Sum of the Whole Read online

  Jaya called the class to attention and led them through stretching exercises. She had originally agreed to this to help Dana out, but after the first class, she was hooked. The energy the kids brought to each session was infectious. She remembered her own training and wanted to give them the same memories she treasured.

  “Line up.” Jaya pulled the protective pad over her arm and knelt. “Round kick today.” She repeated the term in Korean—“dolraya chagi”—and had them repeat it after her. Jaya focused on each student as they practiced. She called each by name, offering encouragement and gentle correction. She loved these kids. She had never wanted to be a parent and still couldn’t envision herself as a mother, but Jaya looked forward to spending Saturday mornings with the children she thought of as her kids. No matter how hard her week was, Saturday mornings never failed to put everything into perspective and improve her mood. She worked hard to be a mentor and a grown-up they could count on.

  She watched after class when their parents came to pick them up. Some were excited and happy to hear about their kids’ experiences and progress. She worried about the kids whose parents were always late to pick them up. In their hurry to get to the next activity or to work they would whisk their kids away without listening to them.

  Jaya stacked the training pads. In the locker room, she checked her phone for the hundredth time since her meeting with Sarah and almost dropped it when the text notification from Sarah scrolled across her screen.

  “I WANT TO give it a try, but there will be rules.” Sarah gripped the edge of the table.

  “All right.” Jaya sat forward.

  “We’re in two different places. I’m a broke grad student and you are not. I don’t like feeling like I’m being bought. So, no places a grad student couldn’t afford. You’ll let me pay for things when I say I’m going to pay. No arguments.”

  “Were you able to save anything when you worked for Rowan House?” Jaya thought of the hefty tip she had left for Sarah.

  Sarah raised her eyebrows. “You familiar with the song ‘Sixteen Tons’ and the line, ‘I owe my soul to the company store’? They charged us for everything and took a large percentage of our tips. My doctoral fellowship pays for my tuition and I have a stipend, but I’m on a tight budget.”

  “What if I want to take you somewhere special? For a special occasion?”

  “I want us to be equal in this. The equation has to be balanced. I already feel like I owe you for giving me time to study.”

  “All right. I’ll agree to your rules.” Jaya leaned forward, scooting her chair closer to the table. “If you agree to accept we are on even ground to start. You don’t owe me anything. You’re here at this university through your own efforts. My encouraging you to study had nothing to do with it. You would have found a way.”

  Sarah chewed her lip. “Okay.”

  “So where to?” Jaya held Sarah’s gaze.

  “I don’t know. I thought you would chafe at me making the rules.” A smile tugged at Sarah’s lips.

  “I’m willing to work with what you give me.”

  “You know the park at the end of Jefferson Street?”

  “Yes.”

  “Can you meet me there tomorrow at 6:00 a.m.?”

  “Make it 6:30?”

  “See you then.”

  JAYA TOSSED HER phone on the bed after shutting off the alarm. What if after she gets to know me, she doesn’t like me? What if it was an act? Part of her job? Jaya shook the thoughts from her head. If she hadn’t wanted to see me, she wouldn’t have agreed to this…whatever it is we’re doing. Or might do. Jaya was giddy as she pulled on her jeans and sweater over her T-shirt. She had time to stop by the bakery on the way if she hurried. She stopped. I don’t even know if she drinks coffee or tea, or how she likes it. She pursed her lips. I never asked a damn thing about her, or what she likes, or paid attention. She hurried out the door, not wanting to be late.

  The morning sun caught the red-gold of Sarah’s hair and it glowed. She waved and Jaya walked to where she stood. She reached out to kiss her and stopped herself. Is it okay to kiss her? She stopped, knowing she looked as awkward as a sixteen-year-old on a first date. Sarah nodded her approval.

  “Hi…um…I guess this is our first date then?” Did I really say that? She had never dated anyone. Her life had been filled with scripted interactions. Sex had always been paid transactions, sex clubs, or one-night stands for the price of dinner and drinks, or in the case of Deidre, a relationship Jaya agreed to because she found her presence convenient.

  “Yes.” Sarah’s sultry smile sent spirals of desire through Jaya.

  “I wanted to bring you something from the bakery. Do you drink coffee? Or tea?”

  “Both, but black coffee is usually a good bet. Let’s walk.” She led the way to a paved path through a thickly wooded area. Jaya didn’t like the way the bushes crowded in on the sides of the trail. Years protecting people made her wary of any place an ambush could occur. She stopped.

  “I hope you don’t walk here alone.”

  “I do sometimes but never at night.” Sarah arched an eyebrow at Jaya. “I don’t recall you having a problem with wooded places.”

  Jaya’s face warmed. She remembers. “Um. No. But this path seems unsafe. The bushes are too close to the path…” She stopped when she saw Sarah’s raised eyebrow.

  That’s the point. A private place. Jaya smiled back. Maybe I’ll get to kiss her after all.

  Sarah led the way. The trees hid the sun and their breath puffed out before them in the morning chill. The stillness was filled with the chatter of birds and the sound of their footsteps. Not speaking was Jaya’s first test. She wanted to ask a million questions and yet she didn’t want to break the warm, rich silence filling the space between them. They came to a small pond tucked into a clearing. The morning mist floated above the pond, and ducks dipped and squabbled on the far side of the water. Sarah stooped at the shoreline and picked up a small stone. She tossed it into the pond and the ripples spread out to the far shore.

  “That is what meeting you was like for me.” She turned to face Jaya. She reached up and cupped her face, drawing Jaya into a kiss that swept over her like a hot wind. She wrapped her arms around Sarah and pulled her hard against her. Her lips were soft on Sarah’s mouth and she drank her in, trying to cool the thirst that had consumed her soul for the last six years. I need. I want. Everywhere their bodies touched she burned. The world ceased to exist for Jaya. Her world was Sarah. Her lips, her warm cinnamon and sandalwood scent, her arms, her essence filled Jaya. Be my world. She slipped her hand under Sarah’s coat, needing to feel her skin. Sarah placed her hand on Jaya’s chest, breaking their kiss. She shook her head and Jaya pulled her hand from under her coat. Her lip quirked up on hearing the sigh of disappointment that escaped Jaya at being denied.

  “I’ve wanted to kiss you since I saw you at the awards dinner.” Sarah touched Jaya’s lips, letting her fingertips rest on them. “I missed you. I was so angry at you.” Her eyes sparkled with tears. “I wanted to hate you.”

  “I’m sorry. So sorry.” She kissed Sarah’s fingertips.

  Sarah stepped back and held Jaya’s gaze as she spoke. “We’ve been more intimate than most people on the planet and yet we don’t know anything about each other.”

  “I don’t know how to do this.” Jaya stuffed her hands in her pockets.

  Sarah grabbed Jaya’s arm and led her away from the pond, guiding her along the path. “You have a point.” She looped her arm through Jaya’s and leaned into her as they walked. “I’ll go first. What was it like for you growing up?”

  What to say? Jaya sorted through her memories, discarding each one. Being led away from my mother’s hospital bed for the last time? No. How I got the scars on my back? No. The time I crashed my bike and broke my arm? Fuck. The first time I was shot? Fuck me. Jaya blew out a breath.

  “Um. I don’t remember a lot.” She scuffed her boot, kicking a rock down the asphalt path. “We
moved all the time.”

  “Do you keep in touch with your parents?”

  “My mom passed when I was nine. My dad passed a few years back.”

  Sarah stopped and turned to Jaya. “I’m sorry.” She kissed Jaya’s cheek. She tugged Jaya’s hand from her pocket and gave it a squeeze. Jaya pressed her lips together and swallowed her discomfort. A beating would be easier to take than talking like this. She squeezed Sarah’s hand back and held on as they circled the pond.

  “How about you? What’s your first memory?”

  “Helping my mum in the kitchen. She always smells of vanilla. We have a bakery back home. The whole family works there.”

  “Except you.”

  “Except me. In a family of bakers and pastry chefs, it is hard to tell them you want to study mathematics.”

  Jaya knew that kind of pressure. She had wanted to study anything other than economics and business, but her father had been relentless. Economics, languages, business. That had been the only course of study acceptable to her father.

  “Is that what you’re studying at the university?”

  “I have a teaching fellowship.” She squeezed Jaya’s hand. “Sorry I was so rude at the awards dinner. I wondered if you had stalked me.”

  “I’d be a pretty shitty stalker if it took me six years to find you.”

  Sarah snorted. “You’d be surprised what some people will do.”

  “How’d you end up at Rowan House? Runaway?” Jaya had heard enough of Deidre’s stories about the staff at Rowan House to know most of the workers were running from something.

  Sarah’s face shuttered and she dropped Jaya’s hand. Her footsteps were crisp on the asphalt path.

  Jaya was left standing there. What the hell did I say? She swore under her breath as she hurried after Sarah.

  She caught her by the wrist. “What the hell, Sarah? You get to run away when I ask you something you don’t like? If there are topics that are off-limits, you have to tell me.” Jaya relaxed her grip on Sarah’s wrist.

  Sarah pulled away and looked down. “Nothing about Rowan House. No one here knows about my past. I want to keep it that way.” She balled her fists before jamming them in her coat pockets. “I can’t lose my fellowship.”

  “Fine. But I’m part of your past.” Jaya pushed her hair back from her face. “I am who and what I am. Rowan House and what we did there is part of who we are. If you want to pretend it didn’t happen, I can’t do this. I’ve lived too long denying myself.” Jaya kept her voice low as she pinned Sarah with her eyes. Sarah’s face softened. She tilted her chin, her gaze steady as she met the challenge in Jaya’s eyes. That look. My Sarah.

  Sarah grabbed the front of Jaya’s sweater. Twisting it in her fist, she pulled Jaya hard against her. She brought her mouth to Jaya’s. Their mouths crashed together and her teeth cut Jaya’s lip, the salty-sweet taste of coppery blood flavoring their kiss. Jaya wrapped herself around Sarah, holding her in a tight grip, and Sarah relaxed into her arms. She kissed her neck and Sarah’s pulse quickened under her lips. She kissed along Sarah’s jaw and back to her mouth as their kissing morphed into gentle nips and small nibbles. Sarah broke their kiss and leaned her head on Jaya’s chest.

  “I can’t lose my fellowship. If I’m outed as a former sex worker, I…” She looked up at Jaya. Unshed tears filled her eyes

  “You’re safe with me.” Jaya held her gaze and sealed her promise to Sarah with a gentle kiss. “I’ll keep your secret.”

  Sarah’s phone buzzed, shattering the moment between them. “I have to go. Meet me again tomorrow? Same time?”

  “Sure.” Anytime. Anywhere. All the tomorrows. Forever.

  Chapter Nine

  THE STRONG SCENT of the dojang filled Jaya’s nose. Sweat, cleaning fluid, and underneath it all, a faint whiff of blood. Abhorrent to some, the smell was a comfort to Jaya. On the training mat, Jaya could leave everything behind, focusing on her breath, her body, and on the days she sparred, the body of her opponent. The dojang was an old-school simple studio, and the mat consisted of stretched canvas over an unforgiving concrete floor. Here and there, small dark brown stains dotted the canvas—evidence of miscues and mistakes with painful outcomes. Jaya breathed it all in and relaxed into herself.

  The two places she was most comfortable with herself were with a willing submissive and on the floor of her dojang, practicing her forms and sparring. She stretched her limbs, sighing as the tension in them unwound. She had been balled up since her walk in the park with Sarah. It had been hard to let her go after they had kissed. She ran her tongue over the spot on her lip where Sarah’s teeth had broken the skin. After their kiss, all she wanted was to drag Sarah back to her apartment and show her how much she had missed her the last six years. She blew out a breath to clear her head.

  Older than most of the members of the dojang by fifteen years, she worked hard to stay in shape. She started her forms, working through them at full speed. She was sweating hard by the time she started in on the heavy bag. With this, she could let every bit of anger and sadness pour out of her. Jaya had spent most of her life winning. First in university, then in business, then in love—or what she thought was love—with Deidre. Then it had all come crashing down.

  The comfort of making hard contact with the heavy bag and the thud that resonated through her body punctuated her thoughts. The loss of Deidre and her father in the same year had been hard enough. Sarah’s refusal had been the beginning of difficult choices and change. Jaya had come out to her brother and closed the family business over his objections. Freak. Queer. Echoes of the last argument she’d had with her brother filled her mind.

  In a rhythm, her thighs aching, she worked the bag, timing her kicks with its swing. She let her power flow and pounded every awful memory to a pulp. Sweat was running down her face. She kept on, ridding herself of bad memories and making room for the good she wanted in her life.

  “Hey! What’d that bag do to you?” Dana’s deep voice rattled the windows. It was the kind of voice you sensed as well as heard. Jaya stopped and settled the bag. She pushed back the wisps of hair that had worked loose from her braid.

  “If you’d been on time, I wouldn’t have had to take it out on this poor bag.” Jaya smiled. It was their running joke. Dana’s slight build and her five-feet-four-inch height led many to underestimate her skills. She had inherited the studio from her dad and ran it the way he had to honor his memory.

  “Easy, champ. I can’t afford to replace that bag.” Dana handed Jaya a towel. “But wipe some of that sweat off. I don’t want to get any on me.”

  Jay mopped the sweat off her face. “Hey, Dana, do you date?”

  “You asking me out? I make it a policy to not date members.”

  “No. I mean…not you. Ah hell, Dana.” Jaya huffed and looked up. Awkward. Fucking awkward. Just shut up.

  “Damn. You sure know how to make a woman feel wanted.” Dana grinned at Jaya’s discomfort. “Let me guess, you want advice?” Dana’s harsh laugh boomed off the walls. “If I had a clue about dating, I wouldn’t go home to my cats every night. All I can tell you is it’s like sparring with your heart with no rules and no time limit.” She pointed a finger at Jaya. “If you want to win don’t quit, no matter how much it hurts.”

  Jaya raised an eyebrow. “Um…well, that’s not what I was asking but thanks for the advice. I wanted to know a good cheap place to eat.”

  Dana laughed again. “And I’m the queen of cheap. Sorry for the unsolicited advice. Millie’s is great. Good diner food and open until 4:00 a.m. Breakfast all day. Coffee is drinkable. Don’t ask for tea.”

  “Thanks.” Jaya bowed off the mat and headed to the showers. She let the hot water run over her aching body. She would be sore tomorrow and that was okay. She didn’t have anything to do but meet Sarah. She had not found a way to occupy her time since she had closed the business. She refused to let Dana pay her for teaching the Saturday class. Between her investments and her own savings, she’d ne
ver have to work at any job she hated ever again. The shower spray became lukewarm, and Jaya stepped out before the water turned ice cold. She filled her days with managing her money, reading, and in her most private moments, drawing. Sighing at the thought of the long day and night stretching empty before her, she dressed and packed her bag.

  SARAH WAS STANDING at the head of the path when Jaya arrived carrying two coffees. She handed one to Sarah. She smiled as she took it from Jaya’s hand and sipped her coffee.

  “Thank you. I need this.” The dark circles under Sarah’s eyes underlined her statement, and Jaya wondered about the tiredness in her face.

  Up all night. Jealousy worked its way into Jaya’s head. “Bad night?” Jaya wanted to know who or what had kept Sarah up. Doesn’t matter. I have no claim over her. The sight of the engraved silver torque around Sarah’s neck, glinting in the morning sun, was maddening. Jaya’s agitation grew. What the hell? Is she wearing someone else’s collar? What if the only reason she has us meeting like illicit lovers is because we are?

  If she still had her business, it would be simple to run a background check on Sarah that would make the CIA and Mossad blush in its thoroughness. How she had resisted after leaving Rowan House was testament to her self-control. Not like that. Only with sweat, tears, and time. She blew out the breath she had been holding.

  “Writing a dissertation while on a teaching fellowship is a study in how much sleep you can miss without dying.” Sarah took another sip of her coffee and started down the path, not looking to see if Jaya followed. Jaya fell into step with her. They walked, wrapped in the morning quiet, and stopped at the edge of the pond. They sat and finished their coffee. Jaya deposited their cups in a bin next to the bench, and they set off on the trail once more.

  “So, what are the rules, Sarah, beside not exposing you and not taking you anywhere you couldn’t afford to eat on your stipend?” Jaya caught Sarah’s hand. She kissed the back of her hand and turned it over. She kissed her palm, letting her lips trace a trail up her wrist. Stepping close, she kissed Sarah’s cheek. She brought her mouth close to Sarah’s lips. “Is this okay?” She focused on Sarah’s eyes, letting her lips brush her mouth. Sarah leaned into Jaya’s kiss, softly at first, then pressing hard against Jaya’s mouth. She opened to her, letting Jaya plunder her mouth with a deep kiss. Jaya wanted to bend Sarah back; force her into an arch that pressed her body against her own. She brought her hand to the back of Sarah’s neck, digging her fingers into the soft curls at the nape of her neck. Sarah’s moan urged her on and Jaya slid her other hand up and slipped inside Sarah’s coat. She filled her palm with Sarah’s soft breast and thumbed her nipple through her shirt.