FIRST TOUCH
Jodie has offered Melissa a part time job at the mill because she knows the staff, but deep down she is wanting to know more about this vivacious younger woman who doesn't appear to show any fear. By the end of the week however things have become much more intimate and when Melissa's mom unexpectedly outs herself it causes Jodie to re-evaluate the situation.
Jodie could recall vividly the first time a woman had touched her sexually it was during her second year at college when an older woman had come onto her. Admittedly they hadn't gone much further than a kiss and a bit of groping but Annie had been somewhat hesitant because she was a lecturer. In the end she stepped back from the brink and left Jodie to her own devices. Nature abhors a vacuum and ultimately Nina became her first fuck. Years later Jodie would concede that she should have learned her lesson with Nina. Had she followed her natural instincts instead of trying to fit into the straight world things would have been very different.
Nina was only a one night stand, and that one night stood out as being the first time she'd let go of her strict regime and just gone with the flow. She'd never intended for it to go that far of course but Nina had just kept flirting with her as they went from their rooms on campus and into town. A few hours at a mall followed by a light lunch and then back to their rooms, but when Nina suggested she come in for a few minutes it seemed rude not to acquiesce.
Later on she would blame the combination of weed and bourbon for what happened next but it was only since her marriage ended that Jodie finally admitted that she'd always been different when it came to her sexual orientation. Guys were cool and easy to be around but that's because they were predictable. Women on the other hand were complicated and while she liked the hardness of a man, she loved the complexity of a woman's mind and the gamut of emotional states. One never knew what would happen next. There was a part of her that had always suspected she was into women to spite her Aunt Ella who was married to a prominent anti LGBT campaigner.
However since coming out, Jodie had gone through a steady stream of women, some were out and out gay, others were bisexual or just curious but lately it seemed as if the latter type had become the norm rather than the exception. Angie was just the latest woman to make a play, only to baulk at the finishing line and she found herself coming out to Melissa over the course of the following week, At first it was just during their breaks but because they were in a disused office gradually that rule was bent until it finally disappeared.
Melissa turned out to be a good listener and partly because she was so curious and out of Jodie's need to air her dirty laundry, Jodie found herself opening up about her past. There were some times she really thought she'd succeeded in convincing Melissa that sticking with guys might not be such a good idea, even if Josh was a bit mixed up. But then the younger woman would throw out an off color joke or line that could very well be taken much further, and yet when it came to work she could throw herself into it and do everything asked of her.
Her out of hours visits showed a different aspect of her personality. She was flirtatious to the point of satire, coming out with lines and jokes straight from the lesbian world. She could also talk about sex in quite graphic terms and yet not once did she say, "let's just fuck." But it was in her eyes, Jodie could see that as plain as day, all she had to do was step across the line and it would be on for real and yet she stayed on her side. It was a safety mechanism she'd perfected over the last few years to keep functioning professionally.
These after hours visits had been a thing before Jodie put her on the books but after that first day at the mill they changed to a nightly thing and not wanting to discourage her Jodie readily welcomed her presence. Her bubbly personality combined with the tomboy persona was a refreshing change from the women she'd known in the past who put out their feelers but kept their true feelings hidden behind a carefully constructed mask. Melissa could be childlike without pushing it too far, her off color jokes left no room for doubt that she was sexually active and indeed loved sex, she identified with the Democrats but like Jodie, thought Clinton a waste of space.
"She could have just retired and written her memoirs but instead she went at it like a bull at a gate and look what happened."
It was almost as if there were two Melissas in the same body, the flirtatious girl and the studious young woman who took every task seriously. Jodie's instincts proved to be spot on though, she knew the guys who came into the office and could give a running commentary about their likes and dislikes, their strengths and weaknesses. It was something Jodie pointed out to Mark in an after work phone call from Melissa's home on the Friday night.
"Okay," Mark finally agreed, "we'll put her on as a temp and back pay her as well."
"Thanks," she replied.
"This other thing," he went on, "have you thought about it?"
"Pittsburgh sounds okay," she slipped a hand beneath the collar of her blouse, "at first it seemed like an exile but the salary is certainly attractive."
"It is and it's not an exile," Mark answered, "you've paid your dues and this would mean you could do your own hiring and firing. We need someone at the helm who can take the brand further, you've got the ground floor experience, you know how the management structure works and it's not just me saying this. Others have noticed as well."
"Okay," she looked up as Melissa came into the room. She had changed out of her work clothes and into a Western style shirt and jeans, "I'll give you my answer early next week."
"Have a good weekend," he replied.
Jodie farewelled him and put the phone down.
"So you're heading to Pittsburgh soon, huh?" Melissa sat down opposite her.
"Yeah, maybe," she stared at the shirt, "it's a job offer that just came up, same company but a better salary, I like that shirt."
"It's my stage outfit," Melissa looked down at it, "because we're playing Country music I like to look the part."
"I got a pair of braces that might look good with that," Jodie leaned forward and studied her phone, "pity I left them back in New York."
"Okay," Melissa smiled, "so, moving on. How long you fixin' to be here?"
"We got another week at the most," she frowned, "maybe just three days, it would have been longer but you've been worth your weight in gold. We got through a whole lot more than I thought this week."
"So, if'n you move to Pittsburgh would I still see you?"
"That depends on you," Jodie looked at her, "it's only two hours drive."
"Yeah, but what if you were with some woman? How would that work?"
"Ah, that's complicated," she mused, "women tend to get jealous easily."
Melissa opened her mouth to reply but then stopped as her mother came into the room. Julie nodded at Jodie.
"You stayin' for dinner?"
"I um," she looked down at herself, "I gotta go home and get changed, I'm going to Bob's Bar tonight and right now I look like a city girl lost in the backwoods."
"Well maybe we can change that," Julie moved closer, "you're about my size up top anyways, come with me and we'll see what we can find for you."
Melissa shot Jodie a strange look as the older woman got to her feet and followed Julie upstairs to the master bedroom.
"You mind if I ask you a personal question?" Julie closed the door behind her.
"Ask away," she felt the butterflies rising in startled flight.
"Are you gay?"
"I am," she exhaled slowly, "I'm not out waving flags but I am what I am."
"You ever tried being with a man?" Julie moved past her to the wardrobe.
"I was married for a few years but it just didn't work out, he was a decent man and we're still friends but I couldn't lie to him any longer and so I ended the marriage."
"My daughter seems quite fixated on you," Julie opened the wardrobe door.
"She's young and curious," Jodie kept her voice at a steady level, "I answer questions that's all."
"Melissa has always been different," Julie flicked through the blouses, "she sabotaged her own prom night," she pulled out a red blouse and held it up in front of her.
"Her prom date was Travis, he was a quarterback and I did the usual mom thing and got her a prom dress, after all she's my only daughter but she went to the school via her girlfriend's place and got changed into jeans and a top. She came back home in her prom dress because Melissa's not the kind to upset me, she knew I'd spent money on the dress and wanted to do her part."
"What's it like between you and her?"
"It's healthy," she flicked through a few skirts and then bent down and pulled out a black garbage bag, "I put this bag out for the charity man but he never showed," she opened the bag and pulled out a pair of jeans and looked at the label.
"Here, try them on for size, otherwise you'll be wearing what you got down below," she tossed the jeans onto the bed.
"Melissa has always been a tomboy. When her girlfriends were playing with dolls or getting dressed up she was out with her dad or brothers, it's because she's the only girl amongst four boys. She built her own computer when she was fifteen," she sat down at the head of the bed.
"She only did it because one of her brothers told her that she couldn't do it. He was fixing his own computer and she just wanted to help but he told her to go and do something else. She got upset and my husband just gave her a couple of old computers and told her to make one good one out of two older computers."
"And?" Jodie looked at her.
"It took her three weeks but she read up on manuals, watched videos on You Tube and did some more scrounging around her girlfriends and built her own computer. She was as proud as punch and her brother had to admit that she'd done better than him."
"What about Josh?" Jodie fingered the blouse.
"Josh couldn't find his ass with both hands in his back pockets," Julie shifted and laid down across the bed with her head propped on her palm.
"He can't leave his wife but he can have a girlfriend on the side. I've said my piece often enough but Melissa always does her own thing, she sets her own agenda," Julie looked past her.
"You gonna try them on? I can wait outside if you want."
"I'm cool," she stood up and shrugged the jacket off her shoulders.
"Good," she replied.
"So, maybe she's with Josh for another reason," Jodie started unbuttoning her blouse, "I mean I got married to Bob because all my friends were getting married and I was the only single one left. I just wanted to fit in and I wasn't prepared to come out."
She started pulling the blouse out of her trousers.
"Were you, before?"
"One night with Nina didn't make me gay," she undid the last button, "but it did make me question my sexual orientation. Nina was the first person I went all the way with, which should have told me something," she pulled the blouse down her back.
"I was a lesbian's wet dream," she tossed the blouse onto the bed and picked up the red one, "she was a few years older than me and we could have gone further but she went back to Sweden and I just couldn't take the plunge."
