Warm and Willing - Lawrence Block [19]
There was a whole world in the Village she had never known, a furtive homosexual underground with its special places and its own recognition signs, and she was becoming a part of it without ever having been aware of it. A men’s shop that catered exclusively to male homosexuals, a beauty shop where a crowd of gay girls got their hair done, gay bars, a gay coffeehouse, a gay restaurant. These weren’t necessarily meeting-places, Megan told her. They were refuges as much as anything. When you were more or less obvious about your homosexuality—a short-haired butchy bull dyke, a mincing queen—you ran into trouble even in the Village. You wanted a place reserved for your own kind.
And even if you weren’t obvious, you needed the relaxation of gay society. “I know a gay man who works at Manning and Roblin,” Megan had told her. “A public relations outfit, and a good one. He comes on completely straight up there, lives a masquerade five days a week from nine to five. When he’s done with work he wants to unwind. He doesn’t mince and he doesn’t wear lipstick, but he likes to go to a place where he doesn’t have to pretend to be something he’s not.”
The walks and the talks filled her in, let her see more of the Village as a whole and the little subculture of which she was becoming a part. But they did not spend all their time walking. For hours on end they were at Megan’s apartment—no, their apartment, for she lived there now. Mornings, she would awake before Megan and go into the kitchen to cook breakfast. Cooking had been that part of her marriage she had most enjoyed. She had a knack for it, could follow recipes or invent her own. But cooking for Tom had been a joyless pastime; he approached all food as if he were an automobile and the food were gasoline, mere fuel for his engine. There had been no cooking facilities in her Grove Street room, and with only herself to cook for, she had not missed them.
Now she was in her element. She cooked for Megan, a girl who was able to appreciate good food. And a girl who loved her, and whom she loved. This made a difference. Saturday morning she made omelets with crisp bacon on the side and a pot of strong fresh coffee. Saturday night, late, she tossed a salad together and they killed a bottle of chilled wine with it. Sunday she baked a cake.
“So domestic,” Megan said. “I ought to marry you, kitten.”
“We’d shock some poor judge.”
“Uh-huh.”
The best part was neither the walks nor the cooking. Even the lovemaking, deeply exciting, profoundly satisfying, was not the most important aspect of that weekend. They went to each other often that weekend, found new ways of giving and taking pleasure from one another, made the world go away and leave them alone in time and space. But even more important were the lazy silent times, the quiet and peaceful times when all that really mattered was the fact that they were together.
Lying in bed in the afterglow of love, sharing a cigarette, talking not at all. Sitting in the living room with a record on the hi-fi and a bottle of wine open on the table before them. Or sitting with eyes locked together, eyes proposing and eyes accepting in the preliminary overtures to yet another trip to the bedroom and to center of the physical universe.
She had not known it could be so fine. Not merely the sexual part, which was something very special, but the whole idyllic notion of being loved and in love. It had not been like this before, and she doubted that it could ever have been like this with any other person, man or woman. Only with Megan, only with the two of them together.
So happy.
Sunday night Megan said, “There’s a party tonight. But let’s not go to it.”
“What kind of party?”
“Some girls I know.”
“A gay party?”
“Of course. We’re a congenial lot, you know. None of us can stand