“How was it?” she asked innocently.
“Amazing,” I crooned, my eyes rolling back, looking up to the ceiling. “Thank you.” The afterglow of my first orgasm with another person was transcendent. It was calm. It was serene. I got a whiff of a subtle scent of musky sweat. It just smelled… right.
“I have so much more to show you,” she whispered into my ear before kissing it and then nuzzling her nose against my hair. “I’m really excited to be here with you.”
“Me too,” I agreed, my eyes moving to Hosannah’s. I couldn’t help but smile innocently and look down. I felt a slight sense of embarrassment but at the same time I felt completely accepted.
Hosannah finally collapsed down on top of me and we hugged tightly, tangled together in those white sheets. She threaded her arms around me and squeezed, burrowing her face into my neck, buzzing against my skin. My anxiety, a mainstay in the normal operation of my brain, was mysteriously absent. In the moment, I noticed I felt different but I couldn’t quite place it. It was only after the fact that I figured it out. Those wonderful moments together with Hosannah hurled me into the present moment. There was no past that mattered, no future to worry about. I was just happy to be breathing next to her.
*
After the trip to Stratford, things changed for me. I was a little more bright, happier, excited. Hosannah definitely opened up something inside of me that made me feel like I was a new person, or perhaps a more authentic version of myself. I was actually starting to feel a little more self-assured, like I was finding my way. It was an awesome feeling to have.
Sitting in my dorm room on the couch with my face buried in a book for my English class, Whitney sitting at her desk on her laptop hammering away on some homework, the room was silent but for the typing on Whitney’s keyboard. Although I was trying to focus on my book, I wasn’t all too enthused with it and instead my mind kept shifting to thoughts of Hosannah. I’m sure you know the feelings. You’re trying to concentrate on some task, but you can’t stop thinking about that person you’re inexplicably drawn to. For me it was a bit of a new feeling so even though I knew I should have been reading, I also tried to enjoy the lingering thoughts of this wonderful girl.
Suddenly, interrupting the mood of study there in our dorm room, a swift knock came at our door. Whitney looked up from her computer and over at me.
“I’ll get it,” she said, standing up and stretching out her limbs as she walked over to the door. Unlocking it and opening it, she pulled the door open slowly to reveal Henry standing on the other side.
“Hi Whitney,” he said cautiously. “Is Natasha here?”
“Yeah,” said Whitney, opening the door further. “Hey Tasha, Henry’s here for you.”
Looking up from the couch and over at the door, Henry offered me interested eyes of possibility. I set my book down and stood up, walking over to the door to greet him. Whitney gave me a fiery grin as she made her way back to her desk. I still hadn’t told her about Hosannah or anything else. I don’t know why I hadn’t been open with her yet. I guess I was still coming to terms with everything and figuring out how to say it a way that felt right.
“Hi Henry,” I said, stepping out into the hall with him and shutting the door until it was only open a small crack. “What’s going on?”
He was such a cute and awkward boy when I really started to think about it. He was skinny and tall, his clothes fitting him just a little too big. Henry’s hair was an absolutely mess, but in an endearing way, and his black glasses dwarfed his pallid and gaunt face. He always seemed like he was a little bit lost. As I looked at him through this lens, I couldn’t help but draw similarities between us.
“Hey,” he said. “How are you?”
“Okay,” I said. “Just doing homework.”
“I’m sorry for interrupting,” he said. “Do you want to just chat some other time?”
“No,” I said, softly smiling at him. “What’s up?”
Looking inside quickly through the crack in the door, I saw Whitney spying on us from inside. As soon as she saw me looking at her, however, she speedily returned her eyes to her laptop.
“Well,” said Henry, searching for the words. “Just, you know, our conversation in Stratford. I told you I’d stop by.”
“Right,” I said, nodding as I remembered. The entire conversation with Henry had conveniently slipped from my memory after my night with Hosannah. I took a deep breath and felt some anxiety creep into my mind.
“Here I am,” he said with a grin. I couldn’t help but laugh a little.
“Okay,” I said. “Now what?”
“Do you want to do something?” he said. His circuitous talking struck me as funny. It was like he wasn’t sure how this was going to go and all he knew was that if he got to my door, he would be able to figure it out as he went. I found it endearing. Although I could tell that Henry was showing some interest in me and my interests were focused on Hosannah, the confidence that was building inside of me told me that I should take Henry up on his offer and expand myself a bit. I couldn’t stay in my shell forever.
“Like what?” I said with a goading voice. I could feel myself growing more playful, almost imitating Hosannah’s demeanor.
“Um, well,” began Henry. “They’re putting up some art project thing over near the museum. It’s some joint student project or something. I thought it would be fun to watch them. Just go for a walk, you know?”
“Okay,” I said brightly with a shrug. “Let’s do it.”
“Yeah?” he said. “Awesome. Are you ready right now?”
“Let me just pop in and tell Whitney and we can head out,” I said, smiling.
*
Henry and I walked down the sidewalk in the direction of the campus art museum. It was a nice late September afternoon with a bit of a chill in the air, both of us dressed in hoodies and jeans. Henry had that sort of disaffected, yet uncertain slacker vibe about him, slinking along with his hands in his pockets and his shoulders slightly slumped. I knew that he was an English major like me, a wannabe writer, so I felt comfortable that we had that in common.
Looking off a bit down the sidewalk, I suddenly felt a rush as I saw Hosannah jogging our way, dressed in a tank and running shorts, puffing a bit with a slight redness in her cheeks. As Henry and I saw her approach, we stopped in our tracks, and Hosannah slowed down and then came to a stop in front of us.
“ALOHAers,” she said, nodding her head, trying to catch her breath. She offered a smile to us. Hosannah was generally good at pretending like there wasn’t anything going on between us when in the company of other people involved with the program. But I could sense a little bit of, I don’t know, caution as she considered me out for a walk with Henry. “Where are we off to on this lovely autumn afternoon?”
“The museum,” said Henry in a lazy voice. “There’s this art thing going up outside of it.”
“I ran past it,” said Hosannah matter-of-factly. “It’s cool… weird.”
I looked Hosannah up and down, finding her incredibly attractive in her little workout outfit. I loved seeing the sweat through her tank top, a circle of it between her chest and belly, and her bare pale legs reminded me of our hotel room tryst, when she came around that corner wearing only her panties. My eyes moved up her body and suddenly met her eyes. We smiled together.
“Hey Tasha,” continued Hosannah. “I want to talk to you later about your ALOHA project,” she said. “Want to stop by my room?”
“Sure,” I said, trying to hide my grin, looking off toward a stand of tress that had begun turning colors with the season.
“Great,” said Hosannah. She stepped forward and lightly slapped me on the arm. “You two have fun. See you later!” And with that, Hosannah resumed her run, moving past us, making her way back toward Leopold Hall.
“You and Hosannah are close, huh?” said Henry as we returned to our walk toward the museum.
“What?” I said, trying to play dumb. “I mean, I don’t k
now. I guess.”
“She’s a cool girl,” said Henry. “She’s in this writing group I want to try to join.”
“What writing group is that?” I said.
“It’s a group run by this professor,” he said. “Um, Professor Bernard. It’s a small fiction group.”
“Huh,” I said. “I didn’t know about that.”
“You have to have Bernard as a teacher,” said Henry. “If you click with him, he might ask you to join. It’s really only for people who are talented and driven.”
“You should talk to Hosannah about it,” I said with a smile. “Maybe she could give you some pointers.”
“Maybe,” said Henry.
We walked in silence for a few moments. I really wasn’t sure what to say to him. But I did feel pretty good about being there with him. It was nice to be talking with someone, to feel like someone was interested in your company. I had spent so much time dwelling on my feelings of awkwardness, feeling misunderstood and alone, that it was great that all these new people will beginning to spill into my life.
“So have you thought about what I said to you in Stratford?” asked Henry without looking at me. We stepped together, one foot in front of the other, down the sidewalk. A girl rushed by us with a speedy gait and a backpack perched high up on her back.
“Um,” I said. “I don’t know.”
“Okay,” he said, not trying to press anything. I knew what he was talking about. I wasn’t dumb, of course. Maybe a little naive. I just couldn’t say anything. I couldn’t say anything because I still felt so uncertain.
As we came upon the museum, a small single-story building with a modern look, we saw a gathering of people near the entrance. There were spectators lingering, looking on as a number of students worked together to put up their sculptures. From what I could tell as we closed in on the installation, the art students were attaching these large, weird, rusty metal sculptures to pre-drilled holes in the cement blocks around the museum entrance. They were hoisting their work up, holding it there, while another student kneeled down and screwed them in with a power drill.
“Kinda strange,” I mused as Henry and I stopped and watched. “But cool.”
“I like stuff like this,” Henry said. “It’s different from writing. Like, you write something and maybe share it with some people who read it and that’s about it. These people put their art out there and hundreds of people are going to walk by and see it every day.”
“Yeah,” I said. “But this stuff, I don’t know,” I said, pointing at it and thinking. “I think writing and books help you figure stuff out, while this just tries to give you more questions to work on.”
“What do you mean?” asked Henry, tilting his head and giving me a concerned look.
“I write to figure out my problems,” I said, “I don’t want more problems.”
“And what kind of problems are you trying to figure out?”
I turned to Henry and he had an earnest look in his eye, like he cared, like he was sympathetic. A sudden breeze gently swept his unkempt hair upwards. I had already mostly admitted to him my sexuality confusions so I suppose it wasn’t that big of a leap to tell him even more. Why was it easy to be so open with this boy? What was it about him that loosened my lips so?
“I guess just…” I said, searching, thinking. “Just general uncertain anxiety.”
“I see,” said Henry. “Well, that’s okay. I think we’re all trying to figure that out.”
“I kind of have problems relating to people,” I said. “Or, like, feeling for people.”
“In what way?”
“Like, um, empathy I guess,” I said, looking down to my feet, shuffling my sneakers. “It’s hard to talk about.”
“It’s okay,” he said. “We don’t have to talk about it.”
We stood there together in silence, watching the art students put up their work. I felt Henry looking at me but I didn’t return his look, instead I just tried to focus on watching the installations. My heart pumped, my nerves shivered. Even though it was a beautiful afternoon, calm and cool, sunny, I felt like there was some sort of nebulous uncertainty hanging over my head.
Before I could even realize it, Henry’s face was leaning in toward mine, his back bent slightly to bring himself down to my height, and he placed a gentle kiss on my cheek. I felt the prickliness of his shaven chin on my face and his kiss was much rougher than kisses from Hosannah. I felt myself begin to shake, my body protesting, my insides scared.
“Henry,” I managed to squeak out. “No, I just—“
“I’m sorry, Natasha,” he said. He looked away from me, a bit of shame in his face.
“We can hang out and stuff,” I said. “But not… not like that.”
“I’m sorry,” he repeated.
How do you go from being invisible in high school to having this kind of attention in college? I wasn’t used it. I didn’t know how to interpret it. It was almost as though I were living in some strange alternative universe, or like I fell asleep one day and woke up in a place that accepted me but I wasn’t ready to be accepted. I was torn because all I could think was, “I’m not special.” I know that’s a poisonous way to think. I know I should be happy. But there was just something off about it all. I wanted to run away from it.
“I’m sorry,” I said, sighing. I reached out and tenderly placed my hand on Henry’s back. Henry perked up as I touched him. I could sense that he knew how I was feeling and perhaps this whole thing was just as hard for him as it was for me. “Let’s just… not worry, all right?”
“All right,” he said, nodding in agreement.
With that, the two of us turned around from the art museum and began our walk back to the dorm.
*
It was evening. After dinner in the cafeteria I wandered up stairs to the third floor to seek out Hosannah. Standing in front of her door, I knocked softly three times and waited. No reply. I looked around the empty hallway, as the third floor often seemed to be, and then pulled my phone out of my back pocket. I considered texting Hosannah for a moment but then reconsidered, replaced my phone in my pants, and then knocked again. I don’t know why I knocked that second time. I mean, it’s not like there was any place in her small room she couldn’t have been that would prevent her from hearing a knock.
Just as I was about ready to leave, I looked down the hall and saw Hosannah pop out of the communal bathroom, a white towel wrapped around her body, another smaller white towel wrapped around her hair, flip flops on her feet, a little shower caddy of products dangling from her hand. We noticed each other simultaneously and she grinned wide as she stayed focused on me.
“There you are,” she said casually as she approached. “Did I catch you trying to break in?”
“Yeah,” I said. “I was going to bust in and rifle through your panty drawer.” My comfort levels around Hosannah just astounded me when I thought about it.
“Well, no need to break in for that,” she said, sliding past me. Hosannah pulled her room key from the shower caddy and deftly unlocked the door. She turned around and smiled at me, bumping her butt into the door to knock it open and then slipped inside, leaving it open for me.
Shutting the door behind me, I watched as Hosannah sauntered across the room and toward her dresser. She set the caddy down on top of it and then without a word she removed the white towel from her body and hung it up on a hook on her closet door. I stared intently at her naked figure, the gentle curve of her butt making me feel like my heart skipped a beat. She was limber and petite, but Hosannah had a nice, firm, round rear that rose and fell as she walked.
Hosannah opened up her dresser and removed a blue and white striped pair of panties and quickly stepped into them, pulling them up her pale legs and letting them settle in over her middle. She picked the fabric out of her rear to get comfortable in them and then turned around at me smiled.
“Are you just over there watching me?” she said, putting her hands on her hips and shaking her head.
Her breasts hung there from her chest effortlessly, one nipple just slightly bigger than the other.
“Maybe,” I said.
“Goof,” she said, turning back around and removing the towel from her head. Her damp hair came tumbling out as she set the towel on her dresser. Hosannah continued getting dressed, pulling on a t-shirt, getting into some stretchy grey lounge pants, securing her hair back in a ponytail. She then slinked over to me and gingerly dropped her hands to my hips. Leaning in, Hosannah placed a firm, luxurious kiss on my lips and together we stood there, sensually kissing one another in the middle of her dorm room.
“Mmm,” I sighed happily as our kiss came to an end, the two us looking into each other’s eyes. “That felt nice.”
“I know,” said Hosannah. “I like kissing your soft little lips.” She kissed me once more, a quick stolen kiss.
Hosannah broke from me and ambled over toward her desk where her laptop sat opened. She bent down and looked into it, clicking around, until her laptop began to release the low hum of music. Pushing the volume button a couple of times to increase the level, she turned back around and made her way over to her bed, motioning for me to join her with her hand. I dutifully followed.
“So what did you want to talk about?” I asked. “Some ALOHA thing?”
“What?” she said as she climbed up onto her bed. “Oh, from earlier? No, I was just coming up with some excuse that wouldn’t look too fishy in front of Henry. I’ve got nothing.” Hosannah grinned at me and lightly smacked my thigh as I slid onto her bed next to her, the both of us sitting upright with our backs against the wall.
“Oh,” I said, slightly confused but shrugging it off.
“So what’s with that boy?” Hosannah asked. I could sense a bit of jealousy in her voice, which felt odd. I didn’t pin her as one to be jealous.
Dormitory Dearest: A Sweet Lesbian Romance Page 9