Chapter 2

“We met up outside a nightclub in King Street and because we were both going back to Croydon we shared the taxi fare, we’ve been friends ever since and when she told me her girlfriend was now and out and proud I decided to come along to wish them well,” Paula explained.

“And it looks like you did the same thing,” she looked me up and down, “so what’s your connection to the happy couple?”

“Bailey’s an old friend from school,” I replied, “mum doesn’t know she’s out, I told Bailey to just send me an invitation to her twenty first.”

“So, you have a homophobic mum,” she smirked, “what else can you tell me?”

“Where I can find a room to rent,” I rolled my eyes, “don’t get me wrong, I love mum but I’m twenty one myself, I need to get out and spread my wings.”

“A room,” Paula shifted in her seat, “I have two rooms, one’s taken but the other is free.”

“East Ringwood,” she replied, “and you are working?”

“Maroondah, so that’s perfect.”

“Wait till you see the room first,” Paula warned me.

She wasn’t joking. It was a small room with a view of a shed, the back yard was tiny but as I looked around the room I felt a distinct feeling of elation. It was tiny but it came with a single bed and a built in wardrobe. The house itself was located in Grey Street, not far from the Eastfield Road shops and a short drive to Eastland Shopping Centre, but best of all it was only a few minutes from work, I could practically walk or ride to work I remember telling her as she was showing me through the house but she did seem a little embarrassed at the size of the vacant room.

“I told you it was tiny,” Paula leaned on the door jamb.

“Yeah, but it’s cosy,” I turned to look at her, “but there’s one thing you should know about me.”

“What’s that?” Paula smiled crookedly, “you’re not in the closet are you?”

“Kind of,” I glanced at the wardrobe briefly, “I’m um, I’m a Christian.”

“Okay,” Paula straightened up, “I’m sure we can work something out.”

I moved in pretty much straight away and it was like a breath of fresh air compared to home. For a start, swearing was frequent and often quite colourful, and then there was the alcohol. Paula wasn’t a heavy drinker but she liked a drink, Caroline was a little younger than I and did drink more, but the mere fact you could drink was tantalisingly refreshing. I experimented with alcohol too and soon discovered my limit was about a glass and a half and that became my nickname.

Sexual mores however were the most dramatic change because whilst Paula was a churchgoer, she also saw nothing wrong with sex outside of marriage. Here I was presented with two different types of sex life. Paula took her affairs outside the house, staying overnight at a guy’s house but she never brought a man home and rarely talked about what happened between them.

Caroline was the exact opposite, she brought guys home and I got used to seeing half naked guys in jeans or shorts in the morning. It did cause some conflict between us because Paula liked to think of the house as being a haven where you could do your own thing. Eventually Caroline did compromise and introduced her latest fuck to her two house mates and over the next six months she did see the wisdom in Paula’s approach.

I did keep going to church though but even that had changed. Now if I went to my old church it was at night when there were more people my age in attendance, but I also varied my menu to take in different branches of Protestant churches, like the Baptist and Uniting churches. It worried mum because she thought her denomination had a monopoly on truth but she kept ‘praying’ that I would be protected from Satan. Apparently he hides as a wolf in sheep’s clothing, although I saw no sheep or wolves in these other churches, just people and the odd dog!

Caroline’s sex life took an abrupt about turn one Thursday night in July when she broke up with a guy she’d been seeing for the previous few weeks, Thommo was one of those alpha male types who thinks that every woman is just playing hard to get, to him no means just try harder and when he put the hard word on me one night Caroline slapped his face and ordered him out of the house. She apologised profusely the following day.

“I’m through with men,” she told us both over dinner, “they’re all bastards.”

Four weeks later Tess came into our lives when she came around to measure Caroline up for a dress. You remember what I said about memories getting triggered by something that happens in the here and now? The moment Tess stepped into the lounge room wearing a denim jacket, jeans and an off white blouse I remembered that scene in Neighbours and that was combined with more recent memories of Bailey’s coming out party. Oddly enough she hadn’t even outed herself and I thought she was straight, but in hindsight I can admit that the first time I actually admitted I found a woman to be attractive was when I saw Tess.

She only outed herself a few days later when she returned with the dress she’d made for Caroline and as I was admiring it she casually mentioned she’d made similar dresses for her two mums. When I looked confused she explained that her mother was in a civil partnership with a woman and then she grinned. “I’m out as well but my brother is as straight as a die.”

Paula saw the signs first, the knowing looks between Caroline and Tess. I was on my way out to work when Tess came with the dress but a few nights later as I came home from a shift I found Paula sitting on the couch with a thoughtful look on her face.

“What’s up?” I pulled the hair clasp from my hair and started taking out the hairclips, “you look like you’re trying to solve a problem.”

“Not so much a problem, it’s just something you need to know about Caroline.”

“What about Caroline?” I pulled the last hairclip from my hair, “she’s not gay is she?”

“Um,” Paula pulled a brush through her hair, “she just came out a couple of hours ago, she’s gone to the movies with Tess.”

“Oh,” I sat down suddenly, “her and Tess?”

“Yeah,” she eyed me, “she’s prepared to move out if it’s going to cause problems. I don’t mind but I have to run it past you as well.”

I looked past her for a few seconds.

“If mum finds out she’ll think it’s a contagion.”

“I’m not homophobic,” she replied, “and besides, compared to some of the deadbeats she’s brought home in the past Tess is like a breath of fresh air. I’m all for it but I just thought I’d give you the heads up in case it’s going to cause you grief. I want you both to stay,” she finished.

“So, what do we do now? Put a lock on the bathroom door? I’m not used to having a lesbian living in the same house.”

“It’s not like that, there’s no locks on bathrooms because we’re all women. Let’s just carry on and see how this pans out. She could just be experimenting, I know I was much the same when I was a year or so older than her.”

“You?” I stared at her, “have you?”

“It was in a Berlin massage parlour,” she looked up as she pulled hairs from the brush, “I was with my flatmate, Jackie on a weekend break in Berlin. We’d both been drinking but she was definitely more drunk than me and we decided to go to a parlour to try it out. I changed my mind at the last minute and decided to sit it out in the reception area and that’s where I met Gaida,” she smiled crookedly.

“Let’s just say that Gaida was very persuasive, she made me an offer I couldn’t refuse when she told me that if I paid for an hour with her she’d donate her share of the earnings to Medical Aid for Palestine.”

“Oh,” I looked past her, “that’s different.”

“Yeah, it was and when she asked me what my fantasy was I told her it was seduction and that’s about all she wrote,” Paula chuckled, “she seduced me and I had sex with a woman.”

“So, what happened after?” I asked.

“We um, well I realised that it wasn’t such a big deal. Jackie was okay with it too but neither of us wanted to take it further. Jackie had a boyfriend anyway and I just put it down to an interesting experience,” she propped her chin on her palm.

“Which makes me think that perhaps Caroline is just experimenting, but if not then we’ll build a bridge and get over it.”

Paula’s confession however did affect me and while I had no comparable war stories to tell I did have other things I needed to get off my chest.

Prior that day I’d harboured doubts about the Christian faith, it’s a natural consequence of being exposed to different belief systems. You might resist at first but then you’ll find yourself adapting to the new ideas and ever since nursing college I’d been exposed to atheists, agnostics, and people from other faiths who believed quite solemnly that their faith had the monopoly on truth. That had led to the inevitable question, what is truth? Every Christian denomination and branch claims to be the enlightened ones, and the others are only seeing through a glass darkly to quote a bible verse, and that afternoon I finally let it all out. I started out feeling angry, resentful, hurt but after a few hours I felt a mixture of relief and fear. Was God really so forgiving that he would overlook my doubts or had he already turned his back on me?

Paula sat and listened to me without interrupting and by the end I felt drained. There were times I thought Paula might disagree or even reject my opinion but instead there was just the warmth of a friend. I’d been given a taste of the real world when I was in nursing college but then I was back at home under mum’s protective wings. However far from feeling protected I’d felt stifled and claustrophobic to a much more heightened level. That night as I lay in bed staring at the ceiling I felt as if I’d wakened from a dream, it was also the first time I masturbated, and the images that filled my head were of women. In the afterglow I remember looking at the clock and trying to fit this new experience into my fracturing Christian faith and failing in the attempt.

The following day was a little weird because mum rang to say she’d like to come around to see me about something, she was evasive over the phone but I agreed, I had a day off, Caroline was at her TAFE course and Paula was in bed.

When mum came around she looked a little nervous. She had been thinking about Caroline coming out and was worried that this kind of thing might be infectious. I smiled and told her that it couldn’t be passed on by sneezing, but then she started talking about this friend of hers who had sex with a woman when she was younger. It was the first time she’d ever admitted to knowing a lesbian but judging by the tone and in light of the rather illuminating conversation I’d had with Paula the previous day I came to a startling conclusion. My mother had experimented with lesbian sex, her ‘friend’ was a code name for herself and yet I didn’t make the mistake of outing her. Afterwards when Paula was having her first cup of coffee and running a hair brush through her wet hair I did relay the story about mum’s gay ‘friend.’

“It probably happened just the way you thought,” Paula mused, “I mean I was drunk at the time and when you’re drunk or under the influence of some drug then you’ll do things you never thought you’d do. It might explain her fear of homosexuality, she’s ashamed of what she did and fears that someone might out her.”

“I was tempted,” I replied, “but I didn’t want to tempt fate, she’s been quite placid lately but still waters run deep.”

“Tell me something,” Paula looked at me. “Do you ever think about doing it with a woman?”