Dormitory Dearest: A Sweet Lesbian Romance

by Nicolette Dane

  “Sure,” I said, following her lead and standing up. Before I knew it, Hosannah had threaded her arm through mine and began to pull me along in the evening, causing me a quick stumble and prompting a laugh out of her.

  “Pick up your heels,” said Hosannah. “Let’s go home.”

  *

  What Hosannah told me was a strange truth to deal with. Did I really have a problem with empathy? The more I thought about it, the easier it was to admit. And it was apparent in my concerns over Whitney and the death of her Grandma. My brain was more occupied with thoughts of what I was going to do about a potentially confounding and awkward situation than it was with feelings for my friend’s sorrow. What a bummer.

  I think that, over my short life, it’s been easiest for me to suppress my feelings in favor of logical thought. Logical thought is hard to argue against, whereas feelings just seem to get in the way, they’re all mushy and nebulous, and they leave you open to getting hurt. It was succumbing to my feelings that caused me to admit being uncertain about my sexuality to Henry, in a perfect world, he wouldn’t have been the first one I told. I hardly know the guy. Why did I tell him? Why was my guard let down in that moment? I wasn’t clear on it yet.

  But I trusted him, in a weird way, to pretend like the conversation never happened. To give me space to figure this all out for myself. I guess that’s why I told him. Some sort of strange internal intuition of his character that allowed me to give it all a trial run. My thoughts are always so scattered, it’s hard to pin down why I’m thinking about any given thing in any given moment and how it relates to everything else. And I think that way of thought ends up dulling my ability to empathize and probably gives me a bit of a cold demeanor on the outside.

  All of this drew me closer to Hosannah. The fact that she could see these things about me that I had difficulty seeing was immensely alluring. She could even completely brush off my honesty about her comedy routine like I wasn’t an offensively cold jerk to the girl who, I can admit to you, I was certainly developing some feelings for — even though, of course, my feelings always seemed hard to completely define. I knew there was something about Hosannah that clicked with me, something about her that I truly needed. Like she could show me parts of myself that I was unfamiliar with.

  Whitney had gone back home for her Grandma’s funeral and to help take care of what her Grandma left behind and although I enjoyed the quietude of an empty dorm room, I definitely missed her bright face popping through the door at varying times of day. Before I came to college, I was scared out of my mind about sharing a room with a stranger. But Whitney had made me instantly feel comfortable, her nature infinitely accepting and open. That changed my thoughts pretty quickly. There are so many unknowns about college, about transitioning to a new and unexplored part of life, but once you’re deep into them, they really aren’t so bad.

  And despite my introverted nature, I felt a bit lonely without my roommate around. I knew that I could always step out into the hall, make my way through the dorm, and slip into the lobby to catch up with other ALOHA students, make conversation, try to build new friendships. But I wasn’t a fan of small talk and I was never quite sure how to communicate my thoughts appropriately. I was always second guessing myself, especially in social situations, and the thought of going out into the lobby without Whitney as a helpful barrier was just a little too daunting.

  There I was, a Friday night, up at college and supposed to me having the time of my life. Instead I sat in my desk chair, fussing with my dark red hair that was in need of a new dye job, staring into my laptop at a bunch of disjointed writings of my often unconnected thoughts, much like what you’ve read above, and wondering what I could do to get out of this funk.

  I picked up my phone and navigated to the ongoing conversation that Hosannah and I had been having. It was mostly just facts from my end of the dialog. But her positive attitude came out even in her text messages. She was excited, she used emoticons, she often punctuated her sentences with one too many exclamation marks. It all made me achy for her. It made me want to see her, to feel that attitude, perhaps even to see if it would rub off on me and get me out of this weird bubble I had blown around myself. And Hosannah had this tempting aroma about her that I couldn’t quite put my finger on. Like a very subtle coffee smell.

  After looking down into my phone for a couple of moments, trying to come up with the most appropriate thing to write, I simply typed “Hi” and hit send. I really wasn’t sure where I was going with it, but I was eager to reach out to her and just get some sort of response, some sort of connection.

  “Yo!” Hosannah wrote back, near immediately. “What are you up to?”

  What was I up to? I looked around my dorm room, comforted by the low the light and silence but simultaneously wishing I had someone to share it with. I looked to my laptop and skimmed a few lines from my stream-of-consciousness journal entry. I paused for a moment in thought and stared blankly at the wall behind my computer. I really wasn’t up to anything.

  “Lonely,” I typed. “Surprised that I’m missing Whitney so much.”

  “It’s understandable,” Hosannah wrote back. “It’s okay to have feelings!!!”

  “Do you want to hang out?” I typed, hitting send although I couldn’t help but feel a pang of fear. I knew Hosannah liked me, but there was always that vague cloud of anxiety and uncertainty circling around me, like I was never totally sure whether something was true or not.

  “Sure!” Hosannah responded. “What did you have in mind?”

  I looked over to the couch underneath my loft and then to the TV across the room from it. Although I was restless for some company, I felt a little trepidatious about leaving my room.

  “Movie in my room?” I wrote.

  “Give me 15,” was Hosannah’s response, instantly sending an ardent hopefulness through my bones. She made me feel accepted, warts and all, with her openness, her earnestness, her ease at hanging out. Hosannah was sort of like the big sister I never had mixed with, I don’t know, the hot older girl I got all stupid about.

  I quickly stood up from my chair and looked around my room. I had a little straightening up to do before Hosannah’s arrival.

  *

  Taking a deep breath, I pulled my dorm room door open to reveal Hosannah’s smiling face. She was dressed very lounge-cute, wearing purple scrubs as pants, slippers on her feet, an athletic grey pullover hoodie with our school’s name across the front. Her dark brown hair was curled up in a bun, and she wore thick black plastic glasses over her eyes. I’d never seen her in glasses before.

  “You wear glasses?” was the first thing out of my mouth as I saw her.

  “So?” she said, pushing past me and coming into my room. I slowly shut the door behind her.

  “I’ve just never seen you in them is all,” I said, following her deeper into the room, watching her intently as she plopped down on the couch.

  “I normally wear contacts,” said Hosannah matter-of-factly, slinging an arm over the back of the couch. “But it’s Friday and I’m in chill mode.”

  “I see that,” I said.

  “You think I’m a geek or something in my glasses?” she said in her mock-angry voice. I knew she was just poking at me, not really offended by anything. She was trying to get me riled up.

  “Of course not,” I said, sitting down next to her on couch. I actually found her really attractive in her dressed-down look.

  “Well, I am a geek!” she exclaimed with a grin. “So eat it!”

  “I think I’m the geekier of the two of us,” I said in a self-deprecating manner. I looked off from her.

  “Is this a competition to you?” said Hosannah, lowering her hand and giving my thigh a sudden firm squeeze.

  “Ah!” I cried out, smacking her on the back of the hand. She just laughed at me.

  “All right,” said Hosannah, pulling her legs up onto the couch and sitting crosslegged. “What are we going to watch?”

  “Hmm,” I s
aid, looking across the room at the TV. I had already turned it on and navigated to the Netflix app. “I guess I hadn’t thought that far ahead.”

  “You’re funny,” said Hosannah, shaking her head, a smile smeared on her lips. I looked into her face and was drawn in to its softness, its gentleness. Her skin was pallid and smooth, creamy, dotted with just a handful of freckles under eyes. I could see them through the large lenses of her glasses. Hosannah had a small mouth with defined lips, slender features, fair and lovely and bright. I felt so infatuated with her in that moment that I just wanted to burst. It was like my heart was a ticking time bomb, teetering on the edge of explosion.

  “Hey Hosannah,” I said, feeling the words creep out of my mouth but unsure where I was going with them.

  “Yes Natasha?” she said with a hint of teasing sarcasm. “What can I do for you?”

  “You like girls, right?” I said, my voice a little broken, my nerves a little wavy.

  “Tasha,” said Hosannah, fake annoyed, looking down over her glasses at me. “You are just too cute.”

  “What?” I said innocently.

  “What do you think all of this is?” she asked, eyes wide, looking right at me. “Why do you think I’m here right now?”

  “I don’t know,” I said quietly.

  “I like you, Natasha,” said Hosannah, straight, seriously. “I’m totally cool and patient to come along with you on this journey, and I know what you’re going through — well, maybe — but babe, look, you gotta let these feelings out and just stop worrying about everything else for a minute.”

  “What do you like about me?” I asked in a soft tone.

  “I think you are just so cute,” said Hosannah, still keeping her eyes locked with me. “You’re smart and complex, intuitive, and you definitely have a lot going on up here.” She pointed to my head. “You just need to sync up a little here,” she said, pointing now to my heart.

  “I’m trying,” I peeped.

  “Do you like me?” Hosannah asked, crossing her arms.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “What do you like about me?” she said, almost smirking.

  “I think you’re really pretty,” I said. “I’m just drawn to you. I like your pale skin, because it’s sort of like mine, although you have fewer freckles. I like how outgoing you are, and open, and friendly.”

  Hosannah nodded along with my list, still smiling, as though she were basking in my compliments.

  “You smell kind of like coffee,” I continued.

  “I smell like coffee?” she responded, giggling. “C’mon.”

  “I don’t know!” I said. “You just kinda do.”

  “God,” Hosannah mused, hand on her forehead, shaking her head. “Why are you so cute, Natasha? Too funny.”

  “I’m not sure,” I said, shrugging.

  “Okay,” she said, like she was preparing for some task. “Get up here.” She motioned to my legs, indicating I should sit crosslegged like her on the couch. I followed her instructions and the two of us positioned ourselves to face each other.

  “All right,” I said, breathing deeply, feeling my nerves buzz. I was preparing myself for anything, which was a difficult task for me.

  “Look at me,” said Hosannah tenderly. Our gazes met and I tried to follow along as her blue eyes shifted ever so slightly back and forth.

  “Okay,” I said in a subtle murmur.

  Without saying another word, Hosannah slowly leaned her face in closer to me, causing my heart rate to speed and my arms to shake just slightly. As she moved toward me, I watched as her eyes closed and I followed her lead, closing my own eyes. Before I could even allow my brain to process much more information, I felt Hosannah’s lips touch mine, her plastic glasses bump lightly against my nose, instigating a delicate and gentle kiss. She placed her palm on my leg and leaned into me, releasing a low sigh, her lips wetly smacking against mine in an amorous collision. Although I had actually kissed someone else before, a boy, when I was younger, this kiss with Hosannah, sitting there on my dorm room couch, felt like my very first real kiss. It felt passionate and right.

  I moaned just so as I quickly learned from Hosannah, tilting my head to one side just as she did, focusing on feeling her lips coalesce with my own. Her hand felt heavy and pressured on my leg, in a comforting way, and although my anxiety was running wild it all felt like some necessary release, some detonation of pent up doubt. As I kissed Hosannah, I could feel pleasure and happiness welling up in my heart.

  Just as quickly as it had happened, the kiss came to an end. Hosannah slowly moved her head back and our eyes opened together. I longed for more. I didn’t want it to end. I wanted to taste her lips forever. I wanted to feel that closeness and intimacy again and again, a never-ending cascade of sensual pleasure and affinity.

  “How did that feel?” asked Hosannah softly, her eyes dancing with spirit as she searched in me for a hint of what was going on in my head.

  “Nice,” I chirped, feeling self-conscious and a little bit embarrassed. Reaching up, I ran a finger through a tendril of my hair and pushed it back behind my ear.

  “You don’t have to define or analyze anything right now,” said Hosannah, as though she knew exactly what I was trying to do, the compassion from her palpable. “Just enjoy it and have fun, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  “Hi,” she said in a whisper as she once again leaned in toward me. I sighed happily before Hosannah even touched me and then completely melted into her as she kissed me a second time, this time feeling much more heated by the whole affair, ardently placing my hands at her sides and gripping onto the thick fabric of her hoodie. Hosannah, too, grabbed onto to me and we pulled against each other in an effort to get as close as we could to one another. I could feel my hair falling down into my face as we kissed and before I could reach up to move it out of the way, Hosannah did it for me.

  “Mmm,” I groaned as Hosannah pulled back. I felt like I was simmering in love. I had difficulty feeling time and in that moment it didn’t even seem to matter that much. I was just stewing there, content, fulfilled, wanting again to feel that sensual rush of kissing such a beautiful girl.

  “So eager,” Hosannah mused, placing her finger against my lips. I was pursing my lips reflexively, like I was aching for more and could hardly control my body.

  “I know,” I said bashfully. “I’m sorry.”

  “What does it feel like?” she asked with a piqued interest, tilting her head to one side, looking me in the eyes. “Describe it for me.”

  “It feels…” I began, retreating into my mind to give it serious consideration. “It feels calming, like sitting on the dock of a still lake, dangling your bare feet in the water and just breathing deep.”

  “That sounds nice,” said Hosannah. After a moment she giggled and then lunged forward and hugged me tightly, rubbing her nose against mine, and giving one single quick appreciative kiss.

  That moment was a turning point in my life. I don’t know what it was inside of me that had kept me caged up for so long, but Hosannah’s openness, her acceptance, and her affection for me fundamentally changed something in the way I perceived myself and the world around me. I felt freedom in a way that I hadn’t quite been able to grasp it before. I felt safe there with her, alone together in my dorm room behind a door I knew no one would barge through. It was like I had this exciting secret but it wasn’t a secret anymore. It was like a shared secret, insider knowledge, just a little piece of me that I hadn’t showed to anybody before. I smiled happily, giddily, as I looked into Hosannah’s sweet face, sitting there together on the couch. It was magical.

  Later on in the evening, we had a movie playing on the television with the sound low but neither of us paid any attention to it. Rather, we laid together there on my couch, sweaters off, leaving us each in tank tops, a blanket over us, our bodies entangled together. Our hands explored one another warmly, tenderly, our lips pressed together, relaxing into one another’s passion as we languidly ma
de out. Hosannah obviously lead the way, pressing me further and further, slipping her hands up the back of my top, her palms warm against my lower back. I felt a profound love as I kissed her and touched her. At times I didn’t know what to do, how to act, what to think. But Hosannah was always right there, pushing into me, smiling and giggling and kissing, fondling my hair and giving me the attention that I had, until that point, not even known that I needed.

  Hosannah made me so happy.

  TWO

  *

  “ALL RIGHT EVERYONE,” said Hosannah, standing at the front of the charter bus, holding a clipboard in her hand. The bus started to pull out of the parking lot in front of Leopold Hall, bouncing as it drove, Hosannah lightly swaying along with it. Every seat was occupied in the oversized bus, although the mood inside was much quieter than one might expect from such a large group. It was five in the morning, after all. I felt like I might slowly pass out and return to sleep, though I wanted to give Hosannah as much attention as I possibly could. My eyes hung half open as I watched her.

  “So it’s about three and a half hours to Stratford, Ontario,” Hosannah said as the other students on the bus half-listened. Mostly the bus was made up of the freshmen ALOHA class, though there were some sophomores aboard as well. I think Hosannah might have been the only junior I recognized. “We should arrive around nine and we’ll check into the hotel. You can drop your bags off and we’ll distribute tickets to the shows you chose. First shows are at noon and one, second shows around three and four. Check your tickets.”

  Hosannah looked around the bus to see if there were any questions for her, brow raised, just making sure people were listening. She looked tired herself and I knew she had stayed up late the previous night. I knew because I was there in her room with her.

  “Okay,” she said, going on. “We’re going out for pizza at seven, then back to the hotel for the night. We’ll be returning home tomorrow at eight in the morning. Are there any questions?”