Thursday, July 06, 2006
Liz (Pt.1)
Sometimes I am aware of feeling powerfully attracted to certain women, but I am not always sure exactly what the nature of that attraction is. Or what I want from these women. This uncertainty has led me down the garden path on several occasions, and I end up backtracking and making people feel annoyed with me without intending to do harm.
One of these women was named Liz, whom I met back in my Berkeley days when I started working in hospitals. Unfortunately, it did not end well between us. More unfortunately, she was my boss at the time. Never a good thing to play with the boss. I should have known better. But the power angle was probably a lot of the fuel at the time driving me onward. Usually I don't combine work and pleasure, but on this occasion I crossed the line.
The radiology department needed a new chief of the technical staff, and Liz was hired. I was about 24 at the time. She was around 40. Liz was a strongly built, fairly tall blonde with a rather in-charge manner. A bit butch of center but not oppressively so. I have never really ever been attracted to other blondes myself, so I don't know what happened this time but something happened.
I found her rather compelling and we began making flirtatious movements in each other's direction. We had no idea if the other person was gay or not, but our instincts said "yes." The other supervisor directly under Liz was M, who was openly gay. M had hired me, and we got to be somewhat chummy. M and I knew we were both gay, which is how I was identifying myself at the time. M got to witness this dance going on in the department between Liz and me. It amused her, at first. Until the trouble set in.
On the way into the affair, I invited Liz up to my Berkeley lair in the hills above campus for dinner. At that point we spilled the beans to each other, and talked about our sexual histories. So we knew each other was gay. Liz revealed she had been in rather a long relationship with a young woman my age, K, who had a young son. But things did not sound too happy on the home front, as Liz described them. So I did not enter into this relationship feeling like I was necessarily a homewrecker type. Others might not agree with this assessment.
My best friend at the time J got to meet Liz over pizza one day at lunch. J had misgivings, I sensed without probing, although I took that mainly as their personalities being quite different. J had not seen me involved seriously with another woman before, in the rather short time we had known each other.
One of these women was named Liz, whom I met back in my Berkeley days when I started working in hospitals. Unfortunately, it did not end well between us. More unfortunately, she was my boss at the time. Never a good thing to play with the boss. I should have known better. But the power angle was probably a lot of the fuel at the time driving me onward. Usually I don't combine work and pleasure, but on this occasion I crossed the line.
The radiology department needed a new chief of the technical staff, and Liz was hired. I was about 24 at the time. She was around 40. Liz was a strongly built, fairly tall blonde with a rather in-charge manner. A bit butch of center but not oppressively so. I have never really ever been attracted to other blondes myself, so I don't know what happened this time but something happened.
I found her rather compelling and we began making flirtatious movements in each other's direction. We had no idea if the other person was gay or not, but our instincts said "yes." The other supervisor directly under Liz was M, who was openly gay. M had hired me, and we got to be somewhat chummy. M and I knew we were both gay, which is how I was identifying myself at the time. M got to witness this dance going on in the department between Liz and me. It amused her, at first. Until the trouble set in.
On the way into the affair, I invited Liz up to my Berkeley lair in the hills above campus for dinner. At that point we spilled the beans to each other, and talked about our sexual histories. So we knew each other was gay. Liz revealed she had been in rather a long relationship with a young woman my age, K, who had a young son. But things did not sound too happy on the home front, as Liz described them. So I did not enter into this relationship feeling like I was necessarily a homewrecker type. Others might not agree with this assessment.
My best friend at the time J got to meet Liz over pizza one day at lunch. J had misgivings, I sensed without probing, although I took that mainly as their personalities being quite different. J had not seen me involved seriously with another woman before, in the rather short time we had known each other.
Now she would learn how I progressed at these things, having told me so much of her own love life at the time herself. She was there for me at a time when I would need a lot of support.
I was about to embark upon a weekend alone with Liz, her young partner and the kid had gone away for the period to visit relatives. It seemed like such a gloomy weekend, in retrospect. It was not yet spring in the bay area, that was still struggling. The place seemed dark to me, and it felt rather strange in a way, as if the missing person still had a presence here, and that was complicating things.
The word "forlorn" wants to creep out. Perhaps not the right tone for a first weekend with the woman you say you want as your lover.
TO BE CONTINUED
