Face Of The Monster

***12***

Phoebe Kim is smitten and she knows it.

Her heart is pounding, her face is flushed, her hands are sweating. She is unable to speak, silenced with pleasure, and her breathing is shallow. All of this just from one simple kiss on the cheek.

Phoebe Kim is smitten, but she isn't going to let anyone know that. She clears her throat and takes a breath, wiping her hands on her jeans. She pulls away and offers Emma a smile. "Good to see you," she says.

Emma doesn't bother responding. They're alone in her office, the door shut. Lars is out getting some coffee and Phoebe doesn't have another appointment until two hours later. The room feels small and cozy, bathed in the soft yellow light of Phoebe's desk lamp.

Emma traces her finger along the collar of Phoebe's shirt. "Come sit with me," she says.

"Okay."

She follows behind Emma and sits down beside her on the couch. Its cushions are fairly stiff, durable in order to survive years of tears and spills and all around abuse. The stiffness of the couch reminds her, for a brief moment that what she is doing is essentially wrong. The hard cushions are warning her against it.

Emma doesn't seem to remember her qualms today, though. She weaves her hands into Phoebe's hair, combing through it with a small, seductive smile. "I had a dream about you earlier today," she confides.

"Really?" she mutters. Emma's fingertips leave tingling trails on her scalp like sparks jumping.

"Mhm. And then, I just couldn't stop thinking about it." She stops talking, brushing her lips teasingly over Phoebe's. They seem to be caught in their own warm, quiet little bubble of contentedness, the glassy walls pushing away the rest of reality. But through the bubble, she is aware of the dull thud of life beyond them.

"Emma," she says, reluctantly pulling away. "I think we need to talk."

Emma moans in protest. "No, we don't."

"Emma."

"I know what you're going to say." Emma drops back from her, throwing herself dejectedly into the firm corner of the couch as though blasted by a mild explosion. Phoebe takes in Emma's body from this safe, feasible distance. Her breasts swell and fall with the rhythm of her breath. Her leg swings back and forth, knee ticking like the needle of a metronome. "You're going to say we shouldn't be doing this and that it's wrong and yadda yadda yah. I know, okay? I know it's wrong. I just need this right now, okay? I need you."

Phoebe frowns at the sharpness of Emma's tone. She supposes it should please her, seeing Emma back in form, at least ostensibly. Rather, it almost disappoints her. Vulnerable Emma was a pleasant break, if not an upsetting one. "Why don't you just relax for a minute," Phoebe suggests. "And we can figure this out."

Emma lets out a breath. "Okay."

Phoebe scoots to her own side of the couch. There's something perversely arousing about their forbiddenness, she knows, a certain spark that wouldn't exist if their relationship was perfectly open and above water. As it is, she feels herself growing hot with attraction even as she separates herself from the other woman. She gathers her breath and says what is true: "We're cheating."

"I know," Emma says. "And so do you. Yet, here we are."

Yes, here they are. Phoebe listens to the noise outside for a moment. Out there are dishonest, jaded people, all crawling about to their own immoral affairs and inclinations. Who's to say that the two of them aren't allowed to have their own? If everyone else is so unapologetically unjust, why shouldn't they be, too? If Emma's husband is thoughtless enough to demand a baby from her and Phoebe's girlfriend is so disregarding as to bring her affairs into their own bed, why shouldn't they have this? Why can't they have a kiss, or two or three? Why can't they indulge themselves, this once?

But Phoebe's brain isn't wired this way. She sees this choice as a long, branching path that includes many obstacles, the psyches of many different people being thrust into her hands. She doesn't see how everyone, if anyone, can come out of hers and Emma's affair unscathed. Not Chloe, not Enrique, not the children, not the two of them. Everyone will just end up hurt.

"It would be selfish of us to carry on like this," says Phoebe. "There are other people we have to think about aside from ourselves."

Emma doesn't answer. She has no plausible argument for this indisputable issue.

In the lapse of silence that follows, Phoebe's mind dips back into the gauzy depths of Emma's story. She thinks of the woman, Agatha, draped in her strange, toga-like dress, a lurid apparition illuminated with wisdom. It's her, she's sure of it. She has a character in Lillian's world, at last.

Agatha, in the story, is a little glimmer of light in the new darkness of Lillian's existence. Phoebe glances over at the woman splayed on the other side of the couch. It's awful for her to think of how much she might be hurting Emma by denying her. She needs, desperately, that glimmer of light.

Phoebe dares to touch Emma's hand. She doesn't move. "Sweetie," she says, letting her voice go low with tenderness. "I know how you feel. I really do. But we can't be together."

"You don't know how I feel."

Hooking her pinkie around Emma's, she promises, "I do. I know it's hard to let go of a good thing, especially when everything else seems so dark. But you have to trust me: it will all get better. You'll be glad this happened, one day." She feels like she is choking herself. She doesn't want to say the words but knows they are right.

But Emma won't have it. "Are you saying we have to stop seeing each other?" she asks. "That was sudden."

"That's not what I'm saying. We can still see each other. I just don't think pursuing a romantic relationship would be in anyone's best interest."

Emma, once more, falls silent. Their brief quarrel seems to have exhausted her. Now, she sits up, looking at Phoebe with sad, accusing eyes. She doesn't have to say anything. Phoebe feels the full weight of her loneliness without words.

"Think of how awful you'd feel if your husband found out," she says.

"I don't care." Emma's face is stony, cold. "I don't care if he finds out. Let's take pictures, shall we? Let's take a video, send it to him, see what he does. He's not going to divorce me. He's not going to tell anyone. What do I care if he finds out? Lesbianism is just a fetish to him, anyway. He'd probably think it was hot, not threatening." Emma crosses her arms, her eyes sparkling with tears.

Phoebe finds this interesting more than offensive. She has known many men like this, of course, who think women who are attracted to other women exist purely for the entertainment of the others who can't have them. She has been harassed for her sexuality, fetishized for it, avoided, ignored, spurned, all because of something inside her that has decided she wants something different than everyone other child-bearing oriented woman she meets. She's used to it. So she reaches over and dries Emma's tears with the back of her sleeve. "That's alright," she says. "It doesn't matter what he thinks."

"It matters to me," she sniffs. "I almost want to tell him, Phoebe. I just want to tell him and see if he understands. He'd think it was cute, probably. Cute that his stupid little wife has herself a girlfriend."

Phoebe, seeing they've tapped into a new subject of aggression, retreats back to her side of the couch. "Why do you feel that he thinks of you as stupid?"

"Because I am," Emma says. "I don't have a college degree like him and all his friends."

"That doesn't make you stupid."

"Makes me seem like I am."

"Emma, you know that you're an intelligent person, whether you have a degree or not. You have to stop worrying about what everyone else thinks of you."

"But he's not everyone else!" she cries. "He's my husband. We've spent fifteen years together."

Phoebe feels a pang of regret, imagining Emma throughout the years, growing sad and tired and defensive. She wonders what could have been if they'd found each other sooner. "Alright, Emma," Phoebe says. She feels drained, done with. "He can think what he will, but just remember, there's always someone here who loves you and respects you."

Emma meets her eye. Then she stands up to leave.