“I’m no match for the goddess,” Paula said, smiling without any malice. She was prompted by an innocent little-girl need to be admired and loved, so transparent that it charmed Beebo completely.
“The goddess was no match for you.” Strangely, all at once, it was true. “Jack was right—you’re the real woman.” She closed the small space between them, taking Paula’s shoulders in her big hands and kissing her suddenly on the mouth. Paula put her arms around her, so hard Beebo could feel her quivering.
“Paula—darling—I want to know just one thing,” Beebo said. “Where are your damn sleeping pills?”
“I gave them to Jack the day you left,” Paula said. “Kiss me again, Beebo.” Beebo obeyed her gladly, over and over, rediscovering with her all the things they had learned to need and love in each other months before.
When Paula took Beebo’s hands and turned them palms up to kiss, Beebo groaned with the delight she couldn’t hold back. “Paula,” she said, “oh, Paula. I came here like the self-centered idiot I am, thinking I could pay you off for what you’ve been through with a few silly kisses. Honey, I’m the one who wants them. I’m the one who needs them. I just didn’t have the sense to see it.”
She was full of crazy joy that was part nostalgia, part relief, and mostly desire. The touch, the fragrance, the feel of this marvelous girl were beyond anything Beebo had remembered.
Beebo picked her up and carried her into the bedroom, bending over her on the bed, her hands supporting her weight on either side of Paula’s face. “Oh, that hair, that mouth—Paula, I came so close to loving you before. And then…Jesus, she dazzled me. Honey, I was helpless with her.”
“Don’t explain, Beebo. I got through it somehow, and it’s over. Jack practically adopted me. We talked all night every night for a week after you left. He told me you’d be back, and he was so sure of it that I believed him. I knew you weren’t in love with me, but I knew you wanted me. And because of Jack, I never despaired. I wasn’t even afraid of Mona any more. She thought I was nuts, but—”
“Mona! Has she been after you, too?” Beebo flared. “Hasn’t she hurt me enough? Does she have to take it out on you?”
“You stood her up for me, remember?”
“How could I forget?” Beebo leaned over to kiss her. “Unbutton me, Paula,” she whispered.
Paula complied with a tremor. “Mona thought she owned me,” she said softly. “She shucked me off months before, but I wasn’t supposed to love anybody new for the rest of my life.”
“Paula…” Beebo seized her hands and looked at her searchingly. “Are you trying to tell me—oh my God!—was Mona the girl in the plaid pajamas?”
Paula nodded, still opening buttons until Beebo’s shirt slipped off. “She came back this fall when you left. She wanted information about you at first, but then she decided to live with me again. I let her do it. I supposed I was looking for a way to hurt you both. Make you jealous, and get even with Mona for the pain she gave me. She was astounded when I told her to get lost two weeks ago. She’s still waiting for you to snub me, and then she’ll come back to say, ‘I told you so.’”
“That’s one thing she’ll never say,” Beebo said emphatically. “She won’t have the chance. How could you fall for a girl like that, darling? You so sweet all the way through, and Mona so sour?”
“It’s you I love, Beebo. Let’s not talk about Mona.”
Beebo kicked her slacks off, lying down beside Paula. “Did you know Mona was going to send that smear to the gossipists?” she asked.
“Yes,” Paula confessed and shocked Beebo. “I’ll be truthful. This is the hardest thing I have to tell you, Beebo. I knew, and maybe I could have stopped her, I’m not sure. But I didn’t even try. I knew it would separate you and Venus. It would have come sooner or later, but I wanted you so awfully and this was the fastest way to do it. I couldn’t have done it to you myself. But when I found out what Mona and Pete were up to, I didn’t have the guts to stop them.”
There was a long silence. “Beebo, I forgive you everything. Can you forgive me this?” Paula’s voice, slight and sweet as herself, hung close to tears. This was the test.
Beebo turned Paula’s face up to hers finally and kissed it. “You have far more to forgive than I do,” she said. “If you can, so can I.”
Once again they held each other, immersed in the swell of love. Paula lay beneath Beebo, letting her work a while; letting the ardor slowly take fire inside her, until the urge to respond became irresistible.
Then, suddenly, her head went back in a beautiful arch, into a pool of auburn hair. Her body heaved against Beebo’s, and one of her legs slipped between her lover’s. Her hands began to wander through Beebo’s close-cropped curls, over her broad back and trim hips, caressing her everywhere. Beebo answered her with gratitude, amazement, and the first warm thrill of real love. Not an infatuation that knocks the breath out of you and dislocates your life for a while. But the slow sure kind, strong and reassuring, that holds together. Honesty, trust, respect, all were growing between them.
When they had slept a little, Beebo raised herself up on one elbow to light a cigarette and talk. “You know something, Paula,” she said. “I tried to tell you this our first night together, and you wouldn’t believe it. But it’s true, and it has a lot to do with the way I feel about you now.”
“What, darling?” Her look of love, so womanly and so complete, moved Beebo warmly.
“You brought me out, Paula. You were the first. I spent my life back home saying no to everything but
