I slept with Deena that night. We were both too satiated to do anything more but in the morning I awoke to feel her cuddling against me, nuzzling my neck, and lightly touching my belly. I turned my head and for the first time in my life I kissed a woman on the lips. Somehow that seemed stranger than anything I'd done the day before. Deena's tongue moved tentatively into my mouth and I met it with my own. A minute later we pulled apart. The moon was one of languorous sensuality rather than sexual need.
"I have to go home and get some things," I said hesitantly after a few minutes of silence.
Deena caught the drift of my thoughts immediately. "You're free to do what you like, Honey," she said. "You're free to go and you're welcome to live here. We'd love to have you." After a momentary pause she chuckled softly. "Again and again."
"But I ahh... I don't have any money," I said with some embarrassment. I wasn't exactly expecting to end up here like this."
"Don't worry Susan," Deena said, kissing my cheek. "I'll lend you bus fare."
"And there's something else..."
She looked at me expectantly.
"I have a friend. She might want to come back with me."
"The more the merrier," Deena replied, slipping her hand between my legs with clear desire.
Later that afternoon I was looking out of the window of a Greyhound bus as it pulled into my hometown. I felt as if I'd been gone for a couple of months rather than just overnight. So much had changed.
The first thing I did after getting off the bus was walk down to the cafe where Patricia worked as a waitress.
"Where have you been!" She said as I walked in the door. "Your mom's been calling everyone, trying to find you."
"I'll tell you about it when you get off. But I need to borrow your car."
Since I knew that my parents wouldn't be home, my dad worked at the chicken processing plant and Mama would be fulfilling her secretarial duties at the church, I drove out to pick up my clothes and a few other personal items. I spent almost an hour trying to decide how to word a short note. I didn't want to hurt or worry my mom but I knew that no matter what I said she would be both. Finally I said, basically, that I was okay, I was doing something I felt I had to do, and that I loved them.
When I got back to town I parked Patricia's car on a side street and thought about what I should do about Bobby. I liked him and cared about him but after the events of the past 24 hours I knew that I wanted more from life than he was capable of giving me. At last I wrote him a short letter that said more or less the same thing as what I'd told my mom and dad.
At seven I picked Patricia up at the cafe and drove to her little apartment in a house her dad owned. She started to question me the minute she got into the car but, now the moment of actually describing what I'd done had arrived, I got cold feet. We knew each other very well, had been friends since second grade, so she knew better than to push. Once we were in her apartment she fixed me a sandwich and a bowl of soup, opened a bottle of jug wine that an older friend of ours bought her from time to time, and poured each of us a large glass. While I ate at the coffee table in her living room she went into her tiny bedroom, leaving the door open, and changed out of her waitressing outfit into a fluffy pink bathrobe. As I watched her undressing I found myself looking at her with new eyes.