Encounters (2)

2. Party crashers

She entered the party with her cheeks almost as red as her hair. Her boyfriend had asked her a million times in a million ways if there was something wrong, and she had finally snapped at him with something rude. Of course, having nothing to do with his girlfriend’s humor changes, Phil had gotten angry and was now walking at a meter’s distance from her, with the words “screw you and your damn moods” written on his face.

Well, he was right, but she wasn’t about to tell him “I’m sorry”. What was the point of apologizing if she was going to do it again soon? An exact week had gone by since she’d met that strange girl at the bar of a similar party, and she’d made it a living hell for everybody around her, but especially her boyfriend. Why? She wasn’t really sure. For some reason, she was finding her life unbearable, so the only way she could think of making it better was terrorizing everyone else’s.

However, it wasn’t really making it better. It was only making her bitter - a bitter old lady that no one wanted to be with. Yulia had been right: hanging out with her would make everyone snub her. They all pushed her away, particularly the girls, and she was starting to wonder when it was going to be too much for her boyfriend. When are you going to leave me? She watched him shake hands and hug everyone, knowing that her father would kill her if they broke up. In fact, the man had warned her about it several times that week.

“I don’t like him,” she had said.

“You don’t know what you want,” the stronger voice of her father had barked back. “Besides, whether you like him or hate him doesn’t matter.”

That was true. Phil had never been a crush or a boyfriend, only a future husband, and the purpose of this relationship wasn’t her happiness. Actually, “happiness” was not a word you heard a lot in her household, nor in her mind. You heard a lot of “rights”, a lot of “wrongs”, a lot of “goods” and many, many “bads”.

She went to the bar, seeing as everyone was more or less ignoring her, and ordered a vodka tonic, dumbly hoping that it would bring her something of the brunette. Something like what? What the hell had happened to her? It had started as a casual conversation, and then they’d left perfectly clear that they didn’t much care for their own boyfriends, which was weird. She had said it to herself many, many times, of course, but how had she dared to crack her impenetrable surface of perfection in front of a complete stranger?

It had nothing to do with her, however, and everything to do with the stranger herself. If she chose to, no one in the world could notice her ups and downs, not even the almost-professional gossips that floated around her. She was like the Marquise de Merteuil character in Dangerous Liaisons. Ever since she saw the movie, when she was very little, she understood her completely, and had always wished her well; the woman that learned to look cheerful on the outside while under the table she stuck a fork onto the back of her hand.

But her own demeanor had changed, and that had scared her deeply. Yulia. Yulia had appeared, out of the blue, and done something to her, something like witchcraft. Something in that girl had made her lose control… at least momentarily, so that she no longer was the Marquise de Merteuil.

Now I’m just a wreck, she mused, looking around for someone she could ask for a cigarette. Yulia had made her feel weird, inside and outside, and she both wanted and didn’t want to see her again. Like when she had touched her shoulder briefly, lightly, after having mocked her relationship with Phil. She had felt something indeed, even if she’d told Yulia that she hadn’t, but she couldn’t place her finger on what it was, and that terrorized her. The only thing she could fathom was that it was both pleasant and terrible.

“Excuse me,” she called to the waiter. “Could you get me a cigarette from somewhere?”

“Here,” said a voice, coming from her left.

She turned her head slowly and there was Yulia, all dark bangs and shy smile, handing her a cigarette. And shiny eyes, she noted, swallowing hard.

“Hi,” she said, finding her courteous smile at last and taking the cigarette. “Thank you.”

“Hi. You’re welcome,” a small pause. “So, we meet again.”

“Yes,” she nodded and gestured to the stool beside her. “Please, sit down. I mean, if you want to.”

“Sure. You’re the only person here I’d want to talk to.” Yulia said, cupping the flame to light her cigarette.

“So, how are you?”

“To be honest, last week’s been hell,” Yulia breathed out a cloud of smoke. “And yours?”

“Oh, fine, fine,” she lied, waving the hand that held the cigarette. “I don’t know why I made myself come to one of these parties again. Maybe I’m a masochist, what do you think?”

The brunette kept silent for several seconds, staring down at her own drink and making the ice cubes clink.

“Elena…” Yulia said, still glancing downwards.

Even if she didn’t know what the girl was going to say after that, she felt a strange tingle running down her spine when she heard her name being pronounced by Yulia. What’s happening to me?

“Lena.” she said, hurriedly.

“What?” the brunette lifted her head.

“Please, call me Lena.”

Why she was giving up her family nickname to a practical stranger she didn’t know, but her more serious name didn’t quite feel right coming out of Yulia’s lips.

“Lena.” Yulia said, with care, making Lena experience a bigger (and, consequently, stranger) thrill.

“What did you want to tell me?”

“Oh, it’s nothing. Nothing.”

Lena watched Yulia’s head drop once more, and missed her shiny blue eyes again. Those eyes were so alive… she’d never seen such eyes. The looks of those around her had always been opaque, dull, or drunk, so those eyes were something like a very appealing bait to her. To say the truth, she couldn’t get enough of her whole face. Somehow, her presence managed to fill up the hole inside, and make her existence both bearable and unbearable.

There was still that damn contradiction…

“Come on, tell me.” Lena encouraged her, as softly as she could.

“Um…” the brunette frowned and looked away. “I guess… I wanted to find you here. I wasn’t sure you were going to come, since, um… well, the way you left.”

“I’m sorry, I was drunk, I didn’t even know what I was doing. Or saying.” You despicable coward, Lena chastised herself. You only encourage her to speak because you don’t dare to do it yourself. That’s right, you’re a coward and you know it.

“Oh.”

“But…” Lena began, glancing to the side. Come on, you can do this. Say it. Say it. “I - I wanted to find you here as well.”

“You did?” the brunette seemed genuinely surprised.

“Yes. You know, I enjoyed talking to someone that isn’t like the other girls one meets at these parties, every single one a carbon copy of the next.”

“Yeah, that’s what I think too…”

Now what?Lena didn’t know what to do with Yulia, now that she had her there. But what could they do in that party anyway? Get drunker? Dance? Her cheeks flushed, for some reason. No dancing, she thought with resolve, until I understand what‘s exactly going on with myself. Then what? Chatting about their hobbies?

It was clear to her that nothing was going to happen while they were at the party, although she didn’t know what she expected to happen. I think I need to get out of here, clear my mind.

“Hey, Yulia.”

“Yes?”

“I was wondering… Do you want to get out of here, get lost?”

“You… You want us to leave?”

“Yes. I feel like I’m choking in here.”

“And what about…? What about Phil?”

The redhead shrugged. Her mind was too full of confusing things and there wasn’t space enough for Phil. Phil would have to manage on his own, because she couldn’t care less. She was trying, she was really trying to consider him, but she couldn’t make herself worry.

“Do you want to get lost?” she repeated the question more urgently, stabbing her eyes into Yulia’s.

“Yes.”

“Yes”. Not “yeah”, not “yep”, but a complete, certain and serious “yes”. The word resounded in Lena’s ears and echoed through her body. She was convinced that it was precisely the word’s resonance what had had set her in motion, since she moved like a sleepwalker when she jumped down from the stool, grabbed her jacket and began to march towards the exit. She didn’t need to look back to know that Yulia was following her lead, since she could sense her somehow, like a halo of warmth almost touching her back. Her eyes were fixed on the wide glass doors and the parking lot behind them -her goal-, while dodging people’s elbows and zigzagging their bodies absentmindedly. Surely, she would’ve paid the same attention to them if they had been columns. How could anyone matter right now, when her bold question and Yulia’s affirmative answer were the only things that fit inside her mind?

Her hands closed around the door handle and pushed energetically, with the night’s chilliness greeting her like a wind of freedom. She really felt liberated by the change of space and looked around with eager eyes, as if she were waiting for the night to deliver an offer. Then, her eyes fell on Yulia, who had finally reached her side. Now, with the both of them standing up, she could see that the girl was a little shorter than her, and looked even smaller outside, against the backdrop of the cold street and black sky, but her eyes were brighter than ever. Can it be excitement?

The question made her wonder about her own eyes, if they were also gleaming brighter and cleaner than the lamplights. One thing she knew for certain was that thoughts like those had never crossed her mind. And now, suddenly, there were all kinds of words swimming inside her head and surfacing suddenly, almost with violence, requesting to be used: words and combinations of words that were making her sick, but they were inevitable too, and undoubtedly… poetic, in a way.

Why?

With her head spinning like that first night in which she’d met Yulia, she knew that she was standing in the middle of a crossroads of sorts, and that the decisions she was about to take were going to change things. That first night, a week ago, she’d felt it… and had ran away from the possibility. Now she had another chance. Now… what?

It had scared her, scared her so much that she’d barely gained control over herself before running away. That night, a sudden dizziness had taken over her senses. Really? Had it really been so sudden? Had it not been more gradual, like a non-violent possession? That thing, lurking there, slowly covering her, making her dizzy, drunken-like but different, cloudy-eyed, about to let go… Let go of what?

“Now what?” Yulia’s eyes seemed to say, peeking under her black bangs. Now what indeed, Lena wondered, glancing around again. Just get out, leave this damn party already and go where we can breathe.

“My car or yours?” she asked, already beginning to walk around the parking lot.

“I came with Alex,” Yulia said. “In Alex’s car, I mean.”

“My car, then.”

Lena turned on her heels to redirect herself towards her car and extracted her keys in a second. How she hated those girls that spent fifteen minutes shuffling through the mess inside their purses until they found keys, lighter, lipstick, mascara… whatever. Not her; she was an organized person. And now she was an organized person in a hurry.

Hers was a bulky, marine blue Saab that was taller than her. Some would say that car drove her instead of the other way around, but those people had never ridden with her. Lena governed it with an iron fist but had the skill to drive it with her pinkie, and would be able to do it if it ever came to that.

She opened one of the backdoors, threw her jacket inside and then opened the door on the passenger’s side for Yulia. The brunette was just standing still and contemplating what Lena was doing, like a bystander. It’s like she’s in spectator mode, Lena thought, wondering if Yulia would be the one to breathe some sense into this thing -whatever it was- that they were about to do.

So Lena didn’t move either, with her right arm slung around the open door and her left hand in midair, about to gesture for Yulia to get in, but not brave enough. She was waiting for the brunette to make the choice and, in the process, make the choice for her too. Coward, she told herself, once more, to no avail.

“I…” Yulia faltered, glancing from Lena to the empty seat. “What about…? I mean… What about Phil? What will you say? Will you come back for him… later?”

“He has your boyfriend to drive him, and both of them have the rest of the night to figure it out.”

The brunette giggled, muttering something like “This is just fucking crazy”, and Lena was glad: she wasn’t being very nice and still, this was somehow happening.

“I thought you wanted it.” Lena said, knowing that she was acting a little cruelly. She closed her eyes and tried to be gentler. “Come on, let’s get out of this place, let’s have a good time.”

“Okay,” said the brunette, a little breathlessly.

They climbed inside the car and Lena took off as fast as the car would take her. She would’ve done no different if she had owned a plane.

“Any idea of where we’re going?” Yulia asked, after a couple of minutes.

“No,” she answered, allowing herself a small smile.

She couldn’t quite believe they had done it, that she was actually driving Yulia around. She couldn’t quite believe that they were completely, absolutely safe, enclosed in the vehicle, and adding distance between them and that awful party. It was like they were escaping from every one of those awful parties they’d gone to and all of their boring partygoers.

“I really don’t mind,” the brunette was saying. “It’s like I’m dreaming anyway.”

“I know, I’m like that too.”

There were another couple of minutes of silence, not an uncomfortable one, but it was full of timidity - at least that was what it seemed to Lena, who wondered if some music would help. Nothing special, just the radio, she mused, moving her hand towards the control panel. She began to say something like “Would you like…?”, while Yulia, at the same time, asked “Do you mind if…?”, and also neared her hand to the control panel. Their hands, muddled like their words, touched, and Lena held hers there, not retrieving it and not making it proceed towards its prior goal. She didn’t even move it so that their hands became something other than a tangle of fingers. The thing that confused her further, however, was that Yulia didn’t do it either. Their hands were suspended in limbo, in nothingness, with no real space or time to dwell in.

It could only have lasted a few seconds, but they were more than enough. In fact, they were extra, since the appropriate thing to do would’ve been to mutter an excuse and turn on the radio. Lena knew this -she was painfully aware-, and was the one to break off the brief contact, after which she heard Yulia sigh or breathe out. She took it to mean that the hand had returned to the brunette’s lap, but she dared not look.

No music, then. She wouldn’t try to switch on the radio again. Not on her life.

“Are you okay?” Lena asked, after counting to twenty. The sigh had troubled her.

“Yeah.”

“Do you want me to stop somewhere?”

“Whatever you like…” A pause. “Look, there’s the river.”

Lena followed Yulia’s index finger with her eyes and directed the car towards the edge of the road. Several meters down sat the dark riverbank and, to the right, one could just make out the first trees of a small forest, whose jagged shadows were like bites in the water. It was not much of a secluded place; on the contrary, it was a popular one among horny couples, but it was early enough in the night and they were almost the only ones there. The other few, dispersed cars blended well with the dark.

“I’m still a sleepwalker”, she would’ve liked to say, so that maybe she wouldn’t have to be so damn aware of what was going on. But she was. “Almost unconsciously this”, “almost unconsciously that”… Rubbish. She couldn’t convince herself of her own innocence. Touching Yulia’s hand had been a sort of confirmation by touch, and then… “Look, there’s the river”. Oh, what a coincidence, however did we end up in the dark place where couples come to smooch?, Lena almost stuck out her tongue in self-mockery, and the only reason she didn’t was because she could’ve offended the girl sitting beside her.

No, she wasn’t a sleepwalker. No, she wasn’t unguarded, or unarmed. But still, she hadn’t been able to do anything about it. She’d tried… So what? From the first intriguing moment to the consecutive, confusing others, she had known - not her mind, but her insides, her pull… Her whatever, her everything. She had just known.

And she knew it. She knew it when she turned to her right and found Yulia already looking at her, half-sunken in her seat, lips parted and quizzical eyes. Knew it when she began to move towards her and the girl echoed her movement almost at the same time, as if she’d only needed the impulse. She knew it too when they collided in the middle, joined by their mouths and symmetrical muffled moans at their first touch, with enclosing arms and grabbing hands.

Yulia’s lips were moist but warm as blood. She captured them with her own and kept still for a second, trying to find her place inside her own body and failing miserably. She opened her mouth to those lips anyway, wanting more as well as wanting Yulia to have more. Her right hand had started on the girl’s incredibly soft cheek, but then moved to grasp her hair, which she then slid between her fingers, like a rich man would do with the gold coins in his treasure.

Her left hand closed around the side of Yulia’s jacket, squeezing it tight and crushing the fabric and buttons inside her fist. There was an almost-unconscious need to hold on to something real, a wish to be part of the world she’d always known, even if all her body was now floating in that limbo which their hands had previously inhabited. In fact, Yulia was pulling her nearer, with an arm around her back, so that their breasts were conjoined as one and she could barely breathe.

“I…” she muttered, muffled by Yulia’s lips.

“Yeah?” asked Yulia, although it was more of a gasp.

The brunette was breathing heavily, and Lena could feel it on her face, which only contributed to distract her more. To make matters worse, she was almost laying on top of Yulia. I can’t believe I’m making out with a girl in my own car.

“Are you okay?”

But Lena couldn’t answer. She felt that if she let the words come out from her lips it would mean stopping and thinking. Most of all, it would mean voicing things out loud, and she didn’t want that. She had the impression that, if she talked about it, she wouldn’t be able to take it, that she would wither and crumble down in ashes. By not talking about it, the flame would light up and scorch, but not consume her, and that was what she wanted. Yulia was still looking at her expectantly and puzzled, perhaps not wanting to say too much. That’s right, that’s what I want, Lena thought, diving into Yulia’s lips again and almost smiling at the pure “goodness” of what her body felt.

Yulia received her avidly, running her hands down her back and along her sides, slowly lifting the edge of her shirt and finding burning skin. Yeah, that’s right, she muttered inwardly, gladly receiving Yulia’s mouth on her neck and shoulder while her hands roamed downwards. Yeah. She grasped one of Yulia’s hands and placed it over her breast and, when the small hand massaged it, all that escaped from her lips was a small gasp, even if she was twisting and turning like crazy inside.

Inside, she was screaming at the discovery of desire, at the rightness of the touch she was receiving. And, in the short moments in which she opened her eyes and locked them with Yulia’s, it was as if the brunette knew. Scared, but not stiff, Lena went on.