“Maybe we could all have sex together sometime, if you want to Sonja,” Linda said, nudging me. “I know Karen would really like it. She likes you a lot.” I felt like a sex object.
It was those bedtime kisses with Karen I craved. We’d be in bed in the daylight, at eight in the morning, after working all night. Our raglike bodies returned to some semblance of human sensitivity as we lay close and kissed softly, assuring each other we would go no further without Linda, who would be out in the living room getting ready for work or having another beer to avoid going to work. Karen and I held each other and I got wet with excitement. Her kisses drove me wild. She was food after a fast, a pool during a heat wave, an answer to a prayer. We didn’t even have to worry about being discovered. Linda could just jump in with us.
I wasn’t attracted to Linda, but I had to admit I wasn’t completely opposed to a threesome. Still, Linda made me uncomfortable, like she wasn’t real or something. Plus she had a special hold on Karen that I could never have, as if she knew some secret that I could never know.
I wanted Karen very badly. Karen wanted me too but was devoted to Linda. She pleaded with me, “Come on, Sonja. Just try being lovers with both of us. We can have a three-way. I’ll give up drugs, all of it, even pot.” I was impressed. Maybe I could try this out. Giving up pot for me meant something serious. The job was seriously affecting my brain.
The pot smoking and the beer were issues for me. I wanted to prevent both women from falling into a deep hole. What an illusion of power I had! Once when I came to stay over, Karen took out some weed and started smoking. A round tent was set up in the middle of the living room. Karen laughed about how she and Linda had played camping the day before and how funny it was. I imagined them both high and bleary-eyed.
“You want some?” Karen said, offering me the joint.
“No.” I put on my hardest face. “Look, I can’t stay.”
“What do you mean?” she protested. “Is it the pot? I’ll get rid of it. It’s not important to me.” I knew it was a lie, but I wanted to believe her. She walked over and put her arm around me.
“Look, I told you, I don’t even want to be in the house when it’s here.”
Karen patted me and put the stuff away. “I’ll have it out of the house by the next time you come. Don’t worry. Trust me.”
We went into the bedroom. I didn’t feel so firm anymore. Linda was in bed. She woke up and said sweetly, “Hey, Pie. Hey, Sonja. It’s nice to see you. Can you give me a little hug?” She was looking at both of us and speaking to us as if we were children.
We each gave her a hug. Then Karen and I traded places with Linda who in turn tucked us in, giving us both equally long kisses. The threesome had begun.
Karen smiled at Linda adoringly. “We have to do this on Lindy’s day off and when we’re not working the next night.”
Linda left reluctantly.
I fished for something to say. “I like Linda. She’s hot, especially when she’s not drinking beer.” We heard the front door close. I didn’t know where that lie came from. All I knew was that I had Karen, Karen pulling me on top of her and running her hands all over my body. My cunt swelled against hers. She kissed me hungrily, her lips molding mine, drawing my tongue out to explore her mouth, opening to me.
As I look back at the relationship, it was as if something out of my control was taking place. We all three made love together several times, but for me it was just a way to have Karen. Linda didn’t seem very interested in sex anyway. She seemed to be doing the threesome for Karen’s sake. I lost myself in this setup, and it took me a long time to get myself back. The loneliness and fatigue at the plant didn’t help. I wanted so badly to escape.
“Thou blind fool, Love, what dost thou to mine eyes,” said Will. “that they behold, and see not what they see?” I began to wonder about what I was calling Love.
This went on for about three months, Ferron’s music becoming a big part of our relationship. What threw me for a loop was our trip to the Southern Women’s Music Festival in the Georgia countryside—to see Ferron, among other singers. We were all very excited about taking the trip together. While we were getting ready, it was Ferron this and Ferron that. I was also excited about introducing my friends to the lesbian subculture I was so familiar with—not only the music but the books, tee shirts, crafts, a whole way of life apart from the straight world we were mainly involved with at work. I told them that women walked around the festival topless and some even naked. Karen and Linda were titillated. We talked about how we would set up our tent. We planned to stay together, but I took my small orange backpacking tent just in case. It turned out to be a necessity.
The three of us piled into my little Dodge Colt. First, I told them no beer was allowed while driving. They complied for about half the ride. An argument ensued when we stopped somewhere in North Carolina for gas and Linda got herself “a tall one.”
“We’re not in the car, we’re just standing here,” she said defensively. “We’re just taking a little break, Sonja. Damn!”
I began to wonder how this much-anticipated trip would end up. I was already feeling on the warpath.
At the festival we set up our tent. The next day Karen and Linda moved to another spot farther off. I set up my own orange one where we had started out. It was a nice spot under some trees, and some friends of mine from Alabama were nearby. I was happy to be with them.
We heard Ferron in concert the first night. For Karen it was a dream come true. Linda stayed for a little while, but the crowd made her panic and she beelined for her tent. Karen left soon after the concert to keep her darling Pie company. Their “Pie” names were irritating the hell out of me. Feeling very excluded, I shrugged and waved her on. “Go ahead. Miss the whole festival!” Karen knew I was pissed. The hugs, kisses, and hot sex ended at the festival.
Linda had somehow found a way to purchase a case of beer, which she hoarded for herself. Except for listening to Ferron and a couple of other concerts, Karen stuck by her girlfriend, protecting her from the “overwhelming” atmosphere and their first experience with “hordes of lesbians.” I was not only fed up with their distance but with Linda’s obsession with her beer. They were realigning their relationship against the world, and against me. Even the looks on their faces allied against me. That first night after the Ferron concert I cried in my tent. I felt lonely and terrified I was losing them—no, it was Karen I was afraid of losing.
On the drive back to New Jersey, Karen teamed up with Linda in defying the no-drinking-in-the-car rule. When we stopped along the way for gas, Karen sat apart with her lover and sniped at me. “You can’t tell us what to do. Who do you think you are?”
I grew more and more angry. I knew Karen was right, and I knew I had lost her. We were quiet on the way home, compared to the bubbling excitement driving down to Georgia. I looked darkly at Karen when she nonchalantly started smoking weed. I was defeated—she was acting like a teenager. But, as she said, who was I to tell them what to do? They withdrew from me, dropping me like an empty can.
Back home, the job wrung everything out of me. After working at the can plant for almost a year, six of us suddenly got laid off right after the festival trip. Karen didn’t get cut. For me, being laid off was a gift. I went one last time to Edison to visit Karen and Linda. We were civil to one another, but with none of the old intimacies. The game was over.
“The angels—happening that way / This dusty heart espied— / Tenderly took it up from toil / And carried it to God—“ soothed Emily Dickinson.
I never wanted to set foot in Edison, New Jersey again. For a long time after, whenever I walked into a 7-Eleven or bought beer or soda, I’d check the can tops in the store to see if they were made in Edison. The number stamped on the top was my clue.