“You’re relating it back to me,” I said. I caught on quickly.
“You’re a perceptive lady,” Maggie said. “I’m just trying to prepare you,” she said, continuing her walk through the store and I dutifully followed her. “You know when we get back home people are going to have a lot of questions for you if you bring me around.”
“I hadn’t really considered that yet,” I mused, feeling slightly heavy from the revelation.
“A woman in her mid-30s, considered straight by everyone she knows — including her family — comes back from a cross country trip, bumping vag with a feisty pocket-sized blonde,” said Maggie, posing like a model as she referenced herself. “I mean, your tongue is going to get an even greater work out than it has on this trip.”
“That’s a pretty funny joke,” I admitted.
“I know.”
“I guess I hadn’t really thought of it like that,” I said. “But I had a gut feeling something rough was lingering behind the next door.”
“Maybe everybody will be like, ‘Dana? Oh yeah, I knew she was a lesbian way before even she knew,’” said Maggie. “But I’m a pretty good judge of character and I didn’t have any idea. You hid it well.”
“Hmm,” I said, tapping my finger to my chin.
“You just have to own it,” said Maggie, laying it out for me as she dug through another box of gemstones. We were now in the middle of the store, near the register, as a woman in her 60s lingered around behind the counter. “I had this girlfriend one time,” she said. “Super cool chick, kind hearted, but pretty wholesome in a lot of ways and definitely… um… conservative in the bedroom.”
“Okay,” I said slowly.
“And you know now that I, to put it frankly, like butt stuff,” said Maggie. “I don’t think it’s weird and I don’t like to be shamed because I enjoy it. I think that’s messed up.”
“I hope that I haven’t shamed you for—“
“No,” said Maggie, looking at me over the top of her glasses, holding up a palm. “Not you. This chick, this ex-girlfriend. She thought I was brainwashed or something. She thought that some ex-boyfriend, some man, had brainwashed me into thinking that anal sex was okay. I told her, ‘babe, I’ve never been with a man. I like this because I like it, end of story.’”
“What did she say?”
“She couldn’t believe it. She couldn’t believe that something she found weird — something she was unwilling to even try — wasn’t something that another woman like her could enjoy,” said Maggie, shrugging her shoulders and tossing her hands up. “What the fuck? If you’re a prude, that’s on you. Don’t try to spoil my good time or make me feel less than you for engaging in something I like!”
“That makes sense,” I said. “Who cares if you like it? What difference does it make?”
“Right,” she said. “But, well, it doesn’t quite make a sexual relationship work if you want her to slip a finger up your tush and she thinks you’re from a different planet.”
“I can see that,” I said, letting the smile wash over my face, trying to push down a laugh.
“All I’m saying is that you’ve got to own it,” said Maggie, smiling wide as she saw my amusement. “Just be you. And do it with a smile.”
“I agree,” said a voice off to the side. Maggie and I both turned our heads and saw the woman behind the counter, her hair gray and long and straight, a bit of a hippie vibe, wearing a busy cardigan sweater. “I can admit I like a finger in my rear and I don’t care who knows it.”
Maggie’s eyes grew wide and I knew she wanted to laugh. Not laugh at the woman, of course, but laugh at the situation. I could read it loud and clear on her face. It was absurd and Maggie thrived in the absurd.
“I like your style!” said Maggie finally, pointing emphatically at the woman.
“Oh my God,” I said, grinning, looking down, shaking my head. “I can’t believe she overheard us.”
“Don’t be embarrassed, dear,” said the woman. “I didn’t mean to interrupt your conversation. I just wanted to let you know I’m with you.”
“Thank you,” I said, definitely feeling embarrassed. “I appreciate it.”
“I just can’t believe some people care about what other people do in the privacy of their own bedroom,” said Maggie, engaging the woman. “Am I right?”
“Right,” said the woman. “There’s nothing that gets me going better than when my husband goes down on me and fiddles around with my backside. It just feels good.”
“It does,” agreed Maggie firmly. “It feels really good. We’re not weird, ma’am, we’re perfectly fine.”
“I don’t need to be convinced,” I said. “I’ve done it, I like it, we’re all on the same team here.”
“We’re just having a conversation,” grinned Maggie. “It’s not to convince any of us. We’re just commiserating on why it’s stupid to worry about what others think, why it’s important to be yourself. You see, ma’am,” said Maggie, now talking to the woman behind the counter. “My girlfriend here is going to have to open up to some people once she gets back home and—“ she said, then interrupted herself with a little gasps. “Is that picture jasper?” She pointed into the glass case in front of us.
“It is!” said the woman.
“Ooh!” beamed Maggie. “Let me see!”
Although I felt highly embarrassed to talk about something so intimate with a total stranger, there was something amazingly comfortable in the back and forth with Maggie, something I appreciated for what it was. Some of us, even with a best friend or lover or a lover who’s also your best friend, can find it difficult to open up about the most private things inside ourselves. I knew that had always been the case with me and my relationships. But I was blessed to have found Maggie. She had no filters in that regard. Whether because she had always just been open and honest or because she was tired of maintaining that wall between people, she would just simply say what she thought and not give a damn if you judged her for it. It was refreshing. In a world of people hiding their ulterior motives and judgments, with Maggie what you saw was what you got.
“Okay, gimme this one,” said Maggie, sliding one of the stones off to the side. She and the woman had shifted gears, talking now about stones like they had never even broached the topic of anal sex. It was hard to believe but then at the same time, knowing Maggie, it really wasn’t.
I just smiled and watched, the embarrassment draining out of me. Serenity flowed over me.
Maggie was right. Of course she was. You can’t let the opinions of others dictate your happiness. Nobody is going to like everything about you. Well, maybe you’ll get lucky and find a woman like Maggie. But let’s be real. It’s just fantasy to think everything is going to be just how you like it, that other people are going to fit into nice little boxes to accommodate whatever it is that you like. It’s lunacy. That’s why it’s so crazy that I let the overbearing matriarch of my family run my life for as long as she did. That’s why I should have no fears about going home and living my life in the freedom I deserve.
So what if I spent my entire life dating men, even going as far as to marry and subsequently divorce one? That’s my past. And that’s over with. If I learned anything on this road trip with Maggie, it’s that there’s no reason to hide from my feelings. Nothing truly bad is going to happen. In fact, bad stuff will probably only happen the longer you hide from your feelings. It’s like the pathological liar who has to keep coming up with new and associated lies to keep their previous lies afloat. Sooner or later it’s all going to come tumbling down. And then what? That’s a lot of rebuilding you’d have to do.
That’s sort of where I was at, I guess. But I was ready to leave that life behind and see what was waiting for me on the other side. The side where I didn’t have to lie. The side where I didn’t have to feel like a deer in the headlights every time I was discussing my love life with someone. Having to play along, talk about what I wanted in a man, have friends try to set me up or wha
tever. That was such a hard ruse to keep up. It just wasn’t worth it.
I was ready, firmly planted in adulthood, to really start living for myself.
“That’s right,” said Maggie, listening as the woman dressed in a suit jacket behind the counter spoke to her. We were in the lobby of a pretty nice hotel, just outside of Madison, Wisconsin. Although we probably could have soldiered on and drove home to Chicago, I don’t think either of us were quite ready to admit that our trip was coming to an end. It had been so fun, so liberating, and it was unthinkable that it could almost be over.
“I have a room available with two queen sized beds,” said the woman, tapping into her computer.
“Do you have one with just one king?” said Maggie.
“Let me see.” Her fingers clacked over her keyboard. “We do and that room is $199 per night.”
“Book it!” said Maggie, hosting a finger into the air. “Maybe we should hang out in Madison for a few days,” she said to me, smiling ear to ear. “It’s a cool town.”
“I’ve got to get back to work on Monday,” I mourned.
“I suppose I should, too,” said Maggie. “No students yet but still so much to do.”
“Do you have a credit card we can keep on file?” asked the woman, eyebrows lifted.
“I do,” said Maggie, sliding her card across the counter. The woman smiled, took it, and returned to her computer screen.
“Thank you.”
“This trip, though,” I said. “I wish I could extend it forever.”
“In a way we can,” Maggie said with an irrepressible smile. Reaching over, she took my hand and played with my fingers.
“I think so.” I smiled back. I couldn’t help it.
“All right, Ms. Stack,” said the woman, sliding Maggie’s card back to her. “You’re all set for one night here at the Winston. I’ll give the both of you a key card.” Reaching across the counter, she handed both Maggie and I cards for the room. “Room 527, the fifth floor.”
“Thanks,” we said in unison.
“Is there a restaurant here in the hotel?” I asked.
“There is,” she said. “Just around this corner here,” said the woman, half leaning across the desk and pointing. “Across from the elevator bank. You can’t miss it. It’s a seafood restaurant. If you like sea bass, I recommend giving that a try. It’s very good.”
“Great,” I said.
“So we’re all set?” asked Maggie.
“All set, ma’am,” said the woman. “Enjoy your stay.”
With bags in hand, Maggie and I sashayed through the lobby and made our way toward the elevator. The hotel was fancy, in a modern sort of way, and it was a big leap from the accommodations we had been staying in.
“I can give you some cash for the room,” I said as Maggie leaned out and pressed the button to call the elevator.
“Forget about it,” she said. “It was my idea to go ritzy for the last night of our trip. I got you, doll.”
“Thanks.” I kissed her cheek.
“You know the best part of staying in a hotel?” Maggie said with a hint of fire in her eyes. I knew she was about to say something inappropriate or otherwise crack a joke.
“I’m not sure I want to know,” I said.
“Hotel sex,” she said matter-of-factly. “It’s different from any other sex because you just don’t give a damn about the room. You’re free to get wild with it.” I laughed and shook my head.
“Yeah, but then that’s what everybody thinks,” I said as we stepped into the open elevator together. “So hotel rooms, I mean, they’ve got to be pretty gross.”
“They change the sheets!” Maggie protested, the elevator door now closing behind us.
“Not the bed spread,” I countered. “Not the curtains.”
“The curtains?” she sputtered. “I don’t know what kind of sick stuff you’re into, Dana.” Maggie paused for effect. “But count me in!”
Later on, the two of us sat opposite each other at the hotel restaurant. We had just been delivered fresh glasses of wine and were awaiting our desert. A few other people were also in attendance, some lone business travelers, some couples like us just passing through, but it was a fairly quiet night for the restaurant. The lights were low, the ambience was calming. I was smiling. I was smiling a lot lately and it felt good.
“I like this,” I said as I watched Maggie take a sip of her wine. “This feels like a real date.” She almost did a spit take, chortling from my revelation.
“Yeah?” she said, wiping her mouth with her clothe napkin. “So the past few weeks, all those meals we had, all those times I licked your cooter, those weren’t dates?”
“Don’t call it a cooter.”
“I’ll call it whatever I want, love,” she said, now taking another drink from her glass.
“Well, I mean, they were different,” I mused. “I don’t know. This is just a nice restaurant, a fancy meal. It feels very relaxing.”
“You’re right,” Maggie said in earnest. “I can admit, this feels like a date. It’s nice.”
“It is,” I agreed.
“I have to tell you, Dana,” she said. “No playing around. I’m being serious. This feels awesome. Like hands down, so special, like nothing I’ve ever experienced before. I never thought in a million years that this would happen to us.” Maggie shook her head as she thought about it. Her face had grown serious.
“It’s like a dream,” I said. “I sure as hell hope it’s not a dream.”
“Pinch me,” she insisted, sticking her arm across the table. I humored her and pinched her. “Not a dream,” she confirmed. We both laughed.
“I know I’ve got a lot to think about,” I said. “A lot on my mind. A lot to deal with when we get back to Chicago. But Maggie, I’m just… I’m so grateful for you and I’m so happy that this happened for us.”
“I feel the same way,” she said. “This just feels right, you know? It feels like it was meant to happen.”
“It really does.”
“And it’s kind of a fairy tale right now, I can admit,” Maggie said, tilting her glass back and forth as she considered her words. “It probably won’t be all buttercups and rainbows, because we’re kind of living this weird fantasy vacation life at the moment where everything is peachy keen.”
“Agreed,” I said.
“But… I don’t care,” she said with a smile. “To be able to take your friend, someone who you get along with so well, someone who you go back so far with, someone you’ve always loved… to take them and convert them into your romantic partner,” Maggie almost got choked up as she spoke. “It’s cool,” she said firmly. “It’s just really fucking cool.”
“You’re cool,” I said, pointing at her, trying to put on a stereotypically ‘cool’ face. Maggie laughed.
“That’s a little geeky,” she teased.
“Can I share something with you?” I said, suddenly feeling nervous. I let my mouth go into autopilot because I knew I wanted to get what I was about to say off my chest, but I was still trepidatious about revealing it.
“Of course,” Maggie said. “You can tell me anything.”
“All right,” I replied, looking off. I exhaled and then smiled at her. “Remember at the beginning of our trip? At that AirBnB in Omaha?”
“I remember,” Maggie said happily. “I was there.”
“This is going to sounds crazy,” I said. “But when we shared a bed that night… I…” I paused and took a moment, unsure how to get the words out. “I got myself off thinking about you.”
“What!” said Maggie, her smile growing even wider. She couldn’t help herself and she smacked the table, causing the silverware to clank. “You did that?”
“I did.”
“Oh my God,” she said. “That’s hilarious.”
“You don’t think I’m a creep?” I asked sheepishly.
“You’re definitely a creep,” she said. “But I love it. That’s so perfect.”
“I
just had to tell you,” I said. “I’d been feeling weird about it and I’m glad I could get it off my chest.”
“My only regret is that you didn’t wake me up and let me join in,” said Maggie. “We could have raced.”
“Something tells me you’d win that race,” I said with a relieved grin. It felt good to admit it to Maggie.
“Okay, my turn,” she said, straightening up in her chair, taking another sip of wine. Maggie didn’t look guilty of anything at all. She seemed excited.
“I don’t know if I’m ready.”
“Well, get ready,” she said. “Back in college, when we lived together…”
“Yeah…”
“Sophomore year, right?”
“Right.”
“One weekend when you went home,” said Maggie. “I tried on, like, all your panties.”
“You didn’t,” I said, shaking my head, unable to stop the smile curling onto my lips. “I should be so mad at you. That’s so crazy.”
“I know,” said Maggie gleefully. “I know it is. But you had this cute pair that I always liked and I tried those on first. Then I just couldn’t stop myself.”
“That is weird, Maggie,” I said. “That’s weird.”
“I’ve always had trouble with boundaries,” she said smirking.
“I can’t believe you’re telling me this at this fancy restaurant,” I said. I let out a chuckle. I was blown away by the absurdity.
“You masturbated in the same bed as me, like, two weeks ago or whatever!” Maggie protested, her words coming out a little too loud.
“Okay, okay,” I said, putting my hands up, trying to quiet her down. She craned her neck to look around, realizing she indeed might have been talking too loud.
“This was 15 years ago,” Maggie said. “I should get a pass.”
“I’m not mad,” I said through a laugh. “It doesn’t matter. It’s a funny story now. But you must admit that it’s weird.”
“I admit it,” she said. “You forgive me?”
Restless On A Road Trip: A Lesbian Romance Page 15
