Enough of Sorrow Read online

  She left her apartment early in the day. The sun was bright, the air warm and fresh. She rode a bus to 42nd Street and went to a movie. She left after the first show ended and walked to a cafeteria. She sat for several hours drinking coffee and smoking cigarettes. No one talked to her, no one bothered her. The coffee sharpened the edge of thought. Her mind worked swiftly.

  Calmly and soberly and dispassionately she reviewed everything she knew of lesbians. The initial pit of black reaction had evaporated with yesterday’s raindrops. Now she try to determine what she thought and what she felt.

  She had never given lesbians much thought, she realized. There had been girls whom she had recognized as homosexual, girls she had heard that kind of talk about, but she had never known one of them well, had never had a lesbian for a friend. She had known two male homosexuals, both of them members of the uptown world she and Ronnie had inhabited. The area—the West Seventies—was glutted with them. Gay jokes had been a standard item in her social circle at the time.

  Had she ever had strong feelings one way or the other? Not that she remembered. One of the fellows—funny, but she couldn’t recall his name—had been very nice to her, always anxious to talk to her while most of the others in that group were Ronnie’s friends and accepted her only because she was living with him. Phillip, that was his name, had been a friend, and the fact that he was a homosexual had never entered into their relationship. It was simply what he was; had he been an Italian, or a salesman, or a bald-headed man, it would have meant as much to her.

  Ronnie had joked above it. At least don’t have to worry about Phillie beating my time with you. You just haven’t got what he’s looking for, kid. You’re not his type…

  And on the night when she told him of her pregnancy, and he gave her a verbal slap with How do I know it’s mine, kid? Biting back tears, she asked who he thought might have fathered the child. For all I know it’s Phillie-Boy’s, he had said, and his harsh laughter tore her to little pieces.

  She put out a cigarette in an ashtray and finished her coffee. She carried the cup to the counter and brought back a fresh one and lit another cigarette while she waited for the coffee to cool to a drinkable temperature. She remembered, rationally now, her feelings after Rae had made love to her. The delicious glow had endured for a moment, and then it was gone in a rush and the agony and sinfulness and loathing took its place.

  Why?

  She could not answer this question satisfactorily. It did not make sense for her to react so blindly. Something had happened between them, something which she might easily have written off as little more than an unpredictable side-effect of too much wine and an overdose of the lonelies. She could have shrugged off the whole experience or she could have cast Rae as the seductive ogre and rationalized her own part in the proceedings.

  Yet she had done none of these things. She had hated herself at least as much as she had hated the blonde girl, and she had let herself drift around in a fog for a whole day, sitting in the rain and running a strong risk of catching pneumonia or being hauled off to Bellevue as a catatonic. And out of what? Out of a monumental fear-hate for homosexuality? Why?

  Because you liked it, Karen.

  She tapped a cigarette on the back of one hand, so calm now, so mentally efficient. Because she liked it? Was that the explanation?

  Two cigarettes and three cups of black coffee later, she knew more about herself than she had ever known before. She turned both hands palm-up and looked at her wrists, at the white lines upon them, the thin ones where she had made her first attempts, the thicker deeper ones that had nearly snuffed her out. The doctor had told her she would carry those scars for a long time. Perhaps forever. And she looked at them now and thought of the invisible scars that everyone carried and that she would always possess. Some scar tissue never went away. It might heal, it might grow stronger than the original flesh, but it was scarred and it remained that way.

  She knew. Oh, she knew.

  For two days she let the world alone and the world in turn ignored her. The job would start soon. She had called Leon Gordon once to make sure that everything was in order, and the agent told her she could report to work Monday morning. “Got a jump on the lease, kid,” he explained. “The bum who was in here moved out in a hurry owing money to half the town, so you can start first of the week. And take care of that voice. You gotta keep sounding refined.”

  Twice she had seen Rachel Cooper. Once from her window. She was sitting at the window, just sitting and thinking, and she saw the blonde girl emerge from their building and the wind whipping the long coat tight against her legs, the wind tossing the golden hair. A cab pulled up and Rae opened the door and got inside, and the door closed and the cab pulled away and was gone.

  Another time they passed in the building’s entranceway. Neither of them spoke. Karen had felt the rush of blood to her face. Her hands trembled like leaves in a windstorm. And for a moment Rae seemed on the verge of speaking, as if groping for a phrase, for the right words. They passed in silence.

  One night she heard footsteps in the corridor. The steps halted at her door, and she waited for the knock but no knock came. There was a long moment of silence, and she ached to say something, anything, and then at last the footsteps resumed and Rae walked past her closed door without knocking.

  Rae could have knocked. Or she could have called out, inviting the knock. But they had both waited.

  In bed, waiting for sleep to come, she decided that she was glad the blonde girl had made no move. Rae had to desire her—this was important—but still she did not want to be pushed into anything, neither pushed nor pulled. She thought of this and smiled at the darkness and slept.

  There were some thoughts to think about, so many thoughts to examine, so many feelings to mull over and attune to. One had to take time, she thought, because a mistake would be a disaster and she could not afford much more in the way of disaster. Yet there was not an eternity of time. Rae would not wait forever, and she herself could not wait forever.

  At times, sitting over dinner, dreaming in her room over a book, she would feel a burst of longing and sit bolt upright, trying to define and appraise it. Sometimes she identified it as loneliness. When one is always silent, when one neither speaks nor is spoken to, when one carries on wordless conversations with one’s self day in and day out, loneliness becomes a living thing to be contended with. She would react to a thought or a sight or anything at all and have no one with whom to share it. She would think so many things and have no opportunity to give them voice. She had never been the type to speak with strangers, to bandy small talk with shopkeepers. The thoughts and ideas stayed locked up inside and the loneliness grew like cancer.

  Or there would be the sexual longings. These always came when she was not ready for them. Often in bed, late at night or early in the morning, when she was either awaiting sleep or drugged with it, there would be a tingling itch at the tips of her breasts or a quivering warmth at her loins, and her mind would begin to swirl away into dark fantasy before she knew quite what was happening. At times her hands would go to the source of discontent, embracing her breasts or groping for her loins, less to caress than to somehow reassure, and then she would redden with solitary embarrassment and force her mind and body away from lustfulness.

  The loneliness and the longings all pointed the same way, toward a girl with golden hair and knowing hands and eager lips. It was just a question of time, and she knew this and knew it well. It was just a question of time, and, one Friday evening, one sweet evening, the time had come.

  A dark night, thoroughly dark, moonless and starless. She sat a long time at the window, and she was still sitting there when a taxi stopped at the curb and Rae stepped out of it. Her heart gave a sudden almost painful throb, and her loins went instantly warm, and she knew it was time. For a horrid moment she was positive that she had waited too long, that there was someone with Rae. But no, the girl was alone.

  She waited. There were footsteps on th
e stairs, and she heard them reach her floor and pass on upward. She waited, and she lit a cigarette and put it out after a single drag, and knew that it was time. In the bathroom she scrubbed her face clean and put on rouge and lipstick and a hint of eye-shadow. She checked the result and fussed with her hair and knew that she did not look at all pretty, that she was really a frightfully plain thing.

  She trembled as she climbed the stairs. She walked softly across the floor to Rae’s door, and she stood there for a few eternal seconds, and then she knocked, twice.

  “Yes?”

  “It’s Karen,” she said, She did not recognize her own voice. It sounded wholly unfamiliar, foreign.

  The door opened. Eyes caught her own eyes. She stepped inside and drew a breath and pushed the door shut.

  “I’m afraid I’m a silly person,” she managed to say. “A stupid person, actually. There are too many things I just do not know. About myself, about…everything.”

  She caught her breath. Her head was whirling. “I’m sorry for being such a fool,” she said. The words came a little easier now. “I want to be here. Now. With you.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  “Would you like to talk, Karen?”

  “No.”

  “Can I get you anything to drink? I have a little scotch left in the bottle, not very much, but—”

  “No, thank you.

  Tell me, Rae’s eyes were saying. Cue me in, let me know how you want me to play it. Fast or slow, hard or soft, let me know and we’ll play it your way.

  “Just love me,” she heard herself say. Her words surprised her, startled her. She took an involuntary step backward, surprised by what she had said, the boldness of her words, the stark nakedness of desire. that underlay them. Was she then so very much in need? Was her desire that raw?

  “Oh…”

  There was a moment telescoped in time, a moment of hands reaching and flesh groping. She was transfixed, a bird hypnotized by a snake, a doe caught in a cars headlights at night. Until Rae caught her and held her and kissed her and tore the image forever out of focus.

  Rae’s lips on her own were feathers upon silk, hummingbird wings beating against the petals of a rose. Rae’s hands held her shoulders, then moved down along her arms to her elbows, then caught her waist and passed around her back to draw her close. At first Karen’s eyes were open, staring blindly at the closed eyes of the girl who was kissing her. Then, easily, her eyes fluttered shut and her heart beat audibly and her throat grew dust-dry, a deep burning aridness running all the way back from her mouth. Her knees melted. She thought she might fall, and she clutched Rae as if to keep herself from losing her balance entirely.

  They kissed again. Now she gave herself up wholly to the kiss, her arms tightening around Rae, her lips parting of their own accord to accept the fullness of the kiss. She felt and was enormously conscious of the pressure of their bodies together, two fine and beautiful girl bodies, thighs pressed against thighs, breasts against breasts, mouths glued wetly together.

  The fear and trembling died and melted away. The awful nameless anxiety drifted off. Rae’s hand released their grip, Rae’s lips withdrew, and Karen stood for a moment, eyes still shut, waiting. For an instant it was like waking at dawn, waking up from a good dream and hugging the pillow, reluctant to meet the day, reluctant to give up the warmth and sweetness of the dream.

  Then she let go of it, when she opened her eyes, she saw Rae still standing in front of her, the ghost of a smile upon her lips.

  “I’ll turn out the lights.”

  “All right.”

  Rae crossed to the doorway, flicked the switch to turn off the bare lightbulb overhead. Karen did not move. Rae took her hand, and the two of them moved through the half-darkness, moved quickly and silently across the carpeted floor to the small bed. She sat on the bed and Rae sat beside her and they kissed. She turned in Rae’s arms. Rae’s tongue stroked Karen’s lips, probing, seeking, searching. Yearning took wings and turned to passion. They clutched each other, moved on the bed, tumbling awkwardly until they were stretched out full-length upon the narrow cot, their arms around one another, their mouths drawing nourishment from each other.

  While she lay there, while Rae made love to her, her hands so skillful and lips so knowing, she felt a sort of detachment that was almost schizoid in nature. A Karen Winslow was upon her back on a bed in a dark room while a beautiful blonde girl unfastened a button and worked a zipper and touched here and kissed there. That Karen Winslow felt it all and responded to it all, stirred by each kiss, provoked by each touch, drawn ever more deeply into the rhythm of passion.

  But at the same time another Karen Winslow, ethereal, amorphous, sat or floated somewhere across the room, somewhere in space. And this alien Karen Winslow did not participate but merely observed, watching and knowing all while feeling nothing at all…

  Hands touched her bare breasts, cupped them, felt their weight. Lips brushed over her lips, over her cheek, nibbled at the hollow of her throat. Moved dawn past her shoulder, moved down across satin skin toward the perfection of her breasts.

  She had grown naked. Rae’s clever hands, so quick so gentle, had removed every stitch of Karen’s clothing. The air was cool on her bare skin, cool in sharp contrast to the fire of Rae’s mouth, of Rae’s hands, of Rae’s warm body…

  Where their flesh touched, fire spread. Warm, glowing fire, hot coals in a campsite’s residue. Ashes to ashes, lust to lust—the Karen Winslow who sat observing picked up this bit of doggerel and played with it like a cat with yarn. Ashes to ashes, lust to lust, belly to belly and breast to breast.

  Somewhere the alien Karen, the untouched observer, shapeless voyeuse, went forever away. Somehow passion and desire took complete control. The well of her blood surged in her loins. Her nipples, alert with hunger, rose to Rae’s lips and tingled at the touch. Her thighs trembled, sprang apart like startled fish. Her hips were caught up in a rhythm too long forgotten, a rhythm that had already been ancient when the world itself was young, rocking straining writhing rhythm of love…

  Everyone she had wanted only to be loved. Now she yearned to love and be loved, to do and be done, to have be had, to possess as she was in turn possessed. Her own hands sought, her own lips searched and joyfully discovered. Her hands filled themselves with Rae’s breasts, twin cones of warm yielding flesh, and she thrilled alike to the feel of Rae’s flesh in her hands and to the sharp intake of breath that signalled Rae’s urgent excitement.

  I am doing this, she thought. I am exciting this girl, this beautiful marvellous girl. I am making her happy. I am doing this, I, I…

  The special feel of slippery flesh drawn across flesh. The sharp scent of sweat mingling magically with the odors of passion. The taste, the glorious taste, of Rae.

  Their bodies moved on the bed. She was no more than barely conscious of this. Her hands, her lips, her whole body seemed to act with a will all its own. She did things without thinking of them or willing them, did things she had never known she knew how to do. It seemed as though she were proceeding by some deep instinct, as though the rituals of their lovemaking were somehow inborn. And their bodies melted and flowed together like twins streams of lava flowing down the sloping sides of a volcano.

  She was a flower opening to a bee.

  She was a bee draining nectar from a blossom.

  Magic…

  “I thought you would never come back, Karen.”

  “I couldn’t stay away.”

  “I thought I’d scared you.”

  “You did. Desperately.”

  “The wine…”

  “I know.”

  “It would have happened sooner or later. It had to. I wanted you at once, you know.”

  “I didn’t know.”

  “I saw it in you when we first met. Your eyes, perhaps. I didn’t trust myself. Afraid to. People see what they want to see, you know. A play I saw once—I forget the title, something in Eden—Winter in Eden? That sounds close enough. A musical versi
on of Adam and Eve. In one scene Satan is tempting Eve and she says he looks like a snake, and he says Women see snakes everywhere. Get it? The Freudian symbol. Women see snakes because that’s what they look for, only for snakes you read phallic symbols. A lovely line, really, but you have to think about it before it makes sense. Which might explain the play’s monumental impact upon the world of theater. The audience walked out humming the Freudian symbols. Where was I?”

  “Here. With me.”

  “Mmmmm. Well—people see what they look for, so I suppose I thought you were gay because I wanted you to be gay. It happens constantly downtown. You think you’re getting a long-drink look from the most with-it kid since Sappho and turns out to be a devoutly heterosexual NYU coed, and the stirring stare doesn’t mean she’s warm for your form, just that her contact lenses are making holes in her eyes. Am I talking coherently?”

  “Not especially.”

  “I had that feeling. Love gives me tons of things to say while it renders me utterly inarticulate. How do you feel?”

  “Mmmmm.”

  “Happy?”

  She opened her eyes, closed them again. The room was still, night outside dark and silent. Rae was curled up on the bed, her long legs tucked under her, one knee brushing but not quite touching Karen’s hip. Karen lay prone on the bed with her head on a pillow. She felt somehow strange, relaxed and enervated all at once, sated and wholly content and yet on edge.

  “Happy,” she said at length.

  “You don’t sound too certain.”

  “But I am.”

  “Silly question, this, but I’ll ask it. Was this your first time?”

  Half a smile with eyes still shut. “The first time was a few nights ago. With you.”

  “Ah, yes. I knew the answer, you know. That you hadn’t been with another girl before me. But I had to ask the question. I’m not an enormously secure person, dear. What was the man’s name? The one who made you cut yourself?”