Free Dear John, I Love Jane: Women Write About Leaving Men for Women by Laura Andre

alternately licking and looking, entranced by the beauty, amazed by the power and the ache of the desire I felt.
    She was so . . . womanly. An hourglass figure, a way of putting on lipstick, lace-trimmed underthings, quick to laugh, quick to cry. I watched as she did her hair and makeup the morning after that first night, and felt like those old photos of the little boys backstage watching the women in the dressing room roll their stockings on. She pointed out that I had the same big-eyed look as them, and asked if I felt about twelve. I said that I did. She nodded, knowingly. She was a couple years older than I was and had been out for quite some time, and while we tried to avoid the teacher-student dynamic, sometimes it appeared in the form of a nod or a look that said she knew what I was feeling, how exhilarating it was to finally be setting that part of me free, what she meant to me.
    However, just because she was older and wiser and had been the “top” in her past relationships, didn’t mean that I became meek or subservient in ours. We vied for top, and she got to discover the pleasure of yielding, submitting, surrendering. She allowed me to flip her over, to get her on her knees, to let me wear the strap-on in the family—all new things for her. We became sexual playgrounds for one another, exploring, discovering, coloring so far out of the lines that we were making whole new pictures. We gave each other the gift of complete trust, and not just sexually: our hearts, our little spirits, fell in love mind-body-soul. She was a best friend, a confidant, a partner. We could speak volumes just by silently staring into each other’s eyes. Hot bubble baths, handheld walks through the park at night in the snow, dessert dates. Private jokes were endless. Orgasms came fast and furious for both of us. “Intense” is an understatement. We were on fire. It was like we were the only two people in the world when we were together; nothing else mattered, nothing else existed.
    But that quickly became a problem.
    Because things did exist, and they were big things, and I was neglecting them. Two children. A home business. A marriage. A house. My parents. My siblings. My garden. My dogs. My own self-care. I started to feel guilty, sketchy—always hiding, sneaking, making up reasons to go out for the night, emailing her from the train on the days I commuted into the city, bringing the phone into the bathroom with me while I got ready in the morning and talking in hushed whispers under the white noise of the running water. I started to hate the feeling of always covering my tracks. I started to worry about getting caught. I started to tire of the double life. I was on an emotional rollercoaster, but not so much one with ups and downs as one with dizzying spins and inversions and sheer drops. After several months of holding on for dear life, I knew it was time to start making some choices and went about the hard work of cross-examining my sexuality and figuring out what this was: a fling, an awakening, a one-time romp in the hay, or the beginning of a whole new life. I was terrified, but ready to roll up my sleeves and unearth my truth.
    So I did what any good soul-searcher does: I headed for the Internet.
    I looked up everything I could find online and discovered a ton of resources: I ordered books; I read blogs, articles, and medical journals; I joined a chat room; I connected with a therapist who specializes in women coming out later in life (who herself had been through the same thing), and found a weekly group for married women coming to terms with their gayness (apparently we’re everywhere).
    I arrived at my first therapy session with tears brimming in my eyes before I even knocked on the door, tears that flowed freely as I spilled my story. She sat before me, this impish mini-lesbian with silver hair cropped close to her head, wisdom and peace emanating from her like a guru, tiny quick mannerisms belying her seventy-plus