An excerpt from
"Gone Fishin'…and Other Lesbian Perables"
By: Kailyne Waters
I am the uncoolest lesbian around. I wear it proudly. Some would argue that my brand of self-inflicted humor is deprecating to myself and to anyone else subjected to it. I argue that being goofy is part of the me I love. And that I think we can all find humor in our quirks that make us human.
Case in point, my feeble attempt at looking cool. The fact that I use the word cool should give you an indication of my standing. I am 35, but that would translate to about 10 in lesbian years. I like to think of myself as a late bloomer. Which presents its own set of obstacles. I have spent the last few of my lesbian years in pre-pubescent hell. And now more recently, I have incorporated pre-menopausal events. I spend my day riding the roller coaster of puberty and menopause, in some sort of chemical horny, hotflash. I am torn really, as a woman. I know how demeaning it can be to have someone's eye sockets glued to your breast area. But, unfortunately the undisciplined boy in me can't help myself. I practically go cross-eyed trying to maintain my eyes above the neckline whenever I am confronted with beautiful breasts.
And of course there is my version of what men think turn women on. I often catch myself sauntering through the women's gym locker room of my local workout facility. My jeans are low around my hips, my boxer label purposely folded over the waistline. I am bare chested, except for my bra, of course (not that I have big breasts, but I am still working on exposing them to daylight), and I sport some pretty hairy arm pits, which I am proud to report take me little to no effort. As a Sicillian woman, my twelve o'clock shadow peaks shortly after breakfast. As I amble through the rows of lockers, I imagine that women are ogling my physique.
On this particular morning, a most voluptuous one had stationed herself in front of the bathroom mirror. When I say voluptuous, I don't mean lady parts - I mean style and manner. Despite my boyhood, as a woman, I find a stylized woman, with the grace to be who she is, and the air of knowing it, to be particularly sensual - regardless of age, shape or size. The best example I can think of is that once I asked someone her favorite color (see how cool I am), and she cassually responded - depends on the color she's wearing. The she translating to any beautiful woman she had encountered on that particular day.
The, she in my case, was Victoria Secret neck to panty line. I don't want to give the impression that I stare at women in locker rooms. In fact, I often do my best impression of a ground hog drilling into the earth through the floor tiles. But, when I do sneak a look in locker rooms or elsewhere, I tend to notice hands, and how capable and strong they are. And maybe the way a woman's shoulders fall across her neckline, or the way she orchestrates her tongue around the pallet of her mouth like a paintbrush, resting it from time to time against the back of her teeth. Or how when she stands her pelvis folds into her thighs, and how she smiles with her eyes. I notice women with their children, and how incredibly sexy they look being a good parent. I notice when a woman crouches to knee level and stares intently across the yard at her daughter or son playing on a swing.
I know the pain of objectification, and so it is difficult for me to process the adolescent wonder I experience with the female genitalia and breasts. So, in women's locker rooms, I often feel like a very lucky, but guilty spy.
I don't know what I was thinking that morning. But here is why I love my goofiness. I did my best butch impression, hiking up the back of my jeans and nodding at her. She was doing that thing that straight women do with their eye brows, pulling them out with some contraption that I think gynecologists use. I decided to take the station next to her and dry my hair. I wear it long, resting down around my pecks providing a natural covering over my pit hair, and allowing the wavy locks to fall over me. The dryer was the kind mounted to the wall. It resembled a small version of a car wash vacuum. Instead of doing the truly cool thing, which in this case, would mean picking it up and applying it to my hair. I opted for some combo of a "post-fonzie-luke perry move", and decided to gently tap the contraption with my closed fist. In theory what would happen would be that the dryer would fall casually from the wall into my hand, and with one sweeping motion, I would apply it to my hair.
I waited for her to switch from her left eye to her right. She did, and then looked at me through the mirror and smiled with both of them. I responded with another hike and nod, waiting one quick but dramatic moment, then tapped. The dryer did release, but so did the hose it was attached to, a hose that matched the length of my intestine. Something else that I had not accounted for in my boy script was that the dryer automatically turns on once it is released from its cradle. I had to think and act quickly. I could feel the coolness slipping away from me. Do I shut off the debilitating scream coming from the contraption, or do I attempt to unravel myself from this fabricated chinchilla now draped across me like an evening wrap. Tough call.
What was I thinking? Was I thinking? A 35 year old Fonzie? This would excite her. What did I think would happen? That the mere tap and release would cause a massive estrogen surge through her body, willing her to wrap her legs around my head in total surrenderous ecstasy? Yeah, I guess I did.
By the time I untangled myself, I was standing alone at the mirror, my jeans laying somewhere between my waist and kneecaps. My body had been singed dry, except for my hair, which remained drenched across my face and neckline. Beads of perspiration rested on my lip. She returned to the mirror, dressed, and looked at me. She started to speak. Don't, my feeble masculine aura spoke, please don't say anything. "Are you ok?" She half spoke, half pleaded with her facial features. I nodded. I tried to regroup, I lifted the intestine above my head, like I had just shoot it in some replica of a paid for wilderness adventure. It was too late. The damage had been done, all the coolness that had ever existed disintegrated.
She left me standing there. And I did the only thing I could do, the only thing any boy would do, I fantasized my own version of the encounter.
