thought that she herself was perfectly normal and she wasn’t attracted to men. She thought simply that men were unnecessary to her. That wasn’t unusual; lots of women live without men.
What Laura would never know, and Beth would never tell her, was the real reason she had given up seeing men. Beth had, over and above most people, a strongly affectionate nature, a strong curiosity, and a strong experimental bent. She would give anything a first try, and morality didn’t bother her. Her own was mainly a comfortable hedonism. What she wanted she went after. At the time she met Laura, she wanted to be loved more than anything else.
Beth had always wanted to be loved. She wanted to feel, not to dream; to know, not to wonder. She started as a little girl, trying to win her aunt and uncle in her search for love. Loving them was like trying to love a foam-rubber pillow: they allowed themselves to be squeezed but they popped right back into shape when they were released.
Unknowingly, her aunt and uncle had started Beth on a long, anxious search for love. When she couldn’t find it with them she turned to others, and when she grew up she turned to men. It was the natural thing to do; it was inevitable. For Beth grew up to be a very pretty girl, and when she began looking for a man to satisfy her she found more than one always willing to try.
But none of them made it. First there was George, when she was still in high school. She was just fifteen and George was a Princeton man in his twenties. Beth liked them “older”; and the older ones liked her. George fell very much in love with her. He was fun, he had been places, he could take her out and show her a good time … and he adored her. Her word was law.
Beth administered the law for two years. The time began to drag interminably toward the end of the second year. George smothered her with love, and she began to doubt and to despise herself for not returning his passion. Here was real love, what she had always craved to make her life complete and meaningful, and what did it give her? A headache. George bored her.
It was in this mood that she gave herself to George. She was seventeen. George, on his knees, had implored her not to go to college; to stay at home and marry him and make him The Happiest Man in the World. She said, “No, George, I can’t.”
And he said, “Why?”
“Because I don’t love you.” Her heart rose in her throat, in fear and pity—fear for herself and pity for George.
George wept. He wept very eloquently. “I’ll kill myself,” he murmured in a misery so genuine that she began to fear for him, too.
“Oh, no, you mustn’t! You can’t!” she said. “Here, George. Come here, George.” She called him like a faithful spaniel, and he came, and let himself be petted. And very shortly he felt a sort of dismal passion rising in him with his self-pity; he began to sweat.
“Beth.” He said her name fiercely. “Look at me. Look what you’ve done to me.”
Beth gasped and then covered the lower part of her face with her hands so he couldn’t hear her laugh.
“Oh, George,” she whispered in a voice shaky with suppressed amusement. George took it very well; he thought her trembling voice was paying him tribute.
And suddenly Beth thought to herself very clearly, Oh, hell. Oh, the hell with it. She was quite calm and she said to George, “Come here.” Somewhere in the back of her mind was the hope that this would solve her problem, answer her questions, set things right. She might not love George, but at least she would discover the end of love. Next time she met a desirable man, she would know everything there was to know. She would be prepared and it would all be beautiful as nothing with George had been beautiful.
Beth unbuttoned her skirt and let it slip to the floor.
Hesitantly, with a flushed face and a nervous cough, George approached her. And in less than a minute they were on the couch together and Beth was learning about love.
After that there followed a long procession of boys, mostly college men. The novelty wore off early for Beth, but not the hope and promise; she was an incurable optimist. It took her three years of indefatigable effort to convince herself that it wasn’t the men who were at fault—at least not all of them. The laws of chance were against it. But it was one thing to realize that some of the men were good lovers and another thing entirely to admit that not even the best of them could rouse her. What was wrong? She was healthy and eager and willing; she wanted it, she had always wanted some kind of love. Was it George’s fault for making her laugh at it? Or her aunt’s and uncle’s for making her weep? It took her a long time to see that it wasn’t the fault of any one of them, but rather of all of them, and of herself. That was the bitterest pill. And after she confessed to herself that something prevented her from finding the love she so wanted she became rather cynical about it. The bitterness never showed, but it was there. She was just a little contemptuous of men because none of them had been able to satisfy her; it was much more comfortable than being contemptuous of herself for a fault she couldn’t understand.
Laura, sitting alone in the room with Emily on a lonely Monday night, could not have known any of this. Even Emily, who had been Beth’s closest friend throughout her college years, knew nothing of it.
At ten-fifteen Beth walked in and the atmosphere in the room lightened up noticeably. Laura gave her a glad smile.
“Hello, children,” Beth said, smiling at them both.
“Long meeting?” said Emily, stretching.
“No, short meeting. Long coffee break.” She dropped her notebook on the desk and slipped out of her coat. “Laur, for God’s sake, aren’t you uncomfortable?” she said suddenly, laughing. “Makes me want to wiggle just to look at you. Here, swing your leg over this thing.” And when Laura hesitated she took her leg and lifted it herself over one wing of the butterfly.
“It comes up between your legs,” she said. “Now put your head back.”
Laura moved her head back gingerly as if she expected it to fall off her shoulders at any moment. Beth pushed it back against the high wing of the chair, laughing at her.
“Now, isn’t that better?” she said, mussing Laura’s hair.
“Yes, thanks. Much better.” And Laura had to smile back at her. The real world, with its real bumps and backslides and perplexities, was never farther away.
On Saturday night Laura went out with the two fraternity boys and Emily. They walked to Maxie’s, one of the oldest campus joints, and drank beer and listened to the Dixie Six. Bud put on almost as much of a show as the musicians; Bud was Emmy’s flame—Bud was “it.” He would drop his head in his hands and groan at the bad notes and at the good ones exclaim, “Christ! Listen, Emmy!”
Bud was slender and tall, with thinning brown curls and round green eyes. He had remarkably sensual lips with straight white teeth behind them, and an impish smile. He was a well-known campus musician, one of the best; his reputation with a horn and with women far outweighed his reputation among his professors in music school.
He was a sort of perpetual student; the type that comes back year after year and never quite graduates. He loved music and he loved girls, and he seemed to exist quite satisfactorily on beer and slide oil and kisses. He was a campus character; one
