Nine-to-Five Fantasies: Tales of Sex on the Job by

Language: eng
Format: azw3
ISBN: 9781627780728
Publisher: Cleis Press Start
Published: 2014-10-19T16:00:00+00:00

SM, OR HOW I MET MY GIRLFRIEND IN A QUEER THEATER

Giselle Renarde

I figured she’d hate drag queens.

In university, I read a few feminist-lesbian papers that were pretty anti-drag. I can’t remember the reasoning anymore. Something about drag performances being reductive and misogynistic, maybe?

Transwomen didn’t seem to like drag queens much, either. I didn’t read that anywhere. It was just my impression from chatting with other queer people. So that’s another reason I figured Lisa wouldn’t be impressed by the drag show at Sisters in Sin Queer Theater.

By training and profession, Lisa was a stage manager. People were always asking if she aspired to be an actor. She didn’t. Lisa liked the backstage bit, every aspect of it, from lighting to sound to last-minute prop repairs. That’s one reason she enjoyed working at Sisters: in such a tiny theater, one person did everything, all the backstage stuff. In a big theater, you’d have had at least one person on lights, someone else doing the sound, even dressers and props managers. Lisa liked to do it all herself.

When I started volunteering at Sisters in Sin, a lot of people asked me that same question about wanting to be an actor. In truth, I only started there to meet other queer people. It’s hard, when you’re not a bar person. Or a club person. I always felt weird just going up to a stranger and talking to them for no reason. I’m a quiet queer. I volunteered to hand out programs at Sisters because it seemed like easy work, not too much patron interaction. Quiet queer work.

The first time I saw Lisa, my knees buckled so hard I almost fell into a gay man’s lap. She whipped from the backstage area, rushed through the audience and disappeared into her dark glass booth at the back of the house. It didn’t matter that Lisa dressed all in black or that she moved like a shadow. I spotted her: tall and curvaceous, a full round face, blonde hair pulled into a neat ponytail. She took my breath away.

“You know that’s a tranny, right?” another program hander-outer said to me.

My heart nearly stopped. That word! I hated that word, and I hated even more that another volunteer, an out-loud and proud lesbian, would speak with such ire about a fellow queer. I didn’t know what to say, so I played dumb and asked, “Who?”

“The SM,” said the other volunteer.

“SM?” I figured that must either be an insult I’d never heard, or the big blonde was into sadomasochism.

“Stage Manager,” the volunteer clarified.

“Oh.” I felt stupid for not knowing, but just because I was volunteering in a theater didn’t mean I knew anything about the different jobs there.

I wanted to find out her name, which at that point, I didn’t know. She was so stunning, even dressed in simple black slacks and a turtleneck. Nothing fancy, except her black velvet scrunchie. I wanted to know everything about her, but I didn’t want to hear it from the mean dyke across the aisle.

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