JANUARY THAW
© 2010 By C. J. Wells
Disclaimers: See Chapter One.
Georgia O'Keeffe (1887-1986) was a famed American painter. Paul Cézanne (1839 –1906) was a famed 19 th Century French Post-Impressionist painter. Pierre-Auguste Renoir (1841 – 1919) was a French artist who led in the development of the Impressionist style. All other characters are mine.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
DISSECTING ANAMNESIS
Rejeanne was dumbfounded by what Lindsay had just revealed to her. “That's impossible,” she said. “There's no way that you could have been here before.”
Lindsay stood still as Rejeanne continued. “My dad is only the second owner of this house. He bought it back in '87 after he and Rosa got married. The first owner's wife used this room for sewing. Since Dad's owned this house, this has always been my bedroom. When Mom and I moved back to Wisconsin from Detroit , I would come here and spend at least two weekends out of the month until I graduated from high school.”
Lindsay remained still by the door to the bedroom as Rejeanne began removing her clothing. “ Chelsea 's room is at the other end of the hallway.” Rejeanne continued. “She's sixteen and comes here on weekends. Devin and Haley never lived here. When Sokanon dumped Dad, she took the boys back up north to Keshena so that they could grow up on the reservation. When he graduated from high school, Devin returned to Milwaukee . He used to crash in the basement here sometimes before joining the service. Haley's back down here too. He also crashes here from time-to-time, but always in the basement. The house was built in 1954 or '55 or sometime around then, but definitely much later than when any of our previous ‘lives' were around.”
Lindsay chuckled as she sat down at the foot of the bed. “Yeah, you're right,” she conceded. “But this room seems awful familiar to me.”
“Do you like it?” Rejeanne asked as she began putting on her pajamas.
“Yes, it's nice,” Lindsay responded. “It's you.” She dragged her suitcase over to her and opened it. She rummaged through it to retrieve her pajamas.
“When I was in high school, I was a big Kurt Cobain fan,” Rejeanne said. “I had this huge poster of him right here,” she indicated to a wall where a large painting hung. “But when I officially came out, I replaced Kurt with this Georgia O'Keeffe print. Fitting don't you think? Displaying a work of art from a Wisconsin-born daughter of a dairy farmer who painted inanimate objects to look like a woman's vagina.”
“It's nice. It's you,” Lindsay repeated.
Rejeanne began lighting candles. “I love this room,” she continued. “ Rosa had Dad paint it pink when they moved in, but when I started coming here, I protested. Dad repainted it this earthy slate green color. He found my dresser at an estate sale. It's a walnut marble-top dresser that was built back in the 1910s. Isn't it beautiful?”
“Very,” Lindsay agreed.
“This room has the perfect lighting in the late winter and spring,” Rejeanne continued. “I love to wake up in here to the feel of the sun caressing my face.”
Lindsay sighed. “You are so beautiful, Rejeanne,” she said.
“So are you, darling,” Rejeanne replied.
Lindsay grabbed her toiletries bag out of her suitcase and headed for the bathroom to brush her teeth. She was impressed with the layout and styling of Augustin's home. Rejeanne was correct. For a middle-aged heterosexual mechanic, Augustin's house was tastefully contemporary in its furnishings, carpeting, window dressing and accents. In every room that she saw, the walls were painted in soft earth tones. There were no gaudy velvet Elvis portraits or deer heads mounted on the walls. Instead, the walls were decorated with tastefully-framed reproductions, including a Cézanne and a Renoir, as well as darling portrait-sized photos of his children. Lindsay mused as she surmised that Augustin's taste had to have been greatly influenced by the women in his life.
When she returned to Rejeanne's room, the smaller woman had dimmed the lights and pulled the thick comforter down from the bed. “Hop in and get comfy,” she said to Lindsay before dashing off to the bathroom to brush her teeth. As Lindsay lay down on the queen-sized bed, she once again began feeling that sense of déjà vu. Rejeanne returned moments later and hit the play button on her portable CD player. “I put together this mix that includes R. Kelly, Aaliyah, Brian McKnight, Anita Baker, and of course, Barry White,” she said as she lay down next to Lindsay.
“Are you trying to get me in the mood?” Lindsay asked.
“Do I need to try?” Rejeanne asked. “Because I don't know about you, but I've been in the mood since you showed up at my place with the wine and roses.”
“Yeah, I'm pretty horny right now,” Lindsay confessed. “R. Kelly isn't helping any.”
“I don't see nothin' wrong with a little bump and grind,” Rejeanne sang along with the music as she turned over and pressed her body against the side of Lindsay. She wrapped her arm around Lindsay's waist and started kissing her neck. “I wanna fuck you,” she whispered seductively.
Lindsay could feel the saturation on her labia. “What about your dad?” she whispered back. “He's not going to hear us, is he?”
“No. His room's upstairs, if he's even up there. He's probably crashed out in the family room.”
Lindsay began unbuttoning her pajama shirt. “Let me do that,” Rejeanne demanded as she playfully swatted Lindsay's hands away. Lindsay, in turn, wasted no time in placing her right hand down under Rejeanne's pajama pants and eagerly stroking her clit. With Lindsay's top opened, Rejeanne began to suckle her lover's erect nipples while running her left hand down Lindsay's body to her enthusiastically awaiting clit. Both women began to sweat profusely at their determined lovemaking.
“You need to lose these pajamas,” Rejeanne insisted.
“So do you,” Lindsay returned as both women hurriedly removed their pajamas and resumed their passionate sex. Now on top of Lindsay, Rejeanne was both fervently fingering Lindsay as well as thrusting her with her thigh. Lindsay inserted two fingers into Rejeanne while she vigorously dug her teeth into Rejeanne's neck, intermittently sucking and biting. When Rejeanne let out a low moan, Lindsay stopped. Rejeanne then resumed sucking Lindsay's breasts. The powerful sexual thrusting between the two continued unabated. Lindsay noticed that their lovemaking was so forceful that it caused Rejeanne's bed to creak to the rhythmic movement of their bodies. The combination of the sound of the creaking bed and their slapping bodies aroused Lindsay immensely. At one point she opened her eyes and looked around the room to notice that there were several lit tea-lites and candles, as well as a small lava lamp, illuminating the room. She looked over at the two most prominent hangings on the wall; the Georgia O'Keefe print and a framed poster of Melissa Etheridge. She then noticed the CD player. R Kelly's “Your Body's Callin'” was now playing. Just then, Rejeanne stopped suckling Lindsay's nipples and then brought her lips to Lindsay's. Her tongue bathed Lindsay's for a few moments. She then began whispering the lyrics to the song in Lindsay's ear as it was playing, “My body's callin' for you, Lin.”
Lindsay's entire body began to quiver turbulently at the feel of Rejeanne's lips on her ear and Rejeanne's pulsating sex surrounding her fingers. Her eyes still open, Lindsay removed her fingers from inside of Rejeanne, licked them, and then she grabbed the creamy backs of Rejeanne's upper thighs. A deeply throaty moan escaped Lindsay as she felt heat, moisture and passion. Rejeanne is so fucking incredible, she thought.
“Oh God, oh God,” Rejeanne moaned into Lindsay's ear. “You feel so fucking incredible.”
Lindsay sighed at their simultaneous thought before remarking, “We're not… going to get… any sleep… you know,” in between her pants of sensual delight.
“Who the fuck cares,” Rejeanne whispered. “We can sleep… on the fucking flight… to London .”
Rejeanne then resumed kissing Lindsay. After a few minutes, the two broke the kiss as Rejeanne ran her tongue across Lindsay's before looking at her. “I can't get enough of you,” Rejeanne softly said.
“Your eyes are so very beautiful,” Lindsay said as a shock wave began coursing up from her clit. “They're the color of the sea.”
Rejeanne's groin area began tingling ferociously. "Ooh… Ooh… I'm cumming, Warrior Princess," she announced. "I'm cumming."
At that moment, powerful orgasms hit both women. The might and velocity of the propulsions lasted for many moments. Once the exuberant climax passed, Rejeanne collapsed next to Lindsay, turned to her and saw a single tear streaming down her face. “What's wrong, baby?” Rejeanne asked, very concerned, as she turned to her lover and began stroking her face.
“I have been in this room before, Rejeanne,” Lindsay said. “I dreamt of this room, this night, just as it happened, months before I even met you.”
“Wow. Really?” Rejeanne asked.
“Yes, even down to the music and the candles,” Lindsay replied.
“Oh baby,” Rejeanne said as she gently brushed away a tear. “Is that a bad thing?”
“Not at all.”
“Then why the tears?” Rejeanne asked.
“It's the intensity of it all, I guess,” Lindsay said. “When I dreamt this, I wasn't me in the dream. It was like I was Xena, and she was dreaming about you and me making love.”
“I don't understand.”
“I believe that Xena dreamt about us, Jeannie,” Lindsay explained. “She dreamt about this place, this time, you and me, over two thousand years ago.”
“How is that possible?” Rejeanne asked. “I've heard of déjà vu, but this is like déjà vu twice removed. Unless… unless… I know. Xena got a hold of Marty McFly's '85 De Lorean with its flux capacitor.”
Lindsay nudged her chuckling lover. “Joke all you want,” she said. “I'm telling you, I dreamt about this night and, I believe, Xena dreamt about this night too. When I was dreaming this, I was actually confused about all of the things that didn't exist in Xena's time, like the lava lamp, the music from the CD player and the Melissa Etheridge poster on the wall. And in my dream, I believed you to be a woman named Gabrielle. And mind you, this was before I met you.”
“When you did meet me, weren't you reminded of the dream?”
“No, because I forgot the details shortly after waking up,” Lindsay said.
“That happens when we dream, doesn't it?” Rejeanne queried rhetorically.
“Yeah,” Lindsay remarked. “But, honey, I was reminded in clear detail when we were both having our orgasms here.”
Rejeanne smiled. “So, both you and Xena had a wet dream about me.”
Lindsay smiled. “I guess so.”
Rejeanne kissed Lindsay's nose. “Am I as good in real life as I was in that dream?”
Lindsay wrapped her arms around Rejeanne's waist. “Oh, real life is much better.”
* * * *
Rising at 3:45 in the morning proved to be very difficult for the two exhausted women. Their exuberant lovemaking left little time for sleep, so when the alarm clock sounded, both women wanted to smash it with a hammer. Rejeanne was the first to sluggishly rise. She figured that since Lindsay did the drive from Dell Valley to Hales Corners, she should be the one to sacrifice a little extra sleep. Rejeanne was finishing up her shower when Lindsay wandered into the bathroom with disheveled hair and eyes half open. Despite their lethargic start, both women were showered, dressed and ready by ten-after-four.
Augustin's home was only six miles from the airport. The short drive did not afford any sleep for Lindsay or Rejeanne, but both were eager to get checked in so that they could get to their designated concourse in order to snooze before boarding. Once at the airport, Augustin assisted in removing the women's bags from the rear of his Subaru. “Do you have your passport, Pea,” he asked Rejeanne as he loaded a bag onto a luggage handler cart.
“Sure do, Dad,” Rejeanne responded. “Right here in my coat pocket.”
“Good,” Augustin remarked. After all of the bags were loaded, he reached into his vehicle and removed a small paper bag from the center space between the driver and front passenger seat. Lindsay opened her mouth to protest, assuming that there was marijuana in the bag, but stopped herself as Augustin continued, “Take the rest of Taz's banana bread for the trip, Pea. I know how much you love it.”
“Thanks, Dad,” Rejeanne said enthusiastically. “I'll put it in my carry-on bag.” She then hugged her father. “Thanks for dropping us off at the airport,” she said in his ear.
“Not a problem,” Augustin replied as he released his daughter and extended his arms for Lindsay.
“Yes, thank you,” Lindsay said as she released him from the embrace. “Would you like some money for gas?”
“Naw,” Augustin replied. “I barely burned a half gallon. Just bring back a souvenir back from England or something.”
“Will do, Pops,” Rejeanne chimed in.
After checking their bags and obtaining their itineraries, both women headed over to the TSA security checkpoint. “This is my second time flying since 9/11,” remarked Rejeanne as she removed her intricately-laced heeled boots and turned over her laptop to a TSA agent. “Thank you fucking much, Richard Reid,” she said under her breath, referencing the infamous shoe bomber. Her displeasure with the security procedure melted away as she and Lindsay boarded their flight. “I've never flown business class before,” she remarked.
Lindsay smiled. “You're going to really appreciate it when we're on that long flight to London ,” she remarked.
The women's flight from Mitchell General Airport was on-time, but because of a layover at Detroit-Metro Airport and the hour lost in the time change from Central to Eastern Standard, over two-and-a-half hours appeared to be added to the two-and-a-half actual hours spent in the sky. Their flight arrived at JFK at 1:30 in the afternoon. Their flight from New York to London Heathrow would not depart until 6:05 in the evening. With over three hours of downtime on their hands, both women decided to spend it at the business-class VIP lounge. Nestling themselves at a table in a remote corner of the establishment, the hungry twosome ordered glasses of wine and their first full meal of the day.
“So, I'm curious, Jeannie,” Lindsay started after taking a sip of white zinfandel. “How many times have you been oversees?”
“This will be my forth trip oversees and my second trip to Great Britain ,” Rejeanne replied. “The first time I went was the summer between my sophomore and junior years in college. A group of us in the journalism program visited the UK to tour their infamous tabloids there. Creepy thing is that we were there, like, a month before Princess Diana was killed in that car crash. Most of the tabloids we visited were totally obsessed with her and her relationship with that Egyptian dude who later died with her.”
“Yeah, that was tragic,” Lindsay remarked.
“Totally,” Rejeanne replied. “My second oversees trip was to Ireland . My mom took me there as a college graduation gift.”
“That was very nice of her,” Lindsay said. “I bet you both had a wonderful time.”
“We did,” Rejeanne responded. “It was an amazing mother-daughter bonding experience for us.
Lindsay grabbed Rejeanne's hand in hers. “You know about the last time,” Rejeanne continued. “I visited my bro in Germany .”
“What does he do for the military?” Lindsay asked.
“He does mechanical maintenance on the C-20Bs and C-21As there,” Rejeanne replied. “We had a nice visit, but now he's worried.”
“About what?”
“Devin and I email,” Rejeanne said. “According to the scuttle-butt on the base, Dubya declaring war on Iraq is pretty much a done-deal.”
“Well, if Saddam Hussein is harboring weapons of mass destruction, we can't sit idly by and let it continue unabated.”
“Oh, come on, Lin,” Rejeanne said annoyingly. “Saddam Hussein had nothing to do with 9/11. He's no danger to us, certainly not as much as the ayatollahs in Iran , Kim Jun Il or, certainly, Bin Ladin. As far as I'm concerned, Saudi Arabia is more of a threat to us than Iraq . None of the 9/11 terrorist came from Iraq , and there's no love lost between the moderate Muslim Hussein and the fanatical Bin Ladin, so they're certainly not in cahoots. Anyway, if Bush does declare war, Devin's been told by his CO that he and a lot of the maintenance techs will be transferring to the Ali Al Salem Air Base in Kuwait . He's worried about being in a war zone, and so am I. ”
“If he's worried about being in a war zone, Jeannie, he shouldn't have enlisted in the military.”
“That's why he joined the Air Force… three years ago… when Clinton was still president,” Rejeanne responded sardonically. “If he wanted to actually fight one of Bush's silly wars, he would have enlisted in the Army or the Marines.”
Lindsay took a deep sigh. The last thing she wanted to do was argue with Rejeanne about war and politics. “Please, let's change the subject,” she said. “I don't want to argue.” She cracked a smile. “At least not until we've both had enough sleep.”
Rejeanne chuckled. “Fair enough,” she said. “Let's make it a rule… no political debates while suffering sleep deprivation. Agreed?”
“Agreed,” Lindsay said as she released Rejeanne's left hand she had been caressing to shake her right hand.
* * * *
As the time narrowed down to departure, Rejeanne and Lindsay began to discuss their plans.
“The railway service doesn't go directly where we're going,” Lindsay started. “So I'm renting a car. It's going to be a 150-mile drive.”
“Driving on the left side of the road,” Rejeanne retorted. “That should be fun.”
“I've done it before.”
Upon boarding the jumbo jet, Rejeanne again beamed with joy. Flying in business class across-the-pond meant departure drinks, complete meals, full reclining and much-needed sleep. She and Lindsay were able to toast each other with wine before the plane began heading toward the runway. Her ultimate plan was to stay awake for dinner and then sleep for the remainder of the flight.
“My ticket says that we'll be getting into London Heathrow at 6:20 tomorrow morning,” she said as she reviewed her flight itinerary while downing the wine. “We'll be in the air all night.”
“Yes,” Lindsay agreed. “The flight will be about seven hours, but when you consider that we're losing five hours from New York time and the one hour we've already lost from Wisconsin, we're losing a quarter of our day.”
“It's going to feel like midnight to us when we get there, Lin,” Rejeanne said. “Are we going to head to Leominster right away, or do you want to get a room to crash for a few hours?”
Lindsay took out her pocket PC and reviewed her schedule. “How do you feel about this?” she asked as she showed Rejeanne the schedule on the small monitor. “The appointment that I scheduled with Sir Malcolm isn't until three in the afternoon. I scheduled the appointment that late because I thought that we would need some time to recover somewhat from jet lag. So, I thought that I'd rent the car right after baggage claim, do the two-and-a-half-hour or so drive, and then we can get a room at a local hotel or bed-and-breakfast in Leominster before heading over to Sir Malcolm's.
“Are you sure?” Rejeanne asked.
“Or we could get a hotel room at Heathrow and drive up to Leominster at noon,” Lindsay continued.
“No, I like your first idea better,” Rejeanne said. “I think that we should get up there as soon as possible. What I meant is, do you feel that you need to do all of the driving?”
“Hey, if you feel comfortable driving on the wrong side of the road for 150 miles, have at it,” Lindsay remarked. “I'll relax.”
“Or,” Rejeanne retorted. “We can share the drive.”
After eating a full-course dinner, both women reclined their seats back, threw on blankets, pulled up the canopies that came with the business class seats and joined hands. The darkness over the Atlantic did not allow for any quality viewing, so both women dimmed their lamps and anticipated a joyous four-hour sleep.
Lindsay leaned over and kissed Rejeanne on the lips. “Good night, my love,” she said.
“Good night, Lin. I love you.”
“I love you too, so much.”
I dream about Gabrielle and me. I am wandering through a deep forest. I don't know from where I came or where I am going. I'm just wandering. After a few moments‚ Gabrielle appears out of nowhere. She's dressed very strangely. The blue cloth trousers covering her legs seem almost painted on and the top that she wears has a tapestry-like painting on it. She looks very sexy. A fairly large dog also accompanies her. "Where are you going?" she asks me . "What are you doing here?" I ask her . "Looking for you‚" she says. "Where are we?" I ask. "What do you mean‚ ‘where are we?' Why‚ we're home‚ silly. On our estate‚" she says. "Now come on back to the house before the roast burns."
Lindsay jarred awake at the sound of the loud voice booming over the airplane intercom. “Ladies and gentlemen,” said the voice with a British accent. “We're just about to enter the airspace over Her Majesty's United Kingdom . We're maintaining our altitude and shall be close to landing in approximately one hour and thirty minutes. Good Morning.”
Lindsay turned to eye her lover, still asleep despite the ear-piercing announcement. She began softly caressing Rejeanne's face and did so for several moments before the smaller woman slowly woke up.
“Are we there yet?” Rejeanne softly asked.
“We're getting close, my love,” Lindsay responded. “How did you sleep?”
“Like a baby,” Rejeanne said. “How about you?”
“Likewise.”
“Glad to hear, boo,” Rejeanne said as she started stretching. “I'm starving.”
“Me too,” Lindsay said. “We'll eat before the plane lands.”
“Good.”
“Rejeanne,” Lindsay started. “Can I ask you something?”
“Sure.”
“When we get back home, will you… will you move in with me?”