I’m hungry, so I’ll make this fast: It’s not like I’m not attracted to women. I am, but I don’t feel romantic toward them. I don’t want to go on a date with a woman, but I do fantasize about everything. And women make me feel safe. Oprah would say I’m self hating, but I actually hate Oprah. She’s not a woman. She’s the beast.
Enjoy.
Gay Times
May 2008
Scott Capurro
Yoga brings out my hetero side. I don’t mean my arrogance surfaces, nor does my hair thin. Instead, my body becomes less ornamental and more functional. Attention leaves my dick and travels to my outer extremities, as I balance, in handstand, staring out, facing Annette Benning. We smile at one another, or frown, since we’re upside down. She wears white tights and a light blue v-neck jumper. I happened into the workshop she regularly attends in LA, and she has lovely, small, very pale feet.
Asanas, or poses, are sensual, in that the practice wakens the senses. They’re not sexual, because when challenged, students fart and cry. And in that warm studio, where erotic touch has no agenda, I comfortably flirt.
Classes are filled with women. Many are fit, having been athletic and suffering an injury, which is the reason some show up. They’re healing and vulnerable. Aren’t we all?
In fact, I went to Hawaii recently with some Iyengar acolytes from San Francisco, because my knee was becoming intolerably painful. A car hit me while out jogging in 1989, which my leg’s ligaments sometimes remind me of by tightening or wobbling, depending, it seems, on my flailing career.
I needed this trip to Maui, with the discipline of five hours of yoga a day and spiceless vegan food. I could feel the brick of candy I ate at Christmas, the well of booze I gulped at the New Year and the strain of a fight I had with a close friend, all locked up in my bloated belly and tightening calves. I hadn’t breathed deeply since Nixon resigned, and I wanted a full release. I got one, unexpectedly.
When I arrived at the renovated pineapple factory, now a retreat center, I was told I’d be sharing a room with a woman. Arabella is an electrician by trade, and has a soccer player’s body. She’s 5’6”, with strong arms, sinewy, smooth legs and a subdued six pack. Her eyeteeth protrude a bit, and her dark eyes are almond shaped and very bright. We’ve spoken, usually about yoga, in hushed tones before and after class. Arabella’s often accompanied by her recently acquired boyfriend, who’s tall, thin and has a wide smile and big hands. Genetically, they’re the type of couple that should be procreating. Emotionally, she’s demanding and he’s in San Francisco.
Whilst unpacking in our tiny bungalow, Arabella takes a call. Her beau, it seems, misses her and after hanging up she stares at the floor, her freckled forehead wrinkled.
“He’s just broken up with me,” she finally admits. “He does this all the time.”
I stack t-shirts, not remembering what I’m meant to say. Gay men dump each other habitually. After two martinis and a flick of the ‘update profile’ button on Gaydar, they’ve moved on. It must be different for a 36 year-old woman, no matter how hot, with all that ‘clock ticking’ mythology I’ve seen on Trisha.
“Maybe I should be gay,” she moans, as she lies back on her bed, her back arched.
I alert her that lesbians can be just as moody as jealous boyfriends.
“No. I mean, maybe I should be a gay man. Gay men are always attracted to me. Why is that?”
“Because you seem fearless.” I can feel my cheeks warming. “And you have a tool belt.”
“Wanna have sex?”
I’d barely unrolled my denim.
“Let’s pace ourselves,” I say, jokingly.
Arabella giggles and rushes off. When she returns with green tea, she praises my neatness.
“How do you fold everything the same size?”
“They teach you that in prison.”
“You’ve been in prison?”
“No. But I can dream.”
She tosses her pile of sport wear into a corner, and leaps onto her mattress, resting on her stomach, her ankles crossed, her feet pointing, like an anxious teenager. She’s wearing burgundy lycra shorts and she’s reading Kierkegaard. I swoon, theoretically.
Later, our first grueling yoga class over, we gnaw on lettuce and stumble off to our cabin. Arabella, prancing from shower to bed, slips between her sheets, removing her white towel. The night’s very dark, and devastatingly quiet, except for her throaty breath. I shut my eyes tightly like it’s Christmas Eve.
The warm hand I feel must be hers.
“You trim,” she says, as she sinks below my waistline. Her hair is thick, her lips very moist, and her nails soft, as she rummages inside my digestive canal. I grab her bicep and lift her as she pulls me to face her. We kiss. She bites. I get nearer.
And my joint pain goes away.