It was incredible.

“That’s the way I am, Rhoda. A lesbian. I can’t have sex with men, I can’t find them attractive, I can’t bear the thought of all those things the world calls normal. I know that they are normal, but they are not normal for me. For me, for Megan Hollis, sexual relations with a man would be a perversion.

“Something quite different is normal for me. For me normal sex is sex with other women. Normal love is love for other women. Some people find this disgusting. Others are afraid of it. A great many people think that it’s morally wrong, a sin, evil. But I know that it’s right for me. It would be sinful for me to make love to a man, it would be evil and everything else. I am a lesbian.”

She looked at Megan, at the blonde hair and fine features. She looked at Megan’s lips and remembered their touch when Megan kissed her. How had it felt? Soft, warm. How had she felt about it? She realized that she did not know. She had been too confused to react, favorably or unfavorably.

“I think that you are like me, Rhoda.”

“Oh, no.”

“I think so.”

“Why?”

Megan lowered her eyes. “A feeling, partly. When I saw you I felt it. I wandered into your shop just by accident. I was looking for a gift for a girl I had been…very close to.”

“A girl you loved?”

“Yes, a girl I loved. You asked me if it was a wedding gift that I wanted. Do you remember that I smiled at the thought? And in a way it was a wedding gift. Not that Carolyn was getting married. Girls like us don’t marry. But Carolyn had been living here, and then she fell in love with another girl and left me, and that was my farewell present to her. A very appropriate one. A heart, jealousy-green, with red streaks like blood.”