article and featured on various TV reports: college women embracing
bisexuality–using their time away at college as an opportunity to experiment or
to develop relationships to keep them safely satisfied. Not that I’d seen signs
of it: my campus wouldn’t be in the forefront of such trends, and most of all,
people tend to keep things like that from me.
It’s not just that I’m a straight-arrow: I seem to send out straight-arrow
signals to everyone I come in contact with. Somehow they look at me and just
*know* I’m not a person with which to engage in questionable practices. And it’s
ironic: yes I grew up in a conservative household, but inside, I’m not that
conservative at all.
And the idea of bisexuality intrigued me. The idea that some of the women I
lived with were quietly pairing off. Trying something new and different. And
most of all, I must admit, I did feel some attraction to women. I’d discovered
my attraction while watching some sexier scenes in movies (no, not X-rated
movies; just noticing the women in some of your plain-old R-rated heterosexual
love scenes). Once discovered, I’d realized some fashion models held that kind
of fascination for me, and eventually I admitted to myself that women I’d seen
and knew could affect me. Not that I’m not basically heterosexual, but I *did*
start thinking, and from all I heard, college is the time to give it a try.
What an idea! I mean, for me! I *am* a straight-arrow in many ways: never been
with a man if you know what I mean; date very little. Not really outgoing. And
here I was, contemplating the idea of actually finding and forming a relationship
with a woman! How would I do it? Ask someone I knew?
I couldn’t imagine it. Go to some obviously-Lesbian gathering? Like a bar?
That wasn’t what I was looking for. This was going to be hard. One way or
another, I was going to have to overcome my natural reserve, at some point. I
thought about all the women I knew. I thought about what sort of person I was
interested in. It would be nice if I found someone exactly like myself: a woman
who wasn’t outgoing and didn’t go out much, but on the inside, wasn’t as
conservative as she appeared. Someone who I could share the experience with, in
confidence.
And the problem was, how would two such less-than-outgoing people find each
other? Was I going to start finding quiet women and bring up the subject of a
Lesbian relationship? And though I *know* there must be other women similar to
myself, since I don’t talk to that many people, I’d be unlikely to discover them,
and even if I did, how would I make friends with someone as reserved as me?
I finally decided that finding and approaching another reserved woman just wasn’t
practical. I needed someone who would take the lead. Or someone to help me. Set
me up? Or at least someone sympathetic that I could talk about it to. Someone
nice, who was engaging in such a relationship.
I thought about the women I knew again. Who was most likely to be in such a
relationship? And again, with enough thought, I had my answer: Leslie Brown.
She was definitely outgoing. I’d once noticed her with a woman and wondered
about the two of them, but more than that, she had the right kind of personality
for this. She had that combination that I needed: someone who I could feel
comfortable talking to and someone who certainly would know what was going on.
All I needed was some unobtrusive way to bring up the subject with Leslie. After
more thought, I settled on trying to casually ask her if some other pair of women
were engaging in something. I started spending more time with her, actually
hanging on her a little, and eventually one day as we were walking back from
supper, I managed to comment on two women I’d seen together a bit.
“Rebecca and Janet?” she responded. She looked at me for a couple of seconds as
we walked, not saying anything more.
Finally I had to fill the silence. “I just wondered.”
I glanced at her. She was eyeing me sidelong as we walked and she was smiling.
…End of the part1. To be continued..
