Thursday, July 26, 2012

The Lesbian Sex-Room Saga - Part 1

It is traditional amongst my circle of acquaintances to attempt to embarass the hell out of any friend who arrives at the airport from overseas. This normally involves dressing up in elaborate and attention-grabbing outfits, the theory being that the person arriving in the country will be ashamed of their welcoming party being so flamboyantly attired. In the past we have:

- Disguised ourselves as bumblebees
- Turned up wearing pyjamas and clutching teddy bears
- Worn saris (this is not advisable in the middle of winter)
- And on one occasion, I dressed up as an exaggerated version of myself. This involved bracelets crowded all the way up my forearms, an unnecessarily long skirt, teabags trailing from my belt and a tin of muffins clutched to my bejewelled and glittering chest.

The Flatmate's sister would be arriving from India soon to live and study with us. The last time she visited was the occasion of the bumblebee disguise, and to our disgust she did not find it at all embarassing and actually thought it rather cute. This time, the Flatmate and I decided, we would go an extra step. We would not just dress crazy; we would act crazy.

We would stage a loud, raucous, uninhibited lesbian fight. In the middle of the airport. In front of everyone.

The fight was planned with gleeful enthusiasm. It would go something like this:


Flatmate: Welcome, sister! Ah, I see you have a lot of luggage; fear not, for Zabinsky has a sizeable car, and a cavernous wardrobe resides within our bedroom.

Me: Of which bedroom do you speak?

Flatmate: Eh, our bedroom.

Me: You intend for your sister to share our bedroom? I cannot say I approve. In the secret hours of the night, when the moon hides her face in the sky's dappled darkness and we, you know, get it on, would not the proximity of your sister create some discomfort?

Flatmate: You need not trouble yourself with these worries. My sister shall share my room and you shall have your own.

Me: Alas! Is this then how you would destroy our love, by ripping us asunder and placing a cold, lifeless wall betwixt us? Ah! Such betrayal tears my heart in twain! Thou monster!

Flatmate: Call you me so? Hypocrite! Be aware that I know of your affection for that saucy wench Mary-Anne. I have seen the way she doth look at you, and of your looks in return.

Me: Your eyes have deceived you! Be assured there is nothing between us; only you occupy my heart!

Flatmate: Fie! Utter not such lies! I rejoice in the knowledge that you no longer share my bed; indeed I wish you were gone from my very house, for residing with you is anathema to me!

Me: Then I shall leave, if my presence inflicts such pain upon you! JUST GIVE ME BACK MY YELLOW PENGUIN!

Flatmate: Never! For I love the yellow penguin!

Me: Like how you once loved me?

Flatmate: Love? Ha! I laugh derisively at such drivel. How could I ever love you - a lying, betraying, disgusting, horrible, heartless bastard with as much of a concept of cleanliness as a crustacean!

Me: You fiend!

Flatmate: Bitch!

- And so on, with the fight descending into a screaming match and name calling and possible hair-pulling. This would continue until such time as we subsided into frosty silence, were told off by security, or succumbed to the compelling urge to giggle.

It would have been epic. It would have blown every other embarassing airport reception out of the water. In time to come, when the years had forever marred our flesh with the contours of age, we would have looked back at that night and marvelled, "Good Lord, how wild we were!"

It is a cruel universe sometimes. It transpired I was working that evening and couldn't get time off to go to the airport. The lesbian fight could not occur.

This called for the creation of a back-up plan.

We theorised that if I could not be at the airport to cause embarassment there, then a similar state of embarassment must be created at home. We decided to stick with the lesbian theme and turn the bedroom Flatmate and her sister would be sharing into a sex room.

A lesbian sex room.

We brainstormed all the many ways we could convey this idea: Neon lighting; lavishly draping velvet across the beds; hanging assorted chains and leather paraphenalia from the ceiling; strewing seductive underwear across the floor with reckless abandon; placing posters of scantily-clad women in compromising positions upon the walls.

Time and budget not being things we had great quantities of, we regretfully scaled back our creativity and decided to simply print out lewd photos and stick them on the wall.

Before we could get started, however, my father knocked on the door and asked if we'd like a cup of tea.
"Sure," we agreed, as we never pass up a chance to drink that most beloved of beverages.
The three of us, Father, Flatmate, and I, sat around the kitchen table sipping tea and chatting amiably.
"Have you ever seen Bend It Like Beckham?" my dad asked after a few minutes.
"Ah, yeah we -" I started to reply.
"Great movie!" my dad enthused. "I was thinking of watching it tonight on the upstairs TV. Big screen. Surround sound. Keen?" His face contorted with glee.
Flatmate and I looked significantly at each other.
"Um. We... had... plans..." Flatmate replied.
"Oh, cool! Doing what?" Dad asked.
"Um..."
"Just... stuff," I filled in, then decided "stuff" wasn't a decent enough answer. "We'd ask you for your help, but I don't think you'd be able to help that much."
This was a terrible, terrible thing to say.
"Really? Help doing what?" asked Dad, eagerness to be of assistance shining from his eyes.
I opened my mouth to reply. I was about to ask, "Well, how would you decorate a lesbian sex room?" - but I couldn't. The words froze on my tongue. There are some questions you should never ask a parent, particularly a conservative Christian parent like my father, and How would you decorate a lesbian sex room is one of them.
"Oh," I mumbled, desperately trying to come up with something sensible to say and fighting the panic that rose when I couldn't. "We - we were - just planning on decorating the bedroom for - for her sister's arrival."
"Fantastic!" cried my father. "That sounds like something Lorene would enjoy!" And before I could prevent him he turned and hollered upstairs to my stepmum, "HEY! LORENE!"
My panic turned to insanity. I shrieked, "I CAN'T COPE WITH THIS!", set down my tea, ran outside to the road and howled wordlessly at passing cars.*

According to my flatmate, my father stared after me in astonishment and asked, "Did I say something wrong?"
Flatmate, her voice fraught with forced calm, politely snickered and said, "That Zabinsky... she's a funny one, isn't she?" before attempting to drown herself in her cup of tea.


***


PART 2 coming shortly! I thought this story was getting a tad long, so I chose to split it into two. Like a couple of movie adaptations I could name.


*I'm not kidding. I actually did this.