The woman made a sympathetic sound. Carolyn barely noticed. She was searching for the words to tell her tale. Easier as a story, as though it had happened to someone else. “Caro was a very good little girl, always wanted to make her parents proud. And she grew up pretty, too! Not smart, but that was okay. She was nice. A cheerleader type, you know? Just what everyone expected her to be. She made it through high school, married the captain of the football team, made a home for him, and tried to keep busy while she waited to have babies. Like everyone expected. Even her.” She gulped at her drink, liquid fire to burn away the sob she felt trying to come out. Her vision blurred; she shook her head, angry at herself. It's done. Why bother crying now? The woman sat, grace on a barstool, waiting. Except for her hands, she was perfectly still. Carolyn blinked again; for a second, it had looked like the woman was, well, like she was practicing for when she got home to her lover.
Her cheeks heated. She swallowed hard and looked at her own fidgeting fingers and went on, “But the babies didn't happen, the husband was almost never home, and even when he was, there was no … nothing. I guess no one expected Caro to be exciting, or they forgot to teach her how. For sure her husband couldn't do it; he didn't even try. He just went off to the city every day, to work, like everyone expected him to do. And the babies still weren't coming, and football wasn't exciting any more, and so he found a city woman, and left Carolyn on her own."
She swirled her glass, one sliver of ice melting into the amber. Her mouth was dry, but she was out of cash. Would her listener buy her another one? The stranger smiled with her oddly triangular mouth, and signaled the bartender; Carolyn nodded thanks and drained her drink.
"So the small-town beauty became a small-town wife, but not a small-town mother. And now she's a divorcee?"
Laughter startled out of Carolyn; she hadn't laughed in … too long. Years. “What a word! Sounds so much classier than truth.” A deep breath of the bar's fetid air. “What I am, lady, is broke."
"There are worse fates."
The stranger's voice was calm, certain, and Carolyn swiveled on her stool to look at her. A shirt of some soft material draped over her shoulders, hiding her shape but implying there was a very good one underneath. She wore slacks that fell in graceful unstructured folds, and like the top promised riches. Her fingers were never still, tracing the rim of her glass or trailing down the side, smoothing a wayward tendril of hair; she didn't seem nervous, but the motions drew attention to her hands.
Carolyn stared and licked her lips.
"See something you like?"
The bartender set two shot glasses and a bottle down in a triad of thumps, then took himself away.
"Hope you don't mind,” the stranger said, and poured.
Carolyn tried not to feel the flush spreading, and grabbed her glass. I'm not … oh, hell, what does it matter anyway? Drink.
"You were telling me what happened to you after the divorce."
"Happened? Why, nothing. Nothing at all.” Her gesture encompassed her self, the bar, the town. “Nothing ever happens. It's all empty."
"Empty?"
"Empty.” She shivered; despite the blush, she felt cold. “Empty. Like me."
The stranger said nothing for a moment, but poured another drink and stared at something Carolyn didn't bother to turn her head to see. She sipped this time, savoring the oily fiery liquid; nothing she'd had before. Idly, she wondered what this woman was after. A lesbian hook-up? It didn't seem likely. Small-town beauty she might once have been, but Carolyn knew she was no match for the snakily seductive stranger in the clothing that whispered of money and taste and class. Things I don't have. “Do you have family here?” It was the only thing she could think of; the woman was so obviously out of place.
"Not precisely, no."
"Precisely.” Oh so not a local. What gives?
"What did you mean, when you said you were empty?” The stranger's voice was low and intimate. Inviting. Compelling Carolyn to speak. “And when you said you, Caro, didn't know how to be exciting. What did you mean?"
Well, why not? What can it hurt now? “I mean, in bed."
"Ah."
Again, the stranger paused, seeming content to let Carolyn catch her breath. And then she changed the subject, asking about school and whether Carolyn had ever traveled, and what her childhood dreams had been. The level of liquid in the bottle fell, and the conversation ranged far and wide, from the memories she most cherished to the moments she had been most ashamed, until Carolyn almost felt she had laid bare her mind.
And then the question she had expected all that long while-minutes? hours? ago: “Have you ever been with anyone but your ex?"
"N-no."
"No women? No other men?"
"Well, I kissed another boy once, when I was in high school."
"Oh, you poor little lamb,” the stranger purred, and poured her another drink.
Carolyn had lost all track of time. When the woman rose, perfectly steady on ludicrously high heels despite all the alcohol she had drunk, Carolyn blinked, blearily confused. “Bathroom,” the stranger said, and reached for Caro's hand. It was the first physical contact between them. Her fingers were cool, but the skin beneath them burned.
She stood, and stumbled, and the stranger caught her easily. She was tall, taller than she had seemed, and lean, and darker than the bar; not classically beautiful, certainly, but oddly alluring. And in her voice more like a snake's even than her smile, she hissed words of promise and secrets.
The stranger seemed to know what Carolyn craved, though Carolyn herself did not. “Follow,” she hissed, and, “surrender.” And Carolyn felt hypnotized. How did this woman know what she'd never said? Never really thought?
"I know what you need, little girl. And you can have it, if you dare. There is a place…"
In the trip across the bar and down the dingy hall to the bathroom, Carolyn's odd drinking companion told her of that place. An academy, she said. A private place, for people of a certain kind. People who had found the courage to reach for their desires. The strength to accept that their needs were different, but that they were not unique.
"I don't know what you mean,” Carolyn managed, wondering as she spoke if the words were true. And, “A school? But I'm too old for that."
"You are a child,” came the answer, “a babe, for all your years. The only question is whether you wish to learn."
The formality of the words was almost enough to make Carolyn turn and run; she had no way to match it. It sounded citified to her, like the woman her husband had left her for. Perhaps her face showed her feelings, for the stranger's hand tightened on hers. “To those who can be taught, all doors may open. And you would not be alone."
A place for people like her? What would that be like?
The bathroom was empty; the stranger pulled Carolyn inside, whispering all the while about this Academy. All that was needed was the longing, and the daring, and a bit of time. Money? Not a concern; she would leave wealthier than she arrived. Two years, not too much to ask, was it? And so on. The words flooded over Carolyn; she felt she might drown.
But then one phrase caught her ear. “Sensations beyond belief."
Not “pleasure” or “climax” but “sensations.” Carolyn's eyes filled with tears as she stared at this barroom apparition leaning so close to her. She thought she was drunk, and dreaming, thought no one could really understand. “You know."