Riding Fury Home

by Chana Wilson

  A couple of days before New Year’s Eve, Kate and I admitted to each other that each of us had been looking for some experienced dyke to initiate us.

  “Kate, um, don’t you think it’s, you know, oppressive of us, to expect some older lesbian to bring us out?” I asked, glancing at her sideways. I was too ill at ease to look at her directly. And then I did. Right into her startling green eyes, set deep in her pale face. We smiled awkwardly.

  “Yeah, it’s really not cool,” she replied.

  I gazed at Kate, the friend who now shared almost every minute of every day with me. We were living very cheaply on our savings, which hadn’t yet run out, so we still had the luxury of not working. Our days consisted of feminist classes and events, explorations of the city, Gay Women’s Liberation meetings, rehearsals of our newly formed street-theater group, communal dinners, and life in the house, and through it all, we shared a running commentary, digesting our experiences. A shiver went through me; I’d never been this close to anyone.

  I opened my mouth, and what poured out was “I love you.” I’d startled myself, but there was no going back now. Once I’d said it, to my astonishment, I felt it—something buzzing in my belly, vibrating up into my throat, breaking my face into a smile. I love her. Of course. How simple: Kate, right there in front of me all the time.

  “I love you, too,” Kate smiled weakly. “Sex can’t be that difficult to figure out, can it?”

  “Nah. You’re right, how hard could it be?” Suddenly, I was so scared, everything numbed up again, like a shovelful of dirt dumped on a campfire.

  Neither of us made a move. Instead, we both agreed it must be time to go down to dinner. After dinner, we lingered in the living room for a couple of hours with several of our housemates. From a distance, I heard most of what they were saying, and sometimes my mouth moved in response, but my nerves were so jangled I could barely register anything. Finally, the talk ebbed and we all retired to our rooms.

  Kate put on her yellow flannel pajamas. They matched her fine blond hair, cut bluntly at chin length. I put on my red flannel nightgown. It was cold in the uninsulated attic. Outside, a thick fog had settled on the bay, and we could hear the foghorns bleating rhythmically. Kate clambered into her twin bed, sat with her knees up as she leaned back against the wall, and pulled the blankets up.

  “How about some music?” I asked. Kate nodded. I put Laura Nyro on the record player and sat down in the rocking chair next to her bed. We listened to Laura croon, “Come on, come on and surry down to a stoned soul picnic. Surry down to a stoned soul picnic. There’ll be lots of time and wine . . . ” I was rocking double-time. Get a grip! Just calm down. I stilled the rocking chair. Kate was twirling a piece of her hair with her index finger, round and round.

  I couldn’t stop shivering, I hoped just from the cold. I got up from the rocking chair and went to my pot stash in the cigar box on my dresser. I returned, sat back in the rocker, damped a line of pot into the joint roller, inserted a paper, and concentrated on rolling it out the other end. I lit the joint and handed it to Kate. We passed it back and forth, not speaking.

  I knew that I was expected to take the lead because I was the one with sexual experience. Never mind that I barely knew my own body, that I had never had an orgasm, that sex with my boyfriends had been unadventurous and pretty unsatisfying.

  “Want to dance?” I blurted, when we had finished the joint down to the roach. Kate nodded slightly, pushed back the covers and swung her legs out of bed. Laura Nyro was singing, plaintive and slow, “Emily and her love to be, carved in a heart on a berry tree . . . ”

  Kate stood next to the bed, hesitating. I’d gotten out of the rocker and was facing her, but my legs were shaky, leaden, so I just reached out my hands toward her. She took one step forward, reached her hands toward mine. I felt dizzy, faint. Fear had me holding my breath. Another step and our hands met, and then our arms wrapped around each other as we leaned our bodies one against the other. We began swaying, then moving slowly in a trancelike two-step. Under my hand, the cozy feel of flannel, the arch of her back moving underneath. With touch, my fear ebbed. The breath I had been holding released. The smell of her neck, salty sweet, mixed with the scent of herbal shampoo. I could feel her large, soft breasts pushing against mine.

  We slowed until we were rooted, pressed together. She was short like me, and we fit right together. I kissed her neck and she leaned her head back, sighing. I worked my mouth up her neck, leaving wet marks against her skin. A great heat rose in me. Trembling, I halted, overwhelmed by the intensity that was stirring. And then she moved her face forward and we were kissing, stiffly at first, then softly, then more fiercely.

  God, how I want her.

  I took Kate’s hand and led her into my turret, with its single mattress on the floor. She lay down on the bed while I lit the sand candle on my dresser. I stripped off my nightgown and lay down next to her, unbuttoning her pajama top, stroking her back. She ran her fingers through my hair, and my scalp tingled, electrified. I ran my tongue along the edge of her ear, down her neck, and along her collarbone. Now what do I do? In that moment of awkwardness, I looked up at Kate’s face—her eyes were closed, mouth in a blissful smile—and I imagined what I would want: tongue moving slowly around my nipples, then faster, then teasing to slowness, then harder. For a moment, the insecurity held me suspended, then I let go: Yes, her breasts, yes, I could live here, forever.

  I sat up and tugged Kate’s pajama bottoms down from her waist. She lifted her hips while I pulled the pants off. Stroking down her belly, my fingers entered the wetness beneath her soft blond pubic hair. Kate moaned, as the long-forbidden touching released a chorus of hallelujahs in me. She reached for me as well. Oh my God, her hand caressing me, inside me. I rolled on top of her, pressing, rocking, gathering momentum, our throats crying out as I lost track of whose moans and sighs were whose. There was a great tightening roar and then a glorious floating.

  IN THE SHOWER THE NEXT morning, I found myself grinning one of those goofy grins, remembering the double delight: first time with a woman, first orgasm of my life.

  I couldn’t wait to go downstairs and proclaim my new status: no longer the lesbian virgin. Kate was still asleep, so after my shower I went to the kitchen. Donna was standing at the toaster, plopping two slices of toast onto a plate. I must have still been beaming, because Donna stopped buttering her toast, holding the knife in the air. She stared a moment, then smiled. “Well, good morning, I guess!”

  “It sure is!” I paused, not from shyness, but to add drama to my announcement. Donna, at thirty-nine, was one of the two “older women” in the house, and a puzzlement to me. I understood very little of the pain of her early life as a closeted lesbian in Texas in the’50s, how as a practicing Christian and a teacher she had felt even more pressure to hide and pretend not to be queer. Now, she was an activist within the homophile movement, working for civil rights. I often argued with her about her approach. “Donna, why waste your energy? Working within the system is useless—the whole thing has to come down and we have to start over. Revolution, not revisionism.” She would smile indulgently at me, the teenage whippersnapper.

  Now, Donna simply looked at me expectantly.

  “Kate and I became lovers last night!”

  Donna’s smile deepened so that her eyes crinkled at the corners. “Well, congratulations! I’ll bet you two are sweet together. Wonderful!”

  KATE AND I KEPT UP our round of activities, bound by a togetherness that now included making love every day and sleeping in the same bed.

  One weekend in February, Kate and I went away to a rented cabin in the Sierra foothills. Bringing enough groceries to hunker down, we arrived after dark to a cottage surrounded by pine trees. In the morning, we woke to the muffled quiet of snowfall damping the forest sounds. The cabin was set back from the road, and we could make love with the curtains open, the steadily falling snow a bright white against the dark trunks of the pines. We stayed in bed for hou
rs. We read to each other from a new novel, Patience and Sarah. In the story, two women in the 1800s find a way to love each other in spite of all the daunting societal restraints, and create a life together on their own farmstead in New York State. As I listened to Kate read, it was almost as if we were those women, alone in a cabin in the woods, finding their way to an astonishing passion. We’d read a few chapters, make love again.

  In the afternoon, we pulled on boots and ran out into the snow and chased each other around the trees. Later on, back in the cabin, we stripped off our snow-encrusted layers, got back in bed, and read some more. At one point, while Kate was reading to me, I reached over to her and caressed her cheek. “Wait, rest a minute,” I said. It had struck me how loved I was, how I loved her back. It was scary, and wondrous. It made me breathless, and I needed to lie there quietly and look at her, try to take it in. Suddenly, I could feel in that moment how I’d closed down my heart to not need my mother, to bear losing my father. How I’d been encased in nineteen years of loneliness.

  “You love me, don’t you?” I half asked, half stated. She put the book away on the nightstand, pulled me to her. I could feel her warm breath against my ear, almost tickling me as she whispered, “I love you so much, sometimes I think I’ll burst.” Then we both laughed, but I knew she meant it. Something was bursting in me, too.

  Chapter 28. Older Women’s Liberation

  ONE AFTERNOON, KATE and I took a long walk from the Pacific Heights house. We wandered through our neighborhood, with its mansions and foreign embassies, then headed downhill to Fisherman’s Wharf and Ghirardelli Square.

  On the way back, I stopped at a phone booth to call my mother. After a few rounds of hellos and how-are-yous, I asked, “Hey, listen, there’s a piano at our house, so I was wondering, could you ship out some of my piano music? Everything that’s in the piano bench?”

  “Your piano music? Yeah, sure.” Then, with barely a pause, she added, “Something I want to ask you. Are you gay?”

  Mom’s non sequitur hit me with a wave of chest-tightening anxiety. Here it was, that question—no getting around it. I’d been sharing with her steps of my process, and had even told her about attending Gay Women’s Liberation, so she’d definitely had clues. Now I took a big breath. “Yes, Mom. I am.”

  My mother started right in, as if she’d been rehearsing what to say. “I don’t agree with this! I think you’re limiting yourself by not relating to men; you’re copping out. Is this going to become your cause now? Are you giving up the rest of your politics?”

  I’d never heard her this fierce and sharp, at least not directed at me. Her reaction stung, although I thought I understood it: her friend Ruth, the Communist Party hard-liner, was probably feeding her this “copping out and turning away from true leftist politics” bit. Still, I defended myself: “Glor, you don’t get it—feminism is revolutionary! I’m not giving up my politics, I’m expanding them to include personal relationships, men’s sexism. Don’t you get how liberating this is?”

  But it was as if she hadn’t heard a word I said. “I’ve been talking in my sessions with my psychiatrist about you, that maybe you were gay. She told me that your becoming gay is really a plea for me to ask you to come home. Do you want to come home?”

  Something in her voice caught me; she sounded tense, almost in a panic. Goddamn psychiatrist! “Gloria, listen, your psychiatrist is off her rocker. Kate and I are lovers, and it is the most wonderful thing. I wish you could see the power of women, of getting love and support from other women. I know you’ve heard the stereotypes about lesbians, but I’m still me.”

  Mom’s voice only rose in pitch and urgency. “Darling, I worry that this is a bad choice! That it’s a lonely and alienating life. And you’re taking on a lot of oppression. I don’t want you to suffer!”

  I tried arguing, but nothing seemed to ease my mother’s panic. We agreed to end our argument and talk more another time. After I hung up, I stepped toward Kate, who had been leaning into the phone booth during the whole conversation. Kate reached for me. “Wow,” she exclaimed.

  “Man, I didn’t think she’d take it that badly” was all I could say before Kate folded me in her arms. We walked hand in hand back home, through the windy January streets.

  OVER THE NEXT FEW WEEKS, Mom and I wrote each other letters, avoiding the phone. She was not much of a writer, and her letters were short and to the point. In her first two notes, she repeated her concern that with women I was heading for a life of depression and loneliness. I felt bad for her that she was torturing herself over me, that none of my arguments seemed to be changing her mind.

  Then came her third letter. I read it out loud to Kate. “My God, listen to this!”

  Dear Karen,

  I have quit therapy. Women’s Liberation is going to be my therapy from now on. I have joined an Older Women’s Liberation consciousness-raising group. It’s wonderful—we talk about everything.

  Love,

  Mom

  I wrote back a jubilant letter of joy and encouragement.

  A few weeks later, another letter:Dear Karen,

  I read about the gay women’s organization Daughters of Bilitis in that terrific book you sent me, Sisterhood Is Powerful, and I went to one of their meetings in New York City. I now fully approve of everything you are doing. In fact, I feel very close to you.

  Love,

  Momushka

  At first, I thought, What an incredible, supportive mother I have, going to meet lesbians in order to understand me! Then I wondered, what was she really saying? Something held me back, though, and I didn’t ask. It seemed delicate; if she was wavering on the verge, I didn’t want her to react by my pressing her. A couple weeks later:Dearest Karen,

  I have told my Older Women’s Liberation group that I am bisexual. Several of the women had negative reactions. I know over time they will come to better understanding. Myself, I wake up in the morning, look in the mirror, and feel so happy to be alive.

  Love,

  Gloria

  That was it—I had to call her. This was incredible, since as far as I knew she’d been celibate for years, at least since she and my dad separated, when I was twelve. As soon as she picked up, I launched right in. “I got your letter about telling the women in Older Women’s Liberation that you’re bisexual. So, what the heck is going on? Does that mean you’re having relationships with women?”

  “Yes, sweetheart.”

  Her voice had a lilt in it I couldn’t remember ever hearing. I leaned against the glass wall of the phone booth, digesting that. “Wow! Glor, that’s fabulous!” She laughed.

  I pushed on. “So, are you having relationships with men?”

  “No.”

  “Are you planning to have relationships with men?”

  “No.”

  “Well, Mom, I hate to tell you, but you’re not a bisexual, you’re a lesbian! You’re just scared of the word, but it’s not so scary.”

  She was pretty damn nonchalant: “Guess so, honey.”

  SUMMER ARRIVED AND my mother was coming to visit. I was bursting with excitement; I’d get to be with this new, joyful mother at last.

  At a meeting of the Gay Liberation Front, a guy stood up and announced that a friend of his had a vacation cabin at the Russian River and was going to be away for a month; did anyone want to use it? Kate and I raised our hands like eager sixth-graders, waving vigorously. Yes, we do, we do!

  The cabin in Rio Nido was rustic. There was no plumbing, no electricity. Kerosene lamps lit the dark wood interiors, and cooking was done on a cast-iron woodstove. There was no outhouse, so we squatted over holes we dug in the steep hillside of the backyard. We loved the place, the old-world feel of a cabin nestled among redwoods, the homesteading feel of chopping wood for the stove.

  My mother was arriving during our last two weeks at the cabin. The day before her flight, Kate and I hitchhiked to the Guerneville Safeway and bought the ingredients for a Russian borscht—just the thing to make my Jewi
sh mother feel at home.

  Our friend Stephanie was visiting us from the city, so I borrowed her Datsun and drove to pick my mother up at the San Francisco airport. As I waited for her at the gate, my chest thrummed with anticipation. Then there she was, coming toward me, wearing jeans and the orange and purple tie-dyed T-shirt I had made and sent her. I noticed her formerly gray hair was now dyed dark brown, her short curls the same shade as my long hair. At the sight of me, her round face broke into a wild grin and she bellowed, “Karen!” Her arms flew out, grabbing me into a hug. We fit together, my body the echo of hers: short and pear-shaped, with ample hips and thighs curving from our waists.

  I was so eager to show Mom my beautiful California that I took her up the long, windy coast route on Highway 1, forgetting about the jet lag and her fear of heights. As we curved along the precipitous cliffs, she clung to her armrest and turned slightly gray, but she didn’t complain.

  At the cabin, she and Kate hugged long and hard. “I’m so glad you two are together,” Mom said, beaming at us both. Stephanie, Kate, Mom, and I chatted and laughed over the steaming bowls of borscht accompanied by pumpernickel. We even had herring with sour cream, one of Mom’s favorite foods and a staple of my childhood.

  The day after my mother’s arrival, Stephanie, Kate, Gloria, and I spent the afternoon skinny-dipping at our private little beach, just a spit of sand along the Russian River hidden from the road by bushes.