Not that I’m counting or anything, but that’s the fifth time this evening that this has happened to my companion. It hasn’t happened to me yet, and I can’t work out if I’m upset about it or relieved.
There is every potential I could fuck this up still.
“You’re just looking to get a few notches under your belt before you hit up Liam?” Lando asks. We move one pace closer to the bar.
“Lionel, but exactly.”
So I don’t have a repeat of last week.
“Okay, we’ll start small, then. Lesson number one: how to get a complete stranger to want to fuck you.” He claps his hands together once. “Class is in session. Step one, be irresistible. Congratulations, you’ve already aced that.”
I don’t know if he’s taking the piss or not, so I give him a playful shove. “Oh, ha ha. I’ve never really had a problem with women. Getting them to want to fuck me hasn’t been difficult. It’s just dudes . . .” I feel like I’m leaving my sentence hanging open, but I don’t know how I want to finish that. Men, especially attractive ones, are more intimidating? Are scarier? I’ve got more to prove?
“You know, deep down, men and women aren’t that different. Sometimes we wear different clothes, but we all just want to be held, and loved, and called babygirl.”
I laugh, move into his space, stroke his jaw with my thumb, and say, “How’s this, babygirl?”
Lando rolls his eyes up to the ceiling, bites his lip, and fake groans, then bursts out laughing. “See, you’re not as bad at this as you think you are.”
“You saw me last week at the karaoke party. I complimented your torch and stepped in horse shit.”
“Actually, that moment now lives rent free in my head.”
I palm my face and groan.
Lando pulls my hand away. “You don’t have any trouble with women, right? How do you convince them to go home with you?”
“Usually, I start with, ‘Hi, I play rugby.’”
Lando laughs. “Yeah, I can see how that works. Okay, so what’s your type? With men, I mean. What sort of guys do you imagine yourself with?”
“I don’t know. I don’t think I have a type. Maybe . . .” I stop myself from saying,“You. You’re my type. Hopefully you’ll never meet Lionel because that’s going to be embarrassing.”
“What’syourtype?” I ask instead.
“Trade,” he replies. And because I must look confused he adds, “Straight-passing guys. ‘Straights’ who are so far in the closet they need me to guide them to the exit slash . . . entrance.”
I’m suddenly feeling out of my depth again. There’s so much lingo and there are so many labels. How am I supposed to assimilate into this culture?
“Tell me what this guy you like is like,” Lando says, and something drops in my gut.
Panic. It’s panic.
“He works for my mum. He’s head of operations for her security firm. He’s like the onsite manager for events.”
“A security guard?”
“I mean . . . technically, I guess.” Though calling Lionel a security guard is like calling olives fruit. Strictly speaking, yes, but that’s where that comparison ends.
Lando points to a random bloke standing about three metres away. He’s tall and muscular, with enormous arms and a tiny waist. The type of dude you’d find at any public gym across the country. He’s what would be considered “conventionally attractive.”
I see-saw my hand. “Hmm.”
“I hear you,” Lando says, drawing out the words like he’s a detective uncovering clues. “What about him?”
The next guy he points to is a little older, maybe in his early forties. He has a beard and a big belly and is wearing a T-Shirt with a Care Bear on the front.
“Better, I suppose.”
