California Reaming - A Woman's Adventures In Polyamory

Last time I began writing about my friend N in Los Angeles. I have grown attracted to her in the two plus years that we have known each other. N is a totally completely gay woman. I like that. I like women who are completely separated from men in their intimate life. If I am going to be with a woman, I want the full package deal. A woman who is gay and makes no bones about it. And preferably someone just a tad more butch than I am.

But that may be one of the problems that makes N a difficult person for me to pursue. I am bisexual, and I live with a man. That is usually a complete deal breaker for most women I try to date. Even some of the bi ones prefer that I be "unattached." Well, goddammit, sorry ladies, I ended up with a guy while I was waiting around - and waiting around - for Ms. Right to show up.

In the meantime, I wanted some sex, and I turned to men since they are the one group on the planet who like having lots of sex. Other than gay men of course. I threw my lot in with them. It just was too hard for me to meet women at the time, although I was looking too for them when I met Dave. The guys got there first. Guys tend to do that, I notice.

Then I run into women like N, and I think, what would life have been like if I had met her...what, some twenty years earlier? Somewhere in the back of my mind, I have been a little afraid of running into women I might REALLY like. I feel afraid of some part in me that would just go a bit crazy given the right opportunity. To the point where I would want to jump ship and bail on Dave to run after a woman. I know I have that tendency and it scares me.

When I first met N, she was embroiled with someone almost thirty years younger. Good for her. I knew the lover a bit and she was a nice, sharp girl, a pre-med student. I knew they were embroiled because the first night I met the steering committee I noticed N putting a hand all over her younger friend's backside. She didn't even seem to care whether she was discreet or not. I was both amused ("What do these two need a sex party for?") and jealous (Maybe someday a woman will put her hands all over me like that, I said to myself). My lover J pretty much did that with me. But I had not discovered yet that I wanted N to do the same thing with me someday.

I find after I move north that N and I have developed a really fruitful correspondence. Now that I am safely living out of town, there is a freedom and security I have that allows me to express myself fully with N. My feelings continue to grow for this woman, who eventually reveals that she has broken up with her younger lover. Apparently I had really misread them: I thought the student wanted a more open relationship, when instead it was N who did not want a heavy commitment. Go figure. So maybe it's N who is the polyamorous one, after all. Or maybe there are some deep-seated issues there that prevented her? But I know she has been in at least one rather long term relationship with a woman. Close on 14 years.

Sometimes I find it difficult communicating with N. This happens sometimes in person, and over the phone. I listen carefully to her speech patterns, trying to thread my way through them. Do I hear something of a speech impediment? Sometimes I think there is a blurred quality to her speech. Our email correspondence is heady and intelligent and quite on the mark, but when we have to verbalize things, I sometimes think we are on different pages. Maybe I tiptoe around N too much. And yet she experiences me, at least it appears in person, as a high speed express train. And that may have led me to not see, or choose not to see, the signals N said later she was putting out. It bothered her that I didn't seem to get the message she was not interested.

At first I found this a bit puzzling, I guess in part because her signals did not always feel clear to me. I would feel myself moving one way in my opinion, then in the opposite way. It confused me. I am easily confused. I need so much probably from women that I concede a lot of my power over to them, even before we start interacting in any meaningful way. I feel like I lose my normal rational, objective, evaluative Gemini self. I guess I am trying to see, I need the influence of women but for some reason it has always been very elusive. I so wanted to have good relationships with other women. I asked the universe for oranges. But they gave me apples instead. They gave me a number of stellar male persons who influenced my life, and pretty much convinced me that I was, pretty much, a heterosexual after all, at least in terms of my primary sexual experiences.

Lump it, girl.

When we last saw each other a year ago in L.A., I was aware of being rather shy with her. N happens to be rather reserved emotionally. Moon in Capricorn is not an ideal position for a woman's horoscope. It tends to have a restrictive influence on a woman's feelings. So given my shyness and her reserve, it was an odd encounter. I found myself in the position of trying to draw her out, even as I was drawing myself out too.

What would it be like to be with someone like N? My mind wants to draw a blank part of the time. There's the fear, again. The other part of me salivates at the thought of hanging out with a woman who shares a lot of the things I like. My nature is intense, and when I like someone I like doing lots of stuff with them. The thought of spending time with another woman who is into tennis like I am is a very attractive thought for me.

I mean, we won't be going out at all during a two-week, Grand Slam tennis event. We'll eat, walk and talk tennis non-stop for that time. And of course, watch it! Life as we know it on the planet will practically stand still during this time.

We'll do the jock-tennis thing. I love the thought of it. It's hotter than the thought of hot sex. But if we can work that into the mix too....why....?

TO BE CONTINUED

So, what kind of woman would I like to be with, in an ideal world? I am not sure if I have a type yet, I debate that. Oddly enough, the one woman I have met whom I really dig is a woman I am not having sex with at all. Hrumph! How the hell did that happen? Believe me, I scratch my head about this one. My friend N lives in L.A. She is a trim little squeak, a Mighty Mouse with muscles. About 5' 4 or so, around 120, shortish in other words with short curly salt and pepper hair. With a fine, absolutely Roman sort of nose. We could make a good physical contrast, as I am taller and blonde. But we are both really fit women.

N is that nearly extinct species, a lesbian who is actually into sports beyond just softball. N loves tennis. It's a big love she and I share, as N began her own blog all about tennis, and I have ended up being a contributor to it. N is unusual though because she is far more than just an avid jock. She's interesting, educated and well-read. Well-travelled too. Loves chess and opera. I felt blown away that there are actually cultivated and athletic gay women like this. Usually it's the prerogative of the gay men. Somewhere, in my very Roman fantasies, that is, she and I are gay boys at heart, and we're hanging up at the villa with Luchino and the other boys. Luchino being Luchino Visconti, the now deceased Italian film, stage and operatic director. Well known for his connoisseur-ship, I guess we could say, of beautiful young men, talented or otherwise.

At first though I was uncertain how I felt about N, or how she felt about me.

How did we meet? Tennis was one avenue, but actually it was sex parties that threw us together. N and I were part of a planning committee of a small group of women who wanted to rent space for a monthly, ongoing girlie sex party. Since we all know, or are about to know, how obnoxious that proposition can be, suffice to say that N and I moved beyond that. The group disbanded, broken up by the usual lesbian lack of testosterone or whatever it is that makes commitment and follow-through possible. And N and I discovered our own interests in common by this point.

So why are we not rolling around in the sack now? Well, sadly, for a variety of reasons, the main being N has no interest in going there with me. Another one is that my partner Dave and I left L.A. to move upstate, and this occurred right around the time when N became a real person of interest to me. But in a way that was a necessary part of the discovery process. We started an email correspondence, ranging over a variety of subjects, and through that I discovered how much I valued N's friendship. But the woman lives in L.A.

N grew up with two sets of parents, the birth ones, and the adopted ones who raised her. Her birth father was a famous Italian composer, I recognized the name right away and brought it up among the steering committee women. Maybe I should not have waxed so enthusiastic in public about my discovery. N seemed rather reserved about it all. I felt like I had outed her in front of the steering committee, although it seems some of the women have discovered who she is related to.

One night she and I meet in Hollywood to check out a possible sex party venue. The place is a real dive, and we quickly take our leave of it. N invites me up to her place, where we chat for a while. Or at least I chat for a while. N seems very reserved, and I feel like I am working hard to hold up the conversation. Later, I feel annoyed, and I write to her, why did you invite me up when you then seemed not to want to talk with me?

On another occasion we experience another miscommunication, which leads me to believe N has hung up the phone on me. This is really annoying. How can I work with this person as part of our group? Now I wonder if I can. But to her credit, N takes my flaming well, she even calls me up to make amends. She happens to catch me when I have imbibed a few hits of pot, so I happen to be very loose and free in what I say to her. Very uncensored. It is during this conversation that I make noises about wanting to come on to her at a sex party. "Well, I don't know about that," says N. I hadn't meant to say it, but it tumbled out. Again I have the feeling N is annoyed with me.

Where would I have wanted to go with this woman? I speak of it as a past tense thing because N seems clear that I am not for her. Besides, I live in the northern part of the state now, she is in L.A. One moment I ask her, am I too butch for you. No you're not, I hear back, but that's not the issue.

I am too afraid to ask what the issue is. So I assume it is her not being attracted to me. You could probably toss in, as an undercurrent at least, the fact I am bi and live with a man. N is strictly gay, and I knew that from the outset. But I also sensed that she had a vastly more tolerant view of bi women than some of her compatriots. Still though, N may be a woman who likes being tucked in at night, after all. Every night, preferably. I don't know. I know she is looking now herself.

We're all looking, all the time.

TO BE CONTINUED

My mind still plays over my ex female lover, J, in Berkeley. I am trying to analyze how and why we got together, what could have been worked better if I had the chance. J knew I had a male partner, I was very open about that, and she seemed very able to deal with that. One moment she even commented to me, "You speak of your partner with so much respect and liking," she said to me one night, speaking very slowly, weighing what she was saying. She got it, I decided. And she was OK that I had a male in my life. It blew me away, frankly. How many gay women are EVER going to say that about a bi woman and her male partner? J took it exactly the way I had hoped she would: the fact I play fairly with him should suggest I can do the same with a woman.

But in the end, when we parted, J made the comment, "I don't know where this can go." Maybe J realized how difficult it was
to be in a polyamorous situation, for her at least. She thought she could do it, perhaps, but when push came to shove she could not. Maybe it looked too complicated after all.

So, how did I anticipate our relationship proceeding, if it had been able to proceed? I had written to J that I visualized us getting together every six weeks or so, or whenever the mood struck us, meeting someplace between L.A. and San Francisco, enjoying more lovely weekends together, then going back to our respective lives. Like "Same Time Next Year." I could see us doing at least a year of rendezvous like that, enjoying each other's company in romantic places, but without getting caught up in the stuff of each other's life. This seemed very conceivable, in my book. After a year, we could reevaluate where we felt we were, and where we wanted to go from here. Or some such thing. Anyway, that was my rough plan.

I am also remembering another thing J mentioned. There was a woman she had always wanted to be with, but had never been able to approach. "I just felt there was no hope," J told me. It seemed too impossible. But in her dealings with me, I think the impulse to approach this mystery woman hit J with some force. Our two encounters seemed to embolden her. I have a feeling that after J and I parted, J would try to approach this person. Who knows, they may have pulled it off. It makes me feel kind of lousy though. I mean, I didn't want to meet a woman and fire her up a bit only to see her go off to someone else. But wasn't I doing that too with my partner Dave? Sauce for the goose etcetera, as they say.

Maybe we all want what we can't have. But when we get it, we may not want it after all. Women are funny that way.

J told me another story that my mind locked around. As part of her job, she got a lot of travel perks. One of them involved a cruise on a yacht in the Mediterranean with four other women. Four other gay women. Wow, I said to J, how cool is that? My mind was eagerly racing, my thoughts went something like this: alone for a week on a large yacht, with women who are cool and friendly and gay, and all you have to do is sunbathe, eat, sleep, swim, more sunbathing and...and...lots of fucking, yes?

Well, no, actually. It seems to have crossed their collective female minds, but they decided not to go there. What's up with that, I asked? I could not for the life of me fathom why they let that opportunity slip by. Weren't they horny? Weren't they in such close quarters that....well, the ladies were tripping over their lustful fantasies? No again. The fallout may have seemed too threatening to them, since they were friends and wanted to stay that way. Gay boys in this position would be balling each other day and night, but the women? They dangle their feet in the water and chat.

Oh well. They needed a troublemaker like me on board. I like to stir pots, pots of all sorts and shapes and colors.

Someone invite me on a cruise, please, and make me the Entertainment Director.

- - - - - -

A number of weeks go by, and I hear nothing from my new lover J in Berkeley. I begin to wonder what is going on with her, but I hold my water, at least for a bit. More time passes, I send a couple of emails, and then decide to phone her one night long distance. I am very hesitant to do this, but on the other hand, how would I know if anything had happened to her? Then I get an email, basically saying that lots is going on in her life, and it is not good. I knew from before that J's father was approaching Alzheimer's, and the family was looking for a place that could care for him properly. This caused a load of worry for J, who was very attached to her family. She is one of those strange creatures, a real San Francisco native, born and bred there. I also knew that J's job was in jeopardy, the only job she had ever had since graduating from Berkeley. She worked for a travel agency. Well, more than just a travel agency - they plan the entire trip for you, beyond just tickets and the usual. J loved her job, and her boss, an older woman who had grown quite fond of J.

So, it seems I have caught J in the midst of all this happening. I have the sinking feeling too that she is not wanting to continue our relationship. But she seems to be talking around it. Then we finally manage to arrange another meeting, when J flies down to visit her sister in Los Angeles. I am assuming that J will stay with me at least one night, but even that is not to be. Seems I have made assumptions I should not. J does come by, my partner Dave is on the road at this point in time, but J does get to meet my two black cats. With six front toes. She enjoys a pasta dinner I have cooked for us, and we talk.

But J had not planned on staying the night. I feel rather foolish. She is staying with her sister down the coast. We lay plans to get together the following day. J wants to go visit the new Getty Museum in the Sepulveda pass area of west Los Angeles. Now, the Getty figures in our history together. My personal ad talked about hanging out with an equally useless, sarcastic woman, "lolling about" on the lawns of the Getty. J loved the comment, and always remembered it.

"Well isn't it time we lolled about on the lawns of the Getty?" she said, so off to the Getty we went. J has her sister's snazzy red convertible on loan for the day. The top is down, and I can't help thinking: we must make an interesting female couple tooling about in that thing. We do the museum ticket, then drive back to my place and talk some more.

Somehow, we are not going to the heart of the matter, yet the moment feels like we are wrapping things up. Later, looking back on this encounter, I see it as J trying to find a graceful way down off the mountain. I am an interesting person for her to deal with, but apparently I arrived at the wrong time, wrong place sort of thing.

"I want to encourage you to explore further with other women," J says. I appreciate her consideration. She does like me a lot. But I wish she could be more direct. I am left wondering. What is going on, really?

We hug for a final time. I never see J again. I believe I wrote to her again, but the email back from her makes it clear now. "I just didn't see that this could go anywhere," I remember she wrote. "This" being the two of us, the implication being that, since I am already partnered with Dave, J is feeling there would be no room for her anyway. So maybe just as well we both move along.

I am puzzled, baffled, lost in the sauce. And feeling terribly disappointed. Alright, so the woman has problems in her life. I find sometimes that those are the times when I want sex the most. J does not seem to respond that way. She has a full plate, and as she explained, her energies need to go into dealing with major life issues, like her job, and her family.

"I know that sounds strange, considering how I was climbing all over you the last time in the cabin," says J with a rueful smile. I recall very well how she was climbing all over me. But now J wants to move on, into an uncertain future. I have to let her go.

Dave understands how forlorn I feel. He doesn't get it either. Women are strange, we both concur. He supports me as best he can, which is pretty good. But it takes me a while to get over the hurt of losing a woman of the quality of J.

But apparently, we could not go places as a couple because my primary relationship is with a guy. And on top of that, her own turmoil precluded J having any sexual relationships at this point in time.

It's been two years now this past April since I met J. She remains a compelling figure for me in my search for a woman, because she was so close to what I feel I want and need. Educated, athletic, outdoorsy, emotionally sensitive, great sense of humor and she got mine too. She handled me, physically, like a man. Something very definite. Not that she was heavily into identifying as butch, but J had both energies going on. Physically, J opened up a world of possibilities to me for how women could be together. I liked that part of our connection a lot. It really showed me things. If for nothing else, I am very grateful she ushered that new physicality into my life.

Women like this don't grow on trees, I discover. But somewhere, in my little personal garden of Eden, there are women like this out there for me.

The hunt goes on.

TO BE CONTINUED

Back in L.A., I slip back into daily life but find myself thinking a lot of J in Berkeley. We correspond a bit via emails, I wax enthusiastically over how much I like her, and enjoyed the weekend together. This is a little too much enthusiasm for J, I pick up the sense that enthusiasm may equal entrapment in her world. We appear to overcome this momentary hurdle.

Around six weeks later, we plan another rendezvous. J's friend has a cabin in the foothills of the western Sierras, and we make plans to meet there. We pass another great time together. Earlier in this column I had written about the strange blackout I experienced here. It began shortly after J and I started to have sex, almost immediately upon my entering the cabin. Was it altitude? The long drive north? Low blood sugar? Actually, I think I was so looking forward to this meeting that I may have just...blown a fuse, of sorts.

Apparently I missed about two hours of some hot-sounding sex. J told me all about it later. But she was alarmed when she realized I had "checked out." I was alarmed too. This had never happened to me before except once, and that was a traumatic event when I had to rescue my little sister from our family swimming pool. I pulled her out, but my mind just completely blanked on the entire episode. Good to know one can still function in those situations!

But J may have been alarmed by my strange "departure." Wouldn't I be if the roles were reversed? I might wonder about the mental make-up of the person. But in the moment we had another great time. Even if I couldn't remember it. J tells me I was sucking her clit at one point and inserting several fingers inside of her. Then I rode the dildo again, with J on the bottom.

"For a dyke, I'm really into penetration, aren't I?" jokes J. This is the first woman who has shown me that compelling sex does not happen only between men and women. But I am aware that J handles me almost like a man would. Very definite. She is a good mix of male and female qualities, as I feel I am.

We have some lovely, quiet moments in the cabin that weekend. At one point we hug each other out of the blue, and I feel the emotion well up in me, and hear myself saying, "I don't want to move in with you, J, I don't even have to live in the same city. But I know I want you in my life, for as long as I am around."

I remember holding her then, and J seemed to grow very still as she took in the words. Then she spoke slowly, "Well, I don't know if I can make any promises," or something close to that. Was she annoyed? Did she feel encroached upon? I felt I have made it clear that, while I really like her, my life was with a male, basically, but that when I was with a woman I want to be fully and intensely involved with her. Unfortunately I am getting the message a little that a surfeit of emotion may not be wisest here. It bothers me that I can't show more of my true feelings. This is not why I wanted to hook up with other women, just to hide my feelings.

And yet...we are having such a lovely time together. We spend an afternoon hanging out in the large hammock, suspended over the deck outside the cabin. It feels lovely and connected, no need to do or say anything special, or be anything in particular. My partner Dave is on the road working on the east coast, and I am here in this hammock, somewhere east of Visalia, in the foothills of the Sierras, with a woman I really want to continue hanging out with.

TO BE CONTINUED

This is the story of my encounter with J in the spring of 2004. We hit the sack together on our second date, after a day of hiking in Marin County. Our connection seemed to be moving along swimmingly. J has been celibate for nearly a year, and before that she had been in an eight-year relationship with another woman. She also told me that, on an average of every ten years, she hooks up with a man. Not intending to, it just works out that way. I have met a number of so-called lesbians who seem to end up in bed with men, and ten years is the number mentioned a lot. What is this about? Some bizarre lesbian ritual wherein they let themselves be pulled along by biological influences? I have deduced that even lesbians realize sometimes how difficult it is to get lesbians into bed. Or women in general for that matter. So hooking up with a guy may be a way of getting some sex, at least. Of course they probably won't share that tidbit with any of their dyke friends. That would leave them very "declasse" as the French people are want to say.

My friend L, with whom I was staying in Oakland on this trip, told me once in L.A. that she didn't want her lesbian friends to find out she was sleeping with men too. Now, it didn't matter if her male lover knew she was sleeping with women, that was OK. It's just the women don't care for that at all. Go figure.

J was a classic dyke in that she pretty much liked women as her sexual partners. But she did not seem to harbor hostility towards men, or those bisexual women like myself, who were even partnered with men. So I thought J was a creature fallen from heaven; women like this don't grow on trees, so I was very pleased we had started off on such a strong footing.

Our first night together was very sensuous. A lot of rolling around, rubbing of bodies together. Kind of like massaging, but without the hands. This night also marked my first experience using saran wrap for protection when I went down on J. Being a child of the late 60s had really spoiled me. We never had to worry about any of that crap back then - safe sex, AIDS, even sexually transmitted diseases were rarely encountered in my world. So saran wrap and dental dams were obnoxious but now necessary accoutrements for any sexual encounter.

J pulls out her worn harness, puts it around her waist and I climb on top of her. She has this really neat purple dildo, with an interesting curved shape, not all that huge. Just really interesting looking. As if the makers were trying to create something penile without it necessarily looking penile. After all, we are fine upstanding lesbians who love penetration, but we would rather try and forget that it's a penis we would really like inside us. Let's call it something else, and let's make it look innocuous.

It's vastly amusing to me, a bisexual woman, the conniptions that lesbian women go through sometimes to clean up their act and make things all so politically correct. They may hate "bio cock," as they term it, yet will go out with a butch who will fuck them properly with a synthetic version. Some of them make a big deal out of "packin," as they term it. Then you'll find questions being posed on Craigslist and elsewhere, about how and where a serious gay girl can wear her "toy" out in public without getting arrested. And some girls even will explain to you, in total earnestness, how they prefer the toy dildo to the real thing.

"After all," as one girl says. "A synthetic one is always reliable, you don't have to wait for it to get hard, you don't have those icky male emotions tagging along to make trouble." My reply is usually about like this: Well, it may be less trouble, but often to me it is not as interesting, because I LIKE those messy emotional things that factor in with a guy. I LIKE that he's not sometimes the superhero he likes to think he is. I LIKE sometimes that he does not grow erect upon command. It makes for a more poignant connection in a way.

But the dildo that first night with J delighted me no end. So we played and rubbed and kissed and rolled around and laughed some more, then remembered the dykes upstairs and tried to keep it down. It must have been three something when we finally nodded off.

In the morning, we take a bath together in J's antique claw-foot tub. Cool! Then she makes an ample breakfast, with sausage and eggs. I get the feeling J wants to fatten me up a bit. I'm all for that. J is a Taurus, a sign very compatible for my planets, which are scattered over Gemini mostly, with Mars and Venus conjunct in Taurus. A constellation which ensures J and I will be climbing all over one another for a while to come.

I eventually have to take my leave of J and drive back home to L.A. It's a sweet leave-taking, but we are looking forward to our next encounter, without having to worry about when it will be. I am in seventh heaven and mostly sing my way down the I-5.

Finally I've discovered a woman I really like, and am physically attracted to. And she to me. A huge weight seems to have displaced itself from my mind, once and for all.

TO BE CONTINUED

My first date with J seemed orchestrated in heaven. It was all so easy. We both sensed we could fit, and that we were attracted. Over dinner we found many things we had in common. We laid plans to go hiking the following day. I said goodnight to J and drove back to my friend L's house in Oakland, where I was staying for the weekend.

L is a bisexual friend I have known for over fifteen years. Well, perhaps that's not the best label. She was bi when we first met, in fact she met her current guy about the same time I was meeting my partner Dave. There has been a certain synchronicity of events over the years between she and I. Right now though L wants to find a butch woman. She is having as many difficulties as the rest of the gay community in finding what she wants. Women are such a pain in the ass sometimes.

L is upset that I didn't go home that very night with J. "You know you like each other, right? So why the wait?" But I was glad we waited. I liked the sense of anticipation. And I knew there was something there to anticipate.

Next morning I meet J at her health club, where we start the day right with an advanced yoga class. Then we drive up into Marin County and hike a trail going up to Mount Tamalpais. The day is lovely and the area is green and very beautiful looking. Although I lived many years once in the bay area, I had never been up to Mount Tam, as the locals call it.

We hike and talk, talk and hike. J goads me to talk about T.E. Lawrence (of Arabia), who I had mentioned had been a strong influence in my early life. J is intrigued, because I have talked of Lawrence as a man who could foreshadow how people could become in the future. Engaged yet detached, intellectually gifted but highly emotionally aware. This hike has turned into a real discussion, and I enjoy the give and take. We've climbed down into a quiet, tree-ringed little valley beside a small creek, and stretch ourselves out there as we talk.

Later, on top of the ridge, we are gazing out at the ocean and the vistas. J turns, smiling to me, and says, "I feel like reaching out to you." We hug in a slow and sensuous fashion. I have the feeling J wants to do me right there on the top of the ridge, but we can see people hiking about in the distance. We are not that private up here. We desist.

On the drive back, we stop by the road to check out another scenic view. J seats herself in back of me on the grass, putting her arms around me in an affectionate hug. There are people all around us, rather straight people, and this feels strange for me. Public displays I have always been somewhat cautious about. But I like J's initiative, in fact I am kind of digging it.

Later, back where my car was left, J and I "negotiate" the evening to come. I leave it to J to take the lead, she knows her way here. I grew up in an era where negotiations like this never had to take place, really. Mainly I sense J does not want to have anyone making unreasonable demands on her, or showing up next morning at her door with a U-haul. I am of a similar mind.

I go back to my friend L's to shower and get ready to spend the night with J. She lives in a charming old duplex in Berkeley. Her dyke landlords are upstairs. J has warned them ahead of time that she may be bringing someone home. They are highly pleased.

I remember the night with much fondness. Mostly I remember how much laughter there was between us. We felt for sure the upstairs neighbors were being kept up most of the night. We did not even get started until around midnight.

We undressed one another, we rolled around together, we climbed on top of each other. It is so interesting but so strange for me to be with another woman again. After something like...well over ten years? And the last time did not really count, as it was part of a threesome deal I hooked into back in L.A., early on when I met Dave. An Israeli couple.

So J was definitely a very big step up in my scheme of things.

TO BE CONTINUED

Earlier I began writing about J, my first significant female relationship since I got back into the swing of girlie dating online. She answered my sarcastic, out there kind of personal ad that I had placed on Craigslist. Actually, it was a good friend who saw the ad, and passed it on to J. We started emailing one another.

J sends me a picture of herself from a yachting cruise she had undertaken the year before in the Mediterranean. Mischief seemed written all over her features. Trim body, nice rack, in a sundress, her arms upraised in a kind of "So?" expression. Short curly brown hair, turned up nose, brown humorous eyes that looked out upon things with confidence and yet a desire to find out more. I liked her look a lot. She liked mine. I sent her my Gym Rat photo, of me seated, strategically naked, on my Weider home gym. Short curly blonde hair askew as if the owner lived in a perpetual wind tunnel. Bizarre tan lines. The face mostly like an Everest climber, all white around the eyes, ruddy brown elsewhere. Lines for cycling, lines for skating, and swimming.

J tells me she and other women participated in operating the South Fork Sluts, a group of white water rafting women who lead groups of women down the local rivers. She sounds trim, outdoorsy, educated, well-travelled, and she gets my sarcastic backdoor approach to things.

You could say I believe in long distance relationships. J lived in Berkeley, my old stomping grounds. I drove up from L.A. in spring and we made plans to meet in a local eatery in the Montclair district.

Later, J asked me, out of the blue. "So, when did you first realize we were going to be...." I forget how she put it. I don't know how I would have put it. What were we? And without hesitation, as if it were one of the clearest, most truthful things I could ever say about anything in my life, I said, "When I saw you coming down the street toward me, that first night at the restaurant." I must have said this with such authority that it probably worried her, I could sense a kind of...almost a slight physical reaction on her part. She had gone fishing, and lo and behold. She caught something.

We proceeded according to her experience, which was far greater than mine with other women. She had been in an eight year relationship with another woman, which had ended a while earlier. Now that she had decided to try and date women, she seemed to have a clear agenda, and I thought I did the wise thing in letting her set the tone of that. I could follow. I sensed she had some issues around dependence, and being independent. So I tried to reassure her. I was partnered already with a male, and he was a life mate. I wanted a passionate female friend, but one who does not require me to necessarily merge myself into her life. I certainly had ample room in my emotions for a female friend. "An intimate friendship," is what J voiced she wanted. I liked that a lot. We were on the same wave length, I thought.

TO BE CONTINUED

So my lovely weekend on the Russian River has run afoul of feminine mischief, mystique, mayhem. Whatever. B tells me she does not want to continue down the path of having a sexual relationship with me. This in spite of her having initiated our encounters together. She tells me all this in an email the next morning. I am quite stunned. What on earth has brought this about?

With men, there is a certain logic. Because men seem so far more eager to have sex, when they do get it they seem to be realistic about life. They had a good time, they want more. That's logical. But with women it seems that the introduction of sex brings a certain chaos that clouds the sensuality and ushers in a certain confusion. A lovely weekend seems obscured by the things roaming around in B's brain.

I attempt to find out more. Now B claims she just wants to be "friends." I find this very hard to swallow. Why did you lead me on then, I ask. She is sorry about that, she realized too late that she is not into "casual sex."

Casual sex. Hhmm. So that's the problem, eh? What do people mean by that? My friend N in L.A. says that since I am already in a primary relationship with someone, anyone else I have sex with is going to be necessarily "casual." My take on the term is more emotional: in no way do I have a casual attitude at all about sex with women. It is such an unusual thing for me that when I do run across it I am anything but casual about it.

And besides, I tell B. She is still living with her ex, I was making no demands at all on her about that, and it still made no difference to her.
My feeling is that B had two lovely encounters with me, she had a good time, and what's more she KNOWS she had a good time. But now she wants to go. Or to at least "just be friends."

How do they switch the tap on and off like that? I used to think that men did this a lot, but actually women do too. And I just happened to tumble onto my second woman in six months who pulled the same stunt on me. That's really what rankled in all of this event with B, the fact that my judgment was being called into question here. Why did I end up picking two women who reacted to me pretty much the same way?

On the one hand, I thought both would be happy that I was not going to move in with them anytime soon. Both women seemed independent and preoccupied with things in their own lives that they did not need all this. Cool. Both of them said they were not bothered by my being bi, or being partnered with a man. That also seemed true to me at the time.

But obviously something changed. Maybe B got in over her head. That stuff happens. I just wanted her to acknowledge it truthfully. She tried, but it was difficult for her. And B is in therapy, so she has no doubt learned some skills at communicating this stuff by now.

I ran into women who, ultimately, did not really know their own minds and desires, after all. Shit happens. I am very disappointed. I had good times with B; I wanted more. She opened the door to sex taking place; then she wanted to close it.

In a moment of anger apparently, I write to B that she's just a fucked up Catholic girl after all, and that's too bad. Later I regret that. I ask her via email if she can discuss with me her feelings about not wanting sex. But I never hear back from B. The Catholic comment was a mistake. And clearly B did have issues regarding her partner, she did not want her finding out we had been together. Why I don't know, since B had claimed there was no problem there.

I understand now why (some) men want to kill us. I would too. Sometimes.

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