Chapter 4

Ellen was at Elizabeth's apartment by eleven o'clock the next morning. Elizabeth herself opened the apartment door eagerly, dressed in a thin nylon robe that showed her body easily to Ellen who always noticed those things.

"What happened?" she squealed, practically dragging Ellen in the apartment.

"Nothing much," Ellen said. "Got any coffee?"

She could smell it. She just thought it better to ask.

Elizabeth led the way into the dining room where Elizabeth had fresh rolls and the entire service set for coffee. Pouring her friend a cup, Elizabeth then poured herself one and peered at Ellen over the rim.

"Well!" she demanded. "Did you seduce the little dyke?"

"You certainly have a way with words," Ellen observed dryly. "I'm glad you're not MY mother!"

"Go on!" Elizabeth insisted, letting the insult run right off her back without even hearing it.

Ellen told Elizabeth about her lack of success last night, finishing with: "If I were you, Liz, I'd forget the whole plan. It's mad to begin with!"

"Easy for you to say," Elizabeth spat. "You're one who would be content to live in a garret!"

"That's not true and you know it," Ellen said. "It's just that there are ways and there are ways, if you know what I mean."

And she took a long sip of coffee.

Elizabeth told Ellen how she had met a shrink at party last week who had advised her to document her proof that Carol was incapable of reaching her majority and she would probably get all the money for herself.

Ellen studied Elizabeth carefully. She was a very attractive woman as far as Ellen was concerned. She had just never thought about going to bed with her before. Well, Ellen thought philosophically, if I can't get the daughter, maybe the mother will have to do.

"Did you have cosmetic surgery performed on your body?" she asked Elizabeth suddenly.

Elizabeth gave a little pleased gasp. "Why no!" she protested. "Why do you ask?"

Ellen lit a cigarette and blew the smoke in Elizabeth's face. "You certainly don't look your age beneath the neck, that's for damn sure!"

Elizabeth laughed uneasily. "That sounds like a double-edged compliment to me," she said. "But at this stage of the game, I'll take it."

"Tell me something," Ellen asked. "How is it you never got divorced from Phil? You're not in love with him, are you?"

Elizabeth almost choked on her coffee. "You ought to have been able to figure that one out," she said. "The only clue I'll give you is that love had nothing to do with it."

"Hmm," Ellen said. She was deliberating over whether or not she should make a move right here at the table. She figured the most her friend could do to her was slap her face.

"Hand me the sugar, will you?" she asked Elizabeth.

Elizabeth reached obligingly towards the sugar and Ellen grabbed her hand.

"Wha ... t?" Elizabeth gasped. "Ellen!

What's come over you? You've been acting awfully peculiar lately."

"Don't give me that bullshit," Ellen snapped, not relinquishing her grip on Elizabeth by an inch.

"Ow!" Elizabeth whined, pulling her hand back from Ellen, "that's painful!"

But Ellen was out of her chair and on top of Elizabeth before she had a chance to protest any longer.

She pinned Elizabeth's shoulders against her chair and forced her mouth onto hers. Ellen was convinced that Elizabeth was a lesbian and she was willing to risk their friendship to prove it.

As for Elizabeth, she was so taken aback by the first real physical contact she had experienced in years, her first reaction was one of shock. Then, as Ellen's tongue did exciting things to the inside of her mouth,. Elizabeth allowed herself to relax, enjoying the powerful grip of the other woman and her skillful way with her tongue.

Ellen heard Elizabeth's breath growing shorter and more gasping and she took courage from this sign of submission.

Though she would have preferred to be in Elizabeth's bedroom, she didn't want to break her hold on Elizabeth right now. Then, she didn't have to. As Elizabeth came up for breath, she suggested with lowered eyes, that they go into the bedroom.

Ellen didn't wait for a second invitation. She followed Elizabeth into the bedroom as a male dog follows a bitch in heat.

The inside of Elizabeth's bedroom was pitch-black, even though the sun was shining brightly outside. Elizabeth always kept her room this way, figuring sun rays in the morning would give her wrinkles. Now, as she lay on her back, her legs parted, the robe around her side: she was grateful for the darkness that hid her shyness.

She waited for Ellen to do something. She didn't know exactly what to expect, but she assumed it would feel good, otherwise how explain all the women who dug sleeping with each other?

The next thing Elizabeth was aware of was the tickling sensation of her clit being nibbled at. Her first gasping reaction was to laugh, but she also realized this was just self-consciousness on her part and bit down on her lower Up. With her closed eyes and the darkened room, Elizabeth gave free rein to her capacity for arousal. Unfortunately for the hard-working Ellen, Elizabeth was as inflammable as a brick.

Ellen lapped away for ten minutes before stopping. She had been given the impression that she was making love to a corpse. Just as she was about to raise her head and make a comment to this effect, the door to Elizabeth's room opened. At first Elizabeth wasn't sure she could trust her ears. She peered through the darkness in order to ascertain who had had the balls to enter her room without knocking. All she saw was the outline of a man in the doorway When he spoke, her heart sank and she pushed frantically at Ellen's head, trying to disengage her from between her thighs.

"Well!" a deep male voice boomed. "Isn't this a pretty sight!"

"Phil!" Elizabeth yelled. "How DARE you come into my room like this?" But her voice didn't carry the conviction of the innocently offended.

Phil rudely flipped the overhead light on and stared at Ellen who was wiping her mouth on the back of her hand.

"Is that where you get your ideas for those ridiculous pieces of twisted iron you call sculpture?" he jeered. He was enjoying himself immensely.

Ellen cringed. If he had called her a filthy lesbian, she could have handled it, but to mock her art was the unkindest cut of all. She sat up and tried to straighten her rumpled clothes out. Elizabeth also was doing her best to yank her flimsy robe about her nakedness.

"I always thought you were a dyke," Phil said. "But you were so busy mocking my masculinity I never got a chance to tell you!"

Elizabeth was chagrined and speechless for a change, but not for long. She swung her legs over the side of the bed, practically knocking Ellen to the floor in the process and stood up to face her former husband.

"I wouldn't be surprised if you were drunk out of your mind," she snapped. "And even if you were, it's still no reason to barge into my room as though the two of us were still living with one another."

"Don't make me laugh," Phil said. "I didn't come to see you anyway. I came to see my daughter. How is Carol? And where is she?"

Elizabeth's eyes narrowed. She had to be careful with what she said now.

"Now's a fine time to inquire about her. I wouldn't worry about Carol, if I were you Phil. As long as she continues to get her checks, she's fine."

"I'd like to make sure she IS getting her checks," Phil said. "Is she still living in the Village?"

"Isn't that where all lesbians live?" Elizabeth said cruelly.

Phil looked long and hard at Ellen and Elizabeth.

"Apparently not!" he shot at both of them before turning on his heels and walking out the door.

"Now you've done it!" Elizabeth raged at Ellen. "You've fucked up everything but good! How the hell am I going to make a case out of Carol being a lesbian when he finds the two of us doing whatever it was we were doing?"

Ellen looked at Elizabeth and burst out laughing. "You are really nuts!" she said. "Look, I have to go. If I see Carol or if anything new breaks, I'll be in touch. But don't bother me with any of your crazy schemes anymore, okay?"

And she too left the bewildered Elizabeth alone in her room, wondering why it was that she was so different than just about everyone she knew.

She sat at her vanity and stared at herself in the mirror. The face that looked back at her was a person she realized she didn't even know.

Meanwhile, Phil had hit the sidewalk and was hailing a cab as Ellen too walked outside the building. At first Phil didn't notice Ellen, but she went boldly up to him.

"If you're going to the Village to look for Carol, maybe I can help," she offered.

Phil stared at Ellen for a minute, not quite comprehending what on earth she was talking about. Then, realizing his own sexual history wasn't exactly a model of propriety, he shrugged and opened the door of a cab for Ellen.

They rode to the Village mainly in silence. Ellen felt Phil's thinly disguised hostility towards her and she wanted to erase it.

"Don't be so hard on me or Elizabeth," she finally said. "At least you don't have to worry about her fucking around with other men."

Phil gave a short laugh. "Do you honestly think that's one of the things that concerns me?" he asked. "Shit! As far as I'm concerned she could be fucking an elephant. It's no skin off my nose."

Ellen fell silent then. She realized that once people got into discussing sex, rationality went flying out the window.

She gave Phil the address of the Cat and the advice that she didn't think Carol would be there this early. Phil thanked her and promised to keep in touch with her, though in his heart he hoped he would never see her again.

Giving her enough money for the cab, Phil got out and began to walk around the Village. He hadn't been here in years and the changes overwhelmed him. He began to feel sad, as though he had wasted much of his life. He certainly knew he had done things he would have been better off not doing, but he wanted to make up for that now.

Seeing Carol was a beginning. It would be hard facing her, but he was willing to try. Several times as he strolled about the Village he thought he saw her, but it never was. He knew she had a car, as he had paid for it himself and he knew she was living in a safe apartment. He admired the fact that she was keen on making her own way and he wanted to let her know just how much her determination meant to him.

Growing tired of wandering around, Phil fell into the Lion's Head and ordered a beer. This had been one of his favorite bars years ago when he used to go to the Village. It was during those years he had held some hope out for himself that he could be another Hemmingway, but that was all gone now with the realization that he indulged himself too much and worked too little.

Fuck it, he said to himself. He didn't have to work to earn money and he had once thought that was the only value of work. That had been his first mistake. It seemed to him now that Carol knew more about the value of work than he did. Or, at least it seemed as though she had learned her lesson earlier.

He wondered where she had gotten her drive from. Certainly not from her immediate parents!

The man next to Phil was reading Newsweek and Phil was dying to talk to someone. He noticed the cover story was about Coming Out, a phenomena that was happening with gay people in all walks of life.

"My daughter is a lesbian," Phil said.

The man glanced up from the article and stared at Phil. Then he returned to his reading. Phil threw some money on the bar and walked out. The Village didn't seem as friendly to him as it once had.

He decided to sit in the park until it got dark. Finding an empty bench was easy at this time of day and Phil tried to look as though he belonged there, meanwhile staring at everyone who passed him as though they were freaks.

Though Phil's life now was full of young nubile chickies, at least none of them were related to him. He suspected most of them were attracted to his money and his generosity but that didn't really bother him. For a man approaching fifty, Phil looked excellent.

Meanwhile, Diane and Carol had changed their minds about going to Virginia. Right now Carol was anxious to get back to New York. She had enjoyed sleeping with Diane last night and she enjoyed her company in the car right now, but her yearning to know more about Lila had reasserted itself the next day as painful as the hangover she had.

They had stopped in Maryland for breakfast and then bought a six-pack to drink in the car on the way back to New York. As they winged along, swilling away at their beer, Carol glanced in her rear-view mirror and saw to her dismay the flashing red and orange lights of a patrol car.

"Shit!" she exploded. "Ditch the beer under the seat or something."

She slowed the Mercedes down and pulled over to the side of the highway. Fishing around in her purse so that she would have her license and registration handy for the officer, she saw several loose joints fall to the floor. But she was able to stuff them back into her purse before rolling down her window. To her surprise, the Smokey was a woman.

"Let me see your license and registration, dearie," the woman said. Carol handed them over to her quickly. The woman peered inside the car, taking in the fact that Diane looked as though she had had one too many.

"May I ask what I was doing wrong?" Carol asked, trying to use a subservient tone of voice that normally worked with male officers.

"You may," the woman patrol officer said.

"Well?" Carol asked. "What was I doing wrong?"

"To begin with, you were breaking the speed limit by ten miles an hour and you were drinking a beer, weren't you?"

Carol was so astonished that the officer knew she was drinking a beer that she said, "Yes, Ma'am, I was."

"You got a lot of problems?" the woman asked, peering kindly into Carol's face.

"Yes," Carol said.

"You're going to have a lot more problems if you continue to drink and drive," the woman said. She whipped out her ticket book.

"What are you doing?" Carol cried in alarm. She had already received one conviction of a drunk driving charge and another one would fix her ass for years.

"I'm giving you a ticket," the woman said. Her voice was calm and Carol knew if she had a gun she would have shot her right there and then.

"Are you giving me a ticket for speeding, drinking, or both?" she asked in a little voice.

The woman stopped writing then and looked at Carol. "You're lucky young lady. I'm only giving you a ticket for speeding."

"Thank you!" Carol sighed with relief.

She accepted the ticket from the woman as though it was a gift from the gods.

Driving much more carefully on the way to New York, Carol told Diane about the time she had been drinking Nytol for her cold and had gotten arrested for drunk driving.

"I was falling asleep at the wheel, actually," she said. "I didn't know at the time that Nytol has twenty-five percent alcohol in it. But they don't give a shit what you get drunk on. If your driving is impaired, it's impaired!"

They decided to cool it on the beer and smoked a few joints on the way back to New York instead.

"You know," Carol mused. "It's absolutely frightening to think who's driving cars on the roads today! I mean everyone I know drives stoned or drunk."

"Yeah," Diane said. "Thank God for public transportation."

"Getting mugged or murdered on the subway isn't too swift either," Carol said.

"What do you know about the subway?" Diane asked scornfully. "A chick like you doesn't know what it's like to survive in New York."

"When do you think you'll see Lila again?" Carol asked, eager to change the subject and anxious to talk of her beloved.

"I don't know," Diane said. "Probably the next time I go to the Cat."

Carol drove Diane home and then split for her apartment. As soon as she changed, she was going to call Ellen and find out where Chris lived.

Ellen didn't mention right away that Carol's father was looking for her, but she did after she gave Carol Chris's address.

Carol received the news that her father was wandering around the Village looking for her with mixed emotions. Any other time and it might have cheered her up to see the old reprobate, but right now all she wanted to do was talk to Lila. She called her number.

"Hello?" Lila asked.

"Is Chris there?" Carol wanted to know.

"I'm sorry, she's working right now," Lila said politely.

"When will she be home?" Carol continued.

"Maybe around midnight," Lila said. "I'm not sure. Who's calling please?"

"Hi Lila," Carol said. "It's me, Carol."

She waited for Lila's reaction.

"Oh hi, Carol!" Lila replied with genuine delight. "What do you want with Chris?"

"Nothing," Carol said. "I just wanted to know if you were free later on."

"I suppose so," Lila said guardedly.

"Why don't you come over to my place then?" Carol asked, trying desperately to keep the eagerness out of her voice.

"Maybe I will," Lila said vaguely. "What's your phone number?" Carol gave it to her and hung up. She couldn't believe her luck! Not only was Chris out of the way for most of the evening, but now Lila had her number and would call her back!

Carol took a long hot shower, trying to erase all traces of her encounter with Diane. She wanted to be fresh and new for her time with Lila. She only hoped that Lila would not fail her.

As she was drying herself off with her favorite fluffy towel, her bell rang.

Shit! Carol swore. Who the fuck is that?

Throwing a robe over her nakedness, she pressed the intercom. Not bothering to disguise the annoyance in her voice, she said: "Yes?"

"Can I come up now?" a female voice asked.

"Who is this?" Carol demanded.

"It's me," the voice said. "Me!"

Falling for the oldest trick in New York, Carol released the buzzer and went back to her bathroom. Powdering her pits in a hurry and finishing her toilet off with a heavy dose of perfume, Carol slipped into some bells and a midriff top. Surveying herself in the mirror she decided she looked none the worse for the sexual wear and tear she had experienced in the past few days.

Just then her bell rang. 'Going to the door she flung it open and stared in total shock as Chris barged into her living room.

"Hey, bitch!" Chris snarled, reaching for Carol's throat. "Trying to make time with my chick, huh? Huh?" and she pinned Carol up against the wall.

"What the hell!" Carol gasped, but she was pinned by Chris's powerful grasp.

"No wonder you hang out with that bitch Ellen," Chris continued to harrange. "The two of you make a great couple."

Carol was beginning to fear for her life when her buzzer rang again. Chris turned her head quickly towards the sound.

"Get rid of whoever that is," she instructed Carol, "and no tricks!"

As if to emphasize her point, she squeezed her hand around Carol's throat even tighter. Choking and sputtering, Carol once again asked into the intercom who it was.

"Phil," the male voice replied. "I'm on my way up!"

Then he was off with a click. Though Carol had mixed emotions about Phil, his voice never sounded so welcomed to her. Chris relaxed her hold completely on Carol now. Carol could do nothing but stare into the twisted face that was Chris's.

"How did you know?" she couldn't help but ask.

Chris laughed. "Are you kidding me?" she sneered, "I was listening on the extension!"

"Then why ... ?" Carol started to ask. She had never been so confused in her life.

"Let me give you one good reason to stay away from my chick," Chris said. "To begin with, she's a psycho. And Number Two, she's mine!"

And with that, she turned on her booted heel and clomped out of the apartment. But just as soon as she opened the door, Phil bounced in.

"Who's your friend?" he asked, appraising Chris up and down. Chris paused for an instant, torn between flight and curiosity.

Carol saw where her father assumed that Chris was a friend and she laughed. "That's Chris," she said as Chris slammed out the door.

Phil went over to the couch and flopped down on the cushions. "So tell me little one," he said, "What's with the gay life that keeps you so far removed from your mother's?"

Carol stared at her father. "Who told you that?" she asked.

"Look," Phil said. "I'm not exactly wet behind the ears you know. " And he told Carol about Ellen and Elizabeth that morning.

Carol broke out some wine she had hoped to share with Lila and the two of them proceeded to get drunk. . Carol had never thought in her wildest dreams that someday she would be sitting down with her father trying to discuss her gay life.

Phil listened carefully, nodding when Carol was serious and laughing when she mocked herself. He made no mention of his guilt over their aborted trip to Europe and neither did Carol. However, their avoidance of the topic only hid the fact that they both thought it was pertinent.

"This thing you have with Lila sounds real far out to me," Phil finally said when Carol had exhausted the subject. "I'd like to meet her."

"I'd like you to meet her too," Carol admitted. "Right now I'm under the impression everyone is trying to drive me crazy!"

"If I were you," Phil said. "I'd watch out for your mother."

He wouldn't elaborate, only admitting it was a feeling that he had. "And Ellen," he added. "She's weird as all shit!"

Phil wanted to lay some bread on Carol and she was not adverse to taking it. "I hear your mother's been meeting with lawyers," Phil told her, "she may try to fuck up the money you're entitled to, so watch out."

He stood then. "Well, I have a flight back to San Francisco tonight. I hope I make it."

He glanced at his watch before kissing Carol goodbye. Carol threw her arms around his waist and hugged him. "Keep in touch, Phil," she said. "When do you think you'll be back in New York?"

"I never know," Phil said. "But let's keep in contact. If it wasn't for Ellen telling me. the block you lived on, I doubt I would have found you at all."

Carol resolved right then and there to call Ellen and thank her. Maybe she should have a thing with Ellen and forget her obsession with the strange Lila. But as soon as her father was gone, the old desire and longing began again, driving her up the wall and made more acute by the liquor in her system.

But now she was afraid. Chris was a dangerous person. Carol dialed Ellen. They chatted for several minutes before getting down to business.

"If I were you," Ellen advised. "I'd concentrate on my career as an art director and forget the social life for awhile."

That kind of advise could have stemmed from her mother and Carol wasn't interested in hearing about it.

"Why don't you come over here?" Ellen suggested. "I've made enough dinner for two and I hate to eat alone."

Carol agreed to go, saying goodbye to her plans for the evening with Lila with regret.

She had forgotten to find out which restaurant Chris worked in, but before she called Lila again, she vowed she would check it out in person to make sure Chris was really there. There was no doubt she would call Lila. She was more intrigued than ever now. She just couldn't believe that Lila had deliberately set her up for an encounter with Chris that could have turned into a disaster. Walking towards Ellen's place, Carol felt envious of all the couples she saw strolling in the street. How was it some people seem to find it so easy to be. in love, while for others it seemed to be nothing but heartache? But despite her feelings of loneliness, hope burned brightly in her breast.