Disguise or Not....

Patty turned the big two eight. She wanted to go out. Dancing was at the top of her list. At first she wanted to go to Fiddlers Green on Columbus Street in North Beach. She wanted to hunt for men. Well, she said she wanted to "Boogie". So blame it on the boogie that we were unsuccessful in our pursuit of men. The week prior to her birthday she ran in to a few old friends. One in particular, a pushy over bearing, pretentious, former theater instructor of ours. You know, the one always with a scarf and smoking a cigarette. "So Patty, any body new in your life?"

"No not yet, I'm relishing the "me" time..."

"No men? Women?" Patty's reaction, less than enthused. It was the second time that week she was accused of lesbionic tendencies.

"I'm just checking. I haven't seen you in a while, and people change and grow...."

I got me thinking though. We could be anyone that we really wanted to be. And filled me with a sense of freedom. Another part of Patty's Birthday extravaganza was a pleasure party thrown by a former classmate from NHI. Now, I'm use to being the only male in the room a lot of the time. But this was different. I wasn't just the only male but the only white-male in the room. I didn't feel like I needed to prove anything, I was being myself. After the hostesses' Auntie and Cousins came in dressed to the nines and their hair all "did" we played a game.

Pass the dildo around. It was one of the games from Jawana the pleasure party speaker. We passed around a phallus until the music stops and the last person holding the pink member is out of the game. We couldn't just hold it though, oh no. We each had to do something with it then pass it on. Being a gay man has it's advantages and it disadvantages and one of the disadvantages, you continually have to come out. So the way I chose to come out was to show them that I know what to do to that sillycone penis. I first rubbed it in my chest, then I hit against my face, then simulated anal sex with it (tastefully of course), and so on, and so on, and so on. I won, naturally! Jawana continued showing me products and sayin "This will be good for you and her"

"and you and her can do this together"

"and do you have a girlfriend?" All I could do was look at her dumbfounded. Later we played another game with penis pencils. "Oh, you don't want one of those do you Brian."

"No, no, it's okay. I play for the other team."

"Try this massage oil it will be good for a massage with your next girlfriend." WOW! I know I'm not the gayest man ever. But still if you listen to me, you can kinda figure it out. Afterward on the ride home with Patty, "I've never met so many women oblivious to that fact that I'm gay, It felt like they were in the closet."

"I really like Aldo, Brian. But I'm not calling him anymore." This was Vera's decision after she talked to four other people about it, who all told her the same thing. Don't call him. Still... it is the best thing. She just seemed lighter. And back in the room again. She had come full circle. "If anything, it's made me more willing to get back out there and date more."

For one of Patty's birthday nights we went to Vera's co-worker's going away party. I thought there would be eligible men there for Patty, but alas every man was paired off. After that we went to The White Horse in Berkeley. She had wanted to go to Fiddler's Green in SF but we were already in Oakland, may as well hop over to Berkeley. It's a gay club, and the music was mediocre but there was Psychic Shawn. Psychic Shawn loved Vera's breasts. I guess it's a thing with some gay men. Not this one. And then he asked Patty if Vera was her girlfriend. "No..."

"Oh come on, you want her to be though, I can tell I'm a little psychic." The third person to mistake her for a lesbian. Patty held her head high, and kept on dancing.

Sometimes we were disguises without even knowing it. Like the pleasure party. Maybe I wanted to come off as straight. But no matter how people label, you just have to stay strong, and stay on the dance floor.