Joey A Transcendental Love Affair by Liobhan So shall we come to look at the world with new eyes.   ― Ralph Waldo Emerson

Stephanie Rosen was in the middle of her third bridal shower when it happened, right after the “penny” game for the floral centrepiece and right around the middle of “the worst or best advice my mother gave me about my wedding night” game, although she wasn’t quite sure whether that one was a game or a catalogue of horrors, since even the good advice wasn’t all that cheerful, though everyone was laughing.

At the shower the night before, someone had secretly written down everything she’d said when she’d opened her presents and then read her answers as if they were her responses to questions or situations on a printed story of her supposed wedding night, with points given to the most embarrassing juxtapositions of described actions and randomly-related words, some of which were perfectly awful, so you’d think it might have happened then, but it hadn’t.

No, it was just as Sarah Greene, her best friend from the office, divorced just last year, had said, “The best advice my mother gave me on my own wedding day was to dump the schmuck, and I’m only sorry it took me two years to finally take it. I could have had a nice vacation in Tahiti and Bora Bora for the attorney’s fees alone.” Sarah rolled her eyes eloquently.

Stephanie had to laugh. Sarah had the delivery and timing of a professional standup comedienne, although her day job was market research and development for AQI, a major consulting and arbitrage firm focusing on venture capital and acquisitions in the technology sector. She was wearing a minimalist Rei Kawakubo design by Comme des Garçons in deep emerald green, a tight bodice with softly belled skirts draped with translucent layers of silk and gathered at the back. Her shoes were by Miuccia Prada, black patent leather court shoes with a thick heel and a green suede faux buckle, and she was gorgeous, with curly jet-black hair, green eyes, and a body to die for.

Stephanie was in the next office, the corner one, with special areas of expertise in biotechnology and pharmaceuticals, and not nearly as funny, although her own outfit was rather nice as well, at least for prêt-à-porter. She was wearing her black Jimmy Choo stilettos with a really nice lagoon-green and black Philip Lim swing dress with inset godets from Nordstrom’s San Francisco store that she’d found on sale for only $299. She couldn’t have worn it to work, of course, but it was nice not to have to worry about it for knocking around. Her reaction to Sarah’s story took her by surprise, since she hadn’t realised that she had any qualms about her coming marriage at all. It took Stephanie a while to work most things through, where Sarah could riff on any subject at the drop of a hat, and often did, and could make up her mind before most people knew there was even a choice. Her own accounts were worth a lot more than Sarah’s these days, since high tech had been floundering since the dot com bubble burst, and the company appreciated her cautious approach to investments, especially changes in course, not to mention the obscene amount of money she’d made for them, but Stephanie had let it be subtly known that AQI without Sarah wasn’t the sort of place she’d enjoy working at for long. They’d been best friends since they’d first met, both new hires fresh out of grad school, and neither would let the other down, period. Of course she hadn’t said anything to Sarah, since she knew Sarah would have done the same for her, and it would be tacky in any event.

The laughter over Sarah’s joke was just dying out, and another friend had started to tell another story, when Stephanie finally worked it through, suddenly realising that she was on a sort of train, being lured and prodded by all her friends toward a destination she wasn’t all that anxious to arrive at, now she’d stopped to think.

The music someone had chosen for the party was something like that as well, soft cool jazz, almost new age, low enough that it didn’t interfere with conversations and loud enough to bridge any gaps with background noise, but never going anywhere, elevator music for the trendy professional or aspiring nouveaux riche. Richard was like that too, handsome but not too handsome, masculine but not one of those narcissistic guys who spent every spare moment with their Tunturi elliptical trainers and Nautilus machines, excellent career, but a little laid back from it too, so he kept regular office hours and had almost zero on-call days, except for when the emergency surgeon at Mercy Hospital was off for a few days, which almost counted as community service so she couldn’t fault him for it.

Richard was a nice-enough man, a facial surgeon already divorced from the dutiful wife of his college years, having traded up (after a decent interval so he didn’t quite look like a putz) for a younger woman with better looks, a higher level of education, and more money, to wit, Stephanie.

Her father thought that he was a great catch, a manly sort of fellow he could go out for a pint with, and a football enthusiast with an executive box reserved for the season, all of which he was willing to share. It was a match made in Heaven as far as he was concerned.

Her mother adored him, good-looking, a doctor, and not one of those ordinary internists who were a dime a dozen, really, and never home. So he was a real doctor in her mother’s eyes, the kind who have yachts and summer homes in the south of France, not that Richard had either, as far as she knew.

At least they weren’t mentioned in the pre-nup, which she’d been as anxious to draft as Richard had, since she suspected that she made a lot more than he did in real money, despite his fancy car, penthouse, and executive box on the football pitch. He had a large income to be sure, but he also had a large staff, malpractice insurance to be paid, a posh office suite, and alimony, where Stephanie’s living was made entirely inside her head, although she did have to spend quite a sum on clothes and salon visits to satisfy her employer’s high expectation of how their senior staff should present the firm in overall appearance and dress. She might be a liberated woman, but she had no desire to wind up paying alimony to any man, much less a prominent facial plastic surgeon.

Richard was OK in bed, if not earth-shattering, but Stephanie’d just had an epiphanic vision, saw the years, and not all that many of them, stretched out before her with herself as the decorative — and wealthy — appendage of this handsome doctor until she too was traded in for a newer model, only she would by then have had the babies — probably two, maybe three— and be about to begin a life-long familiarity with visitation schedules, ruined holidays, insults, slights, and resentments. Her predecessor had at least been spared that indignity, but had simply wasted all those self-sacrificing years with him through college and medical school. Richard now appeared, with Stephanie’s newfound clarity, to be not so much attractive as merely inoffensive, not so much decisive as callous. It hardly seemed fair. Stephanie felt a sudden upwelling of sympathy for his former wife, although they’d never spoken, and a sense of shame that she’d never given her a thought when Richard had started courting. Perhaps they could meet for lunch on Sunday sometime, since they had something in common now, and she could apologise.

Stephanie decided that she wasn’t, in fact, going to marry Richard, despite the scandal, having to do something about all the presents, the wedding dress already paid for, her mother’s shock, and her father’s disappointment at not being a permanent guest in an executive box above the madding crowd. She’d made up her mind. She may have come to it slowly, but she had a mind of her own, and was used to people disagreeing with her. She smiled. She spoke aloud, interrupting the ongoing conversation, “Ladies, I’d like to thank you all for coming here to wish me well, and especially you, Sarah, for passing on your mother’s good advice which, unlike your younger self, I intend to take, having decided to ‘dump the schmuck’ before it all gets messy, but do let’s continue with a party for just us, with dear Richard left languishing in the dustbin of history. Your good wishes, your friendship, have left me happier than I can say.”

There was a moment of shocked bewilderment and silence, and then dawning understanding, first in Sarah. but followed quickly by most of the other women as their conversations began again with the new impetus of speculation and delicate inquiry. The background hum of voices, absent for a moment, resumed and rose.

“Oy,” Sarah said, with one shapely eyebrow arched perfectly to accentuate an almost smile, “That, I didn’t see coming.”

Stephanie smiled again, more broadly. “I didn’t either, Sarah,” she raised her voice slightly to carry over the buzz, “and ladies, I’m so sorry you’ve all gone to such trouble for me, but a lot of things just suddenly added up when you told your story, Sarah, and I found that I didn’t like the sum.”

Barbara Stephens, the pretty blonde who headed Finance and Accounting and was hosting the party, currently wearing a very basic white charmeuse blouse with black silk trousers, hastened to reassure her, “Don’t worry about it, Stephanie. Better now than after you’re stuck with the bum, and we’ve all had a great time anyway. We should do this more often.”

“Thank you so much for saying that, Barb. It makes me feel a lot better about changing my mind so suddenly, but I just realised that being here with you all was a lot more fun than anything about Richard, and was really the best thing about my impending wedding. I now see that I was letting Richard’s desire to own me, and my parent’s admiration of him as a ‘good catch,’ get in the way of what I really wanted. And then I just remembered that, amongst the many things I’ve never wanted was to be anyone’s ‘second wife’ on the way to his third.”

Whilst she’d been speaking, Michelle “Mique” Bender, the very short, very butch woman who worked on the technical and network side of the firm — she’d never seen her wearing anything that wasn’t a variation on flannelette shirts and dungarees, although tonight she was wearing fuschia shortalls with the braces and bib edged in small embroidered flowers of green, magenta, and heliotrope at the edges, evidently a fashion statement, and her shirt was indigo instead of plaid — had managed to interface her iPhone to Barbara’s home theatre system, and Alanis Morissette’s ‘Not the Doctor’ began playing at a fairly restrained volume, considering who was at the controls.

Stephanie laughed out loud when she realised what was playing, followed by many of her friends, although Alanis was a little obscure for some, to judge from their puzzled looks.

Sarah performed a very credible take on a Yemeni zaghareet, a woman’s ululating cry of joy, and followed that with an ad hoc Karaoke version of ‘Not the Doctor’ in harmony with the recorded Morrissette and the party changed focus from Stephanie’s no-longer impending wedding to a bunch of women who worked together having a good time. By the time the song was finished, they were all joining in on the chorus.

Next up was Sinéad O’Connor’s ‘No Man’s Woman’ and the party really got going, as women got up and danced and whooped as they all sang along, segueing seamlessly into Nanci Griffith’s ‘Anything You Need But Me’ as an anthem.

Sarah came up and said loudly, since Mique had, by this time, cranked the volume up a bit, “Now I know who to ask to be the DJ at our next party!”

Stephanie grinned, saying, “Ask her for the playlist if I don’t catch her first. I want to remember this soundtrack for a long time.”

“I’m pretty sure she’s already got that covered, knowing how thorough she is at work. but I’ll remember to ask as well. Who knew she was the ‘Face the Music’ maven of the Universe?”

Stephanie then thought she might as well be proactive, considering the spontaneity of both her announcement and Mique’s unexpected response, “You’ve made a very pretty point. There are obviously hidden depths beyond her looks, as I think I’ve said quite recently. Obscure tunes and femme chic are probably not the half of it, so I might as well ask sooner than later. I don’t really know her all that well at all, and I think I want to know her better. Let’s go talk to her.” So she made her way over to Mique — while the party went on around her — and Sarah followed.

“Mique, thank you so much for the perfect theme songs for my breakup party. Could you e-mail the playlist to me sometime, if it’s not too much trouble? You have a real gift and I apologise for not knowing of it.”

Mique looked at her fondly, not at all intimidated by the difference in their company status, and said, “Thank you, Stephanie, of course I will, and I always felt that there was more to you than we could see at first glance as well.”

Stephanie was disconcerted, as of all the answers she might have expected, this seemed among the most unlikely. At work, she was routinely treated as a boss by most of the staff, but Mique seemed to have the knack of dropping her work personality and behaviour at the door. “Might I ask what your expectations were?” she inquired politely.

“Well, it was obvious that you were too good for Richard, so your recognition of that fact here tonight was a very pleasant surprise. You’d seemed like you were rolling along into wifely domesticity without a whimper.”

Stephanie was trying to make up her mind whether she should be indignant or astonished, but astonishment won, “That’s almost the exact metaphor I’d used just now to myself! Are you sure you weren’t reading my mind?”

Mique smiled, “Pretty sure. I think most everyone thought so, but were afraid to say anything. You seemed to have your heart set on it.”

Now indignance gained the upper hand. She turned, “Sarah? You knew and didn’t say anything?”

Sarah looked uncomfortable, “I’m sorry, Stephanie. You’d been so wonderful during my own excursion into folly, both ways, and without so much as an ‘I told you so’ or “I saw it coming” at the end, that I’d convinced myself it was my duty not to reason why and to support you in whatever way you needed.”

Her dudgeon faded as she realised that she’d done the exact same thing with Sarah’s erstwhile boyfriend and husband. “Oh. I did the same thing to you, didn’t I? I’m so terribly sorry.”

Sarah raised that perfect eyebrow, “You knew?”

“I suspected. As it turns out, the secret doubts you just revealed would easily have described my own, suppressed for the same reason, but I should have told you long ago, and I apologise now with all my heart. Will you forgive me?” Stephanie had just been bragging to herself about never letting Sarah down, only to have it rudely brought to her attention that she already had, in a way.

“Oh, my dear, I mightn’t have listened, and I was that headstrong and besotted I might have said or done something I would now regret. Of course I forgive you, and beg you to forgive me in turn. We’ve both been fools, I think.” Sara held out her arms toward her friend for a warm embrace, which was warmly reciprocated.

Mique added, but with such warmth and caring that it didn’t seem like an interruption, “We’re all of us broken, and wounded, and must forgive ourselves as well as each other. It’s very clear that you two love each other and would never willingly harm your other half, but things do get in the way. As women, we’ve been trained to expect a man to ‘complete us,’ to be the Yang to our Yin, so we fear being ‘alone,’ as if that could possibly happen in a world full of infinite possibilities, and as if yin and yang and that whole medieval theory of darkness against light, passive versus active, weren’t a sexist mistranslation of a much more subtle philosophy, that we are all potentially one whole, in which every quality is present and should be in balance. It’s not an accident that, in Chinese, there’s no ‘and’ between yin-yang, that the two characters are only theoretical divisions of the same gestalt, and that masculinity and femininity, which aren’t in fact ‘opposites,’ were just tossed into the concept of duality through ignorance. We’re never alone, never incomplete, and are always surrounded by love and wholeness.”

Stephanie became aware that the Sophie B. Hawkins song, ‘I Walk Alone,’ was just finishing up playing in the background and wondered briefly how Mique managed to synchronise her music to what was going on around her, so she asked, “Why is it that your music always seems to be coördinated with what’s going on, even when you’re not doing anything with your iPhone?”

“I’m a musician, and part of being a musician lies in being sensitive to the emotional dynamics of the ‘room,’ the people you play to, but the opposite is also true, that singing a song is an ‘enchantment’ of sorts — in fact, that word describing magic means simply ‘a song,’ a specific arrangement of sounds and meanings with rhythm and melody. So you might as well call it ‘magic.’ ” She grinned to show that she was half joking. “I’m a chanteuse, either a witch or a singer, play keyboards and sometimes guitar, and have been in bands of one sort or another ever since school, and you pay close attention to music when you sing or play it, even if you’re just a weekend warrior. All this network and computer stuff is just what I do for a living, my real passion is music.”

Sarah said, “I’d love to hear you play sometime. Do you play often? When can we see your other life?”

“Most weekends, there’s quite a few local clubs where we’re pretty regular features, and we do road gigs sometimes away. It’s hard to work those around everyone’s schedule, though, since we’re none of us crazy enough to try and make a living at it. You have to be young and dedicated enough to starve or sponge off your parents, and then incredibly lucky.”

“I envy you,” Stephanie said, “I’m good at what I do but I can’t say it’s a passion, I don’t think I’ve ever been really passionate about anything since I was a girl and desperately wanted a horse of my own. I did take riding lessons for a while, but then my father complained about the expense and I had to stop. I’ve not been on a horse since.”

“Maybe you just haven’t been looking in the right places. Somewhere in this world there are people and activities that will fully engage you at every level, and to which you’d be willing to dedicate a big chunk of your life. Richard obviously wasn’t one of them, but that doesn’t mean much in the long run.”

Stephanie was at a loss for words….

Sarah asked, with honest curiosity, “So is Mique your witch name or your band name?”

“A little of both.” She grinned again. “It’s all part of that yin-yang thing, and girls are automatically relegated to the dark side, the weak side, and the small side. I decided I didn’t want to be a Michelle any more, a ‘Little Michael.’ I wanted to feel powerful and be my own woman, not the dark contrast to any man, so I claimed my masculinity by renaming myself, and honoured my femininity by twisting my new name around to suit my own ideas, not as a copy but an original. I didn’t have to be a copy of someone else’s tired cliché; I didn’t have to have a man to be a success as a woman; and I could do whatever I damned well pleased. I found out later that it was a French nickname for Monique, but it didn’t bother me since I’d come up with it on my own and the ten thousand monkey theory pretty much guarantees that any random string of letters means something different somewhere.”

Sarah and Stephanie both nodded in synchrony, and began to speak at once: “So your clothes…” “And the way you dress at work…” “Sorry!” “Sorry!”

Mique laughed, “I get it. Yes. Because my job is physical, I wear clothes that I don’t feel limited in, so I can crawl around underneath a desk without some creep trying to catch a peek at my knickers, but I buy them in women’s sizes with room for my hips and boobs, and they don’t have a zipper fly.”

They all laughed and Sarah said, “Thank heavens for that!” so they laughed again.

Stephanie said, “Mique, O mighty enchantress, please let us know when your next gig happens so we can fall under your spell.”

“What makes you think you haven’t already?” She grinned broadly, “Next Saturday at the Diggery in the high street, eightish. Be early and I’ll arrange a table by the stage. After we start it’s hopeless. And now, if you don’t mind, I’ve a little potion I’m cooking up. Laters, alligators.” She began twiddling with her iPhone again, and tweaked up the volume on the sound.

So they wandered over to the refreshment table and had a little nosh, a glass of champagne punch, and a Belgian chocolate truffle each, listening to the music and talking at intervals between bites and sips, as people do when distracted by food and drink, not really paying attention to much of anything, but enjoying themselves none-the-less, and watching the other women having fun.

By this time, ‘Pussy’ by the Lazybeans was playing, according to the display on Barb’s system, but Stephanie had never heard of them or the song. She wondered where the heck these things lived when they weren’t being played at her repurposed breakup party, despite the fact that the dumpee hadn’t actually been notified yet. Somehow that pleased her; he liked being on top of things and she liked knowing something that he didn’t. Someone among the crowd of women shouted “Pussy Power!” to general hilarity and cheers, but she didn’t recognise the voice offhand. She looked back at Sarah and said, “Care to dance?”

“I’d love to, who wants to lead?” Sarah grinned and stretched out her arms just as a haunting slow song called ‘Julie Christie’ began, another song Stephanie’d never heard of, by someone named Lorraine Bowen.

“I think I’d better.” Stephanie gathered Sarah up in her arms with a smile and started a little soft-kneed bossa nova sway interspersed with a few hip-rolling samba steps which seemed to go with the dreamy lyrics. “Who is this woman, anyway? I’ve never heard of her.”

“I have, actually.” Sarah snuggled a little, just getting comfortable. “She used to sing with Billy Brag, and now has a rather quirky following in Brighton, London, and roundabout. I understand she’s popular in Japan as well. She reminds me a little bit of Christine Lavin, in that she celebrates ordinary things like pizzas, shopping trips, and having sex in the afternoon.” She thought about that for a moment, and then amended her words. “Well, maybe sex in the afternoon isn’t quite that ordinary….” She smiled at her own comment.

Stephanie cast an enigmatic sidelong glance in Sarah’s direction. “Christine Lavin? Oh, swell. Another singer I’ve never heard of….” She then made an exaggerated moue and promptly spoiled the effect by laughing and then swooping Sarah into a spectacular tango dip.

After catching her breath, Sarah responded, “Wow! That was exciting.” She smiled before continuing, “You’d like her, I think. She has a song called ‘Mysterious Woman’ in which she wants to appear sultry, complicated, and exotic… but she’s actually thinking about defrosting the refrigerator, the fact that she was a Girl Scout…, always wears sensible underwear, and learned to twirl a baton in school rather than study Nietzsche or Nihilism…. She has a following among women, mostly, and is the exact opposite of: „Alles Vergängliche ist nur ein Gleichnis; das Unzulängliche, hier wird’s Ereignis; das Unbeschreibliche, hier ist es getan; das Ewigweibliche zieht uns hinan….“ Her vision of ‘the Eternal Feminine leading us onward’ is a little closer to ordinary reality and dusting the furniture than to hovering angels leading men up toward Heaven… with accompanying multi-part choral crescendos, majestic flourishes of trumpets, and the voix céleste….”

The music had changed into something by Mazzy Star while they were dancing, during Sarah’s sometimes halting explanation. ‘All Your Sisters,’ Stephanie thought belatedly, but then it changed again into ‘Fade Into You’ and they were dancing a little more slowly. Some sort of happiness bubbled up inside her, but she couldn’t quite put her finger on it. “You seem to be the opposite of Ms Lavin, though…. I reckon you studied Nietzsche in rather more detail than twirling.”

“Well…,” she explained carefully, “I did read Terry Southern’s famous essay, ‘Twirling at Ole Miss,’ in a journalism class, but I never felt the need for practical experience.” She sighed and snuggled closer, snaking both hands around Stephanie’s waist.

Stephanie lost her train of thought for a moment before responding, “Spoken like a true intellectual. I have the same weakness myself….” A languid lethargy had settled into her body, so she was shuffling more than dancing, and then swaying more than shuffling.

Sarah didn’t respond at first, but then murmured dreamily, just barely audible above the music, so Stephanie had to lean closer to hear, “Hey! Our pricey educations… are why both of us are making the big bucks in posh offices… with spectacular views across the city… rather than busking in music halls for the odd tenner.”

Stephanie began to notice that the music had fallen into a trend and glanced over toward Mique, who was looking at them and grinning like a fool before shifting her gaze back to her iPhone and twiddling with something. The music changed again. She slowly gathered her thoughts together. She looked down at Sarah, whose head was now on her shoulder, nuzzling her neck, and spoke thickly, “You know, Sarah, I think we’re being quite artfully manipulated by our friend Mique.”

“I noticed.” Her voice was muffled, forcing Stephanie to lower her head, brushing her cheek lightly against Sarah’s soft ringlets, in order to hear. “ ‘Unchained Melody’ is hard to miss. Do you mind?” She made no effort to pull away, but turned her head slightly and softly kissed the side of Stephanie’s neck just below her ear, then touched just the tip of her tongue to Stephanie’s earlobe, brushing it lightly before returning to the side of her throat and neck, covering them with tiny butterfly kisses and warm breath.

She had to gather her thoughts carefully before she could speak; Sarah was doing something… interesting… with the hairs at the nape of Stephanie’s neck. “I don’t think so…. No, not at all….” Stephanie raised one hand to the back of Sarah’s head, lightly touching the thick mass of her perfect hair and, with no conscious volition, their lips moved together, first touching, then softly exploring, effortlessly merging into passion… The blood was rushing in her ears and her face felt… flushed, the tip of Sarah’s tongue touched hers and she was melting. They’d stopped dancing but the room was swaying and everything had stopped… except their soft kisses, and the relentless warmth of Sarah’s body against her own….

At some point Stephanie gradually became aware that the music had changed again. It was faster, with a heavy dance beat, Katy Perry’s ‘I Kissed a Girl,’ and all the women around them were clapping for some reason. She looked up, momentarily bewildered, and then saw that Mique was grinning again, but she had her hand up making a “thumbs up” sign. Their friends obviously approved of what they’d found in each other, and another piece of the puzzle dropped into place. She grinned back, at Mique, at their friends, and then at Sarah.

She spoke loudly, over the music. “For my second announcement….”

There was an outburst of laughter and a couple of rowdy hoots before she was able to continue, “Ladies, I may have figured out why Richard and I didn’t quite click….” More laughter interrupted, so she tried again, taking Sarah’s hand and kissing it as she looked into her eyes, “With Sarah’s permission, and with your coöperation, I’d like to dance with Sarah again, but this time with more awareness. Will you indulge me?” It wasn’t clear whether she was addressing Sarah or the crowd of women, but she never took her eyes off Sarah.

Mique, ever resourceful, managed to come up with Tami Greer’s ‘Perfect Fingers’ and Stephanie and Sarah began to dance.

—««-»»—

In the end, Stephanie and Sarah were holding hands in a corner and smiling at each other a lot, trying to figure out how careful they’d have to be at work, although there wasn’t a policy against ‘relationships’ in the office, as long as neither was a direct report to the other. But still…. They broke into laughter from time to time as they talked, over the complete absurdity of their newly-noticed love, over how long it had taken them to figure it out, and whether Mique was a good witch or a bad witch.

As the party wound down, it was around two in the morning, several of the women wanted to call cabs, being a little too tipsy to drive, but another who’d had the foresight to arrive by cab and had scheduled a pickup volunteered to share her ride with anyone who wanted to tag along, so the room cleared fairly quickly, except for Barb, whose home it was, and Mique, who was gathering up her pocketful of sonic miracles and generally loitering, as Stephanie shrewdly observed. She glanced over at Barb, who was idly picking up things and setting them down again.

She whispered to Sarah, “I think Mique and Barb may have a little crush on each other….”

Sarah whispered back, her warm breath tickling her ear deliciously, “You think? Like it hasn’t been obvious for the past hour? Barb can hardly keep her eyes off her. I think it’s the rock star charisma. Plus, she’s damned cute in those shortalls. We’d better be leaving….”

“Is it too soon to talk about my place or yours? Because my place is closer if it isn’t.”

“Not too soon at all. More like ‘at long last’ in my opinion. More like ‘Where’ve you been all my life?’ except you were right next to me all along….”

“Good, because I have a feeling this may turn out to be the sort of fairy tale romance where they both live happily ever after.” She kissed Sarah deeply, with a lifetime of passion spilling out but with plenty more to spare.

Sarah broke the kiss first, but reluctantly, showering a light rain of kisses on her cheek and then her hand to show she didn’t really mean it, and said, “I agree, and we have a fairy tale witch to prove it. We do have to go, but not without thanking our goodly hostess and the honoured sorceress of her retinue….”

Stephanie turned to Barb and said, “Barb, this has been, without exaggeration, the most fantastic evening I’ve ever spent, and I thank you from the bottom of my heart, but we have to go now and let you get some… sleep.” She resisted the impulse to wink.

It was Sarah’s turn, “Barb, I can only echo the words of my sweet Stephanie, and thank you as well as Mique for the opportunity to wash the glamour from our eyes and see truly at last. I feel like I could understand the language of birds and hear the music of the spheres, if only I listened carefully.”

Stephanie said, “Mique, you’ve given us a gift beyond measure, and my humble thanks are inadequate compensation, but thank you, and we’ll be leaving now, which may be thanks enough.” She grinned at Mique, who grinned back and put on a new CD.

They turned to the door and opened it, walked through and started to close it behind them, but at the last second Stephanie stopped it shutting, turned her head and said, “Oh, and Mique?”

Mique was in the middle of asking Barbara to dance, and all the others had left already, but she looked back toward Stephanie when she called. “Yes?”

She smiled, “Call me Joey….” and shut the door on the two of them.

—««-»»—

Stephanie’s Shower Playlist

1. Not the Doctor by Alanis Morissette

2. No Man’s Woman by Sinéad O’Connor

3. Anything You Need but Me by Nanci Griffith

4. I Walk Alone by Sophie B. Hawkins

5. Everybody’s Breaking Up by Allanah Myles

6. Diamond Ring by Sheryl Crow

7. Walk Away, Renee by Linda Ronstadt with Ann Savoy

8. Feeling of Gaze by Hope Sandoval and the Warm Embrace

9. Guy Who Doesn’t Get it by Jill Sobule

10. London Bridge by Anika Paris

11. Pure (You’re Touching Me) by West End Girls

12. Butterfly Mornings by Hope Sandoval and the Warm Embrace

13. I Thought You’d Fall for Me by Hope Sandoval and the Warm Embrace

14. Night by Feisty

15. Pussy by The Lazybeans

16. Julie Christie by Lorraine Bowen

17. All Your Sisters by Mazzy Starr

18. Fade into You by Mazzy Starr

19. Unchained Melody Cyndi Lauper

20. I Kissed a Girl by Katy Perry

21. Perfect Fingers by Tami Greer

22. Sweet Leanne by Annie Keating

23. Broken Wings by Mary Black

24. Rosie, Strike Back by Eliza Gilkyson

25. Goodbye, Earl by Dixie Chicks

26. Janie’s Got a Gun by Tribute Stars

27. Calling All Angels by Jane Siberry

28. Not Like Kissing You by West End Girls

29. Come On, Eileen by Save Ferris

30. Pure (You’re Touching Me) Reprise by West End Girls

—««-»»—

Copyright © 2009 Liobhan — All Rights Reserved Worldwide

This story may not be reposted on any other site.

Tooltips: Quite a lot of background information for this story is contained in ‘tooltips,’ explanatory text which can be accessed by ‘hovering’ over a word or phrase with your mouse or other pointing device cursor. It’s quite likely that tooltips are broken in your browser, since they’re more or less broken in every major browser, which is a shame, since they offer an unobtrusive version of hypertext that can be taken advantage of without requiring one to exit the current page or to follow a link.

In some browsers, the ‘tooltip’ text will be truncated, badly formatted, or both, and may be absent altogether. Without looking at the source code, it may be difficult to figure out exactly what’s going on. As a rather elegant workaround, Terry Volkirch has coded a little JavaScript programme which forces tooltips to be displayed in their entirety but, for technical reasons, this code cannot be used on this site. As a workaround for the workaround, I'm working on creating an offsite location which can be linked to each of the stories in Spin Cycle, and which allows the use of Terry’s code.

I’ll let you know when this is ready.