Free Macho Sluts by Patrick Califia

Sometimes they treat me with suspicion, which I blithely ignore, continuing to give them what they like without talking about it. I’m not looking for a husband or a daddy, and I don’t consider myself a femme—I just turn on to aggressive and strong women. I love french kissing and finger fucking, and I could very easily imagine this woman probing my mouth with her tongue, arranging me on her bed to allow her to penetrate me still more deeply, more fully.
    â€œHey Maxine!” somebody yelled. “Get your ass over here and DANCE with me!”
    Her eyebrows, which had begun to frame a question, shot back to home base. “’Scuse me,” she said, and shouldered by. I sighed wistfully, shreds of fantasy trailing uselessly around me. Tomorrow morning, as I salted my scrambled eggs, it would come to me in a sudden burst of inspiration—what I should have said to hook her attention. Alas and damn.
    Thinking I was maybe a little drunk after all, I wandered away from the music and noise. There was an open window in the back of the room. I climbed up on a table to get to it and perched on the sill. This was the second story of a warehouse, so I had a good view of the stars and the freeway. I didn’t open my beer, just rolled the cold can on my forehead and cheeks. When the metal got warm, I set it beside me, and ran my fingers through my hair. The slight breeze was ice-cold on my damp scalp. It set my teeth on edge and made me shiver with delight.
    Up to now, the evening had been a success. With enough rock ’n’ roll and beer under my belt, the universe had begun to make sense; I had no grievances against myself; all the women around me were funny or sexy or at least basically good at heart. Now, I felt an ache in my bones from too much boogeying, and along with it came an edge of creeping misogyny. There went a woman who looked like a monkey—and that one looked too far gone for Maybelline or methadone to fix what was wrong with her. My high, fine feeling was beginning to melt away.
    The party was going through an ebb cycle, too. A big, dark woman left her buddies with a parting insult that had them roaring with laughter. She dug her patient, wallflower lover out from under a table where she had fallen asleep, gently shook her awake, and propelled her toward the stairs. The dancing partners in silver lamé jackets and David Bowie haircuts who had been the Disco Queens of the evening finally collapsed in each other’s arms and tottered on their glitter-encrusted platform shoes to the EXIT sign. The nice lady who had sold me my beer grabbed her purse and split, a six-pack under each arm.
    I popped the top of my beer and took a gulp, trying to recapture my euphoria. My epiglottis had begun to bob when I remembered that my car was in the shop—sideswiped yesterday morning in the parking lot. The buses had stopped running hours ago. Shit, I would have to call a cab. The thought of hunting a pay phone in this neighborhood, at this hour, was bitterly depressing. The beer tasted like shampoo. I turned and spat my mouthful out the window, and poured the rest of the can after it.
    I should have struck up an acquaintance with that baby butch who harassed me about my walk. In fact, there were half a dozen women I suddenly realized I could have and should have taken home with me. I was just too damn picky. One was too scrawny, one was a phony, one was not The One, and then there was none. I sorted madly through the available bodies. Not one of the runner-ups was left. I would have to start from scratch—and I couldn’t see anybody who stirred even a faint interest in me.
    â€œCome clean,” I told myself sternly. (I am always forcing myself to confess to one sin or another—when I can’t find someone else to make me.) “You have cut off your nose rather than iron a handkerchief. You have made your own bed and short-sheeted it. You have counted the bush in your