Big Gay Closet

I was still coming out. I never excelled at social situations anyway, but newly out of the closet I found myself learning a new vocabulary, new social cues, making new friends.

But I was busy, and had other things to occupy my time. My recent history of dates that qualified as significant natural disasters meant I wasn’t exactly pushing ahead.

In those days I wore make-up so often that when I vacated my apartment, I had to pay for professional carpet cleaners to deal with the huge accumulated make-up stain just below my mirror. I wore skirts and heels to work. I said things like,

I like women who look like women.

I ate exactly one meal a day, and my ritual at this time was a crayfish sandwich at the Old Cheese Shop, just around the corner from work.

One day I arrived and cursed under my breath as I joined the back of a long queue. While I tried to figure out what made my normally perfect timing betray me on that day, I noticed someone in a hardhat and toolbelt, looking my way.

It took me a few moments to realise that she — she! in her hardhat and toolbelt and dusty boots — was not simply looking my way but half smiling, she was looking right at me. It could have been — surely should have been — creepy, but it wasn’t, and I could feel her eyes on me.

Confused by a feeling I had rarely felt, certainly never in a sandwich shop before, I blushed and looked away, studying the prices on the bottled water until it was time to order.

All women look like women.

I still have a thing for toolbelts.

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