There's nothing like finding old stuff you wrote years ago. I find it amusing to read again, and slightly embarrassing, so of course, i want to share. Besides, I have to put something in this blog space, right?
I wrote this probably...I don't know...8-10 years ago? It's loosely based on actual events from my early gayhood. I edited it down (ie, I took out a really embarrassing scene).
This is called "Horror Films." Have fun reading it and then making fun of me. (Especially you, SJ)
Horror films? For a credit? Oh, hell yes. I signed up, along with my friend Andie. I had heard the teacher was kind of a kook. But, there were only two papers and one exam the whole semester, and I was a senior needing a credit, so it was a no-brainer. Besides, I loved horror films, and had yet to see Nosferatu. I was embarrassed by this. I had to take the class.
Andie and I sat close to the back, me on the aisle, checking out the girls. She was single, and I was living vicariously through her. My girlfriend is probably cooking dinner for me right now, I thought, as I pointed out a girl I thought Andie would think was cute. Her taste was quite different than mine—sporty jocky types. Me? I liked arty girls. Girls with glasses and short bobs tucked behind cute ears. Girls with big clunky shoes and striped socks. Girls with big bookbags and paint on their baggy jeans. Then how did I end up with a sporty jock type? Hmmm. Not sure. But anyway…
The professor got up in front of the audience, the seats still being filled by students as he began to talk.
“Welcome to the scariest, coolest class you will ever take, “ he said, as everyone murmured and giggled. “You will have to work at this class,” he continued, “as I expect you to be here, watch the films, and think.”
I can handle the first two, no problem, I thought…I’m so gonna pass! Plus, I was an English major, papers were cake for me.
The professor droned on, but all of a sudden, I didn’t hear what he was saying. A girl was standing about 3 feet in front of me, looking for an empty seat in the near-full theater. Her short black hair hit the nape of her neck, in a style that made me weak. She wore a black turtleneck and a short plaid skirt. Biker boots hugged her calves. I felt my heart literally skip as she turned her head, and I could see her beautiful, perfect nose and lips. I kicked Andie.
I watched her move up towards the front of the room, and inch her way down a crowded aisle. She sat, and disappeared from my sight.
“Did you see her? Oh my god!!” I whispered, as the lights started to dim.
“Pay attention to the movie,” Andie said, “think you can do that?”
I couldn’t. I found myself staring at the spot at the front of the room where I knew she was sitting during the entire movie. Nosferatu wasn’t nearly as interesting as I thought it would be. Not with her in the room.
At the end of the film, the lights went up and I practically stood, straining to get a glimpse of her.
“Jesus,” Andie said, “I’m so glad you’re into this class. It’s going to be a really long semester…”
“Ha ha.” I said. “It’s just that I’ve never seen her before. I mean, where has that girl been hiding?”
“Maybe it’s where you have been hiding, all happy with your girlfriend, huh?”
“Shut it.”
The class ended and I made Andie sit for a few minutes, as I looked for her to leave.
“Damn it, she must have left from the front exit,” I said, when it become obvious she wasn’t going to walk by us.
“Damn it,” Andie said, mocking me.
Andie gave me a ride home, and sure enough, my girlfriend had made me a wonderful dinner. I told her about the girl.
“You would have really thought she was hot,” I said, waiting for a response from her.
“Oh really?”
“Totally. She looks like Duff from MTV.”
“I don’t think Duff is all that hot,” she said, not biting. “But you do.”
“Yeah. So?” The conversation was short. And it seemed to be over.
The next week, Andie and I followed the girl out of the building. Andie was humoring me, I knew that, but my thrills were cheap. It’s not like I was going to DO anything with this girl. I just was curious about her. We lost her. I went home. My girlfriend asked me how class was, and how was the hot Duff look-alike. I told her fine. To both. I had learned my lesson the week before.
A few weeks later, my girlfriend and I went to the bar. The bar. The gay bar in Albuquerque that EVERYONE went to on “drink ticket” Thursday nights. Ten cent beer. It was quite popular, and all of my friends were out, despite it being a school night.
And….I know this is going to sound unrealistic, but it’s the goddamn truth—the girl was there. She was there. At the bar. With my friend Shay.
“What’s up?” Shay asked, as I tried to act cool. “This is my friend Melina. We work together.”
“Oh, hi.” I said, and before I could control my mouth, I continued. “I think you’re in my horror films class.” Oh great! The class had like 100 people in it.
“Yeah, I have that class,” she said. “It’s pretty cool, I like it.”
“Yeah, Nosferatu was pretty great.” God, I sounded like a dork.
I pulled Shay aside a few minutes later. “Okay, who is that? I said, “she’s so hot!”
“Melina?”
“Yeah, Melina.”
“Settle down, she has a boyfriend. But….she is…..curious.”
“Like it matters,” I said, looking over at my girlfriend, who was downing her 3rd beer.
“Yeah exactly. What are you even asking for?”
“Cause she’s HOT.”
“Want me to tell her you think so?” Shay asked.
“Uh, sure, why not.” Why the hell not? It didn’t matter. And I did. Think she was hot. And that was all. No harm.
“Okay, I will,” Shay said, and walked away.
A few minutes later, at the bar, the girl, Melina, walked up behind me.
“So, it’s too bad you’re involved, and your friend is straight,” she said, motioning to my friend Edie, who was indeed straight. And very attractive. And at the gay bar because she liked the attention.
I was speechless for a second. Did she really say that?
“Yeah, it is too bad she’s straight, “ I said, ignoring the first part of what she said. But, that small remark opened a flood gate for me, and I started to chat with her with more confidence. By the end of the night, we had exchanged numbers, and my girlfriend watched on. She, Melina, said she wanted her hair re-dyed, and I told her that was my specialty.
I came clean with my girlfriend, when we left the bar.
“So, that was the horror films girl.”
“Oh realllly?”
“And she wants me to dye her hair.”
“Oh really?”
“Yeah. Funny, huh?”
“You’re right. She’s really hot.” We exchanged a look.
“You think so?”
“Totally.”
“Told you. She asked if I would dye her hair for her.”
“Invite her over.”
“Really?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay.”
“Let’s have a bbq this weekend. Invite her.”
“Okay.”
This all made me a bit nervous, and I wondered why my girlfriend was being so nonchalant about the whole thing. But I did. I called her, from work. The next day. My voice sounded kinda funny, and luckily she didn’t know me well enough to notice. She said she’d come over for the barbeque. Oh god, the Horror Films girls was coming over to my house.
I never had sexual fantasies about anyone. I had them about her. A lot. Her hands were on my shoulders and she was in her own world, moving on me, using me. When she opened her dark brown eyes, I closed mine, as I couldn’t stand to look at her. It was too overwhelming. But I wanted nothing more than to be whatever she wanted me to be. It was all about her, and my attraction to her wiped everything else clean. And she was, then, everything.
She was standing behind me, in the kitchen, as I cut vegetables for skewers. My girlfriend was outside, with some of our friends, lighting the grill. I felt like I was doing something wrong, but I wasn’t even looking at her. I couldn’t.
“Your girlfriend seems nice.” She said.
“Yeah, she’s nice.”
“She’s cute too.”
“Yeah, you think so?”
“You’re both very cute.”
I kept cutting the zucchini. Fast and furiously. The door opened and my girlfriend and her friend walked in. The grill was ready, we were told.
We hung out several times, the three of us. It felt strange, as I saw my girlfriend watching me, watching her. We never talked about it, my girlfriend and I. But, when she said her name, Melina, there was a bit of a smirk in it. I couldn’t tell if it was jealousy or mocking. About a month later, a group of us went out for drinks at the bar. Melina was there was Shay. We all were drinking, a lot.
“So. Do you want to bring her home,” my girlfriend asked, slurring a bit, motioning towards Melina.
“Why are you asking me that?”
“Because I know you do.”
I looked her in the eye. “Would that really be okay?”
“It would be fun.”
“Fun?”
“I’d do it for you.”
“For me?”
“Just once. I think we could be okay, if it were just once.”
She walked over to Melina and they talked for a bit. I drank my vodka tonic, feeling nauseous, confused, excited. What if it happened? I didn’t want my girlfriend there. That was the honest truth. I wanted to be the only one touching her, the Horror Films girl. But, I knew that would never happen. I had never cheated on my girlfriend, and didn’t have it in me to ever do it. This was going to be how it happened, if it happened.
And when my girlfriend walked back to me, it was clear it was, indeed, going to happen.
The evening was still young, and there were many more drinks to be had.
“Hey Prudence,” I heard in my ear. That would be my friend Mitch, the only person who called me Prudence.
“Hey. I didn’t know you’d be out. I thought you were working.” Mitch was a bartender at a bar downtown. She was beautifully androgynous, with short black hair, tattoos peaking out from her sleeves, and a reputation for being easy to have but impossible to keep. There was a time she had had a piece of my own heart, but our friendship was more important, and we both knew it. I loved her like a sister.
“Hey, so, Melina is here?” She knew about my crush, and had met Melina through Shay at about the same time I did.
“Yeah.”
That’s all I was going to say. I was embarrassed to tell her anything more.
“She looks really good.”
“Yeah.”
And then I saw it all happen, like my very own horror film, with me playing Jamie Lee Curtis. Mitch talking to Melina, buying her a drink, going outside to smoke with her. Mitch was smooth, and I knew her well enough to know exactly what she was doing.
And I knew she had no idea what she was doing to me at that very moment. And she couldn’t hear my screaming, because it was all inside my own head. Along with the fuzzy edges thanks to several drinks, my mind whirled with the disappointment of watching the girl I coveted being seduced by a girl who had no girlfriend, and no fear.
I glanced over at my girlfriend, downing her 4th drink. She was oblivious to it all. I hated her that second, because I was evil and horrible and self-absorbed. That’s the only way to explain it really. I was losing something I never had, and it made me feel desperately angry.
I saw them leave together. A large knife slid deep into my heart, into my groin, into my head. I left soon after, with my drunk, walking-zombie of a girlfriend.
“Where did Melina go?” she asked.
“One guess.”
“Oh. Yeah. I saw Mitch talking to her. Yeah.”
That was the end of the discussion. We drove home silently. She went to bed. I got on my computer and started my paper, “The Role of Women as Villain in Horror Films.”
Where to begin?
