Touchwood

by Karin Kallmaker

  It was most definitely not a gay bar. Zoraida's black leather jacket and muddy boots drew stares as she gracefully carried two bottles of Corona and frosted pilsner glasses back to their booth with a swagger that defied anyone to say anything.

  "So, what brought you my way again?"

  "I, umm." Maybe I should practice in front of a mirror.

  "Yes, well, I am glad to see you." Zoraida tipped her head to one side and smiled seductively. "Very glad."

  She has nice lips. Not as nice as Lou— stop that! I'm glad to see you too, I umm, was wondering if you'd like to go to a party Saturday night?" What a stunningly subtle lead-in.

  "Whose party?"

  "It's at the Lace Place Tea Room and Bar." Stop nodding. She'll think you're one of those tigers in the back window of people's cars.

  "I've beer, there." Zoraida smiled and sipped her beer.

  "I am glad to hear you've been there, too. I was beginning to worry."

  "About what?"

  "That you were looking for initiation."

  "I don't under— Oh. No, I umm, don't need to be initiated." Rayann took a large swallow of beer. I'm so suave she thinks I'm straight and looking for my first woman.

  "You just don't seem very sure of yourself. It's kind of sweet."

  Sweet? "I guess I'm not. I'm getting over someone."

  "She leave you?" Zoraida's eyes swept over Rayann's face, then her hands.

  Rayann shifted under the intimate glance. "She was sleeping around. A lot."

  "You do not appear to be the type of woman who is willing to share someone you love. If she didn't know that, she was a fool." Zoraida raised her full eyebrows over the brilliant black eyes that danced with energy.

  "That's what I keep telling myself."

  "So, the one who slept around, is she going to be at this party?"

  Rayann ducked her head and nodded.

  "It's okay. I just like to know the score. I can make you forget she's there."

  Rayann glanced up and smiled provocatively. At least she hoped it was provocative — she hadn't flirted in a long time. "I'd like to see you try." And she's not the only one I'd like you to drive out of my mind.

  "Are you daring me?" Zoraida grinned and tossed back her thick black hair. "I love a challenge."

  "I can see you do," Rayann said. "I just want you to know I'm not looking for..."

  "Every woman is looking for something," Zoraida interrupted. Rayann watched her mouth form the words. "Some are just not interested in games. Like you."

  "Do I look that boring?"

  "Not boring, honey. You do not look boring." Zoraida finished her beer and leaned back, her open jacket framing a muscular, firm body. "I think you are one of those women who love passion but not quite as much as you crave love."

  Rayann blushed. She was staring at Zoraida's chest and Zoraida knew she was staring. "Don't you think a woman can have both? Passion and love? Can't they be the same thing?"

  "If she wants to wait for it. But while you're waiting..." Zoraida reached across the table and ran her finger over Rayann's wrist. "Passion can certainly be a pleasant way to pass the time."

  Rayann put her hand over Zoraida's. "Only if it's not confused with love and nobody gets hurt."

  Zoraida withdrew her hand and raised her beer with a wink. "This could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship, sweetheart."

  Rayann returned to The Common Reader flushed and feeling feverish. Zoraida had suggested a practice session before the party, but Rayann had managed to collect her wits and refuse. Zoraida's aggressiveness frightened her a little, but she didn't think she was getting into anything she couldn't handle. But Louisa expected her for dinner, and Rayann had never been able to relax enough with a stranger to hop into bed after a few minutes conversation. Another tip I should have asked Michelle about. Zoraida, no matter how charming, was still a stranger. Nevertheless, Zoraida had fanned her urges. And Smokey Bear says they're already at the high fire risk level, so watch out, campers, for those lit matches. She tried to be cool, but Rayann was feeling a bit like a forest fire when she showed Louisa the flyers printed on astrobright "Really Red" paper.

  "You can see them a mile away," Louisa said.

  Rayann couldn't tell if she liked them. "That's the point. When someone's looking for the store they'll recognize the flyer from the street and not be afraid to come on in. And it's certainly Christmassy."

  "I can see you'll have to be the marketing manager. I would have never thought of that. Or saying "While quantities last' and putting down an expiration date."

  "You can't forget the mice type."

  "Mice?"

  "The fine print," Rayann said. "I'll start making the rounds tomorrow morning so people will have them before they spend all their Christmas money. I hope this works."

  "So do I. I can't believe I'm going to have the storeroom back. Oh," Louisa said, "I almost forgot." She reached under the counter and came up reading a piece of paper. "Judy called and said she'd call again tonight and that you weren't to forget about the party."

  "She'll be happy to know I've got a hot date."

  "That's good. Sounds like time is healing wounds." Louisa put her hands on the flyers. "Should I go ahead and tape some of these up in the windows?"

  "Never too early to build business," Rayann said easily, though she studied Louisa's hand, thinking it seemed gentler than Zoraida's. Maybe she should have given in — she had a feeling that an hour with Zoraida would be more than memorable and might bank the flames that scorched her thighs at this very moment.

  "Rayann?"

  "Oh, sorry, what did you say?"

  "Could you hand me the tape?" Louisa said. "Oh, and could you take this book over to the Schoernsson's? They both have colds, the poor things. Greta sounded miserable, and they've read everything they have."

  "Sure. Ill just go put these in the back and then run it over." Rayann stacked up the boxes of flyers, then hurried down the street to the retirement complex, yet another Ken Follett tucked under her arm.

  She identified herself to the guard, and found their apartment number on the directory inside the door. When she knocked, a feeble voice called, "Come in, please."

  The apartment had a mini-kitchen and a small living room. A voice led her to the bedroom door where both ladies, propped up with lots of pillows in identical full-size beds, were clad in complementary bed jackets — Greta in peach and Hazel in blue. A pitcher of water, cups, reading glasses and a box of tissues cluttered the bed stand that separated the beds. Otherwise the room was as neat as a pin and smelled faintly of cough drops.

  "Oh, my dear, thank you so much," Greta said. "I was getting desperate."

  "She's been fudging since last night, when she finished this ad gave it to me," Hazel said, hindered by completely stopped-up sinuses. She waved a blue-veined hand at the book in her lap. Rayann gave the book to Greta and retrieved a box of tissues that had slipped partially under Greta's bed.

  "I'd wondered where that had gotten to, thank you so —" Greta said, breaking off to sneeze twice. She collapsed back on her pillows, out of breath.

  "Are you sure you're both all right? Isn't there a doctor?" Rayann thought both ladies were far too pale, but then again they had extraordinarily fair skin.

  "There is Estelle Betts, a perfectly lovely nurse, who said she'd stop up to check on us later today. We can have dinner on trays, too," Hazel said. "Please don't worry."

  "Well, maybe I can make some tea while I'm here." Rayann immediately went to make it when both women perked up and looked very thankful, though they assured her she shouldn't bother. Rayann found mugs and tea bags, then saw that there was a cut lemon and a jar of honey on the counter, used probably for tea earlier in the day. Rayann added liberal amounts of both to the mugs and brought them back to the bedroom.

  Greta had risen and was plumping Hazel's pillows. Hazel settled against them again, looking up at Greta with tenderness that surprised Rayann. She put the mugs down, and p
lumped Greta's pillows as she got back in bed.

  "Very nice," Hazel said, sipping slowly.

  Greta cleared her throat after a few sips. "I'm so glad you're here," she said slowly, "because my conscience has been bothering me a bit and Hazel was sure, after you put up the shelves, well, she thought you wouldn't be upset..."

  Rayann smiled encouragingly. She had a feeling she knew what Greta was leading up to. Greta opened the small drawer in the bedside table and drew out The Muse of the Violets.

  Rayann's smile broadened. "I hope you enjoyed it," she said. It has very moving moments."

  "We both enjoyed it," Greta said. "When I saw it I wanted to read it and then I just couldn't bring myself to buy it, not in front of Louisa."

  "She would not have minded," Rayann said. "But what does that have to do with my putting up the shelves?"

  "You reminded me of Greta moving around in her mother's kitchen when we were both very much younger." Hazel sipped her tea and blotted her nose with a fresh tissue.

  "I'm afraid I don't understand," Rayann said. "I thought you were sisters. You look very much alike."

  "We're cousins," Greta said. "We both have the Swedish Schoernsson look, but we're really only related because our grandmothers were half-sisters. Still, it has been useful over the past fifty years to appear as sisters."

  "It was certainly helpful when we immigrated." Hazel sipped her tea again and Greta's lips curved into a gentle smile.

  The hair stood up on the back of Rayann's neck. "You immigrated to be together, didn't you?"

  "We ran away on the eve of my wedding," Greta said. Her pale blue eyes, almost an exact match of Hazel's, softened with remembrance. "Because Hazel said she would cease to live if I married."

  "As I recall, I said I was planning to leave immediately after the wedding to join missionaries going to Africa." Hazel stared into her tea. Rayann had a hard time envisioning practical Hazel threatening anything so outrageous.

  "And I said the climate would kill you and you said you didn't care."

  "I wouldn't have, knowing you were truly married."

  "How long had you been in love?" Rayann asked. She was enthralled by the longevity of their caring for each other. They communicated silently as to who should answer Rayann's question.

  "Two weeks," Greta said. "Hazel was sent to our house by her mother to help with my trousseau. We hadn't seen each other since we were girls."

  "I wouldn't agree to marry the silly boy my parents had chosen for me and they sent me to Greta's wedding hoping the excitement and glamour would make me envious."

  Greta continued, when Hazel stopped, "Instead she fell in love with me."

  "How did you know? In just two weeks? I'm completely fascinated." Rayann handed Greta another tissue when she sneezed again.

  "As I said, she had a way of moving around in her mother's kitchen. You reminded me of her when you were sawing the shelves. She looked as if she could do anything. Her hair kept falling out of its net but she never noticed. I watched her for hours because she didn't seem to realize I was even there."

  "I was concentrating on my intended as a good Christian girl should. Every time I saw Hazel I had to remind myself I was getting married in a few days and she would no longer be there, making me laugh and long to stay in the kitchen all night talking."

  "Why were you getting married?"

  "Because it was expected. He was decent enough. Don't snort, dear, I know you disliked him, but he was a decent man. I would have been happy just living at home but he offered for me and lickety-split I was putting up preserves and sewing sheets. I was glad when my mother said my cousin Hazel was coming to help because the preparation was such a lot of work."

  "And instead of helping she courted you?" Rayann pictured an old-fashioned kitchen with two maidens in long gowns who stole glances at one another as they sewed before an open fire. She blinked back unbidden tears.

  "You make it sound too cerebral," Hazel said. "As more guests arrived we were forced to share Greta’s bed and one night I... convinced her my love was sincere. Back then it wasn't uncommon at all for women to share beds — here we have to pretend Greta sleeps over there all the time or the church people who own the place would probably show us the door."

  To Rayann's delight, Greta blushed. "She said she hated the man I was marrying because he wouldn't know how to make me happy because he was a man. I was hurt and said I was sure he would be a good mate and what did she mean by saying he wouldn't love me the right way?"

  "So I showed her." Hazel shrugged. "By morning she was convinced."

  Rayann put her hands to her own blushing cheeks. "How incredibly romantic!"

  "I didn't know it could be so... quiet," Greta said, her blush returning.

  "I know what you mean," Rayann said.

  "As I knew you would." Hazel set her cup down. "We haven't told our story to very many people. Most of them have passed over. We just went on living our life together."

  "When all the wonderful things were happening years ago I wanted to come out, but Hazel — you have probably noticed she's the practical one — wanted to know just who we were supposed to come out to? We knew who and what we were."

  "And I knew there were the young people. This closet issue was really their struggle. Your struggle."

  "It's a struggle for everyone, but I guess we all struggle in different ways." Rayann gathered their empty cups. "I'm so happy you told me because now I'm more sure than ever that women like us have always existed."

  She made a second dose of tea for both women and told them to call her if they needed anything at all, or if she could pick up groceries. On her way out of the building she stopped at the nurses' station at the personal care ward and gave Estelle Betts the phone number of the bookstore, asking her to call if Hazel and Greta wanted anything. They were all bound together now in a larger family — sisters in the best sense. Hugging Muse of the Violets to her chest, Rayann hurried back to the bookstore.

  5

  True to Her Grain

  It's a mental condition. Or just a normal response to suddenly being single. Rayann tried to find solid rationalizations to explain the uncontrollable bursts of lust that had washed over her all morning, leaving her wrung out and decidedly damp.

  It was bad enough when it happened at the bookstore. It was downright uncomfortable though Louisa had not, by look or touch, indicated any sexual interest in Rayann. But when Rayann left the bookstore to deliver the first of the holiday flyers, the feeling of wanting to be with another woman was so strong it practically walked beside her. At a minimum, it was wearing her underwear.

  It's just a normal thing. Stop dawdling. As she began the fourth floor in the City Center building, Rayann pulled another handful of flyers from her backpack. She took a deep breath, hoping this receptionist would be different from the previous ones she'd talked to on floors two and three.

  She wasn't. She had quite possibly the most erotic notch in her collar bone that Rayann had ever seen. A delicate, old-fashioned cameo — not unlike Louisa's — nestled right in the notch.

  "Can I help you?" A faint Gaelic lilt. Rayann's knees went wobbly.

  Oh, yes, you can help me. I bet I could help you, too. "Hi. I'm from The Common Reader Bookstore, just a few blocks over on Alice, and we're having a special on dictionaries for the holidays. This flyer explains all about it."

  "I didn't know there was a genuine bookstore this close," the woman said, the lilt making the words fall like poetry on Rayann's ears. Her throat was smooth, slender and looked softer than silk. "B. Dalton's is just round the comer but they're not very friendly. Half the time they don't have what I want. Can I have a few more of these — there are a couple of other people I think would be interested." A faint spray of freckles broke the pale pink flush of her skin.

  "Sure. Feel free to make copies. Our supply of dictionaries is limited, so tell everyone to hurry." Rayann couldn't help it — her right eye winked at the woman all by itself.

/>   The woman smiled innocently and said, "Thanks for stopping by." Rayann escaped.

  The receptionist was not there in the next office and Rayann heaved a sigh of relief. Maybe she could get in and out without... no such luck. A tall, sleek, panther-like woman appeared from around one corner, moving silently toward Rayann on black high heels. Rayann breathed in with the rhythm of the woman's steps, her eyes moving slowly from instep to ankle, then the long, long journey up legs that stretched from San Francisco to St. Louis, encased in black stockings that whispered as thigh brushed thigh.

  Oh no — don't think about her thighs! Too late. Heart pounding, Rayann delivered her spiel, left the flyer and ran for it. She leaned against the wall in the corridor. If only most receptionists weren't women. And I know that it's an abomination that companies hire attractive women to be receptionists. Furthermore, Rayann told herself sternly, ogling women like this was... patriarchal, and not to be encouraged. Get a grip.

  Chin up, she went resolutely into the next office. This receptionist did not have an angel-food-cake kind of beauty — no fluff, mousse or acrylic nails in sight. She was a dyke. Rayann almost rocked from the shudder that traveled from the pit of her stomach to her toes and then sent sparks through each fold and wrinkle of her labia — the sensation destroyed what little was left of her composure.

  Piercing black eyes looked out of a tanned face unembellished by makeup and framed by two small pink triangle earrings. The face led to a throat hidden behind a turtleneck. A gray pullover tightened around a trim waist and left Rayann's imagination to fill in the . . . curves in between. Curves vividly sketched by her mind's eye, Rayann's imagination then tackled the tight black jeans which did not leave much to the imagination. I'll faint if she turns around.

  "Uh..." Rayann managed to get through her description again. The woman took the flyer, smiling, displaying the most sensuous laugh lines around a full-lipped mouth that Rayann had ever seen. A flash of memory showed her another mouth, other laugh lines, the sight of which, only this morning, had also left her speechless.