For Better Or Worse Payne, Jodi (10 best novels of all time TXT) 📖

“So you think walking out on me is going to make me feel better?!”

The tears were running down Julie’s face in sheets. I hadn’t ever seen anyone cry like that.

Angry, hurt, confused tears that made me want to run to her and run away at the same time. I’d never had anyone put that kind of emotion on me, and here was Julie, saying here I am, for better or worse, and _this _ is the ‘worse’ part so you better damn well fucking be there for me.

Right.

I tried, I really did. I think, looking back on it now, that Julie knew I was trying, but I was such a wreck about it. I’m just not equipped for tears and all the emotional drama. I’d only had a couple of girlfriends that I had dated for any length of time before Julie, and everyone else had been either weekend flings or pick-ups. And the fact is that, at the time, I had no respect for her family. I didn’t like their politics, I didn’t like their snobbery and I really did not like their money. So consoling Julie about her mother’s narrow-mindedness wasn’t easy. I’d say things like ‘Fuck your mother, who needs her?’ and, of course, Julie would cry. I’d say ‘I love you’ and she’d cry even more. I even tried ‘Would it make you feel better to hit me?’ which was also met with tears, although she punched me in the arm for good measure.

What made it all even more difficult was that we couldn’t even have sex after a couple of weeks.

Julie grew self-conscious and self-doubting and it became increasingly difficult for me to touch her. Damn that Catholic guilt. One night I got so angry about it I got up out of bed and slept in the living room. Well, I didn’t sleep, I lay there in the dark staring at the ceiling and worked out what to do. Something had to give and by dawn I had a plan.

“Take off your clothes.”

The next night, after taking her out to dinner and plying her with a bottle of wine (of which she had her usual one glass and I finished the rest), I took her home with very specific intentions. She looked at me with an indulgent smile and shook her head.

“I’m tired,” she replied and maybe she was, but I had no intention of letting her get away with it anymore.

“Take your clothes off, Julie.”

“Gail, I appreciate what you’re doing, but…”

I narrowed my eyes and moved close to her. “No, no, you don’t.”

“What?” Her eyes told me she was taken aback by my comment. Good, I thought, keep her off guard.

“You don’t appreciate what I’m doing. If you did you’d be begging me not to stop.”

Julie gave me an exasperated look. “Gail, no games tonight, please?”

“I’m not playing games.” I told her, making sure there was a seductive tone in my voice as I leaned close to her ear.

I watched the goose bumps spread from her neck to her shoulders. I cupped her breasts through her clothes and I kissed her hard, pulling our bodies together. She protested some, putting her hands on my shoulders, but I knew if I pushed her just a little, if I could just get her out of her own skin for a few minutes, she’d feel better. This was the one thing I knew I could do for her, the one thing I was confident about when it came to relationships. I knew I could help her remember all the good things about being a woman in love with a woman. I knew I could make her scream.

“I’m getting pruny.”

“Wha…huh?” I stuttered. Julie shifted in my arms and mentally I was suddenly back in the reality of the tepid bath water with her.

“Wrinkly, you know?” Julie wiggled her fingers at me. “From the water.”

Oh yeah, Vail. I liked where I’d gone better. I made a half-hearted attempt to actually bathe us both, using a fragrant soap that had been left for us, but after I dropped the soap somewhere between Julie’s legs, I gave up looking for it and let my fingers search her body instead.

I lowered my lips to her neck as my fingers caressed her inner thigh. If she still had any reservations about fucking in this house, she didn’t let on at all. She raised her knee and let her head fall back on my shoulder with a sigh.

“You really think that maybe that was her way of making an effort?”

That was my Julie, intellectualizing when she should be turning her mind off. “You want to talk about this now?”

“Gail.”

I smiled and sighed. “Well, listen Jules, you know me, ‘Eat the Rich’ right?”

Julie chuckled. “Right. You wouldn’t give her the benefit of the doubt lightly.”

“She’s so obviously clueless about what it is to be gay, and I think in a way she was trying to speak from her own experience, maybe trying to show you she’d been thinking about you? I mean she did invite us here. Not just you, but us. Right?”

“She did. She did expressly invite you.” Julie conceded.

“I’m just saying think about it, I could be wrong, but your father seems fine and, I don’t know, I can see a lot of you in your mother. It’s possible.” It’s really not like me to be diplomatic, but I’ve always tried to be observant and I wouldn’t tell Julie something that I didn’t believe was true just to smooth things over.

“So you think I should give her a chance?”

“I think she’s giving us one.” I nodded.

“Kiss me?”

I’m not one to say no to the free and full offer of Julie’s mouth. She turned her head to face me and I pressed my lips to hers tightly before sliding my fingers over her clit. She moaned into my mouth and opened hers inviting my tongue in.

We made out for a while, making splashing sounds as we shifted and moaned until