Our Own Private Universe

by Robin Talley

  Jake, meanwhile, was rambling to me about his latest petition.

  “I thought it would be a no-brainer,” he said. “I mean, we’re in Mexico. The plank isn’t calling for full amnesty. It’s only saying we should support the immigrants who are already here. I mean, there, back home. But I haven’t been able to get anyone to sign except you and Lori.”

  I nodded absently. I barely even saw Lori anymore. Outside our jewelry classes, she was almost never around.

  She was still furious with me, though. Her eyes blazed every time they met mine. Sometimes I worried she was so mad she’d do something to get back at me. Like tell Christa I’d lied to her about MHSA. Or, even worse, tell her about our summer-fling pact and the hookup tally we’d kept.

  I shivered. I never should have agreed to the pact in the first place. I wouldn’t have if I’d known how things would turn out. What I had with Christa wasn’t something to giggle over anymore.

  “What did the others say when you asked them to sign?” I asked Jake.

  “The same crap people say back home.” He shook his head. “One girl said she’d never support giving immigrants jobs because her dad lost his job years ago, and the reason he couldn’t find a new one was because the government was letting immigrants have all the jobs.”

  I rolled my eyes. Jake rolled his, too. Then he stumbled and nearly fell onto me. “Ow.”

  I grabbed his arm. “You okay?”

  Jake straightened up. “Yep.”

  “What happened? You tripped?”

  Jake glanced behind him. “Yeah, I tripped.”

  I looked back. Tyler and that guy from Jake’s church, Brian, were watching us and guffawing behind their hands.

  Had they tripped Jake on purpose? What were we, eight?

  “Who are you rooming with?” a girl asked behind us while Jake and I walked in silence. We were almost at the downtown area now, where the shops were. We’d come later in the day than we had last week so we could spend the morning in an orientation session for the trip to Texas next weekend. Mostly the session had consisted of praying, again, some more.

  “I’m supposed to be with Emma, but I want to change,” another girl answered. “She talks in her sleep and it’s so embarrassing.”

  I tried to tune them out. I’d heard at breakfast that Lori and Gina were sharing a dorm room.

  It didn’t feel right. Lori and I had been roommates on every trip since we were kids.

  Even though I’d much rather room with Christa. Obviously.

  “Who’s your roommate going to be?” I asked Jake.

  “No idea.” He nearly stumbled again, but there was no sign of Tyler or Brian this time.

  I changed the subject. “Is it true that the only votes at the conference that people care about are the ones on gay marriage and the war?”

  “Well.” The lines around Jake’s mouth faded. “To be honest, I didn’t read that much of the conference forums. I was mostly into making sure people voted the right way on marriage. But from what I saw, people are talking about the war more than anything else. Marriage was a distant second. I didn’t see a lot about any of the other issues—even though so much of this stuff, like immigration, is so important. I wish I’d paid more attention to it before.”

  “Is that why you’re putting out all these petitions?” I fanned out my shirt against the heat. It was one of Drew’s jerseys. I’d wound up borrowing some of his stuff after all, and I’d forgotten how comfortable his shirts were. I used to wear his clothes all the time, when I was little and thought Drew was the coolest person who’d ever been invented.

  “I guess.” Jake frowned. “The more I think about it, the more I realize all these issues are important, you know? Plus the war, well. I know it’s a big deal, but it feels a lot farther away. I mean, there are fifty kids in my school who immigrated in the last couple of years. They aren’t all Mexican, but most of them came in through Mexico.”

  I nodded. “You’re right. It’s weird people aren’t talking about this stuff more.”

  We’d reached downtown Mudanza. Smaller groups were starting to peel off to go into the tiny stores or wander down the narrow alleys. I turned in the direction of the internet place I’d spotted last week. Jake turned with me.

  Crud. I should’ve seen this coming.

  “What’s down here?” Jake glanced from one side of the street to the other.

  “Uh.” We were still a few blocks away, but if I told him where I was going, he’d want to come, too. “Actually, it’s kind of—private.”

  “Private?” Jake’s face clouded up again, the way it had when I asked who he was rooming with in Texas. “What, are you meeting up with your other friends?”

  For a second, I just stood there with my mouth flopping open. Then I had a brilliant idea.

  “Actually, I’m meeting up with...well...” I lowered my voice to a whisper. “You know. Christa.”

  I shrugged in a way that I hoped looked suggestive.

  “Oh!” Jake’s eyes widened. Then he laughed. “Okay. Guess I shouldn’t crash that party.”

  “Yeah, that’d be awkward.” I could feel my face flushing. If only I really were going to a clandestine meetup with my not-really girlfriend.

  What I was actually doing was far less sexy. It was almost the opposite.

  “All right. Guess I’ll see you back at the church later, then.” Jake looked lonely as I waved goodbye. Poor dude.

  I was almost at the internet place, praying it was open, when Juana stepped in front of me. She was holding a soccer ball and wearing a dusty purple dress. She grinned, her mouth showing a wide row of bright, uneven teeth. Even though I was worried about running out of time, I couldn’t help grinning back. “Hola, Juana.”

  “¡Hola, Ah-ki!”

  She then proceeded to rattle off a bunch of sentences in Spanish I couldn’t understand.

  I waved my hands in the air, trying to look helpless. She laughed. Then she dropped the soccer ball and played air guitar, the way she had during jewelry class. She tilted her head to one side and closed her eyes as she air-strummed. It was adorable. When she opened her eyes, she pointed at my chest and said, “¡Para usted, y sus amigos! ¡Esta noche!”

  I was pretty sure that meant “For you and your friends tonight.” But I still didn’t understand what she was talking about.

  “¡Gracias!” I said. You could never go wrong with gracias.

  Juana smiled and ran away, kicking the ball ahead of her, stirring up more dust. I waved and turned back to the internet place.

  When I pushed through the rickety glass door, the store was empty aside from a girl sitting behind the counter who not that much older than Juana. There were four computers sitting in two rows back-to-back. Big, boxy monitors on top of big, boxy hard drives.

  I smiled at the girl. “Hola.”

  “Hola.” She said a bunch of words I didn’t know. I held out my hand with a few pesos, hoping she’d get the idea.

  The girl smiled, took one of the bills out of my hand and gave me some coins. Then she scribbled two numbers on a piece of paper—“1, 30”—and handed it to me.

  The computers had signs on them with numbers. The one farthest from the door was labeled “1.” She was telling me to use that computer, for...thirty minutes?

  “¿Treinta minutos?” I asked her, pleased with myself for remembering the words.

  The girl nodded, looking equally pleased.

  I sat down at the ancient computer and pressed the power button. The monitor blinked to life. I opened a browser window and glanced back at the desk, but my new friend had gone over to the door to talk to another girl. I couldn’t understand what they were saying, but there seemed to be a lot of giggling involved.

  Well, I had to get started. Even if it was embarrassing just
to type the words.

  I went to the search box and put in “Do lesbians use condoms?” Then I reached up to cover the screen with my hand, even though no one was around to see.

  But I needed to know this. And there wasn’t anybody I could ask.

  The results took forever to load, and the first few that came up were strange. They were from different forums, and they used a lot of words I didn’t want to click on. Dildos, for example.

  I’d seen a wooden dildo in health class once. They made everyone practice putting a condom on it. It was gross. I had no idea how anything like that was supposed to be sexy.

  The sex-ed presenter told us all about different kinds of protection, but she didn’t say anything about gay sex. I knew it was important to be careful when you had sex with guys because you could get pregnant or get diseases. But how were you supposed to use a condom when there was nothing to put it on? Could two girls even give each other a disease?

  It was mortifying to think about. Up until this summer, I’d always thought of sex in kind of vague terms. I figured I’d do it someday, and I’d understood the basics, sort of. But now I needed to get a lot more practical about things. I had a feeling real sex wasn’t going to be the way it was in all those Prince songs, where you and a girl you barely knew just went for it in a barn or a corvette or wherever was handy. Not that I might not want to do that kind of thing someday—never say never—but I didn’t want it for my first time. I wanted it to feel right. And with Christa, it did.

  What had surprised me the most about what we’d done so far was how...normal I still felt. I mean, we’d done stuff I’d never done before with anyone. Certainly not with a girl.

  Before, I’d thought it would make me feel different. Like more of an adult. Instead I basically still felt like me. Except a version of me who knew what it was like to touch a girl’s boobs.

  It wasn’t what I’d expected at all.

  Anyway. I scrolled through the search results and clicked on something called “How to Practice Safer Sex for Lesbians.” That sounded promising.

  I could tell as soon as I clicked through that the website was meant for teenagers, with lots of bright colors and funky graphics. I almost closed it—I didn’t need to read another lecture from someone like the lady who made us touch the wooden dildo—but I saw a headline halfway down the screen that said “Safer Sex: Why Lesbians Need It Too.” When I clicked through, the beginning of the article made me squirm.

  Sex education usually focuses on one kind of sex only: The kind involving a penis penetrating a vagina. That’s why most sex-ed classes focus on protecting vaginas from penetrating penises. But even when there are two vaginas on the scene and no penis in sight, trust us, those vaginas still need protection from each other.

  Whoa. I looked over my shoulder. Then I sat up and twisted around so I had a clear view of the door. If someone came in I’d pretend I was checking my email.

  Women who have sex with other women don’t have to worry about pregnancy (unless one of those women has a penis—see our section on safer sex for transgender and nonbinary folks here), but they’re susceptible to sexually transmitted infections, just like everyone else. That means they need to use barriers to protect them both.

  I’d never heard of “barriers” before, not in a sex context anyway, but I kept reading, and soon I got it. Using barriers just meant putting something in between you and the other person during sex, the same idea as a condom. The article talked a lot about gloves and something called a dental dam.

  I tried to imagine making out with Christa while wearing gloves. It didn’t sound very romantic.

  But the more I read, the more it started to make sense. Gloves weren’t for making out. They were for doing stuff down there with your fingers. Dental dams were for doing stuff down there with your mouth.

  Wow. I squirmed harder.

  Where was I supposed to get dental dams and gloves, though? The shops in Mudanza seemed to mostly sell canned tomatoes.

  I opened a new search window and typed in “where to get dental dams.” A bunch of ads popped up for websites where you could order them. I pictured a box of dental dams showing up on the front steps of the church where we slept. Then I clicked on a link to another teen sex-education site. It said you could get dental dams for free at Planned Parenthood or at a community or university health center.

  Hmm. I doubted I’d find dental dams at the Casa de Salud in Mudanza, but I was going to a college campus next week.

  The rest of the article on the website was really long, and it had illustrations. I scrolled past those fast. The words were embarrassing enough. Then I got to a section called “Talking with Your Partner about Sex.”

  Many people say they’re afraid to practice safer sex because they’re too nervous to bring it up with their partners. Although this is a common concern, it’s dangerous. You’re putting your own and your partner’s health at risk if you’re too bashful to talk about safety.

  Oh. Now I felt bad for being embarrassed.

  The door to the shop opened and closed. The girl and her friend must have finished gossiping. I scrolled down farther on the page.

  There were links to a bunch of other articles. One said “What Is Bisexuality?” I clicked on that, even though I already knew what bisexuality was. It was pretty obvious. When I read the first line of the article I nearly closed the window.

  A bisexual person can feel attraction to people of more than one gender.

  I mean, duh.

  Then I skipped down a couple of paragraphs and saw this:

  One common myth is that bisexual people must be in simultaneous relationships with both men and women to be sexually satisfied. Another is that bisexuals are promiscuous. In fact, many bisexual people may be perfectly happy in monogamous relationships.

  Well, that was interesting. All I’d heard anyone say about being bi was that guys thought it was hot for a girl to be bi. I was pretty sure it had something to do with porn.

  Last year, when I first started thinking I might be bi, I’d looked at some porn videos. They were disgusting. It had almost been enough to make me think I might not be into girls after all. Then I overheard some guys talking about porn at school and I realized that the porn I saw on the internet, even the lesbian porn, was supposed to be for guys, not girls. That’s why the stuff I’d found was gross—it wasn’t the real thing.

  There were a lot of other articles on the website that looked interesting—there was one called “Are You Ready for Sex? A Relationship Checklist”—but my time was running low. I’d have to come back to the site later.

  “Treinta minutos,” the girl said from the desk. I figured she was telling me I was out of time, but when I looked up there was a man standing at the desk, taking a piece of paper from the girl.

  Uh-oh.

  I closed the page and brought up the browser history so I could clear it out. It took way too long, though, on that slow connection. I tapped my fingers on the counter anxiously.

  The guy sat down at the computer at the far corner from mine and started typing fast. He was wearing a baseball cap and sitting hunched over the screen, the same way I was.

  My computer finally finished deleting the history. I grabbed my purse, ready to speed out of that place, when I realized the guy in the cap was—“Drew?”

  My brother swiveled in his chair, blocking his screen with his broad shoulders. “Hey, Sis. Just checking email.”

  “Yeah, me, too.” Crap, now I wished I really had checked my email. Then I had an idea. “Hey, do you have a roommate yet for Texas?”

  Drew side-eyed me. “No, but—uh, listen, Sis, I don’t think us rooming together is a great idea. I know we used to do it at Grandma’s, but—”

  “Oh, no, I’m not asking for me. I was wondering if maybe you’d be up for sharing with Jake? He doesn�
�t have a roommate yet, either, and he’s really cool. The other guys from his church are all big jerks.”

  Drew glanced back toward the screen. “Yeah, sure, whatever. I can’t talk right now, though. Need to write to my professor about a class.”

  My mouth dropped open. “Does that mean you decided to go back to school?”

  He looked away. “Maybe. I don’t know. See you later, okay?”

  “Okay. See you.”

  I waved to the girl at the desk and left, the glass door swinging closed behind me. The street was empty except for a couple of Mexican women talking in another store’s doorway.

  For a second I felt lost. I’d never been downtown by myself before. I almost wanted to go back inside and wait for Drew to finish his email so he could walk with me.

  No. I should stop being a baby. I looked toward one end of the street, then the other. I’d come from the right. It would be easy enough to retrace my steps back to the church.

  Once I started walking, it was actually kind of nice to be alone. I might be in a foreign country, but I could still take care of myself.

  I followed the road back toward church, stepping carefully over the holes in the pavement in the too-small flip-flops I’d borrowed from Christa. Images from what I’d read swarmed through my skull.

  I hadn’t realized lesbian sex was so...complicated. Up until now I’d sort of been doing whatever felt natural. Kissing, and touching. One thing had seemed to lead to another. It was strange to think about “going all the way” when everything felt like a logical progression.

  One more week. In Texas, I could get the stuff we needed. And then...if we wanted to...

  Yeah. I needed to make sure Christa and I had a dorm room to ourselves.

  I was still smiling when I got to the work site. The rest of the group wouldn’t be back for another hour. Señora Perez was out front talking with Aunt Miranda and some of the other chaperones. Dad was there, too, organizing painting supplies.