My First Requited Lesbian Love
(This is part 3 in a series, with the other parts here)
The loves of my life can be split into two categories: requited and unrequited. And the adoring-from-afar type isn't really proper love, even though it can feel just as intense.
So, B was the first woman I loved and got loved back.
We met in a night club. There was a significant age difference - I was 18, she was 33 - but it was never an issue. She was just B.
She liked to have sex, our B. She also liked dogs, vintage cars, Grace Jones and karate. We had a non-monogamous relationship from the start. When I met her she already had a long-term girlfriend (conveniently absent on an Israeli kibbutz) and made no exclusive claim on me. I thought this made perfect sense. Why buy into the lie of monogamy and deny that everyone has extra-marital attractions? Why not have your cake and eat it?
And I was enthralled by the story of B's love life thus far. When she was a teenager, in the early seventies, she was living in a Nottinghamshire mining village with her childhood-sweetheart husband. He knew she fancied women, but didn't take it too seriously - he didn't think it impacted on their life together. Until she started attending Gay Mothers And Wives meetings in Manchester. And met D. And fell in love.
D was also married, to a truck driver named Eric. They lived in Todmorden with their four children. B left her husband and moved in with D and Eric. And the kids. And all seven of them lived together happily for the next twelve years. Eric slept in the spare bedroom. They let him join him in their bed every now and again. Special occasions, you know - birthdays, that type of thing.
Unfortunately D met another woman and left both B and Eric. I’m not sure B ever quite got over it. Still, for those dozen years they had one of the most successful, and heartwarming, versions of non-monogamy I’ve ever heard about. It remains one of my favourite relationship stories.
But anyway, back to B and me. She had the absent kibbutz girlfriend, she had me, and then she started seeing A. And K. And I started seeing K as well. And then I started seeing A, too. This is where it all gets rather muddled - I'm not sure if I was still seeing B at this point, or whether she was still seeing A. I do know that B, K and I had a rather enjoyable threesome at one point. And that A was hearing voices, and jumping into graves in only her nightie, and accosting vicars in Eccles with knickers on her head... but that's another story.
B was, and indeed is, one of the warmest, biggest-hearted people I know. She can smile for Britain, she has a wonderful sense of humour, and just the sound of her voice still makes me go soft inside. When I broke my leg, she looked after me for a week. She always had enough love for everybody, and didn't seem to understand jealousy or other such ugly passions.
I, on the other hand, was struggling. I coped all right with A and K, because after all I was shagging them too. But then there was J, who was occupying an increasing amount of B's time, and who anyway I didn't like. B told me what they did together (probably cos I badgered her) and J was satisfying tastes that simply mystified me. I felt inadequate. I wasn't good enough. And although I tried to deny it or explain it away, I was increasingly jealous.
I think it was B that ended it. I was probably getting clingy, possessive, insecure, needy. In short, we were not having fun any more.
Still, I was 18 and fickle and it wasn't long before I was off again with Kate, the replacement love of my life. But that didn't last (yet another story), and within six months B and I were back together. It lasted another eight months, but I think she was never quite so in love with me as I was with her. She suggested a trial separation, I hung around waiting for the trial period to end... it never did. So I started sleeping with men again.
That was a funny thing about B. She was an incredibly down-to-earth person, and had no truck with the often-up-their-own-arsiness of radical feminism. She thought men were all right, and didn't have a problem with bisexuality. But I remember once casually raising the vague possibility that I might sleep with a man again one day (at the time I was exclusively lesbian), and she reacted negatively. Even though she informed me in the same conversation that she would happily sleep with Eric if it was his birthday.
There was a Clause 28 Campaign fundraising concert one night, and I knew B would be there. I was hoping we might get back together. She made it clear we wouldn't. I got drunk, stumbled off into the night and ended up at a party where I copped off with my first man in three years. "Ha,” I thought. “This'll show her."
Obviously it showed her nothing, but it did permanently breach my lesbian purity. And the rest is history.
The loves of my life can be split into two categories: requited and unrequited. And the adoring-from-afar type isn't really proper love, even though it can feel just as intense.
So, B was the first woman I loved and got loved back.
We met in a night club. There was a significant age difference - I was 18, she was 33 - but it was never an issue. She was just B.
She liked to have sex, our B. She also liked dogs, vintage cars, Grace Jones and karate. We had a non-monogamous relationship from the start. When I met her she already had a long-term girlfriend (conveniently absent on an Israeli kibbutz) and made no exclusive claim on me. I thought this made perfect sense. Why buy into the lie of monogamy and deny that everyone has extra-marital attractions? Why not have your cake and eat it?
And I was enthralled by the story of B's love life thus far. When she was a teenager, in the early seventies, she was living in a Nottinghamshire mining village with her childhood-sweetheart husband. He knew she fancied women, but didn't take it too seriously - he didn't think it impacted on their life together. Until she started attending Gay Mothers And Wives meetings in Manchester. And met D. And fell in love.
D was also married, to a truck driver named Eric. They lived in Todmorden with their four children. B left her husband and moved in with D and Eric. And the kids. And all seven of them lived together happily for the next twelve years. Eric slept in the spare bedroom. They let him join him in their bed every now and again. Special occasions, you know - birthdays, that type of thing.
Unfortunately D met another woman and left both B and Eric. I’m not sure B ever quite got over it. Still, for those dozen years they had one of the most successful, and heartwarming, versions of non-monogamy I’ve ever heard about. It remains one of my favourite relationship stories.
But anyway, back to B and me. She had the absent kibbutz girlfriend, she had me, and then she started seeing A. And K. And I started seeing K as well. And then I started seeing A, too. This is where it all gets rather muddled - I'm not sure if I was still seeing B at this point, or whether she was still seeing A. I do know that B, K and I had a rather enjoyable threesome at one point. And that A was hearing voices, and jumping into graves in only her nightie, and accosting vicars in Eccles with knickers on her head... but that's another story.
B was, and indeed is, one of the warmest, biggest-hearted people I know. She can smile for Britain, she has a wonderful sense of humour, and just the sound of her voice still makes me go soft inside. When I broke my leg, she looked after me for a week. She always had enough love for everybody, and didn't seem to understand jealousy or other such ugly passions.
I, on the other hand, was struggling. I coped all right with A and K, because after all I was shagging them too. But then there was J, who was occupying an increasing amount of B's time, and who anyway I didn't like. B told me what they did together (probably cos I badgered her) and J was satisfying tastes that simply mystified me. I felt inadequate. I wasn't good enough. And although I tried to deny it or explain it away, I was increasingly jealous.
I think it was B that ended it. I was probably getting clingy, possessive, insecure, needy. In short, we were not having fun any more.
Still, I was 18 and fickle and it wasn't long before I was off again with Kate, the replacement love of my life. But that didn't last (yet another story), and within six months B and I were back together. It lasted another eight months, but I think she was never quite so in love with me as I was with her. She suggested a trial separation, I hung around waiting for the trial period to end... it never did. So I started sleeping with men again.
That was a funny thing about B. She was an incredibly down-to-earth person, and had no truck with the often-up-their-own-arsiness of radical feminism. She thought men were all right, and didn't have a problem with bisexuality. But I remember once casually raising the vague possibility that I might sleep with a man again one day (at the time I was exclusively lesbian), and she reacted negatively. Even though she informed me in the same conversation that she would happily sleep with Eric if it was his birthday.
There was a Clause 28 Campaign fundraising concert one night, and I knew B would be there. I was hoping we might get back together. She made it clear we wouldn't. I got drunk, stumbled off into the night and ended up at a party where I copped off with my first man in three years. "Ha,” I thought. “This'll show her."
Obviously it showed her nothing, but it did permanently breach my lesbian purity. And the rest is history.
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