Anyway, Lou Archer was an ugly man, running to fat, losing his hair. But like any man of his age or condition, he’d been lusting for the chance to stake a claim on a young, beautiful girl like Caron, and he’d gotten her. Before their second anniversary, though, he had disappeared, just packed a bag and walked out in the middle of the night. Not even the FBI had been able to turn him up—though God knew why anyone would even remotely want to! Especially Caron, who had been hurt so badly. Desolated. Sometimes Sheila could see the pain that lurked like a furtive mugger behind Caron’s liquid brown eyes. Sometimes Sheila wanted so badly to take Caron in her arms, kiss and hug away all the pain, the way she knew how —the way she knew she could never do. Not if she wanted to keep her sister’s love and friendship. At least Caron had Paul. He appeared to be a real man, if there was such a thing, and he’d be as good for Caron as any man.
And what do I have? Sheila wondered. I have my paints and my brushes. I have an apartment in Connecticut and, if I want it, a job teaching art at the community college. And I have a painting of Claire, not quite finished. Was that all? Sheila trembled a little, despite the summer heat, the warm sea breeze. Was that really all?
She’d come down to the island about ten days ago, ostensibly to be with Caron during the final days of waiting for the legal assumption of Lou Archer’s death. Ostensibly. To be honest, it was either this or stay at home in Connecticut and, sooner or later, cut her wrists in the bathtub.
Maybe it’s my fault, Sheila thought. Maybe I’m too possessive. Or maybe I just have rotten taste. Maybe I deliberately go after people who are going to break my heart as soon as they find a chance. Well Claire hadn’t been the first, but she’d been most efficient. “Whoever,” Sheila wondered aloud, “said it was fun to be a Goddamned dyke?”
She stared at the painting. It was a nude, sensuous, full-length, Claire’s lovely lush body spread across a maroon-draped divan in a posture of languorous availability. All done from mommy. She could never forget anything about Claire. The set of her eyes and the little laugh lines at the corner of them. The full thrust of her round, smooth tits, the curves and shadings of her hips and legs. The painting was a kind of exorcism. When it was finished, Sheila would not feel quite so desolate. Not quite. And later, when she’d found someone else, someone to share hot life, to fill the gnawing emptiness, she could ritually burn the painting and, with it, all the aching memories.
“And how many times has that happened?”
Sheila asked herself. “How many paintings have you burned? Six? Seven? Did it ever make the hurt stop, even a little? Is that your destiny, Sheila Ross? To go around burning the pictures of women who’ve dumped you? Answer, Sheila. Unless you’re frightened to answer.”
She would try another tact. “There is nothing inherently wrong with me. I am a lesbian. I am not an evil person. I don’t molest children or sneak through shower rooms sniffing gym shorts. I have never knowingly harmed anyone in my life. And I happen to prefer the sexual company of women. I love to be with women, to feel their soft moist mouths on mine, their firm full breasts kissing my body from head to toe. I’m not evil. I’m not sinful. I’m not a pervert. I’m just different. So if I’m gay, WHY THE HELL AM I NOT HAPPY?”
She looked at Claire’s portrait, hoping to find an answer. The picture was about half finished. When it was done it would be lush and sensuous and beautiful. The outlines and much of the coloring had been laid in for the girl’s figure, but the whole background was blank, not to mention the essential details. Like Claire’s nipples. They were a subtle shade of reddish pink, almost violet under certain light, and Sheila simply could not match the color with her memory.
Claire. It had lasted a long time. Better than the average. So much better that Sheila had found herself wondering—is it the real thing this time? Oh she knew it was! It was always the real thing for Sheila. She gave of herself totally when she was in love, and she loved to be in love. But it never worked.
The girl on canvas was beautiful, even unfinished. Lissome bodied, with full rich tits and a heartshaped face surrounded by curls and spills of coppery hair. Ripe red lips, pouty and kissable, beneath a tiny nubbin of nose. Light dotting of freckles across the bridge of her nose. Slender little waist, flaring out into sweet full hips that curved all the way down, curved in ways that still made Sheila’s breath catch in her throat as she realized how successfully she’d done them on canvas. She hadn’t filled in Claire’s pussy, but that too was vivid in her mind. She could remember each and every one of the dark brown curls that swept across Claire’s mount, hairs that looked kinky and coarse but felt like little wisps of silk when fingers stroked them. The slit lurking amid the fluffs of hair, the sweet, pink, always juicy and moist slit into which Sheila’s tongue had dove millions of times during her months with Claire. She could still taste it, the tart musky flavor of Claire’s cooze leaking into her mouth as she sucked and licked and ate. Hungry for the taste, hungry for the sweetness, hungry, hungry, hungry…
Sweet lush innocent Claire. Waitress at a coffeehouse, just come to the big city from a hick village in Maine, eager to meet life head-on. As hard to get as a pack of cigarettes. The first night Claire accepted Sheila’s invitation to drop by for coffee and talk, they wound up in bed, Claire shrieking, tearing at the sheets, while Sheila feasted on the sweetest juiciest little pussy in Christendom—at least in Connecticut. And then Claire repaid the favor, in a manner that suggested she had tried it in the past but not many times. Just amateur enough to present a challenge, just darling enough to fall in love with.
And now she was gone. The whole time she’d been living with Sheila, she’d been bringing men into the house while Sheila was away, fucking them on Sheila’s own bed. Until she’d gotten caught. And now she was gone, gone as lost Atlantis. Sheila had even swallowed her pride, begged Claire to forget the awful things she’d told her, to stay, to please please stay. It hadn’t worked. Ass wiggling, braless tits flopping inside a $40 silk blouse Sheila had bought her, Claire went out the door. For good.
“It’s my fault,” Sheila said. “Why do I have such a weakness for tramps? For sluts? For cheap little tarts with ripe bouncy bodies and glittering eyes? Am I that butch? Really, am I?”
The sun was a shimmering ball in the western sky. It was getting near dinner time, six o’clock or after. The light was almost gone. Time for Sheila to be heading back. But Paul had come by, on the road below. She’d seen his Buick come across the causeway, and she didn’t have to guess what was going on at the house by now. Caron tried to be so circumspect about it all. As if, Sheila thought, she imagines I would be shocked to know she’s fucking Paul. So what. I don’t care. But I have to play my part of the game too, and I suppose it would embarrass both of us if I were to come strolling in while she was blowing his tool or doing something else equally disgusting.
It’s not disgusting, she reminded, herself. It’s Caron’s way. She chose the straight path, and I didn’t. Ten to one—a thousand to one —she’d be shocked out of her proper little mind if she knew how I considered sexual time well spent. That gay working at Caron’s shop —he knows. I could tell as soon as he saw me. We’re both outsiders. We can smell our own kind, I guess. And he says there’s no action locally —not my brand, at least. All for the best. I’d probably fall in love again.