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“Is that you, love?” Veronica calls out from the vicinity of the kitchen.“It is,” Jocelyn responds, forcing her voice into a lilt she does not feel.“Tea’s almost ready.”“Be right there.” She slides the screen door closed behind her and slips out of her trainers.Her mum appears in the threshold to the dining room, apron donned and tea towel to hand. “How was town,” she asks cheerily, “Did you get your book?”But Jocelyn can’t do this. Not right now. She takes a deep breath, collects herself.“Give me a few minutes, alright?” she entreats, planting a swift kiss on Veronica’s cheek as she rushes past her on the way to the front hall. “I’m just gonna change,” she explains over her shoulder, “it’s so windy. Sand in everything.”It takes Jocelyn less than ten seconds to scale the flight of stairs and cross the landing to the bedroom that’s been hers since she was a child, since her parents, both lecturers at Exeter, had decided that the long commute from rural Dorset was well worth the view from top of Briar Cliff. Her mum, always entertaining former colleagues and visiting scholars, now uses it mostly as a guest room, but it’s still Jocelyn’s whenever she’s home from London. Two weeks at the start of July and then over the December holidays. Like clock work.Closing the door tightly behind her, she sets her purse and shopping bags down on the little desk by the window where she struggled through the interminable years of math homework, composed countless essays, and even studied for her Bar Course Aptitude Test.She perches herself on the edge of the bed, exhales, shuts her eyes tight, tries to control her breathing, her heartbeat.How long has it been since she’s seen Maggie Radcliffe? How many years since that glorious New Year’s Eve? That terrible New Year’s Day? Something like five or six now?Inhaling sharp breaths, she stabs at her chest, at her heart, with ramrod straight fingers.Don’t feel. Don’t cry. Don’t make a sound.She bites her top lip and tips her head back, pushing an index finger to each eye to help contain the blistering tears that are falling anyway.Compartments.But there it is. Again. That sensation. She’s afraid of it. She wants to run away. But it’s so familiar. So she forces herself to stay with it, sit with it.She exhales slowly, finally realizing, remembering: This is how Maggie made her feel. Quiet. Grounded, content. But fuzzy and floating all at the same time. She can’t catch her breath for the sobs that are stuck at the back of her throat. And there’s a warm tingle in her core, a flutter in her heart.She presses the heel of her hand into her ribcage, trying to stop the rising panic.It’s so painful, this feeling. It is thoroughly terrifying.It is love.Jocelyn inhales sharply at this recognition. This admission. It startles her, catches her by surprise. Tears finally falling, she lets her head drop into her hands.Bloody hell.She is in love with Maggie Radcliffe. Has been in love with her. All this while. It would seem.How can it be possible?It’s disconcerting, this new knowledge. But, somehow, it’s not really new at all. Somehow she has known it, deep in her bones, and it explains something she didn’t realize she had misunderstood about herself.It is actually a relief, this unexpected clarity.But what of Maggie?If only Jocelyn hadn’t turned back to take the receipt from the pink-haired, nose-pierced teenager at the till, or if she’d stopped for even a minute to put it in her bag first, she would’ve missed Maggie entirely.But no. As dreadful luck would have it, she emerged from the bookshop, momentarily blinded by the warm afternoon sun, just in time to collide quite forcefully with the Broadchurch Echo’s editor, sending limbs flailing and parcels flying.“Oh, shit!” she heard Maggie exclaim, “I’m so sorry! Wasn’t watching where I wa—”There. The moment of recognition. Of recollection. And Jocelyn regained her focus, her footing, just in time to see the bright confidence, the conviction, in Maggie’s eyes turn guarded. Wary. That dazzling smile exchanged for pressed lips and a hardened countenance.Maggie’s apology was sincere, it’s true, but decidedly chilly.They helped each other gather their respective belongings from where they had landed on the sidewalk. Maggie handed Jocelyn her novel, purchased for tomorrow’s journey back to London. And Jocelyn smoothed the pages of Maggie’s notepad, closing the cover carefully over the journalist’s scrawled shorthand.Jocelyn wished, fleetingly, for more time to decipher the markings, more time with Maggie. What’s she up to these days? Where is she coming from? What’s she working on? Does she ever think of me?She chastised herself for this last question; it was absurd.Then it was over. Another chance encounter with Maggie Radcliffe. That had changed everything. ***
Maggie plows determinedly through her newsroom and up the stairs to her office, interested in making eye contact with exactly no one. Her staff know to let her be when she’s in these moods, which usually signal the turning of her brilliant investigative mind and a resolve to immediately put pen to paper.This time, though, it’s nothing to do with work: although she hasn’t thought about it in years, Maggie remembers all too well the last conversation she ever had with Jocelyn Knight.How could she not?She hadn’t slept well. She’d been much too excited. At the possibility that her favourite barrister might want her, too. Might even love her. At the promise that sweet goodnight kiss held for her, for them. Together.She had tossed about restlessly for hours, perseverating, running through the events of the night before, recalling the moment when Jocelyn touched her lips, tentatively, tenderly, to hers, wondering over and over if she should’ve invited her in, and worried that Jocelyn wouldn’t understand why she hadn’t. Although it wasn’t for any grand reason. Honestly, she was a bit tipsy and just so stunned and exhilarated and mesmerized that she quite simply hadn’t thought of it.Maggie’d finally given up on getting any real sleep by about six o’clock and hauled herself out of bed. By half-nine, she’d expended most of her nervous energy on cleaning the oven and reorganizing the linen closet, both of which she’d been meaning to do for ages anyway.And since Jocelyn hadn’t called yet (probably, Maggie reasoned at the time, she was still sleeping, or thinking she was letting her sleep), Maggie decided to jump in the shower, head over to the Echo to check her email and the answering service, and then make her way up to their bench on the cliff top.Somehow, she had a feeling that’s where she’d find her beautiful QC on that New Year’s Day. So she waited, and was perfectly content do so. It was a glorious start to the new millennium. The temperature had warmed a bit, and the clear sky was broken only by translucent white clouds, like delicate puffs of smoke.She’d been sat on the bench—their bench—not even ten minutes when Jocelyn appeared over the rise, willowy and elegant, back from her own morning walk, and Maggie couldn’t help but grin. Her heart fairly beat out of her chest. She dragged her bangs, damp from the salty sea spray, out of her eyes, as Jocelyn perched hesitantly beside her.Maggie remembers thinking at the time how sweet it was that Jocelyn seemed a bit shy about all this, about the previous night, about this new direction in their relationship. It was only later that evening, while keeping sloppy, solitary company with a bottle of red, that she’d realized what a delusional moron she’d been. Jocelyn hadn’t been shy, she been reticent as fuck and probably would’ve preferred not to have run into Maggie at all that morning. She was, Maggie came to understand, probably hoping to leave Broadchurch that day without seeing her at all.Instead, though, fizzy with anticipation and excitement, Maggie reached for Jocelyn’s gloved hand and was just about to suggest breakfast at the little café by the pier when Jocelyn abruptly stopped her—stopped them—from continuing.“I’m sorry about last night,” Jocelyn had said. “Too much champagne.”Maggie felt her face fall, her eyes narrow, the air leave her lungs. But, for some inexplicable reason, she resisted the impulse in that moment to rail against Jocelyn. She recalls that she thought she saw… something—was it regret?—in Jocelyn’s eyes.But it was such a long time ago, and Maggie’s wondered so many times since then if maybe she had misinterpreted. Misconstrued. Misrecognized the spark between them, the strength of their connection. Maybe she’d imagined the whole bloody six months, for goodness sake! Especially since she’d neither seen nor heard from Jocelyn in the interim. She had simply disappeared into London. Without a trace.“It’s alright,” Maggie had said then, proud of how steady her voice was. While her heart, her hope, shattered. It was as if she were being pierced from the inside out by a thousand needles.“Still friends?” Jocelyn had asked.“Of course,” Maggie replied, quickly squeezing Jocelyn’s gloved hand and managing a weak smile, “always friends.”Then, looking to the sea for clarity, for composure, and genuinely wondering how Jocelyn envisioned this ‘friends’ thing working when they had been so close to something more, Maggie asked, attempting nonchalance, “When do you head back then?”“This afternoon.”“Oh.”The reality of Jocelyn’s rejection plunged a final needle into Maggie’s heart as surprise turned to disappointment and then quickly to anger. Because Maggie knew that Jocelyn didn’t need to be in court until Wednesday, so she’d planned to stay at least through the week-end.Maggie waited, hoping for an explanation, but Jocelyn just stared at her. Actually, that’s not true. She was staring beyond her; she didn’t see her at all.And all of a sudden Maggie just wanted to get the fuck out of there. Away from the hurt, the devastation, the lies.“Right,” she responded tersely, putting a palm to each knee, “I should let you get to it then.”Whatever the ‘it’ might have been, Maggie hasn’t ever been sure. But she does remember standing, hoisting her bag up and across her shoulders. She remembers hot tears pressing against her eyelids. And she remembers being absolutely determined to look Jocelyn straight on anyway. She wanted—needed—her to know that she saw her, saw through her fucking lie. And that she was trying, really doing her best, to understand it.What had happened last night after Jocelyn left her? The Inns of Court can’t be easy places, Maggie reasoned. And she opened her mouth to ask what, if anything, could be done to make it—them—work. Together.But the life, the energy, the hope, had gone out of Jocelyn’s eyes, and Maggie realized then that whatever she’d try to say, to ask, would hit the stone wall Jocelyn had already erected around her heart.For protection?“Take care of yourself, yes?” was all Maggie could think to say.Jocelyn said nothing; she just nodded slightly and then looked away, out toward the rolling grey waves.And Maggie walked down the footpath, back into town. ***
Later that night, long after Veronica has retired to the master bedroom down the hall, Jocelyn lies awake in the bed that’s been hers since she was a child, listening to the crickets chirping out in the garden. Beyond that, there is the sea, black and churning under the July moon. She usually finds comfort in that sound, but tonight it serves only to add to her agitation, her restlessness.For the first time since she ran away that New Year’s Day, she finds that, however hard she tries, she just can’t seem to force her mind away from thoughts and images of Maggie: blonde curls flying that day on the pier; their quiet intimacy that Sunday afternoon on the boat; long letters and longer phone calls as summer turned into autumn.She smiles, her heartbeat hastening as she recalls that wet October weekend Maggie spent in London: How her breath caught when she saw Maggie for the first time in three months, hair damp from waiting in the drizzle; how welcoming and homey Maggie had made the flat feel. Tea and toast for breakfast over the paper the next morning. Maggie’s warm laugh, her dazzling smile. Slate blue eyes glinting in the dim light of that little cocktail bar near Somerset House; the feel of Maggie’s hand in hers, her hand resting lightly in the small of Maggie’s back; the intensity of Maggie’s gaze when they fell together, laughing, onto the couch in Jocelyn’s living room.It is here, remembering the exquisite feel of Maggie’s body, soft and warm underneath hers, that Jocelyn finally gives in to the urge to squeeze and massage her own breasts. She plucks at already-taut nipples, kneads her belly, and then runs slow, firm hands down across each hip, resting an open palm above her heat, one finger pressing down through the thin fabric of her silk panties.It’s been such a long time since she thought about what might’ve happened that night in London. If she had kissed Maggie Radcliffe when she’d wanted to. In that split second when their noses almost touched, when Maggie’s breath was hot on her neck, breasts and bellies pressed together quite by accident under layers of undergarments and winter vests.She honestly hadn’t planned to fall in love. With anyone. Let alone with the intrepid editor of the Broadchurch Echo, who was way out of her league in any case.She can feel the moist heat between her legs now, so she shimmies out of her panties and hitches up her nightdress. She rolls over and, using the mattress as leverage, presses her fingers more firmly into her soft wetness to find that perfect spot.Mindful of her mum asleep in the room down the hall, she allows herself the softest of moans as she pushes a finger in, then two, her thumb rhythmically circling and rubbing her nub.For the first time since that autumn all those years ago, she gives herself permission to imagine that it’s Maggie’s hand rather than her own touching her, stroking her, reaching into her, and the thought almost sends her over the edge.What if she had kissed Maggie that night in London when she wanted to? Would Maggie have kissed her back?That close, Jocelyn could see every line around Maggie’s eyes, and she recalls wanting to trace them with her fingertips, to run her hands through those errant blonde curls.If Maggie had kissed her back, would she have had the courage then, the confidence, to press her body into hers, to touch her, to pleasure her? To love her?Jocelyn can feel muscles beginning to contract around her slick fingers, so she pushes her hips hard down onto them. Rocks up and down. Faster.And what about that Christmas Eve? She remembers hardly anything about that night except that it took everything she had to keep her hands to herself. She has a quite vivid memory of Maggie’s long fingers wrapped around the stem of a wine glass and wishing she and that glass could somehow trade places. All evening, she had wanted to be closer to Maggie. To kiss her, to caress her, to ask for more.Then a week later, sat together on their bench on the cliff top: the light from the fireworks reflected in Maggie’s eyes, Maggie’s head on Jocelyn’s shoulder, the blissful walk back to Maggie’s house in town, the curve of Maggie’s lips against hers in the chilly night air. Her citrus-y scent. That dazzling smile.Jocelyn comes with a breathless, broken “oh,” drawing her fingers slowly out and across her centre for one more satisfying jolt before collapsing onto the mattress.But the hazy rapture lasts only seconds before she has to bury her face in her pillow to muffle the hard sobs. Mourning what could’ve been. Had she been ready. Had she known herself. Had she not been so afraid.
The End. Except not really. :~)