guess he could have stood it forever.”
“Rhoda-”
“But he went along with it once I let him know it was what I wanted. He said he hoped I would be happy. He said I would probably like it better living alone, because then I could crawl into my shell and hibernate my way through life. He apologized for saying that. He was wrong anyway, because I don’t want to sleep my life away. I hate being lonely and I’m alone all the time and I dream bad dreams. The same dream, night after night. Running and being chased, that kind of dream.”
She turned from the window. Megan was looking at her, infinite pity in her eyes.
“What’s wrong with me?”
“Don’t you know?”
“I know.” A sigh. “I’m frigid.”
“No.”
“Of course I am. An iceberg. A female zombie.”
“No.”
“Then what?”
Megan looked at her. “You really don’t know, do you? You really don’t know what you are.”
“I don’t understand.”
“No, you don’t. You poor kid, you poor sweet kid, you don’t understand, do you?”
And Megan kissed her.
CHAPTER THREE
Megan’s hands upon her shoulders, Megan’s lips against her own. She stood, stunned, and was kissed. And Megan ended the kiss and took a short step backward. Rhoda stared at her wide-eyed. She did not know what was happening.
“Do you see?”
“See what?”
“Oh God,” Megan said. “God in heaven.”
“Why did you kiss me?”
“Because I wanted to. Very much.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re beautiful. Sometimes you move as though you don’t know that. You are beautiful, Rhoda.”
“Why did you kiss me?”
“Because I’m in love with you.”
Her heart was pounding. She didn’t understand, did not even want to understand. She said, “That doesn’t make any sense.”
“Why not?”
“Because…because we’re both-”
“Yes?”
“Both girls.”
“So what?”
“But Megan touched her shoulder. The contact was electric, slightly frightening. “You’d better sit down,” she said softly. “There are some things you have to hear.”
They were sitting on the couch. Rhoda wanted a cigarette very badly. She took one from Megan’s pack and lit it and wondered why her hand was shaking. She seemed to be afraid but did not know what she was afraid of. Megan loved her, Megan had kissed her. She did not understand anything.
Megan said, “There’s no way to say this. No way at all. I don’t know how to get started, Rhoda.”
She waited.
“Do you know what a lesbian is?”
“Of course. I’m not a child.” And then suddenly she stiffened and the cigarette dropped from her fingers onto the couch. She snatched it up, drew on it, then leaned over to stub it out in the ashtray. She could not believe it.
“Are you-”
“Yes.”
She closed her eyes. “Lesbians are girls who wear dungarees and men’s jackets,” she said levelly. “Lesbians have low voices and short hair and they swear a lot. You see them at night on Macdougal Street, walking along arm in arm. They have a mannish walk. They look like men, act like men.”
“Some of us are like that.”
“But you-”
“I’m not that kind, no. I’m not a butch. But I’m gay.”
“Gay?”
“Homosexual.”
“I can’t believe it. You’re not like that, you’re a woman.”
“Yes, I’m a woman. So are you.”
“But-”
Megan touched her arm very briefly, then withdrew her hand. “Let me talk,” she said. “This is hard to say. Will you let me talk and try to get things straight? This isn’t easy.”
She nodded.
Megan said, “Not all people are the same. Ordinary people are-normal. Ordinary women fall in love with men and marry them and sleep with them. But some woman…some women can’t love men that way. Some woman fall in love not with men but with other women. They don’t have to be mannish to do this. They can be completely feminine, even as you and I.”
She wanted to say something. All she could think was that Megan had said she loved her, that Megan wanted to sleep with her. This seemed to be a fact, a very definite fact, and yet it was so startling that she could not entirely accept it as such. Her mind fought with this thought, struggled with it, and she could not think of anything else. Megan loved her. Megan wanted to sleep with her.
It was incredible.
“That’s the way I am, Rhoda. A lesbian. I can’t have sex with men, I can’t find them attractive, I can’t bear the thought of all those things the world calls normal. I know that they are normal, but they are not normal for me. For me, for Megan Hollis, sexual relations with a man would be a perversion.
“Something quite different is normal for me. For me normal sex is sex with other women. Normal love is love for other women. Some people find this disgusting. Others are afraid of it. A great many people think that it’s morally wrong, a sin, evil. But I know that it’s right for me. It would be sinful for me to make love to a man, it would be evil and everything else. I am a lesbian.”
She looked at Megan, at the blonde hair and fine features. She looked at Megan’s lips and remembered their touch when Megan kissed her. How had it felt? Soft, warm. How had she felt about it? She realized that she did not know. She had been too confused to react, favorably or unfavorably.
“I think that you are like me, Rhoda.”
“Oh, no.”
“I think so.”
“Why?”
Megan lowered her eyes. “A feeling, partly. When I saw you I felt it. I wandered into your shop just by accident. I was looking for a gift for a girl I had been…very close to.”
“A girl you loved?”
“Yes, a girl I loved. You asked me if it was a wedding gift that I wanted. Do you remember that I smiled at the thought? And in a way it was a wedding gift. Not that Carolyn was getting married. Girls like us don’t marry. But
