Fiction for your Friday is a bit early this week ...
She told me she liked women. Originally, this seemed like really good news. I was all about women who liked women, especially attractive ones. I like women. Hey great minds!
Well, not so much.
The more I spent time with her, the more I noticed her noticing women. And talking about women. Women who weren’t me. Yet that were was always that reassuring, “But I find you attractive,” disclaimer. So it was ok. It had to be.
Right.
At first, I found her frequent out of town trips and insistences we do things with our own friends separately refreshing. It can get suffocating being with a person who merges into you, who get hurts if you want a night out with your buds or you just want to hide in your safety zone and read a book. I thought it was healthy.
It wasn’t.
At first, we spent more and more time apart. Then, it felt like we were apart when we were in the same room. Then, this lover of women wanted no part of my touching her. She was having her period. Her breath was bad. My breath was bad. The sheets were the wrong color.
I swam the river denial. She was just going through a phase. We moved a bit fast, so things need to slow down and then they’ll even out. We’re meant to be and if I’m just patient, if I am her rock, she’ll drift back to me.
As she floated out into the ocean of her own desires.
There was no evidence, no defining moment, no righteous declaration. There was only the sinking feeling I’d been left behind. She never had to admit her guilt, she was not capable of feeling it. Why should she? Some infatuations don’t turn out.
They turn towards a new infatuation.
I can’t even be angry, for the same has happened to me too. There is a spark of interest that can only fan the smallest, brief flash. The fire can’t be sustained by a bit of paper that floats into the flame.
If you’re lucky, after several good tries, you meet someone who transcends the initial infatuation. Her spark hits some form of love accelerant and the fire grows bright and hot. In time, it dims but slows into a steady, warm glow.
She told me she likes women. But after awhile, she told me she just liked me.
Showing posts with label Out and out lies/Fiction. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Out and out lies/Fiction. Show all posts
Wednesday, April 8, 2009
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Pride
I watched the last strands of sobriety drowning in my beer. Shifting on my barstool I offered up a prayer or made a wish, whatever would work, to please just make it stop hurting. Even copious amounts of alcohol weren’t making me numb.
It wasn’t even the brutal way she dumped me. Even before I’d met her in person, I knew she was trouble. Something in the way she cocked her head in her online photo, something in the way her emails read … I knew. I knew it was over before it began. Yet I couldn’t help myself.
I ran headlong towards all sorts of things that were bad for me then. I was smoking too much, drinking too much and loving someone completely incapable of loving me back. Somewhere, Logic was shouting very loudly at me that I was a complete idiot who needed to pull herself together. But Ego had turned Logic’s volume down.
Ego is a bitch.
I thought about pouring my heart out to the attractive bartender, but Ego had turned my volume down too.
Fortunately, Ego was taking a nap when I was talking to my therapist a few days later. I guess I’m a backstabber because I was running Ego down pretty good while she wasn’t around to defend herself.
Ego let me think I could make someone love me. Ego let me think I could keep being gay quiet from those who didn’t want to know. Ego let me think I could handle the eventual collapse of that house of cards. Logic knew better, but Ego wouldn’t listen.
“You’re awfully hard on yourself,” my therapist said.
Logic shrugged my shoulders and said, “I walked into this with open eyes. I knew I’d get hammered. I’ve no right to be surprised.”
“I’ll grant you that,” she said, “but you don’t think you deserve it do you?”
It was, of course, at that moment our time was up. I wandered out into the bright sunshine and behind the wheel of the car. As I drove, Emotion welled up and started clamoring for a vacation from all this.
Emotion, bless her heart, was battling my broken heart as well as Ego’s detachment from reality after I’d lost my job. Emotion had been working really hard to assuage grief and shore up Ego, but she was fighting a losing battle.
“Hiatus,” she whispered in my ear. “We need a break from all this.”
For a long time, I’d been thinking of just what I wanted to say to the one who broke my heart. Something more coherent and less full of vitriol than our last exchange. Logic and Emotion were both in agreement it would have no impact. It was, sadly, at that point Ego woke up.
I braced myself for the loud argument I was sure would ensue. But somehow, Logic and Emotion got it together and gave Ego an out. Put simply, it was time to say goodbye.
Time to say goodbye to unhealthy habits, unhealthy situations and unhealthy people. It was time to embrace the people, places and practices that were positive and supportive. It was also time grow up and stop expecting good things to just appear and work on making them happen.
The bad job was easy, it was gone and I was looking at a much greener pasture. I crumpled up my last package of smokes and shoved it in the trashcan. I sold some of that writing I’d been hiding on my hard drive. I made time for some of the people I’d been neglecting.
Logic and Emotion also came together to pen a letter to my heartbreaker. It wasn’t angry but not overly contrite either. Its most salient point was goodbye. I actually smiled when I hit send.
Ego had gone on permanent hiatus and Pride had taken her place. With the shadows of those dark days receding, I decided I was only going to try to focus on the things that filled me with hope and promise. I was only going to surround myself with the people who made me smile. I was only going to do the things that filled me with a sense of Pride.
It wasn’t even the brutal way she dumped me. Even before I’d met her in person, I knew she was trouble. Something in the way she cocked her head in her online photo, something in the way her emails read … I knew. I knew it was over before it began. Yet I couldn’t help myself.
I ran headlong towards all sorts of things that were bad for me then. I was smoking too much, drinking too much and loving someone completely incapable of loving me back. Somewhere, Logic was shouting very loudly at me that I was a complete idiot who needed to pull herself together. But Ego had turned Logic’s volume down.
Ego is a bitch.
I thought about pouring my heart out to the attractive bartender, but Ego had turned my volume down too.
Fortunately, Ego was taking a nap when I was talking to my therapist a few days later. I guess I’m a backstabber because I was running Ego down pretty good while she wasn’t around to defend herself.
Ego let me think I could make someone love me. Ego let me think I could keep being gay quiet from those who didn’t want to know. Ego let me think I could handle the eventual collapse of that house of cards. Logic knew better, but Ego wouldn’t listen.
“You’re awfully hard on yourself,” my therapist said.
Logic shrugged my shoulders and said, “I walked into this with open eyes. I knew I’d get hammered. I’ve no right to be surprised.”
“I’ll grant you that,” she said, “but you don’t think you deserve it do you?”
It was, of course, at that moment our time was up. I wandered out into the bright sunshine and behind the wheel of the car. As I drove, Emotion welled up and started clamoring for a vacation from all this.
Emotion, bless her heart, was battling my broken heart as well as Ego’s detachment from reality after I’d lost my job. Emotion had been working really hard to assuage grief and shore up Ego, but she was fighting a losing battle.
“Hiatus,” she whispered in my ear. “We need a break from all this.”
For a long time, I’d been thinking of just what I wanted to say to the one who broke my heart. Something more coherent and less full of vitriol than our last exchange. Logic and Emotion were both in agreement it would have no impact. It was, sadly, at that point Ego woke up.
I braced myself for the loud argument I was sure would ensue. But somehow, Logic and Emotion got it together and gave Ego an out. Put simply, it was time to say goodbye.
Time to say goodbye to unhealthy habits, unhealthy situations and unhealthy people. It was time to embrace the people, places and practices that were positive and supportive. It was also time grow up and stop expecting good things to just appear and work on making them happen.
The bad job was easy, it was gone and I was looking at a much greener pasture. I crumpled up my last package of smokes and shoved it in the trashcan. I sold some of that writing I’d been hiding on my hard drive. I made time for some of the people I’d been neglecting.
Logic and Emotion also came together to pen a letter to my heartbreaker. It wasn’t angry but not overly contrite either. Its most salient point was goodbye. I actually smiled when I hit send.
Ego had gone on permanent hiatus and Pride had taken her place. With the shadows of those dark days receding, I decided I was only going to try to focus on the things that filled me with hope and promise. I was only going to surround myself with the people who made me smile. I was only going to do the things that filled me with a sense of Pride.
Friday, December 5, 2008
A King's Life, Chapter One - Fiction for your Friday
I’m celebrating my old pal Doc Holiday’s victory as Mr. Central Midwest US 0f A MI last night. The following is chapter one of an homage to Doc. Chapter two will follow a little later as well as an interview with Doc himself on life being a drag in a good way.
A King’s Life – Chapter One
By Les Bian
“Thank you for calling Artisan Healthcare. How may I assist you?” Ruth breathed into the phone, trying to mask her exhaustion. Thankfully, it was the end of the workday and she knew this would be her last call. It was also the end of the week and she was excited for her weekend.
Ruth pulled her focus back to the caller who was droning on about how the insurance company was repeatedly kicking a claim back to him that his policy said was covered. Her fingers worked over the keyboard, punching up his account. A few more keystrokes, and she was into the claim in question.
Scanning through line by line, she quickly discovered the problem. “I see the problem, sir. The doctor’s office entered the wrong code on your claim. I’ve made the correction and re-submitted for you. You shouldn’t have a problem, but please call us back if you do.”
The caller thanked her and hung up. Ruth set about shutting her system down for the night. She placed her headset in its cradle, arranged all her pens neatly in their cup, straightened her blotter and keyboard cord. She was as fastidious about her desk as she was detail-oriented about her claims review.
She stood and put on her coat and left her cube, switching off the light. With each step she took away from that cube, she took a step away from her business day persona. It was Friday, and it was time for her to begin her transformation from Ruth Green to Joe Rider.
She may have been a meek insurance claims representative weekdays, but on the weekends she was a sexy drag king. No one at work knew about her “double” life. No one knew about her girlfriend, Molly or her constant trips to thrift stores for costumes.
Ruth had no personal pictures on her desk and kept her office conversation to the topics of weather and policy auditing. It grated on her nerves that her straight colleagues could have pictures and talk about their spouses. But, the company she worked for didn’t have a sexual orientation clause in their non-discrimination policy. One could never be too careful.
Arriving home, Ruth hung her keys on the key holder next to the front door. Molly came out of their kitchen smiling, “Hey baby! You ready for tonight?”
Ruth smiled and wrapped her arms around Molly’s waist, leaning down to kiss her. “Yep, I sure am darlin’,” she drawled, using Joe’s stage voice. They both laughed.
“I pulled your kit out. The clothes for both numbers are in there and I put out the mechanic’s outfit to wear over to the bar,” Molly said as she walked back toward the kitchen. “I warmed up some of the leftover chili for supper too.”
“You’re too good to me,” Ruth said with a smile.
She had started doing drag a few months after she and Molly had gotten together. Ruth had always been a shy, unassuming woman. She was overly quiet and slow to warm up to new people. Molly practically had to hit Ruth over the head to get her to realize Molly was interested. They met at a drag show.
In their smallish college town, that’s where you went to meet other lesbians. Well, you went to the gay bars but there was almost always a drag show involved at any one of them. Ruth always enjoyed the shows, but couldn’t help but think she could do better than the kings she saw weekly on stage.
The first time she put on a cowboy hat and facial hair together she felt like an entirely different person. And Joe was different from Ruth. Joe was smooth, confident and always smiling. He could dance a jig or do a passable soft shoe. Joe was a born entertainer.
After dinner, Ruth took a shower and then began her physical transformation. After protectively covering her nipples with Bandaids, Molly used duct tape to strap Ruth’s breasts down. Ruth pulled on a tank top to cover the tape. The whole endeavor not only hid her breasts but also created the appearance of male pectoral muscles.
After drying her hair, she used gel to shape her closely cropped blond hair into a more masculine style. Then it was time to put on makeup. It seemed odd to be putting cosmetics on as a male impersonator, but the stage lights washed you out and an Adam’s apple had to be shaded in.
Ruth reached for a small container of hair clippings and her tube of spirit gum. She had her hairstylist save her hair clippings every haircut. Ruth spent a good deal of time, watching television and chopping her hair clippings up to a smaller, finer texture. Some kings bought facial hair or simply drew it on with makeup. Ruth thought it looked more natural to use her own hair. This was, after all, about creating the illusion of being a real man.
She began the laborious process of creating a goatee and sideburns. Twenty minutes later, all traces of Ruth were gone. Joe was the person staring back from the mirror.
Joe made his way to the bedroom to change into his “arrival” clothes. Some of the kings showed up to the bar in their street clothes. Joe thought this destroyed the magic they all worked to create on stage. When you got to the performance site you should be who you’re going to be for the rest of the night. The audience was there to see Joe, not Ruth who becomes Joe.
Joe found the clothes neatly arranged on the bed. Molly was always supportive and entirely helpful of Joe’s drag performances, except for one thing. Joe’s package wasn’t with the gear. Joe laughed. Molly had a phobia of the silicone prosthetic device Joe wore to make his jeans fit like a man’s jeans were supposed to fit.
“I’m with a woman because I want to be with a woman. I don’t like penis real or imagined,” Molly said the day Joe’s soft pack arrived. She refused to touch it.
Joe found it in the rolling kit box he took with him to his shows. It was full of everything from spare facial hair to Super Glue. He grabbed the dick and arranged it carefully in the front of his boxer briefs.
He slipped into his jeans, ripped thermal and mechanic’s work shirt. A mesh backed baseball cap, work boots and a chain wallet completed the look.
“Looks good, honey,” Molly said from the door.
Joe smiled.
A King’s Life – Chapter One
By Les Bian
“Thank you for calling Artisan Healthcare. How may I assist you?” Ruth breathed into the phone, trying to mask her exhaustion. Thankfully, it was the end of the workday and she knew this would be her last call. It was also the end of the week and she was excited for her weekend.
Ruth pulled her focus back to the caller who was droning on about how the insurance company was repeatedly kicking a claim back to him that his policy said was covered. Her fingers worked over the keyboard, punching up his account. A few more keystrokes, and she was into the claim in question.
Scanning through line by line, she quickly discovered the problem. “I see the problem, sir. The doctor’s office entered the wrong code on your claim. I’ve made the correction and re-submitted for you. You shouldn’t have a problem, but please call us back if you do.”
The caller thanked her and hung up. Ruth set about shutting her system down for the night. She placed her headset in its cradle, arranged all her pens neatly in their cup, straightened her blotter and keyboard cord. She was as fastidious about her desk as she was detail-oriented about her claims review.
She stood and put on her coat and left her cube, switching off the light. With each step she took away from that cube, she took a step away from her business day persona. It was Friday, and it was time for her to begin her transformation from Ruth Green to Joe Rider.
She may have been a meek insurance claims representative weekdays, but on the weekends she was a sexy drag king. No one at work knew about her “double” life. No one knew about her girlfriend, Molly or her constant trips to thrift stores for costumes.
Ruth had no personal pictures on her desk and kept her office conversation to the topics of weather and policy auditing. It grated on her nerves that her straight colleagues could have pictures and talk about their spouses. But, the company she worked for didn’t have a sexual orientation clause in their non-discrimination policy. One could never be too careful.
Arriving home, Ruth hung her keys on the key holder next to the front door. Molly came out of their kitchen smiling, “Hey baby! You ready for tonight?”
Ruth smiled and wrapped her arms around Molly’s waist, leaning down to kiss her. “Yep, I sure am darlin’,” she drawled, using Joe’s stage voice. They both laughed.
“I pulled your kit out. The clothes for both numbers are in there and I put out the mechanic’s outfit to wear over to the bar,” Molly said as she walked back toward the kitchen. “I warmed up some of the leftover chili for supper too.”
“You’re too good to me,” Ruth said with a smile.
She had started doing drag a few months after she and Molly had gotten together. Ruth had always been a shy, unassuming woman. She was overly quiet and slow to warm up to new people. Molly practically had to hit Ruth over the head to get her to realize Molly was interested. They met at a drag show.
In their smallish college town, that’s where you went to meet other lesbians. Well, you went to the gay bars but there was almost always a drag show involved at any one of them. Ruth always enjoyed the shows, but couldn’t help but think she could do better than the kings she saw weekly on stage.
The first time she put on a cowboy hat and facial hair together she felt like an entirely different person. And Joe was different from Ruth. Joe was smooth, confident and always smiling. He could dance a jig or do a passable soft shoe. Joe was a born entertainer.
After dinner, Ruth took a shower and then began her physical transformation. After protectively covering her nipples with Bandaids, Molly used duct tape to strap Ruth’s breasts down. Ruth pulled on a tank top to cover the tape. The whole endeavor not only hid her breasts but also created the appearance of male pectoral muscles.
After drying her hair, she used gel to shape her closely cropped blond hair into a more masculine style. Then it was time to put on makeup. It seemed odd to be putting cosmetics on as a male impersonator, but the stage lights washed you out and an Adam’s apple had to be shaded in.
Ruth reached for a small container of hair clippings and her tube of spirit gum. She had her hairstylist save her hair clippings every haircut. Ruth spent a good deal of time, watching television and chopping her hair clippings up to a smaller, finer texture. Some kings bought facial hair or simply drew it on with makeup. Ruth thought it looked more natural to use her own hair. This was, after all, about creating the illusion of being a real man.
She began the laborious process of creating a goatee and sideburns. Twenty minutes later, all traces of Ruth were gone. Joe was the person staring back from the mirror.
Joe made his way to the bedroom to change into his “arrival” clothes. Some of the kings showed up to the bar in their street clothes. Joe thought this destroyed the magic they all worked to create on stage. When you got to the performance site you should be who you’re going to be for the rest of the night. The audience was there to see Joe, not Ruth who becomes Joe.
Joe found the clothes neatly arranged on the bed. Molly was always supportive and entirely helpful of Joe’s drag performances, except for one thing. Joe’s package wasn’t with the gear. Joe laughed. Molly had a phobia of the silicone prosthetic device Joe wore to make his jeans fit like a man’s jeans were supposed to fit.
“I’m with a woman because I want to be with a woman. I don’t like penis real or imagined,” Molly said the day Joe’s soft pack arrived. She refused to touch it.
Joe found it in the rolling kit box he took with him to his shows. It was full of everything from spare facial hair to Super Glue. He grabbed the dick and arranged it carefully in the front of his boxer briefs.
He slipped into his jeans, ripped thermal and mechanic’s work shirt. A mesh backed baseball cap, work boots and a chain wallet completed the look.
“Looks good, honey,” Molly said from the door.
Joe smiled.
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