The whole story (continued from Travel Plans)…

Author’s note.
July is a wash. I’ve only just started to have time to get back to my writing and only just started to get past my writers block. But I have been trying to use daily prompts to try and get back into the swing of things, and that has helped. When Future Travel Plans came up, I immediately thought of Judy. She doesn’t have much going on and she kind of popped up out of nowhere. As I started thinking about what her work is and where she might have been, her backstory started to come out. This may not all end up being cannon as there may be some continuity errors that I have not checked. But for now, this will serve as a record of where Judy was before arriving home at Casa Perez.
Enjoy!
-Vale

I don’t know, I don’t… I don’t have any travel plans. Not right now. Probably not for a while. At the moment, I’m focusing on being back home in Salinas and getting back into a normal routine. Since I’m on paid leave, at least for now, I’ve been breaking out my old rave fits tucked in the back of my closet at Sandra’s and getting back into the underground hypnotrance scene. The clothes don’t fit like they used to; Parts of me are squishing out in spots they never did before. But the raves I loved so much in my college years fit like a glove. I’ve reconnected with a few friends since I’ve been home and, well, partied.

That’s me. Right now. Living the present. Everything that came before that? That’s what I’m trying to distract myself from, trying not to think about. Because my pain box is still tiny and that fucking ball keeps bouncing around inside, hitting that button that makes me weep into my pillow at 3:00AM. I hate what happened. It’s stuck in my mind, thick like molasses and nothing I can do will wash it out. It has me reaching for my phone every time it buzzes and it’s making my heart ache when the silence in the room becomes too loud. No, I don’t know where I’m going.

But I can at least tell you about my last big trip. Might as well. I haven’t told anyone else yet. Not even Mom. But I need to tell someone…

I’m a biologist. And I’d been on an island for research work, Isla Guadalupe, 241 km from land and nowhere. That’s about 150 miles mind you, but by the way of San Diego port where we shipped in and out from, it was more like twice that. I arrived there nearly half a year ago. And things were going just fine, perfect even. Right up till the end. Right up ’til the Hosa Center of Research and Biology sent a boat for me under the guise of an early resupply of resources to stockpile at the outpost. It was also under the radar that it brought along with it my replacement, a man I knew casually from the research center. I was glad I’d said my goodbyes to Evie the night before because things got real awkward once Paul arrived. But I’d bid them both a good luck and a farewell and gotten on that platform supply ship. Twenty hours later, I was crashing in my studio loft near Cortez Hill with a hole in my chest and a pile of my personal belongings heaped in the corner.

That’s the short story. But it’s everything that happened between that matters most to me.

Isla Guadalupe isn’t a big island you see, so it doesn’t take a lot of scientists to observe and document. But being alone for months at a time can be too much for some people. I admit I am some people. Thankfully, I was paired up with a colleague from the center, and we’d gone out to the island together. Evelyn Carson. She’s older than I am by nearly a decade but between you, me, and the seagulls, she was by far the most beautiful thing on that island. We’d worked alone together on assignments before, but never for the time frame that Isla Guadalupe required. I’m a professional though. I knew I could put any personal desires aside and make it work. And I did.

At first…

We were there to study the rate of vegetation growth and diversity density. Since the island had been deemed a biosphere reserve, regular surveys of the island are conducted to monitor progress. Normally there was a whole team out here and for a much shorter amount of time. But due to budget cuts last year, it was just the two of us on the big ol’ island.

Our work meant a lot of daily hiking and a lot of time spent out in nature. But I loved that. Some of our day trips regularly required camping overnight on the far side of the island from camp. Those days were the best, waking up to the smell of salt and the sound of the serf outside the tent, watching the sunrise crest over Mt. Augusta. It was a lot of work and it meant a lot of time spent sharing your day with the only other person on the island. There were a few military types that ran the weather station but they didn’t count; they were on the other end of the island from us. Isla Guadalupe was a bare 5km across and just over 10 long. Small, but big. Even with the weather station, we were, for all intents and purposes, alone.

It took some time but my professional facade weathered and cracked in the harsh sun and fierce ocean breeze. We got close. Closer than we should have. Talking can be dangerous. And we talked a lot. We shared our thoughts and feelings with each other, our hopes and dreams. I… I ended up falling for her. Hard. After that dam broke, We couldn’t keep our hands off each other. If we weren’t making observations or writing reports or taking care of the outpost, we were in each other’s arms. Ours was a passion that burnt hot like the arid hills that we were there to study.

What had started simply as shared moments quickly grew over the weeks. I still remember, like it was yesterday, that first, furtive kiss, our lips glancing against each other as we sat under our shared blanket. The sunset we were there to watch, sank away, forgotten as our fingers twined together under the wool shielding us from the cool, ocean breeze. It tossed our hair and left us breathless as I laid back under the press of her desire. After that night, I never slept alone again on that island.

For weeks, that’s all it was. Kisses and sapphic embraces. We let our bodies simply learn the topography of the other. It was a new experience for me, vastly different from every other partner I’d ever had. Never before had I prioritized the sensual over the sexual. But there I was, my usually chronic need for release forgotten as I lay in Evie’s arms, night after night. Our explorations did eventually escalate of course. How could they not? We were loving each other. Thoroughly. The weird thing for me was, It didn’t matter how far we went. It just mattered that we were together. Up to that point, the physicality of a relationship was all about how fast my body could peak, and how hard. Evie was different. I’ve never connected so wholly, so totally with another person in my life. If what I had with Evie wasn’t a deep and romantic adore, I don’t know what else would be.

But just like in the stories, it was a love that wasn’t built to last… To say I was shocked when it came out that she was married and that her husband had found out about us was an understatement. I thought I was hers. I thought she was mine… And the revelation? It came from the pictures she took of us. Kissing, cuddling, mouths full. It wouldn’t have been new for me if she’d decided to post them online, but the fact of the matter was, it went to their shared cloud. One day he happened to get a notification and look and…

Was I dumb? Just naive? Maybe a little bit of both? Maybe a lot of both… I knew Evie and Carter from the research center, knew they were both a Carson. I’d seen them together before plenty of times but there was never a spark of passion between the two of them, no rings, no… No nothing. I thought they were related and I’d never bothered to look it up or ask. No one ever offered what they meant to each other either. It was all off my radar, even after we ended up on the island alone. For all I was aware, I thought they were nothing more than familial colleagues.

Even after the revelation, I still loved her. As much as I knew it would hurt not to hear from her, that was our mutual decision to break ties for the time being. I knew we couldn’t continue unless her husband was ok with it (fat chance), or they got a divorce. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve fucked married individuals before, sometimes both at once. But it was always on the up and up. Deception and cheating was not a game I liked to play and that made Carter a nearly insurmountable obstacle.

Especially because he was the team lead on the Isla Guadalupe research assignment. Carter was the reason I got sent home. I couldn’t blame him though. I might have done the same thing in his position, as petty as it was. But instead I was sent a boat. Really I should be grateful he didn’t make me swim to shore though the great whites.

That brings us back to the short story. Evelyn told me she was sorry, that she’d made a mistake with the pictures. But it was what it was, too late. Part of me was mad at her for keeping her marriage a secret, but the rest of me was swimming in hormones that made it hard to think straight. I stayed in her bed till the boat came, but we never found pleasure in each other again.

The hardest part now is wondering what will happen. To my job, certainly on the line with Carter in the mix now, and more importantly to, my love. With time to myself to sit and think and conjure, the doubt has settled in. Was it real? Did I really mean that much to her? I know I loved her and she told me she loved me. But now there’s a doubt in the back of my mind, nagging at me, whispering in my ear that I was just… Convenient. Why else would she have kept her relationship to Carlson a secret? She didn’t think we’d be found out. She could have broken it off before he…

I can’t… I… It hurts too much to consider the possibility.

So Travel.

No. Not for a while. Not until my position at Hosa Research is figured out and that means waiting for the board to review the “Incident.”

I checked my look in the mirror one more time. Knee hi boots over a medium fishnet bodysuit, pink, lycra booty shorts tight between my cheeks, iridescent heart pasties under a matching pink mesh bikini top and my hair in a do made me look like an anime protagonist. My shoulder pack cinched tight, I grabbed my keys and made my way out of Sandra’s house.

I guess I am traveling. Right now, to a rave in San Fran. After that? Whatever takes me forwards.