Trick or Treat?

by Ray Connolly

  ‘Lesbian? I’m not a lesbian. I’m not.’

  ‘Not a lesbian?’ Ille’s tone was bantering. ‘You are. You’re a dyke, une gouene, une lesbienne. And you were long before you met me. Sonja recognized that. That was why she sent you.’

  Kathy felt panic racing through her: ‘I’m not. I want men. It’s men I want to fuck. Not dirty, stinking dykes. Not black dykes, who grope me in clubs. Not butch, perverted women who push their pussies and thighs into me for thrills. I hate them. D’you hear me? I hate it all.’

  ‘Then you hate yourself. You should admit it. Accept it. I’m sorry about tonight. It went wrong. But you insisted on going. It was certain to lead to unhappiness. You must face up to what you are.’

  Suddenly Kathy felt herself regaining some control: ‘Tell me about Sonja, Ille. Tell me the truth.’

  ‘I already told you.’

  ‘No, tell me everything.’

  ‘I did.’

  ‘There was nothing else?’

  ‘Nothing. Only that I discovered what I was. And I accepted it. And I waited. Waited for you. But you can’t accept it. You’re a hypocrite. You pretend that I’m just a game. That it doesn’t matter. That one day you’ll go back to Los Angeles and be a proper woman again, with your affairs and your men. But you’ll never be the same again. I know. You’ll never be truly content. You may hate everything about me. You may hate all of this …’ she gestured generally around the apartment ‘… but you’ll never be able to overcome what God made you. And always in your mind you’ll know what you are. And what you really need to make you happy. We’ve been happy here together for three months. But only because you refused to accept the situation. You were playing a game with your emotions when you should have been learning new sets of values and new experiences. Before we came together you might have gone through life happily as you were, without ever knowing what you really wanted. But perhaps you would have had the suspicion that you were missing something that all your men couldn’t offer you. You needed a woman to love just as I did. Together we are perfect. Men can give you orgasms, and affection and their love; but you can offer them no more than a passing infatuation. You need a woman for true affection and companionship. Because you don’t really like men.’

  ‘I do. I do.’ Kathy was on the verge of hysteria.

  ‘Oh no. You like fucking. but when it’s all over you’ll need the comfort of another woman now. Someone like me. Go out. Try it. Go and find a man. Go find the best fuck in Paris. And I promise you he won’t make you happy as I can. No man can. Not now. Probably they never could. That was why you came to me.’

  Suddenly all the pent-up emotions that had been bubbling up inside Kathy burst to the surface, and hurling herself violently at Ille she began to scratch and tear at her, digging her nails into that perfect face in an attempt to disfigure, and ripping at that garish red gown that she might tear into the flesh it covered. And for the first and only time in their relationship she saw Ille lose her temper, too. And standing there in that white-walled aviary they struggled and swore, screaming obscenities at each other, pulling hair in tufts, forcing each other’s heads back, knees doubled up to hurt and butt into each other’s vaginas; and locked in an emotional anger which neither could allow herself to lose they fell about the floor of the aviary, rolling in the sand and sawdust and bird droppings, still clinging and screaming in an outburst of vehemence and anger that they both needed to express their mutual frustrations. Then suddenly, as quickly as it had started, the anger went out of Kathy and still clinging to her friend she held tight on to her and buried her head in her body, her mind a bedlam of shame and confusion, desiring nothing more than comfort. And very soothingly Ille murmured words of love and affection to her, and pulling her away from the dirt-strewn floor she brushed down the sawdust from Kathy’s hair, and while Kathy still wept she led her silently into the bathroom, where while taking off her soiled clothes she ran a hot bath for them both and slipping out of her dress climbed in while Kathy still clung to her. And though the bath was small they lay together for a long time and felt no discomfort, nor excitement, but merely the pleasure of companionship. And when the tears had healed and were dry they shampooed each other, and ran cotton wool tabs of face lotion over each other’s skins. And Kathy cried again and begged forgiveness when she found she couldn’t erase the scratches of her fury, though Ille made light of them and told her not to worry. And later, cleansed and fresh, they lay close in bed together, although tonight they did not make love, nor did either of them want to. And again Kathy apologized, and said she was sorry. But Ille insisted that the guilt lay with her for taking her to that place: an action done on a whim brought on by too much champagne and curiosity. And she too begged for forgiveness.

  ‘But you’re right. I am a lesbian,’ said Kathy pensively, when calm and contented again.

  ‘Perhaps a bi-sexual would be a better description, my love. I didn’t mean it.’

  ‘But I do. Bi-sexual is just a polite and modern way of saying gay, queer or dyke these days. No one wants to admit to it still, so they say they’re bi-sexual. It’s just a fashionably polite synonym. I do prefer you to any man I’ve ever had. Sometimes I think about men. About what they would do to me, and I would do to them. But I know it’s you that I want now. In a way the thought of a man now revolts me slightly, although I can still become wet with excitement if I think about my past enough. I never enjoyed going down on men, although I had to because I knew that was what they wanted and would expect. I always felt as though I was gagging somewhere in the back of my throat. It would revolt me. With you – your body is sacred to me. I want to explore every inch of it, every secret part, every forbidden area. I want to get inside you. Sometimes I have imagined that I am a man: not because I think it is a superior state, but so that I can fuck you properly: so that I can enter you properly as only a boy can. And it hurts to know that men have known areas of you that I cannot reach, nor ever will be able to. You remember when I dressed up in clothes like yours? I wanted to be you. Do you understand? It wasn’t that I just wanted to look like you. It was that I wanted to shed the skin of Kathy Crawford and become Ille.’

  ‘And now?’

  ‘Now sometimes I don’t know whether I love or hate you: sometimes the flat seems like our prison. I want to be with you and share your life. But when I look around here all I see are signs of your personality. I seem to have brought nothing with me. Nothing that means anything. I’ve become a parasite to your way of living. Sometimes we go to American movies and buy American records. But I feel I’ve become consumed in your existence….’

  ‘But you’re wrong, my love. Without you my existence now would be unbearable. I want to share everything I have with you. You have become more than a lover. You are my family. I have no one but you.’

  ‘We’re hardly a family. Just a couple of sad and lonely dykes, clinging on to each other because we don’t have anyone else. The only thing we share is each other: our minds and our bodies.’

  ‘No,’ Ille insisted. ‘We are a family.’

  ‘Like sisters, perhaps – or maybe husband and wife. Who is to be the husband tonight?’

  ‘Men are not necessary for a family.’

  ‘Not a man? What makes a family then?’

  Ille paused and considered the question with rapt concentration:,

  ‘You … and … me … and …’

  ‘And?’

  ‘And maybe a baby.’

  ‘A baby?’ For a moment Kathy was amused at the very notion of introducing a baby into their lives. Babies were objects which she had grown up to fear and dread – the penalty for careless fucking, and the inevitable list of sympathetic doctors with their vacuum machines for the disposal of such mistakes. And then as she considered the question further she remembered how Ille had once before spoken of her desire for motherhood, spoken out of a poppy dream when they were both half asleep and happily delirious. ‘You’re not serious?’ she said at last.

&nbs
p; Again Ille paused, uncertain of whether to laugh away her idle fantasies or to finally admit openly to them. ‘Is it so absurd? I am a woman. I have a woman’s emotions and needs. I have been a single girl for long enough. Now I think I want a baby.’ She could feel Kathy staring at her with growing incredulity. ‘Don’t look at me like that. I’m not a monster. If you were a man you would not necessarily be surprised.’

  ‘If I were a man I might be able to do something about it.’

  ‘If you were a man you wouldn’t be living with me.’

  ‘So we reach an impasse.’

  For some moments they lay quietly together. Kathy considering what would once have been beyond consideration, and Ille wondering just what effect her admission might have on her relationship with Kathy. Lost in their own private interpretations of the situation they feared to look into each other’s eyes: both pondering the situation and its impracticalities in her own way.

  Of what strange and mad world have I become a part, thought Kathy. And yet the total unpredictability and eccentricity of the situation excited her. Ille for her part lay silent and deep in contemplation. And some time passed before either spoke again. Then it was Ille: ‘Before I met you … before you came to me, I used to think I would find a man and have a baby by him. But I would never tell him. He would be a father only in the physical sense. I would plan to go out into a bar, any bar, and look for the most handsome man there. And he would pick me up and take me off in his car thinking how lucky he was to find an easy girl. And I would never even ask his name. I would be like an unpaid whore for him. But he would be the whore without knowing. He would be the one who would be used. It was a recurrent fantasy I would have. I used to imagine I would have to screw many men before I conceived. And then after I had met the right one I would have a baby and live here alone with it. Your room, the little white bedroom, that was to be the nursery. I went so far as to paint it and bought lace curtains. But I was always too frightened. It was too much for me. I was afraid because I was alone.’

  Ille had turned away from Kathy as she spoke. At last Kathy put an arm around the shoulder of her friend, and stroking her dark, shiny hair, felt, for the first time, some feelings of pity for Ille. Until now Ille had always seemed so self-assured, so certain of herself. And now she had betrayed a weak spot: a craving that she was afraid she might never be able to satisfy: an ambition she feared was futile. ‘But you aren’t alone now, Ille,’ she whispered. ‘Now you have me. We can be a family, just like you said. Together we can’t make a baby. But that isn’t difficult. And together we can be parents. And a baby would be something that we could both share….’

  ‘You don’t know what you’re saying, my love,’ said Ille at last.

  ‘Maybe not. But do you? Now go to sleep. And we’ll talk about it tomorrow.’

  Quietly Kathy put out the bedside lamp and lay thoughtfully in the darkness. And it was some time before her mind strayed back to the events of the evening, and her self-disgust. And when she remembered how she had allowed the doves to escape she suddenly felt a shaft of regret stabbing her, and resting a hand on Ille’s thigh she whispered to her how sorry she was for her temper and cruelty. But Ille was now sleeping. And in her guilt for taking the one thing that Ille had cherished, Kathy cried silent tears into her pillow until sleep came forgivingly to her, and lifted the burden.

  Chapter 6

  The very next day Ille decided to give up work. She had now, she said, more things to think about than time past and she was bored with antiques anyway. In some respects the hysteria and eventual conversation of the previous night had marked a change in the relationship. Suddenly there seemed a purpose other than the self-indulgent enjoyment of day to day happenings. Before their row neither girl had ever given a thought as to how their future might turn out, other than the occasional hope and a sigh that they might get through some more happy weeks without breaking up. But now all thoughts of a possible breakdown in their friendship were banished. Merely to talk, and to plan the virtual manufacture of a baby, insisted that there be a permanence about their situation that had not been necessary before. In the time-ridiculed bourgeois way they were acting out unconsciously the roles traditionally assigned to the normal family pattern. If Kathy hadn’t been so rich in her own right she might even have considered taking a job, which might have been difficult, since Ille’s perfect English and her own reluctance to go about learning French had left her knowing little more of the language than she had when she had first arrived. But neither work nor money raised any problems for either of them. Money was a commodity of which neither was short; work for Ille had never been more than a hobby.

  Their new hobby consisted of trying to find a father: the perfect genealogical stud, was what Kathy insisted upon calling him, since their baby would have no father figure in the socially accepted sense of the word. On the contrary it would have two mothers; a natural one and a surrogate one; and at times they would consider whether it would be best never to tell the child which of the two the actual physical mother was, since that would lead it into a closer relationship with one in preference to the other.

  ‘We must make a list,’ announced Kathy the next day when the subject was once again broached. Ille had purposely shied away from mentioning their conversation of the previous night, going quietly to the telephone to give notice of her de facto resignation from her job, but Kathy was already fired with an enthusiasm for what she saw as some new kind of sport. ‘We’ll be like the Habsburgs looking for a perfect match for you,’ she said, laying out a sheet of paper on the oak wood kitchen table. ‘We won’t give a dowry though. Your pussy is dowry enough for any man.’ The thought that Ille would be actually making love to someone other than herself stopped her train of thought momentarily, and a shadow passed over her hopes. What if Ille should discover that she no longer had need of Kathy? What if she should fall in love? That she should prefer the man they chose? Inwardly Kathy shivered at the prospect of losing her lover, of being forced from their home; of being alone again. Ille watched her: knowing what those thoughts and self-doubts must be, and comfortingly she leant across and taking Kathy’s arm she stroked it.

  ‘Don’t even think about that,’ she said. ‘You know it’s impossible. You will share him, too. That will make us even. We must share everything. We will share the man, and then we can discuss notes. We can talk about his performance. Two bitches. Complete and vicious.’

  ‘No.’ Kathy was again sure of herself, and she returned to her sheet of paper. ‘Now for the list. Our child must be perfect. So we must choose the perfect father. We need looks, intelligence, wit, education, background. But no inbred failings. No Habsburg jaws: no mad Bourbons …’

  ‘… and no unlucky Kennedys,’ chipped in Ille.

  ‘My father would never agree to that anyway,’ came back Kathy. ‘He voted for Nixon – three times. He’s that kind of loser.’

  ‘So that gets rid of the impossibles right away. Who d’you think? What about Jacques? Write him down.’

  Kathy pulled a face: ‘He’s pretty enough: nice blue eyes, a bit like yours, really. But he looks stupid.’

  ‘He is. But write him down. He’s a great fuck. We want our son to be good at something, don’t we?’

  ‘She may be a girl,’ said Kathy, laughing and writing down the name in a column marked Outsiders. ‘Anybody else?’ she demanded.

  Ille studied hard her reflection in the blade of a bread knife. She could just make out the scratches from the night before. ‘All the men I know well I know because they were either beautiful or good in bed. I never asked any of them to fill in an intelligence test, and I never checked into their ancestry. For all I know half of them might be imbecilic bastards with big cocks. And the other half are queer and couldn’t be tempted within yards of my bed … nor yours either, for that matter.’

  ‘So, you were an indiscriminate fucker?’

  ‘Completely.’

  ‘This is going to be difficult,’ said Kathy,
drawing parallel vertical lines on her sheet of paper, and adding the heading Indiscriminate Fucks.

  ‘Maybe we should look for a stranger,’ suggested Ille.

  ‘Or a Chinaman,’ came back Kathy.

  ‘No junkie though.’

  ‘You said it. Didn’t your brother have any good friends who might like to sire the next but three Secretary General to the United Nations?’

  ‘He didn’t like me to meet them. He always said they might lead me into bad ways. I wouldn’t know where to find any of them now. Why don’t you come up with someone? Paris is crawling with Americans.’

  ‘There’s my man at the Chase Manhattan. A nice Ivy League Wasp if ever I saw one.’

  ‘Put him down.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Bank managers don’t. They’re like doctors. Never let business get to interfere with pleasure in case it should show up on your monthly statement.’

  ‘Hopefully it would.’

  ‘The list isn’t getting anywhere.’

  ‘Stop. I’ve had an idea! Arbus! Your friend Arbus. What about him?’

  ‘I knew you’d get around to him eventually.’

  ‘What d’you mean?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter. You want me to put him down? Really?’

  ‘He’s perfect. Brains, money, position, looks, background….’

  ‘… and he’s itching to get his hands on to either one of us.’

  ‘He’ll have to accept both of us.’

  ‘He’ll be too bourgeois for that.’

  ‘Not him. He’ll never know why he’s so lucky.’

  ‘I thought you liked his wife. You said she was nice. You can’t do this to her.’

  ‘We can. She’ll never know. And anyway I’m sure she’s hardly a chaste stay-at-home herself. She knows what the position is with him.’

  Suddenly Kathy remembered her conversation with Arbus on the flight from California: ‘There may be a snag,’ she said. ‘They have no children … he said it was something wrong with her. But you never know. Men are so arrogant about their virility. It could easily be him. Maybe he’s sterile … or even impotent.’