Like Safety and Home

“Hey,baby,” Emily opened the front door and moved in to give her girlfriend a kiss.She was surprised that Regan,usually so reticent in public,reciprocated with ardour.

“I did it,” said Regan once the door was closed. “I did it.I told my parents.”

“Oh,my baby,” shrieked Emily. “You’re so brave.I love you.”

“I didn’t feel so brave.I’ve chickened out so many times and I thought here I go again,letting you down.”

“No,you could never...”

“The strangest thing happened.My little brother came into my room without knocking,as usual,and I was about to unload on him when he asked why I was crying.I don’t know why I told him,but I did and I expected he’d run downstairs to tell tales.Instead,he sat on the bed and assured me Mum and Dad loved me and would want nothing other than my happiness. ‘What about you?’ I asked. ‘I don’t care if you’re gay,’ he said. ‘You’ll always be my sister and you’ll always be a pain in the arse!’ And then he walked into the kitchen with me,this little ratbag,this weasel who makes my life a misery,and held my hand as I told my parents I’m a lesbian.”

“How did they take it?”

“There were tears – theirs and mine – but we ended with hugs.Mum might take a while,but Dad was cool with it,although he couldn’t resist the tired old ‘at least I don’t have to worry about you getting pregnant’ line.”

“How do you feel now?”

“My mouth was so dry I thought I’d never get it out,but uttering that little phrase, ‘Mum,Dad,I’m gay,’ was so liberating.”

The girls kissed,then hugged,then kissed again.

“What shall we get up to now?” asked Regan.“I’ve got an idea,we’re nineteen year old hotties with three bottles of wine,a king size bed and no prospect of being disturbed.Let’s love each other so naughty we go weak at the knees!”

“Yeah,about that...” said Emily.

..........

“I can’t believe you gave up a night of seismic passion to have dinner with your geriatric neighbours,” pouted Regan.

“First of all,” chided Emily, “don’t be ageist.Secondly,they’re my godparents,I’m very close to them and I haven’t seen them in way too long.”

“They’re called Andy and Viv,how interesting are they likely to be?”

“You might be surprised.”

“Emily,our little teen princess!” Before they’d rung the bell,the front door flew open as if propelled by a hurricane. Emily was engulfed in a bear hug from a short (and exceptionally loud) woman who Regan attempted to not think of as chubby.Regan,herself,was relieved to be the recipient of a surprisingly formal handshake.

They walked through to the lounge. “That pocket rocket who assailed us is my godmother,Vivien,” said Emily, “and on the couch is my other godmother,Andy.”

She grinned at Regan who gazed at Andy as she rose to her feet.The physical contrast between she and her partner was so great as to be farcical. Regan had never previously considered anyone as statuesque,but no other adjective seemed quite so fitting for this glorious,elegant being who pounced on Emily with a vigour matching Vivien’s.

The older couple’s attentions settled on Regan.

“She’s the one,” said Andy.

“She is most definitely the one,” agreed Vivien.

“What’s this?” asked Regan,confused.

“The last time we saw our Princess Emily we worked our way through more bottles of red wine than I’d care to calculate.Now,once you get to know us you’ll find that if we hit our stride very few people manage to break our flow,but that evening this little cutie would not stop gushing about a girl she’d met.The strongest,the bravest,the funniest,the cleverest,the kindest,the most beautiful girl who ever walked this planet...and that girl,my sweetheart,is most definitely you.”

“She might have been talking about someone else,” Regan smiled.

“Not a chance,” said Andy. “I only have to behold the way you look at her.I know that look,it’s the one I recognise I’ve been aiming at Vivien for the last forty years and that she’s been reflecting back at me for just as long.It’s the look that says that’s your girl and no one should even consider trying to mess with your girl.”

They ate a Thai curry,more delicious than could be found in any restaurant,and enjoyed a conversation that made the evening speed by.Regan couldn’t believe she’d imagined this occasion would be a trip to Dullsville.I mean,it couldn’t quite eclipse a night in bed with her girlfriend,but it came pretty damn close!

The incessant chat suddenly ceased and Andy,which Regan had learned was short for Andrea,became serious.

“The reason we asked you here tonight,Emily,other than we’ve missed you,is we have an announcement to make and,may I say,it’s a double honour to share this moment with the beauteous Regan.As you know,we’ve been together for forty years now and,well,I think it’s way past time we made honest women of each other.”

“Oh my God,” screeched Emily as she hugged her two godparents with such force they were nearly knocked from their chairs.

“And if you’d consent to be our maid of honour that would make our day complete.”

“Are you kidding? There’s nothing in this world that could stop me,” said Emily. “While we’re making announcements,” she continued after a pause, “Regan had a major moment of her own today.”

“Oh no,” she said. “It’s embarrassing.Not in their league at all.”

“Go on,baby,tell them.”

“It’s nothing,” Regan sighed. “I came out to my family,nothing special.”

“Oh sweetie,” said Vivien,clasping the younger woman’s hand, “that’s very far from nothing special.Any of us who exposes themselves in that way deserves a medal.I’ll bet you had a dry mouth.”

“Like the Sahara.”

“And did it go well?”

“Yeah...mostly.” Regan recounted the story,including her brother’s surprising contribution.When she’d concluded,she received the most smothering of embraces from these women who had,only a couple of hours previous, been strangers and to whom she now felt she could expose her most intimate thoughts and emotions.

“If it’s okay to ask,” started Regan. “How did the whole coming out thing work for you guys?”

Vivien smiled,but her eyes fogged with sadness. “It’s fine to ask us anything,we’re always honest – which is a trait that’s brought us an ocean of grief.” She paused, “ We didn’t come out so much as we were dragged out.We’d been friends for a while,a shoulder to cry on,that sort of thing,until one morning we were sitting alone in my parents’ house and we...kissed.I always maintain she initiated it,she’ll tell you I was the first to lean in,but whatever,we were hooked.We progressed from that to...well,you’re healthy young women I’m sure you get the picture.Anyway,on an afternoon,much like all the others,I finished work early,Andy was at a loose end so we met at my house.We were sitting in the living room having a kiss and a cuddle.We’d just taken off our shirts when my father walked in,I’ll never know why he was home early that day and I certainly wasn’t given the opportunity to ask.He literally picked me up and threw me to the floor,I think he would have hit Andy had my mother not stepped in front of him.It was due to her maternal compassion that I was given five minutes to pack a bag rather than be cast into the street half-clothed.That was the last time I saw them.

“I climbed in Andy’s car,my meagre possessions thrown on the back seat.We knew things wouldn’t get any smoother when we arrived at her house to find her fiance waiting by the door.”

“Wow,” interjected Regan. “You were engaged? To a man?”

“I’m full of surprises,” Andy smiled. “It was something I’d drifted into.It felt safe and expected and he truly wasn’t a bad person,but I just wasn’t being myself,which is why you shouldn’t downplay what you did today.I used to hate the fact we were expected to come out when the rest of society was allowed to just be,but what you did was stand there vulnerable and exposed and say this is me.I won’t apologise,I won’t compromise and I won’t ever allow myself to be less than I am.”

“I think we should adjourn to the lounge before she bursts into song,” teased Vivien who received a glare of mock anger from her lover.

As they walked through to the next room,topped up glasses in hand,Vivien caught Regan staring at the two older women.

“You’re right,” said Vivien. “We are a very odd couple.”

“No...I mean,I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be.Everyone notices,how could they not? Everybody in the world considers her beautiful and only one person thinks that of me.Fortunately,she’s the only one whose opinion matters.”

“So what happened with Andy’s fiance?” asked Regan,still embarrassed.

“He was angry,which is a massive understatement,but he would have still married her had she promised to never see me again.”

“Not really an option,was it?” said Andy. “I packed some clothes,bits of food and my sleeping bag and joined Viv in the car.We were outcasts without a plan and with barely any money so we headed for London.The scariest place we could possibly go,but it beckoned us as it does so many misfits from the middle of nowhere.”

“Those first few weeks we slept in the car and lived in constant fear,” Vivien continued. “We were hungry and grubby and if we hadn’t burned our bridges we might have slunk home.One morning we were out walking and,I’ll be honest,starting to despair when I noticed an advert in a newsagent’s window looking for dancers and,long story short,Andy applied and got the job.”

“No,no,angel,we don’t do that,” Andy butted in. “The advert was looking for strippers,not dancers.My audition was also my first gig.This was no ‘gentleman’s club’ where you dance on a stage and get to keep your panties on,this was the back room of a pub with the audience a few feet away and if you didn’t take everything off you didn’t get paid.Remember,I was your age at the time and the only people who’d ever seen me naked were my husband-to-be and Vivien.It was excruciating,I could hear every comment,see every ounce of contempt in their eyes.For the first time ever I knew that feeling like a piece of meat was an actual thing,but Viv stayed in the room with me and I somehow got through it and,boy,the fish and chips we bought on the way back to the car was the tastiest and most well deserved meal I’ve ever eaten.”

“After that,I knew I had to earn money,by any means necessary.If my girl was being that brave I couldn’t sit back and sponge off her.” Regan noticed how once Andy stopped speaking,Vivien took up the monologue without pausing for breath. “Nobody wanted to see me with my clothes off,so I’d go around the bars and restaurants hustling for any spare shifts,washing dishes,clearing tables,anything.Eventually, I asked this guy who had a market stall selling clothes if he needed help and he said yes – provided I agreed to only take commission on anything I sold rather than a wage.It turned out I was a natural.Little,mousy me had the gift of the gab and I was soon being offered more shifts than I could handle.We’d arrived in London as two shy,small town girls,but the city soon knocked that out of us.”

“All the while I was getting more bookings as a stripper,” Andy took up the story.Regan smiled,but was caught out. “I see you,Little Miss Smirk.If you and Emily are still together in forty years you’ll be talking this way,I guarantee it! Anyway,I got to know some of the other girls and they were really quite supportive and managed to hook me up with more salubrious and better paying venues.One of them suggested I might enjoy life modelling,there’s a ton of art colleges and artists in London always on the lookout for people to pose nude.She was right,I absolutely loved it.I was wondrously comfortable with my body at this point – being drawn by day and dancing at night – but the real fun was in mixing with the students and artistic types and we were soon socialising outside of work.We gelled with them so perfectly,it felt we’d found our tribe.There was a whole group of them living in a squat and we moved in.There were painters,musicians,writers,actors,dancers,models and drug dealers.Nobody cared if you slept with men or women or both,it was party central,there was always something going on.I was surprised to see a girl my age I knew from the circuit.She was stripping so she’d qualify for an Equity union card which you needed to perform in regular theatre.So,of course,I had the notion I should do the same...”

“I think we might be boring young Regan,” interrupted Vivien. “There’s a limit to how much of the life and loves of two old broads that anyone should be forced to tolerate.”

“Are you kidding me?” said Regan.” Keep the wine flowing and I’m settling in for the night.”

“You’d need more than one night to get the life story of these two.Believe me,I’ve heard their saga and we haven’t reached the end of chapter one yet,” said Emily.

“You’ll be welcome any time,sweetie,with or without Emily,” said Andy. “Spoiler alert,you’ll hear about my career in musical theatre and the time the police raided our squat and had us all arrested.”

“And my year spent money laundering for mobsters who smashed up our second squat and beat up all the occupants other than me and Andy because they recognised me as their associate,” added Vivien.

“And the time we worked on a cruise liner and I was proposed to by a billionaire or a later voyage when the ship left us behind in Cape Town and we ended up staying for eighteen months.”

“There was the year I spent in Benidorm pretending to be a man dressed as a woman and the two years we lived in The Algarve managing a nudist campsite.”

“There were the six months I worked in Vegas as a backing dancer for Cher and the porn film I made with Emily’s mother.”

“Or the time we fled Mexico pursued by gun toting cartel members or the night in Berlin when we partied with Lady Gaga – before she was famous,of course.”

“Wait a minute,you made a porno with Emily’s mum?” laughed Regan. “Yeah right! I mean I love her,she’s one of my favourite people,but she’s also in my top three humans least likely to make a porn film.”

“Ask yourself this,Miss Know It All,” said Vivien. “If Emily’s mum is so staid then how come she was friends with us and close enough to make us godmothers to her only child?”

“It’s true,baby,” said Emily. “There’s even video evidence,but it’s a story that needs a full evening – and my mum’s consent - to do it justice and I’m full of wine and ready for bed.”

Andy fetched the girls’ coats as Vivien said her effusive goodbyes.

“We’ve had an amazing life together and there’s chapters yet to be added.You girls have your own stories to weave,but if you take just one thing from us make it this - ensure that when you get to our age all your regrets are over things you’ve done rather than things you haven’t.”