Born Again

by Heidi Lowe

  Thankfully, he’d messaged earlier to say he and some friends were pigging out and playing Call of Duty for the rest of the night. That was the reprieve I needed to stop worrying about him, albeit temporarily.

  “It’s Colin,” I said, hitting send. “He wanted to know if I wanted to come round tonight.”

  She cackled. “Oh, if he knew where you were going...”

  A forbidden wonderland, Brit had called it. No worries, no inhibitions, no men. I was both terrified and enthralled by the thought of the place. I’d been to predominantly gay male bars in the past, but never a female-exclusive spot. I didn’t even know such a place existed in Seattle.

  “I’m sure I’ll regret this,” I said. “The guilt alone is killing me.” I really didn’t like doing this, sneaking around behind Colin’s back. First with the kiss, now this. And not just Colin’s, Pastor Hugh’s back. I’d ignored all of his words of wisdom, exercising not one iota of restraint. I’d been celibate (did masturbation count?) for over five years, had never been truly tempted to break my proverbial chastity belt. So I was definitely capable of exercising restraint... What did that say about me?

  “Regret is for losers!”

  “Is Patty still meeting us outside?”

  She nodded, sending a text of her own. “I’m just messaging her now to say where we are.”

  We’d enlisted the company of our mutual friend, who, unbeknownst to me until that evening, was bisexual and had been in a relationship with a woman for over a year.

  “I can’t believe she didn’t tell me,” I’d said, when Brit let it slip.

  She shot me a look. “You really can’t believe it?”

  Okay, so I was a bigot — a major one. But to not share something like that with me, to keep her relationship a secret from a friend... That kinda hurt.

  Well tonight I was determined to bury all of that. Where we were going was not the place for judgement.

  Strobe was a place like no other. A colorful, sophisticated bar/nightclub, jam-packed with attractive women from every background. Female bar staff sporting salmon pink blouses and glitter on their arms and faces served drinks, flashing seductive, cheeky smiles.

  Several feet from the bar, a designated area had been carved out for the dance floor, its funky house music having coerced dozens of women over. Everywhere I turned I saw women embracing, dancing, or kissing. Some of them doing all three at the same time! I felt like a kid in a candy store. My eyes glistened with wonderment; exhilaration filled every inch of my body.

  “Stop staring,” Brit scolded when she caught me, my eyes fixated on a lip-locked couple across the bar. We were waiting to be served. Patty and her girlfriend had strayed away to say hello to a few people from their “circle”, while we got the first round in.

  I averted my gaze quickly. Not so long ago, a mere couple of days, in fact, I’d done some lip-locking of my own with a woman. Seeing them made my heart ache for that feeling once more. It was so different, yet so wonderful. I could still feel that gentle whisper of her lips on mine.

  Brit laughed. “You’ve gotta get used to seeing that, because it’ll be like that all night,” she said. Oh, she had no idea how accustomed I’d already become. I wasn’t staring out of alarm, or some morbid curiosity; I was past all of that. Lust, pure and simple, was driving me.

  After we’d finished drinking, Brit, more than a little tipsy, dragged me onto the dance floor, ignoring my objections. She didn’t need booze to make her let loose, but I did. And seeing as I couldn’t allow myself to get even a little tipsy, I found it difficult to loosen up.

  After a while Brit’s fun, playful, didn’t-give-a-shit attitude started to garner a lot of admiring looks, which she was oblivious to. She wasn’t there for anyone but herself, something I loved about her. She didn’t care what people thought of her, she never had. I wished I could have been more like that.

  I was barely even moving, and after a while I became too self-conscious to continue. I didn’t dance like someone with two left feet, but no feet!

  “I’m gonna go get another drink. You want one?” I shouted in Brit’s ear, trying to be heard over the music.

  “Huh?” she shouted back, puzzled but continuing to groove.

  I motioned as though drinking from a cup.

  She shook her head, closed her eyes and continued dancing, as though she were the only person in the whole bar.

  I swam my way through the sea of female bodies, having to apologize over and over for bumping into someone or stepping on someone’s shoes. I let out a sigh of relief when I reached dry land, aka the bar, unscathed. I fixed my skirt and smoothed down my hair while I waited to be served.

  After a couple of minutes of waiting, noticing that everyone else was getting served before me, I was ready to politely protest to anyone who would listen, when I heard a familiar voice.

  “G and T, please,” the woman said.

  No, it couldn’t be! There had to be dozens, maybe even hundreds of women in Seattle with that voice, that hint of an accent. It couldn’t be her. But when I looked across, past the two people separating us, I spotted her. She brushed her long brunette tresses back in the sexiest way, almost in slow motion. Several hungry eyes ogled her. Naomi Pierre, as I lived and breathed! Here I was trying to forget about her, and there she was tormenting me.

  I was certain she had some kind of radar that let her know when I was looking at her, because she suddenly turned in my direction and caught me. Her eyebrows furrowed. She definitely wasn’t expecting to see me standing there.

  The barmaid finally came over. “What can I get you?”

  I tore my eyes away from Naomi. “Uh, I’ll, uh... vodka and lemonade, please.”

  She went to prepare it. And as though by fate, the two people separating us walked away, leaving the space empty. Naomi looked amazing in her pale yellow, sleeveless jumpsuit and matching heeled sandals. There wasn’t a woman alive in that club who didn’t want to devour her like a piece of meat, myself included. How I envied every item of clothing clinging to her body.

  I averted my gaze, played with my hands, avoiding making eye contact with her again. But I felt her eyes on me.

  And then, within seconds, I felt her presence beside me.

  “Does your boyfriend know you’re here?” There was more than a hint of humor when she spoke. “Does God?”

  I thought about not answering, but decided against it. I could be as rude to her as I liked now that we were out of the office. “What’s it to you?”

  “Just making polite conversation.”

  “You don’t have to do that. There’s plenty of space here for us to avoid each other.”

  She shrugged. “Suit yourself.”

  Our drinks were served to us at the same time, but neither of us walked away. I was convinced she stuck around to screw with me.

  After a while of not speaking to each other, just sipping our drinks, I couldn’t take it anymore. “So what, you just come to this place alone, hoping to pick up women?”

  She laughed in her easy way, not one bit insulted by my question. “I’m not here alone.”

  I rolled my eyes. “You’re with your girlfriend?”

  “No, just a couple of friends.”

  “You actually have friends?” I quipped.

  I wanted to get a reaction out of her, one that wasn’t a smirk, but that was all she gave me.

  “Lots of them, as a matter of fact. Not everyone thinks I’m The Glacier Queen...”

  Her smirk only broadened when I felt my face burn up.

  I fell silent for a moment, drank my drink. Then I said, “They get the woman I met in Mario’s three months ago, and everyone else gets... this.”

  Pompous. “I find it’s good to compartmentalize. Keeps everything simple.”

  “Oh yeah? So which one of you was kissing me on Thursday?”

  And there it was, the reaction I was hoping for. Her pompous air vanished, her smile faded.

  “I’ve forgotten about that.
You need to do the same.”

  “I thought you didn’t forget anything.” And because she was breaking my heart all over again, I added, “And don’t flatter yourself. The kiss was forgettable. Zero passion. I might as well have been kissing a corpse!”

  Even I winced when the words flew out. I could never gage when I was about to take things too far until it was too late.

  Her smile was humorless. Perhaps she had a suitable comeback, one to end all comebacks, but she never got to use it, because Brit came barging in.

  “Hey, I thought you were coming back with the drink, not sitting alone...” She noticed Naomi. “Wow, who are you?”

  The inflection, the big, over the top energy, I knew what was happening, though I’d never seen her react this way to another woman.

  “Are you...” Brit looked between me and Naomi, and back again. “Are you guys...?”

  Naomi jumped in way too quickly for my liking. “No, definitely not. I’m Naomi, her boss.”

  I glowered at her. Was it so inconceivable to believe she could be attracted to me? Well, pretty much. She was so far out of my league we weren’t even playing the same game. She was playing baseball while I was playing Scrabble! There were beautiful women in every corner of the bar; I didn’t stand a chance. How I’d cajoled her into letting me kiss her would dumbfound me for the rest of my days.

  Brit slapped a drunken hand on the bar. “Wait, you’re her boss? Ho-ly shit! I’m sorry but, Daiquiri, you didn’t say she was this hot.”

  Oh my God! Oh my God! Oh my God! This can’t be happening.

  “You’re, like, freakin’ gorgeous. Like, out of this world. Like, I would totally want you to have my babies.”

  Someone kill me now!

  She turned to me, ignored the fact that I was probably the shade of a ripe tomato, and “whispered”, “Why didn’t you tell me your boss was a total babe? She can be as mean to me as she wants, looking like that.”

  “Please stop,” I mumbled. A fire, that’s what I need. For the whole place to just go up in flames, sparing everyone but me.

  “Does she talk about me often?” came Naomi’s voice of intrigue. Her eyes danced devilishly.

  “Oh, nonstop. But hey, I think the whole mean boss lady thing is, like, so fucking hot...”

  A plague of locusts. Yeah, that would do it. A swarm descending on the club, forcing everyone to flee while they eat me alive.

  “If you were my boss...” Here she gave a dirty laugh, and tried to wiggle her eyebrows but failed miserably. “I would never leave the office. I’d get there, like, really early, and leave, like really late. I’d do all the overtime you asked me to.”

  A flood. Yeah, a flood lasting years, that would force everyone onto an ark, leaving me to drown in my misery.

  “You finished with that?” She didn’t wait for my reply, simply yanked the glass from my hand, downed its contents in one go. Then she turned to Naomi, and in the silliest accent, that she probably thought was English, said, “Would milady like to dance?”

  Naomi looked at me. Maybe she saw the pleading in my eyes, begging her not to do it, but it didn’t stop her. Maybe my aversion even encouraged her.

  “Why not?” she said, and let Brit lead her to the dance floor.

  It was the corpse comment, I knew that immediately. I’d actually managed to offend her, and this was her way of getting back at me.

  I ordered another drink and tried my best not to think about them. They were just dancing. Despite the little flings she’d confessed to having with women, Brit loved men; she couldn’t live without them. She wasn’t interested in giving them up for a woman, even if said woman was the sexiest person alive.

  You’re worrying about nothing. The dance will be over soon, Brit will be back here, drunk as a skunk and ready to move on to a club that has phalluses in it.

  Four songs later, when neither of them had returned, panic set in. I shoved my way through the throng of ravers, headed towards the dance floor. And there they were, getting jiggy with it, Naomi’s arms around Brit’s neck; Brit’s hands on Naomi’s waist.

  I couldn’t even enjoy seeing this wild, carefree side of Naomi. Couldn’t enjoy her laughter, her dance moves. Couldn’t admire how perfect she looked in her happiness. All I could see was red.

  I should have told Brit how I felt about Naomi, then none of this would have happened. That was the unspoken rule of living together — we never, ever under any circumstances pursued the same person. As it stood, she had no idea about my feelings, no idea that her actions were treacherous. I felt her sink a blade into my heart a thousand times.

  They hadn’t seen me, so I slipped away, found Patty and her girlfriend, stood with them.

  “Where’s Brit?” Patty asked.

  “Dancing,” I said miserably.

  As time went on, and more songs came on, I grew more and more anxious, furious, melancholy, because Brit hadn’t returned, and I didn’t have the emotional fortitude to go look for them and see them together.

  When Patty and her girlfriend declared that they were all partied out and wanted to take off, I reluctantly went in search of Brit. It took five minutes for me to search the whole club and realize she was gone.

  Where are you? My hands shook as I typed out the message, fearing the worst.

  I wasn’t expecting an immediate reply, but I felt the phone vibrate the second I slipped it back into my purse.

  I braced myself for what I knew was coming.

  The phone nearly fell out of my hands when I read the words: Sorry, get an Uber. I’m staying at Naomi’s tonight.

  NINE

  I wasn’t polite about shoving and elbowing my way through the crowd, as I made a hasty dash for the toilet. I didn’t give a flying fuck how many backs got poked, or how many toes my feet crushed.

  I held my tears in until I was safely behind a cubicle door. Then I erupted, quietly sobbing into my hand, trying to catch as much of the sound as I could so the people around me wouldn’t hear me breaking down.

  My list of terrible nights was extensive, but this had made it comfortably to the top. Not quite the worst — that was reserved for a far worse night — but it came a close second.

  Emotional pain, real and profound, was akin to being torn apart from the inside out. A chronic pain that would linger and claw at you, destroying all the things that made you function. And in that moment, standing alone in a cubicle, back pressed against the door while I sobbed into my hand, I felt my sanity evaporate right before my eyes.

  I’d only ever truly hated two people in my life, and with good reason. After becoming a Christian, I vowed never to hate another soul. But that promise to myself, made at a time when my heart was still intact, broke instantly. Brit and Naomi deserved every ounce of my hatred, Naomi especially. She knew how I felt, which was why she’d taken my best friend home with her. As if it wasn’t bad enough how she’d stomped all over my heart following our kiss, she’d upped the ante on destroying me. And now they were together doing unspeakable things to each other, me nowhere in their thoughts.

  Someone knocked on the cubicle door. “Hey, are you all right in there?”

  She must have heard me. I’d stopped trying to disguise my wailing by then.

  “I—I’m fine,” I said, voice croaky and full of tears.

  “You don’t sound fine.”

  I reeled off some tissue, quickly wiped my cheeks and nose, unlocked the door to find a pretty brunette with a bit of a Zooey Deschanel quirkiness to her look.

  “It can’t be that bad,” she said with an encouraging smile.

  “It is,” I sniffed, tissue still bunched up in my hand. “I came out tonight hoping to have fun, but instead...”

  “Then do that.” Her enthusiasm was likely down to being drunk. “You’re a beautiful woman sobbing in the bathroom when you should be out on the dance floor having fun.”

  I contemplated her words. The night could never be salvaged, not now. But she had called me beautiful, and that was
always nice to hear, no matter who it came from.

  I forced a smile. “I’m not in the mood to dance anymore.”

  “Okay, then don’t dance. You can still have plenty of fun...”

  If it wasn’t for the cheeky little smile that followed, I would have missed her unsubtle cue. I wasn’t good with this sort of thing; even with men I’d been bad at spotting a come on. With women, forget it. Women were naturally more tender, so it was difficult to tell if they were flirting with you or just being friendly.

  There was only one way to find out. Swallowing back my trepidation, I reached out a hand to her, which she took, and I pulled her inside with me. I locked the door behind her, pressed her back to it.

  There was no mistaking that smile.

  She pulled me close by my waist, then smashed her lips to mine. Her tongue didn’t waste any time penetrating its way into my mouth, and the battle of the tongues commenced.

  She had a sloppy, slightly lazy kiss; her mouth tasted strange and unfamiliar, with a hint of... rum? Yep, definitely rum. I tried to close my eyes and imagine — pretend — that Naomi was in there with me instead of some stranger, but it was no use. Naomi’s kiss had never felt unfamiliar.

  But thoughts of The Glacier Queen only angered me more, spurred me on to exorcise her from my heart and mind. This was the only way I knew how.

  I fumbled with the buttons on my new conquest’s skintight jeans, our tongues still intertwined. She didn’t stop me. Would she have stopped me if she knew I’d never done anything like this before, and that everything I knew about lesbian sex I’d learned from watching a television series?

  Well I had one thing going for me at least: I, too, had a vagina. I hadn’t touched myself in two years, but I knew what was expected of me.