It was cold but sunny when I checked the address above the gate. The huge iron posts stood about fifteen feet in the air and held an elaborate locked gate with elegant ironwork that read LIPIZZANER FARMS: THE WINTER HOME OF THE LIPIZZANER STALLIONS. The L had that same flourish Aunt Alice made on her postcard. I stood there for a moment taking that in. Aunt Alice obviously knew this place and how Angelique loved it, and she took that swooping L on the gates of this fabulous farm and made it her code for “I love you” in a time when lesbians couldn’t simply say those words to one another out loud. I knew the L was a sign that I was in the right place, not just geographically, but in my soul.
I punched gate buttons and the visitor voice box, but no one responded, so I parked the rental car off to the side of the massive drive and decided to walk in. I took off my parka and held my breath so I could squeeze between two iron bars in a row of metal that was their farm fence, and then I quickly put my down jacket back on.
It was a long, cold walk to the barn, but I was thrilled to finally be here. Ahead of me were three long, white-and-gray stone barns, with very tall ceilings and high windows, and the heads of white horses sticking out of them. In a field to one side, a few horses were out for exercise. What if she’s with someone else? What if she isn’t excited to see me? What if…what if…what if? I marched in cadence to my fretting as I reached the closest barn in this wonderland of white horses.
I entered, looking for someone I might tell of my arrival. No one answered my “Helloooo!” so I continued to look around. The horse stalls were large and pristine, magnificent in their gold embellishments, and they ran endlessly in one long row on the window side of the aisle, while the opposing wall was a visual catalogue of the long history of the facility, with murals and huge photos of famous horses and horsemen.
Suddenly, a nicker, and I looked behind me. The name plate said ALIZAR and, below his name, his lineage as son of yet another Alizar.
I dashed over to his stall, delighted to see him, and he seemed to remember me. I gave him a pat and a cheek kiss.
“With what I know now, Alizar, I have a feeling your daddy may have been named in honor of my aunt Alice, Alice Armand. Alice-Ar. Alizar.” He put his head down to allow me to rub him. “Where is she? Where’s Levade?” But the elegant horse was giving up no secrets. “Tell you what. I’m staying with you, because I know wherever you are, she will be, at least by dinnertime.”
* * *
Twilight and the sun angled through the high windows and cascaded down into the aisle, making the view beyond a few yards blinding. I almost felt Angelique was there. Suddenly, Levade appeared in the aisle in her riding clothes and paddock boots, looking phenomenal.
“Taylor?” She seemed to know instinctively I was there.
“That is a very hot outfit. You look gorgeous.”
She froze. “What are you doing here?” she whispered, and I could hear her take a breath.
I walked the distance to her as if approaching a shrine, and I kissed her like I never knew I could kiss anyone, and she collapsed in my arms. “I came to be with you.”
“I stay here with Alizar in the winter, and I go back to the Point in the spring.” She began with our geography problem.
“Me too.”
“I don’t go to New York,” she warned me, a bit breathless.
“Where you go, I go.” I stopped and took a breath. “Levade, I’m in love with you. I am madly, irrationally, in love with you. I want to be with you forever.” I’d finally said it, and the look in her eyes melted me. I kissed her as if we were alone and no one would ever see how much I wanted her. I kissed until we were both a river of longing.
“You’ll stay here with me in my apartment. Wait right here and I’ll—”
“I don’t wait,” I said and grabbed her around the waist and walked with her. “I brought you something.” I produced a jump drive from the pocket of my parka. “It’s the first draft of my manuscript entitled White Horse Point. I wrote it about…well, I wrote it because of you.” And she tucked it into her riding vest and hugged me.
We walked through the massive stone training barn, down the long horse aisles, large pictures of famous trainers and equestrians lining the walls. I stopped abruptly in front of a huge photograph of a tall woman in riding clothes, her hair slicked back, making her look extraordinarily dashing. Standing next to her were several magnificent white horses.
“Angelique!”
“Yes. This was the place she loved. She only went to the Point to be with your aunt each summer.”
I paused to consider the commitment that living arrangement represented.
Up a winding set of stone steps, we came to a door that led to Levade’s small but well-appointed apartment. “This is where my aunt used to stay.” Levade pushed the heavy door open, and it squeaked on its hinges. The room was orderly and efficient, attributes I’d come to associate with Levade and her horse training, at least the training of Alizar. Suddenly something blew through the air, slamming into the furniture, and Sass let out a large howling growl.
“Now that’s the kind of greeting I expect,” I said, then smothered Levade in more kisses, unable to separate what I wanted to say from what I felt. This woman was younger than I, more refined in many ways, psychic, and mentally very strong. How could this work for more than the time it took to make us horribly sad and angry when we broke up? But I have a lot to offer too. I’m talented and funny, and let’s not forget addictive.
“I hear your mind clicking away. You’re already worrying about what might happen, or might not happen, down the road between us. And yet, those worries never bothered you with men.”
“Because I didn’t care.”
“And now you do. And that’s love. And there’s risk. And you need to stop thinking so much.”
“That’s what writers do. We think about happy endings and will they turn out that way, and what would happen if they didn’t.”
“Let me see if I can disengage your brain.” Levade slipped out of her clothes and then yanked my shirt off me and unzipped my pants, pushing me onto the bed and kissing me with such fervor that it created visible signs of melting. Then she pulled back and looked into my eyes. “I’m in love with you,” she said quietly.
This time my response was immediate. “I’m so incredibly in love with you. You’re my soul mate, the one person who completes me. I’m not happy unless I’m with you.”
She cocked her head to one side, gave me her beautiful smile, and said cheerfully, breaking the romantic mood, “Good!”
I laughed at her response, as if she were the instructor, pleased that I’d finally understood the lesson and had gotten the answer right. Then her look changed to longing, and she slid her naked body farther up on my chest and guided my face into the deepest part of her, as I clenched her buttocks tightly in my hands and thrust her into me, and she moved rhythmically, pounding and pounding, and climaxing too soon.
I was insane for her, and I rolled her over onto her chest, stretched myself onto the length of her back, and reached underneath her, seeking out the most sensitive part of her, stroking her as she writhed, begging me to give her time to recover, but I would not. I kissed the back of her beautiful neck as I held her open, allowing me to enter, and she bucked beneath me, and her hips pushed up into me, and she tried to muffle her screams in the pillows as she climaxed, shaking and shattered.
As I rolled off her and she turned toward me, I could see in her magnificent eyes that she was undone.
“That was beyond phenomenal,” she whispered.
I cocked my head to one side, gave her a big grin, and imitated her unromantic, cheery reply, “Good!” I said, and she giggled uncontrollably and punched me playfully, and I loved who she was.
* * *
I was snuggled up to Levade, lounging on a huge leather couch with her head leaning back against my chest and my arms wrapped around her. It made me think of the picture of Angelique and Aunt Alice on the cabin porch swing, in this same position. “This is what love looks like,” Ramona had said. Basking in the warmth of lovemaking, staring at the snow-covered pasture where white horses in blankets were cavorting, I knew she was right.
“Ramona has pictures of Angelique and Alice together. We should frame them and hang them in here,” I said, already mentally moving in, and Levade smiled at me.
The phone rang, and as if conjured up, Ramona’s voice was distinctive and irritated at not knowing where I had been.
“I thought you were dead! I even called Sam, and he said you left the coffee pot plugged in, and a gorilla-porn pepper shaker for Marney, and you just evaporated.”
Good old Sam, I thought. He can definitely keep a secret.
“For all I knew, you fell in the lake or were attacked by brother-of-Frank!”
“Did Frank have a brother?” I glanced down at Levade, wondering if we would have more siblings to deal with, and Levade rolled her eyes.
“No! Thank God!” Ramona shouted.
“I’m in Illinois at a very expensive horse farm,” I said.
“Why, for God’s sake?” she exclaimed.
“I’m with Levade.”
Ramona’s voice warmed up. “Ah, I see. No waiting till spring. You’ll be back in New York soon. Wait and see.”
“I can’t wait,” I said, and left her to interpret that remark.
Her voice contained a smile. “Well, write something, will you?”
When I hung up, Levade pulled away from me. “You talk to her a lot. Are you attracted to her?”
“You’re psychic. You should know the answer to that,” I teased.
“I want to hear it from you.” She punched me playfully.
“My publicist? No! Of course not. This jealousy over other women, is that a lesbian thing?” My mind was already zipping ahead to a time when I would have to defend all my actions and learn the intricacies of living with Levade.
“Here’s a ‘lesbian thing,’” she said, and shoved me onto my back, her hot mouth devouring mine. I pulled back to gaze into those gorgeous blue eyes, and then, wet with wanting, I kissed her again mercilessly, submerging myself in her, lost in the throbbing heat of our desire. My waiting was finally over, and despite how long it had taken me to find Levade, her love was worth waiting for. She was the other half of me, my ethereal blue lake and the point of my existence. The woman I would spend the rest of my life with, if she would have me. And why wouldn’t she have me, I thought. I’m addictive.
We made love all night, as if making up for all the years we’d been without each other. At dawn, as horses nickered in their stalls and the sun rose over the snowy fields, I lay with Levade asleep in my arms, and it was then I realized that Angelique had fulfilled her promise to me, made on that first plane ride to the Northwoods: I had found passion I never knew existed.
Thank you, Angelique, and give my love to Aunt Alice.