Why I Have No Love-Life

Mother's visiting tomorrow, for the first time in, what, six years? Seven? So, whatever I've got to say, I'd best say it quickly. I've got to tidy up before she arrives. I have, as per usual, left that till the last possible moment. Us rats hate tidying up.

Whenever someone asks if I'm gay, I say "Gay? Nah, I just smile and pretend*." Nobody ever gets the joke. It happened again today:

"What, you're not gay?"

"Nope. Just smile and pretend, me. Smile and pretend." I flashed a big, cheesy grin, which was greeted with silence. Then--

"Why would you pretend to be gay?"

Perhaps it isn't terribly funny, after all.

On a similar note, I once tried to condition my lover to become aroused whenever he heard the words "Squa Tront**". Why "Squa Tront"? Well, I was hardly about to say anything overtly sexual in public, was I? The whole idea was to embarrass him on the bus, and so forth, without also embarrassing myself. Anyhow, I went about it in the most obnoxious way imaginable. Whenever I felt he was past the point of no return, orgasm-wise, I leaned close to his ear and whispered it: Squa Tront!

"Don't say 'Squa Tront,'" he'd plead, as I slipped my hand down his trou.

"C'mon--would I do that?"

"Yes! You would! You do it every time!"

"Ssss...."

"No!"

"I wasn't!"

"Okay. Okay. Oh...oh...okaaaay! Ah! Yes!"

"SQUA TRONT!"

"Ah!"

When your girl fancies a threesome with Pavlov, odds are she isn't "the one".

I went out with a masochist once. I can't remember whether or not I knew he was into that stuff, in the beginning. It's hardly my scene, but I've been known to compromise. (Spanking, yes; fisting, no--and you've got to wash the dishes after. What?) At any rate, he wasn't a very good masochist, if you ask me. He couldn't take much pain, and he didn't even put up a fight. I mean, if I'm going to all the trouble of torturing someone, the least they could do is beg me not to. (Not, of course, that I get off on pathetic pleas. One just feels underappreciated, is all, when there's no response beyond the odd gasp or whimper. Seems to me it's common courtesy: if I fuck you, you moan; if I take off my belt and whip you with it, you scream for mercy. Is that too much to ask?)

"My fingers are really penises," said my bird***. He was always saying shit like that.

"Get your fucking hands off me, then," I snapped. "Haa, fucking hands, get it?"

"[Groaning noise]."

"Fucking hands! Fucking hands!"

"Get out of here!"

"Fuc--hey!" He smothered my bad joke with a pillow. I kicked and flailed aimlessly, nailing him in the groin. I have a positive talent for that. I was walking down the hall at school one time, and my hand swung out and ballsed one of the professors. And I kick in my sleep, which has led to several similar incidents. There was even a mishap with a fork, once...now, that was nasty. Prongs-down, sort of thing. Can you imagine?

My brow sweeps my toes.
That's my arse, above my nose.
What vulgarity!

Right. I think that's all the obscenity out of my system. Now, I can face Mother with confidence.

* Look somewhere above her; pretend you don't love her--
Pretend you don't see her at all.
Pretend you don't see her, my heart,
Although she is coming our way.
Pretend you don't need her, my heart--
But smile and pretend to be gay.

--Jerry Vale, 1957

** Squa Tront: an old EC Comics fanzine.

*** Not a real bird--this was a nickname used by my moocherly ex-boyfriend, the one from Sweden.