Late Admission

I first met Robin in my senior year of high school. Her family had moved up from Atlanta at the beginning of August and she lived in a huge house--a mansion--in Potomac. She was very tall and had a beautiful tan. We hit it off right away and before a week was out, we were practically inseparable. We did everything together.

My mom and dad had just gone through an awful divorce and it was really hard on me. I had become withdrawn and kept to myself most of my junior year; therefore, Mom was more than glad that I had made a "best" friend. I just didn't realize just how "best" a friend Robin had become.

Because of the distance, Robin and I had fallen into the habit of spending one, two, even three nights a week at each other's house. Mom had no problem with this--she liked the extra pair of hands--and Robin's mom and dad took to me right away. (Yes, Mr. Boucher did make a pass at me--sort of, anyway--but that's another story.) One night when Robin wasn't there, she talked to me after dinner.

"Stacy?"

"Yes, Mom?"

We were in the kitchen, me putting plates into the dishwasher and her wiping down the stove. I turned around when she didn't answer.

"What's going on between you and Robin?"

The question was so unexpected I blinked.

"I've been watching you two together and you are more than just good friends," she said.

My face was getting hot. "Mom!" I protested. "What are you talking about?"

She laughed softly. "You know what I'm talking about."

My head felt stuffed with cotton candy. How many nights had I laid awake in my bed, sometimes with Robin right there beside me, thinking this exact same thing. "I am not gay," I told her. "If that's what you mean."

She looked at me speculatively, dish towel dangling from her hand, head bent to one side the way it does when she's wondering how I'm getting along. "I didn't say your were."

"Well, you

better

not!" I spluttered. "That's . . . that's . . ."

"Ridiculous?" she asked, smiling.

"Yes!"

"Well, true or not, Robin is the best thing that's happened to you in a long time, dear. You're happier, you're not depressed anymore and you definitely have the look of a girl in love."

"Mom, she's a girl!"

She came over and placed her palm against my cheek, something that would have seemed silly at any other time. "That doesn't mean much these days," she said, "does it?"

I shook my head. My insides felt twisted up like a balloon poodle.

"I just want you to be careful," she said. "You're barely eighteen and emotionally susceptible. You went through a lot with our divorce, and--"

"Mom."

"--I don't want you getting hurt."

"I'm fine," I insisted. "And you are totally out of your head about Robin. I mean, no way, Mom. Not in a million years."

She smiled at me knowingly, nodded and went back to cleaning the stove.

* * *

"You want to know what my mother said?" It was week later, at Robin's house, and we were curled up on her couch watching a movie on Showtime. The movie was about two women who meet through a personal ad run in the newspaper: Kissing Jessica Stein. It was a good movie, sad, but also funny. It really hit home after my mom's conversation.

"What did she say?"

"That you and I are like this."

She blinked just as I had blinked. "Like what?"

"Like Jessica and Helen."

She put down the popcorn and sat up straight. "What?"

I told her the jist of the conversation.

"Well, who am I?"

"Pardon?" Though I knew exactly what she meant.

"Don't give me that innocent little smile," she said, breaking into a smile of her own. "I'm blonde, but I'm not Helen Cooper."

"I'm Jewish, though," I said.

"Only half," she reminded me, though it's more like a third.

"Besides, you're a hell of a lot better looking than--" she picked up the DVD box and read the back. "--Jennifer Westfeldt."

When I only grinned back at her she hit my leg.

"Bitch!"

"Stuck up."

"I'm not stuck up."

"You are so." The truth, though not as stuck up as my looks might have suggested.

"You know what?" she said, settling back on the couch.

"What?"

"Maybe she was right." She put her arm around my shoulder, drew me close to her and kissed me.

For a time, we stayed curled up together on the couch, her arm around my shoulder, my hand on her right thigh, not saying a word. The movie came to an end and we watched the credits roll. I had never kissed a girl before. Not like that.

"Are you okay?" she finally asked.

"I guess so."

"I kinda freaked you out."

"I kinda freaked myself out." It had not been a kiss of friendship. We had French-kissed each other.

"Are you angry?"

"Angry? Are you kidding?"

"Then I can kiss you again?"

I inclined my face and she came down to meet it. Her lips were incredibly soft; her tongue ready. Our tongues made love.

"I'm so glad you asked me that question," she whispered.

"I am so glad my mom talked to me about it," I whispered back. Her hand was on my right breast, cupping it, caressing it in way no boy ever had. I wanted her fingertips on my nipple, making it hard. I wanted the feel of her warm mouth. I went down onto my back and she came down with me.

"My mother would kill us both," she said, laughing and breathless at the same time. My hands were inside her tee-shirt, massaging her back. Her bra was undone. She undid mine. Her hand found my bare breast and her fingertips found my nipple. I shuddered lightly.

"I've wanted to do this since the end of the very first week," she confessed between kisses.

"Me too," I moaned. Her mouth found and enveloped my right nipple, and then my left. "My mother was absolutely right, wasn't she?"

"Absolutely."

Straddling my hips, she sat up and peeled out of her tee-shirt; then her bra came off. I made protesting noises as she removed my top as well, watching and listening for any footfalls on the basement stairs. Her older brothers were home, her younger sister and her mom and dad.

"Are you crazy?" I asked.

She came down to me again and wrapped me in her arms and put her bare chest against mine; she kissed me so hard I ached. Our legs coiled and twisted like mating pythons. I marveled at the depth of my craving. I wanted her to be a man and to fuck me until I started to scream, and was so grateful she wasn't. Her hands grasped tightly in my hair and I wrapped my fingers in hers.

"Bed," I grunted. "Take me to bed, godammit!"

This got us both to giggling so hard that it was a miracle we got ourselves clothed again before Mrs. Boucher came and yelled at us down the basement stairs.

* * *

"What are you writing?"

I jumped guiltily and looked back over my shoulder. She was wrapped in her white terry-clothe robe and her hair was in a towel. The belt let the front of the robe sag open enough to show me her creamy breasts. Beads of water speckled her skin.

"Nothing," I said uneasily.

She bent over and read the screen. A grin spread across her face. "I remember that," she said.

I stirred nervously.

"Why are you writing it down?"

I shrugged. "Writing class."

She straightened up. "You're writing it for your class?"

"No," I said slowly, then "Yes," then "No," again.

"Stacy, people don't know we're gay." She rubbed my shoulder to show that it was all right. "You want to tell everyone in your writing class we're gay?"

"Well, no," I said. "The instructor just said to write honestly about an important event in my life."

She smiled. "That night was important to you?"

"Well!" I said, "We wouldn't be here now."

Her hand drifted from my right shoulder to my left, still rubbing. "You know," she said, "I remember that night as well as you do. I remember that you couldn't wait until after school the following Monday--" Her hand slipped down to my blouse and undid the button at the throat. "--so that you could get me alone in your bedroom." She put her hand inside and released the center catch on my brassiere, freeing my breasts. "I also remember you had on brand new underwear," she said, fingertips trailing across the skin of my left breast, "that you couldn't wait for me to take off."

"Stop it," I pleaded. "Stop it or take me to bed."

She took me to bed.

* * *

This story then, in the best tradition of

Seinfeld

, is a story about nothing. What I wanted to admit was that my mother was correct those seven years ago: I was in love. And if my reflection in the mirror is any indication of how things are seven years later, I'm still a girl in love.

I guess mother's really do know best.

THE END