blockquote of doom

[elizabeth]

"... So tell me," she added, abruptly changing tacks, "do you think we all want what we didn't have when we were young?"

Fraser looked momentarily surprised at the question—score one for her."I don't know. Perhaps. Do you think so?"

"Yes. I do." She glanced down her hands, which were loosely clasped in front of her, and studied the new wedding ring on her left hand. "I grew up in a nice middle-class family. Maybe even upper-middle,"she admitted, after a moment. "My father was a doctor. He met my mother at Yale. Three kids, four bedroom house, two cars." She twisted the gold band around her finger and then looked up at Fraser. "I've married two police officers. Do you think that's strange?"

"Not at all," Fraser said.

"Well, it is strange," Stella told him. "It's strange where I come from. The women I grew up with—they married rich men, they have children, boats, summer cottages—"

"That's very interesting," Fraser said politely, but his eyes said something different.

Stella felt her cheeks start to burn. "I don't, of course. I don't want those things. That's what I'm trying to tell you. I want something else."

Fraser was watching her closely, and now he was nodding again, more sympathetically. She found herself getting angry at his calm, at his stillness. Ray'd wanted her to talk to Fraser, but how on earth did you talk to a guy like this? He didn't give you anything to work with, not even a foothold.

She considered her next statement carefully. "I've been lying to Ray," she said.

Fraser just tilted his head a little, considering her. "Oh? Which one?" he asked evenly.

"Yours," she replied; and it was easier to say that now. Yours—your Ray, not mine. She waited for Fraser to ask her what she'd been lying about, but Fraser didn't ask. He just waited, watching her closely with his dark blue eyes, deep and cold as the bottom of the ocean. Hell, guys like Fraser were the worst kind of witness—they just sat there, all calm and polite, which forced you do all the work and ultimately made you look hysterical in front of the jury.

"I've been telling him that I'm okay with this," Stella said—and bang, that got him—she could see the tiny flinch, the first minuscule crack in the facade. Good. She could work with that. "He's been worried—but he's been worrying about the wrong thing. He thinks this is about sex."

A more pronounced flinch, a deeper crack. She went on, pressing her advantage.

"But it isn't," Stella said. "I don't care what he's doing or who he's doing it with," and this was true. Men, it seemed to her, had one thing in common—they all needed someplace to stick it and move it around. Left to themselves, they'd come up with some pretty inventive solutions—blow-up dolls, vacuum cleaner attachments, socks, the insides of peanut butter sandwiches. Put them together, and they'd use each other's mouths and assholes—and Stella supposed that despite his clean-cut exterior, Fraser was no different. If Ray was willing to offer his ass for the purpose—well, it wasn't like she was using it for anything. "I don't care if you're having sex," she reiterated. "It's—your marriage I'm jealous of."

Fraser's pale skin was flushing now; his neck and cheeks were obviously reddening, even though he was staring again at the tabletop, not meeting her eyes. Still, though, she was having trouble gauging his emotions—was that embarrassment? irritation? rage? If he'd only just say something, give her a clue.

"He wants all this," Stella told him, leaning forward and lowering her voice. "He always wanted all this—I know, because we fought about it." Fraser wasn't meeting her eyes, but he was listening at least. "And I didn't—I wanted something else. I wanted him, because I thought he was different, wilder, freer than the guys I knew. Which was my mistake, because what I never thought to question was what on earth Ray saw in me. Why on earth did Ray want me? You ever meet his parents?" she asked. "Barbara? Damien?"

Fraser looked up at this, nodded. "Once or twice."

"They're lovely people," Stella said, and again Fraser nodded his agreement. "Polish immigrants, slaving for the American Dream—and now they have it: the Winnebego, the West, a warm climate to retire in. They were really hard workers, both of them—Ray's dad worked at a meat-packing plant, Barbara worked in a garment factory on the south side. Ray was supposed to be the beneficiary of all that—they'd save money, send him to college, he'd be a doctor or something. That was how it was supposed to work, anyway. Except Ray was all alone, and he did whatever he wanted—and I was so jealous of that," she added suddenly. The memory was so clear it was astounding. "Ray could just go where he wanted, do what he wanted, do whatever he wanted—but my mother was home all the time, I had to get permission to breathe." Stella reminded herself to breathe, and took a deep breath. "Are you understanding me?" Say something, she thought desperately. Please say something.

Fraser's mouth tightened. "I'm—not sure."

She sighed and rubbed at her forehead with the back of her hand. "I'm trying to tell you something, for god's sake."

"I—yes," Fraser said, looking away. "Please go on."

"When we were kids, Ray could do whatever he wanted after school, because his parents weren't home—they were out, working hard, working overtime. So Ray came to my house," Stella explained, "and sat with me in my kitchen and ate my mother's cookies. He was like an emissary from another planet," Stella said fervently, and now Fraser looked up and met her eyes, and nodded rapidly; okay, so at least there was one think they could agree on. Ray Kowalski's unworldliness. "I felt like—take me with you! Get me out of here! Take me to your people!"

"Yes," Fraser said quietly. "Yes, I see."

"And he did," Stella continued with soft urgency, "finally he did. We got married, and everybody was thrilled about it—his parents, my parents, and really, that should have been my big clue right there. Barbara and Damien just loved me—I was a doctor's daughter, and a lawyer myself, and if Ray hadn't become a doctor or lawyer, well, hey, this was the next best thing, right? They thought they were getting in, do you see? Me? I thought I was getting out."

She stopped, took another deep breath, and then tried to tell Fraser the rest of it. "When things started going wrong, his parents sided with me, and my parents sided with him. Barbara and Damien said, 'Ray, she's a professional, you can't expect her to waste all that wonderful education!' My parents said, 'Ray's a good man, a solid provider, and men have needs, Stella—you can't expect everything to be about you and your career.' Do you see?" she asked Fraser, almost begging. "Can you see it?"

"Yes," Fraser said.

"Because I was stupid," Stella said flatly. "It never occurred to me to ask why Ray wanted me. By the time I figured it out, it was already too late. I thought I was marrying James Dean. And I guess I did, in a way. Except that was who he was, not what he wanted. He wanted this," Stella said, jabbing her index finger against the kitchen table. "He wanted order, routine, family. He wanted all that so badly that he—well." She stopped, exhaled in frustration, and then blurted, "Well, all right, call a spade a spade. He ignored his attraction to men. Because that's what he did. He didn't think he could get that with a guy, and he needed that more than he needed—well, whatever else he needed. Not that he got it," she added softly. "Not that he got any of it. Instead he got me, and I was his parents all over again, calling up from the office and saying, 'Sorry, honey, I have to work late—there's food in the fridge, help yourself.' Everything at cross-purposes. The whole thing was a mess."

"I'm sorry."

Stella looked hard at him; he looked sincere, he looked like he meant it.

"For both of you."

"You shouldn't be," Stella said. "You of all people shouldn't be. If we hadn't divorced, he wouldn't be here with you. If we hadn't divorced, I wouldn't be married to Ray. The other Ray. My Ray. Ray's different," she explained. "Ray's from a big family—and for him, family's all about duty, obligations, especially since his father died. Ray's spent his entire life having to be the big man, trying to fend off women who were trying to feed him." Stella smiled ruefully. "Consequently, I've never met a man happier to just come home, be quiet for a while, have a salad and a glass of wine. I don't bother him. I don't make demands. He doesn't have to take care of me—so you see? We all want what we didn't have as children, I think."

"I wanted noise," Fraser said quietly, so quietly that Stella thought she could actually hear the sound of ice cracking. "It was always so quiet. My grandparents were librarians," Fraser added with a wry twist of his lips, "so of course a certain amount of silence simply came with the territory. And the Territories. What you see here today—this is thirty years' worth of development. Sprawl," Fraser added, drawling the word out for maximum irony, and Stella bit down on a smile. "Thirty years ago there was almost nothing here. And that was beautiful in a way, but..." Fraser trailed off, staring intently at his hands. He was, Stella suddenly noticed, also wearing a ring.

"Lonely," Stella said softly.

Fraser didn't answer.

cesperanza, With Six You Get Eggroll

We all want what we didn't have as children. I spent most of my childhood traveling, or so it felt at the time; I lived in the same house, went to the same school, but we were always packing or unpacking, and every time we left the the town where nothing changed and I was suffocated from normal, it was a different apartment I was sent to, a temporary bed, somewhere I didn't even have a damn drawer for my own. And now, I'm desperate for my own home; somewhere I can feel secure and safe and steady. Maybe that's why the fantasy of the cottage in Cornwall is so powerful for me. My savings account is mentally tagged as for the trip this August, and then everything that goes in there afterwards is for home. I want a home that's mine, all the way mine, the way I want to draw breath. My site(s) are meant to be that on the internet, because LiveJournal was the first place I found that made me feel like I belonged, and then I lost it; I can create a home on the internet relatively easily. But woman does not live by servers alone, and the body is as needful as the soul.