Special Women's Issue
Volume 2, Number 4, Issue 8
Amsterdam, Winter 1992
"I tried as much as possible not to hurt her, because she was so vulnerable. All her peers did was beat each others' brains out and mentally torment each other."
Judith is a youthful looking thirty-nine, and has sensitive eyes. She is well built, dresses in sporty clothes, and is fashionable. At first she was a bit reserved, but she gave the impression that she was certainly someone who knew what she wanted.
Judith: I met Jacqueline when she was thirteen, in the early '80s. A friend of mine, Flo, had a catering business serving appetizers or whole meals for parties, and I worked with her. One day, we were doing a large party at which there were a lot of well-known people, among them Jacqueline's mother. I was vaguely acquainted with both her and Jacqueline. At the party Jacqueline began to court me in little ways. We were serving champagne, and Jacqueline presented her glass to me with a rather grand gesture. l just said “thank you” in a normal way, not aware that it meant anything special.
After the party she went along with us to the house of one of my girlfriends where we were going to have a little something to drink. There was a whole group of us, and it was really her first acquaintance with our lesbian circle; I think she was very impressed by it. When we were saying goodbye she asked if I would be willing to give her a call if we had another catering job somewhere, because she thought it would be interesting to see how it was done.
An Opportunity presented itself soon afterwards. A new shop for designer goods was opening and we were hired to provide the snacks. I phoned her, and she was pleasantly surprised; she clearly hadn't counted on hearing from me again. She came, but I was very busy with the Work. After the party, as I was packing and carrying the equipment out, Jacqueline began to help. 'When we were finished we were standing outside and all at once, just like that, she kissed me on the lips!
I said, “What's that all about?” And she replied, “I think you're great!” I nearly fainted with surprise and was totally perplexed. I'd never had it happen that someone so young made advances to me. I'd been entirely unaware of it, and I really hadn't seen it coming. It seemed to me spontaneous, the reaction of someone who apparently had taken a liking to me. Just that moment her father arrived to pick her up. A good thing it was too. Who knows what sort of crazy things I would have said. I was completely bewildered and didn't know what I should do. I did ask if she wanted to go with me on a catering job the following week in Amersfoort.
On the way to that job, the three of us were sitting stuffed into the little car that Flo and I always drove around in with all our catering things. She sat on Flo's lap while I drove. It was just as though we suddenly had a kid. Flo found her very nice too.
Jacqueline was so beautiful, a kind of budding flower. That was the punk era; at thirteen she looked sturdy and really sharp. There was a band playing, and we danced together; she asked me. That was all right, but I was supposed to be working. It put a bit of a dent in my relations with Ho: our work was being disrupted by a girl who was in love with me.
Afterwards we brought her home again. I was pretty impressed by her, and found it all very exciting. Back then I wasn't much thinking things through, just living very much day to day. I had a little girlfriend and an affair going, and was very busy with my work; I just went from one to the other.
Two days later I was leaving for a winter vacation. She asked if I would see her before I left. The evening before I left, I went around to see her, but before seeing her I went past my other girlfriend's and broke it off with her.
Jacqueline lived in this big house, with high ceiling rooms and antiques, a bit run down and cluttered, but with great atmosphere. She was home alone. I still remember what I had on, a white shirt and leather Levi pants. There was a definite tension between us. I was terribly shy and didn't dare do anything. I was also a bit anxious to get home because I still had to pack. I told her I should get going and we began kissing. It didn't go any further. I didn't know what I should do. My heart was pounding as I went down the steps, dazed at everything that had happened.
When I got home I found a letter she had stuck in my pocket. She must have written it before I arrived. She poured out her heart. It was heavy for her, and for me too. I found her really fine and wonderful. On the train I wrote a reply to her, and mailed it quickly at the border. I would rather not have gone away, or would have preferred to have taken her with me. During the vacation I wrote her often, and when I got back she was at the station waiting to meet me. I went with her to her house, and she introduced me to her mother. Jacqueline asked her mother if I could sleep over with her. Her mother was very friendly, but when she asked how old I was, I didn't dare to tell her my true age. I was 31, but said I was 29. Her mother said, “Look out. I could turn you in to the police.” It was her way of telling me to behave myself. She said it in a half joking way and it seemed clear to me that she didn't really intend to do it. I slept over, and we had sex together.
That week it was bitter cold, and we went skating with a whole club of girls. It was very romantic, with the clear weather and clean air. Jacqueline couldn't skate very well with racing skates, but she thought it was worth the blisters to go long-distance skating with me. Everybody was very friendly, and took it in stride. “So, Judith has a nice new young friend,” was the only comment.
Pressures
When I wasn't working I was at her house, even sleeping over there. Her parents were divorced, and she lived with her mother who was always working and away a lot of the time. Her mother had a girlfriend who also had a crowded schedule.
It was a hectic time. Catering with Flo was very heavy work, and swallowed up all my energy, emotional too. We had a job every day, and were travelling all over hell's half acre. Jacqueline still came around. Looking back, I think Jacqueline must have had difficulty with this: at that age, she expected that you'd be with her day and night, that's the way first love is. She couldn't quite comprehend that somebody my age had a busy job. With somebody your own age you can skip school and do the same things. But I was terribly busy.
Her mother didn't have time to cook and we ate out a lot, sometimes the four of us, with her mother and her girlfriend, but during that time I saw comparatively little of her mother. I think she was happy that I was there, because she was away nearly every evening with her work. I was her babysitter. At least when she was with me, Jacqueline spent less time in the hash cafés, where she otherwise hung out. Thinking back on it I'm sure it suited her mother just fine.
After school she came around to my place and did her homework. In the daytime she'd be with me, but she slept at home, because her mother wanted to see her every day. When she came from school, I had to get bread and butter with chocolate sprinkles ready for her. I bought special things for her: candied fruit, sprinkles, cola. I bought “kids' stuff” like she had at home, too.
We had a lot of sex. She soon started looking older; she bloomed, matured through all that sex. She hadn't gone so far with boys. I held back a bit, I didn't take the initiative so much, but left that up to her, because I didn't want to force anything.
She wrote things in my date book, scribbled down between my appointments: “I love you”; “We've been going with each other three months today”; “Today we've been together four months.” She even wrote little poems. She did it when I wasn't watching, and then I'd open my calendar and there they were, all so sweet. She did it for a long time; for more than a year my calendar was full of these nice messages. It seems that her feelings for me were very strong for a very long time.
To Bed on Time
Jacqueline and I didn't talk much; we gave each other little presents. I bought her little gifts that fitted her age that I wouldn't have given to somebody my own age: Snoopy dolls for example, toys from the second hand shops, very touching things.
I was very surprised how adult she was in her reactions to me, how adult her feelings were, even her body language. I think I could even say she was teaching me a thing or two, bringing out something archetypically female in me. She provoked me, was kittenish, teasing. She acted the way you usually see girls do with boys, running hot and cold. I was quite moved to see her do it, because she did it so beautifully, so entirely innocently.
Jacqueline had to be in bed on time, so we really didn't have evenings together to speak of. Usually it was eating out, or eating home, and then to bed. If I didn't have to be away, I went to bed early with her. That seemed entirely natural. I found it marvelous, to be all warm and cozy together in bed; and up early too. I was the one who heard the alarm clock and got us up. I took her to school and then went on to my place and to work. For her age, she had been going to bed quite late — that is, before she got to know me — at eleven or eleven-thirty.
Sometimes it could be difficult. Once, at a birthday party, she had to go to bed because she had school the next day. It was a warm, friendly party, all kinds of interesting people, but I went upstairs with her out of solidarity. It was very tempting to stay with the adults. It would have been easy to separate myself from Jacqueline, but that's not what I did, even though it's obvious I could have stayed longer at the birthday party. I was choosing her one hundred percent.
While I was going with Jacqueline, I focused my attention completely on her, and didn't have much contact with her mother. That was deliberate. I didn't want to be on an equal footing with her mother, because I was afraid Jacqueline would have problems with me if I tried to be her second mother. One time her mother did have dinner at my place with her girlfriend, and that was pleasant. I liked having them there; they were both very friendly. I wanted to have more to do with her mother, because I rather liked her. After all, she was Jacqueline's mother and very much resembled her. But I simply couldn't do that. We would have talked about Jacqueine as two adults, and it couldn't be that way.
The Outside World
When Jacqueline and I were courting, I developed the habit of taking her everywhere with me. I was proud to be seen with her. She was terribly pretty and very spontaneous. My women friends probably found it was a bit strange, but they weren't unfriendly. They were rather curious, but that didn't bother me. It was Jacqueline who felt that she was regarded strangely, but I think that was a sort of natural uncertainty, because she was suddenly being placed in a world of adults.
That feeling became stronger when she began to use makeup, and dress more like a woman. In my lesbian circles most of the women wore pants and dressed like men. That was the reason she gave for not feeling at home with them, that and being younger than everyone else.
Jacqueline took me with her when she saw friends from school, both girls and guys. She also played in a band, and naturally I had to watch them perform. I even went with her to a disco. I was dragged back into a world that I had long since left behind. Being thrown back into that school world began to make me feel a bit like a teenager myself
At first she was very proud of our relationship, because she was terribly in love with me. That changed quickly though, because she experienced such resistance at school. Her friends thought she was strange. If I was with her they'd act like she didn't exist. She found it difficult to have to be the one who always took the initiative to get together with them. Naturally, that tears you up. It began to bother her more and more.
If I picked her up from school, I didn't stand in front of the door. I knew that would cause her trouble. I stood instead by the corner; spared her a bit. It wasn't a big deal for me, but I could imagine how she felt, and didn't want it to become an issue. When we went out, it was mostly to the disco where her friends from school hung out. I did feel strange there. I also realized that I was jealous. If she stood around talking with others I couldn't bear it. I felt the end looming at such moments.
From her mother I never felt any resistance whatsoever. I kept strictly to the rules. If her mother said, “You two have got to be home by midnight,” I did it. With a friend her own age, Jacqueline would probably have paid less attention to her mother's word, and got in trouble for it. But I felt responsible, and also felt I didn't want to take any risks. Jacqueline could sometimes be very difficult, but after we met she settled down and took on a more regular schedule. I never could talk about this with her mother.
When Jacqueline began to dress more like a woman, she also attracted more attention from men. I didn't like that at all. I myself liked the way she looked without making herself look older. Regardless of whether she looked boyish or feminine she was still beautiful to me. When she started dressing like a woman, I got the feeling that I was in competition with the men, particularly older men. I became jealous, I got furious with those old fogeys. They knew that I went around with her and had a relationship with her, but they really didn't take me seriously. They list made advances while I was standing there! I was just a woman; they didn't consider me a threat.
Teen Years
Jacqueline was acting like the total teenager: moody, liable to inexplicable outbursts of crying and hysterics. That all began after about a year. I think that she couldn't handle the conflict between me and her friends. I wasn't sitting around in the coffee shops all day with her either. She led a sort of double life. At first glance it all seemed to flow smoothly, but that wasn't really the case. She was so young, and still in school.
Often she didn't want to go to school, and then I had to try to persuade her. I was a bit divided about this: as far as I was concerned she didn't have to go to school, but I also felt responsible to her mother. I had the idea that she had more or less entrusted Jacqueline to me, and that I had to honor that. I knocked around her house as “her daughter's fiancée,” and nobody made any trouble about it. If there was a problem, I went to her mother to discuss what I had to do. I was kind of caught in the middle between them, but I tried hard not to act like her mother. As much as it was possible, I tried to stay her equal, but that was hard.
It was very special with her. I was in love; it was a strong, caring feeling. When I saw her all alone I found her so pathetic that I always melted. It was not something physical, it was rather an inner feeling of tenderness. When she had problems, I found it very emotional, and felt entirely in sympathy with her. She would see gigantic problems in things that I myself no longer experienced that way because I had long since put them behind me. I often suspected what her moods were all about, but I usually didn't know how to deal with them. Often she didn't know what was going on herself, so she couldn't talk it through. I realize now she must have been wrestling with problems about her identity: did going with me really make her “lesbian”; was she attached to me as a person, but did she also want relations with boys?
My tenderness for her was entirely different from that for someone of my own age. If she did something wrong, even if it was at my own expense, I would find the way in which she did it such that I hadn't the heart to blame her for it. If she was angry, I wasn't hurt by it. I took her seriously; I knew that the world of her experience was totally different from mine because she was so young.
I know I am a bit naive but I think that one of the things that attracted me to her was her show of concern for me. She definitely wasn't looking for something motherly in me; actually I had the impression she wanted to protect me. We were friends: she teased me a lot; absolutely didn't look up to me; had no automatic admiration for my age or status. She teased me a lot, called me “dumbo” and “dope,” as if I was a kid, a friend her age. But she defended me if somebody else tried to put me down.
She was jealous though: especially of my other acquaintances, but even of someone discussing work with me for too long. Everything revolved around her feelings. Perhaps all girls at that age are like that, jealous of everything they have going with somebody. I didn't dare to tell her that she had to make a distinction between the relation I had with her, and the way I dealt with the acquaintances that I had before I met her. I didn't want it to seem as if I didn't take her feelings seriously. Naturally, I was remiss. It was terrible that sometimes I couldn't steer things along the right path. But that happened because I hoped things would work out all right.
Slowly everything changed. Outside pressures were so great that she began to see our relationship through the eyes of others. At first she was so proud to go around with me, but later she felt ashamed. She felt that the outside world, the world in which she moved, disapproved.
Signals
Jacqueline began to push away from me. She tried to find a way out, a way of calling it quits. She began to lie about what she had done, or about what she was going to do. I can well imagine her uncertainty; she knew that I was crazy about her and didn't want to cause me any pain. I didn't know what I should do myself, but if I was indifferent, that would also be bad.
She blamed me for all sorts of things. It was getting more and more difficult to react to her properly. She was turning into an opponent, but an opponent much younger than I. If you are going to defend yourself you want to defend yourself against an equal. Of course, she wasn't an equal. But it was easy to forget that at some moments. My greater experience gave me the advantage. She couldn't match that, but I handled it wrong. I was trying my best to prolong our relationship, but that meant that I was also misreading the signals she was sending me.
I had never criticized her. When she began to wear adult looking dresses, I didn't say, “They're awful, what do you see in them?” I have to admit that I had found them beautiful without realizing that wearing these dresses was a signal that she had begun to distance herself from me, that she wanted to express her heterosexual side. I should have sensed things were changing. I could have asked her simple questions like, “Is something wrong?” To tell you the truth, I really didn't want to know what was happening. I knew that she probably didn't know either.
Then it began to get so difficult that I really felt I had to talk it over with her mother in order to find out what I had to do to keep her with me. I didn't do it at first, although I really needed to. Finally we were at a party once with her mother and it was bothering me so much that I finally asked her what I should do. The only thing she could say to me was, “Let go of her.” It was just as if Jacqueline herself had said to me, “I'm breaking it off.” It was a real blow, but everything was now crystal clear, as if a light had gone on in my mind. I'd really needed to hear her mother say that.
Looking back on it all, I think that I didn't want to talk to her mother earlier because I knew what she was going to say. Something like, “You should have known it would go this way.” Naturally, she saw what I saw, that her daughter was feeling desperate. I had hoped against my better judgment that her mother might have helped me stay with her daughter.
Jacqueline had difficulty saying to me that we should break it off, so she communicated it through her behavior. In the normal course of events that happens often enough in relationships, that someone breaks things off without words.
It was over all of a sudden. I had seen it coming, but it was still a terrible blow. I never saw her again; I had a real breakdown. All in all, our relationship lasted about a year and a half.
Looking Back
As I look back on it now, I think that the fact that such a relationship was possible at all—that alone was a great triumph. It is the only relationship I've had that gave me something very special, and left no negative feelings behind. For her it was the first experience. Yes, she caused me pain, but not consciously; she didn't want to hurt me.
Jacqueline matured awfully fast in that year and a half between her thirteenth and fifteenth birthdays. Perhaps that is normal for that age; she changed from a girl into a woman. That was very beautiful to watch, and I experienced it from close up; I saw her bloom. Normally you only see that as a mother, but in my case it was totally different, it happened under my hands. Perhaps our relationship was possible because her mother was having a lesbian relationship, so it wasn't such a big step for Jacqueline. She wanted to know how it was; she wanted to experience it too. The relationship didn't have to be hidden, which made a difference too.
My feeling for her differed from that for earlier girlfriends. It felt as if I had a child myself, though it went much further than that. All relationships are complicated but this one was complicated in a completely different way. I was maneuvered into a nurturing position. I felt responsible; I had to be the wiser one. With girlfriends my own age, I went much more my own independent way.
It was so different with her because so much responsibility was involved. I was very sympathetic to her moons, and for my part gave her as much room as I could. I really was pretty much under her thumb because I was so crazy about her. I never opposed her. If I took the initiative and organized some activity for us I constantly worried about whether she was enjoying it or not. Everything was completely centered around her: was it to her liking; was it making her happy?
She really had much more power in the relationship. The power that I in fact had, as the older one, I never used because I found it unfair. In the back of my mind must also have been the suspicion that if I did come down hard on her, it would have ended sooner.
I still go with women who are younger than I, but not with anyone as young as Jacqueline. I would now find that too complicated. It was so confusing, demanded so much of me, that I couldn't cope with it now. She wanted every last little thing out of our relationship, including sexuality, which for her was naturally still completely unexplored territory. That's not the case with women my own age. They've gone a step further, know better what they do or don't want. The responsibility is not so great.
It's difficult to say why I felt so attracted to Jacqueline; it wasn't that I was out looking for such a relationship. It came because she took the initiative. I let myself be drawn into the situation. But once we had a relationship, I tried as much as possible not to hurt her, because she was so vulnerable. Among her peers all they did was beat each others' brains out and mentally torment each other.
Now that I've had this experience with Jacqueline, I think I have more awareness of the budding feelings of young girls. Before I couldn't even guess their age; couldn't tell if a girl was thirteen or fifteen. Now, if a girl of that age acts insufferably, I can still see, despite her being insufferable, something endearing and beautiful. All because of Jacqueline.