“Now, I’m good for a little more than that,” Dale teased, letting her hand rest on Sue’s knee.
“Oh, that’s right.” Sue waved her cigarette for emphasis. “You do take the trash out. I forgot about that.”
Lily laughed. Butch/femme, it seemed, had never gone out of style in northern Georgia. Lily had always enjoyed the butch/femme dynamic in a postmodern, theatrical, and mainly reserved-for-the bedroom kind of way. But these women played their roles without a trace of irony.
Settling down in a nest of oversize floral-print cushions on the floor, Lily wondered what the hyper-politically correct women at Athena’s Owl Bookstore in Atlanta would make of these dykes. Would they think these rural women were living their lives according to oppressive patriarchal standards?
Who cares if they are? Lily thought. The two couples obviously loved each other, and the sexual sparks between them were warming up the room faster than the Georgia summer heat. Lily ached for Charlotte.
Honey was sitting on the arm of the La-Z-Boy, running her sky-blue nail-polished fingers through Mick’s hair. “You wanna beer, Lily?” she asked, when she caught Lily looking at her.
“Yeah, a beer would be great, thanks.”
Honey sashayed over to the fridge, which, along with a sink and stove, was in the far end of the living room. It was a tiny apartment. Lily could give herself the grand tour while sitting in one place and pivoting her head. A closed door next to the couch led to what she assumed was the bathroom. A door with a beaded curtain led to the bedroom, where Lily could see a queen-size bed covered with one of the chenille peacock bedspreads Jack had described. It really was gorgeous, in a garish sort of way.
The walls of Honey’s apartment were hung with posters depicting dragons, unicorns, fairies, and wizards, and the small bookcase beside Lily housed a collection of science fiction and fantasy paperbacks.
When Honey brought Lily her beer, Lily asked, “You like Marion Zimmer Bradley?”
“Oh, lord,” Mick groaned, lighting up a Marlboro Red. “Don’t get her started talking about that crap.”
“Mick’s not much of a reader,” Honey explained.
“She don’t care about nothin’ but riding around with that big ole Harley-Davidson vibrator between her legs.”
Suddenly there was a pounding at the screen door and a gruff voice yelling, “I heard there was a buncha dykes holed up in here!”
Lily stiffened at the perceived threat.
Honey rolled her eyes and laughed. “That’s just Jack. For somebody with a Doctor in front of her name, she acts like she don’t have a brain in her head.” She turned toward the door and hollered, “Get on in here, you crazy woman!”
Jack swung the door open wide. She was wearing faded Levi’s and a crisp white, button- down shirt. It was the first time Lily had seen her wearing something other than coveralls and mud-caked boots.
“Hey, y’all.” Jack yanked a can of Bud from the six-pack she was carrying and put the rest of the cans in the fridge. “Lily,” she said, grinning broadly. “Glad you could make it.”
