"Not now. Not yet."

"I think you ought to see a doctor. You've got some awful looking bruises."

"You're my doctor."

"Beebo, I'm scared. I don't even know what happened to you. I want to call a doctor," she said urgently, "I don't need a doctor," Beebo declared.

"Please tell me what happened," Laura pleaded. She lay at the edge of the bed, her face away from the floor and the grisly spectacle of the little dog she had never liked very well and now felt such a horrified pity for.

"It's an old story," Beebo said, her voice tired and bitter, but curiously resigned. "I don't know why it didn't happen to me years sooner. Nearly every butch I know gets it one way or another. Sooner or later they catch up with you."

"Who catches up with you?"

"The G.o.ddam sonofab.i.t.c.h toughs who think it's smart to pick fights with Lesbians. They ask you who the h.e.l.l do you think you are, going around in pants all the time. They say if you're going to wear pants and act like a man you can d.a.m.n well fight like a man. And they jump you for laughs ... G.o.d."

Her hand went up to her face which was contorted with remembered pain and fury. After a silence of several minutes while she composed herself a little she resumed briefly, "So they jumped me. They followed me home, hollering all the way. I hollered back. II was pretty tight and it was pretty noisy. I should have been more careful. I shouldn't have brought them here, but I knew you wouldn't be home so soon ... I didn't work today, baby." She said it guiltily, and Laura knew it meant she had spent the day at Julian's or the Cellar or one of the other h.o.m.os.e.xual bars. But she didn't condemn her or shout, "You'll lose your job!" as she would have another time. She only listened in silence.

"So anyway," Beebo said, after an awkward pause, "I came home early. About four-thirty, I guess. They just followed me in. Oh, I got in the apartment all right and slammed the door and locked it. But one of them came up the fire escape and he let the others in. Gave me this." She pointed to the cut under her eye, and Laura kissed it. "I thought I'd gotten rid of them, baby, but those b.a.s.t.a.r.ds followed me right up here and tried to prove what men they are." She spat the words out as if they had a bad taste and then she stopped, looking at Laura to see how she was taking it. And Laura, lying next to her and holding her tight, was overwhelmed with helpless anger and pity and even a sort of love for Beebo.

Beebo felt Laura clinging to her and the flow of sympathy warmed and encouraged her. Finally she said, softly, as if the whole thing had been her fault and she was ashamed of it, "I'm not a virgin any more, Laura. Don't ever let a man touch you." She said it vehemently, her fingers digging into the submissive girl at her side and her hurt face turned to Laura's. Laura let out a little sob and pulled closer to her.

"Beebo, darling," she said in a broken voice, "I can't stand to think of it. I can't stand to think of how it must have hurt. I know I'm a coward, I can't help it." And then, in her anxiety to heal the bitter misery of it, she blurted, "I love you, Beebo."

Beebo pulled her very close and lifted her face and kissed it delicately, almost reverently, for a very long time. At last she whispered, her lips against Laura's lips, "I adore you, Laura. You're my life. Stay with me, stay with me, don't ever leave me. I can stand this, I can stand anything, if you're with me. Swear you'll stay with me, darling."

Laura's voice stuck in her throat. She couldn't refuse. And yet she knew full well she would be swearing to a lie. It made her hide her face in painful indecision for a moment.

"Swear," Beebo demanded imperiously. "Swear, Laura!"

"I swear," Laura sobbed. She felt Beebo relax then with a sigh, running her hands through Laura's hair.

Beebo gave a faint little laugh. "I never thought anything so rotten ugly could have a good side," she murmured. "But if it's brought us back together, I'm glad it happened. It was worth it"

Laura was shocked. Beebo sounded a little unbalanced. "You can't be grateful for anything that horrible, Beebo," she protested. "You can't, not if you're in your right mind."

"You can if you're as much in love as I am!" Beebo said, looking at her. Laura was shamed into silence.

After a little while, Laura raised herself on an elbow. "Beebo, I'm going to call a doctor."

"You're going to do no such G.o.ddam silly thing."

Laura lost her patience. "Now you listen to me, you stubborn idiot!" she exclaimed. "You've been badly hurt. It's just madness not to have medical help, Beebo. You know that as well as I do. Don't argue with me!" She cut Beebo off as she about to protest. "Besides," Laura went on, "you might want to prosecute them. How could you prove anything without medical evidence?"

"Prosecute?" Beebo stared at her and then she gave a short, sharp laugh. "Are you kidding? Who's going to mourn for the lost virtue of a Lesbian? What lawyer is going to make a case for a poor queer gone wrong? Everybody will think I got what I deserved."

Laura stared at her, disbelieving. "Beebo," she said finally, as if she were explaining a simple fact to a slow beginner, "you don't go into court and say, 'I am a Lesbian.' You don't go to a lawyer and say it. You don't say .it to anybody, you nut! You say, 'I'm a poor innocent girl and I was criminally a.s.saulted and hurt and raped and I have medical proof of it and I can identify the man who did it!'"

Beebo turned on her side and laughed, and her laughter made Laura want to weep. "Not man, Bo-peep," she said when she got her breath. "Men. b.a.s.t.a.r.ds, every last one. There were four of them."

Laura moaned, an involuntary sound of revulsion.

"No thanks, baby," Beebo said, her voice suddenly tired "I've got enough trouble in the world without advertising that I'm gay. I always knew this would happen and I always knew what I'd do about it ... just exactly nothing. Because there's nothing I can do. It's part of the crazy life I live. A sort of occupational hazard, you might say."

Laura pleaded with her. "I just want to be sure they didn't do you some awful harm you don't know about, darling!" she said. 'Tm no doctor, I can't give you anything but bandaids and sponge baths and love."

"That's all in the world I want, baby," Beebo smiled. "I'll get well in no time."

But Laura was too genuinely frightened to let it go at that. "What if they come back?" she asked. "Then they'd get us both."

"No, they wouldn't," Beebo said and her face became hard. Because I'd kill any man who laid a hand on you. Any man. I don't care how. I wouldn't ask any questions. I'd do it with whatever was handya knife or my own hands." Laura started, staring at her. "No man will ever touch you, Laura, and live. I swear."

Laura went pale, wondering how Beebo would react to a marriage between herself and Jack; wondering how much violence she was capable of. "All right, Beebo," she said. "Will youjust tell me one thing? Why won't you see a doctor?"

Beebo turned away from her then, petulant as a child. "I haven't seen a doctor in twenty years, Bo-peep," she said.

"Why?"

Beebo sighed. "Because they might find out I'm a woman," she said quietly.

Laura covered her face with her hands and cried in silence. It was futile. Beebo was a woman, no matter how many pairs of pants hung in her closet, no matter how she swaggered or swore. And while she could fool some people into thinking she was a boy, there were a lot more she couldn't fool, and to them she looked foolish and rather pathetic. But Beebo was too sick to argue with. Laura was afraid of the way she talked, of the harsh way she laughed.

"Well talk about it in the morning," she said.

"We won't talk about it at all," Beebo said, facing the wall, her back to Laura. "Where were you tonight, Laura?"

Laura swallowed convulsively before she could answer. "I was at the movies," she said.

She waited for Beebo to question her further, but there was no questioning.

"I guess I'd better wash," Beebo said. She rolled over and looked at Laura. "Do you really love me, baby?" she asked, and her eyes were deep and clouded.

"Yes," said Laura with a sad little smile, afraid to say anything else.

Beebo gazed at her for a while, returning the smile. "Thank G.o.d," she whispered, her hand caressing Laura's shoulder. And then she said, "Where's Nix?" She started to get out of bed but Laura stopped her.

"They hurt him, Beebo," she stammered.

"Hurt him? How?"

"Theydarling, I don't know how to tell youplease, Beebo!" she cried in sudden fear as Beebo pushed past her. She stopped at the edge of the bed, staring with huge eyes at her little pet.

"I didn't realizeit was so bad," Beebo blurted inanely.

"He's dead," Laura whispered.

"Oh. Oh, that was too much. Too much..." Beebo stared at him, her face almost stupid with sorrow. She didn't scream as Laura had, or turn away sick. She just gaped at him for a while with Laura clinging to her and murmuring, "It's all right, darling, it's all right," because she didn't know what else to say.

Beebo got off the bed and went to him, kneeling beside the ruined little body, and picked him up in her arms.

Beebo looked at Laura with the blood running all over her and there was grief on her face. "He was just a dog," she moaned. "Such a little dog. There was nothing queer about him! ... And he could talk, too." She almost shouted it and Laura waited, trembling, for her to move.

"He was so sweet, Laura," she said with tears coursing down her face. "You never liked him much, but he was such a good dog."

"I loved him, Beebo, he was a part of your life," Laura protested anxiously.

But Beebo ignored it. It was half a lie, spoken in affection, but still a lie. "I could always talk to him and it seemed as if he understood," Beebo said. "I know you thought I was crazy. But there were times when I had to talk to somebody and there wasn't anybody. Only Nix. I had him for seven years ... since he was six weeks old." And she clutched him to her and wept and Laura looked at her, all bloodied and heart-broken, and thought, She feels worse about the dog than about herself.

"Now that he's gone ... at least we'll have one less thing to fight about." Beebo looked very pale and odd. "Won't we, baby?" she said.

"II guess so," Laura said. She's cracked! she thought. She went into the living room then, leaving Beebo alone for a few minutes, and called Jack. He was alone.

"Jack, I don't know how to tell you. Ithey raped Beebo." Her voice was low and shaky.

Jack wasn't sure whether she was kidding or not. He wasn't even sure he heard her right. "Lucky b.i.t.c.h," he said. "I wish they'd rape me instead. I'm never in the right place at the right time."

"I'm serious, Jack."

And when he heard the catch in her throat he believed her. "Who raped her, sweetheart?" he said, and the levity was dead gone from him.

"She doesn't know. Some hoods. G.o.d knows who they were.

"Did you call a doctor?"

"She won't let me!" Laura's voice rose with indignation. "Of all the nonsense I ever heard in my life! She's afraid the doctor will find out she's a female. I think we're all going crazy" But she felt Beebo's hand then taking the phone from her, and she surrendered it without arguing and went to the couch and collapsed.

"Jack?" Beebo said. "I'm all right. It looks worse than it really is. I'll live." The front of her was sticky with Nix's blood.

"You talk like it happens all the time," Jack said with scolding sympathy. "Like getting your teeth drilled, or something."

Beebo smiled wryly. "How is it you always know just what to say to a girl, Jackson? Make her feel real swell?"

"How is it that you're such a G.o.ddam prude you won't let a doctor examine you? The doctor doesn't give a d.a.m.n what s.e.x you are."

"They killed Nix." She threw it at him unexpectedly, silencing him about the doctor. And she described it with such detail that Laura didn't want to listen. She got up and went into the bedroom to escape the conversation.

Beebo joined Laura on the bed ten minutes later, wearing her men's cotton pajamas. Laura was too tired and weak to move. Beebo undressed her where she lay on the bed and dragged her under the 'covers naked.

"I don't know what to do with Nix," she said. "I'll have to figure something out in the morning."

They lay in each other's arms, absorbed in their own thoughts. Laura's mind was a potpourri of vivid impressions. She would never forget the b.l.o.o.d.y little dog, nor the fragrant skin of the Indian dancer, nor Beebo's misery, nor those sinfully sweet kisses she stole from Tris....

"Jack's coming over tomorrow," Beebo said in her ear.

"Good."

"Why 'good'?"

"h.e.l.l help us. He'll make you see a doctor and he'll do something about Nix. I don't know, I just feel better with him around."

"If I didn't know for G.o.ddam sure how gay you are, baby, I'd hate that guy."

Laura had to laugh. "Beebo, if you get jealous of Jack I'll send you to a head shrinker."

"Okay, okay, I know it's nuts. But you talk about him all the time."

"I'm very fond of Jack. You know that. He brought us together, darling." And she said it so gently that Beebo clasped her tighter and was rea.s.sured.

Laura slept, finally. But Beebo could not. She spent the night with her arms around Laura, taking her only comfort in Laura's nearness and the sudden apparent return of her affection.

Jack came at eight-thirty. It was a Sat.u.r.day morning and he had the day to spend. With his usual detachment he wrapped Nix up while Beebo was dressing. He carted him down the stairs in a garbage pail and left him for the morning pickup in a trash bin, well hidden in a shroud of papers. When Beebo came into the kitchen a few minutes later he just said, "He's gone. Don't ask me about it, Beebo. It's all .over." He found it almost as hard to talk about as she did.

"d.a.m.n you, Jack," Beebo said feebly. But she was glad he had done it for her. She felt lousy. All the excitement and anger that had sustained her the night before were gone, leaving a la.s.situde and nausea that swept over her in waves. Laura made her go back to bed and fed her breakfast from a tray.

"Don't leave me, baby," Beebo begged and Laura promised to stay near by. But as soon as Beebo had swallowed a little food and kept it down, she fell asleep, and Jack pulled Laura to her feet and dragged her, whispering protests, into the kitchen.

"How can I talk to you in there?" he demanded and fixed them both some coffee.

Laura drank in silence, listening to his rambling talk with one ear, gratefully. She thought of Tris and wondered whether to confess to Jack about the dancer or keep it a secret. She knew he wouldn't like it.

"Beebo acted kind of crazy last night," Laura said. "I think she felt worse about Nix than about herself."

"No doubt she did. But pretty soon she'll feel her own aches and pains. Maybe I can find her another hound somewhere. I just hope to G.o.d she doesn't use this thing to make a prisoner of you, Mother."

"A prisoner?"

"She was getting pretty desperate about you, you know. I think that has a lot to do with all the drinking."

Laura realised then that he didn't put a shot of booze in his coffee. "You're still on the wagon!" she said.

He swirled his coffee reflectively. "I remember," he said, "when Terry was giving me the works a few months back. I nearly drank myself to extinction. Beebo's not above trying it herself."

"Oh, G.o.d, that was awful!" Laura said, remembering Terry.

Terry had been enough to drive a strong man mad. If he had been nasty about it Jack could have stood it better. He could have preserved his self-respect and he might have had the strength to kick Terry out sooner than he did. But Terry was nice. He was delightful and cooperative. He was unfaithful, he was taking every cent Jack made as Jack made it, and he was hardly ever home.

But Jack was in love with him; angrily in love with the wrong person, sticking to a doomed attachment as if every new shock and every unexpected pain only strengthened his need for the boy.

Jack knew it was hopeless. He knew it was draining his strength and making a coward of him. In his mind the whole sad farce of the thing was perfectly clear. But he acted on his emotions in spite of himself, and as long as Terry loved him he couldn't let him go.

Curiously enough, Terry did love him. Jack was home base to him; Jack was security. Jack paid the bills and bolstered him when he was low, and no matter how rough and rotten the rest of the world might get, good old Jack was always there, always the same.

But the end had to come. There was never enough money, there was never enough understanding, there was never enough of the right kind of love. It took just one sharp explosion of acid resentment one night, when Jack caught Terry cheating after two years of bitter suspicions, to blow them apart. It was almost too painful to think about afterwards.

It was over now, of course. Terry was gone. But the ache for him and the loneliness, even the desire to be tormented remained.

"You never heard from Terry, did you?" Laura asked.