When Kate went back with her father, Betty stopped living, just a little. She spent days and nights searching streets, poking into alleys and hanging around churches. Gladys went with her when she could, because she was concerned for Kate's safety as well as Betty's; women aren't safe on their own on the streets at night.
And when they were done for the night they'd trudge back to Betty's rooming house or Gladys' hotel and drink something warm, or something warming.
Which is how Gladys, with a few glasses of whiskey in her, came to ask Betty a rather startling question.
Gladys lounged on her bed and Betty smoked, breathing out the window.
"Come away from there, you'll get cold again," Gladys cajoled Betty. Betty sighed and sat heavily on the bed. Gladys sat up and put a hand on her shoulder. "You'll find her." Gladys said. "We'll find her."
But Betty looked so forlorn that Gladys had to put her drink down and hold her.
"Is it just Kate?" she asked eventually. "Or, you know..." Gladys trained off. "Women in general," she finished, then went on, "or Kate in particular."
Anyone else that asked Betty that would get a hedging response or a punch in the face. But Gladys is soft and she knows so Betty just shrugged.
"Women in general. Kate in particular." She said.
"And being up here, alone, in my hotel room, with me, another woman, doesn't make you at all..." Gladys trailed off again. "Edgy?" She tried. "Eager?" She tried again, but she was stuck on words that began with 'E' at this point of the evening. But Betty hadn't seemed to notice.
"Not really," Betty replied, not seeming to give it a second thought.
"Oh. Good." Said Gladys. "The last thing I would want to do is make you... nervous," she continued, raising an eyebrow and rubbing Betty's back with her soft and feminine hands.
"Oh. You don't," Betty said, reaching over Gladys to stub out her cigarette in the ashtray.
"Well, why not, damn it?" Gladys asked, sputtering with indignation. "I know I'm not terrible-looking, and it's awful cold up here without James."
"It's awfully cold out there too, and Kate's out there somewhere." Betty told her. "You're lovely, Glad, but you don't..." Betty was unable to finish her sentence as her mouth was obstructed by Gladys' mouth.
"I don't what?" Gladys asked, a few minutes later.
"You don't what?" Betty asked, brow drawn, mouth open and confused.
"You said I was lovely but I don't something. I don't what?"
"I don't remember," Betty said, frankly and a little puzzled. "What were we talking about?"
"How I don't make you nervous," Gladys said, with a predatory look in her eye.
And just like that, Gladys made Betty very nervous.
They found Kate a few weeks after they found each other.
Author's note: Just a quick one based on a FemSlashCon conversation.