2004 - Vol. 1, Issue 6

Strangers, and not strangers. Friends from the IRC chat room meeting face to face for the first time. One stone butch; one strong, beautiful femme; and me: one super-sized woman who feels more comfortable spinning words behind the anonymity of the computer than risking looks of pity from those I meet face to face. Meeting the first time and feeling awkward, yet hopeful. My attraction strong, but too shy to voice my desire for something more than the distant friendship of chat room conversations - for the physical touch that no IRC fantasy can replace.

Watching you both leave to sample the City's dyke bars and restaurants, the museums and shops: all of them inaccessible to me in my wheelchair. Hearing the door close on your good-byes, wondering why you never ask me to come along. Is my chair such an anchor that you cannot imagine it leaving its mooring?

Waiting the day in my empty apartment until I hear your footsteps once more outside my door. Listening to you talk of all the great women, all the cute little things you have met in the bars. All the cute little things. And trying to shrink in on my bulk and hide my tears.

I look back at my fantasies of our meeting - of the warm hugs of greeting that might lead to lingering touches; of days spent together as we share new experiences; of a late-night chat that leads you down the hall to my bedroom. How stupid was I to expect that the attraction would be mutual? That whatever we three shared in the world of words would survive your first sight of me?

Each day you go out, and I hide in my bedroom while you two roam the bars that I have been too cowardly to try to visit. Physical barriers are so much more of an acceptable excuse than fear. I sit at my computer trying to recapture the solace of my on-line existence; willing it to be enough; knowing it will never be enough. Knowing sterile passion will never replace the touch of a lover, the warmth of a hug, the feel of living lips against mine.

Pride. The crowds collect early on the Avenue. You both stand grinning at the men and women who share in Pride. And I sit in my chair wishing for the day to be over, so that it will be one night closer to you returning to the other side of the country; one more day of pain past.

The thunder comes first and then the smell of gasoline: the shuddering of the ground as the chrome and steel monsters roar down the street. In ordered ranks, showing off their skills, Dykes on Bikes fill the avenue with energy and noise. And in spite of my black mood, I smile and wave. The thousands of voices join in unison, cheering, and all of a sudden, it is my Pride, too.

We watch the floats: the gay men prancing. The drag queens swaying their hips and camping for the crowd. The muscle men, their tight pants leaving nothing to the imagination as they pose and strut. Peacocks in all their colors and plumage.

The women, strong and free. Couples linking arms, kissing, waving. The butches prowling, striding, trying to hide their grins behind an impassive mask. The femmes flirting, flaunting their beauty in the hot afternoon sun. The dykes in all their flavors, the sisterhood marching.

I smile, thinking that, as always, the men are better dressed than the women. And I feel my own Pride swell in these, my brothers and sisters, who will not hide; who will not be ashamed of who and what they are. Next year, I vow, I will take all my courage and drape it with a rainbow flag. Next year, I will join my brothers and sisters and parade my Pride for the waving, cheering crowd. Next year, I will sit tall and straight and flaunt my body.

The touch of a hand squeezing my shoulder reminds me of my present pain. Yet what has this week cost me? Two friends who are still friends if not lovers. Two women who are strangers no more. Two sisters who I will learn to accept as I pray they learn to accept me. And if I am too much woman for them, then that is their loss. If they cannot look and see my beauty, then I will pity them the blinders they wear. Sweet little things encountered in bars have not my wealth of flesh, my glorious breasts, my full swaying belly that falls in soft inviting folds.

I look up over my shoulder, at the faces of my friends, and see one lost in contemplation of the sweet little things parading their Pride; but the other's eyes meet mine. Our smiles grow secret; she bends and our lips touch.