Lane said pensively, “I guess… that’s true. I wouldn’t have… anyone else. But you’ve taught me a lot about courage and trusting the past few days.”
“Are you going to answer my question?”
“Yes. But not right now. And not here. Right now I want to move the car.” She gestured toward an empty section of the parking lot.
Lane switched off the ignition and took Diana’s hand, holding it on her thigh, lacing their fingers together. “Can you eat with one hand?”
“Easily,” Diana said, smiling.
Her hand lay on Lane’s thigh as they drove toward the cabin. She moved her fingers inside, feeling warmth and firmness through the fabric.
“I’m going to drive us right off the road,” Lane said.
Diana removed her hand and Lane said, “Don’t take it away, just don’t move it like that. You must know by now what you do to me.” She glanced over as Diana’s hand again rested on her thigh. “Your hand is so warm. You’re so warm. You make me very happy,” she said meditatively, steering the car around the curves of the dark mountain. “Happy in more ways than the physical.”
“The physical between us is incredible,” Diana murmured.
“Yes.”
“Do you suppose it’s often this good between women?”
Lane’s hand, gloveless, cool from the steering wheel, covered and pressed Diana’s hand into the warmth of her thigh. “I only know it is for us.”
They arrived at the cabin just before eleven o’clock, and learned that Madge had left that afternoon.
“She took it into her head to get back early and surprise Arthur,” Liz said. “I hope Arthur doesn’t get really surprised. I suggested she might call from Placerville. I hope she does.” Liz chuckled. “I bet you my chastity belt Arthur’s got somebody helping him with all that room to breathe.”
“I wonder if she’ll call,” Lane mused.
“Who knows,” Liz said. “Do you handle divorces?” Grinning, Lane shook her head.
“Did you girls have a good day?” Chris asked.
“A beautiful day,” Lane said.
“Lane has all the makings of a riverboat gambler,” Diana said.
“So how do you stand?” Millie asked Lane. “Ahead or behind,” she added impatiently as Lane looked at her blankly.
“Uh, I think maybe fifty dollars ahead.”
“That’s about right,” Diana said, smiling.
“Why don’t you tell us all about it while Diana’s in the bathroom?” Chris said.
“Yes, why don’t you,” Diana said with a mischievous smile as Lane glanced at her in alarm. “Tell them all about Benny the dealer.”
“Oh. Yes.”
When she returned, Lane was sitting by the fire holding a glass of wine she had not touched, listening to gambling stories.
“Bathroom’s all yours,” Diana said, and Lane rose and excused herself, handing her the glass of wine with a look of brimming amusement.
Lane lowered the trapdoor. “You really threw me to the wolves, didn’t you, Miss Holland. Without a qualm.”
“You’re a lawyer, Miss Christiansen. Can’t you talk your way out of anything? Anything?”
They were sitting on the bed, Diana’s head on Lane’s shoulder.
“Thank God they started talking about some of their own gambling stories,” Lane said, her hands under Diana’s pajamas and gentle on her body.
“I knew that would happen. People who gamble can talk about it for hours.”
They kissed lingeringly, holding hands. “It’s been a whole hour since I’ve been able to touch you,” Lane murmured. “I must say I don’t like it, not being able to touch you.” She cupped Diana’s face. “You made me sleep today and I needed to. We both needed to. You take good care of me.”
“I like taking care of you. We have a lot of time to talk, now.”
“Or whatever else it may occur to us to do.”
Evasive tactics again, Diana thought unhappily.
But Lane said, “Let’s arrange the bed so we can talk.”
They pulled the blanket off, and after some experimentation, Lane sat propped against pillows with Diana lying on a pillow in her lap, the quilt covering both of them.
“A snug igloo,” Lane said approvingly.
“Perfect,” Diana said, stroking her hair. “Talk to me about you. About your work. What’s your office like?”
“It’s nice. Father helped me furnish it. It’s in tones of gold and brown, I’ve got a few good pieces, a Queen Anne chair, an antique table, two good paintings. I have Father’s desk now, I’m very proud to have it. I like the office at night. There’s a different kind of silence at night, a hush, and the city is incredibly beautiful.”
“I’d like to see your office. I love your city.” As Lane remained silent, Diana said, “Tell me about the people you work with.”
Lane gave her brief character sketches, many of them amusing, of the men with whom she worked, and spoke of problems and projects she had been involved with. “I hate to lose,” she said. “It torments me for weeks. I always think if I’d worked harder, prepared more, presented my facts better. I hate to lose.” She talked about law school. “Are you sure you’re interested in all this?” she asked again.
“Absolutely. It’s fascinating. I don’t care how influential your father was, I think you were born to do what you do.”
Lane talked quietly, often looking abstractedly out the window as she formed her thoughts into words, her fingers moving caressingly in Diana’s hair; she paused sometimes to touch her face to Diana’s, her breath light and warm. She talked about her childhood in Oklahoma, growing up in California.
“This is your life, Lane Christiansen,” she joked, “God,
I’ve never talked this much in my life. I want to hear about you. Tell me about your work.”
“There’s not much to tell. I want to get into personnel administration. I finally finished college three years ago, but my life was too bound up with Jack and I guess there was a lot of inertia—it’s so easy to stay with what you know. I don’t feel that way now. There are so many possibilities, so many exciting things… I feel like Madge’s giraffe, my long neck up to see what’s going on around me.”
Lane smiled and kissed her, tender kisses on her eyes, her lips.
Diana whispered, her eyes still closed, “You have the sweetest, softest, tenderest mouth.”
A fingertip touched, traced Diana’s lips. “Your lips feel rich and soft to mine. Tell me about things you like. What kinds of books do you like?”
They talked about books, and music. Lane stroked Diana’s hair, traced her face.
“You’re such a pretty woman,” Lane told her. “Delicate, soft features. Everything about you is soft and curving, even the way your hair curls around your face. Tell me about a day in your life. In a minute.” They kissed slowly, deeply, for a long time, Diana’s hands caressing her shoulders.
Diana talked about her daily activities, her life in Los Angeles. Lane’s fingers stroked her throat, unbuttoned her pajama top to caress her shoulders, to caress where the swelling of her breasts began. Desire had long since begun, long since heightened; she was no longer surprised at how easily or how much she desired Lane.
“Tell me about where you live, describe it to me.” Fingernails brushed lightly in the hollow of Diana’s throat, across to her shoulders.
“You’re making it difficult for me to talk.”
“I know. I can hear it in your voice. I want to hear it, how you feel when I touch you. Is that all right?”
“Yes. If I can.”
“Your throat is so soft, your shoulders are so warm and pretty. Tell me about where you live.”
“A small apartment building in the Valley, very quiet, one bedroom, a small dining room.”
As she continued to speak, Lane looked into her eyes and stroked her arms, inside her elbows, her wrists; she kissed her fingers, her hands. “Your hands are so soft and sweet,” Lane said, “so feminine, your arms around me are always so warm, they have such sweet, delicate places to touch, kiss. Tell me what colors there are in your bedroom. Describe it to me exactly.”
“The walls are creamy white. My bedspread is deep blue. I have pictures of the ocean along one wall.”
Lane’s hands held her breasts, long supple fingers curved around them. She looked directly into Diana’s eyes. Diana spoke with effort through her pleasure.
“What’s your favorite color?” Lane asked, fingertips gliding lightly, rhythmically over her nipples.
“Gray… blue,” breathed Diana.
“Not blue-gray?” Lane smiled.
Diana spoke more easily as the fingers left her nipples to caress her breasts again. “No, there’s more gray than blue,” she said, looking into her eyes.
“Some things just can’t be described,” Lane said in a low, musing voice. “The firmness, the heavenly softness of your breasts. How they shape themselves to my hands. Beautiful, so beautiful… Diana, tell me where you would live if you could.”
“On the ocean.”
“Describe it to me. The house you’d like to have on the ocean.”
Diana said, “It would be right on the beach. There would be tall windows... all the way… down to the floor… And… a fireplace… near the windows so you could… look at the fire… and the water.” Lane’s mouth left one breast, came to the other. “And there would be… books all over the walls. And… a thick carpet… for us.” Diana held Lane’s mouth to her.
“Diana.”
“Yes,” she whispered.
“Look at me. Tell me how you feel.”
Diana opened her eyes. The lids were swollen, heavy. “Like. whipped cream all over inside.”
“You have a lovely tender place just around, close to your nipples, I love kissing there. I love your breasts, kissing them. There’s only one other place I kiss where I can tell so well the pleasure I give…” She kissed Diana’s body, her hands sliding Diana’s pajamas down over her hips. “It’s a sense of power I love… Diana?”
“Yes.” She lay nude, breathing deeply with her sensations, Lane’s hands and lips and tongue caressing her body, silk hair brushing her skin.
“Your lovely body… Every time I take you in my arms you melt into me… And so soft to my hands, sweet to my lips. Tell me about your house at the ocean. Tell me about the bedroom. What color is it?”
“Blue… different shades… of blue.” She shuddered from Lane’s hands, her mouth, inside her thighs.
“Velvet… I could touch, kiss here forever. How you tremble… your soft hair… Tell me about our bedroom, Diana. Talk to me… Tell me about our bedroom.”
“Glass… down to... the floor... and… a fireplace.”
“Oh God so sweet… Diana… Talk.”
“Lane.”
She spoke in halting whispers, awkwardly, with many pauses as she searched for words. “Streams, rivers of feeling. Then it’s like hot liquid brimming on the edge, ready to overflow, ready, ready, and oh God it does, pours all through me, flows everywhere at once, into my throat, down my legs and my arms and into my wrists. Everywhere, everything in me… glows. Your mouth is heaven,” she finished, and was angry with herself for trying to describe what she could not describe, for the poverty of her words. But Lane’s arms abruptly tightened, an unaware, painful tightening.
“Lane, what do I taste like?”
Lane was silent for a while; she stroked Diana’s hair. “It’s more than taste. It’s how you feel—like satin in places, and… intricate. And it’s like smelling trees and flowers, and earth, and rain. The taste… how can I—” She suddenly smiled. “I know. Our Emily wrote about hummingbird drunk with nectar. ‘I taste a liquor never brewed.’ The taste of you, Diana.”
“You’re like ocean to me.”
“Like. salt?”
“Maybe a trace. I don’t know. I can’t explain it any more than that. It’s like being at the ocean. It’s lovely.”
Diana disengaged herself from Lane, and sat up. “Why won’t you talk about what happens afterward? Am I a butterfly interlude for you, Lane?”
“No. But I think I may very well be for you.”
Diana sat still in shock; then shook her head in bewilderment. “I don’t understand.”
“We’ve both discovered things about ourselves the last few days. But your discovery is different from mine. You know now that a woman is possible for you. I’ve discovered that for me a woman is necessary.”
“I don’t understand at all.”
“I mean that you’ve just discovered the idea of sexuality with another woman, but you haven’t looked at any of the realities.”
“Yes I have.” Diana thought of the ordeal that had led her to Chick Benson. “Problems can be worked out if we want to… to be together.”
“You haven’t even considered what you’re saying, Diana. You haven’t had time. Not really. I know. I’ve lived with myself for fifteen years. You’re confusing knowledge with courage.”
“I’m more than just a sexual being, Lane.”
“That’s exactly the point.”
“And I’m not a child, either. I’m thirty-four years old.”
“You have many needs—and options.”
Diana said vehemently, “I can’t stand euphemisms, especially from you. I want you. You.”
“I’m only asking that you think about it.”
With a feeling of desperation Diana said, “I don’t need to think about it. I know how I feel. I can tell you that right now.”
Lane raised a hand in a gesture of command. “No. Not until you’re away from stars and snow—and this room—for a while.”
“From you.”
“For a while.”
“Do you need to think about me?”
“It’s different for me. I know now that Mark was an accident for me—as I am for you.”
“I think this is possible for anyone.”
Lane sighed. “Many things are possible for people, the labels they attach are senseless. But our opinion won’t change reality. I want you to take the time to think about this, about me, in context with your life. When you’re with your family, your friends. When you’re making plans about your career. I’ve told you how my father would have reacted to a relationship like ours. What would your father think?”
“Dad’s always told me I had all the intelligence I needed to make good decisions about my life, and I should always consider my own happiness.”
“Would this make him happy?”
Diana hesitated. “It’s my life, Lane.”
“What about your friends? Vivian? The people you work with?”
“It’s my life,” Diana repeated stubbornly.
“That’s what I’m saying, too. I only want you to carefully consider your own happiness.”
“How long do you want me to take?”
“I think a month.”