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Brandy had already shot perfectly upright before she registered she was even awake, heart pounding with a thundering vigour and breaths vacuuming air in and releasing it at such a rate that she barely felt any of it reach her lungs. The fur around her forehead felt damp and her body far too warm, which was becoming quite the stark contrast to the harsh chill of the winter breeze that was already starting to prickle against her bare body. She garnered a guess that it likely filtered itself in through the window across the room that she never remembered to close. It wasn’t quite like spots in the lower ends of Australia, but the cold that Brisbane could bring was far from a joke when it wanted to be.
Shaking herself out of her trance, Brandy focused her senses to her surroundings which were just barely visible to her on account of the gleaming moonlight that shone in through the window, giving a view of the lit buildings from the city in the distance, what might as well be a planet’s distance from the terrors of right now. Her panting had slowed down to a reasonable level and she inhaled as deep as she could before throwing her paws upwards, dropping her head into them with a dizzying intensity. The sound of her sobs were barely stifled as tears heated up her eyes, moistening the palms of her paws as her whole body shook with the steady flow of her cries.
It was right after the moan of a sharp inhale that the rustling of a lump in the bed left of her perked up Brandy’s ears, reminding her that she wasn’t alone on this night. Memories of the sweet joys from last night flashed through her mind, the best dinner date she could ask for with her beloved, followed by a simple and quiet evening together in their house. To call it perfect would be delivering a disservice to it, but unfortunately such niceties were a lifetime away right now, and Brandy could only despairingly wish that it was her and her alone.
“Brandy, sweet, do you know where the quilt’s gone off to?” The sound of Calypso’s slightly groggy yet still honey-smooth voice wafted through the air. Under other circumstances Brandy would have done nothing but drink in the sweet sounds and undertones of her lover’s voice, a desperate sponge to a fountain of liquid gold. Even amidst her sorrow, Brandy couldn’t help the shiver that ran up her spine, and the yearning instinct to throw herself onto the other dog and have her in her grasp, as if the very world were in her paws. Unfortunately, the last thing she wanted was for Calypso to see her in this miserable state; meek, vulnerable and
Utterly pathetic.
After some seconds passed, Calypso’s question finally struck through her enamoured yet grief-striken haze, and she lifted her head quickly, her eyesight desperately darting around to find the blanket before the other dog noticed anything about Brandy’s current turmoil. If she were fast enough, Calypso might not notice and would go straight back to sleep, saving Brandy the trouble of dragging her into this personal and needless mess. Fortunately, with a bit of frantic searching, she noticed the quilt laying at the foot of the large bed, clearly having nearly fallen off with Brandy’s panicked awakening from earlier. She would be absolutely embarrassed if her mind wasn’t practically a complete swirl of worms, wriggling and writhing about all over each other in complete chaos.
“Y-Yea, it’s just right here, hold on a sec!” Brandy managed to choke out with some difficulty, far from the calm and composed nature that she’d initially hoped to give off but at least she got all the words out. She leaned herself forward, slowly extending out an arm she didn’t realise was trembling to grab back the cover of sheer warmth that lay resting on the other side of the bed, but before her paw could reach even halfway to its intended destination, she felt another paw wrap around her own. It was as warm as the sun had ever felt, a comforting blanket of its own stopping her arm right in its tracks.
“Brandy, listen, I could hear you just before,” She started. “I won’t pry, but I think it would help to talk about it and I’m right here for you to listen if you want.” Brandy felt the Australian Shepherd’s other paw placed gently on her cheek, moving her head toward her so that their two pairs of eyes were locked into each other. In the light of the sparkling moon, Brandy could take in Calypso’s gorgeous face just barely well enough, the way the orange flowed from her cheeks to allow the snow white flow from her muzzle upwards to the mix of ashen colours atop in her hair and ears. It was a sea of colours that Brandy would drown herself in without complaint if she could.
It was a glorious eternity of a second before her eyes found themselves lost in Calypso’s features, her brow furrowed, her lips folded and her head somewhat tilted. It was clear that her whole face just screamed with concern for Brandy, further emphasised with a thumb she felt stroking the fingers of her left paw. The Shepherd’s lips turned upwards hopefully, perhaps believing that Brandy would open up to her just like that. But she didn’t need to drag Calypso into her own turmoil, didn’t need to pointlessly distress her any more than she already had tonight, didn’t need to ruin everything they had worked towards and built together with a deep dive of Brandy’s own idiotic little thoughts. She wouldn’t do that to someone as good as her.
Brandy reached her other paw up and placed it over Calypso’s own that rested face, briefly cherishing the split second intimacy before wrenching it off. She turned her head to the side and downward, breaking the personal dance their collective eyesight had been engaged in.
“It’s fine, really, I-I’ll just forget about it in the morning anyway.” She muttered out, breaking all contact with the other dog and reaching for the blanket again, this time unstopped by Calypso, who she heard let out a small sigh. “And I really don’t want to trouble you, you’ve got a tight sleep schedule, remember?” Brandy’s paw gripped the blanket, pulling it up back so it lay square over Calypso’s lower half, although it seemed as it that was the last thing on her girlfriend’s mind.
“I don’t think-” Was all she could get out before Brandy continued her spiel.
“My own stupid issues shouldn’t matter to you, come on let’s-”
“Brandy!” Calypso’s voice rang out with a piercing cry. Brandy couldn’t help but wince at the sudden outburst. She’d never heard the other dog raise her voice under any circumstances, not even with the rowdiest and loudest of children in her class, so to hear her refuse to hold back like this really had her put in her place. With Brandy’s full attention now, Calypso folded the blanket off of her and put her arms on either side of Brandy’s shoulders.
“Brandy, you are nothing short of an absolutely fantastic dog, you put so much care into the people and world around you and never ask for anything back. I cannot think of anyone else who has a heart of gold the way you do. Really, I don’t think I need to remind you of the time just last week you forgot about that toy from the bookstore.” The two of them let out a breath of a chuckle. Brandy could virtually run the event in her mind from start to finish. She remembered how infatuated she had been with the plushies from the toy section, citing that of course her nieces, Bluey and Bingo, would absolutely adore the little stuffed cheetahs. How panicked, frantic and most of all, very outspoken she had become in public, unfortunately which included Calypso, about how she had forgotten to pay for said toys. How apologetic she had been to the person behind the counter to the point of extreme discomfort from the store clerk who really couldn’t have cared all that much over a couple of missing toys.
Calypso noticed the smirk on Brandy’s lips increase ever so slightly, and she continued. “You are so well-intentioned it hurts to see you put yourself through this. Your issues aren’t stupid at all, they matter to you and that means they matter to me. I don’t want you to push me away about any of this just because you might be afraid of hurting me. I want to talk to you about whatever is going on and I want to be there for you no matter what, okay?” Calypso leaned in her head to Brandy, placing their foreheads against each other. It was a gesture that brought Brandy more comfort than she realised was possible.
“Would you please talk about it with me right now? It doesn’t have to be everything, just whatever’s at the forefront of your mind right now.” With a plea that sincere, Brandy had no chance of keeping up the wall she put up to keep her woes inside. She let out a defeated sigh and begrudgingly nodded her head.
“Yea. You’re right. Of course you’re right. God, okay, I’ll need a minute.” Calypso retracted her arms as Brandy turned around and lay back towards the head of the bed, resting the back of her head against her pillow. She turned her head over at Calypso, who had tucked her legs underneath her, sat upright with her paws balled up near her knees, waiting patiently for Brandy to tell her whatever she needed to. She caught the other’s gaze, and with a gentle, caring smile, outstretched her fingers and gestured to her legs with a couple of pats. It took a second for Brandy to get the message, but it struck her after a moment of thought, and with a thankful smirk forming on her face, she wrested herself back up and turned around before laying back down, this time her head resting against Calypso’s legs.
She could have fallen asleep in the state of bliss she was in. The fur underneath her head was soft, a comfortable material that her pillow had no hope of matching, and Calypso’s stunning face far above was akin to the sun, a cosy presence that she would swear rivalled the star’s own warm rays. If not for the promise of letting out all the tensions within, she would have fallen asleep on the spot and slept for as long as she possibly could without a single care in the world. Alas, she knew such wishful thinking had to wait.
“So my sister, Chilli? You know her pretty well.” Calypso bobbed her head up and down gently before Brandy resumed her wavered words. “It was me, her, Bluey and Bingo, just y’know hanging at the Heeler’s house, I guess it was like supposed to be one of my visits that I’m trying to have more regularly? Oh, this was a dream by the way. Sorry, I should have mentioned.” Calypso ran a paw through Brandy’s hair, signalling that it was more than alright, and fluttering Brandy’s heart ever so slightly.
“We were just playing around at first, the kids had some sort of game going on, running and jumping all around, I don’t remember what it was exactly. I suppose it doesn’t really matter. I was chatting with Chilli, we were sitting in the kitchen, and just catching up with life stuff or something. I might have mentioned you at one point.” Brandy murmured, a blush forming on her face before she hastily continued, embarrassingly eager to hide the fact she noticed a slight tilt of Calypso’s head.
“The kids ran up to me all of a sudden, both of them, and started climbing up all over me. They basically shot up my legs and just skittered all over me like spiders, creeping and crawling over my entire body. It… Was kind of charming. In the moment.” She paused. It had been really nice, even if it was in a dream, to be validated as someone that could be played with in the eyes of a child.
“I grabbed the kids and, they just, I don’t even know. They turned into gunk? Some kind of muck? Goo? They just melted in my arms! Completely liquefied and disappeared into the floor. I don’t think I was freaking out or anything, I just stared as the two gooped onto the floor. I didn’t know it was a dream, so like I just didn’t react or anything, just stared. And, well, Chilli started freaking out. Not about the kids, she just pointed a finger at me and…” Brandy hesitated, closing her eyes, and taking a shaking breath. She reached a paw up to meet Calypso’s, which was still rested on her head, and squeezed lightly, a reminder of solace just for herself.
“She went completely berserk at me. Told me it was a mistake for me to have come back into her life, that I should have stayed gone forever. That she would have been better off if I’d never existed. That I was a pathetic excuse of a sister, and…” Brandy felt Calypso’s other paw wipe away the streams of tears dribbling from her eyes, a gesture that brought the brightest of smiles to her face amidst the pure sorrow that threatened to overtake her once more.
“Next thing she said was she was so glad I’d never get to have kids of my own. What a horrible mother I would have been to a-any offspring of mine. How-how shitty my kid’s lives would have been compared to hers, and that she’d never wanted to see me again.” Brandy bit her lip as hard as she could, holding back the wave of sobs trying to break their way past her throat. She thought she could taste blood, but she didn’t care. The last thing she wanted to do was seem weak and overly emotional. Pathetic.
Amongst the fresh tears blurring her eyes, Calypso’s upside down head came closer and closer down to her, until she was just above her face. She pressed her lips over Brandy’s brow, planting the most tender kiss Brandy had ever felt from her. Even if it felt like Calypso were granting her permission to continue, she was too emotionally invested to stop now.
“And that’s when I woke up all flustered before. It’s just- I-I mean, it’s stupid right? It wasn’t real. It was just in some silly dream and it wasn’t actually me and Chilli so none of this should matter really. Right? Calypso?” Brandy continued, still trying to rationalise how dumb this all must have seemed, begging and praying that Calypso would drop the whole ordeal. Instead, Calypso raised her head upwards slightly and brought her eyes right up to Brandy’s.
“It’s not stupid, Brandy, nothing you say or feel could ever be stupid. Whether it actually happened or not, it’s hurting you in some way, and I don’t want to see you suffer like this. I think we both know Chilli would never feel any of that towards you in real life. As your sister and as a person, I’m sure she loves you for who you are, regardless of whatever you did before.” Brandy took some seconds to ruminate on this, before giving a small nod and a faint hum. Apparently this wasn’t exactly the response Calypso was hoping for and, after some short contemplation, she carried on.
“You’ll have to forgive me if I step over any boundaries, please let me know if I do,” This time another squeeze of their hands, this time from Calypso. “And I’m only speculating right now here, but do you think the Chilli in your dream might be some extension of how you feel about yourself in some way?” Brandy turned her head to the side, contemplating the likelihood of Calypso’s theory while giving her cheek a glorious turn to feel the euphoric fur of Calypso’s leg.
“I don’t know. It could be true I guess? I’ll be honest, part of me does wonder whether I should have just stayed away, just left Chilli alone to live her own life while I lived out whatever mine would have been. I don’t know if things would have been better and I know I wouldn’t have met you, but-” She let out a sigh. She knew she shouldn’t contemplate on what-ifs, that would lead nowhere and just spiral her mind more than it already had been. She steered her brain back onto what she knew for sure.
“Sometimes it hurts. Sometimes it really does. It’s painful to see Chilli go through something that I never could. I was right there with her through the first time she-” She almost let slip about the first experience Chilli had and how horribly that had ended, but stopped herself before the words left her lips. It wouldn’t have been fair to Chilli if she just casually told people what her sister went through without her consent or knowledge. Thinking of what to amend her sentence with, she quickly continued, Calypso’s face unchanged at the hiccup and hopefully remaining none the wiser.
“When she had Bluey, it was a little more than a kick in the gut for me. I started to realise exactly what I was missing out on, something that everyone around me, friends, neighbours or even strangers, could go through. There’s something special about being able to bring life into the world, to protect and cherish something so precious and know that it would grow and grow and create so many life memories. I saw Chilli experience something so special that I found out I never could, and it just wore on me the whole time.” Brandy threw her arms out on either side of her as she ranted, each one landing spread out with a ‘poomf’ against the bed.
“God, I was so foolish, I never brought it up, never told her anything and it just festered inside me until it all spilled over into an argument. Growing up we never argued over anything, if one of us took the other’s doll, it was just something to shrug off. If we accidentally bruised the other while playing, we’d just hug it out and keep on with our game. Even in high school, when we both started getting all moody especially towards each other, we somehow made it work. Not a single fight through both our schooling days. And trust me, we nearly got there a fair few times.” She couldn’t help but let out a nervous chuckle at her own comment.
“I thought we were as close as could be, but when I found out down the line that she was having a child, I realised I wanted the same thing. I was almost immediately in front of the sperm bank and I went through the whole process without a second thought. It took a while for me to realise, I just thought something was wrong with the place I went to, so I tried again, and again and again. It wasn’t long after Bluey was born that it clicked for me. I went and got tested and…well you know. Anyway Chilli tried talking to me when she found out and, I just… God, Calypso, I completely exploded. Said some things I don’t think either of us will ever forget. I even blamed the fact I couldn’t have a child on her, can you believe that? Literally, threw the test notes at her and everything. I was such an imbecile, and downright brainless I-” It was here that Calypso placed a finger over Brandy’s mouth and let out a shush. She motioned for Brandy to sit up, which she proceeded to do rather sluggishly, and stretched out her arms, signalling an embrace for Brandy. The two practically fell into each other, Brandy nuzzling her head into Calypso’s neck and sobbing her heart out into the other woman’s collarbone. It brought a strange kind of relieving feeling to Brandy, but not an unwelcome one. It was hard to put a finger on it exactly and what it meant to her. Not that it mattered all that much right now.
Some minutes passed before her bawls quietened down enough once more for her to rationally speak again, and now with a strange sense of ease, Brandy proceeded her train of thought. “I don’t want anything right now to change, but I also wish things were just different from the start. I wish I didn’t have something wrong with my damned body. I wish people would stop telling me to just adopt, as if it’s some kind of simple fix and that would be that. As if I were naïve to want to know what’s it’s like to- to bring life into the world! To see someone grow from a new born, to put up with all the joys and hardships of a child, all of it. I know adoption is an option, I know it works for some people but it’s just not nearly enough. Not for me. I don’t care if there’s no other way, it’s just not fair! It’s just not fair, it’s just not fair.” Her voice had fallen to a whisper at this point, each word begging Calypso to lean into her body and strain her ears through the otherwise deafening silence. Still, neither of them moved a muscle, unusually content to stay exactly as they were.
“I hate being broken. I wish I had anyone else’s body and I wish we could have a family. A proper family, one we could watch grow from the ground up and spend our whole lives building up from. We would take them to school everyday and watch them make friends and play all they like and then they would start arguing with us and make us feel like shit, it would be so hard but so funny, something we could laugh about down the line. Then before we’d know it they’d be an adult and they’d go out into the world and eventually we would become old and wrinkly and withered and it wouldn’t matter because we’d all always be there for each other no matter what. But we can’t. I’m broken and there’s nothing we can do about it and I’m a failure to everyone. A failure to my dad, a failure to my sister, a failure to my mother, a failure to you.” As she finished her sentence, she realised the embrace she had found herself in was uncomfortably tight, almost like Calypso would lose her forever if she were to let go. Brandy had to tap the Australian Shepherd on the back a couple times before the other dog realised she was more or less choking her lover. Instantly letting go, the two fell back, sniffling and awkwardly chuckling both at once.
With space between them once more, Brandy was given another blessed and moon-lit view of Calypso’s wonderful face, heartbreak soon settling within her guilt-ridden chest. A clear trickle of tear stains rippled down Calypso’s cheeks, soiling her precious visage. The ache in her bosom was now much more painful than everything that she had gone through since her startled awakening. She just about to apologise as profusely as she possibly could before Calypso parted her lips and spoke once more for the first time in what felt like forever.
“Brandy, I can’t claim to know what it’s been like. I’ve never thought far into the future about my future partners, motherhood or any children I might have had. It didn’t matter too much to me who I would end up with until you came along. You’ve been an amazing presence in my life from the very day we first met and I know for a fact, in all our time together, there’s not a single thing about you that I don’t adore. You’re not a failure. You’re not broken. Not in any way. Whether or not you’re able to give birth doesn’t define who you are as a person, and it certainly doesn’t change the fact that I do want to spend the rest of my life with you Brandy Cattle, children or not. You’re more than perfect just the way that you are and I’m always going to be here to remind you of that.”
If Brandy had any more tears left in her, they would have utterly poured out by now. Instead, all she could muster herself to do was gradually wrap herself into her lover’s grasp once more. With her newly cleared mind, Brandy registered the scent of mango that permeated gracefully from the other’s silky soft fur. She wished this mere moment could last until the end of time, two souls intertwined and forever lost in each other.
“I don’t deserve you.” Brandy ultimately purred out.
“You deserve much more than little old me.” Came Calypso’s response.
“Last I checked you were still taller.” Brandy was quick with a reply.
“It’s something you’ve checked?” Calypso reared her head back and gave Brandy an inquisitive peer. The Cattle Dog could only chortle unabashedly, followed shortly with the same noises coming from the Australian Shepherd, joy making its way back into the room and coating the two with its homely hold.
It was minutes later, not long after their hysterics had died down when their eyes met once again that night, and they found themselves leaning in closer and closer to each other, the breath from their muzzles blowing against their mouths until their lips were mere centimetres apart, yet they kept moving in closer. It wasn’t long before their mouths found themselves in a waltz of pure passion, undying love expressed in the most fervent of ways. Their tongues explored everything about each other, keen on baring their enthusiasm without a hint of declination. Fireworks exploded all around in Brandy’s mind, sparks lighting up all over her as she were fifteen again and experiencing the very first kiss of her life. Nothing else mattered except the dog she was sharing this intimacy with.
Surprisingly, it was Brandy who broke away first. As much as she had wished with every fibre of her being to keep going, she knew the hour was far too late for them to be awake. The two urgently needed as much rest as they could get before the sun returned.
“We should probably get back to sleep.” Was all she breathed out, and she could essentially feel the understanding radiate from Calypso, who merely gave a satisfied nod in response. With some shifting, the two were back under the warmth of the blanket, Brandy tucked within Calypso’s arms, hands clasped around each other’s, and her head rested atop her own. To call it bliss would have been the world’s biggest understatement.
Soon enough, sleep began to reach its way into the depths of Brandy’s mind, and her eyelids began to falter, before they shut themselves entirely. Her very last thoughts that night were the recollection of the funny little feeling she felt when she let out all of her anguish into Calypso’s neck earlier. She was finally able to label whatever it was she felt, that strange bittersweet emotion. It told her; ‘things right now may not be okay, not entirely, but certainly, with her sister and her family back in her life, and with the most perfect dog in the world beside her, they most definitely would be.’
She couldn’t have felt more whole than she did now.