Warm and Willing

by Lawrence Block

  “Megan says-”

  “She knows better. We’ll be together some day, you and I, I feel it, Rho. Don’t you?”

  “Stop it!”

  “I’m not even touching you, Rho.” A smile, fading quickly. “I’m sorry if I’m getting to you. Don’t blame me. And don’t blame yourself for feeling it. We can’t help it, neither of us.”

  She never remembered getting back to the apartment. She did not know afterward whether they had taken a cab or walked. The last hour of the party was a blur in her mind, the last few minutes blacked out completely along with the trip back to the apartment on Cornelia Street. It was frightening, losing a whole little piece of your life that way. You were left with guilt over what might have happened, what you might have done. And with a blank blind spot where a memory ought to have been.

  Then they were home, in the apartment, and she was standing awkwardly while Megan sat on the couch with her shoulders slumped. Megan was crying and she stood there stupidly and wondered what she had done and what she ought to do.

  “I’m losing you, Rhoda. Oh, God help me, I’m losing you.”

  Megan’s eyes, tear-stained, looking up at her, “What’s happening to us?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You don’t want me any more, Rhoda.”

  “That’s not true-”

  “You danced all night with Bobbie. She’s trying to steal you away and you’ll let yourself be stolen.”

  “I looked for you-”

  “You didn’t look very hard, Rhoda.”

  Madness, she thought. Just hours ago she had been home waiting for Megan, and then she had been the jealous one, blindly, bitterly, irrationally jealous. The roles were reversed now. But why did it have to be like this? They loved each other. Why couldn’t they relax in the security of one another’s love? Why couldn’t they coast along smoothly, happy with what they had, instead of shifting from bitter to sweet?

  Bitter and sweet. You had to take them both together, she thought dully. But you should be able to blend them, to soften each with the other She said, “I love you, Megan.”

  “Do you?”

  “Don’t you know?”

  “Then-”

  “I don’t know, I was drunk, I was mixed up and Bobbie was nice to me. That was all. We danced and we talked a little. I don’t feel anything for her, Megan. Believe me.”

  “I want to.”

  She sat on the couch with Megan, put her arm around the blonde girl. Megan was avoiding her eyes. She leaned over to kiss Megan’s throat, Megan stiffened momentarily, then relaxed.

  “Coffee?”

  “I don’t want any.”

  “Can I do anything for you, darling?”

  “Just love me.”

  “Forever, Megan.”

  And now it was as it had been with that girl on the dance floor-she had to do the leading. Her hand moved upward over Megan’s back, touched the nape of her neck. Megan locked into her eyes, and Megan’s face held an expression she had seen there before. Wide eyes, an unsure upper lip. Little Girl Lost.

  She drew Megan close, kissed her. Megan whimpered. She kissed her again, tenderly, then more intensely as passion born in desperation came into its own. Megan was in her arms, soft and blonde and warm, and she planted a field of kisses on Megan’s face, kissed the residue of tears from her eyes, kissed her mouth and throat, held her very close, discovered the luxury of Megan’s body under her hands.

  Her hands sought, found. Megan sat with her and said her name in a small voice while she worked snaps and buttons to open Megan’s clothing. Her hands found Megan’s breasts and held them, hurried up Megan’s thighs to secret flesh.

  Hold infinity in the palm of your hand…

  Bodies brushing together as they walked neatly nude over deep carpet to the bedroom. A light turned off, a light turned on. A sheet drawn down, a bedspring sigh of acceptance.

  …eternity in an hour…

  There was a moment which would stay with her forever, snatched out of time as if by a camera’s instantaneous eye. Megan lying upon the bed on her back, hand resting upon the rise of a thigh, the other arm stretched out across the bed. Breasts pointed proudly upward. Legs a little apart, one foot some inches over the edge of the bed. Blonde hair wild upon a pillow. Eyes closed, mouth just open.

  Light from the hall played across Megan’s body. The whole scene could have been packaged and framed, a virtuoso performance by an airbrush painter. Shadows, curves, subtle flesh tones.

  Then Megan said, “Why do we hurt each other.” The words made a question but were not spoken that way; there was no question mark in Megan’s voice. The six words hung in space.

  Until Rhoda found her, joined her, pressed flesh to flesh, seeking sweet mystery with a hungry mouth, finding heaven that was partly pain.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Monday, Megan picked her up after work and hurried her off to dinner. “I’ve only got an hour,” she said. “I have an appointment with a Third Avenue dealer at six-thirty and then I have to look at some draperies on East Sixty-Eighth Street. A swank little shop run by two very chic guys. Gay guys, of course.”

  “Sometimes I think everybody is gay.”

  “Everybody is, kitten.”

  They had chicken and rice at the Picador on West Tenth. Their waiter was an olive-skinned Mexican who hovered over them constantly and flirted with them passionately. They ate in a hurry. Megan kept up a running stream of chatter about her work-the pieces she had seen, her plans for the apartment, what fee she could expect, on and on and on. Rhoda tried to stay interested but it was impossible. She didn’t have the background for it, couldn’t visualize what Megan described, couldn’t appreciate any of the detail. It was Megan’s work and she was glad Megan was able to throw herself into it so feverishly, but her own interest was limited.

  Then they were outside. “I’d better jump in a cab,” Megan was saying. “Can I drop you off?”

  “I’ll walk.”

  “It wouldn’t be out of the way-”

  But it was a nice night and she walked. She drifted over to Washington Square first but the park was too crowded with tight knots of people forming and re-forming. She could feel an undercurrent of tension in the air. There had been trouble in the park lately, friction between the Village element and the local Italians, friction between neighborhood whites and Harlem Negroes off the A-train. She cut across the park, stopped to watch two men play chess, drank from the drinking fountain, then drifted across town to the apartment on Cornelia.

  The apartment was lonely. She waited for Megan to come home, and Megan didn’t get back until a quarter to eleven. She had been running around all night, she told Rhoda, and she was so exhausted that all she wanted to do was get some sleep.

  Tuesday was more of the same. That night she didn’t even see Megan at dinner. She didn’t want to cook just for herself, so she had a hamburger around the corner from the apartment and spent the evening trying to get interested in a scholarly hardbound work on female homosexuality. Megan had a fairly extensive library on the subject. The book kept boring her and she didn’t get very far with it. At nine-thirty Megan called and said not to wait up for her, that she would be late. They did not talk long. Afterward, she took a shower and crawled into bed and felt lost in the big bed, lost and alone. At one point she thought that she was going to cry. She felt tears welling up behind her eyes and waited for them to come spilling out, but they didn’t. She lay in bed and finally fell asleep.

  She dreamed for the first time in weeks. Not the usual dream, the dream of being chased. This was a gentler dream and one which did not wake her, although she remembered it quite clearly in the morning.

  In the dream, she was standing upon the peak of a small hill with rolling lawn stretching out in all directions as far as she could see. The sun was high in the sky, the grass flawlessly green. She was dressed in a formal gown and had a rose in her hair. And then, slowly but surely her clothes began to melt away, stitch by st
itch and layer by layer. The gown went, and then her slip and her shoes, and her bra and panties and stocking until she stood nude on the top of the hill. And then flesh began to melt away in the same fashion, slowly dreamily, and then her bones, until she had gradually vanished and only the rose from her hair remained, floating a few feet in space above the crest of the hill.

  It was not a frightening dream. The melting process had nothing fearsome in it. It was quite gentle. But when she thought about the dream the next day it bothered her. She wondered what it meant and decided it might best not to think about it. She never mentioned it to Megan.

  “You’re a hard girl to get hold of,” someone said. She spun around and looked up at the man who had spoken. It was Ed Vance.

  “I tried calling you,” he said. “Your number’s not listed. Then I tried to reach you at work but I didn’t remember the name of the shop, just where it was.” He grinned. “So I decided to take a long lunch hour and make another pilgrimage to the Village. Come have lunch with me and my labors will be rewarded.”

  “I can’t.”

  “Why not? When’s your lunch hour?”

  “In a few minutes. But-”

  “Then what’s the problem?”

  The problem was that she did not want to see him. He was pushy and she felt threatened when he was with him. As far as he was concerned, she was a manless woman who would be a relatively easy mark. And Tom had probably said something about her, something to the effect that she was frigid, a piece of ice. A man like him would take that as a challenge, anxious to prove himself as a man by melting the ice with her.

  “I’m meeting someone for lunch.”

  “Someone?”

  “Yes.”

  “Anyone I know?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  He looked at her. She turned away, avoiding his eyes. The store was empty now. If a customer had come in she would have had an excuse to slip away from Ed and make herself look busy, but customers only came when she didn’t want them around.

  “So you’re meeting someone,” he said.

  “That’s right.”

  “Well that’s what happens when a guy doesn’t call. I figured you might be free for lunch. And here it’s the other way around. You’re tied up for lunch, and if I had a dinner open and asked for that you probably would have been able to go, but I went and asked you for lunch. That’s the way it goes.”

  She didn’t say anything.

  “You don’t have a dinner date, though. Do you?”

  “Well no, but-”

  “Good.” A quick, predatory flash of smile. “I’ll pick you up here at five-thirty. Don’t forget, Rhoda.”

  He was gone before she could think of anything to say.

  There was one way to get him out of her hair for good, she thought. All she had to do was tell him the truth. He might have visions of himself bringing a heretofore frigid girl to Nirvana, but once she told him she was a lesbian he would stay away from her.

  But how? Just blurt it out? She couldn’t quite see herself doing that. It wasn’t that she was ashamed of what she was but the idea of putting it into words for him didn’t set right. There had to be a way. But she couldn’t see it, not yet.

  She could she have dinner with him. At four-thirty she told Mr. Yamatari that she had a splitting headache and couldn’t see straight, an excuse which was not entirely false. He told her to take the rest of the day off. She hurried straight home.

  Let him come looking for her at five-thirty. Let him find out he had been stood up. Let him take the hint for once and leave her alone.

  Her head was splitting when she got back to the apartment. She took three aspirins and stretched out on the couch.

  That night she went to a gay bar alone for the first time. She waited until nine for Megan to come home, then gave up sitting around the apartment and walked over to Leonetti’s. She joined four girls at a table and drank three scotch sours with them. They were all girls she had met at Jan Pomeroy’s party the Saturday before, and they were in couples, so that none of them had more than a friendly interest in Rhoda. She relaxed with them and talked with them, and it was better than sitting home alone waiting endless hours for Megan.

  No one at Leonetti’s made a pass at her. A few of the girl’s at the bar gave her long-drink looks that let her know they were interested, but when she didn’t gaze back they let it go. There was no heavy cruising. A little after ten she went back to the apartment. Megan was there.

  “You had me worried,” Megan said. “I’ve been waiting for you for close to an hour. Where were you?”

  “Leonetti’s.”

  “With who?”

  “Why? Are you jealous?”

  “Yes.”

  “I was alone,” she said. “I missed you. I couldn’t stand it, all alone. I sat with some of the girls. That’s all.”

  “Oh, baby-”

  They made good love for the first time in too long. This time Megan was not too tired, and this time Rhoda felt a need that was a living force within her. A new sort of lovemaking, with a degree of desperation in it that she had not noticed before. Afterward, she was more depleted than satisfied. She slipped out of bed and went into the other room.

  She drank a cup of coffee and smoked a cigarette. She sat naked in an armchair, the coffee cup on the table beside her, the cigarette smoldering in an ashtray balanced precariously on the arm of the chair. She smoked, drank coffee. She wondered what was wrong.

  By the time she dragged herself to bed, she was tired enough so that sleep came quickly. She kissed Megan’s face before settling on her pillow. Megan did not stir. She closed her own eyes and let the world fade away.

  Thursday was bad. She overslept and wound up rushing to work without breakfast, without even a cup of coffee, and she was still half an hour late. Mr. Yamatari didn’t mention it, just asked if her headache was better. He told her that a man had come looking for her-Ed Vance of course-and had been disappointed that she was not there. She had almost forgotten about the broken dinner date, and only hoped Ed wouldn’t come around again.

  The morning was hectic, the afternoon slow and uncomfortably warm in the shop. By four she had a genuine headache, a splitting headache, but she couldn’t use that excuse again even if it was true this time. As soon as she got home she took three aspirins and lay down to rest.

  That night she would have enjoyed being alone. And that night was the night when Megan discovered that she didn’t have to work late. Megan breezed in a few minutes after six, loud and happy, and Rhoda had to match the blonde girl’s mood. It was a strain.

  “Let’s live a little tonight,” Megan said. “Maybe even catch a show. What’s the matter with you, kitten?”

  “Headache.”

  “Well, take some aspirin.”

  “I did.”

  “Poor kitten. Want me to stroke your head?” Megan didn’t wait for an answer. She sat on the edge of the couch and rubbed Rhoda’s forehead. Megan’s touch was light and her fingers were cool, but Rhoda did not feel like being touched, not at all. But she didn’t want to say so.

  “I’ve been working like a dog this week. There’s so much to do and everybody’s in such a hurry. It’s crazy, working in spurts like this. I’ve missed you.”

  She didn’t say anything.

  “I’d like to cut loose a little tonight. Dinner for a start, and then maybe we can both get a little bit stoned. Unless your head-”

  “I’m all right.”

  “Are you sure? We can stay in if you’d rather. If you’ve got a headache and if the aspirin isn’t doing anything for you-”

  Megan’s concern for her rankled as much as Megan’s hand on her forehead. She forced herself to sit up. “I’m all right,” she said.

  “Did I say something wrong?”

  “No, of course not. It’s just-”

  “What?”

  “Nothing,” she said. She fumbled for a cigarette, let Megan light it for her. She drew on it and blew out a c
loud of smoke. “Where do you want to go?”

  “For dinner? I thought something substantial. Let’s get a couple of steaks at O’Henry’s.”

  “It’s expensive, isn’t it?”

  “My treat.”

  They got an outside table at O’Henry’s, one of a half dozen scattered just outside the entrance to give the place a sidewalk cafe feeling. They had two rounds of cocktails, then a pair of rare sirloins with baked potatoes. The food was good and the service was fast.

  But something missed. The drinks didn’t get rid of her headache but only made it worse. The food was delicious but she couldn’t enjoy it, could only think that she was not going to digest it, that the steak and potato would sit like lead on her stomach. And she couldn’t avoid feeling guilty over her failure to relax and enjoy what was a very good meal. This was a big production on Megan’s part, an expensive dinner that constituted some sort of combined peace offering and celebration, and everything would have been better if she could have let herself go.

  But she couldn’t, not the way she was, not tied in knots like this. And the conversation that should have sparkled was flat and lifeless. They were having trouble talking to each other, and that had never happened to them before.

  Once, she started talking about Ed Vance. “I think he’ll leave me alone now,” she said. “I really hope so. He’s beginning to get on my nerves.

  “Then why not get rid of him once and for all?”

  “That’s hard, with a man like him. But I don’t think he’ll be back.”

  “You should have been firmer with him, kitten. I don’t like the idea of a man trying to push into your life.”

  Legitimate concern, she told herself. But why couldn’t she help feeling that Megan was trying to run her life, that Megan was making something out of nothing? Why did everything Megan said get under her skin?

  Another time Megan mentioned her job. “I’m really throwing myself into this,” she said. “Knocking myself out.”