"Oh, no." I shook my head. "I only started going out recently. It wasn’t my scene before that."
"Well, you’re taking to it like a regular duck to water," she remarked with a laugh. "Why didn’t you go out before? Did you have a clingy boyfriend or something?”
"Oh, no, nothing like that," I replied. "I just … didn’t think it was my scene, that’s all."
"What changed?” she pressed with interest.
"I was repressed when I was growing up," I explained. "I mean, I--my father, he thought that going out and doing anything, anything at all, would pretty much result in me going straight to hell."
She pulled a face. "I had a religious family too. You should have seen the look on their faces when I came back from college with my first girlfriend. I thought they were going to excommunicate me on the spot."
"Yeah, I can imagine. I think my father would have pretended he just never knew me if I came back with a girl."
"He still around?”
I shook my head. "No, my mom left him ages ago and she moved on and started dating someone else," I explained. "But it was like … I don’t know, like he was stuck in my head, you know? Like I couldn’t get rid of everything he’d told me."
"Hey, the way you’re brought up is a powerful thing," she agreed. "It’s not something you can just shake off."
"I guess that’s what I’m trying to do now," I confessed. "I mean, it’s all so … new to me. Sex and stuff. I haven’t even had … you know, I haven’t even really had sex with a man yet."
"Damn," she remarked, cocking her head at me. "I would never have guessed."
"I think that’s a compliment?”
"It is, trust me," she replied with a giggle. "You were so confident back there last night, I would never have known you’d never been with a dude before."
I smiled and took another bite of my bagel. I knew it was an odd thing to be proud of, but I was. One of the things I had been most nervous about was the thought that everyone would be able to tell just how far behind on all that stuff I was, but the way she was talking soothed me a little.
"So, no guys before," she continued. "But … you’ve been with girls, right?”
I shook my head again.
She raised her eyebrows, clearly surprised. "Oh, really?”
"Yeah," I admitted, and I wondered if this was going to make her think of me differently. Like I was a tourist or something, just using her for the thrill of it.
She took a sip of her coffee, not saying a word.
"I remember my first time with a girl," she remarked, a little dreamily, as though she was having to cast her mind back an impressively long distance to remind herself what that had been like. "I think I had maybe just turned eighteen? I was so sure I was only into dudes, and when this lesbian chick from one of my classes came on to me, I decided it would be fun to go along with it, you know, just to prove to myself that I was right ..." She chuckled to herself and shook her head. "And then I realized I thought it was incredible and I never wanted to stop," she admitted.
"So, you just … did it?" I asked, curious as I could be. "You just went along with it?”
"Yeah, I suppose deep down I knew I was going to be into it, but I had no idea how to navigate that by myself, you know?” she explained, with a sigh. "It was just … difficult. Really difficult, at first. I thought I was gay, but then I started dating this guy, and I thought it must have been just that one girl or maybe I was a poser or something. I didn’t know what to think. I felt like I was lying to myself, and everyone around me. I couldn’t stop thinking about women even though I knew I enjoyed being with men. It was a head-fuck, let me tell you. When I split with that guy, I got into the gay scene at my university and started really dating women. Properly. I had girlfriends and everything ..." she trailed off and grinned to herself like she was remembering some fond memories from those times. "We had a lot of fun back then," she admitted. "Maybe a little too much, if I’m being honest."
"Too much fun?”
"You’re right, there’s no such thing," she agreed then took another sip of her coffee.
"So, what did you do?" I asked keenly. "You were dating women?”
"But I knew I was still into men as well," she explained. "I knew I still liked dating guys, and I didn’t want to stop doing that just to prove some point about what a good lesbian I was."
"So, what did you do?”
"Being around all these women who were out of the closet was helpful because they let me see that there was way more to sex and sexuality than just straight or gay," she explained. "It’s such a huge spectrum, everyone falls some way on it, you just have to figure out where."
"And where do you fall?” I asked interestedly.
She smiled. "Well, I've been out as bisexual for the last five years," she told me. "I know it doesn’t suit everyone, but it suits me. I know I’m never going to be able to switch off being attracted to all genders, it doesn’t work that way for me."
"Like, men and women?”
"And the rest," she replied.
My eyes widened. I had never even considered the existence of genders beyond male and female, but it was clear there was still a lot left for me to learn.
"People like to put labels on you, no matter what you do," she explained. "For me, they wanted me to fit into the straight or gay box depending on who I was with, and I knew that just didn’t make sense for me. Never had, never will. So, that’s what I go by. If it feels right for you, you should use it, too."
"I’ve never even thought ..." I murmured, shaking my head. "I never imagined that I could be … that way. You know?"
"Yeah, nobody ever does," she replied. "But then there’s always someone who tips you over the edge and makes you realize that, actually, you were never as straight as you would have liked to think you were."
"Sounds like you’re giving yourself a lot of credit there," I teased.
She grinned at me. "Hey, am I wrong?”
I looked at her, a sweet, gorgeous woman, the woman I just wanted to reach out and touch and hold and caress in every single way that I could. I shook my head.
"No, you’re not wrong," I conceded, and her smile widened.
"Hey, you know what?” she told me suddenly.
I cocked my head at her. "What?”
"You should stay for the weekend," she suggested. "Just a couple of days. Could give you a chance to figure some stuff out, yeah? Maybe I could even lend you a hand."
"You mean that?" I replied. I was taken aback by the offer.
The way I had always heard it when it came to engagements like that, the person who owned the home would be trying to hustle their one-night-stand out the door as soon as was humanly possible. But maybe that was just how it worked with men? In truth, I had no idea. And there was this woman, offering to help me wrap my head around it. I didn’t see why I should say no to such a generous offer. If I was truly trying to learn myself, learn the ins and outs of how all this worked, then it was only right I took every offer that came in my direction. This was about the most tempting one I had been offered so far. I smiled at her and nodded.