“Just now.” Kerry extended her legs out on the padded surface, and folded her hands over her stomach. “I was so busy watching you I didn’t realize the bag was swinging at me and it smacked me in the head.”
Dar leaned over and kissed her on the lips. “You really give my ego a boost.” She smiled. “But try not to do that, hon. You’ll end up with a bruise.”
Kerry contentedly absorbed the look of affection in Dar’s eyes as she regarded her. “My ego raises your ego one” She exhaled. “What a couple of goofy saps we are.”
“We are.” Dar said. “Want to go for a swim?”
“Yes.” Kerry sat up and started to untie her gloves by tugging on the strings with her teeth. “That would feel absolutely awesome right now. I’m soaked.”
Dar gently removed the strings from her incisors and untied the gloves for her, both of them sitting there on the padded ground splashed in warm sunlight from the windows. “Indoor pool, then hydro, then shower.”
“Then lunch.” Kerry got up and collected her gear. “I’m so damn glad we took today off.” She followed Dar through the gym towards the changing area. “Its so nice just to chill out and spend some time just doing stuff.”
“Uh huh.”
“Just during the week, when it’s really quiet here instead of on the weekend, when it’s packed.” Kerry exchanged her boxing outfit for a swimsuit. “Not having to be at the office.”
“Tired of our new one?” Dar came over and leaned on the teak wood locker.
Kerry thought about that as she got her towel out, and laid it around her neck. “I like our new place.” She protested, as they walked towards the gym’s indoor pool. They passed through the door into a humid, chemical scented space with thick plastic panels surrounding a placidly lapping concrete lake.
“I do too.” Dar said, after a long silence.
Kerry put her towel on a ring hung on the wall. “I just like spending time like this not working.” She admitted, with a wry grin. “Maybe after our vacation I’ll get it out of my system. I think I got the idea of not working in my head after we got let go that minute of ‘oh cool!’’s still in there.”
Dar nodded, in a thoughtful sort of way. She hung her own towel and stretched her arms out, flexing her hands and then putting them on her hips. “Yeah.” She eventually responded. “Is what it is I guess.” She walked over to the side of the pool and dove in.
Kerry folded her arms over her chest and thought about that for a long moment, long enough for Dar to surface and stroke across to the other side of the pool with an easy motion. Then she shrugged, and went to the side of the pool, preparing to dive in herself.
Almost there, her attention was drawn by the sound of the door to the pool room opening and closing and she glanced over to see a tall, heavily built man entering. “Good morning.” She said, vaguely remembering the man’s face but not entirely sure of from where.
He paused, and regarded her. “Morning.” He responded, changing direction and heading her way. “Been wanting to speak to you two people.”
Kerry wasn’t surprised to hear the motion of water and a splash as Dar came up out of the pool, and the slight rasp of her bare feet on the concrete verge, sensing the compression of the air as her partner arrived at her back.
The man’s voice had been gruff but not threatening, but it was nice to have that presence behind her anyway. “Sure.” Kerry responded. “What can we do for you?” She remembered who the man was just as he closed on them.
“Hello, Jim.” Dar spoke up. “What’s up?”
The man nodded at Dar. “My daughter told me all about what happened at the store.” He said. “I appreciate your getting involved, Roberts, because I don’t like people being jerks to anyone on this island much less my kid.”
“He was a jerk.” Dar said. “I didn’t appreciate that either.”
The man nodded again. “So thanks for that. But now we come to this, I don’t like the way you people live, and I don’t want my kid exposed to it.”
He stopped speaking, and regarded them.
“Too fucking bad.” Dar responded promptly. “Grow up and come into the twenty first century. Kerry and I don’t bother anyone.” She put her hand on Kerry’s back, feeling the tension under her fingertips.
“I know that.” The man said. “Or I’d have already had you kicked out of here. I’m not into bullshit and I don’t think you are either. But my daughter means everything to me.”
Kerry put her hands on her hips. “What exactly do you think we’re going to do to her?” She asked. “She told us you didn’t like gay people. Okay. I get it. My father didn’t either. But you think we’re going to sell her tickets to a Melissa Etheridge concert and turn her gay or something?”
He paused and looked at her.
“I was gay before I met Dar.” Kerry said. “And I was brought up in a very conservative family, went to Sunday school, went to Christian high school, you name it. Didn’t stop me from being gay.”
“We don’t recruit.” Dar looked and sounded faintly amused. “Jim, I grew up on a Navy base. If proximity to testicular overload could have kept me straight, it would have Trust me. I saw more well hung naked men before I was ten than you probably have in your life.”
Kerry pinched the bridge of her nose. “That was a mental image I didn’t really need.” She muttered.
“That’s not the point.” Jim said. “I don’t want her getting any ideas.”
“Well, all I can tell you is, any ideas she might get won’t be from us. We’re in a closed relationship. “ Kerry said. “I’ve never talked to your daughter about anything other than artisanal cheese and French bread.”
Dar leaned closer. “I get the protective father thing, Jim. I’ve got one too.” She said. “Lucky for me he’s not a closed minded bigot like you are.”
“I’m not a bigot.” He said. “I just don’t like gay people. I don’t want them around my family.” He didn’t seem angry, just resolute. “So my advice to you is, find some other place to live, because I’ve got ways to make it very uncomfortable for you here. Don’t push me to that.”
Kerry felt Dar’s whole body stiffen up and she put her hand out to stop her forward motion as she started to come past her. “Not worth it, hon.”
Dar stopped and went still, taking a few breaths. “No you’re right.” She said, in a flat tone. “Jim, you better find yourself a new place to live. Because if it’s the last thing I do on earth, I will ruin you, and you will truly regret ever saying that to me.”
It put a chill down Kerry’s spine, the ice in Dar’s voice she’d only heard a time or two before. She stayed still, watching the developer and her partner lock eyes, keeping her jaw locked shut on the torrent of angry words piling up behind her tongue.
Jim’s eyes narrowed. “I don’t take threats well, Roberts.”
“Neither do I.” Dar responded instantly, a rasp on the edge of her voice. “Especially not a slimy, pointless threat like yours is. I’ve lived here a decade and paid your residents fees and you took them and you knew damn well what my lifestyle was. So now I save your damn daughter from being raped and you threaten to have me evicted? Fuck you. Fuck you and everyone like you.”
Dar was furious. Kerry had never actually seen her partner this angry, and she was at a loss to know what to do to defuse it. Or if she should, because that anger felt clean, and right to her.
It was at that point where dangerous things could happen, and for a moment she was sure they would. Dar’s body was vibrating with tension, and Kerry knew there was a potent actual threat in the tall frame next to her.