Another Kind of Love

by Paula Christian

  Dee smiled, mentally recalling that it had been rather ludicrous for the experienced lesbian to recoil from physical love, rather than the novice. But it was true. When Karen had begun to undo the buttons of her blouse, Dee had panicked.

  It would have been so easy to let Karen plunge into this gay life, bedazzled by shocking and nonconforming souls who “only needed 287

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  a little love and understanding.” Knowing Karen, she would have thrown herself into gay life with all the fervor of a suffragette. And then?

  Then the possessiveness would begin, the jealousies, and the self-doubt, and worse, the self-deceit. Dee had never met a lesbian yet who didn’t think she could “go straight” if she really wanted to. But it wasn’t true. What these women were really saying was that they could “pass for straight”—play the role, pretend, even get married and fool their husbands as so many other lesbians did.

  Christ, no! This wasn’t what she wanted for Karen. And she’d be goddamned if she would be the means to Karen’s destruction, no matter how she might hurt her now. There was no farm in Kentucky for lesbians who wanted to kick the habit.

  Dee lay quietly until she heard the light go off upstairs and the sound of Karen getting into bed overhead. Then she sat up and lit a cigarette in the dark.

  “All right, smartie,” she barely whispered to the night, “you succeeded with the passing-out bit—now what do you do?”

  She began to swear in mutters, but a stir from the other direction stopped her. Dee looked up to see Karen standing at the foot of the stairs. She could barely make out a light smile playing across Karen’s face.

  It was a moment Dee was not likely ever to forget. She felt caught, frightened, exhilarated, and excited all at once. There was nothing to say. All she knew was that in what seemed to be a matter of seconds, Karen was on her knees before her with her arms wrapped around Dee’s legs, her head resting on her lap, and her tears falling on Dee’s thighs.

  Dee held her that way and just gave up to the warmth and love of this girl. She lifted Karen’s face gently, her own hands trembling and warm, and kissed her very carefully, very slowly; kissed her as if this were going to be the last time. Then she lifted Karen up to the couch and lay down beside her, enjoying the feel of her young body, the slope from hip to shoulder, the full roundness just beneath Dee’s palm as she passed Karen’s breasts. She had never wanted anyone so much in all her life—never wanted to give someone plea-288

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  sure so much . . . or to use love-making as a means of communicat-ing her emotional love.

  There was nothing left in her to fight. Her thighs had grown tense and hard with anticipation, and her own breasts seemed to loom with wanting to give. The first articulate sound since Karen had come downstairs was the chuckle in Dee’s throat.

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  It was a pity, Dee had often thought in the following weeks, that emotions could not be put into any kind of time equation. If she had had to describe those weeks, looking back over them, the only way to have done so would be to reply: Eternity divided between damnation and ecstasy.

  Karen filled her every thought. At work, she would glimpse someone going into an elevator and think it was Karen; or spend extra time away from her desk so that she wouldn’t be tempted to talk to her, or touch her. She was in a constant state of fear that someone would recognize the way she looked at Karen and figure out the whole picture.

  Karen had not let it escape her notice, either. She had become morose about it at times. Other times, she would simply tease Dee.

  To Karen it was all very simple: let ’em find out—who cares? It was love, and what was love had to be good. Who cared about what people thought?

  At first, Dee was unable to make Karen understand the importance of keeping their relationship a secret. Since Karen had never thought much one way or another about homosexuality, she had had no real prejudice against it. She did not seem to realize that most people found homosexuals disgusting.

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  Then a very ordinary thing happened at the office that had made further argument unnecessary. One of the mail boys had asked Karen for a date, and when Karen had refused, he had laughed, then joked about her being careful of turning queer.

  Dee overheard it and had felt the slap for Karen, but said nothing. Nothing, that is, until that evening, some time after dinner.

  Dee was loading film cartridges and marking them with their ASA ratings and number of exposures.

  Karen had just washed her hair and came downstairs towel-drying it. “All through?” she asked cheerfully. Too cheerfully, Dee thought.

  “Um-hum, just about.” She glanced up at Karen and saw her, like a fourteen-year-old getting ready to go to her first school dance the next day. She seemed so very young at the moment. It was silly, Dee knew; there wasn’t that much of an age difference—and yet Dee always felt so much older, so lived-out compared to Karen.

  “Can I bum a roll of Adox from you if you’ve plenty?”

  “Sure.” Dee smiled at her casually. “Noticed the mail room has discovered your charm today.” She said it lightly, keeping the smile on her face.

  Karen sat down next to her very slowly. “I—I wanted to talk to you about it . . . but I didn’t know how to bring it up.” She gave a small, nervous laugh. “I learned something today.”

  “That you’re attractive?” Dee teased. “I think you’re beautiful.”

  “No . . . something much deeper. I wanted to . . . apologize to you.”

  “Apologize? For what? You didn’t ask him for the date.”

  “Please, Dee, it’s hard enough to explain. Let me get it out.”

  “Okay,” she answered softly, and brought Karen against her breasts, holding her loosely.

  “All the times I’ve kidded you about how you worried about getting found out, y’know? Well . . . I got my first taste of it today.”

  “I thought that might have happened.”

  “It wasn’t that I couldn’t accept the date, but the knowledge that I couldn’t explain why. I couldn’t tell him, ‘Sorry, I’ve got a date,’ or ‘I’m going steady’ . . . because that would lead to explanations which I’d have to make up. But then, when he made that crack 291

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  about being queer . . . Dee, I crawled inside. I felt my hands go cold and clammy . . . felt myself tighten up. I’d never gone through anything like that before. Never really knew what you meant. In that moment, I realized real fear!”

  “Poor baby,” Dee said into Karen’s still-damp hair.

  “But why, Dee? Why should I be afraid? I’m not doing anything wrong. . . . I know it. I’m not hurting anyone. Why should I care about what he—or anyone else—thinks?”

  Dee stood up then and walked over to the bar and poured them both a stiff drink. “Conditioning, I suppose,” Dee answered finally.

  “It’s just that it goes against everything around us, from movies to toothpaste—you’re no longer a part of the same world anymore.”

  “That’s not enough of a reason.”

  “That’s all I’ve got on hand right now.”

  Karen sat pensively for a long moment. “Will it always be like this?” she said finally.

  Dee took a deep breath. “Yes. And it will get worse. Much worse as you grow older and have more responsibilities, begin to wonder what you missed, have a better job, where your moral character might be sufficient grounds for being fired.”

  “But good God, it’s none of their business!”

  “Am I my brother’s keeper?” Dee’s tone was gently sardonic.

  “Yes! Think of what the general attitude toward alcoholism was just a few years back—even being a dope addict is received more favor-ably than being queer. It’s something people cannot accept, because there’s no tangible cause—or because of their own subconscious fears
.” She lifted her glass to her lips and thoughtfully added, “Or, perhaps, because they’re part of the society against which you’re rebelling—it’s an attack against them personally.”

  “I accepted it!” Karen shouted.

  “Sweetie, I can’t answer it for you. I just know that that’s the way it is. There are some people who wouldn’t give a damn; there are some people who think it’s terribly sophisticated and urbane or intellectual or some-other idiotic notion . . . but most people just don’t buy it! What do you want me to do about it?”

  Karen’s eyes filled with tears, and she rushed over to Dee and put 292

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  her arms around her tightly like a frightened little girl. “I don’t know . . . I don’t know.”

  Well, Dee thought, here goes nothing. “Which brings up something I’ve been wanting to say for a long time.”

  Karen nodded against Dee’s neck—a gesture she used to show she was listening.

  “It just isn’t wise for us to continue working together, darling.”

  Karen pulled away brusquely and stared at Dee, as if she didn’t understand. “What?”

  Dee’s heart felt like someone had thrown an anchor out and it had sunk with it. “Please try to understand. It’s an awful strain having to be with you so near all day, watching every gesture, careful that no one might overhear us talking and notice the change in voice. One slip of the tongue, one darling might mean both our jobs. . . .”

  “You mean just because some of the gang at the office know I’m living with you?”

  “Well? What would you think?”

  “Oh, Christ! Dee, is it all worth it?” Karen’s face screwed into immediate repentance at her words. “Oh, darling, I didn’t mean it that way—you know that.”

  “Sure, sure,” she answered, but her throat was a hard knot keeping the tears from choking her. That had hurt . . . and what was worse, Dee knew that Karen had meant it that way—but that Karen didn’t know it. She’s beginning to learn, Dee thought. She’s beginning to discover the price of this great love. There is no way, Dee suddenly found, to test gay love, because none of the tests are fair.

  Dee put her head back a moment as if to stretch her neck muscles, but it was just to get her control back. She couldn’t let Karen know what she knew—that their relationship was not going to last.

  It couldn’t.

  “Let’s have a refresher and sit down,” she suggested, trying to get back to the subject of the job. “I think I’ve found a good deal for you. . . . A friend of mine has a public relations office on Park Avenue.”

  “You mean you’ve made up your mind about my leaving. I 293

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  haven’t any choice.” She said it passively, without resentment or accusation.

  “Oh, I know you’re probably right,” she continued. “It’ll just take me a little while to get used to the idea.” Karen laughed sarcastically, “I’ve had a great job up till now, a really swell boss—the kind you just love.”

  “I’m honestly sorry, Karen. Do you think I wanted this? In fact,”

  Dee said, “on the way home from Paris I had a similar thought . . .

  about how much harder it was to find a good secretary than a lover.”

  Karen grinned impishly, all kitten now. “Oh-ho! So, you were just holding out on me when you got back . . . just playing hard to get. Making me do all the work.”

  “Well,” she smiled back foolishly, “a secretary’s a secretary, but a—”

  Karen pulled at her hand and drew her to the living room, onto the couch. “Were you really in love with me even then? How long had you known? Come on, tell me.” She wrapped her arms around Dee and began nuzzling, tracing lines across the length of Dee’s thighs with her nails.

  Dee looked at her for a long time. Love seemed to fill her so much, she wondered how so much emotion could fill one person.

  But she couldn’t let herself go this way; it was dangerous. She knew very well that her relationship with Karen would not last—that she had to keep her feelings strapped down, keep a part of herself to herself so that when the breakup came she would be able to pick up the pieces and keep going. Otherwise . . . She shuddered at what might happen if she didn’t keep her control. Even thinking about it was a kind of self-torture.

  “Cold?” Karen asked, still lying in Dee’s arms. “Shall I light the fire?”

  “I’ll do it,” Dee answered. She needed the chance to stand up and collect her thoughts.

  The flames spread quickly, and she took the long-handled broom and brushed the ashes back into a neat pile under the logs. She knew by the sounds behind her that Karen was mixing them another drink. It was snug and comfortable living with Karen. She 294

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  simply sensed things—Dee didn’t have to spell out every need, every emotion.

  Dee suddenly became aware of the fact that right now, at this very moment, she had more peace—real, genuine, honest peace—than she had ever had in her life . . . or was ever likely to have. Sure, she knew it would not last—but then, what did?

  “Tell me,” Karen said, interrupting Dee’s thoughts, “about this grand new job you’ve lined up for me.” She sat down cross-legged in front of the fire, twirling the ice in her glass.

  “I told you, public relations,” Dee said, marveling at the way the flames reflected in Karen’s eyes. “You’d be secretary, girl Friday, assistant to a man named Seth Barron.”

  “Sounds like some romantic hero out of an old English movie,”

  she laughed.

  “You’re not too far off. I know Seth—not too well. Met him at several cocktail parties. He seems very nice, and he’s bright. A very sharp guy indeed, but without that consuming Madison Avenue drive-or-die. You’d like him. It’s a growing agency and you’d have a good chance to grow with it.”

  “Park Avenue, you said?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Well, that’s a help.” She grinned impishly. “So, why am I quit-ting my present employ?”

  Dee sat down next to her. “How about no future? Or, not enough pay?”

  “You mean I can’t say that my boss is chasing me around the desk all day?”

  “Sure, baby, sure. You just do that,” Dee laughed.

  “How do you know I’ll get the job?”

  “Are you kidding . . .?” Dee smiled and stroked the side of Karen’s face nearer the fireplace . . . enjoying the unnatural warmth, making her especially aware of the very existence of this girl.

  “Thank you, darling,” Dee said very softly.

  Karen looked at her, tilting her head slightly with a slow smile.

  “For what?”

  “Just for being.”

  “Oh, darling!” Karen leaned forward and kissed Dee sweetly on 295

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  the lips. “I feel the same way about you . . . only, it’s hard for me to say it.”

  “You’ve not waited as long as I have. . . .”

  “When you want something,” Karen said slowly, keeping her lips against Dee’s, “getting there is half the fun.”

  “Hey! Watch out. You’re pushing me over!”

  “Am I?”’

  “I adore you,” Dee said, feeling desire rise up beyond control.

  “Show me. . . .”

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  Dee couldn’t help but note the subtle metamorphosis in Karen.

  It seemed to be one that took several directions and yet left the exterior unchanged—so far. She sensed how Karen seemed to need her demonstration of love more and more . . . her terrible dependency upon Dee. As if she needed to prove that love was all that was necessary and she mustn’t let go of it for a second—mustn’t let it out of her sight.

  She had apparently adjusted very well to her new job, and perhaps this was having some effect in making her feel guilty . . . or whatever it was that was making h
er so demanding of Dee’s attention.

  One of the problems, Dee knew, was that Karen would not go anywhere. The gay clubs depressed and repelled her. And it wasn’t any fun going to the straight places, because she couldn’t relax.

  Dee shared every discomfort of Karen’s experience with gay life.

  She knew the girl was quietly suffering, the confinement turning her into a recluse. It was as if only Dee’s devotion made any part of life worthwhile. Except, perhaps, for Karen’s new job.

  She spoke in an offhand way about her job, and any mention of Seth was particularly brief. Dee would have liked it better if Karen could have let out some of her feelings—she didn’t approve of this 297

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  keeping everything in. It was changing Karen into someone Dee now had difficulty reaching. Even Karen’s interest in photography had grown dim and sporadic. The crispness in Karen’s personality that Dee had found so attractive was gone. In its place was a kind of limp resignation.

  Dee knew it, watched it grow worse, but there didn’t seem to be anything she could do about it. If she tried to mention it, to bring it up for discussion, Karen withdrew and shrugged it off as a temporary mood, or that she was just too tired, or something else equally evasive.

  There was no real point in pressing the matter—it only created a greater bridge between them. It was impossible for Dee to try to phrase to herself what it had been like to watch the decay of Karen’s spirit, of her zest for life.

  Karen couldn’t admit how guilty she was about her “new life,”

  couldn’t even begin to understand that this was most of her problem. That angry statement she’d made so many weeks ago was truer and truer: it just wasn’t worth it!

  But she had received a really indisputably clear picture of Karen’s problem when one day she had had to call Seth Barron about getting a release for pictures from one of his accounts. Naturally, the conversation eventually turned to Karen.