The Beebo Brinker Omnibus

by Ann Bannon

  “Laura,” Beth murmured sleepily.

  Laura turned her gaze abruptly away. “Yes?” she said.

  “It’s awfully cold in the dorm.”

  Laura glanced back at her, her hand poised halfway to the towel rack. “It is?” she said.

  “Um-hm…. Want to sleep in here?”

  Laura hung up the towel nervously. “But you’re sleeping in here,” she said softly.

  “There’s room for two.”

  “Oh, I—I think Til be okay in the dorm.” She felt suddenly a little panicky; she didn’t know why.

  Beth rolled over on her stomach and opened her eyes. She was smiling a little. “‘Fraid of me, Laura?” she said.

  “No,” said Laura, trying to make it sound very casual.

  Beth bounced up and down invitingly, laughing a little. “Come on, then. It’s nice and warm in here.”

  Laura didn’t know what to say. She opened her mouth and shut it again and then she turned around and looked at Beth, as if that might give her something to answer with. “Well—” she hesitated.

  “I knew you would.” Beth grinned at her.

  Laura tried to remember that she was mad at Beth. “I don’t think I will,” she said severely.

  Beth turned over on her back again and laughed. “Open the window a little, honey,” she said.

  Laura opened it slowly and the fresh cold air came in. Then she went to the dresser and reached for the lamp cord.

  “Laura,” Beth said in a drowsy voice.

  Laura turned around, startled.

  “Come here, Laur.”

  Laura stood still and gazed at her, wondering if she heard right.

  “Come here, honey,” Beth said. “No, leave the light on. Come sit here where I can see you.”

  Laura walked slowly to the bed with a strange alarm growing inside her and sat gingerly on the edge. She was trembling a little. Beth reached for her arm and said, “Move over, Laur. Let me see you.” Laura moved closer unwillingly and trembled again.

  “Are you cold, honey?”

  “No.” Her voice sounded too small for the rest of her.

  “What’s the matter, Laur? Did I hurt your feelings or something?”

  “No.” Laura clamped her hands together and stared at her knees.

  “Tonight, I mean. I was acting kind of silly with Charlie, wasn’t I?” Laura refused to answer. “I was a little tight, I guess. I didn’t mean anything by it.” She hardly knew why she said this, why she felt the need to say it to Laura. It was almost as if she were reassuring herself that it didn’t mean anything, when in reality she wasn’t sure at all. “You know that, don’t you, Laur? Don’t you?” She wished she knew it herself.

  “I—I hardly noticed it,” Laura said, clinging to her pride. Her arm felt like fire at the place where Beth’s hand rested.

  “Yes, you did. You’re upset, I can tell. Laura, baby, it didn’t mean a damn thing, believe me. Who’s Charlie? My God, I hardly know him.” Her voice was lovely and gentle; it almost persuaded Beth herself. She sat up and put her arm around Laura. “Honey…” she said. “Am I forgiven? Hey, Laur?” It was a teasing whisper. She lifted Laura’s chin and Laura wanted to press her hands to her pulsing temples.

  “Yes,” she whispered, ashamed of her weakness.

  Beth squeezed her and smiled. “Okay, you can turn out the light now,” she said, and released her.

  Laura got up and her knees were precariously weak. She hadn’t time or strength to analyze the sudden violence within her. She pulled the lamp cord and let the darkness in. And then she stood perfectly still for a moment, knowing she was going to get into bed with Beth. She moved very cautiously across the room and found the bed; and then she crept in and pulled the covers up to her chin and lay on her back, afraid to move or make a sound, afraid even of her own breathing.

  They lay in absolute silence for a minute. Suddenly Beth rolled over and tickled her hard in the ribs. Laura gave a little scream.

  “Well, thank God,” said Beth, laughing. “I was afraid you were dead. Don’t you wiggle when you get in bed, Laur?”

  “Yes—” She caught her breath. “No—” She didn’t trust her voice, her thoughts, her body. She felt a great rush of warmth through all her limbs, electrifying, wild, radiating from the powerful thrust of her heart. “Oh, Beth…Beth…” she said, helplessly, drowned in it. Her voice shook and she realized that she was holding Beth’s hands, that she had caught them to stop the tickling and held them still, held them hard against her ribs. Beth felt her quiver. “Laur, you are cold.” She knew she wasn’t. She wanted to make her talk. Charlie had left her in a state of strange elation that made her restless.

  “No, no, I’m not cold—”

  “Yes, you are. Here, roll over. I’ll keep you warm.”

  Laura turned on her side and Beth followed her, fitting her body to Laura’s and pulling her close in her arms. “You’ll warm up, honey,” she said. “Just relax. Shall I close the window?”

  “No,” said Laura. Don’t move, don’t leave me, she pleaded silently. She wanted to stay like this in the velvet dark with Beth always beside her, touching her, her arms around Laura, her warm breath in her hair. Beth was torment so lovely, so amazing, so sweet, that Laura wanted to cry. She lay very still, afraid that if she moved Beth would move too, and she would lose her. She felt her own arm resting on Beth’s, and Beth’s clasped loosely about her midriff, and all down her back the thrilling front of Beth…their heads so near, her breath so light on Laura’s ear. The wonderful softness of her breasts, the strong length of her thighs against Laura’s. With the care of love aborning, Laura pressed back toward her, trying to feel her even closer as if that might make them inseparable.

  Beth was immersed in a reverie of Charlie. “Hm?” she said when Laura moved, rousing a little. “You all right, Laur?”

  “Yes,” Laura whispered. Her whole body seemed to have stopped functioning in an access of caution.

  “Go to sleep, honey,” Beth murmured, and pulled her tighter to reinforce her words.

  Laura lay wide awake in her arms for a long time, so perfectly happy that nothing seemed real; full of a strangely wedded exhilaration and drowsy bliss.

  Beth fell asleep wrapped in her reverie. After a while Laura raised up a little to let her move. She rolled over on her back, groaning softly, and then lay still. In a moment when she was quiet again, Laura turned to gaze at her, her head lifted and resting on her hand. She studied the curve of her lips and she wondered if Beth would know if she kissed her, and she leaned toward her and then became afraid again and stopped herself.

  “Beth,” she whispered in a voice not meant to be heard. “Dear Beth…is this wrong? I’m so happy….” Maybe she was wrong, but nothing, no one, was ever more right than Beth. Laura looked at her face until she felt almost dizzy with her; with the wild and foreign turmoil she created in her heart.

  “Oh, Beth, Beth,” she whispered. “I think I—I think I love you, Beth. I think I must love you.” She pulled herself closer and brought her lips very near to Beth’s. Her heart felt twice its size in her breast and her breath wanted to rush in and out in great gasps. She felt a sudden sweat all over and she stared fascinated and shivering at Beth.

  “We’re so close, Beth…I could kiss you. I could kiss you, Beth, we’re that close….” She looked from Beth’s lips to her eyes, and still Beth slept peacefully, and Laura’s fever mounted until nothing mattered except Beth and the intoxicating nearness of her. Laura made the first concession to her passion. She leaned steadily closer to Beth until their lips touched, and then she couldn’t move away for a long time. She had reached, not a goal, but a first step. The kiss would never calm her—it taught her to crave.

  She pulled away, shaking, and drew her hand across her mouth and she wanted to violently kiss Beth awake, to rouse her from slumber to sudden hot passion. Laura sat up in bed and struggled against her implacable desire with tears and tremors.

  “Laur?” murm
ured Beth, and her hand found Laura’s startled back.

  “I’m all right,” said Laura in a quick scared whisper. “I’m all right, Beth,” and she lay down and faced away from Beth and drew the covers high.

  She slept very little that night, and her whole being was consumed with wonder and hope and powerful misgivings. She had completely forgotten Charlie.

  Beth slept, but restlessly. There was the mystery of Charlie to trouble her dreams, and there was the surprise of unexpectedly rousing Laura. She had begun to think that she would never reach Laura, never really be close to her; it seemed that all she ever did was tease, and all Laura did was answer her politely. But when she reached over in bed to tickle her she realized with a shock that she had struck a profoundly responsive chord in Laura. She felt Laura’s cold hands grip hers and heard her breathe, “Oh, Beth… Beth…” and felt her cool, remote courtesy melt away. Beth was surprised and delighted. Unwilling to hurry her and just as unwilling to let her go, Beth simply held her in her arms and enjoyed the feel of her and marveled at the force of her heart. She knew it was more than fright that provoked Laura’s heart so, and somehow Laura’s reaction complemented the strange mood Charlie had brought upon her.

  Beth took Laura in her arms that night, not because she had forgotten Charlie or because the effect he had on her was lessened; but simply because Laura was right there with her in the same place at the same time, because Laura was sweet and warm and accessible and Beth felt a tender fondness for her. And perhaps most of all because Charlie had aroused to painful new life her old craving for love.

  It meant a lot to Beth to be loved. It would have meant even more if she could have loved someone herself. But she had never been able to give her love successfully and so she was ready to take someone else’s. She needed it; if she couldn’t give it she would take it, that was all. And Beth was not afraid to take, to try new ways, to look in new places. She had not been afraid of George, nor of the boys who followed him. And she wasn’t afraid when she felt Laura’s unmistakably erotic response to her teasing; startled, intrigued, but not afraid. It did not frighten Beth that Laura was a member of her own sex; it made her only the more curious.

  There was, in fact, only one thing that scared Beth a little that night, and that was her reaction to Charlie.

  Seven

  The noise in the halls woke Beth the next morning. She moaned and stretched and turned to find Laura watching her, and she smiled sleepily at her.

  “Morning, honey,” she said, and yawned. “What time is it?”

  “I don’t know. Almost nine.” Don’t get up! Laura thought anxiously. It all went so fast.

  “Ummm…got to get up.” She raised her arm over her head and squinted at her watch.

  “It’s early,” said Laura hopefully, still watching her.

  “I know, but Uncle John rolls out at nine on Sundays. Always has.” Her arm fell across her stomach. “He’ll be by to pick me up in a few minutes for breakfast.” She looked at Laura. “Sleep well, Laur?”

  “Yes,” said Laura, and she thought she had never seen anything quite so beautiful as Beth with her sleepy head on the pillow and her pale face set in the aureole of her dark hair.

  Beth reached up languidly and pushed Laura’s hair behind her ear, and that ear tingled to the ends of Laura’s fingers. “My God, are you ticklish,” Beth chuckled. “I thought you were going to snap at me last night.”

  Laura smiled sheepishly. “I didn’t mean to. I was just—you caught me by surprise.”

  “I guess!” said Beth, and she lay still and looked at Laura for a long moment. She liked to be looked at the way Laura was looking at her. She was being admired and she enjoyed it. But still, Uncle John got up at nine.

  She sat up and Laura’s eyes never left her, as if they were trying to pull her back down on the pillow. Beth felt them and they were subtly exciting. She wanted suddenly to arouse Laura and she turned back and looked at her. Laura was propped up on her elbows. Beth put a hand on either side of her and leaned over her playfully. Laura’s breath caught and her eyes widened in excruciating suspense.

  “Did you finally get warm last night, Laur?”

  “Yes. Finally.” She smiled and Beth took her shoulders with a grin and pushed them into the pillow so that Laura lay flat beneath her.

  “No ‘thank you’?” she teased. “No ‘yes, thank you’?”

  “Oh!” said Laura, putting her hand over her mouth. “Oh, I’m sorry—” The weight of Beth on her made her feel a little crazy.

  Beth laughed. “Don’t be silly! It’s a good sign. I’ve always thought you wouldn’t stop being polite to me until you started to like me, Laura.”

  “Really?” Laura was astonished. Her beautiful manners came to nothing, then. “Oh, Beth, I—I do like you. I’ve liked you right along, right from the start. I—really.” How could she possibly say it? Her earnest frown, her eyes, would have to speak for her.

  “No, you haven’t,” Beth said, and she poked Laura in the ribs.

  Laura gasped and twisted her body. “Oh, yes—yes, I have, Beth.” She felt compelled to keep talking, to prove it. “Why, I liked you even before I met you.”

  “You did not,” Beth teased.

  “Yes, I did. Really, Beth.”

  “You didn’t even know me. How could you like me?” She smiled.

  “Well, I—well, I don’t know.” Her eyes fell then. It was the truth. She didn’t. She knew only that from the moment she first saw Beth, nobody else interested her. And from the moment she spoke to her, no one else mattered.

  “You must have some reason. Come on, Laur, tell me.” Beth leaned over closer, smiling.

  Laura had a brief fear of suffocating with her want, of betraying it through every hard breath, every drop of perspiration. “No, no…” she protested weakly.

  “No reason at all?” Her voice was almost a whisper.

  “I just thought you looked like—such a nice person. That’s all. You looked friendly. I thought you must be a nice person to know,” she whispered lamely.

  “Am I? Am I nice to know, honey?”

  “Yes.” She couldn’t look at Beth now.

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “Oh, you must!” Her eyes flew back to Beth’s. “You’re more than nice, Beth, you’re—” And she stopped herself, swallowing compulsively, and looking away in something very near panic.

  “I’m what? Tell me, Laur. Come on, honey, tell me,” she coaxed. “What am I? Hm? Laura?”

  “Beth—” Laura pushed her away in a sudden hot desperation. “I don’t know!” She sat up panting and swung her legs over the edge of the bed.

  Beth watched her with a smile. “Now you’re mad at me, Laur. You’re mad at me, aren’t you?”

  “No!”

  “Yes, you are.”

  “Don’t say I am when I’m not!”

  Beth laughed gently at her and crawled over to her. She put her arms around her from behind with her legs coming around alongside Laura’s and gave her a bear hug. Laura stiffened in the embrace, fighting her potent urge to return it and shivering again.

  “Okay, Laura. You’re not mad at me. You love me,” Beth teased. She looked around Laura’s head, trying to see her face.

  Laura turned it furiously away, pushing at Beth’s arms. “Don’t make fun of me! Let me go!”

  “I’m not making fun of you, honey.”

  “Let me go!”

  “Say you’re not mad.”

  “I’ve already said it.”

  “Say it again.”

  “I’m not mad,” said Laura between clenched teeth.

  “Okay, honey.” Beth was laughing again. “Let’s kiss and make up.”

  “Oh, Beth!” She was torn apart. “Beth, what a thing to say!”

  “What’s wrong with it? It’s a nice thing to say.”

  “Let me go! Will you let go of me!” And she gave a hard push against Beth, who suddenly freed her and left her pushing against nothing. Laur
a got up seething with temper and an infuriating desire to turn back and throw herself into Beth’s arms again and beg for kisses. But she dared not even look at her.

  Beth sat on the edge of the bed and watched her pull her towel from the closet rack with jerky impatient movements. Laura couldn’t bear being watched.

  “I thought you had to get up and have breakfast with your uncle,” she said testily. Her emotion unnerved her; she couldn’t leash it and she hated to have it show. Beth sat still on the bed, smiling at Laura’s irritation with gentle amusement.

  She got up and came toward her. “Laura,” she said in a soft conciliatory tone. Laura moved swiftly toward the door but Beth reached her before she escaped, catching her upper arms. She turned her around. “Hey, Laur?” she said. It was soothing and contrite. “Let me tease you, honey. Don’t get so angry. I’m not trying to be mean…. Do you believe me, Laur?”

  “I don’t know,” said Laura as coldly as she could, and she trembled again.

  Beth felt it with amazement. “Laur,” she said. “Look at me, honey.”

  “No.” And she stared in unhappy defiance at her towel.

  “Laura, honey, listen. I liked you too, Laur. Before I met you, I liked you too.”

  Laura looked up slowly, disbelieving, yearning to believe, trying to hold her anger between them for defense. But it slipped away, out of her, and she was looking up at Beth like a little girl; like Laura six years old begging for a candy heart.

  “You did?” she faltered, searching Beth’s face.

  “Yes. Yes, I did.” Beth was strangely excited again at the intensity in Laura’s face and for a precious second Laura saw it. She found herself suddenly on the point of declaring her love, of clasping Beth in her arms. The tension spiraled up like a rocket and she gasped, “Beth!” and so startled Beth that she caught her breath like Laura and nearly crushed her arms with the sudden tight grip of her hands.

  “Oh—oh, Laura,” she said, shaking her head and trying to collect her senses. They were going too fast, they had to slow down. Her hands dropped and she turned to her dresser and picked up her comb, feeling the trembling in herself now. “We’d better get dressed,” she said.