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Callie wakes up to the long, low sound of someone laying on the horn.
She blinks at the sun streaming in above her bed, and rolls to face the clock. 7am. She groans, turning her face back into the pillow. Jonny was up at 5am this morning, on early shifts all week, and she'd kissed him before crawling back into bed, intending to sleep for at least five more hours. But Margo Banks, in all her glory, doesn't wait for anyone else's plans.
The horn honks again, louder and jauntier than before, and then Callie can hear a dramatic pounding at her front door. "Girlie! C'mon!"
"Margo," she groans, swinging the front door open and leaning her forehead against the frame, "do you know what time it is?"
"Of course!" Margo looks perfect, as always. Not a hair out of place, decked out in dark jeans and a halter top, looking like she could hold the world between her hands.
Sleepily, Callie wants to reach out and swipe her tongue across Margo's exposed sternum. But there are neighbors around, and Callie knows better than to do these things by the open door.
"I'll make coffee," Margo offers, guiding them both inside and clicking the door shut. "You go get dressed. We're going on a trip!"
"What?" Callie wants to slump onto the couch, but Margo's holding her up now, arm warm against her waist, and Callie wants to turn her face into Margo's neck more than she wants to sit down ever again. She does this, takes a long breath of Margo's lotion and sunscreen, then tries again. "Margo. What are you talking about?"
Margo hums. "Well, baby, Jed's out of town for the week. And you said Jonny's stuck at work for days. But I," she grimaces, “am the lucky duck who has to make an appearance at Jed’s second cousin’s step-daughter’s wedding. He can’t make it, and-“
Callie finishes the sentence for her. “And he doesn’t want to come.”
“Bingo.” Margo rolls her eyes, all husbands, you can’t live with them, you can’t live without them. “But I was thinking. Since I’d rather shoot myself in the foot than go alone. And you’re the best company in the state.” Callie blushes at this, in that stupid way that only Margo can make her blush.
Margo’s face is open and pleading and Callie wants to stay this close to her forever. “You want me to be your date?”
Margo lifts her arm and twirls Callie like they’re on the middle of a dance floor. “Yes ma’am. Now go on and grab that green dress and your flatiron. We’ve got a lot of ground to cover today.”
*
This wedding, Callie learns in the car, windows open and Margo screaming gossip across the wind, is likely to be trashy as hell, and fun like fun used to be, a little dirty and all dolled up for the night. The step-daughter is marrying someone no one else likes all that much, and overcompensating with all the glitter her family can buy. “It might be an awful kind of mess,” Margo confesses in the kitchen before they leave, backing Callie up against the counter.
Callie doesn’t care about mess like this, which she says, and then tilts her head up. Margo kisses her in that way that makes every molecule in her body thirsty for more. Of course, they’ll need to be careful this evening. Two women attending a wedding together is fine as long as they make it seem enough like a girls’ trip, a bachelorette weekend, the mice playing while the cats are away with a good Christian kind of innocence.
But an evening with Margo all to herself is still Callie’s favorite kind of evening, and if this shindig is as chaotic as it sounds, no one will notice two women standing a little too close to one another, dancing in a way that isn’t quite a joke.
*
Margo’s the best on road trips. She drives with one hand on the wheel, one hand loosely twined in Callie’s.
They didn’t know each other in high school, but the radio’s turned to the kind of country hits they both listened to back then, and Callie sings along with Margo, laughing at the way she thought she understood heartbreak at fifteen. They stop at a gas station halfway between home and the wedding venue (one of those barn weddings Margo says, a wrinkle in her nose, already anticipating the dust in the air) for cheap snacks, and eat with their fingers.
Callie wouldn’t behave like this around anybody else, fingers sticky from sugar and salt, wouldn’t be caught dead eating something from a 7/11 with crumbs on her lap, but Margo makes it okay. Margo’s the one who rips open a fresh bag of chips, who tears the jerky with her teeth, who tosses candy for Callie to catch on her tongue.
They’re off on a backroad enjoying their spoils, and once Margo pops the last disc of sugar into her mouth she leans back and grins, stomach bared by the stretch. When she collapses back into her seat she looks at Callie with a glint in her eye, sated and still wanting more, and Callie’s already climbing into Margo’s lap, even while Margo runs her fingers through Callie’s hair, pulling her in for a lazy, sun soaked kiss.
Fucking in the car isn’t something they do often - they’re both grown women who married well enough to pick out nice sheets and plush couch cushions – but Callie savors the steering wheel digging into her spine as Margo lifts her hips to meet Callie’s. Kissing Margo feels like a revelation each time, the sort of feeling Callie can’t imagine getting used to, never has, probably never will.
Right now, Margo tastes tangy, like citric acid and food dye. Callie groans as Margo bites at her neck, not hard enough to leave a mark, but enough teeth scraping for Callie to feel it all the way through her stomach. It’s unfair, how easily her body responds to Margo. An adult woman, married for more than fifteen years, turned into nothing but raw nerve endings and friction by Margo Bank’s mouth against her skin. Speaking of friction, Margo’s guiding Callie’s hips down against one of her denim-clad legs, a feeling curling inside Callie’s stomach, twisting around the base of her spine, an itch turned pulse that Callie could live inside forever, but then Margo twists one hand through the hair at the back of her neck and whispers “Come on, baby girl,” into her ear, and Callie’s orgasm has no more patience, no desire to wait.
She arches against Margo, muscles spasming, and Margo giggles against her neck. “There’s my girl.”
But the thing about Callie is that she hates to lose. Margo doesn’t demand reciprocity, happy enough to watch Callie turn inside out between her hands, but Callie’s never one to leave a score unsettled. The second her heart stops racing she hoists herself up enough to slide a hand between their bodies, and unbuttons Margo’s pants with the elegance of a girl who knew that hand jobs meant staying pure and keeping a boyfriend happy in eleventh grade.
Margo isn’t like any sweating, whining football player who wants someone else to get him off for the story. She’s an entirely different kind of creature, and when Callie gets her hands past denim, into slippery heat, she thinks God might really exist, might have made this kind of perfection just for the two of them.
Margo’s eyes flutter shut when Callie begins to move her fingers, first in flat, broad strokes, then closer and lighter, two fingers twisting inside Margo while her thumb teases the nerve endings that make Margo gasp. Margo’s a performer, Callie knows this about her the same way she knows the sky is blue, or exactly how a target flies through the air once thrown, but she doesn’t mind Margo’s flair for the dramatic during sex, never has.
She feels in on the joke, smarter than Jed and the other men who think Margo’s being completely serious, as if anyone can screw Margo out of putting on a show. Besides, Callie can play along with the best of them, and a show doesn’t mean it’s not real, doesn’t mean that the way Margo relaxes her grip on Callie’s hair and pulls her in for a kiss, soft and open is meaningless. “You’re perfect,” Callie whispers before she can stop herself, face pressed into Margo’s throat.
Margo hums, and brings a hand to stroke up along Callie’s spin. “Aw, sugar. I’m so glad you’re here with me.”
*
Two hours later, Margo pulls the car to a stop in a dusty parking lot, cackling at a spectacularly dirty joke Callie heard from her hairstylist.
A motel stretches in front of them, low to the ground, with fourteen different rooms, of which the fifth is theirs. Margo winks at the guy at the front desk, then picks up the key with one hand, and takes hold of Callie’s arm with the other. This is the kind of place Callie wouldn’t normally be caught in, potential bedbugs and a leaking shower, but it’s perfect, perfect for her and Margo, made okay the same way the gas station food was, the two of them playing at something they aren’t, away from everyone who knows them.
Margo opens her eyes as wide as they’ll go and asks the front desk kid if he’ll bring their bags up, then grabs Callie’s ass when he turns towards the car. “Come on, let’s go get ready for tonight.”
Getting ready, in this case, means Margo kisses Callie when the door to their room swings shut, pressing her back against the wall, and Callie runs her fingers over Margo’s spine when Margo sits down to try and do her makeup. They each take a shot of the vodka in Margo’s trunk, and Callie luxuriates in the matching tastes of their mouths, how in this room, apart from the whole rest of the world, Margo is unguarded and playful. How she can be playful too.
When it’s time to go, Callie’s shimmied into a forest-green dress with beading sprinkled across, and a neckline so low she has to borrow Margo’s fashion tape. Margo, pink and sweet, has a cotton-candy dress on with a fluttering skirt and sugar-sticky makeup, contrasting from Callie’s deep red lip and dramatic lashes. They chase each other to the car, running zig-zag and not missing a beat in their heels, and Margo guns it all the way to the venue.
Which is, as promised, a haphazardly renovated barn, complete with peeling paint and a smell of chickens hanging in the air. Margo chats pleasantly with various relatives, Callie at her side, the two of them offering stories about home that are as small town as everyone expects, old Jed with his young wife, here to make a good impression on people who’ve already decided how they feel about the whole situation.
Margo simpers, and rolls her eyes at Callie when nobody’s looking, and when people ask who Callie is, Margo places a proud hand at the small of Callie’s back and says, “Why she’s the best shot in all of Texas.”
It’s all very civil, and polite, and makes Callie’s skin itch. She understands why Margo wouldn’t have wanted to be here alone, the looks people send her way when they think she’s not looking, and with every peaceable smile, every soft laugh, Callie wants to scream, none of you understand her! Of course Margo Banks isn’t sweet-as-pie, she’s like a hurricane, she’s sharp and unpredictable and wonderful and better than any of you can imagine, and you’ll never understand that!
The ceremony is short, and unironically farm themed, but the bride’s dress isn’t awful, and everyone claps after the “I dos.” The worst part is a woman who makes eye contact with Callie from the open bar, at the exact moment that Margo’s tugging Callie close to her to illustrate a story about a jet ski.
The woman approaches her in line for the bathroom, and from this distance Callie can see a small rainbow pin attached to the neckline of her dress. Normally Callie would roll her eyes, but she’s trying to play nice tonight, and so she pastes on a news anchor smile instead, waiting for the woman to speak first. “It’s so weird out here, isn’t it?” the woman grimaces, clearly hoping for Callie to mirror her confusion. “Like we’re back a hundred years. Like they’ve never heard of lesbians before.”
Of course, Callie remembers now, this is the woman who came in holding another woman’s hand, who slung her arm around the other woman’s shoulders at the table like they belonged together. Callie, very carefully, does not recoil. She, with extreme caution, does not stop breathing, or dig her nails into her palms. Instead she neatly excuses herself, makes her way outside, and begins shaking so hard she thinks her bones might crack.
*
She’s fine, she tells herself, everything is totally fine. But it scares her, because she and this woman aren’t in any way the same. It scares her, because Callie forgot, for a minute, how away from home people might look at the way she and Margo behave with a different set of eyes, might interpret Margo’s closeness, Callie’s hunger for her, as something other than purely friendly.
That some liberal dyke might think they’re the same, when that couldn’t be further from the truth.
Margo finds her, of course, leaning against the side of the barn and wishing for a cigarette. “Callie?” Margo’s voice lifts as she comes around the corner. “Are you okay? You vanished on me.”
Callie groans, and closes her eyes, waving a limp hand. “There’s a woman in there. She thought that you and I – it doesn’t matter. She thought something that isn’t true. And she wanted commiserate with me.”
“Oh,” Margo’s shoulder presses against hers as Margo joins Callie against the wall, “she’s just some niece by marriage. Don’t worry about her.”
“Ugh,” Callie frowns, “maybe I shouldn’t have come with you.”
Margo leans over, without ceremony, and pulls Callie into a searing kiss. Callie would think about who can see them, but there’s no one else out here, and Margo’s distracting, especially when she wants to be. “Now you listen to me, honey. There’s no one else I’d rather be here with. Not Jed. Not any of the other girls. Just you. You and me, together. And don’t worry about that bitch. She needs to learn to stay out of other people’s business. Now come on. Let’s not let her ruin our night.”
Callie goes back in with Margo, fixes her lipstick, and eats the chicken, which looks better than the fish.
Each time Margo smiles at her she feels an awful, perfect fluttering in her stomach, and when Margo slides her hand under Callie’s dress during the toasts, toying lightly with the seam of her underwear, Callie closes her eyes and tries not to shiver.
Margo brings her a drink, then Callie brings Margo a drink, then the bartender brings them both three more rounds, and it’s easy because everyone else is plastered, happy to drink the place dry because there’s nothing better to do. When it’s dark enough, and late enough, no one’s looking. No one needs Margo to prove that she’s a pleasure to have in the family, and no one notices the way Callie looks at her, hungry under the dim light. Callie closes her eyes and it’s just her and Margo, Margo’s hands on her hips, Margo’s blood in her veins, moving to the same beat of the same old song, some mid-2000s wedding hit that Callie knows like the back of her hands, reinvented for the feeling of Margo’s body against hers, warm and real and whole.
*
They get back to the room tired, drunk, and laughing.
Callie stretches out on the bed, limbs hanging limply, while Margo kicks off her shoes and reaches for Callie’s feet, sending both pairs of heels flying towards the door.
They lay like that, flat on their backs and giggling, until Callie rolls her whole body against Margo’s, sloppy, like a dog nosing at someone’s leg. “Did you have fun tonight?”
Margo chuckles, throaty and sexy and free, and slides her hand all the way across Callie’s body, across her torso and legs and back again, no goal in mind, just feeling and turning and feeling again. “I had the best time. Thank you for being my date.”
Callie shivers as Margo pulls her dress down her shoulders, and spreads her legs as Margo pulls it all the way off, kneeling over Callie’s hips like a prayer. The room is dark, and the streetlights just barely flicker through the window. She could stay just like this, naked, and writhing under Margo’s tongue forever. She’d never want to escape.