Zoe's Story
I was staying over at Anna's for the weekend, supposedly teaching her how to cook. She had just moved out of her parent's house and didn't really have a clue how to make anything, so I'd offered to teach her the basics. In reality this turned out to be me cooking things, while she sat there and licked bowls out, stole scraps of food and generally got in the way. I'd tried getting her to join in by chopping stuff, but she wasn't very careful about getting things the same size and got a bit stroppy when I commented, in the end I just let her sit there and chat to me while I had a wonderful time making delicious morsels.
It was the hottest week of the year so far, I swear. More than once that week the temperature had crept past 90 degrees and I was not coping particularly well, especially not in a small kitchen super-heated by the oven. Eventually I cracked and told her it was high time she took me out to dinner to say thank you. I have to admit, she gave in with very good grace and told me to be dressed in my glad-rags and ready to leave by 7.30pm. With the usual punctuality of women getting ready to go out, neither of us had finished our hair or makeup by 7.30 and didn't leave the house until ten to eight, meaning that when we got to the restaurant our table had been given to someone else.
They said we could have another table, but there wouldn't be one free until nearly 9pm, so we tottered off to the nearest wine bar to waste some time. We had fun sitting on those absurdly high bar stools in our heels and short skirts, trying not to flash every passing Tom, Dick or Harry and eyeing up the local talent. We played the numbers game, you know, where you give them a score between 1 and 10, with 1 being 'I wouldn't touch that with a ten foot, disinfected bargepole' and 10 being 'I would use my dear old granny as a bridge over hot coals to get closer to some of that!'
I had played this game many a time before and the addition of wine to such a game usually gave it an added level of hilarity, but this time was, in some ways a first. I knew Anna was a lesbian because the girl who introduced her to me seemed to think this was an exciting essential piece of information that should be included in the introduction.
"Hi Zoe, this is Anna, she's a friend of Max and Jill's and she's a lesbian."
I knew we were only being introduced because I had (mistakenly when drunk) admitted to this girl that I liked girls as well as boys. A mistake it certainly was. I never met anyone with such a big mouth, but that had been a couple of years ago and I thought the furore had died down. So far I'd only ever dated guys and the whole bisexuality issue had sort of faded out of public consciousness, but now I was being introduced to a lesbian by a girl with a knowing smirk and I felt massively embarrassed for both our sakes. Suffice it to say we both had partners, something that stupid tart seemed to have conveniently forgotten, but we got on well enough to exchange contact information and now, a year later, we were still friends.
Anna had broken up with her girlfriend, but I was still with my boyfriend which meant that although we flirted, it was always in a very guarded way. Part of this was also due to the fact that I had absolutely no experience with girls and I couldn't tell if she really fancied me, was just teasing me or was flirting in the same way that I flirted with most men β just as a means of communication. Every so often I caught myself fantasising about her or reading too much into a seemingly loaded comment, but mostly we were just really good friends.
After rating about 20 or 30 girls and finding only 3 or 4 amongst them that we would both sleep with we realised it was time to go back to the restaurant. We'd been drinking solidly at the wine bar and consumed yet more wine with dinner so that, by the time we left, we'd drunk almost 3 bottles and were completely legless. I was drunk enough to consider making a move on her, she looked so gorgeous in the late evening summer twilight β even when falling down drunk. Unfortunately I was in the same state so by the time we'd stumbled back to her place all I wanted to do was sleep.