The Holy Ground

2017

The first time I played Denise, in the Classic, I beat the shite out of her. 6-1, 6-0. She'd played a bit in school but she might as well not have. Plus, she caught me on a bad night.

She barely shook my hand at the end. Such a

puss

on her. Her sweat smelled of monthlies. Nice gear, though, all new. She had good taste.

She softened in the locker room. We talked about Dublin, where she was training to be a Physio, and where I had studied all those years ago. The meat markets of Harcourt and Camden Street still existed, apparently. She said she didn't like pubs or nightclubs. She talked about

rape culture

like it was news to her.

There was more to her squeamishness. I felt the thing in my guts.

*

Dennis and I met her and her partner at the presentation. The guy was Indian, not bad looking, but with an attitude I didn't get. He and Dennis talked hurricanes and mass extinction. She made a face.

She was wearing a blue floral wraparound top and black distressed jeans. She wore her hair down, which suited her. Her make-up was nicely done, hiding the mousy look of her. I envied her figure, her straightened teeth, the single-mindedness of her youth. I knew how wrecked I was getting to look. I wished that I'd listened to myself and stayed off the drink.

*

That night, Dennis woke up with a piss-horn to catch me masturbating and one thing led to another. I was still so full of her. He was a poor facsimile, but at that moment he was all I had.

It didn't take long for my bladder to start at me. The night-blooming orgasm I'd been cultivating alone withered and died in the light. He may as well have been a dildo. At least a dildo wouldn't have made those faces.

My fanny farted when I slopped him out after he came. He was still keening but he was underwhelmed. The very first time we'd ever done it, he'd been ecstatic.

He was a man and I was a woman.

We were

normal

. The enormity of our collective delusion was too much for me to process. I'd humoured him, even though, in truth, I wasn't even there. That much, at least, hadn't changed.

He sat on the side of the bed, rubbing his temples.

You were the one who wanted to do it, Mel.

It was

my

fault. As usual...

I became conscious of the size of the house as I watched his sagging arse on its way to the jacks. It was too big for just the two of us. But he wouldn't even consider moving. It would upset his precious quiet life.

*

She became one of the girls at the club. We liked each other's posts. I helped her with her game. She still came home most weekends. I began to anticipate her presence and miss her when she wasn't there.

She'd split with Kish with little or no fuss. She put up a good front. I remembered well that agony of becoming. Don't let them tell you it's any easier these days.

*

I was impatient for my trip to Dublin. It was for work but I was staying overnight. My head bubbled with mad schemes. I still had nothing to go on bar instinct. I worried I was being premature.

She liked her coffee. I'd checked Maps, and there was only one place near her college that sold the real stuff...

*

My acting surprised on her entering the coffee shop was awful. When she seemed put out to see me, I felt myself being crushed like a nut in a vice. She said sorry, but she'd

just that moment been thinking about me?

Wasn't that

weird?

We hugged. I told her about the seminar; that my hotel was nearby; that I was fucked if I was going to set foot in an Insomnia. I lied about having a free session. I was bunking off. It was worth the risk. And it wasn't like they'd miss my input.

She was on her way back from the gym. Hair up, make-up free. She was covering the breaking out around her mouth with her hand. Coy seeming, not as only-child dramatic as usual. We made eye contact. We listened for once.

*

Dennis

knew

when I got home. He knows every time. It's never bothered him. Long as he's fed and his pants are folded. But it's like he thought it was something I'd grow out of. I got the sense he was disappointed in me. If he could bury it out of sight, why couldn't I?

I was in no mood for him so I went upstairs. I was still high on it. I could smell her on my clothes as I undressed. I wasn't ashamed to look at myself naked.

I wanted to hold your hand on the way to the hotel but I couldn't. I didn't trust them. I wondered that so much disgust had vanished so readily.

I unpinned my hair, blew a strand from my nose. I balmed my sore lips.

You expected to be kissed in the lift, as in a film, but I just stood there and looked at you. I felt like a creep. I hated that I made you feel uncomfortable but I couldn't act otherwise. It was all the years between us. It was the shame. You'd never get it.

Dennis was laughing on the phone downstairs. I'd never felt more uncomfortable with the dishonesty of our set-up. To think we used to call convenience

love.

To think of us saying the word in all sincerity.

*

She wanted to know. She wanted to understand what it had been like for me growing up back then. I got thick with her. I said I wasn't a school project. It was our first argument.

She said that what she liked most about our thing was that we could talk to each other. She warned me not to patronize her.

Or what? What will you do, Denise?

Babe, there's nothing to be scared of anymore. It's all in your head.

You've made up your mind...

Because of you, don't you see? Because of us. This is who we are. We can be ourselves.

It was that simple to her.

Joy, courage, love...

They'd pumped her full of it, same as they'd done with us and the Blessed Virgin. I don't know which was the bigger crock of shit.

I kissed her to put a stop to it. I liked that she struggled a bit.

*

I talked her round. She learned to appreciate the benefits of subterfuge. I gave her Mammy's eternity ring and promised her, one day...It was too small for her but she was touched. She called me her dirty little secret. She was as good of a little liar as I'd been.

*

I told her about the arrangement with Dennis. She felt sorry for him. I said a grown man had made a choice. And it hadn't been so bad. He was easygoing, not the worst looking. We'd been the best of friends and partners. We'd had a lot of fun together.

And he never...

Something happened to him when he was a kid. He won't talk about it. He can never go there.

*

She told me of an uneasy awakening inspired by the broth and violence of camogie teammates and opponents; the animal magnetism of a power-dressed and ankle-tattooed school secretary. She mooned after boys with her friends, hoping in vain that the other thing would go away. She rotted her pillows with practice kisses to imagined painted mouths.

Kish was the only man she'd been with. His dick was a weird shape and the sex had hurt so badly. And he was

horrible

at the back of it all. He either talked down to her like she was subhuman or ignored her. She was convinced he would have hit her at some point. She'd told him he'd be sorry if he even thought about coming after her.

*

I brought her to the house for the first time on a Saturday. Dennis was away in Wales at a Munster game. She'd taken a set off me that morning. I told her we ought to mark the occasion.

We barely said a word on the drive over. Just smiles, small but telling. She stroked the back of my calf on the sly, scrolling one-handed. I couldn't breathe. My lack of control over it stressed me out. I'd never felt such want, the luxury of such leisure. I knew I never would again.

Neither of us had eaten since breakfast and I hadn't a thing got in. I toasted some sourdough and opened a tube of ready-salted. The orange juice was off so mimosas were out. I made spritzers with sparkling water and threw some raspberries into a bowl. I used the black nickel lightswitch as a mirror to gloss my lips.

She was on the sofa, legs jack-knifed, worrying a tassel of the throw. Dennis had left his breakfast mess all over the coffee table. I could have killed him.

I let her pick the music as I cleared up. She connected her phone to the speaker. That I wouldn't recognize the song or get it was half the point. The guy was a bit of a whinge. No surprise there.

There was still wine in our mouths when we kissed. Neither of us could hold back. She was ferocious. I remembered how passive she'd been that first time in the hotel, even as I'd sensed the increasing confidence in her, born of biases confirmed. Her queerness had been nullified. It was normal. There was

nothing

wrong with us.

I'm scared, D. You fell in love so quickly...I saw you looking at Terry Mac in the locker room. I know your thing for tattoos...We can get them done together, like I promised you.

You're not as hard as you let on, sure you're not? You get put out way too easy. Look at me.

She straddled me and pulled off my vest. She shoved her hand inside my leggings, then clamped it to my mouth. I brought out the badness in her. I wanted her as thick.

You're so paranoid. You think the worst of everyone. Do you know how much that hurts me? Is that what gets you off?

She ground herself against my thigh. Her hair hung down, crawling upon my face. It got in our mouths when we kissed. It wrote to our cheeks in copperplate.

Her tongue was devotional, a pilgrim stopping off at each of my body's holy places. She was mindful in her scrutiny, quick on the uptake. Teachers must have loved her. She'd shown me school photos. She'd have been well worth the risk.

I'd soaked through my leggings. She twirled an impatient finger in the air and I raised my hips to let her peel them off.

Good job you put that throw down. Uh, the fucking

state

of you...

She fed like a vixen, bloody-snout deep in a wound. I struggled against her but it was pointless. She was lithe, crafty, rolling with the surge. She made me fall asunder, lose it like a child. I didn't care anymore. I didn't care who heard, who knew. I felt it coming on me like the aura of the mother of all migraines. I knew it would pulverize me.

She paddled my clit until I got there. I almost fell off the sofa but she was strong enough to hold on to me. Her face was manic, bright with sweat. Her chin dripped with my stew. She dipped soiled fingers in her wine and smeared them on my mouth. I was consecrated to her. I would have died for her there and then.

We wallowed in the afterglow as in a hot spring. I'd watched her strip, lit by the sun that came in through a chink in the curtains, before she'd curled up alongside me. I cleaned her face off with a wipe in between kisses. She'd left her upper lip unwaxed as the rest of her. It tickled like a bitch.

*

She left at dawn. She hadn't said anything to her folks but I wasn't to worry. She knew how to sneak in without waking them.

I needed a shower but I didn't dare. My hands reeked of her. My sore jaws wore her like a mask. I didn't want to lose even a trace of her. More than anything physical, I felt her absence. The house seemed strange all of a sudden, as if it was missing something.

I put on pjs gingerly. Even tying my hair back was a struggle. Yoga, if I could be arsed later, would definitely be interesting. I looked a fright, like a Channel swimmer in distress. Sleep wasn't happening any time soon. I wouldn't have let it even if I'd been able to.

I made tea and took it out to the garden. She texted me to let me know she was home. She couldn't sleep either. I told her the pink of the sky reminded me of her. She sent me a bathroom mirror selfie, her arm coquettishly shielding her breasts. Just seeing her freckles made me well up like a sap. I told her I missed her...

I thought her lack of a reply was a bit smug, but I let it go.

*

Her game had improved so much that the club decided to blood her in Ladies Grade 6 at the Munsters in Cobh. Juno Metcalfe, Terry Mac, her and me. They paired her with Juno, me with Terry. Youth and experience. Plus, they had every faith in that big-dick dyke energy. I suppose it was kind of flattering.

She and I roomed together. I booked us an Airbnb I'd used before, an apartment in an old terrace overlooking the harbour.

The Holy Ground

meant nothing to her. She thought the neighbourhood seedy but even she had to admit that they'd made a lovely job of our place. I told her she ought to have had more faith in me. She

laughed.

Juno and Terry met us for dinner in a pub around the corner. Denise was the only one drinking. She flirted with Terry all night like I wasn't there. She was such a drama queen. Everything had to be about her.

We fought like cats back at the apartment.

Unpro

fessional?

Would you fuck off, coach? Two fucking glasses of wine...

What, were you showing off for her benefit?

What? Who?

Don't try and be cute, D.

She stormed out. I decided that, for once, I wouldn't be the one who blinked first, but the longer she was gone, the more worried I became. I held off for an hour before I texted her. She didn't answer.

She came back around midnight. She wouldn't say a word as she made up a bed on the sofa.

D, I'm sorry. You shouldn't have gone off like that, it's not safe...D, will you stop acting like a child...?

We all had our arses handed to us the next day. 4-0. Denise didn't try a leg out there. Laura, the Captain, managed to sound like a counsellor talking to abuse victims when she bollocked us afterwards. The subtext, however, was plain.

Keep your degenerate lezzer shit at home and the fuck off the court.

It was almost a relief to see that old disdain again. Pity about her, that it took as little.

*

She moved back home after her graduation, having got a job in UHL. Half an hour either way on the bypass. She'd intended working abroad but she'd put it on hold. She did it for us.

She was over at the house more and more. Dennis and her got to be a real problem. I had a pain in my hole trying to arrange it so that they were kept separate. She wanted him out of there but I refused to put the man out in the street. Where would he go? Plus, legally, it was complicated...

Your fucking comfort-blanket. He's a grown man. You said it yourself, Mel.

I didn't think her ruthless. A woman's single-mindedness is invariably dismissed as such. She was justified in seeing him as an interloper. She had no patience for obsolete and cringing arrangements. I told myself I'd been the same at her age even though I hadn't. The only married women I'd been fucking were in my head. I'd known nothing of such a predicament.

It was sore, ever likely to arise, and so, the less we talked, the better. The sex became all-consuming, even as, given outside circumstances, it felt unreal, manic like a stock-market bubble. We could be so mean and yet so loving to one another. We paid lip service to the pieties of consent. All I knew was that I couldn't do without her.

I saw evolution rather than corruption. It was what our thing was becoming. I had no control over it. I had no right to thwart its development.

*

We'd been drinking, of course. She was on gin and slimline, paranoid about her weight. Gin never did agree with her.

She insisted we got chips and then threw hers in the bin. She got thick with the Uber driver when he asked us to make up our minds as to where we were actually going.

We can't go to the house, Dennis is there.

And...? Hey, driver, you. Forget Woodfort. White Bogs.

Of course, he was still up. Those foreign gangster shows he watched were as much homoeroticism as he'd allow himself. She insisted we all have a drink. When he said nothing and made to go to bed, she lost it.

Dennis! Mel, talk to your...husband, will you? He's so fucking rude.

He went so pale that his lips vanished. I'd never seen him like that before. She kissed me extravagantly, watching him all the while. Her brass was a turn-on, in spite of everything.

Dennis...Why don't you get fucked by a man like you want to, you fucking coward?

Denise, will you shut it...

No. No, it's about time he faced up to it. You as well. I'm sick of both of your lies.

He cried, and not just the odd tear either. He melted the fuck down. It was horrible but she wouldn't let up on him.

I don't want to hear any more excuses. I don't want to hear any more about how it was different back then. This is now, d'you hear me? NOW...

We fucked on the sofa while he just sat there. He seemed paralysed. Well, what

could

he have done? I've never understood how men get off on watching it. It's pretty gross, let's face it. It's way too involved for them.

She tried to get rough with me but I wouldn't have it. She was acting out. I took out my frustration with her on her cunt. I'd never made her come as hard. I'd never seen her as pleased with herself.

*

Dennis went of his own accord. I don't know how I felt about it.

...a normal marital relationship has not existed...

It was mortifying. All that paperwork was such a headache. But there was no need for a judicial separation. He and I were adults. We could behave accordingly.

She had told her parents about herself and they'd reacted with appropriate compassion. You can take the Catholic out of the Magisterium, and so on...She'd told them she was seeing someone, but she hadn't said who. Just that it was serious and that she was happy.

She didn't understand why she couldn't move in right away. She was practically living there anyway, wasn't she? I lied, using the legal situation as a pretext, how it might prejudice the case, blah, blah...She wasn't having any of it.

We won, Mel. Love won. All of it was so we could be together. Why are you still cowering in the fucking shadows?

Dealing with the mindfuck of separation was bad enough without her adding to it. I wouldn't give in to her. She retaliated with a sex embargo. But she really ought to have stuck to her guns...

*

At work, my separation elicited a mixture of sympathy and schadenfreude. It took place against the backdrop of a proliferation of Department-approved LGBT rainbow badges, flaunted like so many postmodern Fáinní Nua. Yet for all that solidarity, I also knew how squalid their imaginations were. I'd been one of them once, hadn't I? I'd also been a part of those huddles in the canteen, speculating like a pathologist about root causes.

Was

that

her deal? What, you

knew

all along? Oh my God, poor

Dennis...

I was haunted by my former complicity in such matters. Every slur I'd cast, every fag joke I'd cracked, took to the witness stand to indict me further. I was a liar. I'd lived a lie. There was no getting away from my hypocrisy. I'd just have to suck it up.

*

She and I kissed in public for the first time at the Senior Open awards ceremony. Everyone clapped. Everyone's joy was overdone. Everyone, apparently, had known all along. I felt like I had special needs. I wasn't a stranger to tokenism but this was something else entirely.

I'd never realised what a unique talent certain people have for saying absolutely the wrong thing. They fell over themselves in their eagerness to show how

okay

they were. It reminded me of a retreat they'd sent us on at school that had devolved into Loudon-tier mass hysteria. Those nuns were

good.

They knew all the right buttons to press.