Micro Autofictions

 

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A trip

I arrive! Fine. Not fine. Shambles! Chaos for the head. He is a little special on the details and he was also hungover when I saw him at the airport. That alcohol smell was seeping out of his pours. It didn't turn me off. It was sour but he owned it. He didn't even know he did. It took a long time to negotiate transport options and get to town.

He had grown. His gym activities had somehow made him taller. He moved differently in his own country. He is even more attractive there. He’s the kind of man that is going to keep getting better with age. Like Clooney. He'll age like Clooney. 

We got to the place. The dungeon. A pleasant dungeon. It was kind of like a historic wine cellar. The arch of bricks were so old they flaked on me in the night. Once we got there I was tired. It was that too-long-travelling tired, the kind when you just want to keep going. Explore! Adventure! Beers! We went to a pub. A good pub. Our outdoor setting bathed in sunshine. I knew I was in a different part of the world. I felt it. It poured over me. Summertime. It felt good. We smoked.

I asked him about the gay thing, the bi thing, the whatever exactly was happening with his sexuality thing. Not that it mattered. I like bi. I like curious to be more specific. I'm curious. Just not in that way anymore. Not sure I ever was. Wish I was. Wish I was young. Younger. Young as him. Then I might be curious. Curiouser. In all ways. 

At 5pm he was 15% gay. Beers, wines, sunshine, wines, little bits of food and by 10pm he was 25% gay. I was 98% confused. I piled him into the too-hard basket. As much as I wanted him. I wanted him to want me, all of me, not just a percentage. Greedy? I am. 100%.

How do we put a percentage on our curiosity? I guess we can put a percentage on everything. But I grew concerned when he started detailing the performance of being gay. Limp wrists and fabulousness! He could see himself fitting into that, into that role.

"But the thing is, I would never act that way in front of my friends". He said.  

The gay way? He's curious about being seen as gay? I don’t know a single gay person who "performs" gay. Some people might fit more neatly into the stereotype than others but I don't think they do it with intention - do they? Did he want to slip into sterotype or slip into a man? I put it out there.

"How do you feel about a cock in your mouth?"

"Not that excited".

He doesn’t even like the idea of having a cock in his mouth? I love the idea of having a cock in my mouth! I'm gayer than he is. He'd like to maybe kiss and sex. Anal sex? He'd anal sex before cock in the mouth? This is too much, I can't handle it. Well, I'd like to handle it. I could handle it, couldnt I? I could watch even? I think. Maybe. I'd be curious to watch.

However! I'm older. I'm nearly ten years older so I get to impart some wisdom. I get to try. Sex!

"Straight sex, same sex, all sex should be all encompassing".

In my world it must be all emcompassing. No ounce of flesh should be left unexplored, untouched, unkissed. I'm not sure if I'm being helpful. I'm not sure he's even following. We've had a lot to drink.

I lose my train of thought as I start to imagine how wounding it would feel to have a sexual partner who only wanted to touch you in certain places. I'd banish those men from the bedroom immediately. 

I still very much want to touch and kiss him myself but then I don’t at all. He seems gay now.

We slept together. Just slept. I was tempted to give him a cuddle in the morning because I love him. I adore him. Philia, agape, eros. All those things, all at the same time. Conflicting. I want to care for him, protect him and I also want to perform a thorough examination on every ounce of his flesh. With my mouth.

I was tempted to hold him, spoon him as a consolation. My own? Or his? I couldn't decide. So I just lay there and listened to him as he gently snored while the people over the hall loudly fucked. The bricks started flaking with more gusto. I tried to go back to sleep. I couldn't. The sex sounds were vaguely arousing at first but then all of a sudden sloppy and vulgar as if someone was trying to murder a carp, a carp that was incessently flapping about in the water. Not sexy. He slept through. I had to exit.

I took to the breakfast room to enjoyed cornflakes, gouda and crisp breads. I had one tea and two coffees. And I began contemplating all this. This love stuff. And I barated myself for allowing it to happen again. Another woeful love mess. Like I had a choice. I knew I wouldn't see his city properly because of this. My head was clouded with desire and percentages.

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Lady-like

One fine day I brought three long necks along to a garden party. It was hardly a party, it involved my sister and one of her friends. This sister of mine is the eldest sister of three sisters and being a whole ten years older than me she frequently imparts her worldly wisdom

That day she did not enjoy the fact I was drinking beer. Specifically, because they were long in the neck. And such a bottle, it seems, says something about the one who drinks it, something that other beers do not.

“Forgive me, I felt like beer and the long necks were on sale, they were three for something more reasonable than a six pack”.
“Not lady like” she said to me. After her one and only other guest had gone home.

I didn’t like that she had to wait to have this conversation. This would’ve been fun garden party banter. We could’ve debated the topic and I could’ve pointed out how she was the original beer-drinking-lady role model that I looked up to. Growing up watching her knock back many a Carona in the summer time, always with a lime stuffed down their neck. Is that what makes beer femme? When citrus is involved? I could’ve involved citrus.

My sister is one of those unfortunate few in the world that somehow slips her tongue into the neck of the bottle before taking a sip. Unnecessary I feel. Some sort of neurological problem there. But we weren’t discussing her bad habits that day, it was my turn to be taught.

“But I poured my beer into a glass!” I protested.

If I was necking from the bottle, while the bottle was still in the bag and I was sitting on a stoop separate from the table, then sure, one might have reason to make comment. But even if I was doing that I’d still be a lady. (I have one square foot of land in Scotland. The land came with title. I’ll always be a Lady). But really, what the fuckedy is a lady these days? And what is lady-like?

Perhaps older sister was restructuring her gender rules. After all, we were still trying to wrap our heads around the fact our brother was in the process of becoming our sister.
 

 


A few nights later we ran into another situation where my social etiquette would be questioned. We were out together at a noodle house, one of those cramped ones in China Town where they push all the tables so close together you end up speaking with random people. I don’t mind it. A community feel. It was a pre-gig dinner but we weren’t drinking beer. We were being fancy and had wine that night. Albeit we were having it in some rather un-lady-like plastic cups but no one commented on that outrage.

The three Irishmen sitting next to us decided to engage us in conversation. One Seamus dropped a comment along the lines of – “It’s a shame you don’t have another sister”. To be sure, to be sure young Seamus. Three vs. three would be a fairer game. And so, it came up, as it does from time to time because I quite enjoy bringing it up just to gauge the human response. “We do have another sister!” I report “She used to be our brother!” And so, we had a good chat and a laugh and they relayed some story about a man in their village that used to carry a handbag about town and how lovely he was. Everyone was merry and afterward my big, Carona-licking sister told me I should refrain from discussing that with people I’ve just met. This time it wasn’t un-lady-like, she simply believed that it would prevent me from finding a potential partner if I laid it all out on the first encounter.

A burning sensation began in my chest.

Were all of these sudden criticisms a concern for my not having a partner? I was at a noodle house. I was there for the noodles. Irishman 1, 2 or 3 were a side lark, a mere condiment to my perfectly delicious meal. Well, one was cute. But I was there to eat my dumplings! And I also happened to engage in some polite banter. However, if one Irishman was interested in batting eyelids with me and eventually picking out curtains then the sooner he knows that there is a whole parade of LGBTQI in my life the better because if he is irked by it in any shape or form he can fuck right off!

Why are you blocking fluid conversation about gender fluidity older sister? Why are you hushing me? The days of hushing are over! I want to be in noodle houses talking about Trans people to random strangers, that is some very cool shit to be happening.

And so that’s what I said to her, in not so many words and she admitted to me that maybe she wasn’t as comfortable about talking about it as I was. That was ok.
 

 


I have a memory from the early 90s where I can distinctly see my older sister dressed for a night out on the town. She would have been about 19. It was always such a thrill watching her glam up for a party. I felt like little Christina Ricci in Mermaids watching her older, Wynona Ryder, sister doll up in her Mum’s clothes preparing to go kiss that hunk of a man in the bell tower. It’s in his kiss, that’s where it is!

“How do I look?” she would say as she made her descent down the main stairs in our home. She’d stop on the way down to admire her reflection in the full-length mirror on the wall, legs poised on different stair levels, one air guitar and the scene would have been made. She was wearing a singlet top; black leather pants and Doc Martin boots. “You look part boy, part girl” I said. And without skipping a beat she said, “Excellent! That’s exactly the look I was going for”.

When you watch someone grow up alongside the androgyny of The Cure it’s hard to know why the leap to new ideas about gender might be so difficult. I reckon the Trans team just needs better marketing, a catchy tune. Boys Don’t Cry was a good start but it faded out into sub culture.
 

 


Seven years after coming out and my brother turned sister is as much a woman (or a lady) as she could possibly hope to be. She has her very own, all functioning vagina. And the newest addition to her human vessel, a giant set of TITS!

Hormones and the luck of good genes meant that she did grow her very own large set of knockers but being the broad-shouldered surfer girl that she is and one who grew up ogling the likes of Pamela Anderson and all the Baywatch so on, it was only natural that she wanted them a little bigger. “I want them to look as good out of the bra as they do in the bra.” She said.

Oh brother! You have a lot to learn about being a woman. And put down that long neck!

 

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