Once I was at a party at Kath and Cinde's house, and I was drunk.

That's how every good story starts, right? I was at a party and I was drunk. Or is it every bad story?

Anyway, once I was at a party at their house, and I started talking to Kath's friend Nikki, this beautiful, cool artist from Trinidad. She was wearing a low-cut dress (she is always wearing a low-cut dress, or top), and I complimented her on it. I told her that her breasts looked amazing in it, which they did. We danced for a bit, probably closely, and I smiled at her and admired her. Then I went off somewhere, and probably passed out or something like that.

A week later, Kath tells me that Nikki asked her if I was gay.

I tell everyone when they look good, female, male, dog, cat, etc. I'm also pretty physically affectionate with my friends, and Nikki and I had hung out a few times before that, and I felt comfortable with her. I guess I could see why she thought that, but then again, in this city, why should she think that at all?

So then I was in this funky, annoying position where I actually had to say things like, "I'm not gay, not that there's anything wrong with that," and, "Some of my best friends are gay," when never before in my life have I even considered making lame-ass statements like that.

"You told her I wasn't, right?" I said to Kath.

"I laughed when she said that," said Kath. "And that was that."

I tried getting on a girl once, when I was in Seattle. I thought, well, here I am, and we're both drunk and curious, let's give it a shot. Maybe I've been missing out on something all these years, all those times I've turned down pretty women, and went after ugly men instead.

And we fumbled around in the dark for a while and it was sort of fun, but mostly awkward, and at the end of it, I went and got her boyfriend in the other room and had him join her, while I went and passed out somewhere.

For a while, I was always passing out somewhere.

See, it just didn't feel quite right to me, like it was a real sexual experience, because I wasn't getting laid. There was no penis. There was no fucking. There was just playing around, with someone who had the exact same body parts I did. If I wanted to have sex with someone who had the exact same body parts I did, I'd just masturbate. OK, well, I do masturbate, but I think you get the point.

Penises are intriguing and different, and the way a man smells turn me on, and the shape of their body and the way that their rough(er) skin feels on me, all of that is yummy and good and what makes me happy.

So. Saturday night was Nikki's birthday party at Black Betty in Williamsburg. Even though our relationship has dwindled to polite hellos and air-kisses, I attended, primarily so I could see Kath, who is leaving for the Middle East for a few weeks.

I sat and chatted with the equally beautiful and cool Elizabeth for a while, who, newly single, is out on the prowl. She had plenty of horrible dating stories for me, which made me feel kind of good in this really sick way. You see, even pretty girls can have crappy love lives.

"I've got a good one for you," she said. "I asked out this guy for the first time ever. I never ask guys out."

This is true. She doesn't need to; men are always crawling over her.

"But I decided to do it. He was with this party of eight at the bar, and we started talking, and I asked him out. So a week later, we go out, have a good time, and then we go back to where he's staying. He works in finance, goes to Harvard Law, and is in town on an internship for the summer, so he's staying in a dorm. We go to his room, and there are five books in there. Three of them are Bibles, and the other two are finance books."

"So you guys have a lot in common," I said. Elizabeth is an artist, and not really interested in Christ as, say, a savior.

"Right. So there's nowhere to sit in this dorm room, except on his bed. And I notice the books, and ask him about it. I tell him I'm not really into the Bible. He starts quoting to me from it."

"Did you run screaming from the room?"

"No, because then he totally attacked me on his bed." She smiled, and then took a drag off her cigarette.

Looks like somebody got saved that night.

After an hour, Kath and I decided to leave.

"Oh you have to stay," said Elizabeth.

"Nah, I really just came to see Kath. I feel a little uncomfortable around Nikki. I think she used to think I was a lesbian or something."

"Yea, she does."

My fears were confirmed. Kathleen's denial had done no good.

"So I can't be myself around her. I can't hug her like I hug a friend, or look at her, or say anything nice to her about her outfit, or anything like that."

Elizabeth shrugged. There was nothing to be done. I was condemned to a life of polite air-kisses with Nikki.

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