The Uncertainty of the Meek (1/6)* Rogue 10; ff 


Part 1--A Tulip Breaks the Snow

My mom always told me, "Michi, you'll inherit the world someday."
Sometimes it was with consternation, sometimes it was with concern, but
most of the time it was with love and pride. Since I became a woman, I've
often thought she was right. Despite the vogue for self-help "experts" and
counselors to tell women that they need to speak-up about what they want
and be assertive, I have found my timidity was a silent blessing. I have
never acquiesced to others demands; my timidly is a choice I made. It is a
quiet way of keeping myself in the world. I suppose, my meekness has
always worked because I've been lucky enough to be surrounded by people
who truly love me. I've always known what I've wanted, even when I had no
idea that I knew.

I am, and always have been, a lesbian. I don't think of myself as being
"in the closet," but I'm not particularly inclined to speak about my
personal life, so most of my neighbors and coworkers don't know. Despite
my reluctance to enter a potentially embarrassing conversation about whom
I'm sleeping with, I'm not ashamed of my sexual life. I occasionally think
that straight people are the ones who need a good dose of
self-consciousness about their blatant sexual behavior; they display it to
the world from billboards and supermarket tabloids. But I feel little
liberty to condemn, as I never thought about my sexuality at all until I
was sixteen, and then may have just lucked into one that suits me so well.

Sarah slid her arm around my waist and snuggled against my backside. We'd
been having sleepovers for as long as we had known each other, so I didn't
think much about it. She ran her fingers through my hair as she told me
she wanted to play in the ABA after college and be the next Dr. J. I was
always tired before she was, so just listened to her talk.

"Michi, I know there aren't any girls in the pros, but I'm tall enough to
be a small guard, and nobody can shoot better than me." I nodded sleepily,
contented with her body heat and her gentle strokes. Soon, I lost track of
her words; it was the rhythm of her voice that I loved, the edge of
excitement that was in every sentence. Her soothing fingers in my hair and
the sound of her voice were guiding me into a wonderful sleep.

She moved her face closer to my ear. I felt the warmth and dampness of her
breath. Her other hand caressed my hip, slowly, tentatively. The sound and
feel of her voice was like a trusted caress. Even more than my very loving
parents, Sarah was the rock I built my secure world on.



>From the fourth grade, Sarah had been my best friend. Sarah is my
opposite. She is assertive, even aggressive, charismatic, always knows
what she wants, and is absolutely loyal.

When she played playground sports, she was always a captain, even if she
was the only girl. She bloomed early into a rock-hard amazon, and could
take any boy in school in anything she wanted to. I suspect she could pee
her name into the snow better than the boys if she wanted to. I was
neither good nor bad at sports, but my lack of apparent enthusiasm usually
got me picked only before the deeply incompetent athletes in playlot
divvying. But Sarah always picked me first, even if she thought she'd have
to play twice as hard to make up for my less than Jordanesque efforts.

Once I told her she should pick me last, since nobody else would take me
before then, and she could get Tim Johnson or Noah Finkle, excellent
athletes who always ended up together since Sarah would not be separated
from me.

She paused, her pretty green eyes scrunched up in concentration, before
saying, "Michi, if you ended up on the other team, I couldn't win. I'd
never want you to lose."



It was the summer before our junior years, and either I would spend the
night with her, or she would with me. Our parents became good friends,
despite having little in common, solely due to our unshakable bond.

"Michi, what do you want to do when you grow up?" Her finger traced lines
on my upper arm, lazy and directionless. Her words were hot on my neck and
felt better than ice cream on an August afternoon.

"I don't know. I'll find out when I get there."

"You don't have a plan?" She sounded almost indignant. Her words came out
as staccato stabs, each word enunciated with a perfect beat between. Her
finger stopped its lazy path as she flattened her palm on my shoulder.

"No, you know I don't, Sarah. I guess I'll get married and live next to
you and your husband." It never occurred to me that I wouldn't get
married, but I always imagined my adult life as living next to Sarah. The
men in our future lives were invisible and irrelevant.

Her hand slipped away from my shoulder as she rolled away. Our hips lost
contact. I felt my own breath speed up. My safety blanket had fallen off
in the night.

She rolled back, pressing herself against me so that every cell of my back
contacted her chest and stomach, as if we shared oxygen through our pores.
One of her hands held my hips to hers, pressing on my inner thigh. Her
other hand wrapped around my shoulders pulling me firmly into her urgent
embrace. Her lips danced on my neck as she spoke.

"What if we never get married? Will you be my roommate?"

"Of course! But won't we get married?" I simply had never thought it could
be otherwise. I didn't mean to sound panicked.

"Oh, Michi, Michi, of course you will if you want." As she pressed her
lips to my ear, I felt shivers race through my body. There was an energy,
a presence in my body suprised me, and I began to shake slightly. I felt a
tear drop from her eye.

 Her hand tiptoed from my thigh past my ribcage, brushing the outside of
my breast, to stroke my cheek.

"Have you thought about who you'll marry?"

"No!" It wasn't a denial, as much as an almost incoherent expression of
surprise. I had been asked out a couple of times--always by awkward,
clueless boys who perhaps thought I was awaiting their rescue--but I never
thought about dating, let alone marrying. It was all an abstraction.

"Lisa Brown went down on Noah last week."

Her tongue flicked my earlobe as her lips traced the words on my flesh.
The feeling was like nothing I'd ever encountered--strange, wonderful,
unnerving. I felt like crying, but I didn't know why. I kept shaking.
Sarah stroked my cheek again.

"Do you think you'll go down on your husband when you're married?" It was
one of the cruelest things Sarah had ever said to me. There was a hint of
mockery in her voice, not that silken caress that met my ear so often.

"Oh, shut up, Sarah, I wouldn't even know. . ." I broke into quiet sobs. I
didn't know why I was crying, but I couldn't stop. Sarah's arms moved
around my shoulders, and she began rocking me gently.

"I'm sorry, Michi, I'm sorry." She turned my face towards hers and kissed
my cheeks and eyes over and over. I buried my face in her skin and cried
until I fell asleep.

When I awoke, she was sprawled, my best friend, all over the bed in her
usual way. Her mouth hung open, a line of drool hung like a spider's web
from the corner of her mouth to a wet spot on the pillow. One of her arms,
surely painfully asleep, was still under my shoulder. I sat up, propping
my pillow against the wall and took one of her hands into mine as I
thought about the night before. I still didn't know why I had cried or
what I had felt.

No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't figure out what had happened. All I
knew was that I had the best friend in the world. Glowing, I took her hand
and pressed it against my cheek.