Chapter 3

A couple of nights later I dropped by my faculty advisor's house. I was like an adopted child to Fran, his wife, and she greeted me, as usual, with an invitation to come into the kitchen and have a piece of pie. She was always trying to fatten me up.

"Ted's not here," she said. "He had a faculty meeting tonight." "I know," I said. "You're actually the one I wanted to talk to, and I needed him to be gone for this."

"Oh?" she responded. "How interesting!"

I was suddenly nervous. She was the only woman I knew well enough to ask intimate questions of flat out. And what I wanted to ask her was pretty intimate. That caused me to fiddle around a little bit. I might have blushed. Whatever I did, she noticed it.

"Well, it certainly doesn't look like you just need a shirt mended. Have you finally come to sweep me off my feet and seduce me?"

I have to give you a little information about Fran here. She was Ted's second wife, and he had married a lot younger the second time around. Fran was probably only five or six years older than I was, and she was a babe. To look at her you might have thought that Ted had wooed a coed from one of his classes, but Fran was straight from the farm when he married her. He was visiting his parents after his divorce, and they had taken him to a square dance to "cheer him up" Fran was nineteen at the time, and worked as a waitress in the town cafe. Every man town drooled over her, which was one reason the cafe did such a good business. And every man at the square dance was drooling over her too. They couldn't compete with the professor from the big city, though. At least not in Fran's eyes. She asked him to partner her. His square dancing was rusty, but the moves came back quickly and by the end of the night she had snared him. He was helpless.

The fact that he now got to come home to a blond bombshell every night was one of the reasons he was a great professor. Academia was only his job. His life was Fran. He was well balanced.

"Jenny's doing her homework," Fran purred, referring to the Ted's niece, who was living with them while her parents were helping build an orphanage somewhere in Africa. "But it's math, and she's a whiz at that, so we'll have to hurry. We wouldn't want her to catch us."

She teased me like that a lot, but only when we were alone. Oddly, I knew she was only kidding. She was gorgeous and sexy in the extreme, but she was Ted's wife, and, other than the passing fantasy about her, I thought of her as a friend, rather than a potential lover.

"Yeah, well, you may change your mind when you find out what I want to ask you," I muttered.

She got serious instantly.

"OK, shoot," she said, holding the plate with my pie on it in one hand and a fork in the other.

I sat down. She put the pie in front of me and sat across the table from me.

"I need to ask you if you ever had ... sexual feelings ... for another woman," I said, looking at the pie, instead of at her.

She didn't answer, though, and I had to look up. She was looking at me intently.

"Why in the world would you ask me that, Bob?"

So I explained about Micky and Susan, and how I was all confused, because they seemed like such normal people, but lived an abnormal lifestyle. I also explained that I was having trouble seeing a real, or logical difference between their relationship and that of a married couple.

"Other than the fact that they can't have children together," she prompted. I had told her that part too.

"Yes, of course," I agreed, "but lots of married couples choose not to have children, so even that isn't so different, in a way."

"I don't know if I should answer your question," she mused.

"You don't really have to," I said quickly. "It's just that I don't know any other women well enough to ask anyone else that question."

"So, what I hear you saying," she said, sounding like Ted now, "is that you aren't asking ME the question ... you're just asking a WOMAN the question."

"I guess so," I said weakly.

"And you are just trying to understand," she said. She was still looking at me with a very intent look.

"Yes!" There was a little frustration in my voice.

"I don't want you to talk to Ted about this," she said.

She had already answered the question. I just didn't have any details. "OK," I agreed.

"Mary Beth Freeman," she said.

"What?"

"Mary Beth Freeman and I were best friends. We went to school together our whole lives." She looked nervous now, but she went on. "We spent all our time together ... practically lived at each other's houses. We ... learned about sex together."

"That doesn't sound so odd," I ventured.

"It was more complicated than that," she said, her voice steady. We explored things, and it was all just fun and games at first. The first time she had an orgasm it scared us both half to death. Then, when we realized that what had happened hadn't hurt her, we kind of went crazy."

Fran's eyes went a little unfocused as she remembered the kind of passion I wasn't sure I had ever experienced.

"When we were fourteen, we blackmailed her brother Billy into showing us the parts of boys we hadn't ever gotten to see before. That led to ... well, I was scared, but Mary Beth wasn't, and he deflowered her right in front of me. Maybe two weeks later he took my virginity too."

"Wow." That was about all I could come up with at that moment. I had visions of a leggy blond Fran tumbling around in bed with her best friend and her best friend's brother. I realized my dick was getting stiff, and I was glad I was sitting down.

"He looked a lot like you," she said. "That's probably why I flirt with you so much."

"Wow," I said again.

My curiosity was aroused as well, though, and her willingness to tell me something so intimate let me ask her for more details. "So, you were attracted to both men and women?"

"No," she said firmly. "I was attracted to Mary Beth and Billy." She waved a hand dismissively. "I'm sure that a lot of people would say that it was just hormones, but back then it felt very real. I thought I was in love with both of them. And in some ways I WAS in love with them. But the point is that I didn't have any interest in other girls. We did everything two girls could possibly do together ... sexually ... but I never felt that kind of attraction for any other girl. Boys were different. I was attracted to lots of boys."

"So you weren't a lesbian," I said.

"You know what I think?" she asked, relaxing back in her chair a little. "I think 'lesbian' is a name somebody came up with to label someone who was different. I think people are capable of loving each other, and that means that sometimes a girl loves a girl. Men can feel the same thing. It's just not accepted. It sounds like your two women are in that situation. For that matter I'm convinced it's possible to love more than one person at a time. I know I did. I still love Mary Beth. I just don't get to see her any more."

"But if you DID get to see her ... would you still... ?".

She frowned. "I don't know. I'm sure we've both changed. I don't know if it would be the same or not. She got married and has two kids. Billy joined the Army and got married too. I don't even know where he is. I doubt that we'd feel the same way about each other now, but I just don't know."

"So, do you think I should keep these two in the project?" I asked. "They seem to be as much in love as anybody else I've seen. I've only interviewed them once, but they act ... married, or at least something like that."

She frowned. "On one hand, your paper is about marriage, and they're not married, despite how things look. That could muddy up your study if it ever came out."

Then her frown vanished.

"On the other hand, I loved Mary Beth," Fran said simply. "If things had been different I think I could have been very happy being paired with her. We didn't even think about things like that back then. Love is love. That's my opinion."

"Thanks," I said. I felt better somehow, knowing that a woman I liked and respected, - and who was as normal as the day is long - could feel that way for another woman. Even if it was in the past.

"No problem." She smiled. "Not a word to Ted. He might not understand."

"Where have you been?" I asked her trying to leer. "Men have always gotten excited about two women engaged in hot, sweaty sex."

"Now Bob," she said softly. "Just because I let Billy watch while I licked Mary Beth's scrumptious pussy doesn't mean I'd let you watch. But you're right, now that I think about it. That did always make Billy so excited that he just had to ... fuck one of us." Hearing that word from her lips affected me in ways I wasn't prepared for. It was a very sensual word when she used it. She also gave me that incomprehensible stare again. "Then again, you DO look a lot like he did when he was in High School. Hmmmm..." She trailed off and I got up before I did something stupid.

She just laughed as I hurried toward the door.

"Bye, Bob," she giggled. "Don't be such a stranger. I always have lots of pie ... and other tasty things to eat ... around the house."

Her laugher was ringing in my ears as I rushed out of the house.

My second interview with Micky and Susan was much more relaxed. I think that was because I was much more relaxed. I had done some thinking about what I'd told Fran - that Micky and Susan acted "married". It was little things they did that caused me to think that way. It was the way they looked at each other, and their posture when they stood together. It was the way that, while telling a story about their past, one picked up the narrative from the other in that seamless kind of storytelling way that shows that both have the same memories about something because they lived it together. Yet, as in any marriage, there were the inevitable tiny differences that caused them to argue about what had really happened.

In that sense, when I saw them the second time, it was easy for me to think of them as a married couple, and it was just more relaxed somehow.

The first thing I did was remember to ask for photographs, which I had forgotten all about on the first visit. It was startling in a way. The pictures they had of when they were much younger were with their husbands, and family, before they had met. They both looked like women, but not that much alike. They didn't have a lot of pictures of them as a lesbian couple. But the ones they did have showed a steady progression of features beginning to blend into that appearance of sisters. Maybe it was easier to see when two women were compared. I don't know, but it was obvious that they had come to look more alike over the years.

I already had down how they met, and we went into more detail about what they liked about each other, and the interests they shared. One of the things that was fascinating was that each had some of the stereotypical attributes of a male.

Micky, for instance, had taught herself how to do simple plumbing and electrical work, and to do most home repairs. Susan had hung around as a kid while her father worked on their cars, and she took care of vehicle maintenance. I was surprised at that, thinking Micky the more aggressive of the two, and therefore better suited to deal with garage mechanics, most of whom were male. Susan laughed and told stories about the few times men had treated her like a typical clueless woman, and how she turned the tables on them, telling them why their initial diagnosis of the problem could not be correct, or suddenly speaking the language they were using.

Susan also coached a girls softball team, sponsored by the bank she worked at. There had been the inevitable parents meeting when word of her living arrangements leaked out, but she had patiently explained to the group that, just like most of them didn't look at every teenage boy and girl as a sexual object, lesbians didn't either.

"You should have seen the looks on their faces when I told them that, while I liked girls, I didn't get turned on by LITTLE girls. I thought they'd all just curl up and die right there. People always think that homosexuals have this overpowering desire to turn everybody else into homosexuals too. I asked them if they talked to their kids about being heterosexual. None of them would answer, of course. but I already knew the answer. Nobody talks to their kids about being one or the other. So I told them that I didn't talk to the kids about being homosexual either."

"But it turned out OK?" I asked.

"It turned out better than OK," she grinned. "I got four volunteer assistant coaches out of that meeting. I told them that, under the circumstances, to protect myself from any allegations, I'd have to have some of the parents helping coach the team if I was going to stay on as the head coach. We were winning that season. Parents will do anything to keep their kids on a winning team."

"I have to ask," I said cautiously. "Were the volunteers men or women?"

She laughed again. "What a good question! There were two of each! It was hilarious. The whole group got in a huddle and were bargaining about who would 'have to do it'. One of the women whispered that she wasn't going to do it if a man wasn't there, because people would think she was a lesbian too. In the end, though, they found out I'm not some beast, and we all became friends."

"So, are you invited to places ... as a couple?" I asked.

"Rarely," said Micky. "Only certain people are comfortable enough to do that. It makes the other guests nervous too, so we don't do that much."

"How about other groups?" I asked. "Are there ... clubs or something ... places that lesbians go?"

"Sure there are," said Susan. "But they don't appeal to us much. Some of those people are pretty militant. We just enjoy being together. We go to the movies, and belong to a bowling league. Nobody thinks a thing about it when we show up together. Besides, we have a few men friends. I like being around men. They're not so competitive with us as they are with other men. And the women who know about us don't see us as a threat to their men either. It's kind of weird in a way. Women who are afraid of us as divorcees, lose that fear because they think we don't like men at all. It works out OK."

"I have to say this," I said. "You guys just aren't what I expected from a couple that calls themselves 'lesbians'."

"Why, Bob, whatever do you mean?" asked Micky. She was smiling and she was teasing me and we both knew it. But I was game.

"Well, for one thing I expected you to hate men too. But you don't."

"True," said Susan. "I miss making love with a man."

"See what I mean!" I groaned. "Lesbians just don't miss having sex with a man."

"Bob, you poor, poor thing," said Susan. "You're just like all the others. You want to put us in a box ... define how we're supposed to feel. Merriam Webster defines "Lesbian" as a female homosexual. If you go to the definition of homosexuality, it says: "erotic activity with another of the same sex " and "the state of being a homosexual." If you then look up "homosexual", it says: "of, relating to, or characterized by a tendency to direct sexual desire toward another of the same sex." She had obviously memorized those passages from the dictionary. "It says 'tendency' in there, Bob, and 'erotic activity', not that we're required to hate men, or avoid men, or be disgusted with being involved sexually with a man."