Free Sapphic Embrace: The Housewife by Kathleen S. Molligger

 
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
    CHAPTER ONE
    Betty: An Exclusive Club
     
    " Do you remember when that fortuneteller told us this would happen? Do you remember what she called tonight?"
    "A Sapphic Night," I said. I hadn't thought about that since the night it happened. I wondered if it was true -- I did feel like I was at my sexual peak tonight. Was there really an astrological reason for it?
    Her body felt comfortable in my arms, like a supple pillow perfectly tailored to my nooks and crannies. Her tongue explored the crevices of my body, and I felt at ease, for the first time in years; I didn't worry about how I looked or whether my husband thought my body had gone to hell; I didn't worry about money or finances; all I felt was her gentle fingers on my pert nipples, rubbing them through the blouse I still wore, the one she had given me for Christmas two years ago.
    "I didn't know I wanted this until that night," she said.
    "I didn't know until just now."
     
    The silly fortuneteller's storefront opened up down the street from the Grinding Gulch, which was no longer the hottest lesbian bar in town, but it was the one that Kathy went to most nights. So when it all went down that day and we wanted to get out for a girls' night on the town, that's where we went.
    I wasn't a lesbian. I was a perfectly heterosexual woman with a perfectly failing marriage to a vastly imperfect heterosexual named Jim. After having failed to fulfill any of his numerous promises -- at the time I was upset about the little ones like taking the trash out, but also the longer term ones like graduating from college and making friends with my brother -- he had the nerve to call me "unreliable". I'm ashamed to say that I exploded and called him some names I shouldn't have as well. I would feel better about if I could hold my head up high and say I had been the better woman. But that day, I wasn't any better at being a woman than he was at being a man.
    Luckily we don't have any kids, so fights like these weren't quite so embarrassing and heart-rending. We did have neighbors, however, and I knew I'd be humiliated if I saw them looking at the house as they walked by that evening, knowing they must have heard the fight, or heard rumors about it from those who did, and would no doubt be nosily peering in to see clues as to what happened.
    I went to Kathy's house after the fight, with my suitcase in the back of the car, seriously considering never going back to Jim. I was expecting Kathy and her long-time lover Christine to be ready with comfort food and cheap wine to guzzle by the boxful. But instead I walked in on them in the middle of a fight just as vicious and built-up as Jim and mine.
    Christine shouted as I walked in, "You know that's why I didn't get promoted, right? Because of you, you-"
    They both stopped yelling at each other and looked at me. They were red-faced and sweaty, chests heaving with excess energy. The remains of a broken dish on the kitchen floor gave me a clue to the earlier stages of the fight.
    It must have been obvious I was upset, because Kathy immediately came to me and wrapped an arm around my shoulders. "There, there, baby, what's wrong?"
    Christine looked at me, and at Kathy, then pumped her fists in the air. "Fine, maybe we should just take this up later. Why don't you two go fuck yourselves elsewhere?"
    She stormed into the bedroom and slammed the door shut. Her harsh words hadn't upset me -- in truth, we had never liked each other, we just pretended for Kathy's benefit.
    Kathy and I wordlessly scurried out and into her car, where we sat for a few minutes and cried, clutching each other. Neither of us knew what the other was specifically upset about, but that didn't really matter. We knew each other too well to care about the details. I knew she was mad that Christine objected to her poorly paid career  as a chef and took it out in passive-aggressive ways, while she no doubt knew that Jim and I were