“Absolutely,” Simone said, cupping Nora’s ass and smiling, “everything in here is working great.”
SOON, NORA AND SIMONE figured out that the Museum of Natural History was the easiest place to lose Louisa. Like so much of New York, the crowds lent them a privacy that Simone’s two-bedroom apartment couldn’t. Louisa would bring her sketch pad and set to work and Nora and Simone would say, “See you later,” and then sneak away into a multitude of dimly lit corridors, empty restrooms, darkened screening areas. They became experts at exploring various body parts, triggering certain sensations, without ever fully undressing. At first they were tentative, a quick finger here, a flick of the tongue there, but they quickly learned where they could be brave, how to deftly circumvent buttons and waistbands and bra hooks while still staying clothed. Simone made Nora come for the first time in a restroom off the Hall of Invertebrates, without even moving aside the slight bit of purple thong that Nora had bought on the sly and tucked into her backpack for this exact purpose. The first time Nora took Simone’s breast into her mouth, down a deserted corridor of offices that were closed on the weekend, they’d almost been discovered by a lost mother looking for a restroom with her two little kids. Simone had hurriedly pulled on her T-shirt when they heard the kids running down the hall, the mother behind them yelling, “Don’t touch the walls, guys. Hands to yourselves!”, which had reduced them to nearly hysterical laughter. While sitting in the deserted last row of the IMAX movie (later, neither of them would remember what the movie was about), Nora inched Simone’s tights down to her knees and slipped her fingers inside Simone’s underwear and then inside Simone, who was warm and wet.
“Tell me what you want me to do,” Nora whispered, dizzy and momentarily brave.
Simone held herself perfectly still and spoke softly into Nora’s ear, “Do me with your mouth.”
When they met up later, Louisa frowned at Nora and said, “What have you guys been doing?”
“What do you mean?” Nora’s hands went clammy, her ears rang a little. She had checked to make sure Louisa wasn’t in the theater.
“Your knees are filthy.” Louisa looked genuinely perplexed, peering at Nora who seemed addled, almost feverish. “Are you guys high?” She lowered her voice and took a step closer to look at their eyes.
“No!” Nora said. “We just got out of the IMAX.”
“I dropped an earring,” Simone said. “Nora got down on the floor with me to look for it. It was dark.” Simone did that thing with her voice, the tone of it, which made Louisa feel bad, like she’d said something wrong or stupid. “Oh,” Louisa said. “Did you find it?”
“Yup,” Simone pointed to her ear and the series of tiny silver hoops along the lobe.
Louisa didn’t understand how one of those tiny hoops could have fallen. Or how they could have found it in the dark. Or why they were lying to her.
NORA HAD NEVER LIED TO LOUISA, not in their entire lives. They were a few years past telling each other everything—every stray thought that flitted through their minds, their dreams, their dislikes, the explicit details of their crushes and desires—but they’d never lied to each other. Nora wanted to talk to Louisa, but she didn’t know how to start. She would stand in their shared bathroom some mornings when Louisa was already downstairs having breakfast and practice saying something, anything, in the mirror.
“Hi, I’m gay,” she’d rehearse. She couldn’t even say it with a straight face; it felt so melodramatic and dumb. “Hi,” she’d say to her reflection, “I like a girl.” That sounded dumb, too. I’m sleeping with a girl? Dumb. I’m fucking a girl? Wrong. I’m in love with a girl? Was she? She wasn’t even sure. Just be honest. She could hear her mother’s voice in her head. Telling the truth is never wrong and always easier.
“Hi,” she’d try. “I’m totally obsessed with a girl and I don’t know if I’m in love—or even if I’m gay—but I’m so horny I can’t see straight.” Well, that was the truth, anyway.
“Oh, lord,” Simone had said when Nora tried to talk to her about it one afternoon at the museum; they were both sitting on the floor, backs against the wall, in a relatively quiet spot, legs idly touching. “Are you all topsy-turvy inside? All staring in a mirror and thinking, What does this mean? Who am I? What is my essential self now that I’ve kissed a girl?”
Nora was embarrassed. She didn’t like being on the receiving end of Simone’s pointed tongue (well, except in certain ways). “Are you all, Now I have to listen to Melissa Etheridge all day and stop shaving my legs?” Nora slapped Simone’s arm lightly. “It’s going to be so sad when you have to get your lesbian regulation crew cut,” Simone continued, taking a healthy amount of Nora’s chestnut curls in her hand. “I’m really going to miss this hair. But rules are rules.”