Hot Tramp Page 4

paying for all of our drinks and Johan insisting on reimbursing him. Johan isn’t homophobic in the least, but still he doesn’t like having his drinks paid for by strange men. On the other hand, Scarlet and I have no problems with it. It was a fun night out and it barely cost me anything. That’s my definition of success.

  Did I learn anything that night? No. Well, maybe a little. I was able to enforce my notion that I could get away with anything. I am evolving into water – life and all its semi-dramatic events roll off me. Nothing can hurt me, nothing can shame me. I am growing – enabling myself to discard any vestige of self-pride like a snake outgrowing its skin.

  In the end, I guess nothing really happened on that cold, Tuesday night. I drank too much and somehow made my way back home. Misadventures occur on a regular basis and that night was not that different from any other night. But Bal and I did become good friends and I stopped wearing boas to gay bars. Not because it’s wrong or because I knew that one day it would make my future in-laws squirm, but because stunts get boring when repeated too often. I had to think up something new and more reckless to do.

  And I did.

  Excerpt from

  Straight Men in Gay Bars

  Part 1

  The Imp