At Arm’s Length
AXM Magazine
May 2006

Tazz and I had a date, which he called to cancel, saying he’d met someone else. He knew I wouldn’t mind, our relationship wasn’t serious, I’d not even asked he be monogamous.

Fair enough. It’s true, after dating for almost three months I didn’t know his last name, nor had I clocked where he worked, although I suspected he was an architect, or perhaps that was merely what I told friends.

My best mate Daniel caught me in the lie. He asked me what Tazz was studying at night.

I frowned and pierced my lips, feigning interest in Tazz’s future. “Business I think.”

Daniel knew better. “What’s ‘Tazz’ short for?”

“Tazzie. Maybe.”

“Have you asked him anything about himself?”

Yes, I had. In the Black Cap, I asked Tazz if my fingers were too cold as I shoved my hand down the front of his trousers, flush with enthusiasm because we were on our first  date. I brushed his pale cheek with my tongue, which was less fun than the fake rape we staged one hour later in my kitchen.

There, he coyly pushed me away, so I forced his face up against the fridge door, biting his narrow neck right above his hairline, my clumsy hands awkwardly forcing open his Boy Scout belt. Tazz breathlessly succumbed while standing, mostly clothed.

For weeks I gladly accepted bits of Tazz, so I was surprised when he seemed disappointed that I required little else.  I thought that was the game we were playing, the ever-popular diversion of editing oneself down to a palatable bite-size treat. Our first sexual encounter was a stumble in the bushes after exchanging maybe two glances at a Will Young concert. When I told Tazz I wanted to fuck him – Tazz, not Will Young, I’m not that self-hating – he smiled sheepishly and replied, “I used to be a Goth, so my hole is really tight.”

Enough said. I decided Tazz was a dirty fucker because that was all I wanted to know. We didn’t need to mock and mimic failed tradition with chitchat. Instead of sharing thoughts, I sniffed at his pungent ass and licked his bitten nails. Isn’t that why we’re bombing Iraq? So I can be free to piss in my fuck body’s mouth?

The Shakers would approve of such minimalism. Metaphorically, I’m hanging chairs. My romantic and organic needs have been honed so narrowly that now they’re the same. Like a monk, I fantasize about silence with maybe a pinch of deception, so why bother courting, when everyone’s typing away, inventing their next conquest?

Gay chat rooms should be called surgeries, because instead of conversing, hopefuls are like so many Dr. Frankensteins, seeking a monster with the perfect male stats – 42-inch chest, 8-inch cock – and making dating as obsolete as napalm. We all know what hard abs look like, and nobody cares what a hard day you’ve had. By cruising Gaydar, I’ve learned to eroticize everything, including verbal restraint.

Example:

SoFISTicated: “I wouldn’t mind a deep massage.”
Me: “Faggot.”
SoFISTicated: “Hot.”

It’s pretty clear how that evening will end.

When he shows up, late, SoFISTicated replaces laughing out loud by slurring ‘l-o-l’, because self-censorship is the new aphrodisiac. While lubing, I think, I could’ve visited Tazz at work, but then he would’ve been more real, and I would’ve been less predatory. Knowledge is the reason for lesbian bed death. Dykes multi task, chatting while fingering, and look what happens: Numb clits. I fantasize about mute retards, so I’m shocked when SoFISTicated tells me he has a type.

It was a few minutes after he came. I hadn’t, so to dispel embarrassment, I asked what his boyfriend was like, hoping, obviously, to compare favorably. SoFIST shyly said, “He’s my type. Confident, like you.”

I gasped, silently. ‘Confident’ was such a discerning adjective, one that required reflection, which seemed archaic. Who has time for a type? If it’s me and Flipper, I’m fucking the blowhole. ‘Type’ implies one is looking for something beyond frisson, which made FIST vulnerable, yet I was immediately self-conscious, wondering how I could maintain whatever faÁade I’d created long enough to get this drug-fucked danger zone up, showered and out of my flat before he broke something, like my heart.

I assure myself that crawling into bed alone is my greatest pleasure. Who needs some buzz cut kissing me and making me tea and telling me everything? I already know everything. Everything is everywhere. It’s on the front page, it’s on Oprah, it’s blindingly on the face of every miserable clone I sit across from on the tube. I see their fear and their loathing and the way their pupils dart from side to side, looking for an unaccompanied bag. Gone are the days when one might spot a lonely rucksack and think, I’ll have that. Those were naÔve times, informal times.

The BBC reminds us to be on our guard, that there’s no safe place, and that everyone’s a terrorist. I’m up to my bloody eyeballs with information.

Don’t speak of things I cannot see, if you’re in love, SHOW ME!

Where’s Eliza Doolittle when she’s needed? Probably on line, promising a toothless blowjob.