[This is a longish, true story about my first lesbian experience that is best read at a leisurely pace. Enjoy.]
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I met Fara during my freshman year at Brown University when we lived in the same dorm. Initially, I was puzzled about her heritage. She had creamy light brown skin and impossibly big almond eyes, and although she had grown up in Wessex, she was certainly not Caucasian. During one of those inane freshmen orientation parties, we drifted to the margins of the excessively cheerful group and became involved in a more meaningful conversation. I asked her if she thought I had a slight accent, she replied in her crisp British one that mine seemed merely American. I told her about my Venezuelan heritage to break the ice, and asked her about her own background.
Her father was a half-White, half-Indian British University professor who had taken an extended vacation in Thailand during his mid 30's. There, he had met and wooed a native Thai girl. Fara was the glorious product of this union. She looked like one of those wide-eyed goddesses depicted in the Eastern religious art I was only faintly acquainted with.
She was petite and toned, but the most amazing thing about her was her skin. I remember realizing it for the first time during the late summer of that first school year. She was wearing a thin cotton sun dress that exposed her smooth brown shoulders and arms. As I hugged her, my hands rested upon her back; I was surprised at the suppleness of the flesh that slipped so lightly beneath my fingers.
"Oh my God, your skin is so soft! What moisturizer do you use?" I asked, even as we were locked in an embrace.
Her smile tickled my ear. "Oh none. I inherited my mother's skin."
During those early months, we talked for hours about cultural differences, bilingual identity, the altruism conundrum, the delusion of love. From that day on, we were inseparable. We went down to the dining hall together every night and edited each other's papers. When we were irritated by our respective roommates, we sat in the dorm the hallway and giggled incessantly about their inexcusable eccentricities. When either of us were actually sexiled by said roommates, we shared a bed. We understood each other intuitively and our emotional closeness was mirrored in our physical affection. We cuddled innocently in bed, tickling and wrestling safely under the guise of heterosexual female friendship. People insinuated that maybe we were more than friends, but we just laughed at their inability to comprehend the intimacy possible in a platonic relationship.
I just didn't understand why I felt so happy holding her, pressing her firm curves against me as we lay in bed. I felt like I didn't need anything else in my life. We nuzzled our noses into each other's fragrant hair, and held on tight before falling asleep. Once, I remember she told me how much she loved me and how impossibly glad she was that she had met me. She kissed my cheek lightly and then stared into my eyes. Softly, she went on to kiss my other cheek, my forehead, the tip of my nose, in rapid succession. When her lips returned to my cheek, they grazed the corner of my own mouth. I felt an impulse to turn my head, but I questioned it, and by the time I had decided to return her kiss, her lips had moved back up to my forehead. With baited breath, I waited for her to resume her smattering of kisses, but she seemed to have sensed my tension and she responded by lying her head peacefully on my shoulder and sighing. Suddenly, I was aware of her pert breasts pressed firmly against my own softer, larger ones. My breathing quickened. Were her nipples hard beneath her t-shirt, or was that just my imagination? I considered the relative thinness of the cotton barrier between the skin of our breasts. My own nipples hardened in response, and I panicked. I told myself that it was only natural to have sexual thoughts about the best friend you were so close to, regardless of their sex. I shut my eyes and prayed for sleep.
