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From: artyeleven@yahoo.co.uk (Artyeleven)
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NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 27 Feb 2004 11:09:04 +0000 (UTC)
Subject: {ASSM} Come in from the Rain {Arty} (MF rom cons slow)
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Date: Fri, 27 Feb 2004 07:10:08 -0500
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Come in from the Rain
by Arty

I almost didn't hear the knock at the door. At first I
wasn't sure that there had been one, but I went to open the
door just to make sure. I mean it wasn't like I had anything
better to do. As I approached the door I heard it at once,
tentative but the cadence was familiar; I felt my heart beat
faster and my hopes rise. I'd lost count of the times this
had happened to me though and I ruthlessly suppressed the
hopefulness and quelled the incipient joy; too often it had
lead to disappointment and pain. I waited for the familiar
emptiness to descend and when I felt my equilibrium return I
opened the door. 

And there she was. 

I felt my jaw drop; I tried to speak but no words would
come, I gave up and just drank her in. A thirst in my soul
that I had all but forgotten was suddenly apparent by its
disappearance. I felt the tears on my cheeks but all
volition was denied me as the object of my denial stood
before me as I'd often imagined, but long given up any hope
of seeing. 

She looked spectacular; her hair was dishevelled; she wore
no make up and her eyes and nose were red from the biting
north wind, but a more wonderful sight I had never seen. She
was manna, ambrosia and a warm summer's day all rolled into
one. 

"Are you going to keep my out here all night?" 

I stumbled over the words; my throat seemed tight and every
utterance had to be forced past an obstruction. 

"Oh. Yeah. Right. Um. Come in. Come in." I stepped back and
automatically took her coat from her as she removed it. I
held it as she shut the door behind us; the noise of the
wind was muted once more. The silence was deafening - such a
cliché - but it was; eventually I noticed the small sounds:
the tick of a clock, the crackle of the fire; and all the
time all I could think was, 'She's here, she's really here.'

"Hang up the coat and let's get out of this hallway and into
the sitting room. If that's a fire I can hear I will love
you forever, 'cause I'm freezing." 

My tears, which had largely stopped, started anew at her use
of the 'l'-word, but I did as she suggested and led her into
my sitting room. When she saw the settee she dragged me over
to it and sat us down pulling me into a kiss and hug. It was
the final straw and I started to sob, years of pain and
sadness flowed from me as I held her in my arms. 

Eventually it had to end and I lifted my head to look at her
again. I could see that she had been crying too. 

"You're here? You're really here? How long?" I steeled
myself for the answer; knowing that the respite from anguish
was only temporary, but needing to know so I could prepare
myself. 

"As long as you'll have me, if you still do, that is." 

"There's never been anyone else." 

"I know that now; why didn't you tell me that you loved me."

"Because I did love you." 

"That has to be the most ridiculous reason I have ever
heard." She smiled as she said this and cuddled me again. 

"You needed to get away; I could see that; you were like a
caged wild bird; I could see that you were dying inside. If
I'd told you that I loved you, you would have stayed and
then that would have been the end of you and eventually the
end of me." 

"So you let me go and you 'died inside' instead." 

"It wasn't so bad; I knew you were happy; I hoped that you
would come back to me, one day." 

I lied. 

I remembered the day that she had left to take up her new
job as coordinator for some charity or other in Africa. The
details were unimportant; this was something that she needed
to do; something that she felt had purpose. I'd been amazed
at the change in her; gone was the morose and barely
functioning women that I'd despaired over and in her stead
was the girl that I'd loved. We'd been roommates for years
by then; occasionally we'd go out; sometimes when we were
drunk we'd end up in bed. When I'd accepted her as a tenant
I'd loved her almost from the first, but I didn't let her
know; it didn't seem right. 

Over the years our relationship had grown in comfort, but
neither of us had made a commitment to the other and she'd
seemed happy with that. It had seemed too late to say
anything especially as her depression grew. One evening we'd
got totally drunk and she told me that she was contemplating
suicide. The next day she was seriously hung over and we
affected not to know what she'd told me; that day I cleared
out the medicine cabinet of old, half-used prescriptions and
began to consider the problem of Amy. 

The solution, when it came, was absurdly simple; like all
brilliant ideas, it was obvious once it was spelt out; of
course, everyone's hindsight is 20/20. We'd been watching
the news and there'd been an item on a famine in Africa,
made worse by the fact that a civil war was also in
progress. She had commented that she'd have to find out what
charities were involved and organise some fundraising in the
office. I could see a glimmer of the old Amy in her eyes as
she'd said that and in a flash the solution to the problem
of Amy was obvious. 

"No you won't." 

Her eyes had flashed dangerously; she'd always been diligent
in her charity work. "What do you mean 'I won't'? When have
I ever failed to raise funds when I said I would?" 

"I didn't mean that. I meant that you won't be raising funds
any more; you need to give up your job and volunteer to work
there." I'd waved my hand vaguely in the direction of the TV
that was still showing pictures of starvation; sanitised no
doubt for the delicate sensibilities of the viewing public. 

"I couldn't." 

"Why not? You have no dependents; you have no ties. There's
nothing to keep you here, and you need to do this." 

I'd seen the wheels turning and then she'd turned to me and
hugged me fiercely. I could see that she had changed; years
of depression had fallen away and like a butterfly emerging
from a chrysalis, I'd seen the return of the girl that I'd
fallen in love with. I'd known then that I wouldn't tell her
I loved her and so had begun the weeks of storing up happy
memories. And they were happy because she was happy and each
day my decision to remain quiet about my love for her had
been rewarded by her joyousness. The nights alone were the
times that I gave myself up to future despair; however,
lonely nights were fairly infrequent as I was the happy
recipient of the physical expression of her delight in her
new life. 

And then, all too soon, she was going, off to a dangerous
and fulfilling job with a joy bordering on ecstasy on her
part. 

"Calm down Amy; if they see you like this at the airport
they'll suspect that you're on drugs or something and refuse
to let you fly!" 

"I need something." She looked at her watch. "I know." We
had an hour before the taxi was due. So she had grabbed my
hand and dragged me off to bed. By the time we'd finished I
could barely stand and her excess energy was reduced to the
point where she wouldn't automatically be carted off to a
prison cell to 'dry out'. Our goodbyes were cut short by the
peremptory sound of a horn. 

"Taxi's here." I'd said unnecessarily. She'd shouldered her
rucksack and left the house without a backward glance. 

The next few weeks had been hell: black days and even
blacker nights; suicide beckoned and the only thing stopping
me was the thought that killing myself was the one sure way
to guarantee never seeing her again. Occasional postcards
from her kept me partially informed of her new life,
punctuated with long rambling letters that she had written
over periods ranging from days to weeks. I kept every
letter, every postcard. The frequency dropped off as it must
and it had been over a year now since the last letter. I'd
long since stopped trying to find out how she was by other
means, cutting myself off from her friends and her family.
They'd been hurt, I knew, but it was self-preservation; her
job was dangerous and there was a chance that she could die,
if that happened and I found out I didn't know how long I
would last. 

There had been other girls; occasionally a relationship
would blossom but all of them degenerated into friendship in
the end; the incipient bloom of love starved of nourishment
by my unspoken commitment to Amy. 

Now she was here; I squeezed her to make sure that it wasn't
some supremely detailed hallucination. 

"Why are you here, now?" 

"I got a letter from Karen." 

I thought for a moment, who was Karen? And then I remembered
six months ago my last, doomed, relationship with someone
who wasn't Amy. 

"How do you know Karen?" 

"We were at school together; then she moved away; we were
best friends, still are in a way; we still keep in touch.
She wrote to me about how she'd had a relationship with a
tragic guy who was funny, kind, gentle, generous," she
paused theatrically, "and dead." 

She kissed me then and I felt the ice around my heart
melting away. 

"It took me a while to realise that she was talking about
you. And then another couple of months to find out the
reason why." She looked at me and it dawned on me that there
was adoration in her gaze. I started to hope. "Your friends
hated me you know?" 

"I tried to tell them that I'd made you leave; that you had
to go or you'd not survive another year, but they didn't
believe me. Of course they weren't there when you spoke
about ending it, so I gave up trying to convince them." 

"Well, none of them would talk to me; I got tired of having
'phones slammed down on me. In the end though I managed to
get Jane to tell me what was going on." She stopped speaking
and it was her turn to sob. I held her in my arms and
revelled in the fact that she was there at all. When she had
quietened she carried on speaking. "How could you do that
for me?" 

"I love you; I always have and to me the most important
aspect of loving someone is putting their well-being before
your own." 

"I never knew; I was so happy and so blind. You know, when
Jane told me how you'd been, I cried for hours. Eventually
Alan found me like that; he thought I'd had bad news, like
my whole family had been killed in some horrific accident or
something. He finally got me say what the problem was and
then the bastard started laughing! I could have killed him.
When he calmed down he told me that the reason he come to
see me was that I'd been 'in the field' for too long and I
was due to be posted back home. He was sorry he laughed, but
the coincidence had struck him as funny. So here I am." 

She wound down and we sat in silence as the fire crackled
and the clock ticked and my world ceased to be monochrome.
I'm not sure who kissed whom but once it started there was
nothing but passion and flying clothes and joy. As I entered
her I looked down and spoke the words that I'd longed to
say. 

"I love you." And then there was no breath for words, only
joyous exclamations as we spiralled to a joint climax. Then,
as we cuddled in front of the fire, it was my turn to be
thrilled by the same declaration. 

"I love you. Thank you for saving my life." Amy lifted
herself from me and rummaged around in the bag that she'd
dropped by the settee. "I was going to send you this, as
it's Valentines Day tomorrow. Then I realised that if you
got this without seeing me first it would hurt you terribly
so I decided to deliver it myself." 

I opened the envelope to see a modern, tacky Valentine's card replete
with double entendres and I smiled. Here, now, with her I couldn't
imagine what I would have felt like had I received this from her out
of the blue and now with her cuddled in my arms I couldn't care less.
For some reason I pressed the play button on the tape deck and the
recorded voice of Carole Bayer-Sager floated from the speakers:

"Well hello there
Good old friend of mine
You've been reaching for yourself for such a long time
There's so much to say
No need to explain
Just an open door for you to come in from the rain" 

"It's a long road
When you're on your own
And someone like you
Will always choose the long way home
There's no right or wrong
I'm not here to blame
I just want to be the one
Who keeps you from the rain
 From the rain" 

"And it looks like sunny skies
Now that I know you're all right
Time has left us older and wiser
I know I am
And it's good to know
My best friend has come home again
'Cause I think of us
Like on old cliché
But it doesn't matter
'Cause I love you any way
Come in from the rain
Come in from the rain" 

We held each other and we cried gently as her words washed
the final pain from our souls. I sighed contentedly and I
realised that I was looking forward to tomorrow. Years of
clouds and rain were giving way to sun and summer breezes. 

-Fin- 

Note: Lyrics of "Come in from the Rain" by Carole Bayer
Sager/Melissa Manchesler used without permission. 

-- 
http://www.asstr-mirror.org/files/Authors/arty/www

-- 
Pursuant to the Berne Convention, this work is copyright with all rights
reserved by its author unless explicitly indicated.
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