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Because Octavia Says So
I knew she was going to be a pain in the ass when I heard her shitty tone of voice with Greg who was working the counter that Tuesday, but I underestimated her. Well, I guess it has to be true because Octavia says so. Thank god she is so intuitive and knows me so well after only 2 minutes. I have to trust her intuition over my own 32 years of self analysis. Yep, I must be a lesbian because Octavia says so. She says it's not just the way I look, I just have that "aura". I'm completely comfortable being told I look like a lesbian, really, it happens almost daily, but she took it further attempting to enlighten me about my sexuality. She said, "Well, for years people told me that I was a lesbian, but I didn't believe it. A couple years later I came out. Now I'm engaged", insinuating that someday I would emerge from that deep dark closet into the light. That bright shining light of lesbianism. Now, don't get me wrong, I love the gays. One of my best friends is a former male hooker who does public announcements on gay porn. All of my childhood friends are lesbians or at one time or another gave lesbianism the old college try. They too, used to ask jokingly, when I was coming out, but it never happened. I think the lure of the snaggle tooth Irish boys with the sugar bowl ears was just too great. Jeez, I'd take an Irish boy over Octavia any time. But, if I have that "aura" I'd better take a closer look at myself and figure out how I'm going to break it to my husband. Then we'll have to figure out if he's gay too and hope my Islamic maniac of a father and Lee's gun-toting Sergeant Slaughter-esque father will have a problem with our new founded homosexuality. Damn that Octavia! Now I'm going to have to start wearing sensible shoes and putting bandanas on my dog. If only she hadn't known me so well! But I guess it has to be true because Octavia says so.
Immediately after my encounter with Octavia, one of my regular clients, an openly gay man, came in for a genital piercing. I've been piercing Darrin for years and we have a great rapport. I shared what Octavia had said with him and to my surprise, he said, "Well, it's probably because you're confident and don't wear make-up". So, according to Darrin, if I had slapped on a little lipstick and blush, Octavia wouldn't have seen the lesbian within. As if make-up serves as a barrier between lesbian and straight. All right ladies, if you don't want to be mistaken for a lesbian throw on a little make-up and act like a delicate flower. Confidence is for lesbians, straight women are demure and lacking in sensibility. I must be a lesbian because I'm confident, don't wear make-up and Octavia says so.
Amy and her husband came in just before closing time. Greg said they were "a little weird", and he was right, they were a strange couple, but weird cannot describe my encounter with Amy and Texas John. What Greg neglected to tell me was that Amy was a male to female transsexual. Which isn't uncommon in the piercing world, but is good to know when you are modifying bodies. It was not the transsexual aspect of Amy that struck me, but the way in which she carried herself as a woman. She wore make-up and barely spoke, but when she did, I had to strain to hear her soft whisper from two feet away. She was frightened and exuded that deer in the headlights look as I prepped her for piercing. Texas John did all of the talking for her. "She's a little scared" No shit, she clung to Texas John like a burr on the backside of a blue tick hound. But I wondered, was she really frightened? Or was that her perception of how women should behave? Demure, scared, clinging to her man. I'm used to people crying out in pain on occasion, but I was struck by Amy. She cried out with a sound that began delicately, but ended in a guttural scream like a crescendo from her present to her past. It was as if her body was forcing her to give away her secret. But, I found it hard to believe that after all she'd been through to attain her femininity a piercing would scare her to such an extent. I felt that she in being a woman was merely acting the part of what she felt a woman should be. Demure and doe eyed, that's not my idea of womanhood. But, I thought of Simone de Beauvoir and her claim that "one is not born but becomes a woman" that "it is civilization as a whole that produced this creature, intermediate between male and eunuch, which is described as feminine" (Wittig 310). Amy truly is a woman. Whether it be induced by birth or by desire, she is a product of society's view of what a woman is. But, if Amy is a woman not by virtue of her choice to become a woman, but by the feminine traits she so fully encompasses, then I don't want to be a woman. I don't want to wear make up, speak demurely, or cling to my man in times of stress. I want to be confident and stand on my own. I don't need my man to speak for me. Maybe Octavia is right. Maybe I am a lesbian.
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AUTHOR NOTES:
According to the Myers-Briggs, Najwa is an INFP, she likes long walks on the beach and hockey hair.
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