Queermance Anthology, Volume 2

by Queermance Anthology- Volume 2 [MM-FF] (retail) (epub)

  The movie, Guardians of the Galaxy, is a great combination of all my Marvel heroes in one place.

  All is well. I remember to breathe, and I like the comfort the darkness provides. In the dark, with no one looking, I can be who I’m meant to be. Not the freak I truly am. I can feel Josh’s knee against my leg, and it feels nice. In fact, it feels right. I will myself to just stop the rise of panic and enjoy the way a simple touch from another person makes me feel. I have spent the past year afraid of people touching me. Today I will not worry, I will just enjoy. When he leans to put his drink in the cup holder nestled in the armrest between the seats, he touches my arm and I flinch. He looks at me with a questioning eyebrow lift, and I smile and murmur, ‘Sorry.’

  The movie ends, and we head out into the bright foyer. I hate that sensation of expecting it to be dark outside and it’s not. Josh nods his head towards the toilet, ‘I gotta take a piss after that bucket of Coke.’ I nod and turn away, I need to go too but that will be more hassle than I can handle right now.

  When Josh returns, we head out to the parklands. I need to sit down before my bladder explodes. I head straight to the grass beside the river and sink to the ground. Josh follows. We chat and joke as usual. When, suddenly, Josh looks down and takes a deep breath. Then he word vomits.

  ‘I’m gay, just thought I should tell you.’

  I feel my mouth drop open and my eyes grow wide. I nod, because what else would I do? I’m the freak here. His revelation is nothing compared to mine - if I can ever tell him. Now is not the time to run home but, if I don’t want to pee my pants, I have to go now. Oh shit, I shouldn’t go but I have to. I could try and use the public toilet but they give me panic attacks. And I feel bad if I use the disabled one and someone needs it. Damned if I do, damned if I don’t. But abandoning Josh seems cruel too. But he will never understand that as a freak, I can’t even pee like a normal person.

  I give him a pat on the shoulder. ‘That’s cool.’ I look around us anxiously. ‘I’m really sorry but I’ve gotta get home.’ He looks at me like I’ve grown two heads and I really am a freak. He reveals this huge part of himself and I just nod, smile and say that’s cool. I stand up and apologise about running home. I give him another back slap and walk as fast as possible towards the train. Fuck me! I’m an idiot. Freak is an understatement. He looked so shocked and sad when I took off. My last glimpse, over my shoulder, was of a lonely guy, shoulders slumped and staring into the disgusting brown water that is the Brisbane River. But I can’t tell him why I have to go or he won’t talk to me ever again.

  One Week Ago

  I run like a demented duck up the ramp to the platform just as the train pulls in. My heart is beating wildly as I take a quick glance around for Josh. I can’t see him. I find the nearest seat and throw myself into it as I try to catch my breath. Running is not recommended when wearing the binder, as it makes it hard to take deep breaths and I feel like my lungs only half work. But this is my life for now. My pocket vibrates, I dig out my mobile and smile as I notice the message.

  Josh: Did you make the train?

  Me: Yep, last carriage. Bloody alarm didn’t work. Google can’t work out my location and had me on Daylight Savings Time. Stupid thing almost made me miss the train.

  I wait for a response and get nothing. I deserve less than this after the way I acted at Southbank. But Josh has been fine about it. He hasn’t changed at all, still waits for me and chats on the train with me. We’ve even started texting silly, random stuff. I went to his place one day when footy training was cancelled. That was an adventure in awkward. ‘No, I’m not hot, Josh.’ And, ‘I’m okay with the long sleeves’. Finally he left it alone, and we vegged out playing Call of Duty. Problem was - as I was leaving he gave me a hug and kissed my cheek. And didn’t that set the cat amongst the pigeons, as my old Nan would say. I walked the fifteen minutes home completely unaware of everything except the way my cheek still tingled. I swear I could feel the warmth from his lips linger there. And that hug was my first hug with a boy. Holy shit. A boy hugged me. Me, the freak. I know he’s gay, but maybe he’ll be okay with my freak. Maybe there’s a way to be together. Maybe he could be my boyfriend.

  ‘Hey you. What ya thinking about? You’ve got a weird look on your face.’ Josh has taken the seat next to me and I didn’t even notice him. He looks at me expecting a response but there is no way I’m sharing my real thoughts!

  ‘Uh, nothing. Just thinking about how stupid I must have looked running for the train.’ I offer a wry smile, and he settles our backpacks on the floor for the twenty minute ride to school. We’re friends, I’m sure of it. Frankie tells me to, ‘Take a spoonful of concrete and harden the fuck up.’ He says I should just ask Josh straight out, ‘Are you my boyfriend?’ Never gonna happen!

  Today

  What the fuck am I going to do? I’ve been sitting here, locked in the toilet for forty-five minutes. My throat hurts from holding in the pain and tears threaten to burst out at any moment. I know I made a couple of moaning sounds because I heard Nathan and James laugh and joke about a bad curry, but they left eventually.

  Of course this had to happen now, just when everything was going great. Home was pretty good, and Matt didn’t look at me with the worried, concerned look quite as much. I think he was just happy to see me eat. Dad had started calling me Jess, and not choking on my preferred name.

  My friends in the chat room were really excited that I was passing and that my new school was free of the bullies and haters. I even had a friend - maybe more - but a friend nonetheless. Oh, shit. Josh! I wanted to tell him on my own, but I just hadn’t found the right time. It was too good having a friend. I didn’t want to be the freak anymore. I just want to be Jess. Maybe have a chance at a boyfriend. But no. I knew if my body fat increased this might happen.

  It’s normal. It’s natural. It’s fucked and I don’t want it. This is not normal to me. My body is betraying me! Who the fuck is knocking on the door?

  ‘I’m in here,’ I whisper.

  It’s Josh. ‘Jess? You okay? I’ve been looking for you. You said to meet you at the library. Someone said you were in the loo. I’ve been outside for a half hour. You okay? You sick? You need to go home?’ Josh is whispering too. And with that the tears fall and my throat releases a sob. ‘Hey, mate��� Jess���? You hurt? Someone do something to ya?’

  I can’t breathe, I can only cry. I’m such a fucking fool. I can’t do this anymore. I just want to be normal. The bell rings and the noise outside peaks then subsides as everyone races to class. But I can see Josh sitting on the floor leaning against the door. The floor is disgusting. In fact the whole place reeks of piss, not a single boy can piss straight. ‘Josh, just go to class, okay? I’m fine.’

  ‘No, you’re not. I’m staying until you come out. We’re mates. Friends. Maybe even more than that. I can’t just leave you here.’ He sounds so genuine, so concerned that I just say it.

  ‘Can you go to the office and ask the nurse for a pad?’ My face is burning and the tears won’t stop. I have no idea what he’s thinking. Then he just gets up and leaves. I completely lose it. I can’t stop the tears, the wracking sobs. Nothing stops them. I bang my head on the stall wall and rip off more and more loo paper to blow my nose. I’m a freak. I’m a boy with a period. My binder is so tight that crying makes it hard to breathe. I unbutton my shirt to try and relieve the pressure. But I just need to take the binder off. I scramble to wriggle and manoeuvre myself around the cubicle. It takes forever to pull it over my head. Probably longer because I can’t stop crying. This just confirms my freak status. I sit on the closed toilet sit and sob some more.

  I see shoes outside the cubicle and a familiar hand passes a small, white paper bag under the door. As I reach out, I can tell it’s Josh. ‘I’ll wait outside for you okay? Okay Jess? We can go right home. The nurse said I could go with you. All right. And I am going with you. Okay mate? I’ll be just outside. No one will come in, I promise.’

&nb
sp; I sit on the closed toilet seat and stare at the floor where his feet just were. He’s waiting for me. He’s my friend - maybe more - he said. Me, the freak. I get myself together, well as together as I’m gonna be after an hour of crying and sobbing and cramps.

  Just as I’m washing my hands and wiping my face I hear music coming from where Josh is waiting:

  Pretty, pretty please, if you ever, ever feel

  Like you’re nothing, you’re fucking perfect to me.

  ROSELLAS IN FLIGHT

  Nicole Field

  1.

  Her dark golden hair was tied up in a messy bun that accented her high cheekbones, rather than detracting from her appearance. She was clothed in casual cut-off blue jeans and an off-the-shoulder top. She was this otherworldly creature to Elizabeth, someone who didn’t seem to have aged in the ten years since they’d last seen one another. Lily smiled at her in mute sympathy, brown eyes meeting Elizabeth’s through the car window. She stood on the other side of the fence, watering her mother’s garden.

  Both Elizabeth’s parents helped her out of the car and into the waiting wheelchair. With what was left of her pride, Elizabeth drew herself up as much as possible from the waist up. She flexed her fingers in a small wave to Lily as her mum rolled her past. Seeing her again… it was just another reminder of how much had changed.

  ‘What brought her back here?’ Elizabeth asked her mum, thinking to distract herself as her dad fumbled for the keys to let them into the house.

  ‘A bad break up,’ her mum replied, glancing over her shoulder. ‘She’s been living with Rose and Darwin for a couple of months now.’

  2.

  On the morning after Elizabeth arrived from the Austin Hospital to her parents’ small place in Fairfield, Lily stood at her front door. She didn’t bring balloons, cards or flowers, just a small packet of the herbal tea she’d always loved to share, and some incense.

  ‘I wasn’t sure you’d be feeling up to visitors.’ The greeting left Elizabeth open to turn her high school friend away without worry of judgement.

  Instead, Elizabeth gave a self-deprecating smile, even as she lifted her arms to invite a hug.

  ‘From you? Always.’

  Her smile slipped slightly as Lily crouched down to hug her. Only once they broke apart did Elizabeth attempt to manoeuvre the wheelchair towards the lounge room.

  As Lily saw how clumsy Elizabeth still was, she stepped forward. ‘Do you need help?’ She sounded hesitant; the situation was unfamiliar for her too.

  Elizabeth summoned another smile, but this one was harder won. ‘I’m fine. Just getting used to this.’

  Lily let Elizabeth lead her own way back into the living room. She walked at the pace Elizabeth set, then sat down in the arm chair nearby.

  ‘I can hardly believe we’re both at our parents’ houses at the same time,’ Elizabeth said. ‘Tell me, what’s been going on with you?’

  She’d heard the abbreviated account from her mum, but she wanted to hear it from Lily. Elizabeth’s hand reached out and was accepted, and it felt like no time had passed.

  ‘Oh, it’s embarrassing,’ Lily said with a shrug. ‘My relationship ended, and he held the lease.’

  Elizabeth didn’t show by gesture or expression the surprise she felt at the pronoun: he.

  ‘Tell me about it,’ she said instead.

  Lily gave a small smile. ‘It’s tacky to speak badly of exes,’ she said ruefully. ‘It wasn’t all his fault anyway. We were just very different. You know those… those things I used to be able to do?’

  Lily had been viewed as somewhat of a master magician at school. She and Elizabeth had been the most popular girls in school, but while Elizabeth had been interested in magic, Lily had been the only one able to coax birds out of the trees, like Snow White in the old Disney movie.

  Elizabeth nodded to indicate she remembered.

  ‘My ex never liked me doing anything spooky,’ Lily said. ‘He said I was acting out.’

  ‘Acting out?’ To Elizabeth, that sounded more the description one would give to a child, not a full grown equal within a relationship. ‘Against what?’

  ‘Against him? He was always very strictly analytical. I don’t know.’

  Elizabeth’s fingers tightened around Lily’s in sympathy, and Lily squeezed back.

  ‘You’re better off without him,’ Elizabeth said, but not without a wince that crossed her face at the same moment.

  Lily leapt immediately to attention. ‘What’s wrong?’ she asked, ready to do something about it as soon as she found out what it was. ‘Are you in pain?’

  ‘Not pain exactly,’ Elizabeth said. ‘Just discomfort. I try to rub my legs as often as I can to keep the blood circulating.’

  Lily’s mouth opened in a small O of understanding. ‘Do you mind if I…?’

  The very idea of Lily’s small hands against the skin of her legs once would have made her heart thrill with pleasure. Even now, there was a moment when Elizabeth’s heart leapt, before she remembered.

  ‘I won’t be able to feel it,’ she said.

  ‘I don’t mind,’ Lily replied.

  Elizabeth made a sweeping gesture. ‘Be my guest.’

  Lily kneeled in front of Elizabeth and felt first for her left foot. Elizabeth watched as Lily’s gentle fingers prodded into the soft skin of her sole. As she’d told her, she couldn’t feel anything.

  But there was something more, something that went deeper than the sensation of touch. There was a warmth beginning, bone deep within her legs. Elizabeth wasn’t entirely sure that it wasn’t something she imagined.

  Then she looked up into her best friend’s eyes, and saw Lily looking back at her.

  ‘Can you… can you still do the things you used to do in high school?’ Elizabeth dared to ask.

  There seemed to be a golden light behind Lily’s eyes as she answered, ‘Oh yes.’

  3.

  Lily came around every day after that. She brought scented massage oils from her house and offered to massage Elizabeth’s legs each day. Her fingers seemed magical, slip-sliding over Elizabeth’s golden skin, her own paler fingers glistening from the oil.

  ‘Even if you can’t feel it,’ Lily remarked, ‘at least you can smell it.’

  Elizabeth sat back into her wheelchair.

  But there were also less glamorous sides to her disability. She couldn’t go to the toilet alone. She needed help getting in and out of the bath each day. She couldn’t even reach many of the shelves in the pantry for food, and just reaching forward enough to cook on the stovetop was difficult.

  Lily was a godsend. Instead of bothering with the bath, Lily would wheel Elizabeth into the bathroom indulgently. There, she would close the door, light a stick of incense and fill a bowl with bath salts and water.

  Elizabeth didn’t mind being naked around Lily. They had seen each other’s less mature bodies in the changing rooms at high school. The only thing Elizabeth was conscious of, as Lily undid the buttons of Elizabeth’s shirt, was the imprint of her heart beating hard against her chest. She hardly thought Lily could fail to notice it.

  Still, Lily’s slim fingers were gentle and smooth as she undid first one button, then another, until Elizabeth’s bare belly and white bra were visible. Elizabeth leaned forward in the chair while Lily pulled the back of the shirt free and folded it neatly over the towel rack. Next, her pants. There weren’t any buttons or zips to undo with this. Elizabeth’s mum had brought her several pairs of elastic waistband pants in various colours for ease of dressing and undressing. Elizabeth wouldn’t have thought Lily big enough to be able to lift her to remove the pants that first time.

  ‘Trust me,’ Lily murmured. Her face was so close to Elizabeth’s; she could almost taste the floral scent of Lily’s breath mingled with the perfume she wore.

  And she did trust Lily. Implicitly.

  When it came time to remove her pants, Elizabeth felt herself lifted from the chair with the same gentle touch Lily employed at every
turn. There was no hint of exertion on the other woman’s features and, just like that, Elizabeth’s pants were removed, then folded alongside the button up shirt on the towel rack. It was almost like magic.

  As Lily leaned forward, a necklace worked itself out of her shirt and dangled before Elizabeth’s gaze. It was a silver chain, with a silver bird pendant.

  ‘Hey,’ Elizabeth said softly, as Lily turned to grasp the lukewarm bowl and water and bring it closer. ‘I got that for you when we were sixteen.’

  ‘I never take it off,’ Lily replied. Her fingers lifted up to caress the charm. Elizabeth was all of a sudden quite conscious that she sat naked in front of a woman who was caressing a gift she’d given her over ten years ago. ‘It’s actually become a kind of totem for me.’

  Elizabeth bit her lip, looking into the eyes of this woman she’d never quite stopped thinking about and who - maybe - hadn’t quite stopped thinking about her either. As she looked into Lily’s eyes, chocolate-brown irises gazed back at her. Tiny lines around her eyes - Elizabeth saw now - spoke of the years that spanned between them; adolescence into adulthood. A slight curve to the lip exposed more small lines, around the mouth. She had changed, Elizabeth thought. Or maybe she’d just become more completely the person she’d been at sixteen.

  ‘What are you thinking?’ Lily asked her, fingers letting go of the pendant.

  Elizabeth’s shoulders rose and fell. ‘I’m thinking…of you. And of us at sixteen.’

  Lily smiled, and said, ‘I’ve been thinking about us, too, the last few days.’

  The sponge bath that followed was amongst the most sensual experiences of Elizabeth’s life. It didn’t seem to matter that Elizabeth couldn’t feel anything below the waist. Lily started with her feet, washing carefully between each individual toe and the curve of the foot. She kept her gaze on Elizabeth as she moved to wash each ankle. The same heat Elizabeth had felt from the first time Lily massaged her legs was there again now, but more. The bathing of those regions she couldn’t feel became a promise of the pleasure she would be able to feel.