Beebo felt those lovely hands in her hair, and she looked over at the kitchen door. It was about thirty feet away…thirty miles, it seemed.
“You’ve got such soft hair, Beebo,” Venus said, and she leaned down and kissed the crown of Beebo’s head, and then lifted her face and kissed everything upside-down from her perch on the couch. “You kiss me so gently,” she said. “I never knew a lover so gentle before. There isn’t a man alive who could come near you.” And she kissed Beebo again till Beebo reached up from the floor and caught Venus’s breasts in her hands, returning the kiss with a young warmth that struck sparks in Venus. Beebo held her hard and groaned, “Don’t, don’t, you don’t know what it’s doing to me. Oh, God…oh, please…”
“Do you still think I don’t know?” Venus said. “Don’t you understand by now I’m not doing this for kicks? Or to hurt you? Or God knows what other medieval torments you imagined? I think you’re amazing. Exciting. Adorable. Did you think I’d never tried it before with a woman? I’ve tried everything, darling. Everything but corpses, anyway.”
“Oh, Venus, Venus—”
“Hush, I’ll explain. You see, it was always so rotten with men. It was as good as it ever got with a girl. But never this good.” Her directness threw Beebo emotionally offstride. “I kept thinking it should be. If men were so bad there had to be something else worth living for. So I kept looking. But I have to be so damn careful. Whatever I do is news.”
Beebo looked at her and saw tears on her cheeks. “My daydreams were always better than my life,” Venus whispered, “and when you reach that point, you’re in trouble. All the money in the world can’t make those dreams real.” She brushed lightly at the tears, embarrassed by them.
“I was wild when that dreadful Pasquini came up here,” she said. “I’d been looking forward to seeing you all day. After he left, I began to think maybe his coming was a sign that I should give you up while I still could. An affair between us would seem like the world’s worst cliché: the jaded vamp seducing the innocent girl for the sake of a few cheap kicks.” She sat silent a moment and then she smiled at Beebo.
“Do you know what Miss Pinch said after you left? She came marching in and announced that you were a dyke and Pat was a queen.”
“Miss Pinch said that?” Beebo said, and laughed at the incongruity of it.
“Well, she put it a little differently. She said, ‘The dark young gentleman was a female and the blond young gentleman was a lady, if you know what I mean, ma’am.’”
They laughed together and Beebo felt suddenly close to Venus; her fear had vanished. “The only thing I worry about is, Miss Pinch might tell Leo,” Venus said. “It makes him simply wild when I take up with a girl.”
“Do you take them up often?” Beebo asked, looking down.
Venus shook her head without answering. It was a wordless admission of her loneliness and frustration; as great, in its way, as Toby’s. Beebo got up on her knees and encircled Venus’s waist. “Venus, darling,” she said softly, hesitantly. “I love you so much. I can’t understand this thing. I thought you were—all glittery and cold. I thought we’d finally climb into bed, and you’d kill me with your laughter. And then to have you like this! God, I don’t know what I’m doing. It’s so crazy. Venus, Venus, I adore you.” She began to kiss her again and Venus let herself be pulled off the sofa and into Beebo’s arms, giving in a bit at a time, so that Beebo was trembling and wild-eyed one moment, and overwhelming Venus the next.
She had just enough sense to pick Venus up moments later and carry her to the bedroom, through the overstated boudoir, and out of the sight of Toby and the women. She laid Venus down on the blue silk coverlet of her bed, leaning over her with her fists planted in the mattress.
“This is where I do my dreaming,” Venus told her. “I take off my clothes and lie down here and tell myself beautiful crazy stories. I’ve been doing it for years.”
“Who do you dream about?” Beebo asked.
“Who do you think?” Venus smiled. “God, you’re so tall for a girl. So tanned and strong. Like a boy.”
“I hate to think of you all alone on that blue silk, wanting me,” Beebo said. “And me out delivering salami.”
“And talking to Toby,” Venus said.
“That means a lot to you, doesn’t it?”
“Everything,” Venus admitted. “I can’t tell you how much. I can talk to him now without screaming at him. I owe that to you, Beebo.”
Instead of accepting the compliment gracefully, Beebo stared moodily out the window. “Are you keeping me around so you won’t lose Toby again? I don’t want to find myself pounding on your locked door the day you learn you can talk to him without me.”
“What does it take to make you trust a girl, Beebo?” Venus teased.
“I guess I never will trust you—quite,” Beebo said truthfully. “You’re too good to be true.”
Venus pulled her head down on the pillow and asked seriously, “How many people know you have a crush on me? Don’t fib, darling. I have a special reason for wanting to know.”
Beebo gritted her teeth together a moment before she answered. “My roommate. His name is Jack Mann. He’s gay, too. He’s the best friend I ever had and I trust him more than I trust myself.”
“Who else? Pasquini?”
“No,” Beebo said, lying forcefully with the sudden knowledge that Venus was trying to decide how dangerous their affair could be. The safer it seemed to her, the better the chances she would keep Beebo with her…perhaps even take her to the West Coast.
“How about this girl who’s in love with you?” Venus said.
“She’s not in love
