Warm and Willing

by Lawrence Block

  “Then what are you afraid of?”

  She swallowed again. “Maybe myself.”

  “Don’t ever be. Will you stay?”

  But she didn’t sleep in the bed. She insisted on that much. She took the couch and Megan took the bed. They sat talking for a few more minutes, and then Megan gave her a nightgown and she went into the bathroom and got undressed and washed up and put on the nightgown and went back to the living room. Megan had made up the couch as a bed. Megan looked at her, and she felt Megan’s eyes flash very briefly over her body in the nightgown, and she felt suddenly self-conscious, as though she were nude and a man was looking at her.

  “If you can’t sleep-”

  “I’ll sleep.”

  “If you can’t, wake me. If there’s anything you want, wake me.”

  “All right.”

  She got into bed. Megan hovered over her, and for a tiny moment she thought that the blonde girl was going to stoop over and kiss her goodnight. This did not happen. Instead Megan straightened up and turned out the lights and left the room. A door opened and closed. Later she heard water running, and then doors opened and closed and Megan called goodnight to her, and then there was silence.

  She couldn’t sleep.

  Who was she? What was she? She did not know. She tossed all these questions around in her mind and none of the answers came. In the beginning, the world had told her that she was a woman. Then she had learned that she was not a woman, that she was frigid and sexless. And now Megan was telling her that she was something else.

  A lesbian.

  She tried to imagine herself with Megan. It was hard to do. She did not know what Megan would do to her, what sort of love they would make together. She remembered Megan’s words: I would make love to you. I would make you feel like what you are, like a woman made for love. I would show you the dark side of the moon. I would make you laugh and cry. And we would be close and warm and nothing would matter, nothing at all.

  A poem, she thought. A poem. And she let herself imagine not the mechanics of it, but the feeling of it, the feeling of sharing love with a woman, with Megan. It seemed somehow less strange than it had seemed at first. Now it seemed possible.

  But could she? Could she let herself do it? It was forbidden. It was wrong. It was not normal, and all the gods in all the heavens made normalcy a religion in itself. Could she stand that kind of life? Could she be that kind of person without dying a little inside?

  It would be hard. But was it any easier to be the kind of person she was now? She lived a life that was no great pleasure, a life without a future, a life that promised eternal sameness. She measured out that life in coffee spoons and cigarette butts and lonely days and lonelier nights. Megan was offering a way out of that. Megan was offering a life that might be better.

  Did she dare to try?

  Did she dare not to?

  Once, she almost slept. She felt herself drifting off, and she may have dozed, and then she was awake again. You can trust me. I won’t do anything that you don’t want me to do.

  What did she want?

  She fought with herself. And there was a point at last when she knew that sleep was impossible, that a great many things were impossible. That, for the moment if not forever, only one thing was possible.

  The nightgown rustled gently as she walked. She opened Megan’s door and slipped quietly into Megan’s room. She spoke Megan’s name.

  “I’m awake, dear.”

  She took a small breath. “I’m ready,” she said, moving over to Megan’s bed. “I’m ready. Love me.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  At first she thought, Oh, no, it won’t work. Another mistake. It won’t work. Not at all. Because nothing touches me, nothing reaches me, and I remain forever detached.

  Megan held her close. They lay side by side and she saw Megan’s eyes shining catlike in the darkness, and she felt the gentle pressure of Megan’s breasts against her own. Megan kissed her, lightly, and Megan’s legs moved to brush against her own legs and thighs. Another kiss, and again the pressure of Megan’s warm body.

  Something familiar, something known. A fine female body against her own body. A partner not different, but similar. Megan’s mouth, soft and faintly sweet like her own mouth, meeting hers gently but firmly. Megan’s chest, not bristling with hairs and corded with muscles, but soft and smooth and warm and blooming with the sweet luxury of Megan’s full breasts.

  Then knowledge came, knowledge, awareness. She was not a cold woman. She was not frigid. She was responding, going soft and liquid inside in the silky mechanism of sexual response, and this response was a specific one, a special response to Megan.

  There was a short period then of fear, of tension, of fright. For two years she had meticulously buried sexual response under a deadening blanket, and the sudden change scared her. She had spent too much time schooling herself another way, teaching herself that she was dead and empty inside. Now Megan was teaching her to be a woman, and she was afraid to give in either to Megan or to herself.

  “Easy, baby. Easy, Rhoda, darling Rhoda. I love you and you love me and we are together. My flesh and your flesh. Easy my darling.”

  Megan held her close, patted her, kissed her. And warmth bloomed again, less tentatively than before, coming with a rising tide of passion that swept her up and would not be beaten down. She did not fight it any longer. She was caught, caught as she now ached to be caught, and the sweep of passion held no fear and brooked no argument. She was alive, dizzily alive.

  Megan’s hands moved all over her body, touching, petting, sending shivers of delight through flesh that had gone far too long without this sweet delight. They were friendly hands, they were familiar hands. They did not probe or invade. They came gently and they were welcomed by the flesh they touched.

  “Rhoda, Rhoda.”

  Until she was lying on her back, eyes closed, arms heavy at her sides, her whole body limp as fallen flowers. Megan touched all the secret parts of her woman’s body and made them open to the light of love. Megan held her breasts and kissed them. Megan’s hands and lips stroked desperate tides in her liquid flesh.

  More.

  The climax was beyond belief. She had never understood the mechanics of this glimpse of heaven, had never heard the word and been able to translate it into terms compatible with her own sexuality. But now it was happening-a sweet explosion, a lovely eruption, a halfway touch of death.

  Megan’s voice, from far away, said, “Sleep, darling, sleep,” and she slept.

  “What time is it?”

  “Four-thirty.”

  “In the morning? How long did I sleep?”

  “An hour. Maybe a little more.”

  She yawned luxuriously. A bedsheet covered to the throat and a pillow cushioned her head. Megan was sitting at the side of the bed, wearing a pale green robe and smoking a cigarette. Rhoda started to sit up in bed. The sheet slipped away and bared her body to the waist. She snatched at it in embarrassment, then realized the inconsistency of being embarrassed in front of Megan. She let the sheet fall.

  “I can’t believe it,” she said slowly.

  “It happened.”

  “God, I know. I couldn’t have dreamed it. I don’t have such heavenly dreams. I never knew.”

  “What you are?”

  “And what I was missing. I can’t believe it, it’s a new world. I must be babbling like an idiot.”

  “No. Like a girl who just became a woman.”

  “Mmmmm.” She took a cigarette, let Megan light it for her. “I feel slightly sinful,” she said. “Is that bad?”

  “Does it bother you?”

  “No. I have the feeling that it ought to, but it doesn’t. I rather like it, this sinful feeling.”

  She ducked ashes in the ashtray on the bedside table, then propped her pillow behind her and sat back against it and drew again on the cigarette. She closed her eyes and bathed in the memory of Megan’s lovemaking. She opened them and looked at Megan’s body conc
ealed by the folds of the green robe. She had a sudden urge to see Megan unclothed, to know the blonde girl’s body. And she looked down at her own breasts, and then at Megan again, and she leaned over and put out her cigarette.

  “I have to work tomorrow,” she said.

  “On Saturday?”

  “Six days a week, nine to five-thirty. Number One employee for Mr. Yamatari-san.”

  “Then we’d better get to sleep.”

  “But I’m not tired,” she said. And she turned away and said, “I want to see you, I want to hold you. I want to look at you without any clothes on or any robe. I want to touch your body. I want so much to love you, Megan.”

  “Baby-”

  She turned to face Megan again. “I don’t know anything,” she said miserably. “I have to learn everything.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like how to make love.”

  “You’ll do fine, baby.”

  “But I don’t know anything-”

  Megan’s hand, cool and soft, on the side of her face. “Don’t worry. And don’t be in such a rush to learn. The first times are so sweet and warm, so new. It’s wonderful to discover yourself. Don’t hurry past those times. Let it come slowly.”

  “I want to be good for you.”

  “You are. You couldn’t help being good for me.”

  “I think I love you, Megan.”

  “Oh, baby.”

  She sat up straight. “What do we do now? Do you love me, Megan?”

  “God, yes.”

  “Well, what do we do? That other girl, the girl you bought the pendant for-”

  “Forget her.”

  “Did she live here? With you?”

  “Yes.”

  She thought about it. No more being alone, no more sleeping in that narrow bed, no more living in that little joyless room alone by herself. She would live in this apartment, with Megan. She would sleep every night in this big bed, with Megan.

  “I love you,” she said.

  “My darling.”

  “Take off your robe. I want to see you.”

  And Megan stood up and let the robe slip off her shoulders. The robe fell to the floor and Rhoda let her eyes take in the full perfection of the blonde girl’s body. Arms and shoulders tanned golden by the sun. Firm and large and flawless breasts, larger than Rhoda’s own. A narrow waist, a flat stomach. Wide and almost shameless hips. Long, long, long legs.

  “My love,” she said. And she said the words not so much to Megan as to herself. This was her love, this was the person whom she loved. This goddess, high breasted and gloriously blonde, this was the person who warmed her and excited her.

  “Lie with me,” she said.

  The phrase seemed slightly biblical. Lie with me. As Adam knew Eve, and she conceived and bore Megan was beside her. In the bed. Megan’s body was next to her own body, close to her own body, and she could feel the heat of the blonde girl, could smell the perfume of her. The lights were on this time. Before, they had come together in darkness. Now she could see the sweet flesh of the girl who had made sweet love to her.

  “I don’t know what to do, ” she said.

  “Just kiss me. ”

  “I-”

  She took Megan in her arms, drew Megan close. At first she kissed her very tentatively, not knowing quite how to go about it, not wanting to do anything that wasn’t good form. Her arms were around Megan and her lips touched Megan’s lips gently and briefly, and she felt Megan’s body against her own, and all at once she knew what to do, knew precisely how she ought to behave.

  Her tongue moved to caress Megan’s lips. Megan’s mouth opened in response, and Rhoda’s tongue probed that mouth, stretching the kiss and turning it into something much greater than any kiss had ever been. And she thought suddenly that Tom had taught her to kiss this way, or had tried, and that she had thought it disgusting and unpleasant. But now it was neither, now it was good.

  Her hands moved, moved instinctively. And she kissed Megan and taught herself the contours of Megan’s body, and she looked into Megan’s half-lidded eyes and saw how they swam in passion, and she knew that she would be able to learn all that had to be learned, that in her she already seemed to know all the secrets of love. She would be good. She would make Megan happy.

  Afterward, she never quite dropped off to sleep. She dozed lightly. Outside, the sky grew light with the overture of dawn. She stayed in bed until seven-thirty, then slipped out soundlessly and went into the living room to dress. She looked at the couch, all made up with sheets and a blanket, and she thought how she had tried to sleep there, how she had fought a battle with herself and had neither lost or won, this depending upon one’s point of view.

  She had won, she knew. She had gained a world, and all that she had given up was better lost. Loneliness, frigid independence, unsound self-sufficiency-these were gone, and she was better off without them. So that battle on the narrow couch had been a victory.

  She dressed quickly, went back to the bedroom to look for Megan. The blonde girl was sleeping soundly. In the kitchen she found a pad and pencil. She wrote: My love, I’m off to work. Meet me for lunch, if you can. Or meet me after work and help me move in with you. She paused, chewed on the end of the pencil, then added: I feel so wonderful, so very wonderful. I can’t believe it. I did not think I would ever be this gloriously happy. See what you’ve done to me? You’ve got me running off at the mouth. Not at the mouth, I guess, because I’m writing this, not saying it. Running off at the pencil? Oh, I’m silly. I ought to tear up this silly note and start over. I love you, I truly do.

  She was outside on the street before she realized that she did not know where she was. Megan had told her what street they were on, but she was bubbling with wine at the time and the street name had not sunk in. She memorized Megan’s house number, then walked to the nearest corner. Megan lived on Cornelia Sheet, she saw and she was now at the corner of Cornelia and Bleecker, which meant that she was only four or five blocks from her own room. She had probably walked past Megan’s building a dozen times, never dreaming she would know a girl who lived inside.

  Not so strange, she realized. The Village was not so very large, and she had walked down all its streets at one time or another. Now she headed over to Seventh Avenue, found a diner and had a quick breakfast, smoked several cigarettes and drank three cups of black coffee. She had had hardly any sleep at all during the night, and yet she was somehow not at all tired. She paid her check and hurried off to work.

  The shop was as she had left it, the work itself the same as always. And yet everything was entirely different this morning and she knew it, could feel it in the air and in herself. Her step was quicker and lighter, her voice firmer and easier when she spoke. People seemed different-more human, even. They were the same hurrying tourists with the same lack of taste as always, and she knew this, but she found herself relating to them in a different fashion.

  It took no stroke of genius to guess what was responsible for the change. The world had not turned suddenly rosy; it was she who was wearing rose-colored glasses. And all of this had come about because of the night with Megan. It was that simple. All at once the words to all the silly popular songs seemed to make sense.

  Megan met her for lunch. They sat in a booth around the comer and ate hamburgers. Megan said, “I got your note. You’re sweet.”

  “It was a silly note.”

  “I loved it. Why didn’t you wake me?”

  “You were sleeping so well.”

  “I didn’t see the note at first. I was afraid you had left me.”

  “Why? How could I leave you?”

  “I thought you were sorry for what we had done. It’s hard to face the fact that you are out of step with the rest of the world. Society has a pretty picture of normal people and an ugly picture of us. Homosexuals are supposed to be sick or twisted or evil. When you grow up believing that, when the image is reinforced at every turn, it’s hard to wake up and realize that you’re one of the sick a
nd evil and twisted creatures. I didn’t know how you would react.”

  “I don’t know myself.”

  “How do you feel?”

  “Beautiful.”

  “You should feel beautiful. Because you are.”

  The morning had hurried by; the afternoon crawled. She kept waiting for it to be five-thirty so that Megan would come for her. Now that she was set to move in with Megan, the idea of remaining for an extra moment in her furnished room was horrible. The squalor of the room did not bother her. The room was sterile and shabby compared to Megan’s apartment, but this shabbiness had never seemed to depress her unduly. It was more that the move was a move from the old life to the new, from life alone to life with Megan.

  She remembered the apartment she had shared with Tom during those years of marriage. It had been a pleasant place in a good neighborhood, expensive to rent and expensively furnished, although the decor had been generally unimaginative. And yet she had never liked that apartment. There were times when she actively loathed it, times when she was on the verge of begging Tom to move to some other place in some other area of the city.

  The apartment itself had not been at fault. It was the life she led there which made her loathe the place itself. A reaction to an apartment, she thought, was an intensely personal thing. It was based less on the place itself than on the life one lived there. She had spent a bad two years with Tom; it would have been inconceivable that she could have liked the place where those two years were spent. And she had spent a lonely and wretched batch of months on Grove Street, so that room could only emerge as a symbol of loneliness.

  She had spent the finest night of her life at Megan’s apartment on Cornelia Street. How could she help falling in love with the apartment, as with Megan?

  Megan was there at five-thirty. They hurried through crowded streets to her rooming house and climbed the stairs and went into her room. Megan looked around the little cubicle and shook her head.

  “This isn’t you,” she said.

  “It was. For awhile. I was someone else before last night.”

  “A bud that hadn’t opened.”