“What, then?”
“I just want to know is all.”
“Why?”
“Don’t you think I have the right to know?”
“Depends.”
“So you are?” I asked.
Celia put her hand on the doorknob and prepared to leave. Instinctively, I leaned forward and grabbed her wrist.
“What are you doing?” she said.
I liked the feel of her wrist in my hand. I liked the way her perfume permeated the whole tiny room. I leaned forward and kissed her.
I did not know what I was doing. And by that I mean that I was not fully in control of my movement and that I was physically unaware of how to kiss her. Should it be the way I kissed men, or should it be different somehow? I also did not understand the emotional scope of my actions. I did not truly understand their significance or risk.
I was a famous woman kissing a famous woman in the house of the biggest studio head in Hollywood, surrounded by producers and stars and probably a good dozen people who ratted to Sub Rosa magazine.
But all I cared about in that moment was that her lips were soft. Her skin was without any roughness whatsoever. All I cared about was that she kissed me back, that she took her hand off the doorknob and, instead, put it on my waist.
She smelled floral, like lilac powder, and her lips felt humid. Her breath was sweet, spiked with the taste of cigarettes and crème de menthe.
When she pushed herself against me, when our chests touched and her pelvis grazed mine, all I could think was that it wasn’t so different and yet it was different entirely. She swelled in all the places Don went flat. She was flat in the places Don swelled.
And yet that sense that you can feel your heart in your chest, that your body tells you it wants more, that you lose yourself in the scent, taste, and feel of another person—it was all the same.
Celia broke away first. “We can’t stay in here,” she said. She wiped her lips on the back of her hand. She took her thumb and rubbed it against the bottom of mine.
“Wait, Celia,” I said, trying to stop her.
But she left the room, shutting the door behind her.
I closed my eyes, unsure how to get a handle on myself, how to quiet my brain.
I breathed in. I opened the door and walked right up the steps, taking them two at a time.
I opened every single door on the second floor until I found who I was looking for.
Don was getting dressed, shoving the tail of his shirt into his suit pants, as a woman in a beaded gold dress put her shoes on.
I ran out. And Don followed me.
“Let’s talk about this at home,” he said, grabbing my elbow.
I yanked it away, searching for Celia. There was no sign of her.
Harry came in through the front door, fresh-faced and looking sober. I ran up to him, leaving Don on the staircase, cornered by a tipsy producer wanting to talk to him about a melodrama.
“Where have you been all night?” I asked Harry.
He smiled. “I’m going to keep that to myself.”
“Can you take me home?”
Harry looked at me and then at Don still on the stairs. “You’re not going home with your husband?”
