Chapter Text
It was the first really pretty spring day in the city, and Louis watched it from inside the bookstore, her frustration growing with each carefree woman who walked by. She hadn’t bothered to flip the record that had been playing, and her copy of the Dialectic of Sex was still opened to the same page it had been for the past half hour. Niall’s fat grey cat jumped up onto the counter, setting her paws on the book and bumping her head against Louis’ chin, demanding cuddles.
“Yeah, yeah, hi Sappho.” Louis scratched behind the cat’s ears for a moment before looking down at her, suddenly remembering that the cat was the cause of her current annoyance. “Shouldn’t be petting you, should I? You’re the reason we can’t have the lousy door open.” The cat squeaked back at her, and she shook her head. “I know, I’m not actually mad at you. How could I be when you’re the prettiest girl I know?” The cat purred, lifting her chin so Louis could rub her knuckles against the soft fur there.
“Good girl, Sappho, keep ‘er in line.” Niall opened the door at the back of the shop that lead up to her apartment, the scent of whatever she’d been cooking in her crockpot all day wafting out before she closed it again. Her silver hair wasn’t hidden behind a hat for once, and she looked as though she’d just given herself a bit of a clean up around the edges, the back looking sharper than usual. Louis put two and two together.
“You’ve got a date tonight, haven’t you? That’s why you cancelled the reading. Who’re you taking out?”
Niall laughed and shook her head. “None of your business. All you need to know is that I’ll be back after closing, so you’ll be the one locking up tonight. And it’s not why the reading is cancelled. The reading is cancelled because the heartbroken poet got a new girlfriend last week and can’t be arsed to leave her side in Ithaca.”
Louis wrinkled her nose and sniffed, annoyed both at how blasé some people could be about their opportunities and at her own lack of a girlfriend who could make her want to ignore her responsibilities. “Hope you don’t invite her back. Her poetry wasn’t that good anyway.”
“It was good enough for a Tuesday night. If anyone comes around thinkin’ it’s still on, give ‘em the flyer for Zayn’s concert next week? She’s nervous about it, you know. Thinks people might, eh-- not come.” Niall raised her eyebrows at Louis, who nodded back at her.
“Yeah, of course. I’ve got a couple of women coming for sure, and I don’t doubt that Liam will have invited a few people of her own. We’ll have as much of a crowd as we usually do for our events.”
Niall tossed a paperback at Louis’ head. “I know what you were implying there, Lou, and you’ll shut it if you’re wise.” As Louis picked the book up from the floor where it had landed when she’d batted it away, Niall leaned against the counter and came nose to nose with Sappho. “Alright, my beauty, don’t let Lou get away with too much. You’re in charge.” The cat squeaked back at her, and she kissed it once on the head. “Night, Louis.”
“Have fun,” Louis said as Niall turned to go. “See you tomorrow.” She had no doubt that she’d get to meet the woman Niall was on a date with if things went as they usually did. In spite of being Louis’ senior by a good twenty years, she still managed to find dates with women of her own age and a bit younger without trouble, charming them right away and somehow keeping in their good graces enough that most were still regular patrons of Womon's Direction.
It was just after five when Niall left, and the event had been scheduled for six, so Louis tidied up the shelves near the front of the store for a bit, letting herself soak up as much of the daylight as she could. She eventually rewarded herself with a cigarette, stepping outside and enjoying the cooling air against her skin. The street the shop was on was busy enough that traffic was rushing by this time of day, both on foot and in cars, and she as she leaned back against the door she let herself make up stories about the more interesting passersby.
Across the street she noticed one woman in particular who seemed to be in a quandary. She’d actually crossed over and back again twice while Louis had been outside, checking her watch each time she made it to the side of the street Louis was on, biting her lip, and then crossing back over. When Louis stubbed out her cigarette, the woman was back in the greenway in the middle of the street, sitting down in the grass with her bag at her side as she played with the hem of her skirt.
“I did just see a pretty lady, thank you for asking, Sappho,” Louis said once she’d gotten back inside and the cat had stretched up to put its claws in her jeans. “I think she’s training for a marathon, but she’s doing it very slowly, starting out with short distances. Don’t think she’ll win that way, but women are full of surprises, aren’t they?” The door chimes rang out and Louis looked up to find the woman she’d just been talking about standing with one foot in the store and the other still outside. She looked as though the door sound was enough to frighten her off, so Louis took action without thinking.
“Hello, come in. Were you looking for the reading?” She walked toward the door and opened it a bit more, one eye toward the counter where Sappho was perched. “Better close the door, Sappho may look harmless, but she’s been known to do a runner now and then.”
“Sappho?” In addition to being unbelievably lovely, with long dark curls that she’d kept loose tucked behind one ear and mile of pale chest exposed by the deep v in her buttoned blouse, the woman had a voice that could drive anyone to sin, smooth and deep with just a hint of smoke behind it. Louis’ brain shut down temporarily, her senses coming back to her when the woman cocked her head to the side curiously.
“What? Sorry, missed what you said.”
“Oh, I asked if you were talking about the cat.” She pointed behind Louis at Sappho, who’d now jumped off the counter and was headed slowly yet steadily toward the door. Louis shut it abruptly.
“Yes, right. Lesbian book store,” Louis waved one hand around a bit. “Wouldn’t be what it is without a cat named Sappho.”
The woman tucked her hair behind her ear again and smiled at the ground. “She was a right on woman,” she mumbled, lightly shrugging her shoulders. Louis chuckled back at her and she looked up, the pleased smile still on her face.
“It’s your first time here? I haven’t seen you around.” Louis moved toward the counter, hoping the woman would follow her. There were a few chairs set up over there, one that Sappho usually claimed as her own and two more for anyone who felt like sitting down and looking through a book or periodical. Louis hopped up on the counter and the woman sat.
“Yeah, I just moved to the city. I read about this place in the LC? Been wanting to see it since then.”
“Ah, the old Lesbian Connection, connecting lesbians. How’s it measure up?” Louis looked around at the small bookstore with its handmade wooden shelves and makeshift resource table at the back full of free magazines and flyers and the odd pamphlet. It didn’t look like much to her, but then she’d been working here for a few years. Her first time visiting it had felt like a fantasy world.
“There’s so much.” The woman’s husky voice was soft and sincere as she leaned over for a closer look at the nearby shelves. “I’ve never been in this kind of store before.”
“No?” Louis smirked at her, kicking her foot out to playfully tap the toe of her sneaker against the arm of the woman’s chair. “You’re not some out of town dyke coming to take notes on how to run a mildly successful women’s bookstore? Are you sure about that?”
The woman giggled in response, quickly bringing her hand up to cover her mouth. “You never know, I guess.” She glanced to the side, playing coy, and Louis bit her lip at the sight of her long, delicate fingers with the nails cut short. Not that she’d doubted this woman was gay, but her hands were the last little giveaway.
“I’m sure Niall would tell you everything, if you wanted. She won’t be back till after we close, though, so I’m afraid you’ll have to come back another day for that.”
“Oh! Niall, that’s the contact in the listing!” The woman’s smile broadened. “Guess that’s obvious, right? I’m just excited. First time and all that.”
“First times are alright, aren’t they? The most fun, sometimes, even.” Louis crossed her ankles and raised her eyebrows just once. Maybe she was being too obvious or too flirtatious or just too much in general-- she’d been accused of that a lot --but this woman was nervous and confident all at once, having worked herself up to come into the store and then managing to joke and effuse and be completely charming. It was worth being a bit much.
The woman responded with burst of laughter that she almost immediately bit back, clapping her hand over her mouth with more force this time than before. Louis worried for a moment that she’d overstepped, when the woman moved her hand away and lifted her shoulders, looking up through her lashes to say softly, “I wouldn’t know, I guess.”
“That’s…” Louis searched for the right word: good, great, wonderful, fine, maybe preferable to you being some magical creature who thinks I’m a lowly butch in a ratty t-shirt who doesn’t deserve to be given the time of the day. Of course she couldn’t really say any of that. “...what I figured, since you said you’re new here.” There was a moment of awkward silence before she cleared her throat and continued. “Anyway, you didn’t say what brought you in today. Is there a book you wanted, or maybe some community information?” Louis forced herself to stop talking, swallowing hard and holding her breath to look back at the woman. She was looking away again, scrunching her face as she stared at one of the shelves.
“I came in for the reading, actually? I thought I was going to be just on time for it, but maybe I got the day wrong?” She glanced back toward Louis, furrowing her brow.
“Oh, shit, of course. She cancelled.” Louis jumped down from the counter and over to the community table, grabbing one of Zayn’s flyers. Maybe she’d get another chance at not embarrassing herself with… “I never asked your name, did I?”
“Oh! Harry.”
“Well Harry, the poet found love and couldn’t leave her new girlfriend’s side, but we’re having a show next week at the same time that’ll probably be even better.” Louis held out the flyer, which was a basic looking mimeograph with a few women’s symbols added to the type. “Zayn’s amazing. She was with Olivia Records for a while, almost had an album with them, even. But she’s up here now.”
Harry studied the flyer for a moment, her eyes scanning the page. “Can I keep it?” Louis nodded, and she folded it up carefully, sliding it into a zippered pocket of her bag and sealing it in there. “Guess that gives me a chance to look around,” she said, standing up from her chair. Sappho approached and stood near her feet, rubbing against her stocking covered legs. “Care to show me the place, Sappho?” She reached down and stroked the cat’s head until it moved away, leading her toward the science fiction section.
Louis moved back behind the counter and pretended to read her book again, struggling through the same paragraph three times before she gave up and pulled out a notebook instead. She glanced up, making sure Harry was still on the other side of the store before she pulled out her pen and scrawled a few lines down about green eyes and delicate hands like a heartsick idiot.
Sappho announced Harry’s return to the counter by trotting ahead and jumping up, swishing her fluffy tail in Louis’ face. Louis closed her notebook just as Harry set a few magazines and one album down carefully, biting her lip as if doubting her choices. Louis turned them around and thumbed through them carefully.
“You’ve got a couple of good ones here, Harry. But, um,” Louis hesitated for a moment, thinking that Harry might not even want to hear what she had to say until she looked up and saw Harry looking back at her with an open, almost hopeful expression. “If you haven’t read the Winter issue of “Artemis’ Light” it’s a bit better than the Spring one you’ve got. I know we still have a copy or two because I was looking at it yesterday.” Harry smiled and shrugged her shoulders.
“I haven’t read any of them, really. Um. First time and all.”
Louis came around the counter, trying and failing to ignore the blush that spread over Harry’s cheeks. She put her hand lightly against Harry’s back and led her toward the one shelf, moving a few things around until she spotted what she was looking for. “Here it is. Actually, take this one. I’ll pay for it. When you love it you can come back for the spring issue.”
Harry started to protest but Louis just shook her head and walked back toward the counter, periodical in hand, and started to ring up the other items. “I know you can afford it, but you’re getting plenty of things already. And we disappointed you by cancelling the reading, right?” Louis gave Harry a wink and then quickly looked back down, happy to hear Harry’s surprised little chuckle in response.
When she’d paid, Harry took the bag that Louis slid across the counter to her and carefully fit it inside of her other bag, making sure nothing was creased and that the record was secured. “You’ve been really amazing,” she said, tucking her hair behind her ear, “but you never told me your name? How will I ask for you to help me next time if I don’t know what to call you?”
“Louis Tomlinson.” Louis stuck out her hand and immediately regretted it-- she couldn’t remember the last time she’d shaken hands with anyone other than people she never wanted to talk to again --but Harry took it just the same, the tips of her fingers slipping down over Louis’ wrist in a grip that was tight but not too tight. She held her breath for a moment. Maybe shaking hands was a tradition that could use reviving in women’s circles. She held onto Harry’s hand just a beat longer than she thought she should after they’d finished shaking hands, savoring the soft warmth of Harry’s palm.
“Well, we’re formally introduced,” Harry said as she took her hand back, slowly wiggling her fingers in a way that was terribly distracting. “So you’ll be here next week? For the concert?”
“With Zayn? Yeah, I wouldn’t miss it. I’m here most days, really. It’s either me or Niall, and she’d probably just run the place herself and close it up when she felt like if I hadn’t forced her to hire me.” Louis flexed her hand, imagining the tingle of Harry’s energy still vibrating through her hand. She laughed at the thought, realizing how unlike her it was to think such a thing, and then caught herself as Harry looked back at her expectantly.
“Sorry, it’s just funny that…” Louis scrambled for what could possibly be funny. Anything at all. “You came in and nobody else did. Guess Niall closing up wouldn’t be the end of the world. For business, at least.” It was a terrible save, but a save nonetheless. Harry smiled.
“It might’ve been alright for business, but I don’t know if I would’ve been able to make myself come back if you hadn’t been here.” She adjusted her bag on her shoulder and looked down before continuing a bit more quietly. “I actually got here an hour before things were supposed to start and kept trying to get the courage to come inside. I saw you step outside and it made it easier.”
“Easier how?” Louis edged forward, wanting to tip Harry’s chin up or duck her head down to look her in the eyes, but not wanting to disturb the delicate balance between them.
“Just, you looked like someone I would want to know.” Harry fell silent, slowly looking up as if she were afraid she’d said something wrong. Louis kept a slight smile on her face, raising her eyebrows before she spoke.
“And you looked like someone I’d wanna know.” She dared to graze Harry’s bare arm with her knuckle. “And now we do.”
“We do,” Harry said with a nod. She straightened back up and gave Louis a smile, her confidence-- or the semblance of it --restored. “So, next week?”
“Next week!” Louis said, maybe a bit too brightly.
Harry turned as she got to the door, opening it by leaning back against it. “Bye, Lou.” She curled her fingers in a wave and then she was gone.
Outside, the spring day had turned to evening while Louis and Harry talked, and Louis realized that though it was a little early, she could probably close up shop and take the short walk over to Liam and Zayn’s. If she went soon enough, she might even be able to join in on whatever they were making for dinner. Sappho meowed, bucking her head against Louis’ shin as though asking to be allowed to give her opinion on matters.
“What should I do, Saph? Stay here and write, or eat dinner with Li and Zayn?” The cat sauntered over to her chair and leapt up, picking at the fabric with her claws until she was satisfied with having made it comfortable and then curling up into a ball of grey fur. “There’s one for stay here,” she said, going behind the counter to open her notebook. She had a dozen half-finished poems that she should work on, but the only one she could think of was the fragmented series of images she’d just written about Harry.
Picking up her pen, she started writing, not focused on getting anything down but the emotion that she wanted to convey and the images that wouldn’t leave her head. She stayed like that for half an hour, filling several pages before she set her pen down and stretched her fingers. There was enough there that she could probably write several poems, maybe even a song if she decided to ask Zayn to help her. She looked at Sappho, who was asleep and purring in her chair. “That’s all for me tonight, cat. Don’t tell Niall I closed early.”
********************
As Harry left the bookstore, she felt so full of emotion that she wanted to shout about it. She settled for keeping her head up and smiling instead, avoiding eye contact as much as she could but secretly wishing she could simply run up to the first woman she saw, take her by the shoulders, and tell her how absolutely wonderful women were.
A man caught her eye and nodded at her, giving her a quick once over and a smirk, and her bubble burst just enough that she stopped smiling. She still wanted to tell everyone, though. They should know, shouldn’t they? And if they didn’t, maybe she could tell them about the things that women wrote and sang and thought when left to their own devices together. She didn’t say any of that to anyone, of course, but she clutched her bag a little tighter as she descended the stairs onto the subway to ride up to her apartment, feeling as though she had to protect the treasures it held inside.
The station was nearly empty, and when the train arrived she took a seat on a bench in the only other car she saw a woman entering, trying to ignore the smell of cigarettes, stale sweat, and spilled beer that hung around the car. Her mother would hate it; she’d expressly forbidden taking the subway after sunset (and would prefer Harry not take it at all, of course). But her mother wouldn’t know if Harry didn’t tell her, and like everything of any importance, the best part of Harry’s activities for the day-- the spark of the bookstore and Louis and being on her own --would be something for only her to know. She looked up as the train pulled into the station, still adjusting to the number of stops she had to sit through before arriving at her own. 34th. A few more to go.
The train picked up more passengers at 42nd Street, rumbling over the track and stopping once or twice with a jerk before they hit Columbus Circle. Harry began to doubt her choice to take the subway as a man stared at her from his spot on the bench across from her. He stood and moved closer after the train doors finally closed, and Harry abruptly picked herself up and moved toward the door, pretending to have taken a sudden interest in the graffiti that covered the wall of the train.
She could still feel the man watching her as her stop came up and the doors opened, and she waited until the last possible moment to step off the train, turning to make sure he’d stayed on the train and not followed her. He hadn’t. She sighed to herself and started her walk home, up to the lights of Lincoln Center and then a bit east to her apartment. It was only a few blocks, and she knew that her mother was right-- it really wasn’t all that safe for her --but she couldn’t help feeling the slightest shiver of excitement as she walked the quickly darkening streets on her own.
The doorman greeted her and she looked in her mailbox, pulling out a card from her older sister which she opened on the way to the elevator. It wasn’t more than a quick welcome note and a reminder that Gemma’s best friend Jean was “also a single girl in the big city” as if Harry could’ve forgotten with all of her mother’s schemes to get the two of them to live together. She was happy to have avoided that fate.
Her apartment was a one bedroom that had been in their family since not long after the building went up. At the time it must’ve seemed enormous, but by 70s standards it was just enough room for one or maybe two people with a bit of space to entertain and eat informally by the kitchen. Harry’s mother had done all of the decorating, and it showed in the stoddy old couch and hard backed chair that were entirely too close to the door and the awful, old-fashioned art that adorned the walls.
“Hello, darling,” Harry said to the spider plant she’d bought and hung in her kitchen. “Are you thirsty, girl? Did you get plenty of sun today?”
The plant didn’t speak back, but Harry had quickly realized that living alone and working her terrible job and speaking to her mother once a day was not going to cut it for her. Pets weren’t allowed, so she’d gotten a different living thing to take care of. It made her feel less solitary.
“I’m sorry I was late getting back to you, but I did ride the subway home. Alone .” She turned to look at the plant as if it had just expressed its shock to her. “I know! I couldn’t believe it either.” She opened the cupboard and pulled out a package of pasta and a jar of sauce, setting them on her kitchen counter. “Something else happened too, but it might be too exciting to tell you about until after my call with Mother. You understand, don’t you girl?”
The phone rang at that moment, and Harry looked at the clock, realizing she was ten minutes late for calling her mother. “Shitshitshit!” Harry shook out her limbs, trying to compose herself for what was coming. “Hello, Styles residence, this is Harriet,” she said in the calmest voice she could muster.
“Hello, Harriet. You were late for our call.” The freedom Harry had felt in her bones was quickly replaced by tension, her grip on the phone tightening as her mother continued. “I was beginning to worry. You do remember there’s a murderer on the loose right now, don’t you? I hope you weren’t out by yourself at all.”
“No Mother, of course not. I did have a drink with a couple of girls from work, but we split a taxi uptown. They don’t live far from me.” It was all a lie of course. Harry couldn’t actually name any of the girls from work-- they seemed to be working the job to find husbands anyway --and even if she could she knew most of them wouldn’t be able to afford to live on the Upper West Side or anywhere else near Harry. At least not anywhere respectable by her mother’s standards. It didn’t matter. The lie allowed her to unknot one tiny strand of freedom from her mother’s grasp.
“That’s lovely, dear. And have you met any men yet? Anyone I could mention to your father?” Harry could practically feel her mother holding her breath through the phone line, waiting for the day that the answer would be ‘oh yes, mother!’ instead of Harry’s usual. Harry held her breath too, releasing it quietly before she spoke.
“No, Mother. It’s the same as yesterday, I’m afraid.” Harry twirled the phone cord around her finger and then let it go, watching it spin as her mother sighed.
“Well, Harriet, I have to keep asking or you’ll never tell me these things. And you never know who God will put in front of you.”
“You’re right, Mother. I’ve no idea who God will put in front of me.” Harry thought of Louis for a moment and smiled to herself, tuning out the rest of what her mother was saying until she heard a change in her tone. “I said promise me, Harriet.”
“Of course I promise,” Harry said, exasperated though she had no idea how long her mother had been asking her to promise whatever she’d promised.
“Good. I worry about my little girl, you know.”
Harry couldn’t bring herself to respond. She’d probably just promised her mother that she’d come back in three months or six months or a year, that she’d never ever stay in this grubby city when she could be in Boston, right there amongst every member of her family except for her uncle who nobody talked about and the cousin who hadn’t spoken to his parents in years whose name was always accompanied by the sign of the cross.
“You’ll call me tomorrow? At our usual time?”
“I’ll try my best, Mother. Goodnight.”
“Goodnight, Harriet.”
Harry hung up the phone and collapsed onto the sofa, squirming around until she found a way to almost relax into it. She eyed her pasta and the pot she had out on the stove, wishing she were Samantha Stevens and could twitch her nose to make her dinner prepare itself. “Or maybe I could live with her,” she whispered to herself. “And she could twitch her nose and I’d be like Darren only better.”
She thought about it for a moment, her lips spreading into a slow smile: Elizabeth Montgomery, all lovely and blonde with her pert nose and apple cheeks, wearing a pretty dress. Winking at her from across the room and doing handy little spells to make their lives easier. The more she thought, the more Elizabeth Montgomery shifted. Her hair got shorter and her face changed shape and her pretty dress turned into blue jeans and a worn t-shirt with “Welcome to Lavender Country” pressed onto it in faded black ink until she could practically see Louis in front of her. Harry promptly grabbed a pillow from the couch and screamed into it, the muffled sound not nearly loud enough to feel truly cathartic but certainly much better than anything she’d gotten out so far.
Her little interlude forced her up off the couch, and she made her dinner and shoved the leftovers into tupperware, figuring she could heat it up tomorrow or the next night for dinner if she felt like it. Her dishes done and nothing else on her agenda for the evening, she went to her room and finally pulled the exciting contents of her bag out to give them a closer look.
The record was first. Lesbian Concentrate. She flipped it over and read the back, excited to have something not only political but completely, undeniably lesbian in her hands that wasn’t just a copy of Lesbian Connection. She slid the album out carefully, pulling it from the sleeve only after she’d stood and opened her record player. She’d have to find somewhere to hide it, of course. Her mother wouldn’t be visiting for a few months, but when she did she’d definitely find something like this if it wasn’t properly stored away.
She let the music play quietly as she opened the issue of Artemis’ Light that Louis had given her, delicately fingering the pages apart where they’d stuck together in a corner. She couldn’t decide where to begin with it so she let it fall open naturally, reading the first poem her eyes fell on, a longer one entitled “Fireproof” that was filled with images of women fighting their way through the oppressive patriarchal fires of history, both literal and figurative, to come out stronger over time. It was a few pages long, and as Harry realized it had shifted, going from talking about one woman to more than one, she felt tears welling up in her eyes.
The author was anonymous, and Harry cursed quietly under her breath, turning the pages back so she could read it over again. A familiar song came on and she hummed it under her breath as she took in the words, thinking for a moment that the poem might make a beautiful song itself. “We must be fireproof,” she sang in tune with “Sweet Woman,” covering up Cris Williamson’s voice with her own. It was definitely the wrong tune, and she turned over onto her back to listen to the actual song more intentionally, carefully setting the magazine down beside her.
“Oh the warmth surroundin’ me, it just won’t let me be,” Harry sang, trying not to raise her voice too loud and disturb her neighbors. She closed her eyes and let her thoughts drift back to the bookstore earlier. It had been warm there, partly from keeping the door closed, yes, but mostly because of Louis-- her sunshine laugh and blue sky eyes and the way that just for a moment it had felt like she was flirting with Harry. Harry picked up the lyrics again in time to sing “hold you and you’ll be miiine, sweet woman, rising so fiiiine,” lying in bed with her eyes closed, smiling like a fool. It couldn’t last, even for a moment.
“Harriet Elaine Styles, you are being ridiculous,” she said as the song finished up. It felt like she was, anyway. Here she was letting herself imagine some kind of romance with a woman she’d only just met. “She might be gay, but that doesn’t mean she likes you.” She said it the way she’d say it to any of her friends with a crush. Through the years, Harry had developed a reputation for being overly cautious about dating. She hadn’t realized until she was nearly finished with her education that much of her hesitance had come from having little to no interest in men.
A woman began to speak on the record, and Harry fumbled for the album cover to see what the work was called. It was “A History of Lesbianism,” and she went quiet, her thoughts of Louis hushed as she tried to soak up the words that the woman was speaking. When it was over she moved the needle back and listened to the poem two more times before deciding that was all she wanted before bed, at least as far as listening went. The words of the poem haunted her in a way that she liked, with the same sort of warmth she’d felt earlier with Lou in the bookstore and while reading the poem in Artemis’ Light, and then once more while listening to the Cris Williamson song.
As she laid in bed after washing up and setting out her clothes for the next day and sliding her bookstore purchases into her desk drawer beneath her stationery set, Harry whispered her favorite words from the poem she’d listened to nine times over, deciding she’d speak them like a prayer for the next nine days: a lesbian novena. She wondered for a moment if her mother could sense the blasphemy from several states away, then realized she didn’t want to care. She followed it up with just one line from the poem she’d read to herself, thinking they went together nicely as an intention for how she wanted to live her life.
That night she dreamed of walking through fire hand in hand with Louis, waking in the morning with her blankets kicked off and still feeling warm.
“How they lived in the world,
the women-loving-women
learned as much as they were allowed
and walked and wore their clothes
the way they liked
whenever they could. They did whatever
they knew to be happy or free
and worked and worked and worked.
The women-loving-women
in America were called dykes
and some liked it
and some did not.
they made love to each other
the best they knew how
and for the best reasons”
“It’s been so long, maybe we’re fireproof.”
