“You’re gross.” He chuckles, his smile hidden by a fluffy beard. “You are. You’re gross,” I say, but I’m laughing regardless of the grossness.
Moments before, my work partner and I had walked through the double doors at one end of the long hall, and 100 feet away at the other end, in her Catholic school girl skirt, shirt dangling messily over her waist on one side, tennis shoes on her feet, she was smiling, engaged in a conversation with another student. My work partner had said something about the student, something sexual, possibly even a mere noise, and the exchange that followed between us was not abnormal. The student to whom he was attracted was cute, naturally tan skin, moon eyes when she smiled and always smiling, but my coworker’s attraction still discomforted me, although just momentarily. I have met so many people, only men in my life, that have a school girl fetish, and my old pal was one of them. My old pal and I had a gross history of our own; when I was a bright-eyed, cocky freshman in high school, and he a 19-year-old senior, we kissed. He drove an old Jaguar, and he lived uptown; I was enamored until I found out he had a girlfriend named Claire. Then, I thought him pathetic and strange for withholding the truth from me. I hadn’t seen him since I was 15 until ten years later when we both ended up working in the same, all-girl high school; after working together for a while, our history came up, and one of our mutually favorite students thought the situation hysterical, particularly that we couldn’t agree on his having a girlfriend at the time. To this present moment, he was my favorite friend with whom to work. We shared so many laughs, crude comments, and shrimp po-boys.
Not long after the hallway scene, I chaperoned a school trip to Mexico where we lived at an orphanage for ten days, working the farm, feeding the kids, doing laundry; the girls at the high school where I worked adored me, and the other two chaperones used that as an excuse to kick me out of the room with the fan. “The girls would love it if you slept in their room,” they said with whispered enthusiasm. So, I slept in there on a top bunk with my face as close to the open window as possible, imagining there was a cool breeze, and I had a dream about one of the students, a volleyball player, who slept on the bunk directly across from me. Smart, talented, passionate, she was one of my favorite students, so dreaming about her – in any way – was not strange. I dreamed that I was walking along the breezeway at the orphanage, and this student suddenly opened one of the doors I was passing and forced me into the room and on the ground. She straddled me and then started kissing me. I woke up the next morning and terrified, strained my eyes to the side to see if she was awake across the room. She wasn’t, but my slight panic followed me throughout the whole trip, especially two days later when she was dancing around the 110-degree room in a thong. Somehow, I thought she’d known about the dream, that she had somehow invaded my dream space, causing me to have this semi-erotic dream about her. I suppose that was what the me from the hallway scene would have called “gross,” too.
At one time, I adored and craved the innocence of those younger than me; I absorbed the experience I had working in a high school for one year – the untouchable energy, enthusiasm, ripeness. My own adolescent experience was pungent with aching, longing, and self-destruction; if anyone could relate to a troubled teen, I felt I could. But, I left that environment of self-knowledge, growth, and thrill to return to the university. There’s a different energy in academia, an energy of superiority, of uselessness and theories but no practice, of the obtaining of knowledge for oneself and only oneself. Generally, I have found that college students lack the desire of adolescents, because they think they have already found whatever they sought. I have never had semi-erotic dreams about any of my college students; their certainty about life dampens my common fervor. However, regardless of what I perceive as a lack of heart in academia, my friend and coworker had no deficiency of desire for the incoming students. Full of comments and desirous noises, her lust permeated the air before her bejeweled blue eyeglasses and dark hair mussed from her bike ride into work.
If any of us had actually taken these feelings or dreams as symptomatic enablers and justifications, then more than a few would have muttered stronger words than “You’re gross.” Something along the lines of “repulsive” and a lawsuit would have fit the bill.
Wednesday, August 31, 2011
Sunday, July 24, 2011
Girl Crushes
Recently, I watched the entire series of The L Word. I watched all five-and-a-half seasons within a sickeningly short period of time: three weeks. Some would deem this obsessive behavior, but due to my own steep pride, I’m going to call it therapeutic. The first couple seasons were both entertaining and pretty well written, but the series untangled from there. However, once I had invested 24 hours of watching woman-centered relationships and sex within five or so days, I couldn’t stop, so I had to finish the series in what may be record time.
Watching The L Word wakened some feelings and thoughts that had grown dormant in me over the past four or five years. The close-knit strength of female friends, the sheer sexiness of women and how much more invigorating and lush a woman’s sexuality has always been to me than a man’s. I began yearning for my female friends. A, whose friendship has always been there, and who I have lost somewhere in the quick bustle of conventional adult life; L, who lives across the continent but who will always be like my own blood; and all those ladies from college. I also found myself enlivened by the curiosity of romantic relationships that never happened.
In high school, I had two lesbian disappointments, although for the second, I was the one who disappointed her, unquestionably. For the first, other than my regular female spit-swapping pals, J was a shy, awkward gal who worked in a coffee shop. She always wore tight-fitting knit caps, no matter the time of year, and slightly baggie pants with tight t-shirts. I met her, because she worked with a boy I was quite fond of and wanted to know better. As luck would have it, I ended up spending a lot of time with J while the boy worked in the kitchen at the coffee shop. We grew to be good friends; she was caring, attentive, and so very funny. When I let her know of my romantic feelings for her, she informed me that we couldn’t be together because of some situation with one of her female friends and one of my male friends. Whereas I felt that our friends’ problems shouldn’t dictate us, I also respected her love and respect for her friend and chose to free my romantic feelings and continue with our friendship.
Later in high school, when I had emerged from a difficult time of a school acquaintance’s suicide, sexual assault, and drugs, L came into my life. I don’t even recall where we met but we had a mutual friend, and we both frequented punk shows at some of the classic punk venues in New Orleans at the time - The Ark, State Palace, and Movie Pitchers. I knew L had such a crush on me and one that I shared, and this showered me with new possibilities. Particularly when one evening, she kissed me, not just an adolescent kiss that happens when kids just want to make out. This was a real kiss, kind yet passionate. I had the smallest twin bed pressed underneath a big window, and L was sleeping over for the first time on blankets on the floor. The lights were out, and suddenly, her hands were gripping my side. After being stunned since I’d never been in such a strangely innocent and sexual moment with another girl, I turned toward her. She climbed into bed with me, her hands lightly on my belly, and we kissed. Nothing more happened, save for sharing the moment, silent, still, and together. The next day felt awkward for me, and when I found out L was telling people I was her girlfriend, I must have panicked. I didn’t know what I wanted, and even if I did, I wouldn’t have really known what to do about it. I’m sure L sensed my confusion, and over time, the crush unraveled, and we were just two marvelously close friends.
In college, after dating a few guys, I developed a monstrous crush on a female classmate in my Writing Gender class. The class itself was exciting, and to accompany the gender-bending theories we were reading was my first girl crush in a long time. Strong, intelligent, and gorgeous, I couldn’t help but be drawn to M. Our circles started overlapping, and it came to the point when we had to discuss her situation, which was quite fragile. She had been seeing a woman who had never been with a woman before, and this woman needed stability – she needed M’s commitment. So, M gave it to her, albeit at the expense of anything between us. Shortly thereafter, I found B – strong, focused, and everything that my past failed relationships were not and everything that I wanted – and my heterosexual monogamy began again.
Watching The L Word wakened some feelings and thoughts that had grown dormant in me over the past four or five years. The close-knit strength of female friends, the sheer sexiness of women and how much more invigorating and lush a woman’s sexuality has always been to me than a man’s. I began yearning for my female friends. A, whose friendship has always been there, and who I have lost somewhere in the quick bustle of conventional adult life; L, who lives across the continent but who will always be like my own blood; and all those ladies from college. I also found myself enlivened by the curiosity of romantic relationships that never happened.
In high school, I had two lesbian disappointments, although for the second, I was the one who disappointed her, unquestionably. For the first, other than my regular female spit-swapping pals, J was a shy, awkward gal who worked in a coffee shop. She always wore tight-fitting knit caps, no matter the time of year, and slightly baggie pants with tight t-shirts. I met her, because she worked with a boy I was quite fond of and wanted to know better. As luck would have it, I ended up spending a lot of time with J while the boy worked in the kitchen at the coffee shop. We grew to be good friends; she was caring, attentive, and so very funny. When I let her know of my romantic feelings for her, she informed me that we couldn’t be together because of some situation with one of her female friends and one of my male friends. Whereas I felt that our friends’ problems shouldn’t dictate us, I also respected her love and respect for her friend and chose to free my romantic feelings and continue with our friendship.
Later in high school, when I had emerged from a difficult time of a school acquaintance’s suicide, sexual assault, and drugs, L came into my life. I don’t even recall where we met but we had a mutual friend, and we both frequented punk shows at some of the classic punk venues in New Orleans at the time - The Ark, State Palace, and Movie Pitchers. I knew L had such a crush on me and one that I shared, and this showered me with new possibilities. Particularly when one evening, she kissed me, not just an adolescent kiss that happens when kids just want to make out. This was a real kiss, kind yet passionate. I had the smallest twin bed pressed underneath a big window, and L was sleeping over for the first time on blankets on the floor. The lights were out, and suddenly, her hands were gripping my side. After being stunned since I’d never been in such a strangely innocent and sexual moment with another girl, I turned toward her. She climbed into bed with me, her hands lightly on my belly, and we kissed. Nothing more happened, save for sharing the moment, silent, still, and together. The next day felt awkward for me, and when I found out L was telling people I was her girlfriend, I must have panicked. I didn’t know what I wanted, and even if I did, I wouldn’t have really known what to do about it. I’m sure L sensed my confusion, and over time, the crush unraveled, and we were just two marvelously close friends.
In college, after dating a few guys, I developed a monstrous crush on a female classmate in my Writing Gender class. The class itself was exciting, and to accompany the gender-bending theories we were reading was my first girl crush in a long time. Strong, intelligent, and gorgeous, I couldn’t help but be drawn to M. Our circles started overlapping, and it came to the point when we had to discuss her situation, which was quite fragile. She had been seeing a woman who had never been with a woman before, and this woman needed stability – she needed M’s commitment. So, M gave it to her, albeit at the expense of anything between us. Shortly thereafter, I found B – strong, focused, and everything that my past failed relationships were not and everything that I wanted – and my heterosexual monogamy began again.
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