Perry Scope - When the loving gets rough

Karen frowned, striving to understand what the girl was trying to say. All she really understood was that for some reason they had been attracted to each other. "Are you talking about a kind of personal magnetism?" Karen asked, sure that this wasn't what Pat meant.

"No, it's not really magnetism, exactly," Pat said thoughtfully. "In the study of mysticism you find words like vibrations, which tells you that you have an affinity for someone. I sensed that about you as soon as I saw you."

Karen felt both uncomfortable and exhilarated at the same time. "I… I think I know what you mean, Patricia," Karen said hesitantly.

"Don't call me Patricia, please," Pat said, a trace of annoyance passing over her face. "I really do hate being called that. I always wanted to be a boy. I guess this is the closest I'll ever get to it, though."

Karen noticed the charm bracelet that encircled Pat's wrist. Religious symbols of every kind glittered from it. "I guess every girl wants to be a boy at one time or another. I did, when I was twelve or so."

"Well," Pat sighed, carefully moving her full coffee cup in large arcs over the table, "it's just as well we're not. Men are bastards. They sicken me thoroughly."

"It's hard to live without them, though," Karen said lightly.

"I can, and I do!" Pat replied, abandoning the game she had been playing with the cup. She tasted her cooling coffee and frowned. "Well, almost," she amended. "Men are occasionally handy for money. Outside of that, forget it." Pat's low voice was emphatic. "The only thing men have ever done for me is to give me money for a few fast minutes in the sack. Other than that, I try to avoid the entire sex."

Karen stared openmouthed at the girl while Pat fumbled in her sweat shirt for cigarettes. She watched the girl light one and suck the smoke deep into her lungs, her frank confession of occasional prostitution apparently forgotten.

"I have always felt a greater affinity for women. Men are too insensitive, too selfish. When I tell even the brightest, most understanding man that the only life worth a damn is the one which is devoted to self-realization and what I call the inner search, he doesn't even try to pick up on my meaning. He thinks it's a joke!" Pat moved her head easily from side to side, making the small silver cross twinkle as it caught the dim light and flashed it brightly around the room. "I find that men demand insincerity from women. It's vital to their egos. Men don't even want to have a go at pretending a little show of sensitivity. Or am I wrong?" Pat asked innocently, her slitted eyes distorting the smile her lips attempted. "Is, perhaps, your husband the exception, Karen?"

Karen passed a suddenly trembling hand over her eyes. "Well…" Karen felt a compelling urge to explain. "We just don't seem to be getting along… Al… he's busy all the time. You know, work, night school. He's really a nice guy. Pat. It's probably me. He just doesn't seem to understand me."

Pat looked at the girl appraisingly. "How long have you been married?"

"Four years." Karen was surprised at the intimacy she felt towards Pat. Next, she chided herself, she would be telling Pat about her sexual frustrations, also.

Pat went on looking at Karen with the same remote appraising eye until she appeared to have satisfied herself about the girl. When she spoke again it was with an abrupt change of mood. "You know, Karen, sometimes I think I must become a hermit."

"A hermit!" Karen couldn't repress a smile. Her thoughts of Al again dissolved in an instant. She tried instead to picture this lovely young girl munching unripe berries in a cave. "Why?"

"Well," Pat answered dreamily, "it would be easier. Sometimes relating to people is an enormous task. How do we know if this affinity of ours will last or not?" Pat grinned. "We start this business of becoming acquainted – starting up a personal relationship, right?"

Karen thought Pat looked amazingly like a beautiful boy when she grinned in that way. "Right." She grinned back.

"So-o-o, you begin by comparing likes and dislikes. Maybe you find you like the same kind of ice cream or have a mutual cousin or some such nonsense. Next you get into personal values and maybe religious and political affiliations." Pat's grin broadened even more. "Then, if you can still stand each other, you eventually become friends – until your kids beat hell out of each other one day and bust the whole damn carefully formulated relationship."

Karen laughed. She was rapidly becoming charmed with this girl.

Then Pat stopped smiling. She leaned across the table until Karen thought crazily that Pat was going to swoop down on her like a graceful woodpecker. Her eyes were very soft. "I feel know you so well. I've known you for a hundred years! Yet, I've got to tell you what I am, bit by ragged bit of me, until you know me, too. And then you'll probably decide that I'm not the sort of character you'd want to know. Outside of a far-out coffeehouse, that is. Until tonight rd just about given up believing in immediate communication between people." Her smile, which reappeared in miniature in Karen's coffee cup, faded again.

"Why wouldn't I want to have anything to do with you, in or out of a coffeehouse?" Karen asked, honestly surprised.

"I see by your uniform…" Pat swept her eyes quickly over Karen's simple cotton shift. Its brown shades brought out her eyes, but Karen knew she looked almost hickish compared to the interesting and creative attire most of the girls present wore. Even Pat, in her battered black jeans and matching sweat shirt, looked more vibrant and sophisticated. "You belong to a world I either left as a very young child, or one of which I never was a part." Pat resumed her explanation after a second penetrating look at Karen. "You're a product of a society in which someone like myself would be put way down. I live different, I look different, and I think different. Like I said, if I were to go that route to make us friends, tell you about myself honestly, you would run away and probably never look back!"

Karen felt rather hurt and insulted. She had been lumped into a category and judged, without a chance to defend herself. She felt like telling Pat that she would run and not look back anyway, without knowing these deep, dark secrets at which Pat hinted. But Karen knew it was just a pretense on her part. She didn't want to leave Pat. With this girl, Karen felt as if she had found a spark she had lost years before. Pat's erratic moods were a challenge. She found herself wishing that Al was less dull, could have just a drop of this girl's intensity. "That isn't very fair, is it? You really have no idea what I think about anything," Karen objected, trying to retain a trace of her former outrage.

Pat studied Karen's pretty face speculatively. When she spoke again her voice was bolder and more challenging. "Baby, if I told you about my life you would be shocked out of your head."

The girl made it sound like a dare! Karen began to feel breathlessly exhilarated. "Try me," she countered.

Pat grinned quickly, then composed her features so that they maintained a somber expression. "You're not gay, are you, Karen?"

"Gay?" Karen wondered if Pat was about to switch over to still another subject.

"You don't even know what the word means, do you, baby? You are a sheltered lamb, aren't you, honey?" Pat laughed softly.

Karen didn't like being laughed at. She was about to reply when she remembered a novel she had once read. "Homosexual?" she asked in surprise. "Who, me?"

This time Pat's laugh was very loud. It pierced the boisterous noises, making Karen aware of the others in the room for the first time in many minutes. "Yes, you!"

"Of course not!" Karen found her face coloring. She hoped Pat wouldn't notice.

"How do you know? Have you ever tried it?" Pat cut out the bantering tone she had been using. She watched Karen steadily.