thelesbianlifestyle.com

It’s 2.30am. I have to work tomorrow but can’t get to sleep. My mind is racing with the full moon, with her impersonal round face beaming into me and reading all my desires.

Soon, she will travel over the continents and reach him on the other side - the man I spent the last 7 years of my life with. My ex-lover, ex-companion, ex-husband… hopefully he won’t be my ex-friend. But I had to do it. I had to break away.

For the past year I’ve had a state of mind creep up on me - a subtle shift in perception, I keep thinking - only it isn’t that I realized I was attracted to women - because, really, I’ve always found women attractive. It’s that somehow, my puny mind has decided that simple admiration of the female form from afar is no longer enough, no longer satisfactory, and that I must go and simply seek out what I crave.

I felt so much guilt for not desiring my husband! I didn’t find him attractive in the slightest - and he is fit and handsome, and sporty. Neither did I find men particularly interesting to look at - they were like large schools of dull fish swimming in circles, while the treasure gleamed at the bottom of the sea-bed - treasure with all its curves and fancy lines.

Having problems at the home front didn’t help, either - it really takes two, and the routine, taking each other for granted, breakdown in communication and bad habits dripped away at my resolve like water at a rock. Slowly my “I do” corroded into a question mark, my happily-ever-after ceased to mean anything concrete. Whereas before, I was so confident and well versed in “love”, now I found myself utterly dejected, cynical and silent.

After a few false starts (saying “I want us to separate” and him saying “so… it’s come to this” and then forgetting about it for a while and pretending as though nothing was happening) I got enough courage to face the intense pain I knew was coming, and the repercussions and the gravity of what I was doing - I can’t imagine what having children would do to a woman’s resolve! She’d have to be made of steel, temporarily, to get through.

I had told him quite a few times I was interested in women - and not to share, either. Only for myself. I think he always believed that if he agreed, eventually I would allow him to join in. He was mistaken.

During my months of priority reorganization, before we (or rather, I) called it quits, I went on a website and struck up a friendship with a nice chick who lived in my area. My heart pounded as I rode into the city after work to meet up with her for a drink. Was this going to be my first experience?

Nothing eventuated, to which I felt part relief, part disappointment. Besides, I hadn’t been attracted to her much in that sense, anyway. I quickly erased my profile from the site and firmly told myself to stop grasping at lesbian straws - after all, I had been happily married in the past and had never had the need or urge to be with another woman. So, then, why now?

I married young - a year out of high school. No kids but a serious monogamous marriage nonetheless.

Is it any wonder, then, that I became completely infatuated with a co-worker? At the time, if she had asked me, I believed I would’ve left him, left everything - sensibilities included - to be with her.

Alas, after months of turmoil, a drunken confession and further months of embarrassment, anger, desolation and desire, I came to terms with her rejection. Luckily, we’re still friends and I value our relationship greatly.

Still, the question was burning me from within - I had to know: what was it like? To be with another woman… my brain went into overdrive fantasizing the sensation of a breast, the curve of the ass, the wonder kept hidden beyond.

But, surely, I wasn’t gay, was I? Didn’t I only ever have crushes on boys, in school? My mind spent hours cataloging the people it had brought to my attention - those labeled attractive. Strangely, those small attractions I had never pursued or given energy too, which were obliterated by my young, married heterosexual brain, revolved around women - and a few men.

All this thinking was driving me crazy! I had to act. I had to see for myself how much fluff was tumbling about in that revolving mind of mine, the one that was on an endless spin cycle filling to the brim with lint.

A gay friend at work told me about a predominantly girl’s night, so we and a few others went along for a drink and a dance. So many women! Who love women! Kissing, and touching and not giving a toss, because it’s natural to them - I wanted to be like that, too.

We danced for hours and got progressively trashed, which was fine with me! I’d been a little jittery when we first got there - I kept thinking, butch looking, flannel wearing dykes were gonna eye me and ‘woman handle’ me into some dark corner and have their way with me (or does that read more like a fantasy?!).

Toward the later part of the night… a woman approached me (read: danced up to me casually) and asked me: Are you gay?

I didn’t know what the hell I was, but I was there, wasn’t I?
I said the first thing that popped into my head: I’m bi.
She smiled: My friends didn’t think you were gay, she shouted and pointed at a group of smiling, bopping women. I just laughed. We kept dancing and talking, sending out snippets of ourselves, floating over the music.

Damn women’s intuition… I thought. This is going to be tougher than I Imagined…

Author: Mika
Age: 26
Location: Australia
Quote: I’ll sleep when I’m dead
Website: I Know You Know