erotic dance play itself out nearly every single day of the summer to this point, and I had a sense of what fervent sex looked like—from across the room. Surely that would help me in a real life situation where I was one of the players, wouldn’t it? What if Andrea was right and I just sucked as a lover and I would never please another woman? Then where would I turn? Back to Mark and hairy, sweaty, don’t-believe-the-G-spot-exists sex with men? I could actually feel the shudder crawl down my back. Perish the thought!
What I needed was an expert to come show me everything without asking for similar competence in return. I wondered how that worked. Andrea had talked about women who give other women pleasure but don’t seem to want their lovers to reciprocate. I’d checked online for the terminology she used and found there was a whole sub-genre of “stone butch” lesbians who claimed they only derived pleasure from giving it, not receiving it, which sounded like a load of crap to me. But I liked the idea of someone pleasing me without wanting something in return, nonetheless. So I determined I should set out in search of a stone butch of my own.
It wasn’t that I was afraid of the pussy. Okay, a little afraid. I’d read the myths in sociology about the vagina dentata, and while I knew my own furry creature wasn’t fanged, how could I be certain that was a universal truth, when so many cultures share these folk tales? Plus the pussy was just such a foreign and strange fruit and nobody had ever done mine justice, so how would I know what constituted “good”?
I wondered about Ash’s lovers. They seemed awfully intent on pleasuring her even when she seemed like the aggressor, the top. Wait, what constituted a bottom, anyway? Was it only the person who got penetrated, the partner not in the leadership role? Or did it change, depending on who was being pleasured and who was doing the pleasuring? Did I need to understand these terms before I set foot in another lesbian nightclub?
I knew if I thought anymore about this, I was going to freak out and chicken out and end up spending another night alone in my room. Talk about pathetic. At least I’d get some research done, maybe answer a few more of my questions before tackling the real thing. Pa-the-tic. Then I figured out exactly what I needed. A shot of liquid courage. And I knew exactly where to find it. The latch on the liquor cabinet in Father’s study had always been a little loose. Ash taught me years ago how to jimmy it open.
I helped myself to a shot of bourbon, and while it was still warming its way down my gullet, I marched back to my room and went online to check out the lesbian bars in Portland and found The Egyptian Club—apparently “affectionately known as the E Room”—on Division. That was a straight shot from the highway, and with a twenty-minute drive I’d have plenty of time along the way to prep. Or panic.
*
“Ash!” I’d been at the club for fifteen minutes, nursing a five-dollar PBR in a velvet pleather booth while 90s music pulsated the walls around me, and I’d already heard that exclamation half a dozen times.
Since when did I look like my sister? Sober, no one had ever mistaken us, but maybe when someone was drunk enough that their ability to discriminate was lost and the world had turned a little blurry, maybe in that situation, I looked like my sister. I decided to level the playing field and over the next five minutes downed a couple more beers so that when the next woman grabbed me, happy to see my sister, I’d be ready to play along. That’d show Ash. I didn’t need to tag around with her when I could be her.
“Yeah, baby?” I replied to the next siren call, and a pair of strong hands on my shoulders spun me around.
It made me a little light-headed. I giggled and put my arms out to stabilize myself and found my hands groping a butch-looking Filipino woman with short hair who was towering over me, her freckled face
What I needed was an expert to come show me everything without asking for similar competence in return. I wondered how that worked. Andrea had talked about women who give other women pleasure but don’t seem to want their lovers to reciprocate. I’d checked online for the terminology she used and found there was a whole sub-genre of “stone butch” lesbians who claimed they only derived pleasure from giving it, not receiving it, which sounded like a load of crap to me. But I liked the idea of someone pleasing me without wanting something in return, nonetheless. So I determined I should set out in search of a stone butch of my own.
It wasn’t that I was afraid of the pussy. Okay, a little afraid. I’d read the myths in sociology about the vagina dentata, and while I knew my own furry creature wasn’t fanged, how could I be certain that was a universal truth, when so many cultures share these folk tales? Plus the pussy was just such a foreign and strange fruit and nobody had ever done mine justice, so how would I know what constituted “good”?
I wondered about Ash’s lovers. They seemed awfully intent on pleasuring her even when she seemed like the aggressor, the top. Wait, what constituted a bottom, anyway? Was it only the person who got penetrated, the partner not in the leadership role? Or did it change, depending on who was being pleasured and who was doing the pleasuring? Did I need to understand these terms before I set foot in another lesbian nightclub?
I knew if I thought anymore about this, I was going to freak out and chicken out and end up spending another night alone in my room. Talk about pathetic. At least I’d get some research done, maybe answer a few more of my questions before tackling the real thing. Pa-the-tic. Then I figured out exactly what I needed. A shot of liquid courage. And I knew exactly where to find it. The latch on the liquor cabinet in Father’s study had always been a little loose. Ash taught me years ago how to jimmy it open.
I helped myself to a shot of bourbon, and while it was still warming its way down my gullet, I marched back to my room and went online to check out the lesbian bars in Portland and found The Egyptian Club—apparently “affectionately known as the E Room”—on Division. That was a straight shot from the highway, and with a twenty-minute drive I’d have plenty of time along the way to prep. Or panic.
*
“Ash!” I’d been at the club for fifteen minutes, nursing a five-dollar PBR in a velvet pleather booth while 90s music pulsated the walls around me, and I’d already heard that exclamation half a dozen times.
Since when did I look like my sister? Sober, no one had ever mistaken us, but maybe when someone was drunk enough that their ability to discriminate was lost and the world had turned a little blurry, maybe in that situation, I looked like my sister. I decided to level the playing field and over the next five minutes downed a couple more beers so that when the next woman grabbed me, happy to see my sister, I’d be ready to play along. That’d show Ash. I didn’t need to tag around with her when I could be her.
“Yeah, baby?” I replied to the next siren call, and a pair of strong hands on my shoulders spun me around.
It made me a little light-headed. I giggled and put my arms out to stabilize myself and found my hands groping a butch-looking Filipino woman with short hair who was towering over me, her freckled face
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