The last straw is when my roommate tells everyone that I stole sixty bucks from her dresser. Fuck that! I maybe ate her cookies and her stupid ass Twix bars, but I didn’t steal nothing from her dresser. Borrowing is not stealing. I shouldn’t have to explain. It is not fair to throw me out. It’s extra rotten calling me klepto and spreading lies all over town. Oh man, I am in a real jam. That’s when I run into Keisha at the gay bar all done up in a sequined gown, looking totally great. She wears no stuffers or nothing, and she knows how to tape her wiener between her legs for maximum, ladylike effect. Shout out to my girl, Keisha! She is so extra kind to me. When I tell her about my terrible roommate, she says I can crash on her couch. Thank you Keisha! You are so great! I get my stuff. I end up living there for longer than I plan, a lot longer. The whole time, I work hard not to take nothing. Borrow nothing. Not the cash in her nightstand, not her pills, not her weed or cigarettes. I just remind myself over and over: Don’t touch! It’s hardest when I’m alone in the house. I got a discrepancy with myself. I guess we all do. For sure Keisha does, too. Then it’s Friday, and neither of us have dates, so we decide to hit the town together. I sit on her bed, popping these little frozen éclairs, watching her get dressed. I ask about her wiener—I mean, does it hurt having it all folded backwards between her legs? Nope, she says, long as it don’t get hard. What then? I say. She raises her eyebrows just about as high as they go and smiles at me. I bet you’ve got a nice wiener, I say. Eh, she says, It’s just a nothing special, run-of-the-mill wiener. Then she says I can wear her earrings, and here’s some big bangles to ride on my wrists, and try these sexy heart-shaped sunglasses, too. She shimmies into her cocktail dress and pulls on a wig of long black hair that drops over her shoulder blades. Then she looks at me, rubs her chin, and digs a dress from her closet. Try this on, she says. I change in front of her mirror. Only thing is, it’s a little snug on my butt. Damn girl, she says, You are so lucky to have a butt. It’s a nothing-special butt, I say. Funny, but everything I’m wearing tonight is hers, even the shoes. I didn’t have to ask. She just gave it all to me. From sheer kindness, Keisha is helping me become a brand new girl. She’s so sweet. Finally, we hit the bar. We sit on stools, feeling beautiful, hoping for just the right man to find us. Look at us together—are we not soul sisters? Slurping up Long Islands, glowing in the black light. This stuff we’re drinking is like magic. After a couple, we forget about men, and head back to her house. I help her out of her dress and peel off the tape that hides her. She snaps forward like on a spring and thraps against her belly. After my dress is finally off, she plunks a finger in my tighty-mighty and moves real slow, just floating on me with the nicest rocking motion. That night Keisha becomes my king, my queen. In the morning, we wake in her bed, our mascara smeared on the pillows. We lie there both feeling so happy. I’m thinking maybe this is it. Like, she might be the one. She might be my man.
Steve Hughes is the writer and publisher of Detroit’s longest-running zine Stupor. He is also the author of two collections, Stupor: A Treasury of True Stories (Stupor House, 2011), funded by the Kresge Foundation, and STIFF (Wayne State University Press, 2018). In 2011, he began producing the potluck/literary series called The Good Tyme Writers Buffet. Hughes lives in Hamtramck Michigan and continues to collect stories at local watering holes for forth-coming issues of Stupor.
