Looking Pretty
I was the sort of kid who, if someone said, "Don't do that," I put my foot to the metal and pushed full throttle ahead and did it. I can't explain how come, I just did.
When my mother said, "Look cute for the boys," I'd kick up the dust and gleefully fling myself into gyrations at a velocity that could set your hair on fire.
If my dad would say, "Now be sure to keep that dress clean and tidy for when we go to church," somehow I'd forget.
In most respects I wasn't all that unique from other girls my age. In a couple of ways, I was. When my sister changed Barbie's clothes, I hid my eyes. I got all wiggly inside and strange as if I was doing something forbidden when I watched. So I didn't.
I fantasized at night what it would be like to have a wife and kids.
I had a crush on the older lady next door and then on my best friend's mom, and then on my best friend, and then on my college roommate, and then... the list goes on. I wondered what was wrong with me.
The looks on my parents' faces when I spoke of such things quickly froze and stopped me. from pushing the pedal full throttle toward my heart.
So unlike most kids who stuffed toys - teddy bears, dolls, puzzles, books, and balls - in their closet at night, I stuffed away the feelings along with any dreams.
I pushed and I crammed for 34 years. I kept a tight lid on what was going on inside my head, what was up with my libido, until one night in close proximity to a young woman's lips I tumbled head first. In that moment I suddenly understood the word chemistry. I finally "got" why Hollywood puts kissing into movies. I woke up to a world I only wished had existed.
I couldn't escape my fascination for women. I couldn't brush it off. I couldn't scrub it off or scratch it off. Like a tattoo, the magnetism was burned into my skin.
This was not going away.