I was gratified and, admittedly, slightly surprised to discover that I am as good at being with a woman as I am with a man.

I wasn't entirely sure that I would be - I have had little actual experience with women, despite their predominance in my fantasy life, and in my "real-life" encounters, I have usually been on the receiving rather than the giving end. Until recently, I had been more or less limited to drunken make-out sessions (well, of those there have been many, but usually with the sorts of women whose Sapphic inclinations only seem to manifest themselves when drinking, and only as way to get attention from men) and sharing a man during the occasional threesome. Not exactly the best forums in which to explore all of the possibilities - and, again, most of the women with whom I have been involved in that way have been givers. Which is fine insofar as it goes (I'm certainly not complaining), but none of them were much interested in reciprocation.

So, I've always been a bit nervous of the prospect of being with a woman one-on-one.

Like many women, one of my first sexual experiences was with one of my girl friends growing up. Practicing kissing at slumber parties is apparently a widespread enough practice as to have become cliche.

She was a church friend, natch, whose grandmother watched me after school. We spent a lot of time together, our parents unawares of what was really going on behind our closed bedroom doors when we had sleepovers. It went on for a while, maybe a couple months, and progressed a little bit further than your typical practice-kissing.

The first time it happened, we were playing "house". I am not sure whose idea it was, and whether or not it started out innocently or whether the game was an excuse for what was to come later (pubescent adolescents are a lot more aware of what they are doing than adults want to give them credit for). The first kiss was on the lips, but relatively chaste. No tongue.

The next time she stayed over, it went further but she, for reasons I can't quite fathom to this day, insisted that when we kissed we do it with a protective layer of saran wrap between us. Our tongues got tangled in the plastic.

She didn't, however, insist on it later when I kissed between her legs. Things progressed, as with each successive sleepover we tested the new waters between us, moving from fingering each other as we lay side by side, and once we were brazen enough to fondle each other's nipples in the back seat of my mother's car while cuddled up under a blanket and pretending to sleep as she drove us home from a long road trip.

She told me that she didn't want to do it anymore because she didn't want to be a lesbian. Then she stopped talking to me. I stopped going to church, changed schools, and became boy-crazy enough to put it out of my mind. She eventually moved out of state with her grandparents. Life went on, and it was a long time before my adolescent desire for other girls resurfaced - and even longer before I began to act on it.

At first, I didn't know what to do. Men are easy, they take no effort. With women I felt totally out of my element. What was I supposed to say?

Once, I had a golden opportunity, but I was so shocked by it that by the time I came to my senses it was already too late. I squandered it.

I was at a bar, visiting a friend who worked in the kitchen, sitting alone on a dimly lit couch and nursing a drink whenever he had to go back to take care of an order. That's where I was when she came to me. She had been sitting at the bar, eying me for a while - as I later realized - probably waiting for me to be alone again.

She walked straight up to me and, much to my surprise, kissed me full on the lips.

She was a bit shorter than me, with wild, curly hair that an art-critic would describe as Boticellian. Her figure was Rubenesque. She told me that I was beautiful and her name was Shalom. Then she turned around and went up the staircase behind the couch I was sitting on. I suppose that she wanted me to follow. I wanted to follow. I should have followed.

Instead, I sat there like an idiot, not quite sure exactly what had just happened or what I should do. My friend came back out from the kitchen, and as I was telling him what had happened she came back down and kissed me again on her way out the door.

I have thought about her frequently since, and the night we could have had. Imagining the things I would have done to her beautiful body and getting tangled up in her crazy mane of curls. Shalom.

***

She moaned loudly as I slid my tongue up and down her pussy, lightly teasing the barbell that pierced the hood above her clit. I was afraid, at first, that I would hurt her. When she assured me that I couldn't tear it out I went at her more vigorously, sucking and nibbling while fucking her with my fingers. With my other hand, I reached up and played with the rings in her nipples. She came hard, and after she left I could still smell her on the sheets.