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Penelope's space was full of strewn books and papers, but she cleared the bed so we could sit, and told me about herself. She was twenty-three and earning a double degree in psychology and philosophy, even though her family wanted her to study law. She loved to write, and it was her dream to travel to exotic countries. Staying in one place for too long made one too comfortable and more reluctant to leave and explore the world for its limitless possibilities, to find the best, or at least alternate, versions of yourself. Her stories were entrancing, but I had no inclination to recount my sexual history to her, fearful that she'd judge me. I was already accustomed to keeping my own secrets and being the only person who truly knew those details about my personal life.
As she glorified her vagabond ways of life, I learned Penelope was many people rolled into one singular, intriguing woman. She was the utopian idealist, the rational scientist, the dreamy poet, the analytic psychologist. She strongly believed that the pursuit of happiness and knowledge were one and the same. A stack of books atop a comfortable reading chair, each a different subject, each with its own bookmark, betrayed this fact to me as well as her dialogue, almost as though she wanted to learn everything simultaneously. She was spilling over with potential, talent, beauty and generosity. I couldn't help but fall in love with her, and I'd never even loved a man before. I fell asleep that first night on her lap with her fingers buried in my long hair.
Penelope's apartment soon became the axis around which the world spun dizzily and incomprehensibly. Time no longer mattered. We would spend hours upon hours talking about anything and everything together, omitting what seemed to be her painful past, as well as my sexual history with men. It was normal to have secrets. Did friends need to tell each other everything? Soon I'd buried my past so far down below the surface that I began to forget about the men and my desire for domination.
A week after we met, fuelled by the few puffs on a marijuana joint that Penelope casually passed to me, I kissed her. She'd been sitting cross-legged on the bed next to me, Jimi Hendrix's Red House playing in the background, the afternoon sun making her raven hair glisten almost to a purple, her smoky gray eyes lightening as she peered at me. There was softness to her kisses as she took her time with me, slowly shedding our clothes, pressing our lips to each others' bodies, lying side by side, touching and experimenting with each other.
I felt lust as I'd never experienced before. I longed to touch her, to feel her soft skin rub up against mine, to tenderly caress the slopes of her body with my hands and mouth, to take in her feminine scent. This was so unlike anything I'd ever encountered with men, whose roughness, hurriedness and selfishness never afforded the patient exploration I learned with Penelope. She'd been with another woman before but I hadn't, and she took time to show me what she liked, and how to touch her. When she climaxed beneath my proud tongue, I memorized the exquisite details of her face, the perfection of her body. A man's orgasm could never compare to the resplendency of Penelope's pursed lips and flushed chest, her hard nipples and swollen clitoris.
Whereas I'd always taken on a dominant role with men, Penelope and I mostly on equal ground, except that I was certain I revered her more. We spent months exploring each other's bodies with unrelenting hunger. Even when we were apart, I could feel her flawlessly velvet flesh beneath my fingertips, taste her honey on my tongue, envision her glistening pussy before my eyes. I couldn't imagine being without her, felt like everything I knew was her, that I wanted to share everything with her. But one day she approached me with a proposal-- a ménage à trois, with another man.
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