Page 9 of Secret Desire
My eyes widened as I realized how unprofessional it was for me to share at a business luncheon my boss. Maeve’s fingers looked white against her fork, like she was gripping it too hard. Damn it, I was making her uncomfortable. I wondered how our conversation had turned to dating. Oh yeah, I brought up coming out in college and then started rambling about my sex life. I was such a dork.
“Oh, I’m so sorry,” I said quickly. “This is a totally inappropriate topic for me to discuss with my boss. I just… well, I’ve known you all my life so I’m probably a littletoocomfortable with you.”
“It’s fine,” she reassured me. “I want us to be comfortable with each other.”
Then my mouth engaged before my brain could stop it.
“Great, tell me about your love life then so we’ll be even.”
Maeve
Itook a long sip of my gin and tonic while I debated how to answer Ashley’s question.
“Come on,” she encouraged. “I told you my story. What did your parents think when you came out?”
“It’s funny how the coming out story is part of every get-to-know-you conversation in the queer community,” I mused.
“Yeah.”
She waved her hand, silently encouraging me to stop stalling.
“My parents didn’t really care either way, so I was lucky there. When we were in high school, everyone assumed that Ariel,Grace, and I were lesbians because we spent all our time together and didn’t date that much,” I explained. “I think none of us wanted to admit to each other that those rumors were true, because even though we were best friends, we were all worried about what the others would think.”
“That’s so sad.”
With how tight those three had been all their lives, I was surprised that they’d hesitated to come out to each other.
“Well, back then people weren’t quite as open about sexuality and gender norms like they are now,” I reminded her. “So we were all questioning, trying to figure out what was behind the confusing feelings we were having.”
I paused to take a drink of my gin and tonic as I remembered hiding what felt like such an important part of myself from my best girlfriends, scared to death they’d have a problem with it.
“Our freshman year at Northwestern we all went to a party together, and Grace and I wandered into a bedroom and saw your sister making out with a woman. That kind of broke the seal on talking about it,” I explained. “Grace and I were intensely curious about it all and Ariel – who told us that she’d liked kissing that woman better than anything that had happened with a boy -- was like, ‘just try it, you only live once!’ That made it okay for me and Grace to admit we were having the same feelings as Ariel had.”
I smiled, almost able to hear my sister’s exuberant encouragement.
“You know how it is in college, there’s a lot of experimenting, so there was no shortage of girls for us to kiss. And boys too, but it wasn’t long before we realized that as unlikely as it was, all three of us were lesbians.”
“I don’t think it was unlikely at all,” Ashley said. “Probably something inside each of you realized the other two were kindred spirits, that you’d be a safe space, and you became friends because of it. Although it’s good that you didn’t get with each other, because that would have really messed up your friendship.”
I must have had a weird expression because she paused. “Wait, did any of you…?”
“No,” I said quickly. “Over the years we had many conversations about how it would be easier if we were attracted to each other. We would have made a great throuple, but our feelings for each other have always been strictly platonic. Like sisters, but closer.”
Ashley winced a little and mumbled, “Sisters.”
I decided to change the subject. “If you’re comfortable, can you tell me more about what happened with your last boss?”
Hopefully hearing the story would help me avoid acting like him.
Ashley took a deep breath. “I was hired at the company not long after I moved back to Chicago after college,” she said. “For several years it was great. I learned a lot and built up my own clientele. Eventually I was promoted and started working for this guy Johan. Things started going downhill after that.”
“How so?”
“I loved the work and having more responsibility, but every time I was around my boss, he gave me the creeps, you know?”
I felt a flash of anger as she continued, “He was always staring at my breasts or my ass. Making ‘jokes’ that were really sexual innuendos. Brushing against me whenever he could. Coming up with excuses why we had to meet alone or stay late. But never around other people of course.”
“Jesus.”
