Punishment with Kisses

by Diane Anderson-Minshall

  The idea thrilled me, though I wasn’t sure who I thought it would benefit.

  Although I was certain it would be incredibly awkward and uncomfortable, I decided I had to go out and celebrate this new development, even if it meant going alone. Finding courage in having something, anything, change among my dreadful family dynamics, I resolved not only to go out by myself, but to go to a lesbian bar. Where to find one was a whole other story, of course, but I had the Internet on my phone and I was certain it couldn’t be that difficult.

  I should say this was not my first foray into a lesbian bar. Once, at college, I followed Terra to a queer dance club in the French Quarter where women danced with women and men danced with men and everyone was having a sweaty, debauched good time. I was starting to think maybe I was gay, not bisexual, not experimental, not a slut like Ash, just a plain old-fashioned lesbian. But the thing was I’d never known how to pick up other women, and I didn’t know what I’d do if someone hit on me. The very thought made me so uncomfortable I could feel the sweat drip down my sides. Like, what if my junior high PE teacher showed up at the bar and tried to take me home? Or the wife of my old soccer coach, or even one of those slutty girls from porno movies? I wouldn’t know what to do with any of those women. I didn’t have a Brazilian wax, and I’d never strapped on a dildo, gone down on a girl, or owned a vibrator. I’d still only kissed two girls in my lifetime, including Terra, who frankly, did all the work in the sack.

  Okay, I was in a little better stead now. At least I’d been watching the woman-on-woman 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 twisted into a glare.

  “What the fuck are you doing here?” she spat in my face before my smile had a chance to fade. “Haven’t you ruined enough lives?”

  I was flummoxed by the allegation and quite honestly terrified. I’d never been in a bar brawl in my life, but I’d heard that fights could break out any minute in dive and dyke establishments, and I wasn’t interested in being thrown through a plate glass window or having a bar stool busted over my head. My one and only fistfight happened my sophomore year of high school when Melissa McMichael sent me across the room with a quick right hook that broke my jaw, which had to be stapled shut for six weeks, during which time I lost all that unsightly baby fat. Come to think of it, without that broken jaw I may never have gotten a prom date. Still, I had no interest in experiencing fisticuffs again.

  “I think you’ve me mistaken for someone else,” I offered quietly. “I don’t know you.”

  “You might not know me, Ashley, but I know you and you sure as fuck know my girlfriend, Kristy. You fucking tramp.”

  Damn. This was the kind of thing that could take all the fun out of impersonating Ash. I’d take the adoration, but I refused to be tormented for doing someone I didn’t have the pleasure of doing. I hoped to calm the handsome stranger with rationality. “I’m sorry, I’m not Ashley. I’m her sister Megan—”

  “Fuck you, you lying whore.”

  She was spitting mad. Her language was almost as filthy as Ash’s. I was scared witless.

  “You stole my girlfriend. Did you know that? She dumped me. We were going to get married next month until she just dumped me. She broke my heart. I couldn’t work, I lost my job. I lost my fucking dignity. All because of you. You ruined everything.”

  “Look.” I held my hands up in front of me, palms facing her, as though she could read them and know I spoke the truth. “I’m not Ashley, I swear. Want to see my ID?”

  In response, the woman cocked her arm back and started to take a swing. Everything decelerated. It was as though we were characters in a slow motion fight sequence. Everyone stopped dancing and talking and they were all staring at us, waiting for that fist to connect with my jaw. A dozen thoughts raced through my head. Duck. The first rule of fight club is: Don’t talk about fight club. Do lesbian bar fights have the same rules? I don’t want to drink from a straw again. If she breaks my nose, maybe the repair job will look better than the original. Who’s Kristy and why did she leave this woman for Ash when Ash would never offer anything as tangible as marriage? What would Ash do if she were here? Would she even care that I’m about to be pummeled in a bar brawl because of her? What will Father say if I get arrested?

  Caught up in my own thoughts, I did nothing to prevent her fist from rearrang
ing my face, when in a moment of uncharacteristic luck, her right hook was intercepted by a rather stunning but disheveled brunette, who repelled the fist, pushing it aside, while pulling me into an embrace. Even though we were in an impending bar brawl, being pinned against her taut body made mine prickle in places I didn’t know had nerve endings.

  The rest of the night was something I promised myself I would record for posterity in my diary. I know that makes me sound like a giddy schoolgirl, but honestly, I felt like something wholly significant and amazing happened. Suddenly everything changed.

  First, I was rescued from a certain beating by an enigmatic stranger and then Shane—that was my gallant rescuer’s name—set me on the back of her motorcycle and we drove off into the sunset. Seriously, it happened just like a hokey Harlequin romance, except the knight in shining armor was a dyke in shining leather, and her mighty steed was a tricked-out Harley. Also, I wasn’t much of a princess.

  On the back of Shane’s bike, the engine reverberated through my crotch and vibrated throughout my entire body until even my teeth were chattering along. To keep from falling off, I wrapped my arms tightly under her breasts and held on for dear life. The ride was exciting enough. I could have stayed behind her on that bike for hours, but before I knew it we were at a park fumbling around in the darkness.

  I felt a bit foolish at first, until we smoked a bowl of weed, and soon we were lying in each other’s arms on the banks of Lake Oswego, talking and kissing for so long that we were still there hours later when the sun began to rise.

  Everything about Shane was fascinating. She was beautiful and smart and dark and sarcastic. A poet and performance artist with a rebellious streak and a sensitive side. Shane’s mother and father, both drug addicts, split when she was two. She bounced back and forth between them until running away at fourteen. She’d been on her own since then, sometimes selling drugs to get by. She’d had a number of lovers but never a real girlfriend. Her number one goal in life, she said, was to find true love.

  I’m not sure if I was a sucker for a romantic story or if it was just the rush of feelings from that evening, but I wanted Shane so badly. She waited for me, just talking, drawing me out, never making a move until I was practically begging for it. After a couple of hours of talk, my body was just aching for that first kiss, and by the time I leaned in for it, I wanted to explode. The kiss was warm, soft, wet, unforgiving. I melted into it as though Shane was a part of me, and before I knew it I had taken her hand and shoved it inside my panties. I was wet and full and she parted me with her fingers like a locksmith with a deadbolt. She was in and out of my cunt, twisting me up in passion before I could think, and soon her head was down there too, her tongue lapping at the sides of my clit, teasing me for what seemed like hours before giving in to my desire. I couldn’t wait for her though. I tore at my own shirt, pulling my bra straps aside and pointing my nipples into the early morning air. I would have lapped them up myself if my tongue could reach, but instead I used my fingers to twist and massage them while Shane licked and lapped, all the while still moving her hand in and out of me.

  Just thinking about it in retrospect makes me want to orgasm like I did that night, over and over, each time crying out and pushing her back, unsure whether I could take yet another la petite mort.

  It was nearing sunup when we finished, too exhausted to go on but still eager for each other’s bodies. Shane wanted me to come back to her place, but I couldn’t. I already knew I’d incur Father’s wrath over our mandatory “family” breakfast by staying out all night, and suddenly I felt awkwardness too. A bit of embarrassment at having let this relative stranger inside me so much, literally and metaphorically. As my body was flushed and weak, almost heightened from being stimulated for hours, my mind was racing with a mixture of emotions—excitement and guilt tops among them. I had Shane rush me back to my car in hopes I could make it back to the estate before Father was up for his usual coffee, half grapefruit, and Wall Street Journal breakfast ritual.

  I was successful, to a point. When I got to the house, I ran to the door and discovered the house was still relatively dark. Unfortunately, my keys were missing. My whole bag was missing, actually. Thinking I left it at the lake, I began looking for some other way to get into the house without alerting the inhabitants. I tried the other doors, the windows, even the back gate, all of which were locked. Probably because Father is a security freak who thinks people are trying to steal our stuff at all times. Fortunately, as I started to hunch down by the front door, frustration welling up in the corner of my eyes, Maria opened the door.

  “Oh, Miss Caulfield, you scare me,” Maria said in startled, broken English. “Are you all right?”

  “Oh, yes, yes, I just got locked out and didn’t want to wake anyone. Is Father up?”

  “No, Señor Caulfield has not risen today. I’m preparing breakfast.” She pointed to the newspaper on the stoop. Of course, Father doesn’t even get his own newspaper off the porch.

  “Great. Let’s keep this between us.” I grabbed her and pecked her cheek, an impulsive thank you for keeping my secret.

  Maria seemed bemused. She probably knew what a hard-ass Father could be more than anyone.

  *

  Flush with my sexual conquest, I put on my bikini and marched down to the pool. Screw Cynthia and Ash, I thought. It was my pool, too. I wasn’t going to let our spat the other day force me back into the imprisonment of the house. I didn’t need Ash’s invitation or permission, not that day, not when I was emboldened by my night of passion.

  Ash and her friends were already out by the pool. Their conversation went from a loud chatter to hushed whispers. Geesh, she couldn’t even share a fucking conversation with me? God, some days I hated my sister.

  I ignored them, spreading my towel out across one of the lounges before massaging some sunscreen onto my skin. I finally muttered my hellos a few minutes later, while I was dipping my toes in the surprisingly cold water. Normally I’d spend a half hour slowly wading in deeper and deeper, gradually getting used to the temperature, but not that day. I tossed a pool mattress in the water, held my breath and dove in. It was shocking. Any element of sophistication I might have displayed was quickly undermined by my ungainly struggles to board the floatation device. Every time I’d capture it and try to shove it under my ass, I would end up falling over backward splashing and sputtering while the mattress popped up on the other side of me, rising like a missile from the water. I finally managed to flop my body onto the float with all the gracefulness of a sea lion flinging itself onto a dock. I lay there panting, so loud that I almost drowned out the commotion of Ash yelling over my head at some newcomer. My back was to the gate and I didn’t even bother turning to look at what was sure to be another of Ash’s conquests—why would I care who she’s whoring around with now? But I couldn’t help overhear her tantrum.

  “What do you think you’re doing here?” Ash was practically yelling. “I told you I don’t want to see you again. I can’t believe you’ve come to my home.”

  “But—”

  “No buts, a no is a no, you got that?”

  “It’s not what you think. I’m here for Megan.”

  Ash cut the woman off again, but this time the voice had a tint of familiarity to it so I swirled around on my pool mattress just in time to see Shane standing there, red-faced, holding my purse.

  Damn. For some reason it had never occurred to me that even my one-night stand might know Ash. It was a crushing blow. My knight in shining armor had already been her knight, had already been in her. I was always second, never number one. Maybe that’s why Shane had noticed me, what she’d liked about me, what attracted her to me, my resemblance to Ash, however slight. Oh, my God, what if she was just with me because Ash told her no and I was as close as she could get to the real thing?

  I felt the heat flushing my cheeks and wanted to disappear. I was frozen in place, afraid to move for fear I’d catapult myself back into the water. Then I could feel all
eyes on me and I decided maybe that wasn’t such a bad idea. In fact, I wished I could just melt right there like the wicked witch of the Wizard of Oz. As a liquid I’d run right off the mattress and become indistinguishable from the water around me. Before I could process it all though, Shane shoved my handbag at Ash and turned and ran.

  “Wait, Shane!” I shouted, trying gallantly to go after her but instead just falling off my float and ruining whatever decorum I had left. By the time I swam out of the pool, climbing up the stairs at the shallow end and bridling at Ash’s malevolent demeanor, Shane had sped off on her bike and I was livid.

  “You cunt!” I yelled at Ash. Perhaps the first time in my life I had called another woman by that name. It seemed the most apt that day. “I can’t believe you think everyone is here for you. What a freakin’ narcissist you are. Just because you can fill this pool with your toadies, mostly because you’re such a whore, doesn’t mean the world revolves around you, Ashley!”

  I drew out the name like it was two different words: Ash Lee. I knew she hated her given name, long abandoning it in favor of the androgynous Ash, her favorite character from a movie, too. Calling her a whore wouldn’t bother her, but calling her by her girlish name might.

  “Listen, child, don’t kid yourself. Shane is sloppy seconds, babes. She’s only with you because she can’t have me.”

  My hand flew at her face as though on its own accord. I watched it slap her across the cheek and was certain that the shock in her eyes was mirrored in my own. I had never before raised my fist to her, and I was as surprised as she was by my reaction.