At last Beth leaned back into the pillows, settling down with a sigh, her arms and legs flung out and the unbuttoned jacket flung carelessly out on either side of her. She shut her eyes and said, “Forgive me, Nina. I’m beat.”
“Sure,” Nina said. Released by the words, she got up and took the glasses and full ashtrays into the kitchen. Beth listened to her moving about, smiling to herself. She felt better about Nina now, less at her mercy.
“I’ll be in the next room,” Nina said. “If you have any bad dreams, that is.”
“Thanks. I’ll remember,” Beth said. She heard Nina take a few steps and stop, and make a few odd noises with her tongue and then with an ashtray, as if to attract Beth’s attention, make her open her eyes. But Beth kept them shut, ignoring her. “Did you like the dinner?” Nina said.
Beth had. She had said so several times. So it was plain that Nina was looking for an invitation, a more intimate talk, a caress, maybe even a night in bed with Beth. And Beth was both surprised and flattered. But she had no idea of yielding her small lead then. Let Nina squirm. It was her turn.
“Yes, thanks,” she said noncommittally. “It was delicious.”
And seeing that she would get no further without stating her intentions in plain English, Nina gave up with a smile, put out the last light, and climbed into her own bed.
It was black early morning when Beth was slightly roused by a movement of the bedclothes. She continued to breathe slowly and softly as if she were still asleep, letting Nina slip under the blankets and lie beside her. Nina didn’t touch her and didn’t move for fully ten minutes, for fear of waking Beth.
They played cat and mouse for a while. Beth was at first dismayed to feel Nina’s presence. Not so much because she didn’t desire her as because she didn’t want to desire her. She didn’t want to feel an attraction for this odd girl who was teaching her some valuable facts in such a humiliating manner. And yet she did. She couldn’t imagine living with Nina or sharing the things that mattered with her. But she could imagine, vividly, making love to her. She could see in her mind’s eye the well-shaped legs and trim torso, the long brown bob and green eyes, the small passionless mouth that nevertheless felt so strangely soft and sweet when they kissed over the steak plates.
It was a lovely body that lay next to her, not like the poor tortured thing that was Vega, with her heart all twisted inside by the mutilations on the outside. After a while Beth knew she wanted to touch Nina; she knew she would have to pretty soon if Nina didn’t make the move first. She wanted extremely to control herself, to withstand the temptation, to prove the stronger, and this desire gave her a few moments more of resistance. She wondered if Nina meant to sleep beside her all night, without making a single gesture toward her. Maybe she wanted merely to wake up in the morning with Beth beside her and enjoy Beth’s surprise. She wondered if it was just another trap to make Beth look silly.
Beth held her breath for a second and then her breathing came faster with the speed of excitement and even fear. Nina heard it, lying so near her in the bed, and she tensed, knowing there was nothing more she needed to do. But Beth startled her by reaching over her and snapping on the small pink lamp on the end table, flooding the room with a soft rosy radiance that made them both visible to each other. Beth couldn’t have explained the action; it seemed better somehow than simply grabbing Nina like an animal after bait. Maybe it was just another effort to resist, to do anything but touch Nina.
Nina rolled over on her back and stared at Beth, her eyes opening wider slowly as they became accustomed to the light. “What the hell did you do that for?” she asked. But she wasn’t angry.
“What the hell are you doing in my bed?” Beth said.
Nina smiled. “I had a bad dream,” she said. And Beth had to smile too. Nina looked boldly at her. “You’re still unbuttoned,” she said. In the sudden intimacy it was possible to speak of it.
“I like it that way. Your pajamas are too small for me.”
Nina reached up slowly and put her hands on Beth’s warm breasts. “You can never know for sure if you’re gay, Beth,” she said softly, “unless you can respond to more than one woman. You’ll never know if you save yourself all for the long lost love. How do you even know you’ll find her? Maybe she’s gone for good and you’ll go home to Charlie and never know what you left him to find out.”
There was a pause. In a way it was true, and in another way it was a satin-covered, thorn-lined invitation to infidelity. Beth wondered if she would be unfaithful to Charlie by making love to a woman. It had never seemed so to her with Vega, probably because making love to Vega was a depressing chore. But Nina made her feel suddenly that she was a faithless woman.
