I was, I think, fifteen and the season was fall because it was cross country season. She was seventeen. We’d been making out on and off for a while, had a flurry of weird obsessive fallings in and out. She’d recently drawn me a portrait of myself that was also streaked with her own, dried, maroon blood, all on lined notebook paper. We would pass a green single subject spiral bound notebook back and forth, write each other notes in it, scribble each other doodles. She was really talented, though. The image was clearly me, as observed changing in the locker room, the line of my ribs, the specifics of my bra, a quiet look on my face, the scars across my stomach and arms were accurate and traced in detail. She must have been looking for a long time.
We had an “away” cross country meet somewhere, no idea where. We would be staying overnight before we duct-taped our spiked shoes to our feet and scrambled through mud and dead leaves and chilling rain in the woods of some town in New York State, trying to finish in an acceptable amount of time for running five kilometers in calf-deep mud. Our team was advancing in the league, competing against ever-better groups of teams at massive cross country meets until however long it took for us to have our season cut short, to stop advancing (we were never good enough to make it to the final, upper levels, whatever those might be — I was clearly paying attention).
She and I huddled together on the yellow school bus that would take us to our Motel 6, under a blanket. I think this one girl, who would in fact grow up to be gay, may have said something to us like “WHAT ARE YOU TWO DOING UNDER THERE” but most people ignored her homophobic stress (she would frequently talk about how disgusting gay people were, always very loudly, trying to get everyone to agree) and we were just like “WE’RE COLD” which was of course very believable and then would bring our hands, which had been stroking legs and holding each others’ fingers and wandering over skin under the blanket up above the blanket and we would pretend to be drawing together and comparing our sketches. When onlookers gave up, we slipped our hands back under the safety and the cover of the blanket and reached into each others’ shorts, unable to share a kiss like we did in the back hallways and behind-stage in the auditorium when the lights were off and it wasn’t in use. We didn’t have long. We stopped when someone else approached because remember we are just fully on a school bus with both the boys’ and girls’ entire cross country teams right now in this moment.
Later, that night, we’d find a way to get assigned to the same hotel room (she fixed it somehow, aggressive, assertive, unafraid) and managed to have the same bed, too. BUT THAT SAME GIRL FROM BEFORE kept turning the light on from where she was in the other bed with a different girl, making all sorts of excuses for why she had to turn the light on, forcing us to scramble apart quickly each time, until we stayed up and still and away from each other, the mattress buzzing with electricity between us, late into the night, listening to the breathing of our teammates until we were more or less certain they had actually gone to sleep and we could reach out for each other again in the dark. It was definitely not the most private attempt at a first time, but it was the time alone we could manage with each other in the moment — and listen, we were pumping with teenage hormones and infatuation and could not be deterred from our mission to have sex with each other. The whole experience affirmed for me, deeply, that yes, I was both bisexual and absolutely falling for this girl. It was also the first time I’d had sex with anybody, ever, so, it was like unlocking a whole new world.
Also, watching A League of Their Own brought back these memories whenever Greta and Carson snuck around or Max and Esther got their own room and that was a lot of fun, too!
Comments
wow, thank you all so so so much for sharing!!!
I feel similarly grateful to Ro and could say the same “When I think about how my first sexual experience was A) with a girl, B) positive, and C) free from the shame that so many queer teens feel when they start exploring their sexuality, I feel incredibly privileged and grateful.”
also, Nico, I had gay sex on a school bus in high school; in the moment I think we got away with it. But after one of our team members told me I had sex hair lol (everyone knew we were a couple)
OH NOOOO (to what you said to me). Yeah like, the sneakiness you *think* you’re achieving vs that which you are actually achieving are two completely different circles of the diagram.
My situation was probably a bit more than Drew’s. Before I transitioned, I knew I was trans and bisexual, but wasn’t out to anyone but my immediate family. Since all the time and opportunity I had back then was for was occasional random hookups, it didn’t seem worth opening that can of worms with someone who I’d only know for a few hours at most, so I was male-presenting with everyone I was with. Was it queer when I was with a straight woman? Was it queer when I was with a gay man? Is it even possible for it to be simultaneously straight for one person and queer for the other? For my own part, both situations felt “kinda, but also kinda not”.
“a bit more confusing” I meant.
this is gorgeous and thank you everyone for sharing 💗
I love all of these, thank you all for sharing!
Nico, my first time hooking up with a girl was also in a hotel room with 2 other people in the other bed! We had met online, she lived in Louisiana and I had just started my freshman year of college in Pittsburgh. She was taking a trip to NYC to meet up with some other friends and see RENT, and she asked if I could come to meet her. I said yes and (without telling my parents!) rode a Greyhound bus for 8 hours to get there. I arrived so late at night and we were so tired but we were determined not to waste any of our very limited time together. We tried to be quiet but I’m sure her friends heard us, but I really didn’t care. ANYWAY. We only tried to date long distance for a few months but this was almost 25 years ago and we’re still friends.
Thank you so much for the nuanced treatment of what a first means and putting the emphasis on everyone deciding for themselves. I have given myself permission to ignore the experiences in which I wasn’t giving informed or engaged consent, but it’s so validating to hear it from others as well. And of course thank you for sharing your experiences!
All of you: Thank you so much for sharing! There are so many lines that I want to copy and print because that’s how it was, that’s how it felt. Like a queer rite de passage we took part in, individually, but as part of our community, as well. It makes me appreciate once more this place here that Autostraddle has built for us.
Sa’iyda Shabazz you’re totally going to have to tell us about the second time! Feel like this is me as my first time with a woman was when I was 19 and I’m now in my 30s and feeling petrified like I’ve never touched anyone before!
Loved these stories so varied, thanks for sharing! X
Oops posted in the wrong field
This was so affirming I, now, can’t breathe! God damn. Also Drew never fails to deliver, Analyssa this is SO WHOLESOME I LOVE IT, Stef’s made me feel cool just by reading it, I just want to hug Laneia, Sa’idya made me CRACK UP LAUGHING (I just feel enormously seen by this plan and adore imagining these feckin nerds planning in such meticulous detail, just perfect), thank you to all the writers.
[My first time had a lead-up of about six years, cuddling and stroking each other’s hair and sharing bisexual feelings that I had never comfortably had with a friend. She was very much only a friend, though, until the night she came to visit me in university and we went out with another friend. He was extremely into her and discreetly asked my permission to take her home – if she was into the idea. As he murmured about how beautiful she was and we both watched her ice-skate, I remember feeling a faint pang at the idea of her being into the idea. Luckily for me, she wasn’t into the idea. She was into the idea of both of us cautiously, tenderly, slowly circling lower and closer to the parts of each other that had always been beyond the limits of our friendship. It was great. It remains the best orgasm of my life, over a decade later. And we are still friends, despite numerous complications and obstacles.