Just Give Me Your Hand. I'll Pull You Back Over (L,M)

“Thank you for this.”

Maeve was slowly walking beside Luna as they went down the hill into the forest together. Her date had met her outside the Arrow and while she normally enjoyed Luna’s presence, there was something disconcerting today.

“Of course. I’ve been looking forward to this for a while. We’re going this way, I thought it could be our first stop.”

“You don’t think Hazel will mind?” They’d turned down the path towards the bodyguard’s dance hall.

“She mentioned to me that she and Hel would be busy with other things today, and she doesn’t have exclusive rights to it.” She pushed the door open for Maeve and followed her through.

The brass of the phonograph was gentler than usual as they entered, though Maeve’s only experience with the building was watching the duel when Ata had broken in during the challenge.

“I thought that since you were apprehensive about how long it had been, we could do something quiet together. If either of us change our mind, the machine over there seems to respond to requests.”

Maeve nodded, standing at the edge of the large room.

“May I have this dance?” Luna asked. Maeve nodded again, gingerly taking her hand. The latina walked her to the middle of the dance floor and put her own hand on Maeve’s hip.

It wasn’t the same sort of dance that Hazel had used the space to teach her and Dick, a carefully timed match between leader and follower. Luna led her into a gentle sway, the sort where Maeve wouldn’t need to make any decisions at all. With the heels that Luna was wearing, they could see nearly eye to eye.

“How have you been feeling the past few days? Did the challenge bother you?” Maeve asked.

“I’m doing well. I’ve had a pretty casual past few days this round, and the challenge went about as well for me as I could’ve hoped.” She tried to think of a question to ask back.

Maeve used the silence to keep control of the conversation. “And your friends? Stella has seemed happier. Has Felicia recovered from what you had me talk to her about?”

“They’ve all seemed to be doing well. Stella’s seemed a lot happier this week between her mentor and…”

“Helena’s file?” Maeve finished.

“I’m glad you know. I don’t like keeping her secret.”

“She showed me mine the day after she showed Stella hers.”

“And how did you feel about it?”

“I felt like it was an unhealthy process, though it was good that she was trying to admit their existence to us.” Dr.Petrov answered.

Luna raised an eyebrow. “It didn’t bother you?”

“I try not to let it feel personal.” The therapist sidestepped the question.

Her date noticed. “That’s not an answer. It’s alright if it did bother you.”

The silver haired woman still tried to pivot away verbally, as much as she couldn’t physically. “Did it bother you?”

“I asked first.”

Maeve sighed. “Yes. It bothered me. She dug into my life, all of our lives for her own gain. She knows virtually everything about us, and yet she held everything back for years. I knew my relationship with her was transactional. All of my relationships with clients are transactional to some degree, it’s the nature of running a business. I was comfortable with her treating it like it was transactional. But this whole time she’s been treating me like a tool, and I don’t know how I’m supposed to be alright with that.” She huffed, taking another deep breath. “I don’t usually vent like that. I’m sorry, I don’t think that was good behavior for our date.”

Luna slipped her right hand out of Maeve’s, moving it to sit symmetrically on the older woman’s hip. “I dragged that out of you, it’s not something you did. And besides, as the certified dating expert between the two of us, becoming more comfortable around each other and learning more about each other are two of the three points of going on a date. By my standards, you’re doing pretty damn well.”

“Thank you.” Maeve’s calm turned to mild curiosity. “What’s the third point?”

“We can discuss that when we get to it.”

Maeve’s hands semi-counciously found Luna’s shoulders. “It’s sexual, isn’t it?”

“It might be.” Luna smirked. “But that’s why I wasn’t going to mention it yet.”

Her date almost laughed, but turned more solemn instead. “Do you remember when I told you before that I was hesitant about a new relationship, and that my only previous one was with my ex-husband?”

“Sure?”

“When my friend Marissa visited she suggested I try talking to someone about him and where my baggage around relationships comes from. Would you be comfortable listening to me explain the source of my reticence?”

“Of course. Why don’t we sit down? I don’t know if you stress eat like… honestly most of my friends do, but if you feel the urge it’ll be right there at the table for you.”

So they moved to one of the tables. Maeve tried to think about how to explain it, but felt herself spiraling as she was unmoored from her usual ability to compartmentalize. Where do I start? I don’t want to overwhelm her, but I don’t want to leave something out or confuse her. Will she even be interested in me after she knows me better? Would that… make things easier?

She was cut off from that train of thought by her hand being picked up. Her date had chosen to sit next to her instead of across from her like you’d normally expect, and now had pulled the older woman’s hand on her thigh. Trying not to overreact, she remained frozen like a statue.

“What are you doing?”

“That TF that you got stressed by yesterday, Cuddle Therapist? That makes you touchy without noticing, right?”

Maeve’s eyes found the floor. “Yes, it does.”

“So this way you know you’re doing it. I don’t mind your hand here and if you end up moving it further, whether intentionally or not, I wouldn’t mind that either. This way at least you know what you’re doing, right?”

Oh. “That’s what you were doing when you asked me to dance when we first came in, isn’t it? You wanted a designated spot for my arms so you could start asking me questions?”

Luna shrugged. “I hoped it’d help. If so, I’m ready to listen when you’re ready to talk. If it’s making it weird, you can have your hand back." She loosened her grip, then tightened it again after seeing that Maeve made no effort to pull it back before speaking.

“I had a boyfriend I’d met in high school, Harrison. He was rather ordinary looking back, but he was the first boy that showed interest in me. He had all these big dreams for our future together that impressed me, and so despite the fact that maybe I should’ve known better I embraced all of them. I had received offers from two of the Ivys when I’d applied and my parents offered to help me with a scholarship to where they taught, but since all three of those schools denied my boyfriend I decided to go to the state school about forty minutes away that he’d been accepted by instead. ‘Their psychology program was good enough, and I really didn’t need all the prestige,’ I told myself at the time.

“In our freshman year everyone was required to live in the collegiate dormitories. He was annoyed by that, but we tried to make up for it by spending time together every weekend. At the end of our first year there, he proposed, which caught both my parents and I by surprise. Despite their own misgivings they didn’t want to hold me back, so I accepted. We were only engaged for two months, he said that it was because his grandmother was ill and he wanted to make sure she could see him get married before she passed. But what that meant was that Harrison and I were married when we went back to school.

“We found an apartment together, and tried to form our own life together. Outside of our classes we both found part time jobs to manage rent and groceries; I was a cashier at the local Bullseye and he found something at the student library. Everything was exciting in those days. We’d both started to talk about potential baby names together. I wasn’t pregnant yet, but Harrison and I agreed it was just a matter of time. At that point our only disagreements were about whether we should wait until graduation like he wanted, or start trying immediately like his mother and I had talked about. She wanted grandchildren, and I wanted to be a mother nearly as much.”

Maeve’s wistful smile as she’d described her younger years began to fade. She frowned at her hand, which had crept two inches higher up Luna’s thigh toward her waist. But the Latina gave her an encouraging nod, and so she started her story again.

“That was what our life looked like over the next two years. We’d go to class, then go to work and spend what time we had with each other. In the summer we spend time with both our families, and those times were easy. But then we’d return to the apartment in the fall, which seemed to be increasingly my job to manage. If I didn’t do the laundry, then we would run out of clean clothes. If I didn’t cook, then we wouldn’t eat

“I started to notice something, on our third summer break from college. My mother-in-law was wonderful. She was kind and hardworking, always tired from helping everyone and so accepting that at times she felt like a third parent. But my father-in-law was very different from my own father, almost slug-like in his laziness. I realized that it was something Harrison might have internalized as normal.

“I tried to discuss how asymmetrical our responsibilities at home had become, but I don’t think he understood. He first tried to defend the situation by saying that he was tired after work and school, to which I grew frustrated and pointed out that I was also tired after work and school but still did everything without his help. He kept pushing back and in his infinite kindness and wisdom…” She trailed off, her tone growing sardonic. “After I pointed out how I was even busier than him, he was kind enough to suggest that I could stop working if I needed to.

“That was the end of our marriage. Realizing that I’d married a manchild struck me. I hadn’t asked the question, but I knew at once that it would be me changing the diapers by myself. All my desire to be a mother was overshadowed by not wanting to be like Harrison’s mother, managing everything by myself as I pretended it was fine. So I walked out.

“Everything falling apart afterwards came slower. My parents let me move back in with them and I commuted to my classes until I graduated. Harrison tried to slow things down and do what he could to stop it, but Michigan law encourages smooth divorces and his mother was still an angel, helping me even when I was trying to pull away from her family.

“After graduation I moved from Michigan to Connecticut to earn my master’s degree at one of the schools I’d turned down for him, trying to find a new beginning and see what my life might’ve been like if I’d gone there in the first place. My parents followed after they retired from the university they were at. I tried to find things to fill my life with to replace my dreams for a family of my own. I earned a doctorate and started on the path that would lead to meeting Richard and through Genet, meeting you.”

There was silence in the air, the phonograph having clicked off at some point in her monologue.

“I apologize. That was far more than I should’ve given you on what is supposed to be our first date. I may be even worse at this than I expected.”

She looked over, her date seemed shaken. I should have told her less than half of that this early.

But Luna tried to mask it as they made eye contact. “No, to be fair I encouraged you to talk.” She paused, trying to decide what to say next. “Is this a situation where you want advice or understanding?”

“You may do what you like.”

“I appreciate you trusting me. If it helps, I've never wanted kids at all. But for what it’s worth, I don’t think you’d have the problem of doing everything by yourself here. There’d be like nine people to share chores if Genet gets what she wants, and we both know Dick would rather set himself on fire than know he inconvenienced someone. And that’s not even factoring in Hel’s servants.” She looked for a way to change the subject. “I think we both could use something to relax. How about we have lunch, then maybe both pick a movie for a marathon?”

***

The two of them were laying together in the bed at the Pomegranate, having just finished Luna’s choice that they’d decided to watch first.

“So what’d you think? I know it’s pretty old, but I’ve always loved it. Mom showed it to me in high school and we watch it together like every year. We both hated the remake that came out back in January though, it was way too sanitized and got rid of most of the actual “mean girl” characterization of Katie and the Silicones. The only redeeming part was the actress they got to play Rayna Henry.”

This is making it harder to defend against Genet’s age comments. Maeve thought to herself, choosing not to comment on the fact that the “pretty old” movie had come out when she was already in college. “How old are you?”

“Twenty-eight?”

“You’re not bothered by our age gap?”

Luna shook her head. “We’re both adults.”

“As long as you’re sure.”

“Of course I’m sure.”

“Good.” Maeve brought up the other thing on her mind. “You don’t need to keep putting my hands on you, especially if we’re not talking. I don’t want you to feel like I’m manhandling you.”

Luna gave an impish smile. “No, this time it’s because I’ve wanted to.”

“Oh. May I…” The older woman slowly took one of Luna’s arms and moved it to her own midsection. “I think I wanted to do that.”

“That’s fine with me, I’ve gone much farther on a first date. One problem though.” She glanced at the TV. “If we both have our hands full with each other, then who’s going to swap the DVDs?”

As if to answer her question, there was a whirring that came from the television as it ejected the DVD from their first movie, the disc falling onto the table holding the screen. The next movie’s disc floated shakily into its place. A single rose petal fell and the air was filled with the aroma of fresh bread and cinnamon as Maeve’s movie started.

***

“You didn’t need to walk me home. Our doors are within sight of each other.” Maeve said as the two of them walked back to the Arrow, holding hands as they passed the swan fountain. The sun was setting, and it was now almost five hours later. Maeve’s tragic romance movie was already long at over three hours, but Luna had needed them to pause it for a while to hide in the bathroom after Maeve had politely denied the younger woman’s request for oral during the scene where the male main character made a painting of the female lead wearing nothing but a necklace. They’d had dinner in the dining hall after that, trying to avoid leaving any hints as to what they’d been doing together after Luna’s friends ended up joining them.

“This was your first date in forever, right? Especially for a first date, I want it to feel special.”

They both stopped, having reached the Arrow’s doorstep. Luna leaned over as if preparing for a kiss, and asked: “May I?”

“You may.” Maeve replied, trepidation creeping into her voice.

Luna kissed her, pressing her soft lips with Maeve’s. The silver haired woman could taste hints of the pizza they’d both had to have for dinner on the Latina’s lips, but it was barely noticeable amidst the sound of her heartbeat that in her mind was overpowering the fountain’s din.

Luna Lopez, +1 BP (Kiss) (Caretaker)

Maeve Petrov, +1 BP (Kiss) (Caretaker)

As her heart was pounding, she felt Luna’s body press up against hers. One hand took her by the shoulder, and the other went lower with a squeeze.

Luna Lopez, +1 BP (Assplay) (Caretaker)

It was both more and less than Maeve expected, as her date squeezed her posterior once before letting her go. She came away from it scarlet, without words as the two of them broke apart.

“That’s to remember for next time. As long as you think there’ll be a next time?” Luna said, her tone rising into a question at the end.

Maeve nodded, still blushing. “To next time, then.”