her back inside and lay down with her on the couch, She felt his hands on her body, felt him remove clothing, felt him touch her breasts and kiss her face and run his hands gently, gently, over her hips and thighs.
She kept waiting.
And then he said, “Forget it, Rhoda. Maybe you’d better go home.”
“I’m sorry-”
“Don’t be.”
“But I am,” she said. And, from the doorway, leaving him there, “I am really sorry. I mean that.”
She did mean it, she was sorry. But she was what she was, she could not help it, and the date with this man had been a bad idea from the beginning. A stupid idea, senseless as whittling crazily at a square peg in order to jam it cruelly into a round hole. She was a lesbian. It did not matter how she had gotten that way, and it did not matter whether or not she was particularly pleased with herself. She was a lesbian. To try to be anything else was madness.
The cab seemed to take forever. But at last it stopped in front of her building, and at last she was paying the driver, leaving the cab. She went to the apartment, unlocked the door, stepped inside.
In the morning, Bobbie would return. They would love each other-for a day or a week or a month or a year. There would be fights, and there would be deep spells of unhappiness, and sooner or later there would be a break and they would go off in search of other loves.
She made herself a drink, opened a can of oysters for the cat. It would not be heaven, she thought, but there was plenty of time for heaven after death. It would not be hell either. It would be her life, and all she could do was live it.
