by Della Martin
"Ain't fightin. Filin'."
Some day Mavis would drive her out of her mind. "Are you going to sit bare on that goddam vanity bench all night? Is fooling with your nails so goddam important?"
"I'm having deep, significant thoughts," Mavis explained. At least she spoke normally—always a hopeful sign.
"Example?"
"Mrs. Knippe’s the one who put a bug in your mama's ear. Having you consult that analyst."
"Well, of course. But that was a kick. I didn't get a chance to tell you what a ball I had this afternoon."
"The ball's about over, Sass. Your mama's gotten hip."
The quick anger rose in Sassy once more. "Maybe that's the way you want it. You figured we're washed up, so you went out on the prowl."
Mavis had a way of replying with arrogant silence.
"All right, I'm sorry. We promised not to discuss it. And I don't care what Knips thinks. If she wasn't the only housekeeper we've ever had that can sober up my mother, I'd hide the goddam family jewels in her enema can. Frame her and get her thrown out of here."
"Besides, you liked the analyst bit," Mavis said, unconvinced.
"Oh, it was priceless. I made a complete utter fool of the man."
"Fo' shame, Miz Gregg!"
“I played it coy. Made him feel totally insignificant. One minute I was analyzing his sex life, the next minute I was as naive as a vested virgin."
"Vestal," Mavis corrected.
"Of course we avoided the reason Mums made the damned appointment. So there he sat, literally twitching to get at my early conditioning factors and probably wondering about my goddam endocrine balance. His poor little head all stuffed up with Freud and Krafft-Ebbing and Havelock Ellis... Oh, it was pathetic, really."
"Yeah," Mavis said listlessly.
"I toyed with him. Asked if it were possible to be somatically normal and obsessively homosexual. He picked up his ears, poor lamb, and that's when I told him I had read all those big words in a book—and what did they mean?"
"You had that cat reelin'!"
"At the end he explained there was nothing he could do to help me if I didn't want to be helped and wouldn't cooperate. He could just see all those lovely dollars floating out the window and I thought he was going to cry, really. It was a gas, Mave. A real gas!"
"Yo'-all so adjusted, Miz Gregg, yo' put one ovah on that analyzin' man?"
The words were like a sneer and Sassy's hilarious recital shriveled inside her. "Was that supposed to be clever, Mavis?"
"Jus' askin' ma'am."
"You implied there's something wrong with me!”
"Now, why I wanna do dat, Miz Gregg?”
It was too much. "God damn you, will you make sense? That was what you implied, wasn't it? You're one hell of a lover, literally telling me I need an analyst I"
"Nevah said I loved nobody."
Sassy leaped to her feet, driven by the girl's uncompromising aloofness. Pacing the room, she let Mrs. Knippel be damned and shouted her invectives. "You're the one who needs to be psychoanalyzed. You. You're so goddam disgustingly neurotic, I wonder how I dared bring you into this house!"
"Is it hard to live with, Sassy?" Mavis said quietly.
The change in tone stopped Sassy cold. Haltingly, she said, "That doesn't make sense, either."
Mavis looked up from her orangewood stick. "Must be a grind to be big, queer, butchy Sass, getting your jolts from a colored gal. What can you do but run and run? Wear a big diamond on your paw, love up a storm with a guy you probably hate..."
"That's all! That's all I'm going to take from you...!" Sassy heard herself shriek the words. Uncontrolled, her hand reached to slap Mavis's face. She was desolate in the next instant, standing beside the vanity bench, cradling the other girl's head against her thigh. "Oh, God, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to do that, honey. I've had such a miserable day."
Mavis remained stoically quiet and unyielding under Sassy's caresses. A resigned hopelessness fell over Sassy and she moved away, tears burning in her eyes.
"Why do you drive me and drive me to do things I hate myself for?"
Mavis seemed to grasp that opportunity for her revenge. "Didn't yo'-all demand to know sumpin', Miz Gregg?"
She was pitiless. Pitiless and detestable. Sassy dropped to the bed again, burying her face in her hands.. She had asked a question and now Mavis, unmercifully accurate in an analysis that Dr. Friedman would have groped for and perhaps never found—now Mavis drawled her answer.
"Must get tired, running. Meeting that big, strong he-man nights. Coming home sick enough to vomit. But planning to marry him, come across steady. Have a man steady, Sassy, so's you can keep somebody like me on the side and tell yourself you is bi-sexual. Tell the world. Tell everybody, go ahead..."
"I am!"
"Tell it to Sassy. Get her to believe it!"
"I am! You don't know everything about me."
"You think I have to hear it from an analyst's couch? I know it in bed, baby. All right for me to know it there. But, God Almighty, don't you ever admit to Sassy Gregg that she's butch—butch all the way!"
The agony of that truth twisted itself in Sassy's gut. "You're vicious. You're a vicious, sadistic, pathological liar." In the violent passion of her delivery, Sassy almost believed herself. Mavis was sadistic. She did lie.
Yet Mavis remained unperturbed, almost casual. "Never does help to run, does it, Sass? What can you do but run some more—run faster?" She concentrated on the result of her manicure for a moment Then, in a whisper that approached sympathy, she asked, "Where do you meet that other man, baby? Ruggio's bar? Or do you change the meeting place when you can't run any more?"
It was like finding yourself caught in a vise—struggling for breath. Sassy attempted a careless dismissal. "I haven't the foggiest notion what you're talking about"
"How big is it, Sassy?" the level voice persisted. "How big a habit? Quarter-grain? Fatter? How fat is that monkey on your back?"
"That's a filthy accusation," Sassy cried. And, somehow, believed this, too, for the moment.
"What is it, horse? I know all about it Sassy. I've worked in cribs like Ruggio's before. Known more junkies than you've got years."
Sassy could only shriek now. "That's vile! Literally filthy and vile."
Mavis rose, standing in front of the dressing table mirror, inspecting her nude reflection without interest "Why don't you swim, baby? Never see you in the pool. Never see you in the light without those long, long sleeves."
It was useless to feign ignorance. Sassy dropped her head to the pillow, pulling her arms up to press them against her ears, hard. "You wouldn't say these horrible things to me if you loved me."
"Nevah said I loved nobody." Mavis moved easily in and out of dialect.
"Mave!" Sassy dredged the name up from a deep, buried pool of anguish in the pit of her stomach.
"Nevah did but once. Nevah could since."
Another time, Sassy would have demanded the name of the girl who had known that elusive love. Now she could only cry, "Why do you enjoy being so cruel to me?"
"Calls 'em as I sees 'em, Miz Gr..."
And Sassy was on her feet again, stamping away from the bed nervously. "That immature dialect! You make a goddam jackass of yourself." She looked for a cigarette in an ebony box on the dressing table. The box was empty and she slammed the lid against the marble table top, satisfied with the chipping damage she had inflicted. A full pack rested on top of the headboard, but suddenly a cigarette was the last thing on earth she wanted. For Mavis was not finished.
"Yo'-all wear them long-sleeve pee-jamas when dat big boy enjoyin' yo', Miz Gregg?"
Sassy whirled to face her. Grasped the frail brown shoulders, despising herself for groveling and unable to keep the desperate pleading tone out of her voice. "He doesn't know. Nobody—oh, God, Mavis, nobody's going to know." Mavis looked through her, soft-eyed, with an indefinable expression that combined those strange bedfellows only Mavis could combine; contempt and
compassion. "I trust you, Mavis. I don't know how you found out but I trust you. Honey—swear you won't tell anybody. Swear you won't make any cracks, like that time at The 28% ... I nearly died. Promise me you'll never mention it again!" The steady gaze bored through Sassy. "No. No, you won't. I shouldn't even imply that you will. And I can kick it Mave. I can kick it any time I want to."
Mavis freed herself from the grip, crossing the room to find a cigarette.
"I've never taken it seriously, darling. One of the girls I knew at school... I was under tremendous emotional strain at the time. We went to a party and she introduced me to... Mave, it's just a matter of nerves. I'm high-strung, you know that! It's not like being hooked or anything ridiculous like that."
"No'm." Mavis lighted her cigarette, puffed smoke languidly into the air, her back to Sassy.
"Honey, you aren't helping me a bit. Be nice to me, Mave.”
"Yeah."
"I couldn't help what happened tonight I thought about that half-baked butch touching you and I lost my mind. It's your fault, Mave, as much as mine."
"Yeah."
"You went for her, didn't you? I noticed it the time we were there together—letting her light your damn cigarettes and drool over you. You went for her!"
"Do tell."
"God knows how many times you've been with her. What happened all those times? What did you do?"
Mavis turned slowly to agonize her with a satisfied grin. "Had us a cozy confab. Funny li'l kid butch, move quick, like a long, tall bug. Yo' stronger, Miz Gregg. Yo' prove yo' stronger. But she gonna make me Secon' High Priestuss, man."
The taunt and the sight of that perfectly formed body swept away pride and reason. Sassy moved behind the girl, slipping her arms around Mavis from the back, pulling her close. Mavis permitted the familiarity, but her body felt cool and rigid. The coldly permissive attitude, the acceptance that was more piercing than rejection came, as it always did, like a challenge. For a moment Sassy closed her eyes, drowning herself in the sensual knowledge of the warmth against her thighs, regretting the pajama top that separated her from this intoxicating creature. No slender fingers moved to touch her enfolding arms; Mavis was absorbed in slow, deliberate motions of smoking. Sassy could have killed her then—crushed the breath from her and been free of this final, degrading agony. Yet the need for this distant body was like that other painful hunger; unsatisfied, it would destroy her completely. "You're not serious about her, Mave. Any more than I could give a damn about that crummy little exhibitionist with the lavender hair. They're cheap, honey. No depth to them. And I know how you detest anything cheap." She was convincing herself now. "We're silly to quarrel about anyone that insignificant. All we need now is each other."
Again the withering silence, and now Sassy was willing to plead.
"Come over to the bed. Please, lover."
Mavis disengaged herself and preceded Sassy to the bed. The girl stiffly and dutifully, knowing, Sassy was sure, that fulfilling the plea dispassionately was the supreme insult They sank to the cool satin and Sassy wrapped herself around the unresisting body. How complaisant Mavis was in her awareness of that body—of its beauty and Sassy's insatiable need for it! She used it like a whip. But what was it that Mavis wanted of her? Mavis was, she really was, sadistic. She wanted nothing but to force Sassy to her knees. Some day, Sassy thought I'll have to kill her. I'll have to, and she'll be to blame. Aloud, nuzzling her tormentor's breast, she said, "Why can't I get next to you, Mavis?"
"Next to me now."
"No, I mean—truly get to know you. I try so hard to reach you and you deliberately set up a wall between us. I can't bear the way you know every little detail about me and you might as well be a stranger." She kissed Mavis's shoulder, the graceful curve of the neck. The hunger was spreading through Sassy like angry flame. "What makes you tick, honey? I don't know anything about you."
"Come from Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Daddy was a voodoo man.”
"Don't lie to me, Mave. A couple of times you told me it was Georgia. Don't laugh at me." Then, afraid that her strident, critical tone might lose Mavis completely, she forced a deprecating giggle. "You're mad. Literally mad, honey. Why do I put up with you?"
Under her cheek, Sassy felt the noncommittal shrug of a shoulder. "Beats me, Miz Gregg. It beats me."
And burying her face in the unwelcoming flesh, Sassy cried, "Oh, Mave—Mave, darling, if you weren't around I'd... Oh, God, let go a little. Give, Mave. I don't ask for so much!" Her mouth pressed hard over the cherry lips and it was an ecstasy of devouring. "Love me, Mave. Please, love me." She moaned the words against the reserved mouth and her fingers dug voraciously into the chill coffee skin. "I've got to know you, honey. All of you—everything about you." And aware she could never draw the girl close enough to feel secure and wanted, "Mave, lover, lover... Why do you torture me this way? God damn you, why do you lie here and act like you're doing me a big, fat favor?"
The robot face accepted her kisses. The body that was like dry ice, frozen, yet searing to the touch, responded. But always with something held in reserve for itself. The desire consumed Sassy, gutting her insides. "Mave, love me. Love me, love me! You rotten bitch—love me!" She poured out her frustration in a hail of painful kisses, searching frantically for that place where the armor was thin, where Mavis, and all that Mavis was, would be exposed to her and vulnerable. She could not love Mavis enough, hurt her enough in her rage to possess what could not be possessed. The girl offered no more objection to Sassy's brutal handling of her body than to the intermittent love words, the occasional caresses that were adoring and gentle. It was more than a violent lovemaking. It was revenge reflected back and forth endlessly in two mirrors. Sassy's teeth made a painful mockery of kisses, Mavis ridiculed her attempt to bring tears with a retribution of silence, and the silence inflamed Sassy's hunger. "That goddam butch had it coming to her," she cried once. And, again, "You're thinking about her when I want you to love me." Screaming the words into indifferent flesh. "I could kill you... I could kill you! Love me... me..."
There was no way to judge when it ended; Mavis made it clear that there had been no beginning for her and no end. Enervated, not by a climactic moment in which her senses were drained of desire, but by a sobbing physical failure, Sassy fell back to the smooth satin bed. Still she held onto the other body, clasping it like someone drowning, clutching at a floating reed. Lon. The name stuck into her midriff like a barb. The name, and the certain knowledge that one day Mavis would not be there beside her at all. Lon. The suspense gnawed at her, and after a long period during which there was no sound but her own sobbing breath, she said, "You've got to care about something, Mavis. Everybody cares about something... someone..."
Mavis said nothing and another fear penetrated Sassy; the spectre that she rarely permitted to haunt her mind. It was the benumbing dread of a night when Ruggio's bar would be crowded with unfamiliar faces. The police might pick him up or the man might disappear into that gulping abyss that swallows pusher and pushed alike. If Mavis was gone and the man whose name she did not know was gone... what would she do then? "Don't leave me, Mavis. Promise you won't ever leave me. Oh, God, honey—you've got to promise!"
The other's breath came steady and even. And as Mavis rose from the bed, there was no doubt in Sassy's mind about the identities of victor and vanquished. "Now, now, Miz Gregg," Mavis drawled, "whut make yo' think I evah gonna go way from yo'?"
There followed one of those rare Saturdays when Warren Gregg had no golf game lined up—when his wife, Katherine, was not hung over from the night before. And Sassy was in neither the mood nor the condition to escape them.
On Saturdays like this one, weather permitting, they would have lunch on the cantilevered terrace outside the family room; a captive affair that substituted weakly for family tradition. Grim, Sassy summed it up in her mind. literally grim. For apart from their physical resemblance to each other—the impressive height, the sun-bleached blond hair and physiques that a gene
ticist would have selected for the launching of a Super-race—the Greggs brought to the glass-topped luncheon table no similarities except their separate, engrossed silences. And just as their outward appearances were distinguished, in addition to the obvious diversities of sex and age, by Warren's sagging pot, Katherine's expensively preserved youth and Sassy's economical handsomeness, their silences, too, were unique.
Of the three, Sassy was certain that only she could probe the mental processes behind their respective facades of silence.
Her father's sphere revolved in an orbit of sub-contractors, available acreage for subdivision and the reassuring symbols of his rocketing post-war success: the house in which he spent little time, the forty-foot ketch that rarely moved from its slip at Balboa, the startingly youthful wife whose impeccable tastes in clothes and liquor he could afford to satisfy. And me, Sassy thought. Me. For her mounting allowance demands were, she knew, his deepest source of satisfaction. Writing a check for his "spoiled baby-doll," with no questions asked, was the ultimate signpost of his success in life.
Her mother's private universe was more complex. Money had separated Katherine from her early-day beauty shop confidantes, but had not purchased (not yet, not yet, Katherine kept reminding herself) the social prestige for which she yearned. She loathed the more daring building tradesmen for whom shoestring gambles had paid off, despised their gauche wives, writhed in the quick-success social circle wherein her choice of escapes was so limited. For each affair produced, once the ego was satisfied, only another Warren Gregg. A lesser or a greater, an ascending or descending image of the ambitious carpenter whose vision and gambling instinct had coincided so accommodatingly with the post-war need for housing. Then, too, there was Sassy…
