I’m not a lesbian. I might have gone to an all-girls school, but it wasn’t quite the endless girl-on-girl thigh stroking of schoolboy fantasies. Instead we spent most of our time figuring out a strategy for getting the first team rugby players to notice us.
Still, despite being heterosexual, I kissed a girl for the first time when I was 18. I was visiting Suzan* at Oxford where she was studying, and one Friday night after a lot of drinking we got a little flirty and found ourselves in a bathroom together.
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Suddenly we were kissing – I can’t remember who started it – but we were a feverish frenzy of limbs, hair and locking lips. It was my first and last experience with a woman, until I met Abi*. We were at a friend’s party and I was immediately drawn to her. Pretty and fun, she was the type of person everyone wanted to be near. She had a sense of abandon about her, which was very appealing; she could transform a dull evening into a sensational one just by focusing her attention on you. Her incandescence was powerful and deeply sexy. I can’t explain why I suddenly desired a woman, but on that first night I met her, I knew I wanted her.
As the party continued around us, I manoeuvred her into the kitchen. Someone had switched off the lights and, as I leant over to put a vodka bottle down on the counter, I kissed her. Her smell was familiar and her lips soft – unlike anything I had ever felt before. She swung me around, lifted me up on the counter, wedged her knee between my legs and started to grind herself into me, all the while kissing me like the world was ending. The feeling of recklessness and mystery turned me on more than I have ever been in my life. That night was the start of a year-long affair.
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I had no idea of the mechanics of the sexual act itself. I don’t watch porn and had never really imagined girl-on-girl sex before, so the greatest surprise was the toughness of it. Although there is no penis involved, there’s still a lot of penetration – with fingers and tongue; and, of course, it’s a fact: women know more about these techniques than most men.
When things get heated – and inevitably they do – two women will bump and grind not unlike heterosexual sex. One partner may take on the power role, thrusting as a man would. This is where a dildo sometimes comes into play – a strap-on is ideal in order to stay in place. Even better is a double dildo, which links the partners to each other and makes the feeling of being inside each other authentic: an incredibly powerful sensation.
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There is the physical side, of course, but lesbian sex is emotional above all. I would feel a concentration of energy in my pubic area that flowed outwards, connecting me to Abi. If we touched physically while in the “scissor” position, for example – not just the pubic mound but inside the vagina – the likelihood for a universe-shaking orgasm was high. Again and again and again.
As it happened, my relationship with Abi ended after a year. While I was surprised, enchanted and happy to be with a woman, my body responds on a deep biological level to the smell, erection, strength and power of a man.
But I also realised that sex had changed for me. Men often think they need to be gentle, but sometimes I wanted to be shoved against a wall or surprised from behind, and Abi knew exactly how I wanted to be touched without me having to show her.