Episode 6
Episode 7
Episode 8
Episode 9
Episode 10

Episode 10:

The Stupid Things You Do

Jan woke up with a splitting headache. She looked over at the clock; it was only 6:00 she could sleep another 30 minutes, but not with the pounding in her head. In fact she couldn’t function as a human with it.

            She sat up slowly. Her head spun and she was nauseous. Not just a headache, a fucking migraine. She stood up slowly and headed for the kitchen where she put a pot of filtered water on to boil and reached for the herbal tea remedy that Stella had concocted for her. There was still plenty but the next time Stella came home she was going to have her show her what went in it and how much. She remembered Cayenne pepper—because it burned as it went down—but had no idea what the other key ingredients in it where. While the remedy wouldn’t completely get rid of the migraine ache it would make it tolerable, maybe even enough so that she could still work, but if past experience held true, probably not.

            She brought the water to a boil then turned the burner off and put in two tablespoons of the herbs. The migraine was getting worse by the minute. The pounding in her brain seeming to remind her to stay clean. Damn near two years staying tweaked on crank had damaged her teeth to the point she was still paying the dentist bills and left her with migraines which were less frequent as she distanced herself from those black years, but they seemed to be even more severe. Stella said they probably only seemed to be worse because she wasn’t having them as much and time allowed her to forget the pain.

            It was another reason she didn’t pursue the music thing. There was no way she could even think to do a full set like this, and while the local clubs knew her and were sympathetic she doubted seriously that bigger venues would be.

            She strained the tea when it had steeped ten minutes and started to drink it. As usual, it tasted like crap and burned all the way down, but she didn’t care because she knew it helped.

            She walked carefully to the living room, sat down in her recliner, and leaned back in it, glad the day seemed to be overcast so that there was no sunlight coming through the blinds. She couldn’t handle light right now. She finished the tea and her head started to feel some better, but she now knew without a doubt that she wouldn’t be able to walk more than a few feet much less work. This was a bad one.

            At seven she called Adrian. “Hello.” Adrian’s voice still sleepy and hurt her head.

            “Adrian, dude, I’ve got a migraine, a bad one. I can’t go to work.”

            When Adrian spoke it was in a barely audible whisper knowing how bad sound hurt when Jan got like this. “I’ve got it. Do you need me to bring you something?”

            “Could you send some muffins over about 11:00?” It was really all she could get down when she was sick.

            “No problem. Take care of yourself. I love you, Jan.”

            “I love you, too.” Jan hung up and tried the meditation techniques Stella had taught her to help with her headaches. It must have worked because the next thing she knew Adrian was standing at her feet holding up a bag of muffins.

            “You all right?” she asked in a whisper.

            Jan smiled. “I feel better.” She slowly moved into a sitting position and still the throbbing in her head was bearable. She took the bag from Adrian. “Do me a favor and pour a cup of the tea from the pan on the stove, heat it up and bring it to me.”

            “No problem.” Adrian went in the kitchen and Jan smiled. Not very many people had the sort of friendship that she and Adrian had. She opened the bag, pulled out a muffin and bit into it. She didn’t immediately want to vomit so that was good, but it also seemed to have no taste at all. Adrian showed up with the cup of warm tea and set it on the end table well within Jan’s reach. “How bad is it?”

            “It was bad, bearable now. I think the worst part is that I don’t even really feel like I can bitch about it because I did it to myself,” Jan said.

            “No one should have to pay for the crap they did in the past forever.” Adrian smiled and said, “My uncle Harry used to say, “you’ll never get hurt as bad as you will doing something you know you shouldn’t have been doing in the first place.”

            “Ain’t that the fucking truth?” Then the enormity of what Adrian had just said hit her. “Your uncle?”

            “Yeah, Harry,” she said, as if she talked about her family all the time. “You know Harry used to raise chickens out behind his house and my little brother Brian and I would sometimes help him take care of them and… Well I always thought they were really cool. I’ve been reading up on them.”

            “On what?” Jan asked because she was so shocked she didn’t know if Adrian was talking about her family or chickens.

            “Chickens. I think I want to get some. We could get fresh eggs and we could feed them all the scraps from the restaurant.”

            “We already feed those to the tenants. I don’t think Milly has actually cooked or gone out to eat since Marcella left.”

            “Not those scraps, the ones that go down the disposal. You know the disposal that is always fucking breaking down. That’s a lot of fucking waste, and if we had chickens they’d eat all that shit and give us eggs. I think that would be cool.”

            “Aren’t there city ordinances?”

            “Oh fuck that,” Adrian said. “We don’t get a rooster and we shut them up in their house if anybody comes to check it out.”

            “Dude, do you just not have enough shit to do?”

            “It wouldn’t be that much extra work, and I think it would be cool. don’t you think it would be cool?”

            Jan shrugged and then made a face when it hurt.
            “I’m sorry, Jan, I’ll go,” Adrian said lowering her voice again.

            “It’s all right.” Jan looked at Adrian. “You look happy, Adrian, really happy. Contented even. What happened?”

            Adrian shrugged then smiled. “I don’t really know. I guess I would have told you that I liked being free and just sort of being my own woman, not being tied down or having any real responsibilities. But the truth is that now I own this building and Rhonda’s, I’m in debt up to my ass so my future is just sort of all sewed up and there is absolutely no mystery about what I’m going to be doing for the foreseeable future, and I’ve got Frances, and well I really like not having to go hit the clubs looking for my next mark. I like knowing who I’ll be having sex with and not waking up alone and turns out the longer you do it with just one person the increasingly better the sex gets and… well let’s face it. Owning all this crap and being so damn busy, if I didn’t have a steady girl friend when would I have the time to get any pussy? And now I have time to read books about chickens.” She kissed Jan on the forehead and headed for the door. “Take care of yourself.”

            “I don’t have to; you’ll take care of me. Thanks Adrian.”

            “You’re welcome.” Adrian left closing and locking the door as she did so.

            Jan was happy for Adrian, but that didn’t mean she didn’t feel a little left out. Stella was gone, Marcella was gone, and Adrian was in a real live relationship. Everyone was moving on with their lives whether they wanted to or not, and she had just sort of stagnated.

            Adrian had never talked about her past before, and now she just spit it out without even realizing it. What did that mean? That she was talking about her past, but to who? Not her best friend, Jan had never asked and Adrian had never offered to tell her a single thing about her past. Now she knew that Adrian had an uncle named Harry a brother named Brian and that they used to all take care of chickens. So she knew a hundred percent more than she had before.

            She must be talking to Frances. I wonder if Adrian even knows how much she loves France; I wonder if Frances appreciates how much Adrian loves her.

            Her migraine was starting to ease its way back so she quickly ate a couple of muffins and drank the cup of tea.

            Jan didn’t really like change. Maybe that’s why her life had stagnated, because she was happy the way things were, had little or no desire to change things, and didn’t like that everyone else was changing around her.

            The nearly two years she’d spent drugged out after her stint in the sanitarium had made her days there seem like a pleasant memory.

            After she’d gone home she’d stupidly come out to her parents, and the same parents who had been so concerned about her when she was suicidal that they did anything to get her help put her out on the street because she was a lesbian. She’d hitchhiked into Shea City to look for Rhonda’s, and if she hadn’t gotten lost everything might have been different. But she did get lost, and she wound up with exactly the wrong people at exactly the wrong time.

            Jan chased the memories from her head. Thinking about that crap wouldn’t help her migraine. She used the meditation techniques to clear her mind and soon she was asleep again.

            When she woke up the next time it was about 3:00 and she was starting to feel almost human again, so she actually put on clothes, drank another cup of the herbal tea just to be on the safe side, and went on down to the rec room to see if there was any food left in the refrigerator. As luck would have it Frances was leaning over some books at one of the tables.

            “How are you feeling?” she asked in a whisper, so apparently Adrian had told her that Jan was sick and that she couldn’t handle sound.

            “Much better,” Jan said. She dug through the refrigerator till she found half a submarine sandwich. It wasn’t just Rhonda’s leftovers that wound up in the fridge. If someone had leftover food from cooking or from eating out they often put it in here as well. Adrian had it organized: new stuff went on the first shelf, the next day it moved to the second shelf, the third day to the bottom shelf, and the fourth day it got thrown out. Not much really did. One of the perks of living in the house was that you could almost always find something to eat in the rec room fridge.

            She sat down across from Frances and opened up the sandwich. The smell didn’t make her want to puke, so she started to eat it slowly. “Studying?” Jan asked. She knew it was a stupid question, but she felt like she might ought to actually get to know Frances because whether Adrian was completely aware of it or not she wasn’t going to let go of the girl anytime soon, and all Jan really knew about her was that she was extremely good looking and smelled like vanilla musk.

            “Yeah/” Frances sighed in a way that blew the stray strands of hair out of her face.

            Damn, I wish I’d hit that before Adrian decided to play house with her. Still it can’t just be her looks because Adrian isn’t as shallow as I am. Hell Adrian was crazy in love with Stella, and she’s beautiful but old and fat.

            “Have you ever been sure that you really wanted to do something and then when you do it you’re all disappointed like, you know, why did I think that was going to be so great in the first place? Well that’s where I am with psychology and school in general.” She shut the book in front of her.

            “I didn’t mean to make you quit studying.” Jan said.

            “It’s all right. I’m trying to study but… I read a page go to turn it and realize I just don’t remember what I just read at all.”

            “Have you thought about changing majors?”

            “Yes, but… well I have no idea what else I’d take. I don’t even know if I want to go to college anymore. It just seems like college is something you do while you’re waiting to live. Like all it’s really doing is stopping me from having to make real decisions about what I want to do with my life, and since I’m not sure what that is everything I’m busting my ass to learn may all be just a huge waste of time,” Frances said with a shrug.

            “What about Adrian?”

            “What about her?” Frances said, not understanding her question.

            “Does she have any place in your future plans?” Jan asked carefully.

            Frances seemed surprised by the question. Then she took several seconds to think about it before she almost answered it. “I don’t know what I want to do with my life.” She shrugged then smiled. “I’m sure it will have something to do with Adrian.”

            Jan didn’t want to hear anything that sounded like a kind of, or a sort of, she wanted to know that this girl was as into Adrian as she knew Adrian was into her and that wasn’t what she just heard. She heard sort of and maybe. It wasn’t for her to say, so she should have kept her mouth shut, but she’d never been terribly good at that. “Don’t fuck with Adrian.”

            Frances looked more than a little startled. “What?”

            “Just don’t fuck with her,” Jan ordered.

            “What are you talking about?” Now she seemed really confused.

            Now Jan was really wishing she’d kept her big mouth shut. “I shouldn’t have said anything. Never mind. I’m always talking when I should fucking shut up.”

            “No, is Adrian mad at me? Did I do something to upset her? Did she say something to you?” 

            Oh great going dumbass. Jan thought. Now the silly bitch thinks Adrian’s been bitching about her to me. What do I say? I’ve just possibly sabotaged Adrian’s relationship, and that’s the opposite of what I was trying to do.

            “No, no you haven’t done anything wrong,” Jan said quickly.

            “Then what are you talking about?”

            Jan took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Her migraine was trying to come back. Why didn’t she just keep her mouth shut, just talk to Frances and stay the hell out of she and Adrian’s business? Because I owe Adrian everything, and I don’t want to see her get hurt again. I was just trying to help and well what am I supposed to say now? I’ll try the plain unboiled truth.

            “God, Frances, I’m so sorry. I wasn’t trying to stir up shit. It’s just, well I’m afraid Adrian’s a lot more involved with you than you are with her. She’s happy; I’ve never really seen Adrian happy before, and I’d like to see her stay that way.”

            Frances looked at her agape and then she smiled, reached across the table and patted Jan’s arm. “Don’t worry; I’m not going to hurt Adrian. while I may be searching for what I want to do with my life at least for the time being I’m not searching for who I’m going to be doing it with.” She sat back in her chair and laughed a little.

            “What?” Jan asked with a smile.

            “Why didn’t you just come right out and ask what my intensions were?”

            Jan smiled, shrugged and said. “Please don’t tell Adrian.”

            “All right.” Frances reopened her book.

            Jan’s headache began subsiding once more, so she started eating the sandwich. It wasn’t bad. She was half done when Frances looked up from the book and asked curiously.

            “Just what did Adrian say?”

            Damn! I thought this conversation was over and I can’t pretend that I don’t know what she means when I do. Adrian’s going to kill me. Jan took a little longer chewing the mouthful of sandwich than was really necessary but finally finding no way out she said, “She talked about her uncle and her brother and chickens. Until today she’d never told me anything about her pre-B Street life, and I knew that meant she had to be talking about it to someone. I also knew that someone was you, and if she couldn’t tell Stella or me or Marcella and she could tell you… Well then she must think you’re something pretty special. That and she said she liked waking up with you and until you came along Adrian never actually “slept” with anyone. They had sex and she left or they did. Period.”

            Frances was damn near glowing when she’d finished talking.

            “I won’t tell her we had this talk.”

            Jan nodded, looked down at the table and asked in a quiet voice. “Who beat her?”

            “I think that gets into a doctor/patient ethics thing,” Frances said nervously.

            “You aren’t her doctor. and she isn’t your patient.”

            “Her father,” Frances said in a low voice.

            “Was it… well how bad was it?”

            “The physical abuse was horrendous, but the emotional abuse was probably worse. He was twisted, probably severely psychotic, bi-polar or schizophrenic, and her mother was a classic enabler,” Frances said. She made a face. “So maybe I did learn a couple of things from all these stupid books, but nothing that makes me understand why someone would do that sort of thing to another person much less their own child. I haven’t learned a damn thing that tells me what I’m supposed to say to her to make all her pain go away.”

            And it was the way she said it—the very real frustration in her voice—that made Jan realize that she had been stupid to worry in the first place because the girl was telling the truth. She was at least as “into” Adrian as Adrian was into her.

            “I like you,” Jan said, nodding her head in approval.

            Frances smiled and said in a confused tone. “Ah, thanks.”

            Yuri walked in then and flopped on the chair next to Jan. She looked at the long-haired, dirty-blond skinny youth and smiled.

            “What are you doing off in the afternoon?” he asked.

“Migraine. It’s better now. Who stepped on your puppy?”

            “What?” he asked.

            “What’s wrong?”

            “My play was rejected… again.” Yuri threw his hands in the air. “They say it is too depressing. Too depressing! And yet it is all about sexual awakening; there is nothing depressing about it. They didn’t even look at it. You going to eat all that?” he asked pointing at Jan’s sandwich. For answer she pushed it towards him. He took a bite and then continued talking. “I have a crappy job selling expensive shirts for fifty times what they’re worth to stupid-assed Yuppies, and I sometimes think I’d have better luck writing a play about that.” He got up, went to the kitchen, and came back with a cup of cold coffee. “Maybe call it something like He Folded the Shirt Wrong. Have him be tortured over working a shit job for a bunch of homophobic pricks while his brilliant plays are chewed up and spit out by a bunch of morons whose idea of art is a boat made completely out of popsickle sticks.” Then suddenly he got that look in his eyes, and even as he was sitting back down he jumped up, grabbed the rest of the sandwich and the coffee, and took off muttering to himself.

            Frances looked at Jan, smiled and shrugged.

            Jan laughed and decided the girl was definitely one of them. 

Jan called to tell Adrian that she felt better and could go into work if she needed her. Adrian said they were fine and that Ryan was taking her evening shift.

            She just flopped in her recliner and stared at her mural, a tiger and a dragon in yin and yang, which covered most of one wall and reminded her daily to find balance in her life.

            The door opened, Faye walked in, and Jan tried to wipe the stupid look off her face because her heart betrayed her and it beat faster every time she saw Faye unexpectedly.

            “How you doing?” Faye asked in a whisper, coming over to sit on the arm of the couch so that if Jan reached out she could actually touch her. Of all the extremely stupid things she had done—and they were legion—the stupidest and the one she kicked herself in the ass for daily was fucking things up with Faye.

            “Better,” Jan said and thought, I’d feel even better if you’d come and sit in my lap tell me that you forgive me and want to try again. That wasn’t going to happen. She had really hurt Faye, and it was a miracle they could even still be friends. I was such an idiot, I didn’t realize what I really had, how much I wanted what I had till she was gone.

            “I saw Frances. She’s studying in the rec room she told me you had a migraine, so I thought I’d better come to check on you.”

            “Oh God, she didn’t tell you what I said did she?”

            “About what?” Faye asked raising an eyebrow.

            “Oh… I fucking questioned her about Adrian, as if I had some right to,” Jan said running her hands down her face.

            Faye laughed. “No she didn’t say anything about that. What did you want to know?”

            “If she really loved Adrian.”

            “Of course she does.” Faye smiled. “How could any woman not love Adrian Bar?”

            Oh, now she just said that to rub shit in my face. “Stella didn’t love her.”

            “Oh yes she most certainly did,” Faye said. “She was just committed to Toni and she wasn’t willing to break her promises to her to be with Adrian.”

            She shots she scores. Damn, she can say it’s all water under the bridge all she wants, but part of her is never going to forgive me because she loved me and I hurt her. Irony fucking sucks, because I still want her, still love her, but she no longer wants any part of me. What did Adrian say her uncle said? That you’ll never get hurt as bad as you will doing something you knew you shouldn’t be doing in the first place. I ought to get that fucking tattooed on my ass.

            “Ouch,” Jan said.

            Faye smiled. “Do you want me to bring you something?”

            “No. Of course I wouldn’t say no to a massage.”

            Faye grinned. “You really that hard up for a little touch.”

            I’m that hard up for your touch, God do you just keep getting better looking or is it just because I can’t fucking have you?

            “It helps with my headaches.” Jan said looking pathetic.

            “I’ll go get my oil. You take off your shirt and lay on the bed; I’ll be back in a minute.” Faye left and Jan practically ran back to her bedroom. she took off her shirt and lay on the bed on her stomach. Maybe I should pretend like I don’t know how she gives massages and I should just be on my back or naked when she gets here. Just me and Faye and oil naked that would be great.

            Faye came back a few minutes later. “So where’s the tension?” she asked. There was something about her manner that Jan couldn’t put her finger on.

            “Everywhere,” Jan said. Faye put oil on her hands. It had a nice, clean scent that triggered nostalgic feelings. Faye started rubbing Jan’s neck then her back.

            “Bad migraine huh?”

            “Horrible,” Jan said.

            “Loosen your belt so I can get to your lower back,” Faye said.

            Jan was only too happy to oblige. She felt Faye’s oily hands slip under her pants and over her buttocks and incredibly close to her crotch.

            “Does that feel good?” Faye asked in a husky voice.

            “Yes.”

            “Well what about this?” Faye slapped her hard in the middle of her back and Jan sat up, startled.

            “What the fuck!” Jan said grabbing her shirt and throwing it on.

            “You fucking asshole. I ran into Yuri and when I told him what I was doing he said he thought you said your migraine was over.”

            Jan smiled then in spite of herself. “Well I didn’t tell you it wasn’t.”

            “Dammit, Jan, I told you! I’m not going to be your fuck buddy!”

            “Oh come on, Faye, you know…”

            “I know you’re a rutting, fucking pig. Find some other whore to fuck you.”

            “You do realize you just called yourself a whore,” Jan said with a grin. At which point Faye threw a lamp at her, which sort of made her think that maybe she had a chance with Faye. After all, if she could get this mad at her there must still be a spark.

            “I’ve had it up to my ass…

            “And a fine ass it is,” Jan laughed. And jumped out of the way of the book Faye threw at her next.

            “Fuck you, Jan!”

            “If you insist.”

            Faye turned around and stomped out of the room and then out of the apartment. Jan followed quickly behind her, wondering why she didn’t have any better sense.

            “I hate you, leave me alone.”

            “Oh come on, Faye, I just wanted a back rub and…”

            “We both know what you wanted and you can by God get it from Rita.”

            Damn, she still remembers the bitch’s name I didn’t till she said it, but she does. “How many times do I have to apologize for that? Come on, Faye, if you’d just talk to me about it.”

            “Why?” She didn’t turn to face her, just went stomping down the stairs. “So you can tell me all the reasons that I’m not good enough for you?”

            “I never did that,” Jan said, now every bit as mad as Faye was. It was one thing to yell at her for what she’d actually done and quite another to yell at her for shit she hadn’t.

            “All right what do you call listing all the reasons it was my fault you fucked that tramp in our bed?”

            “Because I’m a fucking moron. I was a moron. Dammit, Faye, if you’d just listen.”

            “But I won’t not to hear your bullshit.” She held her hands over her ears and just kept saying lalala over and over again as she stomped down the stairs.

            “Christ, Faye, this is what’s bullshit! I know I fucked up over and fucking over again, but I didn’t know it then and I do now and…”

            “Leave me the fuck alone!” They had stopped outside Faye’s room and her hand was racing towards the door handle. Jan grabbed her hand.

            “Please, Faye,”

            “Let me go or I’ll smack you.” Then she did, slapping Jan across the face before Jan had a chance to let her go, which she did. She rubbed the side of her face.

            “Oh Jan… I’m sorry.”

            “No, I’m sorry, Faye, sorry that I can’t fix what I did.”

            “God, Jan, I wish… I wish I could have back what I thought we had.”

            “We did have. We could again, Faye.”

            “No we couldn’t.” Faye started crying. “We couldn’t because I trusted you, Jan. I trusted you like I never thought I’d trust anyone. Loved you like I’ve never loved anyone else, and you threw it all in my face. For what? To try to be Adrian Bar except wait… now even Adrian is in a permanent relationship and even she seems to be able to keep her fucking fly shut. You can have anyone you want, Jan, so why do you keep fucking with my head?”

            “Because I only want you, Faye,” Jan said. “I only want you.”

            “Then you really did fuck up.” Faye walked into the apartment and closed the door.

            Adrian walked out of the rec room and up to Jan’s back. No doubt someone had called her about the screaming and she’d run here from Rhonda’s. Then seeing it was her friends and knowing their history had just held back hoping that they were going to calm down on their own.

            “You all right?”  Adrian asked.

            “Migraines gone,” Jan said sniffling.

            “You know what I mean.”

            “Oh God, Adrian.” Jan just collapsed against Adrian, crying, and Adrian helped her to her own apartment and brought her in. “I’m sorry, Adrian. Sorry I missed work and now I’m causing trouble.”

            “Jan, you’re not causing me any trouble.”

            “I caused Faye trouble. I don’t mean to, but I just can’t help myself. It’s fucking drama, Adrian, and I know you hate drama. Someone should check on Faye. I’ll be fine, would you go check on Faye?”

            “Tammy!” Adrian called out and Tammy walked out of her room.

            “Yeah?”

            “Could you go check on Faye?”

            “No, you can’t send Tammy, if you send Tammy Faye’s going to fuck her,” Jan cried.

            “That’s not a problem for me,” Tammy said. Then she must have seen how distressed Jan looked because she said with a sigh. “All right, I won’t let her fuck me, but that’s just for this time. Any other time I’m not promising shit.”

            Tammy left. Adrian sat Jan on the couch and then went to the kitchen and came back with a glass of water. She handed it to Jan who drank it gladly. Then Adrian sat

beside her. “What happened?’

            “What always happens? I acted like a jack ass. I just… well I was just laying around all day in the dark and thinking too much, remembering. I want her back, Adrian, and I just don’t even have a clue how to go about doing that, and…” she told her everything that had happened.

            Adrian laughed and shook her head. “Oh you silver-tongued devil you. Really Jan, ‘you do realize that you just called yourself a whore,’ what the hell were you thinking?”

            “I don’t know. That it was funny? I doubt she’ll even be my friend now. Hell I doubt she’ll even talk to me.”

            “I don’t get it, Jan,” Adrian said. “The whole time you were with Faye all you did was bitch that she’d trapped you. That you didn’t want to be in a permanent monogamous relationship, so you did everything you could do to destroy it. Ever since it’s been over all you’ve done is whine. Maybe it’s not so much that you just have to have Faye as it is that you want what you had with her—someone to love that loves you.”

            “Fuck you, Adrian. What, is the psychologist girl friend rubbing off on you?”

            “Only every chance she gets,” Adrian said with a smug smile.

            Jan laughed. “Now see? That’s funny. I know it’s a joke at my expense, but it’s still funny. I’m not mad now. You tell a little joke and it’s supposed to stop all the tension.” Jan grabbed a tissue out of the box and dried her face and blew her nose. “Why did she have to get so damn mad? I just wanted her to touch me. It wasn’t like I was going to make her do anything, I just hoped it would turn into us doing it and then she’d love me again and I’m a huge dumbass, huh?”

            “Yeah, but you’re my huge dumbass,” Adrian said with a smile.

            “So where is your old lady?”

            “Oh God, you are a pig, Jan. Frances is still at work.”

            “Damn, I’m sorry, Adrian; you better get back to work.”

            “Fuck that, I’m the boss. It’s slow tonight. Ryan can handle the bar. Hell I could just hang out here till my ‘old lady’ gets home.”

            “I’m such a fuck up.” Jan started crying again, and Adrian moved to hold her and just let her cry on her shoulder.

“Go away, Jan! I’m never talking to you again!” Faye yelled at her door when she heard the knock.

            “Faye it’s Tammy.”

            Faye opened the door mostly because she needed a shoulder to cry on and Tammy’s was as good as the next. She collapsed on Tammy and Tammy didn’t say anything, just held her and patted her back till she was cried out and Tammy’s shoulder was wet with tears and snot. Faye excused herself and went to the bathroom to wash her face. When she came back Tammy was just standing there looking sort of lost, and something dawned on Faye.

            “Why did you come over?”

            Tammy uncomfortably shuffled her feet and looked at the wall behind Faye.

            “Well?”

            “Jan was with Adrian in our apartment having a melt down and Jan wanted her to come and check on you, but Adrian sent me.” Tammy smiled and did look at her then. “I had to take an oath not to let you take advantage of me.”

            “Jan was upset?” Faye was confused now. “Fuck her! I don’t care, you hear me? I don’t.”

            “OK,” Tammy said with a shrug.

            “She fucked me over, you know that don’t you?”

            “Well I sort of guessed that from bits and pieces I’ve heard,” Tammy said with a smile. “If it makes you feel any better, I think she’s been kicking herself pretty hard ever since.”

            “It’s been almost eight months since we broke up and… well the ‘just friends’ thing isn’t going to work because she doesn’t want to be ‘just friends’ she wants to be ‘just friends’ with benefits, and fuck that.”

            “How long were you together?” Tammy asked, and she moved to sit down on the couch. Faye moved to sit beside her, glad for the supportive arm Tammy put around her shoulders.

            “A year. I thought we’d made it. I was really happy and I thought Jan was happy. I had just started to really relax and let myself believe that she really loved me and then I find her in my bed with her head between some other bitch’s legs. And then is Jan apologetic? No she isn’t, she starts telling me that it’s all gone too fast and she’s just getting her own head on straight and she needs to be free to play the field actually be on her own and see if she can do it a bunch of other crap. I’m coming completely undone and she just says she’s sorry, packs her stuff, moves back in with Adrian, and then a month later she’s got her own apartment here and I can either get along with her or move. Stella knew how hard it was for me to have to see her all the time but she said she couldn’t put Jan out on the street, and I know that, it’s just... Well Adrian was pissed off at Jan but she still let her live with her still fixed an apartment for her. Stella thought Jan was wrong but she still let her live here and… Well, who’s really on my side? And I’m trying to be her friend and she just keeps acting like a stupid jerk.”

            “I think Jan still loves you, Faye. I think maybe that’s why she acts like such a jerk. I know I always lose several IQ points any time I even like a girl,” Tammy said gently. “She was crying like a baby.”

            “And fifteen minutes after I fuck her she’ll be looking for reasons to leave me. That girl is seriously fucked in the head.”

            “While trying to make anyone who comes within reach be Jan isn’t crazy at all,” Tammy said gently.

            Faye laughed and lay her head on Tammy’s shoulder. “Oh God, Tammy. It was so good to have someone, to never be here alone. Have her shit thrown all over the place and wake up with her. It was wonderful, and just when I was sure it was never going to end she took it all away.” She sniffled. “And I got so mad at her tonight because the truth is that until I found out she was trying to play me I was so hot for her that I fully intended to give the little bitch a back rub and then just fuck her rotten and see what happened.”

            “Maybe it’s not always good to be so smart, Faye.” Tammy said.

            “What do you mean?”

            “Well maybe if you hadn’t figured out that she was trying to play you, you might have wound up making love, and I’m betting if you had neither of you would be crying now and maybe just maybe things aren’t as broken as you think they are.”

Jan had left shortly after Frances came home because she just didn’t want to play fifth wheel and she was getting madder and madder that Tammy wasn’t back yet and she didn’t want to think about the fact that Tammy may be banging Faye while she sat there whining and crying and barely coherent. She went up to her room, took a shower, drank some more of the tea, took a couple of ibuprofen and went to bed, but of course she’d slept most of the day so she really wasn’t tired. She mostly wanted to sleep so that she couldn’t think and she couldn’t sleep because she couldn’t quit thinking.

            It was a big bed which suddenly felt even bigger. “How could I have ever thought that this is what I wanted?” Jan said out loud, banging her head against her pillow.

            Stella said Jan had sabotaged her own happiness. That Jan’s need to punish herself had out weighed her love for Faye and even her desire to be happy. Jan didn’t pretend to understand what that actually meant, she just knew that within a week of breaking up with Faye she’d been crying herself to sleep every night and thinking about who she could talk to about scoring some crank, and it had taken every once of her will not to get tweaked or cut herself.

Cutting was also a drug, and there were tiny scars all over her legs and arms where she’d cut herself a dozen times. Just long, shallow cuts every one done while wondering how much harder she’d have to push to cause real damage, and all leading up to cutting her wrists.

            She was a fucking waste case and she didn’t deserve someone like Faye. Faye had been through enough, had fixed herself by herself, and now Jan had become just one more thing Faye had to get over, and so Jan had to get over Faye.

            But it was hard because Faye was perfect. The way she looked the way she moved the way she tasted. Her lips, her tongue, her legs and the way she used them. The way a word from her could make Jan feel better about practically anything, or make her so mad she could scream and often did.

All Jan really understood was that the fact she could so totally fuck Faye over and screw herself into this hole meant that part of her was still determined to destroy herself. On the ceiling above her bed Adrian had painted a huge black and silver yen and yang. She focused on it trying to meditate but when she did her mind was filled completely with memories of the first time she and Faye made love.

She had been living in Adrian’s apartment since she’d shown up at Rhonda’s, and she was just starting to really think clearly and feel human again. She and Faye had been talking and flirting with each other since Jan got there, they just seemed to click.

She had just gotten home from playing a gig at Changes and since she’d stopped smoking the smell was making her about half sick. It didn’t make her want to smoke again as everyone had warned her it would, it just made her wonder why she’d ever smoked in the first place. She’d stripped and gotten into Adrian’s shower which was four by four and had two low jets and two high ones If you stood in just the right spot you could turn the water on and be instantly drenched or carefully aim the jets so your head didn’t get wet, but Jan didn’t dare adjust the shower heads because if she didn’t put them back just exactly like they were Adrian acted like the world was going to come to a screeching halt.

And of course Adrian was five ten and Jan was five six, so if it was set not to get Adrian’s head wet it drenched Jan’s. Jan didn’t care. She wore her hair even shorter than Adrian did and it dried in about six minutes. Her tat was healed enough that she didn’t have to worry about getting it wet so she turned the water on and got in.

She and Marcella and Adrian had all gotten the same tat on the same day. Marcella had gone first and screamed nearly the whole time. Jan, Adrian and Milly had just stood there laughing at her and when they got to the soft side of Marcella’s arm she stopped him right there, and then they had all ridden her really high.

“You’ll see, assholes,” Marcella had said getting out the chair. She had watched as first Adrian and then Jan had gotten their tattoos while talking through the whole thing as if they were watching a movie and they both got theirs all the way around. “Well fuck you assholes,” Marcella said, and then plopped down in the chair and had her tattoo finished, screaming the whole time.

Jan smiled and rubbed her hand over the still-raised area, a testament to their friendship, to the fact that they had a pact to watch each others’ backs.

            The shower door opened and she nearly jumped out of her skin and then… well she didn’t calm down because Faye was standing there nude from head to toe and just looking at her made Jan’s heart pound. Faye stepped into the shower pulling the door closed behind her. She reached over and turned the water down, and then she wrapped her arms around Jan’s neck and pressed her wet body against Jan’s wet, soapy one and there was definitely something to be said for having a lover that was the exact same height that you were because when Faye started sliding her body against Jan’s their nipples kept touching. Jan wrapped her arms around Faye’s waist and pulled her tightly against her then their lips met and Faye’s lips were so warm, sensual and when her lips parted Jan stuck her tongue in Faye’s mouth as far as she could and Faye sucked at her tongue hungrily. Jan felt like her knees were going to buckle, so she pressed Faye against the shower wall which just seemed to excite Faye more because then she started grinding her hips against Jan’s and Jan pushed right back. She pulled her mouth away from Faye’s with an effort and let out a gasp, trying to catch her breath. Faye’s mouth locked on her breast and Jan’s pussy started to throb. She had to brace her hands against the wall of the shower to stay on her feet. Then she could feel Faye’s fingers on her clit, working it till she was coming down her leg and she felt like her knees were going to buckle despite her best efforts.

            Faye smiled at her smugly then leaned against the wall and looked at Jan expectantly. “Do me.”

            Jan smiled back, took her hands off the wall and caressed Faye’s shoulders and then her arms. She held her hands, kissed Faye gently on the lips, then let go of her hands and let her tongue run down Faye’s body till she was licking her nipple. Faye let out a groan and Jan got down on her traitorous knees. Jan took the fingers of her right hand and parted Faye’s lower lips then she ran her tongue over Faye’s clit. When she did Jan came again. Faye tasted good, sweet and salty, and her clit was standing out it was so engorged. Jan licked her hard till Faye’s cum was running down her face with the water. Then she stuck two fingers in her and started thrusting them in an out of her with rhythmic thrusts while she kept working her clit with her tongue.

            “Oh my God!” Faye called out. “Don’t stop! Oh God, Jan, don’t stop!”

            She really had no intention of doing that, and kept going till Faye was coming so hard that it was running off Jan’s elbow and Jan was sure that the only thing holding Faye up was her fingers in Faye’s pussy. She quit licking her but didn’t take her fingers out of her. Jan put her hand on the back wall and used it for leverage to get to her feet, never taking her fingers out of Faye. When she was standing she kissed Faye and Faye grabbed her in a vice like grip and pulled her against her. Faye was shaking, and when Jan started moving her fingers again, letting her thumb rub Faye’s clit, Faye came again and her fingers dug into Jan’s back. When she had quit coming and was just sort of standing limp against Jan, Jan took her fingers out, brought them to her mouth and stuck them all the way in her mouth, sucked them and then took them out and ran them down Faye’s face.

            “I love you, Faye,” Jan said, and she meant it, felt it.

            “Oh God, Jan, I love you so much.” And then she was kissing her again, and the only reason they got out of the shower was that the water was starting to get cold.

“Great,” Jan said, she got out of bed and changed her underwear. “Even memories of Faye are better than anyone else.”

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