Chapter 5

I froze.

It had been over fourteen months since we had last seen each other and she betrayed my trust and our sisterhood and our entire friendship. God, part of me wanted to jump her right there and rip her hair out. Part of me wanted to hurt her in worst ways or to cry and scream at her in hurt frustration of all the pain she caused me. It was kind of like those imaginary cut scenes you see on TV shows, or on the Lohan movie Mean Girls. I flashed on all those things but didn’t’t do anything.

I just took a shaky breath and concentrated very hard on putting on my make-up. I think she looked at me a few times while I was there but as far as I could tell…Omg?...?

She didn’t’t recognize me. She had no idea who I was. I finished my make up and touched up my hair before sliding past her with a quiet. “Excuse me.”

I make it over to Taylor where he’s patiently standing in line at the concession stand I step up and take his hand and stand really close to him. He leans over and kisses and nuzzles my neck a little. “What’s wrong, you’re shaking?”

“Ingrid was in the ladies room.”

“Ingrid?”

“She was the first person who I told I was really Jenna. She’s the one who outed me and put up all of the pictures of me and everything.”

“Oh, do you want to leave?”

I honestly had to think about that. I…was I really ready for seeing her here? What if she saw me later and recognized me? What if she outed me all over again? What more could she do?

Huh.

Yeah, exactly.

What more could she really do to me? It’s not like she hadn’t done enough already.

I reach over and take his hand. “No, I want to see this movie, besides we’ve already got the tickets and we’re nearly at the head of the line here.”

“Okay Hon, Just…I’ve got your back alright?”

“Thanks Tay…I’m not normally all that brave…You…You make the difference.”

“Me?”

“Yes, you.” I lean into him as we wait in line. You know you can soak in somebody’s feel like it was body heat. It’s what I’m doing right now. “You told me, taught me not to be so afraid of things. There’s a huge difference in the things that we really need to be scared of and she’s not even in that league anymore.”

“I taught you all of that?”

“Yes, you did handsome.” I turn and kiss him. “I love you Taylor Winters, I love you and I don’t have the time to waste on her when I can be loving you.” He kisses me back and it’s that kind of deep romantic movie kiss right there while waiting in line for our popcorn. There’s people around us smiling and girls sort of pointing and nudging their dates. We end up breaking the kiss and I’m blushing and really enjoying the envious looks from some of the other girls there. I keep my head ducked but I can’t keep the smile off of my face. I keep my fingers interlaced with his as a message to those girls looking at Taylor and how handsome he is.

….That’s right ladies, he’s taken….You all had your chances and couldn’t handle it…

Taylor gets us some popcorn and some candies I kind of find it really nice to get pampered like this and I’m a little caught up in the memories of the times Jaime took girls to the movies. It’s a little heady but I’m getting this little buzz or a charge each time Taylor calls me Jen or hon and asks me if I’d like this or that the entire time we’re in that new love can’t stop touching each other even when we don’t notice we’re doing it. It’s seems to ground me into the whole; This is me, this is so right, I feel real…

We pass Ingrid as we go to the screening room and I give her a nod. “Ingrid...” and keep going with Tay down to watch our movie. I know she did a double take. I couldn’t help it. If she does figure it out I want her to see she didn’t break me.

The movie, well honestly it was okay. It was kind of a mix of the teen ghost story genre mixed heavily with a romance rescue story and a bit of Kevin Costner’s Message in a bottle. It was okay I guess. I’m actually not a fan of this kind of chick-flick. I like some of the oldies and there’s some really good ones I love from Pretty in Pink, to Must love Dogs, I’m actually a huge John Cusack fan. Most recently I can have to say I loved was The Notebook. I know it’s cliché but I really liked it. More now that I think about my life now. I can see Taylor being just like Ryan Goslings character…He’s that sort of man.

We go to leave the theatre and I see Ingrid again. She’s staring at me a little a little knot of concentration and befuddlement on her face. I give her a bit of a she don’t matter smile and we are about to leave when I hear say. “Jenna?”

I turn to look at her. “Hi Ingrid.” She stares at me, and stares, and stares. I stare back at her, a little scared, okay more than a little scared but Taylor wraps his fingers into mine and pressed himself against my back and his presence floods me. I’ve got my Taylor force field now. She looks like she’s going to say something and I tense. She keeps staring at me and now looks a little angry and leaves, she just turns on her heels and leaves walking really fast out from one of the fire doors. Her two friends who I don’t know follow in her wake and then they’re gone.

I really hope that’s it. It probably won’t be and I should, no I’ll have to do something about it. I need to get things in my life in order. I lean into Taylor and take solace in his feel. I slowly turn around and drape my arms over his shoulders and kiss him deeply. He kisses me back and I suppose we’re putting on a show again but I don’t care. I beam up at his face a smile of just contentment of having your partner standing up for you, being there for something hard. “Thank you…Thanks for not letting me go through that alone.”

He looks at me even with all those people around us, and some of them watching us and reaches up taking my face and tilting it up by the edges to look up at him, his right hand moves a few stray hairs of mine out of my face and tucking them away and he smiles this little, loving, sweet smile at me. “I’ll always be there for you Jenna, no matter what.”

Then he kisses me. It’s that kiss you read about, the one you see on TV and movies, it’s the one where you can’t help but react and have one leg just rise up off the floor as he’s kissing you curling like your toes.

We take our time walking to the truck and we kiss some more once we’re there. I’m a little chilled since it’s around midnight. Angel that he is he puts his jacket around me. We end up leaving and not heading back right away instead we just go for a drive. Edmonton is a really nice city and despite living here for most of my life I really haven’t seen a lot of it. We look at places that we’ve never been past and actually write them down on a note pad in his glove box. It turns out he’s never seen a lot of these places either. We make plans to go and see some of these places while we have time.

He stops in at a Tims (It’s what we call the Tim Horton’s coffee chain in slang here in Canada.) and gets us two hot chocolates for our drive home. I lean against him just lit up by the dashboard lights as we take our time getting home.

I’m half asleep when we get there and he carries me up the stairs and home. I wake up enough to take off my make up and take a quick shower. I slip into another chemise and matching panties and crawl into bed with Taylor. It’s not long before he’s kissing me and the kissing lends to touching. I love the way he touches me, feather light caresses most of the time. Like he’s a blind man reading the Braille of my body with the pads of his fingertips. He explores my breasts with them even slowing down to this exquisite swirling motion on my nipples and aureoles. Then he’ll cup me in his hands and let the body heat of them just soak into my breasts as he does the finger pad thing with just his thumbs. He squeezes them with just this hint of pressure, the right hint of pressure sending volts of sexual energy through me. These feelings that just scream I’m a woman in my brain. He uses the satin like quality of the nylon chemise too, so smooth, the lace trim even has this exquisite feel to it when Taylor’s touching me. Mouthing and sucking, using his tongue like his fingers, using the chemise to dry them off.

His kisses are amazing. His touch doesn’t just explore my breasts but the rest of my body.

And okay, I’ll admit that I’m just as bad. I love the texture of his skin. I love the feeling of his really hard well toned muscles under that velvety flesh of his. I feel like a cat and want to rub up against him. I kiss him back and give him these nibbles like love bites along his jaw line. I suck on his neck; I give him a hickie to match the one he gave me.

And as I make my way down his body I get to experience those abs of his and inhale his scent that gets headier and headier as he gets more and more aroused. I suckle on those little six pack bumps, I nibble on them as my hands reach into his boxers and start other work.

I love the sounds he makes during the times I’m doing that to him. There’s a sense of power for me and he’s just so vulnerable like that. Gasping, panting, running his fingers through my hair. Saying my name…That’s one of the best things. He’s in this state of pain, ache, lust and bliss and he’s calling out my name. “Jenna…Jen, Jen, Jen…” It’s a massively empowering endorsement of my real gender, my real sexuality, and it lights a fire in my soul that I’ve never had before.

Taylor makes me feel so real.

It’s enough that we try making love. He’s sweet and gentle and we use lots and lots of lubricants that I bought us at the pharmacy. He wears a condom. And it hurts, he was slow and gentle and used fingers to get me ready but it still hurt nonetheless. The pain does and did lessen as we made love and by and far the only real pleasure I got from it was being so completely with him. I loved the very thought of him inside of me. I need though to finally get sorted and be with him the way I should have been born to.

I know there’s a lot of people who really don’t want to hear these kind of gory details and can’t get past that kind of sex but it wasn’t about the sex. It’s about the intimacy of making love. We both needed that intimacy, we’re running on borrowed time…It hits me after we’ve done it and I’ve gone to clean up. The hurt in my body of what we did mixing in with the fact that I couldn’t be with him the way I should be and how dirty it is and cleaning up…and throw that in with tonight and seeing Ingrid and the fact I might lose him…he could die…I might never be with him by the time I get myself whole…

I’m in the bed again for five minutes before I’m crying. I end up crying myself to sleep in his arms and completely ruining what should have been our wonderful night together. Taylor tries to soothe me, he tries to make things better but I’m really crying hard and my mind is putting things out there that shake me to my core. I have these hallucinations that even as I’m crying and holding me he’s suddenly gone. Like he fades from being there and holding me. The thoughts and fears of losing him are that strong. I cry like I’m having my soul ripped out and Tay has to shake me out of it.

I can remember crying hanging onto him. I remember the sheer soul saving relief of him not being dead.. I remember crying over and over…

“Don’t leave me…”

“Don’t leave me…”

“Don’t leave me…”

Then being rocked into the darkness of my dreams and nightmares him holding me his face pressed to mine saying. “I won’t leave, I promise Jenna I won’t leave you, I promise…”

I woke up in Taylor’s loving arms and sighed at the warm safe feeling that flowed through me. Then I realized that he was still breathing…and that I was looking, feeling for that.

“Morning Jen.” I can feel the smile in his voice.

“Morning lover.” I smile and roll over and kiss him. I’m reminded of my soreness a bit and what we did last night.

“D’d you sleep any?” He yawns a bit as he’s asking.

“Not really.”

“I’m sorry Hon.” I look into his eyes and he is. It’s there and deep as much as the fear that this might be the thing to cause me to leave him. God just how much has he been abandoned?

“I love you Tay.”

“I love you too.”

“We need to talk.”

Again there’s that panic there, it’s hidden deep but it’s as clear as day to me. “Jen…” He starts to talk even maybe bargain or beg…There’s tears at the edges of his eyes. I kiss him and roll on top of him and kiss him. I kiss him and keep it up until I feel his body relax.

I look him in the eyes.

“Did you mean it?”

“Mean what?”

“Did you mean that you’d never leave me?”

“Yeah, I mean Yes I meant it Jen, I promised you and I’m a man of my word.”

“Good, I remember last night, I remember that you promised.”

“Okay…”

“Taylor, I want you to go back. I want you to go back to your doctors.”

“Jenna…”

“No!, you promised me. You said that you’d never leave me.”

“Jen I hate it there, I don’t want to die in there.”

“Tay, you promised me, you told me that you loved me. Were you just lying to me? Were you just bullshitting me to get what you want? Telling me what I want to hear?”

“I wasn’t lying to you!”

“Then you’ll go, you’ll do your damned best to stay alive? To stay with me?”

I stare at him using every bit of will power and love and desperation to plead with him…I don’t say anything else I just sit there straddling him, staring…he stares back and I swear time slows to a crawl. To feel like it’s hours. I can feel the tears fall down my face and they drop onto his chest. Tears slowly form into his eyes and then pour leaking out the sides and makes my heart quiver, it makes me shake inside. I don’t turn away from him, I don’t stop and pull him into my embrace…

“Yes…”

“Tay?”

“Yes!, okay? I’ll go back to the goddamned doctors!” He’s angry, loud, bitter…glaring at me and I don’t fucking care because it’s been months and months since he’s last been there. I’m crying tears of relief and joy because we might…we might be able to have a chance. I lean down and kiss him my Taylor, my sweet Taylor and he breaks…He starts to sob, and shake and I pull him into my embrace and hold him as he cries.

“Thank you Tay, thank you.”