Intimacy Pt. 02

THREE
Eleanor hadn't always been into girls. She never felt she had exactly been 'born that way'. This was one reason why she had never felt comfortable among feminist groups. Maybe it was also because (unlike most of the hard-line feminists she knew) she had a scientific background, with a degree in physics and a masters in computer science. She had always been taught to doubt, to doubt everything, especially beliefs that were almost universally accepted.
The greatest influence on her life had been her supervisor at King's College, London, who had been an adherent of the great Austrian philosopher of science Karl Popper. Popper had argued that since there were no proofs except in logic and pure mathematics, what we had to do when attempting to determine whether a theory was true or not was to make every attempt to falsify it. If it failed any of these tests, then while the theory might be able to teach us something, and while it might be interesting, it could not be true.
Influenced by this way of thinking, he also eschewed the inductivist method, which purports to work its way from data to a conclusion, in favour of the deductivist method, which starts with a hypothesis and then sifts the data, at each stage applying the test of falsifiability so the hypothesis may be discarded in favour of another at any step. Part of his justification for his approach was that no one operates a true inductivist method, anyway, since, given the vast amount of data typically available for analysis, a decision on which data to work with must be made at an early stage, and this decision owes everything to deduction, in other words, the hypothesis which one chooses to bring to his or her study.
Although she attended a few women's group meetings at King's (both after and before her first lesbian encounter), she was driven up the wall by the ignorance she heard from speaker after speaker, as well as by the arrogance with which irrational views were cherished and promulgated. Ignorance and arrogance, she learned, while still in her early twenties, was a particularly powerful and potentially destructive cocktail.
She knew a tendency to be heterosexual or homosexual was unlikely to be genetic because of the evidence of identical twins. Even though they shared the same DNA (with minor mutations being possible - that was true), one twin would sometimes be straight and the other gay. So, she reflected, other factors, such as family, socialisation, education and one's own character and personality, were likely to play a part.
Growing up with an older brother and a younger sister to parents who were happy enough and who had recently celebrated their thirty-sixth wedding anniversary, it was posters of boys and men that she had stuck on her walls as a pre-teen and a teenager. Her first date had been with a boy, as well as her first kiss and her first make-out session. And, of course, she had lost her virginity to a boy (or rather a man), when she was 18.
She was still technically a schoolgirl, although she had finished her A-levels and was mainly involved in extracurricular activities, such as swimming, at which, with her tall build, she excelled, and a musical that the leavers had decided to stage. She met the man who was to become her first real lover through this production, although his involvement was only peripheral.
Adam had been hired at a nominal charge to help with the lighting. Even though they had most of the hardware they needed, the unexpected departure, halfway through the term, of the teacher who usually coordinated all the backstage work meant they needed someone to set up and operate all the kit. One of the boys in the production had a sister who used to go out with Adam, and the two of them had stayed in touch when the couple had broken up.
Although it was hardly love at first sight, Eleanor was attracted to Adam for the same reason that so many 18-year-old girls are attracted to older men. He was less gawky than the boys in her year, he seemed confident and assured, and he didn't get at all awkward around her. In fact, it was rather the opposite: he seemed to ignore her while plying his attentions on two of the other girls, each of whom were more extrovert - not to mention curvier - than Eleanor.
When he asked her out - for a drink at the pub and then maybe a nightcap at his place - she knew what she was signing up for if she accepted. She wasn't head over heels in love with him, for sure, but she thought that made it easier in many ways. She would be able to lose her virginity to someone who seemed a nice enough guy before she went off to university. This, she reasoned, would take the pressure off her when she got there and spent her first year in a student hall. She would no longer be an outsider looking in, as far as sex was concerned, and would be able to come over relaxed and knowing when the subject of boys came up.
The evening went about as well as she had been expecting. Kurtköy Escort The only real surprise for her was Adam. She had been expecting him to be your usual dumb male, but he hadn't been like that at all. As the evening wore on, he seemed to tumble to her plans; so much so that she thought he might call the whole thing off. While they were still in the pub, he told her (rather than asked her) that it was her first time. She tried to laugh it off with as much sophistication as she could muster, but she feared the damage had been done.
His response was a genuine laugh - not at her so much as at her strategising. He told her that felt like the stag who had won the right to mate with the does. She was unable to stop herself blushing deeply, but this seemed to endear her to him, as he told her there'd be no more drinks, since it was important that she be as sober as possible when she took this important step. If it all sounds mechanical related now, it was something that Eleanor was very happy to hear at the time. To this day, she cherishes that evening she spent with Adam. If she had it all to do again, and she was walking the path of a straight woman, she knew she couldn't choose better than this Man (Man being what Adam means).
She did in fact meet Adam again a couple of times after her divorce, and he seemed to be unsurprised that she appeared to prefer the company of women. She sometimes wanted to ask him how it was that he understood more about her than she understood about herself, but she never did. She did come to realise, though, that a man's intuition could be every bit as powerful as a woman's; that they could match women for sensitivity. Hell! to think of all the insensitive women she had met in the years that followed her liaison with Adam.
But it was at college that things really began to change for Eleanor, even though she had next to nothing to do with the feminist/ militant lesbian crowd. As a science major, she took courses where three quarters of the students were male, and more than half of the female students were foreign, typically from China, India and Africa. It was through swimming that she met the person who was to change her life forever. Her name was Linda, and she was a dozen years older than Eleanor.
FOUR
Linda was the trainer of the women's swimming team. She had swum at national level for England through the age groups, before suffering a career-ending shoulder injury when she had just joined the national squad and stood on the cusp of representing her country at the Commonwealth Games. After her setback, she had channelled her energies into her academic studies, attending a community college near her home in Nottingham to study for her A-levels before receiving a BSc in physiotherapy from King's College. After graduating, she had been employed as an assistant physiotherapist for the men's and women's swimming teams, before being promoted to head coach of the women's team the year before Eleanor began her studies.
Linda, who like Eleanor and indeed most of the swimming team, was tall (in her case, a little over six feet), made no secret of her sexual orientation, although at the same time she was careful not to get involved with anyone on the team. She looked a bit like Cate Blanchett, though she wasn't as fair; her hair being a chestnut colour, a shade or two lighter than Eleanor's more mousey tone.
Throughout her first year, Eleanor trained hard, but she could soon see that university was a big step-up from school. She occasionally made the team, when others were sick or injured or attending interviews, but she was pretty much a bit-part player, confined mainly to relays. Towards the end of her first year, she spoke with Linda about letting it go in her second year, when her studies would become more demanding. Linda managed to persuade her to stick at it for one more year. Eleanor wasn't convinced she was doing the right thing, but she knew she could always drop out if she wanted to. The factor that she wouldn't face up to was that she was becoming attracted to the coach, even though she knew she had a girlfriend or partner or whatever she called her.
This woman, clearly older than Linda, would sometimes be waiting outside the swimming baths in the car park standing next to her car smoking when Eleanor came out. Frankly, Eleanor couldn't see what Linda saw in this woman. Maybe she liked being dominated or had a strong masochistic streak. After seeing this woman for the first time, Eleanor found herself making herself more attractive for Linda. Of course, the coach normally only saw her with her hair bunched up in her swimming cap, but she did small things, like getting her hair nicely styled, buying a new, even more figure-hugging swimsuit and hanging around a bit so that be the time she finished changing (into new clothes) she might be able to bump into her outside her office in the main building or outside in the car park.
The plan Kurtköy Escort Bayan worked a few times, but Linda didn't seem to take any notice of Eleanor or what she looked like. By the end of that second year, when she had already decided she would jack the swimming in at the end of the summer term, she had a healthy crush on her trainer, but, so far as she could tell, it was totally unreciprocated. She had never as much as kissed a girl and was considerably more hopeless with them than she was with boys, so in her heart she understood that nothing was ever going to happen as far as the Amazonian older woman was concerned.
As far as boys were concerned, nobody she met in London managed to measure up to Adam, and he, through little fault of his own, it must be said, hadn't set the bar particularly high. The science crowd were all either too nerdy or too ugly, while the undergraduates and graduate students she met in the various venues that abounded in north London didn't do much for Eleanor either. It didn't help that she didn't know what she was looking for in a man, or that, since meeting Linda, subconsciously she wasn't really sure she was looking for a man in the first place.
In her third year, Eleanor made a clean break from swimming and, so she thought, from Linda too. She still thought about her and kept photos of her - obtained from the college magazine - on her mobile phone. And then one day she met her again. It was on High Holborn, a street in the area of London where she was living at the time. Her heart missed a beat, So, she learned later, did Linda's.
Her first thought was about what she was wearing. Why hadn't she worn that nice skirt she had taken out of her wardrobe and even lain on the bed? Why was she wearing these old shoes, which were frayed and which she had promised herself so often to throw out? And her hair! She had put a reminder in her phone calendar to get it fixed the previous week, but of course she had done nothing about it and now she looked as if she had been on a desert island for a fortnight.
She wanted to dive into a shop to avoid her old coach but she knew it was too late for that and that she would just have to endure the humiliation of meeting her looking like a tramp. When Linda suggested they had a coffee together, Eleanor just managed to stop herself from saying something stupid like 'Yes, please!'
They walked down the street the same way that Linda had been going for a few minutes before the older woman took the younger woman's arm and guided her into a place Eleanor had passed but never been into before. At the unexpected touch, Linda felt herself starting to melt and had to pull herself together so she could take her place opposite Linda at a cosy table for two at the back of the coffee shop. Eleanor noticed that there were plenty of tables nearer the door, and was thrilled that Linda had sought out a place where they could enjoy more privacy.
After they had ordered (Linda had only a black coffee, while Eleanor, who'd run out of breakfast things in the flat she now lived in, had a hazelnut macchiato and a wrap), Linda told Eleanor a bit about the swim team and generally made her feel more comfortable. Eleanor really wanted to ask her whether she was still with that woman with the spiky hair and the cigarettes, but, instead, she told her how her final year studies were shaping up, especially her independent studies project, which was on the physics of theatrical lighting design.
Yes, she'd got Adam to help her with this. It had been so much fun getting back in touch, and he was very helpful about all the practical details and the major problems he had encountered. Of course, Eleanor didn't tell her about Adam, in case Linda got the wrong idea. Like she could get the 'wrong' idea that Eleanor was straight, when she'd never even kissed a woman!
After about 15 minutes, the moment that Eleanor had been dreaming about for two years arrived, when Linda put her hand on hers. She felt herself rise what seemed like two feet off her seat. She wanted to sweep everything off the table, mount it, pull Linda's top up and feast on her tits. Or, rather, she wanted to drop under the table, unfasten Linda's jeans, unzip her, yank her panties to one side and feast on her moist cunt.
Shocked at the imagery which had come unbidden into her head, she looked up from the table top, at which she had been staring, and smiled her sweetest smile at the older woman. The message was unmistakable. She had crossed her Rubicon. She took her other hand and squeezed Linda's with it. Linda reached across and touched Eleanor lightly on the cheek.
Eleanor was desperate - even though she managed to remain remarkably calm - desperate for Linda to take her home with her and, well, fuck her. Hopefully, that wrinkled old lesbian was out at work, or, better still, Linda had dumped her. Eleanor took Linda's hand and kissed it lightly. Where she had picked up these skills, Escort Kurtköy she had absolutely no idea. It was as if she was operating on automatic pilot.
'Shall we go back to my place?' said Linda, as if she were reading the script that Eleanor had written for her.
'Yes,' breathed Eleanor - seductive, without trying to be.
FIVE
Linda settled the bill (refusing Eleanor's offer to pay for her share) and walked a short way to the nearest bus stop.
'She's obviously in no hurry to get into my panties,' thought Eleanor, excited to be using such crude language - even silently to herself.
She still wished she was wearing something more becoming. Her stripey shirt was really a man's shirt she'd picked up from a friend who'd found out it was too big when he tried it on, her suede jacket had definitely seen better days, her jeans hadn't been in the wash for a week or two, and then there were those shoes: scuffed, streaked with grey where they'd been stained by she-couldn't-remember-what months ago, and with soles that were about to wear through.
They only had to travel about 20 minutes, Linda told her, so she took the opportunity to ask if she was still involved with the woman she used to see in the car park. Perhaps a bit taken aback by her directness, Linda laughed and told her that they had gone their separate ways in the summer vacation. She didn't say any more, and Eleanor was quite happy to leave it that way. She had no interest in the old battle-ax, anyway.
They had lapsed into silence by the time they got to Linda's bus stop. It wasn't the awkward kind of silence, though, Eleanor reckoned; more the 'I am comfortable enough with you not to have to say anything' kind. They walked the five minutes to Linda's place (a pleasant enough terraced house) side by side, with Linda making no attempt to hold Eleanor's hand. This pleased the younger woman, both because she wasn't much of a one for overt displays of emotion and also because, well, it was so corny and they hadn't even done anything yet.
Linda for her part was very, very excited. Having had the hots for Eleanor from the minute she set eyes on her, she had thought about this moment for two years. If all went well - and she couldn't see what might cause a hitch - she would finally be able to turn all of her fantasies into reality. And, what's more, it appeared that her number one fantasy (breaking in a straight girl - or in Eleanor's case, a bicurious girl, perhaps, which was close enough) was going to head the list. Fuck! She hadn't felt so turned on for god knows how long.
She had to remind herself to play the cool, experienced lesbian, even perhaps the predatory swimming coach, because that's what Eleanor would be expecting and that's what she would have been fantasising about. Fuck, she thought, she could have such fun, if she just played her cards right. Thankfully, she had cleaned the flat earlier that morning before going out, and, quite serendipitously, she had changed the sheets only that morning too. Not the boring white ones either, but the sexy red ones.
Once they got inside and had taken their shoes off, Linda asked Eleanor if she would like to use the bathroom. First things first, she thought. That logistical nicety out of the way, she led the way upstairs, reckoning that the younger woman would voice an objection now if she was getting cold feet. Once they were in the bedroom, Linda shut the door, switched on a bedside light and drew the curtains.
'Don't want any prying neighbours now, do we?' she said with a smile.
Eleanor walked up to Linda and took her by the hand. She was so afraid of saying something gauche that she said nothing and just stared into her eyes. It obviously worked as an opening gambit, as Linda pulled her into an embrace and began kissing her passionately, as if a valve had been released. Eleanor, whose sole sexual experience of any consequence had been with Adam, rose to the challenge like a veteran, essentially following Linda whatever she did, but doing it with enough passion and energy to try and disguise the fact. Her first variation proved a tremendous hit: in response to Linda putting her hands on her ass, Eleanor moved hers onto Linda's tits - something she'd wanted to do for ages, especially when she used to rise like a goddess from the swimming pool.
Under Eleanor's ministrations, Linda moaned into Eleanor's mouth. This stimulated the younger woman to try something a bit different. It was a toss-up between moving a hand down onto her pussy region or snaking one up under her top onto her tits through her bra. The latter option won out.
This time Linda became quite frenzied and broke the kiss to push Eleanor onto the bed, unbuttoning her jeans almost before she had hit the mattress.
'Trying to show me who's boss?' she said in a strangely taut voice, as if someone had their hands around her throat. 'Seems like someone needs a good fucking.'
Eleanor couldn't believe what was happening. She was almost in shock. Linda was so aroused that she was going to eat her out right there and then. Having pulled the jeans off, she took the rather functional knickers off without much ceremony and placed a hand on Eleanor's mons.