Cuento número 8 (Creative Writing)

Love scene inspirada en la foto que Phyllis Siegel y Connie Kopelov, la primera pareja de lesbianas en casarse en NY, se sacaron durante su matrimonio. Y no, no es que me haya dado por escribir otra vez, es que tome un ramo en la u de escritura para obligarme a escribir ;)

She kissed her cheek smiling as the woman declared her wife and wife. Clarissa was sitting on her wheelchair looking up at her with a small smile playing on her lips.

Married. They were finally married. It seemed almost unreal. They had wished to be more than just a mere couple for almost 25 years and wishing seemed good. It had seemed enough; it had seemed to be all they could get out of life. They hadn’t said it aloud, but it was always present. It haunted them. Their ring-less hands had begun to suffer, to seem unreal after their 15^th anniversary. Clarissa had started wearing gloves; Mary tried not to do her nails in an attempt to not care about it.

Mary was standing next to her, holding the sides of her wheelchair tapping lightly on her shoulder. They said ‘old habits die hard’ and she believed them. After a whole life together in which together had meant they were to be the only pieces left in a giant puzzle, living through signs and symbols, it seemed hardly improbable for them to stop now their hair had turned white and their skin had wrinkled.

They had forever loved one another through silences, blinks, and light taps on the shoulders. One blink: yes, two blinks: I know, three blinks: Me too. Being careful around people hadn’t been an arrangement between them, it had been an armour, it had been the only way in which they could protect what they had. How many parties had they thrown together? She couldn’t even remember all of them.  Clarissa and Mary had met after Clarissa had been divorced for half a decade and after Mary had been a widow for far too long. A extended string of silences had brought them together, and a long string of blinks combined with semi colons had kept their love in secrecy. In those times people didn’t understand.

Clarissa had been divorced and hopeless whereas Mary had just been looking to have a good time. Neither of them could have ever envisioned what would come afterwards.

Clarissa looked up again, this time a question slipping from her shoulders and a question mark putting emphasis on his request through the way in which her eyes opened and closed at regular intervals. The people around looked at them with curiosity while Mary stood there, unable to decide.

Her silence, once again speaking for herself, answered before the decision had been made. Mary kneeled on the floor, one knee on the floor ‘it’s ok’; then the other one ‘it’s different now’ and looked at Clarissa in the eye.

That day a second wedding kiss was given to Clarissa, but in this time she received it full on the mouth. No complaints were given, no regrets were held. These were other times.