Curious Wine (11 page)

After a moment Lane said, “For you,” and she kissed Diana’s fingers.

Blindly, Diana raised her face and felt Lane’s lips again, this time answering, tenderly moving against her lips, parting softly. Diana moved into her arms, seeking her, Lane’s arms enclosing her as their kiss deepened.

Leaning on her elbows, Lane unfastened Diana’s pajama top and opened it; and her hands held Diana’s bare shoulders. Hair falling over her forehead, face in shadow, she looked at Diana’s breasts for a long moment, and then laid her face on them, and Diana held Lane’s face to her, stroking her hair.

Lane kissed the hollows of her shoulders; and then her slim fingers circled Diana’s breasts. She brushed her hair across them, caressed them slowly with her face, touched and explored them with gentle, sensuous fingers. Diana’s hands were in her hair as Lane’s mouth came to her breasts and kissed in warm, slow circles until with a murmur of pleasure that blended with Diana’s soft Oh, she took a nipple into her mouth. Diana’s throat tightened, ached from the sweetness of Lane’s mouth. When Lane at last took her mouth away she unbuttoned the top of her own pajamas and laid her breasts on Diana’s, softness on softness.

Diana cupped Lane’s breasts in her hands, and she put her face in them, between them, holding the softness against her; her lips moved over their smooth richness. A searing thought passed through her: no wonder men love us so. She touched a nipple with her tongue, slowly tasted it, felt it become swollen tautness from light swirls of her tongue as Lane made a murmuring sound and her body stirred, her hands in Diana’s hair holding her mouth to her.

Lane kissed Diana’s breasts again. Once she murmured, “Am I doing this too much,” and Diana said from out of her pleasure, “No, it’s wonderful.” Lane kissed her face, her throat, her shoulders; gentle hands moved slowly on Diana’s body, caressing down her hips; warm hands creating excitement, desire; warm hands caressing, stroking her thighs. Lane’s mouth came to Diana’s breasts again and again, and pleasure swept Diana from every touch of her mouth, her nipples electric under Lane’s tongue, her body filled with pleasure like sweet, slow-moving honey.

She gasped from fingers touching lightly, gently inside her thighs, and pleasure and desire came together and focused intensely, powerfully. Her body surged against Lane, her breath coming quickly, her body trembling as Lane’s hands began to pull down her pajamas.

“No,” Diana said, her voice choked. Struggling, shaking with desire, her body like a flame, she pulled away from Lane and lay on her stomach, breathing with effort, her heart pounding. She said haltingly, “I can’t… I don’t… I’m not…”

“Don’t explain, Diana.”

“Lane—”

“Don’t explain.”

She felt Lane get out of bed, moments later heard the door to the other room roll back. She lay quietly, hurting with every breath she drew. The want in her body gradually became a vague ache that never fully disappeared, but she finally fell asleep, exhausted.

Chapter 9

Diana awoke to Lane’s voice saying her name. Lane sat tensely on the side of the bed, wearing her ski clothes. “I wanted to let you sleep as long as you could,” she said quietly. “Breakfast is almost ready. Liz will be insulted if you don’t show the proper degree of enthusiasm for her food.” She smiled tiredly.

Diana was penetrated by a desire to hold her, caress and soothe her, a desire so urgent that she clenched her hands. She said tightly, “I won’t be back tonight.”

“Don’t do this,” Lane said, closing her eyes.

“I have to. I can’t even… be around you. I can’t—”

“Don’t say any more.” Lane got up and went to the ladder and climbed down without looking up.

Diana picked at her breakfast, forcing herself to eat. She and Lane were both silent, but the other women, chattering among themselves, appeared not to notice.

“By the way, Liz,” Diana said in a voice that sounded strange to her, “I’m staying in town tonight, having dinner with Vivian and John, and — ”

Liz held up a hand. “Fine, fine, I’ll give you a key. If you’re really late you can sleep on the sofa.” She added with a grin, “Gentle and sensitive Lane’ll probably pull the ladder up, anyway.”

Diana smiled with painful effort, feeling Lane’s eyes on her.

Buffeted by vivid memory, her body weak and warm, she stood at the window watching Lane arrange ski equipment in the station wagon, her gold hair blowing in the wind.

Lane glanced at the cabin, saw Diana and stood looking at her, a hand shading her eyes. She turned and got into the station wagon.

A few minutes later, Diana sat in her car in Harrah’s parking lot, smiling bitterly over her easy answers of yesterday. Getting out of the car, she told herself that now it was even simpler: she would never see Lane Christiansen again. The insanity would go away.

She repeated over and over as she walked to the casino: I am not a lesbian. I am not a lesbian. I am
not
.

She found Vivian at Harvey’s. Vivian looked at her in distress. “Diana! Honey! What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” Diana said, alarmed.

“Yes, there is. I
know
you. Tell me what’s wrong, Diana.”

She answered in her mind: Only a woman who makes me weak when I look at her and makes me fall apart when she touches me. Diana almost smiled, imagining Vivian’s reaction.

“Has Liz been at you again? She told me last night what a mess she made, how terrible she was.”

“Liz has been terrific.”

“She feels dreadful, you have no idea. It’s Jack, isn’t it. You’ve had another bad night over that useless, undeserving—”

“You’re so perceptive,” Diana said gratefully.

“I thought it would be such a good idea to come up here and get your mind off him.”

“It was a very good idea,” Diana said ironically.

She tried to play blackjack but could not concentrate. Instead, she strolled through the casino, looking at women, lingering over attractive women, gazing at them, imagining them touching her, kissing her. She felt not the slightest response—a dry triumph. She had not expected to.

She contemplated the close female relationships in her life. She had stayed overnight with girlfriends when she was in her preteens, and there had been the intense friendship with Margaret Benjamin when she was fourteen. The greatest likelihood for a lesbian affair had surely existed with Barbara Nichols. In their year and a half together, she had seen Barbara naked many times—with no emotion other than a guilty satisfaction in the superiority of her own body. They must surely have touched at times, Diana reflected; but she could remember no specific occasion nor any unusual emotion.

Uncomfortably, she remembered how good it had been to be with Barbara. The evenings of tranquil companionship with a woman intuitive of her moods and needs, who gave gentle ministration to her self-doubts and depressions. Then she had met Jack, Barbara had married and moved to Phoenix. But it had been good to be with her, a time of peace. She had recovered from the destructive, turbulent years of her marriage. Barbara had healed her.

She walked into the keno area thinking of a short story she had read recently,
Death in Venice
, and the man Aschenbach who had become obsessed with a beautiful young boy after a long life of conventionality. She had to leave Lake Tahoe, she decided, and this one-time aberration would go away.

Absently, she began to mark a keno ticket. Anger rose and sharpened as she reflected that she had done nothing to deserve this, had not sought this. She had loved the tenderness of Lane, that was all. She had wanted the tenderness again last night. But she had turned it into something else, she had made her want more and more.

She stood utterly still as a thought struck: Lane had been with women before. Drawing aimless patterns on her keno ticket, she swiftly considered the evidence: Lane’s acceptance of her approach their first night. The building sexuality, the incredible pleasure she had felt last night— Lane knew how to touch, to please a woman. And she lived in San Francisco, a city with many women who wanted other women.

How could she have been so stupid? She thought of Lane’s approval of butterfly interludes, her cool acknowledgement to Liz of the bodies she had left lying around San Francisco. Lane had never married. How convenient—when the bodies were male and female. Bitterly, she thought of how close she had come to being one of those bodies—the length of time it would have taken Lane to pull her pajamas down over her hips. She crumpled her keno ticket in a pure white flash of rage.

She stalked from the casino into the brilliant early spring sunlight, and strode several blocks with her hands clenched at her sides, glaring at the ground. She crossed the street, and in the length of time it took to walk back to Harrah’s, her anger had turned to self-accusation. She herself was the one who had caused this mess. She had made their physical relationship happen. Lane had not approached her. A woman like her would not make approaches. No, she was the one who had changed everything—she had come to Lane.

And she had destroyed the possibility of friendship with this admirable, unusual woman for whom she had felt such affinity and closeness.

She sat at a blackjack table, and ten minutes later had lost fifty dollars. Recognizing this as useless self-flagellation, she left the table and wandered aimlessly, miserable with her thoughts, condemning herself for encouraging a woman to touch her. Lane had been honest; she had not. She had wanted Lane—she flushed, remembering how clearly she had communicated that want. She called herself a tease— behavior she despised in other women. She had acted despicably toward a woman who had comforted her, given her pleasure emotionally and physically. In anguish Diana thought: I’ve hurt a tender, sensitive woman… and I’ll never see her again.

She walked into a keno area and sat in one of the chairs and remembered Lane, her body dissolving with weakness.

“Hey daydreamer,” Vivian said. “Why don’t we go down to the Sahara for a change of scenery?”

“Good idea,” Diana said.

With Vivian at her side chattering continuously, her thoughts became harsh again. Lane had known exactly how to be with her. The tenderness was an act, a fraud—just like those five years with Jack Gordon when she had been convinced that she was the one and only woman in his life.

“I’ve gone sour on slots,” Vivian said. “Why don’t we try something different? How about a little roulette?”

“Sure,” Diana said indifferently.

Vivian lost quickly, spreading her yellow chips all over the roulette layout. “Whose lousy idea was this anyway,” she grumbled, getting up to leave.

“I’ll play the rest of mine,” Diana said.

The young man who sat down in Vivian’s chair was tall, with broad shoulders in a good tweed jacket, and a compact, athletic body. His hair was sand-colored and thinning, his features well-defined and handsome. She thought he could be Jack’s brother—a younger, handsomer version of him.

He grinned at her. “How’re you doing?”

She liked his voice, a light, pleasant baritone. A masculine voice, she reminded herself acidly. “Not too good,” she said, looking into eyes that were slightly darker brown than Jack’s. “I don’t have any feel for roulette, I guess.”

“It’s just pure luck. Sometimes the numbers run for you, you know, like you suddenly start hitting jackpots for no reason.” As Diana nodded, he continued, “But I’ve made money at it sometimes.” He grinned again. “Honest I have. I know everybody says they win at gambling.”

Diana smiled. She asked, testing his knowledge of the game, “What are the best percentage bets?”

“They all have about the same percentage,” he replied, the correct answer. He explained the roulette layout—which she already knew well—indicating the odds and payoffs after each spin of the wheel, but she listened to him, quite willing to be distracted.

She had lost twenty dollars after a few more minutes of play, and she got up. “That’s enough for me, but I’ve enjoyed the lesson.”

“Wait a minute,” he said, “sit down for just one second, okay? My name’s Chick Benson.” He looked at her for a moment, expectantly, “My real name’s Charles but everybody calls me Chick. So did the newspapers. I met a girl one time who recognized my name. Football.”

Diana sat down, looking at him carefully, and thinking. “Chick Benson,” she repeated. “No, I’m afraid not.”

“I was all-American nine years ago. At Kentucky.”

“Really? What position?” she asked, thinking that he lacked the physical size, the bulk for football.

“Wide receiver.”

“Oh. A glamor position. No wonder you don’t look like Bubba Smith.”

His pleasure was evident. “So you know a little about football.”

“Just pro, not college.”

“Most girls don’t know anything at all. That’s why I was surprised this one girl did.”

“One thing I do know about the college game is that all- American players are the best in the country. You must be very proud of that.”

“Thanks. Yeah. That’s one thing they can’t ever take away from me. This one girl who recognized my name, she remembered reading about me in the papers. What’s your name?”

Diana hesitated. “Joyce Carol Oates,” she said, thinking of the latest novel she had read. A bearded man on the other side of her chuckled.

“You go by all three names?”

“Call me Joyce,” Diana said. The bearded man chuckled again.

“Would you like a drink? I’d enjoy buying you a drink.”

She appraised him. He really did look a lot like Jack. And she had not thought about Lane Christiansen for at least fifteen minutes. “Okay,” she said.

She sat across from him in a cool, quiet area just off the casino. She had caught Vivian’s eye as she walked with Chick Benson, and Vivian had nodded vigorously, beaming in approval. Diana had smothered a laugh, thinking how unimpressed Vivian would be with an all-American wide receiver from Kentucky. First Diana would have to explain what an all-American was, and then a wide receiver; and then Vivian would snort, “Another jock. Another little boy playing another silly game.” Vivian’s first husband had been a sports fanatic to the complete neglect of everything else—most grievously, Vivian.