by Ann Bannon
Laura stood paralyzed, watching every motion Beth made, the confession so tight in her throat that the pressure made her giddy. «Beth, I—I—”
Beth turned away from her into the closet. “Go wash up, honey,” she said.
“Beth, please. Please, I—”
Beth straightened up suddenly and took Laura’s face in her hands and bent over her and kissed her. And then she shut her eyes tight in pure surprise at herself and her hands held hard to Laura’s shoulders for a moment. Finally she said, “Now, go. Go on…for God’s sake, Laur—scram!”
Uncle John stayed at the house for Sunday dinner. It was the traditional climax to his traditional weekend. He sat at the housemother’s table and Beth sat beside him. Laura was at a table in the back of the room. With a little prudent rubbernecking she could just see Beth, but it was risky to keep looking. And still she had to look, almost to reassure herself that Beth was still real.
They teased her about Charlie at the table. Emmy had pried the information from her that she was going to the Christmas dance with him, and when Emmy knew something the rest of the house knew about it soon after. Mary Lou Baker startled Laura at the table by saying, “Laura, it must be love!” Laura was straining to see Beth over the tops of rows of heads and her concentration gave her face a dreamy quality. She looked at Mary Lou with a startled expression until somebody said, “We hear youVe got a date for the Christmas dance!”
“Oh,” Laura breathed in relief. From then on she was glad to play along with them. She needed a man just then as insurance against a dozen ills. Charlie stood for Laura-likes-men, men-like-Laura, everything-is-right-with-Laura-so-look-no-further.
When the girls across the table from her moved their heads apart, and the girls at the next table were nodding just so, she could see just enough to know that Beth wasn’t looking at her. She was talking to someone, or laughing, or busy with her food, and Laura felt isolated and forsaken, envious of everyone at Beth’s table. But between courses, when Uncle John was busy singing a song with the others, she glanced once more toward Beth’s table and their eyes met and Beth gave her an almost imperceptible smile before she looked away.
Laura caught it and held tight to it, the secret recognition in it, and she felt a sudden shock deep in her abdomen—so strong, so strange, so sweet that it invaded all of her before she understood it or could resist. She refused her dessert; she sat tortured in her place, yearning for the interminable meal to be over, for Uncle John to go home and leave Beth to her. She would have given anything to be rid of Emily.
She dared not look back at Beth. The curious feeling flared at the mere thought of her. The sight of her now would make the agitation unbearable. Laura began to fear her own words, her trembling hands, the telltale sweat on her face. It was with a long sigh of thanksgiving that she arose from the table and left the dining room, and went up to the room to wait for Beth.
She tried to calm herself, to tame the whirlwind in her stomach. She reached the room and opened the closet door to get her toothbrush and suddenly the funny feeling burst again inside her and she buried her face in the clothes and thought wildly, Beth, help me! Hold me, help me, Beth darling Beth I need you. Oh, I need—
The room door smacked against the closet door and Emmy said, “Who dat? Laur?”
A pang of caution sharply neutralized the feeling. Laura was on guard. She straightened mechanically and collected her toothpaste and said, “Yes.”
Emily yawned. “We’re going over to the Modern Design show in the art building,” she said.
“You and Bud?” said Laura politely, as if it mattered. It cost her a terrible effort to appear calm.
“Yes, and Beth and Uncle John.”
And suddenly it did matter.
“Should be a good show. Isn’t Beth’s uncle funny? Honestly, we nearly died laughing at him at dinner.”
“Yes, he is funny. I thought he was going home early this afternoon.”
“Well, he was, but we talked him into coming along to this show. Besides, he’s the only date Beth ever has, and she needs to get out once in a while.”
They heard Beth coming down the hall. She was talking to Mary Lou and she came into the room looking back over her shoulder and laughing at something. The strange feeling welled irresistibly in Laura at the sight of her back.
“We were just talking about you, roomie,” said Emily, foraging through a muddled drawer for her gloves. Laura half envied her ability to be casual with Beth, and at the same time scorned her for not understanding Beth better.
Beth turned around and faced her roommates, and Laura couldn’t stop looking at her. “Oh, you were?” she said. “Good things, of course.” She smiled at them.
“We think you ought to go out more often,” said Emily matter-of-factly, pulling out one glove triumphantly and tossing it on top of her dresser.
“You do, hm? With whom?” Beth gave Laura a quizzical smile.
Laura gave Emmy a brief venomous glance for having said, “We.”
“Oh, anybody,” said Emmy, burrowing in her drawer again for the other glove.
“Sure,” said Beth. “Like, maybe, Santa Claus?”
Emily laughed. “Oh, Beth, you’re hopeless. We’ll have to make it our special project to marry you off this year, won’t we, Laur?”
Laura glared at her, but Beth said, “And ruin a fine record? No thanks, Em. I’m stuck with Uncle John.” She walked over to the closet and reached past Laura for her coat. “Hurry up, can’t keep them waiting,” she said to Emily.
“I’m coming. Can’t find that other glove, darn it. I know it’s here somewhere. I put it in here with the other one just two days ago. Can’t have just walked away. Now where is it?”
While she talked Beth pulled her coat slowly off the hanger in the closet, all the while looking down at Laura, who stared hard at the floor until the wild feeling beat inside and lifted her eyes almost without her willing it. Beth took her hand suddenly and pressed it and Emily rambled on about her glove. Neither Beth nor Laura heard her for an instant. And then, when the instant grew a second too long, Beth drew her coat between them and turned and slipped into it.
“What are you going to do this afternoon, Laur?” she said.
“Found it!” said Emmy, and gave them a disgusted smile. “Underwear drawer.”
“Nothing,” said Laura. “Study, I guess.”
“Why don’t you come along with us?”
“Oh, no thanks, I couldn’t. I—I have too much to do.” She couldn’t bear the thought of being so near to Beth all that time and unable to touch her.
Beth smiled at her. “I understand you’re going to see Charlie again,” she said. “You didn’t tell me.”
Laura turned hot with confusion. “Oh—oh, didn’t I? Yes, for the dance.”
“Hey, he’s cute, Laur,” said Emmy, grabbing her coat, and hurrying out the door.
Laura and Beth looked intently at each other, Laura with an uneasy smile on her face, and then Beth followed Emmy out.
Left by herself, the rest of the afternoon was a lonely one for Laura. Somewhere in the back of her mind was the sickening doubt that it was monumentally wrong to love another girl. And yet she did, and how much!
She thought of the kiss she stole in the night and her breath left her, first with delight and then with shame. And then she crept back to the thought and it was once again pure pleasure. She put her hand against her lips as if to preserve the kiss. Or prevent it? And then she thought of the way Beth had kissed her in the morning, so suddenly, so quickly, and she thought she couldn’t have done anything so very wicked after all.
All afternoon, through her thoughts, the lines of print in her textbook, the wandering reveries in her head, slipped in the word “homosexual.” At first she seemed to glimpse it from very far away and it made her feel sick and frightened, but as the day waned it came closer. And finally she made herself look hard at it until she threw herself out on the couch and sobbed in an agony of self-accu
sation. She cried until exhaustion stopped her.
She sat up finally and looked at her mental picture of the Landons. They were normal. And then she looked down at herself, and nothing seemed wrong. She had breasts and full hips like other girls. She wore lipstick and curled her hair. Her brow, the crook in her arms, the fit of her legs—everything was feminine. She held her fists to her cheeks and stared out the window at the gathering night and begged God for an answer.
She thought that homosexual women were great strong creatures in slacks with brush cuts and deep voices; unhappy things, standouts in a crowd. She looked back at herself, hugging her bosom as if to comfort herself, and she thought, “I don’t want to be a boy. I don’t want to be like them. I’m a girl. I am a girl. That’s what I want to be. But if I’m a girl why do I love a girl? What’s wrong with me? There must be something wrong with me.”
But then she thought irresistibly of Beth, and her clean wholesome beauty and her gentleness, and she thought that nothing Beth could do would be wrong. And Beth had kissed her….
The interminable afternoon dragged on. Laura didn’t go downstairs for supper but sat in the room ticking off the hours, thinking that Uncle John must surely by now have left and that Beth would be home soon. She was studying quietly on the couch at ten o’clock when her two roommates finally came in.
“Hey, you cleaned the room! That’s terrific! Thanks, Laur,” said Emmy.
Laura smiled. “That’s okay,” she said. She looked back to her book, but a hundred veiled side glances brought Beth to her eyes; Beth slipping out of her clothes, revealing her fine legs, slim-ankled and hard-calved. Laura wanted to know if she ever took dancing lessons. Her thighs were slender too, and firm, not wide and soft like so many girls’. For the first time Laura took a long heady look at Beth in the flesh and then Beth climbed laughing into her pajamas, teasing Emmy for running after “that no-good trombone.”
Emily groaned and said she had millions of things to do and she would do them all tomorrow and thank God the evening was over and “Good night, you two, I can’t fight it any longer.” She went off to bed. It was a stroke of luck Laura hadn’t counted on. She was worn out herself, but she didn’t know it. She wouldn’t have believed it.
Beth drew a book from the shelf and came and sat beside Laura on the couch.
“Don’t know how long I’ll last,” she said. She felt Laura’s warm glance on her and enjoyed pretending she didn’t.
The torments of Laura’s afternoon began to fade. Beth reached out and squeezed her knee, and Laura jumped.
“You are ticklish,” she said with a smile, and then she turned to her book.
Laura looked at her book, waiting for a word, a gesture to invite her; but none came. Beth studied seriously and in a short time she was lost in another world. Laura, seeing her absorption, stared boldly at her, loving her nearness with its wealth of adorable details: the light hair on her arms, the fine skin, the violet eyes so unaware of the pale blue ones that searched them. Her hands were marvelous and long and firm, with trim hard nails on them; her breathing so gentle, so peaceful, so welcoming. Laura wanted to put her head down on Beth’s breast. And as she looked at it, moving rhythmically up and back, swelling with swift grace under the striped pajamas, she wanted more than to rest on it. Her hand tightened, disciplining itself against desire.
She shifted self-consciously on the couch and found her place in the book again and stared at it, unseeing, stamping with her will on the strange madness in her that begged for liberty. When Beth was near her, her careful senses loosened, yearned, burst suddenly from the bonds of caution. Her mail-fisted moral code unclenched, and right and wrong rushed out and ran whooping into limbo.
After half an hour, Beth threw her book down and yawned. “Can’t keep my eyes open,” she said.
Laura looked at her with nothing for her but a smile—such a beggar of a smile! Beth gave it a bag of gold.
“Laur, honey, will you scratch my back?” she said.
Laura’s smile grew. “All right,” she said.
“Wonderful. I love to have my back scratched.” She rolled over on her stomach, giving Laura room to sit beside her, and she sighed with pleasure as Laura’s hands began to trace the curves of her back. “Oh, that’s marvelous,” she murmured. “Mmmm….” She shivered a little, and Laura trembled with her. “Under my pajamas, Laur. Feels better….”
Warily Laura lifted her pajama shirt and her cool fingers groped for the ripe smooth warmth beneath them.
“Oh, yes…” Beth said.
Laura could see her smile, her eyes shut the better to feel. “Oh, I love this. Emmy won’t ever do it for me. Mmmm…you’re wonderful.”
Laura’s hands shook and she lifted them for a moment.
“Don’t stop, Laur.”
And her fingers descended to their enthralling task again, traveling like ten light feathers over the flawless hollows, the fields of grateful flesh, the sweet shoulders. Laura was lost to reason. She parted the hair that hid Beth’s neck and drew her fingers lightly over the white nape. The hair was cool and delectably soft, and at the roots warm and thick. Laura leaned toward it, hardly realizing that she was moving. It smelled clean and faintly perfumed. She looked at Beth’s profile, outlined against the burgeoning pillow, the eyes shut, the lips relaxed, the brow fair and faultless.
With a swift thrill of necessity she bent down and kissed the white neck for a long moment. A sudden acute fear pulled her up. She clasped her hand across her mouth and stared in terror at Beth, wondering how she could have let herself do it. Beth lay perfectly still with a faint smile on her lips.
“Beth?” said Laura. “Beth?” The whisper quailed. “Oh, Beth!” Laura clutched her shoulders. “Say something! Forgive me! Say something! Are you mad at me?”
Beth whispered softly, “No.”
A wash of heat flooded Laura’s face. She bent over Beth again, perfectly helpless to stop herself, and began to kiss her like a wild, hungry child, starved for each kiss, pausing only to murmur, “Beth, Beth, Beth….”
Beth rolled over on her back then and looked up at Laura, reaching for her, breathing hard through her parted lips and smiling a little, and her excitement burned the last rags of Laura’s reserve. Her lips found Beth’s and found them welcoming, and one after another shock of intense pleasure hit her.
Her frantic heart shot blood through her veins, the sweat burst urgently from her body and she felt answering movements from Beth’s body. All of a breathless sudden it culminated in a sweeping release exploding and reverberating stormily through her.
She heard her faraway voice groan in ecstasy and she held Beth so tightly that it seemed they must somehow melt together. She couldn’t stop, she couldn’t let go, she couldn’t think or speak. And when finally the furious desire abated a little it was only to gather strength for a fresh explosion.
At last Beth pulled herself up on one elbow and leaned over Laura. Her eyes were hot and her hair was wild, yet for all that she looked strangely ethereal.
“Oh, baby,” she said in a husky voice. “We’ll sleep in here. We’ll sleep here tonight. I couldn’t leave you tonight.” She looked hard at her. “Oh, Laura…” she said and her voice trailed away and her lips came down on Laura’s again and again and again. Laura answered her with wordless passion.
Suddenly Beth pulled away from her and stood up with a quick movement as if that were the only way it could be accomplished.
“Beth!” said Laura like a hurt child, as if she were about to lose her.
“Got to fix the bed. Somebody might come in. My God, they can’t find us like this. Open the couch, honey. I’ll get the blankets.” She leaned over to kiss her once more and then she went out of the room.
In a few minutes she was back with the bedclothes. Laura couldn’t look at her without touching her. She went over and put her head down on Beth’s shoulder, and Beth let her burdens drop around her to free her arms for Laura. After a while they got the bed made up a
nd the light turned out and themselves tucked in. There was still a little noise in the halls.
“What if someone comes in?” whispered Laura.
“Nobody will. Besides, if somebody does, it won’t matter. They won’t know. The dorm is cold as hell tonight. A lot of kids are sleeping in their rooms. Don’t worry, don’t worry,” she whispered and drew her closer in her arms.
“Oh, Beth,” said Laura, and her voice was light as a breath and as warm. “I love you. I love you so much.”
Beth bent down and kissed her. “Hush,” she said. “Sleep.”
Eight
Laura thought nothing could ever awaken her. The days that followed were dreams. She wrapped herself in her secret; she wore it in her eyes, on her lips, in her stomach where it welled up hotly to ignite the star in her heart. Her moments with Beth were brief but beautiful, precarious and precious.
It took Beth some time to recover from her astonishment. In one swift strange night with Laura she had found that powerful delight that was supposed to be the crown and glory of romantic love. It had been effortless, inevitable, more wonderful than she had dared to hope. But it had been ironic, too, that it had come like this unbidden, so easily, with a girl. Beth thought of the many men she had looked to for it; the countless times she had searched, tried for it, even worked for it, with nothing for her pains but fatigue and eventually boredom. How had a simple girl like Laura been able to spring her emotions free of their trap? It was a little uncanny. Beth eyed her with a new respect, but she couldn’t help wondering…if it had been Charlie she had slept with instead of Laura, would it have happened anyway? Would it have been as good, or better? Maybe Beth was just ready for it when Laura happened to come along. Or maybe she needed a woman to teach her how a woman can feel. Beth couldn’t find the answer, and the more she looked for it the more perplexed she became.
Laura and Beth found all sorts of odd little gratifications. At house meetings Laura liked to sit behind Beth and scratch her back. It went unnoticed, since half the others were doing it too. At the Union they met each other for coffee in the afternoon and they walked home together for dinner. During the long quiet evenings they studied; beside each other on the couch when they could, across the room from each other when Emily got to the couch first.
