Melissa was spending more time in her studio painting and jokingly said that post-traumatic stress was an over-achieving muse. She was using acrylics, and her dark paintings reminded me of Vincent Van Gogh’s The Potato Eaters because she used so much texture, and because the subject matter she selected elevated things that we weren’t supposed to find culturally significant. This was especially true of her somber representations of women. When I saw The Potato Eaters, Van Gogh’s original painting, for the first time, I realized how important it can be to see a painting in person. When I stood up close and to one side, I could see each brush stroke, the thickness and the movement of the painting.
Nick dragged me around London with my guitar. I took the battered old Hiwatt bass amp out of Jake’s wardrobe, cleaned it up and finally persuaded her to practice with the bass and play with me in private. She was studying two of our favorite bass players, Bruce Foxton from the Jam and Paul Simonon from the Clash. We also listened to a pre-FM concert by the Police in Chicago, 1979 that Melissa had found because it was mad good quality and Sting was an awesome bass player. And of course we listened to Paul McCartney and the Pretenders with the original line-up.
When Nick and I rehearsed in the flat, Melissa often shut herself in her studio to paint. Lately she’d been keeping to herself more, preoccupied by a series of paintings she was working on about women and rape. I knew Nick was disconcerted by Melissa’s silences and abrupt disappearances. “She’s got a lot on her mind,” I said, hoping to prevent Nick from taking Melissa’s uncommunicative mood personally.
When we got into bed after Melissa had been working on some charcoal sketches later than usual, I asked, “Are you sure?” as she started kissing me in a sexual way. “I can just hold you.”
“I appreciate the way you always treat me with such care.” Melissa pulled my T-shirt over my head. “Stop looking at me like I’m going to fall apart. I’m not that fragile. I’m not gonna break. You have to stop seeing me as a victim. I don’t think of you as a victim of your mental—uniqueness. I think of you as you.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I do see you as you. I know I’m working out my own issues of feeling helpless when it comes to protecting you.”
“You are not responsible for something painful in my past. You can’t control everything that happens. I know your OCD wants you to believe you can, and you confuse that with being a good person, but really, it’s okay.” She held my hands. As she kissed me gently on the mouth, loud pounding downstairs startled us.
“What the fuck is that?” I turned away abruptly. “Is someone at the door?” It had just gone half past twelve. The banging grew more insistent. Someone called Melissa’s name.
“Fuck me, is that Nick?” Melissa jumped out of bed and threw on her dressing gown, tying it round her waist as she rushed down the stairs. I found my T-shirt on the floor and followed her. “Nick?” Melissa opened the front door and Nick practically fell inside. She was shaking so hard Melissa made her sit down on the floor. “What’s happened? Are you hurt?” Melissa knelt beside her. The belt of her dressing gown loosened, and I could see her lush breasts, pale and smooth as driftwood caressed by the sea, as she bent forward.
Nick was almost hyperventilating but was physically unharmed. We helped her up and sat her on the bed in her room. She said that Atom had been waiting in front of her flat when she’d come home from her local at closing time.
“That fucking gobshite,” Melissa said fiercely. “I’m not having this. You’re moving in here till this is sorted. We’ll get your gear over the weekend.”
Nick protested, “I’ll be in the way. I’ll be intruding.”
“No,” Melissa said firmly, “you’re family. And the three of us get on so well that having you here never feels like a strain. It’s lovely having you here. I know I’ve been distracted lately.” Melissa made up the bed with clean sheets. “But you belong here with us. There.” She put a fresh pillowcase on Nick’s favorite pillow. “You’ll feel better now. Alright?”
After Nick had calmed down and we went back upstairs, I asked, “Are you alright?”
Melissa took off her dressing gown and got into bed. “What do you mean?”
“Uh—I don’t know, a bloke stalking Nick, the threat of violence—didn’t that upset you? Doesn’t that bring things up for you?”
“Of course it bloody well upsets me.” Melissa wrapped her arms around me. “But she’s safe now, and we’ll sort it out later.”
“Melissa, I know you’re more comfortable taking care of someone else, but I want to take care of you.”
“What did I just finish telling you?” Melissa kissed me, sucking on my lower lip and running her hand seductively over my body.
I cupped my hand over her breast, gently stroking the alluring brown disc of her nipple. “Are you sure—?” I began again.
“Mmm,” she murmured, “your concern is not what I need right now.”
Her voice made my knees go weak even though I was lying down. I whispered, “What if Nick hears us?”
“She can’t hear us downstairs at the other end of the house no matter how loud we are.”
I pressed my body into hers, resting my hand between her legs. “Remember the old days when we never made love without music?”
“Oh God, yes,” Melissa laughed. “How many times have I been fucked to ‘White Riot’?”
“We could make love to Heart,” I suggested shyly.
“Want to?” Melissa said conspiratorially.
“Yes,” I said, and we both laughed.
“Which album?” Melissa asked.
“Oh, Little Queen. Definitely.”
“Anything before or after the corporate rock period when Ann and Nancy lost their minds and had really big hair,” Melissa said. I ran downstairs and brought up the first four Heart CDs.
A smile graced Melissa lips. “It’s just a Little Queen kind of night.” It was Friday, and Melissa didn’t have to get up in the morning. “Mmm, that’s perfect,” she said as the CD played and I slid in next to her again. She kissed me and moved my legs apart with her hand. I felt myself relaxing into her touch.
“You don’t have to feel like making love all the time, you know,” I said, checking in with her one more time as “Love Alive” was playing, and everything was dead romantic.
“Amanda,” Melissa shook me, “you’re going to drive me to drink. You don’t understand. I do feel like making love with you all the time. I get so turned on when I’m near you, or just thinking about you.”
“Same here,” I confessed, wondering if that was why my most intrusive OCD thought was having my hands come off. Because that’s how I showed tenderness. Touching Melissa, playing guitar, typing out lyrics. I used my hands to express that side of myself, the part that felt divine.
As Ann started singing “Dream of the Archer,” Melissa gave me a lingering kiss that made my whole body ache for her so much I thought I would dissolve. Kissing her shoulders, I gradually moved my hands and lips lower. She sighed deeply as she rolled over and I put my mouth on her ass and slipped my hands underneath her. “You’re so lovely,” I whispered.
“I want to feel you inside me, love.”
Gently I slid a finger inside her as I kissed and caressed her. Her cries were as exciting and beautiful as hearing the Clash for the first time. Slowly rolling her over, I nuzzled her pubic hair and separated the lips of her labia softly with my fingers. Very lightly, I touched the tip of my tongue to her clitoris. “Oh, sweetie,” she moaned.
I ran my tongue along her grooves, slowly sliding my finger back inside her as she spread her legs wider, groaning. I felt her legs quiver, and she shuddered against me with a wail. I slid another finger inside her and rocked her as her orgasms became more intense. Then I gently removed my fingers and sucked on her lightly, stroking her inner thighs until her breathing quickened again. I couldn’t get enough of her. I reached my hands up to squeeze and caress her hard nipples. As I sucked her harder she exploded against me, and I felt myself coming just from feeling her pleasure.
“Oh my God,” she whimpered, as I slipped a finger inside her again. “Sweetie. Oh, Jesus.” She shivered with another wave of pleasure. I stayed inside her until she reached out both hands to pull me up next to her. “Mmmm,” she sighed, trembling with an aftershock. Then she gripped me tightly as another spasm overtook her. She opened her eyes, and they were wet. She began kissing me passionately, and I felt her hot tears on my face.
“Oh, baby, I love you so much,” I murmured, feeling her hands all over me like she was a Hindu Goddess with eight arms.
When we lay quietly together, I whispered in her ear, “I fancied you from the moment we first met.”
She smiled. “No, you didn’t. You didn’t fancy me then.”
“I did.”
“You didn’t. You were in shock anyway,” she protested. “And you got knocked in the head, which is surely not the best time to know if you fancy someone.”
“You looked like an angel,” I said. “And when you held my hands, I didn’t want you to let go.”
“We held hands?”
“Well, you held my hands to see if anything was broken. And the next night, when I slept on your sofa, you had me grip your hands as hard as I could.”
Melissa laughed. “I was checking to see if you were concussed, you git. Did you really like me then?”
“Oh, aye. You descended upon my bedsit and rescued us. You rubbed my head when I felt ill.”
At five in the morning we went downstairs to check on Nick. We saw light from under the door, and Melissa rapped softly. “Can’t sleep?” she asked, finding Nick awake, disheveled, and reading a paperback with exhausted-looking eyes. Melissa sat next to her. “Come lie down in our bed.”
“That is ridiculous,” Nick said. “Then I really will be intruding.”
“Don’t be silly,” Melissa said. “There’s nothing wrong with needing to feel safe.”
We went upstairs to Melissa’s big bed, and I sang “Because You’re Frightened” by Magazine. I fell asleep to the metallic sound of rain on the roof and against the window and dreamed I was in junior high school again. I heard Kurt Cobain in the background screaming, “You’re in high school again. / NO RECESS!” from his song “School.” I had a crush on my Spanish teacher, Miss Digame-en-Español, but she made the class sing “My Country ’Tis of Thee” and I sang “God Save the Queen” instead. Then I sang the Sex Pistols’ version of “God Save the Queen.” I woke up knowing how disappointed she was in me, one of her special students, and thinking, my mind is my refuge, the only lit café on a very dark road. In real life, my former Spanish teacher had turned me down when I asked for her support in defeating a proposition on the ballot that would have fired all gay and lesbian teachers from the California public school system. It’s stupid, I know, but I guess it really hurt me if I was still dreaming about it.