I have a very good friend. She is comfortable to talk to. We talk about books, people we have known, and things we would like to do someday. She pays attention to the things I have to say, which is very flattering. Even nicer, she shares her feelings with me, which makes me feel privileged, special, connected. We meet once a week for coffee and a chat in the teashop down the street. The chats can get pretty boisterous, but we have to keep it fairly tame because we are in public. She is my best friend, and we laugh a lot together.

Today, we are having such a nice talk, that I don't want it to end. The waitress is starting to give us the evil eye for tying up a table for so long, but my son isn't due home from school for hours, and I don't want her to go. I explain that my house is just down the street. We can go there and talk some more. I invite her in and show her around the house. I fix a pot of decaf and we sit down in the living room to continue our talk.

Something has changed in the few minutes that it takes to pay the bill and walk home. Probably because of the interruption, the atmosphere is a little more strained than it was at the teashop. She seems nervous; as though there is something she needs to say yet is afraid to say. Haltingly she tells me that she is a lesbian and that she didn't tell me because it might wreck our friendship.

She starts to cry. I feel so sorry for her. I am anxious to reassure her that I wouldn't stop being her friend just because of her sexual preference. I put my arms around her, just to comfort her. She snuggles close. Soon the hugs turn into caresses. We are sitting on the couch, knee to knee, with our arms around each other, her head resting on my shoulder, her face toward my neck. She lifts her chin. Very gently, she starts kissing the hollow above my collarbone. I can feel her warm breath on my neck and it makes my chest ache. I bend my head to meet hers, and we kiss.

The very gentle, friendship-type kiss turns more passionate. We hear voices and suddenly remember that the window curtains are open and anyone passing by could see in. We jump apart. Flustered, she gathers up her things and thanks me for a nice chat. She keeps her eyes downcast as though afraid to look at me, afraid that she would see that our friendship has ended. She looks so unhappy. As she gets to the door I feel like my heart might break-partly in sympathy but partly because I know that, if she leaves now, she'll never come back. "Don't go," I say.

She waits for me at the front door. I walk toward her with my arms open.

With a funny noise that is part sob and part sigh, she rushes to meet me. We hold each other, rocking gently back and forth for a moment. "Please make love to me," she whispers.

The master bedroom would be too weird, too crowded with marital ghosts for comfort. I take her to the guest room. This was an ex-wife's bed. I've never made love in it, so, perversely; it seems less crowded, less complicated. That decision contains the implicit choice to cheat on my husband, but I push that thought aside. Suddenly, I am paralyzed with stage fright. I've seen sexy movies with girl-girl scenes, but, if the straight scenes in triple x movies don't bear any resemblance to real love-making, I can hardly expect the lesbian scenes to be very realistic. "I don't know what to do," I whine. "Don't worry. I'll show you," she replies.

She gently undresses me, kissing each part of me as it becomes exposed. As I step out of my panties, she caresses the curve of my waist and hip. "I just knew you would look like this," she breathes. She turns me toward the mirror.

Standing behind me, she puts her arms around my waist and looks over my shoulder into the mirror. "Just look at how beautiful you are."

I stand there at the foot of the bed, gazing at our reflection. I watch us in the mirror as she kisses and caresses me, sucks my nipples, and finally kneels in the floor in front of me to ever so gently kiss my clit.

I explode like a rocket and change from passive to passionate. Somehow, suddenly we are on the floor in a writhing tangle as I kiss her madly and tug at her clothes. She laughs breathlessly and says "I thought you were a happily married woman."

I have to laugh, too. "So did I," I reply.

"Wait. Just watch for a minute," she tells me. I sit in the floor and watch her slowly, sensuously undress, her eyes locked on mine the entire time. As the impromptu strip-tease comes to an end, she throws her head back and laughs. She cups both breasts in her hands and jiggles them in a silly yet provocative way and makes pouty faces at her reflection in the mirror. She pinches her nipples until they stand up, firm and dark pink. "Now we are both beautiful," she says.

She moves to the bed, carefully folds back the covers, and slides in. I join her. We lay there facing each other in the middle of the bed. Before I can get stage fright again, she smiles and says, "Don't think so much. Just hold me."

We kiss, slowly and deeply. We caress each other, gently, on the face and neck and shoulders. She moves my hands to her breasts as though giving me permission to touch. When her hands wander down my belly, the skins tingles like an electric shock. As I squeeze her breasts, her hands wander down my hips and thighs. I am so aroused that I ache.

I am a slippery mess half-way down my thighs, so my desire is evident. She pushes against me until I roll onto my back. Her hand moves purposefully down my stomach, over the arch of my pelvis, to my wet, throbbing lips. She rubs once, twice, three times, and I come in a spasm that is almost convulsive. "The first one is free," she says. "The second one will cost you."

Gradually, my inhibitions fall away as she shows me exactly where to kiss, exactly where to rub, exactly where to lick. I become an eager pupil, and then, I feel comfortable enough to show her exactly what I want-little secrets like the fact that the left side of my clit is more sensitive than the right and that I like her to suck hard on my nipples but not to bite. We end up in the sixty-nine position, and the taste and smell and feel of her is so overwhelming that it is almost too much for me to bear.

Afterwards, we are both tired and almost sore. There is just enough time for a quick shower. Showering with another woman would have been another sexy, sensual experience, but I am too aware of the time and too suddenly shy to take full advantage of it.

I dress hurriedly and try to straighten the room, try to erase the evidence of our afternoon. She sighs, "We can't go back. This has changed our friendship forever." I stop fussing with the bedclothes and grin at her. "What are you doing next Tuesday?" I answer.