Warm and Willing

CHAPTER NINE

It went as she had known it would and she moved through the day as if in a dream. Her mind somehow failed to involve itself in what she did, and she waited on customers in Heaven’s Door without seeing their faces, showing them ashtrays and saki sets, taking their money and wrapping their packages, and making pleasant conversation with the enthusiasm of a well-designed robot programmed for retail sales work. She thought of Bobbie, and of herself, and she thought how little control she had over what she did. She was a puppet dancing from bloody strings, tripping here and there with no direction of her own.

It was early when she got to Leonetti’s. The bar was deserted, with just one couple huddled close in the back and one butchy girl drinking straight shots at the bar. She took a stool at the far end of the bar from the mannish girl, and ordered J amp; B on the rocks, drank the drink quickly and took a refill. She had never done much drinking before-hardly any in college, very little during the years as Tom Haskell’s wife. But she was learning. She worked more slowly on her second drink, letting the liquor seep into her body and settle her down. A couple of quick ones for courage, she thought. Lord, how she had changed.

She left the bar. Bobble’s apartment was a few blocks uptown on Horatio Street. She had never been there before but she remembered the address and had no trouble finding the building. A brownstone, well preserved. Over one of the doorbells, a small card with Roberta Kardaman in Gothic script. Roberta-she had never thought of the girl as Roberta. Just as Bobbie.

She did not ring the bell. She climbed stairs, found the door to Bobbie’s apartment. The same card in a slot under a peephole- Roberta Kardaman. A bell at the side of the door. She reached out for it, stopped, lit a cigarette, returned the lighter to her purse.

She thought of Megan. The blonde girl might be home now-she had not even called to make sure. Megan could be at their apartment, waiting for her, wondering where she was, worrying about her. She dragged nervously on the cigarette and coughed. She could still do it, she told herself. Turn around, hurry home, find Megan or wait for Megan, and push Bobbie out of her mind. She could do it.

Oh, God Her forefinger found the bell, stabbed it. She heard chimes sound within the apartment. There was silence and for a moment she thought that Bobbie was not home. Then she heard footsteps approaching the door and she held her arms rigid at her sides and waited.

“I hoped you would come.”

“I had to.”

“Last night.”

“Yes.”

“You’re scared, aren’t you, Rho?”

“Not of you.”

“Of yourself then. Of what happens.”

“Yes.”

“Stay there, I’ll make drinks. Scotch?”

“All right.”

She waited on the couch while Bobbie made drinks. The couch was an old Victorian affair with arms, a floral pattern that blended with the cozily chaotic decor of the apartment. An oriental rug, going threadbare here and there. A Modigliani reproduction housed in a garish gold frame. A sagging armchair, a pair of rock maple captain’s chairs, a Duncan Phyfe drumhead table. A confusion of bad pieces which somehow went together well, all of them managing to reflect the person that was Bobbie.

On the arm of the couch Bobbie’s cat sat staring at her. A Siamese, a study in poise and gentility. Bobbie had spoken of the cat before. His name was Claude-“Because he clawed me,” Bobbie had explained-and he was the only male allowed in the apartment. Rhoda reached out a hand toward the cat, then withdrew it. She tried to remember whether or not you were supposed to pet cats.

“Don’t,” Bobbie said. She crossed the room with the drinks. “He hates affection, Rho. He’s a miserable bastard. Did you want water in this? I made it on the rocks.”

“That’s fine.”

She took her drink, sipped it. Bobbie was sitting in the chair at her right now. She turned on the couch and crossed her legs at the knee and looked at Bobbie. Bobbie was wearing slacks and a gold blouse, and her chestnut hair was drawn back in a chignon. She always seemed to be wearing her hair differently, Rhoda thought. And it always looked lovely. Now she seemed cool and detached, very commanding.

Bobbie said, “What happens now, Rho?”

“I don’t know.”

“We want each other. That much is fairly obvious. I’ve wanted you all along, and I suppose you’ve known that all along. Megan could see it coming. She hasn’t liked me much since you and I met. She knew this would happen.”

“She knew before I did.”

“When was that?”

“I guess the party.”

”That’s what I thought.”

Bobbie stood up, stretched, pulling her shoulders sharply back to draw her breasts into bold relief against the material of the gold blouse. Her body was bent slightly backward at the waist, and her hips thrust out provocatively. Rhoda’s eyes were glued to the girl’s body. The black slacks were very tight, like a second skin, and Rhoda looked at the tops of Bobbie’s thighs and felt a yearning come up in the back of throat, strong and undeniable. She could not look away.

Why? Just a girl’s body, composed of the same elements as her own, arranged in similar if not identical proportion. A body no better or worse than her own and no better or worse than Megan’s. Why such a hunger, such a wave of need?

“Rho.” The voice low in pitch now, husky. “Rho, I do not just want a sweet and simple roll in the hay.”

“No.”

“If I have you it has to be for a long time. Forget forever, I don’t know what forever means. Nothing is forever. But no one-night stands and no week-long marriage. I don’t want that.”

“Neither do I.”

And she thought, Don’t talk, don’t talk to me. Touch me, hold me, kiss me, say wonderful things to me. Just that.

“Megan was your first.”

“Yes.”

“Gay girls change partners more when they just start out. They suddenly see what they are and they find out what a beautiful world sex makes, and they want to take the whole gay world to bed with them. They fall in and out of love at the drop of a bra. When they get older, when they’ve broken a couple of hearts and had their own broken a few times, they start settling down. The novelty is dead and the sex is less important. The big need is love. And having a person you can count on, and one you can be with. When you get older the breaks come further apart and hurt more, and the love while you have it is a deeper, calmer thing. If you are going to be gone in the morning, little girl, then I do not want you here tonight.”

“I-”

“No matter how beautiful you are. And you are, you know. No matter how much I want you. And I do. Oh, too much.”

“I want it to last, Bobbie.”

“Of course you do. Now. And you wanted it to last with Meg, didn’t you?”

“But-”

Bobbie tossed off her drink. “I’m kidding both of us,” she said. “Right now it doesn’t matter whether you’ll be gone in a day or a week or a hundred years. I need you too damned much. I talk a good game but the talk breaks down when you pull the words apart. I couldn’t let you out of here if I wanted to and I don’t want to anyway. I love you, Rho.”

There was a lump in her throat, one that would not be swallowed away. There were tears in the corners of her eyes. Her hands trembled chaotically and her mouth was dusty dry. She stood to her feet and swayed there, lost and rocky, and Bobbie stepped toward her and she fell into the girl’s strong arms. Her head whirled and she could not breathe.

Oh, Megan, she thought, I can’t help this. Megan, I’m sorry, but I can’t help this. Forgive me She stood still and let herself be kissed. Bobbie’s lips found hers and Bobbie’s hands gripped her shoulders. Eyes closed, body limp, she let herself be kissed and touched, let herself be lowered down onto the couch. Bobbie stretched out beside her and held her close. They lay that way, bodies touching. They did not move.

“I love you,” she said.

“Oh, Rho.”

“It will be good, won’t it?”

“I don’t want to hurt anybody and I don’t want anybody to hurt me. I just want everything to be wonderful. Will we be wonderful?”

“How can we miss?”

A kiss, soft and gentle. When she opened her eyes, she saw Bobbie’s face inches from her own and she kissed Bobbie again and felt her head swim.

“How will we tell Megan?”

“Don’t worry about it.”

“I can’t help worrying about it. Everything is complicated, isn’t it? I used to live all by myself and nothing was ever complicated, and I was so lonely I died inside every day until I was almost entirely dead, and now I am breathlessly alive and everything is a Chinese puzzle. What can I say to her? Do you want me to move in here with you?”

“Yes, if you can stand it.”

“Oh, I want to. What do I do? Just move everything from there into here? And what do I say to her? Megan, I don’t love you any more. I don’t want to hurt her. Some other girl had just hurt her when she met me, I don’t want to pile this on top of the other. Bobbie, help me.”

Silence. Then, “She already knows, Rho.”

“About us? How?”

“Not that we’re together yet, maybe. But that we will be, in a week if not now.”

“She loves me.”

“Yes. And she has been there before, Rho, and she’ll make that scene again. She knew last night. I saw her face, once when she looked at you with sad eyes and another time when she looked at me. She could have cheerfully throttled me last night. She knows.”

“Then how-”

“Don’t worry. You’ll manage.”

“I don’t know what I’ll say.”

“You’ll find the words.” Bobby took a breath. “I don’t know about you, but I need a drink.”

“Well, while you’re up-”

Bobbie went off to fill their glasses. Rhoda sat up slowly, blinked, reached for a cigarette. The cat had withdrawn while they embraced; he was seated on the floor now in front of a fake fireplace. He seemed to be studying her again. Little Claude, she thought. He lived there while the girls came and went. How many had he seen?

She looked at her watch. Megan might be home now, she thought. What was she supposed to do? She couldn’t call her. Nor could she let her sit home waiting and worrying. But maybe that would be better, maybe if Megan just came to the realization slowly So complicated. So awfully complicated.

Bobbie brought her a fresh drink and she took it gratefully. “I might become a drunk,” she said softly. “I think I am developing a taste for it.”

“You’re in good company.”

“I’m in marvelous company. Sit next to me, Bobbie.”

Bobbie was beside her now. Rhoda sipped the scotch and closed her eyes and thought how comfortable she was now. So much of life was devoted to the simple pursuit of comfort. She had never realized this before. And it was this hunger for comfort which had sent her to Bobbie. Not a craving for excitement, not some furious dark passion, but the basic desire to be where she could most comfortable. Bobbie was with her now, and the two of them might get a little drunk together, and they would be drawn closer and closer, until ultimately their lovemaking would climax the evening, symbolizing and emphasizing the bond that was growing up between them.

“You’re a funny girl, Rho.”

“Am I?”

“Uh-huh. A lot of the time you seem a hell of a lot younger than you are. Like a lost lamb, like a schoolgirl. How old are you?”

“Twenty-four.”

“That’s what I would have guessed, I suppose, but part of the time you seem about seventeen.”

“I was seventeen until a few weeks ago.”

“I know what you mean. Yes, that’s what I thought. You were just a girl all that time, weren’t you? And spent two years pretending you were a woman, only it didn’t take. And then became a woman overnight.”

“Yes.”

“And they say we get this way by being led astray at an early age. The horny hands of a lady gym teacher, or an inquisitive tongue in a boarding school dorm room, every little thing that can warp us and ruin us before we have a chance to blossom out as child-producing man-loving automatons. What crap that is. My mother sits in too large a house in Grosse Pointe and tries to forget she ever knew me. She can’t forget all the time, because once a month she has to send me my check. A combination of conscience money and insurance; insurance because as long as the checks come regularly she knows I won’t darken her upper middle class doorway, and conscience money because she sits there scratching her head and wondering what she did wrong. Because she’s damned sure she must have done something wrong. Her darling daughter is a lesbian, and Mumsie is dead certain something like that couldn’t happen by chance. She couldn’t believe I might be born this way. And she can’t imagine that I’m a person underneath it all. Like some people when they look at a Negro. All they see is black skin, they don’t see a person. Do you know what I mean?”

“Yes.”

“All my mother sees is a dyke. She broke down one time and cried and told me that she couldn’t look at me without imagining me in bed with another girl. What the hell sense does that make? I can look at her without visualizing her in bed with my father. For heaven’s sake, Rho, we’re all human beings.” She stopped for a minute. Then, “That woman was terrified when I wrote her and told her I couldn’t stand it in Mexico any more. I wanted to tell her the truth, that everybody in Cuernavaca was hopelessly depraved, but that wouldn’t have registered. She thinks I’m hopelessly depraved, so she would have thought I belonged there. But I got a letter from her and I saw she was scared. She thought I was coming back home to Detroit. She wrote that it would be awkward, inconvenient-oh, she found a lot of polite adjectives. I didn’t write her again until I was here in the city. I wrote her then and said I had a long lease on an apartment and that I would be staying in New York for a long time. I never mentioned her letter. Sometimes I hate her.”

For a long time neither of them said anything. Then Bobbie finished her drink and put her glass down. The Siamese paraded slowly but confidently across the room, and seated himself sedately upon the floor in front of Bobbie. His eyes were steel blue.

“My man Claude,” she said. “I spoil him rotten, Rho. He’s an aristocrat, you know. Something of a gourmet. No cat food for this fellow, not at all. Do you know what he ate tonight? An entire tin of smoked oysters at eighty-nine cents a tin, purchased especially for him at the Caviarteria on Eighth Street. That’s near where you work-do you know the place?”

“I’ve seen it. It’s across the street from Heaven’s Door.”

“That’s the sort of food Claude eats. Spoiled rotten.”

“How old is he?”

“A year and a half. He’s sexually mature, incidentally. I never had him castrated. Do you think I should?”

“I don’t know.”

“I wouldn’t like it,” Bobbie said. “If I were a cat, I mean. They don’t say castrated, you know. It sounds too vicious. They say altered. The last time I took him to the vet’s, it was for a distemper shot, and the vet asked me if I wanted Claude altered. I said that he was fine the way he is. But he leads such a monastic life. Do you think maybe he’s gay?”

“Can cats be gay?”

“Jesus, I don’t know. I suppose I should find out. If environment’s a factor, then this one is queer as Dick’s hatband, I’ll say that.”

They went on talking about the cat, offering up insane ideas for Claude’s sexual gratification. Bobbie said that maybe his expensive tastes in food were a form of compensation, and Rhoda suggested that Bobbie bought smoked oysters for him because she felt guilty about forcing the cat to lead a loveless life. Somewhere along the way Bobbie got the scotch bottle, brought it back with her, and filled their glasses again.

Bobbie said, “You have so many questions and so few answers. It’s murder, isn’t it?”

“How will I learn the answers?”

“By living them.”

“And you learn that way?”

“Maybe you never learn, Rho. Maybe you just come to forget the questions. Oh, this is lovely, isn’t it? I’m dark and mysterious and poetically cryptic. In a minute I’ll turn out the lights and set candles glowing and read the poems of Sister Sappho. Remember that? Jan Pomeroy’s crazy, but she only manages to exaggerate a happy little madness that burns in every last one of us. We all make a religion out of homosexuality. Or a mythology, at least. We ask questions and search our souls for answers, and try to find some special grain of meaning in our lives. The hell with it. Why should there be meaning? Straight people don’t have to find meaning in their sex lives. Just because we operate differently why do we have to analyze everything until it turns blue? Doesn’t work, kiddo.”

The room was very still. Then Bobbie said, “Kiss me, Rho.”

They were in each other’s arms, drawn close, transported in an instant from philosophy to the beginnings of passion. Claude padded silently across the room toward the fireplace. Rhoda’s eyes were closed. She felt Bobbie’s lips at her throat, Bobbie’s hand tracing the contour of breast.

The phone rang.

It seared her at first, splitting the sweet silence of room like a sword tearing a silk cloth. Bobbie said, “Damn it,” and moved to answer the phone. Rhoda sat up, blinked.

Bobbie said, “Hello…yes, but…what? Oh, Jesus. Did anything…can’t you get in there? Can’t you get her to open up?”

It was about Megan, she thought crazily. Something had happened to Megan. And it was her fault “I’ll be right over,” Bobbie was saying “Talk to her, do anything. Promise her anything she wants to hear. Oh, Christ, I hope we get through this one.”

She hung up, spun to face Rhoda. She said, “ That was Lucia Perry. You met her at Jan’s party. I don’t know if you remember her.”

An image came to mind, a short dark girl with laughing eyes.

“She lives with Peg Brandt. Peg just locked herself in the bathroom and she’s threatening to kill herself. Lucia is hysterical.”

“What-”

“We’ve got to get over there,” Bobbie said. “Lu says she’s talking about cutting her wrists. There are razor blades in the medicine cabinet. We’ve got to get over there.”

“Oh, God-”

“What’s it like outside? Do I need a jacket? I shouldn’t go dressed like this. Oh, Jesus, what does it matter? Come on, Rho. Hurry.”