A Walk on the Wild Side (Or as Close as I'll Ever Get)

Last night I asked Ed if I could pass at a Lesbian bar.

“What put that in your head?”

“Oh, we were just talking.”  I didn’t have to say who “we” were.

“Why would you want to do that?”

“It’s good to get out and see the world and expand your horizons.”

Ed snorted.  “There’s plenty to see without going to some bar, where you’d have to drive home.”

“Oh, one of us could be the designated driver.  I’d do it myself.”  I wouldn’t want to have a buzz on and miss anything, but I didn’t tell Ed that.

“If the three of you went together, people might think you were a ménage a trois.”

I hadn’t thought of that.  What if someone wanted to make it a ménage a quatre?  We’d have to say that one of us had a problem with that, which would be bourgeois and prudish.  We’d argue about who would be the bourgeois one.  (It would probably be me, especially since I wouldn’t be drinking.)

“If you want to have a Lesbian experience, go visit my mother.”

“Ed!  We’re both married!”

“I didn’t mean it that way.  I just meant you can absorb the ambiance over there.”

“That’s pretty fancy talk for an accountant.”

“Well, you can’t talk dirty to a churchlady.”

I did go over to the rectory (which Kate calls “delightfully retro,” to which Janet adds “like an outhouse.”)  Janet wasn’t around, but I did ask Kate about her bar experiences.  Before she was a priest, she was a community organizer and a state lobbyist.  She says the bars were where you got the most lobbying done and the Lesbian bars were where she and her friends went to get back to the real world.

“Well, basically, it’s like a straight bar.  The people you like don’t call you and the ones you gave your number to to avoid hurting their feelings do.  One time someone threw up on my shoes.  Fortunately, they were hiking boots.”

“Were you on a camping trip?”

“No, Charlie.  Sometime when Janet’s here we’ll explain it all to you.  I can’t handle it by myself.”

“That would be great!”

Kate started to get that therapist look in her eye.  “You’re not worrying about anything, are you?”

“Oh, no.  It’s just that I’ve never been to any bar.  At college we drank in our rooms or at fraternity parties.  Then I got married.”

Kate laughed.  “Oh my gosh, you really are an innocent. I always thought Janet was in denial.”

She put her arm around me.  “Well, you didn’t miss anything.”