All of a sudden

I'm 21.  Gina's 24.  We're at R Place, Seattle's closest answer to Babylon, and there are women dancing in go-go cages.  It's the first time I've ever been here--Gina is the story of all my first times (save one--but that's a story for another time).  It's years yet before Gina's own go-go cage, but I imagine her up there anyway.  Her hand on the small of my back makes me startle, violently, almost falling off the edge of the stool.  I don't look at her, in case I can't look away.

I haven't seen Gina in months.  She brings out this violent, tremulous angst in me, my heart pounding, blood rushing in my ears.  The anxiety she inspires in me is second only to aching, dizzying desire.  It's been that way since we met.  It still surprises me.

Gina orders a Long Island Iced Tea.  I order a rum and Coke.  She's drunk, and I order another.  Stacy's there, too, and my pulse spikes, anxious, nerves singing.  I order another rum and Coke, and then a Long Island because it tastes so good on the end of the straw Gina pokes into my mouth, teasing--always teasing me.  I lean against the wall and drink, knowing the only way out of conversation is to make sure my mouth is always full.  But maybe I just want to be drunk.  Already, I'm drunk enough that I can't feel my cheek when she prods it, can't feel the pressure of her hip any more as she leans against my own.

This is all a separate memory from what I originally came here to write about.

I'm drunk.  I drink the Long Island, order another.  Gina's dancing.  I don't know how to dance, and even if I did, I'd be too drunk.  I can barely navigate the stairs.  I stumble down, clutching at the handrail, confident that she's not going to come looking--I wasn't there as an accessory, after all.  She's enlightening me, trying to bring me out.  It's not working.

I'm downstairs now, drink gone--I shove the empty glass onto the bar, looking for a place to sit, but there isn't one.  Instead, I totter out the side door, onto Pine Street, my breath catching in the November fog.  I can't feel my face any more, frustrated and dizzy, stomping across the road.  The need to vomit hits me all at once.  I bend next to the gutter, facing away from the bar, thinking I'll pretend I'm tying my shoe, but I'm too drunk to compensate and fall on my elbows, already retching.  The noise carries, impossibly loud.  When the hand hits my shoulder, I think it's Gina, bearing witness.  I contemplate death.

"Hey, buddy," the voice says.  "Rough night?"

I turn, startled, swallowing desperately, and it's just some guy--a dude in a T-shirt and jeans, beer in hand, hand stamped like mine.  I can't answer--I'm afraid I'll be sick.  I nod and look away.

"You okay now, man?  You need some help?"

Man.

And impossibly drunk, world reeling, my gut boiling with nausea and adrenaline and panic, I pause.

He thinks I'm a man.

It's not the first time this has happened to me.

But it's the first time I've paused.

And for the briefest of seconds, I think to myself, lightning-hot, don't say it.

But I do.

"No," I say, soft, my throat raw.  "I'll be fine."

I can trace the startle in his eyes; I can feel it in the pressure of his fingers on my back.  He stands upright, backs away.  "Oh, cool, ma'am," he says.  "Sorry, ma'am.  Have a good night."

And then he's gone.

And the nausea rocks in my stomach, flooding my chest, and I sit down on the sidewalk, folding my arms tight across my torso to keep myself intact.  I put my head on my knees.

I never went back into the bar.  I texted Gina from the bus stop to let her know I wasn't feeling well.  I never saw her again.  It's probably better that way.

It was almost a year earlier that I'd gone to her Halloween party in a tuxedo; almost a year earlier that she'd leaned over, drunk, as I sipped tequila from her bellybutton, and whispered that if I was a boy, I needed to fuck women who liked boys.

But even then, I hadn't said it--had rolled my eyes, licked the salt from her shoulder and said "lesbians wear suits, too."

She knew.  But that night, I got to pretend that she didn't.

And for another three years, I got to pretend that I didn't, too.