I slept with a woman the other day and our teeth clinked together when we first kissed, in a way that hasn’t happened since high school.
We’d had sex on the bed in my friend Christian’s studio apartment while Christian and the boyfriend of the woman I was sleeping with waited outside on the balcony.
They were “giving us space” but would crouch down to look under the curtains every now and again if they heard a laugh, or a slap.
There’d been a point in the evening when I’d been drunk, but by the time we got back to Christian’s apartment it was already morning and he had a total of one beer in his fridge which we divided between us.
She told me right away it was her first time with a woman. I didn't tell her it was mine, because I figured things were just going to get messy if we both didn’t know what we were doing. I’d slept with enough men, I felt like I could probably pull it off.
I tucked a strand of long blonde hair behind her ear and thought about all the things men had ever done to me that I’d liked and not liked.
I called her “Hermosa” again and again, because I always liked it whenever men did that. I ran my hands across her whole body, because I always felt like men didn’t do that enough.
Capitalism had followed me into the bedroom, and it was the most productive sex I’ve ever had.
I was playing lesbian experience bingo, and if I just checked off enough boxes I could somehow both avoid a midlife crisis and win a crockpot.
When you’re sleeping with a man, there’s a very telltale point as to when the sex ends. When you’re sleeping with a woman, things aren’t quite as cut and dry.
When there wasn’t much left to do, the sex kind of puttered out. And as if they had a sixth sense (or had been watching the entire time), the men came in from the balcony.
I could have killed Christian when he cheerily suggested that we all go get breakfast. I wanted nothing more than sleep, and to be burritoed deep in the covers of my bed.
But after someone suggests breakfast, you can’t say no. Because that will make the other person feel used. Even if you were using them. You’re not supposed to admit it.
Seeing as I’ve been socialized as a woman, politeness will always take priority. So I somehow found the strength to eat half a croissant, drink a whole hot chocolate, and let Christian carry the conversation.
We’d pretended to be a couple in order to get into the club the night before, and now we were in a little too deep to backtrack.
Once home and curled up in bed, I felt satisfied with myself. Sleeping with a woman had been on my list for a while now.
Men I’d dated had asked if I’d ever been with a woman, and it felt weird saying no.
They’d ask why not, and I wasn’t ever sure of the answer. I wasn’t opposed to it happening, it was just that it had never happened.
The actual sex itself had felt left-handed. Like when you do something you’ve done a thousand times before, and then switch hands and it's all sorts of clumsy.
There was a part of me that was relieved I hadn’t enjoyed it more.
But I hadn’t been there for enjoyment, it had been seven in the morning and I was sober – it was more about getting the sex over with, than about the actual sex.
Waking up from my nap, I had a text from the woman I’d slept with, asking if we could talk.
My heartrate spiked through the roof.
I’d slept with a lot of men, and nobody had ever asked to meet up and talk afterwards.
It was true, women were more complicated.
Christian said that it was clearly because she wanted to confess her love.
Another friend told me to remember that I’d done nothing wrong.
All I could think about was everything I might have done wrong.
Had I been forceful? Did she know that Christian and I had been lying, that we weren’t actually a couple? Had she felt like I’d pressured her? Was she mad I didn’t tell her until afterwards that I hadn’t slept with a woman before?
I was a wreck.
I FaceTimed both my grandmas for long overdue catch-up calls to try and convince the universe that I was actually a good person.
That night I lay in bed rattled with guilt for all the things I may have done wrong.
It was bone guilt, the kind of guilt I felt guilty about having. I didn’t want there to be some part of me that felt shame for sleeping with a woman. But it’d shown up, uninvited.
It’s the part that came from being raised by a dad who shuddered a verbal “Ew” at the mention of homosexuality. And a mom who was liberal, but liberal in a way that meant it was OK for other people’s children to be gay, but her kids should know better.
“See,” my brain said. “See. They were right. This doesn’t happen when you sleep with men.”
I didn’t see her in the cafe the next morning where we’d planned to meet. I’d arrived late, as always, and she’d text me to say she was by the window.
I’d put extra effort into looking nice, because I’d never had a woman confess her love before, and I figured that if Christian was right I’d rather let her down looking my best.
A pale woman with a shaved head and no makeup smiled up at me from the window and waved.
I looked over my shoulder. There was no one behind me.
When she got up and started walking towards me, I wondered if the girl I’d slept with had sent her instead.
She greeted me and apologized, saying that she probably looked different without her wig on.
I’d put up with men’s misogynistic comments about the complexity of women for years.
This was the first time in my life I’d ever actually wondered if they’re on to something.
We are kind of complicated.
I ordered and sat across from her, smiling as though I did this all the time. I was prepared to chat about the weather for as long as necessary.
Not one for small talk, she told me she was pregnant.
While I’d ran through every possible scenario of what she was going to say in the cafe that morning, this was not one of them.
It is also the closest I will ever get in my life, to being a man.
She explained she hadn’t known while we’d slept together, but when she got home afterwards she’d taken a pregnancy test, and it turned out positive.
She asked if I would go to the hospital with her and get tested.
We ran through the logistics of what hospital, what tests, how to get there, and I still had half a juice to finish, with nothing left to talk about.
I began to ramble, confessing that Christian and I weren’t actually a couple.
I felt like she deserved to know everything about who her and the little human inside of her had slept with. It was also less moral high ground, and more just me trying to fill the space.
“We were only pretending to be a couple that night to get into the club, but we’re just friends. I’m actually dating someone I really like,” I rambled, because there was so much space to fill. “We aren’t official yet, but it’s only a matter of time.”
I didn’t tell her that we were about to go away on our first trip together, and I’d decided that he was going to ask me to be his girlfriend there.
This is called mind reading, and it’s something I’m working on with my therapist.
He didn’t in fact ask me to be his girlfriend on that trip, or ever actually. True to form, I ended up getting impatient that it was taking so long, and asked him myself.
Sitting across from her in the cafe, I didn’t say anything more than that Christian and I weren’t actually together, and that I was dating someone else. But my face, or my voice, or my something must have changed.
Because she looked at me and responded, “How beautiful it is to be in love.”
Her comment hung in the air between us.
All morning I’d pasted on a smile with laughter so brittle it was going to crack.
The last thing I expected was to actually be seen.
I happen to be particularly skilled at knowing what other people should do (note: aforementioned mind reading with therapist).
When I was a kid, I would tell my parents to kiss if I saw them fighting.
“Daddy, kiss Mommy,” I would say. Because my six-year-old self knew that if they would just listen to me, it would solve everything.
My dad would laugh and kiss my mom. My mom would use it as an opportunity to tell me that we don’t boss other people around. Old habits die hard.
Ever since six, I’ve considered myself gifted and talented at planning what others were supposed to do.
And she wasn’t supposed to be an actual person – she was supposed to be a blonde chick that Christian and I had mutually dubbed “super hot”.
I hadn't signed up for a human to be attached.
It didn’t feel fair that I’d spent half an hour applying makeup just in case she was going to confess her love in the cafe, and she couldn’t even be bothered putting her wig back on.
As the youngest of three siblings, I knew all about fairness. And she wasn’t playing by the rules.
Had nobody told her, or did she just not care?
I wondered why it annoyed me so much. Even though I already knew why. The wondering was more about why I expected from her what I hated when it was expected from me.
Why did she owe me naturally thick, buoyant hair? Why did she owe me anything at all?
Why was there some part of me that thought it got a say in how she looked the morning after she found out she was pregnant?
It made sense though, didn’t it? If I’d been having sex with her the only way I knew how – by doing what men had done to me. Then why wouldn’t I copy and paste that part too? The part about how I was supposed to be fuckably evergreen, and showroom ready at all times.
As much as I hated it whenever I was on the receiving end, I still only wanted the cardboard cutout of her. The one-night stand with perky tits. The Bond girl without a backstory.
Anything more wasn’t part of the plan.
I’m not sure what she said to the doctors at the hospital and the ladies at reception in regards to us having just slept together, and now she’d found out she was pregnant, although it definitely was not my child, and also she wore a wig.
But thankfully she went in first and did the talking. I just had to sit in a chair and let my blood be drawn and my fingers poked with needles.
With promises to share my results when I got them, and repeated insistence that she’d be a great mom, we parted ways.
I got into the taxi and collapsed. It was exhausting pretending like I was actually this chill of a human being.
Seeing as it was a Monday, I had a therapy session on the calendar for later that afternoon.
Sitting down in the armchair furthest from the door, I accepted a glass of water and took a gulp, briefly mentioning to my therapist about the wig and the girl and the pregnancy.
“But that isn’t what I wanted to talk about today,” I tell her.
I’d already planned out what I’d wanted to discuss, and this really just hadn’t been on the schedule.
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