Today I'm Yours
By Mary Gaitskill, first published in Zoetrope
An aging female author recalls the intimate and vivid memories of a fifteen-year-long love affair with another woman. The elusive relationship between them stretches across time and distance as both women keep pace with their own lives.
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Plot Summary
Ella, an aging author, recalls a vivid and sensual dream of meeting Dani, a seductive editor, in a Las Vegas hotel room. In her dream, they briefly meet in a shape-shifting room before Dani suggestively approaches her, only to brush past and disappear. A week after her dream, Ella happens to cross paths with Dani in the streets of New York. This kind of meeting feels typical and familiar to both women, who have held a love affair on-and-off for fifteen years. Ella brings up her husband, and Dani responds with a slight look of contempt. Ella begins to reminisce about her early days as a writer when she first met Dani. She recalls the blinding expectations of fame, followed by the monstrosity of her success, which began to take over her identity as a person. To escape the spotlight of society, Ella moved to California, where she met Dani in a bar. A strong attraction sparked between the women, and they shared an impulsive but satisfying kiss. They parted on the note that Dani had a girlfriend who was expecting her. After their initial meeting, the two women begin to hook-up spontaneously. They take advantage of any place they can be together, and spend their time in a variety of stairwells, car rides, concerts, and dinner parties. In a series of recollections, Ella recounts how they became different people through the years, yet continued to maintain their indefinable relationship with each other, sometimes renewing it for years at a time with a single encounter. In the present, after they meet on the street, Ella and Dani go to a café together. Dani apologizes for not having been a better friend in the past, and Ella brings up an old memory of a song they saw in concert called “Today I’m Yours.” Outside the café, Dani kisses Ella on the cheek and the two women exchange casual goodbyes before they part to go meet their respective partners.
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