Llhaesa had become a regular visitor to the Khentavra family residence. If she called upon them a few more times, she might become more of a fixture than visitor. Two weeks after Jahrae and she met, llhaesa had returned at least 10 times.
Every time llhaesa visited, the Khentavras insisted she dine with them. Llhaesa never felt badly or felt that she was imposing – in two weeks time the Khentavras already had come to feel like family. Now they were insisting she no longer knock, and simply enter the home as any of them would.
One of these days, she was going to invite the Khentavras over to her flat, and invite her own parents as well. Now that would be significant in some way llhaesa had yet to consciously contemplate, more just felt somewhere deep inside.
This evening’s visit followed the same pattern as all others. There was pre-dinner interaction, there was dinner, and there was family time where they again gathered and chatted, watched a film, or played a game. This was inevitably followed by the Khentavras excusing themselves and retiring to their bedroom for the night. Hrilleae and Djellrin knew, and they gave her had Jahrae space.
Llhaesa had already come to think of Hrilleae and Djellrin as she thought of her parents Mrevan and Saehressa, kind, hard working, caring and loving people who treated their daughter and her friend as they did other adults. On this night, llhaesa and Jahrae decided to watch a film and just chill out on the sofa.
The film turned out to be a rather forgettable comedy. Halfway through, both of the young women were now stretched out on the sofa, with Jahrae resting her head in the lap of the slightly more upright llhaesa. For her part, llhaesa had her back to the armrest on the left end of the sofa. Losing interest in the boring film, llhaesa shifted her full attention to Jahrae, gently running her closed together fingers through Jahrae’s hair.
After several moments, llhaesa began to sing softly. It was a currently popular song and not one of her own, but one she knew Jahrae claimed to love. And so llhaesa sang it pretty much as the release in circulation, excepting the original was the work of a male artist.
After she finished, Jahrae sat up, wrapped her arms around llhaesa and pulled her close, while simultaneously moving her head close in to llhaesa. Now in position, Jahrae closed the remaining distance, bringing her lips into contact with llhaesa’s. From there, each of the lovers was drawn into the other, each exploring the inner recesses of each other’s mouth. They went some before breaking away in search of breath; and if truth be told, the absence of breath was more a reaction to their kiss than to the physicality of it all.
Jahrae looked away from llhaesa and softly began to speak. “Several months ago, my parents were listening to one of your songs – I had only heard of you in passing, knew only of your song Myth Of The Stars – and so I went in search of information on you on the >athenaeum. You should know that my reason for doing so had more to do in that moment with being prepared for when my parents started tossing you at me, some example of a socially responsible person who was – I believe the phrase in my head then was that you ‘were a refugee from a Save The Planet convention.’ I was…” Jahrae stopped before completing the sentence, her train of thought and words interrupted by llhaesa as she burst into wild laughter.
“Har! You were going to show them, those civic minded parents of yours, that you were an adult and not in need of any further coaching or lessons. Yeah, almost 19 and you have sussed out the mystery of life, and everything there is to know about it. The funniest part of all is that you were actually right on target in associating me with Save The Planet! Where did you come up with that line?” llhaesa was totally amused, Jahrae was slowly warming from embarrassed to amused.
“My parents tend to find ways to use things like music and artists to make points on life, and since I heard them listening to you, knew sooner or later a parental lesson on life was about to follow, with you as the centrepiece of the lesson I was to somehow grasp. Instead, I sorta conducted a pre-emptive strike in hopes of avoiding that particular lesson.
Anyway, I searched you out because of knowing so little, and came away stunned that you had been banned from government facilities. No wonder my parents were drawn to you… but that is incredibly unfair – all of that thinking was, I realise that now.
At the point of that search, I had no idea what you looked like. After I read the bio, it was on to the imagery, and well… we’ll just say that an immediate crush developed, and um… I’ll not say where that led on that particular night…” Jahrae ended with a facial expression and waving gesture signifying ‘hot.’
Llhaesa took a turn at story sharing. “I’d like to say I read up on you before arriving here a couple of weeks ago Jahrae, but well… you were prepared, I was not. Here I am making a business call with folk who are organising this very major and special concert, and instead my focus was ripped to shreds just by the presence of their very beautiful daughter. Do you even know what I might have said and promised that night? I surely do not; I was totally taken with you.” Llhaesa and Jahrae were already swapping first meet, first sight stories.
“Jahrae, I’ve had you on my mind ever since. I run in the morning, and you are playing through my mind. I shower… thinking of you. I practice, you pop into – and stay – in my head. When I attempt to sleep, it is thoughts of you that take me there. There is only one way I can think of to deal with this, but I’m not saying. When – if – you get there, you will understand what I mean, and you will tell me.” Llhaesa knew how she felt, but was futilely trying to gauge where Jahrae’s thinking was in all of this.
“Do I understand what you mean?” Jahrae formed and voiced her thoughts. “Are we being completely honest here, guards down, share what is roiling around deep inside? OK, fair enough. You meant something like how I’ve felt… dreaming of moving in with you.” Jahrae looked right into the eyes of llhaesa and did not turn away, having just risked it all. She anxiously awaited an answer, totally vulnerable to the thoughts and feelings of the person next to her.
And Jahrae was momentarily aghast as llhaesa again erupted into laughter. “Well, that took all of 30 seconds – understanding what I meant. Moving in was exactly the solution I had in mind.” Llhaesa clarified; and Jahrae started breathing again.
