Fletch sat in the chair.
“I’m glad you’re doing this, Lucy,” he said. “People need to understand what you’ve been through.”
“No one has understood,” she said. “Not my family, friends. Not Bart. I rather thought Bart might understand, or I wouldn’t have been so frank with him. He took it as some kind of a personal insult.”
She gave Marsha’s forearm a tug, pulling her hand out of her pocket. She held Marsha’s hand. “Really, Martin, it’s a matter of complete indifference to me as to who understands and who doesn’t.”
“Of course.” He coughed quickly. “You’ve resolved your problems. Others haven’t.”
Marsha’s eyes warmed towards him.
“I’m afraid most people think this is the problem,” Lucy said. “I mean, Marsha and I living together. Like it’s acne or the flu or something that will go away.” She gave Marsha’s hand a self-conscious squeeze. “I guess I went through that phase, too. But why are you, more interested in me than in Marsha?”
“I’m interested in Marsha, too,” said Fletch. “But you’re a little older. You were married. I would guess you gave up quite a lot, in the way of material things, to live with Marsha. I would think you have had to make the bigger adjustments.”
“I guess so. Marsha’s lucky. She’s always been a little dyke.” She smiled fondly at Marsha. “Straight through school. All those shower rooms after field hockey, eh, Marsha?” To Fletch, she said, “Marsha went to boarding school, a much better education than I had. Self-discovery. She started sleeping with girls when she was about twelve.”
Marsha remained silent, a lanky love object at the end of the divan.
“I had to go through the whole thing,” Lucy said. “Boy, was I thick.”
“Tell me about,it ” Fletch took notebook and pen from his pocket. “Tell me about the whole thing.”
“As ‘Mrs. C?’”
“Absolutely.”
“And I get to see the manuscript before you hid it in?”
“Absolutely.”
“Okay.” She exhaled. “Shit.” Still holding onto her hand, she glanced at Marsha. “You know. A nice girl. Brought up. Goals set for me. A role set for me. We lived in Westwood, a lawn in front, a lawn in back, a two-car garage. Dad owned an automobile agency. My mother was neurotic, a pill freak. Still, is. I hated Jack, my older brother. He was plain, simply cruel. Big hockey player. I mean, when Mother was freaked out, he’d stick pins in the hamster. He’d stick pins in anything. I barely survived him. Bastard.”
Marsha’s eyes rolled to study Lucy’s face worriedly.
“I was considered good-looking,” Lucy said hesitantly. “You know what that means in an American public high school. First one in a training bra, first one to wear falsies, first one to bleach my hair—at thirteen. First one to beat the baby fat off my ass. Goal-oriented. Cheerleader. Little skirts and pompoms. First one to get laid. Very goal- oriented. I didn’t enjoy it. Getting laid, I mean. But it was a goal. The first guy to lay me, the fullback, must have weighed two hundred and twenty pounds. A fat, gray belly. It was not fun. Damned near broke me in two.
“I went to junior college. Went with a guy from Babson who played the violin and was full of the secret international commodity cartel he was going to run. A real drip.
“At a party I met Bart. I was getting near graduation. Bart was a goal. He looked normal, acted normal. Dartmouth College, Harvard Law. Going a little bald. Older than I was by twelve years. In a law firm. Very rich. I played innocent and let him thrill me. I was very dishonest, but people are, sometimes, in attaining their goals.”
Fletch asked, “Did you have any sexual feeling for him at all?”
“How did I know? I didn’t know what sexual feeling was. Look, I had been told boys turn girls on and girls boys on and that was it. There was nothing else. Whatever happened between me and boy I figured I was turned on.”
“But you weren’t.”
“No way.
“Never?”
Firmly, she said, “Never. I hear some are, but not me—ever. It was pure role-playing. I played the game with myself, ‘someday my crisis will come.’ I wasn’t even excited. Only I didn’t even know it.”
“Come on, Lucy,” Fletch said. “You knew such a thing as lesbianism existed.”
“No, I didn’t. It never entered my head. I mean, I knew such a thing existed. Creatures like Marsha, Way over there, somewhere. Far out. They were different. Really weird. I mean, I didn’t relate to them at all. I was very successful at suppressing my own, real sexual nature. Totally successful.”
“Okay,” Fletch said.
“Soon after we were married, Bart started asking about frigidity. Conversationally, you know? What did I know about it? He began having these long talks with the woman in the next apartment, and then coming to bed stinko. When he was on trips out of town, I picked up a guy or two. For Bart’s sake. Nothing ever happened. I mean, I never got turned on by anybody. So when he suggested a psychiatrist, I went along it. He was beginning to make me think something was wrong.
“The psychiatrist was a great guy. He got me toward the truth very quickly. I turned him off, ran away from him. Ran away from the truth. It was too shocking. You know, I was one of those creatures ‘over there.’ I like girls. I tried to bullshit the psychiatrist. He was a slob, but by then I was too close to the truth. I couldn’t bullshit myself. I was listening to myself. This went on a long, long time. A terribly long time.
“I was bitchy, irascible, tough, mean, violent. Bart and I had slugging matches. I hit him. I threw things at him. I mean, I hit him with things, objects, anything at hand.”
“You did?”
“Yes.”
“I see.
“He had so many goddamned welts on his face, so often, he had to tell the people at the office he was doing boxing as a sport. He might as well have been living with a bad-tempered, second-string welterweight. I was really violent.”
“Are you still?”
“No.”
Marsha looked at her from beneath half-drawn lids.
“Well, I mean,” Lucy said. “Sometimes we play. You know?”
“Yeah,” said Fletch.
“I felt I was in some kind of a box, and had to fight my way out. Can you understand that, Martin?”
“Sure.”
“It’s a wonder I didn’t belt a few shrinks along the way. I took everything out on poor old Bart.”
“So how did you meet Marsha?” Fletch asked.
“One day I went into a boutique, and saw something I liked—Marsha. She waited on me. I bought a shirt. Next day I went back and bought a pair of pants. The third day I went in and started to buy a bikini. I called her into the dressing room to ask her how she thought it fitted me. I was feeling something. The tingle. I guess I was opened up enough then to the idea of girls. I had been forced to become conscious of my real desires. In the dressing room, Marsha put the palm of her hand against my hip, looked me in the eyes, and said, ‘Who are you bullshitting?’” Lucy picked up Marsha’s hand, and looked at it, wonderingly. “Her first touching me was the most satisfactory feeling I’d ever had.”
They looked at each other, apparently recalling moment.
Fletch looked at his notebook.
Finally, Lucy said, “Are you straight, Martin?”
“You mean, do I like girls?”
“Yes.”
“Yes.”
“I guess that’s how you can understand.”
Fletch chuckled. “I guess so.”
“I mean, you don’t seem offended.”
“I’m not. Why should I be?”
