I spent the next few years making out with girls in the shadows, listening to dyke drama in the locker room and doing everything I could to get the attention of the boys I had crushes on. I went on dates and was picked up for dances by boys my parents told me were sweet as they took pictures of him holding onto me and me smiling with my eyes shining from being loved and accepted. I listened when boys assured me anything short of intercourse wasn't sex, all too often ending up with cum on my blouse as they groaned and smiled. It wasn't real and didn't make me a slut. I was helping a boy soothe his most basic need and he, in turn, told me how wonderful I was. I never asked for sex, I understood where I stood when it came to sex. I got praise and that was pleasing enough. Good girls didn't talk about such things, even amongst ourselves. Instead, we all shared tips on how to help make his orgasm better without mentioning we could have them too. I still went to queer parties occasionally, always being sure to call them team get-togethers or team-building exercises. Which wasn't a total lie since everyone got plenty of exercise at those weekend getaways but they did little to make us a more cohesive team, in fact, they may have hurt more than they helped given the dyke drama that often ensued afterward. At least boys and girls didn't stew in their drama after the inevitable break up. At fifteen, I greatly preferred the company of boys and my straight girl friends to the queer girls and their parties that I encountered through athletics, I wasn't sure I would play for the team my junior year. I still loved running but I didn't like the girls and the things being an elite athlete made people think about me.

I fell in love for the first time with a boy who genuinely enjoyed my presence at fifteen. He didn't act like I owed him anything when he brought me flowers or paid for a date. He was a perfect gentleman and a good kisser. We were two teenagers in love for the first time who wanted each other desperately. He had me against an arcade machine in his family's game room and I could tell we were both turned on.

"I'm ready, Drew," I told him through gasps of air as his body pressed hard on top of mine and I pulled him in so his lips were on my neck.

"Are you sure, Piper? I don't want to rush you. I want to be the one. I love you so much. I could never hurt you. I want to be the one to show you how good it feels. I know what people say at school but I don't believe it," he whispered as he nuzzled against my collarbone and inhaled the scent of my perfume, "And if you were there's no way you would know how to get a guy hard or want to find out. You aren't disgusted by my body or my kisses."

"Yes. We're in love and you make me feel better than any boy ever has. You date me even though everybody says I'm gay because of the way I look and how good I am at sports. I trust you."

He snuck me into his bedroom and lifted me onto his bed as I asked him to leave his desk lamp on.

It felt good to finally be good enough to be the type of a girl a boy I liked would want to do the real thing with. He touched me gently and offered me pleasure in all the right places before taking his pleasure. Still, all too quickly it was over and I was left feeling unfinished while he was spent and satiated. He kissed me one last time as his pecs rubbed against my tender breasts, a normally satisfying motion that at that moment felt so hollow.

I didn't suddenly gain the knowledge as to the mysteries of the universe and what it meant to be a woman. That probably had more to do with being a fifteen-year-old girl than anything else. We saw each other a few more times because he made me feel something and I had strong feelings for him. One night, I finally got up the courage to ask for what I wanted while we laid in his basement, still naked after making love, "will you go down on me?"

"If that's what you want," he whispered as he kissed my forehead.

"I've always been curious how it would feel," I responded.

"I've never done it before," he told me as his hand snaked its way down my belly.

"Me neither but I want to do it with you," I replied.

My skin tingled as he kissed down my belly with his dry lips and I felt the toughness of his face on my skin as his mouth worked its way down. As our first time having proper sex had been, this moment of intimacy wasn't what I had imagined it would be. Once again, the reality didn't match the fantasy. It made me unsure if I ever wanted that again, which maybe wasn't such a bad thing since in my young mind that would keep me squarely in the realm of heterosexuality. I almost breathed a sigh of relief that I did not actually enjoy the one act that I considered most lesbian, the ultimate act between two women. I was definitely not a lesbian. It would be around eleven and a half years before I ever asked anyone to do that again and I was so proud of myself but now I wasn't so sure. When he went to wash up and I heard him gargling and spitting into the water, I knew our time as a couple was nearing its expiration date. I just didn't know how to break it to him without breaking his heart. I loved him and enjoyed being with him in every sense but something was missing, we weren't fully connecting the way I imagined I would with the one I would choose to spend my life and raise a family with.

Luckily, a talent scout saw me at Nationals and couldn't believe that I was nearly sixteen and already beating the top varsity boys in the state.

"Hey, number 28, Chapman; right," she asked when she caught up with me and handed me a bottle of water. She was a gorgeous thirtyish woman with long dark hair and light eyes. I couldn't stop staring at her perfectly tanned, blemish-free skin, the lines cut by her muscles the only ones on her body. I should say that I didn't notice or like what she was doing as she stared a little too long at my ass but both of those things would have been a blatant lie.

"Yeah."

"I'm Theresa and I work for Millbrook Prep. It's one of the most exclusive prep schools in New England and we've been watching you for a while but you were too young to recruit. You're sixteen; right?"

"Let's just say I might as well be," I responded in that cocky tone only an overly curious teenage girl could muster.

"We have a top athletics program in addition to stellar academics that prepares girls for all the best liberal arts and women's colleges across the country. Our school is for gifted girls who thrive in smaller, single-sex environments. Are your grades as good as the run time you just posted?"

"They fell a little last semester and they've stayed stable during this one," I replied as I slowed down and fell into step with the most gorgeous woman I had ever met up to that point.

"Harder classes," she asked with a smile.

"Not really, I mean I took my first honors courses this year, they weren't all that more difficult and I'm registered for three AP courses next year but it's just that there's just so many distractions now that I'm in high school," I confessed

"Dyke drama? That was hard for me too at your age," she confessed as we walked away from the field and I followed her without any question from either of us.

"No, I met my first boyfriend over the summer and we've been going steady since homecoming. I like boys. I'm not gay."

"Sure, Chapman. But maybe you just haven't realized it yet. And that's okay. That's another area where our institution can help. You could figure out who you are without the added distractions and parental expectations of mainstream society. We foster a college-like environment, especially for our elite athletes. You will be free to explore yourself and your interests in a way you can't at a school where you aren't being challenged athletically. You are already part of the best public high school sports program in Connecticut."

"I've experimented with girls and didn't hate it but it's so much drama and analyzing everything. Boys are simple. And I prefer the feeling of their stubble against my skin, it's the natural order of things. It's the only way I'll fit into society and have the life I'm supposed to. I shouldn't be telling you this."

"But you did, Chapman. How about I buy you a smoothie and give you my pitch and if it's not for you then it's not for you," she told me in a confident tone that made me shiver. I hoped she didn't notice but her cocky smile said she did.

But of course, the school she worked for was everything I had ever dreamed about, it was perfect and they were prepared to offer me a full scholarship with year-round room and board contingent on maintaining a B+ average and winning on the sports field. It was unlike the prep schools my parents had been trying to get me to go to that were more of a charm school than a true college training ground. I quickly settled into the dorm for the most elite athletes where the only rule was to ace your exams on a Friday and win on Saturday, other than that nobody cared what we did. So it turned into a floor of under supervised girls all at various points of the queer spectrum but with the same hormones as every other red-blooded teenager. Once in a while, a parent would find out and the administration would tell us to tone it down but we were the reason college scouts wanted to come to observe the students who didn't excel in athletics so we ruled the school like football players at a Texas high school. It wasn't long before I spent the night in another girl's bed. I don't know how I ended up there just that we ended up underneath a blanket touching each other between the legs with our panties and nightshirts on.

Then college came and I accepted a scholarship to Smith. And it was just like the boarding school but with even more independence. Queer students seemed to outnumber straight, gender-conforming ones that I saw lounging on the quad.

I still remember her name. Jessica. The first of what would become a three-year string of almost firsts when it came to women. And according to Alex, when I lost my virginity to a girl but I didn't think it was then since she never touched my bare flesh in that most private spot. We had been spending a lot of time together under the guise of studying and improving our run time as if we weren't already two of the fastest runners in New England and on the Dean's list for our first semester.

"Piper, I'm going to kiss you now," she told me as I tried to make sense of a particularly difficult passage. Over the past few weeks, there had been stolen glances and covert strokes on warm skin, hands running up thighs and back rubs that went lower than they had to but went I stopped.

"Please," I said as her lips slowly met mine. Next thing I knew we had magically gone from sitting cross-legged on the floor to her bed. She was naked on top of me with just my running shorts on, still kissing me and I was returning every kiss with the same force and vigor. She slipped her leg between mine. I didn't say yes but I didn't say no. I had danced with girls and cuddled with them but there had been none of that. My body yielded to hers as her hand explored my body, avoiding my center as if she was waiting for me to say the word stuck in my throat, to state what we both desired. Her larger breasts crushed mine as our bodies rubbed together and we fought for dominance. I heard her moans as she placed my hand between her legs and instinct took over, quickly spreading her lips open and finding her clit, swollen and begging for my touch. I felt a charge run between our flesh like a plug in a socket as her moans became deeper. Whatever I was doing, she was enjoying it. I wanted so badly to tell her to make love to me, to let her take off my shorts and do whatever she wanted with my pussy but I didn't have the courage. She ramped up her amorous attempts as her lips began to slowly traverse my body, kissing every inch and humming when she smelled the thick arousal coating my panties. I knew what she wanted but I was still too scared to give it to her as much as my body craved it. I knew if I ever went down that road, I wouldn't make it back.

"I like boys. Sexually. Romantically. I'm not gay. I'm not," I told her as I came to what I thought were my senses.

"Stop lying time yourself, Piper. Maybe Polly and all those girls you hang out with and carpool up to Amherst with on the weekends when we don't have a meet believe you but nobody else does. You can't say you aren't feeling this."

"I like you but I can't. I have dreams and aspirations that I'm not going to let sex rip away from me. And even if you don't understand it, Jess, I do enjoy having sex with guys. I don't really see myself getting married but if I ever did, I see myself with a husband. I want a partner I don't have to worry about showing affection to no matter where we are. Being with a woman just doesn't fit into anyone's plans for me. I'm in love with you and I want your tongue between my legs, I want to feel your touch and for you to know what you do to me but I can't. That one thing you can't give me is the one thing I need most."

"As long as you straddle two worlds, Piper, you'll never be whole. Nothing changes if our generation makes the same choices our parents did," she told me angrily before ordering me to leave. I did and she soon met the girl who would become her college sweetheart and now her wife of two years while I tried to quiet the war inside me. I told myself since nobody went down on anybody that it didn't count as sex. We didn't talk again outside of following each other on social media and alumni pages until I got a private message on Facebook from her a year ago after updating my status to "in a relationship" upon moving in with Alex but didn't yet link a name to the announcement.

Is it with that woman you became friends with on here three months ago before you suddenly started talking about going out on dates in Manhattan?

Followed by a winking emoji and I hope it is…she seems lovely.

I simply typed back the most explanation I could handle at that moment, yes. And the thumbs up and smiling emojis she sent in response were the only encouragement I needed to add the name of my new partner.

When I posted the picture of Alex and me with her hand on top of mine last fall, showing our engagement rings, she was the first to congratulate us and offer to help in any way with wedding tips. When I told her that Alex and I were going to start trying for a baby together she asked if she could ask how we were planning to try. I told her about using Alex's frozen embryos in my womb and she said she had been thinking about going that route with her wife and each carrying a baby from the other one but not sure it was possible. And after this morning when I posted a picture of an ultrasound with two babies and Alex's hands caressing my bump as I laid my head on her chest she texted me that her and her wife had finally gotten up the courage to make that first call to an IVF clinic. We were now in a place where we could help each other grow and maybe we weren't meant to be lovers but we had finally realized we were meant to be special to each other.