Meeting the First Fireman
He is not beautiful. I barely notice him all night. It is a dinner party and I have an interest in our host who is beautiful, but who isn’t a lesbian, which leaves her tantalisingly beyond my reach. When he is gone and she and I are curled chastely into our separate lounge chairs, she tells me that he likes me. Apparently we have met before, although I don’t remember the meeting. I shrug because it means nothing to me and then she leans towards me conspiratorially and whispers the words that finally pique my interest.
“He’s gay you know.”
It is a strange kind of flattery to know that you are singled out. A rare thing amongst so many who are all the same. The one person of her gender who is desired by this gay man.
“We went to school together,” she tells me, “he knew he loved boys even in grade ten.”
I try to imagine the two of them at school together. She would be more beautiful, glowing with hormonally charged adolescence. Before this, Michael has been invisible, now his proximity to a younger version of my friend has leant him some of her glow.
“Do you think I should ask him out?”
I surprise myself by asking this. I never stop to wonder if I want to ask him out. She becomes excited by my question. She shifts about restlessly in the warm embrace of her shabby student couch. She becomes the matchmaker, excited by her meddling in other people’s lives.
“I can ask him for you.”
The idea of her discussing me with him fills me with the same kind of excitement. I watch the gentle caress of her knees against each other and my imagination crawls up under the folds of her skirt and finds her damp, as I am damp.
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