"When will she be here?"
Randi stirred the sugar in her coffee as she thought this, gazing at, almost through, her kitchen door looking for that special woman. Especially in the morning, in the first quiet few moments she had to herself before the world required her attention, she would glance at the door and hope, finally, that SHE would somehow magically appear.
"If I can't find her, will she find me?"
These were questions that plagued Randi's life. In her domesticated, traditionally all American lifestyle, Randi was a great housewife, well-educated, in good shape, and attractive – slightly boyish and yet very feminine. By most standards she had all she wanted, but there was still a big something missing that kept her from fulfillment.
For as long as she could remember, Randi had been attracted to women as well as to men. In her view, genders were almost irrelevant – it was the person inside, just as age, geography, background, and such were less important than the total package of the person. However, there was something about the female form that called to her strongly. It was more than curiosity, more than just wondering, but rather a connection, a belonging, and "rightness" about it. All her life she had wanted to be with women in addition to and often instead of men. And yet, here she was, in the prime of life, with accomplishments and wisdom, plenty of potential, desire, capability, and hope, in a totally male-dominated world. She had nothing against men, in fact she loved them both individually and collectively – there was no denying that, but she also loved women. The only problem was that her society created endless obstacles to meeting that natural and beautiful need.
Often she would be utterly bewildered by how she had wound up as a housewife, just a male appendage at times, rather than the female-empowered and surrounded, actively bisexual woman she had wanted to be. She had very often dreamed of living the lesbian lifestyle; probably would have had she met someone to share it with. There was such a huge gap in her life, so much so that it ached within her – this chronic insistence for her to be with women, a special woman. Sometimes Randi had to chronicle again her life's path to explain why her intense needs were not at all being met. Several memories fought for attention, but these are the ones she recalled most vividly.
Her earliest understanding of this need was when she was in elementary school. Randi had a friend down the street, her best friend, and one day the two of them were in her room discovering out of simple curiosity the physical differences between boys and girls. Called Miranda then, she found herself on her own bed, door closed, between the legs of her friend, just looking, as her friend had looked at her. She was entranced, captivated somehow – not just with knowledge of what she herself must be like "down there" but with a connection and understanding of another. Some part of her had discovered freedom and sensuality, an exhilaration of identification the moment she had touched her friend intimately. It wasn't sexual, but still it was deeply personal, though at the time that she didn't comprehend at all what it was, this new feeling. Nor would she have many chances for a long time to find out. While still between her friend's parted legs, intently exploring that wondrous area, her mom walked in. The horror on her mom's face was enough to convince her that she was being extremely wrong, though she was unaware of any reason. Regardless, her friend was never allowed to come back, nor was she allowed to go to her friend's house.
A few years later, still in elementary school, Miranda and a classmate got into an argument about nothing, but it escalated into name calling. Eventually the other girl called her the worst name she knew, "lesbian," so Miranda naturally echoed it. The fight soon ended, and both girls went off to sulk or find other vindication. Later, Miranda asked her mother what the word meant because she had had no idea, only that it must be a bad thing. Her mom explained some basic concept about it, enough to satisfy her young mind, but she was admonished to never call anyone that again because it was a very bad word.
Randi, sipping her warm coffee, couldn't blame her mom. Times were different then, fears were different, and her mother had to maintain a narrow path of existence in which to keep her husband around enough to support her and the children. Yes, it had all be very different then, and yet, had it been more relaxed, would she still be staring at the kitchen door today?
In junior high, Miranda often ate lunch with her new best friend, and she felt no need to hide from classmates the truth that she often spent the night with her. Sometimes they even shared her friend's mom's large bed, buried in covers till they were roasting, regardless of the outside temperature. For some reason, friends and casual acquaintances called her gay and a lesbian despite the platonic friendship. It shocked and confused her – why was being friends with a girl so wrong? Was this what all kids said to each other, or was she singled out? Did they see something in her that she herself didn't? Soon, like it or not, Miranda was caught up in the peer- and family-pressured search for a boyfriend. Not surprisingly, she found one. Her strongest crush of that era was a boy who later admitted to being gay – even then.
In high school, she devoted herself to schoolwork and boys, but Miranda still enjoyed her female friends. One in particular she grew so close to, so at one with, that to her it was natural when they found themselves on a bed exploring one another, stimulating each other to sexual heights. Miranda completely found herself in the fulfillment of her friend, felt herself becoming a woman, never forgot that elation of bringing joy to this blossoming woman. But her friend, now being able to say she had tried it, said it wasn't her thing, so the physical aspects of the friendship ended, the friendship itself survived only awkwardly. It seemed increasingly obvious that Miranda had little choice in genders for physical intimacy.
Meanwhile, older males had insinuated themselves into her consciousness. One made a surreptitious yet public display of deep-tongue kissing her, very much against her will, in the reception line of his wedding – he was the groom, and Miranda was certainly not the bride but instead the bride's much younger sister. Nothing was ever said of this until many years later, nor of his smug victory in winning his little game. His moment of triumph was her loss of innocence, far more so than bargaining away her virginity years later for her boyfriend's (temporary) affections.
It wasn't, therefore, as difficult after that loss and Miranda's subsequent confusion for her father to manipulate her into too-erotic situations, resist them as she tried within his house. After years of infinitesimally escalating intrusions toward her most personal zones, never at any moment significantly farther than the previous, she rebelled. That rebellion nearly severed the family completely when the full situation came to light. She was the victim, yet had she reacted as such, demanded due retribution, she would have destroyed the family unity and strength, which meant her support as well. She had learned to protect and tend to men, regardless of fault.