I let him go further than I'd let any other guys go with me, although I stopped him when he tried reaching under my skirt. We kissed, and I let him fumble at my chest. He was getting himself pretty excited, but I found myself thinking about homework rather than what he was doing. Eventually I told him I was pretty tired and needed to go.
I didn't ask him to walk me home.
* * *
When I got back to my dorm, I knocked on Janice and Kelly's door, not sure if I'd find them home.
I must have looked terrible. Kelly opened the door, took one look at me, and said, "What's wrong?"
She pulled me in and closed the door.
Janice and Kelly were both in pajamas and had been playing cards together. There was an open bottle of wine -- they were both 21 and legal to drink. I was 19, however. Kelly offered me a hot chocolate and told me to sit down. She handed me a plate of peanut butter cookies and began to heat water for the hot chocolate.
"What's wrong?" Janice asked.
"I just wanted to talk to you two for a few minutes." I said.
"Okay," said Janice as she gathered the cards. She dealt the cards out, dealing me in.
"What are we playing?" I asked
Janice grinned at me and said, "Strip poker."
"Janice!" said Kelly. "Don't tease her." I watched Kelly give Janice The Look. Kelly was almost as good as Mom.
"Sorry, Shane," Janice said, looking contrite. "How about kings in the corner?"
"What were you playing before I arrived?" I asked meekly.
"Gin," said Janice.
"Strip gin?" I asked even more meekly.
Janice laughed. "No, just gin. Kelly was winning."
"Damned straight," Kelly said as she handed me my hot chocolate.
"I didn't mean to interrupt," I said.
"Don't be silly," said Kelly. "I'm declaring myself the winner, so now Janice owes me a back scratch before bed."
We started playing cards and making small talk. We talked about how we'd spent our winter breaks. Janice and Kelly both spent breaks with their parents. Janice also interviewed with several companies for jobs after graduation.
"I'm going to have to get a doctorate eventually," Janice said. "But I'm trying to get a job as a chemistry tech to get some experience under my belt first."
"I'm waiting to see where Janice gets a job," Kelly said. "Teaching jobs aren't exactly growing on trees, but as long as she's living and working in a major metropolitan area, we can live together and I'll be able to find some sort of position nearby."
Janice reached out and held Kelly's hand for a moment. They gave each other an "I love you" look. It was sweet. And a perfect opening for me.
"How did you two meet?" I asked.
"Freshman year roommates," said Kelly.
"We hated each other," said Janice.
"We didn't hate each other," said Kelly. "We hated each other's habits."
"Kelly snores," said Janice.
"I do not!" Kelly retorted. "But I do nag."
"And I'm a slob," said Janice.
"Clothes everywhere."
I looked around the room. It was spotless. I cocked an eyebrow at Janice.
"We were halfway through winter term," explained Janice. "It was Monday, and Kelly had cleaned the entire room over the weekend. She even did all my laundry, including folding them and putting them away."
"I got home from class," said Kelly, "and it looked like her dresser had exploded. Clothes everywhere. I was livid."
"I got home about a half hour later and arrived to the Silent Treatment. She was glaring at me but not saying a word. I didn't even notice right away but was nattering on about something or other."
"I knew if I said one word, I was going to start screaming," Kelly said. "I couldn't wait for the year to end and was aiming at getting a single for sophomore year. I'd talk my parents into letting me rent a small apartment if I had to."
"Eventually I realized she was glaring at me. I walked up to her and said 'What?'"
"I couldn't believe she didn't realize why I was angry. I started screeching at her."
"You didn't screech," Janice said. She turned back to me. "She started in about the clothes, about how she'd just cleaned the room and even washed my clothes for me, and how inconsiderate I was. She told me how distressing it is to her to be in a cluttered space, that she can't work or even think when the room was messy, and how it wasn't fair that she had to keep cleaning up my messes." Janice looked at Kelly for a moment then turned back to me. "And she was absolutely right. And I knew she was right. She kept going on and on, and she was so angry, and it was entirely my fault, but she was just so amazingly cute at the same time. So I stepped up to her, wrapped my arms around her neck, and kissed her."
"She caught me totally by surprise right in the middle of a really good tirade," said Kelly.
"What did you do?" I asked her.
"I was too shocked to do anything," Kelly admitted. "I just stood there and let her kiss me. Then she stopped, pulled away, and said, 'You're right. I'm sorry. I'll clean it up.'"
"Then what?" I asked.
"Then she kissed me back," Janice said. "And she helped me pick up my mess."
"Then we talked," Kelly said.
"And made out," Janice said, laughing.
"And made out."
"Were you both already gay?"
They both smiled. "Neither of us knew it," Kelly said. "Not about ourselves and certainly not about each other. But yeah. Everything made sense after that. But we've been together ever since."
"And I'm not a slob anymore," Janice said. "Unless I'm mad at Kelly."
"Yeah, cause pissing me off when we're both already mad at each other is such a good idea."
"So you guys fight?"
"Yeah," said Janice. "Not very often."
"Only when the other one is being stupid."
They both nodded.
"We made a rule," Kelly said. "If I get mad at Janice, but we eventually decide she didn't deserve it, then I have to be her love slave for a week."
I choked on the cookie I was nibbling. They waited for me to catch my breath before going on.
"But if we decide she was right," said Janice. "Then she GETS to be my love slave for a week."
I looked back and forth between them, trying to decide if they were pulling my leg. "What's the difference?"
Janice smiled. "How selfish I am."
Kelly looked at me. "Remember how it felt when we tied you up?"
I nodded and started to blush. They grinned at me.
"Imagine that for an entire week."
"Well, just when we have time between classes and studies and stuff," added Janice.
"Oh my god," I said. My blush deepened. I could feel my scalp turning red. "How can you stand it?"
They both just grinned.
"If we haven't had a fight for a while," Kelly said. "I pick one."
"She's a horrible actress," Janice said. "I can see the fight coming a mile away."
"What do you do?" I asked her.
"I decide how selfish I'm feeling. And then maybe drop some clothes around the room."
"What happens if you lose your temper," I asked Janice.
"It never happens," said Kelly. "Not unless I'm screaming at her first."
"I don't get mad," said Janice. She grinned. "I just get even."
I finished my hot chocolate. Kelly offered me another one, which I turned down, but accepted a glass of water instead.
"Have either of you ever, you know, with a boy?" I asked.
Both their expressions turned dark, and Kelly looked away. Janice looked at her kindly and shifted closer to her so they were touching shoulders. Kelly didn't look at either of us.
"I'm sorry if I said something wrong," I said, suddenly confused.
"You couldn't know," Kelly said.
"Neither of us were virgins when we got to college, and I had a boyfriend up until I dumped him for Kelly," Janice explained.
&nb
sp; Janice looked at Kelly. We all sat there for a moment, then Kelly turned and looked back at Janice. "Tell her." She looked away again.
Janice looked down into her lap for a moment.
"If it's none of my business..." I started to say. Janice waved at me to be quiet before looking up at me.
"Kelly was date raped her junior year in high school," Janice said softly.
I opened my mouth to say something, but Janice reached over and put two fingers against my lips and shook her head.
"They'd gone out a few times. He was a senior, a football player. A defensive slap butt or something. Whatever. A big guy."
"I was a cheerleader," Kelly said. "He asked me out. A senior asked out a junior. I was so surprised. He was a perfect gentleman for the first two dates." Then she looked away again.
"Apparently," Janice said dryly. "A junior is expected to put out on the third date when it's with a big hunk of a football player. Asshole."
"I let him kiss me and stuff," Kelly said distantly. "But it didn't mean anything. You know?" She looked at me, and I nodded. I knew. She nodded back. "When he wanted more, I told him No. It went downhill from there." She looked away, and when she looked back at me a tear was sliding down her cheek. I thought my heart was going to break for her. "He dropped me off back at home afterwards. Practically shoved me out of the car while barely stopping. Mom was watching TV. I stood in the doorway to the living room. She took one look at me, and said 'Oh no.' I didn't start bawling until she was hugging me." She wiped the tear away. "When I was done crying, she explained my choices. She said if we were going to report it, we had to do it immediately. And that it would be hard, and that most people would think it was my fault. If we didn't report it, he'd do it to someone else."
"I'm so proud of her," Janice said. "The bastard is still in prison. He was 18, she was a minor."
"He's not," said Kelly. "He got parole last year. I didn't tell you. I'm sorry, I should have told you." Janice just hugged her. When they released, Kelly turned back to me.
"My mom was wrong," Kelly said. "Absolutely everyone believed me. Not only was he an asshole, but he was stupid too. He told his buddies in the locker room it was true."
Janice smiled. "They beat the crap out of him."
"Then the entire team came to my house. They brought flowers. They ALL brought flowers. The coach gave his to my mom; the boys all gave their flowers to me. They filled the house with flowers. And they all adopted me as sort of a little sister."
We all sat there looking at each other for a while before I asked my next question.
"Is that what turned you gay?" I asked Kelly.
"Don't be stupid!" said Janice.
"Janice, hush," Kelly said. "She's not stupid." She looked at me. "Just ignorant. Which is why you're here, isn't it?"
"I'm sorry," I said, looking down.
"It's okay," said Kelly. "Ignorance can be cured."
"Stupid is forever," Janice added. The two of them looked at each other and giggled.
"I was probably always gay," said Kelly. "I just didn't realize it until Janice started kissing me." She smiled at Janice. "Now I only have eyes for her."
"Are you guys always like this, with the lovey dovey faces?"
They laughed at me. "Pretty much," admitted Janice. "We made a pact."
"We vowed to always act like we're freshly, madly in love-"
"-And in lust!" Janice inserted.
"With each other," Kelly said. "Frankly, I love the excitement of fresh love, and I never want that to end."
We paused from talking and played cards quietly for a while. I won a game and Janice won a game. I think they knew I wasn't done.
Finally I asked quietly, "How can you tell if someone else, you know, likes girls?"
Kelly paused, looking at me and considering her answer. "I guess for me, how I tell... I can tell when she starts kissing me." We all laughed. "Beyond that, I usually don't have a clue."
"Kelly, you haven't picked up on the super secret sign?" Janice asked. She had a glint in her eye, but I played along.
"What secret sign?" I asked.
"Well," said Janice conspiratorially. "If she likes girls, she wears blue eye shadow."
The conversation moved to tamer topics. After a couple more games, I thanked them for talking to me.
"Come over any time," Kelly said. "We always have cookies and cocoa."
"Hang on though," Janice said, getting up. "I'll walk you to your room."
Outside my door, she turned me to look at her.
"No one here knows about Kelly," she told me quietly.
I hugged her. "No one will find out from me."
She hugged me back. "You're okay," she said. "For a freshman."
* * *
I wasn't any closer to figuring out what I was going to do.
Chapter 7: Help in Strange Places
Early in January, I did something else that may seem strange. I went to church. That may not seem strange when said so simply especially for a girl who had gone to church every Sunday and an awful lot of Wednesdays from before the day she was born. But I hadn't gone since school started.
But I went to a church in town, bypassing the school chapel, mid day on the second Tuesday in January. I picked the closest church to campus, which happened to be Lutheran. I decided the denomination didn't matter: I was just as likely to find God on a street corner than in a church, anyway. But it seemed like the right thing to do.
No one was in the nave when I arrived. I sat on the second pew from the front. My thoughts were in turmoil. I spoke quietly, figuring it wouldn't matter how loudly I spoke, God would hear me or not regardless of my volume, and she would answer or not depending upon her mood.
"Are you listening?" I asked. "Is this why Shane tried to kill herself? Liking girls seems okay, a little confusing, but okay, but telling Dad." I thought about it. I came with more skills and maturity than Shane had, but I wasn't ready to tell him. I didn't think I ever would be.
"Am I supposed to fight this or go with it? Is this a choice I made somewhere? And what's with all these fantasies I keep having. I can't believe I'm supposed to go with those, they're so..." I couldn't even say the word dirty. Or kinky. Imagines of Janice wrapping tape around my legs sprang to my mind, but I pushed them away.
I heard the church door open, stay open for a bit as if someone were watching me, then close again. I didn't hear footsteps, so I otherwise ignored it.
"Help me out here," I said. "Please."
I sat there for quite a while, alternating between speaking quietly in hopes God would hear me and trying to decide for myself what to do. Eventually the church door opened again, closed, and there were footsteps coming down the aisle towards me. Someone sat down next to me and I looked to see who it was.
There was a man, about the age of my parents, dressed in plain clothes and wearing a kindly expression. "Hello," he said, holding out his hand. "I'm Father James."
I introduced myself and we shook hands.
"We don't often receive visitors from Knightly," he told me. "The students usually use the school chapel."
"I'm sorry," I said. "I can leave if I'm intruding."
"No, quite all right," he replied. "We're open to everyone." He paused for a moment then asked, "Did you care to talk to someone?"
"No," I said slowly. "I came hoping for answers, but I'm not sure I'm going to get any."
"Answers from God directly?" he asked. I nodded. "God rarely speaks to us directly."
"I suppose she doesn't," I said.
He cocked an eyebrow. "Most people use the male pronoun."
I thought about it before responding. I didn't want him to think I was insane. "I've started to think of her as female, I guess." I replied.
He leaned closer and lowered his voice conspiratorially. "You know, so have I, but I've gotten in the habit of using 'he' to better fit with expectations, especially amongst our more conservative members." He smiled at me and winked. "What sort of qu
estions were you hoping she would answer?"
"Well, it's sort of personal, but I was hoping she'd help me figure out what sort of person I'm supposed to be."
"Ah," he said. "Difficult questions, and not of a sort I can answer in her stead. But maybe we can come to some conclusions ourselves."
"How?"
"Well, imagine for a moment that you are God, and I am you."
I grinned.
"What do you suppose she would tell me?"
I thought about it. Then I began to smile, and Father James smiled with me. "I know exactly what she'd say," I said. "She'd tell me to trust my instincts, that I already was quite good at knowing the right thing to do." I thought about it some more. "But even before that, the first thing she'd tell me is to be myself."'
Father James smiled with me.
"Father," I asked him. "What do you suppose it means if being myself and doing the right thing seem to be opposites?"
"You don't come with easy questions, do you?" He looked away for a moment, considering his response, then looked back at me intently. "I suppose you need to decide why you think being yourself is wrong. Consider the source of your assumptions and beliefs. Understanding where your views originate can help you judge their validity."
"What if the main reason I think something is wrong is because someone else tells me it is, or perhaps due to religious doctrine?"
"Whose religious doctrine?" he asked.
"The church?" I said.
"Which church? This church?"
I shrugged. "The Catholic church for sure."
"So, you're suggesting that perhaps on some of these issues, even the religious scholars can't all agree?"
He let me think about it for a moment.
"There are some near absolutes," he said. "The Wiccans have a rede they live by that goes: Whatever you do, harm not. But even that's not an absolute. Not everyone agrees, but most people agree you are justified to cause harm for self-defense or in defense of another, for instance. Sometimes we are presented with the choice of causing one harm in order to prevent a larger harm."
"But by and large, no harm, no foul?"
"When one has made sure there's no harm. Sometimes harm is insidious. You must make the best decisions you can while understanding that sometimes you'll still make mistakes."
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