Glass Houses
Part of a curious subset that has developed in my clientele, namely little Asian men interested in topping me, we had been getting along fine; actually, better than fine, as he had all sorts of fun little scenarios he wanted to play out. My favourite was the young boy, prone, quietly sleeping and unsuspecting of the prowling older man. In he creeps to find me, outstretched on my belly, asleep. Ah, the old molestation trick.
“No, no. Don’t move yet. Just lie there.”
Happily. It’d had been a long day.
But as I was lying on my back later, relaxed, and we talked as he wandered up and down my body, he suddenly put the flats of his hands on my sides, looked me straight in the eyes, and jiggled. “Puppy fat!” he exclaimed.
I almost smacked him. Puppy fat? Puppy fat!?!
Digging himself further, he continued, “Or, I suppose we’d call those your love handles.”
My eyes narrowed, and I debated how things were going to go from there; I looked at his pot-belly, took a breath… and let it go, out into thin air, without a sound. There’s an interesting sub-set you run into here and there, about the sex-trade, clients who want to council, berate or criticize you. I’ve been mercifully free of them for eons. In fact, I was much more likely to run into them while I was dancing for men in my underpants -- in those cases, it seemed almost a pastime for some of them, the guys who were there to criticize a new platform of self-worth for their failing, flabby egos.
“You know what you need to work on?”
“I feel sure you’re going to tell me.”
What fun; but I think this instance, and the joggling of handles (loved or not), came from something different than the need to redistribute the power of aesthetics -- it was probably more tied to his fantasy, and something said to establish me as younger than I actually was, something un-moulded and unfinished. He was descriptive and verbose the whole session through. He talked his scenarios out loud. The knee-jerk reaction that it elicited in me, however, had more to do with the rejects I’d had to deal with, smiling, while I was naked in a dark room filled with mirrors, lit with black light.
(It was also a little ridiculous. I’m not sure what my body fat percentage is, at the moment, but from the look of my abdomen, it’s got to be under ten. Vanity gets the best of you though: later I stood at the mirror for ages.)
I feel the cross-hairs tracking me more than I’m comfortable with, these past few weeks. At work I accept that I’m in the line of fire, and I wear my protection appropriate: I strap on whatever trenchant attitudes are available in the armoury. At work I’m ready; but lately I’ve been getting clipped out in the open. I forget, sometimes, the things that elicit the drawing of weapons. In the midst of insecure queens, looking good and self-satisfied can do it. Looking good, self-satisfied and then implying that you have self-control and motivation, you might as well paint a red bull’s-eye on your chest.
It’s dropping the drink that’s done it. I’ve stopped telling people, because as innocent as something like that seems, when you're asked, “Have you been out recently?”, and you answer, “Actually, not much, I’ve given up booze for a while,” then… there’s this subtle change in attitude. A cock of the head and a vaguely raised eyebrow: “Oh?”.
There are those that take a difference of behaviour in someone else as a criticism of their own. I had the same issues when I was vegetarian: people would ask me why I’d decided to stop eating meat, and after I told them, would launch into an argument about how I was doing myself a disservice; or, how the human system needs meat to survive (it doesn’t, by the way), that I was going to get sick just like their old friend did; or, telling me proudly that they would never turn their back on tradition – rabidly defending something that I hadn’t attacked in the first place. Such explanations fall under the category of You Asked, but they so easily get mixed up with an assumption that the person sporting the differential is judging them, just as they’re inclined to be judging you. Frankly, I a) don’t have the time, b) don’t care enough about what other people do, and c) am definitely not qualified to pass judgement on anyone; but it’s a situation that makes you third party to your own involvement in a conversation, and then asks you to stand there and take some well-meaning advice, however thinly it veils self-loathing. You just want to step away from the whole mess. Either that, or stick something sharp through the orator’s retina.
Presently, everyone has something to say about how I should be training, what I should be eating, and they all have some dire pronouncements about what’s going to happen to me as I’m doing something-or-other wrong; and by everyone I mostly mean my flatmate, few boys of the Confederacy, and a some casual acquaintances; but they’re loud, and they get into these little sing-song pillories: “you’ve got to be careful… you don’t want to turn into one of those absurd Muscle Marys.”
Oh, piss off. When I want you’re opinion I’ll give it to you; until then, I’d thank everyone to tend their own garden, and keep out of mine.
