Warm and Willing - Lawrence Block [29]
It felt very strange. Her feet were not entirely sure of what they were supposed to be doing, but she did the best she could, taking the redheaded girl in her arms, holding her rather stiffly, and leading her around the makeshift dance floor. The mechanics of taking the man’s part were foreign to her, and she realized suddenly that she and Megan had always taken it for granted that Megan would lead and that she would follow.
“I’m not doing very well at this,” she told Sara.
“Oh, this is fine.”
The dancing itself was asexual enough. She held the girl almost at arm’s length, as if close contact would be either dangerous or unpleasant. And yet, somewhere, there was a vague stirring, a faint sexual call to arms. She thought at one point that it came from acting the male role in the dance, as though it were a part she wanted to play. She was glad when the record ended and Sara went off to find another partner.
Megan found her and they went off to have a drink together. They finished their drinks and started to dance, but then another girl cut in halfway through a number and began dancing with Megan, and Rhoda went for another drink and came from the kitchen as the record was ending. Bobbie Kardaman took her arm and whirled her out onto the dance floor.
Bobbie led. She had rather thought that would happen.
They danced through two records that way before Megan cut in again. And, dancing with Bobbie, she felt something that went beyond the simple pleasure of dancing with another girl. Bobbie’s right hand was halfway around her waist, Bobbie’s cheek close to hers, Bobbie’s breasts pressing now and then against her own breasts. At first she told herself it was accidental, convinced herself that such sudden contact was inevitable in a room so full of people.
It was more than that and she couldn’t avoid realizing as much. There was purpose in the way Bobbie held her, design in the contact of leg with leg, of breast with breast. Bobbie wanted her.
And she couldn’t help feeling her own response.
She tried to push the feeling aside, tried to tell herself that it was crazy or wrong or both. She loved Megan and Megan loved her, and yet Bobbie was making some sort of play for her and she didn’t have the good sense to get away from the girl, couldn’t help responding to the sweet stimulus of Bobbie’s embrace. Nothing would happen, she told herself angrily. The record would end finally, and she would be with Megan again, and she and Megan would go home together and Bobbie would find some other girl and everything would work out, there would be no more of this foolishness.
The record ended. She got away from Bobbie and scanned the room looking for Megan. Megan had just asked a flat-chested mousy girl to dance. Rhoda bit her lip and hurried off to the kitchen for another drink.
Once, between dances, she was in the kitchen when two girls in their thirties stumbled in and embraced. She was embarrassed, but she couldn’t leave the room because they blocked the door. She tried not to look at them, tried not to hear them. They kissed, and one of the women ran a hand over the other’s body.
And one said, “Oh, darling, you can’t go home. You can’t, you have to stay with me.”
“God—”
“You love me. You know you love me.”
“I think Harold suspects. I’m so afraid—”
“Tell him. And leave him, darling.”
“But he’s my husband. And I love him, I do, but—”
“He doesn’t know you. He’s not right for you, darling.”
“I never should have let you love me. I should have stayed away from you.”
“But you do love me—”
And they were lost in a kiss again. Rhoda tried not to watch them but she couldn’t help herself. The married woman was breathing heavily, eyes closed, breasts heaving. The other woman kissed her all over her face and reached for her breasts with an urgent hand. She worked on the married woman with technique born of long experience, and Rhoda could see resistance and fear melting away as passion grew up to conquer all.
Married, she thought. Married