Beebo Brinker Chronicles 2 - I Am A Woman, In Love With A Woman

by Ann Bannon

  Marcie stared at her, motionless, as if to determine whether she were joking. She stood in Laura's arms, unable to move one way or the other; uncertain and a little scared.

  Laura saw her consternation, but it didn't worry her. She spoke again, still feeling as if it weren't real, any more than the glittering city below was real, or her father's wrath, or Jack, or Beebo, or the doctors and Sarah ... “That was the ‘great love’ I told you about, in college,” she said. “It was Beth."

  After a long pause, Marcie said in a whisper, “What happened?"

  "She got married,” Laura said.

  Marcie was dumbfounded. “I'm sorry,” she said awkwardly and then retreated into herself, embarrassed. She had no idea what to say, what to do.

  Laura could see that, but at first she didn't try to interpret it. It didn't frighten her yet.

  "That's why I was so shocked when Burr said you told him we were lovers,” Laura said. “I wish we were, Marcie. But I never touched you.” Marcie was studying her now, her eyes brimming. “When he accused me of it and believed it and said you told him so, I was so hurt I didn't know what to do or say. I thought of a million crazy explanations. The only one that seemed to make sense was that you felt the way I do.” She looked hard at Marcie. Their faces were very close together, and Laura was holding her tightly, her arms locked around Marcie's small waist. “Do you, Marcie?” Laura whispered. “Do you?"

  They stayed that way for awhile, not moving, looking at each other. Laura felt her breath speed up and she felt a powerful longing to kiss Marcie. It grew stronger by the second. She began to press Marcie against her rhythmically and suddenly all the months of repression exploded inside her and came out kisses on her lips. She began to kiss Marcie intensely-her face, her neck and arms, her ears, her throat. “Marcie,” she said hoarsely, suddenly holding her tight with the strength of desire. “I've wanted you for so long. I thought I'd die of it. Living with you, so close to you, seeing you all the time ... undressing, bathing ... It drove me crazy. Marcie, you're so beautiful, so sweet. Oh, God, it feels so good to say it. You're impossible. I want you so terribly, so terribly. You want me too, don't you? I know it, I always knew it. Oh, Marcie, let me, let me. Don't stop me! Please!” A note of anguish crept into her voice when Marcie began to resist her. “Please, Marcie!” she implored her.

  But Marcie put her arms up and pushed hard against Laura. “Let me go!” she said. “Let me go!” And she began to cry. Laura, shocked, released her so suddenly that Marcie staggered backwards a little. She gave a cry, recovered her balance, and stared at Laura with her eyes wide for a moment. Then she turned and ran inside.

  Laura stood where she was for a long time, afraid to think or feel. She had no idea how much time had passed before she dared to go inside. Had she frightened Marcie? Revolted her? Would Marcie greet her with love or hatred? As a witch or a lover? She was in a state of nervous agony when she finally gathered the strength to walk around to the penthouse door.

  She opened it and walked slowly through the living room and kitchen. She pushed the bedroom door open slowly. Marcie was sitting on her bed, her back toward Laura. She had apparently sat like that without moving for some time. She turned very slowly when she heard Laura come in, and looked up at her. Laura felt her heart turn over. Marcie was so lovely, so miserable. It showed plainly in her face. Laura went to her and dropped to her knees in front of her and put her head in Marcie's lap. And when she felt Marcie's hand stroking her head, she wept.

  "Forgive me,” she begged. “It's your turn now, Marcie. I frightened you. I didn't mean to, I didn't!” And she caught Marcie's hand and kissed it.

  "Laura,” Marcie said quietly. “I've been trying to talk to you for weeks and you wouldn't let me. Now it's eating me up. I'm going to tell you something. And you're going to listen.” Her voice trembled so that Laura looked up at her. “Laura, I'm so ashamed, so ashamed."

  "Tell me, Marcie. Tell me. I'm listening now.” She searched her face anxiously.

  Marcie swallowed her tears and with a tremendous effort, said, “I did an awful thing, Laur. I've known for a while about you.” She looked away, struggling with herself; her shame, her pity, her shaking voice. “You-you knew?” Laura whispered, going white.

  "Yes. I couldn't help knowing. You couldn't hide it, Laura. You couldn't come near me without it showing in your eyes, your face. The way you touched me, the things you said, all the crazy moods you had. You seemed afraid of me. You let things slip. You even kissed me once. I've been around enough to know. I knew about you.” She wiped the tears from her cheeks embarrassedly and went on, unable to look at Laura, “I should have told you. Or else I should have let it drop. But I guess it interested me. It seemed like a game. I got sort of intrigued, you might say. I even told Burr what I suspected ... months ago...” She stifled a sob.

  Laura's face was colorless, tortured. Her hands were over her mouth.

  "It kills me to say these things,” Marcie whispered. “But I did everything to earn your contempt. I can't lie to you any more, Laura. I even bet Burr I could make you make a pass at me."

  "No,” Laura gasped. “Oh, no—"

  "He thought it was all a joke. He wouldn't even listen to me. Until I got fed up with him and started hanging around here so much. Then he got it into his head that we were having a hot and heavy affair. I couldn't talk him out of it. I'd gone too far for that."

  Laura turned away from her and rested her head against her own bed, too stunned, too wounded, to answer or understand half of it.

  "Laura.” Marcie bent toward her. “I don't know what crazy imp gets hold of me sometimes. I swear I don't. I never even wondered what I'd do if it ever came to this, if you ever tried to make love to me. I guess I thought it would be a game, like everything else. I guess I thought it would be a lot of kicks. Or just a stupid silly thing that wouldn't really matter. To either of us. I guess I didn't think at all.

  "And just now-on the roof-when you told me how you felt, and how you wanted me-Laura, I had no idea you could love like that. I didn't know it could be beautiful, or touching, or tragic. I thought it was mostly play-acting. I thought the only real love was between men and women. But you made it beautiful, Laura. I don't know what else to call it. I'm ashamed. Clear through my soul. I played you for a fool, and all the while you were an angel.” Laura began to sob.

  "I'd do anything for you, Laur,” Marcie whispered. “Anything to make it up. If I could love you the way you want me to, I'd do that. I'll even try, if you want it."

  Laura slumped to the floor, her arms over her head, and sobbed helplessly.

  Marcie knelt beside her, profoundly afraid and ashamed. “Laura,” she said, “Do whatever you want with me. I've hurt you so terribly. Hurt me back if it'll help. Do something. Do anything. I can't stand to see you like this. Oh, Laura, Laura. Please don't cry like that Please."

  CHAPTER 14

  In the morning-the bleak morning that came in spite of everything and had to be faced-she could hardly look at Marcie. And Marcie, brimming with shame and pity, avoided her, breaking softly into tears from time to time.

  At breakfast Marcie said, “Laur, if you think you can bear to live with me I don't want you to move out. Nothing was your fault, nothing."

  "I couldn't stand it, Marcie,” Laura said hoarsely without looking at her. “Neither could you.” She got up abruptly and left the table without having eaten a thing.

  Marcie got up and followed her. “I wish we could still be friends, Laur."

  "We never were."

  "Oh, but we were. I like you so much, Laura."

  "Marcie, this is unbearable. Don't talk to me. Please don't."

  "But I can't just leave things like this, it's too awful."

  "I can't help it."

  "Laura, I'll never get over this. I'll never forgive myself. I hurt you so."

  "Marcie, stop it!” She almost screamed at her. “I was a fool, a blind fool. I wouldn't listen.” She was thinking of all the
warnings from Jack and Beebo that she willfully ignored. But she caught herself and spared Jack another betrayal. That, at least, was something Marcie didn't know and never would. “Never mind,” she finished. “Just drop it.” She turned away and busied herself, but Marcie wouldn't let her go.

  "You will come back tonight, won't you, Laura? You'll stay here until you find another place? I'll be sick if you don't. This is your apartment as much as it is mine. I'll move out if you'd rather. You know that, don't you, Laur?” She was so anxious, so eager for conciliation, so disgusted with what she had done, that Laura felt a momentary relenting and looked shyly at her. “Please come back tonight,” Marcie whispered. “I'll worry myself sick if you don't. Please. Promise?” Laura shut her eyes for a moment and tried to control her voice. She hadn't the courage to argue. She just said, “Yes,” and grabbed her purse and rushed out.

  Laura knew, even before she reached the subway, that she wasn't going to work that day. She knew it would be impossible for her to read, to type, to look up words, to answer the doctors, to joke with Sarah. It would be a nightmare of hypocrisy, utterly beyond her strength.

  She felt shattered, ready to scream if anyone touched her, like someone with an open wound. But she held herself tightly in check. She rode aimlessly on the subway for an hour or two. She stood in bookshops with a volume in her hands and stared at the pages until the clerks, in turn, stared at her. She sat on benches in Central Park. She stopped now and then to get a cup of coffee, and late in the day, a sandwich. It enabled her to keep walking. She walked, looking at nothing but the pavement ahead of her, for a couple of hours. She paid no attention to where she was going or why. She walked to exhaust herself, to reach that country of fatigue where even the mind cannot operate and the emotions are dead.

  Abruptly she found herself standing outside the McAlton in the last hour of daylight. She was not strong enough to feel surprise. On the contrary, it was as if she had been working toward it, all through that empty endless day, knowing she would end up here. And knowing, she had not needed to think of it, to make a decision. It was unavoidable.

  She stood outside the main door to the lobby, looking at the people hurrying past and hoping somebody would come up to her, talk to her, even make advances to her. Anything to postpone what she knew was coming. She looked at the door and away again, and then back to it, as if it were a great sinister magnet. Sooner or later she knew she would walk through it.

  She stood leaning against the gray stone of the McAlton, her fine face pale and vacant, her body apparently ‘relaxed. She looked like a tired young career .girl, waiting at the appointed-place for a date. She knew it and took advantage of it. The hotel doorman strolled over to her and said, “Lovely evening, isn't it?” And later, “Looks like he's a bit late, Miss.” With a little smile.

  Laura returned the smile faintly. She tried to engage him in conversation, but he was called away frequently, and finally, with the evening crowd converging on him, got too busy to talk to her at all. The night was violet now, turning fast to black. It was eight o'clock.

  Laura turned to the door and walked through it almost automatically. Once inside she was suddenly profoundly afraid. Flashes of fear went through her; long sweeps of tremors and gooseflesh. She didn't bother with the desk this time. She knew what floor he was on. She got the elevator and said, “Fourteenth floor, please.” She wondered if her voice sounded as shaky as it felt in her throat She thought of simply getting off the elevator on the fourteenth floor and taking another elevator right back down. And when she was let off, she stood there in the deep carpeted hall with her heart crying “No-no, no-no, no-no,” at every beat.

  "He's my father,” she told herself. “He won't kill me, after all. He might beat me, but he's done that before and I've lived through it. I'll be twenty-one in three weeks, so he can't say I'm a minor. All he can do is make a speech about my ungratefulness. He's a human being, not the devil.” She said the last aloud, in a whisper, and her own voice startled her.

  Cautiously, Laura investigated room numbers, half expecting him to burst from his room and discover her unprepared. After a few false starts she found 1402-and standing there, looking at that door, she felt an enormous need to cry. She. shut her eyes hard and said softly, “I won't, I won't.” Then she opened them, and, with her heart in her mouth, she rapped on the door.

  The noise sounded huge. For a moment she wanted to run. But she didn't. He mustn't see me looking panicked, she thought. She listened. There was no sound audible. Maybe he's not in. Oh, dear God, maybe he left. She didn't know whether to exult or despair. If I don't face him now, I'll never be able to face myself, she thought. I'll never stand alone. I've got to tell him everything. She felt desperate at the thought of having to go and search him out, to win her freedom from him. The hope that she had missed him, that he had already left for Chicago, was too sweet to banish.

  She was ready to flee when the door swung open, without any preliminary sounds to warn her. She blanched uncontrollably and found herself looking at her father's feet. Very slowly, she looked up the rest of him to his face. There was a slight frown on his heavy features. But he wasn't at all surprised. He let her stand there until she was miserably uncomfortable, and then-only then-he spoke.

  "Come in,” he said. Not “Hello, Laura.” He spoke as if she might have been the maid come to clean his room. He stepped aside slightly to permit her to walk past him. She clutched herself in her arms, fearful of touching him as she brushed past, and walked quickly across the room to a half open window on the opposite side. She looked resolutely out at the city, afraid to let him see her face.

  The minute I look at him, I'll cry. I'll do some damn silly weak thing, and he'll lord it over me, and I'll wind up promising to go home to Chicago with him. I can't look at him. Not yet.

  She listened to him moving around the room behind her and felt his eyes on her. But he said nothing. After a few moments, Laura could stand it no longer. She knew he was laughing at her. Not with his voice or his lips, but silently, inside. She turned and looked for him. He was standing across the room, his enormous back planted against the wall, his arms folded over his chest, studying her. She flinched a little, seeing his face.

  "I never knew before,” he said slowly, savoring it, “how fast you could run.” He gave her a slight sardonic smile.

  Laura felt her insides turn to water. Her face was white and set as plaster. She forced herself to return his gaze.

  "I never knew you could swear, either,” he said. “Especially at me. As a matter of fact, I doubt whether you can now that we're face to face."

  It was a dare. Laura, stung, felt a flush of resistance come up in her. “If I do,” she said, “you'll beat me. That's your answer to everything."

  "It always worked before,” he said, mocking her.

  "It worked so well that it drove me out of your house forever. It made me hate you, Father."

  "You don't need to spell it for me, Laura. I get the idea."

  She hated his sarcasm! Her hatred flowed in her now and revived her spirit. “Is that what you wanted? To make me hate you?” she asked. “Because you've done a fine job. A masterful job."

  "Thanks. I'm glad we agree on one thing anyway.” He stood immovable, still smiling slightly.

  He wants to drive me frantic. He wants me to end up on my knees, incoherent. Kissing his feet. God damn him! He doesn't care what he says as long as it'll drive me wild.

  "I must say, you took a prosaic way out, Laura. Running away is no way to solve a problem. Running away to New York is the classic cliche. There are a lot of you here in New York, you know. Silly little girls who left one set of problems at home for another set in the big city."

  Laura turned her back on him. I won't even answer him. If I could just hurt him somehow. Hurt him like he hurts me. What would hurt him the worst? Mother. My Mother.

  "Did you slap my mother around the way you do me?” she asked him abruptly.

  At this his smile fa
ded and his face grew very hard. “Your mother never deserved it,” he said. “Neither did I,” she retorted. “As far as I can see."

  "You are notoriously shortsighted, my darling daugh—"

  "And you, Father, are blind.” Her face flushed.

  Again he smiled, but his smile frightened her. “What have you been doing, Laura, that gives you such intestinal fortitude in the face of such obvious physical risk?” She wanted to scream at him, “I hate you! I hate your God-damn sophisticated sarcasm!” But she only said tersely, “I have a job. I have some nice friends. I have money in the bank. I have a life of my own without you. I have a little confidence I never had before.” They were all lies, that started out so beautifully true. Almost all lies, anyway. But she had flung them in his face, and now he was not sure. He studied her. “Those are the problems I came to face in New York, Father. Nothing could ever persuade me to trade them for the ones at home.” If I didn't hate him so much I couldn't do it. He started out wrong, trying to drive me in a corner. He gave me a chance without realizing it.

  He moved away from the wall then, his face registering contemptuous amusement. He lighted a cigarette, and, to her astonishment, offered her one. She shook her head. “Well,” he observed. “You apparently haven't taken up all the vices yet.” He turned away from her and walked about the room, firing questions at her. “What kind of job do you have?"

  "Medical secretary."

  "Where?"

  "With Dr. Edgar Hollingsworth."

  "Who's he?"

  "The top radiologist in the city."

  "Where's his office?"

  "Fifth and fifty-third."

  "Who are the friends?"

  This abrupt switch threw her for a moment. “The friends?"

  "You said you had some."

  "Oh,” she said quickly. “Do you want their names?” The little sarcasms she mustered added to her bravery.

  He curled his mouth disgustedly. “Anything that will help,” he said. “Names mean nothing. Who are they?"

  "Well,” she said, “some are men and some are women.” For a triumphant moment she felt like laughing in his face. But his face had grown dark, and a flash of fear prevented her. “My roommate,” she went on, more timidly. “For one. She's a very nice girl. I've met a lot of wonderful people through her. The doctors have been wonderful to me."