First Love

A Story by Agatha Mathys

It wasn't easy. First love nover is. The stumbling-inthe-dark of uncertainty, the held-breath of anticipation the so aro difficult things. I met her in a very ordi nary way. So ordinary that the exact moment of mooting (the one that should be a bright flash in the mottled sky of memory) – that moment I have forgotten. She was there,

and I loved her.

I must havo mot her in Miss Lee's suito. Because of my job, I had my own key to the front docr of the dorm and special pormission to come in after hours. Ono night Miss Loe askod mo into her suito.

"Jonny, I've made coffee. Won't you have some with us?"

us:

I don't know whether Chris was there the first night or not. There were other girls thero, four or five. It was the beginning of a ritual. Later, I remember the three of Miss Lee bundled in a bright green robe, with her hair in a turban; Chris Just out of the shower, pajamas showing under the red plaid of her robe; and mo, home from work, no longer tired, full of stories about things that had happened at the switchboard.

One night we discussed, briefly, homosexuality. I'm not sure, but I think Chris introduced the subject, saying something about a book she'd read. I kept very, very quiet.

Someone else said, "Oh, I've known a fairy or two," and tittered.

I stirred my coffee--the coffee that didn't nood stirring because I drank it black.

"When I was an undergraduate," Miss Leo bogan. She had been looking at Chris, and sho paused and looked away. "When I was an undergraduate, a girl friend and I woro in-