Stunned, Regan chugged her beer and got up to head for the kitchen. "I'm getting another. Are you ready?"

Callie looked at her beer from which she'd taken two sips and said, "No. Not yet."

When Regan came back, she sat down and took another long drink. "I told Angela when we'd just started going out that I never wanted to hear about anyone she'd been with. I don't like to think of the person I'm with ever having been kissed by another person." She took another drink of her beer, still fl.u.s.tered. "I don't think you and I are made the same way."

"That's what I was referring to earlier. Everybody has stuff when it comes to s.e.x. You just need to figure out how to make it work if it's important to you."

Regan took another drink, her eyes focused on the window. "s.e.x is very important," she said quietly. "s.e.x is how I show someone I love her. It's a great way to communicate. But if you don't have love and trust and respect and concern for each other the best s.e.x in the world isn't going to hold your relationship together."

"I understand that. I really do. But that's the ideal. You don't always get the perfect lover. So you figure out how to make it work, even if it's outside of your comfort zone."

The front door buzzed and Regan got up to answer it, mulling over Callie's words. Her view seemed to be that you took people as you found them, then figured out how to make s.e.x work. That was so ridiculous that it didn't merit a comment. You only let yourself fall for the right person. You didn't take every bit of trash you found by the road. But Marina was trash, and Callie would have still been with her if Marina had been more careful. And that was unconscionable.

They ate their food in relative silence. That wasn't odd for them, so Callie chalked it up to Regan's being tired. But she had an edgy energy that showed itself when she got up to clean the kitchen, telling Callie to stay where she was.

Callie watched her work, seeing the tense, rigid set to her shoulders. She knew something was up, and as soon as Regan came back into the room she could feel her stomach start to flip. Regan sat down beside her and said, "We need to talk."

Trying to create some moisture in her arid mouth, Callie merely nodded.

Regan looked as earnest and as nervous as Callie had ever seen her. The first words from her mouth caused Callie's mouth to drop open in astonishment. "I love you," she said, her voice shaking. "I love you so much it hurts. And I wish with all my heart that we could be together, but... we can't."

"What?" She jumped up so fast her head spun. "What are you talking about?"

"It wouldn't work. It just wouldn't."

"Regan!" she snapped. "Spit it out."

"I don't think it was wrong of you to be in a relationship like the one you were in with Marina, but... Oh, s.h.i.t. I've gotta be honest. I do think it was wrong. I can't get that out of my mind. It's like you were cheating even though you weren't."

"Pardon me? You're saying you can't love me because I was in an open relationship?"

"Yeah. That's exactly what I'm saying."

"You don't know the first thing about how it was between Marina and me. Not the first thing."

"I know that I wouldn't do something that I thought was wrong, no matter how much my partner wanted it."

Callie was almost yelling. "You do what you need to do to make the person you love happy."

"Then I guess I'm not as giving as you are. I was willing to do almost anything. Almost anything. But I would never, ever have agreed to let Angela have s.e.x with other people."

"And the fact that I let Marina means that I'm damaged goods?"

"Yes, that's bad enough. But the fact that you did it is worse. I hate to judge you, but the fact that you could be in love with her and sleep with other women-even though you had permission-freaks me out."

"I didn't sleep with other women!"

There was a moment of complete silence. Then, sounding less sure of herself, Regan said, "Of course you did."

"Shouldn't I be the one who knows? Our relationship was open, but I was monogamous. I could have slept with other people if I wanted to, but I didn't want to. I was with Marina. Only Marina."

"You're kidding."

"I don't find this very funny, so no, I'm not kidding. Why do you a.s.sume that I was sleeping around?"

"Why in the heck would you be in a relationship like that if you didn't want to sleep around?"

"I told you why. Because Marina needed it."

"We've talked about this before. In depth. Why didn't you ever tell me the whole truth?"

"You never asked me specifically. And, to be honest, I always felt like a bit of an idiot for letting her do it while I didn't want to."

"Wait. Just wait a second."

"I'm waiting," Callie said when Regan didn't comment for a full minute.

"You must have known that I would have thought you slept with other women. Why didn't you make it clear that you didn't?"

"I didn't know you'd think that. Actually, since I never mentioned being with anyone else I thought you'd a.s.sume I was monogamous."

"What? That's kinda out there. That's expecting a lot of me to guess that."

"No, it's not," she said softly. "If you really knew me you would have guessed that. I've told you how good things were between us s.e.xually. I've told you how much she turned me on. I love s.e.x but I'm not compulsive about it. Why would I want more when things worked so well?"

Regan sighed deeply. "I don't know. I just a.s.sumed-"

"You a.s.sumed wrong. I didn't need more s.e.x. I didn't need variety. I'm a monogamous person who was in a relationship with a non-monogamous person. That's it."

"I should have guessed that. I should have known you're not the type-"

"Stop right there! I don't have to defend what I've done in the past. It's actually none of your business who I've slept with. If Marina and I had an open relationship, that's between us."

"You're right. That's none of my business." She stood up and looked around, her aimless gaze scanning all of the horizontal surfaces. "Do you know where I put my keys? I need to go home."

"Home? You can't drop a bomb like this and leave!"

"I can't think straight. I just can't. I need to go home and let this settle."

Callie reached down and took Regan's hand, holding it tightly. "Don't shut me out. Please."

"I'm not trying to, but I'm... really, really not sure of what's going on in my head. I need some time alone. Is that okay?"

Callie helped her to her feet. "Okay. Are you able to drive? You look pretty vacant."

"Yeah, I'll be fine. I just need to think."

"All right. Call me when you get home, okay? I'll worry."

Her smile was wan and looked very weary. "I will. G'night."

By the time Regan had walked out the door Callie was slumped down on the sectional. That had gone very, very badly. But it wasn't obvious what had happened. What was Regan so upset about? How did it affect her? It was ma.s.sively confusing, but it was bad. It was clear that it was bad.

The next day Regan arrived unannounced at seven p.m. Callie buzzed her up and stood in the door, gazing at her questioningly. "You don't look good," she said, seeing her pale face and red-rimmed eyes.

"I didn't sleep."

"Come on in. Do you want some iced tea or something?"

"No." She moved into the room with a strange sort of tentativeness, like she wasn't entirely welcome. Stiffly, she sat on the edge of a chair and said, "I know what had me spooked last night."

Nervously, Callie sat on the couch and waited, not saying a word.

"It took me hours, but it finally got clear this afternoon. I went out for a long run and it all fell into place."

"Go on," Callie said, knowing it was awful news.

"Here's the truth." Regan's pale blue eyes were filled with sadness when they locked onto Callie's. "I thought the fact that you had s.e.x with other women while you were with Marina was the thing that was stopping me from being with you." She looked down at her hands which were rapidly interlacing and breaking apart. "It wasn't."

"What was?" Callie asked, not wanting to hear the answer.

"The fact that you were monogamous almost makes it worse."

"What?" For the second day in a row Callie yelled at Regan, something she hadn't done in the year she had known her.

"That might sound weird, but it's true. I thought about what you said and you're right. It's been stupid of me to focus on your relationship with Marina. If you both wanted other partners and that worked for you-no big deal."

"But..." Callie supplied when Regan seemed to lose steam.

"But you settled for a relationship where she got everything and you got the leftovers. That makes me question how well you know yourself, how much self-esteem you have, how much you're willing to give up just to keep your partner happy." She clasped her hands together so forcefully that her knuckles turned white. "That's not the kind of partner I want." Her voice was so quiet that the cars going down the street outside almost overpowered it, but Callie was listening raptly and heard every word.

Callie's voice was low and harsh when she said, "And you've been thinking about this for the whole summer?"

"Yeah. It's never made sense to me. You just don't seem like the kind of woman who'd want a bunch of s.e.x partners. I struggled with it, trying to make it make sense. Then, last night, it finally did. You've got the kind of moral code I need, but you don't have the..."

"The what? Come on. What don't I have?"

"I don't... I don't think you have the self-respect." She winced when she said it, and looked like she wanted to run from the apartment. But she stayed right where she was, even though she was shaking.

"You'd better go home." Callie used all of her self-control to sound calm. "Now."

Regan looked at her, her puzzled expression touchingly innocent. Callie put a hand under her arm and pulled her to her feet, then pushed her towards the door, opening it with one hand. She gave her a final shove and closed the door in her face, ignoring the soft knock and the gentle entreaties to open the door. Callie was leaning against the wood, knowing she was on the verge of tears, but not wanting to break down with Regan right on the other side.

"Go home now," she managed to say. "I need to be alone."

"Okay," Regan said, then Callie heard her light step descend the stairs as she slid down the door, engulfed in tears by the time the front door closed.

Chapter Twenty-one.

The next day, Callie called off a meeting with a new client, then crawled back into bed, where she stayed until hunger forced her to forage late in the afternoon. She didn't want to do it, since talking about it made it real, but she had to call Terri.

"Hi," she said when Terri mercifully answered.

"You sound bad. What happened?"

"That obvious, huh?"

"Callie, tell me. You're freaking me out."

"Regan made up her mind. It's taken her the whole summer, but she's made up her mind. She can't be with me because I have no self-esteem."

"What?" Terri shouted.

"That's it. She thought it was because of my being a wh.o.r.e, but it's not that. Now I'm just a loser."

"Callie, tell me what happened. That doesn't sound like the Regan you've been telling me about."

"No, it doesn't. But that's the Regan that really exists."

It took two days to let the feelings break through the sorrow. Two days of replaying the conversation over and over again. Regan had never seemed like it, but she was ridiculously judgmental. She wanted a woman who had never done anything she wouldn't have done, but even if a woman met that test, she had to never have been with a person who'd done something "bad."

She'd probably been upset about the voyeurism too, just hadn't had the nerve to admit it. But she'd finally come clean and let out everything she'd been holding in. All of the judgment she'd been afraid to reveal.

It didn't make much sense. Regan was very open-minded and she'd never seemed to care what other people did. But she'd cared deeply about this. And it would take a long time before they could get back to where they had been. There was no chance of ever having more. Not a chance in h.e.l.l, and that hurt more than words could convey.

Two days later, Callie called Regan with a brief missive. "Hi," she said when she heard her voice.

"Hi," Regan breathed out, her relief evident. "I've been staring at my phone every minute."

"You don't have to do that. It'll take me a while, but I'll get over this."

"I want to see you. Please let me come over."

"No, that's not a good idea. I need some time alone. I just called to get our schedules organized. I'm going to run with our group on the Thursday night run and you can have Sunday. Is that all right?"

"Does it have to be like this?"

"Yes, it does. I promised I'd always be your friend, and I'm going to get there. But I'm not there now. I'll call when I feel like talking again."

"Please let it be soon."

"I can't promise that. It'll be when I feel like I can be myself around you. That's all I can do."