Back Like Me

Greetings thou fine and faithful folks of southern Utah, Maddy here. I've just returned for a visit after spending some time in California. It's been a while and I must say I certainly miss all the fellowshipping one with another - how are things in Mo-town anyway? Occasionally I log on to zboneman.com just to read one of my old articles (had these stories not been published there's no way I could get anyone to believe a word of it.)

For most people the Mormon way generally works out just swell. And the good Lord knows I did my best to get a grip on that iron rod, but it proved to be a bit slippery. Perhaps I wasn't cut-out for the Celestial glory I'd learned so much about, or I just had some crumby luck, but Mormonism chewed me up and spit me out like so much sheet-cake. Should you doubt my wordd - Yea Verily log on to zboneman.com and read all about the bizarre things that happened to me as I innocently tried to assimilate to the ways of Zion.

Anyway, I spent the summer in Santa Barbara preparing for my sophomore year of college and what mind-blowing place to be. The college town is called Isla Vista, and trust me there is no campus on the planet that can match this place for pure unbridled hedonism. It's like Amsterdam with a curriculum. The little colorful Dutch houses are all smashed together and every single morning in front of every dwelling there is three garbage cans filled to the teeter with beer cans and bottles. These kids pretty much like to get drunk and have sex and they're not big into recycling. Not bottles not cans not brain cells. So anyway I love Isla Vista. It's right on the ocean and just the coolest place in the world.

The Boneman would love this, but I've got this friend named Huck who just cruises the parties with an old broken video camera and pretends to be from Girls Gone Wild - estimates are that he's seen 3 out of every 4 boobs on campus. But he got burned out, he no longer has any interest in boobs. He's into Play Station now and if anybody tries to get him to go on one of his infamous boob-runs - he just waves them away like a jaded King and mumbles - "Y'seen one y'seen 'em both."

Anyway I'm done beating around the bush - here's the deal. I've gone lesbo. Before you slam the paper down and curse the heavens for allowing such profanity to exist right next to the Senior Sampler - consider my story. About a month after I'd moved to Cal, I'd gone to the movies and after the movie I stopped in the ladies room. Strangely, in the stall next to mine was a girl crying hysterically. I quietly asked if there was anything I could do and she just muttered "leave me alone." In any case I eventually got her to open up and she told me a story that involved a boyfriend who'd dragged her out of his car and drove away leaving her penniless and miles from home. I don't have a car, but Huck does and I told her I could probably drive her home.

It turned out that she had a friend who lived in a house just about a block from where I live, so I wound up just walking her there. It was about a mile's walk, but it flew by as we swapped stories about how badly guys suck and the unlikelihood of finding one that wasn't a selfish tool. She really had one of those refreshingly frank personalities that come with the built in sense of humor. So we exchanged phone numbers and vowed to hang out again and further our feminist philosophy. Which we did within a day or two and again we laughed it up and had a high old time - Marly, for all the world, seemed like she was going to become a great friend. We grew so close in fact that as we lay on my bed watching Big Brother, she leaned over and started to kiss me. "How about that . . . okay - nice to meet you too." She was well past the halfway mark of those round bottles of Chianti and so I was easily able to diffuse the situation by laughing past it, giving her a sisterly embrace and lying about having the flu. Wouldn't want to give my bestest new buddy the flu. And when I cautiously checked to see how my stupid excuse was playing out I found her softly snoring. I wasn't about to make a big deal of this - since I've moved out on my own, I make it a point to make friends instead of enemies, and I got the distinct impression that her cousin was a player, someone whose good side you wanted to be on.

I learned two interesting things that night. One is that I'm definitely not a lesbian, (I was kidding, though I'll have to admit, I was questioning myself a little bit during the women's Olympic beach volleyball. For some reason when they'd get back to their feet with those sand-wedgies - I found that strangely arousing, their muscular sugar-coated buns.) Still my first same-sex smooch didn't do a thing for me, so I figured I was still the same old hetero I'd always been. In the process of taking her home I was assisted by a girl who lived next door named Cassidy. It would be Cassidy that became my best friend and whom I would enter into the strangest relationship of my life. (If you don't count Jack the Mormon).

The second thing I learned that night, Cassidy informed me, was that Marly's cousin thought I was a lesbian and Marly's bid for a sloppy lip-lock was just to scope me out. I also found out that I was right about Marly's cousin. She's a very influential personality on campus, but not because she's a cheerleader or Student Body President, but because she was the "student" chairman of a secret sorority-like organization called LASSO. LASSO is an acronym whose letters represent words like lesbian, sister and sappho, obviously it's not an officially recognized sorority, but as I was to learn, it's influence reached well beyond campus. Cassidy painted the Organization out to be the ultimate club, and membership brings perqs aplenty. They own a movie theater on campus, that was free to members. Every friday night they show Rocky Horror Picture Show, but they even bring in first-run features and of course play alot of movies like Bound, and Personal Best and Desert Hearts, but this is only the tip of the iceberg - there's free dining at the Big Yellow House (best restaurant in town). Also included in the membership package is protection. There is an enforcement arm of the organization, that sees to the well-being of the members. Cassidy told me that if you ever get into any kind of trouble, help is only a 1 800 call away. They're known as the Muffia and a distress call brings about a swift response by a half dozen bull-dikes all of whom look like Pete Rose with mullets who show up and sort things out using whatever means necessary. Anyway, I could go on and on, but the deal is LASSO is spoken of in whispers and membership is only for the select. The only downside, of course, is you have to be a lesbian.

It came as something of a shock that I'd been chosen as a candidate for LASSO (when I got to town I was pretty much avoiding boys as a matter of principal and this caught the eye of the scouts.) As it turns out Marly was a scout, (though the term used by LASSO brass is "Field Investigators") and her whole crying in the can bit, was all a ploy. Cassidy is friends with a girl who's pretty far up in the hierarchy and she found out that I received a fairly high score for my two evenings with Marly, that while not stellar - still kept me on the radar, or gaydar if you will. Which gave Cass a plan. It turns out she'd been scoping me out herself, and she saw me as the perfect escort into the LASSO life. Cassidy wants in, she wants in bad and she saw me as her ticket. She had recently broke it off with her boyfriend of 9 months who had coincidentally ran afoul of the LASSO Muffia and had suffered the consequences. In any case the timing was perfect for her to jump on the "Gay Wagon" and it was her plan for us to become fake lezbos. Naturally I was skeptical of such a strange notion, but she had it all worked out and made it sound like a cake walk. The trick was going to be making it through the initiation, but she even had this part of it figured out.

The first step, of course, would be a few nights of lezbo practice (or homo-work, as I called it.) Cass made it clear that we had to make it look good to fool these people, they're gonna be like Olympic judges - we're gonna have to stick the landings. First came fake kissing. We were going to have to kiss and canoodle and if we were going to pull this off it had to look totally legit. Thus we began our dike-alike project in earnest. We figured out a way to kiss that would fool a porno director, but didn't involve any actual saliva exchange. I can't say as I found these practice sessions enjoyable, but there was an element of danger that made it exciting to say the least, and it was just nice to have such a good friend. I couldn't help but notice the irony of all this. When you consider that the world is full of "non-practicing homosexuals," I found it amusing that here we were a couple of "practicing non-homosexuals." And practice we did. The kissing part was weird enough, but we had it down to where neither of us felt uncomfortable doing it. Then Cassidy decided that just kissing wasn't gonna cut it. We're gonna have to touch each other if we're going to convince these people. We're talking about career lesbians here. Trust me, we gotta go a little further - just some affectionate nuzzling and y'know a little bit of boob touching and what not. She knew this part was going to be a hard sell, so she demonstrated on herself and told me we'd just think of it as checking each other for breast cancer. I'm tellin' ya Maddy, she told me with the utmost solemnity - if we touch each others boobs, we're in.

I relented for a couple of reasons - one of which was kind of twisted. Happily for me over the past year or so, my boobs have grown dramatically. My mother always sported an impressive set and I always figured that somehow I'd been genetically cheated. But, as it turns out, I was just a late bloomer and to have someone else appreciate my new found appendages was gratifying in some sort of sad way. But I couldn't help it - I was proud as hell of them. In any case, fondling each others boobs soon became part and parcel of our practice regimen. This took some getting used to, but soon enough I grew callous to it became fairly routine. Tit for tat, it was easier than kissing - still having never had my boobs fondled before, I had to really concentrate on not becoming aroused by it. Any time I started to feel anything beyond the purpose of the exercise, I would force myself to think about holocaust footage or mangled baby ducks and in this fashion I was able to soldier through.

I know this all this must sound completely insane, but I'm kind of insecure out here on my own, and the thought of having the Muffia at my beck and call was comforting. Being lesbian actresses (or thesbians as we called ourselves) was going pretty well and we were only a few days away from our initiation ritual. Then that afternoon while walking home from the cafeteria, I spotted Cassidy talking to her friend Bree (the LASSO leader) I could only imagine that it was an innocent coincidence, but out of curiosity I ducked out of sight and crept up around a corner to where I could hear what they were saying. And what they were saying was not at all what I might have been expecting to hear. They were laughing and so forth and then I heard Bree ask, "so how goes it with the new recruit?" "Piece of cake" Cass told her, "same old Lesbian 101 - you know how to pick 'em." Holy mother of crap what have I gotten myself into now? I snuck away, trying to decide what my next move should be, but I was too shell-shocked to come up with anything better than calling the cops. Not having a car, makes packing up in the middle of the night and getting the hell out of Dodge a difficult proposition, so I decided that I'd play along for a while longer until a better plan presented itself. Which meant that I was probably going to have to go through with the initiation. I figure how bad can it be? At this point I can fondle a boob with the best of them. I was just gonna have to cowboy-up and ride this out. Then I'll call my brother and transfer to a different University. Hell maybe I'll just come back and finish my undergraduate days at good old Dixie College, where being a lesbian - real, fake or otherwise, doesn't get you into the movies for free.

Friday night was to be our big initiation and I was relieved to learn that Cassidy and I would be first to go. After being blindfolded and led down several flights of stairs, I was forced into a seat where I was right away bound and gagged. And then off came the blindfold and "Holy shit in a shopping bag" I was surrounded by a dozen naked women - some of them well past college age. Soon a statuesque blonde marched into the room, naked save for a pair of red pumps and one of those masks like they wore in Eyes Wide Shut. She walked in circles around me and then gave a command which was a cue for several naked girls to file in and hastily undress me. For someone who was probably only about one more palpitation away from hysterical blindness, I did my best to keep it together and tried to act bored. As bored as one could realistically be expected to appear with the heart-rate of a hummingbird in a mayo jar. At this point I just wanted to escape with my life and if that meant I was going to have to put on a dog and pony show for this naked tribunal of twist-offs - so be it. Just the fact that I hadn't soiled myself yet was an encouraging sign that maybe, just maybe I might be able to convince these broads that I was all about the ladies. "yessir, lick her is quicker - baba bing, that's my time, thank you goodnight and drive safely." I wonder if they have you killed it they find out your a straight? Then the tall one spoke, "Who is this mutt who presumes to become a member of our sacred sisterhood?" I was so dumbstruck that it took a few seconds for it to register that she was talking to me. "Oh" I was able to state my name without a noticeable quaver. "Silence slut," she commanded and smacked me with one of those kinky leather whipping flogs. She strolled around me casually, occasional regarding me with a menacing hiss that expressed her extreme disdain, "and who is it that you wish to bring with you into our midst?" After a hard swallow I stated "Cassidy Frehner," with sort of a lame ceremonial tone - that totally backfired. "Please escort this Cassidy Frehner into the room." And at once Cassidy appeared and not too surprisingly she was as naked as the rest of us. Seeing her naked, was shocking enough, but I was even more afraid of what she was carrying. She brought with her a silver platter that had upon it something covered by a red satin cloth - which I could only imagine was some kind of Medieval sexual devise. Cassidy set the tray on a table and proceeded to kiss me. The sort of kiss that was nothing like the tongue-less variety that we had so carefully rehearsed. At this point I'd all but resigned myself to god knows what kind of humiliation and abuse, but when some of the other girls who had undressed me began to caress me in a gentle but untoward manner, Cassidy warned them away in a stern voice that I barely recognized as hers. "Do not touch what is not yours to touch - Maddy Bonham belongs to me."

I had no idea whether to be pleased or more frightened by this development, "Maddy is mine," she repeated in a gentle voice. Then the tall one spoke again, "Pledge Cassidy, what sacrifice do you offer the order of LASSO? We are growing impatient with your selfishness." Cass walked over to the table and set the red satin aside to reveal a rather large pair of scissors. "My love, I offer the raven locks of a virgin." She stepped over to me and (after giving me a wink, that to this day I can't imagine the meaning of) she began to cut off my hair with all the finesse of a drunken blacksmith. (I suppose the rough and rowdy trim was all for effect, but the "raven" thing was a stretch. My hair is medium brown - then again in the soft candle light of the sacred sacrifice room it might have looked dark enough - it sure helped to hide alot of the older spectator's cellulite. (There were a good four of these broads that had no business taking their clothes off in front of anybody). Soon enough I was as expertly groomed as a spring lamb. Sinead O' Conner after a drunken Irish dare. I should point out here that I'm really vain about my hair, it hides the fact that I'm not exactly a classic beauty, and helps focus the attention away from my borderline fat ass. Speaking of which, maybe it was because I was totally naked and now bald, but I've never felt so naked and bald in all my life.

The tall one strode over to me and brushed the hair away from my face and then began to lick my bald head. By this time this didn't even strike me as being weird. (My mind had long since shut down - quite unable to make the leap from near-temple marriage to being held hostage by a coven of evil lesbians) After licking my head a bit more the tall one took the red satin sheet and wiped her tongue and then motioned for Cassidy to come stand beside me. She walked a few circles around us appraising what she saw and then with a couple of quick claps of her hand, all of the other naked girls scurried out of the room. Once they were gone she removed her mask and addressed the women sitting in the chairs, "venerable honorees of the order of LASSO I give the "Butch and Cassidy." Welcome to our sisterhood. Whereupon the other women stood up and shook our hand casually congratulating us as though we'd just given a lovely presentation at a Rotary luncheon. Butch and Cassidy - I should have at least seen that coming. Once again I must sadly report that life really isn't working out for me. And guess who's back in town.