Chapter 1

There's a little place called Ms. Peralta's about half a mile off campus and I'd never been there. I'd never even noticed it really, not until Karen invited me to have dinner with her. After a friendly Chinese buffet and some window shopping past shops closed, open, and in between, that's when she suggested we stop for a drink before returning to our college dorm.

Karen is my next door neighbor, you might say, since she's in the room next to mine. We'd become friends mostly because it's easier borrowing little things like shampoo, a couple aspirin, or that perfect shade of red fingernail polish from a friend than it is from a stranger, and we were both the borrowing type.

Otherwise, I'd have to say we're pretty much opposites, really. I'm almost tall and very black, she's almost short and about as white as a girl can be. Karen has short blonde hair and bright blue eyes behind a pair of round glasses mounted on her pert little nose. I have long black hair and it's kinky all by itself, but I like to straighten it; high cheeks and a heart shaped face. I'm naturally pretty working hard on beautiful, while Karen is accidentally cute and she doesn't play it up at all.

I got lucky with my body, being blessed with large breasts, firm and topped with thick black nipples, a flat tummy and narrow waist to go with my round hips. My ass is small for a black girl maybe, some people think so, but it's shaped wonderfully and goes just fine with the rest of my toned and vaguely athletic appearance.

Karen has a tomboy figure, to put it nicely. She's rather thin, with small breasts and not much for hips at all; a small butt, round though and sweet, but the sort of butt you might expect to find on a fifteen-year-old boy, rather than a nineteen-year-old college freshman. I swear, she can pass for ninth grade boy when she wants to, and there's no doubt that she likes that look a lot more than you might expect.

My friend certainly dresses the part. Not always, but usually, and not only when she's hanging out around the dorm. Like Karen will wear an old mechanic's shirt, blue and clean enough, but stained with twenty-year-old grease. She bought it at a garage sale and it still has the original owner's name embroidered on it, 'Dick' which always seems pretty funny.

I like to dress like a girl. I like being a girl. I like the attention, the feelings, and the clothes. Not that I think about it a whole lot. Being a girl, I sorta grew up with it, but I'm saying I never had the urge to wear a mechanic's shirt, you know? My tastes run much more to mini-skirts and tight sweaters. I think I have a sweater fetish, actually. And summer dresses, too. I love it when the weather isn't cold or hot, but just warm enough that I can wear anything in my closet. I don't think I've ever seen Karen in a mini-skirt or a summer dress. Leather hipsters and a tight t-shirt are about as feminine as she gets.

We do like each other though, as I say, and we'd had a nice dinner after which I found myself following her into Ms. Peralta's, wondering at such a strange name for a bar and thinking we were going to get tossed on our butts. The drinking age is twenty-one, of course, and we were hardly that. I'd recently turned nineteen and Karen was all of three months older. She insisted we'd be okay though, so I'd shrugged and smiled.

The place was smallish and looked like a lot of bars, I imagine. I confess I didn't have much experience with such places. It was long and narrow, with a bar on the right, booths to the left, a juke box and a pool table. It wasn't very big, like I say, but surprisingly crowded and the music was going and some people were even dancing. Others played pool and a lot of people were just hanging out, drinking and snacking on popcorn. It seemed friendly enough, even cozy, and we found ourselves sitting at a small round table with a waitress right there to take our order. She didn't even blink when Karen asked for a beer; in fact the girl smiled and greeted Karen by name. She had a nice smile for me too and just nodded when I asked for a glass of wine.

"Huh." I smiled and narrowed my eyes a little after the waitress walked off.

"What?" Karen smiled back at me and we were sitting next to each other, more than opposite, facing the small dance floor, such as it was.

"There's no guys in here," I said, and that struck me as odd. With the university so close, anyplace where more than three girls got together for drinks there were generally six guys right there to buy them.

"Yeah," she agreed, laughing lightly. "That's why I like it."

"Oh." I nodded and I have to admit I'm not exactly the quickest draw in the west, but on this particular evening I was downright naïve.

"Are you okay with it?" she asked me, pushing her glasses up her nose. Karen did that when she felt nervous, I'd noticed.

"Okay with..." I tilted my head curiously and for some reason she seemed to think that was really funny.

"I like you a lot, Kylie," she said and her fingers were touching my hand, stroking the back of it lightly while she smiled into my eyes. And then it finally hit me.

We were in a gay bar, a lesbian bar, and Karen was hitting on me hard. She'd taken my response for something of a green light, or at least a long yellow, and she was going through it. It should have been obvious to me long before that evening, but I'd never thought about it. I didn't know any lesbians, or none that had come out with me anyway, and I'd never had any interest at all in other girls. I wasn't disgusted by the idea or anything, I'd just never thought about it.

Now I was facing a friend of mine, a girl I liked in a strictly platonic sense, and she was making a move on me. My first thought was to jerk my hand away and after that ... I wasn't sure. Thankfully, I remained fairly calm. I didn't want to hurt Karen's feelings at all, or reject her in a way that would ruin our friendship, but I had to let her know I wasn't a lesbian and I wasn't interested in exploring bisexuality or anything like that. Girls held zero interest for me sexually; it was as simple as that.

"Karen, I'm flattered, but..." I smiled weakly and let my hand remain under hers. "I've never thought about it."

"I understand," she said, nodding and still smiling, her blue eyes bright and friendly.

"I have a boyfriend, you know?" I giggled nervously.

"Yeah, that's okay." Karen looked up as our waitress came back, but she didn't move her hand.

"Here we are. Bud Light and a California Blush..." The waitress didn't seem to notice Karen's fingers stroking my skin and I licked my lips, avoiding the woman's eyes.

"Thanks Lucy," she said, paying the girl out of her wallet, then looked at me. "Do you want to dance?"

"Dance?" I cleared my throat, looking at the four couples on the dance floor. A slow song had started and they were all women, all holding each other close. I caught one couple, two blonde girls, kissing lightly and smiling into each other's eyes.

"I'm sorry," Karen offered me a sigh. "I'm going too fast, huh? I do that."

"What?" I shook my head and moved my hand, using my drink as an excuse. I picked it up and took a healthy swallow. "No, it's just me," I told her with an apologetic smile. "I just don't think I'm really, you know..."

"Gay?" She smiled.

"Yeah." I made a face and rolled my eyes, like silly me. "I'm sorry."

"Nah, it's okay." Karen shrugged. "Thanks for not getting mad."

I laughed then. "I wouldn't do that. You're my friend, right? Still friends?"

"Yeah. Of course," she agreed. "Do you want to leave?"

"No, I'm alright," I told her. "I mean, we can have a drink. I'm not like phobic or anything."

Karen grinned at that and drank her beer from the bottle, ignoring the empty glass Lucy had left for her. I wasn't sure exactly what Karen was feeling, but I was relieved that she wasn't pushing me or getting angry herself.

"So, um, do you have a girlfriend, or ... anything?" I asked, feeling kind of strange asking that, but I was curious and I had no idea what proper etiquette was for talking with a lesbian. Why would it be any different than talking to anyone else though?

"Not right now." She shook her head. "I knew a girl in high school. I mean, we were both in high school, but it was just fooling around."

"Oh." I nodded. "That's cool."

"Yeah. I knew I was gay. I mean, I always have been, but I think she was more ... She just wanted to be kissed, I suppose," Karen sighed with a shrug.

"Everyone wants that," I said with a little roll of my eyes.

"No doubt," Karen agreed. "It's hard though. Most of the girls here," she looked around, "they're just looking for fun. One night stands, you know?"

"And you're looking for something more permanent?" I smiled, but I wasn't teasing her.

"Yeah, something steady." She nodded. "A girl I can love, that's all."

"Well, there's one out there someplace, right?" I said, not having any idea what to say. I frowned, as that must have sounded pretty patronizing, but she let go.

"God, I hope so!" Karen laughed lightly. "You're lucky you have a boyfriend, that must be nice."

"Rodney?" I shrugged. "It's okay."

"Just okay?" She looked doubtful. "You're getting laid, right?"

"Uhhh..." I giggled with feigned shock and stuck out my tongue.

"I haven't had sex in six months." Karen smiled and shook her head. "I've had offers, but..."

"It's pointless without the emotion, isn't it?" I said, drinking more wine.

"Yeah." She looked into my eyes. "Exactly. I want more than just the kissing."

"Me too," I agreed, not really thinking about it. Actually, sex was all I really wanted out of my relationship with Rodney. I wasn't ever going to love the guy.

"What? That guy doesn't do it for you?"

"Uh..." I debated with myself for a second and decided if I was sitting in a gay bar getting all of Karen's intimate secrets, I had to be at least as honest with her.

"Come on," she insisted, as if reading my mind. "You can tell me."

"I'm not really..." I frowned, trying to find words for something I'd never expressed aloud in my life. "I like white guys," I finally said with a nervous laugh. "I mean, I love white guys and I want a white guy to love me."

"So?" Karen giggled. "It's the 21st century, Kylie. I think that's legal now."

"I know." I felt my skin burning with embarrassment. "It just, uh ... It isn't legal at my house, you know?"

"Ohhh..." She sat back in her chair, nodding like it all made sense. "You're still in the closet, huh?"

"In the closet?" I laughed at her, taking another sip of wine while I thought about it.

"Hi. Can I buy you another one of those?" We were interrupted by a woman's voice and I looked up with some surprise. "I'm Charlene, but everyone calls me Charlie."

She looked like a Charlie with short brown hair and a flannel shirt tucked into her jeans. I wouldn't say the woman was a stereotypical dyke, mostly because I wouldn't have known one way or the other, but it seemed pretty obvious the way she undressed me with her eyes. That's a big clue, right? She wasn't unattractive, but hardly feminine as Charlie gave me all of her attention. It wasn't much different than being hit on by a frat boy at a university mixer.

"No. She's fine," Karen said before I could think of a reply. My friend shifted her body close to mine, putting a possessive arm around me. She held me much like a real boyfriend would and pulled me against her.

"Right." The woman licked her lips and gave Karen a look. "Maybe some other time," she said with a smile for me. "See ya later."

Charlie went back to the bar where she joined several other women, all of them laughing and glancing at us, probably giving Charlie a hard time for going down in flames. They were acting like a lot of boys I knew and I wondered why that was so surprising. I guess I'd always assumed all girls were like me and now I was learning something different about the world.

"Sorry," Karen sighed, letting me go. "Some of them are like that, especially when they see a pretty femme. I didn't mean to..."

"It's okay. Thanks for saving me," I said, giggling. "So, um ... is that what I am? A pretty femme?"

"Oh yeah!" She grinned, looking me up and down briefly and making a wistful sound. "You're femme through and through, Kylie. Sorry. It's dumb word."

"It's funny." I smiled and finished my wine. "So what are you then, if girls like me are femmes?"

"Me?" Karen finished her beer and shrugged. "I'm just another dyke daddy looking for a little girl to spoil. You ready to go?"

"Yeah." I nodded. "We'd better get out of here before you end up getting in a fight or something."

"Over a straight girl?" She grinned at me. "That would be ironic, wouldn't it?"

We were walking back to campus and it was a nice night for it. Not too cold and the sky was clear, although we could only see about a dozen stars, being in downtown Minneapolis. At least in the suburbs you can get a sense of the universe, but downtown? It was just too bright, like there wasn't anything else out there, only the city.

"So you want to date a white guy, but you're afraid of hurting your parents?" Karen asked, and we were back to our original subject.

"Yeah," I agreed. "They're not really prejudiced, but well, they are when it comes to me and my love life."

"I know the feeling," she said. "My parents have no idea I'm gay. I tried telling my mom once. She lives in California now."

"Divorced?" I asked, because I knew Karen was from Hastings, about an hour east of the Twin Cities.

"Yeah, a long time now." She shrugged. "Anyway, I was out there for summer vacation when I was like sixteen and she tried to hook me up with one of her stepson's friends or something."

"Your mom was hooking you up?" I laughed.

"Well, she was worried that I was bored and supposedly he was a nice boy," Karen explained. "Maybe he really was, but definitely not my type, you know?"

"My parents introduced me to Rodney," I said. "They were worried because I didn't have a boyfriend and I was graduating high school."

"Worried you're a lesbian?" Karen giggled and she was only half teasing, I thought.

"Yeah, maybe." I smiled at her. "It was suspicious. I mean, I know I'm not ugly, so what was wrong with me, right? I couldn't tell them I was seeing white guys."

"Seriously seeing them?" Karen grinned at me and I laughed.

"No, not like that." I shook my head. "Just, you know, hanging out. Wishing. Wanting. It sucked."

"I know," she said. "I went on a few dates with guys, just to show my dad I wasn't queer."

"You think he'd freak out if he knew?" I asked, and Karen nodded.

"Oh yeah," she replied slowly. "I'm his only daughter and all he wants to do is walk me down the aisle someday."

"My dad wants me to marry Rodney and give him like ten black grandchildren." I shook my head. "I can't even imagine it."

"Marriage or children?"

"I want a white baby," I said seriously, and then we both laughed because it sounded dumb. "But I can't tell them that," I sighed. "No way."

"We have a lot in common, don't we?" Karen smiled and I had to agree with that.

"Yeah, we do."

"Home sweet home," she said a little bit later, as we walked down the hall towards our rooms.

"No place like it." My door came first and Karen waited while I opened my purse, digging out my key.

I looked at her and had that feeling, you know? Like after a first date almost, when the boy walks you to the door and it's been a lot of fun, very nice and not romantic and not sexual, but just a good time with someone. There's that moment when you feel like a kiss on the cheek would be okay. Not on the lips, but a kiss on the cheek and a happy goodnight from a boy that you really wouldn't mind seeing again sometime.

That's exactly how it felt and the moment confused me, it honestly did, because Karen wasn't a boy and it hadn't been a date. It had been dinner and a drink with a friend, nothing more. Probably, I thought, it was our talk. The intimacy we'd shared, the secrets; that was undeniable and lent a sense of something meaningful, beyond friendship. It was a new sensation and not entirely unwelcome. It had felt good having someone I could relate to finally. Although our problems were very different, they were very similar in a lot of ways too. I think we needed each other as friends, and maybe we'd just figured that out.

"I had a good time." I smiled at her as I opened my door. "Thanks, Karen."

"Me too, Kylie." She nodded, licking her lips briefly and smiling up at me.

I'm five foot eight and she was a good four or five inches shorter than me, plus I wore heels. Karen pushed her glasses up her nose and honestly, I think that's why I did it. Just because she reminded me so much of a teenage boy on his first date, silly as that sounds. Karen looked nervous and she shouldn't have been, and I'll admit that I'd always wanted to kiss a white boy, ever since I can remember, so that was playing in my head too. Karen gave me a serious boy vibe right then, you know?

I leaned down and kissed her cheek lightly, barely a touch of my moist black lips to her soft pale skin, but it was there and I felt a little flutter of nervous energy. It was fun and I giggled after I did it.

"Goodnight, Karen," I said, slipping into my room and leaving her standing there, smiling back at me.

"Night, Kylie," she said, probably thinking I was teasing her, or maybe she'd take it as a signal that I wanted her to try again, I wasn't sure. We'd be okay anyway. We were practically best friends now and we both knew it.

I had voice mail on my phone, which I'd intentionally left behind when I'd gone out with Karen. I had a real love-hate relationship with my celphone, enjoying the freedom it gave me, but loathing the way it could seem so invasive to my privacy. Telephone calls are demanding, as if they're somehow more important than whatever else you might be doing, or whoever you might be with. Technology, in my opinion, isn't necessarily good for us emotionally or socially, and I was fighting my addictions.

"Kylie? It's me, where you at, girl? I thought we were going out tonight. Call me."

I had three voice mails like that, each getting progressively less patient as Rodney tried to figure out why I was standing him up. I felt a little bad about it, but not very much. He'd asked and I'd said maybe, a weak maybe at that, and anything less than a definitive yes from a woman was a no. Why didn't men understand that? Rodney had certainly known me long enough to understand, but he could be pretty single-minded as well, especially if he hadn't seen me in over a week. His balls were probably ready to explode and I tossed my phone onto the bed as I got ready for a shower.

I didn't love him and I never would. My parents thought he was the best thing since sliced bread though. My soul mate, if you believed them. My dad had even given the man a job out of college, as if that proved Rodney's worth as husband material. He was good enough for my parents, so why not for me? That was the compelling argument and I was somewhat less than convinced by it.

Unfortunately, explaining why I found Rodney unsuitable for my affections was impossible. I couldn't come out and tell my friends and family that I didn't love a man simply because he was the wrong color. That was ridiculous. The same way it was ridiculous for my parents to reject a white man because he wasn't black? I mean, think about that. It was okay for my parents to say I had to have a husband who was black, but it wasn't okay for me to say I had to have a husband who was white, and vice versa. We were racists, my parents and I, merely disagreeing on the validity of our prejudice.

I hate it when I have those lucid moments and I frowned, knowing I was a hypocrite.

I found myself spending more time with Karen than I did with my other, older friends, although I hardly neglected anyone. It's just the way the world works; people grow and change and we meet other people and it's normal. I was at the point in my life where Karen was precisely the sort of friend I needed and I think she found that in me as well.

It was important for us that we had someone to share our secrets with, because neither of us was out of the closet, even in the illusionary shelter of the university. Her being a lesbian was perhaps a little more evident than my predilection for white men, but we both seemed altogether obvious to each other now. I could see how she dressed and talked, how many of her mannerisms had a certain maleness to them. There was nothing specific or obvious I could point to, but it seemed noticeable to me.

Likewise Karen became aware of the things I did differently around a handsome white man, although I protested her observations constantly. She insisted that I behaved differently though, that my body language changed or my speech, for example, how I talked less 'black' if a white guy was nearby. I didn't want to believe her, but it was probably true, much the way Karen changed around a woman she was attracted to.

I knew she was still attracted to me, of course, and that was something always in the back of my mind. I tried very hard not to act differently around her, but it wasn't always easy. I was rather more self-conscious about changing clothes in front of Karen, for one thing, and I'd spend more time worrying over my appearance if we were going to hang out. I didn't want to look like I was dressing up for her, you know? I'd always dressed nice and I liked it. I like being attractive and even sexy to a modest degree, but I was so worried that she'd take my appearance as a suggestion that I found myself dressing down more often than up, and Karen had noticed.

Thank goodness that hadn't lasted long before I came to my senses. I had a gay friend now, so what? She wasn't stalking me. She wasn't a sex fiend or anything like that. Karen was my friend and she liked me, and our friendship was more important to her than whatever sexual desires she might have had. I knew all that without her having to tell me and I chided myself for being so stupid. I had to trust her. Karen was my friend and you can't be friends without trust, and the closer you are, the more trust you need, right?

So there it was.

Such things are typical of me, by the way. Being confused, being somewhat naïve and dumb about certain things until they become so obvious that I have no choice but to understand. I could put on a good act, especially with men who are easily awed by a pretty face and beautiful body. I could put on a good show of being confident and smart and very secure in myself. Rodney was all too aware of it, I'll tell you that much. Black men in particular held no great mystery for me and I'll admit I treated them rather poorly as a whole. Not mean though, not badly, just ... poorly. White men were on the receiving end of my charming and graceful countenance and yeah, sometimes I did act silly around a handsome white man who showed an interest in me.

That as much as anything else probably explains how and why I ended up touring Hennepin Avenue with Karen shortly after our dinner on a Thursday night.

"You're really going to get pierced?" I asked her for the tenth time.

"Yeah." Karen smiled patiently. "What do you think we're doing here?"

It wasn't exactly the seedy part of town, but what passed for a red light district in Minneapolis these days. Once, a long time before I'd ever gotten there, it had been really bad. All porn theaters, arcades, and prostitutes. Now it was cleaned up a lot, but there were still the odd adult bookstores, some reasonably high class strip clubs, and the upscale tattoo parlors. There were still prostitutes as well, and I looked at a couple white women dressed sexy-nice as they strutted their stuff. I guess cleaned up just meant more expensive and I wondered how much a working girl charged for an hour of her time.

I had the slight fear that someone might mistake me for a whore, actually, because I wasn't dressed all that much differently. I wore a black miniskirt and two inch black leather pumps. A white tube top showing off my 34C tits and my little inny belly button, but at least I had a decent silk jacket on over that. Still, I felt distinctly uncomfortable being eyed by men as we passed them. I'd always been looked at and I even enjoyed it usually, but this time I imagined that they were looking at me and calculating how much I might be worth. I didn't care for it a whole lot, although later I would probably find it kind of funny. My brain is like that.

"Here we go ... this one," Karen said pulling open the door of a certain Celestial Bodyworks and I had it in mind to ask Karen what made this tattoo parlor different from the four or five others we'd passed without a glance.

"Hey, look what the cat dragged in!" a woman said as soon as she saw Karen and I had my answer.

"Hey Celeste." Karen smiled at the woman, who was older, in her forties maybe and rather masculine, I thought. She wore a men's white muscle-T and faded jeans, but it could have been all the tattoos as well.

She was a white woman, with long brown hair pulled back in a loose ponytail and Celeste wasn't pretty exactly, but handsome is a good word, I suppose, because she did have the sort of presence you'd expect from a man, much more than from a woman. There was no bra under her t-shirt and her grapefruit sized tits were pretty bouncy, but unlike me, she didn't seem to care one way or the other. My tits were pretty obvious too, as I took off my jacket, but that had been a deliberate choice and I was stuck with it.

There were a few people looking around, three guys and a couple, a guy and his girlfriend, just browsing. I heard the buzz of a tattoo gun being used from one of the little rooms towards the back, and I guessed someone was getting a little artwork. The walls were covered with photos and drawings and there were display cabinets with all kinds of stuff in them, recognizable and otherwise. A lot of jewelry for piercings I saw, as well as a couple shelves devoted to drug paraphernalia, bongs and pipes, and cute little roach clips. I smiled at that junk and had no desire to ever try any of that stuff. I'd never even smoked a joint in high school.

"Who's your friend?" Celeste asked, looking me up and down, but politely. I only felt mostly naked beneath her hazel eyes.

"Celeste, this is Kylie." Karen smiled at me and gave me an apologetic lift of her eyebrows. "Kylie, Celeste. She's an old friend of mine."

"Welcome to my parlor, Kylie," Celeste laughed at her little joke. "Don't listen to Karen. She's too young to have any old friends."

"It's nice to meet you," I smiled back and nodded and looked around. "I've never been in a tattoo parlor before."

"Ohhh ... A virgin!" Celeste clapped her hands happily and some of the other customers looked at us.

"Be nice," Karen giggled.

"I'm always nice," Celeste pursed her lips at Karen. "So how's school? Staying out of trouble? Ah..." she smiled at me, " ... silly question. I can see you're doing just fine these days."

"Celeste!" Karen rolled her eyes and looked at me. "She's got a one track mind."

"What?" Celeste grinned. "It's nice to see you out and about finally."

"Yeah, right," Karen sighed. "I'm not out and we're not about, okay?"

"Oh..." Celeste nodded and her eyes widened slightly as she looked at me again, but differently this time. "I'm sorry Kylie, I thought..." She cleared her throat. "Now that I feel like a total ass, I'll just go see if anyone else needs to be embarrassed."

"It's okay," I gave her a smile and a shrug as Celeste left us to check with the people browsing her shop. I could hear her asking the couple if they needed any help with anything, and Karen apologized, even though she didn't have to.

"Sorry. Celeste knows all about me," Karen shrugged. "So she figured we're together."

"Yeah, that's alright," I smiled. "It didn't bother me."

"Yeah, but still..." My friend was a little embarrassed by it and she shouldn't have been.

Karen was getting the hood of her clit pierced, placing the ring so that the ball closure fell against her clitoris. It was a little strange, I admit, shopping for jewelry that my friend was going to wear on her vagina and I'd never been into piercings much anyway. I'd gotten my ears done when I was twelve and that had been enough for me. Tattoos interested me though and I spent some time looking at the walls and through some photo albums while Karen looked through snapshots of vaginal piercings. I teased her about looking at dirty pictures and Karen just stuck her tongue out at me.

"You should try something, Kylie," Karen said a few minutes later. "Live it up a little."

"Live it up?" I laughed. "Like what?"

"I don't know." She looked at my breasts, at my protruding nipples which were plain through the top I was wearing. That shop was warm and Karen and I had both taken off our jackets.

"Hmmm?" I followed her gaze and then gasped with a giggle. "No way!"