chapter 27

Izzy woke upslowly. She felt wet, aroused, and satisfied at the same time, her body limp and humming. The room smelled pleasantly of sandalwood and sex. Rain beat a gentle white noise on the roof. Izzy drifted off again, then woke to a shock of embarrassment. She’d masturbated in front of Lillian: alone-in-her-own-bed masturbation, horny-teenager masturbation. She’d grabbed Lillian’s hands and… she could still feel the desperate way she’d clasped Lillian’s hand to her. It had felt so good. She loved going at her clit just the way she needed while Lillian’s fingers crooked inside her, pulling her toward orgasm. She wanted that again. Right now. But she couldn’t. She must have looked like she’d lost all control.

And shit! Her head was on Lillian’s pillow. Her breasts pressed against Lillian’s lean side. She was lucky she hadn’t thrown her arms and legs around Lillian, because that was what Izzy’s body wanted. This was why she had to leave before she fell asleep. At some point endorphins would send her to sleep and then her body would give in to what she wanted: to cuddle against a woman in the tremulous hope of being held in return. But drooling peacefully on a stranger’s pillow ruined the illusion, like going backstage after a show and seeing the drag queens untaping their business.

Hopefully Lillian was a sound sleeper. Izzy edged away. The bed shifted under her weight.

Lillian opened one eye.

“Sorry. I know you don’t cuddle,” Izzy said.

Lillian draped a sleep-heavy arm over Izzy’s hips.

“I don’t,” Lillian said, pulling her closer. “You can get up to pee or get coffee but then come back to bed.” Lillian opened both her eyes. “I mean if you want to.”

Of course Izzy wanted to. She got up, peed, and then splashed water on her face. When she came back, Lillian was sitting up against the headboard. She pulled Izzy to her so Izzy was sitting between her legs, her back against Lillian’s chest.

“I already broke my no second-night-stands rule.” Lillian wrapped her arms around Izzy. “Why not break no cuddling in the morning?”

“Did you always want shooting stars?”

Lillian hadn’t offered that information when they were walking on the beach, but maybe that was just because Izzy hadn’t asked. Izzy held her breath waiting for the answer.

“No.”

That was the answer Izzy wanted to hear. If Lillian had wanted a relationship once, maybe she’d want one again.

“Professional dancers do date, have relationships, even marry,” Lillian said as though Izzy had said the opposite. “I just haven’t had time. But there was a girl in high school. I thought she was my true love. I’m sure she wasn’t. We were just kids. It didn’t end well. Maybe that made an impression on me. My mother disapproved. She said the girl was a distraction.”

Izzy wrapped her hands around the arm Lillian had wrapped around her.

“We started going to movies together and sneaking carbs we weren’t supposed to have. We got older. It got more serious. We started talking about what we’d do when we started our careers.”

“Did you want a relationship then?”

“Yeah.” Lillian sighed. “Did you google me?”

“A bit.”

Lillian squeezed Izzy. “Did you see the stuff about the lawsuit?”

“I saw something about a lawsuit. I didn’t go in deep. It seemed… personal.” And not nearly as exciting as watching a leotard stretch over Lillian’s body as she danced. “I was more interested in your videos.”

“Please tell me you got off to me dancing in The Nutcracker.”

“Lillian, that would be wrong!” Izzy tilted her head back to look at Lillian. “I only got off on Sleeping Beauty. I imagined I was the prince. But what about the lawsuit?”

“I went to a famous dance school, but they didn’t cast Black dancers in any of their important recitals, so my mother sued, won, and now everything is great.” Lillian spoke quickly as though this was an unfortunate fact that needed to be gotten out of the way.

“Is it?”

“The school changed their policies. They let some people go. It was a landmark case.”

“I bet it was hard.”

“I was sixteen.” This time Lillian’s words came out at a crawl. “I was talented. And I didn’t get cast as a principal or soloist. I wasn’t building up a vita because I was always in the ensemble roles. The school said, pretty clearly, that they weren’t casting me because I was tall and Black. Choreography specifies size and uniformity. So my mom sued. The lawsuit went on and on. And from the day we filed the suit, Eleanor said we had to prove she wasn’t some jealous dance mom who thought she could cry racism to get her daughter better parts.”

“But you were good.”

“I was a prodigy.”

Izzy felt Lillian’s chest rise and fall.

“But that wasn’t enough. I had to be beyond perfection. I rehearsed for twelve hours a day.” She rested her cheek on the top of Izzy’s head. “My mother made me break up with my girlfriend. She was a distraction. I broke her heart. I’m sure she recovered, but at the time… she asked how I could have chosen dance over her. I said we all put dance first. We wouldn’t be at the school if we didn’t. But she said we could have both. Dance and a relationship.” Lillian set the next words out carefully, like it hurt to speak them. “I told her she could. I told her she didn’t understand the privilege she had as a white dancer. If she didn’t understand that, she didn’t understand me.”

Izzy thought she heard a tremor in Lillian’s voice. Why was the world like this? Why did this kind, beautiful woman have to give up love to succeed? It wasn’t right. Lillian knew that. She didn’t need Izzy to tell her, but Izzy said it anyway.

“It’s not fair.”

“Yeah.”

“It wasn’t your fault.”

“No.”

Izzy wrapped her arms around Lillian’s, wishing she were sitting behind Lillian so she could cradle Lillian’s whole body in hers.

“What happened?” Izzy said quietly.

“My girlfriend said it sucked that the dance world was racist. It wasn’t fair that some people had to work harder. Sometimes one person in a relationship had to give up more than the other. That was shitty, but it was true, and that didn’t mean love wasn’t worth it. I didn’t tell her she wasn’t worth it, but we both knew that was what I thought.”

Lillian’s body had gone stiff.

“And I was right. A high school crush wasn’t worth giving up ballet. It would have been ridiculous for my mom to say, Oh sure, give up on everything you’ve worked for so you can date the girl you fell in love with in ninth grade. I guess that was what the lawsuit was about.” Lillian paused as though the thought had just occurred to her. “Eleanor, my mom, always talked about making opportunities for Black dancers. Maybe one of those opportunities would be having what my girlfriend had. To be great but not the best and still get the role and have a personal life. I spent a lot of time frustrated before I realized I could just have sex without all the rest of it.” Lillian laughed low in her throat. “Once I figured that out, I thought I had everything I wanted.”

I thought I had.

Izzy felt Lillian relax, but somehow it felt deliberate, like Lillian was controlling her muscles and making them relax. Izzy stroked Lillian’s arm. That kind of rhythmic touch always calmed her, although it had been a long time since a woman had stroked her like that.

“I’m supposed to do an interview for this documentary about Black dancers. I probably shouldn’t tell them that part, should I? It was hard being a ballerina until I realized I could have casual sex. I almost got out of doing the documentary too. It’s almost finished, but my mother told the director she really needed to get my perspective.” Lillian gave an annoyed huff. “What perspective is that? I can’t imagine fitting someone else into my life because no one would put up with my schedule and I don’t like to be distracted at work? Ballet killed any chance I had of being romantic or spontaneous?”

“You’re spontaneous. You’re in Captain Cozy’s Cottage on a cliff that will probably slide into the ocean next year, naked, with a burlesque dancer. That seems go with the flow to me.”

“You make me sound good.”

Izzy drew Lillian’s hand to her lips and kissed her fingertips. Lillian’s forced relaxation softened.

“I know that you aren’t looking for anything romantic, but getting stuck in a cottage by the sea is ten on the romance scale. I mean for other people.” No need to mention how mind-blowing last night had been. No need to remind Lillian what Izzy’s face must have looked like when she came.

Izzy admired their arms wrapped together. Lillian’s skin was as dark as pure cacao, as French roast coffee beans, but none of those things compared. They weren’t even an approximation because Lillian glowed the way the night sky glowed when there was no moon. Radiant and dark. A beauty that owed nothing to stage lights. Against Lillian’s skin, Izzy looked like something that had lived under a mossy rock without sunlight for a long time.

Lillian was quiet for a moment. When she spoke, she was matter-of-fact.

“As much as I like the breathtaking sexual tension of pretending we’re not going to have sex again,” Lillian said, “we could just devour each other every chance we get until we go our own ways.”

Izzy felt a shy smile spread across her face.

“You mean amend our previous agreement and give in to our base nature?”

“If you have to put it that way.” Lillian pinched Izzy’s thigh. “Yes. Until one of us gets voted off in the finale, we’ll have… fun. Like comets instead of shooting stars. What do you think?”

I’d give you the moon. Marry me. Give it all up because we are so wonderful together.

“That could be fun,” Izzy said.