This is a story involving some of the characters from the Play Practice series. It takes place somewhere between Play Practice pt. 3 and Play Practice pt. 4.
*****
There's something about reaching your middle age years that makes you introspective. You were a different person when you were young. You had different wants and desires. You didn't know the ways of the world. Then the years happen. Decisions get made. A life is lived, and eventually you come through it a different person altogether. We try to impose a structure on the story of our lives, to look back and divide it into chapters and eras. When I look back on my life, I do so now as a successful and happily married lesbian woman. But there was a time when none of that seemed possible to me. I was some one person, then a new chapter began and I started to become a different one.
That chapter began my sophomore year of college. I had just moved back into the dorms and I was feeling ambivalent about everything in my life. I was painfully shy and lonely, having socially squandered my freshman year. The dorm friends all fell off after a few weeks (doesn't everybody's?) and so I mostly kept to myself, dedicating my attention to my studies. Studies and porn. Though I was still deep in the closet, I had personally come to terms with my sexuality shortly before arriving at college. I grew up very sheltered and so, having suddenly acquired a personal compute, internet connection and zero supervision, what else was a young lesbian woman expected to do but make up for lost time. Thank God my roommate Belen was still dating her high school boyfriend. He lived in their hometown thirty minutes away. The room was mine from Thursday night to Sunday night each week. In her absence, I quickly worked through the pantheon of erotic delights in three-day increments. I saw it all, and before long I had homed in on my kink of choice--lesbian domination.
But it wasn't all roses and self-discovery. All along I was filled with deep guilt. Why was I like this? Why was I attracted to women? Why did that attraction manifest itself in me as wanting to tie them up, tease them, humiliate them, and spank them? I would watch all the videos by a certain San Francisco-based company that produced S&M and fetish content and marvel at those powerful, intimidating women, while simultaneously lusting after their helpless, beautiful submissives. Wasn't I contributing to the objectification of women--these women that seemed shaped and dressed for the male gaze. And wasn't I contributing to the violence and subjugation of women, too? I sought out passages by Andrea Dworkin and, in fits of shame, swore off porn altogether. But that would only last about five seconds, until Belen got her weekend bag and walked out the door. Then it was open season again.
This tug and pull of these competing feelings followed me all the way to sophomore year. Belen and I had decided to share a dorm again--we weren't close, but we were roommates of convenience. Neither one of us had fully committed to the college experience and rooming together felt like the path of least resistance. I was always taking the path of least resistance. But, sitting there on my latex mattress in our new dorm room, I decided that my new chapter had begun. I promised myself that I was going to change my life with a three-pronged plan: I was going to take steps to make friends, learn to live life as a gay woman, and I was going to hook up with somebody.
Just after I'd solidified this resolution, Belen and her boyfriend came back to the room with bulging Target bags. Belen was of Mexican descent--came from a wealthy family that lived in the area and had a lot of pull. She had thick, black hair, and her face was angular, but pleasing. She was also quite toned, going to the student center every morning that she was on campus. All in all, she was not my type, and though I knew she was theoretically attractive, she never moved me in that way. (By the way, we never hooked up--in case you were wondering). Her boyfriend (I can't even remember his name anymore) was a chump--flat bill hat, wispy goatee, constantly getting in small-stakes trouble with the law. In retrospect, I would diagnose Belen as someone who enjoyed dating someone below her station. She liked being with someone who didn't have a lot going on--she knew where she stood and she held all the cards.
"What's up, Sabrina," he grunted.
"Good to see you again [whatever his name was]. Are you guys going to the Extra-Curricular Fair?"
Belen scoffed.
"Environmental club? Improv? Young Republicans? I'll pass. Why, are you going? What are you thinking about?"
"I'm not sure, but I know I want to get more involved this year."
I was playing coy. I did have something in mind, actually. I got up and slipped on my shoes. Belen's boyfriend climbed up the loft to her bed and laid down. As I went for the door, Belen followed me to the hall.
"Hey...not to be weird but..." she said.
"Stop. I get it. You want some alone time. Is it okay if I come back in like, an hour and half? Two hours?"
"I would be shocked if I even needed forty-five minutes, but let's say two hours in case a miracle happens."
A two-hour exile was a small price to pay for the many days of freedom that I enjoyed when she was out of town. I would have no trouble making myself scarce. I headed out of the dorm and off to the quad, where the Extra-Curricular Fair was already underway. The sheer number of tables was overwhelming--the rows extended over the entire quad. Belen didn't know the half of it: yes, there were several campus environmental groups, improv groups, and Young Republicans. But also Young Dems, Libertarian groups, acapella groups, video game club, board game club, Greek life, investing club, etc. etc. etc. I passed each table but nothing caught my eye. As I said, I was looking for something in particular. I didn't know what they'd call themselves--campus lesbians, or a queer activist group, or a feminist group...but I knew they must exist if I just kept my eyes open. And then, on my fourth row I found it. Voila. The gay girl table. "BLQG: Bi, Lesbian and Queer Girls."
I was so chicken I passed by it twice without stopping. On my third pass, before I got a chance to steel my will, a voice called out to me from the table.
"Hey, you! Jean shorts, black hair. You want to look all day, or do you want to stop?"
I blushed. Called out. But this was a new chapter. I was going in.
There were three of them sitting there. The woman who had called over was a heavy-set white woman with thick black glasses, a septum piercing, and a faded Shania Twain t-shirt. She looked up at me, using her palm to block the sun from her eyes.
"Hey there."
"Hey."
"Afraid? We don't bite!"
"I'm..."
She held out her hand.
"I'm Violet."
"Sabrina."
"Nice to meet you Sabrina. This is Marie..."
She pointed to the woman next to her, a slim white woman with blue hair. She wore a cropped t-shirt and olive shorts--punky, elegant. A beauty.
"And this is Ash," Violet said, pointing to a beautiful Black woman with fiery eyes. She wore a backwards hat over her braids, with a red t-shirt and skinny jeans (maybe the first Masc woman I ever met, come to think of it).
"Good to meet you both."
"Are you a freshman?" Ash asked.
"Sophomore, actually."
"What brings you by our table so many times, Sabrina?" Marie said.
"I'm...my name is Sabrina and I'm a lesbian."
I'd never been to a 12-step meeting--my knowledge of this stuff was purely from the limited television or movies I'd seen, or through cultural osmosis. The three of them erupted in laughter.
"Oh my God. How many days clean are you, Sabrina?" Violet asked.
"I'm sorry! It just came out that way for some reason. That's the first time I've ever said it out loud. To anyone."
Their laughter stopped immediately and they froze. Their demeanor went from gentle mocking to total and complete sympathy.
"Oh my God...sweetie. A baby lez!" Marie exclaimed.
"We're so sorry, Sabrina. It's actually really fucking cool that you felt comfortable to tell us. We had no idea."
"Come here. Sit down with us," Violet said.
