Irregulars

It’s Christmas Eve, and my little (gay-friendly) bar up the road has pulled out all the stops. I see Lekka, a tall, skinny Eurasian who usually slouches around this bar that he has a share in — that is, when he’s not launching into song behind the baby grand.

But I would have walked right past him had he not planted his newly-acquired breasts firmly in front of my face and drawled: “Hello, daaaahling.” Wig a la Uma Thurman in Pulp Fiction, little black dress, toxic levels of make-up, and abovementioned tits.

“Holy shit.”

So my verbosity fails me. His work done, he smirks, turns his back on me and sashays up the stairs. Lekka, undeniably the ugliest woman I’ve met, still out-sasses every girl there that night.

I sit down at my table with a couple of straight guy friends, both of them first-timers at this bar, and caught off guard by the nature of the night’s festivities. Din — my drinking kaki, also straight, but enough of a regular here that none of the antics tonight will surprise him — comes running up, evidently pleased with himself. He gives me a kiss on the cheek, grinning like an idiot.

“Din, dear, why are you wearing lipstick?”

He gestures vaguely to someone who had presumably put the notion in his head (and the lipstick in his hand). I giggle. Din’s homophobia is no secret, so this is an unusual turn in self-expression for him.

He notices one of my friends regarding him with some curiosity, and his defenses spring up. “Stop looking at me like that, man, I’m straight!” he snaps.

Jack’s expression of surprise gives way to relief: “Oh you are? Thank god, so am I. So… what’s with the lipstick?”

* * *

I recall a passage in Ethical Slut about just such a place — a safe space for every sexual identity, that blurred the boundaries and made it illogical to assume anything. Most of the time, you simply had to ask — about interest, about preference, and so on.

I’ve wondered what that means… If it frees you to play out any role, or if it places a weighty responsibility on your shoulders to know — precisely — who you are, and to have a ready answer. I certainly don’t (know, that is). And playing… well. More soon about my first serious crush on a woman.

But that night, these questions are far from my mind. As I walk past Lekka, I take my liberties and pinch his ass. He regards my lack of originality with some disdain. But for me, there’s delight in recognizing that it’s not so lonely at the so-called fringes.