Kimmydonn Week 43: Colorful

Kimmydon
Wednesday


Picture 1

Picture 2


Kimmydon's Choice: both


Title: Colorful
What was that ground squirrel doing? I'd seen them eat all sorts of crazy things, but sipping from a straw? It was ludicrous. Still, he looked happy. He was getting whatever he was looking for from the bottom of the clear glass bottle. I'd tried to find my answer at the bottom of a bottle - long ago, and I didn't remember much of it.

I did remember waking up on my bed - head at the foot, feet on my pillow - with no idea how I had gotten there. I did remember waking up in strange rooms, strange houses, with strange people. All very friendly, luckily, all ready and willing to help me if I needed it.

I suppose, in a way, I did find what I was looking for in a bottle, or near one.

A shadow moved and the squirrel bolted. “How long you going to sit out here?” Deidre asked, putting her arm around my shoulders.

I turned to her, kissing her lips. “Just long enough for you to find me.”

Nothing had shocked me as much as waking up in bed with another woman, the taste of her still on my tongue. I still couldn’t remember the first night we spent together, but brunch the next morning, and dinner that night, and breakfast the day after that were all clear as day. She hadn’t let me crawl as far into the bottle again, and she’d kept me talking until all of the past ten years dripped from my lips and streamed with the tears from my eyes. She held me, stroked me, and showed me that a woman’s touch could be just what I needed, perhaps what I’d been missing in failed relationship after failed marriage after failed relationship. It was months before we made love a second time, but I was fully aware and fully participating.

No longer lost and alone, I had discovered what was missing in me. Not Deidre, she was a dear friend and partner - an addition to myself, not a substitute. I’d found the part I kept giving to men, the part I kept relinquishing, the part that had been smothered so long ago. Deidre and I nourished it, brought it back to life, until I was complete, on my own. I could be me again, without her. But I was so much more with her.

Hugging her tightly, I tucked my head under her chin, smiling. “Thank you.”

“Thank you, Penny. I’m so glad I found you.”