Gay Forever?

Frida’s studio. Evening falling. The room is lit only by the last of the dusk, which draws the century-old trees of Forest Park into the frame of the big picture window.

Soo-ah sits on the edge of the old tawny leather couch. Frida lies with her head in her lap, her straw-blonde hair spread out. She fiddles with the drawstring of her sweatpants, one knee drawn up; the red polish on her bare toenails shines in the half-dark. Soo-ah’s slim tanned fingers rest on her lover’s breasts and venture slowly into the opening of her half-unbuttoned blouse.

Frida is quiet. Quieter than usual, these last few days… In fact, ever since that evening in Gian’s big living room. The evening when, as they had agreed, they made love in front of him.

Soo-ah listens. She waits, calm, present. She knows Frida needs room.

Frida shifts a little. Her fingers find Soo-ah’s hand.

— I feel strange. I’ve been having dreams.

Silence.

Soo-ah listens.

— It’s been since Wednesday. It didn’t go at all the way I’d imagined.

Frida’s hand slides lower, onto her stomach.

— I was so afraid of that evening. I kept wondering… Your idea was so mad, so far outside anything.

She hesitates.

— I felt… I don’t know how to say it. His eyes. His voice too, but his eyes above all. I don’t know what I was expecting, but I felt looked at. Beautiful. Accepted.

She stops.

— And you know how sensitive I am about that. My breasts… you know how many questions I ask myself, they’re so far outside the norm, it’s followed me since I was twelve.

Soo-ah breaks in.

— Your breasts are sublime, my kitten. You know how much I love them.

— Yes, I know. You’re so… you matter so much to me.

— Talk. Tell me.

Frida goes on.

— He looked at me. He looked at us, but he looked at me. And he looked at my breasts. There was nothing… It was strange. There was warmth. Desire too, I think, in the way he looked. But also a great calm. A great… acceptance, I don’t know.

She stays silent a moment.

— Nobody has ever looked at me like that. You have, yes, but you’re a woman. And you know…

Soo-ah has the feeling Frida is about to tell her things she has never told her.

— You know that when I was fifteen, something really ugly happened to me with a man. And after that, never again. Never again. It was clear to me, I understood that I was gay. It wasn’t for me. And now…

She hesitates.

— I’m embarrassed. I don’t know how to say this. I don’t know if I can tell you.

— My kitten, my little kitten. I love you. You can tell me anything that’s in your head. I’m ready to hear all of you.

A tear comes. Then two. The tears run while she talks.

— I love you. I love you. I love you. You’re everything to me.

She picks it up again after a moment.

— I’m going to tell you. I couldn’t say this to anyone, Soo-ah. When he looked at me like that… and you were caressing me, making me come with your tongue and your fingers…

She hesitates again.

— I don’t dare say it.

— Go on. You can.

— I had the feeling… my eyes were closed. I saw him naked. I saw him behind me and I imagined him…

She stops.

— Taking me.

She stays silent.

— And it was a mixture of shame and intense pleasure while you were making me come.

She shakes her head slightly.

— I don’t understand how I can be telling you this.

Soo-ah stays silent a moment.

She presses Frida’s breast a little more firmly, then her hand moves down to rest on her stomach. With the other she strokes her hair.

— My little cat… Gian isn’t just anyone.

She goes on gently playing with her hair.

— He has this gift, when a woman appeals to him, of giving her what he gave you without even touching her.

— Then it means nothing. It’s for every woman…

— No. Not at all.

Soo-ah searches for the words.

— It’s different every time… How to put it? If he looked at you like that, it’s because you appeal to him. He had never seen you. I’ve spoken to him about you once or twice.

— So what does that mean?

— It’s more than appealing, in the ordinary sense. It means that really, in a certain way… he feels connected to you.

Frida stays silent.

— What does that mean? Do you think he expects something from me?

— No, I don’t think so. But it means he’s open to you.

Frida closes her eyes. Her hand joins Soo-ah’s on her stomach and grips it.

— Soo-ah… it’s terrible. I want him.

Her voice breaks.

— That’s not me. I don’t know what’s happening to me.

She starts crying again.

— Frida, my love. Calm down.

— But really, I can’t… I can’t. I don’t want to be saying this in front of you.

— But you’ve said it. And I’m still here, aren’t I?

Frida doesn’t answer right away.

— But what can I do? I think about it all the time, it’s an obsession.

— If you really want that, you could talk to him about it…

— But Soo-ah, I don’t know him, and what will he think?

Soo-ah smiles, teasing.

— Careful, he might well say yes.

She laughs, and her laugh is light.

— I could never do that.

— I can help you. I can talk to him about it if you want.

Frida says nothing. Soo-ah waits.

— Even the two of us, making love in front of him, that was…

— But you did it. And you liked it.

— That’s true.

— Listen, don’t worry about it. I think it’s late. We both have things to do in the morning. Let’s talk about it tomorrow at lunch.

Frida hesitates.

— But… you’ll come and sleep here again tomorrow night?

— Yes, my love. Of course.

She lifts Frida’s fingers to her mouth and kisses them tenderly.

The next day, around one in the afternoon, they meet on the terrace of the Bar du Matin, on Place Albert.

Frida is quiet. She looks a little anxious.

Soo-ah takes her hand.

— What’s going on?

— I think about it all the time. I dreamed about it. It hasn’t left me all day. I could hardly concentrate during class. I think about it constantly.

Soo-ah looks her in the eyes.

— What’s wrong with that?

— But Soo-ah… I don’t want to hurt you.

— You’re not hurting me, my love. I want you to be as well as you can be. As happy as you can be.

— It doesn’t do anything to you?

— What I don’t like is seeing you unhappy. If Gian can give you something good, I’ll be perfectly happy for him to do it.

Frida raises her eyes to her. A small smile appears.

— Really?

Then:

— No, you’re extraordinary. I was afraid to talk to you about it. I wanted to tell you so as not to hide it from you, but I was really afraid to.

Their hands meet on the table. Frida’s are stronger, with beautiful even fingers; Soo-ah’s are finer, the nails pearled.

Their hands press together.

They are friends. Lovers. Together. Really together.

That evening, at Frida’s, they are still at the table after a light Nordic-style meal.

— So, what do you want to do?

Frida looks up.

— Do you think he’ll say yes?

Soo-ah rolls her eyes, takes her chin in one hand and makes a face.

— I’m not sure you’re pretty enough for him…

Frida looks at her.

— Stop… tell me honestly.

— Yes. I think he’ll say yes. But he has to be asked.

She waits a moment.

— I’m seeing him tomorrow morning. Do you want me to talk to him about it?

Frida is slow to answer.

— All right. Thank you. I love you so much.

— I love you too, my little cat.

Later, they are in bed. They have made love, tenderly. Frida looked at peace, for the first time since the evening at Gian’s.

Soo-ah lies on her back. Frida has curled against her, one leg over her right leg.

Frida falls asleep first, as always.

Soo-ah lies thinking.

Will Gian say yes?

She isn’t so sure.

In the dark of the bedroom she picks up her phone and sends him a WhatsApp.

“Gian? Still up?”

The answer comes quickly on the blue-lit screen, in the form of a smiley in black sunglasses.

— I have something a little unusual to ask you.

Barely a few seconds pass before the next line.

— All right. Do you want to tell me a bit more?

Soo-ah looks at Frida asleep against her.

— It’s Frida.

— Yes?

— She isn’t well…

— Is there something I can do?

Soo-ah thinks for a moment.

— It’s better to talk about it face to face tomorrow morning, if you have time?

— Yes, all right, let’s do that. Good night.

Rue Darwin, the next morning, nine o’clock.

Gian and Soo-ah sit cross-legged, facing each other, on the big futon in the middle of the living room. The coffee steams on a low table.

— Tell me. Frida?

Soo-ah smiles.

— You’ve only seen her once, and what a once…

Gian smiles back.

— She’s… spectacular, and lovely. The two of you are lucky to have found each other.

— She isn’t well. That evening set off an obsession in her.

— Ah…! What’s happening?

— The way you looked at her marked her.

— Ouch…

— Yes, exactly. She sees herself as gay through and through, and since Wednesday she’s had a fantasy that won’t let go of her. She dreams of you making love to her. She had a very hard time admitting it to me, and it’s making her very unhappy.

Gian straightens up, thoughtful.

— That raises several problems, you see that, don’t you?

Soo-ah doesn’t flinch.

— It isn’t necessarily complicated.

— She’s your partner…

— And I’m your Nae Saram. She knows that, and she’s been suffering from it for two years. Wednesday evening was precisely a way of trying to give her more room.

Gian rubs a hand over the two days of stubble that sharpen the lines of his face.

— I’m doubtful… It could unsettle her further. And you, in all this?

— I want her to be happy. And I’m not jealous at the idea of you giving her pleasure. Don’t look at me like that, Gian, you ought to know me a little after all these years…

— You haven’t stopped surprising me since you left Korea to come and live with me.

Soo-ah smiles; her eyes sparkle in her expressive face.

— Don’t worry about her. Frida is a fascinating mixture of vulnerability, extreme sensitivity and strength. None of this can harm her, if it happens with you. She had a first — and only — experience with an older man nine years ago, very unpleasant and deeply unsettling. Without doing armchair psychology, I’m convinced it counted for a great deal in the way she came to define herself as gay over the years. Myself, I imagine her as far more bisexual, the way I am.

The big grey cat, a neutered male of about ten, comes and settles on Gian’s knees, and a loud purr fills the room.

Gian strokes the cat with one hand and runs the other through his black curls.

— Listen, I don’t know whether you’ve looked at the calendar this morning, but I leave on Tuesday for Muscat, in the Sultanate of Oman. It’s at the request of someone close to the Sultan, a certain Mansour bin Rashid Al-Nadhari, who wants to engage me to work with his wife. The brief isn’t defined yet, and I don’t know how long it will take me. It could be a week or a month. So if you think this will help her, we need to find a moment before I leave.

Soo-ah looks at him without answering right away. Gian knows she is already going back through her diary in her head. She adjusts it with that quick, intelligent precision that always astonishes him, despite the years.

— But you agree to see Frida?

— Yes, but let’s talk it through… Do I see her alone? With you?

Soo-ah stays silent a moment.

— I don’t know. I think I can be a support for her if she needs one. I’ll admit I’m not sure where we’re going with this. But in the end, of course, it’s for her to decide.

Now it is Gian’s turn to keep silent, and the silence lasts. Soo-ah waits, without any sign of impatience. After a long while without a word, Gian starts again.

— We’re talking about this as a matter to be handled, when what’s involved is skin, and flesh, and feelings. Frida…

— How do you feel about her?

— She’s very beautiful, she seems intuitive, sensual… and vulnerable. My work is to come close to women I want to free from certain blocks. But there there’s a frame. It’s contractual, professional. It sometimes fails, and if it fails, well, those are the risks.

He hesitates.

— Here, it’s your partner. If this were to end in a disaster for her, I would never forgive myself. And my fear isn’t that I won’t desire her. She’s… I don’t have a word… breathtaking? Do you understand?

Soo-ah laughs, a light laugh.

— Yes, I understand you, she’s all of that, truly. But she’s strong too. It shows less at first. I think you’re wrong to worry.

— All right, are you seeing her today?

— At noon. But I’m sleeping here tonight.

— Talk to her about it, and if she still wants this, I suggest tomorrow evening? Here or at hers? Ask her and let me know.

They both stand, disturbing the cat, which rolls over on the futon like a limp stuffed toy. And Soo-ah takes Gian by the shoulders.

— Hold me, Oppa? Life is good beside you.

Gian hesitates for a millisecond, then holds her close, his eyes shut.

And while he feels the vibrant energy of this beautiful young woman’s body against him, and the cedar and sandalwood scent of her hair, images run quickly through his mind.

The Korean teenager, eight years earlier, proud but trembling with fear. The outcome of the financial transaction that would, or would not, free her from a future of prostitution, by settling the gambling debt her father had run up with the local mafia.

He had taken her to Europe that same evening, where a life so utterly different was waiting for her.