November 18, 2006: A Day That Will Live in Infamy

"OK, traffic moving now, be there soon," I texted Aphrodite as the rows of cars around me began to inch forward. I had just left an interview, and was supposed to be meeting her for dinner at a popular pizza place. This was part of a new, ongoing pattern, and one that I liked. I hadn't had a true, close friend since leaving my undergraduate institution nearly six months earlier, and Aphrodite -- my randomly-matched grad school roommate -- was rapidly turning into my favorite person in the world.

On Halloween night, we had made slice-n-bake cookies, drunk red wine (her) and Smirnoff (me), ridden a teeter-totter, and played football at midnight -- a night of high-school type fun, something that had been missing from my life for far too long. The next night, we'd gone to a popular, pricey rooftop restaurant, just the two of us, then come home, lit candles, poured wine, and played Name That Tune with our iPods. The following weekend, we'd gone to dinner at one of Aphrodite's favorite places, then gone to a student-produced play at her alma mater... and as the lights went down, I, the so-called straight girl, had a momentary flash of wanting to pin her against the wall and press my body into her. (Startled, I pushed the unprecedented thought from my mind and refused to think about it again.) Then, the next night, we'd watched the Wizard of Oz, held hands, and nearly, oh so nearly, kissed. To this day, I can see her head resting on my shoulder and mentally kick myself for not making a move.

This didn't even include the two weeks she'd spent in China as part of a school trip the previous month, before the two of us had gotten close -- when I had twice gone and stood in her bedroom, closed my eyes, and inhaled the familiar, comforting scent: vanilla candles intermingled with something all her own. I missed her more deeply than I could remember missing anyone -- a lot more than I should have, as merely her roommate. I couldn't understand why I should feel that way, why I should have wanted to leap into her arms when she reappeared on our doorstep with her suitcase. Again, I dismissed it. I was unable to justify it -- so I simply blocked it out. I was doing that a lot with Aphrodite in those days, but because I'd spent so many years doing so (with my camp counselors, my teachers, certain friends...), it didn't seem especially odd to me.

But I wasn't thinking about any of that as I dashed through the doors of the restaurant, nearly bowling over several unsuspecting patrons. I hastily apologized as my head practically spun in circles, looking for her. "Look right, look right," said Aphrodite through the cell phone, laughing. I looked right -- and there she was. Hair tumbling over her shoulders, pina colada half-finished in front of her, cell phone held to her ear, a certain smile gracing her face that I would soon come to realize she didn't bestow on just anyone. I grinned widely, and hurried over to join her.

Dinner went by in a haze of laughter and conversation, and before I knew it, our separate cars were following each other home to watch the Hurricane Katrina fundraising special with Robin Williams and Whoopi Goldberg that Aphrodite had been looking forward to all week. I checked my email and killed time in my room, not wanting to seem 'weird' by sticking to her like glue. Finally, I heard, "Are you gonna watch this with me, or what?" I walked across the living room into Aphrodite's room, and saw her duvet and pillows lying on the floor, facing her TV. She had lit a couple of candles and propped herself up against the bed, holding a glass of red wine, and was rapidly flipping through channels. She looked up, saw me, smiled, and patted the blanket next to her. I snuggled in beside her, being careful not to touch her.

The show was hilarious, but after the first half hour or so, Aphrodite said to me, for about the fourth time, "Oh, 'Thena, you are in so much trouble." She said that to me every time she drank red wine, and would never tell me why.
"Why am I in trouble?" I asked yet again.
"You just are," she sighed, smiling.
To this day, I have no idea what made me act -- but I sat up, turned, swung my leg over her, and straddled her hips, raising my eyebrows in a playful challenge and staring straight into her eyes. "Why am I in trouble?" I think the subliminal knowledge that she was attracted to me had suddenly risen to a slightly higher level of consciousness, just below the point where I could fully grasp it, and that indefinable certainty gave me courage.

She was utterly speechless, caught between shock and amusement (and, though I didn't really think about it at the time, arousal -- she'd been in love with me for a month, and here I was sitting on top of her!). Her eyes were wide, caught between laughter and alarm. I don't remember her reply, but I know I leaned forward, pinned her wrists gently but firmly to the floor, and said, "You keep telling me I'm in trouble. I'm not getting off you until you tell me why." I knew, knew what was going on -- or thought I did -- but I refused to get her out of this trap by asking, because there was no way in hell I was going to say it first. With the same hazy certainty as before, I knew that I had some sort of power over her, and that she would tell me, even if I had to wait her out.

Over the next 45 minutes, we danced around the truth we both knew. "You're gonna hate me," she kept insisting, almost tearfully. I assured her over and over that I wouldn't, and even tried to take a hard line at one point, "Nothing could ever change the way I feel about you--" feeling as though I were giving the game away with that statement -- "and to tell you the truth, I'm a little insulted that you'd think something could."
"No, oh, no, please don't be insulted," she cried, stricken, anguished. I abandoned that tactic and returned to gentle coaxing.

"How many words does it have?" I asked finally, expecting -- hoping -- to hear 'three'. Instead, she thought for a second and said, "Nine."
Hmm -- maybe I'm wrong, I thought uncertainly. "What's the first word?"
"'You,'" she said in a small voice.
"Okay, what's the second word?" I kept pushing, trying to stay matter-of-fact. She could not clam up on me now!
"'Make.'"
"Third word?"
"Um... it has two letters..."

And so it went, me coaxing the words out of her bit by bit, until I had assembled the message, "You make me feel something I feel I shouldn't." I had no idea what to do next, and it was obvious that Aphrodite was getting pretty uncomfortable with me pinning her the way I was.
"Could you--?" she asked, pausing and wincing as she flexed her wrists.
I relented. "I'll get off you, but you still have to tell me," I said, sliding off to lie on my right side, next to her, closer than before.
There was a long silence, so long that I almost broke it with words, then held my tongue. Two or three full minutes must have passed before she said, in a voice so low it was barely more than a breath, "I love you."

It happened so suddenly that I literally didn't think I'd heard her right.
Holy shit -- what now?! my mind shrieked.
Well, are you really gonna tell her 'NO'???
HELL NO!!!
She was facing me on the floor, terrified of my reaction. I could find no words, but didn't seem to need them. I smiled at her, holding her gaze, and reached my left arm up and over her body to hold her. Even though I couldn't find words -- I couldn't even begin to name the emotions and feelings tumbling through me just then -- I wanted her to know that she needn't be afraid, that everything was okay, better than okay, that she'd done the right thing in telling me.

Suddenly, our faces were so close together that I knew it couldn't end any other way but with a kiss. In a way, it was a huge relief. Nobody gets this close to someone unless they want to kiss them, I reasoned, and felt the weight of uncertainty lift from my shoulders. I had known what was happening -- on every level, apparently, except that last level of uncertainty, the one where you raise your hand to give what you know in your gut is the correct answer, and yet you're still afraid that the teacher might shake her head. Aphrodite's face being so close, even before she touched me, was the affirmation I'd been seeking.

Our eyes closed, and we drew ever closer. My nose rubbed hers; I felt the faint puff of her breath on my lips. I had no idea where I was, even who I was. Everything was magnified, and at the same time, nothing at all existed except this about-to-be kiss. I felt like every molecule of my body was funneled into my lips, like every neuron was awaiting the moment when our mouths would finally make contact. (Only afterward, analyzing my previous relationships, girl-crushes and indescribable feelings, did I realize that no man's kiss had ever even come close to making the world fall away.)

The no-man's-land of 'almost', of nose-rubbings and sighs and bated breath, might have taken five seconds or three minutes. I honestly have no idea. Nor do I know which of us made that final fatal chin lift. I remember a final, adrenaline-charged, almost panicky thought - what's she going to feel like?!

And then the world fell silent.

Amazingly, my first reaction was that her lips felt so damn familiar. Wildly, my mind screamed, oh no, you don't feel anything, it's like kissing your sister, what now?! Exactly one microsecond later, I realized that that wasn't it at all. Quite simply, Aphrodite was kissing me the way I had always wanted to be kissed, body, mind, heart, and soul, and never known it. Gently, sensually, perfectly, asking for nothing more than this. And I was kissing her back. Judging by her reactions -- not too badly, either.

We kissed there on her bedroom floor -- and then, eventually, in her bed -- for five hours. The first time I felt the faint brush of her tongue, I thought I would melt. When she gently climbed on top of me and pressed her body to mine, every inch of me caught fire. Hands didn't roam (that came the next day), no clothes came off (that came the next week) -- we simply made out, with techniques ranging from gentle and loving to 'horny seventh graders'. I eventually went to my room (only because our third roommate came home and interrupted things...) and we slept about six hours, then woke up and kissed in my bed for eight more hours the next day. We didn't eat, didn't sleep, didn't even remember that we had jobs or classes. We were each other's whole world.

Though we slept together nearly every night, we didn't make love until two full weeks later. I had never moved that slowly with a partner. I had always felt like I was looking for something, some closeness, some unnameable sensation -- something I might find if I pushed on just a little more, let this guy or that guy go just a little farther. Needless to say, it never worked. But then again, I'd never been with a woman. In Aphrodite, I found everything -- everything precious, everything I never knew I wanted or needed. She simply knew me, fit me -- perfectly, through and through. Simply put -- she was, and is, my home.

She told me later that she thought we'd kiss for a minute, and that then I'd pull away and say "I can't do this." Or that I'd only want her for the occasional drunken makeout session until the end of the school year, and then we'd go our separate ways. But here we are fourteen months later, in a one-bedroom apartment, more in love than ever. That may sound overly sappy, but I can't lie -- it's how things happened.

She is the only woman I've ever been with, and I realize now that all those poets and authors I always thought were exaggerating -- 'you just know', 'nothing else matters', 'the world spins' -- were actually telling the truth all along. I always thought I knew myself really well, that I was level-headed, down-to-earth, successful, and just picky when it came to men. At the risk of sounding cliche, Aphrodite showed me who I am (not just sexually, either -- there'll be another post or two coming about all that self-discovery) and she's the one who will show me who I'm supposed to be as I grow older, the one I'll walk hand in hand with down the red carpet of this life. It's an amazing feeling.

I can't wait to see what's ahead.