When the day came for him to go home, Alice and Janelle both brought him to the midnight plane, and then, finally alone again, Janelle and Alice held hands, breathing the sigh of relief a married couple might breathe on the departure of a houseguest. Janelle felt so enormously touched that she gave Alice a tight hug and kiss. Alice turned her head to receive the kiss on her soft, delicately thin mouth. For the fraction of a second she held Janelle’s mouth on hers.
Back in the apartment they had their cocoa together as if nothing had happened. They went to their bedrooms. But Janelle was restless. She knocked on Alice’s bedroom door and went in. She was surprised to find Alice undressed in her lingerie. Though thin, Alice had a full bosom restrained by a very tight bra. They had, of course, seen each other in various stages of undress. But now Alice took off her bra to let her breasts free and then looked at Janelle with a slight smile.
At the sight of the nippled breasts Janelle felt a surge of sexual lust. She could feel herself blushing. It had not occurred to her that she could be attracted to another woman. Especially after Mrs. Wartberg. So when Alice slid under the covers, Janelle sat casually on the edge of her bed, and they talked about the good time they had had with Richard, just the three of them. Suddenly Alice burst into tears.
Janelle patted her dark hair and said, “ Alice, what is it?” in a very concerned voice. Yet at the moment both knew they were acting a play that would enable them to do what they both wanted to do.
Alice said, sobbing, “I don’t have anyone to love. I don’t have anyone to love me.”
There was just one moment when Janelle someplace in her mind kept an ironic distance. This was a scene she had played with male lovers. But her warm gratitude to Alice for the past month, the moment of lust that had been sparked by her heavy breasts were far more promising than the rewards of irony. And she too loved to play scenes. She pulled the covers down from Alice and touched her breasts and curiously watched the nipples rise. Then she bent her golden head and covered a nipple with her mouth. The effect on her was extraordinary.
She felt an enormous liquid peace flow through her body as she sucked on the nipple of Alice ’s breast. She felt almost like a child. The breast was so warm, it tasted so richly sweet to her mouth. She slipped her body next to Alice now, but she refused to give up the nipple, though Alice’s hands began a steadily increasing pressure on her neck to force her down lower. Finally Alice let her stay on the breast. Janelle was murmuring as she sucked, the murmurs of an erotic child, and Alice caressed the golden head, only stopping for a moment to put out the light beside her bed so that they could be in darkness. Finally, a long time later, with a soft sigh of satisfied pleasure Janelle stopped sucking on Alice’s breast and let her head fall between the other woman’s legs. A long time later she fell into an exhausted sleep. When she woke up, she found that she had been undressed and was now naked in the bed beside Alice. They were sleeping in each other’s arms with complete trust, like two innocent infants, and with the same peace.
– -
So started what was to Janelle the most satisfying sexual partnership she had experienced up to then. Not that she was in love, she was not. Alice was in love with her. That was partly the reason it was so satisfying. Also, quite simply she loved sucking a full breast, it was a blazing new discovery. And she was completely uninhibited with Alice, and her complete lord and master. Which was great. She didn’t have to play her Southern belle role.
The curious part of the relationship was that Janelle, sweet and soft and feminine, was the butch, the sexual aggressor. Alice, who looked a little dykey in a very sweet way, was really the woman of the pair. It was Alice who turned their bedroom (they now shared the same bed) into a frilly woman’s chamber with dolls hanging on walls, specially made shutters on the windows and all other kinds of knickknacks. Janelle’s bedroom, which they kept up for the sake of appearance, was untidy and messy as a child’s.
Part of the thrill of the relationship for Janelle was that she could act the role of a man. Not only sexually but in everyday life, the small details of routine day-to-day living. Around the house she was sloppy in a masculine way. A slob, in fact, while Alice always took care to look attractive to Janelle. Janelle would even do the lustful groping of the male, grabbing Alice by the crotch as she went by in the kitchen, squeezing her breasts. Janelle loved acting the role of the man. She would force Alice to make love. At those times she felt more lust than she could ever feel with a man. Then, although they still both had dates with men, inevitable in their professions where social and business obligations intermingled, it was only Janelle who sill enjoyed spending an evening with a male, It was only Janelle who still occasionally stayed out all night. To come back the next morning to find Alice literally sick with jealousy. In fact, so ill that Janelle became frightened and considered moving out. Alice never stayed away all night. And when she was out late, Janelle never worried about whether she was shacking up with a guy. She didn’t care. To her mind one thing had nothing to do with another.
But gradually it came to be understood that Janelle was a free agent. That she could do what she pleased. That she was not accountable. Partly because Janelle was so beautiful that it was difficult to avoid attentions and phone calls from all the men she came into contact with: actors, assistant directors, agents, producers, directors. But gradually, during the year they were living together, Janelle lost interest in having sex with men. It became unsatisfying. Not so much physically but because the power relationship was different. She could sense, or imagined she sensed, how they felt they had something on her after they had gotten her to bed. They became too sure of themselves, too sleek with satisfaction. They expected too many attentions. Attentions she did not feel like giving. Also, she found in Alice something she had never felt in any man. An absolute trust. She never felt that Alice gossiped about her or held her cheap. Or that Alice would betray her with another woman or man. Or that Alice would cheat her out of material possessions or break a promise. Many of the men she met were lavish with promises that they never kept. She was truly happy with Alice, who took care to keep her happy in every way.
One day Alice said, “You know, we could have Richard live with us permanently.”
“Oh, God, I wish I could,” Janelle said. “We just haven’t got the time to take care of him.”
“Sure we do,” Alice said. “Look, we rarely work at the same time. He’ll be in school. On vacations he can go to camp. If there’s a pinch, we can hire a woman. I think you’d be much happier if you had Richard with you.”
Janelle was tempted. She realized that their menage would become more permanent with Richard living with them. But that didn’t seem a bad idea. She was getting enough movie work now to live well. They could even get a larger apartment and really fixit up. “OK”, she said. “I’ll write Richard and see how he feels about it.”
She never did. She knew her ex-husband would reject her. And also she did not want Alice to become too important to her.
Chapter 38
When I knew for sure that Janelle went both ways, that Alice was also her lover, I was relieved. What the hell. Two women making love together was like two women knitting together. I told that to Janelle to make her angry. Then too, her arrangement was a bailout for me. I was in the position of a guy with a married mistress whose husband was understanding and female, a great combination.