When I arrive at Hera’s, I have no idea what might happen. Even though she stayed over on Wednesday, her warm, naked body pressed against me throughout the night, nothing else happened and not much more was said.
We’ve spoken on the phone since, but Hera is a woman who needs to be experienced live. Half of what she wants to say, but can’t express with words, I need to read off her face and translate from her body language.
She opens the door wide and kisses me on the cheek, almost politely.
Once she has closed the door, she grins at me, and says, “Please tell me tomorrow’s Rocco’s turn to open the Pink Bean?”
I nod. “We take turns on Saturdays and I opened last week, so.” I look into Hera’s eyes and something in her glance tells me this Friday evening will be very different from the last. Not because she will—miraculously—allow me to be all over her tonight, but because she appears to no longer be in the paralyzing grip of fear.
“Good.” Only then, does she pull me close. She wraps her arms around me. “I need to tell you something,” she whispers in my ear.
It’s a beautiful evening and Hera’s taken me to her back patio. She has fixed us each a grapefruit mimosa—I’ve let it slip that it’s my favorite tipple.
“I’m not very good at explaining things.” She holds up her hands. “I think that’s why I was so dead set on becoming a builder. At least in my choice of profession I could express myself with my hands.”
You’ve expressed yourself plenty with your hands already, I want to say, but I know it’s not appropriate. She wants to tell me something that is important and difficult. My attention can’t help but be sidetracked for a moment by her big strong hands, though.
She sips from her mimosa and pulls a bit of a face. “Did I put too much grapefruit juice in?” she asks.
“No. They’re perfect.”
“Okay, if you say so.”
“I do.” I send her an encouraging smile.
“When Sam…” She clears her throat and starts again. “When Sam died we were… How to put this? We were going through somewhat of a cold war period in our relationship. Things were not good. Not in our daily life and certainly not in the bedroom.” Hera stares at the liquid in her glass. I can already tell a grapefruit mimosa will never be her drink—for starters, it’s way too pink for her.
“It had been going on for a while. It’s one of the reasons I sought therapy. Even though, sadly, Jill couldn’t fix me quickly enough for Sam and me to make up before she died. For me to take that crucial first step to repair our relationship.” She snickers. “In a way, it’s kind of silly. But hindsight and all that, you know.” She drinks and pulls a face again. “I was going through menopause and it not only seriously fucked with my head, it fucked with my body as well. I tried all sorts of things. Every patch and hormone treatment you can think of, but nothing really seemed to help. I got more sullen, more depressed, ever more disgusted by my body. I grew so unbelievably uncomfortable in my skin, of course I didn’t want Sam to touch me. I stopped touching her as well. We stopped having sex altogether. Which didn’t help matters.” Hera briefly looks me in the eye, then glances away again.
“To cut a long story short. We grew more and more apart. Most nights I slept in the spare room. I didn’t know what to do with myself and with this whole menopause and midlife crisis business. It’s as though it plunged me into this big existential crisis. Things were bad. And then she died.” Hera’s voice breaks. “She was just gone.”
I wish we didn’t have this table between us. I need to stop myself from getting up and throwing my arms around her. But I can tell Hera’s not done yet. She has more to say.
“The ironic thing is that after Sam died, my doctor tried me on a new hormone replacement combo that actually worked. I started feeling better about myself.” She sighs. “Of course by then she was gone and I no longer had the chance to tell her how stupid I’d been. How disrespectful of her needs and her desires. Disrespectful of our relationship as well because I’d had actual thoughts of leaving her.” Hera wraps her fingers tightly around the delicate Champagne flute. “Try standing upright in front of your dead partner’s coffin then.” In one swift movement, she brings the flute to her lips and knocks back all of its contents. “The truly excruciating part was that it was all in my head. I got trapped in this infinite loop in my mind, because, once she was gone, all I wanted was for her to come back. But I could only see it then, when she was already dead. When it was too late.” She puts her glass down and pinches the bridge of her nose.
“Hera,” I whisper. “I’m so sorry you had to go through that.”
“She was the woman I loved and I hadn’t kissed her for weeks. How’s that for loving someone?” Hera’s voice breaks, but then she seems to regroup. She straightens her frame. She’s still staring straight ahead. As though she’s still afraid to look at me—as though what she has just told me might make me dislike her, while it only makes me grow fonder of her. Because I know this is hard for her, but she’s having the courage to show herself to me. She’s finding the words she believed were so unspeakable.
“Hera.” I can’t stop myself any longer. I get up. I need to touch her. I need to make her feel some warmth. I crouch in front of her and put my hands on her knees. “I’m sure Sam understood, if not all, then at least part of what you were going through. Isn’t that what the people we love do? They know us better than we know ourselves and they understand us, through the good and the bad.”
“I treated her so appallingly that, after she died, I vowed to never enter into a relationship again. I think the coping mechanism I developed when I was at my worst, the complete shutdown of any physical intimacy, has become so ingrained in my mind that I don’t know how to get past it now. Even when my body is clearly telling me it wants more.” Hera looks down at me. Her mouth is set in a downward grimace. I just want to kiss it off her. I want to see a smile on her face again as soon as possible. But I can’t kiss her yet. I can only make my intentions known by gently squeezing her knee.
“I can understand how awful Sam dying like that must have been for you. She was still so young and you were going through that rough patch, but Hera, you’re still alive. You’re not dead. You need to find a way to live your life without punishing yourself.”
“Turns out that’s bloody hard to do.” Hera looks me in the eye. Her face has softened although I can still see the struggle in it. The battle between wanting to chastise herself eternally for being what she considers a below-par partner and what meeting me has awakened in her.
“I dare to disagree.” I push myself up because this crouch is getting quite uncomfortable. I hold out my hand to her. “It certainly doesn’t have to be as hard as you’re making it.”
She takes my hand but doesn’t get up.
“How about, just for tonight, we go about things a little differently?” I may not have a great relationship track record, but I do have some experience in making people let their guard down. “How about…” I give her hand a tug and she lets me pull her up.
“You’re surprisingly strong.” Hera grins at me as we come face to face. “How about what?”
“How about we go inside and we approach this from the opposite direction?”
“Can you be a bit less cryptic, please?” She grins at me.
“I know you’re scared. And I know you have an endless stream of thoughts running through your head. But I also know, for an absolute, indisputable fact, that you want me. Why don’t you let me show you just a tiny glimpse of how things can be between us and we take things from there? Who knows, maybe we can silence some of those voices in your head for good.” I inch closer to her. “All due respect to Sam, for your loss, and what you went through, but I’m not Sam. I’m Katherine. My more extravagant friends sometimes call me K.Jo. And I’m here for you, because, guess what, Hera Walker?” I bring my lips to her ear. “I think I’m falling in love with you.”
She lets go of my hands and curls her arms around me, holding me close.
“I think I might be falling in love with you too.” Hera mumbles her words, but I hear them loud and clear. They reverberate in my ear for a long time after.