Chapter Text
“…and as we basked in the wonderful afterglow together, the Were-Ostrich President’s back plumage softly tickling my chest while we spooned, I began to realize that my appointment as U.S. Ambassador to Socialist Therianthrope Island was actually the best thing that had ever happened to me.”
I felt a rush of satisfaction as I double-tapped the Return key on my 2024 Apple iMac. That was officially a wrap on my 224th short-story-slash-novella, Rammed In My Gay Ass by the Socialist Were-Ostrich President of an Obscure Foreign Country. I would of course give it a final editing pass tonight or tomorrow, then pass it off to my beta-reader-slash-editor for final revision, but the hard part was through. Editing has never been particularly stressful for me – not that I claim not to need it, by any means, I’ve made more than my share of laughably bad typos, and like many writers I sometimes struggle to write characters whose speech patterns and internal monologue differ greatly from mine. But when you write about such fun, creative things, how can dipping back into the beautiful world you’ve created to improve on it be that painful? How upset can I get writing the 3rd or 4th revision of an oral sex scene between a supermodel and her bisexual triceratops pool boy when my office job is a thing of the past and, if I chose to, I could live a perfectly comfortable life doing nothing but writing supermodel-triceratops-pool-boy erotica, if that was where my heart compelled me?
I completely understand that my work is niche, and I try not to fault people who come across it and don’t “get it” – for lack of a framing that makes it sound a bit less like a joke – but I have never for a moment been able to put myself in the shoes of the people, evidently hundreds of them, who look at my work and go “Chad Sparklerz is a bad-faith actor. He’s being sarcastic. He’s making fun of all of his readers. Chad Sparklerz thinks you are stupid for liking his stupid ideas.” Nothing could be further from the truth than any of these 4 individual claims are, simultaneously. If Truth was at the center of the universe, these claims would form cardinal cosmic points an impossible distance in each of the 4 directions from it, and form the North, South, East, and West of infinity. I make a bit of fun sometimes, mostly of the hate-filled political ghouls of people who push legislation and propaganda against the queer community that I love, occasionally of myself in the good-natured-ribbing way. I have never once made fun of my readers. And there is a world of difference between an idea being silly and being stupid.
I shoot an iMessage to my editor – Final draft ready on socialist were-ostrich president. Please let me know what I missed and what you think. – open sharing permissions on the Google doc, and add his professional address to the “can edit” list. Then I shut my laptop, unplug it from the outlet under my writing desk (no reason to waste that phantom power) and stroll into the kitchen for a well-earned celebratory beverage, non-alcoholic of course because it’s only two in the afternoon.
As I wipe a chocolate mustache from my upper lip, my phone pings with a distinctive notification sound, like an ascending scale on a xylophone, played badly and sped up in some hope that the speed would obscure some mistake. In case you’re not gay, I should specify I’m talking about Grindr. The premiere queer men’s dating and meetup service has a notification that sounds a bit like that. Like a fast, shitty xylophone. The sound’s hardly unfamiliar to me – even in my mid-40’s, already married and divorced with a grown child out in the world, I have no shortage of men ready to “swipe right” on me. That’s no guarantee that the swipers are looking for what I’m looking for, or that they even looked beyond my single display picture - me on the beach on a visit to California some years back, shirtless, just coming into a tan, bright-eyed and smiling in a manner acquaintances say looks natural, with nothing that might suggest the pink balaclava and navigator shades of my authorial alter ego.
Rinsing my glass out, I feel and hear a second vibration and a second “byrrrup” ascending scale, then a third of each moments after. Well, looks like a live one on the line. Why not check him out? Grindr is never a high priority for me, but I’m in a good mood. It’s a beautiful day, I’ve done some productive work I’m very satisfied with – if these messages go absolutely nowhere, two out of three is still a pretty good day, and if he’s enough of a gentleman to woo me I might bring him by later in the week to suck his dick or something. Win-win, I think to myself as my fingers dance through my unlock PIN.
What I see on the little black rectangle takes my breath away for a moment. Firstly, she doesn’t outwardly look or style herself as any kind of he, and further, she’s gorgeous almost beyond belief. I barely register the blurb of data underneath – Ember, 32 years old, 0.8 miles away, online now – as the radiance of her expression seems to blind me to all else. A short, messy bob of bubblegum-pink hair frames delicately arched cheekbones and the softest magenta-colored eyes. Her aquiline nose does not dominate her facial structure but anchors it, protruding out proudly like the victory flag of a Japanese anime character who had successfully battled her way into the 3rd dimension and staked her claim there. The softest, most delicate lips rest under the bridge of that nose, posed in an adorably affected little pout, with two fingers rested on the left side of her chin. I wonder if she’s in cosplay for her display photo. Her puffy, long sleeved, fuchsia-over-cream blouse didn’t exactly look like casual summer wear for a Montana resident.
I have to admit; I get extra nervous talking to transgender women. Call it the paradox of the well-meaning ally. Marginalized people should be respected but never infantilized. You shouldn’t make them feel “othered” as a minority but neither should you try to pretend that their conditions are relatable to you as a member of the majority. Her transness must be honored without being spotlighted. To be clear, this is a flaw I’m attempting to highlight in myself, not a quality I want to pretend is value neutral. I care very deeply about transgender women, and all trans people, and I do owe it to them as a cis ally to do better than to start hemming and hawing pre-emptively in their presence. But all that is to say, I’m very grateful that this time, this woman has “shot the first shot,” so to speak, and I’m able to follow her lead in this conversation.
Mind reader here, thanks – I know you like my outfit. Want to be me in it?
Would you like to see me tonight?
The second message obviously corrected that typo from the first. Well, as a writer, I can appreciate a woman who holds herself to high grammatical standards.
I felt myself begin to blush just a bit – men moving fast and sometimes getting pushy was nothing new to me, but I had never been approached by a trans woman as forward as this one. In my experience, trans women were far more often reserved, not necessarily shy but always cautious, no doubt all-too-painfully aware of their extra vulnerability, implicitly asking me to show that I’m not the kind of man who would ignore that or worse, take advantage of it. On some level, I’m aware that I’m living out the fantasy of a chaser, a confident, assertive, transgender woman knows what she wants and isn’t afraid to take it, and what she wants is, apparently, me. I’d lie if I said I wasn’t flattered.
Still, it was extremely short notice, and I was a bit too old to drop everything and chase pretty girls like the big bad wolf after Little Pink Riding Hood.
Gorgeous and psychic, talk about a double whammy! I’d love to see you, in any outfit you like. Tonight is short notice though – will you be in town for the weekend?
As soon as I send the message, the “byrrrrup!” sounds off again and a reply is waiting for me.
I’m sorry, short notice indeed, but it has to be tonight. How about in exchange for putting up with my busy schedule, I treat you to dinner and drinks?
So, she’s as persistent as she is beautiful, and she even wants to take me out. I wonder what it is about my relatively plain profile that makes me so interesting to her. I won’t pretend I’m not flattered, and a bit giddy despite myself.
I can’t let a woman a decade younger than me pay for our date, though. I know, chivalry is stupid and patriarchal, and it’s not like e-publishing works like Butt Vultures of Death Valley Devour My Dracula Ass has made me anything close to a millionaire, but even if she’s a model (she could be a model, it occurs to me) or she works in tech or something, I’m in a comfortable enough position not to take advantage of her charity.
I check the clock. It’s a quarter past two in the afternoon. There’s no chance my editor will be done looking over Socialist Ostrich President before tomorrow afternoon. Despite what some of my detractors think, I never use ChatGPT or any other generative nonsense in any part of my writing process, so it’s not as if I can just set some auto-writing machine to get plugging away at another novel. Not that I would say I categorically hate AI, or the people who use it, but I’m deeply suspicious of the people who currently own it and the infrastructure surrounding it, and more to the point – why would I want or need a prompt generator to tell me “write a story about the city of Chicago having lesbian sex with the new girl in town” when I can come up with those ideas all on my own, and have more fun doing it?
I figure, what the hell? Was I really going to do anything better with my night? Stay in, heat up some leftover chicken, watch Kung-Fu reruns again?
I can’t let you pay for my dinner. But if you must, you may buy me one drink.
Do you mind if I pick a place? I’m a bit autistic. I like consistency in food.
Byrrrup!
How can this woman type so fast? Let’s go to your favorite place! I don’t mind if it’s fancy, a chain, or anything in between. Send me a time and an address I’ll be there. Looking forward. 😊
I sent her a Google map location, and a suggested time, and several hours later at twenty to seven PM, I hopped in my 2019 Subaru Impreza and set course for my favored watering hole, the Old Spaghetti Factory of Billings, Montana.