Chapter 2

Time flowed by. I don't know how much. I just remember feeling frozen as it did it. Finally I got my wits together.

"Oh," I said. "I thought you were sisters."

"Everybody thinks that," said Susan. I could hear the apprehension in her voice. "But we're not. That's why I thought you might be interested in interviewing us. I know I should have told you on the phone, but we wanted you to see it... before you decided... you know... what to do."

My mind was awhirl. I had been anticipating a brother and sister, involved in a long-term monogamous relationship. It was that assumption thing. It had bitten me in the butt a number of times, but I was a slow learner. Now my mind tried to stop the momentum it had built up in one direction and switch abruptly to a second, completely different azimuth. The laws of physics seemed to apply to thoughts too. My mind gave a kind of twist as the laws of nature fought that change of direction.

I almost said "You don't look like lesbians," but caught myself as I realized how patently stupid that would sound. Lesbians don't look any different than anybody else.

I did manage to re-think things, though I don't know how long I stood there speechless. They were kind enough to let me adjust without talking. I looked from one to the other several times, taking in the startling similarities in appearance. If they had been together fifteen years, they were serious about each other, and that was what I was investigating, though I hadn't thought even once about commitment in a same-sex relationship. Still, the sociologist in me perked up at a whole new world, and the possibilities that lay in that world. In one sense, it was just as valid to study same-sex couples as it was to investigate incestuous couples. Both were 'anti-social', according to most of society, but I already knew that real love and passion, like that in a heterosexual marriage, could exist between relatives. So why couldn't it exist between two other people, even if they were the same sex?

I had a few biases that had built up over the years. I didn't know anybody in the community that was adopting the new term "Gay" to identify themselves. I wasn't even sure how large that community was. I hadn't given it much thought. It was kind of like a cow with six legs. I saw one at a tourist trap right off of Interstate 70 in Kansas once upon a time. It was interesting, but it was just an oddity.

But the two women in the room with me weren't 'odd' in any way I could detect, other than their self-identification as being lesbians. Everything that was available to my five senses seemed completely normal.

"Give me a minute," I asked, while new thoughts flooded into my mind.

I remembered Lizzie, teaching her daughter to masturbate. That was same-sex... sex. I hadn't thought of that as a 'lesbian' arrangement. I thought about that now. I realized that, when I thought about "homosexuals" and got that uncomfortable little chill down my spine, that I was actually thinking about two men together. I didn't understand that, and it was uncomfortable. Why didn't I feel that chill when I thought of two women together?

I thought about THAT for a few seconds. It was easy, really. What two women did to each other, I would gladly do to either of them, or let them to it to me. What two men did together I had no interest in. It was just male bias that caused the reaction. I couldn't actually justify it logically. That probably deserved more time and thought. But the fact was that it didn't bother me that these two women loved each other and engaged in sexual acts together (another assumption, but a reasonable one).

I found I was interested.

"OK," I said. "This isn't what I expected, but let's talk about it a little bit and see where it can go."

Both women relaxed and smiled. I suspect they got very little acceptance for their lifestyle from 'normal' people. The fact that I was non judgmental made them feel better about the risk that they were taking in exposing themselves to a stranger.

For lack of anything better to do, I just asked them some of the preliminary questions.

"How did you two meet?"

Susan volunteered that answer.

"My divorce had been final for a couple of months, and I had calmed down from that. I knew there were good men out there, but I didn't know any way to meet them. I went to a singles bar just to see what it was like. It was awful."

Micky took over.

"It was the same for me. I had been divorced longer than Susan, and had been trying to meet a man. I was disillusioned, but I kept going back. In fact, the night I met Susan, I had decided that that was the last time I was going to go to one of those places. All I seemed to run into were jerks and men looking for a quickie. I was sitting there at the bar feeling sorry for myself when Susan sat down beside me."

It was Susan's turn again.

"So there I was, sitting next to Micky, though I didn't know her at the time. These guys kept coming up to me and laying the lamest lines on me I had ever heard. It was just agonizing. During a break in the onslaught I asked Mickey if it was always this bad. She laughed and started telling me horror stories of her own. Before long we left there and went to a coffee bar. We got a table and sat down and became friends."

It sounded all so normal somehow. I knew women who complained about the dating scene the same way.

"So you were both married... before," I said.

"Yes," they both nodded.

"Forgive me," I said, "I'm not all that current on same sex relationships, so I may say some stupid things, or ask some stupid questions," I warned. "How, exactly, does a woman in a regular relationship get interested in another woman?"

Micky smiled. "If you're asking if I always felt attracted to women, the answer is no." I saw Susan nod in agreement, and she broke in.

"Me neither. I had never felt anything for a woman. I had friends I was close to, and I loved them, but I wasn't attracted to them that way. I liked men. I liked sex with men. Well, with my husband, anyway. He was the only man I ever had sex with. But he was mean, and I knew that if I stayed with him I'd end up in the hospital sooner or later."

"So, how did it happen?" I asked. I was curious about this.

Mickey was still smiling. "We've thought a lot about this, over the years. I liked men too. My divorce was for other reasons. Basically my husband was addicted to gambling, and he wouldn't get help for it. It was tearing our lives apart and when I gave him an ultimatum, he took off. He didn't contest the divorce - didn't even show up in court. What happened between Susan and me happened over a period of a year. We got to be friends. You have to understand that a divorced woman is no longer welcome in the homes of her married friends. When you're free, like Susan and I were, other women see you as a threat. So the support group we had during the divorce proceedings evaporated once the divorces were final. Basically all Susan had was me, and all I had was Susan. I think that's why we got so close."

Susan was nodding again.

"We spent almost all our free time together," she said. "We went to shows, and concerts and shopping. It was like a date, because it was fun, but there was none of the angst that's always there when you're with a man, trying to figure out whether to kiss him or not, or whether to let him come in after a date or not... all that stuff. In fact, we went out on dates with men together, sort of double dating. We went to singles bars together and if we both met a man who seemed reasonable, we'd go somewhere with them. But that didn't work out either. Usually the men wanted to separate us and just get us into bed. So, eventually, we quit doing that and just went out together to do things. We got closer and closer."

"OK," I said. "But there had to be a time when something happened. I mean there was a first kiss or something... right?"

Micky nodded. "That was pretty strange, when it happened. It was about nine or ten months after we met. We were sitting around eating chocolate and watching old movies. I don't even remember the name of the one we watched, but it got us both going."

Susan laughed. "I blurted out that I needed to get laid. It was that time of the month that I get particularly... um... horny." She blushed a little.

Micky grinned. "I offered to loan her my dildo."

"You're kidding," I said. I meant it. I thought she WAS kidding.

"Nope," she said smugly.

"I had heard of them, of course," said Susan, blushing more, "but I had never actually seen one. I... um... well, I took care of things, but not that way."

"I went and got it," said Micky grinning. "I thought she'd have a cow when I brought it out of my bedroom."

"It was this big pink thing," laughed Susan. She was still blushing and wasn't looking at my face. "It looked so real, though, that... I don't know... I can't really remember."

"She's just embarrassed," snorted Micky. "Her eyes got so big I thought they'd pop out of her head. She said there was no way she could use something like that. We got to laughing and then I dared her and the next thing I knew I was teaching her how to use it."

I looked at Susan, who was still looking elsewhere. Finally her eyes glanced at me, and then away, and then back. She was beet red.

"You probably think we're perverts. Everybody does," she said.

"No, not really," I said. "I'm just trying to understand."

She looked a little less uncomfortable... enough to go on.

"It's just that she was so tender, and she cared about me. I had never even THOUGHT about doing something with another woman, but suddenly I felt so good, and it felt so right, and then we were kissing and then it was like we'd been looking for each other all our lives."

"You love each other," I said simply.

"YES!" said Micky urgently. "I'm like Susan. I'd never done anything with a woman before. But it just didn't feel strange. It's hard to describe."

"Don't feel bad," I said sagely. "No one can describe how love feels. That's why kids have to go through all that pain and anguish as teenagers. You have to try things to find out if they're right for you. All too often we try the wrong things, but, once in a while, we stumble upon something that really meets a need."

"That's it exactly!" blurted Susan. "I needed someone to be close to... to love and be loved by. I kept thinking it had to be a man, but then this happened and suddenly everything changed."

"Has it been worth the... um... problems?" I asked.

"You mean all the hatred and fear people display when they find out?" asked Micky.

I nodded.

"It has to me," she said, looking at her lover.

Susan smiled and nodded. Her blush was gone. I liked to think it was because I was being so open-minded.

I looked back at my forms. Some of it didn't seem to apply. I told them as much, and they got curious about what differences there might be between interviewing a heterosexual couple and any other couple.

"Well, one of the things I'd ask is if you both masturbate, and whether you engage in mutual masturbation. That's pretty much a moot point in your case. It's the same with oral sex. I guess I could ask you what each of you think the other's best sexual feature is."

Susan got pink again, but Micky answered right away.

"I love her eyes and the way she crinkles her mouth when she's thinking hard about something."

"I wouldn't exactly call those sexual features," I said.

Micky looked right at me. "Whenever I stare into her eyes, or see that crinkle, I want to tear her clothes off."

"OK," I admitted. "I guess that counts after all." I grinned and shrugged. I looked over at Susan.

"I don't want to say," she said. "It's embarrassing."

"I'm surprised that, after what you told me already, anything could embarrass you," I said.

I looked at Micky, who was trying to hide a smile. She stood up and turned sideways toward me. She was wearing a pullover top, which was somewhat loose and she reached behind her to pull it tight across her stomach.

Susan looked up and yelped "Mickey! Don't you DARE!"

Micky just laughed and then did something I was amazed at. She slumped, somehow, and her hips pushed forward a little bit. The small of her back went forward too and that made her abdomen jut out. She must have relaxed the muscles in her belly or something, because she suddenly looked like she was maybe four or five months pregnant. She brought one hand to that bulge and rubbed it.

"MICKYEEEEEEE," wailed Susan. She covered her eyes.

Micky spoke then. "She likes to pretend that she's a man when we make love with a strap-on, and that she's impregnating me. When I do this it drives her wild."

I don't know if I was like most people or not. I didn't really understand anything about people of the same gender who formed these kinds of attachments. What I had heard thus far made it confusing in one way, because it sounded like any other love affair in which two people fall in love and then express that love sexually. My mind had a hard time imagining that I could do that with another man, which made it seem just as unlikely, to me at least, that two women could truly feel that way. But it was obvious they did. And it was obvious it was real. I had seen couples deeply in love, and you can tell they're deeply in love. And here was something that made these two seem even more normal. I could easily understand how the thought of impregnating your partner could be fantastically erotic. Ralph had wanted to impregnate Tanya, but just couldn't. It was the same with this couple, in a way. Susan wanted to impregnate Micky, but just couldn't. It didn't make it any less erotic an idea... it was just physically impossible.