“Linda?”
“Linda Robshaw. Hugh’s been going with her lately. He went out with her the first time the night before you were over at our house, that was why I made my brilliant foot-in-mouth play. She’s nice, I think. But I get very uptight being with her.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know exactly. I don’t think it’s anything that she does, but she makes me feel like a kid.”
“That’s funny.”
“What is?”
She started to moisten her lips with her tongue, then stopped herself when she realized what she was doing. “That she makes you feel like a kid. You make me feel like a kid.”
“How?”
“Hell, I don’t know. Maybe because you know what this is all about and I don’t.”
“Don’t you, Melanie?”
“No.” She reached for a cigarette, lit it. “Would you like some more Pepsi?”
“I still have some. What sign are you, Melanie?”
“Capricorn.”
“Sure, that figures.”
“It does? I don’t know much about it.”
“Tenacious, stubborn, honest, hardworking toward a goal. I don’t know much about it either but those are the main tendencies. I’m Virgo on the Leo cusp. Virgo is honest and direct and literal-minded and Leo is dramatic and sort of loud. It’s supposed to be kind of an interesting combination.”
“I guess it would be.”
“I’m also devious, though, and that doesn’t seem to fit in. Virgo and Capricorn are supposed to be compatible.”
“That’s interesting.”
“Yes, I think it’s very interesting. Why don’t you sit next to me, Melanie?”
She looked into those steady eyes and felt her own face softening, melting.
“Sit next to me.”
“I don’t know if I should.” She hardly recognized her own voice, so soft and liquid, so young.
“It’s not what you should do. It’s what you want to do.”
“I don’t know what I want.”
“Come over here.”
“Yes, all right. Maybe I should have a drink. Maybe we should both have a drink.”
“Afterward.”
“How pretty you are. Karen? Have you ever—”
“Yes.”
“I never have.”
“I knew that.”
“How can you tell?”
“I don’t know. I just can. You’re very beautiful.”
They kissed. She expected it to be strange and was struck by the familiarity of the experience, one she had never had before. It was not a feeling that she had done this before but that she had known all her life what it would be like. She felt the tips of Karen’s fingers trace a line down her cheek and across her shoulder, felt Karen’s hand close around her breast.
Not excitement but longing, yearning. How different. How utterly different.
“Kiss me some more, Melanie.”
“Oh, yes. Yes.”
‘You don’t need a drink now, do you?”
“No.”
“You need me. We need each other.”
“Yes.”
“You’re like silk here.”
“God, how that feels.”
“So soft and silky.”
“Someone once wanted me to shave it”
“A man?”
“Of course a man. I never—”
“God, don’t ever do it.”
“I won’t. Oh, Karen.”
“Can we go upstairs now?”
“Yes.”
She worried on the way to the bedroom that she would not know what to do, but it turned out that there was very little for her to do. Karen undressed her, positioned her on her back on the bed. Karen talked to her, talked gently, feeding her lines to which she could respond without thinking. Karen stripped and joined her on the bed, their bodies barely touching at first. Karen kissed her, long deep kisses, and Karen’s hands touched her body with the special knowledge male hands could not have. She had touched her own body in this fashion, with this same special knowledge, and Karen’s hands were like her own hands and yet they were not her own hands, they were Karen’s hands, and they worked magic upon her skin.
Karen’s mouth kissed her breasts, then burrowed downward, not too quickly, not too slowly. Karen knelt between her legs so that only Karen’s mouth touched her, Karen’s mouth upon her cunt and Karen’s soft girl’s cheeks like feathers against the insides of her thighs.
For a long time she held a portion of herself in reserve, kept part of her being from letting go. But Karen’s mouth kept assuring her in silent speech that there was no hurry, there was no rush, there was all the time in the world. There was no urgency in this. No one had to catch a train or keep a lunch date. There was time, worlds of time, and all you had to do was float on the wave, float on the wave—
Until without knowing it she let go, let go all the way, and she was there.
“Oh, how wonderful. How perfect.”
“You’re so fantastic, Melanie.”
“Me? All I did was lie there.”
“Oh, no. You don’t understand.”
“I mean, what did I do?”
“Never mind. You’re beautiful.”
“Am I?”
“Oh, come on. You can’t not know it.”
“I know I turn men on.”
“You turn girls on, too.” Karen touched her breast, stroked it not with passion but with admiration. “You must have had girls come on to you before.”
“I don’t think so. Not that I was ever aware of. I suppose I was never looking for it and might not have known. Is that possible?”
“It’s possible.” Karen curled up next to her. Melanie closed her eyes. She was almost asleep when she heard Karen speak her name. She opened her eyes.
“It’s your turn, Melanie.”
She had known this. The knowledge was what made sleep such a temptation. She rolled onto her side and covered her hesitation with a smile. “I suppose fair is fair, huh?”
“Oh, Melanie!”
“I was kidding, honey, I—”
Karen’s eyes were wide. The girl’s hands fastened on Melanie’s shoulders, drew their bodies close together.
“You don’t understand,” Karen said.
“Sure I do.”
“No, no you don’t. Oh, wow! I mean, doing it is the whole point. That’s what it’s about. The other part, you’ve had that before.”
“I told you I never—”
“I mean with a man.”
“It’s not the same. You must know that.
“It’s not the same, no, of course it’s not, but it’s the same idea. It’s the same act. But when you do it, you get to be on the other side of the mirror. You can’t do it for me, Melanie, baby. You have to do it for yourself.”
“I don’t know if it’ll work that way.”
“I know more about this than you do.”
“Yeah, I’ll buy that.”
“It’s better to give than to receive. Better because it feels better. That’s absolutely what it’s all about, just have to get into it.”
“But I don’t know how.”
“Just do what you like doing. Just start and See what happens. Do what you’d like if it was your body. As if both of us were you.”
“Oh.”
“Did I find the right words? Does that put it together for you?”
“Yes, of course it does.”
Afterward she felt a kind of peace she had never known before. She had found herself in Karen’s body and knew herself in a wholly new way. She remained still for an indeterminable period of time, curled up at Karen’s feet. Then she got up from the bed.
“Where are you going, Melanie?”
“I need a drink, and not a Pepsi. Can I get you something?”
“Do you have scotch?”
“I’m pretty sure all we have is applejack.”
“What’s that?”
“Brandy made from apples.”