The confluence of two rivers, the legends say, is a magical place. I personally have known this to be true. That summer, however, every wish I made with each crossing of the confluence would need to stay forever secret. My longings would remain in the safeguard of the canyon walls we left behind, lost in the river’s constant whispers. No one could know what I dreamed that summer. No one could know because it had been exactly one year earlier, on that same river, that I had met my fiancé.
Eleven years passed since my heart was first tempted. Countless crushes followed. Unsuspecting friends, colleagues at work, fellow students in graduate school each touched a part of me that I was not ready to concede. The attractions were real. So, too, was my commitment to my marriage, to the man who was my best friend, the father of my children. He had known about my lustful attraction before we ever married. I loved him too much not to tell him. He dismissed it as natural and circumstantial. He asked me if I was in love with her. I replied, with clarity, that I was not. I simply wanted to sleep with her. The wedding had taken place as scheduled. Still, through the years, my very first love of a woman pervaded my fantasies, remaining the one place I sought refuge. I refused to abandon the one imagined encounter that made me feel whole.
Over the years, my longing for a woman was kept alive by my riverside fantasy and thrived just below the surface. As my marriage wavered, it didn’t take much for that hunger to invade my every thought. Playfully, without guilt, I found myself searching the Internet for someone to talk to. The anonymity of the computer and the absolute certainty that I would never act on my desires kept my conscience clean. I found a sympathetic ear on several occasions, and almost laughed at the distance I was able to keep between myself and these acquaintances. The game went on for months, and it was surprisingly fulfilling. Then, one unremarkable evening online, I by chance met a woman named Beatrice.
Even her name set her apart from the others, timeless and wise, resonant of a distant era. Beatrice was playing a game of her own. Only a few years older than me, she had already given up on real relationships, and entertained herself by corresponding with a host of women scattered across the country. She had a strict policy of never dating or even corresponding with married women. I will never know what compelled her to break her own rules that evening, but the decision sent both our lives in a direction we couldn’t have anticipated.
My first contact with her was less than appealing. My name is Anne and I’m kind of new at this. I am thirty-three years old, and I am married. I have two amazing kids, a little boy who is four and a little girl who is three. I hope you write back.
Stunningly, she did. If you are married and have two fabulous kids, why are you writing to me?
I’ve longed to know intimacy with a woman, I explained. This is not a “bi-curious” phase, but a long-term, innate need to understand these desires. I don’t want to do anything about it, I just need someone to talk to. I’m not looking to date you, just to correspond with you. Trust me, we may never meet.
And so we exchanged emails. Over weeks that flowed into months, we shared an outpouring of thoughts that spanned pages and pages. Because neither of us was seeking a romantic relationship, we were free to be ourselves; free to think, divulge, explore anything, without the pressures or tensions that accompany a budding relationship. Unwittingly, we had discovered the lost art of letter writing.
Topics expanded from sexual orientation to personal histories, politics and literature, art and humor. Instead of getting to know one another through small talk and red wine, we used long letters to paint vivid portraits of ourselves, prompting each other to reveal ever finer brushstrokes. Her favorite color was black, her favorite food was chocolate. Her only brother was gay, her mother was ill. Her sarcasm was clever, biting. She adorned her apartment walls with Georgia O’Keefe and Ansel Adams, and her shelves were scattered with bones collected in the Southern Utah desert. Her bookshelves were bursting with worn copies of Carson, Leopold, Abbey, McPhee, Thoreau, and Tempest Williams; the greatest environmental minds standing shoulder to shoulder with Kant and Nietzsche. Her bedside table was overflowing with everything from Anne Rice to Ayn Rand. Her desk was stacked with legal textbooks. She dreamed of fighting for the civil rights of others, of the GLBT community, of the elderly, of those who had no voice. Without ever exchanging pictures, her beauty was most obvious to me. She was a songwriter. She was a poet. She was a student. She was a comedian. She was a cancer survivor. She was a musician. She was a philosopher. She was full of passion she didn’t even realize. Some of those passions we shared, like our mutual love of the natural world. With others, like her music, I could only sit back and listen in awe.
The game soon changed to a battle of wit. Creative energy flowed from our fingertips as if our souls were newly awakened. She shared her history and her ambitions, her past and her future, woven into stories that evoked tears of both sympathy and laughter. With every free moment, I would run to the computer to see if a musing from Beatrice had graced my inbox. For the first time in years I felt intellectually stimulated. My brain came alive. I was excited and inspired and filled with anticipation. I was writing again. I was feeling again. I was falling in love.
Eventually our physical distance, our anonymity, shifted from something we relished to something excruciating. Twice we made plans to meet. Twice we canceled them. Neither of us wanted to cross that line, to change or risk losing what we had. Both of us knew we were destined to.
Finally, one evening after work, Beatrice drove to my small town thirty miles from her home and waited in a local bar. I arrived with impossible expectations. I inched down the steps into the darkness and as my eyes adjusted I saw her in the corner on a sofa. She was dressed atypically conservative, having come straight from work, her tweed suit and high collar catching me off guard. Her hair was unexpectedly coiffed and sprayed to hold it in place. Who was this buttoned-up woman? Where was my Beatrice? Where was the wild free spirit I had come to know so intimately online? Had I only imagined her? Had it all been an illusion?
I walked into the room and cautiously to her. Petrified, I sat a comfortable distance away from her on the sofa. I couldn’t look at her face. I had urges to run, to fly up the stairs and back to the safety of my house, of my marriage. I do not even remember our first words. I went to the bar and got us drinks, but when I returned I could only sit quietly, staring down at my glass, avoiding her gaze. She was talking, but her words were muted by the thoughts of escape spinning in my head.
I’m not sure how much time had passed when by chance I looked into her eyes. They were the bluest eyes I’d ever seen, shocking against her otherwise dark mane and complexion; glacial blue, like those of a cat, but full of mystery and danger, like those of a wolf. It was at that moment that I recognized her. Every word she had written to me, the secrets of her heart that she had dared to expose in her letters, the strength of spirit that her words had reflected, her hopes and passions and dreams and desires all at once came flooding over me, through me; an entire sea breaking as a single wave.
Like old friends we walked arm in arm down the street to the small but crowded Italian restaurant that I had chosen. We spent the evening lost in each other’s eyes; lost in conversation, laughing, learning, completely oblivious to the world around us. When we eventually looked up, the waiters were sitting at a table at the other end of the room with looks of amusement at our expense. The restaurant was otherwise empty. I glanced at my watch and realized that it was long past closing time. For hours we had floated in our bubble, sheltered from the real world. Table by table, the other patrons had paid their bills and left the place completely deserted. We had not even noticed.
I was parked right out front, and Beatrice’s car was several blocks away, so I offered to drive her there. During those brief moments, I was panicked at the thought of her getting into her car and driving out of my life. I was tempted to turn the wheel and head for the highway with Beatrice as my captive. As I pulled up beside her SUV a
nd shifted into PARK, my eyes could only follow her hand as she reached for the door handle. In a flash, the door opened and she slid out of the car. The car door was already swinging back toward me when I managed to whisper, “Beatrice?” The door opened again and she leaned inside. “No kiss?” I asked timidly, knowing that she wouldn’t, knowing that the crowded parking lot in my small town was a dangerous location for my first lesbian kiss. She paused, smiled sheepishly, and climbed back in the car.
Beatrice stared at me in silence for a moment, an eternity. Throughout the evening her every thought, her every gesture, had been stimulating. Now, the eye contact was almost unbearable. I waited for her to explain that there would be no kiss; that she couldn’t, that we must never talk again, that we would never meet again. I knew deep down that she would be right. I was lost in those thoughts, waiting for those words when suddenly her lips were on mine.
So soft, so tender was her kiss, yet so unexpected. My body responded instantly. For a split second I stiffened, breathless, and then I slowly relaxed into her. As her hand brushed my face and her lips explored mine I knew that I had never really kissed before. She playfully nibbled, and indulged me with the softness of her tongue…gentle, teasing circles. The taste of her mouth was intoxicating. Time passed and I was suspended. Again I felt the accidental brush of her hand, this time on my thigh, and I shuddered, drawing her closer, aware of her body, her curves, moving against my own.
With that kiss I was transformed. She awakened a part of me that had waited patiently for far too long, and the feeling was overpowering. The passion in her lips was genuine as she breathed warmth and renewal into my very soul. To simply describe the aching between my thighs would belittle the magnitude of my response, as every cell in my body simultaneously opened to let her in. Later, when I climbed in bed beside my sleeping husband, I knew I could never kiss him again.
It took several days for me to arrange my schedule so that I could get to Beatrice’s apartment. I showed up unannounced in the middle of the afternoon. Without a word, she let me in, took me by the hand, and led me to the bedroom. We lay in each other’s arms and kissed as time paused for our emotions. For the first time I really noticed her body, clad casually in torn, faded blue jeans and a black V-neck T-shirt that better suited her true self. She was curvy and feminine; voluptuous but not overweight, sexy beyond words. Her large, full breasts and hourglass hips accentuated her petite waistline and flat belly. Her dark untamed curls swung freely that afternoon, framing a face of unspeakable beauty from which those radiant blue eyes glowed with anticipation. I lay motionless, emotionally exposed, mesmerized.
Before I knew what had happened my blouse was unbuttoned and my jeans were around my knees. “Beautiful. For me?” she asked playfully. She was running her fingers along the outline of my black lace panties, soaked completely through, although I wasn’t sure which detail she was referring to.
I tried to answer her, to hold my composure and think of some clever and sexy retort. Instead, my head was swimming with intrusive thoughts of my husband, of nearly twelve years of unwavering loyalty to the man who was home with my children. True, our marriage was not one of passion. He had not touched me in years. He had once told me that he thought of sex as a chore, but I knew he was fucking someone else. Our marriage had died a few short years after it had begun. Neither of us had the guts to leave it. We were living the common lie of separate lives under the same roof. I felt abandoned and emotionally battered by the man who was once my closest friend, but now would go for days without speaking to me. While I wasn’t looking, he had chipped away at my self-esteem and stripped me of any knowledge of my own beauty. Still, infidelity was a line that I never, in my entire life, had dared to cross. While I had in fact chosen those panties just for Beatrice and drenched them at the mere thought of her touch, all I managed to say at that moment was, “I’m so sorry.”
Overcome with guilt and fear, and without another word, I jumped up, pulled my jeans to my waist and ran, not even looking back, leaving her hurt and confused. I was still breathing heavy when I merged onto the highway that led back to my house, not sure if my gasps were those of desire or panic. This journey would not be easy.
The next several days were filled with a flurry of emails. I revealed all my fears and trepidations in heartfelt explanations and apologies. Our letters had become a refuge for unquestioned honesty and the only means by which I felt I could safely explain my behavior, declare my regrets, and plead for another chance. Beatrice was understanding and graciously agreed to an evening together.
She welcomed me back with a new sense of closeness and without hesitation. But this time she was more cautious. We sat comfortably on the floor of her dimly lit living room eating take-out Thai food and rediscovering our shared laughter and infatuation. She brought out one of her three guitars and gave me a glimpse of the passion behind her music, serenading me with “River Waits,” a song of patience and seduction written and performed just for me. Later, we danced slowly in the candlelight, melting in each other’s arms. When we finally kissed, I knew there would be no turning back.
“Do you want to go into the bedroom?” she asked, almost with forgiveness in her voice. Her words were invigorating, making my heart race, making my chest ache. Yes. Every inch of me screamed yes. Without pause, I took her hand and led her there.
Through all our writing I had let her words take me. She was already a part of me. She had already replaced the worn fantasy of my river beauty with images of what was to come. I had shed my guilt and fear like the skin of a snake, leaving it shriveled in the path behind me as if it never had been a part of me. She was in my heart, yes, and in my brain, entangled in my every desire, distracting me from anything but her.
Images still flash in my mind of those first moments when I felt her body against mine, luscious and warm, naked but for her own lace panties, and so very still, as she allowed me to explore the female form for the very first time. My mouth found her ears, her earlobes, the tender place behind them so erotic for me. My heart pounded and I wondered if I could handle any more than simply this. Her ears led so easily to her neck and my mouth began to know where to go. My thoughts relaxed, and I found myself caressing her breast with my hand, her dark nipple tightening as I dared to pass over it with my tongue. She was exquisite.
I was restrained at first, unsure of myself. My instincts, however, soon took over, my mouth finding that hardened nipple and taking it in as if it had a thousand times before. Her body began to move, ever so slightly, and I knew then that I wanted so much more. I found her arm, so delicate, and followed its length to the inside of her elbow, soft, so perfect for kissing, and then to the tender skin of her wrist, the open palm of her hand. I mindlessly took her finger, calloused from guitar strings, and caressed it with my tongue, sucking it in familiar ways. Even now I am swept away with desire at the mere thought of it.
I continued on in my explorations, a little embarrassed by my diversion, a little excited by the thought of her watching me. My tongue found its way slowly down and around the inviting curves of her waist, stopping briefly on her hip bone, moving anxiously, desperately across the top of her bikini line. As if from far away I heard her faint, stifled offer. “Baby, you don’t have to.”
Only then did it occur to me that she thought this was for her. No, I needed no excuse, no escape. I was selfish in my lust. I wanted her for me, and only me. For years the lesbian in me had lain dormant, waiting passively for her release, sustaining a lifetime of unquenched thirst. With the slow and meticulous survey of Beatrice’s womanly form I was sipping, savoring that long-awaited drink, motivated not by her seduction but by my own wanting; a desperate wanting that throbbed and dripped between my thighs. Make no mistake. It couldn’t have been just anyone. No, it was Beatrice who held my trust, held my heart, and made me feel safe and loved and beautiful as no one else ever had. But this was for me, not her, and I ignored her selfless words.
Her scent filled my head and I wa
s drawn to her inner thighs by a craving I didn’t yet understand. It was familiar yet new, erotic, exhilarating. I accidentally felt the trickle that had escaped to her inner thigh as it brushed against my cheek. Her bent leg fell to one side and I instinctively ran the tip of my tongue along the edge of her panties, just at the crease where her thigh gave way to the source of all that wetness. With a hint of her flavor swirling in my mouth, I began to lose my thoughts and drift in reverie along her body, swept away in a current of lust. Despite her efforts to lie still for me, her back arched in anticipation. The last of my inhibitions gave way.
First with my teeth and then in slow motion with my hands I pulled her panties away, feeling the weight of their saturation as I cast them aside. I hovered momentarily in front of her, my eyes closed, lost in a trance, drunk with the beautiful aromas, picturing her wetness but not really looking, not thinking, just needing.
My warm breath against her made her squirm impatiently and I realized how long I had lingered there. All my senses were heightened. I felt that I could not wait another second, that I must finally know. I immersed myself in her with a raw and untrained passion that was tempered by the delicate pace of a woman in awe. My mouth was alive with the feeling of her softness, her wetness, trying to take it all in at once, overwhelmed with new sensations yet comfortable in its new home. My tongue was searching, wondering, finding her clit and moving with a mind of its own, in motions reminiscent of her own teasing kisses. I heard soft moans, but couldn’t bring myself out of my dreamworld enough to know if they were hers or my own. The music left playing in the other room mingled with those muffled sounds, a hypnotic combination. The room faded around me. Time seemed to flow strangely slowly. I found myself floating effortlessly, momentarily leaving my body, taking her taste with me and seeing from above the wonder that was us.
The moans grew louder. As her hips rocked beneath my mouth I rocked with her, rhythmically, as though we were one, as though I was not sure whose mouth was on whom. The more I drank the more I craved. I was drowning in her but it was still not enough. I was where I needed to be, oblivious to my own actions, oblivious to her cries of pleasure, to her convulsions as the orgasm ripped through her, to my own thrusting against the bed, to her ultimate whispers for me to stop.
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