Preface:
This is a story about two sweet college girls who live in a dorm and are best friends. In the spirit of a child-like Valentine's Day romance between very close friends they plan a special evening together. An unexpected event turns the conversation to the subject of girl-girl sex and whether either has ever thought about the other in that way. Both admit they have . . .
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I was in college. We were best friends. It was wonderful. We are still friends, but our lives have gone in different directions. She is straight and I'm bi (but I didn't know it then).
OK, now that any unwarranted suspense or foreboding is out of the way, you can relax and enjoy my tale.
I am 38 now, and when I think back to those college days I realize what a funny thing memory is: Much of that time is just a blur of faces, names and unconnected incidents, but certain moments have a sharpness and immediacy that makes it appear as if they happened just last night. The subject of this story brings back many of these moments.
I was 18 during my first semester, and unsurprisingly had never lived away from home. I was in a large, modern co-ed dorm at an elite state university in the Midwest. The dorm had a mixture of all-girls floors, all-guys floors, and some co-ed floors. My hall was all-girls, and I was cordial but not close with the roommate assigned to me.
Of course, I met many people that year, and one of these was Claire, who lived elsewhere in the big dorm. I'm pretty sure we met in the cafeteria, where we found ourselves at the same table.
I remember clearly that this was one of those wonderful moments when you meet a person who you just know you're going to like, and can tell that the feeling is mutual. Within minutes, we discovered that while different in personality we shared a very similar outlook on life. Right off the bat, Claire and I were talking as if we had known each other forever, and had just picked up where earlier conversations had left off.
Claire was vivacious and outgoing, with an endearing lively twinkle in her eye, but she was also thoughtful and capable of introspection. I wasn't really shy, but was more introverted and cautious. Claire was also more of a girly-girl, not that I was a tomboy or anything like that, but I just didn't care very much about fashion, makeup or other female things.
Right away, we started hanging out together all the time. Claire's roommate always stayed at her boyfriend's off-campus apartment, so mostly we spent time together in her room. I became part of the gang on her hall, and she was considered a regular on mine. It was neat, because it gave us a wider social circle, and more party or special event opportunities, not that either of us were roaring party animals. Well actually, Claire could get a little wild, more so than me, but we were both consumed with our studies in the high-pressure academic environment.
I think we kind of took for granted having formed such a close friendship, because it wasn't until the very end of the second semester that we realized, soon the two of us would be separated for almost four months. Claire was returning to California to work in her father's business, and I would be home with my parents - 2,000 miles away from my friend. The two of us were miserable about it.
Summer came, and I missed her like crazy. We sent letters to each other that in hindsight look almost like love letters, but weren't really – just the sincere expressions of really close friends who miss each other a lot. Eventually summer ended and we were reunited, together again at the "Big U."
I had the same room and the same safe roommate. Claire "won the lottery" and got a single room. Her room was on the top floor, where higher ceilings made it possible to have a loft. Beds went above and the main level became a living room; it was more like a small apartment than a bedroom.
Having experienced separation, Claire and I no longer took our relationship for granted. We realized how special it was, and how ephemeral the college experience was. This added just the tiniest element of bittersweet melancholy to our friendship, and that made our feelings for each other even more tender.
The months flew by, full of good times and hard work, and eventually it was February. In the "real world," Valentine's Day is just a minor commercial holiday, but on campus it was hyped into a ribald celebration of sex as much as romance.
Claire and I both shared warm memories of those innocent valentine's of grade school, when best friends of either sex could "be my valentine" for a day. In that spirit – not the sexual one of campus – we decided to "be valentines," and make a special evening of it.
Each hall had a lounge with limited cooking facilities, so we planned a fancy meal for ourselves. The two of us would dine together under candlelight in Claire's room, followed by a movie on her VCR. We would be innocently romantic together, but honestly, there were no sexual overtones.
Some famous person once expressed amazement at the role sheer chance plays in every individual's life. What happened next has always seemed to me to be an example of that: The big dorm had its own popular-reading library that included an eclectic collection of video tapes.
When Claire and I went down to get a movie, the one we selected in pure ignorance was "Personal Best." Yep, the one with the lesbian love affair between Mariel Hemingway and Patrice Donnelly, except we didn't know it was a lesbian romance – we thought it was just a female athlete "buddy" movie!
To tell the truth, I don't remember all the plot details of that film. I know the romance ended badly (which is partly why I eliminated the suspense at the start of this story), and Claire and I were sappy, happy-ending types.
Here's what I do recall as if it was just last night: During the love scenes, we became very conscious of the other's presence, and became very quiet. That was unusual, because most of the time we cracked jokes or shared commentary throughout a film. We were embarrassed by what was on the screen, but we felt something else, too: excitement. The two of us were such close friends that we each
knew
the other was excited, and that made us more embarrassed, more self-conscious and more excited.
Under different circumstances, it might have been easy when the movie ended to pretend that nothing had happened. Watching
that
particular film however, on a night when we were enjoying a little innocent Valentine's Day romance, made the coincidence seem portentous. That, added to the fact that we were so much in the habit of sharing all our thoughts and feelings, made it seem like we had to talk about it.
So we did, and of course that meant discussing our feelings about lesbianism, and this led to the question of whether either of us ever had any thoughts of that nature about the other. Which as it turned out, we both admitted we had.
Well, now it was out in the open, and we could not or did not want to ignore it. Neither of us said so at first, but we knew where this was heading. Finally it came – the proposition. Claire was the more daring, and at some point she said, "So, Roxanne – do you want to try it?" I gulped. She gulped. We were both terrified, and thrilled. Of course, the answer was yes.
Well, now came the tricky part: What do we do? Make out on the couch? Strip and dive between each other's legs? Neither of us had a clue. Once again, Claire took the initiative, "Let's get ready for bed and climb in together."