An Emergence of Green (18 page)

Carolyn reached for her. Luxuriant flesh was under her hands, Val’s hips and thighs. Kissing Val, she soon took her mouth away to concentrate on savoring her body.

Shyly, she brushed a palm over crisp-soft hair still damp from the shower. Val’s legs opened. In a surge of excitement she caressed between, within warm folds of satin.

Val took her hand away and turned Carolyn onto her back. She parted Carolyn’s thighs and then arched her body over Carolyn, fitting her dark thatch of hair between Carolyn’s legs. With a soft sound, her eyes closed, Val lowered her body.

Welcoming her, wanting her, wanting to fully enclose her, Carolyn raised her legs high and wrapped her arms and legs around her.

The sound in Val’s throat was helpless, as if she could not control her body. Carolyn’s arms tightened. Connected to the pulsing rhythms of Val’s body, her hips gradually became undulant, synchronized.

Val sucked in her breath, and Carolyn could see her hands grip and release the towel as if powerless to sustain either the grip or the release.

Her own arousal growing and deepening, her hips still undulant, Carolyn lowered her legs to spread them fully. Val’s hands began a spastic fluttering. A thought passed through Carolyn that her body was being used so very lightly to give such great pleasure. Then there was only Val in her arms and the brilliance of her own sensations.

Val’s body was rigid, her hands gripping with white-knuckled fierceness. Her body was quivering stillness, as if consumed. Then the hands relaxed; Val’s body eased and once more blended softly into Carolyn’s.

Still absorbed in her own sensations, her hips continuing to undulate, Carolyn arched as the big soft hand cupped between her legs.

She was fully embraced in warmth and softness, knowing that she must somehow extricate herself and knowing she could not. She lay on Val’s body aware of one hand that caressed her hips, squeezing and releasing them, but focused on the pleasure from the other hand, the fingers enclosed in her. She moved only slightly, her pleasure a luminous constant, until she could not prevent the rhythm of her body. Afterward the hand did not leave her; the fingers lay intimately within.

The clock chimed seven. She dragged herself from Val.

She composed her excuse to Paul as she dressed, then pushed further thought of that from her mind.

As they drove to the Valley, Val seemed remote, her silence like a cloak around her. Carolyn was grateful; she did not want to use either her voice or her mind. She sat quietly, in pure contemplation of the exquisite satiation and euphoria of her body.

She called her father. She would pick up Neal early in the morning and take him to school, if that was all right. Yes, she was okay; she just needed more time for herself. She spoke briefly, lovingly to Neal, then hung up knowing her father thought she was with a man. Not that he would be judgmental:
poppycock
was his most frequently expressed opinion of religious moral strictures. But his concept of sexual normalcy was standard male; he would consider the events of this day equivalent to her taking up with an orangutan.

She opened a can of pork and beans, eating from the pan as the beans heated, too ravenous to wait. Holding the pan insulated in several thicknesses of dishtowel, she took it into the living room and sat on her sofa and wolfed down the rest. She placed the pan, still wrapped in its towel, on the coffee table and sat for several minutes unmoving, the sounds of traffic on the street below washing over her. Its rhythms, she realized, were like ocean rhythms…

Leaning back, she extended her hands to examine them. She touched a fingertip to her lips and inhaled the scent of Carolyn Blake.

She wondered sardonically who would laugh harder, Paul Blake or Alix Sommers? Probably Paul Blake. Whatever the trouble was with the Blake marriage, he would scorn the idea that lesbian sex could pretend to compete with good old heterosex. So his wife had amused herself with another woman, had indulged in a little mutual masturbation, so what?

What
had
Carolyn Blake felt? Surely nothing like what she knew in her marriage bed. Yes, she had enjoyed the sex…more than enjoyed it. But she, Val, could hardly accept congratulations for Carolyn Blake’s exhausted sleep; undoubtedly it was the number of times, not the intensity of each experience.

Val walked into the kitchen. As she heated water for a cup of instant coffee, she addressed the sneering face of Paul Blake:
I’ll lay odds you’ve never put her to sleep. I’ll lay odds you’re like most men, just shoot your wad off and fall asleep.

She returned to the living room with her coffee, thinking about Alix. Alix would laugh at her too. Short and knowing and bitter laughter.

How old had Alix been when they lived together? Richard had left the year before…Neal was four…She remembered how Alix had leaped at the opportunity to live with her. After years of capricious affairs with men, of feeling like an object of prey even more exposed because of her blondeness, a nonmale domestic situation had seemed to Alix somehow a measure of protection. Twenty-six. Alix had been twenty-six. The same age as Carolyn Blake.

For Alix, falling in love with a woman was a clear answer, an explanation for the previous incoherence of her life, an answer she accepted with alacrity even if it brought along with it complications and anguish. In rebellious exhilaration she quit her conventional office job, and when she would no longer accept the physical frustrations of living with Val, Alix moved out. There had been a succession of jobs and women lovers, each welcomed with fresh belief, each lover abandoned with little evident regret and no apparent damage or acrimony on either side. All of Alix’s lovers were still her friends, a circumstance Val had viewed as proof that sexual love between women lacked true visceral power.

After Alix’s departure Val had decided not to live with anyone else. For Neal’s sake as well as her own she would not risk repeating her debilitating marital wars, and the idea of living with another woman she had rejected without examination of the issue.

But she knew why. She would not live with a lesbian, and a heterosexual woman could not follow Alix, could not duplicate that smoldering sexual tension between herself and Alix.

Yes, they had touched, Alix continually seducing her into brief embraces, each time trying to break the barrier Val had circumscribed for herself, each time Val pushing her away. Val had known that if she lived with another woman she would want a woman like Alix again.

 She had believed Alix should be grateful for whatever she chose to give her. Clearly, Alix’s brand of love was inferior. Hadn’t Andy and Richard shown the same attitude toward her? She was a freak among women; she should be grateful they were willing to marry her.

And she
had
been grateful. Then she dared to assert herself, ask for more, even expect a measure of equality. Unlike Alix, she did not walk out; the pitiful men she married were the ones to walk out, never to return.

Of her lovers, casual or serious, only Alix had remained her friend. Even limited touching of Alix, she conceded now, qualified Alix as a lover. And she herself was one of Alix’s ex-lovers—one of a select group Alix chose not to abandon.

She lay back on her sofa and opened her memory to Carolyn Blake, her body filling with heat as she relived their long slow love, as the vivid images became more and more intimate.

In the performance of her art, she reflected, nothing would be more foolish or self-defeating than to deny her artistic instincts. Yet in the performance of her life she had denied the life-giving sustenance of her sexual instincts. To have a woman in her arms was as right for her as the integration of the right color onto canvas.

Again she raised her fingers to her lips and inhaled their scent. Her want was raw and exposed: to take taste from those fingers as well. Carolyn Blake had been naked in her arms, open to her; yet she, Val, had been too timid to explore beyond what had seemed safe. Once again she had not dared to push beyond self-imposed limits.

Self-imposed limits. Her entire life had been a matter of self-imposed limits.

She asked herself the question again: Given again that year with Alix, knowing what she knew tonight, would they have spent their days and nights as lovers?

Yes, she answered. And maybe they would be together today. And she would not have become enmeshed with Carolyn Blake.

Alix was right. Withdrawing from the world of men never meant that she, Val, was living by her own rules. She had lived her entire life by their rules. Thirty-six years. All those wasted years.

She inhaled the smell of Carolyn Blake again. Mixing powerfully with her desire was the added heat of anger. What about Carolyn Blake? Would Carolyn Blake want to see her again? Would Carolyn Blake even want to face her tomorrow?

She would not allow Carolyn Blake that decision. She would confront her. Their relationship would evolve or it would end, but one way or the other, tomorrow she would know.

In sharp hunger she inhaled the scent from her fingers. The image of Paul Blake rose into her mind. She thrust the fingers into her mouth.

 “Of course I wanted to phone,” Carolyn said for the third time. “But we were in no-man’s-land. There was no phone around.”

He was confronting her in the living room, standing with his hands shoved deep in the pockets of his sweatpants and balled into fists—she could see the outline of his knuckles in the fabric.

He stated, “I told you that rattletrap of hers would break down.”

His comment of this morning had been the genesis of her concocted story. She said wearily, wanting this to be over, wanting to retreat into her own thoughts again, “Yes, you did.”

“You could have called afterward.” His voice was grating, his lips stiff on his pale face.

“We came home without stopping. It’s only a little after eight. I’m two hours later than I said I’d be.”

His stare impaled her. “You said you’d be home this afternoon.”

“I said I’d be home around dinnertime,” she replied without conviction; she could not remember.

“No, Carolyn. I started expecting you around three.” His voice rose. “Things happen to women, even if what’s her name does look like Queen of the Amazons.”

Ire worked its way into her weariness. “I don’t think that way, Paul.”

“Someday you’ll learn the world’s a fucking jungle and then it’ll be too late.”

She was offended as well as irked; he knew she detested that word. “I didn’t mean to have you worry. I didn’t,” she insisted guiltily, knowing she had scarcely given him a thought. “Did you eat?”

“No,” he sulked. “How could I? I was too upset even to watch Reagan debate Mondale.”

She toasted bread and fried ham for sandwiches. Tantalized by the smells, ravenous, she forced herself to eat slowly under his alert gaze.

“Did you have any luck?” he asked. He added impatiently as she looked at him in bewilderment, “With the art gallery.”

“Oh. Yes, they’re taking her work.”

With a smothered snort he bit into his sandwich. His voice was surly: “Why didn’t you take your car like I wanted?”

“Her paintings were packed. It’s best to move them as little as possible.”

He did not reply. In the silence of the house there was only the sound of their eating. She knew he was still angry and looking for another opening to attack. “Paul,” she said, “why don’t we make peace?”

“Okay by me.” His face was suddenly eager, his voice vibrant. Her choice of words had been unfortunate; he had read extra meaning into them. In sharp annoyance she rose from the table.

“Why don’t I turn on the TV? Angela Lansbury’s new show is on—you really like her.” She felt his eyes burn into her as she switched on the set. He said, “This guest room stuff—it’s all over, then.”

“No,” she said shortly, feeling whipsawed by her guilt and her compelling need to have this night to herself. She could not bear the thought of his touch.

“Princess, why not?” His voice had softened to persuasiveness. “Princess, we’re not getting divorced over any of this, are we? Right or wrong, what’s done is done. If we’re to have a marriage we’ve got to go on from here.”

She gave him the concession of a nod. “For now I’m not ready for…the sex part of our marriage. My feeling right now about that isn’t…right.”

“You don’t love me anymore, is that what you’re trying to say?” She knew the question was rhetorical, but she answered soberly,

“No, I do love you. I just don’t feel terribly loving.” I need tonight.
God, just give me tonight—I’ll never ask for another thing.

For long moments his gaze was on her. Then, as if he had seen something in her face that satisfied him, his eyes moved to the television screen. At ten o’clock she went gratefully toward the guest room. He got up from his armchair to intercept her, gripping her shoulders.

She could not prevent her reaction: she twisted away to throw his hands from her. As he stood gaping she said hastily, in distress, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry, honey, I—I’m just so very tired—”

The shock on his face was replaced by rage. He raised a hand, and for an unbelieving instant she thought he would strike her.

He lowered the hand. “For God’s sake, Carolyn.” He turned away from her. “I only wanted our good-night kiss.” His voice dropped to a whisper: “Like always.” He stalked toward the bedroom.