The Fire Under my Butt

I am really struggling right now. I have a co-worker and friend named Liz. She was the first person that I came out to at work. Okay, honestly I didn't officially come out to her. She actually opened my closet door and asked if I was at all interested in coming out.

This happened a few months after we first met and started the process of becoming friends. I was sitting in my car killing time before it was time to clock in for work. I had just visited one of my favorite places in the entire world (the library) where I had just checked out a 6 CD set called "A Musical History of Disneyland" and I was playing one of the CD's while flipping through the historical book. I believe I was also giggling with glee but that is beside the point.

I was interrupted by a gentle tapping on my window. When I turned toward the source, I saw red-headed Liz standing outside my car with a concerned look on her face. I rolled down my window and said, "Hi."

I'm sure there was small talk that I don't remember, but eventually Liz addressed whatever was concerning her: "Peter, don't take this the wrong way... but... are you gay? If you are that is TOTALLY cool! I'm just curious..."

My natural and rehearsed response was to emphatically deny any ties with the GLBT community. Had this been an event to be later recorded in the Bible, I'm sure she would have asked me three times, each of which would have been denied and then we would have suddenly heard a rooster crowing in the middle of the afternoon.

After denying my true self I panicked and asked, "Why do you ask? Are people talking? Does everyone at work think that I'm gay?"

She immediately tried to sooth my worries by saying, "Oh no, not everyone..."

She eventually went for a smoke and I eventually clocked in for work, did my route and went home. Later that night I thought about how easily I had lied to her and guilt began settling upon me. I was in my late twenties by this time. Why was it so important to remain closeted. Telling a few select people that I trusted didn't mean I had to jump up on top of a school bus and yell across the lot that I was a flaming queen and just thought everyone should know!

The next day after my morning route I found Liz and asked her if she wanted to take a walk. The moment we had left the work building I asked her if she remembered the question she had asked me the day before. Of course she did.

"Well, I just wanted to say... what I mean is... that is, you should know... the answer actually is yes..."

Liz immediately began jumping up and down yelling "I KNEW IT! I KNEW IT!" Ignoring her breasts which were bouncing all around and were completely wasted on me, I said "Okay, but HOW did you know?!"

"Well, you love musicals, you LOVE Disney, you hate sports..." All those were gross stereotypes (that just happened to be completely true) and when I told her that she added, "In all the time that I've known you, you've never stared at my tits. Unlike all the other male drivers at work, when you talk to me, you actually make eye contact."

"Well, sure," I responded. "I'm just not that interested in them. No offense."

I also addressed my other concern: who else at work pegged me for a queer. It turned out that only a small group of people in Liz's circle of friends "suspected" and I would eventually come out to all of them and find tolerance and acceptance; mostly because many of them were lesbians.

Liz and I became closer friends, though not without obstacles. Her husband was convinced that I was a straight man playing the gay angle in an effort to steal his wife away from him. While I appreciated his confidence that I was even capable of such a deed, I just didn't (and still to this day don't) like Liz in "that way". Nevertheless, Liz told me that he didn't want us hanging around together outside of work until he had a chance to meet me.

"Once he meets you, he'll realize that you truly are gay and we'll be able to hang out!" Liz assured me.

"I'm not sure I want to meet him," I told her. "If he's going to be so childish, then I don't even want to meet him!" All that was missing was "Nanny Nanny Poo Poo!" Liz rolled her eyes in that same way she often does in reference to me.

I did eventually meet her husband at one of Liz's birthday parties. I was actually very nervous. I had no idea what he was suspecting. Should I shake his hand and then offer to give him a blow job?

"Does he like getting blow jobs?" I asked Liz shortly before meeting him. It was my understanding that most men, gay or straight, did enjoy getting them.

"Of course he does! I just hate giving them." Suddenly, I found a way to prove my homosexual desires to her husband. I offered to give him a blow job so she wouldn't have to. As far as I was concerned, it was win, win, win. He liked them, I loved giving them and she hated giving them. To my surprise, she declined my offer. I kept it out there, of course, for later consideration.

I finally met Liz's husband and I gotta say, he really doesn't much take after Brad Pitt, as she described him, but then, I've never really considered Brad Pitt my "type"... Shocking, I know. Don't get me wrong, I totally would have given him a blow job had Liz reconsidered my offer.

The following Monday, after the big meeting, Liz, grinning ear to ear, found me and declared that we could now officially "hang out" outside of work with her husband's blessing.

"He was actually very impressed that you're not a flaming gay guy," she informed me. I'll be honest, this surprised me. This man had, after all, assumed I was trying to steal his gal away. Didn't he want me to be an obviously gay guy as proof of my cock-sucking desires?

Over the years, Liz and I have maintained our friendship, though not without bumps. She is, after all, an Obama-hating-capitalism-loving-gun-toting-Republican and I am very much not. We rarely (if ever) agree politically. Liz often declares our time together a "no political zone" since any political discussions end with her suggesting we "agree to disagree" and me suggesting "okay, just as long as you realize that I am right and you are wrong".

Lately a new disagreement has fallen between us and, oddly, it isn't about the new Tea Party movement, though Liz unfortunately agrees with them on several issues.

Liz has recently started "writing a book." Liz is always trying new things. In the time that I have known her, she has tried getting a real estate license, trained to enter a triathlon and looked into the possibilities of becoming a personal trainer. While I admire Liz's propensity to try new things, she often loses interest in them, so when she declared that she was writing a book, I smiled, congratulated her and went on with my life.

For the next week Liz could be found lying on her stomach, penning her bestseller on the floor in a remote corner of our break room. By the end of the week she had written several pages in her notebook which she let me read when I finally asked. Despite changing from past to present tense many times, what she had written was pretty good and I told her so. She smiled and jumped around clapping her hands and I once again ignored her bouncing titties.

The following Monday, Liz came running at me with more excitement than usual.

"I may have a literary agent!" During the weekend she had found Writerdigest.com and had sent emails to a handful of literary agents seeking representation. One of them had responded with interest.

"That's great!" I told her. "Did you happen to mention your friend who also likes to write?"

She blinked a couple times and then said, "Uh, no, I didn't mention you to her."

"Well can I at least get her information from you?"

"Oh sure! No problem."

Later, through Facebook I got a message from Liz saying that she wanted to hold off giving me the literary agent's information and she would explain the next day. I already figured out why she wasn't sharing the information and when I finally asked her about it she confirmed that she didn't want any competition. She figured that if we both submitted our books to this woman that she might choose one of us over the other and Liz just didn't want to chance that mine would be picked over hers. I tried to explain that literary agents are only going to take on authors they think they can publish and since my book's genre is VERY different from Liz's we really aren't in "competition". Liz, however, still refused to pass on the literary agent's information to me and she was honestly surprised that this bothered me.

Now, Liz has informed me that the literary agent has submitted the synopsis of her book to a publisher and they want to publish it. I want to be excited for Liz, but frankly, I'm jealous! I have a book of my own that I have been working on since last November when I entered the annual Nanowrimo (National Novel Writing Month) competition. I have a first draft of the book and I am now working on the revision of it. Granted, I didn't do the work of finding potential agents on my own like Liz did, but couldn't she at least throw me a bone? She did try to explain how she found her agent in the first place, but when I tried to follow her instructions for finding the agent on the website, I couldn't find any information.

Liz wants me to be happy for her and I am, but I'm pissed off at myself. Why am I finding it so difficult to finish my book? Why has Liz managed to find an agent even though she's only written like three or so chapters? Why do all the agents I seem to find demand a finished product? Why do all the agents I find seem suspiciously like frauds?

As she usually does, Liz has lit a fire under my butt to get me motivated. I'm revising like mad, trying to get a finished product that I can start shopping out. At the same time, seeking an agent terrifies me! I'm starting to feel like George McFly in Back to the Future: What if they tell me I'm not good enough, what if they tell me to quit and give up my dream of being a writer?

Then again, George McFly did end up writing that science fiction book, but hell, he had a kid to go back in time and give him that confidence. All I have is a redhead with bouncing tits lighting a fire under my butt.

Maybe that's all I need?