Sapphic Voices General Fiction

The Awakening Spot

SUMMARY:   This is a Story of a very courageous and brave Womanchild. She ponders all her teen years about her sexual preference and blows it off as just a childhood crush. As the years go on, she marries and has children. She finally realizes that the feelings she was having for her childhood friend, Donna, were not just crushes, but desires and urges. Desires that were as real as the skin she feels she does not fit in. Urges she can no longer control. She can no longer shove those desires and urges under the rug as she once did. It brings her to the brink of suicide. She decides to risk family, church, and consequence to save her own life. The life she knows is right for her.

I’m standing out in my backyard behind my favor Pecan tree with a loaded .38 revolver pointed at my head. My hands are shaking and my palms are sweating. I can hear the children in the house arguing about one toy or another. I’m thinking how is it that I got to this spot. What has me out in this yard? I have it all. A good husband, a big house, two daughters, two cars, a great job, a dog, a pair loving parents and in-laws, and a church that I love and loves me. So why am I in this spot?

1973

"Kat, did you see that cute guy that was sitting next to Mrs. Beaugard today in church?" "No sorry, I wasn’t paying attention I reckon" I said to her in pathetic voice. And it was true; I wasn’t paying any attention to what was going on around me. I was so pleased that Kat was in church that Sunday and the warmth she was radiating sitting next to me. She didn’t notice that I had scooted closer to her and put my leg against hers. Donna had been on vacation with her parents for two weeks on Amelia Island. We live in the very southeast corner of Georgia. So the Islands are only and hour or two drive to the coast from where we live. Were considered country folk. I had so missed her while she was gone. This was the summer of our big transition from eighth grade into high school.

I can’t remember exactly when the precise moment came when I wanted to reach out and touch Donna’s face. It was so beautiful and full of life. Donna was very out going and energetic. She had way more friends then I could ever dream of having. She let me tag along behind her and dragged me to things I really didn’t want or need to be at. The other kids put up with my presents because they didn’t want Donna mad at them for any reason. I guess you could call me her protégé of sorts. She was always dressing me up. Fixing my hair just right. Making sure I wore the ‘right’ things. She’d call me on Sunday evenings so that on Monday morning we would be dressed alike for school. Making sure I wore my brown hip-hugger corduroys, blue sleeveless sweater and my brown earth shoes. God it was great to be fourteen that summer. Both our fathers worked together and our mothers were friends, so I got to spend a lot of time around Donna.

"Kat!" Donna shouted to get my attention. "You been staring off into space all morning" "Sorry, what did you say" I was distracted. Thinking about what it would be like to touch her. "I said Ms. Daydreamer, did you see that cute Brad Beaugard in church this morning?" "How do you know his name?" I was getting a sinking feeling. "I went right up to Mrs. Beaugard after church and asked her how her family was." And if I know Donna she could care less about any of Mrs. Beaugard’s family. Except this new intruder. "She being the gentle southern lady that she is, introduced us and thought maybe you and I could come on over to her house for lemonade and get better acquainted with her nephew from Atlanta." If I knew Donna, and I did, there was most definitely a method behind her madness. I was a bit saddened that we wouldn’t be spending this nice warm Sunday afternoon talking and not finding something to do. I already hated Brad Beaugard and I hadn’t even met him. I know that he would be instantly infatuated with Donna as all boys were, and I would be pushed aside to watch these two goo-goo eye each other.

Upon entry to this huge plantation house a woman in a maids uniform escorted us out onto a vast lawn. It was everything you’ve every heard about plantation houses. From the eyes of a fourteen year old that is. The word ‘billowy’ comes to mind. Airy if you will and beautifully but sparsely furnished. "Brad Beaugard, this is my best friend and confidant, Katrina Elizabeth Montague. Our fathers work together and our mothers are best friends so it just goes in the order that me and Kat, that’s what we call her for short, Kat, are best friends" I was almost stunned that Donna was talking that much and that fast. I hadn’t seen this Donna before. "Nice to meet you Kat, although Katrina is a pretty name to". What planet was this kid from? Not from around here, that was for sure. I almost felt like I was transported back into the 1800’s and I might hear slaves singing in the fields at any moment. "Hi" was all I could muster. I wanted to take Donna by the hand and run. Who needed this Brad Beaugard anyway? Not Me.

Anyway, he was imbedded in our big circle of friends for the duration of that summer, much to my dismay; his attentions were not on Donna as expected, they were on ME!! Which at first Donna was taken aback as well as I. I continued to ignore him, as much as was possible, which sometimes was impossible. Donna decided that since all the attention wasn’t focused on her that Brad Beaugard was of no consequence. Which make me happy, because that meant that I had her full-undivided attention and she wasn’t pressuring me into being with him. Until...Donna decided that Brad Beaugard was to be my future husband. Now remember, we are fourteen and just going into high school. I managed to distract Donna from these thoughts by directing her attention to the coming fall wardrobe that we’d need to fit-in in high school.

"Kat? What kind of bathing suits should be get for swim class? One piece or two?" Again my mind was wandering. I wasn’t ashamed of the thoughts I was having, at times they made me blush and Donna attributed them to my thinking about Brad Beaugard. "Katrina Elizabeth Montague!!!! It’s getting harder and hard to keep you focused these days". She sounded more like my mother at that moment. I was thinking about her swimming naked in our pool when she so rudely interrupted me "Thinking about Brad Beaugard were you?" she was looking at me sideways and smiling. "No actually, I was picturing what kind of bathing suit we’d look the best in." I’m thinking my actress skills are getting better. Then out of the blue she asks... "Kat? You ever kissed a boy?" she asked with her back turned unbuttoning her shirt, I almost choked and swallowed my gum. "Never met anyone worth kissin’ I reckon". Donna hated when I talked like that, said we had to better ourselves and we needed to start with our language skills. Not only that, I was with her most of my free time I did have. If an occasion like that ever came up it would have probably been her that initiated the contact. She knew I hadn’t kissed any boys. "If you had the chance, would you know what to do?" I wasn’t particularly comfortable with this line of questioning. "No need at the moment, don’t have any prospects on the ladder to my winda just yet" I tried to make light of it. "Kat it’s ‘WindOW’ not ‘winda’, now answer me, do you know how to kiss if the occasion arises?" "Fine. No, do you?" I’m thinking that my prime opportunity is about to come true. Donna Mae LaValle is going to teach me how to kiss a boy, by a live flesh-to-flesh example.

Well to make the next 4 years of my life short is to say that nothing ever evolved from my friendship with Donna. But I had finally figured out that I was most definitely very attracted to women. At that time in my life there was no outlet, no other teen lesbians to turn to, I didn’t even know any lesbians. Yes, Gloria Steinim was speaking out for women and their rights. To bad she didn’t live in the Deep South with my family and me. She was a million miles away from anything that involved me.

1977

Graduation of that year was a blessing. It’s hard to have a crush on your best friend and there’s nothing you can do about it, or should I say, I didn’t know how to go about it. At the time that’s all I thought it was, a crush, a silly high school crush. One week to the day after graduation at the prime age of 18, Brad Beaugard entered my life. Again. Naturally my parents took to him like slime on an alligators back. I knew what was expected out of me and I complied. Actually I got caught up in the whorl-wind of others excitement. I also have two sisters and a brother. Kim, Caitlin, and Stanley. My parent’s names are Charles and Marjorie. They all looked beautiful standing there in their gowns and tuxedoes while I walked up the isle. Donna was my maid of honor. It’s a shame but twenty-two years later I cant remember all the grooms’ names.

While I was married to Brad I had an affair with a woman, my oldest daughter was about two then. I had met her in a gay coffee shop, which was more like a 60’s beatnik hangout; I liked to go to when I didn’t have to account for my whereabouts. She wasn’t any great beauty, but she had magnetism. And she seemed genuinely concerned about the things I talked about. I listened to her like she was E.F. Hutton. I told her about my inner struggles and she seemed to understand.

"Kat darlin’? When are you going to finally admit to yourself that you’re gay?" I just smiled, raised my eyebrows and look at her over the top of my glasses. She reached over and put her arm around me and kissed me on the cheek. Out of the blue I moved my face to meet hers full on and kissed her deeply on the lips. My whole body was numb. Kissing her felt like the most natural thing in the world. It felt RIGHT. For so long, I had been kidding my self and kidding everyone around me. I was happy on the outside but never on the inside. Brad was the first man I’d ever been with. What a kind and patient man he was. Needless to say our sex life was almost nil, and he never pressured me. I went on to have my second child, a girl also. Life went on for eleven more years. The sex stopped. I think Brad suspected but was to kind to breach the subject. I kept seeing Bridget for five years. I knew I couldn’t leave Brad and the girls. How could I? I would be disgraced in my family’s eyes and in the eyes of my church. Was I willing to do that?

That is why I stand here behind my beautiful Pecan tree in the back yard with a loaded .38 revolver.

Well that was twelve years ago. I will admit that I did pull the trigger but not against my head. I shot at my beautiful Pecan tree. When Brad came home I told him that I had made a decision, told him what it was. That all my life I knew I was a lesbian. I had to do what I felt was right. I took the children and moved out. The only regret I do have is hurting Brad. He has since remarried and sadly has never talked to me again. And that to is ok. I can understand, I think.

2001

"Kat baby? You home?" I can here my lover/partner calling me from our kitchen.
"In here" I yell back.
"What you doing?" She asks me.
"Giving a little piece of myself to some of our sisters out there" I tell her. She comes up behind me and gives me a huge hug and kisses me on the neck. My life is right and good, for me anyway.

I met Dawn in 1999, after years of dating unsuitable women. Women who were wrong for me and abused me. Dawn is my soul mate. She is the right woman for me. We know that nothing is forever, so we make the best of each day. Which are fast turning into years. We are planning to be together for the rest of our lives.

Oxoxo The End

If you have enjoyed Dee Butler's "The Awakening Spot", then please be certain to e-mail her at  deebut[at]hotmail.com  and thank her for posting this Story.

Click here for a list of all of Dee Butler's Stories and Poetry at  Sapphic Voices Authoresses.