© 1998 by Zoe Burgess, (New Zealand) All rights reserved.
The following story is fictional, any resemblance to events or persons is unintentional.

 

Sunday Morning                     by Zoe Burgess                 zoegrrl_1@yahoo.com.au

 

Small cracks of light appeared, obscured and unclear through a sort of fog. Funnily enough, she actually enjoyed it when she woke up like this, still in that warm, cosy, safe environment that was sleep, but yet awake enough to appreciate it.

Awareness of things around her started to come; the duvet, the pillow, the bed under her and, oh yes, the woman still asleep next to her. She could hear her quiet breathing and smell her fragrance as it mingled with her own and the bed. She tried to open her eyes fully but even the blunted sunlight coming into her room through the curtains was a bit bright, so she just gazed out through her eyelashes. Last night came back to her, slowly.

She didn’t go out every Saturday night, preferring instead to go out occasionally. But she had gone out last night anyway, which was strange, making it two weeks in a row. It had been worth it though. A smile spread across her face. She turned to look at the woman next to her, her hair fallen messily across the pillow and her still sleeping face. Messy, but definitely cute. Oh bugger, she thought, now I need to go pee. She tries to ignore it, and fails as she expected.

Petra slowly slid her feet out from under the duvet, placing them quietly on the floor, the cold of the wood bringing the rest of last night back to her in a rush. Meeting friends at the club, drinking a bit, dancing, then drinking a bit more. Eye-contact with someone, motioning a question to dance (nobody could talk there) and then dancing. The rest of the evening was a bit of a fog, interspersed with images of this woman’s face and the delicious taste of her kisses on the dance floor. Somehow they had ended up back at her place ... and, oh Goddess!

Now she remembers. Jen (that was her name! Jenny!) had begun to cry, right when you’d have expected her not to. Oh shit, she’d thought, she already has a girlfriend ... or worse, a boyfriend. No, that wasn’t it at all. She’d comforted her then, asking her what was wrong. Jen had said that she wasn’t exactly how she appeared. Petra was really confused then. Jen had looked up into her eyes and Petra went to kiss her, but Jen stopped her. Hugging her breasts Jen had nodded towards her own crotch, which bulged slightly. Petra’s eyes had widened as she clicked.

Her current need to pee burst through her reverie, and she stumbled, naked, through to the loo. The cold porcelain toilet seat on her backside didn’t even seem to figure for once, as relief came in the form of a steady splashing stream. Oh Goddess, she thought again, what had she done? Jen was transsexual, she had explained, but had not had the operation yet. She wanted to, but being a university student like Petra the money was not there yet.

She didn’t know if had been the alcohol or what, but she had found herself saying that it didn’t matter, that she didn’t care. Jen’s hopefully anxious face had blossomed as Petra promised not to touch Jen ‘down there’ and her kisses thereafter had ended all discussion between the two of them.

Well, at least in the verbal sense.

She finished peeing, but sat there anyway and despite herself, smiled. The glow from last night remained. In spite of the evidence to the contrary Jen had been just as much of a woman as the other women Petra had been with, not that there had been heaps though. Her body had arched and responded just as Petra’s had, and Jen’s tongue, well ... Petra would have loved to have known where Jen had learnt some of the stuff she had done.

Petra’s smile faded. Oh fuck, she thought, I’ve just slept with a guy! She grabbed her dressing gown down off the peg on the back of the bathroom door where she’d left it last night when she was getting ready to go out. Putting it on she went into the kitchen and flopped down at the table. Her flatmate was away with her parents right now, so she had the flat to herself, kinda. She put her head in her hands and ran them through her spiked hair, some of which was still stuck down from the pillow. Oh fuck, she thought again, I’ve just slept with a guy.

What will the others think? As far as she knew she had foresworn guys a while back there somewhere. They wouldn’t understand. Shit, she didn’t understand it herself. Emotions swirled inside her, contradictory and conflicting. What was she feeling? It didn’t feel like a one-night stand. Could she feel something for this woman? But she had a penis! Her stomach churned at the thought. Thank the Goddess she hadn’t seen or felt it! How could this person be a woman? How dare he … or she … oh shit, she didn’t know!

She got up and angrily switched the kettle on, throwing the instant into her ‘lesbianism leaves an interesting taste in your mouth" mug with considerable more vigour than was really needed. The sugar went in likewise. The kettle began to bubble furiously, echoing her mood. This person had obviously taken advantage of her, she thought. She had been drunk ... well kinda, at the very least not fully in control of herself.

That’s it, she thought, she ... he ... whatever, took advantage of me! Fuck, its almost rape! How like a male; deceiving, just interested in the screw, wham, bam, thank you ma’am! She had a good mind to storm right back in there and give this ... ‘person’ a piece of her mind, and her foot! Where had she put her Doc’s?! The kettle began to whistle, breaking through her fuming, stopping her half way back across the kitchen.

She furiously reached back across and grabbed at the kettle, knocking it over and slopping boiling water all over the bench. She jumped back, swearing to herself. Somehow, she didn’t know exactly how though, but somehow this was definitely, in the great scheme of things, his fault too. That was it, she thought, he’s in for it!

The pain of a water burn then suddenly came into sharp focus. A big section of her forearm was quickly becoming an awfully interesting red colour. Oh goddess, that hurt! Almost slipping on the water that had dripped onto the floor she reached across and put her arm under a stream of cold water. Tears dribbled down her cheeks. This really hurt. Her anger ebbed, numbed by the pain and a sudden longing mental image of Jen being concerned and tending to her arm. Her confusion, however, was still there.

Then a quiet, hopeful ‘meow’ came from her feet and a furry body bashed up against her legs. Lucy (hey, she had to worship Xena somehow) began to purr (so obvious a tactic, but always an inevitably successful one) and bashed up against Petra’s naked legs again, her warm fur quite a nice contrast to the cold of the kitchen floor. Turning the tap off, she reached down and picked Lucy up.

"So cat," She murmured, "you think you’re going to get fed eh?" Lucy stuck her nose into Petra’s face, a guaranteed way of both getting Petra’s attention and breaking her out of any bad mood. The little moist spots left on Petra’s face didn’t disappoint this time either. "That’s all I am to you," She said to Lucy, "a clever can opener, aren’t I?" Lucy purred. She put Lucy back on the floor and opened the fridge, her purring get louder.

She spooned the cat food into Lucy’s dish on the floor, poured what remaining water there was in the kettle into her mug and stood there stirring, forgotten by the now feasting cat. She looked to the dripping bench and decided to just leave it for now. She sighed and wandered into the lounge, sipping her coffee gently in case she burnt her mouth as well, and sat down on the couch.

She just didn’t understand. A lesbian transsexual? What was with that? Did they exist? How could they exist? It couldn’t be right! Her anger continued to ebb, but still the confusion, and pain, remained, swirling inside her, searching for some toehold to give her some space to try and work things out. Drag queens she knew about, she even knew a couple personally. But they had nothing that she was attracted to, and they definitely weren’t attracted to her. It just didn’t make sense.

If Jen wanted to be with women, why didn’t she just stay a guy? At the very least there were more heterosexual women out there than queer ones. Imagine being able to be a guy with all those women to chose from ... Petra shuddered. Eeeuuw, she thought, imagine being a guy! Imagining being with one was bad enough.

What if Jen felt the same way though? If Jen really was a woman, like she maintained, then surely she could be just as straight, bi., or lesbian as any other woman. She could be just as much a dyke as Petra was. But that didn’t feel right!

She squirmed and tucked her legs under her on the couch, taking a sip from her rapidly cooling coffee. Jen had grown up a guy (she wondered briefly what she had looked like then), nothing could ever change that, and the fact remained that therefore Petra had just spent the night with a guy. What would she do? Tears started to form again in the corner of her eyes and she sniffled, twice. It hurt.

But she liked her, fuck it! In the face of everything she couldn’t help but like Jen. She remembered how Jen had made her laugh so hard on the way home in the taxi that she almost peed herself, she remembered the smooth curve of her breasts, the smell of her hair, the way she had this cute little upward ‘tweak’ in the corner of her mouth when she smiled and most of all ... most of all... the way Jen had trusted her with everything when she had told Petra about herself.

A small, tiny, single tear went down her cheek ... oh, she was so confused. She so didn’t like feeling like this. She hugged her knees up to her chest, the half-full luke warm coffee cup forgotten on the coffee table, a small tendril of steam still rising up from it. She just stared into the space directly in front of her. It hurt.

Why should it hurt though? She had just met Jen, why should she mean anything to her? Surely she could tell this ...this ... this freak (okay, now she feels guilty just for thinking with that term) to fuck off? What’s stopping her? This person is not a woman, so how could she then be her girlfriend?

WHOA!!!! Where did that word come from? This was just a one-night fling, right?

But dammit, she was still angry with her ... for some reason ... but then, was she really angry, or just scared out of her mind? What did this mean for her life, her nice organised, structured, bounded, lesbian life? Did this mean that she wasn’t a lesbian anymore? But then, who was she attracted to, Jen, or what was between her legs? That was the question wasn’t it ... what was she attracted to? Because, she had to admit it, she obviously was attracted to Jen, for some reason.

So Jen hadn’t taken advantage of her, it had been mutual ... oh goddess it had been mutual! So what was she attracted to, could this person possibly a woman? For the first time in years the possibility that a partner could be a woman scared her. She got up and wandered back to the bedroom, making as little sound as possible. She pushed the door open and lent against the doorframe. Jen was still asleep, peaceful and beautiful.

Petra just watched Jen as she breathed, the sunlight streaming in across the bed through the cracks in the curtains, one of her nipples slightly exposed from under the white duvet, her body curled up under the covers. She just stood there for a while, her heart beginning to quietly soar as she watched Jen.

Slowly she moved over to the bed and sat down on the edge. Jen’s eyes fluttered open, just as Petra’s were, slitted against the sunlight. Her gorgeous, female lips opened.

"Good morning love" she said.

"Good morning" Petra replied and bent over to kiss her.

Jen’s arms wrapped around the back her neck.

Oh yes, Petra thought, this is definitely a woman, and smiled.

"Hey hon" Jen murmured, "what did you do to your arm?"

FIN.

 

 

© 1998
The above work is copyrighted material. Anyone wishing to copy, archive, or re-post this story must contact the author for permission.