Substitute for Love (13 page)

“So you’re doing this for me.” He said it flatly and she could tell he wasn’t going to listen to much more.

“No. For me. And I’m praying that in a year you’ll also be in a better place. We’ve become so stale—”

His voice was sharp and bitter. “Because I don’t cuddle, or go down on you, or what?”

“That’s not it —” It was, partly.

“I never asked you to do that to me—”

“I know. Maybe you should have.” There had been a time, she knew it, that she would have done anything to please him. But she had never thought it would, and it appeared she had been right about that. Abruptly she thought, I’m not the only one with a problem here.

He shuddered. “We’re not animals.”

“I can’t remember the last time you laughed,” she added softly. “I can’t remember the last time you hugged me for no reason at all. I understand if you don’t see that as a problem, but I do and I have to…” She floundered. “I need light. I need heat.”

“And this all came to you out of the blue?”

She had not foreseen this crossroad, and certainly not how hard it was to remain silent. She could tell him more, and be rational about it, probably. She could explain that she found his ideology contradictory, and his assumptions to be without merit on many issues.

But she was angry now, and wanted to hammer at him that she was a human being, with a body, that he might have touched her, kissed her, told her that he loved the way her skin felt — God, anything. Any small thing that showed a moment of affection on his part. He was the one without any essential humanity.

She was silent because she didn’t want to say any of those things. She was the one who had refused to see his flaws for eight years. The only person she could fix here was herself.

She left the kitchen for the living room and began removing books from the shelves. When he followed her she said calmly, “I don’t want to quibble about what belongs to whom. I’m taking my books and clothes, of course. My music and the food I know you won’t eat. That’s all.” She blew dust off her Bertrand Russell texts and set them in the next box. “I can show you an accounting, if you like, of the household money. I’m not taking any of it. But I am keeping my savings account. It’s roughly equal to the extra I paid down on the mortgage, which is in your name, along with the house. You come out ahead if you count appreciation in. I just want this to be clean.”

His voice was chilly. “Where will you be if I need to reach you?”

“I don’t know where I’m going,” she admitted.

“Typical of you.” From chill to acid.

She sighed, held back the anger and said mildly, “Yes, of course, I’m wrong as usual. But in a few hours you won’t have me underfoot, needing a constant grade. I should think you’d be relieved.”

“I was only trying to help you.”

“To be like you, and that’s what I’m trying to tell you, Clay. I don’t want to be like you. Not anymore. I grew up, all at once.”

“Fine.” He stalked to the kitchen.

Holly paused in her work to write Tori’s phone number down for him. She didn’t want him calling Jo before she had a chance to tell her — Jesus, to tell her she’d been right. About everything. And thank her for caring enough to risk their friendship with truth.

She carried the paper into the kitchen. “Leave a message for me with Tori. I’ll let her know you might have to call.”

“Tori? I thought—” His gaze was all over her suddenly, speculative and furious. “Is that what this is really about? Because everything you’ve said so far is bullshit.”

She turned back to the living room and he grabbed her arm. “Don’t, Clay!”

“It’s about this dyke — she’s got you in a sweat and now you think you are one. That’s why you quit your job. There’s nothing wrong with me, you just want —”

“Stop it!” She shook her arm free. She was blushing furiously but he wasn’t right, at least not about why she quit. “What I might want or not want from a lover has nothing to do with the fact that what I don’t want is you!”

He thought he had her in a debate now. He surged in to take the advantage. “What will you do after her? When you no longer want to be queer?”

“And you call yourself a liberal,” she snapped. He was towering over her now and she tried to hold back her panic; she had never seen him physically angry before. “Leave me alone!”

“At least I’m normal!”

She retreated, he followed. “Just leave me alone!”

“Who would have thought that that angry, bitter woman was right about something,” he said insidiously. “She was actually right.”

She stopped retreating. “Aunt Zinnia? What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Ask her yourself.”

She felt the blood draining out of her face. Last night, standing in the rain, she had felt there was something she hadn’t known. “Tell me,” she said intensely.

He took his revenge by laughing. Then he had slammed into his study and though later she would smell incense, she hadn’t had to face him again, not even when she had come back for the second carload.

So you’re holed up in a cheap motel, she told herself, going over the scene with Clay as if it will change something. Not exactly a good plan — okay, Clay was right about that. But she could not have managed another day. When dams burst, floods are inevitable.

She didn’t look at the bedside table. Would not look. But she knew Galina’s card was there. “Call me when you’re not straight anymore,” she had said.

Was she not straight anymore? What did that mean?

Dinner, she had to go out to get something to eat. She was, in fact, ravenous. Yes, dinner was a diversion she badly needed.

It was only convenience that took her to Tish’s. It was close and she wanted comfort food. She needed to call Tori, she remembered, to warn her that Clay might leave a message. There was a pay phone outside the restaurant. Yes, convenience was the only reason she was there.

All the while she knew the truth — she was still walking the spit of land between the chasms of past and future. She even knew she was tottering toward the future at last. But she could pretend that coincidence and circumstance were at work. Even knowing that true coincidence was rare, she lied to herself, for the moment.

The restaurant was mostly populated by women and the sight of them made her suddenly afraid. They would all think — they would all assume something she wasn’t. At least not yet. When will you be, she wondered. What’s the rite of passage? When will you not be straight anymore?

She would get the food to go. Tish recognized her, though, and called out, “Tori, your friend’s here.”

Tori had on an apron and bright yellow gloves. “Heya, Holly. Liked the food, didn’t you? I told you so. I’m still slaving away. It’s the cold and flu season.”

“You’re a good dishwasher,” Tish admitted fondly.

“For this I went to college?” She turned back to Holly. “I think I’m going to go the whole route and become an actuary. What do you think?”

“I think that’s an excellent idea.”

“Geena is behind me one hundred —” She stopped. “What’s wrong?”

“It’s just tension,” Holly said. She fumbled in her pocket for a tissue, even though she knew she didn’t have any. It was just tension. And she was here for convenience, not for the warm shoulder Tori offered as she drew her into the kitchen and away from prying eyes.

It was a flood and her incoherent account told Tori only a little bit about why. She didn’t want Tori to know the whole truth.

“This is all my fault,” Tori said after a while. “You fought because you quit and you quit because of me.”

“No,” Holly mumbled. “I quit because it was the right thing to do. I didn’t know he’d be an ass about it. I didn’t expect that.” She raised her head at last from Tori’s shoulder. Tori smelled like oregano and disinfectant. There was something charming about the combination.

“You can stay with us.” Tori’s offer was heartfelt. “Until you find a place.”

She shook her head. “No, but thank you. It’s nice to know I have a safety net of some kind. I’m just looking for something simple and cheap until I decide what to do.”

“Hey, I have a friend with an illegal motherin-law rental. You don’t tell the county and the rent is really reasonable. Great little cottage for one in the back yard. One big room downstairs, a complete kitchen, and a single room upstairs. I think it would suit you just fine.”

It sounded ideal. Wary of leaping before she looked, though, Holly said, “I’d love to take a look at it.”

“Her name’s Flo — you’ll die when you talk to her. She’s got a dreamy English accent. Gets me every time.” Tori found a pen and pencil and scribbled furiously. “Here’s her number. But I’m leaving here in about an hour. Why don’t you have a bite to eat and I’ll call her and maybe we can go see it. The previous tenant moved out this week and I don’t think she’s had time to clean and paint it, though.”

How could she have not known that Tori was such a nice person? How could she not know whatever it was that Clay said her aunt knew? She was ignorant, for all her brains, that much was clear.

Tish served her dinner at the dark end of the bar to spare her being single in the dining room with a blotchy, tear-streaked face. She had an enormous plate of noodles, broccoli and roasted garlic tossed with olive oil and Parmesan cheese. By the end of it she felt better, not so much teetering toward her future as perhaps allowing herself to fall because it was the only way to move on.

She had agreed to a slice of a very decadent-looking chocolate cheesecake when a voice in her ear murmured, “Well, if it isn’t the mouse that roared.”

Two things happened at once. She said, “Leave me alone,” and she felt a clenching, tight and hard, deep in her abdomen — muscles moving she did not know she had.

Murphy leaned on the bar. In spite of the winter temperatures, she wore a sleeveless muscle shirt with her jeans, and obviously nothing under it.

Holly thought, “Save me,” and hoped Tori got the message. But she hadn’t told Tori about not being straight anymore.

“Now I’ve been told that Tori is still with Geena and you’re just a friend. That you have a boyfriend.”

Holly said nothing because her mouth was watering, and the sheer magnitude of her physical reaction to Murphy’s long, lean body had taken her completely by surprise. She was nothing like Galina. What do I like, Holly wondered, now that I’m not straight anymore?

“But I do always wonder,” Murphy went on nonchalantly, “how a straight woman can be friends with a dyke, hang out in a eatery run by a dyke, with dykes at most of the tables and, deep down, not be there because she’s curious.”

Murphy shifted her weight and Holly wanted to close her eyes. But Murphy would know why — it would be to shut out the clear view she had of Murphy’s taut nipples, pushing hard against the shirt, straining. Her mouth wouldn’t stop watering and she had to swallow.

Murphy’s voice was smooth and intimate. “I know women who have scruples about straight women. But I’m not one of them. I don’t care where a woman has been or where she’s going next. When I’m with a woman I’ve got one goal — finding out what she likes, even if she doesn’t know herself, and getting her there.”

Holly’s sweater hid the gooseflesh that prickled her arms and back, and she was glad she’d put on all the extra layers. What could Murphy want with her? She wasn’t Tori. It had to be just for the conquest. The clenching muscles were now in her thighs, and her hips ached from the effort to keep them still.

“Get lost, Murphy.”

Tori, thank God, at last.

“Can’t blame a girl for trying, can you?”

“Yes, you can,” Tori snapped.

Thankfully, Murphy and her nipples left Holly’s periph-ral vision.

“I’m sorry about her,” Tori said as she slid onto the barstool next to Holly. “She’s only bugging you because of me…”

Holly couldn’t say anything, not yet, but she could feel Tori’s gaze on her as intently as Clay’s had been earlier. The blush started at the top of her head and ended in a knot of heat between her legs.

“Oh…” It was all Tori said for a while.

Tish brought the cheesecake but Holly couldn’t eat it, not then. Finally, she sipped some water and felt like she could breathe.

“Everything is happening all at once, isn’t it?” Tori’s voice was kind.

Holly blinked back yet more tears and nodded. “Yeah. It started … sort of yesterday at lunch.” She laughed, not happily. “What a difference a day makes.”

“Wow. Most women I know, well, it always seems gradual to them. Like the truth sneaks up. That’s how it was for me. For Geena.”

“It feels like I’ve been struck by lightning.”

“Stay away from Murphy,” Tori said seriously. “I understand how appealing she can be — and physically you’d have no regrets, but—”

“I know,” Holly said quickly. “I know. I just, I’ve spent my entire adult life trying to be in control. Clay was always so quick to point out when I wasn’t. And this is…” She swallowed hard. “I can’t control this. Five minutes more and I’d have been wherever Murphy wanted me.” She twisted her fingers around each other, unable to say that she would have been begging, pleading, aching for things she could not even name. “I feel like I’m going from one addiction to another.”

“And it doesn’t feel good. Oh hon, I know. Let’s get the cheesecake in a box and go see Flo’s place. At least take care of the shelter, food and clothing. Then you can focus on the rest.”

Holly let Tori do the driving and most of the talking. She’d gone from Aunt Zinnia’s domination to Clay’s, and if anything was going to be better she had to take control of herself. Maybe she would be sexually satisfied with Murphy, but if she wasn’t careful she would go on making the same mistakes. Maybe she’d like the fire better than the frying pan, but either way she got cooked.

Flo did have a dreamy accent. It was the first thing Holly thought and she gave Tori a glance of pure betrayal. They should have waited, how was she supposed to withstand such a thing?

If anything, Tori was fighting a smile.

All Flo said was, “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

Holly kept her hands in her pockets, though she felt she was being rude. Shaking hands with Galina had led to a lot of trouble. She thought about Galina’s card. Was she not straight anymore?