Saxon Bennett - Talk of the Town

by Saxon Bennett

  “Gigi, I want you to describe in detail your travails of the last week at the hands of the overzealous,” Aunt Lil said, handing her the bright pink plastic vulva that each speaker held indicating that the floor was hers.

  Gigi hated the pink vulva. She felt stupid holding it but nonetheless she respected the tradition. On more than one occasion she had mentioned her discomfort to her aunt only to be told she needed to get in touch with her femaleness. Holding the vulva was the first step. Gigi didn’t see how holding a disgusting pink replica had anything to do with her femaleness.

  Mallory tried not to giggle as Gigi held the dreaded vulva and relayed her story to the others, who murmured their discontent at the situation.

  “Tied her to a chair, that’s just not right!” Fran screeched, drawing the rest in with her. The energy in the room was filled with indignation. Mallory listened and watched as a plate of brownies started to make its way down the row. She counted the pieces left. They could make it to her. She only had to be patient.

  “But what are we going to do about it?” Lil said, whipping the crowd to a fevered pitch.

  The brownie plate was two away from her and Mallory could almost taste them.

  “There has got to be a way to retaliate in such a manner as to assault like we’ve been assaulted,” Lil said.

  The brownie tray reached Mallory at the exact same instant as the idea, which seemingly came out of nowhere.

  “Why don’t you put on an exhibition of defaced Virgin Mary statues? That would send them into an absolute frenzy and with a little doing we could probably implicate Gigi’s mother, Rose, and thus extract revenge as well as make a statement.”

  Everyone in the room stared at Mallory. Lil snatched the plate of brownies from her and pulled her up on the stage to further enunciate her plan. By the end of the evening Mallory was starving and her brains had been picked clean.

  “You’re a fucking genius!” Gigi said, as they sat across the kitchen table from each other and ate a huge bowl of chili complete with cinnamon roll.

  “A hungry genius,” Mallory said, getting up for seconds.

  “I can’t believe I’m finally going to have an outlet for my socially unacceptable artwork. This is great,” Gigi said, beaming with excitement.

  “We could hold the exhibit in my warehouse,” Mallory suggested.

  “Yes, perfect. Will you let me drive the forklift?”

  “No, I’ll get it cleaned up. You are a hazard with a forklift. I don’t want any more industrial accidents.”

  “I just need to get the hang of it.”

  “No.”

  “I should call Alex and tell her the news. I’m really charged about this,” Gigi said.

  “I know,” Mallory replied, handing Gigi her cell phone.

  Gigi dialed and let it ring. The machine picked up but she didn’t leave a message.

  “Where would she be at eleven o’clock at night?” Gigi said, her brow furrowed in consternation.

  “Out having fun,” Mallory replied, harmlessly.

  “What kind of fun?”

  “Fun, the kind we all have. What makes you think anything different?”

  “I don’t know,” Gigi said, sulking.

  “Alex is entitled to have fun while you’re gone. You’re having fun.”

  “This is work,” Gigi said.

  “Well, it’s still her weekend. I don’t expect Del to sit home while I’m gone.”

  “I would wager that Del is at work,” Gigi countered.

  Mallory looked cagey. “All right she’s working.”

  “I don’t get it. Alex didn’t mention anything about going out,” Gigi said, trying to wrack her brains for clues.

  Mallory refrained from asking were you listening to her or did you blow out of the house like you usually do?

  “I’m sure everything is fine. Alex is the most trustworthy and loyal person I know, aside from Del of course.”

  “Of course,” Gigi said. “Bed time?”

  “Please, I’m exhausted. Who would think direct action to be so physically stimulating,” Mallory said.

  “What are you sleeping in these days if you’ve given up pajamas?” Gigi asked.

  “Silk negligees,” Mallory teased.

  “Really?” Gigi said, her eyes big as saucers.

  “You’ll have to wait and see,” Mallory replied.

  The full moon sat high atop the mountains and Alex marveled at the complexity of its surface and the degree of force that created its various features. She remembered how Beatrice told the poet Dante that those craters, then thought to be seas, which accounted for their names, were the virtues of the heavens.

  “What are you thinking?” Taylor asked.

  Alex smiled. “It’s silly really.”

  “Tell me anyway,” Taylor said, feeling immensely fortunate to be sitting on her deck with Alex on a Saturday night. She had hardly let herself think about what it would be like. Perhaps her father was right. They could be friends and they could do things together. Taylor had told herself this all afternoon while they golfed—even as she knew she was falling in love. She could love her best friend and still practice celibacy with a pure heart. Taylor leaned on the arm of the chair to be closer to Alex, who sat in a matching chair facing the Four Peaks.

  Taylor remembering buying the chairs because oak went well with the red brick patio, something she vaguely recalled from her school days when she wanted to be an interior designer and not an accountant. She set the chairs up together seeking perfect placement and when she got the aesthetics right Taylor wondered if she would ever sit with her soul mate watching the sun drop into the crest of the mountains.

  “I was thinking about how Beatrice told Dante that the craters of the moon were virtues.”

  “In the Divine Comedy,” Taylor said.

  Alex was surprised. Taylor noticed.

  “I even read Vita Nuova.”

  “I’m sorry. I wasn’t underestimating you. I’m not used to having someone that would even entertain the thought of reading Dante.”

  “I liked it.”

  “So did I,” Alex replied, her delighted face dancing in the candlelight.

  “I really had fun today,” Taylor said.

  Alex smiled. “Yeah, I think that’s what triggered the virtues.”

  “Having fun?”

  “No, being with someone virtuous.”

  “How do you know I’m virtuous?” Taylor asked.

  “Because you have a soul that desires purity in thought and action,” Alex replied.

  “I do, but it does not mean I was not once a complete rogue.”

  “But you must have been young,” Alex prodded, hoping Taylor would find now the right moment to tell her story.

  “I was. When I was eighteen and before college I wanted to see Europe but I also wanted to live there so I went as an English tutor to a wealthy Parisian family. They had a little boy. The father was an Ambassador and he had a lovely wife.”

  “Sounds like a fairy tale,” Alex teased.

  “Until the lovely wife opened my sexual vistas.”

  “She seduced you?” Alex asked.

  “Suffice it to say she was the more knowledgeable one. I fell hard for her and not that I would trade the experience but for two years we lived together and loved one another without a thought to the future. Her husband was much older and often away. But he figured us out and had me deported. I begged her to come with me but she couldn’t. I came back to the states and thought one day I might make her change her mind, not understanding the power of husband and child.”

  “That was definitely the epitome of an ill-fated love affair.”

  “What comes next is almost better. I go to college and hope I can repair my broken heart, only the girls I meet are just that—girls— and I suddenly seem much older than I should be. Then I meet and fall in love with my art history T.A. and we start a relationship that ends just as badly. She gets a job teaching in Iowa and I’m finishing my de
gree. She has to take it, as teaching jobs are not easy to get at the collegiate level. We agree to conduct a nine-month separation until I graduate. She moves. We call, fly out on holiday and everything seems fine. It’s hard to adjust at first but I’m willing to wait. I love her. Until one day I call her and another woman answers the phone.”

  “Not good,” Alex replied, seeing old ghosts and old hurts surfacing in Taylor’s eyes.

  “No, and since then I haven’t had the zest for dating, or even looking for that special someone. So does my track record support your theory?”

  “Actually, it does.”

  “How?”

  “Because you deeply loved those women and because they were forced to choose or chose another doesn’t make you any less virtuous. You were true to love and cheated by fate.”

  “I think perhaps you have a bad case of rose-tinted glasses,” Taylor teased.

  “As do all true romantics,” Alex replied. “Of which I consider you one.”

  “I guess you caught me,” Taylor said.

  Alex groped around in her dark house, not having left a light on because she was only going golfing. She hadn’t anticipated going for a barbecue and a hot tub at Taylor’s but after golf they were hungry and Taylor offered to cook and then Alex found herself not wanting to end the day. As she brushed her teeth, she ran the night over in her head. The look on Taylor’s face when she slipped into the hot tub in her swim suit and how nice that felt.

  “What?” Alex had asked.

  “Nothing. I was just having a teenage boy moment. Your nicely tailored business suits do not do you justice,” Taylor said, blushing.

  Alex had laughed. It was nice to feel sexy for someone. She knew she shouldn’t be having these thoughts but still they were there and as she gave Taylor a hug goodnight she was acutely aware of holding her, of feeling her smooth skin next to her own, of inhaling her scent. She petted the cat and turned off the light and began to wonder what life in a parallel universe might hold. The phone rang and broke her dream.

  “Where have you been? It’s two-thirty in the morning,” Gigi said.

  “I was golfing,” Alex replied, shocked. Gigi never called her from Yarnell. “Is anything wrong?”

  “Yes, you’ve been out all night. I’ve been trying since eleven. Who did you go midnight golfing with?” Gigi asked, her heart pounding like an angry drum her chest.

  “I was with Taylor. We had dinner,” Alex said.

  “The boss’s daughter?” Gigi asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Until two-thirty in the morning.”

  “We were talking. Gigi, with your track record, you are not in the position to accuse me of anything,” Alex countered.

  “I wasn’t accusing. I was just curious because I was worried. You don’t usually do anything on the weekend.”

  “That’s because I don’t usually have anyone to do it with.”

  “And now you do.”

  “We both like to golf, so what? It doesn’t mean we’re fucking.”

  “I wasn’t saying that,” Gigi said. “You’re awfully defensive.”

  “I don’t like what you’re implying,” Alex said, realizing Gigi was right. She was defensive but she was also innocent in deed if not thought. Maybe she did have feelings for Taylor that she was denying. Nonetheless, Gigi the flirt had no room to accuse her of anything.

  “I was worried, Alex. I had good news I wanted to share with you, and when you weren’t home I got scared. I’m sorry,” Gigi said.

  “I understand. I didn’t check in because you never call, so it was just a misunderstanding. What did you want to tell me?”

  “It can wait. We’ll talk when I get home,” Gigi said.

  “All right.”

  “Alex?”

  “Yes?”

  “I love you.”

  “I love you too. Sweet dreams,” Alex said, feeling a sudden sharp pang in her heart. Something was very wrong here.

  Gigi knew when she set the phone down that Alex had found someone else; her fears would be well founded, she knew. She always knew when she was losing her lover. She was always the interim lover. Alex had been the longest, and the most patient, but the good women she loved always found someone else. She crawled into bed and wrapped herself around Mallory. It was her own cowardice that had brought her to this.

  Eight

  The dark street was splattered with the lights from lofts. Angel stared out into the night. It was nice being a day person when most of the artists around her were nocturnal; however, tonight she couldn’t sleep and found herself up with them creating works of art in the middle of the night.

  Ever since the camping trip with Kim she’d been contemplating her new character. Each time a new character came into the strip Angel was reminded how she got started in the comic strip. After her parents found out she was gay and threw her out of the house, she lived with various women and men and learned about the culture that would become her life.

  Somewhere in that discovering of self and of art she found the strip or rather it found her. She drew up her imaginary world that had what she liked and didn’t like about the gay community. She studied cartooning and was given the grim reproofs from her professors that she would be wasting her talents on a lesbian strip. But her muse was a dyke with an opinion and Angel followed her lead.

  It wasn’t until Jennifer came along that the strip really got its start, aside from a few local papers that for want of anything better stuck her strip in between the sex ads and the personals. Angel found it disheartening that the gay and lesbian community ached for an art of its own but did little to support or even acknowledge the gay and lesbian artists.

  Still, Angel plugged away and continued to hone her skills. But it was Jennifer with her amazing business acumen that put Angel out there and got the strip a place in the world. For all the fucked-up things Jennifer had done, Angel felt an immense gratitude for her work and her belief that Angel was artist and one who deserved to be recognized.

  Angel tried to convince herself that she had paid that debt by putting up with Jennifer’s wayward behavior. She always came up short. She would never get past being angry and saddened that they hadn’t come to a better end. Life is not like that, she told herself as she tried to shrug off those old feelings. She drew her new character and carefully inked her in.

  Her new character was named Bethesda. She was an Asian woman with long dark hair and a black leather mini skirt. She was smart, witty and the perfect mate for her strip’s protagonist Detroit. She hoped Kim wouldn’t find offense in any of it but Angel lived her life and its moments through her art. To love the artist was to live with her product. She knew Kim would be one of the few people in her life to understand that. This was a good thing, but the cobwebs of her past life started to flutter about again and she wondered.

  A year had gone by and she had successfully avoided any contact with Jennifer, but she feared that creating a new character in the strip might complicate things. Maybe she flattered herself into thinking that Jennifer followed the strip. Maybe she wouldn’t even notice. Somehow, Angel doubted that but she held this moment as her Declaration of Independence. Lesbians shouldn’t have divorces since they couldn’t actually be married; instead they should have a Declaration of Independence. Someday, the world would understand itself through its art and Angel was afraid that Jennifer, in her love of anarchy, would get what Angel was saying. The future would tell and Angel, for the first time ever, felt strong enough to withstand what her nemesis had to offer.

  The office complex was dark when Alex pulled in. She was the first one in. She turned on the lights and got the coffee going. Shirley, the receptionist, would be grateful. Alex sat down at her computer and set it humming. She felt bad for sneaking out on Gigi but she couldn’t quite face her after they’d made love last night. Alex had given in so easily in body so she could float in mind, and she felt guilty because her mind had wandered and it wasn’t right. It was hard to know what was righ
t anymore. Alex went to work so she wouldn’t have to think.

  An hour later Taylor stood in the doorway looking surprised.

  “It’s kind of early. I was sort of planning on you not being here. It’s six-thirty,” Taylor said, holding a putter with a red bow around it.

  “I couldn’t sleep,” Alex replied.

  “I see. Well, this is for you,” Taylor said, giving her the putter.

  “Thank you,” Alex said, blushing. “Maybe we should try it out sometime.”

  “Like now, maybe. I’m sure we can get a tee time.”

  “Taylor,” Alex said, her eyes never leaving Taylor’s face.

  “I’m the boss’s daughter. He’ll understand. Let’s go to breakfast and then golfing,” Taylor said.

  “We can’t,” Alex said.

  “We can, come on,” Taylor said.

  “This is bad.”

  “No, this is really good,” replied Taylor, taking Alex’s hand.

  Alex didn’t let go.

  ***

  The warehouse at Kokopeli Was An Alien Vending Company was already buzzing with activity when Del pulled up in the parking lot. She was just contemplating how nice life would be when she switched back to days and could slow down a little. Del had landed a job with a private practice and was beginning to imagine a life beyond residency. She would be an honorary citizen who had normal hours and maybe a home life, one she was hoping Mallory would want to share with her.

  Every day it seemed they got closer, but Del could not quell her apprehension that one day Mallory would wake up from her dream of normalcy and exit the scene. A small voice in the back of Del’s head kept telling her that life with Mallory was not going to be the smooth sailing of the present. Del believed that if you thought things were going too well, beware the crash just around the corner. She almost dreaded the good times because she could not stop anticipating the bad. Not a good system when one should adopt the philosophy of water—when you can’t overcome, go around.