This isn’t like me at all. I mean I love having lesbian sex and I’m not bored with it; it just seems there is only so much you can do to please a girl. I’ve picked up the basics: fingering, licking, rubbing…can someone please tell me what else to do?? That’s why I bought the book. The Whole Big Huge Pleasureific Guide to Lesbian Sex was sitting on the shelf, at Bartleby’s and Knoble Books, standing out like the Los Angeles yellow pages in a pile of Alaskan phonebooks. It of course was located in the gay/lesbian section. A section I had for so many years peeked at through my peripherals from the adjoining sociology section. Until recently I had never even had the courage to stand directly in front of the gay/lesbian literature much less finger through one of its member’s crisp pages, but there I was reaching for the behemoth book, bringing it under my arm, carrying it to the checkout, and purchasing it under the disdainful gaze of the gray-haired check-out lady. My face burned red as I charged out the store and quickly jumped into my car. I felt like a black-market smuggler as I jammed the double-bagged volume under my seat. The phrase “drop it like it’s hot” comes to mind.

     Knowing I didn’t have the guts to bring the book home and try to sneak it past my mom, I pulled into the most remote spot in the 7-11/Taco Bell parking lot a mile from my house. I reached under my seat, pulled the volume from its plastic sheath and proceeded to open it. My first thoughts were of horrified failure. I had spent $37.99 on a book that was clearly about straight sex! I groaned inwardly but focused closer on the black and white diagram on the page before me. There was definitely a penis, and two people: one person with long hair and large breasts and one person with short hair and a penis…and possible man-boobs. How pathetic am I?! I can’t even buy a lesbian book right. Some jack-off must have booby-trapped the gay/lesbian section with this heterosexual mockery. I close the book to check out the title again. I had probably bought the Whole Big Huge Pleasureific Guide to Girls Who Love Big Huge Cock. Gasp! I had purchased the right book and it said so on the cover. “LESBIAN SEX” was boldly displayed at the far end of the lengthy title. Brain swirly confusion.

     I open the book again and this time land on a page half-filled by a diagram of what I will refer to as external female girly part things. I flipped a few more pages and came across a chapter heading: “Cunnilingus: oral sex techniques for women who love women.” I know what that means! Feeling much more safe and secure in my literary venture I continue through the chapter on oral sex reading sub-headings and checking out the illustrations. Several hours later I came to multiple realizations at once: it was getting dark and I was late for dinner, there are what seems like a bazillion techniques to please a girl, I knew how to do only a fraction of these sexual maneuvers, and finally lesbians are fucking crazy! This last realization had been formed through the logical intake and processing of the contents of this book through my brain-housing area. For instance, prior to reading this book I believed lesbians were butch, femme, or a nameless something in between. Little did I know that there are as many kinds of lesbians as there are grains of sand on all the earth. A lesbian can be stone-butch, hard-butch, soft-butch, femme-butch, lipstick, chapstick, andro, tomboy, dandy, or dykey. A lesbian can also be a boi or a grrl. Two terms which rouse my inner spelling/grammar Nazi as well as my dislike for contradictory statements.

     Despite feeling muddled in the mire of lesbian semantics I had found some things I would like to try with my girlfriend. Things I doubted even Ashley with her vastly superior experience would have already tried. How surprised she would be when I poured out my new seemingly infinite carnal knowledge onto her unsuspecting external female girly part things. I doubted I would ever share the book with her. Frankly parts of it frightened me and I didn’t want her getting any ideas. This would be my gift just for her. If she asked I would tell her I learned it all reading smutty fan fictions.