The Wedding Bet (12 page)

My jaw dropped. “Are you gay?” I say to the next guy entering my threshold of love.

He blustered, a laugh. “I’m not gay,” he said entering. He looked around as I closed the door. “Nice decorations. I’m really digging the colors, vibrant.”

My gaydar went off big time. His walk bordered on the effeminate. He pulled out a handkerchief and patted down his face. Then his wrist dropped limp as he pointed to the beautiful picture of the girl holding the camera.

“I bet she is taking a picture of us right now,” he laughed in a high pitch tone of voice. “Am I right?”

I slowly sat down wondering, is this what manhood has come to? Are men so afraid of us they are becoming exactly like us? I agree men and women can do similar things, but if everyone is similar, who is going to be different? “You are—”

“My mom calls me Tim. I call myself Timmy!” he said with special emphasis. “And yes, I am gay.”

“Tim, why would you answer my personal ad?”

“You can call me, Timmy.” He patted his face down using his handkerchief again like it was a foundation cushion. “I feel we have so much in common. You like to travel. So do I. You like to stop kissing Frogs. So would I. And the condoms. Oh, I loved the droopy condoms touch.”

“But I’m not gay, Timmy.” I anticipated the future conversation in my head. He’d say we could be friends, go shopping together, and discuss clothes. Why do I have to defend my heterosexual aka natural orientation? He’d accuse me of gay bashing. I’d end our little attempt at thwarting the natural order of love.

“That’s fine, dearest, Megan. Sometimes a girl, a man in my case, just wants to let his hair down and talk about things. Men in particular, how they mistreat us, take our bodies for granted.” He motioned up and down his thin body with a flourish.

He had a decent body. Small forehead, nice eyes, and slightly smaller shoulders, but no smaller than any other actor. “I reserve men for the quote unquote friend’s zone, Tim. But you’re not acting like a real man. See in short, you should be different than me. Men and women possess separate qualities for a reason. I’m an innie and you are an outie for a good reason. Men are stronger than women and women are more intuitively powerful than men for a reason. This just isn’t going to work out, Tim.” I intentionally got his name wrong to create distance between us.

“I’ll forget the name mishap, Meg,” Timmy started in his high pitched whine. “People are all the same. We have bodies and we want to use them. I’m not asking to sleep with you—that would be gross. I just want us to hang out. To become friends. By the way, I love how you look ravishing in all black. I bet none of these other jerks complimented you on your nice fashionista outfit. Black is so arty.”

“Actually, Timmy. Everyone of the men complimented me on my outfit. They just refused to use words. They stared, gawked, ogled, made non-verbal expressions of hunger and excitement. One man even sniffed the air, and said ‘love is in the air’.”

“You’re lying bitch!” He snarled. “I’m sorry. It’s that time. I apologize. I am really just lonely.”

“I have two best friends.”

And he started getting testy, “And they are trying to marry you off to some man and you don’t want to be with a man.” Timmy fanned himself down. “Are you sure you’re not gay, Megan? A Lesbian?”

“When did I have to start defending and declaring my sexual orientation? Why do I have to defend my heterosexuality? My natural heterosexuality. The way men and women are supposed to be, so this world can have families and children.”

“I’m fertile. You and I can have a child.” He patted himself on the back.

“How repulsive. I would never confuse my child that way.”

“Obviously God intended for his children to be confused or else I wouldn’t be here!” He paused to see if he’d convinced me.

“I’m not buying that The Great Goddess or the Great God caused you to be gay and insisted you confuse any future children you might have.”

“What?” Timmy chirped in his whine.

“You have to resist your gayness, just like any other perversion—say the need to become a serial killer or the need to rob banks or the need to abuse power.”

“Wow! Gay-hood is a power.”

I smacked myself on the forehead. Was this really happening? “I’m not saying gay-hood is a power. It is the way you feel and could be caused by anything.” I quieted down. Finally, some of my understanding of reincarnation might be useful. “Suppose Tim, you were a woman for ten lifetimes.”

“That’d be nice.” He whined.

“And then all of a sudden, the Great Goddess and the Great God decided you needed to learn what the other side of the genders lived like?”

“No! No! No!” He stood up. “I refuse to believe that! I am a woman. I always liked boys from birth! I’m a girl—still trapped—in a man’s—” He paused.

I raised my left eyebrow and tossed in my disarming smile. “Go on.”

“Then I really—”

I nodded. “Strange but true. It is your purpose Tim to explore living as a male. A man.”

Tim stood there. He stuffed his handkerchief in his plum pants back pocket. He buttoned up his sage green dress shirt from the third button down up to the first button. He burped. He spread his legs and grabbed his crotch. “Call me Tim from now on. I’m not into this timid Timmy crap anymore.”

“Okay, Tim.”

“You want to go fuck, Megan. Because I’m tired of this interviewing none sense. I’m the man for you and you’re the woman for me. We can live off of beer and sports games on television.”

“I’m not into macho men, Tim.”

“Damn, Tim,” said without the whine. He tucked his thumbs into his front pants pockets, stuck out his chest. He stared into space above my head. Maybe he was looking into the other camera. “I need to go get some sex. Find a woman. A loose girl. A prostitute. Well may there’s the internet. I can view some unnamed cunts spreading their legs.”

“Tim, I don’t think that’s all a man was supposed to do.”

“I’ve always wanted to just fuck, fuck, fuck, but women were so prissy. None of them enjoy sex. They always wear these pained, anguish, scared faces when they’re being fucked. So I guess I turned to men. Men love sex. But I’m a man now. I have to fuck those sex-fearing bitches whether I want to or not.”

I stood up, watching my creation in person. Mary Shelly must have labored over her novels for months. I repeated her creation in a few minutes. “Tim,” I said loudly as he was really into his maleness now. Thinking of all the ways to be male.” I took Tim, gently by the hand and started leading him to the front door. “It’s going to be all right now, Tim.”

“Shit I don’t even have to grow up now. I can play sports, fuck girls and crack jokes like in high school forever. Being gay was a pain in the ass.”

I opened the door. “Thanks for coming, Tim.”

“Tim shouted to all the other men waiting. I’m a man! I’m a man! I came here to be just like the rest of you!”

He roared like he was trying to frighten the enemy of war. All the men roared back.”

I welcomed the muscle-bound guy in, no longer wondering why I refused to become a psychologist. The truth was devastatingly powerful.

* * * *

“I tried to warn you, Megan,” said the body builder. My weight lifter would-be suitor had that perfect triangular shape on his upper torso down to his narrow waist, and bulging thighs.

“Hi.” I flashed my big, disarming smile and brushed my hair back over my left ear. “I’m Megan from the personal ad. ‘Kiss Frogs No More,’“ I said to the big burly guy. He had two packs on the top of his torso and a six pack below. Too bad all his muscles were wasted on my eyes. And he smelled like peppermint. I almost got the feeling he should be my personal trainer and we’d do hundred mile jogs together.

Why was I thinking that? I don’t even jog. I only dash around on the badminton court. Furthermore, this was going nowhere because I really go for a man who doesn’t look like he can beat the crap out of me without putting up an effort.

“I’m Roy. I lift weights for a living. That is to say, I’m a competitive weight lifter.” Roy eased himself into the wooden chair that creaked and strained under his compressed muscle weight.

“I imagine you do a lot of juicing, tossing all those fruits and vegetables into one veritable soup of good health.”

“Actually I try to watch how many calories I take in. Some fruits are full of calories. But when I saw your ad, I thought now here’s a woman like me. Tired of women crawling all over her trying to get into her pants.” He paused and placed his elbows on the dining table which literally screamed in pain. “I’m so tired of it, too. I have all this,” he waved his broad fingers, thick enough to be two fingers to my one, “And the women go crazy for it. Not me. For this. I just want to meet a woman who loves me for my mind.”

I mimicked his behavior placing my elbows on the table. The table sighed in relief at the somewhat balancing weight of humanity. “You know,” I said slowly, nodding my little sandy blonde head. “I’m tired of it, too. I don’t have all this,” I waved my hands like he did, spreading my fingers wide at my modest boobs. I fluctuated between Bernice and Cassandra size, depending on the time of the month. “But even so, the richness of such a modest package draws men to me like an oil drill to the dark, liquid riches in the Earth.”

We both nodded in silence.

I don’t think he understood a word I said after riches.

“Ahem. Tell me about your mind, Roy.”

“I read a lot of books about health, body fat, keeping my muscle definition, eating starchy carbs early in the day, rotating my work out routine, finding that scents like peppermint increase my athletic performance, and which tanning oils give me that sun burnt look of a man at the beach.”

“That’s saying a lot.” I pointed to my body. “I should start working out. You can become my personal trainer.”

Roy grew excited, but he misunderstood. “Yeah as a couple, we’d go everywhere together. Spend a lot of quality time working on our physiques. We’d be very happy.”

“Roy—Roy,” I paused. “I’m just not into guys who work out a lot. I need a man with half your muscle bulk. I’m not one of those girls who takes up things just because her man does it. I’m not feeling it between us, Roy.”

“No problem. I thought we understood each other’s minds.”

“We do,” I said standing with Roy. It’s just our bodies that disagree with one another.

“The power of the flesh.”

I shrugged my shoulders. What else could I say?

* * * *

The next guy looked as if Roy sucked all the muscles out of his body and added it to his bulk. The new guy’s wiry, thin frame didn’t look like he could beat anyone up.

“I’m Arnie. I’m here to end you Frog Kissing Days.”

I smiled. At least he had some confidence. I knew it wouldn’t last. Most guys using come-on lines usually have two or three planned and then their boring personality springs back into place.

“I’m certainly trying to find the right guy, Arnie.”

We sat down. Arnie had a casual outfit on. Sort of a mix between beachwear long pants and a jogging suit with a matching jacket. I wasn’t impressed clothes-wise. But you never know. I could probably remake him into the Gentlemen’s Quarterly sort of guy I crave later on.

I started off, “Arnie I need to ask you something?”

“Go ahead.” His short slick black hair came down in spikey bangs over his forehead.

“How many girls actually dated you not because they were forced, but because they were afraid of other men?”

He processed the question twice. He wore every expression on his face. Then he replied as most men do, “What? I’ve never forced a woman to date me. I don’t know the creeps who’ve been hitting on you, Megan. But I’m not one of them. Girls come to me for dates.”