Seducing Anita

Anita and Colleen were two characters I introduced in part two of The Sandman. It was a very brief mention, Tracey does security for Anita's coming out party because certain members of her church see it as a personal insult. It's been playing on my mind recently so I decided to do a single story about how Anita and Colleen got together. I still have more stories to write about other characters in the two Sandman stories but this will have to do for now.

*****

Seducing Anita might be the title of this tale but in truth it was she who seduced me, which might not sound unusual until you realise that she was the straight girl from an ultra religious family and I was the lesbian. And when it comes to seduction I've seduced a few women in my life but never did I think a straight would try to seduce me.

I'm Colleen and I was born here after my parents emigrated from Tipperary, the climate must have agreed with them because I'm one of five children, I have two sisters, one is older than me and my twin brothers are both younger than me. I've been into women ever since high school, it's been my proud boast that while I've seen plenty of cocks in my profession as a nurse I've never seen one inside me yet, touch wood.

I'm twenty seven and live in a quiet leafy street in Canterbury, close to the city but far enough out that I don't have to put up with the noise. Being a short train ride to the city means I can hit the clubs on my nights off and it was at one of those clubs I met Alicia, who is also Irish, from the north. One of the things I love about Australia is that in general, you leave your bigotry at the airport, it's still there if you want to go and collect it but no one wants your stinky garbage lying around. Alicia's family are Protestant and mine are Catholic, although they haven't been to mass in years. Alicia was looking for a room to rent and I had a spare room that had just been vacated and so we came to an agreement over an all night session that started at a club in King Street before migrating back to Canterbury via Carlton and Fitzroy. It was one of my longer pub crawls but by far the most productive one, she took one look at the spare bed and said.

"It's mine."

She promptly passed out and my first action as a housemate was to undress her and put her to bed. Alicia knew I was gay and the fact that I was tucked up in my own bed impressed her and it's been that way ever since. She's the only straight woman who would have to spike my drink to get me into bed with her. There's not a lot I wouldn't do for Alicia, from pretending to be her girlfriend to ward off some creepy guy, to loaning her money to get to work. But the strangest request she made of me was when she asked me to come onto one of her old girlfriends from school.

"Anita is coming around," she announced one Saturday morning, "can you do me a big favour."

"You want me to go down on her?"

"Yes please," she smiled, "I'll even shout you the whole night at the Drunken Poet."

The Drunken Poet is a cosy little pub near the Victoria Market that has been one of our regular pubs since she first moved in. Who was I to say no to that? But I still wanted to know more about Anita and why couldn't she just tell her to fuck off instead of going through the whole pussy licking thing, not that I'm against pussy licking but curious minds want to know.

"She's trying to convert me," she told me.

"As in give your heart to Jesus or spread your legs for me?"

"The first one," she perched on the edge of my bed, "her parents are fucking bible bashers, her dad is a minister at one of those happy clappy churches down the Peninsula. We were friends in high school but I made the mistake of going to a few of her youth group things, stupid me," she slapped her head. "She's found out where I'm living from a mutual friend and wants to come here to see me and you know, catch up on the old days."

"So, why not just catch up? You're a grown woman," I eyed the shape of her breasts through the silk dressing gown, "you've even got boobs and I've seen your snatch once or twice."

"Because she's forever inviting me to church things, church this, church that but she's such a nice person I can't just tell her to fuck off. I might be anti church but I'm not a bitch."

"So you want me to be the lesbian bitch."

"I don't want you to jump on her," she replied, "just come onto her, do your lesbian flirting and I'll pretend to be turned on by it in a casual, curious way and she'll get the message that while she can be my friend I'm not the kind of person to invite to church."

I propped on my elbows and looked down at myself under the duvet and then sighed.

"Okay, okay, when?"

"Today, she's coming for lunch."

"Today?" I stared at her, "fucking hell, why couldn't you have said something last night?"

"You got in late and went straight to bed, she was actually going to call today to arrange a time but she just sent me a Snapchat fifteen minutes ago."

"This goes against my better judgement," I sat up, "okay I'll do it but you owe me," I warned her, "a whole night of drunken debauchery, you're lucky I don't throw in a fuck as well."

"I would have gone as far as that too," she eased off the bed, "thanks, bitch, I owe you big time."

"I'll hold you to that, slag."

"No worries," she exited the bedroom but lifted her dressing gown at the same time to show me one of her cheeks.

"I saw that," I fell back against the pillow and spread my arms out wide, "why me?"

"Because you love me," Alicia called back.

"Well there is that and all," I muttered under my breath.

So, I had to try and seduce a bible basher. I've got a pretty decent wardrobe but eventually settled on my black leather mini skirt with a zipper all the way up the front and adorned with a leather belt. I put on a black tank top and my white shirt but left it unbuttoned all the way to the waist, and I added my black thigh high boots. I even put on darker makeup, eye-shadow and black lipstick. Alicia whistled when I walked out and I did a little twirl.

"Would you fuck this woman or not?"

"I might," she grinned, "how do I look?"

"Fuckable," I took in the tight jeans and midriff top, "if we go out tonight we'll both pick up."

The stage was set. We were dressed to kill. I had my part to play and she had hers, all we were waiting for was the audience. I was out the back having a fag when she arrived and after a couple of quick tokes I hurried inside and promptly came to a dead stop.

Now Alicia had said Anita was attractive. What she failed to mention was she was drop dead gorgeous. This woman could lead a priest astray, scratch that. She could probably turn a gay man straight, for a night at least. She was a few inches shorter than me and wearing a red, ruffled blouse buttoned to the throat, it had one of those mandarin collars. It was tucked into tight black jeans that showed off a perfectly proportioned arse and waistline. Thick blonde hair fell past her shoulders in cascading waves and loose curls, framing an aquiline shaped face, her cheeks were coloured with rouge but her bow-shaped lips had a high gloss. When she smiled she exposed perfect teeth and then my eyes shifted briefly to Alicia.

Now Alicia is straight, I've made that clear but the look on her face was something to behold, I couldn't believe that my straight housemate was actually checking out her arse.

"I'm Anita," she held out her hand.

"Colleen," I replied, "I'm her housemate."

"So I guessed," she still had a hold of my hand and kept her eyes locked onto mine, a moment later her eyelids moved upwards in a slight flicker, a giveaway tell in any social setting. Then she was releasing my hand and looking down as she flicked at her hair.

"You're Irish as well?"

"I was born here but my parents are Irish."

"North or south?" Anita flicked at her hair once more and I finally replied.

"South, Tipperary."

"I'd love to visit Ireland," she stroked her throat casually, "amongst other places."

"I've been back to the Old Country a couple of times, maybe you can hitch a ride with me," I threw that last line out at the last moment.

"You're on," her eyes shifted again. Was this woman checking me out? I decided to make my play earlier than planned, nothing wrong with a bit of ad libbing I thought.

"As long as you don't mind hitching a ride with a lesbian."

I honestly thought that line would have had the opposite effect. I don't come right out and say that kind of thing to someone I've just met, but Alicia was reaching for her phone. It was one of those things we'd discussed that morning in between having a shower and breakfast, she'd take a picture of us. I was supposed to put my arm around her.

"That's cool," her lips parted in a smile.

Alicia's eyes shifted suddenly as she took out her phone. This wasn't going as planned I could tell by the look in her eyes.

"Instagram time," I turned Alicia around and slipped my arm around her shoulders and she moved closer to me and put her arm around my waist. When Alicia took the picture, Anita had her head right next to mine and she was squeezing me. It might have been nerves or maybe not, but Anita didn't let go straight away and when she did she took the phone from her bag.

"Send it to my phone, please."

"Sure," Alicia smiled.

After she'd sent it to Anita's phone, she wanted to send it to mine, which meant giving her my number of course. I complied and she duly sent it. Now I had a picture of me with my arm around a hot blonde and judging by the smile on her face as she looked at her phone, I had the feeling that far from being homophobic she was actually curious. Now and then over the next couple of hours she would shoot me a look or play with her hair and the coup de grace came as we saw her to the door. She undid the top button of her blouse and slipped a hand beneath the collar, muttering something about it being warmer suddenly.

"We should do this again?" Anita looked at me instead of Alicia.

"Yeah, no worries," I leaned forward, "you're on," I put my arm around her waist and she moved forward into me. Her breasts pushed against mine and I felt her arm around my back, she held her position for as long as possible before stepping back and nodding farewell.

"So what the hell was all that about?" I turned to Alicia once Anita had driven away.

"I have no fucking idea," she spread her arms wide, "on my gran's grave I swear, she was never like this at all. If I'd suspected, do you think I would have hung around? I would have been down the market while you two got better acquainted."

She put her back against the wall while I closed the door.

"As god is my witness, I thought she was coming around to bible bash me."

The subject of church and religion in general had indeed come up but only briefly. She'd talked more about her job at a solicitor's office, her trip to Fiji and a recent holiday in Surfer's Paradise. She'd moved out of home and into a house with two other women, who quite significantly, weren't Christians.

"I needed to broaden my horizons, but I still go to church."

We'd added each other on Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat and WhatsApp, for better or worse I was now part of her network.

"So maybe she's changed," I put my back to the door, "you haven't seen her for a few years and she did say she wanted to broaden her horizons," I looked at her.

"People change, you might turn onto women for all I know. It's not exactly a scientific process, you never know which way someone will swing until they swing," I stared at the ceiling. "But now that we're dressed to kill we should hit the town."

We Irish have a well deserved reputation for hard drinking and that afternoon and most of the night we certainly gave it a good lash. I wasn't as drunk as Alicia but that's because I'm older and tend to play the big sister role. She ended up picking up a guy and we got a ride home in his Subaru turbo, but I knocked back five good offers because I was too engrossed in my phone. You guessed it, I was on Anita's social media feed.

The name of the church she belonged didn't ring any bells but I'm not one of those gay pride devotees, I might go to the odd one or two but I'm too busy working or doing my own thing to get out and about. Alicia had said on the train into Flinders Street that they made the DUP look gay. They were into gay reversal therapy, which is pseudo-science at its most sinister. Granted they didn't endorse lobotomies and shock treatment, but even so, casting out demons and praying the homosexuality out of someone is still pretty extreme. Alicia was right, they were as mad as a cut snake. There were links on Anita's pages to talks by so-called experts on the evils of homosexuality, but by the end of the night the picture was becoming clearer even though my vision was getting a little blurry.

The last anti-gay post on her Facebook page was almost three months ago and prior to that the posts were about a week or so apart. I checked the dates and they all fell on a Sunday. So perhaps dear old daddy had been putting pressure on his daughter to share posts. Sure enough I found he had shared the same posts on the same day. I wouldn't say I decided to set out on a rescue mission that night, but as I lay in bed listening to Alicia's giggling and moaning I sent her a text message.

Colleen: Want to meet up on Tuesday night?

It was half past one in the morning and I didn't expect a reply until the morning but just as I put the phone on the bedside cabinet it beeped for a new message.

Anita: I can't at night, we have a prayer meeting but maybe the afternoon?

Colleen: Okay, when and where?

Anita: At your place, about five? Prayer meeting doesn't start until eight, I'm sure God won't mind if I'm late.

Colleen: No worries, I'll look forward to it.

She sent me a good night reply, sealed with a kiss and so I had to send one back, with a kiss. I fell asleep not long after and woke with Alicia's cat on my bed. Max always sleeps on my bed when she brings a guy home, it's the only place he can get a decent sleep.

I had a Snapchat from Anita. She was in her Sunday best, a white blouse and black, long skirt and the message simply read,

Watching over you

and then love hearts and a kiss.

Alicia had a hangover from hell that morning and it wasn't until Sunday night when I got back from an afternoon shift at the hospital that she was capable of coherent speech.

"So you're saying she's gay?"

"I can't say for sure but she is curious. It stands to reason when you're raised with that kind of bullshit, put up one of those keep off the grass signs out there and count the footprints in the grass tomorrow morning," I buttoned my shirt.

"I'm not saying that I'm going to seduce her but I sure am going to find out more on Tuesday," I sat down but pulled my phone out of my back pocket in the nick of time.

"Here, look at her Friend list, see anyone there who might be that way inclined? Like a friend from school?" I brought up her Facebook page and tapped the Friends link and handed the phone to her. She took it from me as if it was a bomb and started scrolling through it.

"Nope, nope, nope," she kept scrolling, "nope, nope, oh, fuck," she scrolled back up.

"Now that's a blast from the past," she pointed to someone called Tracey.

"Kung Fu Tracey we used to call her, only she didn't do Kung Fu. She was into Taekwondo, a lot of girls used to pick on Anita because she was well, born again but Tracey stepped in and rescued her one lunchtime. After that everyone laid off," she closed her eyes briefly.

"I remember now, she said leave my girlfriend alone or I'll kick your cunt in, but Tracey isn't gay or she wasn't last time I heard. Anita hung out with her group for a while and then teamed up with me and because I was besties with Tracey, they just assumed that if anything happened to her it'd get back to Tracey," she tapped Tracey's picture.

"God, will you look at that," she pointed to a mini profile, "look at where she works as a bouncer?"

I knew the club well, come to think of it she did look kind of familiar.

"Is she or isn't she?"

"Single," she replied, "but here's a recent post from your new girlfriend," she showed me.

It was a picture of Anita in school uniform, one of those yearly routines I used to dread because I had to wear my full uniform. The message above it read,

Remember this?

Tracey had replied with her own comment.

I sure do, girlfriend! We must catch up.

Anita had liked it and replied with her own cryptic comment.

No worries, got something to tell you. Catch ya later, girlfriend

and after that was a single kiss.

"Okay, I take it all back," she handed my phone back, "something has changed."

"Feel guilty now?"

"I do," she frowned, "but how the fuck was I supposed to know?"

"Oh relax," I nudged her, "you're not Supergirl."

"I feel like I've been run over by a train."

"Maybe you should ask Anita to take you to church," I poked her playfully.

"Fuck off," she gave me the middle finger.

I got another Snapchat half an hour later as I was chucking my uniform and some other clothes into the washing machine. The picture showed Anita sitting on a bed with her back to the headboard. She wore a short-sleeved pink blouse and a button through, patterned skirt, a cat sat on her lap and she was stroking it. The caption read.

Stroking my pussy.

I don't know why I did it but I undid my shirt and put my hand down the front of my denim mini skirt and took a picture, I sent that back with the same caption and went to the toilet thinking I'd honestly gone too far, but when I came back there was a standard text message.

Anita: Nice picture. Can I ask you a personal question?

Colleen: Sure, go ahead.

Anita: How do you know if you're gay?

How long is a piece of string? I thought of a million and one answers and reverted to Occam's Razor.

Colleen: I guess it comes down to simple attraction. If you're attracted to someone of the same sex then perhaps you might be gay.

Anita: I used to have a crush on Alicia, it was why I got back in contact.

That started a conversation about being gay, it lasted a good hour or so but by the end I'd come to one conclusion. Anita was gay but afraid to admit it even to herself. Coming out would be a major thing for her, considering her background. Her father was about as anti-gay as possible, to the point he spent at least two hours a night trolling LGBTQ sites leaving comments and bible verses. She gave me a few of his screen names and I did check up in the comments sections on You Tube videos and they were pretty extreme.

Which meant I'd need to tread carefully.

Thus, Tuesday found me in a more submissive mood. I definitely wasn't going to go all out and seduce her but neither was I going to discourage her from making her own moves but that morning I thought she might chicken out because there were no text messages until just before she left and it was just a brief one.

Anita: On my way, see you soon.

There was no kiss and I sent a reply without a kiss and got changed. I decided on something a little more conservative. A blue and white pinstriped shirt with white collar and cuffs and a pair of black trousers, and sensible sandals.

Anita turned up about an hour after her text. She was also dressed conservatively in a white blouse and a tight, brown pencil skirt accessorised with a braided belt. A light tan V-necked, cashmere jumper and brown leather boots completed the outfit and I greeted her with a smile and led her into the living room.

"Do you want a coffee or tea?"

"Just coffee, thanks," she replied.

It didn't take long to talk about the elephant in the room, our text messaging from the other night, and it was Anita who brought it up as I set the tray down on the table. We got through the usual range of subjects, work was crap. She hated the solicitor's office because the boss was such a bastard, I raised my eyebrows at her language but she merely shrugged and moved onto the subject of that text conversation we'd had the other night.