I followed dutifully in Margaret's wake, like a forlorn tugboat, as we made our way to our shared room via the back staircase. We met a startled maid on the way and Margaret told her about my mess. She didn't even bat an eye at the request to clean up for me and it left me feeling squirmy and guilty. The one thing I had promised myself was that I wasn't going to turn into one of those self-important snobs who didn't take care of herself when she very easily could.
The window in our room was open to let in a brave breeze, and Margaret's hair kept was fluttering out of the loose bun at the nape of her neck, that curl I liked so much beckoning me just as surely as my desperate need to make Margaret understand how much I need her, and how much I was terrified that any change meant that we would lose what we had. Dread yawned in my guts, and I shut the door behind us with a slam, surged forward, and attacked the back of her neck with my lips.
"Jessie!" she laughed.
I tugged the ties out of her hair, letting it fall down her back, golden and curling slightly and glossy. No hair dyes here to ruin hair texture, no over blow drying, just soft, natural, smooth to the touch.
"Shh," I said, then wrapped my arms around her shoulders, and walked us over to the bed. I sat and scooted up to the headboard. " Lay down. Lean back on my knees."
I tucked my feet under her bum and she leaned back, hair spreading across the triangle of my thighs, into my lap, intimate. I ran my fingers through her locks, combing down any knots I found carefully, setting aside the pins. Margaret hummed and let her head fall back to rest on my knees, and closed her eyes. I moved up, until my nails were scraping lightly across her scalp, her hair tangle-free and sleek. I gave into the temptation to dig my fingers in, scratch the nails lightly across her skull, rub at the tension lingering against her temples, across her eyebrows.
She started panting, cheeks flushing red, and I grinned, leaned down to lick and nibble on the shell of her ear.
"Really?" I whispered. "From this? Kinky."
She chuckled, reached back with one hand to curl her fingers around the nape of my neck, redirected my head so she could arch, thrusting her very pretty, pillowy breasts into the air, tilting so our noses wouldn't bump. Her mouth was wet and warm and hungry, nibbling at my lips.
"Hm," I said as the strain of the position proved too much and Margaret collapsed back against the mattress. "No, come back, do that again. I liked the view."
She swatted my thigh and sat up. "Now I am completely distracted. I cannot possibly write today." She pushed her hair back over her shoulder.
"I have an idea on how we can fill the time," I said, pushing my dress up and out of the way to collect around my ribs. Margaret's pupils blew wide. I tugged her back around so she was seated between my legs, her back against my chest. Slowly, sensually, I pulled her dress up her calves, fingers brushing her stockings, teasing. She wriggled in my lap, made a high sweet sound that made me want to bite her shoulder, so I did. She squeaked and giggled and then pressed her own hands to her mouth to stifle any louder sounds.
"That's it, shhh," I said, as tongued the bite mark I'd left in her pale skin. She'd need to wear a fichu tonight to cover it - perhaps a full shawl. I like that idea, the thought of looking up at Margaret over the dinner table, knowing that she was wearing my mark in a room full of people, and being forced to keep it secret. Keep it safe.
I sucked at the hickey, really going to town now, and her head dropped to the side. She moaned into her own palm, muffled and so fucking sexy. I pulled her dress up all the way, arranged the mound of fabric across her waist, and then slipped my hands under her knees, pulling her legs, up, over my own knees, holding her open, exposed.
"Jessie," she gasped as I let the fingers of my good hand trail through her pubic thatch, collect up the moisture that was already beading around the lips of her labia, tease her clit.
"In the name of Christ, woman, I beg you," Margaret hissed, dropping one hand away from her face to grab my wrist and press my knuckles against her entrance. The other hand she used to reach back and push my mouth harder against her skin. "Stop teasing me and fuck me."
I couldn't help the quick thrust, the way my pelvis surged forward, pressing my own clit hard against her warm bum, the back of her drawers. I moaned into the skin of her shoulder, obliging her and curling two fingers inside to press at her g-spot. Margaret jolted and keened, head arching back, so I could slip my other hand down the front of her dress and pinch a nipple between my mobile thumb and forefinger.
"Jessie, Jessie," she whined, fist in my hair, biting the back of her hand to try to stay quiet, grinding down on my palm to get friction on her own clit. "Yes, I love you, oh, I love you--"
"I love you too," I said, flicking her clit with my thumb and she bucked again and whined and was coming hard and fast on my hand.
God, fucking yes, I thought. Gorgeous. "Margaret, you're gorgeous," I said out loud. "Gimmie a sec and I'll--"
The door to the bedroom opened. Without a knock.
My first, sex-stupid thought was I forgot to lock it.
"I left my walking shawl in the trunk by mistake, do you--" said Rose as she stepped over the threshold, then stopped dead in her tracks. She looked, suddenly, like she was going to be sick.
Margaret scrambled to push her dress back down.
"Shit," I whispered.
Rose slammed the door behind herself in horror, stepping back into the hall, and called through the door: "Get dressed!"
Margaret and I scrambled to make ourselves decent, and I washed my hand quickly and was still shaking off the water when Rose slammed back in. The door opened so violently that it bounced against the wall before nearly smacking back into her arm. She caught it and kicked it shut behind her, more aggressive and angry than I'd ever seen staid and steady Rose Goodenough before.
She raised a sharp finger at me and pointed at a chair by the fireplace. "You. Sit and be silent."
With no idea what was to come next, no idea where she was going with this, I sat and was silent. Margaret Remained standing in the middle of the room, though, back straight, chin upthrust, expression proud and haughty and just daring her sister to order her about too. Rose looked like she was going to try to, then snapped her mouth just, balled her hands by her sides, and paced a furious circuit around the room. Her eyes bounced over everything, as if looking for hidden sex toys or lavasious texts, or whatever else she had decided two women who liked to fuck were likely to indulge in. She sneered and snapped, grimaced and groaned, horrified by her own imaginate of fears, and Margaret and I stayed silent, defiant in that silence, waiting.
Without having to voice it, in a single meaningful glance, we communicated to each other that we would not be bullied, not be cowed in this.
Rose paced over to the window, looked out at something, sneered, turned around, paced back to the door where Margaret and I stood watching, slammed it closed, turned and did another circuit of the room, then finally stopped at the foot of her bed.
"I do not know what to say," she finally admitted. Her voice was tight, her teeth clenched together so hard that the sound barely escaped. "If my father were alive he would be shamed."
"Hey, now," I said, pulling myself upright and rising to our defence.
"You, be silent!" she hissed so venomously that I took a physical step backwards, tripping down into the chair again. "You have done enough damage to this household and this family!"
"Rose," Margaret said sternly, but her sister turned away, hiding her face in her hands.
"Margaret, I blush for your sins. Our family does not need a scandal. This ... this creature... that has done this to you, how can you choose her over our mother? Over our duty? It is unnatural and it is wrong and if it were to become common gossip it would ruin us all. Have you no consideration for your siblings? For your poor mother and your father's memory?"
"I haven't done a thing to Margaret that she's hasn't asked for," I protested, "or that she hasn't done back to me!"
"I said be silent!"
"I will not allow you to speak to Jessie that way," Margaret said, stepping in between Rose and I, shielding me from her sister's anger. " I love Jessie, quite ardently, and I shall not let you--"
"Love?" Rose echoed, aghast. "This is not as God intended women to love! It is shameful. This creature," she said pointing at me over Margaret's shoulder, and I felt rage and shame and horror knot up behind my sternum. I was an it, a thing. "This sinner has done nothing but corrupt our family! You saw how she distracted Francis! Did you hear of the debt in incurred for her!"
"Hey!" I shouted, standing up, moving to Margaret's side. I wasn't about to let my wife fight my battles for me, or to stand against his bigotry alone. "I paid that back!"
Rose ran contemptuous eyes from top to tail. "I am certain you did."
I gasped. She had actually just insinuated what I thought had been a secret. Or did she just mean that I had turned Francis' head? By the time Rose had met me, Francis and I were already over and done.
I suddenly wondered how observant Rose wreally was. All those looks over her shoulder, the glances up from the pages of a book, a peer down the hall when she was supposed to be shut up in the library salon with the boys she tutored. What had she seen? What had she understood?
And how much had I missed because I was busy being an self-assured twenty-first century woman, smug and behaving like I was pulling one over on the cute little way-back-when simpletons around me? God, how arrogant. Queer folk had always existed; we weren't invented in the last hundred years. And people who thought queer folks were wrong, or disgusting, or gross, or who - like Rose, God, I hoped like Rose - just didn't understand.
"Are they all as Godless as you in the colonies?" Rose spat, needling when I was silent for too long. "Are they all as deprived as moral decency as you?"
"We're not a bunch of prudish gossips, if that's what you mean!" I snarled back. Something cold and heavy began building in my guts, my lungs squeezing, the edges of my vision blackening. "What the fuck does it matter to you who Margaret loves?"
"I am old!" Rose snapped.
Margaret gasped, reaching out to her sister, to comfort and soothe, but Rose batted her hands away. "Rose, no."
"Mother and Francis laugh, take great delight in imagining that I will find a husband at this stage, but I am too homely, and too quiet, and too shy. Margaret is the wit! The talent! The beauty!"
Panic throttle my words, made them come out high and sharp: "I don't see what that has to do with--"
"Margaret still has a chance to marry well and save us from poverty!" Rose roared.
I rocked back on my heels, hands fluttering, sweat beading now at my hairline.
Something's happening, I realized. Something... this means something... what have you missed, what did you miss? Why isn't this going our way? This should... this history books, Margaret's companion, I love her, we can't... I can't...
"Is that it?" I whispered, choked. My eyes burned, my head swirling. I reached out to grasp Margaret's arm for balance but she had stepped away, closer to Rose, away from me. It wasn't symbolic. It didn't mean anything. Did it? I felt like I'd been punched in the face. "It's about the money?"
"We have sacrificed so much so that Margaret can write! I tutor, and I do her share of the household management when she is deep in her pages, and you are little help - what is a few columns of numbers and some errands run when you are an extra mouth and crippled as well! You giggle and titter and molest my sister! What good are you to any of us?"
"Rose!" Margaret cried, aghast.
"We have all sacrificed and what has come of it, Margaret! Rejections!"
"Only one so far," I gulped. "You have to be patient--"
"When we move to Southampton you must put aside your pen, and this, this harlot, sister. You must try, for mother, for me. Surly now it is time to due your daughterly duty, to save us from--"
"That's not fair!" I interrupted. "That's not fair, you can't put it all on her! Don't you dare tell her to to snuff out her creativity as if it was easy. She has writing in her soul--"
"Please stop talking across me as if I am not here and capable of speaking for myself!" Margaret shouted, but Rose, red-faced and blowing in fury, wasn't listening.
"Margaret's soul is none of your concern!" Rose snarled. "I will not allow you to drag her to purgatory with you for your sins. I would weep for the agony you must have cost your parents, only I fear that they are to carry the chief of the blame! But you will not drag my sister down with you! I will have you tossed out this very evening!"
"You will do no such thing!" Margaret snarled, and snatched at her sister's sleeve, hauling her close. "If you exile Jessie, mark my words, Rose, I go with her!"
Rose's expression turned absolutely thunderous, but she turned on her heel and marched out the door all the same. Her footsteps on the stairs were booming, and she slammed the door to the parlour with such force that the pictures on the walls of this room rattled.
"Jessie!" Margaret sputtered, horrified and unsure in which direction she should go, if she should follow her sister and console and lie, or stay and console me. I made the choice for her.
"Goddamnit!" I snarled. "You people and all your stupid fucking rules! Who can talk to whom, what colour to wear, which goddamned fork to stab your goddamned bacon with!"
"Jessie--"
"Shut up! Just shut the fuck up! I fucking love you, Margaret Goodenough. Okay? Is that fucking understood? Because I don't care about your goddamned society and its goddamn rules." I took her head between my hands and resisted the angry urge to shake it, to try to physically knock so sense into her. "I love you."
"Jessie, to love another woman, to have a friendship that is so ardent, so strong, there is no shame in that." And there, right fucking there, there it was in, her eyes. Rose had gotten into her head. Rose had gotten into her head. "But... but Rose is right; my sister and I, we cannot... we are not from your time, we must rely on advantageous matches to support us. We must think of our families, our mothers. I-- I cannot... you do see it, don't you? I love you, Jessie, I do, but if I can ease my burden--"
"Don't say it!" I gasped, horrified, the burning at the back of my eyes turning to full fledged tears, spilling down my cheeks. "No, please, Margaret. You can't really think--"
"You tell me pretty stories, Jessie," Margaret said softly. "You fill my head with a time and a place where our love can thrive openinly, where I am a grand author, where we can live together in joy and peace but was proof have you brought me, Jessie? What proof?"
"No, no, Margaret - please, I'm not making it up--" I said, reaching for her, and she ducked away, not a full flinch, but an avoidance.
Her moonstone eye swere wide, her lips tight, pressed in a white line. Pink splotched her cheeks. "Is Rose right? Have I frittered away my time on your lies and fancies? Have I fallen for your charm and your--"
"No," I begged. "I'm not using you. I promise I'm not. Not Francis either."
"But who are you?" Margaret demanded. "What are you that you can turn my head so completely, make me believe these dreams where a woman can be a well-respected writer and you can--"
"I am who I say I am!"
"But who is that?" Margaret demanded, her own hands shaking now, her chest heaving as she looked wildly around the room, trembling. She sobbed, once, pressed her hand against her mouth. "A woman of the sea? A mermaid? A siren come to lure me down paths of sin and sloth and lust! Pride and vanity! Oh, what have I done!"
"Margaret," I begged, a sobbed as well. "Margaret, please, I love you. I love you!" I reached out, grasping for her, but she backed up, out of my reach, skittering away as if my touch would burn, brand, condemn her forever.
I stopped, shocked, horrified, hurt.
"I love you," I whispered again, palms up, begging, begging. "Please don't do this."
She wrung her hands, eyes wide and getting wetter, and I could see it, the turmoil, the tugging desire between what she had been taught was right and what she felt was right. And then Margaret straightened. Spine stiff. Chin up. Eyes slitted. She wiped her face on her sleeve.
"Miss Franklin." she said, low and firm. "I no longer require your services as companion. I discharge you from my service. You may leave."
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