“No, it’s not trendy. It’s just who we are.”
I nudge my arm into her shoulder. “I could kiss you for saying that,” I say, only to her.
Mina gives a quick calculated look at my mother and then she turns back to me. “Okay,” she says and I don’t miss it; the permission, and the easy willingness in her tone.
So I do. I do kiss her. I grip her by her shoulders, bend my head down and right in front of my mother, I slam my lips against hers.
Chapter Five
If You Want It
Mina
Worst. Kiss. Of. My. Life.
Like yuk, make it stop.
He’s pushing down on my lips with far too much force, his closed mouth is dry and hard against my own, and his hold on my shoulders feels nothing like an embrace and rather like he is about to shake some sense into me. But I don’t pull away. I don’t even cringe or shudder like I want to. Because I consented to this kiss. I wanted his mother to see his son kiss a woman because for some inane reason she has a problem with that. And not just a woman but another bisexual.
Because bisexuals exist, bitch.
Finally, thankfully, Charlie takes his mouth off mine.
“Well, thank you for that,” his mum says slowly, her eyes darting between us both like they don’t know where to settle. “That was a very bisexual kiss.”
“Themostbisexual kiss,” Charlie says to his mother facetiously and I don’t know why but it makes me want to giggle. So much that I bring a hand to my mouth as if to plug the laughter up inside me.
“Your lipstick is fine,” Charlie says, looking at my hand.
“Oh, thanks,” I say, realising that’s what he thought I was doing but it does make me think something, so I turn my head slightly and level my eyes on Charlie’s mother once more. “See, a straight guy would never think to tell me that. Queer men rock.”
“They certainly do.” Diane narrows her eyes at us both. “And speaking of which, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go mingle with a whole army of queer men. You can both go back to your bisexual kissing, I suppose.”
And with that she turns and shimmies away, and I don’t use that word without reason because Charlie’s mother’s slim and elegant figure is very much swaying side to side as she nods, waves and calls out greetings to those she meets as she crosses the room. I watch her for a few moments before turning back to Charlie.
“Your mother is…” I trail off, unsure how to finish that sentence.
“Hard work, insufferable, bizarre, perplexing, frustrating, maddening… shall I continue?” Charlie has retrieved two glasses from the bar behind me and hands me one of them, my sparkling water.
“It’s like she’s programmed backwards. The way she has a problem with you being bi and showing up with a woman.”
Charlie groans. “It’s a long, weird story but in a nutshell, gay men make up seventy percent of her social circle and so she has long harboured this inexplicable desire for her two sons to both be gay and until about a month ago she could pretend that that was the case.”
“Gotta love the bi-erasure,” I say with a pout.
Charlie nods but he also flinches, as if he doesn’t want to pin that on his mother. “It doesn’t help that my mum raised us single-handedly – our father jumped ship just before my fourth birthday – and so she’s always obsessed a bit about our development, our achievements, you know.”
“Your sexuality isn’t an achievement,” I point out.
“No, I know, but that’s why she said some weird things about work.”
“Yeah, that was weird. Did she not want you to go into advertising?” I sip my drink.
“God, no. But she also didn’t want me to do what I really wanted to do either.”
“Which is what?” I ask, suddenly very interested. The way Charlie bounces into work every morning I never would have assumed it wasn’t a career he always wanted.
“Teaching,” Charlie says and his voice is quieter, almost like he’s embarrassed to admit it. “English. I wanted to be an English teacher.”
