Chapter 33 - Dreamtime
"Pygmalion," Kelly and I said at the same time, then turned and laughed at ourselves for being synchronized.
"New rule!" Rizzy said disgustedly. "Kelly and Ani can't be on the same team for trivia anymore."
"Who knows things about ancient Greek poetry, anyway?" asked Shogun.
"I know it because of eleventh grade English. Kelly knows it because she's so fracking smart!" I said it knowing it would make her blush.
"I read Ovid's Metamorphoses last summer. It's just a coincidence that I knew it," Kelly said.
"Oh, that's all. You just happened to read a book that nobody else has read for a couple thousand years. It all makes sense now," Rizzy persisted. She picked up used trivia cards one by one. "Okay, then what about knowing what makes an insect a 'bug,' or which spacecraft was sent to Jupiter in 1972, or what Whoopi Goldberg's real name is, or what game has a rule called en passant-"
"That last one was my partner's," Kelly said, putting her arm around my shoulder and giving me a kiss on the cheek.
"Ergo," said Rizzy, "Kelly and Ani can no longer be a team for trivia!"
"What does 'ergo' mean?" asked Mey.
"Therefore," Kelly and I answered at the same time, then looked at each other and burst out laughing.
Rizzy threw the trivia cards in the air, stood up and pronounced, "That's it! I'm getting Monopoly."
Kelly's phone buzzed, and everyone got serious. Kelly looked at the screen, stood up, and headed for the stairs.
"Hey, Daddy," I heard her say on her way out of the basement.
It was Saturday night. We had the entire next week of school off since Wisconsin deer season opened this week and it was Thanksgiving on Thursday. So many people took their kids out of school for deer hunting, it wasn't worth keeping the school open Monday through Wednesday.
Kelly's dad would be here Wednesday night, and she wanted to talk to him before he arrived. She thought coming out to him over the phone would be easier, and give him some time to get used to the idea before seeing her...and me. The Andersons and Mr. Evans, Kelly's dad, had all been invited over to our house for Thanksgiving.
I went into freak out mode. I stood and started pacing. My right hand was over my mouth and my left hand was tucked under my right arm. I knew this was something Kelly had to do alone. At least, it was something she wanted to do alone. It still made me feel like a terrible girlfriend, not being able to do something to make it easier on her or support her through it. She had left a message earlier in the day asking him to call her when he got done with his route, so the call was expected, but that didn't make it any less stressful.
For two weeks, Kelly had been practicing what she wanted to say to her dad. She tried to anticipate his possible reactions, and what she would say in response. She rehearsed telling him about me in the least threatening way possible. For two weeks she had been stressing about this call, and now it was happening.
"Want to play some more trivia while we wait for her?" Pixie asked me softly. I looked at her. All the girls were staring at me as I paced.
"No, but thank you for trying to distract me, Pixie." I wandered over to the bottom of the stairs and listened. I couldn't hear anything. She was probably another floor up in my room with the door shut. My parents went to my grandparents' today to stay the night, then drive back with them in the morning, so Kelly had the whole upstairs to herself. I went back to pacing.
"She's a strong girl, Ani. She'll be fine," Shogun said with confidence.
"I know." I felt a little bitchy that someone else was telling me about my own girlfriend, but I knew she was just trying to comfort me.
"Plus," added Mey, "she has an awesome girlfriend to help her through whatever comes next."
"Thanks, Meyflower." I smiled at her. I hadn't considered what she must be thinking about Kelly coming out to her dad. "She has some pretty awesome friends, too. Thank you guys for being here for her."
I sat down on the couch, and Kristy sat next to me. She put her hand on my knee to stop it from bouncing up and down. "Of course we will be here for her, no matter what." She leaned in and gave me a sis hug.
"Can I ask you a question?" It was Rizzy.
"Since when do you ask permission before blurting out a question?" I teased her. She ignored the comment.
"Does Kelly get jealous when you stay the night at Kala's?" All the girls stared at me, waiting for an answer. This must have been a previous topic of conversation to get so much attention.
"I don't think so. She's never said anything. She doesn't act like it, anyway."
Last weekend we did laser tag as a group, as Kala suggested, then went out for pizza at a combination theater/restaurant that shows cult classics late at night. We saw The Princess Bride. It was a lot of fun. Kala and the girls got along great outside of school. They got to see her playful side. Afterwards, the plan was to drop off the girls, and for me to stay at Kala's.
"You know I ended up not spending the night at Kala's last weekend, right?"
"Why not?" Shogun asked. "I thought that's where you guys were going after you dropped everyone off."
"That was the plan, but Kala said something about feeling like maybe she shouldn't get to used to having me sleep over. I don't know. She's been down about something, and I figured she could use some girl talk, but I guess she didn't feel like it. Maybe she just wanted a good night's sleep. It's been a busy couple of weeks for everyone."
That was true. I started picking up a shift after school a couple nights a week to keep my money flow positive. The girls had started basketball practice and driver's training classes after school. Kelly got a job at the Preston Depot, the little grocery store near her house where she first met Timmy, because she wanted to pay for dates once in a while. Everyone had lots of school work, too, since the teachers were all trying to squeeze stuff in before the week long break.
"What's she been down about?" DJ asked.
"What?" I had wandered over by the stairs again, listening for Kelly's voice. I was hoping to hear laughter, and hoping I didn't hear crying. I realized what DJ had asked. "Oh, some girl she met and was interested in turned out to be unavailable. I guess she's already in a relationship." The girls gave each other looks.
"Who?" asked Kristy.
"I don't know," I said absently. "Someone she knows from college."
The conversation moved on to the love lives of the girls. DJ and some boy at one of the co-op's had been talking. Kristy and Darian were still a thing. A ninth grader, Falcon, who was actually very nice and smart, but was also short, chunky, and cursed with a baby face and a near obsession with Pokémon, had expressed his romantic interest in Rizzy, much to everyone's amusement. Pixie and I were on team Falcon. I kept telling Rizzy he was one of those kids that was going to grow up to be a handsome doctor, and all the girls would be wishing they had dated him. As a bonus, with a name like Falcon, he didn't need a nickname.
I was paying very little attention as they wound in and out of each other's relationships (or lack thereof). Almost a half hour went by since Kelly had gone upstairs, and I was wondering if I should go check on her. Maybe it went horribly and she was upstairs crying. Worst case scenarios kept going through my head. I was getting more and more emotional as the minutes ticked by until finally I felt like I might start crying.
I ran to the bottom of the steps when I heard a door open upstairs. Kelly appeared at the top. Her face was red, and her eyes looked moist, but she was smiling. She ran down the stairs and into my arms.
"He's pretty weirded out, but he's okay with it. He just kept telling me he loves me."
I felt Kristy's skinny arms wrap around me and Kelly, followed by Pixie's and Shogun's. My first reaction was to tell them to bug off because I saw this as a moment between Kelly and me. Then my angel reminded me that the girls knew Kelly before I did, and they cared about her, too.
As Rizzy and DJ got in on the group hug, another thought occurred to me. This moment was going to be important to Kelly for the rest of her life. It was only important to me because I was her girlfriend. If we didn't work out (may the gods of torment and nightmares forbid!) and someday we went our separate ways, it would no longer be important to me, but coming out to her dad would always be a defining moment for Kelly. Instead of feeling entitled to a special place in the celebration, I suddenly felt like a very small and unimportant part of the event.
I moved one of my arms from Kelly to embrace the group, and I noticed Mey was still sitting on the couch. I looked at her until she made eye contact, and gave her a little smile and head jerk. "Get over here," I was saying. She hesitated, but then she returned my smile and came over, cautiously getting in on the hug.
"Congratulations, Kelly." Pixie was the first to say it, but all the girls joined in, calling her brave, promising to be there for her, and generally saying anything supportive that came to mind.
When we separated, DJ pulled her phone out and wiggled it back and forth, her eyebrows raised. "So, we gonna start letting people know?"
Looks of excitement ran through the group. This was prime gossip, and they were clearly anxious to get in on being the first to tell someone. Kelly was the only one that didn't look crazy about the idea, but I could see that she was hesitant to disappoint the girls when they looked so eager. I was about to shut down the idea of immediately telling everyone within the reach of social media, but an unexpected voice beat me to it.
"She just came out to her dad, guys. Why don't you let her calm down and process the moment before she decides how to tell everyone?"
All eyes went to Mey. By the way DJ's mouth hung open slightly and her eyebrows dropped, I assumed she didn't like the challenge to her plan, but Kelly let out a deep breath.
"Yeah. Let's do that. I'm sure there's a better way than posting it on a group chat. Besides, I don't feel like being headline news right now."
Everyone dropped further talk of Kelly's public coming out, but continued to overwhelm her with friendship and love for the rest of the night. We celebrated with ice cream, popcorn, and Netflix, while everyone snuggled in their usual positions. This time, Kelly and I didn't need to hide under a blanket.
After everyone got ready for bed, I pulled Kelly aside and said a little playfully, "You know, it seems silly for you to have to share a bed with two other girls when I'm in there all alone." I motioned to my bedroom.
She smiled playfully back at me. "I don't know. Are you the type of girl that thinks that just because someone agrees to sleep in your bed, it means they're obligated to cuddle with you?"
"Well, they would certainly be a tease if they didn't, right?"
She giggled and pulled me into my room. "What side do you like to sleep on?"
"It's a twin bed," I said flatly. "I like the middle."
"I guess I have no choice but to cuddle!"
"That was my plan all along," I said in my best evil villain voice. "Seriously, I have to warn you, I'm the one that nobody wants to sleep with on family trips because I maul whoever I'm in bed with."
"Good. I haven't actually cuddled with anyone since I was about eight years old. I need to make up for lost time."
"Aw, that's so sad! Get over here." I pulled her into bed and spooned her.
She told me in more detail about the conversation with her father while I played with her hair. He asked all the usual questions that straight people ask. How do you know that you're really gay? Are you sure you're gay? When did you become gay? How do you know you won't meet a boy that changes your mind?
He stopped when Kelly told him about me. After that, he wanted to know all about the girl who was dating his daughter. Of course, at first, he wondered if I had 'talked her into' being gay. That's when she told him the truth, or at least part of it, about why she moved up here. She told him that the fighting between her, her mom, and her stepdad was because she came out to them. So, no, I didn't talk her into anything.
Our fleece pajamas felt so fuzzy and warm, and she smelled so comforting, it wasn't long before I felt a dreamy kind of sleepy come over me. We fell silent for a while, and I thought she might be asleep. I knew I would be soon.
"Oh," she said, half asleep, "you want to hear something funny?"
"Sure," I answered dreamily.
"At the end of the conversation, my dad told me how he always used to think about what he would say to a boy who wanted to date me. You know, how he would do the whole 'scary father,' and 'what are your intentions with my daughter,' kind of talk?"
"Yeah?"
"Then he was like, 'All that time thinking about a man-to-man talk was wasted'."
We laughed softly. "Well, that's awesome that he's willing to adjust to his daughter dating a girl."
"Yeah," Kelly said. I was sure she would be asleep any second. "He said he'd have to come up with a talk just for you."
"Yeah." My eyes sprang open. "Wait, what?"
* * *
I started to wake up when I felt Kelly stir. She was on her back, and I was more or less laying on top of her, using her chest as a pillow. My right leg was extended over her right leg, and under her left leg. Our combined heat was incredible and I felt sweaty. I rolled off of her, trying not to wake her, but it didn't work. She woke up more fully, and started fanning her pajama top to get rid of some of the heat.
"I can't say you didn't warn me." I heard the smile in her voice
"Sorry."
"Don't apologize." She rolled towards me and onto her stomach, propping herself up on her elbow. She reached across me with her other arm and positioned herself so that she could kiss me.
After a couple minutes of tender, loving kisses, she started to breathe more deeply and her tongue brushed against my lips. I opened my mouth to accept her invitation, and our kisses got deeper. I got that drunken sort of feeling from touching her, smelling her, and hearing her sigh. I was entering the Dreamtime. My hands played with her hair, caressed her back, and made their way down to her waist. I thought of that night in the barn, and how easy it would be to slip my hands into her pajama bottoms and make her pant excitedly in my ear like she did that night.
Her hand went from my cheek to my neck, then on down to my breast. She softly moved her thumb back and forth across my nipple through the fuzzy pajama shirt, making me sigh. I slid my hands under her top and let my hands glide up and down her back, feeling her soft skin.
There was only a little light in the room, but I could see her fairly well. I rolled her over onto her back so I could start working my way down her body with kisses. Her sighs turned into cute little moans. She grabbed my head with both hands and rubbed her legs against mine.
I felt her grab the back of my top and start tugging on it to expose more of me. Our torsos came together and the warm skin of her stomach pressed against mine as we began kissing deeply again. Her hands felt amazing on my bare back, gliding up and down, finally straying below the elastic of my bottoms.
I raised up so I could see her eyes as well as possible in the dim light.
"You would stop me if you didn't want to do something, right?"
"Analee, I don't want you to stop." She pulled my head down for a deep kiss, then gently pushed it back up so she could see my face. "Are you sure? I want your first time to be perfect."
I looked into her eyes. "Our first time together will be, no matter what." I paused for a second. "Kelly..." I swallowed hard. For some reason, what I was about to do next was scarier than the thought of having sex for the first time, but Kala was right about me. Why fight it? "...I love you."
I was terrified that I would see her look panicky, or maybe shocked. Instead, I saw a large, toothy smile spring onto her face. "I love you, too, Ani!"
We were so interested in kissing each other and looking into each other's eyes, it took a minute for us to remember what was about to happen...