devin, yvette, the kinsey scale

I've been thinking lately.
My memory has been jogged recently.
I've been thinking about...
a bus trip I took in high school. A coach ride back from Muncie, Indiana to Vienna, Virginia. I remember that coach ride, and a conversation I had with my then best friend devin. A conversation we scribbled in a notebook. I was fifteen. I went every summer to theatre camp. For some reason it always happened in this college in the midwest. On day two or three of camp I met this girl. Her name was Yvette. Yvette Robinson.

She was a few years older than me. She might have been a senior. All I remember is when I met her, I was struck. Struck by, I'm not sure what. She was petite, curvy as hell and had this immaculate cocoa butter smooth, chocolate coloured skin. I was not myself around her. I couldn't be. I was known as a ringleader of sorts with my friends, the chatty one, the outgoing one, the cheeky one, flirtatious even.
But with her all I seemed capable of was laughing and agreeing with everything she said.
She liked having me around though.
Or at least she didn't object to me spending as much time as with her as I did.






I remember walking with her every day, into the very lacklustre town centre, to buy cigarettes. I have no idea what we talked about on those twenty minute walks back and forth. She was terribly addicted to smoking she explained, I was so lucky not to be chained to such a habit,After one of these cigarette trips we walked back to her dorm. She had to get changed for a party in the evening. In her room she told me, she had a girlfriend. She watched my reaction carefully, perhaps thinking I might be shocked. I wasn't phased. She seemed impressed . And then, and then she said she needed to get dressed.

And then. And then she was, she was stripping off her clothes and browsing through her suitcase full of dresses and I, I had no idea where to look. Was flustered and shy and awkward and confused. Maybe I, maybe I looked out the window? Maybe I looked back fleetingly at her and looked away again. I might have looked at her pack of cigarettes, briefly considering taking up smoking. I was suddenly aware of this sense of not being sure what to do with my hands. She had asked me something. She said it again. Could I zip up her dress?

Uhhhhhhhh.. lost in every second of the pause before my yes. But she couldn't tell. Or could she? It was a cocktail dress, black, it fit perfectly. It fit her.. perfectly. She was... and I wanted... I.. I had no idea what I wanted. I felt incredibly nervous. She turned to face me, paused . Did I want to borrow anything of hers to wear? I thanked her for the offer. said I’d go back to my dorm. And I left, kind of abruptly. Feeling ridiculous and anxious because of... what?

On the last day, the final walk we shared to buy cigarettes. She was smoking on the way back. She had to finish the cigarette before we got back to the campus. We stopped walking for a while. She had been talking and talking and talking but I hadn't heard a word she was saying. I had noticed however, her mouth. A perfect mouth, a voluptuous mouth. A mouth that smiled and smoked and spoke to me. A mouth with lips that seemed to distract me from all the words that spilled from them.

I don't get it...

I tuned into her words again.

Sorry?

I couldn't care less about this camp. But you, you want to go to these
workshops and performances and.. so why? Why blow them out, hang out with me
instead?

I uh...

She inhaled. Smiled, waited... smoked. And again I thought.. that.. mouth

hey? Are you ok?

Yeah, I don't know. I just like hanging out, with you. I guess.

She shook her head, smiled quizzically. Put out her ciggarette. We walked back to camp. On the last day we exchanged addresses. But she lived on the other side of the country. I wrote her but she never wrote me back. I would never see her again.
------------------
ON the five houer coach ride home. I am sitting in the back with my then best friend devin. He is gay, this is relevant for me to say because I knew if I explained my confusion about yvette, he would understand. I knew he'd been through this with straight boys before. And until this episode I had been pretty certain I was straight.

Its late and we're not allowed to speak on the bus. Else we disturb other students, or more likely teachers and chaperones sleeping. So we write notes to eachother. Pass back a spiral notebook back and forth.

But what does it mean?

he draws a smiley with raised brows. Out of a voice bubble he writes

“ you have a crush... on.. a GIRL!!!”

He draws another smile with its mouth wide open, a cartoony shocked face.

But i'm not gay ?

He rolls his eyes, writes

NEWSFLASH:!!! Having a crush on a girl does not make you gay.

This information, in the height of nineties wave of importance of sexual identiy, knocks me for six. I start to write something, The confusion of my face almost makes him laugh out loud. He takes the notebook back.

If it makes you feel better, I had a crush on a girl this week too

.

This excites me. I quickly write.

Does this mean we're bi?

maybe, not necessarily.. look

he flips over the page, draws a long line, divides it up into sections. Looks at me again. Makes a gay symbol on one side, a hetro symbol on the other. Makes sure i'm paying close attention. Then writes

I don't think sexuality is so black and white. I think maybe its just we all are
on different sides of this scale. So maybe you like girls now, or once in a
while, or just today. It doesn't matter...
Was it a nice feeling?

I'm not sure? I'm just trying to understand it.

Well maybe when you stop
trying to “understand it”, you might like it. Or not. Wait and see..

I nod my head, rest it on his shoulder and drift of thinking about this as we drive back all those hours home.