“I feel like that’s a lie, too. I don’t like girlsandguys.” I press my lips together. “And that’s also a lie, so I guess I’m not sure what the truth is.”
“The truth is that it doesn’t matter. You can call your sexuality yellow and that’s perfectly acceptable. You’re going to hear opinions, but they don’t get to tell you whether how you identify is right or wrong, Keno. Only you can decide that.”
“Are you going to tell your parents and our friends and whatever that you’re bi?”
Etna nods. “Yes. I did some reading, and I called Lo last week when I didn’t find exactly what I was looking for. Sexuality—no matter what you’re identifying as—is a spectrum. A grayscale. One side is heterosexual, and one side is homosexual. You areonlyattracted to girls at one end andonlyattracted to boys at the other. But if you’re attracted to even a single person of the same sex, you can—if you choose—identify as bisexual. I’m no longer in the absolute black, but now I’m just a tint of a shade into the gray.”
“You’re attracted to a dude?” I ask.
He grins. “I’m marrying a dude,” he answers, shrugging. “And we’re planning sex stuff, right?”
I nod, cheeks burning. What is wrong with me? We’ve totally talked about sex before. Sure, not with each other, but for fuck’s sake, Keno, get your shit together!
“I think that’s a little in the gray for me.”
“You sound unfazed.”
“I am,” Etna admits. “To tell you the truth, your gender didn’t factor into this at all when I thought about marrying you after you jokingly brought it up. I’m aware you’re a guy. I’m aware you have a dick and what that would mean in the big picture. But it wasn’t a factor. My biggest fear was suggesting it for real and fucking up our friendship if you became horrified by the idea.”
“You can’t think I’d be horrified. I brought it up.”
“You joked about it.”
I nod. Yeah, I guess.
“Look, as far as sexuality goes, look into it. You’re now connected to a ton of queer men and if I recall, there’s at least, like, three bisexuals and pansexuals in that Gays Can Play thing, right?”
Chuckling, I nod. “Yeah. Off the top of my head—Max, Egon, Deryke, Owen, Hector… I might be missing someone.”
“Ren. You didn’t mention him. Isn’t he somewhere in there?” Etna asks.
“I’ve only met him once in passing. But yeah, I guess so.”
“Oh, and I think I just read an article where Hugo Bladen announced he’s actually pansexual, not bisexual,” Etna says.
I lean back on the couch a little more comfortably. There are definitely some people to talk to. It means admitting the truth that I let the media label my sexuality and didn’t bother to contest it. Which I suppose might say a lot about myself, right?
“Your turn,” Eta says, pulling his tablet from my hands.
I reach for mine and turn it on, bringing up my own list and handing him the device. Because I’m waiting for him to get to theparts I wasn’t sure were necessary to add, I’m watching his face more than how he’s scrolling through the screen.
“What’s sounding?” Etna asks.
It’s really fucking hard to keep a straight face. “When you put something into your penis. They get progressively fatter. There are also ribbed ones.”
He looks at me with horror. “What?”
I laugh. “Okay, so I’ll admit that a lot of these things probably don’t belong on the list. However, they were repeat results when I looked up anything having to do with gay sex, though I really don’t think a lot of them are necessarily gay at all. Sounding doesn’t even need a partner, so… yeah.”
“I don’t know what half these words mean,” he admits.
“Which are you looking at?”
“Frotting. Rimming. I think I know what fisting is, but… yeah, nope. Not my ass.”
I laugh. “Frotting is like dry humping, though you can totally do it naked. Dicks together and shit. It looks really hot.”
My mouth shuts abruptly after the last words come out of my mouth. I just said that out loud. Oh, no. Oh no!
