Harriet Daimler - Darling

" Maybe he' ll come to you," Gloria murmured.

" Shall we have some dinner?" Laura asked. She clumsily moved the conversation away from the area that whispered, " It might not happen. Christopher may never be yours!"

" Yes," agreed Gloria. " There are some eggs and bacon in the refrigerator, and a can of soup in the pantry.

Laura walked into the kitchen and Gloria heard her banging the refrigerator door shut. Then, lying back, she heard the bacon sizzling and tried to remember the words she had said. They had nothing to do with the rapist. But that was different. The rapist was not to be her life – she was killing him to live. But she had said to Laura, " It would be better if you just decided to live." Afterwards, perhaps. First her vengeance, and then a life out of the caves. Laura was not waiting for vengeance, but for love. That was why she was doomed. We can' t wait for love, but can only create it out of the present with the imperfect feelings sifted to us through a gnarled tree of family. I must be insane, reasoned Gloria. Laura lives what she speaks, and so do I. Except for the one enraged thorn in my flesh that demands his death. I am insane now, and the words I speak come out of a well tutored yesterday. I' m the most savage waiter of all… waiting for death.

Laura came back into the bedroom. She had washed her face, but fresh tears were staining her cheeks.

" I wish I were beautiful to him. I wish I looked like a Hollywood starlet."

" If I were beautiful, I' d torture him. I' d fuck his father and his brother and his best friend." Gloria seemed in a trance.

" I just want to be what he wants. I don' t care about anything else. About freedom, or soul, or truth, or…" Laura laughed, " beauty."

Gloria moved her head to look at Laura. " Kill him," she commanded.

The two women shared the moment, and Laura shrugged her shoulders nervously and said, " Let' s be a bit serious. Actually I came here to ask you if you' d like to spend a week at Fire Island. It' s warm enough now, and the cottage is in good shape."

Maybe he' s on Fire Island, Gloria thought. I pray to God I find him there…

" Kill him," she repeated to Laura. " Don' t wait for him. Kill him."

Fire Island is close to New York City – quite close and quite chic. Not chic the way it once was, but it still attracted the cityimprisoned artists and writers and advertising executives and publicity hawks. They rushed every weekend to Fire Island to run as innocently as Polynesian primitives along the white beaches and the rough Atlantic surf. But though they conspicuously took off their shoes and walked the wooden- planked streets of the island, they brought their insulated " aren' t- we- having- a- good- time?" attitudes with them. And they had a very good time; the thousands of empty gin bottles were proof. The men wore faded jeans and bared their white smoke- choked chests to the air. Some of the men on the island were very beautiful. They lived from resort to resort, exciting the men and women with the exposed confidence of their muscles.

The women wore pants or designer shorts. Skirts were taboo on the island. The shape of their legs and Fifth Avenue fashion decreed the length and tightness of the pants. Sometimes they were rolled ruggedly over the thighs. Their shorts often were cut high enough to show the subtle crease where the thighs swelled into buttocks and the front of their shorts V' d into their loins. V marked the spot. These women cruised the island looking for bulls. They were too anxious to have a good time to be disappointed. If a man showed his horn, they were convinced. And they played a voluptuous game, pretending they could gore each other.

There was practically no electricity on the island, no cars, no paved roads, no buildings made of steel, and no stairs that reached up to great heights. The island insisted on simplicity. The houses were open to the sea and the islanders' feet felt the sand- grit on the floors, their bodies felt it between the sheets, and their teeth felt it in the hamburger.

There were about six separate communities on the island. In each section there had settled a different perversion, tortured by the anonymity and accusations of the big city. Here the lesbians took off their tight secretarial skirts and high heels, and did revengeful dances. The faggots took off their city manners and hugged each other in the silent sand dunes, loving and screaming and being jealous and crying and drinking, and getting on the Sunday night boat for home.

They had to supply a city identity on the let' s- be- childrenagain island. Where are you from? And what do you do? And oh, you were at that party, too. I don' t remember seeing you there. But once everybody knew who everybody else was, then it was all right to fuck with child- like joy.

The island was shaped like a floating penis, eight times as long as wide, tapering to a bulbous end. There was the Atlantic cooling one side of the narrow stretch of land, and a bay filled with docked yachts on the other. A ferry traveled every few hours from Long Island, depositing gritty vacationers on the shore, and the same ferry took them back, drunk and sunburned.

To get to Fire Island they caught the train at Pennsylvania Station or drove to Amityville where the ferry would be waiting.

Gloria and Laura drove to Long Island in Laura' s small convertible. They kept the top of the car down and let the wind have its way with their hair. They looked young and carefree, speeding down the fast highway, and they spoke about dresses and Gloria' s coming exhibit. They scrupulously avoided mentioning Christopher. Laura had carefully donned her best New England reserve and it was obvious that she could not bear to mention Christopher' s name. But her silence enveloped them in her husband' s perseverance, and the motor of the car hummed " Christopher," and the water at the left rippled the same sound. Gloria' s face had lost its swollen contours, and she leaned back on the cool leather seat and felt happy to be leaving the city. It is difficult, she realized, to live all year in the city. Especially, when you' re used to big houses and lots of space. She hadn' t sensed how closed in she was until they' d driven over the bridge and seen the trees and lawns she' d grown up with.

" It' s good to get out of the city, isn' t it?" She turned to Laura.

" God, yes," Laura answered conventionally. " Sometimes I think I' ll just choke if I don' t get some air in my lungs."

Gloria was bored with the familiar patter. " It isn' t so bad in the winter. But in the spring and summer, you just have to get away."

" I' m sure," Laura responded, " we' ll feel much better when we get into bathing suits and dive into the water."

That was the wrong thing to say. They were supposed to feel magnificent now. Gloria lit a cigarette.

" Let' s go swimming as soon as the boat docks," she suggested. " It shouldn' t be much after five."

" Leon is giving a cocktail party," Laura reminded her.

" Christ," said Gloria. " He' s been there all winter giving cocktail parties. Doesn' t he know how to do anything else?"

" Leon is nice."

It was obvious that Laura was hating Gloria for the broken words that she had spoken to her a few nights before. It was because of the Glorias of the world that she wanted Christopher so desperately – to show them they were all wrong. To prove that she had something private and wonderful with Christopher that none of them could see. Had Gloria fucked Christopher?

Gloria, sitting beside Laura, studied the tense, drawn look of her companion. She knew that Christopher had not been heard from since his liaison with the model. Then she saw a twitch of hate on Laura' s mouth, and a message came to her with frightening clarity. She wanted to say, " Laura, I never had Christopher. There has never been anything between us." But she knew how insulting that would be, how clearly that would declare, " Christopher is public property."