More than once that week Stella had given him Maria’s key and told him to leave them alone for the evening.
Ralph was glad to be left alone. For the first time in a long time he was completely absorbed in his work, wrapped up in it so deeply that his mind was on the painting even when he was far from Susan’s room, even when he was lying in bed and ready for sleep. After only a few days with the girl he could have painted her portrait from memory, so firmly was her appearance fixed in his mind. Every shadow and line, every perfect detail of her perfect head and body was imprinted upon his memory.
But the thought of finishing the picture alone was a thought that he couldn’t take seriously for a moment. He enjoyed Susan’s company much too much to give up a second of it. For the first time in his life he found himself able to talk to a girl, to tell her all the things that were on his mind and to listen to everything she had to tell him. He talked to her about his childhood, about the small town in Ohio and the small local college, about his hitch in the army and the void that followed it.
He told her about Stella — about the cruel and twisted woman he lived with. And he told her all these things without shame or fear, knowing that she was listening sympathetically and accepting all that he told her.
For the first several days he did the bulk of the talking. She would be sitting on the chair in the pose he had selected, both feet on the floor a foot or so apart, her small hands folded over her pubic area, her back straight and her mouth unsmiling. She would sit and listen, her face never changing expression while he went over his life in detail.
Then, after a while, she began to talk. She too started with her childhood and moved on, through the years in school to the years after school. One afternoon with no show of embarrassment she explained to him that she was a lesbian. Inwardly he flinched but he made no outward show of surprise or irritation. After all, he had been almost certain of it already.
She told him about the women she had been with, about the fear of men that overwhelmed her. And even as she told him these things, even as she bared her soul and confessed her secret, something happened to him.
Something that had been happening all along. Something that he had refused to see coming, but something that he was quite unable to prevent.
He fell in love with her.
That evening he left the building as soon as he finished the day’s painting. He walked out the door without even pausing at his own apartment, and he walked west on Barrow Street toward the Hudson River.
He walked slowly.
The love he felt for Susan was something new and different, something totally out of the ordinary and totally removed from emotions he had felt in the past. It was a fresh, vibrant feeling, and it was all the more beautiful for the absolute hopelessness of it all.
Ralph had been in love before. In a way he had even been in love with Stella, although he felt less and less for her every day. But all his previous affairs had begun with a strong physical attraction that had sexual gratification as their prime objective. After that they occasionally ripened into something more, something approaching love if not love itself.
This was different.
He never laid a hand on Susan. From the moment he met her he was conscious of the striking beauty of the girl, but somehow he had never thought of her as a woman to take to bed, a woman to make a pass at. Instead she represented friendship to him — friendship in the classic sense, coupled with a deep exchange of ideas and a sharing of secrets. That in itself was a very valuable and rewarding sort of thing, and the ensuing relationship had turned out to be a wonderful one.
But now—
Now he was in love with her.
What did it mean? How in the world could he be in love with a girl whom he would never be able to make love to? He not only could never marry her, but he could never take her in his arms, never kiss her or touch her. What kind of love was this?
He kept walking, laughing bitterly to himself. It was a typical Ralph Lambert play, he decided. Only a guy like him could do a scatterbrained, useless thing like this. Only a guy like him could fall in love with a lesbian and get all hung up about it.
What in the world would happen? She hadn’t had any lovers since she had moved to Barrow Street, but he knew that in time she would have to. Then what would he do? Maybe he’d be jealous of the other girl. That would be one for the books, wouldn’t it? Ralph Lambert jealous of a dyke. Pretty funny, huh? Yeah. A riot.
Fantasies flooded his mind, fantasies of possible courses of action. He knew that she had never been with a man, and he guessed that her traumatic fear might stem as much from ignorance of sex as anything else. He remembered reading that blind, ignorant fear was a prime cause of what one author termed “the homosexual neurosis” — that a person who was afraid of sex was less likely to fear someone of the same sex than someone of the opposite sex. To Susan another woman might represent the Known, something she was familiar with because it was similar to herself. A man, on the other hand, was the Unknown — and she had to fear him more because the Unknown was so much more terrifying.
He fancied himself for a moment as a knight on a white charger coming to rescue her from her homosexuality by showing her that she had nothing to be afraid of. Then the barriers would break down one by one until she came to him and he held her in his arms, held that sweet and beautiful body that he had studied so carefully and reproduced so faithfully.
Then—
Suddenly the hilarious impossibility of the situation struck him full force and a hysterical laugh shrieked forth from his lips. He stood on the sidewalk, unable to stop laughing, and was forced to grab onto a lamppost for support. Other people on the street stared at him as he laughed and laughed over something that was not funny at all.
Finally he caught his breath and started walking again. He walked all over the west side of the Village, looking for something but not knowing what it was that he was looking for. He kept walking until he found the bar.
It wasn’t much. It was a run-down longshoreman’s bar down by the docks where the liquor was cheap and the air foul-smelling. A jukebox in one corner blared forth with raucous rock-and-roll. A tired prostitute sat at a table in the back, a professional smile on her once-attractive face. A row of tired-looking, husky men drank shots with beer chasers at the long brown bar.
It was a place to drink. That was all he wanted, a place where he could be alone by himself without being entirely alone, a place where he could sit and drink with nobody bothering him.
A place that had neither Stella nor Susan around, a place where the only woman present was a cheap waterfront whore.
He walked into the bar. One stool was vacant and he sat down on it. He ordered a shot of the bar whiskey and a glass of draft beer for a chaser.
The shot was a quarter and the beer was a dime. It was about as cheap as you could get any place in the city.
When he had finished pouring the shot down his throat he knew why it only cost two bits. It was rotgut — cheap moonshine brought in from Kentucky and sold with ease because the cop on the beat knew who was paying him. A steady diet of it would raise hell with the lining of a man’s stomach, but it was cheap and it would get a person stoned out of his head as quickly as the stuff that went for six bucks a fifth.
He sipped the beer. It was a little watery but not too bad. He finished it and motioned for the bartender.
This time he ordered a double.
Stella dressed quickly after she finished her shower. Maria had already returned to her room on the second floor, and for some reason Stella felt empty and unfulfilled. She wasn’t sure why, but for one reason or another her evening with the little brunette had left her less satisfied than before.