The love of pleasure begets grief and the dread of pain causes fear.
BUDDHA, date unknown
1
Sandra said: Sorry I’m bleeding.
That’s okay, said the lesbian.
She sent Sandra away happy; then came Holly, who was also bleeding.
Come to think of it, Holly was always bleeding. And one night Holly called her, weeping.
What’s wrong? asked the lesbian.
Don’t worry, honey; the doctor said I’ll probably be all right, but I’ll have to get a hysterectomy; I’m a little scared . . .
I’ll come with you, said the lesbian.
She had to cancel on Francine, who resented it graciously.
The waiting room was bright and fake, with a yawning receptionist reigning over sad women reading celebrity magazines. Shining like an October moon over an altar of women, the lesbian held Holly’s left hand while Holly’s right hand paged through a tabloid. The lesbian looked down into Holly’s lap and read: She told me that she sleeps in a silk nightgown, that she must have eight hours of sleep or she’s a wreck, and that she often gathers her friends in her room and holds a back-scratching party. Everyone sits in a circle and scratches everyone else’s back. “If you haven’t had your back scratched, you haven’t lived!” Judy said.
Holly Liebling, said the receptionist.
Holly and the lesbian approached the end of the counter, where a nurse stood with a clipboard. Smiling into the lesbian’s face, the nurse said warmly: You must be Holly.
I am, said Holly.
The nurse regarded her with disappointment. She said: And who’s this?
My partner Neva. I want her to come in.
The nurse peeped at Neva, who smiled at her. That settled it; who could resist the lesbian?
She led them to the consultation room, took Holly’s temperature and pulse, and left them. The lesbian helped her sweetheart change into a gown. Then the gynecologist came in. Holly lay down with her feet in the stirrups while the lesbian stood at the side of the table, holding her hand. After a quick and gentle examination, the gynecologist went out, returned almost at once and said: I think we’d better schedule the procedure as soon as possible.
Swallowing hard, Holly said: Do I have cancer?
It’s still in the very early stage, and I’m confident we can entirely remove the problem, said the gynecologist.
Oh, my God, said Holly. Oh, my God.
I love you, said the lesbian, squeezing her hand.
Oh, God, I love you, too! Neva, I’m afraid—
The gynecologist said: Ms. Liebling, you’re a lucky lady to have such a beautiful partner. How long have you been together?
A year, said the lesbian.
Off and on, inserted Holly, bursting into tears.
I see, said the gynecologist. Well, I think we’ve caught this in time. I’ll leave you now, and if you would, on your way out just talk with Cindy and she can help you schedule your surgery. Nice to meet you, Neva.
On the day of Holly’s hysterectomy the lesbian kept her company on the streetcar. She sat next to her in the waiting room. She held her hand when the anesthetic went into her arm. When Holly was dead asleep and snoring, she went to the waiting room and closed her eyes. She felt so tired, nauseous and cold! After two hours they brought Holly out in a wheelchair.—No, explained Cindy, her insurance doesn’t cover any overnights.
With great effort, Holly slurred out: Please, Neva, can I stay at your place?
Of course, said the lesbian.
And all night she held the other woman, who snored trustfully in her arms. Through the next day Holly rested, tended by the adorable lesbian; until by nightfall she had far enough recovered to drink in the utterly fulfilling sensation of caressing Neva’s shoulder, buttock, belly or breast, round and round, over and over.
But on the day after that, well, as you can well imagine, she had to go, because the rest of us needed our turns.
2
Girlfriend, girlfriend, girlfriend! sang the transwoman.
What is it, honey?
No, I was just singing your name. By the way, you are going grey. But, Neva, if I ask you something, will you promise not to get mad?
I promise.
Who’s the love of your life?
You are.
And Shantelle?
Sure.
Who was the one before all of us?
Well, there was an old woman on an island. And she—
Is that true? I know! And you were both mermaids, right? So you loved her more than you love me.
No, Judy.
And before her? Why do you look so sad? That means I’m getting warm, aren’t I? What was her name?
The lesbian closed her eyes. She was getting cramps.
Neva, you’ve never held out on me before!
Of course I have. Some things are private.
You mean, you really won’t tell me?
She called herself E-beth but we—
And you loved her the most?
Well, at the time I did.
Where is she?
I don’t know.
You’ll never marry me and live with me, will you?
No, honey, said the lesbian. Just a minute; I need to—
What about her? If she came and said, Neva, please take me back; I’ll do anything . . . ?
She wouldn’t.
But if she did . . .
Judy, that was long ago. She couldn’t understand me now.
Well, I can. You know how much I love you! Don’t I understand you? Tell the truth, Neva!
I’ll be right back, said the lesbian, rushing to the bathroom to have diarrhea. She hurried, because Judy was waiting; Judy was demanding: Don’t I? I need to know!
You understand the part of me that—
Excuse me, but that’s evasive bullshit. Are you going to make me cry?
I was saying, the part of me that loves you in the way you love me. There’s a different part for everybody.
You’re saying that nobody gets the whole you. Right?
You can put it that way . . .
Well, I don’t believe it. I just don’t.
I’m sorry, said the lesbian.
It’s not very nice, the transwoman sobbed. I feel so . . .
Please forgive me, said the lesbian. And she bought her a stick of fancy lip-plumping gel for an early Christmas present.
3
When Shantelle raised the same topic, the argument played out differently. To be specific, she hit the lesbian again.
For an instant her rage exhilarated her; she resembled Athena scream-grinning, with golden feathers blossoming from her shoulder-wings. She longed to crush Neva into red and brown stains.
Then she worried about what Neva would do. Other women she’d punched around had stopped fucking her, stopped loving her, attacked her or called the police. But Neva only smiled at her.
Neva had a black eye. Neva kept smiling and silently weeping. Shantelle felt so sad she could hardly stand it!
She craved to drink from her mouth, and thus be her, but most of all she needed to destroy that smile.
She said: Maybe you’re tryin’ to act like Buddha or Jesus or something. Well, Neva, guess what? By pretendin’ not to care you’re just a goddamn coward. Come to think of it, you’re a motherfuckin’ coward.
Motherfucking, that’s me, said the lesbian.
Sorry, babe, said Shantelle. I don’t know why I said that. But anyway, so what? Just because I cursed you out, you gotta make a grudge against me?
No, I love you the same.
Clenching her fists, Shantelle demanded: Why won’t you let me in? Bitch, what are you doin’ to me?
Coolly and steadily (that being the way to reach this woman) the lesbian said: I’m pretty simple, actually—just legs and tits and three holes for people to use. Mostly I don’t feel or plan anything—
When I punched you, you sure as shit felt something then!
Neva smiled at her.
Didn’t you, bitch?
No, it happened to someone else.
That’s a lie! Look at them tears! And you’re always schemin’ things out, callin’ us here, sendin’ us away—
I’m only reactive.
What does that mean?
It means you lead and I follow.
Shantelle’s face locked down. She ran out, slamming the door. The lesbian got up to ice her black eyes. A quarter-hour later Shantelle came knocking and pounding. The lesbian did not answer. Shantelle began kicking the door until the manager and his cousin expelled her.
An hour after that it was Francine’s turn. At the first knock, the door opened.
Neva, my God, what happened to you?
Come lie down with me, sweetheart.
Why won’t you tell me?
The lesbian, smiling at the other woman so lovingly or at least compliantly, thought: You can’t even begin to know me.—She said: Everything’s okay.—Her eyes rolled up and she began snoring.
And until one in the morning Francine watched the lesbian huddled on the dark bed, so slender and hollowed out that the bed might as well have been empty.
4
That was the point when she finally asked me what we should do for Neva.
There perched Samantha with her wine cooler and Xenia with her Old German Lager, who was confessing to Sandra: You know, I just didn’t think about it then, because I had kids; I never had an orgasm until I was with a woman . . .—and then, proceeding rightward, Holly, Selene and Victoria, like those pairs of sad girls who sit side by side in the dark back booths of strip clubs, waiting for enough men to enter that the bright blonde whirling and squatting girls in the blue light will accept reinforcements; now Francine and I had become the bright deciders; our names went up in secret lights.—Just then the Europeans were absent, leaving our contingent of slummers perfectly well represented by the pretty intern who loved to talk about babies and who now explained to Francine that her mother had phoned her aunt, who was absolutely forcing her to pick out a graduation dress for which her mother would pay. Francine said: Tell your mother to buy me a dress, at which the intern awoke from her dream of sisterhood to realize that she was in the wrong place and maybe even in trouble. She fled quickly, leaving no tip, and that was all we ever saw of her.
I, who nearly always advocated doing nothing, reminded Francine that to our knowledge the retired policeman had blacked the transwoman’s eye on at least two occasions, and we had stayed out of it. Anyhow, wasn’t Neva a grownup?
That’s because Judy’s different. Their relationship, you know—
She thrives on it.
I know, I know. But when Shantelle hits Neva, that’s not consensual.
How can you tell, Francine? Who knows what Neva lets others do to her? Listen. Are you ready to swear that she ever gets off?
Yes.
You bring her to orgasm, every time?
Don’t you?
That’s the point. Are we all such red-hot lovers, or does she—
Neva does not fake it. Not ever. And if you are so fucked up—
So what gets her off? Everything, right?
But, Richard, how do you feel, seeing that bruise?
I hate Shantelle for hurting her. But Neva—
Did you ask her?
About this? No.
Well, I did.
I can guess what she told you: Don’t worry, and it’s okay . . .
You nailed it.
So let’s not go against Neva. But if you want to warn Shantelle—
Then she’ll starting raging.
So you’ll eighty-six her—
And she’ll go charging off and maybe . . .
Exactly. What if she really does hurt her?
Just as when one sees a hooded mound of clothes in a wheelchair on Taylor Street, and cannot tell whether a person is inside, so I now stared into Francine, who might as well have been a robot; then I went out, somewhere, anywhere, which is to say into the lovely jet-blackness of Taylor Street on this rainy night when headlights shone like precious and semiprecious beads; I decided to hook up with the retired policeman.
5
Her high school girlfriend was Elizabeth Jackson, he said.
You mean Jane Doe, I said.
Fuck off, smartass. In her junior and senior years Karen Strand checked into at least four hotel rooms with an Elizabeth Jackson, who was then either twenty-three or twenty-six. This may be the same Elizabeth Jackson who was charged with statutory rape in 1996. And that’s significant, because when a woman does it, he informed me in a well-nursed rage, they usually let her off, as in this case. You or I wouldn’t have a chance.
Yeah, I said.
Our background was the lovely body of a stripper squatting in the rosy light, writhing on the floor, working her buttocks into a sort of pout, slowly pulling down her G-string, then touching her hair with both hands, doubtless in order to give her breasts a lift, while an old couple quietly watched her, hand in hand; two chairs away from them was the rugged old man who kept quietly respectfully stepping up to the stage to lay down another dollar-offering; behind him sat the two of us, addressing the matter of Neva.
Since the retired policeman was getting distracted, I asked: Who was raped?
Another high school girl, Virgilie Ferraro from Martinez, who insisted it was consensual: Elizabeth Jackson was the love of her goddamn life. Well, the D.A. didn’t give a shit about the love part.
What happened to Virgilie?
Became an elementary school teacher. Maybe she’s passing on whatever Elizabeth taught her. You know, physical education.
What about Elizabeth?
Never even had to register as a sex offender. Clerks in a medical marijuana dispensary in El Cerrito. Apparently keeps clear of Vallejo, where the crime took place; that’s also where Karen went to high school.
I said nothing, so he continued: Used to be a dog groomer, but she fuckin’ loves cats. I’ve been to her place. Wide-eyed furballs everywhere. The kennel or whatever it is just changed owners, but she’s still . . .
I told him: If you don’t stand for something, you fall for everything.
Suddenly as out of sorts as a stripper who gets suddenly called upon to be awake before noon, he looked me up and down, saying: What the hell does that mean?
Oh, I said. It’s motivational.
Well, keep me away from that positive bullshit. I only do negativity.
Is Elizabeth positive or negative?
I depolarized her. Made it clear I was on to her about our Karen. Gave her some fear. Now, Richard, don’t babble about this, not to Judy by a long shot and not even to Francine. I’m almost where I want to be, and you’re not gonna muck it up. Okay?
Okay.
Neva really is Karen Strand, or someone who looks like her. The Jackson bitch gave a positive I.D. I told her I’d come back, but I may not need to. Well, Sherlock? What’s my next move?
Finishing my bourbon and sodapop, I proposed: DNA test?
He laughed at me. He said: You wanna take away the interactive element. Without that, how can a cop get his jollies? And the lab in Hayward charges up to fifteen hundred to run an envelope that may or may not have saliva or little pieces of skin. The accuracy is still quite controversial, apparently. They’ve isolated sixteen segments of the DNA string, and at each of those sites, they lock on a link, and then, you know, they can’t quite do homo- versus heterozygous . . .—but that’s above your goddamn pay grade.
Then send in the cavalry. Call in an air strike. No, wait! I said. Why not interview Karen’s relatives?
Frowning, he said: If this were a novel, you’d have spoiled my suspense.
6
Holly called weeping, because her labs had come back neither dirty nor clean; she didn’t know how to get through the next four days until her second biopsy. She said: Neva, I can’t even think; I can’t sleep; I’m so nervous, and now they’re docking my pay at work and if I miss another day this week I’ll get a letter of reprimand—
Honey, come and see me, said the lesbian.
But isn’t it Francine’s turn?
I’ll explain it to her. Don’t worry.
She came to cry and be held. The lesbian embraced her tightly, stroking her back in that way which for Holly was magic. Finally the sad woman fell asleep.
When she awoke it was three in the morning. The lesbian, thirsty, hungry and exhausted, was still holding her, staring at the wall, subsumed in unceasing guilty dread about failing her and all of us. Holly said: Oh, my God, Neva, you look worn out . . . !
I didn’t want to let go of you. Because I love you.
I wish I could do something for you. It’s not fair, the way you take care of all of us.
But it makes me happy to be loved. Holly, I . . .
Oh, you look so tired! Are you hungry? I could order up some pizza, or we could go out; that halal place on the corner is really fast—
Are you hungry?
No, just . . . just shaken up—
Let’s go to bed, said the lesbian. Just sleep in my arms.
Neva, if I could do one thing for you, what would it be?
The lesbian said: Well, it would make me very happy if you’d kind of take Judy in hand and—
I don’t care shit about fucking Judy! I want to show my love for you! What’s wrong with you, Neva, that you . . .—Fine. I’m sorry. If that’s what you want, I’ll go to her and . . . What am I supposed to do?
Teach her about being a woman. She’s always picking everyone’s brains. She maybe or maybe not wants to be a lesbian—
But she’s with that prick who beats her and—
I know, said the lesbian. But we can’t do anything about that. Let me just pee and brush my teeth. And when you’re ready we can turn out the light.
7
At seven-forty-five that morning, when Holly crept wearily off to work, Neva was finally alone between appointments. She who had become the garment around us, the living robe which loved and sorrowed for what she covered, sat staring ahead, counting the various ways in which she had failed us. Instead of lifting us all up according to our deepest desires, she had betrayed and blighted us, evidently because she had not loved us enough. Now I wish I could have led her down Market Street to the curb across from Golden State Mall where in the smell of marijuana emitted by three young men with their glowing cell phones at the ready the amplified prophet announced: If I look at the moral law thou shalt not steal, I’ve stolen; that’s on my record; I’ve looked at my neighbor’s wife with lust, so I’ve committed adultery, so we’ve all failed. But she continued sinking down her checklist: How could she better exert her suffering heart so as to save us? How strange to realize that understanding was not helping! She knew us so well: the way that Al could best relieve his loneliness by praying to her at arm’s length in the darkened room; Xenia’s desperate desire to be considered wise; the concentrated taste of Sandra’s redhaired pussy, which stayed on sheets and fingers, and the strangely milder taste when she was menstruating, and . . . She declined to sing Reba’s song of names, and now someone was ringing the buzzer.
8
In came a long message from Xenia: I really did want to get a few things across to you, Neva. First of all, I was only forty-five minutes late. You had no idea how it impacted me. I sent a message to you and I walked miles and miles to get to you and I was really really upset. I had Energol and Hormonex and all kinds of drugs for you and I . . .
9
When I dropped by the Y Bar that day, Francine was clocking out early—very early.
Are you okay? I asked.
Not well, she grated.
At first I supposed that she was merely coming down from too much crystal. Her sweaty face kept going red and white like an old time neon sign. Then something made me ask: Is it from Neva?
And that hard, wary bitch burst into tears!
I said: Let me walk with you a bit.
She nodded rapidly. I knew that she was ashamed to break down in front of us. Alicia had just clocked in. She stood behind the bar gloating.
Francine lived somewhere on Turk Street. As soon as we had gone around the corner I said: Come home with me.
What the fuck do you mean? said my coy companion.
I love you, I said. And I never realized it until I saw you in pain. You love Neva and Judy, and so do I. Please, Francine, I can’t stand to see you sad.
I’m fine, she said.
Let me hold you and be good to you, I said.
Forget it, she said.
Francine, I whispered, sweet little Francine of mine, I’ve got medicine.
You do? What kind?
The best you’ve ever had.
What color is it?
Brown.
Powder? All right.
So I took her up to my place, bringing her by the more inviting way, past the late night pizza place where they spoke Arabic to each other and police cars sped ruby-like behind the white-graffiti’d window. And I showed her respect by not holding her hand. We passed the new cannabis shop by Penthe’s Bar and the Hotel Garland, where a tall glamorous T-girl came out and gloated: Now I’ve got drugs!, at which Francine and I smiled at each other. When we came up out of the Tenderloin at Geary and Van Ness with the rebar shining at the construction site across the street and the windows of the old auto showroom gleaming, I heard her inhale suddenly as if she were surprised or worse, so I carefully did not look at her. Then we were going upstairs. She suddenly stopped as if she feared me, so I told her: You don’t have to stay. I’ll give you medicine and then if you want to go home I’ll be sad but it’ll be fine.
She smiled.
As it happened, that day I had made my bed and even changed the sheets. She stood by the door, holding her purse. I poured out two glasses of equal portions cherry soda and All-American Rum. Then she came slowly closer, so that I could finally close the door. Handing her a cocktail, I said: Seven dollars! and she giggled. She raised it to her pretty lips and I said: Bottoms up!—We clinked glasses. When that round was gone, she pulled out a pint bottle of Binco Jack. We sat down on the edge of the bed. The afternoon was already looking up.
When’s your turn? I asked her.
Not for two more days. She’s so wonderful but sometimes I can’t stand it.
I get the chills afterward.
Well, I get hot flashes, as you can see. But don’t tell anyone.
I promise.
Each time it gets worse and worse—
Come on, baby, I said. What part of life doesn’t?
She laughed a little. Then she said: Richard, I’ve got to go.
Listen, I told her. I’ve got two doses of pure brown molly, and Shantelle does not know. We can’t have Neva all the time, so we’ve got to figure out how to get by. Francine, I do love you. And what I want to do with you right now is take ecstasy and lie down with you and hold you and stroke your hair and make you feel cherished.
Oh, stop it, she said. But she was already untying her shoes.
I went into the bathroom and closed the door, because it wasn’t her business how much molly I actually had, nor where I kept it. I poured out all my Fat Save brand headache pills, and then from the bottom of the bottle my hooked forefinger extracted that wrinkled baggie of crumbly, bitter brown rocks. Breaking off two doses (cheapskates got by with point one five grams but for this romantic date I eyeballed point three grams each), I packed away the evidence, and then, just in case Francine might be a thief, dropped the pill bottle into my pants pocket. Then I flushed the toilet for verisimilitude. When I came out, she was staring at the wall.
Ready to take your medicine? I asked.
All right, she said in a trembling voice.
With the aid of her Binco Jack we gagged down that foul-tasting stuff.
You wanna lie down with me?
Sure.
I had already stripped to my underwear while she was still wearily unhooking her bra. I didn’t even know whether she had a cock or a slit. Jonesing for sugar, I drank another slug of cherry soda, which by the way tasted just like cough drops. Francine didn’t want any more. I got under the blanket and closed my eyes. After awhile she crawled in next to me. Her hands and feet felt very cold.
Honey, I said, do you want to come lie in my arms?
Not yet. I . . . I might have made a mistake, coming here.
Just stay a few minutes, until the molly kicks in. Then decide. And right now we can talk about Neva—
No. Please don’t.
You want to talk about anything?
No. All right, just hold me.
She rolled into my arms, and I clasped her as gently as I could, so that she would not feel trapped.
I was already starting to get that hot rising dizzy nauseous feeling. I closed my eyes, waiting for the good part.
I’m feeling it, said Francine.
How does it feel?
Wonderful.
I began caressing her sweaty grey hair, and it felt almost as good as touching Neva. She started getting giggly and chatty. I began rubbing her back. Her skin felt impossibly delightfully smooth. Touching her buttock for the very first time, I could hardly believe how perfectly exactly right it was. She upturned her face, and we began kissing, licking each other’s tongues. She was moaning and I was breathing hard, and Francine was saying: Oh, Richard, I love you so much.
Thank you for loving me, because I’m so happy with you, so happy with my sweet, adorable Francine . . .
I caressed her all over, faster and faster. The more I touched her, the more infinite her skin and flesh became, until she was an entire universe and more, far more than I could ever adore, so that I went crazy with gratitude for her. She was babbling thanks and love and sweet silly things which she sometimes forgot before she had finished saying them. All I wanted to do just then was to kiss her—kiss her and kiss her! I needed her lovely face close to mine forever. We kissed and licked each other’s mouths until our tongues were raw, thereby surpassing that famous time when Judy Garland first collapsed on the set and the MGM doctor gave her some pills to make her feel on top of the world in ten minutes. I got up to bring us some water and swayed, wondering if I would vomit. Then slowly, very very carefully, I filled two glasses and brought them back to bed. Wise Francine drank all hers down. Although my mouth felt very dry, it was all I could do to get down two swallows. Then I crashed back down on my back, and Francine began playing sweetly with my limp penis. It felt so good I could hardly move. Then I took her breasts in my hands and started kneading them. They were so ethereally and mysteriously hot and semiliquid that I couldn’t get enough of them. Forgetting to play with me, Francine lay there moaning her sweetest little oh-oh-ohs. When she stroked her hair down and widened her eyes at me I realized that she was even more beautiful than the lovely dead actress Natalie Wood. After seven hours we started coming down, so I broke off for each of us another half dose, and we reentered our happy eternity. At two in the morning we descended again. I got my customary chills, and Francine got her hot flashes. My stomach cramped, and a headache was coming on. Francine said she was hungry, so I made her a peanut butter sandwich. After two bites she couldn’t eat any more. I put the plate in the fridge to keep the cockroaches away. She had some medical marijuana that was calibrated for pain, and I had sleeping pills. We swallowed some of each before the withdrawal got worse.
Francine was getting sleepy—lucky girl! Stroking my arm, she yawned: Oh, baby, I love you so much . . .
I plunged my happy hand into the deep tight valley between her sweaty breasts, after which she fell asleep. I lay beside her for a long time, in awe of how precious she was.
In the morning we both felt tired and jangled, but she kissed me goodbye quite sweetly. Later that day I remembered how delicious it had been when she was sucking one of my nipples and I was rubbing the other one. So I lay down and began fondling myself. Although the drug had left me, my body had learned something, or possibly relearned the almost undifferentiated pleasure of which an infant must be capable. I tried to feel what Francine might have felt had I been touching her there. And after a few seconds, not nearly as swiftly as the lesbian could sometimes appear within my heart, some of our bliss returned to me. Lacking urgency or direction, it was nothing like the rising, need-laced pleasure on the road to orgasm. When I took a walk to buy toilet paper and sodapop, the euphoria almost seemed to be growing back, like the miracle of a second erection, but in this section of my life, with the skyscrapers of the Financial District blocky grey against the gunmetal blue of the sky, I was shivering and my head was hurting. So I went home and lay down. It occurred to me that if I took molly often enough, I might acquire a readier habit of self-fulfillment, which, like the possession of arithmetic, could serve me whenever I pleased. Arithmetic, of course, had long since taught me that there is no something for nothing, so I wondered what the price would be. But if I could somehow feel this pleasure by and for myself, then I could get out of craving Neva all the time. Just then, how I hated her for my loneliness! I tried to call her, but she did not answer and her voicemail was full.
10
That afternoon I made a point of going down to the Y Bar right at four-thirty when Francine’s shift began and the place was peaceful. She poured me a rum and sodapop on the house. When I drank it, my teeth ached.
Leaning forward so that Xenia could not hear, I murmured that I remembered exactly what she did to me, how I penetrated her with two fingers and what her sweat smelled like just before she climaxed, at which she shyly yet trustingly smiled.—What about you? I asked, and she said: I remember lying in your arms and feeling so safe and so loved and . . . No, Victoria, hold your horses; Richard and I have some personal business.—And I also remember . . . All right, Xenia, I’m coming.
But just then Shantelle swished in, along with Neva and Judy and everyone; we all stared up at the television, which had been self-importantly glowing the turquoise hue of Egyptian faience, and saw the outcome of the Supreme Court decision on Friday, June 26, 2015 (the vote went 5 to 4): a whitehaired woman who looked like a man sticking her tongue in a plump middle-aged woman’s mouth, a young black woman gently holding a bespectacled blonde white woman’s face as she began to kiss her, a black woman with reddish-blonde braids kissing a black man in a baseball cap (he turned out to be a black woman), two bespectacled butches in army outfits kissing each other hard, two plump, stubbly young men in baseball caps deeply kissing each other: Traci Bliss Panzner and Julie Ann Lake, Marge Eide and Ann Sorrell, Lena Williams and Crystal Zimmer, Stephanie Ward and Lori Hazelton, Thomas Kirdahy and Terence McNally, Tom Fennell and Christopher Brown.
Well, I said, at least they stand for something.
While you fall for everything! cried Shantelle, running up and kissing my ear.
We were all happy; just then I felt as fresh as rainy nights in wet blank glowing alleys, with cable cars humming around the corner—and the transwoman likewise wanted to celebrate. High on Francine’s discounted goofballs, she cried out: Hey, all of you! Let’s . . . let’s play a kissing game with Neva! We’ll each get one kiss out of her, and then we kiss each other, and then she has to kiss us again, and she will, because . . .
Sandra, said Francine, take her home. Do you mind?
As soon as Sandra helped her up, the transwoman fell up against her. Moaning with desire, she began kissing Sandra’s face.—Oh, oh, oh, she muttered; you’re my sweet little mermaid! Let’s play the kissing game . . . !
Sandra laughed, kissed her back three times and said: Okay, honey, let’s get you home—. . . at which Judy crashed down to the floor and started snoring.
Francine, Sandra and I took her by the arms and legs. She weighed less than I expected. We tucked her behind the bar, on the shelf where boxes of sodapop were stored. Then we kept right on playing the kissing game. Neva was up for it; she was laughing and we were screaming!
When Judy woke up, we stretched her out on the naugahyde sofa below the mirror, with her head in the lap of Holly, whom she barely knew.
Holly said: Do you want me to teach you?
Teach me what? Oh, tell me a story.
You don’t need that. Neva said you—
You mean Neva’s making you do this?
No, she asked me and I said I would. She said you’re trying to figure out who you are—
Well, I’m a woman. I may not look like it, but I don’t care; I accept the fact that I’m disgusting. I’m a woman who loves women, and I wanna be around women all the time.
But that fat cop you hang around with—
Takes care of me, and I love him.
I give up, said Holly.
Wait! You mean you’d really answer questions?
Do I have to? said Holly, sick and tired of Judy.
I mean, you’re a full on lesbian, right?
Why on earth would straight relationships exist except to make babies?
So you’ve never had sex with a man?
I’ve had experiences with men but not with any men I like. I have never dated men. I have hooked up with men for a funny time and for sex work. It’s not interesting except that I can sort of feel my own effect on someone from my own sex worker standpoint. I’ve seen how men have affected women that I’m attracted to, and that’s exciting for me. If the woman is interested in the man, just because of that I might be interested in fucking him.
If you had sex with me would you feel you were with a man?
It doesn’t have to do with genitals. I’ve had sex with transwomen but I don’t consider them as different from any other lesbian. Don’t you know that a lot of femmes-for-femmes are transwomen?
Well, said Judy excitedly, does that mean you wanna fuck me?
I’m not interested.
Oh.
Look, Judy. There are some people that are more okay with bodies and vaginas and whatever. Mostly, penises are kind of weird but if I like the person I like everything about them. If I like the person I like everything about you. It’s just that I don’t know you.
Well, do you wanna get to know me?
Judy, I’m trying to be your friend, not your lover. I already love someone else.
Who?
None of your business.
Please, please, pretty please?
Fine. I’m in love with Neva, and that’s enough for me.
The transwoman sat up. She said: Thanks for trying to help me. What you said is interesting, and maybe when I think it over I’ll . . . I don’t know, but the last thing you said made me really really sad. Although I knew it all along—
That’s because you love being sad. Judy, I don’t have the right to say what anyone else’s experience is. I have felt feminine, and felt feminine things all my life. I have never been attracted to masculine things. I know there are people who are genuinely attracted to one type of person for awhile and then another type for awhile. I think you are attracted to females that have more masculine traits, that are in control. But you don’t have to stay the same. Maybe if you stopped trying to define yourself you’d feel better. Anyway . . .
Kiss me, said Judy.
See you later, said Holly.
11
At the Y Bar we gloated over a new blonde with a fair slim hand, her legs shining like fruit, but compared to our idol she didn’t even achieve a zero; then the retired policeman came in.
He took Neva to the back of the Cinnabar. She stood looking at him. On the arm of the booth he laid down a photograph of her mother.
Slowly the lesbian sat down. She said: Why are you showing me this?