18 August, 20xx
Hi E,
Life is bewildering. Growing up and becoming a woman isn’t the funfair I thought it to be. Weren’t these days meant for doing as we please? To be free, completely free? But I am more confused than ever.
You know, I’ve been dating A for over a year now. I didn’t realise life could hold surprises in that department, but I crave things I had not thought about before. I don’t understand why my mind goes to these places. I could be engrossed in a report or doing something mundane, and the thoughts pop into my head. I cannot make sense of it.
Remember how we dissected Interview with the Vampire for hours or those excerpts from our favourite books? I’m discovering those scenes weren’t just about plot. People really think all that. You’d get what I mean.
Your lost friend,
L
***
12 September, 20xx
Dear L,
I’ve been waiting for you to arrive at this point, this exact dilemma. It was unbearable for me to navigate the puzzles of adulthood without my best friend. Life is rushing so fast, I can’t believe there was a time when we just talked about our dreams of freedom. Didn’t I tell you that you and A are puppy love and that you both need to see beyond it? There’s a world out there, my girl.
I don’t know the source of your thoughts, but they rarely come to us out of thin air. How we act upon them is a different matter altogether. And what is fantasy, really, a want blooming in our imagination? I believe that the body knows how it wants to be touched and what it wants to experience. And like they say, what the body knows, the mind can conjure. Anybody telling you otherwise is scared of your control over your body.
I’ve been struggling with this long enough to be tired of the little boxes they want to put me into. I haven’t figured it out, but I don’t think sexuality is a user manual. A magazine article cannot tell you what leads you to pleasure.
Do you remember that ‘dark night of the soul’ exercise from our creative writing class? I’m starting to think of sexuality as that ravine, filled with mysterious twists and turns, and our fantasies are a torch illuminating the spots we might want to explore. Whether we just look or walk up to that spot remains our choice, and we can always turn back if we don’t like what we find.
My mind goes back to that one interview with Irrfan, where he said that sexual energy is something he hoped nobody has to figure out all by themselves. I cannot find that clip anymore, but I wonder if there’s someone who speaks my language and understands my core. You and A have lasted longer than I presumed. Maybe you don’t have to explore your thoughts alone. Why don’t you talk to A about yours?
I don’t know if I have resolved your question or entangled you even further. But I hope to hear about where your mind has led you.
Your girl,
E
***
30 December, 20xx
Dear E,
I think I have become a Dr. Seuss girl – “Oh, the places you’ll go!” My mind’s a freer place ever since I stopped being ashamed of my fantasies. It’s just my thoughts, right? To think that someone was policing me even inside my head.
I’ve found a place to be myself; a place where my fantasies aren’t questioned or ridiculed. Maybe you’d like that place, too. Some girls at my college are writing fanfiction, but not like our high school stories. I am one of them now, the Fujoshis. I laugh at being called that, but who cares about being rotten! We care about being us, becoming us.
Before I started, I didn’t understand who these young women, writing about two boys kissing, were. Now I’m in deep enough to write essays on it. What we have in the name of sex ed here is laughable. Even the mainstream internet has little to offer. I understand what little boxes you spoke of in your letter. Frankly, I’m tired of being the sweet girl, tired of being the recipient of others’ fantasies. So, I found a hobby that lets me express myself. We’ve got a little Discord group to talk about our fanfics, and it’s a merry place. I would blush beet-red if I met them in daylight, but that little group heals me.
Anywhere I looked, I didn’t really find a place where a woman could hold a man’s vulnerability. I saw depictions of it in sadness and maybe tenderness, but almost none about pleasure. That narrative became so ingrained in me that I cannot imagine myself as a woman in that fantasy. I might be erasing my own gender when I write my stories, but the world doesn’t let me imagine it otherwise. Sad, I know, but that’s the only way I have found to reclaim my desires.
I met an older woman on the metro. You would have liked her. She peeked over while I was reading my fics, and we chatted about it. She told me that playfulness is the antidote to tyranny. Wow, right? So, I’m trying to bring play into everything.
I dream of a world where people are just people, and gender doesn’t dictate our fantasies. Do you see where my mind has taken me?
Where did yours take you, E? Tell me.
Until then, I’ll be your friend who writes fantasies!
L
P.S. Oh! A and I aren’t dating anymore. I might have scared him; something about me changing too much. But there’s someone else in class I find very cute.
***
9 March, 20xx
My dear L,
How happy I am to hear that your thoughts no longer distress you! It’s only natural for my friend to wield her words as a torch. No wonder you have become a proud Fujoshi.
How do I recount where my own mind has taken me? It’s a bit complicated. I thought that fantasies were isolated ideas to be explored in the bedroom. I didn’t realise that the ravine opens up into the wilderness. I no longer think of fantasies as just physical or carnal desires. You know, I’ve been more comfortable imagining rather than acting upon them. But desires are fuelled by a fertile imagination, and I find myself drawn to other experiences carrying that same intense energy.
A local band plays near my university Friday nights. I can’t describe the electric thrill that courses through me when their music starts. It’s like someone entered the secret locker in my head, pulled out all my fantasies and arranged them to music. I often sit in the back and sketch, the lines becoming my connection to the music’s erotic energy. I sketch what I was ashamed of earlier. I sketch things that ought to be said. I sketch the stuff my fantasies are made of, and it thrills me.
I wonder if this is what Audre Lorde meant about the erotic being a measure between the beginnings of our sense of self and the chaos of our strongest feelings. I think once we permit ourselves to imagine freely, we unlock our truer versions. I’ve begun to want so much more from life now and from myself. Fantasies are becoming my way to envision my world, and it’s similar to yours.
I’m so eager for summer. I will bring my sketchbook for you to see, and I want to read your stories.
Your girl,
E
***
Cover image by Bruno van der Kraan on Unsplash
