I walked home from Brenda’s with a renewed spring in my step. My pussy soreness was now numbed, and my bottom felt warm; it had a glow within it.
Playing on my Walkman was Michael Jackson’s Bad album. It was his latest, and, despite the title, it was very good; my feet popping alone to the tune. I found myself dancing into the house, which was almost the opposite of how I left it this morning.
Mum was there in the kitchen, preparing tea.
“Do you need a hand?” I asked as I bounced into the kitchen.
My mum, Ruth, turned around, and for the second time that day, I was stared at as if I was an alien.
“So why do I have this pleasure?” She hesitantly asked.
I didn’t answer. Maybe I didn’t help much around the house, other than babysitting, which I felt I did too much of.
“Why don’t you peel the spuds?” Mum swiftly asked, not wanting more than a moment for my silent answer. It was clear she did not want to chance me withdrawing from my kind offer.
I smiled and slotted the Michael Jackson cassette into the radio recorder, and the title song boomed out. My hips started to gyrate as I picked up the potato peeler. Then I noticed my mum was still looking at me.
“What?” I questioned.
“You seem happy; I'm not sure what’s got into you.”
I tried my best not to splutter and to keep the smirk off my face as I thought back to a couple of hours ago and Brenda’s eight-inch anal dildo.
“Aren’t you missing David?”
“Mum, he's just a friend.” I lied.
I saw my mum raise an eyebrow and quietly smile.
I put my head down.
My mum hummed. “Friend, is that a modern euphemism?”
She knew!
I felt myself blush, and I chose to keep my head down and peel potatoes as if my life depended on it!
Thankfully, my mum didn’t try to press home her question. Instead, she chose to happily hum along to the music. She may have suspected about David, but like Brenda, I wasn’t ready to explain or even discuss those ongoing relationships. It was just too complicated.
After ascertaining that my sister was reading in our bedroom and the rest of the family were out, I told Mum I was happy because I was seeing Karen tonight. It was only partially true. However, my statement seemed to pacify her. We continued preparing the dinner, humming, dancing, and having some quality mother-and-daughter time.
I tried not to show it, but going on my date for tonight had made me a little nervous. It was partly because I never dated a girl. I might have slept with a few, but a serious date felt so different.
Then there was this business with Brenda and about me being a top with Karen. I did not feel or look like Brenda, or any of her butch lesbian friends. But here I was, trying to live that very part.
I wanted just to be me, and to see where my sexuality went!
Since our first true date, where I had taken Karen to a seaside pub called, “The Captain’s Retreat,” things had started to get a little more serious between us. Then we held hands, talked, and kissed, but tonight it felt different.
It had been over a week since I told my mum that I was going out with Karen and I was a lesbian. She had taken it well, but now I wondered if she had ever believed me. I had originally only said it to give me cover to go out with David, no questions asked.
Now I questioned if I ever needed to lie.
Until very recently, I had never thought about falling in love with another girl. I mean, I went out with Jaz for over two years. Well, not exactly out. We were together, and I never fell in love with her.
Then there was Brenda. It really didn’t matter how sexually attracted I was to her as she was too old for an ongoing relationship, and there was Sarah… I smiled. It was simply too early to say she may not even be into other girls, yet having a relationship with her.
With Karen, it was different, a chance that I could develop feelings for her. I didn’t know if it was her innocence; her being petite side or that girl next door look that gave her cuteness. All I knew was it made her different, though I still could not see us ever being in love.
But there was more, which worried me about tonight. I needed to tell Karen about Brenda, or at least make her aware of her. How I went about that, I was unsure. Maybe it would be best if I did it a step at a time, but I had the added pressure of Brenda wanting to meet my second girlfriend.
I didn’t want to lie to Karen, just like I had done twice with my mum in the last ten minutes. If I could, I wanted to stay to the truth. She knew about David, that knowledge she had taken in her stride. So I hoped, but there was something else pressing, and this one was my immediate concern.
What should I wear tonight?
*****
I stood there, undecided. There was a large selection of my wardrobe clothes laid out on my bed; I was trying to choose what to wear for the night. It was a strange feeling dressing for another woman. When I went out with men, if it was warm, I just wore short, tight and obvious clothes. I just wanted them to keep my date interested in me, or quite likely attract attention, and flirt with other men.
But dating a girl? Especially one who had said she preferred me in trousers. Well, it had left me confused, and that was not normal. For heaven’s sake, I used to work in a clothes shop. I thought.
Well, I could wear jeans I thought, but I wore them last time. I glanced up at my sister, Ella. She was sitting on the top bunk bed, reading, “The Lighthouse” by Virginia Woolf. She was one of three authors whom she had studied last year.
Due to failing chemistry, I had been bumped down, and I now found myself in Ella’s year. It was something she teased me about. At least we were not in the same classes; I studied Math and Basic Accountancy, and my sister English Literature.
“Who is Karen?” Ella suddenly asked while looking at me. It was clear she had been earwigging.
“A new friend,” I said, hoping my sister would leave it at that. Not start asking more questions, which would normally end with me being called a slut, or a whore, or whatever.
“Is Karen your girlfriend? I heard Mum and Dad talking.”
I sighed, but there was something in the way Ella asked that question that made me hesitate from telling my sister to mind her own business, or something worse.
We just stared at each other, and I unexpected feeling enveloped me. My sister was not young any more, despite the messy side of our bedroom; she seemed suddenly more grown up. I took a deep breath and as I did so; I realised Ella was only two months younger than Karen.
I hadn’t thought of that before.
Instead of getting into a verbal fight with my sister, I told her the truth, everything except Brenda. She would have to remain my secret until another day. I even told Ella that David was my boyfriend and remained the only man I was seeing. That he knew about Karen and was okay with it.
My sister just nodded and listened. I didn’t expect her to understand that I was experimenting and trying to understand my sexuality. What sort of relationship worked for me?
Ella and I didn’t have these grown-up conversations. This was new, but perhaps something that needed to happen. It wasn’t my or Ella’s fault that we shared a bedroom, that we didn’t have any privacy. We just needed an understanding and a lock on the bedroom door!
With time getting on, my sister suggested a white blouse and a black lacy bra, to give a hint of what lies beneath and on my bottom half. Wear matching knickers and a short skirt with comfortable shoes, “as I have great legs.” I took her advice except for the shoes; instead, I chose my favourite black stilettoes.
I thanked her before I left.
It had been another day of firsts, now for the evening with Karen… and maybe that would lead to another first.
*****
Karen must have been waiting for me as she appeared as soon as I pulled up in my mum’s car. Without hesitating, I pulled away swiftly with our only words, a brief mutual, “Hi.”
With neither of us having very much money, I had thought long and hard about where to take Karen tonight. It had to be somewhere I could afford, and then when I walked home from Brenda’s, it came to me in a moment of Michael Jackson-induced inspiration, “The Frog and Thistle.” It was my ex, Alan’s local. A pub he used to regularly take me to, but hardly ever on a weekday.
The Frog and Thistle was located just a few miles to the north of where I live and was an old traditional English country pub and yet it wasn’t; at least not these days. Once inside the old thatched pub, you could be fooled into thinking you were anywhere out in the countryside.
The pub's 15th-century character has changed little over the years.
However, outside the only greenery was the pub-walled beer garden and around it, nothing but the city's ever-expanding urban sprawl. Alan had once told me the city suburbs had swallowed up the Frog and Thistle during the nineteen-seventies. It had only been saved because it was such a popular drinking haunt.
Rachael, the large-chested owner, was behind the bar. She recognised me as soon as I walked in and asked where Alan was, as he hadn’t been in for a while. With Karen listening, her question gave me a nervous nudge as well as some relief, as it seemed that tonight I would not be running into my only significant ex-boyfriend.
I explained that we were no longer together and that I was now with someone else, knowing that every word I said would eventually get back to Alan.
Leaving Rachael and with our drinks in hand, we found a corner table. It was one that my ex and I had sat at many times. I knew it was a good place to talk, without being constantly hit on. It was also the first time I had a real chance to look at Karen, and I told her she looked lovely; she really did. Her ginger hair, blue eyes, and a little black dress contrasted nicely with her white shapely legs, which tantalisingly disappeared behind the table at which we were sitting.
There was something about Karen that attracted me, and that only added to my nervousness.
“Who is Alan?” Karen questioned. “I thought you have been with David for a while.”
It was a question I had been expecting. I took a deep breath and sipped my lime and soda. Then I started to explain about Alan, how I met him, our life together and that I broke up with him when I met David. Maybe I was economical with the truth. I didn’t mention our sex life, my cheating or anything else that had gone in my past before my ex. I wanted Karen to accept me for who I am today.
She seemed to sympathise with me and even smiled when I told her that he was married to his work, so there was never going to be a place for me.
“He was a fool,” Karen remarked when I had finished.
It was a comment that made me relax and open up a little more. As I began to realise that despite being a virgin, and never before having had a boyfriend or girlfriend, Karen wasn’t that innocent at all.
I explained what happened with Jaz, knowing that every word I spoke brought me closer to what Brenda had told me I needed to mention.
“So why did you break up with Jaz?” Karen somewhat innocently asked.
Everything I had told her about so far seemed to have not flustered her. She knew I had past baggage, though perhaps she didn’t need to know it ran to a trolley full. That thought made me nervously twiddle with my lime and soda. I knew I had to get everything out in the open tonight, especially Brenda.
For once, I was pleased I was not drinking alcohol. It was my mum's one request when I borrowed her car. I needed to keep a clear head and focus as I was beginning to realise how much I wanted Karen to stay being my girlfriend.
“Karen, I need you to know I do find you very attractive. When I went into the shoe shop, I only did so because you were working there. I am pleased I got your telephone number and you have agreed to be my girlfriend.” I steered well clear of the fact that it had been a Brenda test to chat Karen up and get her telephone number.
She never needed to know that!
Karen smiled warmly at my truthful words. Her face seemed to lighten up. I was surprised she had not been put off by anything I had already said to her. But I knew she must have questions, probably with time, lots of them.
“But being honest with you means I need to tell you something else, and this one you may not like.”