Summer Story Contest 2011 Runner-up: Girls, Girls, Girls

Illustration by Greg Gossel

June. Kate was June. Kate was my first major girl relationship. When we kissed ... When we kissed the first time, there was a pulse behind my eyes and blinding flashes and I thought Oh Jesus Christ, I am seeing fireworks. Kate. Kate was bad news, but Kate. Thank you Kate, you opened the floodgates.

Riley. Riley was July. Riley had glasses, sinewy limbs and bow lips that made me bite my own to prevent myself from biting hers. The first time Riley and I kissed, we had climbed up the underside of the Lake Street Bridge that yawned over the Mississippi River. A raucous thunderstorm descended upon us and the river quaked from the pelting rain. I tackled Riley underneath that bridge, kissing her as a beer rolled over the edge and turned end over end, smashing into the river.

With August came Baby Dyke. I was at the neighbor's playing gay spin-the-bottle when the girl sitting next to me ran her hand up my back, and then down my arm, my stomach, my thigh. I looked at her, slightly cross-eyed, and we grabbed each other's hand and ran away from the game, up the 67 steps to my apartment. Slugging whiskey, we tore at each other's clothes, cracking my eyeglasses into pieces when we rolled over them. Later, when we bumped into my roommate in the hallway, I find out that this girl, this hot, now blurry, girl, was a senior in high school.

September and October brought the rockabilly co-op girl. We would stay up late, drinking Black Label and fighting her cat for bed space. Unfortunately, the co-op girl fell in love with her co-op co-worker in a terrible co-op way. Rainbow Foods sales of organic bananas soared for a month following my co-op breakup.

Co-op girl was out, but she left in her wake a flannel of new lesbian friends.

Bennie. Bennie was the first of the flannel. We meet again at a gay girl dance night in November. She was tiny, wiry, had buzzed hair and was prone to wearing little boys' "Star Wars" T-shirts. Although I told myself I wouldn't, I found myself at 4 in the morning naked on a stranger's couch, Bennie between my legs. She wooed me with surprise and disgust that co-op girl would give me up. Lesbians fall in love overnight.

December came in and Bennie ran back to her ex-girlfriend. For the rest of December, I dated whiskey.

January came. Bennie and her ex became exes again. One oppressive winter night, whiskey intimately introduced me to Bennie's ex. Four hours later, ex, I and one other were pushing each other's thighs apart. What a tiny dyke world.

February and March, I dated my schoolbooks. I spooned them, cried on them, hugged them close to my chest.

April brought Baby Dyke 2: Revenge of Tiny Hormones. The second Baby Dyke was slightly out of the high school age range. She whisked in fervidly and out the same way. She opened the door for May.

Drunken decisions and envious pool-playing abilities had me waking up next to Miss May. The sex was amazing, went on for days. I was falling for her until Miss May's secret ingredient turned out to be methamphetamine.

But June, oh June, back around again. June brought motorcycle girl. Motorcycle girl hooked me with her sanity. The motorcycle, swishy hair and bow lips helped. I am a sucker for bow lips. Motorcycle girl is now my motorcycle girlfriend and closes the calendar on my dating year.

Here's to that.