Chapter 9

They entered the apartment. Eve, dressed in slacks and a cotton shirt, tossed her satchel into a corner and turned to Vivian.

"Would you like a drink?"

"No." She swallowed and added, "Thank you."

Eve went forward to her. With a groan, they locked together in a fierce kiss. Eve dug her fingers into the thick hair and moulded her pelvis against the older woman's, and soon they were writhing together in a gasping attempt to touch excitement with excitement. Vivian thrust a knee between the girl's legs and rubbed it up and down between the hot thighs until Eve sank down on it, straddling her and pushing her pelvis against the firm line. Vivian could feel the hot, eager groin under the material that separated their bodies.

"Where's the bedroom?" she gasped.

They went into the darkened room. Eve switched on the night light and Vivian looked about at the mirrors.

"Take it off," she ordered, gesturing at Eve's clothes. Her own fingers pulled at the buttons of her blouse. Suddenly, she wanted nothing more than to see Eve naked at that moment, though she had seen her many times. It was new, in spite of the familiarity. In the dim light, as they stood before each other completely nude, Vivian stared at the golden hairs on Eve's groin. Then she reached out and thrust her hand into the curling mass. Her eyes closed, and her fingers dug under the downy triangle and probed between the girl's legs. She was burning down there, and moist, engorged, with desire.

They fell onto the mattress. At last, Vivian thought. At last....It was so strange to feel silken skin once more; to feel such delicate bones, after Tim's burliness. Such smoothness ... it made her hate hair-except the wedge-shaped collection of it that was wrapped about her fingers now.

Eve spread her legs wide, so wide that her thighs were almost on a straight line one with the other. She lay back with a deep, happy sigh, her hands over her head.

Vivian trailed her fingers over the swollen pink lips, coming to rest on the stiff bud of the clitoris at the top of the oval of flesh. Eve shivered, her hips rising off the bed.

"Eve ... Eve, you're so wet. I want to kiss you there."

"Do something else first." The voice was weak and trembling.

She sounded afraid, Vivian thought. "What?"

"I'm a virgin. Change me. Please."

Vivian rose up on an elbow and looked down with incredulity at the flushed face. "Are you serious?"

"Yes."

"How old are you?"

"Twenty-six."

Vivian suddenly felt a thrill that was power and pride and a kind of victory that she could not understand.

Her hand trailed down and found the place. As soon as her finger began to probe the opening, Eve stiffened and cried out. Her body went rigid.

"Do it," she panted. "Do it quick."

"Relax."

"I ... can't. I'm trying."

When Vivian touched the place again, she found that the claim was all too true. An irrelevant recollection went through her mind. She thought of those damned plastic bags that bread came in nowadays, with twisted wire at the top. Once, she couldn't untangle the wire tape and lost her temper, stabbing the bag with her forefinger to make an opening. That's what Eve's body felt like now. As though there were a thick disc of plastic at her cunt's entrance.

Now, the inchoate sensation of victory became clear. A twenty-six-year-old virgin, a real, honest-to-God tight-as-a-drum virgin! What sonofabitching man wouldn't envy her now!

"Lift up, come on."

She put her arm under the rigid hips and raised them off the bed. With her shoulders, she pressed back on Eve's legs until she was almost up-ended. The legs wrapped instinctively around her as she loomed over the supine girl.

Her hand separated the lips once more and sought the prize. She pushed-and none too gently.

Eve grunted in pain and put her fist to her mouth. "Don't stop," she pleaded. "Don't.

How tight she was; it was unbelievable. Vivian thought of the many other girls she had done this to, remembered how the female parts flowered open with throbbing delight, begging for more, those limitless caverns of experienced women. But this was like ... a little girl. So this was why Eve had appeared that day in class with underpants on, and the tell-tale bulge beneath.

Vivian compared what she was feeling now to her own faked muscle-clutching on her wedding night. Now that she knew what the real thing was like, she wondered if Tim had believed her.

Suddenly, she felt the hot walls enclose her. Eve shook as she bore down against the invasion, her hand still clapped over her mouth. Vivian wondered if she were going to be sick. That happened sometimes, she had heard. Would it happen now? Again, the feeling of triumph and power surged over her.

"More," Eve gasped. "Another one."

This time it was easier. Vivian felt the flesh answer her with a voluptuous throb. She sought the protruding neck of the uterus and revolved her finger over it until Eve's hips began to wriggle in answer.

"Yes. Now ... three."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes! I want it. I want it to hurt. Let me feel it."

Now it was as if she were sinking into a dewy rose and going down, deep down, into the stem. Her fingers moved like trapped snakes in the molten cavern, prodding, massaging, thrusting hard.

"Now. Do it!" Eve commanded.

Vivian drew back and began to shoot her arm forward like a piston, pounding deep in the squirming body. Eve's legs rose higher and higher until her feet were parallel with the ceiling. Her hands tore at the pillows and gripped the bed spokes. The sound of her nails raking the wood could be heard amid the slippery rhythm of violent sex.

Vivian grabbed the slender waist and held it tightly while she pummeled unmercifully. A long, unbroken moan escaped Eve's lips, like an animal in a trap or a dog baying at the moon. The words "Yes ... yes ... yes ... yes" sounded over and over as the vise of flesh burst into a throbbing maw of completion.

"Oh! That's it! Oh, it's happening!" Eve screamed.

This, Vivian thought, her mind whirling, is a climax and a half....

Eve fell back in exhaustion. The satisfied cavern tightened abruptly around Vivian's fingers. She withdrew them and knelt on the bed, looking at them.

"You bled," she said in a stunned voice.

Eve nodded slowly, a smile on her lips. "Yes. I wanted to. I'm so happy now."

She put out a weak arm and patted Vivian's knee. "On the shelf, under the night table," she murmured.

Vivian found the box of tissues. "Here," she said, taking one and leaning over Eve's body. "Open. Let me fix."

The legs spread obediently. Eve laughed softly.

"It's been a long time since anybody did that for me.

Vivian stared at the face in the dim light, her eyes widening. She's twenty-six ... I'm fourteen years older than she. It came as a shock to realize that, biologically if not socially, she was old enough to be Eve's mother.

Then she thought of her own daughter. Eighteen ... and very blonde, like Tim. Like No ... oh, no. Something shocking, yet highly pleasant, seared through her veins. Quickly, she put it out of her mind. How foolish. More than that, she and her daughter had never been close. She wasn't close with either of her children. She just wasn't cut out to be a mother.

Stop it. Don't be silly. The whole goddamn world is going Freudian. Don't you start.

Aloud, she said, "There. All well."

Christ, did she have to talk like that? It sounded all coo-y.

But she couldn't stop being a mother just then, because Eve started to sob. Deep, gulping sounds that shortly mixed with choking laughter.

She shook the girl, then wrapped her arms tightly around the quivering shoulders. "There, there. You're hysterical. Stop ... calm yourself. Come on, now."

At last, Eve was still and limp with spent emotion. She started to talk, a rambling, disconnected story of her early life, her parents, her escape from the rigid home. Vivian listened, shuddering at the descriptions.

She knew Eve was in no condition to make love to her. It was quite late, and she got up, dressed and prepared to go home.

"Soon again?" Eve asked in a pleading voice.

"Yes, of course."

"After the drawing class. I don't have anything after that until late in the afternoon."

"Yes, that's fine."

"I'll make it up to you," Eve promised feverishly. "I'll make love to you, too."

"I know, I know. I have to get home now."

The next day, Vivian had no classes. She stayed in the house all day, thinking about what had transpired. Now, in the light of day, it did not seem so serious. The thought that had kept her awake the previous night: I've taken a baby to raise, now became: I've got a girl.

She smiled a crafty smile. What a wonderful way to cuckold a husband! Not with another man-that was old-hat. But with a woman. What else could so thoroughly qualify as insult piled on injury?

If only she weren't so dependent on me!

Again, the nervous feeling captured her. Of course Eve had an awful life, but ... Must she cling like that?

She thought of how Eve had been at first; regal, detached, aloof. That was her appeal, and now it was gone. The challenge of that aloofness had been the thing that won Vivian, that fascinated her.

Mingled with these doubts was the feeling of victory that she had first had the night before. Would you believe it? I copped a cherry! That's more than Tim got when he married me.

But why couldn't Eve just enjoy the sex without getting so damned involved!

Vivian had a drink, and then another. It was just enough alcohol to bring clarity instead of muddled thinking. Suddenly, the entire explanation spread itself out in front of her as though it had been an official report from some unknown keeper of her soul.

1. Long ago you chose to be a butch, imitating the worse qualities of men in your attempt to become a man. The worst qualities are the most male qualities, after all. Love 'em and leave 'em, that was your motto, in those days when you forced yourself to smoke cigars in that bar.

2. Your ambition, which you fulfilled, was to have a different girl every night. No emotional involvements, just fun. Some Don Juan, weren't you?

3. As if you hadn't brutalized yourself enough, you had to go and marry Tim, who has finished the job for you. He was just the kind of man you yourself were trying to be back then. Now you're both a couple of General Pattons.

4. Now you're smug because you "copped a cherry." You're no lesbian; you belong in a locker room. They don't allow women in locker rooms.

The sudden inventory of motives was too painful. Vivian had a third drink, and then a fourth. When she finished, the clarity had vanished. By the time she had the fifth and final drink, she had forgotten the whole business.

Eve, she thought, excitement welling through her. Tomorrow, tomorrow....They would go to bed again tomorrow.