Warm and Willing - Lawrence Block [13]
“Don’t ever be. Will you stay?”
But she didn’t sleep in the bed. She insisted on that much. She took the couch and Megan took the bed. They sat talking for a few more minutes, and then Megan gave her a nightgown and she went into the bathroom and got undressed and washed up and put on the nightgown and went back to the living room. Megan had made up the couch as a bed. Megan looked at her, and she felt Megan’s eyes flash very briefly over her body in the nightgown, and she felt suddenly self-conscious, as though she were nude and a man was looking at her.
“If you can’t sleep—”
“I’ll sleep.”
“If you can’t, wake me. If there’s anything you want, wake me.”
“All right.”
She got into bed. Megan hovered over her, and for a tiny moment she thought that the blonde girl was going to stoop over and kiss her goodnight. This did not happen. Instead Megan straightened up and turned out the lights and left the room. A door opened and closed. Later she heard water running, and then doors opened and closed and Megan called goodnight to her, and then there was silence.
She couldn’t sleep.
Who was she? What was she? She did not know. She tossed all these questions around in her mind and none of the answers came. In the beginning, the world had told her that she was a woman. Then she had learned that she was not a woman, that she was frigid and sexless. And now Megan was telling her that she was something else.
A lesbian.
She tried to imagine herself with Megan. It was hard to do. She did not know what Megan would do to her, what sort of love they would make together. She remembered Megan’s words: I would make love to you. I would make you feel like what you are, like a woman made for love. I would show you the dark side of the moon. I would make you laugh and cry. And we would be close and warm and nothing would matter, nothing at all.
A poem, she thought. A poem. And she let herself imagine not the mechanics of it, but the feeling of it, the feeling of sharing love with a woman, with Megan. It seemed somehow less strange than it had seemed at first. Now it seemed possible.
But could she? Could she let herself do it? It was forbidden. It was wrong. It was not normal, and all the gods in all the heavens made normalcy a religion in itself. Could she stand that kind of life? Could she be that kind of person without dying a little inside?
It would be hard. But was it any easier to be the kind of person she was now? She lived a life that was no great pleasure, a life without a future, a life that promised eternal sameness. She measured out that life in coffee spoons and cigarette butts and lonely days and lonelier nights. Megan was offering a way out of that. Megan was offering a life that might be better.
Did she dare to try?
Did she dare not to?
Once, she almost slept. She felt herself drifting off, and she may have dozed, and then she was awake again. You can trust me. I won’t do anything that you don’t want me to do.
What did she want?
She fought with herself. And there was a point at last when she knew that sleep was impossible, that a great many things were impossible. That, for the moment if not forever, only one thing was possible.
The nightgown rustled gently as she walked. She opened Megan’s door and slipped quietly into Megan’s room. She spoke Megan’s name.
“I’m awake, dear.”
She took a small breath. “I’m ready,” she said, moving over to Megan’s bed. “I’m ready. Love me.”
CHAPTER FOUR
At first she thought, Oh, no, it won’t work. Another mistake. It won’t work. Not at all. Because nothing touches me, nothing reaches me, and I remain forever detached.
Megan held her close. They lay side by side and she saw Megan’s eyes shining catlike in the darkness, and she felt the gentle pressure of Megan’s breasts against her own. Megan kissed her, lightly, and Megan’s legs moved to brush against her own legs and thighs. Another kiss, and again the pressure of Megan’s warm body.
Something familiar, something known. A fine female body against her own body. A partner not different, but similar.