My Journey to Love: a Lesbian Romance Novel

By CJ Mann

Karen Murphy is a sweet and very dedicated elementary school teacher that is searching for true love with another woman. However, she soon realizes this is no easy task and finds herself entangled in many exciting yet complicated situations along the way. So come along and share the wild ride with Karen to find her true soul mate but, most importantly, as Karen searches hard to find the love within herself she so desperately longs for. This story will truly leave you inspired romantically, emotionally, and spiritually. Yes, prepare for the most wild, unpredictable, and sensual journey of your lifeand certainly one that you shall never ever forget!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jul 16, 2016
• ISBN: 9781524508425

CJ Mann

C. J. Mann has been a freelance writer for over twenty years and a poet ever since she was a young child. She’s also been an ardent human rights and LGBT activist and a true humanitarian as well. CJ was continually voted favorite blogger on many of the websites and publications she has contributed to. A hopeless romantic at heart, she has found a way to channel all her creative talents, thoughts, and wisdom into writing truly exciting stories that will leave her readers completely entertained, enlightened, and inspired. Her stories hold nothing back, and her love scenes will surely leave you breathless and extremely satisfied. CJ is also a four-time certified personal trainer, photographer, artist, actress, and avid surfer. She’s a true nature and animal lover as well as a devoted wife and proud mother of twins. CJ is truly committed to thoroughly entertaining her readers’ every deep thought and desire—and so much more!

Book preview

CHAPTER 1

My Journey Starts from a Tough Beginning

T he divorce was hard—and that was the biggest understatement of the year! I was completely devastated, especially since I was the poster child for gay marriage for over the last ten years. I spoke and marched at every gay pride parade, waving a huge marriage-equality flag the entire way. I even flew to Washington DC several times with that huge flag to march in front of the White House for countless hours, day and night, in the rain and snow.

Yes, I, Ms. Karen Murphy, really believed in the institution of marriage for every person of every race, faith, and country. And I mistakenly thought that my future wife did as well. So when New York finally made gay marriage legal on June 24, 2011, my partner and I ran off as quickly as we could to get hitched in New York City’s town hall with a hippie justice of the peace and a rainbow bouquet. It was just awesome—the absolute best day of my life!

Unfortunately, that thrill was short-lived for my wife. It was clear that marriage was something of a test-drive for her, where she ended up crashing very badly. Crashing my heart, that is, and smashing it into a million pieces—yes, pieces I was still trying so desperately to put back together again.

Dr. Cassandra Stevenson was my ex, and even her name sounded sexy. I met her at one of those twenty-four-hour clinics exactly seven years ago, when I was suffering from a nasty flu. But after I took one look at her, I had forgotten why I was even there. It was no surprise that my fever skyrocketed shortly after she examined me.

She was just finishing up her internship, and only a year later, she had her own thriving practice as a young cardiologist. I had just started teaching elementary school at that time and was newly single and living in an apartment in Long Beach, New York, when we first met.

We didn’t exchange numbers at that first meeting or, should I say, that first checkup. I wouldn’t dare think of asking her out, especially since I had no idea if she was gay, straight, bisexual, bicurious, or anything that would even resemble her digging me. But I would say she did smile an awful lot during my sick visit and sort of gave me those eyes—you know, the quick hey, I think you’re kind of cute look.

So my gaydar was picking up a slight signal. But I really didn’t like those slight signals; I preferred the five-star alarms, where it practically spelled L-E-S-B-I-A-N on their foreheads. I don’t necessarily mean that they needed to sport a crew cut and a Mom tattoo, even though that would be fine with me; but I liked the more obvious, outgoing, flirty types—the ones who gave you that long, drawn-out smile and alluring stare and maybe even a daring wink.

Even though sexy Dr. Cassandra Stevenson wasn’t giving off the raging five-star alarm stares, or daring winks, she was still giving off enough steam to set off my smoke detector! That being said, I soon frequented that clinic for every possible ailment, from a toothache to an ingrown toenail.

Well, it sure didn’t take her long to either diagnose me as a bona fide hypochondriac or simply realize that I had a mad crush on her. Med school certainly did teach her how to be a good diagnostician; she immediately eliminated hypochondria after I told her I’d much rather see her than a dentist for my toothache. Soon after, she was doing house calls at my tiny apartment on her breaks; and surprise, surprise, all my ailments miraculously cleared up!

Before we knew it, we were inseparable. In fact, only a year after we met we both moved out of our tiny apartments and bought a beautiful beach house right on the water. It was so charming, with a real nautical feel to it. But the best part about it was that it overlooked the most incredible sunset that Long Beach, New York, had to offer. I would just pinch myself every day to see if this nirvana was actually real.

Truthfully, before I met Cassandra, it seemed like my whole life has always been a damn struggle. I mean, I wasn’t left in a gutter in the ghetto as a baby or anything, but I had my share of hard times for sure. I literally could’ve written a Murphy’s Law handbook, which was pretty funny, and sad, because Murphy was actually my last name!

It just seemed like whatever could go wrong in my life inevitably went wrong. My parents divorced when I was only five, and my mom and I never saw my dad again. My next-door neighbor who tried to fill in for my dad molested me until my mom found out and almost castrated him with our biggest kitchen knife. I swear, I never saw that coward run so fast. After that, I could never look at a large kitchen knife quite the same!

I also struggled terribly with my sexuality, especially when I was attending an ultra-strict Catholic school. I swear I could’ve won an Oscar for playing the nice, perfect straight girl next door. Little did they know I was extremely attracted to the nice, perfect straight girl next store, Mary Kathryn. Oh yes, Mary Kathryn, Mary Kathryn, Mary Kathryn! She had the biggest blue eyes and an even bigger smile. I didn’t even know what the heck gay was yet, but I sure knew that I dug hanging out with her!

Yes, I can remember back when we were only seven years old, I would always volunteer to be her husband when we played house together on our block. The other kids didn’t even give it a second thought—got to love the innocence of children, which quickly reminded me of an adorable six-year-old girl from a gay family I met at a gay pride parade once. The little girl was being interviewed by a local news station, and the reporter asked her if gay people loved the same way as everyone else did, and the little girl simply answered without hesitation, Well, of course, they do. They aren’t aliens, you know! Oh, I just loved that!

Yes, I could remember like it was yesterday asking Mary Kathryn if I could kiss her good night as her pretend husband when it was our bedtime. She actually said yes! Oh, how my tiny toes tingled every time I gave her that kiss!

Unfortunately, little Ms. Mary Kathryn didn’t quite feel the same tingle in her toes as I did. And she was just practicing for her real-life husband; which she did end up marrying her high school sweetheart, Jake, the most popular athlete in our school. Jake was voted MVP of the football, baseball, and lacrosse teams. Unfortunately, they divorced when she found out her handsome athletic husband was more interested in other male athletes. I felt so bad for sweet Mary Kathryn, but she did end up marrying a lawyer soon after and got herself four perfect little children, in her perfect little house, in her perfect little town in Westchester, New York. Ah, perfection—how goddamn stifling, boring, and exhausting I found it to be!

So I kept up the charade of being little miss perfect straight girl in what seemed like forever until—you guessed it—college, where, as the saying goes, it’s OK to be gay till graduation day! It was the place where you get the sorority anything goes pass while under the influence of just about everything illegal.

Yes, college was where I had my first typical lesbian fling. It was at the weekly Phi Beta Kappa Fraternity beer bash; which their name secretly stood for I hope we can all graduate after so much partying. Forget about graduating summa cum laude for that bunch; they had a special accolade—summa cum conceited, annoying, and obnoxiously LOUDE!

So long story typically short, my first same-sex experience was with my sorority sister named Beth. Surprise, surprise! It was not just about the sorority sis experience but it also seemed like every lesbian’s first sexual experience was with a gal named Beth.

Beth couldn’t join enough organized sports, donned a well-coiffed mullet, and wore Levi’s jeans and sneakers no matter what the occasion. She was so cute in a teenage boy sort of way and had such a charming Casanova type of smile. But what I loved most about Beth was that she had this cool attitude and confidence swagger that really turned me on!

Well, it didn’t take little Beth and me more than a beer to get our groove going in the backyard bushes at that wild frat party. Which, by the way, I still have the scar on my ass from that freaking thornbush! But I must admit, it was well worth it, and I still get a little smile on my face every time I see it when I get out of the shower.

So considering how flirty Beth was with me I wasn’t all that surprised that Beth was a natural in bed with another girl, but what surprised me the most was that I was such a natural too! Yes I—little miss perfect straight girl—actually became a freaking wild beast during my first sexual same-sex experience!

Oh, I just pounced on little Beth like she was the last buffalo wing after a marijuana festival. Poor Beth. Well, I guess I shouldn’t feel that bad for Beth since we both gave each other the best night of our lives—and certainly one we’d never forget! After all, we christened each other into the honorable Rainbow Society.

So together, we graduated with our own personal accolade—lesbian magna come, come, and come again ‘LOUDE’! And now we were officially primed for our new careers as professional queers, with our biggest role models being Rosie O’Donnell and Madonna. But we also idolized Melissa Etheridge, k. d. Lang, Ellen DeGeneres, Martina Navratilova, and Billie Jean King— which Beth proudly hung posters of them all over her dorm room walls. Beth always had way more guts—and balls—than I did.

Oh, college was so worth the money! Thanks, Ma, for taking on that second job to pay for my—um … (cough, cough) well-rounded education! Well, I did at least become a teacher out of it—and I must say a pretty good one at that.

Beth and I eventually went our separate ways but parted as good friends, and we still kept in touch today. She’s now a park ranger living in Vermont with her wife and three children. And me? Well, today I spent most of my days trying to figure out the proper adjectives to describe how much I hate my ex-wife.

Yes, I decided that her name, Cassandra, was really an acronym for Callous, Type A, Superficial, Selfish, Aggravating, Narcissistic, Disloyal, Rationalizing Ass! Especially when she was excusing away what she would conveniently call her missteps, which were basically all her affairs.

Her very first affair, she claimed it was because of her disillusioned state of mind as she medically termed it. That was most likely a made-up term just for me. She blamed it on a particularly exhausting, sleep-deprived shift at the hospital. I guess the Starbucks double shots stopped working for her.

Her second affair was with a patient whom she claimed she felt bad for because she supposedly had a terminal illness—an illness that this patient seemed to lick rather quickly since she soon became a professional tennis player and was completely cured today. What a surprise! And the third and fourth—and fifth—affair she simply blamed on those boring long out-of-town medical conferences that somehow ended up with too much wine in either her or them. Yada yada, F’n yada.

And I actually fell for all her lame excuses hook, line, and sinker mainly because I was basically a fool for her and truly loved her to a fault. After all, she was so goddamn perfect. She was perfect looking, had the perfect job and the perfect body, and even had that perfect pearly white smile, which actually had that little sparkle at the corner of it, just like they had on those toothpaste commercials. No joke.

Yes, Cassandra had it all—a fact I was still trying to pretend away, along with my gut-wrenching heartache. I still couldn’t quite figure out why I was so devastatingly hurt by someone who was so damn selfish. Yet for some reason, I still kept blaming myself for the breakup and excusing all her faults away.

I just felt that because she was a doctor, helping others in need every day, how could she really be all that selfish? So I automatically went back to thinking that I just wasn’t good enough for her or perfect enough for her, and that was the real reason she continued to stray. I guess I just couldn’t hang up my own hang-ups. As much as I enjoyed my college coming-out and coming into my own experience with Beth, I still struggled with all my insecurities, especially my sexuality, after I graduated college.

I called it my blue period, and I just wondered why the heck God chose me to be the different one among all my friends. My depression felt like an ominous dark cloud continually hovering over me that was about to burst at any given second, and it often did. I cried myself to sleep every night because I was just too shy and ashamed to talk to anyone about all my insecurity issues and sexuality, even to my closest friends and family—or should I say especially to my closest friends and family. I felt so terribly alone.

I mistakenly thought my wife, Cassandra, would be that bright rainbow that would finally make me happy; but unfortunately, she too would soon fade away. My emotions were always so damn extreme, and I just gave my all in every relationship I ever had. That’s why, when they left there was nothing left of me—an empty soul drained of all my emotions and always starting from square one to fill it. Oh, I would give anything if I could just find a way to keep my soul fulfilled all on its own.

So even before I met Cassandra, I was already plagued with a ton of insecurities, always seeking other people’s approval to make myself happy. But that constant need for approval from others backfired very badly for me. It just was never enough, and it never lasted very long. Yes, all my insecurities were like a hungry beast that could never seem to be satisfied.

I was so frustrated because all those insecurities also sabotaged every single relationship I’ve ever had, even with my friends. I was just too uptight and completely distrusting of everyone. After all, my trust in people was so terribly violated at such a young age. My expectations of others, especially my lovers, were so unreasonably high that they were all destined to fail. Actually, they all never really stood a chance—and neither did I.

Yes, I was a mess until that fateful flu where Dr. Cassandra Stevenson swooped in and healed all my many wounds, which were way more emotional ones than physical. She just seemed to make everything OK. Cassandra not only bandaged all my emotional wounds; she also made me completely forget I ever had them. But I soon realized that Cassandra was just that—only a temporary Band-Aid over some deep insecurity issues, which were far too serious than even my doctor wife could heal.

Then Cassandra’s affairs started, and they were like pouring salt on all those old wounds. But I still stuck it out with her because I was so afraid of losing her. Unfortunately, I was losing her anyway. Now I felt just as scared, lonely, and confused as I did before I met her and have absolutely no clue how I was ever going to get through this.

Oh, God, what was I going to do now?

CHAPTER 2

The Truth about Our Marriage

W ell, the first three years of marriage were great; we were just so much in love and did everything together. We went jogging every weekend morning on the beach with the dogs and then shared romantic dinners at our favorite restaurants every Saturday night. Then after what seemed like overnight, Cassandra appeared to have contracted a chronic case of marriagitis, a.k.a. marriage boredom, and sought the remedy from all her pretty lesbian nurses. Yes, marriagitis—the only disease that affected others far worse than the person who actually had it.

She told me that those affairs meant nothing to her and that she truly only loved me. I chose to believe her, but what I chose to believe certainly didn’t match what I was really feeling deep down inside. Those affairs absolutely crushed me, but I still kept forgiving her. Even so, I never forgot every single dirty affair she had left on her fingers. They were like mud stains that I couldn’t emotionally scrub away from my heart no matter how hard I tried. And truthfully, it didn’t matter what those affairs meant to her; it was what those affairs meant to me that we both continued to deny.

Soon our marriage became tainted with a bunch of lies and denial all mixed together into one wicked brew, but lies and denial often did go hand in hand. Cassandra kept lying about all her affairs, and I kept denying that they really bothered me. But for some reason, those affairs never seemed to bothered her as much as me. It seemed that guilt and conscience weren’t strong emotions in her.

This was probably the biggest difference between Cassandra and myself. They said humans were made up of 95 percent water; I was pretty sure I was made up of 95 percent guilt and conscience—perhaps one of the consequences of that ultra-strict Catholic school. I mean, having a healthy dose of both was not necessarily a bad thing. But I could’ve definitely lost all that unnecessary Catholic guilt for basically liking all that we humans naturally found enjoyable, never mind being attracted to my own sex. It just seemed like everything that was fun or felt good was considered a sin in my strict Catholic school. It was just too much to handle really, and I felt so stifled inside, especially when I was a kid. I was afraid of my own shadow, which, by the way, I believed was God always hovering over me, watching every single sinful move I made.

So it wasn’t long before I started rebelling against that strict Catholic school and all those uptight nuns. I began making out with the boys in the hallways, putting on tons of makeup, and shortening my uniform skirt and blouse. Yes, Catholic school was my very first cause I waged battle against.

Luckily, my mom was so cool and a liberal at heart; I thank God for that! When I eventually came out to her in my early twenties she told me that nothing could ever change her love for me. She also said that God created us all to be equal regardless of what anyone else had to say. I was indeed so fortunate to have such a supportive and understanding parent.

So going back to my Catholic school, my mom would actually laugh whenever one of those detention notices came home, knowing how overly constricting that school was. But she would still reprimand me just a little, mainly for me to just keep the peace and not because she agreed with them.

In fact, I would never forget when my mom really gave it to those nuns once. I could remember it like yesterday. I was only in first grade, and it was the day before our long Christmas break, and the nuns were giving all the students in the class a tiny gift. There were two big piles of wrapped books on my teacher’s desk. One pile of books had a sign in front of it that said For girls only, and the other pile said For boys only. When I opened my doll book, I was so upset and really wanted little Mark Manno’s tractor book. So I rushed home crying and said, Mommy! Mommy! Sister Mary wouldn’t let me take a book from the ‘boys’ pile.

Oh, sweet Jesus, was my mom fuming mad! Well, let’s just put it this way—Saint Mary’s no longer had piles of Boys or Girls books any longer, just piles of all types of books that all children can choose from on their own. Yes, I definitely knew where I got my political passions from.

My mother only agreed to send me there because my grandmother paid for it, or else I would’ve gladly gone to public school. But unfortunately, the public schools in my area had a very bad reputation at that time. No worse than the reputation I was soon getting over at Saint Mary’s.

I guess that school wasn’t all that bad since my friends and I actually had a good time rebelling against those uptight nuns. Yes, young Todd Bradley and I would never ever forget that look on Sister Martha’s face when she caught him feeling me up behind the bleachers in eighth grade. Oh, it was simply priceless! Yes, Todd and I still joked about it today, and whenever I saw him around town, we always greeted each other with a loud Hey, Boobie, how are ya? Ha! I always said the devil’s favorite place was with his feet up in a convent.

However, I did believe learning about how Jesus preached the importance of love, forgiveness, and compassion served me well. But as I grew older, I grew further and further away from the Christian hypocrites and resented their negative interpretations of the Bible that condemned gays, abortion, contraception, and divorce. I actually began to pity those staunch conservative Christians more than myself and actually prayed for them to become the enlightened ones.

Good thing my head was on straight even though I was secretly gay. But I still had a very hard time accepting my own homosexuality. Homosexuality—oh, how I hated that cold technical term to describe who I was. Or even worse, I hated that dreaded dyke word to describe us lesbians. It had such derogatory sound to it, even if the term supposedly came from many lesbians looking like those kids who wore short pageboy hairdos when they dug dykes or ditches at the turn of the century.

I was so glad that we didn’t bring that pageboy hairstyle back, although we lesbians did somehow invent the mullet haircut in the eighties. You remember—and I’d like to forget—that short on top, long in the back poodle cut many of us lady lovers pranced around with back then? No, that was not much of an improvement from the pageboy look, that was for sure.

Now don’t get me wrong; today I’m not ashamed of being gay, and I’m very proud of who I am and labels meant nothing to me. In fact, now our community even uses those once considered derogatory labels like dyke and homo as symbols of pride today instead of shame to show how truly far we’ve come. Hallelujah for that!

But I still don’t think it’s necessary for society to use terms that separate or marginalize us from the general population. I mean, I am the general population! I’m just as human as else anyone else, and believe me, that’s hard enough already. Just because I’m gay doesn’t mean I don’t have the same feelings and emotions—and problems—as everybody else does on this planet. Yes, I bleed red! So personally, I don’t think I should be labeled anything other than my name.

Many of my insecurities growing up stemmed mostly from society’s negative views at that time, erroneously labeling being gay as being so taboo, especially when it was at the height of the AIDS epidemic. Conservatives viewed being gay as so sinful when all the LGBT communities were trying to do was live their lives openly and honestly. I couldn’t see anything sinful about that.

In fact, I felt many of the conservatives were the sinful ones, if anyone, turning their backs on gays who were so stricken with AIDS and other illnesses and in such desperate need of love, support, and medical attention. Yes, that was when my political passions first took root.

That was yet another major difference between Cassandra and myself; she just wasn’t anywhere as politically or spiritually driven as I was. She was more driven by her own personal successes. I did, however, envy her natural self-confidence, which, of course, I always struggled with my entire life. But I didn’t understand how she was truly indifferent when it came to LGBT rights. I just didn’t get it and figured to each their own.

It was funny that Cassandra also attended Catholic school, and I really didn’t know how she managed to dodge that Catholic bullet of guilt and shame that was so deeply ingrained into our innocent psyches at such a young age— along with her obsessive parents hovering all over her. While I was at least glad Cassandra was able to break through those Catholic and parental chains to be herself, I think she could’ve definitely benefited from having a touch of guilt and shame after all. Actually, I could’ve benefited from her having a touch of some guilt and shame from all her affairs. I would’ve even settled for a smidgen of remorse.

Truthfully, I didn’t think you needed a particular religion to tell you what’s right or wrong; it’s really just a gut instinct. That’s exactly why I considered myself more of a spiritual person today, and I didn’t follow any one particular faith. In fact, I kind of believed in a little of them all.

I always felt like all the major religions told the same story, only with different characters anyway. Oh, how Cassandra’s parents really hated my open spirituality and thought I was such a flake. I actually felt like I had more honesty and sincerity in my little pinkie than all the Stevensons combined.

Get this, one day, I asked Cassandra to go with me to try a psychic out just for fun, and she said, No way! They’re all a bunch of charlatans preying on innocent, vulnerable people. They won’t be getting my hard-earned money. No way! But I used to sneak away and take my best friend, Marie, along with me all the time. We got so much from those psychic readings, and we really felt like they were speaking directly to our loved ones who passed over; we really did. And while I did believe there may be a lot of fakes out there, I also believed there were many people who were given a certain psychic gift as well. I mean, why not? Many people possessed other beautiful talents, so why can’t people be given a psychic talent as well?

I don’t know, I was just more open to anything being possible in this life. I mean, I still can’t figure out how a television works, never mind the Internet! Maybe it was just the doctor in her, but Cassandra was an extremely practical person, and if there wasn’t a significant scientific reason behind something, then it just wasn’t worth even discussing. She was just very closed-minded when it came to anything metaphysical. No, spirituality and especially philosophy weren’t her strong points. But they were indeed mine.

Now that I really think about it, maybe deep down, Cassandra never did dodge that Catholic guilt bullet after all and actually got hit with it pretty hard. It may still be deeply embedded in her subconsciousness, so she just rebelled against it completely. Who knows? Maybe I’ll never know. Or maybe she simply felt like she deserved all those affairs and gave herself the doctor pass. Perhaps she just rationalized somewhere inside her genius brain that, since she saved so many lives every day she was actually entitled to a few affair privileges. Unfortunately, I was the one who took the brunt of all her affair privileges —or maybe I wasn’t the only one. I often wondered how many other people from her so-called innocent affairs did she hurt— husbands, wives, girlfriends, boyfriends, or even the mistress herself who she never followed up with.

The funny thing was that I never remembered us having the discussion before our marriage that we’d actually become nonmonogamous after our marriage. Talk about ass backwards. I mean, Cassandra was more faithful before we got hitched.

I personally don’t think I’m even capable of pulling off an affair of any kind. Being 95 percent filled with guilt and conscience, I’d always be thinking of all the other people I may be hurting or even families I may be breaking up, never mind the thought of hurting my own wife. I would seriously lose sleep trying to figure out why she just never felt the same way.

And besides Cassandra lacking guilt and conscience, she was also a total control freak. All she ever wanted was to be the very best at everything; and she usually was. But her true ambition was to become the most revered doctor in our town, actually our state—make that the world! I mean, I loved her for all her ambitions, until I found out she loved her ambitions much more than me.

It all started from her childhood; both her parents were prominent physicians in Hartford, Connecticut, and were the most respected heart researchers at their local hospital until they retired last year. It would be fair to say that they were the medical Gods in their town and considered premier cardiologists in the country. In fact, they had an entire cardiac wing named after them in their local hospital. I did admire them for that and for all of Cassandra’s many professional accomplishments as well, but my admiration for them stopped short there.

Cassandra was an only child, and saying she was spoiled was putting it mildly. However, as much her parents, Drs. Helena and Norm Stevenson—whom I preferred to call the Imperials—had spoiled her, they were also very hard on Cassandra growing up and were extremely strict with her school studies.

Oh, Cassandra was going to be a doctor in their eyes no matter what, and they would be sure to preen her to be the very best cardiologist as well. They wished for their perfect little prodigy to take over their renowned research work and have her future discoveries added to theirs and, of course, carry on the prestigious Stevenson name in the medical field.

So the Imperials sent Cassandra to the very best schools, exposed her to the best country clubs and all the finer things in life, etc., etc., etc. But unfortunately, they never really allowed her to be, well, a kid. If I seemed to have an attitude toward the Imperials, this would be true.

The Imperials and I weren’t exactly loving in-laws, which quickly reminded me of Helena and Norm’s fake air kisses they used to give me—looking in the opposite direction while standing three feet away from me every time we semi-greeted. Not quite the warm and fuzzy types, not towards me anyway—me, the one, the devious one who turned, as they termed it, their daughter into a lesbian. Oh my! They still, till this day, think Cassandra was in some sort of phase, which they believed was a very bad one at that. And from where I’m standing right now, I actually think they may have been right.

They just could not bring themselves to accept that their perfect little offspring was, well— gay. After all, Cassandra was engaged to be married to a young and handsome fellow cardiologist when I first met her, named Dr. Thomas Moore. He was her father’s colleague whom he adored, a.k.a. the son he never had but always wished for. Then without a shred of warning, their perfectly preened daughter crossed paths with a very attractive young emerald-eyed, redheaded woman. Yes, little ole me, this sweet and demure Irish schoolteacher from Queens, New York, would ignite a fire in Cassandra’s heart—and other places—which, unfortunately for the Imperials, would promptly put that dream they had planned for their prestigious daughter out to pasture—queer pasture, that is. Cassandra shocked everyone by abruptly calling off her wedding to Dr. Moore, which till this day, I still believed, was the most courageous thing she ever did for herself and for me. I was so proud of her.

Oh, I was so desperately, blindly, cuckoo-headedly, smittifiably head over heels in love with her. Yes, I couldn’t make up enough crazy words to describe how crazy in love I was with this woman and her with me. She was, without a doubt, my very first true love.

I did feel somewhat bad for the Imperials; after all, they were truly blindsided by this. I mean, they had such high expectations for their princess daughter to have this traditional yuppie all-American lifestyle and couldn’t imagine anything different for her—or themselves.

However, I thought the lifestyle Cassandra and I shared was just as traditional, yuppie, and all-American as could possibly be—sans the prominent male counterpart and 2.5 children, of course. I mean, we did have the white picket fence, matching Mercedes Benz, and pedigree pooches and all. But unfortunately, that wasn’t perfect enough for the Imperials. Ah yes, perfection—the greatest illusion on earth, except, of course, if you consider perfection being happy with all of life’s imperfections. Now we’re talking.

Cassandra had no desire to have children and always said that her practice was like a child to her, which I was OK with, and I pretty much went with whatever she wanted. But I couldn’t deny that, deep down, I often wondered what it would be like to be a mother—and for her to be a mom too. I mean, I couldn’t say it was always a burning desire inside me to be a parent, but if the opportunity arose and if she wanted a child, I would’ve definitely been excited about it.

However, I certainly didn’t feel that our relationship needed a child, as I was not of the belief that all relationships needed children to feel complete or to live happily ever after. Our pooches filled those maternal needs in us just fine. In fact, I think a couple should feel complete first before they should even consider raising a child together—or even pets for that matter. I was especially concerned with those relationships that were lacking in some way and incorrectly used children as a means to fix their bad relationships or to fill in for what was missing in it. Call me old-fashioned, but I believe a couple should have children because they both genuinely wanted them and are truly capable of giving them a good, healthy, and loving home. So it wasn’t a child that was missing from our relationship; it was clearly something else—something much deeper and emotional. For one, honesty was what was really missing between us, not just within our relationship but also within ourselves.

I mean, Cassandra and I still had a lot of other things going for us. We both were obsessive readers. In fact, we named our twin bichons frises Audre and Virginia after our two favorite lesbian poets Audre Lorde and Virginia Woolf. Oh, I just loved in the beginning of our relationship when we used to snuggle up on the sofa in our wide-open living room that overlooked the Atlantic Ocean and just read quietly together in front of our stone fireplace, with the dogs cozied up at our feet. It was just so peaceful and serene. Sometimes I felt like we were more in sync sitting quietly and reading together than we were making love. We both preferred older novels, but our reading tastes were vastly different. I was more into the racy romance novels of Nora Roberts and Jackie Collins, and Cassandra preferred reading science fiction and mystery novels by Carl Sagan and Agatha Christie.

We both also had such great careers that we loved. I mean, my hours weren’t as demanding as her doctor schedule, but I was a consummate, hardworking professional teacher and always felt that my job was equally as important as hers. Too bad her parents, the Imperial Stevensons, didn’t quite feel the same way when they would often comment, Jeez, I don’t know why anyone would want to go into teaching today with the peanuts they get paid. So much for loving what you did no matter what the salary. However, I thought I made a pretty good living. But it’s all relative; I simply had thousands to their millions.

And unfortunately, I didn’t think Cassandra even respected my teaching career as much as her doctor career either, especially when she thought that my days were much easier to take off than hers, which really pissed me off. But I would just let it go, just like I let everything go far too easily and for far too often. Truthfully, I didn’t know if it would’ve made any difference in our relationship anyway if I had spoken up to her. It probably would’ve just ignited more issues.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t long before our peaceful hours of reading and rubbing our matching socks together in front of our cozy fireplace became less and less frequent. As her medical practice expanded, the intimacy gap between us expanded as well. We were the proverbial ships passing in the night, as well as ships passing in the mornings, afternoons, and weekends. It became clearer and clearer that her limitless ambition was indeed her most demanding mistress of all.

As her proverbial ship was charging strongly on course, mine was slowly sinking. I mean, I loved my teaching career, our beautiful home, our pets, and especially the beach; but the difference was that I loved her far more than any of those things. My denial and pretending that all was OK with us was hurting me more than anything else.

After all, the Imperials would’ve loved nothing better than for their perfect daughter to come back from our queer rainbow pasture and settle down with a fellow brilliant male doctor to bring their poor lost daughter, as they would describe her, back home. Give me a break! Oh, how those goddamn Imperials annoyed the hell out of me!

Cassandra would also get so mad when I would get into a heated discussion over politics or religion with her parents, especially at social gatherings. Yes, politics and religion—the two things you were never supposed to talk about, which I just loved to talk about with the in-laws or at social gatherings, especially if I had a good buzz going on to help me spark a good debate. I guess I was just a glutton for punishment.

Besides, I just got so tired of all the fluffy family and career BS at these tedious functions. I just wanted to actually make the conversations—and parties—a tad more interesting. But I just couldn’t seem to convince Cassandra on that one. My conservative wife always liked to play it safe—or should I say play it straight, even as gay as she was.

I still get pissed every time I think about Cassandra’s mantra to me before there was a professional event or family function. OK, Karen, just remember this. You know nothing about anyone or anything, and you have no strong opinions about anyone or anything. Are we clear? Even though she said it jokingly, I knew she couldn’t be more serious. And I just wouldn’t say anything back to her for a while, so she would just keep asking me, "Are we clear, Karen?"

She would just keep asking and asking, and I would just keep ignoring her until she got nicely pissed off, and then I would finally answer her, Oh, I’m sorry, dear. I thought you wanted me to act like your pretty little mute mannequin doll, and they don’t speak but just look pretty. I’m just practicing for tonight. So how am I doing? I said it as I overly bat my eyelashes just to be a wiseass.

Ha, ha, she’d answer me back sarcastically while giving me a nasty look.

Yes, Cassandra was a total control freak, and I couldn’t stand that part of her. I thought I left the constraints of Catholic school well behind me, and I certainly never thought I would find it again with my own gay wife. However, I must admit, perhaps I did let my emotions get the better of me whenever I discussed heated topics. I would just let my opinions rip whenever I discussed ignorant, conservative politicians or oppressive religious types, especially with other ignorant, conservative politicians or oppressive religious types.

Yes, just as the famous English playwright William Congreve wrote way back in the late seventeenth century, Hell hath no fury than a woman scorned. Truthfully, hell hath no fury than any person scorned, especially when they were fighting for their equal rights. Unfortunately, we all knew a few of those annoying and terribly exasperating conservative types—the ones I’d like to call the selectively ignorant bunch that continually fight against LGBTQ, women’s, and human rights and refuse to evolve into the twenty-first century. I would get a headache just thinking about them.

Oh, how I hated Cassandra’s repressive be pretty and stay quiet mannequin speech. Deep down, I really wanted to smash that frigging stupid mannequin persona to pieces, especially after my first drink. But I didn’t, and I just gave in to her.

Boy, would those nineteenth-century pioneer suffragettes Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Lucretia Mott—to name only a few—be pissed off as hell at me if they were alive today for setting woman’s rights back a hundred years. I wouldn’t blame them, and I was ashamed to say I was just too weak and afraid to stand up to Cassandra out of fear of losing her, just like many of those other scared, insecure women felt back then. Yes, we women could sometimes be our own worst enemies.

Cassandra was always a bit uppity and, I believe, had a bit of a superiority complex. She had gotten so infuriated when I tried to nickname her Cassie, saying that was a goat’s name. And she refused to call me Ka because she thought that sounded like a goat’s name too, and she absolutely hated that every single person I knew called me Ka. I didn’t mind it at all; I knew it was only a term of endearment and could care less if it sounded like a goat’s name. I adored goats anyway.

Cassandra would also say, Karen, I get that you’re passionate about certain things, but you’d think, for an English teacher, that you’d at least come up with a better vocabulary to describe your thoughts, feelings, and opinions other than using all those crude expletives when making your point.

And I would always answer, Not really, honey. No words in the English language describe those ‘selectively ignorant’ bunch of people quite as effectively as those ‘classless’ words do. Besides, they are so commonly used today that they should just be added to the dictionary already.

Cassandra would snidely reply, Well, until they decide to add shithead, asshole, and dickface to the dictionary—which they never will—can you please find some other ‘classy’ words to use with my parents or at my next professional function? I don’t want people thinking I found you in the gutter. Hmm, it made me think that perhaps I should ask my mom if she did indeed find me in the gutter in the ghetto when I was a baby after all.

Then I would always talk back to Cassandra in the only wiseass way I knew how. Yes, dear, I wouldn’t want to give all those cardiologists a heart attack. Wouldn’t be too good for business.

Just behave, Karen. Jeez, it wouldn’t kill you to actually give yourself a night off from debating religion and politics for God’s sake. I beg of you, Cassandra would sternly reply.

I’d then give a deep, sarcastic sigh and say, Yes, mother dear. Oh, how she hated when I called her that!

It was amazing how tough I was when it came to debating religion and politics, but I just couldn’t get up the nerve to stand up to Cassandra about all her affairs. Yes, I always said that "denial was the devil’s sharpest sword," and the devil was just having a ball stabbing away at me!

Eventually, Cassandra would get her way with me as she always did. I would just give in to Cassandra’s every wish just to keep the peace. I pretty much stopped voicing my overt opinions with her parents or colleagues. I just got tired of fighting with her about it and truly wanted us to get along above all things.

So I became extremely good at nodding at everyone at these tedious functions. It was not that I agreed with any of them, which I obviously didn’t; it was really just to stop me from nodding off to sleep while keeping myself out of trouble with all of her annoying, conservative friends.

I developed all sorts of social nods. In fact, I used to practice a whole bunch of them in front of my mirror the night before I used them on her parents and all her snooty friends. Ah yes, there was the lift-the-eyebrows, surprised nod when they just told me some happy horseshit they just did at work. I also perfected the huge-smile/chuckle nod when I heard the not-so-hilarious Charlie slipping by the water cooler in ’68 story I heard a million times before from the retired doctor friends of Cassandra’s parents. And then I had the very serious face nod when someone told me, well, something very serious. At least my vocal cords, a.k.a. all my thoughts and opinions, got a good night’s rest, but my neck was killing me from all that nodding.

By the way, everyone couldn’t stop saying how very sweet I was, but not one person ever asked if I was mute. I guess my opinions had less weight than the wind in that crowd. In fact, I was now convinced that the least amount of opinions one had, the more friends they would possess. And that night, I was indeed everyone’s new bestie.

Even with all Cassandra’s affairs and controlling nature, I still thought we had many other things going for us, and I truly believed our relationship had a good chance at lasting. I felt we would surely work out all our problems in due time, especially because the rest of our lives were so idyllic. But unfortunately, due time never seemed to be coming anytime soon. Believe me, I was waiting for it.

It was really a shame that Cassandra never wanted to work that hard at our relationship or, I should say, work that hard for me. And I was very upset that she never felt the same way about our marriage and our idyllic life as I did. I felt a big part of that was because of the negative opinions of her parents that were so deeply ingrained in her psyche and self-esteem. It was really hard to watch her parents still have so much control over her. And it was even more difficult, if not impossible, to change that messed-up view in her. Well, I certainly knew where she got her controlling nature and insecurities from. Yes, those bad apples didn’t fall far from those bad trees.