Yes I am. Just for tonight.
Are you mad at me?
No, sweetie. Now please go home and lie down.
Francine?
What?
Neva wouldn’t kiss me.
Well, you just give her some space. Honey, I want you to go now.
Do you know why?
Because you’re shitfaced.
I know I’m . . . I’m . . . But Neva wouldn’t kiss me, because . . .
Go home. Right now.
Her breath smelled like puke. That’s why. And Xenia’s, too. Go smell ’em both if you don’t believe me. They . . .
Al, will you please take Judy home?
All right.
Hey, Neva, why are you and your little bitch having puke parties? I’m telling on you!
Judy, said Francine, you need to get out of their business and go home. If you don’t leave in one minute I’m gonna eighty-six you.
For how long?
Twenty-four hours.
All right, I’m going. I’m gonna make myself throw up and pretend I’m Neva. Actually I all the sudden feel kind of . . .
Since Al had not lifted his fat ass from the barstool (he was busy laughing, as if the memorial snapshot of his deceased boyfriend Ed no longer touched him), I took her by the hand. She punched me, not hard; her half-closed fist was flaccid. I slapped her cheek, and she burst into tears, then came along with me like a lamb. But as soon as we had gone around the corner she dug in her heels. Stroking her hair, I told her to please, please let me get her home before something bad happened, but she shook off my hand. I stood watching her, and it was just like old times with my wife when I could see what was coming but froze until it happened. And then Judy, imitating her betters, bent over and stuck her finger down her throat.
9
The lesbian lay down alone for once. Closing her eyes, feeling chilly and achey, she seemed to see that old Mission style house with the green, green lawn, and someone looking out from behind the curtain. It seemed as if she did not exist. She looked into the mirror and failed to believe in herself. She went on existing, swallowing, breathing and secreting until late that night when Catalina called to say: I have a pomegranate, and I’m about to cut it open and eat the seeds. If you were here I’d feed you one seed at a time—
Oh, baby, that’s so sweet—
Neva, I’m so frustrated right now! Because I want to do intimate things with you.
It won’t be long, honey. Five days.
Is there anything I can have ready for you?
Yes, said the lesbian, and whispered something into the phone.
Catalina promised, laughing.
And then once again the transwoman slept with her head on the lesbian’s shoulder, snoring gently, while the lesbian stroked her lovely hair.
After an hour, she gently lifted up the other woman’s head and got up to pee.
I love you, Neva, said her groggy, sleepy lover.
I love you, too.
I love you so much! You’re so wonderful . . .
I adore you, Judy.
When do we have to leave?
Oh, probably in half an hour, said the lesbian gently.
No!
The lesbian bent and kissed her lips. Softly closing the door, she went to the bathroom. She sat down on the toilet. When the urine gushed out, her clitoris tingled, thanks to the bittersweet new drug they had both swallowed. She licked a finger and rubbed it round and round her hard nipple, yawning. Everything felt good; the headache had not yet come on. She wiped herself and inspected the toilet paper: no blood. Then she flushed the toilet. Her bare feet felt very hot against the cold floor. Yawning again, she went back to the transwoman, who grabbed her, greedily pulled up her nightdress and began to suck. The lesbian caressed her. Oh, it felt so good to run her hand through Judy’s hair! And now she was climaxing quickly and easily, after which it was Judy’s turn. If she could only give Judy a screaming orgasm, everything would be all right.
We’d better go now, the lesbian said.
I won’t let you go, said the transwoman in a throaty, almost growling voice; the lesbian kissed her lips, feeling dizzy for no reason. The transwoman kissed her back, and so another quarter-hour went by. Gently the lesbian pushed back the covers and began to sit up. The transwoman looked sad. Very slowly she fastened her bra.
10
Two hours later Judy was kissing Al goodnight beneath the glowing blue cross of Cumberland Church on Stone and Jackson, gazing through him and down night-wet pavement painted with streetlights and taillights all the way to the crystal-white loveliness of the Bay Bridge.
He said: I’ll still tip you, but this time you didn’t put your heart into it.
Sorry! I thought I—
Your boyfriend’s right. I’ve heard him call you Frank. You’re a man who pretends to be a woman. I’m a man who—
No, I’m a woman!—but it came out in a whisper.
And I paid you to be with me, but all the time you were thinking about her!
How did you know?
And she’s a polyamorous slut whom you call a lesbian just because you’re too lazy to throw down words of more than three syllables . . .
The transwoman fled. She texted Sandra over and over until Sandra finally answered. They met at the Y Bar. Her redhaired friend looked very tired. She said: Judy, what’s wrong? It sounded like some kind of emergency—
I’m sorry; I’m sorry!
I only have a minute, but tell me . . .
I was already jonesing for Neva, jonesing bad, and then Al told me . . .—she burst into tears. Sandra sighed.
He said I was just a . . .
Usual? said Francine.
I’m buying, said selfless Sandra.
Six times two makes twelve dollars.
Here’s thirteen.
Thanks, hon.
He said I’m not—
Judy, I consider you a woman, one hundred percent. A beautiful woman who—
How Judy loved Sandra just then! (Her heart was as transparent as the lesbian’s skin and flesh, which showed the flickering flame of her beneath.) If they became special friends, she’d go to bed with Sandra every night, even if someday Sandra stopped being in the mood. No, Judy would never mind that!—Tell me a story, she entreated. Please!
I’m sorry, Judy, but in just a second I need to go.
Just tell one thing, so I can learn. What’s your relationship to your pussy?
I don’t know, honestly. I mean, how can I answer that?
You were born with a vagina. What’s that like? To always have that feminine . . . —I know, I know, you need to run out, but just for one minute; I feel so upset—
All right, said Sandra. I went on a few dates but I never let anybody kiss me or touch me; I don’t think I had any relationship to it. My first gynecological exam was very traumatic; she was nice but it hurt so much and it felt so wrong.
What do you mean?
It felt physically wrong when she put the speculum in. It’s uncomfortable to the point where it feels that it must be hurting your body. I was hyperventilating to the point where I almost passed out. I was maybe thirteen or fourteen. I was having problems with period pain like a lot of people do at that age. I think it was just a bad memory. I don’t think she did anything wrong.
And that’s all you remember?
I remember being in ninth grade and I remember being in a play, and being so conscious that my vagina smelled so badly that everybody could smell it and I was so horrified. I would get my period and I would really want to take a shower and my Mom wouldn’t let me. I remember being so conscious that I had this dirty secret that no one else had.
A dirty secret, the transwoman slowly repeated. Because I—
Judy, I really have to go now. We all have dirty
secrets when we’re young. Then we get older and we realize everybody else has had them. I’ll see you. ’Bye, Xenia! ’Bye, Francine!
11
Just where did Sandra really have to go?—Three guesses!
Francine knew. But Francine’s new resolution was to mind fewer people’s business. When the lesbian first introduced Judy to bulimia, the latter, not knowing that if she kept it up she would rot her teeth and endanger her health, believed that she had found the perfect way to eat whatever she wanted and not pay for it. Taking her aside, Francine, who when she was young had practiced the same trick, informed her that once she had begun having to do it more and more (so she put it), she began to feel a darkness, which she subdivided into first worry and then anguish—at which Judy tried to deflect her, asking: Do you think Erin does it? Because she’s a frail little thing, with tiny little boobs.—Francine said: Let’s talk about you. Then Judy for once showed her claws: You sell us booze and goofballs all the time, so why the fuck should you care? I know: it’s because you can’t make money off my little puke parties . . .—Francine actually turned pale. She clutched at her chest and sat down. Realizing how badly she had hurt her, Judy started sobbing: I’m sorry; I didn’t mean it; it’s just that I’m ashamed, and, besides, Neva does it and you don’t get in her face. Francine, I’m really really sorry . . .—Fine, the barmaid grated. We won’t talk about it anymore.
So. Sandra was cheating and worrying about it. Judy was bulimic. Not my business, thought Francine.
A headache descended on me. I took a goofball. Xenia, wearing a thick parka, from which I inferred that she too had a case of the coming-down chills, sat rubbing her head and either sobbing or shivering, while on television the last of the old-time cowboys twirled a lariat the better to snag something alien.—Hey, Francine, she finally said. I’m sick of beer. Could I get a shot of Cockteaser, please?—Just then the lesbian came in.
12
How are your mood swings? asked the straight man. (He was trying to pay attention—how sweet!)
Well, really good except for one thing. There’s something that’s been making me really really nervous.
What’s that?
It’s about you and me. It’s not terrible, but it’s, well . . .
What is it? he said wearily.
Someone invited me to fly to Los Angeles with him this weekend. I said I’d go.
Okay.
He just called yesterday and I couldn’t reach you. So I said yes. Was that okay?
I have to support you.
How do you really feel about it? Tell me honestly, because if you don’t want me to do it I can call him back and say I’m not coming. You know that you’re my best friend and my boyfriend and the one my heart is devoted to, although I do feel called to . . .
Yes, it does seem that part of your heart is devoted to him, he agreed, trying to ignore the pain.
What do you really truly think?
If he penetrates you and you have a great climax and you don’t think of me, that’s all right. If you think of me, don’t feel bad. Don’t get pregnant unless you want to.
But I don’t want to! Of course I don’t!
Then don’t.
But I feel like a terrible person, wept Sandra. You know that if you told me not to, I would call him up and tell him I’d changed my mind.
Of course I know that.
And don’t you remember that I offered to come to Boston with you? If you tell me to run away with you to Boston that’s exactly what I’d do, because you’re the one I want to spend the rest of my life with.
Sure, honey.
Don’t you still think it could work out? I mean, not this year or next year, but maybe someday . . .
Why not?
Are you angry with me? Am I hurting you?
Feeling that to reveal his pain to her would be the equivalent of violating her sarcophagus, he asked: What do you want me to say?
Sandra began sobbing. She said: I feel like I’m hurting you! And you know I’d do anything not to hurt you . . .
I give you permission. I’d be a hypocrite if I didn’t.
But am I ruining our relationship? Do you promise to tell me if I am?
Sure.
You say sure, but what does that really mean?
I support you.
And you’ll never leave me no matter what?
That’s right.
I feel like we’re drifting apart. You only have twenty minutes on the phone. And he calls me every day; he wants to talk an hour or even four hours, and now even his sister is texting me . . .
The straight man gave her permission again and again. So of course she cancelled her date with the man from Los Angeles and went to the lesbian, secretly.
Neva, what do you want to do with me tonight?
Let’s play mermaids, said the lesbian.
13
Later that night Neva was gripping Selene’s head between her soft fair thighs; then, her mind wandered so that for a moment she was dreaming that this was E-beth, her mother or herself whom she was pleasuring, as if she might be alone and high on ecstasy, touching her own cunt which only appeared to be someone else’s. Then she came back to who and what she was, remembering that she had been placed on this earth in order to love, and therefore took Selene into her mind, much as she would have taken some strange man’s penis into her mouth, concentrating on doing what she was supposed to do.
She dreamed that somebody dead was saying to her: Tonight one more time and then tomorrow the truth. The next day she went to visit her mother.
Her mother took her hand. Her mother gripped her wrist very tightly, sinking her fingernails in.
But you never do look on the bright side, said her mother. It gets pretty depressing to hear your views.
Wishing at odd intervals to open her heart to the woman who had borne her, and was so often pleasant to children (although when their company persisted her smile might go weary or even ironical), the lesbian watched her, hoping for a way in to intimacy, but her mother liked to talk about dead neighbors and the humiliations they had suffered while dying; also about comical embarrassments in the lesbian’s own childhood—sometimes the mother pretended to sympathize with those old small sadnesses: see how much she loved her daughter!—but to the lesbian, at least (who might have been wrong), it seemed that her mother too obviously enjoyed these memories! The time that Karen had wet her panties when she slept over at Aunt Kate’s, not to mention the time that Marina’s mother had caught Karen and Marina playing doctor and Karen’s mother had to take her home—oh, how uncomfortable we’d all felt! . . . What about little Karen? Didn’t she remember that disgrace with Marina? We’d all been quite shocked. And did she know that Marina’s parents were divorced, and Marina’s mother, who had kept in touch, was now very, very unhappy? Marina had not turned out well. Here was a Christmas card from Marina’s mother. Didn’t she want to see it? Why didn’t she? Well, then here was a letter from Aunt Kate. In her widowhood she had become very, very lonely.
Screwing up her courage, the lesbian said: Mother, it’s getting to be the time of year when I have nightmares.
Don’t think I don’t have nightmares, too, the mother immediately retorted with immense bitterness.
Since there was nothing else to say, her mother turned on the television so that they could watch the old uncolorized rerun about an ingenuous young bride who grows ever more traumatized in her husband’s forest-girded seaside domain because she cannot compete with the first wife’s beautiful, accomplished and as it turns out evil ghost; the husband finally admits to having shot her because she was vicious, damnable, rotten through and through . . . She was not even normal.
Imagine! said the mother. Karen, what did he mean when he said the woman was not even normal?
Maybe she was a lesbian, said her daughter.
I suppose, said her mother. How terrible! Yes, maybe that was it.
14
On the way back she stopped in Martinez to service an old lover.
When Terra met her at the station, the lesbian, realizing that once somebody saw her first wrinkle everybody else would, too, was already feeling run down, most likely from days of insufficient sleep, although the train had been stuffy and stinking of urine, the food foul; so no wonder she was hot and nauseated even in the cold rain. Terra kissed her adoringly. The lesbian’s head was hurting. They went out for dinner to a Chinese place that Terra chose; maybe it was because each dish had been heavily salted that the headache worsened, until presently the lesbian, even though trying her best, perceived the beginnings of uneasy puzzlement on her lover’s face; on their plates and in the serving dishes most of the meal was cooling down. Laying her hand on Terra’s, she said: Are you full? That’s what I thought. Let’s take the rest back to our place and lie down . . .
Twenty minutes later, commencing to lick Terra’s slit, she was shivering with chills, and the increasingly urgent motions of her sweetheart’s pelvis made her dizzy. But Terra was laughing and roaring with joy; then her climax danced her deeper and deeper into another world, until she finally stopped, laughed as if she were being tickled, and gasped: Okay, Neva, I’ve got to . . . got to recharge—
Laying her head on the lover’s breast, the lesbian kissed the nipple, but Terra started away; she was happily burned out; so the lesbian felt fulfilled.
Her headache worsened. Terra fell happily asleep beside her. It got colder and colder. Finally the lesbian, unable to feel her toes and fingers, sat up and by feel located the bottle of analgesic tablets. She washed down two with the quarter-glass of stale water that lay beside the bed. She longed for one of Francine’s goofballs. The chills moderated, but the headache grew no better, and her belly began to ache. All night she lay still, so as not to wake up Terra. Dully she tried to work out how she would satisfy her in the morning.
Fortunately, Terra slept until late. Then they cuddled and snuggled. The lesbian felt so lightheaded that she feared sitting up. But when it came time to go out for coffee, they went; she had two extra shots, which made her slightly warmer and more alert; then she said: Girlfriend, I’m not feeling well; I need to lie down . . .
The Lucky Star Page 39