Scintillectually Yours

It’s not erotica. It’s not a toy review. It’s not an HNT or an MFM. DPR and I have had a bit on our plate lately and as usual, writing is my catharsis.

I hold the phone in my hand just a fraction of a second too long after my mumbled “thank you.” The receptionist, large, dark chocolate brown with kind eyes immediately gets up from her seat and comes around to the outer door—enveloping me in her mighty arms, my head against her shoulder, her hand in my hair. She is a stranger to me, but her contact is welcome. I had expected the word. We both had. We all had. But we had done such a wonderful job of glossing over it—knowing the risks of another hour of surgery.

Cancer.

I pulled away. Turned away. Stood looking out the plate glass window trying to regain my composure before your mother returned from the Ladies Room. I thought back to the last glimpse I had of you, embarrassed in your blue surgical bonnet. I bent over to kiss you, whispering my love, and stepping back so the nurse and orderlies could wheel you into the operating room. I thought, fleetingly, would this be the last time I would see you? No. No. I wouldn’t think that.

Before the parting I had entertained you. I pulled silly toys from my purse and lay them on your blanketed lap, careful not to jostle the intravenous umbilical. A Lego motorcycle rider. A bouncy ball in green and orange. A large plastic die. A tiny monkey doing a somersault. You seemed to relax a bit now that you were no longer keeping company alone with the constant beeping of the monitors. We played. You peered down my cleavage and mouthed double entendres unseen by your mother, reading in the corner behind you. We laughed and joked.

Before the hospital we kidded morbidly about what to do with your body in the event that you didn’t make it out alive. You told us to clean out your bank account—one way tickets to Scotland where we could spread your ashes over the highland cows (heeland coos). I thought perhaps we should be able to return so perhaps you’d like to live on a shelf in my son’s room for a year or so. Then I decided that we should stuff you and create an art installation of people frozen in time at the hands of a local taxidermist.

Looking out that window, none of it seemed funny.

We made our phone calls, your mother and I. We sat together as the waiting room emptied out. We sat silently, each with our own books, pretending not to notice whenever the other would steal a glance at the multicolored electronic board—your initials still in pink, marking your place in the operating room. This hour, the worst. It seemed as though we’d crossed into an episode of the Twilight  Zone. In that waiting room minutes became hours and hours became days. Shadows lengthened. The receptionist closed down. Occasionally a security guard would pass through. Still, your initials, alone on the board now, marking time in the operating room.

Cancer.

I felt a fist-sized ball of hurt in the pit of my stomach. I thought of all the complications we had discussed. I imagined the worst of all and wondered how I could possibly live without you. I felt selfish. How dare you bring me all the way down here and then leave me alone? I fought off anger and worry and sadness and despair and when we finally looked up to discover an empty board we rose in unison and silently moved to the elevator to find your room.

I spent the night fretfully at your side. I wouldn’t leave you now, no matter the condition of the sleeping arrangements. I had the rest of my life to sleep. I wanted to be there to hold your hand, to stroke your hair through your horrible sickness and pain, to do what little I could to make this first night just a bit more bearable for you.

Now, it has been 24 hours. You are home and I am home. Our homes are not the same homes and I miss you. I worry for you. I want to hover and fret. I want to distract you. I want you to distract me. In a few days we will have more test results. You promise me they’ve gotten it all.

Cut. Or burn. Or poison.

That is what you do to Cancer.

Can you promise me you won’t leave? Can you promise that?

I have been thinking a lot about labels, lately. Specifically, the L word. No, not the show and not Laboutin (although if anyone wants to donate a pair of killer open-toe combat boots with a rockin’ stiletto heel, I take a size 6 ½). Lesbian. That’s the one. It may sound utterly ridiculous, especially as I’ve been “out” for roughly 26 years, give or take a few years of trying to conform to nonconformity.

Everyone wants to eschew labels. Everywhere you turn, you’ll hear that old adage about not wanting to label oneself. Or we have new labels: “queer,” “genderbent,” “pansexual.” I tried pansexual on for size recently on Fetlife. I had read a wonderful post by Curvaceous Dee and felt inspired by the term. At the time, I was still dallying with my ex-fiancé who happens to be an FTM transsexual. During the time that we were together, I actually let him talk me into claiming I was “straight.” Although to be perfectly frank, we’d have never even dated, much less become engaged, if we hadn’t met on Yahoo Personals…as women looking for women. He wasn’t even considering transition then and had come to terms with the fact that, as a man trapped in a woman’s body, he had to label himself lesbian although he truly is straight (long, complicated story…perhaps for another time…perhaps not, as it is over and done).

“Bisexual” didn’t cut it for him. He didn’t like the idea that I was still open to 50% of the population even though we were monogamous and headed for marriage. I wanted to respect his wishes to be man and wife, man and woman, (can we all sing together? “Little houses on the hillside, Little houses made of ticky-tacky…”) and so I tried to adapt to this June Cleaver image. I even, and it still shames me to remember this, shrugged my shoulders (publicly) at Prop 8, thinking it had nothing more to do with me. This coming from a woman who had married my female partner of 14 years, 4 days after my home state of Massachusetts began handing out marriage licenses to same-sex couples (another long story…moral is: just because you can doesn’t mean you should). I turned my back on the community that had nurtured me from the day that I came flying out of the closet to tackle the woman who now, 26 years later, is my lifelong love. The fallout that ensued was horrific. My BFF, Femme Fairy GodMother, and I had the first and only fight we’ve ever had. I mortally wounded her along with every other gay man, lesbian woman, and queer soul I was ever lucky enough to call friend or acquaintance.

I even, if you can believe it, tried to tell myself that I didn’t miss pussy. Me! I may be high femme but I am the world’s leading carpet muncher and dammit if I couldn’t wait to get my face all in it the first opportunity I got after the old man walked out. Okay, admittedly it took awhile to find that someone with whom I really cared enough about to bury my face in her crotch (this isn’t the 80s anymore, after all) but wow…I sooooo missed it.

So here’s the thing (to borrow a phrase from another Sapphic sister of mine), I am SO a lesbian. I am not straight, I am not bisexual, I am not queer, I am not pansexual. I kick it old school in that great butch-femme way. My woman looks like a man (check it out for yourself…Androgynonamous rocks my fucking world!) and gets called sir more often than not. As a baby dyke I listened to Chris Williamson, Tret Fure, and Meg Christian. I was there when Amy and Emily came out. I heard Ellen’s toaster joke on TV the night it aired. I listened to Betty at Boston’s Gay Pride before anyone even knew who they were. I read all the lesbian pulp fiction and prayed for glimpses of women who actually seemed to enjoy other women in porn long before The Crash Pad series came out.

So, stick it to me, glue it on me, tattoo it on my fucking forehead. I AM A LESBIAN. And I am thrilled to take back that label and call it my own. I will forever love the company of women and I honestly missed my community. You can take the girl out of the MichWomen’s Music Fest, but you can’t make her drink the Kool-aid. Never again.

And you? You can call me Ms. Dyke, thank you. Because yes, yes I am!