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I remember very distinctly when the turning point came. I flicked the channel over to a notorious US lesbian drama when two women began to have sex. I was fascinated. Part of me wanted to turn it off and allow my thoughts to go back to their normal tried and trusted routes, but another, stronger part of me knew that I had to go forward and think about some things that had lain dormant in my subconscious for a very long time. As a result of that show something snapped. I couldn’t stop thinking about women, in ways that I never thought I would. It was frankly frightening, but at the same time one of the most exciting things that have ever happened to me.
The next day I promptly bought the rest of the show, went back to my university room and watched for hours on end. I’m not sure that I went to sleep for days. I was in a kind of daze. It was like the work of uncovering all these deeply hidden desires and passions was so much for my brain that it couldn’t focus on anything else.
There were a lot of tears too. How the hell was I going to be a lesbian? I didn’t know the first thing about it. Where do lesbians go out? What do lesbians talk about? Where do they meet other lesbians? And, most importantly, what about the sex? I realised with some trepidation, that in some way I was actually a virgin at the grand old age of twenty-five. I had to start again. I had to have my first date with a woman. My first girlfriend. My first sexual experience. Although, I should admit, not my first kiss, which had happened some years previously and which I shall get to later.
I was very fortunate that in the lab where I worked there were, in a staff of eight, two lesbians, which struck me as a kind of divine providence. So I made a shaky announcement to them that I too had joined the Sapphic fold. Now – more wonderful and understanding people I could not have hoped to encounter, which will make what I have to say later all the harder for me.
One of these women in particular, Claire, was fantastic. She reassured me, took me to meet her friends, invited me everywhere she went, and even listened to my endless ramblings about how terribly hard this all was.
Around this time I took the rather brave step of going on a gay internet dating site. I was very apprehensive about what I might find. To my surprise I found pictures of beautiful women with eloquent and witty profiles. There was one I particularly liked and I decided that if women like this were gay then it may not be such a terrible world that I was entering into. In fact, I thought that I may even enjoy my new life.
A few nights later my friendly lesbian companion took me to my first lesbian club in town: Candybar. Like a right of passage. We started talking to a group of women and generally drinking and having a lovely time. I was getting along particularly well with a pretty brunette who was marvellously sarcastic and amusing.
As the night wore on I noticed that she was getting a bit cosy with my friend and I admit to being a little upset by this. Eventually it was just the three of us and as we continued talking I realised that although her hair had changed and she looked decidedly different from her pictures, this was the woman I had been so smitten by from her profile. Hollie. I couldn’t believe my luck, which made it all the more painful when at the end of the night she went home with Claire and I was left to make the trek back to my West London flat alone.
Claire and Hollie dated for several months, but I have to say I didn’t let this get me down for long and I was soon so immersed in life that I didn’t think much about it. I was busy with my PhD and enjoying my new-found social life. It didn’t occur to me until much later that I was possibly having a little too much fun.
My behaviour got particularly out of control one cold, snowy February evening. Claire had just bought a house and invited a few friends to a little gay bar in Soho to celebrate. Things were going wonderfully, champagne was flowing and I was in full swing. I seemed to be getting a lot of attention from friends and strangers alike which I lapped up. I was in the middle of one particularly verbose story when she walked in.
Hollie.
I immediately forgot what I was talking about and proceeded to make a big fuss of getting Hollie sat down, shuffling everybody around and moving chairs and tables. I should probably mention that by this point I had consumed quite a large amount of champagne and coupled with the mania I now realise I was experiencing, it made a rather dangerous combination. I don’t remember an awful lot of how the rest of the evening progressed but from my patchy recollections and the retelling of others it went something like this.
As soon as Hollie was seated we proceeded to flirt outrageously and talk only to each other. I do remember thinking that I had to get her on her own. I was fixated on the idea that something had to happen between us. I couldn’t see anything past that, it was as if this was suddenly the sole point of my existence, to be with this woman that I found so alluring and who, her manner suggested, was quite into me too. I was not wrong in assuming this, as, when we arrived in the next bar, we stood together a little away from the group and the conversation turned to how I had been attracted to her since the night we had met. To my utter amazement she said she had felt the same.
From this point on I felt as if we were the only two people in the room, the world even. The fact that her girlfriend – my friend – was mere feet away did nothing to prevent me from leaning in to kiss Hollie. She kissed me back and from then on it was all downhill as far as friendships go, but if you’ve ever met a drunk manic person you will know that consequences are not forefront in their mind.
I woke late the following morning in Hollie’s bed, with no time to talk about what had happened before we had to rush to get to work. It is possible that I was still drunk, as for the first few hours of the morning, I was on top of the world. And then as the day wore on I began to realise what I had done.
Things got worse.
When I finally heard from Hollie she said that the night before had been a mistake and that she didn’t want things to go any further. Then I heard from Claire. Could I call her? I was terrified. What had I done, what could I say to this woman who had been only a friend to me? I had repaid her kindness by attempting to steal her girlfriend right in front of her. I didn’t even have the decency to do it behind her back. I did it in front of all her friends, oiled by the liquor that she had bought me.
I rang Claire and got the curt dressing down I deserved, along with a polite suggestion that I not contact her again. Luckily, she had left our lab, so I didn’t have to see her at work, but this didn’t prevent everyone from finding out. I became something of a pariah, which did nothing for my rather confused and crazy state. My only defense was that Hollie was the first person I had ever truly wanted who had wanted me back. It wasn’t a particularly good excuse, but it was the only one I had and I clung to it. It wasn’t until months later, sane again, that I was able to fully apologise.
With regards to my mental state, things were only going to get a hell of a lot worse. My priorities after this incident drastically changed. I no longer cared about my PhD or very much at all apart from having fun and Hollie. Having fun I could do, convincing Hollie that I was a good bet for a girlfriend I could not. We had a couple of dates, a couple of rather short and awkward sexual encounters and then it was over. With hindsight, this comes as no surprise. I was mad, although at the time I felt that I was the picture of health and sanity. I’m just having a good time, I thought. I deserve it.
The first thing I did after Hollie called it off was to buy a BMX. This was suddenly the most important thing in the world to me. I should remind you that I was a 25-year-old woman, granted one that looked like a teenage member of a boy-band. I had stopped going to work weeks before. One thing about doing a PhD is that nobody pays much attention to your whereabouts. They assume you are elsewhere doing something vital to further your career. I was mainly cycling between pubs on a BMX.
A BMX named SilverFox.
