The truth was, she’d watched the movie several times already, and many more like it. She watched them in incognito mode, because she didn’t want anyone to know what she was watching. Even though it was her laptop, and it didn’t belong to the church, she often brought it with her and worried that someone might find what she did at night when she was alone. She worried they’d find out that she – despite every effort she’d made to like Mark or any other guy that showed interest in her – was a word she still had a hard time saying inside her mind and had yet to utter out loud.
She watched the movie while she finished the food on her plate and kicked off her shoes. When she finished, she set the plate on the bedside table, unbuttoned and unzipped her jeans, and watched as two women had sex on her screen. Her hand slid inside her jeans and further still into her panties. She slowly and gently stroked herself as her wetness grew. Her eyes closed. She tried to picture herself having sex with Mark, but the thought of that rough skin and scruff on his face only made her open her eyes again to focus on the woman who was on her knees in front of the other. She closed her eyes again and slid her fingers faster as she pictured her own body in front of a kneeling woman, holding the woman’s head to her sex and allowing her to lick and suck her until she came in her mouth.
She stroked faster until she came on her own hand, wishing it belonged to someone else. She was twenty-six years old, still a part-time college student, and an administrator at a church where her father was a reverend who preached against homosexuality. Yet, she’d just pictured a woman with black hair and brown eyes kneeling before her, bringing her intense pleasure. She slid her fingers out, tried to slow her breathing, and closed the browser.
◆◆◆
The following morning, Amara did what she typically did: she went to the coffee shop in the city, sat at the table by the window, and pulled out her laptop to work. She’d worn her hair up, as usual, and had dressed in a black pencil skirt and white button-down blouse. She had to dress somewhat modestly where she worked, but she also didn’t mind dressing up a little for her college classes. She felt it set her apart from the other students, who were much younger. That was a good thing in her opinion, because while she had some friends at school, she didn’t really partake in many of the activities college-aged students did.
She was a woman of routine most of the time but enjoyed being spontaneous every now and then, too. On one of those days of spontaneity, she’d happened upon this coffee shop. It had been over a year ago now. She’d sat at the same table after ordering the same drink, working on a school paper, when a woman slightly shorter than herself, with short black hair just under her ears, had entered, purchased her coffee, and sat down at a table ten feet away. She’d opened her own laptop and appeared to be working on something as well. Amara had found herself transfixed as the woman slid her hair behind her ear with long fingers. She seemed so engaged in her work that she hardly noticed anyone else. She left about an hour later, with Amara still glued to her own chair.
The following day, Amara had made the same trip to the coffee shop, but the woman didn’t appear. She’d waited as long as she could and had felt immense disappointment when the woman hadn’t shown. Amara decided to go back to the coffee shop the following week at the same time as her initial encounter to see if the woman was there regularly on the same day. She’d been so happy when the woman had entered with the bells of the door jingling over her head that she nearly stood up to introduce herself, as if she had any reason to basically be stalking this woman.
It was several weeks later when the woman finally looked over at her and they made eye contact. Amara had lowered her gaze instantly and blushed so red, she worried it was obvious to the people on the street passing by the window. The woman smiled at her a few weeks later. Then, Amara grew concerned because the woman had guests with her. One day, it was a woman she’d heard her call out to as she entered. Her name was Keira. The woman hadn’t stood when Keira had arrived. It appeared that they were friends. Later, another woman and then another would join her for coffee – either just the two of them or all together – until there were sometimes four or five women gathered around a small table. Most of the time, though, it was just the black-haired woman. Amara hadn’t had the guts to speak to her, but she’d noticed how the woman had begun to grow out her hair, and despite looking completely beautiful to Amara as she was, she’d started to lose weight and carry a water bottle with her along with a duffel bag that was likely for the gym. Amara still hadn’t mustered the courage to talk to her.
What would she say anyway? She had no indication that the woman dated other women or that she would even date a woman herself. She only knew how she’d felt since she was a teenager, having been able to push it deep down for years, until it had come bursting back when the first boyfriend she’d had, Roman, had tried to take their relationship further than she’d been prepared to do. After a month of dating exclusively, he’d grown tired of waiting and had asked her if she’d stay over. She didn’t want to have sex with Roman, and – God help her – she didn’t want to have sex with Mark.
She looked up to see one of the women, that normally joined her mystery woman, sit down at a small table at the back of the shop. Another woman joined her, leaned down, and kissed her before sitting next to her. Amara heard the bells over the door jingle, but before she could turn, she saw the woman who’d just been kissed meet her eye and then look away toward the door.
“Hey, Hillary,” the woman said loud enough for Amara to hear and waved her arm.
Amara turned to see the woman who had just entered. She had shoulder-length black hair now and had toned arms peeking out of a green polo shirt. She headed toward the two women in the back. After all this time, the woman she’d been fawning over had a name. It was Hillary.
CHAPTER 3
“Hey, guys.” Hillary sat next to Greene and Joanna, facing the back wall of the coffee shop.
“Your future wife is here.” Greene nodded toward the front of the shop.
“Babe, stop it.” Joanna laughed at her girlfriend and then snuggled into her side as they sat on the long booth that lined the entire wall.
“She was staring at Hill as she walked in; and we know she’s nearly always here when Hill’s here… What am I supposed to think?”
“That maybe I’ll have a future husband?” Hillary lifted an eyebrow.
“That’s true,” Joanna agreed and lifted her coffee to her lips.
“Either way, man or woman, I don’t care. I just want you to talk to that one over there.” Greene lifted her hand as if to point, and Hillary smacked it down.
“Greene,” she exclaimed in a half-whisper.
“I know you’re interested, because you always do that whenever we bring it up.” Greene gave her a small laugh. “If you’d just talk to her, ask her out, you’d know.”
“What makes you think I want to go out with anyone right now?”
“Hill, you never ask anyone out yourself, and you seem to hate putting yourself in positions where someone might ask you out.” Greene took a sip of Joanna’s coffee.
“Hey! Get your own,” Joanna said.
“I’ll have you know… I was asked out last night, actually,” Hillary said it before she thought about it.
“Really?” Joanna asked.
“When’s the date?” Greene asked.
“I turned him down,” Hillary answered and took a drink of her own coffee to stall for time.
None of her friends knew about the Al-Anon meetings. It was a part of herself she’d yet to share with any of them. It wasn’t because she didn’t think they would understand; she knew they would and that they’d support her. They’d probably even offer to go with her if she asked. When she’d first gone to the meetings, she hadn’t known this group of her now lifelong friends. She’d stopped going altogether by the time their group had formed. When she’d gone back, it had been because of Caroline, and she hadn’t wanted them to know. It was embarrassing to her tha
t she’d put herself in that situation again: loved someone that treated her poorly because of their addiction.
“Why?” Greene asked her. “Did you not like him?”
“I don’t really know him. It was one of those ‘he’s seen me around’ kinds of things, and he asked me to coffee.”
“And you said no because?” Joanna chimed in.
“I didn’t want to go for coffee.”
“So, that simple?” Greene ran a hand through her dark hair. “You didn’t want coffee? Did you at least give him your number?”
“No.”
“Do you ever plan on talking to her?” Greene asked, but with genuine curiosity in her tone. “I’m not trying to give you a hard time, I promise. I just think it’s silly. She’s been coming here for a while now, and you come here at least once a week. You two stare at one another at least ten times every time, and then you leave.”
“I come in here normally to work. I have papers to grade or papers to write myself.”
“You’re a professor. Why are you writing papers?” Greene joked.
“Because professors need to get published. I’m working on one right now that has to do with sexual fluidity in the mainstream media.”
“What’s it about?” Joanna asked.
“A lot of public figures, celebrities are coming out these days. It’s great visibility. It’s also providing an opportunity to examine the labels people use and to talk about what they mean to society, but more importantly, to the individual that labels themselves. For example, there are at least three female singers I know of that came out this past year, and two of them define themselves as bisexual while the other is sexually fluid.”
“Cool concept,” Greene offered. “Can’t wait to read it.”
“I bet.” Hillary smiled and gave a sarcastic reply to her friend.
“I’ll read it,” Joanna remarked.
“I have to write it first.”
Hillary took a drink of her coffee and watched Greene pull out her phone to check the time. Joanna leaned into her to glance at it and then smiled up at Greene before kissing her cheek. Hillary lowered her eyes to her coffee. As happy as she was for them, and she was ecstatic, she couldn’t help but want the same for herself.
“Sorry, Hill. We’ve got to head out,” Greene said.
“I have a job in Oakland, and Macon here is acting as my assistant. It means I get to boss her around,” Joanna said of her freelance photography job.
“Don’t you always?” Hillary jested.
“Joke’s on you, Hill. I like when she’s bossy.”
“And we’re leaving.” Joanna pulled on Greene’s arm.
“I’ll see you two at After Dark?”
“We’ll be there,” Macon said as they made their way out from behind the table.
Hillary said her goodbyes to her friends and pulled out her laptop. She normally didn’t sit all the way back here, but it could be difficult to find a table that fit three or more people, and her friends typically sat at the back when they beat her there. She moved around so that her back was to the wall, because she didn’t like being turned away from the entrance. Who was she kidding? She didn’t want to have her back turned to Amara. It was such a beautiful name for a beautiful woman. Hillary wondered at the name’s origin. Maybe it was a family name, or maybe her parents had chosen it randomly out of a book. She opened the first paper she needed to review for her Intro to Women’s Studies class and began reading.
Hillary had earned her Ph. D in sociology, with a focus on women’s studies, and had taken a professorship at a San Francisco University immediately following her doctorate. She’d been teaching a mixture of classes ever since, but one of her favorites was the intro course. Most professors and doctors, in particular, favored the higher-level courses, but Hillary enjoyed taking young freshmen minds and teaching them concepts she believed important. As she reviewed the text on the screen, her eyes continued to flit up toward Amara, who was also staring at her laptop. They’d done this dance nearly every week for a year or so, with the woman looking up at her and then away once Hillary noticed and met her eye.
Today, as she read and tried to focus on the work of a student, she couldn’t help thinking about the previous night when she’d seen Amara at the Al-Anon meeting. Granted, Amara hadn’t been a participant in the meeting, but she had been there. Hillary had only ever seen her outside of the coffee shop one time – at an adult-oriented arcade that Greene and Joanna had always frequented. Before they left, one of her meddlesome friends had approached Amara with her group of friends and learned the woman’s name.
“Refill?” A barista approached her without her realizing as she corrected a misapplied theory in the paper.
“Sorry?” She glanced up and saw a woman standing there, nodding to her now empty cup.
“I asked if you wanted a refill.”
She hadn’t seen the woman at the shop before, which could only mean she was either new or just new to the shift. Hillary was a regular. She knew all the employees. She no longer had to order. They either had her drink ready, or if they were busy, they’d ring her up without asking what she wanted.
“Oh, no. I’ll leave soon.”
“I’m not trying to kick you out,” the woman with chestnut hair, black-rimmed glasses and honey-colored eyes behind them said with a smile. “Stay as long as you want. I was just offering to get you a refill on the house.”
“Wouldn’t you get in trouble?”
“Doubt it,” the woman said. “The owner is my sister.” She nodded to a woman behind the counter that Hillary did recognize.
“I guess you can pretty much do whatever you want then.” Hillary smiled back up at the woman.
“Like buy you a cup of coffee,” she replied.
“You want to buy me coffee?”
What was it with people wanting to buy her coffee lately?
“I do.” The woman nodded.
On instinct, Hillary glanced over in the direction of Amara’s table. She was still there. Her eyes met Hillary’s before she glanced up at the woman next to Hillary and then away entirely.
“I was actually just about to leave. I have to get to work.”
“Maybe another time then? I’m Lucy, by the way.” She held out her hand for Hillary to take.
“Hillary.” She shook it and closed her computer. “Maybe,” she added and stood to gather her things.
“I’ll take that maybe.”
When Hillary stood fully and moved beyond the table, Lucy took a few steps back. Hillary could see that they were close to the same height, but while Hillary was nearly at her goal weight, Lucy was trim and lightly muscled in all the right places. She was attractive, to be sure. Hillary would never get used to someone like Lucy flirting or asking her out. She offered her a shy smile mostly on accident and made her way toward the door. By the time she looked over, though, Amara was gone. Hillary’s smile disappeared as she made her way to campus.
CHAPTER 4
Amara had wondered about Hillary, and now she was all but certain that Hillary dated women. She’d seen two couples now with Hillary on different occasions, and they were two couples of women. Today, she’d seen the very attractive dark-haired woman with another woman who was clearly crazy about her. That, of course, didn’t indicate that Hillary herself dated women. The gorgeous woman who’d approached her – after Amara had witnessed her staring at Hillary over the counter for several minutes – and then promptly went over to obviously flirt with her, though, was a pretty positive indicator. Hillary had been surprised. Then, she’d smiled at the woman as she shook her hand. Amara had watched the whole encounter over the top of her laptop. She scolded herself internally as she walked down the street toward her car. She wasn’t sure how she felt about this possibility. While she battled with herself daily about her feelings toward her sex, she’d never had any intention of dating a woman. She’d marry Mark or someone like him, they’d settle down, and she’d have at least two children. She’d lik
ely inherit her father’s house one day, and they’d move in there. Mark might even become the pastor, if his recent behavior and admiration for her father were any indication of his intent.
She tossed her bag into the passenger’s seat before turning the ignition and making her way out into traffic. She recalled the fantasy she’d had the night before while she’d touched herself. It had been Hillary’s face, Hillary’s body she’d pictured touching her as she touched Hillary in return. It hadn’t been the first time she’d thought of her that way. It likely wouldn’t be the last, despite her efforts to try to assert Mark into those fantasies.
She pulled her car into the parking garage and made her way toward the building indicated on her new schedule. She was only taking two courses each semester. She was one year shy of graduation. She’d tried an accounting class to attempt to find another way to help the church beyond her administrative role, but the first two weeks of the course had bored her. She’d dropped it and chosen something different entirely. Today, she’d begin with her first class in the humanities beyond a few theology courses her father had suggested.
She sat in the room large enough for at least forty students and readied her laptop before looking around at the other students who didn’t seem to have their laptops out. She considered grabbing a notebook instead and bent to pull it and a pen out of her bag. When she sat back up, she looked to the front of the room and noticed Hillary at the front desk; the front desk where the professor usually sat.
“Oh,” she whispered to herself.
◆◆◆
“Your first papers are graded. Results will be posted online after class because I know if I posted them now, you’d all grab your phones and check them out. Now that I’ve read your papers on Women’s Studies as an academic discipline, we’ll explore theories of the nature of gender and sexuality, including the influences of biology, personality, and social roles. For those of you that are joining us for the first time after add/drops, the syllabus is posted online. You can have until next class to complete the first assignment. If you have any questions, you can see me after session or in my office hours,” Hillary lectured the room.
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