Before reading this it's strongly recommended that you read Chapters 1 to 5 together with my other submission Those Fucking Years and Hubby Watched.
So now, a divorced woman of 37 with a teenage daughter. A rather embittered person about relationships. One that finds making any emotional commitment exceedingly difficult, if not impossible and one that has, to a degree, lost faith in men. One also that has tasted the "forbidden fruits" of her own sex. So where am I going with my sexuality. Oh, I should also add, one that does have a high sex drive as well!
Sherry and I did have that affair. And it was just like any other affair, or many at least. An initial period of intensity, phoning each other frequently and meeting for sex at every opportunity, which, surprisingly in some ways wasn't all that often what with both of us having children commitments and our differing work schedules. A middle time when the earlier, hugely strong, sexual attraction had abated a little and then the slow, meandering, excuse laden period as we both mutually cooled it.
Nothing acrimonious, no rows and no real end. Just a passing on. I still see her at the club and we're still friends though not lovers, she has a man in her life and I am very happy for her. Should the circumstances be appropriate between us at some time in the future I have little doubt that we would make love again but neither is likely to chase the other I feel.
The affair, though, was something so different for me. It was, of course, unusual to think that I was having one with another woman. Yes I'd had relationships with them but other than with Marcia they hadn't involved going out. No all the others had been purely sexual. The girls at Uni., Sharon, Jenny and Toni all shared that common feature of being simply for sexual adventure, fun and satisfaction.
With Sherry it was different. She'd made that clear right from the outset. Right from those beguilingly captivating words, "I think it's time we had an affair Mandy."
So we had gone out together, gone on dates really. We went to lunch quite often and, occasionally, to dinner sometimes even with our children. We'd go to a pub or bar for drinks and of course we regularly met to play tennis. We attended club functions and were able to indulge our affection for each other by dancing together.
That our feelings for each other were more than "just sexual" was the difference I guess between this and my other experiences. But I never really dwelled too long on that topic for that's where the real fear of being lesbian can play on one's mind. While what goes on between two women can be reconciled as being for sexual pleasure, then it's easier to remain relaxed about one's sexuality. However, if one party, or both come to that, starts to have deeper feelings and should the word love be mentioned then it becomes a whole new ball game. Then questions do have to be asked. They're unavoidable. The problem is providing answers isn't it? So best to not ask the question and to try to quell the feelings I think.
So the lesbian feelings, the desire for other women, the bisexuality or whatever. Is it still there? Yes it is but, as they say, it comes and it goes. Sometimes I will go weeks without thinking about it and at others it is in my mind constantly. Occasionally as I masturbate Jenny or Sherrie will be in my mind or a vision of being in bed with Kylie Minogue, Sharon Stone or kdLang will suddenly come from nowhere.
I have been naughty about it as well. But then is it naughty? I'm single and have the desires so what was wrong with me going to a lesbian pub in Soho? What was wrong with going into the club at the back? I'll tell you what was wrong they were all, well most, fucking ugly, very butch, hard core lesbians who scared the bloody life out of me. None of the sort of nice, feminine, lipstick lesbians that I had imagined. No, leather and denim everywhere, tattoos and piercings and short hair. Bloody horrible and clearly not my scene.
What's wrong with lesbian chat rooms? Again I'll tell you. Most are men masquerading as women and the "are you horny?" or "what are you wearing" questions are posed within 5 mins as opposed to the 10 in the straighter rooms!
Was it wrong for me to become a predator? Maybe, maybe not, but I certainly got it wrong, for the youngish barmaid at the hotel I stayed in for two nights turned me down flat when I eventually, after considerable soul searching and two large gins, asked if she'd like a drink in my room when she finished.
But not the second time. No that time I got it right but then it was less blatant.
My daughter was away with her father and to cheer myself up I decided to take a four day break at a château hotel in the Dordogne. I'd been before with Kevin some years before and it really was a delightful place. Stuck half way up a wooded mountainside it was so peaceful and rustic yet reasonably luxurious. The perfect place to relax, get some sun and good food but be by oneself. That can be difficult at many holiday hotels for I didn't want to be hit on by single, or married come to that, guys and I didn't like to stand out in the dining room as "the woman by herself." No I expected to have dinner in my room most nights and to spend the days by the pool or driving around the lovely countryside.
As it happened almost as soon as I arrived I met another woman for we arrived at the airport on the same plane and shared the courtesy car sent by the hotel to collect us. She was in her late twenties, fairly plain looking and quite tall and slim with a boyish looking figure showed off by her tight jeans and loose shirt. She had shortish, blonde hair worn in one of those stylish bobs similar to Denise Van Outen and wonderfully large, dark green eyes that almost all the time looked sad and pensive. We chatted easily in the car with her telling me that she was staying for a week or so visiting vineyards and restaurants to gather material for a book that her publishing house was going to write on The Dordogne. I thought at first that she was a writer but she wasn't she was a researcher.
We both sat round the pool in the late afternoon just relaxing after the trip and getting some sun that had been sorely missing in England before we left. Karla was easy to talk to and we got on really well and I found myself telling her about my divorce and she told me how she had a boyfriend but that their relationship was at present a little rocky. We talked about her research work and my writing and just chatted away as the afternoon drifted into early evening.
It seemed natural to dine together in the hotel that evening and when we met in the bar I
have to admit that those "feelings" I sometimes get but usually contain well started welling up in me. Although not the most beautiful of faces, for she had a largish nose and rather thin lips, she did have a sort of haunting attractiveness and a very subtly sexiness. Not at all blatant but the way that she flicked the hair that fell over her forehead and her almost total disregard for the way that her short skirt ran up her long and very shapely legs did get to me. As of course did the fact that we both alone in a hotel.
We had a great meal, a nice bottle of wine and finished off with two Armagnacs each.
I slept very well and remember drifting off with her face in my mind and my own breast in my hand.
I didn't see her until after lunch the next day when she appeared around the pool in a stunning white bikini that showed her slim figure off nicely and of course emphasized the length of her wonderful legs that were undoubtedly her best feature.. She told me that she was visiting a local restaurant that evening that was renowned for its regional cooking and that as it was on expenses why didn't I join her?
I readily agreed and went off to get dressed for the visit to the as she put it "rather dressy auberge."
Again we had a superb meal sitting on lovely table looking out through some French windows onto a large lake with the mountains in the back ground. We exchanged more about her failing and my failed relationship both of us admitting that other women were at the root of the breakdowns.
"Not," I said laughing "meaning me with other women." She laughed at that but I did wonder at the rather lingering glance she gave me as I said it.
Finishing the meal we caught a cab back to the hotel and fancying a night cap we went to the bar forgetting that in France hotel bars tend to close fairly early.
"Oh shit," she said when we found that it was closed, "I could have murdered a few armagnacs or cognacs."
It seemed as though fate was intervening for just that morning I'd been shopping and had bought a bottle of cognac so that after the meals I'd imagined I'd have alone in my room I would have a little snifter. I told her that and suggested that we have a drink in my room.
It really was the oddest and most erotic feeling to be showing a woman that I was aroused by into my bedroom. Probably the sort of feeling that men have when they are hunting their prey for that, I realised, was indeed, what I was hoping to do.
There was a little seating area but instead we took the bottle and glasses onto the balcony and sat close together side by side on a wicker settee that had cushions on it. It was the only seating on the balcony so once more it appeared that something was coming to my assistance as I sat beside her, our hips touching and our outer legs scraping against the other now and then.
We had two fairly quick drinks as we chatted with me telling her about Sarah and my work and her telling me about her social life that largely revolved around publishers parties and a very active scene in Notting Hill Gate where she shared a flat with an aspiring actress. Karla had put her feet on the wicker table in front of us so that her long legs were out straight and that had caused her dress to climb well up her tanned thighs and she looked so desirable that I almost lost control of myself. But nothing happened . As much as I wanted to do something I just couldn't pluck up the courage to start anything. I felt silly really but somewhat relieved yet also frustrated as I said goodnight to her and watched her leave my room.
