Woman to Woman #11

This week in Tuesday Tales, the snippet comes from Woman to Woman. This story is a woman-to-woman romance, so scenes will be of a F/F nature. If this offends you, feel free to move onto to another Tuesday Tales snippet.

This week we’re writing to a picture prompt. These snippets will be short. Each one is 300 words or less. There are several pictures to choose from and we each pick one to write to.

Enjoy the snippet here, then go check out the other delightful tales you’ll find at Tuesday Tales.

Dave’s ‘psychic predictions’ seemed to kick into high gear. He started warning Paige about Anna, saying that she was a liar and a cheat. He came up with specific accusations.

Then, he began defending Lucy. “Maybe Lucy isn’t really such a bad woman. You’re only getting one side of the story. Maybe Lucy is the victim here, not Anna.”

Paige ignored his predictions. He was jealous. He was desperate.

One night, as Paige and Anna messaged each other on the computer, Paige remembered how much time Anna used to spend with her gaming friend, Lonnie. She asked Anna how her friend felt now that Anna spent all her computer time with Paige.

Anna answered: I still talk to her. We talk in the gaming room while you and I IM.

Paige asked: All night?

Anna admitted: I can talk to both of you and play the games too.

Paige was more than a bit agitated. You talk to her all night too? You mean…when you’re ‘kissing me’ and doing all the things that you type that you’re doing to me, you’re talking to her too? In another room?

Paige was the one that got angry that night and signed off in a huff.

This one was a huge problem in Paige’s mind. You simply don’t kiss someone, either in real-life or on the computer, and be talking to someone else at the same time. Things like that are done in private, with only two people – not with one person holding a conversation with someone else at the same time. Even if the ‘kissing’ was done via typed words on a screen instead of in the flesh.

Now, Paige was the one with a sour attitude, as tart as the lemons she liked to slice to add to her water.

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Woman to Woman #10

This week in Tuesday Tales, the snippet comes from Woman to Woman. This story is a woman-to-woman romance, so scenes will be of a F/F nature. If this offends you, feel free to move onto to another Tuesday Tales snippet.

In Tuesday Tales, a group of authors write to a word or picture prompt each week. This week we’re writing to the prompt ‘watch.’

Enjoy the snippet here, then go check out the other delightful tales you’ll find at Tuesday Tales.

One night Paige typed: I want to see a picture of you. I haven’t seen you for thirty years.

Anna replied: I’ll get one from Lucy and send you one tomorrow.

A few weeks earlier, Paige had sent Anna a picture of her holding her one of her oldest son, Cayton’s, puppies. She’d lied and asked Dave to take the picture, saying she wanted to send it to one of her California friends. She didn’t. She’d sent it straight to Anna.

Later Paige got her payback for that lie. She’d discover in a short time that Anna had lied too. Anna had asked Lucy to take a picture so she could send it to a computer friend that filled a motherly role in Anna’s life. At least that’s what the story was. Time would reveal differently.

But for now, those secrets hadn’t been revealed yet and Paige was still naively falling in love with a phantom.

That day at work Paige found it difficult to concentrate. Ed had to repeat his questions to her – more than once. Paige kept daydreaming about getting Anna’s current picture later that evening. She envisioned the long, blond hair from her memories. The only social media site at that time was Myspace, but it was used by the mostly younger crowd – like Paige’s sons. Not many of the approaching-50 crowd were there, and certainly not Paige.

Later that night, in between the pauses in their IM’ing, Paige popped into her email. Woohoo! There was an email from Anna. With an attachment. It had to be the promised picture. Paige raced to click on it and sat tapping her foot impatiently, watching the spinning icon while the picture uploaded – much too slowly for her liking.

Finally, it opened up. Paige excitedly glanced down and discovered quite a different view than what she’d expected. It was Anna. She could see it in her face if she looked closely. But, oh my, what a difference thirty years made. There weren’t any long, blond locks cascading around these shoulders. Short, cropped hair framed the vaguely familiar face; hair not as short as a man’s cut, but not much longer than that either.

The thought surfaced that ‘my girl’ might not be the appropriate term.

Anna sat in a chair, black dress shirt tucked into black jeans, her ankle propped up on her knee. Paige could almost hear her mom in the background behind her, even though good old Mom was hundreds of miles away – ‘Yep, she sits just like a guy too.’

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Woman to Woman #9

This week in Tuesday Tales, the snippet comes from Woman to Woman. This story is a woman-to-woman romance, so scenes will be of a F/F nature. If this offends you, feel free to move onto to another Tuesday Tales snippet.

In Tuesday Tales, a group of authors write to a word or picture prompt each week. This week we’re writing to the prompt ‘question.’

Enjoy the snippet here, then go check out the other delightful tales you’ll find at Tuesday Tales.

Dave pulled the truck into a shady spot near Paige’s favorite picnic table nestled in amongst a stand of tall, stately pine trees. It offered some relief from the intense desert sun and the scorching heat that had returned once the monsoon season had ended.

Paige bit into her sandwich. With each lingering moment of silence, the bread seemed to dry and shrivel in the ominous quiet. Finally, she couldn’t stand it and blurted out the question, “What’s the matter?”

Dave replied in such a quiet voice that she almost couldn’t hear his answer. “I found your magazines.”

The blood drained from her face. The last bite of sandwich, just recently swallowed, settled at the bottom of her stomach like a lead balloon. The portion she’d just bitten off lodged in her throat, threatening to choke her. Which maybe wasn’t a bad thing. Her life ending right now might be the easiest way out of this predicament.

She found the courage, or the brazenness to ask, “How’d you find my magazines?”

“I fell when I got out of bed this morning and caught myself on the dresser. Your drawer broke and when I took it out to fix, I found them hidden in the bottom of your drawer.”

Of course, Paige later discovered that this was a lie. She would discover later, the hard way, that he was systemically and repeating going through her belongings while she was at work. But what could she say? How do you fight the lies of one person when mistruths come out of your own mouth?

Years earlier, in the new beginnings of their relationship, Paige had struggled as she learned to cope with Dave’s dark, stormy, brooding moods. Those were nothing compared to what she had to live with now. Each day found each of them struggling to hold on to two realities that were incompatible with each other.

Dave wanted their old life back, their old relationship, the image he had of what it should be. All of a sudden, he now called her his ‘wife’, even though he’d had ten years to legally bind their relationship and make her his wife. Now, he pressed to proceed where he hadn’t needed to go in ten years.

Paige had her sights set on new territory. She’d been there for the past ten years, even without the legal bond of matrimony. She didn’t care to go on in the same situation for another ten years. She was looking at the proverbial grass on the other side of the fence. And it did appear to be greener. And this truly was ‘the other side of the fence.’ It was one she contemplated jumping every day.

Was this a fence that was worth jumping?

It seemed so at the time.

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Woman to Woman #8

This week in Tuesday Tales, the snippet comes from Woman to Woman. This story is a woman-to-woman romance, so scenes will be of a F/F nature. If this offends you, feel free to move onto to another Tuesday Tales snippet.

We’ve jumped a little bit in the story so I could get to a scene where I could work those lovely hydrangeas in. As Paige and her high school buddy find themselves getting closer, via instant messaging, life with Dave is decidedly not rosy.

This week we’re writing to a picture prompt. These snippets will be short. Each one is 300 words or less. There are several pictures to choose from and we each pick one to write to.

Enjoy the snippet here, then go check out the other delightful tales you’ll find at Tuesday Tales.

The next day at work, Paige stood watering the newest shipment of hydrangeas, splendid in their mottled shades of purples, violets, and pinks. She was immersed in their beauty, enjoying the sights of their gorgeous blooms, when she heard a distinctive diesel truck pull up in the parking space nearest to the nursery sales shack.

She looked up and spotted Dave sitting in the truck, engine idling. It didn’t surprise her. It was almost her appointed lunch time, and he often showed up to surprise her at lunch.

Dave turned the engine off but remained sitting in the truck instead of coming into the nursery grounds like he usually did when he stopped by.

Ed stood watering plants on the opposite end of the row. He pulled the rim of his straw hat down lower and called to Paige. “I see you have company for lunch.”

She frowned. “It appears so. He must have come into town to do laundry at his sister’s house.”

Dave remained in the truck.

Paige thought it was odd but reasoned that he was probably on the phone with one of his girls.

Ten minutes later, he still sat.

Paige punched out and walked slowly out to the white diesel, the icon of Dave’s masculinity. “Men and their vehicles,” she muttered as she approached the driver’s side. She almost dreaded what she would encounter when she got there.

A window rolled part way down.

“Are you here for lunch?” she asked.

A sober, smile-less face started back at her.

Oh, goody. One of his black moods.

Paige walked out to her car and retrieved her lunch before returning to the truck. “Want to go to the park?”

“Sure.” The diesel roared to life and off they drove, silence hanging thick between them.

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Woman to Woman #7

This week in Tuesday Tales, the snippet comes from Woman to Woman. This story is a woman-to-woman romance, so scenes will be of a F/F nature. If this offends you, feel free to move onto to another Tuesday Tales snippet.

In Tuesday Tales, a group of authors write to a word or picture prompt each week. This week we’re writing to the prompt ‘paste.’

Enjoy the snippet here, then go check out the other delightful tales you’ll find at Tuesday Tales.

Over the next few weeks, as Paige continued her emails with Anna, monsoon season arrived in the desert. Dave’s sister had warned them about monsoon season and the torrential rains that descended from the clouds.

But it turned out that she’d never seen rain like this before. It was if the sky unzipped and dumped every drop the clouds contained at once. Being an avid storm lover, Paige felt the thrill of excitement race through her when she watched the clouds start building, usually in the afternoons, getting thicker and darker, approaching as if it were a dark, angry beast. Lightening flashed, thunder roared, and water ran down the streets in a deluge.

The downside of the monsoon season was that the muddy ground now prohibited Paige’s evening ATV rides. For a place that looked so sandy, the ground contained more clay than one could imagine, leaving a muddy, slippery mess. On one of Paige’s walks out to the garden area that she and Dave were creating with fencing constructed from pallets, to keep the rabbits and deer out, she returned with a three-inch layer of mud pasted to the bottom of her shoes.

No outdoor activity was possible, Paige and Dave could only huddle in the RV, out of the rain and away from the slimy, clay mess that surrounded their encampment. More and more evenings found Paige on the computer. The emails from her old friend, Anna, were now a daily occurrence. Back and forth they went. Emails flew to Texas and were returned to Arizona in a flurry.

Memories of Anna in high school surfaced to the forefront of Paige’s thoughts; long blond hair flowing down her shoulders, the fun they had together, the afternoons spent in Anna’s pool, and the laughter they shared. The past came back like a tide flowing in. Even if she ‘walked like a guy’, as Paige’s mom always said, they’d still had a lot of fun together.

As the daily emails began to merge, other thoughts surfaced in Paige’s mind. Thoughts of Anna gradually replaced those of BJ. Soon, BJ became just another co-worker and she faded from the center of Paige’s existence. Thoughts of Anna’s long blond hair were more delicious than BJ’s short, cropped style. Paige imagined running her fingers through those long, silky tresses of long ago.

By now, Anna had taught Paige about instant messaging and the two of the chatted every night. This new-fangled method was much easier than hopping into email every five or ten minutes to check for new messages.

A few years before, Paige had watched her youngest son, Jack, on the computer every night with his friends instant messaging. She’d never understood the concept then. It seemed to be a new technology meant strictly for teenagers.

She’d been proven wrong. This was quite handy.

One day, in an instant message, Paige ventured: What if we were meant to be more than friends?

Anna answered back immediately: What do you mean? Like in a more physical relationship?

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Woman to Woman #6

This week in Tuesday Tales, the snippet comes from Woman to Woman. This story is a woman-to-woman romance, so scenes will be of a F/F nature. If this offends you, feel free to move onto to another Tuesday Tales snippet.

In Tuesday Tales, a group of authors write to a word or picture prompt each week. This week we’re writing to the prompt ‘salt.’

Enjoy the snippet here, then go check out the other delightful tales you’ll find at Tuesday Tales.

“Are you going to be on the computer much longer?”

“Just a bit. I need to look up some plant information for work. There’s so many new plants here that I don’t know how to care for.”

Dave kicked his shoes off and pulled his feet up on the couch. “I’m going to stretch out here then while you’re on the computer.” He leaned back against the arm of the couch and closed his eyes.

Paige settled down, but instead of looking up Mimosa, Sage, and Ocotillo, she looked up Rose, Violet, and Fern – but of a fleshier variety, with lots of cleavage and no flowers.

This was definitely more thrilling than looking at plant pictures. Emotions stirred deep within. Her heart rate increased, and she became flushed. It was a good thing Dave dozed. He’d definitely know something was up.

Switching the computer to the other side of the table was one of her better ideas. It would be several months before she realized her error in this decision.

Paige powered down the laptop. Nothing more for tonight. Back to the typical evening routine. One television  show, followed by another on, and then, more.

She stood up and headed back towards the bedroom side of the RV. “I’m heading to bed. I can’t take any more television tonight.”

*****

Years later Paige would run across a segment in a book she was reading and would reflect back on these days. In her future, she would read the following passage in Moving On, a book by Sarah Ban Breathnack. The author reported about a passage by Rosemary Sullivan in Labyrinth of Desire:

“And life, to be lived fully, demands desire,” Rosemary tells us. “Falling in love in this way will usually occur at a time of transition. We may not be conscious of it, but something had ended and something new must begin. Romantic obsession is a cataclysm breaking up the empty landscape.”

Immediately after this quote, Sarah muses, “Perhaps when we fall in love at a glance, the question we really should be asking ourselves is what is it that I’m longing for? Or what is so lacking in my life that I need something different to shift the direction in which I’m going?”

Five years later, when she would finally read those words, it would make perfect sense. But during this current tumultuous period of shifting desires and transitions, Paige did not understand it.

If she’d never made the move to Arizona, cutting loose from all ties, routines, and traditions, she may not have looked down another path. She might have remained on her current path till the end of her life. But the steps had already happened. The terrain had already changed. She could have stopped the new journey then. By the time she read the passages above, it was too late, and she wouldn’t change a single step in this new journey.

However…if she only knew the salty tears that would be shed during this transition time…

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Woman to Woman #5

This week in Tuesday Tales, the snippet comes from Woman to Woman. This story is a woman-to-woman romance, so scenes will be of a F/F nature. If this offends you, feel free to move onto to another Tuesday Tales snippet.

In Tuesday Tales, a group of authors write to a word or picture prompt each week. This week we’re writing to the prompt ‘picnic.’

Enjoy the snippet here, then go check out the other delightful tales you’ll find at Tuesday Tales.

“Because it’s relaxing. It unwinds me from my day at work.”

And it gets out my frustrations.

Paige didn’t voice that thought. Over the past few weeks, she had worn a path on the lower part of the property. She’d ridden the four-wheeler around and around, faster and faster, through the desert scrub, around the path where she wanted to plant some trees, down one side of the wash and up the other. Faster and faster, she rode, trying to erase images from her brain – visions of wanting to touch BJ’s arm. She wondered what it would feel like to touch another girl’s skin. She never thought anything sexual – not at this point. Her past years spent in church seemed to hold her back from going that far.

Her mind didn’t know where to go with this. Her ‘outside the envelope’ was simply imaging touching another girl’s arm.

Later that evening, after dinner was over and Dave was perched in his favorite spot – on the couch with the television going, Paige turned on her laptop and hooked up the wireless connection. It was such a hassle to connect to the internet, out on their acreage in the middle of nothing, that she typically only got online once or twice a week.

That was about to change. Quickly. Although she didn’t know it at the time.

Sometimes we don’t see how one little action, one small inaction, one seemingly insignificant point in time can veer our path in a completely different direction. We have no idea. One little step after another. The steps are so small and unnoticeable, until we reach a stopping point and look back. Then, we see how all the steps led to this new view, a landscape where we did not anticipate going.

Paige sat down, poised and ready to shoot off an email full of questions to her old high school friend, Anna.

She chickened out.

It’s been such a long time since we’ve been in contact. I don’t think I’ve even written her since we moved to Arizona. It seems too forward to just come out and ask her what I’m curious about without any prior contact for so long.

Instead, the email that flowed from Claire’s fingers was along the lines of:

I’ve moved. We’re living in Arizona now. We bought four acres out in the middle of nowhere. We set up a gazebo at the highest part of the property. We often picnic up there on days I’m not working. Last weekend I made some stepping tones with rocks and concrete. Here’s some pictures…

Blah, blah, blah. Nothing in the content suggested what was foremost on her mind.

Click.

Send.

There it went, the email zipping along into the virtual airwave transit system.

Claire stared at her screensaver as it twisted aimlessly around the laptop screen. She wondered if she was really interested in being with a woman, in the physical way she was starting to think. Or was this just a phase she was going through? Was she curious only because her whole world had changed?

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Woman to Woman #4

This week in Tuesday Tales, the snippet comes from Woman to Woman. This story is a woman-to-woman romance, so scenes will be of a F/F nature. If this offends you, feel free to move onto to another Tuesday Tales snippet.

In Tuesday Tales, a group of authors write to a word or picture prompt each week. This week we’re writing to a picture prompt. There were several to choose from. This is the one I chose. Reading will be quick – picture prompt posts are limited to 300-words.

Enjoy the snippet here, then go check out the other delightful tales you’ll find at Tuesday Tales.

The minutes and hours ticked by too slowly, but finally the end of Paige’s workday arrived. Once she clocked out, she breathed a sigh of relief that the work for pay portion of the day was done. Now it was just to deal with her home life for the remaining hours.

Although she was glad to leave work, she didn’t feel like going home either. As she pulled out of the parking lot, Paige looked with longing at the cozy coffee shop tucked away in the back corner of the shopping center. Sitting there with a chai tea – all alone – seemed like a more favorable way to spend the next few hours.

As much as she would have liked to retreat into a quiet moment by herself, Paige pulled out and drove home instead. It was almost twenty miles through two small burgs, miles through the desert and more miles on a dirt road. Once she crossed the dry riverbed there were only a few more curves on the dirt road before she pulled up in a flurry of sand and dust.

Dave rushed out to meet her, anxious to sit and talk on the patio area under the RV awning as they usually did each evening. How was your day? What do you want for dinner? What are we doing this weekend? How do you want to start the garden? How’s the car running? Have you heard from the boys? Do you want me to go do laundry tomorrow?

Just because he’s been home all day alone, he wants to talk all night. And talk and talk and talk.

The thought irritated Paige. She jumped up and headed towards where the four-wheeler was parked. “I’m going to go ride for a bit before we eat.”

Dave sported a perplexed look. “How come you’re always riding the four-wheeler around now?”

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Woman to Woman #3

This week in Tuesday Tales, the snippet comes from Woman to Woman. This story is a woman-to-woman romance, so scenes will be of a F/F nature. If this offends you, feel free to move onto to another Tuesday Tales snippet.

In Tuesday Tales, a group of authors write to a word or picture prompt each week. This week we’re writing to the prompt ‘swim.’

As the days passed, the wheel spun in Paige’s brain as she tried to think of who she could talk to. Then, her old high school friend, Anna, popped into mind. They weren’t in close contact in the years that had passed. They sometimes emailed  back and forth – often with several years in between. Occasionally they sent each other a birthday or Christmas card. But Paige thought that she could pose some of her wondering thoughts to Anna and confess how she was swimming in confusion.

When they were in high school, more than thirty years earlier, Paige’s mom insisted the entire time of their friendship that Anna was gay.

Paige always denied it. “She’s just a tomboy.” After all, Anna had certainly never given any indication otherwise.

It was years later that Paige started to wonder. After living in Texas for several years, Anna returned to California for a visit. They got together, with another high school friend for the afternoon. They had a good time chatting, visiting, and catching up, with Paige pushing her youngest son in a stroller.

Anna talked a lot about bowling, and other activities, such as work. But it was mostly bowling. Yet what had seemed odd to Paige at the time was that Anna never mentioned anyone’s names. She questioned whether Anna was hiding something. Maybe her mom was right after all. But she didn’t give it much thought after that. It really didn’t matter one way or the other.

It was many years later, in fact just a few years before Paige’s move to Arizona, when Anna admitted in a letter that ‘she and Lucy were buying a house.’

Paige remembered thinking when she received that letter – Aha! Mom was right after all!

It hadn’t changed anything in their now distant and rarely connected friendship. It was almost like hearing that a friend had dyed their hair red. Yesterday she was a blond. Today’s she’s a redhead. Yesterday Anna was straight. Today she was a lesbian. It didn’t alter their friendship at all.

Paige decided that Anna was who she needed to contact. She would probably be just the person to give her some of the answers she sought. She would email Anna. Tonight.

Little did she know how this first email would change the course of her entire life.

Enjoy the snippet here, then go check out the other delightful tales you’ll find at Tuesday Tales.

Check out the other delightful tales you’ll find at Tuesday Tales.

Woman to Woman #1

This week in Tuesday Tales, the snippet comes from Woman to Woman. This story is a woman-to-woman romance, so scenes will be of a F/F nature. If this offends you, feel free to move onto to another Tuesday Tales snippet.

In Tuesday Tales, a group of authors write to a word or picture prompt each week. This week we’re writing to the prompt ‘hurry.’

Enjoy the snippet here, then go check out the other delightful tales you’ll find at Tuesday Tales.

Paige scanned the nursery grounds, searching for BJ. Her eyes moved up and down the aisles filled with potted plants, flowers, cactus and trees, looking until she spied her. There she was, talking to a customer in the native plant section and holding a ‘Texas Ranger’, or leucophyllum as Paige had learned since working here at Monty’s Hardware. No doubt BJ was extolling the plant’s merits for this dry desert landscaping with its scant rainfall.

The customer must have agreed with what he’d been told about plant. Soon he and BJ were filling the flatbed cart with various one- and five-gallon plants. BJ’s laughter echoed across the open space, straight to Paige’s ear. When BJ smiled, Paige felt that the brilliant Arizona sky paled in comparison.

BJ pulled the plant laden cart towards the sales shack where Paige stood observing their interactions. She pushed her dark sunglasses up the bridge of her nose, thankful that they obscured how her eyes tended to follow BJ’s every move around the place.

Oh my! I have a crush on her! The realization hit Paige with sudden clarity and a sinking sensation settled in the pit of her stomach.

Wrong, wrong, wrong! This is all wrong!

Weeks passed and the attraction only increased, no matter how much Paige chastised herself. She knew BJ’s schedule better than she knew her own. It was if an invisible GPS was attached to BJ, letting Paige know where she was at all times. Paige knew if BJ was on the grounds, inside the store, on break or lunch, or doing paperwork in the sales shack.

One day, Ed, the nursery manager, walked up and stood beside Paige. “You have to stop wandering about looking like a love-sick puppy. She has a partner you know.”

“What? Paige yelped in despair. “You can tell? I didn’t think it was obvious.”

Ed laughed and adjusted his Ed-regulation-everyday-wear straw cowboy hat. “It’s obvious all right. At least to us that work with you every day.”

Paige pouted and picked up a pair of pruners.

“Besides, what about your guy?” Ed asked. “Does your husband know about this?”

Paige sighed. “No. Of course not. He doesn’t have a clue. Heck, this snuck up on me out of the blue. I didn’t even see it coming. Besides, he’s not my husband anyway. We never got married.”

“I thought you’d been together forever.”

“Some days it seems like forever.” Paige fidgeted with the pruners, unclasping them and clasping them back. “It’s almost ten years. But we never got married. Got the dress. Got the parasol. Got the rings. Just never made it to a ceremony. I guess we were just never in a hurry to do that final part. Maybe eighteen years in my first marriage played a part in that.”

“So, how long have you had the hots for women?” Ed grinned as he pried into her personal business.

“Since working here.”

An incredulous look passed over Ed’s face. “Never before? Ever?”

Check out the other delightful tales you’ll find at Tuesday Tales.