As eye-opening as our discussion was, I simply forgot about Matrix by the time the weekend arrived. In fact, I had no plans to ever speak to her again. Although interesting, she was a little too… Matrix for my taste.
Charlene and I met on karaoke night at the gay bar, which was more my style. She was an older lesbian who was probably a hot mullet-wearing dyke in the eighties. But as she sat at the bar enjoying a drink and listening to people sing, she initially seemed worn down. Life had happened to her, and from the looks of things, it had not been kind. Strangely, when she turned in the light of the bar, her face morphed between tired hag and sexy older lady. Similar to those cars with opal exterior paint—one minute they are blue, the next green. To be perfectly honest, no one could tell if she was pretty or ugly. At the end of the evening, my conclusion was undetermined.
Either way, her personality was vivacious and warm. She was an upbeat woman, unafraid to shake her ass on the dance floor. We became beer friends because Charlene was freaking awesome. We slept together because we were freaking drunk.
Charlene rented a room from another older conservative lesbian who frequently entertained her very young girlfriend from time to time. The younger girl was also a soldier on the same installation, so the four of us soon started hanging out.
My twenty-eighth birthday was around the corner. We were making plans for a huge gay party, until I got arrested for stealing. Only the Lord himself knows what possessed me to take that pendant with eighty dollars in my pocket, but I thought four years of financial struggle in Las Vegas was to blame.
Part of the required procedure for prosecuting soldiers charged with theft is mandatory counseling. During my first session the psychiatrist told me it was a mid-life crisis after asking my age. He claimed he was writing a book about it.
“Are you also dating women?” he asked frankly with a pen in his hand, ready to write my answer down.
“Excuse me?”
He looked to me to explain with a crooked smile. “The demographic for my book is women between the ages of twenty-five and thirty-five. They seem to go through a mid-life crisis between these ages and do things they wouldn’t normally do. Like sleep with other women. You are married, right? And are you sleeping with women?” His hand and pen went back to the paper in preparation.
“I’m open. Listen, what does this have to do with determining my mental stability and punishment? Am I getting kicked out of school or not?”
He diverted. “Would you answer some questions for me? For the book, of course.”
I answered three or four questions before the pervert-meter reached maximum capacity and I refused further queries into my sex life. His evaluation rendered a demotion one week before my upcoming promotion. I received extra duty and was restricted to my room in the barracks on my birthday.
It was embarrassing to tell Douglas and Patty later that evening. They offered words of encouragement and tough love to get my shit together. My arrest was briefly mentioned to Zelda, but she couldn’t have cared less; she was too excited to tell me how much money she won at the tables. She made arrangements to fly to Georgia for a visit and promised she would make up for my missing birthday party.
Ironically, Matrix called the day of my birthday to wish me a happy one, which was nice of her and much appreciated, but it made me very uncomfortable. “How did you know it was my birthday?” I questioned.
“You told me when we spoke of horoscopes.”
“You remembered that?” Admittedly, I was impressed, but not enough to involve myself with her again.
“So, you got into trouble? Well, how about this, I will stop by and we will have a little mini party in the dayroom. I will bring the cake. It’s not a problem at all.”
God bless her beautiful face, she drove to the barracks within an hour, complete with a meal from Arby’s, a card, birthday cake, and candles. It was sweet, but a bit peculiar to share my special day with her and strangers in a community room. Every passerby was staring at the light from the candles in the top bun of the burger—not in the cake—and Matrix in her faux jacket and half-shaved head. We must have been quite a spectacle. She did not stay long, but, when she left, I watched her drive away from the window in my room. As my nose pressed against the cold glass, my breath fogged the pane. “You are nice, but, please, don’t call again. Fucking weirdo.”
Although my infatuation with Zelda dominated most of my thoughts, there was interest in a young student from my class. She was nerdy, blonde, butch, and fresh out of basic training. Peter teased relentlessly, calling her a “baby dyke,” and poked fun of my reaction to her as she walked into the classroom. My advances were ill-spent. She was clueless to my attraction. When finally released from restriction, I bluntly asked little Private Marche to go to the bowling alley with me. She accepted my offer as her face flushed and she nervously pushed up her glasses.
Most of the students frequented the bowling alley because drinking was legal for eighteen and up. Marche was a month from her twenty-first birthday. Inside the alley, in a separate room, was a bar complete with pool tables, a back patio, and volleyball pit. We shared a wonderful evening, even though one of her scandalous friends begged me to fuck her behind a fence surrounding the volleyball court.
After last call, Marche and I stumbled back to our barracks completely drunk. We stopped midway behind a dark building so she could release the fluid in her bladder. She was youthful, full of energy, and seemingly carefree, but she was a bit of a wallflower; socially reserved, if you will, until you made her comfortable. Part of my drunken conversation on our long walk was about my attraction to women who were confident and bold. She listened intently as we staggered home.
As our night came to an end, our paths, quite literally, divided. We found ourselves standing under an intensely lit streetlamp that seemed to be the brightest one on the road. It lit the intersection of a four-way stop where we said our goodbyes. This was where we prepared to split directions to our designated barracks. I headed left; she turned right. However, just as my first step hit the road, she grabbed my arm, spun me around, and kissed me for all to see. Right there on a well-lit corner of a military installation.
She backed away with the biggest smile. “Text me. I have to run, seriously. Text me!” She ran toward the football field a little faster than normal because she knew I was watching.
Once comfortably tucked into bed, we began our onslaught of text messages. She explained how she cut her leg jumping through the window of her room in an effort to elude the drill sergeants. Completely charmed, I found myself giggling out loud in the dark.
We shared sexual fantasies before I invited her to spend the night the next evening. Ramifications of a new student caught sleeping in my barracks were severe, not to mention, we were both girls. What I asked of her was deeply rebellious and wrong on so many levels, but she walked to my room the next evening with her book bag and computer, fully prepared for a sleepover.
During a dry hump session, it was clear that there was an experience gap between the two of us. You see, she came into my world after my discovering interest in rougher sexual encounters. Everything Private Marche knew how to do was simplistic, soft, and sensual. Though a pleasant refreshing change, it bored me a little.
Twenty minutes into heavy petting, this little harlot had to remind her fledgling that clothing was optional. A seven-year gap in age can sometimes put clarity on experience differences. Case in point, the older, more mature Charlene wanted me to explore her vibrator collection within the first five minutes of our encounter. She didn’t think anything of it, while I felt like a vibrator Nazi. But, I digress.