She thought that homosexual women were great strong creatures in slacks with brush cuts and deep voices; unhappy things, standouts in a crowd. She looked back at herself, hugging her bosom as if to comfort herself, and she thought, “I don’t want to be a boy. I don’t want to be like them. I’m a girl. I am a girl. That’s what I want to be. But if I’m a girl why do I love a girl? What’s wrong with me? There must be something wrong with me.”
But then she thought irresistibly of Beth, and her clean wholesome beauty and her gentleness, and she thought that nothing Beth could do would be wrong. And Beth had kissed her….
The interminable afternoon dragged on. Laura didn’t go downstairs for supper but sat in the room ticking off the hours, thinking that Uncle John must surely by now have left and that Beth would be home soon. She was studying quietly on the couch at ten o’clock when her two roommates finally came in.
“Hey, you cleaned the room! That’s terrific! Thanks, Laur,” said Emmy.
Laura smiled. “That’s okay,” she said. She looked back to her book, but a hundred veiled side glances brought Beth to her eyes; Beth slipping out of her clothes, revealing her fine legs, slim-ankled and hard-calved. Laura wanted to know if she ever took dancing lessons. Her thighs were slender too, and firm, not wide and soft like so many girls’. For the first time Laura took a long heady look at Beth in the flesh and then Beth climbed laughing into her pajamas, teasing Emmy for running after “that no-good trombone.”
Emily groaned and said she had millions of things to do and she would do them all tomorrow and thank God the evening was over and “Good night, you two, I can’t fight it any longer.” She went off to bed. It was a stroke of luck Laura hadn’t counted on. She was worn out herself, but she didn’t know it. She wouldn’t have believed it.
Beth drew a book from the shelf and came and sat beside Laura on the couch.
“Don’t know how long I’ll last,” she said. She felt Laura’s warm glance on her and enjoyed pretending she didn’t.
The torments of Laura’s afternoon began to fade. Beth reached out and squeezed her knee, and Laura jumped.
“You are ticklish,” she said with a smile, and then she turned to her book.
Laura looked at her book, waiting for a word, a gesture to invite her; but none came. Beth studied seriously and in a short time she was lost in another world. Laura, seeing her absorption, stared boldly at her, loving her nearness with its wealth of adorable details: the light hair on her arms, the fine skin, the violet eyes so unaware of the pale blue ones that searched them. Her hands were marvelous and long and firm, with trim hard nails on them; her breathing so gentle, so peaceful, so welcoming. Laura wanted to put her head down on Beth’s breast. And as she looked at it, moving rhythmically up and back, swelling with swift grace under the striped pajamas, she wanted more than to rest on it. Her hand tightened, disciplining itself against desire.
She shifted self-consciously on the couch and found her place in the book again and stared at it, unseeing, stamping with her will on the strange madness in her that begged for liberty. When Beth was near her, her careful senses loosened, yearned, burst suddenly from the bonds of caution. Her mail-fisted moral code unclenched, and right and wrong rushed out and ran whooping into limbo.
After half an hour, Beth threw her book down and yawned. “Can’t keep my eyes open,” she said.
Laura looked at her with nothing for her but a smile—such a beggar of a smile! Beth gave it a bag of gold.
“Laur, honey, will you scratch my back?” she said.
Laura’s smile grew. “All right,” she said.
“Wonderful. I love to have my back scratched.” She rolled over on her stomach, giving Laura room to sit beside her, and she sighed with pleasure as Laura’s hands began to trace the curves of her back. “Oh, that’s marvelous,” she murmured. “Mmmm….” She shivered a little, and Laura trembled with her. “Under my pajamas, Laur. Feels better….”
Warily Laura lifted her pajama shirt and her cool fingers groped for the ripe smooth warmth beneath them.
“Oh, yes…” Beth said.
Laura could see her smile, her eyes shut the better to feel. “Oh, I love this. Emmy won’t ever do it for me. Mmmm…you’re wonderful.”
Laura’s hands shook and she lifted them for a moment.
“Don’t stop, Laur.”
And her fingers descended to their enthralling task again, traveling like ten light feathers over the flawless hollows, the fields of grateful flesh, the sweet shoulders. Laura was lost to reason. She parted the hair that hid Beth’s neck and drew her fingers lightly over the white nape. The hair was cool and delectably soft, and at the roots warm and thick. Laura leaned toward it, hardly realizing that she was moving. It smelled clean and faintly perfumed. She looked at Beth’s profile, outlined against the burgeoning pillow, the eyes shut, the lips relaxed, the brow fair and faultless.
With a swift thrill of necessity she bent down and kissed the white neck for a long moment. A sudden acute fear pulled her up. She clasped her hand across her mouth and stared in terror at Beth, wondering how she could have let herself do it. Beth lay perfectly still with a faint smile on her lips.
“Beth?” said Laura. “Beth?” The whisper quailed. “Oh, Beth!” Laura clutched her shoulders. “Say something! Forgive me! Say something! Are you mad at me?”
Beth whispered softly, “No.”
A wash of heat flooded Laura’s face. She bent over Beth again, perfectly helpless to stop herself, and began to kiss her like a wild, hungry child, starved for each kiss, pausing only to murmur, “Beth, Beth, Beth….”
Beth rolled over on her back then and looked up at Laura, reaching for
