This is not a story, rather an appeal to find a friend of mine. I have an axe to grind with her.
I am a writer, a successful one, good enough for my publishers to offer my third novel. I have two novels in my kitty, Appetite for Murder and Her Bed Time Stories. Not exactly Sahitya Akademi winning literature, but it pays my bills.
It all started when my publishers wanted a murder mystery with a ‘gay’ angle. I liked the thought of it, a pervert going on a killing spree because he had an abused background (what wordplay! haha, I am good). I could hear ka-ching in my bank account.
I boasted myself of excellent character sketching and to that end pleaded my journalist friend to introduce me to one of the other kind. She bluntly refused saying, she would rather put a finger into the blender than make her gay friends go through the ordeal of meeting a bigot like me. I was suitably and animatedly shocked. But it was expected, for she mistook some of my support comments on gays in FB, as condescending. She needed persuasion and I had come prepared. After much coaxing, she relented.
A couple of days later, she got back to me with a time and a place where I could meet her friend. Sipping my Frappucino, I sat at the café expecting a dainty gestured and high pitched man in a gaudy dress enter any minute. After all, I knew how they behaved, having had my dose of Indian movies. That was why I was shocked when a handsome 6-footer, confident and suave greeted me at my table. By Jeeves! My villain looked better than my hero.
After the usual pleasantries, I bent forward, placed my hands on his, being supportive and all, and whispered, ‘I know it’s not your fault. It’s just a manufacturing defect’.
‘There are no defects. We are what we are, as perfect as you are.’ he replied the smile never leaving his face. But I wanted to make him feel comfortable.
‘You see, I am very open-minded. I even gave a thumb up for gay marriages in FB’, I said when I sensed unease.
‘And my whole community is indebted to you for having made a ground-breaking gesture with your finger’. He mock-bowed.
Ah!, this one had an attitude. He needed to be put in place, later. But first, the interview.
‘Ahem,….. okay. So how long you have been gay?’
‘As long as you have you been straight, Sir. By the way, how did you know you were attracted to women?’ he replied with a rhetoric.
I winked and nodded at him, a ‘you got me there, boy’ nod, letting him win this one.
Here I was trying to feature him in my book in a benevolent light, a murder with an emotional past, and he was putting up airs.
I tried to help him. ‘I think your problem is you have never slept with a woman before. With your looks, it would not be difficult to bed one’ I said, a knowing smile on my lips.
‘If I had not known better, I would think you are hitting on me’, he said and asked me how if I had sex with a man to know if I was not gay.
‘Have you tried therapy?’ I asked. I was sure a man this handsome could not be gay. The poor guy probably did not have the right male role model in his life. A strong person to look up to, like a successful writer like me.
‘Yes, Sir. I am seeing a shrink who helps me to manage my anger. See, I tend to get agitated easily around insensitive people. A few bones were broken as a result’. He flexed his biceps.
‘You don’t look gay, I must admit’, I complimented him.
‘Unfortunately, we come in all sizes shapes and colours that we can easily pass ourselves as humans.’
‘I think your friend told you that I am against gays. But let me tell you. I am very liberal in accepting your people. I am just worried my kids getting any weird ideas from their exposure to you, guys’. I was still trying to be accommodative.
‘I don’t see your kid turning into a pig after watching Peppa Pig. Do they?’ he said examining his nails.
‘But God created man and woman to procreate.’ I sought divine intervention to muscle up my argument.
‘Yes, Sir, You are right. There has to be quite a compelling reason for a woman to be with you other than actually enjoying sex’, he said as he got up.
I had to come up with a retort fast. God! I was a writer. I could not be left tongue-tied and flummoxed.
‘So, is it all same down there for you guys?, I tilted my head slightly, a below the belt snark to put him in his place and gave out a hearty laugh.
‘All same, Sir, except bigger nuts…. sorry, guts’ he said leaving me behind with a gaping mouth.
That Perv!
Now, you know dear readers. The perils of being an established writer! By the way, coming to my appeal, I am trying to contact that journalist friend of mine, whose mobile seems to be funnily not reachable for a week now. If any of you come across her, tell her she will not receive the sighed copy of my next book, ‘Her Majesty’s Secrets’ and I am unfriending her from FB page, ‘The Indian Stephen KING’.
This is an entry for UniK-4, a 1000-word writing event at ArtoonsInn.
Check the event guidelines here: https://writers.artoonsinn.com/pride-unik-5-writing-event-artoonsinn/
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Cover picture credits: charlotte-butcher-344987-unsplash
