Early Embraces: True Life Stories of Women Describing Their First Lesbian Experience
An excerpt\ RSVP by Julia Willis\ "Can you come to a fish fry?" you asked. Leaving me there in that windowed stairwell where we'd been talking, you rushed away to your next class after the final bell rang. I watched you below dart out of the building and down the sidewalk, stop, turn, look up, and catch me watching you. Then embarrassed from being caught, I waved, casually, friendly, you know -- but instead of going on your way, you dashed right back into the building and called up the...
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An excerptRSVP by Julia Willis"Can you come to a fish fry?" you asked. Leaving me there in that windowed stairwell where we'd been talking, you rushed away to your next class after the final bell rang. I watched you below dart out of the building and down the sidewalk, stop, turn, look up, and catch me watching you. Then embarrassed from being caught, I waved, casually, friendly, you know — but instead of going on your way, you dashed right back into the building and called up the stairwell to me. "Can you come to a fish fry?"I thought you were joking. "A fish fry?" I laughed."We're having one at my house." That house you shared in town with three other women — Susan, who would end up spending all the money she'd collected for the utility bills before moving in with her married and gray-haired abnormal-psychology professor; Lisa, whose childhood had been nastily scarred by a father's promise to have TV's Annie Oakley at her eighth birthday party (he brought home the actress while she was on a 10-city promotional tour—a grown-up lady in a suit, a lady no one recognized without her trademark pigtails, guns, fringed vest and cowgirl boots, and ten little girls wept bitterly); and finally Margaret, your best friend from high school, who I and most people assumed you were or had been lovers with, since the air around you both was so thick with longing that we could all taste it."Bring everybody from Duchess house, if you want," you said. Duchess House being that collapsing country farmhouse I lived in with Dick and Diana, a young married couple — too young and too married—and an assortment of other revolving students. The house was so named because our English teacher, Dick's and mine, said all great literature made use of religion, sex, or the aristocracy, hence the greatest sentence ever written would go something like: "My God," said the duchess to the bishop, "take your hand off my thigh." Duchess. House.We wrote and painted and acted, your household and mine—all of us talented, all of us terrified of that talent, that it wouldn't be enough (as indeed it wouldn't be) or that it might be too much (as it most certainly would). You were a visual artist, but your father was head
RSVP by Julia Willis\ "Can you come to a fish fry?" you asked. Leaving me there in that windowed stairwell where we'd been talking, you rushed away to your next class after the final bell rang. I watched you below dart out of the building and down the sidewalk, stop, turn, look up, and catch me watching you. Then embarrassed from being caught, I waved, casually, friendly, you know — but instead of going on your way, you dashed right back into the building and called up the stairwell to me. "Can you come to a fish fry?"\ I thought you were joking. "A fish fry?" I laughed.\ "We're having one at my house." That house you shared in town with three other women — Susan, who would end up spending all the money she'd collected for the utility bills before moving in with her married and gray-haired abnormal-psychology professor; Lisa, whose childhood had been nastily scarred by a father's promise to have TV's Annie Oakley at her eighth birthday party (he brought home the actress while she was on a 10-city promotional tour—a grown-up lady in a suit, a lady no one recognized without her trademark pigtails, guns, fringed vest and cowgirl boots, and ten little girls wept bitterly); and finally Margaret, your best friend from high school, who I and most people assumed you were or had been lovers with, since the air around you both was so thick with longing that we could all taste it.\ "Bring everybody from Duchess house, if you want," you said. Duchess House being that collapsing country farmhouse I lived in with Dick and Diana, a young married couple — too young and too married—and an assortment of other revolving students. The house was so named because ourEnglish teacher, Dick's and mine, said all great literature made use of religion, sex, or the aristocracy, hence the greatest sentence ever written would go something like: "My God," said the duchess to the bishop, "take your hand off my thigh." Duchess. House.\ We wrote and painted and acted, your household and mine—all of us talented, all of us terrified of that talent, that it wouldn't be enough (as indeed it wouldn't be) or that it might be too much (as it most certainly would).
IntroductionOpening: anniversary31The Moon: Now and Then52Making Love With Catherine83Peter, Penny, and Me114Cigarettes and Leather145After the Ball Game176Mother Mary, May I?207Camp248Significant Kisses279Crush to Sex3010Two Little Girls From School3311Summer Gig in a Small Town3712Undercover Agent4313Mine4614Breathing Lessons4815Lifting the Mask: A Beginning5316The Fall of Saigon5717RSVP6018I Wish I Had Known6419Port-O-Potty6720Taxi Ride7021Vaca Eyes7322Baby Butch7623The Present Is the Destination7924Cataclysms on the Kootenai8225Seduction8626Gals and Dolls9027The Wonder of It All9228Sparkle Plenty9529Not to Need Her Too Much9830L'Chaim10131Double-Daring Dyke10432I Didn't Know There Were Names for It10733Palmetto Bugs11034In the Country of My Skin11635Perennial Friend11836"God" Spelled Backward Is "Dog"12137A Cup of Coffee12538Sixteen12939What Could Have Been13140Anna13341Brown Shoes13642One Small Step14043Lover14444Kissing Girls14845Dolly and Me15246Casablanca15547The Third Time's the Charm15848Getting Real16049Rosaria's Sunbeam16350Phoenix Rising16651The Natural17052She's Gone17353So Natural, So Right177Closing: Kissing Coco185Closing: To Annie, I Remember...I Remember187
