a christmas present

The GF and I are lying in bed at my parent’s house.  Who knew that air mattresses are more comfortable with two people? You don’t get that awful sinking and sliding. It’s Christmas morning and I’m listening to the silence down the hall (sisters are sleeping) and the rustling downstairs (parents are playing Santa). She’s been reading Odd Girls and Twilight Lovers and dreaming about 1950′s bars.  We start talking about the book.  We’re joking about sexual inverts.  She’s the invert, I’m just her partner.  It’s funny to joke about, I say, but also kind of awful.  If you’re an invert and I’m your partner it means I’m neurotic and untrustworthy and should really be with a man.

I really think those women, most of them anyways, chose their life.  They must have felt “different” in childhood too.  They must have sought out the queer community, or chosen to stay once they stumbled upon it.  Loving people like you, I say, is so much a part of who I am.  It must have been the same for those women.

I think we forget, I say, that those femmes must have been brave.  That they made a choice.  That for all they could pass, they gave up a lot to be with the people they loved, to be who they were.

I prattle on and on, like I do, staring at the ceiling. I turn towards her.  “I don’t think we forget that,” she says. “I don’t forget that.”

“I love you,” I say.  It’s all I can think to say.

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