by Emmie Combs
I was sitting on the fire escape because the apartment was way too hot to do anything but come in, fall asleep and then wake up and leave again. I stood and climbed back in through the window. Chastity was putting on eye makeup in the apartment's one and only bedroom, allowing the fan to blow right on her so that sweat didn't ruin her hard work. It takes a lot of work to transform a druggie into a presentable druggie.
"We're out of cigarette," I replied, though I did have a pack stashed where she wouldn't find them. "But I'll pick you up a pack. I need a coca cola anyways." I held out my hand for her money and she went scavenging around for change. I knew she wouldn't find any but it was the principal of the thing.
"Evan, can you front me? Charlieboy is going to bring me money tonight and I'll give it back to you."
"Alright."
"You're such a cool Couz." She said while blowing me a kiss.
"I know." I slipped on converse and laced them quickly so that I could get out of the apartment before I started sweating.
"Bring me back a forty ounce!" She yelled as I slammed the door.
"Yeah, yeah." I murmured. And this was my life.
~Brianna~
You only get half an hour for lunch and two fifteen minute breaks. But the only restaurants in the area are always crowded by noon. So if you want to eat you better get your lunch at your break and then save it for lunch. That's what I do. I know that I should pack my lunch every day, because I am always broke and...well I've been packing on the pounds. But it is hard to get my ass into gear each morning. And when I finally to get out of work, the last thing I'm thinking of is preparing for the next day of work.
So I was in the Cafe and ordering a soup and sandwich when the rockstar walks in. I almost looked like a groupie when my eyes got big and I had to slam my mouth shut to keep from gaping at him. This time he was alone. He's doing what I do; getting lunch early. That meant that we were the only two customers present in the Cafe. I stepped to the side so that he could give his order at the counter, but watched him from the corner of my eye.
"I need an Italian sub and potato salad." He said.
"Drink?"
"Fountain coke."
He looked at me and nodded a brief greeting. Damn, his eyes didn't linger. Rednecks don't look too hard at blacks even though I know for a fact that they dream about black girls. But I figured he, of all people, wouldn't be afraid to look. He obviously came from a place that knew that skinny jeans looked good with converse and he could afford Ed Hardy shirts. I considered myself in the know when it came to style. I was wearing an Aeropostale tee and a jeans skirt. I also had on baby blue canvas Diesel shoes and I had my hair cut into layers and even though the humidity wreaked havoc on it, I kept it pressed ultra straight.
The guy dug into his pocket for a pack of cigarettes and I saw him fingering one anxiously as he waited for his order to come up. Damn, why wasn't he checking out my legs? Maybe he went for skinny white girls.
"Order up." The clerk passed me my order and I 'accidentally-on purpose' dropped my purse. The guy reached down to retrieve it since my hands were full.
"Here you go." He gave me a distracted look.
"Thanks..." I checked out his badge. "Evan."
He gave me a curious look and I gestured to his badge. "Oh." Then he smiled and the tension seemed to leave his handsome face.
"I'm Brianna."
I saw his eyes move towards my badge. "Brianna...ok. Hi."
"You're new here, aren't you?"
"Yeah. I transferred from Florida."
"How do you like it?" He nodded his head, seeming to search for the right words. I couldn't blame him for finding it hard to say something positive.
"It's...a paycheck."
"Order up." The clerk handed Evan his order and he gave me a brief tilt of his head in the way of goodbye. Damn. He still hadn't checked me out! As Evan turned to leave I placed my items back on the counter and bent over to retie my shoe. I knew my skirt had hiked up a bit and that if Evan had any taste what-so-ever then he'd be trying to check out my ass.
Sure enough, when I straightened, I saw him backing out of the door and his eyes were glued to my ass. He saw me catch him looking and his eyes flitted away quickly before coming back to rest on mine. I smiled slightly. He hesitated and then turned away and left.
Damn. It wasn't the reaction I'd been searching for. But he had looked.
~Evan~
I work at a customer call center. It is the most tedious job that I can imagine doing. People call me and complain, or ask idiot questions, or try to get out of doing what they know they are supposed to do. Even if it weren't for that, my job would still suck because my manager looks at me as if I'm bleeding from my palms. Frankly, I would probably not get along with my co-workers anyways because most them are twice my age. I am going to be twenty-nine years old on my next birthday and I did not picture my life in this way.
I have met a few people that seem cool, but the people here aren't like my buddies in Florida. They seem so uptight. I just want to go out and listen to some live music where the band is playing tunes that I like and not just eighties rock and roll!
At lunch I walked along the riverfront, dodging goose shit, but at least there was water and it was the closest thing to Florida that I could get. I sat down on a cement pylon and ate my lunch alone. I'd met some girls at work that wanted to tag along with me, but I eventually had to dodge them because I lost interest in hearing stories about their kids, their boyfriends, their pets...So I ate my lunch quietly and listened to my Ipod, jamming away to MARS VOLTA and wishing for the millionth time that I hadn't sold my electric guitar.
A shadow fell across my lunch and I looked up. Some girl that worked in my building was smiling at me. I removed my ear buds. What was her name...?
"Hey, how's it going?" I said pleasantly.
"Want some company?" I gestured for her to sit, even though I was just fine by myself.
"Evan, right?"
"Yep. Um...sorry I forgot your name?" I remembered that she had a nice butt, though big butts didn't really do anything for me.
"Brianna."
"Brianna!" We made small talk about how lunch break was too short and how our jobs sucked and by then it was time to return to work. I was commenting on how nice it would be to listen to some good live music when Brianna asked me what I liked.
"Alternative, Indie some Punk." Stuff that I didn't think she'd know anything about. I had a lot of friends who said they liked alt but it always turned out to be some top 40's alt like Kings of Leon—while just fine, but not exactly what I'm in to.
"Who do you listen to?" She asked.
"Phoenix, Interpol, Muse..."
"Do you like Reel Big Fish?"
My eyes flashed. "Yeah. I do like them."
She began mimicking the lead singer. "You and I are mortal but rock and roll will never die!"
I laughed out loud. "Yeah! That's what I'm talking about! Where do they play music like that around here?"
She chuckled and looked kinda cute even though she wasn't what I usually like. I like girlie girls and she was kind of aggressive. But she had a pretty smile and a nice voluptuous body. "There is no place around here that plays Alt. Lots of places over the river in Cincinnati, though."
She started naming several clubs and I tried to remember them. I planned to ask Chastity to hang with me and maybe check out something new. Chastity and I have hit several redneck bars around Covington but a redneck bar after midnight is no pretty sight.
"Some of my friends are going to JoJo's Friday night if you want to come along."
I lit up a cigarette so that I could get a smoke in before we reached the building. "Friday? I'll see what I have going on and maybe I'll see you there."
"Cool." I wasn't sure if I really wanted to hangout after work with someone that I just met at work but I really needed to get out and be around people that were like me.
~Brianna~
Oh my god! I talked to him. I
am so happy that I scoped where he went for lunch break. I'm not stalking the guy. I was just curious. He looked totally handsome in jeans and an Abercrombie and Finch shirt. They showed off the toned muscles of his arm. He had a simple tribal tattoo on his inner wrist that ran up to his elbow.
He was wearing mirrored sunglasses and lifted them up to the top of his head to squint up at me with those gorgeous grey eyes. I don't know what caused me to invite him to JoJo's with my friends when we had no plans to go there. Now I will need to get them together for a night out and hope that none of them ho's scope out the guy that I like.
~Evan~
Chastity was all for trying out a new club, but then she wanted to bring Charlieboy and I wasn't cool with that. Brianna is black and maybe her friends were too. Charlieboy and blacks don't mix. Not that this should be a surprising fact; his god given name is Charlie, not Charles not even Chuck, but just Charlie. His mother threw in the word 'boy' just to remove all doubt that he was a bon-a-fide redneck. And the fact that he never dropped it tells you just how bright he is. So we ended up just hitting one of the neighborhood bars and since Charlieboy was buying the drinks I stuck around through three versions of Sweet Home Alabama. I had to eventually call it a night when the Karaoke began.
Chastity let me take her car and I drove the short route over the bridge to downtown Cincinnati. As I headed to the club section of town, I saw that it was a pretty popular area with tons of people milling about, so I decided to just park a few blocks away and do some barhopping myself.
I don't mind being by myself, especially when I just want to chill and having too many people around trying to impress everyone with their wit and charm is just plain distracting. The first bar that caught my interest was playing techno and I suddenly felt the need to move and dance and cut lose. The music was loud and the people were into it, so I got into it, as well. I was wearing a black Mowbray porkpie hat, black jeans, and a bowling shirt. By the time I stepped off the dance floor I was streaming in sweat. It was great, I could have actually gone home then, completely satisfied but I was a bit curious about Club Jo Jo's. I asked some girl that had dancing next to me where I could find it, and screaming above the den of music, she told me that it was across the street.
I headed out the club and saw a pink neon image of a kitty cat and the simple words JO JO. As I neared the bar I didn't initially think I'd like this type of place, but then I could hear a tune by the Strokes. Good tune, and I smiled as I stepped into the trendy club. The dance floor was packed with people gyrating to the song, definitely a different vibe then the club that I'd just left where everyone was crashing and slamming into each other.
"Evan!" I looked around, trying to see through the crowd of people and then I saw Brianna waving madly at me. I smiled. Wow, it was kind of nice to actually know someone. She had been dancing and headed to me. She was wearing the shortest cheerleading skirt possible and how she managed to keep that ass of hers contained in it was a mystery...but I couldn't help but to stare.
"Hey there." I greeted when she reached me. You could tell she was wired from the music because she was still bouncing and that skirt seemed to bounce right along with her. She was wearing some kookie thigh high stockings and high heeled MaryJanes. She also had on a white baby tee—and it was probably the sexiest school girl look that I'd ever seen.
"Hi. You made it."
I nodded. Yep, I was here. She grabbed my wrist. "Come, dance with me." Chuckling, I followed her back onto the dance floor. Coheed and Cambria's Everything Evil began playing, which is one of my favorite groups. Brianna danced in a wildly sensual manner. She was completely without thought as she gyrated and moved to the music; totally unlike anyone else in the club. I couldn't stop looking at her, not just because I would catch a peek of her black panties, but because she was completely absorbed in the music.
I danced the way I had at the techno club, with the same abandon that she had and I guess the two of us made a strange picture! But she grinned at me which let me know that she liked what I was doing, just as much as I liked what she was doing.
Uprising by Muse came on next and people started getting wild along with us. I guess we were the catalyst. She started doing the jerk, body rolling in time to the swinging of her arms and then her arms began pumping up and down and her hips began swinging and I almost stopped dancing. I did the jerk with her and then the moves that John Travolta had done in Pulp Fiction. Fuck, we were jamming on that dance floor!
We didn't stop dancing for an hour and then when the sweat began to swing from her lose hair, I touched her elbow and gestured to the bar. She nodded breathlessly and I led us there for drinks. She was panting and laughing.
"Damn, you're a good dancer!" She yelled over the loud music.
"You are. What do you want to drink?"
"Long Island Ice tea then we can sit down for a while. Is that cool?"
"Sounds good." I ordered that for her and a microbrew for myself. They did have some really freaking good beers in Cincinnati. We sat down at the end of the bar and I looked around. "Where are your friends?"
"Oh." She waved her hand. "They went bar hopping." I saw her eyes casually sweep over me and I pretended not to notice. "So what do you think of the music?" She asked.
"They pretty much play the stuff I listen to." I looked around. It was filled with mostly college kids, but a nice mixed crowd. I saw some heavily tatooed individuals, some punkers, a few blacks, a few Hispanics. It was a little more 'posh' then I liked but I could see myself chilling here from time to time.
I took a swig. "Um, I need a smoke." I gestured to the door. "Want to step outside for a bit?"
"Sure. Let me hit the ladies room first."
"Yeah. Me too." She threaded us through the thick crowd of dancing bodies and headed to the ladies room. I was right on her heels until I finally saw the garish blinking pink neon sign that flashed gals gals gals. She pushed open the door and I followed her. She gave me the strangest look.
"Is there a reason that you're following me into the little girl's room?"
I chuckled. "Yeah. Cuz I gotta pee."
She laughed. "Evan the little boy's room is the opposite direction."
My face fell. "Brianna...you do know that I'm a girl, right?"
~Brianna~
I think my face cracked; literally when Evan said, 'You do know that I'm a girl, right?'
I looked at him hard with his hat shielding the majority of his face, and his loose fitting bowling shirt and tight black jeans.
I shook my head in disbelief more than in denial. A girl??? I tried to understand what that meant. A girl.
Evan swept his...her hat off and ran a shaky hand through her short cropped hair.
"Shit." Her big grey eyes stared at me, lined in the longest eye lashes that I'd ever seen. "Shit." She said again in Evan's voice...not some girl's voice. "I thought you knew. Pretty much everyone at work knows..." She held up an apologetic hand and backed out the door. "Look, I'm sorry." Then she was gone and I was standing there with my cracked face.
I ran every image that I'd ever had of Evan and none of it equated to a female. Was he a pre-operative transsexual or something? Oh my god...I was lusting after him-HER! Did that make me a lesbian? Am I gay?! I staggered on my heels and then slowly headed to the toilet where I peed. I was suddenly cold, even in all of this heat I shivered. Absently I washed and dried my hands and then moved quickly past the other people in the bathroom. I needed to see him/her. I needed to see her, because there is no way that I should not have known something like this.
I hurried out of the club and looked up and down both ends of the long street. I thought I saw the slender body moving a ways down the street and I ran in that direction. I had to take off my shoes or risk twisting an ankle. I hoped I wouldn't step on something either gross or dangerous.
"Evan!" She hesitated, looking over her shoulder. Her. I couldn't stop thinking that. Her. She faced me, smoking a cigarette and looking uncomfortable.
> "What, Brianna? What do you want?"
"I...I want to understand."
Evan's eyes grew big. "What is there to understand? You thought I was a guy. You're a straight girl that thought she liked some guy. There's nothing else to know." Evan turned back around and began walking again.
"Um..." I said, because I had been drinking a Long Island Ice tea and because everything was so strange, so maybe I was drunk. "...so what does it mean that I still like you? Even though I know that you're a girl now?"
She stopped walking but didn't turn this time. "It means that you are confused. But I'm not. I'm not going to wake up in the morning and be something else. You will wake up in the morning and not be so confused. So Brianna...just leave it alone." Evan continued walking away and this time I let her.
~Evan~
How do you work in a job and not know that the guy you're crushing on is the center of gossip? How do you not know this??? I was angry at Brianna because I didn't like being put in this position of explaining myself. I want to be who I am and why should I fucking run around with badges stating that?!
I am a girl that has no desire to become a man. There. Simple. I'm a lesbian. I like being a gender bender or androgynous or whatever you want to call it. I like being me. Even at work I put female down as my sex and when my boss or supervisor gets confused about it, I find it to be their problem, not mine. I walk into the male restroom with no problems and the female restroom when I'm with someone I know. If I have a problem, it would be just one...and that is straight girls with identity crisis. They break more hearts then anyone.
I was thinking this when I heard a sharp cry followed by low cursing. I turned to see Brianna hopping on one foot. I would have kept going, but I saw red on the bottom . Cursing myself now, I went to her.
"What'd you step on?" She looked at me, trying to balance on the one foot and not being very successful at it as she flailed around.