Page 86 of Strap In
In the face of such sincere support, Jean feels able to voice a doubt that has niggled at her along with the hope. ‘Do you… think I’ll be alright at this? I mean, what do I know about charities?’
‘More than most people.’ Ava squeezes her hand. ‘And besides, I think you’ll be sensational.’
‘Really?’
‘Of course! I’m happy to provide a glowing testimonial – about your consultancy skills.’ Ava winks. ‘And your sex acquaintance ones.’
Jean rolls her eyes. ‘You’re never going to let me live that down, are you?’
‘Nope!’ Ava’s eyes sparkle with mischief as she sips her mojito.
All the same, Jean feels compelled to clarify. To shut down the slightest ambiguity or doubt. ‘You know that you’re so much more than a sex acquaintance to me, don’t you? I really do love you.’
Ava’s attempts to wave the words off are undercut by the pretty flush warming her cheeks. ‘Yeah,’ she says, not quite looking at Jean. ‘I picked up on that when you told your entire office that you want to spend the rest of your life with me. Baller move, by the way.’
‘It just slipped out.’ Jean lifts the stick impaling her olive, stirring it round her glass. ‘But it felt right. At the time.’
‘Did you mean it?’ Ava’s whisper is scarcely audible above the hubbub of chatter and Annie Lennox’s unearthly voice. But in the last year Jean has become finely attuned to this woman, every shift in expression and tone. And it’s not disapproval nor even displeasure that keeps her from looking at Jean, but rather nerves.
It’s Jean’s turn now to be brave, to set aside her fears and speak up. ‘I did. I meant every word.’
‘Okay. Then I would like that too.’ Their eyes meet, and Ava bites her lip. ‘I’d love it, actually. Being with you long-term.’
Jean’s heart contracts, but her voice remains steady. ‘Well, we renegotiated the terms of our relationship before. Should we do it again?’
Ava’s looking at her – really looking at her – as if nothing else exists but Jean. ‘What sort of thing did you have in mind?’
‘Hmm. I was thinking along traditional lines – or traditional as it gets with a lesbian couple.’ Jean reaches across the table and takes Ava’s hand in hers, uncertain whose fingers are the origin of their trembling. ‘In sickness and in health, for richer or poorer, ’til death do us part. I’ll gladly love and honour you, but I do have major reservations about obeying you.’
‘We could scratch that particular clause – I’m not wild about it either.’ Ava’s thumb whispers across the back of her hand, smooth and natural as an ocean caressing the shore. ‘Do you really want to get married?’
‘Well, yes. With you I do.’ The possibility hadn’t occurred to Jean until meeting Ava, that she might ever willingly call herself wife again. So many things hadn’t. But now Jean can’t imagine a sweeter string of tomorrows, bright and optimistic as the Christmas lights. ‘In the not-too-distant future.’
‘That settles what we’re getting each other for Christmas: rings.’ Ava leans across the table, her kiss full of urgent promise. ‘Now let’s go home. I want to celebrate with my beautiful fiancée.’
A Letter from Lou
Hello,
In much the same way that Jean wasn’t planning to have a relationship with another woman,Strap Inisn’t the book I’d planned to write for my debut novel – but ultimately it worked out for the best. Jean learned how to live and love authentically, and I wrote a story that came directly from the heart.
It was always my intention to create lesbian romance, because this is what excites me most, both as a reader and a writer. But I’d originally intended a Dual POV romance featuring both a woman of colour and a white woman as protagonists. I wanted to depict an interracial relationship in a way that felt more truthful and realistic than the colour-blind stories written by white authors. While working out the details, I went on one of Rachel Kramer Bussel’s excellent workshops on writing sex scenes. For one of the exercises, she gave us the prompt of food or drink – and instantly I had Jean and her martini in mind.
Ava quickly followed, her confidence and knowing – not to mention her androgynous charm – the kryptonite to Jean’s repression. Only the more I got to know Ava, the clearer it became that she knew exactly who she was and what she wanted; being so fully self-realised, she had no need of the growth arc that is the engine driving a novel forward. Jean, on the other hand, had a long road to travel from hole-hearted to wholehearted – how Gwen Hayes describes the romance arc. What was initially planned as a short story soon blossomed into a novel – I wrote the first draft over forty-six feverish days and nights.
And though I hadn’t planned to write a novel solely with a white protagonist, there was a rightness to Jean’s story that made me certain this was the right path, both in terms of my creativity and my commitment to expanding the range of women found in lesbian romance. Though lots of women only realise they’re lesbian or bisexual in mid to later life, the vast majority of coming out narratives are centred around teens or young adults.
I hate the term ‘late-blooming lesbians’, because it implies that any woman who doesn’t know she’s gay from her youth is running behind schedule. In reality there are a whole host of social, cultural, and political factors that stand in the way of this realisation. Partly it can take time because of sexist cultural narratives that frame women as inherently less sexual than men, which lead to women in heterosexual unions not questioning why their desire is low. But also because so many women grow up being bombarded from early girlhood with the idea they’ll marry a man and have his children – even when that plan doesn’t fit with our desires or dreams.
When I was a little girl, my grandfather outlined his plan for my life: I’d stay in school, go to university, get a job, find a husband, then have children. In that order. And given he always knew the answers to my maths homework, and could drive around Britain without getting lost, it didn’t occur to me to question his wisdom. At home, at church, at my Catholic primary school, straight life was presented as the only path – what Adrienne Rich called compulsory heterosexuality. And even though the thought of having a husband filled me with dread, even though I have a lesbian mother, even though I spent my adolescence thirsting over Meryl Streep as Miranda Priestly, I was nineteen before the lesbian penny – or pink pound – fully dropped.
For context, I was watchingOrange is the New Blackon Netflix, thinking that it would be entirely worth going to jail if I could have a prison wife instead of the dreaded hypothetical husband. Only as I contemplated potential non-violent crimes that would enable me to swap liberty for a shot at love did it occur to me:I don’t need to go to prison to be with a woman…Thus began a life-altering epiphany.
And sure, it’s funny. But the fact young Lou thought ‘I should go to prison!’ before ‘I’m a lesbian!’ is also proof of how deeply compulsory heterosexuality runs through society. I figured my lesbianism out at nineteen. Jean takes nearly three times as long. Some women take longer still. And they’re just as valid, just as worthy of representation, as the lesbians who figure it out in childhood.
Strap Inis my love letter to the women who come out in mid or later life, because sapphic community wouldn’t be the same without you in it. And I hope that Jean’s story will inspire readers from every background to seize the day, regardless of your age, because it’s never too late to follow your heart.
With love,
Lou x
