Part 6

Laura wrapped herself in a towel and began to rub herself, but Beebo suddenly put her whiskey down and clasped her in a bear hug.

“Laura, darling, I felt so rotten today. And I looked forward so much to having you home. It’s so quiet and lonesome around here all day without Nix. I nearly go mad. Baby, I know I’ve taken up a lot of your time, but I couldn’t help it. I didn’t _ask_ those bastards to rape me.”

Laura relaxed slightly in the embrace, since she couldn’t squirm out of it. “You felt better today, not worse, Beebo. You told me so this morning.”

“That was this morning. I got worse this afternoon,” she said petulantly.

“You got worse at exactly five-thirty when I was fifteen minutes late.”

“Where _were_ you?”

“With Jack. Beebo, you’ve been drinking. You promised me you wouldn’t.”

“If you’d been home I wouldn’t have to!” Beebo released her abruptly, picked up the whiskey glass with a swoop of her hand, and defiantly finished what was in it.

Laura cinched the towel around herself and approached Beebo. “Do you know what you’re saying, you nut?” she said. “You big fool? Beebo, answer me!” But Beebo turned her back and watched Laura with glittering eyes in the mirror on the medicine chest.

“You’re saying that you can’t stay sober without me, Beebo. Do you realize that?”

“I can’t stay sober if you don’t love me, Laura.”

“Oh, damn you, Beebo!” Laura almost wept with frustration. “You’re only saying that to make me feel guilty. To put the blame on _me_ instead of on yourself where it belongs! I didn’t give you your first drink, God knows. I don’t ply you with liquor. You’ve fixed it with your conscience so no matter when you get drunk it’s my fault. No matter how much you drink, you’re only drinking because Laura is such a bitch. Well, I won’t buy it! It’s a damn plot to make a prisoner of me!”

“A prisoner! Now where did little Bo-peep get that fancy idea?” Beebo’s eyes were narrow and sharp in spite of the whiskey. Her anger brought clarity with it. “That sounds like the kind of propaganda Jack would spout.”

“No—” Laura began, but Beebo silenced her with a menacing wave of her hand. Laura found herself trapped against the bathroom door.

Beebo put a hand up on the door on either side of Laura and looked down at her. “Now, suppose you just tell me what Jack said,” she said.

“What makes you think Jack said it? I can think for myself and you know it. And I _am_ a prisoner here!”

“You can’t think for yourself when Jack’s around. That bastard is the Pied Piper of Greenwich Village. He opens his yap and all the little fairies listen pop-eyed to whatever he has to say. Including you.”

Laura looked at her and found herself caught by Beebo’s spell again. Beebo was born to lose her temper. She looked wonderful when she did. It exasperated Laura to feel a bare animal desire for her at times like this.

“Jack said it. Come on. Jack said it, didn’t he?” Beebo insisted.

“All right!” Laura almost screamed. “Jack said it!”

She looked up at Beebo with embarrassed desire and to make her shame complete, Beebo saw it. And she knew she was in command again, even if only for an hour or so. Beebo was learning to live for those hours. The rest of the time nothing much mattered.

Beebo shifted support of her leaning body from her arms to Laura, lifted up Laura’s angry helpless face and kissed it. “Why aren’t you like this all the time?” she asked. And Laura startled her when she echoed, “Why aren’t _you_ like this all the time?”

“Like what, baby? Drunk?”

“No ...,” Laura hesitated. She didn’t quite understand what she meant herself.

“Mad?” Beebo asked.

“I don’t know.”

Beebo laughed. “If it’ll help I’ll get mad and stay mad, Bo-peep. I’ll get drunk and stay drunk. Would you like that?” She interspersed her words with kisses.

“No. I just—I hate it when you act like a spoiled brat, Beebo.”

“I never act like a spoiled brat.” Her voice was little more than a whisper now.

They sank to the floor where they were and made love then.

And even after Laura had finally fallen asleep, in her arms, Beebo felt a tide of renewed passion. She caressed Laura’s hair and back with her hands and thought, _If it can be this good it’s not over_.

* * * * *

Laura had left work meaning to go straight home. But as before she hadn’t gone far when she knew she was headed for Tris’s little studio.

Tris opened the door herself. She had evidently been practicing for she was dressed in tights and breathing hard. Her black hair was smoothed over her head, caught in back with a clasp and braided. The braid, heavy and shining, hung halfway down her back and swung like a whip when she whirled.

Tris paused for a moment when she saw Laura on her threshold and for an awful second Laura thought she might turn her away. But Tris smiled suddenly and said, “Laura. How nice. Please come in.”

“I just dropped by to say hello,” Laura apologized.

“That is not all, I hope?” Tris said, looking at her.

Laura felt an odd little twist of excitement. “Well ... I shouldn’t stay. I don’t want to interrupt your work.”

“Of course you do. That’s why you came,” Tris said, spinning reflectively in place, her weight shifting delicately to pull her around and around.

Laura didn’t know if she was being scolded or teased, if she should leave or stay. Tris stopped twirling and said, “I’m glad you came. I didn’t want to work any more anyway.”

Laura hesitated, wondering whether to believe her. But when Tris walked across the room to her and kissed her cheek she melted suddenly with pleasure. She stood quietly and let herself be kissed, afraid to return the compliment. She was very unsure of herself with Tris. Even the gentlest gesture seemed to irritate the dancer sometimes. Laura could only let her take the lead.

Tris turned away abruptly, her mood shifting. “Well, now you are here,” she said in her careful English. “What would you like to do?” It was a sort of challenge.

“I—I’d like to see you dance, Tris. Would you dance for me?”

“No.” She was pouting. “You are my excuse for not dancing any more today, Laura.”

“Maybe we could just talk for a little while, then.”

“We could ... but we won’t.”

Laura was at a loss for words. She stammered a little and finally she blurted, “I think you’d rather have me go home.”

“I think Beebo would like you home more than I would. She doesn’t let you out very often, does she?”

Laura colored. “She’s not my jailkeeper,” she said.

“I don’t like this—this interference you force me to make in your love affair, Laura,” Tris said and surprised her guest. “I don’t know your Beebo, but I have nothing against her. Still, I do not imagine she will like _me_ very well if she finds out you are my guest now and then.”

“What do you care whether Beebo likes you or not?” Laura demanded, startled.

Tris broke into a charming smile then, as if to placate her visitor. “I want everybody to like me,” she said. “I suppose it is a compulsion left from my childhood.” And, as if she had made a guilty admission, she turned away abruptly saying, “Let’s go into the kitchen. If I stand in here I will feel obliged to dance.”

Laura followed her and sat down self-consciously. Tris fixed a plate of cookies and gave her a glass of milk. She smiled.

“I am hard to know, Laura. I am not very gracious. But I like your company.” Her smile was as warm and luscious as ripe fruit in the sun.

They finished the food over small talk about men. Laura was lost, silent. She just nodded agreement and listened with dismay. _She’s trying to tell me she doesn’t like girls_, she thought. _But it’s a lie!_

Tris rinsed the plates, watching herself all the while in one mirror or another. It was as if she felt herself on exhibition all the time, as if all those mirrors were scattered around to remind her of her own beauty.

Tris dried her hands and turned to face Laura. There was an awkward pause and Laura realized suddenly that she was supposed to get up and leave. They had had their small talk. She had been served food. That was all she could reasonably expect from her hostess, especially since she was an uninvited guest. She felt her heart contract a little in disappointment, and she thought with a flash of yearning of the intimacies of her last visit.

But she was too proud to overstay her welcome, especially after the way Tris had shown her the door last time. So she got up and said, “Thanks Tris. I have to go.”

“Oh?” It was merely polite.

“Beebo’s expecting me.”

“I see.” No protest. Tris followed her toward the front door. “Ask me over to your apartment sometime, Laura. You would make a much nicer hostess than I. Besides, I should like to see how your big roommate looks in pants. She does wear pants?”

“Yes, she does.” Laura turned to look at her curiously. “But she’s a jealous hellion.”

Tris leaned on the wall by the door, crossing her feet at the ankles.

“Does she know you have been here to visit me?” Her smile was sly, interested.

“No. I don’t think she even remembers you,” Laura said shortly.

“Ah! Flattering. Do you think it’s wise to make a secret of our friendship, Laura?”

“It’s either that or get my neck broken,” Laura said.

Tris laughed a little, as if the idea of such hard play amused her. “Laura ... would you like to stay a little longer?” she said. Her voice made it sound very inviting.

“I can’t.” Laura was upset by all the talk of Beebo.

“As long as you leave by eight it would be all right,” Tris said. “I have a date at eight.”

“With a man?”

“Certainly with a man. I have no secrets, Laura. I do not like to cheat, like you. You cheat with your Beebo by seeing me. But still—” she hunched her shoulders and smiled—“I like you. You like me. Perhaps it is worth the risk. You are the one who will get your neck broken, not me. I have no right to deny you your pain.”

Laura frowned at her. It was an odd thing to say. Tris put her hands on Laura’s arms and they stood that way, silent, for a moment.

At last Tris said, “Dance with me.”

“I don’t know how,” Laura said shyly.

“I am a teacher. I teach you. Come on.”

“I’m so clumsy, Tris.”

But Tris pulled her to the middle of the studio and put a record on. She stood for a minute in front of Laura as if trying to make up her mind where to grasp her, how to start. Laura felt impossibly awkward. But Tris made up her mind quickly and slipped her arms around Laura’s neck. Laura was two inches taller than she and Tris was obliged to look up at her when she spoke.

“We will just do it like the teen-agers!” she said. “There is nothing to it really. Stand in one place and shift your weight from one foot to the other, with the beat. That’s it. You’ve got it. That’s a good beginning.”

Laura couldn’t help laughing. “Even _I_ can do that much,” she said.

“Ah. Then there is hope. Next year at this time you will do the _tour jeté_.”

Laura had her arms around Tris at the waist and they swayed gently to the music, and suddenly all her suspicion and embarrassment faded. She became conscious of the tantalizing jasmine that emanated from Tris—from her throat and her hair and her breasts, barely covered by the bandeau. The black braid moved softly against Laura’s bare arms in back and Tris put her cheek against Laura’s, tilting her face up. Her lips were near Laura’s ear and she whispered, “You know, Laura, I must tell you something. You are a homosexual. Yes?”

Laura swallowed. “Yes,” she said.

“You should know then ... I am not. Not like you. I like the company of girls, yes. My dance pupils. Friends. But I love men. I love them. Do you understand?”

“No.” Laura shut her eyes and pulled Tris a little tighter.

“Well, then, I will explain. Men excite me. All men, I mean. The idea of men.... It is hard to say. But I would rather be with a man than with a woman. But now and then I meet a woman who interests me. And sometimes the interest goes beyond just talk. You see?”

“No.”

“Sometimes I want to kiss her. Or be close to her. But that is all. Now do you see?”

“No.”

Tris gave an impatient little sigh. “I am telling you I am not queer like you!” she said sharply and Laura winced with sudden pain. Tris felt it and she amended quickly, “That is an unkind word. You people call it gay. All right. _I_ am not gay. I like you, I like to talk to you and watch you move and sometimes I am moved myself to kiss you or be close to you, like this. Our bodies like this, all up and down. You see? But I don’t like to go any farther. Not with a girl. You are only the third girl I have felt this for. It will not happen again for a long time. Perhaps I will marry soon, and then it will never happen again.”

“Marry! Who? An Indian?”

“No!” she exclaimed almost contemptuously. “Another. He is _white_.”

“You’re full of contradictions, Tris,” Laura said, looking down at her in bewilderment. “You said you were gay and you married a gay boy.”

“Oh, yes. I did, didn’t I?” She looked trapped. “Well, I thought I was then. But I know now—positively—I am not.”

“But you said—”

“Such wonderful blond hair you have, Laura. I would give anything for such hair. Why do you always wear it wound up like that?” And she began to slip pins out of the bun, letting them drop to the polished floor, until the coil of gold came loose and Tris gave a delighted, “Ah!”

Laura felt the thrill go through her hard. She forgot her protests about Tris’s sex drive and pulled the dancer very close to kiss her full on the mouth. Tris yielded. With one accord they stopped dancing and just clung and kissed, swaying slightly. It lasted for long minutes—just kisses, soft and exploratory, but careful. Laura wondered vaguely, through the fog of lovely sensations, what miserable devil prompted this delectable girl to deny her Lesbian impulses. For Laura could tell that Tris enjoyed this love play as much as she. She encouraged it, even when Laura tried to stop, and pulled her back for more.

By eight o’clock they were lying on the big red silk couch in the bedroom, murmuring inanities to each other, discovering one another’s bodies and emotions through twin shields of clothes and caution.

“Will you come and see me again?” Tris asked.

“Are you inviting me?”

“Of course.”

“When would it be convenient?” She said it in clipped English, like the English Tris spoke, to tease her.

“It is never convenient. But come anyway.”

Laura laughed. “When?”

“Tomorrow.”

“No date tomorrow?”

“Yes. Every night.”

“Save a night for me, Tris.”

Tris gazed at her for a moment before she answered, “No.”

“Why not?”

“We do too much in these few short hours. What would we do with a whole night? I do not like to think.”

“I think of it all the time. I can’t think of anything else.”

“Ah, that is a very bad sign. I am sorry to hear you say that. You must not fall in love with me, Laura.”

“I’ll try to remember,” she said sarcastically.

“I am serious,” Tris said.

Laura didn’t answer her. She lay on her back and looked up at the small skylight directly over the bed. It was a square of violet—the last shade of fading day.

“I do not want you to fall in love with me, Laura,” Tris persisted.

“I hear you,” Laura said quietly.

“Well, why don’t you answer?”

“I don’t know how to answer, Tris,” she said, turning to look at her in the semi-gloom of the bedroom.

“What are your feelings for me?”

“Do you want a blue print?” Laura said, hurt. “I can’t spell them out for you. I don’t understand them myself.” But she understood them all too well. She had felt these pangs before for other girls—only two or three, including Beebo, but enough to make them familiar and unwelcome. But still exciting and irresistible.

Tris lay beside her, quiet for a while, and finally she said, “Do you know why I was not very glad to see you at first today?”

“No.” Laura reached across the bed to put a hand on Tris’s breasts, to feel what she could not see in the gathering darkness.

“I was afraid,” Tris whispered. “Of my own feelings. I do not like to become involved with women. It has always been unpleasant for me.”

“Do you still want me to come back and see you?”

“Yes.” She paused and Laura sensed a smile. “As long as I ask you to come back, Laura, you will know you are safe with me.”

“Safe?”

“I will put it another way. If a day comes when I do _not_ want to see you, it will be because I am in love with you. And that will be the end. From that day on we will never meet again, until I am cured.”

Laura had to smile. Who could take such a charming speech seriously? “All right,” she murmured and embraced the lovely dancer.

“Now you must go,” Tris told her. “My date will be here soon. He is always prompt.”

Laura got up without protest. But it was sweet to take the time to wind up her hair and know she was welcome. “Did you kick me out for the same boy last time?” she asked.

Tris had turned a light on and they watched each other in the mirror before which Laura was combing her hair.

“No. Another.”

“I hate him,” Laura said with a little smile. “And the rest of them.”

Tris gazed at her coolly. “How very foolish,” she said. And made Laura laugh.

They parted with a chaste kiss, and for the first time since they had met Laura felt as if she had a slim chance with this odd and irresistible girl who was still so much a stranger to her. She went home to her angry Beebo, her body tense with need. And later, when Beebo demanded her body, Laura surrendered promptly and helplessly.

* * * * *

Beebo, since the night of her attack, had become unbearably suspicious. Everything Laura did, everywhere she went, had to be reported in detail. She called Tris once or twice from work and Tris had bawled her out for not showing up. Laura was more pleased than sorry when Tris sounded jealous—while she bridled angrily at Beebo’s jealousy, she was thrilled with Tris’s.

Laura had strong doubts about Beebo’s illness now. She could have gone to work weeks ago. The bruises were nearly invisible; only a pale yellow shadow stained the spot where the worst had been. Beebo was using it as an excuse to sit around another week and take it easy and drink and bitch over the phone to Lili about her problems.

“I always hated that damn elevator,” she declared with her feet up on the coffee table in the living room and a drink in her hand.

“You make me sick!” Laura told her. “You’re _well_. Get up and go to work.”

Beebo looked at her watch. “At six-thirty in the evening?” she said, and laughed.

“I’m not going to support us both, Beebo,” Laura said. “And I’m sick and tired of playing nursemaid.”

To her diary Laura confided, _I am in love. I’m sure of it. The more I’m with Beebo the more I want Tris. Oh, God, how much I want her!_

* * * * *

Laura was desperate after two more weeks of Beebo. Beebo drove her frantic when they were cooped up together in the small apartment, as they were every night. And Beebo was wild for the love Laura denied her. The attack she had endured seemed to have touched off a burning core of violence in her that never went out.

When Beebo found the small steel strongbox on the closet floor with Laura’s diary inside, she pounded it with a stone to get it open but the lock didn’t break. When Laura got home from work and found the battered box on the coffee table in the living room she went pale with alarm, and Beebo, who was lying in wait for her reaction, exclaimed, “Damn it, I knew it. You sure as hell look guilty, Laura. What’s in it?” She kicked the box.

“Nothing.” Laura walked across the room but her legs felt weak.

“Open it, then.”

“No.”

“Where’s the key?”

“I don’t know.”

“It’s your box, goddam it. You know where the key is! Why did you hide it from me? What are you ashamed of?”

“I’m under no obligation to show you everything I own!” Laura said frostily. “I’ll hide what I please.”

“You tell me what’s in it,” Beebo threatened, “or I’ll choke you. I swear I’ll choke you, you bitch.” She slammed Laura against the wall with one hand to her throat.

Laura gasped in panic. There was only one thing to do with Beebo in these moods and that was go along with her, stall, anything but resist her. That was too painful and Laura even feared that one of these days, with Beebo as crazy as she was, it might be fatal.

“All right,” Laura said through a tight throat. “Let me go.”

She rummaged for the key for ten minutes, knowing all the while that it was in the wallet in her purse.

“Don’t tell me you can’t find it,” Beebo said, watching her through narrowed eyes.

“I almost never use the thing,” Laura said as calmly as she could.

“You find it,” Beebo said. And something in the tone of her voice made Laura very frightened. _I’m getting out of here_, she thought to herself suddenly. _If I can just get out of this somehow I’ll leave her tonight and I won’t come back. I’ll go to Jack’s._

She turned and faced Beebo, desperate. “Beebo, it’s just some personal papers. It’s nothing you’d be interested in.”

“It’s exactly what I’d be interested in. I’d be even more interested in why you went white as a sheet when you saw I had it. Explain _that_ to me, Bo-peep.”

Laura pressed her teeth together in a small grimace of exasperation. “It’s my birth certificate and my baptism certificate and two insurance policies and some old love letters,” she said.

“Love letters from who?” Beebo demanded.

“Beth.”

Beebo put her head back and laughed. “Oh!” she said. “Beth! Good old Beth. Your college flame. I’m getting so I _know_ that goddam girl.”

“She was a lot more—” Laura began, her cheeks hot. She couldn’t bear to hear Beth laughed at, to hear that perfect love ridiculed.

“I know what she was,” Beebo said acidly. “She was beautiful. She was bright. She was a queen on the campus and a devil in bed. She was a success. She even liked men, the traitorous bitch. She was so gorgeous and so intelligent and so everything that she could do whatever she damn well pleased—even dump you like a sack of bricks. She loved you so much she got you kicked out of school and got married. To a _man_.” Beebo grinned at her, waiting for Laura to explode. But Laura only glared, too proud to spoil that memory with an ugly spat.

“Queen Beth was everything Beebo is not,” Beebo said. “You’ll never learn, will you? Love isn’t pure roses and romance, Laura. You can’t live with a girl, however much you love her, and still faint with joy every time she looks your way. It’s a shame you never lived with Beth like you have with me. You’d find out fast enough she is a human being, not a goddess.... Now, show me the letters.”

“Why do you want to read a bunch of miserable old letters?” Laura said, angry that she had to beg. “That’s all over, Beebo. It can’t do anything but hurt you.”

“I’m used to that, Laura. Anybody who lives with you has to be.”

“You lie!” Laura flared suddenly. They gazed at each other in electric silence for a minute. Then Laura said quietly, in a move to restore her safety, “Let me fill your glass.” She came to take it from her but Beebo held it away. “What are you trying to do, baby, get me drunk? Let’s see the letters.”

Laura sat down on the bed beside her. Maybe she could sweet-talk her out of the box. “Beebo,” she said. “There’s nothing in there you could possibly want to see or be interested in. Will you believe me?”

Beebo looked at her coldly and didn’t move. “The letters,” she said and held out a hand.

Laura sighed. “After dinner,” she begged. “Let’s at least eat in peace.” And before Beebo could answer she leaned over and kissed her lips. “I love you, Beebo,” she said, very softly and hopefully. And there were still times when she wondered if she might not speak the truth. But this wasn’t one of them. She spoke out of the need to save her skin.

Beebo swallowed the last of the drink. “Yeah,” she said. “The letters.”

Laura kissed her again. Beebo submitted to it without returning the kiss. “You’re not very subtle, Bo-peep,” she said.