Kathleen Valentine by My Last Romance, other passions

diving every few days."

"Yeah." I pick up the yellow legal pad by the sofa. He is working on a poem. "Lobster-diving isn’t a popular sport in Kentucky."

"No wonder you left it." He assembles the ingredients for his masterpiece on the counter. Everything Flynnie has ever cooked for me was delicious. "Why do people live in places like that?"

The power goes out just as we are sitting down to eat. Flynnie fires up the oil lamps and the soft flickering glow makes the room even cosier.

"One of these days, I’m going to rig up a way to run the CD player on lamp oil," he says but the rain is hammering the roof so hard we wouldn’t hear it anyway.

We clear the dishes away in silence, the rain isn’t letting up and it makes conversation more like a shouting match.

As I stack the plates in the drying rack the little bird in the cuckoo clock cuckoos eleven.

"Are you staying?" he asks not looking at me.

"I guess so."

He nods and gets me a clean white t-shirt from his dresser. "Here, you get first turn in the bathroom."

While Flynnie splashes around in his bathroom, I snuggle down in his comfortable bed and stare up at the rain pelting the skylight above. This is how it is with Flynnie and me. I get my feelings hurt, or have a bad day, or just feel lonely, so I climb Flynnie’s bluff and he makes everything alright. He comforts me and bolsters my ego. He makes me dinner and invites me to spend the night. We crawl into his warm bed, chat for awhile and then drift off to sleep. Deep in the night a foghorn blows, Max barks in his sleep, or a ship’s bell clangs in the channel. Sleepily we move into each others’ arms. That’s when the real enchantment starts for then Flynnie is at his best.

We do not speak. We pretend this is all happening in a dream. Flynnie makes love to me so sweetly, so deeply, so caressingly that I am reduced to the tender, beautiful, lovable girl that he seems to see me as but which I can never accept. When finally the first pink of dawn grows out of the far horizon I sleep the best sleeps of my life.

It is always the same. When I wake there is coffee on the stove and hot muffins on the table with a note saying "gone fishing" or "diving with Danny" or "business on the mainland", followed by "hope your day is wonderful." And the next time we see each other we act as though nothing has happened.

Flynnie carries an oil lamp to the bed and when he is snuggled in beside me, blows it out and puts it on the floor. He slides his arm under my head and says, "Sweet dreams."

"Flynnie," I say, "do you love me?"

There is a long silence filled with rain and distant fog horns.

"Yes," he says. "I do."

"Why haven’t you ever said that to me before?"

He rolls onto his side and traces my cheekbones with his fingertips. "Good question," he says finally. "I guess because I know that you’re still looking for Mr. Wonderful and I ain’t him." He sighs. "And I’m tired of getting my heart broken."

"Oh, Flynnie." I kiss his fingertip and move closer to him.

He leans over and kisses me softly. "Go to sleep, Babe."

"No," I whisper. "I don’t want to keep pretending nothing happens when we’re together. I don’t want to wake up in an empty bed tomorrow."

He is quiet for a long time. "When you pretend something doesn’t happen, it makes it easier when it stops happening."

He is lying very still not touching me. I push back the quilt and touch his face with my fingertips drawing them along the plane of his hard, lined cheeks and down through the prickle of his beard.

"You’re a beautiful man, Flynnie," I whisper. I slip my arms around him kissing his mouth softly. "You’re the most beautiful man I know."

The sound he makes is strange—half a laugh, half a sob.

"I’m going to make everything alright," I tell him, snuggling close, sliding my leg between his thick, bowed legs. "I’m going to make sure you never get up and leave me again."

In the darkness I feel his smile.
     

DANSE AVEC MOI
    Jean-Luc has