First off, let me say that I’m not a lesbian. But as I’m about to relate, one of the most intense erotic experiences in my life involved a woman, the older sister of my best friend. Marci and I were at her house up in her bedroom after school. We were supposed to be working on a science project involving volcanoes, but before we got started, Marci asked if I want to see something. I didn’t answer one way or the other. Something about her expression was weird. Secret. Sly. She motioned for me to come to the window. She pulled the curtain aside.

Her bedroom looked out over her backyard. Almost directly below us, just a little to our left, was the deck, made of rough old planks, and lying on her back on the deck was Cyndi, Marci’s older sister. She was naked.

“What, is she getting a suntan or something?” I asked.

Marci shushed me. “She goes out there every afternoon,” Marci whispered. “If it’s like the other days, she’s going to touch herself.”

I asked what she meant by touch herself.

“Masturbate,” Marci said. “Do you know what that is?”

“Of course,” I said.

“So you do it?” Marci asked. “You masturbate?”

“Uh, no. Not really.”

I was about to ask Marci if she masturbated when Cyndi did start touching herself. One hand pressed her breast, the other caressed between her legs.

“So beautiful.” I hadn’t meant to say that. It just came out.

“What?” Marci asked.

“The leaves. So golden in the light.”

“Right,” Marci agreed. “Some of them look like little cunts, don’t they?”

I’d never heard anyone use the word cunt before. I found the word strangely thrilling. My eyes focused on Cyndi’s cunt.

“See that bump?” Marci said. “That’s her clit.”

Two of her fingers were circling the clit. The motions were slow. Regular. But gradually the fingers sped up. The motion became more back and forth. Then her fingers stopped and her body seized.

“What?” I said. Again I hadn’t meant to say anything.

“She just came,” Marci said. She drew the curtain closed. “Do you want to do it?”

“Do what?”

“Touch yourself. Come.”

“Um, not right now,” I said. “We should really work on the volcano.”

But when I was home in the safety of my bed, I did it. I touched myself much the way Cyndi had touched herself, my fingers circling my clit. I pictured Cyndi doing it. The beauty and calm intensity of her masturbation. The strange, beautiful, stricken expression at the moment of her ecstasy. I touched myself and touched myself and then, finally, abruptly, unexpectedly, I came, my first orgasm.

I’m still friends with Marci, but we’re not as close as we were. The other day I was at her parents’ house for a backyard cookout in celebration of their 30^th wedding anniversary. The drinks table was set up on the deck. The tree with the golden leaves had been cut down. The deck has been refinished.

Cyndi was there with her husband and their new baby, a cute little guy named Edward. “Like the teddy bear in Winnie the Pooh,” I mentioned to Cyndi.

“Right,” she said. “I’d let you hold him, but now I really need to feed him. My nipples are about to burst.”

I nodded knowingly, took a sip of my wine, and tried not to look at Cyndi’s obviously erect nipples. “It was nice seeing you again,” I said.

I couldn’t help remembering that time a dozen years ago when I watched Cyndi masturbate on the old deck. A fierce blush came to my face. Like I said, I’m not a lesbian, but seeing her now made me want to touch her clitoris. To taste it. To make her come.