up with songs in that kind of stillness, can’t do anything at all. Her thoughts get too loud in such a quiet place. She’s gone to Underground, told Noah she needs the better acoustics for her guitar or whatever, and joined him for brunch.

Now she locks her phone quickly and sets it on the table. “Oh... just... a message. From, um, a friend of mine. Crystal. From back in Chicago. Haven’t heard from her in a while."

“Oh, right.” Noah smiles. “You haven’t talked much about your friends...”


The message didn’t sound like my sister, Tessa thinks. Not the way Crystal would write, at all. It must have been written for her, not by her...
Tessa tries to smile back at Noah. She knows her smile is a weak one, but he doesn’t seem to mind.

“Well... you know how it is, with friends,” she manages to say. “You have one group at school, another at college... you don’t always stay in touch how you’d like.”

“You need to give these guys a fuller update on how it’s going with NN.” That’s what the text, supposedly from her sister, had said. It was off, way off. Nothing like Crystal’s snappy little messages and thumbs-ups, not at all...

“Oh yeah, the circles we all move in are always changing, that’s for sure. Although, you should know, in this town? Seems like it’s always the same small group of people you keep running into, every place you go. And they’re all sort of related to you? — at least by marriage. Kinda weird.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Tessa says, with a fleeting thought about one in particular of her relatives by marriage again, before she picks up her phone to type a quick reply.

“I will do. Are you okay?”

There’s no reply, at least not right away.

Tessa can now just hear the echoes in her mind of her own words: she had said “school” and “college”, like these were regular, straightforward things in life that she had experienced, in the natural order of things. Stuff she had accomplished, as kids do. School and college. Not things she had never finished and never even started, respectively, graduating from either, being something she’s only ever seen on TV.

That hasn’t stopped Tessa somehow convincing Noah that she majored in music at some private liberal arts college, a ludicrous piece of subterfuge that she doubted he would buy even as she was coming up with it.

But it seems he believes anything and everything she tells him. Like:

I majored in musical composition.

I was at home last night waiting for you.

I love you.

“It will be fantastic to meet some of your friends,” Noah says, smiling. “When we get to it.” He lifts her hand from the table, kisses it softly.

Sometimes, Tessa feels these little moments of affection, the gentler deceptions on her part, are harder to take than the sex.

Which is only sex, after all.

“And your family,” Noah says.

Now, that. It’s a white hot pain, that’s what it is. Tessa’s back to that night. To the knife. To finally being broken.

“Sure”, she manages.
Taking a little long to say it.
 If Noah sees this, hears this, he doesn’t mention it.


“Well, you will get to know my mom and dad better tonight. And Mariah too, of course.”

“Of course,” Tessa says. “Can’t wait.”


“It’s so crazy, that it turns out I still have a big sister... after Cassie,” Noah says.


“I’m so sorry about that,” Tessa says quickly. 
She can’t imagine losing a sister.
She can’t lose her sister...

“Dad was, is, so heartbroken about her. And Mom too, of course, but Dad... I don’t know. It’s like he chose to love her, you know? And then she gets ripped away.”

“It’s really tragic,” Tessa says. And it is. She means what she says, this time.

“I guess, what happened... contributed to... well, their break-up, in the end,” Noah says, a sadness in his voice. He changes tone, with:

“Your parents are still together, right?”


Tessa sips water before she answers.

“Yeah,” she tells him breezily. Almost with a smile.

She doesn’t add: Last I heard. I remember their wedding day, I was maybe seven years old...? And as far as I know, they were still legally married when I got the hell out of there, years ago now. My sister, stuck in a sex ring I’m trying to extract her from, has never mentioned any divorce...

Nor does she say, that she doubts the guy her mom has been with all these years, who her mom tells her is her dad, the man who claims himself to be her father, really is her father; and that she suspects he’s not Crystal’s real dad either. There’s that wedding day, when she was already old enough to recollect it happening, although of course some couples have kids and then get married, so it’s not a slam dunk... but Tessa has some inconsistent childhood memories, too, of where they lived in the early years. Weren’t she, her mom and Crystal on their own for a time...? She’s sure she remembers living in a different part of town, no dad around at all, just the three of them. A happier time. Still broke as a joke, but her mom not using, mac and cheese for dinner and trips to the park and no looming threat anywhere... Then there’s the paperwork she had stumbled across when searching her family home for the rent money. Information she can’t match up...

“It will be great to meet your family,” Noah says, squeezing her hand. Tessa snaps back to the present.

“Ah, well”, she tells her husband. “Further on down the road. Like I told you, it wasn’t always... great. At home.”

The implication Noah has drawn — because it’s the one that Tessa wanted him to — is that there has been some kind of minor rift with her mom and dad. “All a bit awkward”, that’s the level she pretty much pitched it at and what he guesses at.

It has not been implied, of course, that Tessa ran away from home at seventeen because she had no other choice, and that she hasn’t seen or spoken to her parents since.

That her parents have allowed Crystal to slip into the clutches of people worse than they themselves are, than the guys they didn’t protect Tessa from. Than the guys they did quite the opposite of protect her from.

“I’m sorry your parents weren’t there for you as much as they should have been,” is Noah’s take.

Tessa isn’t sure whether to laugh or cry when he says this. What does he think? That mommy and daddy cut the sums in her trust fund on account of what, a little hard partying?? Too much smoking pot and fooling around on summer break? That they didn’t let her go to Aspen one time, because she spent too much on their credit card?

Surely Noah cannot really think that he and she, the two of them, are from the same kind of place, in any sense, or have the same kind of experiences?

But she has to be fair, at least in a limited sense, to Noah. That they are, to an extent, at least, from similar backgrounds is part of the story Tessa has set out to sell him. Part of how the Tessa Porter, no, Newman, she is still selling him; with the fake accent she is using, the revised history, the corrected timeline she has had to write down and hide away so she doesn’t get too much of it wrong.

She can’t suggest her family are Newman-level rich, of course, that they have anything like the luxury and opportunities Noah has known his whole life — she at least has to keep it somewhat believable— but as per the instructions she has been given, she is to make herself and her background seem perhaps a little shadier than his — keep him intrigued by the excitement and mystery and so on — but nevertheless, comfortable, solidly middle-class. Perhaps a little nouveau riche, a touch of crassness here and there in the mannerisms compared to what he is used to is a given, but they are upwardly mobile and aspirational, and that was the Newmans themselves a few years ago after all, wasn’t it? — or so her briefing had told her.

There’s this whole other world Noah lives in, where hard work by others did generate results, which he now reaps the benefits of, and she sees him pretend he himself he is working hard too, even while he gets a chain of nightclubs handed to him on a plate...

But the Newmans have had, Tessa’s been told, only a couple of generations of little princes: just Noah, and his father Nick, who Tessa hasn’t met yet, but will tonight. Tessa hears the patriarch of the family, Victor, and his wife, came up a little different to their children, and grandchildren (Noah and Mariah are brother and sister. But Mariah isn’t a Newman...) There’s even a rumor she’s heard, that Newman isn’t even the real family name (relatable,Tessa thinks...) and some craziness about the grandma being a stripper back in the day...? (like I can judge that, Tessa reminds herself...)

But Noah himself, is pure privilege. And when Noah talks about his dad, Tessa hears admiration, a desire to impress; a need for the son to assert himself as his own person, distinct from father, and grandfather, of course. He clearly loves and admires his father, and seeks his approval, even if he doesn’t realize that’s what he is doing.

This is the kind of father Tessa has intimated that she herself has, too. Someone who wants, and expects, the best from their children, but who always manage to show love and support. Not at all the type of man to abuse, hospitalize, his own children (if Crystal and I are even his, Tessa thinks), and never make anything better for them ever, at all. Quite the opposite.

Yeah, so. A happy if mildly middle-class dysfunctional upbringing, that’s what Tessa is selling. And Noah, it seems, is buying it.

“My family did what they thought was best,” Tessa tells him now, trying to keep her voice level.

They did what suited them.

Tessa looks back down at her phone. No new messages.

“I’m moving things along”, she adds to her previous message. “Family dinner tonight. Nick, Sharon, Noah.”

She swiftly locks the phone again, but Noah isn’t looking at what she’s doing. He is engrossed in whatever is on his own computer screen.

Perhaps it doesn’t even enter his head, Tessa thinks, that the woman sitting across from him, could have the secrets I do.

Truth is, she’s told Mariah more about herself in a couple of nights, than she’s told Noah in a couple of months of being his wife. And not just with her words, either.

Mariah knew that that scar Tessa hides, with high-waisted jeans, tops pulled down low, was no accident but deliberately inflicted. Didn’t she? Straight away, she could see. And Tessa was so close to telling her, the story no-one else knows...

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It’s after rendering herself suitably caffeinated that Mariah remembers the paper in her jacket pocket.

It’s the digital age, but maybe women who love women are more into old-school communication methods, Mariah considers. First there was Lindsay’s card with her number handwritten on it, and now this: the note Tessa had left her when she had, well, left her.

Mariah retrieves the paper and unfolds it. At first, she isn’t sure what she is looking at. Most of it, is words written in faded ink, but there is what appears to be some newer, fresher, ink, running along the top.

I’ve been carrying this around with me, the more recent wording says. I don’t know why. Maybe I had a feeling I would see you again?

And underneath:

You should know that I wrote this song for you.

Mariah rolls her eyes. Sips coffee. Sighs a little. Reads the song lyrics. Sighs a bit more. Picks up her phone and hovers over Tessa’s number. Puts her phone down again.

Has she torn this page out of the back of a book??, she wonders.

Mariah’s phone buzzes. MG. MG...?

Oh, yeah. Lindsay.

“We still on for dinner?” the message says. “Only I won’t hold you to it, I figured you were out partying last night or whatever...”

“Definitely,” Mariah replies quickly, without giving herself time to think.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


Without giving herself time to think, Tessa had gone downstairs, quickly.

But if she had thought, she would have told herself she could handle it. She had taken what her dad had dished out to her, hadn’t she? She had endured that and survived. She’s had sex she doesn’t really want, with guys she isn’t sure about. She can handle that too, and if it’s to save Crystal then she will do that, if it comes to it, but maybe it won’t...?

So strange, now, to think of how she had thought back then. How little she had guessed.

It was that very last night at the place that was meant to be her home; but “home” should be somewhere safe, shouldn’t it? Like on those TV shows with kids her age, played by actors much older; characters who had parents who laughed and joked with them, and who were there for friendly advice, for a caring and understanding pep talk at the end of the episode before the credits rolled.

Parents with jobs and values and basic standards of human decency, who didn’t drink until they passed out, or get so high they didn’t remember who you were. Who didn’t break your arm, or bust your head open, because they had a bad day, or you looked at them the wrong way, or just because they felt like it.

Home was meant to be a place where people you trusted took care of you, and parents were supposed to be people who protected you from the bad things in life.

They weren’t meant to invite monsters in. To deliver you to them.

If it had just been her, maybe she would have made a run for it. Grabbed the bag she had stashed, thrown her boots on, ran for the bus at the end of the street...

But knowing that if it wasn’t her here in this room, it would have to be Crystal...

Some of it, sure, she could figure would happen. Maybe she wasn’t ever going to be top of any classes even when she was in them, but she was not naïve, it was impossible for her to be that, with what she had been through. She knew what this guy was about, this guy sitting in her parents’ living room like he owned it. But maybe —

Maybe it would be OK.

The stupidest thing she had ever thought, out of a long list, in probably her entire life.

“Want a drink?” 
The man inclines a bourbon bottle in her direction.

Tessa knew this guy, didn’t she? She had seen him before. He’d been to the house before, even. One of her dad’s “friends.” He was dressed well, and not her father’s usual type of company. Maybe he was someone important...? Not a low-villain like her dad. Someone with some power, perhaps.

“I’d drink it, if I were you,” the guy said, in a tone Tessa had never heard before, from anyone.

Tessa is seventeen years old. She’s been drunk maybe twice in her life — a couple of parties she shouldn’t have been at. She’s seen what this stuff does to her dad. How it makes him.

“I don’t really drink,” she told the “guest.”


“It’s what friends do together,” the guy told her. “And I hope we will be friends.”

Later, there’s no alcohol Tessa ever tastes that will blot out what that guy did to her. No drink that will help her forget. Eventually, she finds something that does. Something stronger than booze, more dangerous, that does take the pain away. It’s just that it takes years of her life, too...

But that night, she doesn’t have anything at all.

Tessa does not have the words for what this man did to her. Not then, and not now. She can say, brutal, perhaps, but that hardly captures it. He took the world, Tessa, apart; rearranged it, and her, and left them different, afterwards. She didn’t exactly ever feel like the most complete of people, but after that night, after him, Tessa will for so long, think how she is missing a piece of herself.

This guy — he never says his name, never introduces himself, despite saying they’ll be friends, but midway through, Tessa recollects what she has heard her father call him — is not like those boys who pawed at her, pushed her into sleeping with them when she was unsure — that boring, mildly painful at first, sex in the back of cars, or in the park, or in their bedrooms, while she thought of other things she could do, other places she could be, other lives she could live. That wasn’t great, but she could take it, she could deal with that; didn’t even realize, until the first time she slept with someone who actually cared, a girl, as it happened, that it could be different.

But this... This isn’t that.

Even her dad’s beatings hadn’t broken her. Those repeated assaults from someone she should be able to trust, who should defend her from others? They didn’t to her what this man does.

She’d never been hurt like this, she’d never been degraded like this. Made to feel like nothing. Less than nothing.

Like something he could just use. Not even a person...


Afterwards, he gripped her bunched-up T-shirt in his fist, pulled her in more closely to him, told her, almost softly, almost gently, in his terrible, low voice: “Let me show you what I do to all my girls.”

The knife, it has more than simple, rough edges. It is, instead, all sharp lines; vicious, jagged swerves that immediately make Tessa feel a little sick. Tessa tries to look away from the blade; to the white handle, instead.

Carved ivory, most likely, Tessa learns later, when she can’t sleep one night, searches online, looks for and finds pictures of something similar.

“Your girls?” 
It sounded like someone else had said it. Tessa doesn’t recognise her own voice.

“You’re going to be working for me, from now on.”


“I’m not. And I’m not yours,” Tessa told him. She still had that in her, at least. But it was the last thing she said to him.
And he almost smiled.

“Yes, you are, Tessa. You are now. And this”, the man said, “will show that you’re mine... So that, even when — especially when — you’re with someone else, they can see who you really belong to.”

It’s illegal, now, the ivory trade, Tessa had learned. You can’t do it anymore. Hurt wild animals, kill them, to make things like that.

“That was deliberate,” Mariah had said, looking at where he had marked her. “This wasn’t an accident, Tessa. Someone hurt you...”

You got me, Tessa thinks. Someone did.

She was out of there, that same night. Without even stopping to think.

Grabbing the bag, throwing on her boots, out of the door, down the street and onto the bus. Leaving Crystal behind... not even seeing, or feeling, the blood seeping through her clothes until much, much later....

And that was the place she left Crystal. No wonder she ran in the end too, even if right into danger. What else could she do? Tessa tells herself she has got to get real. Stop this craziness. She’s been so selfish! Messing around with Mariah isn’t going to save her sister.

She will go to this dinner, tonight, won’t she, like she has to? — and smile and nod, and get through it. And not look Mariah in the eye.

Well, that was Tessa’s plan, anyway.
 But of course, Mariah has her way of ruining those.

Chapter 11

Does growing up in the grip of a cult have its downsides? I mean, sure. Mariah can, naturally, testify as to those.

The extreme psychological control. The spiritual coercion. And, when you are born into that sort of life — or at least, abducted and forcibly recruited into it at such a young age, that you don’t know the difference — it isn’t so much that your sense of self is stripped away, that you experience that ritual taking apart of a person, and reconstruction in another’s image, that had been the hallmark of the converts, and which Mariah had seen in action, over and over...

It’s that you never really have any true sense of yourself to begin with.

Then there had, of course, come the day, when Mariah had finally seen the true colors, in stark relief, of the man whom she had considered, growing up, as a father figure, as well as her spiritual leader. Trying to learn who she was, the person who she could be, Ian had always been there, and hadn’t he always seemed like he had wanted to help her, to guide her, to show her the way? He was not just older and wiser, not even “just” a leader, but a true inspiration, a force of nature — or so it, so he, had seemed.

Without doubt, he was the man Mariah had even trusted more than any other.

But then, it had been Ian who had, for his own reasons, for his own desires, and seemingly out of nowhere, decided that it was not only entirely reasonable, but in fact positively the right thing to do, to present Mariah with the perfect husband.

Which, to Mariah’s considerable horror and bewilderment, turned out to be Ian himself.
 (Later, in dark and solitary and very private moments, Mariah would think: was the whole thing really out of nowhere? Weren’t there signs? That I should have seen? Of how he really saw me...? And even: did I myself give him some kind of sign? That I might be someone he could do that to? That I might... want it...?)

The systematic program of mind control that this same, insane individual had exerted on his intended for almost her entire life was beginning to wear off, now that Mariah had been able to spend time with people who were not members of Ian’s demented stab at a value system, and Ian had realized that Mariah was not entirely on-board with his sudden, unilateral plan for wedded bliss. And so he had kidnapped her and drugged her. His final, crazy roll of the dice.

He wouldn’t hurt me, not really, Mariah had thought, even at the time, even as the insanity unfolded before her, as Ian’s designs on her had become clear, as she realized what he had done, and planned still to do. He wouldn’t, had been what Mariah had told herself, over and over; and it was what she still tried to think, even now. She hadn’t been in any real danger at any point. There was no way...

There were lines Ian wouldn’t cross.

(Weren’t there?

What if it had gone another way?

But it didn’t, it hadn’t. It never would have...)

Now, as a grown woman, not a child, and fully out of Ian’s grip, Mariah is free to do anything she likes. To believe in whatever, in whoever, she wants.

So, why then, with all this freedom, with, officially, no-one pulling her strings, does Mariah sometimes feel an almost deadening lack of purpose. A lack of direction, a lack of point to everything. To anything at all.

It would be good to know that there was some higher logic to all of this. Some reason why she’s here. Not just in Genoa City, but on this planet... Because having been lost, and found, and now in her adopted home city with what’s left of her biological family, Mariah sometimes, somehow feels lost again.

One thing you can say about all those vital, fundamental and formative years in the clutches of a more-clearly-disordered-than most-mainstream-religions-pseudo-belief system — well, yes, a cult — if you must — created and run by, it was true, a narcissistic sociopath, was that you did always have a reason to wake up in the morning. You always had somewhere you felt you belonged.

Mariah doesn’t voice all of this aloud.

But some of it, yes she does, and she does end with:

“At least a cult makes you feel wanted.”

“Well, gosh,” Lindsay declares.

Mariah stares down into apparent clouds swirling in the drink set before her.

Lindsay shakes her head, as if to clear a thought from it. “I... guess that’s... a point. That can be made. In favor of, um cults. You know, Mariah, you kind of have... a unique way of seeing things.”

They are at Lindsay’s bar ("not really my bar, I just work here"), The Matchbox ("watch your life go up in flames! OK, not funny, sorry, Mariah") in the late afternoon, after Mariah has spent most of her day pretending to do work, to achieve things, and to be productive.

Truth is, she has spent the entire day barely concentrating on anything at all, not able to think. Except about how empty her life seems sometimes.
And also about Tessa Porter.

Mariah is free, now. She can do whatever she likes, and yes, she can be with whoever she wants. No-one is forcing her to be with them, no-one is compelling her down the aisle.

But then again, Mariah thinks, that's quite simply because no-one is that crazy about me. And that’s a good thing, obviously. Of course it is.
But then again, she’s no longer special. If she ever was.
I am not anyone’s first choice.

Even Devon, the most eligible guy in town and consummate gentleman, is trying to keep his mind off his feelings for someone else by asking Mariah out. And they both know it. Mariah can look ahead, can see how that attempt at a romance between them would play out, perhaps in some parallel universe where they do give it a try: the two of them going through the motions, working through the stages of intimacy together; and perhaps lasting a few months, maybe making it to a year.

All the while, trying to distract themselves with each other, when their hearts and minds are elsewhere...

And as for Tessa — because, whaddya know, Devon as a diversion doesn’t work, she’s back to thinking of Tessa already — well, Tessa has chosen Noah, hasn’t she?

Mariah hasn’t, after all, spent all day pining after Tessa Porter. Nope. 
She's wasted another 24 hours of her life on Tessa Newman.

“You’re really stuck on this girl, huh...” Lindsay looks at her.

Mariah has hit the bar so as to steel herself with Dutch courage, that is to say Jamaican rum, that is to say whatever form, brand and provenance of alcohol is readily available, for an evening imminently required to be spent witnessing her brother and her lover making lovey-dovey eyes at each other over her mother’s dinner table.

“Trying saying that five times fast after another three of those,” Lindsay says, gesturing to the cocktail she's just set in front of her current best customer. “Speaking of dinner ... you’re still sure that you want me to come along tonight?”

“Yeah, yeah, definitely,” Mariah says, with a wave of her hand. “Sharon — my mom — she said I could bring a friend. And honestly, I don’t think I can sit there on my own... I mean, not on my own, but you know... with all the family... and Noah... and Tessa...”

“See this?” Lindsay extends the index finger on each hand and points firmly back at herself. “Right here? You’re looking at the perfect buffer.”

“Buffer?”


“You can stick me right in the middle of the whole thing, and I will deflect, and distract. Leave it to me. Your job is to not stare at this Tessa chick all night.”


“I won’t be staring... at Tessa... all night,” Mariah says.


It hadn’t sounded any more convincing in her head, than how it comes out.

“Well, I will be there to try to draw your eyes away from this girl”, Lindsay tells her. “And I back myself in these types of situations.”

“Really? Have you been in a lot of these situations?”

Lindsay pretends to stop and think. “Let’s see. Drop-dead gorgeous women with complicated love lives, inviting me to dinner so that I can help take their mind off things? I mean... I don’t like to brag... but a few.”

Mariah has a sudden, Noah-related, pang of guilt. Complicated love lives.

“I guess this all sounds like I’m being really awful to my brother, huh.”

“That’s... what you got from what I said?” Lindsay looks at her.

“No... I.... It’s just — I’ve never — there’s never been anyone...”

Mariah doesn’t have the words to explain what’s happening with Tessa to Lindsay, or anyone. Including herself.

“You like her,” Lindsay says. “A lot. I get it. No doubt she’s hot — I mean, a woman like you wouldn’t need to settle for any less — and I mean, that first woman...” Lindsay emits a low whistle. “Yikes. I totally understand.”

First woman? Mariah thinks. Like... there will be others?
“But I would, pausing my skills as a mixologist for a moment here, suggest you keep it simple, and recommend some pure, unadulterated fun.”

The only other occupant of the bar, who had been sat quietly nursing a glass of rosé in the corner for an hour or more, finally finishes her drink, and, with a semi-salute, semi-wave to Lindsay and Mariah both, steps out into the early evening of Genoa City.

“Fun...,” Mariah echoes, quietly, as the door closes.

“Yeah. Enjoying yourself: a concept.” Lindsay sweeps her hand in the air, as if to sell a slogan on a movie poster, and looks Mariah right in the eye.

Mariah’s single. That’s how it is. And she hasn’t been with anyone except Tessa in... how long? A year, now? She doesn’t want to be some sad individual pining over a woman who has chosen Mariah's little brother over her, which let’s face it, is exactly who she is right now, isn’t it?

Lindsay’s obviously flirting. And sure, she probably does that with every other woman who walks into this bar, but she’s gay, or bi at least, and she must be “out”, mustn’t she, to work somewhere like this? Has to be highly unlikely to have a husband. All points in her favor.

And she’s good-looking, and good company, and unlike with Devon, who Mariah really, really likes as a person, but can’t feel any true attraction for, there’s something there, a little frisson between them of some kind.

Mariah doesn’t need to mope over Tessa, does she? No, she doesn’t! Mariah could just lean over the bar right now and kiss Lindsay. If she wanted to. And I mean, if that were in any way appropriate, which it probably isn’t, given Lindsay is working, and Mariah is a customer, and, well...

Mariah thinks of last night in bed with Tessa. It was impossibly good.
She thinks of Tessa leaving her to go back to Noah. What is she, a married woman’s dirty little secret? It was, it is, agh. Ouch. And so on and so forth.


“These things can be complicated,” Lindsay says, her voice low, even though they’re now alone.

“But they can also... be really not complicated at all.”

And it’s Lindsay who leans over the bar and kisses Mariah softly; a kiss that is something between friendly, and something more. It’s closed-mouthed, gentle, but very much full on the lips and deliberate, intended, and meant. It’s not the blast to the senses that Tessa’s kiss was, or, if last night was anything to judge by, still is, but it stops the runaway train of her thoughts for a few seconds all the same, Mariah thinks, and she’s wondering whether to respond, to kiss her back, when Lindsay pulls away, and the door to the bar opens again.

“And here’s Kelly. The evening shift,” Lindsay says, nodding to the woman who enters the bar with something of a wry grin on her face — having witnessed the tail end of their kiss, probably, Mariah thinks.

“Nearly time for my night off. And yours.”


“Mine?” Mariah can still taste Lindsay’s lip balm, what is that, strawberry something; she licks her lips without thinking.


“From all this Tessa drama. Tip for you: just keep looking at me,” Lindsay says.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


“Welcome, welcome,” Sharon says when she opens the door. “Nick’s already here.”

Noah’s dad, Noah had said, was “totally fine” about the marriage, when Noah had gone to tell him the happy news in person earlier that day, and Noah himself seemed content with that; but Tessa registered the exact level of response: that the reaction hadn't been “delighted” or “excited." She sees Nick appraise her now, as she walks in, and they meet for the first time.

He is sizing her up, in a similar way to how Sharon did, but with a man’s eye; and Tessa wonders what he sees, and what he thinks. His son is soft, sensitive, and loyal. But Noah is also naïve, and whilst, from the family history her new husband gave her, Tessa knows Nick grew up just as wealthy and privileged as Noah did, there is, perhaps unsurprisingly, more wisdom and experience in his gaze, in how he looks at her; and Tessa feels a little exposed.

This is the kind of guy who would make her feel nervous, in other circumstances. He reminds her of someone...

“Mariah not here yet?” Noah says.

“On her way. Bringing a friend,” Sharon tells him, and Noah smiles knowingly.

“Oh, you know who it is!” Sharon places her hand gently on her son’s elbow for a moment.

“I have an idea.”

“I do too,” Sharon agrees. "I'm glad to see something is finally happening between them."

Devon, Tessa supposes. Although Mariah hadn’t seemed that into him last night...? Not given how the night had ended...

But perhaps Mariah needs someone to sit next to, and balance out the energy in the family. When sitting opposite the former Mr and Mrs Newman, the new Mr and Mrs Newman... It’s not like she is in a position to judge who Mariah wants to spend the evening with. It's not like she has any right... to feel... what does she feel?

“Tessa, a pleasure. Noah tells me you’re from Chicago?” Nick says, all at once, whilst handing Tessa a glass of wine. His tone is a pleasant neutral, but his question feels more than casual and conversational. Like his words are going somewhere.

“Yes,” Tessa says. “Sure am.”

“Whereabouts?”

There is no point in Tessa pretending she is from money. She knows this; she will be easily found out if she attempts to give the false impression that her family were, are, anything like as rich and successful as the Newmans, or even halfway to that sort of level of fulfilment of the American dream. But Tessa doesn’t want to give herself away in other ways, either: to disclose her time quite literally on the streets, for example, the sort of detail she has actively kept from Noah so far.

(Tessa does not quite realize, at this point, that as well as those things she has opened up and told her, Noah's sister, by a process of assembling those jigsaw-piece details, those breadcrumbs of information, that Tessa tends to inadvertently drop when her guard is down, might be able to put some of this together, sooner or later. Tessa knows her carefully assembled barriers are not holding, not when Mariah is around; but she doesn't quite appreciate what this will mean for the entirety of the rest of her life).

The retconned backstory Tessa has adopted for herself and intends to convey further tonight, is that she grew up comfortably, but unremarkably, middle-class. This, she thinks, has to be at least plausible, and it has worked so far. If there are any gaps in her cover story, then Noah doesn't seem to have noticed; or if he has, he has not been concerned enough to confront her. Nick, of course, is a somewhat different prospect. She has worked on her accent, she wants to be a performer, after all; the one she uses now is not natural, but the one she had deployed during the jewelry store scam back in Chicago. It sounds a little weird even to her own ear sometimes, but at least it is different to her real one. The one that slips out now and then during private time. Like when she’s in bed with Noah’s sister... She mustn't drink too much tonight, her tongue can't be too loose...

“Hyde Park,” she now tells Nick.

Of course, this is a lie, but she can hardly tell the truth. Tessa didn’t grow up in the part of town with the goddamned university in it. She is from the South Side semi-slums. But Tessa did stay in Hyde Park for a short time, with someone. She knows the area slightly; it seems safer than naming an area she doesn’t know at all.

“Hyde Park... That’s where the History Museum is, right?” Nick says, his expression unreadable.

“Science and Industry,” Tessa says, after the faintest of pauses, and with a smile. “History... is Lincoln Park.”

Nick nods to acknowledge that he has been corrected; although something tells Tessa he knew already that he was wrong. Was he trying to catch her out? Noah’s dad is, already, hard to read; he is not the open book his son is. Nicholas Newman is the type of guy who makes Tessa apprehensive, exactly because he could be one thing in public, and another in private. Her own father was not like this. Say what you like about the guy (disgusting, abusive piece of shit, would be one of Tessa's suggestions and if you don't like that, she has others), but he was incapable of duplicity.

But she's met other men who came across the way Nick does now, a smile on their face and something else behind, and she tells herself to be cautious of him. Not that she quite thinks him capable of some of the things she has been through from other "family men"; surely not. But still...

"Welcome to the family," Nick tells her now, and again, his tone is hard to discern. "We'll do a proper toast, when Mariah gets here."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

When Mariah thinks of family — the people, the roles, the relationships — this is not something instinctive, as it seems for others. Ask someone to think of their mother and whether she is still alive or not, whether a person can stand to be in the same room as the person who gave birth to them or not, the response will often be visceral one, or at least in some way emotional.

But Mariah is still learning who her family are. Half of her nuclear family, as they call it (a crazy term for it, Mariah has always thought, I mean it’s something to do with the core, she supposes, but doesn’t it connote other things? Explosions. Radiation...) — well, they are dead. Her “real” father is gone. So too is the twin sister Mariah’s been told she is at least in theory identical to; but can’t replace. Only Mariah and Sharon are left.

The two of them don’t exactly have a full, or at least, conventional, mother-and-daughter relationship, either, not that one of those was ever likely to materialize. It was always too late when they finally met for that to ever really happen, after all of that lost time, and however hard they try to make up for it. However many times Mariah knows Sharon has forgiven her for her mistakes, made allowances for her failings, the two of them will never quite get there, Mariah thinks. She will never stop saying “Sharon” most of the time, instead of “mom.”

And what of the rest of the “family”? Noah and Faith, Mariah’s younger half-brother and -sister through Sharon, both have Nick as their dad, in biology and in upbringing, and Mariah sees how the shape of their lives is so very different to her own. Leave aside the stability of being able to pick both of your parents out of a line-up any day of the week, what's more, both are Newmans; and while Mariah gets on with these mostly wholesome, good-natured kids, and certainly sees them as truly her siblings, she sometimes isn’t always the best at the “big sister” role. Take the present circumstances, for example... would she be longing for the wife of a brother she had properly grown up with, or does what she was doing last night with, to, his wife; letting, asking, encouraging his wife do to her... speak to the fact that she and Noah aren't really so close after all?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"I don't want to talk about it..."
 

Tessa has retconned her own backstory.


"But someone hurt you..."
 Mariah had been gesturing wildly, wanting answers.


Tessa is a liar. She's a fraudster. She's a cheat. That's enough.

(Is she? A cheat?

When she is with Mariah?

Or... when she is with Noah?)

A con artist... Someone who sleeps with a woman, and then with that woman's brother too...

Not a victim.


A villain.


That's better.

Cutting off Mariah's questions with a kiss. "Not tonight."

Standing in her mother-in-law's house the next night, Tessa is drinking the wine her father-in-law had brought, nodding at her husband, and thinking about how good his sister tastes. His sister, who they're all waiting for. His sister, whose tongue, hands, fingers do things to Tessa that no part of Noah ever can.

She does things with Noah. Of course she does. She lets him do things to her. Tessa must make him feel like he really is newly-married and all that goes with it. Her instructions are clear; Noah Newman is not to suspect a thing. Like her accent (and her school absence notes, and a series of checks all the way from GC to NYC with a big detour to California and Nevada), she forges and fakes the physicality, too, and what it means. It's not like she hasn't done it before. So Tessa lets Noah physically inside her, because she must.

But even via half-truths, the full truth is that she's let Mariah in deeper already.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

OK, so Mariah isn't going to win Sister of the Year anytime soon.

But the wider Newman clan treat Mariah like part of the family only when they want something from her. Victor Newman has Gatsby-esque piles of money and everything that it can buy, after all. Not just things; things are the least of what he and his children and grandchildren can acquire. Things bought with ready piles of cash are simply toys for those with no imagination. Power, status; these are the true trappings of wealth. The Newmans' position is what they are really paying for.

What is mostly left to demand from Mariah is her unwavering loyalty. Swearing fealty, Mariah thinks, whenever she is in the presence of Victor or Nikki, as though is she is required to pledge her allegiance to the lord and lady of some medieval kingdom, rather than existing in the semi-orbit of... what are they to her, exactly... once, and perhaps, given the way Sharon and Nick are on-off and likely always will be, future, step-grandparents?

And so, it is via her mother’s particular romantic choices some years after her own birth that Mariah gets all of the drama, and none of the benefits, of being a sort-of-offshoot of a modern dynasty. She’s a more permanent part of the furniture than Sharon’s boyfriends, or husbands (the ones who aren’t Nick), perhaps; but really not so very important, and largely ignored, unless and until she does something that might impact the Newman reputation.

Mariah is simply a sort of “extra person”; the semi-welcome guest, one who isn’t quite ever told to make herself feel at home.

And not just at Victor and Nikki’s, Mariah sometimes thinks. Even having found her “real” mother again, moving in with her, she can never be quite sure she’s home.

Speaking of which...

“Sorry.” It's already after the time to leave, Mariah’s glass is empty, and she’s spilled her guts again. She pulls on her coat. “We'd better go. And I... guess you didn’t need my whole life history.”

Lindsay smiles, slightly, bites her lip, continues her careful look. “No, actually, Mariah, I’m glad to hear it. Sounds like you needed to get stuff off your chest. And, it’s all useful background for this whole, dinner, deal tonight." She pauses. "I’m also available for weddings, and bar and bat mitzvahs.”

“Well, thankfully, the wedding part of this whole...” she searches for another word, finally just expels her first thought of: “shitshow, is out of the way. I suppose I should be grateful to some random chapel in the desert for the fact that I didn’t have to sit through that.”

“Hmm...," Lindsay says, looking thoughtful as they walk to the cab. "Sounds like they were in a real hurry to get married.”

“A hurry?”
 Lindsay shrugs. “Well, don’t you think? As you told it, running off to the middle of nowhere like that, without a word to anyone?”

What is she saying?

“Just wondering what the big urgency was.”

“Well... Noah said it was... a whirlwind... thing...” Mariah says, hearing the doubt in her own voice. “I mean... if you're thinking... I'm not thinking... any kind of... Tessa’s been drinking, I mean, drinking alcohol, I've seen her. So it’s not like she can be, you know... in a condition where she... shouldn't do that.”

Would have been quicker to say "pregnant," genius.

"Yeah, well, people don't really get married because of that anymore, do they? Unless they're like super- traditional, which, well, it doesn't sound like it." Lindsay shrugs again as the cab pulls away. "So it's some big super-romantic deal, right? And yet...”

Mariah’s mouth, her throat, feel dry — which seems kind of impossible, given how much she’s been drinking. “Go on,” she tells Lindsay.

“Well... what I’m hearing is, your brother and this Tessa girl met and got married really fast. Lightning fast. You had no idea about any of it, your mom didn’t either. So, sure, maybe Noah swept her off her feet, maybe he’s as cute as you are...” Lindsay raises her eyebrows.

“But then, pretty much first chance she gets...", she continues, "Tessa is back in bed with you." The cab driver glances in his rear view mirror very quickly, makes eye contact with Mariah, and looks away.

"Now, no offence to him, but maybe Noah doesn't do it for her," Lindsay says. "Very possible, let me know tell you, what straight men get away with is... astonishing. But there could be another explanation. I mean, I’m just thinking, is there some other reason that Tessa would marry your brother? She could be polyamorous," she adds. "On which, you know, no judgement. Although I wouldn't recommend siblings for that kind of thing..."

"Some other reason?" Mariah says.

"Well, people do things for all kinds of reasons..."
It seems like it's been staring Mariah in the face, but now someone else has spelt it out... Mariah makes herself confront it.

Tessa isn't Tessa Porter... She's Tessa Newman...

"I can think of several million of them," Mariah concedes in a murmur.

Mariah's done her best to arrive to dinner as late as possible, and will exit as early as is politely possible. She's brought company to make the whole thing more bearable. But it still feels like it's going to be a very long night...

To be continued