The First Time

I had known from a very, very young age that I was equally, if not more so, attracted to girls as to boys. There were many adolescent fumblings—at 12 a girl named Kathy with long dark hair and a penchant for riding naked on my thigh when her mother wasn’t home. Teenage crushes that never went any further. Jealousy over the first butch/femme couple that I’d ever witnessed…the beautiful blonde that sat on the lap of the captain of the volleyball team at parties where most of us were stoned and no one cared. It was the very early 80s. We were always high. Always sleeping with a different somebody in search of elusive attention. Thinking that the next one would provide the love and devotion so craved. Disappointed yet again and again and again.

I went off to an all-women’s art college far away from my family. There were scandalized whisperings in the dining hall of girls who slept with other girls. I feigned disgust for my friends and then snuck off to masturbate in our dormitory bathroom, fantasizing about being one of those girls. All of my life I thought about the first time. What it would be like. When would it happen. How would I know.

I arrived at school early in the summer of my sophomore year. I had been named as a resident assistant and was assigned to work the desk to welcome incoming freshman and transfer students. I had my routine down pat until she walked through the doors unaccompanied by a parent. My breath caught. My heart stopped for a fraction of a second. There she was. Tough as nails in a black muscle tee, the requisite blonde mullet, baggy jeans with a chain hanging from the back pocket, and wide leather wristbands. She was tiny. Small boned, wiry, shorter than me—but when she signed her name her biceps rippled with sinewy muscle.

I cleared my throat and managed to start my greeting. She looked up and met my eyes. “Hey there,” she drawled. Her thick southern accent was as familiar as grits and sausage gravy over biscuits. “You’re from North Carolina,” I said. “Now how did you know that? Is that on your little piece of paper there?” “No…I’m from Greensboro.” She returned a lopsided grin, “Well, damn girl, we’re practically neighbors! We should get together and shoot the shit. Why don’t you come on by my room later and we’ll talk.”

I knew. This was the one. I knew I’d be having sex with this girl before the end of the week.

We talked a lot that week. About home. About our art. About our pasts. About her girlfriend she’d left behind. I had a boyfriend. My high school sweetheart. He knew, though, that someday I would act upon my attraction and that was okay with him.

On Saturday night, one week to the day after she arrived, she told me a story about a girl she’d been with who had never been with another women before. She told the story of how she had asked the girl if she could kiss her. The girl replied, “God, yes.” We kept talking. It got late. My roommate was gone for the weekend. She asked me if I had ever thought about being with a woman. I looked her right in the eye and said, “God, yes.” She smiled, leaned in, and kissed me. My heart took flight and my head exploded. Everything I had ever fantasized was right there. It was really happening and it felt absolutely perfect. The last piece of the puzzle I’d been missing all my life.

I was frantic to do everything I had ever dreamed of. She was stone, but she let me have my way. After exploring my body in ways I never could have imagined, I rolled over on top of her and took over. I needed to try everything. I wanted to know what she felt like, what she tasted like. I spent hours between her unshaven legs. At one point she managed to say, “Are you sure you’ve never done this before?” I mumbled something into her cunt. Only in my head.

After that night we spent a lot of time together. I have pictures of her on a park bench, sunlight in her hair, a glare bouncing off her mirrored aviators. One leg crossed over the other…not like a woman…one calloused hand resting upon her black Doc Martens. A few weeks later I went to her room late at night, wanting. wanting. I heard a noise on the other side of the door, a rustling, a murmur of voices. The door opened and I was greeted by my best friend, clad in nothing but “my girl’s” plaid, flannel shirt. I was crimson and silent. I turned away and ran down the hall. Back to my room, frozen and betrayed.

I moved on to other women after that. I became known as the school heartbreaker. “Don’t go out with her, she’ll do you and ditch you.” And I did. That girl, the first of many, became my fuckbuddy throughout college. Whenever we were both hard up and no one else was around we turned to each other. A midnight fuck after watching The Wizard of Oz. Frenzied sex in her tiny apartment in the worst neighborhood imaginable. Groping in the teacher’s lounge at 2 a.m.

I saw her years later. She had softened a lot. Years of rehab had broken her early morning routine of rolling over, sleep in her eyes, to grab an unfiltered Marlboro and a can of Bud out of the small fridge next to her bed. I never understood how she did that without getting up to pee first. She had become a psychotherapist and ran her own state-funded rehab center. That bad boi was gone. Replaced by someone older, wiser, more responsible. She stirred no longing within me. No instant wetness between my thighs. No insatiable need to be with her, under her, over her.

She simply was…my first.