Female Friendship, Eroticism, & Betrayal - Meghan

Meghan and I met at a menial service job after I had just turned 21. I can’t remember the exact moment I saw her for the first time, or even what our first exchange was like. I do remember thinking that she seemed nice enough — quiet, dutiful, polite, but mostly unremarkable. I remember pitying her for having very deep, pitted acne scars all over her face. They looked even worse in specific lighting and when her face got red. Perhaps it was due to rosacea, or maybe skin sensitivity from all of the peels that she and her fellow esthetics students were using on each other in beauty school. We struck up several friendly, predictable conversations together during our shared shifts. I was eager to connect with everyone and anyone at the time, as I had just emerged from a particularly dark, isolated period of my life. I got the sense fairly quickly after speaking with Meghan more than once that she felt just as lonely as I was, perhaps even more so. She harboured a strangeness that I had yet to put my finger on or fully understand. When she asked me to go out for a drink after our shift one evening, I enthusiastically agreed.

Our friendship grew during the summer of 2022. It’s difficult for me to recall what Meghan and I even had in common, or what we discussed on those shapeless afternoons and evenings that we spent together, aimlessly walking around downtown, sharing a margarita and some mid tier Mexican food, or laying side by side with our legs dangling over the jagged rocks by the bay. I learned that she was far less milquetoast than I had initially assumed. She had an impulse for drinking a bit too much. She expressed sexual interest in people who she probably shouldn’t have, a desire to “be tied up, hit, and fucked really hard”. She had a very strained and unfortunate relationship with both her mother and father. She barely spoke to her sister.
The weeks and months that followed bled into each other. Excitement and intrigue went as quickly as it came. I had some of my first novel sexual experiences that felt momentarily electric – dangerous, even –  but sparked and hissed into ultimately nothing. I continued working at that same shitty service job and consistently showed up late, high, or both. My very alcoholic, repressed lesbian boss and I awkwardly flirted with each other, but I was too afraid of the imminent fallout that would surely occur if I actually went through with trying to fuck her. I went back to intensive outpatient therapy. I fell asleep in strange places; my car, the floor, the park, a hotel bedroom next to two other patients in my intensive program. Naturally, I spent several more afternoons and evenings with Meghan during this hazy, unpredictable era of my life. We had grown far more comfortable to the point where we fell asleep curled up next to one another. Admittedly, this thrilled me. I hadn’t experienced this sort of closeness to a female friend in many years, and I desperately craved it. I wanted another woman to be intimate with who truly cared about me. I wanted her to look at me adoringly when I got dressed or did my makeup. I wanted her to share in my passions, and truly listen when I spoke. I wanted her to dance with me at the loud, stuffy club downtown, accompany me to the women’s restroom, to laugh at the hapless men who groveled for our attention at the bar. 

One night, I was laying next to Meghan in her bed.  A shred of light from a streetlamp shone through the thinly-curtained window and illuminated the pink cotton sheets which we were curled underneath. I was facing her, just barely able to see her expression in the darkness. “Do you believe in God?” I asked her. “No” she replied, smiling, perhaps amused at the spontaneity of this question. “I just don’t understand how people continue going about their life without religious or spiritual convictions” I exclaimed. “Like, what motivates you then? What is it in your life that inspires you to be good?” She didn’t have an answer. She wasn’t sure, she said. We had been drinking that evening, and I was overcome by that buzzy, spacious feeling that comes with sharing intimacy with someone while also being moderately tipsy. For the first time since we met, she looked beautiful to me that evening. I was overcome by this feeling to reach my hand out and run my fingers through her hair, and I did. She smiled. For several moments, I wanted to lean in and kiss her. I probably would’ve had sex with her if she wanted to. Something intuitively stopped me from going further, though. I wasn’t sure what. I brushed her cheek softly, giggling, before turning over and falling into a deep, satisfying post-wine sleep.

I smoked weed for the first time in my life on my twenty-first birthday with my mom; the second time I smoked weed was with Meghan in her driveway. It was late at night as each of us stared blankly into the darkness, a cacophony of cicadas drowning out the cars speeding down I-275 just a block away. She reached over at one point and handed me a joint. I was apprehensive at first, but willingly took a few hits when I realized just how excited she was for me to try it. “It’s from Shayla’s dad – it’s strong! You’ll see”. And it was, pleasantly so. The high crept in slowly, cradling my entire body with a warmth and unique satisfaction that rarely occurred in my perpetually vigilant, anxious state of mind. Her and I began to chat lazily after this, giggling randomly, the high making everything feel transient and unserious. I glanced over at her and smiled. With my rational faculties dulled by the weed, I felt emboldened in that moment to stir the pot. “Kiss me” I said. She was seemingly surprised, but her smile widened. “What?” she said. “Kiss me. I don’t have much experience, and I’m paranoid about being a bad kisser. Show me how you do it”. She laughed, and asked me if I was sure, and if this was just for fun. “Of course I’m sure! None of this is serious, I just need you to tell me if I’m any good!” We leaned in at the same time, giggling. I kissed her first, gently, and she followed suit, pressing her lips and tongue into my mouth. I reciprocated, grazing my tongue against her teeth and the inside of her cheeks. She was a decent kisser, I thought to myself. Tactful. We made out for several seconds, or possibly minutes, her kissing growing slightly more aggressive and urgent until finally I pulled away slowly. “You taste good”, I said, matter-of-factly. Her cheeks were bright red and she laughed, not meeting my gaze. I asked her if I was any good at kissing, to which she laughed again and said “yeah… very good. I don’t know how you would ever be insecure about that in the first place”. Meghan looked at me again, her face suddenly falling  “You sure this isn’t serious, right? Like, this was just for fun?”. The weed had jumbled my thoughts and ability to respond to social cues, and I couldn't help but burst into laughter. “Yeah I told you! None of this means anything to me”. I winked at her playfully, and she averted her gaze again.  I felt so wonderfully detached from my own personhood and responsibility in those moments – what I felt was a rekindling of this playful exploration that I so fondly remembered from my childhood, as well as something else. Something perhaps just as innocent, but ultimately not very flattering; I felt egoically gratified, dominant, and completely in-control. I was beginning to learn that I was a potent subject of desire. I felt certain of this for the first time in my life. I brandished this newfound ability like a weapon.

An utter lack of responsibility, embodiment, and control possessed me for months to come, ebbing and flowing by an unconscious force within me. I was hopelessly in love with a certain beautiful, brilliant man who radically altered the course of my life forever. I was absolutely devastated that we couldn’t live together yet (this was for a variety of logistical and very unfortunate, dire reasons that I will not elaborate on until it is appropriate to do so). My short, intense visits with him in his scrappy Bushwick apartment were shining bursts of hope and optimism for my future, our future – many other aspects of my life slowly started to feel stale and overdone (true love has the tendency to clarify one’s direction and outlook on life in a way that few other things are able to, after all). I was getting increasingly bored and frustrated with my waywardness – dull outings to bars, a disordered kratom habit, undereating, overspending, odd sleeping patterns. I went back and forth between both of my parent's homes, hauling clothes and toiletries to and from. Both mom and dad could sense that something was off with me during this time in my life; in an effort to be helpful, mom would tearfully plead with me to stop being so irresponsible, while dad decided to place strange, gratuitous restrictions on my behavior and presentation while I was around or staying in his house. Neither approach was helpful, in fact, and only left me feeling claustrophobic in their presence. It was for these reasons, among others, that I felt desperate to change my living situation as soon as I could. When Meghan said that she was looking for a roommate, it felt like God himself had granted me the perfect escape route.