Chapter Twenty-Two
Phoebe wondered why Pat had asked her to see him in his suite instead of his office as usual. Then she recalled the time and knew he must be tired. A small guilt nagged at her conscience as she reminded herself that he had been carrying more than his fair share of the work load during the last few days. The days since Nadine had arrived at Hillside!
He was sitting behind the small desk that he had in the living room of his suite for the overflow of work that he always seemed to carry from the office with him. Pat glanced up then smiled when she tapped at his door then entered. "Sit down, Phoebe," his voice sounded tired. And there was another, a subtle, indefinable difference in the tone of his words, the manner of his speaking.
"Are you tired, Pat?" she asked, seating herself in the low chair in front of his desk.
He gave a long sigh, "I guess I am."
She stared toward him. The room was so dark that she could barely make out his features. The dim desk light was the only illumination. It shone on the desk, Pat's hands, looking strangely small and fragile and the few papers that were strewn on the desk's top.
"Would you like a drink?" he asked.
She hesitated. "Well, maybe," she said indecisively.
"There's bourbon and gin in the cabinet behind you," Pat murmured. "Pour me a bourbon and have whatever you like."
She did as he asked, thinking that it was the first time that he'd offered her a drink, or had one in front of her. When she passed the glass across the desk to him she noticed that he was wearing a dark terry cloth bathrobe. It made him seem different-more-more human! Not so analytically austere.
"You're staring at me, Phoebe," he said with a trace of amusement in his voice.
She sat down quickly, a faint flush on her cheeks at his mild rebuke. "I'm sorry, Pat. I was just thinking-you-you seem different tonight. I don't know how, but-" she let her voice trail off.
"I feel different," he said very seriously. "I am different," he added enigmatically.
Phoebe flashed a worried glance across the desk. Was Pat sick? She'd never heard him talk this way before! She watched him lift his glass, swallow the bourbon as though he needed it, then he said, "I'm having hypnotherapy arranged for Jacqueline."
"Oh," Phoebe thought about it. Was that what he wanted to tell her? "I-I hope it's successful," she added.
"So do I." Pat held his glass out to her and she took it to the cabinet, replenished it. He was acting so strangely, Phoebe thought with a puzzled frown.
"D'you mind if I ask you a personal question?"
Phoebe flinched. Nadine! "No-no of course not! Go ahead," she tried to keep her voice even.
"You've been with me a long time, Phoebe and I like you," he said as though he were talking to himself.
"And-and I like you, Pat," she said softly, realizing as she said it how much she really did like him. And wondering at the same time why-why he was talking this way?
"I like Marvin, too," he said. "I wouldn't want to see either of you do something that would make you both, or either of you, unhappy," he paused.
Phoebe wanted to close her eyes and hide her face.
"That's why I wanted to ask you; how do you really feel about Marv?"
How did she feel? Oh, my God! Why did he have to ask her that question? Why did he have to bring into the open something that she had been trying to push into the back of her mind for so long ... even more so since Nadine! Oh, my sweet Nadine! "I-I think he's a wonderful person," she said weakly.
"But how do you really feel about him? "
"I-I just told you," she answered, her voice very small.
"D'you like it when he kisses you, Phoebe?" Pat's voice was cool.
"Yes," she stammered, "yes, of course."
"And do you like making love with him?"
"What d'you mean?"
"Do you like having intercourse with him? Sexual intercourse?"
"Pat!" she said, reproach in her voice and red spots on her cheeks, "how can you ask that! Why do you want to know?"
"Do you, Phoebe," he probed, "do you like it?"
She hid her face in her fingers, then blurted, "I've never had-had anything like that with Marvin."
Pat stared at her as she leaned on his desk, her face resting on her hands, her fingers latticed across her eyes. "Or any other man?" Pat asked.
Phoebe's head jerked up, her face was red and angry.
"Have you, Phoebe?" Pat persisted, cruelly. "You've never-never made out with a man, have you?"
"No-no-no," she blurted. "I haven't and I don't want to. I-I couldn't!" Then she let the sobs tear from her lips. "What're you trying to do to me, Pat?" The words were ragged.
"You'd rather have a woman, another girl, wouldn't you, Phoebe?" he asked the question softly.
"Yes," she admitted with a deep sigh, "yes, I would." She let a small sob bubble from her lips, then asked, "Why are you torturing me, Pat? What have I done?"
"I don't want to hurt you, Phoebe."
"You've found out about Nadine and me, haven't you?" she blurted. "Is that it? Is that what's bothering you?"
He was silent.
"Is it so wrong?" Her voice was too high. "Oh, Pat, is it so terrible?"
Pat shook his head. "It's not terrible at all, Phoebe. I understand how you feel," his voice was very soft.
"How can you? How can anyone understand? It's not-not possible for a man to understand how-" her voice broke off.
Phoebe felt dizzy, as though she had drank too much or not enough! She reached for her glass, the glass that she had not yet touched, lifted it and drained it. "I don't know what you're saying, Pat," her voice was dull.
"I know how you feel about Nadine," he said softly, rising to his feet, moving slowly round the desk until he was standing behind her.
She was only dimly aware of his words, his movements. The quick strong drink had deadened her perceptions. She kept her head down on her hands as he went on.
"It's easy for me to understand how-how Nadine feels about you because-" he broke off, took a deep breath, "-I-I feel the same way about you, too."
Phoebe felt as if the whole world had gone crazy. The desk seemed to be vibrating under her head. Pat's words seemed to bounce off the walls, the ceiling and then hit her mind. How could he understand! And-and what did he mean when he said that maybe-maybe he felt the same way about her?
"You can't," she muttered. "It's not possible," the breath rasped in her throat. "Only a-a woman could understand how I feel. Only a woman could-could feel that way about-about me!"
"I know," the voice was too soft, too sweet to be Doctor Saxon's.
Phoebe felt the hand touch her shoulder so very gently and she felt a new confusion. Dreamlike, she turned her head, stared and felt suddenly faint.
Pat held the dark bathrobe open and the bare skin shimmered into Phoebe's eyes. The slim waist, rounded hips and cluster of light pubic hairs on the base of the belly and-
Phoebe saw but didn't believe it.
Pat Saxon was a woman!
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Marvin Hett's face was pale. His hand shook as he raised the glass to his lips, then he blurted, "But why, Pat? Why?"
Pat Saxon smiled then crossed her legs. She still wore the terry cloth robe. It was wrapped casually around her slim, boyish body. "In the first place-" she began, then stopped.
Marvin jerked his head up from his glass. "Yeah, tell me," he slurred, "the first place and the second and the last-the living last," he added, almost sullenly.
"You feel as though I've been fooling you, making a fool of you, don't you, Marv?" said Pat.
"And you haven't, of course," Marvin spoke sarcastically.
"Well, maybe just a little bit," admitted Pat.
"You still can't really believe that I'm a woman, can you?"
"No," Marvin breathed out the word, "I just can't. It doesn't make sense-doesn't seem real!"
Pat got up, moved in front of Marvin, opened the robe.
His eyes bulged at the triangle of soft hairs in front of his face.
Pat parted her legs, reached down and pulled the inner flesh of her thighs up silently. "Feel for yourself, Marv," the voice was husky.
"No," Marvin drew back, "I-I can't!"
"Sure you can, Marv. It's a real honest-to-good-ness cunt!" Pat breathed deeply, "Touch it. It's not the first one you've touched."
"Don't, Pat, please don't," Marvin raised hurt eyes to Pat's face. "It makes me feel-feel-"
"Makes you feel queer?" asked Pat. "Or isn't that the word?"
Marvin hung his head. "No, it's not the word. Why didn't you tell me?" Marvin kept his voice level.
Pat sat down again, looked at Marvin with affection and regret in her eyes. "And what would have happened if I had?"
Marvin looked up bewildered. "I don't know," there was wonder in his voice, "but you didn't have to fool me! I never let you down."
"No," Pat's voice was wistful, "you've always been just one hundred percent, Marv."
"Then why?"
Pat looked very thoughtful, "D'you think there would be any of this?" she waved her hand around vaguely, "any Hillside? If you'd known I was a woman?"
Marvin didn't answer and Pat shook her head at him. "Oh no, Marv. You can say what you like but there's still prejudice against a woman's ability, in certain professions, in certain areas of-of enterprise!"
Marvin shook his head. "No, Pat-hell, I don't see what difference it makes."
"Maybe you don't now, Marv. Now that it's all happened. Now that we have Hillside and we have guests and money coming in, the subsidy-" She took a deep breath. "But at the beginning you might not have had confidence in me."
"I still say that you coulda done it as a woman."
"Marv," Pat raised her voice, "It was hard enough to start something like this without the added drawback of-of having a woman organize it."
"But even so," Marvin persisted, "why did you have to keep it up? After it was going okay-why?"
Pat interrupted him. "When? When, Marv?"
He just stared at her, beginning to see what she had had to contend with.
"Everyone had gotten used to Doctor Saxon, the male Doctor Saxon. How could I?"
Marvin interrupted her. "What made you do it now?"
Pat looked very thoughtful, very serious. "A lot of things, Marv, a lot of things just built up, built up until I just didn't want to go on the way I was anymore."
"A lotta things like-like what?" Marv's voice was tight.
"Like Marianne," said Pat very quietly.
"Yeah," Marvin's voice was loud. Then he spoke again hoarsely, "How'd you manage that, Pat? How'd you manage to fuck 'em, eh?"
Pat breathed hard. "I didn't!"
Marvin's head shot up. "Aw, come on I remember years back we used to double date. That's a laugh-"
Pat moved out of the room quickly, then returned in a moment with something in her hand. She threw it onto Marvin's lap.
"That!" she said with distaste in her voice, "I used that!"
Marvin looked at it, felt it and then stared up at Pat. "A rubber cock!" His voice was shocked.
"That's what I used," her voice was low.
"Pat! How could you?"
"D'you think I liked it?" she spewed. "What else was I supposed to do? Now do you see why I wanted out? Why I finally told it the way it was!"
"You gonna tell everyone?" he asked.
Pat shook her head. "No, just you and Phoebe and Marianne, I guess."
Marvin had a dazed expression on his face. "You'll go on as though you were a man?" his voice was incredulous.
"Yes," she said, then added dryly, "I'm used to it!" She gazed calmly into Marvin's eyes.
"Suppose-" Marvin began, hesitated, then went on boldly, "suppose you-you meet a guy that you like! What then, would you tell him?"
Pat smiled at Marvin very gently. "I already have told him," she said.
Marvin's face flushed then he felt a crazy gladness flowing through his body but with it confusion. "Phoebe," he muttered, "I thought you and Phoebe-"
"Yes," Pat nodded, "you thought right. You see, Marv, maybe you'll think I'm as mixed up as our guests but I'm bisexual!"
"Bisexual?" Marvin's mouth fell open.
"If I hadn't been I don't think I could've managed this--this deception so long."
"What d'you mean, Pat? You're confusing me. You've always confused me, ever since the first time I met you! What d'you mean bisexual?"
"I mean if a man liked me because-because I'm a woman, I can go for him," her voice was almost shy.
Marvin's eyes brightened. "I think I get you, Pat. Like-like the way I felt about you when I first met you. If you'd thought I was queer you'd-"
"I'd have hated it!" Her voice was sharp.
"But I wasn't," he said.
She smiled at him, "No and I was so damned glad!"
He was thoughtful. "I-I guess this sort of explains the way I felt towards you."
"I guess it does," she said softly.
"And-and the other thing," he said, an anxious note in his voice. "D'you mean you go for girls like Marianne?"
Pat shook her head again. "No, Marv, oh no!"
Marvin showed his relief.
"But-but Phoebe, yes! You-you see, Marv, Phoebe likes girls so-"
"So you go for her." He grinned. "You go for that, too!"
"But don't forget," her voice softened, "I go for you, Marv." She smiled at him and as Marvin looked at her, it seemed crazy, but Pat looked almost coquettish!"
He took a deep breath, "Marianne," he murmured, "there's Marianne," but his expression as he stared at Pat through new eyes was hungry.
"Yes," said Pat, moving to him, letting herself fall onto his lap, "there's Phoebe as well but," she kissed him on the lips for the first time, "in between times," she told him, "we have each other!"
"Yeah," he said deeply, thankfully. He held her tightly, let his hands do the things they'd wanted to do for five long years, "you're goddamn right we've got each other!" And he picked up his partner-associate and mistress-to-be then carried her to the bed.
"Marianne and Phoebe can wait," she murmured wetly into his ear.