don’t know if I’m more surprised that she’s here, or that she’s actually consuming food.” Mae pulled down her oversize sunglasses to get a better look at her.
“Who’s that she’s with?” I asked.
“The beautiful Asian woman that she’s now tongue kissing? I think it’s your last month’s cover model,” Mae said, adjusting her “hair.”
“Did Melanie see us?” I lowered my head slightly.
“Um, I think the only thing she’s seeing is that other chick’s tonsils.”
I was fascinated by the two beautiful women, making out so hungrily, but mortified that Melanie might recognize me. But at least I had the excuse that I was “on assignment.” Neither of the women would know who Mae was the way she was dressed. I nudged Mae to the other side of the room. “Where should we go first?” I glanced at the sheet of paper in my hand.
“Come on, let’s shop.” Mae pulled me toward a brightly lit room with a sandwich board sign outside the door marked: SEX TOYZ R US.
We walked in and were taken aback by a very, very long table filled with every sex toy imaginable. Excited, Mae even removed her sunglasses. In my travels for Lucia’s column, I had seen sex toys before, but never this quantity, and in so many sizes, shapes and colors. I picked up a purple dildo shaped like a whale. Next to it was a green and black camouflage vibrator. It looked like a round tree branch with a pint-sized, buck-toothed beaver sitting in the middle. I flicked the switch on the opposite end, and the beaver’s head began to bob rapidly up and down.
“Look, Mae,” I said, holding it in one hand, the whale in the other. “Environmentally correct vibrators. Do you think Green Peace is now in the sex toy business? I love it; save the planet sex toys.” We both howled.
Still laughing, Mae picked up a thick leather belt, with a hole cut out of the middle and held it up to her waist. “Hey, Ang, how do you think this works?” She clumsily tried to fit a brown dildo through the hole.
“I think this one is more your style,” said a voice behind us. Cait appeared, smiling and holding up a leopard-print dildo the size of a bowling pin in her left hand.
“I heard that.” Mae giggled even harder. “You know size does matter.”
“Hello, Angela.” Cait placed the dildo on the table, and leaned toward me. Wrapping her arm around my waist, she moved in to kiss my check, but I turned my head slightly—and quickly—and her lips landed near the corner of my mouth.
“Hi,” I said nervously, pulling away slightly. I glanced side-long at Mae. She hadn’t missed the intimate way Cait was touching me and stared at us frostily.
Cait didn’t seem to notice, and turned to Mae. “Hi, I’m Cait.” She stuck out her hand toward Mae.
“She’s one of the organizers, a professor at New Amsterdam.” I stepped back from Cait as I spoke.
“Charmed.” Mae’s voice was chilly. She offered her hand tepidly. “So, do you know Kei—”
“Cait, excuse me.” A young blonde, whose name tag read “Jules, GALS FREE Coordinator,” grabbed Cait’s arm. She was flustered but her eyes, locked on Cait, looked glassy and awestruck.
“I’m sorry, but we can’t locate the DVD of L Word sex scenes that’s supposed to be showing in the Chill Out room. I’m totally panicked.”
“It’s okay, we’ll find it,” Cait said smoothly as she gave Jules’s shoulder a confident squeeze. “Well, duty calls,” she said brightly to Mae and me. “See you later,” she mouthed as she passed me.
As I watched Cait walk away, I was stunned by longing. I wanted to run after her, touch her, even by accident, and inhale the air she exhaled. This was craziness: Was I coming out after thirty years, woefully late to the party? It was kinda hip to be a lesbian and even hipper to be bi, like I presumably was. So why was I so afraid, punishing myself for these feelings, acting like I had fallen into the “Well of Loneliness?” Women made out with other women on awards shows just to prove they had edge. Yet, as I watched Cait speak into a walkie-talkie before greeting a couple of women, I felt consumed with repressed desire. My feelings felt so raw, I knew I had to hide them. Standing in ground zero of lesbianville, I felt like a heathen walking toward the altar at a church called something like Mount Olive Baptist, somewhere in Alabama, all eyes watching me. The only one really watching me was Mae. She was watching me watch Cait enter a room with a sign out front marked, MORE THAN A TURKEY BASTER: MAKING LOVE, MAKING BABIES.
“What was that all about?” Mae asked.
“What do you mean?” I ignored her gaze, looking down at my hands. “She’s the organizer, and I’m here working. Remember?”
“Angela, I saw the way you were looking at her and how she touched you.”
“Hey, when in Lesbos…Anyway, let’s go.”
“You’ve got some splaining to do,” Mae replied.
“Yeah, yeah. Come on, let’s go to some workshops. I think we should split up to cover more ground.”
“Sure, okay.” She stood behind me, looking over my shoulder at the schedule. “This should be strange, but interesting.”
“I think I’m going to check out Pleasure Power: Suzy G-Spot Shows You How to Find Yours,” I said.
“I’ve seen Suzy G on cable access.” Mae sounded excited as she peered down at the schedule. “I’m trying to decide between Don’t Call U-Haul: The Perfect One-Night Stand and S&M: From Vanilla to Hard Core. What do you think?”
“No, look at this, Mae.” I pointed to the workshop on the line below. “Nonmonogamy: A Political Choice?”
“Oh, yeah, I’m going to that,” Mae said breathlessly, shifting from one foot to another. “We have that same mess, but the brothers call it polygamy and insist that it’s an African tradition that’s good for the race. But over here, they aren’t supporting a village, but just screwing a bunch of women, having too many babies and not taking responsibility. Why? Because they can.” Oh no. I hoped she wasn’t going to start with that harangue again. Not here.
“All right, Mae.” I shooed her off. “After polygamy and pleasure—respectively—let’s each go to one more workshop and then reconvene at registration later this afternoon.”
“Solid.” Mae headed toward the Audre Lorde room where her workshop was being held.
The Pleasure Power lecture had started by the time I reached the Melissa Etheridge theater. I had to sit in the front row, taking the only seat left. Suzy G-Spot was in full bloom. She looked like a plump flower, all shiny pink skin and dyed orange-red hair. I had no idea how old she was—maybe mid-forties. Clothed in a short yellow dress with a ruffle on the bottom, her style fell somewhere between Laura Ashley and Laura Ashley’s bedspread. She was sitting on a massage table, her plump, freckled legs dangling over the side.
“Every woman has a G-spot.” Suzy spoke loudly, with aggressive enthusiasm. “If you want to drive a woman wild, find it.” A sign-language interpreter stood next to Suzy, moving her hands with an equal amount of zeal.
“Where is it, Suzy?” shouted someone from the audience. “I’ve got a date tonight, and I really need to know.” The audience laughed.
“Somebody come up here and find mine.” Suzy lay down on the table, and yanked her dress up to her shoulders, bent her knees and spread her legs wide. Needless to say, she wasn’t wearing matching ruffled panties. “Any volunteers?” she asked, tucking a pillow under her head.
A woman, wearing baggy jeans and a wool stocking cap jogged up to the stage, grinning backward to the audience. “No, darlin’, you’ve done me already. I remember you from my workshop last year in New Haven. Let’s get a Suzy-G virgin.”
Suzy lifted her