“Marry! Who? An Indian?”
“No!” she exclaimed almost contemptuously. “Another. He is white.”
“You’re full of contradictions, Tris,” Laura said, looking down at her in bewilderment. “You said you were gay and you married a gay boy.”
“Oh, yes. I did, didn’t I?” She looked trapped. “Well, I thought I was then. But I know now—positively—I am not.”
“But you said—”
“Such wonderful blond hair you have, Laura. I would give anything for such hair. Why do you always wear it wound up like that?” And she began to slip pins out of the bun, letting them drop to the polished floor, until the coil of gold came loose and Tris gave a delighted, “Ah!”
Laura felt the thrill go through her hard. She forgot her protests about Tris’s sex drive and pulled the dancer very close to kiss her full on the mouth. Tris yielded. With one accord they stopped dancing and just clung and kissed, swaying slightly. It lasted for long minutes—just kisses, soft and exploratory, but careful. Laura wondered vaguely, through the fog of lovely sensations, what miserable devil prompted this delectable girl to deny her Lesbian impulses. For Laura could tell that Tris enjoyed this love play as much as she. She encouraged it, even when Laura tried to stop, and pulled her back for more.
By eight o’clock they were lying on the big red silk couch in the bedroom, murmuring inanities to each other, discovering one another’s bodies and emotions through twin shields of clothes and caution.
“Will you come and see me again?” Tris asked.
“Are you inviting me?”
“Of course.”
“When would it be convenient?” She said it in clipped English, like the English Tris spoke, to tease her.
“It is never convenient. But come anyway.”
Laura laughed. “When?”
“Tomorrow.”
“No date tomorrow?”
“Yes. Every night.”
“Save a night for me, Tris.”
Tris gazed at her for a moment before she answered, “No.”
“Why not?”
“We do too much in these few short hours. What would we do with a whole night? I do not like to think.”
“I think of it all the time. I can’t think of anything else.”
“Ah, that is a very bad sign. I am sorry to hear you say that. You must not fall in love with me, Laura.”
“I’ll try to remember,” she said sarcastically.
“I am serious,” Tris said.
Laura didn’t answer her. She lay on her back and looked up at the small skylight directly over the bed. It was a square of violet—the last shade of fading day.
“I do not want you to fall in love with me, Laura,” Tris persisted.
“I hear you,” Laura said quietly.
“Well, why don’t you answer?”
“I don’t know how to answer, Tris,” she said, turning to look at her in the semi-gloom of the bedroom.
“What are your feelings for me?”
“Do you want a blueprint?” Laura said, hurt. “I can’t spell them out for you. I don’t understand them myself.” But she understood them all too well. She had felt these pangs before for other girls—only two or three, including Beebo, but enough to make them familiar and unwelcome. But still exciting and irresistible.
Tris lay beside her, quiet for a while, and finally she said, “Do you know why I was not very glad to see you at first today?”
“No.” Laura reached across the bed to put a hand on Tris’s breasts, to feel what she could not see in the gathering darkness.
“I was afraid,” Tris whispered. “Of my own feelings. I do not like to become involved with women. It has always been unpleasant for me.”
“Do you still want me to come back and see you?”
“Yes.” She paused and Laura sensed a smile. “As long as I ask you to come back, Laura, you will know you are safe with me.”
“Safe?”
“I will put it another way. If a day comes when I do not want to see you, it will be because I am in love with you. And that will be the end. From that day on we will never meet again, until I am cured.”
Laura had to smile. Who could take such a charming speech seriously? “All right,” she murmured and embraced the lovely dancer.
“Now you must go,” Tris told her. “My date will be here soon. He is always prompt.”
Laura got up without protest. But it was sweet to take the time to wind up her hair and know she was welcome. “Did you kick me out for the same boy last time?” she asked.
Tris had turned a light on and they watched each other in the mirror before which Laura was combing her hair.
“No. Another.”
“I hate him,” Laura said with a little smile. “And the rest of them.”
Tris gazed at her coolly. “How very foolish,” she said. And made Laura laugh.
They parted with a chaste kiss, and for the first time since they had met Laura felt as if she had a slim chance with this odd and irresistible girl who was still so much a stranger to her. She went home to her angry Beebo, her body tense with need. And later, when Beebo demanded her body, Laura surrendered promptly and helplessly.
Beebo, since the night of her attack, had become unbearably suspicious. Everything Laura did, everywhere she went, had to be reported in detail. She called Tris once or twice from work and Tris had bawled her out for not showing up. Laura was more pleased than sorry when Tris sounded jealous—while she bridled angrily at Beebo’s jealousy, she was thrilled with Tris’s.
Laura had strong doubts about Beebo’s illness now. She could have gone to work weeks ago. The bruises were nearly invisible; only a pale yellow
