Angela Torrenso

Angela Torrenso

Angela just celebrated her 21st birthday about three weeks ago and she is getting ready to start her senior year in college at Yale University. Her major is in Arts, specifically the human form. While in high school, she was the valedictorian and earned an honorary scholarship to the school of her choice, which naturally, is how she has earned a place within one of the most prestigious schools in America.

Angela is also a hispanic female from a very upright and predominately white community, which sometimes acts as a hinderance for her. Her family is very religious and is a very big part of the local Catholic community. Because Angela has done so well in school in the past, her family, (mostly her mother) doesn't allow her to work or do much socializing outside of the family.

"School comes first, success comes second, and everything else comes last," as her mother would often tell her.
"And don't you ever forget how important it is to grow-up with a good education, a well-rounded body of knowledge, and a healthy body to carry it all with. Life outside of home is very hard, especially for young hispanic girls, so learn your life skills while you can and learn from your mistakes while you still have a chance to make things right. If you do, just maybe life's never ending road will seem a just a little less rocky," continued her sermon on life that she gave at least once a month or every time Angela tried to stray from her mother's ideal plan of how she should lead her life.

Angela has had very few friends, much less boyfriends, in the past because of these harsh restrictions. She often finds herself alone and lost in her own thoughts, so her salvation is her love of art, literature, and music. For fun, she has to rely on the free art galleries, and the free lectures given at the college, which coinsidently, since it's school related, her mother never has given her much grief over it.

About a year ago, Angela thought she had found "Mister Right". He was posing nude for one of the Art classes as a model of the perfect male body. His name was Pedro Gonzales, and he was perfect and beautiful too. But unfortunately, he knew that too.

Pedro played football, wrestled, and competed in weight lifting competitions. Pedro only did the modeling thing for attention. He loves having people look at his flawless torso, and his perfectly sculpted muscles. Pedro is so conceited that he would model for these classes at least 3 times a week. His only restriction was that after each class, he always demanded to see the finished products. Pedro wasn't about to allow anyone to make a disgrace of him. Only perfection would do for Pedro.

The first time Angela attended the class, she was so stunned by Pedro's beauty that she lost all concentration on her art, and by the end of the class she realized she hadn't painted a thing. His eyes and face were the kind you almost could fall into. His back was so smooth and the indentions were so subtle. His chest and arms looked strong enough to move houses, with just a hint of curvature on his arms, even as they lay limp. Angela fell in love in an instant with his beauty.

After Angela went home that day, she felt a little more relieved and at ease enough to paint, since his "highness" wasn't there to critique her every movement. But now it was much easier, after all she had just stared at Pedro for a couple of hours solid, so the images were still very vivid. It took her only a half an hour to come up with a pretty good sketch of him, so she decided she'd wait till next class to finish the portrait with more detail.

When the next class came, she felt the nervousness return when Pedro's gaze met her's. Somehow, Angela managed to control it, and finish her master piece. With Pedro's popularity and importance within the community, it was easy to understand how he got final say over all of the painting done of him, which Angela didn't really mind too terribly much, but to Angela's surprise, he truely appreciated it. He liked it so much that he gave it an A++ and asked if he could take it home.

"Sure, but why would you want a picture painted by an ordinary art student?" questioned Angela.
"No one has ever painted such a magnificient portrait of me. It looks so real, so life-like, and so much like....myself. A painting this good would be bought for hundreds, maybe even thousands, so if I can get it for free......" bragged Pedro.
"FREE! Who said anything about it being free?" joked Angela.
"Oh, you want me to pay for it? Oh....well, name your price!" demanded Pedro.
"I was only kidding but if you really want it, you can figure out how to pay me for the portrait, and I don't want your money." said Angela as she turned and walked out of the room.

Shortly after that day, Pedro did find a way to pay Angela back. He took her out on many dates, which always consisted of Arts of some sort, which he did out of respect for Angela. And he even visited Angela's mother many times. Pedro always had a way with mothers. He knew exactly what to say when it came to dating girls and handling over protective mothers. Some how he managed to convince Mrs. Torrenso to let Angela to attend him on some very educational evenings. Of course, it did help when Pedro offered to take her along for an evening of pure enjoyment. Mrs. Torrenso and Angela just ate that up. No mother could ever disapprove of such a well-to-do, extremely handsome, and well-rounded, young man such as Pedro. Sadly, though, just like everything else he's ever done, he knew this is just what it would take to get what he wanted.

Not long after the two began dating, Angela's mother became very persistent on trying to get Angela and Pedro married. She would tell Angela how she was married already at her age and how she was never going to find a better man than Pedro. So all Angela could do was give in and do what her mother thought was best for her, not even taking in consideration that maybe this wasn't truely what she wanted for herself. After all, she has spent all of her life listening to her family and doing what they think is right for her, and now she's going to live with a man who's going to do the same. Nevertheless, Angela gave in and within 2 months after meeting Pedro, they now were living together.

After the couple had settled in, however, everything started to changed. Pedro went from a very loving, affectionate, and trustworthy partner to a very mean, distant, amd dishonest man. He left every night, usually after insulting Angela or after starting a fight with her, and he always came home very late, and usually drunk. Angela tried to question him about his whereabouts, but he concluded that since he was the man in the relationship, she needed to do as he said and not ask questions. So, Angela did just that. What else was she suppose to do?

It didn't take long for Angela to notice that things were changing dramatically in Angela's life. She was no longer allowed to do just anything without his permission. She couldn't attend any of the things she so dearly loved, and the art class was most definately out of the question. Angela now spends most of her evenings home alone without anyone to talk to or anything to do.

Angela became very frustrated and decided that this is not the life she had in mind for herself, and after certain new events that have just occurred, and the new loves born, Angela is learning there is another side to life. This is her journal entry, a single page in the new chapter of life Angela has just started.


June 9th

What am I going to do? You'll never believe what happened last night.... I'm so embarrassed. If Pedro ever finds out, he's going to kill me.

Pedro always wanted me to be more exotic in the bedroom. He's always asking if we can try new things like threesomes, and different sex toys, but I don't know...it just feels wrong! Maybe it was also his way to justify cheating on me, which I've known about for awhile. Oh, well! I'll survive.

About a month or so ago, Pedro was invited to a "party", but instead of going by himself, like he normally would, he was told he had to bring his girlfriend for a "couple's only" party. So for, like, the next couple of weeks, Pedro's been doing a lot of sucking up to me. He's also been going around asking me why we never go out and do anything together anymore. But, you know, it's kind of hard to do things with someone whose only interests include himself, sports, and women. That doesn't leave much for a cultural girl, like myself.

After Pedro's constent begging, which got him no where, he quickly turned to demanding. Just days before the party, he said if I didn't go with him to it, and I made him look like a fool with his friends, he'd make sure I felt just as bad (as if to insinuate that he was going to hurt me if I didn't go). So I conceded to his demands....

He did, however, buy me this beautiful black, silk, dress, and a magnificent diamond necklace to go with it. It would have been even better had he not said "if you are going to be on my arm, you have to look good."

The thing is I don't like to wear dresses. I just don't feel comfortable in them, especially when its to impress people I don't even know, much less my arrogant boyfriend who only cares when it benefits him. I went to the party anyways. I guess so that there would be peace around here, and in a way, I guess because it did sound like fun. I just couldn't tell that to Pedro.

When we arrived at the house, where the party was at, I noticed right away that this was NOT my kind of place nor were these my kind of people. The house looked like the Playboy mansion, and the people were mainly college jocks and their cheerleader girlfriends. THIS was definately a FRAT house. One of the many houses, I tried hard to avoid throughout college. The guys are always loud and obnoxious, and the girls' heads are so empty, you can see through one ear and out the other!!!

I guess the party started out like any other party you would imagine. First, the music got turned on a little too loud, so everyone that was talking started shouting, and those that were shouting, shouted even louder. Then, the booze came out, and the party started. Those that didn't drink, went out back, or headed to the bathroom, to their drug of choice. And me, well, I took a safe spot on a couch, in a corner.

As a natural observer, it was kind of interesting watching the people, but I was starting to wonder why exactly was I here. In between running off with which ever girl said hi, and his buddies, Pedro had only introduced me to a total of 3 people all night. He told me not to embarrass him, but to try and have fun.

"Just relax and get to know people. You know why we're here....." Pedro told me as he headed off again.
At the time, I did NOT know what he meant by that. I thought it was just another party, but I soon found out that it was a "couple's only" party, because it was a SWINGERS' party. I found this out kind of by accident... I was siting contently watching a game on the big screen T.V. with a bunch of rowdy guys, when this girl came up to me and asked if I was with Pedro. I told her I was, and then the guy that she was with said, "So that means I could be with you, huh!" I told him I didn't have any idea what he was talking about. And that's when they explained to me WHY I was there.

I was so embarassed that I ran straight upstairs to a bathroom to hide, but since there were still people in there, I darted into the nearest empty room. I got inside and slammed the door. I just wanted to scream, punch the walls, do something destructive... I was SO angry!

I quickly realized I wasn't alone when the voice of Samantha Williams filled the silence. "Can I help you?" I apologized and told Samantha how embarrassed I was, and offered to leave. She insisted that I stay, for she hadn't had any company all day.

That room was suppose to be empty, or so I was told. It was supposably for the people who were to drunk to drive home. Samantha told me it WAS empty, but then she came to visit her brother, the guy throwing the "stupid" party down stairs.

Samantha thought that she had offended me when she said that, but the truth was I was tricked into coming to this party. If Pedro had told me that I was going to this party to be "swapped", like a prize or something, there is no chance I would have gone.

Samantha told me she was only here for the weekend, because she came down to attend a family reuion, and since her brother was the only one out of the family who could spare a room, she had no choice but to stay.

We talked for hours about all kinds of things, and I quickly forgot about the party....and about Pedro. It was amazing how quickly time just flew by when I was talking to her. I talked about Pedro, and she talked about "Jill".

Before this time, I guess I never really understood what "gay" meant. I've seen the rainbow colored flags, the triangle signs over the doors of some of the local businesses, but honestly, I've never met anyone who was "gay".

I always wondered if I would recognize it, as if it was a disease or something. I guess that kind of stereotype came from my parents. Anyways, as Samantha and I were talking, I noticed that she had a lot of these kind of things. She had some rainbow beads, a rainbow teddy bear, and a small flag with the word "P-Flag" written on it. I wanted to ask her about these things but I was afraid of showing my ignorance, and offending her if I said something out of line.

I don't know why but as soon as Samantha started talking about Jill, I got this really funny feeling inside. I started looking at her in a different kind of way, even though she never changed phyically. I started thinking of her in a way I NEVER thought of any other woman. My head filled with more questions I was dying to ask her. I wondered if she had always been a "lesbian", was she born that way, had she ever had sex with a man, what was the difference between being with a man and woman....? I just was so scared, but why was I scared?

It was almost as if Samantha sensed all of this. While I was looking at some of her "pride" things, she asked me how all of this made me feel. I wasn't exactly sure what she was referring to, so I asked if she meant the situation with Pedro. She told me no. She meant being surrounded by "gay things" and a "lesbian".

Without giving me a chance to answer her she leaned to me and asked me if I ever thought of being with a woman, and whether or not it made me feel uncomfortable. I told her I never really thought about it, because my parents raised me that the gay lifestyle was unacceptabled.

Samantha then asked me how I felt about the "gay lifestlye". It took me a minute, but then an answer came from within me that surprised even ME. I looked at her and said I want this to feel right and there to be no guilt, and that's when she leaned in and kissed me.

Several hours later and after many, many passionate kisses, I realized I had to head home......oh, my goodness! I just realized that I never gave her my address or phone number. If I leave right now, I may be able to catch her............

Angela Torrenso

As Angela puts her journal away and heads out to her car, Pedro grabs her by her arm and asks where she thinks she is going. She tells him that its none of his business and rushes out of the door.

As Angela starts down the street, she thinks about all of the things that occurred last night, and what kind of recourse there might be. But the truth is all Angela wants to do is shout at the top of her lungs "I...AM...LESBIAN!".

As Angela arrives at the house where the party was last night, she soon discovers she is too late. Everyone, including Samantha's red haired brother, is gone. Angela is left broken-hearted, but with new vigor for life. As she heads home ready to face Pedro and the rest of the world, who could never possibly understand what she shared with Samantha, she considers the fact that she can never go back to the old way of life. This is when she begins to realize that she must live life for herself and no one else, for "they" will never be able to accept her this way, or the new "women" in her life. Angela is completely on her own for the first time, and loving it all the way.

As Angela walks back through the front door, she is confronted once more by a very upset Pedro who immediately starts in on her by calling her names and threatning to leave her forever.

" Pedro, I need to tell you about last night." said Angela.
"Well, start talking. I'm listening." said Pedro very sarcastically.
"Last night at that party I met someone and it wasn't a man. I slept with a woman, and I've decided I don't love you anymore." continued Angela.
"Really. You think you can survive this world without me...with a WOMAN instead, huh?" continued Pedro.
"Yes, I do. I am a LESBIAN, and proud of it." said Angela more determined than she had ever been in her entire life.

As Angela left the house for the last time, she is confident that she has made the right decision. She no longer needs a man to take care of her, and she IS her own woman now. Someday, Angela Torrenso will meet and fall in love with MS. RIGHT and live happily ever after.