6. Playing a Role instead of Roleplaying
‘Sup Alicia POV.
Alicia
Spring Awakening was the taboo play about sex. It wasn’t my favorite, but everyone in drama with me was constantly begging for it to be our next show because it was so edgy. If that was the play every high school drama department wanted to put on, that made it normal and not really edgy at all.
However, the music from Spring Awakening? Didn’t suck. It was passionate and urgent and daring, the way teenage life was supposed to be, I guess. I couldn’t relate. But only to the subject matter. I was those things in so many other parts of my life. When it came to sex? Meh. Who cares? I mean, lots of people. Just not me.
The only time I cared about sex was on stage. That’s where I was always passionate and urgent and daring. Where I could be anything and nothing could stop me. I went to this theater camp in NYC one summer and played Maureen from RENT, and yeah, I sold it. Just like I did with being a faerie queen or a witch or a teapot.
You could be anything on stage, even things totally different from you because that’s what it was about, pretending for a while. Making other people believe. Going somewhere different, being someone different.
Eventually though, the final curtain call happens. The lights came up, the makeup came off, and you were you again. And me doesn’t have a lot of feelings when it comes to sex. But other stuff? Like Rodgers and Hammerstein and Hamilton and even stuff people aren’t expecting from me like Kendall Jenner and monster trucks? Hell yeah.
I’m okay with being asexual. I’m not loud and obnoxious like my best friend, so I’m not going to ramble on about all my virtues. I like myself. That’s the bottom line. I don’t want to be different. I don’t want to change. Because if you added something, you’d have to take away something else. I don’t want that.
There’s this one thing in particular these days, one person, who I really don’t want to be taken away.
Which is where things get complicated.
“Are you sure?” Lydia asked for the seventh time. That wasn’t hyperbole. I counted.
We were sitting on the dock of the lake, sun shining down brightly, though strategically placed trees were currently giving us shelter from the harshest rays. I wasn’t attending summer camp this year, but I was a counsellor at one outside of town instead.
“It’s not like I’ve ever had sex before,” I told Lydia, turning my gaze away from where it had been glued to the water in front of us to actually look at her for a moment. “How can I say anything for sure?”
Lydia was wearing black, as usual, like she didn’t even care that it was summer. I loved that about her. She did what she wanted. “Some things you just know even though you don’t know because of experience,” she told me.
“It’s the experience that gives you the certainty.” As much as being with her in that way didn’t sound fantastic, who knew? The reality could turn out better.
“I hadn’t even kissed a girl once, and I knew I wanted to.”
“You got to try.” It was sweet, nice, her trying to protect me. Only I got to see a sweet side of Lydia. I should enjoy that.
“Okay, but the point was how much I wanted to,” she argued lightly. “Even when I tried not to think about it. Actually getting to kiss a girl didn’t change anything or show me anything about myself that I didn’t already know. It was just, like, a step in the right direction.” She was saying I already knew what I wanted. It wasn’t about figuring something out as much as confirming it.
“I don’t think it’s that way with me,” I replied quietly. Really? Maybe I had thought so once. “In general but maybe not when it comes to you.” Yeah, I hadn’t really expected—But now…
My girlfriend thought about my words for a moment.
Lydia was an ocean. Rocky shores, turbulent waves, one wrong move and you could meet your doom. And also, there was an entire world under the surface full of unimaginable wonder and beauty. Yes, she was dark and stormy and scary, but I had probably seen her smile more times than anyone on the planet. Whenever we were together, she seemed happy.
Her version of happy. And her version of happy went pretty well with mine.
There was just so much to her and so much to my feelings for her. It wasn’t impossible there was an element of something I’d never experienced before. Something there that wasn’t ther—what did that remind me of, oh. Do not start singing Beauty and the Beast. Maybe with Lydia, I felt… arousal, desire. Lust? It could happen. Right? Right. Sexuality was fluid and all that. I really believed that! Just…
“Are you sure?” She asked me again. Eight times.
“Lydia.” Did she have to make this so difficult? Probably. I liked that about her. “I mean it,” I told her.
She was looking at me critically, as if even the slightest micro expression would reveal the truth. And this was actually another one of the things I loved about her. She never let people off easy. Then she said, “You can’t just tell me what I want to hear.” My eyes widened and she corrected, “What you think I want to hear.”
“This is something I want to explore,” I carried on, almost like reciting a speech. “Not everyone is certain.” I had been. Sort of. In the abstract. No sex, no thank you. But then Lydia came in and made everything more complicated and I couldn’t even hate her for it because I loved her so much. “This is… This is in the maybe pile.” Don’t ask me if I’m sure for the ninth time. “Believe me,” I tried. “There are tons of things I never want to do, and this isn’t one of them.”
“Oh, this sounds like a fun game.” I looked at her until I couldn’t anymore, but not in a bad way, when she was like this it was like staring directly at the sun. She always seemed so much younger when being mischievous or playful.
Didn’t expect her to lighten the mood, that wasn’t her strong suit, but I smiled and considered her words. Things I never wanted to do? “Go to Build-A-Bear, say y’all, do another production of Grease,” I listed.
