Chapter Thirteen #3
“Xiao Hong,” I say and I’m almost surprised how naturally the words float out of my mouth. “Chiu Xiao Hong.”
Sharon’s lips move like maybe she’s repeating it to herself but I look away, not wanting to think any more about it. I think back to how the conversation got here.
“I always resisted yin/yang,” I say, wrinkling my nose.
“I never liked how yin was also seen as feminine, when it was also the dark and negative side. It never made sense to me. All the women in my life were such forces. Full of energy and doing and working. And as for yang being masculine, the light, the positive, that just made me so angry. Men were rarely that to me.” I pause and am relieved when Sharon doesn’t say anything, giving me a moment to get my next thoughts in order.
“Maybe that’s why I decided to turn to Western medicine.
Because it made more sense. Or rather, it didn’t bring masculine or feminine into it.
I’ve never been one to differentiate between the two. ”
I mean it as a joke, but Sharon doesn’t laugh.
“I’m talking about being bisexual,” I clarify.
“Does it really not make a difference?” Sharon asks and I hear the genuine curiosity in her voice.
“I mean, yeah, it’s different,” I reply but then pause and think about it a bit more. “When I like a woman, I suppose I like them in a different way to how I experience attraction to men, but it’s not like I crave one more than the other, if that makes sense?”
Sharon looks down at her toes again. “It does, but it also doesn’t. Because I’ve never experienced attraction to men. Quite the opposite usually.”
I laugh at that and it snaps Sharon’s head up. “Oh, I can relate to that too.”
A second later and she’s laughing with me. I’m about to ask her more about her journey, discovering her sexuality, and I suddenly and urgently want to know if she has a girlfriend, but Hippie Bitch and her companion move in front of us and we both stop giggling to share a look of pure excitement.
“I have to ask,” Sharon leans a little closer to me and it means I catch a whiff of her scent. It’s spiced, sharp and surprisingly feminine – cinnamon and citrus fruits and wildflowers – and yet at the same time, not a shock at all. It’s very her. “Do you even know who AJ Ripley is?”
“You mean, what they look like?”
“No, I mean what, who they are,” Sharon shuffles closer still. “Like are they a man or a woman?”
“I read that article in ComMag, debating if they were a woman or a man, when it came out, and honestly I got more and more annoyed reading it. I came to the conclusion that I just didn’t care.
And I still don’t. What I’m much more interested in is them confirming that Lady Phantom and the Director are going to get together at some point in the future. ”
Sharon is silent as we move a few more paces forward. I slip my hand inside the bodysuit and check I still have everything in my bra.
“You’re right,” Sharon says eventually, and with some assertiveness.
“About what?”
“About it not mattering whether AJ Ripley is a man or a woman.”
“I feel like I need to get that printed on a T-shirt,” I muse, rocking on the heels of my boots.
“What?”
“‘Sharon Goldblatt Says I’m Right’. You know, like a Frankie Goes to Hollywood T-shirt.”
Sharon snorts and I half-expect her to come out with something scathing to counteract my tease but a smile smooths out her features. “I always wanted one of those T-shirts,” she says wistfully. “But they never came in my size.”
I tut, loudly. “Why am I not surprised,” I say and when Sharon’s head twists to look at me, I realise my meaning has been lost. “I don’t mean that in a ‘oh, it’s bad that you’re fat’ way. I mean it in a ‘it’s bad that fashion only caters to the tall and slim’ way.”
“Oh,” she says, but she looks affronted.
“Did I say something wrong?” I ask.
“No,” Sharon shakes her head slowly. “I’ve just never actually been called fat in that way before. Like… it’s not an insult but simply a fact.”
“Well, it is, isn’t it? You have a lovely plump body. And I have a short and scrawny body.”
“I wouldn’t call you scrawny.”
“Oh, I am. My mother was always taking in the waists of clothes and shortening the hems of trousers.”
“I would love to look like you. To be able to wear… anything.” Sharon studies me so intently I feel heat spread across my body.
It feels too… intimate. Almost rudely so. I feel challenged and defensive and also, frankly, downright mischievous.
I roll my eyes down Sharon’s body, her chest straining against her shirt and blazer and her thighs thick and full in the black trousers.
“And I would love to look like you. To have breasts like yours. To have a body so lush and generous. To have a body that begs to be touched and squeezed and grabbed and held.”
If Sharon looked affronted at the way I called her fat earlier, she looks completely outraged now. Outraged, yes, but also blushing furiously.
I open my mouth to… I don’t know what, but ultimately to diffuse the tension of my own creating, but then Hippie Bitch moves again in the corner of my eye. I turn to see the doors to the shop have finally been opened.