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Terry

By J. P. Craig

My second date with Terry was like a trip back in time to some rural, middle-American nightmare. I could make all sorts of excuses as to why there even was a second date but I'll spare you the bullshit - here's the bottom line - I needed to put some space between my ex and myself. Terry, in her way, did that perfectly.

I live in Chicago and I have a hard time understanding why young, single lesbians live in the suburbs. In the suburbs I find constant reminders of how I am different, and so I am wary of dating people who live there. I assumed that Terry lived in the South suburbs because that is where we had our first date. She had tickets to see a play, "A Christmas Story," at some quaint little theatre with a small-town feel. I was thirty minutes late for our first date and Terry had been frustrated. I tried to calm the situation by joking, smiling, and flashing lots of cleavage. It seemed to help. When we arrived at the little theatre Terry drove around the block, apprehensive about the street parking. "I am terrible at parallel parking," she said, making a face. I wouldn't even agree just for the sake of being polite - I drive a huge old Buick and I am a city girl - I have no problem parallel parking. "Oh, come on, it's not that bad. If I can parallel park, you can," was all I offered by way of encouragement. "Why don't we switch and you can park?" Terry had turned to me and asked this in earnest. At this point, a mere fifteen minutes into our first date, I gave up hope. Terry was not the tough, confident butch I was looking for.

For our second date, Terry asked me to meet her at a restaurant near her apartment. The address was in Merrillville, Indiana. I agreed, since my office is so close to the border and we met on a Friday night after work, but I regretted the whole thing as soon as I crossed the state line because that's when it hit me - I was leaving the state to get laid. Pathetic.

We met at a restaurant called Texas Corral, chosen because we'd both lived in Dallas at one point in our lives. The catch was that Terry loved it in Dallas and, to be honest, it was a little too crowded with Republicans and right-wing Christians for me to be comfortable there.

While we waited for our table I did my best to flirt and Terry did her best to blend in with the straight, middle-aged locals. It was almost painful, the way she whispered so quietly "you look nice," and then took two steps back for every step I took towards her. It made me turn up the charm even more; I got a sick sense of enjoyment from making her squirm. Perhaps I was making her nervous, or maybe she's just an alcoholic, but once we got to the table Terry ordered a 48-ounce margarita - "Texas sized." Mine was 18 ounces and her stemmed, oversized glass looked comical on the table - had it been sitting in front of my five-foot frame it would have reached the top of my head.

Our waitress was a little behind her game - she brought Terry a strawberry margarita even though she had ordered a plain one, and Terry spoke up only because she is allergic to strawberries. However, when the waitress got the rest of Terry's order wrong, she did not say a word about it. I started to complain but Terry said "NO! No, everything's fine, thank you." I said "You know, if you didn't want what you ordered, we could have just come in, sat down, and said 'surprise us.' That, at least, would have been quicker." The sarcasm was lost and as the minutes went by I became increasingly aware that the night was lost as well.

After dinner Terry explained that she had a roommate, a straight woman, and that she did not want to "rock the boat" by bringing home a girl. We went to a motel - a Knight's Inn. We were surrounded by new-looking, chain hotels, and of course we had to stay someplace with a cheesy name and fixtures that no doubt pre-dated the era of knights and ladies-in-waiting. The medieval theme wasn't even carried through in the rooms - no king-sized bed for us, no, we had two doubles. I made plenty of jokes about me sleeping in one and Terry in the other but she did not think they were very funny.

We had sex in the bed closest to the window. There was little foreplay and the act itself was too quiet and just what I imagine straight sex to be like - as soon as she had her orgasm, she was done. During the whole thing, Terry did not even take off a stitch of clothing - just unzipped her fly and fed her silicone equipment through the slot in her boxer briefs. When I questioned this she said "most butches leave their clothes on. It'd ruin the illusion if I got naked." This made me want to scream - HER sitting there telling ME about butches and what they do in the bedroom? And this "illusion" to which she referred? It wasn't like she was trying to fool me into thinking she was a man. I didn't want her to be a man, act like a man. We're lesbians - we're women. That's the point.

In the morning we parted ways early, before 10am. I stopped on my way because if I was going to get one thing out of this misadventure it was going to be cheap gas. I found a Marathon station at the last exit before the Skyway. I didn't notice until I was pumping my gas that I was right across the street from the NiSource building. Two of my fellow career counselors and a dozen of my students were in that building, attending a job fair, at the very moment I was pumping my cheap gas. If they caught me there, in Indiana, a place that I don't even like going to for work purposes, with my bed head and smudgy eye makeup from the night before, they would know, it'd be written all over my face that I'd come here to get laid, and I would die of embarrassment.

I went into the station to buy some juice and to hide and there I found one of the many unfortunate places in America where you can still purchase BBQ pork rinds, XXX adult movies, petroleum products, and lottery tickets in one 8x10 room. It was glorious and horrific all at once.

I made it back to my car and back on the road without getting spotted. I tuned into NPR and settled in with their soothing Saturday morning lineup of news quiz shows. I drank my juice and tried to trick myself into thinking that I was just out for a drive.

There is a fifty-cent toll to get off the Skyway. I moved into a cash lane and handed the man in the booth a dollar. He leaned towards me more than necessary to hand me my change and said in a low whisper "you are so very pretty." Instantly a lump formed in my throat. Terry hadn't said anything half as genuine during our entire evening together. "Thank you," was all I could say and he passed me my change - fifty cents in nickels.