Chapter 89: Exploration and Analysis

March 12, 1988, McKinley, Ohio

There was no band practice, but Becka had assumed there was, and had made plans in Cincinnati, so she left immediately after breakfast. I spent the morning with Rachel and did our laundry. Sara arrived just as I was giving Rachel her late-morning snack. I greeted Sara with a quick kiss, but not a hug, because Rachel was in my arms.

“Are you bringing the Uniate girl to church tomorrow?” Sara asked when we went to the study so I could continue rocking Rachel.

“No. We did have a date last night, and we’ll have one next Saturday.”

“You’ve stopped seeing Oksana, right?”

“Yes. Did she tell you?”

“It was obvious last night something was wrong, so I asked, and she said that, in the end, she didn’t think she could deal with how much you would have to work.”

I was happy that Oksana appeared to have handled the end of our relationship maturely.

“That has been a hurdle which quite a few girls couldn’t clear,” I observed.

“That is why you didn’t marry Tasha Antonov, right?”

“Yes.”

“I guess I look at it as a short-term sacrifice for a long-term gain,” Sara said. “Isn’t that something we all have to do at some point? You’re sacrificing your personal life to become a doctor so you can serve the community. Or, for other things, you suffer briefly for something important, like labor to have a baby or surgery to remove your appendix.”

“Very insightful.”

“So it’s safe to stand next to you in church?”

“So long as you don’t think your parents will misread the situation.”

“Mom knows what I want, but not Dad.”

“Uh-huh,” I grinned.

Sara laughed, “OK, she doesn’t know that, but she knows I want to marry you.”

“And your dad?”

“He won’t give me any grief except about not going to college, but a grandson will bring him around! Does Dani worship with you at the Cathedral or with her family?”

“Her family.”

“Then that’s what I should do, too.”

That was, in my mind, another sign of maturity. Rachel finished her bottle and after I burped her, I carried her up to her room and put her down in her crib for her late-morning nap. Once she was settled, I covered her with her blanket, then went back down to the great room to find Sara lying naked on the rug in front of the fireplace.

“You have on WAY too many clothes!” she declared.

“There’s something very important to remember,” I said. “And that is you still have two weeks before you’re safe, so we have to be VERY careful. There can be sperm even before I cum, and it is possible, albeit highly unlikely, to become pregnant without penetration.”

“How?”

“Semen on your labia,” I said. “The chances are remote, but do you want to risk that?”

“No.”

“And that means no contact, including being careful touching yourself if you have cum on your hands.”

“As if!” she declared mirthfully. “Every drop is going in my mouth! Now, get undressed!”

I quickly undressed, tossing my clothes on top of hers, then knelt down next to her and planted a kiss on each nipple, one on her bare mons, and finally one on her mouth.

“That made me shiver even with the fire!” Sara breathed.

“I can keep going,” I said.

“Let me suck you first,” she said breathlessly.

I wanted to watch, so I reclined against the couch. Sara shifted and draped an arm over my legs and grasped my semi-erect shaft with her other hand. I considered providing pointers, but the thought dissolved into a mist of pleasure when Sara’s soft lips touched my glans, sending my physiology into overdrive and instantly making me rock hard.

Sara planted a myriad of soft kisses on my glans, touched the tip of her tongue to the slit, then slowly circled it around, causing me to groan softly. Her tongue made a second trip around my glans, she traced the tip of her tongue along the length of my shaft, then planted a soft kiss on my sack.

Whether she was a natural or someone had given her advice, Sara knew exactly how to build pleasure. Despite her expressed desire to have me cum in her mouth, she took her time, licking and kissing me, in no obvious rush, though she was pushing me to the edge between pain and pleasure. The tongue bath continued for five minutes before she planted a series of kisses on my glans, the last one being akin to a French kiss, her tongue probing the opening from which she’d soon drink.

Sara didn’t break the French kiss, but simply moved forward until her lips surrounded the base of my glans. She sucked gently, teased me with her tongue, and began stroking me with her soft hand. I watched in erotic fascination as she lowered her head further, taking another inch into her mouth, continuing to lick, suck, and stroke me.

After a minute, she took another inch into her mouth, breathing deeply through her nose, and continued pleasuring me. Eventually, she worked about five inches into her mouth, but her next attempt caused her to gag as my glans touched the back of her mouth. Sara backed off a bit, took a few breaths through her nose, and tried again with the same result.

After another pair of breaths, she slowly pulled back until just my glans was in her mouth, then moved forward slowly, taking me into her mouth again, using her hand to stroke me in ever shorter strokes as my dick disappeared into her mouth. The pleasure she was giving was intense, enhanced by the vision of a virgin giving her first blowjob.

I wanted it to last forever, but I needed a release in the worst possible way. I took solace in her ‘As much as I want?’ request when we’d last been together, knowing that meant I’d have an opportunity to experience the pleasure over and over. I twitched twice, signaling that my orgasm was close, and Sara, having given me a pair of handjobs, understood the implications.

She moved up so just my glans was in her mouth, stroked my shaft, swirled her tongue, and sucked. I held my breath, tensed my muscles, and when her free hand cupped my sack and squeezed gently, I couldn’t hold back. I groaned, my breath exploding from my lungs as the first jet of cum blasted into Sara’s mouth, followed in quick succession by several more, as Sara swirled her tongue around me, sucked, and swallowed.

After the final spurt, Sara slowly took me deeply into her mouth, sucking, causing another groan from the almost painful pleasure. She slowly lifted up, then back down, and sucked for another minute before finally releasing me. I guided her to move so we could exchange a fierce, deep French kiss, which lasted several minutes.

“That was fantastic!” I said when we broke the kiss.

“Just wait until you ‘slide into home’!” she exclaimed. “Two weeks!”

“Two weeks,” I confirmed. “Before I make you feel good, I need to rinse my mouth with mouthwash.”

“Why?”

“You swallowed, but even so, you had a small amount of semen in your mouth. The risk is infinitesimal, and would be even if you didn’t swallow first. I don’t want to take any chances.”

“Kiss without swallowing?” Sara smirked. “Interesting!”

I laughed, “That was meant to make a point, but yes, I would. I do have a question for you.”

“What’s that?”

“Do you want me to push my tongue inside you? I can stimulate you without doing that.”

“Does it matter?”

“Not to me, but I thought you might prefer your first actual penetration to be when I slide into home!”

“Yes!”

“Then let me go rinse my mouth and I’ll be right back!”

I hurried upstairs and was back less than two minutes later, with Sara reclined similar to how I had been, I kissed her twice, then lowered my head to her breast and planted soft kisses on her areola, then on her nipple. She gasped when I suckled her nipple, teasing it with my tongue for a few minutes before switching to her other breast, which received the same attention.

When I released Sara’s nipple, I kissed my way down her stomach, over her completely smooth mons, and then planted a series of kisses along her inner thighs. A quick glance up saw Sara watching intently and I began kissing along her plump labia, moving from bottom to top, then repeating the sequence. After a third trip from bottom to top, I traced the tip of my tongue along her labia, circling her vulva three times before pressing my tongue under her clitoral hood.

Sara gasped at the contact and moaned when I closed my mouth around her upper labia and began sucking. I sucked for a short time, then lapped up Sara’s copious juices before latching onto her clit again. Sara groaned, shuddered, and pushed her hips up to increase the pressure. I continued pleasuring her, alternating with lapping up her juices, and brought her off twice more before moving up to exchange another fierce, deep French kiss.

“Wow!” she gasped when we broke the kiss.

“Yeah,” I grinned, moving and helping her shift so I could put my arm around her and cuddle her.

“How many times?”

“Properly spaced out? I’ve managed eight.”

“Cool!”

“Have you considered another possibility?”

“What?”

“We do it at the same time,” I replied. “It’s called sixty-nine.”

“Oh, God,” Sara moaned. “Yes!”

We did manage a total of eight times before she had to go home, and Sara had, unsurprisingly, kissed me without swallowing after each of my orgasms.

March 13, 1988, Sunday of the Veneration of the Holy Cross, McKinley, Ohio

On Sunday morning, Rachel and I attended Matins and the Divine Liturgy, and after Sunday School, which I attended for the first time in months, Rachel went home with Anna and Geno, and I headed home to wait for Samantha. I’d asked Clarissa to be available, but felt it was unlikely I’d need her.

The outside temperatures had warmed enough that I opened windows in the house, instead of building a fire, though as soon as the sun had sunk low enough in the west, I’d need to close them and turn on the heat to ensure the house wasn’t chilled. I made a pot of coffee and put the kettle on, so we had water for tea, then played my guitar until Samantha arrived.

“Can I get you some coffee, tea, or a soft drink?” I asked.

“Bourbon might be a better choice, but coffee will do.”

“I’m fresh out of bourbon because I’m basically teetotal due to the rules for medical staff. I start a shift at 7:00pm tonight, so the twelve-hour rule would be in force no matter what.”

I led Samantha to the kitchen, where I poured us each a cup of coffee and then we sat at the dinette table.

“How are you feeling?” I asked.

“I’m not sure,” she replied.

“I think I know how to approach this,” I said. “But first let me say I’m a Third Year medical student, not a licensed counselor. OK?”

“Yes.”

“Let’s start with refuting a complete misconception that many people have. Sexuality is neither a binary choice nor a straight-line continuum, and whatever labels might be assigned, they don’t tell the whole story. There are wide variations, and it’s more like a three-dimensional matrix than a continuous line. It’s also the case that people change over time.

“I have friends who are exclusively gay, exclusively lesbian, bisexual, bi-curious, and exclusively straight. But those labels can be deceptive, and they aren’t necessarily fixed. An example would be sexual experimentation. While some people would classify an individual who had a one-off same-sex encounter as gay or lesbian, that’s not necessarily the case.

“What I’m trying to say is, don’t think of fitting yourself in a specific category with a specific label, because it won’t work. Even when I say I’m exclusively straight with no same-sex curiosity, I’d contend that statement could be ambiguous or inaccurate, because of some things I’ve done.

“I’ll give you an example. A fellow medical student, a female, and I approached a male homosexual couple with whom we were close friends and had a lengthy discussion about their sex lives, with quite a bit of detail provided and numerous questions answered. Is that ‘bi-curious’? I wouldn’t think so, but I suspect some ultraconservative religious types would suggest even being curious about what our friends did in the bedroom was flirting with homosexuality.

“There is another possibility which I haven’t mentioned, or actually, multiple ones. The first is asexuality, which describes a person who is not interested in having sex. I don’t mean that in terms of waiting for marriage, or not with a specific person, but with anyone. And asexuality is as valid as any other classification, if you want to use the labels, which are problematic except as generalizations.

“Other possibilities include low libido, which means you don’t have desire, even though you are OK with the idea of having sex, or not deriving pleasure from sex, or deriving pleasure in ways which are atypical, and are often called paraphilias. It’s so complex that there isn’t a simple way to explain it.”

“But you implied I was a,” Samantha lowered her voice as if someone might overhear, “lesbian.”

“Yes, because that is the most typical reason for what you observed about your past encounters. I may be way off base, but saying you wanted to, but didn’t get turned on by guys is something I’ve heard from lesbians in the past. Some of them can, and do, have heterosexual sex, either as experimentation, or because they thought it was what they were supposed to do, or to conceive.

“Let me give you an example. A sixteen-year-old girl has feelings for other girls, but dates, and even has intercourse with her boyfriend, because that’s what society tells her she’s supposed to do. Later, when she’s out of high school, she acts on those feelings because she’s away from the insane peer pressure of the High School. She settles down with another woman and they live together, and even raise a child conceived by heterosexual intercourse.

“Contrast that with a girl who didn’t succumb to the power of societal norms and didn’t date, and who has her first sexual encounter with another girl, and never has one with a guy. In fact, she’s expressly repulsed by the idea of a penis entering her vagina. She enters a long-term, exclusive relationship with the first woman and they raise a child together. See how the labels break down? And how we might behave contrary to our sexuality because of other factors?”

“So are they both lesbian?” Samantha asked.

“That’s the problem with labels,” I said. “I think everyone would classify the second woman as lesbian, but people would debate if the first woman as lesbian, bisexual, or bi-curious until the cows come home. The point I’m trying to make, and I am guilty of doing this to you, is that labels and categories are imperfect. That said, if you want to have sex and you aren’t turned on by guys — any guy — then you have to ask why and consider alternatives.”

“I don’t think about girls that way,” Samantha protested weakly.

“It’s possible to suppress your desires based on parental, societal, or religious pressure. If you’re told, from the time you’re little, that you’re to meet a guy, marry, and have babies, you are strongly predisposed to doing that. Add in being told that same-sex relationships are sinful, and you have even more powerful forces at work. Then add in societal pressure, and you end up with someone married for thirty years who leaves their spouse for someone of the same sex.

“I’m not saying that’s true in your case, but what I think you need to do is examine your feelings, and maybe even see a counselor who specializes in teen and young adult sexuality. Maybe it’s just you’ve chosen the wrong guys, including me. Maybe it’s physiological and you don’t derive pleasure from physical intimacy. Or, maybe, you’re suppressing your sexuality because of external pressure.

“The bottom line, I think, is whether or not you’re comfortable with your feelings and desires, and are fulfilled by whatever relationship you choose to have, with whomever you choose to have it. The worst possible scenario is trying to force yourself into some mode that you feel compelled to enter by parents or society or church.”

“Your church teaches the same thing ours does, right?”

“I’m not up on those nuances of Roman Catholic theology with regard to same-sex relationships, but for Orthodoxy, desire, in and of itself, is not sinful, even if it’s a desire that cannot be fulfilled without sinning. In other words, same-sex attraction is no more sinful than attraction to the opposite sex, but sex outside the bounds of marriage, which is only permitted between one man and one woman, is sinful. What Becka and I are doing is no more, and no less, sinful than what my lesbian and gay friends are doing.”

“What if I don’t want to be a lesbian?”

“One way to look at it is that it’s about attraction versus action. Or desire versus action. The question is really how you want to live your life and what fulfills you. The challenge arises when you discover something new about yourself and how that discovery affects your relationships.”

“You mean like, do I want to get married and have kids?”

“Yes, but as in you want to, not you think that’s what you’re supposed to do. I’ve made that mistake, not with regard to sex, but in other areas of my life. I did what I thought I was supposed to do, and I was wrong.”

“Will you tell me?”

“The primary one was accepting ordination to the diaconate. I felt a duty and obligation to agree to my bishop’s request, and it turned out to be a nightmare of epic proportions. That said, something wonderful came out of it, even if that, too, ended in tragedy. But out of that nightmare and tragedy came unique joy.”

“What happened? I mean, if I can ask.”

“You know part of it,” I said. “The unique joy is Rachel. The tragedy is her mom — my wife — not being with us. The nightmare was ridiculous church politics and a scandal, but something good came of that, too, in that we have a new bishop who is one of the most godly men I know.”

“Do you regret doing that?”

“It’s hard to say that, given that without my ordination, I wouldn’t have known the joy of being married to Elizaveta, and wouldn’t have Rachel. Maybe the alternate timeline in the multiverse is worse than this one. Don’t ask me how, because this one was bad enough. But there’s no guarantee it would be better. I mean, sure, if I could pick an alternate reality where Elizaveta was still alive, and we had Rachel, I would in a heartbeat, but we don’t get to pick things like that.”