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From: perigryn@earthlink.net (Rosemerry)
Subject: Shining Spirit pt 1 of 2 - (F/F)
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Greetings to all. This is my first post. Feedback would be welcomed.
Archiving is okay with no alterations including credit and statements.

Those who are under legal age or likely to be offended, please don't read
this. Copyrights remain with me except as stated above.

It's BitBard's fault I posted this *grin*

-----------------------------------------------

SHINING SPIRIT


	Allie lay back, thinking devoutly up at the empty ceiling.
Although she and her husband, Brent, had just gotten done
fighting--the results of their making-up were even now drying
stickily on her thigh--he was not on her mind. Instead Allie was
running over in her mind a conversation she and her best friend
had had over a week ago. In their strange and swiftly growing
sisterhood, a week was time enough for a year's worth of growing
together. The conversation had been about past friendships, and
whether there had been any of this depth.

	"Never for me," Gina had said. "I thought I had girlfriends,
but I can see now, having met you, that they're all bimbos."

	There was laughter.

	"I had one that came nearly this close," Allie had said. Never
in a million years had she thought she'd tell anyone about that.
"She and I were like family. We said, you don't grow up with your
real family, you choose them."

	"How did it end?" It was the kind of frank question Allie had
learned to expect from Gina.

	"I disappointed her, or she disappointed me. We should have
been lovers, really," she said, realizing it almost for the first
time as she spoke.

	Gina's eyes, strangely beer-colored and unexpectedly beautiful
when taken unawares, lit up in her plain face. "Really?" she
asked. "Did you ever have lesbian sex?"

	Allie shook her head, her mouth full of lemonade. "Lack of
opportunity, not lack of experience," she said. Her mouth's
censors appeared to have taken the evening off.

	Gina grinned. "Me neither. It wasn't lack of opportunity,
though; I'm not sure what it was." Her eyes said, always occupied
with men, probably.

	Fear, too, Allie's eyes countered. "Does it bother you to talk
about sex?" she asked, unable to believe in Gina's
straightforwardness, or in the lengths to which it would go.

	"Naw, if we can't have sex, we can at least talk about it."

	Did I hear that? Allie attended to her food for a moment,
afraid to meet Gina's eyes. The conversation drifted off again,
but even a week later, that was the part of it that Allie found
herself replaying.

	Especially since Gina had kissed her.

	Perhaps she had been able to approach it in no other way, but
she'd made a joke out of it, throwing her arms around Allie in the
midst of their banter and smacking loudly. Allie, caught by
surprise, had been able to do nothing but grab her round the waist
and allow it. Until a few minutes later, when Gina had said,
"Sorry I wet kissed you."

	"Don't be sorry!" Allie had responded with such heartfelt shock
and dismay that Gina had withdrawn the apology at once.

	"It's something that was building up for a while," she said
simply.

	"You surprised me... but... well, me too." Allie castigated
herself for a nitwit, and only then noticed how close Gina had
come. The pale yellow eyes were enormous.

	Allie reminded herself that she was supposed to be the strong
one here. She held out her arms and they came together for a good
old fashioned hug, like many of the ones they had already shared.
Reassurance became seriousness, and they kissed, fumbling a
little, but with true affection. Allie's overwhelming impression
was of softness and sweetness. Kiss a man, and you have to fight
him to savor it. Gina allowed, she returned, she responded with
beauty.

	Perhaps it was real, somehow, real, Allie thought now into her
darkened room. Because the rest of the world disappeared as if it
had never been, during those kisses.

	How was it, why was it, what kind of miracle was it... that no
matter how strange their interchanges, no matter how unusual their
longings, how dangerous their revelations: still their connection
remained true?

	The night came early for Gina. She had spent a long day off,
visiting friends and working hard in the garden. She had used up
another two hours practicing simple vocal up-and-down exercises in
preparation for some serious operatic lessons to commence next
week. After that she had fallen asleep at seven o'clock in the
evening, right on the window seat of her practice room. She'd
awakened at nine and crawled into bed, so she was still in her
bathrobe and sound asleep when the doorbell rang with cruel
suddenness.

	Not yet awake, moving on autopilot, she jerked her head up from
the pillow, eyes open but seeing nothing. She got up and verified
by hand that she wore something, steered her lifeless body down
the hall to the front door.

	"Who is it?" she forced past her numb lips.

	"Allie," said the shaky voice on the other side, and had to
repeat it.

	The obvious distress, plus the hour, which the phosphorescent
kitchen clock informed her greenly was two in the morning, served
to shake her awake. She began undoing locks and when the door was
open, Allie stood there bundled up, with a suitcase in one hand,
her flute case in the other, and no shoes on her feet. Gina took
one look at her face and was awake at once.

	"Oh, my God, you poor dear, come in this instant," she said, as
part of a general swoop that ended with the closing of the door
and Allie on the inside of it. Gina took the suitcase. "Brent?"
she asked bluntly.

	"I left him," Allie said. She was in emotional shock, Gina
could see, and exhausted besides.

	"Don't talk," she advised. Allie probably couldn't have made a
coherent story out of it anyway, she thought. "You'll sleep here
tonight, of course. Whatever you need, sweetheart, you know that,
right?"

	Allie was beyond thanks. She only nodded. Her eyes were
obviously so wearied of weeping that they could produce no more
tears, but her face wrinkled at the kindness.

	Gina did not take the flute case. Allie was holding it with the
grip of nightmare. "Go in my bedroom and shower, Allie," she
ordered. "I'm going to make hot chocolate. We'll sit on the couch
until you're ready to go to sleep, and then you can sleep for ten
hours, twenty-four, whatever you need."

	Allie didn't move, looking at her mutely, perhaps struggling
for tears. Gina felt her heart break inside her. Where was Allie's
shining spirit now?

	"He can't find us," she said in a rush, nearly crying herself.
"He doesn't know my address. Remember, I asked you not to tell
him? He doesn't have my phone number. And he really doesn't have
much of a clue that we're... how close we are." She was stumbling
in haste to relight that candle before it went out.

	Somehow she had said part of what Allie needed to hear. A
little color had come back into her, and she almost smiled. Gina
shuddered before her courage and gave her a little push toward the
back bedroom where the best shower was.

	Allie, in reality, felt much less damped than Gina thought. She
was, indeed, exhausted, but she felt husked out, almost clean. The
fearful price she had paid to leave him was over now, and she had
a plan that would prevent her paying it again.

	She put her flute case on the toilet lid, where she could look
at it. It symbolized to her the things in her life that she wanted
to do, things that Brent had somehow prevented. Not by saying
anything, not by laying down the law, not until he had no other
recourse. Not him. Oh, no, it was, "Go on, dear, you know I'll be
all right." But somehow there was always some minor crisis that he
could have used her help with; somehow there was always something
to upset him when she returned, until she spent, as a rule, nearly
twice the time making up for it.

	She shook him out of her head, hopefully for the last time that
night, and undressed carefully.

	Gina made the hot chocolate and spent a few tense moments in
the kitchen, walking around aimlessly from refrigerator to counter
and back again. She was arguing with herself about whether to go
into the bathroom and take in Allie's chocolate. She knew,
guiltily, in her heart that her real reason was wanting to see
Allie behind the translucent shower door. The guilt came from
consideration of Allie's emotional state, not from weakness in her
personal confidence. She had not forgotten their kiss, and would
not be averse to another. But these things, she felt, were
innocent expressions of the unusually deep love between them, no
more sexual than the tug of longing she often felt at the sight of
a running horse or an energetic child. But she was afraid of
transgressing against even the slightest of Allie's boundaries
tonight.

	Curiosity won out, however, and she put the chocolate on a tray
and opened the door cautiously. With luck, Allie needn't know she
had been there until she was gone.

	Allie was just opening the shower door to reach out for the
soap on the porcelain sink. Gina dropped the chocolate at once,
ignoring the hot splash of it on her bare ankles. Allie cowered
down like a frightened animal, trying in vain to cover herself
with her arms, her streaming hair falling full under the shower.
Her urgency to hide in the tiles was matched by Gina's passionate
swarm forward, where she threw her arms around her friend,
disregarding the water that ran over them both.

	"Oh, Allie, Allie," Gina said. The harsh and ripping sobs
coming from her friend sounded as if they would tear her throat.
Allie gave in and allowed Gina to hug her, but nothing would take
away the bruises and split skin that lined her entire body, from
shoulders down her spine to knees and shins. "Allie, Allie,
Allie... I love you, I love you, Allie." For a long time she held
her in the shower, until the water ran cold and she was drenched
through.

	Later, both in Gina's robes, towels over their shoulders, they
attempted some normalcy.

	"I told him I was leaving," Allie said. "I'm not sure what made
me decide to do it... maybe it was just one time too many that I
came home from seeing you and had to see him." The robe covered
most of the bruises, but her shins were visible, and they were sad
and sore. None of the bruises had much coloration yet, but Gina
knew from long experience with lesser traumas that they would be
'doozies,' as her mother would have said. "At first I thought he
didn't hear me. Then he put his book down and I saw that he didn't
understand. The look on his face was just the usual one he uses
when he wants me to explain. You know... just the usual confused
face."

	Gina nodded.

	"I went a little closer to him to explain, I'm not sure why. It
felt normal to walk near him... you know...." Her face showed that
a time when it felt normal to get near Brent was across a gulf as
narrow as it was deep. "But before I got more than three words
out, he knocked me down. I couldn't even fight him. I had no idea
he could be so--that it could be--" She fell silent, struggling
with gestures to describe a violation of trust so total that
nothing could excuse it.

	Gina grabbed one of the waving hands and held it. Allie looked
at her gratefully and went on.

	"After a while I just waited." She turned her other arm over
for Gina to see the defense wounds between elbow and wrist. "I
tried to cover myself, and he mostly got my back and arms and
legs. Thank God he didn't use anything on me, just his hands. It
seemed to take a long time for him to stop, but I don't guess it
was really that long."

	Gina looked at her, feeling that really she couldn't take this
much more. The beautiful Alexandra, beaten and battered. "Allie?"
she said. "Please do me a favor?"

	Allie raised her eyebrows.

	"Please don't say, it wasn't his fault."

	Her friend's face twisted in anger. "Wasn't his fault? What do
you  mean, not his fault? If I had a knife I'd kill the bastard!"

	Taken aback, Gina felt both glad of this show of spirit and a
moment of fright. Just at this moment, she believed she would, and
that was nothing she wanted to know about her best friend.

	"Good," she said after a moment. "I'm sorry, sweetie."

	Allie shook her head, the flare of temper gone. "I'm sorry,
too. I know I've said 'It's over' in the past, and then gone back.
But I'm not saying it anymore. My bridges are burned." She looked
down at her arms and legs and laughed ruefully. "For good and
all."

	Gina reached over and held her. Allie came into her arms, but
Gina had a strong feeling it was more for Gina's sake than her
own. Over her shoulder, there was one more bitter sentence in her.
"I keep thinking... thank God we didn't have any children."

	After that they sat in silence, holding each other, Allie's
head casually on Gina's shoulder. After a time, she squirmed
around to a more comfortable position, and ended with her head in
Gina's lap. There she fell asleep, a deep exhausted slumber that
left no room for grace. It was nearly seven in the morning, but
Gina did not move and eventually leaned over to rest on the
couch's cushioned back and fall asleep herself.

	Allie woke painlessly to the feel of soft hands stroking her
temples, smoothing back her sweaty hair. Fingertips so light and
graceful that she made no connection whatever with Brent, even in
her sleepy mind, swept over her forehead, drew across her eyelids
and down her cheekbones. She smiled a little and the fingers
trembled a little on her chin, then continued downward, slipping
under the edges of the robe to caress her collarbone.

	Sensation made her shiver. More awake now, she thought again
how different a woman's touch was; although with only Brent to
compare with (and all his masks finally off), she couldn't know if
it were women in particular. With a flash of anger at herself, she
wondered how long she would think of Gina's touch only in
comparison with Brent's. Gina deserved better.

	For this reason primarily, she opened her eyes and moved enough
to show that she was awake, at which point the hands fell away.
Gina's eyes were wide, nearly hypnotized, and her hair was a
mussed sandy flare around her face. Allie saw that she had gone a
distance in some direction that Allie didn't really understand at
the moment. "Good morning," Allie said. She heard pleasure and
utter contentment in her own voice and wondered at it. Surely
someone who had just been through what she had would be more
traumatized this morning?

	She thought that might be true, if she had any plans to go
back. If this were part of the cycle, part of the vicious
increasing ugliness that had been going on between her and Brent,
then she would be traumatized. But it had been a case of last time
pays for all. A case of Brent burning more bridges than he had
thought he was. She had not yet told Gina that all the while he
was finding new and exciting ways to land a fist on her, he was
saying over and over -- almost chanting -- "Don't think you won't
be back! Don't think you won't be back!" He had been weeping.
Allie had thought Brent believed he was administering this beating
for her own good. She thought maybe he had always believed this.

	She felt more sorry for him than anything else, and with relief
she qualified this as a pity for the lesser, not a sympathy for an
equal. It was over. Really over.

	Gina had come out of her slight trance now and was smiling down
perfectly normally. "Would you like some breakfast?" she asked
softly.

	"Would I!"

	There was a difficult moment later that day, while Allie
struggled with Gina's offer to let her stay for awhile; caught
between some unnameable scruple and her real need. Scruples died
rapidly, and she was firmly ensconced in the guest bedroom by
sundown. In the weeks that followed, Allie bloomed like a flower
of light; and Gina felt less and less like a mother hen and more
and more like a woman surprised by awe. She would never get over
Allie's strength and fortitude if she lived to be a thousand years
old, she thought sometimes. Why, in three weeks she even had
someone from the office sending her flowers with badly written
poetry, rather unoriginally titled "A Paean to Your Beauty."

	"What shall I do with this?" Allie said, holding the little
card up, with two fingers and wrinkling her nose, as if it were a
deceased fish.

	"He's rather given to romantic aspirations, isn't he?" Gina
laughed. "It's touching. It's good for a woman to hear that sort
of thing once in a while." She looked again at her friend,
speculatively, and said with true concern, "Really, it would be
good for you. To get involved. With someone."

	Allie looked at her. Gina's hair was in its customary sand-
colored ponytail. Quite a few wisps had come loose and curled
around her face, in which the amber eyes were always startling.
Allie looked down, but Gina had caught the unhappiness in her
glance and was waiting silently, with kind eyes, for her to come
forth.

	"I don't seem to be interested," she said finally. Call that a
half truth, she admonished herself. "I mean, somehow... well, he's
a man. I'm not closing any doors," she hastened. "But..." But I'd
rather have you. Her mouth was glued shut. She made an honest try
to say what was on her mind and could not.

	"Hush," Gina said at once, and came to sit beside her. Gina
brushed her hair back from her shoulder. "You don't have to say
it." She leaned forward just a little and pressed her lips softly
to Allie's cheek. Allie felt as though her skin had been asleep
and was coming awake, all over her body. Gina's kiss left her
cheek and touched her lips, softly, softly. Allie closed her eyes
and lifted her hand, encountering Gina's cheekbones, sharper than
her own. She slid timid fingers over Gina's ear, neck and
shoulder, outside the blouse. Then Gina's hand enclosed hers with
warmth and caution. Gina drew back. Allie looked at her.

	That wide eyed, intent look was back, but Gina was moving away,
sitting back in her chair so that she was no longer close enough
to kiss. "I know," Gina said, continuing the previous conversation
in the same understanding tones. "It may or may not be healthy for
you to get involved with this guy so soon, even on a casual,
friendly level. I think it would: learn something, teach
something, be together. But it certainly wouldn't be healthy for
you and me...."

	You're wrong, Allie thought despairingly, you're wrong about
that entirely. I may not see everything you see, Gina, but I'm
sure about this. There would be nothing more beautiful.

	Gina leaned close again, holding Allie, her hands warmly
circling Allie's shoulderblades. She whispered into her hair: "In
our minds, we're already lovers," she breathed, "there's a lot of
passion between us, on a deep level."

	To Allie, that would only mean they should become lovers on a
physical plane as well; but she knew that Gina meant it to comfort
her for what they would never have.

	Allie rested her head on her friend's shoulder and decided that
above all, above everything else, she must not let this subtle
asking and refusing incident taint their friendship. It was worth
too much. Her closeness with Gina was the first clean thing
Alexandra Washington had come across in a long time. She didn't
know that Gina's thoughts were the same. Their fears were
delicately balanced, a little more on Gina's side, a little less
on Allie's, but their love was equal.

	So deliberately, over the next few months, she turned her
thoughts aside, cooled her interest in her friend on that level,
and like a fractious horse pointed it in the direction of men. But
they all seemed like angry ogres to her, negatively polarized,
ugly minded and aggressive and harsh. She knew that was incorrect
programming, a too-strong reaction to what she had been through,
but she couldn't seem to shake it. Perhaps she would be celibate
until she was eighty and no longer cared.

	She wasn't losing any sleep over it.

	Eventually the man in the office, taking cool noncomittal
friendliness for impassioned longing with his own special brand of
logic, asked Allie to marry him. Gina didn't press for details,
but it was clear that her friend had turned him down, in no
uncertain language.

	Jealousy, Allie soliloquized in silence, to the ceiling that
night. Sign of a deranged condition that assumes ownership of
another human being. Ownership, not only of their will, but of
their sexual agenda. Like mineral rights when you claim a piece of
land.

	Marriage, she further defined. The institutionalization of that
deranged condition that assumes ownership of another human being.

	Never again.




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