"Go get our drinks." Jamie instructed Luna, raising her voice to be heard over the raucous laughter, dirty jokes, arguments, bets, long-winded stories and one-line quips. Luna raised one delicately arched eyebrow in contemptuous questioning. "Go on!" Jamie urged at her hesitation. "This kind of place doesn't do service, and we're thirsty. Aren't we, girls?"
Luna stumbled off in the direction of the bar to a hearty cheer in general favor of beer, with some added appreciative sentiment towards Luna's ass and the three-point discrepancy in the game playing in the background. Jamie watched her go and then hunkered down at the table, peering into the faces of her friends and familiar barflies.
"She's so young!" Mandy broke the ice with the first comment, which unleashed a flood of the rest: "Cradle-robber!" "She got a sister?" "Wanna share?" and someone's breathy "Mmmm-hmmm.". Drunk, horny, nosy women and a new, fresh, young meat- especially interesting for Jamie- made a recipe for curiosity and catcalls.
Jamie shook her head. "She's not so young. Just five years between us. She's a junior at SU. I met her in the office." She tacked that bit of information on in advance, knowing that they'd want to know. Girls like Luna, well, girls who looked like Luna did, always got the same reaction:
"You sure you ain't picked yourself up a straight?" Tara cried.
"Hey, they're good for a coupla fucks!" Alex called in answer.
Jamie rolled her eyes; now came a new wave of appraisal that wondered if little Jamie had hooked herself the mother of all prizes: the hot bi-curious girl. After all, Luna fit the bill.
"No." She said firmly, putting their speculative minds to rest. "No, she's a grade-A lesbian, all right. A real women's studies major."
A circle of empty glasses rose in the air following Alex's example. "Praise God for the hairy humorless old twats at SU!" She bellowed. "Mz. Evans made me who I am today!" Everybody cackled, except for Jamie.
"No," She sighed. "She's very . . . opinionated. Honestly-" But she didn't get the chance to finish her weary thought; Luna had come wobbling back with four brimming pitchers. She plunked them down, dusted off her sweater, and turned privately to Jamie.
"There's a guy at the bar!" She hissed loudly, jerking her shoulder.
Alex laughed, having overheard. "That's just Jake, honey. Oh, he'll love to hear that. He's transitioning, trying real hard to pass, you know, even with that awful patchy beard. Hang on." Alex got up and ambled over to the bar to invite Jake to the table.
"What's he doing here?" Luna asked, frowning, as they came back. Jamie frowned in turn.
"He's our friend." She said slowly and deliberately.
Jake came by and Luna buried her face in her wine spritzer, the only different drink at the table. Everyone gave him a slap on the back, chatted, complimented him on the changes, courteously skirted his questions about his beard. When he finally wandered away, attention almost immediately came back to Luna, quiet and unobtrusive, squashed between Jamie and Alex.
"Ain't you got nothing to say, girl?" Tara piped up.
Mandy elbowed her and leaned across the table. "What she means is, you're awfully quiet."
Luna lifted her head and cleared her throat. Feeling her straighten up, Jamie stiffened. "I guess I'm just a little uncomfortable." She said loudly.
The table quieted a little. Everybody turned.
"I find it offensive for a man to be in a women's space, that's all." And then, when the stares continued, she made a little shoulder shrug towards Jake.
Mandy coughed into her hand. "Well." She said. "That's just . . . Jake." Nobody had ever questioned Jake's right to hang out in the bar with all his old friends, friends who had before known and loved him as Jen. The thought had never occurred to them.
"In a way, he's even worse than a man. He's like a traitor to our cause by choosing to become part of the patriarchy." And then, just slightly, she shuddered.
"May I talk to you." Jamie growled through gritted teeth, interrupting before Luna could say anything else. Her hand formed a tightened steel vise around Luna's arm. "Outside."
In any other circumstance, there would have been catcalls and suggestive remarks at Jamie dragging another woman out of a bar looking all flushed and hot. But it was obvious she was angry, and the very rarity of calm, laid-back Jamie furious was just as unsettling to her friends as the remarks Luna had made about Jake. The two exited the bar in the uncomfortable silence.
"What?" Luna asked naively when they were out in the cold.
"What? What?" Jamie repeated. "Jake is my friend. How dare you talk about her- I mean, him- like that."
"Look at you! You can't even get it right." Luna said. "A tranny. It's unnatural."
Any chance of calming Jamie was gone. "Unnatural? Let me tell you something about 'trannies': they're everywhere. Jake's one. So is Mandy."
Luna choked back laughter. "Mandy is becoming a guy?"
"Mandy used to be a guy."
Luna's eyes opened wide with surprise, and then she opened her mouth. But Jamie beat her to it. "Don't. Don't you dare say that you knew, that you could tell, because you know it isn't true. Until just now, you thought she was the nicest, prettiest dyke around.
"There isn't anything unnatural about Jake or Mandy. Anyone you know could want a different body. Just tomorrow, anybody in that bar could decide to become a man."
"Yeah, well . . ." There was a flippance in Luna's voice that shocked Jamie.
"Me, Luna." She stressed, jabbing herself in the chest. "Yeah, me." She continued, seeing that she'd gotten her attention. "Me with my long hair, me in a skirt and lace top. You don't have to look like Alex or Tara. Anybody can realize one day that they were born in the wrong body."
Luna shook her head. "Okay! I get it. You don't have to lecture me." She was dismissive, attitude dripping off of her cold stance. It was moments like this that did make Luna seem far younger than she was, a petulant child, a moody teenager. And policing her like this made Jamie feel like a tired parent. "It's freezing." Luna said, jumping around to warm up. "Can we go back inside?"
"No. Everyone needs some time to cool off. Get in the car. I'll go pay the tab and then we'll go home."
**********
That evening found Jamie, oddly enough, in Luna's arms, caught up in the passion of make-up sex. The residual anger that she felt fueled it even more so. There was an utter lack of drive on Luna's part; she always made love very softly and sweetly. She could somehow always make it romantic, which was very much not what Jamie wanted at the moment. Jamie wished, not for the first time, that she could use her strap-on, or even just her dildo, on the receiving or giving end, it didn't matter. But it had been more than a month since anybody had been penetrated with anything: the month of dating Luna.
She scrambled for her drawer and managed to get her hand on the silicone toy before Luna smacked it down to the floor. "No." She moaned groggily, and, as if to make up for the loss, kissed and rubbed more vigorously. Even without it, Jamie finally found her release in the kissing and rubbing. She stretched out on the sheets, trying to make it clear that she didn't want to cuddle and be held. She wanted to move, so she picked the bright pink dildo off the ground and put it back in the drawer as Luna watched.
Luna's lip rose in disgust, so Jamie, feeling at that point tired, crabby, and not at all relaxed by her orgasm, shook the dildo antagonistically in her face. "What?"
Luna leaned away from it. "You know how I feel."
"This is not a penis, Luna." She said. She held it up. "There's no man attached to this, so it isn't a penis. It doesn't smell like a penis, it doesn't taste like one, and it doesn't even look like one. It certainly isn't the right color for a penis. This is just something women use to get off."
"It might as well be one." Luna retorted, surprising Jamie. "You and all your friends. I could see them wearing them in their pants." She sneered. "They're disgusting."
"They're just sex toys." Jamie replied.
"I wasn't talking about the dildos." Luna said, and then swung out of bed, facing away from Jamie.
"If you have something to say about my friends, say it." She demanded.
"Fine." Luna faced her. "I don't why they're your friends. They're awful. I could hear them joking. They're misogynistic perverts. I don't see how they can even call themselves lesbians, when they dress that way and cut their hair like that. And then they wear those- those things, and joke about giving it to a girl real hard. They're practically men."
Quietly seething, Jamie clenched her fists. "It's called butch, Luna. Butch and femme. That's how lesbians are."