Her first lesbian experience didn't start out to be a lesbian experience. In fact, Autumn Holcomb didn't even know she was a lesbian, though she suspected it. Never lacking for male attention, she dated boys through high school. Nobody steady, just various boys who asked her out, and lots of them did. When you're a girl, and a pretty girl at that, and the ratio of girls to boys is sixty-forty, you get lots of attention. Even "average" looking girls at Brentwood Prep never lacked for male suitors, so it made sense that girls like Autumn, who people said could be Miranda Lambert's twin sister, didn't worry about where their next date was coming from.
Autumn didn't worry, nor did she care. Her concern was her lackluster feeling when it came to boys, good-looking boys with personalities and brains to match. They drew her attention—sort of. Rick Poston was a perfect example, six-one, hard-bodied, student-athlete Rick, a lacrosse standout at Brentwood, class treasurer, most likely to succeed, et al. Autumn accepted his invite to senior prom, even made out with him on her parents' sofa afterward. However, what should have been thrilling just wasn't. When her envious girlfriends asked her how things went, she shrugged and said, "Okay. Par for the course, I guess."
In short, her experience with Rick wasn't much different than her experience with other boys she'd been out with. Was she a lesbian? She couldn't help but wonder.
The thought had entered her mind back in middle school. It so pained her to think about it that she tried to repress it—no easy task when you're a budding beauty with a budding curiosity about other budding beauties. For her, sleepovers with some of her tween girlfriends were as much fun as they were frustrating. She played the game, swooning over some boy in their class or celeb heartthrob. Meanwhile, she had her own heartthrob, and it wasn't a boy.
Relax, this could just be a passing phase, she'd say to placate her angst. Socially, she soldiered on through high school, accepting invites from boys, hoping her passing phase would one day pass. It didn't. In fact, it became more difficult to repress when she roomed on campus for her freshman year at Adelphi, a small liberal arts college. It's all she could do to avert her eyes away from the girls on her floor, all those bodies, hot and naked and off limits to her. If there was one that thought the way she did, she didn't know her.
Then, weeks after school began, while standing in the cafeteria chow line, the girl next to her posed a question: "Did anybody ever tell you that you look like Miranda Lambert?"
Autumn responded with her usual retort: "Yes. Now, if only I could sing like her."
'What a beauty,' Autumn, thought, taking in the girl's dark brown eyes, high cheekbones and full lips. Her skin, the color of light mocha, looked velvety smooth. Her hair, dark brown and straight, dropped to her lower back. She had that dark "ethnic" look, a sharp contrast to Autumn's blond Anglo-Saxon phenotype.
"Are you a Miranda Lambert fan?" Autumn asked.
"I am," the girl said. "Besides having a great voice, she's very beautiful. Don't you think?"
Autumn nodded, then introduced herself.
"Leilani Cuddie," the girl said.
"That's an unusual name."
"My dad's English, my mom's Hawaiian. Obviously my genes favor my mom's side."
"Obviously. So you're Anglo-Polynesian. That's so cool." Autumn kept to herself what she was thinking, that Cuddie sounded to her ears like...cunt. If she had any doubt about her sexual orientation up to this point, she was starting to lose it in light of what she was feeling in front of this gorgeous Anglo-Polynesian.
Deciding to eat together, they took their trays and grabbed a table for two against a wall. They lived in different dorms on the same quad. Neither girl had yet to declare a major. Over a lunch of tuna sandwiches and fruit, they discussed school, what they liked and didn't like, where they might be headed academically. Minutes into their talk, a male student stopped by their table to say hello to Leilani. He was tall and blond, with stereotypical surfer good looks. Autumn watched as the guy asked Leilani when she was going out with him. Leilani parried his advance with a good-natured shrug-off.
"Wow, he's some piece of eye candy!" Autumn gushed when he moved on. "You must not go for beach boy types."
Leilani shrugged. "Gabe's on the wrestling team. He's been calling me for weeks. But, I don't know. He's great looking, athletic and all that, but dating isn't on my agenda right now. It'll distract me from school."
Autumn nodded. "So what do you do for fun?"
"Right now, not much save for attending an occasional rock concert and going on Facebook." She frowned wistfully. "I lead a rather boring life."
"I can relate," Autumn said. "Maybe what we both need is a little spice, a diversion from our academic grind."
Leilani smiled. "Hmm...a little spice would be great. However, I've yet to find anything that exciting on campus. Any ideas?"
Autumn had ideas, all right, but she hardly knew this girl long enough to voice them. "Um, not on the tip of my tongue." She blushed knowing that what she just said carried implications beyond a simple figure of speech. At least in her mind, it did. She caught herself staring at Leilani's boobs, then quickly looked away.
Leilani hooked a finger inside the top of her low-cut blouse, and tugged it down a couple inches. "Well, if you can think of anything, I'm open to suggestions." She batted her long eyelashes.
Did this girl like girls, too? Autumn needed to feel her out, first metaphorically, then..."It's healthy to be open to new ideas, new things one's never before tried but kind of wanted to. Know what I'm saying?"
"I do, I do. Tell me yours and I'll tell you mine." Leilani flashed a devilish look before biting into her peach. She sucked and licked at the innards, slowly, purposely.
Autumn watched her newfound friend draw the nectar into her sensual mouth, licking her lips, puckering up, consuming the fruit as if it was the last peach on earth. She found herself spreading her legs under the table, then running a finger over her crotch. "Looks like you're really into that peach."
"It's delicious, and I believe in savoring delicious things." Again, that devilish look. "So, tell me about some of these new things you'd like to try."
"Maybe I'll start by devouring a peach the way you're doing it, savoring every morsel for maximum pleasure. In our quick fix, fast-forward world, we tend to overlook the simple pleasures of life. Eating a peach, for example."
"The simple pleasures of life...yes, I couldn't agree more. Perhaps we can explore that theme in detail, engage in some intellectual tete-a-tete." Pause. "Or, do something athletic, an activity that keeps you in shape and might be loads of fun at the same time."
Autumn's eyes brightened. She jogged on occasion and hit the gym a few times a month. It was token exercise at best, nothing regular and nothing she'd call fun, done more out of a sense of duty. "Do you have something in mind?"
Leilani grinned. "Okay, well, you might think this is weird, but have you ever wrestled?"
Autumn shrugged. "Kind of. I mean, just goofing around with my kid brother. But that was years ago. Why? Have you?"
"No, but it's something I've always wanted to try. Speaking of kid brothers, mine wrestles for his high school wrestling team. He's always telling me what a great form of exercise it is, because it employs all the major muscle groups. Builds great endurance, too. He even showed me some moves. None of my girlfriends back home has cared to indulge me, and I've yet to approach any of the girls at Adelphi. Until now. What about you?"
Autumn shrugged. "Sure, I guess so. Wrestling never looked like loads of fun to me, but I'll try anything once. But where?"
"Our school's wrestling room, where else? Of course, we'd have to go when the team isn't training, which shouldn't be difficult because wrestling season doesn't start for another couple months."
*****
Leilani was right; wrestling season didn't start for another couple months. However, team members still worked out in the eighteen by twenty foot room off the main gym. There was no mistaking what people used this room for, what with the gray matting covering the hardwood floor, the blue circles and the red padding covering the bottom third of the painted cinder block walls. Because the team occupied the room only during the day for their preseason workouts, the girls had no choice but to come here after the dinner hour.
Autumn didn't know what to expect or how to dress. She arrived dressed the way she normally dressed for gym, blue shorts, blue sports bra and green running shoes. She figured that Leilani would dress the same way, a notion her newfound wrestling partner disabused when she peeled off her loose-fitting warm-up sweats to reveal her own grappling outfit—a low-cut bra and yellow thong panties. Only her running shoes matched Leilani's.
"I know, it's not exactly what you'd wear in competition," Leilani said in response to Autumn's audible gasp. "But I feel less encumbered dressed this way. Hope you don't mind."
"Mind? Um, no, of course not." Autumn was doing her best to contain her ardor while gawking at Leilani's delicious body. She took note of her skin, dark and glowing, and her small waist, which gave her upper body that coveted v-shape. Nice. She couldn't guess her cup size by looking. No matter, her boobs, close to fully exposed, seemed to call out to her. Lowering her eyes, she said, "Love your flat tummy. You do ab work, I'd guess."
"I do," Leilani said, pinning her hair up. "Forget sit-ups. An ab cruncher machine is all you need." She patted her stomach, then tugged on her thong, pushing the crotch almost into her slit. She grinned watching Autumn stare in excited disbelief. Then she went over to the door, solid wood except for a six by six inch square window at the top, and slammed it shut. "Well, are you ready for some moves?"
After tying her hair in a ponytail, Autumn stepped inside one of the two blue circles. "Ready."
