Free So Me by Graham Norton

men, can a woman give a blow job, that sort of thing. This is just one aging homosexual’s opinion, but I really don’t think there is much of a difference.
    I once knew a friend of a friend called Jackie. Jackie lived in Canada and was a transvestite, and while I’m sure he didn’t consider himself a hooker there did seem to be a fairly direct link between dollars and sperm in his life. Jackie had wanted to have a full sex change for years, and saved all themoney he could until finally the day arrived when he could afford it. My friend received a phone call late at night. He groggily answered the phone to hear an hysterical Jackie at the other end of the line screaming from his hospital bed that he couldn’t go through with it, he was too scared, etc. etc. All very moving I’m sure, but sadly his emotional tug of war isn’t that relevant to the point of the story.
    These second-thought cries from the heart began to happen about once every couple of months for a year. Jackie wanted to be a woman, but he wasn’t man enough to go through with it. Finally, silence. Word reached us that Jackie had bitten the bullet and let go of the smoking gun. Jackie was a woman. She was thrilled. Finally the time came for her to earn an honest dollar and try out her new womanhood. She chose a handsome Canadian trucker to do the honours. Like a burly version of our own lovely Queen launching a new cruise ship, he splashed his salty champagne down her new slipway. She lay there flushed with her own sense of achievement. The trucker, however, just lay there, breathing hard, but not being very forthcoming with the reviews. Jackie could bear it no longer – this was the moment her whole life had been leading up to. How had it been for him? Well, the story goes that the trucker rolled on to his side, looked at her with a mixture of puzzlement and impatience, and in a deep Canadian monotone replied, ‘A hole’s a hole.’
    Now I don’t mean to be as crass as our trucker friend, but I sort of know what he means. You can’t really compare straight and gay sex because sex is simply about mechanics, what feels good, what doesn’t. Sexuality, however, is all about emotional responses. In truth, vaginal sex is probably physically better than gay sex, but for me sleeping with men isabout their strength, the feel of their body, the stubble of their kiss. I do realise that I’m slightly pissing on years of research done by very clever men and women in white coats, but as far as I’m concerned, the difference between being straight or gay is as simple as whether you prefer dogs to cats, or coffee over tea. There is no better or worse, no right or wrong, and if there is a why, who cares?
    End of lecture. Back to Elizabeth.
    My memories of the time I spent with her are like one of those long montages you see at the end of a weepy romantic movie just before the heroine finally loses her battle with some mysterious disease that prevents her heart from working properly, but leaves her just enough energy to constantly reapply make-up. We walked all over the city hand in hand, went to the movies, battled the wind on the beach, laughed as her scarf blew high across the trees. Mostly we talked, and talked, and talked. It felt good to be in the heterosexual gang. Maybe we would get a dog.
    About eight years ago I saw Elizabeth again. She was in London with her boyfriend (whose wife, interestingly enough, had left him for a woman) and we went out for dinner as some sort of weird masochistic demonstration of how all right we were with our past. I’m not sure what I think my relationship with Elizabeth is now, but that night she treated me like an ex-boyfriend, which of course I am, but it still took me by surprise. When her current boyfriend slipped away to the toilet, she looked at me and, almost to underline the awkward silence his departure had left, said, ‘You know, you were the only one who ever talked enough for me.’ This, of course, was true