We stood looking out the big plate glass window at the tree tops swaying in the autumn wind, stretching our legs at intermission. I turned to my date and asked, "What do you think?"
"About?"
"The show, me, whatever."
She considered, "I really like the show. I really like you."
I hesitantly twined my fingers with hers as we walked back to take our seats. I was thinking more about where this evening might lead than I was about the second half of the play.
When the show was over we walked out into the crisp night air. God, I love theater! It is so exciting to be caught up in people reacting to people! I turned to Julie and almost yelled, "Wasn't that glorious!"
Her smile echoed my feelings as she said, "Yes. Thanks for inviting me."
Still caught up in the magic of the moment, I asked, "Where do you want to go now?"
Julie pulled on my hand to stop us, looked me in the eye, and said, "How about we go home with me?"
People leaving the theater streamed by us. I felt frozen to the spot, totally unprepared for this. "Oh," was all I could say.
Julie cocked her head and asked, "What's wrong?" Clearly this was not the response she had expected. But she knew enough about me to realize, when she thought about it, that I might not want to move so fast, so she continued, "Sorry. That was rather bold of me, wasn't it? How about coffee?"
"Julie! I trust you," I said, which was the truth. But I was scared shitless.
"And?" She was going to leave this up to me.
"I would like to go with you. Home, I mean." The crowds had thinned out. I put my arms around her waist and leaned down to touch noses. "Really."
"Good." She leaned into me a little and brushed her lips against mine in a soft kiss.
We walked to her place. Inside we hung up our coats and kicked off our shoes. Julie turned on more lights, went to the kitchen alcove and asked, "Shall I heat water for tea? Or we could mull some wine?"
I was still standing at the entrance, trying to think. "Um, yeh, that'd be fine," was my response.
Julie stopped bustling around, looked at me, came over and took my hand and led me to the sofa. "Sit. We gotta talk."
I sat. I tried to keep from biting my lip. Julie took my hands in hers and said, "There's no way this is going to be easy, is it?"
I shook my head. "I'm so scared, Julie. I really like you, and I know you like me, and I want so badly to be close to someone. But I can't ask anyone to be close to me. If we try it, I sure can't blame you if it doesn't work, but I don't know if I can stand to be rejected, on that level, when I've been rejected by so many people for so many reasons." I took a breath. "There are my guts on the table."
"You're crying, hon." She found some tissues. "Why is this so hard for you?"
I sniffled, "You want the kind of insightful analysis I write in my column? It's hard because you can't make assumptions about me. You're going to notice everything about me, try to figure out what is old and what is new. You're going to put a label on me, like it or not."
She softly touched my cheek. "The label I would like to put on you is lover."
I scrubbed some of the tears out of my eyes. "I want that so much," I said. "I guess it only can happen if I go ahead and give it a try." I put my hands down and looked through bleary eyes. "So how do we do this?"
"How about I make some tea and we talk, about what we do, how we do it, how far we go?"
"Yes," I sighed. "I guess we need to do that. Okay, make some tea, and I'll try to calm down."
By the time Julie made tea and returned to the sofa with a pot and cups, I was more or less in control of myself. She set the tea things on the table and herself on the sofa, then turned to me. Brushing the hair back from my face, she rested her hand on my shoulder, saying, "This is not some academic discussion. I've known you for months. I've come to be very fond of you, and now I want to make love with you."
I swallowed. She put a finger to my lips to stop whatever I was going to blurt out, saying, "This can't be all talk and no play. I want to kiss you, really kiss you, and I don't promise to keep my hands to myself while I do. Is that okay?"
"Yes," I managed to say.
"Are you okay with touching above the belt, so to speak?"
"Yes."
"All right, if I touch you any way you don't like, just grab my hand and I'll stop. I'll do the same, so please, please touch me!"
Julie stopped talking and kissed me. I responded. This was, in many ways, the first time I had been kissed. It was the first time in over five years, but it was also the first time with my body the way it is now.
When our mouths became comfortable with each other she moved her hand down my neck and my shoulder, over my shirt and down my arm. I hesitantly put a hand out to her body, and we both moved on the sofa to be closer and more accessible to each other.
Slowly, deliberately, she moved a fingertip across my shirt to my breast, cupped it, rubbed with the palm of her hand, and ran her fingers around the nipple. I gasped and we stopped kissing long enough for her to whisper, "Touch me!" I did. We continued until we had to stop to catch our breaths.
I grabbed my cup of cooling tea and drank it down. Julie watched with a smile and took a smaller sip from hers. "Do you feel better about this now?" she asked.
"Yes." I took a deep breath. "At least I know you actually like me!"
"How do you feel about continuing this discussion in bed?"
I hesitated, just a little, "I'd like that. But we still have things to talk about before we kiss like that in bed!"
"Okay, love, we'll talk first," she smiled into me, "Then I'm going to kiss you for a long, long time."
We stood and walked to the bedroom, holding hands. At the doorway we stopped and Julie said, "First detail. Lights on or off?"
"On," I said without hesitation. "Once you know me, then I'd prefer lights off. But this time I need to know that you can see me, and I need to see your face."
We sat on the edge of the bed. Julie pulled off her socks. So did I. She said, "I won't lie to you."
I remained silent.
"You have been lied to, haven't you?"
"Yes," I said. "Well-meant lies, so I felt accepted, that turn out to have been spoken by people too embarrassed to tell me to stay the hell away."
"I don't want you to stay away," she said. "I want you closer. I'm taking off my jeans and getting on the bed. You do what you're comfortable with."
She slipped off her jeans and hopped on the bed, wearing only her underwear and a shirt. Neither of us wore bras. "Come on," she said, patting the bed next to her. "I won't touch you until we talk some more."
I turned away from her and dropped my jeans, making certain my underwear was pulled up snuggly, then I joined her on the bed.
Julie grabbed a small cloth bag from one of the head posts and plopped it on the bed between us. "Safer sex stuff. I have lube and toys. I think this time we'll stick to the basics?"
"Um, yes. I think the basics will do nicely."
She took my hands in hers again, and asked, "Love, how do you want to do this? I know it's going to be okay. How can I make you believe that?"
I was so tense at this point I could have exploded. "This sounds stupid, but I think I should just take the rest of my clothes off so you can see me. Otherwise I'm going to jump and cringe every time you touch me."
"I don't think that's stupid, but I would like to help. It's not like what we're wearing hides much from each other."
I nodded.
"First the shirt buttons?" she asked. "You undo mine, and then I'll undo yours?"
I nodded again, then undid her buttons. I wasn't much worried about anything above the waist.
Once we had our shirts off, she said softly, "May I touch you? I really like what I see."
I reached for Julie's hands. We kissed. I let go of her hands and she slowly moved them up my arms to my body, watching my expression.
"It's okay," I said.
She touched my breasts and I touched hers. We kissed again, but I was having trouble breathing. She sat back and looked at me. "Okay if I take off my underwear?"
I nodded, gulped. That meant the only piece of clothing left was my underwear.
We sat facing each other on the bed after she was naked. She knee-walked over to me and gently rubbed her breasts against mine, then put her hands on my waist. I felt about ready to faint.
"How do you want to do this," she asked. "Shall I help?"
"Go ahead."
Julie tentatively slipped her fingers under the elastic of my underwear, moved her hands to my butt, back to the side, then hooked her thumbs over the elastic and pulled my underwear slowly down, all the while looking at my face. She said, "I can't get these off unless you move your legs."
I raised myself to my knees. Julie pulled my underwear down and then off as I sat back down and straightened out my legs. She tossed the last piece of my clothing on the floor with hers.
"So here we are." She smiled tentatively and asked softly, "Do we continue?"
My throat was too dry to talk. My heart was pounding so hard I was certain she could see it beating between my breasts. I swallowed and said, "No one has ever touched me the way I am now. I don't really know what's going to happen."
In agony to get this over with, I spread my legs apart and reached for the body part formerly known as penis. I stretched it out, saying, "See? Nothing underneath, nothing anywhere around, and it takes up very little space!" At which I crumpled it into my hand and sat there, waiting, my other hand clenched in a fist, too, though I wasn't aware of that, or of much of anything.
Julie had put one hand to her mouth and was staring at me, at the zombie expression on my face. She let her hand fall from her mouth and very gently put her hands on my arms, waiting for me to relax a little. "I am so sorry," she said, "I totally did not understand how difficult this is for you."
I felt drained, almost emotionless, but hopeful in a way I was keeping carefully masked. Watching Julie's face, I asked, "Now what?"
She cupped my face tenderly in her hands and said, "You remember our kiss? I would like to do that again, and find out what can happen between your body and my body. But maybe that's too much for now. We could just cuddle a while and then get dressed?"
I thought about going through this again, getting to this point again. Would I be able to? Would she want to? "You really, truly want to find out what happens?"
"Yes, I do."
And so we did. I had wanted this for so long. Hands other than my own that wanted to touch my body. Another body for me to touch. Another person to say, "I love you."
We performed no startling feats. We had to figure out what to do, how to use safe sex practices in our situation. Once I gained some assurance that Julie truly liked me as I was, I loosened up enough to have some fun. She responded enthusiastically to what we did together.
When we had finished, we lay on the bed together.
Julie said, "You are like no one I have ever known."
I looked at her warily.
"When I was a child," she said, "I often had trouble falling asleep. I would lie in bed and think of walking in a field under the stars, where I found someone special waiting for me. We would have adventures, which never concluded, because I would fall asleep. Who it was waiting for me under the stars changed as I grew older. I think it was a unicorn when I was very little. Later it was a person, someone special in ways I did not understand. I feel like that now, with you."
"You mean you're getting ready to fall asleep?" I said, mischievously.
"Pffbt! I mean you're really not like anyone else."
I kept my expression neutral, waiting to see where this led. She noticed, and looked concerned.
"I guess I have to learn how to talk about you, and us."
"We both have to learn. It's not like I ever had the chance before."
"Then let's hope this is the start of a beautiful relationship." She kissed my nose. "How about we get up and order pizza and talk?"
Julie pondered a moment, eating a slice of pizza. "How do you feel about your body? Did our making love change that?"
I set my plate down and poured myself more wine. "I'm very happy that we made love, and that I enjoyed it as much as I did, and that you seemed to like it. I'm always sad that I was not born with the body I wanted. But many people aren't. I don't know where the line falls between self pity and reasonable desire. I've made all the changes I feel I can without the risk of loosing the ability to enjoy what we just did."
"If I say I like you the way you are, does that hurt your feelings?"
"It shouldn't. I'm what I am because of the choices I've made. But I know that to most people, what I am is a freak. If you truly like me the way I am, what does that make you?"
Julie smiled and began walking her fingers up my leg. "It makes me horny. Are you going to stay the night so we can get back in bed?"
"I would love to stay the night with you," I said, bending forward to lick the pizza sauce from her fingers and kiss her warm, soft lips.
When I woke the next morning, we were tangled in each other's arms and legs. Julie was awake, looking at me. She said, "Good morning, love. How did you sleep?"
"I think I had the dream you told me about, about finding someone special, and having adventures."
"Oh?" she giggled, "Are we going to have more adventures?"
"That is something we have to talk about. But right now I need to pee."
When Julie came out to the kitchen nook, I was heating water and washing cups from last night.
"Cold pizza for breakfast?" she asked.
"Only if you put it in the fridge last night. I have a thing about food poisoning."
"I plopped it in the fridge as we returned to our torrid love nest. Pizza coming right up!"
We sat at the small table in the nook. "Oh, and again, thanks for inviting me to the play last night!" she said.
"Thanks for inviting me to your apartment," I replied with a smile.
"And my bed?" she asked, around a mouthful of pizza.
"And your bed."
"Do we do it again?"
"The show? Was it that good?"
"Silly!"
"Are you asking if this was a one night stand, best repented of in the morning light and soon forgotten? Do we leave the building by separate exits?" I said, trying to keep a light tone.
"There is that joke about lesbians moving in together after the first night," she said.
"Julie, if I move in with you, or if we even get a thing going, your lesbian status will be seriously at risk," I said, abandoning the light tone.
"Well, it's not like you're a . . ."
"You know damn well that politically that's just what I am, a man." God, I hate that word, I said to myself.
She looked down at the table, and I looked out the window. Then she looked up and said with anger, "Then fuck politics!"
Julie leaned across the table and took my hands, looking very intently into my eyes. "If you're not a woman, then I'm not a lesbian. I want you, and I'll make up new words for every damn thing under the sun if I have to, to be able to talk about who we are and what we have."
"Okay," I said, "Yes."
"Yes, what?"
"Yes, let's do it again, my love. And reinvent whatever we need to make it work."
(Written August 1999, revised for this book. I wrote this for a proposed "Erotica for Survivors" anthology that so far as I know never came to be.)