Suzanne Nelson was raised just outside of San Francisco. A Stanford grad and varsity runner, she heads to New York City for law school. She is gay, but has come out to no one. In New York she meets Kerry Neally, a New Yorker and fellow student. Who is straight. First in a study group and then as a pair, they find themselves become attached to one another. And have to work out that Kerry thinks she's straight.
Eileen is Kerry's mother. She is a widow, and meeting Suzanne helps her leave the shell into which she placed herself after her husband died. And she comes to the attention of two men. One a widower. The other divorced. And love intevenes for her choice.
With Suzanne settled into her New York life, she turns her back on her parents, who turned their backs on Suzanne's aunt Mary, a gay woman disowned by her parents and brother decades before. She, too, lives in New York and she and Eileen attempt to get Suzanne's parents to understand their daughter. Kate Nelson comes to New York to reason with her daughter. As eventually does William, her father.
The story is about how the members of what becomes a large New York family deal with themselves, each other, and love.
Kerry: First Kiss!
I think my Mom and Mary were surprised that all Suze and I had done was go for a walk, but I think they understood. The two disappeared with Betty into the kitchen for a few minutes, and when they returned my Mom announced that she was going to a movie with her friends and would not be back until after six. Again she said it twice, "I won't be back until after six." Then she looked for a nod, and I have her "you won't be back till after six, I think we got it." It was like a vaudeville routine if vaudeville routines were what I thought they were.
"Just so you do. After six." and she gave out a little laugh before turning to the others and saying, "Okay girls, let's go." and they were gone.
Now, as it had been several hours ago, Suze and I were alone in my house and we were again nervous. I knew I was and I am pretty sure Suze was as well. I stepped up to her and placed my arms around her and she leaned towards me and I tilted my head slightly to the right and she closed her eyes and I kissed her and in a fraction of a second, she kissed me too and then I opened her lips with my tongue and I heard her moan and then she heard me moan. I pulled back.
"I'm ready and I really, really want you."
* * * *
Suze: Making Love
We kissed by the lake a few hours before and again when we stopped now-and-then during our walk but those were mere pecks compared to the tsunami unleashed on us. They say, or so I've heard in some of the stories I've read, and re-read, that there can be magic in a first kiss. And our "first kiss," down by the lake, had a hint of magic. This was different, as if Hermione cast a spell that forever bound two people to one another; hell, even a shot from Ron would have secured that result for us.
I was in an altered state, truly altered from what I had been less than twelve hours before, and still do not know how I ended up lying naked in Kerry's sole twin bed with my eyes feasting on her nakedness lying beside me, facing each other. She reached for my small right boob -- these happenings are burnt into my brain and my soul and these will always be remembered by me -- and then she moved her mouth to it and my eyes closed as she sucked on it. On me.
