by Cara Bruce
Table of Contents
Title Page
Dedication
Introduction
Triptych
Double Down
The Smell of It
Scenes from Thailand
Bangkok
Phuket
Happy Loving Couple Makes It Look So Easy
Night on Twelfth Street
Surrender Dorothy
Party of One
What She’s Worth
Hands
Hilary’s Swank on Billy the Kid
Go
Extracurriculars
Full Service
Thwack!
Hair Club for Bisexuals
The Devil Is a Squirrel
Leaving the Past
On the Care and Feeding of White Boys
The Year of Fucking Badly
About the Authors
About the Editor
Copyright Page
This book is dedicated to all my lovers, men and
women, past and present. Thank you to everyone who
has helped me with their guidance and support: Marcy
Sheiner, Thomas Roche, Rachel Kramer Bussel, Lisa
Montanarelli, Violet Blue, Annalee Newitz, Carol Queen,
Susie Bright, Felice Newman, and, of course, my mom.
Introduction
Cara Bruce
Most people seem to think bisexual women have a magical ability to have their cake and eat it, too. This perception makes them sometimes the most hated and other times the most lusted after sexual group under the rainbow. In a way, bi women have become the ultimate pornographic symbol. Nowadays, it’s rare to find a mainstream porn film without your token “girl-on-girl” scene (I think they actually call those films lacking girl-girl action “gay male”). Why is this?
For straight men, seeing two or more women in steamy scenarios seems to offer a glimpse into the compelling and arousing mysteries of women. For women, it offers an image of themselves as supersexual: The bisexual woman is the one who will try anything, who is comfortable enough with her sexuality to act on her same-gender desires. Women who don’t know much about lesbianism, or are curious about experimenting, view bisexual women—the cake eaters—as women they can not only relate to, but also learn from. Certainly I, like many of my bi friends, have taught a “straight” woman a thing or two. And while gay and bisexual men are not yet really accepted by the “mainstream,” two women together seem, to many, “safe.”
Bisexual women are a staple of everyone else’s porn and erotica, and maybe that’s why you rarely see collections specifically by and for them. In that sense, this collection is the first chance for bisexual women to explicitly reveal themselves, their sex lives, and their desires. I was ecstatic when Cleis Press asked me to edit this collection. To me, this project reflected the joys, difficulties, and exquisite range of sexual encounters that come with being a bisexual woman.
One thing I discovered was that a lot of people’s misconceptions about bisexual behavior showed up in many of the stories I received as submissions. A large percentage of stories featured predictably scripted threeways, a pointedly straight woman experimenting for the first time, or a lesbian stepping out with a man. Sure, every group is stereotyped in some way, but I have to admit I was surprised to see that in our information-addled era, the urban-legends-as-sexual-fantasies still loomed so large.
So where do all of these misconceptions about bisexual women come from? While the fantasy bisexual woman appears as a sex-loving goddess, there is also a real-life stereotype of the bisexual woman as confused or “just experimenting.” And yet bisexuality itself is difficult to define. Does being bisexual mean you actually have sex with both men and women on a regular basis, or does it merely mean that you identify as being bisexual?
It’s easy to assume we know what a bisexual is, but when you try to define it (even for yourself) it can often prove quite difficult. Most folks think that if you like boys and girls, either you like one a bit better than the other or you must be ready to take on all comers. Others think that to be a bisexual woman means that you have a 50/50 split of men and women in your erotic life. (I, for one, don’t have a chart by my bed so that I can easily check off “guy” or “girl” right after I come, to keep my Bisexual Membership intact.)
But those assumptions hint at a larger stereotype about bisexual women: Bisexuals are often considered disdainfully as having no taste—liking everything, or having too much appetite (again, liking everything). Not everyone seems to think that having the cake and eating it is cute.
When I first came out as bi, I thought that my chances of dating would double. This didn’t happen. In fact, many of the lesbians I met wouldn’t date me, while the guys wanted to see if they could get into a threeway with me. I felt as if potential lovers thought I couldn’t be trusted to be true to either gender—because I liked both. Needless to say, this wasn’t what I was hoping for.
Are bisexual women really the confused gourmands people think we are? As we sometimes think we are? As the stories in this book show, confusion is one thing that isn’t part of our identity. This book shows sexually confident women and men having red-hot experiences with one or more lovers, women watching their bisexual male partners get off with another man, and lesbians watching their wives get fucked by a man. In this book, as in the ideal world, anything goes.
A few stories in this book fall into those stereotyped categories I mentioned before, yet they are not here as “token” stories. They are superbly written, hot, and, more importantly, real. I am happy to say that the stories in this book are also supremely original. Many of them don’t even dwell on the fact that the authors or characters are bisexual—they are just sexual, the “bi” simply becoming two extra letters, like a “Mr.” or a “Ms.” They don’t really change the essence of who you are.
The stories range from wickedly dark and disturbing (“Scenes from Thailand,” “Night on Twelfth Street”) to salaciously funny (“The Year of Fucking Badly,” “On the Care and Feeding of White Boys”). Some, like “Triptych” and “Hair Club for Bisexuals,” are essay-like pieces that lyrically explore bisexual relationships. “Thwack!” has a polyamorous phone sex operator juggling two relationships, “Party of One” fulfills a lesbian’s fantasy with a special surprise, and “Surrender Dorothy” is a playful romp about coming out. “The Devil Is a Squirrel,” “Full Service,” “Leaving the Past,” and “Go” take gender bending to a delicious new level.
I hope that, bi, straight, gay—or whatever you are—these stories will turn you on. I hope they’ll show you what we, as bisexual women, are really thinking. I had a wonderful time editing this anthology, and I’m happy that we finally have our own place on the bookshelves.
Now can I please have my cake?
Cara Bruce
San Francisco
July 2001
Triptych
Helena Settimana
My friend Lynette and I are lying on our beds in a hotel on Lancaster Gate. We can see Hyde Park across the street with its massive, winter-naked oaks standing like wild-armed sentries. The room has red velvet drapes and gold-and-red flocked wallpaper. I suspect it is supposed to look sumptuous, but the effect is more like a second-rate whore-house. It is raining outside, and I have been watching the beetle-black cabs and a mounted policeman passing along the slick street. I am telling her seriously that I will kill myself if I ever lose “it” before I am married. Lynette looks at me like I have three heads. She has dark-rimmed, cat-green eyes that open wider in disbelief, but she is too wise or too dumb-struck to say anything. I just might be the last virgin in my senior year, but it is all too much to absorb, so I vow self-death as an
antidote to the roil inside me, brought on by the fact that a boy I have met on this March Break excursion has stuck his muscular tongue in my mouth and provoked a hormonal crisis. I rushed to brush my teeth, but felt helpless to brush away the throb that lingered between my legs. The feeling is potent and threatens to overwhelm. Death is a limited solution.
He is anxious to please, this boy, and anxious to advance his cause. He has unruly jet-black hair and pale, freckled, Scottish skin. He has been a figure-skater, is muscular and lean, and comes from another school, stuck on the same itinerary. Craig follows me, alternating puppyish flirtation with macho posturing. On the night after we meet we all go out to a play and in the dark he gently draws his thumb across my palm and ventures a hand on my thigh. My breath is suspended. I feel incapable of rising to my feet at the end of the first act, slick and damp. He remains seated for a while after I excuse myself to find the bathroom. My friends are watching me closely. To this day I don’t remember the name of the play.
I try to remember my vow.
He sees me to my hotel room door, where Lynette has disappeared discreetly inside. He kisses with his tongue again and ventures pressing himself, hard, into my belly. Panicked, I wiggle a goodnight, but the next day, and the next, my resolve begins to unravel in this miasma of newfound passion. Still, I allow him no room to go beyond.
On the tenth day we sit together riding the plane home. As the lights are dimmed he calls the flight attendant for a blanket, and wraps me discreetly beside him. The imaginary barrier is drawn between us and the rest of the world, and in this seclusion his hands wander to my breasts and carefully fondle me between my legs. Craig has taken my hand and guided it to him. I feel him hard—the first time I have ever touched a boy, a man, there. If anyone is aware of what we are doing, it goes unchallenged and our fondling continues, unchecked. When one finger slips beneath the scalloped edges of my panties, my breath catches again. I know he can’t “go all the way,” and so I let him slide one sturdy finger inside of me, opening my legs and pushing my hips onto his hand before sudden panic strikes again. The exploration ends. When we emerge from our hiding place, I feel the eyes of other passengers on us. They know! Somehow I feel triumphant.
I hold him at arm’s length. My parents love him, adore him, trust him. They retire and leave us alone one night. He succeeds in putting his cock in my mouth. Weeks later he tells my friends, in front of me, that we are getting married but we will live together first. He hasn’t mentioned this to me. It is the beginning of the end. I can’t imagine settling for one man right now when this wicked new world is waiting to be discovered. I find I have a cruel heart. Just to make sure, I fuck the next guy I meet.
I’m still alive.
Leigh is standing beside the window in a cheap hotel room in Victoria. He has carried my luggage in from the curb and up two flights of stairs. I was not anticipating the Ritz, but perhaps something more on the measure of the hotel by the park. This is closer to a flophouse and is fortunately only a stopgap until I can find an acceptable room of my own. The hotel seems to crawl with the dregs of London: whores and pimps and pushers. I wonder how I am mixed in with them, and remind myself that it is only a temporary thing and that lodging here, unlike home, is exorbitant. I am a poor student and I did not book this part ahead. The heater hangs askew on the wall, broken wires dripping out, the victim of a previous tenant. The door is missing from the wardrobe, and extra linens are tossed carelessly inside. I don’t want to look closely at them.
I have put aside my life to be here—to see if this is the man I want for keeps. I am now being dragged slowly into this sagging, creaking bed, stripped of my clothing, jewelry, under-things. For a while I feel as if I have come home and I collapse under his weight, grateful for the warmth and familiarity of his body. He smells good, his mouth burns on me, his teeth rake the fine surface of my skin. I finger the crucifix around his neck and bend, push up into him.
The whores are fighting in the street. It’s distracting me from coming. Eventually, Leigh sidles to the window to watch the show. He’s blue-gray-black-and-white-TV-colored in the streetlight, bronze lined with silver. He seems distant. When he sees the management toss an unpaying visitor out into the road, he hastily dresses and leaves with a promise to return in the morning.
Early in the morning, he comes to my room and takes his sweet everlovin’ time pulling the rings from my fingers, then the blouse, the slacks, the snappy bits of bra and panty off me, and lays me down tender as you like, and rubs all of the red marks out of my skin. He makes me cry out and whisper, “I love you,” and when he has finished he gets this sad look on his face and says, “I’m sorry,” and “It’s over,” and walks out, just like that—out into the dirty street. He told me that he has reconciled with his wife. Suddenly I see I am at home in this place after all.
From a phone box in the road I call Mireille in Islington and ride the train underground, walk the warren of alleys and roads that lead to her basement flat, and cry at her door as if bereft of life.
His wife. I can’t believe it.
Mireille is good at serving tea and sympathy to me but is merciless with Leigh and pronounces a hex upon his cock for good measure. This makes me laugh a bit.
She says, “He will never be the same after this, but what does not kill you will make you stronger, and you will be very powerful indeed.” I am giggling and hiccoughing sobs at the same time.
I’ve been dreaming every time I sleep. Mireille tries to rub the red marks out of my eyes, after I tell her about the rotten heel. Mireille kisses my swollen eyelids, my mouth, down the side of my neck, draws me backward into her body with arms that are deceptively strong. I am paralyzed with shock, then eased by resignation, then loosened by desire. The glossy dark hair that curled out from under her cotton shorts shocked me into arousal—so did the tribbles of hair that peeked from under her arms. Weak, weak, I feel weak. She says, “How could he make you feel bad, how could he? He deserves to be shot.”
I find myself propped like a broken doll on her hand, desperately twisting my leather-brown, nubby nipples while she moans over the three fingers I had managed to slip inside that sopping mouth.
The sound of my breath caught in the air sounds rasping, ragged. It hangs in the dark like frozen vapor emitted on a winter’s night: small crystals of ice colliding. The noise is shattering in the tiny room. I am afraid that if I look on the floor I will see bits of my orgasm lying in jagged pieces: an A here, an O there. Curls of G’s and fragments of F’s. I fear we’ll waken the neighbors. The sound has brought me to consciousness: my insides clasping frantically, the sharp images in my mind are shredded by wakefulness. I resolve not to panic.
Mireille rolls over, nuzzling her face into the pillow. What can I say? I feel different, new—not exactly fixed. It is too soon for that.
I think I shall never return.
The woman sprawled on the settee is staring at Jack. She looks like a young Melina Mercuri—brassy dyed-blonde hair with black roots and a single eyebrow. I look away. If the one we find looks like a Greek, it had better be like Irene Papas—my idea of a goddess. Jack is looking the other way at this leggy sylph of a thing with golden-brown hair and a dimple that makes her look a bit like Kirk Douglas, if Douglas were a woman and a delicate, skinny one at that. The dimple drops her eyes—not her, either.
It’s a dare. He’s got me teetering into this place on dangerous heels. I’m still madly in love. It’s our tenth anniversary, and all he wants is to live his fantasy at last. We have been together so long that in the moment it seems not only safe, but exciting. I am to find an agreeable partner, ignoring the boys on the way. Jack is an adventurer, though he likes me all to himself.
In the end I spy a golden gazelle of a girl sitting in a dark corner, watching. She has a purple slash of a mouth. Jack presses himself into my ass before sending me off to broach the topic. I buy her a drink, light her cigarette, drop a strap off my shoulder, swing my pointed shoe with studied nonchala
nce, brush her arm as if by accident. Then she says, “Are you coming on to me?” and I have to tell her yes, and wait for her eyes to shutter, but they burn instead with a kind of smoky light and it is OK. We sit in the shadows, her skirt hiked a bit, my hand exploring the juncture of her legs. She pushes herself on my hand, her purple mouth open. She says her name is Amira. She is Kenyan and speaks with a trilling, exotic timbre to her clipped colonial English.
Jack appears like an apparition, his cock veiled in the linen of his trousers. I whisper the invitation to her and wait again for her to say no, but her mouth opens in a tiny O and she nods. Jack calls for our coats and leads us to the curb, hails a cab. I watch the furtive glances of the driver in the rear-view mirror as we sit flanking our new friend, probing hands on her thighs, teeth on her neck, tongues in her ears. She massages Jack’s cock, and a stain begins to bleed through the fabric of his pants. I am so hot that I am out of body.
He pays the driver, who looks a little bit disappointed at our departure. Our hotel is a good one this time, decorated in dark wood and forest green, brass, Chinese vases. Amira is like a miracle shining naked on the bed. I’ve gently parted her lips, pulled the mouth of her sex open. She is tidy, neat, her hair trimmed, her lips understated—the color of aubergine. I wonder if she has been clipped a bit, but it’s hard to tell. Seawater oozes from her pink interior.
