Lesbian Pulp Fiction. Katherine V. Forrest

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СКАЧАТЬ I’ll give you a ring.” He took the pipe out of his mouth and leaned over to kiss her quickly. Jake was funny the way he sang aloud in the streets. He walked away singing, “Oh, here by the fire we defy the frost and storm,” and Leda heard him as she walked up the steps and came into the front room of the house. The thought came that if Jake were gone forever, it would be strange, but if the choice were to be made, it would be Jake who would go. Not Mitch. Was she upstairs? She teased her own curiosity, prolonging it, sweetening it by tarrying in the hall downstairs.

      To the left of the dining room there was a small alcove, with square boxes and names printed evenly above each one. In her box there was an envelope with her name scrawled on the outside, and no postage or address. Girls were coming down the stairs, milling around in the hall waiting for the dinner gong. They were reading papers, playing cards, singing at the piano, and talking together in close, separate groups. Leda took the envelope to the scarlet chair in the corner near the entrance to Mother Nessy’s suite. She ripped the seal open and held the thin notebook paper in her hand.

      Dear Leda,

      This letter is for you alone. Please tear it up when you are through.

      More than anything else I want you to understand what I’m going to say here, and why I’m saying it. I want to leave the sorority and become an independent. Maybe it’ll be the best thing for me, and maybe it’ll be just another defeat, but I have to do it. Leda, darling, you know that I love you. You know it, even though I haven’t shown it the past few days. I’ve been worried and afraid, and now I know for sure what’s wrong with me. I suppose I should go to a doctor, but I don’t have the nerve, and I’m going to try to help myself as best I can.

      Lesbian is an ugly word and I hate it. But that’s what I am, Leda, and my feelings toward you are homosexual. I had no business to ask you to stop seeing Jake, to try to turn you into what I am, but please believe me, I didn’t know myself what I was doing. I guess I’m young and stupid and naïve about life, and I know that you warned me about the direction my life was taking when you told me to get to know men. I tried, Leda. But it was awful. Even Charlie knows what I am now. I think that if I go to an independent house, away from you, the only person I love, I’ll be able to forget some of the temptation. If I stay in the sorority, I’ll only make you unhappy and hurt you. I love you too much to do that.

      Please announce that I am leaving during the chapter meeting tonight. Don’t tell them why, please, because I want to straighten myself out and I don’t want people to know. Tell them that I thank them for all they’ve done, but that I’d rather live somewhere else because I don’t fit in here.

      I know how you’ll feel about me after reading this. I’ll try to stay out of your way. Tonight I am going to eat dinner downtown, and then during chapter meeting I’ll pack most of my things and move to the hotel until I get a room at the dorm. Robin Maurer is going to help me.

      There’s nothing else to say but good-bye, I’m sorry, and I do love you, Leda.

       Mitch

      The dinner gong sounded out the first seven notes of “Yankee Doodle.” Mother Nesselbush stood in the doorway of her suite. She looked down at Leda, who was sitting there holding the paper the note was written on, not moving. It was customary for one of the girls to lead her in to dinner. Marsha usually handled the task because she was president, but Marsha was hurrying to finish the last-minute preparations in the Chapter Room for the meeting. Mother Nesselbush cleared her throat, but to no avail. Leda sat still and pale and Nessy bent down.

      “Are you all right, dear?”

      “Yes.”

      “That was the dinner bell, you know.”

      Leda said, “Yes.”

      “Would you like to escort me to my table?”

      Leda looked up at her, a thin veil of tears in her eyes, so thin that Mother Nessy did not notice. She could sense the waiting around her, the girls waiting to go into the dining room, Nessy waiting, the house-boys who served the food waiting for her. Standing slowly, she crooked her arm and felt Nessy’s hand close on it as they moved across the floor into the brightly lighted hall, past the six oak tables to the long front table and the center seats.

      A plate of buns went from hand to hand, each girl taking one and passing the plate mechanically, reaching for it with the left, offering it with the right, as they had been taught when they were pledges. The bowl of thick, dried mashed potatoes came next, and the long dish of wizened pork chops, the bowl of dull green canned peas, and the individual dishes of cole slaw. When Leda tasted the food, she felt an emetic surging throughout her body and she laid her fork down. Around her there was a churning gobble of voices that seemed to slice through her brain like a meat cleaver. Mother Nessy stared after her when she went from the room.

      “She said she was sick,” she told Kitten, “and I knew it when I saw her before dinner. Poor thing. There’s a flu epidemic going around, and I’m willing to bet my life she’s got the flu.”

      The car was gone from the driveway. Leda put on the sweater she was carrying and ran down the graveled drive. In her hand she clutched her felt purse, and at the corner she caught a taxi.

      At the Blue Ribbon there was a crowd of students waiting at the rail with trays, sitting in the booths with books piled high beside their plates, pushing and standing near the juke box with nickels and dimes, the pin-ball machines ringing up scores in her ears as she looked for Mitch.

      The Den was quieter, and the waitresses were lingering lazily around the front of the room near the bar, where a few boys munched liverwurst sandwiches and drank draught beer. The bartender dropped a glass and cursed enthusiastically. Leda pushed the revolving door and felt the cold autumn wind.

      Mac’s, Donaldson’s, the Alley, French’s, Miss Swanson’s, all of them alive with hungry students swarming in and out, the smell of hamburger predominant in each cafe, the sizzling crack of French fries cooking in grease on hot open grills.

      “Ham on rye.”

      “One over easy.”

      “Hey, Mary, catch the dog.”

      “Well, hell, you’re almost an hour late!”

      Leda stood finally on the curb in front of Miss Swanson’s. She fumbled in her pocket for a nickel and ran into the drugstore on the corner. She made a mistake dialing the number, and she held the hook down until the nickel came back and then tried again. When the voice answered, there was a long wait, the far-off sound of voices shouting down the halls, and then the answer, quick and flip. “Robin’s out to dinner. Call back later.”

      Her heart was pounding, and she could feel the perspiration soaking her body. If Mitch was eating with Robin, she might have it arranged already. Where was she eating? With the car, she could be anywhere, but it was unlike her to drive far at night. The clock read seven-thirty. In half an hour the chapter would meet and Mitch would go back to the house for her bags. Leda shivered in the night air and wished she had found Mitch before she had a chance to see Robin and carry her plan through. Now Leda would have to tell Marsha she was sick, that she had gone for medicine because she was sick and she could not attend the meeting. She would be in the room waiting for Mitch when she came.

      A car swerved away from her as she stepped off the sidewalk into the street. The cab driver grunted, and skirted the curb narrowly СКАЧАТЬ