A Chemical Moment

I had heard variations on that theme before, from my parents and high school friends and pretty much everyone else. I was the girl with the great personality. Wonderful. But the next thing she said caught me off guard.

"Besides, you're very pretty, even if you don't think so."

My parents said I was pretty too, of course. They had to; that was their job. But when Anne said it, I could tell she really believed it. I had always thought of myself as quite plain, not worth looking at. Anne, who was actually attracted to girls, obviously thought differently. I got a little flushed.

I couldn't look at her as I asked, "You really think I'm pretty?"

Anne replied with warmth and a little worry - I don't think she realized before that moment how unhappy I was with my appearance. "Of course I think you're pretty. When you smile, your whole face lights up, and I could get lost in those blue eyes."

My heart was racing, and I'm sure I turned bright red. But hearing the certainty in Anne's voice almost made me believe it. I was so wrapped up in my own thoughts that I didn't consider her reasons for saying it.

~~~

The next Sunday was my nineteenth birthday. I had planned to go home to Boston to spend it with my family, but the alternator in my car died on Thursday night. I called around and found a place that could get a cheap rebuilt unit that would work, but they wouldn't have it in until Monday. I was really grumpy on Friday when I told Anne about the whole thing. She responded with appropriate sympathy and told me she'd spend the day with me, and then she got a wicked gleam in her eye. I had no idea what she had planned, and I was annoyed and depressed enough not to care.

When I woke up Sunday morning, Anne was already up. She greeted me with a teasing smile and said, "Happy Birthday, sleepyhead! We have a project for today."

I wasn't sure I liked the sound of that. I was grumpy from just waking up, and Anne's excitement was sweet but a little annoying. I answered her with a skeptical look, and said, "I would ask what that project is, but I have a feeling you wouldn't tell me. I'm going to take a shower."

Anne just grinned a big Cheshire cat grin and said, "Have fun."

I stumbled down the hall to the bathroom in my nightshirt, with my towel over my shoulder and my bathroom kit in my hand. After a few minutes under the warm water, I felt a little more cheerful, and I decided whatever Anne had planned would be better than moping around feeling sorry for myself. I finished up in the bathroom and walked back to our room. Anne was sitting on her bed reading, waiting for me, and I saw a gift-wrapped box sitting on my bed.

I had never thought of Anne as particularly bouncy, but right then she reminded me a little of my last roommate Ellie. She jumped up when I came in, with a big smile on her face, and waited for me to open her present. I didn't know what to expect - I really didn't expect anything at all - but she was so very excited about it, so I picked up the box and made an appropriately big deal of ripping open the wrapping paper. Inside the box was a dress made of soft blue cotton. When I pulled it out and held it up to myself, Anne almost jumped up and down with glee and asked, "Well ... are you going to try it on?"

I don't wear dresses. Mom makes me go to Mass on Sundays when I'm home, and when I do, I wear a shapeless floral thing that I hate. Other than that, it's blue jeans, sweats or shorts with a tee shirt; or maybe a pair of khakis and a button down shirt when I have to look semi-nice. I've never liked spending money on clothes when nobody looks at me anyway.

This was something altogether different. I was skeptical - I really doubted I had the kind of body to fill out a dress like that - but Anne's enthusiasm was infectious, and I actually wanted to see how it looked. So I quickly dried my hair, put on some underwear and slipped the dress on over my head. After a little squirming and pulling to get everything in place, I grabbed my glasses off the dresser and turned around to look in the mirror.

I was stunned. I looked like an actual girl. Maybe even a pretty one. The dress fit perfectly, and did all the right things for my body. It was snug in the waist but loose in the skirt, accentuating my skinny hips and giving me a little bit of shape. The V-neck and the way the material gathered over the breasts made it look like I had a respectable chest. If I had known that the right clothes could make me look like this, maybe I would have paid more attention to shopping.

Anne's grin got even bigger, and she said, "Turn around so I can see you from the front!"

I did, and I felt very girly as the skirt twirled around my legs. After holding the pose for just a second, I grabbed Anne in a big hug and said, "Thank you, sweetie. I love it!"

She hugged back with a warm smile and said, "You're welcome."

I took a few minutes to brush out my hair and admire my new dress in the mirror, and Anne said to me, "I know you're on a tight budget this year, especially having to replace your alternator, but you really should spend a little money on yourself from time to time. Buy yourself a nice outfit or something once or twice a semester."

I replied, "Only if you go shopping with me - I really have no idea how to find clothes that make me look good."

Anne smiled again - she couldn't stop herself today - and said, "Deal. You come shopping with me anyway; we just need to pay more attention to you when we're out."

And the wicked gleam in her eye from Friday came back as she said, "Now it's time for the second part of our project. I'm taking you to get your hair cut. We're going to see Don - he's the best haircut in town, and it's only fifteen bucks. That's more expensive than having your Mom cut your hair, but it's totally worth it."

I was apprehensive, but after the dress, I was more than willing to give Anne the benefit of the doubt. I meekly said, "Okay."

~~~

We got into Anne's car and drove off campus, and my apprehension grew as we pulled into the parking lot. It was a tiny barber shop next to a pho place, and it looked a little scary. The two people waiting inside were both middle-aged Asian men. As we walked in, I asked Anne, "Are you sure about this?"

Anne replied, "Relax. He does my hair, and it always turns out well. Don't let the place fool you."

I wasn't really reassured, but Anne's hair always looks so good that I decided to just go with it. We sat down for a few minutes while Don finished up on a middle-aged woman, and then I was next. One of the two men left with the woman, and the other was apparently waiting for the other barber.

I sat down in the chair, and Don said, "So you Anne's friend. She told me you need good haircut, so I give you good haircut."

He looked at Anne and asked, "What we do today?"

Anne replied, "She needs a cut that frames her face instead of hiding it. A lot shorter, but not too short."

Don looked me over, nodded and said, "Right. Hair too long. Too heavy. I know how fix."

I was apparently not to be consulted.

He turned the chair away from the mirror and got started. I couldn't see what he was doing, especially without my glasses, which was probably a good thing. I could feel enough to know he was working quickly and efficiently, and I could see a blurry pile of wispy blonde hair piling up on the floor. After a good half hour of pulling and snipping and combing, he turned the chair around. I closed my eyes and put my glasses back on as he did, and my heart started racing.

When I opened my eyes, I was stunned again, for the second time that day. The little wisps that I so hated turned into big, soft looping curls, surrounding my face in a blonde cloud. Anne was right again - my hair framed my face and worked with it, rather than getting in the way.

I hoped this wasn't some sort of high maintenance hairstyle - I really wasn't up for an extra half an hour every morning, using curlers or putting some sort of goo in my hair. I asked Don, "What do I have to do to make my hair look like this tomorrow? I don't want to fuss over it or use hairspray or anything."

Don replied, "You blow dry and brush. That all you need do. Your hair want curl like that - it just need right cut. Come back when it get long."

I very happily gave Don his fifteen bucks. I would have tipped him five more for such an amazing haircut, but he insisted that the student price was fifteen, no tip.

Anne took me to lunch next door at the pho place. Pho is a Vietnamese noodle soup, usually made with various kinds of beef. I'd never had it before, and it was delicious. After we finished, I said, "Thank you so much, sweetie, for lunch and for everything."

Anne replied, "Happy Birthday and you're welcome. But we're not done yet, although we are done for today. The last thing we need to do is fix those glasses."

I got my first pair of glasses in the second grade, and immediately hated them. The other kids called me four-eyes and made me feel like a freak. I'd mellowed since then, and found plenty of other body image issues to fuss about, but I was still a little sensitive. The glasses that came with me to college were big, blocky and ugly, and over two years old, but they brought the world into focus and let me function, so I lived with them.

On any other day, I would have felt picked on. That day, after what Anne had done for me, I knew she only meant well.

I said, "Well, I can't get by without them, and I really don't want to wear contacts, even if I could afford them."

I could tell by the look on Anne's face that she was in problem solving mode. She thought for a minute and said, "You're still on your parents' insurance, right?"

"Yeah - that's the only reason Mom keeps her office admin job. The pay is fairly sad, but the insurance is great."

"Well, my parents' insurance allows an eye exam and a new pair of glasses every year. The ones you have now look well past that. You should be able to get a new pair and just pay for frames."

"I suppose. But I can't afford fancy designer frames. That's why I have these."

"We'll figure something out. There's a place just off campus that has a huge selection. There ought to be something nice that's fairly cheap."

I was skeptical, but Anne had been right twice so far. I gave her the benefit of the doubt again and said, "Okay."

~~~

I called the eye place Monday before class and got an appointment Tuesday afternoon. The eye exam and the lenses were indeed covered by my parents' insurance. Anne met me after the exam, and we looked at a lot of different frames. We started with some of the expensive ones I could never afford, just for fun, but after a while, we went into the bargain section. Most of them were truly horrible - even worse than my old ones - but we found a pair that actually looked really good. I never would have even noticed them myself, but Anne had a good eye. They were medium-sized rectangles in a dark blue plastic, almost black. When I tried them, I didn't look like an owl anymore - I almost looked stylish.

I picked up my new glasses on Thursday evening. Anne wanted to go out for dinner, so I wore my new dress. When I saw myself in the mirror, with the dress, the hair and the glasses, I thought I actually looked a little bit pretty. Maybe Anne really was right about me.

Anne picked me up at the eye place and we went off campus to a cheap but yummy Chinese place. If I hadn't know better, it might have felt like a date.

Over dinner, Anne brought up the subject of guys and dating again. She had a look of feigned innocence, but I could tell she wasn't going to let me off easily. "Now that you're all pretty, you have no excuse not to at least talk to one of your crushes."

She continued with a teasing smile. "I know you like CS Dave. You should ask him out next Tuesday after board game night."

I did indeed like CS Dave, but I wasn't going to ask him out. I grinned a little to myself because I had the perfect excuse, one that not even Anne could argue with. "CS Dave is going out with a guy named Mark. So I really don't think I'm his type."

Anne sighed a little and replied, "Figures. There has to be somebody else you're interested in, though."

"Not at the moment. That cute guy in OChem turned out to be kind of a jerk in lab last week after his experiment went bad - you remember. Pretty much killed my interest. But I promise I'll tell you when there is somebody, and you can tease me mercilessly until I do something about it."

Anne held out her hand and said "deal" as we shook on it.

~~~

Heading into finals, school was going really well for both of us. I was looking at straight A's, as long as I did reasonably well on my finals. Anne had A's in everything except OChem, where she had a solid B+, and real chance at an A if she aced the final. So we both devoted a lot of our study time to drilling OChem. I really didn't want to embarrass myself in my chosen major, and I wanted to help Anne over the top to get an A.

Sometime after midnight on Thursday, when we were both exhausted and not accomplishing anything useful anymore, I shut my book and looked over at Anne. She was staring intently at a diagram, going over it again and again, and she let out a big yawn. I could see the tension in her shoulders as they hiked their way up toward her ears.

I walked over to her desk, closed the book in front of her and said, "You're done for the night. I'm going to give you a nice shoulder rub, and then we're going to sleep. You're not going to learn anymore tonight anyway."

She looked at me, heaved a sigh of relief and replied, "You're probably right. Thanks for helping me study so much - I know you don't really need it, but I do."

She got up, sat on the edge of my bed and tucked her hair to one side so I could reach her shoulders without pulling her hair. I sat down behind her and started in, but it didn't go well. She was wearing a bulky UMass sweatshirt, and the neckline was right where my hands needed to be.

I said, "Shirt off, sweetie. I know it's cold in here - sorry - but I can't get at your shoulders through this sweatshirt."

She pulled the sweatshirt over her head and set it on the bed next to her, and I resumed working on her shoulders. She wasn't wearing a bra, which wasn't unusual when we were hanging out in our room studying. I had long since gotten used to seeing her in various states of undress. After about ten minutes of squeezing and pushing and kneading, to which she responded with low sighs of contentment, she arched her back, stretched her arms above her head and said, "Thank you, Allison. That was really nice - just what I needed."

And normally that would have been that - just another innocent shoulder rub before bed, like we had done for each other dozens of times. But that night was our moment.

It happened completely by accident. Anne twisted her torso as far to the left as it would go in a big stretch, hands behind her head, and let out a happy sigh. Meanwhile, I let my left hand, which had been on her shoulder, fall to my knee. And the inside of my wrist, right where the pulse is, grazed the tip of her nipple, already hard from the cold.

I heard a sharp intake of breath, and saw her body shudder, and in that moment, we weren't just roommates anymore.

I knew the biology of what was happening in her body, and it filled my thoughts - pupils dilating; increased production of vasoactive intestinal peptide; heart rate and blood flow to the genitals increasing; genitals swelling, and nipples swelling further; vasocongestion causing extra moisture to leak into the vagina. Clinical and weird, I know, but that's just how my brain works. What I didn't know was what was happening in her head.

Was she attracted to me? On a physical level at least, she obviously was. Was that why she was so nice to me? Was that why she got me to look pretty? Was that at least partly for her? And if so, why was she still pushing me to find a guy? It was all so confusing. She was my best friend, and in that moment, she became something else. We became something else. I just didn't know what.

And then I started to figure out what was going on in my own body and head. I noticed that I was getting physically aroused too, just like she was. Hard nipples, from more than just the cold; wet between the legs. Really? How was that happening? I had admired her body since we moved in together, but never been excited by it. But now I clearly was, and I couldn't stop thinking about it. Was I really attracted to her? Was I a lesbian?

All of that went through my head in a flash, and then the moment was over, but that change it had brought was still there. Anne recovered her composure and tried to restore some normality. "We should, ah, get some sleep."

Her voice startled me out of my thoughts. I blinked a couple of times and answered, "Yeah, we probably should."

Anne got up, quietly changed into her nightshirt and climbed into bed. I did the same and reached over to turn off the lights. I think we both knew things had changed, but we weren't ready to deal with what that meant.

Anne said, "Goodnight, Allison" after I turned off the light. Her voice was stiff and formal, and didn't do anything to cut the tension in the room.

I replied, "Night, Anne. Sleep well." My voice wasn't much more natural.

I don't think either of us slept well that night.

~~~

When we woke up the next morning, both still tired, life seemed almost normal. There was a ... thing between us, but there were also finals approaching, and those took precedence over pretty much everything. We ate together, and we kept up our workouts, but beyond that, all our time was dedicated to studying. The OChem study group met every afternoon, and we all drilled each other.

OChem was the first final for both of us, and it was a huge relief to be done with it. I came out happy - the outcome had never really been in doubt, but it was still good to have it over. Anne was miserable, convinced she had tanked and would wind up with a C for the class. I was sure she had done well, and I tried to reassure her, but it was no use. We had to wait five days for the results.

The rest of our finals were less stressful and mostly less eventful for both of us. I got stuck on a problem in vector calculus, and I felt like an idiot while I sat there staring at it, but figured it out with just enough time to finish. Anne coasted through everything else with ease.

When the OChem results did come out, I was on pins and needles as Anne checked her grade. She got a big smile on her face, and told me she had squeaked out an A for the course. I gave her a big hug, and that night I took her to the Chinese place for dinner to celebrate, wearing the blue dress she bought me for my birthday. Nothing was said, but it felt even more like a date than the last time we were there.

~~~

I went home to Boston for the holidays the Friday of finals week, the day after my last exam. My parents had already heard the good news about my straight-A report card, and they wanted to make a big deal out of it. We met for dinner at my favorite place in the city - their lasagna is just about the tastiest thing in the world. I drove the two hours from Amherst in sweats, but I wanted to surprise the family with my new look, so I went into the ladies room and changed into my new dress before they showed up.

My little brother Alex walked in first, and he obviously didn't recognize me immediately. I think he actually started checking me out (he is a teenage boy, after all), but then he got a startled, goofy look on his face. He's a great big bear of a kid, over six feet and still growing, but it doesn't matter; he's still my little brother. My parents were right behind him, and both were surprised as well. Alex wrapped me in a big hug, and then said, "Damn, sis, you look great!"