Nettie: Spiritual Sisters

 

Nettie calls the women she likes her Spiritual Sisters and there can be love for these girls. You thought she'd never be able to say love, but its been sneaking into your conversations and phone messages for a good while now. Love got all tangled up when she was little. Older boys lured her into sex she wasn't ready for mentally, but found physically thrilling. She grew up to have mad crushes, unspoken, unrequited. She was so worried about the wrongness she knew was going on in her girlhood, that she vowed never again and has been true to her word. All these years later, she is still mixed up about sex and love.

One day you two are chatting, sitting nearly knee to knee, Nettie leans in and whispers behind her hand. She wants to ask you about something that happened today, riding the train, which from Manhattan to the low rent part of Brooklyn, is long and crowded. Nettie has swerved away from the story several times. After a time, you corral Nettie back to her story and she heads in. So, she says, the train stops and fills up. A nice looking man comes aboard, scanning the benches for a seat. Nettie moves her backpack to the floor, making room. A few more stops and the train crosses town, swerving on the track. The passengers swerve with it. The forearm of the gentleman sitting next to her touches hers, and for just a moment she gets this warm tingling sensation that oozes through her whole body, even the woman places, she says. Nettie's eyes are sparkling and her mouth has become a coquettish smile, she wants to know if this has happened to you and you wish it had, but have to tell her, no. She wants to know, as she leans in even closer and whispers into your ear, Is this sex? 

You figure it probably is, the safe kind. Then you struggle, without it showing because you are good at this and so fast, to find just the right words to assure her that it isn't actual sex. There is a difference when you are the only one experiencing it. And though it sounds like it might well be sexual, it's nobody's business but her own and she can just keep it to herself and enjoy. This conversation takes a long time, it sinks in, in so many ways. Then Nettie gets it and you are both happy.