My Gay Accessory

The benefit of my Sex Education in August is that I can justify reading a sex manual as school work! I'm in the A's, and had to side track to write about appearances. If I say as much about every letter of the alphabet, I may be writing every night until the class starts!

I first publicly came out when I was forty. I now know I was perimenapausal. Then I just knew I was done with men. Unfortunately, not all men were done with me. During one stint of unemployment I took a job as a restaurant manager at Hardee's. It was a tiny town, not even big enough for McDonald's. Certainly not a good place for an over educated English major who maintained a 3.83 at a prestigious grad school only eight years before. Obviously, life wasn't going as planned.

Men frequently asked me out. They would do immature things like order orange juice so they could watch me bend over to reach in the cooler. After ogling my ass, they would ask me out. I would decline, and about the third time around, I would explain that I was not interested. I was gay. Inevitably they said the same things: "You can't be gay!" Followed by: "Bring your girlfriend, too!"

Gay bars weren't any better. Cameron and I spent way too much time dating in bars the first year of our relationship. Every Friday night we headed to Cactus Jacks to have dinner, talk and listen to live music. Our favorite performer was Barbara Gelhmann. Cameron and I would spend the entire night talking, flirting, emmersed in foreplay. As long as she stayed at my side, nobody seemed to think twice about my presence. But let my gay accessory step away, and eyes looked at me as if to ask "what is this straight woman doing here?" During the six months we were broken up, I could not even pick up another woman! Of course, I probably talked about Cameron too much. But on the other hand, few women approached me. I seemed to have a blinking light over my head saying "Can't be gay."

So a year ago, Cameron and I decided to test my theory. We went to a local bar, temporarily invaded by lesbians, I checked out how they dress. No wonder I was pegged incorrectly. I carried a purse, wore a pretty blouse, and generally looked straight! So the next time we went to the same place, I left my purse behind, wore a white strappy t-shirt, jeans, tennis shoes and no lipstick. Of course, it helped that Cameron drew a temporary gay tatoo on my shoulder. Every time Cameron stepped out to smoke, someone stepped up and began a conversation!