“And the more clearly I realized I was gay, the more terrified I was to admit it to myself, and the more I had to lose. Do you have to loathe me for it, Beebo? Am I a sort of second-class Lesbian, is my love a second-class love, because I live with a man and I’ve borne a child?”
Beebo shut her eyes. “I’m your lover, not your judge,” she said, pulling Venus’s head down on her shoulder. “All I know is, I hate it—sharing you. If it were another girl, I could fight back on my own ground. But Leo confronts me with marriage and motherhood and morality and…God, what can I say? Tell all of society to go to hell?” She kissed Venus disconsolately. “If you’d known what you were when you were young, would you really have given up all this for the life of a Lesbian? The kind of life I’ll lead?”
“If I’d known I could be as happy with a girl as I’ve been with you, Beebo…and I didn’t have my son or a name to worry about…I could have given up anything to be with you.”
Beebo couldn’t hate her, in spite of the distressing knowledge that she had been used. Venus was no Mona Petry. Venus proved her love and did her utmost to go beyond her limitations for the sake of that love. But she had lived too long in the world of safety and social acceptance that is the normal woman’s—a world Beebo would never know—to leave it now. She was imprisoned in the only security she knew, just as Beebo was imprisoned in her body and her strong emotional needs.
“You despise me a little for hiding behind my husband and child,” Venus said, seeing it in Beebo’s face. “What do you want me to do with them, darling? I love Toby and I need Leo. I can’t wish them out of existence. They existed for me long before you did.”
“Venus, I don’t know what’s right or wrong,” Beebo said. “I only know I love you—and it’s made me miserable. God spare either of us another affair like this one.” She caught Venus in an impassioned embrace, holding her hard enough to hurt her and crying soundlessly against her cheek.
Then she released her, walking swiftly to the door. Venus gave a small scream and rushed after her. “Oh, not like this! Wait, stay with me a while. There’s no need to go just yet. I need you more than I ever did. Beebo!”
“Don’t make it hurt any worse, Venus,” she said. “Let’s not cut it off an inch at a time.” Beebo was the strongest and it was up to her to make the break physical and final.
“Say it one last time, then,” Venus pleaded wildly. “I’ll never see you again! Beebo, darling—say it!”
“I love you,” Beebo said huskily. “Goodbye, lover.” She reached out and put her hands on Venus’s shoulders to draw her near; kissed her ardently on the lips and then chastely on the brow.
Venus gazed at her, afraid to believe it for a minute, and then dropped her face into her hands with a sob. Beebo left her, running down the curving stairs to the front door. If she were to move at all, it had to be at top speed.
It was raining in New York when Beebo landed at Idlewild, a standard, sharp November rain: liquid ice tumbling out of a dirty sky. She reached Jack’s familiar door early in the evening and rang his bell. The answer was immediate, as reassuring as a personal word.
She dashed up the stairs and saw him leaning in the open doorway, waiting for her. Neither of them said a word. Beebo went up and hugged him against her damp jacket. He fit neatly under her chin, letting himself be squashed in the name of friendship.
“Come in, pal,” he said.
“I should have wired you. I left in such a damn hurry,” she said. “Jack—you aren’t even surprised to see me!”
“I read the garbage in this morning’s paper,” he said. “I didn’t think Venus would keep you around long after that. But I have to admit I wasn’t prepared for her phone call.”
Beebo’s mouth fell open. “Venus called you?” she said.
“About four hours ago. Said you were flying back. She remembered my name and had her secretary try every Jack, John, and J. Mann in the Manhattan directory,” he chuckled. “She sounded very sweet and sad. I was impressed with her—I really was. She said to tell you she loves you.”
Beebo leaned forward on the sofa. “Poor Venus,” she said, too tired even to feel surprise at her compassion. “She’s so afraid I won’t believe her. You know something, Jackson? She does love me. That’s the craziest part of it. She just isn’t strong enough to snap her fingers at the world. And God knows she had more at stake than I had—mostly a son she’s just beginning to know and love. I have no business condemning her. But oh my God, it hurts so much. She was so lovely.”
Jack sat down beside her. “I know the feeling,” he said. “I guess it’s the one pain on earth you can always remember perfectly, down to the last mean twinge.”
Beebo smiled a bit, putting her head back on the sofa and accepting gratefully a lighted cigarette from Jack.
“How about a peppermint schnapps?” he said. “Or would you prefer Scotch and water?”
“That’s more like it.”
“It’ll warm you up a bit. What a rotten day for a homecoming.” The rain pelted
