Paul Takes the Form of a Mortal Girl

by Andrea Lawlor

  He hadn’t female-ejaculated yet, and he thought maybe Diane was scared he’d male-ejaculate if he tried. Everyone else Paul knew was very interested in learning about female ejaculation. Diane female-ejaculated with some regularity, most often in the early morning after many beers and many hours of sex. She’d never done it with anyone else before, and Paul had been proud and a little jealous. He’d drunk whatever of the liquid he could, slightly acrid but not piss-acrid. He’d been camped out at the bottom of the bed for quite some time, pushing his parts against the edge of the mattress while he sucked on her clit and fucked her with one flittering and two curved-up fingers. They were having not very safe sex and would be in trouble if the safe-sex people knew they licked each other without dental dams, used latex gloves only occasionally and then only for fisting. Could you get something from swallowing female ejaculate? Diane had gotten tested after she’d found out about him, he knew. He’d taken all the tests, plenty of times. He was negative, negatory; he was positive he was not positive. He’d been pretty safe with boys, by doing what the brochures called risk reduction, safer sex, except for those times with Tony Pinto, and they’d used condoms and they’d both been tested every six months afterward and Paul still was getting tested every six months at free clinics under various names and making up a plausible-sounding sexual history for each identity. So far, no one had remarked on anything unusual in his blood. He wondered if they really even looked at the blood, or just spun a board-game wheel. The Game of Life. He made up Social Security numbers on the spot, easy once he realized the first three digits were always the same, based on the state where the holder was born. The easiest lie to tell was the closest to the truth.

  But Diane did like to use condoms for easy clean-up, and so Paul continued to pocket free packets at the A-House when they went out dancing. Paul suspected the other dykes they knew were using dildos all the time. One of the Wesleyan girls had worked at the feminist sex-toy store the previous summer and brought over a bag of old display models and stolen cocks to share. Paul picked out the biggest silicone dildo—the Johnny—in black, which seemed nicely neutral and worked well with the pink glitter pleather harness he also snagged. He sterilized the cock, under Zoe’s tutelage, in the house spaghetti pot. But Diane thought it was maybe a little exoticizing to use a black cock, so he’d spent a half-week’s wages at Shop Therapy on a Doc Johnson Emperor Realistic 8", which Diane seemed to like better for fucking him. He’d whimper, guide her fingers into his asshole, tug at her nipples, get himself filled up. Diane fucked him with it that first night, shyly at first and then with abandon. In all her exploits with various Jennies and Maggies before him, she’d never used a dildo. He’d been pleased to out-dyke her in this regard, and hinted about his night with the rock star whenever the occasion arose, such as when someone played their CD or mentioned Seattle.

  “What if I fucked you sometime, with the implement?” Paul said one fine Sunday afternoon as he and Diane strolled to Express, which they’d come to call The Place, as in “Shall we go to The Place?” “Yes.”

  “Um,” said Diane, blushing in her milky skin. In the stark bright daylight she looked like a stranger.

  Paul’s belly went drop-and-tingle. He wasn’t usually toppy with her, but there wasn’t any reason he couldn’t be. They weren’t being butch–femme; they were being tuff girls, which was completely valid, whatever that stupid lounge singer thought. They could switch! Diane said she didn’t consider herself a femme or a butch; if she had to put a name to it—which she didn’t—she’d maybe say kiki.

  “Do you want to?” she said.

  “Yeah,” said Paul, trying on laconic. He stretched an arm over her shoulder, but she was two inches taller and after a minute she shrugged his arm off and clasped his hand. A passing straight tourist scowled at them, which reunified them for the rest of the day.

  That night in bed, Paul asked again, and Diane said yes. He could tell she was hesitant but wasn’t sure why. He wanted to do all the lesbianism. He strapped the Johnny on himself (better to avoid any resemblance to his own penis) and adjusted, pulling out pubic hairs and crushing the base against his outer labia. Paul liked knowing the words for the parts, even if the words themselves were unappealing. He hovered over Diane, off balance as he covered the black silicone with a ribbed condom and stared at her.

  “Just do it,” she said. She reached for his breasts, and as he leaned in to give her more access he accidentally pushed the head of the dick into her. She gasped.

  “I’m sorry!” Paul said. “Are you okay? Should I take it out?”

  “No,” said Diane. She clenched her eyelids shut. “Do it more.”

  Paul began to push into her, trying to find his rhythm. He hadn’t fucked a girl with a dick since Heather Federson, and that had been his own dick. He closed his eyes and found his hips in his mind.

  “Yeah,” said Diane. “More like that.”

  Paul pushed into and out of her, awkwardly. Their sweaty bellies made a loud sucking sound, for which Paul apologized.

  “Shh,” said Diane. She put her fingers in his mouth, wet them, and reached around between his legs. As she brushed his asshole, he pumped harder. He was starting to get what was exciting about topping. The base of the cock slipped between the parts of his pussy and hit his clitoris, hit hit hit it. Diane was starting to come. He could feel her pussy throbbing and grabbing through the cock. How was that possible? He pushed faster and harder, remembered fucking Tony Pinto’s ass. He wondered what would happen if he changed back now and came on her stomach, like in the porns, and felt ashamed. He wanted to put his flesh dick into Diane and imagining this along with the rubbing and thrusting and Diane’s coming he came too.

  “Take it out,” said Diane. She sounded angry.

  “Sorry,” he said.

  He arched his ass, pulling out slowly, and began to take off the harness.

  “Was that okay?” he said. It had sounded like it was okay, and the bed was soaked, but he’d discovered there were shifting criteria for a rating of okayness. Also, something could be very good in one way and not okay in another.

  “Polly,” said Diane.

  They didn’t say each other’s names very often. Paul’s stomach contracted and his mouth began to water.

  “Hmm,” he said.

  Diane pulled the green wool blanket over herself. Paul lay back on his pillow, the softer pillow, and covered himself with a corner of the blanket. He was crying, he realized in time to hide it. He began to loosen the harness, but had to stand up to do so. He hoped she wasn’t watching, because he couldn’t get the pleather straps loose from the rings.

  “Do you ever want to do it the other way?” Diane said.

  “What? No,” said Paul, quickly. Did she mean do it with his own dick?

  “It just seemed like you were really into it,” she said.

  “I thought you were,” he said. “I don’t know.”

  * * *

  ×

  “Jill Schwartz might actually be good to ask,” said Diane. “I think she was involved with that needle exchange thing in Boston.”

  She took a long drink of soy latte, her new treat. There were so many vegans in Provincetown! Paul thought. They kept inventing treats for each other. He couldn’t adjust to soy milk and drank his coffee black around Diane so she wouldn’t be sad. She didn’t need to know that he still ate microwave cheeseburgers from the Cumberland Farms, that he felt himself slipping away when he didn’t eat enough meat, that he was being vegetarian for her.

  They were trying to figure out one more person to help with their plan, a getaway driver. Diane rejected all Paul’s suggestions for new comrades. Paul was aware he was suggesting only cute people, but he thought if Diane articulated this complaint he could argue it was subtle discrimination to not take cute people seriously. Paul was pretty sure if the Revolutionary Rapture came he would not be one of
the saved.

  “Yeah,” he said. “Oh, and we can ask her at the Governor tomorrow night, at that Dyke TV fundraiser.”

  Diane’s hair had grown into a Tiger Beat shag, and she looked like the irresponsible family friend on a TV drama. Paul thought of more things from the ’70s he liked: handlebar mustaches, Fire Island, proto-punk, Afros, bell-bottom sailor pants, women’s liberation art of fists. Zoe had such a tattoo on her bicep, along with the single blue star under her watch band. Paul considered getting a tattoo but was scared of needles. Also, what would he get? How to decide?

  “Who else?” Diane said. She drew a smiling pit bull in her composition book. Paul reached for her pencil, gave the dog a top hat and cane.

  “I don’t know,” said Paul. “Let’s figure out what our name should be.”

  “Jesus, Pol,” Diane said. She looked faraway, judgmental, like a marble president delivering his proclamation. “Can you focus?”

  Paul looked down at his burgundy cords, his black Runaways tee shirt (a church thrift shop score in Orleans—how jealous Jane would be) tight over his waffled long-john shirt, his Save the Whales! belt buckle with its fresco humpback. He liked his new look, enjoyed this foray into androgynous style, liked the little fuck-you shadows of femininity he deployed. He wasn’t trying to copy Diane, but he did like them to be complementary. He’d managed to find a copy of Times Square at City Video and rented it for them to watch together, had tried to explain to her his thoughts on runaway tomboy rocker dyke gender, but she’d been unimpressed. Diane didn’t like to talk about gayness very often. Paul estimated he held back two out of five gay-themed comments.

  “I don’t know that many people here yet,” Paul said, which was not entirely truthful. He knew Gerty and Zoe and their various lovers and Diane’s painting crew and all their friends and lovers. He knew all the bartenders and the coffee shop people he flirted with when Diane was at work. He knew Dottie the window washer, and the oldish lesbians from Gabriel’s who stared at him hungrily, and the fag hag girl who worked at the record store. He knew all the year-round houseboys, and the cute young ACT UP fag who kept the books at the Boatslip, at least enough to say hi to.

  “Oh, wait! What about that boy who works at the Boatslip?”

  “He’s cool,” said Diane. “But he’s a man, ultimately.”

  Paul got up. He was tired of talking, tired of being wrong.

  * * *

  ×

  “It’s the Hunger Moon tonight,” Diane said. “Do you want to go for a walk?”

  The Hunger Moon! thought Paul. If only Jane could see him now.

  “Sure,” he said, putting down Zoe’s copy of Bodies that Matter, which he’d been futilely skimming for gossipy asides or endnotes. “Where to?”

  Maybe he could steer Diane to a post-walk drink at the A-House or even the Governor Bradford. He hated to waste a weekend night entirely on nature when it was the only chance to see strangers in town.

  “Let’s just walk,” said Diane. “It’s so nice out.”

  She waited for him to lace up his boots, then led him down to the bay beach. They crunched through the frozen sand. Paul didn’t understand how the night could be both balmy and snowy, but somehow it was—maybe because of the sea? He was almost curious enough to ask Diane, but she’d probably know and then he’d have to listen to the entire explanation.

  “Why is it the Hunger Moon?” he asked instead. “Do all the moons have names?”

  “Um,” said Diane. She didn’t handle multiple trains of thought well. “Wait, okay. Hunger Moon, but first there’s Wolf and I think maybe Sap and Pink—”

  “Pink?” said Paul.

  “There’s more. Beaver, something else—Barley? I can’t remember.”

  “Pink Moon?” he asked again. “Like Nick Drake?”

  “Yeah, I guess,” said Diane.

  As they approached town, Diane led them up the beach past the Mews, then cut through Lovett’s Court, over to Bradford. She managed to avoid town. They saw no one.

  “Are we going to the cemetery?” said Paul. “What about the coyotes?”

  “They won’t hurt you,” said Diane. “Coyotes are misunderstood.”

  “Okay,” said Paul. “But do you think we’ll see one?”

  “I don’t know,” she said.

  He knew he’d be safe with her and he also knew she wouldn’t call a coyote pup from its den for his amusement, which he understood as the correct ethical position but still resented. Didn’t love mean breaking your own rules? They walked toward the dark West End, house after empty tourist house waiting for summer. Paul felt Provincetown to be extremely rural and longed for the bright lights of Commercial Street, just one block, but also a world, away.

  “Isn’t the cemetery this way?” he said.

  “I just want to go up here for a minute,” said Diane, looking for some inscrutable sign, some nature thing. He followed, wishing he’d worn mittens and wondering if Express would still be open when they finished this walk. He stopped to tighten his bootlaces, and when he straightened up, Diane was gone.

  “Hey!” he called.

  Nothing. He was alone with possible coyotes.

  “Hey,” he called out again, with some urgency.

  He heard a bark and wondered if coyotes barked as well as howled. They were just bigger dogs, right? Diane reappeared, her face flushed and her eyes bright.

  “I’m right here,” she said. “Hey, do you want to get a hot chocolate at Express?”

  Paul could hardly believe his good fortune.

  “Sure,” he said. “If you want.”

  Inside the café, they chatted with some townies playing Scrabble. Everyone was getting excited for the summer—Paul was hoping to land a job bartending at the new club opening up on Shankpainter on their women’s night. The future opened out ahead of him, an adventure he’d chosen as casually as turning a page.

  They took their hot chocolates and sat at what Paul thought of as “their table,” the one by the big window looking onto the street.

  “Polly,” Diane said. “I’m not sure we should do this.”

  “Oh,” said Paul, his relief telling and gigantic. “Yeah, me either. I really don’t want to get arrested for stealing a dog.”

  “No,” said Diane. “Forget that. I took care of that.”

  “What?” said Paul. “Without me? When?”

  “You were there,” she said. “I just did it. You were great, actually.”

  “How did you—”

  Diane patted her army pants’ pocket.

  “Bolt cutters,” she whispered. “Then I told him to hide out in the dunes and I’ll bring him food tomorrow.”

  “Oh,” said Paul. He finished his hot chocolate, now cold.

  Diane looked proud and defiant, and Paul felt an obscure sadness.

  “So, wait, what?” he said, standing to bus his cup.

  Diane looked pale.

  “I meant us,” she said.

  Paul sat back down. Over the café speakers k.d. lang was crooning just a kiss just a kiss—

  “Let’s just go,” said Diane. She buttoned up her peacoat, even popped the top button through its loop, which she never did.

  Paul started to cry. Not fair to be ambushed while romantic songs were playing.

  “Why not?” He inhaled snot.

  “I love you, Polly. You know I do.”

  “Stop saying my name,” Paul muttered. “If we love each other, why are you breaking up with me?”

  “I didn’t say I was breaking up with you,” Diane said. “I said this wasn’t working.”

  “You said you weren’t sure,” Paul said, sniffling. He wiped his eyes with his tee shirt.

  Diane sighed, an angry exasperated sigh Paul hadn’t heard before. Now he’d done it. Rewind! Rewind! He stared at her. He hel
d his breath.

  “I just feel like we don’t collaborate well,” said Diane.

  “Why, because I’m not a vegan? I’m not political enough for you? You know why I can’t get arrested.”

  “I know,” said Diane.

  “Okay, so that’s what this is about?”

  “You want to be everything, all the time,” Diane said. Her voice caught. “I just want a girlfriend. I’m afraid you’re going to get bored of being a girl, and then where will I be?”

  “I love being a girl,” said Paul. “I don’t even know if I can go back now.”

  “Why, have you been thinking about it?” Diane was crying too now. Paul felt very French for a moment, crying with his lover at a café.

  “No,” he said. “No, of course not.”

  “Seriously,” she said. “Seriously, I know you. You even said it yesterday, how mutable you are. What happens in five years, a year even? It’s in your nature. I don’t want to keep you from your nature.”

  “I was talking about astrology. Sagittarians are mutable fire,” said Paul. “It’s a metaphor. I’m not that mutable. I haven’t changed in months.”

  “But you want to change again sometime, right?”

  Paul considered. He had changed, of course, pretty recently, but nowhere near as much as he could have. He probably would want to change again at some point, maybe not back for good. He was only twenty-two. What could he know about the future? He imagined them together in five years. They’d be twenty-seven. Well, she’d be twenty-eight. Old but still hot. They’d never said they were monogamous; he could imagine hooking up with other people and coming back to Diane, but if he was hooking up, he liked to have options. He thought about his penis. He might like to use it again, put it somewhere. Not with Diane maybe, but—

  Paul bit his lip.

  “Is that bad?” he said.

  “Can we get out of here?” she said. Paul pulled on his coat and scarf. Diane was right; they needed to be in bed, site of all important decisions, for this, whatever this was.