Substitute for Love by Karin Kallmaker Page A

lunch?”
    “Moral support. To discuss our job prospects.” She shrugged.
    “Were you friendly with this woman?”
    “Not particularly,” Holly admitted. “She kept her private life pretty private. Which is why firing her for being gay was just so wrong. I told you about Diane, and no one ever did anything about it. Tori supports her father, too.”
    “I didn’t think they had families.”
    Dumbfounded, Holly could only stare. “Of course they do. Where do you think gay people come from?”
    “I hadn’t given it much thought.”
    “Tori is close to her father.” Unlike you, she might have added. “She visits him frequently and supports him. I assume from this that she is close to him.”
    “I had no idea you were such an expert.”
    “I’m not — but I’m not stupid either.”
    His gaze grew sharp. “Are you calling me stupid?”
    “No, but that was, well, a stupid thing to say.” She refused to back down.
    “Look, I believe that discrimination is wrong. Period. You know that. But that doesn’t mean that homosexuality is normal, either. Just like sado-masochism isn’t normal. It doesn’t occur in any animals except humans, which means it’s a learned behavior.”
    “What does sado-masochism have to do with homosexuality?”
    “Now who is being naive?”
    Holly tried to think of Tori in chains and Geena wielding a whip and shook her head, smiling. “I don’t think it’s me. I’d be as surprised to learn Tori and Geena were into that as I would if it were… your parents. They just don’t seem the type. Besides, sado-masochism is not an exclusively homosexual behavior. And you have said yourself that consensual acts between adults are nobody’s business.”
    “No one looks like their sex life.”
    “I suppose that’s true. But I still think you’re wrong.” She was abruptly unsettled by the idea of how Tori and Geena made love… who kissed whom first… She shook it away. “And as you said, it doesn’t make discrimination against gays right. Did you know that Tori has to pay taxes on the insurance she gets to cover Geena? That just doesn’t seem fair. Because they can’t get married.”
    “Why would they want to get married? I know we’re going to a wedding tonight, but I’ve never understood them. Why would anyone invite government intrusion into their private affairs?”
    “Just because you don’t understand why someone wants something doesn’t mean they shouldn’t want it.” Holly cleared her dishes, not meaning to make them clatter so loudly. “Now that I think about it, I know I read somewhere that female elephants masturbate each other.”
    “You’re going to have to cite your source on that one.” Clay finished his tea, looking as if he would laugh. He ran one hand over his short, dark hair. He always looked carelessly yet attractively groomed.
    “Sorry, professor, I don’t have my notes.” Holly tried to sound lighthearted, but she was shaking way down in the pit of her stomach. “I just remember thinking at the time that an elephant’s trunk was a lot more flexible than I had ever realized.”
    She recalled that she had bought strawberries the day before. She could use a diverting pick-me-up. She offered him some as well.
    “In January?” He shook his head somewhat sadly.
    All she had wanted was a taste of summer. It seemed like it had been raining for months. It had been a long time since she had lapsed — at least in what she had brought home. Clay didn’t know about the burger, the alcohol and all the sugar she had devoured yesterday. He would no doubt say they explained her erratic behavior, especially the craving for strawberries. Strawberries in January, as she ought to have remembered, was just another way to lose track of the turning of seasons. She would never be closer to the natural world — the only world that really mattered — if she continued to make her body believe it was summer in January.
    It’s summer in Australia, an inner voice