Thirty - Jill Emerson [36]
“Well, he’s a secretive man. I don’t know him at all.”
“Maybe no one does, Jan.”
“You probably do.”
“Hardly. Like in a way he’s the God that made me, do you know what I mean? I mean, what was I when I met him? Nothing. A little kid. I didn’t know a thing. Eric created me. But—”
“Yes?”
Tentatively, “Well, see, Jan, with all of this there’s still a part of me he doesn’t touch at all. You know, like, inside my head there’s still me, and it’s me and it stays me. I am not great at taking words and making sense out of them—”
“I understand.”
“Do you?”
“And I’m glad. I thought, oh, that some day there wouldn’t be any of myself left.”
“No, you always have yourself left.”
“Good.”
“He never takes that away.”
“Good.”
“Listen, that red stuff, maybe I ought to get it.”
“Susan? Do you want to make love to me?”
“That’s what this is all about, isn’t it?”
“I mean, do you want to? Not that Eric wants us to, forget Eric, but what you want. Is that what you want?”
“Well, yeah. Sure. Right.”
“I didn’t know that.”
“Oh, yeah. I would do it anyway if he said to do it. I jump when he says frog.”
“So do I.”
“So does everyone.”
“I know.”
“But I want to, yes, right, sure I want to. It is so great with a girl. It is so much better.”
“Better?”
“In some ways. Yes, better in some ways. Clean, it’s the cleanest thing in the world. Oh, wow.”
“You keep surprising me, Susan.”
“Only it helps if you love the girl. I think I love you a little, Jan.”
“Do you mean that?”
“I only say what I mean. That’s one thing, I never put anything on. I want to kiss you, Jan.”
“Oh.”
“May I?”
I have no will. I have odd presences in my throat and chest. I have a dry mouth and wet eyes.
And this pretty little blond girl reaches out for me like a phototropic plant for the sun, reaches out butterfly arms and a petal mouth, and I close my eyes, I close my eyes, I close my eyes, and our mouths meet.
A voice in the brain: There, see, it doesn’t hurt, it doesn’t turn you into a handsome prince, it doesn’t do anything but feel a little good. Except that it does in fact do more. It gives peace. It takes all the tension and sends it away somewhere out of sight and out of mind.
Her hands clinging to my shoulders, her head tossed a little back, her eyes half-lidded, her lips parted, curved in the merest shadow of a smile.
I think she is beautiful.
I want to kiss her.
We kiss, and our lips part, and our tongues touch. We slide deeply into a kiss, her tongue in my mouth, our arms around each other. Our breasts touching.
I am filled with a sudden longing to see her body. I want to look at her breasts and between her legs. I want to see all the parts of her body.
And to do what with them? To kiss, to touch, to—what?
She reaches out, opens a button on my blouse. I sit, legs curled under me, while her hands work idly, undoing each button in turn. She puts both hands inside my open blouse and takes my breasts in her hands. I have long since stopped wearing underclothing. Her hands settle on my bare breasts like birds on their nests, and I start to close my eyes but force them to remain open, and my eyes meet hers, and we drink each other like glasses of spiced wine.
“I am in love with you, Jan.”
“Oh, Susan.”
“Mommy. Sister. I love you.”
“God!”
We undress each other, slowly, lingeringly, with many stops to cling together in urgent kisses. I am kissing a girl, my mind notes. I am kissing a girl who is saying that she is in love with me.
Her body, revealed to me in stages, is incredibly beautiful. Skin like cream and honey, like warm living velvet. So rosy pink and clean. Breasts, beautiful luscious pears, and oh, I touch them, and oh, her nipples stiffen against the palms of my thin hands, and oh, she gazes into my eyes, moved by my touch, soft and liquid in her eyes and in her flesh.
Her pubic hair is a tangle of the finest golden fluff, neatly confined to her private parts, not sprawling all over as mine tends to do. I love her body, it is so clean and neat and precise, it has fresh little girl smells to it, I love it.
I want her.
And this revelation,