Part 4 (2/2)
”Angie,” Margo said, as if weighing her chances against the unknown woman.
”I'l cal col ect.”
”I'l go see a man about a dog.”
When the bathroom door closed, she dialed. She had never cal ed home col ect before, and Angela accepted the cal with a panicked voice.
”I'm fine,” Jefferson said immediately.
”I was afraid your cla.s.ses were canceled and you were on the early train! Do you know about the derailment? Where are you?”
”One of my teachers lives near the school. She let me use her phone. The radio says the railroad schedule is a mess.”
”You make her let you stay there, baby. There hasn't been a train into Dutchess since the 3:06, and it was two and a half hours late. Even if you can get on a train in that mob scene you won't get to me until morning. Stay where it's safe and warm. I'l cal the shop for you. I don't think anything wil be open tomorrow anyway. The beauty school cancel ed cla.s.ses.”
”You're okay?” She rubbed her jaw, as if that would m.u.f.fle her lies.
”Snug. Except I miss you. Dutchess lost power for a while, but it came back on. Wil she let you stay?”
”I don't see why not. She has a comfortable-looking couch.”
”I'm so glad you're safe. We'd better get off. This must be costing a fortune. I love you.”
”Me too, Angie.” The needle on her moral compa.s.s flickered every which way.
She hadn't felt so cold since that last long summer in her grandparents' house. The birds. She hadn't thought of them in a long time. Did they ever stray from their own nests? Maybe, once in a great while another tree looked so appealing-what a sil y thought. Angie was fine. Whatever happened here was completely separate from what they had together.
Margo reentered the candlelit room. She had changed into a light green peignoir and richly blue robe. At home, both Angela and Jefferson wore pajamas.
”Angie said no trains are coming into the station at home.”
”I'd be glad if you would stay the night, Ms. Jefferson.”
Seeing Margo like this, heavy-breasted, at least ten years older than her, the apartment flickering like some den of seduction, fresh makeup giving Margo the florid face of a temptress in an opera, Jefferson said, ”But I don't want to lose my job. I'd better try to get back.”
She could see the al -too-familiar cost of rejection, quickly hidden, cross Margo's face. ”What do you do?”
”I work in a smal print shop.”
”Ah,” Margo said, with her charming smile. ”Always around books, this one.”
”Oh, no. Nothing like that. Pamphlets, business cards, once in a while a smal gardening book or a guide to the river. Like that.” Stil , it was gratifying to be thought of as a book person. She did not want to lose Margo's friends.h.i.+p. ”You have a big library.”
”Literature,” Margo said, a hand sweeping across the room, ”is my life.”
Was she saying how lonely she was?
”I teach it, read it, write it. Dream it.”
”You write?”
”Of course. Don't you?”
”No. I mean, I used to, a little, in high school. But things changed. There's no time for that.”
”Stories? Poetry?”
She nodded, eyes down. ”Poetry. Not very good.”
”Love poetry.”
She nodded again.
”To Angie.”
Was she crazy to admit this? She gave a half-nod, watching Margo.
”Let me show you something.” Margo found a file on her desk, looked at a few sheets of paper and extracted one, a poem, which she gave Jefferson to read. She was embarra.s.sed to get this glimpse into a teacher's private life.
”Margo, it's real poetry, you wrote this?”
”We were going to America at last. Our husbands had sent for us. Beirut was a nightmare. Marthe and I learned to take comfort with each other while our husbands were making homes for us in California. I wanted to keep flying, with Marthe, right over their heads and around the world back to Europe, nightmare or not. But war makes one practical. And impractical. I left him as soon as I could. Marthe felt too bound and stayed with her husband.”
For some reason Jefferson imagined, at that moment, thousands of women al over the world leaving their Bogarts behind, confessing their love for one another and coming together in desperate, weeping relief, in want, in an erotic camaraderie against which she knew she had no resistance. She loved her own smal world, but tomboy that she was, she also loved to explore.
Without seeming to have moved her hand, she found Margo's breast cradled in it and she was kneading it. She tensed in antic.i.p.ation of rejection.
Instead, Margo's mouth opened and her breathing became audible, wetly rasping.
Winning an Olympic medal could not have made this more of a defining moment in Jefferson's life. It was the moment she learned the power of her longing and the power of her lesbian hands. Women, from now on, would come to her for touch. She didn't know if that was how it was for other lesbians, but for her-her mind leapt to the reality that she had a magnetic heat in her fingertips that pul ed them to her.
At the same time, she didn't want to make love to this greedy gnome of a woman; she didn't want to betray Angela. Margo, though, was al the al ure of the city and held the mystery of her future. She was desire come to life. Jefferson abhorred her and couldn't resist her, was compel ed to embrace Margo, the exotic night, even while longing for the daylight of Angela.
Despite herself, she would be nothing in the world at times but a flammable longing for each woman she desired. If one wanted more she couldn't give it to her because the longing would not stop with her. The longing would be an ent.i.ty al its own, not attached to a specific woman, never satisfied.
She would bring her desire to her lovers like a gift packaged up in herself, tied up with the velvet ribbon of her hands. Their coming together would be the climax for her, o.r.g.a.s.m no more than a physical release, each woman's response her reward.
Jefferson silenced Margo with an open, wet mouth. Her rus.h.i.+ng blood blotted out al but their sounds and the candlelight and thoughts of anything but her desire. Her whole being was centered in her hands, and the only sensation in the world was her pounding blood and the raging heat. No feelings of despair would dare a.s.sault her now. It was so good to have the heat back after Angie's recent coldness. Nothing mattered but pressing this soft new body, her first adult woman's body, to her own. Margo thrust her hips forward and Jefferson ground her pelvis into Margo's. She was crazy with hunger for this woman of the city, her fingers ful of the poetry they'd recited, immemorial sap rising until she no longer could distinguish Margo's cries from her own.
Chapter Nine.
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