Chapter 3

A/N: Here it is, the next chapter of Blind Date I hope you'll like it and I'll only write one more Chapter just so you guys know. Anyway I hope you'll enjoy this chapter.

Emily's Pov-

I can't remember if I had two or three shots of tequila before, I came to my fateful realization for the night, but I remember how it happened.

Paige and I were sitting on the far left side of the bar, we both had a shot of tequila in our hands, as I remember it, and I was laughing at something that she had said (though I can't recall exactly what it was, she made me laugh a lot that night). I was feeling more loose and uninhibited than I had in years. Maybe ever.

"Okay look," Paige said, "It is a simple sequence. First, the salt. Then the tequila. Then the lime. Last time you did it backwards, and you have to do it right."

"Will I not get drunker if I do it in the wrong order?" I asked playfully.

"No. And you'll prove once and for all that my dream of opening a drinking school is dead as I lack the capacity to teach drunks," she said and I smiled. She was standing up at the time, just barely resting her ass against the bar stool. She sort of towered over me as she instructed.

"Well I'd hate to do that!" I slurred, "Okay, tequila, lime, salt." I said. I can't remember if this was a joke or I really didn't remember.

"No! Salt, tequila, lime. Watch!" Paige said. She quickly licked salt off of her wrist, pounded a shot of tequila, and finished it off with squeeze of lime. Her face contorted in agony. Why do people do this? "See, easy."

"Right," I said, "Lime, Salt, and then Lime,"

"You didn't even remember tequila that time!" Paige laughed and then she pushed away from the bar, "Okay, do not drink that in the wrong order. Just wait for me. I am going to run to the little girl's room, I am going to come back and get another drink, and show you how this is done. Got it?"

"Got it. Get another drink, go to the bathroom, show me how it's done," I said, purposefully mixing the order this time (I promise). Paige laughed and slapped my arm playfully.

"You've got some weird ideas Em. You figure out the bathroom on your own when the time comes," she said and then turned to walk towards the bathroom. As she walked away I found my eyes follow her. I noted the way her hair cascaded messily down her back, the feminine narrowness of her shoulders, the way her figure sloped down from her armpits to her thin waist, and then ballooned back out in an hourglass shape. The swell of her ass in her tight jeans and the way her legs looked long and delicate in the denim. In short, I was checking her out and found myself...liking what I saw.

I guess I was drunk and normally I wouldn't have put much stock into those thoughts (I figured any woman could objectively respect the beauty of another woman's form, it didn't mean anything), but one idea in particular caused me to pause. As my eyes scanned over Paige's ass as it saw high and first in her pants, I had thought, "she's got an amazing butt, it looks like Spencer's when she was in college."

At first, this idea barely registered. Just one thought amongst many. But then I began to think of how strange it was that I had decided to compare physical attributes of my new friend with that of my old friends. And as I thought about that, I realized that it hadn't been the only thing. I realized other thoughts I'd had during the course of the evening, "She has a lilting laugh, like Spence," and "She rubs her lower lip with the back of her thumb, like Spence," or perhaps most damning, "she has a dirty sense of humor, nothing like Spence." Even when Paige was nothing like Spencer, I found myself making that the point of comparison. It was like I was using Spencer as the measuring stick by which to gauge Paige. And as I thought of that, I realized it wasn't just Paige. I compared everyone to Spencer. She was the universal constant.

I felt extremely strange coming to that realization and I placed my elbows on the bar, trying to figure out what it was, exactly, I was grasping at. Thinking about Spencer made me remember why I was here, the "prank." But now drunk, and no longer horribly embarrassed, I no longer felt that this explanation for the situation made any sense. Strangely, the drinking had cleared my mind a bit, allowed me to look at the situation clearly. Spencer wouldn't do something just to hurt me. She wouldn't have found it funny even if it happened by accident. Toby and Spencer hadn't been pulling a prank. Hell, they left money on the table for us. So what were they doing?

Suddenly, my conversation with Spencer earlier in the week, when she convinced me to go on this date, flooded back to me. And listening them in my memory, without denial and discomfort I had felt in the initial event, allowed me to hear things that I hadn't heard before.

Spencer said: "I can't sit by while you choose to be miserable," and "I think that you always date...the wrong kind of people...and are miserable, that you think the absence of misery is happiness." She asked "Em, how often do we see each other? How often do we talk?" Perhaps most importantly she'd said, "You are grasping for something here, with me, that my family and I just cannot provide for you...You need... you need more than I can give you as your best friend." And she summed it all up saying "I think you want something that you don't even know that you want and cannot understand."

I stood up quickly from the bar stool, almost losing my balance. The bartender looked over at me quizzically, perhaps wondering if I was alright. But the shot of adrenaline I felt now had done wonders to mitigate my drunkenness. I cannot completely or fully describe what I was feeling at that moment, the emotions were too chaotic. All I can say was that I felt an intense existential embarrassment that had attendant branches of fear, self-loathing, confusion, shame, and surprise.

I felt like some sort of feral animal, caught play-acting like a human being. I know that makes no sense, but that was the totality of my emotion. And, as an animal, I quickly slipped into fight or flight mode. And the only thing in the world that I wanted was to be away from this place. To go back to my home, close the door, and die. That is not youthful dramatics. At that moment, the weight of my life was unbearable and while I did not want my existence to cease, it felt like it would be easier if it did.

"I am on Spencer and Toby's tab," I yelled, in a crackling voice, at the bartender. He turned to me, confused. He'd been speaking with someone else. I didn't care. I felt tears in my eyes, tears that I could not adequate explained, and I turned and ran towards the door. Still a little drunk, I bumped into chairs as I moved quickly. I reached the table where Paige and I had eaten, grabbed my purse, and then I quickly made my way for the door and out into the street.

It was cold outside and I could see my breath steaming out of my mouth as I stumbled out into the dark night air. It hadn't been that cold when I arrived, but early fall was turning to late fall without the sun, it grew cold. I didn't know what time it was, but I took a deep breath and steadied myself. Then I oriented myself towards my condo and started to walk.

I didn't get very far when I heard someone calling my name. For a split second, I know it is crazy, but I thought that it was Spencer. But then I heard it again, "Hey Em? Em? Emily are you alright?" It said and now I recognized it as Paige's voice. I realized I'd just abandoned her in the bar. I turned quickly and she was standing about twenty yards behind me in the doorway to the restaurant.

"I..." I started but couldn't finish. I didn't even have any idea what I was going to stay. The urge to get away came over me again and I started to turn and walk away.

"Em? What the Hell? Was it something I said? Hey hold on!" I heard Paige say. I just kept moving. I figured she'd go back inside and find someone else to talk to. I couldn't be company right now. Maybe she'd meet a man in there and at least it would be a happy story for her. Maybe this date would be a strange story she told her kids someday about how she met their father and I would be a little color thrown in.

"Emily stop, why are you running away? I wasn't trying to offend you, drink your fucking Tequila any way you want!" Paige said and now I heard her right behind me. Paige had run after me. I stopped walking, sighed, and dropped my head. I was going to have to actually tell her to go away. I turned toward Paige and she was standing about five feet behind me. The street was completely empty and it was now very dark. Paige was standing under a street light, leaning against the pole and it seemed like the rest of the world existed as an impenetrable blackness around the light. Paige had a concerned look on her face and had her arms crossed over her breasts in the cold.

"I'm...sorry," I said finally, I walked back towards Paige and stopped when I too was standing underneath the light, just next to her.

"You don't have to be sorry if you just tell me what I did?" Paige said, she sounded very concerned. I wonder if her sort of brash attitude, which I enjoyed, was off-putting to some people. Maybe she had a fear of driving people away and I was playing into that fear. I felt an intense guilt and shook my head.

"No, no you didn't do anything," I said, "It was me, it was all me." I didn't want to say any more than that. We stood in silence for a few minutes. I was shivering in the cold and I could see Paige shaking as well. Finally, she spoke.

"Hey I've gotten the old 'it's not you, it's me' thing at the end of a dozen dates," Paige joked, "But I usually get a little more explanation." I winced when she called it a date and her features softened. Paige looked at me deeply for several seconds, "What is it Em? Come on, we've had fun tonight, we are kind of like friends already, let me know why you ran out of that place while we were laughing and having a good time. I can listen."

I considered for a moment just making something up, just some lie to cover over everything and get home. The desire to do this was so overwhelming that for a second I opened my mouth to explain that I was sick. But I looked into Paige's eyes. I could feel a sort of...I don't know, empathy or understanding pouring out of her. I could feel her sort of going out to me and she was right we'd had fun that night, but more than that I'd felt some connection to her that I couldn't really understand. She deserved to know the truth, she was in the same boat as me. More importantly, I wanted to tell the truth. To get this realization out of my brain and out into the world.

"I..." I started and my voice sounded choked, but Paige nodded and looked at me inquisitively, "I realized tonight that I am...sexually attracted to my best friend Spencer. I think I am infatuated with her," I finally managed to say. Paige jerked back like she'd been hit.

The effect on me was even greater. Ever since I'd had my sort of dawning of knowledge in the bar, I had avoided actually, explicitly thinking about what it was that I was thinking. I had sort of walled it up, one last ditch defense by my denial. But saying the words out loud made it undeniable. I desired my best friend, I wanted to love her and make love to her.

Thinking that caused a dozen scattered images to flitter through my brain, things that Spence had clearly noticed even when I did not. I remembered watching a movie with Spence in college and cuddling up extremely close to her, actually putting my head on her shoulder. I remembered going to the beach with her one year and conspicuously wiping sand off of her ass. I remembered driving to a concert with her once when Toby was sick and couldn't make it and actually saying that I wished it was always just the two of us. Perhaps most damning, I remembered her picking me up at the airport once after a long business trip, we'd hugged at I'd held her a little too long. I'd gone to kiss her on the cheek, but leaned too far and kissed the corner of my mouth. We laughed it off, but it hadn't totally been an accident.

Now, these were just a handful of moments across a relationship that spanned a decade and a half. Each event was a tiny little bit of my life that by itself was largely meaningless. I hadn't even realized that there was a pattern. But, now the first time thinking of these events cumulatively, I suddenly felt pathetic, transparent, and stupid. Obviously, Spence had seen these isolated events and discerned what I could not. She knew I loved her in a way that was far different from the way she loved me. And so she'd...tried to make me understand. Oddly, this made me both intensely ashamed but also made me love Spence even more. Not embarrassed or disgusted by me, she just tried to help me. That was the Spencer I knew, not the prankster. But I was still pathetic.

Paige was still looking at me, her eyes wide and her mouth slightly ajar. She was still shivering, but her focus was entirely on me now. I realized I owed her a little bit more.

"I'm really sorry. I wasn't trying to leave you like that...I mean I was but it wasn't about you. I think that my friend realized that I had feelings for her and so she set me up on this date with you. I don't think it was a joke, I think she was trying to help me. But when I realized it, I just needed to leave. I didn't want to make you uncomfortable. I don't even know why they picked you, maybe they thought because you were my age and sounded rebellious...I don't know. But I was just trying to leave before anything got awkward." I spilled it all out, trying to be truthful but to say as little about myself as possible. I noticed Paige's eyes drop and I figured that she understood. She was shaking her head. I felt dirty and ashamed. I hoped this meant I could now leave.

"It all makes sense," Paige whispered and a winced. Had she been able to tell I was attracted to women too? Was I the only one who didn't know? "The Christmas party," she said.

"What?" I asked. Paige looked up at me. I saw something familiar in her eyes, confusion or something different. She was taking deep breaths and gulping. What was going on?

"Last winter, at the office Christmas party," Paige said and then paused for a minute, not letting her eyes meet mine, "I got really drunk. I always get drunk in social situations. I always act the same, drunk or sober, but at least when I am drunk I don't feel embarrassed about it. Anyway, I got into a yelling match with some secretary from a different department and Toby had grabbed and pulled me into his office. Everyone got a laugh about it.

"Once we were back inside, Toby calmed me down, got me to realize that I was going to get myself fired. I was really pissed at him at first, but he was really sweet about everything. So I started talking to him about how I used to get in fights all the time when I was drinking in college and that got me reminiscing about college. You know how it is when you are drunk, and you just want to talk about stuff. And Toby was just fine to listen and everything. So I told him that when I was in school that Jenna would keep me out of trouble, just like he was doing then.

"That got me talking about Jenna, just general stuff, stories and everything. And I must've told him (I can't remember 100% if I told him, but I must've) about something that happened my senior year. Jenna and I went out drinking and I got in a screaming match with some girl. As a result, we didn't get back to campus until late. Jenna was only a sophomore so she still had a roommate. She didn't want to wake her roommate up, so I invited her stay in my room. Got back to the room and I passed out drunk on the bed.

"So I woke up the next morning hung-over with Jenna in my bed. But she wasn't just in my bed. When I woke up Jenna was already awake. She was lying on my left side on her belly and her left arm was draped across me, she was actually holding my breast. And she was kissing my neck. So I sat up really quickly.

"'What are you doing?' I asked, or something like that. She looked kind of confused.

"'We got back last night and talked about fooling around. You said you wanted to. You brought it up. Then you passed out. I thought we could try it again today.'

"And I was shocked. I mean, I had no recollection of that at all. But I knew she was telling the truth. I knew that I had...feelings for Jenna. They were always just below the surface. We were so close." For a moment, Paige stopped talking and just looked down at the sidewalk below her feet. I heard a slight hitch in her voice. But she continued.

"And apparently I'd finally said something to act on it when I was drunk. And Jenna hadn't just been into it then. She was still ready the next morning. I mean, it was the answer to my unasked for wish! I couldn't believe how lucky I was. How could Jenna feel the same way?

"And she said...And I will never forget what she said, because she said, 'come on sunshine, I won't bite unless you ask.' She kind of laughed but I felt my blood run cold. My mother...She always called me 'sunshine.' It was an ironic nickname she gave me because I was such a blustery kid. And suddenly I wondered what my mother would think if she saw me like this. If I went any further. I could rebel against my parents by going to school or by dressing funny and swearing. Or even drinking. But lesbian sex... sexual purity was like THE primary belief of my parent's church. I had asked Jenna to commit an abomination with me. And she would. And, I didn't think I believed in that. But my whole family believed it. And even though I pushed back against everything my parents stood for, my mother was still my model for womanhood. I still wanted...desperately wanted to be a woman like her. I knew that I wasn't, but I couldn't give up on the ideal of being like her. Even then I think I knew I couldn't be the woman my mother is, but I wasn't ready to accept it.

"So I told Jenna that it was a joke or something. I said I didn't really want it. I tried to be gentle; I didn't mock her or anything. I just said it was a misunderstanding. She knew it was a lie. And worse, she'd exposed herself freely to me. She had the same upbringing that I did. And she had been willing to love me because I asked her to, and I couldn't follow through. She must've felt so...abandoned. We weren't ever really the same after that. I haven't talked to her since I graduated. I think she dropped out." There were tears rolling down Paige's cheeks as she recalled this memory. I felt for her, though I didn't have any experience to compare. I wanted to show her that I understood, I reached out and took her elbow. I cradled it gently and rubbed her arm with my thumb, trying to show her some affection.

"I must've said something to Toby and so when his wife said something about you...they just decided," Paige said. And the final piece of the puzzle now made sense.

"I am sorry if this hurts, I didn't want you to deal with any of this, I just want to leave, I am so sorry," I said. Paige sighed and shook her head.

"I live with this every day. Part of me always knew who I was. Maybe that was why I reacted so...I don't instantly to this date. Like why I jumped to being angry and defensive so fast. Fighting against who I am, you know?" I thought about Paige's words for a moment. I understood who she was and why she behaved the way she did. It made sense, even if it was terribly sad. But I felt less certain of myself. Where did my hang-up come from?

"I guess it was different for me," I said, "It wasn't just below the surface or anything. It was so deeply buried that I didn't even realize it myself. Spencer almost came out and said it and I still didn't realize it. I just...I couldn't realize it." I was trying to explain to myself as much as to Paige.

I couldn't claim to have any religious-tinged fear of same-sex attraction that stretched back to childhood. My family was not a church going group. I didn't have an overbearing, conservative mother who sought to keep a tight lid on sexual conformity. My mom was almost a hippie and while we rarely talked about sex, I knew she wouldn't have cared as long as I was happy. My father was not appreciably different. The only explanation I could find was that, from my earliest days, it had always been my outright goal in life to do everything to do everything the "right" way. And doing things the right way meant following the most conventional path to a happy and successful life. People were supposed to work hard in grade school, join clubs and sports, apply to impressive colleges, go to a very impressive university, get an impressive job, and then work like crazy. I did all those things.

And one thing that women were supposed to do was find a man they loved and marry him. And so I never questioned that that was what I was supposed to do. And when it didn't work out, I considered it a failing on my part. I was doing something wrong. It just...it never occurred to me that I had set one goal that was unachievable. I couldn't fall in love with a man and marry him, but because my heart (and my body) didn't want that. I needed something different. I hoped that Paige could understand.

"It was something that just wasn't one of the things that was supposed to be 'Me' so I didn't think about it. Like I actually repressed it. It wasn't just waiting for a chance to get out. It was like it didn't exist. Like I didn't really have sexuality. I didn't even have the first inkling of awareness of it until tonight."

"What made you realized it tonight," Paige asked, her brows furrowed. I looked at her, this woman I had spent the evening with. She was funny, quick, outrageous, and brave (though maybe not as brave as I'd first believed, she was vulnerable too, which was alluring). And I was learning that she was sweet, insightful, and caring. I looked at the gentle curve of her cheek, the brightness of her brown eyes, the long, delicate lashes above them. I saw the thick, full pinkness of her lips (quivering a bit in the cold). I found that my body felt like it was vibrating, my limbs felt weak, and my heart was simultaneously in my throat and at the bottom of my stomach, pounding. I felt an electrical feeling all over, something I'd never felt before. An anticipation for something, anything. My inner thoughts were a half-formed riotous requiem for a barrier that was about to break.

"It..."I started to explain, but found that my words failed me. The final dam had been broken. I had torn away all the defenses of a lifetime and suddenly I didn't have anything to hold me back. 25 years of longing was too much to hold back. And now there was this person in front of me, finally, reminding me of where that desire came from and where it was directed. I closed my eyes, turned my neck slightly to the side, and leaned forward. My body now did the work that my brain could not comprehend, urging my being forward towards oblivion or a new me. And both.

I felt my lips press softly against Paige's. Her lips were slightly cool and were pillowy soft. They were just slightly damp and thick and my two lips bracketed her lower lip carefully in an easy lock. The external sensation of my lips pressed against hers was absolutely lovely. It was a sweet, almost chaste kiss. But internally, the physical power of the kiss was overwhelming, beyond even the intense emotional effects.

I had heard people talk about the way a kiss, especially a first kiss felt. I had felt "nice" kisses but I always thought that further descriptions were just wishful, romantic nonsense. If anything, I had underestimated the power. Inside my chest, my heart fluttered lightly, course blood quickly through my body. Along my arteries and all my nerves, electrical impulses seemed to shoot. Every spot on my body felt like it was pulsing with raw energy and the overall whole felt like something more. Despite this charge, my body felt loose, relaxed like I'd never felt before. In fact, I felt like my body had melted into Paige's kiss. I lacked any form except for the way my lips conformed to hers.

When her lips responded to my kiss, matching my lock, I felt my knees grow weak and my head grew foggy. The rest of the world sort of faded away. Everything that was not contained within the skirt-shaped light above our heads was an abstraction, an idea. The only thing in the entire world was us, shivering slightly in the cold. Our lips were pressed together and I could smell wine mixed with perfume. My hand still rested gently on Paige's elbow and we leaned towards one another but our bodies didn't touch. It was...perfect and we stayed that way for a long while.

Finally, our kiss broke and I opened my eyes as I pulled away slightly. Paige's eyes were still closed and she looked angelic, innocent. Eventually her large brown eyes fluttered open, but her body stayed relatively limp and relaxed.

"Wow," she said after a long pause. I couldn't read her tone. I didn't know if she was offended or confused or what. More importantly, I didn't know how I felt. The sudden realization of what I had just done crashed down on top of me. I'd kissed a woman. I'd kissed a woman by surprise. I kissed a woman by surprise and I barely knew her. My brain was swamped by the influx of terrifying information.

"I am so sorry," I said, feeling my heart rate pick up. Paige instantly started shaking her head.

"That was amazing," she said, smiling. Then she reached her right hand up and snaked it around the back of my neck. I felt her fingers slide through my hair and her palm felt warm against my skin. Soon the pads of her finger draped across my spine and she pulled me in towards her. The fear I had felt, the almost panic that had gripped me, dissipated even faster than it had arisen. I felt only excitement now. And desire.

As I allowed Paige's hand to pull my head in, I looked at her beautiful face. She closed her eyes and parted her lips slightly. I closed my eyes and did the same. In a moment, our lips were back together again. This time, there was no confusion or surprise. We both knew that we wanted this kiss. That we wanted more than this kiss. In I felt Paige's lips part and her tongue slipped ever so slightly between them. I felt it skitter briefly across my lips. I let my own tongue out of my mouth, chasing and trying to catch hers. She was too quick, but I still allowed my tongue to lick Paige's lower lip. I heard her giggle slightly.

While our lips moved against one another and our tongue tested the tiny remaining gulf between us, our bodies could abide the distance no longer. My left hand rose from my side and found her hip. My arm slithered around her lower back. I could feel her cool skin through her flimsy shirt, the way her muscles and flesh felt against mine. My hand wrapped all the way around her back, grabbing her hip on the far side and sinking slightly into her flesh. This pulled us tight and I felt my hips press against Paige's. Our hips and our legs were pushed together but our backs were arched slightly, a cavity existed between our breasts.

While her right hand was still against my neck, her left hand shook off my grip on her elbow. She slid her arm between my body and my arm, brushing my breast and sending a shiver through my body. She now hooked her arm up through my armpit and sort of grasped my shoulder over the back. Now she pulled me in sharply. I felt our breasts and then stomachs press together. My arm grew tight around Paige's waist while she essentially hugged my around my neck and shoulder, pulling me in tight.

The whole while we were kissing, our tongues flirting with one another's lips. But as our bodies grew tight and tighter together, our inhibitions loosened. I know we both felt the same desire for one another. I could feel her body trembling against mine the way mine trembled against hers, and it wasn't just the cold. I felt the way that my breasts pressed against hers, a strange sexual pressure I'd never experienced before. As a result, our tongues grew bolder.

After a few moments, I felt Paige's mouth open wider. I wanted desperately to feel the inside of her mouth, to know what she tasted like. I opened my mouth at the same time. Apparently, Paige had the same idea, because our tongues poured out of our respective mouths. I felt the wet warmth of her tongue as it pressed against mine. It felt rough, but incredibly soft. She tasted on the surface like wine and tequila (and that wasn't bad honestly), but beneath it was something more, something primal and necessary.

I felt Paige's tongue enter my mouth and felt it slide across my teeth. Her tongue thickly and languidly explored my mouth. I then pushed into her mouth, letting my tongue probe her smooth teeth, warm gums, and generous tongue. Soon our lips hand formed an almost perfect seal, our tongues sharing a single large mouth, moving freely together and against one another.

I don't know how long we kissed that way; our bodies pressed tightly together, our mouths fused as one. It felt like forever and no time at all. It was like we had activated all of my sensory perceptions to a degree never experienced before. My eyes were closed tightly but I felt like I could see Paige's delicate features. I could smell Paige's perfume, but I could smell something deeper burbling up underneath. I tasted her mouth, trying to swallow down her essence so that it would be a part of me. I heard nothing but the gentle slurping sound of our kiss. And I could feel her body, real and beautiful against my own. And some other sense, a sense of my sexuality and desire, seemed explicit to me for the first time in my life. I knew what I wanted and needed.

Finally, at long last, our kiss broke. I stayed entwined in Paige's arms as our eyes open. We stared at each other for a moment, smiling like a couple of moonstruck middle school kids. Then we giggled together. Our grips loosened as we realized we weren't going to lose one another, but we stayed close together.

"I've never had a kiss like that," I said.

"Me neither," Paige responded, if felt strange to talk. Like we'd become something different than we'd been just moments before. But what did we do now? I knew what my body wanted. But what did Paige want? I decided to be forthright.

"Do you want to...come back to my place?" I asked nervously. Part of me knew she would say yes, but I was still not comfortable in all of this. Beyond the fact that none of it felt real. Paige cooed slightly rested her head on my shoulder.

"I only ever had this kind of opportunity once before and I blew it," she said, "I don't want to blow it again. My apartment is only two blocks away." She lifted her head again and looked at me. She had this playful smirk on her face and I must've returned it. In an instant, Paige's hands slipped down off of my body. She quickly grabbed my hand and started to run. I didn't even think, I just followed after her.