symbol, an Irish rose, a Wiccan pentacle, portraits of Betty Boop and Bettie Page.
“So,” she says, running her fingers through the strip of spiked blue hair that divides her otherwise bald skull, “I guess you’ve pieced everything together, huh?”
“Umm, yeah,” he says. “Yeah. For sure.”
“Good. I’m glad you’re not freaking out about it. I’ll tell the others at your cottage on the long weekend, when the right moment presents itself. But I wanted you to know first.” She draws circles on the tabletop with her fingernail. “I was worried that maybe you wouldn’t understand. But you’re cool? Everything’s cool?”
“So, um, you’re an exotic dancer. Um, sure, yeah. That’s totally cool with me. I can totally live with that. Yeah.”
“That’s not exactly what I mean, pal.”
“Oh, you mean the tattoos. The haircut? Um, well, sure. The new look suits you. Very daring, yeah.”
Miss Demeanor sighs. “You see Marilinn Munrow up there, buddy? She’s gay. She’s a lesbian.”
“I don’t mind,” Mr. Nice Guy says, grinning.
“Dame Edna Leathertongue? She’s a butch.”
“Yeah, I agree,” Mr. Nice Guy confides. “Her show was a bit, um, aggressive for my tastes. It was a bit of a turn-off.”
Miss Demeanor sighs again. This is going to be more difficult than she thought. She tilts her head toward Wendy O. Williams and Electrical-Tape-Nipples.
“See those two women? They aren’t women, buddy. They’re men. Men who want to be women.”
Mr. Nice Guy’s mouth opens slowly, wide enough that Miss Demeanor can see his tonsils.
“Like me,” she says, “only vice-versa.”
Miss Demeanor can see Mr. Nice Guy’s tonsils now.
“Understand?”
Mr. Nice Guy blinks. “You, umm … you … are you saying that you … ummmm . . . want to be a man?”
She laughs. “No, buddy, no. I like my lady bits just the way they are. I love ’em, as a matter of fact. They bring me lots of pleasure. And I love other ladies’ lady bits, too, if you know what I mean.”
Mr. Nice Guy just blinks. “I’m attracted to women, dude. Just as much as you are. Maybe more so.” Miss Demeanor punches him lightly on the shoulder. “Just kidding, sport.”
Mr. Nice Guy blinks again. Is he missing the point intentionally?
“I’m gay, buddy. I’m gay.”
“When?” he finally says. “When did you know?”
“I’ve always known, really.”
“But what about you and Jake? What about all those other guys? What about …”
He stops himself. He can’t say it.
What about that one time with me? Lying there on the beach under the full moon? With me stretched out beside you? And your shirt rolled up and my hands on your breasts?
You left blood-red lipstick prints all over my face and neck and chest.
I kissed my way down from your face to your stomach, and then I pushed up that red miniskirt, I pulled down those black lace panties, and I went places I’d never gone before.
With you. I went there with you.
Even with the mohawk and the tattoos and the clothes like a small-town auto mechanic’s, Miss Demeanor is still beautiful to Mr. Nice Guy. He still sees her long hair shimmering black as crow feathers, brushing her bare shoulders as she lies back on the pebbles. He still feels the warm softness of her breasts in his hands. He still feels the tickle of her pubic hair against his nose and chin. He still wants her.
What about that night? What about that night with me?
Miss Demeanor reads his face and sighs again. Poor Mr. Nice Guy. She should have expected this.
“Buddy,” she says, “never underestimate the power of denial.”
4
THE
STATISTICIAN
“When you get a little older, you’ll see how easy it is to become lured by the female of the species.”
— Batman, to Robin, from the TV series Batman, 1966–1968
The Statistician walks away from his campus office and toward the undergraduate student ghetto. There is a slight, uncharacteristic swagger in his measured pace. He runs through the numbers in his head:
The number of times that my wife and I have had sex in the past year: 7.
Expressed as a fraction of the total number of days in the year: 7/365.
He does a quick calculation.
A success rate of 1.9 percent.
Abysmal.
But, okay, The Statistician thinks, perhaps I’m biasing the numbers somewhat. Let’s be realistic about it. Subtracting the number of days we can’t have sex because of her menstrual cycle, or because one or the other of us is sick or otherwise incapacitated, let’s say one week out of every four …
He frowns.
7/280. 2.5 percent.
Abysmal, indeed.
And The Statistician is not even using the narrow Bill Clinton definition of sex; in addition to penetrative intercourse, his figure includes manual and/or oral stimulation of the genitals by a sexual partner.
He sighs. The average married couple in his demographic bracket has sex together 2.5 times per week; Mr. And Mrs. Average get it on more times in one month than he and his wife do in an entire year. But there is something else, another set of numbers that he finds particularly difficult to reconcile.
The number of times I’ve stimulated my wife orally during our sexual encounters in the past year (expressed as a fraction): 7/7.
The number of times she’s stimulated me orally during the same sexual encounters (expressed as a fraction): 0/7.
The number of times I’ve brought her to orgasm through oral stimulation during our nine-year marriage: 150 (estimated).
The number of times she’s given me oral sex during our entire nine-year marriage: 2 (exact number).
The first
