Rainbow Body

Chapter 1-2

She’s making a beeline for the pool table. Kate starts off at her heels, and then looks back at me.

“She’s just trying to help,” Kate says in a small voice.

I shrug. She squeezes my hand, her eyes meeting mine.

“I know,” I say.

Kate gives my hand a tug. I reluctantly haul off my stool, and drag behind her to follow Nicole. I would never put myself in Layla’s way like this—not on my own, anyway. I spend most of my time in Layla’s presence trying to make myself scarce. Of course they’re trying to help. Either that, or they’re trying to make me the first ever instance of a girl dying from embarrassment.

I could be on the news. I amuse myself momentarily with the image of my body going limp and lifeless from the mortifying ordeal, slipping underfoot among all these eligible women. I could see the headline: Death by Embarrassment.

Poor little lesbian.

Layla’s playing pool with some random butch. She’s got her game face on, eyes trained on the ball as she sizes up her shot and sinks it easily into the named pocket.

“Yeaaaahh, Layla!” Nicole cheers boisterously, her voice cutting over the din of music and a hundred conversations going on at once.

I jump out of my skin, wanting to duck into the crowd and out of sight. But Layla looks up and sees us for the first time, and raises her pool cue in greeting. I barely manage to nod back. Layla’s opponent takes a shot, the cue hitting the ball with such a crack that I wonder if it’ll split open or incinerate. But just by looking, I know her curve is off, and the striped ball misses the pocket. You must be nervous, too, I think. She curses as she straightens up.

“Hey, I’m Liz,” someone says.

I turn to see a gorgeous girl with blue-streaked brown hair, emerald eyes, and a full sleeve of tattoos talking to Kate. As Kate turns and makes eye contact, her eyes widen.

“N…no,” she stammers. “No, thank you. I’m engaged.”

The girl shrugs and turns to walk away; Kate looks at me with an expression that crosses between exhilaration and terror.

“That girl thought I was gay,” she whispers into my ear.

I laugh.

“And?”

“And that never happens!”

I glance at her, and I can’t tell if she means to betray her excitement. But before I can say anything, she catches herself, straightens up, and nods toward the pool game that we’re supposed to be watching. I turn back.

There are no solid balls left on the table, save for the eight ball. Layla’s about to win and she knows it. She purses her lips and raises her eyebrows in preemptive triumph. Her eyes flash gleefully in our direction. I find myself making eye contact with her, but am sure that I must be mistaken.

“This one’s for you, Maya,” Layla calls, her piercing eyes gazing meaningfully at me.

Pause.

My heart leaps into my throat. Layla’s eyes glow and she c***s her head to one side and winks.

For the love of all that is holy, somebody please say something before I get all in my head about this.

“Eight ball, corner pocket,” she announces.

Layla’s half-smiling as she leans over the table, angling the shot with precision. My stomach plummets to my lower intestine. Nicole lets out a shriek and grabs at me with an incredulous laugh. This is, of course, the moment we’ve all been waiting for. I’m too shocked to react. Her opponent looks on, disappointed. It feels like a rite of passage: to be ahead enough of the game to dedicate the easy win to one’s next conquest; even more, to be the conquest, if an easy one. I inhale, exhale, chant loudly in my mind, put every ounce of my will into the setup of the shot.

Baby-dyke Maya is quivering somewhere in my spleen, willing the thing to just f*****g happen already. I can’t hide my excitement as stick hits ball hits ball and the latter disappears easily into the leather pocket. Layla’s opponent curses again, this time under her breath, before smiling at the victor. Handshakes, pats on the back and other staples of losing and winning gracefully are exchanged. I commit it all to memory. Every inhale, exhale, the way Layla’s left eyebrow arches as she smirks after the ball. Layla turns to me, gloating slightly as her opponent disappears from sight. I gloat, too. The win was “for me,” after all. For the first time in my life, I turn and face Layla head-on, ready for whatever she has in store for me.

“Wanna play?” Layla asks.

I consider the green felt of the table top, and in a flash of my mind’s eye I’m on it, Layla’s over me. Of course I want to play. But reality calls and Layla waits for an answer. I smile and nod, unable to muster much else.

“Loser buys winner a drink,” Layla smiles. “And I never lose.”

Of course she doesn’t. I know, and she knows that I know.

Layla hands me the racking triangle, and when I take it she pulls me closer with it in a single fluid motion before letting go, forcing me to stumble in and close the space between us. Just like that, I am closer to Layla than I have ever been, close enough to smell her sweet-tart skin. Just like that, she’s showing the world what we both know: that she has the upper hand. Layla’s gaze travels the course of my body as she lets me catch her checking me out. I quiver obviously and she holds my gaze for a moment before letting me go with a knowing smile.

“It’s a deal,” I reply breathlessly, leaning over the table to rack and position the balls.

“You break.”

Nicole and Kate excuse themselves to go dance. I promise them that we’ll leave for the straight bars as soon as I’m done.

“Take your time!” Nicole calls gleefully, loud enough for Layla to hear.

It’s a close game. Layla’s good, but so am I. It’s turn after turn of sly looks, strong shots, and balls flying into the pockets. We circle each other like prey. The butches that are the usual mainstays at the pool table give me the eye. Unspoken is the query of who the nervy femme is that Layla let into their territory. Also unspoken is the understanding that it’s only because of Layla that I’ve been given access. I know this as well as they do. I pull out all the stops and every trick in my book. Each shot is a playful display of strength as we flirt and compete.

I might become a legend tonight.

I begin to wonder if the game is a metaphor: winning the game means proving my worthiness, as well as granting me the upper hand, if only momentarily. My stomach knots itself as the stakes are sufficiently higher than any other game of pool I’ve played in my adult life, and I force myself to inhale for a five count to bring some clarity to each shot. Losing this one would be a forfeit—of Layla, of my status as lone-femme heroine at the butch pool table, of the singular moment that might make real the stuff of my fantasies.

And then the eight ball is all that’s left.

“The moment of truth,” Layla comments. She goes first, taking a shot and missing by a hair.

“You make me nervous,” she lies easily.

Yeah right.

My turn. She’s left the ball in a bad spot, but I call the pocket with bravado. Layla watches me from across the table as I lean over the stick, eyeing my shot, glancing past the ball and the stick and letting her eyes traverse my body in its compromising position.

Inhale, exhale. Don’t miss. Whatever you do, don’t miss. She makes me nervous, too. I won’t tell her that, but I’d bet my bottom dollar that she knows already. Don’t miss. You got this. I hit the cue just hard enough and the eight ball whirls and then sinks into the pocket.

As we exchange our own signs of good sportsmanship, I imagine myself on the table again. I gloat, preen, accept Layla’s gracious defeat.

Layla buys me a beer. As we abandon the table and two new girls begin a game, I think that they must be relieved that I ended Layla’s reign over the pool table for the time being. Layla and I find a secluded bar table and sit, sipping our drinks and making eyes as we talk. My heart is pounding out of my chest but I’m breathing deeply.

“You know,” she remarks thoughtfully, tilting her head and looking at me, “I’m sorry we didn’t get to know each other better in college.”

I smile, blush, and praise Buddha that the lights are dim enough that she can’t see how red my face is.

“Me too,” I reply coolly, wanting to scream from the rooftops that Layla’s even sitting at the same table as me. I could tell her how that’s been my wish all along, how the eagerness of the moment makes me want to jump out of my skin, but I keep my mouth shut. My former self is throwing me a party, filling my head with shrieks every time Layla so much as makes eye contact with me. Baby-dyke Maya wouldn’t have been able to hold herself together, let alone carry on an entire conversation with Layla. Meanwhile, my present day self is barely clinging to reality.

I excuse myself to the bathroom, silently cursing my tiny bladder that always forces urine out of me when I get nervous. I make my way past the crowded bar and slip into one of the bathrooms. There are two stalls, both with writing scrawled all over the walls and the painted metal of the door. “Tina and Alli forever,” one reads, in thick black marker. I lock the stall door behind me.

I squat over the toilet bowl, my nervous bladder clenching with circumstance. I inhale, exhale, remind myself that I need to keep my game face on and not show Layla how skittish I am around her. The person in the stall next to me flushes, opens the door, washes their hands, and leaves. I pee in solitude.

Or so I think.

Layla’s leaning against the sink when I exit the stall, waiting for me.

“Hi,” I say.

“Hi,” she replies, smiling at me.

She moves out of the way to let me use the sink, but just barely. I pump some soap into my hand, let the warm water run. She hands me a paper towel. I’m suddenly self-conscious about the simple act, wondering why she’s followed me to the bathroom and is now watching me wash my hands. I toss the used paper towel into the wastebasket.

Layla puts her hands on my waist and leans in, her soft, full lips touching mine. The contact causes shock to surge through my body as the moment I’ve dreamed about since college finally happens. I kiss her back, the tentative softness becoming deliberate and earnest. Layla looks down at me and exhales deeply, her face flushing.

I erupt into nervous giggles, reach up to kiss her again. Layla’s lips send electricity throughout my body. Her hands wander and she grips my lower back.

Our bodies scream for each other’s, pressing together in all the places that count. A hand travels over my hip and to the back of my thigh where it pulls my leg up suddenly and onto her hip so that her thigh is situated just right between my legs. I gasp, exhale, curl my fingers into her hair, and tug. Layla knows just how to touch me, and the fire’s sprouted up and into my stomach.

“Can you imagine?”

“Imagine what?”

Whispered now. “Us naked.”

Of course I can. I do in my moments of self-love, during our chance interactions, even during tonight’s game. It might be a stock line of hers but nonetheless it works, sending a shiver through my viscera. I exhale desperately as she pulls me in tighter, our mouths moving in slick rhythm.

Layla’s hand grips my thigh, her fingers digging into muscle; she presses her mound into my hipbone, grinding hard into me.

“Oh, my God,” she murmurs into my mouth. “You’re so f*****g hot.”

The familiar fire spreads through my pelvis; I remember having felt it in college when Layla touched my waist as she passed through a crowded house party. Like being struck by a train. My body craved Layla relentlessly then, as it does now, and as it’s craved many women throughout my life.

Layla looks down at me, mouth swollen. Her eyes are cutting, lacerating mine with just the right amounts of sensuality and jadedness. She makes it clear in her gaze that there will be no proclamation of love, no move-in date, no getting-to-know-you coffees, or late night phone conversations. I am simply the next conquest; a piece of meat; the thing to be pursued for the moment.

As for me—I want to f**k her against the grime of the bathroom wall. Still, I know the game well and Layla’s one of the star players.

Layla’s hand finds its way downward, fingers searching for the hot spot between my legs. My body begs me to comply, but I take a deep breath, moving her hand back up and leaving it to rest on my hip.

“Not here…” I say, my face burning.

Urgently: “Where?”

Layla gives me a look that makes me think I must be the only lesbian in Brooklyn that hasn’t had s*x in this bathroom.

Pathetic, Maya. Just. f*****g. Pathetic.

“I don’t know,” I say. “Not tonight.”

She looks at me, crestfallen but intrigued. She’ll just have to wait.

“I promised my friends we’d go to a straight bar.”

Layla scoffs at this, the disdain for straight bars apparent in her eyes.

“Well, let’s hang out soon,” she comments, raising an eyebrow as she gazes suggestively down at me.

“Yes, let’s,” I reply.

Layla bites her lip, kisses me again.

I’m ready to go back on my word and tear her clothes off, but I don’t. I haven’t loved Layla quietly this long to let the whole ordeal peak hurriedly in the Meow Mix bathroom, and anyway, I’m way too shy for that kind of exhibitionism. I find myself wanting to enjoy her, to learn the landscape of her body, to commit it all to memory in case the first time is the only time.

We exchange numbers, I give her one last kiss before she tells me to leave the bathroom ahead of her. She promises she’ll call; I silently promise myself that I won’t hold my breath. I exit the bathroom to collect my friends and feel Layla watching me as I walk out of the bar. I don’t look back.

I wonder whether Layla will find another conquest tonight, if she’ll even give me a second thought once I’ve disappeared from sight. Either way, I want to give myself a fighting chance with Layla: I’ve carried my torch for her for far too long to be some quick and easy f**k in the bathroom of a lesbian bar.