It would be a reasonable request – to want to work out alone – but the problem is, I don’t want to leave.
I want to stay in Loncey’s company. Not because I want to watch more sweat slide down their body, even if it surprisingly doesn’t make me want to vomit. But because I want to be as normal as possible with them. I want to be normal now with them because last night I was anything but normal.
And they helped me. They really helped me.
I want to do the same for them, especially knowing that their sister is in hospital.
“Are you trying to get rid of me?” I kick up one of my eyebrows. Of course I’m going to make my not wanting to leave about them, not me.
Their face falls. “No, not at all, I just… this can’t be much fun for you.”
I run a hand through the air next to my body. “I’m currently lying flat on my arse eating crisps. This is pretty much the perfect way to spend a day.”
“Especially after you nailed your keynote speech,” they say as they stand off the machine. After wiping it down they approach me. “I haven’t said that to you yet. I should have. You fucking nailed it, Maeve.”
“It wasn’t too dull? Too uninteresting? Too… asexual?”
They give me an admonishing look. “What is dull about being asexual? And your speech was anything but uninteresting. You had a whole room of sex workers re-thinking their relationship with sex. That’s not an easy or simple thing to do.”
“But is it helpful? Was I not rocking the boat, being a bit, you know, confronting?”
“By making people realise that compulsory sexuality is a thing? A thing that holds most of us back in one way or another?” Loncey steps even closer but I’m very aware of how they stop before they’re close enough to touch me. I’m also very aware of how they stay standing, tall above me as I look up at them. “You’re doing them a favour.”
Loncey's words land somewhere deep inside me and I want to spend time chewing on them, processing them, but I don’t want to do it now while Loncey is standing over me, an expectant look on their face. I don’t know why but I suddenly want to talk about the thing I’ve spent the last hour deliberately not talking about.
“So, last night,” I begin.
Loncey’s eyes land on mine. “Yeah. Last night.”
“Was that… was that weird for you?”
Loncey’s head-shake is immediate and resolute. “Not at all.”
“Okay.”
“Was it weird for you?”
“Yeah, of course it fucking was.” I move the bag of Cheetos off my stomach and move to sit up. “I’ve never done anything like that with anyone else before.”
“Not even… ex-partners? Ex-lovers?”
“Jesus,” I roll my eyes, “I wouldn’t call any of the hopeless eejits I’ve dated in the past partners or lovers.”
I expect Loncey to laugh at that but their face looks anything but amused. “I’m sorry to hear that,” they say. “That’s a real shame.”
“Well, I’m pretty sure I was a disappointment to them too.”
“Maeve.” Loncey’s voice has an edge to it that I don’t really want to hear.
“I’m just stating a fact,” I explain. “Anyway, I wanted to er, well, thank you for last night. I’m not sure if it should or shouldn’t have but doing… that with you last night, it made me feel more normal.”
“Sex shouldn’t make you feel normal,” Loncey says and his voice is all softness now.
“I know. I mean, I think I know that. Logically, but still, being told something else for most of your life, it still leaves me kind of confused about it all.”
Loncey nods. “I get that. It’s the same for me and gender. I still find myself feeling like I should be a proud Black man, like I’m letting that side down bynotbeing a proud Black man.”
“But you know you’re not, right? You know you can’t be something you’re not just because the world tells you that’s what you should be?”
