Best Lesbian Romance 2010

by Radclyffe

  The first time we acknowledged what we were, the power and the beauty of it, I cried. We found ourselves somehow, somewhere in the moment, crackling, bright, crisp, pure—like crystal, as though if we held it too tight it would shatter. I looked at her then and saw all that we were and are and will be—the dark water, the secrets, the need, the want, the animal, and the vulnerable. Everything and nothing and now and forever.

  SOAKED

  Erin O’Riordan

  The air was thick with electricity. I’d been out once that morning for my early philosophy class. Since then, the little bit of sunlight I’d seen as I crossed campus had evaporated, and it was hammering rain. Rain bounced off the tennis courts like a pianist’s fingers off the keys.

  I love a thunderstorm. The vibrations of the thunder, the palpable crackle of the lightning, all excite me, making me feel alive. Rain is romantic, but a thunderstorm is erotic. I live for a good, hard, soaking thunderstorm.

  At the opening chords of “Jenny (867-5309),” I turned off the radio. The ’80s flashback show was too lame for the gorgeously dreary day this was shaping up to be. Besides, it was time to go to class again anyway.

  I heard the first roll of thunder as I neared Weiss Hall. It was also the last; the thunderstorm was not to be. Still, by the time I got inside Weiss, my entire body was soaked with rain. I slipped into the restroom to grab some paper towels. At least I could towel off my face and arms. By some miracle, she was there.

  First thing this morning, when I should have been paying attention in philosophy, I’d been studying her instead. She was sitting next to Lucy DeLuca today. By any traditional standard, Lucy should be the more beautiful woman. Lucy is petite and feminine, with long red hair and neatly made-up fingernails. Granted, ink blue is not the most traditional of colors for a manicure, but still, her nails were neat. But she’s too thin. Her face is skinny, and she has tiny little thighs. Bailey has very short hair, and she bites her fingernails. She has lovely round cheeks, even lovelier rounded thighs, and a deliciously round ass. She’s athletic. Strong, not skinny. And I’m not attracted to Lucy at all, but I love Bailey.

  And by some miracle, there she was, in the ladies’ room, drying her soaking-wet hair with the automatic hand dryer. Her white T-shirt clung to her, and her blonde hair was matted down against her head. She looked like someone had tried to drown her, but she was still cute.

  “Hi, Beck,” she said.

  “Hi, pretty girl.”

  She giggled. “Quit teasing me,” she said. “I look like a drowned rat.”

  “Then you’re the prettiest drowned rat I’ve ever seen,” I said, reaching out to brush a strand of wet hair away from her eyes. She returned the favor, brushing drops of water from under my chin with a paper towel.

  “You’re so sweet,” I said. She stood there in front of the mirror, smiling, and I saw my chance. I kissed her cheek, in a purely friendly-playful way. I watched her face to gauge her response.

  She winked at me, then grabbed my hand. Looking around to make sure no one was looking, she pulled me into the last stall. She locked the door behind us.

  “What are you doing?” I asked, laughing.

  “Shh.” She pulled me close to her and whispered, “I’ve been wanting to do this for a very long time.”

  Now she tells me, I thought as she pulled her wet T-shirt up over her head. She hung it on the hook on the door. She put her arms around me, grabbed the bottom of my T-shirt, and pulled it over my head.

  “I don’t quite understand,” I said. My confusion was almost as strong as my urge to reach out and feel her damp skin, the skin I’d been dreaming about since last semester. Dreaming, and nothing more. I had always been afraid to make the first move. And now my dreams were coming true…although honestly, I’d pictured our first kiss taking place in a locale a little more romantic than the first-floor loo in Weiss Hall.

  “You don’t need to understand,” she said softly. “Just feel.” She backed me up against the door and brought her lips to mine. I put my hands on her shoulders. She had the softest skin I’d ever touched, softer than I’d dreamed. She kissed my neck, and the warmth radiated through my rain-drenched body. I couldn’t help but make some slight noise, some little squeals of joy. Her fingers traced their way down my collarbone. Just as she was about to explore the outlines of my wet bra, we heard footsteps. Another girl in the bathroom.

  Bailey pulled away, and just like that, it was over. We put our wet shirts back on. Bailey exited the stall. I stood alone for a moment, experiencing undreamt-of loss. So this is what they mean when they say that a taste of honey is worse than none at all.

  And yet somehow, despite the frustration, my first kiss with Bailey was perfect. So sublime, so…imaginary.

  The truth is, I got to Weiss Hall soaked by the rain, gave myself a perfunctory once-over with a handful of gritty, cheap paper towels, and went to my Religion and Psychology seminar. I sat across the table (there’s only one table in the classroom) from Bailey and dreamt.

  Bailey was wearing a multicolored choker of trade beads, the one that matches what must be her favorite orange T-shirt, the one she wears at least once a week. Freud says that orange is the color of insanity. I drove myself insane dreaming of the moment my fingers would glide over those beads on their way down Bailey’s neck, as my eyes took in the sight of Bailey wearing that choker, and nothing but.

  I drove myself insane dreaming of how Bailey had looked the night before, at Sociology for Women’s Studies Majors, our one evening class together. She’d come in late because of intramural basketball. She was slightly sweaty and totally cute, in a red button-down knit shirt, jeans that beautifully showed off the curve of her thighs, and dirty, barely there white sandals. I’d never looked at Bailey’s feet before. Somehow I’d imagined big feet, like a guy in the NBA would have. But really, Bailey’s got tiny girl feet, just like me. I’ve never been into feet, but if there were any toes I could worship, they would be Bailey’s little piggies, with their chipped coat of shiny lavender nail polish. I could plant my lips on them as pilgrims kiss the toes of a stone Virgin Mary. Better still, a pagan goddess. Bailey is, after all, Aphrodite to me, a goddess I approach with a swollen clit and a heart swollen with pure love.

  I couldn’t tell you what Religion and Psychology was about that stormy day. To me, it was about Bailey Rose Hutchins.

  I thought about her as I went home for spring break. I spent the week waiting tables (my summer job, always there when I need it) and secretly checking out customers with Bailey’s short-short blonde hair, her laugh, her long legs. Even when I wasn’t around her, I was obsessed.

  The first day of classes after spring break, I again had Religion and Psychology in Weiss Hall. Philosophy had been called off, so I hadn’t had any morning classes, unless you count aerobics. I had a good workout and came back up to my dorm room in the mood to dance. I turned on the radio and let the ’80s flashback show blast.

  All that dancing made me thirsty, though, and I was having so much fun I decided to have a beer from the back of my mini-fridge. And then another. And then another.

  I felt fine at the time, but in retrospect, I realize that I was a little tipsy. Okay, so by the time I got to the Religion and Psych seminar, it was obvious to every girl in class that I’d had a liquid lunch. Lucky for me, Fate intervened, and Professor Huang was not there. Instead she left instructions: we were to decide on a class project for the following week. She left four options for us to discuss. I’m sure my classmates made a decision, and I hope they wrote it down for me, because I wasn’t paying attention. My attention, as always, was reserved for Bailey.

  As we got up to leave, Bailey put her hand on my shoulder. Warmth radiated through me. “Are you all right, Beck?” she asked me.

  “I’m never all right when you’re around, Bailey,” I blurted out. Oh, would that this had been the end of the conversation. Alas, I went on. “I see you, and my stomach twists up in a knot. I can’t eat. I can’t sleep. I c
an’t even listen to the radio anymore because, shit, every song’s about you, and how I don’t have you. I am totally fucking knocked out by you.”

  That may not be the exact verbiage. I don’t know that I’m that coherent after three beers. My memory of Bailey’s reaction to this is sketchy. (That’s probably a good thing.) I was told afterward by someone who witnessed the incident that I said this quite loudly, and that the whole class heard me. I excused myself and went back to my dorm room for a short but fruitful nap before my acting class.

  Later, I called Bailey’s room to apologize for my outburst. I got the answering machine. I myself cannot live with other people, but Bailey—outgoing, athletic, artistic Bailey, the popular kid, my opposite—has three roommates. I left a message: “Hi, this message is for Bailey. Only for Bailey, all right? Because it’s kind of personal. Bailey, this is Beck Levinsky, and I’m sorry about what I said in seminar today. I’m…just really sorry, okay?”

  Afterward, I had horrible visions of Liz, Kaye, and Tina listening to it and cackling at my utter patheticness. But what could I do? The damage was done.

  So, to take my mind off my mistakes, I grabbed a couple of books and headed over to the student center. I was delighted to find that it was set up for open mic night. Ah, a chance for someone else to be the center of attention and make a complete ass of herself. I ordered an extralarge cappuccino, got a decent seat, and read until the first act came on. Two girls with guitars began a set of Indigo Girls covers. In between the music and my studies, I was pleasantly lost outside my own head.

  Midway through the second-to-last act (a large group of guys, questionably sober, attempting to harmonize on Boyz II Men tunes), I looked up from my abnormal psych book and there was Lucy DeLuca, clutching her philosophy text in her ink blue–tipped fingers. Lucy’s a philosophy and women’s studies double major.

  “Hey, Beck,” she said, “how’s studying going?”

  “Oh, great,” I said.

  I waited for her to follow up with, “Great, because I heard you totally lost it in a theology course and confessed your lesbian love for Bailey Hutchins,” but she didn’t. Instead, she said, “I’m about ready to head back to the dorms. Want to walk with me?”

  I shut my book. “Okay,” I said. In truth, I hadn’t been ready to go home yet. The open-mic performances had energized me, the way aerobics and the flashback radio show had earlier. Only now I was hyped up on sugar and caffeine instead of depressed by alcohol.

  So, as Lucy and I started across the quad, I had a mad idea—I was going for a swim in the fountain at the center of campus. The night was warm and muggy, and I was overdressed in my jeans, so why not?

  “Come on,” I said, throwing my books.

  “Where are you going?” Lucy dropped her backpack where I’d dropped mine—far enough from the fountain to be out of splashing range.

  “Into the fountain!” I raced toward the center of the quad.

  “No!” Lucy shouted. “You know we aren’t allowed to play in the fountain. The sign says so. Besides, the bottom is all dark and slippery and icky.”

  “I’ll be careful,” I assured her. I already had one sneaker in the fountain. I almost slipped, momentarily thrown off guard by the shock of the cold water. I caught myself, then brought the other foot in. “It’s cold, Lucy, but it’s very refreshing. Come on in!”

  Lucy shrugged, sighed, and stepped gingerly into the fountain. “There,” she said. “Now we’ve played in the fountain. Can we go home now?”

  I whooped with glee. “I’m having fun!” I let the fountain’s jets spray me. My wet hair fell in my eyes, making a temporary curtain between me and the world.

  “Breaking the rules isn’t fun,” Lucy said, deflecting the spray from her own face with her hands. “It’s just a bad idea.”

  I deliberately splashed her, right across the front of her pink flannel shirt. “Which course taught you that?” I splashed her again. “Ethics?” Splash.

  “It’s common sense,” she said. She waded back over to the edge and stepped out. Just then, a security guard began shouting at us. I could tell she was security by her walkie-talkie. Her red jacket made her look more like a movie theater usher.

  “What do you two think you’re doing?” The security guard pointed at the NO SWIMMING, WADING OR DIVING sign. “Can’t you read?”

  I flicked a green penny off my shoe as I joined Lucy on dry land. “I’m sorry, ma’am,” I said. “I know we shouldn’t have been in there. I was just hot, and the fountain was cool. I told my friend to do it.”

  The security guard rolled her eyes, but overall, her face was kind. “Go on back to your dorm now,” she said, “and stay out of the fountain. It is a memorial to the school’s founders, you know. Have some respect for the dead.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” I said again. “I’m sorry.” I wasn’t.

  As the security woman walked away, Lucy said, “What course teaches you to jump in fountains?” She rung out her red ponytail. “I didn’t know there was a course called Misdemeanors.”

  I smiled. “I just want to live my life with passion,” I said. “I want to make mistakes and take the consequences for them.”

  “Oh, so that’s what this is about.”

  “Oh, so you heard about my outburst in Religion and Psych after all.”

  “It’s a small campus and news travels fast.” She had that right.

  I spilled my guts. It’s a lot harder when you haven’t just slammed three beers. “I told Bailey that I’m crazy about her, in front of an entire multidisciplinary seminar.” That was only twelve people, but still. “Bailey’s a straight girl, and I made a pass at her in front of everyone. Why? Because I was drunk.”

  Lucy was aghast. “You were drunk, too?”

  “Of course. I can keep my feelings to myself when I’m sober. I’m not normally that uncool when Bailey’s around.”

  She was thoughtful for one long, slow moment. Then she said, “What did she say? Did she say anything?”

  “I didn’t give her a chance,” I said. We stopped in front of Lucy’s dorm, and she said good night. She hugged me.

  “Bailey will get over it,” Lucy said. “Bailey is very cool.”

  Bailey is very cool was the mantra at the center of my universe, the precept on which I based my life. I didn’t want her to get over it, though. I wanted Bailey to lie awake, thinking of my face as I lay awake thinking of her. In the morning when she woke, I wanted her thinking of me, and longing. I communicated none of this to Lucy, though. Instead, I said, “Whatever. It is what it is.”

  I took the long way back to my dorm, down the avenue. The wind blew the leaves of the trees gently, in eerie slow motion, giving a strange moving effect to the streetlights. Even my shadow flickered. I was looking down at it when I heard my name.

  “Beck!” the voice said again. I turned around, expecting to see Lucy. Instead, there was Bailey.

  She ran to where I stood dripping and befuddled. “Why are you wet?” she asked me.

  “The school fountain attacked me,” I said. “I was innocently minding my own business when it jumped me.”

  “Hmm,” she said with a certain healthy skepticism. “Listen, Beck, I got your message.”

  “You did?” I said. “I mean, you got it, and not Liz or Kaye or Tina?”

  “Well, Kaye was there, but she tactfully ducked into the bathroom before she heard anything…”

  “Incriminating?” I offered. I gave my wet T-shirt a squeeze. Suddenly I felt very chilly. “Humiliating?”

  “Beck, it’s no big deal,” she said. “Think of it this way—by the time we reach the age of twenty-two, three quarters of the population will have gotten drunk and blurted out their feelings to someone. You’re not the only one.”

  “Thanks.” I kicked a rock from the sidewalk.

  “We’re closer to my dorm than we are to yours,” she said. “Why don’t you come up? I’ll get you some towels.”

  “No, thanks.” I was thinking of
how little I wanted to see Kaye, or Liz, or Tina, whether they’d heard my answering machine message or not.

  Bailey seemed to pick that thought from my brain. “Are you sure? My roommates aren’t around. Kaye’s older brother took them to a bar in Rockport.” She was rapidly advancing toward her building. Seemingly against my wishes, I was following.

  “No kidding? How come you didn’t go?”

  “I have an art review in the morning. I’m here working on my unfinished drawings. I’m no good at hands and feet.”

  “Nobody is,” I said, “except art majors, and that’s why they’re art majors.”

  “You could help me,” she said. “You could take off your wet shoes and socks, and I could draw your feet.”

  I just laughed. We went up to her room, which was as dirty and colorful and funky as I’d imagined Bailey’s room to be. Next to the art prints and clippings from fashion magazines on the walls, there was sports stuff. Bailey really loved the Detroit Pistons and the Red Wings. I knew it was her, too, because no one else was from Michigan. As a Blackhawks fan, I tried to hide my natural revulsion.

  “Sit,” she said, pointing to a futon under a loft bed.

  “I’ll leave a wet spot,” I objected.

  “Sit on that sweatshirt.” She pointed to a gray lump on the floor. I picked it up, stretched it out, and sat on it. She grabbed some towels out of the closet and handed them to me.

  Bailey’s towels were orange. “Do you know what Freud says about the color orange?”

  “It’s the color of insanity,” she said, “and it’s my favorite color. What does that say about me?”

  I didn’t have an answer that I could put into words for her. I dried my hair with one of her orange towels and wrapped the other around my wet clothes. Next I took off my shoes and socks and shoved them to the side.