Fifteen years ago, I happened to find myself at one of those uncomfortable pseudo liberal parties in the hills of Hollywood where people usually went to get not-so-quietly drunk, abuse prescription meds and talk about endless unfiltered politics. I was there but for the good graces of my clique, a ragtag group of pirate Nixon's if I ever saw one. It was a view into a world I had little use for but could not pull away from. I had somehow come to take up the "token Black guy" position in this group and the cost of my vicarious entertainment at this party was the endless sermonizing and apologizing for slavery. The righteous indignation at the audacity of blacks for wanting reparations for said slavery. As usual I just smiled and nodded at these displays of inept buffoonery and social awkwardness that emanated from "Not Knowing". Hell, I even admit culpability by my very presence. Anyway, you're reading this for a juicy sex story, so let's get on with it. The host of the party "Bill" had unknown to me, promised to hook up one of these "Arty Farty" types with a big black guy. Never mind that I was of medium height and build, my bespectacled demeanor far from the Mandingo she was probably looking for.
Yep, there's a saying in Hollywood ... "They either wanna fuck you or they wanna FUCK YOU" (Think about it.). This was unknown to me at the time, my plight as it were; Leslie had starred in a couple of C movie pics, was blond, frighteningly thin and had one of those fucked up page boy, Ellen De Generes haircuts. I spent the evening alighting from one social group to the next, most of the guests talking about local indie music and bands. A lot of them were talking about the latest Wienerdog video [local performance artist]. Leslie spent her evening spot chasing me from clique to clique. You just got to love Los Angeles social politics. Go to a party to a party just to hang out with the friends you came with and if you're lucky, you snowball into someone else's group of friends. I always tried to tell myself that this wasn't me, that I was so much better than the social climbers around me.
I was wrong.
Leslie was becoming increasingly frustrated to the point of heated distraction and had decided to lay it all on the line most bluntly.
"What's a girl got to do to get a little cock out of you?!!" I was unwilling to answer, perhaps due to the initial shock factor or perhaps that my answer would have elevated the threat level to red.
"Do you want some white pussy or not bra?"
"Uhm-I guess not." At this point Leslie "accidentally spilt her drink on my windbreaker and stormed off. Leaving me relieved and very, very wet. I fought my way through the crowd only to find the restroom full of people having that "Scarface moment" with a pile of coke. Recreational drugs are only recreational if you can take the shit and avoid fucking with the clean people in the room. People usually take that shit and start getting pissed at the square which was usually me. Anyway, I found my way to Bill's personal restroom which was off limits to everybody but Bill. Fuck him, he had placed me in the fire with that dried-up twat any way. I would quietly enjoy using his meticulously monogrammed towels and gleefully pissing all over his oak toilet seat [Bill sat down to piss, because he didn't want to damage the material.]. Those towels were fucking sweet and repressed twit that he is ... Bill even had fiber optics running through the towel rack that heated the material.
After cleaning my windbreaker to the best of my ability, I turned to find a woman seated on the toilet quietly pissing and nonchalantly staring at me. I'd seen her in clique number seven that some of my people knew, but I hadn't caught her name.
"Hey, how's it going? Were you sitting there the whole time?"
"Yup."
"Not saying anything, cool with it?"
"Yeah, so I'm not having a cow or nothing' besides, I saw that old chick dump her drink on you, totally fucked up".
"Excuse me, but you are using the bathroom, aren't you?"
She flushed.
"I was." I was still reeling from the fact that she was sitting there as she stood pulling her flowered granny panties up over surprisingly voluptuous thighs. She smiled and said her name was Diana. She was wearing what looked to be a catholic school girl's uniform, knee high socks and all. She looked like a white girl, but her voice branded her something else entirely. Kind of sounded a little street but not in the fucked-up show "bizzness" way you usually find at these parties.
"Aren't you gonna use the john?" I didn't answer.
"Oh- Okay." She turned her back to me.
"You might wanna step outside Diana."
"Fuck no, I was here first. Besides, what do you think I'm gonna do anyway?"
"It's just that uhm, screw it." I took that nagging piss. Forgot to piss on Bill's seat though. Diana explained that she had been squatting in the bathroom to get away from a particularly annoying roommate who was trying to get into her pants. I told her my story. We talked and talked about everything. Leslie was from South LA and was half Russian and half Latina. She always downplayed her mixed heritage because people made a big deal out of it and constantly questioned her.
I told her I was just black using the N-Word. Diana laughed, I was relieved because usually people got upset when I said the N word in Un-African American company. It's okay to think it, but you just can't say it.
"Wanna kick it?" Diana blinked her heavily shaded eyes and tapped me on the shoulder.
"Huh?"
"You wanna go with me and vibe; just hang in a car talking shit." I nodded and followed Diana out into the party. She had tied a sweater around her waist, but it did little to conceal her curvy bottom. I was nervous and a little anxious. Unfamiliar territory for me these days. We ended up chilling in somebody's Honda Civic listening to the local college stations. She'd recently graduated from the Art Institute to bounce around from one freelance art direction job to the next. She managed to make pretty good money but found it annoying working for other people. I didn't want to share which seemed to be no problem for my companion who liked talking about herself. Diana shared her continual annoyance regarding her ethnicity admitting that her Russian mother had always pressured her daughter to solely acknowledge a single heritage while her black father could care less. Her mother worked two jobs to keep her in private school while her father balked at the idea of "passing" just to get ahead.
"When it was all said and done, people at those snooty schools still asked me "what I was" daily. I stopped lying at sixteen and stopped talking to classmates altogether a year later. Honestly I was relieved when everyone started saying I was a stuck-up bitch."
"I feel you."
"You feeling me?" Diana's gaze trailed off towards a thick bit of wooded foliage just outside her window.
"Yeah, I'm there." It was honest. It was as real as I liked to get with unfamiliar people. The way she spoke reminded me of the inherent disconnect I felt daily at work and abroad. Even though I'd been living in the city of angels for a little under five years, I still struggled to make any sort of connection with another human being.
