Read Online Unlike Others by Valerie Taylor - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Valerie Taylor
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married. She might have a couple of kids. Plenty of women found out what they were when it was too late, and some of them were able to live a double life. She might be bisexual, taking love where she found it, with both men and women. That was a big subject for discussion with Rich and his boys, it cropped up every time someone in their crowd made a straight marriage. Rich said it all depended on your concept of love. If you were really involved with someone, it was hard to tell where affection ended and passion began.
Jo was sure of only two things. One was that Linda was a superb lover. No matter what the pattern of her life might be, she had the finesse that has to be learned as well as the capacity for passion that's inborn.
The other was that if it was at all possible, she was going to see Linda again; she was going to take her to bed.
CHAPTER 8
She thought about Linda often in the days that followed. On Saturday she considered going to The Spot on the off chance that Linda would be there, but she was incapacitated (Karen's word for a simple biological process that she had always taken for granted until she discovered Karen's pathological resentment of it). She put in a dull weekend tidying the apartment, getting her clothes washed and ironed, cooking a Sunday dinner for which she had no appetite. This is how it will be when I'm old, she told herself. I’ll come home from the office every night and do my housework and maybe watch television for a while before I go to bed, alone. After a few years maybe I won't even notice it. What else is there for an old dyke?
It was a disheartening thought.
She wasn't sure what to think about developments at the office. Stan was going out with Betsy. Neither of them made any attempt to hide it. Even Gayle, wrapped up in last-minute plans for her wedding, noticed and commented. "Gee, they're having lunch together again. From the way those two act you'd think they had a thing for each other. You think she's the kinda girl that gets in solid with the boss like that?"
"I don't know."
"Believe me, I wouldn't let any man get away with that. I do my work from nine to five and that's enough. If a boss made a pass at me, Eddie'd make me hand in my resignation."
Jo's private opinion was that Betsy was relieved and happy to be dating a man—any man. It restored her female pride, shaken by the divorce. She came to work on time and went through the motions, but it was evident that her heart wasn't in it. Jo admitted that she did her work as well as any of her predecessors, which wasn't saying much. Why should a girl put any enthusiasm into a business that meant nothing to her, that was only a source of income? Still, a little more interest on Betsy's part would have made things easier for everybody.
Stan was lukewarm, too, and Jo's pleasure in her own professional achievement was constantly being threatened by a put-upon feeling she couldn't shake off.
Damn it, she thought, I'm not going to get the magazine out single-handed. I could, but I'm not going to. I don't care what other people do after five o'clock. He can move in with her if he wants to. But when he hangs around all day whispering sweet nothings in the girl's ear, while I do three people's work, it's too much. I'm going to quit and go to New York if this keeps up.
She didn't want to quit. She liked her job, even if some of the things she had to do were silly, and she liked the quiet and privacy of her own little office and the feeling that she was her own boss. She was safe here. In a big office full of cliques and chatter there would be the lurking dread, the ever-present fear that someone would know she was different. If Stan suspected, he hadn't said anything. Men were likely to be more trusting than women, especially middle-aged women. In a bigger place someone might realize that she was a Lesbian.
Silly word, she thought, with the automatic rejection that the homosexual vocabulary always aroused in her.
That brought
Jo was sure of only two things. One was that Linda was a superb lover. No matter what the pattern of her life might be, she had the finesse that has to be learned as well as the capacity for passion that's inborn.
The other was that if it was at all possible, she was going to see Linda again; she was going to take her to bed.
CHAPTER 8
She thought about Linda often in the days that followed. On Saturday she considered going to The Spot on the off chance that Linda would be there, but she was incapacitated (Karen's word for a simple biological process that she had always taken for granted until she discovered Karen's pathological resentment of it). She put in a dull weekend tidying the apartment, getting her clothes washed and ironed, cooking a Sunday dinner for which she had no appetite. This is how it will be when I'm old, she told herself. I’ll come home from the office every night and do my housework and maybe watch television for a while before I go to bed, alone. After a few years maybe I won't even notice it. What else is there for an old dyke?
It was a disheartening thought.
She wasn't sure what to think about developments at the office. Stan was going out with Betsy. Neither of them made any attempt to hide it. Even Gayle, wrapped up in last-minute plans for her wedding, noticed and commented. "Gee, they're having lunch together again. From the way those two act you'd think they had a thing for each other. You think she's the kinda girl that gets in solid with the boss like that?"
"I don't know."
"Believe me, I wouldn't let any man get away with that. I do my work from nine to five and that's enough. If a boss made a pass at me, Eddie'd make me hand in my resignation."
Jo's private opinion was that Betsy was relieved and happy to be dating a man—any man. It restored her female pride, shaken by the divorce. She came to work on time and went through the motions, but it was evident that her heart wasn't in it. Jo admitted that she did her work as well as any of her predecessors, which wasn't saying much. Why should a girl put any enthusiasm into a business that meant nothing to her, that was only a source of income? Still, a little more interest on Betsy's part would have made things easier for everybody.
Stan was lukewarm, too, and Jo's pleasure in her own professional achievement was constantly being threatened by a put-upon feeling she couldn't shake off.
Damn it, she thought, I'm not going to get the magazine out single-handed. I could, but I'm not going to. I don't care what other people do after five o'clock. He can move in with her if he wants to. But when he hangs around all day whispering sweet nothings in the girl's ear, while I do three people's work, it's too much. I'm going to quit and go to New York if this keeps up.
She didn't want to quit. She liked her job, even if some of the things she had to do were silly, and she liked the quiet and privacy of her own little office and the feeling that she was her own boss. She was safe here. In a big office full of cliques and chatter there would be the lurking dread, the ever-present fear that someone would know she was different. If Stan suspected, he hadn't said anything. Men were likely to be more trusting than women, especially middle-aged women. In a bigger place someone might realize that she was a Lesbian.
Silly word, she thought, with the automatic rejection that the homosexual vocabulary always aroused in her.
That brought
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