The noise from four record shops poured out into the street, fighting the sound of horn blasts and the curses of taxi drivers. The narrow sidewalk was nearly impassable for the crowds of garishly dressed young people with bandanas tied about their foreheads and leather necklaces swinging as they jostled through the dense throng.
Where was the photo studio? Could she ever find it in this hanging garden of fire escapes and jutting placards? Sonya… Sonya. The name was exotic and foreign. Ginny's best friend, her closest friend. The name scurried along her veins like hot acid each time she repeated it to herself.
So many of the shops were basement affairs, tucked down into the teeming sidewalk so that she almost missed them as she passed by. She didn't know the name of the studio; maybe someone could tell her, but who? Each time she slowed her pace, thinking to ask a likely looking stroller, the people walking behind her bumped into her.
Finally she made her way down the steps of a basement book store and stepped into its cool recess. Taped acid rock blared through the premises, coming from four speakers, one in each corner of the room. She had never been in such a noisy bookstore but the browsing customers seemed oblivious to anything except the paperbacks they riffled.
A tall blond boy with mutton chop sideburns looked up from a huge catalog and let his eyes trail down her body.
"Ciao," he said, smiling. "Can I help you?"
She couldn't very well ask him where the dog studio was; it sounded so silly to her. The bar… Sappho's. That was more sophisticated.
"Do you happen to know where Sappho's bar is?"
His eyes flickered momentarily, then dulled.
"What a waste," he sighed. "Yeah, second from the next corner on the other side of the street."
She could not fathom his seeming hostility after the appreciative glance he had given her when she came in. She turned uncertainly and left the store, crossing the street to the opposite sidewalk. A greasy smell of chili struck her nostrils from a raucous parlor. Brenda broke out in a sudden crawling sweat that made her head swim as if she were going to be sick. Something was wrong, very wrong, but she did not know what it was. The street was hateful and evil even in the holiday glow of the warm Saturday sun. She hurried as best she could through the crowds until she neared the end of the block. She saw the bar, and next to it, a tiny store with photographs of poodles and schnauzers in the window.
She went in. No one was around but she heard voices from a back room. A shrill-sounding matron cooing to a yapping animal. "Poopoo, now sit still for the nice lady. She loves you just like Mama does, yes she does."
Brenda sat down in a rococo chair made of gilded wood and purple velvet and looked in tired amazement at the price list posted on the wall. How could people pay such amounts for a picture of a dog? She settled back as best she could in the uncomfortable chair and looked at the exquisite shop, remembering something from a novel she had read, about the waiting-room of a whorehouse. That's what it looked like.
The yapping dog had quieted. Someone turned a bright light on behind the draperies that hid the studio from the front of the store. She heard a series of clicks and saw a shadow move. Then a low, sultry voice spoke.
"There. That should do it. I'll have the negatives for you next week."
Footsteps came closer and Brenda turned in expectation. The dog-owner appeared, looking very much like the puffy-haired Maltese terrier she had on a leash. Both had snowy coiffures and mincing, nervous movements. The woman gathered up the dog and bustled out, and Brenda turned to the willowy figure that had appeared in the parted draperies.
"Good morning. May I help you?"
Brenda had never seen anyone so chicly beautiful and so thoroughly New York. It had to be Sonya; no other name could fit such a girl.
She wore a plum-colored satin shirt with matching knickers that followed faithfully every well-turned line of her long, gorgeous legs. The pants seamed snugly up into her crotch and plastered over her flat belly, fastening on the side in an invisible, beltless waistline that emphasized her svelte body. Brenda gazed at the flawless features of her face. Honey-toned skin and limpid hazel eyes with brushstroke brows as black as jet. Her hair was gathered simply at the ears and fell in a long cape to the middle of her back. It was a dark, dark auburn that gleamed like mahogany-colored satin.
As cool and contained as she looked, the girl did a double-take when she saw Brenda. Her thick lashes fluttered for a moment and the bronzed lips parted as if she had been about to gasp, only to catch herself just in time.
Brenda rose and walked over to the counter, her pulse beating thickly in her throat. Something about the girl unnerved her and yet captivated her at the same time. Instinctively she glanced furtively at the girl's small pointed breasts, then raised her eyes as she felt a flush stealing over her face.
"Are you Sonya?" she asked.
"Yes, I am."
The girl's mouth curved into an enigmatic smile and her perfectly glossed bronze lips parted and looked moist. She must use that new finger-paint lipstick, Brenda thought. The pearly brownish-pink color followed her natural lines in theatrical perfection.
Brenda rushed into an explanation in the face of this cool, self-possessed beauty.
"I sublet Ginny's apartment not long ago and I thought it would be fun if I dropped her a line. She sounds awfully nice, I'd love to meet her when she gets back. Do you have her new address?"
Sonya leaned on the counter, drawing closer in an intimate body gesture. The top of her unbuttoned blouse fell open to reveal two small mounds of flesh.
"I don't have it. She didn't tell me where she was going, except she said something about California. I haven't heard from her, though." She smiled confidently. "Though I'm sure I will."
A sugary scent rose from the open blouse. It was too powerful for perfume; it must be sachet or bath oil. Brenda met the hazel eyes head-on and saw their pupils widen with a repressed excitement.
"What's your name?"
Brenda told her. Sonya nodded slowly as she studied her.
"What a coincidence," she said. "You look so much like her, and now you have her apartment."
The terror that her words evoked in Brenda was mixed with an odd sort of relief. At last, someone had come right out and said it! This time, she would not have to beat around the bush to find out; would not have to blurt out the question as she had done with Leo and Harl.
She tried to be matter-of-fact, and found suddenly that she was.
"A couple of other people have said that. Yes, it is a coincidence, isn't it?"
"It's a groovy apartment," Sonya said. "Or it could be if Ginny had been home long enough to do anything with it. Are you doing anything interesting to it?"
"No, I haven't changed a thing." Brenda breathed deeply, her fear vanishing. "I like it this way. In fact, the reason I wanted to write to Ginny and eventually meet her is that I feel we're exactly alike. I feel as if I'd lived there all along." How easy it was now! The fear was gone, the panic, the sense of splitting off from the world. She was happy now. She had screwed two of Ginny's men, and now this exotic friend was gazing at her with bright, watchful eyes. She felt as if she had always been a New York girl; all of her provincial past was falling away under the hazel gaze. She knew a warm, sun-drenched comfort as though she had shed an old skin for a new one, like a snake in the hot, bright desert. I don't care anymore… it doesn't matter now.
Sonya leaned over further, pushing her small breasts together as she clasped her elbows on the counter. A line of flesh, deeper this time, appeared in the slitted opening of the blouse. She had a pair of neat little tits, the kind that appeal to men who say, "More than a handful is a waste."
Men and women, Brenda thought suddenly, shocked. She too was admiring the perky mounds of the girl's chest, trying to see more. Her nipples would be brown instead of pink.
"My partner is due in a minute," Sonya was saying. "How about joining me for a drink next door? My favorite neighborhood bar?"
"Sappho's?" Brenda asked.
The sultry, lean face smiled broadly, showing teeth that were startlingly white against the honied skin.
"Do you go there often? I haven't seen you. And I doubt that I would have missed you."
In that instant, Brenda knew in her mind what her senses had known the minute she had seen Sonya. She was a lesbian. A lesbian… she had Ginny and now she wants me. And I want her. A rush of excitement and abandon struck her, followed by a sense of freedom. How easily the admission came! She wasn't horrified at all, as she would have been last year, or last month, or even yesterday. Voluptuous awareness flowed hotly in her veins. What would it be like to cup another girl's tits in her hand, to run her finger up and down the slit of another girl's pussy? She would soon find out… She trembled with hot lust as she smelled the strong sachet.
Sonya looked at her watch. "Hell be in any minute unless he's picked up a trick." She sat down opposite Brenda, stretching out her long model's legs in casual awareness of their exquisite shape. The tight seam bisected her firm crotch mound, dividing it into two succulent lips that left only the taste to the imagination.
"Yes, you look very much like Ginny – only healthier," Sonya said with a knowing smile. Her eyes lingered on the jutting points of Brenda's bosom.
Before she could reply, the door opened and a modish young man entered in a rush; his prick on public view as much as the law would allow. She looked at the baby-blue suede pants he wore and wondered how he could stand the pain. His cock was pulled up toward his stomach and mashed against his body in a plump cylinder.
He looked casually at Brenda, then turned and looked quickly again. She thought, he noticed it too.
"Hi, dear, I'm here," he called to Sonya, clucking her under the chin. "What's for supper, how're the children?"
"Still a gleam in their mother's eye thanks to your gland problem. I'm taking off for a while. Hold the dog house."
"Hmmm. Have fun."
Sonya picked up the most enormous shoulder bag Brenda had ever seen and hoisted it. The strap cut across her chest like a bandolier and pulled the satin material snugly around one pointed boob. They looked so hard and firm now, but how soft and inviting they had been when she leaned over the counter.
Outside, the noontime sun was hot over their heads.
"This way," Sonya instructed, cupping her elbow as a man might do. The gesture contained a commanding masculinity but the touch was so light and fragile and completely feminine. It's two things at once, and so am I, Brenda thought feverishly. She walked woodenly into the bar with Sonya, her thighs weak with desire.
The place was practically empty except for a butchy bartender who grinned knowingly as Sonya escorted them to a dark back table.
"What'll you have?" she asked.
"A rum Coke."
Sonya called out the orders, with a martini for herself, and in a moment the butch brought them.
They toasted silently, their eyes meeting over the rims of their glasses. Sonya sipped her cocktail and put it down on the table with a little clicking sound.
"Yes, you're much healthier looking," she murmured. Her hand reached out and began to unbutton the top of Brenda's dress with slow expertise. It was almost pitch black where they sat, and the bartender was busy washing glasses, her back to them. It was going to happen right here! Sonya meant business and was showing it in an unmistakable way.
The cool slender fingers pulled the bra strap down and reached into the lacy cup for the round orb that blossomed out of it. The thumb found the prickling nipple and rolled lightly over it until Brenda sighed sharply and leaned back, thrusting her shoulder out in encouraging little jabs as Sonya squeezed her hot flesh.
Brenda looked down at her naked breast. Sonya had it completely exposed, a swelling, quivering sphere of white in the black corner of the room.
"Beautiful," Sonya whispered, her own breasts rising and falling rapidly. She flicked at the stiff nipple with her forefinger, making it quiver until the spirals of response ran through Brenda's ribs like cold chills. She groaned and thrust her hand into Sonya's lap, digging between the slender thighs and rubbing the divided mound. How hot it was!
Sonya's head lowered. Brenda felt her hot breath, "I want to nurse on this a long time. It sure beats a martini."
She enclosed the thrusting nipple in the hot, glistening moisture of her mouth and took a long, painful sucking pull on it.
"Uuuummmmmm… what a sweet… mmmmm… pair of tits you've got."
Sonya's mouth was spread out like a suction cup over the tip of Brenda's breast, pulling for all she was worth as her tongue flicked hotly over the trapped nipple. Brenda jerked and twisted as the small white teeth clamped down without mercy over the sensitive tissue. Sonya's hands slipped up under her skirt and found the crotch of her pants and dug into it, touching the dense fuzzy hair of her cuntal lips. The little booth was cramped and uncomfortable; Brenda tried to move her legs apart to welcome the digging, eager fingers but she could not. They twisted together in hot seeking, hands wandering over each other's soft bodies as they moaned and whimpered in passion.
"We're getting rather public," Sonya panted, drawing away with reluctance. "I've got a better idea. Drink up."
They finished their drinks and stood up. Sonya tossed a couple of bills on the table as Brenda quickly buttoned her dress. Her thighs shook as though they had turned to rubber and her sex fluid seeped from between her swollen thatch as she started to walk.
"There's a back room in the photo shop that we can get to from the back door of this place. Come on," Sonya ordered.
They went out through a dark passageway, past the rest room and kitchen of the bar, and exited through a door that led into a narrow alley. Sonya took out a key and opened a peeling greenish door to the left of the bar.
"I should have brought us in here in the first place, but one always tries to do the right thing, I suppose," she said, sighing in a mock fashion. "It's always polite to have a drink first, isn't it? Shit!"
The room was little more than a large closet, containing tripods, extra lenses and shutters and a couple of broken benches and background murals. There was a chaise lounge pad in a corner with a blanket over it. Brenda wondered how many girls Sonya brought back here – or how many tricks the boy had enjoyed in this tiny room.
"Now," said Sonya, smiling brightly arid unbuttoning the plum-colored blouse. "We'll give Teddy his no-no signal." She knocked on the door, a complicated tattoo that reminded Brenda of a sorority initiation secret. From within the shop, they heard the boy's laugh and his voice calling out, "Okay, I read you!"
Sonya stood with her long slender legs spread wide, her deft fingers working quickly over the line of tiny pearl buttons on the bell sleeves she wore.
"We mustn't shock Teddy. He's never seen a naked woman before; he'd have a stroke if he saw two wouldn't he?"
Brenda could not take her eves off the body that was being slowly revealed to her. First the blouse with its seeming hundreds of buttons, then the tight knickers. Sonya stood in flesh-colored bikini pants and a scrap of lace that was her bra, both lighter than her honied skin. Under the near-transparent pants Brenda saw a dark swatch of hair, like a black G-string under the creamy lace. She tossed the bra aside, exposing small, firm breasts with tiny nipples, almost like a little girl's. They quivered and fell forward as she bent to shuck off the narrow pants.
Brenda trembled as she saw the thick bush of crotch hair and the dark pink lips that poked through it, open and moist with desire. Sonya saw the direction of her eyes and stood proudly, letting her have her fill. Her hands rested lightly on her hips as her legs parted enticingly. She thrust her crotch forward and revolved her hips in a circle, slow and lazy yet full of tireless passion.
Brenda tore off her clothes until she stood naked a few feet from the tall, dark temptress. How different they were, one so dark and the other so white and pink.
Sonya drew close, passing her hand in a curving caress about Brenda's rounded ass as she reached for the mattress and blanket. The touch burned with only a hint of what was to come. They sank to the floor and molded their bodies together in a twisting knot of arms and legs and soft bellies.
"Let me," Brenda gasped. "I want to eat you."
She had to do it, she had to! Never had she seen anything so succulent as that pink slit surrounded by all that curly black hair. What had happened to her! It should have repelled her but instead her mouth watered for pussy. I'm changed now… different… I'm Ginny now.
She lay on her back as Sonya knelt over her face, leaning forward on all fours as she thrust her swollen brunette mound into Brenda's mouth. Brenda's arms curved around the lithe thighs and her tongue shot out, aiming for the slit.
It was delicious! Like nothing she ever expected! It opened like a flower slickened with dew and drenched her tongue with its fresh, salty tang. In an unbelieving ecstasy, she reached back and squeezed Sonya's trim cheeks and drew her closer, until her lips flattened against the fragrant cunt.
Sonya shrieked in delight and jabbed her hips forward, rubbing her pussy hard against Brenda's face. The coarse black hair burned her mouth but it was a heavenly torture.
"God, you lick so gooood! Oh, yes! Do it like that, just like that!"
The self-possessed cool of the slim dark girl vanished as vixen lust took over. She threw back her head and tossed it to and fro, the mahogany hair whipping about her face. Her thighs trembled in the vise of Brenda's arms as she gave herself up to the noisily slurping tongue.
Brenda gasped for breath and dove in once again to the coral folds of the sweet pussy in her mouth. Her mind swam with a hundred fragments of this new and delightful knowledge. This was just like her – she had one, too, yet what a discovery it was! She thought of all the times men had gone down on her and realized with proud joy that this is what she had given them. How wet it was. So many secret folds… how many? It felt like dozens, and all of them led up to the hard little clitoris. She licked in a circle over it, prodding it with the tip of her tongue until Sonya's hips jerked in automatic response.
"There! Right there… Ooooooooommmmmmmm. God! God! You're making me get it! Uuuuummmmm, God, am I getting it!"
Sonya's hand grappled for Brenda's, drawing it under her body.
"Go inside me while I come! Hurry!"
Brenda found the entrance to her cunt and jammed her fingers against it, striking a sling of muscles that locked for a moment, then opened in sucking eagerness, grabbing at her fingers like a hungry mouth. She shoved two in, as deeply as she could, scissoring them inside the cunt tunnel until Sonya grunted and strained in delight.
"Oh, now! Now!"
The torso that straddled Brenda began to snap and heave like a whip. For a second it was almost frightening to see what she was doing to this svelte, sculptured body as the climax wracked it in the dizzy, heady aroma of salt and femaleness Brenda thought. She's like a bitch in season… and so am I, so are all women. She had never been aware of a woman's passion like this. This was herself, sameness, a mirror image of her own capacity for lust.
"Ooooohhhhhhh, I'm cuming! Fuck my cunt, fuck it hard!"
Brenda's arm came up under the spread thighs in a massive thrust, sending her fingers hard against the flesh of the cervix at the very top of the swollen vagina. Something happened in there, something that felt like a sudden spring shower. The pussy walls fluttered and pounded out the rhythms of sex as Brenda's fingers rammed in and out.
Sonya, her eyes closed, wove dizzily over her and then rolled in a tired heap across her body, still trembling and rubbing her legs weakly against Brenda's.
"God, you're good," she murmured. "You really know what to do with these little things, don't you?" She brushed a hand over Brenda's cunt.
Brenda's ready slit ached at the touch. "I… I never did this before. With a girl I never did."
Sonya rose up on an elbow and searched her face, her mouth quirking in amusement.
"Oh, come on."
"Really. You've got to believe me."
The brushstroke eyebrows rose inquiringly. "Well… I suppose I have to, don't I? Let's say, then, that you're a quick student."
No, it's just that I learned from Ginny, "Why…" she began haltingly, "What made you… spray like that inside? I never knew…"
She was interrupted by Sonya's earthy laugh. "Now I really do believe you. That's always the big surprise the first time you have your hand inside a girl. We cream ourselves, too, just like men. It's a shock the first time, I know. But a nice shock."
Brenda smiled slowly. "Have you ever slept with a man?"
"Hah! Now I'm two hundred percent convinced about you. Only new recruits ask that. Of course I've slept with men. I enjoyed it physically, but I prefer women for a lot of reasons. Namely, I just plain like them and respect them more than I do men." Her voice lowered to the old sultry note. "Enough talking. Now for some action. I'm recovered."
Brenda spread her legs eagerly and wrapped them about Sonya's slender warmth. Her golden thatch touched Sonya's face as the brunette rubbed her mouth sinuously over the dense growth of hair.
Suddenly the long pink tongue shot out and bisected the downy cunt lips. Sonya emitted a low growl of pleasure and reached around the tops of the milky thighs to spread the hot pussy wide, holding back the hairy lips while her mouth sank into the glistening folds. The tips of her thumbs pulled the wet vulva apart until it was flattened into a gaping, lust-tormented crevice.
Brenda arched her back and shoved her hungry mound into Sonya's face. The tongue slathered up and down through the split lips making famished sounds, causing a million needle points of heat to come prickling through the open gap of Brenda's cunt. She felt the warmth of Sonya's long tapering fingers scooping under her buttocks and raised herself to the new caress, moaning as the fingers opened her ass crack and trailed through the hot secret crevice.
"Aaaaaawwwww! Yes, inside, that's it! Yes, do it!"
As Sonya's tongue flicked madly through the burning pussy, her hands were busy at the tormented rectum. Brenda gasped as a finger entered the tight hot cavern. It probed deep into her bowels, palpitating and searching as it rammed further and further up her ass. She twisted against its impaling strength and cried out for more of the same.
Sonya's mouth spoke against the wet hair of her pussy. "Now we'll give you something up your cunt." She jabbed her thumb into the sucking vagina, pushing it hard against the thin wall of flesh. When Brenda felt what was happening she wanted to scream out in ecstasy. The finger and thumb pinched together inside her body so that she could feel them meet with nothing but a membranous layer of flesh between them. She tossed and heaved, throwing her legs high in the air and hammering her hips against the twin invasion. The juice from her fiercely lubricating pussy ran down into her split cheeks as the unbearable pleasure drew glistening come from her cloven femaleness.
As she looked down her body she saw Sonya's shoulder moving steadily as she worked her fingers in the clutch of the hot flesh in which they were trapped.
"Uuuuummmmmmmm… fuck me, lick me, give it to me everywhere," she moaned. "Give me an assful and a cuntful! Oh, hard! Ram it up hard, make it hurt!"
The arm moved like a piston, pummeling into her tender folds as the mouth clamped over her stiff clitoris. Her body turned into three burning pleasure points that met in a rising crescendo of cuming… cuming… cuming.
"Oh, baby, fuck it, suck it, ram it!Oooohhhh, it's so gooooood!"
They ended up sprawled over the bare floor, the mattress sliding away from them as their bodies twitched in unending ecstasy. Sonya kept her fingers deep in pussy and ass until Brenda's head moved from side to side in weak supplication.
"No more, no more…"
Sonya rose to her knees, her palm clutching her own pussy. "Roll over on your stomach," she panted. "I'm hot for some more."
She obeyed, sprawling out in passive readiness, as Sonya mounted her back and began rubbing her hot, wet cunt over Brenda's sore ass. She lifted her hips against the circling weight as the scratchy hair pounded against the curves of her white cheeks. Sonya's tongue licked at her neck and shoulders as she grunted in abandon, bringing herself off quickly and powerfully against the tender flesh.
"Ummmmmm, you've got a good ass in more ways than one!"
When it was over, she clasped her wet thighs around Brenda's ass and lay on her with a long sigh of contentment. How heavy she was now, in spite of her lithe slenderness. Heavy with the weight of satisfaction.
They were still for several moments, then Sonya whispered against her ear.
"That's known as grass on the ass. I had to have another one after what I was doing to you. It got me hot all over again."
"Do you suppose anybody heard us yelling?" Brenda murmured.
Sonya climbed off and got shakily to her feet. "I don't hear any dogs barking, do you? I think it would stir them up quicker than it would Teddy."
She leaned back against a table and stretched, spreading her legs and tensing the muscles in her thighs until they rippled softly. Her lips parted in a sexy smile and she rubbed her fingers lightly over her curly crotch.
"Happy pussy… real happy. So is yours?"
"Yes, oh, yes." She got up and looked blankly around the tiny room for her clothes, found them and began to struggle with shaking fingers with hooks and eyes and buttons.
Sonya drew on her panties and shook out the knickers raising her leg in a graceful bend as she stepped into them.
"We've got to get together again. Ginny's place? I mean, your place, excuse me."
Brenda brushed back her hair and kept her palms flattened against the side of her face.
"My place… yes, my place." She began to smile dreamily, then a short, excited laugh bubbled to her lips. Sonya looked at her strangely for a moment, then smiled. She looked at her watch.
"Well, that was a nice lunch, wasn't it?"
Brenda looked dubiously at the door to the shop, then to the one that led to the alley.
"Back door or front?" she asked.
Sonya gave another one of her earthy laughs, so at variance with the sleek, regal appearance she made.
"Since you obviously like both, it doesn't really matter, does it?"
She went out the back, as they heard a customer enter the studio. It was much hotter outside now; a searing summer sun had replaced the perfect spring morning. She walked in a daze down the street, heading back home. Now, the crowds did not seem so close or nerve-wracking, nor the noises so piercing. Everything seemed muted to her now as the torpid aftermath of sex rendered her body heavy and nerveless. The world no longer came at her with unsheathed threats. A hazy peace enveloped her as she made her way back to the apartment. Ginny's place… my place… our place!
Her footsteps kept time with the litany that spun through her brain. Brenda Taylor… Virginia Walters… Brenda Taylor… Virginia Walters. Soon the words marched together and ran amuck in a meaningless pudding of sound, with no separation between one name and the other.
She came to the apartment building and let herself in the front door. No one was in sight. She dreaded meeting Harl. Now he seemed like something from the past. The thought of him and his body repelled her because they reminded her of her first tortuous day in the apartment. Now the torture was over.
When she stepped into the apartment it was uncomfortably hot, a preview of the summer to come. She walked in and put her keys in her bag, noticing as she did the letters she had received from her mother and Jim.
A leaden reluctance to answer them struck her. She had not even read them. Twenty-four hours ago she would have ripped open mail from home in her frenzy to escape from Ginny but now there was no desire or need to escape.
Tiredly, like a child determined to get his homework over with, she sat down and read them both. Her mother's was a skittish rondo of incompleted, gossipy thoughts and inchoate warnings about life in the big city. It was Jim's letter that gave her cause for alarm:
I guess all girls want to work in the big city but I wish you had chosen L.A. instead. I miss the living hell out of you. How about if I flew in for a weekend and we painted the town?
No! her mind screamed. He couldn't come here, not now. He would change her back into the frightened girl she had been. She turned the page with shaking fingers and went on reading:
I don't want you to change and be some New York girl. Remember you're still my Brenda, and I want you to stay as sweet as you are.
She balled the letter up and threw it across the room, a dry hard sob rising in her throat. With an effort at calm, she got up, smoothed out the letter and prepared to answer it immediately. If I don't he might show up out of the blue, she thought with desperation.
She wrote slowly, weighing each sentence… Now darling, think of how we're going to need that money when we're married. Don't go throwing it away on a trip here. I haven't changed at all and I have no intention of doing so. This year will pass very fast and then we'll be together for good.
She stopped and read it over, rubbing her wrist absently. Suddenly she was fully aware of the dull ache that throbbed through her whole hand. She looked at it in puzzlement, then back at the letter. Her handwriting had undergone a subtle change. Instead of her sprawling forward slant the letters were vertical and neatly formed. Her hand hurt from the change in the way she held her arm and the pen. She flexed the fingers and tried to remember how she had formerly held the pen, feeling foolish that she was practicing something that was so second-nature.
Or should have been…
Jim's letter lay on the table and she turned over a sheet and began to write on it, consciously attempting her old style of penmanship.
Ginny Walters… Virginia Walters…
She dropped the pen and stared at the scrawled name, a tiny smile forming at the corners of her mouth.
There was nothing wrong. She had done the most natural thing, in the world. Whenever anyone practices with a new pen or plays handwriting games, what does he write? Nearly always, what is the first thing that occurs to him to write? His name…
She laughed to herself, a light fluttery sound. Well, she had fooled Jim once; he thought she was a virgin. Now she would have to fool him again. It didn't matter… it didn't matter a damn bit. It was just a game.
She picked up the pen and signed Brenda in neat, vertical letters that came naturally to her. As she addressed the envelope she glanced up and saw his letter.
"…I don't want you to change and be some New York girl…"
She wrote a quick, dutiful letter to her mother containing the usual number of lies and sealed it. When she rose from the table she looked calmly at the poster, standing stiffly in front of it for a long time before she shrugged and laughed. She wasn't afraid of it anymore. Let it stay up on the wall. In fact, she liked it there now. Liked it very much.