I said it for her. "Some men are so narrow-minded you can't put a dime between what they don't know and what they'll never learn."
The feeling that she might have made a faux pas—might have prejudiced me hopelessly against her—had gone from her eyes. She walked over to the windowsill where the radio was. She switched it on and turned the dial back to the minimal volume. While the tubes warmed, she leaned forward on the sill and looked out—across the brick terrace and the parapet, some half dozen feet away. My floor is on a slight setback. When she found she couldn't see straight down, she pulled her head inside again, found a station playing dance music, tuned it in sharply, turned it very low, and smiled at me.
"Sex isn't logical," she said.
"Not from the standpoint we call logic."
"Take me."
"An idea."
She nodded her head affirmatively and went on smiling. "What attracts me—sexually—to people—isn't their sex. Not whether they're men or women—or even little kids, for that matter. It's something about them that I never know what it may be. The way they move—or the way they talk—or their expressions—or their looks. It can be any little thing. Sometimes I think it isn't them at all—but how I feel at the time. And even then my feelings aren't ever the same. According to what it is that attracts me, I'm different. Sometimes I see a man I'd like to have make love to me. Sometimes I see some college boy I'd just like to neck. Sometimes I see a woman I wish would have a crush on me and rush me—like college girls—and get herself terribly upset about wanting me around so much—and not knowing what to do. And sometimes I feel the way Charmaine seems to, about everybody she likes. I just try to see how excited I can make them be—and then let them be. Like that. Let them go away. Does it bore you?"
"No."
"There are some feelings I can't react to. Homosexuality in men. I don't mean it revolts me, or anything. I just can't see why they bother—even with all I can see. And the most peculiar part is noticing that the men who hate pansies the most are nearest to it. You find that out, in my kind of life. They'll visit you and act strictly like Marine sergeants—and get very tight—and finally, perhaps, ask—probably pretending to kid—if there are only girls around the place. When anything like that happens—I feel perfectly blank. Yet that doesn't seem—normal—under the circumstances."