“Yes,” she said thoughtfully. “There are a lot worse things to do than to turn into an alcoholic.”
“Linda—”
“The life of an alcoholic,” she continued with remarkable logic, “is not so bad a life. It is not nearly as bad as people make it seem. An alcoholic has one problem and one problem only. The problem is alcohol.”
“Linda—”
“When an alcoholic has enough alcohol,” she went on, “his problem is solved for the time being. When he wakes up he needs more alcohol, and once again he solves his problem. It’s very simple, you see. He has a problem and he solves it and everything’s fine and dandy.”
Ruth shook her head sadly. She stood up from her chair and closed the book she had been reading. The book was Sepsonwol’s Fundamentals of Contemporary Economic Theories and it didn’t take any remarkable display of will power on Ruth’s part to close the book.
She walked over to Linda and sat down beside her on the edge of the bed. Linda turned to look at her, thinking how petite and lovely the little dark-haired girl was and wondering why she didn’t have the same type of problems. The answer, she guessed, was a simple one. Ruth may have lost her virginity earlier than Linda, but she was a good enough person so that an act like that wouldn’t knock her for a loop.
“Honey,” Ruth was saying, “you’ve got to get a grip on yourself. Isn’t there anything I can do for you.”
Linda shrugged.
“Anything at all?”
She shook her head.
“Linda, why don’t you go over to the psych department one of these afternoons? There are therapists supplied by the school that you could talk things over with—that helps a lot of people.”
“What good would that do?”
“It might help you. Honey, you’re not in so deep that you can’t pull yourself out once you get straightened out inside. If you let one of the therapists have a few good sessions with you, you’d probably feel a lot better, if nothing else. How about it?”
“No.”
“No?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t want to.”
“Linda—”
“I don’t want to,” she repeated. “I don’t want any psychiatrist trying to take me apart and figure out what’s wrong with me. I just don’t care, Ruth.”
Ruth didn’t say anything this time, and Linda thought that it didn’t matter what she did or where she went or who she talked to. Just so long as there was either a man or a gin bottle handy everything would be all right.
“Linda—”
“What is it?”
“Honey, this is silly, but I can’t help feeling partially responsible.”
“Don’t be silly.”
“I mean it—if I had been a better roommate maybe you wouldn’t have taken everything so hard. Roommates are supposed to look out for each other, you know.”
“You’ve been a wonderful roommate.”
Ruth sighed, and Linda noticed that the shorter girl was on the point of tears. “Linda,” she said, “isn’t there anything I can do for you?”
Linda considered. She wanted to think of something if only so that Ruth wouldn’t feel bad. “You could drink with me,” she offered finally. “I’m going to drink this stuff anyway, and you could give me a hand with it.”
Ruth forced a smile. “Sure,” she said. “That way at least you won’t be drinking alone. And it’ll keep you from killing the bottle by yourself.”
“Fine,” Linda said.
And she tilted the bottle and took a long swallow. Then she handed it to Ruth.
“I don’t know how you drink this stuff,” Ruth said a while later. Linda noticed that her roommate was slurring her words slightly. Evidently the stuff was hitting her hard.
For that matter, Linda herself was getting hit pretty hard by the gin. It was landing on top of a very empty stomach, and the emptiness of her stomach seemed to balance against Ruth’s lack of familiarity with gin. They were both about equally tight.
“It’s not bad.”
“But it tastes like medicine.”
“I know—that’s what I like about it.”
“Oh,” Ruth said. She took the bottle from Linda and took another long swallow. It didn’t appear any more that she was drinking merely to keep Linda company. She took the bottle in her hand and drank long and deep, and there was a hint of desperation in her face as she drank the gin down.
“Ruth—”
“Whatcha want, Linda?”
“Rub my back, Ruth.”
“Huh?”
“Rub my back,” Linda was saying. “I think I’d like it if you would rub my back.”
“I better not.”
“Why not?”
Silence. Then: “I don’t know. I just don’t think I should, that’s all.”
“But why not? You’re my good roommate, aren’t you?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Well, what’s a roommate for?”
Ruth didn’t say anything for a minute. Then she said: “Okay, Linda. I’ll rub your back.”
Linda kicked off her shoes and stretched out on the bed, waiting. Seconds later she felt Ruth’s hands on the small of her back, working at the flesh there, relaxing the tired and strained muscles. Ruth was giving her an excellent massage, and the relaxation of her back muscles combined with the spinning of her head was very pleasant.
She sat up suddenly.
“What’s the matter?”
“Be better with my sweater off,” she said. She peeled of the sweater and unclasped the bra. Ruth was saying something, protesting, but Linda couldn’t make out what the other girl was trying to say.
“Rub my back,” she said.
Ruth did as she was told. Her soft fingertips prodded Linda’s soft flesh and the effect they had was marvelous. Another sensation in addition to one of relaxation ran through the blonde girl’s body but she didn’t bother to analyze it.
She forgot everything—where she was, who she was, everything was forgotten. She felt as though she was floating in a sea of latex with an extra cushion beneath her breasts and two godlike hands rubbing her back.
“God!” someone said. Ruth, probably, she thought dreamily. But she didn’t bother to think about it.
Then the two god-like hands were slipping lower and gripping her around the waist, lifting her. She turned sleepily and rolled onto her back.
Seconds later Ruth’s arms locked around her body and Ruth’s mouth came down upon her own mouth. She was too drunk to know what was happening, too deeply under the influence of the alcohol and the back massage to react at all other than on a purely sensual level.
No girl had ever kissed Linda before. It was a new experience unlike anything that had ever happened to her. Ruth’s lips were soft, indescribably soft, and Ruth’s tongue was sweeter than honey when it dipped between her own parted lips. Ruth’s tongue caressed the inside of her mouth, touched her tongue and left it tingling.
The kiss was prolonged—slow and gentle and thorough. Linda’s whole mouth was alive now in a wondrously new way and a soft but insistent fire was burning in her loins. She closed her eyes and stretched luxuriously on the bed.
Ruth broke away from her then. Linda was unsure what was happening but she didn’t care. All she knew was that she wanted it to continue.
A second or two later it continued. This time when Ruth’s body pressed down upon hers, skin as soft and smooth as Linda’s was pressed tightly against her, breasts as lovely and perfect were touching her own bare breasts, and the soft sweet mouth was kissing her own mouth again. Automatically her arms wound around Ruth’s body and pressed the girl still closer. She gripped the girl around the waist and let her hands trail down to cup Ruth’s small hard buttocks.
Ruth was naked from head to toe.
Ruth released her again a moment later and Linda wanted to cry out. Then she felt Ruth’s hands on her breasts, cupping them so gently and tenderly, fingering the two nipples until they we
re as hard as red diamonds. Ruth pressed her lips to the valley between the two breasts and her tongue flicked out and touched the soft skin there briefly.
Ruth kissed each breast in turn. Her mouth and tongue were always gentle even when they were most demanding, always loving even when they were most insistent. Linda felt herself being lifted and floated higher and higher. There was no urgency in the way she felt, no irresistible passion that threatened to explode any minute. Instead she drifted in the soft flood of physical sensation, calm and relaxed, her whole body receptive to Ruth’s caresses.
She was only dimly aware of fingers that unflipped her skirt and pulled it down over her knees, only half-conscious of the same fingers hooking themselves under the elastic band of her black panties and drawing them over her hips and off. But she could not help being aware of those fingers when they stroked and kneaded the flesh at the tops of her thighs.
Ruth’s caresses grew bolder until they were completely unrestrained. Ruth’s fingers and lips and tongue coaxed her to a height of sexual excitement that was almost too much to live through and that was simultaneously warm and gentle and free from worry. Linda began to pant and her heart beat faster and faster.
Finally she tangled her fingers in the girl’s short black hair and held Ruth’s head in place, her own eyes tightly shut, her breath coming in short gasps, her muscles tense now and beads of sweat dotting her forehead.
The two of them lay there, Ruth giving and Linda receiving, both of them writhing and twisting in a mad embrace like drug addicts taking a cold turkey cure. Their passion rose to impossible heights till they arrived together at the peak of sensual pleasure.
Then, after the final moment of ecstasy had come and gone, they were both suddenly and completely sober, both suddenly and completely aware of just what had happened.
They parted at once. Each girl was overwhelmingly conscious of her own nakedness and it seemed imperative to conceal that nakedness before anything else. Linda grabbed up her skirt and sweater and put them on, not bothering with under-clothing for the time being. Ruth did the same—then, dressed again, they turned and looked at each other. Linda’s expression was one of puzzlement and lack of comprehension; Ruth’s eyes were clouded with shame.
“I can’t … can’t say how sorry I am,” she blurted out. “I didn’t want it to happen, Linda. You must realize that. If I hadn’t had so damned much of that gin—”
“I … don’t understand, Ruth. How did it happen?”
“I made love to you, Linda.”
“Yes, I know.”
“I … I—”
Ruth broke off. Her shoulders were trembling and she looked as though she might burst into tears at any moment. Automatically Linda reached out a hand to touch her, to comfort her. Then, realizing that a touch of any sort had a different significance after what had passed between them, she let her hand drop to her lap.
“I’m a lesbian,” Ruth managed to say.
Silence.
“Believe me,” she said. “Believe me, I didn’t plan this. I didn’t want anything like this to happen ever. I thought we could be … well, friends … without anything like this happening. But I was drunk and you were drunk and I guess we didn’t know what we were doing.”
Linda didn’t know what to say.
“You didn’t know I was a lesbian, did you?”
She shook her head.
“I’ve been a lesbian since my second year in high school,” she said. There was a note of something in her voice, half defiance and half pride. “Sheila Ashley and I have been making love together all year long.”
“I see,” she said. But she didn’t see, not entirely.
“Don’t you hate me?”
“Of course not.”
“You must despise me—”
“Why should I?”
“Because of what I am.”
Linda smiled vacantly. “I’m not in much of a position to despise anybody.”
“But—”
“You couldn’t help it,” she went on. “Why would I hold it against you? It’s not as if it was something that’ll happen again.”
“No,” Ruth promised. “It’s something that will never be repeated.”
Linda learned quite a few things from Ruth that night, things she had never suspected and never would have suspected if the two of them had not wound up making love together. She found out that her roommate’s sophistication and polish was more a cover-up than anything else. Ruth was tremendously frightened that her lesbianism would come to the surface. As it was, Linda and Sheila Ashley were the only two persons on the Clifton campus who had any idea of it.
As a result, she had to be very careful to act “normal.” Actually she had made love with a boy once, but she was hardly as experienced with men as she had led Linda to suspect. The single attempt had been an experiment—and a failure. Ruth was homosexual and that was all there was to it.
Afterward, as she thought it all over, the most amazing thing about it all was that Ruth was so well adjusted to what she was. On the surface it seemed as though she had much more against her than Linda did, but Ruth kept up-to-date in her schoolwork, led an active life and made friends easily. She didn’t drink, didn’t get depressed and was generally happy and at ease.
Linda, the “normal” one, was a wreck. It didn’t make much sense, she thought. And at the same time it occurred to her that there might still be a chance for her to make the best of it. Maybe, if she tried, she could make an adjustment the way Ruth had.
It seemed impossible. There were only six weeks left in the school year, hardly time enough to get caught up. She was almost certain to flunk out at the end of the term.
But she could make a try. She could start going to classes, stop going to bed with men. Passing courses and staying out of parked cars seemed equally impossible on the surface, but she knew that it was the only chance she had for a liveable life.
CHAPTER TEN
SHE WAS WALKING ALONG THE PATH from the Science Building to the Union, thinking how beautiful spring weather could be when the sun was out and the trees were green and the grass was green too and the sky was blue with white puffy clouds blowing around in it, when Jim Patterson took hold of her arm. She stopped suddenly and one of the books almost slipped out from under her arm but she caught hold of it.
“Hi,” he said. He flashed her a smile.
She smiled back.
“Busy, Linda?”
She nodded.
“Got time to go for a walk?”
At least, she thought, he was decent enough to call it a walk instead of calling a spade a spade and a piece a piece.
“No,” she said. “I’m pretty busy, Jim.”
“How about later tonight?”
“I’m afraid not.”
His smile faded. “Okay,” he said. “I’ll see you.”
“Jim—”
He turned and looked at her.
“Jim, I’ve reformed,” she said, making it sound light. “I’ve turned over a new leaf, sort of. No more … walks. I’m too busy trying to stay afloat in my courses.”
The smile returned to his face. It was a warm smile and she knew that he meant it when he said: “I’m glad to hear that, Linda. Good luck—I hope you make it.”
He turned and walked off. She watched him go for a second or two, remembering the first time with him on his blanket on the golf course, remembering the other times since then that the two of them had been together. Then she started off toward the Union once more for dinner.
You’re doing fine, she told herself as she hurried through a fairly tasteless dinner. God alone knows if you stand a chance of making it, but you’re putting up a good fight. You’re doing your best, for whatever it’s worth.
And she was doing her best; that was the funny part of it. Ever since she and Ruth had made love in their mutual drunken stupor she had thrown herself into the scholarship game with the same zeal she had previously devoted to learning the finer points of the fi
ne art of bedmanship.
Since that night she not cut a class or failed to complete an assignment. It was embarrassing, going to a class where the professor didn’t even recall her name, but she forced herself to adjust to the routine. She went to every class and after the day’s classes were over she hit the books with a vengeance. She had to do more than keep up with the new material—she also had to work her way through all the stuff that she had missed so far in the course of the year. The first semester’s courses were a lost cause, already failed, but she felt that she still had some semblance of a chance with the courses for the second semester.
But it was such a slim chance. She had to work every afternoon and evening until well after midnight, and all of Saturday and Sunday were also devoted to the arduous process of catching up.
Strangely enough, studying was turning out to be fun in its own weird way. For one thing, she didn’t have to go the route alone. Ruth was always around—she was gunning for a straight-A average and putting in plenty of time at her books. With the two of them in the room, both studying to beat the band, it wasn’t quite so lonesome a task as it might well have been otherwise.
More important, studying was beginning to provide the same sort of escape that drink and sex had given her before. When she buried herself in a book she could forget Don, forget the way she had acted and reacted, forget everything but the material she was trying to commit to memory. And in one respect it was a good deal better than drink or sex as an escape. She didn’t feel guilty after spending an evening with a book, the way she had when her evening’s companion had been a bottle or a boy.
After three weeks of studying like that she was fairly certain that she would be able to pass her exams if there were six weeks remaining in the term instead of three. As it stood it was a toss-up. But she had a chance, slim though it might be, and she wasn’t ready to give up.
It was hard to get back into the rhythm of studying, especially in that she had never learned the rhythm properly to begin with. She did everything as systematically as she possibly could, inventing little helps for herself, making list after list and schedule after schedule, working her way down each list and sticking to each schedule as well as she could without killing herself.
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