In Which I Find Love

There was a breathless hush in the gym that night. It was the annual gymnastics challenge match between my school, St Sappho’s Academy for Young Ladies, and our great rivals, Radclyffe Hall. Matches between the two schools were always closely fought, and we all felt that the honour of the school depended upon our beating them. This match had been no exception, and all depended upon the last exercise. My great friend Melissa was due to perform her floor routine; if she achieved a good score the school would be victorious. The slightest mistake, however, could hand victory to our rivals. Let me tell you about Melissa. We had been room-mates and inseparable friends ever since we had arrived at the school three years earlier. At St Sappho’s we did not sleep in dormitories but were allowed to share a double room with a friend. Officially this was done to combat loneliness and homesickness, but in practice it turned out to be an infallible recipe for lesbian crushes. Falling in love with your room-mate was an established rite of passage at the school; my older sister Amanda and her pretty friend Caroline, for example, had fallen head-over-heels for each other and had been an item for about a year. And I, of course, was desperately in love with Melissa. But who would not have fallen in love with her? She was, by a considerable margin, the most beautiful girl in our class. Indeed, in the whole school. I would go so far as to say in the whole world. She had grown up in South America, the daughter of an English father and Latin American mother, and her mixed racial ancestry was evident in her exotic looks. She had pale ivory skin, but there was an exotic cast to her features which suggested her foreign origins, as did her flowing raven-black hair and her big warm, liquid brown eyes. Her outer beauty was matched by her inner beauty. Latina girls are traditionally said to be fiery and hot-blooded, but Melissa was the most placid, gentle and sweet-natured person I have ever met. To add to this picture of all-round perfection she was academically gifted, a talented musician and, of course, one of our gymnastic stars. The school’s gymnastics squad seemed to be the main stronghold (if not the only one) of lesbianism at St Sappho’s. There is something about the sight of her friends in tight-fitting leotards that can bring out any girl’s inner lesbian. Amanda and Caroline were by no means the only pair of lovers in the squad; indeed, although we were supposed to be discreet about such matters, it was an open secret that the team captain, Barbara, and her BFF, room-mate and vice-captain Silvia were a couple. As I watched Melissa go through her routine I must admit that I was not concentrating too much on the technical merits of her performance. I was paying far more attention to her lovely legs, her peachy bottom and her curvaceous leotard-clad figure and starting to feel hopelessly amorous. I sneezed a couple of times, a common symptom of sexual arousal with me. And then I was shaken out of my erotic reverie by a loud cheer. Melissa had completed a faultless routine and everyone knew, even before her official score was announced, that she had done more than enough to secure our victory. Melissa ran back to the benches where her team-mates were sitting. It was the established custom for the team to congratulate anyone who recorded an excellent performance by hugging and kissing her, and as Melissa’s acknowledged best friend I would have the privilege of being the first to greet her in this way. As she reached the benches I stood up and opened my arms wide to embrace her.  And then it happened. As our leotard-clad bodies melted together into an embrace a sort of electric current seemed to run through us. We clasped one arm around each other’s waists , let our free hands rest upon the other’s bottom and before we knew it we were kissing on the lips. We stayed in this position in what seemed to us like several hours, although it was probably only several seconds, before I suddenly realised what was happening and reluctantly released Melissa from my grip. The school gymnasium, with all the rest of the team crowding around us to congratulate Melissa in their turn, was not really the place for a passionate declaration of love.    I sat back down, hardly able to believe what we had just done. No words had passed between us, but in those brief few seconds our hearts had spoken to one another, and had said “I love you!” far more clearly than if we had spoken with our lips. This was the first time anything like this had happened between us. Although our friendship was firmly established, the physical side of our relationship had gone no further than an occasional chaste kiss on the cheek. I had long dreamed of making Melissa my lover and she was the frequent subject of my masturbatory fantasies. She had helpfully pinned a timetable of her music lessons to the wall of our room, so I knew when she was going to be out of the room and when I would have some free time to wank myself to a climax. I never dared hope, however, that she might harbour similar feelings towards me. I didn’t even know whether she was actually bisexual. The nearest I had come to revealing my feelings had been when the music teacher was off sick, Melissa’s music lesson was cancelled and she returned to the room unexpectedly early to catch me stretched out on my bed wanking myself furiously. I was mortified, but she was tactful enough to say “Don’t worry, I do that too”, before leaving the room to allow me to recover my composure. When she returned I wanted to confess that it was thoughts of her that were fuelling my desires and to ask her exactly what she meant by “doing it too”, but somehow I could not find the words. Well. I’ll break off this story here as it seems to be getting far too long. I hope to get back soon to let you know what happened next.