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began to kiss her. Her lips touched Susan’s eyelids first, kissing them in turn. The mere touch of the other girl’s lips on her eyelids seemed to relax Susan. She breathed deeply.
    Then Sharon’s mouth fastened on her mouth and Sharon’s tongue darted out and slipped between her lips, licking and caressing the inside of her mouth. It was like no kiss she had ever experienced before. The whole inside of her mouth began to tingle and she could sense the blood coursing through her body. Sharon kissed her again. Then her lips darted to Susan’s throat and she kissed her all over her neck, little fast kisses that gave her a warm heady feeling.
    Sharon’s fingertips toyed with the younger girl’s breasts. Susan’s first impulse was to shrink away, but the touch was so pleasant, so gentle and delightful, that instead she found herself responding. Then Sharon’s lips moved to the cleft between her breasts while her hands continued their gentle caressing.
    Then Sharon put her mouth to each of Susan’s breasts in turn. She covered every square inch of the smooth, lightly tanned flesh with kisses and Susan hadn’t believed that such extraordinarily marvelous sensations existed. Sharon bathed each of her breasts completely with her hot, insistent tongue and Susan began to breathe very quickly. She couldn’t keep her feet still as the passion flooded her brain and her body began to writhe sensuously on the bed.
    Sharon continued to kiss her. Her hungry mouth moved lower.
    Lower…
    It was perfect.
    That whole night had been perfect. After they had made love that second time she drifted off to a deep sleep with her head pressed tightly to Sharon’s breast. Then, hours later, she woke up and Sharon cooked breakfast for the two of them.
    Then they went back to bed.
    The next day she explained to her parents that she had found an apartment in the Village that she was going to share with a girl from school. She moved in with Sharon.
    They made love almost constantly for the first few weeks. Sharon had been involved in lesbianism for years, ever since her French teacher had managed to seduce her during her second year in high school. She knew just about everything there was to know about the technical side of lesbianism and the mechanics of it. She told Susan a great deal and showed her even more.
    They remained together for three and a half months. Then they drifted apart. They had nothing in common, really, except for their attraction to one another. When the freshness of their love wore off, they separated and Susan found a room of her own on West Tenth Street. About the same time she managed to get work in the ceramics shop where she was still employed. At the beginning she worked behind the counter, but when the man who ran the shop saw the work she was capable of doing he put her in the workroom. At first he designed the objects she was to make; then he began to let her work out some designs on her own.
    She was a happy person, all things considered. She enjoyed her work tremendously and enjoyed living in the Village. It was sort of a small town within the larger city, and the free and easy air about it appealed to her.
    At times her lesbianism bothered her. She had always been fond of children, for example, and the knowledge that she would never have children of her own was disturbing. While she herself felt that “normal” sex was simply the name given to the sexual practice which happened to be followed by the majority of the world, and that there was no such thing as a perversion, her abnormality periodically annoyed her.
    And there were times when she wondered what would have become of her if she hadn’t met Sharon that night. Would she have drifted to lesbianism regardless? Perhaps, but there was also the possibility that it would never have occurred to her. Then what would have happened?
    She guessed that she would have lived alone by herself for a long time—several years at least. Then she would have met a man