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Subject: The Real Rose (Susan Anders f/f 1/1)
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This is an extract from an Obelisk Library Etext title
available via Email or on disk. For more information
about this and other Etext titles, ask for the
Obelisk Library Catalog at: <specpress@earthlink.net>
This text is for adults only.
from: Susan Anders: CITY OF WOMEN
Copyright (c) 1994 Susan Anders
All Rights Reserved
Published by Spectrum Press Inc.
ISBN 1-57138-281-X
The Real Rose
She sits hunched over the drafting table with her nose
almost touching the blueprint when she hears Ella's voice at the
door. Lunch?
Sarah looks up. Sure, why not?
And Ella says noon will be fine, waves and walks off.
Sarah looks at the blueprint again. Boring. Boring
blueprint. Boring job. This job. The other job. Two years after
crawling out of a horrible marriage and what she still has is an
unhappy loneliness. She hates being alone, hates the isolation.
She married in the first place to avoid being alone and then
regretted it because early in the marriage she came to understand
it was a woman she wanted, a woman's arms to hold her, a woman to
share her life. She has known only two women, two girls in
college, two awkward romances with girls as young as herself, as
fearful as herself. Passionate kisses, daring caresses,
explorations she now understands were clumsy. There has to be
more. She can have more than what she had with those two girls so
long ago. But she doesn't know a single woman she might consider
as a lover, not one. She knows there are bars in the city where
women go to meet women, clubs, organizations devoted to the
affairs of women, lesbians. In the city it's only a matter of
opening one of those little newspapers available free at the
supermarket. I'm a lesbian and I ought to read lesbian
newspapers. But it never happens. She's too afraid. She
understands she has to turn to a new life to find happiness, but
she's too afraid of it. Afraid of what? The unknown maybe. She's
not daring. She's twenty-eight years old and everything in her
life seems to have been predetermined. Her parents chose her
schools. Her father was a minor architect and now she's a minor
architect. Her mother introduced her to the man she married, and
now that Sarah is divorced, her mother and father are both
piqued. She gets divorced and they get piqued. So she lives
alone, hardly ever visiting them anymore, her evenings passed
with magazines, books, casual women friends she knows would be
shocked and revolted if she told them she was a lesbian. Dyke.
Queer. The people she met during the short marriage are her ex-
husband's friends and they seem to avoid her. And she avoids them
as well because evenings with married men and women only make her
feel more lost anyway. These married people talk about their
common life, about their homes, about their children.
In this large architectural firm she's been friendly with
Ella, an older woman, almost fifty, a big pleasant woman with
three grown daughters. Not a real friendship, they never see each
other outside the office, but sometimes they have lunch together
in a restaurant only a few blocks away.
Gritting her teeth at the blueprint, Sarah looks forward to
lunch at noon. Better than nothing. Better to eat with someone
than to eat alone.
* * *
I'm starved, Ella says. And then she does her routine with
the menu, searching, cogitating, deciding. As she always does,
Sarah orders a Julienne salad and coffee. When the waitress walks
away, Ella says, Oh look, there's someone I know.
And a woman stops at the table, says hello to Ella. They
seem to be old friends, but they haven't seen each other in some
time. Ella introduces Marcy to Sarah, and when Marcy says she's
about to find a table to eat alone, both Ella and Sarah invite
her to join them.
The food tastes better when you're with people, Ella says.
Marcy laughs and sits down. She works for a brokerage firm.
She's Sarah's age, with a round attractive face and short dark
hair, strong looking, a certain force that Sarah notices.
Appealing. Several times during the meal, Sarah finds herself
glancing at Marcy, and when their eyes meet, Marcy holds her gaze
a long moment.
Sarah feels a new excitement. What does it mean? Means
nothing. Means something. She doesn't know.
Three women talking about the odds and ends of their lives.
When lunch is finished, they leave the restaurant together. Since
Ella has a dental appointment, she says goodby on the sidewalk,
and so it happens that Sarah and Marcy walk a few blocks alone
together as they return to their offices. Sarah learns Marcy is
unmarried. As they pass a movie theater where a new film is
playing, Sarah says she wants to see that film, but she doesn't
like being alone downtown in the evening. She immediately regrets
saying that, regrets revealing how ridiculously isolated she is.
But Marcy says nothing about that. Instead, Marcy says:
I'm gay, you know.
Stunned, Sarah says, No, I didn't know it.
I was hoping you were too.
Marcy looks at her. Sarah feels herself blushing, and says,
Yes, I think I am.
You think?
No, I'm sure of it.
A soft smile from Marcy. Why don't we see that film together
this evening? Unless you're busy.
No, I'm not busy, I'd love it.
Marcy says all right, she'll drive and she'll pick Sarah up
at her place. She takes Sarah's address and phone number and they
arrange a time. Before they part at the next corner, Marcy shakes
Sarah's hand and smiles. Well, I guess this day didn't turn out
so bad after all.
See you this evening, Sarah says.
* * *
At home early in the evening, she's nervous. Did she do the
right thing with Marcy? Am I ready for this? She thinks about
clothes. What clothes for this evening? She can't make up her
mind. She finally decides to dress the same way she dressed
during the day, a blouse and skirt and pumps and a raincoat. Same
sort of clothes she wore when she and Marcy first met.
Conservative. You're too conservative. Yes, I am.
After she bathes, she looks at herself in the mirror. I'm a
lesbian. She holds the weight of her breasts in her hands,
tweaking the nipples with her thumbs and forefingers. She drops a
hand to her belly and slides her fingers into the forest of hair
to find her clitoris. Yes, she wants a woman. Memories awaken
like flames bursting into life again. The beginnings. The first
time she tasted a nipple. The first time she touched someone
else's clitoris. The first time she tasted someone else's cunt.
Embarrassed by the sexual heat she feels, she turns away from the
mirror. Two years without anyone in her bed because she was too
afraid, and now that it may happen, she's still afraid.
When Marcy arrives punctually at seven wearing jeans and a
sweater, Sarah feels overdressed. I'll change, she says.
But Marcy says no, she looks lovely. Stay this way for me,
Marcy says, an intimacy in her voice that Sarah finds thrilling.
She agrees. She'll go dressed as she is. Happy at the way Marcy
looks at her. Happy to be looked at.
They leave Sarah's apartment, descend in the elevator, walk
to Marcy's car. During the drive downtown, they don't talk much,
and after a while Marcy puts her hand on Sarah's and says:
You're nervous.
Yes, Sarah replies. I don't know why, but I am.
It's only a date.
Yes, I know.
We're just going to the movies.
Sarah says nothing. She doesn't know what to say. She feels
ridiculous, immature, inexperienced. She knows nothing. She
doesn't know what she wants. It's easy to imagine herself in bed
with Marcy. Exciting. But there her imagination refuses to go on.
I don't know anything, she says finally. I don't know anything.
Marcy soothes her: It doesn't matter. Things have a way of
working themselves out.
At last they arrive at the theater, and soon, in the
darkness, they sit beside each other. For a while, Sarah becomes
engrossed in the film. A lovely film about India. Superb
photography.
Marcy takes Sarah's hand and holds it, strokes it. Sarah
feels nervous again. But also excited by the feel of Marcy's hand
caressing hers in the darkness. Fingers intertwined. Marcy's
fingers making love to each of Sarah's fingers. Sarah feels
herself getting aroused, blood pumping in her vitals, memories of
the two girls she has known flooding into her mind. She no longer
cares about the film. She adores Marcy's hand.
The film ends anyway, the spell is broken, they walk out to
find Marcy's car.
Marcy says, Did you like the film?
Yes, I loved it.
You're very shy.
I can't help it.
It doesn't matter.
But she doesn't touch Sarah's hand again and Sarah feels
very much alone.
When they arrive at Sarah's apartment building, Marcy
accompanies Sarah to the entrance and then says she won't come
up. In the shadows near the entrance, she leans forward to kiss
Sarah's lips.
I'll call you, Marcy says.
Sarah turns into the entrance feeling miserable. Her first
date with a woman a complete failure. Catastrophe. She needs a
strong drink. Whatever sexual excitement she felt before is now
gone. All she wants is to forget everything.
In her apartment, she makes a double Scotch, drinks it, then
falls asleep on the living room sofa with the lights on.
* * *
The next morning in the office at her drafting table again.
Not long after she starts her work, a small box arrives by
special messenger. Sarah opens the box and finds a single red
rose inside. A card signed: M.
Marcy.
She's thrilled. She feels buoyant all day. She opens the box
several times during the day to look at the rose. In the evening,
when she's finally home again, she puts the single rose in a
small vase and she sets the vase on the coffee table in the
living room.
Marcy telephones at seven. Can she come over? Maybe they can
have a pizza delivered. Sarah agrees and Marcy offers to bring a
bottle of red wine.
She arrives with two bottles of red wine. I wasn't sure one
would be enough.
She kisses Sarah's cheek. A light kiss. Then she steps back
and looks at Sarah. This evening they're dressed alike, jeans and
sweaters, except that Marcy wears sneakers and Sarah is
barefooted. You look good in jeans, Marcy says.
Thank you.
This is one of my workout nights, Marcy says. But I thought
about you and I wanted to be here.
She tells Sarah about the hours each week she spends at an
exercise studio. Running in place, using the machines, lifting
weights, tension dripping away in her sweat. I like being strong,
she says. She rolls her shoulders like a prize fighter and they
both laugh.
Sarah finds an old Grateful Dead tape and she puts it on the
stereo.
When the pizza arrives, Sarah lights two candles on the
dining room table and they sit down to eat the pizza and drink
the red wine. Marcy talks casually about her job, her life. She
lives alone, but until three months ago she lived with a woman.
It just didn't work, she says.
And Sarah talks about her failed marriage, her realization
that she's a lesbian.
But I don't know anything.
You already said that.
After dinner, they relax on the sofa in the living room.
They have more wine, finish the second bottle. Then Marcy leans
over and kisses Sarah's lips.
I was sorry I didn't come up here last night.
Me too.
Don't be too shy.
I'll try.
Marcy kisses her again, this time a deeper kiss. She takes
Sarah in her arms and Sarah huddles against Marcy's shoulder.
During the next kiss, Marcy passes her hand over Sarah's breasts
on the outside of Sarah's sweater. Sarah feels a sudden frenzy of
desire, her lips melting against Marcy's, her mouth opening to
accept Marcy's questing tongue.
Marcy strokes Sarah's face, a gentle caress. Relax, baby.
Her hand slides over Sarah's breasts again. Let's have a look,
she whispers. She lifts Sarah's sweater, unhooks her bra and
lifts that too.
Sarah's breasts tingle in the cool air, her nipples stiff
with excitement. Marcy looks at them a long time, just looking,
and then she bends her head to take one of the nipples between
her lips.
Sarah moans. She holds Marcy's head with her hands. She
trembles as she feels Marcy's tongue making love to her nipple.
I love that.
You're like a tender flower. Did you like the rose I sent
you?
I loved it.
Let me undress you.
All right.
She makes Sarah rise. She pulls the sweater over Sarah's
head and she removes the bra completely. She kisses the tip of
each of Sarah's swaying breasts. She unbuckles Sarah's belt and
pushes the jeans down to Sarah's feet so Sarah can step out of
them. She pulls Sarah's panties down, and Sarah steps out of
those too. Sarah blushes when Marcy sniffs at her panties.
I like your smell, Marcy says. Smelling a woman is like
smelling a flower. The real rose.
I feel awkward, Sarah says.
You're not awkward, you're beautiful. Let me look at you.
Sit on the sofa and let me look at your cunt.
Sarah trembles as she sits down and opens her legs. She
feels terribly lewd. She feels embarrassed as Marcy kneels and
pushes her knees wide apart to look at her.
But when she sees the desire in Marcy's eyes, the
embarrassment turns into excitement.
Yes, Sarah says.
Marcy looks up at her and smiles. Yes?
Oh yes.
Gently, Marcy lifts Sarah's legs to her shoulders and she
bends to take Sarah with her mouth.
Sarah cries out, a long moan, knowing she now has her new
life.
------------------------------
End Extract
This is an extract from an Obelisk Library Etext title
available via Email or on disk. For more information
about this and other Etext titles, ask for the
Obelisk Library Catalog at: <specpress@earthlink.net>
This text is for adults only.
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