It always amused Pat to think of most people's image of what a lesbian looked like. The usual stereotype was a short, squat, extremely masculine-looking woman with close-cropped hair, wearing severely tailored clothes, and possibly with a black eye or two and several missing teeth that had been knocked out in a brawl with a truck driver. The truth of the matter, she knew, was that the description fit only a very few actual lesbians.

Most women who want other women as their bed partners, Pat knew from experience, were extremely feminine in appearance and could hardly ever be picked out of a crowd of women as lesbians. They were college girls like herself, or sultry models whose pictures on magazine covers made both men and women want to take them to bed. They were housewives, too, and teachers. They were nurses, secretaries, professional women in all walks of life. The only thing that Pat had ever noticed to set a lesbian apart from any other woman was a certain hungry searching in the eyes whenever a pretty girl walked past. Like a man would do in such a moment, their desire became openly obvious then as a means of recognition if the girl was interested. It was like an unspoken signal, she'd often thought; that intense, x-ray stare that went beyond the mere meeting of eyes and told their longing to another person.

Of course there were mannish lesbians, Pat knew, but she was as frightened of them as any straight woman might be. Such women were too much like men for Pat's taste. She'd often told herself that if she wanted a man she'd have no trouble getting one, but since it was female love she craved she wanted her partner to be as pretty and desirable in a feminine way as she was herself. She had no use for women who acted like men.

No one had ever accused Pat Fulton of being mannish. Even as a little girl she'd never been a tomboy. She'd always liked frilly clothes and putting on make-up and fixing her incredibly beautiful, long black hair the way girls on television and in the movies wore theirs.