by Ann Bannon
There was plenty of whiskey left, and Beth, after laying Vega down tenderly on the bed, poured her a drink. Neither of them had spoken a word.
Vega gulped the drink and then handed it back; she turned her face away and put one hand over it. Beth let her weep undisturbed for a while. At length Vega murmured in a broken voice, “You don't need to tell me how you feel now. I saw it in your face."
"Vega, you damn fool,” Beth said gently. “Why didn't you tell me? Why did you spring it on me that way? I could have taken it, if you'd only let me know. If you'd only prepared me a little for it."
"No,” Vega said, reaching for a tissue from her pocket and wiping her eyes. “No, what you mean is, you could have controlled the look on your face. You could have made up a kind little speech and said it right away, before your silence spoke for you."
"That's not what I meant,” Beth protested.
"Don't you see, Beth,” she said, turning to look at her and forcing herself to face those eyes that had seen her saddest and ugliest secret, “if I had told you beforehand you would never have confessed your love to me at all. You would never have tried to know me or touch me. That counts for something, believe me. That's one thing to be grateful for, even if it can't last. But aside from that it wouldn't have made much difference. You might have hidden your disgust a little better, that's all. No matter which way I did it, the ending would have been the same."
Beth lighted a cigarette. “This has happened before, hasn't it?” she said quietly.
"Yes,” Vega sighed. “Now you know why I've been waiting twenty years. It wasn't pure virtue.” She gave an acrid little laugh. “You thought my mother was ugly, didn't you?” she said. “I'll bet you didn't know how ugly a woman could be until now."
"Vega, please,” Beth said, exasperated with her and with herself. She was in a state of tremulous nervousness, keyed up to a fever one moment with aching desire, and almost nauseated with shock the next. Somehow, in the space of a few short weeks, this lovely woman she had known well enough for a period of years had appeared to her as a lover. Suddenly Vega, who had been only Cleve Purvis's sister since Beth came to California, was all the promise of love, of womanhood to her. Vega became Beth's own passion resurrected in the flesh.
And now, with brutal suddenness, she had seen her mutilated body, repellent and pitiable, and she could not find her desire any more. It had dissipated.
But surely I loved her, Beth told herself miserably. When you love, you love more than a body. You love a mind and heart, too, or your emotion is a cheap fake. She knew this was true. She knew that if her “love” had been real it would somehow have survived, even in platonic form. But all she wanted now was to get out, to leave, to breath the open air, to be free of her cruelly misshapen dream.
The very sight of Vega, the small sounds she made, drove Beth's disappointment through her like a knife. She was ashamed of her selfishness but quite impotent with it. She had wanted a whole woman, warm and yielding. She had dreamed that her hands would touch the smooth perfumed flesh of a body that knew how to love. It had been a vital part of her desire and now she had little more than a face to hang her dreams on. Vega's face, covered with tears.
"You'd better go,” Vega told her suddenly, and Beth wanted nothing more than to obey. But shame and pity held her to the spot beside Vega on the bed.
After a moment Vega turned and gazed at her. “Surely you can't stay, after what you've seen?” she said in a leaden voice.
"Vega,” Beth said painfully. “I said—I said I loved you. I've grown very fond of you over the last few weeks. I don't know how or why it happened. I only know that I can hardly bear to hurt you, to see you lying there in despair.” It was meant as solace, to ease Beth's parting. Nothing more. But Vega in her desperation took it for more. She turned to gaze at Beth and there was a new look on her face. The eyes were less empty, the mouth less tragic.
"You mean you'll stay?” she whispered almost inaudibly.
Once said, the words trapped Beth. For a moment she couldn't answer and her mind flew frantically from lie to lie, but there were no excuses, none that wouldn't hurt Vega mortally. She had seen Vega's ugliness and she had been sickened. Her passion had flickered and gone out, and now she was tired and ashamed and she wanted to be gone.
"Of course I'll stay,” she said softly, hopelessly, to Vega. It was her conscience, her compassion, that spoke for her. If the incredulous pleasure, the stammering gratitude she produced in Vega could have reawakened the needs of Beth's body, Beth would have fallen on her with delight. Instead she lay wordlessly beside her, taking Vega into her arms and murmuring kindnesses to her.
"I knew you were better than the rest,” Vega said, and her voice broke with emotion. “Beth, darling Beth, I knew it somehow. I had a feeling about you. Maybe because I wanted you so much. I did, you know. I do. Oh, Beth."
And Beth, as she kissed her, wondered with sad irony why Vega couldn't have said that to her before when she wanted so much to hear it, why she couldn't have played the game, gently and broken the secret mercifully. Perhaps she hoped she could catch someone like Beth someday who had too much pride and pity to treat her like an outcast. Perhaps she hoped her pathetic condition would finally snare somebody the way it had Beth. She had waited a long lonely time for this, and she clung to Beth as if to let go for even an instant was to lose her forever.
Beth made love to her. It was restrained, partly because she saw with awful clarity in her mind's eye every part of Vega that her hands touched, and partly because Vega herself had not the breath or strength to throw herself into her feelings. Beth clung tight to her composure, swallowing her tears of frustration and giving Vega all she could muster of tenderness and patience. Vega could not be satisfied unless Beth appeared to be so, for otherwise it would be too clear that Beth was doing this for her out of charity. So there was the fatiguing necessity of pretending to enjoy it, pretending to feel the thrill that was nothing but a gruesome parody of the happiness she bad anticipated.
Vega lay in her arms throughout the rest of the night and she slept like a guiltless child. Beth, beside her in the dark and afraid to move and disturb her, did not sleep at all. She stared into the night and cursed the unkind fate that had promised so much and delivered so little. All the dormant fires of her younger days had sprung to life and they burned in her still, tempting her, torturing her, until she knew she would have to find release somewhere or die of it. She even went so far as to imagine the young girls in the next few rooms and to wonder if it were possible to see them, to make friends.
At five-thirty in the morning? she said it to herself, and smiled wryly at the dawn.
Beth drove home in the morning, dropping Vega off first and seeing her go with a sigh of relief. She was ashamed of her feeling of resentment and to cover it up in her conscience she berated Vega. Jesus, I wanted to make love to a woman, not a carved-up scarecrow! she cried to herself, and her own hard words dismayed her. Her attitude toward Vega was fast becoming one of bitter disappointment. She had been betrayed and she was near to loathing the object of her betrayal, so great had been her hopes and her needs.
At home in her empty house she put her head down and cried. They were tears of fury, tears of frustration, but not tears of despair. Not now. Her temper was too high and the blaze in her too hot.
For an hour or more she stamped around the house, picking up objects aimlessly and smacking them down again, kicking chairs and doors, and thinking. She walked out into the yard and pulled up a few flowers just because it felt good to ruin something. And then she went back into the house and threw herself down on her bed and slept.
She dreamed of Laura.
Just Laura, sitting on the studio couch in the sorority room they had shared, gazing at her. But though she didn't move, though she didn't speak, she was vibrantly alive this time. Beth could smell the remembered heady scent of her hair, and when she approached her and held out her hand she could feel Laura's breath upon it. She spoke
to her, just her name. And Laura smiled, ever so faintly, over the gulf of years and the famous “well of loneliness."
Chapter Eight
BETH WENT THROUGH a period of nearly two months, as spring edged into summer, of emotional upheaval and torment that were all the harder to bear for being secret. There was no one to talk to, no one to explain to, no one to confide in. Charlie would never understand. His reaction would surely be one of anger and contempt for her. Her exclusive behavior, her moods, had already come close to damning her in his eyes. And Vega.
Oh, God! Beth thought with acute irritation. Vega was rapidly becoming a stone around her neck. She pestered her on the phone two or three times a day.. She begged Beth to spend more time with her, and Beth, who was speedily growing sick and sorry about the whole affair, tried every machination to get out of it. But then came threats. Vega would sob over the phone, and her lovely voice, tangled in the gasps for air that plagued her when she was excited, would moan, “You love me. You said so. If you love me come to me, Beth. My God, I'm out of my mind I want you so much."
And Beth found herself yearning for the days when she and Vega were hardly more than acquaintances; even the days when she wanted Vega and couldn't have her were better than these when an unhappy and jealous Vega tried to force herself on her.
"I have to take Skipper to a birthday party,” she would say. Or, “I can't, Vega, I'm bowling this morning."
"Oh, hell!” Vega spat. “You gave that up weeks ago. Jean told me. She said you just called up and quit and she thinks you don't like her any more. She called me to cry on my shoulder.” Her voice was hard with jealous suspicions and Beth was obliged to concoct ridiculous fibs for her. Anything to keep her at arms’ length.
But she couldn't keep her there always. There were meetings, awful exhausting affairs. Beth approached them with a dread that included an element of physical revulsion she found it hard to hide. Vega, who was sharp-eyed in spite of her infatuation, could see that Beth's response to her was only slight and that her thoughts were always with something or someone else. But she had fallen for Beth and there was no backing out. It was almost a fanatical attachment. Their relations became more and more trying, more strained, with Vega weeping pathetic angry tears and Beth snapping at her with wild impatience. They had really trapped each other and there seemed to be no way out.
Vega's most desperate fear was that one day Beth would simply refuse to see her at all. “I'd kill you if you did that to me,” she told Beth once, thinking that by mentioning it before it had a chance to happen she might miraculously stave it off.
But Beth offered her no consolation, not even an answer. She knew quite well that soon it would come to a parting; that she had only delayed the break out of shame, cowardice, and a desire to lessen the pain for Vega.
Vega would often call her when Charlie was at home and Beth would be forced to talk quietly to her, to agree to her plans, just to avoid a revealing argument in front of Charlie. Beth upbraided her royally for it when they met.
"Good God, Vega, I can't let Charlie know what's going on,” Beth shouted at her. “That is, if he doesn't know already. Do you want me to stop seeing you altogether? He'd insist, you know."
"Beth, if you'd call me once in a while instead of forcing me to call you. Just once in a while. If you'd act like you cared—"
"Vega, don't throw a lot of sentimental pap at me."
"Is that what you call it?” Vega sprang to her feet, her face white. “Is that what you call my love for you? This affair was all your idea, Beth, in case you've forgotten. You insisted. I surrendered. And now you're obligated to me. I swear to God you are!” She would have gone on but lack of breath stopped her and she paused, panting, a hand to her throat.
"I'm not going to stand around and be hollered at,” Beth said, picking up her coat with an angry sweep of her arm. “You're turning into a shrew, Vega."
"Beth, don't got Please!” The last word was almost a sob and Beth didn't dare to turn around and see her face. She would have succumbed to her own sympathy and weakness again and hated herself for it afterward.
"Beth, I'm warning you here and now, if you leave me I'll tell Charlie all about this. I'll tell him everything."
Beth paused, her back to Vega, and her heart skipped a beat. She kept her voice under control when she answered. “He won't believe you."
"You know damn well he will. You said yourself he already suspects monkey business. Well, it won't take much to convince him."
"Try it,” Beth said, still bluffing, still afraid to face her.
"You're goddamn right I'll try it,” Vega said, with all the meager force she could muster.
Beth turned around slowly, reluctantly. “Vega,” she said. “You're a viper. I can't think of anything else to call you. You're nothing but a lousy snake. You make me sorry I ever laid eyes on you."
"You've laid more than eyes on me, Beth, and don't forget it,” Vega said, trembling with the fatigue of her feelings. “You owe me something."
"You owe me something, too, Vega,” Beth said. Her voice was soft but furious. “You waited twenty years for somebody, remember? For some poor idiot like me to take pity on you—"
"Stop!” Vega cried, visibly hurt and beginning to reel slightly. Beth was forced to care for her, to help her to a chair and bring her a shot of whiskey. “Beth, don't say it,” she begged. “Once those things are said there's no unsaying them. They hang there in the air and poison things. They destroy even the little white lies you tell yourself when things look blackest."
And Beth was touched by her misery in spite of herself. “You mean,” she said quietly, “they make you face the truth."
"Hurt like that goes beyond the truth,” Vega said. “When you're trying to hurt somebody else you kill them with truth like that. I couldn't bear it if you left me, Beth. I can't believe you will. I was so lonely before. It's not much better now, but it's better. When you're in a good humor I almost faint with love for you. I want to lie in your arms and die of joy. I wish we could live somewhere together, just the two of us."
And Beth, for whom the whole situation had taken such a sickening turn, was caught between pity and disgust “I—I don't mean to leave you, Vega,” she said at last, hoping that her phraseology would leave her an out “But don't call Charlie. Things are bad enough as it is. Please, leave him out of it."
She hated to say it, for it gave Vega a powerful ace to play, but she spoke the truth when she admitted that things were already bad enough at home.
There had been a sort of armed truce declared between Charlie and herself. They had very little to say to each other, but for the children's sake they put on a show of life-as-usual. Beth reached a point where she hated to leave the house, as if her love affair—if the word “love” belongs there—had changed her physically and might give her away to her neighbors. She did the marketing and took the children out, but that was all.
Housework seemed an interminable chore to her. She had never liked it, any more than she liked cooking. But she had always done what was necessary. Now even that oppressed her to such an extent that she would often let things go until the last moment, sometimes failing to make up the beds until just before Charlie got home, and letting days, weeks, go by without dusting or vacuuming. The worse the house got the harder it was for her to do anything about it. She wanted to shut her eyes and forget it.
And all the time, every day, at every hour and in every imaginable posture, she dreamed of Laura. She dreamed of the romance, unfettered with family obligation or dishwashing, free of all the daily drudgery she so despised, free of a husband who was jealous and narrow-minded, free of children who were noisy and nerve-wracking.
Beth yearned for Laura. She was almost possessed with her. It was as if, out of the blue, she had fallen in love with her all over again; and, in a way, she had. She was in love with her own lost freedom, her own smooth young face, her college sophistication, her exotic love for a strange and fascinating girl. All
the things that were once but were no more, all the things Beth had been and was no longer. These she loved. And Laura personified them.
To while away the hours, she read. On her shopping trips she picked up books—every book she could find on the subject of homosexuality and Lesbianism. She read them with passionate interest, and found a release in them she had not expected. Most of them were novels with tragic endings. Some were even dull, at least for those whose ruling interest in life had nothing to do with their own sex. Some of them depressed her, but all of them interested her and she gained a feeling of companionship with some of the writers which alleviated her solitude a little. She wrote letters to a few, the ones who impressed her most, who seemed to understand best what it was like to be gay and to be alone and starved for love; for less than love, even—for sympathetic companionship.
A handful of them wrote back to her and she established a correspondence with one or two that relieved her a little. She looked forward to their letters eagerly and poured out her desperate lonesomeness and bewilderment to them. After a few weeks they had all deserted her but one, who seemed really interested in her, named Nina Spicer.
Nina's letters came in oversized envelopes with the name of her publisher in the corner, and Beth read each one avidly. She knew dimly that although Nina Spicer was gay there was very little else they had in common. That became clear from her letters. But Nina had become intrigued with her and Beth was grateful for the interest. It was a bridge into another world where she longed hopelessly to be, and it comforted her.
The thought began to grow in Beth that the only way out of her depression was to go back to Chicago and search for Laura. Charlie would refuse, of course, and he'd fight it all the way, but she had to get out, shed her present life, try to find herself in a new environment with new people.
Chicago ... it sounded beautiful, romantic as a foreign port to her, for the first time in her life. She had grown up there, she knew her way around. But it had never appeared as anything but huge and dirty and familiar, with sporadic excitements available.