by Ann Bannon
“Not a thing. Just that for a girl who likes girls, you did a damn queer thing marrying six men,” Beebo said.
Venus answered pensively. “I kept thinking one of the six would set me straight somehow,” she said.
Beebo felt those lovely hands in her hair, and she looked over at the kitchen door. It was about thirty feet away…thirty miles, it seemed.
“You’ve got such soft hair, Beebo,” Venus said, and she leaned down and kissed the crown of Beebo’s head, and then lifted her face and kissed everything upside-down from her perch on the couch. “You kiss me so gently,” she said. “I never knew a lover so gentle before. There isn’t a man alive who could come near you.” And she kissed Beebo again till Beebo reached up from the floor and caught Venus’s breasts in her hands, returning the kiss with a young warmth that struck sparks in Venus. Beebo held her hard and groaned, “Don’t, don’t, you don’t know what it’s doing to me. Oh, God…oh, please…”
“Do you still think I don’t know?” Venus said. “Don’t you understand by now I’m not doing this for kicks? Or to hurt you? Or God knows what other medieval torments you imagined? I think you’re amazing. Exciting. Adorable. Did you think I’d never tried it before with a woman? I’ve tried everything, darling. Everything but corpses, anyway.”
“Oh, Venus, Venus—”
“Hush, I’ll explain. You see, it was always so rotten with men. It was as good as it ever got with a girl. But never this good.” Her directness threw Beebo emotionally offstride. “I kept thinking it should be. If men were so bad there had to be something else worth living for. So I kept looking. But I have to be so damn careful. Whatever I do is news.”
Beebo looked at her and saw tears on her cheeks. “My daydreams were always better than my life,” Venus whispered, “and when you reach that point, you’re in trouble. All the money in the world can’t make those dreams real.” She brushed lightly at the tears, embarrassed by them.
“I was wild when that dreadful Pasquini came up here,” she said. “I’d been looking forward to seeing you all day. After he left, I began to think maybe his coming was a sign that I should give you up while I still could. An affair between us would seem like the world’s worst cliché: the jaded vamp seducing the innocent girl for the sake of a few cheap kicks.” She sat silent a moment and then she smiled at Beebo.
“Do you know what Miss Pinch said after you left? She came marching in and announced that you were a dyke and Pat was a queen.”
“Miss Pinch said that?” Beebo said, and laughed at the incongruity of it.
“Well, she put it a little differently. She said, ‘The dark young gentleman was a female and the blond young gentleman was a lady, if you know what I mean, ma’am.’”
They laughed together and Beebo felt suddenly close to Venus; her fear had vanished. “The only thing I worry about is, Miss Pinch might tell Leo,” Venus said. “It makes him simply wild when I take up with a girl.”
“Do you take them up often?” Beebo asked, looking down.
Venus shook her head without answering. It was a wordless admission of her loneliness and frustration; as great, in its way, as Toby’s. Beebo got up on her knees and encircled Venus’s waist. “Venus, darling,” she said softly, hesitantly. “I love you so much. I can’t understand this thing. I thought you were—all glittery and cold. I thought we’d finally climb into bed, and you’d kill me with your laughter. And then to have you like this! God, I don’t know what I’m doing. It’s so crazy. Venus, Venus, I adore you.” She began to kiss her again and Venus let herself be pulled off the sofa and into Beebo’s arms, giving in a bit at a time, so that Beebo was trembling and wild-eyed one moment, and overwhelming Venus the next.
She had just enough sense to pick Venus up moments later and carry her to the bedroom, through the overstated boudoir, and out of the sight of Toby and the women. She laid Venus down on the blue silk coverlet of her bed, leaning over her with her fists planted in the mattress.
“This is where I do my dreaming,” Venus told her. “I take off my clothes and lie down here and tell myself beautiful crazy stories. I’ve been doing it for years.”
“Who do you dream about?” Beebo asked.
“Who do you think?” Venus smiled. “God, you’re so tall for a girl. So tanned and strong. Like a boy.”
“I hate to think of you all alone on that blue silk, wanting me,” Beebo said. “And me out delivering salami.”
“And talking to Toby,” Venus said.
“That means a lot to you, doesn’t it?”
“Everything,” Venus admitted. “I can’t tell you how much. I can talk to him now without screaming at him. I owe that to you, Beebo.”
Instead of accepting the compliment gracefully, Beebo stared moodily out the window. “Are you keeping me around so you won’t lose Toby again? I don’t want to find myself pounding on your locked door the day you learn you can talk to him without me.”
“What does it take to make you trust a girl, Beebo?” Venus teased.
“I guess I never will trust you—quite,” Beebo said truthfully. “You’re too good to be true.”
Venus pulled her head down on the pillow and asked seriously, “How many people know you have a crush on me? Don’t fib, darling. I have a special reason for wanting to know.”
Beebo gritted her teeth together a moment before she answered. “My roommate. His name is Jack Mann. He’s gay, too. He’s the best friend I ever had and I trust him more than I trust myself.”
“Who else? Pasquini?”
“No,” Beebo said, lying forcefully with the sudden knowledge that Venus was trying to decide how dangerous their affair could be. The safer it seemed to her, the better the chances she would keep Beebo with her…perhaps even take her to the West Coast.
“How about this girl who’s in love with you?” Venus said.
“She’s not in love with me. It’s a crush,” Beebo said, ashamed of the betrayal but unable to help herself. “She’ll get over it.”
“Do girls ever get over their crushes on you?” Venus said.
“Every day,” Beebo protested. “Venus…would you ever lock me out…if people knew?”
Venus rolled away from her, sitting halfway up. Her face was dark. “I’d have to,” she said. “For Toby, if for no other reason. And even without him, there’s my career. It’s my life, my anchor. I can’t afford to jeopardize it, especially now that I’m thirty-eight.” She glanced at Beebo. “Is that unforgivably selfish of me? Don’t answer. It is, of course. I want you, and all the rest, too. And that means you’re the one who’d have to sacrifice. It’s just that…for some people a job is a job. For me, it’s self-respect. Acting is about the only thing I’ve done in my life I’m not ashamed of. Is it too much to ask, Beebo—secrecy?”
“Is it possible?” Beebo said.
Venus nodded. “There are ways. I’ve had to learn them.”
“With the other girls,” Beebo said resentfully.
Venus stroked her shoulder. “You don’t have to be jealous,” she said. “I do.”
“I’m jealous of all your husbands. All your lovers, male and female. Every slob who ever saw you in a movie.”
Venus chuckled, letting her tripping voice twist her body back and forth on the blue silk, and Beebo suddenly forgot everything in her life that had preceded this moment. She lunged across the bed and caught Venus by the wrist, whirling her around just as Venus got to her feet.
For an instant they stayed as they were, breathless: Beebo stretched out the length of the bed, looking at Venus with her blue eyes shining like a cat’s. Venus could feel the avalanche of passionate force trapped inside Beebo, ready to burst free at the flip of a finger. Already it was near exploding.
Venus stood there pulling against Beebo; warm, even hot to the point of perspiring. The light sweat excited Beebo far more than the perfume Venus usually wore. Her body was a soft pearly peach and between her breasts Beebo could see the quivering lift and fall of her sternum.
B
eebo gave a swift tug on Venus’s arm and brought her tumbling down on the bed, laughing. That laugh sprang the switch in Beebo. She stopped it with her mouth pressed on Venus’s. And at last Venus submitted, all the twisting and teasing melting out of her. She let herself be kissed all over.
Beebo looked at her, stripped of the tinseled make-believe and the wisecracks; her lips parted and her eyes shut and her fine dark hair spilling pins over the pillow, coming down almost deliberately to work its witchery. Beebo kissed handfuls of it.
She fell asleep a long time later, still murmuring to Venus, still holding her possessively close, still wondering what she had done—or would have to do—to deserve it.
They were shaken out of sleep by the shrill ringing of the blue phone by Venus’s bed. Venus answered sleepily, pulling the receiver onto the pillow by her ear where she lay across Beebo’s chest.
But she came awake fast.
It was Leo Bogardus, calling from Hollywood. Beebo opened her eyes and watched while Venus flushed with wrath and suddenly burst into furious tears, threatening to hitchhike for Reno if she had to.
When she had slammed the phone down she told Beebo angrily that Leo had signed her to a television special series called Million Dollar Baby.
“I’m the Baby, but I’ll never see the million bucks,” she cried. “God, I hate TV! You get overexposed, underpaid, and worked to death. And all the lousy profit goes to the lousy sponsors.”
Beebo stroked her and tried to calm her. After a while Venus sat still, her head in her hands. “Will you really go to Reno?” Beebo asked.
“No,” she sighed. “He won’t give me a divorce. I’ve tried everything…. I’ll go to Hollywood. I have no choice, Beebo. That’s where they’re going to film this little horror.”
“Well, you were going anyway, for Toby.”
“But not this soon! God damn that Leo! Well, at least I asked Toby first. I tried to do it—right.”
“How soon is this soon?” Beebo asked disconsolately.
“Tonight, if I can get reservations.”
Beebo sat up in a mood of defiance. “Venus, you can’t—”
“I have to, darling. Leo has ways of forcing me. Besides, I knew he’d been talking about this for months. But I didn’t think it would come so soon.” She glanced at Beebo and suddenly turned halfway around to kiss her mouth, startling Beebo.
“Is that goodbye?” Beebo said, so coldly that Venus smiled at her.
“I told you I had a business proposition for you, you wicked child,” she said. “And it’s a damn good thing, or I could never explain to Toby why you spent the night. I’m going in right now and mess up the guest room. Bring your clothes.”
Beebo pulled some of them on en route to the guest room. “What proposition?” she demanded, full of new hopes.
“Would you like to work for me?” Venus said, turning down the covers of the extra bed. She had thrown her negligee around herself.
“As what?” Beebo said. “Your companion?”
“No. Toby’s. He says you know horses. Maybe you could work in the stables.” She spiraled the sheets around on the bed and dumped a pillow on the floor. “That should do it…. Well, don’t stand there, darling, go home and pack,” she said, glancing up at her astonished guest. “I want you back here before six tonight. There’s a flight at eight I can usually get seats on. What’s the matter, don’t you want to go?”
“I—yes—I do,” Beebo stammered.
“Well, go, darling. Go, go, go!” Venus said, clapping her hands under Beebo’s nose and laughing. “And don’t talk about it!” she hissed at Beebo’s retreating back. “To anybody!”
Beebo drove downtown in a fog of confusion. After the first shock of flattered pleasure died away, she found herself preoccupied with Paula; so concerned, so anxious, that there were tears in her eyes she had to keep squeezing away, just to see the traffic ahead of her.
She would stop at Paula’s apartment before she left. She had to. It was one thing to hurt somebody, but to do it like a snake, striking and slipping away before the victim knows what hit her—or who, or how—was beyond Beebo. She would tell Paula the truth herself, however much it cost them both in sorrow and resentment.
Beebo returned the Pasquinis’ truck, hoping to escape unnoticed. But Pete was lying in wait for her.
“So, you brought it back!” he said, grinning at her like a slick little fox. “We thought maybe you was taking a vacation in it.”
“It’s your truck,” she said, getting down. “I don’t want the damn thing.” She turned to look at him. “I—uh…I’m quitting, Pete. I got another job.”
“No kidding.” He picked his teeth without disturbing the leer on his face. “Walking the dog for some swell lady?”
“I’ve had it with dogs,” Beebo shot back. “I’ve been working for one all summer.”
Pete left the pick in his teeth in order to fold his arms over his chest in imitation of Beebo when she was insulted. “So, Beebo,” he said softly. “You don’t like it here with us no more?”
“You tell Marie I’m sorry,” Beebo said. “I like her fine.”
“Sure you do, sweetheart. She wears a skirt,” he said, rocking back and forth on his heels, needling her skillfully.
Beebo felt her temper expanding in her like hot air. It would have relieved her hugely to have punched him where it would hurt the worst. But that was no way to solve any problems—especially not with this covert, twisted young man who was trying to provoke the punch out of her on purpose.
“Marie is a friend of mine,” Beebo said stiffly.
“Meaning I ain’t? Ain’t I been friendly to you, Beebo?” he said, sauntering toward her. “Well, I can fix that up right now.” And with one abrupt movement he reached her side and threw her hard against the door of the truck, pulling her left arm up high in the back in a wrenchingly painful hammer lock. Beebo gave a gasp of shock and tried to break free. But for all her size and strength, she was still a girl, and no match for an angry, jealous man who had been wanting her and wanting to hurt her since he first saw her.
He forced his mouth on hers and when she struggled he bit her. She tried to knee him, and he pulled her arm up so hard they both thought for a moment he had broken it. Beebo went white with the pain, and leaned weakly against the door. Pete kissed her again, taking his time and not trying to unhinge her arm any more. The rough scratch of his whiskers and smell of his winy breath, the push of his hard hips, almost made her faint.
“Now why do you make me hurt you, Beebo? Why do you do that?” he said in a tense whisper, as if it were all her fault. “I don’t want to hurt you. I want to be friends.” He kissed her again. “Don’t that prove it?”
Beebo knew she was crying with pain and fury and sickness. “Let me go,” she said hoarsely. She would have screamed if she had had any strength, but her heart was pounding and she was clammy pale, very near to toppling over.
Pete released her suddenly, caught her as she stumbled, and seated her on the running board. He shoved her head down between her knees till the blood flow revived her. “You don’t got to put on a show,” he said irritably. “I know you don’t want it from a man. I know you’re gay, for chrissakes. That’s one thing I can spot a mile off. I like gay girls, Beebo, in case you ain’t noticed. I’m on your side. Jesus God, you’d think I hated you, or something.”
She looked at him sideways, when she thought she was strong enough to stomach him. “Get out of my sight, you rotten little creep,” she said. “Go find Mona. She plays both sides of the street.”
“Ah, Mona’s a drag,” he said. “She’s got this big thing about putting you down on account of Paula. And you standing her up that night. I’m sorry about that, Beebo, it was kind of my fault. It was me at her place that night.”
“Oh, God,” Beebo said, and let her head drop into her hands again. “I should have known.”
“Well, how am I supposed to know she’s bringing somebody home? I know this girl for years. I
drop in on her when I feel like it.”
“If you’re so goddamn big with Mona, you call on her when you feel like it, not me. Don’t you come tomcatting around to me, Pasquini.” She stood up, weaving slightly, and put a hand on the fender to steady herself.
He stood beside her, and she saw that her angry disgust with him was beginning to annoy him. He wanted a fight—that was part of the build-up for him. But he wanted an eventual surrender, on his terms. Beebo showed no signs of yielding and her revulsion for him was plain enough to anger him.
“Maybe Mona was right,” he said, his voice getting thin and mean. “Maybe you need a lesson before you learn what’s good for you.”
“I don’t need any from you,” Beebo spat at him. “I’m getting out of here right now, and you’ll never see me again.”
“I’ll catch up with you one of these days,” he said. “No matter where you go.”
“The hell you will. You’re not going to chase me all the way to California just to kick my can,” Beebo said hotly. But when Pete began to smile, she rethought her words in sudden panic.
“California?” Pete grinned. “Well, that’d almost be worth the trip. I think I’d like it out there. Maybe get another autograph from Venus. Huh, butch? You could work it for me.”
Beebo looked at him, her face a mask but her heart dismayed. “You believe it if you want to,” she said. “If you think I’d work anything for you, you’re more of a fool than a creep.”
She turned and ran out of the delivery yard while he watched her. He didn’t like to let her go. But at least she was leaving a trail behind her; one that shouldn’t be hard to follow. Pete smiled.
Beebo and Pat drank a few parting shots while Beebo packed her strap-fastened wicker bag and waited for Jack to get home. She was ready to go and a little tight when he rolled in at five.
“Having a party?” he asked.
“A goodbye party. I’m getting off your back, Jackson,” Beebo said. “I’m going to Hollywood.”
“They were bound to call you sooner or later,” Jack said. “Anyone can see you’ve got talent.”
