Marina/Esther – “Dare” pt. 9

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Disclaimer #1: This is fan fiction. Terapia d’urgenza belongs to Rai2. No copyright infringement is intended by borrowing its characters for a little while. No monetary gain whatsoever is being made. All I’m trying is to spread the love for velvet jackets, sort through the cliffhanger debris and prevent further lesbian parking lot trauma.

Disclaimer #2: This is a story about women. In love. With each other. But I guess you already knew that. – If this is not your cup of tea, rest assured that I prefer coffee and that you needn’t read this. If this is illegal where you live, please be careful. – Also, I can’t believe that after ten years of writing fiction online, I still have to apologize for my contents. If fuchsia bras qualify as NSFW in your book, I guess this story might rate as PG-13 upwards.

Note/Nota: This story is also available in Spanish, thanks to Sam’s wonderful translating work! Updates for “Atreverse” can be found every weekend over at her blog,  “Ya sé que estoy piantao”. — Esta historia también está disponible en español, gracias al gran trabajo de Sam. El nuevo capitulo de “Atreverse” se puede leer cada finde en su blog, “Ya sé que estoy piantao”.

Additional note: This story is as of yet unfinished. It will be written and posted in parts, updated weekly, Friday nights at 9 p.m. (GMT+1). You know that my time is limited, and that my time management sucks, but I’ll try to keep it up.

International Gimmick: New M/E comic by sadcat here – Lang, if you’re stopping by, would you have a minute to translate again?

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9

“She’s still in physiotherapy?” Esther tried to hide her disappointment. “Fine, I’ll try it again later… tomorrow, of course, tomorrow. During phone hours.” She closed the connection and scowled at her phone. “Phone hours, can you believe it?” she complained to Teresa, who was leafing through a set of patient folders nearby and had, by mere accident, listened in on the phone call.

“Yes, and they make them up anew every day,” Teresa stated dryly. She closed the file she had been perusing and turned to face Esther. “Shouldn’t she be calling you once in a while as well?”

“She never knows beforehand when she has her next physiotherapy session.” Esther crossed her arms in front of her chest. “And I could be called into an surgery at any moment…”

“She could still call you once in a while,” Teresa insisted. Under her breath, she added, “Unless she’s too lazy to even save your number, that is.”

Esther frowned. “What was that?”

Teresa cleared her throat. “I said then at least you’d be a little less unbearable.” She shot the smirking Rocco a warning look. “Both of you.”

“What can I say, Terry…” Rocco shrugged. “We’re both stuck here over the weekend with our girls out of town. What are we going to do?”

“Taking it out on me. Teresa.” Clearly, the receptionist was not in the mood for nicknames today. She gave Rocco another accusing glare. “And you, you’re usually glad to avoid your mother-in-law, and if you had gone along with your ‘girl’ and the children, you’d be whining about the bad cooking all of next week.”

“It’s not my fault that your wife wants to spend time with her mother,” Teresa pointed at Rocco. “Or that your…” She faltered briefly. “…your not-even-your-girlfriend-again-yet is too far away for a little afternoon visit!”

“I’ll drive up with the train again next week,” Esther said and she looked at the display of her phone again, just to make sure there hadn’t been an unnoted message coming in. “She says she’ll have her leg in a flexible brace by then, so we can go ‘hopping around the hills’ with her crutches.”

Teresa rolled her eyes. “All that money, and she can’t even hire a car to take you out for a nice stroll and sum Tirol lunch instead?”

“Ouch, Terry…” Rocco shook his head. “What did Alfredo forget now? The milk? Your saint’s day?”

“Very funny.” Teresa pressed her lips together. “In ten minutes, you’re both off the clock, and I want you out of here, both of you. Your sulking will put me in a bad mood, as well, and I still have another couple of hours to go.”

“But…” Rocco tried to protest.

Teresa cut him off. “No buts! Why don’t you two go out for a drink and cry into each other’s glasses instead of all over my counter?”

“Jealous”, Rocco mouthed at Esther behind Teresa’s back. “She’s just jealous.”

Esther had to chuckle, and then she looked at her phone once more. She wondered whether it was really so bad that Marina didn’t call. She hadn’t asked whether Vera would visit this weekend, where Esther’s shifts made any visit on her part impossible. She preferred to focus on the fact that last weekend, Marina had told Vera off to spend time with Esther instead and even though nothing had happened, Esther had found the afternoon well worth the lengthy train ride.

Fine, Teresa was right. She was a little anxious when it came to Marina. And perhaps a tiny little bit overboarding. But it felt to good, to be talking to Marina again and to be the one who did the calls and the driving this time. She was traveling to see Marina, not the other way around. Last weekend, she had brought her a little bouquet of flowers, to have one surface less in Marina’s room that could be occupied by one of Vera’s floral arrangement, and Marina had immediately made place for it on the nightstand.

Still, perhaps it was time to stash her cell phone into her pocket for a few hours and stop waiting for a message from Marina. And Marina seemed to have gotten awfully used to Esther waiting on her. Just one more cursory glance at the display, and she would put her phone away. And then she looked again just to make sure, catching her own reflection on the small screen and not liking her expression one bit.

“So, what do you say?” Rocco leaned against the counter next to her. “If Terry kicks us out of here, should we go for a drink?”

“It’s been a long shift,” Esther hedged, still hung up on the dependent look on her features she had just seen mirrored back at her. Like this, she felt just as overwhelmed as the first time around, and she didn’t want Marina to be the one to sweep her off her feet again. This time, she wanted to do some of the sweeping herself, if it should ever come to that. “Well, perhaps one drink…” Rocco himself had told her back then, before Marina got shot, that she simply wasn’t ready for Marina and that she should wisen up if she wanted her back. Perhaps it was time to do just that. “Yes, let’s go for a drink. – I already have a place in mind…”

“But none of those posh bars where Marina took you,” Rocco protested. “I’m still just a poor nurse…”

“And the head nurse is going to pay you the drink,” Esther promised, but the street she steered Rocco down less than an hour only earned her a raised eyebrow.

“You want to take me to a gay bar?!” Rocco asked, putting his hands onto his hips.

“They have drinks like everyone else,” Esther said defensively. “It’s supposed to be a nice bar. I asked Luisa.”

Rocco stopped in the middle of the street. “Luisa?!”

“The blond technician, from, X-Rays?” Esther prompted. “Really green eyes?”

“You…” Rocco gave Esther a disbelieving look. “You heartbreaker! The poor girl probably thought you’d take her out, and instead you’re here with… well, with me.”

“You will come in with me, won’t you?” Esther gave Rocco her most helpless look. “Please?”

“Oh, all right.” Rocco couldn’t hide his grin, or his curiosity. “At least in such a club my wife won’t be worried about other women hitting on me.”

“Alright then.” Esther squared her shoulders and marched towards the closed door. When she turned around again it was so sudden that Rocco stumbled into her.

“What now – a change of heart?” he questioned.

“What if there’s someone from work in there?” Esther hadn’t thought about that before. “Someone who recognizes us, someone from the hospital?”

“Well…”  Rocco looked down the empty street. “No need to worry then because they’re here for the same reason?”

Esther blinked nervously. “They’re after Marina?”

“Esther…” Rocco reached out and tousled Esther’s hair. “You’re a lost cause.”

“Hmm.” Esther pushed her hands in her pockets and stared at the door.

“Esther?” Rocco prompted. “It’s cold out here.”

Esther nodded. “Yes, it is.”

“And I think you should open the door,” Rocco pointed out. “Being the lesbian and all that – besides, if I’m the gay man now, shouldn’t you be the man, and I the girl?”

“Just follow you feelings, you said,” Esther grumbled as she reached for the door handle. “Be honest about it, you said. Where in the small print did you hide all these complicated things?”

“Page three,” Rocco said and he was glad to see a second, inner door open where a male bouncer gave them a scrutinizing look, lingering a little on Rocco, and then let them pass with a nod, leaving the cold autumn evening outside.

It was a bar, with music loud enough to dance, but not too loud to talk on the side. The light was warm, but somewhat lower than in most bars Esther had visited. Some people wore sunglasses and it took Esther a moment to realize that it had to be because they were afraid to be recognized on some wacky cell phone photo, outside of these cushioned walls in the brighter light of day.

But apart from the occasional sunglasses, the people looked oddly normal, not at all what Esther had expected. She couldn’t have said what she had thought to be facing instead, but it had been something different, something that justified her queasiness, not this image of evening drink normalcy. The men were well dressed, but no more than those who strolled down Via della Spiga on Saturday mornings with shopping bags on their hands.

And the women… Esther wished she had brought sunglasses, too, so that she could have a look without being seen. Perhaps those women weren’t gay, either, and had just come with a friend, like she had come here with Rocco. Only that in her case, Rocco was the friend, and Esther herself didn’t even know what she was.

There was no sensation of sudden recognition, and no obvious difference that sat the women in this bar apart. If Esther didn’t know better, she wouldn’t have recognized them as lesbians at all. Well, perhaps the two that leaned against the bar right now, with broad shoulders and short hair, who waving at the bartender for a drink. Esther couldn’t help staring as Rocco tugged her towards a small table in a corner. That woman there who talked on the phone against the music, absently stirring a transparent drink – she didn’t look gay. She looked like any manager or office woman who had stopped for a drink on the way home after work, the suit jacket unbuttoned and her feet heavy against the matching heels.

Esther supposed that there were gay office women, as well. It just didn’t show and she couldn’t make out a common denominator for the women she saw in here. She had expected something palpable, like the intimidating decisiveness that both Marina and Vera emanated. But the two young girls, perhaps around twenty, who were sharing colorful drinks in the middle of the room, oblivious to anything around them, had nothing decisive. They looked like any young couple in love. Further along in the room, a blonde in a corduroy jacket and jeans had her hands wrapped around a mug, indicating some kind of hot beverage. Esther looked at her a little longer because she recognized the jacket, it was a model she had almost bought herself a few weeks ago. The woman seemed to be about her own age, sipping at her drink with a relaxed expression that didn’t change when she caught Esther’s look. She nodded with a smile, making Esther blush furiously.

Thankfully, Rocco chose that moment to interrupt. “Are you going to get us a drink?”

“Yes, yes…” Esther muttered while she took of her jacket and unwrapped the shawl from around her neck. It was warm in here. She looked over at the bar and the line of women leaning against it. “Can’t you get the drinks?” she pleaded with Rocco.

“If you always send Marina to get the drinks, you don’t have to be surprised when she keeps paying.” Rocco shook his head. “Don’t worry. Look, the bartender is a man.”

He was right. Esther concentrated on him as she walked across the room and hurried past the table of the blonde who wore her jacket. She was convinced that everyone was staring at her. Surely she was walking wrong.

She counted the money in her purse as she waited for her order.

“Can I pay you that drink?” A voice to her left asked, making Esther jump. She looked up to find the office woman who had been talking on the phone earlier smiling at her. “I was just getting another Martini and I thought perhaps you’d like to have one with me.”

“Nno, no thanks,” Esther stammered. “I’m here with a friend of mine…” She turned to look at Rocco who smiled and gave her a little wave.

“I see.” The woman was still smiling at Esther. “My friend just stood me up, and drinking alone is not a good habit.”

“Perhaps some other time,” Esther heard herself say. The woman looked like she had been through a bad day at work and Esther didn’t want to add to that. “But thanks for the offer.” She accepted the drinks the bartender handed her, handed him a bill and didn’t even wait for her change.

“Five minutes in here, and you’re already making friends,” Rocco observed. “Perhaps there is something that only lesbians see about each other, and perhaps you have it, too… and that woman noticed it?”

Esther made the mistake to look back towards the bar, where the office woman had now received her Martini and raised her glass in a little toast when she caught Esther’s look. “I don’t have anything like that,” she said to Rocco. “And if I have it, I don’t know what it is, or how to use it!”

Rocco nodded, still looking at the woman who was now chatting amiably with the bartender. “She looks nice, though.”

“Marina looks much better.” Esther took a sip of her beer.

Rocco sighed. “Lost cause, just as I said.” Then he motioned to a table further on the right. “Hey, did you see that? – That one smiled at me!”

It was a group of young men, probably somewhat in their twenties. “Which one, the green shirt?” Esther asked and she tried not to stare too openly.

“Not that one, the good-looking one in red, to the right,” Rocco said impatiently. “See, he did it again!”

“He did,” Esther had to admit. And he was really attractive.

“I’m at least ten years older,” Rocco observed, clearly flattered. “And he smiles at me! I never get that kind of smile from women that age. – The next time I had a really bad day at work, let’s come back here. This is good for me.”

Esther laughed and in between Rocco’s banter and the beer, her nervousness slowly ebbed away. In the end, it was a bar like any other. “Thanks for coming along,” she said over the thumps of the music. Somebody had turned up the volume and in the middle of the hall, a few people had started to dance.

“What did you say?” Rocco yelled

“I said, thanks for coming along!” Esther repeated and she threaded her arm through Rocco’s placing her head on his shoulder. “It’s just like a normal bar.”

“Apart from the girls kissing on the dancefloor,” Rocco observed, “And good-looking men staring at me. – Uhm, Esther?”

“Hmm?” Esther looked up at him, still distracted by the image of the kissing girls and moreso by how much it resonated with her.

Rocco cleared his throat. “Your arm. Us. – People stare at us because we look like a straight couple.”

“Oh, of course.” Esther moved away, blushing once more.

Rocco laughed. “How about I get us another gay drink?”

Over the music, Esther just gave him a thumbs up. She watched him make his way to the bar and caught more than just the good-looking man in red gazing at him.

“He gave them to me as a gift,” Rocco said upon his return, setting a second bottle of beer down in front of Esther with a flourish. “And that the only thing he wanted in return was my phone number!” He had to yell now, the thumping music had turned into a hammering noise.

Esther winced instinctively. “What did you say?” she called back.

“I said thank you!” Rocco retorted, but before he could say anything else, a loud crash of glass drowned out the music.

Esther realized what happened a split second before the bouncer stumbled into the room, blood streaming down his cheek. The hammering hadn’t been the music. It had been the door, that just then gave way to a throng of black-clad figures who threw over tables in their way, streaming into the bar like a crowd of ants.

“Damn faggots!” The cry was audible over the music, as well, and the music continued to play as two men in black jackets tried to drag the bartender over the counter. The woman who had offered Esther a drink was the first one to react as she emptied first her glass on the nearest attacker and then reached for a bottle from behind the bar.

When an attacker with a scarf pulled up to his nose took a swing at the woman, Rocco stood and threw himself into the melee, followed by the group of young men who had been looking at him earlier.

Esther remained frozen to the spot. It was ten, perhaps twelve attackers, and then the lights went half out. The sound of breaking bottles cut through the music and Esther could only think that they looked young in their black clothes and scarves, not older than the men that had tried to flirt with Rocco and had merely been sharing a drink after work.

One of the two girls she had seen kiss earlier stumbled her way, a hand pressed to her chin. Her girlfriend followed close behind, and when the shape of a black jacket appeared behind them, Esther had thrown her own table in the way before she had even made a conscious decision. She tried to make out Rocco in the sea of bodies. The police had to be here soon, somebody had to have called the police. The commotion would draw attention from outside, and didn’t everybody have a cell phone, or even two?

Esther pulled a young man with a bleeding eye behind her, surprised to find his frame taller, but faltering. She reached for another one, the air leaving her lungs as a blow rained into her side and the man crumpled at her feet, his carefully starched shirt torn at the collar.

Esther was about to call for a doctor in sheer reflex, but this wasn’t the Morandini and the worst they’d had there were drunk soccer hooligans, but the medics had been right here, and security, and a seriously pissed off Teresa.

The attackers seemed to take out their ire on the bar. The sound of broken glass continued and Esther hesitated for a second too long, suddenly careening into a set of stairs in her back and for a second of panic, she found herself on her back, struggling for control like an upended beetle. Another body was pushed into her and Esther recognized the torn shirt, trying to drag the man and herself off the dance floor. Something wet dripped down the side of her face, but she had no time to think about that now. She didn’t even have the time to be afraid.

Any moment now, there had to be the sound of police sirens in the background, there had to be.

The music was still playing.

“Quick, in here,” a voice to Esther’s right called out and the dead weight of the unconscious man in her arms suddenly lessened. When Esther turned her head, she found herself face to face with the blonde in the corduroy jacket.

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That’s it for this week, people. Thanks for stopping by! I’m sorry it took an extra day. The following chapter will (hopefully!) be available next Friday, 9 p.m. (GMT+1). Comments, as always, welcome below.

~ by Anik LaChev on November 7, 2009.