Crossing the Bridge

We were in the kitchen, trying to prepare a make-shift dinner out of sloppy joes and garden salad when I told her. I didn’t butter it up, or try to ease her into it. I just said it. I told her I wanted to start dating women.

“Oh,” she said, without turning away from the hamburger she was browning long enough to meet my gaze. “So you’re a lesbian, huh?”

I told her it wasn’t that simple. Men were men, and women were women. That was that, and that was all that would ever be. I’d had my share of the former, and now I wanted to take a representative sampling of the latter. I wanted my cake, and I wanted to eat it, too. It was simply that complicated.

“Huh,” she said. She was still looking down. Either I was making her uncomfortable, or she was tending to some damned expensive hamburger.

I said I knew it was weird for me to just throw it out there like that. But there wasn’t any other way to do it. I’d had friends who’d taken a dip in the bikini pool just for grins, and I was ready to go for a swim myself. It wasn’t really all that uncommon.

“No, it isn’t,” she commented as she stirred.

I asked her if she was speaking from experience

“No,” she said.

I went back to chopping my salad. She continued to prod the hamburger. I could hear her spatula scraping the pan as she broke up the larger chunks of meat. I tried to chop quietly. I liked the scraping. It let me know she was there.

“Do you think you could make love to a woman?” she asked. Scrape, scrape.

I said I wasn’t sure. I knew I could kiss a woman. That I knew. But anything more seemed foreign and just out of reach. It wasn’t that I didn’t know what to do. I just didn’t know if I was capable of doing it. With men, I had always been on the receiving end of love. I wasn’t sure I could reverse that role long enough to give a woman what women inherently deserve.

“You realize that it will eventually come to that, don’t you? I mean, if you date a woman,” she said.

I said I was aware. It was a bridge I would cross when I got there.

I finished quietly chopping the green peppers and moved on to the onions. I warned her that her eyes were about to start watering. She laughed. I heard her fire up the can opener, and turned in time to see her dump tomato sauce into the pan. The meat sizzled angrily, adding to the tension in the room. I thought about changing the subject when the back door opened. Her husband greeted me warmly.

The meal was ready to eat by the time he hung up his jacket. We filled our plates, and headed to the dining room. She sat by me. We consumed our dinner slowly, and I listened to the two of them talk as though I wasn’t there. I nodded every now and then, and occasionally gave an enthusiastic uh-huh, but mostly I was silent.

We placed our dirty dishes into the sink. Her husband would take care of them, but the grass needed to be mowed, and daylight was fading. He went into the garage to start the lawnmower.

“Come into the living room, I’ll show you the trip I’m planning,” she said. I followed her to the couch. She sat down beside me and pulled out an atlas.

“Okay, here’s Missouri. I’m going to travel down here, and then I’m going to weave my way east, and then I’ll be in, let’s see…” she said as she flipped through the atlas. We were sitting thigh to thigh. I thought about scooting over, to give her room. I decided she didn’t want that. After all, she had sat by me.

“…and then I’ll wind up in Vermont, where the wedding is,” she finished.

I told her I thought that sounded like a pretty good trip. She laughed. The atlas went back on the coffee table, and she looked at me. Stared at me. I knew what she wanted. I wasn’t sure why she wanted it.

“Prove it,” she said.

I asked her what she wanted me to prove.

“Prove that you can kiss a woman,” she replied in a whispery voice that I didn’t recognize.

I asked her why, she just laughed. I asked her if she was sure, she just smiled. So I leaned in and pressed my lips to hers. Our mouths stayed closed.

When I pulled away, I locked my eyes on hers. I was looking for some sort of satisfaction. I didn’t see it. I thought the kiss had been a bad idea. I started to wish I could take it back. But then she spoke.

“No. I mean, prove that you can kiss a woman,” she said, smiling in a way that was painfully seductive.

It was my turn to grin. I knew what she wanted. I didn’t care why she wanted it. I brought my hand to her forehead and swept her curly locks behind her ear. My fingers slowly traced her jawline, settling just under her chin. I pulled her toward me. She laughed as our noses brushed against each other. My lips met hers once again, and this time I felt her relax. I sucked on her bottom lip, and I heard her sigh. I used it to my advantage, inserting my tongue into her mouth, and massaging her from the inside. The backdoor slammed shut. I withdrew.

“Hey, Jack,” she said to her husband. “I was just showing Anna the trip I’m going to take.”

Jack didn’t say a whole lot. Jack never said a whole lot. I heard the dishes clinking in the sink.

“So then I’ll wind up in Vermont, where the wedding is,” she said, loudly flipping pages through the atlas in front of her. “And that’s my trip. What do you think?”

I told her again that I thought it sounded like a pretty good trip. We sat in awkward silence, listening to the tink of glassware. Then he came into the living room to ask us what we wanted to do for the rest of the night.

“Well, this movie came in through Netflix,” she said, holding up a nameless DVD in a red and white package. “We could watch that.”

They argued for a while over who had ordered it, and why. Without settling the dispute, the three of us decided to shut up and watch the movie. It was crappy. It ended, and Jack announced he was going to bed. She went with him. I settled into the futon that was to be my own bed for the evening, thinking that was that. A half an hour passed. The door to my room opened.

“Mind if I come in?” she asked.

I said I didn’t. I watched her silhouette fumble its way through the dark and onto the futon beside me. Somehow she found her way under the covers. I wasn’t sure what to say or do. But she was there. Beside me.

“Do you want to find out?” she asked.

I asked for clarification. She laughed. I loved her laugh. It was as hearty and confident as a firm handshake, yet innocent as a budding rose. I would have done anything for her.

“Do you want to find out if you can cross that bridge,” she replied in that whispery voice.

I didn’t know if I did. But she was there. She was beside me. My eyes were still adjusting to the change in light and I couldn’t see her face, but I could feel her breath against my neck. It was warm and soft and so inviting. I didn’t know if I could cross that bridge. But I knew I wanted to experience more of her.

So I didn’t answer her question. Not outright.

I found my way on top of her, fighting the ever-tangling sheets to perch, poised, above her. My pupils had contracted appropriately, and I could see her now. Gravity had caused her curly hair to fall in a fan around her, framing her face in all of its perfection. She was wearing plaid, short sleeved pajamas, with matching shorts, I assumed. I would know when I got that far. I would get that far. I could tell she had taken off her bra for the night. Her nipples stood erect. It was no telling how long they’d been that way.

I slowly lowered myself down onto her. We were face to face, our eyes locked on one another. She was smiling. She was always smiling. I kissed her as I had before, tonguing her deeply. I could feel her moan. Her arms wrapped themselves around my back and began to work their way slowly up and down my body. A hand firmly gripped my buttocks. It was my turn to make an oral response.

I withdrew my tongue from her mouth and pressed my forehead to hers. Her eyes opened, and she looked at me with a mix of excitement and confusion. I grinned, and slid my hands up her shirt, finding her chest to be as bare as I had predicted. I closed my thumb and second finger around her erect nipples, using my pointer finger to flick the tops of each one. She closed her eyes again and arched her back. I slipped my tongue back into her mouth.

The foreplay was good. Foreplay was always good. Both of us were sweaty and breathing hard when she pushed me away from her. I asked her what was wrong. I asked her if anything was wrong.

“If you’re going to cross the bridge, it’s now or never,” she said, her voice soft yet heavy. “Time’s a wastin’.”

She was right. It was now or never.

I lowered myself back down onto her, and kissed her briefly on the lips. She looked nervous when I whispered for her to relax. She did as I asked. My lips moved back to her mouth, then slid their way down her cheek. I suckled her neck, just below her chin, as I slid my right hand down the front of her pants. I paused at her clitoris briefly before easing my middle finger into her vagina. At first I did nothing; I wanted to make sure she was going to receive me.

I heard her sigh, though I hadn’t started to move yet. I stopped suckling her neck and whispered for her to beg me to continue. If she really wanted it, she was going to have to work for it.

“Give it to me,” she said. I told her it wasn’t good enough. I told her she would have to do better. “Give it to me, Anna,” she said. “Give it to me like I’ve never had it before. Make me forever indebted to you."

I decided that was close enough. I decided that would do.

I began to stroke her upper vaginal wall, using a “come here” motion. With every stroke, I increased the pressure on her ever so slightly, focusing on the area where her g spot was. She began to moan immediately, and it wasn’t long before panting followed. But I was teasing her. Despite the pleasure she was experiencing, an orgasm wasn’t yet in her future. I was sure she knew it. I doubted if she cared.

I continued to caress her as I kissed her even deeper than before, slipping a second finger inside her as her body relaxed and her lubrication increased. Her moans became louder and louder, and I sealed my lips even more tightly around her own, kissing her screams.

She began to writhe beneath me, as though it were agony, and not pleasure, that she was experiencing. I knew it was time. I asked her if she was ready. Ready to experience that explosion of release that women desire but rarely receive.

“Yes,” she half-whispered, half-hissed. It was as though she were drowning, gasping for air.

I pressed my forehead to hers again, and we shared a moment of passion that was purely emotional. My eyes found something in hers that I had never seen before. I wanted her. I had always wanted her. And now that I saw that want reciprocated in her brown pupils, I was worried that I would never want anyone else again. I could never have her. Not for life. But I could have her in that moment. And have her I did.

I took her shorts all the way down. Down to her ankles, down over her feet, down to the floor. Then I slid my way down her body, until I was between her thighs. I increased my speed in her vagina as I closed my lips around her clitoris. I sucked her gently, and used my tongue to flick it from side to side. Her back arched, and her screams became more pronounced. I showed her no mercy. She came in a burst of convulsing relief. I gave her vagina a few parting strokes, and withdrew myself from her. Pulling the covers back up over us, I laid beside her, each of us staring at the other one, smiling. She ran her fingers through my own curly locks, and we snuggled quietly well into the night.

It was early the next morning when she pulled the covers back and rose from the futon. I watched her silhouette dress. Without an ounce of shame, she made her way carefully to the door.

“Jack can’t know,” she said. I agreed.

Jack never did.