Out and Proud

by Lisa Young

  “Seriously!” Lottie stated emphatically.

  “Oh, okay then.” Leonard retreated to the safety of his cubicle where he furiously started to type, before he asked over his shoulder. “So, do you feel like a big weight has been lifted from your shoulders?”

  “Not really. No.” Lottie refused to humour his slightly more empathetic approach.

  “Oh, right,” Leonard was once again confused. More typing ensued. “So how do you know you’re actually gay?”

  Lottie sighed. “Because I fancy girls.”

  A sanctimonious grin spread slowly across his face. “Oh right,” followed by an exaggerated wink.

  After a pause, he stated with utter delight. “So do I!”

  He looked vacantly into space, and Lottie concluded that he was clearly revisiting what she knew would be his limited knowledge of lesbian relationships based on his home porn collection.

  Slyly, he leaned in towards Lottie and once more he repeated it. “So do I! So, can we compare notes and stuff?”

  “Probably not, Leonard,” Lottie replied, seeing Alicia shaking her head in complete despair.

  The smile slipped from his face. “Oh, okay! Bummer! Oh sorry, that’s the male lot, isn’t it?” he replied, clearly still not understanding the offensive nature of his comments. Cackling at his comedic brilliance, he was satisfied with the exchange and returned to staring at his screen.

  Rolling her eyes at Alicia, Lottie took another incoming call, keen to dispel the increasing awkwardness she was feeling at the cheek of Leonard, and the apparent salacious view he took of her relationship with Alice. Typing in an advert for a child minder she made a mental note not to open avenues of conversation with her colleagues which might mean that she had to explain, or justify, her sexuality.

  Shortly afterward she received a welcome text from Alice:

  Hey baby, hope it’s going okay, just wanted you to know I’m thinking about you. By the way I’ve got some prosecco for later, so don’t worry.No matter how bad it is, it’ll soon be wine o’clock! Love ya, sexy bum xx

  Smiling, Lottie decided to stretch her legs before her supervision session with Ann. She made her way down the office and was greeted by various colleagues whom she had seen at the party, and received grateful thanks from many for remembering to bring in Pru’s leftover cake, which she had heard was surprisingly tasty.

  Finally, she could avoid it no longer and headed in the direction of Ann’s office for what she knew would be an interminably long supervision session. Lottie was dubious about the benefits of supervision, bearing in mind that Ann often took it as an opportunity to bemoan her relationship issues, before telling her that her sales targets were going up.

  When Lottie first started in the newspaper’s telesales department, she had realised there was as much of an art to feeding your sales figures to your manager as there was to selling anything in the first place. As a telesales operative, it was Lottie’s job to upsell incoming calls to adverts with white space around them or bold titles. On the odd occasion when she had managed to get customers to buy an actual box of space, having regaled them with the many benefits of highlighting their item in amongst the millions of classified adverts, she had remained unconvinced about the actual benefits in real terms. She considered herself a reluctant sales woman, often skipping the sales pitch to the bereaved, or the poor—those burying Grandma or selling her antique possessions. However, this had to be done carefully, as the eagle-eyed Ann had a remote monitoring facility in the corner of the office, meaning that she could tap in at any point to a sales call made by one of her team.

  Knowing full well the split personality of her manager, Lottie was surprised that Ann had made the effort to attend her party, and she could only attribute this to her own mother’s sales skills. Entering Ann’s lair she glanced around, noticing that, as with her own area, no family photographs hung from the walls. A wall of fame board hung squarely adjacent on the facing wall, which currently sported Leonard’s mugshot with the title, Top sales person of the month. Leonard had written a speech bubble alongside. “You know it, baby!”

  Lottie could not understand why Leonard had such prestige with their manager although she couldn’t fail to notice the flirtatious banter between the two. Both consistently failed to meet their core hours in the building, and of course, their carshare to the office had almost certainly helped him to achieve a sympathetic ear. She was always suspicious that there was more to their relationship than they revealed, but she seldom allowed those unsavoury images to cloud her thoughts for more than a moment.

  Ann looked up, her glasses perched on the very tip of her hooked nose. Lottie tried hard to look Ann straight in the eye but this wasn’t without its problems, as Ann had a pronounced squint, meaning you were never quite sure in which direction she was looking. This had caused Lottie, and other colleagues, many difficulties in the past, as Ann felt ignored if they failed to notice that she was talking to them. This only served to increase Ann’s paranoia about lack of respect in her workforce, all culminating in a horrible overbearing and micromanaging boss. Lottie had endured hours of delicate discussions about Ann’s emotionally abusive husband and delinquent children, in her own feeble attempts to win favour with her.

  Waving her hand in irritation, Ann signalled for her to close the door, therefore sealing Lottie’s fate of a minimum of fortyfive minutes of being supervised before home time and the enticing prospect of wine o’clock.

  As soon as she was seated, Ann swivelled in her orthopaedic chair to face Lottie. Smiling nervously, Lottie had often wondered about the protruding hump on Ann’s shoulder and sometimes found it hard not to stare directly at it during the morning sales meeting.

  Waving paperwork dramatically at Lottie, Ann sighed as she recited Lottie’s failings in her monthly figures. Lottie attempted to feign interest, but her attention was lost as she squinted to get a better look at Ann’s screen which she was sure was displaying the log-on page of a well-known dating site. Intrigued that Ann might be venturing away from her controlling husband, she accidentally gave herself away, as Ann raised her line of sight momentarily from the paperwork mountain and locked onto to Lottie’s point of interest. Flushing, Lottie attempted to pretend she’d been peering curiously at the Venus flytrap, but Ann was quick to note Lottie’s discovery.

  “You see, Lottie, I think he may be having an affair. With a man!” she said, coughing awkwardly.

  Lottie inwardly cringed. Bloody hell! Was there no end to this man’s vileness? When in God’s name was she going to leave him? Framing her audible question more tactfully, Lottie gently enquired as to how Ann had discovered this new fact about Greg.

  HALF AN HOUR later, and after Ann had confessed to having purchased illegal surveillance equipment to install on her husband’s computer, Lottie learned that Ann had identified a number of gay dating websites, which sported the profile of the not-so-delightful Greg, including a very unattractive picture of his Neanderthal thatched chest as it escaped from the unbuttoned Armani shirt he was wearing for the purpose of the photograph.

  As Ann clicked through the site’s pages, giving a pained explanation of her husband’s suspected activities, Lottie was distracted by a familiar image. “OMG! Tony!” she exclaimed, leaning forward.

  Ann stopped scrolling, as Lottie appraised an undeniable image of her very own brother-in-law! With a deft click of the mouse, Ann enlarged the screen to reveal a picture of Tony with his shirt fully unbuttoned to reveal his own version of the gayman chest-thatch. Next to him, stood her sister, who was busy dutifully serving iced buns, at what she presumed was their Sunday fellowship meeting. Lottie commandeered the mouse, quickly scanning his profile and was shocked to discover that Tony was portraying himself as a single man about town, or about Aberdeen, to be precise. His intentions were no strings encounters with like-minded males, and that he wanted his intended partners to have a strong faith base.

  “Bloody hell!” Lottie mutter
ed murderously, but Ann, oblivious to Lottie’s trauma, soon lost interest and steered the meeting back to finish the monthly supervision session.

  Ann appeared slightly peeved that Lottie was less than focused on her own personal trauma. However, as she drew the meeting to a close, she thanked Lottie for the indirect invitation to the party. Lottie recovered herself and made pleasant small talk about how lovely it had been to see so many colleagues there, to celebrate with her.

  Simultaneously her mind whirled with the implications of her discovery, and she was filled with dread about the inevitable conversation she was going to have to have with her sister.

  She brought her mind back to the meeting, as Ann leaned towards Lottie in a conspiratorial fashion. “On the subject, I wanted to say I’ve had a thought relating to you and your situation.”

  Lottie supressed a grimace. “Really?” She had to admit she had felt relieved to know that there weren’t going to be ongoing issues in her workplace.

  “Yes, Lottie. I was thinking that you possibly ought to consider a dating site yourself.”

  Lottie paused in anticipation of where this may be going, remembering that she had not been able to introduce Ann to Alice.

  “Yes, well, quite honestly I don’t know why I didn’t think of this before. It was staring me in the face. I know how much you like to travel, Lottie, and it occurred to me you should get on one of these websites for people in uniform. A man in the army or navy would be simply perfect for you. You’d get to go around the world!”

  Lottie fumed. A bloody man! What was wrong with these people? She managed to stifle a less than gracious response, and retreated to the safety of her booth and the lecherous glances of Leonard.

  This is crap! she thought, and what on earth was she going to tell her sister? Desperate for the wisdom and comfort of Alice, and the prospect of wine o’clock, she headed for the car park, and home.

  Part Two

  The Miracle of Life

  CHRISTMAS CAME AND went, and spring in all its glory finally arrived in Pennan. The gorse peppering the cliff side with its majestic yellow bloom provided a stark contrast to the chocolate brown of the peat-rich soil. There was still a chill in the air and the odd early morning frost, but the winter sun had grown stronger and the coastline was coming to life with the sounds and smells of spring.

  Alice was busily refilling the dressing’s drawer at her surgery as she pondered the events of the past few months, and the rollercoaster ride that life with Lottie could be. She couldn’t believe she’d found Lottie, after having had a few unsuccessful long-term relationships. Despite her numerous idiosyncrasies, she was learning that Lottie was a kind and funny woman. What she lacked in coordination she made up for with her boundless enthusiasm for her life and her loyalty to all the people she had in it. Alice hadn’t been sure how she felt about the prospect of joining a ready-made family at first, but now that she had gotten to know Robbie and Archie, she was pleased about her developing relationships with them. She chuckled as she recalled the disaster of taking Archie to work with her, on what was now known as Rat Liberation Day, but his fierce desire to protect the vulnerable was such an endearing quality.

  As she pushed her hip against a cupboard bursting with paperwork which desperately needed filing, she basked in the final success of her chat with Lottie about moving in to the house with them. It had eventually gone a lot better than she had anticipated, given Lottie’s woeful tales of failed cohabitation attempts in previous relationships. She knew she would meet resistance from some of her friends who would think that it was too early, but she didn’t care. She was aware that they would tease her and remind her of one of the well know clichés of lesbian life, U-Haul dykes. Alice had had a few encounters with U-Haul dykes herself, where she would date a woman and as soon as they had sex and breakfast there was a sudden expectation they would move in together and get on with ordering a U-Haul/Pickford’s van.

  “Scary!” she said aloud. Yet despite this, the speed at which her relationship with Lottie was developing had been cause for her friends to urge caution, but it just felt so right.

  In her pre-Lottie days. Alice had feared the judgement of others and realised that she had probably relied too heavily on the opinions of her friends, largely because she felt she had made poor relationship decisions in the past.

  Her previous partner had left her for a man, more than two years ago. Alice had no experience with male relationships and she struggled to process the situation, realising with hindsight that this relationship had affected her far more than she’d cared to admit at the time. The pain of the break-up was only matched by the pangs of angst she’d felt throughout that relationship, when she’d realised that the woman only brought out her worst qualities—jealousy and paranoia.

  Looking back—which she generally avoided doing—that period of her life had definitely been a low point for her, as she’d struggled with the aftermath of being abandoned. One of the things she so greatly admired about Lottie was that she was generally a good judge of character, and this was one of the many attractive qualities which had resulted in the speedy development of a strong and trusting relationship between the two.

  She was well aware that Lottie was, first and foremost, a fierce mother lion. Another of the things that she adored about her. Alice couldn’t help but draw parallels between how Lottie was with her boys and the natural mothering instincts she saw in some of the animals she treated. Lottie wouldn’t have any of that though, admitting that she was constantly seeking a parenting score, or success, as Alice corrected her.

  She felt that Lottie’s insecurities about her parenting were, in part, a result of her heterosexual masquerade in earlier years which had led her to constantly compare herself to the yummy mummies in the playground. Alice laughed as she recalled Lottie’s description of her attempts to develop coffee buddies amongst this group, only to discover that the inner sanctum of the yummy mummies consisted of core individuals who bonded in their marital misery. Lottie had told her how she had tried to offer support and advice to this group only to find that she actually had no affinity with their issues, which led to her having little of substance to offer them. Failing to discover a gay alternative to the yummy mummies, Lottie had had a brief friendship with the one-and-only gay playground dad, but this had ended abruptly after Archie had revealed that his son had a predilection for dissecting pets, including a hamster and three gerbils.

  She had wondered whether moving in so quickly was a good idea but it just felt right, and that was all the analysis she was prepared to give to the situation. Granted, Lottie was a bit of a clumsy clod at times. In fact, she would probably go as far as to say that Lottie probably suffered from some form of mild dyspraxia, and yet, somehow, it all added to her charm. Sometimes, when Lottie was busy burning food in the kitchen, or when she was studiously doubled over her son’s homework, her face creased and perplexed by the subject, Alice had the chance to observe the essence of Lottie. Her kindness and patience towards others knew no bounds, but while she had an outer air of confidence, she was insecure about her decisions around the children, and worried about the impact on them of her coming out later in life.

  Alice felt proud to the core, sometimes on a daily basis, as she watched Lottie walk tall, or sometimes stumble clumsily, through the various situations that life threw at her. No matter how others treated her, Lottie would smile and reach out to those around her, and Alice sensed that simply being around Lottie made her feel that she was becoming a better person.

  Alice believed that she’d made a place in Lottie’s family, although she was well aware that this was a constantly evolving situation. She had secretly shared a roll-up with Robbie on the odd occasion, when he surfaced from his man den. In fact, Robbie had sought her out after the school debacle to ask how he could get his mum to trust him again. His ulterior motive had of course been to get Alice to negotiate on his behalf. So, Alice, being all too aware of this, had simply patted
him reassuringly on the shoulder and advised him that time was a great healer. Robbie had not seemed overly impressed with this advice, however, her overall non-judgemental approach to his predicament had apparently not been lost on him, and he would sometimes seek her out when she was in the house to share a companionable silence which she took to be a sign of acceptance.

  Archie was a longer project, Alice felt. While he happily accepted her version of a Harry Potter butter beer—Irn-Bru with an ice cream floater—and allowed her to partake in an episode or two of the Disney channel’s finest offering, Dog with a Blog, he wasn’t so invested in her presence in the house. As time passed, Alice had learned not to be overly affectionate towards Lottie in Archie’s presence, as it tended to prompt a rush of babyish behaviour as he fought to win back the attention of his mum. She had, however, learned that Archie swam like a fish and so she had taken to collecting him from his child minder one evening a week for a quick swim at the local baths. She knew that Lottie was glad that she was making this effort with Archie. Keen to exploit the situation, Archie had discovered that Alice had a stash of fifty-pence coins in her car which happened to be the required amount for the sweet-dispensing machine in the reception area of the baths.

  Alice chuckled to herself as she decided to abandon her drawer tidying. Archie had become a staunch vegetarian after accidentally discovering a documentary on television called Vegacated which consisted of a brief discussion on the benefits of a vegan diet, followed by a graphic portrayal of the slaughter methods used on a variety of farm produce. While Alice was not immune to the suffering of animals in their final moments, she demonstrated her love for animals by buying only organically farmed meat, which was readily available from the Highland farming industry. She had learned though, to expect a fairly dramatic reaction if Archie arrived home early to catch her in the act of making a bacon sandwich, which would involve opening all the windows in the house and making vomiting noises. She had taken to purchasing her guilty pleasure from the food van on the Aberdeen road, on the days she was required to head to the city.