A faux lesbian is someone I define as an enormous fucking tease. See her short hair? Sexually suggestive piercing? Button-down and loafers? They mean nothing in the world of the faux-mo's. And lemme tell you, they are out there in full blast. Their look has nothing to do with sexual orientation, and while I suppose the same could be said on my behalf with my flippy, blonde hair and floral prints, they at least make a word for that: femme. I know, why so heavy on the labeling, right? How do you explain a woman who takes the whole androgyny thing to a rude point? How dare you make me fantasize about a possible dykedom? I suppose the bulk of my frustration lies in my cowardice. Why not just ask them, right? Like all roadblocks, I’m fantastically annoyed by them. I figure, I’m spending the summer in New York City. If there is anywhere to be blunt about one’s sexuality, where better to pursue?
I spend a lot of my time in Grounded, a café plus in the West Village. With their homosexual history, I like to believe most people in those parts are fluid. I observed a particularly beautiful (bald) woman behind the counter swiping my Sanrio decorated card; her fingers and lips looked moist, as if she’d been beckoning someone. I immediately said to myself, “Jessica, not everyone is gay because they look it, and with the way you look, she won’t be imploring your lack of androgyny.” I violently grabbed my soy latte and sat on a bench outside so I could suck down a Marlboro. I caught the same hand pushing the shaft of the door open behind me. I suddenly grew West Village sized balls.
“We can share this bench” (duh Jessica.)
“Yeah… okay.”
“Are you having a good day?”
“Actually, not particularly” (such a “me” statement.)
“Do you want a cigarette?”
Faster than she could tell me her name, I was lighting her cigarette with my own, mouth to mouth, cigarette to cigarette. The conversation progressed from hobbies to age until my friend Madison showed up. We kept it at that while we separated. I begged his (gay) mind to read her (potentially gay) mind and he drew a blank.
“She hot! Who cares, just ask!”
Out of nowhere:
“Would you guys want a snack? On me.”
We both turned around; you could smell a laugh on our mouth.
“Sure,” he said immediately.
“She gay.”
I felt my meta-testicles rapidly deflate as I nearly walked out without saying a word. I quickly sputtered something about exchanging numbers, and she obliged. I told Madison if she were the one to text me first, she gay. By his rules, he won. I told her I’d be spending my night roof-bound with a bottle of Merlot, to which she invited herself right over. I couldn’t believe I was making such a fast friend.
Midnight came. Do new friends come to one’s apartment when you could plausibly say “good morning” to someone? I don’t remember having made it to the roof to enjoy Brooklyn’s view, but I do recall her face being plastered between my legs somewhere around 5:30 a.m.
We wake up, she travels by bus home (also known as self-deprecation in most American cities), it’s cool. I assess the past 12 hours as nothing other than a story, straight out of the fiction section in Vanity Fair. Am I heartless? No. I just couldn’t believe I’d made my own fantasy come true. I had what could’ve been a Craigslist “Missed Connection,” but I connected. I put all fake dykedom to the wind and put myself out on the line—and succeeded.
I think I have a little Aesop Fable going on right now, and the moral is it isn’t smart to judge anyone—faux-mo or pro-mo. Sometimes, a book does prove true by its cover. I am learning it is much more fun to prove your assumptions by reading (perhaps in a candlelit room with a glass of liquid courage.)
