Warm and Willing

CHAPTER SEVEN

After the little performance with Sapphic odes and candlelight, Jan Pomeroy did what she always did at her parties. She got thoroughly drunk, cried without interruption for ten full minutes, and then abruptly passed out. Two girls carried her into her bedroom and wedged her fully clothed between the bedsheets, stopping only to remove her shoes. She slept soundly. Her eye make-up looked wildly unreal on her sleeping face.

With the hostess out of the way, the party moved into gear. The mahogany pedestal was wrestled out of the way, the candles blown out and put aside, some lights left off, others switched on again. An angular girl stacked records on the hi-fi-dance music, some vocal sides, Billie Holliday, Sarah Vaughan, Anita O’Day. One or two couples drifted off homeward. Others talked intensely in little groups. A girl cried in a corner, another locked herself in the bathroom and refused to open the door. Others danced.

The dancing seemed odd at first to Rhoda. They had danced before, once or twice at the apartment, moving together slowly with the dancing serving as a prelude to the act of love. But dancing had never before been a social phenomenon. There was something disarming about it, as though the roomful of dancing girls burlesqued heterosexual dancing, as though all the dancing couples were less intent upon enjoying themselves than in proving something to the world.

The feeling died as she caught the mood of the evening. Megan held her lightly in her arms, taking the man’s part and leading her slowly and smoothly around the floor. She closed eyes, relaxing in Megan’s embrace. She had never danced much as a girl, had hardly ever gone dancing with Tom Haskell. Once, maybe twice before they were married. Afterward, never.

She danced two dances with Megan. Then the blonde girl stepped away from her. “We have to mingle,” she said. She moved aside and a young redhead with very blue eyes introduced herself to Rhoda as Sara. The music started and their bodies moved together.

But something was wrong. She didn’t understand at first, and then Sara looked up at her and said, “I’m sorry, I can’t lead. Could you lead, Rhoda?”

It felt very strange. Her feet were not entirely sure of what they were supposed to be doing, but she did the best she could, taking the redheaded girl in her arms, holding her rather stiffly, and leading her around the makeshift dance floor. The mechanics of taking the man’s part were foreign to her, and she realized suddenly that she and Megan had always taken it for granted that Megan would lead and that she would follow.

“I’m not doing very well at this,” she told Sara.

“Oh, this is fine.”

The dancing itself was asexual enough. She held the girl almost at arm’s length, as if close contact would be either dangerous or unpleasant. And yet, somewhere, there was a vague stirring, a faint sexual call to arms. She thought at one point that it came from acting the male role in the dance, as though it were a part she wanted to play. She was glad when the record ended and Sara went off to find another partner.

Megan found her and they went off to have a drink together. They finished their drinks and started to dance, but then another girl cut in halfway through a number and began dancing with Megan, and Rhoda went for another drink and came from the kitchen as the record was ending. Bobbie Kardaman took her arm and whirled her out onto the dance floor.

Bobbie led. She had rather thought that would happen.

They danced through two records that way before Megan cut in again. And, dancing with Bobbie, she felt something that went beyond the simple pleasure of dancing with another girl. Bobbie’s right hand was halfway around her waist, Bobbie’s cheek close to hers, Bobbie’s breasts pressing now and then against her own breasts. At first she told herself it was accidental, convinced herself that such sudden contact was inevitable in a room so full of people.

It was more than that and she couldn’t avoid realizing as much. There was purpose in the way Bobbie held her, design in the contact of leg with leg, of breast with breast. Bobbie wanted her.

And she couldn’t help feeling her own response.

She tried to push the feeling aside, tried to tell herself that it was crazy or wrong or both. She loved Megan and Megan loved her, and yet Bobbie was making some sort of play for her and she didn’t have the good sense to get away from the girl, couldn’t help responding to the sweet stimulus of Bobbie’s embrace. Nothing would happen, she told herself angrily. The record would end finally, and she would be with Megan again, and she and Megan would go home together and Bobbie would find some other girl and everything would work out, there would be no more of this foolishness.

The record ended. She got away from Bobbie and scanned the room looking for Megan. Megan had just asked a flat-chested mousy girl to dance. Rhoda bit her lip and hurried off to the kitchen for another drink.

Once, between dances, she was in the kitchen when two girls in their thirties stumbled in and embraced. She was embarrassed, but she couldn’t leave the room because they blocked the door. She tried not to look at them, tried not to hear them. They kissed, and one of the women ran a hand over the other’s body.

And one said, “Oh, darling, you can’t go home. You can’t, you have to stay with me.”

“God-”

“You love me. You know you love me.”

“I think Harold suspects. I’m so afraid-”

“Tell him. And leave him, darling.”

“But he’s my husband. And I love him, I do, but-”

“He doesn’t know you. He’s not right for you, darling.”

“I never should have let you love me. I should have stayed away from you.”

“But you do love me-”

And they were lost in a kiss again. Rhoda tried not to watch them but she couldn’t help herself. The married woman was breathing heavily, eyes closed, breasts heaving. The other woman kissed her all over her face and reached for her breasts with an urgent hand. She worked on the married woman with technique born of long experience, and Rhoda could see resistance and fear melting away as passion grew up to conquer all.

Married, she thought. Married to a man and in love with the man, but crazy in love with a gay girl as well.

When the embrace stopped, when they came up for air, the married woman noticed Rhoda for the first time. She blushed deeply. Her girl friend didn’t seem to care. She slipped an arm around the married woman’s waist, her fingertips just inches below the rise of her breasts, and led her off toward the bedrooms.

Rhoda drained her drink. She was glad, suddenly, that she had found her way into the shadows in the proper order, that she had ended her marriage before she had found Megan. It could have happened the other way around, and that seemed to be a very special sort of hell.

Bobbie was holding her hand. She stood swaying slightly and looked up into Bobbie’s eyes.

“Megan is so lucky,” Bobbie said.

“Why?”

“To have you.”

“Stop it.”

“Stop what?”

“Don’t you know?”

“Yes. Don’t you know that I can’t stop it?”

A stretch of silence. “I love Megan.”

“I know you do.”

“Oh, damn it-”

“It won’t last forever. Nothing ever does, you know.”

“Don’t say that!”

“Why not? It’s the truth, Rho. Megan is your first and you always think the first will last forever. Later on you try and fool yourself, but sooner or later you realize how transient every little affair is. You two won’t last forever.”

“Megan says-”

“She knows better. We’ll be together some day, you and I, I feel it, Rho. Don’t you?”

“Stop it!”

“I’m not even touching you, Rho.” A smile, fading quickly. “I’m sorry if I’m getting to you. Don’t blame me. And don’t blame yourself for feeling it. We can’t help it, neither of us.”

She never remembered getting back to the apartment. She did not know afterward whether they had taken a cab or walked. The last hour of the party was a blur in her mind, the last few minutes blacked out completely along with the trip back to the apartment on Cornelia Street. It was frightening, losing a whole little piece of your life that way. You were left with guilt over what might have happened, what you might have done. And with a blank blind spot where a memory ought to have been.

Then they were home, in the apartment, and she was standing awkwardly while Megan sat on the couch with her shoulders slumped. Megan was crying and she stood there stupidly and wondered what she had done and what she ought to do.

“I’m losing you, Rhoda. Oh, God help me, I’m losing you.”

Megan’s eyes, tear-stained, looking up at her, “What’s happening to us?”

“What do you mean?”

“You don’t want me any more, Rhoda.”

“That’s not true-”

“You danced all night with Bobbie. She’s trying to steal you away and you’ll let yourself be stolen.”

“I looked for you-”

“You didn’t look very hard, Rhoda.”

Madness, she thought. Just hours ago she had been home waiting for Megan, and then she had been the jealous one, blindly, bitterly, irrationally jealous. The roles were reversed now. But why did it have to be like this? They loved each other. Why couldn’t they relax in the security of one another’s love? Why couldn’t they coast along smoothly, happy with what they had, instead of shifting from bitter to sweet?

Bitter and sweet. You had to take them both together, she thought dully. But you should be able to blend them, to soften each with the other She said, “I love you, Megan.”

“Do you?”

“Don’t you know?”

“Then-”

“I don’t know, I was drunk, I was mixed up and Bobbie was nice to me. That was all. We danced and we talked a little. I don’t feel anything for her, Megan. Believe me.”

“I want to.”

She sat on the couch with Megan, put her arm around the blonde girl. Megan was avoiding her eyes. She leaned over to kiss Megan’s throat, Megan stiffened momentarily, then relaxed.

“Coffee?”

“I don’t want any.”

“Can I do anything for you, darling?”

“Just love me.”

“Forever, Megan.”

And now it was as it had been with that girl on the dance floor-she had to do the leading. Her hand moved upward over Megan’s back, touched the nape of her neck. Megan locked into her eyes, and Megan’s face held an expression she had seen there before. Wide eyes, an unsure upper lip. Little Girl Lost.

She drew Megan close, kissed her. Megan whimpered. She kissed her again, tenderly, then more intensely as passion born in desperation came into its own. Megan was in her arms, soft and blonde and warm, and she planted a field of kisses on Megan’s face, kissed the residue of tears from her eyes, kissed her mouth and throat, held her very close, discovered the luxury of Megan’s body under her hands.

Her hands sought, found. Megan sat with her and said her name in a small voice while she worked snaps and buttons to open Megan’s clothing. Her hands found Megan’s breasts and held them, hurried up Megan’s thighs to secret flesh.

Hold infinity in the palm of your hand…

Bodies brushing together as they walked neatly nude over deep carpet to the bedroom. A light turned off, a light turned on. A sheet drawn down, a bedspring sigh of acceptance.

…eternity in an hour…

There was a moment which would stay with her forever, snatched out of time as if by a camera’s instantaneous eye. Megan lying upon the bed on her back, hand resting upon the rise of a thigh, the other arm stretched out across the bed. Breasts pointed proudly upward. Legs a little apart, one foot some inches over the edge of the bed. Blonde hair wild upon a pillow. Eyes closed, mouth just open.

Light from the hall played across Megan’s body. The whole scene could have been packaged and framed, a virtuoso performance by an airbrush painter. Shadows, curves, subtle flesh tones.

Then Megan said, “Why do we hurt each other.” The words made a question but were not spoken that way; there was no question mark in Megan’s voice. The six words hung in space.

Until Rhoda found her, joined her, pressed flesh to flesh, seeking sweet mystery with a hungry mouth, finding heaven that was partly pain.