Coverage of me and other train wrecks: my mama, subway nut jobs, sex and the environment.

3.14.2006

Train Car of Life


When I boarded the train this morning, I moved towards the center as I usually do (pat on the back for courtesy). There was no seat available so I stood, and removed my bag from my shoulder to the floor so that people around me wouldn’t be smacked by it. I accidentally bumped toes with a woman who was seated in front of me and slightly to my left. She looked up from her romance novel, her pretty hazel eyes surrounded by a sultry cloud of black mascara and dark eyeshadow. She smiled. I smiled and said “I’m sorry.” “That’s okay,” she smiled wider. And she softly repositioned her book in front of her and continued to read.

I read too, and held a novel in front of my face at an angle that slightly obscured the woman. But below the bottom edge of the book I spied her stocking covered legs—fish nets—and her patent leather boots, and the tight denim skirt and then above the top rim of my novel I could see her hair: tight, thick curls all black and juicy—the kind of hair you wanna hold gently and then grab tightly in fistfuls of playfully dangerous tension before a light teasing kiss on the—WO! The train came to a screeching halt. I realized I was looking at her, she was looking at me and she smiled again. There was CHEMISTRY!

But I was a gay man. AM a gay…well…What was going on? Who was driving this runaway lust train? I was as shocked by these fantasies as by the fact that the woman seemed to be reciprocating. What was SHE imagining?

I quickly averted my eyes back to my book to process my feelings and thoughts. This agressive fantasy was titillating but not arousing in the same way my sexual subway fantasies of men are. Those usually render me immobile for as long as it takes the internal repetition of the phrase “dead babies” to defeat my hard on.

I wanted to kiss this woman and touch her and I got off on the idea that she wanted me, too. AND I got off even more on the idea that in our sexual fantasy she wouldn't know I sleep with men. But then I'd tell her and it would turn her on even more.

Eventually, a slight pang of guilt made me feel like I was toying with her, leading her on.

I’ve always known I had a little bisexual in me. I had sex with men for years before having sex with women, and then I did that on and off for a couple of years before turning my attention to just men again. So here I was finding of a part of myself I thought I had lost. It's understandable to lose a part of yourself in a society where everything is black or white, right or wrong, Republican or Democrat, gay or straight. I think most of us stand closer to the center than to the extremes of the (bare with me now) train car of life. Choo choo.

2 Comments:

Blogger belledame222 said...

Heh. Good for you. I love those moments of discombobulation. Anyway I've learned to love them.

I think maybe part of what happens for a lot of queer folk, besides the "I am no longer a member of this clearly delineated identity/group; therefore I must go fit myself into this other clearly delineated identity/group," is that the compulsory nature of heterosexuality makes it even less appealing than it would have been were we simply left to do our thing in peace. You know, like: it could be that you always would have loved asparagus, much more so than broccoli; but chances are good that if someone keeps attempting to force-feed you the broccoli while simultaneously screaming at you every time you cast your longing gaze toward the asparagus plate, you're gonna develop a certain aversion toward the very idea of eating broccoli, ever again.

On the other hand, if you're left alone to eat your fill of asparagus any time you want, and then one day someone just happens to have left an extremely well-prepared dish of broccoli on the table, and you're feeling peckish, well...

2:01 PM

 
Blogger Gucci said...

"Discombobulation" is a great word to describe that morning. I think it's a lucky to feel that way every so often. It's important. Vital. No sense in being steadfast in your ideas about yourself. Celebrate discombobulation.

Since that day I wonder about all the straight men out there who deny having any kinds of sexual feelings for other men and how sad that is to have so much repression in your life when it comes to something so liberating as sexuality. It's a good thing we're better than that.

LOVE the asparagus/broccoli analogy, btw. LOL indeed.

5:21 PM

 

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