Beebo Brinker Chronicles 3 - Women In The Shadows Read Online Free PDF Page A

another woman.
    Knowing how Beebo felt only made Laura's conscience worse. It made her resentful and gentle by fits. Either way it was nerve-wracking and left her exhausted.
    Suddenly Beebo picked her up and put her on the bed. She sat down beside her and slipped her arms around her and began to kiss her with a yearning that gradually brought little darts of desire to Laura. She didn't want it until it happened. And then, inexplicably, she did. It was good, very good. And she heard Beebo whisper, “Oh, if it could always be like this. Laura, Laura, love me. Love me!"
    Laura turned her head away and shut her eyes and tried not to hear the words. Gradually the world faded out of her consciousness and there was only the ritual rhythm, the wonderful press of Beebo's body against hers. It hadn't been like this for Laura for months, and she was both grateful and annoyed.
    Beebo made wonderful love. She knew how, she did it naturally, as other people eat or walk. Her hands flowed over Laura like fine silk in the wind, her lips bit and teased and murmured, all with a knowing touch that amounted to witchery. In the early days of their love Laura had not been able to resist her, and Beebo had loved her lavishly.
    Often Laura had felt an ache for those days, when every thing was sure and safe and certain in the fortress of passion. She had taken passion for love itself, and she had been secure in Beebo's warm arms. Now it seemed that Beebo had been just a harbor where she could rest and renew herself at a time when her life was most shattered and unhappy. She didn't need the safe harbor now. She was grateful, but she needed to move on. It was time to face life again and fight again and feel alive again. For Beebo the time of searching was over. It ended when she met Laura.
    She had a small ten-watt bulb in a little bedstand lamp that shed a peachy glow around them, and she always had it on when they went to bed. Laura had loved it at first, when just the sight of Beebo's big firm body and marvelous limbs would set her trembling. But later, when she was afraid her slackening interest would show in her face, she asked Beebo to turn it out. It had been one more in a series of harsh arguments, for Beebo had known what prompted her request
    Now they lay beside one another, their hearts slipping back into a normal rhythm, their bodies limp and relaxed. Laura wanted only to sleep; she dreaded long intimate talks with Beebo. But Beebo wanted reassurance. She wanted Laura's soft voice in her ears.
    'Talk to me, Bo-peep,” Beebo said.
    "Too sleepy,” Laura murmured, yawning.
    "What did you do today?"
    "Nothing."
    "Shall I tell you what I did?"
    "No."
    "I got a new shirt at Davis',” Beebo said, ignoring her. “Blue with little checks. And guess who rode in my elevator today?"
    Laura didn't answer.
    "Ed Sullivan,” Beebo said. “He had to see one of the ad agency people on the eighth floor.” Still no response. “Looks just like he does on TV,” Beebo said.
    Laura rolled over on her side and pulled the covers up over her ears. For some moments Beebo remained quiet and then she said softly, “You've been calling me ‘Beth’ again."
    Laura woke up suddenly and completely. Beth ... the name, the girl, the love that wound through her life like a theme. The tender first love that was born in her college days and died with them less than a year later. The love she never could forget, or forgive or wholly renounce. She had called Beebo “Beth” when they first met, and now and then when passion got the best of her, or whiskey, or nostalgia, Beth's name would come to her lips like an old song. Beebo had grown to hate it. It was the only rival she knew for certain she had and it put her in the unreasonable position of being helplessly jealous of a girl she didn't know and never would. Whenever she mentioned her, Laura knew there was a storm coming.
    "If I could only see that goddam girl sometime and know what I was up against!” she would