The Strawberry Heart Read online

  Gina looked at Niav, “You didn’t have it when I saw you outside. I’ll run down and see if I can find it.”

  As Gina left the room Anselle reminded her to prop the door open with the book. A few minutes later they heard Gina returning but she didn’t come straight to them. When she finally entered the bedroom she had the pad wrapped in a towel from the bathroom, “I’m so sorry Niav. I found it in a puddle. I’m afraid the sketches are ruined.” She handed the bundle to the frowning artist who shoved her empty plate aside.

  Niav laid the towel and pad onto the bed and gently leafed through the pages, “I’m going to need a roll of paper towels, the waxed paper, scissors and some big, heavy books from the shelves.”

  Anselle jumped off the bed to get the first three items from the kitchen and Gina turned to face the bookshelves and began to pull out the largest and heaviest books. When Anselle got back Niav took the scissors and carefully cut the damaged sketches out of the book as close to the binding as she could. She asked Gina to hand her one of the larger books then placed it on the floor, next she ripped off a piece of waxed paper and set it on top of the book. Niav asked Anselle to rip apart the roll of paper towels and lay some on top of the waxed paper before putting the first sketch down. The artist placed sheets of paper towel over the sketch, laid on another piece of waxed paper and then topped it off with another one of the books. Every damaged sketch was sandwiched between books with layers of waxed paper and paper towels.

  The three stood next to each other surveying the little piles, “Will that save the sketches?” Anselle asked.

  “That will help the sketches dry and keep the paper flat. Every so often I’ll replace the damp paper towels with fresh ones. I’ll have to redo some of the pencil work and if there are water stains I’ll have to photo shop them out once the sketches are scanned.”

  “Forgive me,” Gina said, “but wouldn’t it be easier to re-sketch?”

  “If the pages dry without any water damage I can easily trace over what I’ve already done. That will be faster than re-sketching the whole picture. Any water stains can easily be removed on the computer. They’re rough sketches so they don’t have to be perfect but I’ll get them as close as I can.”

  Anselle was glad Niav had something to get her out of bed. The way the woman had been acting earlier had Anselle afraid that it would be a challenge to get her up. Anselle smiled wide-eyed up at her girlfriend who caught her staring.

  Niav blushed as she noticed Anselle watching her, “What?”

  “It’s nothing. You look different. You look like you do when you’re concentrating in the kitchen.”

  “How do I look?” Niav cocked her head to the side in curiosity.

  “You look confident and so sure of yourself.” Anselle walked up to her girlfriend and cupped her face in her hands; she leaned in close and whispered, “It’s very sexy.” She drew the woman down into a steamy kiss.

  Gina shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot next to the kissing couple and ran a hand through her hair, “I’ll just be going then shall I,” the couple heard Gina but didn’t break apart. “Don’t forget about the dishes on the bed. I’ll see you, Anselle. Niav, I’ll call you tomorrow, yeah? Yeah. Okay. Bye.”

  They didn’t care about the dishes on the bed. After all they had access to another one and it was the other one they need to get to (because that’s where the lube and condoms were). They kissed and rubbed against each other as they made their way from Niav’s into Anselle’s where they made love for the second time.

  ***

  The couple was dozing, curled up around each other when Elise called later that afternoon for details on what had happened. Anselle slipped from the bed to take the call in the kitchen signaling to her lover that she'd be right back. Anselle explained about Lisa pushing Niav out the front door and how, thankfully, Gina was there to intercept her before an attack could happen. She also told the doctor that Niav had a nightmare but she didn’t know what it was about. She asked her about Niav’s current condition and she blushed (thankful that she couldn’t see her) and told her that she was resting. She went on to tell her that after a while Niav was distracted by the damaged sketches and the doctor said that that was a good thing because it took the artist’s mind off earlier events. She asked Anselle not to push Niav about the nightmare and that she would ask about it in the following day’s session along with her thoughts and feelings about what Lisa did.

  Niav appeared from the bedroom just as Anselle was ending the call, “Come back to bed.”

  “I’m not tired anymore.”

  “Who said anything about sleeping?” with a wink Niav pivoted and returned to the bedroom sure that the blonde would follow her.

  A little while later the two were cuddled together on the bed again when Anselle reminded Niav about the mess in the other flat but Niav wasn't ready to move yet. The brunette was sprawled across Anselle’s chest listening to the strong, steady heartbeat. Anselle’s hands threaded through the brunette curls gently massaging the scalp underneath. It had been so long since she had felt a connection with a partner but what she's found with Anselle went so much deeper. Anselle said that she felt it when they first met; Niav hadn’t believed her then but she did now. There was a feeling inside she’d never had before. It went beyond Anselle’s patience and understanding to something she couldn’t quite name. It wasn't trust. It wasn't lust. It wasn't sympathy or empathy. There was a genuine calm, tolerance and quiet strength Anselle possessed that spoke to her soul like nothing ever had before.

  “Anselle?”

  “Yes love.”

  Niav didn’t respond so Anselle, trying to keep any dread out of her voice, asked, “What is it? Are you alright?”

  Niav only wriggled closer into the body beneath her; lifting her head and burying her face into the crook of the blonde’s neck. Anselle locked her arms around her boyfriends back, “Baby, what’s wrong?” Niav still didn’t respond but Anselle didn’t want to push her away to look at her so she just held on tighter and waited until Niav was ready to talk. The blonde wasn’t worried per se because she knew it wasn't an attack her lover was having but she thought that Niav needed comforted because she was dwelling on what Lisa had done.

  Niav couldn’t find the words to express what she was feeling, ‘I love you’ wouldn’t even begin to cover it; overwhelmed with emotions from the events of the day and her feelings for Anselle she did the only thing she could; she cried.

  Again Anselle assumed that Niav was upset over what Lisa did and Anselle knew she had to get Niav to talk about what was bothering her but she had to do it gently, “It’s okay, baby. I’ve got you. You’re safe. She won’t bother you again.”

  Between Niav’s sobs Anselle managed to understand, “Not” and “her” and “afraid” and “you” and “love” and “much”.

  “Oh, baby, it’s alright. Please don’t cry. I love you too, so much.”

  The next thing Anselle made out was, “More.”

  “Oh, you love me more do you? I think I love you more.”

  Anselle could feel Niav’s head shaking, springy curls brushing against her bare chest, “No, me.”

  “I don’t think so. I think it’s me.”

  “No, Anselle, me.” Niav whined.

  “Okay, if you say it like that; you.” Anselle felt Niav smile against her chest as the sobbing subsided. She wanted to push and ask ‘what are you afraid of’ but she didn’t. Instead she said as she patted the woman on the back, “We need to get your place cleaned up and you have to change the paper towels drying the sketches.”

  After a few more minutes of cuddling they finally made it back to the artist’s flat and while Anselle took the dishes to the kitchen Niav replaced the damp paper towels with dry ones. With that done Niav returned to her front room to find Anselle going through her recipe box, “Looking for something particular?”

  “No, just looking. You have a lot of chicken recipes and a lot of dessert recipes with strawberries.�
� Anselle raised her eyebrow at the woman knowing that strawberries were Niav’s aphrodisiac.

  Niav eyed the recipe box, “I was thinking about putting the recipes in a computer program but there’s something, I don’t know, quaint about a little recipe box on the kitchen counter.”

  Anselle closed the recipe box and slid it back into its place on the counter, “You’re right. This can’t be all the recipes you have though.”

  Niav opened a cabinet door next to the fridge and pulled out a huge binder labeled, of course, ‘recipes’, “Why don’t you look through this and pull out a few. You can try cooking them on your own for us and we’ll add them to the recipe box if you’d like.”

  Anselle hefted up the binder, laid it on the dining table and began to leaf through it. Niav had it separated into sections, ‘appetizers’, ‘vegetable sides’, ‘other sides’, ‘chicken’, ‘beef’, ‘pork’, ‘other meats’, ‘apple desserts’, ‘chocolate desserts’, ‘strawberry desserts’, ‘other desserts’ and ‘miscellaneous’. The blonde started with the ‘beef’ section since Niav had cubed beef thawing in the fridge for dinner. As Anselle flipped back and forth through the recipes the look on her face became more and more distressed, “These look so complicated. I don’t know if I could make any of this.”

  Niav put a hand over Anselle’s stilling Anselle’s flipping, “Okay. Change of plans. I’ll instruct you on how to make my beef stew and while it’s cooking we’ll go through the book together and pick out some simpler recipes. And you can always go online a find some recipes for things you like too. You don’t have to make something I have.”

  Anselle breathed a sigh of relief, “I like that plan. If there’s onions though, they’re all yours.”

  Niav laughed as she returned to the kitchen. The first thing the woman had her love do was remove all the needed ingredients from the fridge and cabinets, carrots, potatoes, onion, beef stock, flour and the beef cubes. While a Dutch oven on the stovetop heated up Anselle measured some flour into a plastic bag, dropped in half of the beef cubes, closed and shook the bag. She removed the floured beef cubes with a slotted spoon shaking off as much of the flour as she could then dumped in the rest of the cubes, shook and removed those also. Very carefully she dropped the floured cubes into the hot oil in the Dutch oven and stirred every few minutes until the beef was browned. Next she dumped in the chopped onion Niav had given her and stirred until browned. The rest of the chopped vegetables were added to the pot with enough of the beef stock to cover. After some salt and pepper were added she stirred making sure to scrape up any bits of beef that got stuck to the bottom of the pot in the browning process. Finally the lid was placed on the pot and the heat turned down too low.

  While the stew cooked the two sat next to each other at the dining table and flipped through the binder of recipes. Niav helped Anselle see that just because some of the recipes have a lot of ingredients that didn’t mean they were difficult to make. If she prepared the ingredients like she did with the stew, before she started to cook, and followed the recipe everything would go smoothly. Anselle could certainly see the logic in what Niav said and agreed to broaden her ideas on recipes. By the time dinner was ready they were on the dessert section and Anselle refused to stop browsing as she ate even after Niav threatened her with bodily injury if she got any stew on the binder.

  After dinner they planned the week’s menu so Niav could order any groceries they would need and know what meats to defrost. When that was done they curled up on the sofa to watch some TV before going to bed.

  Once back in the bedroom with nothing to distract her the woman was restless; tossing and turning as she tried to find a comfortable spot. “Anselle?”

  Unable to relax due to the woman’s fidgeting Anselle said sleepily, “Yes love?”

  “She’s going to make me talk about what happened today, isn’t she?”

  “Yes love.”

  “And my nightmare?”

  “Yes love,” Anselle was surprised; she didn’t think Niav had heard any of the conversation she had earlier with Dr. Elise. Anselle turned onto her back and held open her arms. The brunette snuggled up close, rested her head on Anselle’s chest and fell asleep to the steady sound of her love’s heartbeat.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  ‘This isn’t good’, Elise thought when she didn’t see Niav sitting somewhere on the stairs waiting for her. She reviewed what she learned from Anselle over the phone the day before as she climbed the rest of the way to the second floor and pushed open Niav’s door. The doctor saw her client bundled under some blankets on the sofa; her eyes were puffy and red and she was sniffling. At first she thought she simply had a head cold but she realized she was wrong when she began to speak.

  “I….I….can’t…..couldn’t…down..stairs….” the woman buried her face in the blankets and cried.

  She thought a set-back was possible but didn’t think it would be this bad. Elise went to the kitchen and got her a glass of water. She took it from her and sipped it between sobs. She sat in what had become her usual chair and tried to calm her down. “Niav, try to take deep breaths. Everything is going to be alright. Just breathe.” While Niav breathed and sipped and sobbed she made her notes until she was calm enough to talk.

  Elise asked her to tell her about what happened that morning. She explained to her that everything was fine until she went to walk down the stairs with Anselle, to see her off to work, but she couldn’t get past the first one. Anselle had held her and told her that it was okay until she calmed down enough to go back into the apartment. They sat for a while wrapped in the blanket until Anselle had to leave. And there she had remained crying on and off over her failure.

  The doctor stopped her right then, “It’s not failure,” she assured her, “it’s a small set-back. Once your confidence comes back with the first step down you’ll be back in front of the door in no time. You know you can do it because you’re done it before. Tell me about yesterday.”

  Niav took small comfort in her assurance and told her how she was sitting with the door open sketching when Lisa came in, they exchanged a few words about her progress and how Anselle had helped her then Lisa pushed her out the door.

  “Do you know why she did it?”

  “No.”

  “What exactly did you say to each other?”

  “She was surprised to see me sitting down there and I said that I was able to get down there with Anselle’s help. She said that Anselle was a great girl and I agreed then I said something like we loved each other and that I was hoping that when she came back from brunch that Anselle would help me go outside. Lisa stepped closer to me, said ‘why wait’ and shoved me out the door.”

  “How much time was there between you’re being pushed out and Gina holding you?”

  “It was only seconds.”

  “Did you feel any attack symptoms?”

  “Not really, I was shaking but I think it’s only because of the shock of being pushed. And then Gina was right there so I really didn’t have the time to process much.”

  “You felt safe with Gina,” Elise had learned all about Anselle and her friends over the sessions they’d been having.

  “Yes, once I knew it was her. Gina is really nice.”

  “How long did it take before you realized it was her?”

  “She told me right away and I recognized her voice. I buried my face in her chest and closed my eyes. She was telling me that I was safe and that she wouldn’t let anything happen to me. Then Anselle was there pulling me away from her and we went inside.”

  “After that, yesterday afternoon, you were fine.”

  “Yes, except for the nightmare. Gina cooked brunch and then they helped me try to prevent some sketches from being destroyed.”

  “Tell me about the nightmare.”

  “I was outside somewhere and my head started spinning. Everyone was pointing and laughing at me. The crowd was closing in on me and I couldn’t breathe or get away. I was telling them to stop and
get back but they came closer and closer. They were breathing in all the air. Then I felt hands on me but it was Anselle trying to wake me up.”

  “Did you have any attack symptoms when you woke?”

  “I felt weak but not dizzy or short of breath or anything. When I sat up Anselle and I banged our heads together then she held me. I always feel safe with her.”

  “And this morning when you went to see Anselle off, did you have attack symptoms?”

  “I was afraid, yes. I started to feel dizzy and there was tightness in my chest. I started breathing heavy. Even with Anselle holding me I couldn’t go down the first step.” Niav felt the tears burning down her cheek again, “I’m back where I started.”

  “But this time you know you can get down the stairs. Let’s go try something,” as she rose from the chair she took something from her bag. Niav followed the doctor out into the hallway where she sat next to her on the floor by the top of the stairs. “Okay, Niav, take several, deep breaths. Nobody is going to hurt you. You’re safe. Describe what you’re feeling.”

  The artist said, “I’m a little nervous but I guess since I’m sitting down I’m not afraid because I’m not trying to go down.”

  “Okay. Any dizziness or tightness?”

  “No.”

  “Okay. Good.” She handed her what she took from her bag. Niav ran her hands over the soft, burgundy leather of a bound notebook. “I want you to write down some things with every new step you take. I want you to record what step you’ve decided to take and why, what you hope to achieve with it and how it makes you feel, whether it be good or bad. Record every physical symptom you have, how long they last and how you recovered. You don’t have to limit entries to your disorder either you can write about anything. Do you think you can do that?”

  “Will I have to show it to you?”

  “Not unless you want too. We will have to discuss any attack symptoms you have, of course, and the events that led up to them but you can keep your personal entries personal.”