September 2008

They had fallen asleep with their limbs entangled after their lovemaking. Bette awoke several hours later and felt the sweet pressure of Tina’s head snuggled between her breasts.  She sensed Tina’s body sprawled on top of her own but she did not want to disturb their closeness so she did not move her head to look.  Bette treasured such rare moments when she became barely conscious, her body without sinew or bones, completely melted into Tina’s.  She could not tell where one of them ended or the other began.  It felt as if their cells had merged and become one.  Bette was conscious enough and long enough to imprint the memory.  She then drifted back to sleep.

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Neither of them had ever been able to discern a pattern that explained why some mornings after they had made love the night before were special.  This was one of the special ones.

Angelica was noisily eating her cereal when Tina entered the kitchen in her bathrobe, her eyes still sleepy and unfocused.

“Mama T!”

“Good morning pumpkin,” Tina bent down to kiss Angelica’s cheek.  “Mama B didn’t put any milk in your cereal.”

“Don’t like milk.”

“T, that started a few days ago.”  Bette had turned around when she heard Tina, her face graced with a sweet shy smile.

Tina looked up at Bette, and mirrored the same expression.

They couldn’t have explained it, but the light in the kitchen seemed soft and cocooning.

“But you still like your glass of milk, right Angie.”

“With chocolate?”

“Sometimes but without chocolate too.”

Angelica nodded her head, then again concentrated on her attempts to spoon the treacherous dry cereal pieces on to her spoon and into her mouth/

“Hey you,” Tina whispered when she was standing in front of Bette,  As she whispered, she softly trailed the fingers of her right hand down Bette’s left arm.  Bette watched the trailing fingers and grabbed them as they reached her own hand.  She pulled them to her lips and gently kissed them.

The morning rituals were filled with soft touches and even softer glances.  They snapped out of their trance whenever their four year old needed tending, but each time it fell back into place as if there had been no interruption when their child’s needs had been met.

At bedtime, each sensed that it would be a hold close, rather than passionate, night.  It was fine—each type had its place.  They performed their nightly rituals, unintentionally and intentionally getting in each others way, hogging the sink or grabbing a towel just as the other was reaching for it.  The playful teasing was another assurance that all was right with their world.

Each lifted the duvet on her side of the bed as she climbed under the covers.  They moved towards the center of the bed.  Their sleeping position was being considered by each woman, but Tina decided first.  She pushed Bette on to her back while she slipped her own body lower.  Tina threw one leg over Bette’s, slid half of her torso on top of Bette, and sniggled her head into Bette’s breasts.  Bette smiled at Tina’s mirroring her position of the early morning.

They were still awake and reveling in their closeness when Bette murmured, “What are we doing this year for Thanksgiving?” Bette felt Tina jerk to wakefulness.

“It’s September.  We don’t need to decide that now.”

“We do if we are going away like we used to do, I mean, before Angie.”

Each thought to herself that their daughter was already four and they had yet to establish any holiday rituals.

“Do you want to go away?” Tina asked.

“If you do,”

“But do you want to go away?”

Bette had wanted Tina to be the first to bring up the issue, but now that she had done it herself, she thought she should speak the truth, “I think that we should start the family dinner we said we would host when we had children.  The kind where we would invite all of our friends and family.”

Bette felt Tina relax and melt into her body.

“Me too.”