Love Hurts

Laughing, Alison held up a small vibrator, about the length and thickness of a high-lighter pen but with a slightly-curved, rounded tip. "I told you I had just the thing to make you feel better."

"You almost blew my brains out then," I told her, "Where did you get that?"

"While you were tied up with your legal matters today, I was exploring the shops," Alison said, "I found a little place called The Adult Boutique and bought this cute wee item. But for now, just lie back and enjoy it. I'll turn it up a notch."

The humming noise became louder and Alison eased the vibrator into my vagina, angling it so as to brush against my g-spot. My muscles clenched down on it and within a minute or so I could feel that I was nearing the edge. I exploded when Alison began to suck at my pearl. The orgasm was so powerful that I clapped a hand over my mouth to muffle my cries. When I had stopped shaking, Alison slowly withdrew the toy from my pussy, licked it clean, and then crawled back up the bed to cuddle me.

"Well, that seemed to work a treat," she said, "When my period's over, I want you to make to love me with it. If it makes me come off as strongly as you just did, then it was a good buy."

"Before we go home you'd better take me to this adult boutique," I replied, "I've never considered toys before but a selection of vibrators like that should make our lives very interesting..."

* * * * *

I was a little early at our meeting place which gave me ample time to start worrying again about what might happen and my mind was overrun with negative thoughts. Suppose Niamh changed her mind and decided not to meet with me. Suppose she only means to castigate me further. Suppose she was only coming for show with no intention of listening to me. This brooding was doing no good. I went into the coffee shop, ordered a double espresso and took it to an outside table.

And then I saw them, Niamh and Vicki with the baby, settling at a table outside the other coffee place. Both women seemed to be dressed to the nines, as if there was some special occasion looming. Niamh gave Vicki and the child a quick kiss each and then walked over to where I was sitting. I rose to meet her.

"Thanks for coming, Niamh."

She nodded. "It took Vicki a while to persuade me, and even so I just told her I'd think about it. And then while I was mulling it over, I thought about an occasion I'm not proud of. Early in our relationship I let Vicki down very badly over something and hurt her terribly. She forgave me without thought or hesitation or recriminations. Vicki could have used that to lever me into meeting you but she didn't mention it because she's not that sort of person. So I reckoned if she could do that for me then the least I could do is hear you out."

"Okay..." Where to start? "...you'll remember that I told you I was straight and then I married Paul Chadwick..." I found it hard to meet Niamh's eyes, scared that I might weep. "...well, that bit about being straight wasn't true. I am gay, always was..."

I told the whole story again, staring at the table, voice choking a little from time to time. At one point I had to stop because I was close to breaking up so Niamh went into the coffee shop to fetch me a glass of water. When I had finished, I looked at Niamh and saw a sheen of tears in her eyes.

"You went through all that to protect me?"

"Yes. And I'm truly sorry for the pain I caused you. I've agonised over it for years."

"Thank you but I suppose you thought it for the best." Niamh gave me a rueful little smile. "And I'm sorry for what I said the other day. I meant you to hear and it was petty and nasty of me—I'm not usually like that. You know, Marti, the irony of what happened is that outing me wouldn't have done any real damage, although at the time I believed it would. I found out several years later that my parents had worked out for themselves that I'm gay and they didn't care, nor did they care what others would have thought. As for the psycho rapists, I'll bet Paul made them up to keep you in line.

"Perhaps things have turned out for the best, though. I'm so happy with Vicki. Are you happy with Alison?"

"Yes, I'm very happy with her—we're going to get married soon. I'm also happier now because I've managed to tell you what happened. I hope I've cleared the air with you, that things are okay between us."

Niamh nodded. "Yes, things are okay now. There's one thing I must know, though, Marti—did you ever love me?"

"Yes."

"Why did you never say it?"

I put a hand over my eyes for a moment. "Because of the shit way I was brought up," I told her, "With the kind of upbringing I had you learned early on not to say nice things to people because chances were they'd get thrown straight back in your face. Shall I tell you one of my earliest memories? Once when I was about five or six I told my mother I loved her and you know what she said? 'Don't be so bloody stupid, you silly little cow! Fuck off!' Probably the booze talking but I remember crying all day and then never said 'I love you' again, not to anybody. That was the whole pattern of my childhood and it's the sort of thing that scars a child—it never left me and that's why I learned to suppress my emotions."

Niamh put a comforting hand on mine. "That's dreadful and so hard to understand. I had nothing but unconditional love when I was a child."

"Well, there's one thing, thank God," I added, "Since being with Alison I've changed and I'm able to tell her I love her."

"She must be special, your Alison."

"She is," I agreed, "She'll be coming here to meet me in about ten minutes. Maybe you'd like to meet her."

"I'm sorry, Marti, I'd like to but we have to leave. We're having our baby baptised at twelve-thirty. I want to baptise her a Catholic and Vicki's fine with that." She pointed over to where two other women had joined Vicki and were sitting cooing over the child. "Our best friends Susie and Joanna—they're the godmothers."

"Looks like you found a good one with Vicki," I said.

"The greatest."

"What are you calling the baby?"

Niamh beamed. "Clodagh May, after mine and Vicki's mums."

"They're lovely names. With that head of hair and those eyes, she's obviously yours."

"Yes. Vicki and I decided we'd like a family, at least two, so I went first. We'll wait until Clodagh May is about a year old and then Vicki will try for a baby. AID of course—we'll try to get the same donor, to make sure the children really are related."

Something occurred to me. "A Catholic baptism you said. What about that awful old Father... what was it?... Donovan... you told me about once, with his prejudice against gays?"

Niamh laughed. "Not only gays, he was prejudiced against almost everyone and everything. He retired, went back to Ireland—Ireland's loss, our gain. We've got a Father Moreland now, far more liberal. We went to Father Moreland, told him we're in a lesbian marriage and hoped that wouldn't be a bar to his baptising Clodagh May. What a difference from Father Donovan. He told us that Jesus said 'Suffer the little children to come unto me...' and if it was good enough for Jesus, then it's good enough for him. Anyway, I must go, Marti."

There was a lump in my throat as I nodded. "Do you think maybe we can be friends now?"

Niamh reached over and squeezed my hand. "Yes, we can be friends now. And we really would like to meet Alison before you go home so I'll call you." She stood up and bent to kiss my cheek. "Be happy, Marti."

For the first time in five years I felt fully at peace. I turned so that Vicki could see me and mouthed: "Thank you." She smiled and nodded. Moments later they were gone. And several minutes after that I saw Alison coming through the mall's entrance. Smiling, she waved to me. I smiled too and waved back. Alison—my salvation, my future, my love.

Then I realised something: love didn't hurt any more.

The End