The Price of Salt

by Claire Morgan

"What a strange girl you are." "Why?" "Flung out of space," Carol said.

*_*

"Of course!" What a question! Like asking her if she believed in God.

Yet the way she felt about Carol passed all the tests for love and fitted all the descriptions.

And why worry about defining everything.

"Do people always fall in love with things they can't have?" "Always,"

"I'm nothing." "The hardest thing to be."

It's getting to be a disease, isn't it, not being able to love?"

I'll never regret... the years I'm giving... They're easy to give, when you're in love... I'm happy to do whatever I do for you...

It was all things. And it was one thing, like a solid door. Its cold sealed the city in a gray capsule. January was moments, and January was a year. January rained the moments down, and froze them in her memory:

like the echo of an impact that had been tremendous, Therese was jolted by the sight of her.

Was life, were human relations like this always, Therese wondered. Never solid ground underfoot. Always like gravel, a little yielding, noisy so the whole world could hear, so one always listened, too, for the loud, harsh step of the intruder's foot.

Then she kissed Therese on the lips, as if they had kissed a thousand times before.

"Don't you know I love you?" Carol said.

Happiness was like a green vine spreading through her, stretching fine tendrils, bearing flowers through her flesh.

And she did not have to ask if this were right, no one had to tell her, because this could not have been more right or perfect.

How was it possible to be afraid and in love, Therese thought. The two things did not go together. How was it possible to be afraid, when the two of them grew stronger together every day? And every night. Every night was different, and every morning. Together they possessed a miracle.

But when they kissed good night in bed, Therese felt their sudden release, that leap of response in both of them, as if their bodies were of some materials which put together inevitably created desire.

seen just now what she had only sensed before, that the whole world was ready to be their enemy, and suddenly what she and Carol had together seemed no longer love or anything happy but a monster between them, with each of them caught in a fist.

mean you are here as much as I can bear you to be, not being here...

You ask if I miss you. I think of your voice, your hands, and your eyes when you look straight into mine. I remember your courage that I hadn't suspected, and it gives me courage.

and she felt emptier than the wind.

I wasn't prepared for these days after those weeks with you. They were happy weeks—you knew it more than I did. Though all we have known is only a beginning. I meant to try to tell you in this letter that you don't even know the rest and perhaps you never will and are not supposed to—meaning destined to. We never fought, never came back knowing there was nothing else we wanted in heaven or hell but to be together. Did you ever care for me that much, I don't know. But that is all part of it and all we have known is only a beginning. And it has been such a short time. For that reason it will have shorter roots in you. You say you love me however I am and when I curse. I say I love you always, the person you are and the person you will become.

I would say it in a court if it would mean anything to those people or possibly change anything, because those are not the words I am afraid of.

that the rapport between two men or two women can be absolute and perfect, as it can never be between man and woman,

Or to live against one's grain, that is degeneration by definition.

The music lived, but the world was dead.

Would I do the same thing again? Yes."

"I love you," Carol said.

Carol stared at her cigarette lighter on the table. "That's that."

"My little big shot.

She knew before they were introduced that this woman was like Carol.

and it was Carol she loved and would always love.

but it was still Carol and no one else. It would be Carol, in a thousand cities, a thousand houses, in foreign lands where they would go together, in heaven and in hell.

Carol saw her, seemed to stare at her incredulously a moment while Therese watched the slow smile growing, before her arm lifted suddenly, her hand waved a quick, eager greeting that Therese had never seen before.

Therese walked to...