From Poland with Love
The first time I had sex with another woman
The first time I saw Natasha, I thought I had no chance of ever being with her. It may sound stupid, but knowing that she was out of my league made things easier.
When my friend Anna Paula introduced us that September day, my eyes were irresistibly drawn to her green eyes. I smiled shyly at Natasha and she smiled back. I was in my early twenties, still discovering myself and barely aware of my feelings towards girls. I carried my heart on my sleeve. She was the one who struck up the conversation.
With her reddish-blond hair and her fair complexion, she was a Polish beauty. I relaxed when she started talking about her boyfriend. If she was straight, then I didn’t need to feel self-conscious, her beauty wouldn’t get to me. She was straight. Period.
She was from Warsaw and had come to Paris to study for a Master’s Degree in international relations.
Although I knew she had a boyfriend and that I didn’t interest her, when she looked at me with those light-colored eyes, I couldn’t help but feel strangely aroused. The words I so much wanted to tell her were stuck in my throat and my hands trembled as I spoke to her. She was a little older, more experienced, and she knew she had me under her spell.
What I felt was beyond my control. It felt animal. Savage. I wanted to throw myself at her. I wanted to kiss her mouth and tear off her clothes.
“I had a professor,” she said after a natural pause in our conversation.
They say body language is more revealing than words. I leaned my chest towards her and fixated my gaze on hers.
“Yes?” I replied.
“Whenever he was teaching, he would look at us in such a… penetrating way,” she paused, a smile formed on her lips. Then went on: “as if he were having sex with us in his head.”
“Maybe that’s just the way he looks at people.”
“No, other classmates felt the same, men and women alike,” she had a slightly nasal voice and a British accent.
“I don’t think I could ever look at someone like that,” I sighed. She stared at me. With no hesitation or tremor in her voice, she replied:
“I think you could.”
Blood rushed to my face, I smiled like a fool and utter something that made little sense.
I changed the subject. She was an excellent conversationalist and was attentive to my words. I had a weakness for people who acted like they were paying attention to me, and she acted very well.
We talked about many things, or maybe we didn’t talk about anything. So many years have passed, but I still remember how I dressed that day. I remember because Natasha had told me I looked beautiful. I was wearing a white blouse, a flowered sweater, light brown shorts, and brown boots.
“By the way, vodka here in France is disgusting. I don’t know what it is, but that shouldn’t be called vodka.”
“It’s the same with tequila,” I said. It’s like alcohol from the pharmacy, diluted with water.”
I smiled, shier than before. I knew little about tequila. If someone would have put two different bottles of tequila in front of me, I wouldn’t have been able to differentiate them.
“Why don’t we have a vodka and tequila night?” she asked.
“Sure,” I said. My heart pounded inside my chest. I was overcome with fear at the thought that she and everyone else might hear it.
There was something about her. I didn’t know what it was, but I was dying to see her again. Maybe it was lust, maybe it was something else. I could barely focus at school. The week was passing by slowly.
The thought of seeing her excited me and although I dared not admit it out loud, I hoped something would happen between us. But she had a boyfriend, and I knew the odds were nil. I knew that, but still….
I went to pick Natasha up at the closest subway station.
“I once met a guy who asked me if I was a lesbian,” she said as we walked home.
“Oh, yeah?” My voice cracked a little, and I was hoping she didn’t notice.
She continued:
“He probably thought that because I told him about my adventures with other girls.”
I didn’t know how to play the game of seduction. No one had taught me how to do it. I didn’t the rules to follow or the traps to avoid. When someone complimented me or made me think he was interested in me, my first reaction was to blush and laugh stupidly. I didn’t know how to handle that kind of situation.
As she told me about her adventures with other girls, surely waiting for my reaction, so she could analyze and adapt her strategy, I listened to her without interrupting her. She was seducing me.
I had just moved into a new apartment. It was literally my first day. Things were still scattered all over the floor. I apologized for the mess.
We started drinking. I did my magic act, and two-thirds of the bottle of vodka disappeared in no time.
I don’t know how much time passed, maybe a few minutes, maybe a few hours. I staggered out of my seat and went to pour myself some water. Natasha drank less than me, slower, and she was also taller and bigger than me.
We talked about bad kissers. She told me that girls were better kissers than men. She said that men were more aggressive and often ended up using their tongues like a washing machine or as a sword. I had never kissed a girl, but I fervently nodded back and forth until I felt dizzy.
“But maybe when you really want to kiss someone, it doesn’t matter if the person is a terrible kisser. You’re going to like it, aren’t you? Maybe it’s just a lack of compatibility,” I told her.
She considered my words, made a pause, and then added with conviction:
“There are people who never learn how to kiss and no matter how much you like them, they will not change, because they can’t. I think there’s compatibility, as you say, but there are also people who don’t even have the talent for that. I had a friend that I really liked, but when I kissed him, I realized he sucked. Fortunately, my boyfriend is a great kisser.”
“I’ve never kissed any girl,” I took a sip of my vodka.
“I have to tell you something,” she blurted.
I felt my muscles contract under my skin.
“Yes?” Even uttering that simple monosyllable was difficult.
“I am very attracted to you.”
“Give me your hand,” I answered.
She obeyed me immediately.
“I’m attracted to you too,” I said, and I think that was the last moment of clarity I had that night. “Isn’t it crazy to think that we are attracted to each other?” I asked her amid my drunkenness and among other incoherent words. I don’t remember her response.
But had she thought of me as I had thought of her? I got up and kissed her. I don’t remember the feel of her lips on mine or the taste of her mouth. She probably tasted and smelled like vodka. What I remember is that for the first time I was kissing someone I was really attracted to and who I really wanted to kiss.
“Let’s go to bed,” I grabbed her by the wrist and dragged her to my bed.
I barely remember my night with her. It’s not a sharp HD video, but more like a set of washed-out photographs glued together. That night is nothing but a fragment of a memory disjointed from the timeline of my other memories.
We were both drunk, but I was drunker than she was. As I laid naked on the bed, she asked me not to tell anyone that we had sex.
“Absolutely no one,” she said. I swore repeatedly that I would not. But hell! This was my first kiss and my first time with a girl. As soon as she left, I called my friends. I have told everyone who would listen. There is not a single person in my entourage to whom I have not told the story. Even now I still tell the story and will surely tell it many more times in the future. Never trust a drunk to keep your secrets.
I woke up hours later in my bed. I was naked and alone. I looked around. How strange it was to wake up after a night of sex, alone, naked, and with no recollection of the night before. I wasn’t the only person in the world waking up in a similar context, and somehow, that thought was comforting.
My crotch ached and my voice from the night before echoed in my ears:
“You’re so good you’re so good you’re so good you’re so good,” I had told her, but my words had no meaning. I blacked out.
I got up with a heavy head, to clean up the vomit and disgusting fluids around the apartment. I could barely believe that in only one night two people had made such a mess. No matter how hard I worked trying to clean it all, a strange smell in the bathroom lingered for months.
“Must be the pipes or something,” I told my roommate when I saw her the next day.
“Imagine if the roles would have been reversed. If it were a man, it would have been rape,” someone told me once. I don’t remember that person, but he wasn’t the only one.
I always look at them and roll my eyes. Yes, I got absurdly drunk. However, I wanted it to happen. I liked her too much, and the sexual attraction I felt towards her was undeniable. I was a shy and insecure girl. The only way I knew how to gain some courage was by drinking myself to oblivion. I longed for it to happen. I needed it to happen. I wanted Natasha more than she wanted me. All I wanted was to kiss her and feel her body against mine. I had prayed and wish for her to like me too.
Be careful what you wish for, for it may be given to you. And although I had kissed her and slept with her, I could not enjoy the experience for the sole reason I couldn’t remember.
