Rubyfruit Jungle (13 page)

“How nice,” Faye drawled, and I practically strangled on my drink. Faye was singularly unimpressed with any display of romanticism, be it homosexual or common garden variety heterosexual. Dix and Eunice were beyond sarcasm and thought Faye had given them the blessed sign of approval. Thanks to that we got the entire scenario
of their love. How they met in math class, how long it took them to get into bed, and so forth. Dix became more animated with every drink; soon she leaned over to confide in us, “You’ll never guess what happened to us when we lived in Jennings and had straight roommates.”

“I can’t wait. Do tell,” Faye answered.

“Well, we usually made love in Eunice’s room because her roomie had a night class. So one night I’m over there and well, you know I was—uh—I was going down on her and we heard her roomie’s voice coming down the hall. Honey, I didn’t know whether to go blind, shit, or run for my life. Luckily we had locked the door, so I started to pull away when my braces got caught in Eunice’s hair. There was her roommate knocking on the door bellowing and there I was stuck in an incriminating position. No time to be gentle, I yanked myself away. Eunice released this bloodcurdling yell and her roommate is outside fumbling with the key in the door screaming someone’s trying to murder Eunice. I ran into the closet, Jane got the door open, and half the hall marched in after her to see the corpse. Eunice pulled the covers up over herself, sweaty and frantic, and tried to look in pain—which she was. Jane wants to know what happened. Eunice lied that she had mistakenly locked the door and when she took a nap, her back locked on her. The yell was when she tried to get up to open the door. Then the whole crew of dollies wants to carry Eunice to the infirmary. You shoulda seen Eunice talking herself out of that one. Oh this thing happens every now and then. It would go away overnight. God knows how long it took her to get
the room cleared out, and I had to stay in that ratty closet until her roommate went to sleep. Then I tiptoed out and got back to my own dorm, after hours, so I had hell to pay for that.”

We laughed since it was expected of us and I was grateful that Dix was so talkative, because if she’d asked me anything I didn’t know what I’d say.

Eunice turned to Faye. “How long have you two been going together?”

“Since September when we discovered we were roommates.”

“And you didn’t know each other before school?” Dix asked.

“No,” Faye answered. “It was love at first sight.”

“Had either of you been gay before college?” Eunice probed, fascinated with our storybook romance.

This time I beat Faye to the punch. “Faye wasn’t but I was.”

Faye looked at me suppressing a giggle, thinking I had added a new twist to her fairy tale.

“How long did it take you to seduce her?” Dix pressed on.

“Oh, about one week.”

“Yeah, I was an easy lay.”

We stayed at the bar for another hour exchanging information about what professor to miss, who else was gay, etc. Faye gracefully extracted us by saying we had to get up early in the morning to go shopping with her mother. On the way home Faye was in hysterics over who was gay in the various sororities. We pulled into the driveway of an imitation colonial mansion overlooking the St. John’s river. The inside of the house looked
like window cases for a furniture store. Faye’s mother had one room in colonial plush, another in Mediterranean, and another in French provincial. Everything was color coordinated and I expected the price tags to still be hanging from the goods. Faye’s room was
Seventeen
gone raunchy. Her twin beds had matching orange bedspreads and curtains. A black shag rug wilted between the two beds and the vanity groaned under the weight of all the perfumes and other paraphernalia of female disguise. Faye took off her clothes, threw them on the floor, and flopped into bed. “I am fucking sober. Sober! Weren’t those two funny? Wait until we see them at the next Panhellenic pissy tea. That oughta be rich.”

“Yeah, but they were sweet in a square, old-fashioned way.”

“I suppose but I can’t stand it when people get all moonie about each other.”

“That’s because you’ve never been in love. You haven’t got a heart, Faysie, only a pericardium.”

“Thanks.”

“Oh, I’m only teasing you. I can’t stand all that romantic crap either especially when they play footsie under the table. Gawd. But everybody does it, straight or gay. It turns me off—maybe I’m not either one.”

“Even if I fall in love I’m not degenerating into that diddleshit.” Faye looked out her window over the dark river and then turned to me. “Have you ever thought about doing it with a woman?”

“Thought about it! Faye, I wasn’t kidding when I told Eunice I was gay before college.”

“Molly, you shit! All this time we’ve been roommates and you never told me that.”

“You never asked.”

“People don’t think of those things to ask. You are really a hot shit. So besides Frank at Phi Delt you’ve been going out with girls. I can’t believe you, you are too fucking much.”

“No, sorry to disappoint you, but I haven’t been dating anyone but Frank the fullback.”

“Well, I am pissed you didn’t tell me. Here we go through my abortion, I tell you everything and you don’t tell me this one thing about yourself. Come to think of it, you don’t talk about yourself much anyway. What other secrets are you hiding, Mata Hari?”

“Faye, it’s not like this big thing that I keep locked up inside. There wasn’t any reason to tell you. Besides my mind is occupied with a lot of other things than the fact that I’ve slept with some girls.”

“You’re a hot shit. I know you’ve slept with men but women. I am truly impressed.”

“Why don’t you shut up so I can go to sleep?”

Faye collapsed on her bed with a huffed noise. I beat my pillow so part of it would be flat. I can’t stand overweight pillows.

“Molly.”

“What, Goddammit.”

“Let’s fuck.”

“Faye, you crack me up.”

“That’s my line and I’m serious. Come on.”

“No, period.”

“Why not?”

“It’s a long story. My experiences with non-lesbians who want to sleep with me have been gross.”

“How can you be a non-lesbian and sleep with another woman?”

“Beats me, but the last girl I slept with had it all figured out in her twisted brain.”

“Now that I’m dying of curiosity and insulted by your refusal you’d better tell me about these non-lesbians before I swallow my tongue and turn purple in the face. If you don’t, I’ll scream and tell Mother you tried to rape me.”

Faye faked a noiseless scream. I immediately told her my tale of woe.

“That was a raw deal. After that, I’d go celibate.”

“I did.”

“Break it. Come over here and sleep with me. I promise not to be a non-lesbian.”

“Your sense of humor overwhelms me.”

Faye jumped out of bed, threw the covers off me and declared, “If you won’t come over to me I’ll come over to you. Now I am Goddamned, fucking serious. Move your ass over.” She plopped down next to me, “Now what do I do? I never did this before?”

“Faye, I can see this is going to be the beginning of a beautiful relationship.”

“You and Humphrey Bogart. Molly, I do want to make love.” She hugged me and gave me a kiss on the forehead. “Okay, so maybe part of it is curiosity but another part of it is that I have more fun with you than anyone else in the whole fucking world. I probably love you more than anybody. This is the way it should be, you know, a lover who is a friend and not that moonie crap.” She gave me a long, soft kiss. She was serious. In times like this, intellectual analysis does no damn
good so I swept away thoughts of the aftermath and kissed her neck, her shoulders, and returned to her mouth.

The rest of that semester we spent in bed, emerging only to go to class and to eat. Faye made her grades because it was the only way we could be together, and she stopped drinking because she found something that was more fun. Chi Omega began to think Faye had died and gone to heaven. Tri Delta resorted to sending me urgent notices in the mail. We were eighteen, in love, and didn’t know the world existed—but it knew we existed.

Not until February did I notice that people on our hall weren’t speaking to us anymore. Conversations stopped when one or both of us would amble down the brown halls. Faye concluded they all had chronic laryngitis and decided she’d cure it. She hooked up a Mickey Mouse Club record to the ugly brick bell tower that rang class changes. Then she announced to our dorm neighbors that at three-thirty the true nature of the university would be revealed via the bell tower. As soon as the record blared across the campus Dot and Karen ran in from next door to giggle at Faye’s success. Just as quickly they turned on their heels to walk out when Faye bluntly asked, “How come you two don’t talk to us anymore?”

Terror crossed Dot’s face and she told a half truth. “Because you stay in your room all the time.”

“Bullshit,” Faye countered.

“There’s got to be another reason,” I added.

Karen, angered at our bad manners in being so
direct, spat at us gracefully. “You two are together so much it looks like you’re lesbians.”

I thought Faye was going to heave her chemistry book at Karen, her white face was so red. I looked Karen right in the face and said calmly, “We are.”

Karen reeled back as though she were slapped with a soggy dishrag. “You’re sick and you don’t belong in a place like this with all these girls around.”

Faye was now on her feet moving toward Karen, and Dot, the picture of courage, was at the door fumbling with the knob. Faye shifted into overdrive and roared her engine, “Why, Karen, are you afraid I might sleep with you? Are you afraid I might sneak over in the middle of the night and attack you?” Faye was laughing by this time and Karen was petrified. “Karen, if you were the last woman on earth, I’d go back to men—you’re a simpering, pimply-faced cretin.” Karen ran out the room and Faye howled, “Did you see her face? What an insipid asswipe that creature is!”

“Faye, we’re in for it now. She’s gonna run right to the resident counselor and we are gonna be in real fucking trouble. They’ll probably throw us out.”

“Let them. Who the hell wants to rot in this institution of miseducation?”

“I do. It’s my one chance to get out of the boondocks. I’ve got to get my degree.”

“We’ll go to a private school.”

“You can go to a private school. I can’t even pay for my own food, Goddammit.”

“Look, my old man will pay my way and we can work part time to pay your way. Shit I wish
he’d give you the money. I don’t give a rat’s ass about my degree. But that’s out of the question. Anyway, he wants me to stay in school, so he’ll send bonuses to encourage me and we can get along with that plus a little work.”

“I think it’s going to be harder than that, Faye, but I hope you’re right.”

One half-hour after Faye insulted Karen’s nonexistent sexuality, she was called to the resident counselor’s office while I was sent to the dean of women, Miss Marne. This creature was a heiferlike, red-haired woman who had been a major in the Army Corps back in World War II. She liked to quote her military experiences as proof that women could make it. I walked into her
House & Garden
office with all the painted plaques on the wall. She probably had one up there as proof of her femininity too. She smiled broadly and shook my hand vigorously.

“Sit down, won’t you, Miss Bolt? Have a cigarette?”

“No thank you, I don’t smoke.”

“Wise of you. Now, let’s get down to business. I called you here because of the unfortunate incident in your dormitory. Would you care to explain that to me?”

“No.”

“Miss Bolt, this is a very serious matter and I want to help you. It will be much easier if you cooperate.” She ran her hand over the glass cover on her maplewood desk and smiled reassuringly. “Molly, may I call you that?” I nodded. What the hell do I care what she calls me? “I’ve been going over your record and you’re one of our most
outstanding students—an honors scholar, tennis team, freshman representative, Tri-Delta—you’re a go-getter, as we say. Ha, ha. I think you’re the kind of young woman who will want to work out this problem that you have and I want to help you work it out. A person like you could go far in this world.” She lowered her voice confidentially. “I know it’s been hard for you, your birth and well, you simply didn’t have the advantages of other girls. That’s why I admire the way you’ve risen above your circumstances. Now tell me about this difficulty you have in relating to girls and your roommate.”

“Dean Marne, I don’t have any problem relating to girls and I’m in love with my roommate. She makes me happy.”

Her scraggly red eyebrows with the brown pencil glaring through shot up. “Is this relationship with Faye Raider of an, uh—intimate nature?”

“We fuck, if that’s what you’re after.”

I think her womb collapsed on that one. Sputtering, she pressed forward. “Don’t you find that somewhat of an aberration? Doesn’t this disturb you, my dear? After all, it’s not normal.”

“I know it’s not normal for people in this world to be happy, and I’m happy.”

“H-m-m. Perhaps there are things hidden in your past, secrets in your unconscious that keep you from having a healthy relationship with members of the opposite sex. I think with some hard work on your part and professional assistance, you can uncover these blocks and find the way to a deeper, more meaningful relationship
with a man.” She took a breath and smiled that administrative smile. “Haven’t you ever thought about children, Molly?”

“No.”

This time she couldn’t hide her shock. “I see. Well dear, I have arranged for you to see one of our psychiatrists here three times a week and of course, you’ll see me once a week. I want you to know I’m in there rooting for you to get through this phase you’re in. I want you to know I’m your friend.”

If I had had a blow torch, I’d have turned it on her smiling face until it was as red as her hair. I didn’t have one in my purse, so I did the next best thing. “Dean Marne, why are you pushing me so hard to be a mother and all that rot when you aren’t even married?”