Out and Proud

by Lisa Young

  Feeling something akin to existential dread, she wrung her hands. So why then did she find herself, on more than one occasion, facing the knowledge that while she appeared to have been sufficiently beguiling for someone to want to make a home with her, she was firm in the knowledge that they did not want to share the same space with her biological descendants? The reason she concluded, was a simple one. Those who chose not to be parents were even less likely to choose the role of live-in stepparent. Concluding that she had reached an epiphany of understanding, she stomped down the stairs in search of toast and a soothing episode of Home and Away.

  By the time Alice was due to return, Lottie had worked herself up into a self-righteous position of indignation. She decided to tackle this issue head on, and so she dragged herself into the shower, intending to banish the children to Grandma’s for the afternoon, while she and Alice thrashed out the issue. She was determined that she wasn’t going to compromise the wellbeing of her children for the sake of her own happiness.

  MANY HOURS LATER, and after a lot of thrashing that didn’t involve much talking, they emerged from the bedroom to rescue the roast beef and deliciously fluffy roast potatoes that Lottie had miraculously created. It seemed her cooking was much improved when she was in a traumatised state.

  “Lottie, you are a twit sometimes,” Alice murmured, rubbing her hand into the curve of Lottie’s back while Lottie wriggled as she wrestled with the pan of tantalising meat.

  “Well, bloody hell! I hadn’t even thought about moving in together, and then you throw that curveball. Child-free bloody room indeed!”

  Alice shrugged. “I didn’t see it as such a biggie! I was just asking for a small office space to do my invoicing, but I might have phrased it a bit better, I suppose. What I meant was, a space to work in, not a room to avoid your kids—who I really like, by the way. I can’t believe you worked yourself up into a frenzy, you lunatic. I’m all for family life, especially if this is what I can expect for Sunday lunch.”

  Lottie put down the hot pan and swirled around towards Alice, shamefaced and feeling vulnerable at her unintended attempt to sabotage the relationship.

  Sensing her fear, Alice firmly gripped her hands and looked into her eyes. “Drop the baggage, Lottie. I’m not like the others. This relationship is amazing and I want you, family and all. I know a good thing when I’m onto it and I know we’ll be happy. We’re perfect for one another! I’m asking you to consider letting me move in, and Odie too, of course!”

  Lottie smiled coyly and they kissed deeply. Lottie felt breathless with the passion conveyed in the kiss and drew a deep brave breath before replying. “Sorry, I know, I know! It’s just been a struggle, Alice. My kids are, well deliciously unusual and I know it’s a big thing to take this whole family on. But I won’t, I simply won’t ban them from any room, although I understand some quiet space for work is needed.”

  Alice beamed. “It only makes me love you more. Now, get my bloody dinner out. I’m starving!”

  Chuckling, Lottie waved the carving knife in her direction. “Watch it! I haven’t made the Yorkshire puddings yet. There’s still room for a cooking disaster.”

  Alice swatted her with the oven glove. “You’re under cooking supervision. It’s a team effort my gorgeous girl, a team effort!”

  Lottie’s joy was interrupted by the shrill ring of the telephone and she hurried to answer it. From the handset a loud piercing shriek chilled her. Lottie resorted to holding the phone away from her ear, finding the noise difficult to tolerate.

  Eventually, through considerable gasping and crying, she made out the unmistakeable tones of Pru. “P-Pregnant, my beautiful darling princess has been defiled! Raped! Deflowered!”

  Lottie gulped. “Really?” she asked, her voice slightly too highly-pitched. “Shocking, Pru! What on earth could have happened? That’s simply awful!”

  Pru swallowed back mucus noisily. “Oh Charlotte, I knew you would understand, being a cat lover. It’s as if my child has been mistreated!”

  Crossing her fingers and everything else that would bend, Lottie replied cautiously. “Pru, it’s simply unbelievable and I’m sure that the culprit will come forward, they’ve surely got to!”

  Clearing her throat, Pru consoled herself. “Well I suppose that Jasper, the Siamese terror from next door, and my darling Sappho will inevitably make a handsome brood. I can’t think how they could have been alone in an intimate sense but it’s something we’re going to have to get past, I suppose!” Pru ended the call abruptly.

  Lottie was still shaken by the revelation that her son had been a drug dealer, and now a phone call declaring her a grandparent in waiting. “Only one thing for it!” she thought, and she retrieved the bottle of Glenfiddich she kept in the utility room for medicinal purposes.

  Clicking the light switch she reached to the higher shelf, leaning precariously above the empty cat basket. Startled by a loud bang, Lottie turned as Boots leapt from the open window onto the worktop below. Prowling backward and forward, he purred loudly before doubling his body to firmly lick his balls.

  “Boots! You are shameless!” Lottie shrieked before grabbing him firmly and ejecting him through the open window.

  Out of Office

  BUOYED BY THE prospect of impending cohabitation, Monday morning was looking rosy and Lottie silently resolved to embrace her new out status with her boss and work colleagues. She had to admit that she had been somewhat perturbed by her mother’s clumsy efforts to celebrate her diversity but she did feel a sense of relief that it was finally out in the open with everyone. If she was honest with herself, she knew that she would never have found the right time to redress her assumed heterosexuality with her colleagues, and the longer she had been in the closet the harder it had become to even contemplate it. As a token of her appreciation for their acceptance of her, Lottie had brought the remainder of the rainbow cake for colleagues who had not been able to make it to the party. She hoped that it would not be too long until she stopped being the subject of office gossip. She had never liked being the centre of attention.

  Lottie pulled into her usual space in the car park, and spotted Dan-from-accounts who gave her a sheepish smile before

  disappearing into the building. Shaking her head in dismay, thoughts of her own notoriety left her as she remembered her recent encounter with Dan late one evening.

  In short, Dan had revealed himself as the secret bottom-photocopying maniac that had posted numerous copies of his ample and clearly hairy posterior on desks around the call centre. The pictures had been the talk of the office for many weeks preceding her discovery, and there had been a number of potential suspects in the frame. Lottie was a kind soul, and she had loyally kept his secret for a number of months now, despite her developing phobia about the bacteria content on the buttons of the photocopier. She had feared that revealing his identity would inevitably lead to his dismissal, something she did not want on her conscience.

  During their late-night encounter, she had discovered a number of things about Dan-from-accounts, including his apparent fetish for wearing female underwear. She had discovered this stomach-churning fact when she had gone to the photocopier to copy her timesheet ahead of her supervision session, in order to avoid the weekly lecture on poor time management from her boss, Ann. Ann was the queen of micromanagement—born of her exceptionally high anxiety levels about her own tenuous position in the management of the company.

  On that fateful evening, Lottie had struggled to open the door to the photocopying room and used her shoulder to give it a sharp shove. Momentarily unbalanced, she had stumbled forward into the darkened room, and as she did so, she tripped on a pair of men’s shoes. Grabbing the edge of a nearby filing cabinet to steady herself, she dragged her battered body to a standing position and had been met with a frightful sight. Sitting astride the photocopying machine, with his legs spread wide and his trousers dangling around one ankle, had been Dan-from-accounts. As startled by her sudde
n appearance as she was by his clearly semi-naked self, he had leapt from the machine clasping his genitalia, wildly hitting out at the cancel button.

  Lottie had stood frozen in horror, and without a word passing between them Dan, sweeping up his clothes, had fled the room towards the nearby fire-exit stairwell. Taking a moment to recover, Lottie had hurriedly retrieved the offending photocopies from the print tray. She had noted that he was experimenting with his artistic style—the latest pictures boasting a legs-akimbo pose, which exposed his back, sac and most awful of all, a no-holds-barred view of his crack. Shuddering, she had avoided any direct contact with the sullied glass and ripped the copies firmly into two before stuffing them into the depths of the recycling bin. As she did so, a florescent pink item caught her eye, and bending, she gingerly retrieved a pink lace thong with a cluster of dark, wiry, male pubic hair still attached. Still reeling from the shock of discovering the identity of the office pervert, she had hastily stuffed the thong into the recycle bin before photocopying her timesheet, which she held with the corner of her sleeve as she had exited the building by the public entrance.

  Coming out into the brightly lit car park, she had vowed that the next time she saw Dan she would be sure to make her disapproval obvious. However, after a few sheepish encounters by the water fountain during the following weeks, it had become apparent to Lottie that Dan was a somewhat pitiful character. She was pretty sure that the first time she saw him he had mumbled an apology, and she had not felt able to confront him after all. Nor, she decided, would she report him to the management.

  After their untimely encounter she had been relieved that no more pictures had appeared and she was left feeling sorry for him, after hearing through the office grapevine, that his wife had left him for another woman some years previously. She had felt rather smug that she had been able to adopt a mature and forgiving approach to the situation and had largely forgotten about it, although she still, through force of habit, used antibacterial spray on the copier before she used it. Sighting Dan had, however made her remember she had something to offer to the gossip hotbed if she remained in the spotlight herself for too long.

  Taking a deep breath, she pulled hard on the double firedoors and was greeted with the usual cacophony of ringing telephones and a steely glare from Ann as she looked pointedly at the large clock in the centre of the office.

  After ringing the speaking clock out of curiosity during a recent break, Lottie was well aware that the office clock was intentionally set ten minutes early. After sharing this information with her colleagues, no one had been brave enough to challenge the managers, and so the timekeeping in the office meant that they all arrived ten minutes early. But the bonus was, of course, that they finished ten minutes early, so no one was overly bothered. Lottie still felt she had the moral high ground as she settled in to her familiar desk and assured herself that she was not technically late. Adjusting her seat, she guided it neatly under her desk into her semi-private work booth and noted a few stray birthday cards and a couple of promising gift bags, which she concluded were from colleagues who were not on Facebook, and therefore excluded from her mother’s global invitation. The usual faces lifted to greet her, all smiles, and she noted that no one appeared to be bursting to question her about the party, and so she relaxed and concentrated on her work.

  Her peace was soon interrupted.

  “All right?” asked Leonard, otherwise known as Shaggy—not due to his sexual prowess but due to his uncanny likeness to the Scooby Doo buffoon—who had appeared at her shoulder making her jump. Recovering herself, she smiled. Lottie tried to avoid any conversation with Leonard, as she found him rather irritating, and more than a little sleazy. Aged thirty-two and with a long-suffering wife, Lottie’s kindest description of him would have been nice but dim. He would frequently monopolise the work environment with his marital difficulties, keen to obtain a female opinion on his latest wedded predicament.

  The past week, Leonard had informed his nearby colleagues that he and his wife, or partner as he insisted on calling her, had been experiencing some difficulties following the birth of their son, Leo. Having traits of extreme narcissism, Leonard was keen to emphasise his sexual prowess in capturing a younger wife, and he always seemed to manage to crowbar this into any conversation about his unfortunate spouse. Lottie often wondered what had drawn her to the obnoxious Leonard, but seemingly, the relationship persisted. His only son and heir had been born a few months earlier and Lottie had struggled to comprehend how such a selfish man was going to be capable of parenting successfully.

  Sure enough, only a few weeks after the birth of Leo, Leonard had announced that he was struggling with the demands of a small child, and that he had decided to resolve this by moving himself into the spare room, abandoning his long-suffering wife to deal with the colicky infant alone. Leonard had considered this a suitable solution given he was required to go to work while his partner was sitting around at home. Needless to say, this had resulted in some marital discord which was compounded by Leonard explaining to his wife that she was not going to successfully lose her baby weight if she continued to eat chocolate bars.

  “I told her,” he proudly announced to the group. “I said, you need to lay off the chocolate and have some grapes.”

  Lottie shuddered at the memory, but had no interest in engaging Leonard in conversation to find out if his wife had left him yet.

  “Good birthday, mate?” Alicia from directly opposite enquired, as she handed Lottie a steaming cup of freshly-brewed Earl Grey tea.

  Lottie, always pleased to chat with the decidedly normal Alicia, smiled. “It certainly was, shame you couldn’t make it, but I expect you’ve heard about it?”

  Alicia grinned back at her. “Heard about it, oh yes, I certainly did, about ten minutes before you arrived! That’ll teach me to go and book a holiday without checking the diversity-events calendar, won’t it! Seriously though, no issues here with this lot, everyone is pleased you’ve found someone. A vet too, I hear, perhaps Boots will finally get a diagnosis!”

  Lottie smiled back gratefully, loving Alicia for her frankness, and in the knowledge that she would have been the first person to leap to her defence if there had been any office gossip.

  She took this as a good sign, and attempted to return to her work.

  Irritated to be ignored in favour of Alicia, Leonard leaned closer, thoughtlessly invading Lottie’s personal space. He had clearly caught the gist of the conversation. Lottie could not avoid the stench of garlic, no doubt due to the fact he had not cleaned his teeth that morning.

  “A fella, eh, Lottie? About bloody time. I thought you must have healed up.” He nodded purposefully towards her vagina.

  Subconsciously, she crossed her legs and colour instantly flooded her face.

  Dirty pig, she thought as she shot him an angry look. Alicia looked up briefly to give a sympathetic shake of her head. Lottie determinedly straightened her shoulders and looked Leonard square in the face. “Actually Leonard, he is a she, I’ve met a woman.”

  The minute she spoke, she instantly regretted it.

  Chuckling, Leonard was about to respond when Ann bore down on them hissing. “Switch on your phone points, you lot, we’ve got forty bloody calls waiting!”

  Glad to be saved from further discussion with Leonard about her love life, Lottie flicked her accept switch and found a local letting agent keen to place his weekly advert—this time for a seedy bedsit in the heart of Fraserburgh, in the cheapest, basic advert style— no spaces, no highlighted title, and sadly, no commission for Lottie.

  Encountering Alicia in the toilets sometime later, she found that, although Leonard had not pressed her for more information, he had, in his usual sneaky fashion, pumped poor Alicia for details of the party and Lottie’s new love interest.

  “He thought it was a wind-up, Lots.”

  Lottie gave Alicia a reassuring rub on the shoulder. “Don’t worry, just tell him what he wants
to know. I think I’m actually out and proud finally, so just tell him, and then I’m sure things will settle down.”

  Happy to have an official sanction for the conversation, Alicia returned to her desk and Lottie whipped down to the cafeteria to meet Virginia for her lunch break.

  Arriving back at her desk a short while later, Lottie was dismayed to discover that Leonard was lying in wait like a predatory misogynist, oblivious to her obvious dislike of him. She resigned herself to question time which would, no doubt, include sleazy jokes and innuendo.

  Taking a deep and steadying breath, she turned her chair towards Leonard. “So, Leonard,” she said and paused, taking in his boyish, underdeveloped body as she struggled to manage her revulsion. “I understand Alicia told you I was gay, but that you thought it was a wind-up?”

  Leonard almost choked on his half-consumed Panini, clearly not expecting such a direct approach from Lottie. “Well yeah, it’s got to be a wind-up.”

  “Really. Why?” Lottie responded.

  “Because you’re not gay! You’ve shagged blokes and you’ve got kids.” Leonard stated the last part triumphantly, and looked around to see if he could muster any support, but those nearby studiously ignored him, keen to avoid being aligned to this dinosaur.

  “How do you know that I’m not gay, Leonard? How do you know my kids aren’t adopted? How do you know I’ve ever slept with a man?” Lottie tried, and failed, to veil her frustration. She had expected some questions, but clearly Leonard felt entitled to be very direct with his opinions, which was rather shocking to Lottie who hadn’t experienced such direct homophobia anywhere before.

  “I just do,” he shrugged, unsure why his factual analysis of the situation was proving so difficult for her to grasp.

  “Well I am...gay,” Lottie shot at him venomously.

  “Seriously?” For a moment he appeared shaken but could not quite marry this with his obviously superior intellect.