The New Girl

By: Suzy Suburbanite

Every time I entered the Butterfly on a week night I got terribly excited. Not so much because the true diehards were out, randy and ready, but because this is when most of the straight girls and curiosity seekers went out to scratch that itch that just would not go away. They thought the Butterfly was a "safe" dyke bar: and I really dig that.

"Hey Danni," I greeted the bartender with an unusually cheery voice for a Wednesday evening.

"Hey Joan," her response seeming less than enthusiastic, "what brings you out this late on 'Hump day'?"

Late? Cheese Louise, it was only ten o'clock. But as I thought about it, this was pretty late for anything but drinking. "Oh, you know me."

Actually, she didn't know me very well. But, Danni had always been friendly and eager, and I really wasn't up to a long, drawn-out conversation about my need for some soft, tender companionship.

I guess she got the hint from my lack of either facial expression or my rasin smuggling routine, as her demeanor changed from interested to unenthusiastic again, "So, what'ya have?"

"Just a ginger ale please," I asked politely as I scanned the barroom for potential bedmates for the night.

"All right then, Sprite and Coke it is."

My mind never even digested her comment about delivering me the "bartender's ginger ale" as my eyes were locked onto the only other woman along the otherwise deserted bar. She was a lipstick goddess; slim, sexy, and feminine. She was obviously straight, from the long fingernails, and obviously nervous judging by the way her heels bounced a mile-a-minute off the brass bar rail.

"Hey," I nodded towards the bouncing wannabe, "what's her deal?" I asked Danni.

"Dunno, but I think she's trying to find the nerve for the first time, or she's had so much to drink that she can't move."

"How long has she been here?"

"Since five thirty," Danni's expression now took on a glint of mischievousness and expectancy. "You gonna give her a go?"

"Maybe," I winked at my bartender confidant.

"Well Joannie, if you don't get her, then I'm taking her home after my shift and fucking her silly," Danni said, a semi-evil grin plastered to her face.

"Slut."

"Bitch," we both giggled as Danni placed my drink before me. "On the house sweetie."

"So what's her name?"

"Dunno, every lip gnasher that's come in tonight has tried, and nobody's managed to get beyond 'Hi, my name is...'"

I chuckled a bit, thinking of all the women, just like me, who tried to get under that skirt tonight. How should I try? What makes me so different from the others?

I gave the "lipstick" woman a long, hard look. Who is she; really? I mean, what is she expecting? What brought her to this place? Is she here by mistake; just looking for a place to get drunk after a bad day at work? Did a controlling, ass of a boyfriend or husband send her out to find his fantasy sex partner? Or, is she here, tapping her heels like that and virtually sipping her drink with her eyes, because she needs that certain something, but she's to terribly conflicted to actually do anything about it?

"What's she drinking?"

"What're you buying?"

"That bad huh?"

"Just about, that girl is fucked-up, big time," Danni finished; rolling her eyes as if to let me in on a dyke conspiracy to lay the straight girl.

"Just bring me two of whatever she's drinking," I winked to my co-conspirator.

Two minutes later I was standing next to the new girl, clearing my throat lightly, "Excuse me, is this seat taken?"

The bitch ignored me. She sat there staring into her double vodka rocks as if I didn't just ask her a question. I looked over at Danni and cocked my head like a confused terrier, while the now laughing bartender just shrugged her shoulders as if to say, "Told you so."

"Excuse me? HEY," the damn girl didn't budge, but now all eyes in the barroom were upon me. All of them were waiting for me to fail in her seduction just as the others before me. Some women were laughing, some were grinning, others just looked on with slightly bored interest as the game to bed the straight girl continued.

Finally, out of frustration, I gave her a good nudge on the shoulder. The girl jumped about a mile straight up off her barstool. She appeared to be truly stunned at my touch as she turned towards me with a look of sheer terror in her eyes.

"Is anybody sitting here?" I asked again, gesturing towards the stool next to her.

She stared at me as if I'd just descended from another planet; shifting her eyes all around my face and settling on the empty, cold leather of the vacant stool beside her.

'Hmm, maybe she's from out of town, way, way out of town, like Inner Mongolia or something,' I thought as I pointed to myself and then the barstool.

She got the message and nodded vigorously in the affirmative. When my wide bottom kissed the crisp, cool leather of the barstool I felt like the conquering heroine, `Baby, meet Buffy...Buffy, baby,' and so-forth. I could've sworn I heard a collective gasp of surprise from the entire bar as they watched the previously stuck-up straight girl offer me the seat next to her.

Scooting my bum firmly into place, I rambled, as I have a bad habit of doing when meeting potential fuck bunnies. I rambled, at least until she stopped me by tapping my arm and holding her hand up to say, "Stop."

The stand-offish woman reached across the bar to grab a cocktail napkin, pulled a pen from her purse and wrote furiously for a second or so, then slid the paper in front of me.

"Please look at me when you talk, I'm deaf. Do you sign? My name is Lisa."

Dumbfounded: utterly, totally, abso-fucking-lutely dumbfounded is what I was upon reading her note. I had to laugh, but I didn't want to embarrass her. But, the guffaw welled-up from somewhere deep in my belly as I looked into her hypnotic eyes, and then the joyous melee burst forth. It was giddy, uncontrolled laughter as I realized all the impatient dykes before me had never just tapped on her shoulder.

"I'm Joan," I scribbled as my laugh turned to a chuckle and then just an occasional "harrumph".

"Hi Joan. Do you sign?"

There was almost a pleading for me to be able to communicate with her in a familiar fashion. Her eyes told the whole story: there was desperation, loneliness, betrayal, and a hurt that cuts through bone and soul alike. She was no longer my prey. I felt something else, something real and needful when I looked at her in this new light. Was this pity? Understanding? Maybe a true desire to show her that she'd found her home, her family, a sisterhood?

'Too fucking deep for ten thirty on a Wednesday night,' I thought.

Lisa was still staring at me as I'd pondered; her eyes moistening and her lower lip quivering, as if waiting for an all too familiar rejection that she knew was coming. But, I surprised her, and even myself, as I leaned close to that lovely face and kissed first her right cheek, then the left, and finally her forehead before holding her at arms length and brightly smiling my acceptance and desire.

"Do you two ladies want another round?" Danni interrupted as Lisa and I held a mesmerizing, understanding, eye-lock.

I glanced over my left shoulder, "She's deaf Danni," my silly, "Dyke out for a hump," voice replaced by a tone more serious, lusty, and intent.

Then Danni started laughing as Lisa still held my gaze. I watched with rapt fascination as her delicate hands reached to cup my face; drawing me towards her to return my gentle affection. Much to my surprise, she smooched me right on the lips and then drew back to ensure that she hadn't gone too far. This time I was positive I heard a sucking of air from the barroom, as straight, deaf Lisa pulled me towards her a second time, eyes closed, mouth open, for what was to be the most passionate, delicate kiss of my life.

"She's deaf you dumb cunts," Danni hollered, informing all the previous pretenders of their misguided attempts at fucking Lisa.

"Danni!" I threw her a scornful glare, "stop, ok?"

"Well la-de-da," she sang back at me.

Lisa was trying to keep up reading lips, but wasn't able. Her expression became fearful again. Her breathing quickened. She reached for another napkin, "What's going on? What are you saying?" she wrote half-panicked.

"Nothing," I wrote back, "just stupid dykes doing stupid dyke things, nothing to worry about. Ok?"

"Ok."

I smiled. She smiled. And then I returned her soulful kiss which left both of us breathless. Lisa was positively beaming as she reached for a new napkin to scrawl "the" big message of the night, "Are you going to make love to me?"

"Is that what you want?"

"Yes."

"Have you ever been with a girl?"

"No."

"Why me? Why now?"

"Please," she jotted on the crowded square of paper without answering my question.

I grabbed a new napkin, "You'll break my heart," I stated as a matter of fact; knowing that there was something beyond sex with this girl.

"No."

"Please don't."

I looked at her again from head-to-toe: the smooth legs, narrow ankles, gently-flaring hips, little bumps of breasts, the gentle slope from her shoulders to her neck, and the face of Venus herself. "Please don't ever hurt me," I begged again.

"I won't. Show me how, please."

Lisa's chest was heaving in anticipation as I took her hand in mine and led her from the bar. Her face and breast flush with color, her hands cool and clammy with the nerves of that first time.

Once in my car, I found a scrap of paper to write on, "Do you want to fall in love?"

"Yes," she gasped, lightly.

And I knew that this was going to be much more than a one night stand with the new girl.

--End of The New Girl--