Unpacking is especially fun when you have feline assistance.
I found a spool of thread behind the bookcase. How might that have gotten there? Might it be the same cat that sneakily devoured all the dental treats that I got in my dentistry goodie bag?
 |
| OM NOM NOM |
In the spirit of gleeful frolicking (heh), I have a cautionary summertime tale for you:
During my senior year of college, I attended a series of tea dances.
Tea dances?
Yes.
These tea dances were mid-afternoon Sunday affairs, hosted by a local queer event-organizing group on a monthly basis.
I noticed a flyer for one such tea dance on a community board at Smith, and fairly dragged Bryce along with me. A community queer event! Possibly there would be older butch dykes (mmmm, yes please)! Ladies we would never awkwardly see in class! We obviously had to attend. Bryce was unconvinced, but humored me.
That first tea dance was an epic affair. The dance was packed with a wide variety of fascinating lesbians. Shortly after arriving, I grabbed Bryce's arm, discreetly indicated a blonde, twinkly-eyed butch, and said,
"I'm going to go try to pick that one up."
Bryce stared at me. I smiled back, walked across the dance floor, and introduced myself.
We danced, made out in a nightclub some weeks later, and then decided to become friends. Hooray!
(Later, I would realize that this moment began my change from a queer, bookish, shy person to a queer, bookish, astonishingly forward reverse cougar. Anyway!)
So, tea dances. I attended every one, intent on romancing the bashful yet absurdly attractive butches who lined the walls of the room. Oh my goodness, there were so many! I was like a small child in the bulk candy section at Wegman's, except all the sweets bins were free and at my height. WHAT.
Two or three dances in, I started to notice this one butch in particular. She was about fifty, and had jet black hair with a few silver streaks. Her arms were lithe and muscular, and she wore her shirts tucked into snug black jeans. She was from another state, and drove an hour or more to get to each dance.
We exchanged e-mails, then agreed to meet up for a breakfast picnic at Smith. The next morning, I brought her a purple flower. I was envisioning a trip to one of the dining halls, followed by a foray down to Paradise Pond. NOPE!
She asked me to get in her truck, and then started driving out into the country. We mostly sat in silence. I asked her some questions, which yielded some short answers. More silence. After about twenty minutes, I asked,
"So, where are we going?"
She turned to look at me, and said,
"I don't know."
Silence.
Um.
After a little while longer, we pulled over by the side of the highway. It was at one of those rural truck stops, you know - the ones with just a pulloff and a picnic table or two.
I jumped out of the truck and sat on a picnic table. She pulled out two packaged McDonald's breakfasts and handed me one. We ate breakfast and talked a little more, maybe. The situation started to seem more normal, maybe a little.
We finished breakfast and held hands. She slid her hand down my shirt. I pulled back and told her to bring me back to school, which she did.
She came back to my room with me, and I made her some tea. We talked some more. We sat on the bed. Then we made out for the next eighteen hours.
I am actually not exaggerating.
Friends, this woman had insane amounts of stamina. There was some handsiness (I think we took our shirts off), but no buck nakedness and no hard-core fucking. We literally kissed and kissed the day and night around. It was fascinating.
At one point, Bryce insistently banged on the door to my room (so, I lived in a first floor room and my front door was adjacent to the house's front door). After the fourth or fifth knocking coupled with, "Alacrity, I know you're in there!", I pulled away from my guest and threw open the door in my jeans and bra.
Bryce said something to the effect of, "Well, fuck you!", and stormed out of the house.
(Later, she explained that she had wanted to commiserate about single life/recent breakups, only to find that I was getting some action. I told her that her response was totally understandable.)
Around dinner time, I insisted that I was hungry. My guest insisted that she wasn't. I briefly escaped from my room, grabbed some cookies in the common room, and ravenously scarfed them. A couple of housemates grinned at me with knowing winks and chuckles (first floor room! yay!).
Finally, at 7 am the next morning, I put my foot down:
"Okay, thanks for coming over. You have to go now. I have to go to the hospital to get an MRI of my neck."
(This was actually true. I was having some weird tingling in my hands and was seeing a neurologist.)
"Oh, that's okay. I can come to the hospital with you."
"No, you can't! You have to go now. I'll talk to you later."
She drove away. I meditated on what the fuck had just happened in the peaceful cacophony of the MRI.
You guys, I am very lucky that this odd situation turned out reasonably okay for me. I had a weird, nearly 24 hour date. It was not exactly bad. It was definitely strange. My thoughts during the marathon makeout session were sort of like:
Oh wow, she is really enjoying this. Like, REALLY enjoying it. She told me she hasn't been on a date in fifteen years. I guess that's what happens to all that pent-up sexual energy! Huh. I wouldn't be into her as a girlfriend, but I think this is okay. Seeing how awesome it is for her is interesting and kind of cool. Is that wrong? I hope not.
We ended up going out once more, having an awkward we-feel-differently-about-each-other conversation, and then I spent the rest of the tea dances avoiding her with my new girlfriend.
She snuck up on me and grabbed my side (high, up by my breasts) at one dance a year or two later. I chased her down in the parking lot and told off, telling her that touching me without warning was scary and not acceptable.
We still run into each other at Pride, sometimes. It's a little...weird.
In conclusion, do not get into a truck with someone you don't know well and allow them to drive you out into the country. Do not ignore that nagging voice in your head that tells you that something is not quite right. And if you are going to bring someone back to your room, have an exit strategy that is better and sooner than your MRI the next morning.