“I’m going away for a while,” Drew said at length.

“Ah where will you go?”

“Virginia, I think. The army has asked me to run an intensive training course for recruits.”

“How long?”

Drew shrugged. “Six, eight weeks. Permanently, if I want the job.”

Her voice was flat, but the trembling in her hands betrayed her agitation.

“Now tell me why you will go.”

Drew thought of the reasons she had been giving herself but could not bring herself to lie to her old friend.

“I’m not ready for a regular life. I thought I was, but since I’ve been back I’ve the dreams are back. I thought they were gone its been years. But now its worse.”

“And you think they will stop if you go away?”

Drew raised her hands in a frustrated gesture. “I don’t know but I have to do something.”

“Perhaps the dreams have come back because this is a safe place to have them where you have friends, yes?”

Drew forced herself to say the next words. “It’s not just the dreams” How could she explain that now she dreamed of Sean, terrifying images, all with Sean’s face. “It’s” she stopped, helpless.

“Ah, yes I think I see. There is now the situation with Sean.”

Drew started, shocked. “You know?”

Janet Cho lifted a shoulder gently. “I know that she looks at you with an open heart, and eyes that hold you. I know that you reach for her and then pull your hand away.”

“I slept with her last night,” Drew confessed.

“And now, you are afraid?”

“It was the wrong thing to do,” Drew said harshly. “I was only thinking of myself. There’s something about her I felt it right away when I look at her I feel calm, balanced, safe. And I wanted her. I didn’t know shed never been with a woman before. Its not right for her to learn this way not with me. I should never have involved her.”

“There have been others since Dara?”

“No,” Drew said, her voice breaking. “I couldn’t I didn’t want to.”

“Then I think there is something powerful between you and Sean”

“My need,” Drew rasped, “my weakness. I held her and I couldn’t help it.” She got up abruptly and began to pace in the small, enclosed space.

“Do you think there is no need in love, Drew? We are human because we need love.”

“Not this way,” Drew raged. “Not without something to give, strength to answer need.”

Janet Cho remained silent. Drew was deaf now, unable to hear beyond her pain, unable to see beyond her self-doubt. Her heart would open, or it would not.

“I will miss you, Drew. Be kind to yourself, forgive yourself.”

“Forgive myself? Never.”

Janet Cho faced her class. As always, the eager faces before her stirred many emotions. Love, pride, concern, duty. From a distance, her hand guided them in the physical quest for spiritual growth. By hardening their bodies, they hardened their spirits. By listening to their bodies, they learned to listen to their hearts. There were many paths to personal growth. This was but one, but it was here, under her eyes, they had chosen to face their weaknesses and learn their strengths. They honored her with their trust. She honored their struggles.

“Master Clark will not be with us for some time,” she began.

Sean didn’t hear the words that followed. She hadn’t expected this she had Imagined that Drew might not want to see her again. She was too old to believe that every sexual encounter led to a relationship. She had even Imagined that Drew might never even give her a reason for not wanting to see her. But she had never Imagined that Drew would simply leave, without a word. She thought she could deal with the disappointment if one night were all she had with Drew, although she didn’t quite know how she would stop the wanting. But this, this was more than she could bear. She needed to hear the words, no matter how hard, that she wasn’t wanted, that she wasn’t needed. Maybe the words would be hard to accept, but the silence would destroy her.

She broke from the line and stepped to the side of the room.

“Sean?” Master Cho questioned.

“I’m sorry, ma’am. I need permission to leave.”

Master Cho bowed. “You are dismissed.”

Sean bowed. “Thank you, ma’am.”

She drove hurriedly to Drew’s apartment, no clear plan in her mind. She drove instinctively, answering only to her need to know what was happening.

She held her breath until she heard the lock click on the door. And then Drew was there.

“Sean,” Drew murmured.

“I’m sorry. I had to see you.”

Drew looked uncertain for a moment, then stepped back from the door.

“Come in. There’s coffee”

“No, thanks.”

They faced each other awkwardly, until Drew finally motioned to the small couch pushed beneath the open window.

“Sit down, please.”

“Master Cho said you were leaving.”

“Yes.”

“Is it permanent?”

Drew stared at her hands, which were clenched in her lap.

“I don’t know. Yes probably.”

Sean took a deep breath. She could leave now and imagine her own reasons. Try to forget, try to stop thinking of the way Drew had touched heron her body, in her heart. Or, she could have the truth. She wasn’t sure which would be the harder.

“You don’t have to tell me you don’t owe me an explanation, but you mean something to me, no I’m in love with you. I’m not going to have any place to put those feelings unless I know why you’re leaving. Is it me?”

“No,” Drew murmured, “its me. I wasn’t thinking very clearly last night. I didn’t think about what it all meant to you”

Sean interrupted gently, “I’m thirty-five years old, Drew. It took me ten years of a bad marriage and five years of celibacy to realize I wanted to love a woman. It took you to make me realize that. I am responsible for being here last night because I wanted you. I will not accept, however noble, your bearing all the responsibility for last night. Please!”

Drew smiled, a small bitter smile. “You waited all that time for the wrong woman, Sean. I’m sorry.”

Sean expected it to hurt, she just hadn’t expected how much. Not until that moment had she realized just how deeply Drew had affected her. How was she going to get over her? She turned her face away to hide the tears.

“Ill go,” she said softly.

“Sean, I’m sorry.”

Sean nodded. She did not look back as she headed for the door.

“Be well, Drew,” she whispered as she closed the door behind her.

Drew dropped her head back on the couch, willing the sound of Sean’s voice from her mind. She knew it would take much longer to will her from her heart.

“Sean!” Susan called, rapping at her door, “Sean, let me in.”

“Its open,” came the muffled reply.

Susan crossed to the bed where Sean lay face down with her arms under her head.

“Are you crying? What’s wrong? You’ve been up here for hours.”

“Oh, Suse,” Sean cried, “I’ve gotten myself into a mess.”

“What? What?”

“I’ve fallen in love with someone who doesn’t care about me. If that isn’t bad enough, she’s leaving the city.”

“Oh, hell!” Susan picked at the bedspread. “Sean, honey? Are you sure you’re in love? I mean, you know”

Sean rolled over to stare at her sister. “It hurts, Suse that I cant see her, that I cant touch her. I close my eyes, and I see her everywhere! I’m lying here and my body aches for her.”

“Oh,” Susan said, “I’m sorry, Sean, really.”

Sean grasped her hand. “I know you are.”

“What can I do?”

“You’re doing it. You’re here, you’re listening. You’re not telling me to get over it.”

“Ha!” Susan said without humor, “I’m the last one to tell you to get over her. We don’t seem to love that way.”

“How in hell have you been managing?” Sean asked bitterly. “I don’t think I can stand it.”

“Just keep doing what has to be done, Sean. Go to work, go to class”

“Oh god I don’t think I can. When I walk in there and she’s not there, I think Ill fall apart.” She began crying again, despite her efforts to stop.

“You have to, Sean,” Susan whispered, lying down beside her and pulling her close. “You have to.”

CHAPTER NINE

One night, ten days after returning to the army base training camp in Virginia, Drew found herself standing outside a bar she hadn’t entered for eight years. Eight years since she stepped out this door into a night that would change the course of her life. Eight empty tormented years.

Of course, none of the old faces remained. Life on and around an army base was transient so many people just passing through. Drew had actually been one of the more permanent residents of the town that existed only because of the nearby base. The bar had been a gathering place for women who couldn’t be too careful about exposing their sexual preferences within the claustrophobic living quarters of Fort McGee.

She didn’t recognize the bartender, or the woman seated by the door checking I.D.s. The decor wasn’t much different the place still looked a little dingy. Still, it was filled with laughing women, relaxing after a week of work. In the case of the army recruits, it might have been their first time off base in weeks.

After ten days of staring at the walls of the small room that the army had provided for her, she had to get out. She didn’t know where else to go. This bar was the only haven she knew.

She took a seat at the long, well-worn bar and ordered a beer. She raised the mug slowly, glancing sideways up and down the bar. It was strange being here she had expected more of a reaction. She had replayed the events of that night so many times from here in this bar to the street where it had ended that she expected the room to be filled with ghosts. But, it seemed that her memories held those events with perfect clarity, while the years had tarnished the reality. There were no condemning voices, no demands for retribution, no restless souls here other than her own.

Sighing, she drained the glass and signaled for another. Her heart jumped when her eyes met a pair of deep green ones staring at her in the mirror over the bar. The dark, ruffled hair and willowy figure reminded her of Sean, but it was the eyes that always captured her. She lowered her gaze, feeling the disappointment like a knife in her depths. It wasn’t Sean, it wasn’t going to be Sean not now, not ever. She had given in, just that once, to her need to touch those black curls, to hold the slender figure, to kiss the full generous mouth. And she had wanted her from that moment seeing her night after night at the dojang, watching her move in that fluid, graceful cadence of the dancers, accepting the soothing comfort of her smile, her presence. She refused to listen to the warning sounds in her head, surrendering, irrevocably, to her desires. And now she was haunted, haunted by the vision of Sean, head tipped back, eyes half-closed, accepting her kiss, accepting her hands, rising to her touch as she entered her. The image of Sean as they had loved haunted her days, but it was the image of Sean lying bruised and bloodied that tormented her nights.

The nightmares continued, unabated. The pleasures Sean had brought her would have been worth the price of the night terrors if she hadn’t believed that Sean deserved better than her. She had failed, once before, with a woman she had loved at a price too high to bear. She would not fail another.

“That glass has been empty quite a while can I buy you another?”

The green-eyed soldier slipped onto the stool beside her, signaling the bartender for another round.

“Thanks,” Drew said. Her voice was harder than Sean’s, without the mellow timbre that Drew found so soothing.

“I saw one of your training sessions out at the base. The hand-to-hand knife defense. It was impressive,” her companion continued. “I’m a drill instructor Mary Burger.”

Drew shook the extended hand, liking the firmness of her grasp. “Drew Clark,” she added.

“I heard you had left last spring. I was surprised to see you back this fall. Couldn’t stand civilian life?”

Drew fingered the handle of her mug, tracing the contour with one long finger. “Guess not here I am.”

Mary stood, placing a hand on Drew’s arm. “Come on, lets dance.”

Drew felt too weary to protest and allowed herself to be led to the floor.

The night she had spent with Sean had thrown the world into turmoil. She had kept her feelings carefully contained, in some manageable corner of her mind, so that she might continue to function and suddenly there had been Sean. She ripped the barriers from her heart, and the restraints from her body, leaving her a victim of her own needs, desires and fears. She had run, only to find herself face to face with her demons, back in full force. Not only didn’t she have the comfort and tender joy of Sean’s presence, the wounds of her past now were bleeding as well.