Skin Deep with all the Pretty Boys
I chose pretty boys to go out with when I was young. Nearly all of them were gay. They were attracted to the intrinsically feminine me who always wore dresses. It was in the late seventies and early eighties. I had big eyes, big lashes, big hair, big breasts and a big immature head.
I just wanted someone who looked good next to me, like a stunning leather handbag looks great hanging off your arm. Sick, I know. It took 8 years from the time I finished grade school to figure my relationship crap out. Showy, and frivolous, I was delusional.
I didn’t “do it” for a long, long time.
One boyfriend looked like a Calvin Klein model. RN and I thought we were in love. With no idea what love was, I think we were in love with the idea of love or a romantic image of how love was supposed to be.
We had our songs, wrote ghastly poetry to each other and talked on the phone for hours each day. He adored watching me in the musicals I acted in. That helped boost my confidence and create an even bigger monster airhead out of me.
RN was a “safe” boyfriend who never pushed for sex.
My friends at school were jealous because RN looked gorgeous. I liked that. Drawn to slim, muscular males with broad shoulders and sweeping hair, I was as shallow as a puddle.
At 12, I was terrified of going all the way. I shouldn’t have worried. RN was over-protective, coming to the house to pick me up and drop me home afterwards. We kissed and felt each other up in the movies. He was likeable, even incredibly polite to my parents.
The relationship was a sham.
RN was a terrific dancer. We had speech, drama, and dance classes together, and saw each other every Saturday. Australian boys are mostly crappy dancers. Weekly training in jazz and tap meant we wiped the floor with every one else out there. Others even made a space for us, circling around to watch s dance like the did in old movies.
I’d be dipped and waltzed, lifted and spun around. I was wooed and romanced and that had me buzzing. I loved to dress up and show off; RN did too, that’s why he was in the theatre group to begin with.
It was a win-win, completely vanilla and neither party was ever hurt by it.
Going out with RN made me happy.
I knew I’d never be bashed, broken or pregnant.
He never used the word gay.
Homosexuality wasn’t mentioned until I met up with RN years later. We went to a few drag shows and gay bars in Sydney together. I wasn’t comfortable but was still incredibly drawn to the glamour and pizzazz of a venue where I could watch all the pretty boys dance.
The decade when AIDS was discovered was a time of fear driven stupidity. The paranoia made men afraid of not appearing straight enough. The country was bulging with small minded bigots insisting you could get the disease by kissing. Not an easy time to come out, there was a spate of gay bashings and unsolved murders in the cities.
Homosexuals experienced the most terrifying trauma.
Thirty-five years ago being gay was considered sexually deviant. Ridiculous and unfounded, it sucked big time as so much of human history does. I’m relived homosexuality is more liberated and inclusive now; without so many of the prejudices that prevailed four decades ago.
My first heartbreak didn’t happen until I was 19.
Silly little me went gaga over a stunning man who had multiple girls clamouring for his affection. A devil with magnetic eyes and a wicked smile, we performed together in an Agatha Christie play. I’d been a maid, he’d played a cad; he suited the role. We had to kiss on stage. It made my stomach somersault and my legs feel boneless. Both characters we’re bumped off before the intermission, so we had an hour to chat backstage before taking our bows.
PM romanced me slowly, waiting until after the final show to make his moves. He drew me in until I was vulnerable and was half in love already. PM was a patient angler landing a big, dumb game fish.
He took me to his own stone cottage, miles away from anywhere on the edge of a town. Dragging a queen sized mattress outside, he placed it on a tarp and lay down. Snuggled naked beneath a single sheet, we stayed awake watching the lunar eclipse. While the moon did it’s thing beside a billion stars, he sent me to heaven with 9 hours of foreplay.
That was magic.
It was exquisite.
Every nerve ending was firing until my body hummed.
I thought I would die before we got around to sex.
Dead asleep next morning, he scooped me up. Carrying me into the open, we were pelted with warm summer raindrops. He danced with me in his arms, spinning around until we were giddy. We kissed, slipping together like eels, laughing when his feet became so muddy we almost fell over.
That was so romantic I swooned.
After rain pinged our bare skin so hard it hurt, we showered and he made me breakfast. I should have guessed he’d practised this slick routine before; PM was a player.
Once I was as malleable as Play doh in his hands, his ardour cooled. He became more distant and aloof. I clung on like an actress in a daytime soap, hoping for more of what I experienced that first night.
I always wondered why other guys in our friendship group didn’t meet his eyes, or looked at him like there was something rotten at his core.
A narcissist, PM was only in it for the wooing. Bored after that, he left broken hearts trailing behind while moving on to the next challenge.
He explained there was a teller he liked. She was quiet, smart, thin and boyish; the polar opposite of me. Playing hard to get, he was addicted to the thrill of winning her, bedding her, then waiting a bit before dumping her.
PM was into power plays.
Though he let me down gently, I cried buckets.
It was the first time I felt rejected for someone else.
We had the same bank. I’m not proud to admit being less than friendly to his next girlfriend when I banked my pay checks. I was a frigging bitch; especially after she asked me how PM was going the day after we split.
Perhaps I should have warned her.
I didn’t.
That break-up was brutal.He was the last real pretty boy I ever went out with. I dated a few okay looking guys after that, but nothing serious. Those relationships had no sparkle and less shine; there was nothing to sustain them for long.
Time to change, to mature, to grow up.
I dug deep into the sorrow and found some depth.
I left silly superficiality behind.
I grew a backbone and stood up straighter.
I stayed on guard against all the theatrical devices a guy could use to reel a girl in. I couldn’t cope with someone else controlling my emotions; some puppeteer pulling all my strings at once.
I wanted real love, deep feeling, true affection, care, respect and consideration.
One guy hated dancing, detested musicals and didn’t care about clothes.
We married.
That dreadful dancer really loved me.
I’m pretty sure he still does.
On the 29th of September 2019 it will be 29 years.
