The Write Thing

Conversations in a gay bar on the verge of midnight can lead to interesting findings. There we were, my circumstantial Aussie companion and I, sipping Cuba Libres and Tequila Sunrises at the table, and discussing life. I suddenly realized that, in the course of our conversation, I had brought up over four notable of her fellow countrymen/women in the field of arts, each of whom was approved by my partner with exaggerated gestures of joy.

Gradually, she drew her quirkiness near me as the minutes ticked away and we emptied our glasses. Funny enough, there was a solid moment in all that frailty when she said: “I think you should kiss me”.

The foreignness of her lips became a temporary drug, numbing senses in a regulated fashion. Skeptical at first, I went along with it. Before me was an adventurous, fragile woman, with a feminine lightness of being as I had not seen in years, flaky and in the raw. She gently slid her hand along my thigh, traveling upwards in airy lines that traced the contours of my arms, the nape of my neck. I tentatively made my hand familiar with the shape of her shoulders, the protruding bones converging on her chest, the soft milky skin. I found myself looking into cloudy eyes, dawning into her neutral scent, the impersonal fragrance that makes or breaks a new moment. I pressed her hips against my leg, and held her by the ephemeral waist, my fingers feeling the lace of her underwear, absorbing the immediacy of a body that opened up to me.

She buried her face in my neck, pressed her lips and designed playful circles with her tongue on my shoulder. Inadvertently, as if in a game of no consequence, against my will, she was turning me on. We merged in powerful, open kisses. She was half-arched above me, and I could feel the warmth of her sex through her summer trousers. We were ready, and were actually surprised at the clock that showed that we had stopped all attempts at conversation about three hours before.

Australia is a strange land. One would think the country is a hybrid of mystery and circumstance, known for some talents that would only come to one’s mind accidentally. It might be the modesty that pervades its people, or the fast assimilation of foreigners to the land of promise in the North. Take your pick of Cate Blanchett ruling over the likes of Naomi Watts and classic Nicole Kidman, all potential or real candidates for lesbian devotion. And now there was C., right from Brisbane, a few hours away from her plane back home, becoming a pleasant physical memory in an anticipated summer Christmas night.

An erotic proposition, when it brings uneven numbers into the question, is always a tricky one and therefore more exciting. Two young European girls arrive in Buenos Aires and decide they want to open their relationship to another player. They reply to her ad.

A few days later, they meet the potential candidate. First, there is dinner in Puerto Madero, and casual talk over a well-done lamb and three varieties of potatoes as a side dish. Wine is of course the obvious companion. Then there is the decision of going somewhere else for a drink, perhaps a disco, or maybe just a bar. There happens to be one nearby, a straight and cool lounge where they continue to talk…this time about the juicy stuff, sex, clubs, erotica and all the rest. They define their candidate as queer, and they seem to like the coolness with which she talks and expresses her mind. The night unfolds, and they are all a little drunk by now; tired, but not as much as they were before, when the conversation was much less spicy.

Looking at the young couple, it is obvious that their connection has all the elements of lesbianhood. They are totally out, as one of them prides herself in saying while she caresses her companion’s hand and plants her a soft kiss on the lips in front of an admiring crowd. They are kind of hot together, each keeping the boundaries a little open as they play their butch and femme versions of themselves. One of them leads, and this transpires in the long time it takes them to decide what food to order, or where to go. The leader will always have the last word. She later will voice her convictions about the gay community, with her militant past and her vast reading on gay-related issues as a banner of authority. Her partner will remain cool, her eyes betraying a certain admiration for her lover, which immediately precludes any counter-argument on her side (although she does have it). Meanwhile, their incidental guest is amused by the husband and wife scene, and she cannot help thinking that the subject will be a suitable platform for angry sex later on, a perfect remedy to efface the violence of the discussion and set the counter back to zero. In any case, it is already 4.30 am, and the three are too tired to solve the plights of the gay world in one night.

The game remains open for a next time, although some of the cards may have already been played. The potential candidate gets into her taxi and heads home, pondering on the power of classification as a form of security, the eternal dichotomy of men vs. women, gay vs straight, butch vs femme. A little disappointed, she sighs and right there vows that, even if it is a mammoth task, she will still be looking for that soul capable of escaping labels, that woman who will refuse to go by accommodating titles, the human being that will want to evolve beyond the typecast role of Blanche DuBois or Lara Croft. Il faudra continuer à chercher la femme, my dear, a voice seems to say…and a new day begins.

Friday, 6.30 pm - He calls. Will we meet tonight? Yes, why not? This is neutral territory for her, an empty jungle of opportunity to seize. They only met once before, biblically, over a year ago. Now he’s moving to Madrid. She will remain in Buenos Aires, at least for now. He’s married. She’s not. She opens the door and peeks to check whether she’s not dreaming. He has made plans so many times before…but the family, the fear, the lack of habit for a plan, all made it difficult for him to find the way of going to her as he had wanted.
They talk, and have a shower together, before making love for the first time. Their bodies feel so natural against each other, so familiar and comfortable. The pizza arrives, four inches larger than his sex. They eat, they touch and she watches him, aroused once more.
He will wait for her in bed later, and will ask whether he can spend the night. She will say yes, she would have offered, but did not dare. They make love in that unusual and unique connection they generate out of an odd, unmeant encounter, populated by the ancestral layers of skin they have shared in their unrevealed, common past. He stays over, oddly enough, taking up so little space in the bed that he is almost unnoticeable. He may have snored, she may have heard him…
The next meeting may or may not ever happen. She will probably guess what makes him so strange and so necessary. She can have sex with men, but she cannot love them. They both know what a woman tastes and feels like, even while he is not aware that she does. He cannot fall in love with her, and be destroyed by the force of her untamed nature. She cannot be other than his peer, even when he ignores everything about her. He calls her his friend, but she is his lover. The way he wants it, the way he dreams it…no questions asked, no expectations…simply his girl Friday.