Read Online The Women's Room by Marilyn French - Free Book Online Page B

woman could grow her crops and kids at the same time. She said if a society wanted children, it would have to pay for them the same as it paid for guns and bombers. She said that if it paid for them, it might value them a little more and spoil them a little less.
    At any rate, it does seem true that a young woman may sometimes behave in a way that can be called titillating, and that men take such behavior as being directed entirely at them. Now there’s no doubt that most of us are a little finer, a little more attractive and electric when there’s someone in the room who appeals to us sexually. I’ve often seen blushing young men with shining eyes behave in the same way, but no one says of them that they want to be raped. If, after taking a few steps forward, they then decide to retreat, no one accuses them of being cunt teasers. In fact, the disappointed woman probably thinks it’s all her fault. The mating game is as complicated as the dances derived from it – that terrible, wonderful, macho flamenco, for instance. Maybe it was easier back in the old days when it was performed with bodyguards called chaperons: the girls could be as free and gay and thoughtless as the boys without having to worry about consequences. Now we have the pill, but that doesn’t work quite the same way. It might have helped poor Mira though. There was just no rational way out of her dilemma; all the alternatives rot. Like being in a burning building, the fire beyond you, two windows in front of you, one looking down on a tiny bunch of firemen holding a canvas that looks no bigger than your thumb, the other looking down on the filthy Hudson River. When you are in situations like that, the only thing you can do is close your eyes and plunge. No amount of ratiocination can help you decide whether the fire is only a corridor deep and you could reach the staircase beyond, whether your chances are better with the water or the net.

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    One evening, after a long silence, Lanny called and asked Mira to go out. Her heart fluttered a little, like a bird long grounded, whose broken wing has healed, and who is tentatively trying it out. Perhaps he would be willing to try it her way – to be friends, to stay close and loving until someday she would be ready to risk. And she knew, as soon as she opened the door to him, that she, or at least her body, loved the gangling awkward figure with the pale disconnected eyes and the smooth long hands. But he was stiff and polite; in the car, he barely spoke.
    ‘You seem angry?’ she ventured.
    ‘Why should I be angry?’ But there was a sarcastic twang in his voice. It silenced her.
    After a long pause, she asked coolly: ‘Why did you call me, then?’
    He did not answer. She glanced at him. His mouth was working.
    ‘Why?’ she pursued.
    ‘I don’t know,’ he said in a dull voice.
    Her mind was in tumult. He had called her, it seemed, against his will. What could that be but love, something beyond simple desire? She wanted to go someplace quiet, where they could talk, but he drove to Kelley’s, a college hangout near the campus where they had often gone. It was a saloon: knotty pine paneling and college pennants, a long bar in front, a few tables and a jukebox in back: red-checkered tablecloths, blaring music, and the smell of beer. As usual on Saturday nights, the place was mobbed; they were standing four deep at the bar. She did not like standing at bars, and Lanny took her to the rear, and unusually polite, helped her with her coat. She sat down; he went to the bar to get their drinks. There was a bartender who waited table, but with such a crowd, they would have to wait long for him. Lanny disappeared into the mob at the bar. Mira lighted a cigarette. She sat. She smoked another cigarette. Men paused and gave her the once-over on their way to the toilet. She was humiliated and anxious. He had met some friends, no doubt. She glanced at the crowd, but she could not spot him. She smoked another