Chapter 7.....settling in to a new life.....
Time passed gently. Days became weeks, and Grace felt herself sink into her new life with Karen and Marcus.
Grace's job was on the way to Marcus' office. A routine developed where Marcus would drop her off on his way to work and pick her up on his way home. Whereas before she'd met them, she'd dread the moment when she logged off her computer at the end of the day, now, she found herself brimming with excitement at the thought of seeing Marcus waiting outside her office, smiling warmly at her. More than that, she looked forward to the 20 minutes or so they spent in the car on the way home.
Despite him spending a full day with patients, he was always eager to hear about her day. He asked such thoughtful questions, and even though he was driving, he seemed to listen to her responses with his full being, his full attention.
There's a strange, unique sort of intimacy that develops between people who commute together, and Marcus was pleased to notice the nice bond forming with Grace. Like Karen, he referred to Grace as "sweetie" or "dear." The words seemed to roll so naturally off his tongue, and although at first a part of Grace couldn't quite understand whether it felt, well, right, for him to refer to her in that way, the repetition, coupled with Marcus' kind, casual demeanor when saying those words, normalized it for her, and over time, she began to enjoy it.
Yes, the words made her feel child-like, as though Marcus was speaking to his little girl, but even that, over time, began to feel normal, fitting, for her. More generally, she noticed, or more precisely, her subconscious mind began to notice, without awareness from her conscious mind, a sort of parental dynamic that was forming with Marcus and Karen. It was never that they discussed it. But precisely because they didn't that the dynamic took on a certain power.
More than just how they referred to her, the pattern of their daily life resembled that of parents with a beloved daughter. There was Marcus dropping her off and picking her up; there was the fact that Karen, an amazing cook, would sometimes prepare a lunch box for Grace, and have dinner waiting for she and Marcus when they returned home. Far from feeling like roommates, a sense of family began to emerge.
Neither Karen nor Grace mentioned the moment they had shared on Grace's first night, not even when, at the end of each day, Karen would come into Grace's bedroom after Grace had climbed into bed, wished her goodnight, then softly kissing her forehead. Ever a creature of habit, Grace liked to go to sleep at the same time every night. Knowing this, Karen would enter right after Grace climbed into bed.
As Karen approached her, Grace would always feel a slight tightness forming in her chest, and the subtlest tingling between her legs, which would linger after Karen left. Grace wondered if Karen could sense it, the way that Grace's little body would stiffen just a bit when she felt Karen's weight on the mattress next to her. Despite those feelings (or was it because of them, a part of her wondered?), Grace began to look forward to this nightly ritual. On the one occasion during her first month there that Karen and Marcus were out of town for a night, Grace felt a twinge of disappointment inside of her as she lay her head on her pillow and tried, unsuccessfully, to fall asleep. It was as though Karen's kiss was a sort of release, allowing Grace to let go of her waking life and relax into sleep.
Even the weekends, which before had felt like bastions of loneliness and self-loathing, became enjoyable. Karen and Marcus loved playing the role of tour guide, showing Grace around the City they loved so much. She never once had a wisp that they acted out of a sense of obligation. To the contrary, what she felt from them was.... What did she feel from them? Was it love? Is that what she felt for them? Sometimes she struggled with the vagueness of that word. Did a more vague word even exist?
Karen and Marcus even introduced them to some of their friends. Grace was always the youngest by at least twenty years if not more, but they always welcomed her openly. Karen and Marcus loved throwing dinner parties, putting one on every month or so. The gatherings were intimate, usually the same two couples in addition to Karen, Marcus, and Grace. Like Karen and Marcus, the guests were often therapists or nurses, and it showed. They took an active interest in her life, asking her countless questions about her life in China, her transition to San Francisco, and the experience of living with Karen and Marcus.
Even when guests were present, Karen and Marcus referred to her in the same way, as "dear" or "sweetie." At first, hearing those words in the presence of others caused her to feel the tiniest pin-pricks of shame, as though they were publicly revealing pieces of their private life with her, or maybe it was that, by using those names, Grace felt like a little girl, at a dinner party with her parents. But again, the ease, the casualness, with which Karen and Marcus spoke those words, the affection she felt from them when they said them, as though they were proud that she was their little girl, caused her not to just to accept those words, but to accept, even enjoy, that role.
On one occasion, perhaps it was her third dinner party, everyone was sitting in Karen and Marcus' living room, basking in the glow of a delicious meal that Karen had prepared. Grace and Marcus were sitting on one couch, while the two other couples each shared their own love seats. Karen emerged from the kitchen, bringing out another bottle of wine for the guests to share.
After re-filling their glasses, Karen sat down on the same couch as Grace and Marcus, without even seeming to give her choice of seating even a moment of thought. She gently nudged Grace over, so that Grace was sitting in between she and Marcus. The couch was not so big, and there was barely any distance between them and Grace. But the way that Karen had sat down, the tenderness that she'd used in sliding Grace over, had made the whole thing seem so natural.
The conversation between the guests flowed easily, as it does at dinner parties between guests who have known each other for years. Marcus had one of his long arms resting lazily on the couch behind Grace, so that it was extended past her head and his hand was resting on Karen's shoulder. During one particularly amusing story about Marcus' college years, Karen did the same with her arm, so that her arm rested on top of Marcus', both of which were inches from Grace's head. Conscious that their arms were touching behind her head, Grace leaned forward slightly, not wanting to annoy them by resting her head on their arms.
"Oh sweetie, it's okay, please lean your head back." It wasn't a command that Karen had spoken. Her tone radiated tenderness, and yet, for reasons Grace couldn't understand, it felt like a velvet scarf gently pulling her forehead backwards until it was resting against Karen's forearm.
"That's a good girl," Karen whispered to Grace under her breath, as she turned to one of the guests and began a story about a sailing trip she'd taken through the Greek islands.
Grace felt herself relaxing against Karen's arm, and as she did, Karen placed her arm on Grace's knee, ever so casually, as there was nothing more natural in the world, and began to stroke her knee. As Karen's sailing story continued, Grace could feel herself slipping into a state of deep peace, forgetting, or rather, so deeply accepting, the intimacy of Karen's touch that it no longer occupied space in her conscious mind.
When Karen's story had ended, one of the guests, an elegant woman in her early forties, smiled softly at Grace, then spoke to Karen, "Doesn't she just look so angelic, so peaceful, curled up on the couch?"
Karen looked down lovingly at Grace, pulling her close with one arm while stroking her cheek with the forefinger on her other hand.
"She really does." Karen beamed. "Such a sweet little girl. We feel so lucky to found her."
Grace could feel everyone's attention on her, which, predictably, caused her cheeks to flush a typical shade of red. And in turn, her awareness of her own blushing only deepened her embarrassment.
Still looking down at Grace with a loving, maternal glow, Karen smiled at Grace's reaction to the attention, "Awww, yes, sweetie. I know." Karen turned to her friend: "Our sweet Grace gets quite flushed when so many eyes are on her."
Still smiling warmly, the friend responded. "It's just so adorable. She's such a good girl."
Karen nodded, bathing Grace in affection. "Yes, she really is." Her eyes held Grace's for a long moment, staring deeply into them, before turning her attention back to her guests, then launching into another story about the time she and Marcus had gone on a safari at the Serengeti.
The whole incident, if that's even the right word, had happened so quickly that Grace scarcely had time to react. As she lay nestled against Karen, questions flooded her mind. Had Karen's friend really just referred to her as a "good girl"? Had Karen really referred to her as "our sweet Grace"? Were Karen and her friend really just having a discussion about Grace, with Grace sitting right there, as though she wasn't even there?
Parts of her struggled against the memory of what had just happened. There was something so, so...objectifying about the discussion, and not just that, it was one of thing to feel like a little girl when she was alone with Karen and Marcus, but now in front of their friends, too? It was as though Karen and Marcus really were claiming her as their little girl, that they were, to their friends, openly taking on this quasi-parental role, and doing so with such love, such pride, and yet such casualness. And the friends accepted it without blinking an eye. These thoughts, and others like it, roiled inside of Grace as she sat demurely on the couch.
Karen glanced down at Grace, and kissed her gently on the forehead. "Shhhh, baby. I know. Shhhh." Grace felt as though Karen could hear the thoughts swirling in Grace's mind, and with those whispered words, Grace felt like Karen had effortlessly blown them into the ether, and though Grace could feel her mind grasping at them, wanting to continue processing them, they wouldn't quite return. Like a good girl, Grace allowed herself to be held, even closing her eyes for a moment and allowing sleep to claim her.
...
By the time the party ended, it was well past midnight, and the three of them went to bed without much further conversation. The thoughts that had swept through her mind earlier in the evening returned, and Grace found herself struggling to make sense of how she felt about them. On the one hand, she couldn't deny that she loved the constant tide of parental affection that Karen and Marcus lavished upon her, all the more so because she'd never received similar attention from her parents, who had abandoned her at a young age. She'd never been, she was now appreciating, the center of someone's world, and being the recipient of Karen and Marcus' love felt like the nourishment she'd been seeking all along. But yet, the thought gnawed Grace's mind, she wasn't their daughter, and they weren't her parents. Was there something...odd she wondered about assuming those in each others' lives?
Sleep eluded her as her internal struggles continued. Just when felt like she was reaching some sort of peace with her situation, she first heard the noise.
It didn't take her long to recognize it, especially in light of what had happened in her last apartment. Only on this occasion, she knew without question who was making the noises, and this time, they were louder, more intense, and more needful. But also, there was a richness that had been lacking before, a sense that rather than simply engaging in a pleasurable pursuit, these sonic waves were imbued with love. They spoke of deep connection, of partnership, of longing and loss, of the confidence that comes with confronting then makes peace with the most painful of struggles.
As before, Grace pressed the pillow against her ear, doing her best to muffle the sounds. But on this occasion, she did so not only because sounds like these tended to overwhelm and confuse her, but also because she felt like an eavesdropper on this most intimate of rituals. Despite her most vigorous efforts, the sounds reached her ear drums. But to her chagrin, they didn't seem to stop there. They seemed to infiltrate her body, sliding down the nerves inside her ear then descending into her body, across her clavicle and spreading out to her breasts, like a bloom of phosphorescent plankton illuminating the sea on a moonless night.
Struggling with the sensations, Grace noticed blood rushing to her nipples, as it had when Karen was inspecting them. And like on that earlier occasion, Grace's efforts to calm herself paradoxically increased her level of arousal. The sounds continued down Grace's little body, to that space between her legs that Karen seemed able to activate at will. She noticed her hips squirming again, as well as the subtlest sensation that her hips had begun to move in an undulating motion, as though undertaking a dance that Grace was certain she'd never learned.
Grace hadn't noticed, but the sounds had stopped moments before, yet Grace's movements had continued.
