FICTION BY A LESBIAN
When the one who got away is the only one you want…
A decade after a devastating choice tore her away from Erin Tulley—the athletic girl next door and the undeniable love of her life—twenty-something San Francisco writer Kirsten Hansen finds herself trapped in a failing relationship and dreaming of what could have been. As her current partner presses for a baby, Kirsten finds herself secretly scouring the internet, torn between the guilt of dismantling her present life and the addictive allure of a mysterious online connection named Taggart. Can Kirsten find the courage to let go of her past, or will a second chance at fate rescue her from the life she's accidentally built?
4-star review from a reader on Amazon.com: “The course of true love never did run smooth” applies very well to this LesFic debut novel. Told in duel timelines by our imperfect protagonist Kirsten. We meet her twice—initially as she realizes she and her partner of five years are not on the same page. She doesn’t handle it well and honestly I struggled to like her at all—she makes bad choices, betrays her partner and seems very insensitive and self centered. More than once I thought “Who hurt you?” Then we meet her in her “coming of age” that becomes her “coming out” story. I really loved this younger Kirsten aged 11-16. She is smart, self aware and adventurous. Her first love story is handled with a tremendous amount of honesty, tenderness and respectful authenticity. The amount of literature and 1970/80s references brought a smile to my face more than once.
Themes of first love, same sex attraction, family life, coming out in a small town, reconciling conservative religious values resonated with me on a profound level. Kirsten remains imperfect but as these layers are peeled back you begin empathize with her bravely living her truth. I highly recommend this book!
"The Meaning of Black" won second place in short fiction in the scratch literary contest and was featured in scratch ANTHOLOGY Volume II.
A review from one of the contest judges:
"MEANING OF BLACK is a mystical story full of twists and turns that reaches a satisfactory conclusion. The two main characters are perfectly drawn and the relationship between them is temporary but satisfying."
The Meaning of Black
Sometimes the answers to our darkest questions lie where we are most afraid to look, a place so long abandoned that we can no longer find it without a reference, without the outside help of gods or devils or passing strangers. Marie is about to encounter a passing stranger, and in passing, find herself.
The woman strides onto the Paris Metro train, tall as a lie. As she sits opposite Marie, their eyes meet. It is more likely that Marie is caught staring. And the older woman, past sixty, the one with the dyed black hair, dares back. Everything she wears is black. Each piece is exquisite in its own way but making up an eclectic and unexpected whole. A black wool Chanel skirt, high heels of pristine black patent leather, her long legs, clad in black silk stockings. Her sweater is black cashmere, cut intricately in dips and swirls around the wide neck. And at last, though first to Marie’s eye, is the enormous, but appropriately flowing black lace shawl she wears over it all, clasping it herself at the neck with a right hand bearing a healthy emerald ring rather than adding the weight of a brooch.
The women’s eyes lock for a moment, the younger woman looking away in an instant. Marie is simply on her way home from work. She didn’t ask to be confronted, didn’t ask to be seen. Still, there she is, caught, wanting to look anywhere else, to see anything but the knowing, challenging gaze of this woman, as if she’s saying, This soon will be you, this grand funeral march for youth and beauty.
Once she breaks the woman’s gaze, Marie realizes the car is far from silent. With the bubble of concentration between her and the woman burst, Marie is now back in her clacking, chattering, real-world of the moment, complete with the stink of human sweat and food and breath trapped endless years in the subway car. Strange how comforting they are to Marie, these otherwise irritating sounds and nauseating smells. They tell her she’s here now and not lost in the future sitting opposite herself thinking of her past, even of this moment perhaps.
Marie isn’t the only one who sees the woman with the open eyes, the one with secrets only she can tell. The man jammed into the tiny center walkway between the doors, singing Spanish love songs with his karaoke machine sees her. The old woman with a gentle yellow smile reading Le Nouvel Observateur a few seats down sees her. The unkempt man with wild black hair who stares at Marie’s breasts, his slick ebony eyes alighting, devouring, then drifting away. He sees her. When he tries to make eye contact, Marie looks away, though for different reasons. The older woman smiles at Marie’s indignance, but her eyes are not there when Marie’s suddenly seek them.
And there are, of course, the countless sitting and standing nameless; soon to be faces populating the characters in each other’s dreams.
The two women are traveling the same track. Two directions the train can go, one it does. If at different times, each will still hit the same stops on one trip or another down it. In this way, as their moment suggests, they know each other….
Sign up for my newsletter to get the rest of this story FREE.