experiments

chapter one

It was a Friday night when Jennie had a sort of revelation. She and her best friend, Rosie, were at the movies, watching a psychological thriller that had been generating some hype online. The Handmaiden. Except, Jennie had no idea it would be quite this erotic. It had multiple graphic sex scenes. And they weren't just graphic sex scenes, they were graphic sex scenes between two women.

Jennie wasn't dumb or sheltered. She was well aware of the existence of homosexuals and everything else under the rainbow, but it was no doubt a taboo topic in South Korea, so she had never really been exposed to any representation of same-sex relationships, now here she was being hit with multiple sex scenes that Jennie could have sworn lasted longer than sex scenes in movies usually did.

At first, she glanced away awkwardly, hoping it would only last a few seconds. But when it didn't end, she looked back quickly and swallowed thickly. It all happened so quickly, one second they were just kissing, and the next they were tearing each other's clothes off like they had been waiting months to be with each other.

And it was all so sudden. Jennie never saw it coming. They said they were doing it so one of the girls could have more experience, but this just seemed so... passionate, like they had real feelings involved. But Jennie didn't think they did; there had been no tension or signs that would point to them being attracted to each other.

After a few minutes, it did end. And Jennie was grateful. She didn't consider herself homophobic, in fact, she would go so far as to call herself an ally, but the way she had been reluctant to even look at, it made her think, maybe she wasn't as comfortable with homosexuality as she thought she was.

But around an hour later, Jennie was faced with another lesbian sex scene. It was the same as the one earlier, except longer, and even more graphic if that was possible. When she first realised it was happening again, she looked away, the same as she did last time, glancing at Rosie who didn't seem fazed, and then she knew she was overreacting, so she looked back.

Not only did she look back to the screen, she imagined herself in it. It wasn't voluntary. She couldn't stop herself. She imagined she was the one on the bed, getting her nipples played with and then sucked by another woman. And then Jennie realised that she enjoyed this thought. She imagined herself in the scene for its entirety, and only when it was over did she realise that she might not be as straight as she thought she was.

Coming to such a realisation in a public place, surrounded by people she didn't know, was daunting for Jennie. She wanted to get out of there, badly. But then she would draw attention to herself and that was the last thing she wanted. What if everyone realised why she had left? Jennie knew that wasn't plausible, but just the thought alone was terrifying.

So, she stayed glued to her seat, not even daring to glance away from the screen for even a second. She wasn't even paying attention to the movie, too immersed in the possibility that she was aroused by women as well as men. But when a scene with the two main female leads appeared on the screen, she found herself paying attention to what was going on, and, despite not being exactly sure what was happening, she was rooting for them to be together again.

She got her wish by the end of the film when the two women were very much naked and very much having sex in a way she had never thought even happened. It was nice at first. They were holding and touching each other and kissing, but then there were silver balls, and by that point, Jennie's body started going into overdrive.

Thankfully, the movie ended a few minutes later and Jennie and Rosie left the theatre.

"That was something, right?" Rosie says as they leave.

"Right?" Jennie excitedly raises her voice, thankful that she wasn't the only one that movie had left an impression on. "I mean, it was a lot!"

"I never saw the plot twist coming."