Free Alma Mater by Rita Mae Brown

in the shower. Mignon, grumbling about how she could tell really scary stories, scary like beetles crawling out of eye sockets, hopped up behind Vic and Chris as they walked up the long stairway with a broad landing overlooking the water.
    At the top of the landing Mignon hugged and kissed Vic and then hugged and kissed Chris.
    "I'm glad you all were there when I got my ears pierced."
    "We weren't—exactly." Vic smiled at her. "And how did you con vince Hojo to do it?"
    Mignon's voice rose airily. "She didn't have anything else to do." "Uh-huh." Vic shook her head.
    "Actually, Mignon, you do look good with earrings." Chris had her hand on the brass doorknob to her room.
    "Really?" Mignon clasped her hands together and then threw them open, wrapping her arms around Chris's neck. "You're so cool. I'm glad my sister brought you home."
    Chris hugged her back. "Me, too." When Mignon let go of Chris, Chris stood on her tiptoes and kissed Vic on the cheek. "Good night, thank you for a great day."
    The kiss burned on Vic's cheek as she tried to sleep.
     

    T
    he uneven-width flooring, smooth as polished bone, glistened even in the darkness. Chris was trying to sleep. Mignon's stream of notes slipped under the door contributed to her rest-
    lessness. The memory of the sheen rising off Vic's body contributed the rest.
    Unlike Vic, Chris knew she could respond to women's sexual power. It had occurred to her that she might even be a lesbian, a thought she ruthlessly shoved back into the recesses of her mind. Lov ing a woman didn't frighten her ; people's response to it did.
    She'd seen older women whom she thought to be lesbians. They didn't appear very happy to her, but if she'd thought about it, how many happy older people did she know? No one, straight or gay, likes being shoved aside. Small wonder Edward Wallace tightened his grasp on his whip hand. Money made him important. Money kept him a player, kept him young.
    Chris, only twenty, couldn't fathom what the years could do. She attributed each line, each frown on a gay face, to the fact that he or she was gay. Granted, homosexuals and lesbians, despised by a few, hated by others, tolerated by some, did not expect life to be fair. Pain is pain.
    One advantage of being gay, Chris supposed, was that you knew right off the bat where the pain was coming from and who was delivering it. Pain sneaked up on straight people more often than not. It accounted
     
    for their dazed expressions in their late thirties, and their frantic search for business success, the fountain of youth, or spiritual fulfillment. But at twenty, she could only see that her external choices would be severely limited if she followed her heart and her body. She knew she could force her body to do whatever she told it to do. Her heart was quite another issue.
    Nor could she yet fathom the usefulness of the self-knowledge and the knowledge of society that a gay person learns.
    She read Mignon's latest note. "Do you think Hojo's nails with lit tle stars on them are cool? If you saw them, I mean."
    Chris wrote back. "Hard to miss. With nails like that Hojo could pass for a really tacky mandarin. Something tells me Hojo is good at ordering takeout."
    She could hear Mignon giggling on the other side of the door. She had two older brothers, and she liked Mignon, liked the idea of a sis ter. Sisters often seemed so close. Like R. J. and Bunny. Then, too, sisters could be of the Sissy-and-Georgia variety. The energy between sisters was so different from what she felt with her brothers—whom she did love. Defining it baffled her. She couldn't put it into words. She could only feel it. She wondered if other women felt that way ; that female energy was different from male. And what did men feel? Did they tell her the truth, or did they try to protect her? Well, maybe it wasn't bad to be protected.
    A fresh sheet of paper rustled as it was shoved under the door. She and Mignon had used up the first sheet.
    This one read, "People