Heteroflexibility
Page 24
I was surrounded by strangers, almost all gay men, drinking and laughing and hugging me congratulations for a successful show. All the rush prints had been enlarged to life size, hanging in the gallery with little lights shining on them like they were the Mona Lisa. People called me brave, brilliant, gifted. Almost a third of the images had sold. A girl could swoon with all the attention. I knew it was the hair.
The room was a circus. Men in over-the-top drag, red spangles, feathers, platform boots. Others in top hats, tails, face makeup from glamorous to mime. Music blared from hidden speakers, changing drastically from punk to Judy Garland, depending on who had control of the playlist. The laughter was low, bellowing, and from the gut. If you closed your eyes you would picture something entirely different, a bar full of straight men, half-drunk, telling ribald jokes. But when you focused in, you could detect it, a few higher voices that surprised you, not female, but feminine. And then you’d catch a random line, “wiped his dick on the curtains.” Or a phrase out of context, “daisy-chaining bitch-whore.” And you knew you weren’t in Texas anymore.
My outfit was killing me. Martin(a) had stopped by the gallery yesterday, as I’d been spending all my time with Vincent making sure the Giclée prints were coming out perfectly, to ask about my opening night couture.
“Makeoverrrrr!” he’d sung with an operatic zeal, hauling me out of the gallery and shoving me into a tiny black Smart Car.
We drove to a part of town called Hillcrest, shopping at strange hole-in-the-wall second-hand stores with names like Flashback until he found “the perfect little vintage dress.”
Normally I didn’t wear pink any more than Butch, Jenna’s Pomeranian. But the pale sheath, falling straight from my shoulders to a hint of ruffle at the knee-length hem, was subtle. Except now the strictures of the style prevented me from sitting easily, and I kept sucking in my stomach to avoid pooching the dress out of alignment.
“You look totally fab,” Martin(a) said, handing my my third glass of champagne. “Did you see the exit polls? It’s a lock. The amendment is fading out like the straights in San Francisco.”
The numbers filled the screen. Fifty-two percent were against the gay marriage ban. “Thank God,” I said. “I’d love to see Jacob Haverty when the official numbers start rolling in.”
“Now that’d be a picture,” Martin(a) said, taking a long swill of champagne and leaving a scarlet print on his glass. The makeup was his only concession to girliness; however, as otherwise he had dressed as a man in an elaborate get up resembling a circus announcer, with a large black hat and red tails.
The stats shifted to the presidential race. The early states were showing a landslide win for Obama. All seemed right in the world.
The door swung open, revealing Marvin and Gary! Marvin marched right into the room and searched until he spotted me. “There she is!” he squealed.
He hurried over, his tweedy jacket making him look like a professor. No eye liner today. He grasped my hand. “The doll is back!”
“I never left,” I said. “How did you find me?”
Marvin tugged a poster from his pocket and unfolded it. “Took this right off the wall.” He waved it at me, Horatio’s near-naked form covering the majority of the page. “I told Gary, ‘Gary, that’s the work of that doll we met on our wedding day.’”
He plopped right down onto the stool next to me. “I’ve been dying to know. Did you figure out that lover boy was a not a penis boy?”
I suddenly realized what they had been trying to tell me with their crazy gestures as we had left the bar. I had the Charades talent of a porcupine. “I did.”
Marvin reached for Gary, who moved in close. “And how did that work out?”
“Um, pretty well.” I suddenly shot through with longing for Bradford. Six months seemed endlessly far away.
“Spill it, doll,” Marvin said. “Leave out no detail.”
“We went to dinner. And the beach.”
“Sex on the beach? You tramp!” Marvin fanned himself.
“Hardly. He’s back in Texas now.”
“What’s he doing there?”
Gary squeezed Marvin’s shoulder and said, “Waiting for Zest.”
I sighed. “I hope so.”
“The doll’s got it bad.” Marvin patted my hand.
The music suddenly cut off.
Vincent, tall and broad in a black tuxedo and electric blue shirt, stood on a chair. “McCain has conceded the race. Obama is about to come on with his speech!”
The room erupted in cheers. Vincent released a tarp full of balloons hanging from the side wall, and the room filled with pink and purple latex.
I grabbed one, realizing too late that it had a funny bump on the end. Condoms. I shook my head, tapping the side to send it toward Marvin and Gary. “Rubbers, anyone?”
“We’re clean!” Marvin said. “All checked and tested and passed with flying colors. Monogamy needs no accessorizing.”
I bounced another one at his face.
“Bee-otch!” he yelled, batting several back at me.
The music began again, but abruptly cut off once more. We turned back to the monitor, expecting to see Obama arriving at the podium.
What we saw instead silenced the crowd. The balloons fell listlessly to our feet.
The numbers flashed on screen, the measure to ban gay marriage passing with fifty-three percent of the vote.
Marvin slammed his hand on the table behind us, setting the glasses to rattling. This set the revelers to whispering, low and angry and shocked.
“It’s the fucking Bradley effect,” he said. “No one wants to admit they’re closet homophobes. They say one thing, then vote on another.”
Gary squeezed his shoulder. “It’s just the margin of error in the polls.”
“Margin of error my ass.” A gorgeous man in a red sequined evening gown jingled his bangle bracelets, his gold lips pinched together. “Those stats are off way more than that.”
“These are early numbers,” Martin(a) said. “It’ll turn around.”
“LA is already in. So is San Fran,” Marvin said. “It’s not going to turn around.”
And it didn’t. In the half hour we waited for Obama’s speech, the numbers only got worse. When the newly elected president finally arrived on screen, the crowd gave a half-hearted cheer, but I couldn’t even muster a fake smile. I didn’t really care who was president, honestly. He’d be effective or ineffective based on what congress let him do.
But Prop 8. That affected people.
Martin(a) cuffed me on the arm. “Don’t be blue, Zest. We’ll fight it still. There’s a whole army ready to challenge this to the Supreme Court.”
His black bowling shoes were shined to a high gloss, and I could only stare them, refusing to look up. “But will they revoke all the marriage licenses? Will the Hoebags lose their married status?”
Martin(a) shoved another glass of champagne at me. “The attorney general will fight that. He’s on our side on this.”
By the time we left, the numbers were awful. 52 percent voting yes to ban. We left the gallery feeling morose and I wanted to talk to someone.
Even though it was 2 a.m. in Texas, I opened the door to my hotel room and flopped on the bed, turning to the speed dial on my cell phone. Bradford was number three, behind my dad and…Fern. I needed to delete her.
I sat by the bathroom counter, running my hands along the cold surface. After deciding to stay in San Diego, I had returned to the same hotel and asked for Bradford’s room. Sentimental foolishness, I knew, but it made me feel less lonely to know I had sat there with him. I faced the mirror as I peeled off the pink dress. My hair was beautiful still, straight to my shoulders. The underslip was loose and flattering, satiny and smooth.
I leaned against the wall and poised my finger over his name, nervous to call. He was probably sleeping. And it could be that he wasn’t alone.
The thought stopped me cold, and I set the phone down. We’d set the six mont
hs for a reason, so I could get divorced, and stop reeling from all the changes in my life.
But he was probably as upset as me. He might have even thought of me, hanging out with the Hoebags at Nikki’s, where they had planned to watch the returns.
I picked up the phone again and before I could stop myself, scrolled down to his name and pushed “call.”
Mary Beth’s favorite gay marriage links.
Prop 8: The Musical
Best Protest Signs EVAH
Daily Show with Jon Stewart
Ellen Degeneres on Prop 8
Get involved.
Join the Impact
National Center for Lesbian Rights
National Gay and Lesbian Task Force
The Human Rights Campaign
Freedom to Marry
Table of Contents
Chapter 1: Wedded Bliss
Chapter 2: The Dolt Bolts
Chapter 3: Presidential Debate
Chapter 4: Cheating Cheaters and the Two-Bit Hussies They Cheat With
Chapter 5: The Wicked Women Sisterhood
Chapter 6: Pack, Rats
Chapter 7: Get Your Game Face On
Chapter 8: Bottoms Up
Chapter 9: There’ll Be Sad Songs, to Make You …Trash Your CD Collection
Chapter 10: Sweet Destitution
Chapter 11: 24-Karat Hearts
Chapter 12: Emergency Paps
Chapter 13: Dating at the Speed of Flight
Chapter 14: Rainbows & Cadillacs, and Heterobashing Music
Chapter 15: Elevator Trolls
Chapter 16: Thirsty Birds and Nodding Donkeys
Chapter 17: Good Things Come to Those Who Bait
Chapter 18: Deep in the Heart of Testes
Chapter 19: The Ghost of Bitches Past
Chapter 20: All Hallow’s Evil
Chapter 21: Party on the Plane
Chapter 22: Signs, Signs, Everywhere Are Signs
Chapter 23: Hottiefication
Chapter 24: By the Light of Nikki’s Silvery Moon
Chapter 25: Here Come the Brides
Chapter 26: Road Rally
Chapter 27: Patty-Cakes
Chapter 28: Send in the Cavalry
Chapter 29: Hell’s Belles
Chapter 30: When Gary Wed Marvin
Chapter 31: Moon River. Sans Nikki’s Moon.
Chapter 32: Throwing in the Towel
Epilogue: The Happy Freaking Ending Everybody Insists On. Which Happened.
Table of Contents
Chapter 1: Wedded Bliss
Chapter 2: The Dolt Bolts
Chapter 3: Presidential Debate
Chapter 4: Cheating Cheaters and the Two-Bit Hussies They Cheat With
Chapter 5: The Wicked Women Sisterhood
Chapter 6: Pack, Rats
Chapter 7: Get Your Game Face On
Chapter 8: Bottoms Up
Chapter 9: There’ll Be Sad Songs, to Make You …Trash Your CD Collection
Chapter 10: Sweet Destitution
Chapter 11: 24-Karat Hearts
Chapter 12: Emergency Paps
Chapter 13: Dating at the Speed of Flight
Chapter 14: Rainbows & Cadillacs, and Heterobashing Music
Chapter 15: Elevator Trolls
Chapter 16: Thirsty Birds and Nodding Donkeys
Chapter 17: Good Things Come to Those Who Bait
Chapter 18: Deep in the Heart of Testes
Chapter 19: The Ghost of Bitches Past
Chapter 20: All Hallow’s Evil
Chapter 21: Party on the Plane
Chapter 22: Signs, Signs, Everywhere Are Signs
Chapter 23: Hottiefication
Chapter 24: By the Light of Nikki’s Silvery Moon
Chapter 25: Here Come the Brides
Chapter 26: Road Rally
Chapter 27: Patty-Cakes
Chapter 28: Send in the Cavalry
Chapter 29: Hell’s Belles
Chapter 30: When Gary Wed Marvin
Chapter 31: Moon River. Sans Nikki’s Moon.
Chapter 32: Throwing in the Towel
Epilogue: The Happy Freaking Ending Everybody Insists On. Which Happened.